gratitude – Page 3 – Life Off Headset

Weekly recap + what we ate: Last week of summer!

This past week, we bought school supplies, squeezed in more pool time, one kid had a cavity filled, met the Husband for lunch (fried chicken and Boba!) . I also had some work meetings. We went to the Kindergarten Open House for the 5 year old. I was really proud of the 8 year old for introducing his little sister to the teachers. They are both in a French Immersion program, so the teachers aren’t allowed to speak English in front of the students. Some teacher even pretend that they don’t understand English. I could have introduced the 5 year old to the teacher myself, but I figured the 8 year old hadn’t spoken French all summer, so he could stand to start up again.

On Saturday, we took the kids to the K-Pop Demon Hunters sing1a-long in the movie theatres. Since we don’t have Netflix, I hadn’t actually seen the movie, even though we listen to the soundtrack all. the. time. – in the car, during breakfast, at clean up time… just whenever. It first came into our lives because the 8 year old had watched it at Taiwan Camp, and asked to listen to the music non stop. Then when the family was in Indiana the friend they stayed with put it on for them to watch. The kids know all the words, they make up dance numbers. They even took my phone last week while I was on a call and filmed music videos. Afterwards I found all the black clothing in the house strewn across the living room. Their dedication to the project was admirable. The videos involved costumes, props, choreography and dizzying film work. I was actually quite impressed. (Also happy that they were able to amuse themselves while I was on a two hour call.) Obsessed. They are all obsessed.

We didn’t tell the kids that we were going to the Sing-a-long, just that we had a “surprise outing”. They kept asking questions about the activity, as if we were playing a never ending round of twenty questions – “Does it involve food?” “Is it outside?” “Do I have to get dressed up?” “Does it involve food?” “Do I need to bring money?” “Does it involve food?” . Eventually we said that we weren’t answering any more questions.

As we were riding the escalator to the movie theatre, a couple was coming down on the opposite side; he was wearing a top hat and cloak, and she was wearing a shiny white mini-skirt and halter top. As soon as the 13 year old saw that, her eyes got really big and she got this huge grin on her face. “Are we going to the sing-a-long?” she whispered to us. I don’t think I’ll ever be the parent that surprised their kids with a trip to Disney, but I have to admit, seeing the joy and realization creep across the kids face when they realize they’re going somewhere fun is priceless.

For those who haven’t experienced it yet, K-Pop Demon Hunters is a Netflix movie about a K-Pop band that fights Demons, saving the world through their music. There is angst and intrigue, romance and fight sequences. I found the movie incredibly entertaining and satisfying to watch. After listening to the music on repeat for the past six weeks, seeing them in context made me realize that they are not just songs, but cleverly propel the story. This movie is as much a movie musical as any of the Disney classics. It’s sentimental and big hearted and not-subtle.

But also – there is something about taking my kids to see a movie where the protagonists are all Asian, and the whole movie is very much steeped in Korean culture. For one, the food scenes were so amazingly familiar – granted Korean food is very different from Taiwanese food, but seeing people eat noodles with chopsticks and then all the snacks… these things are part of the food culture I grew up with. I’ve written here before about representation in media and I’m always struck that my children are growing up in a world where they see the non-White part of their heritage reflected in mainstream media. I didn’t have that growing up, and I’m so glad they do.

Everyone had a great time, singing along and bopping. There was one funny thing that happened, though – before the movie started, this group of ten or so kids and grown ups came in, and many of them had balloons. Well during the last third of the movie, someone let go of their balloon, and it floated into the light of the projector. The shadow of the balloon string ended up dangling in the picture of the rest of the movie. It looked like the characters all had the same hair curl in every frame and was mildly distracting. I was alternately annoyed and amused. It didn’t ruin the fun, though.

Sunday, we went to the Farmer’s market for lunch and produce. The two older kids and the Husband biked the 5 miles there while the 5 year old and I took the metro to meet them. The plan was for all of us to metro back after having a special drink at one of our favorite coffee shops. (The 13 year old loves their house made chai lattes, and having one was on her summer bucket list.) At the farmer’s market, I picked up some beautiful Japanese eggplants, spinach, nectarines, and peaches. At one point I was checking out at one stand and noticed that there was a sign that said “Box of peaches $25”. Well that’s irresistible to me. Never mind that we had metro-ed to the Farmer’s market. I debated – can I get that home? I just canned a whole crate of peaches, do I need more? (the answer is always YES) – Then the Husband said, “You know you want to. We’ll get it home.” The thirteen year old helped me carry a little of the way, but she was also walking her bike, so I ended up carrying the box most of the way home. It was worth it. I don’t think I’m up for more canning, so I froze some and I think I’ll do some baking. That is if there are any left come this weekend. The kids go through peaches like termites.

The rest of the day was taken up by a pool party birthday for the 5 year old, and then I met up with some friends in DC for dinner. It was eerily quiet at the restaurant. But perhaps it was because it was 6pm on a Sunday night? Perhaps it’s because the National Guard is here. I mean they weren’t in the neighborhood we were in, but there is a general sense of tense gloom. It’s been really disheartening these days. I don’t have to go into DC very often, so the added military presence is not something I’m faced with every day – I’m sure it’s a little alarming for people for whom it’s a daily sight.

Other things I’m pondering lately:

-Trees – I’ve been painting trees lately, watching tutorials and then trying to copy them. I’ve noticed that after watching tutorials and hearing what the painters say about what they are trying to capture in a tree, I look at trees differently. Like I’ll see how the light comes through the leaves or something and think, “Oh! That’s why the painter uses yellow there!” It seems a little backwards to notice the light after learning how to paint it, though. Sometimes when the kids and I have just a half hour or so to kill, I’ll get the paints out and it’s a very soothing way to pass the time. (until the kids start mixing the colours too much and I have to bite my tongue and just let them….)

-Minor victory – The kids and I cleaned up the toy room that was kind of a disastrous explosion of toys. I basically pushed everything into the center of the room, put the empty bins beside the pile and told them to sort things back into their bins. We managed to clean it all up in two twenty five minute sessions, interspersed with ten minute popsicle breaks. I guess phrasing it as “sorting” rather than “cleaning” might have kept the whining down? I don’t know. But I’ve never been that successful at getting them to clean the toy room.

-there was rambutan and lychee and dragon fruit at Hmart last week! I’m always excited when the uncommon (to America) fruit is at HMart.

-answering the question of “What to do with that half can of condensed milk?” I had made peach popsicles the other day (Peaches, yogurt, condensed milk in the blender and freeze), and had half a can of condensed milk left. The Husband found this recipe – Cornflake Caramel Squares. It’s kind of a twist on Millionaire Shortbread. The Cornflakes are incorporated into a shortbread crust along with some shredded coconut. Then the half tin of condensed milk is used to make a caramel that is spread over top. Then top it with a layer of chocolate. It was tasty. (I’m also really intrigued by the idea of the website: Traybakes & More. I’d never heard of the concept of a tray bake – I guess a savory one would be a casserole and a sweet one would be like a bar cookie/ brownie type thing? But the recipes look less fussy – more like mix and dump and bake. Anyhow, I would like there to be more traybakes in my life. The sweet kind. I’m not a huge fan of casseroles.)

-Family Task Management- any suggestions? One struggle I’m having right now is keeping track of all the family to do items. The Husband and I tend to text or email each other when something comes up that we need the other to take care of – change the credit card on an account, fill out paperwork, pick up toilet paper and even bigger stuff like finalize the tenant’s lease, look into plane tickets for something, FSA receipts- but sometimes I lose track of the text or email before I complete the item. So I’m trying to figure out a system that these things don’t get lost in the shuffle. I really want to set up a system that we can have in place once I start back in rehearsal because there are long stretches when we are like ships in the night since I work so late and he goes to work so early in the morning. I guess what we need is:
– ability for both of us to add tasks (he’s Android, I’m iPhone)
– Simple to use.
– ability to check off tasks when complete, not just delete
– if there’s a way to get a notification when a task is added? Otherwise we’d be texting “I added something to the list” back and forth. Trying to streamline the process
-Some day will want to share with the kids, so might want to be able to make different lists.
-not a calendar. We already use Google Calendar for events.
-not really interested in a paid system (yet)
I feel like this is into Parents as CEO territory, but if anyone wants to share how they manage and share tasks with another person, I’m all ears!

Grateful For:

-Cooler weather. The weather has dipped into something practically fall-like last week. It was almost too cold to go to the pool, but we did manage a few “last hurrah of summer” swims.

-That the 13 year old made lunch for her siblings while I was in a Zoom meeting. AND they even cleaned up.

-College Friendships that still are strong. Last week, I got to meet up with a college friend, E, who was nearby to visit family. The kids and I drove up to meet her and we had Indian food and then went to a park where my friend and I walked while the little kids played. Then on Sunday E and my friend K met up for dinner (see above) – the three of us had met in college and all were heavily involved in music. E actually played the piano for my senior year recital. There is something so great about having friends who have shared formative years with me, and being able to reflect on that together, but also being able to talk about today and the future and who we are and want to be.

-That I don’t have to work on the weekends for the next six weeks or so. October through December will be very busy for me work-wise, so I’m glad I have weekends free for the next little bit.

-Butterflies for adding a flash of color and beauty to the world.

-Our Realtor who offered us some advice about a tricky tenant situation. He’s super pragmatic and chill and has been managing properties for a long time, and he gave us some good perspective on a situation we were having with the house we rent out. I’m always grateful for his advice and expertise and that he still takes our call even though we last bought a house from him five years ago.

-Collective bargaining. Unions are important. The right to form and join a union is also important.

Looking Forward To:
-Soccer season has started. The 8 year old is just playing in the rec league, so he has just one practice a week + 1 game.

-A return to routines once school starts. At one of our family meetings we talked about “expectations” for the school year and one of them was a regular pick up time and chores for the kids. We’ll see if pick up time can be come a routine, but I’m ready for the house to look less like a den of wild animals live here. (I mean – everyone was home all the time last week, so yeah, in a way, it was like a pack of wolves had taken over.)

-Having just ONE pick up to deal with. And ONE school calendar. The thirteen year old walks to and from school, so with the 5 year old entering kindergarten, she now rides the bus home with her brother, so we have one pick up to do. Also – because they are in an language immersion program, there are special bus routes and I just realized that this year there is one bus route that drops off walking distance from our house. So we are going to try that new bus route and see how it goes. (The old bus, which we’ll still take in the morning, picks up about 1.5 miles from us, so not a terrible distance, but still requires a car ride.)

-Lunch with mom friends. The mom’s group I joined when the 3rd kid was born kind of got a new breath of energy this month as almost all our babies all all going to kindergarten this fall. So we’re having a Friday lunch date.

-this book just came off my holds. It seems quirky and fun:

What We Ate:

Monday: Kale and Tomato Saag from Meera Sodha’s East. I didn’t have paneer (or the energy to make it) so we had it with tofu. Served with paratha, which I found in the frozen section of HMart. Vegan

Tuesday: Shrimp Tacos

Wednesday: Teriyaki Tofu w/ rice and steamed broccoli from America’s Test Kitchen’s Vegan for Everyone. A reliable hit. Vegan.

Thursday: Roasted Tomato Pasta Sauce and Garlic Bread. I had some tomatoes our friend had given us from their CSA – so I roasted them with lots of garlic and Basil and mashed into a sauce. We ate it with angel hair pasta and I made garlic bread. I had forgotten what a great thing angel hair pasta is – it cooks in seconds!

Friday: Pizza and Ever After. It was my turn to pick the movie and I wanted something beautiful, romantic, and warm. Ever After is one of my all time favorite movies. It’s my comfort watch – Drew Barrymore being plucky, Dougary Scott giving the prince brooding self discovery, Angelica Huston. Melanie Lensky, before she took the world by storm. Love it so much.

Saturday: Movie theatre popcorn and peanut butter sandwiches when we got home.

Sunday: I went to Happy Hour with my friends (I had oysters, truffle fries, ceviche, and balsamic Brussels sprouts.) The family had dumplings and edamame at home.

Hope you are having a sunshine filled week! The kids have started school (will give a report next week) and already we have a long weekend coming up. We’ll go to the Renaissance Faire! Also hopefully tackle some decluttering and also relax and maybe one last trip to the pool before it closes.

How do you manage family tasks? Give me all the tips! Have you jumped on the KPop Demon Hunters bandwagon yet? Golden is definitely our song of summer here. What would you do with half a can of condensed milk? What are you up to this Labor Day weekend?

Weekly recap + what we ate: Tech/opening/closing; Motivation and Discipline

I’ve made it to the other side of the show. Last week we teched and then had our one and only performance. It’s been an intense week for sure, working until 1:30am two of the nights. The process has been fast and furious – only two days of rehearsal in the theatre before opening. Usually we have four days in the theatre, at least.

Lighting session. The view from Stage Right.

The thing that’s particularly intense about this schedule is that the first rehearsal onstage for the full cast was with orchestra and full costume, wigs, and make-up. Usually the first onstage tech rehearsal is just piano and no costumes, so we can get used to the set, figure out the staging, slowly work through tricky traffic. To have to throw set, costumes, orchestra, light cues at the process the first time most of the cast stepped onstage was a lot. But big shout out to our stage manger, who came up with a plan to keep things moving while stopping and allowing everyone time to work on elements that needed work – firing weapons, fights, offstage singing moments, balance notes, costume changes etc. The one costume change I was really worried about involved the entire 36 person chorus changing from a winter look to a spring look in 1 minute 30 seconds. It’s not a complicated change – mostly just taking off overcoats and scarves, and adding summer hats, but when 36 people have to do it all at once, it’s a bit of a madhouse.

But we did it, and by all accounts the opera was beautiful. Everything went smoothly, no noticeable hiccups. People backstage, cast and crew, seemed to not be too confused, so that always makes me feel as if I’ve done my job well. There is something gratifying about being a stage manager in that people always appreciate you. At least the people backstage and onstage.

Now I have a little break before I plunge back into rehearsals again. I took the weekend to relax. It was truly a plan-free weekend. We actually spent all of Saturday morning playing “My bed is my island” as all five of us cuddled and napped and read in the 13 year old’s bed. It felt so indulgent. Then we did a few chores around the house and went to the pool for a couple hours. Highlight of our pool time was that the 13 year old taught me how to dive! I’ve never really been able to dive – just kind of teetered at the edge of the water then belly flopped in. The 13 year old gave me lots of tips and coached me through it. Yay! I’ve always wanted to figure this out.

After the pool, we came home and had pizza and watched Glee. Then after the kids went to bed, the Husband, 13 year old, and I watched Jaws. I had never seen Jaws before, and as the movie is 50 years old this year, the Husband thought it a good time to watch it. There was definitely some screaming and clutching going on while we watched. What a nerve-wracking and entertaining movie. I don’t know that I need to watch it again, but glad I checked that off my list. All in all, it was such a perfect, lazy Saturday. This is what summers are made for, I think.

The thirteen year old teaching the 5 year old how to dive.

Every time I have a gap between shows, I like to think about routines I want to set up (or return to) so that when I am back into working nights and weekends I have some good practices in place. Along those lines, something I’ve been thinking about a lot lately was this article by Leon Ho on Life Hack: Motivation vs. Discipline: Why One always Beats the Other (And It’s Not What You Think). The article made me think about how there were some things I was very disciplined about at while working (daily yoga, eating fruits and vegetables, finding time to get outside, making the bed.). And there were some things that just didn’t happen because I didn’t feel the motivation (journaling, running, check ins with the Husband, putting away my lunch box). It’s not like the former is more important than the latter – I just never felt like doing it. Reading Ho’s article really made me think about how waiting to be inspired to do something wasn’t going to work.

And because I’m a Questioner (per Gretchen Rubin), the article stuck with me because it broke down the brain chemistry of motivation vs. discipline to explain why discipline gets more consistent results. In a nut shell, motivation releases dopamine, which makes you feel awesome and powerful. Motivation lights up your brain and encourages action. However, these dopamine flows cab be fleeting and unpredictable. And this is why relying on feeling motivated to do something doesn’t work. Discipline, however, Ho writes, is about creating systems that will work even when motivation isn’t there – it’s the adulting pre-frontal cortex. It is really hard for the pre-frontal cortex to win out over dopamine, but you can build routines and habits that make it less of a struggle. This is the quote that really made me sit up:

“Picture Michael Phelps at 5:30 AM, staring at a chlorinated pool in Baltimore. It’s 2003, years before his first Olympic gold. The water’s cold. His muscles ache from yesterday’s 12,000-meter swim. Does he feel motivated? Hell no. But he dives in anyway. Every. Single. Day. Even Christmas.”

This was an eye-opening re-frame for me: Michael Phelps doesn’t swim every day because he wants to swim in a dopamine flood of motivation. He swims every day because that’s what he has to do to achieve his goals. So when people say you have to want things to get it, they aren’t talking about “wanting” to win a game or play your best in that moment, they’re talking about using that “want” to set up disciplined habits. So that your dopamine lacking brain will still do the thing even when it isn’t feeling warm dopamine fuzzies. It’s all about showing up, right? And towards that, thinking about how to show up. Or what can one do to make showing up a habit. Because you can’t rely on dopamine to get you there.

None of this is particularly groundbreaking or new, but sometimes a different framing can cause a lightbulb moment. So I started thinking of all the things I want to show up for, even when I don’t feel motivated. And here’s some of the list, and thoughts on how I can develop the discipline to do them.

Showing up for my physical self:
-Daily yoga. (Check – I do this by knowing that it’s the first thing I do in the morning)
-Sleep, specifically going to bed early. (I’m terrible at this – I need to be more disciplined about having a set bedtime. Maybe if it can be a time to be in bed, even if it’s with a book when I don’t want to go to sleep?)
-Eating fruits and vegetables with every meal. (Check – I stock the fridge with fruits and veggies and cut some up for myself every day when I’m prepping food for the kids. I can’t make them eat veggies, if I don’t do it myself.)
-Running or strength training every day. (working on this. Motivation is very weak on this one. I think I need a set time. I’ve been running in the morning with the kids following me on their bikes, but not sure if this will still work once school starts.)

Showing up for my mental self:
– journal
-paint/play piano
-write
-read
All these, I think, are about finding consistent time to do it. But there are only certain hours in the day. Some could fit into a weekly practice, though.

Showing up for my financial self:
– Monthly financial admin days to pay bills and review payments and any other financial housekeeping.
-monthly financial check ins with the Husband.
-Double check my pay stubs.

-not buying things impulsively and mindlessly
Again, I think a lot of these are all about scheduling and sticking to it. I think it’s hard for me to stay on track with some of these things because it’s very computer based and I tend to get distracted on the computer. Also finding time to meet with the Husband when we both feel like we have the mental capacity to talk finances is hard. But maybe we just have to schedule the time, and set the bar low – like 15 mins to look at the bank account together to start and then scale up from there? Or maybe we meet for lunch once a month and go over everything?

Showing up for my Work Self:
-Focused times to get ahead with paperwork so it’s not last minute.
A lot of ink has been spilled about productivity and focus at work. For me, I need to embrace the mantra “create before consume” and eliminate distractions for even just 45-60 mins of concentrated work first thing when I get in. (I need to get up and stretch after that anyway.)

Showing up for my social circle and far away family:
-spending time with friends – in a group and one on one.
-responding to texts and phone calls.
-sending texts and phone calls when I haven’t heard from then in while.
-offering support when they need it

– sending my parents pictures and updates of the kids regularly
I think the way to be disciplined about this might be to make scheduled efforts to reach out. Maybe every morning I send a text to one person to say, “Thinking of you.” Once a month see if anyone wants to grab lunch.

Showing up for My Family (Okay – some of these are a little more abstract, but I do think that for me it’s easy to neglect my family when I’m tired or busy or stressed. I think, “Oh, I’ll give them my attention once tech week is over”, as I rush out the door. And then when I do get home, it’s hard for me to remember to be loving. I want to figure out ways to show up for them when I’m not home on evenings and weekends and when my brain is full of work things. I don’t want to get prescriptive about these things, but along the lines of motivation vs. discipline – just because gestures of affection and connection and automatic and pre=planned, it doesn’t make them any less sincere. )
-Calling home on my dinner break. (I used to have an alarm at 6pm that was labelled “call home” so that I would remember to do this on long days at work. I should re-instate this. Sometimes at work I get caught up with what is in front of me – if it’s a work thing or a great chat with a colleague about potato chips, what not – and I forget to call home.)
-Weekly family meetings. (We currently do these at 7:30am on Saturday mornings. They are a little painful, but it’s a good way of checking in about the week ahead and making sure everyone gets the bigger picture of what is going on.)
-Being kind even when I’m tired.
-Tell them they are doing great. Sincerely.
-Giving them hugs and kisses every day when I leave for work, even though I’m in a rush. Along those lines, getting up before the Husband leaves for work so that we can have even one moment of connection. He leaves for work at 7am, and some days it’s hard. But this is where I think discipline can help me.
-Sneaking into their bedroom to give them hugs and kisses every night when I get home, even if I’m bone tired and they’re asleep.
-family rituals: Rose/Buds/Thorns, movie night, family clean up time

Whoa that was a lot of brain dump on that topic. Thanks for coming along on the ride (if you’re still here…) I think my big take away from that exercise is to wake up earlier, scroll less, and schedule my life more. For someone who love to have the ability to be flexible and capriciousness (for myself – let’s be honest, I can’t stand it in others.), discipline is met with resistance. But I guess that’s the point. Discipline allows me to fight against that inertia of not wanting to do something when I’m not feeling motivated. I think the trick is to balance a disciplined life with one where I can also have a sense of spontaneity and flexibility.

Grateful For – this week’s gratitudes, many tech week related:

-Tech week hero- The Husband, for recovering my files. The night before our first onstage rehearsal, my computer died at 9:30pm. I was only half way finished the wardrobe running paperwork and hadn’t saved the document into the cloud. (The wardrobe running is the document that tells the wardrobe and wig/make-up crew when people change clothes, what they are changing into and out of, where they will do this change, and how much time they have to do the change. For this show, because there are so many people and so many different costumes, the wardrobe running is a 10 page document.) Cue despair. For me, this was the ultimate version of the worst possible time for one’s computer to die. I mean it was such a horrific thing to happen, I couldn’t even have a meltdown because I just needed to finish the paperwork so I could give it to the crew for the next day. The Husband, calmly let me use his laptop and took my laptop to see if he could get it to turn back on. Meanwhile I started re-creating my paperwork from scratch. Eventually the Husband was able to pull my files from the computer and put it on a separate hard drive, even though the computer motherboard was dead. Thank goodness I didn’t have to re-create the entire wardrobe running from scratch!

-Duluth Trading Company tank tops with built in wireless bras. It was a hot and humid week to be doing outdoor opera last week. I usually don’t wear tank tops to work, but I made an exception for 80 degree humid weather. These tank tops from Duluth were my wardrobe MVP last week. They have built in bra cups so that I don’t have to worry about finding an appropriate bra to wear with them, and they are thick enough cotton that it doesn’t feel too skimpy to wear at work. I only have two, but I think I will order more next time they go on sale.

-I got a free t-shirt from our Fight Choreographer! I had asked him where I could buy swag from his business, and he showed up one day with this shirt for me!

He does fight and intimacy work for the stage.

-The crew, cast, creative team, and my co-workers for the show I worked on. Making opera magic happen! Having the opportunity to be part of making opera magic happen.

-my water bottle. And the coolers of ice and Gatorade that the theatre keeps backstage. Staying hydrated while I sweated buckets. Also the Coke that got me through the late nights.

– No more long awful commute. Friends, this will be the last time I complain about the commute to my summer job. At least until next summer. I’m glad I won’t have to drive those 18 miles again for a while. Though now I’ll have to find other times to listen to my audio book.

-This tomato sandwich because it represents friendship and summer:

The bread was from my co-worker at the opera. She is from out of town, and before she left for her next gig, she gave me two big bags of food that she hadn’t finished.
The tomatoes are from our friend who doesn’t like tomatoes so all the tomatoes in his CSA he gives to us.
The sandwich features basil mayonnaise, the basil plucked fresh from the Husband’s garden.
And eating it all outside on out back patio.
All these things made lunch just that much more poignant and full of love.

Looking Forward to:
-School starts in a week. Eeeep! I’m excited to start the new school year. I still have to get school supplies (note: this is done), and assess the clothing situation for the kids. They do all still have backpacks from last year so I don’t have to worry about getting new backpacks since that is often where the pickings are slim in mid to late August.

-Renaissance Faire!!!! Opens this weekend. We’re going to go Labor Day Monday, I think, for our annual Ren Faire Trip. Looking forward to shows and feats and turkey legs and people watching.

-Peaches in January. I spent Sunday canning peaches I had bought when there was a sale at the Farmer’s market. I kind of messed up and didn’t temper the first batch of jars and two of them cracked when I put them in the water bath. It was slightly alarming as I’d never experienced that before. I had to empty the canning pot, removing the broken glass and peaches floating the the water bath, and reheat the water again. So I have only 6.5 jars of peaches for this winter and lessons learned for next time. The kids wanted to eat the canned peaches immediately, but I said they couldn’t eat them until January at the latest.

-Lenten book club. Well, it’s not Lent anymore, and it’s not really a book club, but the group of ladies that started a Lenten book club has decided to continue to meet through the year to read and discuss life and spiritual things. This month’s reading is the parable of the Good Samaritan coupled with the story of Mary and Martha. I’m looking forward to a night of community and discussion.

What We Ate:
Sunday: Falafel sandwich and oysters. The stage management team went out to dinner together between rehearsals. The stage manager paid for my dinner, which was very nice of her.

Monday: Tofu and eggplant stir fry with Udon noodles. The Husband cooked, using some of the tenderest sweetest eggplants of the season that I had picked up from the Farmer’s Market.

Tuesday: Chicken Mole tacos leftover from the week before. I worked this evening and brought a salad from home – marinated beans, spinach, and arugula.

Wednesday: I had the same salad at work. Not quite sure what the rest of the family had.

Thursday: I went to a happy hour farewell gathering for a co-worker and had a BLT slider and fries. The family had mac n cheese, I think.

Friday: I had the same marinated beans, spinach, and arugula salad at work. The family had pizza and watched Star Wars: New Hope.

Saturday: dumplings and green beans and Glee.

Sunday: Tortellini and red sauce with roasted zucchini on the side. I sliced the zucchini into rounds, tossed them with salt, garlic powder, smoked paprika, oregano, and olive oil. Roasted for 15 minutes. Stuck parmesan cheese and basil in the food processor and then sprinkled it on the zucchini for the last five minutes or so of roasting. It was delicious. The kids ate the whole pan. I should have made more.

Hope you’re week is going well as the seasons change. I guess the season of life, if not the actual season. Here the weather has been distinctly on the cool side, that is tricking me into fall feelings, but I bet there are still warmer days in store.

Have you ever seen Jaws? Backpacks – Did you (or your kids) get new backpacks every school year? What are you disciplined about? What do you feel motivated about? Any tips for finding discipline for the things on my list?

(bi)Weekly recap + what we ate: Things I would replace immediately

Hello from a quiet empty house! The Husband has taken the children on the annual trip to Indiana and since I have to work, I have stayed behind. I won’t lie, it’s really nice. You know how they talk about secret single behavior in Sex and the City? The thing that people who live with other people do when they don’t have to be with or live with other people? My secret single behavior is:
-Sleeping with the blinds up so that the sunlight wakes me up in the morning.
-listening to NPR.
-Not emptying the dishwasher until there are so many dirty dishes on the counter and I need the space back.
-Eating snack dinner.
-Going to bed early. When the kids are home, I tend to go to bed late because after I put them to bed, I just want to stay up and scroll. But without kids, I can scroll during the day! and then go to bed early. (Though, TBH, there isn’t a lot of this going on because I’ve been working til 10:30pm every night.)

I feel like there are other things I do that would qualify as secret single behavior – wearing the same clothes for three days in a row (I do change my underwear), eating food from the back of the fridge that might be a little too old, making bodily function noises… But you know what? I do this when the family is home anyway, so it’s not really secret. And the family puts up with it and this might be one reason I love them.

The house is quiet. Almost too quiet. I was dog sitting for a couple days, but even the dog has now gone home, so it’s just me. I had all sorts of plan of things to do with my empty house, but between work and walking the dog and sleep, I find I don’t have as much time leftover as I would like.

You know that saying by Groucho Marx: “Outside of a dog, a book is a man’s best friend. Inside of a dog, it is too dark to read.”

Some sort of goals for this child-free weekend (or what remains of it.)
-Finish my book (I’m less than 100 pages from the end!)
-prep food for next week, since it is tech week. Boiled eggs, marinated beans. Maybe bake something (Japanese milk bread?). Chai concentrate. Lemonade concentrate?
-Blog post. Maybe prep a few more.
-Declutter the area by my desk in the bedroom.
-Consider if we can fit a camping trip in this summer.
-journal and reflect on July and plan August/ School year things.
-Farmer’s market?
-watercolor time

One thing on my list I did do was hang out with my friend K. We went kayaking along the Potomac – something I’d never done before and which I had always wanted to do. We went down to Fletcher’s Boat house, rented a tandem kayak for an hour and went upstream a little bit, then back down, all at a meandering pace, enjoying the wildlife, sunshine, and occasional breeze. I can’t believe I’ve never done this before – Fletcher’s Cove is easy to get to, there’s plenty of parking, and here the Potomac is gentle. It’s not so isolated that you can’t hear the airplanes flying into National, or see the traffic on the GW Parkway, but these are all very distant and being on the water feels like it’s own special place.

Afterwards, my friend K and I went to grab lunch at a nearby sandwich place. We split a salad and a tomato sandwich. The sandwich was made from the tastiest summer tomatoes and topped with with basil mayo, all tasting of sunshine and leisure. And afterwards we split a cup of strawberry ice cream. We were there for two hours, just chatting and catching up – it was just a perfect summer friend date. How wonderful it is to have friends (or spouses, or kids) who like splitting food so you never have to choose just one option, or you never have to finish that ice cream on your own.

It was a nice way to spend the day away from the opera and work, recharging my emotional battery for what will be a long week ahead.

The past few weeks have been lots of kid time and lots of work and lots of driving. Here are some moments:

The rehearsal hall strewn with flowers. There is a scene in our show where the chorus throws flowers all over the stage. The effect is quite stunning. It’s the kind of thing you only do once or twice during room rehearsals because it’s such a pain to have to clean up. Much to my surprise and delight, at the end of rehearsal, most of the cast stayed to help us pick up all the flowers and petals. What kindness.

Best commute of the week: driving from the 13 year olds’ theatre showcase to work. There is a farm stand on the way and I got to stop an pick up vegetables and peaches and plums.

Worst commute of the week: Friday evening after rehearsal. Which, you would think, it’s 10:30pm on a Friday night, why would traffic be bad???? Well it was, due to construction. I guess it makes sense to do construction when the traffic is lighter. Though it makes the traffic less light. It took me an hour to drive the 18 miles home. The Husband reminded me of a saying from when he lived in Minneapolis: In Minneapolis there are two seasons- Winter and construction.

Conversation with my the five year old:
5 year old: [Big brother] said I wasn’t smart.
Me: Is it true?
5 year old: No. It hurt my feelings.
Me: I would just ignore him, if I were you.
5 year old: Well, I’m not you.

Speaking of the 5 year old, we are all determined to get her to ride a bike by the end of the summer. Even the 13 year old is part of the efforts. I’m a little surprised because the 5 year old is quite fearless – she is already diving, even before she can really swim a full length of the pool – so her reluctance in bike riding has been giving me pause.

Swimming laps. While the kids have been away, I’ve gone to the pool to swim laps. I have to say at first it felt weird to go to the pool without the kids, but told myself I was being silly – we are all members of the pool, I get to use it too! Our pool is never crowded, and showing up at 11am, I practically have the whole place to myself, except for the biddies who sit under the cabana and gossip together. It’s been such a soothing thing to be able to swim back and forth and back and forth, just thinking about air and breath and movement. I’ve been feeling a little overstimulated lately – too much light and sound and constant singing in my ears. The pool has become the place I go when I want quiet. I’m coming to appreciate places I can go for just 30-60 mins for a quick recharge. Ducking into a museum, dropping by the pool, a quick library visit… Sometimes I don’t go places because I think I need to spend a few hours there, but really for places that are free (or to which I have a membership), going for a quick trip a couple times a week is just as much of a value as going for a half day once a month.

I checked something off the 5 year old’s summer fun list and we made popsicles. These are watermelon-lime-strawberry popsicles:

Sweet and sour snacks: Two snacks making my mouth happy these days are Haribo Twin Snakes and Taiwanese salty dried plums. The latter I brought back from Taiwan in January, and only now just opened because they are actually quite difficult to find the the U.S. and I knew once I finished the package, that would be it for a while. When I was growing up, my grandmother would bring these sweet/sour/salty treats from Taiwan when she visited us, and I would nibble the flesh off the seed, savoring all the different tastes swirling around, then I would pop the seed in my mouth and suck on it until all the flavor was gone. This brand of salted plum I got from Taiwan is seedless, so I can’t suck on the seed, but I’m savoring them all the same.

As for Twin Snakes, the 13 year old turned me on to these. They are like two gummy worms stuck together where one is sweet and one is sour. I love the sweet/sour combination.

But speaking of Twin Snakes. We might have had an incident where the two little kids ate the 13 year old’s Twin Snakes while she was out of the house. As a punishment, I had them write a card of apology to their big sister. Well, the 8 year old wrote it:

In case you can’t read 8 year old scrawl, it says, “Dear Lulu Sorry for eating your twin snak[e]s. Yell at me all you want. Don’t yell at dad. Sincerely A”

On replacing things….Towards the end of the previous week, my watch stopped working. In the middle of rehearsal. As someone who’s job it is to keep track of time, this was kind of a panic inducing thing. I ended up having to use my phone for the rest of rehearsal, which isn’t ideal because I find it distracting and annoying to have to keep pulling it out. I didn’t get around to replacing my watch for three or four days. In the past when my watch stopped working, I just went to Target to get a new one. It’s a pretty basic Timex digital watch. EXCEPT – the Target near me didn’t have them. Indeed, the sales associate looked at me strangely when I first asked where they were, since the watches weren’t in accessories where I was used to finding them. She sent me down to electronics. Of course, all they had down there were smart watches. The associate in electronics seemed somewhat confused that I would want a non-smart watch. Anyhow, after that bust of a Target run, I did end up ordering the exact same watch from Amazon, and the next day, my wrist felt not as empty any more.

Anyhow, it got me thinking of what other things in my life I would replace immediately if I lost or broke it. Of course there are the obvious things like wallet, ID, keys, phone, laptop – things that could be counted as “essential.” What, though, are the non-essential things that I would replace immediately? I feel like sometimes when things break or I lose them, I go a while before replacing them – I’ll try to make do with a replacement I already have at home, or just decided that I don’t need to replace them at all. There are, however, little luxuries that I have gotten used to, which feel almost essential to me now, that I would replace immediately if something happened.

-Gelrup slippers. I almost always wear slippers around the house and I love my Gelrups because they are made of wool so aren’t too hot in the summer, yet still cozy in the winter. If my slippers went missing, I guess it wouldn’t be the end of the world, but there is something about walking on bare floors/carpet that makes me cringe a little bit and I would want my slippers back as soon as possible. (Probably large part due to the fact that we don’t sweep enough….)

-Yeti mug. I love everything about my Yeti Rambler with the Hot Shot lid. I love that it keeps my drinks cold or hot for hours. I love that it is dishwasher safe. I love that it doesn’t leak (unless I forget to close the lid properly) so that I can toss it into my bag and not worry about tea getting everywhere. I love the colour. I leave the house with this in my hand 95% of the time. I actually did lose this one time – I had left it behind in the lobby of the building where I had been taking art classes. I immediately went out and got a new one even though I have a few back up travel mugs. They just don’t do all the things I need them to do. I should probably throw the spare ones out, but I think, “What would I do if I lost my Yeti?” Apparently, the answer is run out an immediately buy another one.

-Airpods. Maybe this should fall under “essential” now that my phone no longer has a jack for earphones? Being able to listen to books, music, podcasts, etc, and take phone calls hands free – I would be sad if I had to go back to wired earphones. The 13 year old recently lost/broke her Bluetooth headphones and now wanders around the house using crappy old wired earbuds, the kind that you get for free on airplanes. We have DRAWERS of these crappy airline earbuds. Anyhow, there is something delightfully old school about seeing her with wires dangling. But me, I don’t think I could ever go back.

-Flip Belt. Look, I try not to let sad excuses stop me from running, but I will admit there have been days when I decided not to go running because I couldn’t find my Flip Belt. Running while trying to hold my phone and without my water bottle is just so…. inconvenient. I have thought about getting a second one as back up, but I do feel like I’m the kind of person who keeps better track of things when I only have one.

-pen holder. This clips to my binder and helps me not lose my pens and pencils. It’s from Muji and one of the best $3 I’ve ever spent. The sad thing, though, is even though I would run out and replace this if I were to lose it, I actually can’t because Muji doesn’t sell them anymore. In fact I can’t find them anywhere on the internet. So I better not lose this.

-Little alarm clock – This clock sits with me in rehearsal, so I can keep an eye on the time. Sure there’s a clock on the wall. Sure I also can look at my phone. But there is something more immediate about having the time at a glance, without have to pick up my phone. Once and a while I forget to bring it to rehearsal and I feel lost. I do actually have more than one of these.

-Travel Bluetooth keyboard. My keyboard is paired with my phone, my iPad and my computer, and it’s only a little bigger and thicker than an envelope so I can just slip it into my laptop bag. I love using it when I have to fill out registration forms on my phone – typing on the phone is not something I excel at. Half the time, I hit the wrong key and have to start over again – it’s very frustrating. Similarly, typing on the iPad is just not … convenient. This keyboard was a game-changer for blogging on my tablet – so much faster than typing on the screen. This keyboard has made my life so much better that when I lost it recently on our South Africa trip, I replaced it as soon as I got home.

I’m sure there are more things, but off the top of my head those are a few things that are panic-inducing if lost. I sometimes feel so materialistic when I panic over lost things and immediately replace them, but there are some non-essentials that do indeed make my life so much better.

Grateful For:
-Nature oases in the city. As my friend and I were floating along the Potomac, I was just so grateful that even though we live in an urban area, there are lots of ways to get to nature. Being among green things is so good for my soul.

-Lifeguards.

-Cooler weather. We’ve had a few weeks of unbearably hot weather. So glad it is cooling off a little bit.

-The 13 year old’s theatre instructors. We went to her theatre camp showcase and it was so much fun to see her singing and dancing.

-A perfectly ripe, juicy mango.

-Sleeping in. I don’t know if 7:00am counts as sleeping in, but it does for me, without kids to wake me up. Though the dog did wake me up once at 6:30am. I took him out for a walk and then went back to bed and slept for another hour.

-People who plant gardens so I have beautiful flowers to see on my walks.

Looking Forward To:

-Tech week. I don’t love tech week – it’s stressful, and moves quickly, and I have to be so very prepared to go into it because a lot of people rely on me to get them where they need to be so that the show can happen. And I’m always terrified of making a wrong decision or telling someone the wrong thing. YET when it goes well, it feels really good. But truth, I am looking forward to this particular tech week because it is in an outdoor venue, which means that we can’t have lighting sessions until it is dark. (Lighting sessions are tech sessions where we tweak the lighting without the cast onstage waiting for us to fix the light cues – this is particular to opera. In theatre, they usually set lighting cues with the artists onstage.) Which means that we usually have lighting sessions after rehearsals. So we will rehearse from 8-11:30p with the singers, then we will let the singers go and light until 2am. This sounds intense, right? I will admit, though, there’s a special air of bonding in the air when you are standing onstage at 1:30am setting lighting cues. Like only the strong get to stay behind and do it. But really, my favorite part of over night lighting sessions, and what I’m looking forward to is that the company feeds us between the rehearsal and the lighting session. Free food makes a lot of things better in my book. Maybe I’m cheap, maybe I’m a sell out. But free food, man, is irresistible to me. I’m really looking forward to that 11:30pm burger, fries, and Coke.

-The family coming home. I don’t think I necessarily miss having the kids around, but I am very excited that they will be home soon.

-Tap dancing lessons! The Husband and I had a session where we looked at activities for the kids for the upcoming year – trying to figure out where they will fall and what we have the budget and logistical capacity for. I’m not in rehearsals until the end of October, so we can be a little activity heavy the first few months of school. So I signed the 5 year old and myself up for parent/tot tap dancing lessons. I’ve always wanted to learn to tap dance, and the 5 year old wanted to take dance classes. I’m so excited. The 8 year old also wants to take tap classes, but I need to see what the soccer schedule is like first.

-Basil. The Husband planted a whole bunch of basil and it’s going gangbusters. I can’t wait to use it. There will be pesto. I also am thinking of making some kind of basil simple syrup to have with fizzy water. Any other suggestions?

-Next up on my audiobook cue – it’s come highly recommended by so many people – it’s not my usual fare, so I’m excited to see if I like it.

Whoa – I just saw that this is 16 hours long… not sure if I’ll finish it before the end of this gig. I hope traffic is not so bad that I do finish it….

What We Ate: Two weeks worth of dinners to record, but really the last few days here don’t really count because … well secret single behavior.

Monday: Caprese Pasta Salad. Tortellini, Buffalo mozzarella, diced tomatoes, basil, drizzled with balsamic vinegar.

Tuesday: Shrimp tacos. I prepped the shrimp and the mango slaw before I went to work, and when the Husband came home he just had to heat the tortillas and sautée the shrimp and dinner was fast and easy. (I had leftover pasta salad at work.) I think the Husband also make a tofu filling for the tacos too.

Wednesday: I had more pasta salad at work. The Husband picked up Bahn mi sandwiches for the kids. He himself went out for dinner with his friend.

Thursday: The kids and Husband had steamed green beans and leftovers at home. I was done rehearsal by 5pm, but it would have taken an hour to get home at that point, so I went to Yard House with the other stage managers. I had a really tasty Ahi Tuna sandwich.

Friday: Pizza and the Minecraft movie for the family. I had some kind of leftovers at work. I hear the movie was surprisingly good.

Saturday: The family had dumplings and steamed green beans. Leftovers again for me.

Sunday: We had spaghetti with red sauce, Caesar salad, and garlic bread. There is something so comforting and delicious to me about spaghetti with jarred red sauce. So simple yet often just what I’m in the mood for.

Monday: Eggplant and pork stir fry with udon noodles. I had the leftover spaghetti at work

Tuesday: Taco Tuesday – chicken mole tacos. This is the mole sauce that I had made three months ago. Thank you past me for freezing three batches of the mole sauce for easy dinners later on.

Wednesday: This is the day the family departed so I’m not sure what they had for dinner. I had the leftover eggplant and pork stir fry.

Thursday: Family still gone. To be honest, I didn’t really eat dinner this day because I went to work late and worked straight through to the end of rehearsal. It’s not an abusive system, I swear. I just wasn’t hungry when I had time to sit down and eat, so I didn’t. I did have snacks througout rehearsal and then I did eat half an avocado and sesame rice crackers when I got home.

Friday: Family still gone. Another day without having to cook. And actually another day where I wasn’t hungry becasue we started teh day so late. I had yogurt and blueberries when I got home from work.

Saturday: Family still gone. I had snack dinner – brie, goat cheese, and Triscuits.

I hope you have a wonderful week as we round the corner of summer. We’ve flipped out three month at a time Calendar and eep! I can see October.

Do you have any secret single behaviors? Is there anything yo’ve always wanted to learnt o do? Do you remember who taught you to ride a bike? What should I do with all that basil? What things would you replace immediately replace? Tell me everything!

Weekly recap + what we ate: New York City

I started typing this on the train back to DC from New York City. My sister in law – who lives in Amsterdam – has a workshop in NYC this coming week and brought the whole family, so we went up to see them and spend some time together. The Husband went up on Friday morning with the two little kids and the 13 year old and I went up that evening after camp and work.

The trip up was a little tedious – we had a bit of a tight turnaround between getting home in the afternoon and having to leave to catch the Metro to the train station. There might have been a few rough teen moments involving a screen not being unlocked and threats of not coming along. But we did make it to the train station with barely enough time. Only to find the train was delayed; the trains were running a little more slowly due to the high heat. That was certainly frustrating. If I knew we were going to have an extra hour, I might have not felt as rushed and might have handled the unlocking of the tablet with a bit more patience. Oh well. We made it to NYC eventually and were at the hotel by midnight- we were staying at a Residence Inn in midtown – not the cheapest option, but very convenient and the rooms were nice and more spacious than I had expected for a hotel in midtown.

(Side note – the train just made an announcement reminding people to lock the doors if they use the bathroom. !!! I’m so curious if there was an incident or if this is a standard announcement they make???)

The next day, we had quite a fun, packed New York Saturday. (I’m not a travel blogger, so I didn’t take a lot of photos, but I’ll dump a few into this post… ) We started by having hotel breakfast. It was the usual fare – waffles, hot bar of eggs and sausage, cereal, toast, oatmeal, etc. One nice surprise, though, was that there was a big bowl of raw spinach. And it was really tasty spinach too. I don’t suppose raw spinach screams “Breakfast food!”, but I did appreciate being able to start my day with a serving of something green. Sometimes I find when traveling it’s hard to get greens into me.

After breakfast we met up with my Sister in law and her family at a lovely shady park on 42nd and 2nd – Mary O’Connor Playground. I love how there are all these playgrounds tucked in between building in New York, giving people a bit of green space and air in a very dense crowded city. We sat on benches and chatted while the kids played – my SIL has two kids about the same age ast the littles. Even though we only see my SIL and her family once a year or two, the kids love hanging out and get along so well together.

We let the kids play for a while then we headed to Brooklyn. We had planned to spend most of the day in Brooklyn because it just seemed a little calmer than Manhattan and very family friendly. Also since my SIL’s family would be in NYC all week, they already had plans for exploring Manhattan itself. We took the Subway to Brooklyn Bridge Park, and took in views of the Brooklyn Bridge and then went to year another playground. Then we wandered to Montague St. for lunch, picking up sandwiches and eating at picnic tables on the sidewalk. I had a delicious Ham, Brie, and Fig Jam sandwich with arugula. Brie and jam is such a delicious combination!

Following lunch we went to the New York Transit Museum. Here we learned all about the NY Subway system, how it was built, how it has evolved. There is also a whole other room devoted to bus/ trolley/ cable car transit. And then on the lower level there was a huge collection of retired subway cars that you could go into. I really loved this museum – it was a good bleand of history and nostalgia for me. And while the kids weren’t really into all the informational placards, they loved getting to play in the ticket boots, subway cars, and the fake buses. I think this museum is all good blend of interesting for adults and fun for kids – highly recommend. Also – the tickets are cheap: $10 for adults and $5 for kids. We also got shirts and magnets at the gift shop because we discovered that there is a subway line for each of our first initials, so we each got a shirt and magnet with our corresponding subway line on it. It was incredibly nerdy, but made me so happy.

Subway line magnets! I feel like we should all be a family of lawyers given our initials.

After the transit museum, we went back to our hotel to rest a little until dinner time. Dinner was at a Mexican restaurant – my SIL says that the Mexican food in Amsterdam is terrible so whenever she comes back to the States we go out to Mexican food. The Husband and I split and order of grilled octopus tacos and an order of fish tacos and they were both delicious. The octopus was so tender and slightly smoky from the grill.

My Sister In Law’s family went back to their hotel after dinner, and the Husband and I and the kids wandered around NY a little bit. Went to Bryant Park, and visited Kinokuniya, the Japanese Manga/Stationary store across the street. We had visited that store in January when I had brought the kids to see Hadestown and I was eager to go back. The Husband bought something that was perfect for his Secret Santa group. I’m dying to post a picture of it here, but I’ll keep mum in case someone from his group reads this blog (VERY unlikely…) Myself, I bought some Coleto Hi-Tec-C multi pens. They are customizable multi-pens; you buy the barrel and then you can pick what colors and size point you want in them. I’ve been wanting one for our family calendar so I can color code each person’s activities – I have multi pens, but there are five people in the family and all the conventionally available multipens of decent quality have only four colors so I was using two pens with different colors to cover our family. Coleto pens come in barrels of 3 to 5 inks so I could customize one pen barrel that would work for the whole family. I was going to order them from jet pens, but it is so much more fun to buy them from an actual store.

We left Kinokuniya and wandered up to Korea Town. I had read that there were some fun stores and an amazing dessert place in Ktown, so I thought we’d check it out. New York City is CROWDED! I’m always amazed at how busy the town is even later in the evening when a city like Washington DC would be winding down. DC is pretty dead after, say, 8pm, but it was almost 8pm by the time we got to Ktown and it seemed like the night was just starting. In Ktown we checked out Teso Life, a Japanese convenience/ drug store that is loaded with all sorts of Asian snacks, beauty supplies, toys, housewares, etc. Browsing the snacks is always a lot of fun – of note were the scallop chips, the matcha Oreos, the orange and chocolate Kit Kats.

We also swung by a K-pop store, but it was kind of a madhouse and we’re not really K-pop fans, so we didn’t stay long. Then we went to a dessert cafe called Grace Street. We ordered strawberry and grape tang hulu (the candy coated fruit that we tried to make earlier this summer, and which is very popular in Taiwan), a Nutella mochi waffle, and mango shaved ice. It was all amazing. Korean shaved ice is different from Taiwanese shaved ice because it is finer and often made from milk. This was my first time having Korean shaved ice and it did not disappoint. Sweet and creamy yet not too heavy, with mango, banana, mango popping bubbles, and mango syrup. The mochi waffle was also delicious – crispy on the outside with that mochi chew in the inside, not too sweet and covered with Nutella, strawberries and whip cream. If you are looking for an NYC dessert, I highly recommend Grace Street Cafe!

After we finished dessert, we headed home. This time, we took the bus back to the hotel. The bus was a nice change from being on packed subways all day. We were actually the only ones on the bus to start, though only one other person got on while we were riding. It was nice to see the city from the bus as we drove back to midtown – the people and the lights and the beautifully lit shop windows and neon signs. The ride was a calm way to get home after such a packed day.

The next morning, I got on the 9:05am train to make it back to DC in time for rehearsal. Well, not quite in time. As I was getting off the metro at home, the heavens opened up and there was a veritable deluge. I was unprepared for this and had to walk home with nary an umbrella or raincoat. It was the wettest, most miserable walk of my life. But I got home, quickly changed and headed to work, though I ended up being forty minutes late to rehearsal.

So that was our trip to New York City! Like I said, I’m not a travel blogger so there aren’t any gorgeous vacation photos from our little jaunt, but rest assured the food was tasty, the sights were iconic, the people watching was colourful, and the city bustle was energizing. Every time I visit New York, I leave feeling that I only saw a teeny tiny bit of it and that there is so much more to see and do, and at the same time, I’m glad I don’t live there – the pace would be overwhelming for me to live every single day. All in all, though, it was a nice little break from a week of work and camp and commuting.

Some fun and frustrating things last week:

-Field Trip with he 13 year old’s theatre camp group. I got to accompany the campers to a production of Midsummers NIghts’s Dream by the Synetic Theatre. Synetic Theater specialized in wordless theatre – everything is told through movement, dance, acrobatics, stage combat, etc. The performance was so beautifully precise and over all show was amazing – how the actors were able to tell the story, to make us laugh and gasp and sigh, just by using their bodies. I knew the story going in, but I think even still the storytelling was so clear. Afterward, the 13 year old said, “Not having to think about the words made it easier to think about the story and the characters.” I thought that was such an interesting point.

I want to see more by Synetic Theater now, but I heard they actually just lost their space so their future is a little bit up in the air. Bummer.

-In the category of frustrating, but resolved – I had a jury summons last week. The notice had come before I booked the current job, and to be quite honest I had forgotten about it until the weekend before. I had no little amount of anxiety about this – I’m not the most important person in the rehearsal room, but it is inconvenient to miss rehearsal, plus I was missing a day and a half of rehearsal already to go to New York. I was mostly frustrated at myself for not taking putting in for a postponement sooner. Anyhow, I called the Jury Services office Monday morning ( I was to appear on Tuesday) and they said I needed a letter from my employer to request a postponement. I feel really bad asking people for things last minute because I messed up, but I took a deep breath and called my boss. He was actually great and very understanding and wrote me a letter saying that I was working on a one night only show and that it was important that I was available for rehearsal. I managed to get to the Jury Services Office an hour before they closed. Thankfully their turnaround time was quick, and now I’ll report for Jury service in October. But it was a stressful day for sure as I wondered if I would be able to postpone service.
I’ve been summoned maybe three or four times in the past couple of years, and did get to serve on a jury once. I was an assault case, where someone intentionally rear ended someone else. Being on the jury was such a fascinating process. Truth, I found it flabbergasting that twelve people with no law degree got to argue about the definition of “deadly weapon”, as the charge was actually “assault with a deadly weapon.” Eye opening for sure.

-I’ve been trying to run in the mornings these days. I realized that I can leave the kids at home with the 13 year old for 30 minutes while I run and I’ve been taking advantage of it. Last summer I would run at work on my dinner break, but it’s been so hot this year that it’s more appealing to run at 7am than at 1pm or 5:30pm. I still don’t love running, but being able to do it when there is shade and the sun is not blazing makes me dislike it less.
Also – super fun, on two of my runs last week, at least one kid came with me. The 8 year old and 5 year old had asked me one morning as I was lacing up my shoes if they could come too. I’m all for anything that will get the kids outside and moving, so I said yes. The second time was they Friday they were to drive up to NYC; I hadn’t even been planning on going for a run and the 8 year old said, ‘Can we go run? I’m going to spend all day in the van so I want to have some exercise today.” Truth – they are SLOW. I tried to do 2 min walking/2 min running intervals, but it was more like 1 min run/ 5 min walk. Oh well, I’ll take what I can get. It was also really fun to see all the other runners giving them encouragement as they ran past us. One runner said to me, “I like your run team!”

-The kids are obsessed with the sountrack to Kpop Demon Hunters lately. I guess the 8 year old watched it at Taiwan camp. (The 5 year old reports that all they got to watch was Bluey in Mandarin.) Okay, I have to admit it is helluva catchy. I ran to the song Golden one day at it kept me going at a good pace. The frustrating aspect to that fun thing is that it is the ONLY THING they will listen to – it sometimes feels like extortion because they won’t do their chores unless I put the soundtrack on for them.

-Traffic traffic traffic. I am seriously considering if I ever want to do this gig again, the traffic is soul sucking. One day I left at 8:30am, dropped the 5 year old at camp and didn’t get to work until 10:30am, moving along the whole time at a slow crawl. Google Maps took me through some parts of the city that I’d never seen before – so I guess that’s a plus, I got to see some beautiful neighborhoods.

Grateful for:
-Tap to pay on NYC subway. You can now just tap your credit card (or phone) to pay on the subway. It’s so convenient – no having to buy tickets and try to swipe them. I”m all about seamless transit. (Interestingly, the Transit Museum had a placard that talked about how tap to ride was the wave of the future – guess they can now update that display, because the future is HERE!)

-Audiobooks.

-That the 13 year old still is okay with me sitting with her at lunch when she’s with her friends. I was a little nervous on the field trip that the 13 year old would want me to disappear, but she actually wanted me to sit with her and her friends. I remember when I was that age, I refused to let my mom sit with me and my friends when I went to soccer tournaments. (Why was I such an asshole to my mother? Sorry, Mom!)

-Being home for dinner two nights this week.

-Our Lead Negotiator. We’re in the midst of union negotiations right now and I’m really grateful for the person at our Union who is navigating us through the process. Negotiations aren’t really something I will talk about about specifically here, but it’s taking up a lot of my mental energy right now. Grateful to my union.

-Beautiful weather for our NYC trip. The day before had been in the high 90s so I was a little nervous about our planned day wandering the city. But the day turned out to be in the low 80s and just cloudy enough to take the edge off the sun. That combined with the periodic breeze made it a perfect New York summer day.

-The Husband packing lunches. He’s been packing the camp lunches the past few weeks, and it’s taken such a load off my morning.

Looking Forward To:
-Free day from work and taking the kids to the pool. We haven’t been to the pool since the end of swim season. While the break has been nice, I’m looking forward to going to the pool on our own pace and not rushing because we’re late for practice.

-Tomatoes. Given to us by our friend from his CSA – he doesn’t like tomatoes. What should I do with two large summer ripe tomatoes

-Going to rehearsal every day, and also having the mornings off. I genuinely look forward to rehearsal every day. The director is easy to work with, the other stage managers are kind and competent, and there is just a sense of all of use working together – I just look forward to seeing what we create every day. Also, the current show rehearses in the afternoon and evening, so I have the mornings open. Of course I have the kids with me, yet knowing how much I lamented losing my summer with them when I booked this gig, I do love these pockets of mornings to spend with them. The 5 year old made a summer fun list today:

In case you can’t read the 5 year old’s handwriting, the list says: Hang out; Relax; make popsicles; go to the pool; Mom Dad Lulu (what she calls her big sister) – I think that means she wants to spend time with us.

-The 13 year old’s showcase for her musical theatre summer training program. It’s been a little up and down emotionally this summer because she wasn’t given as many solos as she wanted in musical numbers. On the other hand, she apparently has a big part in the dance number (which, considering that she’s not a dancer, is pretty cool), and she’s playing Rosalind in the scene from As You Like it. It hasn’t been the camp experience she wanted, but I think she’s been learning to stretch different muscles.

-Snacks! I went to Trader Joe’s and went a little crazy with the chips and then also stopped at Giant and filled up on other snacks.

Those are Carolina Gold BBQ chips, Deli Sandwich chips, and Dill Pickle chips. Along with lots of other tasty things. Whatever gets us through the day…

– My next audiobook – I’m almost finished with an Agatha Christie radio play and then I’ll move on to this book:

What We Ate:
Monday: Pork and eggplant stir fry with udon noodles. The Husband cooked. This was really tasty. I ate leftovers wrapped in a tortilla for lunch later in the week.

Tuesday: Taco Tuesday – squash and turkey tacos. Trying to eat up some summer squash that was languishing in our fridge. The Husband cooked.

Wednesday: German potato salad, Brazilian cheese buns, and steamed green beans. I asked the kids

Thursday: Breakfast sandwiches (The Husband cooked at home.) leftovers for me at work.

Friday: Sandwiches from Pret a Manger at the train station.

Saturday: Amor Loco – tasty Mexican food in NYC.

Sunday: Leftovers, eaten at work. Basically I looked into the fridge and grabbed whatever leftovers were available and it happened to be two week old leftover Burmese food. I guess it’s lucky I didn’t get food poisoning…

Welp, I can’t believe August is just about here! School starts in less than a month for us, which is a little terrifying. I didn’t even write my June reflections yet. Oh well… summer keeps rolling, and I hope yours is going well. Have a lovely week!

What is the most unique chip flavor you’ve ever eaten? What colours would you want in a multi-pen? Are you on the Kpop Demon Hunters bandwagon? We don’t even have Netflix and the family is obsessed! Tell me, what little things have made life easier these days?

Weekly recap + what we ate: July so far – Fourth of July, re-entry, camp, swim, work

I started to write this post almost two weeks ago, but then there was some glitch with my website and error messages, and I felt a little bit of despair. I despaired for a whole day, wondering if this wasn’t a sign from the universe that my little corner of the internet had run its course and that I should just let it go. Then the Husband told me to stop wallowing and just contact tech support. Which I did and the issue was fixed in less than thirty minutes. (Bluehost’s issue, not mine.) But the whole thing did make me think about if I wanted to still show up here and word vomit into the universe. Between being in South Africa and the site being down, I had a bit of time to think about all that. And you know what? I really think I do want to keep showing up. At least for a little while.

Anyhow, here’s the old news – some of this was drafted weeks ago, before life got busy and my site went down – : The 13 year old and I have been back from South Africa for a while and back into summer camps and swim team.(Note: This weekend was the last week of summer swim team season, but I didn’t want to go back and rewrite this whole post… so you get the old news.) We got back late the evening of July 3rd. The Husband picked us up; the two little kids were at at Taiwanese cultural camp with my mother. It was their first overnight away camp type experience and I was afraid they would not adjust well, but all reports were that they had a great time and there was NO CRYING! Wow. Considering that the 5 year old bawled all the way to the airport when dropping the 13 year and I off for South Africa, I had my concerns, but apparently Taiwan camp beats mom and big sister.

July 4th was pretty chill since it was just the 13 year old, the Husband, and I. We went to see F1 – it was a quintessential summer popcorn movie. The whole movie, set in the world of Formula 1 racing actually felt very much like a cowboy movie – the lonely man with the checkered past comes in to save the day, then rides off into the sunset. It was very entertaining. An air conditioned movie theatre, popcorn and cherry Coke for lunch – that just screams summer to me. Afterwards we went to buy bike helmets – our bike helmet were five or six years old and needed replacing. That evening we had pizza and movie night. Finding pizza take-out on July 4th was a bit of an ordeal as all our usual places were closed. We ended up ordering Little Caesar’s. We watched Theatre Camp (funny, but I admit I fell asleep for the last little bit – jet lag) and the Capitol Fourth fireworks on TV and went to bed.

Saturday, we went to pick up the two little kids and my mom from Taiwan camp, with a stop at Longwood Gardens along the way. The weather was hot and sunny, and the gardens were a riot of colour. I played our rainbow game, and it didn’t take long to find all the colours. I even found blue. It’s kind of a purple-y blue, but the flower is called “Blue Bedder” so I’m counting it:

That evening, we went to the Taiwan Camp’s Taiwan Night Performances. All the kids groups did either a dance number or a skit. Even the parents, grandparents, and staff each had their own dance number. Some of those Taiwanese grandmothers have amazing dance moves. The two littles barely said hi to us, they were having so much fun with their groups. We actually skipped out of Taiwan Night early to go to our hotel for the night.

The next morning, we had a bit of time before we had to pick everyone up, so we had a leisurely hotel breakfast (why are the waffles at the free hotel breakfast so tasty???), went to a garden store, then we went to a tea/coffee shop and the 13 year old and I got boba and played Othello. Have you ever played Othello? My brother and I used to play it together all the time – it’s so simple yet so absorbing. I might have to put it on the Christmas list for the kids (and me).

We picked up the kids from the University campus where Taiwan camp was being held, and had dinner with them at the cafeteria. It has been an age since I was in a college cafeteria/dining hall, and the experience filled me with nostalgia and wonder. I remember those days of endless cereal and soft serve. Of getting your food on trays and then looking for a place to sit. This dining hall was so much bigger than the one I had in college and it kind of blew me away – there were two salad bars, three hot bars (one which was vegan, which definitely wasn’t a thing when I wen to college), a grill, a pizza bar, cereal bar, a ramen bar, dessert bar with soft serve. The choices were mind-boggling. It really made me think of the economics of serving massive amounts of people.

After lunch, we picked up everyone’s suitcases from their dorm room – another nostalgia trip – remember communal living? Common rooms and late night hang outs? Roommates. The barebones furniture and bare walls. The dorms they stayed in had bathrooms in each double, which was also another upgrade from when I was in college with the bathrooms down the hall, shared among eight or ten people.

On the way home we stopped at the Pringel Family Creamery for ice cream and our annual end of school questions and answer session. The actual last days of school were so scattered and what with prepping for our trip, we never got around to our annual tradition. So we decided that this would be a good time to get everyone on record as to how school went. I had cone that was half dark chocolate ice cream and half strawberry, and it was delicious.

We arrived home tired and sticky, but the little kids very much wanted to go to raft night at the pool, so we unpacked and then I found the inflatable ring, blew it up with my own lungs and we went to the pool. So all in all, a very full Fourth of July weekend. Lots of summer things going on.

The rest of the week was spent driving the kids to camp and the pool. South Africa is 6 hours earlier than D.C., so I had a little bit of jet lag – mostly waking up at 5:30am, which I actually kind of liked. I don’t know if that will continue, but it really makes me think of how waking up an hour before the kids really changes how my mornings shake out. (note: the naturally waking at 5:30am is no longer a thing. Now I’m dragging myself out of bed at 6:00am.)

Other life updates-

We had our last swim meet this past weekend. I love swim team season, but I’m so glad to be done for a while. Fun thing, though, at the pool this past weekend, the 5 year old and the 8 year old started to figure out how to dive. The 13 year old helped them and gave them pointers, and I just loved watching her encourage her younger siblings. The possibility of all three kids being on swim team next year is not as wild as I had thought. As for me, I can’t dive myself, so I’m thinking maybe this summer I’ll get the 13 year old to teach me too.

Since the 5 year old is no longer in daycare, I had a few weeks with just her at home while the other kids were at camp. It’s always fun to have some one on one time with a kid. We went to the park, rode the carousel, she came with me to work a few times, she showed up in some Zoom calls, and we did a lot of watercolour painting. It was such a soothing activity. And so pretty too!

The big curveball that was thrown me this summer was that three days before I left for South Africa, I got an email asking if I was available to step in last minute for an Assistant Stage Manager on a show. The inquiry was from the opera company that I usually work for during the summer – I hadn’t booked work with them this year because the South Africa trip conflicted with the shows they wanted to offer me. This third show, though, would be after we came back. The job offer certainly threw me for a loop.

In a mad flurry, I talked to the Husband. In addition to the childcare issue, there is a time issue. The job features a long commute and lots of evening rehearsals. My working the summer would also make the evenings harder for him. Luckily rehearsals don’t start until after swim season is over, because swim practice and meets are a major immovable summer time block. I started looking for camps or sitters or whatever else childcare options and seeing if we could cover things since I had NO camps lined up for the two little kids for those weeks. Well, the plan had been for the kids to be at Camp Mom.

I thought about if I really wanted this job. Truth, the show itself is not on my bucket list – I’ve done this opera four times already and it’s actually one of my least favorite operas to work on. Also, I had been looking forward to a nice leisurely summer at home with the two little kids – pool time and nature time and MarioKart and books and eating ice cream and peaches and learning to swim and ride bikes. Though I was sad not to be working, I was leaning into SUMMER with my kids. Ultimately, though, financially it’s hard to turn down five weeks of work. I think there will still be pockets of time to do summer and life things, though I don’t think we’ll get to go camping this summer and that makes me a little sad. I do feel a little guilt that the kids won’t get as summery a summer as I had planned, but that’s okay. We’ll still do what we can. People work all summer all the time and still find ways to lean into it. Heck, once you grow up and summer break isn’t a thing, is summer as summer-y?

So we figured out summer childcare – it’s not ideal, but it will do. This kids will have lots of time lazing about with no plans. I told the opera company that I could take the job and we are now just starting the first week of rehearsal. Like I said, it’s not my favorite opera, but the director is a delight to work with, and the rest of the stage managers are great – old friends or about to become old friends. The rehearsal schedule is mostly afternoons and evenings, so I think I’ll still have time to take the kids to the pool in the morning before I got to work. And, let’s be honest, I really do enjoy being in the rehearsal room – watching people create stories and characters and music.

-Leaving you with a bit of poetry that perfectly captured something I never could express, as poetry does. From “The Happiest Day” by Linda Pastan:

I didn’t even guess that I was happy.
The small irritations that are like salt
on melon were what I dwelt on,
though in truth they simply
made the fruit taste sweeter.

Read the full poem here.

Grateful For:
-The family being together again. Between South Africa and Taiwan Camp, the family hasn’t been together for 14 days. I think this is the longest that our family unit has been apart. It makes me wonder if the kids will ever go to sleepaway camp and leave the Husband and I at home kid-free for any amount of time during the summer. The 13 year old has no interest – it would probably have to be a special theatre or basketball camp for her to go at this point.

-That the summer storm stopped in time for swim practice. I was home alone with the kids one night – the Husband had gone to a baseball game – and it looked like swim was going to be cancelled because of thunder, but the weather cleared up in time for the last half of swim practice to happen.

-Peaches. I missed out on the Peach Truck this year, but I still managed to find a farmstands with sweet sweet peaches on the way home from camp drop off one day.

-Watermelon. Cold and juicy.

-Swim Team and the people who run our swim team. It is so so so much work to run the swim team. Last week’s swim meet was over four hours long (we often host a neighboring pool since their pool is not big enough to host meets, so it makes our meets really long since it’s three teams competing, not just two.) And yes, there were times when it just felt interminable. But at one point, in the third hour, I took a moment to be grateful for everything around me – the parent volunteers; the kids trying their best and being supportive of their team mates and of their competitors; our amazing Team Rep; the enthusiastic coaches; the night sky so clear; the beauty of the pool after the sun has gone down, lit only by pool lights. And I was really grateful that we had this opportunity to be be part of this community and to be in this moment.

-GPS. OMG – the traffic on the way to camp and work has been soul sucking. When I first started taking the kids to camp/commuting to this job, it was 2021. A lot of people were working from home and the commute was a breeze. It is no longer a breeze. The first day of camp, was a breeze – we were there in 20 minutes. The second day, I made the mistake of not using Google Maps (my preferred traffic/map app) to get to camp – I often don’t use Google Maps if I know where I’m going. wump wump. There was a huge slowdown on the beltway and we were 15 minutes late to camp. Another day, a tractor trailer overturned on the Beltway at 4am, and at 8:30am it was still not clear – that day we were half an hour late to camp. (side note, the tractor trailer was carrying mushrooms, which spilled all over the beltway. This little bit of info tickles me – I wonder if there are going to be new mushroom species alongside the Beltway now?). Every day it’s always something. I haven’t been able to take the same way to camp two days in a row all week. I now know to check the map an hour before we leave for camp. BUT… I am grateful for GPS/GoogleMaps and that it gets me where I need to go, even if it means driving through some unknown neighborhoods.

-That my blog/website is up and working again.

Looking Forward To:
– Sitting in our new furniture! The chairs that we impulsively bought over Memorial Day Weekend arrived. I’m especially looking forward to reading in the grey chair – the tag literally said “Cuddle Chair”. To be honest, we didn’t quite know where we would put it when we bought it. The floral chair had always been destined for the sunroom. The grey chair was a last minute purchase – it was on clearance and it were just so cozy in the store that we knew it would be perfect for curling up and reading, either alone or with the kids. It’s gone in the living room and I kind of love it there.

-Starting rehearsals. Looking forward to working with familiar colleagues, and meeting new people.

-The end of Summer Swim Season. I love swim season – see above – but it does take up a huge chunk of time and energy in the summer. I’m looking forward to when it is over and we can go back to going to the pool at our own pace and spending some evenings at home watching New Girl. (Okay, given that I just took a job that has me gone most evenings, we might not be having as many New Girl nights as I originally planned.)

-Reading this book:

It’s set in the area of Los Angeles County that I grew up in, and a lot of it feels so familiar. Plus the writing and the story are so good. Trans violin prodigy running away from home! Deals with the devil! Potters! Alien refugees disguised as Vietnamese donut shop owners! You wouldn’t think all the narrative threads work together, but they do.

-Listening to this book on my commute:

This one doens’t feels as effortless as other Lily Chu books I’ve read/listened to, but I’m still enjoying it. Plus Phillipa Soo and John Cho narrate, were definitely a draw.

If anyone has other engaging things for me to listen to on my commute, I’d love suggestions! (Yesterday it took TWO HOURS for me to get from home, drop the 5 year old at camp, and arrive at work. I was an hour late for rehearsal. On the other hand, I got through a fifth of this book.)

What We Ate so far in July (our last weeks of pool dinner!)
Sunday: Wraps and smoothies at the pool.

Monday: Dumplings and endemame at the pool

Tuesday: Quinoa Taco Salad and Misir Wot (Ethiopian red lentils). This was meant to be eaten at the pool, but this was the night it rained, so we at at home. Vegan.

Wednesday: Green frittata and Pillsbury crescent rolls. We had some chard to eat up, but chard is a hard sell for the kids if they can identify it. So we threw it into the blender with the eggs and had green egg frittata. And the kids ate it!

Thursday: Sausage Rolls at the pool. Okay, this was kind of a fail, even though I liked it. Inspired by our time in England, I made sausage rolls – I thought it would make a perfect pool dinner with being portable and filling. Only, I added broccoli to try to get some vegetables in. Everyone said the broccoli was overpowering. Oh well, more for me. Maybe next time I just have the broccoli on the side. (The method is pretty easy – steam broccoli, combine it with raw sausage, fennel seeds, thyme, cheese. Lay out pastry dough (store bought), put sausage/broccoli/cheese filling in a line down the middle. Fold over dough to make sausage roll. Bake at 350 for 20 minutes.)

Friday: Pizza and Glee

Saturday: Take out from our favorite Burmese restaurant. We ordered a lot of food and ate it as leftovers for days. Also watched You’ve Got Mail. I’ve never seen this movie before, can you believe? It was one of my goals this year to watch this movie. What a delightful and charming movie – why don’t they make rom coms like this anymore? Smart, bright, hopeful, and romantic. Like truly romantic. Not just “Let’s shag.” I mean Tom Hanks and Meg Ryan don’t even kiss until the very end of the movie! It managed to be formulaic and surprising all at the same time. And I’ve even seen the musical that it is sort of based on, so I knew what was going to happen.

Sunday: Leftover Burmese food.

Monday: Fried rice (made from the rice that came with the Burmese food) and dumplings. Eaten at home, swim practice was cancelled because of weather.

Tuesday: Vegan Pesto Pasta Salad and smoothies at the pool, for swim meet. (I actually went out for Happy Hour with friends and had a BLT.)

Wednesday: Fried Chicken (from Fryer’s Roadside) and steamed green beans. The kids have been itching for fried chicken, but I don’t love frying chicken at home – the grease is messy. So we had carry out and I supplemented with green beans from home.

Thursday: Sesame noodles at the pool. I should make sesame noodles more – the kids love it, and it’s easy to make ahead of time. I made the dressing in the morning and then just boiled noodles and added the cucumbers and shredded chicken once I was home from camp pick up.

Friday: Swim Team Spaghetti potluck. We brought watermelon. Tis the season.

Saturday: Pizza (carry out) and Pirates of the Caribbean 2. This movie was veeeeery long and featured a lot of creatures with very lumpy skin and dirt-caked skin, and greasy hair. I was entertained, but I can’t say that I enjoyed it much.

Sunday: Gnocchi with either pesto or red sauce. Steamed green beans to go with.

Hope you are having a lovely week of both salt and sweetness!
How is your July going? What do you remember about your college dining hall? What about your college dorm? What’s do you think is the most romantic movie you’ve seen? Do you use GPS all the time, even when you know where you are going?

Weekly Recap + what we ate: school’s out, packing, pre-trip frenzy

Hello from South Africa! I’ve had such an amazing time so far, and look forward to writing trip recaps. Here is a preview of the adventures so far: (Okay, truth, I started this post last week, but then the tour got busy, and I am now at the tail end of our trip… so think of this post as a kind of Time Machine…. Taking you all way back to life before the trip.)

And in the mean time, some other things that have been going on before we left…

The school year finished up, limping to the end. The 13 year old did not go to school the two half days, and the middle kid were a little salty about having to go. But when he got off the bus the first days, he stay excitedly, “I’m so glad I went to school! We watched cartoons all day!”

Last week was mostly taken up by packing, and logistics for the trip and for being away. And the pool.

Sunday morning we had a swim meet. We had to be at the pool by 8:15am and the meet ran until 12:45pm – it was a long long time to be in the hot hot sun. Luckily I wasn’t assigned a job this meet so I could sit in the shade for most of the meet. The 13 year old swam a great meet – she finished 2nd in the IM and 1st in the butterfly. She also swam the freestyle, breaststroke and IM relay. There aren’t a lot of girl in her age group this year on her team, so she ends up swimming a lot during meets. Afterwards we went to get boba to celebrate then we went to run some last minute errands for our trip.

Packing:
I had aspirations of packing carry on only, but the realities of going to a colder climate made that difficult for me. Cold weather clothes just take up so much more room than warm weather clothes. I also ended up putting all of the 13 year old’s clothes in my bag so that she could travel light. Anyhow, because I’m obsessed with other people’s packing lists, here’s what I ended up bringing from clothes:

3 pairs of pants – Navy Uniqlo Airism joggers, Freen Uniqlo sweatpants joggers, and grey Duluth Trading Noga pants. (I didn’t end up bringing the Navy wide legged pants in the picture; even though I love how they are a little more polished of a pant, the reality is that wide legged pants are not great for travel, specifically for various public bathrooms.)

3 Short Sleeve shirts- Pact yellow striped, grey Uniqlo v-neck (they don’t make this shirt anymore and I’m sad – it’s the perfect for me smooth cotton, slightly boxy t-shirt), and Universal Threads loose black t-shirt.
3 long sleeves shirts – Striped Duluth shirt, wine colored Duluth wool blend hooded tunic, blue dolman sleeved shirt (not sure where this is from – I’ve had it forever)

For warm layers: Peanuts sweatshirt from Uniqlo, biege and white striped sweater from Teat and Cosset (a now defunct company that makes elegant nursing clothes – yes, it’s a nursing sweater), and purple fleece from Duluth. Also blue Wool& dress.

Other things: for cold weather – green beanie, wine colored silk/cashmere scarf, purple buff, Uniqlo puffer vest
For sleep/exercise: t-shirt, plaid sleep pants, running shorts, long sleeve running top.

Extra/back up outfit for plane; blue Duluth leggings, t-shirts, plaid Duluth flannel button up

Not pictured: swim suit, 8 pairs of underwear, 1 sports bra, 1 regular bra. 1 pair of running shoes, raincoat.

Not pictured what I wore on the plane: striped linen shirt dress, black leggings, ankle boots, with tank top (w/ built in bra). What to wear on the plane was a little bit of a conundrum because we would have a couple hours trip into London during our layover and it was 80 degrees in London and 60 degrees in Johannesburg, so I wanted to wear something that would be appropriate for both climates. (It turned out to be 70 and cloudy in London, so the outfit was actually perfect, and I wasn’t sweltering.)

other non-clothes things I packed in my checked bag: Binoculars, toiletries, plug adaptor power strip, water color set (kind of my luxury item I always pack on special trips) , travel alarm clock, luggage scale, period supplies, snacks (ramen and hot chocolate), laundry detergent sheets, an extra book, extra ziploc bags, extra caribiners

Now conceivably I could fit all that into my carry-on rolling suitcase, but I ended up also packing the 13 year old’s sweatshirt, raincoat, and fleece and empty day pack in my stuff. And I wanted to have room in case I wanted to bring back souvenirs. So the big suitcase it was. I wish I had a suitcase that was slightly smaller than out big one – there is a lot of empty space currently, and it’s not easy to get up and down stairs by myself. Oh well.

And for posterity, in my backpack which I carried on: Snacks, toothbrush, tooth paste, wipes, advil, electronics (cables, charges, iFly, power bank), journal, planner, book to read, red flashlight (for use in the dark), iPad, change of clothes (listed above), slippers (which I actually accidentally left on the plane), water bottle, travel mug.

I’ve started keeping a packing list with Google Sheets, and I just copy the previous list into a new tab for the current trip and build off of that. I thought it was useful because I copied the list from Amersterdam because that weather was more similar to South Africa than Taiwan/ Malaysia.

I’ll give a packing post-Mortem after the trip, mostly because I like to make notes for next time on what worked and what didn’t. I’ll report back afterwards on how it all shook out.

Grateful for:

-Tickets to the opera. A friend got us tickets to a production of the Marriage of Figaro and I took the 13 year old. This is one of my favorite opera but I rarely get a chance to see it since I’m often working on it. This production was directed by someone I’ve known for twenty years- she was an assistant director on my very first opera internship. And now she runs her own opera company. It was awesome to see her show.

-Patio umbrella. I ‘m trying to embrace morning patio time this summer, but our patio gets full blazing sun in the morning, so I’m very grateful for our patio umbrella.

-my mother. She’s come to hang out with the two younger kids while I’m in South Africa a with the oldest.

-the pool. Because in ninety degree weather going to the pool is blissfully refreshing

-invitation to help celebrate a friend’s birthday, and the nice people I met there. I’m always a little nervous going to parties where I don’t know anyone, but this is a dear friend and the littles like to see her, so we went out to her birthday party and it was a perfect low key gathering with people who had good stories to tell. One lady brought her dog and when we walked in the door, she said to us, “Two things you need to know about Mazy – Number One: she lies. She might act like she’s hungry but she isn’t. Number two: I don’t’t beat her so don’t fall for her sad dog eyes.” It was a perfect way to break the ice.

-Getting to go on this trip to South Africa!

Looking forward to (The SA edition)

-being in a new continent, where it is winter

-learning about South African history.

-safari and bush walk

-trips into London during our layovers

-spending time with the 13 year old

What we ate (the last week of school/week before travel edition):

Monday: Dump,inns and endamame. This has become of the favorite pool dinners

Tuesday: above mentioned birthday party – our friend had a sandwich bar. I brought mini Brie and apple quiches, that weee easy to make and really tasty. And also garlic endamame. We are eating a lot of endamame these days.

Wednesday: Fish tacos- we are out after getting haircuts and before going to the opera

Thursday: snack dinner at the pool and pasta with jarred red sauce at home for those who wer still hungry after swim practice.

Friday: pizza and Glee- the Husband made pizza.

Saturday: we went out to eat at our favorite Mexican restaurant; I had ceviche

Sunday: burgers and tater tots and green beans. The Hsuband cooked

Monday: Terriyaki tofu and broccoli, brown rice on the side. This is the recipe for tofu from America’s Test Kitchen Vegan for Everyone cookbook. It is easy and very tasty.

Hope you have a good rest of you week! See you State side for some trip recaps. Tell me what “luxury” item you always pack!

(bi) Weekly recap + what we ate: Life update. Five things, five categories

Lots of things going on these days. Here is a long rambling brain dump of a post, to catch up on life in my neck of the woods.

The end of the school year is in sight. Last Friday was originally supposed to be the last day of school, but the school year was extended by two half days to make up for all the snow days that we had. The 13 year old was already signed up for basketball camp this coming week, so I gave her the option of 1) going to camp after her half days of school, or 2) skipping the last two days of school and going to camp. She chose option 2. So last week, she cleaned out her locker (and her backpack, and actually her room too!), and now she is done with seventh grade.

Middle school is so funny – I feel like the first year is about getting used to not being in elementary school. Then you have 7th grade where you get into a rhythm of things. But then 8th grade you are preparing to leave – the fall of 8th grade is when students here apply/choose high schools. In our area of the county, there is a consortium of five high school, each with different specialties and programs. Every student gets into their home school, but they can apply to get into any of the other four schools as well – some require applications and some are lottery. The high schools all have open houses in October and the school choice forms need to be in by November 1st. It all sounds very stressful. The 13 year old current first choice is our home school, so this might be an easy process. But I think we’ll go to all the open houses anyway, just to be informed. I know high school is two years away, but having to go through the process of school choice in a four months makes it all seem really soon. Time. Time. Time. Flying.

Last week was the 5 year old’s graduation from pre-K. They had a cute little ceremony – children processed, songs were sung. Each child got to say what they wanted to be when they grew up. Our five year old said she wanted to be a doctor. There was balloons and cakes and good friends. She still is enrolled in day care for two more weeks, so it all felt a little anticlimactic. In fact, driving in the car a few days before the graduation, she said, rather excitedly, “I only have two more days of school left!”
“Honey,” I said, “you do know you still have to go to school after graduation, right?”
“Oh.”
I felt bad bursting her bubble.

The eight year old will go to those two half days/ make up for snow days and then he’ll be off. He’s a little salty about the fact that he still has to go to school, but oh well. Ironically, his school was cancelled last Friday because the air conditioning was broken at his school. After he graduates, we’ll have our traditional ice cream and school year recap outing.

Other things in life: An unexpected car wait. I had to take the van in for a small fix. I was originally told that it would take an hour, so I decided to wait. Friends, it took four hours. I’m glad I brought my book and my portable keyboard with me so that I had something to occupy me. Eventually, I got tired of sitting in the waiting room, despite the unlimited cheap hot chocolate. I had finished my book, written a blog post, and my phone was running out of battery. So I took myself out for a walk. The car dealership is not in a particularly picturesque part of town, but by that point in the afternoon, anything was going to be better than the waiting room. I wandered to a plaza next door. I stopped at Giant for some snacks, contemplated getting a hair cut (but the next appointment was in an hour and I really hoped I would be on my way by then.) And then I discovered a board game store. I wandered in and browsed their selection of games and after a while, I asked the guy behind the counter for recommendations for a game I could play with my kids, ages 13- 5, one of whom couldn’t read yet, and without lots of tiny pieces. I came away with two games:

We played the Happy Salmon game a few days later, and let me tell you, if you are looking for a gentle quiet game, this is not it. It is a loud, hilariously raucous, energetic, fast paced game. We laughed so very hard. Definitely a welcome addition to our game collection.

I haven’t opened Dixit yet, but it looks beautiful too.

All in all, it was irksome to be stuck at the car dealership, but I think I made the best of the time.

But speaking of which – I did go back a week later to that hair place that I had seen and finally got a hair cut:

Just in time for summer heat, back to having short hair!

Contra-dancing – We went contra dancing as a family last week. That was lots of fun. The band was super hot. The kids all danced. The two littles like to dance as one person, which sometimes makes it confusing, but everyone was super forgiving and helped push them in the direction they needed to go. A super sweet thing – the three kids waltzed together at the end of the dance. I love how for the last waltz, this band will come down off the stage and play from the middle of the dance floor. It’s all kind of magical.

Two new culinary adventures: Chocolate orange cake. It was really pretty. I made two because we had the ingredients for two. I thought I would give one away, but I didn’t. We just ate both cakes ourselves. Is there anything more lovely than having a cake on the counter?

Tanghulu – candy coated fruit, very popular in the Taiwanese night markets. The 13 year old has wanted to try to make this ever since she tried it in Taiwan. Basically it involves melting sugar with water and cooking it down until it is “hard crack” temperature – meaning the sugar/water hardens when cooled. The process sounds simple, but getting the timing right is kind of tricky. Still, we were pretty successful for our first attempt:

A Day Playing hooky – I had a day where I didn’t have to be into work, so I met up with a friend and we ran errands, picked up Chipotle and the went back to her house and watched Bridgerton. We don’t have Netflix, so I’ve never seen Bridgerton. I do like the books – well except the last two books, I thought those were not as good as the first six books – so I’ve been so curious about the tv series. We watched two episodes, ate popcorn and had a lovely mid-week relaxing day.

This past weekend was Father’s Day. It wasn’t the most exciting of Father’s Day. I feel kind of bad about that – the 13 year old had a swim meet on Sunday, so we were out of the house by 7:45 am to make it to the meet. (Next week’s meet is 30 minutes away, so we’ll have to be up and out of the house even earlier than that… I’m not looking forward to that one…) The Husband took the 5 year old to Agility Class and then ran errands with the kids. I came home, we had lunch and then I took the 13 year old to basketball workout. We did spend the evening with friends who grilled for us, but then I had to leave to take a meeting for union stuff. It wasn’t a very celebratory Father’s Day, I’m afraid. I’ll have to do better next time.

Five things that are currently working in life:

Patio Time – Summer porch time is a beautiful concept. Only I don’t have a porch. But I do have a back patio, so I’ve been having a bit of summer patio time in the mornings. Just 15 minutes of me with my book and a beverage in the morning, enjoying the air and sunlight. Our patio is east facing, so it has started to get hot. Thank goodness for our patio umbrella.

Playaways – Playaways are little tablets you can check out from the library that are pre-loaded with educational games. A few weeks ago, I borrowed a few from the library for the 8 and 5 year olds. Promising them Playaway time has been a great bribe/ incentive with them, since they generally don’t get a lot of tablet time. I like that the Playaways aren’t connected to the internet so I don’t have to worry about my kids going online and ordering $4000 worth of dum dums or anything like that. Currently in the morning, if they get all their stuff done, they can have Playaway time, and it’s been working pretty well.

Daily yoga– I’ve been able to doing at least 10 minutes of yoga every day this year so far, except for one day when we were travelling back from Malaysia. What’s been working for me to do this:
1) Charlie Follows yoga videos – I like that her videos are anywhere from 10 minutes to 45 minutes so I can choose what fits into my day. I like that there is no intention setting or chanting or too much cheerleading going on – just straight forward yoga routines with options to make it easier or more challenging, without judgement. I like that there is no music. The other yoga resources I like to use for practices are Down Dog Yoga (I also like that it’s no frills), Rise and Shine Yoga Flows by MoveWith on Audible (I like that it’s an audio only option), and Sara Beth Yoga (has lots of ten minute videos, but she is a little affirmation heavy for my tastes, TBH).
2) I usually do the yoga in the morning. I feel like it’s less mental energy just to know that I’ll do it in the morning.
3) if I don’t get to it in the morning, I write “YOGA” on my hand to remind me to find another time to do it. Usually I will do an evening routine before going to bed. Once in a while, if it’s quiet at work, I will roll out a mat in my office and do 10 minutes there.

Swim bags for each kid – Up til now, I’ve always hauled all the stuff to the pool for me and the two younger kids. The 13 year old has always carried her own stuff. This summer, I got each child their own swim bag. No more having to carry my stuff, the little kids’ stuff, and dinner to the pool myself. No more having to be responsible for goggles and towels and kickboards. It’s the kids’ responsibility to make sure their bags are properly packed. Not to say I don’t still remind them constantly. Wow going to the pool feels much lighter now.

Half a Duvet. The Husband sleeps hot. I like to sleep bundled and buried under loads of covers: this had led to a bit of a duvet conflict. We’ve been looking into getting separate duvets- when we were in Amsterdam two years ago, we noticed that all the duvets were individual sized, even on the bigger beds. I thought this might be a good solution to the duvet conflict so I’ve been trying to find “European Twin” duvets. But then the other day, I had an inspiration. Just fold the existing duvet in half! Brilliant. The Husband doesn’t have to wrestle with the duvet and I get double thickness of duvet to snuggle into!

Five consuming things (that I’m consuming or that are consuming me):

–Dill Pickle Hot Cheetos – OMG three things I love: Cheetos, dill pickle flavoured things, and spicy things. I may have polished off one bag in one sitting. I did have some help. And then I went to the store and bought two more bags. I feel a low level panic that this is a one time food item. That thought makes me sad.

–Root Beer Float Cookies – I found these at Trader Joe’s. They are vanilla creme sandwich cookie bits, covered in pop rocks and root beer flavored coating. These also might have been eaten in a single sitting:

I only have a picture of the empty bag because they were eaten so quickly

–Gilded Age, Season Two – Just started the second season of Gilded Age and devoured the first few episodes – what a deliciously soap opera of a show.

–Swim season. We’re at the pool three hours a day, four or five days a week. The little kids do preteam at 5:00pm-5:30pm, and the oldest helps out on preteam. Then the oldest’s swim practice is from 6:15p-7:30pm. So we eat dinner at the pool, sometimes shower at the pool, then go home and go to bed. I spend a lot of time thinking about what we are going to eat, what time to pick up kids, when they are going to change … the logistics is consuming. At least we are lucky that we have evening practice and not morning practice as a lot of other pools do. In fact I’m writing some of this post while waiting for swim meet to start.

– South Africa – Preparing for the trip to South Africa is consuming me too. Packing! It is winter in South Africa, but here in Dc it’s summer and 90 degrees, which makes it very difficult to think about what 50 degree weather Diane will want to wear. Also binoculars- what kind to get that are compact but also not the most expensive? My time has been taken up by waaaay too much googling. I’ve been listening to podcasts about travel and packing tips. This trip has definitely been consuming me mentally.

Speaking of which…

Five things I’m stressing about for my trip:

Bras – I have somehow convinced myself that I need a new bra for the trip because I probably won’t have access to laundry. But you know, at home I wear the same bra all week and maybe, maybe wash it every other week. (sorry, probably TMI there…) So why, on the eve of a trip, have I decided that while on vacation I’m going to take to washing my bras more than I normally would?? I’ve been on the hunt for the perfect travel bra – thinking of bras for travel has taken up a lot more of my brain space that I would like to admit. Maybe the perfect bra for “international flight/ sightseeing” thing doesn’t exist. I don’t have any perfect bras – maybe I’m using this as an excuse to buy more?

Shoes – How many shoes do I need to pack? Do want to pack my ankle boots? Normally, I would wear my ankle boots on the plane because they are the heaviest item, but we will have a layover excursion in London where it will be hot, so wearing the ankle boots isn’t that appealing. Currently I have my slip on sneakers and my water resistant wool runners. Are those too similar? Should I ditch one and pack the ankle boots? Also I’m trying to think of a not Crocs option for a comfy shoe to wear while hanging out at the hotel or the pool (if there is a pool – I’m not sure on that one.) I don’t want to bring my Crocs because they are too bulky, and I don’t have a good pair of sandals. So what is the slim Croc alternative?

eSim card – When we were in Asia, I got an eSim for my phone rather than getting the daily international plan that AT&T offered. The eSim was something like $30 for two weeks while the international plan was $12/day. I could make calls and texts via Whatsapp, and use data when I had to look something up, and that seemed to be all I needed. Anyhow, I need to look into whether I should do the same thing for South Africa. The bummer thing, though, is that the 13 year old’s phone is a Bark Phone and I can’t put an eSim on it, I don’t think. So she’ll just have to use wifi when she can, I guess? And I’ll try not to lose her.

Hotel housing – I didn’t realize that I had to put in a special request for the 13 year old and I to room together. I guess I had kind of assumed that they would put family members together. But that isn’t the default and right now we are not assigned to share a room. Wump wump. I need to call the tour company and see if anything can be done. If not, I’m sure we’ll survive and make new friends.

Currency – I want to get some Rand before the trip, but I’m not sure how to go about this. Also I’m kind of obsessed with thinking about if I need a money belt to carry all that money around?

And it’s more than five, but so many other things stressing me out– I need to find the travel chargers, I have to remember to pay for activities and the cleaners because those payments will be due before I get back, I have to photocopy my and the 13 year old’s IDs to our trip leader, I have to download the tour company app… So many little things that need to be done. I just have to work my way down the list one thing at a time…

Five things I’m Grateful for:

-I got my period this week and I won’t have to deal with that while in South Africa. I won’t say there’s zero percent chance that I’ll have to deal with my period – I’ll still bring supplies – but there’s a pretty good chance that I won’t have to try to figure out how to buy period products in a foreign country. (Though I have to say the pads we found in Taiwan were AMAZING!).

-vanilla ice cream topped with peanut butter. This is a delicious way to use up the last dregs of peanut butter in the container – drop a few scoops of vanilla ice cream in the jar and eat.

-Parents who coach youth sports and parents who organize swim meets. The 8 year old had his last soccer game, and I have to say his coach deserves HUGE kudos. It can’t be easy to wrangle ten 8-9 year old boys, but he has such patience with them. And with other parents. And on that note – organizing a swim meet is a lot of work, and the parents at our pool do it once a week for six weeks during the summer. I’m so grateful for the time and effort they give so my kids can have a great experience.

-Bluetooth in the car. My last car did not have Bluetooth so I listened to the radio a lot. I still love the radio, but I also love getting in the car and being able to finish my audiobook.

-These little plastic cups. Last winter, our tour guide in Taiwan, a lovely gentleman named Hoya, gave use these plastic cups with lids as tour swag – they all have his contact information on them. When we first got them, I groaned inwardly about having to bring more plastic home, but I was wrong. I’ve gotten so much use out of these little cups. These days, I use them to bring smoothies to the pool with us. I love that the lids fit tightly and the little loop makes them easy to carry.

-Bonus gratitude – I’m grateful that the 13 year old now takes the initiative to write thank you notes to her teacher on her own. I caught her writing these during a quiet moment at the swim meet:

5 Things I’m Looking forward to:
-Trip to Longwood Gardens – I think we are going to try to squeeze in a trip before the 13 year old and I leave for South Africa. It’s always so pretty there in the summer. (And in the fall. And in the winter. And in the Spring…)

-Eating more watermelon. It’s watermelon season!

-Half days this week. I was originally going to work a gig next week, but due to a miscommunication, the company went in another direction in terms of staffing. Which is fine with me. Despite needing the income, the thought of the job was giving me some minor anxiety because I’d never worked for the company before and it was an international summit, and I don’t like doing new things. (There is a reason I’ve been working for the same opera company for twenty years.) Anyhow, the last two days of school are next week and they are half days. I’m looking forward to having a few hours of mornings free to be able to run errands and then half days to spend with the kids.

-South Africa! South Africa! South Africa! Counting down the days!

-Reading this book:

It’s about two elderly women in Cape Town, one Black and one white who are bitterly feuding neighbors. I picked up a paperback copy from Barnes and Nobles this week -I like having a physical book to read on the plane. Also – thank you to folks who gave recommendations for books for my trip! I’m loaded up my Libby with books to read once I finish the Woman Next Door.

What we ate : Two weeks worth of meals here – most of it pool dinners.

Monday: Braised White Bean with Greens and Parmesan from NY Times Cooking- Something fast, and I needed up use up some chard in the fridge. This was essentially a soup. It was tasty.

Tuesday: Quesadillas – black bean and corn.

Wednesday: Dumplings (eaten at the pool – I pan fry them and put them in a thermos.) Cut up veggies and fruit, and pop corn.

Thursday: Snack dinner – sausage (in a bun), edamame, cucumbers, carrots, red peppers, popcorn, fruit smoothies. Dinner at the pool.

Friday: Pizza (the Husband made it) and Glee. We usually watch an hour of a tv show on Friday nights during swim season because we get home from the pool too late for a full movie. I do also pack a lot of snacks for the pool so the kids don’t get hungry before we get home.

Saturday: Chinese Takeout and Invictus – this 2009 movie tells the story about how Nelson Mandela used rugby to help the people in post-Apartheid South Africa find common ground. Quiet and elegant and all the expected sentimentality of a good sports movie. I really liked it. It was also an interesting movie to watch during our current political climate. I had wanted to watch it in anticipation of our trip.

Sunday: leftovers. We had a lot of leftover Chinese food, so I reheated that for dinner.

Monday: “Baked” Ziti from Dinner Illustrated. This is a genius recipe because the pasta is cooked right in the sauce, saving a step. I was also really excited because this recipe allowed me to use up some kale that was languishing.

Tuesday: Dumplings and edamame and smoothies. Eaten at the pool.

Wednesday: Pesto Pasta Salad – tortellini, cucumbers, cherry tomatoes, fresh mozzarella, cannellini beans. Not the meal I had planned, but a pretty simple one to throw together with stuff from our pantry. Eaten at the pool before swim meet.

Thursday: Japanese style Tuna Noodle Salad from NY Times Cooking. This was a light noodle salad. I didn’t love the tuna – I probably would make this with tofu or chicken. But the dressing was tasty. Eaten at home – we didn’t make it to the pre-team practice this day because of preschool graduation.

Friday: Pizza (take out) and Glee.

Saturday: Dinner out to celebrate graduation and Father’s Day. The family had burgers. I had the butter chicken.

Sunday: Grilling at our friend’s house. It was the usual burgers, brats, and dogs along with the smoked pork that our friend likes to make. I might have also eaten way to many chips. My friend introduced me to the idea of mixing sour cream (or Greek yogurt) into the salsa for a creamy dip.

Oh my, well that’s a lot of ink spilled for one post, but that’s life lately. Hope you have a lovely week ahead. I’ll be finalizing details for my trip and helping a friend celebrate her birthday. What are you up to this week?
Anything currently working really well for you in life? Have you ever played Happy Salmon or Dixit? What’s your favorite dip to eat with chips? Favorite ice cream topping? What things are you consuming lately? What is consuming you?

Weekly recap + what we ate: Good bye, May. Hello, June!

Last week was a very Maycember week. The 13 year old’s swim team practice started, though it was really cold and rainy and she ended up only going to one practice. I had an unusually full week of work as the opera season wound down – I worked on a workshop of a piece we’re doing next Spring; we’re commissioning a new book and new arrangements. The workshop was a very fly by the seat of my pants affair – the first day I climbed the equivilent of 20 flights of stairs as I ran around making things were happening that needed ot happen – in the end, though, it was fun to see as new show all come together. We also had feedback and post mortem sessions at work where we talked about how things went on the last show. I really appreciate how everyone spoke frankly and with open minds. I had lunch with my dad one day, which was nice because my parents often want to come help out when the Husband has to essentially solo parent during my busy times at work so when they are here, I don’t get much one on one time with them because I’m always at work. I’m glad my dad and I made time to have lunch.

Friday night was the piano recital for both the 8 year old and the 13 year old. I had to work on Friday – we did end of season feedback sessions – and barely made it to the recital in time. This is probably the last year that the 13 year old will play in the younger kids’ recital, which means two recitals for us from here on out- one for the oldest and one for the middle kid.

Saturday was First Communion for the 8 year old. When the oldest had first communion it was during COVID, and the church was much less crowded than this time. I was not prepared for the sheer mass of humanity that filled the church on Saturday morning. Because our church has such an international congregation, the readings were done in English (the Husband did the first reading!), French, and Spanish. (I said to the Husband that we should have sent the 8 year old to French religious ed classes!). But the other fun thing was the pageant of international fashion on display – saris and dashikis and caftans in bright and bold hues. Hats and high heels. People really brought it, and I loved seeing it all.

After the service, we went home, had a quick family meeting, and then went out to lunch. I was then anticipating a lazy afternoon at home, but the weather had other issues. There was a tornado warning in our area and a whole lot of rain in a very short amount of time. Mid afternoon, my father texted that there was water in his basement unit. The husband and I grabbed armfuls of towels and headed over to my father’s house where we spent the next hour and a half cleaning up water. Not originally on my Bingo card for the day, but what can you do?

Once we got everything cleaned up, we raced to pick up pizza and went home to throw towels into the laundry and then change into nice clothes because the Husband, the 13 year old and I had tickets to the opera that night. My father was going to stay home with the two little kids for pizza and movie night. It was a mad rush to get to the theatre and we actually missed the first ten minutes or so of the show. Funny story, though, I got to the theatre and realized that I didn’t have my glasses with me; I was wearing my sunglasses! I found out later that the glasses were in the sunglass case and had fallen out of my purse during the mad water/pizza/clean up episode. Well, I guess my options were to take my sunglasses off and watch the opera in a blur – I told the Husband that after all, isn’t opera about the music? – or wear the sunglasses for the show. I chose the latter and the opera had a lovely sepia tinged quality to it.

Sunday was the usual mix of activities – Agility class and then skating. This Sunday, however, we also had the 13 year old’s voice recital right after skating. It was one of those days where everyone just piles in the van and gets to go to each other’s activities.

While the little kids skated, the 13 year old and the Husband and I had a lovely little walk on the trail next to the rink. I am becoming acutely aware that our time with the oldest is growing shorter and shorter. She was an only child for the first five years of her life and I think we all miss the days when it was just the three of us. Rose coloured glasses and all that, but there was something really sweet and fun about those times. I love our family unit of five, yet at the same time, anytime we can have moments of what we like to call “the original” family, it feels really special.

The voice recital was lovely – I like how her voice teacher frames it as just another chance to practice. We practice technique and we also practice singing in front of people. After the recital we went to an early dinner at a Mediterranean/kabob place. It was super tasty – I got the Mediterranean platter which had salad, grape leaves, falafel, hummus, and white bean salad. Then we went home and finally felt like we could rest. Well, first there were baths and Bluey and then bedtime for the kids. While I took care of that, the Husband drove my father to the airport as he was headed home. He had been staying here in Maryland since the beginning of May and it was so nice to have him in the fabric of our lives.

Anyhow, we’re now into a new month! June! That interstitial time between the end of a school year and the beginning of the next one. Reflecting on the month that was…

May highlights:
-My parent’s visit
-Lots of social plans – Happy Hours, lunches, walks, BBQs. I feel like after 6 intense weeks of work, I finally emerged and started to re=form ties with people.
-Phone chat with my friend A. who is currently living abroad.
-Closing my show.
-The end of opera season.
-Some good feedback and post-mortem sessions at work. Some new ideas for improvement that I’m looking forward to implementing.
-At work, a workshop for an opera we’re doing next season. I very rarely get to see a work at this ground level of development and it’s kind of exciting, but also a lot of work.
-Going to the opera with the Husband and 13 year old.
-Hiking with the family on Memorial Day weekend.
-A new pope! And he’s American!
-Local street fair with the kids – it was overwhelming at first, but then settled into a wonderful afternoon.
-Started to watch the new season of Pokerface with the Husband.
-Watching the 13 year old in her middle school musical.
-The 5 year old got baptized and the 8 year old had his first communion.
– Being home in the evenings.
-Piano recitals. Voice recitals.
-Reading lots of books. None of them particularly spectacular, but all very entertaining.
-The weather turning towards spring/summer
-Continuing my yoga streak – I’ve only missed one day so far this year, and it was a day I was travelling.
-Went to the dentist for my cleaning.

May lowlights:
-The ongoing situation of uncertainty and anxiety at work and in Washington DC in general. I know this is on the list every month this year so far, but I’m afraid the month it doesn’t make the list is the month that I delude myself into thinking this is a kind and inclusive way to go about things.
-Sometimes parenting is HARD. I never know what the right thing to say is. I worry about how my kids will navigate life if I don’t get things right. (I mean, I know that nothing is going to 100% be my fault, but it’s a hard message to internalize.)
-Water in the basement at my parents’ house. Ugh. What a mess. We’re going to do some work in the yard to fix the drainage.
-The Maycember frenzy. All the good and fun things I listed under “highlights” were indeed highlights. But having them all packed into one month was exhausting.

Looking Forward To, the June Edition:
-The 5 year old’s preschool moving up ceremony. She’ll be off to kindergarten.
-South Africa! It’s really happening. I’m super excited. We also just found out that we’ll have lengthy layovers in London Heathrow, so our tour company has given us permission to go into London for a few hours. It’s like having a bonus trip!
-Evenings at the pool. I’ve decided that I’m going to swim laps while the little kids are in pre-team. I haven’t been running lately; due to my own inertia, I find it hard to motivate myself to run when my day is not broken up into blocks the way it is when I am in rehearsals. So swimming while the kids are in pre- team hands me a block of time to fill.
-The end of the school year. I took a gig on the actual last day of school for the two older kids and then I’ll be in South Africa for the 5 year old’s last day of preschool. I’m trying to not be too sad about not being there for thee milestones. I have to remind myself that it’s just a blip in the life of my kids and they probably won’t remember that I wasn’t there this one year. They’ll remember if I’m never there for these things. Show up when you can, I guess.
-Wrapping up at work – archiving, tying up some loose ends.
-A bonus day with the kids – they are off school. I’m a little irked that there is.a day off of school less than two weeks before school ends, but actually, it’s Eid. The 13 year old wants to make tanghulu – a candy coated fruit that is very popular at Taiwanese night markets. Wish us luck!

Grateful for:
-That the 5 year old likes to take her medicine. I mentioned last week that the 5 year old had a swollen eye and the doctor put her on antibiotics. Maybe it was the Kit Kats we used as a bribe, but the 5 year old was so eager to take her medicine. She was constantly reminding us that it was medicine time, bringing it to us, asking how many doses she had to take. Then she developed a technique to swallow the medicine while tasting it as little as possible. It was all so easy. The two older kids would regularly refuse and then vomit up their medicine, so this was a nice change of pace.

-The rain. Yes, it did flood the basement, but it also took all the humidity out of the air, leaving some beautifully clear and bracingly crisp mornings.

-The wet dry vac. Speaking of the rain. So glad we had this to clean up the water.

-Wifi at work. The first time I ever did a new opera workshop was in 2012 and we did not have wifi at work. Furthermore, because we work for a quasi federal institution, they did not permit flash drives on work computers. There was one computer in our whole rehearsal studio that you could stick a flash drive into if you wanted to print new material from the composer. All this to say, when you’re working on a new piece and the composer or librettist says, “I have new pages. How can we print the for the cast?” – it is so much easier to do this now that the creatives can hop on wifi and email the new pages to me to print.

-Rain coat, rain boots, and umbrellas.

-My father. I’m sure he could always pull the “I’m 80 years old” card and opt out of playing with my kids or walking the mile from his house to ours every day or cleaning up the water in his basement. But he does all that and more with a cheerful disposition.

-Key lime pie. Because it is delicious.

-These sparkly sneakers. They make the 13 year old so happy and they go with everything. She wore them with her fancy recital dresses and also with her denim shorts. And she made up a song about them, singing, “I love my beautiful bedazzled shoes,” over and over again.

What we ate – I think the Husband cooked all the meals last week because I didn’t get home until past dinner time all last week.

Tuesday: Taco Tuesday. Ground beef tacos

Wednesday: Tortellini and red sauce.

Thursday: Bahn mi sandwiches from our favorite Vietnamese take out place. These are seriously so delicious and simple.

Friday: Sandwiches (PB& J, Ham, Turkey) and leftovers after the piano recital. It was nearly 8pm when we got home from the piano recital, so we just threw together the easiest of easy here.

Saturday: pizza (take out) and Frozen II. It was supposed to by my father’s turn to choose the movie, and given that last time it was his movie night he chose Chariots of Fire, I would hazard a guess that someone changed their mind about what movie would be fun for an 8 year old and a 5 year old to watch.

Sunday: Mama’s kabobs – we went out to eat after the voice recital. The food was delicious.

Hope you have a lovely weekend. What do you have going on? We have a soccer game, and then the usual agility class for the 5 year old. Is there skating? I can’t remember… And I imagine we’ll go to mass in there at some point. In between things I want to sit down and write a packing list with the 13 year old for South Africa.

Do you remember life before wifi? Is there anything sparkly in your closet? How was your May? What does June look like?

Weekly recap + what we ate: Memorial Day weekend and reconsidering evenings

Even though it was a long weekend. I still had to work on Saturday and Monday I had a shop call for our union. So it didn’t feel like a long weekend. But it was the first Sunday in ages when no one had any activities, so I declared I wanted to go on a hike. I haven’t been on a proper hike in such a long time – I don’t think I’ve been on one yet this year. We wanted to just go for half a day, so I picked a new to us location that was about 45 minutes away – Gambrill State Park. I thought it was a perfectly pleasant hike – the weather was nice and cool, and the hike had some pretty steep parts to keep it interesting. (The Husband at one point said, “I have one work for you – switchbacks. Clearly this hiking path was made by young men with good knees.”). There was a nice little view of the city below at the end. I think it was a 3 mile loop which we did in about 2.5 hours.

At the parking lot, there was a little nature/history center. It had a couple small exhibits on the wildlife in the area and then also a room dedicated to the Civilian Conservation Corps which built the park as part of the New Deal. I was super fascinated by this menu that was on display.

I have so many thoughts: First of all – the three meals are Breakfast, Dinner, and Supper. Where’s lunch? I’m guessing Dinner is the midday meal? (I’ve never really used the term “supper”.) Though it looks like dinner is the large meal on the weekends. On the weekdays, it’s sandwiches. Secondly – it’s a lot of meat. The vegetable pickings are… slim – buttered beets? And the only fruit I see are oranges, stewed apricots, and prunes. Thirdly – I’m glad they got ice cream. Fourthly – what’s a “cheese salad” sandwich?

Speaking of food – this whole trip I had been promising the kids that we could have ice cream if they came on the hike – yes, my kids need to be bribed to go hiking with their parents. The 13 year old said, “I don’t want ice cream. I want boba.” To which I said, “I don’t think there will be boba where we are going.”

Well, lo and behold, when we got to the vista point, there were two young men hanging out with boba drinks. I gave the 13 year old a nudge and she went up to them and said, “Excuse me, where did you get your boba?”

Well, I was wrong – there was a boba place about 15-20 minutes from the park.

After the hike, we went to late lunch at a nearby diner, where the portions were huge and delicious and then we went to get boba. The Boba place was in the back of a family owned Filipino grocery store.

Oolong tea, lychee jelly and boba. My usual. The boba was a little too soft for my tastes.

The boba place was in the same plaza as a furniture store. The Husband and I have a weakness for furniture stores. There’s something really fun about going and looking at furniture for us – I don’t know what it is – we like sitting in chairs, opening and closing drawers, looking at side tables. I think furniture is fun and full of possibilities. A lot of furniture in furniture stores, though, we find is too big for our space so we don’t often buy anything. At any rate, there was a Memorial Day sale going on and we ended up buying two chairs. One for the Husband to sit and read in the sun room and one swivel chair that’s big enough for two people that is going to be super cozy for reading together. Not sure if that will go in the kids’ bedroom or in the living room yet. I also found this super cute swivel chair that I was really tempted to get for the 13 year old’s room, except it’s white and a white chair in a teenager’s room seems… unwise.

Anyhow, that was our big Memorial Day adventure. On Monday I took the little kids to the park while the Husband gardened. Then I had a meeting for union stuff, and then I headed over to a friends’ house to eat lots of meat. Out friend had a smoker and he made pulled pork, brisket, and ribs. It was all delicious.

Evenings: I’ve been pondering evenings. It’s another quirk of “reentry” after closing a show that suddenly I get my evenings back. Now that I’m not at the theatre every night, a whole new time slot has opened up in my life. There was one day last week, when the kids were home from school by 4:30pm, and I didn’t have to start dinner until 5:00pm, and I sat in the living room and read while the kids did… I’m not sure, but it didn’t involve me. And it felt horribly indulgent. But then I thought, “What if this is just what life is like?” I’m sure there was something on my to do list that I could have done – my desk, for example, needs a going through, there are bills to be paid (and a traffic ticket) – but none of that felt urgent. The time between coming home from the bus and then starting dinner – surely it isn’t a time of leisure, is it? It feels like there should be million things to do upon returning to the house in the evening.

Another night last week, the Husband took the 8 year old to soccer practice and I was home with the other two kids. “What shall we do?” I asked. And how silly it felt to be asking, “What shall we do?” at 7pm in the evening. Shouldn’t we be at the point in the evening where we stop doing things? Anyhow, the 5 year old’s response was, “Can we bake something?” So I made a lemon buttermilk cake. It was delicious. Here are some other things we have done with our evenings, post dinner clean up:
-played card games. (Currently I love playing Skyjo – it’s a numbers game, which is nice because it doesn’t require deftness with the English language or being able to read, meaning that both my father and the 5 year old can play.)
-Watched New Girl with the 13 year old and howled with laughter.
-Read a book while listening to the kids practice piano.
-Read a book while the kids played together. One night, the 13 year old decided she wanted to stage “Dear Theodosia” from Hamilton with her little siblings. It involved stuffed animals and chairs put together to make a crib.
-Walk around the block.

It used to be the late afternoons/evenings were a slow crawl towards bedtime, but it doesn’t feel like that anymore. The kids are old enough that they don’t require constant vigilance. They usually even help clean up. There are kid activities, and even then, with both parents at home, we can take turns driving. And we don’t need to participate in the activities; we can just drop off. And then go run errands or read or take a walk or write. I hate to say it, but kids activities have sometimes been lovely pockets of alone time for me.

The other thing for me is that 7:00pm is a little bit of a mind shift. When I’m at work, 7pm is the start of the last rehearsal of the day. At 7pm, there are three and a half more hours of work in front of me before I can clock out. 7pm is the most hectic time off the day at work because we have chorus and dancers and principals and supers showing up for rehearsal all at once and it’s a mad frenzy to check all the sign in sheets and make sure were are ready to start rehearsal. But when I’m not working, 7pm feels like the end of the day – the dishes are all done (hopefully), the floors are swept, and there is just one little sliver of time left before the kids can go to bed. Before the kids need to go to bed and we can, as the Husband says, Turn off the taxi cab light. 7pm is wind down time. Okay, baking a cake is not a wind down activity, but there is a certain soothing rhythm to baking that lends itself to a gentle close to the day. And, truth, some nights it takes up upwards of 90 minutes to clean up after dinner, so clearly a leisurely evening is not always the case. This is probably for another post, but I don’t understand how some nights post dinner clean up is 20 minutes and sometimes it just seems to take. so. long.

Which, having said all that, we are about to go into eight weeks of summer swim season, so the evenings will decidedly not be leisurely as there will be practices four nights a week as well as a weekly meet. But I guess that’s it – maybe we are in a season – and I work in an industry – where the routines and rhythms are constantly shifting? So I have to work at being intentional – or intentionally unintentional – about those evening hours. I could putter around the house endlessly, but I could also read a book. I could sit down and pay the bills, or I could scroll. All activities add value to my life, fills buckets – yes, even scrolling in moderation. I think what doesn’t fill my buckets is feeling like I am defaulting to being unintentional with my energy. Maybe I need a list of activities that could be done in 15, 30, 60 minute increments? A couple things I do want to do more is consistent journaling, painting, organize something (bins, papers, files, craft supplies…)

I’ll leave you with this bit of sartorial serendipity….
When you and your kid inadvendently dress all matchy-matchy:

Grateful For:

-The parent in the 5 year old’s class who had the class over to try vegetables from their garden. What a sweet little field trip. Also, the 5 year old ate kale. This is the kid who picks any speck of green out of her food. And then a few days later, she ate salad. On her own. Like filled a bowl with vegetables and lettuce and ate it.

-Our friend for giving us his CSA while he’s on vacation. We ate the salad greens and the fennel. (The fennel I used in a fruit salad). We still have chard and mustard greens left, though…

-our piano and people who play it, filling the house with music.

-summer evenings warm enough and light enough for a post dinner constitutional.

-having the ingredients on hand to impulsively make a cake. And then having the cake on the counter to snack on all week.

This cake definitely tastes better than it looked.

-That one of my bus stop friends whom I no longer get to see anymore because of return to office requirements got off work two hours early and came to the bus stop and I got to see her and chat.

-getting a run in between activities and sudden rain showers.

-It’s mulberry season! There are several mulberry bushes along the paths/trails where I walk and it’s a true joy of summer – picking mulberries off the bushes and eating them – a sweet/tart treat.

-Dogs at the dentist. My dentist has an office dog – a cute chill little beagle that greets patients as they come in. It just brightens my day when I go for my cleaning to see her bright eyes and wagging tail.

-Siblings not fighting:

-Being able to get a same day doctor’s appointment. The 5 year old’s eye was strangely swollen one day, so she couldn’t go to school. But I was able to call the pediatrician and get an appointment for later that day. They couldn’t tell for certain what it was, but put her on antibiotics just in case.

-Getting a bonus afternoon with the 5 year old because she couldn’t go to school. See above. After the doctor’s I took her to the park and we had a lovely afternoon in the sunshine.

Looking Forward To:
-Piano recitals for the 8 year old and the 13 year old. (This has since happened…)

-First Communion for the 8 year old. This falls under the “I’m not Catholic, but I like rituals and gatherings.”

-Voice recital for the 13 year old. Maycember keeps coming.

-going to the opera with the Husband and the 13 year old.

-Seeing this movie:

I don’t go to the movies a lot – it just always seems very expensive to me in terms of time and money. But this movie looks like exactly my catnip, so a friend and I are going to see a weekday matinee.

-Also – You’ve Got Mail is currently on Amazon Prime. It’s been on my “Movies I’ve never seen but really want to watch” list forever. So that’s going to happen too. I actually put it on one night as I was doing the dishes, but it was so adorable that I turned it off and decided I wanted to save it for when I could snuggle on the couch and watch it.

What We Ate:

Monday: Sandwiches and cut up vegetables. Simple supper for an activity filled Monday night.

Tuesday: Taco Tuesday. Chicken mole tacos – this was the mole sauce that I made a huge batch of last month and then froze. It actually tasted better this second time around. I still have one more jar of sauce in the freezer. yum.

Wednesday: Greek Pasta Salad. Vegan. I was looking for a vegan pasta salad and came across this recipe for tofu feta – it’s basically tofu marinated to give it the flavor profile of feta. I thought it was delicious. The family really liked it. The Husband said that once you get over the fact that the “feta” is not, in fact, cheese, it’s really tasty.

Thursday: Breakfast Sandwiches

Friday: Pizza (the Husband made pizza) and The Eternals. It was the 13 year old’s turn to choose the movie and she picked this Marvel movie – the movie was fine, but it was 2.5 hour long, which was longer than I wanted to spend watching flashing flight scenes and bizarre hard to follow plots. But I do think Gemma Chan is divine.

Saturday: My dad took us out to dinner at a nearby Chinese restaurant where we ordered waaaaay too much food, all of it delicious.

Sunday: we didn’t really have dinner because we had a late lunch at a diner with hugmongous portions so no one was hungry come dinner time

Monday: We went over to a friend’s house for Memorial Day cookout. Our friend loves to smoke meat and he had brisket, ribs, and pulled pork. Also mac n cheese, baked beans, and two kinds of pie. We brought fruit salad and an green salad.

Hope you have a lovely weekend!
How long does it take for you to clean up after dinner? On that note – do you call it dinner or supper? Anyone have ideas of what to do with mustard greens? Any movies that you’ve always wanted to see but never have? What would you do with 15 minutes of free time? 20? 30?

Weekly recap + What We Ate: Closing Night and Mother’s Day

Welp, another show closed and in the books. I meant to post this earlier in the week, but I’ve been so exhausted that I haven’t been at my computer. Plus my parents are visiting, which means that we need my desk chair at the dinner table, which means every time I have a minute to sit down and write, it feels really inconvenient because there is no chair at my desk. Well, I got over that road block and am now sitting at the kitchen table to write this little life update.

It’s a little crazy to think that I don’t have another show to work on until October. I didn’t book any work this summer because I would be travelling at a time that overlaps with a contract I usually take. I’m a little sad that I won’t be in the theatre for such a long time, but I’m going to lean into having a great summer home with the family.

I always make a list after every closing of moments that I want to remember forever on a show, and for this show, some were:
– the opening number with a billion light cues to call, which was kind of scary at first, but once I got into a rhythm, it was almost fun. Calling cues is the part of my job that gets all the glory, but for me it’s actually the easiest part of the job – you just have to know where the cues go and be able to follow the music and read the post its and look up once in a while to make sure things are still on track.

-The tenor and the baritone leads doing a silly dance onstage in the number when they are pretending to be teenagers. Nothing more fun than seeing grown men dance with abandon.

-The part at the end of the show where the lead female character sings, “Be here now. Be here now.” It’s such a beautiful phrase of music and some days, when I was really bone tired, I could hear her voice in my head, grounding me and helping me focus.

-The baritone who sings the father in the opening scene – I’ve known him for four or five years now and he’s still quite a young singer, but I think he has the heart of a dad and was just so perfect for the part.

-The bass’s aria set in the Zen Center, when he tells the main character to “Take one step…”. This was a special reunion for me because I first met this singer when he first came to America as a student – he was shy, barely spoke English, and had a voice and a heart as big as a house. And now he has a flourishing career all over the world. I’m always struck in my business by how strong the bonds are that we forge when we are starting out.

-The way the crew opened the walls at the back of the set. Opera can be pretty low tech – most of the time when you see something move in opera, it’s not computers or motors or what not; it’s a bunch of stage hands pushing or pulling. The first time we ran this scenic move, the wall zoomed open at an alarming rate and the lighting designer said, “It’s too fast! Do we really want it this fast?” But the doors needed to open within three bars of music. So I told the crew, “Open gently, then move off quickly.” And they did. And it was magical.

The rest of the week…

Usually after we open a show, I get some of my time back, especially evenings. But this performance schedule had six performances over six eight days, and one additional rehearsal on the night we didn’t have a show. So it has felt a little unrelenting. On my one night off, I went to see the 13 year old’s middle school musical – she was in the ensemble for Once Upon a Mattress. It was a cute show, clearly a lot of work, and everyone performed with so much enthusiasm. It’s fun to know that she had a tech week on the heels of me having my own tech week. After the show, she took me around an introduced me to all her teachers, which was kind of fun – that she still wants people to know who I am…

The rest of the week was errands and catch up and catching my breath. I had dropped so many things by the wayside that I’m slowly trying to pick up the mess and pieces and try to figure out what life is supposed to look like when I’m around.

Mother’s Day – I’m not a huge Mother’s Day person. These are the three things that I always ask for Mother’s Day:
– Get my picture taken with my kids. Doesn’t have to be fancy – just one photo where no one is picking their nose, or crying, or what not, and where I look half way decent.
-Some time outdoors. Either a hike, or a walk, or an activity.
-Some time alone.

The scorecard was decidedly mixed this year. I did sleep in until 7:30pm. At one point, I felt a little hand on my leg and then another little hand thrust a card under my hand. The card was sweet, even though said child had spelled his name wrong. It made me laugh. the 13 year old had used her own money to buy me a bag of M&Ms and a bag of gummy bears. I was torn between thinking it was such a thoughtful gestures and not wanting her to waste her money on candy at CVS. Parenting is full of conflicted emotions.

We had our usual spate of activities in the morning and afternoon. In the morning I took the 5 year old to Agility Classes, and, the sweetest thing, one of the coaches was handing out roses to moms. “Here,” he said to me, “I see you here every week, and I think you deserve a rose.”

My mother’s Day roses living with the 13 year old’s opening night tulips. She also got two bags of Takis for opening night. That’s what she really wanted…

After lunch, and a nap (perhaps that was my alone time?), more activities, and to be fair, the Husband asked if I wanted him to take the kids to skating lessons, but I said I would do it because I knew he wanted time to be in his garden, and he had been solo parenting for the better part of the time for six weeks while I was in rehearsal, so if anything, I figured that he deserved the alone time. Funny story – when the kids were little, they used to call the Husband “MommyDaddy”, I think this might have been because I was often out in the evenings. So I now joke that Mother’s Day should also be for the MommyDaddy as well.

But I got to skate while the kids were in lessons, so that was like alone time. After skating the kids wanted to play outside so I took the to the nature center. I read my book while they made me food. Here is bark burger and a leaf pie.

We spent about half an hour at the Nature Center before going home, where we turned around three times and then headed to Benihana. Originally it had been suggested that we go to Hot Pot again, but we had just been there, so I suggested Benihana as an “event” type meal. (If you’re unfamiliar, Benihana is a chain of hibachi restaurants where the meal is cooked in front of you with a lot of flash and dash. It’s like dinner and a show.) I hadn’t been since I was a teenager and the kids had never gone, so I figured it would be a fun outing. The food itself isn’t spectacular. Not awful, just very ho hum. But let’s be honest, we’re all there for the flying spatulas and spinning eggs. After dinner the restuarants were handing out Macarons for the mothers (or the assumed mothers), which was another nice treat. I think mother’s day is a little performative sometimes, but you know what, I’ll take a free treat.

After dinner, the family tried to fulfil my wish of spending time outside and getting a picture with the kids by taking us to a trail and going for a walk with the idea of taking a picture together. But for reasons that are a little inexplicable, and in retrospect were probably a little silly, things went quickly south and no good pictures were taken and people stormed back to the car in a fit of anger. To be honest, I’m not sure quite what happened. I think partly, I just wanted a quick photo on my iPhone with everyone looking at the camera, and the family instead brought this huge set up with a tripod and the 13 year old’s fancy camera, which I don’t know that anyone really knows how to get the photos off of it… And then no one would take a nice picture, which was hugely annoying for me. I just want one thing and I got a little snarky at the family’s inability to deliver that one thing. (okay, three) Anyhow, it was kind of an ignominious end to Mother’s Day. Oh well. We’ll all try again next year.

Conversation with my Five Year Old:
Me: Are you wearing underwear?
5 year old: No.
Me: Again?!?! You should be wearing underwear. Why don’t you wear underwear?
5 year old: Sometimes it’s just too much pants.

Grateful For:
-My parent’s health. My parents are both the upper side of 70 and are still so very active. They travel internationally three or four times a year, come visit us, play with the grandchildren. Go on long walks every day, usually four or five miles. Lead community organizations. Advocate for Taiwanese independence. Once in a while I look at them and I realize objectively they are quite old, something I tend to forget because they are so busy. I realize more and more that every year, month, week, day with them is a gift.

-Sunny sunny weather. Open window, fresh air. A comfy chair and a good book. And a messy living room, well inhabited.

-A new Pope! I know that it’s odd to be grateful for something that was probably inevitable, but I’m so glad that for a few days, I could replace doomscrolling with “hope”scrolling as I checked for news from the conclave.

-Getting to commute to work with my work BFF. She lives two miles from me and during busy opera season we don’t really get to hang out, so when we carpool to work, it’s like at 35 minute friend date.

-My Eye Doctor, for fixing my glasses. One night as I was going to bed, I stumbled and dropped my glasses and the lens popped out. I’m sure it was a minor fix, but I took it to My Eye Doctor, where I got the glasses from, and they put everything back together again.

-D, our contractor. He’s been working on renovating the basement of my parent’s rental unit and finished the work last week. But then this week we had sheets of rain and there was some water in the basement. D came over the same day that we called and looked at things, and then realized the sump pump wasn’t plugged in and more than that, the outlet that it was plugged into wasn’t working. He spent an hour at the house fixing everything. He’s so easy going and thoughtful and full of practical solutions, I’m so glad we have him on speed dial.

-Lights backstage. It is dark. Rope lights make everything better.

-Middle school teachers. On the day of the second performance of Once Upon a Mattress, I drove the 13 year old to school, so I could drop off snacks for the cast. OMG. Walking into the middle school was like walking into an alternative universe populated by strange half grown people all looking confused and defiant and disaffected and joyful. Sometimes all at once. And then there were these grown ups who kept saying, “Sit down. Don’t block the hallway. Get to class,” as if they were programmed on some kind of auto-loop. I went to a K-8 school, so this whole middle school thing is alien to me. And then as I was leaving the school, it struck me – this is what it is like every. single. day. The noise and chaos and emotion and physicality. It wasn’t just one crazy morning. it’s is every. day. Every day, my daughter walks these halls of screaming sensory overload. No wonder she comes home and wants to sit in her room and not talk to anyone for the rest of the night. And every day the teachers and school professionals manage the chaos and try to focus it into an environment for learning and growing. I have a hard enough time dealing with one tween/teenager. I am so grateful for the people who deal with hundreds of them every day.

Looking Forward To:
-Happy hour and lunch dates with friends. Now that my schedule is lighter, I’m doing all the social things.

-Season two of Poker Face. The Husband and I watched Season One together last year and it was a lot of fun. I’m excited for more murders and hijinks. Highly entertaining.

-Summer pool season. The weather is already in the 80s and muggy here and I can’t wait until I can be in the pool. Our pool opens in two weeks and soon we’ll be in the thick of summer swim team season. I’m going to have to think about how to prep for nightly dinners at the pool between swim practices.

-Just started this book. I’m determined to finish it before I go to South Africa next month, so I’ve set myself weekly reading goals. It’s proving fascinating and engrossing so far.

It’s a big book (almost 600 pages). But 25 of those years he spent in jail, so I’m really intrigued what that part of the book will be like.

What We Ate:

Monday: Ravioli Bake. The Husband made this and it was tasty – he was looking for easy recipes to make ahead and take along for those days when the 8 year old has to ride along to the 5 year old’s 6pm gymnastics classes and didn’t have time to have dinner beforehand.

Tuesday: Taco Tuesday – Ground beef tacos with guac, salsa, sour cream, cheese, and hard shells.

Wednesday: Chicken wings. My mother made them. This is one of her specialty dishes. The kids love it. It involves soy sauce, honey, and garlic.

Thursday: Black Pepper Asparagus and Tofu Stir Fry. I had picked up some asparagus and broccoli from the farmer’s market so I use both in this stir fry. Vegan.

Friday: not sure what the family ate. I was at work and ate leftovers. (Well sort of – I packed leftovers, but then got busy and didn’t eat them.).

Saturday: Pizza (take out) and Frozen.

Sunday: Benihana for Mother’s Day.

Welp, hope you have a lovely weekend. Ours is the usual kid activities and then the 5 year old is finally getting baptized. Hopefully there will be sunshine and fresh air involved, though.
What summer things are you looking forward to? Pools – yay or nay? Favorite pool dinners? Have you ever been to Benihana? Who was your favorite teacher in middle school?