Weekly recap + what we ate: Weekend alone and Olympic watching

Dusk approaching at Glenstone.

It’s August! I guess we’re rounding the finish line of summer. Friday was my day off before tech week when we move into the theatre. I’m trying to have a combination of production and relaxing with the free day. So to that end, I:
-dropped one kid off at camp and one off at daycare (along with a blender because it’s smoothie Friday.) (The morning was actually kind of a shit show – the Husband had taken the kids to a live Wait! Wait! Don’t Tell Me! show the night before – a bucket list item for him – and they didn’t get back until 11pm, so of course they were holy terrors in the morning because they were over-tired. But they all had a lot of fun at the show, so I do feel like a little morning crankiness is worth it.)
– had a mammogram and a thyroid ultrasound (this latter to try to figure out why I’m having very light non-ending periods)
-dropped off a box of poop at the UPS store
-picked up a library hold
-mowed the lawn.

This last one almost defeated me – it was 90+ degrees out there. I put on my rash guard to mow because the sun’s rays were beaming something fierce.

Then, to reward myself, I did this:

Black raspberry chocolate gelato and Men’s trampoline. And a mountain of laundry.

Relaxed on the couch eating ice cream for lunch, while talking to my sister-in-law, watching the Olympics, and folding laundry. We’re dog sitting for the next week and there was a cute dog joining me in a few minutes to watch the Men’s Badminton Quarter Finals. I do need to do some meal planning since the next couple of days will be tech, and there is no tech friendly food in the fridge right now.

In the evening, we went to the pool after pick up. We haven’t been since swim team ended almost two weeks ago. Going to the pool on such a hot day was lovely. Also – our pool tends to be pretty empty on Friday nights because so many families at our pool go home for Shabbat dinner, so it wasn’t as much of a zoo as it usually is. Then it was home for Pizza and Glee.

Okay – things this week. Let’s back up to the poop shipment. As much as I want to be in the Cool Blogger Colonoscopy club, when my doctor offered me the option of “pooping in a box” (literally her words) colon cancer screening, I said, “Sign me up!” A few days later, a box appeared in the mail. Basically you poop into a plastic bucket, swab your poop, pour a preservative over it, close the bucket back up, and then ship everything to a lab where they will screen it. It’s not as accurate as a colonoscopy, but for low risk people, my doctor said it’s a more appealing alternative. It felt really weird to hand a box with my poop in it to the guy at the UPS store, but maybe we just need to be less squeamish as a society about these things. Also – the test is only good for three years, so who knows, maybe in three years I will do the full on colonoscopy?

I hope this box doens’t get lost in the mail…

Last weekend, I enjoyed my family-free time. Well, it was really only one day because Sunday I had to work. But on Saturday, I slept, read, did laundry. I ran errands. I picked up peaches from The Peach Truck:

I used to go peach picking, but then I realized that peach season here always falls on the the hottest month of the year. Plus, the peaches are not any cheaper if I pick them myself. So I started just buying them at the Farmers Market. I had heard about the Peach Truck, a company that brings peaches from the south to our area. My friend was going to go in on buying Peach Truck peaches with me, but then she went away on vacation, and yet I still impulsively ordered 2 boxes of peaches anyway. That’s 24 lbs of peaches (there was a discount if you bought more than one box.) Which at first, I thought was a bonkers amount of peaches and when I brought it home I worried that I had had a terrible idea. t was a great idea. I took about ten to work, but other than, that the kids and I have finished almost all 24 lbs. of peaches in a week. The next Peach Truck delivery is in two weeks. Maybe I’ll order THREE boxes? So much easier to get my peach fix this way than actually going to pick them.

Saturday afternoon, my friend K and I went to Glenstone Museum – We couldn’t get tickets to the exhibits, but we were able to get tickets to the grounds, and they had special Summer hours so were open until 8pm. We took the outdoor sculpture tour:

Then we had lunch on the patio, and wandered the grounds some more. I think it actually turned out fine that we didn’t get to go to the galleries – I’ve been to Glenstone three or four times and I always get sucked into the galleries and then run out of time to walk the grounds.

Afterwards, we went to a Cuban restaurant for dessert. We ended up hanging out for six hours – which was a lovely time.

-I’ve been watching the Olympics, like most people. Of course I’ve been watching swimming and gymnastics, but I’ve also been really into table tennis and badminton. Fun fact, I played varsity doubles badminton in high school and I was texting with my high school friend who played varsity singles on how cool it was to watch Olympic badminton. (Also – side note – I’ve always said bad-MIN-ton, but I’ve also heard people say ba-Mitten. Which do you say?) One evening, I wanted to paint a card for my friend who had to put her cat to sleep, and I found watching table tennis and badminton a nice soothing activity to do while I painted.

Olympic badminton on.

The finished card:

Loosely based on this tutorial.

Random Olympic Thoughts:
-One thing I like about table tennis is that the athletes look so .. average. They are all sorts of ages and varying degrees of body types. They look like they could be IT consultants. Regardless, though, they all have this athletic glow that just makes everyone look so attractive. What is it about athletes that makes them all look so shiny and pretty?
– On a similar note most of these people must have regular lives and jobs and things like that, right? How wild is it to be an Olympic athlete and also an mechanical engineer or something.
-I was watching the sailing and a lot of the competitors are in their early 20s. How does one become an Olympic sailor at such a young age? That’s not a cheap sport. I’m kind of fascinated by the economic pathways of being an Olympic athlete. And just their pathways in general. Some of these sports are so very niche.
-It wasn’t until I watched the replays of entire competitions (as opposed to just the highlights) that I appreciated how much time is spent just … waiting. The sailing race, there is a countdown clock until the start of the race and the first race I watched, the start was delayed 30 minutes. Then it was finally time to get started so everyone started working their way to the start line. There’s a countdown clock, tension is building. And then 30 seconds before the start – another delay because the wind wasn’t blowing the right way. And there was another 30 minute delay. Can you imagine, getting lined up to start and then with 30 seconds until you can take off, a delay is called. Back to waiting. So much waiting. I think you have to be really mentally tough to be able to wait like that and still perform.
-Apparently handball is the one sport without Americans competing. It made me want to watch handball. It looks like a really fun game.
-I loved this article in the NYTimes about how table tennis players get no respect. No, You Can’t Beat an Olympic Table Tennis Player.
-What’s with all those AI commercials? It makes me feel like something is really off with the world when people don’t want to summarize their own to do lists or write fan letters without help. Or maybe I’m just an old fuddy duddy.
-I love how they start each competition with the three knocks of a stick, usually by a former Olympian. The three knocks is a French theatre tradition. I wish we would do that at theatres here in the U.S. Much better than playing the “Welcome to the show. Please turn off your cell phones” announcement that is so prevalent.
-This list in McSweeney’s “Olympic Gymnast or Me, a Middle Age Woman?” Made me laugh so hard. Especially #7 and #15.

Grateful For:
-A strong downbeat. This is one of those in the weeds work things, but … the show I’m currently working on – there are parts of the score where it’s hard to follow the written music. The melody crosses bar lines, and the rhythms are not what one would expect, and the piano reduction of the orchestra is sinewy. I find it easy to get lost if I blink. BUT… our conductor has a really strong downbeat. For those who don’t read music/follow conductors – conductors move their hands in a certain patterns which correspond the to the number of beats in a bar. A downward stroke is the first beat of a meaure. When I get lost – particularly in large orchestral passages, if I watch for the downbeat, I can usually find my place in the music. Not all conductors have good downbeats. Some conduct as if they are stirring a pot of soup. This conductor has a clear and strong downbeat. Thank goodness. There are many many places in this show where if I try to follow the notes, I’ll get lost. So I just count the downbeats. This is an example – you’ll see, I have an entrance cue marked, and I just number the measures until that entrance.

When I cue this entrance, I don’t look at the music, I just look at the conductor and count the number of times he makes that downward stroke. On the 8th downbeat, I send the singer. This conductor’s downbeat has been my saving grace many times in this opera.

-Reciprocal library privileges. I have a D.C. library card, which I also use for the Montgomery County, MD libraries since that is where I now live. Last week, I realized that close to my work is a library in the Fairfax County, VA system. I looked them up, and they have reciprocal library privileges with Montgomery County and D.C. So on my dinner break one day, I went and got a library card for the Fairfax County system. I know that I won’t likely borrow physical books from a Fairfax County library, but now I have an additional library to use on my Libby account. (For the record, I already had four libraries on my Libby account – Washington D.C Public Library, Montgomery County, MD, Maryland/Baltimore, and Los Angles County, where I grew up. Is this excessive????) One thing I found exciting about this new library is that you can borrow jigsaw puzzles. I thought that was pretty cool.

-Shade on hot hot hot hot days. Even though I’ve brought my running clothes to work, it’s been much too hot for me to go running on my dinner break, so I’ve just gone on a few walks instead.

-A new door! Our old door was old and drafty and sometimes wouldn’t open. I had dragged my feet on getting a new door because I loved my old door so much – it was red and had all sorts of lovely details in the hardware, and three elegant windows. So the Husband found a company that said it could just transfer the windows and the hardware from the old door to new door, as well as the lock so we wouldn’t have to re-key the door. The new door looks like this right now, but we are going to paint it. It wasn’t cheap, but I feel like we’re going to be in this house for a long time, so it’s okay to have a door I love.

-That I get to work on the show I’m working on. I love the show so so so much. It’s such a beautiful show. At least once a day, I have to tell myself not to cry in rehearsal. Crying in a good “this scene is so devastatingly beautiful and the music makes me feel like my heart is getting all the feelings squeezed out of it” kind of way.

Looking Forward to:
-Not having a different drop off/ pick up routine every week. I guess it’s my own fault for signing the kids up for five different camps over the course of six weeks. Luckily, this past week, the 12 year old could just walk to and from camp on her own. But it does feel like every week there was a new drop off/ pick up pattern to figure out. After this week of camp, we’ll be done with camp for the rest of the summer. Yay! The kids will be doing “mommy camp”. I read in an article one parent said their philosophy for these wide open summer days is that the kids have to do at least one thing for their mind and one thing for their body every day before they can have screens. I like that framework.

-Sewing classes starting in September for the 7 year old. And… guess what? They are offering Mommy and Me classes, so I signed up the 7 year old to take sewing classes with the Husband. I can’t wait to see what they make. I guess I need to start looking at activity sign ups for the fall soon.

-watching more Olympics. The next week will be pretty busy at work, so I’m glad that I can stream what I want when I get a minute. I don’t have any one sport I’m interested in – I just like to scroll through and find something I’ve never seen before.

-These books, picked up at the Library:

What We Ate: I ate a lot of dinners at work, and then grazed a bunch when I got home afterwards. The Husband did all the at home cooking this week.
Saturday: My Friend and I had dinner at the Glenstone patio cafe – we split a black bean quinoa salad and shrimp.

Sunday: Leftover pizza and Cobb Salad that the Husband brought home from their trip.

Monday: Eggplant pasta. The Husband cooked. This was really tasty – he sauteed eggplants and the cooked it in a tomato sauce and added lots of basil. Vegan.

Tuesday: Zucchini salad, eaten at work. The Husband made Zucchini boats at home for dinner. I had some when I got home and they were really tasty. He sauteed beef with seasonings, used that to fill hollowed out zucchini halves, tops with cheese and then bakes. It’s one of our easy go-to recipes where we can get the kids to eat vegetables.

Wednesday: Popcorn chicken and Taiwanese sausage from the Boba Tea place. I had brought something to eat for dinner since I had an evening rehearsal, but then decided that I wanted to treat myself a little. I think the kids had Mac n’ Cheese from the box at home.

Thursday: I worked through my official dinner break because we were getting ready for the final room run through. I don’t usually skip meal breaks, but I had meetings scheduled in the late afternoon. Anyhow, I managed to eat a yogurt and berries that I had packed. (The Husband and kids ate out before going to see Wait! Wait! Don’t Tell Me.)

Friday: Pizza (Take out) and Glee.

This weekend will be the start of tech week at work, so I’ll be at the theatre. Exiting, but it will also be exhausting. What are you up to this weekend?

Weekly Recap + What we ate: Christmas is around the corner! Try not to panic.

Christmas Train Display at the Trolley Museum.

The festive events are starting to really populate our calendar. Last weekend, we took the kids to the Trolley Museum for their holiday display and trolley ride with Santa. This checked a lot of boxes on the Holiday fun list – there was model trains, Santa, and crafts. The two little kids went on the trolley ride twice so got to ask Santa for toys twice. The first time, the baby asked for a rubber crocodile. The second time, both kids asked for a train set. Spoiler alert – they are not getting a rubber crocodile.

Sunday the ten year old and I went Christmas shopping at the mall. I haven’t done that in an age! We also had lunch there, and there was a really tasty Korean noodle place in the food court. I love how food court options have really expanded since I was a kid. The ten year old had Shake Shack. I find malls a little exhausting for all the choice that is there. We were there to get calendars, but also ended up in the candy store. There were wine gums and Dairy Milk, so I guess it was an okay pit stop. The we stopped at Michaels and we indulged in that fad of taking pictures in the floral section:

Monday was Merry TubaChristmas! It’s a concert where tuba players of all ages from across the region get together to play Christmas carols. The Husband and I have been going to TubaChristmas since we were dating; it’s one of our Christmas must dos. I think one year I was working and couldn’t go, but except for that year, and 2020, we’ve gone every December. It’s always fun to go see all the tubas decorated for the holidays and to hear them play Christmas tunes and feel the floor vibrate for the very lowest notes. They always invite the kids up to sing Jingle Bells, and the three year old took to the stage without hesitation, with the ten year old running up behind her to make sure she could get up onstage okay. The five year old didn’t want to go up at first, but when he saw that his sisters were both up there, he went up too.

That’s a lot of brass. And there were even more in the balconies.

The rest of the week was pretty chill. There was a “snow” delay on Wednesday because of an anticipated storm. It ended up just being rainy and cold, but I was still fine with school starting two hours later and having a slower morning.

I went to the library one day and hoped to pick up some holiday/Christmas books, but the pickings were super slim. I guess that is to be expected mid-December. I usually go the week leading into Christmas but since I wasn’t really going to do Advent books this year, I didn’t feel the same sense of urgency. Maybe I should just buy some more Christmas picture books?

The five year old’s class had a gingerbread house decorating event on Friday morning, which I went to. It was actually graham crackers attached to small milk cartons with frosting, but I’m sure it’s all the same as long as there is a surface to attach candy. Lessons learned:
– Get the thick popsicle sticks to spread frosting. The tongue depressor size.
– do not get the shrink wrapped candy canes. By the time you get the plastic off there are broken pieces and frustrated kids.
– the cutting edge on the Saran Wrap is sharp.
-kids like decorating with those red and white peppermint candies, but do not like to eat them.

Also … one parent brought Hot Tamales candy. I thought that was a curious choice. Maybe a little unfortunate for those kids who were unfamiliar with them and thought they were Mike and Ikes. But I don’t know… maybe there are kids out there who like Hot Tamales? My did certainly did not.

Thank goodness for the mask, otherwise enforcing the “no licking, no eating” rule would have been hard.

One week til Christmas and hopefully I’m in an okay place. On the to do list still:
-grocery shop. I have the menu mostly planned.
– Holiday cards for the kids teachers. We’re going to paint some blank cards this weekend. I have to pick up some gift cards to go in them this week.
-Put our Christmas cards in the mail. They are all addressed and stamped, I just have to walk them down to the mailbox. This feels pretty late. Every year I say I’ll do it sooner, but it never works out that way.
– Order presents for my brother’s family. They don’t celebrate Christmas so I’m not that concerned with making the December 25th deadline for this.
-Order present for my parents. I’m gifting them Storyworth this year. It’s a service that sends the recipient weekly questions about their life and the recipient writes and answer, and can upload pictures. At the end of 52 weeks, the company take all the answers and put them together in a book. It’s a virtual gift so I don’t feel panicked about that either, as long as I order it this week sometime.
-Pickup one last present for the 10 year old. She wanted some Barbie accessories. This stuff was specifically on her letter to Santa. I’m always surprised that she still plays with Barbies, but I think she just really likes setting up little scenes. I’m going to pick up some plates and tiny food from the craft store. (The stuff says “for decoration only. Not a toy.” so I had a moment of pause. But I figure it’s fine for a ten year old.) The rest of the kids’ presents are mostly done. I think. The Husband is in charge of the toys. I try to stick to some version of “Want, need, read, wear” categories for the kids, plus one Santa gift. I take care of the “need, read, wear” and the Husband does “want” and “Santa”. Clearly he’s the fun parent.
-Stocking stuffers – mostly candy and snack food, but other things if the mood strikes. Last year, in a somewhat self-serving mood, I got everyone a small kitchen gadget. This year we’ve got small things from the arts supply store and matchbox cars so far.
-Maybe one more present for the Husband if I can make it to the right store.
– organize some activities and playdates for the winter break. Also buy tickets to a Christmas movie.
-Pre-make cookie dough. We’re having some kids over to decorate cookies during winter break.

So not too much, I hope, to get done in one week if I’m purposeful about it.

Speaking of baking… I’ve been thinking about my Holiday Baking aspirations. Most of my ideas this year comes from the Cooks Illustrated Holiday Baking magazine – some of the recipes are a little fussy, so the holidays are the perfect time, I feel, to put in the effort. This year I would like to bake:
-Molasses cookes (chewy and spicy kind)
– Sugar cookies and gingerbread cookies for decorating
-Sticky Toffee Pudding, our traditional Christmas dessert
-Eggnog Bundt cake. Because the Bundt pan I got this year has been woefully underused.
-Cinnamom buns for Christmas morning, as is our tradition. This I usually use the recipe from either The Irish Pantry or King Arthur’s Flour.
-Chex mix. Have to have something savory.
-rolls for Christmas Dinner.
-And I’ve already made apple cranberry crisp. It was a recipe from that Cooks Illustrated magazine and it was a great way to use up the leftover bowl of cranberry sauce from Thanksgiving. I’m going to put this crisp into post Thanksgiving rotation because we always have so much leftover cranberry sauce.

My holiday cooking bible.

Grateful for This Week:
– The ten year old’s school music program. They had their Holiday Choral Concert this year and it was really cute. At her old school, Choir was an extracurricular so kids had to opt in to do it and got pulled out of class. At her new school, it’s just part of the regular music class. I really like that the school feels like music performance is important enough that all kids should participate.
– Finding parking just a half block from the restaurant on Monday night after TubaChristmas. Also grateful for the Restaurant itself, Chinatown Express, where tehy hand make their noodles. We went to this restaurant, partly because the Husband had been there with the kids the day before and had left the 5 year old’s hat there. So aside from this place having really really good food, we had a practical reason for going there. But… it is also smack in the middle of Chinatown, next to the arena and there was a game that night so parking was a challenge. We circled the area for about fifteen minutes and were about to give up when someone pulled out and we snagged their parking spot. And it was just a half block from the restaurant. A true holiday miracle. And the staff at the restaurant are always super nice and they put up with my attempts to speak half in Chinese and they smile when the kids’ say “xie xie.” The biggest surprise was that the baby loves Chinese broccoli! She grabbed the thick stalk in her hand and just chowed down on it and then had two more pieces. She ate a vegetable!!! So exciting!
– Libraries and librarians. I had a book that I just can’t find – it’s in the house somewhere, but I don’t know where it ended up. Anyhow because of that book being waaaay overdue, there is a hold on my library card. I was going to just pay for the book, but the librarian gave me that sly look that they do and just clicked a few things and electronically returned the book and re-checked it out to me. “I’m just going to give you nine more weeks to find it,” she said to me.
– Not being at my old summer job. I’ve been off Facebook for over a year now, but this week, I popped back on as I was doing Christmas cards and I have a few friends who had gotten married and I had to Facebook stalk them to figure out the correct last names to put on the cards. Anyhow… it was kind of an overwhelming vortex black hole of … noise and news and happenings. Before I could log off, I saw a whole bunch of posts about this one company that I used to work for. I had left under difficult circumstances, and I had been very sad to leave, and I always somewhat regret not being there still. It’s also a part of why I no longer log into Facebook since I found I couldn’t deal with seeing any news about the company or my colleagues and friends working there. Anyhow the company now seem to be embroiled in some union negotiations that are, let’s just say, not going well. The whole thing just seems really sad and toxic. Over the past five years I’ve have bouts of great sadness about not working there anymore and I really miss my colleagues and the work we did, but after reading about the union negotiations that are happening, I am really glad I’m not part of the contentiousness happenings and drama.

Looking forward to:
-Anniversary Date Night with Husband. We hired a sitter and everything!
-Zoolights with friends.
– Going to see a musical with the ten year old and the five year old and our friends!
-Ticking everything off my Holiday to do list above.
-Christmas dinner and family time.

What We Ate:
Saturday: Pizza (Husband made) and Arthur Christmas (see my last post for the run down on that movie).

Sunday: Sheetpan baked gnocchi. This was one of those pantry dinners that never seem like pantry dinners. Toss whatever roastable veggies I have in olive oil, salt and pepper – in this case it was butternut squash, broccoli, mushrooms, onions, turnip, rutabaga – add gnocchi. Pour into sheet pan. Roast for 25-30 mins.

Monday: Dinner out at Chinatown Express – we had duck noodle soup, roast pork stir-fried noodles (both these dishes with fresh noodles), Chinese broccoli with oyster sauce, green sauteed with garlic, soup dumping, pork dumpling and kung pao chicken. So much food! Sooooo good!

Tuesday: Kale Saag Paneer from Meera Sodha’s East. I had a bunch of heavy cream and half and half to use up as well as two bunches of kale, so this seemed like a good recipe to use. The paneer didn’t turn out great – I think using heavy cream instead of all half and half makes for a softer paneer so the texture didn’t quite hold up in the saag.

Wednesday: Farrotto with roasted butternut squash and brussel sprouts from The Weekday Vegetarians. This was billed as risotto but with farro. It never got as creamy as risotto, but it was still pretty tasty.

Thursday: Red lentils from The Weekday Vegetarians. Vegan. Something quick and tasty that we could eat before the 10 year old’s holiday concert.

Friday: Pizza (take out) and Charlie Brown Christmas and The Ted Lasso Holiday Special from last year.