Longwood Gardens – Life Off Headset

(bi) Weekly recap +what we ate: Closing and catching up.

We closed the show last night. It’s been some very long days since opening. Usually the pace slows down, but with this show we had a second cast to prepare and also a children’s version to put up (more on that below.). But in between, I had plumber visits (the upstairs bathroom faucet wouldn’t turn off, the downstairs toilet ran), and school runs, and dentist appointments (the long delayed dentist appointment that I wrote about earlier. Turns out the six year old has so many cavities he needs to be sedated to have them taken care of. So that is yet another dentist appointment in my future. Only because of the sedation, we need to find a day when someone can stay home with the six year old afterwards, so that’s another piece of the scheduling puzzle.

Fun things:
-The 11 year old’s school play. It was a play about aliens masquerading as students and the drama group presented the play in the school cafeteria. The 11 year old did great! She remembered all her lines, prompted a fellow colleague with a loud whisper when he forgot his lines, and generally seemed to have a good time. Seeing a bunch of middle schoolers present a play in their cafeteria with just one single lighting instrument and everyone wearing their own clothes is such a contrast to the work I do where sets cost millions of dollars and there are so many complicated details. Watching these students, I’m reminded that theatre is storytelling, and for all the spectacle of opera or Broadway, storytelling is at it’s core a very simple thing.

-Fall Trip to Longwood Gardens. On my day off one recent Sunday, we went to Longwood Gardens. The chrysanthemum exhibit was still going on, and the holiday train display just went up. The day was perfect for being outside – sunny and crisp and almost warm.

The kids and I do this rainbow photo project whenever we go to Longwood Gardens where we try to find something every colour of the rainbow. Blue is always tricks and we usually end up taking a picture of the sky. Even still, I love how many different nuances of colour there is to be found at Longwood. Here’s this trip’s rainbow photo collage:

After our trip to Longwood Gardens, we drove back home and met up with a friend who was in town for work. He was someone the Husband met contradancing twenty-some years ago, but who since had moved to the other side of the country. We talked a lot about what a wonderful contra-dance community there was in DC, and how he hasn’t found anything like it in his new city. We talked about how COVID must have hit the contradance community hard. It so funny how contradancing is something that we use to do once or even twice a week, yet we haven’t gone in five or six years. I’ve been listening to contra dance music when I run lately, and it’s really taken me back to a younger me, to a time when we would dance til 11pm, when the music was live and hot and pounding and flowing. I’m sort of sad, too, that we don’t go dancing anymore, but maybe this is just not the season and we will find our way back one day.

-Scone-apalooza! For the children’s show we did (more on that below), we had to be at the theatre at 9am, so I brought in scones. I stayed up later than I should have the night before to make scones, but I love baking and hadn’t done it for a while. Baking is definitely one of my flow activities. By the time I got done all the scones, it was almost 2am. I made blueberry scones (America’s Test Kitchen Recipe), chocolate walnut scones (from The Irish Pantry cookbook) and I also wanted to make a savory scone so I made cheddar ham scones (King Arthur’s Baking Cheddar Scones with ham added.) I accidentally put twice the amount of garlic powder in the cheddar and ham scones, so they were particularly tasty.

Scones for miles. From back to front: Chocolate Walnut, Blueberry, and Ham and Cheddar.

– Ground plans. One of the fun this that that after we finish each show, I get to bring the ground plans home for this kids to use as scrap paper. When they were little, we would draw body outlines on the paper, but now they have gotten too big for that. Once during the pandemic, my mother covered a whole page with a drawing of a neighborhood that she designed for the kids.

The not fun:
-Sick kids. Not sure what it was, but 2 out of 3 kids were home vomiting last week and missed a couple days of school. And then there was one day when I wasn’t feeling well and I really felt like I was going to collapse while calling the show. Luckily I didn’t, but I did spend most of the show sitting down, which is something I rarely do.
-More really long hours and a sleep deficit. Not having downtime after a show opens is really hard. With rehearsals continuing for various show-related things and prepping for the next show, I’m not getting the days free that I’m used to after a show opens. I’m feeling behind on life and self things. I did start to make appointments to get life admin tasks done – renewing drivers licenses and passports. And we did schedule a plumber visit for the one day id week that I could work from home so now we can use the sink in the upstairs bathroom again. The house seems like a constant state of mess; I want to figure out better systems for that. I’m looking forward to December when I can re-set life a little bit.

Something I contemplated this week:
There is a lot of construction going on in the lot behind where I work. It’s actually been quite fun to see the construction vehicles work and machines moving. The other day, I looked up and snapped this picture:

And as I was looking at the men and machine work, I thought with a little bit of awe, “It’s all just wood and nails. Look at that building going up – it’s wood, so much wood. I thought it would be more complicated than that, and maybe it will be, but this stage is just wood.” Seeing buildings under construction, particularly with all their framing exposed, I always marvel at how fragile and basic a building can be.

Grateful for:
-windows. I spend a lot of time working in dark buildings with no windows, no way to see what the world is outside. It can feel a little insular. (It’s funny, on our company intranet site, there is a “virtual window” – a camera on the roof that shows employees what it’s like outside. Can’t decide if this is a cute idea or just kind of sad.). The other day, I woke up, got out of bed and pulled up the blinds and in streamed sunshine and I could look outside and see trees and streets and brightness and day. It was amazing. So I’m grateful for windows and being able to see outside when there are many days when I don’t get to actually go outside.

– the enthusiasm of children and the chance to give them something to be enthusiastic about. We did shortened version of our show for 1500 school kids this week. It was a whirlwind to rehearse – we performed excerpts of our show and in between we talked about the different things that go into making an opera – costumes, scenery, lights, stage hands, stage managers, supertitles, etc. The students were loud and rambunctious and very entertained. I hope that maybe in that crowd is at least one kid who grows up to be a singer, or a conductor, or an actor, or a theatre technician. And at least more than one kid who grows up to be someone who gives money to support the work of singers, conductors, actors, theatre technicians, etc.

-Not having to be at work at 9am most days. The above mentioned school show was at 11am, which mean I had to be at the theatre at 9am, something that I do maybe three or four times a year. And let me tell you, every time I get to go to work at 9am, I am very grateful that I don’t have to do it every day. First of all, the traffic between 8:00a – 9:00am is terrible. My non-peak commute to the theatre takes 35 minutes. Between 8:00am and 9:00am, it takes 50-60 mins. And people just seemed more stress at that time, less likely to let you in, more likely to behave irrationally. (Or maybe the driving is less predictable because there are more drivers out there?). Also a 9am start means that I have to find someone to take the kids to the bus in the morning. Luckily the Husband often can shift his schedule or the family we carpool with will switch shifts with me, but the school schedule is not made to accommodate parents who have to be at work at 9am. (Though I guess that is what before care is for…) And then just the general rush of having to leave 45 minutes earlier – it takes all the breath and space out of my morning. So all in all, I’m grateful that I don’t have to be at work at 9am most days.

-rehearsal pants. On the last day of the show, I went to our rehearsal office to do a couple hours work for the upcoming show before heading to the theatre for the final performance. As I was wrapping up to head to the theatre, I realized that I had forgotten my backstage running black clothes at home. I don’t usually wear a lot of black unless I’m working backstage, so I hadn’t put on my running blacks in the morning. wump wump. I didn’t have time to go home to get my black clothes. What to do? I had a black t-shirt on, but I was wearing a bright red skirt what wasn’t quite appropriate for backstage. Then I remembered that in our office was a pair of black rehearsal pants. (“Rehearsal” clothes are what we call clothes that we use in rehearsal instead of the “real” clothes or costumes. Like, say, if a singer wanted to wear a skirt in rehearsal that mimicked the fullness and length of her costume, we would get her a rehearsal skirt because the real dress probably would not be available to use.) The show we had been performing had a scene where the leading man gets dressed and so we had a pair of nylon pants that we used in rehearsal for him. So when I got to the theatre, I tried those on. I don’t think I’m the same size as our tenor, but thankfully the pants had a drawstring waistband and then I cuffed them in my best 90s tween manner. I think it was the cuffing that gave the pants a stylishly current jogger vibe and made it not so ridiculous that I was wearing men’s exercise pants backstage. Not that anyone truly cares what I’m wearing – we’re standing around in the dark, after all – but I am very grateful for rehearsal pants.

Looking forward to:
-Thanksgiving! I have to work the day before and the day after Thanksgiving, so we are having Thanksgiving at home, with maybe an opera friend or two joining us. I’ve figured out roughly the menu and written down the action plan for the next couple of days. The Husband did the grocery shopping over the weekend, so we should be set. (Though the dishwasher broke… again. So there’s that… I’m not looking forward to the dishes.) Here’s the plan for the week:
Monday (yesterday): I spatchcocked and brined the Turkey. When I put the turkey in the InstantPot pot, the turkey didn’t fit and I was confused because I had used the same container last year. Then I remembered that last year I only did a turkey breast. So I’m contemplating either getting a roasting bag or just flipping the turkey every so often.
Tuesday: Go to the 6 year old’s class Thanksgiving cerebration. Work from 11:30a – 8pm, come home. Make pie dough and cranberry sauce and cranberry relish. (The kids have a 1/2 day of school, but the Husband is covering that.)
Wednesday: Kids are off school, but I work 9:30a – 4:00pm. Come home – make pies, steam green beans. The 11 year old hopefully would have made the rainbow Jello during her day off.
Wednesday: Macy’s Day Parade and Sausage ball making. Cook Turkey, finish off the green beans. I’m contemplating making stuffing. TBD.
I’m so glad I wrote notes to myself last year on things to remember for this year. One of the main notes was thatt year I decided I didn’t have the energy to make rolls, then on the day we all missed having rolls. So we bought rolls this year.

– Holiday movies! Last year, I watched a lot of Holiday movies and I’m super excited to plunge in again. The 2023 holiday movies don’t look as diverse or interesting as last year but there are a few that I’m putting on my definitely watch list, and a few from last year that I missed. (Someone highly recommended to me Mistletoe and Menorahs…). I am kind of sad that there isn’t an Asian Holiday movie; last year there were two. The 11 year old has requested as her Holiday Fun List item is an all day Hallmark Holiday Movie marathon. Doesn’t that sound like the most indulgent cozy thing?

-The holiday opera that I’m working on. It’s kind of a whirlwind quick process, but I love this show, having done it twice before. It’s a beautiful piece, fun and festive and full of heart.

– I think I’m going to take an art class this winter when my work load lightens up a little bit. I haven’t signed up for it yet, but perhaps putting it into the universe will make it so.

What We Ate:
Since I’m pretty sure I wasn’t responsible for dinner the majority of the past two weeks, here’s what I do remember making:
Coconut Rice with shrimp – This was a ridiculously easy recipe I found in the free magazine they hand out at the Giant. It involved cooking rice in a can of coconut milk, adding frozen veggies for the last 5 mins or so (I did frozen edamame and corn) and adding shrimp for the last 3 mins and then letting the whole thing sit covered for another 5 mins to let the shrimp cook. It was super fast and tasty – on the table in less than 30 mins and that’s with having to take time to defrost the shrimp under running water. I would eat again.

Butternut squash soup. I had a surfeit of butternut squash in our Hungry Harvest box, so one morning, before I went to work, I sauteed some onions and garlic in the Instant Pot, added some red curry paste, sauteed some more. Then I peeled and cubed one butternut squash and added it to the pot with one quart of vegetable stock. I set the IP for high pressure, 20 mins and left for work. I texted the husband: “Dinner’s in the IP. Add one can of coconut milk and puree.” Super simple and tasty. Vegan

Brussel Sprout Fried Rice. This is the recipe from Meera Sodha’s East. I love this recipe. Some days the kids love it, some days they don’t. This was one of the “don’t” days. Oh well, more for me!

Then there was the one day where we just had breakfast all day long. The Husband made the kids eggs for breakfast. Then at lunch, I didn’t know what to give them and I needed it to be fast, so I made breakfast sandwiches. Then for dinner, we clearly were exhausted, because that was the night we all just ate cereal for dinner. A Triple Breakfast Day!!! #lifegoals.

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(Bi)Weekly Recap + what we ate: The week after Christmas and into a New Year

Well we are into 2023, so here’s a “coffee date” style recap/info dump of what life post Christmas has been like…

The day after Christmas, the Husband bundled us into the car at 6am and we headed on a little overnight getaway. Our first stop was Steamtown, a National Historic Site in Scranton, PA, dedicated to steam locomotives. I had first heard of this place last year when thinking of places where we could use the ten year old’s free National Parks Pass, though it turns out Steamtown is actually free to visit. (The ten year old’s Pass, given to all fourth graders in the country, went sadly underutilized; I have five years to figure out how to make the most of it when the five year old gets his free Parks Pass…). I had thought this historic site might be fun for the train-lovers in the family, but we never made it because Steamtown was in Scranton, PA, four hours away, which made it a little far for a day trip. When we were looking for a quick getaway for after Christmas, though, this seemed like a good option.

Steamtown features a huge collection of steam locomotives. The museum portion of the park, where there were displays on train history and technology, was having some facility issues so it wasn’t open unfortunately, but there was still lots to see. The roundhouse housed many trains and there were park rangers available to answer questions. The ten year old had many many questions for the park rangers. In the outdoor portion of the Roundhouse, there was a locomotive that we could climb into and even ring it’s bell.

After Steamtown we spent the night in Consohoken, where we visited the Edwards Freeman Nut Company – a shop with aisles and aisles of nuts, dried fruit and all the candy and chocolate one can imagine. There were wine gums (yay!), and four different types of black licorice, and dried peaches, and an impressive assortment of chocolate malt balls – dark, milk, mocha, mint… We came away with a lot of treats and snacks. Each kid was allowed to also pick some candy- the ten year old picked out a giant bag of Double Bubble and some Bazooka flavored soda, this latter which the kids all tasted and decided was not very good. But it’s good to try things. The five year old picked out a pack of Skittles – but it was Smoothie flavore Skittles, so quite a novelty. The three year old picked out a Kinder Joy and some Chocolate Pretzels.

Then we had dinner at a local restaurant – chosen because the website offered, “Burgers! Tacos! Sushi!” Though they didn’t serve sushi on Mondays so we had really tasty burgers and Tacos instead. Then off to the hotel, which is always a high point for the kids. They are always super content just to sprawl in a hotel room and watch TV and go to the pool and eat those waffles from the hotel breakfast bar. The pool, unfortunately was not working, but we were all exhausted so sprawling and watching tv seemed like a pretty good option. Eventually everyone went to bed, except the three year old, who proceeded to try to interact with the sleeping people in the room, so I took her out for a little stroll around the hotel. We rode the elevator, checked out the lobby and walked up and down the hallways. At one point, she started singing, “I’m never going to be sleepy.” Over and over and over.

She did eventually go to sleep and the next day, I got a run in while the Husband took care of getting the kids hotel breakfast. After I got back, we packed up the room and went to Longwood Gardens. The gardens still had their Christmas display up, and I enjoyed seeing all the festive decorations. The conservatory was an explosion of Poinsettias. My favorite thing, was a fascinating picture of a poinsettia in the wild. They are actually trees and grow to be eight feet tall, looking nothing at all like the plants we get at Christmas. Also – I didn’t realize this, but the red/pink/white parts of the poinsettia are actually the leaves. The flowers are the small yellow buds in the middle – which makes sense when I actually looked closely at a flower, but I had never really thought about it that way before. It’s always really fascinating to learn about something that seems so every day and familiar.

This one was for the birds – there are bird seeds in the gourds.

We also took in the train display and wandered all over the grounds. (Okay, side note re: trains – apparently trains are a huge deal in the Fire Departments around Baltimore and almost all of them have train displays. And there is a very nice person/group that collects all the places that have holiday train displays and posts them on a website which I must now bookmark for future use.) There is something beautiful and barren about gardens in the winter. Sure, the conventionally beautiful time of the year to see the garden is in the Spring and Summer, but I love how in winter when things are brown and sparse, I can really see the shape of things – the pointy and specific spikes of grass and tree and branches.

I know Longwood Gardens has a spectacular light exhibit, but we’ve never stayed late enough to see it. We’re usually on the road at 4pm so that we can be home in time for dinner. Every year, as we are leaving, we tell ourselves that we will make it out to see the lights one year. This year, the lights were starting to come on as we headed for the exit gate, and I dragged our family down one walk so that we could see some of the lights before we left and it was indeed very pretty.

A gorgeous book end to our trip – when we left the house on Monday at 6am, the sky was dark, except for the single strip of sunrise. And on our way home at 5pm, I noticed that the sky again was gorgeous with a neon orange strip of sunset. I love the contrast:

The rest of 2022was pretty low key, but surprisingly social. The baby went to daycare, but the two school kids were home, so I planned some playdates for the kids. One night we had the neighbors over for dinner, a pleasant evening which made me vow to invite people over for dinner more. We had chili for dinner – simple to make ahead and easy to customize.

The Husband ended up having half a day off on Friday before New Years, so we went to lunch at our favorite dumpling house, then went to Lake Needwood for a walk and some playground time. The weather was pretty mild, but the lake had frozen earlier in the week and there were still pretty ice patterns to be seen. I had been to this trail before, but didn’t realize there was a playground with one of those zipline type structures on it. The kids had a great time. I even took a turn or two. The five year old, who initially balked at the idea of going to this park said, when it was time to go, “I didn’t have enough outdoor time!” Which is always something that I love to hear from my kids. So we went to the same park again two days later, this time I suggested it as a meet up location for my mom’s group, which had been trying to get together for a while. I had met these kids when the three year old was born and it was fun to see how our little squishy babies have all grown. Of course, with ten kids running around, I didn’t really get to chat at length with too many other parents, but I guess that’s what happy hour is for.

In between, trips to Lake Needwood, was New Years Day. It was pretty quiet. new years eve we went to church then came home, had dinner and watched the ball drop in Times Square. Actually the Husband and the ten year old watched. The five year old, three year old and I fell asleep on the couch.

New Years Day was nice and low key. We went to Taiwanese Breakfast, and had bowls of warm soy milk – savory for the grown ups, sweet for the kids – with fired dough sticks (you tiao), and dumplings and noodles and egg pancakes. Then we went to the park for a few hours, skipping lunch because we were so full from breakfast. After we got home, I decided that I needed to do one house project so cleaned out the fridge. I’m a little embarrassed by some of the things in the back of the fridge – there were three containers of sourdough starter, all sorts of pickles and more “mystery” containers than I care to admit. The trash was very full by the end of all this. I won’t pretend out fridge is absolutely uncluttered now, but I have started to be more mindful about where things are in the fridge. For example, all the pickles and fermentation experiments will go on the top right shelf. Leftovers on the left. So when I’m madly looking for leftovers to take for lunch, I’ll know where to look.

In a fun bit of “use it up”ness, I found some garlic butter from one of the Husband’s pizza nights. There was also a container of butter and Worcestershire sauce mixed together, leftover from a failed Chex mix attempt. I combined the garlic butter and the Chex mix butter and made more Chex mix. It was a very successful batch of Chex Mix, and very satisfying to finish up the various butters and *not* put containers back into the fridge.

We also had a very “use it up”ness dinner, which was so satisfying, and then we played Kings of Tokyo before bedtime. So it wasn’t a New Year’s day with grand plans, but there was a good mix of tasty food, family outdoor time, house project time, and family evening. Which was actually, upon reflection, a very good ordinary day.

Then it was back to life. I have to admit, I was so glad when everyone went back to school on January 3rd. I love my kids, but having them gone also felt amazing. It took me a few days to get back into the swing of life on my own terms. The first day they were back at school, I wanted to go for a run, so I parked at a trail after doing the bus drop off. Then it started to rain. And I was so unused to having my time dictated by only myself, I didn’t know what to do. My brain was stuck in, “This is your time to run.” but it was raining out so I clearly couldn’t. (or I could, but I don’t really have the right rain gear to run in the rain right now.) I ended up sitting in my car for ninety minutes before I decided to go to the library and pick up some holds and wait for the rain to subside. The rain did subside and I left the library with some good books. And I did go for that run after all. But man, that first instance of blank, unscheduled time was… not well spent.

Grateful for:
– 2022. Another year in the books. I’m glad I got to see the end of it.
-2023. Another year to live. I’m glad I have the chance.
– The other mom, L, at the bus stop. I was late for school bus pick up twice this week. Twice. The bus has been arriving about thirty minutes earlier and I just mentally wasn’t prepared for it. You’d think I’d figure it out after the first time I was late, but I was late the next day too. There is nothing that combines mortification and fear for your child like being late for the school bus. L was there and texted to make sure I was on my way and sat with my kids until I arrived. So grateful for her.
– Another mom at my bus stop, A. We’ve been chatting at the bus stop for a while now and before the winter break, I said, “One of these days, we should just walk down to the cafe and have coffee rather than just chatting here in the middle of the street.” Well last week, I had a package to return at Whole Foods, and I asked if she wanted to walk down with me, and she said yes, and it was a lovely morning.
-YouTube. Yes, I find a lot of YouTube insidious, but last week, I was reading the book “The Oboe Goes Boom Boom Boom” to the kids. It’s a book all about children in a band. At the end of the book, the author’s note revealed that all the kids in the book was based on real musicians, most of which I hadn’t heard of. So I was able to pop on YouTube and pull up videos of these really obscure yet talented musicians, including Jazz trumpeter Valadia Snow, flautist (and Jethro Tull member) Ian Anderson, Oboe player and composer Ruth Widdy Gibbs, and so many more. I love picture books about music, and it’s always so much more tangible when we can hear it too.
– The Husband for driving on all our road trips. I don’t like driving. I suspect the Husband doesn’t like me driving either. At the same time, I know that driving can be tedious and tiring, so I’m glad that he takes the wheel when we go places.

Looking forward to:
– Going back to work. It’s just a short gig, two weeks. I’m almost done the first week and it’s been nice to be back at work.
– The ten year old’s birthday party. “Looking forward to” might be too strong a way to phrase it, but I’m certainly excited for her to have a party.
-My father coming to visit. He’s here for the kids’ birthday.
– Having time to sit and plan and think about the year. Maybe not this week or next week, but soon…

What We Ate:
Monday: Road Trip – we had dinner at Guppy’s Good Time. The tag line is Burgers, Tacos, Sushi. Unfortunately they don’t serve sushi on Mondays, but the tacos were tasty, as were the cauliflower bites.

Tuesday: Indian Take Out, picked up on our way back home.

Wednesday: Breakfast for Dinner. Waffles and Eggs.

Thursday: Vegetarian Chili from The Weekday Vegetarians.

Friday: Pizza take out and Hip Hop Nutcracker and The Bad Bunch.

Saturday: Yaki Udon noodles with tofu. A recipe from Mark Bittman’s Dinner For Everyone. This cookbook is great because it gives you three variations on each recipe – one fast (under 30 mins), one vegan, and one super fancy (aka time consuming.) We did the “fast” version. Also – life lesson: everything looks better sprinkled with sesame seeds and green onions:

The Husband always says when I’m unsure about a meal, I sprinkle it with sesame seeds and green onions. But I actually think this meal is pretty tasty.

Sunday: Fridge leftovers – used up the lamb from Christmas – part of it I made into sandwiches, some of it I chopped up and threw into the leftover Indian food from Monday. It was so satisfying to use up little bits of food that way.

Monday: Dumplings and green beans. Standard “We don’t want to cook” dinner.

Tuesday: Lentil Soup, loosely based on a recipe from The Weekday Vegetarian. I didn’t have chard, but I used some leftover cabbage that I had in the fridge. I also made zatar flatbread to go with it – pizza dough, flattened and sprinkled with olive oil, garlic powder and za’tar and then baked – the taste to effort ratio is really high on that one.

Wednesday: Brussel Sprout Fried Rice – Meera Sodha’s Nasi Goreng. (vegan) This is the dish that makes the family groan when I mention it’s for dinner, but then everyone devours. I also threw in the last bits of the cabbage and it felt really satisfying to use it all up.

Thursday: Corn and Tomato Pasta from The Weekday Vegetarian. The recipe calls for fresh corn and tomatoes, none of which I had on hand, but I thought this was pretty tasty using frozen corn and canned tomatoes. I think the secret is that the recipe starts with caramelizing a whole red onion.

Friday: Baked Teriyaki Tofu with Broccoli Mushroom Stirfry. (vegan)