weekly menu – Page 6 – Life Off Headset

Weekly recap + what we ate: School’s Out!

I guess summer has begun!

The 11 year old had her 5th Grade Promotion Ceremony. The Husband and I both went. Oh my goodness. There might have been some tears. You know, those happy tears of, “Wasn’t she just a little baby? and I can’t believe that she’s made it all the way through elementary school! and She’s growing up and moving forward and I can’t always be there for her!” You know, that kind of stuff. Man, if I’m this blubbering mess at her elementary school promotion ceremony, I can’t imagine what kind of mess I’ll be as she gets older. I can’t believe that I will have at least two more Promotion/Graduation ceremonies to go though for this kid. More, if she finished college. And I’ll also have to go through this with the two other kids.

There were so many nice touches to the ceremony. The Principal reminding the students to “Find your superpower and always always always remember to be kind.” And then reminding them that they will always be a Sea Turtle (the school mascot). (okay – I might be tearing up remembering that bit.) As each student’s name was read out, the teacher also read a quote by the student – things like favorite memories, advice, hopes for the world. Some of my favorites:
“The world would be a more awesome place if there were more male teachers.”
“My advice for kindergarteners would be to enjoy recess because you don’t have it in middle school.”
“I will always remember to dial in”

There were also a lot of kids who mentioned their friends and teachers in their quote. It made me realize that even though learning is important, what really makes an impact are the friendship and human connections that the kids make – the people who make a child feel seen and heard. I feel like the 11 year old was fortunately place in the pandemic timeline – she had three years of in person learning before the pandemic and then she had a year and a half of in person learning afterwards. While the year of virtual learning was certainly disruptive, she could start and end elementary school surrounded by people and not online.

At the end of the ceremony, the school has a “clap out” where all the other grades line the hallways and the 5th graders walk by every classroom and high five all the other students. And it ended with cake. Then lots of pictures and good-byes and some phone numbers exchanged for future playdates.

That was the big event for the week.

Well, actually only one kid went to school on the Last Day of School. The 11 year old stayed home – the principal said that no one expected fifth graders to show up on the last half day. And the 3 year old had the day off for teachers in service. She actually is quite confused as to why she still has to go to school/ daycare this summer while her siblings don’t. The six year old went to his last day of kindergarten. Whew. We made it.

Other fun things:

This snapshot of life moment: The two younger kids were playing together, while I wrapped a few things up before I took them to a pool. Then I hear the 6 year old say to the 3 year old , “You need a stick! Go get a stick!” And the three year old runs into the kitchen and grabs a chopstick. Now whenever my kids grab sticks, some spidey sense tells me to be a little wary.
“What do you need a stick for?” I asked.
“To wave it!”
I follow them to the living room, and this is what I saw:

The three year old “conducting” while the six year old “plays”. It delighted me to my music loving heart!

For Better of For Worse:

I found this battered copy of a For Better or For Worse volume in a Little Free Library and immediately snatched it up. I grew up reading Lynn Johnston’s comic strip For Better or For Worse in my local newspaper. The family structure was very similar to my own – mom, dad, older brother, younger sister. And the younger sister was about my age as the strip progressed. I always found it so relatable – just an ordinary family and the gentle ironies of life. Johnston has such a gift for seeing the humour in the mundane. There are certain strips that have always stuck in my head. The one where the mother responds to the father’s complaint of the kids dog-earing books, by saying, “At last they are reading!” has always stayed with me.

The 11 year old has also been reading this slim volume and one day she showed me the page where pre-teen Elizabeth is in a prickly foul mood, slamming doors and growling at her parents, but then at the end of the day asks her mom for a hug. “Sometimes,” the 11 year old says to me, “That’s how I feel.” I just wanted to give her all the hugs.

This yummy breakfast: One day the kids wanted oatmeal for breakfast, which isn’t something we have a lot in the summer. They had frozen blueberries and maple syrup on theirs. I wanted a savory version, so I had eggs, ume plum vinegar, sesame oil, cilantro, and chili bamboo shoots on mine. Kind of like congee. I love chili bamboo shoots; I could eat them right out of the jar. But it’s one of those foods that I always forget that I like so I don’t have it too often. On the side, mango with tajin.

Lychees – I went to HMart for groceries the other day, and when I came home I realized that I have three versions of lychees:

There is my favorite Japanese gummy candy, then canned lychee because there is a lychee ice cream recipe that I want to try to make, and then fresh lychee, which we very rarely get, so I always buy some if I see them and they look good. I guess lychees are my favorite fruit! They are so sweet and juicy and have a nice chew to them that it’s just a really perfect eating experience for me. I’m sure the rarity makes them even more special too. They actually had lychees at Costco last week, but those aren’t as sweet at the ones from HMart.

Grateful for:
– My health. I’ve met a lot of people these past few weeks who are dealing with chronic health conditions, and I’ve been feeling really grateful that thanks mainly to genetics and good luck, I’ve always felt very good in my body. It’s also made me realize that medicine is not an exact science – my friends have gone through a battery of tests and visited many doctors and basically get a diagnosis of “Yup, you feel tired/have migraines/inexplicably vomit…” How mentally exhausting that must be, on top of not feeling physically well! I don’t want to come across a smug, but I’m realizing that I can’t take my ability to function without pain or discomfort for granted, especially as I get older. Health issues can be so mysterious and I could very well develop a chronic issue at anytime, so I’m grateful for every day that I’m healthy.

– The 11 year old’s elementary school and especially the staff and teacher. I had so many doubts about having the 11 year old switch schools for 5th grade. Clearly the partial Immersion program that she was in was not serving her well, but was a new school really the answer? What if she didn’t like the school? What if the kids at the new school were just as mean as the kids at the old school? Is it too big of an adjustment to make for the last year of elementary school? But it was absolutely the right decision, and honestly, one that we should have made sooner. The principal runs the school with the authoritative air of a benevolent ruler – a firm and kind man. The office staff is always happy to see people come in; they never act as if you’re being a bother. And the teachers all want to help kids learn and do well. This is our fourth elementary school experience and I’ll say that I didn’t find these things everywhere. The 11 year old found her spot and friends and one fun thing at the promotion ceremony was meeting all the people whom she connected with over the school year.

-The nice weather and the air clearing up. Luckily we only had about two days of really bad air here in the DC area, but then things were back to normal. With this week being tech week, I’m in the theatre at lot, and I haven’t been getting out to run. But I’m grateful that when I do get breaks, there is balmy weather- not quite grossly humid – and sunshine and shade and lush summer green for me to enjoy.

Looking Forward To: So the Husband has taken all three kids on trip. I’ve had to stay home because I’m working this week. It seems so luxurious to have the whole house to myself. These are things I’m looking forward to
– Reading! I went to the library last week on my day off and got a whole stack of books. I’m inspired by Coco who has been spending hours reading in the morning while her family is away!

– Cooking! I am going to cook and eat all the things that I don’t often get to cook when the family is at home – cauliflower, bok choy, fried rice, lots of vegetables. Tempeh. This is a big one. I’ve had tempeh in the fridge for longer than I care to admit, but no one likes tempeh. That’s not true, quite – no one likes the idea of tempeh, so I never make it. (They’re fine when I do finally make it but sometimes it’s not worth listening to the grousing). Also all the things that I want to eat, but the kids eat before I get to it. Like lychees.

– Cleaning out the guest room. This is my big “To Do” item while home by myself. We have family coming to visit in July and currently the guest room is clothes storage. I need to organize and put the clothes in bins and then put the clothes in the attic.

-Blog – finish my Amsterdam recaps.

-And then also all the other life admin stuff – camp forms, pay the bills, etc. I know this doesn’t really go on a “Looking forward to” list… but I’m looking forward to doing it without having a kid come up and interrupt me.

What We Ate – I still feel like every night I’ve had some variation of this conversation with the Husband:
Him: What can I make for dinner?
Me: Well there’s x, y, and z in the fridge.
Him: What can I do with that?
Me: … spits ball some complicated ideas.
Him: We’ll just have eggs.

In truth, he’s doing a great job of keeping the kids fed as I work into the evening. But I look forward to being able to meal plan again some day:

Saturday: Pizza and movie night – School of Rock.

Sunday: Camp food with friends. Our friends had bought a new camp stove and wanted to try it out, so we went on a hike and then they made dinner at the end. Rice and Beans with Sausage and vegetables – they had dehydrated okra and tomatoes and added that. It was really tasty. There was mac and cheese and broccoli rice for the kids.

Monday: Pork chops with gravy and green beans. The Husband cooked. This is the kind of Midwestern meal he makes without a receipe.

Tuesday: Zucchini Boats – the Husband cooked. We seem to eat these a lot, but it’s a good way to get vegetables into the kids.

Wednesday: Breakfast sandwiches.

Thursday: Turkey Chili – I made before heading off to work. This was one of those really satisfying meals to make in that I got to use up lots of leftovers and clean out the fridge a little. I used the leftover zucchini boat filling (ground turkey) and tossed it in in Instant Pot with leftover turkey burgers, a can of crushed tomatoes, celery, carrots, onions, corn, black beans and chili powder and cumin. It was really tasty and I had the leftovers in wraps for lunch all week.

Friday: Sandwiches at the Golf Course. The Summer music series has started at the local golf course – so many a Fridays we just grab sandwiches from the deli and head there with our lawn chairs and picnic blankets. Even when we don’t plan to go with friends, we almost always run into someone we know.

Saturday: Pizza and movie night. It was my turn to choose and I chose The Queen of Katwe, a 2016 movie based on the true story of a chess prodigy living in the slums of Kampala, Uganda. I’m trying to find more family movies that aren’t animated and I really enjoyed this one. The story is by turns inspirational and dramatic and eye-opening.

Monday: Turkey Chili leftovers

Tuesday: Grilled Tofu and Tomatoes – the husband made this from the Green Barbeque Cookbook, a book of vegan and vegetarian recipes to make on the grill. It was very tasty. Vegan.

Wednesday: Eggs and Green Beans. The Husband cooked.

Thursday: Cucumber and Black Bean Noodle Salad from To Asia With Love by Hetty McKinnon. This was really tasty and went over pretty well with the kids, though one kid only at the veggies and one kid only ate the noodles. The dressing base is fermented black bean sauce, one of my favorite ingredients. I added green beans and five spice tofu to bulk it up. Vegan.

Friday: Leftovers for me. Not quite sure what the Husband and kids did.

(bi)Weekly recap + what we ate: Distances

It feels like I’m still struggling through May, but really it’s well into June! The older kids still have a week of school, which feels late to me, but at the same time, I’m thinking, “ALREADY??? Unfettered free time for them?!?!” The 3 year old will go to day care full time, but the older kids are having four weeks of camp and the rest will be trips or time with grandparents or parents. I have finally booked all the camps that we need for the kids, so our child care needs are covered. It’s certainly a relief to have it done, but I am second-guessing myself and wondering if there should be more organized activities. It will be fine. I have to remind myself that done is better than perfect. And really, there is no perfect. Grandparent camp/ camp mom and dad will definitely be on the unstructured side. I’m strangely a little nervous about the lack of plans or routine for the non-camp weeks… I want to fill the summer with joy and fun and good memories, but at the same time that feels like a lot of pressure to have those expectations.

Here, the air has been hazy and we , in an ironic twist, masked to go outdoors for a couple days. I guess I’m glad I stocked up on masks last March, even though the kids weren’t masking in school anymore. I didn’t think much of the reports of poor air quality, but when I woke up Thursday morning, the trees seemed shrouded in a light mist. Of course it wasn’t mist. The air in DC is no where are poor of a quality as those further north, and in Canada – I hope everyone is staying safe; it all sounds really worrisome and stressful.

My May show has closed, and that finishes out the season at that company. I’ll be back in September, though, so I don’t feel too badly about not having time to clean out my desk properly.

One day, when I was doing my pre-show checks, I was struck by how much less time my pre-show checks take by the time I get to performance number four. When we first move to the theatre from the rehearsal room, it can initially take upwards of 45 minutes to talk the crew through setting up the props (presetting the props, we call it), and then for me to double check all the presets. The prop list for this show was quite large and a lot of it is quite specific: candle in the black holder on the stage left prop table, candle in the brass holder onstage, two candle tapers in the wooden box, two inch stack of paper on the crate, one tray with six ashtrays and six candles, one tray with three ashtrays and three candles and two cups, etc., etc., etc. Also – once we get into the theatre I work with a union crew so I can’t just put things where I want it – I have to ask the crew to do it. In the rehearsal hall, the other stage managers and I preset the props ourselves, and it just goes faster when I don’t have to explain the exact angle a box needs to sit at because if it isn’t like that, the singer won’t be able to reach the thing on top of the box that is very important for that bit of stage business. But I am deeply grateful for the crew because sometimes we have very heavy and awkward items in the show and by the time we get to stage, I’m tired of having to move it around myself. So I’m always glad for the crew.

All that to say, the first few days onstage I’m rushing to make sure things get set up at those correct angles, and I feel like the props won’t get set up in time for the start of rehearsal. The prop preset seems huge. Sometimes they aren’t all set when rehearsal starts and I just prioritize – set/check the stuff in the first scene, leave all the stuff in the last scene and check those when we get closer. (This is not the optimal way of going about things.)

But then something happens along the way as we get towards opening night and then through performances – the preset list that was a long and daunting 45 minutes process suddenly becomes manageable and takes only fifteen minutes to check. Often the crew has it done before I come up to stage. I can take one glance at a shelf of trays and tell immediately when something is not right, when a slice of bread or bottle of wine is missing. It’s not that I am become careless in prop checking – though I have been known to miss something (one show, it was a canteen that I had forgotten, and a singer had to improvise with a wine bottle. Then he exited stage with said wine bottle and returned with the canteen. I quipped that he pulled a reverse-Jesus.) I’m not careless – I still methodically check things off the preset list – but certainly by performance #4, what once seemed like a huge task on Day One in the theatre, suddenly seems like a less big task, seems routine and easy. On these big big shows I usually do have a moment when I say to myself, “Just think, this preset used to seem impossibly large, and now it’s … not.” Maybe that’s a metaphor for other things in life… sleep training, weekday mornings, going to the airport after COVID….

Just page one of the prop preset. There is another page and then three pages of diagrams.

Along those lines, in my last recap, I noted that I took an average of 16 000 steps per day during tech. As an exercise, I tallied how many steps I took during a regular performance – it takes in the neighborhood of 3000 steps over the course of four hours to run this particular show. That’s a 13 000 step difference. It got me thinking – that 13 000 step difference is the work it takes to figure out how the show is going to work in the theatre. I think sometimes people think that what we do as Stage Managers is make sure the show happens smoothly every night, but as I was doing the math of the difference in number of steps between a day of tech and a performance call, I realize that a lot of the core of my job is in those 13 000 steps. Being a stage manager is not just the 3000 steps it takes to run the show night after night. Rather it’s the 13 000 steps is the work it took to decide the backstage traffic patterns, to figure out the quick changes and prop presets, to make sure singers had clear instructions on how not to get hit by a piece of scenery, to run out onstage when the conductor or director stopped the rehearsal…. 3000 steps is what the audience sees. 13 000 steps, or roughly 5.5 miles, is what it takes to get there. The distance one travels is decidedly not the destination.

Speaking of distance…. I’ve been back to commuting. I recently read this opinion article: “Office Worker Don’t Hate the Office. They Hate the Commute” and something about it certainly rubbed me the wrong way. That they have to specify “Office Workers” seems to leave out large swaths of the population who don’t have the luxury of choosing to work from home. Similarly, a few weeks ago, I listened to an episode of The Art of Manliness titled The Science of a Better Daily Routine, in which they talked about science based ways to tweak your daily routine, including your commute. The guest mentioned that the optimal commute is 15 minutes and how we should craft our jobs with that in mind. It sort of irked me that he seemed to think tweaking your commute was an easy lifestyle change – like eating vegetables or drinking more water.

Anyhow, commuting has been on my mind recently as it has been taking vast amounts of my time. My current commute takes anywhere from 20 minutes on a Saturday morning to 1h, 5 mins on a weekday at 5pm. On days when it takes 20 minutes, it gives me a certain satisfying sense of flow; between home and work, there is but one traffic light, and that one is around the corner from my house. After that traffic light, I can drive without stopping all the way to work – my favorite is driving with my windows down, singing at the top of my lungs. It’s actually fun … if the traffic is light. If the traffic is not light… well then the commute can be soul sucking. All these people trying to get somewhere in their coffin-like metal pods. Alone, mostly. I find myself very rage-y some days when the traffic is moving particularly slowly. The punishing rays of sun that beat in through my window that I can’t escape from as I crawl along at 15 mph, past accidents and through construction. I am trying to be Zen about commuting, trying to make it an exercise in gratitude. I’m having varying degrees of success with this.

Things that make my commute a little less despairing:
– Snacks. Most days I’m commuting home around dinner time, and being hungry certainly does not improve my mood. I used to have granola bars and candy, and chocolate in the car for commuting, but these past few months, in an attempt to eat more vegetables, I’ve started packing crudités and cut up fruit for my commute. I feel like this little switch is a minor win on many levels. In the morning, I have been having my homemade iced chai in my cup holder, and it makes me happy. I tell myself I can’t drink it until I’m in the car, and it gives me something to look forward to. I do need to figure out some kind of portable breakfast because I’m finding that most mornings, I’m not hungry enough to eat breakfast before I get the kids to the school bus and then I’m starving by the time I get to work. Maybe the solution is to just eat at work, but I like to work when I get into work.
– Ice cold water. Staying hydrated is important, and ice cold water on a hot day can be divine. I’ve been filling up insulated water bottle with ice in the morning and topping it off before I leave work so that I have cold water for the drive home. I find having a sip of very very cold water helps perk me up a little bit.
– Something good to listen to. A good audiobook, an interesting podcast (lately I’ve been listening to Book Friends Forever, What Should I Read Next, and The Puberty Podcast), something good on the radio (This great story from the BBC on how opera companies use singing and breathing techniques to help COVID sufferers.), music. Having something engaging to listen to helps me not be so annoyed at the pace of traffic. I was also thinking that I could use the time to catch up on phone calls, but somehow I never feel like doing that.
– Sunglasses. I never saw the point in sunglasses, but a few years ago I got a pair of prescription sunglasses and it was life changing. Really bright sun tends to make me sleepy, which is dangerous when driving. Having sunglasses helps alleviate some of that sun drowsy feeling for me when I don’t have to constantly squint in the morning/ afternoon brightness.
– Reminding myself that I’m lucky to be able to commute to a job that I love, and one that requires my presence. In our world of AI advances, I’m glad that I’m not replaceable. (yet. Always yet. I don’t want to underestimate what we will do with technology). I don’t always feel like what I do is important in the larger context of world problems, but I do get a lot of satisfaction in how I function in the microcosm of putting on a show, and the in person interactions and experiences that I get to participate in. So on days when I am crawling through traffic I try to be grateful that someone needs me to show up somewhere.

So some fun things that have happened lately:

-On Memorial Day I had thought to take the kids on a hike with some friends, but it rained that morning, making it a little too muddy for that, so we decided to take the Metro into DC and go to a Museum instead. We decided to go to the Portrait Gallery because it’s right off the Red Line so easy to get to. In retrospect, it probably wasn’t the best choice of museum for four kids aged 3 to 11. I love that museum – I love seeing all the portraits of people and reading about what they did and how they made their mark. I always am filled with wonder at all the people who did amazing things whom I’ve never even heard about. But… I admit row and rows of portraits is probably not the most engaging for kids. Every time they paused in front of a painting or photograph for more than twenty seconds felt like an achievement. They did spend a whole three minutes in front of this painting, though:

Capture of H.B.M. Frigate Macedonian by U.S. Frigate United States, October 25, 1812 – painting by Thomas Chamber

Something about the energy and movement of the waves and the smoke seemed to capture the kids’ attention. They stood in front of it and talked about canons and shooting and destruction. It felt like a small win.

After the Portrait Gallery we were going to walk to the Natural History Museum, but all the streets were closed down by the Mall. At first I thought it was for the Memorial Day Concert on the Mall, but as we got closer, we realized that there was in fact a Memorial Day Parade. I haven’t seen a parade in ages, and certainly not one with this many marching bands. Of course we stopped to watch. The weather was pretty drizzly by this point, which acutally worked in our favor because the streets weren’t too crowded and we could get a good viewing spot. But all those poor high school students from all over the country, with their polyester uniforms and instruments having to march in the damp weather! I imagine they will always remember this… “Remember that time we got invited to play at the Memorial Day Parade in Washington, DC and it rained and we got soaked as we walked miles and miles down Independence Avenue?” Hard times certainly make for memorable times.

– The 11 year old is graduating from elementary school this year. (OMG.) The PTA got “Proud Graduate Class of 2023” yard signs for all the 5th graders and I walked over one morning to pick one up for our yard. Aside from paying the membership fee and venmo-ing money when staff gifts are being collected, I haven’t been very involved in the PTA. PTAs kind of scare me being the introvert that I am. – I know they are very nice and they do a lot of really great things, but meeting new people and activism has always been hard for me. Plus with kids at two different school I didn’t have it in me to join two separate PTAs. Anyhow, I show up at this person’s house and there are two ladies out front handing out yard sign. They asked the name of my kid and I told them and they said, “Oh my gosh, we love her!” Then they went on about what a good role model she is and how they’ve seen her play basketball, etc. etc. I feel like I spend a lot of time at loggerheads with the 11 year old and to hear other people sing her praises… well it reminded me that she really is a good kid and she tries hard to do the right thing and I need to be less hard on her. I was delighted to hear other people say such good things about her, yet it also made me feel bad that sometimes all our interactions are about things that I want her to do better on, and I should have more interactions that aren’t me naggingly remining her to do things. Definitely one of the things I need to work on.

-I finally opened the bag of Ketchup Chips I brought home from our trip to Montreal last summer. I tend to either abstain from snacks completely or eat the whole package of something. Since I can’t get ketchup chips here in the States, I couldn’t bear to open the one bag I brought home from Montreal knowing that once I opened it, I would devour the whole thing in one sitting. The Husband a few weeks ago, moved the bag of chips to our mantle, with some comment about how they are such a prized possession we should put them on display. Well, one day, after work, I finally decided that it was time to open the bag. Not sure why – something about it being summer and me being home from work early just made it feel like the right time to indulge. I opened the bag, inhaled the tomatoe-y vinergar-y aroma of the chips, then sat in the back yard with a book and my chips and savored every one. It was lovely, and, yes, I’m sad they are now gone.

And afternoon with ketchup chips, working from home Also – as idyllic as this scene seems – we were actually soon driven in by the mosquitoes.

Grateful For:
– All the things mentioned above that make commuting not so terrible. But also for technology and Google Maps. Being able to predict when I’ll be home, being able to see before I get on the road if the Capital Beltway is red or green… I remember when I got my first GPS – back before there was one on every smartphone. It was about the size of a baseball and sat on my dashboard. The first model I had couldn’t tell you traffic delays or anything, it just told you how to get from point A to point B. And before that, all I had to get around was a Thomas Guide. I grew up in Southern California and learned how to drive and get around using a Thomas Guide. Crazy to think that my kids will probably never have to look up a street location on a paper map book.

-The 11 year old’s piano teacher. The 11 year old has been on the fence about continuing with piano lessons. She likes being able to play, but does. not. practice. I’ve gone through phases of pleading, ordering, cajoling, bribing, and just ignoring her in my attempts to get her to practice, and it’s exhausting. I was thinking I should just let her quit, but then I was really struck by a list of things adults wish they could have learned (not sure where I saw the list) and the two top things were 1) play and instrument, and 2) speak a foreign language. (I’m glad I can do both, albeit rather imperfectly.) And then I spoke to a friend who has a side gig as a violinist and she said she is really glad her parents didn’t let her quit when she was my kid’s age. So I don’t want to be all, “You’ll stick with piano because I say so,” but I do want to find a way that the 11 year old will stick with it. I talked to her piano teacher and the teacher said that the 11 year old, when she is pushed can play beautifully, and she would be sad if she were to stop. Then the teacher said this to me, “I have students whose parents think piano is important and want their children to play an instrument even if they don’t practice at home, so they essentially pay me to sit and practice piano with them for thirty minutes once a week.” I don’t know that I feel that is the best use of my child’s activity fund, but at the same time, what if consistent lessons will be enough for her to eventually get over the hump of lacking self-motivation? I think one of the hard thing for me as a parent of a tween is not knowing who my child really is, or wondering if who my child really is is right in front of me, but I can’t see it. Anyhow, I’m glad for the long chat I had with her piano teacher – it gave me a lot of perspective. At first I was inclined to just let the eleven year old quit, but she and I talked about it and about how important it was and how much fun she seems to have when she’s just playing around on the piano and we decided that she’ll take a break for the summer and start again in the fall. I’m cautiously optimistic about this.

-A roof. I literally wrote this in my gratitude journal. One night it rained so so hard, and I was lying in bed with the 6 year old and he said, “It’s a good thing we have a roof.” And I thought… yes. I am very grateful for our roof.

Looking Forward To:
-I’ve booked our summer camping trip! Three nights car camping in the Shenedoahs. It will be me, the two little kids, and my parents. I’m excited for some time outdoors and I’m starting to research hikes for us to go on. I do need to get a new cooler since there is a crack in our old one.

– A visit from a friend. She’s an old friend from college who will be in the area. I haven’t decided what to do yet – maybe we’ll wander around Annapolis, maybe we’ll go on a hike?

-Being home for pizza and movie night. I’ve worked almost every Friday and Saturday night for the past six weeks, or we’ve had an event that we had to attend, so I’ve missed out on pizza and movie night for a while. I get to pick the movie.

– The 11 year old’s fifth grade graduation ceremony. Can’t believe I will have a middle-schooler!

What We Ate: I admit meal planning has been rubbish lately and the Husband has been making most of the dinners. So here is the very vague rundown of the past three weeks since I last did a menu recap…

Monday: Tofu and Broccoli Stir-Fry

Tuesday: Vegan Chickpea Gnocchi Soup. (Made it in the morning before going to work.)

Wednesday: Pasta of some sort

Thursday: Zucchini Boats.

Friday: Pizza and movie night (Zootopia). I think they ordered pizza.

Saturday: Dirty Meat – The was the big grilling party that we have for my work colleagues. This guy I work with marinates meat for a week in a combination of herbs and spices and then we gather to grill and eat it. There were over thirty people at our house for this party since it involved both past and present co-workers. It was a really good time. It might have also involved water balloons.

Sunday: Last minute dinner invite to go to a friends’ house. They had accidentally ordered too much food and needed help eating it. Not that we really need an excuse to see these friends.

Monday: Sauteed green beans, eggs, and Tater Tots. I’m not sure what the Husband/freezer that I can cook and call dinner?”

Tuesday: Pasta Salad with the leftover grilled vegetable from the Dirty Meat party.

Wednesday: Not sure at all.

Thursday: Mac and cheese made from scratch. Go Husband!

Friday: Leftover Pasta salad and pizza. I had to work, but the family watched Kung Fun Panda II (I think? Is there a second one? It was the baby’s turn to choose.)

Saturday: Pizza. On two consecutive nights? Not sure what is up with that.

Sunday: Leftovers scrounged from the fridge.

Monday: Burgers (Turkey and Beef), roasted vegetables, and tater tots. Our friends who came with us to the museum stayed on for dinner. I love having friends who you can just pull tater tots out of the freezer and call it dinner.

Tuesday: Broccoli Tofu Stir Fry

Wednesday: Eat down the fridge night.

Thursday: Pasta Salad. This time using my Friend’s Greek Salad recipe as a base. Made in the morning before I went to work.

Friday: Sandwiches and cookies. And easy dinner because the 11 year old had a piano recital we had to get to.

(bi)Weekly Recap + what we ate: Opening Night and other Miscellaneous things

Another show opened. Woot! Some random thoughts from this month so far:

A few of my tech week MVPs:
– pre-planning my wardrobe and laying out a week’s worth of clothes on Sunday night. I had done this on my Fall show, but had fallen out of the habit the past two shows. I need to remember to do this more often – not having to spend time thinking about what I’m going to wear every morning makes getting dressed go much faster. For some reason, when I have to decide anew every morning what to wear, it takes more time to choose than when I do it on Sunday night.
– Yogurt. I’ve been trying to run or walk on my dinner breaks – I didn’t do as many runs as I usually do, but I did always get outside for at least 30 mins on my dinner break. Of course this meant less time to eat dinner, so I tried to pack things that would be easy and fast to eat. Yogurt was definitely on the “easy and fast” list. I filled a thermos with yogurt, frozen fruit, pecans, chia seeds, and a drizzle of maple syrup. It was a very easy yet filling thing to eat and the thermos kept it cold. At first I felt like yogurt really wasn’t a dinner food, but it actually was pretty filling and got me through the evening rehearsal.
– Amazing colleagues, who are so very good at their jobs that even the hard stuff is not so hard. It’s not always easy, but it’s not so hard that I want to quit.
-The Husband, as always, who holds down the fort, did the after school pick up, fed the kids, took them to basketball practice, and skating lessons, and read to them, and put them to bed. All on his own.

I snapped this picture onstage one day while we were setting lighting cues. It’s the most snow I’ve seen all year. One rehearsal, I found myself standing underneath the snow bags as the snow was coming down and it was the oddest sensation – of being covered in snowflakes but not cold at all.

The most snow I’ve seen all year. Also… it gets into everything.

Tech Week Step Count:
Piano Tech Friday : 22, 475
Piano Dress Saturday: 24, 263
Sitzprobe Sunday: 12, 100
Orchestra Tech Monday: 17, 819
Orchestra Tech Tuesday: 11, 936
Orchestra Tech Wednesday: 15, 948
Final Dress Thursday: 11, 654
(Average of 16, 599 steps/day)

The next weeks will be a little busy because I’ll be in performances for one show while prepping/ rehearsing another show in another part of town. It will be a lot of time in the car, and the commute can be terribly slow, but I’ve started a new audiobook that makes me look forward to getting in the car:

I was looking for an audiobook for my commute and found this on the list of finalists for the 2023 Audie Awards. I’ve never read any Terry Pratchett, and people seem to really love his work, so I thought I’d give it a try. It is proving very funny and layered so far.

Other random ordinary life happenings:

It was Spirit Week for the 5th Grader. I feel somewhat guilty that I’m not the best person at keeping up with the various spirit weeks/ teacher appreciation weeks/etc. at school. I’ll see the email come through and then promptly forget. It’s not that I don’t appreciate the teachers or school spirit, it’s just that these weeks with some specific requirement every. single. day. seems light another kettlebell of mental load that I can’t handle, especially during tech week. I’m glad the 11 year old kept track of Spirit week because I knew it would make her happy to participate but I just couldn’t do it for her. Maybe this is growth? I forget about things so that she can develop a sense of responsibility to remember them? One morning was moustache day and I drew a moustache on her with Sharpie. A few days later, she comes to me with a sock on her hand and says, “It’s sock puppet day today.”

No use getting annoyed at the last minute request for sock puppet help, since I wouldn’t have been home in the evening to help anyway. But we did our best and I think it was pretty cute:

Fun fact – that hat is the hat that the 11 year old came home from the hospital wearing. We didn’t realize that we had to bring clothes to the hospital for our new baby so the nurses had to raid the NICU closet for us.

One day I had the morning off, so I volunteered at Field Day at the six year old’s school. I was put in charge of a volleyball station. Though “volleyball” and “put in charge of” are used very loosely here. It was chaotic – 20-40 kids at a time at my station – and there was lots of yelling of instructions. Also – teachers are amazing. Because they have to do it all. the. time.

A new smoothie shop opened around the corner from the Husband’s work place and they have a papaya smoothie that was very delicious. I discovered this little shop the day that I had to take my car in for a new tire. I had imprudently run up the curb in front of our our house one midnight when I got home from a late rehearsal. Because that’s just what I needed at that hour. Anyhow, the next morning, the Husband helped me change the tire. Also.. I went to open my trunk to get the jack and the spare out, and MY JACK WAS MISSING. What the what?!? You have to dig kind of deep to get to my jack, so I’m completely confounded by this. Or maybe I removed it at some point and couldn’t remember? Anyhow it was a completely bizarre mystery. Spare Tire put on and I went to Firestone to get a new tire. The six year old came with me to Firestone (Thank goodness I had warranty on my tires) and on the way back to the Metro to get home, we saw this new smoothie shop had opened. So we ordered smoothies – berry for him, dragon fruit for me. It was so fresh and tasty that I went back later that week and ordered a papaya smoothie. It sort of reminded me of the Papaya Milk drink that I would get from the Taiwanese drink store back in California. I sat in the spring sunshine in the plaza next to the smoothie shop to drink my papaya smoothie and it was such a wonderful quiet few minutes to myself.

Is there anything more lovely than a special cold beverages, sipped outdoors on a spring-almost-summer day?

There was also Mother’s Day in the mix. I did get to sleep in until 9am. Which was good because I had been up super late the night before at the opening night party. I don’t love going to work parties, because I’m just awkward socially and feel very uncool standing there clutching my Coke while people do suave things like chat with ambassadors and drink champagne. But, I did talk to some nice people – friends of a friend – and there was this amazing cheese spread:

And this was only one tiny corner of the cheese table.

Anyhow, the day after was Mother’s Day. I had a show to work in the afternoon so it didn’t feel very special. I don’t love Mother’s Day – again that whole feeling awkward about the attention thing. The one thing I did ask for Mother’s Day – getting a picture with all my kids – did not happen, so I was a little bummed about that. But the other thing I wanted – to eat dinner outside – that did happen. Granted, it was Chipotle because we had promised the 11 year old Chipotle for an excellent report card, but I still got to enjoy the warm evening. And the kids made a sign for me:

Grateful for:

-Wireless headsets. When I was first starting out in this business, there were no wireless headsets in the theatres where I worked. You got a headset and beltpack which was hard wired into a place in the wall so you either ran the show without a headset – which made it difficult to communicate with your stage manager – or you ran the show attached to this wall, with this really long tail or cable everywhere. Now when I started out I was working in small theatres, so having a wired headset was inconvenient but doable. If you were working in a big theatre, I guess you just ran the show without a headset and everyone just had to trust that things would happen and problems would get solved? It seems so inconceivable to me. Anyhow, we now have wireless headsets and we can roam the backstage and keep in touch with the rest of the stage management team, and I think that’s awesome.

-Our back patio. The weather has tipped into that between spring and summer time when there is longer days but the weather is not yet unbearably hot. My favorite time this time of year is the morning or early evening – when the sun is not at it’s zenith and the weather is slightly cooler – perfect for a light sweater, but okay if not. I love having a back patio and being able to sit back there with my tea in the morning, or a seltzer in the evening. Having a space to be able to enjoy the weather and the fresh air, a little table on which to put my beverage, and a chair to relax in and periodically a book to keep me company – that’s a good time right there.

– My car. And the mechanic who keeps it running. I drive a 2003 Subaru Legacy. It’s not the most fancy car these days, and it certainly has its chronic issues, but it gets me from point A to point B. I know its days are numbered, but I will drive it until it is no longer safe to do so. On my free day week, I took it in for an oil change and to have a belt tightened. My conversation to book the appointment with my mechanic went like this (Also note, we used to have three cars, but now only have two):
Me: I’d like to bring my car in for an oil change.
Mechanic: Yes of course. What is your phone number?
Me: [I tell him]
Mechanic: Oh yes. Which car of your fleet are you bringing in?
Me: The Subaru Legacy.
Mechanic: Oh Yes. The old one.

That made me laugh… I drive “the old one.”

But even still, it’s getting me from point A to point B. And these weeks when I’m working two jobs, I am doing a lot of getting from A to B.

Looking Forward To:
– Grilling with friends and colleagues. One of our traditions at work is to gather for a cookout once in a while and this year will be the first cook out since 2019. There are thirty+ people about to descend on the house. I’ve never hosted that many people before and honestly our yard is not that big. Also… I just realized that this will be more people than were at our wedding. Anyhow I’m hoping it will be pretty low key – grill, chairs, tables, people bring sides/apps/ beer, and we just hang out for an afternoon. Effortless. Easy. Plus, since a good number of them are stage managers, clean up is usually done before I can blink twice and accept the help.

– Summer. I have work booked until mid August this year, so I’ll have to be very purposeful to get some of our usual summer adventures in. It’s a balance, though… since we work six days a week, if I pack the day off with too many adventures, I might not have time to recharge and do the life maintenance things that I need to. But I am looking forward to the pool and outdoor music and hikes and camping and getting on my bike.

-I started watching The Gilded Age, a period drama that came out last year. It is by Julian Fellowes who wrote Downton Abbey and the cast is divine. It features some huge theatrical talents who, from what I understand, were all available for a mini series since COVID had shut down the theatres. I’m only one episode in, but it is proving that same blend of detailed and juicy yet proper that I loved about Downton Abbey. This is my new “while I wash the dishes” incentive.

– Working with a colleague whom I have known for over twenty years, but whom I haven’t seen since 2011. One thing about my work is many people come in and out of my life. Many of the colleagues from the early days when I was just starting out in opera are the most dear to me. We all started out as baby opera makers with big dreams and there is something really bonding about being in that stage of one’s career together. Some of these people are no longer in the industry, some of these people run their own opera companies now – funny the directions life takes you. Whenever we part ways at the end of a gig, I never say good-bye – it’s always, “See you later!” because I believe that our paths will cross again. When we finally do get to work together again, there is a sense of familiarity and growth that brings me so much joy and wonder.

What We Ate: It’s been a few weeks, but the Husband made all the dinners while I was in tech, so not quite so a very vague list…

Monday: Tortilla Soup. This recipe from the Two Sleevers website. Made a couple weeks ago and froze the leftovers. Present Me thanks Past Me for this foresight.

Tuesday: Eggplant Pasta. Vegan. Sautee eggplant with onions in InstantPot, add tomato sauce and pasta on top and cook on high pressure for 15 minutes. I made this to use up an eggplant we had in the fridge. The family was not a fan, but I thought it was perfectly fine. Vegan.

Wednesday: Eggs and leftovers.

Thursday: Take out Sandwiches. Again. This was the night we tried to go to an event at the local park where they had food trucks and live music. The place was swamped and the food trucks couldn’t keep up with the volume of people. Plus it was expensive. I think we paid $20 for 3 plain hotdogs. So we abandoned the park, went to our friends’ house, ordered sandwiches from our favorite deli and ate in the backyard while the kids bounced on their trampoline. I’d say it turned out to be a very nice evening.

Friday: Chana Masala in the Instant Pot. This recipe from the blog Feasting at Home. I thought this was really tasty and I ate it in wraps for lunch for the rest of the week. The family was lukewarm. It might have been because I forgot to turn the IP into “keep warm” and the food was cold by the time they got home.

Saturday: I had leftovers while at work. The family had pizza and movie night. I’m not sure what they watched.

Sunday: Dumplings and leftovers. I was at work and had yogurt for dinner.

Monday: all I have scribbled in my journal is “pasta”…. I think that means the Husband made tortellini and red sauce.

Tuesday: Wings. The Husband ordered wings from one of our favorite places. (Me: leftovers/yogurt at work)

Wednesday: Eggs and Toast. (Me: leftovers at work)

Thursday, Friday, Saturday: Complete Blank. I’m pretty sure the Husband cooked.

Sunday: Mother’s Day and Chipotle.

–

Weekly recap + what we ate: Gearing up for Tech Week

I did a big Costco run last week. Tech week is coming up and I felt like I had to stock up on snacks. Some new finds:

I like a spicy snack, and these two treats are opposite end of spicy. The almonds are spicy/ savory – perfect for when I’m tired of the sweet MLK. They are salty, smoky and crunchy with a little bit of heat. The Tamarind bites had intrigued me for a while and I finally decided to try them. I like tamarind a lot and I’ve always like chili spiced dried mango, so I figured these might be similar. These have that distinctive sweet/sour tamarind flavor with a nice kick from the chili. Not for eating by the handful, but I find one or two at a time very satisfying.

I got these strawberry yogurt bites more for the kids:

The kids really like yogurt tubes, but I can’t keep those in the car, so I thought this might be a nice alternative. They are sort of like yogurt covered raisins but with strawberry instead. The jury is out. They are a nice snack, but not very filling.

These protein bars:

I go back and forth on protein bars. I like the idea of them, but are they really better than just having a Snickers? I grabbed these because a guy standing next to me in the aisle said that it’s the only protein bar his gluten free son will eat. I’m very easily swayed by random strangers recommending things to me in store aisles. Anyhow, these are fine. They are a little larger than I expected, so feel like a lot. They taste okay to me and the ingredient list is not unexpected. Overwhelming endorsement, I know. I probably wouldn’t buy them again because they are on the pricy side, but if I need a gluten free bar, this isn’t a terrible option.

Other fun things:

Sometimes my kids take my camera and take really inane and unflattering pictures. Sometimes, though, they capture things like this:

Ignore me in the background blissfully unaware that my phone is gone. Look instead at the unbridled joy that the 6 year old captured.

That picture is going in my file of “Things to look at when I feel down.”

We also had Take Your Child To Work Day. The Husband took the kids to his office, where they had all sorts of fun activities – a Fire Truck, build a solar car, pizza lunch! Then he brought the kids to my work, where we had some late afternoon activities – build a prop flower, listen to some singers sing, tour the building, try on costumes. I was a little disappointed that the kids couldn’t come to rehearsal, but we have a no guest policy right now because of COVID. All the same, it was fun to see the kids at work briefly.

Very satisfying: I labelled the prop tables. There are a lot of props in my current show. The situation on the prop table had gotten quite chaotic – they had become some kind of random dump area. So one afternoon I just took the time and organized them and labelled spots for all the props. I do usually do this at some point in the process, but usually when there aren’t so many props it doesn’t feel as urgent. Or as satisfying when it is done. Opera aficionados can probably guess what opera this is:

Sort of annoying: The 3.5 year old got sent home with pink eye one day. The Husband went to pick her up and took her to the pediatrician and got drops then stayed home with her. I’m glad that he has a job that allows him to do that. I mean certainly if I had an emergency, I could have taken the afternoon off, but the Husband officially gets to take time off work. Benefits and all that.

Anyhow, we got drops for her, which she refused to let us put in:

It took a bit of bribery and holding her down to maybe get a drop in her eyes twice a day. And really, after the first day, bribery didn’t work.

Domestic Adventures: I made muffins in anticipation of tech. This time I made Coconut Peanut Mochi Muffins from Hetty McKinnon’s To Asia with Love. The muffins use sweet rice flour so they are gluten free, and they came out chewy like mochi but dense like a muffin. The swirl of peanut butter helps give it a substantial taste so that the muffin doesn’t tip into desert territory. I really liked these muffins and will definitely make them again. The kids didn’t love them, but the Husband did. The kids said it would be better with chocolate chips. Of course.

I did some mending. My favorite yellow linen pants had a hole in them from last fall when I accidentally poked them with my pencil. I decided to patch them and then saw that there was an even bigger hole on the left knee, so I patched that too. I find mending very satisfying. I do worry, though, that it might be considered not really acceptable to wear patched clothes at work. I patch my kids clothes all the time, but maybe the standard of appearance is different from kids vs. working professionals? Anyhow, I figured one of the benefits of working in the arts is that wearing patched clothes is probably okay since our dress code tends to be more relaxed and whimsy is not frowned upon. So I’ve been wearing them to work. Thank goodness because I really only have two or three pairs of pants right now.

We did a big purge of the kids’ toy room. The toys were getting overwhelming and the room was constantly messy. So we sat down and had the kids choose their five favorite toys/ sets and everything else got put into purgatory in the attic. This is what we were left with:
– Doll House and Castle
-Barbie house and accessories (This is a lot and I’m thinking that may need to be whittled down even more.)
-Magnaformers
-Blocks
-Train Tracks
-Matchbox cars and Hot Wheels garage (One cookie tin full.)
-Trucks (we led the six year old keep six trucks)
– Nugget and Fort play cushions
– Kitchen and accessories
– Baby Dolls and Toy Shopping Cart
– stuffies. Each kid got to keep five
– dress up clothes
-Swedish Climbing Ladder (This is bolted to the wall so had to stay, but the kids do legitimately play on it.)
-Things that the kids didn’t specifically say to keep, but which don’t take up a lot of room so we kept: The Speak n spell, Learn to Code Robot

Things that got sent to purgatory: Crazy Fort fort kit (which took up one big box – the kids really loved playing with this set during the pandemic, but they don’t build forts as much anymore), lots of trucks, all the craft kits, Transformers (surprisingly), stuffies not chosen.

What is left still feels like a lot. I guess since our kids are so far apart in age, there is going to be a wide range of toys. But we did put two big movie boxes of toys into the attic and just threw out a lot of the small or broken toys. (The 11 year old, who is a school bus patrol, apparently has been taking some of the small unmemorable figurines with her to the school bus and handing them out to younger kids as a reward for good behavior. I’m actually quite tickled that she is doing that. ) I think the ultimate goal is to whittle the toys down so they can go into another room, which will free up the toy room so that the 11 year old can have her own room. I think room sharing gets old once one is in the double digits. The toy room feels like a constant battle. I would love for it to be Pinterest organized and labelled, but the reality is if they can shove their toys easily to the side so that the cleaners can do the floors, I think I can begrudgingly live with that. So at least having fewer toys to shove into the perimeters will hopefully make said shoving go faster.

Something that made me smile: the six year old is starting to read, much to my surprise. during the Pandemic, I thought I might teach him using the How To Taech Your Child to Read in 100 Lessons, but it didn’t take. And then he got into a French Immersion program and we were told not to actively teach our kids to read because it sometimes confuses them as they are learning go read in French. So I just decided to let it go. We still read to him, but I didn’t try to ask him to sound out words or identify letters. Well the other day, I was driving him home and I heard … “ssssss- t- o…..p. Stop.” “can you read?” i asked him. “yeah.” “Who taught you?” “my brain.”

Grateful for:
– My Yeti Rambler with Hotshot lid. I had originally got this cup to keep my tea hot, but this week I also had the realization that it could also keep my drinks cold. Not sure why it took me so long to figure this out. Anyhow, it was perfect for making iced chai in the morning and sipping it all day long. One morning I even treated myself to a chai at my favorite coffee place near work and they put it in my Yeti and it was a nice pick me up all day long.
– Nice weather and longer hours of daylight. It had been raining all week which made the days kind of dreary. I had a happy hour scheduled with my mom’s group, and I thought it was going to have to be inside, but then the weather cleared up the afternoon of our happy hour. So we sat outside. And because we schedule our get togethers after bedtime, it was nice that the sun didn’t set until after 8pm so we still had some sunlight when we finally met up.
– This gratitude entry in my journal made me laugh: “Grateful for not moving the bar” There is a bar in our show. (As in there is a scene that takes place in a restaurant.) Of course we can’t have the real bar in the rehearsal room because it is part of the set. So have a substitute bar in rehearsal that is heavy as f*ck. Like it takes five people and six dollies to move it. We’ve been rehearsing in two rehearsal rooms so we had to move the bar one day from one room to the other, and it wasn’t fun. And then we thought we would have to move back to the first room again. But then the stage manager thought through the schedule and decided that we wouldn’t have to move it again, perhaps ever. So grateful.

Looking forward to:
-Tech week. Moving into the theatre! Prepping tech week food! I genuinely look forward to making sure I have food to get me though tech week. The week is long and stressful (I mean relatively – there are for sure more stressful jobs.), so I like to make sure I have food and snacks to get me through. In addition to the Costco snacks and mochi muffins, I’ll make a big batch of boiled eggs and bake muffins for a quick breakfast and have soup or curry that I can bring in a thermos for dinner.
– Meeting up with friends one evening at a park for food trucks and live music. It is starting to be live outdoor music season here, one of my favorite summer activities. I don’t know how many we’ll get to with my heavy work schedule this summer, but I’m trying to bookmark all my favorite events so I remember when they are happening. (we did this. It was kind of a bust – the park was over crowded and there weren’t enough food trucks for everyone and the food and beer wasn’t that good and it was expensive. So we bagged it and picked up sandwiches and went over to our friends’ house)
– Summer camp. This is still on the list because I still haven’t done it and I think if I make myself look forward to it being done, I will get it done. I thought I had an idea of what to do, but then the one camp I was thinking of only does ages 8-12, and I need something that both the 6 year old and 11 year old can do together. There are many advantages to having kids 5 years apart, but finding activities that both can do together is not one of them.

What we Ate:
Monday: Leftover Potatoe Leek Soup from the week before. Leftover soup has become one of our go to quick meal strategies.

Tuesday: Breakfast Sandwiches, made by the 11 year old.

Wednesday: Pasta and Meatballs in the Instant Pot.

Thursday: Sandwiches from Santucci’s, eaten in the park. Our first weekday park picnic of the season. Such an easy summer evening activity.

Friday: The Husband made stuffed zucchini. I ate leftovers at work.

Saturday: Happy Hour out with my mom’s group. I had mussels and asparagus. Meanwhile back at home, the Husband made pizza and the family watched the second Boss Baby movie. (The kids had watched the first movie on the plane to/from Amsterdam. Yes, they watched it twice.)

Sunday: Mac and cheese from the blue box and salad. Made my the 11 year old. I just realized – she made dinner twice this week. That feels kind of cool.

Weekly recap + what we ate: big ticket items and small pleasures

Another full week, but not as packed as the week before, thank goodness- On Monday we started rehearsals for a my next show, and that evening I had my last titles gig of the season. I worked 5 evening during the week, so I’m feeling really behind on the home front. Laundry, general house picking up, spaces that need to be organized, the living room still needs curtains. I also still need to register the two older kids for summer camp and I’m starting to have a little bit of anxiety about that. And we still have to renew our pool membership for the summer.

And all of it is big ticket items. I think in my mind we got through the expensive part of the year with our spring break trip and I’m waiting for a less expensive month, but really it doesn’t come.

Some highlights of my week:
– Slowly getting back into running. I did one pre-rehearsal run and one dinner break run, both less than 1.5 miles, but it’s something. I attempted another run on Saturday on the dinner break. The weather looked iffy, but I thought I could beat the rain. I was wrong. About 3/4 of a mile out it started to sprinkle. Then it turned into a deluge. Like one of those “I stood under a restaurant awning for 10 minutes hoping it would pass but eventually gave up and ran the four blocks back to work” kind of deluge. I was quite the sad soddened mess. And the dumb thing is I didn’t check the weather before hand that day; the morning was gorgeous so I didn’t even bring a raincoat. wump wump.

– Balloons in rehearsal. There are balloons in rehearsal. Bright colourful balloons. I got to use the helium tank and blow them up. It made me happy. One of my co-workers offered to take them down to the rehearsal hall for me, and I was like, “No way! I blew them up, I want to carry them down the hallway!” Of course they were sad and droopy by the next day, but that’s okay.

– The voice recital that I did supertitles for. Most of the songs were new to me, but there were two I absolutely loved. The first is called A Soft Day. It’s by a English composer C.V. Stanford, based on a poem by Winifred Letts. The poem describes a day that is damp and quiet and full of nature.

A soft day, thank God!
A wind from the south
With a honeyed mouth;
A scent of drenching leaves,
Briar and beech and lime,
White elder-flower and thyme
And the soaking grass smells sweet,
Crushed by my two bare feet,
While the rain drips,
Drips, drips, drips from the eaves.

A soft day, thank God!
The hills wear a shroud
Of silver cloud;
The web the spider weaves
Is a glittering net;
The woodland path is wet,
And the soaking earth smells sweet
Under my two bare feet,
And the rain drips,
Drips, drips, drips from the leaves.

I love poems that are able to capture a moment so precisely in words that I can almost feel the misty air around me. The song setting of this poem has that same relaxed and pensive feeling to it. And the way the notes “drip” like the rain…

British contralto Kathleen Ferrier. Pianist Frederick Stone. Such elegant singing.

My second favorite song in the recital was a beautifully sweet lullaby by Puccini. Puccini wrote lots of operas, big, grand affairs. I guess he also wrote lots of songs too, and I thought this one, Sogno d’or (Golden Dreams) was lovely. In it a parents sings to a child about how the angels will come to them as they sleep. You can listen to it here.

Soprano Krassimira Stoyanova. I worked with her years ago – she was a lovely person. We managed to communicate despite her not speaking English and me not speaking Italian.

Sunday was my day off, and even though there is not skating lessons this week since it is between sessions, I still took the kids skating. Actually the whole family went, though the Husband only sat and watched. It’s been so fun to see the kids get more and more confident on their skates. The three year old can skate by herself now, even though she insists on holding my hand while we skate.

In the afternoon we went downtown to meet my cousin who was in town for work. One thing I like about living near D.C. is that people often come to town for work, so we get to see them. We met my cousin at the National Postal Museum, which is one of my favorite of all the Smithsonian Museums. They have lots of informative and interactive exhibits which I find appeals to both me and the kids. Kids can learn how to sort mail, and design their own stamps and collect stamps too.

After the Postal Museum we walked down to Chinatown and had dinner at Jaleo, a tapas restaurant that is quite well known here. We decided to order the shrimp and squid paella in addition to a variety of tapas. I’ve been to Jaleo several times, but never ordered the paella; I think in my mind, a dish that’s mostly rice sounds unexciting. Well. I was proven wrong. The paella was heavenly. We also ordered dessert and there was a rice pudding with a lemon cream. Rice pudding, also something that is a very pedestrian desert in my mind, but which was divine in this iteration. I might have to reconsider my prejudice against rice.

Something that makes me smile: my pen holder from Muji and my red pencil. Years ago a colleague introduced me to 0.9 lead and it’s been my lead thickness of choice ever since. Of course everyone at work now used 0.9 lead pencils and we were constantly mixing up pencils since the barbells were all the same color. Eventually I stuck a piece of tape on mine so I knew which one was mine. When I found that Amazon sells my favorite pencils in my favorite color red, and not only that, in packs of 12, I immediately got a box and now I always know which 0.9 lead pencil is mine.

The pen holder, I found of the Japanese houseware store Muji. I was always putting my pencil down and forgetting where it was. Now, I have this clip on my binder and my pencil – and the green Frixion pen that I use to mark entrances – live there and I always know where it is. That adage “A place for everything” – I feel like this pen clip embraces that for me, at least in this small area of life. It’s not just about my writing utensils’ location but about containment and security. It makes me happy and feels so satisfying knowing where to put my pencil after I jot a notes, and to be able to find it when I need it.

A link I loved: I always enjoy the New York Times “By the Book” column where they interview noted people about their favorite books, not so favorite books, reading habits, etc. This week’s column features Judy Blume, and it is excellent. I put a lot of the books she mentioned in my TBR list, and have already started Sherman Alexie’s The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian and two chapters in it is already by turns hilarious and hesrtbreaking. I think of Judy Blume mostly as the author of “Superfudge”. I do remember reading “Are You There, God? It’s Me Margaret” but not really relating to it as much as I thought I would. Maybe it’s time for a re-read?

Grateful for:
– a morning walk with a friend. Several days I had afternoon and evening rehearsals, so I had the morning off. One morning, my friend from the bus stop asked if I wanted to go for a walk, so we did. The weather was nice, sunny, spring time weather. Afterwards we made plans to meet up at the park on Friday when the kids’ were off school. This friend is moving at the end of the summer – her husband is in the foreign service – and it makes me a sad that they are moving because I feel like I don’t make friends’ easily. I’m really glad she started talking to me at the bus stop one morning. They’ll be back in a couple years, though – I’ll just have to keep in touch.
– Having a car and being able to drive the kids to school. Another school bus related thing. One day, the morning school bus did not come at all. After half an hour of waiting, the parents who were at the stop took all the kids that were still waiting for the bus to school – whomever had a free seat in their car took a kid. I’m grateful that this is a community where this generosity is not weird and people are just willing to give another kid a ride to school without a second thought.
– Getting to listen to really talented people make music. For this show, I’m running the stage left side of stage. In rehearsal it means that from where I sit I get a prime view of the rehearsal pianist. I am in awe of how their hands dance over the keyboards, up and down, fast and slow. Sometimes they even sing the parts of the chorus or other characters who aren’t in rehearsal while their hands sprint across the notes. I try to find moments to savor every day and last week, many of those moments were watching the rehearsal pianists.

Looking forward to:
– Finalizing summer camp plans. As in looking forward to it being done, much the same way I was looking forward to our taxes being done.

– Happy Hour with moms from my mom’s group.

– reading this book. I love a good Jane Austen retelling and this one is proving pretty fun and thoughtful.

What we ate: (a lot more eating out than normal this week. I feel like we’re kind of in a meal planning slump)

Monday- I had my titles gig so I got take out from Beefsteak – tofu kimchi bowl. I am not sure what everyone else ate.

Tuesday- Pasta salad with the leftover grilled veggies from the Sunday before. vegan. I was working, so I made this in the morning before I went to work.

Wednesday – The Family had take out wings to celebrate a good report card. I was at work and brought leftover pasta salad.

Thursday – vegetarian tortilla soup in the Instant Pot. From this recipe from Two Sleevers website (aka the Butter Chicken Lady). Made in the morning before I went to work.

Friday – The Husband took the kids out to eat because they were off school and the 11 year old had a basketball game upcountry. I probably lay had leftovers.

Saturday- Pizza and movie night. The family watched Might Ducks. I went out for a drink with colleagues after work and missed the movie.

Sunday – Jaleo with my cousin.

Weekly recap + what we ate: pre-trip version

We are home from our spring break trip! Where we went:

Recaps to come. I hope. I still think I want to write recaps from our Montreal Trip too, so clearly I am behind.

But a quick rundown of the week before, since I selfishly like having these accounting of my days…

It was a week off of work, which was great because I could get some last minute errands and pre-trip things done.

some Highlights:
– Going for a cherry blossom run. I had always heard that the Kenwood neighborhood also has beautiful cherry blossoms, and it was less crowded than going to the Tidal Basin, so I thought I’d check it out. When I looked it up, I saw that there is a trail next to it, so I decided to combine my run with a cherry blossom wander. I parked at one of the lots off the trail that lead to the Kenwood neighborhood and had a little run then spent the rest of the morning wandering the streets. It was not as crowded as the Tidal Basin, so I felt like I was able to amble and savor at my own pace, though the blossoms in Kenwood are not the panoply of colors one sees downtown. It’s so interesting that this little neighborhood becomes such a cherry blossom hot spot. It was at the tail end of cherry blossom peak bloom and there was a light breeze, which sent cherry blossom petals drifting through the air and scattered on the roads.

-The six year old had a concert. The French Immersion students put on a concert every year, though apparently it hasn’t happened in a while because of the pandemic. Each class presents some kind of musical performance in French. The kindergartener show involved singing and dancing to a song about chocolate. I know I put on shows for a living, but I am seriously impressed by the coordination that it takes to organize 200+ kids to sing and dance in French. It’s always funny for me to go see school shows because there is a certain level of chaos that I would never see at my work, and yet… things always work out and people get onstage and offstage. I mean I just have to stage manage, but the teachers have to direct, choreograph, child wrangle, cajole, cheerlead… what full jobs they have… on top of the every day teaching.

The black light and fluorescent vests made me laugh.

– I got a discount on a book! I went to Barnes and Nobles to pick up a book for my flight. I usually like to read a book by someone from the country that I was visiting, so this is the one I chose:

Anyhow, as I was leafing through it, I noticed that the inside blurb page was upside down – you can see in the picture how the strip of the stepback is white and it should be red. I would have bought the book anyway because I wanted to read it and this gaffe wouldn’t have affected reading the book. But I took it to the front desk, pointed out the flaw, and they gave me 20% discount!

Giggle of the week –
This sign, seen in the neighborhood, which abounds with Little Free Libraries:

I feel like the six year old would take advantage of that too.

Grateful For:
– Public Transportation – I had lunch with a friend one day and I could take the metro there. It was just as fast as driving, but much more relaxing, and I could read my book a little.
– A friend for lending me a suitcase. I was going to buy a new suitcase since the wheels of my carry on rolling suitcase have come apart. I’ve had that suitcase for almost twenty years, so I guess it was about time to replace it. But when we went to look at suitcases, I was so overwhelmed by the options and couldn’t pick one. Relating my suitcase woes to my friend, she said, “I have one that you can borrow!” So I did. It saved me money and it saved me the mental energy of having to choose a suitcase. Sometimes having something just given to me is even more perfect than having to choose it myself.

-Time. Last week, I had more money than time, what with being unemployed and all. I think about this a lot. Sometimes when I’m unemployed I find my spending goes out of control because I finally have the time to browse/choose/buy those new shoes to replace the ones with holes that I have been making do with, or catch up on house projects, or refresh the kids’ wardrobes. I find when I’m thick in work, I don’t tend to throw money at things, rather I just decide to hobble through and replace things when I have time to think about it. But of course it means that I tend to have the time to spend money when I’m not making any money – which doesn’t even out as much as I would like. I suppose the answer, somewhat, is to increase my income. But also I think I should lean into thinking about how to spend time not money when I’m unemployed. Some things do need to be replaced, but maybe some things can be repaired? I sewed up a hole in a sweater that I wanted to take for vacation rather than buying a new one. And also – I went on the abovementioned run to see the cherry blossoms in Kenwood. It’s the kind of thing I wouldn’t have had time to do while working, but when I don’t have to be in at work, I can do these things. I can use time to buy moments of beauty. I can use time to buy moments of connection, like when I have lunch with friends. (Okay, also it took money to pay for lunch, but we could have just as easily gone for a walk and visit, or she could have come over for tea… the food wasn’t the important part.) Anyhow… when I’m feeling money poor and time rich, maybe I need to think about the things that time can buy me. On that note, I realize how lucky I am that I do have time – there are many people who have neither time nor money and that must be so stressful and hard.

What We Ate:

Monday: Chickpea noodle soup from Vegan for Everyone by America’s Test Kitchen. The six year old wanted veggie soup and I had celery to use up- I feel like I make this a lot when those two boxes need to be checked. Vegan.

Tuesday: Waffles. Quick dinner before the six year old’s school concert. I had heard a hack earlier this year of measuring two batches of dry ingredients when you make/bake something so that you just have to add the wet ingredients later on for a second batch. I thought this brilliant so last time I made waffles, I measured a second portion of the dry ingredients into a container and put it in the pantry. When I needed a quick dinner this night, I just tossed in the wet ingredients and everything was came together super quickly. I know measuring the dry ingredients doesn’t take that much time, but when you factor in finding things, hauling it out, measuring, and then putting it back away… to be able to just dump it in a bowl… pre-making the dry ingredients has the ease as if we were making our favorite waffle recipe from a box mix.

Wednesday: Dinner out with friends from out of town. I had pasta with mushrooms. There was parker house rolls with bacon jam involved.

Thursday: Off in an airplane!

Weekly recap + What We Ate: Peak Bloom!!!! and Lists for Travel

First of all… mystery solved! I found the waffle batter! We have some shelves next to the fridge in the basement, and I was looking for something this past week on the shelves. I moved a bag of flour, and waaaaaay at the back…. was the container of waffle batter, a good two weeks after it had gone missing.

Truth to tell, it wasn’t as disgusting as I thought it would be; when we opened it up, it wasn’t moldy or anything. I half jokingly said that it looked fine and we should try to make some waffles from it. The Husband vehemently disagreed. Food waste bothers me, but I begrudgingly agreed.

We’ve hit peak bloom here in DC! Yay! There was one day last week, when I was at work for a morning meeting and decided to run down to the Tidal Basin to see the cherry blossoms. It was actually a few days before peak bloom, so the trees weren’t quite iconically fluffy, but they were still very pretty. I will say, running around the Tidal Basin during peak bloom is … not ideal. There are so many people there, and you never know when someone is going to stop and take pictures. Plus there is no railing on the Tidal Basin side of the path, and I was concerned that I was going to fall into the water at a couple points because the walkways were so crowded. I actually ended up mostly running on the grass, which were riddled with tree roots from the cherry trees. So running amidst the cherry blossoms during peak bloom = do not recommend, unless you do it at 7am or something.

Despite that annoyance, there is something really energizing about being at the Tidal Basin during peak bloom – all the crowds and crowds of people who come out to see them seem so happy to be here, soaking up the wonder and beauty of it all. For years I avoided peak bloom, having thought that I’d seen it once and didn’t need to see it again. Yet when I’m there among the blossoms, I realize that for a lot of people this is a bucket list trip – my grandmother, always wanted to come see the cherry blossoms and I’m actually really sad she never did. Whenever I see the Asian grandmothers wandering the blossoms with their faces lifted to the pink light, I think of my grandmother and am always a little sad that she never made it out. Seeing the joy that cherry blossom season brings makes me feel so grateful that for me, this isn’t a bucket list thing, but a yearly event to savor.

Of course the Tidal Basin is the most famous area for cherry blossom meandering, but the whole region explodes with blossoms, really. On the actual day of peak bloom, I was supposed to go down with my friend, but she got sick and it was rainy, so I went to the botanical garden 15 minutes from me. They don’t have the explosion of trees that you find down at the Tidal Basin, but they do have a Japanese pavilion and some nice trees were blooming there too.

Work wise, last week I closed one show on Saturday and then had a supertitle gig on Sunday. I feel like every time I get through a show without a performer getting COVID, and the show having to re-shuffle, it feels like such an accomplishment – like I can finally let out this breath that I’ve been holding.

Side note – there is a notice posted in the theatre, dated March 6th, 2020 that talks about how the company is monitoring the developments of COVID 19 and how there are so far only 3 cases in the DC area and we are still going to continue with all scheduled performances. Then it gives some guidelines for good preventative measures, including cleaning and disinfecting frequently touched surfaces. The whole memo really just took me back to that time of uncertainty of March 2020. It’s kind of surreal to read the memo, and even more surreal that someone has left it up on the callboard for over three years, as if it’s some kind of time capsule or memorium.

Here’s something fun, the cast of the show is obsessed with jigsaw puzzles. One of my co-workers had brought them in for our office and when we were done, we put the puzzle out in the dressing room hallway for the singers. They did about one puzzle per show. I joked at one point that I could make intermission 50 minutes long so they could work on the puzzle – but they didn’t need the help. It was jaw dropping to me. There was one puzzle that stumped us until we realized the puzzle was missing a piece – so we gave it to the singers without telling them the trick. We made them a fake piece out of a Post It to fit in the empty slot, though:

The day after the show closed, I had a supertitle job. It was a lovely concert program – music by Black composers setting poems by Black poets. There was one song/poem I liked in particular – a poem by Claude McKay titled “I Know My Soul”:

I plucked my soul out of its secret place,
And held it to the mirror of my eye,
To see it like a star against the sky,
A twitching body quivering in space,
A spark of passion shining on my face.
And I explored it to determine why
This awful key to my infinity
Conspires to rob me of sweet joy and grace.
And if the sign may not be fully read,
If I can comprehend but not control,
I need not gloom my days with futile dread,
Because I see a part and not the whole.
Contemplating the strange, I’m comforted
By this narcotic thought: I know my soul.

I love how this poem is brimming with self confidence even as we live in a world of questions and things that we can’t control.

After the concert, I wandered around the theatre a little bit since the concert had been short and I had some time. I often just go from the parking garage to backstage, and don’t have to go through the lobby at work. Well I’m glad I took time to wander the lobby. The Center is doing a huge festival about rivers and waterways and they have some really cool large scale installation art in the lobby. I actually remember when there was an all staff email asking for blue button down shirts for this art installment – it was kind of amazing to see the end result:

Annoying lowlights this week:
– I got a parking ticket. Monday the baby was no longer sick, but since she had been out of school for three days, she wasn’t allowed back to school until she had a doctor’s note. I could only get an appointment for 2:30pm, so I took her into the office with me and she hung out and played with office supplies while I worked. But then I was running late to her doctor’s appointment and instead of parking on the street like I usually do, I parked in the metered lot which was closer. And then the appointment ran long and I got a ticket. So annoying – I was mad at myself because I should have just parked in the street and been three minutes late to the appointment.
– One day the six year old’s bus was over and hour late in the afternoon. I had left work early to pick him up and the whole time, I thought, “I could have done one more hour of work!!!” I’m not at all sure what happened – the school doesn’t really communicate about that kind of stuff really well. Oh well, at least the weather was nice and I got some reading done.
– Still dragging from the time change. The kids are usually up by 6am and now I have to drag them (and myself) out of bed at 7am. I’m wondering if we’re just not adjusting well, or if it’s something deeper than that. I’ve also been really bad at going to bed before 1am lately. So that could definitely be a factor.

Other highlights this week:

-March Madness continued. I ordered us Sweet Sixteen shirts, and we wore them. It was a little sad that my alma mater lost, but things were kind of a long shot anyway.

I’ve been in full trip planning mode. My latest preoccupation is what food and snacks to bring on the airplane. Snacks are a very important component to happy children. Also, I imagine there is a meal on board, though I’m not sure. Some ideas:
– sandwiches. I’m tempted to order Bahn Mi sandwiches to bring. They are sturdy, and if we have the pickled veggies on the side, they won’t get soggy. But will they be messy to eat on the plane? Otherwise, some variation of baguette/ciabatta + meat + cheese + spread (maybe blueberry jam?)
– fruit – cut up apple slices, grapes, clementines, mango
– cookies. I’m planning on making a batch of trail mix cookies from the Rise and Run cookbook
– chocolate
– granola bars
– string cheese
– fruit snacks or my favorite gummy candy from HMart

Another fun list – we’re going to be visiting family abroad, and I wanted to bring them some classic American treats. So far we have:
– Pop Tarts
– Cereal – maybe the individual packs of sugary stuff?
– a bottle of Ranch dressing.
– homemade chocolate chip cookies – I hear that the chocolate where they are is too high quality and melts too quickly, thus making it not great for chocolate chip cookies.
– if I had thought ahead, I would have ordered them some Girl Scout cookies… next time… There is only so much sugar that I can bring these kids without getting side-eye from a parent.
– Robitussin – I hear it’s very hard to find where we are going.

Not so fun list of to dos:
– make sure bills are paid
– pause subscriptions and produce box
– grocery shop for above mentioned snacks and gifts
– pay that annoying parking ticket.
– make sure to upload all tickets to museums and what not.
– So many other things….

Part of my Trip Prep has been trying to find a pair of shoes to wear – I ordered a bunch of waterproof half boots/ booties/ Chelsea boots off Zappos and a few slip on shoes. I settled on a pair of Sorel Hi-Line Chelsea boots. I also really liked the Sam Edelman Laguna’s but on me they weren’t ankle boots, more like shin boots – maybe my legs are too short. And I also liked the Blundstones, but they didn’t have them in my size and I liked the Blondos, but they were a touch too big and also veered into shin boot territory.

The pair I went with. I might regret not getting a black pair, but I wear a lot of black for work, so I like to get other colours for non-work.

And… on a whim, I ordered a pair of Rieker boots because my current pair of Rieker boots are starting to wear thin and I’ve already had them re-soled. And even though these boots aren’t waterproof and they have a fuzzy lining, so they aren’t really all season boots, they are a fabulous colour, so I decided to keep them and they make me really happy.

Podcast Listen of the Week: This episode of the Ten Percent Happier podcast, an interview with Scott Galloway, a professor of Marketing at NYU, and whom the notes describe as a “serial entrepreneur.” I feel like a lot of the podcasts I listen to talk about finding fulfillment and satisfaction in work, but Galloway stresses the importance of being financially stable and just working really hard while in your twenties. Probably not unrelated, but a lot of the work podcasts I listen to feature women guests. It seems to me that women and men are sold very different narratives about their value in the world, and men are taught, more so than women, that their value is in earning money and being ambitious. Galloway makes a point that work has a huge impact on one’s mental health because if one is going to be successful one will be spending the majority of one’s waking hours at work. Listening to the interview really made me think about this difference, because I feel like women seek work/life balance (whatever that means), but it’s not such a priority for men, particularly men in their twenties. Of course for men, there is no time constraint on having a family via birth and pregnancy, as there is for most women.

Another point that he makes is that work, structured work, is really important for young men, whose brains are still developing – it gives them a place of structure and a formal environment to learn to be a functioning member of the human race. I had never thought of this before, but for all that we glorify mavericks and out of the box thinking, especially in today’s world of gig work and telework and work from home, there is something that really is important about learning to operate in a community – and I think women internalize this more than men do.

And even as Galloway talks about the importance of work, he also talks about importance of living in the moment, and this quote struck me:

“As humans we’re drawn towards scarcity – sugar, salt, fat – we couldn’t find these things and so so we’re wildly drawn to sweets and meat and fat because our instincts haven’t caught up to institutional production. We aspire to have a Birkin bag or a Ferrari because there is only a certain number of those. The ultimate scarcity is kids… My twelve year old trying to do a handstand when we’re on vacation together – I’m like “He’s gone, never going to have that kid again.”

The ultimate scarcity is kids. – I need to remember that when it feels like things are hard with parenting.

Grateful For This Week:
– One of my coworkers had his last show last week. I’m really sad to see him go; we had both started at the company around the same time, and I’m so grateful for his presence these past fifteen years. Seeing him clear off his desk hit me harder than I thought it would.
– Spring! It’s officially Spring, which means sunlight and sunshine and flowers blooming. I know that in many ways Spring starting on March 20 is somewhat arbitrary – I mean I get the science of it, but the weather doesn’t always align with the science – but being able to officially say “It’s Spring!” feels really nice. We had our first after school playground stop of the season and I was reminded how this is always one of my favorite parts of warmer weather – hanging out at the playground after school and randomly running into friends.
– An uneventful closing night performance and a really great run of performances. Some shows feel really special and this was one of them. I felt so lucky to have been able to work on it.
-Impromptu play dates for the kids. One of our neighbors took the eleven year old to the local high school production of Chicago. It was so nice of them to think of her. And that same night, I got a text from the mom of one of the six year old’s friends asking if he wanted to come over to play. So for a few hours we had just one kid at home in the evenings – I’d forgotten how much less chaos there is when it’s just one kid at home.

Looking Forward To:
-The six year olds’ kindergarten performance.
– Spring Break Trip – I’ve been listening to podcasts that feature our destination and loaded a bunch of books set in that country on my Libby, and that’s starting to get me excited for going.
– Starting a new show – reuniting with old colleagues and meeting new ones. The first day of a new show is always a little like the first day of school – excitement and nervousness and lots of possibilities.

What We Ate: The meal planning train continues to stall in the station, so we’ve had a few cobbled together meals this week:

Monday: Sushi take out. I was meant to meet the Husband for Lunch, but plans changed, so we decided to have sushi for dinner instead.

Tuesday: Bahn Mi Salad from To Asia With Love by Hetty McKinnon. This was really tasty – basically you make a big batch of Bahn Mi pickled veggies, and eat that with fried tofu, croutons, and siracha mayo sauce. Vegan, except our vegan mayo was not good so we used regular mayo.

Wednesday: I worked and had late lunch/dinner at this restaurant, which is also very well known for it’s Tater Tots. There were a lot of Tater Tots eaten. Meanwhile back at the ranch, the Husband made taco cups for the kids – Flour tortillas folded into muffin tins to make cups, and then filled with cheese and salsa and beans and chicken and baked. It’s a really big hit and luckily there were leftovers for me to eat when I got home from work. I’ve come to the realization that the kids are more excited for the Husband’s cooking that they are for mine because he makes things like Taco Cups.

Thursday: I have no idea … for some reason I haven’t been keeping up with my journals this week.

Friday: Mac n Cheese with sweet potato from Family by Hetty McKinnon. Mac n cheese never seems like a main meal to me, but this recipe looked easy – all make in one pot – and I had some sweet potato to use up. It was definitely on the rich side.

Saturday: I worked and brought leftover lentils from last week. The Husband made pizza. I think they also watched a Star Wars movie? Or maybe a Marvel movie? Not sure.

Sunday: Grilled Tofu and Sausages with a cucumber salad. We also make this really yummy green sauce to eat with it.

That’s been the week here – how’s life in your corner?

Weekly recap + what we ate: Another Sick Week

It’s the end of March and we are a little college basketball obsessed in our house right now. I usually like watching basketball with the family, but don’t really have druthers on who wins. Well, this year, my alma mater is a major underdog and had made the Sweet 16 in the Men’s Tournament so, yeah, I’m feeling a little invested, though I know that the odds are not in their favor and likely this week’s game will be their last. It’s been so nail biting and exciting to watch them play. I’m not an basketball expert, and perhaps very biased, but I think they play with a lot of heart and grit and smarts. Sadly, the Husband’s alma mater did not make it to the Sweet 16, so he’s a little disappointed. He had said that if his school made it to the Sweet 16 we were going to get t-shirts. Well I ordered Sweet 16 t-shirts, but they have my school on them, not his. Ha ha.

Also – I will say, I think it’s awesome that the Husband puts on the women’s games as well. I like that the 11 year old gets to see women play and knows that it’s a women’s sport too. Speaking of which, I was listening to this episode of 99% Invisible the other day, about 6 on 6 Women’s basketball, and it was a fascinating. 6 on 6 basketball was primarily a women’s sport and this episode looks at issues of feminism and equity through the lens of this women only sport that is not really played these days.

Last week felt like a lot of lost time. On Monday, I sat down to work on the slides for my next supertitle gig, only to find….

Someone had ripped the power button off my pencil. I’m pretty sure the someone was a child. I was soooo angry. I keep all my scores for the titles gigs electronically, and the pencil was the easiest way to mark slide placements. I finally found the focus to sit down and spend a morning on this project and… foiled! AAARRRRRGGHGHGH! Anyhow, I took myself to Best Buy to get another tablet pencil, and I almost rage-bought the very expensive Apple version. But I refrained and bought the more economical, yet highly rated by Wire-cutter version by Zagg.

On Tuesday, I had to pick up the baby early from daycare for an appointment, only to find that the school had called to tell me to come get her since she had thrown up at snack time. I took her to her appointment (every so often I sign her up to participate in studies at the University’s Language Learning Center – it’s kind of granular and fascinating the work they do, all about when children learn to distinguish certain parts of speech.) She was fine the rest of the day and up to her usual hijinx, so I sent her to school the next morning, having neglected to read and/or retain the school’s policy that a child is not allowed back at school until at least 24 hours after no symptoms. So I soon got a call to come pick her up because she was not allowed back at school until 3pm that day. Wump wump. After I did the school bus run, I went and picked her up, feeling a little embarrassed about the whole thing. There were tears when I arrived to take her home. For someone who every morning complains about having to go to school, she was pretty distraught at having to leave. I had been planning on going into the office, and instead had to take my meetings from home with a child in my lap…

Well, she also threw up the next day, so another at home day. But not literally an at home day. She was clearly unable to go to school, but not sick enough to stay in bed. So we had lunch with the Husband, ran errands (emissions test done! Target run!) and went to a park. And then on Friday, the 6 year old threw up in the morning and then the baby threw up on her way to school, so they both stayed home. Any plans I had to do some deep work were scuttled and instead I did some house chores since that was doable with two kids hanging out. I turned over the kids’ clothes and tried not to get too weepily sentimental about packing away the 3T clothes for the last time. The kids, mean while, lazed around together:

Mystery of the Week: Where are all the size 6 clothes? I’m pretty sure that the now eleven year old wore clothes when she was six years old, but I have no idea where those clothes are. Granted, there were probably very few gender neutral / boy leaning clothes in there, but I’m sure there was one or two things that I could pull for the six year old to wear this summer. I feel like I spend so much time organizing and packing the clothes for future use, yet when it comes to actually finding them and putting them into rotation, I can’t find anything. I clearly need a better system.

Other Fun thing this week:

The 11 year old’s class had their egg drop project this week. Parents were invited to watch, so I headed over. I didn’t have a lot to do with her egg drop project though I did suggest that she use marshmallows instead of cotton balls to cushion the fall. I was actually really impressed by the final product – she had rigged a parachute out of a garbage bag, with straws taped together to form a frame. It occurred to me that this was the kind of project that one could easily google a solution to, but perhaps the 11 year old doesn’t quite realize the power of google yet. Which is absolutely an okay thing.

I had a meet up with some moms from my mom’s group. It’s always nice to get together. We went to a brewery, but it turns out it was trivia night and it was super crowded and getting food proved difficult, so we ended up going to the restaurant next door. We had some tasty food, lots of good conversation and we talked until we were the last ones at the restaurant. It was pretty clearly past closing time and I kept expecting someone to ask us to leave, but they let us stay til we were done. It was great to have a night out.

Watching: This past weekend we introduced the kids to The Simpsons. When I was growing up, the Simpsons went from being this part of the Tracy Ullman show to having it’s own full half hour tv slot and I remember what a big deal it was. It has held up pretty well, even after 30+ years. Anyhow, the 11 year old thinks it’s hilarious, so I think we may be watching more. Perhaps the Simpsons will unseat Golden Girls as our evening episode of tv?

This thing that the Husband found on the side of the road and brought home. it seems like a fun toy…

The baby discovering that the sequins on her hoodie reflect light. “I can make sparkles!” she exclaimed with delight.

Grateful For:
– The 11 year old. Friday night I had a show, so I was gone. This of course was the day that the Husband started feeling ill, so he took to bed. The 11 year old made her younger siblings tortellini and red sauce for dinner and then put them to bed. I’m so grateful that she stepped up even as I feel guilty for putting such a burden on her. Speaking of which- this bit of humor, “Co-Parenting with Your Parent: A Guide for Older Siblings” hit a little too close to home.
– Having a well stocked pantry so that even those weeks when I don’t meal plan, I can throw together some pretty tasty meals.
– The Husband getting up at 5am to deal with the vomiting child.

Looking forward to:
– Another super title gig. This one is a vocal recital of songs all by Black composers with poetry by Black poets.
– More evenings at home. I’ve been working a lot of nights these past few weeks and as much as the hours between school pick up and lights out are kind of a time of chaos, I’d like to be here for it.
– Cherry blossoms! We are on the brink of peak bloom!!

What We Ate:

Monday: Black Bean Soup in Instant Pot – made before I wen to work. This seems to be one of my go-to “Make dinner in the morning” meals where I always have the ingredients in the pantry.

Tuesday: Red Lentils (from The Weekday Vegetarians), and Aloo Gobi from Indian-ish by Priya Krishna. Eaten with raita and store bought naan. I had cauliflower and potatoes to use up. I haven’t cooked a lot from this cookbook yet, but it looks fantastic. There is one section that has a chart breaking down on how to make “Indian-ish” food with what you have on hand. Everything in this cookbook seems pretty doable. Vegan. Though we did have apple pie for dessert in honor of “Pi Day”, March 14th.

Wednesday: I had mussels and fried Brussel sprouts while out with some moms from my mom’s group. The Husband made egg sandwiches for everyone else back home.

Thursday: Roast Salmon and sauteed garlic green beans. This meal felt like quite an achievement because I had forgotten to pull out the salmon the night before, so it was still mostly frozen at 5pm. I discovered, though, that salmon actually roasts pretty well from frozen and I had dinner on the table in less than 45 minutes.

Friday: The 11 year old made the little kids tortellini and red sauce. I brought leftover soup and lentils for lunch.

Saturday: Pizza and movie night. We watched the 1997 version of Cinderella with Brandy and Whitney Houston. I had never seen it before, though I certainly remember when it came out and how groundbreaking it was with it’s diverse casting. It was cute and charming.

Sunday: Leftover pizza for the Husband and kids while I worked. When I came home, I made some quick kimchi and egg fried rice for myself.

Weekly recap + What We ate: Learning to find the moments even in tech

Well, that last weekend was a very full weekend! And it was followed by a very full week, so I’m posting about a week behind. There has been the time suck of ill children this week, and this post has been sitting languishing in my drafts folders for many many days. But for those of your following along, here’s the run down of life lately….

First off, we hosted the 11 year old’s basketball team for a sleepover. They came over Friday night, we had a build your own pizza station, and they made a huge Thank You Poster for their coach. I think six girls stayed the night. There wasn’t a lot of sleeping. Which I expected. What I didn’t expect (and maybe I should have?) was that most of the girls brought some kind of screen, either a phone or a tablet. So even though I told them to turn their lights out at 11pm and took away the tv remote, they were still up on their devices. I’m torn as to whether or not I should have collected their devices at Lights Out. On the one hand, sleepovers are kind of supposed to be a free for all, but on the other hand, the 11 year old commented to me afterwards how people didn’t really interact as much as she wanted – no one would play Uno with her, for example – because they were all on their screens on looking on to someone else’s screen. I don’t know if next time, I should tell the parents to leave their kids’ screens at home, or to just be stricter about collecting them, or have more organized activities?

After the last kid was picked up, I decided that I needed to get out of the house so we went to a nearby trail for a little walk. It’s not the most picturesque trail, but it was nice to see some signs of spring and the kids liked climbing the rocky outcrop they found.

Then off to work and opening night, which went smoothly. I fee like there was a somewhat collective sigh of relief that we got this show to opening, since last time we did this show, there was a global pandemic and we had to stop before the first onstage orchestra rehearsal. Funny story, there is a sign on a bulletin board in the theatre dated, March 3th, 2020 that encourages mask using. I’m not sure if the memo is left up out of neglect or some odd sense of memorium.

Then daylights savings the next day, which I had completely forgotten about, but somehow the Husband managed to get the two little kids up and to 8:30am mass on time. Daylights savings after a late night is always tough. I was so disoriented when I woke up to a quiet house and a watch that say 8:45am, and a clock that said 9:45am.

The Husband brought the kids home in time for me to bundle them back up and go to skating lessons. After skating lessons, there was a park, then home for lunch. Then we had a family adventure to the outlets to try to find some luggage. We wanted to get the 11 year old her own rolling suitcase for our Spring Break Trip, and we found something for her at the Samsonite store. Of course the two little kids also decided they wanted luggage, but let’s be real, I don’t know that the three year old is going to pull her own rolling suitcase through an airport. So we stopped by Target and got them (relatively) inexpensive rolling suitcases – cheerful luggage that will hopefully last three or four years. I still need to replace my rolling suitcase – it’s well over 20 years old, the wheels have disintegrated and it’s actually probably a little too long to fit in the overhead these days. A project for the weeks to come, I think.

On the way home, the Husband called an audible for dinner and we ended up at Dog Fish Head brewery for dinner, which was a tasty way to finish off the weekend, and a much needed bit of de-stressing since I think we were all cranky and overwhelmed by the shopping. There are just so. many. options. in the world. Then we went home and watched the Oscars.

Anyhow, the week before that very busy weekend was the rest of tech week, which went pretty smoothly. The schedule eased up quite a bit once we started rehearsing with orchestra, and we even had a few days without rehearsal. I know I say this all the time, but I still feel like I’m not great at switching between working 12 hours a day and 2 hours a day. I find I tend to be a slug on lighter work days and then life tasks don’t get done – so trying to find ways to balance the need to slug and the need to get through the list of things that had been put off during tech.

The three year old continued her contributions to science by participating in the trail for the Pfizer booster. It had occurred to me last month that she was eligible for the booster, and when I asked the group that administers the trial if I could go ahead and get her booster, they said I could but then she would have to withdraw from the trial. So… figuring that things were pretty low risk right now, and that the $150 might be nice for her college fund, we decided to wait until the booster trial opened up. That turned out to be a three hour appointment. But she got a cute teddy bear out of it!

Some random thoughts on the Oscars: I didn’t get to watch all of it because bedtime fell right in the middle of everything, but what I did see checked a lot of boxes for glamour, pretty people, and touching thank you speeches that reminded me how powerful public gratitude can be. Some thoughts:
-The clothes! Let’s be real, this is why I watch – I think I’ve seen exactly one of the movies that were nominated. (Tar, for the record) My favorite gown was Cara Delevingne’s huge red dress. I thought it was classic Hollywood glamour on a large scale. And also the Rock in the blush pink satin tuxedo. That made me smile.

It’s a little shiny, but I love the pop of colour in a sea of black.

– The folks who won for Best Live Short, singing happy birthday to one of their stars, James Martin. I mean how awesome is that? You have a global platform and only 45 seconds, and you use it to give your star the gift of two thousand people singing happy birthday?

– A moment that really connected for me was when Ernestine Hipper, who won for Production Design said, “When I started this, I was told – don’t ever forget, you are only as good as your team… ” And it made me think of my awesome colleagues and how I had just had a hard tech week and thank goodness I have a rock solid beyond competent team of stage managers to work with me because they make me look good, and it would have definitely been harder without them.

– Everything, Everywhere, All at Once sweeping the awards. I have yet to see this movie, but I very much want to. I mean how many times will I get to see a movie where the main character wears a print blouse and a puffer vest, just like my grandmother did? So that was lovely, and all the speeches thanking immigrant parents really hit close to home. The Asians who thanked their parents for letting them do what they wanted…

Grateful For:
– A very smooth opening night and the privilege to work on this show.
– Smiling Mind meditations. I’m (still) trying to wean the three year old at night. I’m feeling slightly ridiculous about this, but sometimes it’s the only pathway to sleep. Lately I’ve been able to get her to sleep before she demand “Milk!!!!” by playing a bedtime meditation for her and the six year old after we read books. I’ve been using the app Smiling Mind, an app based out of Australia. I picked it mostly because it is free, but the cute Australia accent is nice to listen to as well. There aren’t a whole lot of options for meditations, but my kids are creatures of habit and listen to the same one over and over again.
– Small moments to savor this week – the little bits of things that let me pause and enjoy being, like…
Golden sunsets on my dinner time run:

Steaming cups of chai. I’ve been making my own chai concentrate at home and enjoying a cup of chai in the afternoons, wrapping my cold hands around the fragrant warmth of the cup of milky brown tea. I find the pre-made chai too sweet for my taste so I started experimenting with making my own. I’m still working out the perfect recipe; I can’t seem to get my chai spicy enough. Currently I’m using cardomon pods, star anise, cinnamon stick, black peppercorn, ginger and tumeric. Maybe more ginger? Maybe grate the ginger?

Packing lunches for the kids. It seems silly to be grateful for such a tedious chore, but after working so many evenings and being gone for bedtime, I felt grateful that I could do this one thing for my kids every day. (Well, not every day. About half the time the 11 year old packs her own lunch.)

For the kids being adorable and cute and at that age when they get a lot of joy out of dressing alike. I had picked up this blue eagle shirt for the six year old a couple of years ago and he looooooves wearing his shirt. “My Robot Eagle Shirt”, he calls it. And he always wears it with red bottoms. I was worried what would happen when he outgrew the shirt, but then I was able to find the shirt one size bigger on Poshmark. Anyhow, now the original shirt has been passed on, and the kids do cute things like this:

This jigsaw puzzle – a soothing opportunity to shift my brain during rehearsal breaks. One of my co-workers brought in this charming puzzle made by Wentworth Wooden Puzzles – the pieces are made of wood and feel so satisfying to click into place, and some of the pieces are shaped like objects. I thought this clipboard was very appropriate for our Stage Management Office.

I’m a beginner puzzler, but I thought this puzzle fantastic!

The clean living room. One day, the 11 year old declined to go out running errands with us, saying that she would stay home and tidy. I was skeptical. But we got home and lo and behold:

Spring. I took a few hours to wander at the botanical gardens one day, to pause and breathe and enjoy the colours of spring.

Looking Forward To:
– Weekday lunch with the Husband. Like a date, almost.
– Time to breathe and work on all the things that get put off during tech.
– My brother and his family are coming to visit this summer! It’s a couple months away, but we haven’t seen them in a while, so I’m excited to see them.

What We Ate:

Saturday: I brought at hummus and cucumer sandwich to work. The Husband made pizza for movie night. I think they watched The Good Dinosaur.

Sunday: The Husband and kids had dumplings. I had Green Room chicken – as in there was a catered event at the theatre next door, which my friend was working. There was too much food leftover, so my friend brought it over and I had chicken and rice and salad for dinner.

Monday: The Husband made waffles with sauteed mushrooms for the kids. I packed ramen to eat at work.

Tuesday: Roasted Garlic Potato Soup from Family by Hetty McKinnon. Made before I went to work and was able to take myself a thermos full. The kids said this was bland, but the Husband and I thought it was tasty. Actually the best part was the salty paprika garlic almonds that the recipe calls for as a garnish. Vegan.

Wednesday: Vegetarian Jap chae. A kitchen sink, clean out the fridge meal. Vegan.

Thursday: Veggie quiche, made before I went to work. Another attempt to use up veggies in the fridge.

Friday: Pizza/ basketball team sleepover.

Saturday: Leftovers for me. The Husband and kids had pizza (homemade, I think?) and watched Frozen.

Sunday: Dog Fish Head Brewery. I had nachos and the ahi tuna sandwich. It all felt very indulgent.

Weekly recap + what we ate: tech week snacks and a new month

I’m half way through tech week – it’s the light at the end of the tunnel part of getting a show onstage. It’s been rough, sometimes frustratingly and despairingly so, and I’ve really questioned my ability to do my job. But things always magically happen- well, not magically, actually, It takes a lot of wonderfully talented and thoughtful people. So we are getting there, I’m learning a lot about how to stand up for what I think is needed. I’m really looking forward to going to sleep before midnight again.

It’s a new month and I took a moment to write a few February highlights and and lowlights and some plans and aspirations for the next 31 days. A lot of these things have been pushed off til the next few weeks when my schedule is lighter and I’m not at the theatre for 12 hours a day.

February Lowlights:
Work drama and stresses
Colleagues moving on to other jobs. I mean I’m happy for them, but I will miss their presence and wisdom.
Repairs at one of the rental properties we manage. Nothing we can’t handle, but irksome to have to deal with it.

February Highlights:
The 6 year old’s Chuck E. Cheese party.
Having friends over for the Superbowl.
Booking some work for the summer.
Going to see Into The Woods.
The lovely and charming vocal recital that I ran the titles for.

March Aspirations:
For Me:
– Learn 12 new Chinese characters. I’ve been slowly trying to learn to read in Chinese. I don’t know how practical this is because I feel like written Mandarin is very different from spoken Mandarin. But I’m trying to learn 100 characters by the end of the year. Which, I know, is not a huge amount, but baby steps.
-Continue to find time to write here on this blog.
– Run 3x a week, and incorporate 10 minutes of yoga or strength work a day.
– Happy Hour with my Moms’ Group. This is scheduled. Yay.
– Find a pair of casual shoes for our Spring Break Trip. I have new running shoes so I now wear my old trail runners as my every day shoe (which also helps me get a run in at work because I can still run in them so if I don’t remember my running shoes it’s not a big deal). But I would like a pair of casual yet cut shoes for city walking. I had a pair of Olukai slip on shoes, but they have a hole in them now, and I don’t like the current colour selection. Suggestions welcome for colourful, comfortable and durable shoes!
-Reach out to friends for some lunch dates once my show is open.

House/Organizational:
– TAXES. This is the big one. Maybe I should just make it the one thing on my list…
– Clean out the guest room that has become baby clothes storage.
– Order more shade samples for the living room.
– Turn over the kids clothes for Spring. There is a big consignment sale at a local preschool so before I check that out, I want to go through the kids clothes so I know what I need to buy for the kids to get them through the summer.
– Help with Laundry more.

Family
– Sleepover for the 11 year old’s basketball team. 11 girls. pizza, movie, soda, cookies, waffles, tater tots. I think only half are sleeping over, though.
– Plan Spring Break. It’s coming up soon!
– Date night or Date Lunch with Husband.
– Figure out summer childcare/camps. Late to the game, I know, but I just recently booked summer work. I hadn’t been planning on needing any summer child care, then boom. This is one of the fall outs of my colleagues leaving the business – people were suddenly looking for stage managers.
-Work on family routines for cleaning and organizing that the kids will buy into. Or maybe the solution is constant nagging for the next 18 years?

Work
-Survive tech.
-then clean out my inbox and do my IT training.

Fun
– Hike the Billy Goat Trail. I hiked it last fall and I’d love to do it again in the Spring.
– Cherry Blossoms. I just read that peak bloom has been moved up to March 18th, which seems ridiculously early. But this coincides with a lighter time at work, so I’ll make plans to go down during the week when it’s not so crowded.
– Family adventure. Not sure what this would be. Maybe another hike. Maybe a little half day trip? I’ll have to ponder. It’s tricky because weekends are often booked with my work or skating lessons for the kids, so our adventure would have to be pretty local.

Some Fun Things This Week:
– I went to Costco! Twice, actually. One time for regular family restocking, and then the day we moved into the theatre, I stopped on the way to work to pick up some fun snacks for the office. Through my colleague, I have discovered Whisps! They are baked cheese crackers. Like you know when you make a grilled cheese sandwich and some of the cheese leaks out onto the griddle and gets all bubbly and toasty and crunchy? Whisps is like a whole bag of those. They are delicious. But also, sometimes they taste like the way string cheese smells when you find it hardened under the car seat. I’ll leave it to you to decide if that’s your thing, but I certainly could eat a bag by myself.

Also tried these bubble tea mochis. I like them, but probably not enough to buy them again. I’d rather just have bubble tea.

And and and… my a Costco discovery in the freezer section that made me super excited:

So when I was growing up my grandmother would visit from Taiwan and bring me White Rabbit Candy. It’s kind of a taffy like vanilla candy wrapped in edible rice paper. Seeing a popsicle version – at Costco of all places – brought back so many memories that I just had to try them. They taste just like the candy, expect maybe a little creamier and they don’t get stuck in your teeth the same way. I find it interesting the random Asian treats that I find at our Costco.

– I had a long walk and lunch with my friend. We walked to the cafe and had brunch – I had quiche. And she had a latte and I had a ginger turmeric chai, we both had pastries. Mine was a blueberry rhubarb Amann and it was delicious. And we sat outside and enjoyed the sunshine and brisk, but not too brisk, weather.

– Clementines. I love clementine season. The little oranges are the perfectly portable sweet snack. I also love that the kids can peel them by themselves. We go through a bag in two days so we buy a lot when they are in season. (When they are not in season, I find them very uninspiring.) One of my favorite things to do with them is to peel them and then leave them out so that the membranes get a little dry and crispy. When you bit into the slices you get a delicate crunch of dried shell, then the burst of sweet juicy fruit. It’s a small pleasure, probably made more so by having peeled them and then having to wait for the outsides to dry.

peeled and waiting for the membranes to dry. It’s actually tricky to get to the right degree to dry membrane because someone inevitably comes by and eats them…

-Signs of Spring. Seems too soon, but things are blooming and I’m enjoying the new bits of colour in the landscape.

– Not fun, per se, but watching the 11 year old’s basketball game. They played a team of 6th graders and lost by one point. Losing on free throws is always hard and made me a little angry. But … I’ve been really enjoying being able to go to her games and cheer her on. I never thought I’d be a good sports parent – cheering and clapping always makes me feel self conscious, but these basketball games really brought out the cheerleading parent in me, I guess. There is something really fun about sitting in the stands with other parents and watching a nailbiter of a game.

Mystery of the week: Where did the waffle batter go? The Husband made a double batch of waffle batter one night for dinner, and saved half of it to make for dinner this past week. Well, we can’t find it. It’s not in either of our fridges. It’s not in the pantry. It’s not in any of the cupboards. I am kind of dreading the day when we find a six month old container of waffle batter in an utterly random corner of the house.

Grateful for this week:
– As with every tech week – first prize gold star goes to the Husband for holding down the fort every evening. He makes dinner, he scrapes the ice off my car in the morning, he cleans the kitchen at night. He goes to pick up the kids when they have an accident at school. He’s been awesome.
– My favorite pencils – Pentel Twist-erase mechanical pencils. The best features: a) 0.9 lead, nice and thick and won’t break when I’m writing quickly, and b) the barrel is red so I don’t lose them, c) the eraser which is thick enough so that it doesn’t shred the page when I rub too hard. I bought these pencils in a 12 pack last year because I didn’t ever want to be without.
– 2020 me for keeping such a neat prompt book. I literally took my score from this show in 2020 and copied all the tech cues into my 2023 score. There were still a lot of things that we discovered when we got onstage because… well we only had two tech rehearsals in 2020 before we were all sent home. So certain cues we never even had to a chance to realize that we would need them. But even so, it’s been great to be able to have all the cues in my book before we started onstage so I’m not putting in additional hours writing them in when I’m already at the theatre till 11pm at night.

Looking forward to:
– Opening night. This is the show I was working on when the pandemic shut everything down. It’s been a little surreal to be working on it again.
– Pizza party/movie night/sleepover for the 11 year old’s basketball team. (Apparently according to my niece this is actually a slumber party, not a sleepover…) We’re going to have the players make their own pizza and then the Husband says he’s just going to throw them in the basement and hand over the remote. I think about 11 preteens will be descending on us, though only half are actually staying the night. Waffles in the morning.
– working on my taxes. This is not a “looking forward to” because I find doing my taxes fun, but rather “looking forward to” in that I need to get it off my plate and I know I’m going to feel a lot better when it’s done. We actually have a person do our taxes, so I just need to find the information for our spreadsheet of deductible expenses and gather the tax documents.

What We Ate: another week of barely planned dinners:

Saturday: pizza (take out) and Good Night, Oppy. Such a good movie! This is a documentary about the Mars rovers Perseverance and Opportunity. They were originally anticipated to last 90 days on Mars, but Opportunity lasted fifteen years. There was something really human about this little rover wandering the planet, capturing pictures, and the scientists and engineers behind it.

Sunday: Dinner at our friend’s house before the Husband and the 11 year old went to the theatre with them. Our friends make ribs and hot dogs and salad and curly fries.

Monday: Defrosted some carrot parsnip soup – the husband fed the kids that with leftover pizza from the weekend. I was working, so I’m sure I packed something out of the fridge.

Tuesday: Perch and bagged salad. I was a Costco and it being Lent and we want to eat more fish, I bought a giant package of Perch.

Wednesday: eggs, fruit, cut up veggies. This was the night of the waffle batter mystery.

Thursday: Coconut Soup from Family by Hetty McKinnon.

Friday: I was working through most of my dinner break, and managed only to shove half a sandwich and a soy egg in my mouth before rehearsal. I’m not sure what the rest of the family had for dinner. I think they had take-out sushi.