work – Life Off Headset

(bi)Weekly recap + what we ate: Needs met, then unmet

Sometimes my writing schedule gets off and then I realize it’s been two weeks since and update even though my last post was just last week. Time can be funny like that…

I recently read this beautiful poem : I Remember the Carrots by Ada Limon. It starts with the lines:

I haven’t given up on trying to live a good life,
a really good one even, sitting in the kitchen
in Kentucky, imagining how agreeable I’ll be—
the advance of fulfillment, and of desire—
all these needs met, then unmet again.

Those words- “all these needs met, then unmet again.” has stuck with me. I’ve been thinking lately with regards to many things, work and life. In regards ot work, how there will never be a perfect system. We go through reorganizations and departmental changes, each time hoping that this is the optimal way to run things, but it is never a forever solution. People come and go and bring different talents, fill different holes with their different strengths. Different stressors come up, different duties, tasks to be done. You check the boxes then more things come up on the list. So there is no ultimate system, just a meeting today’s needs.

And in other parts of life – we adjust our lives and patterns to meet needs and then before we know it, things shift and once again there are unmet needs. Kids too. And oneself. Feed ourselves until we are no longer hungry, but then we will be hungry again. File the paperwork so that we get that insurance reimbursement then we have to go to the doctor again. But also things like, tell someone you love them, and then tell them again, because we can continue to meet that need of those around us to be loved. It is an exhausting cycle to think about. But also – there is some wonder in the thought that we can meet needs, that perhaps this is life’ work – to continue to meet needs – physical and emotional. Perhaps that’s the “good life” of the poem?

So along those lines –

It was a really busy few weeks for me. What week isn’t? (Side note – One of my favorite quotes is from an essay by Ursula Le Guin, who, when asked what she does in her spare time, says:
“In my case I still don’t know what spare time is because all my time is occupied. It always has been and it is now. It’s occupied by living.”
I never want to imply that the things that occupy my life and make my life feel frantic, this busyness of a hamster wheel that I feel stuck in sometimes – I would never want to imply that my personal busyness is morally superior than that which occupies anyone else’s time – we all of us occupy our time by living. When did being busy become a virtue? Or is that just the narrative I’ve internalized somewhere? )

Anyhow, the week before last, I took on an event gig, which required me to be at work at 8am. I know many people show up at work at 8am (or even earlier!), and props to them. 8am is a whole new world for me. I basically wake up at 6:00am, eat breakfast, pack lunches, get dressed and leave for work by 7:00am. It feels so much more efficient than my typical mornings which stretch longer (6:45am wake up to 8:50am leave for school bus) and where all those things seem to take up two hours rather than one. I mean, I do sometimes get a yoga stretch in, a bit or reading, a moment to journal. Or sometimes those stretches are occupied by looking for permission slips, or socks, or prepping dinner, or when I’m lucky a couch cuddle with a kid and a picture book. A 7am out the door, however, does not allow for those extra things, though.

The event was a two day affair, a symposium on mental health, and it went pretty smoothly. I was there mostly to help out the stage manager that the producing organization brought, facilitating communication with the crew. There was a lot of setting water glasses onstage and chairs and side tables for the different panels and speakers. Events are interesting to me because the stakes feel so high since you only get one go at it, but also at the same time you only get one try at it, often with minimal/no rehearsal, so the stakes somehow simultaneously feel oddly low. Like you just have to do the best you can to get people where they need to be when they need to be there and if it isn’t 100% smooth, it’s very rarely your fault. Event work is good money, to be honest, and I know many people who just do event work for a living.

But… I think I would miss rehearsal. I like going to rehearsal and creating something and being part of that process. I like taking a hundred people and stirring them all together to make a story onstage. I like watching artists discover how they tell stories and doing my part to make that story happen. And I like working somewhere where I know whom I’m working with and I don’t have to wonder if so and so is going to show up or if they have to cancel at the last minute to testify before congress. Or we have to re-arrange the PowerPoint last minute because the speaker cancelled. There is certainly a thrilling rush of adrenaline to work under the fast paced scenario of an event, but I think it would be exhausting to do that every. single. gig. Maybe I’m too comfortable where I am?

Which, on that note, I did finally move my cubicle at work, so I guess that’s a step towards discomfort. I’d been putting this off since I don’t like change and have been sitting at my original desk for almost twenty years. But someone pointed out that the desk of my predecessor in the Production Stage Manager role was probably better suited for, well, being the PSM since it was in a corner and was bigger and had a couch for sitting and chatting, which is something that happens more now that I have more work responsibilities. I’d delayed and delayed but then we were all getting new computers at work, so I figured it was as good a time as any to move cubicles. I don’t love it – I can’t see when people are in the office because of the way the cubicle walls are set up, but maybe I can move the cubicle walls.

Other fun things:
– Family game night. We often have pizza and movie on Fridays, and sometimes also on Saturdays as well. One week, though, the 7 year old demanded game night. So we had a Saturday game night. Everyone had different ideas for what they wanted to do, so we did all of it – we started by playing King of Tokyo, then we spent some time playing with the marble run and building domino topplings (is that a word?), and then we ended the evening by playing Uno. It was a great time – even with some sore losing and sore winning antics. I’m hopeful we’ll do more game nights.

You can sort of see the 12 year old in the chair at the top of the picture – she’s listening to an audiobook with her earphones on. But hey, she’s in the same room as the rest of us, so it’s still family time, right?

-FIVE! The youngest officially turned five. (Despite the unicorn cake of the last post, her birthday wasn’t until the next day.) They don’t get any younger, I suppose. This past weekend we had her birthday party at a nearby aquarium. It’s a small aquarium mostly focused on local marine life, with one room of tanks and then a huge play space outside. The kids got a tour of all the fish, and got to feed some of them, and also touch some of the animals in the touch tank. Then there was pizza and snacks and cupcakes and play time. I feel like 90% of the reason the 5 year old wanted to have the party at the aquarium was that the outdoor play space is in the shape of a pirate ship.

-No School Day/ Car Free Day. The two older kids had last Thursday off school for Rosh Hashanah. (I mean the calendar doesn’t say that – it just says Non-Instructional Day, but the school calendar doesn’t call it Christmas Break either…) It’s my last no school day with the kids for a while, and I wanted to have an adventure, but the 12 year old was reluctant to visit a museum or go on a hike (the two things I would have done), so we stayed close to home and it ended up being mostly a lovely day. In the morning we “ran” to a cafe and had special drinks and pastries. The run was the 7 year old’s idea. It was a very slow run, punctuated by much walking, but I think both kids felt good about it. At one point, the 7 year old was losing steam and the 12 year old grabbed his hand to encourage him along, telling him we just needed to make it to the next light.

We shared earbuds and listened to musical theatre soundtracks, singing along at the top of our lungs, which got a lot of smiles from other people on the path. After our special drinks and pastries, we walked home (still singing loudly) and had lunch. At some point during the walk home, I had it in my head that I wanted to have a car-free day. So after lunch, we took the metro to my work as an exercise for the 12 year old on how to take the metro on her own. I mean we were with her, but I had her lead the way. Then we went to the library near work, got some books – including Dogman books in French (Super-Chien!) – and then came home. The rest of the day, I baked Brazilian Cheesy Bread and brownies and we watched some tv as a family. It was a pretty low key day, but it was nice to spend time with the two big kids.

Side note: the library we went to was a DC Library, which we don’t often go to since we live in Maryland. I snapped this photo for their Busy Person’s Book Club- I love that idea.

-a new Costco snack. I went to Costco to pick up food for the 5 year old’s birthday party, hoping to also grab another bag of those Chocolate Quinoa Crisps, but they were no where to be found!!!!! Typical of Costco to lure me in with a fabulous snack and then not carry it any more. No worries! Costco does not lack for snacks, and I found a new one – These crunchy savory rice cakes – all my favorite Thai food flavor profiles in a bite sized morsel!

One Not Fun Thing:
-The decluttering has kind of hit a roadblock. I gave away the kids’ play tent on Freecycle. Several mistakes here – I should have double triple checked that they were okay with my giving it away, even though they said okay initially – but the biggest one was giving it away while the youngest was at home. There were tear. So many tears. Heart-wrenching sobs. Our youngest kid is perhaps our most pragmatic child and is the least likely to get upset or feed into melodrama. So when she does get upset, it feels so so heart-breaking. Anyhow, I feel terrible about giving away the tent now and am kind of petrified of giving away anymore toys from the toy room. So much for the toy room purge progress. This definitely needs to get back on track, though.

Two OMG things that I’m probably the last person on earth to have discovered:
– Shaking out the floor mats. Every Wednesday morning, I take the kids to piano lessons. While the 12 year old has lessons, I go get gas. I’ve gotten in the habit of throwing out the trash while I pump gas, and it’s such a simple way to keep the car tidy. Well lately, I’ve also been shaking out the floor mats as well, and what a difference that makes! Vacuuming the car seems like a lot of work, but shaking out the floor mats? With a quick flick, i get rid off all the grass and dirt and what not and the car looks almost like I vacuumed, even though under the floor mat is still covered in grass and dirt and whatnot. I guess this isn’t earth shattering, and I don’t know why it had never occurred to me before to do this, but it makes a huge difference.

-USB plugs! Despite using a computer almost every day of my life for the past thirty years, and having to plug in and unplug USB plugs, and often plugging them in upside down and getting frustrated and wondering if I was missing something – well, you know what? I was missing something. USB plugs are marked! The marked part of the plug is the top. What???? I feel like such an idiot not to have known this. I’ll never try to plug in a mouse upside down again.

Grateful For:

-Flowers in the front walk- a splash of colour during a grey week. The sun has come out now, but last week was so grey and drizzly. Coming home in the rain, I just wanted to rush into the house, but the purple flowers that line our front walk, poking their heads out reminded me to take a moment and savor beautiful things.

-The Husband booking the 5 year olds’ birthday party venue. I will admit I am not a birthday person. Witness the 7 year old not getting a party last year because I just couldn’t get it together. So this year for the youngest kid’s birthday, the Husband took it up on himself to research venues, run the options by the 5 year old, and then book the venue she picked. Done. Once a venue is booked, I’m good at food and other logistics. It’s that first push of the boulder that I’m not good at.

-The guy (D) who comes and fixes things for us. I am not a DIY/ Fix it myself kind of person. I might paint a room, and I have changed a light switch, and I did tile the basement of our first house. But in general, while I like the idea of doing my own DIY projects, I wouldn’t work on a timeline that is acceptable to other people in the house. Enter D, who comes in and will do both small and large jobs for us. He is careful and also honest – if something isn’t in his wheelhouse, he’ll tell us rather than try to figure it out. Anyhow, he was here to paint our new front door, and he’s done such a smooth job that every time I close the front door, I give it door an extra stroke because it’s just so glossy and pretty. He also replaced a light fixture in the kids’ room – I had always hated the fixture that was in the room when we moved it – everything was always so dark. Oh also installed a new medicine cabinet. Now the room is full of light. I’m grateful to D for making out home nicer bit by bit.

Looking Forward To:
-Starting a new opera. This week I’ll start prep for my next show. I’m excited to get back to a rehearsal room, but also kind of dreading it. The calendar is very full these next few months and I get overwhelmed thinking about it. One week, one day, one hour at a time, I suppose.

-Going contra dancing! The Husband sent me a link to a contradance that is ten minutes away and suggested that we go. It’s on a Thursday night and there are a million reasons we shouldn’t go – we haven’t been contra-dancing in years, and it might be a disastrously late night for everyone, the kids might hate it – but I’m looking forward to going. The Husband and I met at a contradance, so there’s a special place in my heart for dancing.

-re-setting my phone habits. I was listening to this 2015 episode of Note To Self with Sherry Turkle where she talks about how the mere presence of one’s phone is a huge distraction and I do find that it’s true for me. There are for sure things that I find valuable from having my phone, but also lots that just makes me fell sluggish. I want to be more thoughtful about how my phone plays in my life, so I’m trying this Bored and Brilliant challenge to re-set some habits. It’s supposed to be a 7 day challenge, but some of the challenges I think I’ll do more more than one day. The first challenge was to put one’s phone away while in transit – while driving, walking, on public transportation – and I’m trying to make that a longer habit. I think my goal is not necessarily to reduce time on my phone, but to reduce the number of times I pick up my phone.

– We started this tv show:

It’s sharply hilarious and skewers everyone on the political spectrum, as one might expect of a show about a gay public high school teacher in a school in Austin, TX. As I have a kid who is spitting distance to high school, this show fills me with dread and hope.

What We Ate (two weeks’ worth): I’m going to be real honest. I don’t know what the family ate while I worked the event. Upshot they were fed. Thank you to the Husband and my mother. We’re going into full on opera season, so I want to start thinking through more meals that can be made ahead or that the husband can make quickly.

Monday: Chicken wings and green beans. These are my mother’s chicken wings that the kids always ask her to make. It involves marinating the wings in garlic and soy sauce, pan frying and then baking with honey and more garlic. I could eat a whole panful by myself. Here’s the recipe:

Tuesday: no clue

Wednesday: no idea.

Thursday: Zucchini boats. The Husband cooked. Zucchini stuffed with ground turkey and topped with cheese. I told the seven year old to label the leftovers:

Friday: Pizza (take out) and Glee

Saturday: Toast. We had a lot going on this weekend and we wanted to make sure we had time for game night, so we had the ultimate simple supper. Toast. Some of us had toast and peanut butter, some had toast and jam. There was probably fruit and cut up veggies to go with, but I can’t be sure.

Sunday: Toast again. It was that kind of weekend.

Monday: Sandwiches (grilled cheese) and leftovers. Monday is very activity heavy so we usually have soup or sandwiches on Monday.

Tuesday: Eggplant Dan Dan Noodles, a Hetty Lui McKinnon recipe from the New York Times. Tasty and surprisingly fast, using Japanese eggplant from the farmer’s market. I added tofu, just fried it the same as the eggplant. VEgan.

Wednesday: Lemony White Bean Soup with Turkey and Greens from the NY Times Cooking site. This was really tasty – I started it on teh stove and the finished it in the InstantPot so it would be ready to eat when we got back from gymnastics. I didn’t have ground turkey, but in an effort to clean out our freezer, I took some chicken breasts and chopped it in the food processor. I also chopped up the chayote squash that came in our Hungry Harvest box and which had been confounding me, and threw that in too. After dinner, there was only two or three servings left, so I added another can of beans, a quart of chicken broth and the leftover ground turkey from the zucchini boats, cooked it in the InstantPot for another 15 minutes and then presto! had soup to go into the freezer for a quick leftover meal later this month.

Thursday: Chickpea Sweet Potato Stew when I read this recipe on Suzanne’s site, I immediately screenshot it to make since I had some sweet potatoes to use up. The twelve year old and I thought this was delicious. The rest of the family didn’t love it. The Husband doesn’t like too much coconut milk in his food. Maybe if I had made it with chicken they would have liked it more.

Friday: Pizza (take out) and Rush Hour. I had never seen this movie before, and it was very entertaining. For those who are unfamiliar, Rush Hour is a buddy cop movie featuring Jackie Chan as a police officer from China who comes to China when his bosses daughter is kidnapped, and gets paired with a Black LAPD officer played by Chris Tucker to solve the case. I was kind of afraid before we watched that there would be cringe-y Asian stereotypes in it, something that I’m kind of sensitive to the kids seeing. (I had to turn off All Dogs Go To Heaven within the first ten minutes because my kids really don’t need to see a buck toothed slanty eyed dog from “Siam”. Same reason I’ll probably not show my kids Breakfast at Tiffany’s any time soon, even though Audrey Hepburn is sublime in that movie. I wouldn’t say “never” but there would have to be some conversations first.) But Rush Hour was surprisingly free of bad Asian stereotypes and racist jokes. There were definitely “race” jokes, but I do think there’s a fine line between jokes about race and jokes that are racist. And the whole Black Cop/ Asian Cop thing – I don’t know if my kids will ever get how really cool and revolutionary that pairing of Chris Tucker and Jackie Chan was. Also -now I want to show them Shaolin Soccer.

Saturday: Leftovers and Bahn mi sandwiches. (I worked this evening)

Sunday: Pizza leftover from the 5 year old’s birthday party. I brought way too much food to the party, but it’s not a bad thing because now I have fruit salad and cut up veggies and chip and guac to last all week. And pizza. I froze one whole pizza for later – I’ve never done this, so I’m excited to try it out.

And now we are into October. Fall and Hallowe’en and all the things! And then the slide into the end of the year. Hope you are having a lovely week, that you are staying safe and dry where you are.

Weekly Recap + what we ate: mind wandering and meanderings

This week felt really routine. Morning – breakfast/pack lunches/school bus run. Then Work. Then home to eat dinner (never made it home in time to make dinner). Then kids to bed and collapse in exhaustion. I had a couple late nights when I stayed up late to work on the slides for a supertitle gig. That probably explains the few nights that I collapsed in exhaustion. Sometimes I think wistfully on “college me” who could pull four or five all nighters in a row. I can’t do that anymore. I mean I like sleep, but also.. it sometimes feels like a waste of time.

The week started off with Superbowl Sunday. We had friends over and lots of food. The kids ran around with minimal interest in the game, only coming down to eat periodically. I didn’t have druthers who won – I usually like just rooting for whomever is running with the ball. There’s something about a person running really fast while being chased that makes me want them to come out on top. It was a lovely social way to start the week.

Mind wanders and life meanders from the week:

It’s been taking a lot of mental energy to get through the decisions that have been thrown my way at work this week. Fine, we’ll get through. One of the Assistant Stage Managers on the show has brought in a jigsaw puzzle for the communal table in our office and we’ve been slowly working our way through. Or actually, not too slowly because it seemed like every time I came in in the morning, a new swath of puzzle was complete. Anyhow, a couple days ago, I came in to this:

My co-workers had left the last piece for me to do. Isn’t that awesome? I left it undone, saying I wanted to save it for a really bad day so that I’d have something that could go right when I needed it.

Haircut – I think I last got my haircut last year around this time. My modus operadi is to grow out my hair until it’s time to start a new gig, then to get it cut super short. I really should get my hair cut more, but I have to admit that my stylist is very expensive and it feels like his rates go up every time I get my haircut. Which, I guess if it’s only once a year, is understandable. Anyhow, my favorite part of getting my haircut super short- it now takes about five minutes to shower. Yay. When my hair gets long I sometimes am very reluctant to shower because it takes so long to wash my hair and then it takes a long time to dry. Oh – another perk, is I think the short hair hides the grey more. Or maybe not. I might just be kidding myself on that one.

Masking – I ordered another batch of masks for the kids this week, which led me to contemplate the current state of masking where I am. I would say that I am seeing fewer and fewer masks, but I do see them continue to be worn when I am out and about- mostly older people and people with children and service providers. Currently only the two little kids still wear masks to school. Except for a few weeks ago when there were 3 COVID cases in the 6 year old’s classroom and everyone was asked to mask for 10 days, masks are not mandatory. I think it’s interesting that the two little kids still ask for their masks as they head out the door for school while the 11 year old no longer wears one unless we ask her to, for example if we go to the theatre or something. Masking at work is encouraged but not enforced for me, in addition my company still does mandatory twice a week COVID testing. I do think that is on the more cautious end of the spectrum. I still mostly mask at the grocery store, though I don’t worry if I forget. I think right now, I’ve resigned myself to the idea that we’ll just continue masking for a while, but not to be too strict about it. I also realize that my approach to masking is probably not entirely rational and likely just habit right now; COVID levels are really low where I am. Also – I feel like there is so much other stuff goin on out there right now… if it’s not COVID, the kids are going to be sick from something else.

Petty annoyance of the week – Last week, spring swim lesson sign ups opened on Monday morning for our county swim program, and by the time I logged in at noon, all the slots for the beginner classes were taken, except for maybe 6:30pm on a Tuesday night, which is a little on the late side for us. I kind of knew the slots were going to fill fast and it still annoyed me mightily to have missed out. When the oldest was little, I would set my alarm for 6am on registration day to snag a swim lesson slot. I don’t know why I lost the will to do that these past few years. Second/third kid syndrome, maybe? I know if I were serious about getting the littles into swim lessons I would just sign them up for lessons with one of the private swim schools here. But they are so much more expensive. Anyhow, I think I will just try to take the kids to the pool more often during free swim time and then come summer sign them up for private lessons at our summer swim club. Sidenote story: A few months ago, I went to our local swim store to buy the eleven year old a new swimsuit and impulsively threw in a couple kickboards for the two little kids. Now the baby wanders around with her kick board asking, “When are we going to the pool?” She even has slept with it on occasion. So yeah, I think getting to the pool at least once this winter is on the to do list.

Another petty annoyance of the week: The weather was beautiful all week and I wanted to bike to work, but after I got all my gear on and unearthed the bike from the shed, I went to put air in the tires and the valve to the tire was broken. AAAARGGH!!! I need to streamline the process for biking to work so that when it doesn’t work out I’m not so devastated to have lost thirty minutes of anticipation and preparation time. Anyhow, I’m sure it’s an easy fast fix, but I haven’t had time to do it yet… and I’m feeling very annoyed that beautiful weather is passing by while the bike sits unused. I guess it was a week for foiled plans – I also spent an entire morning putting up a baby gate for my parent’s tenants because the door to their basement broke, and basement stairs+ babies = bad combination. The baby gate absolutely needed to be done, and I was happy to do it, but having my morning routine thrown off track was annoying. Oh well… expect the unexpected.

Proud Parent moment of the week: Last week was Valentine’s Day – a day that I usually mark with last minute trips to Target to survey the bottom barrel dregs of Valentine’s day cards available, or which I try to solve with Amazon next day shopping. I think my happiest moment last month was when the baby’s child care center emailed all the parents to notify us that the center does not celebrate Valentine’s Day and Valentine’s cards would not be necessary. Hallelujah!

But that still left the two kids in elementary school with Valentines to procure. I tasked the Husband to work with the 11 year old for hers – she just wanted to give out candy. I took on the six year old. He wanted to hand out stickers. The Sunday before Valentine’s Day we went to Michael’s, and to my dismay, the Valentine’s Day items were already relegated to a tiny shelf, to make way, of course, or Easter and St. Patrick’s Day. There were no Valentine’s Day Stickers. No heart stickers. Nothing. But…. luckily, we found some French stickers – perfect because the six year old is in French immersion school. So I grabbed those and called it done. I took them home and had him write his name on the back of the right number of sticker sheets. The next night, I offered to write his classmate’s names for him. He said, “I want to write Ada because it is short. The other names are too long.”

Okay, I figured that he could write Ada’s sticker sheet and I would write the rest of them. But… once he finished Ada, he looked at the rest of the names on his list and said, “I would like to try the other names.” And he did it! He wrote all twenty-four names of his classmates on the sticker sheets. I was just so proud of him for deciding that it was worth trying to do and doing it.

Also – check out his new favorite accessory. Cracks me up.

He’s overseeing the new construction of the Death Star, while writing Valentine’s Day Cards.

Grateful For This Week:
-The ridiculously mild weather. It was in the 50s and 60s all week. A couple days of rain, but other than that such nice weather. The crocuses are blooming which fill me with both joy and trepidation.

-The friend from my mom’s group who lent me the baby gate for my parent’s tenants. So glad I have a group of people I can just text for random asks like this.
– The ice arena nearby where the six year old has been taking skating lessons on Sunday mornings. I’ve really been enjoying our Sunday morning routine these past few weeks. The price of skating lessons also includes a punch card for the skater to come to free skate to practice. So on Sundays, I’ve been taking the three year old and the six year old to the 11am free skate, and then the three year old and I will continue to skate while the six year old has lessons from 12:15 to 12:45pm. Then we have a snack and go to the park, and get home around 2:00pm for a late lunch. It’s been a nice way to spend a Sunday morning, and I get to go skating too, which is always fun. I love seeing how even in these six weeks, both kids have gotten so much better on skates. I can skate for a quarter lap of the rink without anyone clinging on to me! And I initially thought that they would get discouraged by falling, but they haven’t; they just get right back up and continue skating. I’ve already signed up both kids for the next session and I’m looking forward to it!
– A friend and colleague whom I could just text with questions about my supertitle gig. (And this is where I get into the weeds of what I do…) Most of the translated titles that I format for these song recitals are for songs based on poetry. When formatting the projected titles, I’m always torn between maintaining the line of the original poem versus matching the line of the music. For example this poem by Edith Sitwell, set to music by William Walton:
Through gilded trellises
Of the heat, spangles
Pelt down through the tangles
Of bell flowers. Each dangles
Her castanets, shutters
Fall while the heat mutters.
(You can hear the full song here if you choose – it’s a charming song.)

Clearly the rhyming scheme doesn’t follow the line of the sentence. But the composer has set the musical phrases to follow the sentences, not the lines of poetry. At the same time, there is something so wonderful about the way the rhymes work. So the question is… is there an obligation, when writing the translation slides, to preserve the original line and rhyme scheme of the poetry?
Anyhow, I texted my friend for her opinion and she reminded me: “When the translation title fights the musical line, it can be distracting.” Which is a good reminder that my job is really to help the audience understand the music, not admire the poetry.
Also this question always good to ask: “Will the poet be at the recital?” My friend should really write a book on the art of writing supertitles.

Looking Forward To:
– Going to the theatre this week! I have tickets to see Into the Woods. At first I was going to go with the Husband and the 11 year old, but then the logistics of finding a sitter of the other two kids kind of overwhelmed me. (I know… we should be using a sitter more.) So the Husband and the 11 year old are going to go one night and I’m going with my friend/college roommate a different night. I’m so excited! My friend loves Into The Woods, and it’s her birthday week, so it feels celebratory. When we were in college we went to see a concert version that reunited the original cast for the 10th year anniversary of the original Broadway production, so this will be a nice throwback.
– Planning our Spring Break Trip. I know it’s a while away, but I just had a bunch of travel books come off my holds list for our destination, so I’m starting to get excited about what we might do there.
– Dr. Quinn Medicine Woman. So I had been watching This Is Us while cleaning the kitchen. But it’s the last season and I’m not ready to be done that. (Okay, last year was the last season, but I seem to watch everything at least one year late.) So I’ve switched to watching old episodes of Dr. Quinn Medicine Woman. I loved this show growing up, and would watch it every week – well until my parents got rid of tv, but that’s another story. I’m realizing, though, that I only started watching it halfway through Season Two, so I’ve started watching it from the beginning. Is it sentimental and unabashedly wholesome, with life lessons every week and lives frequently in peril. Without a doubt this is not the kind of edgy, ironic, brutal television that gets made these days. People might roll their eyes at this kind of family friendly fare, but I do wish that there were more shows like this to watch as a family these days.
-Lent. I’m not Catholic, but the Husband is and I look forward to Lent every year because then we get to eat more fish. I mean we could eat more fish any old time of the year, but we actually make an effort during Lent.

What We Ate: I didn’t meal plan at all this week – it was a combination of the Husband cooking and us throwing dinner together from fridge and pantry. Worked out fine, but man… I find the day stressful when I don’t have a plan for dinner. Food takes up too much real eastate in my brain.

Saturday: Pizza (the Husband made) and Newsies. It was my turn to pick the movie for Family movie night and I wanted to watch a musical. I had forgotten how good Newsies is. I love this movie so much! The music, the dancing newsboys. Square jawed Bill Pullman. Christian Bale. Christian Bale singing. (“Santa Feeeeeee! Are you there? Can you swear you won’t forget meeeee!”) My only quibble is the serious lack of female characters. I understand they tried to fix that with the musical theatre version they made. There is a caputre of the Broadway version available on Disney+ and I haven’t watched it yet because I’m torn between being really curious about it and thinking that the movie is perfect and not wanting another version.

Sunday: Super Bowl Sunday – I made Cheesesteaks, and our friends brought ribs (though I made the BBQ sauce), and baked beans, and coleslaw. I also put out cut up veggies and we had an assortment of TastyKakes.

Monday: Leftovers from Super Bowl Sunday plus some random things that we found in the fridge. Mixing the creamy pepper past with baked beans was a surprising hit with the kids.

Tuesday: Grilled Tofu with tomatoes from the Green Barbeque book. The husband made dinner. (vegan, except then we supplemented with some leftover ribs. We’re learning that the Green Barbeque book recipe’s need to be doubled in order to feel our whole family…)

Wednesday: The Pasta e Fagioli soup from last week. I had frozen the leftovers, and the Husband heated that up for the kids to eat for dinner. I should probably do freeze meals for future dinners more than I do right now. It’s such an easy dinner option. (vegan)

Thursday: Roasted Cauliflower Coconut Curry Soup. I was inspired by this recipe from the New York Times this week and had a head of cauliflower to use up. The recipe was for a squash soup, but it featured the brilliant idea of roasting the squash directly in the dutch oven. So I chopped up a head of cauliflower, two apples, four cloves of garlic, two ribs of celery, and an onion – tossed them in olive oil, salt and pepper in the Dutch Oven, then roasted them on 400 for about an hour. Everything got nice and caramelly. Then I put it on the stove top, dumped in 4 cups vegetable broth, a can of coconut milk and a tablespoon of curry powder and a teaspoon of tumeric. and brought it all to a boil and simmered for 15 minutes. At this point, I left it and told the Husband to puree it when he got home and serve it with bread. It was really tasty. Vegan.

Friday: Tortellini and red sauce. I think this is becoming our go-to meal for Friday Nights since we need something quick before basketball practice.
Anyone else have go to fast dinners for when there is just no time?

On finishing work

I am definitely a “last minute” kind of person – I tend to procrastinate and then finish projects just in time. I think it comes being a Questioner (of Gretchen Rubin’s four tendencies). I like to keep asking questions, wanting to have to have all the information in place perfectly before I can start a project. I used to wait until we had staged every scene in an opera to start my show running paperwork, thinking that I wanted the complete picture of the show before starting. I’ve come to realize, though, that I don’t need to have everything in place to start my paperwork- I can start my paperwork with what I know and – gasp!- adjust when things change in rehearsal.

Two things I read recently have shifted my thinking of waiting til the last minute to finish things.

The first was a recent post by Seth Godin. I really love how Godin can distill ideas down to their essence, and one of his recent posts really was an “Aha moment” me:

The second was on a blog Headset Chatter, written by a stage manager Karen Parlato. In their FAQ they answer a question about dealing with deadlines:

I like to do things right away. Stage management is all about juggling many balls. I like to get the ball out of my hands as quickly as possible so it’s over and done and I can move on to others without losing track of anything.

These two ideas really shifted my framing about workload and deadlines. I didn’t used to see the value of finishing things early, wanting my work to be as accurate and finessed as possible before distributing it. And even when I did start projects with plenty of time to spare, I found myself still working up til the deadline because I wanted to fuss and adjust and re-phrase. The work was done, but I was not done with it.

For example paperwork for backstage – all the information for the stage crew will be in the paperwork, but I continue to make slight adjustments in fits of self doubt – maybe if I adjust this margin, the crew notes will be clearer to read. Maybe if I write Stage Left rather than just SL it will be less confusing. Maybe if I put this picture just this way or that it will be clearer how the tea try is to be laid out of for the singer. The possibilities are infinite.

But my time is not infinite.

Godin’s and Parlato’s posts, helped me realize that finishing something early is not an excuse to keep futzing with it – the value of finishing something early is that that it gets it off my plate and pushes it to other people so that they can start to do their jobs. Holding on to something does not diminish my to do list. Getting things done just in the nick of time is not necessarily a virtue.

I really like Godin’s idea that those last sixty seconds can be a moment of peace before submitting something, time to savor and enjoy completing a task. It goes hand in hand with the idea that “Finished is better than perfect.” Sometimes as I endlessly change margins and adjust image sizes, I just need to tell myself to stop, and just be done so that I can celebrate having planned an executed something well.

Weekly recap + what we ate: Tech Week!

And suddenly we are into March.

Sign of the times:

For work, we have to take a COVID test every other day. Somedays I forget to do it at home, and very often I end up swabbing my nose in the car on the way to work. One day during the week, I had to get gas so I ended up swabbing while waiting to pump gas. Then I looked at the gas prices. There is something so utterly surreal to me about swabbing my nose for an at Home COVID test while pumping $3.76 gas. It was like a summary of the world at that moment: The war in Urkaine, sanctions against Russia, the trickledown effect of soaring gas prices, and taking a test kit out of a box so that I am allowed to show up for work. The sad thing is, since I took this picture, gas prices have risen to over $4.30/gallon. Which, I realize, is not the highest in the country, but I can’t remember the last time I’ve seen gas prices that high. Google tells me it was over ten years ago.

This week we moved from the rehearsal room into the theatre – it’s tech week!!! It’s always a challenging process because the hours are long, we work late and we are finally adding so many new elements – sets, lightings, costumes, wigs, make-up, orchestra – that it requires a lot of concentration and clear minded-ness to feel like I’m doing my job properly. Still, for me there is something magical about moving to the theatre. The collaborations, the hushed whispers in the dark that bring about beautiful moments onstage, the stage crew who work really hard backstage for effortless transformations to bloom onstage, the wardrobe and wig crew who can turn one character into another in less than a minute. So it’s always a tough week, but also energizing in the way that tough weeks can be. Also, after two years away from this stage, I don’t want to ever take for granted the excitement of creating something for stage.

The opera I’m working on Cosi fan tutte is full of misogyny and problematic sexist and racist attitudes. (Are there any other kind of sexist and racist attitudes?) It was premiered in 1790, so it’s portrayal of women and men and foreigners is not entirely surprising. However, Mozart’s music is sublime and it’s not an opera that requires a lot of forces, so I suppose opera companies and directors will continue to present it and they will continue to grapple with the difficulties the opera presents. I actually really love the opera, but I definitely see it with different eyes now than when I first heard it twenty years ago. When I was in college I thought the whole “Let’s play a trick on our girlfriends and see if they will stay true to us or if they will fall for other men while we pretend to be away!” was kind of funny albeit ridiculous. I don’t think it’s funny or ridiculous now… I just think it’s stupid and mean, and the aftermath almost heartbreaking.

Despite all this, there are some really thoughtful and heartfelt things being uncovered in rehearsal, and the other day, I wrote down something the director said about a simple stage gesture. She said that the gesture of offering someone your hand palm up really was a physical manifestation of how we can “choose our partner with kindness”. And that really stuck with me – this idea that we choose our actions and can choose to carry them out with kindness -beautifully encapsulated a way of going through life with purpose and with empathy. I know she was talking about the characters in the opera and the choices they were making, but I also think this idea of “choosing with kindness” can inform so many things that we do offstage, and how we treat those around us.

I’ve been thinking lately about this idea of kindness. One of the assignments when I took the Yale Happiness Course was to practice acts of kindness. Kindness was something that was scientifically proven to boost a person’s sense of well being. I will admit that kindness doesn’t always come instinctively to me and that particular assignment, deep in a pandemic, was not the easiest one. But… this past week, amidst all the craziness of getting the show onstage, I realized that I had been the recipient of a lot of acts of kindness lately. Here are some:
-my assistant brought me a cookie from the work cafeteria when I had to work during my break – the chocolate chip cookies from work are one of my favorite things. They are huge, for one, and they are also just slightly underbaked, which I loved in my cookies.
-my boss who stayed for my tech rehearsals and gave me encouraging words and helped me think through some awkward situations.
– the assistant director who wrote the show timings in my score – a somewhat tedious process that I usually do myself, but I had gotten so behind that I never managed to do it before rehearsal started.
– The ten year old got her sibling dressed and fed them breakfast twice this week so I could sleep in a little bit. (By which I mean, I slept til 7:15am)
-The Husband vacuuming out my car when he had it over the weekend – it was practically as if it had been detailed. I usually am quite ungrateful when he does this because I don’t like having the stuff in my car moved around, but this time it was actually quite wonderful as my car had become quite a mess of crumbs and crushed leaves and various unidentifiable detritus.

Pithy quote of the week –

“The problem with holding a grudge is that your hands are then too full to hold anything else.” via Seth Godin’s Blog

Made me smile:

Is there anything as joyful as a dog riding in the car with their head out the window, tongue lolling in the wind?

What We Ate: The Husband decided that this week was going to be wraps week! Having a theme certainly made meal planning easier.

Saturday: Take-out Chinese food

Sunday: Leftover from take-out

Monday: Breakfast burritos (The Husband cooked. I was at work and ate leftovers)

Tuesday: Sweet Potato tacos. I prepped the sweet potatoes so that the Husband just had to put them in the oven to roast when he got home. There was supposed to be black beans in them too (My favorite recipe from Dinner Illustrated), but the Husband forgot those. Oops.

Wednesday: Mushu veggies. I’m actually mildly proud of this meal- not because it was particularly tasty, but because I walked in the door at 5:45pm and we were eating by 6:10pm. There was a kind of zen kitchen flow going on where I just chopped and tossed things into the frying pan, but I managed to do it in the right order so everything cooked the right amount of time. I vaguely followed this recipe for the sauce and used whatever vegetables I had on hand – ended up being cabbage, carrots, green onions, snow peas, and mushrooms. I also mashed up a block of tofu and threw that in as well.

Thursday: The Husband made kung pao chicken and rice. By this point the kids were tired of eating things in wraps and asked for rice. I worked the evening and packed the leftover mushu filling for my dinner.

Friday: Pizza and movie night – the family watched Encanto. After much deliberating, we finally signed up for Disney plus. (By “we” I mean the Husband made a unilateral decision while I was at work. But sometimes I feel like if I’m not going to be home in the evenings for a week, he should get to make a couple unilateral decisions for the good of the family.) At work, I had ramen and cut up veggies for dinner.

The weekend – Where the Music Comes From

I spent much of the weekend working. Yay work! I had gotten a call to do another supertitle gig, this time for a vocal recital. The contract had me create the PowerPoint for the supertitles in addition to running them during the recital. Creating the PowerPoint and putting the slide placements in my score ended up taking much of Friday night and all day Saturday. At some point, after I was deep into typing the slides for the first half of the concert, the Husband, data organization genius, figured out a way to take the translations that I was given and put them directly into the PowerPoint. It involved moving the data set (as he called the lines of text) into an Excel file, then into a Word document merge file, and then finally into the PowerPoint. While it seemed complicated, it was loads less time consuming that typing everything out. This is probably incredibly nerdy, but the Husband and I had much discussion about whether it was better to proof your data set then merge, or to merge the given data set and then correct the final PowerPoint. It is so interesting to me that even after twelve years of marriage I’m still discovering ways in which the Husband and I think differently, especially on such a conceptual level.

Anyhow, the recital itself was magical. The first half was songs by queer American and British composers, and many of the songs were favorites of mine. The second half was songs by Spanish and Latino composers and full of fun and feeling. I had forgotten how much I love a song recital – the simplicity of a singer and a pianist and the music they want to share. No sets, no costumes… just music and text and heartfelt emotions of that moment.

One of the songs in the first half was a song written by Lee Hoiby, called “Where the Music Comes From.” I had sung it when I was in college, and judging from YouTube it is extremely popular in college song recitals. Nonetheless it is one of my favorite songs; I loved the piece for it’s elegant long lines, full of hope and yearning and joy. I get the sense that in the classical music world, songs that are so unabashedly melodic are somewhat out of style – critics tend to dismiss them as artless pastiche pieces or overly sentimental. Maudlin, even. I would definitely say that “Where the Music Comes From” is sentimental, and sentimentality is perhaps frowned upon these days. People want smart and ironic and clever.

(Also, I just noticed that I had always sung the third verse incorrectly… there is a phrase of music that is just different enough from the previous two verses that you need to pay attention or you’ll sing it wrong. I had an internal mortifying moment wondering why my voice teacher and art song coach never said anything to me about this and let me perform it in a recital incorrectly!)

There is something strange about hearing someone else sing a piece that you are so intimately familiar with that it is carved into the heart of your memory. When I heard it in the recital on Sunday, I got goosebumps because it sounded familiar and new all at the same time. But – and here is the wonder of this particular singer – I have loved this song for over twenty years now, and he made me re-think the piece. (I’ve put the text below.) I had always thought of the three verses as three different wishes, but there was something about the way this singer sang the song that made me realize, that actually, it’s the same wish – the song is a wish for a place where all these things can come together.

Where the Music Comes From
Music and Text by Lee Hoiby

I want to be where the music come from,
Where the clock stops, where it’s now.
I want to be with the friends around me,
Who have found me, who show me how.
I want to sing to the early morning,
See the sunlight melt the snow:
And, oh, I want to grow.

I want to wake to the living spirit
Here inside me where it lies.
I want to listen till I can hear it,
Let it guide me and realize
That I can go with the flow unending,
That is blending, that is real;
And oh, I want to feel.

I want to walk in the earthly garden,
Far from cities, far from fear.
I want to talk to the growing garden,
To the devas, to the deer,
And to be one with the river flowing,
Breezes blowing, sky above.
And, oh, I want to love.

There is so much about the text that speaks to me, but I think listening to this now, during a pandemic where isolation is a survival tactic, I really grasp on to the imagery of needing to surround oneself with joyful nurturing things, whether it be friends or nature or even just thoughts – and being able to recognize and merge these things into your life.

Weekly Recap + what we ate: wiped out then up and at ’em

4pm on a Tuesday in December. The days continue to shorten.

I got my booster on Sunday, and was completely useless on Monday. I wonder if it was because I got a Moderna booster? Originally, I had gotten Pfizer vaccines with no side effects aside from a sore arm. I had read that there were some negligible benefits from mixing and matching boosters. At any rate, I got the booster at 5pm on Sunday. Compared with getting my original vaccine, which seemed like an EVENT with a site run by the National Guard in a huge white tent, the booster was kind of a very banal affair. I got my shot at the county health center and the fifteen minute waiting period was self monitored – no large wall clocks or health attendants.

At any rate, Sunday I felt fine, but Monday was rough. Despite it being 60 degrees and sunny, I felt chilly all day and could barely function. I took the kids to the bus stop and daycare, and then attempted to take the baby to the park. I pulled up to the park parking lot and couldn’t get out of the car, I was so cold and achy. We went to the library instead – the cleaners were at the house so I didn’t want to go home just yet. At least at the library I could sit while the baby did puzzles and read books. After the library, we got home and had lunch and then I gave up on actually doing anything and spent the rest of the afternoon on the couch watching This Is Us. I usually think of the basement/tv room as the Husband’s domain and rarely go down there to watch tv when he isn’t home. But if there was ever at time I wanted to just hunker on a big comfy couch in front of a big screen… well the day after my booster was it.

That evening we had planned to decorate the tree, but I was so out of it that I just moved from the downstairs couch to the upstairs couch, stopping to make two brie en croutes on the way there. (Or is it bries on croute? actually it’s not relevant because the Husband bought camembert by mistake – so I guess it was camemberts en croute.) We had planned to have snack dinner and trim the tree. I guess snack dinner still happened, and the tree got trimmed. My hazy memory of it was lots of squeals of excitement from the baby. Apparently every ornament was a new source of delight for her.

Christmas Tree – step one is the lights.

Tuesday, I felt somewhat better and ready to deal with life. Namely meeting the locksmith because over the weekend, the baby managed to lock the door to the toy room, and we DIDN’T HAVE A KEY!!!! Which isn’t really a big deal, except that we keep the baby’s clothes in the toy room. Anyhow, the grumpy old man of a locksmith opened the door and then chastised us for having keyed locks on our interior doors and re-keyed the toy room lock.

I have to say that I was tempted never to tell the kids that we had unlocked the door to the toy room. Even for the two days that the toy room was locked… no one asked about it. The kids found plenty to play with around the house – a box of blocks, a cardboard box or two, books. I think we actually got to Thursday before the four year old discovered that he could actually get back in the toy room. It really made me realize that we probably don’t really need an entire room just for toys. Or even the toys themselves. I don’t know that I’m ready to embrace such a minimalist mantra, but I think knowing that it’s possible is a good thought to have in the back of my head.

The rest of the week was taken up by… paid work!!!

Oh green sticky tabs! How I’ve missed you!

I got a call the week before asking if I was available to run the supertitles for a new jazz opera. Initially I was reluctant because finding childcare for the baby always feels like a huge hurdle. But the Husband said that he could take one afternoon off work so that I could go to rehearsals, and the company presenting the work said that I only had to come to one afternoon rehearsal. So I agreed.

I haven’t run titles in a while, but it’s pretty straightforward. It’s basically running a 300+ slide PowerPoint presentation set to music. This piece was a little tricky because some of the slides were stage directions or descriptors rather than just the sung text, so I had to watch the stage as well as read the music. And also the piece was more jazz than opera in certain parts. That’s not a genre that my ear is used to, so it was sometimes challenging to follow. But all in all, I had a great time. I described it to my friend as “All the fun parts of calling a show, without a million other people asking you questions about other things.”

The laptop I was given to use, was one the same one the Opera uses for their title needs, and I was a little sad to see the home screen still had the supertitle files for the three shows we were working on in March 2020 when the pandemic shut everything down. Staring at those files made March 2020 seem both like yesterday and of another time altogether.

It was weirdly familiar to walk into the building again.. to check in with the security guard, to talk to the crew, to hear another voice on headset calling cues and giving pages. To wearing my blacks again. Though none of them fit after all these months and I just settled for dresses and leggings. There is something about sitting through a tech that is so familiar yet still sends gives me chills of anticipation.

The other funny thing about this gig, I realized, was that even though it was my first job back in this building, everyone else had clearly been back at work for a while. There was an ease and acceptance about constantly wearing masks and checking vaccine cards that, while it still felt new for me, was clearly the normal for everyone else I saw… the audience, the crew, the performers. I know I had worked this past summer, but even still, I didn’t think we’d be masking indefinitely. Yet here we are.

Fun things this week:

The older kids have been teaching the baby new phrases. Favorite ones – the four year old has been really into making up knock knock jokes, which have been hilarious in their banal lack of knock knock humour. Like:
“Knock, knock!”
“Who’s there?”
“Truck!”
“Truck who?”
“There’s a truck on the road!”
Anyhow, he’s been teaching the baby to go around saying, “Knock knock!” and it’s hilarious because that’s about as far as she gets.
The nine year old has been teaching the baby to say, “Rock, rock, rock!” As if it were some alternative version of “Rock Paper Scissors!”
I mean objectively these things aren’t that amusing, but when you have the older kids egging on the baby to yell these things as loud as she can, it’s kind of adorable. And loud.

The produce situation has gotten out of hand, so this week I spent an afternoon making kale chips and zucchini muffins. So satisfying to use things up rather than just throwing it in the worm bin!

Quote of the week – we were at a birthday party for the boy across the street – one of those affairs where we didn’t know anyone so we hung out in the basement with the kids. There was a high school student there too, the son of a friend – tall, gangly, and so very game for whatever antics the younger kids wanted to put him through. Anyhow, at one point, the nine year old became very fascinated by the idea of his being a high schooler and asked, “Is high school fun?” And he replied with this huge grin, “Yeah. You gotta have the right friends then high school’s a lot of fun. Good friends and playing sports.” Something about the way he said it made me so happy – like he knew high school wasn’t about grades or your future. I mean sure those things are important, but that’s not what you’re going to carry in your heart about those years.

And this photo from the building I work in… how I’ve missed it:

The building is wearing it’s honors garb!

What We Ate:

Saturday: Birthday party at neighbor’s – Peruvian Chicken and birthday cake– a gluten free, dairy free, egg free cake that tasted amazing.

Sunday: Leftover night

Monday: Snack dinner – camembert en croute, sausage, cheese, crackers, fruit – and tree trimming

Tuesday: Curry noodle soup, adapted from Thai Coconut soup in Vegan for Everyone.

Wednesday: I had soup and sandwich from Whole Foods on my dinner break. The Husband made pork and eggplant stir fry for the kids.

Thursday: Butter Chicken from Urvashi Pitre’s Indian InstantPot

Friday: Pizza (take out) and movie for the family while I went to work.