We had a quiet few weeks after No Kings. We didn’t go to any protests, though I wrote a couple batches of postcards encouraging people in Florida whose vote-by-mail enrollment had expired to re-enroll. North quit their canvassing job, which ended up being too physically strenuous, and started a new one at a day camp in D.C. It’s an afternoon program at a Montessori school that has academic classes in the morning throughout the summer. North’s working from noon to sixish most days.
They had a week off between jobs (the last week of June) and during that week we had a heat wave, with several consecutive days of highs at or near 100 degrees. They were happy to be home and not out walking door to door talking to people about microplastics. (It’s still hot now, but more regular summer hot.) During their week off they made cookies and read Fun Home, which seemed like an excellent use of leisure time to me. Fun Home will be performed at Oberlin next winter and they are thinking of auditioning. The following week North started the camp job and Noah finished up the video editing job for a solar energy company he’d been doing on and off for over a month.
North had a four-day weekend after their first week at their new job, so Beth and I took the same days off so we could better pack a lot of fun activities (and some chores) into the Fourth of July weekend. This plan took a little determination for a couple reasons. After all, I have been feeling more red with anger, white with fear, and blue with sadness than filled with patriotism these days. And I have been sick for almost two weeks, never intensely so (and most of my symptoms are gone now), but I still have this worrying sore throat that just won’t go away or rather has gone away and come back more times than I can count.
White: Long Weekend and Beyond, Fence
First the big chore… last April and May, after we were cited by the city for peeling paint on our picket fence, Beth, Noah, and I painted it, or rather the side of it that faces the street. We have a corner lot, so it’s a long fence and once the most visible part was finished, we kind of lost interest in the project and hoped no one would notice the side facing our house wasn’t painted yet. We did intend to finish the job, but on our own timetable.
Well, we were cited again, so we picked it back up and throughout the long weekend between excursions, we were working on it. The kids were power washing it and I was treating the part they washed with a vinegar solution to retard algae, and Beth, who worked on it longer than anyone else, was painting. The following week, we all took turns painting and we finished it this afternoon.
Red, White, and Blue: Thursday, Smithsonian Folklife Festival
Onto the recreational activities… this year I had some reservations about taking our almost-annual family photos with everyone dressed in red, white, and blue in front of the Washington Monument we’ve been taking since Noah was two months old. But as authoritarianism encroaches, I don’t want to cede the symbols of patriotism or its substance, so we went ahead with it.
In addition to taking the picture, we were also on the mall to attend the Smithsonian Folklife Festival. The theme was Youth and the Future of Culture. The festival varies in size from year to year, but it seemed smaller than usual, in terms of displays and performances. At only six days, it was also on the short side.
One of the first things we saw was a colorfully painted board with little doors depicting slang terms from different decades you could flip to see definitions on reverse side. I was surprised to learn “moxie” had its heyday in the 1940s, as I would still use it. When we saw “scrub,” (90s) Beth said she knew what that meant because there was a song about it and I deadpanned, “A scrub is a guy that won’t get no love from me,” which made her laugh. From the current decade, there was “rizz,” which I do know, but probably wouldn’t use for fear of sounding like a middle-aged mom who is trying too hard.
We watched a skateboarding demonstration. Not everyone skating could be said to be a youth, as the oldest one looked like 40-something dad and maybe he was. He was wearing a t-shirt that said on the back he’d skated 47 miles to raise money for a rare disease (I forget its name). On the front was a photo of a small child and the words, “Never give up.” I wondered if it was his child and if the child had the disease. The youngest skater was a tween girl who was having trouble with one of her tricks. When she finally nailed it, she lit up and said, “I did it!” It was more charming than if everyone had executed every move perfectly.
Next, we looked at low-rider cars and then went to see two bands (a youth mariachi band and a group of young black percussionists) play together. They were practicing for weekend performances and considering it was their first time playing together, they sounded quite good. Among other pieces, they played a medley of songs from Carmen. Everyone but me got agua fresca to sip while we listened. It’s always inspiring to watch young people do something well. And of course, I have a soft spot for young percussionists.
The food offerings weren’t that tempting. We considered the vegetarian tacos, but Beth said if we were going to get overpriced Mexican food, we should go home and get San Pancho, which we did, followed by ice cream from Red Hound. It was nice to eat at the outside tables on a pretty evening, but I was starting to feel my energy ebb. I’d been under the weather for several days at that point and it was starting to catch up with me.
Red, White, and Blue: Friday, Fourth of July
We attended Takoma Park’s quirky little parade in the morning. We used to go almost every year, but between cancellations for covid in 2020 and 2021 and various people’s travel the next three years, we hadn’t been all together since 2019, so that was fun. On our way there, as we walking past the groups lining up for the parade, we saw Noah’s sometimes boss Mike and his family getting ready to march in a “Dance Against DOGE” contingent. Mike had his sound system on wheels; it was the same one he brought to Takoma Pride.
The parade was much the same as always—swim teams, dogs from an obedience school, Cub Scouts, bagpipes, Japanese and Caribbean drums, politicians (including Jamie Raskin handing out copies of the Constitution), people in papier mâché animal costumes, and whimsical floats of various sorts, but what really spoke to me was the woman in the Wonder Woman costume carrying a sign that said, “Evil Wins When Good People Do Nothing.” We stopped at an ice cream truck for something cold to fortify us for the walk home. Ice cream before lunch is one of our Fourth of July traditions.
After the parade, North made homemade pizza for lunch. We’d had a dinner dilemma because we always have pizza for dinner on Fridays, but we have variations on the same picnic dinner every Fourth of July and this year the Fourth was on a Friday. So, a pizza lunch was how we resolved it.
We worked on the fence in the afternoon, and we had the picnic dinner in the back yard. Everyone pitched in—North shucked corn and made sour cherry sauce for ice cream, Noah sliced watermelon, I made devilled eggs, and Beth cooked the hot dogs, cleared off, washed, and set the patio table with all the aforementioned food, plus cole slaw and baked beans.
We planned to watch the D.C. fireworks from the roof of Beth’s office building, which we’ve done a couple times before, but as we were eating our dinner, I decided I was just too wiped out, so everyone else went without me. I heard later that it was a nice display, but there was a malfunction of the fireworks that were supposed to spell out USA, with the letters tilted as if falling over or superimposed over each other. That seemed a little on the nose.
Blue: Saturday, Berry Picking
Saturday afternoon, after working on the fence, we went berry picking at Butler’s, our usual berrying destination. We got four quarts of blueberries and two quarts of blackberries. We picked two varieties of blueberries, one of which was supposed to be sweeter and the other tarter. I thought I could tell the difference, but North said they tasted the same.
There were only three other people on the wagon that took us to the blueberry fields, not many people picking and no kids, so Noah said he was afraid no one would instruct anyone else to only pick the blue berries and without hearing that it wouldn’t be a proper berry picking trip. But soon after that, a family with kids arrived and almost immediately we heard what color berries we were supposed to be picking. The funniest thing we heard was a mom telling the wagon driver that her small son didn’t want to pick berries, just to ride back and forth on the wagon, and would that be okay?
I found a robin’s nest with three eggs in it hidden in the blackberry canes. I hoped it was not abandoned, that the mother was laying low during berry picking hours and would return in the evening and that the weather was warm enough that the eggs would still hatch, but who knows? After the second mourning dove nest on our porch this spring failed (I can’t remember if I wrote about that, but the babies disappeared soon after hatching) and the harrowing death of the starling nestlings last month, I need to believe they had a chance. Please don’t correct me if you are wise in the ways of robins. We got ice cream and a doughnut at the snack bar and then picked up produce, cheese, and more treats at the farm market and our trip to Butler’s was complete.
We watched the first two-thirds of The Secret World of Arriety that night, but I was too tired to finish it.
Red: Sunday, Urgent Care
Sunday, still sick, I finally broke down and made an appointment at urgent care. I was tested for covid, flu, and strep. (I had already tested negative for covid several days earlier at home.) I was seen quickly, which is why it was surprising that I ended up spending two and a half hours there, mostly waiting for the second provider after the first one administered the tests. I never did find out why it took so long, it didn’t seem very busy when I arrived or left, but maybe it was busy while I was sequestered in an exam room for hours with not much to do. That was on me. I considered bringing my laptop, my book club book, and/or the newspaper and I was sure I’d stashed the paper in my bag, but when I opened it, I found I had not. So, I paced and sat and looked at my phone and listened to podcasts and sometimes paced while listening to podcasts. Beth had driven me there and was waiting at a nearby Starbucks, so I was also sorry to have taken such a big chunk of her day.
Anyway, I tested negative for covid, flu, and strep, and based on physical exam and questions I didn’t seem to have a sinus infection or pneumonia either. I walked out with no clue what I did have and two prescriptions I didn’t intend to fill because they were for symptoms that had nearly abated (congestion and cough). So far, it’s a mystery with no solution, just red herrings.
Afterward
Those of us with jobs went back to work and everyone continued painting the fence and Noah pruned some tree branches that were in the way of painting. The first sunflower in our garden bloomed on Monday, followed by the first zinnia on Tuesday, and the second sunflower on Thursday.
After exchanging several messages with my primary care provider, I went into the office for another strep test on Thursday. The culture is supposed to be more accurate than the rapid strep test, but I won’t get the results until next week. I don’t even feel that sick beyond the sore throat, so under normal circumstances, I probably would have decided to ride it out and skip the second strep test. The only reason I went to urgent care is that I am going to see extended family soon, including my almost eighty-two-year-old mother and I thought it would be good to know, though as it turns out I will find after I see her, so the information will be less useful than it could be.
One more thing happened I want to mention. On Wednesday morning, ICE agents seized several people off my street, just a ten-minute walk from my house. I don’t know for sure, but given that there’s ongoing roadwork in that area, I’m guessing it was the road workers. I walked by the next day on my way to the Metro and noticed all the workers I could see were either black or white and, in our area, that’s not the normal demographic for work crews. It should have been a mix of black, white, and Latino guys. I don’t know what became of them, if they were released, or sent to detention facilities domestic or foreign. I don’t know if they left families behind. I do know I am not feeling very proud to be an American today.