About Steph

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Moving Forward

Posted on November 15, 2025 by Steph

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No News

I guess I will start with a medical update, though there’s not much to report. North’s endoscopy went fine, but we are still waiting for biopsy results that will determine if they will have gallbladder surgery. My colonoscopy went fine. My blood sugar didn’t spike during the three low-fiber days—I was able to eat enough protein and fat to prevent that—and it didn’t dip dangerously low during the one and a half fasting days. It was at the low end of my target range, but stable. Just stopping my diabetes meds was enough to keep it high enough. I told Beth, “I guess I don’t really need to eat.” But I like to eat, so I was glad when it was all over and I could eat normally again.

Transitions

Beth came home from Wheeling the first Sunday in November, just in time to celebrate Noah’s half birthday with cupcakes the next day. I got three different flavors from a nearby bakery. He chose the maple-sweet potato with a marshmallow in the frosting, I had gingerbread with lemon frosting, and Beth had German chocolate. When I told him I bought cupcakes he said he’d forgotten it was his half-birthday. I guess twenty-four to twenty-four and a half doesn’t seem as momentous a change as say, four to four and half, but we keep doing it because it’s a tradition.

Election Day was the next day and that was a more dramatic change: big victories in the New York City mayoral race, Governors’ races in Virginia and New Jersey, and many down ballot races. Because I grew up mostly in Pennsylvania, I was especially heartened by the re-election of several Democratic judges in that state. Let’s hope that momentum carries into 2026.

During all this we switched over to standard time. As aggravating as it is to change the clocks and one’s body clock, one thing I like about fall back (besides the extra hour) is that the time change always makes it feel like we’ve officially crossed over from early fall to late fall, with Halloween over and Beth’s birthday and Thanksgiving on the horizon. I do like neatly marked transitions, so I put flannel sheets on the beds, grapefruit on the shopping list, and stocked up on lotion.

It gets dark around five now, which makes drying clothes on the line trickier because I need to remember to get them hung up earlier in the day than I did before. We had an overnight freeze last week and I picked all the green tomatoes and brought pots with the tenderest herbs (basil and cilantro) inside for a few nights. I used all the basil in one last batch of pesto and put the cilantro back outside.

Moving Forward

Even though it’s feeling like late fall, it’s still not that cold, with highs in the fifties and sixties most days. On Veteran’s Day, though, the high was in the high forties and it was windy, which made for a chilly day. Nevertheless, we had decided to go for a hike, because Beth had the day off and I didn’t have any urgent work. She had a work-related errand she needed to run near Frederick, dropping off some boxes of old CWA newsletters going back to the 1930s to be digitized, so we decided to make a day of it, eating lunch in Frederick and hiking in a nearby state park. We invited Noah to come along and he said yes.

That morning Facebook Memories reminded me of Veteran Days past. That feature is more effective for holidays like Veterans Day that always fall on the same calendar day than roving holidays. There were definite patterns. When the kids were younger, we had parent-teacher conferences that day (until North was in high school and they got moved to the week before Thanksgiving). We also went to the Veterans Day sale at Value Village and because the kids were at school for at least a half day and Beth and I weren’t in conferences until afternoon, she and I often went out for breakfast or lunch before or between conferences. In later years, when we could leave the kids alone in the afternoon, we had longer outings, to see a movie or take a hike. The most memorable one was last year, when we went to Great Falls, to see if getting out into nature could help us shake off some of our post-election grief and shock.

This year, we were buoyed by better (if less earth-shattering) election results. After Beth dropped off the boxes, we had lunch at The Orchard, which I recommend if you find yourself in Frederick. I was tempted by the maple-pecan cheesecake, but I didn’t think I should have it because I’d had a sandwich (Brie, tomato, tofu, and pesto) for lunch, so Beth suggested we come back after the hike and that’s what we did.

We went for two short hikes in Cunningham Falls State Park. We decided to forgo the cliff trail because it was marked difficult and chose to start with the (moderate) falls trail. It was a mostly flat, wooded trail. We still have a lot of fall color at home, but here the leaves had mostly fallen, exposing the austere architecture of the trees. There’s beauty in that, too. We reached the falls, which didn’t have a lot of water. Next, we walked around the lake and watched geese flying low over the water, crossed a creek, and found some red winter berries.

Then we went back to the same restaurant, sat at the same table, and the same waitress brought us hot chocolate (Beth) and dessert (me and Noah). And that was our Veterans Day outing. I can only hope we’ll keep moving forward and that our Veterans Day hike in 2026 will celebrate even more positive changes for our country.

A Scary World

Posted on November 1, 2025 by Steph

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Pre-Halloween Activities

Two days before Halloween, I posted on Facebook: “Steph knows it’s a scary world out there, so she wrote to PA voters in hopes they might help hold the line, and she made some comfort in the form of soup in a pumpkin shell. Vote YES on judicial retention!” The first two pictures were of a cardboard sign and tombstones some neighbors made for their “International Development Graveyard.” The tombs read “USAID: 1961-2025,” “Environmental Conservation,” “Global Health,” “USAID Education Programs. RIP,” etc. I also included a photo of a stack of postcards, my second batch for Democratic judges in Pennsylvania, and my cream of pumpkin soup. There’s only so much we can do, but I try to keep doing it.

All Hallows Eve

The next afternoon Beth set out for Oberlin to stay with North during and after their endoscopy, which was taking place on Halloween. The doctors are closing in on an overactive gallbladder as the source of North’s ongoing digestive problems, but they wanted to have a look inside their upper digestive tract to rule out any other problems before scheduling a gallbladder removal surgery. The procedure went smoothly, and they didn’t find anything, but they are running a second H. pylori test (the first one came back negative, but this one’s from a biopsy and more accurate) as a final step before surgery.

Beth drove North to Cleveland Clinic and back to the rental house where she was staying in Lorain. It was Halloween, so they watched Muppets Haunted Mansion and ate pizza and candy. (Beth bought some in case any trick-or-treaters came to the rental unit, but none did.) North had been sad to miss Halloween festivities on campus (trick-or-treating at academic department offices and a party) so I hope this was some compensation. It reminded me of other times they had to miss trick-or-treating—for Outdoor Education in sixth grade and when they were hospitalized in eleventh grade. They really love Halloween, so the timing was not ideal. The next morning, Beth and North took a walk along the shores of Lake Erie and then Beth left for Wheeling for a quick visit to her mom.

Back home, Noah and I held down the fort. We replaced decorations that had blown down and put batteries in ones that make more noise than we want to hear all month. Noah also got the topple-prone witch that Beth and I had been struggling with for days to stand up and got both fog machines going. He had evening plans, filming an amateur production of Sweeney Todd, but I was grateful for his help before he left after dinner.

I was left alone to hand out candy to trick-or-treaters. We got about thirty. Toward the end of the evening, I was texting Beth and saying I hadn’t seen any fabulous costumes when a little autumn fairy knocked on the door. Her dress was covered in different colored leaves and she had green, leaf-shaped wings with glow sticks in them. Shortly afterward there was a teenage frog with (possibly homemade) crocheted eyes on a headband. I also appreciated a preteen Grim Reaper with a homemade scythe, a teen Elphaba who had gotten the shade of her green makeup just right, and a little dalmatian with nice spotted face paint. As always, we got a lot of compliments on our decorations. One mom said she always looks forward to our house more than any other.

Post-Halloween Thoughts

The next day on my morning walk, I came across another cardboard graveyard of political commentary. The stones said, “Due Process: 1791-2025” and “RIP Medicare & Medicaid.” That last one may be a bit premature, but it was a reminder (as if we needed one) of the stakes over the next few years.

There will be a time after this time, I keep telling myself, and we may be able to rebuild some of what’s being lost, or maybe even build something better. Some things are lost for good, though, like the East Wing of the White House. It’s not as important as due process, for instance, but I’ve lived in the D.C. area for thirty-four years and I have fond memories of White House tours: Christmas tours in the 90s and in 2023, an East Wing tour in 2010, garden tours in 2011 and 2022, and an Easter Egg Roll in 2014. There’s a reason they call it the People’s House. It belongs to all of us and it’s sad to see the physical symbols of democracy attacked as ruthlessly as its norms, laws, and spirit. That’s scarier than any bright green witch or robed figure with a scythe.

#FallBreak

Posted on October 26, 2025 by Steph

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North came home for fall break and stayed eight and a half days. It went by fast, but we packed a lot into that time.

First Saturday: No Kings

North got home late Friday evening. Noah was up to greet them, but we’d gone to bed and we didn’t see them until the next morning. I did tag my Facebook post about anticipating their arrival #FallBreak, and it became a theme I kept up in my posts all week.

We ended up leaving North home alone for most of their first day home because it was No Kings 2.0 and they thought a long rally would be too strenuous. Noah was coming along this time, and we split up almost immediately so he could wander around the crowd filming the protest. He’d met with Mike recently for job-hunting advice and Mike said he should have a website of his work and suggested this would be a good place to film.

There were many signs on the No Kings theme (I reused mine from June), including one with a sad T-Rex that said, “No Rex.” There were many people in inflatable unicorn, dinosaur, and frog costumes. I heard one man tell someone with a microphone who asked why he was dressed as a unicorn, “They were sold out of frog costumes.” I wasn’t sure if it was a joke or true, but it was funny either way. On the frog theme, there was a sign that said, “Amphifa: Amphibians Against Fascism.” I also saw two women in handmaid’s costumes.

I can only report on signs and costumes because we were too far from the stage to hear anything, except when Bernie Sanders spoke, and even then, I only caught about a quarter of what he said. I clapped anyway when other people clapped, because it seemed unlikely that he was saying anything objectionable.

Organizers are estimating seven million people attended nationwide in thousands of locations. Even if that was optimistic, independent estimates are at least five million and that it was probably the largest single-day protest in U.S. history.

First Sunday: Picking Pumpkins

Our civic duty done, we were able to turn our attention to seasonal fun the next day. We went to Northern Virginia to get our pumpkins. We used to do this because there was a specific farm stand that we liked to patronize, as it belongs to the family of a friend from college. That stand doesn’t sell pumpkins anymore, as of last year. However, over the years we built up a whole routine of activities in the neighborhood, so we keep going there.

We headed first for Meadowlark Botanical Gardens, listening to an Apple Halloween playlist and critiquing the choices. Then we took our late afternoon stroll, passing the pond, the Korean Bell Garden, and other familiar sights. Noah took a lot of pictures of lichen on benches. We saw a couple and a larger group posing for wedding photos, but fewer Homecoming photo shoots than we usually see.

We went to our new farm stand, and got pumpkins, pumpkin butter, and decorative gourds, and posed in the pumpkin arbor. We got a feast of Chinese food from our favorite vegetarian Chinese restaurant (which is one of the main reasons we keep trekking out to Northern Virginia for pumpkins) to eat at the picnic tables at Nottoway Park. We couldn’t order the food ahead because of a problem with the online ordering system so our timing was thrown off, and it was getting dark by the time we’d finished dinner and began our after-dinner stroll in the community garden plots, but we could make out some tomatoes and collards and flowers. Our last stop was ice cream at Toby’s. I got half pumpkin and half apple pie with whipped cream and Beth correctly guessed I had the whipped cream to complete the pie theme.

Monday to Wednesday: Berkely Springs

Monday morning, we left for a quick trip to Berkeley Springs, West Virginia. Beth, North, and I haven’t been there since President’s Day weekend 2020, less than a month before the world shut down. This timing caused all three of us to look back on the trip nostalgically during the time when weekend trips were not on the table. We hadn’t been as a foursome since the kids’ spring break in 2016. North is very fond of Berkeley Springs. I think that’s why when during a low period, they needed to draw a pen-and-ink street scene in their eleventh-grade painting class, they choose a block in Berkeley Springs.

As you can probably guess from the name, there are mineral springs in town that were used by Native Americans, George Washington, and continually ever since. The site of the historic baths is a state park, and you can reserve time in the private baths. The other main attractions in town are restaurants, shops, and a cat café.

We visited all these, but on our first evening, we decided to stay in at our rental house in the woods. This was no hardship as the house had a view of a ridge decked out in fall colors and was equipped with a skee ball machine, a Pac-Man machine, a hammock, and fire pit. We used them all, after a brief walk in the woods. I lay in the hammock for a while, looking up into the yellow and green leaves and watching squirrels in the branches and hawks circle above the trees. I made broccoli melts for dinner, and we made S’mores at the firepit.

The next morning, we browsed in the shops and North bought a pair of colorful wooden parrot earrings in a shop of Himalayan handicrafts and then we soaked in the Roman Baths. The water is heated to 104 degrees and it’s very pleasant and relaxing.

We went back to the house for lunch, and then to the cat café, where we pet and played with many of the cats who are awaiting adoption in the cozy two-story house, equipped with structures to climb on, private dens for sleeping, and many toys. It’s a much nicer place than the shelter where we adopted Matthew and Xander. (We adopted Walter and Willow from a foster home.) It must be good for their socialization, too. There are separate rooms for shy cats and one for kittens. The two smallest kittens were being segregated from the rest because a cold had gone around the place the week before. One of them, a long-haired black kitten named Odessa, who looked like a tiny version of Xander, climbed up on Beth’s lap and fell asleep and she was trapped there a long time. Noah and I spent most of our time in the main kitten room. There was a mama cat there with three nursing kittens and many other kittens who wanted to play with their toys and our shoelaces. By the time Beth made it to the room, they had collectively decided it was nap time and collapsed in piles to sleep.

Our next stop was the Paw Paw tunnel, where a towpath from the C&O canal goes through a rocky ridge. It’s a fifteen-minute walk on a damp, dark path, and it’s suitably spooky. We were told at a coffee shop we’d frequented earlier to “look out for ghosts.” We did not see any, or any bats, which we have seen in the past, but we did see a lot of white mushrooms growing where the path meets the brick wall. Beth lit the path with her cell phone light so we wouldn’t step into any puddles. I always enjoy this hike, which starts and ends with a walk through the woods between the Potomac River and the canal. You can also climb up the ridge afterward if you want, but we didn’t do it this time. Noah and I climbed up the stairs outside the tunnel to look out at the canal from above. When we emerged from the tunnel, I could smell the fallen leaves along the path. The scent reminded me of old paperback books.

We ordered dinner from the parking lot and picked up pizza, stromboli, and salad to eat back at the house. North tried pickles on their pizza and approved of the selection (which was called the Princess Brine).

Wednesday morning we were going to take a hike in Cacapon State Park, and we did start, but pretty soon into it, North decided hiking up to the top of the ridge was going to be too much for them, and we headed back into town, where we browsed the shops again and they got a jar of garlic-stuffed olives from an olive shop before we had lunch and hit the road for home.

Thursday to Friday: Baking and Coffee

Thursday and Friday Beth and I were back to work. North had invited me to go for coffee after their Friday morning psychiatrist appointment at the coffee shop in Takoma DC where we’ve always gone after their appointments and at first, I said yes, but then I remembered I had a mammogram that same morning, so North proposed that we go the day before and we did. We got coffee at Lost Sock and pumpkin and apple pastries at Donut Run. When I took North’s photo, I instructed them to “look autumnal,” which made them laugh.

That afternoon Noah made a baked lemon-blueberry pudding (apologizing before I said anything: “I know it’s not seasonal”) and North made toffee to use in chocolate chunk cookies they made the next day. They thought the cookies were too crispy but no one else had any complaints.

Second Saturday: Halloween Parade and Carving Pumpkins

North’s last full day at home was full of seasonal activity. We went to the Halloween parade in the early afternoon. I still enjoy watching other people’s kids in their costumes, even though my kids don’t participate any more. And we all enjoy judging the costumes ourselves. In the four-and-under section of the parade, there were two separate women dressed as flowers carrying their babies who were dressed as bees. I was amused because when I saw the first one, I thought “that’s original,” but I guess it wasn’t. Anyway, one of the flower-bee groups also had a beekeeper and they won. I can’t remember the category, but I it might have been Cutest, though come to think of it, that might have been a ladybug.

There was a well-executed astronaut with a homemade cardboard rocket affixed to his scooter and a truly impressive owl with many feathers and expressive papier mache eyes and a beak that both won in five to eight. There was an elaborate jellyfish; two girls, one dressed as a peasant and one as an aristocrat holding a bloody guillotine between them; and a tornado with little houses, vehicles, and trees attached to her in nine to twelve. Groups dressed as characters from the Chronicles of Narnia and Aladin also won.

In terms of trends, there were more inflatable costumes than usual, probably repurposed from protests. Beth noted that Harry Potter costumes are evergreen and there were also quite a lot of zombies. The only costume I saw that I thought deserved a prize that didn’t get one was a detailed, homemade Edward Scissorshands. But the boy was probably nine to twelve years old and the competition in that age group was strong this year.

When we got home, we carved our pumpkins. I’d been feeling under the weather all day, and I still had a lot on my list for the day (cooking, menu planning for the next week, doing dishes) so I found a simple moon-and-stars stencil so I could finish quickly. Although we didn’t plan it this way, everyone had one to two of the following elements on our pumpkins: cats, stars, and pumpkins. Beth said the thematic continuity was satisfying.

Noah and I made roasted white beans, cherry tomatoes and halloumi for dinner and then I roasted the pumpkin seeds so North could have some to take with them to school the next day. When all the chores were done, we all settled in to watch the end of Beetlejuice Beetlejuice, which we’d started the night before, and then Beth and I went to bed early because I was exhausted.

Second Sunday

A little before ten a.m., North’s friend Jayden picked them up and we said our goodbyes. Beth will see them in less than a week because North is getting an endoscopy on Halloween and Beth is going to stay with them overnight to make sure that they’re okay. They are already planning what movie to watch, and they bought an extra bag of candy in case trick-or-treaters come to the rental house. I will have to wait until Thanksgiving to see them, but that’s only about a month.

Did you go to No Kings? What kind of fall activities have you been enjoying?

All’s Well That Ends Well

Posted on October 20, 2025 by Steph

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Here it is, mid-October and I haven’t blogged about anything that happened this month. Not quite three weeks after we said goodbye to North at the Sacramento airport the day after the wedding, they came home for fall break. Here a few of the highlights of that time, before I get into our fall break adventures:

Street Festival

The first Sunday in October, Beth and I went to the Takoma Park Street Festival. We walked by the craft booths, she got an ice cream sandwich, and I got a caramel sundae before settling in to watch Ammonite play at the gazebo. There were so many people in Free DC t-shirts, I lost count even though I’d been trying to keep track. In the playground behind the stage, the Boy Scouts had set up a rope bridge, and I watched kids walk across it, thinking nostalgically of all the times my kids did that at Takoma Park events. And that was before I spotted the preschool-age girl in a pink tutu and sparkly silver sneakers playing air guitar to the side of the stage. She was very in tune with the music, striking dramatic poses at just the right time, switching over to drumming during drum solos. I couldn’t take my eyes off her; she was such a delight.

Seasonal Miscellany

The next week Noah and I started decorating the porch and yard for Halloween, a project that’s almost but not quite finished. Also that week, my book club held its second of four meetings on the Big Book for fall, Ralph Ellison’s Invisible Man. We have two meetings to go, one next week and the last in early November.

The second weekend of October, Beth, Noah, and I got our flu and covid vaccines, and I wrote postcards the gubernatorial race in New Jersey, having written a batch for judges in Pennsylvania the weekend prior.

The weather took a turn for cooler, and it spurred both Noah and me to bake. He made pumpkin-oat muffins, and I made and almond flour banana cake with peanut butter frosting. We saved some of each for North.

A Bad Day

The day before North came home was a Thursday and it was an upsetting day. The first thing that happened was that I was looking at the November calendar page so I could make an appointment when I realized Thanksgiving was a week later than I thought and I had made the reservations for our Thanksgiving beach house for the wrong dates. I reserved the house in September, so I immediately went to the realty website to see if the house was available on the dates we wanted, and it was. I sent an email to the realtor seeing if we could make the switch without having to pay for both sets of dates. Then all day long in the back of my mind I was stewing about what to do if the answer was no.

Next, I had to go to a consultation for an upcoming (routine) colonoscopy, and the bus didn’t come so I had to take another less direct route to the Metro, and I thought I’d be late, but I almost didn’t care because the consequences of missing an appointment that could be rescheduled seemed low stakes in comparison to having possibly ruined Thanksgiving. I arrived at the unfamiliar building in time, but the elevator setup was very confusing, but eventually I found my way to the office.

At the appointment I had a chance to reflect on how difficult colonoscopy prep is going to be, not the awful drink and the unpleasantness that follows—I’ve done that before and know what to expect—but the three-day, low-fiber diet, followed by the day of clear liquid fasting. I didn’t have diabetes the last time I had a colonoscopy, and I didn’t have to worry about blood sugar spikes while avoiding fiber and crashes while not eating. I asked some questions about that (and then contacted my primary care provider afterward) but it seems like the answer is, yes, it’s going to be hard, deal with it.

Back at home, my sister and I had a discouraging email exchange about the effect AI is likely to have on her copywriting business and both of our jobs in the coming years. I have been afraid for a while that AI might put me out of a job before I intended to retire, and this made that fear more concrete.

Later that day, while picking cherry tomatoes in the garden I got stung by a bee that had gotten trapped under the back of my shirt, which probably hiked up while I was bent over and then fell back down when I straightened up.

There were some bright spots in the day: 1) The tech who weighed me at the medical appointment complimented me on my socks (red with black hearts) and I was surprisingly touched, because I was so low, any kind word seemed moving. 2) My blood pressure was unexpectedly good for a stressful day. 3) Then after the appointment, I went to a bakery in the same complex and had the most amazing pastry. It was a croissant in a cube shape, with pumpkin pie filling inside and meringue and pepitas on top. (Croissants are relatively safe pastry for me because all the butter in the dough slows down my blood sugar rise.)

And the next day, I found out the realty was willing to switch the reservation to the right dates at no charge and North came home, so all was well…

A Wider Circle

Posted on October 4, 2025 by Steph

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Friday: Travel West

The night before we left for my sister’s wedding in Davis, California, I had a stress dream. In it, North and I were together, trying to get to a medical office only a few blocks away where we were supposed to meet Beth. But for various reasons, we could not get there. We were trapped for a long time in a big warehouse with a roller coaster inside (and compelled to ride the coaster) and there were all these mythical creatures wandering around. Somehow in the course of our wandering, I lost my shoes, laptop, and phone.

Now as all these items are things you need to put in the bin to go through security, and we failed to make our appointment, the dream seemed to be about travel worries. But I commented to Beth that morning that it was strange, because these aren’t my specific travel anxieties. Instead, I fret ahead of time about my physical and mental discomfort from not being able to move for long periods of time (I get antsy and sometimes get leg cramps) and the inevitable disruption to my sleep if I’m traveling across time zones. I don’t do well with sleep deprivation.

Well, the things I find unpleasant about flying did happen. On the longer flight I had to pee and couldn’t get out of my seat because the seatbelt light was on for a long time, and I am a rule-follower. I also got a little airsick. And of course, later, I was jet-lagged. But I am not going to say any more about any of that right now, because North had a much worse time. It turns out my dream—largely about obstacles to arrival—was closer to the mark than I thought.

North flew from Cleveland to Phoenix and found out their flight from Phoenix to Sacramento had been canceled due to heavy rain in Phoenix. The only flight they could get to Sacramento would have them arriving the following day too late to make the wedding and to make matters worse the airline wasn’t even putting stranded travelers up in hotels. (Did you know the Trump administration gave airlines more leeway about this?)

And another complicating factor: North is too young to rent a hotel room. My sister called up Dave’s sister who lives in Phoenix, asking if North could spend the night at her house, but the sister said no. Beth talked North through the process of getting a flight back to Cleveland the next day and found an Airbnb for them and then another one after the first one didn’t want to let North use Beth’s membership. And because the airport was full of people who needed to leave and find accommodations, it took forever to get a Lyft. It was quite the ordeal.

In between all the calls and texts, we reunited with my mom, Sara, Dave, Lily-Mei, their cat Shadow and bearded lizard Sparky; we also met my mother’s gentleman friend Paul, Sara’s friend Kimberly who was staying with my mom, and Sara’s family’s new (to us) cat Glimmer. Dave and Lily-Mei left soon after we arrived to attend a minor league baseball game with some of the wedding guests and the rest of us (except the cats and the lizard) had pizza.

Saturday: More Travel, Brunch, and Wedding

North got up before dawn the next day and went back to the airport in hopes of getting on a flight to Sacramento standby. The agents they consulted could not find one, but North found one by themselves and managed to get on it. We’d all given up hope of them making it to the wedding, so everyone was excited they were coming after all.

The wedding was a three-day affair with events before and afterward. Sadly, we had arrived too late go to the swimming hole Friday morning and afternoon and the Friday evening ball game would have kept us up unbearably late, as we are early birds on East Coast time to boot.

However, we were there (minus North) for the pre-wedding brunch at this venue. It’s a farm/brewery with a nut orchard and hops fields and a lot of poultry (chickens, ducks, geese, turkeys) wandering around. There are couches and tables inside and just outside a big, open-sided barn full of antique farm equipment. You can reserve tables for events and during the afternoon and evening there are food trucks and sometimes live music. It was morning, so we brought all our own food—three kinds of quiche, pastries, and two big bowls of fruit salad my mom made.

At the brunch and later at the wedding I reunited with and met people from many eras of Sara’s life (high school, college, Santa Cruz, Oakland, and Ashland), plus some of Dave’s friends, and Lily-Mei’s two besties Athena and Emma. Among the notable guests (for me) was Sean, who went to our high school and overlapped with both Sara and me. He and I were in a student group (Student Coalition for Peace) together. It was great to see him. I was also surprised at how happy it made me to see Dune, my favorite of Sara’s ex-boyfriends, with whom she moved from Santa Cruz to Ashland. I hadn’t thought of him in a long time, but I was always fond of him.

At the brunch, when I approached Sara’s best friend whom I hadn’t seen in decades, I said, “Abigail?”

She answered, “Steph. I haven’t seen you since that other wedding. The one that didn’t take.” Here is a good time to explain Sara has had three weddings. One in her late twenties, the one to which Abigail was referring. Then in her late forties, during the first summer of covid, she legally married Dave in an outdoor ceremony with a handful of local friends who would not need to travel during those perilous times. This third wedding was the party with a wider circle of family and friends Sara wanted and couldn’t have five years ago.

Later I told Sara about this exchange, and she cracked up, saying, “That sounds like Abigail.”

Throughout the morning, North kept us updated on their travels by text. When they got to the Long Beach airport, this is what they had to say: “I love this airport. It’s so calm and quiet and not full of people sitting on the floor crying.”

After brunch, we picked North up at the Sacramento airport, which was also not full of people crying. North hadn’t eaten lunch, and we thought we’d need to eat again before the wedding, so we stopped at a shopping center where the kids got pizza and Beth and I got tacos. Back at Sara’s house, North hung out in Sara’s pool. Because there’s a fence around the pool and it’s private, North left their waist-length curly blond hair uncovered and it floated behind them. They looked like a mermaid. Beth said she was tempted by the pool, too, but we had about an hour before we needed to get dressed for the wedding and as we were both jet-lagged and exhausted, a nap seemed more practical.

The wedding was at this vineyard. People mingled outside. I talked to a few people, but not as many as at the brunch, as I was a little worn out. I wandered around and took in the Spanish colonial architecture and the fountain in the courtyard, illuminated by the late afternoon sun.

When it was time for the ceremony, people took their seats in front of a bower with pink crepe at the top and pink roses appearing to grow on the sides. (Sara later told me it was a real rose bush but no roses were in bloom, so Abigail had stuck cut roses into the bower. It was very convincing, I think because the spacing wasn’t too regular.)

Abigail’s wife Val officiated, giving a speech about how Sara and Dave are very different but work together anyway. Dave is a retired actuary who likes spreadsheets and suburban developments, golfs, and wears polo shirts. Sara, while a responsible business owner, also has a hippie streak and likes old houses and collecting what he calls “rusty metal shit.” (He wrote this on a box when they were moving from Ashland to Davis.)

Both Sara and Dave spoke. In her speech she read a list she’d made while single of forty-two characteristics she hoped for in a partner, then noted how Dave checked off almost every box. Lily-Mei was the ring bearer, bringing them the same rings they’ve been wearing for five years. The couple took their vows and kissed. As they walked away from the bower between the rows of folding chairs, guests showered them with rose petals from bowls in the aisle.

There were toasts at dinner. Sean made a similar point to Val’s about the couple’s differences, starting by noting that Dave goes by Dave. He said in his circles a man named David would go by David, and that one in Sara’s might go by Ocean or Redwood, but Dave is Dave. Sara said she couldn’t thank everyone who helped with the preparations, but she called out Abigail for her special efforts and North for their fortitude in travel.

After dinner, there was karaoke. Sara and Dave had the first number, “Summer Nights,” from Grease. When it got to the line “Did she put up a fight?” Dave sang, “Did you respect her boundaries?” which got a laugh. My mom sang “When I Fall in Love.” We stayed for about half the karaoke and when we left Sara thanked us for staying up so late, which was kind of funny because it was only nine o’clock, but you know—jet-lagged early birds.

Sunday: Last Day in Davis

The only wedding weekend activity left was a winery tour Sunday afternoon, but we’d opted out of that. There was talk of having breakfast out with Sara’s family and some of her friends, but she texted me that morning to say that they’d been up late at the wedding after-party and couldn’t make it before we needed to take North back to the airport. So, my family of four went to a bakery/café where I had ratatouille with a fried egg, a charming apricot Danish with apricot halves rather than preserves in it, and a latte.

We drove North—who had spent longer getting to Davis than they’d spent there—to the airport, said our goodbyes. On the way back, we went to the Davis food co-op to pick up provisions for breakfast the next morning and our own travels the next day. Then we swung by Sara’s house, picked up Noah and walked to my mom’s house for lunch. She and Sara live within a fifteen-minute walk of each other, which must be nice. Paul was there, too, and the five of us ate brunch leftovers in Mom’s backyard. Beth had never been to Mom’s house, where she’s lived for a couple years, so she got the grand tour of the house and the garden, which has more kinds of fruit trees than I can remember. Right now, though, all she has is grapes and some green oranges. We stayed over there a couple hours and got to know Paul a little better.

Then we went back to Sara’s house because I needed some down time before Sara and Dave got back from the winery. Noah, Beth, and I read, I soaked in the hot tub, and Beth dozed in one of the poolside lounge chairs. I also read your blogs and made a stab at starting this blog post. Mom and Paul came over for dinner, and the eight of us had Chinese takeout and leftover cupcakes from the wedding.

Monday: Travel East

At first, I thought we wouldn’t see Sara’s family in the morning because we were leaving early, but I forgot it was a school day and there is a seventh grader living in the house, so we got to say our goodbyes to Sara, Dave, Lily-Mei and the cats in the morning after all. We flew home. It was uneventful, with only the usual discomforts, none of which mattered, as we all got where we were going, approximately on time.

When we walked out to the parking lot at National Monday night, I noticed that the air, which I would not have called humid under normal circumstances, did feel damper than the dry air of central California. Throughout the next several days, I often found myself thinking of the orchards; the cacti; the palm trees; the distant, arid mountains; and the rusty old shit in my sister’s yard.

Seven For September

Posted on September 20, 2025 by Steph

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I often have the feeling that the first few weeks of September, up until the equinox, exist in a liminal season that’s not quite summer or fall. Anyone who’s still in school (and that’s down to one of us) is back at it, but some years it’s still hot, and even if it isn’t, the weather is not quite autumnal. Maybe a few trees have a scattering of yellow or red leaves, but they are the vanguard, a hint of what’s to come.

There’s a predictable rhythm to this time of year, though. Almost every year we have a Labor Day picnic in the back yard, go to the Takoma Park Folk Festival to hear music, and to the pie contest to eat pie. We did all those things, plus a few more over the past three weeks. Here’s what we’ve been up to, starting with the last couple days of August.

1. Labor Day Weekend

We had a low-key Labor Day weekend. On Saturday afternoon we took a walk at Brookside Gardens and Noah took a lot of photographs, mostly of animals (geese, a juvenile heron in flight, turtles, bees, and butterflies) and then we got frozen yogurt. As often happens on walks in botanical gardens, we encountered photo shoots—one wedding party and two quinceañeras. Seeing these groups, given the increased ICE presence in and around D.C., I was quietly inspired by the celebrants’ courageous persistence in continuing to mark joyful, culturally specific occasions in public. Some cities have been cancelling Latino festivals, like Day of the Dead parades. It’s not an unreasonable thing to do.

Sunday morning, we had our first family video call with North since dropping them off at school. Other than the continuing digestive woes, they seemed to be doing well.

Monday morning, Beth went kayaking and we all had a picnic in the back yard that evening with the usual spread: veggie hot dogs, baked beans, devilled eggs, corn on the cob, and watermelon. I made a fig cake but forgot to include the eggs. It turned out more like a torte, but it was tasty. (Suzanne, it reminded me of your plum torte, which I made last year.) There were no complaints, and it disappeared in two days. I do want to make it again with the eggs someday, though, to see how it is.

The following weekend was busier. We attended a Free DC March and the Takoma Park Folk Festival.

2. Free DC March

The Free DC march started at Malcolm X Park and went down 16^th Street, skirting the White House, and ending up at Freedom Plaza. Malcolm X Park, a.k.a. Meridian Hill Park, is big and multilayered. It has twelve acres of terraces, statues, fountains, and a Beaux Arts arch at least one of the entrances. We entered at the bottom and climbed the stone stairs up to the big plaza at the top, pausing at bench in the shade near a statue of Dante to eat a snack I’d packed and drink some water, as the day was hot.

When we got to the top, we sat on a bench, and watched people go by. It was a huge, joyous crowd, with people singing songs in Spanish and line dancing and waving flags. There were DC flags, of course, DC’s autonomy being the point of the march, but also some American flags and a huge Palestinian flag, and Beth said later she saw a Ukrainian flag, though I didn’t spot it. Beth and I both had homemade Free DC signs, but Noah didn’t so someone gave him one made with spray paint and a stencil. Beth knew some labor people there and thought we might meet up with them, but the crowd was too big to even try. Shannon, who’s the mother of one of North’s nursery school classmates, did run into us and we exchanged updates about our preschoolers college sophomores.

I thought there would be speeches at the park, but there weren’t and after a while, we left to march. Some of the organizers tried to shepherd people with Free DC signs up front so the most visible part of the march could stay more on message, and we ended up near the front. Among the many signs with the DC flag, I eventually saw one with that meme in which the two horizontal stripes of the DC flag are replaced with two sub sandwiches. That’s my favorite. When we were several blocks along the route, Beth got a text from one of her colleagues, telling her there were still people waiting to leave the park. I later heard crowd estimates in the thousands, maybe as many as ten thousand.

At one point, I stepped away from Beth and Noah to take some photos, and before I knew it, I’d lost them. It took about a half hour and many texts to find each other again. During the time we were separated the march passed by Foundry Methodist Church and the thunderous sound of its bells ringing in support was deeply moving. Soon after, we passed through the Scott Circle Underpass. As we approached, we could see people lined up above us on the bridge and along the upper levels of the street on either side, waving DC flags and cheering. Once we’d funneled into the narrow space of the tunnel, the chants echoed off the concrete walls.

Soon after this, I finally spotted Beth and Noah. We’d never been far apart; the crowd was just dense. The march passed within about a block of the White House, circumventing Lafayette Square (here, predictably, the chanting got even louder) and then proceeded to Freedom Plaza. I think this is where the speeches happened, but by this time we were tired, hungry, thirsty, and in need of a bathroom. We gratefully picked up some free bottled water—our bottles had been empty for a while; Noah had spilled his in Malcolm X Park—and we skipped the program and left for Union Station to get a late lunch.

I’d been at Union Station a few days earlier and seen two soldiers in fatigues in the food court, apparently guarding the Jersey Mike’s Subs stall. (“Well, sandwiches are dangerous,” Noah commented when I told him about it later.) Even so, I was surprised at how heavily guarded Union Station was. During the march we’d seen about as many park police and DC police as you’d expect at a big protest, but the situation in the train station was over the top. DC police in riot gear with a dog near Insomnia Cookies and roaming National Guard soldiers with rifles I kept seeing all over, as I browsed the station for a place to eat and restrooms. I really don’t understand why this station has been chosen for this show of force, as it’s not a dangerous place at all, unless it’s because a lot of tourists pass through it. (We did see a middle-aged couple in MAGA hats on the sidewalk nearby.) Anyway, we ate our lunch at Pret amidst this unnerving spectacle. When we were telling North about it later, we said it seemed like a reminder we had not in fact freed DC, not yet anyway.

3. Folk Festival

Sunday Beth went grocery shopping in the morning, and we had our weekly call with North. In the mid-afternoon we walked to Takoma Park Middle School where the Folk Festival was happening. We were there for the last three hours, so we each got to pick an act. Here’s what we picked with the program descriptions:

Pam Parker: Thrilling audiences with her tremendous voice and thoughtful message
Marilyn Hucek: Indie pop with heart: bold, honest lyrics over lush, addictive melodies
GXB: Scorching, hook-laden Southern rock & roll filled with blues and heartfelt soul

All the performances were fun and after the heat of the day before and a rainy morning, the weather couldn’t have been nicer, mid-seventies, and sunny with a nice breeze. Because we see Purple School people wherever we go, at Pam Parker’s set we saw two more mothers from the kids’ preschool (one of whom, Cara, is our city councilperson and the other, Lane, is labor colleague of Beth’s). Apparently, Lane’s musician husband sometimes plays with Parker.

We all got food from different stands. I had a café con leche paleta when we first got there and then veggie dog with cheese and sauerkraut and ice cream for dinner. I forgot to bring my meds with me and went out of range on the hot dog bun and ice cream, but these things happen sometimes. I try not to freak out about it.

4. Garden Concert

Not satisfied with having seen three sets of live music a few days earlier, on the next Wednesday evening Beth and I went back to Brookside Gardens because they are having a series of free evening concerts this month on the lawn behind the visitors’ center. (Noah couldn’t come because he was going to a different concert that night.) I made a picnic dinner of egg salad, crackers, and plums and we set up camp chairs behind the visitor’s center to eat and listen to an hour and a half of blues and rock. Reese did a lot of covers—the Band, B.B. King, Bonnie Raitt, Carole King, and Kris Kristofferson, but she also did some originals. There was a Ben and Jerry’s truck there, so of course at intermission we got ice cream, and I wandered around looking at the late summer flowers growing near the stage.

5. Godzilla Minus One

The following Saturday afternoon, Beth left to spend a few days visiting with her high school friend Michelle and seeing her perform in a play, just outside Chicago. When Beth is gone, and we are left to our own devices, the kids and I often watch scary movies. Noah at first proposed we watch Beau Is Afraid, because it’s too violent to watch with Beth, but I read some reviews and I suspected it might also be too violent for me, plus it’s three hours long (“Two hours and fifty-nine minutes,” he primly corrected me when I brought this up as a concern.) So, he regrouped and suggested Godzilla Minus One, which he had once nominated for family movie night, and Beth had vetoed. I agreed. It’s a completely ridiculous movie, but in a good, fun way. I was wondering how, given that it’s a prequel, the movie would handle the question of the monster’s survival. If you want to know, you will need to watch it yourself, but you probably won’t be that surprised if you’ve watched any horror at all.

6. Pie Contest

On Sunday afternoon, Noah and I went to the farmer’s market pie contest. It’s the first time it’s been only the two of us—last year I went alone—and the second year North did not have an entry after a long stretch of pie contests. I think they were seven or eight the first time they entered, and I know they were seventeen the last time. I am obliged to mention that they won the contest twice, once with a cantaloupe pie when they were ten and once with a mushroom pie when they were thirteen. (I was pleased to see a cantaloupe entry this year, as it brought back memories.)

We left right after a family call conducted from three states, during which we learned that North had tried out for a play and is the intimacy coordinator for another one. We arrived twenty minutes after tickets went on sale and ten minutes before pie slices were supposed to be available. The line was quite long when we got into it. I left Noah to hold our place while I went to the nearby farmers’ market to get some ricotta. I’d hoped to get some chocolate milk for Noah and maybe some figs, too, but it was the last hour the market was open, and a lot of items were sold out.

When I rejoined Noah in line, it had not started to move yet, but it had gotten longer. We were standing in the sun, and it was hot. We’d purchased four tickets because the plan was to get a savory slice each for lunch and a sweet each for dessert. But once the line did start to move (about ten minutes late) I watched different flavors get crossed off the poster board and I told Noah that by the time it was our turn there might not be any vegetarian savory flavors left, and we’d have to get four sweet slices. “That would be terrible,” he deadpanned.

As it turned out, that was just what happened. Once we got inside the tent, I had some trouble picking my two sweet slices, partly because one of the flavors I’d scoped out ahead of time (chocolate-raspberry) was sold out. The bigger problem was that somehow many of the slices had gotten separated from their labels, and the servers had no idea which flavors were which. (I forgot to take any pictures, so the photo is from the farmers’ market website, and it was taken early on, before it got chaotic.)

The label situation was especially bad in the peach section, and of course, they all looked pretty much the same. I was surprised as the contest is usually more organized. I had wanted to try the ginger peach, but I chose a peach slice at random and when I tasted it, I was surprised that of many varieties of peach pie, I’d gotten the one I wanted. For my second slice, I selected an apple slice with no top crust because I reasoned it would have fewer carbs, and I usually like pie filling more than crust anyway.

We settled at a picnic table and Noah ate both of his slices (chocolate pecan and caramel apple) for lunch. I had the ginger peach, some smoked almonds I had in my bag, and an iced latte from Takoma Bev, where I got a takeout container to carry home the apple slice. We parted ways so Noah could go to his weekly Sunday afternoon board game group, and I could do some more shopping before heading home. Despite the long wait and confusion in the pie tent, it was a very satisfactory experience. The pie contest is a benefit for the farmers’ markets SNAP benefit matching program, so it’s always nice to feel you are doing good by eating pie.

7. Homecoming

Beth came home from visiting Michelle three days later. She’d been kayaking on the Fox River, seen Michelle’s play, helped her run lines for an audition, and gone to a museum. I made an apple-walnut kuchen to welcome her home. When she tried it, she said “this tastes like fall.” The next night I made eggplant parmesan for dinner because she loves eggplant. Because Beth got home Wednesday after dinner and we both had book club (different book clubs that meet at different times) on Thursday evening, we didn’t eat together as a trio until Friday, when we went out for pizza and soft serve at Red Hound. Beth and Noah got S’mores (marshmallow ice cream with chocolate sauce and graham cracker bits) and I got half chocolate and half pistachio. Then we came home and watched Only Yesterday. Because Noah really likes anime, especially the work of Hayao Miyazaki, we watch a lot of it, so it felt like familiar and comfortable thing to do.

Politically speaking, the last few weeks have been scary and trying. Who thought we’d have to give up Hulu to try to save the democracy? But we’re doing it. I hope you are finding comfort and strength in the things you love.

19, 24

Posted on September 1, 2025 by Steph

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It’s Labor Day, which by one way of reckoning is the end of summer. All through the summer, I found myself thinking a lot about my kids’ ages and life stages. That’s because for me the summers I was nineteen and twenty-four were memorable, in very different ways. Eventually I realized it goes back further than that. My grandmother and mother became mothers when they were nineteen and twenty-four respectively.

Act 1: 1943

My grandparents married in the fall of 1942 several months after my grandmother graduated from high school. When she was just barely nineteen and seven or eight months pregnant with her first child (my mother), she took a Greyhound bus from Idaho to Florida to join my grandfather, who was stationed in Jacksonville, Florida as an Air Force mechanic. My mother was born there in July.

My mom doesn’t have very many pictures of her mother, so when I asked for a picture of her when she was nineteen, the closest she could find was one taken when she was twenty. By that time, she had another child, my uncle Larry, who is also in the picture. He’s the one with dark, curly hair. My mother is the blonde toddler. (She looks remarkably like me and North as toddlers.) Her mother is holding her. The other adults are my mom’s aunt and uncle, and the other baby is a cousin. My grandmother would eventually have five kids, all born before she was out of her twenties. I am the third of her thirteen grandchildren.

Act 2: 1967

My parents married in the summer of 1965, right after he graduated from college and shortly before she graduated from nursing school. In those days, nursing students weren’t allowed to be married, so she had to return to her dorm keep the marriage a secret for four months. I came along two years later. They had recently moved from Chicago to Los Angeles. By that point, the U.S. was at war again. Like my grandfather, my father served, but not abroad. He joined the National Guard, thinking he’d be less likely to be drafted and sent to Vietnam that way. He was supposed to leave for his six-month service before I was born, but he got permission to stay in L.A. until I was born in May.

My paternal grandmother, who was a schoolteacher, came from Wyoming to L.A. to spend the summer helping my mom with me, while she worked. Then when the school year started and my grandmother went back home, my mother and I moved to Idaho for a few months to stay with her parents, where she found a temporary job as a nurse. We rejoined my dad once he came home late that fall.

I am quite taken with this photo of me and Mom. Isn’t she pretty? (BTW, there is only one right answer to this question.)

Act 3: 1986

The summer I was nineteen, I was miserable. I was at home in Bala Cynwyd, Pennsylvania after my first year of college. I was working two unsatisfying minimum-wage retail jobs (bagging groceries at a supermarket and scooping ice cream at Baskin Robbins), few of my high school friends were around, and I missed my college friends. In particular, I missed my boyfriend, whom I will call David (because that’s his name). We’d dated on and off our whole first year of college and by that time he’d already broken up with me twice. This made the fact that my letters to him were going unanswered seem ominous. I think that’s why I didn’t call him—we did have landline phones back in the eighties so I could have—until the very end of the summer. I learned in that phone call that he had decided he’d broken up with me again (without telling me) and that he’d gotten back together with his high school girlfriend.

I look happy in the photo and I probably was because it was taken on the beach, during a family vacation to the Outer Banks of North Carolina, but what I remember most about that trip was long solitary nighttime walks on the beach and along the highway, with the lyrics from the Righteous Brother’s “Unchained Melody” (which I knew from the Joni Mitchell version) running on repeat through my head. Sometimes I actually sang the words aloud:

My love, my darling
I’ve hungered for your touch
A long, lonely time
And time goes by so slowly
And time can do so much
Are you still mine?
I need your love
I need your love
God speed your love to me

I was probably thinking almost as much about my high school boyfriend Peter as David. We went to the same college and then he broke up with me during orientation. We had dated for nearly two years, and I honestly saw us getting married someday. It was my most serious relationship before Beth. I probably wasn’t over him until well into my sophomore year of college. Believe it or not, I eventually forgave David, we stayed friendly throughout college, and we occasionally interact on Facebook. I am not in touch with Peter.

The other person I was writing letters that summer (long, frequent answered letters) was a friend from college who became my next boyfriend. It was probably ill-advised to jump back into romance while not yet over two different boyfriends, but I was young and stupid. It ended messily and I regret hurting Shawn, but we, too, occasionally message on Facebook.

This was the last summer I spent at home. I spent the next two in Oberlin and the summer after I graduated from college, Beth and I moved to Iowa City together. She had graduated a year earlier than me and gotten a job at the computing center to wait for me to graduate.

Act 4: 1991

The summer I was twenty-four, Beth and I had been dating four years, and I proposed to her. We’d just moved from Iowa City where we both got master’s degrees (hers in the Social Foundations of Education and mine in Literary Translation) to Washington, D.C. The proposal was kind of a bold thing to do because she had a part-time job at ERIC, and I was unemployed.

We were living in a cockroach-infested and disorganized group house for the summer. One of our housemates was boundary-challenged and we once found her naked in our bedroom, sitting on the bed. Another one was the first out trans person I ever met. We found free or cheap fun things to do in the city, like free Shakespeare in the now-closed Carter-Barron amphitheater. We fell in love with and almost adopted a cat we thought was a stray—we even took him to the vet to get an eye infection treated—until we found out he had a home after all, and his person was none too pleased with us for putting a collar with our address on him. She brought it back to us, saying, “I have something of yours and I believe you had something of mine.”

The photo is our engagement photo, taken by a photographer from the Washington Blade. It also appeared in the Philadelphia Inquirer. We were the first gay couple to have a wedding announcement in the Inquirer. I will leave it to you to conclude whether the fact that my father was managing editor of the paper had anything to do with that.

Our plan was to get another apartment with a friend from college when her lease was up in September, and that’s what we did, moving to a much nicer place. I proposed to Beth on our fourth anniversary in a guest house in Rehoboth, where we were spending a weekend that we probably couldn’t afford. Kris was paying more than her share of the rent (saying she was putting her socialist principles to work).

The whole summer was a mix of joy (of being engaged, of being in a big city as young adults) and growing unease about my stalled job search and the prospect of burning through our meager savings living on one part-time salary in an expensive city. That fall, I found some clerical temp work. I eventually got a full-time job as a grant writer at a now-defunct non-profit that registered low-income African Americans to vote, but not until December. Our commitment ceremony was in January and soon after Beth got a full-time job at HRC. And then were able to split the rent three ways. Kris didn’t let us pay her back rent.

Act 5: 2025

If you are a regular reader, you probably see some faint echoes of my summers at nineteen and twenty-four in my kids’ lives— though not so much of my mother’s and grandmother’s.

North just went back to school after a summer at home. I hope not their last one, but you never know, and if their adventures take them elsewhere, I won’t complain—my mother never did. They had more friends at home than I did the summer I was nineteen, but not as many as they would have liked. If you don’t count the (mostly) senior beach week in June, I think they may have spent more time on the phone with college friends than hanging out with high school friends. To the best of my knowledge, though, they were not pining for one (let alone two) lost loves. And while both of their jobs (canvassing for Environment Virginia and working as a day camp counselor) were mixed bags, I think they were better experiences than my jobs. And they paid better, especially the canvassing job because there were performance bonuses.

Noah is underemployed. He gets occasional work from Mike (in fact he’s supposed to get a new job from him soon) but it’s not steady or predictable. Like me, he spent the summer he was twenty-four in the D.C. area, but it was hardly a new and exciting place for him, as he has lived here his whole life, except for college, and he’s living in his childhood home. He does take advantage of living in a vibrant metro area (which is not a crime-ridden hellscape in need of federal occupation). He often goes to concerts in the city or Silver Spring, and he will sometimes go into the city with or without us to go to a protest, a museum, or a film festival. To the best of my knowledge, he is not engaged to be married.

What was going on in your life when you were nineteen and/or twenty-four?

Goodbye, Sophomore

Posted on August 29, 2025 by Steph

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Saturday: Takoma Park to Oberlin

We left the house for Oberlin (for the first time) a little before nine a.m. last Saturday. Our first stop was Mike and Sara’s house because Rose’s boyfriend John, who goes to Oberlin, had spent the summer with Rose’s family and we were giving him a ride back to school. We chatted with Mike and Sara, who were about to leave for a Tesla takedown protest (they are regulars) while John loaded his bags into our car and said goodbye to their little white dog. John and Shorty had bonded over the summer, Sara said, while John lingered on the porch with the dog. (Rose had already left for school a couple days earlier.)

When we got into the car, I remembered I had failed to take a leaving-for-college photo at our front gate and Beth said she’d indulge me by going back home. As North stood in front of the gate where they’d had a back-to-school photo snapped every year since they were two (except 2020), I said “Hello, sophomore!” to make them smile.

And then we drove to Ohio, with many stops along the way. We got snacks at Blue Goose Market in Hancock, Maryland, and lunch at Next Door in Bedford, Pennsylvania. Blue Goose is a regular stopping place for us and Next Door is on its way to becoming one. We listened to music and podcasts to pass the time. For the first hour or so, North and John were very chatty, mostly talking about mutual acquaintances from both high school and college. (They did not go to the same high school, but he’s from the area and high school theater circles are small.)

We arrived in Oberlin around six o’clock and dropped John off at his dorm. Next, we went to Keep and carried North’s things into their room. It’s the same one they had last spring, a first-floor single. They prefer a first-floor room because of their chronic pain, but they only found out recently they’d gotten into it off the wait list. The room was familiar to me, not only because I had been in it last year, but also quite often during the 1986-1987 school year, when a close friend of mine lived there. We didn’t linger because it was almost dinner time and Tank was only dining co-op that was open before the semester started, so we needed to scoot.

At Tank there was a bountiful buffet of chickpeas in tomato sauce, roasted potatoes, pancakes, cornbread, and brownies. I had to think about what carbs I most wanted, and I decided on a small serving of potatoes and a brownie. We ate on the steps of the wraparound porch, also familiar because I ate at Tank my first year of college. It felt good to be back in Oberlin and eating OSCA food.

After dinner we tried to get some groceries for breakfast, but first the IGA and then the Aldi’s we tried were closed, so we ended up picking up a few things at a Sheetz to supplement the food we’d brought from home. The search for an open grocery store was a little frustrating, but we were rewarded with a beautiful sunset as we drove around Lorain County.

The rental house where we were staying had two cats in the driveway who were quite insistent that they wanted to come inside with us, but when the owner showed up to help us with the keypad, he said they were not supposed to go in the second-floor apartment where we were staying. The place was notable for its religious décor. There was a Bible quote framed at the top of the stairs outside the entrance, another one on a mug in the kitchen, religious books placed on the bedside table, and a tiny Jesus figurine in the glass jar of makeup wipes in the bathroom. It looked like he was floating on a cloud in there.

The space was one big room with a kitchen and bathroom off to the side. North was staying with us that night so we could get an early start the next morning and they slept on a pullout couch in the living room area. At bedtime I was dismayed to find out I’d left my sleep mask at home, so I didn’t sleep well. Neither did North because apparently one of us was snoring. (They opted to sleep in Keep the next night.)

Sunday: Oberlin to Wheeling and Back Again

Why did we need to get an early start? We were driving to Wheeling to see Beth’s mom Sunday. It’s a three-hour drive each way, so it was going to be another long day on the road (the second of three), but North hadn’t seen YaYa since Thanksgiving and really wanted to go, so we did.

We arrived at YaYa’s house at 11:40 and soon after Beth’s aunt Carole and cousin Holly (who live two doors down) came over for a visit. As we left the house, we admired the flourishing Rose of Sharon in front of Carole’s house before we went to have lunch at the bistro at Oglebay resort. We ate on the patio, and the restaurant is on a hill, so we had a nice view of the park. We got a feast that started with a butter board with various compounded butters, fresh bread, and olives. I got a slice of quiche and a salad as well. Next, we went to the lodge and got coffee, chai, and a slice of lemon cheesecake.

Back at YaYa’s house we socialized some more, and I went for a short walk in her neighborhood. At 4:40, we said our goodbyes and drove back to Ohio. We drove mostly along rural roads and saw a lot of Amish people. There was another beautiful sunset. They are easier to see when there aren’t many hills or buildings. We had dinner at a Panera and then stopped in Wooster for ice cream and frozen custard at the dairy where OSCA gets its milk. It was fun to have a connection to the place.

Monday: Oberlin to Takoma Park

We picked North up at Keep the next morning and walked to Slow Train Café for coffee and pastries. From there we went to Ben Franklin, where we got clothes hangers and other sundries for North. (At home they had divided their hangers into a bag to take and hangers for children’s clothes to donate. Can you guess which bag they packed?) It was eleven o’clock by the time we said our goodbyes and got in the car again. When took pictures on the Keep steps, I said, “Goodbye, sophomore.” And it was time to go.

Our drive featured another stop at Blue Goose with a longer than planned stop to walk along the nearby C&O canal. We just kept finding interesting things, like a feral cat colony and water lotuses in bloom. It was a welcome distraction from the growing number of miles between us and our youngest child.

Tuesday through Friday: Takoma Park and Oberlin

Until recently, I thought this drop-off would be easy (if not objectively, then comparatively). It wasn’t anyone’s first year of college, it wasn’t the first drop-off after a year and a half at home due to a global pandemic, no one was going halfway across the world. But the fact that North’s multi-day migraine hadn’t gone away and their digestive woes were still unresolved made it harder to leave them. Right before we left home, we’d found out through the portal that their H. pylori test came back negative, so it’s more likely gastroenteritis than an ulcer. They got an appointment at the Cleveland Clinic, but it’s not until late September. Even though I am sorry they are dealing with these health problems, I am proud of them for taking steps to manage them. They are growing into quite the capable young adult. But of course, we are here to help if they need it.

On the positive side, they have a lot to look forward to this semester. They like their class schedule—two theater classes, one psychology class, a sociology class, and they will be on production crew for a show (which one TBD). They are one of two food coordinators for all OSCA, serving as a liaison to the wholesalers that supply the co-ops with food. It’s a paid position. They are now three days into the semester. Good luck, sophomore!

Last Two Weeks

Posted on August 26, 2025 by Steph

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North never made it to camp, and they didn’t even get a doctor’s appointment the week they were unexpectedly home. They didn’t have a lot of plans, as a lot of their high school friends had already left for school, and I think after a few weeks of not working, they were bored. They had long phone conversations with college friends and a couple online OSCA meetings. (They are one of two food coordinators who serve as liaisons between the co-ops and wholesale food vendors this year and they needed to plan food orders for the welcome picnic for new students.) They said it was the first week they wished they back at school. Lucky for them, it was their second-to-last week at home, so they didn’t need to wait long. This is what we did during those two weeks:

Week 1

Watch Movies

North was home, but Beth was gone, first at the CWA convention in Pittsburgh and then visiting her mom in Wheeling. What we mainly did in Beth’s absence was watch scary movies because she is not a fan. After Sinners, we went to Weapons in a theater, and then we watched Good One (which I hesitated to watch with Beth because I thought it might take a turn it did not) and The Gift. I’d seen that one alone in the theater ten years ago when Beth and the kids were out of town on a camping trip. Kind of funny I saw it again while she was out of town yet again.

Bake a Cake

Normally, North would probably bake something during a slow week, but it’s not that appealing when you feel sick much of the time. However, Noah made a ginger-apple cake with cream cheese frosting. It had three kinds of ginger (crystalized, fresh, and powdered). It was excellent and had quite a kick. I wondered if he thought all the ginger might settle his sibling’s stomach (they’d been drinking a lot of ginger ale) or if he was trying to summon fall during a miserably hot, sticky week by using autumnal flavors. North didn’t get better, but the weather eventually cooled down, so it worked on at least one front.

Protest

On Thursday night, I went to a Free DC protest. You’ve probably heard that the President tried to federalize the DC police. The legality of that is up in the air (and may change before I finally finish and post this), but there are National Guard troops from several states and other federal law enforcement agencies occupying the city, even though crime in DC is declining. They’ve set up checkpoints and some employees from Cielo Rojo, a Mexican restaurant a twenty-minute walk from my house, were seized in the city on their way to work. I’ve lived in the DC Metro area since 1991, so I am just heartbroken over all this. Not to mention that there have been more people seized in Takoma Park on the Maryland side of the border, including some landscapers in my friend Becky’s neighborhood. She posted video of it to Instagram.

The protests are happening in neighborhoods all over DC, every night at eight o’ clock. I went to the closest one, just over the DC/Maryland line. It was organized by our friend Sara, who used to work with Beth and is married to Mike, who frequently employs Noah. The bus schedule meant I got there early, so I went to the hardware store to get yard bags and then got myself some gelato. While I was eating it, a couple also eating gelato noticed my sign and asked where the protest was, so I told them, and they came along.

It was the second night there was a protest at this corner (Carroll and Maple if you’re local and want to come) and about fifteen to twenty people showed up, including my two recruits. Signs, pots, wooden spoons, and various percussion instruments are provided, and for five minutes, everyone makes a lot of noise, and people in passing cars honk or shout in support. That night, a Metro bus driver honked, too.

I resolved to go again sometime soon. As I told North, these protests are very short, and I should spend at least as much time holding the sign as I spent making it. I used colored tape to make the Free DC logo, as I did with my No Kings sign. I was pleased with it. Beth says I am becoming a “tape artist,” though North finds it amusing that “DC” is so much smaller than “Free,” because I ran out of room.

Week 2

Go to the Fair

Beth came home on Saturday afternoon, a day earlier than originally planned so we could go to the last day of the Montgomery County Fair. When we walked through the gates, I was awash in nostalgia. The fair always does that to me and now I have fifteen years’ worth of memories to add to those I mentioned in that post.

We did a few rides first thing. North wanted to ride the swings and some other favorites before eating in case they got sick to their stomach. I did the swings and the Mouse Trap with the kids. (Beth only rides the Ferris Wheel.) We went to get dinner next. North wanted dessert first for the same reason they wanted to do high-priority rides first. So, they got a root beer float while Beth got pupusas and Noah and I got crepes. Later in the evening, they got fried pickles while Beth and Noah were getting dessert.

In between we visited the animal barns. Because it was the last day, most of the stalls were empty of their tenants, but we saw sheep, goats, and North’s favorite, rabbits. I always feel a little sorry for them when I read the judges’ notes on their cages. I mean, would you like to be on display with a card that says, “uneven fur density?” I want to tell them “You are perfect just as you are,” but since they can’t read, I guess I don’t have to do that.

The line for the Ferris Wheel was long, so the kids went to ride something else while Beth and I stood in line, but it turned out that ride had a short but slow-moving line, so we had to give up our place and go to the back of the line before they came back. That was frustrating because it was getting late and it had been a hot day, so I was tired and ready to go home. But once we were high in the air, all together in the little car after in a week and a half apart, looking at the colored lights of the fair, it was worth it.

Bake a Cobbler

I had been planning to make a peach-blackberry cobbler to welcome Beth home, but I delayed it a little because of the presence of cake in the house. North said they wanted to help, so while Beth was grocery shopping on Sunday morning, I made the filling, and North made the crust and assembled it. They did a good job rolling the dough thin enough to cover the whole pan. I sometimes have trouble with that. I’ve been making this cobbler for decades, usually near the end of summer, and it tasted comfortingly familiar.

Go to the Doctor

On Monday afternoon, North finally had a doctor’s appointment (with a new doctor since theirs was on vacation). The results of their bloodwork were in the portal Monday night and by Tuesday morning we had a message from the doctor saying they had an elevated count of a specific kind of white blood cell, which was consistent either with an H. pylori infection causing an ulcer (the original theory) or gastroenteritis (a new one). They got another prescription and depending on the results of another test they might need an endoscopy. This will mean they’ll need to find a gastroenterologist in Ohio.

Protest Again

Tuesday night, Beth and I went back to the Takoma DC Free DC protest. We were the first ones to arrive and I was afraid no one else would come, but eventually over a dozen people gathered. One woman said she’d heard the protest the night before while in a meditation group at a church a block away and came to check it out. Sara wasn’t there that night and she brings the extra pots, spoons, and instruments, so there weren’t enough to go around. We chanted and clapped instead. Right at the end, a woman with a DC flag joined us. She said she’d been looking for a group that’s sometimes at the Takoma Metro but wasn’t that night.

Wade in the Creek

Wednesday morning the kids and I went on a creek walk. We’ve been doing this since they were small, often in the late summer, usually in Long Branch, the creek nearest our house. We altered our most common route this year because on my morning walks, I’d noticed a lot of deadfalls in the part of the creek where we usually wade since a big storm in mid-July. I also wanted to change the normal order of events to get food and beverages after the walk instead of before. This was in case North felt sick after eating.

So, we entered the water at the spot where we usually do, but we went in the opposite direction to a part of the creek I don’t see as often on walks. I don’t think there were any fewer trees down that way, but it was pleasant to wade in the water and look at pretty fungus on a downed log, little fishes in the water, and a spiderweb full of drops of water. We waded for twenty minutes until we got to a tree that was too big to clamber over and turned around, exiting where we entered. Then we went to the Langley Park farmers’ market where we got pupusas and drinks from Starbucks. North was able to eat most of a pupusa. It was a very satisfactory outing.

Go to the Hospital

North had a psychiatrist appointment Thursday morning, and I met them afterward for coffee at Lost Sock. They were somewhat subdued because they’d had a headache since the previous day. It didn’t feel like one of their usual headaches and it was accompanied by dizziness and blurry vision and a feeling they described as being “off.”

We went home and North talked to a nurse in the Complex Care program at Children’s (where North still gets most of their healthcare). They were advised to go to the ER, so that’s where Beth and North spent much of the day. As they left, Beth said, “We haven’t done this in a while.” Even so, we’ve gone to the ER with North so many times it’s a familiar ritual, if not a pleasant one.

Beth texted me updates throughout the day. North eventually got some IV migraine meds, and it did take the headache away, so it must have been a non-typical migraine, like the one they had when they were almost eleven that paralyzed their hands and feet.

We thought we had one health problem solved but the headache came back the next day mid-morning. They had been told to take ibuprofen and electrolytes if it did, so I went out and got them some Gatorade, but it only helped a little. Then Beth remembered we have another medication on hand that North hadn’t tried because it’s only semi-effective on their usual migraines and they rarely use it. But they tried it, and it worked, at least temporarily. They can take it twice a day for up to three days in a week, so that’s what they did, timing the doses strategically depending on our plans. It’s been more than a year since they’ve had to ration their migraine meds, but that’s where we are again.

Observe Friday Traditions

On their last day at home, North packed and that night we went out for our traditional Friday night pizza. Most of us got Red Hound, but North wanted their favorite Roscoe’s so we got takeout from two places and ate it at the tables on Laurel Avenue. (Maya, you can visualize us there. It was just up the street from where we met.) Then we went back to Red Hound for ice cream. I got orange with stewed figs. They always have interesting flavors there. North got doughnut peach-maple, but they couldn’t eat much of it.

At home, instead of randomly drawing a movie from the index cards in the cookie jar on the dining room table as we usually do on Friday nights, we looked at all the cards and picked the shortest one because it was late and while Beth and North were packed, I was not. The movie was Marvelous and the Black Hole, which I’d had on my list of possible movies to nominate for a few years but only nominated in this round. It was worth the wait.

And then North’s wait to get back to school was over, as we were leaving the next day. More on that trip soon…

Social

Posted on August 13, 2025 by Steph

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I am not particularly outgoing. I do have friends, but I don’t see them as often as I’d like. Our family spends a lot of time together and I am an introvert. Because I enjoy my own company and my wife’s and kids’, I often forget to reach out to other people. But I am always glad when I do.

For context, before last week, the last time I got together with a friend was in mid-June when I had lunch with the mother of one of North’s preschool classmates. Before that, it had been six months. In December, I had coffee with the same friend and paid a visit to another one, the music teacher at the same preschool, to deliver holiday cookies (and sample some of hers). So, given this track record, it was rather extraordinary that I had four social events in the space of a week.

Sunday: Oberlin Ice Cream Social

Sunday afternoon Beth, North, and I went to an ice cream social for Oberlin alums and current students in Chevy Chase. It was held on the lawn of the Somerset town hall under stately trees. When we arrived, we signed in at a table of the hall’s porch and a picked up some Oberlin swag. North and Beth got stickers of the unofficial mascot, an albino squirrel, and I got an Oberlin pen.

We stood on the porch for a while, talking to people, and then moved to the chairs arranged in clusters on the lawn, where we chatted with alums from the 1950s to 80s. The most talkative person was from the class of ’84. She was there with her mother, class of ’58, so we weren’t the only parent-child group there. The mother mentioned she lived in Keep before it was a housing co-op, and she told us back then it was “the bad girls’ dorm.” I wished later I had asked a follow-up question to find out what shenanigans she got up to there.

North met some current students, including one who will be living in Keep with them. She’s in North’s class and is also a double major, Psychology and Dance to North’s Psychology and Theater. It seems they have a lot in common. The only person we saw who we already knew was an ex-co-worker of Beth’s (not an alum) whose daughter goes to Oberlin now.

When the ice cream cart opened for business, we lined up. To be precise, it was a gelato and sorbet cart. Between us we sampled the chocolate-hazelnut gelato, pineapple gelato, and raspberry sorbet. North could not finish their sorbet, though, because the stomach pain and nausea I mentioned in my last post has continued, and it’s hard for them to finish anything they start to eat. We left soon after because North wasn’t feeling well and we’d all had about as much socializing as we wanted. I was glad we went, though. I’d do it again.

Monday: Medical Interlude #1

North had started on medication for their stomach pain the previous Thursday and they were originally supposed to give it two weeks to work, but Monday they called their doctor to ask if they could accelerate the diagnostic process because it was only a few days until they were supposed to leave for their sleepaway camp counselor job. They got an appointment for an ultrasound on Wednesday afternoon.

Monday: School Tour with Lesley

That evening we went to the preschool to see renovations in progress. There had been a tour for alumni families while we were at the beach and since we missed it, the school director, Lesley, who taught both kids and became a family friend, offered to give us our own private tour.

By now you may be starting to notice the extent to which my social life revolves around people we met when the kids were in preschool. There’s really nothing like being in the classroom of a co-operative school on a regular basis for a few years to bond with teachers and other parents.

During covid, the school stayed open by becoming an outdoor school and it has stayed that way ever since. But starting this next school year, they are going hybrid, and the inside space has been re-imagined. Most of the interior walls have been knocked out and there are circular windows in some of the remaining walls that let you see from room to room. The whole back wall is sliding glass doors. The idea is to let you see more of the outdoors from any part of the building, which is very much in keeping with the nature-based philosophy of the school.

In another startling change, the school is now painted a muted purplish brown color, rather than the violet shade that has led parents to call it “the Purple School” for decades, although that is not its real name.

It was interesting to see the renovations and nice to talk to Lesley. After preschool both kids stayed involved with the Purple School through its after-school classes (drama) and day camps (science, art, drama, and tinkering) both as campers and later volunteer counselors. Both kids have helped Lesley catalog photos and books in the school’s library for some of the student serving learning hours they needed to graduate. When he was in high school, Noah made a zombie movie with day campers as actors, and he also produced a podcast interviewing several alumni of the school. So, we’ve stayed in touch, but we hadn’t seen Lesley in a while, maybe a couple years. She thinks she might have some website work for Noah. I hope that comes through, because it’s a kind of work that he hasn’t done for pay before and it would help expand his resume.

Wednesday: Medical Interlude #2

North had the ultrasound, or rather ultrasounds, on Wednesday. They were primarlily looking for gallstones, but they looked at all their digestive organs for any problems. We were able to get the results that evening through the patient portal that night. The tests didn’t find anything unusual. So, with no clear way forward and still in daily pain, North decided not to go to camp on Friday. It was the job they were most looking forward to this summer, so we are all bummed about it. We’re hoping that either their symptoms improve so they can go mid-week or that we can get another appointment that might lead to a diagnosis before they leave for school. Right now, their doctor is on vacation and we don’t have contact information for the substitute who is supposed to contact us.

Thursday: Coffee and Tea with Becky

Becky (who was North’s music teacher both at the Purple School and in Kindermusik classes we took through the community center and whose daughter babysat for us for years) has a show on Takoma’s community radio station. Noah and I listen to it on Saturday evenings when we’re cooking dinner and we all listen while we eat dinner. One recent Saturday, listening to her voice, North commented that they’d like see Becky before they go back to school, so I reached out to her and Becky, North, and I met up with her for coffee on Thursday morning.

We got coffee, tea, and pastries and ate outside Takoma Bev Co under the big white tent, as the weather had been unseasonably and delightfully cool for almost a week at this point. North doesn’t have much trouble with beverages, so they got an iced mocha, which they deemed insufficiently chocolaty.

We caught each other up on North’s first year of college, illness in Becky’s family, and all our recent doings. Becky knows so many people that in the hour and a half we spent together, she ran into people she knew twice (well, three times, but two of those times it was the same group of people, an elementary-age former music student and his grandparents). We walked part of the way home together because Becky needed to go to the food co-op and when we parted, we resolved to get together sooner than the last time.

“It’s always nice to see Becky,” North commented as we crossed the street headed for the bus stop. When I was a kid we moved around a lot and it’s been satisfying for me to give the kids a childhood in one place, so that in the space of a week North can see a teacher who has known them since they were born (and made us a baby blanket) and another who has known them since they were a shy two year old who clung to their mother during toddler music class.

Friday: Travel Begun and Not Begun

Beth left on a work trip Friday morning. She’ll be gone a little over a week, attending the CWA convention in Pittsburgh and then swinging over to Wheeling to visit her mom. Originally, she was going to take North to Allentown on the way and drop them off with another counselor who would drive them to camp the following day. It made me doubly sad when she left, first to say goodbye to her and not to say goodbye to North.

That night we ordered cheap pizza and took advantage of the absence of the most squeamish member of our family to watch Sinners. (I let North choose the movie because they were the one missing out on a week at camp.)

Saturday: Coffee and Tea with Maya

Saturday afternoon I met up with someone who has nothing whatsoever to do with the Purple School. If you read my blog, there’s a good chance you read Maya’s, too. She lives in Michigan, so we have never met in person. But she was in D.C. on short visit with some of her family and she ducked out early on a trip to the Portrait Gallery to meet me at the same coffee shop where we met Becky two days earlier.

Maya is just as sweet and warm in person as she is on her blog. She came bearing gifts, baklava and another Middle Eastern pastry with pistachios and rose petals, and a magnet with a Susan B. Anthony quote: “Failure is Impossible.” She said she got it because of all the protests I go to. I only hope Susan B. was right. We had iced coffee and tea. (The weather is getting a little warmer but it was still more pleasant than August in the D.C. area generally is.) We talked about things we’ve read on each other’s blogs–family, work, politics– but in more detail. It was nice to talk in person. When we parted, she urged me to come to Michigan someday.

It’s kind of appropriate that my week as a social butterfly ended with a visit with a blogging friend, because online friends are another important part of my social life. There are about a half dozen blogs I visit and comment on regularly and I have come to consider some of these bloggers friends. It’s unusual to meet one, though. The last time I met a blogger in person was in 2011. (I’d link to Tara’s blog, but she doesn’t write it anymore. We do still keep up with each other on Facebook.) If any of the rest of you are ever in the D.C. area, let me know. I’d love to meet you, too.

All For The Love Of You

A Chronicle of Suburban Lesbian Family Life

Author Archives: Steph

About Steph

Moving Forward

A Scary World

#FallBreak

All’s Well That Ends Well

A Wider Circle

Seven For September

19, 24

Goodbye, Sophomore

Last Two Weeks

Social