Author Archives: Steph

About Steph

Your author, part-time, work-at-home writer.

You’re Done, Too

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Noah and YaYa left for Wheeling the day after he graduated, after a farewell breakfast at Panera. That evening Beth, North, and I watched a supernatural teen romance (Every Day) because North had wanted to see it and Noah wasn’t interested. I also made chocolate pudding with them, took them swimming, and to Pride with Zoë, so it was a pretty jam-packed weekend. Beth had to work the weekend of Pride, so it was just me and the kids. It’s been thirty years since Beth and I attended our first Pride festival in Cleveland and it felt a little strange to be there without Beth and with a couple of thirteen year olds, more like chaperoning a field trip than anything.

North went to school the next week. A lot of it was the usual end-of-year movies and parties, but they did have an algebra test as late as Wednesday. North recently had this to say about the past school year: “I hated it, I’m glad it’s over, and I will miss almost nothing about it.” Still, I hope it wasn’t all bad. They were in two plays, sang with the county honors chorus, performed a solo concert, won an honorable mention on the National Spanish Exam, and fulfilled a long-standing wish to visit a foreign country. I kind of get what they meant, though– early adolescence can be rough.

When seventh grade was finally over, North and Beth left for a weekend camping trip in Southern Maryland, where they burned all North’s school papers over a campfire and visited Smith Island. They brought home a Smith Island cake, which in case you didn’t know, is the state dessert of Maryland.

Often when Beth takes one or both of the kids camping I have an ambitious agenda or house and/or yard work, but I’ve had very little work from either Sara or Mike the past couple weeks and I’ve been doing a lot of house and yard work already. And though I haven’t even put a dent in everything that could be done, I decided I’d take it easy. The campers were gone from Friday afternoon to Sunday morning and in that time I read most of a thick Shirley Jackson biography that had been sitting on my bedside table for two or three years, took myself out to dinner at Kin-Da because I was in the mood for vegetable tempura, and went shopping at the farmers’ market.

Monday was the first weekday of North’s summer break and they were out of the door before 9:30, off to Zoë’s house where they’d spend the day and night and part of the next day. They only came home at two on Tuesday because I wanted them to clean the bathroom before we left for their trans kids’ support group. Today they were out the door just before 9:30 again. The reason for all this North-and-Zoë togetherness was that this was one of the only weeks (or maybe the only week) neither of them has camp this summer, so they wanted to squeeze in all the time they could.

North came home at four, so they could eat an early dinner before heading off to the first rehearsal for Sweeney Todd. Highwood Theatre has moved to a new (and less convenient) location, so I accompanied them on the bus to make sure they knew the route. Tomorrow North’s got a physical therapy appointment in the morning and another Sweeney Todd rehearsal in the evening. In between, Noah and YaYa will join us and the day after that we’re all driving to the beach. I’m pleased by the timing–we’re arriving at the beach on the summer solstice–but in some ways it feels like summer’s already in full swing.

You’re Done

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Noah graduated from high school on Friday morning. In case there was any chance we’d forget, there were plenty of reminders in the week before. He had to go to school to pick up his cap and gown and tickets on Tuesday afternoon and then on Thursday there were not one but two rehearsals, one for graduating seniors in the morning and one for the members of the band and orchestra who’d volunteered to play at graduation in the afternoon. (He also registered for his college classes on Monday, the day registration opened.) 

In between these tasks, he helped me make baked ziti and clean fans, mowed the lawn, and started editing interviews he conducted in October for a podcast he’s been making for the kids’ preschool. Last summer and fall he interviewed a bunch of alumni and their parents about their experiences at the school as a volunteer project. He produced a few episodes from his summer interviews before school started in September, but other than taping a few more interviews, he hasn’t worked on it since then. Working on this and volunteering for two weeks at a film-making camp for middle schoolers are going to be his main summer occupations. But he also had enough down time to watch the livestream of Apple’s Worldwide Developers Conference keynote and to watch a half dozen episodes of Orphan Black with me over the course of several days.

Beth’s mom flew in for Noah’s graduation, arriving Thursday afternoon. Beth picked her up at the airport, but no one else could come to meet her because Noah was at the band rehearsal and I was taking North to a physical therapy appointment.  Beth and YaYa got caught in rush hour traffic and it was two hours before Beth had dropped her off at her hotel to check in and swung around to get Noah, North, and me so we could all meet for dinner. Noah and I read from The Lottery and Other Stories while we waited.

Once we were all together, we had dinner at a tapas restaurant in Silver Spring. We got a selection of olives, pan a la Catalana, a cheese plate, mushrooms sautéed in garlic, asparagus, Brussels sprouts, and patatas bravas.  They have a nice dessert sampler there, with churros, flan, tres leches cake, and sopapillas, but Noah wanted ice cream and it was his occasion, so we went to Ben and Jerry’s instead. Kung Fu tea is next door and North wanted bubble tea so we split up temporarily, though eventually we all ended up seated at Ben and Jerry’s.

As everyone was finishing up their desserts, North experienced another flare up in their leg (the third in a week). I was afraid we’d all be stuck there until it passed, but Beth brought the car around and I encouraged North to power through enough to stand up and walk to the car. (My back up plan was to see if Noah could carry them. I know I can’t.) Fortunately, they were able to walk across the street and get into the car, where we had some painkiller in the glove compartment. That night they slept on some cushions on the floor of their room because they couldn’t get up to the ladder to their loft bed.

As if that wasn’t enough excitement for one evening, after North was settled into bed, Beth noticed something was amiss with our cat Matthew’s paw. There was matted fur with something bright red in the center. From a distance, it looked like he was badly hurt and I was imagining a late night trip to an all-night vet, when we got closer and saw he had something clear and sticky all over that paw and a scrap of red paper had stuck to it. So we all got to go to bed, which was good because the next day we were all had to get up early.

Graduation was taking place at the basketball stadium at the University of Maryland and there were at least two graduations taking place there that day. Noah’s was at 9:00 a.m. and the musicians had to be at school to help move instruments into the van that was transporting instruments to the stadium at 6:15. He set an alarm for 4:45, slept through it, and Beth woke him at 5:05. She dropped him off at school came back to shower and eat, and Beth, North, and I headed over to YaYa’s hotel a little before 7:30. He texted Beth to tell her that the U-Haul’s parking brake was stuck and it looked like they might not be able to get any of the percussion instruments to College Park.

In further misadventures, as we got into the car North noticed Noah’s white, purple, and black cord lying in the driveway, where it must have fallen while he was getting into the car at the crack of dawn. It was for completing the Communications Arts Program and he was supposed to wear it around his neck. Beth scooped it up, in hopes of getting it to him.

We got to the stadium around 8:10 so there was ample parking and we could have sat anywhere we wanted, but North didn’t want to navigate the steep steps, so we stayed up in the nosebleed seats near the entrance. The band was practicing on the court, with all their percussion instruments (someone had fixed the van’s brake), so Beth walked down to the lowest seats, called his name and tossed the cord to him. It was lucky he was playing with the band because otherwise he would have been sequestered wherever the rest of the graduates were and it was unclear if she would have been allowed back there.

The ceremony started promptly at nine. The band played a tribute to John Williams, which began with the Star Wars theme and then some processional music by Wagner, “Pomp and Circumstance,” and “The Star-Spangled Banner,” as the 718 seniors (minus members of the band, orchestra and chorus) filed onto the court in two lines, one in red robes and one in white. Until several years ago, boys wore red and girls wore white, but now it’s gender-neutral. You can choose whatever color you want. Red is slightly more popular.  Once everyone was seated, there was a red rectangle on the left, a smaller white rectangle on the right, filled in with more red at the bottom, plus the black robes of faculty down the outer sides, along the aisle between the rectangles, and in the back. It was kind of a cool, watching this design take shape.

It was also a treat to be able to see Noah playing, as percussion is usually in the back at concerts. It was in the back here, too, but because of the stadium seating we could see everyone on the court. Even as high as we were, I could still sometimes hear him on the snare drum and the bells, though sometimes the bass drum drowned him out.

I haven’t been to a high school graduation since my own (as I was in Iowa, taking a grad school summer school course when my younger sister graduated from high school in Pennsylvania).  But it was about what you’d expect. A lot of speeches, interspersed with a chorus performance, a band and orchestra performance of the school’s alma mater, and then after about an hour, the names. It takes a long time to read 718 names, almost another hour. And, to my surprise (and apparently Noah’s, too) the musicians were all called first, so he walked across the stage, shook his principal’s hand and received his diploma case (the actual diplomas were distributed later) quite early in the proceedings. I’m not sure why he didn’t know this was going to happen, as he’d been to two rehearsals the day before, but it went smoothly enough. It looked like everyone knew what they were doing.

Listening to the rest of the names and watching kids on the Jumbotron was full of sentimental moments as Noah’s classmates from preschool, elementary school, middle school, and high school went by. Because Blair is such a big school and Noah’s been something of a lone wolf the past several years, I didn’t even realize some of them went to his school. A few names I was waiting for, but it was hard to know exactly when they’d be called because the graduates went up in alternating groups of red and white so alphabetization was only approximate. Finally, all the names, from Abarca to Zimand, had been called, the students turned their tassels and they were graduates. They weren’t supposed to toss their caps, but of course, some of them, including my usually rule-bound son, did. North asked later, how you got your own cap back if you did that and he said if you were in the main area , you probably didn’t, but if you were only graduate sitting with the band in the percussion section, it wasn’t that hard. The band played a recessional from Aida, and everyone filed out.

We expected a long wait for Noah because he had to help pack up the percussion instruments and go get his diploma. As we lingered outside the building, on a pretty early June day, we chatted with the mother of Jazmín, one of his preschool classmates, and the father of Ruby, his best friend for most of kindergarten. We talked about where the kids are going to college and later Beth reminisced about how once when Noah fell and was hurt on a kindergarten field trip to a grocery store a few blocks from the school, Ruby’s dad was chaperoning and carried him all the way back to school. Noah came out earlier than we expected. Apparently, as he was helping with the instruments, the band teacher told him, “Go on. You’re done.” We took pictures of him with YaYa, with North, with Beth and me, and with Beth and YaYa. Then we dropped North off at school for their afternoon classes and went out to lunch. Told he could have lunch anywhere he wanted, he chose Noodles and Company. He’s a man of simple tastes.

We went back to YaYa’s hotel so she could change clothes and then back to our house, where we hung out, napped, and read. When North got home from school, Noah opened graduation cards and presents. He got a t-shirt for tech podcast he listens to, a pair of cordless headphones, a teleprompter, and a lot of checks, cash, and gift cards. North’s present to him was a series of five paintings. The captions read: What I love about you (an amusement park scene)…Is that even on the scariest of rides… (a roller coaster)…You’ll always hold my hand (two clasped hands)… And let me know that I am safe (closeup of an eye)…and I will always believe it (heart).

Noah wanted to deposit his check, so Beth ran him up the credit union, and then YaYa, Beth, North, and I went for a stroll around the neighborhood before a pizza dinner. Then we came home and Noah packed for an almost two-week visit with YaYa. In the morning, we all had breakfast together at Panera before Beth drove YaYa and Noah to the airport.

He’s done. Now it’s time for him to go on, to West Virginia for some grandmotherly spoiling, then a week at the beach with more family, then a month and a half at home making podcasts and teaching kids to make movies, and then on to the great adventure of college. 

Shine on Me

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“I used to go to school here,” Noah said mock-wistfully as we drove into the parking lot of his high school, the one he stopped attending a little over a week ago. I made a mental note to tell him to stop making this joke, lest his sibling’s head explode, but this time, North didn’t seem to mind. We were there for their spring chorus concert and they were in a good mood, joking with Noah and laughing.

Because the concert is in June, North was all decked out in rainbow gear, or as much as you can be when the bulk of your outfit is supposed to be black and white. They wore a white short-sleeved button-down shirt, black leggings and black ankle boots, brightened with a black bowtie with multicolored musical notes and rainbow-striped socks peeking out over the tops of the boots.

They were also using a colorful new pair of crutches. Although it’s been almost four months since North broke their tibia and the bone and ligaments have long since healed, they’re still experiencing pain. We are all very frustrated by this. The orthopedist referred us to the pain clinic at Children’s National Medical Center, but our appointment isn’t until July so we ordered North a pair of forearm crutches, which are supposed to be better for your posture if you’re on crutches long term. They’re purple and teal, with pink grip tape around the handles.

It’s kind of depressing to be thinking about North using crutches for the long-term, but that’s where we are. In fact, recently, they’ve been experiencing flare-ups of more intense pain. When this happens, they sometimes sleep on a futon on the living room floor because they can’t get up the ladder of their bunk bed. Last week one particularly ill-timed episode cut short their chorus field trip to King’s Dominion. Beth had to rush home from work and then drive a couple hours (almost as far as Richmond) to fetch them and bring them home.

The chorus was participating in Music in the Parks. Bands, orchestras, and choruses perform in the morning and then enjoy an afternoon at an amusement park. When Noah was in middle school his band always went to Hershey Park. North got to perform, have lunch, and ride one ride before their leg started to hurt badly and then they spent much of the afternoon in the first aid station, waiting for Beth. Eventually, they recovered enough to go on one more ride and attend the awards ceremony before Beth arrived. I was sad about this turn of events because North had wanted to go on this field trip for years and last year it was inexplicably cancelled and next year they’re probably taking art instead of chorus, so this was their only shot.

It wasn’t a total loss, though, because they did perform and the chorus did pretty well, coming in second out of four middle school choruses. The chorus was ranked two on a scale of five (the lower numbers are better). At festival in March, they’d scored a four and this had been a pretty bitter disappointment, so it was nice to have their improvement recognized.

But back to the concert… It was an orchestra, piano, and chorus concert, held at Noah’s school because North’s school doesn’t have an auditorium and they rotate between different high schools whenever there’s a concert. It’s always nice when it’s at Blair, because it’s the closest high school.

While we waited for the concert to start, I scanned the program, looking for familiar names. I saw a few, but not one of North’s elementary school classmates, at least none of the ones I knew, is still in orchestra or chorus.

The orchestra played six songs. My favorite was a Bach piece called “Sleepers Wake,” maybe because I have a recording of it, so it’s familiar. The orchestra teacher explained he’d let the band choose one of their performance pieces from a website of band music. They chose a song called “Tour of California,” which he said reminded him up driving up the Pacific coast on a motorcycle. After the band, two piano students performed—a girl did a duet with the piano teacher, who is also the chorus teacher, and boy played alone. They were both beginners and sounded pretty good, considering.

After intermission, the chorus came on. They had four songs: “Alleluia! Sing Alleluia,” (more Bach) “She Sings,” “Rise Up,” (the Andra Day song, not the Diane Birch song, the Indigo Girls song, or the one from Hamilton with that chorus, which is actually called something else) and, finally, “Shine on Me,” a gospel tune.  Beth said she liked the first one best, North liked the second one, and I favored the last one. Maybe none of us picked “Rise Up” because it was an eighth-grade spotlight so North didn’t sing in it. (The eighth graders are going to sing it again at promotion.)

After saying goodbye to the eighth-graders, Mr. N, the chorus director, thanked the returning sixth and seventh graders and wished the members of the chorus who were taking other electives next year well and expressed his hope they’d be back on the stage someday. Then he spoke about Music in the Parks, and how much the chorus had improved in a little over two months. Well, that’s how I would have put it, but he put a surprising emphasis on the chorus’s low scores at festival, more than on their good scores at Music in the Parks, so that was strange and kind of uncomfortable.

But I don’t think Mr. N needs to worry about North returning to the stage. This summer they’ll be in chorus camp, a drama camp production of Wicked, and most likely in a production of Sweeney Todd. They always find a way to shine.

It was close to North’s bedtime when the concert ended but they wanted to go out for frozen yogurt and it was a beautiful evening and almost the end of a long year for them, so a little celebration seemed in order.

Noah in the Bardo

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My book club met the Wednesday before Memorial Day to discuss Lincoln in the Bardo, a book that imagines President Lincoln’s grief when his son Willie died of typhoid and Willie’s first night in the afterlife, or rather the bardo, which is a Tibetan Buddhist concept of a holding area between life and rebirth. In this book it’s located in a Georgetown cemetery and populated by all the dead folks buried there who can’t accept their own deaths, insist they’re just sick, and therefore refuse to move on to the next place. Some of them pass through the bardo in minutes, others linger for years or decades. The bardo is also used as a metaphor. The Civil War is a bardo. Grief is a bardo. This weekend, Noah found himself stuck in a kind of bardo as well.

Friday

The school year ended for seniors on Friday. (All the other grades have three weeks left, much to North’s consternation.) Going into the last week Noah had homework in all his classes due, mostly at the end of the week, and mostly big, time-consuming assignments. He also had all of the mornings from Monday to Thursday off or partly off because the ninth to eleventh graders had standardized tests. I thought that might help and I guess it did, but Thursday night he still had homework due in five or six classes. He ended up staying up half the night and went to school Friday morning on four hours of sleep…and with undone assignments in four classes.

He’d given up on the statistics chapter and a bevy of little assignments for health, but he wanted to finish two things he’d been working on all week—the storyboard for his hypothetical film version of Isben’s Enemy of the People for English and his film on 5G cell phone networks for Silver Lens (his school’s documentary-making team). It’s his third movie of the year and the second one on 5G. The first one was about safety and regulatory issues. This second, shorter one was about how close the technology is to being finished. And, like 5G technology, it wasn’t ready.

At school he secured permission from his English teacher to stay after school for about an hour and turn in the storyboard then. And he got an extension on the movie (the second one—it was originally due Wednesday).

On Noah’s last day of eighth grade he came home and yelled “Middle school is over!” so loudly and so many times that he went hoarse. He came home Friday more subdued, maybe because he’d had so little sleep the night before and maybe because high school wasn’t really over, not quite. We were planning a celebratory pizza dinner at Roscoe’s, followed by gelato, and we still did it, but because he got home late we scrapped plans for Noah and North to hose the dust and pollen off the porch that afternoon. We do this once a year sometime in in May and the kids get into their bathing suits, spray each other with the hose and make a game of it. It’s their favorite chore, but it would have to wait.

And Noah wasn’t the only one with undone work. I hadn’t finished a draft of my Great Lakes chapter that I needed to send to the graphics person that evening so we also postponed our weekly Friday movie/TV night until Saturday night. I finished the draft after dinner and we were all in bed by ten.

Saturday

The next day I took care of some less urgent work tasks and Beth, North and I went to the pool, an outdoor one, not the one where I swim laps every week. Noah stayed home to work on his movie. It was a near perfect late May day, sunny, warm but not hot, and not too humid. I should have realized everyone would want to linger for a few hours and brought something to read, but I didn’t so after I’d swum as long as I wanted to and relaxed in a chair on the grass for a while, I got restless and wanted to leave. Beth and North wanted to stay, so I considered walking home—it’s only about a half hour—or going to a nearby grocery store and fetching a few dinner ingredients.

I settled on the second plan because it seemed practical. At the register with my frozen ravioli, mushrooms, and asparagus, I put my hand in my shallow, diagonally cut front pocket and found the twenty that should have been in there was missing. (Later in telling Noah this story I had to explain how a lot of women’s clothes either lack pockets or have non- or semi-functional pockets and he was really surprised.) So, I put all the food back and started to walk back to the pool. My route was mainly along a busy thoroughfare. Imagine my surprise when I spotted my twenty in the grass just off the sidewalk, fifteen or twenty minutes after I must have lost it. I went back to the grocery store, purchased the food, and Beth swung by on the way home from the pool to get me and then Noah and I made dinner. After we ate it, we had our delayed TV night, watching two episodes of Blackish.

Sunday

Beth and I were busy with errands, house and yard work for much of the middle day of the weekend. Between us we menu planned for the next week, grocery shopped, mopped the kitchen floor, weed whacked, mowed the back yard, and prepared a bed for tomatoes and planted them in it. Then Beth and North made miso soup, asparagus, carrot, cucumber and tofu sushi, edamame, and seaweed salad for dinner. Noah continued to work on his movie all day. North spent the afternoon at Sadhbh’s house. Beth, North, and I wrapped up the day with an episode of The Great British Baking Show.

Monday

Beth made homemade waffles for breakfast because that’s a three-day weekend tradition and she and I did more work in the yard and garden in the morning. She weeded along the fence line and I transplanted kale seedlings into the bed she’d prepared for the tomatoes the day before as there was some extra room. While I was weeding an overgrown area near the pea plot, I was surprised to find a ripe strawberry on a stem with some little white ones in my hand. We once tried to grow strawberries there—maybe last year, maybe as long as a few years ago—and apparently the plant survived and seeded outside the garden bed without us ever seeing it in the tangle of weeds. But looking for something with similar leaves in the ground I couldn’t see it, so I quit weeding in case it was still there, but I fear I uprooted the poor thing, just as it was fulfilling its destiny. The berry was quite good, though. I split it into four and we all had a bite.

Around noon Noah said he needed a title for his movie, which made me think he was almost finished. I suggested Talk to You Later. He was tepid about it but didn’t have any better ideas, so that’s what it’s called. (Get it? It’s about phones and the future. I swear, I am underappreciated sometimes.) Sure enough, he finished the movie little after two. There were already plans in the works to go out for frozen yogurt, but now we had a decent justification for dessert on a day when I was already planning to make strawberry shortcake to go with our Memorial Day picnic dinner—with berries from the farmers’ market since our crop consisted of a single berry.

When I asked Noah if he’d like to wash the porch after we got back from frozen yogurt or the next day, he initially said the next morning, because it would be cooler then. I reminded him North would be in school tomorrow morning so it had to be that afternoon or the next one. “Oh, I forgot about that school thing,” he said breezily. And then as we drove home from frozen yogurt, we passed his school and he said, “Oh, look, it’s Blair, where I used to go to school.”

I think he’s out of the bardo.

The B-52s

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20190515-01
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A New Job

A few days before my birthday something unexpected happened. I got a new job. The week before that Sara had called to let me know that because she lost three major clients all at once she was going to have to take me off retainer temporarily until she could rebuild her client base. She’d still have some work for me, but no guaranteed hours. It wasn’t a good time for our income to dip. We’ve had some unusual one-time expenses recently and soon there will be college tuition. So the next day I put out some feelers with a couple people I know, hoping to find a little stop-gap work.

One of these people was Mike, who used to be North’s basketball coach and is the father of a preschool classmate. He has a business helping non-profits and government agencies interpret their data and make it more accessible. We’d talked about working together several years ago, but at the time he wanted someone to work more hours than I wanted to work. He asked me a to send a resume and some writing samples. On Wednesday, five days after I contacted him, he’d hired me. My first job is to work on report about coastal conditions for the EPA website. I’m editing a chapter on the Great Lakes.

It was a surprise to find work so soon and it was pretty stressful at first because it’s been a really, really long time since I’ve worked for anyone not related to me and that felt intimidating, even though Mike’s a very nice person. Also, office work involves learning a lot more computerized systems than it did in the mid-nineties (when I last worked somewhere other than a two-person family business or academia). It actually surprised me how complicated it seemed to figure out how to navigate an unfamiliar email and calendar system, find shared files, record my hours, etc. I started to wonder if I was too old to learn how to work in a modern environment. A week in, it’s getting better, though I do still have moments of panic and time management is a challenge. As a result of starting during a production rush for this EPA report, I’ve had to delay working on some projects Sara does have for me, which I regret a little. But once I learn how to balance the two jobs, this combination could just the thing, since I was hoping to be working more hours next fall when Noah’s at college. It just came earlier than I anticipated.

A New Age

So back in the realm of things I did expect, I turned fifty-two on Saturday. That morning I was in the dining room with Beth when North walked in and said, “It’s the fifty two year olds.”

“We’re the B-52s,” I said, “Because we be fifty-two.”

But North had never heard of the B-52s and Beth was engrossed in her phone and not paying attention, so the joke fell flat.

Despite this inauspicious beginning, it was a nice birthday. I spent a lot of time reading the weekend sections of the Post and there was a little street festival going on about fifteen minutes from our house so Beth and I headed down there in the early afternoon and had a lunch of bean and cheese pupusas, plantain chips, and agua fresca. (Mine was cucumber-lime. Beth got mixed fruit.) While we ate it we listened to a band play and watched a juggler. The kids had stayed at home, so it was a little like a date.

That evening we went out to a Thai/Japanese restaurant and then came home for cake and ice cream and presents. The cake was chocolate with peanut butter frosting, which is what I asked for and what Beth delivered. Though I am the family’s main cook, she’s the main birthday cake baker. It was delicious, as always. The frosting was just like the inside of a Reese’s peanut butter egg.

My presents included a new reusable tote with a Japanese print on it (I am always losing them and needing more), a big pot for growing herbs, a gift certificate to the hardware store to get more pots, but not “more pot,” which is what the kids insist I said. They aren’t selling marijuana at ACE, at least not yet. Noah said “they’d totally sell it at the farmers’ market” if it were legal. Before my actual birthday I’d already received a check and some charitable donations in my name (to the Arbor Day Foundation and RAICES) from various relatives. Thanks, everyone!

Mother’s Day

The next day was Mother’s Day. There were more presents in the morning. Beth got a new phone case and a bottle of raspberry syrup she likes to use in summer drinks. I got gift certificates for Starbucks and Takoma Beverage Company and the promise of a new Guatemalan cloth coin purse.

North wanted to spend part of the day with each of us, so they went grocery shopping with Beth, and then to the pool and the library with me. (These are Beth’s and my normal Sunday errands.) I was glad to get North in the pool so they could exercise their injured leg. We’ve been trying to get them to rely less on the crutches, but they still have pain, so it’s been difficult.

Beth drove us to the pool and then drove home and then drove back to the pool when I called to tell her both North and I had forgotten to pack our bathing suits (well, North had half of theirs). And then when we were finished at the pool and library, she picked us up and took us to Kung Fu Tea, where we had a little Mother’s Day tea, though not the kind with fancy china. (I’ll note here Beth doesn’t even like tea so she abstained.)

Finally, North wanted to make this Mother’s Day video with us to post on Instagram:

https://www.instagram.com/p/BxYYZnvluVX/

Then Beth posted it to Facebook and said, “North has magical powers to get me to do things outside my comfort zone. Nevertheless I am glad to be their mom.” I feel about the same.  

It was hard to decide what to do about dinner because Sunday is Beth’s night to cook and that didn’t seem right on Mother’s Day, so we got Italian takeout, but she paid for it and drove to go pick it up and I did the dishes so maybe that wasn’t much better than a normal Sunday when she’d cook and I’d do the dishes. Some aspects of Mother’s Day are tricky when both parents are moms. But it’s easier than when the kids were smaller and needier. Plus, the food was good and the leftovers lasted for a few days of lunches for me and a dinner alternative one night when Noah didn’t care for what I’d cooked.

Monday everyone went back to work and school. That afternoon we received some good news in the mail about Noah’s merit aid at Ithaca. We were expecting a small award for his being a National Merit finalist, but it went up by more than we expected, which was a nice surprise.

Fifty-two is off to an interesting start.

That Went Well

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There always seems to be a week in fourth quarter when all the things happen. This year it was the week that spanned the end of April and the beginning of May. Noah’s band went to state band festival on Tuesday, North’s school play ran from Wednesday to Friday, Noah’s spring band concert was Thursday, and Noah turned eighteen on Friday.

Tuesday: State Band Festival

In mid-March Noah’s band did well enough at the county-level band festival to advance to state. This wasn’t a surprise as he’s been in a band that went to state most years since he was in sixth grade. The only exceptions were seventh grade when his band didn’t qualify and ninth, when he wasn’t in band, due to schedule conflicts. This record is a testament, in part, to the talented and dedicated band teachers he’s had over the course of his elementary, middle, and high school years. Even though it wasn’t a surprise they went to state, I was pleased because these competitions mean a lot to Noah. At state this year, the Blair Wind Ensemble earned all superiors. They were judged the best high school band in the county and one of the five best in the state.

Thursday: Spring Jazz and Band Concert

Just two days later it was time for the spring concert. North had to miss it because they were acting in the play and that was sad because it was Noah’s last high school band concert. I am not going to say it was his last concert because I hope he continues with percussion in college. For nine years, it’s given him a much needed artistic outlet.

There are five bands in Noah’s high school so the concerts tend to be on the long side—three hours isn’t unusual. They are also very good, so the length is fine if you’re expecting it and you’re not worried about how much homework your kid has to do when he gets home. We were expecting it and arranged for another actor’s mom to drive North home from the play. And I wasn’t worried about Noah’s homework, because he didn’t have any that night. So we settled in.

The Jazz Combo and Jazz Ensemble go first and second. Among their numbers were standards like “All of Me,” and “Girl From Ipanema.” The female vocalist sang a Dinah Washington song I’d never heard of but liked, called “Relax Max” and the male vocalist sang, “Crazy Little Thing Called Love” which works surprisingly well as a jazz piece, though I don’t tend to think of Freddy Mercury as a jazz musician.

Concert Band was next. This band consists mostly of ninth graders. It’s the only non-audition band of the five. They played a song written to commemorate a mining disaster (these band pieces often have morbid back stories), “Arabian Dances,” which sounded familiar so I imagine Noah’s played it at a concert at some point, and “Eye of the Tiger,” which is a perennial band concert favorite, for reasons I don’t understand at all. I know Noah played part of it at least once at band camp during an 80s medley and I’m pretty that wasn’t the only time. I mean, I don’t have anything against it and there’s definitely some nostalgia for the parents, but still, it’s puzzling.

I guess it’s a sign your kid has been in band a long time when you recognize at least one piece all the bands are playing. For Symphonic Band (the intermediate band) it was “The Heart of Madness,” which was inspired by three stories by Edgar Allan Poe. At one point, you can hear the tell-tale heart beating away. Noah played that at band camp one year. He might have even played the heart part.

The Wind Ensemble played last. As usual, Noah was busy running back and forth between the different instrument stations. He played snare, marimba, xylophone, and triangle. The marimba and xylophone were positioned off the side of the stage instead of the back, so we actually got to see him playing, which was a treat. On the marimba, he used four sticks at once. I’ve seen him do that at home on his bells, but never on stage. It’s an impressive sight. The Wind Ensemble played three songs. The last one, “First Suite in E-flat for Military Band,” had three movements and apparently it’s very difficult. The judges at festival praised the band teacher for being “brave enough” to try it.

Before each band’s last piece, the director called the seniors to the front of the stage and read a paragraph the students had written about their experience in band and in which they announce where they are going to college. I’ve always liked this part of the spring concert. I thought I’d cry when the band teacher read Noah’s blurb, but I managed to keep it together. Noah was the only senior going to Ithaca, but between the band concert and the orchestra concert Beth and Noah attended on Tuesday there were at least a couple each going to RIT and UMBC.

After the concert was over, as we walked to the car, Noah said “I think that went well,” which for him qualifies as exuberance. He still has one more band performance—he’s playing at his own graduation—but I couldn’t help thinking he was right, that it’s gone very well, all of it.

Friday: A Midsummer Night’s Midterm

Friday we finally got to see the play, on closing night. Rehearsals for the play started in January or February. Both Beth and I had been a little concerned because there weren’t as many as we’d come to expect from last year’s school play, especially at the beginning, and North kept mentioning that people didn’t know their lines alarmingly close to opening night. From what I could tell the director was pretty laid back compared to most directors North’s had, either at drama camp, school, or Highwood.

We needn’t have worried. It was a fun play and a really good performance. It’s about a group of students studying for a test on Midsummer Night’s Dream and it consists of scenes from that play, interspersed with dialogue from the students, who offer explanations of what’s going on as well as commentary. Noah said he didn’t think the frame narrative offered much, but I think it’s probably very helpful for middle school audiences unfamiliar with the play, and it added humor, too, especially when the Shakespearean characters responded to the students.

There were two dozen kids acting in the play and everyone did a good job. The kids playing the four lovers delivered their long Shakespearean speeches with feeling and without stumbling over their lines. Puck and Oberon were endearingly mischievous. Hippolyta was a majestic Amazon queen. The kid who played the wall in the Pyramus and Thisbe skit (the play-within-the-play-within-the-play) was a ham in the best way. North was another one of the players performing at Theseus and Hippolyta’s wedding. The director had asked them if they wanted a male or female part and North said either, so he gave them Flute/Thisbe, a man playing a woman. It was in the Thisbe half of the role North really shone, speaking all their lines in a warbling falsetto and dying with great aplomb. (A good death scene is always fun.)

After the play it took a while to get out of the school because the actors took a cast photo and then they all had to hug each other and it takes a long time for twenty-four kids to hug each other. (Does figuring out how many hugs that comes to sound like an elementary school math problem?)

We stopped at the grocery store on the way home for ice cream because it was Noah’s birthday. Yes, he did spend the evening of his eighteenth birthday attending his sibling’s play, after a pizza dinner at Mod with me and Beth, while North was at school getting ready for the play. (We also had fettucine alfredo for dinner the night before his birthday and went out for Italian the night after. Noah’s birthdays tend to involve a lot of pizza and/or pasta.)

At home, he opened presents. The big one (a zoom lens for his camera) he’d opened early because he thought he knew what it was and he wanted Beth to use it to take photos at his band concert. But he still had a few to open— a raspberry pi (https://www.raspberrypi.org), a USB controller, a bag of sea salt caramels, two books, and two t-shirts, one from Ithaca and one from Takoma, so he remembers where he’s going and where he came from. It’s a bittersweet moment as he’s balanced between these two places, but I didn’t dwell too much on it, at least not that night. It was late in the evening, after all, and we had cake to eat.

Fast Break

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20190427-01
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The day after North got back from Colombia they went to school for exactly one day and then it was spring break. The break was shorter than usual this year, because of the Governor’s order dictating when the school year has to start and end. Instead of the usual ten days, it was six (from the Wednesday before Easter through Easter Monday). Between that and the fact that we’d all been traveling a lot recently, we decided not to go anywhere over break this year.

So the break was short, but eventful. North attended Gretchen’s spring break drama camp, which they’ve never done before because we’re usually gone. It was just three half-days and culminated in a performance of two songs (with choreography) from Dear Evan Hansen. North had a solo in one of the songs, just a few lines, but no one had any long solos, as there wasn’t much material and there were fourteen kids. Eight of them were singing Evan’s lines. North was one of two Zoës and even danced a little, as much as their crutches would permit. (Gretchen never goes easy on anyone. I think that’s one of the things North likes about her.) Most of North’s friends were out of town, so in the afternoons after camp they amused themselves by dying their hair blue-green and making brownies.

North also spent a lot of time on the porch in the sky chair, watching the mourning dove nest. Two doves built it in late March and the chicks hatched while North was in Colombia. I’d been worried about the nest because last year the doves built a nest in the exact same place and it was attacked by some kind of predator, which killed the chicks, leaving a bloody mess behind. But that happened almost as soon as they hatched and these two chicks were bigger and already venturing to the edge of the ledge and flapping their wings by the beginning of break. (The picture is of the dove sitting on the eggs. I didn’t want to get close enough to the little ones to take their pictures.)

Meanwhile, Beth, Noah, and I were all working for most of break. I kept more or less my normal hours, but Beth had Good Friday off, so Noah decided to take it off, too. He went into break behind in a couple subjects—possibly because of our back-to-back trips to visit RIT and Ithaca the two previous weekends—and he spent the five other days catching up.  Well, I’m not sure how much he worked Thursday, what with all the distracting commentary on the Mueller report there was to read.

But we made the most of that day off Friday. I read several chapters of The Handmaid’s Tale to him in the morning. After attending North’s performance in the early afternoon, we split up, and went to two different movies. Beth took North to see Fast Color, which they both gave good reviews. Noah and I went to see Us, which I recommend if horror is your thing (but I don’t if it isn’t—it’s bloodier than Get Out.) At the bus stop as we waited to go home, Noah and I discussed possible allusions to The Time Machine and the film’s treatment of class. I am really going to miss this kid.

Saturday we dyed Easter eggs. I made the two-toned ones on the ends of the line, the yellow/green and pink/purple ones. One of North’s eggs, partly pink and partly blue, was inspired by the trans flag. Beth did the one in the floppy hat. A long time ago we got a kit with these hats and we’ve been re-using them ever since then. Noah did the one that looks like it’s sticking out its tongue, but he actually clipped an ear off a bunny sticker. It represents the creatures that eat rabbits in Us. It reminded me of the time I was a teenager making gingerbread cookies with my family and I made one in the shape of Marie Antoinette, beheaded and holding her head. (I used tic tacs for the blood.) Come to think of it, this egg is a lot more subtle.

20190427-03

Sunday Beth and I spent much of the day working in the yard, taking down weed trees, tearing vines off the fence, mowing the lawn and preparing garden plots. I planted peas in one of them, possibly too late, seeing as how they already have pea shoots at the farmers’ market—and parsley and cilantro seeds in pots the next day, so now I guess I can say the garden is started. (We’ve also got rosemary that survived the winter and mint, oregano, and sage coming back from last year with no help from me.)

The next day Beth went back to work but the kids were home for one more day. North’s big project for the day was making whole-wheat bagels. It was Earth Day so on my daily walk through the neighborhood, I decided to photograph the flowers and flowering trees that bloom so exuberantly this time of year.

We’d encouraged Noah to make a decision about college over break and it was the last day so at dinner on Monday we asked him what he thought. We went through the pros and cons of the three schools he was considering and by the end of the meal, he’d decided. He’ll be going to Ithaca. I’m happy for him and very proud of his hard work in three different magnet programs over the past nine years. Sometimes it seems hard to believe that after thirteen months, nine colleges visited, seven initially notified of his scores, four applied to, and two visited a second time, the decision is finally made. The next part of his path is visible and waiting for him.

Tuesday the kids went back to school and I discovered the dove’s nest was abandoned. This wasn’t surprising as I’d seen one of the fledglings out of the nest, walking around the porch floor a few days earlier and then it was back up on the ledge later, so I knew it could fly, even though I never saw it. It’s been four days now and they haven’t come back. I am glad the young birds are launched into their new lives, but it does seem as if whoever is in charge of the symbolism of my life got a little heavy-handed here. I mean, a literal empty nest on my porch? It’s five years and several months until mine is empty, but it’s seeming a lot more close and real these days.

Texts from Colombia: An Adventure

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20190420-01
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When North was in second grade, I told them we were going on an “adventure,” when we were actually just going on a walk. This was a holdover from when the kids were very small and I used to call any outing an adventure. North patiently explained to me that it’s only an adventure if it involves “climbing a tree or going to another country.” This became a family joke.

Well, North’s climbed a few trees since then, but until this month they hadn’t had the other kind of adventure. They returned from the seventh and eighth-grade Spanish immersion trip to Colombia on Monday evening. I wasn’t there, so I’m going to tell the story in North’s own words, though their texts, mostly to Beth. I check my texts less frequently, so Beth was the main conduit of information. Also, some of my text exchanges with North were in Spanish. I included a little of that as bonus content for those of you who can read Spanish. All texts are shared with North’s permission and they were at least as redacted as the Mueller report.

Note: All time stamps are U.S. Eastern time. It was an hour earlier in Bogotá.

4/5, 5:51 p.m.

North: On the plane
I get to be buddies with Zoë
But the customs line is sooo long
And I have to stand

4/6, 1:01 a.m.

North: IM IN COLOMBIA
I  met P and J [North’s host couple], very nice, I’m tired so I don’t completely remember our plans for this weekend, but they sound fun and we’ll be hanging out with Zoës family [North’s host family consisted of a school administrator and her husband. They had no kids, so they often socialized with Zoë’s host family, and at school, North and Zoë both shadowed Zoë’s student.]

4/6, 6:34 a.m.

Beth: You didn’t get much sleep

North: Nope
I think what she said were doing today is that we’re going to drive through a little town with lots of mountains and a lake, and then we’re having dinner with Zoës family

Beth: Sounds amazing!

North: Yeah and we’re making plans to spend most of Sunday with her family too, on Sunday we have a welcome dinner for our chaperones that I’m going to, and the students have welcome breakfast at the school on Monday

4/6, 2:11 p.m.

North: I ordered at a restaurant in Spanish
Oh yeah and I’ve been communication solely in Spanish for the past twelve hours
I am in pain because apparently public bathrooms aren’t a thing in Colombia

Beth: Sorry!

North: 2 hours later we got home and I used the bathroom
It was wonderful

Beth: Sorry you had to be uncomfortable for so long
Early to bed tonight?

North: Not right now we’re going out to dinner with zoë’s hosts

Beth: Have fun!

North: Were you expecting me to go to bed at 6:30?

Beth: No, but maybe by 9?

4/6, 10:32 p.m.

North: It’s always seemed normal to me, but I’m realizing now that the fact that I can speak 2 languages is really cool. Language is still such an abstract thing that we don’t quite understand, and the fact that some people can understand more than one is really spectacular if you think about it.
We’re still not home from dinner btw [North learned first-hand about the late hours people in Spanish-speaking countries often keep on this trip.]

4/7, 9:18 a.m.

North: We were walking around and my host brought me into a clothing store. I think it’s her way of saying, “your wardrobe is atrocious” [P quite generously bought North a lot of clothes on the trip.]

North: A guy stopped us on the street, tied strings around our wrists and told us how much Jesús  loves us (hint: he apparently loves us a lot)

4/9, 5:51 p.m

Me: Que hiciste hoy?

North: Fuimos al museo de oro, y el quinto de Bolívar 

Me: Divertiste? Usaste una silla de ruedas o caminaste?

North: Silla de ruedas porque temenos que caminar much, era muy divertido

4/9, 5:53 p.m.

North: I’m starting to see bits of freckles peeking out

Beth: Sunshine power!

4/10, 6:59 a.m.

North: I like this whole going to school for half an hour then getting on the bus with Zoe for two hours thing. It’s nice [The American students spent one whole day at the host school, but the rest of the days, they were mainly on field trips.]

Beth: It will be hard to go back to your regular routine

North: In the US, kinder eggs are illegal, here, it’s illegal for a minor to drink coffee

Beth: Interesting! How old do you have to be for coffee

North: 18

4/9, 6:37 p.m.

North: My knee has been getting more stiff and painful recently, it’s getting harder to do my exercises…We’ve mostly been using the wheelchairs on field trips because I don’t enjoy standing on one foot for hours on end

4/9, 9:08 p.m.

North: Zoë got me a kinder egg

Beth: Nice!

North: Cuz I wasn’t allowed to get the one I found at the store
I’ll be careful not to choke and die

4/11, 7:45 a.m.

North: Today we had papaya with Parmesan on top for breakfast
I did not like it
In the slightest
But I ate all of it
I wouldn’t recommend it

Beth: Good for you for eating it

4/11, 10:05 a.m.

North: Is putting sunscreen on your hands a thing? [The kids got a lot of warnings about using sunscreen because the sun is stronger at the high altitude of Bogotá.]

Beth: Yes

North: My hands never burn it’s weird

4/11, 3:32 p.m.

North: Guess what I got you?

Beth: Salt? [There was a field trip to a salt mine that day and Beth, who is a connoisseur of salt requested they bring some home]

North: You guessed it!

Beth: Thanks!

North: They had no small bags so

Beth: Wow that might put your luggage overweight!

4/11, 5:39 p.m.

North: The back of my neck is burned and my cheeks are redder than usual

Beth: They said that might happen! Lots of sun in the salt mine?

North: It seemed dark lol but outside of it yeah

North: Today they said something I was very annoyed about, the only after school activity available was robotics and they said, “but robotics is not for girls.” There is so much wrong that sentence and I would have proved them wrong and gone to robotics, but I don’t like robotics.

Beth: Computers were not for girls when I was in junior high. It’s terrible but people keep fighting for change and change happens

4/11, 8:38 p.m.

North: Tim Burton dumbo just came out here so we saw it
It’s literally the equivalent of 3 dollars each for tickets

Beth: Was Dumbo dubbed into Spanish

North: Yep
It was fairly easy to understand but the lips not matching the words was trippy

North: I’d love to go to this school. No yelling teachers, people are very causal and call their teachers by their first names and use informal conjugations, the food is amazing, and THE HALLWAYS ARE OUTSIDE

North: It’s past 9:00 and we still haven’t ordered
I’m never going to bed tonight

Beth: You are going to need a lot of rest when you get home

North: But I still have to get up at 6:30 the next morning to get to school
Well shoot, I just realized that the two adults coming home with me are drinking
Who will drive safely
Nobody [We don’t drink, so North’s not accustomed to seeing adults drinking and doesn’t really have much context for what’s safe, so they needed some reassurance.]

Beth: If they are having a glass of wine with dinner it will be OK
I am sure your teachers will make sure you are safe

4/12, 6:48 a.m.

North: It’s driving P crazy that she can’t coordinate my outfit cause we’re going to the wetlands today and I can only wear stuff that can get dirty

North: Oh no
I just looked
They put cheese on mango
You can’t mess up mango
But I just saw it happen

North: I have to somehow navigate wetlands on crutches today
It’s our community service

11:16 a.m.

North: Somebody decided that rather than having me organize a library with the eighth graders it would be a good idea to take me on a 2 hour hike

4/12, 7:03 p.m.

Me: Did you survive the hike?

North: Barely

Me: What kind of terrain?

North: Tall grass, it was wonderful for crutches

Me: And did you dance at the dance?

North: Nope

Me: What’s the plan for tomorrow?

North: Idk

Me: Well you can rest your leg Monday on the plane

Me: You’re visiting a colonial village according to P 

4/12, 9:15 p.m.

North: Did I mention that I spent $12 on the hate u give only for it to be available for free on the flights
I just realized I forgot to wear my retainer on this entire trip

Beth: You can start tonight!

Beth: Did you go on the mountain hike?

North: Nope [This was the only activity North skipped due being on crutches, on a very active trip.]

4/13, 6:06 p.m.

North: There are so many stray dogs here but they’re all so calm, they don’t bark and aren’t scary at all. I’m petting a dog [North is very afraid of almost all dogs. Finding a host family without a dog was one of the factors that delayed North getting matched with a family until almost before the trip started. Being vegetarian was another. It’s possible being non-binary was yet another, although North says they were perceived as a girl by almost everyone. They weren’t even sure if P and J knew, though the trip organizers from North’s school told us months ago that they were looking for a tolerant family so I assume they did.]

4/14, 8:42 a.m.

Beth: Sounds like the hotel was kind of a disaster… I mean adventure. Ms U sent out a message [After they left their host families, the Americans spent a couple more days in Colombia and stayed in two very different hotels]

North: There were fleas, exposed wires in the shower, and of course no WiFi and little service
But there was a cat

Beth: A stray or did it live at the hotel?

North: It was a stray but lives in the hotel where guests pet, feed it and let it into their rooms

4/14, 8:34 p.m.

North: This is like the size of a room you would get for all four of us and it’s just me and Zoë

4/15 1:05 p.m. 

Beth: Welcome back to the USA [North was going through customs in Atlanta]

North: I put the salt in my carry on.
They thought it was drugs

Beth: Did they confiscate it?
Is it weird to be back where most people are speaking English?

North: They just scanned it thoroughly and patted me down
It’s fine

4/15, 5:30 p.m.

North: About to take off. I have the entire row to myself

A few hours later, North came off the plane, tired but very happy. It’s been nice having everyone at home together for the past five days, but I’m glad they finally got to have the non-tree climbing kind of adventure, thanks to the hard work of the teachers and administrators of both schools and the generosity of their Colombian hosts. ¡Gracias a todos!

Suburban Maryland Wants to Be Western New York, Part 2

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20190417-01

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Late Friday morning, after just four days at home, Beth and I were pulling into the parking lot of Noah’s school to pick him up halfway through the school day, for our last college trip. We were going to Admitted Students Day at Ithaca College. I asked Beth if she would sometimes like to know if North will go to this high school so she knew exactly how nostalgic she should feel about the fact that Noah will be finished attending it in just over a month. She said no. Turns out that’s just me.

We rolled into Ithaca around dinner time. It’s a slightly shorter trip than Rochester and we didn’t have to make a detour to the airport this time. We found our AirBnB, which was in a neighborhood of stately old houses in eclectic architectural styles, many of them slightly shabby but cheerfully decorated with strings of lights or Japanese lanterns or Tibetan peace flags or colorful woven hammocks on the porches. The yards were dotted with flowers or yard signs supporting liberal causes, pretty much the same ones you’d see on a stroll through Takoma Park.

We walked a few blocks to a pizza place, where we got pizza, Stromboli, and garlic knots. While we were standing in line to order, there were some college kids behind us in line, talking about how they were meeting friends at ten, so there should be time to go to the gym after dinner and before that. It took me back to my younger days when plans could conceivably start at ten. Now if they end at ten, it feels like a late night. It made me hope when Noah’s up late a year from now, it’s not always because he’s working.

Noah wanted to watch a movie, so after some discussion we settled on A Serious Man and watched the first half before bed around ten, because though I might like to reminisce about late nights in college, I don’t actually want to relive them.

In the morning, we had breakfast at the AirBnB and headed over to the college. We registered and settled in at one of the tables set up in the middle of the stadium. There was a student activities and services fair going on around the perimeter. Beth went and collected some brochures and freebie pens while Noah set up his laptop and tried to get some work on his Chaucer PowerPoint presentation done. Like hobbits, we had a second breakfast of muffins and bagels. Eventually it was time to move to the folding chairs set up at the front of the stadium floor. A dance club performed and then some administrators spoke and then the admitted students left to go hear a panel discussion of current students while the parents stayed behind and heard more administrators and a student speak about Ithaca. Beth said she thought it was a good idea to split the kids off from their parents in case they had questions they didn’t want to ask in front of the their parents.

Indeed, Noah came back claiming they’d all been sworn to secrecy, but he did mention the current students gave tips about which dorms were quiet ones and which one were more party-oriented. (Meanwhile, the parents were listening to the administrators talk about how drug use isn’t endorsed anywhere despite the existence of a substance-free house. This discussion went on for quite some time, apparently because New York may be legalizing recreational marijuana soon.) Noah also had some restaurant recommendations and was informed there are so many hills on campus, the student all develop “Ithacalves.”

There was a buffet lunch set up in the stadium and the vegetarian options were much better than what we ate at RIT. There was cheese tortellini, baked tofu, salad, fresh fruit, and cupcakes.

After lunch, it was time for the academic presentations. We went to the Park School of Communications, where we started off watching video presentations and speeches by faculty and students. There are ten majors in the school—Noah was accepted to Emerging Media—but what struck me was how much interaction between them and flexibility within them there seems to be. This was something that concerned Noah at RIT. He thought the Motion Picture Sciences major seemed like it might be too narrow. There also seems to be a lot of institutional support and encouragement for undergraduates to attend conferences or get travel funds to film events or meet sources for documentaries.

Two of the students who spoke had oddly specific things in common with Noah. One had two moms and was making a documentary about meeting her donor and half-siblings. Another travelled to the Women’s March and filmed it with a 360-degree camera, which is also something Noah’s done (even with the same kind of camera) while assisting CWA’s videographer. It almost seemed like a sign. Of course, when the singers at RIT sang a song called, “It’s Your Puzzle,” that also seemed like a sign, because Noah’s Common App essay was about puzzles. And the RIT mascot is a tiger and when he was two, he loved to wear his tiger costume and insisted on being addressed as Mr. Tiger when he did so. (It was also the mascot of his first elementary school.) When you’re trying to see the future, signs are everywhere.

Next we had a chance to meet with the director of Emerging Media and two current students in the major. We had a surprisingly long and detailed talk with them. One of the students is a double major with Computer Science—Noah is very interested in the intersection between computing and film. Noah got some handouts outlining the requirements for the major and different tracks you can take within it and asked some questions about how his AP credit in calculus and computer science will count as coursework. The director asked what other schools Noah was considering and while he, of course, favored Ithaca, he said RIT was a good choice, too. He was somewhat dismissive of Boston University, which he said was more focused on graduate students and wouldn’t offer the same kind of opportunities for undergrads. It reminded me how at BU, the tour guides seemed to think highly of Ithaca, but not RIT. Everyone has a different opinion, but hearing a few of them can help a composite picture emerge.

Before we left campus, Noah posed by the display of Rod Serling’s Emmys, which are housed at Ithaca because Serling taught there. (Noah’s merit scholarship is named after Serling.) We could have gone on to see dorms and dining facilities, but we were all kind of tired, so we went back to the AirBnB, where Noah and I read the second act of A Doll’s House and then I napped while he worked on the Chaucer presentation until it was time to leave for dinner.

We ate at Moosewood when we visited Ithaca in August and Noah wanted to go again and I certainly had no objection. I had a samosa wrap, Beth got a vegetable soup and a cheese plate, and Noah had pasta with asparagus in a cream sauce. We stopped at an ice cream parlor on our way home and watched the rest of A Serious Man.

While not as unfortunate as the besieged protagonist of the film, Noah is a serious young man and not prone to quick decisions. He’s going to make a pros and cons chart over spring break, which started today. He’s behind in a couple classes and he worked on statistics all day today, but I hope he has a little space over the next few days to relax and to weigh his options.

Suburban Maryland Wants to Be Western New York, Part 1

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It wants to have a family business in sheet metal or power tools, 
It wants to have a diner where the coffee tastes like diesel fuel, 
And it wants to find the glory of a town they say has hit the skids, 
And it wants to have a snow day that will turn its parents into kids, 
And it’s embarrassed, but it’s lusting after a SUNY student with mousy brown hair who is 
Taking out the compost, making coffee in long underwear.

From “Southern California Wants to Be Western New York,” by Dar Williams

The children persist in growing up. Late Friday morning we dropped North off at BWI airport to join thirty-six of their classmates in the Spanish immersion program who were embarking on an eleven-day trip to Bogotá. The trip takes place every other year—you go in seventh or eighth grade—and in the alternate years, the French immersion kids go on their own trip.

We’d hoped North would be off crutches by the time they left and the fracture is healed, but despite twice-weekly physical therapy, they still have pain when they put weight on that leg, so the crutches went to Colombia with them. That meant we needed to stay in the airport for an hour or so, until their suitcase was checked. Not that we were the only parents lingering. Apparently sending your twelve-to-fourteen year old off to a foreign country without you is a little unnerving. But the first couple days they were gone we received a steady stream of texts and pictures. It’s slowed down, but we’re still getting dispatches from them and we also got a nice email from their host mom, so we don’t have to wonder how they’re doing. They seem to be having a great time. More on North’s adventures in a later post.

After we tore ourselves away from our jetsetter and collected Noah from the bench where he was working on computer science homework on his laptop, the three remaining members of the family got lunch at Panera and then hit the open road. We were headed for an Admitted Students Day at RIT. (Next weekend we’ll be back to New York state again, for Ithaca’s version.)

We arrived at our hotel around 9:30,  after a long drizzly drive. As we drove north, I could see spring receding. The flowering trees disappeared and there was even a dusting of snow on the ground at the highest elevation, near the Pennsylvania/New York border. We had dinner at a brick oven pizza place about one hundred miles from Rochester. For much of the ride, Beth and listened to podcasts—Throughline, Invisibilia, Hidden Brain, and Desert Island Discs while Noah disappeared into his headphones to listen to his own podcasts and watch television on his laptop.

In the morning we had breakfast at the hotel. The breakfast room was crowded with teenage boys in track suits, some kind of high school sports team from Montreal, we gathered. They were well behaved—which isn’t always the case for large groups of teens in hotels—but it made for tight quarters. There were also a couple teen boys with middle-aged parents I thought might be going where we were.

When we arrived at RIT, we were greeted by the pep band, wearing orange and white hockey jerseys, standing on the steps of the building where the event started, and playing a cheerful tune. I noticed there were a lot more young men than women streaming into the building. (We later learned from a tour guide the student body is 70 percent male.) When we took our seats in the stadium where there was a mostly female a cappella group performing. I joked to Beth they were there to convince all these young men that there are women at RIT.

There were some speeches by administrators and then we were split up by schools. We followed a student carrying a School of Film and Animation sign to the brand-new MAGIC Spell Studios building, which opened this fall. We started in an auditorium where the interim director and other faculty gave an overview of the different majors within the school. It was during this presentation we realized that co-ops (paid, full-time, semester or summer-long internships required by most majors) are not required in the School of Film and Animation. For me, the co-op opportunities had been one of RIT’s draws.

When it was time to tour the building, we went with the Motion Picture Sciences guide. This is the program Noah applied to. It’s an engineering-based program that covers the technical aspects of film. We saw studios for color correction, sound mixing, a big green screen (but not the biggest one they have) and a couple grip cages full of equipment. Noah said later it was a really impressive facility and he’d know.

Lunch was provided, but the vegetarian option was a sad, sparsely filled roasted vegetable sandwich that was mostly lettuce and peppers. It was similar to lunch at UMBC, actually. I wondered if they use the same catering service. There was fresh fruit and brownies, though, and I had smoked almonds in my bag, so I supplemented my lunch with those.

Next we took a residence hall tour. The guide showed us a standard dorm room and lounge. The most interesting feature of the tour was the network of tunnels that connect the dorms to each other and to the academic buildings. It’s a nice feature on a campus with harsh winters, but they’re in use all year. There are student-painted murals on the walls, some dating back to the nineties, but there’s still blank space you can request to paint. There are laundry rooms and mailrooms in the tunnels under each dorm, and even a convenience store. It’s a whole hidden, underground part of campus.

In Noah’s information packet there was a coupon for the Ben and Jerry’s in the student union, so we were forced to go get ice cream. After that, we went to Disability Services and learned how Noah can pick up his ADHD medication and to Spectrum Services to talk to two very nice administrators about what kind of support and social and organizational coaching they offer. For those of you who weren’t reading this blog back in the day, we had Noah tested for Asperger’s when he was nine. He didn’t quite meet the criteria, but the psychologist who tested him said he had a lot of the same characteristics and challenges kids on the spectrum have. And you don’t need an official diagnosis to use Spectrum services, so it’s nice to know there’s a built-in support network if he cares to take advantage of it.

That appointment was our last stop of the day so we went to the bookstore to use another coupon to buy A Handmaid’s Tale (because Noah and I are thinking of making it our next mother-and-son book club book and I’ve lost my copy) then back to the hotel room so Noah could research a paper about Chaucer for a few hours. But before he started to work, we debriefed a little. He was concerned that the Motion Picture Science major might be too technical and not creative enough. He’s interested in technology and skilled with it, but he is interested in the bigger picture of storytelling, too, so to speak. We talked about how he’s eligible to take other classes in the School of Film and Animation that might be more on the creative side, even if they’re not requirements. He seemed pensive and unsure. I think this is going to be a hard decision for him, but maybe the visit to Ithaca next weekend will put the schools side to side in a helpful way.

When Noah’s laptop ran out of power we went into Rochester proper for a late dinner at a Asian noodle restaurant. As we walked down a residential block where we parked the car, I noticed snowdrops and crocuses in people’s yards, underlining the fact that we’d driven into an earlier, more tentative phase of spring than we’re having at home, where there are daffodils everywhere and the cherry blossoms are past peak, and there’s a sprinkling of early tulips. (Rochester still had big piles of melting snow in parking lots.)

By the time we got back to the hotel, it was late, so I had a shower, Noah had a bath, and we all went to bed. In the morning, we ate breakfast and hit the road again. Beth and I listened to more podcasts, mostly Hit Parade, a music history podcast about—you guessed it—songs that have been in the Hit Parade over the decades. In an episode about songs that peaked at #2, there was a snippet of Smokey Robinson and the Miracles’ “Shop Around,” and Beth and I sang along with the line “My mama told me, you better shop around.”

It’s true, both Noah’s mamas advised him to shop around, but the time for that is almost over. There’s just one more college to visit and sometime in the next few weeks, he’ll make his choice.