The Rails

Posted on December 14, 2025 by Steph

On the Rails: Snowfall

The first Friday in December we woke to the first snowfall of the year. It was just about perfect, two inches that didn’t stick to streets or sidewalks, so we didn’t need to shovel, but enough to make the neighborhood Christmas decorations, porch gourds, yellow leaves clinging to trees, winter berries, and creek rocks look festive. The only thing I would have liked was for it to stick around a little longer. Two days after it fell it was all but gone.

Off the Rails: Home Invasion

Five days later we had a less pleasant experience. Beth got up at six, which is her normal weekday time and discovered a stranger in the living room, standing in between my desk and an open window. It wasn’t a thief; it was an elderly man with dementia who thought it was his house. He’d come in and out through the window several times and had been engaged in 1) reorganizing items on the porch (he tied the rainbow flag in a knot) and 2) removing items from my desk and lining them up around the perimeter of the porch when Beth stumbled upon him. Beth called 911 and he was taken away in an ambulance.

When she called, I was still in bed and could hear her talking on the phone with someone, which I thought was odd at that hour, but she sounded so calm I wasn’t worried until she came into the room to tell me what was going on. By that point the dispatcher had told us to stay behind closed doors, so I never even saw the man.

In the end, everyone was fine, nothing was taken. In fact, the man left behind some items (a pillow and a hat) that aren’t ours and we suspect may have come from a neighbor’s porch. (I asked our next-door neighbors and they weren’t missing anything.) Both cats, even Walter who usually likes strangers, were freaked out and hiding in the basement. It was hard to find Willow, who most emphatically does not like strangers, and that was the scariest part, thinking maybe she’d been put outside with my computer monitor and had run away.

Riding the Rails: Travels

The next day Noah set off for Boston. He had some hotel points leftover from his trip to London last year and he’d decided to use them to see a concert. He took an Amtrak train from Union Station to Boston. He was there for two nights and one day. He took a historical walking tour and went to see the electropop band Pvris. I’m glad he got to have a little adventure.

North had an adventure, too. Instead of flying or getting a ride home for winter break, they opted to take the train, too. This was an odd coincidence, as neither of them has taken Amtrak before. Taking the train from northeastern Ohio means boarding a train at a little after one a.m. They got a friend to drive them to the Elyria station and spent the night and the next morning riding the rails. They said they slept “better than I thought I would but not as well as I would have liked.” They enjoyed the scenery, much of which was snowy and hilly, and it was considerably cheaper than flying.

We picked them up at Union Station. Beth and I had eaten lunch, but North hadn’t so they got a felafel sandwich and then we got dessert. Beth and North had ice cream, and I got coffee and a peppermint cookie/brownie mash-up. We admired the big Christmas tree Norway sends every year, which was beautiful as always. I was happy not to see any National Guardsmen or women at Union Station for the first time since late summer. I don’t know if this means they are recalling some of the troops. It would be nice if they were allowed to go home to their families for the holidays and even nicer if they didn’t come back. Standing outside Jersey Mike’s and Insomnia Cookies is probably not what they signed up for when they joined the Guard.

We got back home, North reunited with the cats, and Beth and I did a little work before eating our pizza dinner in front of a silly holiday romance. It was a cozy first night home. North went to bed early and slept for almost eleven hours.

The next afternoon we participated in the Takoma Cocoa Crawl. There were fourteen restaurants and coffeehouses in Takoma Park and Takoma, DC selling cocoa. We made three stops and got one cup at each. North chose Spring Mill Bakery which was offering half-price cocoa with a free gingerbread man. The cocoa was nice and creamy there. Beth’s choice was Red Hound because she remembered the orange-cinnamon cocoa there from last year. It was the highest quality of the three we tried, rich and complex. I chose Takoma Beverage Company because they had a hot chocolate bar where you could add your own toppings and I thought I could adjust the hot chocolate/whipped cream ratio to be more diabetic-friendly. I didn’t quite get it right on that score (I may have added too much crushed candy cane), but there’s always next year. Anway, it was a fun expedition.

Meanwhile, Noah was on a train coming home and he sent me some pictures of the walking tour, Christmas decorations, and the concert. He sent photos of a historic church, two former state houses, a historic cemetery where Sam Adams and other famous people are buried, a statue of Paul Revere, Christmas lights, and a surveillance robot from the hotel. He said at the cemetery, the tour guide pointed out a nearby bar and said it was the only place you could get a cold Sam Adams next to a cold Sam Adams. Not surprisingly, he said the concert, his main reason for going to Boston, was his favorite part. The venue was big, but he had a good seat, near the front. He got home around 9:15 Saturday night so Beth and I were able to chat with him a bit about his trip before going to bed.

It’s nice having North home for break, even if they aren’t quite finished with finals (one paper and one online exam to go) and it’s also nice having everyone under one roof again. This time of year, that makes me feel as if we are on the right track.

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), tea (me), 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.

#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…

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.

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…

Families, Folk, and Flowers

Posted on August 3, 2025 by Steph

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North finished up their day camp job on Wednesday. They originally thought their last day would be a Friday and they’d come up with a plan for us to meet them at work, have our weekly Friday night pizza at Roscoe’s and then go try out the nearby newish Peach Cobbler Factory in Takoma, DC. So, we ended up doing it on their last Friday at work (the last Friday in July) instead of their last day. Dessert was on them. Three of us got cobblers of various flavors (I got blackberry) but they also have other desserts and Beth got chocolate chip banana pudding. It was fun to try a new place.

Now North is in the middle of a week and a half off before leaving for their third and final job of the summer, a week of being a counselor at the sleepaway camp for kids of gay and lesbian parents they attended for five summers, starting when they were twelve.

Families First

That same weekend Beth and I went to the Families First rally on the mall Saturday afternoon. North couldn’t go because they had a five-hour online training for the sleep-away camp job (that on top of an hour and a half of asynchronous modules they had to complete before the training). The stipend for this job is so small that North joked that if they were getting even minimum wage, they would have earned half of it by the time they finished the training.

The protest was not particularly well attended. We didn’t expect it to be, as it didn’t seem to be well publicized and there weren’t any other people with signs on the Takoma metro stop platform. In fact, two curious people at the station asked where we were going with our signs, which means even people who are interested in protests hadn’t heard about it.

When we got there was only a scattering of people in front of the stage, but that was partly because it was a hot, muggy day and a lot of people were off to the side under the shade of trees. There were a lot of amenities, however. There were red-and-white checkered blankets spread out on the grass and various games (giant Jenga blocks, connect four frames, and cornhole) set up on the grass, to make it family friendly, and people were handing out battery-operated fans (the kind that spray water), and free snacks. There was also a water bottle-filling station that dispensed cool water. On its side it said, “You know what else is refreshing? Protecting Medicaid.”

The theme was support for families hurt by cuts to various federal programs. The website cited Medicaid, FEMA, food stamps, school lunches, so put those in lefthand column of my sign under the words “Families Need,” but I filled up another column with other issues that concern me (gender-affirming health care, reproductive rights, action on climate change, and academic freedom). On the flip side of the sign, I wrote Immigrant Families Belong Together, because I thought that was important enough to stand alone. The action was national, so the focus may have differed from location to location, but at this one the spotlight was squarely on Medicaid. There were passionate speeches from people affected by Medicaid cuts, including a man with developmental disabilities and a teen boy with a life-threatening respiratory disability.

There were some nice musical performances by the DC Labor Chorus and the Baltimore Urban Inspiration Choir. Congress had just left on recess (dismissed early so they couldn’t vote on releasing the Epstein files) so there were no politicians who spoke. Beth said the actions were timed to correspond with the beginning of the August recess to get people across the country motivated to visit their representatives and express their concerns. It was a shame there wasn’t a big turnout at this one because it was a good event. Still, we weren’t sorry when it ended early because it the weather was punishing. Many of the speakers thanked people for showing up in the heat.

(Near) Future Plans

On the way home from the rally Beth and I talked about things we’d been saying we should do this summer and have not done. Part of the reason was that our pink resurrection lilies were just starting to bloom, and this always makes me realize while summer break is not over, we can now count what’s left in weeks rather than months. We made plans to visit a sunflower field the next weekend, and I checked on the schedule for outdoor concerts at the National Arboretum (the next one is not until early September, so that won’t be an all-family activity). We also resolved to visit an African ice cream place in Silver Spring we’d heard about but never patronized.

The next day North and I made a kuchen out of the blueberries we’d picked three weeks prior and the two of us looked at a calendar to see if we could reasonably hope to finish season 6 of The Gilmore Girls, Season 5 of Grownish, and season 3 of Ginny & Georgia before North goes back to school in late August. The answer seemed to be a tentative yes.* Finally, North and I made plans to go to the Langley Park farmers’ market for pupusas the first Wednesday of August, the kids decided to collaborate on the long-discussed brownie sundaes (Noah would make the brownies and North would make a sour-cherry peach sauce). I resolved to make a blackberry-peach cobbler after Beth and North return from their travels and the kids and I will probably take our annual creek walk the last week North is home. I felt good about these late summer plans. They seemed do-able and like they would be fun.

Over the next few days, I started to remember other things that wouldn’t be as easy to fit into the time we had left. North had mentioned wanting to take a day trip to the Chesapeake Bay and I’d been thinking about the fact that the four of us haven’t been to the movies together all summer. We had a few weeks but only one weekend left because Beth and North will be travelling for the next two (North to camp, and Beth to her union’s convention and then her mom’s house) and then we leave to take North back to school on a Saturday.

Folk Rock

Thursday morning North had a doctor’s appointment. They’ve been having stomach pain and nausea, and their doctor thinks it might be an ulcer. They got meds for it, with instructions to take them for a couple weeks and see if they help (so far, they haven’t). That afternoon the kids made the components of the sundaes.

Beth and I didn’t have ours until the next day because we had plans that evening. We were going to see Emmylou Harris and Graham Nash at Wolf Trap as a belated anniversary celebration. Getting there turned out to be more of a challenge than we anticipated. On the way back from North’s doctor’s appointment Beth got a flat tire. Someone from road service came to remove it and put the spare tire on, but it wasn’t clear how we were going to get to Wolf Trap (which is in suburban Virginia) because it’s not safe to drive on a donut at high speeds and the Beltway would be the normal route. We considered trying to borrow a car, taking a Lyft, or driving an alternate route. We ended up choosing the alternate route.

Did I mention torrential rain with possible flooding was in the forecast? It had rained intermittently and with varying intensity all afternoon, everything from drizzle to moderately hard. We set out about 5:30 and got there a little before 7:00. The sky was clearing when we arrived and the hour we had before showtime was just long enough to get some food, picnic on the lawn, get some ice cream, eat that, and get to our seats. The food line was short, but the wait was long anyway. They kept apologizing and offering us free drinks or food and we finally accepted a box of popcorn for our trouble. We’d sprung for tickets under the roof and while the lawn would have been fine, we didn’t know the rain would stop right in time, so that was one fewer stressor in a day that had plenty of them.

The concert was fun. Emmylou Harris went on first and she started right on time. She sang “Red Dirt Girl,” the song I most wanted to hear, early in her set, and I learned from her introduction that “Bang the Drum Slowly” is about her father. She had a very talented and versatile group of musicians with her. The fiddle/mandolin player was especially good.

I was looking forward to Harris’s set more, but I ended up enjoying them equally. For one thing, Nash’s sound was better set up, so it was easier to hear the words. But instead of singing mostly from his solo career, which is what I think I expected, he sang a lot of songs from his time in the Hollies; Crosby, Stills, and Nash; and Crosby, Stills, Nash, and Young. It was more nostalgic because I’ve loved a lot of those songs since I was child and while I’ve been listening to Emmylou Harris for decades there’s nothing quite like the music you loved as a kid. I have to say, though, that when you hear him sing them alone, you do miss the harmonies. Though he wasn’t really singing alone. His band sang, audience participation was encouraged, and a lot of the songs (“Marrakesh Expresss,” “Our House”) became sing-alongs. Everyone seemed to know all the words. Finally, based on his stage patter, I’d say he is more invested in being Joni Mitchell’s ex than she is about being his.

It was quite late when we got home, after midnight, and I was wrecked the next day, but it was worth it. While we were at the concert the kids ate defrosted chili North made a while back and watched The Barbarian and Noah had his sundae, but North waited on theirs because they didn’t feel well.

(Where Have All the) Flowers Gone?

The next Saturday morning we were intending to go see the sunflower fields at the McKee-Beshers Wildlife Management Area. But when Beth visited the website that morning, she discovered the bloom was over. This was a surprise as our sunflowers are still going strong. But at least we found out before we left.

I’d been looking forward to this outing, for the family time, and being out in nature, and because I knew Noah would get good pictures. He always does. I floated the idea of going to see a movie instead, but Beth had work to do and there wasn’t anything playing nearby I wanted to see anyway, so I gave up on the idea. And a trip to the Bay would have been too time-consuming so I didn’t even mention it.

What we did do was try out the African ice cream place. It’s in Solare Social, an international food court tucked away in an out of the way street in downtown Silver Spring. There were a lot of interesting stands and Noah is already making plans to go back and have dinner there when he’s in Silver Spring for a concert next week. Beth and Noah sampled the spicy chocolate. It had too much of a kick for her, but he ordered it, with dried plantains. Beth and North got the grape-raspberry-black currant (Beth with cacao nibs and North without) and I got a malted ice cream with cacao nibs. It was fun to try yet another new (to us) dessert place.

We weren’t done with frozen treats, though. There was a meet-and-greet for Oberlin alums, students, and incoming students in Chevy Chase Sunday afternoon. This was the beginning of a remarkably social week for me, which I will report on later…

*We finished season 6 of Gilmore Girls tonight.

Red, White, and Blue

Posted on July 11, 2025 by Steph

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We had a quiet few weeks after No Kings. We didn’t go to any protests, though I wrote a couple batches of postcards encouraging people in Florida whose vote-by-mail enrollment had expired to re-enroll. North quit their canvassing job, which ended up being too physically strenuous, and started a new one at a day camp in D.C. It’s an afternoon program at a Montessori school that has academic classes in the morning throughout the summer. North’s working from noon to sixish most days.

They had a week off between jobs (the last week of June) and during that week we had a heat wave, with several consecutive days of highs at or near 100 degrees. They were happy to be home and not out walking door to door talking to people about microplastics. (It’s still hot now, but more regular summer hot.) During their week off they made cookies and read Fun Home, which seemed like an excellent use of leisure time to me. Fun Home will be performed at Oberlin next winter and they are thinking of auditioning. The following week North started the camp job and Noah finished up the video editing job for a solar energy company he’d been doing on and off for over a month.

North had a four-day weekend after their first week at their new job, so Beth and I took the same days off so we could better pack a lot of fun activities (and some chores) into the Fourth of July weekend. This plan took a little determination for a couple reasons. After all, I have been feeling more red with anger, white with fear, and blue with sadness than filled with patriotism these days. And I have been sick for almost two weeks, never intensely so (and most of my symptoms are gone now), but I still have this worrying sore throat that just won’t go away or rather has gone away and come back more times than I can count.

White: Long Weekend and Beyond, Fence

First the big chore… last April and May, after we were cited by the city for peeling paint on our picket fence, Beth, Noah, and I painted it, or rather the side of it that faces the street. We have a corner lot, so it’s a long fence and once the most visible part was finished, we kind of lost interest in the project and hoped no one would notice the side facing our house wasn’t painted yet. We did intend to finish the job, but on our own timetable.

Well, we were cited again, so we picked it back up and throughout the long weekend between excursions, we were working on it. The kids were power washing it and I was treating the part they washed with a vinegar solution to retard algae, and Beth, who worked on it longer than anyone else, was painting. The following week, we all took turns painting and we finished it this afternoon.

Red, White, and Blue: Thursday, Smithsonian Folklife Festival

Onto the recreational activities… this year I had some reservations about taking our almost-annual family photos with everyone dressed in red, white, and blue in front of the Washington Monument we’ve been taking since Noah was two months old. But as authoritarianism encroaches, I don’t want to cede the symbols of patriotism or its substance, so we went ahead with it.

In addition to taking the picture, we were also on the mall to attend the Smithsonian Folklife Festival. The theme was Youth and the Future of Culture. The festival varies in size from year to year, but it seemed smaller than usual, in terms of displays and performances. At only six days, it was also on the short side.

One of the first things we saw was a colorfully painted board with little doors depicting slang terms from different decades you could flip to see definitions on reverse side. I was surprised to learn “moxie” had its heyday in the 1940s, as I would still use it. When we saw “scrub,” (90s) Beth said she knew what that meant because there was a song about it and I deadpanned, “A scrub is a guy that won’t get no love from me,” which made her laugh. From the current decade, there was “rizz,” which I do know, but probably wouldn’t use for fear of sounding like a middle-aged mom who is trying too hard.

We watched a skateboarding demonstration. Not everyone skating could be said to be a youth, as the oldest one looked like 40-something dad and maybe he was. He was wearing a t-shirt that said on the back he’d skated 47 miles to raise money for a rare disease (I forget its name). On the front was a photo of a small child and the words, “Never give up.” I wondered if it was his child and if the child had the disease. The youngest skater was a tween girl who was having trouble with one of her tricks. When she finally nailed it, she lit up and said, “I did it!” It was more charming than if everyone had executed every move perfectly.

Next, we looked at low-rider cars and then went to see two bands (a youth mariachi band and a group of young black percussionists) play together. They were practicing for weekend performances and considering it was their first time playing together, they sounded quite good. Among other pieces, they played a medley of songs from Carmen. Everyone but me got agua fresca to sip while we listened. It’s always inspiring to watch young people do something well. And of course, I have a soft spot for young percussionists.

The food offerings weren’t that tempting. We considered the vegetarian tacos, but Beth said if we were going to get overpriced Mexican food, we should go home and get San Pancho, which we did, followed by ice cream from Red Hound. It was nice to eat at the outside tables on a pretty evening, but I was starting to feel my energy ebb. I’d been under the weather for several days at that point and it was starting to catch up with me.

Red, White, and Blue: Friday, Fourth of July

We attended Takoma Park’s quirky little parade in the morning. We used to go almost every year, but between cancellations for covid in 2020 and 2021 and various people’s travel the next three years, we hadn’t been all together since 2019, so that was fun. On our way there, as we walking past the groups lining up for the parade, we saw Noah’s sometimes boss Mike and his family getting ready to march in a “Dance Against DOGE” contingent. Mike had his sound system on wheels; it was the same one he brought to Takoma Pride.

The parade was much the same as always—swim teams, dogs from an obedience school, Cub Scouts, bagpipes, Japanese and Caribbean drums, politicians (including Jamie Raskin handing out copies of the Constitution), people in papier mâché animal costumes, and whimsical floats of various sorts, but what really spoke to me was the woman in the Wonder Woman costume carrying a sign that said, “Evil Wins When Good People Do Nothing.” We stopped at an ice cream truck for something cold to fortify us for the walk home. Ice cream before lunch is one of our Fourth of July traditions.

After the parade, North made homemade pizza for lunch. We’d had a dinner dilemma because we always have pizza for dinner on Fridays, but we have variations on the same picnic dinner every Fourth of July and this year the Fourth was on a Friday. So, a pizza lunch was how we resolved it.

We worked on the fence in the afternoon, and we had the picnic dinner in the back yard. Everyone pitched in—North shucked corn and made sour cherry sauce for ice cream, Noah sliced watermelon, I made devilled eggs, and Beth cooked the hot dogs, cleared off, washed, and set the patio table with all the aforementioned food, plus cole slaw and baked beans.

We planned to watch the D.C. fireworks from the roof of Beth’s office building, which we’ve done a couple times before, but as we were eating our dinner, I decided I was just too wiped out, so everyone else went without me. I heard later that it was a nice display, but there was a malfunction of the fireworks that were supposed to spell out USA, with the letters tilted as if falling over or superimposed over each other. That seemed a little on the nose.

Blue: Saturday, Berry Picking

Saturday afternoon, after working on the fence, we went berry picking at Butler’s, our usual berrying destination. We got four quarts of blueberries and two quarts of blackberries. We picked two varieties of blueberries, one of which was supposed to be sweeter and the other tarter. I thought I could tell the difference, but North said they tasted the same.

There were only three other people on the wagon that took us to the blueberry fields, not many people picking and no kids, so Noah said he was afraid no one would instruct anyone else to only pick the blue berries and without hearing that it wouldn’t be a proper berry picking trip. But soon after that, a family with kids arrived and almost immediately we heard what color berries we were supposed to be picking. The funniest thing we heard was a mom telling the wagon driver that her small son didn’t want to pick berries, just to ride back and forth on the wagon, and would that be okay?

I found a robin’s nest with three eggs in it hidden in the blackberry canes. I hoped it was not abandoned, that the mother was laying low during berry picking hours and would return in the evening and that the weather was warm enough that the eggs would still hatch, but who knows? After the second mourning dove nest on our porch this spring failed (I can’t remember if I wrote about that, but the babies disappeared soon after hatching) and the harrowing death of the starling nestlings last month, I need to believe they had a chance. Please don’t correct me if you are wise in the ways of robins. We got ice cream and a doughnut at the snack bar and then picked up produce, cheese, and more treats at the farm market and our trip to Butler’s was complete.

We watched the first two-thirds of The Secret World of Arriety that night, but I was too tired to finish it.

Red: Sunday, Urgent Care

Sunday, still sick, I finally broke down and made an appointment at urgent care. I was tested for covid, flu, and strep. (I had already tested negative for covid several days earlier at home.) I was seen quickly, which is why it was surprising that I ended up spending two and a half hours there, mostly waiting for the second provider after the first one administered the tests. I never did find out why it took so long, it didn’t seem very busy when I arrived or left, but maybe it was busy while I was sequestered in an exam room for hours with not much to do. That was on me. I considered bringing my laptop, my book club book, and/or the newspaper and I was sure I’d stashed the paper in my bag, but when I opened it, I found I had not. So, I paced and sat and looked at my phone and listened to podcasts and sometimes paced while listening to podcasts. Beth had driven me there and was waiting at a nearby Starbucks, so I was also sorry to have taken such a big chunk of her day.

Anyway, I tested negative for covid, flu, and strep, and based on physical exam and questions I didn’t seem to have a sinus infection or pneumonia either. I walked out with no clue what I did have and two prescriptions I didn’t intend to fill because they were for symptoms that had nearly abated (congestion and cough). So far, it’s a mystery with no solution, just red herrings.

Afterward

Those of us with jobs went back to work and everyone continued painting the fence and Noah pruned some tree branches that were in the way of painting. The first sunflower in our garden bloomed on Monday, followed by the first zinnia on Tuesday, and the second sunflower on Thursday.

After exchanging several messages with my primary care provider, I went into the office for another strep test on Thursday. The culture is supposed to be more accurate than the rapid strep test, but I won’t get the results until next week. I don’t even feel that sick beyond the sore throat, so under normal circumstances, I probably would have decided to ride it out and skip the second strep test. The only reason I went to urgent care is that I am going to see extended family soon, including my almost eighty-two-year-old mother and I thought it would be good to know, though as it turns out I will find after I see her, so the information will be less useful than it could be.

One more thing happened I want to mention. On Wednesday morning, ICE agents seized several people off my street, just a ten-minute walk from my house. I don’t know for sure, but given that there’s ongoing roadwork in that area, I’m guessing it was the road workers. I walked by the next day on my way to the Metro and noticed all the workers I could see were either black or white and, in our area, that’s not the normal demographic for work crews. It should have been a mix of black, white, and Latino guys. I don’t know what became of them, if they were released, or sent to detention facilities domestic or foreign. I don’t know if they left families behind. I do know I am not feeling very proud to be an American today.

Proud

Posted on June 8, 2025 by Steph

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Takoma Pride

Takoma Pride was the first Sunday in June, which was the very first day of June this year, so Pride Month started off with a joyful celebration. It’s a small event, compared to Pride in the city, but I was surprised at how big it was this year, more crowded than I’ve ever seen it. I think there’s a reason for that.

We got there early so Beth could visit the farmers’ market in the parking lot just behind the block where the booths were located. North and I stood in a long line to get coffee and a blueberry-rhubarb pastry to split at Takoma Beverage Company. While we waited for our order, North asked me. “Are you proud?”

I said yes. I am proud to have been out for almost thirty-eight years, and to have come out at time when it was harder for young people to come out than it is now, but I am also disillusioned to be seeing cultural backlash, especially against trans kids.

Ever since I was a mostly closeted teen, it has always seemed that the LGBTQ+ community was seeing progress, sometimes agonizingly slow, sometimes surprisingly quick (as during the exciting years when gay marriage was legalized in first a handful of states and then all of them). But now we are moving backward in ways big and small. I think that’s why so many people turned out to our little pride festival this year. People want to feel seen, perhaps more urgently than we did just last year.

We watched the parade. Bikers and roller skaters were in front, followed by the members of the Rainbow Club of two local elementary schools. Our Congressional representative Jamie Raskin was walking with the kids. There were trans people with paper mâché butterflies (symbols of transformation presumably), people with signs (“Love Wins. Hate Loses”), and people dressed as fairies.

We chatted with people we knew. North’s friend Rose, who was a counselor at Girl Scout camp with them last summer was there, as were her two younger sisters and their parents, Sara (a former colleague of Beth’s) and Mike (the filmmaker who occasionally employs Noah). Mike had brought his portable sound system with him—he’s been taking it to Tesla protests every weekend apparently—and he was playing Kool and the Gang’s “Celebration” and other tunes. “It’s a whole project now,” Rose wryly commented of the sound system. The family dog was getting in on the action, too, wearing a rainbow harness.

We perused the booths. North got a pamphlet from Trans Maryland with information they hoped might help them sort out their passport dilemma. Beth and I posed in front of a photo op background made of multicolored fabric. She held up the rainbow chard she had bought at the farmers’ market—even the vegetables were proud that day. Beth peeled off to get a tomato cage from the hardware store while North and I continued to browse the booths, scootching past very long lines for ice cream and face painting. We all met up at the end of the block of booths and headed home.

That night, after a dinner of rainbow chard and tofu stir-fry, Beth and I went to a Pride concert at Rhizome, an art space in Takoma, DC. (Explainer for nonlocals—Takoma is a neighborhood in Washington, D.C. that borders Takoma Park, Maryland.) There were five bands playing, but we only stayed for the first two because we are early-to-bed people and we did not want to turn into pumpkins. Luckily, the first band that played was Ammonite, who we saw at the Takoma Park Folk Festival last September. This was the band Beth most wanted to see.

Between Prides

The next week, three of us were working, as Noah was editing a promotional video for a solar energy company for Mike. He worked on it for a couple weeks—it’s the longest gig he’s had since November, so I was happy to see him employed. North had the week off from their Environment Virginia canvassing job (yes, they got it) because they were going to the beach with five friends from high school, all except North graduating seniors. They left on Tuesday, but North took Monday off, too, so they could pack and rest before the trip. Canvassing is physically taxing, which combined with the late hours, is why when they got another job, working at a day camp in DC, they decided to take it. They will keep the canvassing job until late June when the camp job starts. Meanwhile, Beth went to the veterans’ protest on the Mall on Friday, but I skipped it because Sara and I had a rush job that week writing web copy for a line of probiotics.

That’s why I was home Friday morning when the workers found the nest in our porch roof. We are having the porch roof rebuilt and when they removed a sheet of plywood, they found a nest with several tiny pink babies with sparse gray down and big yellow beaks. I suspected they were starlings because of something that happened about a week earlier.

I’d walked into the kitchen and found both cats on the stovetop looking up. I paused, listening, and heard a rustling sound in the cabinet above the range hood. Thinking mouse, I opened it to have a look and much to my surprise (but perhaps not the cats’) a starling flew out.

Pandemonium broke out with the bird swooping around and the cats running after it. It took two people (me to remove the cats from the room and Beth to open the back door and a window for the bird to exit) to restore order. Further examination uncovered a vent pipe in that cabinet with a hole in it. (We had the workers take a look and they said the mesh covering the venting slats on the side of the house was torn so we put replacing that on their to-do list.)

I did a little research, and the nestlings did look like baby starlings, plus it was the right kind of nesting location, time of year, and number of babies (four to five—they were huddled together too close to count), so that’s still my hypothesis.

As the porch roof where the nest was built was dissembled, the workers relocated it first to the porch wall and then to the ledge the doves use in the early spring. I thought there was no way the parents would find it and the babies were doomed. I spent a lot of the morning fruitlessly trying to find a wildlife rehabilitator who would take them. I just kept getting passed from the Humane Society to the Maryland Department of Natural Resources to a rescue organization that turned out to be for raptors, to one that took songbirds, but only native ones, and I learned starlings are not native.

Then in the afternoon, noticing the nestlings had perked up, I started to wonder if the parents did find them and had fed them. I was checking on them every few hours and sometimes they seemed lively and sometimes listless. I couldn’t figure out what was going on. It was emotionally exhausting. But when we went to bed and when we got up the next morning, they were all alive.

Unfortunately, by early afternoon Saturday, two of them had died. I asked Noah to dig a hole in the back yard so we could bury them as soon as they were all dead. By this point I was hoping it would happen sooner rather than later or that a predator would put them out of their misery. I even wondered if I should move the nest somewhere more visible to speed that along, but I couldn’t quite bring myself to because I was still half-entertaining the possibility that the parents were feeding them. They were so tiny, and it had been over a day by that point. How could any of them they still be alive otherwise?

Well, I never saw any parent birds at the nest, and by mid-morning Sunday, the last one had died and all but two of the dead bodies had disappeared from the nest, taken by a scavenger maybe? Beth and I buried the whole nest in the hole Noah dug. The nest itself was much better constructed than a mourning dove nest and surprisingly large with just a tiny cavity for the babies. In my time as a suburban homeowner, I have learned a lot about different species of birds and their nesting habits.

I am sad about the way it ended, and not very proud of myself. It was a slow death, and they must have suffered. I keep wondering if I could have done something differently, mostly tried harder to find a rehabilitator, I guess. I never seriously considered learning how to feed them myself because I didn’t want to end up with four to five tame starlings unable to fend for themselves.

DC World Pride

World Pride was in D.C. this year. There were all kinds of events, but the second weekend of June there were three main ones—the parade, the street festival, and a political march. Since the march was unique to this year, and we’ve done the parade and the festival many times, Beth and I decided to do the march.

Various labor unions were meeting up at the AFL-CIO building for a pre-march rally, so went there. People gathered in the Solidarity Room, which is a long rectangular space with windows along one long wall and a beautiful tile mosaic, much like the one in the lobby, depicting various scenes of labor, along the other. We were in the room over an hour listening to speeches by leaders of various unions, including Randi Weingarten from the American Federation of Teachers, who joined via video call. Many of the speakers talked about intersectionality, which made sense because the event itself was intersectional. Two people from SEIU spoke about the alarming events in Los Angeles and the detention of David Huerta.

We also heard from people organizing at Starbucks, a local restaurant, and the Kennedy Center. Beth said she never gets tired of hearing from young organizers. I also like hearing from gay people older than us, especially when they talk about their lives, which have seen even more change than ours. As Stuart Appelbaum, president of the Retail, Wholesale, and Department Store Union, reminded us, “Unimaginable rapid change is possible,” both good changes and bad ones. I know that. I’ve been witness to both.

We left the building to meet up with the larger march a little after one. It had started raining while we were inside and I had to juggle my umbrella, my sign, and a tote bag containing food, water and other necessities (backpacks were not allowed), so I didn’t take as many pictures as I might have otherwise. The crowd was moderate-sized and spirited. There was drumming and chanting. One of the more unusual chants was “What do we want? David! When do we want him? Now!” Of course it was referring to David Huerta, but I was thinking David is such a common name there must be at least one in the crowd who was feeling rather amused.

Once we got to the Washington Monument and away from the shelter of tall buildings it was much windier, and I started to get sprayed with rain from the side. We proceeded to the mall where we crossed paths with a different protest, a queer pro-Palestinian one. We stopped there and it wasn’t clear if that was going to be the end point. We never met up with the larger march, having left the AFL-CIO too late. Beth and I decided to head home. We skirted along the edge of the street festival as we walked to the Metro. There was music playing, and people coming in and out, so the rain didn’t shut it down the celebration either.

As I said to Beth on the way home, you go to these things and sometimes they are big and sometimes they are small, and sometimes the sound system works and you hear the speeches and sometimes it doesn’t and you don’t, and sometimes you find the event you intended to attend and sometimes you don’t. But we made our own event, I suppose, and being in different places, maybe more people saw the disjointed parts of the march than would have if they’d been together. I am trying to look on the bright side here and to see the rainbows in the rain.

Strawberry Fields Forever

Posted on June 1, 2025 by Steph

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Yesterday morning, we were in a wagon heading for the strawberry fields at Butler’s Orchard when we heard parents quizzing a small boy on what color strawberries to pick. Should he pick the green ones? The white ones? The pink ones? The red ones? He had learned his lesson and knew the answers. No, no, no, yes! “Red like Daddy’s shirt,” he added for clarity.

Both Noah and North were smiling at me. After we got off the wagon, North commented, “It wouldn’t be a trip to Butler’s without parents telling kids what color berries to pick.” And I remember being that parent, even if they don’t remember being those small children. We’ve been picking berries (strawberries in the spring; blueberries, blackberries, and raspberries in the summer) there since Noah was tiny and before North was born. It’s easier now that they don’t need any instruction and no one is likely to dash off toward the dirt road and possible collision with a farm vehicle.

There were different obstacles, however. The website reported “scattered” picking and rain was predicted on and off all day, with different sources of weather information in disagreement about exactly when. It was sunny when we arrived and soon after clouded over. We picked four quarts of berries quickly. Despite what it said on the website, ripe berries were plentiful, at least in the field where we were. Our containers were so full we had to keep our hands over the tops on the bouncy ride back and even so one of my berries rolled out and away from me.

We visited the snack bar to see if we wanted to get lunch there and decided no, though we did pick up some snacks (I got a strawberry hand pie and ate half of it, saving the rest for later.) It was busy at the snack bar and North and I surveyed the crowd for small children in clothes with strawberries on them, which always charms them. They have a fantasy about taking their own kids berry picking and dressing them in strawberry-themed clothes. We only found two little girls in strawberry t-shirts. Often there are more. North had also dressed for the occasion, wearing earrings that featured ghosts carrying strawberries and crocs festooned with strawberries.

It had started to drizzle while we were in the wagon on the way back from the field and while we were under the shelter of the snack bar the skies opened. By the time we’d eaten (standing up because the picnic tables were outside in the rain), it was back to drizzling so we returned to the car and drove to the farm market where we picked up vegetables, cheese, apple juice, and various treats.

For lunch, we proceeded to a shopping center where Beth and North had lunch at Noodles & Company and Noah and I went to a bakery where we got sandwiches. Then we met up at Sweet Frog for frozen yogurt.

Noah asked me “what we do with strawberries” and I said if we go berrying before Memorial Day, I make strawberry shortcake with them, but I’d already done that with farmers’ market strawberries the weekend previous, so I said we had no definite plans for them. I said if he wanted to bake something with them, he was free to do so, but the day after bringing the berries home we have already eaten a quart of them, so I’m not even sure if I am going to freeze some of them, which I was planning to do.

It was a sweet expedition, with echoes of berrying trips past and visons of possible future ones, too.

All For The Love Of You

A Chronicle of Suburban Lesbian Family Life

Category Archives: Excursions

The Rails

Moving Forward

#FallBreak

All’s Well That Ends Well

Seven For September

Last Two Weeks

Families, Folk, and Flowers

Red, White, and Blue

Proud

Strawberry Fields Forever