Spring Fever: Coronavirus Chronicles, Part 83

Posted on April 2, 2024 by Steph

North’s birthday was also the first day of their spring break. Over break they studied for the IB math exam they’ll be taking in May, the two of us went to Koma for coffee on Tuesday, and on Thursday they went to the U.S. Botanical Gardens with El. That was their night to cook, and they felt ambitious enough to make sourdough bread (from a mix they got for Christmas) for the grilled cheese and homemade tomato soup they’d already been planning to make.

We often travel over spring break, but we’ve been making a lot of trips to colleges, with one more trip coming up in a couple days, and Beth has been to Wheeling to stay with her mom twice this year and she’ll be back for a third time soon, so we decided against it. But shortly before break I said in an offhand way that maybe we should take a day trip and North was all over it. They planned a very nice one, a morning browsing the historic bayside town of St. Michael’s, lunch at one of four vegetarian-friendly restaurants they identified for our consideration, and then a stroll in a nearby park. We decided to do it on Good Friday because Beth’s office is closed that day.

But we didn’t take this delightful-sounding outing. Remember how I said only two posts ago that I might not write about covid again? Silly me. Noah had started to feel mildly ill on Sunday, the day after North’s birthday, and I did, too, a day after that. I had a sore throat and some congestion. I might have had a slight fever on Tuesday—I don’t know because I didn’t take my temperature. The worst day was Wednesday, mainly because of intense fatigue. But I tested negative for covid Wednesday morning. We went ahead and went to family therapy, and when we mentioned both Noah and I had upper respiratory symptoms, the therapist immediately sent us home (per office policy, which we didn’t remember from our intake paperwork). I was already starting to feel better by Thursday.

On Friday morning, shortly before we were going to leave for St. Michael’s, North said if we were going to eat in an indoor restaurant, Noah should really test for covid, so he did… and he was positive. I followed suit and I was positive, too. Beth and North were negative. By this point, none of us was feeling very sick, but we decided to ditch the St. Michael’s trip and take our germs somewhere that was likely to be less crowded.

We got takeout from Busboys and Poets and had a picnic lunch at Fort Washington Park, which is on the Maryland side of the Potomac. It has nice river views, but it turned out the lighthouse was under construction and a lot of the places you can walk nearby were fenced off and inaccessible. We did learn about the interesting history of the fort. During the War of 1812, as British forces approached, the commander of the fort, outmanned and outgunned, decided to set fire to the fort and flee. Flaming ships were launched in the direction of the British forces. (That last tidbit seems right out of Our Flag Means Death.) The commander was court martialed for abandoning his post, btw.

Over the next several days, we didn’t strictly isolate, but we tried to stay away from each other more than usual. Well, not all of us. Noah and I hung out in his room reading and we cooked a stir-fry together on Saturday, since we couldn’t infect each other. Also, as Beth and I were sharing a bedroom and breathing the same air all night long, I wasn’t that careful around her either. But we opened windows for air circulation, and ate in separate rooms or outside. We masked on the occasions when all four of us came together to watch tv or to dye Easter eggs in the back yard.

The egg dyeing was on Saturday afternoon. As we waited for the eggs to dry and then decorated them with stickers and the little felt hats we use for this purpose every year, North read us a list of one hundred reasons they should attend Oberlin, sent to them in an email, and quizzed me on whether in my experience each one was true. (Beth had gone inside by this point.) This was fun and funny and happy and sad all at once, thinking how close North is to leaving, no matter where they go, and how precious it felt to do this kind of ridiculous activity (taping little hats to colored eggs—why do we do this?) one more time. I am not saying one last time, because who knows what the future holds? North’s college spring breaks may sometimes coincide with Easter and even if both kids move far away, who’s to say they won’t happen to visit us near Easter some year?

Later that night I said to North, “I have a question about the Easter Bunny. When there are no minors in the house any more…”

North interrupted, “I still expect him to bring me candy.”

I clarified the question was about whether the Bunny still hides the baskets and North was adamant that he still does, so the baskets were duly hidden.

North’s last day of break was Easter Monday. They made brownies in the afternoon, and I quit work a little early to watch Emily in Paris with them. I made egg salad with our Easter eggs for dinner. They went back at school today, having never gotten sick. It will be a short week for them, though, just two days, because on Thursday morning we are leaving for Oberlin’s admitted students’ day. Our last MCPS spring break is over. It’s time to think about what comes next.

Petals and Parties

Posted on March 27, 2024 by Steph

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Tuesday: Blossom Party

The National Park Service and the Washington Post Capital Weather Gang each make a prediction for the peak bloom of the cherry blossoms every year. This year, the only day of overlap between the two predictions was North’s birthday, so we thought there was a good chance their birthday, a Saturday, would fall during peak bloom. They wanted to go see them on their birthday, after their birthday party the night before. It seemed like a good plan. But then the second week in March it was remarkably warm, over seventy degrees most days, and the blossoms reached peak bloom on the Sunday six days before North’s birthday.

The peak lasts just four to five days on average and North had already convinced me to let them stay home from school Tuesday because the juniors were taking the SAT that day and not much instruction was going to happen. So, afraid we’d miss the blooms if we waited until Saturday, I asked the kids if they’d like to come down to the Tidal Basin with me on Tuesday and they both said yes. (I tried to talk Beth into it, too, but she couldn’t take the time away from work.)

The timing was a little tricky. North had a dentist appointment in the city at 8:30 a.m. and Noah had a concert at 6:00 p.m., also in the city, so North preferred a morning visit, and Noah would have liked an afternoon one, but North also had a virtual therapy appointment at 4:00 p.m. so they needed to be back home for that, and we settled on morning. Then North invited a friend to join us and set the time to meet them at 10:45 at the Smithsonian Metro station. From there they’d go to the MLK Memorial, where Noah and I would meet them.

Beth took North to the dentist and after the appointment left them at a coffeeshop at near the Friendship Heights Metro, as they had some time to kill. Noah and I left the house at 9:35 and arrived at the Smithsonian stop at 10:25. I was thinking we’d meet North and El there instead of the memorial, but once we got above ground it was cold, in the low forties and very windy, and the zipper on my jacket was broken, so suddenly getting warm drinks seemed like a better idea than waiting for twenty minutes, so we went to Starbucks and then walked to the MLK Memorial, where North and El were waiting on a bench, surrounded by puffy pale pink petals.

We walked to the FDR Memorial and then North and El decided to stay there while Noah and I walked the perimeter of the Tidal Basin. We haven’t done the whole loop in a long time, as there was a narrow window between when North was old enough to walk that far (maybe age five) and before they developed mobility issues (around eleven). It was a nice walk. There were a lot of people, but the path wasn’t jam-packed. We saw ducks and geese on the water and the sky was partly blue. It was warmer and less windy among the trees than it had been on the streets walking from the Metro. And the trees were just perfect.

We paid our respects to Stumpy, the famous little cherry tree with a mostly hollow trunk that doesn’t look like it should be able to bloom but does every year. There’s a lesson there, I think. Sadly, Stumpy is among the over 150 trees that are slated to be cut down after the bloom is over this year because the seawall around the Tidal Basin needs to be rebuilt to prevent the frequent floods that endanger all the trees. I understand why it’s necessary, but it’s still sad. A lot of people must feel the same way because there were a lot more people than usual taking Stumpy’s picture.

We met back up with North and El and decided to have lunch at Panera. As we walked, the 12th graders talked about their college plans and compared notes on the cliques in the theater program and the Visual Arts Center (a magnet art program within North’s school that El attends). North was navigating with their phone, and it turned out the Panera they’d found was in the Ronald Reagan Building basement. We had to go through security that was tighter than some airport security—Noah and I had to remove our watches—and then the restaurant, which I thought would be in the food court, was off down a long, empty corridor, and when we finally found it Noah discovered he’d ordered ahead to the wrong Panera, so he peeled off to go get his food. He spent the rest of the afternoon at museums, killing time until his concert. He said later it was a fun day.

Meanwhile, because there were no seats at Panera, North, El and I walked (for the second time) past a big cybersecurity event in the atrium flanked by two menacing, two-story-tall robot statues, and we returned to the food court where we joined the many middle and high school tour groups in matching hoodies or windbreakers. I was tired and hungry, and it was good to eat my grilled cheese and soup. Then we splurged on ice cream before we got on the Metro and headed home.

Friday: Bowling Party

Friday morning North left for school with a container of rainbow-sprinkle blondies. The treats weren’t for their birthday, they were for El, who shares a birthday with North. (They couldn’t come to North’s party because they were having a party of their own the same night.) Our kitchen was a busy place for a few days there because in addition to normal meals and North making blondies Thursday afternoon, Beth started making North’s three-layer lavender cake with lemon frosting on Wednesday (making lavender-infused milk and lavender syrup) and continued with the different steps through Thursday (making the cake and frosting) and Friday (assembly and decoration). North asked for a cake with a lavender plant and a bee in the frosting. Didn’t it come out well?

We met North’s friends at 5:30 at Roscoe’s, where we picked up a bunch of pizzas and other food. We ate at the public picnic tables on Laurel Avenue, with North and their friends at one table and Beth, Noah, and me at another. It was a chilly, windy afternoon and Beth and I were not dressed warmly enough, so once we’d finished eating, we walked around the empty tables under the tent, frequently looping back to ours. I caught bits of the party conversation, which centered on summer plans, jobs, mutual acquaintances, classes, and the theater program at North’s school and Miles and Maddie’s school. Five out of the six kids have just finished a show at one of those schools, either as cast or crew, so they had stories to share with each other. They also talked a bit about college, as all the guests are juniors just beginning their college search and North’s at the end of theirs.

We ate cake next—the lemon frosting was so good it rivals the fresh strawberry frosting Beth often makes and the cake was nice and moist. North opened cards, including a hand-drawn one with bees and flowers that Marisa had made that Miles and Maddie signed, too. Marisa illustrated her own wrapping paper as well. North’s presents included a pair of crocheted sunflower earrings, a journal, and some contributions to their tattoo fund. When all the presents were opened, and North had read all the affectionate messages in the cards aloud, and the cake was eaten, I observed that the bowling alley was probably heated, and everyone gathered up their things and we left.

We went duckpin bowling. This form of bowling is popular in Maryland, and I remember taking Noah to a few birthday parties at these lanes when he was in elementary school (the little balls are great for kids) and then in high school he filmed a short documentary about a bowling league there. However, we are not big bowlers, and we hadn’t been there as a family since the summer North was four, on an outing they do not recall. We got another pizza and pitcher of soda that came free with the lane, and we also ordered fried pickles and tater tots. The kids made short work of the fried treats and ate most of the pizza, too. Everyone seemed to be having a good time and conversation was lively. After our two hours were up, the guests’ parents came to pick them up—Anastasia, who is the only one with a drivers’ license, and who had helped ferry guests to the bowling alley, joked that she didn’t think she’d have to wait long for her ride.

Marisa came home with us because she was sleeping over. Her older brother goes to St. Mary’s, so she and North talked about its pros and cons in the car. Beth and I went to bed soon after we got home, so I don’t know much about what they did, but I heard them making popcorn in the kitchen around one a.m. and North says they watched Bottoms. In the morning after a breakfast of bagels and fruit salad, Marisa’s dad came to get her, and the party was over. I couldn’t help but think in a gently melancholy way of all the birthday parties both kids have had in this house over the years—starting with Noah’s first birthday party—and how this was probably the last one.

Saturday: Blossom After-Party

But I didn’t have much time for nostalgic thoughts on North’s actual birthday. It was a very busy day and it started with a bang. North found out that morning that they got into Oberlin and with more aid than we expected. So now Oberlin is in the mix, much to everyone’s surprise, honestly. We will be headed to Ohio for an admitted students’ day the first week of April. Now North has heard from all six schools where they applied, and they got into five. (Only Mount Holyoke turned them down.)

Later that morning Beth and I went to an appliance store to look at induction stoves and we bought one. We’re doing a mini-kitchen renovation—we’re getting a new stove, new flooring, and a new back door. More on that in a later post perhaps.

In the early afternoon we left for our main outing of the day. We were returning to the Tidal Basin because North wanted to go on their actual birthday and because Beth hadn’t been yet. North wanted to bookend this trip with visits to Starbucks and Baskin-Robbins to collect free coffee and ice cream.

After a warm week caused the blossoms to pop early, we had a rather chilly week and that prolonged the bloom, so the timing wasn’t bad after all. It wasn’t easy getting there, though. There was a lot of traffic and we got diverted away from the road we were intending to take and had to drive over the bridge to Virginia. It was hard to get turned around back in the right direction and then we needed a bathroom break, so we stopped at National Airport, so the detour was a lengthy one.

When we finally got back to the Tidal Basin, we actually found a parking spot in one of the lots not too far from the blossoms and we walked there. There were more blossoms in the air and on the ground than there had been on Tuesday, but there were still plenty on the trees. We walked to the Jefferson Memorial and walked up the stairs to the statue. After that North wanted to rest on a bench, so the rest of us went to the FDR Memorial and then to where the food trucks and stage was. We watched some flamenco dancers and Noah got churros. It was a bit of a rushed visit because it was getting late, but any time I get to go to the Tidal Basin twice in a bloom period, I consider it a bonus.

On the way home, we stopped at Baskin Robbins, where everyone but me got ice cream—it was already six and I thought if I had some my blood sugar would not come down in time for dinner, even if we ate late. North opened some family presents we’d brought with us, a check from Beth’s mom, a pair of cherry blossom earrings, three skeins of lavender yarn, and a brown-sugar cinnamon syrup for coffee. North was pleased with everything.

Back at home Noah and I made a tater tot casserole, which was the birthday dinner North requested. Noah menu plans on Saturdays and he agreed to this dish, even though he doesn’t like vegetarian chicken or peas and he’s not even a big fan of tater tots and he ended up eating leftover pizza for dinner. The rest of us ate the casserole, which is quite good if not low carb—we made one corner of it only half-covered with tots for me. After dinner we ate leftover cake and started to watch See How They Run, which North chose, but we only had time for about half of it.

After the After Party: Sunday to Tuesday

It was just a coincidence that Beth and I undertook this nostalgia-inducing project the day after North turned eighteen, but North is in the process of clearing unwanted possessions out of their room as well as removing things they left behind in Noah’s room the last time that they switched bedrooms (in 2019), and there’s been a steady stream of dolls, stuffed animals, and books exiting both rooms.

On Sunday Beth and I sorted through the toys, and I did the books on Tuesday. I resisted the urge to keep very many toys. Other than a couple that belonged to me as a child, I only kept a rag doll that Noah was devoted to as a toddler. North is keeping a few stuffed animals, so I didn’t save any of theirs. Beth, who is less of a pack rat than me, said she was proud of me. It was a little harder to part with books, but I filled a cardboard box with kids’ books to give away, and only kept about a quarter of what North didn’t want.

We have everything sorted to go to Value Village, the fairy tree (a hollow tree near the playground where people leave trinkets), Little Free Libraries, and the art materials library (think a Little Free Library for art supplies). It will take a while to get rid of everything—I can only carry so much on my walks—but we are freeing up space in both rooms. Noah has a new bookcase he can fit in his room now that the toy box and doll crib are gone, and he’s agreed to house the Harry Potter books and the Series of Unfortunate Events books there. When the question of ultimate ownership of these tomes came up, I said whoever produces grandchildren first gets them. I try not to give the kids the impression I expect them to have kids of their own or that I am owed grandchildren. I don’t want to be that kind of mom, but after the momentous week we’ve had, I must admit the thought of reading those books again to a beloved child, however far in the future, is comforting.

Merry and Bright

Posted on December 17, 2023 by Steph

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Eight days out, Christmas preparations are in full swing. The living room and yard are decorated. My shopping is finished, barring any last-minute impulse purchases. Our Christmas cards are a little more than half addressed, and I’m more than halfway finished wrapping presents, but there are some left and more come in the mail every day, so it’s hard to get caught up. I am not stressed about the gifts, but I do wish the cards were in the mail.

In addition to the pinwheel cookies, our resident baker made Christmas crack, or toffee bark if you prefer to call it that, which I think I might. They filled a tin with it and gave it to our new next-door neighbors as a housewarming gift, and in the two days since they made it, we finished the rest. Sometime this week I’m going to make gingerbread dough, which we’ll take to Blackwater with us and bake there.

We’ve been watching a lot of Hallmark and Lifetime Christmas movies, mostly with gay or lesbian protagonists. We usually watch one or two in December, but so far, we’ve watched four and I don’t think we’re finished. I can’t really say what accounts for this behavior. To balance it out, the kids and I have also been watching Christmas horror (Krampus and the Day of the Beast) and Friday night all of us watched Tokyo Godfathers, which is also kind of dark and takes place at Christmas (though North asserts is not a Christmas movie).

Our main Christmas activities over the past few days have been a visit to Brookside Gardens to see the lights, and a trip to Butler’s Orchard to get a Christmas tree. We went to Brookside on Thursday. It was hard to pick a day because of the need to ration North’s migraine medicine, but we settled on that day partly because it’s North’s night to cook and if we went to the lights on the same evening they could take part in two medication-enabled activities for the price of one. This is the kind of strategizing we do constantly. I commented after we’d figured out the plan that North’s headaches are like Noah’s homework used to be, the axis around which the whole family turns.

Anyway, it was a fun outing, and it felt particularly festive because just that day North had found out they got into Saint Mary’s College of Maryland, bringing the number of schools to which they’ve been admitted to four. (The third one was Towson University, which I don’t think I mentioned.) Both Saint Mary’s and Towson are state schools. Saint Mary’s is the public honors college. So now their current choices are one school in Wales, one in Rhode Island, and two in Maryland. They’ve heard from all the schools to which they applied early action, and there will be a pause of a few months before they hear from the remaining two (Oberlin and Mount Holyoke) to which they applied regular decision. It will be interesting to see where they land.

Getting back to Brookside…at a stand just inside the entrance, Beth and the kids got hot chocolate, cookies, and funnel cake. My blood sugar had gone higher than I expected on dinner (or maybe my newly changed sensor wasn’t fully calibrated yet) so I decided to abstain, except for a sip of Beth’s hot chocolate and few bites of North’s funnel cake.

Once we had food we started to walk through the gardens. The lights were lovely, as always, and mostly the same as always. (Beth did notice a snail she thought was new.) I have too many favorites to list, but the Loch Ness monster is probably my top pick. It blows fog out of its mouth. I’m also fond of the croaking frog. We saw a toddler boy standing by it with a look of pure wonder on his face.

We walked through the display a little more quickly than usual, as it was chilly evening. Also, Noah had forgotten his camera and usually he stops to take a lot of pictures. I was kind of sorry not have those. I took some, but his are always better, partly because he has a fancy camera and partly because he’s a skilled photographer.

Two days later we headed out to Butler’s, where we get strawberries in the spring and blueberries and blackberries in the summer, in addition to Christmas trees in December. I don’t know why, but there were a lot fewer trees on offer than usual. There was also a sign saying they only had six-foot trees, although, as Beth pointed out, the orchard seemed to have “a generous interpretation” of six feet. Many were probably more like five and half feet, based on how they measured up against our son, who’s 5’ 8’’. We picked a silver fir that was probably about six feet tall that North liked. I was concerned that it might not be big enough for our ornament collection, but there was nothing much bigger, so we had it baled and put on top of the car. (And later when I looked at a picture from last year of North standing near our tree right after we’d picked it out, it looked about the same size, so we’ll see.)

We went to the farm market where we shopped for little gifts and treats for ourselves. I got a caramel pecan turtle truffle and a slice of gingerbread for later. Noah got a bottle of something called “eggnog milk” because he wanted to see if it was any different from regular eggnog. He reported later that it was not.

There’s another week of school and work before winter break. We’ll be opening presents from my West Coast relatives a little early, on the Solstice, to make room in our always-crowded car for the drive to West Virginia. That will add a little more merriment to the last days of the wait for Christmas.

Magic, Wonder, Joy

Posted on December 10, 2023 by Steph

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Almost a week ago Beth, Noah, and I picked North up from school toward the end of fourth period and drove to the Wheaton Metro stop, where we boarded a train headed for the city. We had gotten tickets for the White House Christmas tour from Beth’s office.

We’d been to White House tours or events a number of times in the over thirty years we’ve lived in the DC metro area. Five, the number is five: a Christmas tour during the Clinton Administration; an East Wing tour and the Easter Egg roll in the Obama years; and two garden tours, once during the Obama administration and one last fall. And now we’ve come full circle and done the Christmas tour again.

A lot of labor groups had been scheduled for that day; you could tell from the conversations of people in line. We saw our around-the-corner neighbors Chris and Mel and their two teen and preteen daughters. (Chris works at the AFL-CIO.) They had to step out of line at one of the security checkpoints because there was a problem with someone’s i.d., but it was resolved, and they were able to rejoin the line. I was glad for them. It would have been sad to be turned away.

At the entrance to the East Wing there seemed to be a tree growing through the porch roof. I’m guessing it was the bottom and top halves of two trees, or maybe the same tree, set up above and below the porch. Anyway, it was a fun effect. When we entered, we walked through a hallway full of sparkly lights and cookie-and-candy-themed decorations hanging from the ceiling and the walls. Actually, there was candy everywhere. The theme was “Magic, Wonder, and Joy” and given the prominence of sweets, I’m guessing that President Biden or the First Lady must have a sweet tooth.

The whole tour really was magical. I enjoyed looking at photographs of the former first families (especially the Carters, given Rosalynn’s recent death) in the White House at Christmas time, the portrait of Michelle Obama, and all the Christmas trees, decorated with different themes. There was a gold star family tree with the names of fallen soldiers, a tree covered in numbers meant to evoke an advent calendar, a tree with the names of the all the states on it, and one with letters from children.

I appreciated getting glimpses of the Capitol and the Washington Monument through the windows of the East Wing, framed with wreaths, ribbons, and ornaments. One room had Nutcracker decorations, there was an antique creche that’s been on display every year since 1967, and a gingerbread house in the shape of the White House. Because it’s the two-hundredth anniversary of the publication of “’Twas the Night Before Christmas,” there was a display of vintage editions of the famous poem behind glass and there was also a giant sugar cookie in the shape of the book set up behind the gingerbread White House. North said it would be fun to be a White House baker, commenting “Life goals.”

Reindeer twined along a track near the ceiling toward the end of the tour and the U.S. Marine Band was playing near the exit. As we walked out, Beth said that when she’s in the White House it just seems like a museum and it’s always when she walks out and looks back that it hits her where she just was.

Right before we left, we were handed chocolate bars. I was saving mine for later, so I asked if it was good chocolate as others were eating theirs. It was decent, middle-of-the-road chocolate, it was concluded. Much like Joe Biden himself, I joked. On the way home, North was paging through the brochure and said they might try the pinwheel cookie recipe in it. And a few days later, they did. It was a moderately complex operation–making two kinds of dough, rolling them out on top of each other, rolling them up, and cutting them into slices. They came out beautifully and they were quite tasty. There’s orange peel in the vanilla dough and you can really taste it. North said they might add them to their regular Christmas baking rotation.

Our house is not as elaborately decorated as the White House (or as it is for Halloween), but Beth and Noah put up the outside lights this weekend, and North decorated a wreath. I haven’t gotten the mantle decorations or the Christmas village set up yet, but it’s on the agenda for this week or maybe even later today. And the first Christmas cards have been trickling in, so the mantle is not devoid of cheer. Little by little, the magic is taking shape.

October Harvest

Posted on October 22, 2023 by Steph

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Sisterly Visit

My sister came East for a wedding the second weekend in October, and we got to see her for a few hours Saturday afternoon. We were hoping to take her on our annual pumpkin stand outing, but events conspired against us. The day was rainy, North had to review a show for Cappies, and Sara had to leave earlier than she originally thought because she didn’t realize she was invited to the rehearsal dinner. So that left us a three-and-a-half-hour gap when everyone was available, but it was nice to see her anyway. When Sara comes East, we mostly meet up at the beach, or before our mom moved West at Mom’s house, so she hasn’t been to our house in twenty years. We showed her around the house (she admired the newly yellow kitchen walls and the not-so-new kids’ self-portraits from preschool on the living room walls). I took her through the front yard full of Halloween decorations and the mostly moribund garden out back.

Then we had a leisurely lunch at Busboys and Poets, where she was impressed with the array of gluten-free options (I’d chosen it with this in mind) and then we came home and served her gluten-free mochi brownies Noah had made the night before and then we sent her on her way to Winchester, Virginia with a piece of gluten-free almond-flour cornbread North had made for dinner a couple days previous.

Last Open House

The next Tuesday there was an Open House at North’s school. This was a surprise because the school has not had them in years past, unlike all five of the other MCPS schools our kids have attended. (The first couple years I thought it was because of covid, but I later learned they just didn’t do it.) I have always enjoyed getting a glimpse of the kids’ school day, so when I found out it was happening, it was a given that I was going—the only question was how many and which periods I would visit.

It turned out the Open House didn’t cover the whole day, just the end of second and fifth, and all of third and sixth periods. Luckily, the classes I most wanted to see just happened to be third (AP Lit) and sixth (Mythology and Modern Culture), so I was having a hard time choosing the morning or afternoon block when I decided to do both, even though it was busy work week. I haven’t had a chance to do this since North was in middle school, and I knew in the future, I’d remember having gone, but I would not remember writing a blog post about adaptogens for a supplement company.

North has an abbreviated schedule with no first or second period class, so I commuted with them to school for third period. They take a bus-to-train-to-bus route every day, leaving an hour and a half before they need to be at school. We got there about half hour early, which is what happens when North catches every bus and train. We sat at the tables outside the school, and I ate the yogurt and plum I’d packed for breakfast.

AP Lit started with a warm-up in which the students had to write down an example of juxtaposition, euphony, and/or motif. The teachers asked people to share, and a few did, then she went over definitions and examples of each term on the electronic board. I noticed that the Emily Dickinson poem she put up for euphony wasn’t on the screen long enough for anyone to read and find where the euphony was. (I can’t help it. Whenever I’m in a high school English class I tend to think how I would teach it differently.)

Next the kids were asked to produce poems they’d chosen to bring to class to share and they rotated through pairs, reading their poems aloud for each other (or exchanging copies to read silently) then explaining to each other why they chose the poems they did. This activity also seemed rushed. I might have done fewer rotations in hope of achieving a deeper discussion. The teacher then asked for people to share their poems with the whole class, and a few kids did.

The last activity was silently reading an Amiri Baraka poem, “An Agony, As Now,” and annotating it in preparation for a timed writing on it the following class. I got a copy, too, and I have to say, it’s a hard poem. While the students were working on that, she had them come up to her desk one by one and pick a poet for an individual poetry project. One girl who had just read “The Road Less Travelled” out loud announced no one could pick Robert Frost because she loved Robert Frost, and she was calling dibs on him. It didn’t work. Someone who got called up before her chose Frost and the girl was put out. North later said she probably wasn’t that upset, she’s just dramatic. North didn’t get their first choice (Emily Dickinson) either, but they got their second choice (Anne Sexton), and they seemed okay with that outcome. At least they did not complain loudly.

I went back to the outside tables for fourth period while North went to computer science. I’d brought my laptop, and I thought I might work, but I read the newspaper and wrote some of this. North usually eats in the theater room, but they came out to join me for lunch. It’s nice they’re allowed to eat outside. The day was pleasant when the sun was out, but a little chilly when it went behind the clouds. I probably should have brought a jacket. There were kids eating at the picnic tables and on the sidewalk and throwing footballs around and one annoying boy kept trying to ride a locked Lime scooter without paying for it, causing it to beep loudly. North said, “That kid has to be a freshman,” with scorn befitting a senior. The lunch period is generously long, fifty minutes. (In my high school we only had twenty-five minutes.) We both ate and they did some math homework and we talked.

There was an information session for parents prior to the afternoon class block and I ended up stuck in for most of fifth period. You weren’t supposed to go to your kids’ classes until it was over. It was sparsely attended, as was the Open House as a whole. It wasn’t well publicized and as I mentioned, the school hasn’t done it before, or at least not in the last few years. The parents at the session skewed toward those with kids in ninth grade. In fact, at one point a mother introduced herself as having a ninth and twelfth grader and the principal joked, “but you’re not here for your twelfth grader” and right after that I had to introduce myself as the mother of a senior, which was a little awkward.

I managed to catch the last five minutes of North’s math class. The students are about to start a statistics research project and the teacher was explaining how to construct a hypothesis for it and what a null hypothesis means. North’s project will be to determine if schools in more affluent areas win more Cappies awards for their school plays and which categories are most affected. They got curious when, as a critic, they noticed how much more elaborate the costumes and sets are in wealthier schools.

Mythology was next. The vibe was more laid back than in AP Lit. The teacher spent almost the whole class going from small group to small group talking to them about their ancient Egyptian culture research projects. North was in the mummies group and the group told the teacher they were going to focus on the how-to aspect of mummification and how social hierarchy affected who was mummified and who was not. The teacher suggested they include information on canopic jars and the evolution of mummification techniques. The teacher obviously has a lot of enthusiasm for the material, which is always nice to see. I noticed some of the groups were getting off topic, though, when the teacher wasn’t with them. When I mentioned it to North later, they said, “Well, it’s an elective, so that will happen.” Seventh period was closed to parents, so North headed off to ceramics and I made my way home, walking to the Metro stop for the exercise and then taking a train and a bus.

Working Man

Noah was out of the house all day Thursday and Friday working. As of two weeks ago, he’s junior editor on an as-needed basis for a video production company in DC. In those two weeks, they’ve had him come into the office six days. So far, he’s worked on two projects, sorting footage from a conference into categories and matching different voiceovers to an ad for biofuels. He has no guaranteed hours, so it’s hard to tell how regular it’s going to be, but it’s good work experience and nice for him to have some money coming in, in addition to what he makes on the more occasional work he does for Mike. I think he must be feeling flush because he bought concert tickets for Royal and the Serpent and Nightly and he’s going to a live recording of the Nightvale podcast. The office is not near a Metro stop, so like his sibling, he has a long bus-to-train-to-bus commute.

Alluring Applications

And speaking of his sibling, they have completed three of their six college applications: to Johnson and Wales University (the culinary school in Rhode Island and their top pick), Saint Mary’s College of Maryland (the public honors college), and Aberystwyth University in Wales (yes, Wales). Towson University (another Maryland public school) is up next. They have been very organized and on top of this, getting the applications with November 1 deadlines finished before fall play rehearsals goes into crunch time, which will happen very soon. Yesterday they mentioned they’d forgotten to switch their career path from chef in one of the non-culinary school options, but then they said breezily that might just make them seem “mysterious and alluring.”

Pumpkin Day

Friday morning, the day before our rescheduled pumpkin outing, having had a sore throat and some congestion for a couple days, I decided to take a covid test. I was wondering if it would derail the expedition a second time. Would it have? I honestly don’t know. We were going to be outside for all the planned activities and maybe if I stayed away from the pumpkin stand, allowing others to go up to it and if I didn’t go inside the restaurant to pick up the food… I was already trying to talk myself into it, even though I was simultaneously thinking I probably shouldn’t be in a car with the whole family for a non-essential activity. But the test was negative, to my relief. That’s a very specific kind of relief that exists now, isn’t it? The, oh it’s just a cold relief.

We set out around 3:20, and traffic was heavy for a while, but we got to the farm stand in plenty of time. On the way, we listened to my Halloween playlist, which North downloaded to their phone because the Apple one we listened to on the way to Cedar Point has too many songs that don’t belong on a Halloween playlist, in their opinion. The downside of this was that we couldn’t complain to each other about the playlist, so we turned our critical eye to people’s Halloween decorations, or rather the relative scarcity of them. The ones we saw were quite nice.

When we arrived, were surprised to find the stand unstaffed with instructions on a laminated sheet at the counter explaining how to pay electronically. The whole set up was quite trusting, but apparently, it’s working for them. We loaded up the car with jack-o-lantern pumpkins, a soup pumpkin, decorative gourds, sauerkraut, apples, apple butter, apple cider doughnuts, and apple cider.

We’ve been coming to this stand since before the kids were born, back when the farm was located there and there were pumpkins in the fields, and a cider press and farm animals. (It’s moved out to cheaper land as the area has gentrified.) In 2018, we thought it would be the last time with Noah, but he came with us in 2020 when he was spending his sophomore year of college at home, and again this year, so I’m not going to make any predictions about whether it will be North’s last time or not, but it could be. Or maybe one or both kids will settle in the DC area, and we’ll be bringing our grandkids there. You never know.

From the farm stand we set out for Meadowlark Botanical Gardens for a pre-dinner stroll. It was a pretty day and we enjoyed the changing leaves, fall flowers and berries, the koi in the ponds, and the pavilion, arch, totem poles, and statues in the Korean Bell Garden. We also got a glimpse of the holiday lights in the shape of flowers, mushrooms, and small trees that are being installed.

As always when we visit these gardens in October, the place is teeming with dressed up teenagers taking homecoming photos. Between the girls in tiny dresses and teetering heels, the boys in suits, and a wedding party, people in formal wear probably outnumbered visitors in street clothes. It makes you feel undressed, taking a walk on a Saturday afternoon, dressed in khakis and a flannel shirt. We didn’t realize it when the wedding was in progress because everyone was up on a deck that was partly obscured, but as we were leaving, we saw the two brides in big white dresses and realized it was a lesbian wedding. It made me think about how when Beth and I had our commitment ceremony in 1992, it would have been quite daring to have it in such a public outdoor space. The world really has changed.

Sitting in a pavilion overlooking a small lake, we ordered from Sunflower, a vegetarian Chinese restaurant and our traditional dinner spot for this outing, and we went to pick it up.

We took it to the picnic tables at Nottoway Park, to eat. We used to eat inside the restaurant, but starting in 2020, we added the picnic component, and we’ve kept it, even though we occasionally eat inside restaurants now. There is a nice community garden in the park and after we’d had our fill of seaweed salad, dumplings, two kinds of soup, two kinds of noodles, vegetarian shrimp, sushi, and a stir-fry, we took a little walk down there. There were tomatoes still thriving and a lot of fall vegetables (cabbage, chard, collards, etc.) and zinnias in many of the plots. It was almost full dark, and a half moon had risen as we left.

Our last stop was for ice cream. We tried a new-to-us place, which I recommend if you’re local. I got half pumpkin and half green tea. Beth placed a similar order, half pumpkin, half coffee. I told her it was like a pumpkin spice latte in ice cream form. We ducked into a nearby CVS to look for candy corn, but Christmas had overtaken the store and there was none to be found. (Beth found some the next day.)

“Another successful pumpkin outing,” Beth said as we carried the pumpkins to the porch after driving home. Noah noted that none of them fell out of the hatch onto the highway.

“Is that the bar?” I asked. It isn’t, though. Even if we’d smashed a pumpkin or two, we’d still have had another chance to pick out pumpkins and autumnal treats, walk in a beautiful place, and eat delicious food together one more time. That feels like a windfall.

Here’s our October harvest:

A rare visit from a sister, sister-in-law, and aunt
A last chance to get a sneak peek into North’s school day
Encouraging developments on the job front
Three completed college applications
Pumpkins, gourds, apples, and other fall delights

September Pivot

Posted on September 19, 2023 by Steph

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Last Thursday, I posted this on Facebook: “Steph Lovelady wore socks to book club last night and slept with a blanket and thinks September may have done its annual pivot.” So far, it seems to be true. We’re enjoying highs in the seventies and low eighties and the humidity has vanished. We are pivoting in other ways, too, settling into the new routine of the school year.

North is three and a half weeks into their senior year and their extracurriculars are getting started. They are a triple threat in the theater department. They are lead critic for their school’s Cappies delegation, they have two small roles in the fall play, and they are on costumes crew. They’re also attending improv club and are active in their school’s GSA*. Oh, and they’ve joined a book club that meets at a local bookstore and reads LGBT+ poetry. (They started attending this over the summer.)

Cappies will be like last year, in that they will attend plays at other high schools and write reviews. Being lead critic means they will also be organizing the assignments for their school’s delegation. Outside of drama camp North hasn’t acted since middle school and as long-time readers know, when they were younger that used to be a big part of their life. The play was written by a recent graduate of their high school, so technically, it’s a world premiere. It has a medieval setting and North has an ensemble role as a servant and a small speaking part as a nun. It will be fun to see them onstage again. They could have been costumes manager again, but they decided (wisely, I think) that they had enough on their plate as it was, though they will still be pitching in with costumes on days when they don’t have rehearsal.

You may remember that two years ago the GSA began organizing to eliminate or alter the Powder Puff flag football game that precedes the Homecoming football game to make it less sexist. It took a while, but their efforts are paying off. At a recent meeting with student government, the SGA** said that kids of all genders can participate in the flag football game (which was formerly all girls) and the cheerleading (which was formerly all boys) and that none of the cheerleaders will wear tutus. But in an unexpected turn of events, this morning North learned the whole cheerleading event is cancelled, though the flag football game is still a go (and open to all).

Now because of long-standing tradition and the fact that up to now the recruiting was single sex for each event, it will probably still be mostly girls playing flag football, but it’s a start, and more than the GSA expected. There’s talk of making it more like a field day in which people of any gender try out sports they don’t play next year. And they are getting rid of the name Powder Puff. I’m proud of North for advocating for something they believe in and for persisting across three school years before they saw results.

Noah hasn’t had much work, but he is travelling to Pennsylvania next week to help Mike film a commercial for a supplement store. And Mike thinks he may have a lead on some work logging footage at a conference after that, with some friends of his. It’s not certain yet, but I hope it’s something that could help Noah get his foot in the door. Tonight he attended a Zoom call for Ithaca students, alumni, and professors to discuss the job market in post-production film work in the context of the writers’ strike.

Since he has a lot of free time, he’s been helping with housework and yardwork. Last week on top of his normal chores, he organized the chaos that was our Tupperware drawer (he even labeled the shelves), scrubbed the mildew off the bathroom ceiling and walls, and got the weeds along the fence that divides the driveway from the yard somewhat under control.

Meanwhile, we’ve been on several excursions recently, in groups of three and four:

Takoma Park Folk Festival

Two Sundays ago, we all attended the Takoma Park Folk Festival. I look forward to this event every year. We got there soon after it started because Joe Uehlein, who is the father of a friend of North’s and the husband of a friend of Beth’s, was playing “songs to fit the times in which we live,” according to the program, and I like to support performers I know.

It had been raining earlier in the morning and it was damp and attendance at Joe’s set was a little sparse, but as the day wore on, it got sunnier, and more people turned out. We stayed for several hours, taking in performances by Susanna Laird (“a mix of folk, blues, gospel, and jazz”), Brad Engler (“classic folk themes and spirited vocals and guitar”) and Friends and Amigos (“indie-pop covers and originals in English and Portuguese”).

We saw a few people we knew around the festival. The younger sister of North’s best friend from elementary school was working at the face-painting booth, and I waved at a mom of one of Noah’s preschool classmates from a distance and wondered if the small child she had with her was her grandchild. She has a daughter a few years older than Noah, so it’s possible. Finally, the mother of one of North’s preschool classmates came and joined us while we were listening to Friends and Amigos. She’s our city council representative now, so she wanted to talk city politics.

In addition to listening to music, we ate festival food (I had an eggroll and ice cream) and Beth and North checked out the craft fair. It was a pleasant afternoon.

Airport 77s Concert

Just five days later, on Friday night, Noah, Beth, and I went to hear the Airport 77s, a local band, play at the Sligo Creek Golf Course. I hadn’t heard of the band or the weekly series of concerts the golf course hosts, but Mike, who has filmed a music video for the group, was going to play the bass for a couple songs, and he’d invited us to come watch.

It turns out a golf course surrounded by stately old trees is a really nice place to listen to a concert on a mild September evening. The set was a mix of covers (mostly of 70s and 80s classic rock) and originals–“Dad rock,” in Beth’s words, which is appropriate–Mike and his wife Sara have three girls, the oldest of whom is North’s age. Just a couple songs in, Beth said, “We’re the demographic” and we totally were. We found ourselves singing along often.

We got chipwiches from the concession stand settled in to listen. There were a lot of families with small kids, and we were seated near a booth that was giving away crayons and coloring pages, so there was a steady stream of adorable children running by our blanket.

Mike came on toward the end of the two-hour concert, joining the band for Elvis Costello’s “Pump It Up,” and the Romantics, “What I Like About You.” He was introduced as “the second meanest guitar player in Silver Spring,” and “Captain Chaos.” We went up to chat with him for a little bit once the show was over and he was in a cheerful post-performance mood.

A Haunting in Venice

Saturday afternoon, the kids and I went to see A Haunting in Venice. Beth sat it out, going kayaking instead, because this movie is more of a mystery/horror hybrid that the previous ones in the series and she is not a fan of horror. (Season 6 of Buffy is proving challenging for her.)

I went through a big Agatha Christie phase in eighth and ninth grade, reading dozens of her books, and I went on to teach And Then There Were None in my genre fiction class at GWU from the late nineties to mid-aughts. When Noah was in middle school, I read And Then There Were None aloud to him and he read at least one other Christie novel on his own. It may have even been Hallowe’en Party, the book on which A Haunting in Venice is extremely loosely based. North hasn’t read any Christie, but they did see a stage version of And Then There Were None because a friend of theirs was acting in it several years ago.

I enjoyed the film. Even though the plot has very little to do with the novel, it preserves that Christie feeling that makes me so nostalgic and I appreciate how all these recent Poirot films flesh out the characters a little. It’s not searing psychological drama, but the characters are more well-rounded that in Christie’s novels, which are really all about the puzzle and not the people.

Sitting in the theater I had a moment of deep contentment, thinking of my fourteen-year-old self and imagining how happy it would have made her to know my middle-aged self would be here, enjoying this movie with my grown and almost grown kids.

Takoma Park Farmers’ Market Pie Contest

As soon as we got home from the movie, North got to work on their entry in the annual farmers’ market pie contest. They’ve entered a pie every year since they were seven or eight (with a break when the event was cancelled in 2020 and 2021 for covid). When they were ten, they won for most unusual pie, with a cantaloupe pie, and when they were thirteen, they won for best kids’ pie with a mushroom pie. This year they made a Dutch pear pie. It’s just like a Dutch apple pie, but with pears. They used a pie crust recipe they learned to make at the Johnson and Wales culinary camp they attended this summer, and the filling was spiced pears with a strudel topping. They called it Perfect Pear Pie and in my completely unbiased opinion, it really was. All the elements worked together nicely. Anyway, it didn’t win, but we enjoyed the slices we bought.

The contest is a benefit for the farmers’ market matching funds for SNAP recipients and that’s a good enough cause to justify eating multiple slices of pie, so in addition to two slices of North’s pie, we got a slice of fig custard pie, pecan pie, and chai custard and split the five pieces between the four of us. They were all excellent. The judges must have quite a hard job each year.

Next weekend, we will celebrate another kind of pivot. Saturday, the fall equinox, is North’s half-birthday and suddenly (or so it seems to me) they will be closer to eighteen than seventeen. That seems momentous, as eighteen is such a milestone. We always have cupcakes on the kids’ half birthdays, so I know there will be sweetness in the day. I hope fall gets off to a sweet start for you, too.

p.s. Do you like North’s new glasses?

*Gay-Straight Alliance, or maybe Gender and Sexuality Alliance. No one is really sure.
** Student Government Association

Watery Weekend

Posted on September 9, 2023 by Steph

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I know it was a week ago, but how was your Labor Day weekend? Our was hot—it got up to the high nineties on Sunday and Monday—so we sought out water, wading or swimming in a creek, a river, a bay, and a pool.

Saturday: Sligo Creek

The kids and I go on a creek walk every year at the end of the summer, usually the week before school starts, but when we don’t manage that, over Labor Day weekend. That’s what happened this year, as the week before school started first North had covid and then we were at the beach.

Our neighborhood is sometimes called Between the Creeks because, you guessed it, it’s between two creeks. Usually we wade in Long Branch, but this year North proposed Sligo because they’d discovered a pretty stretch of it while on a walk recently. Noah and I were game.

I needed to pick up Their Eyes Were Watching God from the library for book club and the library’s new temporary-during-renovation location is in a storefront near Sligo Creek, so we made that part of the outing. There’s a Starbucks on the way, too, so we’d been out of the house for about an hour before we entered the creek, carefully stepping around the poison ivy on the shore. The heat hadn’t set in yet—it was only in the mid-eighties that day—so it was pleasant to amble around doing errands and then spend another hour wading in the creek.

North led us to a deep pool and then to a fallen log where the kids tried to limbo. Noah found a dead moth, still perched on a ragged leather jacket caught on a branch. We crossed underneath two bridges, a footbridge (pictured) and the tunnel-like space under the New Hampshire Avenue bridge, where the rafters are filled with more branches, presumably from the last time the water was that high.

We came home in the late afternoon, washed our feet and legs with poison ivy scrub, just in case, and Noah and I made manicotti with homemade tomato sauce for dinner, then finished Kiki’s Delivery Service, which we’d started the night before. It was a very nice day.

Sunday: Patapsco River/Chesapeake Bay

Sunday afternoon, we drove to Fort Smallwood Park in Anne Arundel County at the confluence of the Patapsco River and the Chesapeake Bay. We’ve been there a couple times before. The draw is that drones are allowed and there’s swimming, so there’s something for everyone in the family. In the car Noah realized he’d forgotten his bathing suit and he didn’t want to swim in his clothes, despite our encouragement to do just that. Instead, he waded up to his knees, flew his drone, and lay on a towel on the sand and read a Game of Thrones book.

Beth, North, and I went deeper into the water. It was slightly salty, with little swells from power boats, and a pleasant temperature. We stood in the water and talked. I floated on my back a while. That might have been when my phone, which I’d accidentally left in my swim bottom pocket fell to its final resting place at the bottom of the river. I didn’t realize what had happened until I got back to my towel and started looking for it. Then I remembered I’d had it with me right before I went in the water. I was intending to take a picture of Beth and North, but they were too far out to get a good one, so I went to take it back to my bag and to stash my wedding ring somewhere safe, too. (It’s a little loose so I don’t like to wear it in bodies of water.) Apparently, I only put the ring away and not the phone.

I thought about going back into the water and looking for it, but the water was too murky, the area we’d covered was too large, and it just seemed impossible, so I didn’t even try. Everyone was reading, so I tried to force myself to concentrate on the afterword to Robinson Crusoe, which I’d finally finished a couple days earlier, but it was hard because my mind kept wandering from Crusoe’s watery misfortune to mine.

When we were about to leave and I was on my way to the restrooms I looked carefully at the clearer shallow water along the shore, just in case the phone had washed ashore, but it hadn’t. Before we got in the car, I asked North to try to track it with their phone one last time, but their phone couldn’t reach mine, so we drove away, leaving it behind.

We stopped twice on the way home and I consoled myself with a child-sized frozen custard at Rita’s and then an hour later, a Pineapple Paradise drink at Starbucks (while Beth dropped off bags of clothes at Value Village). What the hell, I thought, my glucose monitor wouldn’t be tracking my blood sugar for a while anyway. (I take the readings with my phone.)

Monday: Long Branch Pool

Beth got me a new phone at the AT&T store the next morning after spending a long time on the phone with AT&T the night before. She is very good to me.

She and I went to Long Branch pool that afternoon, the last day it was open for the season. North and I went a few times at the beginning of the summer, but I don’t think we went at all in July or August. Noah isn’t much for swimming pools and he declined to come, as did North, who was originally planning to come but decided it was too hot to leave the house a second time that day. (They went for a walk with me that morning and we got iced lattes at Takoma Beverage Company.)

I thought the water might be too warm for swimming laps, but it was actually a perfect temperature. I guess that was because it hadn’t been hot for very long—and the week before had been unseasonably mild. I did twenty-five laps in the crowded and somewhat chaotic lap lane and then I went down the slide for good measure, since I won’t be able to do it again until next year. Beth soaked in the main part of the pool and then retreated to a chair to read a magazine. I would have liked to read there for a bit, too, but I needed to get back to the house to make dinner, so I hit the showers and we left.

Despite the heat, we had a picnic dinner—vegetarian hot dogs, baked beans, devilled eggs, corn on the cob, watermelon, and vanilla ice cream with peach-sour cherry sauce. (I’d recently found the sour cherries leftover from earlier in the summer at the bottom of the chest freezer.) Noah hosed and scrubbed the dirt off the patio table, and North shucked the corn and made the sauce. We usually have a backyard picnic with some variation of this meal on Memorial Day, Fourth of July, and Labor Day, but it was the first of the long summer weekends we were all together, as Noah left for California before Memorial Day, and the four of us we were scattered over three states on the Fourth. It was nice to have one last (well, also first) summer picnic dinner together.

After Labor Day

In addition to all the profound contributions of the labor movement to our lives, Labor Day also makes us think that fall is around the corner. Despite this, it was hot the week afterward, our hottest weather of the summer actually, with a high close to 100 degrees at least one day. But today it started to feel more bearable after a rain. (Out for a walk afterward, I actually saw steam rising from the street.)

Tomorrow the high temperature is only supposed to be in the low eighties and the weather chart has some enticing numbers that start with seven after that. The cooler weather will come just in time for the Takoma Folk Festival tomorrow and the pie contest the weekend after that, both classic September events for us. We’re looking forward to hearing some live music and North is currently deciding what kind of pie to bake.

As for October, we are already making plans for a trip to an amusement park (probably Cedar Point) over Columbus Day/Día de la Raza/Indigenous People’s Day weekend and a quick visit from my sister the following weekend. She had a wedding to attend in Virginia and is swinging by for a day. Among other activities, we’re thinking of taking her to the farm stand where we always get our pumpkins. Summer weekends are (almost) over, but we’re gearing up for fall ones.

We Went to the Animal Fair: Coronavirus Chronicles, Part 80

Posted on August 18, 2023 by Steph

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We went to the animal fair
The birds and the beasts were there

From “Animal Fair,” traditional 19^th-century folk song

Noah flew home the first Saturday in August, after a busy week in Davis with my mom and my sister’s family. After they saw Barbie and went to a trivia night and swimming in a river, they went to Oppenheimer and a play, visited a botanical garden, went out for crepes, and cooked together. Noah and my brother-in-law Dave, who both like puzzles, put together a thousand-piece one. Everyone watched his senior project movie. Both mom and Sara said it was fun to have him there.

First Week Home: Television, Chores, Food, Movies

In the almost two weeks that he’s been home, we haven’t kept him quite as busy, as Beth and I are both working and North left for camp five days ago. Even so, he and I have been reading We Are Satellites, and in combination with different family members, he’s been watching Blackish, Buffy the Vampire Slayer, Shadow and Bone, What We Do in the Shadows, and Only Murders in the Building. It’s been fun getting back to series that we’d stopped watching while he was gone. In addition to these shows, I often find him in the living room watching Scandinavian game shows of all things. It’s a new interest.

He’s been helping out around the house and yard, too, cleaning in the bathroom and kitchen, vacuuming, folding laundry, sweeping the porch, and mowing the lawn. It’s nice to have an extra hand with the chores—it’s allowed me to tackle some long-neglected weeding that always seems to be too low on my priority list to start.

On his first full day at home, I made a peach-blackberry cobbler with berries we’d picked at Butler’s Orchard in July and frozen, so even though he didn’t get to go on that expedition with us, he got to enjoy the harvest. Later that week I cooked some of his favorites—breaded tofu sticks with blackberry applesauce, a minestrone-like soup, and ravioli with pesto and broccoli. (Our basil is doing so well this year I’ve made two batches of pesto since he’s been home and there’s plenty left.)

On Thursday we went through our family movie night nomination-and-veto process, which netted us eight movies to watch on Friday nights for the next couple months or however long Noah’s home. But sadly, we couldn’t start any of them because North had a migraine the next night, so we watched one North had vetoed that the rest of us wanted to see—Nimona. The irony was that we all thought North would have liked it.

Second Weekend Home: Fair, Camp, Party

The big thing we did after Noah got home and before North left for camp was to go to the Montgomery County Agricultural Fair on Saturday afternoon. We used to go every year, but we haven’t been since 2019, first because of covid and then because of schedule conflicts, often with North’s camp.

But the fair is the same as always, full of memories, both of when the kids were small, and when Beth and I were impossibly young, newly in love, and went to the Lorain County Fair in Ohio, right before I left for a semester in Spain during my junior year of college.

We were all happy to be back at the fair, but it took some strategic planning. North had a therapy appointment in the morning and wanted to save their good migraine meds for camp, so we decided to go in the early afternoon to avoid the late afternoon headache danger zone. It meant we probably wouldn’t get to ride the Ferris wheel after dark, which we all, but especially Beth, like to do.

We arrived a little before 2:30 and headed for the rides first. We’d narrowed down everyone’s most important fair goals and were trying to figure out the quickest route that included all of them without much backtracking in case it was a migraine-abbreviated visit. All four of us rode the swings. I was surprised Beth tried them because she usually doesn’t, and she declared them “mildly unpleasant” after she got off. I think she just wanted to make sure she still doesn’t like them. That’s often a good thing to do, for informational purposes. Next, we all rode the Ferris wheel, and the kids and I rode the Mouse Trap, a tiny roller coaster-cum-haunted house.

Having finished with the high priority rides, we went to the rabbit barn, which North loves best of all the animal displays. As we entered, they asked, casually, “Can I have a rabbit?” because many of the bunnies on display are also for sale and we do not currently have a pet.

“No,” I said.

“I had to ask,” they said. Fair enough, I thought.

We admired all the varieties of rabbits, including very large ones and very fluffy ones and some that had coloring like calico cats. We skipped the rest of the animals and visited the Cheese pavilion where I got some cheese curds and the Chilly Mall, where we enjoyed the air-conditioning, North got some bee and honeycomb earrings, and everyone got some old-fashioned candies (sesame-honey bites and cream-filled caramels for me) to take home and then the ice cream parlor where we all got ice cream. I got peach, as I often do at the fair. It seems right to get a fruit flavor, as “agricultural” is right there in the fair’s name and peach seems like the most summery flavor possible.

By this point, everyone had done what they most wanted to do, so we went back to the rides for North’s second tier ride, Genesis. While we watched the row of seats rise and fall, Beth took my hand. She said the fair reminded her of being young and I said that night at the Lorain County Fair in 1987 I’d been tempted to cancel my semester abroad and stay with her. “But you didn’t,” she said.

“No, but I came back, and we got married and had kids and now we all come to the fair,” I said, “so it worked out.”

We had an early dinner of pupusas and watermelon (Beth), lo mein and a fruit cup with chocolate sauce (North) and spinach-tomato-humus crepes (me and Noah). Noah also got some churros and candied almonds. After dinner, we decided to go back and see some more animals. Some of the barns were already empty for the day, but we visited some cows and then we went to the barn that has goats, alpacas, and llamas. By that point, it was six-thirty and North hadn’t gotten a headache, but we were all ready to go home and the sun wouldn’t go down for more than an hour and a half, so we gave up on riding the Ferris wheel again after dark. There’s always next year.

On Sunday morning, Beth drove North to camp in south-central Pennsylvania. I stayed behind to attend a potluck for a family from North’s preschool who was visiting from abroad. Onika and Jeff’s daughter Merichel was in North’s preschool class for two years and the kids stayed friends into elementary school. Then about seven years ago Merichel’s family moved to Switzerland. We haven’t been in close touch, but we met a couple times when they were in the States. We found out in March that Onika has stage IV pancreatic cancer, and we’ve been in somewhat closer touch, mainly through her Caring Bridge account where people leave messages and encouragement.

Another preschool family was organizing a gathering so people could see Onika, Jeff, and their two oldest kids. It was attended mostly by preschool folks, families from Merichel’s class or her brother’s, and the teacher, but I also got the chance to meet Onika’s sister. It was nice to see people I don’t often see these days but who were important to me when North was little and really nice to get to talk a little with Onika. She was just the same as ever, warm, and quite direct about her illness. It was not a sad gathering at all while I was there, just the opposite, but I did feel sad when I left.

Second Week Home

Other than North’s absence, the next week was much like the last one. We watched Buffy most nights and passed the midpoint of season 6 (that’s the darkest one if you watched back in the aughts and remember). On Wednesday night we played Settlers of Catan with the Seafarers extension kit Noah got for Christmas. Beth won, as usual, but also as usual it was pretty close. She always seems to be able to pull out the win in the end, even though Noah was in the lead in the beginning. (I almost always come in last.) Also on Wednesday, I made a spinach-alfredo sauce to put on vegetarian chicken cutlets and fettucine. What Buffy, Catan, and spinach all have in common is that North’s not a fan.

On Sunday we’re all driving up to camp to fetch North and hear their stories about what they’ve been up to this week—so far, I’ve seen pictures of them at the opening night campfire and at goat yoga. Often on the way to camp or back we’ve passed this attraction and thought we should go someday. As North will age out of camp after this year, we decided this was the year. I’m looking forward to that—and a few days at the beach the following week—but also just to the four of us being together again. It’s not our normal arrangement anymore, so that makes me value it even more.

But Wait, There’s More…

That was how the post was going to end when I finished writing it on Thursday night, but before Beth had a chance to post it (yes, she posts my blog), on Friday morning we found out that North had tested positive for covid and had to come home, missing the last two days of camp and a field trip to Hershey Park. Beth got in a couple hours of work before she had to leave to spend most of the day driving up to camp and back. So, no Turkey Hill for us, and some family togetherness sooner than planned. Fingers crossed North doesn’t get very sick (so far, they just have a sore throat and some sniffles) and that we don’t all come down with it. I’m half-expecting we will, though so if anyone is unscathed, it will be a pleasant surprise.

Rock Around the Clock, Part 4

Posted on August 1, 2023 by Steph

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Beth and I went to see Willie Nelson on Friday night, as an anniversary gift to each other. It’s actually called the Outlaw Music Festival, because there are several opening acts (different ones at each stop on the tour) and one of them went on as long as Nelson’s set. Beth and I had thought perhaps the concert started at 5:30 because Willie Nelson is ninety years old and wants to get to bed at a decent hour, but it was almost ten before he even went on, so apparently, we like to go to bed earlier than ninety-year-old musicians.

Even though it kept us up late, the concert was a lot of fun. I was familiar with two of the opening acts (Kathleen Edwards and Nathaniel Rateliff) but only a little, so I was interested to hear more of their music. We were on the lawn for the first two acts. It was a hot day—the car thermometer read 100 degrees as we drove out to Columbia to Merriweather Post Pavilion—and we couldn’t get a spot in the shade, but it quickly clouded over and cooled, and it wasn’t too uncomfortable as we sat in our chairs and ate the pizza that we’d bought at the concession stand.

We were eyeing the sky nervously though because thunderstorms were predicted. Sure enough, just as the third act was starting, lightning lit up the sky and a hard rain started to fall, and to our surprise, the pavilion was opened to everyone with lawn tickets. I don’t know what they do when it storms on nights with sold-out shows, but it was nice to be able to sit somewhere dry, well, mostly dry. We were in the second to last row and the rain was blowing in diagonal sheets, so we got misted with it. Shortly before eight, the rain let up and the food stands re-opened and we got frozen custard (me) and an ice cream sandwich in the shape of the pavilion (Beth). She said it looked like a coffin and it did.

Finally, Nelson came on. His band was small. He was seated next to his late-in-life son Micah (who was also the first act) and he had three musicians behind him. Beth especially liked the harmonica player. Nelson looks good for a man of his age, and he sounds good, too. He sang many hits: “Whiskey River,” “Bloody Mary Morning,” “I Never Cared for You” “Mama, Don’t Let Your Babies Grow Up to Be Cowboys,” “Angel Flying Too Close to the Ground,” and of course, “On the Road Again.” The audience often sang along. It was very nostalgic for both me and Beth because both of our fathers were Willie Nelson fans, though unlike him, neither of them made it out of his sixties. I told Beth later that along with Sinead O’Connor’s death at fifty-six (our exact age!) that same week, it really made me think about how you never know how much time you have left. We could die tomorrow, or we could live into our nineties.

So, that thought brings me to the real focus on this post—the ordinary moments of day-to-day life, however long it lasts. Every five years I do a day-in-the-life post. Up to now it’s always been in early July, but this year we were traveling in early July, and we weren’t in our usual routine, so I shifted it to the last day of July instead. I always think these entries are impossibly boring when I’m writing them, but when I go back and read them five, ten, or fifteen years later, I’m struck by how much of what’s ordinary shifts slowly over time. Consider that when I wrote the first one, Potty Training was one of the categories and when I wrote the last one, College Search was one of them. (If I’d written about today instead of yesterday, I would have touched on that, as North’s filling out the Common App today. And having said that, I guess I’ll use that tag on this one, too.)

Anyway, here’s what happened yesterday:

6 a.m.

This is when Beth’s alarm usually goes off, but I didn’t hear it so she must have woken and gotten up earlier than this. She was headed to the office. Since convention, she’s been in the office more often, at least two days a week and sometimes as many as four. Anyway, I was asleep and so was North…

7 a.m.

…as we both were an hour later. This isn’t unusual for North, but it is for me. Staying up late on Friday night seemed to have shifted my sleep schedule. I slept late Saturday and Sunday and then once I got caught up on the sleep I’d lost, I started having trouble getting to sleep at bedtime, thus perpetuating the cycle.

8 a.m.

I was awake, but still in bed, scrolling through Facebook, thinking I should get up but instead watching things like a video my friend Joyce posted—a parody documentary about a nineteenth-century revolt by the Teletubbies against their British colonial overlords (it was as delightfully weird as it sounds)—or a medley video of songs popular in 1993. I have no good excuse for this behavior.

9 a.m.

Finally up, I was making breakfast of Greek yogurt, peanut butter, blackberries, and a sprinkling of granola. North got up soon after and I took advantage of the fact that I was getting a late start on laundry to strip their bed. Because they sleep late in the summer and I like to get laundry going early in the day, it had been longer than I want to say since I’d washed their sheets.

10 a.m.

I was still at the dining room table, reading blogs, possibly yours. North was there, too, eating watermelon and an egg, cheese, and vegetarian Canadian bacon sandwich on a bagel for breakfast.

11 a.m.

Having (partially) weeded the Black-Eyed Susan patch in the front yard and hung up laundry in the back yard, I was getting ready to leave for my morning walk, more than an hour later than usual. North was starting to make chocolate cheesecake with a chocolate sandwich cookie crust and a cookie dough topping.

Noon

Recently back from my walk, I was in the kitchen making a glass of iced coffee to take to the porch with the Style section of the newspaper, and Twilight: Los Angeles, 1992 for my daily half hour of reading. (Reading every day is close to a religious observance for me, as is the walk.) North was still working on their complicated dessert and complaining about the difficulty of getting lumps of flour out of the cookie dough. I sampled the chocolate cheesecake layer, which was very good.

1 p.m.

I’d just done a little sweeping, dusting, and straightening up in my bedroom and the hall outside it. North and I were both in the kitchen. They were putting the finishing touches on their desert, making room in the fridge for it to set, and then doing the dishes from this project, while I unloaded and reloaded the dishwasher with breakfast dishes and fixed myself some lunch (leftover gumbo Beth made the night before with some extra vegetarian sausage added).

2 p.m.

Finally tackling some paid work, I was finishing a 500-word blog post about milk thistle for liver health I’d started writing the previous week. It was more technical and slow-going than I originally thought it would be but fortified with another glass of iced coffee and the Eurythmics, I managed to pound out the rest of it and I was pleased with the final product. I was too in the zone to notice what North was doing.

3 p.m.

After getting up to get some steps, I was about to switch over a 1,000-word blog post for the same company, this one an overview of how the liver works. I chose Beck to begin the outlining and research phase of this project. North was in the basement riding the exercise bike.

4 p.m.

I was taking a break to take the laundry off the line so North could fold it and wondering in a mildly despairing way if I could really come up with 1,000 words about the liver. North was at the dining room table eating a snack of vegetarian sausage and drinking raspberry seltzer.

5 p.m.

I was still working on the liver blog post and listening to Counting Crows. North had finished folding the laundry and was lying on my bed among the piles of clothes, looking at their phone.

6 p.m.

I was standing on a stool peering into a high shelf in a kitchen cabinet and moving boxes of food around when North came out of their room, and I asked if they thought we had any nori. I was glad to see them because they were out of the headache danger zone. If they don’t have one by early evening, they aren’t getting one. I wanted the nori to add to the miso soup I was making for dinner. I’d intended it to be a simple meal of frozen dumplings and miso soup with grated carrots and tofu, but I kept thinking of things to add to the soup—scallions, dried mushrooms, strips of nori. Beth called it a “loaded miso soup” when I served it. For a semi-improvised meal, I thought it came out well.

7 p.m.

Beth had come home, and we were all sitting around the table, nearly finished with dinner, discussing our evening entertainment options. We settled on one episode of The Gilmore Girls (for all of us) and one episode of Ginny and Georgia (for me and North). When we do this, North calls it a G and G and G and G.

8 p.m.

We were all watching the Gilmore Girls, season 5, episode 12. My goal of finishing season 5 before North goes back to school in less than four weeks is looking kind of iffy, especially with Noah coming home soon, which will shift our television dynamic, but that’s okay. I knew it was a stretch. I had just checked my blood sugar and was disappointed that I’d gone high enough on the dumplings that dessert was out of the question, and I’d have to wait until the next day to try the cheesecake. (When I did the next afternoon, it was worth the wait.)

9 p.m.

North and I were close to the end of Ginny and Georgia, season 2, episode 7.

10 p.m.

I was freshly showered and in bed with Beth, but not yet asleep. We talked a little about her day at work and office politics before sleeping. I fell asleep more easily than the night before and slept until a more normal time the next morning, when I got up and greeted August, a month which will include Noah’s return to the East coast, a possible visit to the Montgomery County fair, a week at sleepaway camp for North, a few days at the beach, and the beginning of North’s senior year of high school.

Obviously, spending the day with a rising high school senior is different than spending the day with a toddler and a rising second grader, or two school-age kids, or a tween and a teen. I’m much less busy taking kids to day camp or hosting play dates than I was then. Summer days without Noah still seem odd. I feel his absence every day, more so than during the school year, but I’m also happy he had the opportunity to do the work he loves for two months in Los Angeles and San Diego and that he’s visiting with extended family in Davis now. (My sister reports they’ve been to a swimming hole and a trivia night, they went to see Barbie, and are having a game night at her house tonight.)

We’ve been through a lot in the last five years: the Trump presidency, a global pandemic (which is why Beth still works from home more often than not), the deaths of two cats, a diabetes diagnosis for me, and multiple health issues for North. Although North’s had migraines since they were four years old, until this year they didn’t force us to make two plans for every evening in our heads (one in which North is down for the count and one in which they aren’t). I fervently hope this pattern changes, because a migraine two nights out of every three is quite disruptive to their life.

But there are some constants: we still watch television together and garden and I still carve time out of the day to read, I dry laundry on the line at least once a week, and Beth and I talk in bed most nights before we drop off to sleep.

It’s entirely possible when I do this next, it will be a record of an empty nest summer day. Or maybe like their brother, North will land at home for a bit the summer after college. Either way, if I’m still blogging, you’ll find out.

July Harvest

Posted on July 23, 2023 by Steph

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Beth got home from her travels two days after North and I did. In her absence we did a small grocery run just to tide us over and got gelato one day and Starbucks the other. I watered the thirsty garden, which had not thrived in our absence, but had not died either. It has recovered somewhat. The herbs are all doing pretty well, particularly the basil; the cherry tomatoes are producing fruit, but slowly; the kale is fine; the lettuce was starting to bolt (so I harvested it all); the zinnias and sunflowers are healthy-looking but growing more slowly than the neighbors’; and the cucumbers are struggling. There’s only one of five that’s flowering and may produce cukes, but I give it about a 50/50 chance because it’s very small for late July.

I also mowed the front and side lawn, dealt with a maggot infestation in the compost bucket, and weeded along the fence on the sidewalk side. That’s what I was doing when Beth showed up in the front yard Friday afternoon, luggage in hand, and kissed me over the fence. It was good to see her. That night we ate homemade pizza all around the same table and played Love Letters.

Weekend 1

Saturday was Beth’s and my anniversary—the summer one. This one marked thirty-six years since our first date, back when we were impossibly young, two years younger than Noah is now and three years older than North. It was a low-key observation. We didn’t exchange presents, just cards, because we’re going to see Willie Nelson at Merriweather Post Pavilion on Friday as our presents to each other.

That morning we had an all-family check-in with North’s individual therapist and then dropped North off at Brookside Gardens, where they were meeting Sol and some of their friends for a walk in the botanical garden, followed by a late lunch at IHOP. Beth and I had a chance to catch up at home until it was time to pick them up. We all had dinner out at Cielo Rojo, followed by more gelato at Dolci Gelati. I had the mushroom and bean enchiladas, and half a scoop of red velvet with half of scoop of almond praline, all of which I recommend if you’re local.

On Sunday we went berry-picking at Butler’s Orchard. We got almost five pounds of blueberries and five pounds of blackberries. We quit a little short of filling the blueberry bucket because it was a muggy day, and we didn’t want North to overheat in the compression suit they were wearing under their clothes. The good news about the suit is that North says after wearing it for a few weeks, it has reduced their back pain.

Beth and I independently of each other sent Noah photos (she of the tractor that pulls the wagon of berry pickers to the field and me of the sign you see when you leave that wishes you “a berry good day”) and asked him to guess where we were. This is a game we play when we’re apart. Just as when we were there picking strawberries right after he left in late May, we were missing him. But unlike then, we know when we’ll see him next. His internship ends at the end of this week and then he’s spending a week with my mom and sister in Davis, and then he’s coming home to conduct his job search from here.

As always, in the berry fields we listened to parents instruct their children only to pick ripe berries and fondly remembered when we were the ones saying that to our little ones. My favorite iteration was “Remember to only pick the blue ones. That’s why they’re called blueberries.” North repeated back to me when we started to pick blackberries, “Remember to only pick the black ones,” they said. “That’s why they’re called blackberries.”

We visited the snack bar where North got a pretzel, and the farm market where we got pasta, cheeses, peaches, nectarines, a slushy, various baked goods, and caramels. At home I froze about half the berries and made a blueberry kuchen. The crust burned around the edges and on the bottom, which was surprising as I’ve been using the same recipe once a summer for more than twenty years. Nevertheless, it was a berry good day.

The Week In Between

Monday Beth and I were back at work. (I had not worked the previous Thursday or Friday because I was badly jet-lagged, Sara didn’t send any work, and I didn’t particularly want to work on any of the low-priority tasks I had on my list.) Beth, who usually works at home, had to go into the office four days out of five last week, so that was odd, not to have her around.

I wasn’t around either on Tuesday because I had jury duty. I took my laptop, three sections of the Post, and a book with me, but I hardly needed any of it because I was called to voir dire almost immediately. Whenever I have jury duty, I think it would be interesting to serve someday (I did get on a jury for a drug case once in the 90s and it was interesting) but not this time because it never seems to be a convenient time. When I learned this trial was for a child sex abuse case, my stomach dropped a little. It sounded like it would be wrenching.

During questioning, I didn’t deliberately try to get off the jury with my answers, but I wasn’t chosen. I don’t remember this from previous times I’ve had jury duty so maybe different judges do things differently, but this time you got to hear which attorney struck you. I was eliminated by the defense. By one o’clock I was free to go. I had lunch at a Chinese place and made the long journey home on the Metro, going almost from one end of the red line to the other, and arriving home after three-thirty.

I worked a little when I got home, but not much, as the day had been surprisingly tiring. Part of it might have been traveling in the heat. We had an unusually cool June and then we were gone for almost the first two weeks of July, so when we got back to typically hot, muggy D.C. area weather, there was no easing into it and the first week at home was kind of a shock.

Weekend 2

The next weekend we had two family outings. We saw Barbie on Saturday afternoon and went to Kenilworth Aquatic Gardens on Sunday morning. Beth and North went to Silver Spring ahead of me, North to go to therapy and Beth to go to the Silver Spring farmers’ market. The two of them had lunch at Cava, and I was supposed to meet them in the theater lobby. But I missed my bus running back into the house for my headphones and then I took a less familiar bus route and went too far, so I got there almost fifteen minutes late. They’d gone into the theater, where I met them, but the previews were far from over, so it didn’t matter.

I had read quite mixed reviews of the movie ahead of time, but I really enjoyed it. Beth has been very stressed at work and we have both been feeling a little heavy-hearted for reasons I’m not going to get into, and Oppenheimer seemed out of the question, though we did consider it, as well as Elemental and Joy Ride. Something kind of light-hearted and fun but not without substance turned out to be just right.

Sunday morning, we went to see the lotuses and water lilies at Kenilworth Aquatic Gardens. The lilies are in bloom from late spring to early fall, but the lotuses have a much shorter bloom period. Each individual flower lasts five days before it falls off leaving a seed pod behind—they look just like those weird pods from Teletubbies—and there’s only two or three weeks a year you can see them blooming. The lily and lotus festival had just ended the day before, but there were plenty of flowers left.

We haven’t been to see the lotus flowers for thirteen years and I almost didn’t suggest it for the same reason I often don’t when I think to go—it’s hot and the bloom period often coincides with blueberry season and if we only have the stamina for one outdoor activity, the one in which you bring home many pounds of berries seems preferable. But I did suggest it and I’m glad we went because it’s lovely. We also saw some tiny turtles in the water and two Great White Herons in the water and a tree, plus a red-winged blackbird, and we heard some frogs croaking, and apparently from what the people ahead of us said, just missed seeing a muskrat.

We’ve been home now almost as long as we were gone. Our harvest includes:

Cherry tomatoes, lettuce, kale, basil, chives, and mint from the garden
Thirty-six years of togetherness
Tickets to see Willie Nelson
Two buckets of berries
Partial pain relief for North
An almost completed internship
The opportunity to serve the people of Montgomery County just by showing up if not serving on a jury—that’s what they tell you anyway when you’re excused

We did not harvest:

The experience of serving on this particular jury
Any water lilies or lotuses because that would be wrong

What have you reaped this July?

All For The Love Of You

A Chronicle of Suburban Lesbian Family Life

Category Archives: Excursions

Spring Fever: Coronavirus Chronicles, Part 83

Petals and Parties

Merry and Bright

Magic, Wonder, Joy

October Harvest

September Pivot

Watery Weekend

We Went to the Animal Fair: Coronavirus Chronicles, Part 80

Rock Around the Clock, Part 4

July Harvest