Families, Folk, and Flowers

Posted on August 3, 2025 by Steph

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

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

Families First

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

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

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

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

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

(Near) Future Plans

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

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

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

Folk Rock

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

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

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

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

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

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

(Where Have All the) Flowers Gone?

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

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

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

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

*We finished season 6 of Gilmore Girls tonight.

Red, White, and Blue

Posted on July 11, 2025 by Steph

[Show as slideshow]

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

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

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

White: Long Weekend and Beyond, Fence

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Blue: Saturday, Berry Picking

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

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

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

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

Red: Sunday, Urgent Care

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

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

Afterward

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

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

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

Proud

Posted on June 8, 2025 by Steph

[Show as slideshow]

Takoma Pride

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Between Prides

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

DC World Pride

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

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

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

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

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

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

Strawberry Fields Forever

Posted on June 1, 2025 by Steph

[Show as slideshow]

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

The World You Want to Live in

Posted on May 20, 2025 by Steph

[Show as slideshow]

Wednesday

The day after we got back from Oberlin, we had my birthday cake (lemon with strawberry-cream cheese frosting, made by Beth, delicious as always) and Beth and I opened more birthday and Mother’s Day presents, those from Noah and gifts that had arrived in the mail while we were gone. Counting what we opened in Oberlin, Beth got a big pile of dark chocolate, and I got four books, three jars of nut butter, and tickets to see a Bernice Johnson Reagon tribute concert. It was nice to stretch the celebration out a little.

Thursday

The next day Beth and I went to the Supreme Court because they were hearing a case about birthright citizenship. North had to go into the city at the same time because they had an interview for a summer job, canvassing for the Fund for the Public Interest. If they get the job, they’ll be working for most of the summer in the Virginia suburbs on a campaign to get people to support legislation to reduce plastic pellet water pollution.

It was a warm, sunny day and there was a moderate-sized crowd in front of the court, with only one counter protester from a sketchy organization called the European Legal Defense and Education Fund. I hadn’t brought a sign, but I picked up one that said, “American Born Children Are American Children.” I thought that went right to the point. Others I liked said, “Made by Immigrants” (held by a young Asian American woman); “Born Here? Belong Here!”; and “‘All Persons’ Means All Persons.” I mean, really, the Fourteenth Amendment is crystal clear on this point. I can’t believe we even have to protest about this one, but that’s where we are.

The sound system, as is so often the case, was terrible, so I have nothing to report about the speeches. Even Representative Jamie Raskin, who can almost always make himself heard, was only intermittently audible. Former Speaker Nancy Pelosi was there, too. In fact, she walked within a few feet of me on her way to the stage. I wished I could have heard her. She is not as often at these events, so I don’t know her talking points as well as some other members of Congress. She got heckled by a young woman in camouflage and a beret for not having done enough when she was Speaker. I get annoyed at woker-than-thou people sometimes, when it would be more helpful to stick together and support people who show up, even those who are more moderate than you’d like. Not that I think this kind of thing probably bothers Pelosi much.

North was thinking of joining us for the end of the rally after their interview, but it was already wrapping up when they finished, so we met at Union Station instead and had lunch. They said they have a second interview on Monday and that they were given to understand most people who get a second interview get a job offer. Still, we are not counting unhatched chickens.

Friday

Late Friday afternoon, Beth and I drove out to a pizzeria in Bethesda, where we got an eggplant parmesan small plate and pizza with arugula and cherry tomatoes. I also had half a slice of tiramisu. It was a pre-concert dinner date. We were going to the Strathmore Music Center and since we got there early, we took a stroll in the sculpture garden and by a couple ponds with fountains and noisy frogs.

We were there to see a tribute concert to Bernice Johnson Reagon, civil rights icon and founding member of Sweet Honey in the Rock, organized by her daughter the singer Toshi Reagon. On entering we were given tote bags emblazoned with a quote from Reagon, “When you begin to imagine and act as if you are living in the world you want to live in you will have company.”

Family members, scholars, and singers sang and spoke about Reagon’s life and work. There were sing-alongs for some of Reagon’s more famous songs (with very precise and pointedly humorous instructions from Toshi about when the audience was to sing and not sing). She also spoke about different political issues between songs, especially environmental ones.

The two surviving members of the original SNCC Freedom Singers sang and though they looked somewhat frail in body, their voices are still strong. Hearing them felt like a brush with history.

Saturday

Saturday morning, Beth, North, and I headed to the mall to see a display of art by trans people on blue, pink, and white panels arranged into the stripes of the trans flag with panels in the middle spelling out “Freedom to Be.” You can see an overhead photo in the link above. The project was sponsored by the ACLU and inspired by the AIDS quilt. The panels were from all over the country, with a surprising number from Idaho and West Virginia. There was supposed to be a rally at noon, but by 12:25 it hadn’t started, and we had decided to leave when there was an announcement that it wouldn’t start for fifteen to twenty minutes.

We decided we’d already seen the most unique facet of the event already and we’d rather have lunch than go to another rally, so we headed for a vegan fast-food place nearby. I got a cheesesteak, and it was quite convincing, though you should bear in mind I haven’t had a real one since the late 80s.

Sunday

We stayed close to home. I was coming down with a cold and spent a lot of the day in bed, reading my book club book and writing much of this post and the previous one. North made almond butter chocolate chip cookies and Beth put a lot of plants in the ground in the garden and built a mesh structure with a gate to enclose them.

Monday

North’s second interview consisted of shadowing a canvasser and then giving the spiel a try themselves. They got people to give money at two houses. They will do this for three more days (Wednesday through Friday)—and be paid for those days—before they find out if they have the job. But they also have an interview at a day camp on Friday morning, so they are keeping their options open.

Today

Meanwhile Noah volunteered to do some extra chores today (scrubbing fans in addition to mowing the lawn) so he could be excused later in the week. He is supposed to have some work from Mike soon, which is good because he hasn’t been working much recently. His last gig was a day of sorting through archival footage for a documentary about a labor union last week. I hope both kids are gainfully employed this summer, with bonus points for the work being enjoyable and/or meaningful. Honestly, I’d be happy with two out of three for each of them.

But beyond the short term, this is the kind of world I want to live in—one full of celebration, one in which newcomers are welcome and valued for their contributions to our country, one in which the heroes of the past are honored and we don’t have to re-litigate all the battles they fought, and one in which people are free to be themselves. Let’s try to imagine it.

May Days

Posted on May 5, 2025 by Steph

[Show as slideshow]

May Day

Often on May Day I will go to downtown Takoma Park in the morning, get a coffee and a pastry and watch the Morris Dancers usher in the second half of spring. During the first spring of the pandemic, back when North was more actively Wiccan, we built a Maypole and promenaded around it. This year instead of celebrating the pagan aspects of the holiday, we embraced the more political side of May Day and attended not one, but two protests.

The first rally was in support of immigrants. I met Beth at her office, and we took the Metro to Franklin Square where the rally started. It was supposed to go from 11:30 to 3:00, but Beth needed to work before and after, so we showed up at Franklin Square at noon. The sound system (which had been working early on, we learned from one of Beth’s colleagues), had given out and speakers were trying, with limited success, to make themselves heard with bullhorns and microphones.

But it was a warm, sunny day and there were a lot of people Beth knew from work, and interesting people-watching, as there often is at these events. I especially liked a cardboard cutout of Trump labeled “Liar” with flames that emerged from and retracted back into his pants. It was operated with a lever, I think.

I noticed a lot of images of butterflies, abstract purple ones on little hand-held signs and big fabric monarch butterflies that people were carrying. You can see one in the middle ground of the first photo—between me and the White House. I asked one person with a little sign what it meant, and she said she didn’t know, someone had given it to her. Beth guessed that it was probably a symbol for migrants because some species of butterflies migrate and it turned out she was right. (I married a smart cookie.)

Around twelve-thirty, we began a long, round-about march to Lafayette Square in front of the White House. It took an hour and a half to get there, and we walked through our old neighborhood, where we lived from 1991 to 2002, a time span that included the first year of Noah’s life. When we passed within a half-block of our apartment building, we peeled off the march to pay homage to it. Beth noted that in the twenty-three years since we lived there, the gingko trees that line the block have grown taller. It wasn’t the only change—the commercial blocks of 14^th Street have an almost completely different set of businesses than when we lived there. Beth suspected we were walking down 14^th Street so we could chant “What’s disgusting? Union busting” at a restaurant that’s been trying to stops its employees from unionizing.

Once we turned onto R St, the gracious townhouses and old apartment buildings looked more familiar. On 16^th Street we passed NEA and AFL-CIO headquarters, where staff stood outside their buildings with signs. We cheered them, they cheered us, and then they joined the march. (There was support from passers-by along the route, too.)

We didn’t stay long at Lafayette Square once we got there because Beth needed to squeeze in a couple hours of work before the next rally. I had brought my laptop, thinking I might work, too, but I forgot the notes I needed at home, so I ate the lunch I’d packed, read a few sections of the Post I’d brought with me, and started writing this.

By four-twenty, Noah had arrived at the office to accompany us to a labor rally. Beth was in a meeting, but we left as soon as she was ready. We proceeded to Freedom Plaza. As we approached, I noted that there was an ice cream truck and that I had already walked 18,000 steps that day (by bedtime, I was up to 21,000 steps) and according to my monitor, my blood sugar was getting low and falling quickly. “Do you need ice cream?” Beth asked. I said I did, and I got some for myself and Noah, too. Beth had been so busy at her office she had only just eaten lunch, so she abstained.

The sound system was better at this rally so we could hear speakers from various unions and workers who were organizing. We heard from a kindergarten teacher, a bartender, a flight attendant, and others. There most notable Trump cutout at this rally portrayed him as a vampire, with blood running down his face. We left around six, though the event was supposed to continue until eight. We were footsore and my legs had chafed from all the walking, and I needed to get dinner started.

Birthday

Two days later, Noah turned twenty-four. We got the party started a day early by going out for our traditional Friday night pizza at his choice of restaurant—Roscoe’s, followed by gelato, and then we came home and watched La chimera. I’d asked Noah if he wanted to draw a movie from the pile of index cards on which we’ve written the names films we’ve agreed to watch (this would be the normal procedure) or if he’d like to watch the one that he’d contributed. He opted to leave it to chance. Beth said later, “I could have predicted that,” and pleasingly, it turned out he picked his own movie.

Saturday morning Beth made the cake, chocolate with fresh strawberry buttercream, and Noah watched car racing. In the afternoon, Beth and I both painted the fence—this project is ongoing—but we excused him from fence duty since it was his birthday. We took a break in the mid-afternoon to eat the cake and for him to open his presents. He got an upgraded membership to a podcast he likes, a t-shirt from a show he likes, and three books (two from the Discworld series and one from the Murderbot series) with more presents still to arrive. Over the course of the day, he talked and texted with both grandmothers and North.

That evening we set out for the city, to have dinner at a Chinese-Japanese-Peruvian fusion restaurant Noah chose and to the D.C. Film Festival to watch an Icelandic film. (Noah had been to the festival earlier in the week to see a movie, in his words about “a Turkish phone sex operator who has to coordinate a disaster response.”)

At dinner we got several dishes to share—yucca fries, cilantro dumplings filled with squash, Brussels sprouts in a chili glaze, cauliflower, a deep-fried egg (crunchy on the outside and soft inside), and fried rice decorated with watermelon rind cut into the shapes of little airplanes. The dish is called “Aeroporto” (Airport). For dessert, Noah and I tried the national dessert of Peru—a custard made of sweetened condensed milk with passionfruit shaved ice and meringue sticks on top. Everything was very good. If you’re local, it’s worth a visit. Our only complaint was that the fried rice dish was supposed to come with egg noodles and none were in evidence.

The movie was about a middle-aged trans woman, the main cook at a seafood restaurant in a fishing village, and how her relationship with her best friend, the owner of the restaurant, changes when she comes out. The friend is also coming to grips with his own struggling marriage and his relationship with his gay teenage son and the restaurant is undergoing significant changes, too. It was well done, and I recommend it if it’s streaming any time soon.

Beth and I are early-to-bed types, so the movie kept us up past our bedtime, but it was a fun evening and worth it to celebrate the birth of our eldest. And with my birthday and Mother’s Day in less than a week, more celebration is on the horizon.

Rise Again

Posted on April 23, 2025 by Steph

[Show as slideshow]

Rise again, rise again!
Though your heart it be broken, and life about to end
No matter what you’ve lost, be it a home, a love, a friend
Like the Mary Ellen Carter, rise again!

From “The Mary Ellen Carter,” by Stan Rogers

I first heard of the song “The Mary Ellen Carter” when a friend posted it on Facebook on Easter about a year into the pandemic. It’s not literally about Easter, but about a shipwreck, and more broadly, resilience and not giving up on valuable things when others have. Because of when John posted it, I often think of it at Easter now. Though I haven’t lost life, home, love, or friends, some people already have, so the song’s message is certainly needed now.

Here are a few things we are not giving up on:

Wednesday: Justice

A week ago today, Beth, Noah, and I went to protest for Kilmar Abrego Garcia in front of the Civic Center in Silver Spring. Seeing the plaza fill up with people reminded me of this protest, almost five years ago. There was a group of people in pink, fluorescent vests that read “Rapid Response Choir” on the back, which made Beth laugh and say, “Everyone has to have their thing.” The choir was practicing “We Shall Not Be Moved,” and accompanying themselves with bongo drums and a tambourine.

We had responded rapidly as well, only hearing of the protest that morning. Beth made a sign that said, “Stop the Abductions Now” on one side and “Bring Them Home” on the other. Mine said, “No Concentration Camps” on one side and was blank on the other because I forgot to do both sides. We were there early, so we paced back and forth across the plaza to get some steps.

When the program of speakers began in the area where there’s a skating rink in the winter, people moved in closer to hear. It was mostly state and local elected officials and people from non-profits. Being packed in, I could see a lot of signs. Of course, there were signs that went right to the point, saying things like “Bring Kilmar Home,” “Detention without Due Process is Kidnapping.”

There was someone holding a sign that quoted the Emma Lazarus poem from the Statue of Liberty “Give me your tired, your poor…The wretched refuse of your teeming shore.” There were a lot of signs that said things like “Due Process,” “Rule of Law,” or “No Kings.” These are the things we want these days—it’s that basic.

Signs thanking Senator Van Hollen were among the most common because the day of the protest was the day our senator was flying to El Salvador to visit Abrego Garcia. Most of the speakers cited his visit and people clapped enthusiastically each time. It’s interesting that Van Hollen was the one to step up because he’s the more moderate of our senators. He’s on the Foreign Relations Committee, though, so maybe that’s why. Or maybe this was just his moment to rise to the occasion.

Toward the end of protest, I dropped my phone on the hard cement that’s under the ice rink part of the year. The screen didn’t just crack, a small piece of it fell out and you could glimpse the inside of the phone through the hole. Surprisingly, it didn’t immediately stop working, but fairly soon it had stopped responding to touch, even though I could still see messages flashing across the screen.

To make a long story short, it took three days to get it fixed and for someone who didn’t even get a smartphone until 2015, I had an embarrassingly hard time living without one for that long. I missed my podcasts the most. It was difficult to motivate myself to take walks or do outside chores without them. I also felt as if I was wasting the glucose monitor on my arm (which is read with my phone). They only last two weeks and my insurance has decided to stop covering them and I’m not sure yet what I’m going to do about that, so missing three days’ use of what could be one of the last ones was disheartening.

Friday: Art

Beth had the day off for Good Friday. She worked on our fence in the morning. We’ve been scraping off the loose paint, sanding it, washing it, and rubbing it down with vinegar to halt the growth of mildew in preparation for re-painting it. We’ve been at this for a couple weeks. It’s a big project (and not one we chose—the city cited us for peeling paint).

That afternoon, at Noah’s suggestion, we visited the National Portrait Gallery and the Smithsonian American Art Museum. DOGE had already been to The National Gallery of Art, so it’s clear the Smithsonian and art in general are in the crosshairs. It seemed like a good idea to see uncensored art for free, while we still can.

We started in the Portrait Gallery and since I didn’t have my phone, I asked Beth to take pictures of Toni Morrison and Ruth Bader Ginsburg. Moving at different speeds, we kept drifting apart and reuniting so I didn’t remember to ask her to take any more, but I was particularly drawn to paintings and sculptures of writers—Sappho, Edgar Alan Poe, Walt Whitman, Louisa May Alcott, etc. Speaking of writers, we caught the James Baldwin exhibit which was days from the end of its run. Afterward, I wished I had lingered longer there, but I found the photos of Baldwin with Nina Simone particularly joyful.

We also went through an exhibit of portraits all the U.S. Presidents in order, including this one of Barack Obama. His was the most recent one. There are placeholder photographs of President Biden and Trump who have not had their portraits done yet. I saw a preschooler in a MAGA hat lingering with his parents near the Trump photo, which was upsetting, but I suppose we were lucky to see only one such hat in the roughly three hours we were there. But still, on an innocent child…

We left the museum and got pizza at Wiseguy and ice cream at Haägen-Dazs, went home, and watched the first two-thirds of The Last Showgirl, too tired to finish it.

Saturday: Rest

There were big protests all over the country on Saturday, and millions attended. There were at least three separate events in D.C. to choose from. Beth went to another march for Abrego Garcia, this one starting at the Washington Monument and proceeding to the White House. I thought about going, but I didn’t. I had not slept well the night before and I was feeling fatigued and generally burned out. I felt a little guilty about skipping the protest, but Maya reminded me that self-care is important, too.

Beth dropped me off at the mailing center where my phone was being fixed on her way to the Metro, and I picked it up. Within ten minutes of getting it back, I texted Beth to demonstrate that it was indeed fixed, checked my blood sugar, and restarted a podcast that had been in progress when the phone broke three days earlier. I walked for almost an hour and when I got home, my mood was much improved, and I had a big appetite. I had a veggie burger, broccoli, carrot sticks, and a half dozen tater tots for lunch and I was surprised how good the food tasted.

Over the course of the day, I read six chapters of Charlotte Brontë’s Villette (for book club), Noah and I read from Norwegian Wood and watched an episode of The Handmaid’s Tale and later we made crispy gnocchi with roasted asparagus and leeks for dinner and then all three of us watched the end of The Last Showgirl. It was just the kind of day I needed.

Easter: Tradition

We don’t usually have big plans for Easter, but I’d sent North a care package—a box full of Easter candy, packed with Easter grass—and they’d received it the weekend before Easter. “It’s good to know the Easter Bunny delivers,” they said when we spoke to them that morning.

We had candy, here, too. I put Noah’s in a basket, but I didn’t hide it, just left it on the kitchen counter, and Noah commented the Bunny “didn’t do a very good job” hiding the goods.

Beth and I had been going back and forth about whether to dye eggs this year. I wondered if it was a strange thing to do with no minors in the house (though I announced I will carve pumpkins at Halloween for the rest of my life and then Beth said she was visualizing me carving a pumpkin on my death bed).

Anyway, I asked Noah if he was interested the day before Easter and he said yes, so Beth bought extra eggs when she did the grocery shopping on Sunday morning and after Noah watched a Formula One race and Beth and I washed part of the fence, we gathered to dye the eggs. We did two each. Beth’s are on either end of the line, including the red egg holding a protest sign. Mine are the red and purple one covered in stickers and the green and yellow one that says “Resist” in white crayon (the whole word isn’t visible in the photo). Noah made the blue smiling one and the pink and teal one with the white zigzag. It was fun. I was glad we did it.

Easter Monday: Memories

The next day, Beth and I were back at work and Noah worked on treating a stretch of the fence with a vinegar solution. I made egg salad out four of our Easter eggs and served it on toast with crudites for dinner. It seemed a shame to peel off their colorful shells just a day after dyeing them, but I was storing them in the fridge, so no one was seeing them anyway.

Earlier in the day I was walking through the living room, and I caught sight of another Easter egg, a pale green wooden one from the 2014 White House Easter Egg Roll, with Barack and Michelle Obama’s signatures printed on the back. And it occurred to me that this year’s Easter Egg Roll, sullied with corporate sponsors who seem to be trying to buy their way out of federal lawsuits, was underway right then. That was a depressing thought. But I took the wooden egg off the mantle and set it next to my computer to keep me company for a few hours while I worked. Every time I looked at it I remember taking my eight-year-old child to have an iconic Washington experience, in brighter days.

Earth Day: The Environment

I had hoped to plant some sunflower and zinnia seeds on Earth Day, but I didn’t get around to it. My only observations of the day were making a cream of spinach soup for dinner (because it was a vibrant green color) and writing a check to the Chesapeake Bay Foundation. I’d read about how federal cuts and a budget shortfall in Maryland will endanger the decades-long cleanup efforts that have been moving in the right direction but are not finished. This breaks my heart because I love the bay.

But I haven’t given up on the Earth, its large ecosystems or our tiny corner of it, so I will eventually plant those seeds. Keep planting yours, too.

Nine Days, Nineteen Years

Posted on March 30, 2025 by Steph

[Show as slideshow]

North was home for a little over a week for spring break. During that time, they turned nineteen, had a birthday party, saw a play, and toured the Tidal Basin while the cherry trees were blooming. If you’d like more than that highlight reel, read on.

Day 1: Saturday, Arrival

North got a ride home from school with Ember and Max, friends from their co-op. We and another set of parents met the car with the three Obies in the parking lot of the Shady Grove Metro. Or I should say one of the parking lots at the Shady Grove Metro because that station has a massive complex of lots on both sides of the tracks, and not knowing this, we drove to the wrong side of the tracks and had to cross over to the other side, which was a ten-minute drive and then we went to the wrong lot on that side. The college students had their own adventure getting to the right lot, but eventually we found each other and hugged North and chatted briefly with the other parents and set off for Cava, because it was mid-afternoon, and North hadn’t had lunch or much breakfast. (The young folks drove almost straight through with just one bathroom break.)

Back home, North was reunited with the cats and their brother, in that order. North and I hung out at the dining room table while I wrote postcards for Susan Crawford in Wisconsin because after the first one, it’s just copying, and I can do that and talk at the same time. Then North and Beth hung out in our bedroom while Noah and I made a white bean-tomato-cheese casserole for dinner. After dinner, we watched a couple episodes of Grownish. North went to bed early. They had a cold and they’d been up since 4:30 a.m., so they were wiped out.

Day 2: Sunday, Birthday Party

“Happy birthday, early bird,” I greeted North in the kitchen at 7:50 a.m. They protested that it wasn’t that early, but then reconsidered, saying maybe it was early for a nineteen year old.

Not quite two hours later, North and I walked to Starbucks, detouring briefly to see the only cherry tree in bloom around the corner from our house. This tree is at the end of the block and always blooms early. It was already slightly past peak while the other couple dozen trees had just a stray blossom here and there and dark pink, swelling buds. These trees tend to be in sync with the ones at the Tidal Basin and we were hoping for peak bloom before North left the following weekend, but based on their progress it looked iffy to me.

At Starbucks, we each got a birthday cake pop and North got their free birthday drink, an iced cherry chai. I’ve been wanting to try that but decided to wait for a warmer day. It was in the low forties that morning, so I got a warm matcha latte.

Back at home, Beth got home from a bigger than usual grocery shop (including treats for North such as fermented pickles, kalamata olives, dried mango, fresh strawberries, and Takis) and I put the groceries away. Once that was done, North opened their presents from us. Noah got them honey caramels and chocolate-covered toffees from Zingermann’s. Beth and I got them a $19 gift certificate for the closest coffee shop to our house and tickets to see In the Heights at Signature Theater in Arlington, Virginia. They talked to both grandmothers on the phone, both of whom were disappointed their birthday checks had not yet arrived. (The checks were here within a couple days.)

Beth frosted the cake she’d baked the day before. It was a chocolate cake with strawberry-cream cheese frosting, topped with freeze-dried strawberries. North and I watched an episode of Emily in Paris before North’s party guests arrived.

North had invited three high school friends (Maddie, Miles, and Grey—all of whom are currently seniors), a camp friend (Ruby), and a college friend (Cal), both of whom live nearby. It was a nice mix of people from different parts of their life. The guests started on the porch, came inside briefly to see (or meet) the cats and then moved out to the back yard where they stayed for most of the party. It had gotten somewhat warmer, but the temperatures never rose beyond the mid-fifties.

Miles and Maddie had to leave early. They didn’t get any pizza or cake, but they did take some almond butter chocolate chip cookies Cal had brought because that’s North’s favorite cookie. North also got sea dollar earrings and a necklace with sea-green glass beads from Grey.

Beth and I picked up a takeout feast from North’s favorite pizza place, Roscoe’s—two pizzas, a salad, two orders of devilled eggs, marinated olives, and an eggplant sandwich. It was twenty minutes late and the restaurant ended up comping us the whole meal. Beth and I ate inside the house, but when it came time for cake and ice cream, I joined the celebrants outside, as I wanted to get acquainted with Ruby and Cal, whom I’d never met. Cal seemed interested to learn I’d lived in Keep, too, and to talk about that.

Grey left around eight and the party moved inside for another forty-five minutes or so when the last guest left. When it was down to North and Cal, they were talking about co-op matters, specifically the price of eggs, because North is a food buyer and Cal is a head cook so it a concern for both of them. It was kind of funny though, to hear two teens talking about grocery prices like cash-strapped parents trying to make ends meet.

Days 3-5: Monday to Wednesday, The Middle Part

Monday was low-key. Beth and I worked (as we did every day from Monday to Friday), North and I watched another episode of Emily in Paris in the afternoon and we all watched a couple episodes of Grownish in the evening. I’d set a television goal of getting halfway through Emily in Paris season 4 and finishing Grownish, season 3 over the course of North’s break. Yeah, I know I said I was thinking of watching less tv, but I wasn’t going to start while North was home, and probably not week after next when the last season of Handmaid’s Tale starts. I set North to work mending one of Noah’s bottom sheets that had a rip in it because I was hoping it could be salvaged. We’ll see. I’ve had mixed luck mending sheets when I’ve done it myself. For dinner, I made a tater tot-topped vegetarian chicken, carrot, and pea casserole that’s a favorite of North’s.

Tuesday morning, North had a psychiatrist appointment, and I met them afterward for coffee at Lost Sock. North was eager to try their jasmine latte and enjoyed it. That evening they went out to dinner at Kin-Da with Anastasia and Ranvita, more high school friends who were unable to come to their party. It’s been kind of lucky for North that they had so many friends in the grade behind them (more than in their own grade) because everyone’s home during their break, at least this year. When they came home from dinner, we watched an episode of Emily in Paris.

Wednesday morning, I had to go to the library to return a book and North tagged along because there’s a Starbucks near there and there are many items on their spring menu they want to try. We took the long way, walking along the creek and enjoyed seeing all the flowers and flowering trees. Both kids did some yardwork in the early afternoon and then Maddie came over and North and Maddie went to Koma. I made tofu sticks and strawberry-applesauce for dinner, another favorite dinner of North’s.

Day 6: Thursday, In the Heights

Thursday North made brownies, their only baking project of break, possibly because we were finishing up the cake the first few days that they were home and we had Cal’s cookies, too. North also made dinner that night, black bean-mushroom quesadillas. That was helpful because I was trying to finish up a work project and we were eating dinner early so we could go to the theater.

We got four tickets to In the Heights, but because of a mix-up in the family calendar, Noah was misinformed about the date, and he bought tickets for a Senses concert on Thursday. He decided to go to the concert, and we had an extra play ticket on our hands, so North invited Rowen, another high school friend. Rowen has an afternoon internship at an elementary school in Bethesda, so we needed to drive from Takoma Park to Bethesda to Arlington, quite the suburban odyssey. We left the house more than two hours before showtime, just to be safe.

The young people were chatty in the car, trading stories about working with kids in school and camp settings. We arrived in plenty of time (allowing me to go back to the car for my phone but not enough time for me to go back a second time for my glasses). I was distracted because I thought I might have skipped my diabetes meds at dinner, and I had some I carry in my backpack, but I wasn’t sure if I’d really skipped it, so I kept going back and forth about whether to take a dose. I decided I was more afraid of a crash than a spike, so I didn’t. And it was the right decision. I’d taken the meds after all, I discovered when we got home.

The show was fun and well done. Did you see the movie? I think it was the first movie we saw in theaters in the immediate post-vaccination phase of covid, in the spring or summer of 2021. It has some joyous associations for me because of that, but there’s joy in the plot, too, which is a tale of immigrant struggles, hopes, and dreams. It seems relevant and honestly bittersweet to watch now, especially the part where everyone is dancing during a street carnival and waving the flags of their homelands.

The play was performed in the round, and we had balcony seats. Beth was worried the view would be party obstructed, but it wasn’t bad at all. We had to lean forward to see the actors when they were right in front of the bodega, but otherwise it was fine.

We were out late. For context, intermission took place at 9:20, when Beth and I are normally getting ready for bed, and it was after midnight by the time we’d dropped Rowen off in Gaithersburg and gotten home. These are the sacrifices we make for art.

Day 7: Friday, Cherry Blossoms

The next day was the day we’d decided to see the cherry blossoms and we picked just right. It was the first day of peak bloom, an overcast day with temperatures in the high sixties. We took the Metro to Smithsonian and walked from there. As we passed between the mall and some grand federal architecture, the Department of Agriculture, I think, North said, “I love D.C.”

I do, too, which makes it so hard to see so many of its important institutions being dismantled. We’d driven by the Kennedy Center on the way back from the play the night before, all lit up and now a melancholy sight, and just that day we’d learned the administration has its sights set on the Smithsonian. We really can’t have nice things any more.

The Tidal Basin was as crowded as you’d expect on a Friday afternoon during peak bloom. And as always, it was a diverse crowd, people of all ages and races and nationalities. There were people speaking many languages, people in Muslim and Mennonite garb, people in wheelchairs, an Asian or maybe Latino couple posing for wedding pictures, and three separate girls in enormous dresses doing quinceanera photo shoots. People of all sorts were pushing strollers, walking dogs, standing in line for food trucks and listening to music performed on the stage or played by buskers. Everyone was delighting in the puffy profusions of white and pink blossoms and strangers were cheerfully taking each other’s pictures. When I’m in a crowd like this I usually find the display of diversity inspiring, and I still do, but it’s also a little disheartening that so many people can’t see the beauty of it as easily as the beauty of the cherry trees.

And they are beautiful. They always are. We’ve gone almost every year since 1992 for a reason. Three of us got ice cream and North got a smoothie and we took pictures (Noah using a new camera lens that allows for extreme closeups), and we walked until North got tired and decided to wait for us at the MLK Memorial. The rest of us wanted to go as far as the FDR Memorial because we love it and because there are bathrooms there. Beth posed at MLK with a quote that spoke to her, and I did the same at FDR.

It started to drizzle toward the end of our tour and Noah was worried about getting his new lens wet, so he ducked under a food tent to swap it out. We swung back for North and caught a Lyft to Metro Center, where we caught a train home. The driver was listening to the news on the radio, which was mostly about the stock market tanking in expectation of tariffs to take effect next week. It is so hard to disconnect from the news sometimes. It’s just always there.

Days 8-9: Saturday to Sunday, Goodbyes

Saturday Beth went to another Tesla protest, this time in Silver Spring. I would have gone with her, but it was North’s last day at home, so instead I stayed home, and we watched Emily in Paris (reaching the goal of watching half a season) and then we went to Koma. They’d forgotten their gift card when they went with Maddie, but this time they remembered. North got an iced chai; I got peanut butter soft serve because the afternoon was warm, in the high seventies. On the way there we walked down the block right around the corner from our house, where all the cherry trees were in exuberant bloom, just like their Tidal Basin cousins.

North spent some time on their last full day home applying for summer jobs and internships, doing their taxes, and making a sign for Beth take to the trans rally they would miss by just one day. Noah and I made ravioli with rosemary-garlic sauce and broccoli for dinner, then we all watched two episodes of Grownish, successfully finishing season 3 (three more to go!). This season, which takes place in the 2019-2020 school year, was filmed entirely before the pandemic, so there’s an in-person graduation and one of the characters is headed off to compete in the Tokyo Olympics. That was jarring to say the least.

Sunday morning North packed up the chia seeds, matzoh, and more dried mango Beth bought them to take to school, they said their goodbyes to the cats and their brother, and then Beth drove us out to a park-and-ride parking lot near a bus stop in Frederick where Ember was waiting to take them back to Oberlin. We hugged them goodbye until May, when we’ll be back in Ohio to watch their theater class showcase and bring them home for the summer.

Beth and I had lunch in Frederick at a place called Hippy Chick Hummus, which is very much what you’d expect from the name. We got a hummus sampler plate and if you’re ever in Frederick, Maryland, I recommend the olive hummus—the lemon is pretty good, too. We took a stroll through Carroll Creek Park, following a brick path along a canal and admiring the collection of kinetic sculptures in the water. We got ice cream (coffee for Beth, maple walnut for me) and picked up a couple bottles of soda for Noah at a specialty soda shop (cherry and cherry-lime).

Then we drove home. It’s sad to say goodbye to our youngest, but it won’t be too long until they’re home, and I can’t help but think how when their brother came home for his first college spring break (in the 2019-2020 school year), well, you know what happened. He didn’t go back for seventeen and a half months. This is better. They’re where they should be.

First Steps

Posted on January 6, 2025 by Steph

[Show as slideshow]

North is back at school. While I was cooking dinner on New Year’s Eve and listening to Roseanne Cash sing “Everyone But Me,” the line “It goes by real fast” jumped out at me. I thought of the kids’ childhoods, of course, but more immediately, North’s three-week break.

The first two days we were home from the beach North was wiped out by a cold—they tested for covid, and it was negative—and they spent those days mostly in bed. By Monday they’d recovered enough to take a short walk with me to Koma and get a chai (them) and a latte (me). On Tuesday, they delivered a tin of homemade Christmas sweets to Maddie and Miles and spent most of the afternoon at the twins’ house. Then Noah and North stayed up to see in the New Year, finishing a season of Queen’s Gambit, and consuming a lot of snacks while they waited for midnight. Meanwhile, I’d caught North’s cold, and Beth and I were abed by 9:45. If I could have roused myself from the couch—where I was feeling sick and listless—I would have gone to bed earlier.

New Year’s Day: First Hike

On New Year’s Day Beth and I went on a Maryland State Parks First Day hike, as we often do. I was quiet in the car on the way to Merkle Natural Resources Management Area. I was still sick and fatigued. Also, the persistent dread I’d been feeling since the election, which lessened a little over the holidays, was settling back down around me, if anything worse than before because it was finally 2025. After hearing so much about Project 2025 for so long, the very name of the year sounds menacing and dystopian. Is that going to wear off?

But we got there, and we took the hike, and it was nice to be walking outdoors, and it lifted my spirits a little. It almost always does. The park is a Canada goose sanctuary. Some geese live there year-round, but most of them winter there from October to March. We saw a lot of geese on the drive to the parking lot and hundreds more in the fields surrounding the visitors’ center, but we didn’t see any on the actual hike, because it was mostly on a wooded trail, and they prefer water and open fields.

The ranger pointed out a beaver dam and beaver-gnawed trees and identified tree species as we walked past streams and ponds and a heap of garbage that he said was eighty to a hundred years old. There was an upside-down car, what looked like an oil tank, some appliances, something made of porcelain that might have been part of a sink or a toilet, and what I think was the torso of a rocking horse. There was also the rusted frame of a banana-seat bike, which made Beth speculate some of the trash was from after the 1940s. After the hike we went into the visitors’ center and watched turtles swimming in a tank. It was the first day I was wearing my new Fitbit, and it was novel and interesting to have something counting my steps and zone minutes again after an almost six-month break from that.

Back at home, we had a lunch of fancy cheeses, crackers, fruit, and sparkling juice. This is another New Year’s tradition for us. And I made black-eyed peas for dinner because there is no way I am skimping on luck this year.

Thursday to Sunday: First Road Trip

Thursday morning, we hit the road for Oberlin. The drive took eight and half hours and we passed the time with music and podcasts (a couple episodes of Handsome and one each of Normal Gossip and Where Should We Begin). Somewhere in Western Pennsylvania I fell asleep and when I opened my eyes the first thing that I saw was a sign that said, “Trump. Fuck Your Feelings,” so that was a rude awakening… literally.

We arrived in Oberlin around six. We dropped North’s things off at their new, possibly temporary, first-floor single room in Keep, which they requested because it was empty for Winter Term and it’s easier for them not to have to climb two flights of stairs. We helped them move some of their stuff down from their third-floor room into the first-floor room.

It’s still trippy for me to be in Keep, where I lived for a year and a half. To intensify that feeling, North’s new room used to belong to my sophomore year boyfriend, so I once spent a lot of time in it. I also spied a picture of myself North added to the “Keeple of the Past” display, a collage of photos of people who once lived in Keep. Can you spot me? The Christmas tree was still up in the lounge, and we noticed the ornaments we gave North over Thanksgiving on it.

We went out for Thai at a very festive-looking restaurant, all strung with colored lights. I got a green curry the waitress warned me was hot and she did not lie. I ate all the tofu and vegetables, but I had to leave half the broth, and it got my nose running and knocked all my congestion loose. Beth said that was good for me and maybe it was because the next day my cold was almost gone.

North came back with us to our Air BnB, took a shower, and hung out for a little while and then Beth drove them back to Keep for their first night in their new room.

Friday morning, we woke to a couple inches of snow on the ground and snow falling through the air. It wasn’t a surprise, it had been forecast, but Beth was delighted anyway (even though now she had the cold we were all passing around). We’d had flurries a few times at home and a dusting of snow over Thanksgiving weekend in Wheeling, but no accumulation anywhere we’ve been this fall and winter so far. After breakfast we walked through the snow to CVS to get a comb since Beth had forgotten hers and vitamin D and magnesium because I’d forgotten mine. Then we met up with North for warm beverages and pastry at their favorite coffeeshop in Oberlin.

We had a busy morning and early afternoon. We took North to two different grocery stores to stock up on fresh and dried fruit, olives, bagels, cream cheese, yogurt, cereal, milk, and frozen foods. Keep’s kitchen will be closed over Winter Term so North will be living there but eating in a different co-op and it seemed like a good idea to have some food on hand where they live. This was in addition to the tote bag full of instant oatmeal, hot chocolate mix, toaster pastries, and popcorn we had presented them with before we left home. I don’t think they will starve, even though their play rehearsal schedule may cause them to miss meals sometimes. After the first grocery store, it was snowing so hard there were almost white-out conditions, and we had to stop at Keep so we could wait out the squall before proceeding to the second store.

Next, we took a walk in the arboretum. I promised Beth I would not break up with her there. It’s an old joke—I once took a “yes, we are really breaking up” letter from a quite recent ex-boyfriend there to read and I broke up with two other boyfriends there in person, so it does have a break-up vibe for me, but it’s a pretty place and I do have other memories associated with it. The reservoirs were partly frozen, and the snow was lovely on the tree branches and cattails. We were all rather cold after that walk, though, so it was nice to warm up with a tasty lunch of Mexican food.

We picked up some medications that had arrived at the mail room for North. Beth and I walked a little more on campus after that, passing by Noah Hall—it wouldn’t be a trip to Oberlin without at least walking by the dorm where we met—and then we picked North up at Keep and drove the building where their first rehearsal was starting at two, and we hit the road for Wheeling.

It was sad to leave North, of course, but happy at the same time because I think they’re going to have a good Winter Term. I always loved Winter Term, being able to focus on one intensive class or project for four weeks before the spring semester. Rehearsing a play seems like a perfect project and we’ll be back in Oberlin in a month to see it performed.

The snow was heavy and blowing across the road at the beginning of the drive, but it cleared up, and we got to Wheeling around 5:15. We were staying at a hotel that night because Beth’s brother and his wife were at her mom’s house. They’d been there for Christmas and had gotten sick with norovirus and had to extend their stay because they were too sick to fly. They had since recovered and were leaving early the next morning. After Beth and John consulted with each other on the phone they decided not to visit with each other, just in case John and Abby were still contagious. Beth and I brought pizza back to the hotel room and had a quiet evening—she read, and I wrote much of this.

Saturday morning, it was quite cold, in the teens, so Beth didn’t want to go out with wet hair, and we stayed in the hotel room until it was dry. We ran some errands and then arrived at her mom’s house in the late morning. We all sat in her mom’s bedroom, and she caught us up on various members of the extended family, who was doing well and who wasn’t. It made me think how people’s lives are kind of like a microcosm of a family’s or even a nation’s life, alternating good times and bad times, always a mix of both, even as the ratio shifts.

Beth and I went to Oglebay Park to walk in the snow. When we set out the wind was blowing hard and it was so cold my face ached and I thought I’d made a mistake coming along, but it died down and then I was fine. I had on a new pair of boot socks we’d purchased that morning because my feet had been cold in the arboretum, and they helped. It was quiet in the park other than occasional honking geese. You know how smell travels farther when it’s very cold? Even when I was walking a few feet behind Beth, I could smell the cherry cough drops she was sucking.

We walked from the lodge to the mansion and around Shenck Lake and saw a big flock of geese hunkered down, motionless on a snowy hillside. Afterward we got coffee and hot chocolate in the lodge. I stared out the window watching the falling snow, still feeling pensive and a little melancholy.

When we got back, we went to visit Beth’s aunt Carole, who lives two doors down, and Carole’s son Sean, who was visiting from Ireland, and shared more news of family. Then we had a late lunch and settled in for a quiet afternoon of reading and writing and watching the falling snow.

Sunday morning, we ran some more errands and hit the road for home a little before ten. We took our time on the drive. We stopped for lunch at a café in Cumberland—where I got a cozy meal of tomato soup, grilled cheese, and chocolate-peppermint tea—and for a walk in Rocky Gap State Park. There wasn’t much snow there on the ground there, or anywhere after Cumberland, but Lake Habeeb was partly frozen. There were ducks on the water and a couple beaver-felled trees.

In the first five days of the new year, we walked in four different parks in three different states. I don’t know where the year will take us as a family or as a country, but for better or for worse, we have taken our first steps.

Welcome Christmas

Posted on December 22, 2024 by Steph

[Show as slideshow]

Christmas Day is in our grasp,
So long as we have hands to clasp.
Christmas Day will always be,
Just so long as we have we.
Welcome Christmas as we stand,
Heart to heart and hand in hand.

From How the Grinch Stole Christmas

Return to the Nest

Noah came home from his week in London on the second Wednesday in December. He’d been to a concert and a play (it was a play about a play, an ill-fated production of A Christmas Carol). He visited the British Library and the British Museum, Big Ben, and the Tower of London. Beth and I went to meet him at the airport. BWI was all decked out for Christmas, “merry and bright,” I said. There was a big tree where you wait for international arrivals with flags from all the states, so Beth had to go inspect it to find the West Virginia flag. We had to wait there a while as Noah went through customs, but finally he emerged. It was the wee hours of the morning London time, but he was hungry, so we took him to eat dinner at Chipotle (we’d already eaten).

North flew home from Cleveland the next day, and we went from a week-long empty nest to a full one in the space of less than a day. I couldn’t go to the airport this time because I had book club that night—we were discussing Sir Gawain and the Green Knight—and I needed to get dinner on the table in time to leave for that. But we were able to have dinner all together. I made black bean tostadas and put red and green salsa on the table so people could make them Christmassy if they were so inclined and I put on the Roches’ We Three Kings, in an attempt to make the dinner festive. Beth had finished the outside lights a few days before North got home and we had the Christmas cards we’d received on a string in the living room, with a garland of pine rope and a string of colored light above them. We never did any more inside decorating than that. There are whole unopened boxes in the basement. I feel a little bad about that, but there’s always next year.

Second to Last Weekend Before Christmas

North had left school right after classes ended and had three short papers to write at home, for Psychology, Sociology, and Nutrition. They did one a day until they finished on Sunday, four days before the last one was due. In between finals, they found time to go to Butler’s with us on Saturday to get a Christmas tree. We took pictures of ourselves in different combinations with the 5-to-6-foot sign because we are all between five and six feet tall. Around the field were decorations made from a wagon wheel and a tractor wheel (wreaths), and piles of tires painted green to form a Christmas tree, plus wooden cutouts of penguins and gingerbread men. (At the market later, we saw a snowman made of hay bales and a wooden sleigh.) It was very festive and whimsical.

After we picked out a Frasier fir from the 7-to-8-foot section of the field, we visited the snack bar where we got hot chocolate, hot cider, and two apple hand pies to share, and then the farm market where we got smoked cheddar, pasta, and some treats (chocolate-covered cherries, candied pecans, orange-cranberry bread). I picked up ginger cookies for my friend Megan (whom I was going to see the next day), because I know she likes molasses cookies, and they looked similar. We browsed the market’s selection of ornaments, even though we’d decided we really didn’t need any more. We stayed strong and did not buy any.

I met Megan the next morning for coffee. Megan and I have been friends since her oldest and my youngest were in preschool together and we have not seen each other in ages, probably over a year. We talked for two hours and managed to touch on all eight members of our two families, and work, and the dark political times in which we find ourselves, all the important things. I felt like we could have talked another two hours.

While I was gone, Noah raked leaves for the leaf truck that was due to come the next day, Beth did a big grocery shop for the now full house and made black bean soup for dinner. Noah went out to his weekly Sunday afternoon board game group and the rest of us addressed nearly all the Christmas cards and then watched Last Exmas. We’d been watching Christmas specials (Charlie Brown, The Grinch, Frosty, and several Rankin-Bass specials) prior to this and after this, but we thought we’d watch something Noah wouldn’t mind missing. To clarify, he’s not opposed to watching bad gay and lesbian Christmas romances (and in fact he would the following weekend) but he does not feel left out if we do it without him.

Last Work Week

Beth and I were working and North’s friends from high school (who are mostly a year younger) were still in school, so during the week they had plenty of time to bake. They made an apple crumb cheesecake with homemade caramel sauce, almond butter chocolate chip cookies, and pinwheels. We got this recipe from the program at the White House Christmas tour last year and they made them, and they were a big hit. So, I found the recipe and left it at their place at the dining room table and they got the hint and made another batch.

North and I went out for coffee twice that week. They had a psychiatrist appointment one day and I met them at a coffeeshop we like near there and then another day I had to get yard waste bags at the hardware store and I hadn’t had a gingerbread latte at Starbucks even though they brought them back this year after a hiatus of several years and they were always a favorite of mine, so we walked down there together.

On Friday afternoon North met up at a mall with several of their high school friends who were fresh out of school for winter break, and they had a not-so-secret-Santa gift exchange. They drew names and then went around the mall buying presents for each other right in front of each other. North came home with a smiling plush jar of strawberry jam and a small, round stuffed T-Rex. That night we watched Season’s Greeting from Cherry Lane.

Solstice/Last Weekend Before Christmas

This weekend was really packed. We went to see an early afternoon showing of The Muppet Christmas Carol at the American Film Institute. It’s fun to see a movie like that on a big screen, with an audience laughing at the funny parts. Noah objected to the applause at the end “because the people who made the movie are not there” but despite that, it was a very satisfactory outing.

As we left, I opined to the family that the movie is “a masterpiece” and no one contradicted me.

Later that afternoon Beth made buckeyes, and Noah and I made white beans in a tomato-cream sauce with arugula for dinner and afterward we opened presents from my extended family and Beth’s mom. We do this when we’re traveling over Christmas to make room in the car and to have a little Solstice celebration. Often, it’s a little more ceremonial. We’ll light candles and I might buy cookies in snowflake or tree shapes to go with the nature theme. But we had so many sweets in the house that seemed unnecessary this year. I ate a buckeye and told Beth it was “a religious experience.”

“Well, then I’m glad I made them,” she said. We each read a poem about winter from this book. Then we called my mom and sister and niece to thank them for the gifts.

I didn’t even have time to finish the dinner dishes before it was time for our next activity. We had eight p.m. tickets for the Garden of Lights at Brookside Gardens. We didn’t spend as long wandering through the lights as we might have because North had turned their ankle earlier in the weekend and it was quite cold—in the high twenties and windy. (I will pause while my hardy Canadian readers do the temperature conversion and laugh at us.)

We got hot chocolate and funnel cake fries to warm us up before we started and then we walked along the familiar paths. It was mostly the same as always—I saw some of my favorites like the dragon that breathes fog and the frog whose throat lights up when it croaks—but there were some new displays, notably a flamboyance of flamingoes by the pond, reflected in the water. There was also a Christmas tree that for some reason was flashing its lights to the rhythm of “Don’t Stop Believing.” Later we heard “Magic” by the Cars playing. I’m honestly not sure what accounts for these musical selections, but as we left, I said the lights were “magical” and then remembering the song, started to sing it.

That night when we went to bed, I told Beth it had been the happiest day I could remember since the election. So, apparently what I need is multiple outings, a beloved story well told, poetry, pretty lights, presents, and sugar.

Sunday morning Beth made pizzelles in two flavors (vanilla and anise) and then I made gingerbread dough. I saved most of it to take with us on our travels, but I baked a few to put on a cookie plate for Becky. Becky is another family friend. We met when she was North’s Kindermusik teacher and then the music teacher at their preschool and then her daughter babysat for us, and by that point we’d become friends. I piled a plate with pinwheels, pizzelles, gingerbread, and buckeyes, while North filled a tin for their friends Maddie and Miles to deliver after Christmas. Beth, North, and I went to visit with Becky that afternoon. She was delighted to sample a buckeye and served us tea and pepparkakor, her own Christmas specialty. Her daughter Eleanor was driving home from Philadelphia for the holiday, and we hoped to see her, too, but we needed to leave before she arrived.

Beth and I took separate walks, she cooked dinner, I blogged, Noah returned from his games, and we all began packing for our drive tomorrow morning, which will take us to the beach, where we will soon be ensconced in the house where are welcoming Christmas, heart to heart and hand in hand.

All For The Love Of You

A Chronicle of Suburban Lesbian Family Life

Category Archives: Excursions

Families, Folk, and Flowers

Red, White, and Blue

Proud

Strawberry Fields Forever

The World You Want to Live in

May Days

Rise Again

Nine Days, Nineteen Years

First Steps

Welcome Christmas