(Re)Birth

Posted on April 5, 2026 by Steph

Birthright

The Wednesday after North left to go back to school, Beth and I went to a rally outside the Supreme Court while the justices were hearing a case about birthright citizenship. The President was inside listening, too, and according to the Post, when he left in the middle of proceedings, passersby “offered a range of gestures.” We didn’t see him, as he left from another side of the building, but Beth said she would have liked to offer a range of gestures if she’d had the chance.

What we did see was several hundred people with signs. Ours were pre-printed ones we picked up there that said, “It’s literally in the Constitution.” But there were plenty of hand-lettered ones that said, “Citizenship is a Birthright,” “ICE Out” (held by a man in a blue bunny hat), “Keep Your Hands Off the 14^th,” “Immigrants Pay Taxes Billionaires Won’t. Deport Billionaires,” “Together, We Are America,” and “Born Here, Belong Here.” The Rapid Response Choir was singing and people played drums.

Bruce Springsteen’s “Born in the U.S.A.,” Beyoncé’s “Freedom,” Aretha Franklin’s “Respect,” and other thematically appropriate songs played before the speakers got started. Honestly, none of them were particularly memorable (partly because some were hard to hear) but it was notable that a descendent of Wong Kim Ark spoke. And that turned out to be important because there were some hecklers arguing that the Fourteenth Amendment only applied to nineteenth-century freedman, so it served as a reminder that applying the amendment to immigrants is long-established precedent.

I was wearing my “I Stand with Immigrants” t-shirt and someone approached me wanting a picture because she was part of the organization that designed the shirts. I said I’d had it since the first Trump administration (when they were handed out at a rally for the Dreamers), and she said, “I guess it’s a timeless message” and I agreed, it’s evergreen. Later I saw someone else in the crowd with the same shirt, which has never happened before, though I’ve worn it to many protests in the past fourteen months, a lot more often than in the first administration.

We left before the event was over because it was a workday for me, but I was glad to have gone. It feels as if a lot about our country’s identity is riding on how we decide to treat the children of our newcomers.

Re-Birth

Noah worked from Monday through Thursday that week, but he was off Friday, and I didn’t have much work either, and Beth was free after her ICE watch shift, so it seemed like a good day to dye eggs. We had a kit Beth had picked up for sale just after Easter last year, that claimed to produce neon eggs, but the colors turned out like those from a regular kit. The enclosed stickers were in the shapes of neon tubes, however, so maybe that’s what it meant. There was also a glitter packet. Beth tried it out, but it didn’t stick very well. Noah created a batik effect by dyeing an egg yellow, drawing stars on it with white crayon and then re-dyeing the egg blue. It came out nicely. I made two two-toned eggs and used the stickers to spell out “Resist” surrounded by rainbows on the yellow/green one and “No” on top of a crown on the pink/purple one. And of course, we also used the face stickers and the little felt hats we’ve had for ages.

Saturday, I made a batch of almond flour banana chocolate chip walnut muffins because we had a lot of little baggies with frozen overripe bananas in the freezer—I found seven separate bags, some with tiny little stubs of frozen banana. By the time I’d combined them all and mashed them I had 1 ¾ cups, which was enough for my purposes. Beth had asked if we could donate half the batch to the immigrant aid bake sale that’s at the farmers’ market every week. I was glad to be contributing to a good cause, so when we found out the sale was cancelled that week, due to people being away for the public schools’ spring break, we decided to freeze them for the following week.

We’re not religious, so our Easter observation consists of dyeing eggs and eating candy. Sunday morning, I gave Noah his Easter basket with little ceremony shortly after he got up. We’d just we discovered the cats intently watching a wasp on the living room window and to save them from getting stung we removed them to another room while the wasp was caught and released outside. I came out of the room where I’d shut them up carrying the basket and handed to him after he let the wasp go. I’d been resisting the Easter candy (mostly) for weeks, so I had a Reese’s egg after lunch and before my daily walk in hopes the exercise would prevent a spike. It did blunt the rise.

On the walk, I took pictures of flowers, purple ones because it was Easter. I had a lot to choose from: lilacs, redbud, wisteria, grape hyacinth, and a budding iris right outside our fence. I do appreciate all the symbols of rebirth you see this time of year in the form of chocolate bunnies and eggs as well as the real rebirth of the natural world, so reliable and beautiful, no matter what else is happening around us.

Happy Passover and Happy Easter to those of you who celebrate. Whether you do or not, I hope you feel at least a glimmer of hope and renewal in these lovely spring days.

A Richer Place

Posted on February 22, 2026 by Steph

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We welcomed the Year of the Fire Horse at the National Museum of Asian Art yesterday. We arrived about a half hour before the lion dance was scheduled to start so we wandered around the museum, looking at early modern Japanese pottery and ancient Iranian metalwork. Have you ever heard about the tradition of mending broken pottery with gold and how this practice could be seen as a symbol of how our scars can be seen as something that makes us stronger or more beautiful? I feel like I see it all the time on social media and I don’t know if that was the original symbolic intention, but I did see a pot like that, which was kind of cool.

We went outside to the steps of the museum, which were crowded with people who had come to watch the lion dance. It started about fifteen minutes late and the couple behind us was having a protracted discussion about whether it was worth continuing to wait. It was. There were two full-sized lions (one purple and one red), with two adults inside each, and one orange baby lion with two small children inside. The three lions danced to the music of the drums and received red envelopes from a few members of the crowd and pretended to gobble fortune cookies out of a basket on the ground and then threw the cookies to the crowd. The baby lion had a chaperone, an adult not in costume who followed it around and gave it instructions when it got off course. It was seriously cute.

We used to go to see the Lion Dance in Chinatown occasionally when we lived in D.C., and I think we might have taken Noah once when he was very small (pre-blog). Seeing the tiny children inside the dragon costume did shake loose a memory I hadn’t thought of in ages. One year one of my grad school professors at the University of Maryland invited her students to see a lunar new year performance at her small son’s Chinese dance school, followed by a buffet feast. Try as I might, I could not remember her name or even what class she was teaching but I remember her son’s first name, even though I only met him once. It was Logan, which his mother explained his parents gave him because it was an English name that sounded like a Chinese one. (The child was biracial.) It’s funny the little glimpses into other people’s lives we remember years later. Given that this event happened about thirty years ago, Logan could have his own kid old enough to learn the lion dance by now.

When the dance was over, we headed over to the Arts and Industries Building, where there were food and crafts booths and more performances. I initially had some trouble finding food that was both vegetarian and not too diabetic-unfriendly, but I ended up with eggrolls, a tofu dish, and half a small and very expensive Korean black sesame seed cheesecake, which I shared with Noah. Beth and Noah had noodles, and she got a Vietnamese bahn mi sandwich, which is a favorite of hers. Everything was delicious. I only regretted that I couldn’t have a Thai iced tea. I used to love those, but they are super sweet and I have yet to try one since diabetes. We briefly listened to some Mongolian singers before heading home.

As we walked across the Mall, headed back to the Metro, I was feeling emotional about multiculturalism. When the kids were small and we’d go to the Folklife Festival (which, sadly, has been cancelled for this year in favor of some fake State Fair* on the mall) or to Takoma Park’s Fourth of July parade and we’d be watching musicians and dancers from all over the world and eating food from different cultures I would so often talk to the kids about how the United States is a country of immigrants that one year when Noah was around twelve he interrupted and supplied the lesson himself. But it’s true. I like living in a country and a region with a lot of immigrants. I think it makes us stronger and more interesting.

So that’s one reason Beth has gotten involved with a local organization that helps support immigrant communities. She’s not sure what she’ll be doing yet—maybe delivering groceries to people who are afraid to leave their houses, maybe observing drop-offs and pickups at our kids’ old majority-Latino elementary school in case ICE shows up. It’s a way to protect and give back to the people who make our home a culturally richer place.

By the way, I read that the year of the fire horse, which happens only every sixty years is supposed to “bring intense, fast-paced change.” That could certainly be good or bad. Let’s keep our fingers crossed for good.

*No shade to real state and county fairs, which I really like.

Ice Melts

Posted on February 19, 2026 by Steph

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Snowmelt

The snow that fell three and a half weeks ago is still with us, but it’s gradually melting. Our back yard is still mostly covered with a three-inch layer, with most of the grass in the sunnier side and front yards now visible. We’ve had two days with highs in the fifties with more on the way, so that should speed up the melting.

I am enjoying seeing what emerges from the snow as it recedes—daffodil points in our front yard, a neighbor’s meditating skeleton and frog, a newspaper from the night the snow fell, the last week of January. It was delivered at night to beat the snowfall, but we could not find it the next morning. When I found it and looked at the front page, it was like a time capsule. There was a story about Alex Pretti’s death, but his name had not yet been released. Doesn’t that seem like a long time ago? The news moves fast these days.

What have we been up to while the snow and ice melt? Besides reading a book club book that takes place partly in Antarctica, you mean? (That ended up seeming more apt than anticipated.) Well, we’ve been…

Watching the Olympics

We’ve been watching the Olympics most nights, more figure skating than anything else, but also ski jumping, moguls, snowboarding, skeleton, and bobsled. It’s a nice distraction, and Walter enjoys it too, as you can see from his rapt attention to the opening ceremony. (He was also into bobsledding and ski jumping.)

Baking

Baked goods continue to appear in the house without me lifting a finger to make it happen. So far this month Beth has made chocolate-chocolate chip cookies and Noah has made rye muffins with caraway seeds, and the most amazing turtle shortbread bars for Valentine’s Day. They have a shortbread base, a middle layer of caramel with pecans, and are topped with chocolate. They contain a whole pound of butter and they taste like it.

Going on a Date

The second Saturday in February Beth and I went to see Sly Lives!, a documentary about Sly and the Family Stone at AFI, where it was playing for free for Black History Month. I think the music and fashion would be a nostalgic treat for anyone old enough to remember the 1970s, but I also learned a lot I didn’t know. Sly Stone was deeply talented and flawed, like so many artists. The story is sad in parts, but also joyful. And he had the most beautiful, endearing smile when he was young. (Perhaps he still does, but there is no contemporary footage of him in the film.)

After the movie, we got a late lunch at a pupuseria where there was a benefit for the immigrant community. We got pupusas and Beth bought a sticker and some other small items from the art table. I would have, too, if I’d realized that was the benefit part. I thought the proceeds from the food was being donated, too. (But I have another chance because another Mexican/Salvadoran restaurant near us is having that kind of benefit in early March.)

Celebrating Valentine’s Day

The next weekend was Valentine’s and President’s Day weekend in one. We didn’t have big plans for Valentine’s Day, but a great quantity of chocolate (dark chocolate bars in various flavors and caramel-filled hearts) and cookies (heart-shaped butter cookies from a local bakery and low-carb strawberry almond flour cookies) were exchanged between the three of us. Noah baked the turtle bars that day, while Beth and I were at the Silver Spring Recreation and Aquatic Center, where she’s been going to exercise almost daily since she retired.

The facility is new and I had not been yet. In fact, I haven’t been swimming in months and just a couple times in the current Trump administration. At first it because we were so busy with the flurry of protests at the beginning of this term and then I just got out of the habit. Anyway, Beth used the weight room and I swam laps. We’d hoped to use the hot tub together, but it was out of service. I got a half-sweet mocha at the café while I waited for her to finish. There are some nice amenities there they don’t have at the elementary school where I usually swim (though no kickboards, which is a drawback).

We talked to North the following day. They had not gone to the mailroom to pick up their Valentine’s care package because they didn’t know it was from us, and we declined to tell them what was in it. They have since picked it up, so I can reveal it contained strawberry-white chocolate truffles, coconut milk caramels, and probiotics. This last item is because, after seeming to clear up after their surgery, they are having digestive issues again. This is discouraging.

Rallying for Immigrant Rights

The next day, we went to a protest. I used to take most federal holidays off because Beth had them off and we’d often do something together, but now that she’s retired, it doesn’t seem to make as much difference, so I’m never sure what to do. However, on President’s Day, I worked a little and took off early so I could accompany Beth to a rally for immigrant rights in Annapolis.

The rally took place at 5:30 at Lawyer’s Mall, in front of the Maryland State House. It’s a plaza with a bronze statue of Thurgood Marshall, on the base of which people left battery-operated votive candles and signs. State representatives, community activists, and high school students spoke. The timing of the rally was meant to mark the occasion (the following day) of Governor Moore’s signing a bill to ban co-operation between local police and federal immigration agencies. Speakers celebrated this and called for further legislation to prohibit federal agents from masking, engaging in racial profiling, and operating detention centers in the state. One of the speakers, by way of encouragement, gestured to the brick and granite courtyard that was largely free of snow, and said, as we’ve noticed recently “ice melts” to the cheers of the crowd.

We stood in the chilly square as the sun set and darkness gathered, listening to the speeches, and wandering around to read signs that said things like “Abolish ICE,” “Due Process for All,” and “Fund Healthcare and Education, Not State Terror.” I particularly liked one with a picture of a butterfly (a symbol of migrants) and the following words: “We the People” (in calligraphy) “Are Pissed” (in block letters). But the best one was not technically a sign, but a quilt big enough to require two women to hold it. It said “Abolish ICE Now” in gold letters on a blue background. That takes more commitment than markers and posterboard.

We left around seven o’clock. Beth had made a quinoa-vegetable stew for dinner before we left, and I had mine in a thermos to eat as we drove home. As I ate the warm stew, I watched the dark, snowy landscape along the Beltway roll by, hoping for a melting, not so much of the snow, but either of the hearts of any of our leaders who need it, or barring that, of their power.

Happy New Year, Happy Retirement

Posted on January 6, 2026 by Steph

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The Week Between

There was almost a week between Christmas and our departure for Wheeling. Beth worked at least a few hours most of these days, tying up loose ends because—and I don’t believe I have mentioned this up to now—she has retired. The last day she worked was second to last day of December. She was at CWA for twenty-six years, so it’s a big deal.

While Beth worked, the rest of us were at leisure. The kids and I binged all the available episodes of Stranger Things Season 5 over the course of four days. One morning Beth took off, all four of us went to Brookside Conservatory to see the hothouse plants and the model trolley and train exhibit. The trolley runs past models of historic Maryland and DC buildings that stand (or stood) on a real trolley line, including the Cabin John mansion in the process of burning down, the Arcade Building at Glen Echo Park, and the trolley barn in Georgetown (pictured). The train tracks pass by the very conservatory that houses the exhibit. If you look inside the greenhouse, you can see a tiny model train track. It’s very meta.

For several day starting on Christmas day North was cat-sitting UNO*, the next-door neighbors’ half-blind, mostly outdoor cat, who spends a lot of time in our yard. Some of you may remember that when I was still grieving Xander and thought I couldn’t bear to get another cat, UNO melted my heart. He’s the reason we got kittens when we did, two springs ago. Anyway, there was a problem with the keypad on the neighbors’ back door and North could not get into the house. As UNO was outside when his people left, that meant he was locked out for several days. He had a lot to say about this whenever North went to fill his food and water bowls on the deck of his house or when any of us would leave our house and he’d see us.

We had food to give him (and he seemed fine with our cats’ food), but the first night, Christmas night, it was supposed to go below freezing and UNO is about fifteen years old and getting thin, so we were all worried for him. If it wasn’t for our cats, particularly Willow who does not care for any cats who are not Walter, we might have brought him inside our house. Walter, who has been engaged in longstanding and unsuccessful campaign to befriend UNO whenever they meet in our yard, might have been game for a sleepover. It’s hard to say how UNO would have reacted. He used to pay us inside visits before we got Walter and Willow, but now other, annoying young cats live here so he does not.

North tried setting up a space heater with a cushion in front of it on our porch, but UNO wouldn’t go near it, despite our encouragement. Since he never sets foot on our porch, but frequents our garage, it seemed like that would be the better space to heat, so Beth set up a propane heater in there, with a towel-lined bin nearby. He would not go in the makeshift bed, but he did sleep on the ground near the heater and the following night, Beth put another towel down in that spot. We were all relieved when UNO’s people came home and texted us their thanks and a picture of him asleep under their Christmas tree.

One last thing we had hoped for before leaving town was a get-together with our family friend Becky because we often met and exchange baked goods at Christmastime, but her family went to Montreal for Christmas and in the brief overlap we had in Takoma she was not feeling well, so I delivered a plate of cookies and buckeyes to her doorstep late Tuesday afternoon. That night we took down the tree and most of the decorations from the living room.

New Year’s Eve

The next day, the last day of the year, we drove to Wheeling. A winter storm was predicted to hit Western Maryland in the late afternoon, so we drove through more quickly than usual, with fewer and shorter stops. We made it to Beth’s mom’s house a little after four and the roads were clear all the way there. There was snow on the ground and the hills, though, so it was a pretty drive.

I took a walk about a half hour after we arrived because I hadn’t had a chance to move much that day. There was snow on the ground, and I admired the Christmas lights I saw as I meandered through the neighborhood in the gathering dusk. Toward the end of the walk, new snow started to fall, just scattered flurries, but later in the evening it started to snow in earnest.

That afternoon, Beth’s boss texted her and she thought it could be work-related as she wouldn’t be officially retired for a few hours and he is in the habit of texting her on vacation—most recently on Thanksgiving Day—but he was just wishing her a happy retirement. Beth was half-expecting calls from colleagues either on or after her last day, but there were no work requests, just more well wishes.

We had vegetable-gnocchi soup Beth’s mom had picked up for dinner and around eight everyone but North went over to Beth’s aunt Carole’s for a New Year’s Eve gathering. North, who is not a night owl, wanted a disco nap to help them stay up until midnight, plus they’d hurt their knee earlier in the day and wanted to rest it. YaYa’s other two sisters, Susan and Jenny, were there, along with Susan’s husband John, Jenny’s daughter Laura and her boyfriend Nico, and Carole’s son Sean.

There was a nice spread—charcuterie and several kinds of Christmas cookies and other sweets, some of which became the topic of lively dispute. Do you know those peanut butter cookies with Hershey’s kisses stuck in them? Two different bakers had contributed some to the feast and there were some with the points of the chocolate sticking up and some with the points stuck into the cookie, leaving the surface flat. The relative merits of each method were debated with enthusiasm.

The four sisters also considered different trips they could take together, including a silent retreat. This idea was startling, as there’s not a lot of silence when they are all together. Beth, Noah, and I all exchanged amused glances, and Beth said later the sisters would get thrown out in the first five minutes.

Because some people in attendance weren’t keen on staying up until midnight and others were concerned about driving in the snow, we sang “Auld Lange Syne” and toasted with champagne and sparkling cider at 8:45. Jenny wanted to find the full lyrics and sing the whole thing but it turns out there are six verses and no one was up for that. Sean, who is an English professor, was called upon to give us some details about Robert Burns’ life and he obliged. No one actually left until around 9:30, when Beth and I made our departure. Noah stayed a little longer and then he and North and YaYa rang in the new year at her house, eating salty snacks and watching the ball drop. Beth and I were staying at her friend Michelle’s apartment, which was empty because Michelle’s acting in a show in Chicago, so we drove there, met the feral cats she feeds and who hang out on her porch, and we were in bed by a little after ten.

“Good night. Happy New Year. Happy Retirement,” I told her.

New Year’s Day

On New Year’s Day everyone but Noah, who slept until early afternoon, watched the Rose parade. North had never seen it before and was interested in how the floats are made at least partly of natural materials.

Late in the morning I started to make Hoppin’ John for good luck in the new year. I do this every year, but it did not seem like the year to skip it. I don’t want to be the one responsible for the fall of our teetering democracy because I failed to make a black-eyed pea stew. I didn’t start in time to eat it for lunch, so we had it for dinner that night.

That afternoon, Beth and I took a walk in Wheeling Park. It was a sunny day, and the snow was sparkly and crunchy underfoot. I asked her how her first official day of retirement was going. (She’d been on vacation the day before.) She said she was spending it in one of her favorite places with her favorite people and there was snow, so pretty good.

We went to the coffeeshop in the park where I got a latte and she got a hot chocolate. Then we walked past the skating rink, the tennis courts, and the swimming pool and headed back to her mom’s house. It was about forty minutes of walking, broken up with the beverage break, which was probably not as far as we walked at Brookside Garden when we went to see the lights, but still a long walk for Beth, post-accident. When we paused to watch the skaters at the rink, she said she should be on the ice, and I said maybe she’d be skating before the winter was over. She does continue to improve and stopped using the cane some time on the trip.

As Beth and I left for Michelle’s that night, YaYa and the kids were starting to watch Night of the Hunter. Earlier in the visit, YaYa had mentioned in passing what a good film (and novel) it was, so Noah suggested they watch it. He’s thoughtful about what other people would like when it comes to suggesting books and movies. I think it’s one of his love languages. This 1955 film was billed as one of the scariest films ever made. The kids report that it is not, but they liked it.

Two More Days in Wheeling

We stayed in Wheeling two more days after New Year’s. Beth got a maintenance message on the car and had to take it to a mechanic the day after New Year’s, because she didn’t want to take any chances on the drive to Oberlin. Beth and the car being gone for a few hours changed some plans.

The down time gave me the opportunity to finish reading Huckleberry Finn, a relatively short novel which I had been reading for three months. I’d started it because I’d read James over the summer, but I was always reading at least two books at a time, and it kept falling to the bottom of my priority list. It wasn’t that I didn’t like it, but it was a third reading for me, and I guess twice is how many times I needed to read this book. Or maybe I would have been better off reading the Twain first, I will say in case you are intending to read both books. (This is how I did it when I read David Copperfield and Demon Copperhead earlier this year and I found that a highly satisfying reading experience.) And once I’d finished Huckleberry Finn, I read the excellent novella Small Things Like These in one sitting. It was a luxurious day of reading, the kind that’s too rare for me. Carole and Sean came over for pizza that night and after they left, we watched the first half of Wake Up, Dead Man.

The next day, Beth and I took another walk in Wheeling Park, and then the kids and I watched the last episode of Stranger Things at Michelle’s apartment. It didn’t seem like a good idea to watch such a loud and frequently violent show on the television in YaYa’s living room, as the first story of her house has an open floor plan. The difficulty in finding a long enough chunk of time when we were all free and could get transportation to Michelle’s place meant we’d delayed watching it until a few days after the finale was released and North had gotten some spoilers on social media, but it was fun, nonetheless.

That evening Beth, the kids, and I drove through the Festival of Lights at Oglebay Park. I generally prefer walk-through light displays to drive-through ones, but I am fond of this one, which we’ve been visiting for decades, since before the kids were born. One benefit of visiting at dusk two days after New Year’s is that it’s not very crowded. The kids held their breath in the tunnels of lights, just as Beth and her younger brother used to do in real tunnels when they were kids. When we went by Santa and his sleigh, there were real deer grazing in the snow in front of the reindeer made of lights. After the lights, we went back to YaYa’s house, had leftovers for dinner, and watched the rest of Wake Up, Dead Man.

Two Days on the Road

We left Wheeling for Oberlin late the next morning. It’s the shortest leg of the journey, so there was time for errands afterward. The only grocery store in walking distance of campus has closed, so we drove to one in Elyria and got some breakfast food for me (in case the hotel breakfast bar was not vegetarian-diabetic-friendly) and groceries for North to have at Keep. They will be eating at another co-op during Winter Term because Keep’s kitchen is closed until spring semester.

Beth, Noah, and I were staying at a hotel and once we got settled there, we ordered Chinese takeout and then went out for ice cream in Vermilion at an old-fashioned ice cream parlor, the kind where ice cream comes in a metal dish and shakes come in glasses with the leftovers in a metal shaker. Vermilion is a pretty town on the shores of Lake Erie and there were still a lot of Christmas lights up on the streets and two lit-up Christmas trees in parks a few blocks apart. (We wondered if there was some kind of Christmas tree schism in town to have two trees in public places so close together.) The ice cream parlor was still offering Christmas-themed treats. Beth got hot chocolate with vanilla ice cream and crushed peppermint candy. Noah got The Santa, a cherry shake with Sprite. I got a dish of peppermint stick ice cream, and North, who is devoted to root beer floats got one. It came in a glass mug, and they said it was the fanciest root beer float they’d ever had.

The next morning, we met North for coffee, hot cider, hot chocolate, and pastries at Slow Train, their favorite coffeeshop in Oberlin. From there we dropped them off at Warner Center, where the Theater and Dance department is housed. For their Winter Term project, they will be writing a play with eight other students. Then over the spring semester they will rehearse and perform it.

After our goodbyes, the three of us took a stroll around Tappan Square and got into the car for the longest drive of the trip, Oberlin to home.

Looking Ahead

It probably won’t be long until I see North and Oberlin again, though, because their gallbladder surgery is scheduled for mid-January, and Beth is going up there to take care of them while they are recovering. I’m probably going, too. I thought I might be superfluous, but when I asked if they’d like me to come, they said yes. My work is flexible and I guess sometimes you can’t have too many mothers.

Our first day home, I took the day off to take care of back-from-a-trip tasks and Beth started to disassemble the workstation that’s been wedged between the bookcase and our bed since March 2020. It’s strange to see it gone, like a visible sign of the transition to retirement.

*We learned through texts with his family that UNO’s name is spelled in all caps, which we did not previously know.

Keeping Christmas

Posted on December 26, 2025 by Steph

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And it was always said of him, that he knew how to keep Christmas well, if any man alive possessed the knowledge.

From A Christmas Carol, by Charles Dickens

O, Christmas Tree

We got our Christmas tree on the second Sunday in December. We’d had our second snowfall of the year, just an inch, the night before, so we were expecting Butler’s Orchard to be scenic. But to our surprise they were almost out of trees. The field where the trees are usually sold was closed and the few trees that they had left were stacked along a wall outside the farm market. We were sorry not to be able to walk through a snowy field decorated with seasonal wooden cutouts and snowmen made of hay bales or Christmas trees fashioned from tractor tires painted green, but we started to browse the small selection of trees.

We often get a six- or seven-foot tree, but the biggest ones they had left were marked five feet. When we held them up and stood next to them, though, it was clear some were closer to six feet, if not quite that, because Noah is five eight and there were trees taller than him. We chose one of these. Though short, it was very full and had an attractive shape. We were all pleased with it. Once we had a tree strapped to the top of the car, we went into the farm market to browse for treats and small gifts. Then we dropped Noah off at the Panera in Rockville where his game club meets each Sunday afternoon and drove home, satisfied with the results of our outing.

The tree spent the next six days in the garage. We had some trepidation about having a tree at home, with the cats. We’ve only spent Christmas at home twice in the kids’ lives (in 2013 and 2014) and back then Matthew and Xander were ten and then eleven years old and in a more sedate phase of life than our not quite two-year-old cats. Plus, these cats, especially Willow, are more expert jumpers and climbers than their predecessors were at any age and it just seemed like asking for trouble to bring a tree into the house and adorn it with breakable objects. If it had been up to me, we probably wouldn’t have even gotten a tree, but I was outnumbered. If you can stand the suspense, I will tell you how it worked out later in this post.

Misfortune Seemed Our Lot

Two days after the got the tree, Beth was hit by a car while crossing the street on her way to the Metro. She’d been planning to work in the office that day, but that plan quickly changed. She was able to get up and walk away, but her foot and knee were hurt. She went first to her own doctor and then to get X-rays taken. Nothing was broken. A few days later, she saw an orthopedist who told her kneecap was subluxed and gave her some home exercises to do. She was using crutches for a few days; now she’s getting around with a cane, but she’s still sore.

The three of us who were not hit by a car all got sick that same week. Noah was the canary in the coal mine, but a couple days later North and I were sick, too. Our symptoms varied (North was the only one with a fever, for instance) so covid made sense. I picked up some tests while out on a series of holiday errands (masking at my stops) and sure enough, North tested positive. Noah and I tested negative, but it seems likely that’s what we had as we were exposed and sick. My worst symptoms were deep fatigue and an overwhelming amount of snot, but now we’re all nearly recovered.

Deck the Halls (and Make the Cookies and Mail the Cards)

Despite injury and illness, Christmas preparations went on. While we waited to decorate the tree, we decorated other parts of the house, inside and out. Over the course of the week, North decorated the mantel and Noah strung lights on the porch to join the candy cane lane and lights in the dogwood tree Beth had installed earlier and North put the decorations we re-use every year on the wreath.

There was also a lot of baking and candy making. Once North finished their exams, several days after arriving at home, they made candied cranberries, almond butter cookies with Hershey’s kisses, pinwheels, and chocolate-peppermint cookies. Noah made eggnog pudding and a pan of very convincing copycat cranberry bliss bars. (We’re supporting the striking Starbucks baristas by boycotting Starbucks, and it turns out cranberry bliss bars are what I miss most of their holiday offerings.) Beth made cashew butter buckeyes and she’s thinking of making pizzelles between Christmas and New Year’s. I made mint brownies before North came home and then the kids and I made gingerbread cookies two days before Christmas. And this wasn’t baking precisely, but I made gingerbread pancakes for dinner on Christmas Eve and they were a hit. There were requests that it become a tradition.

“Do we usually have this many cookies?” Noah asked me toward the end of the baking spree. The answer is no. I’m not exactly sure why we went so crazy this year, but it could be 1) that being home meant we had more time because we didn’t have to pack or travel, and 2) it’s my fifth Christmas with diabetes and after a few years of restraint, I am just not as strict as I was in the beginning and I know more hacks to keep my blood sugar under control (basically protein, fat, timing, and exercise), so I felt like going all out. It was fun and I’m glad we did it, but perhaps next year we’ll be more restrained.

On Christmas Eve morning I delivered plates of cookies and buckeyes to our next-door neighbors and a family around the block. Within a couple hours the next-door neighbors had reciprocated with a container of cardamom cookies. This exchange felt very festive. Meanwhile, we are setting aside some more treats for people we won’t see until after Christmas.

While not decorating or baking (or working—Beth worked until Christmas Eve and I worked until the day before that), we watched all our canonical Christmas specials (How the Grinch Stole Christmas, A Charlie Brown Christmas, Frosty the Snowman, Frosty Returns, A Year Without a Santa Claus, Santa Claus is Comin’ to Town, Rudolf the Red-Nosed Reindeer, and Christmas is Coming Again) and two more holiday romances: Keller Family Christmas and Christmas Baby. This was the one about the lesbian couple who find a baby on their doorstep (actually, in the store where one of them works) and they must decide whether to keep it. Go ahead and guess what they do. You already know the answer. On Christmas Eve, we continued our Christmas media binge with The Muppet Christmas Carol, which may be my favorite Christmas movie of all time, partly because of its faithfulness to the original and partly because of the changes.

The Happiest Christmas Tree

We bit the bullet and set up and trimmed the tree on the last Saturday before Christmas. Noah went through all the ornaments ahead of time and picked out the least breakable ones. The cats did not knock the tree over or try to climb it and we have North to thank for that. They read somewhere online that many cats strongly dislike the smell of oranges, so we bought a couple of bottles of essential orange oil and treated the mantel and the area around the tree and some of the ornaments and the presents with oil. It worked surprisingly well. At first, when the oil was freshly applied, they hated it so much they would run from the room. They did acclimate somewhat, but they still don’t like it. And now when you walk into the house you smell orange more than pine. Luckily, I find the scent more pleasant than the cats do, as we need to keep re-applying. North also made new ornaments out of dried orange slices for good measure.

Initially, Willow seemed frightened of the foul-smelling tree. She would hide in the cave part of the cat tree or inside the cat tunnel and stare at it. After a few days, though, she was used to it and was relaxed enough to sleep in the living room again. Both cats will occasionally bat at low-hanging ornaments and that’s our cue to re-treat the tree with orange oil.

We finally got our Christmas cards in the mail, with the last batch going out on the Monday before Christmas. I did most of the addressing but on Saturday morning, Beth, North and I all sat at the table and addressed cards together, trying to get as many done as possible before pickup from the mailbox around the corner at ten a.m. Then I finished up the rest on Sunday. I don’t suppose they all arrived by Christmas, but they should arrive before the festive season is over.

All Is Bright

We went to Brookside Gardens to see the Garden of Lights the same day we mailed the last of the cards. This is a walk-through light display in a botanical garden. The theme of the decorations is nature, so many of the lights are in the shape of plants or animals, but there are also several tunnels you can walk through and the branches of trees along the paths are outlined with colored lights. It was magical, as always. We were starting to recover from our illness by then, but we all masked just to be safe. We visited all the old familiar lights (my favorite is the sea monster that breathes steam) and some that may have been new (a field of tulips).

On Christmas Day, On Christmas Day

On Christmas morning, North made scrambled eggs and a very yummy cranberry-pear crumble for breakfast. We opened presents afterward. Books and flannel sheets and gift certificates seemed to be the most popular gifts this year. Beth got one for REI, Noah got one for the GAP and Panera, North got several that are good for multiple businesses in Oberlin. Beth also got a lot of chocolate in the form of bars and two different hot chocolate mixes. I got new sneakers and a cutting board. Noah got a couple games and a puzzle. North got a messenger bag, long underwear, two jars of fancy olives, Earl Grey concentrate, lemon curd, and two pairs of earrings.

After presents and lunch, North and I went for a walk down by the creek, where I posed by a decorated tree in the woods and then I continued to walk on my own, while North went home to start the orange-cranberry meringue pie they were making for Christmas dinner dessert. While I was out walking, my mom called and we had a chat until the wind go too loud for her to hear me. When I got home, she talked to everyone else.

Noah and I read and I spent a good bit of the afternoon blogging while North worked on the pie and Beth made a spinach lasagna. That night we watched Elf. It was the first time for all of us, except Noah who once saw part of it. It was enjoyable, but probably not something I’d watch on repeat. (Sorry, Nicole!)

Because we travel so often during the holidays, it sometimes felt strange to be where our regular life takes place and not a grandmother’s house or a cabin in the woods or a beach house. But despite that strangeness and some medical obstacles, we managed to keep Christmas well. And as for travel, we will be hitting the road on New Year’s Eve. More on that later…

Beach and Banquet

Posted on December 4, 2025 by Steph

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Arrival

We pulled into the realty parking lot around 3:15 the day before Thanksgiving and I went inside to pick up the keys. Our realtor commented that if we wanted to reserve the house for the same dates next year we could do so when we checked out. I must have given her a cold look because she immediately said she imagined we didn’t know what our plans would be.

Why would I be cold to the realtor, who has been helping us find beach houses for years, and with whom I have a cordial relationship? Do you remember when I realized I’d rented this house for the wrong week and then the realty agreed to switch the reservation at no charge and I was so happy? Well, it turned out there was no charge for the switch per se, but Thanksgiving week was $500 more than the week before, and I was quite surprised when a much larger charge than I expected came out of my checking account. I understand why holidays might be more, but I was salty that no one told me that before charging my card. This happened shortly after I told you all the happier version of this story and I just didn’t have the heart to admit how it turned out until now. So anyway, the house cost a lot more than we wanted to pay—I’ve reduced my Christmas shopping budget to make up some of it—and chances are we won’t be renting this house for a holiday again. But that’s water under the bridge and we really did have a very nice few days at the beach.

Almost as soon as we arrived at the house, we headed for the beach because it was the golden hour already and it was going to be colder and windier all the other days we’d be there, so we wanted to do our Christmas card photo shoot. We drove because it was a fifteen-minute walk to the beach and we didn’t want to lose the light.

We posed and took pictures of each other with the ocean to our backs, on or near some jetty rocks, and next to a weathered pole in the sand. It wasn’t until after we were looking at the photos a couple days after we got home that we realized how very phallic the pole was. And it was too bad because we had several we liked with it, some with me and Beth and some with the kids, and I liked that there were evergreens in the background, as a Christmassy touch… but I had reservations. Then someone (Beth or Noah) had the brilliant idea that we could crop the photo to make it a little less pornographic. So, if you are on my Christmas card list, you’ll see the clean version, but I thought I’d amuse you all by putting an uncut one here.

Beth and Noah went home after the photo shoot, but North and I lingered long enough to watch the sunset turn the beach grass reddish gold and the clouds pink.

That night we got takeout Italian and watched most of the first Wicked movie because North wanted everyone to have the plot fresh for when we watched the second movie, which we were planning to do the last night they were home, after we got back from the beach.

Thanksgiving

When I woke on Thanksgiving around 7:10, I looked at my weather app to see how long the sun had been up. I was too late to catch the sunrise, but I decided to go down to the beach anyway because the early morning light is still pretty. I arrived around 7:40 and the sun had risen a bit over the horizon, tinting the thin line of clouds over the water pink, casting a path of shining light across the water, and turning the tips of the waves a translucent green.

I came back to the house for breakfast and Beth inquired about my walk and I told her I was “invigorated.” I put some of that energy to use doing some Thanksgiving cooking prep with North. We worked together on the cranberry sauce and chopping vegetables for a broccoli-cheddar casserole.

Then I went back to the beach and North came with me this time to walk on the boardwalk and sit near the ocean. We lingered in some Adirondack chairs set under a concrete overhang in front of a boardwalk hotel, because I thought that area would be out of the wind, but the high winds that had been predicted hadn’t really materialized. It was sunny and not too cold, and we stayed long enough for me to finish my previous blog post, about Beth’s birthday. I’d brought my laptop with me for this purpose.

The rest of the afternoon we were occupied with cooking and reading and making our traditional apple-turkey decorations. I have been making these since childhood. The legs, feathers, and neck are made of toothpicks with dried cranberries and raisins, and the heads are made of green olives with the pimento pulled partially out. When they were finished, Noah posed the turkeys on a table on the porch to photograph them and then we put them on the table with the other decorative items—gourds we got with our Halloween pumpkins and a little glass turkey North got as a birthday gift for Beth some time in elementary school.

I went back to the beach for the third time that day to watch a cloudier sunset than the day before. There was a line of glowing pink just over the horizon, below the puffy dark gray clouds. I got back about an hour before dinner time and helped with the finishing touches of dinner. We feasted on a tofurkey roast, mashed potatoes, two kinds of stuffing (wild rice and bread), mushroom gravy, broccoli-cheddar casserole, rolls, and two kinds of sparkling juice (apple-cranberry and white grape), and three kinds of pie (pumpkin, pecan, and apple).

Since Beth and North did the bulk of the cooking (a nice treat for me as the family’s main cook), Noah and I did the dishes. I started them before we watched the last forty minutes of Wicked, A Charlie Brown Thanksgiving, and Mayflower Voyagers, and he finished them afterwards, when everyone else had gone to bed. Sadly, we couldn’t have a fire in the living room while we watched tv, because we couldn’t get the gas fireplace to work, the second year in a row we’ve had this problem (in different houses).

Black Friday

I’d mentioned that I might try to get out of the house earlier the next morning, in time for the sunrise and Beth surprised me by saying if I did, she’d come with me. We made it out of the house by seven and were on the beach by 7:15. The sun was an orange ball, just peeking over a band of clouds on the horizon. The light was lovely, making the sand glow a peach color with sharply defined shadows in every little hillock. There were large flocks of seabirds (two kind of gulls, dark and light, and littler birds, either sand pipers or terns) near the water.

We left the beach to go get coffee (me), hot chocolate (her), and biscotti (both of us). I saved my biscotti for later as I can’t eat pastry first thing in the morning. Instead, back at the house I had vegetarian sausage and half a grapefruit as a sort of appetizer, while we waited for the kids to get up. We were going out for breakfast at Egg.

Before diabetes, whenever we came to the beach in November or December, I would always get the Pumpkin Pie Praline French Toast, but I haven’t had it in years. I was considering my less appealing options when Noah, who almost always gets lemon-blueberry crepes, said he was considering the French toast. “That would make me so happy!” I exclaimed because then I could have just a little. After that, he had to get it and I had about a quarter of one of the slices, with two fried eggs, and it was as good as I remembered. Also, it wasn’t enough to push my blood sugar out of range, when followed by a lot of walking around town shopping. (I ended up with 23,449 steps that day and 19,831 on Thanksgiving between all the walking on the beach, the boardwalk, and in town.)

We left the restaurant and split up to shop. I went with North and we hit BrowseAbout, Christmas Spirit, the Spice and Tea Exchange, and a jewelry store. I cannot disclose what we bought in most of the these places, but I’m pretty sure my niece does not read this blog, so I can say that North bought a black cat ornament for Lily-Mei, who is very attached to her real black cat and who has her own Christmas tree in her room. We met up with Beth toward the end of our shopping and headed back to the house for lunch, which for most of us was Thanksgiving leftovers.

Noah and I read and the kids and I talked to my mother on the phone before I headed back out to do some more shopping and then took a much-needed nap. That evening we attended the holiday singalong and Christmas tree lighting in downtown Rehoboth. We dropped the kids off before finding parking a few blocks away. While we were separated, they got hot chocolate. When we found them, it was almost time to start.

The cast from a community theater production of A Christmas Carol was on the bandstand. They were all in costume (though the child actors wore modern coats over theirs, we imagined at their parents’ insistence as it was a cold night). I have noticed in recent years fewer people seemed to be singing at the singalong, but that wasn’t the case this year. Maybe it was because the kids had gotten us a good spot, close to the bandstand.

We sang a selection of mostly secular holiday songs like “Frosty the Snowman,” “Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer,” and “Santa Claus is Comin’ to Town.” There’s usually one pop song and one religious one and this year it was Taylor Swift’s “Christmas Tree Farm” and “O Holy Night.” During “I Saw Mommy Kissing Santa Claus,” North stared at me and continuously shook their head. Both kids are opposed to any Christmas song that sexualizes Santa and will in fact often try to fast forward past the aforementioned song or “Santa Baby.” There was a man standing behind us who, as each new song was announced, would exclaim, “That’s a good one!” He didn’t sound like he was joking either, so either he was sincere or trying to jolly someone into more enthusiasm, or both.

At just past seven the tree, the biggest one I’ve ever seen at this event, lit up with colored lights and a white star on top. We made our way to Grotto to pick up the pizza, stromboli, and mozzarella sticks we’d ordered ahead of time and took them back home to reheat and eat.

I’d thought we’d watch A Charlie Brown Christmas and How the Grinch Stole Christmas because that’s what we usually do the day after Thanksgiving, but Noah wanted to watch a movie. So, we carefully weighed everyone else’s priorities—that the entertainment be holiday-themed and that it be less than two hours long (because it was late) and we settled on Champagne Problems, a Hallmark-type Christmas movie. It was true to type but also reminded me of Emily in Paris in miniature. It was fun if you like that kind of thing, which I do, but only at Christmastime.

Departure x 2

On Saturday morning, we packed up the house and checked out. After returning the keys to the realty we visited the lobby of the Victorian-themed Boardwalk Plaza Hotel to look at their ornate Christmas decorations and then we split up. Beth and Noah went to do some more Christmas shopping and North and I went to get coffee at Sugar and Thread. North got an apple fritter and I dipped the biscotti I’d gotten the day before in my coffee.

When I was finished, I left North there and went for a walk on the boardwalk. I ran into Beth sitting on a bench on the far south end and we started to walk around Silver Lake, but we needed to turn back before we’d completed the circuit so we could meet the kids on the boardwalk.

The kids and I said our traditional goodbye to the ocean, which involves the two of them striding barefoot into the surf (I wear boots in the colder months) and staying for twenty-five waves. The number is determined by the last two digits of the year. North speculated that in the 2090s they would be risking hypothermia to do it for ninety-plus waves while their descendants anxiously watch from the boardwalk and suggest maybe they don’t actually need to complete this ritual as the two elderly siblings ignore them and shuffle down to the waterline anyway. I like this image.

It was hard to leave the beach. It always is in varying degrees, but it’s harder when I feel I haven’t done something I wanted to do. This time I was happy with the amount of time I spent on the beach and with my family and with the moderate dent I put in my Christmas shopping. What I felt was missing was down time. I would have liked another day to relax a little more, but I realize I should not complain about spending a holiday dedicated to gratitude in my favorite place with my favorite people. I am suitably grateful for that.

We had lunch at Grandpa Mac’s and drove home, listening first to an episode of Handsome and then Christmas music. We were home long enough for me to start a load of laundry, unpack the food (but not much else), and take a shower before we left to go out to dinner at Cava and see Wicked: For Good. I’d read some not-so-glowing reviews, so the bar was low, and as a result it was better than I expected. I’d say the music was not as good as in the first installment but with one or two exceptions I felt it did a good job connecting the plot with the source material, the two stars have good chemistry, and it was fun to watch. I’m not intimately familiar with the musical, so I don’t know what was in the play and what was added for the five-hour, two-movie version.

We got home late (for us) and fell into bed a little after eleven. Beth and North left for the airport at 7:15 the next morning. I would have gone with them, but Beth was grocery shopping right afterward, I hadn’t made a grocery list for her, and I did think eating this week would be a good idea, so I stayed home and did that. I went out to the driveway to hug North goodbye and then watched the car drive away. I wasn’t too sad, though, because they would be back in a couple weeks (less now) and we’ll have more holidays to celebrate.

Moving Forward

Posted on November 15, 2025 by Steph

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No News

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

Transitions

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

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

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

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

Moving Forward

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

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

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

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

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

A Scary World

Posted on November 1, 2025 by Steph

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Pre-Halloween Activities

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

All Hallows Eve

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

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

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

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

Post-Halloween Thoughts

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

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

#FallBreak

Posted on October 26, 2025 by Steph

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

First Saturday: No Kings

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

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

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

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

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

First Sunday: Picking Pumpkins

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

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

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

Monday to Wednesday: Berkely Springs

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Thursday to Friday: Baking and Coffee

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

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

Second Saturday: Halloween Parade and Carving Pumpkins

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

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

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

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

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

Second Sunday

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

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

All’s Well That Ends Well

Posted on October 20, 2025 by Steph

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

Street Festival

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

Seasonal Miscellany

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

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

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

A Bad Day

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

All For The Love Of You

A Chronicle of Suburban Lesbian Family Life

Category Archives: Holidays

(Re)Birth

A Richer Place

Ice Melts

Happy New Year, Happy Retirement

Keeping Christmas

Beach and Banquet

Moving Forward

A Scary World

#FallBreak

All’s Well That Ends Well