Snow and Ice

Posted on January 26, 2026 by Steph

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DC: Protests
After only a little over a week at home after our New Year’s trip, Beth and I hit the road again for the same two places we’d just been. The reason was North’s gallbladder surgery (which we hoped would resolve the daily nausea, abdominal pain, and other digestive issues they’d been having since summer) was the Friday before MLK weekend, and we were going to look after them as they recovered. We left Wednesday morning, headed for Wheeling first to break up the drive. The day before that Beth, who now has time to go to as many protests as she wants, went to two. In the morning, she was outside the Supreme Court as they heard arguments about trans secondary school athletes and in the afternoon, she was outside Customs and Border Protection protesting ICE’s overreach and brutality.

I would have liked to go to both protests, but especially the second one. As I told Beth, at the beginning of this administration I had identified trans rights as one of the most important issues to me, and I still care, deeply, but now there are so many things to protest that I sometimes have to ask myself, “Is this an existential threat to democracy?” when deciding whether to get out the markers and posterboard and take some time off work.

Well, the way the government is treating undocumented people, black and brown people who it thinks (with or without proof) could possibly be undocumented, and people who don’t think immigrants and/or citizens of color should be routinely abducted, physically attacked, or killed seems like the one of the most existential threats to democracy currently. Nevertheless, I sat this one out because I knew I would be working only sporadically on the road so I thought I should put in two solids days on Monday and Tuesday. Beth reports that Senator Chris Van Hollen gave a good speech. You may have seen it online. It was the one about the immigrant mother in detention who was not released to be at her teenage son’s side as he died of cancer. This is the level of cruelty we are seeing these days.

Takoma Park, MD to Wheeling, WV: Traveling

We got a later start Wednesday morning than intended because I realized a half hour into the drive that I’d left my diabetes medications at home, so we had to turn around. We arrived in Wheeling in the late afternoon. It was cold and raining, but I hadn’t been able to walk as much as I would have liked that day, so I went for a short walk through the neighborhood, during which the rain turned to snow flurries. For dinner Beth’s mom had made a vegetable-barley soup that was warming after a damp, chilly walk. We watched part of the Ken Burns American Revolution documentary before bed.

In the morning, I worked a little reviewing background materials for web copy for a curcumin extract and took another walk, this one mostly in Wheeling Park. There was about an inch of snow, making the walk pretty. We left for Oberlin shortly after lunch, aiming to arrive after North’s afternoon rehearsal.

Wheeling to Oberlin, OH and Westlake, OH: Traveling

There was a lot more snow in Oberlin than in Wheeling. It had snowed hard for twenty hours and they had ten inches. During much of the day there were white-out conditions. North’s morning rehearsal was cancelled and their afternoon one moved to Zoom. They kept texting Beth about weather conditions and seemed worried about our drive. But it was lake effect snow, so the roads were clear until we were about a half hour from Oberlin, where they were imperfectly cleared. It had stopped snowing by that point, and the sun was even out for parts of the drive. We didn’t have any real trouble getting to Oberlin.

We arrived at Keep and North came out to the porch to greet us with kisses and hugs. We hung out with them in the lounge until the laundry they were doing was ready to move to the dryer and then we left to get coffee at Slow Train. North wanted one last coffee with whole milk before they had to go on a low-fat diet, post-surgery. I got coffee, too, and a chocolate chip cookie because on the drive over the past two days we’d been listening to a six-part podcast about the life of Famous Amos and it’s hard to listen to so many mentions of cookies before you start to want one. I asked for the coffee decaf but given how long it took me to fall asleep that night, I don’t think that’s what I got.

We’d been planning to eat dinner at the co-op where North is eating over Winter Term (Keep is housing only until spring semester) but North checked the menu on their phone and wasn’t that enthusiastic about lentil shepherd’s pie as their last pre-surgery meal so they suggested we eat out. They’d been meaning to get the fried pickles at the Feve before the surgery and hadn’t gotten around to it, which was probably their main motivation. They got the pickles, plus grilled cheese and tater tots, which is a meal they won’t be able to eat for a while.

We dropped North off at Keep and drove to Beth’s friend and former colleague Jeff’s house outside Cleveland, where we were staying the night. Jeff and his wife Karen were leaving the next morning hours before dawn for a trip to Disney World with two of their grandkids, so we didn’t socialize for long before they went to bed. Beth and I are early-to-bed types, so it’s unusual for anyone we stay with to go to bed before us.

Avon, OH: Surgery

The next morning, we left Jeff and Karen’s house, picked North up at Keep, and drove to Avon Hospital. They had a ten-a.m. check-in time and were told to expect to be there for three hours, though it ended up being more like five. They were in an exam room for an hour and a half before surgery, being hooked up to an IV and EKG stickers, and being informed about the procedure by various medical professionals, but as is usually the case in hospitals, mostly waiting. The most interesting thing that happened was that when one of the nurses couldn’t get a vein for the IV, another one performed an ultrasound on North’s arm, and we got to see the inside of their arm and watch as the needle penetrated the vein. At one point shortly before the surgery, North said, “There’s an organ in my body that won’t be there in an hour. It’s been there my whole life. It was once in you.” Here they gestured to me. This seemed to be blowing their mind a bit.

After North was wheeled into surgery, we went to the cafeteria for lunch. I decided to stay there because I’d been hoping to squeeze in a little work at the hospital and there were tables there, which made it a better workspace than the waiting room. Beth went back up to the waiting room and texted me when North was out of surgery and had been taken to recovery. The view from the window in this waiting room, of an overcast sky, a parking lot, a snow-covered quad cut into triangles by shoveled paths, and some bare trees, reminded me of something from Severance.

We eventually got to rejoin North in another exam room. Everything had gone well, but they’d taken longer than expected to come out of the anesthesia. Even when we got there, they were still very sleepy. We got post-surgical instructions and waited for North to wake up enough for the nurses to assess their pain level and decide they were ready to leave.

Oberlin: Convalescence

We drove to the rental house where we were staying and got North settled into bed for a nap. Beth went out for groceries while I stayed with them and when she got back, I went for a walk. It was almost dark when I left and only some of the sidewalks were shoveled, but I am devoted to my daily walk and didn’t want to skip it. For dinner, Beth and I ordered pizza from Lorenzo’s, the only restaurant in Oberlin from our college days that’s still open. I wondered if it was mean to have pizza when North was having broth and vegetarian strawberry Jello for dinner, but North said it helped we got spinach on it, because they don’t like spinach. We watched The Devil Wears Prada after dinner. North and I have been watching Emily in Paris, and I didn’t realize how much the show draws on the film, even though it’s a kinder, gentler echo of it.

Saturday was a quiet day of convalescence for North. I went out for a morning walk, admiring the deep snow and huge icicles, and then after lunch Beth went out to take her own walk and fetched some forgotten items from North’s room in Keep. While she was gone, I read a half dozen chapters from The Narrative of Arthur Gordon Pym and then worked a little more on the curcumin web site. When Beth got home, we thought we might watch Gilmore Girls, but North had fallen asleep waiting for us to be ready, so I blogged instead. We watched a couple episodes once they woke up, had dinner (North had managed pretzels and yogurt earlier in the day so they had miso soup with tofu and noodles, while Beth and I had a couple prepared curries on quinoa) and then we watched People We Meet on Vacation.

Sunday was much like Saturday. It was sunny and as I sipped my herbal tea in the kitchen I looked out at the snow on the lawn—sparkly and touched in places with the palest pink from the newly risen sun—and the icicles, some maybe as long as a foot and a half long, translucent and glowing, hanging from the eaves. On my only outing of the day, I went to Slow Train to drink coffee, eat half a bagel, and read three chapters of The Narrative of Arthur Gordon Pym, admiring some creative snow creatures on the way, and picking up a coffee to bring home to North, who was trying it with skim milk that day. They were still in pain and easily fatigued, but their appetite was good.

Later that afternoon, I did laundry for everyone so North would have a good supply of clean clothes when they returned to Keep, and North and I watched a couple episodes of Emily in Paris Rome. I wondered if it was a good idea to start a new season when we won’t be able to watch it again until spring break, but that kind of thinking might mean we never start it, so we did. North napped in the mid-afternoon and I finished The Narrative of Arthur Gordon Pym. Later we played Sleeping Queens and watched Gilmore Girls and ate an improvised breakfast-for-dinner meal with food we had on hand (air-fried tofu, scrambled eggs, vegetarian sausage, toast, and fruit salad) and watched Murder Mystery. North wrote a review on Letterbox: “Exactly what you think a murder mystery starring Adam Sandler would be like.” They also said it hurt their incisions to laugh, but despite this they chose to watch the sequel the next night.

That afternoon we’d talked to North about if they felt ready for us to leave the next morning and they said no—partly for practical reasons but also “because I still feel like I’m sick and I want my parents”—so we extended the rental house by a day.

Monday was the coldest day so far, with a wind chill of -3, which may be nothing to my tougher Canadian readers, but is unusual for us Marylanders. I braved the elements to go to Slow Train again to get coffee and a scone and bring an iced coffee back to North. On my way, I stopped to take pictures of Underground Railroad-related sculpture (tracks rising out of the ground) and plaques because it was MLK day. When I got back, there were newly formed ice crystals attached the underside of the coffee cup lid. I found Beth and North playing Spelling Bee in bed. “We are currently Amazing, but we want to be Geniuses,” North told me and soon they were.

Because we were staying an extra day, I decided I needed to get more serious about working, so I holed up in the house’s little office and got back to work on the curcumin web site copy, taking a break to watch a couple episodes of Emily on Paris Rome with North while Beth was out buying groceries, mostly for North to have after we left. I think it was the first day North didn’t need an afternoon nap.

Later that afternoon Beth boiled a bunch of noodles and air-fried tofu to send back to Keep with North the next day. Beth made a stir-fry for dinner, and we watched Murder Mystery 2. North’s review: ““Exactly what you think the sequel to a murder mystery starring Adam Sandler would be like.”

The next morning was even colder, with a wind chill of -7. I packed, took a short walk, packed some more, and then we checked out of the rental house, unloaded copious groceries into the lounge fridge in Keep, took North out for lunch at a sushi place in Elyria and then hit the road. They were complaining of nausea, and it was hard to leave them, still recovering, but at least they were well provisioned.

Oberlin to Wheeling and Wheeling to Takoma Park: Traveling

We arrived in Wheeling a little after five. The drive was uneventful. The temperature rose into the twenties and we could see the snow gradually lessening as we neared Wheeling, where there were only patchy remnants of the snow that fell when we were there almost a week earlier. Beth’s mom defrosted the vegetable lasagna we had over New Year’s and we watched more of the American Revolution documentary. In the morning, we had a video call with North who said the nausea of the day before had been short-lived. They seemed in good spirits. I took a walk in Wheeling Park (where Good Lake was frozen solid) and we visited with Beth’s aunt Carole, leaving shortly after lunch for home.

It was snowing as we drove home, more than was predicted, and the drive ended up being tricky, but we got home in six hours, which was not bad, considering.

Takoma Park and Minneapolis, MN: Snow and ICE and Border Patrol

We’ve been home four and a half days now. I went back to work Thursday and Friday. We got almost seven inches of compacted snow and sleet that fell Saturday night and all day Sunday. Beth, Noah, and I took turns shoveling and re-shoveling the sidewalk in front of the house and around the side. We have a corner lot, and our back yard is big so there is a long stretch of sidewalk to shovel. Between the three of us, we did the section in front of the house four times—because it’s the more traveled street of the two at our intersection— but by Sunday evening it was covered again. But the power didn’t go out and Beth made pumpkin brownies, two pluses for an inclement winter day.

Sunday morning, we had a video call with North. They hadn’t left Keep since we left them there five days earlier, but their friends are hanging out in their room and getting their mail from the mail room and doing their laundry for them (the washer and dryer are one floor up from their room and they can’t carry loads upstairs). They made a crochet snail from a kit one of their friends got them, they haven’t run out of food, they joined the rehearsals for their winter term project last week by Zoom and they hope to go in person this week. Best of all, they say since the surgery, the digestive problems they’ve been having since summer do seem to be clearing up. We are all gratified by that.

But like all of you, we were horrified, when earlier this weekend, a second protestor was executed in Minneapolis. Between the kidnapped preschooler used as bait and the other abducted or tear-gassed children, the elderly man (a citizen, not that it matters) dragged out of his house wearing just underwear and a blanket in the bitter cold, and these terrible deaths, things just keep getting worse and worse in that besieged city. The massive protests and the way people are organizing to protect their neighbors at considerable risk to themselves is truly inspiring and I hope this will be a turning point, but I don’t know if it will be. Like much of the country, I feel like I’m holding my breath and waiting to see.

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.

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.

#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?

A Wider Circle

Posted on October 4, 2025 by Steph

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Friday: Travel West

The night before we left for my sister’s wedding in Davis, California, I had a stress dream. In it, North and I were together, trying to get to a medical office only a few blocks away where we were supposed to meet Beth. But for various reasons, we could not get there. We were trapped for a long time in a big warehouse with a roller coaster inside (and compelled to ride the coaster) and there were all these mythical creatures wandering around. Somehow in the course of our wandering, I lost my shoes, laptop, and phone.

Now as all these items are things you need to put in the bin to go through security, and we failed to make our appointment, the dream seemed to be about travel worries. But I commented to Beth that morning that it was strange, because these aren’t my specific travel anxieties. Instead, I fret ahead of time about my physical and mental discomfort from not being able to move for long periods of time (I get antsy and sometimes get leg cramps) and the inevitable disruption to my sleep if I’m traveling across time zones. I don’t do well with sleep deprivation.

Well, the things I find unpleasant about flying did happen. On the longer flight I had to pee and couldn’t get out of my seat because the seatbelt light was on for a long time, and I am a rule-follower. I also got a little airsick. And of course, later, I was jet-lagged. But I am not going to say any more about any of that right now, because North had a much worse time. It turns out my dream—largely about obstacles to arrival—was closer to the mark than I thought.

North flew from Cleveland to Phoenix and found out their flight from Phoenix to Sacramento had been canceled due to heavy rain in Phoenix. The only flight they could get to Sacramento would have them arriving the following day too late to make the wedding and to make matters worse the airline wasn’t even putting stranded travelers up in hotels. (Did you know the Trump administration gave airlines more leeway about this?)

And another complicating factor: North is too young to rent a hotel room. My sister called up Dave’s sister who lives in Phoenix, asking if North could spend the night at her house, but the sister said no. Beth talked North through the process of getting a flight back to Cleveland the next day and found an Airbnb for them and then another one after the first one didn’t want to let North use Beth’s membership. And because the airport was full of people who needed to leave and find accommodations, it took forever to get a Lyft. It was quite the ordeal.

In between all the calls and texts, we reunited with my mom, Sara, Dave, Lily-Mei, their cat Shadow and bearded lizard Sparky; we also met my mother’s gentleman friend Paul, Sara’s friend Kimberly who was staying with my mom, and Sara’s family’s new (to us) cat Glimmer. Dave and Lily-Mei left soon after we arrived to attend a minor league baseball game with some of the wedding guests and the rest of us (except the cats and the lizard) had pizza.

Saturday: More Travel, Brunch, and Wedding

North got up before dawn the next day and went back to the airport in hopes of getting on a flight to Sacramento standby. The agents they consulted could not find one, but North found one by themselves and managed to get on it. We’d all given up hope of them making it to the wedding, so everyone was excited they were coming after all.

The wedding was a three-day affair with events before and afterward. Sadly, we had arrived too late go to the swimming hole Friday morning and afternoon and the Friday evening ball game would have kept us up unbearably late, as we are early birds on East Coast time to boot.

However, we were there (minus North) for the pre-wedding brunch at this venue. It’s a farm/brewery with a nut orchard and hops fields and a lot of poultry (chickens, ducks, geese, turkeys) wandering around. There are couches and tables inside and just outside a big, open-sided barn full of antique farm equipment. You can reserve tables for events and during the afternoon and evening there are food trucks and sometimes live music. It was morning, so we brought all our own food—three kinds of quiche, pastries, and two big bowls of fruit salad my mom made.

At the brunch and later at the wedding I reunited with and met people from many eras of Sara’s life (high school, college, Santa Cruz, Oakland, and Ashland), plus some of Dave’s friends, and Lily-Mei’s two besties Athena and Emma. Among the notable guests (for me) was Sean, who went to our high school and overlapped with both Sara and me. He and I were in a student group (Student Coalition for Peace) together. It was great to see him. I was also surprised at how happy it made me to see Dune, my favorite of Sara’s ex-boyfriends, with whom she moved from Santa Cruz to Ashland. I hadn’t thought of him in a long time, but I was always fond of him.

At the brunch, when I approached Sara’s best friend whom I hadn’t seen in decades, I said, “Abigail?”

She answered, “Steph. I haven’t seen you since that other wedding. The one that didn’t take.” Here is a good time to explain Sara has had three weddings. One in her late twenties, the one to which Abigail was referring. Then in her late forties, during the first summer of covid, she legally married Dave in an outdoor ceremony with a handful of local friends who would not need to travel during those perilous times. This third wedding was the party with a wider circle of family and friends Sara wanted and couldn’t have five years ago.

Later I told Sara about this exchange, and she cracked up, saying, “That sounds like Abigail.”

Throughout the morning, North kept us updated on their travels by text. When they got to the Long Beach airport, this is what they had to say: “I love this airport. It’s so calm and quiet and not full of people sitting on the floor crying.”

After brunch, we picked North up at the Sacramento airport, which was also not full of people crying. North hadn’t eaten lunch, and we thought we’d need to eat again before the wedding, so we stopped at a shopping center where the kids got pizza and Beth and I got tacos. Back at Sara’s house, North hung out in Sara’s pool. Because there’s a fence around the pool and it’s private, North left their waist-length curly blond hair uncovered and it floated behind them. They looked like a mermaid. Beth said she was tempted by the pool, too, but we had about an hour before we needed to get dressed for the wedding and as we were both jet-lagged and exhausted, a nap seemed more practical.

The wedding was at this vineyard. People mingled outside. I talked to a few people, but not as many as at the brunch, as I was a little worn out. I wandered around and took in the Spanish colonial architecture and the fountain in the courtyard, illuminated by the late afternoon sun.

When it was time for the ceremony, people took their seats in front of a bower with pink crepe at the top and pink roses appearing to grow on the sides. (Sara later told me it was a real rose bush but no roses were in bloom, so Abigail had stuck cut roses into the bower. It was very convincing, I think because the spacing wasn’t too regular.)

Abigail’s wife Val officiated, giving a speech about how Sara and Dave are very different but work together anyway. Dave is a retired actuary who likes spreadsheets and suburban developments, golfs, and wears polo shirts. Sara, while a responsible business owner, also has a hippie streak and likes old houses and collecting what he calls “rusty metal shit.” (He wrote this on a box when they were moving from Ashland to Davis.)

Both Sara and Dave spoke. In her speech she read a list she’d made while single of forty-two characteristics she hoped for in a partner, then noted how Dave checked off almost every box. Lily-Mei was the ring bearer, bringing them the same rings they’ve been wearing for five years. The couple took their vows and kissed. As they walked away from the bower between the rows of folding chairs, guests showered them with rose petals from bowls in the aisle.

There were toasts at dinner. Sean made a similar point to Val’s about the couple’s differences, starting by noting that Dave goes by Dave. He said in his circles a man named David would go by David, and that one in Sara’s might go by Ocean or Redwood, but Dave is Dave. Sara said she couldn’t thank everyone who helped with the preparations, but she called out Abigail for her special efforts and North for their fortitude in travel.

After dinner, there was karaoke. Sara and Dave had the first number, “Summer Nights,” from Grease. When it got to the line “Did she put up a fight?” Dave sang, “Did you respect her boundaries?” which got a laugh. My mom sang “When I Fall in Love.” We stayed for about half the karaoke and when we left Sara thanked us for staying up so late, which was kind of funny because it was only nine o’clock, but you know—jet-lagged early birds.

Sunday: Last Day in Davis

The only wedding weekend activity left was a winery tour Sunday afternoon, but we’d opted out of that. There was talk of having breakfast out with Sara’s family and some of her friends, but she texted me that morning to say that they’d been up late at the wedding after-party and couldn’t make it before we needed to take North back to the airport. So, my family of four went to a bakery/café where I had ratatouille with a fried egg, a charming apricot Danish with apricot halves rather than preserves in it, and a latte.

We drove North—who had spent longer getting to Davis than they’d spent there—to the airport, said our goodbyes. On the way back, we went to the Davis food co-op to pick up provisions for breakfast the next morning and our own travels the next day. Then we swung by Sara’s house, picked up Noah and walked to my mom’s house for lunch. She and Sara live within a fifteen-minute walk of each other, which must be nice. Paul was there, too, and the five of us ate brunch leftovers in Mom’s backyard. Beth had never been to Mom’s house, where she’s lived for a couple years, so she got the grand tour of the house and the garden, which has more kinds of fruit trees than I can remember. Right now, though, all she has is grapes and some green oranges. We stayed over there a couple hours and got to know Paul a little better.

Then we went back to Sara’s house because I needed some down time before Sara and Dave got back from the winery. Noah, Beth, and I read, I soaked in the hot tub, and Beth dozed in one of the poolside lounge chairs. I also read your blogs and made a stab at starting this blog post. Mom and Paul came over for dinner, and the eight of us had Chinese takeout and leftover cupcakes from the wedding.

Monday: Travel East

At first, I thought we wouldn’t see Sara’s family in the morning because we were leaving early, but I forgot it was a school day and there is a seventh grader living in the house, so we got to say our goodbyes to Sara, Dave, Lily-Mei and the cats in the morning after all. We flew home. It was uneventful, with only the usual discomforts, none of which mattered, as we all got where we were going, approximately on time.

When we walked out to the parking lot at National Monday night, I noticed that the air, which I would not have called humid under normal circumstances, did feel damper than the dry air of central California. Throughout the next several days, I often found myself thinking of the orchards; the cacti; the palm trees; the distant, arid mountains; and the rusty old shit in my sister’s yard.

Goodbye, Sophomore

Posted on August 29, 2025 by Steph

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Saturday: Takoma Park to Oberlin

We left the house for Oberlin (for the first time) a little before nine a.m. last Saturday. Our first stop was Mike and Sara’s house because Rose’s boyfriend John, who goes to Oberlin, had spent the summer with Rose’s family and we were giving him a ride back to school. We chatted with Mike and Sara, who were about to leave for a Tesla takedown protest (they are regulars) while John loaded his bags into our car and said goodbye to their little white dog. John and Shorty had bonded over the summer, Sara said, while John lingered on the porch with the dog. (Rose had already left for school a couple days earlier.)

When we got into the car, I remembered I had failed to take a leaving-for-college photo at our front gate and Beth said she’d indulge me by going back home. As North stood in front of the gate where they’d had a back-to-school photo snapped every year since they were two (except 2020), I said “Hello, sophomore!” to make them smile.

And then we drove to Ohio, with many stops along the way. We got snacks at Blue Goose Market in Hancock, Maryland, and lunch at Next Door in Bedford, Pennsylvania. Blue Goose is a regular stopping place for us and Next Door is on its way to becoming one. We listened to music and podcasts to pass the time. For the first hour or so, North and John were very chatty, mostly talking about mutual acquaintances from both high school and college. (They did not go to the same high school, but he’s from the area and high school theater circles are small.)

We arrived in Oberlin around six o’clock and dropped John off at his dorm. Next, we went to Keep and carried North’s things into their room. It’s the same one they had last spring, a first-floor single. They prefer a first-floor room because of their chronic pain, but they only found out recently they’d gotten into it off the wait list. The room was familiar to me, not only because I had been in it last year, but also quite often during the 1986-1987 school year, when a close friend of mine lived there. We didn’t linger because it was almost dinner time and Tank was only dining co-op that was open before the semester started, so we needed to scoot.

At Tank there was a bountiful buffet of chickpeas in tomato sauce, roasted potatoes, pancakes, cornbread, and brownies. I had to think about what carbs I most wanted, and I decided on a small serving of potatoes and a brownie. We ate on the steps of the wraparound porch, also familiar because I ate at Tank my first year of college. It felt good to be back in Oberlin and eating OSCA food.

After dinner we tried to get some groceries for breakfast, but first the IGA and then the Aldi’s we tried were closed, so we ended up picking up a few things at a Sheetz to supplement the food we’d brought from home. The search for an open grocery store was a little frustrating, but we were rewarded with a beautiful sunset as we drove around Lorain County.

The rental house where we were staying had two cats in the driveway who were quite insistent that they wanted to come inside with us, but when the owner showed up to help us with the keypad, he said they were not supposed to go in the second-floor apartment where we were staying. The place was notable for its religious décor. There was a Bible quote framed at the top of the stairs outside the entrance, another one on a mug in the kitchen, religious books placed on the bedside table, and a tiny Jesus figurine in the glass jar of makeup wipes in the bathroom. It looked like he was floating on a cloud in there.

The space was one big room with a kitchen and bathroom off to the side. North was staying with us that night so we could get an early start the next morning and they slept on a pullout couch in the living room area. At bedtime I was dismayed to find out I’d left my sleep mask at home, so I didn’t sleep well. Neither did North because apparently one of us was snoring. (They opted to sleep in Keep the next night.)

Sunday: Oberlin to Wheeling and Back Again

Why did we need to get an early start? We were driving to Wheeling to see Beth’s mom Sunday. It’s a three-hour drive each way, so it was going to be another long day on the road (the second of three), but North hadn’t seen YaYa since Thanksgiving and really wanted to go, so we did.

We arrived at YaYa’s house at 11:40 and soon after Beth’s aunt Carole and cousin Holly (who live two doors down) came over for a visit. As we left the house, we admired the flourishing Rose of Sharon in front of Carole’s house before we went to have lunch at the bistro at Oglebay resort. We ate on the patio, and the restaurant is on a hill, so we had a nice view of the park. We got a feast that started with a butter board with various compounded butters, fresh bread, and olives. I got a slice of quiche and a salad as well. Next, we went to the lodge and got coffee, chai, and a slice of lemon cheesecake.

Back at YaYa’s house we socialized some more, and I went for a short walk in her neighborhood. At 4:40, we said our goodbyes and drove back to Ohio. We drove mostly along rural roads and saw a lot of Amish people. There was another beautiful sunset. They are easier to see when there aren’t many hills or buildings. We had dinner at a Panera and then stopped in Wooster for ice cream and frozen custard at the dairy where OSCA gets its milk. It was fun to have a connection to the place.

Monday: Oberlin to Takoma Park

We picked North up at Keep the next morning and walked to Slow Train Café for coffee and pastries. From there we went to Ben Franklin, where we got clothes hangers and other sundries for North. (At home they had divided their hangers into a bag to take and hangers for children’s clothes to donate. Can you guess which bag they packed?) It was eleven o’clock by the time we said our goodbyes and got in the car again. When took pictures on the Keep steps, I said, “Goodbye, sophomore.” And it was time to go.

Our drive featured another stop at Blue Goose with a longer than planned stop to walk along the nearby C&O canal. We just kept finding interesting things, like a feral cat colony and water lotuses in bloom. It was a welcome distraction from the growing number of miles between us and our youngest child.

Tuesday through Friday: Takoma Park and Oberlin

Until recently, I thought this drop-off would be easy (if not objectively, then comparatively). It wasn’t anyone’s first year of college, it wasn’t the first drop-off after a year and a half at home due to a global pandemic, no one was going halfway across the world. But the fact that North’s multi-day migraine hadn’t gone away and their digestive woes were still unresolved made it harder to leave them. Right before we left home, we’d found out through the portal that their H. pylori test came back negative, so it’s more likely gastroenteritis than an ulcer. They got an appointment at the Cleveland Clinic, but it’s not until late September. Even though I am sorry they are dealing with these health problems, I am proud of them for taking steps to manage them. They are growing into quite the capable young adult. But of course, we are here to help if they need it.

On the positive side, they have a lot to look forward to this semester. They like their class schedule—two theater classes, one psychology class, a sociology class, and they will be on production crew for a show (which one TBD). They are one of two food coordinators for all OSCA, serving as a liaison to the wholesalers that supply the co-ops with food. It’s a paid position. They are now three days into the semester. Good luck, sophomore!

The Seaside Reminds You

Posted on July 23, 2025 by Steph

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The seaside
Reminds you of
Where you’ve been

“The Seaside,” by Janis Ian

We just got back from a week in Rehoboth with extended family four days ago. We stayed in a house where we’ve stayed twice before, once in the summer of 2020 and again Thanksgiving that same year. Because of covid, houses were going for cheap then and we could afford a five-bedroom house a block from the beach for just the four of us. I am very fond of this house. I love the aqua-painted kitchen, the wood paneling on most of the rooms, the cathedral ceiling in the dining area, and the indoor balcony that overlooks part of the first floor. We missed our families so much during those visits, it was satisfying to be back with mine this year.

The house is full of memories of those covid-era visits. There were little things, like the hooks where we hung our masks, and bigger ones. During the summer one North was partially paralyzed and in a wheelchair. We’d rented the house before we knew that would be the case, and so every time we left or returned to the house, we had to lug the wheelchair up or down the four brick stairs that lead to the porch and then we had to help North pull themselves up those same stairs.

When we arrived on Saturday and were walking up those stairs, this memory hit me hard. I asked Beth how many days she thought it would take not to think of that summer five years ago every time we went up or down the stairs and she said probably longer than a week. She was right.

Saturday

But about this trip… we all arrived at the beach in the late afternoon, despite having very different journeys. We had a four-and-a-half-hour trek from Maryland to Delaware, with a return to our house in the first five minutes of the drive for forgotten items, a stop for lunch, and moderate traffic. My mom, sister Sara, brother-in-law Dave, and twelve-year-old niece Lily-Mei arrived at the beach house, having been travelling from California since the previous morning. They flew to Philadelphia, arriving in the middle of the night after a re-routed connection (changed from Chicago to Colorado) and stayed overnight there and slept most of the next morning before driving to the beach.

North and I took a walk on the beach before the party was complete and then after a dinner of burgers, hot dogs, corn, and watermelon (with many cooks pitching in), everyone but Lily-Mei went to the beach or boardwalk. I was in the beach contingent with my mom, sister, and Dave. We admired an elaborate sandcastle with a stairway carved out of it, an intricate clear and purple jellyfish washed up on the beach, and the pink-tinged sky over the ocean. We saw dolphins and pelicans and osprey. Sara had not intended to swim on this outing, but the water was warmer than usual (and even more so for those accustomed to the Pacific) and she couldn’t resist, so she stripped down to her bra and underpants and dove in. Later she explained she always matches these garments just in case such opportunity for spontaneous swimming arises, though it’s more often in lakes and rivers when she’s at home.

There was some commotion on the beach further north. We saw what looked like police car lights on the beach and more searchlights on two boats close to shore, plus there were helicopters in the sky. We later heard it was a rescue mission for a lost swimmer, a young man, and sadly he was not found. It would be a few days before his body was discovered by a kayaker.

Sunday

Sunday morning, I woke to a message from my health care practice, letting me know the second strep test was negative. I’d been wearing a mask around those who weren’t in my immediate family (and presumably not yet exposed to whatever I had) but after learning it wasn’t strep, I put it away. I still had the sore throat at that point, but it lessened over the course of the week and eventually went away (mostly).

I took a walk on the boardwalk, finding a shady place on a roofed concrete platform in front of a hotel where I could watch the ocean. It was a sunny day, and the sea sparkled. I was wearing North’s crocs because the bottom straps of one of my Teva’s had slipped out of the base of the shoe when I was a half block from the house. As the crocs were the only shoes they had, I’d promised to return in an hour. However, when I texted to ask if they’d rather have the shoes back at eleven or an iced chai from Café a Go-Go, they opted for the chai, so I stayed out a little longer. (I ended up wearing my Birks for the rest of the week, despite my qualms about wearing them on the beach and getting them wet.) I can’t complain about the Teva’s lack of durability, however. I got them on a trip to the Southwest with Beth in the mid-nineties.

Beth, North, and I went to the beach in the early afternoon. We all stood in the shallow water together for a while and then North and I went in deeper. The water was very calm and full of jellyfish. We kept seeing them and brushing up against them and even stepping on them (which is an unsettling feeling.) We never got stung that day, though we did get that itchy, prickly feeling you sometimes get after sharing the ocean with a lot of jellyfish. However, it was the first time I’d been in the ocean since last July and North did not get as much time in the water as they would have liked on their trip to the beach with friends in June, so neither of us wanted to get out.

North’s trip in June was a senior beach week for most of the participants, but it was not what you might expect of a senior beach week. There was a chaperone (an aunt), the kids were not allowed out after nine p.m., and they were not allowed to swim unless a lifeguard was on duty and the aunt was watching, too, and the aunt rarely wanted to go to the beach. North loves the water and being back at the beach seemed to be bringing their frustration with this situation back.

Back at the towel, I finished up my book club book and then dozed in the sun. After a little while, I heard a tween girl’s voice and thought sleepily to myself, that girl sounds like Lily-Mei, without thinking about the fact that we were expecting Sara, Dave, and Lily-Mei and I’d even been wondering what was taking them so long. Do you see where this is going? They’d had trouble finding us and had settled one lifeguard stand over and then when they finally did find us North had gone back to the house and Beth and I both appeared to be asleep, so they didn’t want to wake us. Lily-Mei had concerns about going in the water because of the jellyfish, so she didn’t, and she and Dave left—maybe to go to Funland—I wasn’t sure, and Beth left, too, but I had another short swim while Sara read.

Mom made ratatouille for dinner and after the dishes were done, everyone but Mom and Noah went to the boardwalk. Sara and her family were headed for the arcade games at Funland and Beth, North, and I were tasked by Mom to get fudge at Candy Kitchen. Beth and North got frozen custard, and I went ahead to Funland to see if I could find Sara and her family. We hadn’t been separated long but they had already won a stuffed animal. Lily-Mei is a whiz at these games. Beth and North caught up with us and we watched the three of them play for a bit before coming home.

Monday

The next morning, I could see the fruits of their labor on the couch. There were three stuffed animals, and one of them was a truly enormous yellow duck. Apparently, Lily-Mei won the ring toss. You know that game, the one that’s so hard to win most people think it’s rigged? (Every time I went by the ring toss for the next several days I’d stop to see if anyone won and I never saw anyone do it.)

Discussing it, my mom said, “She wins so much stuff.”

And Dave said, “Yeah, she’s lucky.”

And my mom gave the proper grandmotherly response, “No, it’s because she’s good at everything she does.”

Beth went kayaking that morning; I was home all morning unpacking (which I hadn’t done yet), reading with Noah, conferring with my sister about my mother’s birthday cake and calling to buy the cake, chopping parsley and scallions for dinner, and generally hanging out with people. North made a tomato-cucumber-mozzarella-pesto salad for lunch and there was enough for me.

North and I spent a long time in the ocean that afternoon. Noah joined us briefly at the beginning and Sara for a longer time later. There were fewer (almost no) jellyfish, but not much in the way of waves. Sara and I took a walk on the beach, discussing parenthood and friendships and other things and then I got myself a frozen custard on the boardwalk.

I came home from the beach a little early to lend Noah a hand with dinner. He was making vegetarian crab cakes, and I got there in time to help with the frying part of the operation. They were a big hit. Both Mom and Sara asked him for the recipe.

Tuesday

It was our anniversary, the summer one that commemorates our first date (in 1987), but neither of us remembered it until the night before. We knew we had an anniversary this week, we even had dinner reservations, we just made them for the wrong night. We decided to keep things as they were because other people had made plans around this timing.

We opted to have a mini date on our actual anniversary. Beth needed ingredients for the meal she was making that night, so we went to the farmers’ market and a cheese shop and then got beverages and pastries and took them to the boardwalk. While we were gone, in an attempt to be “the cool older cousin,” North took Lily-Mei out for coffee and they got jagua tattoos on their hands.

Then Sara, Dave, and Lily-Mei were shopping in downtown Rehoboth for a dress for Lily-Mei to wear to her parents’ covid-delayed wedding in September. (They got legally married the summer of 2020 but never had a wedding and decided to do it this year.) Mom took my kids out to a late lunch, and Beth was working and then starting dinner prep, so I went to the beach alone in the mid-afternoon. (Sara worked almost every day we were there, and Beth worked intermittently, too. I was the only non-retired adult who was completely on vacation during my vacation.)

Almost as soon as I got there, the lifeguards cleared the water because lightning had been sighted five miles away. About a half hour later, they cleared the beach. People were still allowed on the boardwalk, so I went to a pavilion and read on a bench for a couple hours. Eventually, the lifeguards went off duty and I considered my options. There were dark clouds to the west and sunny skies to the east. I had not seen any lightning in the two and a half hours I’d been on the beach and boardwalk. People were trickling back onto the beach and some into the water. I decided I’d split the difference and read on the beach but not risk a swim. I told Beth later I didn’t think she’d want me to get electrocuted on our anniversary. “Or any other day!” she exclaimed. As a result, I read two-thirds of a novel in a day, which is a real luxury for me, and I did it with an ocean view, so I can’t complain too much about not getting to swim that day.

I came back to Beth’s signature beach week dinner—gazpacho, salt-crusted potatoes with cilantro-garlic sauce, a cheese plate, bread, and olives. She put Spanish guitar music on for ambiance and served dark chocolate for dessert. This meal is always much anticipated and enjoyed by the beach house crew. I think there would be a revolt if she didn’t make it.

After dinner everyone but Beth, who does not care for scary movies, watched The Presence, but we had to fast-forward through a scene that was not age-appropriate for Lily-Mei and then later had to consult some online summaries to learn what happened and how the plot twist at the end worked. North figured it out without help and Dave objects to the logic, in ways I can’t explain without giving spoilers.

After Beth and I had gone to bed, there was a long discussion, led by Lily-Mei and later related to me by North, about the relative hotness of various celebrities. It started with Brad Pitt because some of the group was going to see the F1 movie the next day. My mom’s verdict: yes, very much so, especially about thirty years ago. Lily’s Mei’s: not now or then. Everyone else was in the middle or expressed no opinion. Then Sara, Dave, and Lily-Mei (who were all kind of still on West Coast time) went out to the boardwalk and brought home fudge and other candy.

Wednesday

I had lunch with my mom because a large portion of the crew (everyone but me and North and mom) was going to see the aforementioned F1 movie. We went to our usual spot, a boardwalk restaurant where most tables have an ocean view and where I indulge in one of my once or twice-yearly departures from vegetarianism to eat fried clams. Mom got a grilled cheese sandwich with crab. The food at this place is fine, but not outstanding. We mainly go for the view.

Once I was back from lunch, North and I went to the beach. We were in the water a little over a half hour and got out because we kept brushing up against jellyfish. There were more that day than any other so far and I got stung in more places than I realized until I got out of the water and saw the angry red marks on both thighs just above the knee, one ankle, one wrist, and one forearm. It barely hurt when it happened, but the stinging and redness got worse with time. (It still hurt when I went to bed, but by the next morning, I was fully recovered.)

Beth and I had our delayed anniversary date. We did not exchange presents because we are going to an Emmylou Harris and Graham Nash concert later this month and that is our present to each other. We did get cards. In fact, we picked out the exact same card from BrowseAbout. It has two starfish on the front and says, “It’s written in the stars. You were meant for each other.” We both crossed out “you” and replaced it with “we.” This is less of a coincidence than it sounds like for two reasons. First, while the store has a large selection of cards, I couldn’t find many anniversary cards. More importantly, Beth often gets me a card with star imagery for our anniversary because the summer were both twenty, thirty-eight years ago, she wished on a star for me to fall in love with her and I did.

We went out for tapas (asparagus, spinach-ricotta gnocchi, brie and fig wrapped in phyllo, and a salad with strawberries, watermelon, feta, and candied pecans, all excellent). We were seated next to a long table of at least ten lesbians who were either in late middle age or seniors. They were about to go to a play together and seemed in high spirits. I told Beth if we retired to Rehoboth, it might not be hard to find a friend group.

We followed dinner up with ice cream on the boardwalk. I decided to get cinnamon with churro bits to continue the Spanish theme. Beth was in the mood for brownie sundae, but we went to a few places and couldn’t find one, so she got coffee with hot fudge. I said I thought one kid or the other could be induced to make brownies when we got home and mentioned we still had sour cherries in the freezer for a topping. She was enthusiastic about this idea.

While we were on our date, everyone else went to trivia night at a gay bar in town. Apparently, they won a couple categories, because, according to my sister, her husband knows something about sports, and her daughter is a good guesser. Everyone was home when we got home, but Sara, Dave, and Lily-Mei returned to the bar later that evening for karaoke.

Thursday

Beth, my kids, my mom, and I went to Egg for breakfast, Sara’s crew having elected to sleep in instead. Noah and I did what we usually do on summer visits to Egg—got two orders of lemon curd-blueberry crepes—I eat a half an order, and he has one and a half. He loves crepes and I can manage about a half order of sweet ones without a blood sugar spike so it works out for both of us.

I left Egg on foot to go to BrowseAbout to get a gift certificate for my mom’s birthday and to pick up a book for myself, as I had almost finished both books I brought with me. When I got there, I discovered that I’d left my debit card in the pocket of the skirt I’d worn the day before, so I had to go home, get it and return. I stayed in the air-conditioned house long enough to fold a load of laundry. The day was the hottest of our trip (only high eighties but quite muggy). Still, I can’t really complain about the walk, a long portion of which is along the boardwalk. I even found some wild blackberries growing in the dunes and ate a few. (I had no idea blackberry bushes could grow in sand.)

When I got back it was almost noon, and the house was quiet as Sara and Dave had taken all our offspring to Jungle Jim’s waterpark. I stayed in the house to blog and when they returned and had eaten a late lunch, North and I went to the beach.

If you’re wondering if we went into the water, you don’t know either of us very well. I did decide I’d take just a quick dip, but the waves were better than they’d been all week (though still not as big as I’d like) so then I decided I would stay in until I touched a jellyfish, but I ended up staying in for a half hour and getting almost as many stings as the day before. “Same time tomorrow?” North joked as we were getting out of the water and I was assessing the damage.

Some of the lifeguards had a vinegar solution so you could spray on stings, and I did and initially I didn’t think it helped much but the stings didn’t hurt for as long as the day before, so I guess it did. North, whose suit protects them better than mine, got back in the water for a little longer and then we both read on the beach until biting flies drove North back to the house. I had my legs wrapped in my towel and that mostly foiled them, but I followed soon after. I showered, read with Noah, and then returned to the pavilion to get a little more beach time without getting sandy or bitten again.

Dinner was spring rolls, made by Sara and Dave. They made them the last time they came to the beach, three years ago, and they may have found their own signature beach meal. (Once you find a meal that works for four vegetarians, one diabetic, one person with a gluten sensitivity, and a few picky eaters, you tend to stick with it.) Sara played Thai music because she said she was not going to be outdone by Beth when it came to ambiance.

We visited the boardwalk after dinner, got ice cream, and went to Funland. By this time, Sara had convinced a somewhat reluctant Lily-Mei that the big stuffed duck could not come home with them on the plane. I suggested leaving it in the house as a surprise for the next renters, but Sara thought the cleaning crew would throw it away, so she and Lily-Mei came up with the idea of taking it to the boardwalk and giving it away to another kid. They decided to go back to the ring toss, on the assumption that any parents who allowed their child to try it were willing to bring home an enormous prize.

I had some unvoiced doubts. What if the parents were assuming there was no way their kids could win the ring toss and that was the very reason they let them do it? Or what if a child who had failed to win would be uninterested in an unearned prize? But we went ahead and watched as the first person I’d seen win the ring toss all week did so. We watched the next contestant, a girl who was probably around seven years old. She did not win. When Sara asked her dad if his daughter could have the duck, he was very grateful and the girl flashed an enormous gap-toothed smile and said, “Thank you so much!” So that worked out well.

At Funland, Sara, Dave, and Lily-Mei rode the Viking ship while my kids rode the Paratrooper, a fast-moving, direction-switching Ferris Wheel. (Beth had peeled off to play Skee ball and my mom had headed home.) Then Noah went home and the remaining five of us went in the Haunted Mansion. We all tried to make funny faces when the camera for the souvenir photo went off. After all these years, I’m still not exactly sure where it is, so I had to do it several times before I saw the flash. The pictures turned out well. Sara and I went home after that, leaving Dave, North, and Lily-Mei to ride more rides.

One thing we didn’t do on Thursday is attend a Good Trouble rally, even though there was one in Lewes, which is just north of Rehoboth. I had thought it might be nice to go to a protest all together as Mom and Sara’s family are no strangers to them, but by the time I started thinking seriously about it, the week had filled up with planned activities and I didn’t want to try to reorganize the schedule to fit in one more thing. I have some mild regret about this, as I haven’t been to a protest now in over a month.

Speaking of politics, over the course of the week I noticed that the t-shirt shops all over town that have been carrying copious pro- and anti-Trump merchandise every summer since the 2016 election, suddenly had almost no shirts with political messages. I am not sure what to make of it, but it reminds me of how the Trump signs mostly disappeared from the red counties of western Maryland, western Pennsylvania, and Ohio between our drive in February to take North to school and the drive in May to bring them home.

Friday

Friday was such a busy day, I barely made it to the beach. In the morning North and I went to Café a Go-Go which we had not yet patronized together. We got drinks and split a slice of tres leches cake.

When I got home, I ran errands with Sara and Lily-Mei. We picked up another dress that Lily-Mei had her eye on for much of the week and had finally decided to buy with her own money. It was a shiny, silver sleeveless gown. It looked like something you might wear to the prom, but she was planning to wear it to my mom’s birthday dinner and the next school dance she attends.

Speaking of my mom’s birthday, the next two errands were to pick up her cake from the bakery and some ice cream from a convenience store. The cake was lemon with vanilla frosting and raspberry filling.

Once I got home, I took off again with my kids for a pizza lunch at Grotto’s. We would not be having our normal Friday night pizza, so we did lunch instead. Then we met up with Sara and Beth so Noah could take a picture of Beth, Sara, North, and me (the four Obies in the group) in front of the sign for a restaurant that’s called Obie’s by the Sea.

We came home, ate cake, and mom opened her presents. In addition to the gift certificate, she got jewelry and a diamond shaped piece of glass with pressed flowers inside to hang in a window. She seemed pleased with everything.

Next, Sara drove Mom to the bookstore to pick out some books while North and I made the briefest trip to the beach yet. We only swam twenty minutes, but the jellyfish were still there, so I didn’t mind the abbreviated swim much. Sara had asked Beth earlier if she thought North and I might prefer the Delaware Bay since Beth had not seen any jellyfish while kayaking there, and she said, “I will answer for my wife. No.” It’s true. I like swimming in bays fine, but it’s not the ocean. Nothing else is and I am not the ocean’s fair-weather friend. And, as I learned later, the bay is full of jellyfish this month, too.

We headed back to the house, showered, and went to my mom’s birthday dinner at a Japanese restaurant. We decided to take just one car because parking in Rehoboth is challenging. Beth, Noah, and I walked. (Between walking to coffee, lunch, the beach, and dinner, I ended up with over 20,000 steps that day.)

The restaurant is one we’ve been to as a group a few times before and a hit with our hard-to-accommodate crew. Mom got the seafood pasta she often gets. I got seaweed salad, edamame with Old Bay, and vegetable tempura. It was delicious as usual.

That night everyone but Beth and me (the early birds) went to a drag show at the same bar where they’d previously been to trivia night and karaoke. Mom had never been to a drag show, and she enjoyed it, especially when one of the drag queens asked if anyone had a birthday and she got to go up on stage and dance and collect money from patrons of the bar. She said it was “the greatest birthday ever.”

Saturday

We packed up the house in the morning. It was a little more stressful for me than usual because I’d slept poorly and being tired made our many belongings all over the house and every little decision about what food to try to fit in the cooler, what to throw out, and what to pawn off on someone else feel overwhelming. Beth and Noah drove to the realty to return the keys and everyone else lingered on the porch for a while to say our goodbyes after the house was locked. The West Coast relatives were headed to Philadelphia where everyone except Sara would be getting on a flight back to California. Sara is staying on the East Coast for another week, to visit my cousin Holly in northeast Pennsylvania.

My family didn’t leave right away though. We rarely do. Beth and Noah got cold beverages and found a shady place to read while North and I paid a visit to the beach. I finally got the idea to wear a long-sleeved t-shirt in the water to protect my arms from jellyfish stings. North’s suit, which only exposes their hands, feet, and lower calves had protected them relatively well all week. They had almost no stings. It worked, though my legs still got some bad stings behind each knee. We ended up exiting the water after less than a half hour, even though it was our last chance to swim in the ocean until next summer and the waves were a little bigger than they’d been most of the week. North spotted a dolphin for the first time that week, so that was nice.

North and I split up briefly. I took a short walk on the boardwalk and then popped into the tea and spice shop to stock up on my favorite teas and North got a takeout order of grilled cheese and fries for lunch. We all met up at the crepes stand, Noah bearing more fries, and we got crepes and orangeade. Even though I was sad to leave the beach (as always), sitting in the shade after a swim, eating our traditional last-day-at-the-beach lunch with my little family of four, I felt the stress of the morning packing rush melt away.

We made one last trip to the beach to put our feet in the water and got our last frozen custard. Soon we would hit the road (with a quick stop at a Crocs outlet) for a relatively traffic-free, intermittently rainy drive that would turn into challengingly heavy rain at the end. Back at home, two affectionate cats, many new blooms in the garden, a day of post-beach chores, and the rest of the summer awaited us.

(Almost) Perfect Days

Posted on May 18, 2025 by Steph

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Oh, it’s such a perfect day
I’m glad I spend it with you
Oh, such a perfect day

You just keep me hangin’ on
You just keep me hangin’ on

Just a perfect day, problems all left alone
Weekenders on our own, it’s such fun

From “Perfect Day” by Lou Reed

Friday

The night before we left to pick North up from school, I made pizza with broccoli, and we watched Perfect Days. The film tells the story of a middle-aged man who cleans public toilets in Tokyo and his ability to take pleasure in the little things in life. Of course, it’s not that simple. We learn obliquely that he has a traumatic past, which could explain his insistence on order and his ascetic way of life. There’s a lot of American music from the 70s and 80s in the film and it takes its name from the Lou Reed song. I recommend it, if it sounds like your kind of movie.

Saturday

Beth and I set out for Oberlin around 10:15. Noah was staying at home because he was going to attend a town meeting hosted by Zeteo from MSNBC with Senator Chris Van Hollen and others to discuss the current political situation on Monday evening. I was a little sad we were going to be separated on Mother’s Day and my birthday (which fell on the same day this year), but I also didn’t want to discourage him from being politically active, so I didn’t press him to come.

On the drive we started with music and Beth chose Lou Reed’s Transformer (the album with “Perfect Day” on it) because the movie had put her in the mood. We also listened to eight out of the nine episodes of a podcast called Let’s Make a Rom-Com, about writers collaborating on, you guessed it, a rom-com pitch. It was light and more diverting than talking about politics, which is what we might have done left to our own devices. We stopped for a late lunch of salads at Next Door, a vegetarian-friendly restaurant in Bedford, Pennsylvania that may be becoming our go-to lunch-on-the-way-to-Oberlin spot, followed by gelato, and arrived in Oberlin around dinner time.

We found North sitting on the grass in front of Keep with people eating leftover wedding cake from wedding-themed party that had recently happened there. North had skipped dinner to go out for Chinese with us. After dinner we dropped them back off at Keep and settled into our rental house.

Sunday

Sunday was my birthday and Mother’s Day. We’d chosen to take a day trip to Put-in-Bay, an island in Lake Erie Beth and I once visited in college and where she’d also been as a child with her family. It’s a place Beth and I remember fondly.

We’d resolved to try to have a politics-free day, and we mostly did, though we slipped up a few times. This one didn’t count, though, we decided. In the ferry parking lot, the attendant asked us about the message “No Kings. June 14” Beth had written on the back window of the car with washable paint. (She’s been keeping it updated with the names and dates of whatever the next big national protest is.) We’d been a little nervous driving through Western Maryland, Western Pennsylvania, and Ohio with this on the car, but no one said a thing about it up to now. (Interestingly, I’d noticed there were dramatically fewer Trump yard signs, flags, and billboards compared to the last time we made this drive, in early February. The change was especially notable in Pennsylvania.) Beth told the attendant about the protest, and he said, “Is that the day he’s having his stupid parade?” So, that was a satisfying exchange.

You are discouraged from bringing cars on the island and there are golf carts you can rent, so we did that. It was fun riding in an open-sided vehicle along the roads. The day was cool (with highs in the fifties) but sunny so it wasn’t too cold. Our first stop was a short wildflower trail. There was an informative sign at the beginning so we could identify May apples, Jack in the Pulpit, blue phlox, and other blooms.

Next, we had lunch on the patio of a restaurant in town. I got a vegetable crepe for my meal and split a chocolate-peanut butter one with Beth for dessert. The wildflower trail had been both my and Beth’s first priority, so our next stop was North’s—Crystal Cave. We knew the cave purports to have the world’s largest geode, though North looked it up and found a cave in Spain says the same thing, so who knows? In any case, it contains a very large geode. In fact, the whole cave is the geode. A dozen or so people can stand inside it and walk around, and it looks just as you would imagine such a thing would look. It was very cool.

We decided to visit the butterfly house next. It’s a greenhouse filled with hundreds of butterflies, and it had just opened for the season, so there were a lot of butterflies hatching in nursery you could see through a window. North got to release a newly hatched one from a plastic cup. It wasn’t quite ready to fly, so it fell to the ground, but it wasn’t hurt, just sat there, gently stretching its wings. The butterflies were all different colors and sizes and very beautiful.

We took another short trail to a cliff overlook and then went to visit the old lighthouse before we got on the ferry to go back to the mainland.

Right near the ferry, there was a store called Cheese Haven, advertising that it sold 125 kinds of cheese, so we felt obliged to go inside and buy some (a big hunk of Parmesan, brick, and smoked Swiss) and to get some candy and raspberry-cheesecake fudge, too. Beth had been looking for strawberry fudge all day because we both remember having excellent strawberry fudge at Put-in-Bay. On consideration, Beth thought we might have actually gotten it on a different, nearby island. It is difficult to recreate memories from almost forty years ago, but we had a truly lovely day, and we made some new memories with North.

Back in Oberlin, I opened birthday and Mother’s day presents (though I was saving my cake for later at home) and we had Mexican for dinner and then went to Dairy Queen. It was packed and I have never seen so many employees behind a fast-food counter. There were so many they seemed to be trying not to get in each other’s way, but they also seemed quite cheerful. I wondered if the store was training all its new employees for the season. Anyway, the line was long, but it moved quickly, and no one seemed impatient. The atmosphere was more festive than harried.

Monday

Monday morning was North’s acting class showcase. The students were divided into seven groups with two to three actors in each and each group performed a scene from a play. They were all well done. The first one, about a married couple splitting up, seemed like it could have been a one act, but the others were clearly parts of something larger and left you curious about how the play unfolded.

North had a comic role, a thirty-something man high on mushrooms. (I asked if they did any extracurricular research for the part, but they said no.) I always like seeing North on stage and they shone. Afterward, the professor said to us, “Wasn’t North great?” and what parent is going to disagree with that?

North had three take-home finals but they’d finished them early so when the showcase was over, so was their first year of college. We had lunch at Keep (a tasty tofu scramble with sautéed carrots and zucchini, rice, and mini cinnamon muffins) which we ate on the porch. North’s friend Cal came over to eat with us and North asked the assembled diners to sing “Happy Birthday” to me, even though it wasn’t my birthday anymore.

They spent the afternoon packing up and cleaning their room, and after we helped them load everything into the car, we had a picnic dinner on Lake Erie. We got takeout from The Root Café, a hippie sort of vegetarian place. After we ate, we walked on a path near the water. You could see the Cleveland skyline across the lake. There were a lot of people walking on the path and North said they felt like a character in Bridgerton, taking a promenade. From there we got ice cream and drove back to Oberlin. North spent the night in our rental house because their room was vacated and cleaned.

Tuesday

Tuesday morning North attended another acting class showcase to see a friend of their perform in an abbreviated version of Chekhov’s The Seagull. It was a little before lunchtime when we left Oberlin. It was a long, rainy, traffic-stalled ride home. We had lunch at a highway rest stop and dinner at a dinner in Western Maryland. When we got home, North was reunited with the cats—Willow initially ran down to the basement on seeing them but soon remembered who they were—and their brother who had been saving funny memes on his phone to show them.

I had a very nice birthday weekend. I can’t say they were perfect days because I was separated from one of my kids on Mother’s Day, but it was nice to reunite with North in a special place and then it was nice to be back home and all together again for the summer.

Plus, my birthday celebration was not over…

The Three Rs: Four Rallies, A Road Trip, and a Little Romance

Posted on February 16, 2025 by Steph

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The first half of February was crazy busy. In different combinations, the three of us went to four protests, all of us took a road trip to Oberlin to see North perform in a play, and we celebrated Valentine’s Day. Settle in, this is a long one.

Rallies 1 and 2: Treasury and Department of Labor

The first Tuesday in February, Beth, Noah, and I all went to a protest outside the Treasury Department. That was when Musk and his youthful minions were rummaging around your personal financial information at that department. It was a much bigger rally than the one outside the White House the week before. I’m no good at estimating crowd sizes, but it filled the street and sidewalks for a long block in front of the Treasury Building and we were packed in tightly. I later learned a lot of people I know were there, but I didn’t see them at the time.

A lot of members of Congress spoke, but I couldn’t always hear the introductions. You could tell when Representative Jamie Raskin and Senator Elizabeth Warren were about to speak, though, because people chanted their names enthusiastically. I thought the best line was about the government being run by a “billionaire boy band,” but I’m not sure who said it, possibly Senator Chris Van Hollen, which was interesting because I don’t think of him as a wit.

There were a lot of American flags in the crowd. This has been true at nearly every protest so far. I like the idea of not ceding symbols of patriotism to the right. We could see workers inside the building, watching us from various windows. A woman near me gave them the finger emphatically and repeatedly, and I wished she hadn’t because there are still career civil servants who haven’t been fired yet working there and who knows what they were thinking? In fact, at one point, a woman in the window waved at the crowd.

The next day Beth went to another protest at the Department of Labor. I couldn’t make that one, as I had a work deadline, or I thought I couldn’t. The FAQs I was writing for a supplement company didn’t take as long as I thought they would, but by the time I knew that it was too late.

Where it Stands: A federal judge has blocked DOGE access at Treasury and then extended the block, but another judge allowed access at Labor, Health and Human Services, and the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau.

Road Trip: Friday

Two days later, on the first Friday in February, Beth, Noah, and I drove to Oberlin for a quick weekend trip. The play North had been rehearsing all Winter Term was being performed that weekend—five shows from Friday night to Sunday afternoon. We had tickets for the Saturday evening performance. And because North would be also performing at a matinee that afternoon, they encouraged us to go see another play, one they’d auditioned for and could not attend because it had the exact same performance schedule as theirs. So, the plan was to drive up Friday, see the two plays Saturday, visit with North during the little slices of time they had between performances, and to drive back on Sunday.

It took us nine hours to drive to Oberlin, with frequent stops, including one for lunch at a very nice vegetarian-friendly restaurant in Bedford, Pennsylvania, which we hope to visit again. Early in the drive we listened to music, jazz I think, and talked about the sad state of our country, just long enough to get it out of our systems before we switched over to vacation mode. We listened to podcasts for the rest of the drive, alternating between Let’s Make A Sci Fi, which is about three writers collaborating on a science fiction television series pilot, and two different podcasts about Severance, which the three of us are watching together. These were good, diverting choices, if you have a road trip coming up and they sound up your alley.

There weren’t a lot of Trump signs in Western Maryland, even though that part of the state did go for him, or in Ohio, which also did, but Western Pennsylvania was awash in them, both billboards and yard signs. (Last week I ran into my friend Becky, who was about to take a trip to her hometown in North Carolina, and she and I talked about how it’s in some ways a relief to drive away from the D.C. area where the horrors are taking place and in some ways it’s not, because, depending on your route, you may see ample evidence that people voted for those horrors, whereas in D.C. and its suburbs, few people did.)

We arrived in Oberlin about six-thirty, which was after North’s call time, so we didn’t see them that night. We got pizza from Lorenzo’s, the only restaurant in Oberlin from Beth’s and my era that’s still open, and we ate in our rental house and watched Severance. It was the fourth episode, the very dramatic one that takes place at the company’s outdoor retreat.

Road Trip: Saturday

We met North for breakfast at the Feve, which is famous for its pancakes. I’d eaten an egg and some vegetarian sausage at the house, so I took a risk on a chocolate-strawberry pancake. It was huge and my blood sugar went a bit higher than I would have liked, but we were on vacation.

At the table, we presented North with two tote bags, full of gifts—dried mango, white chocolate-strawberry truffles (an early Valentine’s present), and Valentines from all of us and the cats—plus several boxes of tea we were donating to Keep after a cabinet re-organization Noah recently undertook. I think they were most excited about the mango. They ate nearly the whole bag over the course of the day. We also had two slices of anniversary cake we’d frozen for them, but we didn’t give them those until later.

We stopped at the mail room to get some medications that had arrived and then took them back to the house to hang out until their call-time. They ate leftover cheesy garlic bread and some apple. After we dropped them off at the student union, where the play was being performed, Beth and I went to find a bouquet for them. There was a gift shop downtown that sold flowers, and we got them six purple roses.

We had leftover pizza for lunch, and we read (me and Noah) and worked (Beth), and I took a walk down a bike path in the neighborhood where Beth had walked before breakfast and recommended. There were woods, a park, and houses’ back yards on either side, and it was a pleasant place to walk.

Later that afternoon we went to see Wolf Play, which won a prize (confusingly called an Obie) for off-Broadway performances in 2023. It’s about a lesbian couple who informally adopt a six-year-old Korean boy whose first set of adoptive parents relinquish him and then there’s a custody battle when the first adoptive couple splits, and the father decides he wants the boy back. The boy believes he is a wolf (or maybe just pretends to be) and is played by an adult actor who is manipulating a child-sized puppet and who speaks both his thoughts and his words. It was very well done.

We re-united with North after their performance. Beth picked them up and they got a noodle bowl at the student union, which they ate at the house, along with more mango. After we dropped them off at the student union, we got takeout Middle Eastern food for dinner and ate it before going to see North’s play.

Deficiency was student written and this was its debut. It’s about three brothers (two in high school and one in college) who are at their alcoholic father’s house for spring break. Unbeknownst to each other, all the brothers are all taking testosterone for different reasons and there is confusion and conflict when a package containing some arrives from their mother’s house. North was playing the middle brother, a trans boy, and their performance was comic, serious, and tender in turn. It was wonderful to see them on stage and in a more substantial role than they’ve had for a long time.

Road Trip: Sunday

There was snow and an ice storm overnight and Sunday morning freezing rain was falling and it was extremely slippery outside. We had breakfast, packed up the house, and then I went for a rather treacherous and much shorter walk down the same path where I’d walked the day before. We picked North up at Keep and dropped off the cake. The Christmas tree was still up in the lounge. I was charmed by paper snowflakes in the windows surrounding a “Free Palestine” sign, I think because it made me think about what it’s like to be in college, close enough to your childhood to make paper snowflakes, but old enough to be politically engaged.

We went to Slow Train, which is North’s favorite place to get coffee in Oberlin, to get coffee, hot chocolate, and pastries (I got a spinach-cheese croissant). We lingered because it was hard to leave after such a short and fragmented visit, but eventually we said our goodbyes and dropped North off at Keep just in time for a lunch cooking shift before their last show, and hit the road.

The trip back was a little faster partly because we had lunch at a Noodles & Company, with a stop at The Milkshake Factory, instead of a sit-down restaurant. We listened to the same podcasts as on the way out, and got home around dinner time, so we picked up Indian to take home.

Rallies 3 and 4: Capitol and D.C. Attorney General’s Office

Two days after we got back, there was a rally in front of the Capitol, organized by the American Federation of Government Employees, which was holding its annual conference in D.C., so the focus of this one was to support federal employees. I met Beth at her office and walked down to the Capitol with about a dozen of her co-workers. As at Treasury, there were a lot of speeches by members of Congress (including both our senators) and a lot of American flags. I was given a small one, which I put in the buttonhole of my coat, along with a button that said, “Public Workers Work for Me!”

Where it Stands: Mass layoffs are in progress.

That week I was writing a one-thousand-word article on arnica, due Thursday afternoon, so I thought the AFGE rally would be my only outing into the city, but on Thursday morning around 9:20, Beth texted me to say there was a rally in support of trans youth at noon. Sara had already told me that if I really needed more time, I could send the article to her Friday morning and just I couldn’t skip that one, so I decided to go.

The rally was to urge the D.C. Attorney General to direct hospitals in the city not to deny gender-affirming care to trans youth. States attorneys general and hospitals across the country that provide this kind of care have had different interpretations of the executive order and different responses. In short, it’s not clear if it’s binding or even legal.

Disappointingly, Children’s National Medical Center, where North has received care, decided to stop prescribing puberty blockers and hormones (they never did surgeries on minors) but to continue with psychological and psychiatric care. Since appointments with a psychiatrist are the only kind of gender-related care North currently receives there, they are not directly affected, but it hits close to home anyway. (For a while, they were taking birth control to suppress their period, partly for dysphoria reasons, but there were other medical reasons, so it’s unclear if they still had the prescription if it would have been cut off, but it’s possible it would have been if the words “gender” or “dysphoria” were anywhere in the paperwork.)

I met Beth at her office, and we walked to the A.G.’s office. This was a smaller protest, because it’s a niche issue, compared to some of the others, but it was quite spirited. There were speakers (the mother of a trans girl, someone from an organization that works with trans youth, a doctor from George Washington Hospital who provides trans health care and who threw some shade at Children’s, etc.). Between speeches, we marched in a picket-style oval in front of the building and chanted. “A.G. Schwalb, do your job!” was the most common one. A reporter from the Washington Post talked to Beth and me, but I didn’t get the impression she was going to quote us because we don’t have a kid who is currently being denied care. Anyway, she didn’t take our names.

The rally got started late and Beth had to leave about a half hour after it did, but I stuck around for another forty minutes or so. Someone else who had to leave gave me her hand-painted “Protect Trans Futures” sign, which I decided to keep, as I may need it again. As always, a lot of people had homemade signs. I thought “Trans Kids Deserve to Be Trans Adults” was the most moving. I also liked the one that said, “Trans Rights. Trans Joy. All Day. Every Day” with what looked like blue and pink conversation hearts in the background. I thought that was a nice, seasonal touch.

Where It Stands: A federal judge has temporarily blocked the order restricting gender-affirming care for trans youth. And then another one did the same thing.

It’s important to note, there are losses in this round-up, but there are also wins. If you are going to protests or calling your representatives or giving money to organizations fighting for our democracy, please keep it up. It can feel overwhelming and hopeless at times, but I am trying hard to believe that it’s not.

Romance

Life does go on, outside politics. Our Valentine’s Day was low-key, but we did celebrate. Noah made a chocolate banana bread, with vertical slices of banana baked into the top. The banana strips were pleasingly sweet and chewy. Meanwhile, I fashioned our regular Friday night pizza into a rough heart shape, and we exchanged small gifts, all food. Beth got me a very thoughtful little bag of diabetes-friendly treats—some single-serve nut butters (walnut and pecan), an unsweetened raspberry-cashew dark chocolate bar, and some tiny paleo pies (lemon and key lime with coconut-nut crusts). Noah got dark chocolate caramel hearts, and Beth got dark chocolate hearts and dark chocolate-covered orange peel sticks.

I picked up that last item at a fancy chocolate store in Union Station on the way home from the AFSGE rally. Even as we are focused on justice, we can’t forget to take time for our little joys along the way.

First Steps

Posted on January 6, 2025 by Steph

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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.

All For The Love Of You

A Chronicle of Suburban Lesbian Family Life

Category Archives: Travel

Snow and Ice

Happy New Year, Happy Retirement

Beach and Banquet

#FallBreak

A Wider Circle

Goodbye, Sophomore

The Seaside Reminds You

(Almost) Perfect Days

The Three Rs: Four Rallies, A Road Trip, and a Little Romance

First Steps