North was home for spring break and returned to school two days ago. If you follow me on Facebook, you’ve seen a lot of what we did, tagged #SpringBreak, but here’s more detail about how it all went down:
First Saturday: Hugs and Heights
“Hug again,” I instructed Beth and North. We were in the parking lot of the Shady Grove Metro station where Jaden, their ride from school, had dropped them off. I’d hugged them when we met and then Beth hugged them and I tried to get a picture, but I wasn’t quick enough, so they reenacted it.
Later that evening they were teasing me about the posed photo and I protested, saying the original hug was spontaneous. It wasn’t as if I’d forced them to do it for a picture. And then Noah said it wasn’t as if I’d created an AI image of the two of them hugging. North said that would be surprising, first if I did it and second if I knew how to do it.
When this conversation took place, we were in another parking lot, this one at North’s high school. We were walking toward the building to see the closing night of the spring musical, In the Heights. North didn’t expect to see too many people they knew on stage as it’s been almost two years since they graduated—and they said it felt strange to walk into the building— but they like the show and they were curious to see it.
It was an ambitious production, with hundreds of students involved, between the large cast, the crew, and the pit orchestra. There’s a new theater director and by choosing a play with mostly Latino characters, she brought in a lot of students who haven’t been in the theater program previously. (The school is about half Latino.) She also took advantage of the fact that the school has a large and well-regarded salsa dancing club. The club did all the choreography, and it was fabulous. Unfortunately, the sound system wasn’t the best and it was often hard to hear the dialogue, especially from the boy playing Usnavi. So, it was lucky that three of the four of us saw this play just a year ago on North’s last spring break and were familiar with the plot. And North did end up seeing some people they know—a few on stage and some fellow STAGE alums in the audience. They met up with Rowen (who came with us to In the Heights last year) and Arwen in the lobby during intermission.
We got home late for us, around ten-thirty. I pointed out it was the second night we’d been out in the evening because the night before Beth and I had gone to see a performance of music and poetry on the theme of sanctuary (performed largely though not entirely by immigrants) at the community center.
Beth said, “We like the night life, baby.”
“But we really don’t,” I said. Noah’s the only one of us who likes to stay up late. Even the college student wanted to go straight to bed, after a long day featuring a drive from Ohio and a show.
First Sunday: Flora and Fauna
On Sunday afternoon, while Noah was at his weekly games gathering, Beth, North and I went to Brookside Gardens. It was one of the warmest days of their break, a beautiful day with highs in the low eighties and no humidity and it seemed incumbent on us to get outside. We saw daffodils and flowering trees, turtles sunning on a log, and sculpture in the shape of a crow, ginkgo leaves, and a frog.
Once we got home, we started watching shows we hadn’t watched since we were with North in Oberlin for their surgery in January (North and I watched one episode of Emily in Paris and Beth, North, and I watched two of Gilmore Girls). Over the course of North’s break, we finished the current season of Emily in Paris (which North thinks has gone on longer than it needed to, but they want to see it through to the end to see if Emily and Gabriel end up together.) I am wondering if we can finish Gilmore Girls, which we started the summer North was fourteen, this summer.
Monday: Birthday, Blossoms, Banana Cold Foam, and Beyond
When North came into our bedroom on Monday morning, Beth and I sang “Happy Birthday” to them. We discovered that morning that the cherry trees that line the street that runs along our back yard had burst into bloom overnight, as if to mark the birthday of our cherry blossom baby. Cherry trees have a wide range of bloom periods, but the ones on our block track well with the ones at the Tidal Basin. We thought from the original prediction of peak bloom that North might miss it, but now everything looked good for a Friday expedition. This was cheering.
After a discussion about the moral implications of picking up their birthday reward drink from Starbucks when we have all been boycotting it since the strike started last fall, I confessed I had just been there the day before for the first time in over four months to claim a reward for expiring stars. North decided it was okay if they didn’t spend any money, just took a free drink. (My calculation had been the same when I got a free slice of strawberry-matcha loaf.) So that morning North and I took a bus to downtown Takoma, got a free venti iced latte with banana cold foam from Starbucks, then went to Takoma Beverage Company, where I got a latte for myself and a chocolate croissant to split.
We walked home and took a detour to the hospital parking lot where there are still scattered remnants of the glacier-like ice pile that has been there since late January. I have been fascinated by its slow melting and wanted to show it to North, and they were polite enough to indulge me by going to look at several two-month-old, four-foot-tall mounds of dirty ice. (It used to be twelve feet high and at least eighty feet long.) Next, we walked down the length of the block of Garland that has a couple dozen blooming cherry trees. It was as if we were performing a symbolic walk from winter to spring.
When we got back home, there was a chocolate cake cooling on the dining room table, and Beth was getting started on the strawberry-cream cheese frosting.
Around lunchtime, North got a call from my mom and sister, who were on a layover in Seattle on their way to Alaska, where they (and Dave and Lily-Mei) were taking a trip to celebrate Sara’s fifty-fifth birthday and see the Northern Lights. They sang “Happy Birthday” to North and they must have failed to confer with each other ahead of time because they both sang the harmony part. Apparently, Dave and Lily-Mei did not care to sing in the airport. It was a short call because they were in a hurry, but it was nice of them to think of North.
That evening, after North’s requested dinner of mushroom ravioli and vegetarian sausage, we had cake and ice cream and North opened presents. Our main present to them was to pay for a second tattoo, but they also had checks from the grandmothers, gift certificates to the closest coffeeshop to our house and the closest book store, maple sugar candy, a box of caramels with a cherry blossom pattern on them, and two crochet kits (one to make an apple and one to make Snoopy). We let them choose the evening entertainment. They chose Juno, which we all enjoyed.
I had been a little sad that this was North’s first birthday without a celebration with friends because none of their closest friends from high school was home for break the same week as them, but then I found out their college friends are throwing them a party after break, so I was less sad.
Tuesday: Coffee, California Tortilla, and Clothes
North had a psychiatrist appointment in the morning, so I met up with them afterward for coffee and tea at Lost Sock, which is on the same block in Takoma, DC. Then Beth swung by to pick us up, drop me at home, and take North shopping for clothes with their birthday money.
They came home in the mid-afternoon with leftovers from their lunch at California Tortilla, rave reviews for the new quinoa base there, a pair of embroidered jeggings and a yellow high-waisted bikini for North and a pair of striped grey and white pants for Beth.
I made breaded tofu sticks, carrots, and strawberry-applesauce for dinner. North said, “Thank you for making tofu sticks when I was home because you love me.” This meal is a favorite of theirs. That night we watched a couple episodes of Grownish. The shows in the Blackish universe (Blackish, Mixedish, and Grownish) are another longstanding family viewing commitment (since North was eleven!) and we were close to finishing. (We finally did several days later.)
Wednesday: Swimming and Cinema
What spurred North to buy a bathing suit was that I’d asked if they wanted to go swimming while they were home. (They hadn’t brought one home and needed a new one for summer anyway.) So, with the new suit procured, North and I went to the new recreation center in Silver Spring, where Beth goes frequently since retiring, but where I’ve only been once before (last month). Beth couldn’t go with us because she had an appointment to take her car to the shop. There’s a café in the lobby, which we patronized before swimming and soaking in the hot tub.
From there we proceeded to Panera where we had lunch, and then to a movie theater where we saw undertone. This is not Beth’s kind of movie, but we think Noah, as the family’s cinephile would have had interesting things to say about its innovative use of sound. Unfortunately, he couldn’t come. For the past several weeks, he’s been working two to three days a week editing a series of short videos for the National Association of Letter Carriers and he never knows until right before the work comes in when he will have to work, as the project is passing back and forth between several people. Anyway, because of this, thinking he might have work we ended up not going one the one day all three of us could have gone (Tuesday). I was bummed about that.
That night North made a cucumber salad with vegetarian chicken and a topping made of smashed tater tots and I went to book club to listen to the opening lecture on The Charterhouse of Parma. I’d stopped reading it after three chapters because I thought I needed the historical background on the Napoleonic wars and other cultural factors before I continued with it and the lecture was clarifying. While I was gone, everyone else watched Twinless.
Thursday: Trip to Tattoo
This was the day North got their tattoo (of a branch of cherry blossoms) under their collarbone. They’d selected a studio in Southern Maryland, near St. Mary’s, which is two and half hours away, so we made a day trip out of it. While they were getting the tattoo, Beth and I took a pretty hike on a trail that was mostly in the woods with occasional views of the St. Mary’s River.
Later North told us that the tattoo artist and the receptionist were a lesbian couple who want to raise kids, and they were full of questions about having lesbian moms. From their curiosity, North concluded that having lesbian parents is not as common in Southern Maryland as it is in Takoma Park or Oberlin.
Afterward we picked them up, we had a late lunch at Noodles & Company and got frozen custard at Rita’s. There was a lot of traffic coming home, so by the time we got home, Noah, who’d been working that day, was making dinner (gnocchi with fresh mozzarella and cherry tomatoes).
Friday: Chilly Cherries
Friday morning, North wanted to go to Koma to use their gift certificate. If you’re counting, this was the sixth coffeehouse we patronized together in the first seven days of their break. We swung by the hospital parking lot ice piles on the way home and found them smaller than four days earlier but still there. North and I finished our season of Emily in Paris and Beth helped them do their taxes and in the early afternoon all four of us set out to see the cherry blossoms.
It was a chilly, gray day, in the low fifties with intermittent rain, but we had plans for the next day, so it was this day or never and never wasn’t really an option. We had pretty good luck in that the rain mostly held off while we were at the Tidal Basin, and the blossoms were perfect puffs of pale pink and white. North posed, pulling the collar of their sweater down to show off their cherry blossom tattoo. A couple saw Noah taking pictures with a real camera and must have sized him up as a good photographer and asked him to take their picture (with their phone). We finished up with visits to the MLK and FDR Monuments, as those are our favorites. It was a nice expedition, marred only slightly by seeing at least a half dozen National Guardsmen near the MLK Memorial. And honestly, nowadays, when I see them, I think at least it’s not ICE.
On the way home, we picked up North’s favorite pizza (from Roscoe’s) and then watched A Date for Mad Mary, which Beth had put in the movie pool around St. Patrick’s Day because it’s Irish. (The random drawing part of our movie selection process means seasonal picks are often watched early or late.)
Saturday: Democracy and Death
Beth and I went to No Kings 3 on Saturday. In the driveway, before I got in the car, I stopped for a minute to pet UNO because he was approaching me and meowing. (I was glad later that I did that and didn’t hurry into the car.)
We could have walked to a No Kings action from our house, as we did in June, or go to a big one in D.C., as we did in October, but instead we drove an hour and a half west to Hagerstown, where an ICE detention facility is planned. On the way, we saw people crowded onto at least six Beltway overpasses with signs. One of my favorites was “No Kings, Only Queen,” with a picture of Freddie Mercury.
We’d packed lunch and ate in in the parking garage, then we proceeded to No Kings. People were spread out along four blocks radiating from an intersection, about a quarter to a half block in each direction, several rows deep near the middle and sparser at the ends. There were columns of balloons in each of the colors of the Maryland flag (red, gold, black, and white) with a No Kings crossed out crown on top at each of the corners.
There was a stage with someone leading chants and a few speakers. I often couldn’t hear who they were, but one was the comptroller of Maryland, who apparently has some role in authorizing the facility, and is against it. A lot of local officials are for it, thinking it may bring economic development. Western Maryland one of the more conservative parts of the state. Hagerstown went for Trump by about 60%.
That’s why I was surprised that the reaction from passing cars was so overwhelmingly positive. There was only car from which people yelled out obscenities. Some drivers had no reaction, but around half were honking, smiling, waving, and giving thumbs up. Some cars were circling around repeatedly, though, presumably to increase support. I have no idea how much of the crowd was, like us, outside agitators from more liberal parts of the state.
After standing awhile, I wandered through the crowds to get a look at the signs. I liked “Grantifa: Grandmas Against Fascism,” and “Salt the Roads: Keep ICE off Our Streets,” but the best one was held by a Latino family whose members were taking turns holding it: “We Are Not Animals & You Are Not King.” There weren’t a lot of Latinos in the crowd, and I thought they were brave to be there.
I ducked into a coffeehouse to use the bathroom and get a coffee and a dark chocolate bar. When I exited, I saw two twelve- or thirteen-year-old white boys go by on scooters. One said to the other, “Are they against ICE?” and the second one said yes and the first one said, “I support that,” which I took to mean they supported the protest, but I was wrong. Later I saw the same two boys had gone to the sign making station and gotten supplies to make “Trump is King. Support ICE” signs and then aggressively positioned themselves in front of a woman with a camera.
We stayed almost two hours and drove home. Shortly after we got back, we got a group text from Rose, one of UNO’s people, letting us know that in the few hours we were gone, he’d been seriously injured and they had to put him down. It was a shock because I’d just seen him and he’d been fine. It feels so strange not to have to check for him in the driveway before we pull out, or to think the next time I take Walter outside, he won’t be able to eagerly follow an utterly uninterested UNO around the yard. He was old for an outside cat, at least fifteen, and as Beth said, “he lived his best life.” Still, we are very sad and we will miss him.
Sunday: Goodies and Goodbye
Sunday morning, North was in the living room watching television, Noah had yet to get up, and Beth was gathering tote bags to go shopping. I came into the room holding something behind my back. And told North, “I just saw a big rabbit leave your room.” Their eyebrows shot up and I brought the Easter basket forward and they laughed.
It was a week before Easter, but it seemed nicer to give it to them in person rather than mailing the candy. They dug in immediately.
Shortly after lunch, we all got in the car to take North back to the Shady Grove Metro parking lot, where we met Jaden. After we were all surprised by seeing someone in a Santa suit entering the station, we said our goodbyes, dropped Noah off at Panera for his Sunday games, and then headed home for an afternoon and evening alone in our suddenly emptier nest. It won’t be long until we see North again, though, as a road trip to see them act in a play in mid-April is in the works.