We had a nice memorial day long weekend. Every weekend should be a long weekend! Ginny was nice enough to take Edda out to lunch and the movies yesterday. She came by at about 9:30 to get Edda, and took a look at both of at our work desks and scolded us for working. What can I say? Jeremy loves his work and I needed to work because I was behind.
We like texting each other about poop:
What else? Jeremy is headed to california tomorrow (Wed) and Elka knows. She always knows because it takes Jeremy like three days to pack his bicycle. Why does it take three days? I have no idea. Anyways, Elka stands by Jeremy has he futzes with his bicycle and looks at him with her sad eyes – don’t leave me! Doris only takes me on short walks down the block. I want to go to the woods everyday and get pup cups at the ice cream store or the coffee shop.
I went to a women-only fly fishing class on Saturday. A few weeks ago, I was thinking this was sunk-cost event, meaning that I had paid for it (past-Doris) and then felt too busy to go (present-Doris) and I wouldn’t go – I really just wanted to stay at home and just do NOTHING as it is my favorite thing to do, but really, I’m trying to relax by doing things and this was going to be fun.
I’m interested in going on women only fly fishing trips which seem pretty affordable and I think I would like more than other type of self-care retreats and it would be a good way to be outside. I’m also interested in fly fishing because it matches well with Jeremy’s biking hobby. Family vacations can be a little problematic for us because Jeremy wants to go to famous mountains and climb up them on his bicycle. And he doesn’t want to leave me and Edda behind – but he also doesn’t want us to just sit in the hotel while he’s biking up a big mountain day after day. (I mostly would prefer for him to go by himself, and I also don’t really mind sitting in the hotel with Edda, but we go around in circles because…what else is a marriage besides getting into the same discussion 10,000x?). Turns out that the good places to go hill climbing on a bike is also the good places to go fly fishing. So he could bike one day and the next day, I’d go fly fishing – and we would both be entertained.
So….will I love fly fishing? It is unclear to me. I think it’s better than my kayaking hobby because the risk of drowning seems much, much less (but not zero). But there is a lot of equipment. So it seems…..expensive. Each of these flies? Maybe 5 dollars? And how many do you need? Technically only one. But no – it seems like one likes to have many, many, many. I tend to not like hobbies with a lot of equipment.
I like it because there are women-focused groups in a male dominated sport, so that is appealing to me. The river was too fast for us to fish in, so we practiced casting a fishing in a pond. And while some people did catch bass and trout (stocked pond) – I caught nothing. The instructor was like – there are 500 fish in this stocked pond (we were on private property where the owner owns a fish hatchery to raise trout/bass for stocking local streams). I’m like, OK, it’s like a New York city block – instead of people, there are fish? She was like – yeah pretty much. HAHAHA. I’m bad a fishing apparently.
The baking continues – I made a tiramisu which got raves at service yesterday. I used the wrong cookies – not lady fingers, something else which didn’t turn cake-like. But no worries, it still tasted delicious. We learned how to pasteurize eggs at home – Jeremy helped me sous vide them for a little while so no one would get sick from eating raw egg. I need to try again.
It was a long week – I was at Edda’s camp at least 4 times this week – twice on Tuesday because she had had a seizure that morning at 3:30 am and I wanted to make sure she got back and forth to camp ok and I wanted to talk to staff there. I was there once mid-day on Wed to go over her quarterly meeting with her benefit coordinator who needs to see her at the meeting – (who is amazing, I had been warned many, many times that her coordinator would change over many times and could be unresponsive and not up to date on the rules, but while the person has changed over – at least three times, but each time, we get someone very competent and on top of things) and once on Thursday – I had just settled down to work when camp called and said the power was out and could I come pick her up for the day. (I had a momentary thought…you could have camp without lights? Maybe that would be ok?) So I did drive there and find her in the dark with a bunch of other early arrivals waiting for their parents to pickup. I have found out after six months or so that Edda is often the first to arrive (8 am) and the last to leave (3 pm). I’ve figured out most folks don’t show up until 9 am. I think as everyone gets older, it’s like…what’s the rush, let all just sleep in more. I can see that happening to me.
After many years, ney, decades of avoiding meetings (in both careers, the PTO and nursing), I’ve gone off the deep end and had meetings almost everyday this week for church – if you count going to church as a meeting itself and, yes, I feel like it’s a working meeting. I now realize that I can’t quite wing a meeting – I need to actually practice a tiny bit before I head into one. How to compress a lot of information into a small bit of time or exactly what I want to cover and maybe what I don’t quite want to cover.
I’m reading more – I’m going back a few decades and reading The Hunt for Red October – I loved the movie.
I try to go to the library once a week, I check out many books, sometimes I read one. Sometimes I read none and return them all.
I made these peanut butter blossoms on Saturday. I had the best day on Saturday! I literally did NOTHING. Well not nothing, I changed all the sheets on the beds which took all morning. I did my favorite part of the laundry which is running loads through the washer and dryer and not folding. I went on a run early, early during the day. I spent a lot of the day napping and reading a very long book. I did not write a list, I did not cross things off a list. I didn’t talk to anyone except for Edda and Jeremy. Ahh, I remember someone called this a should-less day. I did whatever I wanted. (Actually, I’m very lucky, most of what I’m doing, I want to, or at least I’ve convinced myself it’s something I want to be doing).
There was a suggestion in the comments that the hershey kisses should be put in upside down and that it was a game changer. It was not. It just felt like their butts were looking at me.
I also spent a long time reading this book. It was both really well written, like each sentence was compelling, but the story was…underwhelming. Here, I’ll give you the 3 second overview. Young girl (Sonia) is in an abusive relationship (the book opens with this and stays with this a long time) and when she escapes this terrible relationship, she forgets to take her beloved, sentimental necklace. Then for hundreds of pages she and a boy (Sunny) go all over America and India going in and out of their lives with a sprinkle of magical realism and he finds the necklace and then gives it back to her. The end. There, you don’t have to read the book now. I’m shocked….shocked I finished the book.
I usually have an audiobook going at the same time and I’m listening to this memoir which was pretty amusing at first – she opened for Tina Fey and Amy Poehler, amusing enough that I went to see if she was on tour (she was) and I bought a single ticket in December for a reasonable price in DC – like third row! And then almost immediately after, found out she’s semi-cancelled because she’s a supporter of the current administration. Now I’m listening to the 2nd half, kind of less amused. I’ve always wanted to go to live comedy! I’ve never gone and it’s kind of Asian-tiger mom funny. We’ll see. Anyways, two books going on at the same time about Indian family drama was just a touch too much for me and even though the tone of the book and audiobook were completely different (think creme brulee vs hostess cupcake), sometimes I got the plotlines confused.
Then Monday and Tuesday and Wed were filled with meeting and doings – mostly I think it was well above 90 for three days, killing my will to live. Monday morning, I did yard work with a friend who is 71 and we sawed discarded fencing and brought it into his van and then took it to the dump. I was the one asking for breaks hauling this crap from my yard, he was totally fine – barely breaking a sweat. Edda had a pretty long seizure on Monday night with both me and Jeremy up at 3:30 am, thus having me worried all day on Tuesday driving her to her day program instead of having transport pick her up. I also had very long meetings on Monday and Tuesday with architects and project managers. Tuesday night I sat down and told Jeremy, I need two days off for every 1.5 days that I work.
My peonies are in full bloom. This year, I decided to bouquet them – I’ve given 4 away and they are always met with delight. I’ve not done this before, now I have no more flower vases. I’ll have to pick some more up from the thrift store. I’m torn about the peonies. I was going to rip them out to execute the plan that our landscape designer suggested, but look at this. They are gorgeous, no?
A few days ago, a friend introduced me to the Merlin app. It is a bird identification app run by Cornell and it’s a lot of fun. You can have it listen to bird calls and it’ll ID birds that way, or you can snap a photo of a bird and it’ll take a look at them and ID them that way. Then it’s like…do I count it if the app hears the bird and I don’t see it? In the olden days, I might have been…I need to see it to actually count it, but these days, I’m just like, I’m just trying to enjoy myself – no need to torture myself. So, I’m just counting it if the app hears the bird. I’m starting very easy – I have 23 birds on my found list including these Canadian geese, who probably technically found me. Look! Little itty bitty babies!
Here is my Oreo cheesecake of which I only had a little taste of – we cut it into 16 pieces at and I gave out 5 at dinner – one to Ginny, one split between Edda and Jeremy, three for Ginny to take home for the kids and then I just licked the knife. Delicious.
And then I took it to choir and it was demolished. Such joy! I feel like my mom who brought treats to work all the time. Hahaha.
We’ve been members of the JCC for like 17 years? omg, so long. Anyways, we are members because of the annual beloved camp that Edda (and Vince) went to during the summers. Now we no longer really need to be members as we no longer need to register for camp (weep), but when I went to cancel the membership (which includes the gym/pool/etc. that we never use) last year and replace it with a donation, I hesitated because – would they rather me be a member? or a donor? And then sometimes once you hesitate on these things, you never get back to them again. The monthly charge popped up again on my bank statement and then I decided to turn back to it and it turns out that you can be a member AND a donor at the same time. So I’m changing the regular membership to the member/donor option. (This is the most boring blog post ever, sorry.). There are forms to fill out, one to cancel, one to restart and Jeremy and I will be members and then it was like – who is our emergency contact in case both of us are incapacitated? I hesitated and put VINCE for the first time. Then I texted him that this was a big step and he was are emergency contact.
His reply:
Screenshot
I have this beautiful notebook that Dani gave me last year from Japan and I always have dreams of using is with different colors and neat handwriting. I have all the pens, I have all the grids. I probably even have the handwriting. What I lack is the caring. I used to care and square everything and I remember that girl who wanted everything just so – was a rigid person I was back then worried about all possiblee mistakes. But now I’m like…who the hell knows what is going on, I’m just going to scribble and make mistakes everyday – it’s no fun unless you screw up a little bit everyday. I made an Oreo cheesecake last night. I didn’t use a water bath like you are supposed to because the recipe insisted that I didn’t need one, but maybe I did need one because the top did split – a mini grand canyon in the middle of my cheesecake with little oreo crags and crevices that miniature cheesecake rock climbers would be happy to traverse. Oh well. I was hoping to not need to make the ganache to cover the error, but now I need to slather it with a coating of chocolate. Just terrible.
We are so excited that Dani’s graduate studies are suppose to help us measure the ripeness of pears based on their color. We actually have that problem in the house – Jeremy loves pears and they are not predictable. Sometimes, for whatever reason, they never ripen, other times, they rot from the inside, other times they are so delicious and ripen all within the same 8 hours and then Jeremy is like – OK, today we are only eating pears. I have 13 pears here that need to be eaten…right now, right now. And then we all get down to eating pears – except for Elka who will eat a fallen pear piece but really is waiting for the fallen chicken morsel.
This is a photo of my backyard. It appears as if I’m growing metal silos, but there are actually little trees in the center of the metal hoops. I take great pleasure in taking out the compost each day, dumping the slop in a randomly established pile and making the rounds – hello redbud! Hello dogwood! Hello serviceberry! Their tiny leaves unfurling, bright, shiny and tender, like a rug burn reminding you are alive and can hurt whenever you move and your clothes brush against your new, baby skin.
Usually, I’m at peace when I’m walking around. Actually, today, I was feeling slightly overwhelmed for whatever reasons and I was like…I will go walk in my field of metal circles and say hello to my green, leafy friends and try to calm the fuck down. (This is really what I spend my entire life doing, downregulating myself. OMG. so much work.)
Anyways, my pride and joy is (was, actually, foreshadowing) a little oak tree. The only one I was able to grow from bare root – all my other bare root trees failed to leaf out. It was about a foot tall and maybe 2 mm in diameter. I was dreaming of it 250 years hence, when I was no longer here, perhaps the house would no longer be here, perhaps we all will not be here, but somehow the tree would be here. It’s four leaves unfurled to full white oak size despite its tiny stature. I walked up today and did not see the leaves, panicked – I stood there for a long time searching and slowly, unfortunately negating all the downregulating I was doing. I finally saw the little stump. Can you call it a stump if it’s only 2 mm across? I suspect a rabbit? or chipmunk? Whatever can get through a 2 x 4 inch grate opening (not a deer) (sorry for the inconsistent deployment of measurement systems). And then I muttered to myself – the oak was felled by a resident rabbit.
My friend Dave has three sisters. On Mother’s Day, three bouquets arrived on the porch. The first one read “From your favorite daughter”, the second one read, “From your real favorite daughter” and the last one read “From your definitely, undisputed favorite daughter”. Hahaha. I often say to Vince – you are my favorite son. And Vince says back to me – and you are my favorite mom.
Look! A fox! On its way to kill something for breakfast.
I had a very busy weekend. On Saturday, I went to lunch with three friends to discuss previous capital campaigns of the church – this was very informative and I got to take them to A&Js to share with them my favorite restaurant. And because we were four, I got to try so many things at once. A&Js was at its best, lively and packed, full of mostly Asian folks, a delight! I thought I ordered too much, but I did not. Everything was eaten.
Saturday night, Lexy took me to the Cedar Lane branch of UU and we attended their big action auction night. Lexy had been a member, but now she drives past them to come to Rockville, a move I understand now having spent an evening at Cedar Lane – everyone was super nice, we got a tour of the new renovation, I met with the executive director, who gave us the name of their architect. It’s a very nice congregation, but it was fancier than we are – the night was catered and they had kitchen staff to bus the tables and clean up. We generally can’t afford stuff like that – we have potluck and we bus our own tables. We are scrappier and quirkier and…it made me love us more. It feels like I’m back at my old quirky dorm in college – free spirits, oddballs and mostly live and let live. It’s not perfect, but it’s apparently what I like.
Mother’s Day, I went for a run, went to sing in the choir and I promised myself I would duck out right after service, but I was caught in a few conversations, but made it home by 12:30 pm where I spent the afternoon napping and reading The Loneliness of Sonia and Sunny with Edda right next to me. Sunday night, we had a great family dinner, Rachel and Sarah came, and it’s so much more fun when they show up. For example, Rachel told us her story of donkeys having sex in the middle of the children’s petting zoo at the National Zoo a few weeks ago and how everyone scattered, but she walked towards the copulating animals and took photos, which she shared with all of us as we were laughing our heads off.
Happy Mother’s day to my mom!
Maybe Jeremy was thinking of buying me this for mother’s day?
I’ve been baking a lot because I have a lovely audience – choir on Thursday nights and church service on Sundays. We all get to try a slice a home and then I bring take the rest away and it all gets demolished within two hours with no one eating 10,000 slices of cake/cookies. The chocolate things always go first, but sometimes you don’t want to bake a chocolate thing. So I baked this apple cake – so delicious. Because I have only so much time, I’ve unfortunately kind of replaced the hours working out with baking which somehow seems worse than just not working out. It seems the total opposite of working out somehow, except you get a lot of people enjoying baked goods and telling you that they are enjoying baked goods.
It’s fun trying things out, but you slowly realize people want only the regular cookies: chocolate chip, oatmeal raisin, snickerdoodles, sugar, peanut butter, ginger. Does anyone want a miso cookie? or toffee cookie? not really.
Remember last week I shot targets with a club-borrowed Ruger Mark II that jammed all the time and I was too shy to do a do-over? Well, someone took the malfunctioning pistol home to clean/service and the Range Officer let me borrow her “fancy” (she called it fancy, I did not call it fancy) Smith and Wesson 41 from the 70s that was her father’s. I was intrigued at the chance to use a highly accurate vintage pistol. The interesting thing about this setup (decidedly not vintage) is that there is a sight on it which is battery powered and projects a small, bright red-dot right at bullseye (who knew this existed?, not me.). Previously, I’ve always sighted by iron sights, which is the little notch on the leading end of the barrel and the two notches towards the back end of the barrel and you have to line those notches up together first evenly and then match the lineup to the bullseye. I talked to Jeremy about it this morning about the little red dot and he was like – that seems like cheating and boy when I set up the gun and sighted it, it sure did seem like cheating. You mean, all I have to do is to match the red dot to the bullseye? I was pleased with my score – I remain a good shot, I could improve if I practiced. To practice, I’d probably need to buy my own gun which I’m not a huge fan of, but I’m slowly coming around to (!). Maybe. This is like the weirdest hobby of mine, I still am not super comfortable around the range – it totally still gives me the heebie-jeebies. I’m now friends with people who actively collect firearms. I’m only intrigued because I’m, essentially without any practice, shooting really, really well. And, really, it’s a lot of fun being good at something, and extra fun to be good at something that boys usually do, it is my favorite way of being good at something – though the person running the league is a very experience, very good shot woman.
Verizon came through and installed fiber optic to the church. (This has been such a boring, boring set of blog posts. I’m sorry.) This after the folks in the congregation were like – it’s going to cost us $70,000 for them to trench and install the fiber when the fiber is running in the neighborhood like 100 feet from our driveway. But it’s in! And it cost me *nothing*. I feel like I can resign any leadership position at the church now. I got them a new copier. I got them fiber optic internet. My work here is done.
