We celebrated Megan’s birthday on Monday. I got to make her a cookies and creme birthday cake with a light whipped cream frosting. I was very proud of the cake – I had a big sprinkle “M” on the top which looked like a brown UofM logo. But it was for Megan and not for anyone else.
See? I did the piping too!
Megan got to wear our birthday hat, which turns out was purchased by her in 2023 for a combination of Edda’s and Pat’s birthdays and now lives in our birthday drawer for all folks who want to wear the birthday hat. It is one of my favorite birthday items that we have!
Happy Birthday Megan, we are lucky to have you in our lives <3
It appears that my venus fly trap ate a fly recently. I hadn’t been paying attention and then I noticed this dessicated fly body in one of the traps. In the house! A fly had the run of the entire house and it decided to meet its death in the fly trap. Interesting. And then I thought, maybe it would be happier outside in the summer to eat bugs. And so now it’s on the back porch.
Also, I’m trying to get apples from the next door apple trees. I think the trees have some sort of fungus or pest. The leaves are yellowing and dropping mid summer and they are looking a little sickly. Turns out being a backyard orchard-ist is not straightforward. I have about 10 of these baggies left out of about 30. The others have dropped off one by one and sometimes they drop 4 at a time, which is discouraging. But the ones left, they are growing – this one is about 2 inches in diameter – so bigger than they’ve ever gotten. All the ones at the top of the tree that I didn’t thin all dropped off recently. So at least something is going ok. I’m hoping for at least one ripe one.
Felix is leaving soon – less than 20 days, so we are trying to cram in some Maryland themed things before he goes. So we went to Bethesda Crab House last night for crabs. It was just what I wanted -a slightly dingy place, old ceiling fans turning, crowded – but no line and crabs smothered in Old Bay. So I taught the boy how to eat crabs and then we had crabs.
Jeremy is not a crab fan – thinks it’s too much work for too little food and in the middle of the dinner, we was like – I give up! We are in the post-industrial revolution era. And he proceeded to look up patents on automatic crab peeling machines. (He had ordered a crab cake sandwich which was delicious). So I finished doing the peeling for Edda’s share of the meal. We also ordered hush puppies (they ran out of puppies soon thereafter) and the best tater tots I’d ever eaten. And then after we squared away the bill, Felix eyed another table’s funnel cake and we ordered that for dessert. I had a great time, felt so much like summer.. a great outing.
We had a lovely 4th of July – I got caught up on the laundry and some other sundry things. We celebrated Joab’s 10th birthday with a requested burrito dinner. Jeremy went all out and bought beef – delicious. You know it’s a special occasion when there is beef in the house (you can drastically cut your carbon footprint by just cutting a lot of beef out of your diet – no need to go to vegetarian or vegan to make a big difference).
It was fun, there were balloons, our trusty HAPPY BIRTHDAY banner which has celebrated at least 15 years of family and friends’ birthdays.
I also made the requested chocolate/chocolate cupcakes. I upped my game by piping the frosting. The frosting was excellent, but I thought the cake was still too dry. I tried switching from a butter/dutch processed cocoa, to an oil/natural cocoa recipe and while it was better (better meaning quite good still..), I still didn’t knock it out of the park. I think I’m baking them too long, or leaving them in the hot muffin tin while they cool too long so. It’s hard to see them cooking because it’s hard to see them brown because they are already brown. A good chocolate cake is my holy grail. I will keep trying (this is a subtle thing, I acknowledge, they still all got demolished by this morning). I don’t think I can call myself a real baker until I get this chocolate cake under my belt. (Just like I don’t really think I can call myself a guitar player until I can play barre chords – I’m working on those too).
This is the chicken, not the beef. lol. We don’t grill that much, so it was a bit of a learning curve for Jeremy.
Felix came home from a shift at the pool and after the birthday party, the two of us headed to the Rockville fireworks. I haven’t been in a long, long time (over a decade, I’m sure) – these are descended from my childhood fireworks, the same ones I saw when I was a kiddo. I was super impressed, lots of parking, mostly good signage and the vibe was amazing. I get discouraged a lot about the state of our union, but sitting here packed with my fellow citizens – so diverse – all ages, races, languages, food, laughing and TOGETHER. I got to feel that American feeling again and hope that we rise up and do what’s right. We may stumble along the way, but what is it about the arc of justice?
We tried to get snacks – corn dog and/or poutine, but the lines were too long. Felix drew our fellow attendees.
And it was beautiful. Now that I’m in my 50s, you kind of realize that US history is very, very short. Like when you are a kid, 1925 sounds like the dinosaur age, but now you realize it’s like the length of your life but backwards from the day you were born. I’ve been reading some books about 1915, 1918, etc. WWI. All quiet on the western front (WWI), Dead Wake about the sinking of the Lusitania, now I’m reading about the 1918 flu and see that all these things overlapped and how everyone was going crazy then too and these crazy terrible patterns repeat themselves, but hopefully, we keep reaching for the light.
When I was a college student, I think I signed up for pistol class to fulfill a PE requirement (I wasn’t athletic then) and so – I found out that I’m not a bad shot. I remember that they wanted to recruit me to be on the pistol team, I kind of even remember the captain running out of the building after me as I was walking out and telling me that if I joined, I’d surely win, there were so few women competing and I was quite good. My mother, also a good shot, has an enormous trophy that she won when she competed in some shooting competition in her youth.
Anyways, it’s been more than 30 years since I’ve picked up a gun, but I still have a small, lingering interest in target shooting and Felix also was interested shooting a gun and, frankly since gun culture has exploded in the US in the past 30 years, I wanted to go to the shooting range to see what was going on. Sadly, what is more American than experiencing gun culture.
Ginny, Edda’s caregiver, also came with us. I couldn’t resist. A middle-aged Chinese woman, a Mexican woman and a teenage Swede walk into a gun range and…there is the beginning of a joke. Ginny is a gun owner and actually has been a member of the gun range we went to.
I was nervous, it did not help that on the way there, Ginny told us that someone got shot at the facility accidentally the day before (a person accidentally shot themselves – they are fine!). Anyways, I purchased us beginner packages and we watched a safety video and then we went to the range where it turns out, I still am an excellent shot and man, the entire thing was really scary. We shot a semi-automatic handgun (the name/brand escapes me) which was way more involved than the pistol I shot with in college. Ten rounds in a magazine. Very loud. Very scary the entire time for me.
Though, paradoxically, I am pleased very with my target. I did the target a 3 yards, 10 yards and 15 yards – the ones wider out from the center were from further away, but I’m pretty sure all my bullets landed on the paper. I still have a steady hand, but my eyesight is pretty terrible, lol.
So, what did I think of the whole thing? I was actually very discouraged and scared for all of us. When we walked on to the range from the classroom, there were a pair of buddies shooting a large gun – I literally have no idea what the names are for each of these items – with a laser sight (what fun is it when the red laser tells you where to aim?) and the loudest fire sound I could image coming out of a gun without it being a bomb that goes off in your hand. I was like – I hope those folks aren’t crazy and just decide to turn around and shoot all of us right here, right now.
Our instructor, very kind and measured, owns more than 25 guns and we asked him to bring some out and he brought out this gun which begins with AK was it 15? 19? it know it wasn’t the 47. Anyways, we weren’t allowed to shoot it at our class, but Felix did try out the feel of it. Anyways, the instructor told us he has a concealed carry permit, so he took it in his backpack everywhere he went. Like do you need an AK whatever at the grocery store? It just baffles me. I mean, I guess I knew of this, but to see it and feel it and then to imagine that every other person on the street has this in their backpack makes me kind of want to throw up. This weird fetish of gun ownership.
Busy weekend! I feel good – mentally that is. It was a tough beginning of the year for me – so it’s nice things are on the upswing. I’m trying to take advantage of it all. I did most of these on my own – Jeremy is working A LOT. So he worked a lot and exercised a bit. Eliana came both days and took Edda out on lunch adventures.
Friday night, I went to Billy’s band – the Sonic Spell at That’s Amore – a suburban bar that closes at 10 pm. I had a great time, chatting with other students of Billy’s and dancing a bit. Watching drunk people I didn’t know play air guitar. Watching 80 year old grandmas cut the rug. Goals! Now I’ve gone to enough of these to know: 70-80 db is loud, but comfortable. 90 db is loud, but you can hold a conversation with the person next to you if you yell a bit. 100 db is extremely loud and hurts your ears and no conversation is to be had. You can get the decibel readings on your watch. Always bring your earplugs (which I did) – I told Billy during the break, I care less about the hearing loss and more about acquiring tinnitus which is a huge bummer.
Saturday morning, I volunteered at Main Street’s first ever neighborhood safety day! I was busy from 9:15 to 1 pm easily. Helping set up, moving furniture, signing people in, it was a lot of fun for me. I’m happy I found such a nice place to volunteer at –
Saturday afternoon – I met Sheela at Target at Rio and played two (!) hours of Pokemon Go with her. I had told myself, only one hour because 1. how much Pokemon do you really need in your life? and 2. it was really really hot. But we bounced from shade tree to shade tree and tried to catch them all. Here we are in a cafe, cooling off after Sheela became concerned that I had brought no water at all and was worried about me dehydrating and passing out.
Friday night – we (Jeremy, Edda, Felix and me) ventured into Pike and Rose where we had ramen for dinner and, now I know this, traded dinners with everyone because, well that’s just how we roll. And then we went to Sur La Table where Felix bought gifts for us to thank us for his sabbatical stay – he bought a really nice pepper grinder for Jeremy and he’s been eyeing for a while and he bought me beautiful cotton oven mitts (I have silicone ones that were NYT’s number one pick, but they suck and are not very satisfying) so the new ones will be wonderful when I bake!
Felix can be particular about what he eats, so he hemmed and hawed about getting this baked bear cookie ice cream sandwich. Which we did end up getting and splitting four ways! Enormous. Totally enough for 4 people. Delicious.
Sunday, I took Felix to the olympic weightlifting gym. I was a little nervous about how it was going to go – would he not like the vibe, would he not like the people?, so I had planned a day of it, a little lifting, a little lunch and bookstore. This is about 30 minutes from the house in Frederick. I haven’t been in like 6 weeks because it conflicts with singing in the choir. But Felix took to it like fish to water. Like mosquitos to blood. Like a moth to flame. LIke Elka to rolling around in smelly things. He’s really good at it, the coaches were astonished that it was his first day and when he walked into the gym, he didn’t really know what a snatch or clean/jerk was. Anyways, I was done after an hour, but we stayed until the end of the session which, I think was an additional 90 minutes and we’ll go back the rest of the weekends we can before he leaves. There were people lifting more than 300 pounds over their head and Felix was like – I want to workout here. Hahaha. Everyone was encouraging him to continue training in Sweden… we’ll see.
So I know we are talking like 5-10 pound range here, so it’s not huge and I know it – so maybe I’m the only one who notices. I’ve been purposely gaining weight because I’ve been trying to get stronger. I cut way back on running, so I only run about 10 miles a week from a high of maybe 21-25 miles and I’m focusing on big lifts with the olympic barbell – so my routine are squats, deadlifts, pull-ups, rows, bench press and overhead press two day split and baby progressions. It’s not easy, it’s different from my usual.
I will say it is weird to try to gain weight after a lifetime of always, kind of trying to lose weight or keep the weight down. It’s weird to purposely be in a calorie surplus and trying to have that surplus not just be dessert. haha. So now I’m the heaviest I’ve been in a long, long time. But I can see the broadening of my back and my shoulders. It’s honestly a little strange. Do I like it? I’m not sure. But I’m going to go with it for a little bit.
In case any of you are waiting, while we were on vacation, Vince found out he passed his qualifying exams! So very relieved and made the vacation more relaxed for everyone. Why they waited more than three weeks to tell anyone is beyond me, but it doesn’t matter now – he’s on his way. Very busy in lab, lots of stuff to do. Funding seems to be in place, fingers crossed.
Edda started her last summer of JCC camp this week. I felt a little underprepared as the house was still upended from the vacation detritus and, well you know, it’s just how it is. She’s sunscreened up and ready to go.
It’s hot here in MD, but the AC seems to be holding up and working. xoxo.
So Ben came into town on Saturday and we had Sunday dinner with the DC Martins and then on Monday, we (Doris, Jeremy, Edda and Elka) headed up to Keene, NH. Felix and Ben headed to Shenandoah for a night of outdoor camping – I thought they were a bit crazy for tacking this side trip on, but it tuned out fine. We started at about 9:30 am and then made it to Keene by about 6 pm taking the dreaded 95.
We rented a minivan for this trip and it was fine. I brought my new-to-me Stanley cup and everyone enjoyed it and it’s glory and it’s glorious. It’s so weird what takes my fancy, I adore this cup.
Vince and Dani had flown into Boston on Saturday and stayed at a youth hostel for two nights which may or may not have been the best choice – cost vs comfort. They were taken to Keene by Emy and Seth who flew in on Sunday and stayed the night in Boston. They took one look at the hostel that we had booked them into and they high-tailed it out of there and stayed at a hotel nearby.
We were met in Keene by Bunter et al Monday night. Bob, Katherine, Emy, Seth, Vince and Dani were there. Please forgive me, this is a very poorly documented trip – photowise. There are photos of dogs and cakes and really not very many of people. I don’t know what has possessed me.
Julia came by and ate and stayed at a hotel nearby.
It did rain the first 2-3 days we were in town, which was a bit of a bummer. We did lots of house things – puzzles and I baked! It was challenging to bake in an airbnb without all your baking tools, but I managed (I did bring the loaf pan). I made this raspberry swirl pound cake as well as a chocolate chip peanut butter loaf (unphotographed). Both were good, but I preferred the raspberry swirl. Jeremy had brought a kitchen scale (!) so I used that to measure my ingredients, I much prefer weight vs volume measurements.
We walked around the cute town when the weather permitted.
The actual party was on Thursday night – this was for B & K’s actual 60th anniversary. Leon and I rode in the back seat of the minivan. Now…there are no photos of the actual party. There were about 35 people there and we contradanced and had dinner. There were toasts and laughing and fun times.
The next day, the kids hosted a hot dog lunch and lots of people came for that. It was super windy, but temperature-wise it was very nice. We needed a bit of gasoline to start the fire – which Felix had from the camping trip – whew. We went through at least 2 boxed of matches trying to light the coals in the wind. Also, because of the wind, the hot dogs merely got slightly warm, but it was beautiful outside and the people and dogs were happy.
We are home from a week-long vacation to celebrate Bob and Katherine’s 60th wedding anniversary in New Hampshire. I’m back at work, it’s brutally hot here in DC so we are all wilting. I’ve been dreaming about the summers of my childhood where camp was often outside all day, but you really can’t have that here anymore.
But of course, I’m late on blogging, so we go back to the weekend before the anniversary trip and recap. Last Saturday, we went to Leon’s first birthday party – it was a lovely party, full of children – a type of party we don’t usually go to, but ever so delightful!
We pretty much know no one there, but everyone was very friendly and the food, as usual, excellent. Edda was happy to see Nat and family.
Leon was a little overstimulated – cried at his birthday song, but it is how it goes with first birthday parties.
Right after the birthday party, Jeremy went to go pick up Ben at the airport, he was flying into DC from Sweden to attend the party. Saturday night, we hung out at home and had Ginny and family for dinner and then Sunday, we went to Sunday night dinner at Riderwood and got to see Gene at rehab (he has since gotten his PICC line removed and is home…)
