Category: Uncategorized

Edda’s birthday week is starting already. Her 20th (!) birthday is on Sunday and school had their celebration yesterday.

School makes me very happy :). And Edda too.

Cupcakes and cheese balls. A week of crazy food.

So, Jeremy’s on this long business trip and spring break trip with Vince and Dani, so he’ll be gone almost two weeks. Jeremy tries to not travel so much, but this time, the timing of spring break and his meetings kind of necessitated this lengthy bit away from the house. Usually, in the past, I’ve tried to “keep up” with everything while he’s gone, but not this time. I’m taking half days off of work, I’m letting school buy her lunches instead of me packing them and I’m calling friends and hanging out outside and playing guitar and going for runs. I’m letting the dishes pile and the kitchen get messy, but I do find enough time to make the house neat every 36 hours or so. Also, in the past, I’ve devolved into eating frozen pizza and ready-made meals for dinner, and this time, I’m learning to make super simple, healthy dinners for me and Edda. Mostly one sheet wonders (baked chicken with green beans) or a simple baked salmon with roasted acorn squash – with only salt, pepper and olive oil for seasoning. That’s it. No extra spices or marinating or anything. Just unpack it from the package throw it on an baking sheet, salt, pepper and olive oil and into the oven until it’s done. Jeremy sets a high bar for home cooked weeknight meals, but I’m learning to lower the bar but also eat like I want to eat.

I’m generally a godless person, but I make exceptions in times of great tragedy or great beauty. I suppose god would forgive me for being so fickle and not loyal because I can be stubborn.

Dave introduced me to this game called Leaf Blower Revolution. It’s something called an incremental game? Anyways, the entire goal is to rid your lawn of leaves. I’m not yet sure that it is compelling enough for me, but I’m having a great time talking about it with Dave.

OMG, Whole Foods has this (new?) delicious chocolate cake – called chocolate explosion or chocolate effusion or chocolate eruption and it is so so good. Delicious. Moist, crunchy, light, creamy and so chocolatey. Christine brought it to Sunday night dinner last night and we all loved it. And then Gene and Bette (both, but more Gene) picked at it for 30 minutes while the conversation kept on keeping on. I was like – you sure you don’t want a second piece? – and he was like – no just the flower or a bit of frosting. At the end, no one took the cake because, well, it really was as if Gene licked it all over.

Gorgeous day yesterday here in the DMV. Eliana was back from vacation, so she and Edda went out for some St. Patrick’s Day fun, and I headed towards nature with Elka. A 2.5 hour hike and I was on a Pokemon mission – one of my tasks is to catch 200 pokemon in a day (I usually catch about 10 a day), so I spent the working on this made-up goal and finished it about 3/4 through the hike.

I also had time to go thrifting which is just my favorite, really. I got a couple of mugs (to turn into planters) and baskets (for organizing). And a deck of cards – I’m thinking of practicing some magic?

Jeremy’s in berkeley with his high school friends. He accidentally left all his shirts in the Sacramento hotel (whoops). So he needs to buy some shirts today.

Vince is going to go to UC Irvine for grad school. He found out late Thursday afternoon and are all very excited for him and can’t wait to see what this new chapter brings. He’s so incredibly happy and eager to go start in the fall. It was a tough admissions season for him as this was his only congratulatory letter (after it was initially and, we think, erroneously a you are on the waitlist letter), but he needed only one and we are all thrilled. As someone said – it makes it easy to decide. He’s really blossomed into his scientific self starting the tail end of sophomore year, it’s a joy to see. He likes research and labs and classes and teaching and it’s all good.

We like to compare rent and stipends as he’ll be the third generation to go to grad school in engineering on the Lee side.

My mom got a $200 monthly stipend and her rent was $50 a month which included phone, maid service and fresh linens. My fathers was $400 a month with $90 rent. Mine was a monthly stipend of $1900 with a monthly rent of $420 which might have included phone (land line – I did not have a cell phone in grad school. No one did.) and bathroom cleaning, but no linens. Vince’s will be $2800 a month stipend and he expects to pay about $800 a month in rent.

He’s going to be off on his own soon! I’m not going to buy him any more pants or shoes or cell phones. It feels weird to just send him off like that, but it is as it should be.

It was so gorgeous yesterday. I always love fall the most and spring second, but I’m loving this spring bloom. I planted some azaleas yesterday that I got as a gift. There is a little patch in the garden where I plant all of my plant gifts that can be planted – Hyacinth, teeny-tiny daffodils and now this azalea.

Jeremy made it to Sacramento and he’s not traveling light. He had to take an Uber XL to the airport. He can’t even blame Edda for all his luggage weight.

Bob and Katherine got a pair of puppies! These are rescues and they are not related, though they seem well matched. White one with brown patches is Whimsey and brown one with white patches is Bunter. We are having a fun time facetime-ing with the puppies.

Jeremy is off to CA for business and pleasure. He’s gone for almost 2 weeks (kind of inadvertently), but we’ll be fine here at the mother ship. I gave him a hair cut and eye brow trim yesterday before he left.

We don’t really have any landscaping to speak of, but 15 years ago, I planted a scattering of daffodil bulbs and show up happily each spring and they make me smile!

On Saturday, while I was traveling with my parents, my favorite son turned 22. We had asked him what he wanted for his birthday and he asked for some floor lamps and so we bought him 2 – one a general room lamp and one to read in bed with. We also got him smart light bulbs so he can control them by voice and he’s been having fun with them.