Skipping Town

Today was a whirlwind. I got up at 6:30 and didn't sit down all day. First we had Greta's passport appointment, which was fine. Then the packing and preparing began. The girls were actually a big help--Lucia unloaded both dishwashers and they even cleaned my bathroom (for a price, of course: two Series 4 Mini Brands). We packed the car, and then I filled the car with gas, made seven salads for Nutmeg, laid out all of Farrah's things, boiled chicken for Farrah, cleaned up an insane mess Farrah made on our beautiful Anthropologie rug in the Long Room (I think this week, on top of Andrew being gone last week, has been really hard for her), put together snacks for the car, ran to Target because Greta announced her underwear is too small and she is completely and fully unable to wear it for even one more day, and and and. I also vacuumed the whole house and cleaned up Nutmeg's hay explosion in Greta's room. I am tired. But we are  ready! Packing up for the beach is the e

A busy day of beach preparations. We're making this happen, somehow, with masks and a tent and more masks and lots of time outside. As preparations get underway, Andrew is still in the attic. Today, Farrah discovered his whereabouts--she's been so confused, moping around when she can't see him and celebrating when she joins him outside. But today she decided to go to the attic, where she was overjoyed to discover Andrew in the guest room. She stayed with him all day; Andrew sent a picture of her snuggled up with him.  The girls and I spent the morning packing. I had a tennis lesson at noon, which was really fun, and then Greta and I went out to get her passport pictures taken, because of course I have an appointment tomorrow to renew her passport (we'll drive in separate cars). The girls also played in the basement, riding their hoverboards around. It poured off and on throughout the day, and the heat/humidity in the late afternoon at the end of all the rain was intense

Andrew continues to isolate in the attic. At least he has what is basically an apartment--a bedroom, a bathroom, and a room he's set up as an office (yes, he was feeling well enough to work for a bit today). And in the evening he went onto the porch to watch a sports game on his iPad and get some fresh air while the girls and I watched TV in the basement. We're masking when we're inside, except for our bedrooms and the basement, which is a huge pain and most likely unnecessary but feels like a small sacrifice if there's any chance it's helping.  Both girls had tennis lessons this morning, and then I took L&G to Target just to get out of the house. I bought them each a Series 4 Mini Brands. Then I started all the laundry because--ha ha ha ha!--we're leaving for the beach on Saturday. Knock on wood. Some of us are, anyway. We're still figuring out how or whether it's all going to work. Many cars, many rooms, many chairs set up at a large distance outsi

Saturday, June 23 Lucia and Andrew played chess. Huge storm in the late afternoon derailed our plan to go to the pool. The storm cleared and we went to a Pirates game (free beach towel night). Andrew found out a coworker tested positive for covid so we masked the whole time, and I slept in the attic. Sunday, June 24 Andrew tested positive. After 2.5 years, covid finally found us. He has mild symptoms, mostly fatigue and muscle aches. We had so many social plans for Sunday and cancelled them all. He's now living on the third floor. Lucia made linguini and clams for dinner. Monday, June 25 The girls and I tested this morning and are currently negative. Andrew is like a ghost haunting the attic. I occasionally leave things at the bottom of the back staircase for him to retrieve--a smoothie, a cup of coffee. The girls and I tried to stay outside as much as possible. Inside, we mask, unless we're in the basement or in our bedrooms. We played 3 Up 3 Down and Sorry. We finished off a

 Wednesday, July 20 We did some more resin work, with a new set of alphabet molds. It's extremely satisfying. Also extraordinarily messy. Greta found in her closet the tiny Calico Critters we got in gachapon machines in Tokyo, and spent some time setting them up and playing with them on the kitchen bar. In the evening, we watched two episodes of Lost in Space.  Thursday, July 21 We went to Target in the morning to get some school supplies. Not too many things are needed this year because the kids can repurpose things from last year. But they decided they wanted new bookbags, which we ordered from LL Bean. They've been using the same backpacks since 2nd and 4th grade, so it was time. Later, we went to the pool then watched Lost in Space. Friday, July 22 Extremely hot day. We walked to the library in the morning to pick up some holds. Then we went to the pool and had lunch there. The rest of the afternoon we were in the basement making more resin stuff. Finally, Andrew came home.

Saturday, July 16 Long drive home. Lots of traffic, lots of rain. We were all sad to leave but very happy to see our house, which looked twice as big as we remembered. I thanked my past self for cleaning it so well before we left; it was so nice coming home to nice tidied rooms. Sunday, July 17 A fabulous gift: Mom and Dad visited in the afternoon and brought us cavatelli and manicotti from the St. Rita's Fair, the final day of which was Saturday. Then Mom practiced piano with the girls (who haven't practiced for a month). It rained almost the entire day. Monday, July 18 Andrew left for a work trip to NYC. The kids and I embarked on our newest summer craft, resin jewelry. This is a very involved, very messy craft and it makes me very happy to have a basement craft room where we can just leave it all set up and not worry about an explosion of glitter and sticky drips of resin-chemicals. It rained almost the entire day again. In the evening, we had visitors--friends driving from

It's our last day in NH. The girls and I went to the swimming hole / lagoon this morning so Lucia could collect some rocks and Greta and I could float in the lagoon in our inflatable innertubes. It was a fun final visit.  We then turned our attention to cleaning up Nutmeg's havoc. It took a long time. All three of us swept up hay and poop and bunny fur (she shed a ton) from all corners of the room; I sprayed Resolve on the pee and strawberry-juice stains and did my best to scrub them; and then I vacuumed. It looks almost back to normal. There will be a final round of sweeping tomorrow morning, but I don't think Nutmeg's NH residency has done too much permanent damage. In the afternoon, we took a drive into town to (illegally) throw away some trash at the gas station and then drop off some recycling at the grocery store. We bought a final bottle of our favorite NH drink, Polar Orange Dry, with the sixty cents we got back from our cans and bottles. Neither Andrew nor I ha

This morning, Andrew led us on a hike through the meadow and to the "back forty," a distant, isolated field, and then the woods beyond. This field is where we'd establish our illegal poppy-growing business if we decide to take a life detour and become the New Hampshire Snells. (That's an Ozark reference. IYKYK.) Lucia especially likes to hike back there because there's an old dumping ground that's full of broken bottles, pottery shards, and rusted-out old cookware. She also found two of her favorite "steam mushrooms," odd hollow mushrooms that release a little cloud of smoke when stepped on. She's developed a mushroom obsession this summer. It was a high-grass, tick-heavy hike (we left Farrah at home), but it's always fun to explore back there. That hike, coupled with yesterday's river day, kind of laid us all low. We were all so tired today. Greta actually lay in her bed for a while, trying to nap. I think we're all ready to return t

Today we went on our annual river rafting excursion, maybe our very favorite summer event. We set out on an afternoon launch, and it was a perfectly hot and sunny day. It's always a lot harder to row than we remember, but we managed to make our way. Lucia and Greta love to get out of the raft and swim along behind, though this makes moving forward difficult, since they're both basically serving as anchors. We stopped at a rocky sandbar along the way to swim, floating down the river with the current and then wading back to our raft. It's very pleasant to swim in the shallow part of the river. The water is clear and cool, there are no sharks or snapping turtles, and it's just very peaceful to be alone on the river. It's less pleasant to swim in deeper parts of the river, which we discovered when we stopped further along, and Greta was casually floating when a giant fish basically swam right by her neck and she jumped up screaming "SHARK!" Ha ha ha. It was ob

This evening, Andrew was walking Farrah in the yard when she began barking maniacally at the bottom of the front hill. It was more intense, focused barking than her usual "I smell some kind of creature two miles away"--so Andrew went to see what was going on, and he saw a porcupine in the branches of a tree. Our cousin had told us there was a porcupine wandering around, and indeed, there it was. It stayed in the tree while we made a fire and burned some of our cardboard recycling. Who knows when it will come down. If it will. And if we'll have a run-in with it tomorrow. Since our time here is winding down, I'll give a summary of the WILDLIFE we've encountered this month: --Snapping turtle, large (pond)  --Snapping turtle, medium (yard) --Mice (bathroom and kitchen) --Snakes (yard and woods) --Deer (fields) --Porcupine (tree by the barn) --Ticks (field and woods) --Red efts (road) --Crayfish and minnows (lagoon) --Frogs, tadpoles, and salamanders (pond) --Coyotes (

Every single one of my children, both human and animal, were difficult today. I'll go through them individually. Nutmeg Today, Nutmeg nearly burned the house down. In the early afternoon, I went upstairs to check on her and noticed that the window fan was whirring in a strange, sporadic way. I turned it off and then on again; no change. I switched it on and off again, this time looking at the outlet where the fan was plugged in, and saw a SPARK. I unplugged it and saw that Nutmeg had chewed through the cord all the way to the copper wiring. She could have electrocuted herself. I don't know how she didn't. She also could have started a fire--these are old, old, old outlets and the walls of the house are insulated with horsehair. Not okay, Nutmeg. Not okay. I'm ordering pet-resistant cord covers tonight so we can wrap all the cords in Greta's room when we get home. Farrah The girls and I took Farrah down to the swimming hole / lagoon portion of the creek this morning,

Today we did one of our favorite annual activities: hiking to the top of Mt. Ascutney. It's a beautiful trail, and we love it. Lucia took pictures of mushrooms. Afterward, we had ice cream for lunch at Frazier's. Lucia and I had brownie sundaes, Andrew had a Reese's Peanut Butter Cup sundae, and Greta had a banana split.  The girls worked themselves into hysterics throughout the hike and drive home, repeating an insane routine they made up which made no sense: "Mini Brands?" "Mini Brands!" "What are those?" "I don't know!" "Are they these?" "Are they those?" "Are they....[random word]?" "Are they...[random rhyming word]?" "I don't know!" Then, together, sing-song, "HA HA HA HA HA HA HA!" They did this over and over again. It makes no sense and they thought it was the funniest thing ever. We read, played Rummikub, and did Duolingo later in the afternoon. Then the kids

We took a trip to Hanover today. The kids had never been there, and I'd only been a couple of times, easily thirteen or more years ago. We made a quick stop at Walmart so the kids could each buy two clearance Mini Brands (series 3) blind bags with money they'd earned from summer work, and then we drove on. First we walked to the Dartmouth campus and tried to instill a little academic motivation in the kids (they seemed oblivious). Then we spent some time in True North bookstore; Andrew and I each bought a book, and the kids each picked out two books. Then we went to lunch at Molly's, where we sat outside (back to that, I guess). The girls opened their Mini Brands, generating an enormous amount of trash from the wrappings, and then did some trading of the tiny little foods. (I love Mini Brands. If they'd existed in the eighties I would have had a gazillion of them.) I had a margarita with black salt. Then we drove home. We played Rummikub in the afternoon, did a mile run

The girls and I had a night ALONE last night, the worst, and I hardly slept--Lucia woke up at one point to go to the bathroom; Farrah was restless, hopping on and off the bed, looking for Andrew (I assume); a strong wind was blowing, and I was worried it would blow open the kids' door and Nutmeg would escape; there were strange noises; there were mice in the walls; I was certain I heard a car door close softly. Etc. It was not a good night's sleep. But morning came and the day went on nicely. The kids did some summer work, finishing up a few of their punch cards in anticipation of a shopping trip to Hanover tomorrow. We took our mile run. (I seem to be getting worse at running the more I do it.) Lucia took a lightning-fast dip in the pond to cool off, setting out in a raft, rolling off, then scrambling back on. We played Rummikub and Chinese Checkers. Lucia made the TikTok pasta (tomatoes + feta) for dinner. (The kitchen here is a challenge to cook in, to say the least, but she

Today was much better than yesterday. Andrew and I booked the remaining pieces of our Thanksgiving-week trip to Universal. Both girls slept in while I worked on some scheduling things for my coming-together fall employment, then we had lunch. We went to the creek for a while, first to the side we always visit with the rocks, and then to the other side, with the swimming hole / "lagoon." Farrah likes to visit the creek, and she samples the water from each pool, traipsing around and getting her legs wet.  We made cookies from a tube and read Little Women outside. The kids collected berries from the roadside. We had dinner and took Farrah on a walk, both girls slap happy; Greta galloped up and down the road chanting "I'M A HORSE!" at top volume, in a Greta-specific accent, while Lucia attempted a rap about "silly hour" with accompanying dancing. Later, I helped the kids set up their own Goodreads accounts. Lucia spent some time adding the books she's