Skipping Town

Thursday was one of those days where we just keep packing things in. Work, school, and then both kids went with a friend to see a musical at the JCC, which two of their friends (siblings) were in. Lucia has a friend who can drive, so she got picked up; I was on carpool duty for Greta and her friend. While they were out of the house, Andrew and I planned some cenote visits for Tulum and I watched All Her Fault. Friday was the final day of work and school for all of us for an entire week. Yay. In the evening, Andrew went to a hockey game and the girls and I made a fire and watched two Netflix Christmas movies, "A Merry Little Ex-Mas" and "Champagne Problems." "Ex-Mas" was a lot of fun, and made the three of us laugh hysterically. I also fully identified with the crafty, tradition-committed, middle-aged mom calling "But when will we do origami??" as her teenagers head out the door. "Champagne Problems" had a couple of funny supporting char...

A normal day, though I was unable to pick up the kids as I'd thought I could so they had to walk home. I watched an episode of All Her Fault tonight while they were in their rooms doing homework.  And now: the before-and-after retaining wall photos you've all been waiting for! All of these photos were taken from the neighbor's driveway. Our yard and house are above the wall; you can't see them from this angle. The wall collapsing into the down-street neighbor's driveway (there were more pieces actually in the driveway; some had been cleaned up before this photo was taken) Collapsed pieces gone, but still a very decrepit wall  Voila, a pleasing new wall! (Walls, plural, since we had to fix the lower wall too.) You can see the very top of our house in this one. The ivy-covered wall is part of our garage.

We had such a fun weekend going to see Greta in The Little Mermaid. Saturday was another evening performance and Sunday was a matinee, and Mom and Dad joined us for that one. Every performance was fantastic. This is our final Middle School musical in which we'll have a kid on stage, and it was an amazing finale to our Middle School musical run. We've had either Lucia or Greta or both in 5 shows over the past 5 years: Oliver (Lucia), Willy Wonka (Lucia), Seussical (both), Annie (Greta), and now The Little Mermaid (Greta). It's been fun. Andrew and I spent some time this weekend cleaning out the raw storage area in the basement, clearing space for all the kitchen stuff we'll be moving down once our renovation begins. On Sunday, Molly drove in to be with Jeremy and his family after his father's death, so we got to visit with her a bit. The week is off and running now: Greta is still exhaused from the musical; Lucia had a precalc test; work is busy since next week I...

Thursday was Greta's final tech week rehearsal. It's definitely a grueling week, not getting home until 8:30pm and then having to do homework.  Friday I worked from home. It was a chaotic day here, with the retaining wall construction in full swing. There are mountains not only of dirt but also of gravel in our backyard; the entire lawn is torn up from the construction vehicles; and I was asked to move the Volvo this morning to a different spot on the street because they needed to dump yet another pile of dirt at the curb. Is it dirt? Or powdered cement? Who knows. But all day, the house was literally shaking--physically shaking--as enormous construction vehicles rumbled up and down the driveway, each time delivering one powerful block of wall to the backyard. I don't know how they are maneuvering these blocks over the cliff of our backyard into the form of a wall. That will remain a construction-world mystery. But the wall is supposed to be done early next week. Then we wi...

Monday Work, school, Greta musical rehearsal, Lucia studying. Our retaining wall is underway, slowly, and the backyard has been completely destroyed and now features an enourmous mountain of dirt. Mom and Dad came over briefly tonight before going to an event at CMU. I drove them and picked them up, their very own hyper-local Uber. Tuesday Greta had her first late tech week rehearsal until 8:30. I picked Lucia up at 3. Blustery, rainy, cold. Wednesday Another late night for Greta. Lucia went running with her team. I spent quite a bit of the day reading the newly released horror-show emails and lamenting the reality that many, many, many mothers (and fathers!) of young daughters continue to accept, downplay, excuse, and normalize the most horrific of all crimes. I told both kids that we still don't know what else is going to be released, and to tread extremely carefully if photos or videos are made public. They read news updates; they're aware of what's happening. I don'...

A relaxing weekend. Glorious! It's been so long since we've had one of these. Not relaxing for Andrew, of course, since he left for Germany Friday afternoon. But relaxing for me and the girls. Friday was no school because of conference day. Andrew and I had Greta's parent-teacher conference via zoom at 8am and then Lucia's in person at 9:20. Then Lucia rode a lot of miles on her bike with the XC teams and coaches, and Greta had four hours of musical rehearsal. After rehearsal, she and the other eighth-grade cast members walked to Walnut Street for snacks and shopping.  Friday night, all of us finally home, I made pierogies and kielbasa for dinner and then we put on a fire, lit a pumpkin candle, cuddled up on the couches, and watched Wicked. I had never seen it--a year ago, when it came out, I was in the hospital and Lucia and Greta went to see it with Mom and Dad. I wanted to see it before the second part comes out, and I'm so glad I finally did. It was a perfectly ...

Tuesday was the usual busy-ness, though Greta had a late musical rehearsal so Lucia took both piano lessons then came home and had her tutoring session. I worked from home so the day felt manageable. Wednesday took the busy-ness up a notch, with a late work dinner for me at Duquesne. I took the bus there and it took forever and felt like I was venturing out at midnight--I'm still not used to the darkness of late afternoon with the time change. I also took the bus home, and my route was inexplicable. I couldn't see anything out the windows because of the darkness, so relied on the electronic screen showing the stops, and I did eventually get home--but was the bus heading in the wrong direction at some point? Did I unwittingly circle all around downtown? Only the driver knows for sure. I regretted my choice to take the bus that late at night (it was 6:00pm); was grateful to myself for the mask I always keep in my work bag when a woman a few rows up began covid-coughing; but I ref...

Today was our 18th anniversary! The capstone to our very busy month of October. We celebrated with a dinner out at Piccolo Forno in Lawrenceville. It's a very cute place near Andrew's office. Eighteen years--not bad, not bad. We couldn't have predicted what would happen to me, but I'm pretty sure I could have predicted that we'd weather well anything that came for us. 

I'm combining posts for this entire weekend because it was pretty much nonstop activity, a blur of end-of-fall events.  Thursday, Greta dressed up in her Halloween costume for school--she was Luke Danes, and two of her friends were Lorelai and Rory (Chilton years). So part of the early morning before school was attempting to create a scruffy beard for Greta; the adhesive one we'd ordered from Amazon didn't work at all, so we created one with a brown eyeliner. We didn't see her again because she went straight from school to a friend's house for a Halloween sleepover, where they watched scary movies. Lucia had a regular school day and a short XC practice, then came home to get ready for the big States meet in Hershey. Friday, Lucia left early for school, where she met her team and piled into the vans for Hershey. I picked up Greta from her sleepover. (There was no school on Friday.) Friday morning and early afternoon was spent partly working from home and partly getti...