Skipping Town

It was another brutally hot day. We're all feeling it. There was hammock reading, pond swimming, pond floating, geometry, inside reading. Andrew and the kids went on a sweltering run in the late afternoon while I went into town to pick up pizzas for dinner and some groceries. The grocery store parking lot felt like the surface of the sun. We are all ready for this heat wave to end. But tonight we had fun going to see the fireworks in Claremont, where we've gone for the past few years. Many years? It's hard to keep count. It's always a good show. The kids adorned themselves with glowsticks as they've been doing on fireworks night since they were toddlers. 

Today was river rafting day--one of our favorite days of the summer. We headed to Great River Outfitters after lunch, and after the usual safety presentation and distribution of life jackets, we were taken to the put-in area and our float down the river began. It was in the nineties today, absolutely sweltering, so it was the perfect day to just spend on and in the water. We made our first stop very quickly so we could all take a swim before getting the journey underway. As we always do, we stopped at our favorite rocky outcropping for a long spell of swimming, floating in the current, lying in the shallow water, and searching for rocks and riverglass. It was delightful. We scattered around the rocky area, enjoying the complete silence and isolation. Not another soul was in sight. What a beautiful place. We continued on, making one more stop by Hart Island for another dip in the water, and then continued on to the takout point. Along the way, over to our left, was a floating object tha...

It was just the kind of day we like up here: a day at home, not leaving the house once. Greta, of course, worked on geometry in the morning and Andrew did a bit of work while Lucia and I read in our hammocks. Late morning brought a long spell of pond time, and it was so hot out I even got in to float in my inflatable boat. It was exceptionally relaxing. The kids jumped off the dock and sprayed each other with water guns.  After lunch, Greta finished her geometry and Lucia did some SAT studying while Andrew and I read in our hammocks. Then the girls came out and we all read in our hammocks. There is nothing better than that, all four of us reading quietly in the woods. Just the best. Then the two new inflatable boats I ordered arrived, and we blew them up and went back to the pond. I once again floated around. Andrew got in for a swim too.  We ate dinner outside, and made s'mores at the fire pit. Then we watched the US/Bosnia World Cup game on Andrew's iPad (no TV up here, of c...

It was another delightful day in NH. Greta worked on geometry, and we went to the library in Plainfield because she needed to print out a worksheet. Andrew had a full workday, sadly, but he has the rest of the week off. Lucia and I spent most of the day reading in our hammocks. After geometry, Greta and Lucia swam in the pond. Andrew, Lucia, and Greta went for a run in the late afternoon. By the time they got back, it was raining, so we decided to run some errands so we could fully enjoy a nicer day tomorrow without having to leave the house. We made our first visit to Books-A-Million, the girls creating huge stacks of books from which they then made their selections; and I bought a book for myself, since I've already read two of the four books I brought with me. I bought hay for Nutmeg at the exotic pet store, and Andrew picked up a birthday gift for Farrah at TJ Maxx. We bought random things at Walmart.  We had dinner at the Weathervane, causing a small domestic scene as each of ...

We're in NH! We drove up yesterday, a daylong drive, but we arrived by 5:30pm and had time to clean the house, unpack, inflate all the pond things, and hang the swing. We also made a late-night run to the grocery store when we realized we hadn't packed lettuce for Nutmeg. (Yes, she's here too.) The kids got into the pond as soon as their swimsuits were unpacked, venturing across the pond to pull the floating dock out of the cattails, the part of the pond they call "no man's land." The snapping turtle made his first appearance, rising up once again from the deep. Today had a rocky start--the wifi Andrew had been assured was on was not working, and the calls and emails he'd sent last night still hadn't gotten a response. But by late morning it was in working order.  Greta spent some of the day on geometry, her online class; and Andrew had to work. But Lucia and I spent most of today in our hammocks, reading. I read an entire book. Lucia finished the one ...

Playing catch-up with life in general. A lot has happened this month. Andrew's Birthday Andrew turned 50 this month, and we celebrated the milestone in multiple ways. Half a century! It deserves all the celebrations. His sister/family and aunt and uncle came for the birthday weekend, and we went out to dinner and to a Pirates game. His aunt joined me and Greta at the Mexican War Streets community yard sale (Lucia missed it because of an SAT practice test). It was so nice having everyone here, especially since the kitchen was (mostly) ready for unveiling.  Among other things, I made Andrew a book called "50 Years / 50 Things We Love," featuring, yes, fifty things the girls and I love about Andrew. The girls each designed a few pages and I did the rest. It was fun to put together even though there are, of course, many more than 50 we could have included.  We also got to celebrate with a few friends that weekend, once again at our house, the kitchen easily handling the crowd...

Sometimes I feel like the kids get me--my weird humor, my inside jokes. Other times, like last night, they look at me like I am an absolute raving lunatic, and a veil drops from my eyes, and I see that I am, yes, actually a little crazy, but I absolutely won't apologize for it because I am nearly half a century old and have been through, and continue to be going through, A Lot. Anyway. Andrew is in Peru, and the girls and I were in the basement (yes, we're still in the basement; more on that in a sec), getting ready to watch a show. Lucia was offering me and Greta an excited, extended explanation of her recent 'discovery' that she has aphantasia--she cannot form images of things in her mind. She claimed she cannot picture an apple. Etc. In response to my skepticism about a) the scientific details of this disorder and b) whether she actually has it, she just kept saying, "Do your research! Do your research!" "You can't say that," I said. " Do...

The school year is finally, finally over. Grades (precalc) have been wrestled out of the ashes; final quizzes and retakes are done; last-minute teacher gifts and notes are given.  Andrew and I went to Greta's eighth-grade Moving Up Day ceremony in the morning. There are a few awards given, and then the eighth-graders receive their Middle School completion certificates. We'd been told that Greta would be receiving an award, but we weren't told which one. We were very surprised when her name was announced as the winner of the eighth-grade award given to a student who "has been consistently outstanding in demonstrating friendliness, loyalty, and sincerity." This is a peer-voted award--truly an award for character. So proud! (Not to brag, but Greta also won the seventh-grade character award, which was faculty-voted.) Her name was called again, as faculty had chosen her (and three other students), for the Middle School Growth Award, given to students who have shown ...

We had a nice family weekend. Saw a lot of both kids, which is unusual in this crazy time of Maycember. It's now June, so Maycember is technically over; and indeed, this week already feels a little less chaotic. Saturday, Greta went to a going-away party for a friend for most of the day; Lucia studied; and Andrew and I did more yardwork. Then Lucia took a break to power-wash the porch and stone walkways in the backyard, a massive and much-needed task. Between last weekend and this weekend, we (well, Andrew) have distributed 60 bags of mulch around the front and back of our house. We've planted flowers. We planted three saplings against the new fence by the retaining wall. We've weeded. Andrew set up a hammock. We are pleased to have reclaimed our yard for the summer--a spectacular yard. It needed to be wrangled back into submission, but now it is glowing. Even Andrew, who spent much of the winter threatening to put the house on the market every time there was some kind of w...

What is even happening. I have been so busy this blog has been sadly ignored. That's unlike me and I blame it 100% on the kitchen chaos. It is still not done. It is close, but it is not done. And it is hard, very hard, to feel like I am organized and have a handle on things when I have nowhere to lay out my planner, collect important documents, leave notes to myself, find a pen, grab a box cutter, etc etc etc. I'm talking, of course, about a kitchen desk, one of my non-negotiable pieces of this kitchen renovation. I miss my kitchen desk desperately. Mournfully. I never had a kitchen desk until moving into this house, and I couldn't give it up when we planned the renovation. I rely on it. Where even is my planner right now? Attic? Basement? Bench by the front door? It's anyone's guess.  The other thing on my kitchen desk is my home, non-work Chromebook. This has been where I type up my blog each morning or evening. It's right there in the kitchen, easy to just fl...

On Saturday, I flew to Orange County alone, on a spontaneous trip to see an art exhibition at the Orange County Museum of Art. I'd learned only a couple of weeks ago--thanks to an idle Google search--that the museum was currently showing the first-ever North American retrospective of one of my very favorite artists, Sophie Calle, and that it was closing on May 24. It had been in Minneapolis but would not be traveling elsewhere in the U.S. I've seen a few of her exhibitions in New York and Paris, but not for a long long time, so I decided to go.  And it was so great! I arrived around noon on Saturday 5/16, checked into my hotel, which was right across the street from the museum, and then spent the next four hours with Sophie Calle's work. Some of it I was familiar with, some I'd seen in galleries in the past, and some was new to me as well as brand-new and never shown before. What a treat to wander the rooms, reading all the text, sitting with it. I took a little lunch b...

You'll notice a gap of days. May 8 - 12 are missing from this blog, but rest assured they are all pretty much the same as what I'm about to describe. The blog as well as everything else has gotten away from me, and I blame it 100% on the fact that we are still living in the basement. The feeling of being disorganized and displaced has only gotten worse as these months have worn on. And the project now feels like it's at a standstill as we await the countertops--a step that needs to be completed before additional, final (?) steps can take place. Things have been appearing incrementally, and it is very hard to judge how they actually look when they are out of context with the rest of the kitchen. Every time I come home from work and see something new, something that looks out of scale and out of place in all the unfinishedness of the spaces around it, I decide I hate it and lament to Andrew that we've made a huge, huge mistake in choosing it, and Andrew tries to make me f...

We're deep into Maycember now, the frantic rush to the end of the school year when there are five million things to do in addition to all the usual things. Andrew was, once again, out of town, this time on a last-minute trip to a farm demonstration somewhere in Florida; but fortunately it was only two days. In the meantime, the kids had track and crew; I partnered with friendly frozen foods from Costco to keep us all alive; I forgot to take out the garbage on garbage night; and had my monthly labs and checkup. (Another decrease in my CA-125, plus an acceptable level of absolute neutrophils--good news!) By Thursday, a few things had been achieved. I got Greta and her friend tickets to Olivia Rodrigo by waiting in the ticket queue and then refreshing the seat options one thousand times. Andrew, also in the queue, grabbed two more for Lucia and her friend. It felt like an achievement.  Lucia ran the 1600 and 3200 at her "last chance" track meet--the last meet where the kids ...

Andrew got home from CA on Thursday; Greta got home from DC on Friday. So the family unit is back together.  The title of this post is "Marathon Weekend" both because it was, indeed, the Pittsburgh Marathon and because it felt like a marathon to have this weekend happen when we are still without a kitchen. Andrew's college friend as well as Molly came in for the weekend to run the half and the full, respectively. We can easily provide comfortable sleeping arrangements for two guests but it is far harder to figure out meals. So we just went out or ordered in all weekend. Friday: Molly, Lucia, and I went out to Diners n+1 for sushi (and got a crunchy roll to go for when Greta got home). Saturday: late lunch at Cafe del Taquila; takeout dinner from Pastoli's. Sunday: Pigeon bagels for lunch; takout Mineo's for dinner.  The marathon was a success for all. Andrew and Jon ran the half. Molly ran the full. Mom, Dad, the kids, and I saw Andrew once around mile 11 but miss...

This week has been very quiet at home. Andrew left for California Monday morning, and Greta left for the eighth-grade trip to DC on Tuesday. So it's been just me, Lucia, Farrah, and Nutmeg, and since Lucia has school and then track and then homework, while I have work, "dinner prep" (ie selecting a frozen item from Trader Joe's to microwave), and petcare, we have just gone about our quiet routines. The only real chaos is the construction work, still ongoing. I had a call with our designer about wallpaper; almost all of the cabinetry is installed. There is a lot of work but things still kind of look...the same. Someday this kitchen will be done. Someday!

It was a Mamma Mia! weekend, with performances Friday and Saturday night plus Sunday afternoon. Andrew sold concessions; I sold tickets; Mom and Dad came on Sunday. Though attending four performances of Mamma Mia! in four days may seem like a lot, it is truly a joy to get to see the shows, the slight differences from one to the next, the excitement of the cast, the clear sadness after the final performance. I love every minute of the musical. (I am also so, so, so, so, so glad that musical is over. It has added a layer of chaos to the entire family.) On Sunday, a boy from another school who was attending the musical for the third time brought flowers for Lucia. I saw him come into the theater. I gave Andrew a head's up. When Lucia came out to say hello after the show, I nudged her so she noticed the kid waiting a few rows back. You may think this is an exaggeration--or an embellishment--but let me assure you that I physically felt the brisk and sudden turning of a page in this pare...

It was finally opening night for Lucia's musical, Mamma Mia. It was a long week for her of 9:30pm rehearsals, on top of homework. Monday night she came home at 9:45pm and announced she was going to go to Schenley for a run. "Absolutely not," I managed to say. "Then I'm going to run all around the house," she said. I don't think she actually did this. Where would she run in this construction zone? But maybe she did; I was asleep about five minutes after bringing her home. I did find a syrupy plate in the sink the next morning from what were, apparently, some very late-night Eggos. I mean--the week has been totally out of hand.  But tonight was opening night, and of course the show was wonderful, as all WT musicals are. It is always a joy to see how many kids participate--both boys and girls--and how excited they are about being on stage. Their friends come, and their teachers and the school admins. (I always take careful note of who shows up; most do. Don...

I'm delinquent with this blog for the first time in ages. I can't possible catch up day by day, but I'll capture a few details of the past eight days here: We barely see Lucia. Between musical rehearsal followed by runs and then meets on weekends, she is an invisible presence in our household, visible only for a second at a time if we're lucky enough to make it to a track meet and see her careen by. It is time, past time, for these all-consuming activites to come to an end. She has no time for anything, and by "anything" I mean schoolwork, and by "schoolwork" I mean precalc, in which, at the midpoint of this semester, she currently has a C. We have met with her teacher and advisor. We have a plan in place. The biggest part of that plan is THE END OF MUSICAL AND TRACK. Fortunately, the musical is this weekend. Then she will reclaim some of her time. (This weekend, with Andrew getting ready for a work trip to Italy, I was faced with a track meet an hou...

The weekend went too fast. Friday, Andrew and I went out to dinner at Morton's and then to the symphony. It was a lovely evening. We ordered way too much food (Andrew had gotten a gift card from a consulting gig), and we were pleasantly surprised when our waitress offered to keep our leftovers in the restaurant cooler so we could pick them up after the symphony (which was fabulous).  Saturday was focused on Lucia's track meet in West Mifflin. Andrew, Greta, and I went to watch her run her two events, the 4x800 relay and, her favorite, the 1600. She PR'd in both and ran a 5:48 mile. She was pleased. It was sunny but freezing and windy, and though the three of us left after her events were over, she stayed the rest of the meet, not getting home until 8:30pm. It was over a twelve-hour day for her. Sunday, Andrew and I had brunch with the Clarks. Lucia focused on studying chemistry. Greta and I sewed a few mini scrap monsters (something I saw on Instagram) and then did a big sp...

As part of my personal archiving project, I recently came across a cache of old files from my time in grad school in NYC. Among these files were documents from a temp job I held at an investment bank in 2000, which became, briefly, a full-time job. There were stories I’d jotted down, artifacts, pilfered printouts, articles, even photographs. I collected them all, scanned them, and wrote an introduction to what has become a hardcover volume in my archive, titled A Temp Remembers . I thought it might be of interest to share that introduction here, a reflection on this sliver of my past life. Names and identifying details have been changed. *** A Temp Remembers From 2000 to 2003, I worked off and on as a temp for the CEO of Global Investment Bank and his wife: Bill and Trixie Donner. I got the temp job in the ordinary way, through a temp agency, and worked there for a few months one summer and then on Fridays during graduate school (July 2000 - May 2001). After I finished my coursework, t...

Back to the reality of school for the kids, and the usual immersion in renovation chaos for us. The cabinets have been delivered, and we hope they'll be installed this week. That would be a good step forward. 

The kids had a great remainder of Spring Break this week. They continued to junk journal, and I joined them each day after work. Lucia studied precalc; Greta did some sewing. We began watching the second season of The Last Thing He Told Me. We went to the club for dinner on Thursday, where we engaged in a lively conversation about all the evidence for why Andrew is either a fugitive or the father of a second family in Peru.  They also got out all of their My Little Ponies, the magic of a full week at home taking over.  Friday, Andrew went to a Pirates game. The girls and I went to Shake Shack for tiramisu milkshakes, and when we came home, I showed them all of my Skipping Town volumes since they'd been asking for stories about their baby/toddler years. While in the attic, they decided to get out all of their Shopkins, and then they began setting them all up in my office. They were immersed in this return to their once-beloved collection. Meanwhile, I took the opportunity to be...

Throughout our time in Iceland, the girls and I were intent on collecting ephemera to use for junk journaling, a new craft we planned to begin after our trip. Maps, brochures, food wrappers, business cards, packaging, napkins, placemats, boarding passes, luggage tags--we saved it all, usually asking Andrew to carry it in his backpack as we went about our days. You probably don't have to work very hard to imagine how Andrew felt about this, or how he felt when we gathered everything up in a big, messy stack to take home at the end of our trip. One man's trash etc; except this time it really IS trash. Trash that would be transformed into artful, visually interesting pages of our junk journals. On Sunday, a fully free day, we set ourselves up at the table in the Long Room and began. We'd purchased journals at a Flying Tiger in Rekjavik, and we got out all of our collected garbage components as well as patterned papers, stickers, and other stationery items we already had. Lucia...

We are home, back with our precious pets.  After dropping off Mom and Dad in Connellsville, we got home around 12:30 and had just enough time to change our clothes before Greta, Andrew, and I headed down to Point Park, where the award ceremony for the Scholastic Writing Awards was being held. Greta was so excited the scheduling worked out so she could go and receive recognition for her Gold and Silver key-winning short stories. Later, the four of us went out for sushi, and then the girls and I watched two episodes of This Is Us (one final episode to go). It's nice to be home. The kitchen floors are complete and beautiful. The end of the renovation is in sight.

We bid our rented house goodbye this morning, loaded up the car, and headed into Reykjavik for a few final Iceland hours. Our primary destination was the Braud & Co bakery for cinnamon rolls, which Andrew had read about in Travel & Leisure. They did not disappoint. It was truly the best pastry I have ever had, anywhere.  We bought a few souvenirs (Lucia bought herself a ring; Greta got a necklace with a little puffin charm; I bought a book of poetry set in the Bonus supermarket, the highest-selling poetry collection ever in Iceland). A few of us had a final pylsur. We walked to the harbor and popped in to see the Harpa concert hall. Our final stop was, again, Braud & Co, where we got more cinnamon rolls and other items for the flight home. It was very windy and cold and we all agreed, pastries in hand, that it was time to head to the airport to return our rental car and catch our flight.  A pause here to praise Andrew, who drove us all around Iceland this week in a...

As predicted, Thursday brought a country-wide level-two weather warning, with many road closures and the requirement to stay home. So we did, and we were all happy to be forced to spend the day in our beautiful Air BnB as wind and snow raged outside. We put a fire on and read, played No Thanks, and watched both Frozen movies in honor of the literal frozen landscape. Lucia, Greta, Mom, and Dad, had a gin tournament. Andrew did some work. It was delightful. This is the best vacation rental we've ever had. The warning lifted in the late afternoon, so we ventured into Selfoss to go into a couple of shops, and then we had dinner at the Old Dairy Food Hall: pizza from Flatey's (Andrew, Dad, the girls); fish and chips for Mom and lamb soup for me from Samuelsson's. All delicious.  Then we went back home and enjoyed the hot tub and sauna one last time. Walking through snow in our bare feet is now old hat for us. Tomorrow is departure day. None of us want to leave, especially since ...

Every day here has been amazing but Wednesday was a particularly great one. With a blizzard and potential road closures predicted for Thursday--and having learned our lesson about ignoring country-wide weather warnings--we adjusted our itinerary for today to make sure we fit in everything we wanted to see  along the Golden Circle.  We started our day at Gullfoss, the giant waterfall. It was absolutely frigid outside, but we persevered along the icy walkway to see the falls from a few different angles. Every famous sight in Iceland inspires awe, and Gullfoss is humbling in its violence and power, especially on a stark winter day like this one was, the water rushing through ice. Frozen, we went into the cafe for a hot drink before moving on. Our next stop was the Geysir geothermal field. We watched Strokkur a couple of times and walked along the pathway, winding around boiling pools and lots of steam. It definitely feels like humans are not supposed to be here--this is nature's ...

After the dramatic weather of Monday, Tuesday began with sunny, cloudless skies and no wind. In the morning, Andrew, the girls, and I set out for the Solhestar stable in the Reykjadalu Valley for a horseback riding tour in the countryside. I have never ridden a horse before. But one of Greta's top things to do this trip was ride an Icelandic horse, and we found this stable near our Air BnB.  It was very cold in the morning, but we were given riding jumpsuits, and we'd brought fleece headwraps to wear under our helmets. The horses were adorable: Biggie (Lucia's), Ginger (Greta's), Vikrame (like macrame; Andrew's), and Thrau (mine). We were given instructions on how to steer the horse, and how to get onto the horse. I had a little bit of trouble, with no core strength at all, and though I did successfully get onto my horse, I was not graceful. Andrew did okay. The girls hopped onto the stirrup and slung their legs over their horses like they'd been doing it their ...

Monday was our Reykjavik exploration day, and after breakfast at home we set out for the city. We got an email from the rental car company warning of bad weather, with a reminder to hold onto the car doors with both hand when opening them, since high winds can push the doors wide open and break the hinges. We set out nonetheless, persevering even though there was snow blowing all over the roads.  In Reykjavik, we followed a Rick Steves self-guided walking tour for a while, learning some history of the city. We got hot dogs at Baejarins Beztu Pylsur. We then began walking up the rainbow street, Skolavordustigur, toward the church Hallgrimskirkja, stopping to browse in shops along the way. We went into a couple of secondhand shops and some souvenir shops on Laugavegur. Greta quickly selected the two souvenirs she'd planned on getting: a small plush puffin and a children's book in Icelandic. I found the jewelry store--Anna Maria--where I bought a silver ring back in 2005; we went ...