Thursday, April 30 - Monday, May 4: Marathon Weekend & Letters

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 missed Molly somehow; we hurried to Point Breeze and managed to see Molly at mile 16. 

Besides the marathon, Molly and I also entertained ourselves by getting out my giant box of letters from the nineties--letters Molly wrote me when I was away at Governor's School during high school, and then when I was in college but she was still at home, and then when we were both in college. This is a treasure trove of peak nineties nostalgia. I can't even describe the nineties-tastic minutia of these letters. There are newspaper clippings, references to local people and events, summaries of experiences, jokes, artwork. Molly read her letters out loud and we were scream-laughing, cackling. There are so many letters that we barely scratched the surface.

The box also holds countless letters from Mom and Dad. I didn't remember that we were such a maniacal letter-writing family! These letters are absolute time machines as well. We were all beside ourselves with glee and hysteria, rediscovering these years in such specific, specific detail. These letters are priceless. Just priceless. It's going to be a challenge to archive them digitally since they are so involved--Dad's envelopes are each a mini work of art--but we need to figure it out. 

Now here's the dark side: there are barely any letters from my senior year of college (1998-1999) and beyond. Why? Because we all began using email to stay in touch. And those emails, housed in ancient hotmail and yahoo and school accounts that have long disappeared, are gone and unrecoverable. What a loss. What a foolish loss. There is a period from 1999 through the beginning of this blog (2006) that are a black hole, archivally speaking. Well, not completely--I kept diaries throughout that time; and my short stories and poems hold pieces of those years. But the kaleidoscopic nature of an epistolary correspondence cannot be replicated.

"Kaleidoscopic?" you might be asking (because I know you, my three or four blog readers, are super-invested in this trove of letters). "How can one side of a correspondence be considered 'kaleidoscopic'?" I'm glad you asked, because today, after Molly left my house, she stopped in Connellsville on her way home AND FOUND ALL OF HER NINETIES LETTERS IN THE ATTIC. All the letters I wrote to her! We will now be able to piece together the entire dialogue of our nineties lives. I am beyond excited. 

I cannot wait to read those letters. What a time capsule.