Skipping Town

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...

Tuesday was a quiet day in between birthdays, and then it was my turn for dinner and cake. I've never been a huge birthday person, but this year I was very happy to celebrate. Andrew and I went out for breakfast at Georgie's Place after dropping the kids off at school, and then I worked from home. Mom and Dad came over for the evening. Andrew made a delicious chicken piccata, rice pilaf, and butternut squash, and got me my requested toasted almond torte from Market District. We ate and I opened my lovely gifts.  I am SO happy to be 49, because it means I am no longer 48, which was the absolute worst year of my life. Every year from here on out is a reason for grand happiness. What a gift, getting to turn another year older. I could not be happier to be 49, and I will be over the moon to turn 50 and every age after that, because I started off my 48th year thinking none of that would be possible. Bring on all the ages. For my kids, too! I'd go back to their child years in a h...