Author: Jaclyn

by

It’s Monday! What Are You Reading? (December 4, 2017)

Happy new week, my friends!  I hope everyone had a relaxing and restful weekend.  I didn’t, since I never do, but I hope you did!  We are deep into the festive season around here, but Steve is also still not feeling well, so we have cut down on our holiday activities, since there’s only so much I want to wrangle both kids for.  Peanut is (finally) growing out of the loooooong running-away phase, but she still tears around like a maniac and then falls down and gets hurt, and Nugget is a constant flight risk.  Playing a man-to-man defense is pretty much the only way to do anything in public with them and have it be enjoyable, and when the defense is down a man – well.  On Saturday, we had plans to attend the Scottish Walk (which is the big holiday parade in our town) with some friends, but Steve didn’t feel well enough to go.  I didn’t want to disappoint our friends, or Peanut – who knew that she had plans with her BFF, S – so I decided to take the kids myself.  S’s family parked at our house and we walked to the parade together (I love living in a walkable neighborhood!) and we had a great time.  The parade, obviously, has a Scottish theme, so there were lots of kilts and bagpipes.  There were also vintage cars, Miss Virginia, the local high school ROTC, and even our Congressman walking with his wife and wearing a red sash that said “CONGRESSMAN.”  (I’d have recognized him without the sash.  I spend a lot of time thanking his office for his sane and sensible votes, especially on climate issues.  My Congressman is THE ACTUAL BEST.)  Anyway, the best part of the parade was Clan Ramsey, which dressed up as characters from Star Wars.  There were stormtroopers and Imperial officers in kilts (!!!), R2-D2 in a kilt (!!!!!!!!) and even Darth Vader in a Santa hat.  (Nugget, predictably, shouted “HEY, IT’S MY BUDDY!” at Lord Vader.)  After the parade, our friends came back to our house for cocoa, and then headed off for their afternoon plans – and that was pretty much the end of the excitement for our weekend.  I spent both Saturday’s and Sunday’s naptimes working, and Sunday morning at the grocery store.  We ended the weekend as we almost always do – making our library/playground/firehouse circuit – but just me and the kids.  Actually, that was kind of exciting.  I picked up the new Andy Weir book, Artemis, from the library, and the firefighters have a brand new truck.

Reading.  Another busy week!  Last week, I finished Crazy Rich Asians, the second in Kevin Kwan’s hilarious Crazy Rich Asians trilogy.  Looking to balance library deadlines, I didn’t jump right to Rich People Problems (the third) but picked up What Happened instead, and finished it on Sunday evening.  This is going to sound weird, but What Happened was delightful.  Yes, it was super sad – of course – and maddening, because Secretary Clinton would have been such a fantastic President.  I’d have loved to see that massive infrastructure and jobs initiative she was planning come to fruition – but instead we are stuck with a destructive misogynistic megalomaniac that 3 million fewer people voted for.  But the book was still delightful, because Hillary’s writing voice is so frank and friendly (I remember that from Living History too) and now that she can say anything she wants, she’s also kind of salty, which I love.  Her writing about her family – especially Chelsea and the grandkids – brought tears to my eyes.  Anyway, I knew I was going to need to take a breath after What Happened, so I started two books on Sunday – Christmas at Thrush Green, for the #MissReadalong that just started up on Instagram – on my kindle app, and Rich People Problems from my library stack.  I am only about 30 pages in and already there has been a familial kidnapping from an elite private school, and a Singapore Airlines jet with 440 passengers has been rerouted by the Secret Service so that a passenger can be whisked off the plane to attend to a VVIP patient.  And Nick and Rachel have ordered dinner.

Watching.  Last night, I said (breathlessly, in between spasms of laughing) to Steve that I think Parks & Recreation might be even more fun on re-runs.  I think that’s true.  Knowing as much as I now know about the characters and what lies in store for them, I was laughing even harder at Ron and Leslie’s battles with the library (“The library is the worst group of people ever assembled in history. They’re mean, conniving, rude, and extremely well-read, which makes them dangerous.”) and at the team’s “camel” entry to the City Hall mural contest.  We have an ongoing joke that Peanut is going to turn into April Ludgate – the film footage of knee surgeries attached to April’s mural entry is totally something Peanut would do.

Listening.  After finishing the first season of Harry Potter and the Sacred Text I decided to take a little break and try to catch up with the rest of the podworld.  My podcatcher is still looking out of control, but I’ve made some headway and listened to all of the holiday gift guides on there – the Read-Aloud Revival gift guide for young readers was particularly good, and I also got some good ideas from The Mom Hour‘s episode on gifting for babies and toddlers.  I’m looking forward to The Home Hour on favorite Christmas traditions next.

Moving.  Well, last week wasn’t a very good week for movement.  I had a super busy week at work, and exercise classes kind of fell off the agenda.  I’ve got another busy week coming up this week, but I need to figure out a way to cement workouts in the routine.  Often, between the day-to-day of a busy job and parenting (especially when Steve is not feeling up for much kid-wrangling) workouts are the first thing to go, but that’s not really fair to me.

Blogging.  Lists galore this week!  I will have the wrap-up post for my fall list on Wednesday, and my winter list coming on Friday – check in with me then, and do let me know what’s on your winter lists, so I can borrow your ideas.  Haha!

Loving.  I sat down with my calendar the other day and tried to map out all of the holiday activities I want to do and there are SO MANY.  We live in one of the top holiday towns in the country (no joke, US News ranks holiday towns, and last year we were in the top ten) with multiple parades, beautiful classic decorations, and activities almost every weekend.  It’s not actually possible to do everything I’m planning, but it’s so much fun to try – and in January, I know I’ll be glad I made the effort.  I just love the holiday spirit around here, and I love experiencing all the delights of the season – not just Christmas morning – through Peanut’s and Nugget’s little eyes.

Asking.  What are you reading this week?

by

Reading Round-Up: November 2017

Reading Round-Up Header

Reading is my oldest and favorite hobby.  I literally can’t remember a time in my life when I didn’t love to curl up with a good book.  Here are my reads for November, 2017…

Dark Money: The Hidden History of the Billionaires Behind the Rise of the Radical Right, by Jane Mayer – I picked up Dark Money on the recommendation of a coworker, and it was fascinating and truly eye-opening.  As a person who follows the news, I was aware of the Koch brothers and their political machine, but I had no idea how extensive the shadowy “Kochtopus” actually is, nor was I aware of many of the other wealthy families and individuals who have been quietly driving American politics.  Mayer’s reporting is excellent, and she shines sunlight into quite a few dark corners that – if I was missing them, I think most people are missing them.  I was particularly appalled to read about Ed Gillespie’s role in the gerrymandering that has taken place over the past decade – so that felt quite timely, since we were in the final days of the Virginia gubernatorial election when I was reading this.  After learning about Gillespie’s activities on behalf of the radical right-wing, I was even more relieved that Dr. Northam will be my next governor.

Little Fires Everywhere, by Celeste Ng – Having just read Everything I Never Told You last month, I was particularly excited to get my hands on Ng’s new book.  Little Fires Everywhere, like its predecessor, takes place in suburban Ohio, opens dramatically, and presents a family saga as a page-turner.  When we first meet the Richardson family, their house is burning to the ground – the fire set by the youngest daughter, Izzy Richardson.  Izzy built “little fires everywhere” – setting up a campfire on each of her siblings’ beds “like a demented Girl Scout.”  The story then rewinds several months, and the reader learns how Izzy got to the point of setting her house on fire and running away.  It’s a twisting narrative of friendship, race, family and art, as Izzy and her siblings fall in with a mother and daughter who are newcomers to the town, and the entire community is shaken by a legal dispute over an adoption.  As with Everything I Never Told You, I blazed through Little Fires Everywhere, reading breathlessly and – at times – tearfully.  Ng is really a masterful writer – I can’t wait to see what she does next.

Coronation Summer, by Angela Thirkell – Not one of Thirkell’s Barsetshire books, Coronation Summer is a standalone novel about a young woman who, accompanied by family and friends, travels to London to join in the festivities surrounding Queen Victoria’s coronation.  It’s a very funny novel – particularly when it comes to the relationship between Fanny, the main character and narrator, and her best friend Emily, who is traveling with her.  Fanny likes Emily but doesn’t have much respect for her, and she drops snarky little asides about Emily, her speech and behavior, onto almost every page.  They’re rude in the most hilarious way.  Of course, Fanny’s satirical eye falls on almost everyone in her traveling group at some point.  Meanwhile, the reader is treated to an ongoing parade of activities – operas, concerts, parties, club breakfasts, melodramatic reveals of love poems hidden in books – the works.  And of course, Queen Victoria herself is spotted in a carriage.  It’s all good fun and utterly engrossing.

The Complete Collected Poems of Maya Angelou, by Maya Angelou – I’ve read a few of Angelou’s poems before – the more well-known ones, like Phenomenal Woman, Still I Rise, and On the Pulse of Morning – but had felt more drawn to her memoirs, especially the classic I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings.  So I’d never before sat down with her poetry and read her works one after the other.  On their own, they’re gorgeous, but read as a collection, they’re absolutely breathtaking.  I paged through this collection reading one poem after the next, and found myself awed, humbled, moved, and deeply sorry that the experience ended so quickly – a couple of days is clearly not enough time to spend with Angelou.  While every poem was meticulously crafted and beautifully moving, I think I still have the same favorite, and even the same favorite lines: You may shoot me with your words, You may cut me with your eyes, You may kill me with your hatefulness, But still, like air, I’ll rise.

The Origin of Others, by Toni Morrison – I was in the middle of another book and had intended to finish it first, but after checking The Origin of Others out of the library, I couldn’t wait and had to dive right in.  This is a collection of lectures Morrison gave at Harvard University, speaking about race and “otherness” in literature and life.  Of course, it’s completely brilliant.  (And has the added benefit of being introduced by another writer I deeply admire, Ta-Nehisi Coates.)  Morrison tackles big topics such as the construction of the “other” and who it benefits to have a class of “others” or “strangers,” discusses the real historical events behind her most acclaimed novel, Beloved (which, to my detriment, I have not yet read – but I’m going to correct that soon), and sprinkles in bits of memoir and reflection on her own interesting life.  Coates, meanwhile, ties Morrison’s not-overtly-political lectures into current events, which gives an important perspective.  I read The Origin of Others in a couple of sittings over one morning – it’s a short book, but full of wonder – and was moved and inspired by every well-chosen word.

The Flight of the Maidens, by Jane Gardam – Three friends (Hetty, Una, and Lieselotte) learn that they have received prestigious state scholarships to attend universities.  Hetty is off to London to study literature, while Una and Lieselotte are bound for Cambridge and, respectively, physics and modern languages.  The Flight of the Maidens follows each of them as they go their separate ways over their last summer at home and the rest of the world adjusts to peacetime after years of World War II.  Hetty, who is nominally the main character, heads off to the Lake District to stay at a B&B and make some headway on her reading list; Una explores her budding womanhood with her Communist boyfriend, Ray, in a series of youth hostels; and Lieselotte – a Jewish refugee who has been living with Quakers in Yorkshire for seven years – doesn’t fly the coop so much as finds herself snatched away and “adopted” first by an elderly London couple and then by an eccentric American aunt.  So – I enjoyed this, but not as much as I’d expected to.  It was beautifully written, but I wasn’t engaged.  I expect that’s mostly a function of feeling like I had to read it (thanks to a library deadline) – so it seemed like work.  But I didn’t really enjoy any of the characters, with the possible exception of Lieselotte – everyone else just bugged me.

We Were Eight Years in Power: An American Tragedy, by Ta-Nehisi Coates – Like many, I was avidly anticipating the new Ta-Nehisi Coates, and he didn’t disappoint.  We Were Eight Years in Power is a look at the issues and conversations that were going on during the eight years of the Obama presidency (please come back!) via eight of Coates’ essays published in The Atlantic.  Each of the essays is prefaced with a short piece Coates wrote from the perspective of 2017, which read almost like blog posts.  I loved the essays – I’d actually read the last three: The Black Family in the Age of Mass Incarceration; My President Was Black; and The First White President – in The Atlantic, so I was familiar with them already, but they greatly reward re-reading.  The best part, though, was the introduction Coates wrote for each piece.  He looks at each of his essays with a critical eye and is quite straightforward about what portions of each essay work well (in his opinion) and what he thinks could have been improved or stood the test of time.  It was fascinating to get a glimpse into the self-critical thought process of one of the major writers of our day.  Dare I say – I think I liked We Were Eight Years in Power even better than Between the World and Me.  (Don’t @ me!  Just read them both!)

The Blue Castle, by L.M. Montgomery – There is an ever-dwindling handful of L.M. Montgomery books I have not yet read, and The Blue Castle was, until recently, among them.  I have been trying to parcel them out so they last me awhile, but I knew there would never be a better opportunity than when Naomi and Sarah announced their #ReadingValancy readalong event for November.  So I burned one of my precious twenty-four book credits (how I’ve been thinking of Project 24) on a beautiful Sourcebooks paperback, and then I inhaled it.  You can read my thoughts at length in my rambling readalong post here, but – suffice to say – I LOVED every word.  Valancy is a charming heroine, and her rise from colorless and cowering spinster to happy, fulfilled person and wife was a delight from the first page to the last.  I loved following her journey, desperately hoped for a happy ending for her, and eagerly (as always) drank in LMM’s beautiful descriptive nature writing.  The fall and winter scenes, in particular, were delicious – I can perfectly understand why Sarah and Naomi wanted to read The Blue Castle in November.  It was bewitching.

The Stone Sky (The Broken Earth #3), by N.K. Jemisin – The final installment of the story of Essun, Nassun, and the war between Earth and humanity, orogene and “still,” stone-eater and comm-dweller, is equal parts confusing and satisfying.  I am not normally a reader who insists on all installments in a series being published before I will read the series, but I can see the merit in that position, especially with a series like The Broken Earth Trilogy.  The books start out confusing, since the world is so complex and foreign and the terminology so unrecognizable, and reading them with long gaps in between doesn’t help.  I did read all three this year, I know, but it’s been months since I read the second book, The Obelisk Gate, and other than rough outlines, I’d pretty much forgotten what happened in it (and don’t ask me any questions at all about The Fifth Season, the opening installment, because I dunno).  I spent most of the book scratching my head and trying to remember who was who and what had come before in the narrative, and with a story as complicated and confusing as this trilogy, that really put me behind.  I did enjoy it, and did think that the ending was satisfying (won’t spoil it!) but a word of advice – these are all out now, so if you want to read the series, start from the beginning and read them in close succession.

Mr. Popper’s Penguins, by Richard and Florence Atwater – I don’t think I mentioned reading this during my Monday reading posts, because it wasn’t my regular Metro- and post-bedtime-reading – it was so much better!  Mr. Popper’s Penguins was the first long chapter book that I read aloud to Peanut!  We have been working our way through it slowly, one chapter at a time, for about two months – reading a chapter most but not all evenings.  I chose it for a few reasons – (1) I hadn’t read it myself and thought it would be fun to experience something new along with Peanut; (2) the chapters are fairly short; and (3) Peanut and I have tickets to see the play version at the Kennedy Center in a couple of weeks.  The story was utterly charming and we had so much fun reading together and laughing at the penguins’ silly antics.  (And oh, that poor, forbearing Mrs. Popper…)  I loved the whole experience of reading a chapter book aloud to Peanut – that was something I’d been dreaming of and looking forward to since before she was born – and this was a perfect first readaloud.

China Rich Girlfriend (Crazy Rich Asians #2), by Kevin Kwan – I had sort of forgotten about Crazy Rich Asians, but with the publication of the third and final book in the trilogy and the announcement of the cast for the movie, I decided to revisit Rachel Chu, Nick Young, Astrid Leong, Kitty Pong, and the whole crew.  China Rich Girlfriend picks up a few years after Crazy Rich Asians ends.  It is virtually the eve of Nick and Rachel’s wedding, and Nick has not spoken to his mother since he and Rachel left Singapore, nor forgiven her for the way she treated Rachel.  Astrid has patched things up with her estranged husband, Michael, who has made it big and finally hit his first billion – but the money has changed him, and not in a good way.  Kitty, meanwhile, has thrown over Alistair Cheng and married a reclusive billionaire, but is finding it hard to break into high society in Hong Kong.  The plot is pretty thin, and the name-dropping of luxury brands is as obscene as it was in the first book, but GOLLY these are such good fun – and pure fantasy wish fulfillment for those of us who will never fly in our own private jets.  I’m rooting so hard for Nick, Rachel and Astrid, and even starting to have some sympathy for Kitty (who is a LOT of fun to read) as she stumbles through society (getting the better of everyone in the end, I might add!).  I have Rich People Problems, the third in the trilogy, on my library stack and I can’t wait.

What a November!  Eleven books – I think it must have been a long month.  Anyway, lots of good stuff here.  I had a gloriously fabulous time revisiting the Asian jet set in China Rich Girlfriend and poking around Victorian London in Coronation Summer, but I think the highlight of the month had to be The Blue Castle.  I just loved every moment spent with Valancy – my only wish is that there could have been more.  I know I’ll be coming back to that one again and again.  I’m also really pleased with the diversity of my reading in November – six out of eleven books, more than 50%, from writers of color.  Some Toni Morrison, some Ta-Nehisi Coates, some Celeste Ng, some Kevin Kwan – and more.  I’ve worked so hard to make sure that diverse voices are finding their way onto my reading list and making that commitment has truly enriched my reading life.  Now – onward to December!  I have a great pile of what I expect to be fabulous books to close out the reading year.  

What’s the best thing you read in November?

 

by

12 Months of Trails: Stony Man Mountain, Shenandoah National Park

I can’t believe that Friday will be December, and this hiking year is almost at an end!  We’ve had some amazing experiences on the trail this year, and November’s hike was no different.  What with Steve being a little under the weather, we haven’t been able to get on the trails as much this month as we’d have liked to, so by Thanksgiving weekend, I was really craving a good hike.  With my parents being in town for Thanksgiving, I also wanted to do something a little special with them.  Once it became clear that our plans to escape to the mountains for a couple of days after Thanksgiving were going to work out, I started researching the best family-friendly (read: kid-friendly) hikes at Shenandoah National Park, and Stony Man Mountain immediately jumped out as the hike to do.

There are two ways to hike Stony Man.  The main trail, which hits only Stony Man Mountain, is a 1.6 mile out and back with 340 feet of elevation gain – basically, the easiest possible way you could ever expect to climb a mountain.  There’s also a longer, and a little more challenging, trail called the Passamaquoddy Loop, which covers Little Stony Man as well.  That would normally be our choice, but with Steve still recovering and the babies not getting any easier to carry, we opted for the shorter trail this time.

Someone would have liked to hike on his own two feet, I think.  Soon, little man!  (Really – soon.  Mommy isn’t going to be able to schlep you forever.)  He was also desperate for a hiking pole of his own – that’s Nana’s, collapsed all the way down.  Too funny!

The trail was beautifully maintained all the way up.  My parents are used to hiking on Adirondack boulders, so I think they enjoyed the groomed trails in Shenandoah.  There were still plenty of opportunities for bouldering.  My dad is part mountain goat!  (I’d have been up there with him, but I was carrying 36 pounds of my heart’s most precious treasure on my back.)

Even with the relatively gentle incline, I was still feeling it.  This is one densely-packed little boy!

But even so, it seemed like no time at all before we reached the summit.  The final “push” to the peak was anything but – just a flat, gentle trail through the woods to the overlook (we’d already done all of our climbing).

Looking forward to that view!

Breathtaking!  The valley floor with the long mountain ridge in the background was absolutely stunning to behold – and there were two peregrine falcons swooping through the skies.  I think my parents were definitely not disappointed with this one.

Nana is a bird!

Just off to the left, the mountains reach back and back and back in shaded layers of azure, cerulean and sky – our Blue Ridge.

Summit snaps!

It was a lovely day on the summit.  The sun was warm and there was no breeze to speak of, so we were comfortable lingering, taking pictures, and goggling at the view.  (My dad was a little disappointed that I wouldn’t take the kids out of the backpacks to pose for pictures with the grandparents, but that was one thing I wasn’t comfortable with – the dropoff after the boulders was pretty steep.  Next time they come, I promised, we would take them to Great Falls – the kids can run around there.)  We spent about twenty minutes at the summit, just soaking in the payoff of a wonderful hike.

Another wonderful national park experience!  We love having Shenandoah in our backyard, and we hope to get there a lot more in 2018 – and it was fun to take my parents there for the first time.  We all share a love for the national parks and for hiking, so a family visit to Shenandoah was long overdue.  Can’t wait to see where our family adventures take us in 2018!

What’s your favorite national park?

by

It’s Monday… Night (Oops)! What Are You Reading? (November 27, 2017)

Happy Monday… evening… to you, my friends!  Sorry this post is coming so late in the day.  I usually try to have it up in the morning, but things have been moving at a whirlwind pace over here.  So – let’s catch up!  For my American friends – did you have a lovely Thanksgiving?  I hope so!  We sure did.  My parents arrived on Tuesday and just left this morning, and I was hardly at my computer (other than for work, of course) between then and now.  I put in a full day at the office on Wednesday, but came home ready to have a wonderful weekend full of family time.  As you already know, we had a fabulous Thanksgiving.  On Friday, we hung around, enjoyed family time and decorated the house for Christmas.  The kids loved decorating the Christmas tree – maybe a little too much.  Nugget is completely obsessed with his vintage fire truck ornament, and I’m sort of afraid he’s going to snap it (it’s the 2016 White House ornament, so not exactly replaceable – much like the 2016 occupant of the White House… please come back, President Obama!).  I also found some of my prized (breakable) ornaments hung near the bottom of the tree, and fortunately was able to rescue and move them before anything too destructive happened.

On Saturday, we all loaded up and drove out to Little Washington – for non-locals, that’s Washington, Virginia, a tiny town nestled in the Blue Ridge Mountains near the entrance to Shenandoah National Park, which also happens to house one of the most acclaimed restaurants in the world, the Inn at Little Washington.  Steve’s mom had very generously given us a gift certificate to the Inn last Christmas, and we finally got the opportunity to use it.  The meal was just as splendid as we expected, and will definitely rank among the top dining experiences of our lives.  After dinner, we even got the special treat of being escorted back to the kitchen, and having the privilege of meeting Chef Patrick O’Connell, the famous chef-owner of the Inn.  Chef was a gracious and kind host, and the kitchen – every inch of which was hand-sourced by Chef himself, on his travels around the world – was amazing to see.  We worked off the incredible meal on Sunday, hiking with my parents and the kids to one of the highest overlook points in Shenandoah National Park – more on that to come on Wednesday.  It was a wonderful weekend!  And now I’m back to reality.  I can already tell this week is going to be off-the-charts in terms of the stress level.  Well – at least I have the memories of an amazing meal and a gorgeous hike.

  

Reading.  It’s been a bit of a slow reading week around my parts.  That’s to be expected with all of the socializing and family time I’ve been enjoying for the past few days.  But I did manage to finish The Stone Sky – which was good, but I was confused throughout most of the book.  It would’ve helped to read the trilogy in closer succession, I think; reading the books as they were released, I’d pretty much forgotten everything that happened in the first two books and spent way too much time puzzling over questions like wait, who is Ykka again? and what the heck did Nassun do to Jija?  Anyway.  Next I picked up The Shell Seekers and I am loving it, but also wanting to take my time and savor it – which is fine, because I discovered that I have to leapfrog China Rich Girlfriend due to library deadlines.  So I’ll be starting that as soon as I press “publish” on this post.

Watching.  The usual.  Lots and lots of Curious George – especially A Very Monkey Christmas – and Star Wars.  George and Vader are the big celebrities in my house.  I tried to get the kids to watch my favorite Christmas movie of all time – A Muppet Family Christmas – but it was a non-starter.  Booooooo.

Listening.  Not as much earbud time as I usually get in over the course of a week, because I had two fewer days of commuting (<–no complaints).  But I’m almost done with the first “book” of Harry Potter and the Sacred Text – just eight minutes to go in the final regular chapter episode, plus the wrap-up episode!  I am still loving, loving, LOVING this podcast.

Moving.  Not a bad week of movement.  It was lacking on the yoga front, but I was really craving some cardio, and I squeezed that in with a five-mile turkey trot on Thanksgiving Day, and a 1.6 mile hike up and down Stony Man Mountain on Sunday.  Moving my legs felt good.  Must keep it up.

Blogging.  I have a great week of content for you!  On Wednesday I’ll be sharing pictures from Stony Man Mountain, which will count for our November hike, and on Friday, I’ve got my November reading round-up post coming to you.  Check in with me then!

Loving.  Waking up to this morning’s news that Prince Harry and Meghan Markle are engaged was such a delight!  They look so happy and in love, and I was smiling all day thinking about the royal wedding (Peanut is excited!) and – whenever I got a break – reading news coverage.  The proposal?  LOVE.  Prince Harry dropped to one knee as Meghan was “attempting to” roast a chicken.  Can we get a collective awwwww?  And Harry saying that Meghan and Princess Diana would have been “best friends” and “thick as thieves” brought a tear to my eye.  I love the British royal family and I DON’T CARE WHO KNOWS IT.

Asking.  What are you reading?

by

Thanksgiving 2017

Just popping in quickly to say hello – HELLO! – and that I hope all of my friends are having a fabulous day filled with leftovers and family.  We’re getting ready to decorate our Christmas tree over here, and we have fun hiking plans for this weekend – but first, just a couple of photos of our day.  It was a busy one, and I was the chef, so I didn’t snap too many pictures.

Started the day running the Alexandria Turkey Trot, a five mile race through Del Ray (not our neighborhood, but close enough to walk).  Steve and the kids dropped me off near the starting line at the local middle school, and I cranked up my show tunes and enjoyed a brisk run through the streets.  It was a tough race thanks to the freezing cold weather – literally freezing; it was 30 degrees at the start – weird to run in such a chill when just a month ago I ran the MCM 10K under a heat advisory.  My legs felt strong (thank you, yoga and barre!) but my lungs felt like they were encased in ice and I did a lot of walking as a result.  Still was good to get outside and move before the cooking began, and I even saw a colleague from work, who spotted me on the course and introduced me to his running buddy before they cruised on ahead.  So funny to bump into a friendly face in the middle of a big race.  Those experiences are what makes a hometown, and I spent the next mile or so feeling grateful – a good feeling for Thanksgiving! – to live in a place where there are so many people I care about.

I walked home from the finish line and – after a quick shower – rolled up my sleeves and got right to work along with my sous chef.  Cooking and baking is Peanut’s favorite thing to do, and she was particularly pumped to help me make stuffing.  (Unfortunately, there wasn’t much she could do with the stuffing, since so much of it was done over heat.  But she helped with the artichoke dip, the mashed potatoes, and the dessert – apple tart with spiced pastry cream, which we didn’t eat because everyone was too full.)

While Peanut and I were busy in the kitchen, there was silliness afoot in the living room.

It’s not a holiday until someone is wearing sunglasses in the house, and someone else has a trash can on their head, right?  (We hadn’t even opened the wine yet.)

Some other people tried to stay out of it.

End of the day – by 6:00, I had a big and delicious dinner on the table for the fam – turkey, stuffing (which I hate and will never eat, but the rest of the family said was good), mashed potatoes, sweet potato casserole (with marshmallows, thankyouverymuch), roasted brussels sprouts, celebration kale salad, and cranberry sauce.  Is it any wonder no one had room for the tart?

Happy Thanksgiving, again, my friends!  I’m grateful to have so many wonderful people in my life – and if you read my random musings here, that includes you! 

by

#ReadingValancy: The Power of Names in The Blue Castle

(Not quite the wild woods that Valancy and Barney wander in, but I feel sure they would be at home on this golden path in Niagara-on-the-Lake, Ontario.)

It’s a sad fact of the reading life that when one is in love with an author who is no longer living and writing, one will eventually run out of new books from that author.  I faced this fact with my beloved L.M. Montgomery years ago, and have been rationing out her books ever since.  Oh – they stand up to re-reading, of course, but there’s nothing like the experience of reading one for the first time.  So it was with trepidation that I picked up The Blue Castle to read along with Naomi and Sarah.  What if I didn’t love Valancy as much as I love my friends Anne Shirley, Emily Starr, Jane Stuart and Sara Stanley?  Worse – what if I loved Valancy just as much, or even more, and then I’d have met her and never get to meet her again for the first time?

Well – in the end it was the second (and let’s be honest, inevitable) scenario that came to pass.  But I can’t regret meeting Valancy, even if it means that we’re now friends and the fun of the first impression is behind me.  After all, I can re-visit her, and I will.  LMM’s books, as I said, reward re-reading by yielding something new and different every time you read them.  Of course, this time, it was all new for me – and I found that what made the biggest impression on me – other than the nature writing, which was as finely-wrought and evocative as always – was the power that names had in the story.

LMM has a fascination with names and their importance.  Take, for instance, our kindred spirit Anne Shirley.  Names are tremendously important to Anne.  First of all, would you please call her Cordelia?  And if you won’t oblige there, at least you can be so good as to spell her name Anne-with-an-E.  Anne values names highly, and she spends a lot of time thinking about them – not just her own name, but others’ as well.  She dislikes her last name, Shirley, but is proud that her parents had romantic names – Walter and Bertha.  She refuses to call Gilbert by name – he’s “Gil- some of the others” when she’s worrying about losing her place at the head of the class – at least, until they become friends and he earns the right to a name.  (A right which he lost by calling Anne names – the terrible “Carrots.”)  She’s pleased as punch to have a best friend with a romantic name such as Diana – and Diana shows her love for Anne by naming her daughter after her – “Small Anne Cordelia.”  Cordelia.  Of course.  In Anne of Windy Poplars, Anne expresses delight that an acquaintance, Katherine, spells her name with a K instead of “smug C” – and then is dismayed when the next note from said acquaintance, rejecting Anne’s overtures of friendship, is signed “Catherine” – with a C!  Anne is fixated on names and their importance, and it seems her creator is too, because this thread runs through The Blue Castle too.

Warning – spoilers ahead!  Stop here if you plan to read The Blue Castle and don’t want me to reveal its twists and surprises.

Take, first, the heroine: Valancy Jane Stirling.  Valancy’s name matters to her a great deal.  She’s fixated on her first name – as LMM tells us right off, Valancy doesn’t much like her middle name, Jane, but she is very fond of her first name.  To start with Jane, I thought it was interesting that Valancy doesn’t like it – since she reminded me of no other LMM heroine more than Jane Victoria Stuart.  I wondered if LMM meant it to be significant that both heroines have the letters V, J, and S in their names, and that while Valancy rather dislikes “Jane,” Jane Stuart absolutely loathes “Victoria.”  I found it particularly fascinating, because I believe that had Jane not discovered PEI and had her summers with “Dad,” she would have grown up to be Valancy – at least, Valancy as we first meet her.  I’ll come back to this.

Then, there’s the matter of a first name.  Valancy has a nice ring, and our heroine does like it – but her family insists on calling her by the nickname of her babyhood, “Doss.”  Not only does “Doss” have nothing to do with “Valancy” (as far as I can tell) but – ugh.  I don’t blame Valancy for favoring her given name over the one hissing syllable her family allows her.  And she has my hearty sympathies, because I, too, am saddled with a hated nickname.  I have relatives – and a few people from high school, although I’m not in touch with many – who will never, ever, ever give over calling me “Jackie.”  I’ve pretty much accepted this, but still – there’s nothing that sets my teeth on edge quite like being called “Jackie.”  It is not my name, and more than that – it is not me.  Hearing it spoken aloud shoves me right back into middle school.  So I don’t blame Valancy for the cold grip of irritation she feels every time one of her family members calls her by the hated “Doss.”

Finally, the last name – Stirling.  Has there been a more evocative surname in all of LMM’s bibliography?  Stirling – the perfect name for a family of upstanding, status-obsessed, well-to-do and thoroughly disagreeable relatives.  To me, Valancy’s maiden name is very suggestive of her family’s place in their insular community, and – even more – of the self-congratulatory view they hold of their family.

Of course, Valancy doesn’t keep the name “Stirling.”  She trades it in (for another S name – is that an LMM thing?  Shirley, Starr, Stuart, Stanley, and Stirling – that can’t be unintentional).  After receiving a letter from her doctor bluntly informing her that she has incurable heart disease and no more than a year to live, 29-year-old Valancy decides to make herself happy.  She starts by slipping out from under her domineering mother’s thumb, shocking her family by saying precisely what she thinks instead of biting her tongue and playing the role they’ve all assigned her – of cowed, colorless “Doss.”  Then she ventures further – leaving her mother’s home to take a job as nurse and companion to a disgraced peer, Cissy Gay, who is dying of tuberculosis.  I didn’t think it was a coincidence that Valancy, seeking happiness and life in what she believes to be her last year, flies from the home of the (upstanding) Stirlings to the Gay household.  Her flight shocks her family, and they embark on an unsuccessful campaign to lure her back home to salvage her reputation, which she has apparently damaged by her association with the Gays.  Valancy, for her part, figures – whatever, she’s dying.  She likes Cissy and her father, she feels more comfortable in their home, and she couldn’t care less about her reputation.  So she stays on until Cissy dies, and then she shocks her family even more, by marrying local scoundrel Barney Snaith and moving out to his ramshackle cabin on an island “up back” in Muskoka.  (Shades, again, of an adult Jane Stuart – defying snobbish relatives for a chance at happiness, keeping house, and feeling needed – first by caring for Cissy Gay, and then embracing her own little space, warming it and tidying it and bustling about in it.  Jane would do these things – Jane does do these things, when she and Dad set up house on Lantern Hill.  Had Jane grown up without Dad, without PEI, I believe she would have become what Valancy was at the beginning of the novel – colorless, cowering before her indomitable elders.  Jane, like Valancy, yearns to be needed, and Jane, like Valancy, finds fulfillment in feeding and caring for those around her.  Jane, like Valancy, longs for a home to call her own, and Jane, like Valancy, finds herself a gifted housekeeper when she gets that home.  The difference between them is that Jane is 12 and Valancy 29, and Jane finds hearth and happiness with her father; Valancy with her husband.)

Snaith – what a name.  The Stirlings and the rest of the local society can’t abide him, and they’re all convinced he’s done something terrible and shameful – a misapprehension he encourages – and they gleefully speculate about Snaith’s dark deeds over dining tables and coffee.  One can’t entirely blame them, because with a name like Snaith… After all, the “sn” sound can’t be trusted.  Think of the other words that it heralds.  Sneer.  Snicker.  Snide.  Snark.  Sneak.

Snaith does seem to do many of those things.  He certainly has a way of sneering and snickering – more than once are his “mocking” smiles and laughter described.  Valancy, for her part, doesn’t care about anything he’s done.  She loves him, she’s dying, she wants to be happy.  And Snaith does make her happy – giving her a home on a private island in the Ontario wilderness, leading her on tramps through the woods, canoe trips in velvety twilight, red-cheeked ice-skating races – a life of adventure and joy.  As Valancy Snaith, our heroine is filling up on a lifetime of fun while she can.

Of course, Snaith has secrets.  (How could he not, with a name like that?)  He has his “Bluebeard’s Chamber” – a lean-to he forbids Valancy to enter.  Valancy doesn’t care what Snaith has in the lean-to, and she’s not particularly interested in what he does there.  (Much speculation has ensued on why Valancy isn’t more curious, and why she seems so unconcerned that her husband has secrets; I believe she’s simply not interested.  She was open – both with Barney and with herself – about her expectations of marriage.  She didn’t think it was going to last long, and all she wanted was a little earthly happiness and companionship before her time was up.  Barney holds up his end of the bargain – gives her that and more – and she is content.)  To Snaith’s secrets – they, too, have to do with names.  And more to the point, with his other names – because he has two.

Barney Snaith is John Foster – a nature writer Valancy admires.  When cowed by her mother, Valancy was not permitted to read novels, and her one joy in life was the (non-fiction, but one step away from poetry) nature books written by her favorite author, John Foster.  Barney flatly refuses to discuss Foster with Valancy, and he sneeringly dismisses Foster’s writing as “piffle” when Valancy does browbeat him into listening to her quote a passage.  Allow me to pat myself on the back for a minute?  I guessed immediately that Barney was John Foster, and that what he was doing in his “Bluebeard’s Chamber” was processing photos and writing the luminous nature books that Valancy devours.

Barney is also Bernard Snaith Redfern – only son of a multi-millionaire who made his vast fortune in inventing and selling tonics and pills (which Valancy’s stiff relatives swear by).  As a boy, Barney is mocked for his father’s business, yet is also sought-after for his wealth – and the pain of being simultaneously bullied and pursued stays with him his entire life – until Valancy comes along, ignorant of his vast wealth and its embarrassing origins, and pleased to paddle around in a canoe and cook potatoes over a campfire.  As Bernie Redfern, he had no chance of love.  As Barney Snaith, he has a companion and lifemate who has fallen in love with him for who he is, not for what he can buy.  One can only imagine the happiness.

I won’t get deeper into plot, other than to assure you of what you already knew – this is LMM, after all – it all comes right in the end.  Valancy doesn’t die (it was all a mistake!  woohoo!) and her family is more than happy to accept her as “Mrs. Bernard Redfern” after cutting her out of their lives when she was “Valancy Snaith.”  Such is the power of a name.

Have you read The Blue Castle?  Did you love it?

by

It’s Monday! What Are You Reading? (November 20, 2017)

Hello.  I would like to share with you the most amazing book!

I have been itching to see The Book of Mormon ever since it opened to such acclaim on Broadway, but I was never able to make it happen.  The touring cast appeared in Buffalo three times while I lived there, and I could never get a babysitter!  We finally saw the show on Friday night at the Kennedy Center, and it was everything I expected, and more.  Wildly inappropriate, of course, but also absolutely hilarious.  As you know if you’ve been reading these Monday posts for a hot second, I’ve been listening to the soundtrack on repeat since we got back from our trip to see Hamilton on Broadway, but – once again – seeing the show in person was ten times better than listening to the soundtrack.  Elder McKinley – sequined-vest-wearing, tap-dancing Elder McKinley – was my favorite part of the show.  Well – second favorite.  Seeing Steve laughing helplessly was my favorite part.  (He had not listened to the soundtrack, and said afterwards that while he loved the show, he thinks he would have enjoyed it even more if he had known the music in advance – more than just the standards “Hello” and “I Believe.”  We’ll make a theatre geek of him yet, kids!)  The rest of the weekend was pretty low key.  It was Steve’s birthday weekend – the big 4-0, you guys! – and what he wanted was a laid-back weekend at home, so that’s what he got.  On Saturday we walked out to the library and the playground, but that was the extent of the activity.  And Sunday was even more low-key – Nugget and I made a grocery run, but other than that, we just hung around the house.  I read like a maniac, Steve watched football, and the kids played and watched cartoons to their hearts’ content.  I gifted Steve with a camping growler and a cozy down blanket from REI – hoping we get some use out of both of his presents this summer!  (He also is getting a very extravagant experience gift as a combination birthday/Christmas present – racing three supercars around Dominion Racetrack – but that’s not until July.)  All in all, I think he had a great weekend – the perfect balance of fun and relaxation, and even a date night to a musical with all the swears.

  

Reading.  I had a great reading week.  I began the week with We Were Eight Years in Power, the new collection of essays by Ta-Nehisi Coates.  The essays had all been published in The Atlantic, so I’d actually read a few of them, but it was a privilege to revisit them.  Coates is an extraordinary writer, and he never fails to make me think and question.  Once I finished the Coates, I turned my attention – finally! – to The Blue Castle, which I am reading for the #ReadingValancy readalong.  It was an absolute joy, and I read like a fiend all weekend, then was terribly sad when it ended – the mark of a great book.  I ended the weekend on the couch with The Stone Sky, the final volume in N.K. Jemisin’s The Broken Earth trilogy.  The first two books were so well-done; I’ve been eagerly anticipating the third – but dreading it a little, too, because Essun’s journey through motherhood is absolutely searing.  Anyway, I’m just a very little way in, so too soon to say how it’s going.

Watching.  Another great week, because I watched live musical theatre again!  Before this year, it had been so long since Steve and I went to see a show, that seeing both Hamilton and The Book of Mormon in the same year feels decadent in the extreme.  We had a fun date night on Friday and spent the evening at the Kennedy Center with Elder Price, Elder Cunningham, Elder McKinley, Nabalungi and the gang.  It was everything I could have hoped for.  Pink sequined vests!  If you can see it – do.  We just loved every minute.

Listening.  So, a few weeks ago, my friend Susan and I attended an “Austen in Autumn” happy hour, put on by our local JASNA chapter.  (That’s “Jane Austen Society of North America,” for the uninitiated, and yes, it’s a terrible name.)  At the happy hour, we discussed everything from our “favorite Austen rogue” – I named John Thorpe as my favorite, because we’ve all dated John Thorpe, amirite ladies? – to medieval IT support.  Susan and I left high-fiving each other for being social and making new friends, and I also had with me a podcast recommendation – for “Harry Potter and the Sacred Text.”  The premise, in a nutshell, is this – hosts Casper ter Kaile and Vanessa Zoltan, both Harvard Divinity School graduates, discuss and analyze a chapter of the Harry Potter books in each episode as they would analyze the Bible, Torah or Q’uran.  First they talk about the chapter of the week through the lens of a broad theme such as “friendship” or “commitment” or “white privilege.”  Then they move on to a spiritual practice such as lectio divina (sacred reading) or spiritual imagination.  And finally, they each choose one character who appeared in the chapter, and they give that character a personal blessing.  You guys.  I am binging it.  I cannot stop listening.  I am kicking myself that I didn’t know about this podcast back in September, when they did a live episode in D.C.  Because I seriously – seriously! – can’t get enough.  They are a few chapters into the fourth book now, and I predict that both my podcatcher and my Audible account are going to be seriously neglected until I catch up.

Moving.  So – as full of activity as this week has been in other areas (see above) there wasn’t much moving.  I skipped yoga and barre on Tuesday and Wednesday, because Steve was still under the weather from last weekend (actually, he kind of still is even now) and I didn’t want to leave him alone to start the kids’ mornings.  I did make it to power yoga on Friday, because it was my last class with my favorite instructor before she heads off to Africa and the Peace Corps.  But other than that – it was a slow week.  I am feeling the effects, too – I need more movement next week.

Blogging.  Coming up this week, I have a loooooooooong post with my musings on The Blue Castle on Wednesday, and on Friday I plan to tell you about our Thanksgiving celebrations.  Check in with me then!

Loving.  There is so much I could talk about this week.  Renewing my old love for musical theatre!  The upcoming Thanksgiving holiday!  But more than anything else, I am loving Steve on his birthday weekend.  We have been together for a really long time – we started dating when I was 19 and he was 23 – and it’s hard for me to wrap my mind around the fact that he’s 40.  I feel so honored to be the person by his side as he journeys through life.  He’s everything I dreamed of in a husband – kind, caring, loving, a wonderful hands-on father, and a true adventure buddy.  Happy birthday, Prince Charming!  Here’s to many, many, MANY more.

Asking.  What are you reading this week?

by

A Day in the Life: November, 2017

It’s been a long time – years, maybe? – since I’ve done a day-in-the-life style post.  I can’t even remember the last time, to be honest.  But now seems as good a time as any, and as luck would have it, #OneDayHH 2017 just took place.  So what better day to feature?  (For those not familiar, #OneDayHH is an annual social media event, hosted by Laura Tremaine of The Hollywood Housewife, in which participants are challenged to capture and share snapshots of an entire day’s activities.  It’s always in early November, and always on a weekday, because the idea is to encourage people to look for the little moments that are worth preserving in their everyday lives – not just the big events or particularly photogenic shots.)

Anyway, #OneDayHH took place on November 9 this year – a regular Thursday for me.  Here’s what I was up to.

6:20 a.m. Nugget is up and therefore so am I.  It’s a workout off day, so I try to maximize my sleep, since it has been so crummy lately, thanks to a bad cold going around the house (anytime anyone has a cold, it means less sleep for Mom).  I didn’t set my alarm, so I just wake up whenever my human alarm clock goes off, which is 6:20 today.  I get him out of his crib, change his diaper and let him play for a few minutes while I get ready for my day, until Peanut gets up and we go downstairs.  I set them up at the kitchen table with their breakfast and “Doc McStuffins” on the iPad, then make Nugget’s lunch.  He is getting soup, green beans, cheese, a blueberry breakfast bar, and homemade plum applesauce, plus a yogurt for his “second breakfast” once he gets to the nanny share.

7:15-7:30 a.m.  Back upstairs and it’s time for Nugget to get dressed for the day, which he does not want to do.  Peanut is already dressed and ready to go – as is the rest of the family.  I chase the lone holdout around his room until I finally catch him and wrestle him into sweatpants and a cozy long-sleeved t-shirt.  Then we’re all out the door together.

7:45 a.m.  Steve, Peanut and Nugget drop me off at the Metro station – I’m the first stop in the morning circuit.  They head onward to Peanut’s school and then Nugget’s nanny, and then Steve will go back home to work (he works remotely from home).  Meanwhile, I wait on the platform for my train into D.C.

8:15 a.m.  I’m off the Metro and back above-ground at Gallery Place.  Normally I would go straight to work, but I need to make a stop first.  In the hustle of getting everyone ready this morning, I forgot to eat.  So I head for Bakers & Baristas, the neighborhood indie coffee shop, to grab a quick breakfast to bring to my desk.

8:20 a.m.  In line at Bakers & Baristas.  I order a London Fog (half vanilla steamer, half Earl Grey) and a pastry to take to my desk.

8:25 a.m.  Tea in hand, walking to the office past a row of Capitol Bikeshare bikes.

Still 8:25 a.m.  On my other side, the National Portrait Gallery is looking lovely under the grey morning sky.

8:30-11:45 a.m.  I’m at my desk.  This is my favorite corner, which I decorated with some of my favorite pictures and mementos – Instagram prints, birthday party invitations, and Adirondack 46 mountain patches from the peaks I’ve bagged.  I can’t show you the rest of my desk, as it is (neatly) piled with confidential client documents.  Anyway!  I fire up my computer, read news alerts and emails, and then look over the pleadings in a case that I’ve just been pulled into – getting up to speed on the issues so I have a better sense of what documents are going to be relevant.  Three hours go by in a flash.

11:45 a.m.  I am starting to get a headache (something is going on with the generator, and it’s making our whole hallway smell electric).  I decide a pick-me-up is in order, and use my favorite teapot to brew some “Earl on the Beach,” a loose tea my BFF, Rebecca, sent me from her local tea shop in Virginia Beach.  (Later, I will be dismayed to discover that the brand-new replacement basket I ordered for my tea leaves has a hole in the mesh.  Grrrr!)  Back to my desk, and my reading.

12:30 p.m.  Lunchtime.  Normally I would walk outside to either pick up lunch or just get some fresh air, but today we have a CLE (that’s “Continuing Legal Education,” for my non-lawyer friends) program scheduled – and lunch is provided.  I eat a cheese and veggie wrap while listening to a presentation on best practices for crafting and managing litigation holds.  In my day-to-day world, this is very important and high stakes stuff – mistakes can be very costly, and we are extremely serious about getting it right.  I found the presentation really informative and interesting – good use of my lunch hour!

1:30-2:15 p.m.  I work on some administrative tasks that are not a lot of fun, but have to be done.  My headache is coming back, so I decide it’s time for some fresh air.

2:15-2:45 p.m.  I feel my headache coming back, and I think fresh air would help, so I decide to walk to the courthouse – might as well make productive use of the time – and pick up a form I need for the Virginia Bar.  (I am licensed to practice law in New York and Washington, D.C., but am in the process of applying for a license to practice in Virginia, too.  Virginia requires a huge stack of forms and documents, so I’ve been on a bit of a scavenger hunt to gather everything I need.)  When I get to the courthouse, I put my bag down to be scanned, and tell the security guard, “I’m here for a–” and before I can finish, she interrupts me: “Certificate of Good Standing?”  I laugh and ask how she guessed, and she said, “You were just too poised when you walked in here.  Usually people look nervous.  I though, either she’s here for Good Standing or she’s filing something.”  Ha!

I walk through the metal detector and down to the Attorney Admissions Office, where there is no line – so I am out the door, my Certificate of Good Standing in hand, in less than five minutes.  (For my non-lawyer friends, a Certificate of Good Standing is a piece of paper from the powers-that-be in a jurisdiction, saying that my license to practice law in that jurisdiction is active and current – meaning I haven’t been suspended from the Bar or gotten behind on my dues.  I need them for both of my states in order to submit to the Virginia Bar.  For New York, I have to write a letter and get the Certificate mailed to me, but for D.C. I have the luxury of just walking down the street.)  On my way out the door and back to my office, I look around at the courtyard, which has been improved since I was last here a few months ago.  I particularly like the quote: “All citizens are equal before the law.”  I think of Tuesday’s election results in Virginia and smile.

2:45 p.m.  I am back in my office, and I have a text from our sweet nanny.  Every day, she sends me the pictures she snaps of Nugget and I save them to my camera roll (one reason my phone storage is shot).  Seeing his little face always brightens my day.  Today she sends a bunch of pictures of Nugget with the other kid in the nanny share – they’re such good friends!  So cute.  I spend the rest of the afternoon working on my Virginia Bar application, including making a 30+ minute call to Virginia Bar IT Support.  Oof.  (They’re very helpful, and it turns out I alerted them to a problem with a hyperlink that could have impacted 500 people, so I guess that’s my good deed for the day!)  I spend most of the time drafting answers to the Character & Fitness questionnaire, update my scavenger hunt spreadsheet (where I am tracking the status of all of the documents I have requested) and chat with a partner who stops by my office just to say hello (so nice).

5:15 p.m.  I save and close my Virginia Bar application and head home.  I am not loving how dark it is, but I do like the pretty twinkle lights that the vendors have strung up in the Thursday afternoon farmers’ market that I walk through on my way to the Metro.  I always think I should stop and buy something, but I am always in a hurry to get home – today is no exception.

5:50 p.m.  I’m home!  Peanut and Nugget are finishing their dinner in the kitchen.  Every day when I walk into the house, they scream with joy – it’s the best way to be greeted, EVER.  Today, after they finish shrieking their happiness, Peanut goes back to the lolly she was working on, and Nugget asks for “uppy!”  Of course, at that moment, I get a work email that needs an immediate response, so I jump back on the computer and quickly take care of it.

6:25 p.m.  I take both kids upstairs to get ready for baths.  Peanut plays contentedly in her room, but Nugget – the Pisces – has to be involved in any activity that includes water.  Somehow, I manage to get the bath prepared.  He almost falls in (fully clothed) three times, but this is not my first rodeo, and my bathtub-dive-rescue instincts are sharply honed.  I bathe both of the kids while Steve is downstairs taking care of his own urgent work email.

7:10 p.m.  Both kids are clean and cuddled up in their coziest jammies (our upstairs Thermostat was on the blink yesterday, and it got kind of cold overnight – Steve fixed it, but I still wanted the added insurance of fleece pajamas).  It’s time to start winding down, but Nugget is in hardcore bedtime-avoidance mode – running around, wearing Peanut’s hat, and playing “picnic.”  Eventually I get both the hat and the basket away from him.  He’s not very happy about it.

7:25 p.m.  Ready to read!  Nugget chooses “A-B-C-3PO” for a bedtime story.  Usually, we do two or three – or sometimes more – but he did so much stalling that we only have time for one story tonight.  Fortunately, “A-B-C-3PO” is a long one.

7:35 p.m.  See?  Still reading.  It’s a really funny book that we all enjoy.  My favorite parts are the breaks I get every few pages, because whenever Darth Vader appears (quite frequently, as it happens) Nugget must sing the Imperial Death March, shout “Luke, I am your father!” and profess his undying love for the Sith.  After we finish the story, I tuck him in and Steve sings to him while Peanut and I start reading in her room.  We are reading Mr. Popper’s Penguins – a chapter every night – and after we finish our chapter for the evening, she gets to pick out a picture book.  Tonight, it’s “The Princess and the Pea.”

8:00 p.m.  Both kids are in bed, and I am downstairs and STARVING.  I heat up a bowl of homemade vegetable soup with pinto beans, and stir in plain yogurt for extra protein and creaminess.  Meanwhile, Steve shows me the treat he bought for us to enjoy after dinner.  Yum!  He sits at the table while I eat my dinner and we talk about our days.

8:35 p.m.  Couch time!  I cuddle up under my favorite blanket to finish The Complete Collected Poems of Maya Angelou.  I’m almost done, so I wrap it up after only a few more minutes of reading, then turn to Jane Gardam’s The Flight of the Maidens, which is out of renewals at the library.  About an hour and a half of reading and sipping the stout we are sharing, and then it’s time to turn in – I have early morning yoga tomorrow.

10:00 p.m.  Lights out!  All too soon, my alarm will be ringing and it’ll be time to get up and do it all again.

 

by

Marine Corps Marathon 10K 2017

Whew!  It’s been awhile since I put up a race recap, hasn’t it?  I can’t even remember the last time.  The past year or two, it’s been hard to run and train for races – I’m sure I make lots of excuses, but there it is.  I don’t love being away from Nugget for long stretches, even now – I figure there’ll be plenty of time for half marathons (and maybe longer races?) when he’s older.  And between job-hunting, planning a move, and then trying to get used to a new job (I’ve been at my current job for over a year, and I still feel like I’m learning the ropes) something had to give, and it’s been running.  But I miss the feeling of accomplishment that I used to get from training for and running races, so I have very gradually been dipping my toes back into the local running scene.  I’m not doing anything too crazy right now, which was why my “big” race of the year was a 10K – but what a 10K!

7F641B0F-9AD6-4B0D-B49A-A2CA010ECBCC

The day before the MCM10K, I drove over to National Harbor to pick up my packet.  It was a total zoo, but somehow I made it in and out with my bib and mock-turtleneck (#RockTheMock).  Loud singing along to The Book of Mormon soundtrack on the way there and back was a big help.  Back at home, I laid out my “flat runner” – we’d gotten a heat advisory email from the race organizers, so I planned accordingly with a tank top that weighs less than a sheet of tissue paper.

7BDC6DAC-55F0-4BCF-8E28-95232ED02964

Race morning dawned clear and sunny.  It was actually a little bit brisk, and I was chilly as I waited at the start line, but I knew I’d be glad I had the lightweight tank on later (spoiler alert: I was).  Eventually, the gun sounded and we were off!  I got chills as I ran under the “Marine Corps Marathon” starting arch.  Maybe someday I’ll run through this arch on my way to 26.2.

74492179-17D3-43F0-B9A2-91B48B7D018D

The full marathon course starts over by Iwo Jima, but the 10K starts on the National Mall – which is very nice, because the scenery begins immediately.  We ran past a line of Smithsonian museums, and before long, I could see the Capitol over my left shoulder.  (I hummed “dark as a tomb where it happens” as I ran past.)

E9AA0196-CCD3-4A76-8069-0E2A62B3E7CF

Rounded the corner, and headed down past the Smithsonian Castle and toward the Washington Monument.  I have really missed running local races around these streets.  It’s SO nice to be home.

FD2AFAF5-B826-4A46-A4CF-D0D8853A8BC9

Hello, George!  I put my camera away and before I knew it, we were crossing the bridge into Arlington.  I didn’t get too excited at that point, because most of the 10K is run in Arlington.  We still had a long way to go.

ABB58C8C-8E68-412F-892D-45C1291F74E5

A good portion of the race (10K and I think marathon, too) is run on highways in full sun – hence the heat advisory and the warning to dress appropriately for the weather.  I was glad that I made the apparel choices I had – I was always comfortable and didn’t really feel like I was baking in the sun (I did hear later that a few people were taken off the course in ambulances due to the heat, so it was no joke).  There was also a fair amount of shade on the 10K course, which provided relief, and even when we were in full sun we could count on cool scenery – like the Pentagon.

8F1CF94A-3725-41CB-8A2B-6F43C5728D63

I could tell we were getting close to the end when I ran through this row of American and Marine flags, and I started to get a little misty-eyed.  I made sure to thank every Marine I saw on the course for their service – others were doing so, as well.

79465433-F0F4-4883-95DF-1BF0704108EB

Soon we found ourselves running past the marathon starting corrals – all empty.  It was surreal to see the corrals silent, with all the runners gone.  Maybe someday I’ll be standing in one, ready to race the full.

55F5DC62-395C-4D19-86D8-B6A887C9E877

And before I knew it – the end!  The last little bit of the course was an evil, heinous – extremely steep – uphill, so no pictures from that part.  I went through the finishers’ corrals, collected my medal, and found my cheering squad – Steve, the kids, and my mom.  It was hot, exhausting, and completely exhilarating and inspiring.

Are you a runner?  What’s your favorite race?

by

It’s Monday! What Are You Reading? (November 13, 2017)

Hi, friends.  No fun weekend report for you today.  Steve was under the weather all weekend, so it was just me and the kids from sun up to sun down, and we were in survival mode in a big way.  On Friday afternoon, I took them to the library, both to get them out of Dad’s hair and also so I could return a book that was due back and get more that were on hold – and that was the best thing that we did all weekend.  They played in the children’s section for awhile, and we read a bunch of books and then picked a few for them to check out.  And then it was all downhill from there.  I spent the rest of the weekend arbitrating disputes over toys, pulling them off each other, putting them in time-out, and running errands.  Seriously, running errands seemed like a really relaxing thing to do because any time they spent strapped into their car seats was time that Nugget wasn’t pulling out fistfuls of Peanut’s hair, and Peanut wasn’t trying to gouge out Nugget’s eyes.  You think I’m kidding, but I’m not.  The best thing we did all weekend was drop off a donation to the D.C. Diaper Bank, which made me disproportionately excited because it had been sitting in my dining room for way too long.  They were pretty decent on Sunday (see above: car seats), so I took them to the playground and it was a total disaster – tackling, hair-pulling, face-grabbing, the works.  So, yeah.  That was my weekend.

  
  

Reading.  One good thing I can tell you is – I did a lot of reading this weekend.  This week, too, but mostly this weekend.  Since the kids had to be separated a lot of the time (or it would mean the start of another round of the Hunger Games) Peanut spent a good amount of time playing in her room while Nugget played in his room and I sat in his chair and read as best I could while Nugget drove his trucks over my face.  It was for my sanity, really, but I justified  it by reminding myself that it is important for me to model reading for enjoyment so that the kids can see that.  (I do think that’s true.)  Anyway, over the week I burned through Little Fires Everywhere (which was incredible), Coronation Summer (really, really funny!) and The Complete Collected Poems of Maya Angelou (powerful and breathtaking).  Late in the week I started The Flight of the Maidens, which wasn’t long but sort of felt like a slog to me.  (It is beautifully written, so I suspect that the reason it felt like a slog was that I had a pending library deadline, so read it over other things I wanted to read more, and that always makes a book feel like work a little more than it otherwise would.)  I put it aside to read the very slim and absolutely stunning The Origin of Others, which I finished in just a couple of hours on Saturday morning (I just couldn’t wait), then went back to The Flight of the Maidens.  Finally finished that on Sunday evening, and I’m now about a quarter of the way through We Were Eight Years in Power: An American Tragedy, the new collection of essays about the Obama presidency by Ta-Nehisi Coates.  I’ve actually read a few of the essays already, because I read The Atlantic, where they were published, but I am re-reading them in the book and Coates’ writing is, as always, uncomfortable, thought-provoking and necessary.  (It was a very Coates weekend for me.  He also contributed the introduction to The Origin of Others.)  Anyway, I’ll continue with the new Coates over the next couple of days, and then I plan to pick up The Blue Castle for Naomi and Sarah’s readalong – I’ll have thoughts about it coming soon!  (Sorry no links to their blogs – something is going on with my WordPress and my link function is not working.)

Watching.  We had a family movie date on Saturday afternoon – starring Darth Vader, of course.  Nugget is starting to realize that Darth Vader is a “bad guy,” and I think he’s having some questions as a result.  He still asks to skip to the “Darth Vader parts,” but he also seems to be contemplating switching his allegiance to his new buddy, Yoda.  We’ll see!  Other than Star Wars, we have been watching a lot of Doc McStuffins lately, which I tolerate because Peanut says she wants to be a doctor and I think Doc McStuffins is the reason.  (Doc herself seems like a cool kid, but her toys set my teeth on edge – especially Lambie and Stuffie, both of whom make me want to bang my head against the wall.)  The kids have been alternating Doc with Curious George: A Very Monkey Christmas, because I’ve decided that it’s not too early for Christmas shows.  Especially George, who I can actually stand to watch on repeat.

Listening.  All podcasts, all the time this week.  Of particular note were the one-year birthday episode of Tea and Tattle, which had me searching for Chalet School books on Abebooks, and the latest episode of Sorta Awesome, all about boundary-setting for the holidays (always a good topic to revisit around this time of year, and something I’ve struggled with in the past – although I’m getting better at it).  I have to complain about my podcatcher, though.  I listen to podcasts on iTunes, and it got swept up in the latest iPhone iOS update, and – I HATE the changes.  It is so much less user-friendly now and I’m having a really hard time figuring out a new system for listening.  I might have to switch to a new podcast app – any suggestions?

Moving.  Pretty slow week and very slow weekend, although keeping Peanut and Nugget from killing each other is quite a workout.  I made it to power yoga on Tuesday and Friday, and that’s it – no Barre3 and no Saturday vinyasa.  With Steve being under the weather, it was just all I could do.  Hoping for a more active week next week.  Definitely need to get some more runs in as the Turkey Trot approaches.

Blogging.  I have a recap of the Marine Corps Marathon 10K coming up for you on Wednesday (belated, but there it is) and a day-in-the-life post, inspired/facilitated by #OneDayHH, on Friday.  Check in with me then!

Loving.  I know I have complained a lot about them in this post, but I have to tell you about one cute thing – Nugget has started calling Peanut “sweetie.”  It’s the cutest, funniest, darlingest thing.  I’m sure he’s heard us call her that, but it’s sooooooo much more adorable coming from him.  In the mornings, he’s usually the first one up, and she will come looking for people once she wakes up – and when she joins us, either in the kitchen or in Nugget’s room, he greets her in his squeaky little toddler voice: “Hiiiiiiiiii, sweetie!”  IT IS SO ADORABLE.  I die, you guys, I actually die.

Asking.  What are you reading this week?