School starts, for me at least, this week, and this sight greeted me on my way into work yesterday morning. Traffic stopped in both directions to let this family illegally cross. It tickled me to no end, and I took it as a good sign for the coming year. Of course, I'll take what I can get.
*Edited to add: today on my drive in another batch of geese, a bit further down the road, were being ushered across the road by a city police officer. Now that's what I call lovely.
Broken toe.
Bigger hole.
We've got flow!
When we got to South Carolina, Callum disappeared into the bowels of the house, only to reappear at meal times or to be spotted as he dashed from room to room...much like dolphins moving their way up and down the Atlantic coast. ("There's one, did you see it?!"). However...
Clearly.
These children.
Are up.
To no good.
Even.
The dog.
Callum's had to say goodbye to a lot of friends this summer. Before our neighbors moved, friends from school headed south, away from us, but last week he and I piled in the car for a quick road trip to pay them a visit in their new digs.
It's funny how much I dreaded the drive. I have a half hour commute each way to work every day, and somehow the prospect of six hours in the car filled me with nothing but ill feeling. It was fine though, far better than I expected, and so worth it to see our friends.
Can you believe Neel's never been to Charleston? I love this part of the world. I grew up splitting vacations between the Outer Banks of North Carolina and the Lowcountry of South Carolina. South Carolina sings to my soul. The ocean, the marshes, the salty smell and the old old oaks bejewled with Spanish moss. My mom comes back to this part of the country twice a year, and I can see why. I'm grateful to have a reason to visit.
Of course we went to the beach every day. This sweet house has access to chairs and towels and umbrellas, when the wind's not whipping. The beach itself ain't bad either.
On our first night, we went to Brookgreen Gardens.
I love curvy trails that could reveal hidden surprises.
Like this. (Gator, not croc.)
And this.
And this.
Otters get itches too.
After the animals, we moved on to the sculpture garden for some live music.
I'm a dork and I know it, but coming upon scenes like this can move me to tears. Simply the beauty of the place, combined with the sound of live music filtered through the night and the burble of happy voices. Those are the times you know you're touched by happiness.
We got through one song, fortunately a favorite of mine, before the skies opened up. After that it was a dash to find kids and then back to the car.
After dinner, we had drinks on the upstairs porch as we watched the dark settle around us, earlier there so much further south.
This photo is for my mom. We did not have lunch here. I thought I'd save it for when we're all in town together.
We did have lunch here, and I can't even remember the name. Avocado soup that tasted more like cucumber, and we split crab and pimento dip and shrimp salad...all southern comfort food.
Drinks again that night, this time a walk away at The Carriage House. I had a Sapphire and tonic, of course. Did you really have to ask?
The whole weekend was like that. Go to the beach. Do something fun. Have a cocktail. Eat an amazing meal, whether it was $5 crab cakes delivered by Crab Cake Man or Shrimp and Corn Chowder. Easy to be with old familiar friends (Although let's face it, they haven't been gone that long.) The only hitch was not having Neel there with us. I think we'll have to bring him next time we come. It's funny, I thought I took so many pictures of the house and the kids, but I guess I didn't. Sometimes you just have to live your life instead of photographing it.
I'd been yearning for a thunderstorm, and last night we got a humdinger.
Callum was at a friend's house when the storm started, and by the time we scooted across the street to grab him, the dogs had been in a fight and the power had gone out.
The lightening went on for hours.
Callum took this photo, still learning that the shutter stays open a long time when the light is low.
Checkers by flashlight ended in a stalemate, even though the lightholder gasped audibly every time he saw a jump for Callum (I'm looking at you, Neel.). The power didn't come back on until nearly 2 a.m. Even then it was still raining, and the skies were still flickering like candlelight. Last night's sleep reminded us of those days after Isabelle when it was so hot at night, and you'd lie in bed so carefully not wanting to touch anyone. Nobody slept well, but I got my storm.
This is why they're all hanging out in our yard.
We took a little trip, and some of us are about to take another. I'll be back to blogging next week. TTFN (that's "ta ta for now," Dad.)
My work is in a funny place right now. Sort of a "the more things change, the more they stay the same" kind of place. We have a new headmaster at our school, and that means all sorts of sweeping changes in all sorts of ways. He'll come in, as he should, and change things. Already we see evidence of that, from a new desk in the office to new events on the calendar. A new head of school means a new boss for me. And so I'm in a weird sort of place, where everything I'm doing is almost exactly the same as I did last year at this time, almost exactly the same as I always do, but it's not. It's different.
I'm very lucky in my work, as I continually seem to be reminding Callum, that the projects I have over the summer I am able to do largely from home. My laptop and I hang out together for a few hours every morning, and we're still able to go to the beach or Callum is still free to play with his friends. Each week we go into school, and while Callum has karate, I've been meeting with my new boss. And it's been good. I like this guy. So far we seem to be working well together. But as I was chatting with a neighbor last week, I finally put my finger on just the sense I've had about these weekly meetings. You know how it is when you meet a new person, say a new girlfriend or you and your partner meet another couple and you decide to get together for coffee or go out to dinner, and you have that "first date?" That first time you get together where you're glad to be together and it's fun to be together and get to know each other, but still, just a little, it's taking a bit of work? Well that's how it feels each week in these meetings with my new boss. Every Wednesday from 10-11 a.m. is like another first date. I think if I were there all week, working in the office every day we'd be past that, but we're not. So our sentences stumble over each other and our conversations can veer from halting to rapid-fire in practically a breath. I love my job, and I don't want to look like an idiot, but it's been a long time since I've come home wondering how things were going and if it were okay to tell someone when I disagree about something. I'm sure that equilibrium will come, but it's early days yet. And early days can be daunting.
My old boss? I could pretty much predict his reaction to any given situation. And I was never afraid to disagree with him. Megan, I'm assuming you'll have something to say about that.
So while all the things I'm doing are pretty much the same, everything feels like it's changed. I'm changing too. Thinking about doing different kinds of things. Trying to extrapolate my favorite parts of my job and create some reason out of them. I have a friend who is a freelance editor (Hi Cookie!), and we've been chatting about work quite a bit lately. She feels that I'm a writer with editorial tendencies (is that the way you put it?), all the while I find myself yearning for the structure and order of editing, not the wild storm of chaos that writing seems to be. (We're both yearning a bit for those things that are other than what we are doing at present.) It has been a big part of my job, editing and helping to frame the message of our school. I can't tell if it's going to stay or go away. And maybe, if I like it so much, it's time to think about it more, doing it more than just for my school. I've been thinking about that a lot too. Branching out. Trying to learn some more. Go legit. What was #9 again?
This whole late of summer feels like a giant step into the unknown. Must be why I so desparetly wanted some new shoes.
We don't eat a ton of meat. Much to my son's despair, that is. But don't get me wrong. My family likes a good steak or burger. And don't forget bacon. Still, we try to be mindful about things in our own haphazard way, and I was tooling around on the internets one day and stumbled across this site. So Meat Free Monday it is. I like nothing more than a little structure in my life.
It's taking a bit to get our sea legs under us. (Which means, I kept forgetting for a couple of weeks there) And after weeks of yogurt and toast for breakfast, Callum asked for bacon yesterday and I had the plate in front of him before I remembered. But! After those six pieces were were golden. And Neel and I carried the banner for the family.
It's so easy to go meat free in the summer. This quick, off-the-cuff pasta dish is brimming with fresh veggies. Mushrooms, zucchini and squash, quickly sauteed in a bit of olive oil, then reduced with a bit of sherry and bound together with a splash of cream. We tossed some parm in there and we were off.
All it needs is a bit of bacon.
Step Two: My back is killing me Paint the island.
We've changed the color from something called "cinnibar" (a brickish red) to something called "Brown Velvet," a Valspar Historical interior satin. When you're stiring it in the can, it looks just like chocolate brownie mix as you add the liquids to the solids. I've finished the frame of the island, the fronts of the drawers and two coats on the fronts of six of the eight doors. I have to finish the backs of those six doors and both sides of the remaining two. We have a stainless top on the island, and once the painting is done Neel is going to remove it and reanchor. I'll paint the exposed underside then, and I'm thinking I'll do a contrasting color. My back hurts, and I've had about enough of brown.
I know, I know, that trip was weeks ago. Who wants to hear about it now?
I just love Washington D.C. It's such an exciting, vibrant city. So much is going on there, but it feels so do-able too. Callum's been angling to go for years now, and we did it in just the right way. A couple of half-days in the city, plenty of time in the hotel pool and the knowledge that we live close enough to come back any time. And it was so fun to see with my young politico, too. (Neel's convinced that Callum's destined for the foreign service.) When we turned the corner and saw the White House for the first time, he simply breathed, "Oh my gosh."
This towering vision followed us everywhere.
There was lots of walking.
It's a pretty city that makes walking easy.
Vietnam Memorial.
Lincoln Memorial
Stepping into the darkened hallway to see this magnificent statue always brings tears to my eyes. The low lights, hushed voices and glow from the marble all illuminate the power of this beautiful piece of art and amazing man.
There was lots of reading too. Callum insisted on reading every word at the Linclon Memorial, of both the second Innaugural addres and the Gettysburg address. We lost track of him for the barest of seconds after the he'd read the Gettysburg address, but I found him pretty quickly, sitting on one of the top steps looking out over the Mall toward the Washington Monument. He looked deep in thought, overwhelemed with emotion, almost. I was instantly skeptical. This boy can be pretty dramatic, and if he told me how moved he was by Lincoln's words, I was going to have to cry "BS" on that one. When I asked if he was okay, Callum said simply, "Man that was a lot of reading."
The World War II Monument was really beautiful. We rested our tired feet in the fountain and listened to the burbling of the water.
Next day, more walking. A tour of the US Capitol
and her beautiful rotunda.
On a tip from a colleague of Neel's we had lunch at the National Museum of the American Indian, and it was one of the best meals I've had in a long time. Neel and Callum had salmon, of course, and I had what's called a "plate of color," which are side dishes from the many regions of American Indians. We sat by the window with a view of a gorgeous waterful, and the food was amazing. So next time you go to DC, skip the pretzels and hot dogs on the Mall and go get some great food and culture.
Next stop was the high point for Neel and Callum, the Air and Space Museum, but I got sensory overload and had to sit down. The highlight for me (and for Neel too, actually) gets its own post tomorrow.
On our last night we had dinner at our favorite kind of restaurant, a Spanish tapas house in Arlington, but I'd wager to say we all felt like this. Still, I can't wait to go again.
Ever since we knew the stove was going to be installed this week, I'd been racking my brain for ideas for what to make for our first meal on it. My dad had tons of great suggestions like Beanie-Weenies or Spam. Neel wanted pork chops. Callum always wants fish. My mind just couldn't settle on anything. I think I was was daunted. And overwhelmed. It doesn't take much. It looked, at one point that this might be a two day job, and I felt the barest hint of relief. Off the hook. No need to produce some fancy-schmancy meal with all the bells and whistles that first night at least. When it was clear that things would be in a midden in the kitchen most
of the day yesterday, Callum and I met Neel for Thai food for lunch and we ate our dang fool heads off. So even though the guys finished up the job, still no dinner, right? Again, I'm relieved.
Not my family. No matter how big his bowl of Noodle Soup, Neel can still eat dinner. When he says, "We could make grilled cheese," I think, oh yeah, I can manage grilled cheese. And I'm such a dork. Because when I go to get out our little non-stick pan that we always make grilled cheese sandwiches in one at a time, and Neel says, "why don't you use the griddle?" I burst into tears.
We celebrated with champagne and a DVRd episode of Top Chef Masters (I am really digging that show), and I am feeling pretty happy.
We all worked hard around here today. I don't have any pictures of Callum finishing this book in anticipation of the arrival of this book on our doorstep this afternoon, and now he's off doing the hard work that nine year olds do in the summer: at the pool with his friends.
My work is on that lap top (thanks Dad and Happy Birthday!) and those papers spread about, but there have been people working much harder all around me.
Here's the hole where our old, electric, ceramic top stove used to go.
And here are some of the new stove men!
I love the new stove men! They were here all day, troubleshooting and figuring things out. They're just doing their jobs, making sure that our house doesn't explode when they run the gas line.
I'm trying hard to avoid the old cliches, but they could have no idea how important it was for me to be cooking on a gas stove again.
I had that sensation this weekend where you don't know how tired you are until you stop moving. Just couldn't do or plan another thing. We bypassed our normal mode of celebration for the fourth, which has always been one of my favorites, for laying low, but this year it worked for us.
Dinner with a friend of mine from work and her daughter on Saturday. I'm so glad she invited herself over! I can't call her a new friend, by any stretch, but we'd never socialized like this before, and it was such fun (even if she did make fun of my food covers). It's all my fault, really. I can be such a fourteen-year-old sometimes. "Why would anybody want to have dinner with us? Why would they want to drive all the way over here?"
They did come have dinner with us, never mind getting lost along the way. Perfect holiday food.
Beer, burgers, dogs, potato salad and corn so sweet you didn't even need butter and salt.
Someone, who claimed he was full, couldn't help sneaking more potato salad and bacon leftover from the burgers. This was a happy evening. I'm looking forward to repeating it.
The next morning, of course, was Breakfast at Wimbledon. A long-standing tradition from my childhood in its second year at our house. Strawberries and cream (of course), an egg and potato bake that while aesthetically pleasing, needs a little tweaking, and buttermilk biscuits with a buttery spread made of Earth Balance margarine, honey and cinnamon (hat tip to my friend Jacquie for that one, I mean really, thank you!).
And we all ended up here. I'm convinced that Jean and Paul's porch might be the happiest place on earth. We'd all been in various places for the weekend. Jean and Paul with friends, Tyler working the downtown festival, Catherine hanging with Elliot at her parents, Neel and I with friends or draped languidly over the sofa, still trying to recover, but we all ended up here. The kids were eating popsicles, Tyler hadn't eaten, so we brought him some chips and dip. Someone told Paul about Steve McNair, and Jean, Catherine and I made plans to go to the beach while Tyler and Neel talked about designing a deck. And I thought this is what the movies and the tv shows are always trying to capture. This is Friends in the coffee shop, Cheers in the Bar, and I'm so lucky because it's my life. Roll credits.
(from the Jefferson Memorial)
In the past week, I've stood in the rotunda of the US Capitol and viewed the Washington Monument from the steps of The Jefferson Memorial. I've listened to the Declaration of Independence read twice, once by Callum (arduous), once by the reporters and newscasters of NPR's Morning Edition (moving). We celebrate so much around this holiday (this year I'm celebrating how doggone tired I am), but listening to those words, so soon after standing in the shadow of Lincoln and Jefferson, I'm awed and grateful for what thoughful measured men they were. Were they flawed? Of course? Is that document flawed? Of course it it? But to stand up and so eloquently say, "We are equal and we will be free," and to use their words before they raised their fists. That part impresses me.
Callum and I went to Happy Hour with Neel's lab last night. It was the one of those evenings where the last thing I wanted to do was go to Happy Hour, but where everything ended up being so fun and fascinating that I could have stayed forever, and all I kept thinking was that I wanted to come home and write it all down.
It's been a long week. Callum was in camp last week and now this, and in the middle we took a little trip to DC (pictures definitely coming). I had a new boss start this week, and while that's not a bad thing, there's some ensuant stress and Ps and Qs being minded, of course! One of Callum's best buds has been at camp with him this week and commuting with us, but by yesterday they'd spent a lot of time together. Traffic was miserable yesterday morning. There was a water main break in one of the main bridge/tunnel routes in town (and in this town if you block a bridge/tunnel, everything comes to a halt), and while we don't travel over water, everything is affected. Callum and his friend argued so much in the car, all that noise coming at the back of my head, that I declared Silent Ride for the last five minutes of the trip. By the time we left at the end of the day, traffic was still hopelessly snarled from that same water main break, now with more closed roads (!), and it took us twice as long to get home (no arguing though!). And here's Neel, cheerfully hoping we'll come and join them. How can we not?
The thing I love about being around scientists is that they're so dorky! No, not really. What I really love is the international community that crops up around medical and graduate schools. Neel's worked with Russians, Hungarians, Italians, Indians, Koreans, Chinese, Japanese, French, Germans, Swedes, Greeks, seriously, you name it, we've met it. Last night, two of the people we had drinks with had immigrated to the US as small children, one from China and one from Iraq.
The guy, a Kurd from Iraq, was introduced to me as Mike, not because it's easier but because he worked for PF Changs for eight years ("too long") and liked to use different names based on the nationality of the people at the table he was waiting on. I'm not sure I ever got his real name, but I did get a sense of immigration experience. Maybe it's part of the Kurdish national character, but storytelling seems to be key. The Coming to America stories flew across the table. Jenny, a Chinese woman in Neel's lab, came to the US when she was six. Mike told of living in a refugee camp in Guam, where the Kurdish boys beat the American Air Force at soccer but lost at basketball, and how since his family didn't have a sponsor in the US, INS randomly chose to send them to Albuquerque, NM. We figured it was because of the hot air balloons.
His life in Iraq interested me the most. As a child, his father fought in the Iran-Iraq war, and they thought he'd been killed. Funeral and everything. His mom was three months pregnant at the time. Since he was no longer a soldier in Saddam's army, his family was kicked out of government housing, until three years later they received a letter from his dad. His dad was in prison for six years. Fast forward to Mike's young adulthood, as an undergrad and the start of our Iraq involvement. The FBI calls him up and wants to meet with him. They did with every Iraqi-American. He chooses a public location, where the first question he's asked is, "Are you a terrorist?" He and his dad were finally cleared, and he says to this day his dad is the calmest person he's ever met.
Jenny, the woman in Neel's lab, says the same about her grand dad. He survived twenty-one years in one of Mao's prisions. Can you even believe that? He fought in the wars and as a thank you was thrown in prison for twenty-one years. She says whenever things seem to be going crazy in China she calls her grand dad, and if he says, "not so bad," she knows it's really "not so bad."
I could have listened all night.
I've led a pedestrian life, and I like it that way. I like the forward progress of my existence, humble though it may be. But occasionally I'm touched by greatness, the wide world out there, and for that I'm terribly grateful.
Well, Ama was here (we ate out some) and now we're off to Washington DC for a few days. Whenever Neel and his brother would stay in a hotel, the thing they looked forward to the most was, "Eat sweets and watch TV!" Back in a bit, my friends. Eat sweets and watch TV!
Oh God, am I ever digging June this year. The hydrangeas are finally coming in, but I think I need to add some vinegar to the soil. I like them blue more than lavender. My maternal grandmother would shake her head at me.
We're slowly settling into a summer rhythm here. Getting our bearings. We had to have a family meeting last night about it. Callum leaves at nine and has trouble checking in until all his friends go home for dinner. Part of me couldn't be more thrilled about the kind of summer he's having. Twilight games of manhunt, ping pong tournaments, running running all day long. I'll catch glimpses of packs of boys roaming from yard to yard, yesterday it was eight! But he's not as untethered as he thinks. He still needs to put his clothes in the hamper, and his laundry away, and make his bed before he leaves the house. And he can't eat lunch at his friend's house everyday. His little-big-man-ness has never been more apparent.
Like his mother, Callum's a fragile sleeper. He still, at almost ten, wakes at least once a night.
"What if I wake up at five?" He asks.
"Go downstairs and make a bowl of cereal."
"Can I play the Wii?"
"As long as you're quiet."
"What if it's four?"
By now I'm ready for this conversation to be done. "As long as you're quiet."
Last night Neel heard some noise deep in the dark, and he looked out into our unusually well-lit back yard to see Lucy-the-Beagle running the perimiter of the fence line. He knew right away that something was up. (Bear in mind that fragile sleeper that I am, I didn't hear a thing.) He came downstairs to find Callum on the sofa, a bowl of cereal in front of him, a can of seltzer in one hand and the Wii remote in the other. Violet and Thea were blissfully snuggled up with him. It was 4:10 a.m. Callum's first question was, "Was I quiet?"
He's still sleeping now. We were both really proud of him, Neel and I. He let the dogs out on his own and tended to everything quite responsibly. We tucked him in with us and chatted and snuggled for awhile. And this is why summer is so wonderful. He can sleep in, and we can figure it out, how to help him sleep better. I work mostly from home in the summer and everyone is blissed out and happy about this, right down to the dogs.
This is how Lucy and Neel greet each other every evening.
The evenings are the best. I love my work, but it's so nice to not
rush in the door and immediately start thinking about dinner. We take
time and settle in. Dinner simmers instead of boils. As if by one, many of the grillers on the block switched to charcoal. Isn't it funny how things like that work out? It slows things down, that's true, but you know, I don't mind.
We grilled teriyaki-and-ginger chicken sausage and pineapple, and I sauteed some squash and zucchini from the farmer's market for some pasta. See that drip of cream on my bowl? Don't you just want to swipe that up with your finger? It was gone as soon as I put the camera down!
After dinner we crossed the street to check on Callum who was right back at it in a neighbor's back yard. We ended the evening sharing a bottle of wine and some amazing dark chocolate (bunnies!) and some good conversation with these neighbors and friends. David said it, that the impromptu gatherings were the best, and he's right. We sat around their kitchen island as the big boys played lacrosse in the backyard and little-big William (he's three) brought us lightening bugs, one-by-one to see. Lightening bugs? Fireflys? Di and I like firefly, and Will opted for "firebug," and as the three of us walked home, I thought, "It's Tuesday." Plain old Tuesday.
Somewhere, on some blog I read recently (I'll have to dig around and find it.) the author asked if there was a place that was special to you that you vacationed as a kid with your family that you take your kids to now. A place that's special for you to bring your kids to. I don't have places like that. There weren't regular vacation places in my family. No mountain cabin or lake or beach house. But last night, as I was walking back home, I thought that place is summertime.