rattle and roll

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  Ikeadoor What happens when I get here for the first time in three years?

The earth moves.

My friend Rebecca and I drove three hours to an Ikea in Northern Virginia yesterday filled with lists and plans and excitement. It was, as you probably know about Ikea, overwhelming. We'd been there about three more hours and had just decided to have lunch and make some informed decisions about our purchases when the earthquake hit. I lived on the West Coast for a number of years so I pretty much knew right away what was happening. Still, it was a pretty sharp jolt. My first thought (you know what a maze Ikea can be) was "Where the heck are we? Are we above ground or underground?" And as another nod to my years in San Diego, as soon as the ground stopped shaking, I was ready to go back to shopping.

Not so Ikea. They evacuated us for the next three hours (longer, might I add, than the White House or the Pentagon), but there was no way that Rebecca and I were leaving without our stuff! When they let us back in at 5 p.m., we hightailed it through the warehouse to finish shopping and make the long trek home.

Right after it happened, we stood outside Ikea and tried to make contact with the rest of our family who was spending the day together at Busch Gardens. Guess where Callum and Rebecca's husband were when the earthquake hit?

Coaster

They never felt a thing.

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I am not a street photographer

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Asheville (1 of 13) We stopped in Asheville, NC on our way to visit Neel's family in Atlanta earlier this month. Callum calls it Hippy-town. He's probably right, but he should have seen our college campus!

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Dogsasheville One night in this fun and funky town is not nearly enough. I was reminded as we walked down town looking at hippies for a place for dinner, that site-seeing and street photography are two entirely different things.

Asheville (5 of 13) my feet, reflected

Asheville (6 of 13) true sign of the south

Asheville (7 of 13) I imagine that to do street photography right, you need to not have a hungry husband and 11 year old tagging along. I saw so much I wanted to stop and savor with my camera. I wanted to take time.

Asheville (4 of 13) We were hungry. Not just Callum and Neel, but me too. So! Many! Choices! After passing The Southern (pictured above) and heading down the street to read menus outside Indian restaurants, American cafes and French Bistros (Bon Appetite, y'all!), we ended up right back here. When in Rome, y'all.

Asheville (9 of 13) Here we are from the inside/outside. After days and days of 90-100 degree heat, it was dreamy to sit outside in coolish air.

Funnyfaceasheville From street photography to portraiture, Callum and Neel practice their "camera-ready" smile.

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Asheville (11 of 13) French 75 and some awesome beer that Neel loved for us to drink. Homemade pretzels and chutneys to dip, but why oh why did I not take a picture of Neel's chicken and waffles? Hello. That was yum. Even though I had pimento cheese crostini, we all decided that his dinner won. If I can get the chicken sausage gravy figured out, we're totally adding that to the rotation. Even if not.

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Asheville (13 of 13) Callum and I went for ice cream after dinner. He had his usual: cookie dough. Mine, you ask? Brown sugar bacon maple. Yeah, it was good. After I had that puppy in my hands I was too busy eating to take more pictures. So it clearly is one or the other. I want to go back for more.

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five things, august 19 edition

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Submerged 1. I think late summer is here if I'm checking Weather Underground every day.
2. I think I want to make chicken and waffles really, really soon. As soon as Callum (brace-face) can chew food again. Chicken-sausage gravy, hmmmm.
3. And yet, I think I need to bumb up my cooking mojo. Time for a trip to the farmers market to get inspired.
4. I think I'm feeling better. While not perfect, this was a pretty darn good week.
5. I think we're going to submerge ourselves in fun for this last (sigh) week of summer.

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all politics are local

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Localpolitics-6 This is Callum with our friend, Evans. His Excellency. Last night, Evans hosted a meet-and-greet for our new state senator, Ralph Northam. New to us because of recent redistricting. Neel's been following this guy for awhile because he's a physican affiliated with the medical school where he teaches.

Localpolitics-7 Senator Northam is great, and I'm thrilled that he represents us now. He gets it that things won't get done on either side of the aisle, but across the aisle. I'm looking forward to voting for him in November.

It was a great back yard, neighborhood event. Some local brew, some wraps (best wrap I've ever had, by the way) from a local restaurant and a nice crowd. Young people (younger than me!) who care about their city and the future of their country too. That's nice to see.

Localpolitics-5 Politicians were thick on the ground. Here's Callum with Paul Fraim, the mayor of Norfolk. He's a nice guy. It was said last night that he's been encouraged to get involved on a state level, but he chooses to stay here, taking care of our city. I appreicate that.

And how's this....

Localpolitics-1 Callum and Senator Mark Warner! This is a good Virginia guy. We all felt honored to meet him. I'm not going to get all political. I've been pretty irritated this summer. But I like this guy. I like Mayor Fraim and Senator Northam, and I'm grateful for the work they're willing to do.

Neel even asked Senator Warner to not forget funding the NIH.

Localpolitics-3 He said, "Of course...!"

Holy MOLY, what a summer Callum has had. Braces! Hanging with a circuit court judge! And now meeting our mayor, state and U.S. Senators! How can 6th grade compete?!

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blue

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Ov_pier I've been feeling a little blue lately. Nothing major, just sensing summer's end, I think. No matter how ready I am for autumn, I grieve the passing of the lazy days and worry that we've wasted them some how. Just under two weeks until school starts up again. Callum doesn't want to be reminded. Time speeds up, doesn't it?

So we'll try to make the most of it and head to the pool and the beach and the amusement park and also gear up for birthdays and sixth grade, and I'll try not to get too sniffly over it all. I know I haven't been around much lately, and honestly, in these next weeks I can't promise much more. I'll get some photos downloaded, and we'll see how it goes. xo

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five things, august 12 edition

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Chairs_on_pier 1. I think it's good to be home. We took our lone trip of the summer deeper south to visit family last week and had a great time. Callum got to hang with his cousin and his grandparents; I got a spa day with my sister-in-law; and (miracle of miracles) Neel, Callum and I all got along famously. No arguments, no sniping, just a lot of fun. At two times during the trip I had to witness families get into crazy screaming matches near me, and it made me so grateful for my own family. Even given the bumps we've had this summer, we take care of each other. We're not screaming at each other in the middle of Centennial Park. We don't need to have security called on each other. We have fun.
2. I think this trip stirred up a lot of things for me however, that I'm going to need to spend some time processing. It feels tender, so I'm not sure I'm ready to do it here, but I probably will.
3. I think we need to go white water rafting again soon.
4. I think work is getting ready to kick in again for me in the near future, and I have a list of things I want to do before then. I'm wondering if I should post that list here.
5. I think my friend and neighbor Tyler has it right. Any time any of us in the 'hood goes away, he'll say, "Man, taking a trip is fun, but it sure is better to come back home." We'll be settling in today. All those lovely chores like the grocery store and laundry. It's all good. We're home.

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five things, august 5 edition

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Ov pier 1. I think it's pretty beautiful where I live.
2. I think this week has been hard. Lots of heat, lots of headaches, lots of parenting struggles and lots of worry in the world. I'm ready for a shift.
3. I think Neel got some pretty amazing news over the weekend. When my brain isn't so mushy, I'll spend some time here in praise of our country and the NIH.
4. I think I had some good stuff happen this week too. I like my job a lot.
5. I think I'm outta here for the next few days. I could use a break (still). Catch you sometime next Friday.

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doldrums

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Selma's_Shop-13-1 I'm in a bit of a funk this week, I think. Nothing terrible. But my head hurts, and we're in a parenting rough patch, and it seems like there's a lot to do. And it's hot. Death by 1,000 paper cuts. August is hard every year, and this year is no different.

I have two card's full of pictures to download and a ton of others to edit. I should get cracking.

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cooking with grandma

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Funkydinner
We started cleaning out our attic yesterday. Backbreaking work. You should have seen the place. And you will, pretty soonish. Before and afters. We have big plans for that room. We cranked the AC, and moved and sorted, and Neel used the shop-vac on the dirtiest bits. There were a lot of those. It was a perfect day to get into a project like that, gray and rainy, and cool in the deep dark of the house. We ordered in for lunch. There's still a lot to do, but when we got to a stopping place and looked around it was already five.

In my infinite wisdom, I decided that I wanted lettuce wraps and hot and sour soup for dinner. Why, oh why did I not just throw something on the grill? Why didn't we order out again? Why didn't we have breakfast for dinner, which I can make blindfolded and standing on my head? No. I wanted Asian and labor intensive. The soup takes a bajillion ingredients and a million steps. The lettuce wraps take 100,000 ingredients and 10,000 steps. All at once. What was I thinking? Boiling soup makes the kitchen hot. Boiling rice makes the kitchen hot. A hot wok makes the kitchen hot.

The funny thing, and I'm not sure why it's funny, is that the whole time I was cooking, I thought about my Grandma Mercedes. My mom's mom. I wrote about her here, a long time ago. As I mentioned then, Grandma was an amazing cook and baker, the kind of intuitive in the kitchen who could taste a dish and list its ingredients for you. She made simple foods, good basic cooking. Corn pudding. Hot chicken salad. Pie crust to die for. Even though she loved Chinese food, she didn't really make it, so it seemed funny to think about her while stirring my hot and sour soup. But when I tasted the special sauce for my lettuce wraps and I wasn't quite right, I thought about her. When I tasted the filling for the lettuce wraps and felt like they needed more...something, well, I thought about her then too. The soup was a surprise. I hadn't made it before, and while it wasn't quite what we'd order at Number Seven down the street, or even PF Changs, it was still hot and sour soup. I think she would have liked it.

We watched A Few Good Men (the clean TV version -  Callum's been in to courtroom drama since he hung out with the judge a few weeks back) while we ate dinner, and I was too tired to go find my camera to take a picture for this post. I just reached behind me for my phone where it sat on the sofa. That's all I could handle. We're all still tired today, but yesterday was good.

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five things, july 29 edition

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Cherries (1 of 1) 1. I think the dog days are upon us with crazy heat and crazy storms. It's been exciting, but is it any wonder that I still am thinking about fall? It doesn't help that the Boden catalog came yesterday. So. Much. To. Love. Sigh...
2. I think I'm so glad football is back on, but I think I'm enjoying this free-agency frenzy almost more than I enjoy the games. I might need a job in the front office.
3. I think we still have a lot left to do this summer. It's good we still have some time left.
4. I think Callum and I have a big project ahead of us, an exciting one that I'll document in the next little bit.
5. I think I've been thinking about memory a lot. After writing this post, my friend Sarah's comments on her own memories about our vacation together helped me remember more and more about that trip. It was nice to reminisce, even if it was over the internet! When writing the Little House series, Laura Ingalls Wilder (and I'm paraphrasing here, from memory of all things!) spoke about how she would let her mind drift back to a memory and let it sit there awhile and more and more details about the event would spring into her consciousness. That's definitely what happened to me, along with Sarah's help, when I thought about that trip. I'll tell you more about it next week, perhaps.

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time out

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IMG_7904 Isn't this a pretty picture. And funny too, considering that the heat index on Friday was 125! My dad is visiting this weekend, and last night as we were watching a movie and I could see the lightening flashing all around us, I remembered that the last time he was here that happened. Yeah, that snowfall. I looked out the same windows and saw flakes swirling instead of flashes of purple and blue. Funny how that works.

In the meantime we're staying busy cooking and eating and shopping waiting for the lockout to end and maybe shopping for a new car which is both yay and ugh, but I think I need to take a couple days. I'll be back before the end of the week.

And this picture notwithstanding, I am thinking about fall. Lots of italics in the post today.

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the air out there

Oceanair-1 The summer between my freshman and sophomore years in college my friend Sarah and I drove to Charleston, South Carolina to stay with some friends of hers from school. Charleston has always been one of my very favorite places in the world. It still is. I'd spent many childhood summer vacations at the beach at Isle of Palms, and it felt neat to go back there on our own. We planned to spend the first part of the visit with Sarah's friends and the second part at the beach hotel where my family had spent many a week. We felt very grown up. We were nineteen.

Oceanair-2 We had so much fun. I don't even remember all that we did. We rode in cars. We went to the beach. We watched movies. It was hot. Sarah's friend had an older brother, and he hung out with us too. That was cool. I don't even remember the friend's name. Was it Liz? All I know is that when I read this book it was Sarah's friend's house that I had in my mind when I pictured the main character's house in Charleston. One night, we all went to dinner at an awesome Greek restaurant (And somehow I was still stunned to see that people really live at the beach, with strip malls and restaurants where you can order stuff other than fried shrimp.). When we came out after dinner, it was hot. Lowcountry, South Carolina hot. The sky was hazy from the humidity, the sea gulls (in the parking lot!) were keening, and there was that particular tang in the air that comes only when you are close to the sea. I felt so full and wonderful that night. I'd eaten an ethnic meal, bravely ordering new food for the first time. I'd shared that meal with a group of boys and girls and we'd talked of things without devolving into giggles and iced tea-laden snorts. I wasn't shy. I'd held my own. I was on the cusp of growing up, and right then, growing up felt good. And there, outside of it all, was the smell of the sea. I remember looking up at the street light and thinking that I would give just about anything to be able to smell that particular hot-salt smell anytime I stepped outside.

Oceanair-3 Here in the Tidewater, we're moving into the hottest days of the year by far. On Friday the actual high is supposed to be 100 degrees. Yikes! Most evenings after dinner, Neel and I can sit outside in the front yard, but I'm not sure I can manage 100 degrees. Last week, during a preview of these upcoming hot days (I think the high was 92), I had a cocktail with an old friend one evening after dinner. Afterwards, as I was coming in from the driveway, I got out of the car, stood there for a moment before going into the house, and I breathed deep. There it was. That hot, salt water tang. The smell of the air by the sea. We live near the ocean, but not all that close. Our drive for our beach days is measured in car minutes, not walking minutes, but nonetheless the sea is there. Just around the bend from me. The little gray house and our neighborhood is bookended by rivers instead of the ocean. Our down-the block river is salty and tidal, and we are in lowcountry of our own. The smells when I step outside can range from brackish to tangy. This morning, as Neel and I took a walk together, we watched the sun rise over the river, and it smelled more like river than anything else. But more often than not, it's there. The heat and haze. That salt-water sense.

And that night last week, in the gathering twilight as I stood next to my white-hot car, was the first time that it really, really dawned on me that my dream had come true.

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one

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0711_MargaretPostonBirthday84 Today is my friend Rebecca's birthday, and I thought I'd celebrate by sharing the celebration of a special little lady in Rebecca's life.

Remember this baby? She turned one this month! A whole year on the planet!

0711MargaretBirthdayduo2-1 Such a gorgeous girl deserves a great party and her parents did a great job obliging. What better way to celebrate a summer birthday than with a pool party? I can't think of one.

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0711_MargaretPostonBirthday6 Another happy family...I know Margaret's birthday was a happy one. Hope yours is too, Momma.

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wedded

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  0711_BenAmyWedding2 My friend Ben got marriend this weekend. It was a perfect, unexpectedly lovely summer weekend here in the Tidewater of Virginia. Temperatures in the low 80s with low humidity. Unheard of in the middle of July. Perfect for a ceremony on the beach.

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0711_BenAmyWedding7 For the years that I worked at Callum's school (the old school), Ben and I worked together. He was the Athletic Director, and our offices were next to each other. We talked sports (even though he's Big Ten and I'm SEC), swapped stories and commiserated daily. When it got rough, our offices, which were removed from the rest of the campus, were an oasis  of sorts. It was still fun down there. My office bordered the gym, and when I had migraines, Ben would tell his classes to be quiet. We were buds. We left our jobs there at the same time, and even now, a year later, I miss hanging with him every day.

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0711_BenAmyWedding37 Ben met Amy at the same school where she was a teacher; Callum's teacher at the time! Their first date was our annual holiday party! You can imagine how much fun we all had with that! Here she is walking toward the ceremony tent with her dad. She looked beautiful. Everybody did. And so happy too. Halfway through the ceremony her dad started to cry...it was such a sweet moment.

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0711_BenAmyWedding54 They shared the ceremony with their son, Jacob (Of course Callum had to ask if I was crying! Thank goodness for sunglasses!), and that was the most moving part. I guess you could say technically Ben is Jacob's step-father, but not really. When he fell for Amy, he fell for Jacob too, and this ceremony only made official what I know was already deeply true for them. (And believe me, I know Ben will roll his eyes at these sentimental words. I do know him pretty well, after all. I'm allowed to be sentimental though. It's how I feel, and even if he won't say it, I bet it's how he feels too...)

0711_BenAmyWedding76 It was a perfect beachy wedding for this beach-loving family. Casual and fun from the minute you walked in the door. The invitations called it "Beach Chic," describing the dress code as "shorts, barefeet and flip flops are okay."

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0711_BenAmyWedding120 After the ceremony we celebrated with a beach party: rafts in the water, kids swimming, folks playing cornhole in the sand. All that with great food and music. Like I said, a perfect celebration that suited this family perfectly.

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Ben's mom caught the boquet!

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Happy couple. Happy family.

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five things, july 15 edition

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Callum_braces-17 1. I think it was as big and good a week for him as we thought.
2. I think I'm enjoying a book my friend Jean gave me called The Happiness Project. You should check it out.
3. I think I want to do some more reflective writing. I've been thinking about that a lot lately.
4. I think since everyone else is doing it (I'm looking at you Mark.) , and since I need to, I'm going to start getting rid of a certain amount of clutter each week. Ten items? Five? Twelve? What do you think?
5. I think I thought it would be worse than it was, and that he'd look more different than he does. But I think he looks great, and it's all going to be good.

Callum_braces-25 Braces!

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honored

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Callum_courtday-2 I told you Callum had a big week coming up. Wearing a tie (that he tied himself) during summer vacation should certainly qualify, yes? So here's why he got so dressed up on a hot summer day. Our dear friend Evans's (husband to Nurse Rebecca) dad is a local judge, and a few months ago when the judge learned that Callum had read and loved John Grisham's new books for kids, he offered for Callum to come and spend the day with him at the court house! Yeeeeeee! Neel and I were beside ourselves with glee and envy. I mean I didn't watch all those seasons of LA Law just to see Jimmy Smits. And don't get me wrong, Callum was excited too. I just don't think he quite got how big a deal and how cool this offer was.

So after much negotiation of schedules, Callum made plans to meet with the judge on Tuesday this week and then again tomorrow too. We dropped him off at the courthouse (criminal to the right and civil to the left) where the judge had plans to take him to lunch along with his (the judge's not Callum's) law clerk. After lunch, Callum would spend the afternoon observing the mental health docket. Gulp. Callum was nervous waiting in the lobby so we played some half-hearted games of tic-tac-toe, and when they stepped off the elevator, there was not just one judge, but three!

Callum_judge-2 What a day! Everyone was so kind and helpful and interested in him. He got to sit in on the mental health meeting and then watch the court proceedings for each case. His favorite was when a man who'd been imprisoned for kidnapping was set free based on new information that he was not guilty. He saw deeds for the city dating back to the 1800s. He asked questions about the cases he saw and the law in general. Were there some boring moments? Yeah, sitting around and waiting, but that didn't last long. His favorite part? Maybe lunch (a cheeseburger and coke!), but really seeing the court in session. On Friday, the judge will pick Callum up on his way into work for sentencing day. Now that should be interesting.

We were invited, Neel and I. And oh sure, we wanted to go. But this was Callum's deal. His gig. His own experience, not ours. We wanted him to have it on his own. In one of the emails in the flurry going back and forth between Neel and the judge to set up scheduling, Neel said how much we appreciated Callum having many different positive role models in his life. On Tuesday, Callum asked the judge if he felt bad if the jury found someone innocent when he thinks they're guilty. The judge said sure, but it's worse to see someone innocent found guilty for something they didn't do. That sounds like a good role model to me.

Have I ever mentioned that I went into labor with Callum while I was watching a Law & Order marathon on A&E? We'll be renting some of those for sure.

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house love

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Diningroom-1 It's been a whirl of gaiety around these parts lately. My mom was here for nearly a week, and just as she left we geared up for some dinners out and dinners in. The dog hair is driving me crazy. Just as I thought we were on a downswing, it's as if the girls have started shedding again. There's no keeping up with it. We had some new-ish friends for dinner on Saturday, and when we have company the girls go into their crates on the sunporch. I mentioned the dogs to Beth, the wife of the couple who came to dinner, and she was stunned to hear we even had dogs. In my head I did a HUGE fist pump in victory over the dog hair. By Sunday we needed to vacuum again. But on Saturday night things looked good.

I am in full-on house love right now. Sort of. There's so much I want to do here in the little gray house. Indoors and out. But this space feels good. Summer vacation is so good for helping me feel on top of things (like the dog hair, and the dusting...). The living room still eludes me. Upholstering may be more trouble than it's worth, but I'm not sure how much longer I can stand to look at our not chic-ly shabby furniture. And remember that long list of things that I mentioned wanting? It includes new dining room chairs too. Still, it feels good in here.

Neel's working on the back patio. I'll post some pictures of his progress here really soon. He has a rhythm where every Saturday morning, first thing, he heads to Lowe's to buy concrete. He pours four pads each weekend, and lets them sit through the week. The following weekend he pops the pads out of their molds (using the broken ones to line a path) and starts all over again. Slowly, slowly a patio is growing.

Since I'm on a France Mayes kick these days (I re-read her books every few years, and summer more than any other time seems to be the time I dive in to ex-pat/house love/culture shock memoir.), I've decided that I want a long, rustic table for the patio. A table for parties (we want to have more parties) and dinners and lingering in the summer evening light. Neel thinks he can make that too. And Callum, bless his heart, has decided that rather than a party at Go-Kart world, or even Great Wolf Lodge, all he wants for his 12th birthday is a neighborhood cookout. I love that about him. He's happiest here, surrounded by his neighborhood family, grown-ups and kids alike. We have a little time to prepare, but the patio (and table?) will need to be ready for that.

So it feels good in here, and the order is part of that. When I was 14, my family traveled to London for our summer vacation. After we came back, I had a cigar-type box in which I kept a few souvenirs. Some British pounds, subway tokens, museum ticket stubs, playbills...that kind of thing. As appealing to me as looking at each individual thing I kept in that box was the satisfying order of the items in the box itself. I like order. I'm just not so good at it.

I've made a commitment to myself to just knuckle down and make the bed every single day. It's not at all hard...just sometimes hard to get around to. It's made such a difference. Like the order of that made bed filters down to the whole house. Neel and I were sitting in the front yard having a chat yesterday afternoon and some friends-of-friends walked by with their daughter. Our house is pretty fetching from the outside (I can say that because I just bought the place, I didn't build it!), and the wife of this couple was so sweet and admiring about it. I suggested that she come in and take a look around (knowing that I'd fought the dog hair and won, just the day before), and it felt really nice just to offer my sweet home up and show it off to this near stranger. I think it was the made bed that made me unafraid to do that. We even went upstairs!

I'm not going say there isn't clutter around. There's a pile of junk by the phone that never goes away. Right now there are placemats drying on the counter in the kitchen hallway. Once when being invited for the first time into the house of a woman I much love and admire, she explained the folded laundry on the dining room table by saying, "We live in our house." I quite like that. It's not a show place here. We live in our house. But I'm gaining order. I'm finding balance. It feels good in here.

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