The inaugural photo shoot in 2019
2020, during semi-lockdown. I overheard Eve on the phone with Jackson saying "well you can go in Marianna's if you want, but I feel like that's the most infectious car".
2021
2022
2023
This year
No Climbing On the Pumpkins
My all-time favourite pic (from 2020)
Eve came home! We had Thanksgiving dinner! Then Davis came home, and Jackson came over, and then I took Eve and Davis and Jackson to the pumpkin patch for the annual Pumpkin Patch Photo Shoot and Pumpkin Selection for Painting (missing Marianna and Alison, but we do what we can). Then we had a second Thanksgiving dinner at Davis's! This stream of days has bestowed gift after gift.
Friday while Eve was en route home on the train I went to a massage therapy appointment with a woman recommended highly by Collette (HI COLLETTE). I have left side neck pain that's been an issue for over a year now, and veers between bad and agonizing. Sometimes I kind of forget about it and then realize that I am extra cranky or feeling depressed, and then I realize I'm just in pain. I've done physio, I've done yoga, I've tried various painkillers, I stretch every night, and nothing makes a dent. I have started trying to settle into just living with it, but Ruth is adamant that we will achieve significant improvement if not complete cure, and I am cautiously optimistic.
Generally with Thanksgiving and Christmas dinner, Matt cooks the turkey, I do biscuits and roasted Brussels sprouts or something and my parents do stuffing and potatoes and bring them over. I am responsible for ninety percent of the cooking in our house, but I've just never done turkey. A few years ago things were super busy and we ordered the Farm Boy ready-to-cook Thanksgiving dinner and it was perfect - delicious and easy. This year Matt was going to be away, so we ordered it again. Then we realized Matt would be home for two days between Spain and Arizona, and if we ate on Saturday he would be here, so we switched the pick-up date to Saturday. We could technically have cooked, but this way Matt had a nap while I put in the turkey (upside-down - I'm serious when I say I just don't do turkey), the kitchen was completely clean with a neat line of dishes ready to go in the oven at their assigned times, and then my parents came over and it was perfect - good food, some wine, some Poetry for Neanderthals. We missed Angus but he texted and was tired from going out with work friends, so he is doing well - is it weird to be happy that your son is slightly hung over? Probably.
Sunday Matt left early and Eve and I slept in. It was grey and we were moving slowly. I read more Don Quixote (66% done), and Eve worked on a graphical abstract for her virology class. Then the sun came out and I offered to induct her into the Cool Bloggers Walking Club, and we took Lucy out. I took a shower and read a bit more, then felt kind of headachey and sleepy. I laid down on my bed with a fuzzy blanket over me and Lucy came and snuggled up and it was one of those perfect half-naps where it was finally cold enough that I enjoyed being warm, and I was sort of asleep and sort of not, and I heard Eve leave and then come back with Jackson, and I didn't have to get up yet because I had gotten all the taco stuff ready for them in the afternoon. Then I got up to hang out with them.
This year was sunny
And windy
We take a million pictures (forthcoming) and then they pick pumpkins to decorate and we buy fruit and vegetables and candy apples - there was one year where it looked like there were only enough candy apples left for us, and they took them even though the kid behind them in line wanted one. It turned out there were more in the back, but now they invariably bring up that time they stole candy apples from children. All's fair in love and candy apples, I guess.
We usually come back to our house to paint the pumpkins after the pumpkin patch, but Jody was doing Thanksgiving dinner Monday night because Davis just got home Sunday night, so she invited us for dinner and we brought the pumpkins back here for them to paint tonight. This dinner was a cooking-all-the-things, chaotic, bumping into each other in the kitchen kind of dinner, and it was really nice to experience both. Jody's dad was there, and at one point after I told her husband that his apple cheesecake loaf was fucking delicious, I checked myself and said "how does your dad feel about swearing?" and she said "well he raised me", so whew.
Somehow they had ended up with no dessert, which was fine, but I had to get gas anyway so we went into the Quickie to see if there was anything not-quite-appropriate.
Score.
Davis grabbed a couple bottles of wine, and then when we were back in the car we realized the red wine was zero sugar wine for diabetics, so we swung by our house to grab the Chianti we had just opened the day before.
I think if my sister and her family don't come for Christmas (my niece is in the UK so it makes sense that she won't want to get in the car and drive six hours when she's home) I will invite friends over for Christmas dinner. I like the noise and warmth of a big crowd at the table.
Eve and Davis are at a cafe doing schoolwork. I just walked Lucy and am about to do some somatic yoga for chronic pain. Happy Tuesday!
Today I didn't feel like doing a whole room or cupboard or even drawer, so I decided to just do a bag. I have a (bad?) habit of cleaning up a place and throwing everything I don't immediately know what to do with in a bag to deal with later, then.... not dealing with it until much, much, much, much, MUCH later. Swistle commented on one of these posts that she was feeling inspired by the decluttering, which is funny because HER post about just getting rid of one or two things a day is what inspired me in the first place.
The last bag I emptied was odd and random, but at least had stuff that sort of made sense. The number of old receipts and empty pill bottles in this one was embarrassing (although satisfying because I could just throw them out). When I cleaned out my bottom bathroom drawer I found something mystifyingly called 'face primer' - to be applied to clean and moisturized skin before applying makeup. So, this stuff neither cleans nor moisturizes and is NOT makeup? I am confident this came in one of those little subscription bags Eve and I shared for a while because I would never have bought this weird additional layer of... stuff to put on my face.
This bag had a tiny adorable glass bottle of primer OIL, which, jesus god, even worse. I emptied out the oil, but rinsed out and kept the tiny adorable jar, for obvious reasons I hope.
Day 4 of the Cool Bloggers Walking Club. I did miss the very second day, which could send me on a real spiral but I'm just not going to let it. I had a migraine and a crappy afternoon at work, and it was all I could do to get myself in a cool shower and then to bed. Is there a Cool Bloggers Crawling Club I can join?
Day 3
Day 4
I'm a little annoyed by my hair at the moment. I don't even mean the actual state of it (although that too, a lot of the time), but just... having it. Having this stupid unruly stuff on my head, being aware of it all the time, having to decide if I'm going to wash it, how I'm going to style (ha) it. Yoga makes a lot of things feel better, but my hair is not one of them. The receptionist at my physio place has the most amazing haircut - very very short, salt and pepper, with texturized little sort of swirls everywhere. But she has the face for it, and a British accent, and I sort of feel like I would need both and don't have either.
SPOONS. Suzanne talked about having a dwindling number of teaspoons and a robust number of tablespoons and ME TOO (Suzanne and I twin on so many things, but not mushrooms (?)). I have looked for new flatware a few times, but I am unsurprisingly fairly neurotic about the feel of utensils even more than the look, and I haven't been able to find anything. Jody and I (HI JODY) went to IKEA last week after I texted her that I needed Skogsfrakens and she asked if I was having a stroke. Like spoons, I have very specific pillow needs, and I finally took the pillow off of Eve's bed because she and Davis (Jody's daughter, Eve's BFF) both got Skogsfraken pillows for university and loved them so much they now have them at home and at school and they are surprisingly economical considering the quality - twenty bucks as opposed to the sixty I sometimes end up spending. I had to buy a couple so I could return Eve's to her bed before she comes home for fall break.
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| Eve and Davis <3 |
Anyway, we ended up in the kitchen section and Jody grabbed something and said "want to look at these spoons? Do you have specs in mind?" and I started world-wearily asserting that yes, I had VERY PARTICULAR SPOON NEEDS and there was almost no chance that these spoons would be suitable, and then -- Interjection: when Angus was two and a half and I was pregnant with Eve, he broke his femur and it was terrible. He was just home from the hospital and my parents had come to help, and my mom had made this dessert she makes with pistachio pudding mix and milk and Dream Whip because they said milk would be good for him, but he was still in shock and nauseated and didn't want to eat anything, and I sat down beside him while he was in his beanbag chair and he was yelling "I NOT WANT IT, I NOT WANT IT, I N"--pblt *sound of me shoving a little bit in his mouth*..."I wike it". -- similarly, Jody socked this package of spoons into my hand and I was like ".... I love them."
They have slightly longer handles than is usual, and they have the perfect hand feel, and they make eating yogurt so much more special.
How are your spoons? What's in your bag?
I mistakenly typed double-ws instead of double-rs, which would have been The Knight of the Sowwowful Face, which reminded me of that "mawwiage" scene from The Princess Bride, so now I'm giggling to myself like a psycho.
I have historically not responded to comments on this blog in the comments, because I can't figure out if anyone would actually know that I replied. This is vexing, because I often do want to respond to comments, and I sometimes do in the next post, but this feels sort of awkward. Engie and Sarah respond to comments in the comments, and they are both on Blogger as well, so let it be known that I will hereby BE responding to comments in the comments. If you ask me a question, I will do my best to answer it, but I guess you will have to come back to the comments to see the answer - if that's too big a pain in the butt, no worries at all.
But for now, I will answer some recent questions in this post (mwaha-ha, keeping you on your toes).
To answer Pat B.'s question about the inhaler - yes, I do have a bronchodilating inhaler and a steroid inhaler. It maybe helps a tiny bit. I'm slightly annoyed (only slightly, because I know doctor are overworked and the medical system isn't set up for good continuity of care) that I've had this goddamned cought several times a year for many many years and there seems to be no effort or interest in figuring out what, precisely, is the effing deal. The only thing that quells the cough is a narcotic cough syrup - like this one that my doctor, possibly erroneously, gave me the prodigiously-proportioned bottle of in the winter. If I have this, at least I know I can sleep, but I don't take it in the daytime. I think what's made the most difference this time is that, instead of stopping the cold med (Dayquil) as soon as I could, I kept taking it, in case the decongestant might help. Could a doctor not have suggested this? I guess not. I realize it's not life-threatening or anything, but it has a pretty serious quality-of-life impact.
Enough about the boring cough!
In reply to Engie - Yes, my book club is pretty cool, but I think any book club is cool. People meeting to talk about books? That is cool. People who talk more about other stuff and drink wine and eat cheese and only talk about the book for five minutes? Still cool (we do talk at length about life in general, while also usually talking in some depth about the book). The book club shrinkage of late has been somewhat alarming - one person left to do full-time environmental activism, which is admirable. One person moved to Switzerland for three years, so she could be back. One person left due to a legitimately brutal series of life events that made attending sporadic and difficult. The pandemic made things difficult - Zoom was bad enough, but for book club the only thing everyone had access to was Skype, which was truly terrible. As soon as we could we started meeting outside in backyards and once in the grassy part of a parking lot - I can't remember exactly why, but it worked well enough.
I've been a member of this book club for longer than I've had Angus, who is 24, and it was a book club for at least a few years before that, so it is long-lived, which of course means that people have crap going on. It used to be very unusual for anyone to miss a meeting or show up with the book unread (which is always allowed, you just have to be okay with spoilers). At this point I don't worry too much if I feel like I can't comfortably make it to a meeting. We were eight members for years, and that worked well - each person picked one book, we had one short story night where people contributed stories they had either read or written, we had a dinner in June where people would bring suggestions and we'd nail down the books for the coming year, and take July and August off.
To Maya - Am I enjoying Don Quixote? I am. This translation came highly recommended, and it does seem like a really good translation. By which I mean it is clear and easy to read, whereas one of our members read Tobias Smollett's translation years ago and found it very slow going. Some people seem to believe that this is how it should be. One review of Smollett's translation says "Want DQ in modern English? Don't fool yourself -- you'll never get the same feeling -- DQ is even difficult for Spanish speakers to read!" I understand the desire for authenticity, and when I was younger and more emo I might have felt the need to torture myself in order to feel like I'd had a more genuine experience. At this point? It's 1000 pages either way, and I'm not getting any younger.
Am I LOVING it? Mmm, to be perfectly honest I would have to say no. It's considered the first modern novel, and I've always had the feeling I should read it, beyond the few excerpts I have in university. I have laughed out loud, and I have found certain passages moving and melancholy. I'm enjoying the footnotes about this period of Spanish history. It is very repetitive. I was a bit taken aback in the first bit about how much actual damage was happening to people - teeth knocked out, backs broken, staffs broken over heads - but if you put it in the context of slapstick (and they do all tend to be up and fighting again in short order) it's a little less alarming.
There are a couple of surprisingly proto-feminist episodes, and many unsurprisingly misogynist ones (one 'interpolated novel' where a happily - blissfully, even - married man nevertheless enlists his best friend to pretend to be in love with his wife to test her virtue, though honestly, the woman AND the men come off sort of badly, so maybe it's a wash). So I am enjoying reading, and not having to force myself to pick it up, but it's not quite sweeping me away. There are some classics that I get completely caught up in and can't tear myself away from - Middlemarch, most notably. I don't even love most modern satire, though, so I am not the target audience for this.
First day of Elisabeth's Cool Bloggers Walking Club. I have been trying not to complain about the unseasonably warm weather, but truthfully it's really getting to me. It saps my strength and will. I don't want to be sweaty every time I leave the house anymore. I want to read in my backyard with a blanket. Never mind the wider environmental implications. Anyway, the walk was quite pleasant despite my whining.
Also, I kind of liked my hair yesterday.
First, I completely agree that the airport concierge/babysitter thing was hugely kind and understanding of my husband to put in place. Seco...
