bluerainroom

we had grilled cheese

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.

work day

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.

beach day, busted

When we got to the beach yesterday, it looked like this.  Time to punt. 

Fortunately we were near Catherine's parents' house, and they were generous enough to allow four chilly rug-rats and their equally chilly moms to come and hang out.

I love this place.  It's where Catherine grew up, and I learned yesterday that her mom grew up here too.  Callum and I'd come once before, before Catherine's son Elliot was born, and we've been trying to get back ever since!  See the doggies welcoming us?

The pool, of course is a big draw, with everything from a slide to a diving board and lots of toys, but it's the setting that makes this place such an oasis. 

The gardens wind around the house, down to the water.

Secret paths lead to secret spots.

That hidden bench is at a neighbors, but it looks like a place you could sit for a spot of shady rest, doesn't it?

The weather was chilly and gray, but the sound of our kids' laughter was bright... although that might have been the chattering teeth, I'm not quite sure. 

freedom from want

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.

Independent

(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.

no pictures, but a nice evening

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.

beat

Too. pooped. to. post.  Will. write. soon. xoxo.

stay-cation, then vacation

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!

Father's Day, 2009

He's a pretty great dad, you know.  And I, having had a pretty great dad myself, have exceptionally high standards.

So we put him to work!  Actually, this kind of work Neel likes.  Our friends Tracy and Mark live in this amazing house on a river and they offered for us to come and canoe for Father's Day.  I jumped, because canoeing is right up Neel's alley.  He's been dying to get on the water with Callum.  It's criminal that we haven't taken advantage of all the water that surrounds us, but today we tried to change that.

And off they went!

We had an appreciative audience, both in the water...

and out.

 Of course, right as they got out of sight the wind kicked up like nobody's business.  Callum was a great bowman, but he provided no ballast.  Neel laughed when he saw this picture, "No wonder we were getting blown all over the place.  Half the bow is out of the water!"  Of course that was after they made it back home.  It was windy enough that he on the water, and I on the dock were both a bit worried about how they were going to make it back at all.

So much for my my ride.  We pulled the plug on the canoeing after that.  For now at least.  Perhaps the best part is knowing we can come to paddle another day.  Happy Father's Day, dearest of men, best of dads.  Callum and I both are lucky to have you.

it's still nice here

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.