Miscellany

It’s been a long while since I’ve been here, y’all.

Oliver graduated from 4th grade, and we enjoyed our eighth annual family trip to Wrightsville Beach with Tom’s parents, brother, sister-in-law, and their darling girls.
Children are dying under pathetically inattentive, cruel “protective” custody on our southern border.
Trump is flirting with bombing Iran. His base is enabling his insane idiocy and excusing his many assaults.
Yet another has credibly accused Trump of assault -this time of RAPE.
I leave on Thursday to move the boys to summer camp, and I fly home on Saturday to commence six weeks without them.
Tom is soon to start a new job so we’re not traveling this summer.
Instead we are renovating our dining and family rooms and relearning how to rest and relax.
Nutmeg still doesn’t like Ruthie, but she is holding her own, and things are slightly better between them.
I have wonderful new writing students and last week taught a fun, energetic Canning 101 class.
I am deeply worried about and appalled by much of America.
Tom and I are driving to Brooklyn on Sunday in further pursuit of my passion for midcentury modern, Scandinavian-inspired design.
The fireflies are out, and my blackberry bush is thriving, and the orange calla lily I planted with hope two Junes ago is blooming magnificently.
It is PRIDE month, and love is love, and let’s just cheer that!
Today is Bourdain Day, and I miss the light that Anthony Bourdain was in the world, and I hate that depression lies so believably to so many.
I am so very tired, so very worried, and have so many books I hope I get through this summer.

In the meantime, I am thinking about connection and trust, relationships and self-protection. I am thinking of how wonderfully connective vulnerability and gratitude can be, and yet how exposed such porous borders can render us.

Here’s to peace and goodness, faith and the best of the unknown. Here’s to six weeks unplugged and in nature, to New York City and loving cats, to friends and also boundaries, and to the ways that appreciation and trust can make life richer.

Ol is ten, Roux is Ruthie, NZ's PM shows real leadership, and away we go

My baby turned 10 this past Sunday; both boys in double digits now, and soon, Jack will be a teenager. This year, Oliver wanted a cake that pulled together much of him: our cats, St. Patrick’s Day, his love of boxes and Star Wars. And so I crafted cats from fondant, and made a square layer cake, and frosted it green and decorated with tiny gold shamrock-bedecked coins, and topped it with a cool banner I ordered from Etsy. He loved it, and I am glad.

Ol’s 10th birthday cake

my darling boy

Jack has spent this week at the Green Bank Observatory in West Virginia on a space research trip he applied for through school. He and his group have been taught how to use the 40-foot steerable radio telescope to collect data, got to meet NPR’s Ira Flatow and hear his presentation as he was being honored with an award, and even visit Polyface Farm in Virginia. I have always wanted to go to Polyface and cannot believe the remarkable educational opportunities the boys’ school provides. I am exceedingly grateful. Two of Jack’s science teachers are chaperoning this trip, and while they have little connectivity in Green Bank, we’ve gotten some updates and it sounds like the trip has been incredible. They return home today.

As it turns out, Roux has gone completely by the wayside and even Tom is calling our new cat Ruthie. She is such a spritely, darling little peanut, and it just fits perfectly. Do y’all know that she chirps like a bird? It is priceless. Little chirpy trills emanate from her all day.

Nutmeg is still not interested in being her friend, but he’s calming down, and I think they’ll find their way.

The horrific attack on two mosques in New Zealand has been hard to ingest. But I am grateful for the leadership the Kiwis have in PM Jacinda Ardern. Did you see she has already announced a country-wide ban on military-style semi-automatic weapons and assault rifles? She has also enacted a buy-back program: “‘the government will create a buy-back program to pay owners "fair and reasonable compensation," which she estimated could cost the country between $100 million and $200 million. She said the guns will eventually be destroyed. She said no one will be prosecuted over any weapons they turn in. "Amnesty applies. We just want the guns back.’“

Not a week later, and NZ takes decisive action to protect its citizens. What inspiring leadership. If only we could see such leadership here.

Tomorrow commences spring break, and we are lucky to be heading to Paris. It will be so nice to get out of town, out of country, out of context for a bit. Y’all keep your fingers crossed our housesitter doesn’t need to mediate any feline mayhem.

Sunday/Superbowl/Stream

Parenting is constant and tiring and unlikeable at times. Add a slumber party into the mix, and I guarantee you’ll want to run.
The Patriots did, by most accounts, cheat during DeflateGate and maybe have again since, but are, objectively, an exceptionally amazing team, and Tom Brady, while likely insufferable IRL, is a bot-like specimen that sort of proves Malcolm Gladwell’s point about practicing things tens of thousands of times and being committed and steadfast. One must admire his athleticism, mental fortitude, and talent. One need not admire Belichick’s attire.
The Saints were robbed by an extremely horrible call. Shoulda been Saints-Pats.
donald trump is a deeply horrible person who lies more than he breathes and is an abject, disgraceful blotch on America. I truly loathe him.
Maroon 5 needs to go away. Does Adam Levine actually play the guitar, or does he just wear it around his neck like an accessory? I ask because his looks extremely undersized. I don’t understand the tank he wore during the SB halftime. I dislike tattoos.
Ralph Northam needed to resign two days ago. NO ONE in 1984 should have been in blackface and they MOST DEFINITELY should not have donned KKK robes.
Thank GOD I have a cat. I often like him best of all things.
It is utterly dismaying that rabid pro-life arguers will rear their vitriolic heads once again in 2020. Sigh.
I folded and ordered an InstantPot yesterday.
Last week, while volunteering at World Central Kitchen, I got to briefly speak to the indomitable Nancy Pelosi. I thanked her SO profusely for everything. I later watched the RBG documentary (fabulous) and ordered an XL “I Dissent” RBG collar necklace. I love men, but you know what, now is the time for women and our leadership and our voices. The ship is listing. Let others try.

NANCY!