Anthropo(s)cene

At and I found this bird's nest by the bike shed on our walk-and-talk on Monday. It seems quite late anthropocene in style, with bubble wrap woven into its construction! 

Actually, we've had a bit too much nature in the house. Last night we found a bat in our bedroom and then later--(another? the same?) one in the library. We couldn't find them this morning, though. I even doused rooms in mint essential oils and played high-frequency recordings, to no avail. Then as I woke from a nap this evening, I noticed a bat roosting about five feet away from me between two beams. We opened the front door and encouraged it to leave, and it did after endlessly stupid loops all around the living room and kitchen.

Pizzzzzzzzaaaaaaaa

We were all looking forward to Big A's pizza at dinner--handmade, made-from scratch crust, homemade sauce, personalized toppings, and all. But while the kids were showing me a video essay on D.B.Cooper (wild, that!), Big A popped in and sheepishly asked if I could help him with something.

"How do you turn on the oven?" Kind of the cliche-est of man questions, but not really as our oven has a multi-step process involving dials and several buttons--a process I'm liable to forget myself without regular practice. So I started to breezily and oh-so-cockily show him--but umm... nothing. The panel wouldn't respond at all; the ovens just wouldn't turn on. So much for my lady-expertise.

So here we are, all lined up at the counter,  getting ready for Big A's newly-invented, cast-iron griddle fired, stovetop pizza. 

And it was delicious. 

The Other Side

These signs mandating face coverings on MSU's campus (indoors and outdoors!) have just popped up: I'm so happy to see them; I'd be so much happier if all the panting runners and cyclists would wear masks already. 

In other news, while waiting for my 11:00 am meeting to start, I snatched about 40+ minutes to do some work on a writing project and that felt really, really, really good. 

I didn't get a lot done, and I definitely didn't get great work done, but I got started! I'm glad I didn't let the lack of scheduled time or the fact that that the clock wasn't precisely aligned at the top of the hour throw me off (this is a ridiculous but real procrastinating trigger for me and has been since grade school days). A good lesson to remember for tomorrow if our departmental meeting goes on for longer than planned and I have some magic minutes before my noon meeting. 

And I'm getting in some sustaining one-on-one time with the human kids--the alternating walk-talks have hit a rhythm and I watched a couple of good movies--Misery with At the Stephen King fan and Never Let me Go with Nu who at 12 read the Ishiguro novel last month. (Yes, bragging; sorry! Byeee.)

Modality: Baleful

The tiniest member of the family has the most terrifying glare.

(This is because At wouldn't share his Boss Day mint chicken with Huckie Bear anymore.)

Cool Band Album Cover

We packed up a picnic and headed out to Point Betsie Lighthouse for the day. Long drive, gorgeous water.

Scout and Huck got overheated and anxious, so we didn't stay long. But Nu and At--I could (did) look at them all day. They always seem so effortlessly rock chic to me (Nu's light sensitive glasses help).

I've been giving my family's humans bird-motif shirts for years now, so it was only a matter of time before they all arrived downstairs synchronously wearing 'bird shirts.' Big A too (not pictured here as he was looking for a bigger bottle of water for the puppies who'd already slurped up  all we'd brought).

It was a welcome change from our pandemic ordinary, though At and Nu panicked about so many people without masks and wouldn't even go near the water. We saw lots of "Trump 2020" signs and a sign proclaiming "My governor is an idiot." I took some hope from a series of signs that promised "I'm a woman; hear my roar; watch me vote." Yeah.

Teensy Story

Once there was a blanket reading fort in little sibling Nu's room and I said to older sibling At--hey look, how cute, Nu made such a comfy reading fort. 

So At came and looked. And he asked--Am I invited? When Nu moved over, he crawled in and fell asleep until lunchtime with his bony feet sticking out.

LOLOLOL

The End.

Tiny Fan Club

Sad from the book I'm reading--Etaf Rum's A Woman is No Man--and consequently a bit mad at everyone too, BUT THIS IS TOO CUTE!!

Also cute, At asking me if my book was an LOTR spinoff because the title is reminiscent of my favorite Eowyn quote. 

Beautiful Ordinary 1, 2, 3

1. Compared to yesterday,  today's headcount was easier 😊.*

2. Pandemic realization #87654: I've always loved our big, communal family study, but it's a challenge when the foreseeable future holds a lot of overlapping meeting schedules.

3. I was SO proud of bestie KB at our final meeting today as she worked, spoke up, and fought for everyone's wellbeing. We voted on an important resolution that will hopefully make it a bit easier for people to work online without jumping through HR-related hoops.

* A note on how much I love these four and how much I love to see them hanging out together and how blessed I am that At (21) and Nu (12) will find things and shows and games to share across the generational and gender gaps. 

But as a reminder of the real here--the togetherness of this week is brought to you by Big A confiscating the kids' phones into next Tuesday.

How can we know?

Normal is long ago in the past and faraway in the future, but today I was indoors all day with rain and meetings.

Every now and then I could hear my babies and had to trust that there were two human and two puppy kids in the tangle and that they were all kinda doing ok. 

Anti-Capitalist Walk-Talk

It was At's turn to walk with me today, and we ended up in hammocks after 20 or so mins, because it had gotten quite hot again. Our resident socialist was discussing the cultural theorist Mark Fisher, whose chapter titles are whimsical and full of possibility: "What if you held a protest and everyone came?" "It is easier to imagine the end of the world than the end of capitalism."  But I guess I didn't know the jarring reason why Fisher's writing stopped.

And also, I'll confess--my darling boy's Jesus of the Naxalites mien charms and alarms me in almost equal measure and for different reasons.

On the outskirts of the ordinary

In case you can't tell, Nu got really dressed up... to go on a walk... with me... down our own driveway...

For a few minutes this morning, singing along to Lizzo (Juice) and rigging a bath lighting fixture out of things we already had like X-mas ornament hangers(!), I was blissfully happy--until the enormity of everything else stomped through my chest.

Big A has tummy pains that are terrifying in their intensity--I jumped out of the bath yesterday thinking I'd have to take him to the E.R. right away, but he won't go and he won't do alternative remedies like cumin-turmeric water, and he won't make an appointment with his doc. I don't know what to do, frankly.

At has been in a haze--some of it is allergies and allergy meds, but my sweet child has seemed sad, faraway, and unapproachable all day.

Scout has been acting like a puppy, playing tag extra hard and doing puppy things like he hasn't for years--chewing on pillows and running away with people's slippers.

Hucky? Hucky is always just Hucky. My Hucky bear never cares.

Babies w/o Breakfast

The biggest = the saddest.

We're moving to a different online instructional platform at work, and my morning meeting ran late (there are so many morning meetings!!) and according to Big A's phone pic, some of the kids got hungry and anxious for breakfast. 😂

It's gloriously cooler with gray-stormy-gloomy weather outside. I canceled all school-adjacent activities for the 12-year-old, and can hear them cackling with their older sibling over ridiculous videos in the rumpus room now.

Out of the meeting, but deep into the woods of my email and editing...

Making Normal

At and Nu made me tea from the mint they'd harvested and dried last week.

Also, I should confess that I start a "tradition" nearly every other second. Here, the kids had  indulged--reluctantly--my proposition that we do yoga together, so I got them new yoga mats to sweeten the request (they immediately had a 'mat fight' and a 'telescope session' while I tried to save the tea from ending up in our laps; it wasn't zen :).

In the meantime, other incipient 'traditions' from earlier on in this pandemic--bake-alongs, hours-long cousins-zoom-chats, checking in on CF, EM, CC,  KB, JG, and students who cropped up in my head on a weekly (at least) basis have fallen off.

This week's realization is that I'm trying to remake normal or carry on like things are normal when they're patently not. I suspect I'll be back to upholding practices to make things feel less turbulent soon, but in the meantime, let me acknowledge my sad, madcap need to manage a worldwide pandemic.

Food (related) notes

These are the first of At's tomatoes and he has high hopes about serving them with breadcrumbs and mozzarella whenever they he happens to be ready.

I watched a few eps of the new Masterpiece/PBS orientalist fantasy Beecham House--somehow simultaneously overblown and underdone. William Dalrymple is a historical consultant on the show and it's directed by Gurindher Chadha, but despite those two it's really, really bad. I got so irritated almost immediately that the hindi dialogue gets mentioned but not translated e.g., "X speaks in Hindi"--What did he say?! How could it not matter?! Anyway, it inspired "Anglo-Indian" elements at dinner prep time--the peach chutney, ghee toast, and curry-poached cod came together from whatever we needed to use up before our Imperfect Foods box arrives tomorrow and the steamed veg was tongue-in-cheek homage to stereotypical Brit cuisine/me running out of time and imagination.

At dinner, it got us talking about trips to England (especially last year's "Cosmopolitan England" Spring term trip) and all the good meals we've eaten there (some straight out of Sainsbury's). I miss travel.

Who's petting whom?

At sent this selfie to family chat claiming Scout was asking for pets, but the picture shows it was Scout who was doing all the petting on his favorite boy.

Right?

1/2 2020 Sonnet

Fond of sun,
my children and I
our thoughts tail us--
or are afterthoughts--
quiet and still as stones
our bones are sinking, singing
their fantasy of thanks to the earth.

Lulled by sun,
my children and I
are adrift on a river of
unhurried afternoons straining
only with birdsong, brilliance, buzz.
We'd say we are quite, quite ruined for the past
why--even the ghosts who call shine bright with future.

"meeting"

Oh hey, look: a pic of At and me in the same frame. We're at a meeting with Senator Gary Peters' office making a case for us (the U.S.) to pay our U.N. dues and reinstate our membership in the World Health Organization.

BT made a point about how she and Peters were Alma grads and although both of them are before my time, I beamed as though I had personally handed them their diplomas.

Show and Tell

We were just given the new sign this week, and although I'm committed to all of the positions it articulates, it feels a bit performative having it out there next to our 'neighbor' sign and our Little Free Library and its rainbow tassels.

I guess though that if it changes someone's mind or helps someone feel a little less alone, it will have been worth it. And perhaps there should be an additional line for these times: "Wear your mask; show you care." 

At breakfast, Big A said, "it sure looks like old white liberals live here." The kids found that SO hilarious and guffawed long and hard. And they kept riffing on it and bringing up Bradley Whitford's character in Get Out who says "I'd have voted for Obama a third term if I could." It all feels a bit showy and like virtue-signaling--I hope we will do right by all these ideals.

Purple Prince, Purple Prince

Beyond MSU Horticultural Gardens with L in the early morning and Napolean Dynamite with the kids in the evening, not much to remember. (Big A is working today and I barely saw him all day.)

I used my shadow selfie with "Purple Prince" as an opening gambit to my check-in with KB who's in Minnesota visiting her mom. "The weeks are beginning to beginning to blend together," she wrote back.

Same, gurrl; same.

* Also when I poked around on the internet, it turned out that there are lots of "purple prince" varietals--some of them from centuries ago related to purple being the color of royalty and all that. But there's only one Prince my socialist heart will allow.

Bad case of...

Huck has a gnarly patch in her under-chin fold that seems to be causing her some distress. But here, she looks adorably pensive, watching At take her picture,  having voluntarily retired to the puppy room (which usually doesn't happen and is yet another indication of her discomfort and pain).

We talked to the vet, but it looks like we'll need to take her in; the thought of leaving the house to go into someplace is giving me anxiety hives.