Things I Love Lately

First of all, I love you, you are all so very much My People, and I am delighted to know that you are all just as Done With Meal Planning/Prep as I am. I find this meal-malaise to be distressing because I generally LIKE food and making food and thinking about food. But I assume this is A Phase and that someday soon I will get all hot and bothered about some sort of soup or new way to assemble ingredients into a taco.

Speaking of which, my husband and I recently had an argument over whether something counted as a taco. He spread a pita with hummus, added some sort of shredded meat, and topped it with vegetables. Then he pinched the sides of the pita together, so that the whole contraption made a semi-circular (or should I say taco-shellular) shape, and then ate it. LOOKED LIKE A TACO TO ME. 

The sun is shining and the temperature is supposedly dropping from a sweltering 90 to a much more endurable 67, and I had a lovely morning with Carla, and school is nearly done for the year, and Carla gets to attend CAMP this summer, so I am feeling cheery. Seems like a good day to share a few of my favorite things, no?

1. Plant protectors. This weekend, I finally planted the seedlings that Carla and I started from, well, seed. We had some fledgling cherry tomatoes, some broccoli sprouts, some little baby jalapenos, and, most exciting, some sugar snap pea shoots. The very next day, one of the sugar snap peas had been snapped in half because a very absent-minded or very optimistic chipmunk or squirrel had been digging in the newly planted pot. Arrrgh! Enough! I cannot fathom another summer of carefully painting my plants with cayenne pepper solution only to have half of them be eaten anyway. So I ordered these mesh plant protectors for my containers and so far I am Very Happy with them. I got the largest size and they are truly enormous. More than adequate for my containers. I could fit both snap pea pots inside one bag. They adjust with a drawstring, so they can really fit a wide variety of containers. My only quibble with them is that they don’t have adjustors/buckles to keep the drawstring tight; I had to secure the drawstrings with a knot, which is fine of course but there are better ways. I see that this brand of similar mesh bags does come with adjustors; if the current bags don’t last past this season, I may get the adjustor-included version next year.

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2. New dress and pants. I finally found a dress that I like. It’s not QUITE as casual as I was hoping for; I don’t think I’d love sitting on the sidewalk and drawing with chalk whilst wearing this dress. But it’s summery and I like the fabric and I don’t hate how it looks on me. 

image from anntaylor.com

(I also tried this other dress, because I loved the pattern and I thought it also looked summery and casual. But the waistline is even more empire-ish than it looks in the photo, and to avoid the “maybe she’s pregnant” vibe, I need to be cinched in at my natural waistline. So I had to return it.) 

image from anntaylor.com

I also finally found a pair of summer-weight pants I don’t hate. I never in a million years thought I would buy or wear linen pants, but here we are. In fact, as I was looking up the link for these pants I made a snap decision to buy a second pair, so I will have grey and green. These pants are VERY casual. Like, maybe a step up from sweatpants. My husband and I had a discussion about suitable venues for wearing these pants, and he thinks they are fine for wearing to the grocery store or playdates but NOT for wearing to a barbecue in someone’s backyard. Just FYI, for those of you interested in fashion advice from my husband. I could kind of envision a person – probably a younger and/or hipper person – pairing them with heels and a dressy top, but I am guessing I will pair them with flip flops and a tank top. Anyway, these pants are very comfy and I don’t hate them. These are the barriers an item of clothing must clear to make it into my wardrobe, and, lo, so few can make the leap.

image from nordstrom.com

3. Mango smoothies. I have been making myself a mango smoothie on the regular. They are perfect when it is so very hot. They feel like a treat and they are SO easy. Half a cup of plain Greek yogurt. Half a cup of frozen mango. Quarter cup of orange juice. Quarter cup of milk. Squeeze of honey. Splash of vanilla, if I’m feeling fancy. Blend. Pour. Enjoy. 

4. Tula Cooling Eye Balm: I can’t remember where I got this cooling and brightening stick, but I LOVE it. It goes on very smoothly and leaves you with a refreshingly cool sensation and I do think it lifts and brightens my eyes. Now that we’re venturing out into the world more and more frequently, I find myself wearing makeup (mascara, eyebrow mascara, occasional sweep of blush) more often, and this balm is a regular part of the routine. 

image from amazon.com

5. Morning walks with Carla. This spring, much to the chagrin of parents, Carla’s school instituted a late start on Wednesdays. It took me/us a few weeks to adjust to the new schedule; I, for one, felt very off-kilter, always wondering what day it was and often feeling that jolt of forgot-to-study-for-a-test-dream-fear that comes with thinking “Oh no! We’re late for school!” or “Oh no! We overslept!” when really we were fine and on time and everything was okay. Once we got past that initial turbulence, the late starts have been lovely. Carla still wakes up at roughly the same time, which means we can have a leisurely breakfast and none of the frantic pace of normal school days. Best, though, is that we sometimes have time to go for a walk before school. Sometimes we go to a local nature preserve, but most often we walk around our neighborhood, searching for dogs to pet. Carla is a JOY during these morning walks. She’s happy and eager to find dogs. She’s well-rested and cheerful. She skips along next to me, sometimes holding my hand, and chats at me – it’s so different from after school, when she’s tired from a long day of playing and learning, and replies “I forget” or “stuff” to literally every question I ask her. (Although she has started saying “the usual” when I ask her what she had for lunch. Since previously her answer was “I forget” or “stuff,” I have “the usual” NO IDEA of what she actually ate.) But she is fresh and full of ideas in the mornings.

She and her classmates have been learning about birds, a subject she has approached with great enthusiasm, so she tells me all the names of the birds we pass and whistles at them, trying to get them to chirp back. This morning, she started singing the Twelve Days of Christmas, but she called it the Twelve Days of Summer, and for each day “mommy” gave to her an item we spotted on our walk: grackles, chipmunks, dogs, geese, five butterflies, and ending with a squirrel in an oak tree. I cannot fully express just how full I feel of love and affection and absolute delight.

Because I am not in a hurry, I can slow down and devote my entire attention to Carla. I can really see her, and enjoy her, and glimpse through all the shimmering morning sunshine just how precious our time together is. Of course I wish I could be a better and more patient person always. I wish all mornings could be like this. But I suspect it’s partially their infrequency that makes them so special. I know I will remember these mornings and their glimmering, unrushed intimacy as long as I live. I hope they mean as much to Carla, and that she remembers this time together as tenderly as I do, even after I’m gone. 

What are you loving lately?

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Tuesday Randomosity: Mainly About My Second Vaccine Edition

We are expecting SNOW this week – bookending April with winter, I guess – and I am recovering from my second Covid vaccine (woo hoo!), so I am NOT going to the grocery store and NOT thinking about meal planning, which is sure to bite me in the butt. Oh well! La la la going to type some randomosity instead! 

• While literally no one else I know has had ANY ISSUES with their second Covid vaccine, I was one of the lucky few who had some side effects. I mean, I guess I’m glad it was me and not my parents or my husband, right? And FOR SURE it’s better than having Covid! All day yesterday, I had a fever of 102, which is Deeply Unpleasant, and full body aches. My fingers ached. My knees. My back. My skin. My eyeballs. I was so achy I could not sleep the night after receiving the vaccine, nor during the day. But! Like magic, I am all better now! Not better enough to want to go to the grocery store, though. 
• My second vaccine experience was QUITE different from the first, even though it took place at the same location. There were far fewer cars this time, so I didn’t have to wait at all. I simply pulled up close to the building, walked in, got my temperature taken by a volunteer, gave my insurance card to a staff member, and got my shot. Easy peasy. The atmosphere through it all was also significantly different from the first time. During the first vaccine – and this could be purely projection – there was kind of a nervous energy. Like, people were excited, but also anxious. This time, the overriding feeling was of pure jubilation. Everyone, from the volunteers to the nurses to the vaccine recipients, was cheerful and friendly and talkative in a giddy sort of way. For example, while I was waiting with others for our little 15-minute timers to go off so we could leave, one of the men called out to the nurse in charge that his timer had only zeros on it. She teased him about it, and the rest of us laughed. And then another vaccine recipient said she’d come in roughly the same time as he had, so he could leave with her, and then someone called out that he should pay her for her service, and there was some more laughter and back and forth. And the nurse in charge carried on kind of a one-sided conversation with all of us, telling us about her trip to Florida, and how no one wears a mask there, and how she was both delighted by that (because she hates wearing a mask) and deeply uncomfortable. It was just a cheery, friendly experience. 
• Oh – my second “stop” (after getting my temperature taken) was at the intake desk. This was a long table, populated by staff/volunteers on one side, each with a computer in front of them, and chairs on the other side for the vaccine recipients to sit in. When I sat down, the staff person gave a huge, dramatic gasp while looking at her computer screen. The type of reaction you might have to, say, a news report of an asteroid destroying Idaho, or the discovery that you somehow deleted the entire database of vaccine information. I asked her, as one does, “Are you okay?” and got no response. She kept her eyes on the disaster unfolding onscreen and motioned me to sit down, then asked, in a very calm voice, for my ID and insurance card. Then, as she was inputting my information, she gasped AGAIN. “Is everything okay?” I asked. “Oh, yes,” she said. “I’m watching a movie.” Oh. Okay then. 
• The other notable aspect of my second vaccine experience is that I FORGOT MY VACCINE CARD AT HOME. I mean. Really? REALLY? Sigh. The nurse who gave me my shot was very nice about it. She copied down the information from the photograph of my original vaccine card onto my NEW vaccine card. And I have photographed them both and keep them together just in case. I guess I am telling you this so you know it is not the end of the world if you forget your vaccine card. 
• The first thing I did after I scheduled my Covid vaccine appointments was to schedule a hair appointment. I have been coloring my hair myself this past year, and while I HATE DOING IT, the outcome has been acceptable. But I need a professional to cut my hair. I have hacked some side bangs into my hair a couple of times, with disturbing but hidable results. But my hair is lank and too-long and uneven and I just want someone to shampoo it and shape it into something manageable and aesthetically pleasing.   
• When we drive home from school, Carla and I have noticed that one of the homes we pass has a Roomba-type device for their lawn. At least, I assume that’s why a bulldog-sized machine is roaming across their grass. At first, Carla and I referred to it as a Mow-ba (like Roomba). But she came up with a MUCH BETTER NAME, so much better that if the actual device is not called this then it has missed a REAL opportunity: Mowbot. Like a robot that mows. It doesn’t seem to be particularly efficient, in my opinion; I see it often in the mornings, too, and multiple days per week. Whatever it’s saving in lawn-care fees or the homeowner’s time, I suspect it’s certainly losing in gasoline/electricity. Maybe it isn’t a Mowbot at all, though, and has some other purpose. 
• Along those lines, I walked past the church the other day and the wolves are back. 
• Did I tell you I got a new bike? Like many, I developed a compulsion to own a bicycle when the pandemic began. Like many, I was unable to get one because they were all sold out. As of a few weeks ago, FINALLY, I have a bicycle in my possession! But I have not yet tried it. You see, I have never been much of a cyclist. I had a bike when I was a kid. I used to ride it up and down our mile-long gravel hill of a driveway. I used to ride it out past the barn and up to the duck pond. Once in a great while, I would ride the three miles to my neighbor’s house. (She was a year older than me, and my best friend for many years.) But after middle school, I stopped riding my bike. The next time I attempted to use a bicycle was after grad school. My at-the-time not-quite-husband and I rented bicycles in Copenhagen and rode them through the streets. This was not a good choice for someone who hadn’t been on a bicycle in a decade. Copenhagen was very busy, the streets congested with lots of traffic and hundreds of other bicyclists, all of whom were much more confident astride their metal steeds and much more impatient to get places than I was. I wobbled along and managed not to die from either accident or stress, but I had NO DESIRE to bike again. Skip forward another decade and a half to last summer. We met up with another family for a biking date. (They brought bikes for me and my husband because they are ANGELS.) It went okay. Okay enough that I thought I was ready for my own bike. And here we are. I have one! And I am too afraid to ride it! 
• (I did have to ride it the day I picked it up from the bike shop. The staff person who sold it to me wanted to see me ride it, in case he needed to make any adjustments. While I was wobbling my way across the parking lot, trying valiantly not to fall in front of this stranger/bike expert, the staff person anxiously asked my husband, “Does she have a helmet? She needs a helmet.” Which is not really the level of confidence in my abilities I was hoping to inspire.) (I do have a helmet.)
• Do you experience a springtime clothes-buying frenzy? I feel like I am in a frenzy right now, and it seems like this may happen annually. Or semi-annually. The I-Have-Nothing-To-Wear syndrome has hit and hit hard. I have ordered a trunk from Trunk Club with no success. I got a fix from StitchFix, which arrived with only athletic clothing in it; fine, but not exactly what I was looking for. I tried on a bunch of clothes from Nordstrom and only bought one measly tank top. I have added MANY THINGS to digital shopping carts at Loft and J. Crew and their various factory stores, but have held off on buying anything else because I sense I am going a little overboard. What I want is The Perfect Summer Dress, which may not exist. And The Perfect Non-Skinny Jeans, which may not exist. And The Perfect T-Shirt, which also may not exist. SIGH. I may need to take up sewing just to design clothes that I like. Or, worse, wear some of the vast collection of clothing I already possess.
• Speaking of sewing, I am getting up the nerve to alter something. I bought two dresses for Carla and they are adorable in every way except for the arm holes. The arm holes are too roomy. I finding them wanting in the chestal modesty department, if you will. My mother found me a very clear video of how to adjust the armholes of a garment, and it seems simple enough and doable, even though I have never once operated a sewing machine. But I feel wildly uneasy about the whole thing. Maybe I will make Carla do it. 
• This is the first week in awhile that I feel overscheduled. I have a freelance project for the first time in a year, which is great, and satisfying, and invigorating, but requires several meetings this week. And I have plans to go walking with a friend, which is also great. And a twice-monthly video chat with another friend, which is always great. And, weather depending, maybe plans to get and eat takeout with some family friends this weekend, which would be lovely. But that is enough to make me feel overwhelmed and panicked and like doing a complete 180 and holing up in my basement with some books for a month. I mean, how am I going to come up with enough words for all these interactions? What am I going to wear? And my hair is so bad! 

That’s all I have for you, Internet. What’s happening with you this week?

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Ex-Boyfriend’s Sweatshirt

Last night my husband read me an email about a potential job opportunity (this is A Perk [no] of marriage to a physician: getting dozens of recruitment postcards/emails daily touting all the wonderful! opportunities! in unnamed cities all over the country) in a city out west, and I remarked casually that I thought that’s where my high school ex-boyfriend lived. Then when I was getting ready for bed, I noticed that I was wearing a sweatshirt that once belonged to that same ex-boyfriend, and I figured this is where the Lifetime Movie of my alternate reality would start playing sleazy music and it would turn out that I had been having a steamy affair with my high school ex-boyfriend for years unbeknownst to my poor unsuspecting husband. Listen, Lifetime is as hard-up for content as we all are.

Do you have clothes that once belonged to an ex? Or… other things? I don’t know what those other things might be; all I have is this sweatshirt.

And I have it – and persist in wearing it twenty-odd years later – not because it has anything to do with the ex, but because it is the softest most comfortable sweatshirt ever made. (I used to think its unusual softness had something to do with his mom’s fabric softener; she used one of the liquid versions, like Downy or Snuggle, while my mother used fabric sheets. But considering the woman hasn’t run it through her ultra-specialized laundering process in more than two decades, I’m no longer certain.) 

There’s really nothing sordid about the sweatshirt. The ex and I didn’t come to some tragic end or anything.  We simply broke up when I went to another state for college, which meant that we ended the relationship on a no-fault note rather than going through the excruciating process of learning that we are absolutely not compatible in the long-term. I am glad that we broke up on friendly terms, but I am also glad that we broke up, full stop. (I feel duty bound to tell you – get the Lifetime people on standby – that I still exchange Christmas cards with the ex’s mother. She writes * Christmas letters * – nice long ones! – and so I get a mini-update on her and my ex AND his brother, with whom I was friends in high school. That’s the closest and only contact I have had with the ex since my husband and I saw him at his brother’s wedding back in the early 2000s.) 

I no longer remember if the ex gave me the sweatshirt, or loaned it to me, or whether I purloined it from his house or locker. But I do love it. It does have some sentimental value, because it has the name of my high school on it. (Not that my memories of high school are good, heavens no; if I think too hard about high school I sink into a quicksand of shame and despair.) But mainly it is just very comfortable. It’s thin enough to wear on a balmy evening when you wish you had more than a T-shirt on but aren’t ready for the heavy artillery (wool; turtlenecks). And somehow, no matter how old I get, it’s always the exact perfect size: just a little baggy. It’s a great sweatshirt. I own many, many sweatshirts and none has ever come close. A rat is going to build a nest in it now that I’ve extolled my love for it publicly.

The only other “borrowed” item I have is a sweatshirt from my best friend. We met in middle school. We haven’t lived in the same state since 1999, but I still consider her my best friend (spouses excluded). I was never a big fan of borrowing/lending clothing, but I loved to borrow her stuff. She has always been super fashionable, and she always had the chicest clothes, like stuff from the Gap and Banana Republic, when we had neither store even in our state. I don’t know how or why I came to be in possession of this particular sweatshirt of hers. I don’t wear it often – it’s kind of like the sweatpants of sweatshirts, which both does and does not make any sense at all, so I’m hoping you understand what I mean. Every time I wear it, unlike with the sweatshirt that once belonged to my ex, I think of my friend and smile. In that case, it’s the original owner that makes the sweatshirt precious, rather than the sweatshirt itself being great. 

My husband does not care in the least that I sill wear the ex-boyfriend’s sweatshirt. It is an interesting mind game to imagine how I might feel if my husband still wore a sweatshirt that once belonged to his high school ex. Even considering I went to lunch with my husband and TWO of his high-school ex girlfriends back in the years before we were engaged, I think I might be in favor of accidentally shrinking it in the wash. And yet I would be outraged – OUTRAGED – if my husband seemed the least touchy about my beloved sweatshirt (which once belonged to my ex). (That is a very different sentence indeed than saying “my beloved ex’s old sweatshirt.” Make sure you know what your adjectives are or could be modifying, people!) Fortunately, my husband is not going around wearing ex-girlfriends’ old clothes so I haven’t had to reveal what a dirty double standard bearer I am.

I don’t think anyone has any old clothing of mine, so no one is out there pining away for me or thinking of me fondly. At least not in a sartorial way.

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