The Holiday Equivalent Of The Lost Socks In The Dryer

 I'll admit I've been slow to get into the holiday spirit this year.  The pace at work has been unrelenting, and we keep having waves of sickness wash through our household.  In an attempt to get a little more with the program, I decided to start working on sending out holiday cards.  That's when I made an important discovery:

My holiday cards had gone missing.

Well, okay, there were about five left in a box that I opened last year.  But I distinctly remember buying a new box of cards after Christmas last year, in preparation for this year's card-sending.  I bought said box of cards because I had the exact same problem last year of looking for holiday cards to send and coming up short.

So, this year, some people will receive fairly traditional looking holiday cards.  Others will receive blank cards that I ordered from Shutterfly with a photo of Apamea that I took back in 2004.  I'm hoping the recipients of the Apamea cards will find them charming, or at worst, mildly idiosyncratic, rather than wondering if I've completely lost it.  People for whom I am just now getting an address may receive either an Apamea card or a yet-to-be-purchased holiday card from the supermarket.  Maybe next year will be the year when I put antlers on the cat, take a picture of her, and order a bunch of custom holiday cards from Shutterfly right before the card bonanza begins.

Valentines Day Was A Wash, Figuratively And Literally

 This Valentines Day may not rank as one of our best of all time.  Scott and I are still recovering from Covid, though we both went back to work this week.  We gave up on the idea of eating in a restaurant on Valentines Day years ago, but we often look forward to buying some treats at the supermarket and having a simple meal of "special occasion" foods at home.  This year, we're both still struggling from a loss of appetite and an inability to eat much at a time.  This has been a particularly baffling symptom to me, since my life generally revolves around food and I spend and inordinate amount of time planning what I'm going to eat.  Suffice to say, we are ordering a Peruvian chicken dinner tonight, a very nice meal to be sure, but not one either of us thinks of as an occasion meal.  I guess the good news is that by the time we recover, the Valentines crowds will have cleared out of the restaurants and we can eat wherever we want.

As for the literal part of today being a wash, the last kids I worked with today were kindergarteners.  One of them had some glittery slime, which she had gotten from her teacher, allegedly for being good.  I spent much of the session trying to get her to put it away and keep it put away.  When it was time to take her to dismissal, I noticed that her shoes were untied and decided to tie them for her.  In a clear example of no good deed going unpunished, she took that opportunity to smear her slime on my back.  Needless to say, I was not pleased.  I was hoping it would peel right off, but of course it didn't.  The website I consulted about this predicament helpfully mentioned that glue is one of the ingredients in slime, which makes it particularly hard to get out of clothing.  (This website also framed this problem as one of getting slime out of kids' clothing, probably supposing that adults are too dignified to end up with slime on their clothing).  Anyway, slime removal has been my major project this evening--very romantic and sophisticated, I know.  I've had early encouraging results from soaking the slimed area in white vinegar.  I'm hoping for an ultimate triumph to this wash of a day when the shirt comes out of the laundry.

A Few Highlights Of 2022

 I'm sure this is a terrible cliche, but the older I get, the faster time seems to pass.  In that spirit, I wanted to capture a few of the highlights of 2022.  

1.  Clean bill of health.  For those of you who have never found a lump in their breast before, determining whether or not you have to worry about it is a multistep procedure, and sometimes lengthy.  First, I went to my primary care physician who confirmed that it wasn't my imagination, I had a lump.  Then I had to schedule a mammogram.  I was lucky in that someone had cancelled their appointment; otherwise, I would have had a much longer wait to find out any more information.  (I think this backlog was due to the pause on non-essential medical care during the height of the pandemic.  I feel very sorry for anyone who had any type of health scare during the first several months of the pandemic!)  This is sometimes the end of the story, but they were unable to determine what type of lump I had through a mammogram and ultrasound, so I had to schedule a needle biopsy.  The whole series of appointments gave me several weeks to build the lump up in my mind and worry, so it was a tremendous relief to learn that the lump was benign.

2. Sewing my own jeans.  I've gotten very into sewing in the past several years, but making jeans, complete with rivets, a metal jeans button, and contrasting topstitching was something new for me.  I won't lie--it's a lot of effort to sew jeans.  But for someone who has very few ready-to-wear options that fit, it's also quite liberating.  The jeans I made fit better than any jeans I've bought.

3.  Settling into a "good" job.  I distinguished myself on the career front by having three jobs and a period of unemployment during 2022.  At the beginning of the year, I was working at a skilled nursing facility.  I left that job due to woefully insufficient hours and practices at the facility that I felt were unethical.  Thus began a period of unemployment with endless rounds of job applications and interviews.  I then worked for a few months for a private practice, which I left when my tentative offer with a school district became a firm offer due to woefully insufficient hours and a chaotic working atmosphere.  When I graduated, I did not think I wanted to work for a school district, but it's actually going very well, and after a series of "bad" jobs, I appreciate having a salary and benefits again.  Life is uncertain, but I would like to think that may days of job applications and interviews are over.

4.  Seeing family and friends in person.  I won't get into each specific visit here, but will just say that after the pandemic, I will never take these for granted again.

5.  An amazing dolphin sighting.  This happened at the end of the year, during a post-Christmas trip to the NC coast with my family.  We've often seen dolphins on these trips, but the sightings always amounted to seeing fins moving with that characteristic dolphin motion.  This time, it was a lot of fins, more than we've ever seen. Then, they started jumping out of the water!  It was like dolphins you would see on a nature show.  I don't know if I'll ever be lucky enough to see such a display again, but it was an amazing way to end the year.

Christmas In NC 2021

 We got to spend Christmas in NC with my parents this year, which felt like a tremendous victory after last year, when nobody in my family felt safe getting together for the holiday.  Sadly, my sister was unable to join us, as she was dealing with a sick kitty at the time.  Scott and I wondered if it was wise for us to travel this year, what with the omicron variant wreaking havoc and with the two of us both working around a lot of people.  So far, nobody has gotten COVID (at last not a symptomatic case), so I'm hoping we made the right decision.  We certainly enjoyed our visit!

I forgot to bring my "real" camera this time and took some pictures with my phone.  I haven't fully gotten the hang of getting everything in the frame with my phone camera.  Also, when we went to the beach after Christmas, I often had to shoot blind because of the glare from the sun.  As a result, not all of my pictures turned out as well as I would have liked, but I got a few!

My parents' Christmas tree

One day at the beach, a lot of horseshoe crab shells washed up.  I hope this was just a fluke and nothing horrible is happening to horseshoe crabs!

Another unusual thing that washed up was this starfish that Scott found.  None of us could recall ever finding a starfish on the NC coast.  We weren't sure if it was alive or dead, so Scott put it back in the ocean.

Sunsets were among my most successful photos

Happy 272nd Birthday, Alexandria!

 I've always enjoyed seeing fireworks displays, but in recent years, have only rarely gone to see them.  What usually holds me back is the idea of heading into large crowds with parking and/or mass transit scrums.  I made a happy discovery about our new home this year, though.  While I was researching if there was a way I could view DC's July 4th fireworks without actually going into DC and getting involved in the aforementioned scrums and crowds, I discovered that Alexandria celebrates the anniversary of its founding with fireworks!  Best of all, the park where celebrations were held is an easy walk from our home.  There are things I still miss about Silver Spring, MD, where we lived before moving here last summer.  However, the promise of annual fireworks that I can walk to is definitely a point in Alexandria's favor.

The Potomac River at night

My one fireworks photo that is recognizable as a firework

NC Coast Pictures

Ugh, I think this has been my longest stint of not blogging yet.  Something about end-of-semester drama and a respiratory illness that has been hanging on for weeks made me feel less than inspired to write.  But I think that some pictures from my after Christmas trip to the NC coast with my family is a good way to ease back in.

I should say first that I find seagulls very entertaining, and love to take pictures of them.  So when my dad decided to pack up an uneaten biscuit from breakfast to feed them, I was very excited.  (On a side note, the restaurant where we ate is excellent except for the biscuits.  But you know how some restaurants have this sort of bread-y item that looks like a biscuit, but the texture is all wrong?  That was what we wanted to feed to the seagulls!).  I couldn't see what was was going on in the viewfinder very well because of the glare from the sun, so I had to point, click, and hope for the best.  These are my favorites from the seagull shots.  The last one was taken around the time I thought I'd better run for cover.

Also, a few other shots:

Clouds over the water

A night heron!  Due to their tendency to appear at night, this is the best picture I've ever gotten of one.

I saw a few washed up jellyfish this year.  It seems to vary a lot.

Impressive barnacles on driftwood.

Driftwood festooned with shells.

I think this was supposed to be a heart in my latte foam, but the overall effect seems quite different...

North Carolina Beach Pictures, December 2019

We went to North Carolina for Christmas, and made our usual trek to the North Carolina coast.  It really is the perfect time of year to visit the beach--no crowds and no sunburns!  Here are a few pictures from the trip.

Can't We Stretch Out The Magic Of Halloween?

Complaints about stores and their schedule of displaying/selling holiday items are pretty much a cliche at this point.  So I never really thought I would add to the chorus...but I will, since I feel mildly inconvenienced by it right now.

I've been seeing cute little pumpkins for sale for weeks.  Every week, I've been tempted to buy one, but I haven't because there is no shortage of clutter in my apartment, and I didn't have a good enough reason to justify buying one.  But then I decided that one of those pumpkins would be a cool addition to a fall-themed activity I was planning for one of my clients.  I decided to buy one today.

Except that there were none to be found in my supermarket.  In fact, all traces of Halloween had vanished, replaced with a mix of Thanksgiving and Christmas stuff.  It never occurred to me that all the pumpkins would be gone, since (a) Halloween was less than a week ago, and (b)I thought people who liked table centerpieces would want cute little pumpkins for their Thanksgiving decorating.

Well, lesson learned.  My client will have to see a line drawing of a pumpkin, and in the future, I'll recognize little pumpkins as the precious, fleeting commodity that they are.

Independence Day Wish

Give me your tired, your poor,

Your huddled masses yearning to breathe free,

The wretched refuse of your teeming shore.

Send these, the homeless, tempest-tossed to me,

I lift my lamp beside the golden door!

-Emma Lazarus

This portion of "The New Colossus,"by Emma Lazarus, is rightly famous, and often quoted.  I realize that the use of this quote may seem cliche at this point, but I really do find the words beautiful and inspiring.  To be a citizen of a country that may serve as a refuge to others is an amazing privilege and responsibility.

Like most Americans, I am descended from immigrants.  My family came from various parts of Europe.  The last of the immigrants in my family left the Netherlands in 1912.  My great grandfather was among them, along with his parents and siblings.  My great grandfather died before I was born, but I did meet his two sisters, who lived into their nineties.  I sometimes wonder if contact (however brief) with older relatives who spoke heavily accented English helped cement in my mind the concept of the US being a nation of immigrants.

I know very few details about my family's immigration story.  However, to the best of my knowledge, none of my family's immigrants were wealthy, and none of them had attained a high level of formal education.  Yet, I am the daughter of a professor and an attorney.  I myself have one master's degree, and am on the verge of starting another.  I have held several professional jobs.  I also have the privilege of living in an area with a large number of recent immigrants and seeing how they contribute to our society.

My wish for this Independence Day is for the US to live up to Emma Lazarus' beautiful poem.  Whether the people in question are central Americans fleeing gang violence, Syrians fleeing a long and brutal civil war, Yemenis fleeing a war that the US government supports (!), or anyone else who needs refuge, I hope we can open our hearts and minds to them and allow them to enrich our great country.

Cool Things I Saw In North Carolina

Happy holidays to everyone!  We got back late yesterday evening from spending Christmas in North Carolina with my family.  We started out in my hometown of Chapel Hill, NC, and then went to the coast before heading back to Maryland.  As always, I had a great time.  Here are some pictures of cool things I saw.

A twig palace in Hillsboro!

Seagulls have to eat, too.

These Christmas trees will be placed in the dunes to help prevent erosion.

Juniper berries!

My mom said it best: It was a good thing I wasn't wearing flipflops.

This was a lot of fun to watch, but none of my attempts to photograph it really panned out.  The plastic bottle at the bottom of the tank was filled with pieces of apple and served as a sort of "food puzzle" for the otters at the aquarium.  It reminded me of a food puzzle we give to Laila, which is a ball that dispenses treats as she rolls it over the floor.

Even oyster shells can look surprisingly festive.

Happy Pi Day!

Happy Pi Day, everyone!  For years, I've wanted to celebrate this momentous occasion (by adding an "e" and eating pie, not by doing math problems), but it sneaks up on me every year and I don't end up doing anything.  This year, however, Pi Day coincided with a SNOW day in my neck of the woods, so I had some spare time.  To celebrate, I made a funny looking free form tart.

I was happy to have an unexpected day off and an excuse to make a dessert.  I am pleased that the tart I made tasted better than it looks.  And, above all, I am grateful that I am not trying to make a living with a food blog.

Holiday 2016 Pictures

Happy 2017 to all!  In spite of all the various reasons to feel pessimistic, I hope the year turns out better than many of us think.  In the meantime, here is a quick recap of some holiday highlights.

We spent Christmas (and much of Hanukkah) in NC.  Hanukkah started on Christmas Eve this year, and my mom and I collaborated on a batch of latkes for dinner.  Below is a picture of our Christmas tree.  We are a multi-colored light and eclectic collection of ornament type of family.

After Christmas, we made a family trip to the NC coast.  Fall and winter are my favorite times to go there.  Rather than tanning, I turn a tomato-like shade of red in the sun.  So I prefer to go during a time of year when the sun isn't as strong and I can be comfortably covered up.  It is also less crowded when it isn't hot.

After returning from NC, we went to see the tree at the Capitol.  I am always fascinated by the scale of the ornaments on such a large tree.  Also, nothing says "festive" quite as well as a potato sack!

The fact that I feel well enough to blog on New Year's morning probably gives a clue that my activities last night did not involve getting wasted and puking in a cab on the way home.  Scott and I had a meal of appetizers at home and hung out with Laila.  Much less expensive than many of the other options, and we're both in a position to have a productive day.

Hope everyone's festivities were what the wished for!