I don't know if this post will interest any of you, but it's a little story I want to remember in the future.
Last night between 5:00 and 6:00 pm, Anne and I were out wandering the apartment complex for fun. She watched some kids playing football. She ran back to the sidewalk any time a car drove by. She picked some decorative berries and peeled them, pretending they were oranges and grapefruit. She wandered into the exercise room in the office and asked me to demonstrate the eliptical walker and the stationary bike for her. And we ran into our buddy Jenai'ah. Jenai'ah was riding the shiny new stunt bike that she got for Christmas and told me about a pack of 15 kids who have stunt bikes hidden somewhere in the neighborhood who practice tricks together. She told me new stories about her baby brother and introduced us to another friend of hers, Zera.
Somewhere in there, Jenai'ah very kindly offered me one of her McDonald's chicken nuggets. I thanked her profusely for her generosity, but said I'd let her eat it. She asked if I didn't like it. I told her that I don't like to eat animals very much, and then she recalled that we had talked about this before.
Anyway, a bit later as Anne and I were walking home, Anne started asking about eating a cracker. I think she believed Jenai'ah was offering a cracker to us. I told Anne I didn't want to eat Jenai'ah's cracker because it had chicken in it, but I wanted to make some of our own crackers when we got home.
Anne happily helped me try an experiment, which was making an oat and walnut cracker recipe out of the good ol' hippy vegetarian cookbook Laurel's Kitchen. They turned out quite well, and I will want to make them again. Maybe they'll even become a staple around here for a while. Next time I'll run the food processor a bit longer to grind the oats and walnuts a bit smaller, and I'll bake the crackers for longer on the first go.
Later in the evening, Anne said to me, "Mama chicken eat no. Chicken dead sad." I was floored. I don't think we've really talked about eating meat before, and I don't necessarily know that she had any idea about the concept or word "dead," but there you go. She got the whole story, and she got it right.
Saturday, January 31, 2015
Wednesday, January 28, 2015
A Fresh Start
One's new year is meant to be a fresh start, yes? This new year had a rougher start. Nothing awful, just rough around the edges. It started a few days before January 1st, that Anne suddenly was out of sorts and needed a lot more one-on-one than normal. I don't know what it was all about; I'm guessing it was a little developmental growth spurt. The first week back from our Texas vacation she had a sudden huge amount of language acquisition. And also was having melt-downs about everything. All day long. I am normally one of the most patient people I know, but this was somehow pushing every button and I was losing it - snapping. I had to apologize to Anne quite a lot and figure out how to set boundaries to protect my sanity. Every day was survival. The usual schedule is full, but with a toddler going through a rough patch it was too much. And then throw in a few extras - dental appointments for both adults, multiple vet appointments for the cat, feline tooth extractions, car in the shop for almost two weeks, playing for church, group class concert, taking the child out of diapers for good, three students announcing they were quitting the same day... It was just a wee bit too much. I think we're over the hump now and have reached a happy equilibrium where we have our three calm and adaptable family members back to normal. Fingers crossed, anyway.
Anne's and my new favorite book is one Leah gave her at Christmas. It's called The Quiet Book; text is by Deborah Underwood and illustrations are by Renata Liwska. The quote from the back cover explains it well: "A quirky collection of quiets from 'making a wish quiet' to 'top of the roller coaster quiet'." Not only are the quiets of an amazing variety, but the pictures are fantastic and multidimensional. One of the reasons it really appealed to me is the thought which a music teacher put in my brain at some point that rests in music aren't just silence - they each have their own meaning. This is a fun way to explore the many meanings of silence in a very concrete way. Maybe tonight is "new toddler strides completed quiet."
Anne's and my new favorite book is one Leah gave her at Christmas. It's called The Quiet Book; text is by Deborah Underwood and illustrations are by Renata Liwska. The quote from the back cover explains it well: "A quirky collection of quiets from 'making a wish quiet' to 'top of the roller coaster quiet'." Not only are the quiets of an amazing variety, but the pictures are fantastic and multidimensional. One of the reasons it really appealed to me is the thought which a music teacher put in my brain at some point that rests in music aren't just silence - they each have their own meaning. This is a fun way to explore the many meanings of silence in a very concrete way. Maybe tonight is "new toddler strides completed quiet."
Monday, January 26, 2015
Reality Show: Bach #2
I've been dragging my feet on posting the Bach G Minor Fugue which comes right after the Adagio. I recorded it in early December and was horrified by what I heard on the playback. Despite the fact that I have played the piece well over a thousand times and have performed it several, it had gotten out of shape both physically and, shall we say, spiritually. I went back to the drawing board, and I reinvented my interpretation of the seed from which the whole piece grows. Not that the new idea is better than the old, just that I needed some fresh material to avoid going down the same road that was no longer inspiring.
It used to be this (all separate bows, aiming for the fourth note):
Now it's this (starts with four up-bows, aiming for the last note):
I put in some time, including changing most of my bowing scheme, and recorded it again in mid-December, and it was certainly new, but boring. Very boring. I'd worked out some sections and technical issues, but the love was not there.
There are so many challenges in the piece. The biggest for me right now is that it's three pages of nothing but eighth notes and sixteenth notes, so in a certain way it's a marathon, but every note has meaning - it's about the journey, not just making it to the end. Bach was so intentional - none of the notes was thrown onto the page for convenience or because it was "good enough." I had to rediscover the big goal points, the big cadences, the terrain within. And learn to let the phrases breathe again - rushing through them lends monotony that Bach never meant. The organ figures prominently in my thinking: different voices and different parts of the piece are played on different keyboards with different pipes. I started listening to recordings of others which I hadn't done for a long while, and I discovered that over the years (I first learned the piece in eighth or ninth grade), I'd let my tempo creep faster and faster, leaving less time for beauty. In a certain way, fugues are incredibly academic, and Bach himself was a very academic composer, but what I love about his writing is how he can combine the apex of mathematical and musical integrity with a profound and timeless beauty. I found a period performance recording of Rachel Podger on YouTube, which I have enjoyed immensely. Performance practice musicians are bound to a different set of "shoulds" and "should nots," and there is a lot of freshness and drama to be drunk in.
I finally recorded it last Thursday and decided it was time to put this out *there* since I was slated to play it for offertory at church this past weekend, so it was a ready-or-not situation. The recording I made took a couple of lines to get off the ground, but I was relatively happy with the end result (recording crammed in during a toddler nap time between lessons)...
It used to be this (all separate bows, aiming for the fourth note):
Now it's this (starts with four up-bows, aiming for the last note):
I put in some time, including changing most of my bowing scheme, and recorded it again in mid-December, and it was certainly new, but boring. Very boring. I'd worked out some sections and technical issues, but the love was not there.
There are so many challenges in the piece. The biggest for me right now is that it's three pages of nothing but eighth notes and sixteenth notes, so in a certain way it's a marathon, but every note has meaning - it's about the journey, not just making it to the end. Bach was so intentional - none of the notes was thrown onto the page for convenience or because it was "good enough." I had to rediscover the big goal points, the big cadences, the terrain within. And learn to let the phrases breathe again - rushing through them lends monotony that Bach never meant. The organ figures prominently in my thinking: different voices and different parts of the piece are played on different keyboards with different pipes. I started listening to recordings of others which I hadn't done for a long while, and I discovered that over the years (I first learned the piece in eighth or ninth grade), I'd let my tempo creep faster and faster, leaving less time for beauty. In a certain way, fugues are incredibly academic, and Bach himself was a very academic composer, but what I love about his writing is how he can combine the apex of mathematical and musical integrity with a profound and timeless beauty. I found a period performance recording of Rachel Podger on YouTube, which I have enjoyed immensely. Performance practice musicians are bound to a different set of "shoulds" and "should nots," and there is a lot of freshness and drama to be drunk in.
I finally recorded it last Thursday and decided it was time to put this out *there* since I was slated to play it for offertory at church this past weekend, so it was a ready-or-not situation. The recording I made took a couple of lines to get off the ground, but I was relatively happy with the end result (recording crammed in during a toddler nap time between lessons)...
Thursday, January 22, 2015
Day of Atonement
The last several weeks we've been studying Leviticus in my Bible study, and rather than the book that interested me at thirteen for its simple no-nonsense list of rituals, it is being transformed in my mind into a fresh revelation of what it means to be holy and what grace really means.
In addition, I've been working through a parallel Sabbath-school quarterly on the Sanctuary, and I think I'm starting to understand the traditional Seventh-day Adventist interpretation of the heavenly Sanctuary as well as the Day of Atonement. (If your initials are ACB and you happen to want the details, you can view the quarterly here.)
About holiness - I know that Jesus is described as a Brother and as a Friend. But he is not a "buddy." He is human, but he is also something else far more wonderful and complex and unfathomable and powerful - that is, divine. Holy means something set apart, something different. I should not approach the Lord casually, but with reverence and awe, even knowing I have a safe place with him. I cannot take him for granted and conduct the relationship on my own terms.
About grace - I somehow have had the idea that grace means God is "nice." That God forgives, because he is nice; he sweeps things under the rug. This is diametrically opposed to the idea, which has never appealed to me, that God is vengeful and exacting, and that he has set up some arbitrary rules and is ready to smite anyone who isn't obedient. And since no one is, he had his Son killed to satisfy his own sense of justice. That God is not "nice". I'm occasionally worried about the second God, but usually I presume I'm working with the first God.
Only I think now I must be rather wrong about both.
Grace is a God who sees my mistakes and how much destruction they cause and has gone far out of his way to set a plan into action to save me and to teach me to do better. And who expects me to participate in his plan - a difficult task.
I'm thinking of a mother who sees that her son is a total slob. She knows this is going to hurt his future roommates and family members, not to mention it's no fun to live with now, and he often loses things he needs for school.
The first-God kind of mom ignores the slobbiness, not wanting to be unkind. She is operating from a boundary-less framework. As a result the son never learns to be neater or consider others and keeps losing things, eventually, that he needs for his job as an adult. He grows up to be a pain. But he's happy.
The second-God kind of mom tells the son it's time to shape up, and if he doesn't start being a neatnik within a week, she will throw away everything he owns. She follows through. The son has no idea how to become tidier, and the following week is going to school wrapped only in a towel, having slept on the floor.
The mom of grace talks a little with her son about the problem. Then, using her resources as a responsible adult, creates a plan for him to learn, step by step, over the next year about being neater. Each step along the way, she gives him new tools, and actually physically helps him to undertake the tasks she has assigned. She sets up small consequences, both positive and negative for each step, and follows through with encouragement. The son has to buy into the plan and make big efforts to learn how to clean up. He may not like a lot of what's happening, and it's a lot harder than his old ways, but on his mom's initiative and with her help, he will become someone who knows to keep things clean and consider others while doing so.
This is the God of Leviticus. Little by little, he's teaching people about truth, justice, obedience, and love. He is teaching them step by step about the love of Jesus. He is teaching them about Jesus' ultimate sacrifice. It is hard for the Israelites. They have a complicated religion to follow, and there are consequences along the way. And the heavenly angels who are watching God at work can see God teaching the people about how damaging sin is and presenting his own wonderful Son in place of these people - no one can accuse God of being unfair, because He made the sacrifice of his own life for that of his people.
This is grace: I want my daughter to be a person of prayer. I have prayed for her to love talking with God. Yet I am not a good or consistent example. I want to be, but I am not. Yet, beyond my efforts lately, she has been very interested in prayer. After we turn out the lights at night she'll say, "Mama - Dada - bof hans." And we'll give her our hands. Then she'll say, "Poay." Then she'll say things like, "Dhee-doo Jesus tunnel. Dhee-doo Jesus Gigi. Dhee-doo Jesus swide.... 'men!"
In addition, I've been working through a parallel Sabbath-school quarterly on the Sanctuary, and I think I'm starting to understand the traditional Seventh-day Adventist interpretation of the heavenly Sanctuary as well as the Day of Atonement. (If your initials are ACB and you happen to want the details, you can view the quarterly here.)
About holiness - I know that Jesus is described as a Brother and as a Friend. But he is not a "buddy." He is human, but he is also something else far more wonderful and complex and unfathomable and powerful - that is, divine. Holy means something set apart, something different. I should not approach the Lord casually, but with reverence and awe, even knowing I have a safe place with him. I cannot take him for granted and conduct the relationship on my own terms.
About grace - I somehow have had the idea that grace means God is "nice." That God forgives, because he is nice; he sweeps things under the rug. This is diametrically opposed to the idea, which has never appealed to me, that God is vengeful and exacting, and that he has set up some arbitrary rules and is ready to smite anyone who isn't obedient. And since no one is, he had his Son killed to satisfy his own sense of justice. That God is not "nice". I'm occasionally worried about the second God, but usually I presume I'm working with the first God.
Only I think now I must be rather wrong about both.
Grace is a God who sees my mistakes and how much destruction they cause and has gone far out of his way to set a plan into action to save me and to teach me to do better. And who expects me to participate in his plan - a difficult task.
I'm thinking of a mother who sees that her son is a total slob. She knows this is going to hurt his future roommates and family members, not to mention it's no fun to live with now, and he often loses things he needs for school.
The first-God kind of mom ignores the slobbiness, not wanting to be unkind. She is operating from a boundary-less framework. As a result the son never learns to be neater or consider others and keeps losing things, eventually, that he needs for his job as an adult. He grows up to be a pain. But he's happy.
The second-God kind of mom tells the son it's time to shape up, and if he doesn't start being a neatnik within a week, she will throw away everything he owns. She follows through. The son has no idea how to become tidier, and the following week is going to school wrapped only in a towel, having slept on the floor.
The mom of grace talks a little with her son about the problem. Then, using her resources as a responsible adult, creates a plan for him to learn, step by step, over the next year about being neater. Each step along the way, she gives him new tools, and actually physically helps him to undertake the tasks she has assigned. She sets up small consequences, both positive and negative for each step, and follows through with encouragement. The son has to buy into the plan and make big efforts to learn how to clean up. He may not like a lot of what's happening, and it's a lot harder than his old ways, but on his mom's initiative and with her help, he will become someone who knows to keep things clean and consider others while doing so.
This is the God of Leviticus. Little by little, he's teaching people about truth, justice, obedience, and love. He is teaching them step by step about the love of Jesus. He is teaching them about Jesus' ultimate sacrifice. It is hard for the Israelites. They have a complicated religion to follow, and there are consequences along the way. And the heavenly angels who are watching God at work can see God teaching the people about how damaging sin is and presenting his own wonderful Son in place of these people - no one can accuse God of being unfair, because He made the sacrifice of his own life for that of his people.
This is grace: I want my daughter to be a person of prayer. I have prayed for her to love talking with God. Yet I am not a good or consistent example. I want to be, but I am not. Yet, beyond my efforts lately, she has been very interested in prayer. After we turn out the lights at night she'll say, "Mama - Dada - bof hans." And we'll give her our hands. Then she'll say, "Poay." Then she'll say things like, "Dhee-doo Jesus tunnel. Dhee-doo Jesus Gigi. Dhee-doo Jesus swide.... 'men!"
Thursday, January 15, 2015
View: Thursday, January 15th, 12:30 pm
I wish I'd be able to capture the sunrise when everything was glowing golden. The clouds were still dramatic at noon, and it hadn't started to rain yet, though.
But that's just the background for a bonus story which cracked me up.
Shortly before we went out on the run which produced the above picture, I was in the bedroom and had just taken a big swig of water out of my water bottle. In comes Anne with her pants sagged down to her knees, hood-style: "Mama, help, pants." (Might I mention that the 18-month pants are a wee bit to big around my skinny girl now that she's out of diapers.) I started laughing so hard I couldn't contain myself, and I inadvertently spit out all the water onto the carpet. Anne got a horrified look on her face, and said, "Clean it up!" Then she burst into paroxisms of tears and went running to Daddy saying, "Mama, no! Dada - hug!" I'm pretty sure she thought I was very sick and just threw up on the floor, and then I laughed even harder, until both of us were crying, rather different sorts of tears. Eventually she discovered I was not sick, and she let me hug her. Tears over.
It's been kind of a stressful week, and today didn't help. Black Bean had to have several teeth out at the vet (he's really not feeling well, and it's super expensive and he's got to have more out in a couple of weeks, and we are trying to go out of town for the weekend, but he has to be on medication twie a day, and blah blah blah...), and I had a cranky toddler a lot of the day.
But that's just the background for a bonus story which cracked me up.
Shortly before we went out on the run which produced the above picture, I was in the bedroom and had just taken a big swig of water out of my water bottle. In comes Anne with her pants sagged down to her knees, hood-style: "Mama, help, pants." (Might I mention that the 18-month pants are a wee bit to big around my skinny girl now that she's out of diapers.) I started laughing so hard I couldn't contain myself, and I inadvertently spit out all the water onto the carpet. Anne got a horrified look on her face, and said, "Clean it up!" Then she burst into paroxisms of tears and went running to Daddy saying, "Mama, no! Dada - hug!" I'm pretty sure she thought I was very sick and just threw up on the floor, and then I laughed even harder, until both of us were crying, rather different sorts of tears. Eventually she discovered I was not sick, and she let me hug her. Tears over.
Wednesday, January 14, 2015
Tuesday, January 13, 2015
Sunday, January 11, 2015
Saturday, January 10, 2015
View: Saturday, January 10th, 5:00 pm
Just after sundown with a very light drizzle:
I wish I'd been able to go two other times yesterday. After the first shot, the fog cleared off and it was brilliantly sunny. View for miles and miles. Then later in the afternoon long, narrow dense clouds covered the lower elevations in the sky.
Previous view here.
Friday, January 9, 2015
View: Friday, January 9th, 8:30 am
On my runs lately, I've been aiming for one or two different view points, which are just a few hundred yards from each other. They are so different looking each day - I wanted to take a series of photos which show the changes in weather conditions. Here's this morning's:
Tuesday, January 6, 2015
Tuesday morning
There are plenty of clouds in the sky this morning, and the sun is behind them, but the Cascades, Mt. Rainier and the Olympics were all stunningly visible in their snow-capped glory this morning on my run. I may be mistaken, but I even think I saw a little of the top of Mt. St. Helen's, too. It's a good day to be in Seattle.
Yesterday was the twelfth day of Christmas and Jared's birthday. Today is Epiphany/Three Kings Day and my dad's birthday. Fun to have holiday birthdays in our family!
That is all. Happy Tuesday!
Yesterday was the twelfth day of Christmas and Jared's birthday. Today is Epiphany/Three Kings Day and my dad's birthday. Fun to have holiday birthdays in our family!
That is all. Happy Tuesday!
Saturday, January 3, 2015
Hill Country Holidays
We returned last night from almost two weeks in central Texas to an apartment which has been inhabited by three cats who aren't the cleanliest of occupants. And also the dirty dishes we didn't get washed before we left... And the laundry left unfolded on the desk... Anyway, here are some of the true highlights of our trip.
First of all, we had a LONG layover in San Francisco, which made for a LONG travel day with a toddler. But... it was my first time on Californian "soil," so I can check off another state on my spent-time-in list. There were actually some fun things to do in the airport, including these excellent retro swivel chairs:
First of all, we had a LONG layover in San Francisco, which made for a LONG travel day with a toddler. But... it was my first time on Californian "soil," so I can check off another state on my spent-time-in list. There were actually some fun things to do in the airport, including these excellent retro swivel chairs:
Anne got to help make shortbread star cookies with her Grandmother and Granddaddy:
And dance to Little Richard's version of The Itsy Bitsy Spider:
One of the first days we were there, we saw an incredible sunset which kept changing moment by moment:
My parents' new neighborhood in a rural-ish area is covered with herds of roaming deer, which are quite tame, and they are wonderful to watch in the yards:
Jared, especially, spent hours walking the neighborhood for Anne's naps in the stroller. I think he added some new calf muscle powering up and down the hills. There was quite a bit of lovely Hill Country scenery, occasionally marred by houses, streets, cars, mailboxes, fences, and powerlines:
For Christmas Eve and the First Sunday of Christmastide, we attended my parents' Presbyterian church, and I enjoyed so much that both services were chock full of carol-singing with the enormous and beautiful pipe organ. Maybe I should become Anglican. The Christmas Eve service was the early one where the kids put on costumes and participate in an impromptu retelling of Jesus' birth from Luke. Anne wasn't too sure about the whole thing, but she loves going up front for the children's story at church every week, so we zipped up her teddy bear hoodie, told her she was a sheep, and she followed the shepherds around so she could be part of the action.
On Christmas Day we had my mom and dad, my grandmother, my sister and brother and both of their spouses, Jared and Anne and I, and our cousin Justin. Here's the living room piled with gifts:
We hadn't really told Anne that there were gifts involved - so far she was mainly interested in Christmas lights "misssmiss lights", baby Jesus, "Jezhush" and angels "angeow". When she was handed the first package, she was quite surprised. Her eye lit up, she yelled, "Present!", and started opening.
Her Grandmother got her a backhoe, and it makes all kinds of fun sounds:
Christmas evening we watched Holiday Inn, and it was a movie I was comfortable having Anne watch, because the camera shots were slow, and it was mostly singing and dancing. Very fun.
Anne loves her GG (what she calls her Great-Grandmommie). Here is Anne listening to GG read her a story:
Anne was also quite taken with my cousin Justin (my second cousin on my dad's paternal side, if you want to be particular). They got a good game going where Justin would build things with these little blocks and then Anne would "DEE-mowish":
He also presented her with lectures on various topics including the Sony Walkman Cassette player and the game of chess. "DEE-mowish" was a good game with any number of people:
There were a couple of very warm days when I had wished I'd brought a tank top, although a lot of the weather was Washington-esque, by which I mean chilly, overcast, and drizzly. One day we went over to Emily and Chad's new house which is undergoing extensive remodeling. My dad did some electrical work for them, and Jared and Anne and I went walking in a nearby park for Anne's stroller nap. She woke up far sooner than we wished, but she then got to spend some time on the playground, which is one of her favorite things. We went again to Emily and Chad's another day and ate an amazing multi-course dinner which Chef Chad prepared. Here he is bruising some Asian cilantro:
One morning, my mom, my grandmother, and I drove over to San Marcos to visit my grandmother's brother and his wife. Jackie was recuperating in a nursing facility from a hip surgery, and Uncle Rufus rented himself a bed and was staying there with her until she was done with her therapy. My grandmother brought several family pictures for her little brother to look at, I brought my knitting, which it turns out Jackie loves to do, and my mom brought all sorts of interesting things to look at on the iPad. The drive was lovely, and along the way we rode over the Devil's Backbone on Farm Road 12; it is a place where you can see views to the left and the right at the same time. My mom told me about a picnic they had there when she was a kid and her cousin Karen said something that cracked her up that she still remembers. We also passed the Freeman Ranch, which Dad (Grandmommie's father) managed after he retired from ranching himself. Then Uncle Rufus worked there. It was donated later to one of the state universities, and it is a ranch in perpetuity.
GG took Anne shopping and got her some real cowboy boots, and she took Linda and me shopping at a fun little boutique "in town." You can see the boots well in this picture with Justin:
One afternoon, Emily and Jeff and I went through a bunch of things (mostly old family things) that my parents were needing to give away after their move. I picked out two lamps that my great-grandfather "Dad" made, as well as an old Cavitt silver chest (it's a beautiful wooden box), and some baby shoes of my mother's, my sister's, and mine. I also requested that if some of the family china sets could be divyed up, I would want a serving dish or so from each. I took three tiny glass dishes from Elm Grove, which is the home where Grandmommie's grandmother grew up (ancient history, folks - my grandmother is 98), and a framed photo of my grandmother from when she was college-aged. I also brought back the dress my mom made for Emily's second birthday party at Emily's explicit 23-month-old request, so that Anne can wear it for her second birthday coming up in a few months.
One evening my mom and I sat together on the couch and did handwork at the same time: my mom smocked and I knitted while Anne and my dad "DEE-mowished." It felt like another century.
On a side-note, I have wondered why you can't find any "normal" rocking chairs in stores - only these cushioned glider things. Normal rocking chairs are defined in my mind by this one right here that I grew up with:
It turns out this piece has been in the family since before the Civil War, so I guess my sense of rocking chair style is a bit outdated.
Another evening we had a whole pile of Bridge relatives come for dinner:
L to R: Justin, Chad, Dad, Jeff
L to R: Dad' cousin Don, Justin (We did a boy's table and a girl's table.
The boy's table drank more beer.)
L to R: Mom, Grandmommie, Don's wife Michelle
L to R: Dad's aunt Fonnie, Fonnie's daughter Helen, me, Emily, Linda
The last afternoon we were there, Justin came again for lunch, and his dad Ed came too, since he was down from Cleveland for the weekend. I got a great picture of Ed and Anne rolling a ball back and forth, but unfortunately it seems that Anne deleted it before I got home to upload the pictures. Ed brought his guitar, and we did a little improv together.
Several evenings, and that last lunch, we made a fire in the moveable fire pit the former inhabitants left behind, and we grilled marshmallows for s'mores. S'mores are on nearly no one's diet; with the whole family there we had omnivore, vegetarian, whole-foods plant-based, Paleo, and FODSMAP. But the s'mores were a lot of fun and delicious, too.
One of the best afternoons was spent looking at old slides, mostly from my mother's childhood, after my dad tinkered with the slide projector for hours to get it back to sort-of functioning. The slides are so amazing, because they are in color, and the color hasn't deteriorated the way color photos have, so even though the styles and skylines were quite different, it all looked like it could have happened yesterday.
One of the other best afternoons was spent visiting these lovely people, who are currently living a brief one-hour-and-fifteen-minutes drive from my parents' house, courtesy of the Army. It was a short visit with Leah, but so wonderful!
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