My Year of Reading (2023)

I set off this year with a goal to “read more.” “Read more” is the type of ambiguous goal that I chastise students for making because they haven’t thought through the steps it will take to be successful. But in real life, I don’t believe in #goals. I just wanted to break the cycle of blindly consuming social media and news on my phone, because that type of reading never makes me feel good. I knew I was turning to my phone to fill in these little gaps in time, of which there were many, and I figured if I filled in the gaps with books instead, I’d get pretty far. I was right and that feels good, but it doesn’t feel good just because I was right. It feels good because I am ending the year feeling self-aware, and confident, and inspired, and creative, and joyful. And I know I wouldn’t have made it to this spot without this magical combination of 34 books, which were unintentionally and unexpectedly thematic. I learned about personality and creativity, time and the ways in which we relate to it, how we learn, why we regret, and most importantly, the all-encompassing power of joy. Even if that all sounds random (it’s not, I promise), each of the (non-fiction) books I read this year seemed to build on the previous, leading me to a place I otherwise wouldn’t have been able to find. The books were working together to put me together.

I know I can’t possibly blather on about all 34 books, so instead I am highlighting three that burned so brightly they lit up the dark places of my year. All three were textbook (ha!) cases of reading the exact right thing at the exact right time.

Hyperbole and a Half and Solutions and Other Problems by Allie Brosh

Is this cheating? I know it’s two books, which if you look ahead and do the math comes out to four total, and I said I’d blather on about only three… But c’mon, it’s Allie Brosh. Don’t make me choose. I don’t know that I’d have found my way to these two books had I not read the graphic memoir Everything is an Emergency by Jason Adam Katzenstein. This was my first read of the year, and while memoir is my preferred genre, I unexpectedly enjoyed the graphic format so much, I went looking for more books with pictures. Turning up Allie Brosh was like hitting the jackpot. If you’re familiar with her work already, I know you know what I mean. If you’re unfamiliar and want me to explain more…. I can’t. It’s inexplicable in the best way possible. Let me do you a favor by pointing you to her blog.  

Four Thousand Weeks: Time Management for Mortals by Oliver Burkeman

All three of the books that are on this list have something else in common. In addition to being the right reads at the right time, I also highlighted more of the books than Kindle said it was legally allowed to export. And I know what you’re thinking here. You’re thinking, “hey, didn’t famous author Nick Hornby tell you – you, personally – to stop annotating and cataloging the books you read?” Well, yes. Yes he did. But I can’t, and honestly, I think he knows that. There are so many wonderful ideas and lessons in Burkeman’s book that are worth returning to and remembering, like this one:

The fundamental problem is that this attitude toward time sets up a rigged game in which it’s impossible ever to feel as though you’re doing well enough. Instead of simply living our lives as they unfold in time—instead of just being time, you might say—it becomes difficult not to value each moment primarily according to its usefulness for some future goal, or for some future oasis of relaxation you hope to reach once your tasks are finally “out of the way.” Superficially, this seems like a sensible way to live, especially in a hypercompetitive economic climate, in which it feels as though you must constantly make the most judicious use of your time if you want to stay afloat. (It also reflects the manner in which most of us were raised: to prioritize future benefits over current enjoyments.) But ultimately it backfires. It wrenches us out of the present, leading to a life spent leaning into the future, worrying about whether things will work out, experiencing everything in terms of some later, hoped-for benefit, so that peace of mind never quite arrives. And it makes it all but impossible to experience “deep time,” that sense of timeless time which depends on forgetting the abstract yardstick and plunging back into the vividness of reality instead.

I found Burkeman because he’s referenced in Jenny O’Dell’s newest book Saving Time, which I also read this year. While I enjoyed Four Thousand Weeks more, I’ll credit both with my new resolve to opt out of anyone else’s ideas of how I should spend my time. And with this idea planted in my brain that my time is my own, I went on to discover and rediscover that there’s no experiencing deep time without deep joy.

If at any point previously, you’d stopped me and asked, “what’s your favorite book,” I would’ve said it was a tie between The Great Gatsby and the aforementioned Hornby’s Juliet, Naked. And I would’ve been telling the truth. Those are two of my favorite books. But, as fiction makes up an itty-bitty fraction of what I read (for example, one out of the 34 books I read this year was fiction), I’d been wondering why I don’t have a non-fiction answer to the question of my favorite book. It’s possible that this was just a failure of imagination on my part. Or, perhaps I just had yet to read This is Not a Book about Benedict Cumberbatch: The Joy of Loving Something – Anything – Like Your Life Depends On It.

Our own obsessions are exquisite; they’re the gleaming circles that encompass, perfectly, our innermost thoughts and desires. But when we turn our insides out to display them to the world, expose these precious, private parts of ourselves to the light, all anyone else sees is a toilet bowl full of poo coins.

This is Not a Book about Benedict Cumberbatch brought my barreling freight train of reading to a complete halt in November of this year. I could’ve read four or five more books before 2024, but I closed Tabitha Carvan’s debut masterpiece and, crying like a baby, thought, well, it’s never going to get any better than this. I announced at the dinner table that I might need to retire from reading. (To which Sonja responded, WHAT?!?) I just couldn’t have needed to hear what this book had to say more than I did. It was a transformative experience for me, and I wanted to share this with you not because I think this book would be a transformative experience for you, but because…Well, I’ll let Carvan herself explain.

A book like this, should it tell you what to do? It seems pretty presumptuous. You might be much happier than me; you might already know all this. I don’t want to tell you what to do. But also, I’m desperate for you to know that it’s worth it. Finding your thing, I mean. Feeling a spark of something, and instead of instinctively dousing it, fanning the flames. It feels good. It feels good in a way that’s hard to get across because the alternative, not having a thing, doesn’t necessarily feel bad, just normal.

I have only just started to read again, very slowly and timidly, after at least a month’s hiatus. Now I see the genius of the ambiguous goal. Instead of insisting on a certain number of hours per week or books per month, simply “reading more” allowed me to let the experience unfold. It allowed me to stop and savor that which deserved savoring. And when you think about it, the point of “reading more” wasn’t ever just a numbers game, but a search for joy. Mission accomplished. My new goal for next year is simply to “continue reading.”

My Twelve-and-a-Quarter Year Old

Who’s in charge of the marketing campaign for parenting? Whoever it is, you’re doing a bang-up job. You’ve convinced us all that it’s the most wonderful job in the world so long as you can survive the sleep-deprived infancy, the terrible twos, the temper tantrum threes and all of the other negative ages. Which is all of them? I’m not sure I’ve ever heard anyone say, “I’m the parent of a teenager,” without eliciting some sort of sympathetic response. Please, marketers, if there’s a specific way I’m supposed to feel as the parent of a pre-teen, don’t tell me. This might be my favorite age so far, and I don’t want to ruin my experience with your expectations.

At twelve, Sonja still needs us and still likes us. She is not ready to fully embrace independence, but she’s also remarkably competent. I get daily reminders from the school to check to see if she has missing assignments, which I ignore because a) sixth grade is a good time to face natural consequences for missing work, and b) Sonja would never forget to turn in an assignment. Unfortunately competence in twelve-year-olds is highly selective. Constant reminders to pick up her socks go unheeded, and she frequently needs help to operate the microwave.

Sonja has always defied our genetic expectations. She doesn’t resemble either one of us and she’s an extrovert. But sometimes, just sometimes, I look at her and see my own reflection, for she is my little obsessive. If her extroversion is a product of nature, is the obsessiveness a nurtured trait? I think the answer is yes, seeing as how I am incapable of expressing ambivalence about anything. But then the question is, how did I get to be this way? There are times when seeing yourself clearly through your child’s behavior brings up internal conflicts, but this is not one of those times. Sonja is self-assured in the best way possible, in that she fully embraces all aspects of herself no matter what anyone else says about or to her. It’s inspiring and reminds me to be my obsessive self. Obsessive is probably not the right word. Sonja would say that she “hyperfixates,” which is a trendy word but still not the right one. (Maybe there’s a word in German. Germans have a word for everything.) I’m going to hold firm to obsession. There are downsides to obsession that I experience, like rumination. but the upside is the capability to completely immerse yourself in the things that bring you joy. That’s the definition I want to give for obsession. Immersion in joy.

Right now, Sonja is immersed with the Game/Food/Film/Style Theory YouTuber MatPat, and I approve. His video on why McDonald’s fountain Coca-Cola is better than any other fountain soda blew my mind. As a household, we probably have a YouTube problem, but Sonja is a smart consumer, and she has a knack for picking out educational content. This is the upside of YouTube – the ability to learn certain things quicker and better than we ever could before. Even when she’s watching entertaining content, there’s, well, actual content, and other YouTubers with nothing to say who say it loudly (ahem – Flamingo) are being phased out.

I am contractually obligated to mention here that Sonja loved Five Nights at Freddy’s, the recently released movie based on the game. The movie features a cameo by MatPat.

Sonja has also very recently decided she’s into ’90s band Weezer, after seeing a viral meme that used the guitar lick from their hit “Buddy Holly.” This led Shaun and I to reminisce about the release of Windows 95 (which came pre-loaded with the “Buddy Holly” music video*) and then feel old. Weezer’s first album was released in 1994, twenty-nine years ago. That makes it older to her today than Sgt. Pepper was to me when I was listening to it in 1994. Yeesh.

Sonja continues to be wildly creative. She loves making art, whether its drawing or crafting or editing videos. She created a podcast with a friend, and is frequently frustrated with me because she wants to make videos and post them online, and I insist that she has to post them privately. This kid wants a following – who needs to act when you could live that sweet, sweet YouTube dream? – and I understand. (Hello, readers!) Eventually, she will be unleashed on social media, but I’m holding her back as long as possible, trying to instill in her that it’s the joy in the creation that’s critical.

If you ask Sonja, she will tell you that she hates her school this year, and it does seem overcrowded and unruly**. But life is overcrowded and unruly, so maybe this is good practice for what’s to come. For all of the complaining about missing Washington, she’s handled this move with more grace and ease than the rest of us, and I’m starting to see that any traditional learning lost is not a total loss. She’s learning how to handle change, my arch nemesis, and she’s learning it young. This will serve her well.

If you’ve read my previous blogs in which I chronicle my anxiety over removing Sonja from her highly capable program and that previous paragraph sounded a little bit pat, let me explain. I had an interview with a school in our new district a couple of months ago, and when the principal asked if my daughter was in the highly capable program here, I said, “she should be.” He and all the others at the table immediately understood. The problem is that we weren’t in the district last year, so we weren’t able to submit the application on time. And there’s apparently no such thing as a transfer program. The principal told me, “you know what, at this point, it doesn’t matter. Next year, in junior high, she can take whatever advanced classes she likes.” It felt reassuring to hear this from an educator in a high position. I extrapolated this a little further, into realizing, fair or not, our socioeconomic status means she has the foundations for whatever she wants to do, and this year won’t break that. Or, as author Oliver Burkeman puts it, “The struggle for certainty is an intrinsically hopeless one—which means you have permission to stop engaging in it.” By the way, her first trimester grades recently came in and she got As in everything, except music, in which she got an A+. Sonja said she didn’t realize A plusses were actually real.

And now for the “what we’ve been up to” part of the post. Mostly, we’ve been adjusting. Some things are not difficult to adjust to, like the fact that there is no school bus service here. Sonja has to walk to school, but it takes a total of ten minutes, and has the added benefit that no one has to take the school bus. If walking were an option in Washington, we’d do it, but it would be miserable probably 65% of the time. Here, it has rained on us only once, which by southern California standards is a lot. The walk to school is one of those ways in which Sonja is still leaning on me. She wants me to walk with her, and I wouldn’t dream of saying no. Not only do I like Sonja, but did I mention I also quite like walking? My schedule right now is perfect in that once I drop her off, I get to continue walking around the neighborhood for as long as I’d like. Eight a.m. in the winter is exactly the time that one wants to go on a long walk in Southern California, before it gets too hot. Our house is in walking distance of Sonja’s two new friends, which means they can stop by whenever. We’re also within walking distance of a cute tea shop. Sonja and friends walk there, they buy tea, they come back. It’s the perfect little taste of independence for pre-teens.

There are some other things that aren’t as delightful as a walk in the sunshine and a cup of tea. For example, we are not adjusting well to being renters, but that’s more us than Sonja. No one would mistake us for locals yet, either. For one thing, we’re not frightened by rain. For another thing, we rely on GPS to get everywhere. We don’t know the names or numbers of any of the freeways, let alone how anyone could remember the seven different highways they need to get to one destination that’s ten miles away. Also, the locals here seem to think it’s Christmas time. All of the stores are playing Christmas music and selling holiday-themed sweaters, but I’m pretty sure it’s still summer?

When it all gets to be too much, we go to Disneyland, or Legoland, or Knott’s Berry Farm. Visits to theme parks seem less stressful in that scarcity is no longer part of the equation, but now the expense seems like a bigger part of the equation. Are we getting our money’s worth? Sonja still won’t let us get on any of the rides we want to go on, but she’s also not interested in any of the attractions or events aimed at the little kids. This means we mostly wander around and shop and eat, which isn’t terrible but it also is not something I want to pay admission to do. I am still holding out hope that we just haven’t hit “theme park age” yet. Maybe next time. Stay tuned.

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  Sonja as Hastunke Miku at Legoland for Brick or Treat.

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  At a playground near the house.

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  Dressed up like a black cat for Halloween. Mask by Sonja.

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  Dressed up in a dino mask for trick or treating. Mask by Sonja.

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  Sonja and Dad stuck on Mr. Toad’s Wild Ride.

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  At Flo’s V8 Cafe.

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  Mailing postcards from Disneyland! Did you get one?

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  Ghiradelli at Disney California Adventure. Yum!

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  On the ferris wheel at Disney California Adventure.

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  One of our favorite YouTuber’s has his logo branded into the barn door at Knott’s Berry Farm.

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  Sonja won’t let us on this ride, but you know, I’m actually okay with that.

*This was a big deal. Really.

**Also, whenever I have to go to the front office, they seem absolutely bewildered that an adult human has entered the building.

My Twelve-Year-Old

A 12-year-old at school on her birthday.

I recently watched the live-action version of Disney’s The Little Mermaid with my almost twelve-year-old. The original, animated version of this movie came out in 1989, when I was almost twelve, and I loved it. I loved the story, I loved the music, and I loved the happy ending where the 16-year-old is allowed to marry a man she just met. (Of course, I didn’t think of it that way in 1989, but to rewatch some of these old Disney movies as a parent is to see them in a completely different way.) Sonja, having seen the original, liked this version just fine. But Disney did not update the story as they should have for a generation of 2023 twelve-year-olds, who grew up watching Frozen and understand that you can’t marry a man you just met. Thus, sadly but perhaps not unfortunately, I do not think this film will register in my daughter’s consciousness as the original registers in mine.

If you grew up watching The Little Mermaid, or Disney movies in general, you probably have a sense that the arc of the universe bends towards justice. I know I do. But it turns out the universe likes to bend its arc towards comedy. Oh, universe, you think you’re so funny. Remember last update, when I talked of Sonja’s fifth grade teacher, whom I received daily complaints about? She wasn’t as good as the 3rd-4th grade teacher who Sonja missed terribly. Both the 3rd/4th grade teacher and the fifth grade teacher were seasoned veterans of the profession, but the fifth grade teacher wasn’t friendly or warm, and if the reports that got back to me were accurate, said some educationally questionable things. I was sure we could do better, especially since we were moving to the Shangri-La of school districts in Orange County, California. But the universe had a different plan. Instead of a seasoned teaching veteran, we got a baby. A baby with a tik-tok. A youngin’ right out of college with minimal experience. Add that to the fact that Sonja is back in what I like to refer to as a gen-pop class, and I feel like a monster. Worst parent of the century. But I think the point here – the lesson the universe is trying to teach through humor – is that there is no Shangri-La. Somewhere along the line, I got a solid education, and it’s not because I went to a good schools in good districts. I went to “bad” schools. But I had some good teachers. I have so much more to say on this but that’s not why you called. For now, let’s simply reflect on the good school/good teacher distinction, as well as what education should look like in sixth grade. Y’all can let me know in the comments if I’m right or if I’m crazy.

Back to the protagonist, as Sonja would say. She misses her old class and is not yet sold on this new school. She is very upset that they are doing the same math she did last year. I am upset about this too but don’t know what to do about it. She was also really upset that their lunchroom is outside. Oh the horror. In contrast, she was annoyed the other day when it sprinkled and the kids had to have indoor recess. Hilarious. In her previous district, they wouldn’t let the kids inside for recess even if there was a hurricane. She has a class called “innovations lab” that she likes, though it sounds like they only get to have that class once or twice a month. This class has legos and 3D printers, and what’s not to like about that? She likes her band teacher, but dislikes the fact the class is called “winds” instead of band.

Sonja had to answer the eponymous, “what did you do on summer vacation” for her class, and her answer was “nothing.” I said, “we moved; that’s not nothing,” but I understand her point. This summer was boring, especially for her, but for all of us, really. The chaos of the move, getting our things set up, registering cars, etc., kept us busy but not with fun, summertime things or things that one even remotely wants to be doing at any time of the year. I made sure we had a few fun outings otherwise I would’ve gone crazy. We got a southern California resident ticket for Disneyland and enjoyed the park on three separate and appropriately spaced days. One Saturday, I took her to Newport Beach, which was absolutely a mistake. I had no idea it could take one two hours to travel 13 miles. Afterwards, we stopped by the Old Spaghetti Factory in Newport Beach. (#15 on my list if anyone else is counting.) We also went to the farmer’s market, an independent bookstore, and an underwhelming store called Five Below that we’d heard about on YouTube. We made several trips to our HOA pool, which is always absurdly quiet and empty. I thought we should go there everyday, but as noted at her birthday party, it’s much more fun to swim with friends.

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  The view of Newport Beach.

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  It was so busy.

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  We had fun for a little bit.

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  Then we got annoyed and hungry, so we went to the second happiest place on Earth, The Old Spaghetti Factory!

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  On a new (to us) ride at Disneyland…the parking tram!

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  It was overcast, but not this dark. It must be the fairies working their magic.

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  Look! We can finally see her above the windshield!

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  Having too much fun on Winnie the Pooh.

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  Toy Story Midway Mania! Our favorite.

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  Luigi’s Rollickin’ Roadsters, decked out for Halloween.

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  Frontierland, decked out for Halloween (yes, it’s too early for this, but oh well.)

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  #TeamHauntedMansionHoliday

Speaking of the birthday party, Sonja has made two good friends at school that she invited over to celebrate with her last weekend. I know she wanted a bigger party and misses her friends from home, but I am impressed that she has already made two friends. She settled on Halloween theme, which consisted of a few streamers, some plates and napkins, and digging out the fall/Halloween decor a little early. Sonja’s friends stayed the night and we went to the pool for what was a private pool party, since people here don’t seem to understand that it’s sunny. It might’ve been “too cold” last weekend – a chilly 77 degrees – but we all found it to be the perfect temperature. In fact, her two friends jumped right into the deep end without even testing the water. I’m not sure I could do that even if someone was drowning. After swimming, we went to Korean food. Sonja still doesn’t like cake so we stuck a candle in a cookie and made a wish. Then the kids stayed up late – but not catch-the-sunrise late – watching movies and making TikToks.

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  Someday she’ll learn to swim (?)

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  I really think this is a nice pool.

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  Splash!

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  Opening a large present.

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  Yay, a video game!

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  A birthday cookie.

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  Her “lunch room” at school.

Other than location, there’s not that much that has changed in the last three months. Sonja still loves playing video games online with friends, watching YouTube, and drawing. She’s still super smart, super tiny, and a super picky eater. She’s more patient than she used to be, and is great at doing things that take extensive concentration, like building universes in Bloxburg, or making intricate kandi bracelets. She still melts down when things don’t work perfectly, but she’s quicker to recover.

One of our last outings this summer was to the movie theater on National Cinema Day, when ticket prices were just $4, and snacks were just as cheap. We saw Jurassic Park, which originally came out in 1993, when I was almost 15. Jurassic Park replaced The Little Mermaid as my favorite movie, and to this day, it’s the only movie I’ve seen in the theater more than once. (Thrice in ’93 and now four times total!) I had shown Sonja Jurassic Park before, but she remembered none of it, so it was superb to see her reaction to it on the big screen. And that reaction? She fell in love with Jeff Goldblum. Like mother, like daughter. And now you see what I mean about the universe having a sense of humor.

My Eleven-and-Three-Quarters Year Old

Let’s talk about evolution for a moment. Do y’all remember why I started this blog? Don’t worry – I know you don’t. I’m not that kind of confident. To refresh your memory, 16 years ago, in 2007, we decided to buy a house, and I decided to blog about the – ahem – adventure. It was harrowing, buying a house, and I remember not liking the process. (An aside: I didn’t like the process because it was littered with greed. It is also a process that doesn’t cater to people who have never been through the process, which is insulting. You shouldn’t have to work in real estate to get a fair shake. *Dismounts soapbox*) After we bought the house, I started chronicling the renovation – ahem – adventures, which I also did not like (See above reasons.) And finally, six months after Sonja came along, I started blogging about the parenting – ahem – adventure, which I find challenging, but which I also like (and also sometimes dislike for above reasons.) And now, here we are. Eleven-and-three-quarters years later.

An eleven-and-three-quarters year old.

This blog has become mainly the quarterly kid updates, especially the past few years. I also have the yearly vacation post, which I love, but overall, I haven’t been visited by the muse much lately. The pandemic wasn’t helpful, that’s for sure. I’ve been living in this space in my brain that tells me that there’s nothing to say here, in a public forum, because everything in my life is the same. (Not that that has ever stopped anyone on YouTube.) But that’s the bizarre mindset that blogging and social media have given rise to. The idea that if I don’t have something novel or beautiful to show, then I can’t contribute to the “conversation.” Even when there’s a shortage of excitement in life, there’s no shortage of thoughts. I’m always thinking thoughts, philosophizing, agonizing and obsessing, all of which is likely better to have recorded than, say, breakfast.

I say all of this for a reason, but we’ll get to that. First, let’s do the update:

Sonja’s just about ready to finish off the fifth grade. Our school goes late into June this year, and she’s got about a week left. It’s been a challenging year with a challenging teacher, but this year, more than any preceding it, Sonja has seen how work pays off. She studies for tests, she makes art projects, she writes essays, and she excels. She’s been frustrated at the lack of clear direction from her teacher, as have I, but isn’t that just how life goes, sometimes? When she has questions about how to do assignments that she can’t answer because, “the teacher didn’t tell us,” I tell her to do what she thinks is right. She does not like this answer. I’m sure I never did either, but years of ambiguity and feedback have taught me how to predict, anticipate and not worry too much about the consequences, since hard work is always looked upon favorably. She doesn’t understand this yet, but she will. However, I do hope that her teacher next year suits her style a bit better.

A school project.

She continues to play the flute and had her first band concert last week. She received an “excellent eagle” award earlier this month, and had her name drawn twice -in a row! – for “pizza with the principal.” The class spent the year studying the United States, and she passed all her tests on state capitals, abbreviations, locations, and statehood dates. We also seem to finally have gotten a handle on multiplication and division. (Phew! The pandemic wasn’t helpful with this, either.) She made all her reading goals, and it really makes me wish that my main purpose in life was reading books so I could take tests on them. She was part of the student leadership committee this year, a role she did not choose and which she says she did not like, but still. If I haven’t mentioned it already, her artwork will be featured on the back cover of the yearbook.

Sonja has also taken up the art of kandi-making. Kandi are plastic beads strung together to make bracelets. She’s really good at this and and she doesn’t need any help from me. She also occasionally makes designs with the little perler beads that fuse together when ironed. We got the perler bead kit a while ago, and my first impression was not good. Much too fiddly for me and my patience, and for a long time, that was true of Sonja as well. But lo and behold, her patience as grown, as has her aptitude for art projects. Patience and art aptitude were never my strong suits. She continues art lessons and loves drawing. The kid that wouldn’t touch a coloring book because she wanted to draw the pictures has just continued drawing the pictures.

Kandi bracelets.

One might think all that work would take up all the time. Alas, all of it is dwarfed by screentime. While YouTube looms large in this house, a few movies have been showing lately as well. We saw Super Mario Brothers in the theater, which she loved. She declared it her favorite movie and bought the poster, until some meme led her to watch The Lorax, which she then declared her favorite movie. There’s no poster available, but she’s been making lots of fan art, and she had Grandma make her “Onceler” pajamas.

Somewhere in between those two movies, she developed a fondness for Wes Anderson’s Fantastic Mr. Fox. Oh and for some reason, Bluey looms large in this house. We caught some episodes in a hotel room once, and then watching Bluey in hotel rooms became sort of a tradition. And now we watch it at home sometimes, because it’s just that good. I am surprised a nearly 12-year-old would come within an inch of children’s television, but secretly I love it. It reminds me of when she was little, and it is also, again, just that good. If you’ve not seen Bluey and you’re wondering why it’s just that good (or thinking that I’m crazy), here’s a video that explains the widespread appeal.

She continues to play Roblox and video games, usually online with friends from school. I swear she knows every last person that goes to her school. It makes it both tragic and not tragic that less than two weeks after I publish this blog, we will move to a new state. Tragic that she will have to say goodbye, and not-tragic in that she makes friends so easily, I’m sure she’ll know everyone in California in no time. Sonja also finds it tragic that, after this long-ass school year, her summer break will be cut short when Californians return to school at the end of August.

And there you have it. Moving. Things will be different now, that’s for sure. There’s been so much about this moving – ahem – adventure that has been agonizing, but rather than blogging about it, I’ve just kept it bottled up inside. The cat’s out of the bag now, though, and I smell content memories. For example, I can tell you now that I have been conflicted about removing Sonja from her school and her advanced program. Not only is she excelling, but she has moved with the same cohort since third grade. However, knowing that we will change teachers, something that would not happen if we stayed here, makes it a little less agonizing. Let’s hope the next teacher is a good one.

We’ve all been preparing for this eventuality for over a year now, which is good, since we’ve all had time to adjust our mindsets. Sonja, for her part, is looking forward to redoing her room. She’s nervous, as are we all, but she’s also upbeat and optimistic. Oh to be an optimist! When all is said and done, I’m sure we learn more from our children than we teach them. There’s this impulse by older generations to look down on younger ones. We think they’re ruining the world and themselves because they do things differently than we did. Baby boomers talk shit about Gen X (me), Gen X talks shit about Gen Z. But really, in every case, what’s happening is the mindset of the world is changing and if there’s one thing I support, it’s changing your mind. I may not be an optimist by nature (or as NoHo Hank says, “optometrist”), but maybe I can learn. Maybe Sonja can teach me. She did teach me how to take a selfie, so there’s hope yet.

Before the lesson

During the lesson

After the lesson

My Eleven-and-a-Half Year Old (Belated)

After missing my and-a-quarter post (for the second time ever!), I’m now over a month behind on this and-a-half update. I can think of a thousand reasons for this delay, but they aren’t important. The only important thing to me is documenting the – for lack of a better word – journey. The journey of Sonja. The journey of her mom, and her dad, and her family. It’s especially important to me because my memory for life events is so very, very poor. Yet there’s a lot going on now that seems like it could benefit from the medicine of time. Which is to say, where to even start?

We could start with the phone, I guess. Sonja got a phone and is very happy about it. The original plan was to give her a phone when she was 13, but someone within this parental unit is a sucker and a spendthrift, and now here we are. We gave her the phone ahead of leaving her behind with Grandma for a week while we traveled. The phone and Facetime got extensive use that first week in lengthy and teary calls to Mom. And of course, it still gets plenty of use. It’s a lot of internal conflict for me as a parent. “Too much screen time! Too much media! But when I was 11, I could just pick up the house phone and call friends anytime! Kids need that!” There’s no conflict for Sonja, just joy. Except for the fact that we still won’t let her have TikTok or any other social media.

Before Shaun and I traveled alone, the three of us snuck in another trip to Disneyland in January. It was on this trip that we made our first visit to Knott’s Berry Farm as part of a company party. We were only there in the evening and, as mentioned just a sentence ago, it was our first visit. We were very lost. We had fun, we think, but it was too dark to be sure. This trip was short, theme-park intensive, and involved all of the usual whining. I should expect the whining by now. I have lots of previous experience to inform any hypotheses of how much whining to expect on any given trip. My hypothesis should be, “If we travel with our child, then I should expect maximum whining, because there is always maximum whining.” But no. My hypothesis is always, “If we travel with our child, then I should expect minimum whining, because she whined last time and I’m tired of whining.” I always think things like travel will be different or easier as she gets older, which makes me an eternal optimist. (Who knew? Not me!) If there is an age where that expectation – the expectation that things will be easier – becomes a reality, we haven’t hit it yet. It was still a fun trip – overall Sonja is a really good kid. The best. But she is nonetheless a kid and I constantly make the mistake of thinking my adult coping mechanisms somehow transferred to her through genetics or osmosis. They did not, and all I can do is try to help her along as she builds her own flawed coping mechanisms.

Back at home, Sonja continues to thrive in art lessons and she does great in school. Her teacher is impressed with her writing, as am I. And then there’s math. She still does extremely well, but unlike writing, the struggle is real. She has to get stuff wrong before she gets it right and she hates that. We all hate it, but most of us eventually accept that certain things take work, and we do the work. Or, as Adam Gopnik points out in his book On the Mystery of Mastery, we (as adults) avoid certain subjects entirely because we don’t like feelings of ineptitude, and then we don’t learn things. All because we’re afraid of looking bad. Sonja is at the age where she has to do the work whether she likes it or not, and I’m at the age where I want her to understand and revere the process of learning. However, saying that out loud, so to speak, makes me realize that I may not be modeling the process. Unless she’s watching me write this. She’s not, but she should be because holy shit, my first drafts are terrible. Why must writing be so torturous?

Speaking of which, I don’t have time to compose and edit anything more if I want to get this out before the next update is due, so just enjoy the pictures below.

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  Poolside, CA, January 2023

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  Poolside, CA, January 2023

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  Hot Tub-Side, CA, January 2023

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  Miming playing the flute.

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  Pluto!

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  Pluto calling Shaun out for being a sourpuss at Disneyland.

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  Teacups.

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  Haunted Mansion Holiday.

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  Tomorrowland.

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  Ghiradelli! (Our favorite.)

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  Squinting into the sun on Mater’s Junkyard Jamboree.

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  Mardi Gras decorations in N’awlinz Square.

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  Big Thunder at night.

My 2023 New Year’s Resolutions

Every year on New Year’s Eve, I am scrambling to put together a post on resolutions. Sometimes I have them, sometimes I don’t. This year, I do. I know January 1st is no more of a magic date than any other, but I have been contemplating making a few changes for a while.

First, I did not read as many books as I wanted to last year. I finished four, though in my defense there are several others that I started or am still reading. But I recognize that my lack of reading is not a lack of time, but rather a dependence on my phone, particularly social media. I have considered leaving Facebook permanently, as it used to be lots of posts from friends and the occasional ad, and now it’s just the opposite. Not only is it mostly ads, but a lot of it is click bait that I fall for. And I recognize that time spent on social media brings me very little joy. Reading books brings me TONS of joy. I underline quotes (my favorite pastime), I get excited about ideas and I relish in sharing newfound knowledge with anyone who will listen (My genres of choice are cultural non-fiction and memoir.) But rather than resolving to never check Facebook again, or read a certain number of books or hours in the new year, I am just going to promise myself to work towards reading more while looking at my phone less. I have plenty of opportunities in the day to read, but often these are small moments and I worry I don’t have time to get involved in a book, so instead I just scroll the phone. But we all know those few moments drag on way longer than intended. And while I love books that have been printed on paper, I also acknowledge that it might be worthwhile to find a few things that I want to read as e-books, and for my walks, audiobooks. Since I already have a stack of paper books to read, including a few new ones I received for Christmas, finding audio and e-books to have at the ready must be a priority. And that’s it for resolution number one. Remember that reading brings you more joy than the phone, and try to adjust your priorities accordingly.

I am also returning to la vida dairy-free. SIGH, I know. Not forever, just for a while. I have some health suspicions I want to investigate, and darn it all if going dairy-free doesn’t somehow feel like going home. I’ve done it off and on for so long, there is truly something comforting about it. But also, I recognize that most of the time, being dairy-free feels helpful. I’ve tried other things that I’ll never do again (cough gluten-free cough paleo cough.) I felt BAD when I tried to do gluten-free. I was in pain on the paleo. Dairy-free and vegan are the restrictions that seem worthwhile, but even I have to acknowledge that as a person who has to prepare meals for more than myself, and for people with no interest in being vegan, there’s only so much I can do. I digress. I tried to do a dairy-free cleanse earlier this year, and that did not last even a week. (I like cheese!) I hope to make it further this time. I want to go about three weeks without dairy, then re-dairyify on a trip I have planned, and review the results. Then I can make decisions based on the information I gather.

Tomorrow starts a new 30 Days of Yoga (with Adriene) journey. Yay! I am not making resolutions involving yoga. I do not have to. I do it everyday and it is magic. I do not need to tell the yoga what to do, the yoga tells me what to do. (What?) The only thing I want to note is that after having a prohibitively busy schedule over the last four months, and having to move my yoga from first thing in the a.m. every day, I find that doing yoga at different times of the day produces different results, and I like that. Yoga in the morning is a great way to wake up and get started with the day, but I can do so much more, especially with the more vigorous practices, later in the day. I wish I had time to do multiple yogas a day – an early morning wake-up yoga, a more intense afternoon session, and a gentle, relaxing, pre-bedtime yoga/meditation. Maybe I have this time or maybe I don’t. Again, I’m not resolving anything here except to try and follow this train of thought. I have some bedtime yoga practices on my radar, and if only I could get the child to go to sleep at reasonable hour, perhaps I could do them. As with the reading, I promise myself that I will look for opportunities during the day to do more of what brings me joy: Yoga.

There are other things I want out of 2023, of course. Lots of other things. But for now, for today, for this moment in time, this is what I’m thinking and this is what I hope to act upon.

What have I missed, or what are hoping to change for yourself in 2023?

My 2022 Year-in-Review: Entertainment Edition

Here is a list of (most) everything I read or watched this year. The list is (mostly) in chronological order. This year more than any other, I leaned very heavily on YouTube. While I do not think I consumed less than any previous year, there just seems to be a lot less substance. It’s something I aim to change next year.

TV Series / Comedy Specials / Limited Series

AfterLife – Season 3

Maid

Better Call Saul – S6

My Next Guest Needs No Introduction

Nothing Special – Norm MacDonald

The World According to Jeff Goldblum – S1 & 2

American Crime Story: Impeachment

Only Murders in the Building – S2

A League of Their Own – S1

Making the Cut – S3

Sheng Wang: Sweet & Juicy

The Crown – S5

Neal Brennan: Blocks

Dead to Me – S3

Nick Kroll: Little Big Boy

Reboot – S1

Wednesday – S1

Movies / Documentaries

Spider-Man: No Way Home

Spencer

Encanto

Ghostbusters: Afterlife

Cast Away*

Turner & Hooch

West Side Story (2021)

Turning Red

Lightyear

Jurassic World: Dominion

Inside the Mind of a Cat

Enola Holmes 2

Glass Onion: A Knives Out Mystery

Books

How to Do Nothing by Jenny Odell

Emotional Design: Why We Love (or Hate) Everyday Things by Don Norman

You’re Not Listening by Kate Murphy

Dickens & Prince by Nick Hornby

YouTube / Podcasts

Yoga with Adriene (YouTube)

Hypochondriactor (Podcast)

Randomland (YouTube)

Magic Journeys (YouTube)

Revisionist History – S7 (Podcast)

Vlogbrothers (YouTube)

WheezyWaiter (YouTube)

*I rented Cast Away because I thought Sonja would like it. She didn’t, and I confirmed my suspicions that I’d never seen the movie all the way through before. Therefore, I put it on the list.

My 2022 Year-in-Review

Believe it or not, when 2022 began, we were all still required (at least where I live) to wear masks. It’s been a long year, hasn’t it? There was a lot this year that felt…unsustainable. It seems that people everywhere forgot their manners, forgot how to drive, forgot that we’re all just trying to get by. Like that woman at the Target who cut in line at the self-checkout because she’d already waited what she considered a long enough time in a different line. I wish so frequently that people like this would go away. Karens and Covid are unrelenting, monotonous, and exhausting. But those are just feelings – and monotony and exhaustion deserve to be fleeting. Let’s take a look at the events of the year and see what felt unsustainable and what, if anything, felt sustainable.

In January

We all, collectively as a nation, come together over our shared love of Wordle. Poetry should be written about the Wordle. Creator James Wardle should be placed in history books alongside Einstein for not only creating a genius game but for giving it a genius name. So excited are we by Wordle that for a few weeks, we all share our little green, yellow, and gray tiles on social media. This trend was bound to ebb, but I knew from the first time I played that my enthusiasm was encompassing, my love undying. 358 Wordles later, and not one paragraph into this post, we have a point in the sustainability column. (But only because word games and obsessions are my main jams.)

Now that you mention it, the month of January contained the eighth annual installment of Yoga with Adriene‘s 30 Day Yoga Journey. A new 30 Days of Yoga series comes out every January, with new videos released every day of the month. It was my second time following the journey “live.” (I’ve done five journeys total.) That’s another mark in the sustainability column, and actually we will need to revisit this topic in November. But until then, let’s check on what happened…

In February

Ugh February. February is definitely unsustainable. I’ll let Roald Dahl explain why, in this quote from The Dahl Diary:

Is February, we ask ourselves, any better than January? Well, yes, in a way it is because you know that if only you can get through it and put it behind you, then the worst of the winter is probably over. On the other hand, this is usually the fiercest and bitterest month of all. I treat February like a school term and keep counting how many days there are left until it is over.

In order to pass the time a little more quickly, we visited the Funko Pop headquarters in Everett, Washington. We also stopped by BurgerMaster for a treat. Because one needs plenty of treats to get through February.

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  I want this for my house.

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  To the batmobile! -At Funko Pop, Everett

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  Chocolate shake and cup of fries.

Perhaps we’ll find a little more sustainability…

In March

We begin repairs on our guest bathroom, the floor of which is falling apart. As per usual, I think replacing the floor will be relatively quick and easy, and I am predictably wrong on both counts. We don’t just have to replace the floor, we have to replace the sub-floor and the sub-sub-floor. Since that’s not a task I can handle, I leave it to my husband and father-in-law while I abscond with the child to Vancouver, Washington to visit a friend, and then to Keizer, Oregon for another treat – In & Out Burger.

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In April

After finishing the new bathroom and leaving the tools in the hallway for far too long, I trip on a level and sprain my arm. I have never injured myself in such a way before and let me tell you… I did not like it. It took FOREVER to heal, especially for something that was not broken to begin with, and even now, vestiges of the sprain remain. Unsustainable.

Because house repairs are polygamists, never content to be alone, we also have to buy a new dishwasher, This is an entire ordeal. After reading recommendations online, I choose a Bosch dishwasher, sight unseen. After using it for approximately 30 seconds, I realize I have never loathed anything more. It’s impossible to load and it doesn’t get the dishes clean. The good news is when I go to put them away, they are as dry as if I had fished them out of a lake. I am able to return the dishwasher and get a new one, but that wasn’t how I wanted to spend April. I don’t know if I would consider home repairs sustainable, but they are definitely enduring.

Sonja gets to have a little fun in April at Sakura Con, an anime convention in Seattle, Washington. Shaun and I don’t think the experience adds up to much, especially not the price of the tickets. Sonja is already asking to go back again this year. We stayed overnight in Seattle for the convention, just for fun, and we ate dinner at the Lunchbox Laboratory. I have been asking to go back every since.

Also in April, Sonja completes a scavenger hunt at the library, and wins the drawing for the prize. I’m a little curious, since we entered the drawing the day before it was due, and because we had extensive help from the librarian to complete the worksheet, if she was either the only one who participated or they just didn’t shuffle the entries. The prize was some stickers and bookmarks – a token of appreciation.

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  A sprained arm.

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  Lucky kid.

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  At the Lunchbox Lab.

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  Lunchbox Lab

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  Burger and fries..so yummy.

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  Milkshake….Delicious…

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  At Sakura Con.

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  Playing DDR at Sakura Con.

In May

We call Saul for the last time. It’s sad and it’s perfect. And perfect shows are never sustainable.

In June

We return for our annual visit to Disneyland. This falls squarely in the sustainable category in that I’d like to go every year, every month, every week, all the time; It also falls roundly in the unsustainable category in that it’s expensive. Or at least more expensive than it needs to be. We took a friend with us this time – a first timer – and I explained that when she first entered the resort, everything would seem stupidly, maddeningly, ludicrously expensive, but by the end of the trip, those same prices would seem perfectly reasonable. I watched as this transformation happened, and it tickles me pink. Disney spends so much time, energy and money on the theming of its rides, yet I never knew the Haunted Mansion had a story or It’s a Small World had rooms until YouTube told me so. Sussing out the Stockholm syndrome effect of resort pricing feels like a real feather in my cap, a confirmation that I respond to feelings more so than any specific events. Who knows what we did, but I know we had fun. To paraphrase Samuel Johnson, “When a person is tired of Disneyland, they are tired of life; for there is in Disneyland all that life can afford.”

We also left the resort and visited Old Towne Orange. Here we ate at a cafe from called Watson’s that was built in 1899. It was featured in the movie That Thing You Do!, along with several other locations in Old Towne. This was a highlight of the trip in that it was a new novelty on top of the tried and true novelty that is Disneyland.

I also get to go to Hannah Gadsby’s new show, entitled Body of Work. It is so good…it is in fact Hannah Gadsby-level good, and I’ve been waiting ever since for a Netflix special. I cannot wait to see it again, and in general, I find Hannah Gadsby very sustainable. I want to hear from her often. I especially want more comedically engaging art lectures.

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  We missed the Main Street Electrical Parade this year but we loved this artwork. Can I have this in my house?

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  The cross section of a very old tree.

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  Cars Land, we love you!

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  Lunch poolside at the Grand Californian Hotel.

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  The view of the freeway from Downtown Disney.

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  Old Town Orange fountain.

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  Watson’s Original Soda Fountain, home of the oneders.

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  DELICIOUS milkshake at Watson’s.

In July

We all catch Covid. It is as advertised. Unsustainable and unfun.

Sonja begins what I think will be a summer fling with drawing lessons. She immediately hits it off with the teacher and I decide it is a worthwhile endeavor. I can’t draw, but I remember as a kid liking coloring books. Sonja has never been even halfway interested in a coloring book, but she has always enjoyed drawing. She was just too creative for the confines of coloring inside the lines. I don’t know how long we will keep doing art lessons, but I suspect as long as she enjoys them, there’s no reason not to keep going. I guess that means this is yet another sustainable activity.

In August

We try hard to cram in ALL the things. Sonja and I see the traveling production of Hamilton. Hamilton is sustainable; it is like the air that we breathe. We all go to Ikea to see about (but not actually execute) remodeling the kitchen. Like I said, houses and their repairs are unsustainable but enduring. Sonja and I join friends on an overnight trip to Leavenworth, on the hottest day of the year. We have been to Leavenworth enough that one would think we could be done with it, but we always have fun when we go. Again, it’s the feeling that brings me back. I think my peculiar, non-visual memory necessitates excessive visits in order to form any navigable recollection at all. I also enjoy researching and exploring and putting all the pieces together. Leavenworth may be a tiny town, but I’m still discovering new things. We join other friends for a swim day courtesy of a new, airbnb-type website called Swimply, where you can rent someone’s private pool by the hour. We go on the best day of the year, weather-wise for this outing, and I feel all the good vibes. We cannot wait to do this again next year. Finally, on the last day of August, I have yet another birthday and this for sure is unsustainable.

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  Hamilton. He knows what to do in a trench, ingenuitive and fluent in French, Hamilton!

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  The stage at the Paramount.

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  Selfie from our seats.

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  At the river in Leavenworth.

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  Having fun!

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  Sure, she can get in 40 degree water on a 100 + degree day. But I can get in 100 + degree water on a 40 degree day (see November.)

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  At our favorite burger place in Leavenworth, Valley Cafe.

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  In front of a goat statue.

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  A picnic blanket under a shady tree. What could be better? UW Center for Urban Horticulture.

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  Swimming in a private pool.

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  Friends since college.

In September

Sonja has another birthday and turns 11. She also starts fifth grade, and starts playing the flute in band. She misses her third and fourth grade teacher (yes, singular), and at this point I’ve kind of given up hope that she’ll warm up to the new one. I am just grateful that she gets to travel with the same group of kids, and that they have such a tight bond.

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  A tight-knit group

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  High rise

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  First day of school.

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  First day of band. Ever!

In October

We really get to have some fun. We get tickets to Disneyland’s Oogie Boogie Bash, and have ourselves a great Halloween outing. Was this too expensive? Yes. Was it unnecessary? Probably. Did I love being able to walk around outside in shorts and a t-shirt in October? Absolutely. Do I feel like I want to do this again. 100%.

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  The Darth by Chocolate from the Galactic Grill at Disneyland. Yummm!

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  Trying the Darth by Chocolate. Yes, this was breakfast. Sue us.

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  Outside Haunted Mansion Holiday at Disneyland.

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  Outside Haunted Mansion Holiday at Disneyland.

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  Outside Haunted Mansion Holiday at Disneyland.

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  Pumpkins on Main Street.

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  Pumpkins and me on Main Street.

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  It’s a Small World. Never not lovely.

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  Giant Mickey pumpkin on main street.

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  The Halloween tree in Frontierland.

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  Boo! from Downtown Disney.

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  The Cozy Cones were transformed into Halloween cones.

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  Inside the Animation Academy during Oogie Boogie Bash.

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  Pixar Pier at Night.

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  The end of Villains Grove.

In November

Shaun has another birthday (unsustainable) and to celebrate, we go to Great Wolf Lodge. I absolutely loved our room on the property, even though it was an ordinary, non-themed room. It was huge with a vaulted ceiling and had a nice little patio (if only it weren’t November in the Northwest). I was feeling the cozy lodge vibes like nobody’s business, and I would’ve stayed there for a week, even without a water park in the building. As far as the water park, though, I really enjoyed the outdoor hot tub. Who knew? (Lots of people, I’m sure.) Being in hot water when your surroundings are cold (and one can breathe) is very serene. It did take a brave heart to get from the inside, where it was 85 degrees, to the hot tub. I was the first outside and I yelped at the shock of the temperature difference and hurried into the hot tub. When I turned around, my family was gone – they had retreated back inside. I stayed out there far longer than recommended and reluctantly went back inside only when I started to feel loopy. The rest of the water park was small-ish, with just a few slides, most of which Sonja was still too scared to try. She liked the arcade, where she won her first prize from a claw machine. At the end of the day, this didn’t feel sustainable. It wasn’t added to the list places we want to return to over and over again. We might be persuaded to try a different, bigger Great Wolf Lodge in the future.

We also have to buy a refrigerator on black Friday, the holiest of all shopping days. I was tired of the old fridge anyway, but a new fridge was not on my list of things I wanted to spend money on. Again with the house repairs.

Oh and remember that sustainable yoga? It is in November that I hit two years of continuous practice – 730 days and counting. (Did I say something earlier about obsessions?)

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  Part of our room at the Great Wolf Lodge.

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  Part of our room at the Great Wolf Lodge.

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  The TV/kitchen/dresser portion of our room at Great Wolf Lodge.

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  Our patio at Great Wolf Lodge. I wanted to sit out here but brrrr….

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  Behold our new fridge.

In December

We get a little snow, and we’re treated to an “informance” by the school band. We celebrate Christmas, and we buckle up for 2023. Looking back on the concrete events of the year helps conjure the warm and fuzzy feelings, which mostly stay tucked behind the more overt and constant feelings of the day-to-day grind. Which is why I love this year-in-review post, an obligation and an opportunity to reflect on the feelings that mattered. I hope that 2023 brings me, and you, lots of warm and fuzzy feelings that sustain you all year long. Let’s meet here next December and discuss.

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  Snowball fight!

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  Christmas morning.

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  Very happy about the microwaveable manatee, now called “Mercury.”

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  The annual Christmas haul.

My Yoga, or “I did yoga every day for two years. Here’s what happened.”

Two years ago, on an unassuming mid-pandemic and mid-November morning, I got out my kid’s child-sized, animal-themed yoga mat, rolled it out, and clicked play on the popular YouTube channel Yoga with Adriene.

There was no going back.

I’ve talked about yoga a lot since then. Some might say I won’t shut up about it. (No worries. I’m no stranger to diving headfirst into an obscure topic.) Whether or not you care about yoga in particular, there appears to be a huge online market for videos or blogs that describe what something indescribable is like. Usually this content focuses on outcomes as opposed the experience itself, because again, the only way to experience something is to do it.

If you happened upon the page because you are interested in outcomes, you’ll be happy to know I will tell you my outcomes. You may be less happy to know what they are. If you are expecting to read that I lost a bunch of weight and can do the splits while standing on my hands, then you will be disappointed. If obtaining a body-image related goal is important to you, then yoga may not be the fastest route. Two years into it, I’m fatter than ever. (Not because I do yoga. It’s because of the food and also because I have a terrible case of the mid-40s.) I can’t do the splits or stand on my hands. I’m not even good at yoga. I’m bad at yoga. But as with most things that I love, I love the struggle.

I have struggled these past two years to become incrementally more flexible than I was before. I’ve struggled to become incrementally stronger. And I am more flexible and stronger and I love those things. I can *almost* touch my toes! Me, with my long legs and t-rex arms! If I had video of the first time I did yoga and video of me doing yoga today, I would probably look more competent in the video today.

The one thing I haven’t struggled with is the consistency. Because I’m nothing if not consistent. It’s the consistency, I believe, that led to relief from my heel spurs. That’s actually one outcome that is measurable and immeasurable at the same time. I’d be so much more miserable every day if every day my heels hurt.

And yet, even if they did, I’d still do yoga. I am surprised to say how excited I am each day to just sit cross-legged on my mat. Sit up, close my eyes, relax my shoulders, breathe in, breathe out. That’s yoga.

Yoga is also the repeated invitation, as Adriene says, to “be here now.” It’s the constant reminders to “move/breathe like you love yourself.” It’s the gentle nudges to “meet yourself where you are today,” and it is occasionally the mind-blowing revelation that, “everything is as it should be.” I’m proud of everything I have learned so far and all of the physical improvement I have made, but I work every day to incorporate more yoga into the parts of life that happen when I’m not on the mat. To still myself and my thoughts. To remind myself of the mantras. To take a moment when I need a moment.

I started doing yoga with no ambitions and no preconceptions that I would like it. Probably the opposite, in fact, since I always expect to hate everything. Two years into it and all I really want is to be able to do more yoga. I incorporated it first into my morning routine. Only recently, I had to change up that routine because one or two mornings a week were just too busy. I found yoga in the afternoon a completely different experience, when my body was already awake, stronger and more flexible than first thing in the a.m. before food or tea. I liked that too. What I really want now is to tailor the yoga to parts of the day. I want to do an easy morning yoga, a more rigorous and strength-building afternoon yoga, and a calming evening yoga and meditation. But that’s a difficult ask when you have a job and a family and things to do to just get by. I’ve considered that maybe my job should be teaching yoga, thereby allowing more time for yoga, but if you’ll remember from four paragraphs ago, I’m bad at yoga so that’s probably not in the cards. In which case, I have to listen once again to my guru Adriene, as she reminds me each and every day that a little goes a long way.

Namaste, my friends and readers. Namaste.

My Eleven-Year-Old

A mountain of birthday cookies with Invader Zim on top, as requested by the birthday girl.

It’s difficult to explain just how quickly time flies between these quarterly updates, but then I know that you, dear reader, are also a person, and thus have also seen time fly.

The summer flashed by. It began with our beloved annual trip to Disney, which took place over the last week of June. Then, the first two weeks in July were gobbled up by Covid, each one of us getting it in succession. I started us off; Sonja rounded us up. While it took Shaun and I out for about a week each, it was barely a blip on Sonja’s radar.

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  A Ghirardelli milkshake at Pacific Wharf, DCA

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  The cross section of a very old tree.

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  On a suspension bridge with Chip.

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  Cars Land, we love you!

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  Playing the piano at a “Soul” exhibit in Downtown Disney.

Things really picked up in August. It was a hot, hot month and we packed it full. It was the first summer in two years where going out and doing things felt perfectly normal. First, Sonja and I saw the touring production of Hamilton.

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Then, we took our annual outing to Leavenworth, a trip I did not think would happen this year. Invited by a friend, Sonja and I made the trek ourselves. It was a quick overnight trip this year, but we managed to visit our favorite spots and squeeze in a couple new adventures, including the skate park and the river. (It helped speed things along that she didn’t take to the skate park, but I think part of the reason she didn’t take to it is because there was very little shade and it was 100 (literal) degrees.) We hit the river on our way out of town and when we left, Sonja was asking if there were rivers we could go to that were less than three hours away from our house. Yes kiddo, yes there are. Should we get out more?

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We also visited a friend in Seattle. We ordered pizza and ate it at the Urban Horticulture Center on the UW campus. My friend and I sat on a bench underneath a shady tree and Sonja sat on the picnic blanket I brought. She had such a good time that she asked if we could go back to that exact same spot and eat pizza again, and I just couldn’t say no to a request to sit outside under a shady tree from my screen-addicted kid. We went back at the end of August on another hot day. After the picnic, we walked around even though it was too hot to do so. We saw ducks and frogs and climbed a willow tree and had another good day.

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  A picnic blanket under a shady tree. What could be better? UW Center for Urban Horticulture.

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We also used an airbnb-like app to book a few hours of playtime at a private, residential swimming pool. Sonja and I have since agreed that this might qualify as the highlight of a very packed (for us) summer. I took a friend and Sonja took a friend. We went on the absolute perfect day, weather-wise. We ate lunch together when we arrived and spent the rest of the time swimming. Before we went, I was concerned that 3-hours in a pool might be too much. It turns out that when you have a perfectly-temped pool all to yourselves on a perfectly-temped day, and the three-hours consists of floating around, soaking up the sun and chatting with a friend, well that’s maybe the best way a person can spend three hours. This adventure was immediately added to our list of must-do, annual outings.

I’m always sad to see summer go, but I’ll truly mourn the loss of this summer. Plenty of time for outdoor fun, and plenty of time for video games, video chats, and YouTube. Now, it’s back to the grindstone. Two weeks ago, Sonja began fifth grade. One of the highlights, in my opinion, of the accelerated program she attends is that she gets to travel through the grades with the same group of kids. Most of the people she invited to her birthday party were from her class, and after observing them in the wilds of the Catapult Adventure Park, I can say that they are a hilariously and alarmingly tight knit group.

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  First day of school.

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  Catapult Adventure Park

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  High rise

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  Birthday fun

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  A tight-knit group

Another advantage of the program is traveling with the same teacher for two years instead of one. Or at least I’m sure that’s what I said last year. This year is the transition year. There’s a new sheriff in town. And if you’ll permit me to mix my metaphors, let’s just say that the previous act is a hard one to follow. I’ve tried to convince Sonja that this is an adjustment period and things will smooth out eventually, but she is having a hard time.

Sonja gets to join band this year and as noted previously, she will be playing the flute. I was surprised to hear that she would be one of only three flute players. “No one wants to play the flute,” she said. “Impossible!” I said. Most every girl wants to play the flute, don’t they? That’s how it was when I was in school. A row of flutes that went on for days. Of course, back then, in the stone ages, the school I attended only had a band. Sonja’s school divides the students amongst strings, which they call orchestra, and winds, which they call band. Apparently everyone else wants to play the violin. Apparently the orchestra director is cooler than the band director. But Sonja is sticking with the flute, and was proud that when she play tested the flute at school, the instructor called her a natural. She admitted that she had been practicing. Band starts meeting soon and I look forward to providing an update next time.

Outside of school, Sonja is taking art lessons. I’m not sure how long we’ll do this, but she loves it for now. It wouldn’t surprise me to see her excel at the flute, because as they say the apple doesn’t fall far, but it is remarkable to watch her journey as an artist. I can’t draw and never could. It makes me disinvested in art lessons in a way I can’t be from music lessons. I don’t know what’s involved, I don’t care if she practices, it’s all up to her. It’s a good dynamic for both of us.

The most recent masterpiece. The instructor has convinced her to use color and I am here for it.

As for the miscellany paragraph, Sonja had a jump in height, bringing her in to the 10th percentile. She still stubbornly refuses to reach even the 0th percentile in weight, but she has definitely been adding new foods to her repertoire faster than ever before. She will now eat garlic toast, ham and Swiss croissants from Starbucks, and pistachios. A miracle. Mushrooms and Hatsunke Miku are trending topics in our house. Pirates of the Caribbean is the incumbent favorite movie, but it has a competitor in the latest studio Ghibli offering we watched, Howl’s Moving Castle. Her show du jour and newest obsession is Invader Zim, an old Nickelodeon cartoon that was one of Dad’s favorites. She wanted to watch it after digging out a giant stuffed “Gir” from her stuffed animal storage. (A gift from Shaun to me many, many years ago.) Gir proved to be irresistible.

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  At-home growth chart: 10 1/2 to 11 is the biggest jump we’ve seen, even bigger than 9 to 9 1/2!

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  Sonja and her new favorite companion, Gir.

That’s all she (or I) wrote for summer. In two days, it will officially be fall. I might be despondent if not for the fact I have a few adventures up my sleeve for fall as well. The first fall in two years where it feels perfectly normal to go out and do things. So out we go, and I look forward to reporting back next quarter.