August 2021

 Family fun

I wouldn’t say we’re back to pre-pandemic social levels, but we did get out a bunch this month: The kids got back-to-school haircuts, met up with friends here and there, and so on. At Annika’s request, I took her and Raina to Gilroy Gardens, with Lukas and Manir (all of us masked in the car, times being what they are); the girls peeled off right away to do their own thing, and I sorta trailed the boys as they more or less did the same. It was a fun (but hot!) day, and felt kinda like old times. The whole fam met up with all the Patels at the Beach Boardwalk for another truly epic day out (a complete stranger, a teenage girl, told Annika she had beautiful eyes — which of course she does! — so that was a fun little thing for her.) And finally, the temperature stayed high so late this time of year that we had a couple of sessions of night swimming with the awesome lights in the new pool — best way to end the summer.

Annika’s bidness
As eighth grade looms on the horizon, the kid — who’s now officially taller than me, having grown an inch since May 31 — had her class orientation (where somebody told her she looked like Billie Eilish!) and got her schedule, which included the Art class she was somehow not sure she’d get into, and two classes with Raina (Art and Geometry) bookending the day. Not too bad! 

Lukas Life
This kid is in constant motion (in between hourslong sessions of slurping up YouTube …). He did another week of skate camp (during which he did his first rail slide!), and we organized an epic field trip to a giant skatepark with Ben, Sam and James, where the boys went from super-tentative to, at the end, taking a terrifying (to me) ride down the world’s largest full pipe. They also rode their bikes on a pump track (hilly on purpose) — I thought they might be there ten minutes, but we stayed nearly four hours! Lukas and pals kept meeting up on Mondays to do Blade Team activities, usually adding a session of “balls” with Dad beforehand — meaning, playing catch and/or basketball, while Annika and I stayed home and watched Stranger Things. There would have been a party for Emmett’s birthday, but it got canceled because the family had had a close covid exposure (from old family friends who did not disclose that they had not gotten vaccinated — AAAAARRRRGGGH). And finally, Lukas got his braces off! It’s retainer only, for a couple of years until Phase Two. Yaaaay! 

First day of school
Few things have been both as dreaded and as anticipated as the actual start of this particular school year. Lukas got Mrs. Carvajal for his teacher, along with pretty much all of his same class from last year; he had wanted Mr. Dinh, but I really think Carvajal is a better fit for him, and especially since his friends are all in there with him. Both schools had new start and end times — an HOUR earlier than last year, wtf? — so I will be driving them both; there’s no way to get Annika there on time otherwise. On the first day, there was lots of nervousness all around; we did our traditional first-day photos in the front yard, then had a meetup with the Gividen boys and the Patels at Caitlin’s for pics, and then walked the whole big group across the street to campus (parents only allowed as far as the sidewalk, and all masked up). At the end of the day, Lukas was all smiles, but Annika not so much; it was a LOT, you know? Just social and emotional overload, especially after this isolated last year. However, milkshakes did help cheer things up. On Day 2, Lukas was asked out for ice cream with the Patels, while Annika and I went to Office Depot and Michaels for school supplies. And on Aloha Friday, things were better still; I had Lukas home in time to take a bike ride, since hanging around on campus isn’t allowed anymore, and then she and I went to Starbucks for a little Friday afternoon treat. Sometime in the first couple of weeks, I realized that if I left home maybe five minutes earlier than normal, I could actually walk to get Lukas and we could walk home together, and then drive to get Annika, so I started doing that anytime it was possible; the time with Lukas quickly became one of my favorite parts of the day. :-) 

Quotable
—“I’m an electric toothbrush guy, myself.” (Lukas, to classmate Dorothy Jackson’s question about toothbrushes at the Grants’ outdoor movie night in summer 2020)
—“Gavin has long hair and a broken left arm.” (Lukas, re: a classmate he hasn’t seen in awhile)

July 2021

 The Glorious Fourth

We had a pretty great 4th of July weekend — no company, of course, but the pool was in operation and the funky little neighborhood parade was back! There were only like three floats, but hey. We went bowling as a fam, got a lot of swim time and played Marco Polo and a variation on Uncle Ball that we called Cousin Ball (throwing those little spongy cloth-covered balls into a triangle float that had numbered holes); we grilled, we started the Harry Potter movies over from the beginning, we watched the illegal fireworks from upstairs, we took it easy. 

Summer Sauceage
This month, the Smeefers flew out from Kansas for a LONG-planned Sauce weekend featuring everything from Mason to Dong, Amanda and Lacie, custom T-shirts to the Egg Show, far-too-late nights to mellow mornings, and kids endlessly entertained by the house’s VR headset (playing into and deepening Lukas’s tireless campaign to have us get one). We were SO uncomfortable being in a house with that many people, even though everyone but Lukas was long since double-vaxxed by that point — but we got over it (more or less) and ended up having a blast. It’s hard to overstate the fun of a Sauce weekend, especially after all this time without. 

Potpourri
—The Journey of Orthodonture continues: Annika started Invisalign, and for the first few days, it looked like we were gonna have to abandon ship — she was in a lot of pain, and kept asking if we could bail and get regular braces. Having sunk $4500 into it already, we prevailed on her to tough it out, and it did get better; the constant teeth-brushing was kind of a drag, but she adapted to that too, and it seemed to be going well in general after that first week.
—Kids in the kitchen: Primarily for life-skills reasons, I wanted the kids to take an occasional turn making dinner; my plan for it to be regular failed because I’m bad at policing that, but at least a couple of times this month, they did it — kalamata pasta once, pancakes another time, spaghetti and salad. It ruled. I want more of it!
—Sports and film/TV: Lukas did a week of tennis camp with Ben (outdoors and in the mornings, so Annika and I took the opportunity to watch some stuff that’s too old for him: Mean Girls, and the first couple of episodes of Stranger Things, which she LOVED and can’t wait to see more of. Lukas also did another week of skate camp (this one with Manir) and had a blast at Ben’s blade team birthday party; we bowled a ton (one week it was Monday with the Patels, Thursday with the Grants, and Saturday with R., lol); we started the Lord of the Rings trilogy; and of course, we mainlined watching nonstop 2020-in-2021 Olympics (often from the pool). 

It’s so cool / in my pool
Speaking of which: If the sun’s out and the temp is over 80, this bunch of fools was in that pool. We’d go in the morning (like the day I had dinner plans with Anne), or invite friends over (Raina one afternoon, Ben another, Manir and Amira a third), or spend most of the day Saturday and Sunday both. Worth all the expense and stress of the remodel, absolutely!

June 2021

2020-2021 school year ends after 43 years

Boy, did we limp to the finish line — dragging everyone across, bitching and cursing and almost-late every single day — but we made it! Yaaaaaaay! Ami and I organized a strictly unofficial, after-school get-together in Parma Park for Lukas and Manir’s class, which I think every kid in the class attended; we brought coolers full of water for filling up water guns Mrs. Felsoci provided, and that plus the sheer joy of running around in a park with your friends was all they needed to have a great afternoon. We also did our traditional last-day-of-school meetup for ice cream at Willow Glen Creamery, which was delicious fun as usual, but the marquee event of the day was Annika getting her second Pfizer shot! wooooHOOOOOOOOO!!!!! Again, she had no ill effects; that’s one more step toward normalcy. 

Gettin’ back out there
This was the month we started to venture out more, with all precautions; covid cases and hospitalizations were way down locally, lots of people were vaccinated but mask mandates were still in place, and there seemed to be more possibilities. Both kids hung out with their friends, Lukas kept doing skateboard camps (and Saturday drop-in sessions), and we added a few more exciting things:
—We kicked it off with two separate trips to the Santa Cruz Beach Boardwalk: One with Ami and the kids, and one with the Grants (R. came to that one as well). I was so nervous — about going at all, because PEOPLE! EVERYWHERE! — and about driving Hwy 17 (which is a nightmare at the best of times). But we went, and it was SUCH A BLAST! We all really needed it, I must say — just getting to see the sunlight on the ocean did wonders for the soul, no kidding. The kids wanted to ride everything; even Amira was willing to ride the big rides if Annika was the one riding with her, lol. Season passes were bought by the end of the first trip.
—Bowling is back! Ami texted me with a thought: What if we tried going bowling, getting there right at noon when it opened, so there’d be nobody there? And so we held our breath (almost literally) and did it — got those Summer Games passes (which, for $48, let the user play up to three games per day, with shoe rental, every day between Memorial Day and Labor Day. We had missed it so much! We all kept our masks on, of course, except while eating or drinking, and our respective games were a little rusty, but the fun more than made up for it. And once we’d gotten started, we were unstoppable — we started going at least once a week, sometimes three or four, often with the Patels and/or another family (Anne and Grace even came once, and the Grants got summer passes as well), and nearly every weekend we’d go as a whole family — R. had missed the alleys too!
—Blade Team returns: Lukas’s friends in the group he created in second grade, the Blade Team (him, Manir, Sam + little bro James, Reid, Ben Grant, and Owen), fresh off the success of the class park day, decided they wanted to meet up, so we picked a Monday morning and got out there — the boys with their Blade Team sticks and a scooter or two. We moms thought they might last an hour; the first meetup went more than three, when we finally had to pack it up because there were no bathrooms and we were running out of water. At the end, the general consensus was that we were definitely gonna need to do this again, so we decided Monday mornings for the duration would be the plan.
—Petra! With the general health picture as good as it was in June, we figured it was time to have Petra start coming again (we’d paid her all through the pandemic, though she said several times she’d rather be actually working — but it wasn’t safe, and covid wasn’t her fault, so). Anyway — R. stayed in his office with the door closed, and the kids and I cleared out; we picked a different outdoor-seating restaurant for a leisurely breakfast, then did stuff like a Target run or hanging out in a park (often the one by the Patels’, and the kids would come over to join us while Ami and Ritesh were both at work). The house got clean all at once, Petra had her job back, and things felt the tiniest bit more normal. 

Pool Party, Baby!
Just kidding, no party — still don’t feel OK being around people unmasked. But the pool finally got finished and filled and HOLY CRAP IT LOOKS SO AWESOME!!!!! For real, the travertine, the retaining wall, the amazing finish, the lights — just gorgeous. It was so hard to wait to use it — once it was filled, the temptation was strong, but the finish had to cure for a few weeks gaaaaaahhhhh. Finally getting to have our first pool day, mid-month, was the absolute BEST. 

Father’s Day
We had a packed day to celebrate R. — we started with donuts, then visited Grandpa, after which we went bowling (at the honoree’s request), came home and jumped into the pool, and finished with a couple of epic rounds of Uno to cap it all off. 

May 2021

 (writing this in November, so once again I’m way behind and working on notes — May seemed busy and full, but not a lot to work with here!) 

Mark Rober telethon
The kids (especially Lukas) are into a former NASA engineer YouTuber named Mark Rober, who does super-cool science-y videos; this month, he had an all-day telethon fundraising for Color the Spectrum, an autism charity (his young son is autistic), and we all got really into it. Lukas made his first pledge (matched by us), and we just kind of kept it on all day, checking in on celebrity appearances, new content unlocked by reaching certain levels of giving as the day went on, etc. This is what qualifies as an event during covid times … but anyway, we had fun and helped do good, so count that as a win. 

Tentative steps back into social life
One weekend between our first and second shots, we were invited over to the Marshalls’ for Tim’s birthday; we accepted with some hesitation, but thought it would be a good chance to ease back into the world a little. It was … stressful. There were more people than we were comfortable being around, and although the adults (about half of whom were fully vaxxed, and the rest halfway) stayed outside, the kids were inside playing video games and then in the pool, unmasked; poor Lukas, conditioned to staying both masked and outdoors, was miserable, and even Annika was uncomfortable. Overall, not the fun time we’d hoped. On the other hand, a couple of weeks later at the Patels’ (around R.’s birthday), once all of us adults were fully vaxxed — THAT was a good afternoon, unmasked out in their yard. It was just the two families, and the kids stayed masked/outdoors, so the slight residual nervousness was fairly easily overcome and made for a relaxing hang. 

Two Shots!
In the first week of May, R. and I each got our second shot of Pfizer — the relief of that cannot be overstated. Just an awesome, awesome feeling. I can’t remember anymore whether it was the first or second shot that made me feel kinda under the weather for a few hours (a little feverish, crazy-tired, but a nap and an ibuprofen had me fine by dinnertime), but R. had no side effects whatsoever and we were DONE! Two weeks later, I had scheduled my first real haircut and color (complete with washing and styling!!!), and a pedicure just because. Mid-month, Annika was among the first of the 12-15 set to get her first shot — now we just wait for her second, and Lukas’s chance …  

Mother’s Day weekend
On the actual MD, we took flowers and cake over to Grandma’s, and I didn’t have to cook, so that was nice. But the highlight of the weekend was the day before: the first annual WTF (Wine Tasting w/Friends) Bike Ride! Ami and I had cooked up the idea while supervising the kids at a playdate in a park, way back in (I think) February, as we idly talked about missing things like going wine tasting: What if we did our own? We decided on the format (biking from house to house, starting with mine and ending with hers, including 4-5 stops); the date (Saturday before Mother’s Day, when many people would have been fully vaccinated and all would have been at least half-done); and a loose idea of content (some type of beverage, plus water and snacks, at each house, and the husbands on standby to collect us at the end). We threw out the invitation to all our local friends (allowing invitees to invite more), and secured the hosts. Fiona made T-shirts. Ami and I biked the route several times (including once with the kids, reasoning that if they could handle it, so could the moms), and yada yada yada some 30+ bikes were on my lawn and wine glasses & beers were in hand. R. poured for us, and after awhile, we were off to Kara’s with me in the lead. She served in a 70s theme (queso and chips from a crock-pot, retro drinks). Then it was on to Brandi’s, where there was a lot more food (thank god, lol) and more drinks, and finally on to the Patels’, where the whole thing descended into happy anarchy — there was a LOT of pent-up social energy coming out, and more than a few bikes had to be left there for next-day pickup. All in all, it was a roaring success — and before the end of the first ride segment, I was hearing people say, “OK so NEXT year when we do this …” 

Skateboarding returns
Several of Lukas’s friends were getting back into skateboarding, so when we discovered that the guys who used to run an after-school program were back, we signed the boys up; instead of once a week, this format was every afternoon Tues - Fri, which really worked a lot better for building skills. And minus his old distraction buddy Lawson — and plus a couple of years of maturity/confidence/capability — Lukas really took to it this time. He improved visibly during the course of each daily session, trying skills and ramps and drop-ins, actually listening to the instructors, and LOVING it! He was joined in various sessions through the Spring and Summer by Manir, Ben, and Sam, and occasionally by Sam’s little brother James and even Amira, but he was really the constant. Worth every penny to see the kid so happy!

Memorial Day Weekend
Another anomalous one this year; no guests, no visiting, and no pool — it wasn’t finished yet. Booooooo! But it was so close to done, we could see the finish line. And in the meantime, the weather was unusually cool, so we didn’t miss it too awfully much; we just hung out, watched movies, played on the Switch, and looked forward to the end of the curséd school year. 

April 2021

Vaxx attaxx

R. and I were finally, FINALLY able to get our first shots this month! I wrestled with the ethics of snagging an appointment as a “caregiver,” based on a friend’s recommendation because I do the grocery shopping for Grandma & Grandpa, but ultimately couldn’t get over myself — but as the general eligibility age dropped to 50, I got closer to willingness, and finally, since there were suddenly abundant appointments, I jumped the queue for 40-plus by two days and went to get my Pfizer shot at the Santa Clara County Fairgrounds. R. got his two days later at Levi’s Stadium — ethical as always! — and so we both got a little closer to freedom. 

Spring socials
Something must’ve been in the air, because suddenly, people started Doing Stuff again — all masked up and distanced and outdoors, it should go without saying by now, but still: stuff! We had park and bike-riding adventures with Manir (and the rest of the Patels now and then); Annika went to Alana’s birthday party at their house (and Lukas and I tagged along); we had park meetups with Sam and with the Carneys; Annika went to Raina’s outdoor-movie-night birthday party (they saw Legally Blonde, on her sister’s recommendation); and we did an outdoor movie night at the Grants’, along with the Jacksons and another family from Los Alamitos. 

Only in April
April Fool’s Day was full of funney joaks and pranks (mostly generated by Lukas), and just two days later, we celebrated our 22nd wedding anniversary by ordering a bunch of Indian food (as is now tradition). Easter was the very next day; the kids and I had dyed a bunch of hard-boiled eggs Saturday afternoon, and R. and I hid a truly unreasonable (but fun!) number of filled plastic ones that night for the kids to find in the morning. We didn’t try very hard to pretend it was the actual Easter bunny — Lukas is pretty much onto us about stuff like that now — but it was fun to just ignore that and hunt eggs. 

Facility upgrades
Two exciting things happened to the house and grounds: First, Lukas commandeered the box that my NordicTrack treadmill came in — which box is about 8 feet long, and almost sturdy enough to actually live in — and with R’s help, pulled it into the movie room and made himself a fort. It has a little coffee table, both of my raggedy little lumbar pillows, a couch pillow, blank, a copper string of fairy lights all around its perimeter, and a light-up marquee sign that now reads “SUBSCRIBE TO LTG” (which is his imaginary YouTube gaming channel, Lukas The Gamer). He now spends most movie nights watching from the box, with the rest of us on the couch, unless there are scary parts that necessitate cuddling with Daddy. Second, the pool is starting to look like a pool again! The surface is a looooong way from finished, but the coping and waterline tile are in, the wall is almost built, and the trenching has been done for pipes and for the travertine tile decking to be laid soon. Woooooooooooo!!!!!!!

March 2021

Potpourri

Lukas’s first phase of the Journey of Orthodonture began this month, as he got braces on his upper teeth. He chose red backing for the brackets, naturally; he had been nervous, but Annika wrote him the sweetest note to say it wasn’t so bad (and you get ice cream!), which really meant a lot to him. St. Patrick’s Day was maybe a little less magical than in years past (no leprechaun gold ore, boo!), but the little mischief-makers did show up with green glitter and gold coins and upset/misplaced furniture and whatnot. We finally decided to brave Vicki’s home salon for haircuts — masked up, of course, and with all the doors open), since it had been a year; Annika decided to get bangs, and WOW was it cute!!!! Really, just perfect, and she was so excited by how she looks with them. And finally, took a little outing to meet up with the Patels at Hicklebee’s and then go to a new-to-us park, capped off by ice cream treats.

Grandma & Grandpa re-emerge
The dorks got their second shot, and once they had the all-clear, it was time for them to get back out into the wide world. Mostly that was in the form of errands and doctor appointments and stuff, but their main aim was to see the grandkids and get hugs (which they did, asap). They came over to our house to sign a bunch of documents for the mortgage refinance (we re-fi’ed both properties this month, thanks to super low interest rates, and saved about $500/month total while shortening our own house’s timeline, yay!). Anyway, their being fully vaccinated was a huge relief to us all, of course, and I know they’re feeling much more at ease in general. 

Bicycle days
Lukas and I are biking fools these days; we almost always take our bikes to go see the Patels (and meet their new puppy, as we did this month), we ride at nearly every online-school break, and we even did one morning wildcat ride, blazing out of here in the chill before school instead of going for a walk one day when Annika had another commitment. It’s a lot better way to start the day than going straight to the desk, for sure! 

Of note
This month saw the mostly-unobserved one-year anniversary of the pandemic shutdown; none of us had the energy or inclination to even talk much about it, as it’s really not the kind of thing you celebrate, especially when there’s still not really an end in sight. Selah. 

Quotable
—“manta ray bay aquarium” Lukas, re: the premier aquarium on the West Coast