May 2024

School year comes to a close
The upside of the new school calendar is that the kids were done by the last of May, and it was a busy month indeed as everything seemed to happen all at once:
—Sports appreciation night: Lukas went to Castillero’s Sports Appreciation Night, going onstage with the handball team when they were called up. Unlike some of the other sports, the handball coach’s speech was brief; Lukas told us on the way out that “this was a waste of time” and he didn’t want to do it next year, if he even plays, lol.
—The AP European History test: This was the official AP exam, and it took most of a morning. Annika wasn’t sure how she’d done, but she thought it went well, and was hoping for a 5 but betting on a 4. Scores will be released in July.
—Underclassmen Honors Night: Exactly as titled, members of the freshman, sophomore, and junior classes were honored for academic excellence, nominated by their teachers and approved by the department chair. Annika was nominated by three teachers: Burrell (AP Euro), Luskin (Sculpture) and Goldman-Hall (Ethni Studies Literature - Honors), plus she was chosen as the Social Studies Departmental Scholar! We were all so, SO proud of her!
—Little Shop of Horrors: Annika and I went to see her friend CJ in Pioneer’s production of the musical; her part wasn’t a big one, but she did really well (and we bought her flowers — I had to deliver them the next day because I forgot that night but hey.
—D&D club: The Liches ended the year on a high note, with a final session and T-shirts for everyone that Lukas designed. Everybody loved the shirts, which count as uniform compliant because they’re school spirit wear!
—Annika had some fun social things, including going to her friend Ash’s birthday party — billed as a fancy tea party — in a dress (which is only notable because she literally did’t own a dress, lol — we had to go to Macy’s to get one, and she looked lovely, of course). Also, the two of us went to see the 30th anniversary re-release of The Crow with CJ and their mom. I spied the upcoming listing and impulse-bought tickets, because I knew from things that CJ had said on the drive home after badminton that it was an important movie to them and I knew they had never seen it in the theater; it turned out it was their mom’s favorite movie as well, so it ended up being the four of us, which was cool.
—Last day of school: Finally we got to the very end, and took the usual pics in the morning and went to get ice cream in the afternoon — but, sadly, it was just Annika and I, since Lukas was exhausted and didn’t feel well. :-(

Family stuff
—Grandma moves home: Grandma was finally pronounced recovered-enough to go home from the skilled nursing facility, so in advance of that, R. and I spent literally an entire day prepping for her to move back in — renting a U-Haul, pulling up rugs from their place (I think there were 7 or 8 area rugs, gaaaaaaahhhhh) and generally decrapifying and making space so she could get through in her wheelchair (and so neither of them would fall again). We took everything to a storage facility a few minutes from our house, and got home after 9:00 p.m. But it was necessary work, and we felt a lot better about her safety with it all done.
—Mother’s Day: Grandma was still in the SNF on Mother’s Day, so we didn’t really have much of a celebration; we took flowers to her and visited her there.
—R.’s birthday: This was a more low-key celebration than last year’s, lol … but there were presents and cake and a good dinner at home, more like our usual family celebrations. 
—Cirque du Soleil: We went to a San Jose performance of Cirque du Soleil with the Patels — it was really funny and of course as crazy as usual, and Manir and Amira got a kick out of it (they hadn’t seen one in years, whereas we’re gettin to be kind of regulars).
—Memorial Day weekend: Another holiday long weekend where it was too cold to swim, ugh! But we did get a couple of rounds of bowling in, since the Summer Games pass is back (one with just our family, one with the Patels), and Annika went to two days of Fanime Con with Elise and Sydney, this time with no adults present — I dropped them off, Sydney’s parents picked them up, and they managed themselves for the day — new frontier reached!

April 2024

Return to The Big Apple
Given Grandma’s health situation, our long-planned NYC trip was TBD until almost the very last minute — but in the end, she seemed better enough that we would be able to make it happen. And so, we were off to the East Coast for the first time since 2005! We took a morning flight out of SFO, which meant leaving our house in the predawn. When we opened the back hatch of the Highlander to get our luggage out, R’s carry-on tipped over and some stuff fell out; he discovered on the flight that his airpods were missing, so either they fell out and we didn’t see them, or he’d left them at home. Despite that slight mishap, the flight went well and we got to Laguardia without further incident, then took an hourlong cab ride to our hotel on Central Park South (free through Marriott Bonvoy points — not a part of town we’d spent a lot of time in as students, lol). The time difference was against us, so it was pretty late in the day by the time we settled in; we wandered out in search of food, found a great little place with amazing wood-fired pizza, and then turned in for the night. 

The next day, a Sunday, we kicked off with (real, actual) bagels — now the kids know what we mean when we say bagels — and visited my favorite building in the world, the Empire State Building. I got tickets to the 102nd floor, which I’d never been able to do before, and it was as amazing as I thought it would be. Then we wandered back uptown, exploring as we went: Grand Central Station, St. Patrick’s Cathedral, the New York Public Library, and whatever else caught our eye. 

On Monday, we all accompanied Annika on an official campus group tour of Columbia (led by the kind of blue-flame young woman we probably would not have been friends with back in the day, ha!). We fit in breakfast at Tom’s Diner (“We didn’t say it was good, just that it was perfect”), some shopping in the school bookstore, and lunch at Koronet Pizza (Lukas took a pic of a slice that was as long as his arm) in addition to the tour, before finding a spot on the very crowded steps (in front of Low Library) to watch the eclipse; NYC wasn’t in the path of totality, but it did get to a very eerie 92% coverage, so the whole thing was really cool (I could’ve made a couple hundred bucks selling my extra eclipse glasses, which I’d bought months ago for the occasion). That evening, we went down to Chelsea/Meatpacking district to meet Tony and Tara for dinner, which was awesome but we forgot to take pics, ugh. 

The next day, our planned trip to Ellis Island failed (there was a three-hour line, despite our timed-entry tickets), so we did some wandering around lower Manhattan, including Fraunces Tavern (which had a cool little museum upstairs). After making our way as far as the Village, we had dinner at a restaurant called Rubirosa, which was an absolute culinary highlight of the trip — pastas and wood-fired pizzas, and the best desserts we had anyplace (ugh, the olive oil cake I ordered … I miss it!). 

In the following days, we did some more walking around the East and West Villages, spent time at the Strand and exploring what NYU calls a campus (including a visit to the site of the Triangle Shirtwaist Factory, which had a very interesting memorial display), eating more pizza, bagels, and cannoli, and strolling the southern section of Central Park. We went out for dinner in the Theater District (oysters were a priority for Annika) and then saw Hamilton at the Richard Rodgers Theater — what a great experience to see it live, after all the times we’ve seen the filmed one with the original cast! We spent a day each at the American Museum of Natural History (starting with the dinosaurs — we have our priorities) and the Met — you could spend the whole day every day of your trip there and still not see it all, it was amazing. We had dinner with our friend Aaron and his wife Kiera — we still think of him as “the kid,” because he was a freshman when I was a senior; the man’s 47 years old, lol. The last day, we walked the High Line — another highlight, and one that didn’t exist the last time we were there — and met our college friend Alex Villari and his wife Amy at the Whitney; she is CFO of the Whitney, so we got free tickets and the insider tour, which was super cool. 

Our way home was a bit rough — a fairly leisurely morning having breakfast and packing up, then the flight was fine … until the 2x aborted landing at SFO, an announcement that we were going to SJC instead, then actually landing at OAK and being given a Lyft ride back to SFO where our car was. And then an airport miracle: R.’s AirPods were on the back of our car!!! and they worked just fine and were unharmed! Totally redeemed the flight. 

Throughout the trip, the kids were having a great time — we had worried they might not like the vibe, the crowds, the unglamorous subways, but they loved it! They actually really liked the subway (something about the freedom of movement, I think, not having to rely on cars), and soaked up the museum stuff, were adventurous eaters, paid attention to the art and history and architecture, put up with our many stories of back in the day, etc. We had fabulous weather — chilly, for the most part, and occasionally rainy (which our San Jose eyes were hungry for), with spells of almost-warm sunshine to break it up. And now they both want to go to Columbia! heh. Altogether a really wonderful adventure, which I hope we don’t wait 19 years to do again. 

Potpourri, aka there were three other weeks of April
—AP stuff: Annika went in to school on a Saturday to take a practice AP World History test, on which she got a 4 — she wanted a 5, but I think nobody got a 5, so … anyway, it bodes well for the official test in a few weeks.
—Driving: Newly permitted, Annika started driving us to school — she can’t legally drive with anyone under 18 in the car, so I would drive Lukas to the rendezvous point in front of Owen’s house, then she and I would switch and she’d take us the rest of the way to Pioneer. It was really kind of freaky, but she did well!
—Badminton: With R. spending every evening taking care of Grandma, Lukas was my badminton buddy for Annika’s games. We developed some fannish enmity toward some of those other teams, I tell you whut. 

March 2024

Fun stuff first
The month got off to a cold and rainy start, which we actually enjoyed — we see enough of the sun around here, most of the year.
—Badminton season started — Annika was partnered with Kayla, aka LAUDERBAUGH, and they worked well together.
—Two dudes: Lukas and R. went to SF for the Warriors game Lukas got tickets to for his birthday; the two stars they wanted to see (Steph Curry of the Warriors, and Victor Wembanyama of the Spurs) were both out due to injuries, but they had a great time nonetheless.
—Learning to Drive: Annika had her first BTW driving lesson; the instructor said she did great and told us to practice with her as much as possible. It was really weird seeing her drive — but also really cool. :-)
—Thomas Twins’ 16th: Annika spent an evening at her friends Anna and Skyler’s joint 16th birthday party, playing Cards Against Humanity and whatever else kids today do.
—Easter: Gotta keep up traditions, even when things are kind of a mess (see below); the four of us dyed a couple dozen hard-boiled eggs, and the Easter Bunny hid many many dozens of filled plastic eggs around the house for a good long hunt Easter morning. Later we went to visit Grandma and Grandpa, but not at their house … 

The much less fun stuff
We were having a low-key St. Patrick’s Day Sunday when we got a call in the early afternoon from Grandpa, saying Grandma had fallen and he could not get her up into a chair. R. went over there right away, and came back nine hours later. She didn’t have any head trauma or bleeding or anything, but she was in pain and had to be taken to the hospital in an ambulance. She had broken her sacrum, and furthermore was pretty out of it mentally — we thought it was from whatever painkiller they had given her, but came to find out later that it was a UTI, which in older people can present as something like sudden-onset dementia. At any rate, she was in the hospital for three days, then moved to a skilled nursing facility, and taking care of her became pretty much R.’s whole life from then on, for months; he would go over there after work every day to relieve Grandpa, who’d arrived midmorning (spelled briefly, some days, by Amy in mid afternoon), and stay with her through dinner and lights-out. Amy took an evening here and there (R. got to go to two of Annika’s badminton matches), but it was 95% him, seven days a week.  But she was getting better, slowly, and he was a major part of that; as the immediate crisis passed and the log slog began, we all realized we needed to figure out next steps once she was able to get back home. 

February 2024

The Superb Owl
As per longstanding tradition, we hosted the Carneys for Super Bowl Sunday — many snacks and drinks, and an actual good game that even the kids came in to the movie room to watch. Lukas, unfortunately, ended the night with a 104.5 temp; he missed the whole week of school, and on Friday we found out it was pneumonia! We got him on antibiotics and he perked up quickly, assuring us that he was well enough to go on our trip to Portland the next morning … 

Portland trip
So, off we went to Portland with the Patels! Straight from the airport, we took the Beast (another 8-seat SUV) to the area of the city where Beverly Cleary lived and wrote, to see some sites like her old neighborhood and these statues in a park featuring characters from her books. Then we found our house, settled in and ordered dinner. The next day, we went to a big retro arcade called Ground Kontrol (they had a WOPR, which was my favorite detail of the place’s decor), and then had dinner at McMenamins Kennedy School — a multi-space bar and restaurant housed in a converted elementary school. We took a day to drive to Astoria to see a bunch of Goonies sites — Mikey & Brand’s house, the jail, the museum where their dad worked, various places in town where scenes were shot — and continued down the coast, having lunch at Buoy Brewing Co. and stopping for amazing views, ending the day at Cannon Beach (where the ship sails out to sea at the end of the movie) near sundown. Other days, we spent a bunch of time at Powell’s City of Books and Blick Art Supply store, hit up Voodoo Donut, found a cool neighborhood brunch place where we all sat at the counter, took a grownups night out with Annika holding the fort at home, toured the Pittock Mansion and the Japanese Gardens, had an amazing brunch at Mother's, walked to OMSI and Guardian Games, went downtown for a fantastic seafood dinner, and stayed up way too late playing an epic game of Monopoly — which I won, lol — the night before departure. The gritty eyes and rushed packing the next day were totally worth it!

School and whatnot
—Castillero Colloquium: Lukas’s presentations, on two separate nights, went smashingly! Most of the kids in the history session presented in pairs or groups, but he was the first solo presenter, dedicating it to Annika (for getting him into history); he was so at ease, he had total strangers coming up, saying he was awesome and adorable. The next night was for ELA, and he read a selection from his writing, once again suffering zero stage fright and just hitting it out of the park. (This one he dedicated to me, for inspiring his interest in reading and writing … awww!) We were all so proud of him!
—D&D: One windy, rainy Sunday, Lukas hosted the Blade fellas at our house for D&D instead of going out on the moors (the Los Alamitos playground). I don’t know a thing about how the game works, but the kids had a great time.
—Badminton: Tryouts were this month; Annika and CJ made the team, but other friends didn’t, which was a little bit awkward but soon blew over. She started practices Monday through Thursday after school. 

January 2024

Post xmas vacation doings

We spent most of New Year’s Day undecorating from xmas and cleaning up the paper-shredder confetti avalanche — necessary, but lots less fun than putting it all up in the first place! The kids and I went out for breakfast on Petra's day, then spent some time in Barnes & Noble and Guitar Center. Annika spent an afternoon in the mall with friends; the kids and I went skating at Downtown Ice with Ami and Manir & Amira, and all of us got a little obsessed with Duolingo — Annika to shore up her Spanish class scores, R. and Lukas and I to get prepared for our trip to France this summer. 

Back in school again
—Castillero Colloquium: Lukas was chosen to present at Castillero Colloquium for both history and ELA. It’s a new thing they’re doing to showcase academic achievers for their work; Lukas was picked for his perfect score on the history test (by his favorite teacher, Mr. Wellington), and for the creativity of his original writing (by ELA Teacher Davis). 
—Portland ahoy: We spent an evening at the Patels’ for dinner and a Portland trip planning sesh at our house; we’re going on the February break.
—Teen stuff: Annika went to the mall to see the new Mean Girls musical with friends; also, she passed the written test at the DMV for her learner’s permit, so it’s about time for her to do the driving lessons!
—Burns Night: A highlight of the winter social season, this year’s Burns Night at the Grants’ was a great time. The Patels were invited, so we had some non-Scottish compatriots present, and Manir and I did well on the trivia contest — we won some Scottish candy bars! 

My 50th bday
We had a much more low-key situation for my 50th — I didn’t have it in me to plan another party, plus we’re going to New York and France this year, so those trips feel like celebration enough! We did have brunch with the Patels at Lazy Dog on the actual day, and R. spent the bulk of the day making his spaghetti sauce and polpette d’ovre (essentially breadcrumb meatballs, my very favorite thing he makes) while we FaceTimed with Kent & Kylie. I made out like a bandit, gift-wise — among other things, I got first editions of Rebecca (1938) and A Supposedly Fun Thing I’ll Never Do Again (1997), so I guess you could say I’m the luckiest gal around. :-) 

December 2023

Christmas Tree Gettin’ Day

Christmas season kicked off with Christmas Tree Gettin’ Day (moved to Sunday, since Annika had a party to go to on Saturday; the fellas went ahead and got the outdoor lighting up while she was out). We went to a couple of lots before finding a good ‘un, and then spent the day decorating … only to discover a water leak from the tree stand, all over our brand new wood floors! So we had to un-decorate the tree, replace the stand, clean up the mess, and re-hang all the ornaments, but the disaster was averted and the tree was up at last. 

Parties, performances and such
—R. and I went to the Apple holiday party — the first real one since January 2020 — with Anne and Kevin, another weeknight out with the kids managing themselves at home.
—The Nutcracker: We went with the Patels to see The Nutcracker ballet in downtown San Jose; it was Girl Scouts night, so we saw a lot of other people we knew, too.
—Movie club: Mid-month, we saw A Christmas Story in the theater, another re-release (at modern prices, lol); as many times as we’ve seen that movie, it was all of our first time to see it on the big screen. And then in the dead week between xmas and New Year’s, we went back to see The Hunger Games, another one we’ve seen a few times but not in the theater.
— Fantasy of Lights: Our annual drive-through tradition was a great time, as always, and it seemed like they had done some upgrades and additions this year.
—General holiday stuff: This year, both kids had early-out schedules for finals week, but unfortunately had to go to school till the 22nd, ugh. We had a lot of fun with the extra afternoon time, baking cookies and getting presents, taking gifts to friends, and of course in the evenings, watching all the xmas movies on the new! big! screen!

Christmas Eve & Christmas Day
The 24th saw a spirited game of Christmas Eve Gift, in which everybody “got” at least one other person — the kids are getting to be pros at the game, you gotta watch out for ‘em now! Grandma & Grandpa arrived in the early afternoon; we hung out, grazing on holiday treats till dinner, then hung all the stockings, put out milk and cookies for Santa (and carrots & celery for the reindeer), then got everybody but R. and I to bed. The two of us stayed up too late watching Die Hard and wrapping as always, and everybody slept later than we usually do on xmas day (even Lukas!) — we didn’t get the turkey in the oven till 11:00. We opened presents for hours; one highlight was a turntable “for me,” and several LPs for the kids to play on it. Amy & Paul and the cousins came in the afternoon, and we did presents with them. Then we had the big dinner, watched A Christmas Story one last time, and called it a night.

New Year’s Eve
Once again this year, we went hiking in Uvas Canyon with the Patels; we had lovely cool misty weather, and the waterfalls were going pretty good. The evening we spent at home, eating a bunch of appetizers and small bites, playing Mario Kart and Animal Crossing until it was time to watch the ball drop and hurl huge handfuls of paper-shredder confetti all over the place. Goodbye, 2023, and hello 2024!

November 2023

Lukas turns 12!

Big day for the little guy — got the decorated place at breakfast (still in the garage, see below), but we were able to have dinner in the new dining room, although I had to buy him a cake because we are nowhere near unpacked yet and I couldn’t find all the stuff to bake one for him, lol. Grandma and Grandpa came by in the afternoon to give him his gift — money toward a new bike, as he’s outgrown his old one. He got a lot of good presents that evening from us (cool shirts, a DVD of The Sandlot because it goes on and off of streaming for no reason, and tickets to a Golden State Warriors game w/R. since he’s never seen a pro basketball game). His party was at Lasermaxx; I booked the private session, so there were enough spots for the adults to play too, and it was an absolute riot! So much fun! He already said he wants to do the same thing again next year. 

The remodel is done! CELEBRAMOS!
Hot damn, we passed final inspection! We started the move-in, box by box, and it’s slow work — but I have a kitchen again! wooooooooo!!!!! We can watch movies on the big screen, sit at a full-size table, and potentially host people … although the first time we made plans, we ended up having dinner at the Patels’ instead because they’d left their dog alone all day, heh. And of course final inspection isn’t the end; we have to gear up for the last phase of this gigantic project, the backyard and outdoor kitchen. To that end, we had an arborist service come and stage what I called Treepocalypse — in which the 40’ tall palm tree in the back yard and the 12’ palm tree in the front yard were cut down, the camphor tree in the back yard trimmed (for its own health and to make room for the pergola we’re gonna put in), and a new baby maple planted where the big oak used to be in the front yard. It was a nervous-making day and I hated to see those palm trees go, but for various reasons, they had to. :-(  

Lukas Life
—Handball ends: Lukas had his last handball game of the season; it was a loss, but with a couple of great moments for Lukas — passes, scoring, etc.
—Kart games: Since Manir didn’t have a birthday party (lots of complex social dynamics going on at the moment), Lukas and I took him to K1 Speed for go-kart racing.
—Sam’s birthday party was a movie night at his house, which sounded to me like a chaotic good time.
—Friday night dance: The boys all decided to go to the Castillero glow party/dance; Lukas said it was “loud and kind of boring” so I doubt he’ll go to another, but I’m glad he went the once.
—Choose your adventure: Another day, he hosted an epic 5-hour D&D afternoon at our house with Reid and Owen.
—Amusement: The kids and I went to Great America on a no-school Veterans' Day Friday with Ami, Manir and Amira — all of our first time there (and tbh, I don’t think we were missing much, but it was a fun day). 

Annika’s stuff
—Sweeney Todd: We went with Brandi & Alana to see a local production of Sweeney Todd, stage-managed by our neighbor Marte (tickets were a gift from her to Alana for taking care of their cat during the October break when we were also out of town). It was pretty good!
—Learning to drive: Annika started doing the online driver's ed class offered by her school; she’ll have to finish that before she can apply for her learner’s permit.
—PSAT: The PSAT results came out this month — she got xxxx, which, despite being in the top 5% nationally, was disappointing to her because it was below the National Merit threshold … which is only applicable to Juniors. In other words, she nearly did it as a sophomore! She’s amazing. 

Thanksgiving
This certainly was a time for giving thanks — we were back into our house, covid was no longer ruining everything, the Macy Day Parade was on, and we were able to host Grandma & Grandpa for the holiday. Of course, we weren’t fully moved in yet; between having to check every cabinet and drawer for everything, going back and forth to the pantry, and going to the garage for stuff that was still in the makeshift kitchen, I walked nearly 3 miles inside my own house getting the dinner to the table. But it was delicious and we all had a fabulous time — yay, my favorite holiday!