Election Day, 2016

Let's back up to election day, 2016.

This moment is made up of billions of choices made by billions of people, all choosing what seemed the best choice at the time. No matter how this election turns out, I pledge to continue to make choices with the goal of creating the best future. I will choose dialogue. I will choose respect. I hope all of you will too. It is time collaborate and make our country the best it can be, for everyone. Wishing you all the best as election results come in--whoever you voted for! 

Me: Kids, do you want to come with me to vote? This is a big election, a tight election, and a historic election. It is the first we've had a woman candidate for president from a major party. 

Charlotte: Wait, what? Why? There have been so many elections. That is crazy. (Age 7)

The above are two posts I made on social media the day of the election.

The kids tagged along with me to our local polling place, the middle school gym.  While I filled out my ballot, they climbed the bleachers and read Duck For President by Doreen Cronin.

And well, we all know what happened.  The election night party we attended wrapped up early--no one there was in the mood for celebrating.  Earlier in the day I had gone door knocking for the Hillary Clinton campaign with the girls (Solomon was at school).  We only knocked on the doors of democrats, encouraging them to get to the polls.  Even then, I wondered it it was too little too late.  In truth, I had secretly thought Clinton was doomed since Comey had reopened the investigation into her emails in October.  But I would much rather have not been right.

In the weeks that followed I had some hard and delicate conversations with republican friends and relatives.  More often than not though, I didn't have the stomach or the courage for it.

The Inauguration came and went.  I participated in the Women's March in January, along with many, many friends.  I discovered more that I knew along the way.  My sister participated in New York, another friend marched in Washington DC.  Another friend knit many, many pink pussy hats.  One of my cousins unfreinded me on social media due to my participation in the march.

I was invited to a private conservative group on Facebook, and a private feminist group on Facebook.
My life is such that it might be hard to know where I land--I had a very liberal upbringing and remain so. But I am a stay at home mom. I have four kids. I homeschool. I go to church most Sundays.

But in the last few years--the last 10-15, in retrospect--I have felt the political ground shifting beneath my feet.  The things I held most dear about the Democratic party are no longer core values.  At the same time, the Republican platform is no alternative for me.  I value judging people individually based on their actions and accomplishments, over their membership in any particular group.  I value freedom of speech, even if that might offend someone else, even if it might offend me.  I value respectful dialog, even (and especially) with your adversaries.  

The above words were written in the early days of the Trump administration. Before the pandemic. Before the lockdowns, which we were assured would be over in a matter of weeks. Before our president encouraged hate crimes agains Asians by calling covid-19 'the China virus.' Before he encouraged people to take horse medication and even actual poison to protect themselves, but was luke warm on the vaccines once they became available. Before a Minneapolis police officer murdered George Floyd, before the demonstrations and protests, before immigrants were forcefully separated from their young children at the border, before our president was banned from Facebook and Twitter for spreading misinformation. Before the US pulled out of critical climate accords, before escalations with North Korea and the trade war with China, before Ruth Bader Ginsberg died and the US supreme court became decidedly conservative, before the January 6th insurrection where right wing militants stormed the capitol to try to stop a democrat from becoming the next president. Before Trump was impeached. Twice. I almost forgot that part. 

SO much of what we thought was normal changed SO fast. 

I also started this post before I lost interest in posting political views anywhere on the internet (or perhaps it is the moral courage which I've lost). These days I hesitate to post even small, inconsequential entertaining details about my daily life. What does it matter? Am I just adding to the endless daily distraction of social media? Will we someday live in an authoritarian Big Brother-like state that will make life and death decisions based on what cute thing my kid said or what I had for breakfast? Will it keep me from getting a job if I voice an opinion now and then? Loose me friends? On a practical level, political posts--really any slightly controversial post--has served to derail otherwise good days without actually accomplishing anything.  Consensus is rarely, if ever, reached in a shouting match with hundreds of onlookers. Platforms like twitter and facebook are a digital amplification of this dynamic. 

Do those quick changes I spoke of above really mean my reaction should be the opposite? This is not the time to quiet down. This is not the time to take our democracy for granted. It is imperfect, yes, and it will always be imperfect, but we can and should try to improve it. I guess that is another take on the 'in order to make a more perfect union' statement in the preamble to the US Constitution.  I can't get behind every single plank of any party's platform (and if you can, consider whether or not you've truly thought through these issues for yourself), but there's still a lot of work I can wholeheartedly embrace, starting with voting rights. Time to do some real work. 

Fall Recital 2020

 

November is fall recital time! Charlotte and Ariadne both had virtual performances. Ariadne played Waltz, by Johannes Brahms. I could tell she likes this piece, based on how willing she always was to practice it. In fact, Solomon and Nova used to play it for her as a lullaby when she was a baby. Charlotte played Tarantella by William Henry Squire--her first recital song on a full size cello.  It is a lively piece with many different sections. Tarantella translates to tarantula, so we included a tarantula coloring page in our box of recital goodies we sent to relatives. 

This is the first time we've had a virtual recital where all the performances were prerecorded. The girls enjoyed watching other the kids play and putting comments in the chat, but they weren't that crazy about watching themselves.

 

Cello Rock's rendition of Kashmir was a surprise finale. Charlotte has been a part of the group since this summer. The group had been given special permission to meet at Antonello Hall and recorded the song the last time the were there. Charlotte joined them via zoom and was represented by a computer cart. Since covid numbers are getting worse all their rehearsals are now virtual. 

The week before the recital we made apple cider salted caramels and oatmeal smile cookies, which is a recipe I originally made up for a book club.  We sent them off along with a note and some coloring pages. but were 1 for 6 on packages arriving on time. Wednesday is the cut off for Saturday delivery, it seems. 

Off to College!

Solomon is off to college! Charles and I dropped him off at UCI on Monday, The University of California at Irvine, to be more formal about it. For our friends and family in Minnesota, it is a lot like going to UW Madison when you live in the Twin Cities. UC Irvine is about 6 hours from where we live in the San Fransisco Bay Area.  UCI ranks in the top 10 of Public Universities in the US. It comes out 35th overall. It is a large public university with lots of opportunities, but also does very well for things like safety and student experience. Irvine is within an hour of Los Angeles and 15 minutes from the ocean. We are very happy with where Solomon ended up.  

On the trip down we listened to Planet Money podcasts, and then a new book by one of it's contributors, Money: The True Story of a Made-Up Thing by Jacob Goldstein. It prompted lots of good discussion, as well as being quite entertaining and informative.    

Angeles National Forest was particularly beautiful. I'm not sure if we were technically in it when I took this, be we did get to see a gorgeous sunset there. 

Solomon's current plans are to major in economics and minor in statistics. Thanks his hard work on many AP classes, he is just shy of sophomore status. Not bad for a kid who missed almost his entire junior year due to a concussion (he tripped while running full tilt). Ok, enough bragging.  On to the move-in. 

It is 2020, so of course nothing is normal. UCI's dorms are open and the dining halls are open, but all classes are online. EVERYONE gets a single. Social distancing measures abound. Covid tests were the first stop when checking in.  Assuming those tests are negative, students will spend the first two weeks quarentineing in a socially distanced pod of six people. If they are positive, there is a special covid dorm. With one of the top 10 hospitals in California, I am sure they will get them medical care when needed. Everyone has a covid go bag, similar to a go bag for earthquakes and wildfire.  (After hearing about a student at NYU who was only fed juice and toast once a day, Solomon was sure to pack plenty of protein bars in his.) UCI seems to be handling all the logistics of covid very well, so those protein bars probably won't be needed.  

Solomon may get to learn Tolkein's Elvish after all.

Moving in went surprisingly well. After Solomon's covid test we had some time to drive around campus. I asked Solomon to pose by a statue of the school mascot, the anteater.  We read the plaque and discovered that anteaters can be HUGE! We are talking seven feet for the largest species.  We got his room set up within a couple of hours. The furniture all got moved around, making a double work as a single.   

The quilt he designed with his grandmother is on the bed, the pillow from our church in Minneapolis made the cut.

Charles found the beanbag chair surpirsingly relaxing after doing the heavy lifting with Solomon. They bunked the beds and stored the top matter underneath, leaving a metal 'canopy' as Solomon called it.

Once Solomon was all moved in we made one last Target run for some pantry items and one or two things we forgot. 

Solomon's RA, Maria, wrote a welcome message to everyone in her zot pod.

One last meal together. At the end we all lingered, not quite ready to leave.

After dropping Solomon off I convinced Charles to take a detour to the nearest beach, a 15 minute drive away. Corona Del Mar is beautiful, I hope Solomon gets there soon (biking it is 30 minutes).

Double Princesses! Halloween 2018

This year might have been the Princess Halloween to end all Princess Halloweens (as in, I might not be doing this again).  I made not one but two princess dresses from scratch, one with a tutorial, the other with no pattern.  It started with Ariadne asking to wear the Cinderella dress.  Well remembered, the Cinderella dress was possibly the most ambitions sewing project I've done to date.  Now, Charlotte was a preschooler wearing approximately a size 4 when I made her that dress.  Aria is a 1st grader who wears size 7-8.  I knew there was no way it would fit (plus, it is still packed in a box somewhere).  So I offered to make her her own princess dress.  She chose Princess Sofia the First.  While I knew it would take a lot of time, I figured I was safe, since Charlotte had already declared that she wanted to be a ghost, wearing a white morph suit and all white clothes--same concept as Nova's shadow costume from last year.



But then, well, the princess pull was strong.  We've been studying the middle ages.  Charlotte likes sewing.  She asked if she could sew her own Medieval princess dress.  I said yes.  But there were no patterns in her size.  So we thought we could adapt an adult pattern (Charlotte is about a kids size 14).  Actually, it was impossible to adapt that very curvy adult pattern with all the points that had to land just so on the torso.

So suddenly, we were making her costume entirely from scratch, drafting the pattern and everything.  To the right are some sketches Charlotte made of the kind of dress she might like.  While Charlotte is an accomplished sewer for 9, she decided this was too complicated for her and, viola, I was sewing two princess dresses from scratch.  Only two weeks until Halloween.

I used the  Cinderella tutorial from Homemade Toast for the base of Aria's costume.  The beauty of this pattern is the stretchy fabric used in the middle of the bodice. (You make it yourself with elastic thread, so it can be in any color).  It allows for a lot of movement and growth with no buttons or zippers.  Here is the bodice.  We had a free interpretation with the trim, based on what the fabric store had available.  I think we did well.

For the skirt we used circle skirts.  I made one of lining and trimmed it with ribbon about 8'' up from the hem.

The overskirt was also a circles skirt I folded it in sixths (like a paper snowflake) and tried to get a petal shape. (This was the initial cut, if I recall correctly, it was too pointy so I refolded and rounded out the lower edge and maybe the tip).  

The large white medallion design is all stenciled on.  Ideally I would have had freezer paper as the stencil to get the cleanest lines, but wax paper was all I could find at the grocery store. 

The 'pearl' edge is actually pom pom trim.  I sewed it on to the right side of the fabric edge with the pom moms facing up, then flipped it back so the pom moms hung down and top stitched all around. 

I made the crinoline (poofy underskirt) as a separate garment this time.  It is so much better this way! It is in fact, they way they used to do it when people dressed like this for real.  It was easier to sew, will be easier to clean, and as a bonus, Aria can wear it with other dress up outfits.




Aria wanted to get in on the sewing action too, so she made a dress for her doll Saffi (short for Sapphire) with scraps.  Our cat Salvos also got involved our sewing projects. All that tissue paper was irresistible!





Charlotte's bodice was constructed using the T-shirt method of pattern drafting.  We added a point to the waistline at back and front, and at the neckline as well for more of a princess effect.  I cut faux princess seams on the front.  At 9, she has no curves, which, is why I say 'faux.'  No real shaping is involved, but I did curve them to mimic adult princess seaming.   In the back these lines were used to creat the middle piece for the corset section.  I added an inch and a half or so so that the dress could fit her for a couple sizes.  The sides I taped together at the underarm, making a total of four pieces for the bodice.




I put the loops for the corset back on the back edges of the side pieces.  To do it over again,  I would have placed them a little lower.  When I laced up the back I could use 2-3 three more loops at the bottom and the top ones aren't really doing anything.  The were reinforced with some woven tape, as well as the trim.  Though we got through Halloween just fine, a couple loops did pull out during dress-up play shortly thereafter, so they should have been reinforced better--or perhaps it would be best for the loops to be made of a continuous cord instead of individual loops.










Though I am going through the construction separately, I did work on both dresses at once.  Below you can see both bodices at roughly the same stage.  Charlotte's definitely took more thinking and research, since there was no tutorial or real pattern.  I called both my mom, a Family Consumer Science (HomeEc) teacher, and my sister, a costume designer, for advice before I was done.

Sleeves were the only thing I used the pattern for, shortening them considerably.  Perhaps I shortened them too much, or maybe the bodice never would have matched up, since I made my own bodice pattern.  At any rate, we needed a solution.

Enter armpit gussets!  I turned the the fabric so the stretch went up and down instead of side to side for greater range of motion.  I used a diamond shape, but in retrospect, a football shape would have worked a little better.  I sewed them on the the bottom edce of the sleeve, matching up the point and the seam line.  Then I pinned the sleeve with the gusset to the bodice and sewed them on as normal.  They worked out great!  Charlotte can lift her arms all the way above her head without the dress riding up.



After seeing how well Aria's circle skirt flared, Charlotte wanted one too.  We had to fold the fabric the long way and cut out two half circles and sew them together to get the length we wanted.To make the opening for the bodice, I marked the middle of the circle, folded it in half and laid the bodice on top, marking the point in the middle and the sides.

 I cut out a triangle shape (actually a diamond shape, since it was along the seem and therefore double) for the waist opening.  I couldn't see much of the V at the waist when we were done, but the rope belt echoes that detail well.  It ended up having a 38'' radius, and coming down to Charlotte's ankles.  It also flares.




Here we have Princess Charlotte, complete with crown and rope belt.   I ordered both the Princess Sophia jewelry and the Medieval Princess jewelry online.  Charlotte's is from the bridal section, but not expensive.  We happened to find some shoes that worked at GoodWill (which you can see in the final picture in the post).  I am always on the fence about shoes for halloween costumes.  They typically push the cost of a costume over the edge to a point I am not happy with.  On the other hand, a medieval princess wearing tennis shoes is a little out of place.  Usually we have dress shoes from Suzuki recitals on hand for this sort of thing, but since we haven't had a recital since we moved, that was out.  GoodWill came through this year (and to be honest, as fall went on, both girls wore these little flats until they were worn out) We also played around with hair a little bit, though you can't see it in any of the finished costume pictures.

And voila, two princess dresses in under two weeks!

A year at the bridge

For the year and a half we lived in Hopkins, most mornings and some evenings I took the same walk.  To the bridge and back.  And I usually snapped the same picture.  A record, a year in place.  While I noticed that either my walks or my photography got a little thin January through March (sometimes the cold kept my camera from working) I was, more or less, consistent.

Seeing all the changes that took place, as well as discovering the mood of the day, made that selfsame walk interesting year round. Leaves and sky changed colors remarkably quickly.  Mist rendered it a virtually unknown landscape, like the first time I went on this walk in December 2016, and could not see the end of the long railroad spur leading into the lake to the bridge.  I truly did not know where I was going or where the trail would end.  The entire city, so close around me, was entirely absent.  All there was was mist and bare branches.  April, with its three tenacious blizzards, gave way to a spring entirely compressed in to the 31 days of May.  Swallows nested under the bridge, and fish guarded nests in the water just to the right of it.Giant snapping turtles laid their eggs on shore.  Loons called at sunset.  A bald eagle sat regally on an oak branch in January.  Foxes dodged and deer stood brazen along the path.  A coyote trotted on the sidewalk boldly on a sunny morning.  Baltimore orioles, sparrows, robins and chickadees enjoyed the birches and cottonwood along the path.  Geese and ducks were regulars, treading the open water by the swimming dock all winter long.  Once, I spotted seven swans a swimming.  Dog walkers, fishermen, teens in hammocks, bikers large and small, all used the bridge.  One morning I came out to giant orange inflatable pyramids.  I was just in time to cheer on the triathletes swimming beneath.  In winter I could walk underneath, examining swallows nests frozen to the snow.  In summer, a little kayaking trip let me see them at home.  Not bad for a suburban neighborhood. 

June 2017

July 2017

August 2017

Early September 2017

Late September 2017

October 2017

November 2017

Early December 2017

Late December 2017

Mid December 2017

February 2018

Mid April 2018

May 1st,  2018

Early May 2018

Mid May 2018

Mid May 2018

Late May 2018

June 2018

Late June 2018

Since we have moved to our new neighborhood (2,000 miles away), I have been looking for new walks.  I recently found a bridge.