Month: April 2021

I love making pizza. Something about is so comforting to me. The kneading and rising of the dough, the heating of the pizza stone.

The nonnegotiables are garlic (and cheese and sauce, of course) and something that wakes up the taste buds, like capers, jalapeños or roasted red bells.

Tonight it was:

1. Mozz and basil (preserved in the freezer from last summer)

2. mushrooms, red onion, kalamata olives

3. Roasted red bells, capers, feta

We had a family gathering to finish off the weekend, a joint birthday celebration for my mom and sister. As we move toward everyone being fully vaccinated, it feels more like a typical gathering.

hugging hello

kids on the trampoline

talking to each other with two feet between us

serving each other food and touching it on accident and it being okay

planning more get-togethers

helping my sister clean up in the kitchen

hugging goodbye

Maxine agreed to take Sasha for a walk with me this evening. What she thought would be a 15-minute walk turned into a two and a half-hour excursion.

I coaxed her into walking eight blocks to meet Chris at a friend’s patio, where a Moscow Mule was waiting for me and a fire was burning. Maxine had two Izzy drinks while we chatted and loved on their two Bernese mountain dogs.

Meanwhile, Edwin was texting from work, trying to get us to come by to break the monotony of a slow evening at the restaurant. He said he would also be allowed to leave with us.

After we said our goodbyes to the friends, I was able to bribe Maxine with key lime pie in exchange for prolonging our outing with the half-mile walk to Edwin’s work. As he took out the trash, the three of us had a little snack.

Maxine was a little miffed that her evening was sabotaged, but sometimes that’s the only way to get a teen to spend time with you.

Edwin is finishing up his first shift as a food runner in about a half hour. Our friend, the owner, has sent us several texts throughout the evening about what a good job he’s doing.

In his first text, he said the kitchen loves him because he studied the menu. A little later, he sent me a video of Edwin adding lemon zest and aioli to an app. He looks like he’s in his element.

I’m looking forward to hearing all about it in about a half hour, but it’s really getting past my bedtime.

There’s nothing like watching the recordings of small group book discussions. They really run the gamut. Some groups keep up the chatter almost constantly, making connections with each others’ comments, asking questions, telling little anecdotes. Others plod methodically through the guiding document, like a steady march through the driving rain. Others seem to be playing a game of chicken of who will talk first.

A few times, I’ve laughed out loud. Some snippets:

“I don’t think we really have wells in this country anymore. I think they’re only in Africa.”

“I get embarrassed easily, so I don’t think I would cry for help if I fell down a well. I would just die there.”

“I think one relationship in which one person has more power than the other is Virgil and his hamster (it was a guinea pig, by the way). Virgil is the one who has to save the hamster, so he has more power.”

“Imagine all the poop and pee down there…I would try to collect clean water before I took a piss…guys, I’m pretty sure this meeting is still being recorded…”

And I’ve only just begun.

The Freshman has opened! Our friend, Nick Freshman, who was about to open his restaurant last spring when the pandemic hit, finally had his opening day today. Their primary focus is on cocktails and coffee, but the food is delicious, as well.

Our family, collectively, has visited in waves today. Edwin has a job there, so he’s put in a good number of hours over the past week, and since he gets 50% off food for himself, and 25% off when he brings others, he went down this afternoon for coffee and pastries with a friend. His first shift is Friday evening, so he also wanted to see what it looks like live.

Maxine headed down next, with Nick’s daughter. They were still there, masked and chatting, when Chris and I arrived for dinner with friends at 6:00. She talked to us long enough to arrange to have an order of mac and cheese delivered to her across the restaurant.

We had an amazing meal. For my cocktail, I ordered La Jefa: “Mezcal house-infused with the Chiltepin pepper from Sinaloa, Mexico…with fresh squeezed lime juice, sugar, orange liqueur, and a blanco tequila floater.” The floater was in half of a hollowed-out lime – very nice touch. It was a perfect drink: smoky, spicy, and fresh.

For an app, Chris and I shared the chicken fried oysters in a roasted red pepper coulis, bacon jam, and grilled lemon. We then shared the pan roasted ruby red trout and the herb papradelle with roasted mushroom ragout. Oh. My. God. Everything was perfect.

The wait was worth it. We have a real gem here in our neighborhood.

The tail end of this pandemic is like waking up from multiple layers of sleep, kind of like that Leonardo DiCaprio movie, Inception.

“The Crystal City farmers market is back,” said my neighbor. I had no idea. We walked down there to find a handful of stalls, nowhere near what it was pre-pandemic. Still not totally awake.

Oh, wow! They’re having movie night at TJ. How will that work? Oh, right: on Teams. Not really awake yet.

A cherry blossom parade through our neighborhood? Fun! Wait- a car parade. Makes sense. Yawn.

I’m not complaining because I think we should be cautious, but I am very much looking forward to when there’s a parade, it’s people walking together. When it’s movie night, it’s people sitting together in the same place. No more virtual, fully awake.

I’ve been trying to finish three books these past couple of days. I normally don’t worry about reading all the books my students read in their book groups, but this year is, as we all know, different. The kids only had five to choose from this time, since we were able to find five books with themes that fit the unit and their approximate reading levels, and of which we have access to an unlimited number of electronic copies.

Knowing exactly what’s been happening in these books has helped me tremendously in supporting their discussions and also in routing out the non-readers who might normally get away with a little BSing.

I finished three of the five a while ago and had two more to go by Friday afternoon, when an email appeared from a student.

“Ms. Mann, you have to read this book! You probably already read it, but if you haven’t, it should be your weekend read.”

I love that we have students who refer to an entire book as a weekend read. Oh, I so wish this for all of them.

I replied, “Thanks for the rec! This has actually been on my ‘to-read’ list for a while.” I attached a photo of me holding A Night Divided, which I had fished out of one of my historical fiction baskets.

“Awesome! You will not be able to put it down. Enjoy!”

So, I finished The Breadwinner at Maxine’s soccer practice this evening, I’m about to finish the last few chapters of Without Refuge, and then it’s back to the weekend read, which is actually going to be the weeklong read.

Where did this beautiful sunny day come from? As I finished my first cup of coffee, the sun was breaking through the clouds, and by the time I was midway through my second cup, it had turned into a positively gorgeous day.

Chris and I took advantage of the sun and warmth, and took his kayak and my paddle board to Anacostia Park, which has plenty of parking and a boat ramp. We were in the water by 10:00 and paddling upstream toward RFK and Kingman Island.

The Anacostia River has come a long way, and it’s still a far cry from pristine, but it was a beautiful morning. Ducks bobbed up and down on the waves, geese flew overhead, and children shrieked as they chased each other down the paths at Kingman Island. Two little kids called out to me from a bridge, and we waved at each other from a distance.

My mom grew up in Anacostia in the days before white flight in Southeast DC, and she has very fond memories of the river. Her PE classes were often held on the flats by the river, and her neighborhood felt like a small town. She’s delighted whenever I tell her of our adventures near her childhood home.

I told my paddle boarding buddy about our excursion, and she said next time, we all need to put in there and paddle all the way to Kenilworth Gardens.

Stay tuned, Mom, for more tales of adventures in your old stomping grounds.

The kids and I went to see my parents today, and I went on a walk with my dad. He’s been slowly building back his stamina over the past few months. A stroke over a year ago and a likely string of mini-strokes have left him a bit off-balance and often disoriented. He’s been in physical therapy, which he wasn’t too thrilled about at first, but he’s gained a new enthusiasm for his daily walk.

We started off down the sidewalk and crossed the street to where the tree I climbed as a kid used to be. When we passed the park, he suggested we continue down to the next court. As we walked, we reminisced: that’s where we had the neighborhood Easter egg hunt; down there at the fork in the path in the woods was where my sister’s patrol post was; that’s the house where we went to Vacation Bible School one summer.

At the far end of the lower court, my dad held up his cane and pointed to a set of stairs that climbed up the side of a hill into another part of the neighborhood. He thought for a minute and said, “I’m not ready for that yet.” I nearly jumped for joy hearing the word “yet” come out of his mouth.

“We’ll work up to that,” I assured him.

We walked back toward home, and he paused. At first, I thought he was confused about his whereabouts, but he was considering his options.

“We can either be at the halfway point or we can take a straight shot home,” I said.

“Let’s go the longer way,” he decided.

We continued on, and I pointed out the park that used to have the merry-go-round my sister fell off of and broke her arm. My dad then pointed up the street at the grassy spot where a see-saw sat in the late 70’s and 80’s.

“Oh, yeah, that’s where we gave each cherry bombs,” I said. It’s where you jump off when the other person reaches the apex, causing them to crash down hard. It’s pretty brutal, and I don’t really wonder why they took it out.

When we approached the front door, my dad said it was the longest walk he’s taken yet. On our list: those stairs up the hill.