Dream with Our Eyes Open

No parade, no fireworks ... well, none that I watched. They were GOING OFF all night as far as I could tell. To some extent, they have been going off every night for the past two weeks. *rolls eyes*

My sister and her family invited us over for a socially distanced BBQ. There were veggies and dip and guacamole and chips, and hamburger and hotdogs, and sides like coleslaw. And then a homemade blueberry pie, and vanilla ice cream, and chocolate sauce and whipped cream. At their request, The Mr. made lemon and lime syrups, which were mixed into fizzy or non-fizzy lemon- and limeade by each person to his or her taste.

The mosquitoes, on the other hand, snacked on my legs. No one else's, just mine.

The two families (two of us, four of them) sat 6ft apart on the patio and talked. It was good, except for the mosquitoes, although I later regretted my burger and bun. To my sorrow, my 18-yr-old nephew, who loved Martha Wells' "Murderbot" series, did not like the Books of the Raksura, although he dutifully read all of them. He is a good kid and felt he should, since I had bought them for him. But my sister has started them and seems to be enjoying them. She has just started the second one.

But at least it was PEOPLE. And OUT OF THE HOUSE.

We never have Christmas with the Mr.'s family on the actual day, because our brother-in-law (married to the Mr.'s sister) is a minister (formerly Lutheran, now Episcopalian) and he is always too busy. So we've taken to having it on M.L. King Day weekend.

In related news, I have leveled up in Waze and am now a Waze Warrior, so my icon on the map has a little shield. I go up very slowly in Waze because I only use it on expeditions of some length, when someone else is driving.

Also, I got a couple of late holiday cards in the last few days, including a very cute handmade one from Spain.   :-) (You know who you are!)

The family are all a bit hungover today after our annual pilgrimage to the Mr.'s sister's place in western Maryland for a late Christmas celebration. It's a trip of 154 miles (248 km), which GoogleMaps thinks should take 2½ hours, but it took more like 3, with backups caused by roadwork outside of Frederick and a stop for restrooms and coffee near Sharpsburg (site of a famous Civil War battle, Antietam). We left home at 10:00 a.m. and were back around 12 hours later.

The weather was great for traveling, as clear and dry and open as I can remember its ever being for this trip. It can get very snowy in western Maryland, and there are ski resorts, despite the mountains' modest heights. Of those on the list at the link, we drove over Meadow Mountain, Big Savage Mountain, and others, including the titular Sideling Hill (site of a dramatic road cut that displays the local geology in a striking fashion). Savage Mountain is also the site of part of the Eastern Continental Divide: the watershed on one side drains into the Chesapeake Bay and thence to the Atlantic Ocean, while on the other side, it drains into the Mississippi River and down into the Gulf of Mexico.

We actually spent only about four or so hours hanging with the relatives, eating home-cooked (for the most part) food (roast lamb and ham, baked salmon, and lots of sides and desserts) and exchanging gifts. On the way back, the sky was so clear and the stars very bright, even from inside the car. We made an unplanned stop in Frederick and had a late supper at Dutch's Daughter, which was pretty good "traditional American" food (heavy on beef and seafood).

Today we are all stiff and spaced-out: too much driving and sitting.

My twin niece and nephew, Ilana and Sam, became b'nai mitzvah this morning. We are at a break in the raft of family events that have been arranged to celebrate this event: a family dinner last night at the hotel where most of the out-of-town guests are staying, the service this morning (where Ilana in particular knocked our socks off with LOTS AND LOTS of singing in Hebrew) followed by a Kiddush luncheon, tonight's fancy dinner party, and then brunch at my sister's in-laws' house tomorrow morning. The Young Lady and I had our aliyah and managed to get through it, and The Mr. read the "Prayer for Our Country."

So far so good, except that for some reason the ankle-strap dress shoes I wore this morning had both heel caps (a/k/a top piece or top lift) fall apart by the middle of the morning. It was the most bizarre thing. They are about 8 years old, but I have only worn them some half dozen times, and I always pack them back up in their box, wrapped in tissue, once they have aired out. These are not cheap-ass shoes, either.

Also, by the time the weekend is over, I may have had enough chocolate cake for a while.

So I mentioned at one point that I had received a shiny new printer for Mother's Day. The box said it was compatible with Mac OSX 10.5, which was good, because I'm at 10.5.8, and I'm not sure I can upgrade any farther. (This is an oldish computer.)

It turns out that the HP installer program for the printer drivers requires ... 10.6.

Oh, Hewlett-Packard, you so crazy!

Anyway, The Young Lady worked over her old printer, which is usually just sitting here collecting dust unless we need to make copies (she has a newer, smaller printer that she took to college), and made it work, and then helped me install the drivers for it on my system. So now I can print and scan using that. (I had been printing with a little Inkjet, but I had no scanner.) So that's what she gave me for Mother's Day.

There remains this lovely new large printer (with scanning and duplex printing). Either the Mr. will take it (in which case maybe we will try to move his current one down here for me - it's newer than the one that the Young Lady just fixed up), or the Young Lady will take it to school with her: she has more room now than she had her freshie year, when we got her the little printer.

I should list my Inkjet on the neighborhood listserv - it still works, and likely someone can use it (maybe for another kid who's off to college in the fall).

Just a few flurries, but it was very seasonal for the Winter Solstice today.

We'll have a late Hanukkah celebration with my sister Amy's family and our stepmother tomorrow. There will be cheese (goat brie, lemon Stilton, mustardseed gouda, and cordobes) and crackers with fig jam and red grapes; latkes (shredded potato pancakes) with applesauce and sour cream; beef brisket made with beer; fresh spinach cooked with scallions and parsley; cucumber sunomono (made by smillaraaq); chocolate Hanukkah gelt (coins); and iced gingerbread cookies (made by The Young Lady) ... .

Have just returned from back-to-back outdoor social events featuring mass quantities of food. Am covered with sweat, sunscreen, and (on my ankles) bug bites, and am much too well fed.

Party A featured mainly cold foods, including slices of sandwich wraps, salads, cold meats, and fruit, followed by ice cream and very nice lemon poundcake. Party B featured flame-grilled hamburgers and hotdogs, spicy pork ribs, veggie crudites, and potato and cucumber salads, followed by strawberry and peach shortcakes and smillaraaq's very evil chocolate brownies.

I am in a food-induced stupor.

The official record snowfall (since the 1880s) for a single storm in Washington, DC, is 12 inches on December 17, 1932. There's a decent chance that record may be broken here in the next 36 hours: the predictions call for anywhere from 16 to 24 inches. Ironically, my sister-in-law's area out in Garrett County (extreme western Maryland), which is usually very snowy (the state's only real ski resort, Wisp, is located there), is not slated to get any at all from this storm.

I had taken work off today (I had use-or-lose leave), so I hit the grocery stores. Seasonal activities are planned for tomorrow: I bought things for cooking and baking (the Young Lady mentioned making cookies, and I got yeast in case the Mr. wants to bake bread, and spaghetti sauce makings for one of us to use), and I plan to finish the holiday cards up. I still haven't done the family newsletter for the relatives. In a move reminiscent of the classic joke about the over-confident law school student who only removes the shrink-wrap from his textbook the night before the final, I have finally installed iWorks on my almost-year-old Mac so I can do said newsletter. I also installed my new Photoshop CS4.

I usually include little thumbnail photos in the newsletter. This year, that's a problem. I think no one took any decent ones of me (I take most of the photos myself), and the most enjoyable event to report was probably the college-visit road trip for the Young Lady and her best friend on spring break - and I declined to lug my big camera along on that. (And in NYC, when it was pouring rain, I was very glad I hadn't.) The Young Lady may have some pix on her Facebook that I can snag, though.

You've probably heard me tell stories of my ancient Accord, Ruby Lee, who has been getting less and less dependable. The Mr.'s Avalon made sense when he bought it a decade ago, but it's a little silly at this point in terms of gas mileage. So, Ruby's days are probably numbered, and I'll be stuck driving a Toyota boat. Which is OK, I guess, because I don't drive to work (I take Metro), so it's only for shopping and such. Hence the Prius.

It's white and its rear visibility sucks, but it has a back-up camera (and lots of other strange electronic gizmos). I'm thinking we could call it Jeep and confuse everyone.

Oh, and half the power at the dealership building was out. So it took us more than 3 effin' hours to complete the paperwork (the staff were all sharing the printers in the powered part of the building, for one thing). At one point, I was lighting the process with the Mini-Maglite that I carry in my bag, like the geek I am. I am now more behind that ever on what I was trying to get done this weekend ... .

Yesterday I showed the Young Lady, who is now 17, a piece from IBARW 4, called Unlearning Racism Adventure #1. I read aloud this part: "Comedian W. Kamau Bell notes that if 70% or more of the people in a place are white, it’s possible that place is racist. That place is my life. In Oakland, California, only about 35% of the people are white. So why couldn’t I think of anyone to bring with me to La Pena get the 2 for 1 discount for coming with someone of a different race?"

I said to my daughter, "This was pretty much my life too, until quite recently."

She said, warmly, "My life isn't like that at all! I could have taken K-. K- is black, and she is my friend!" She listed several more friends of color she could have brought. They were Asian: she hangs out with the Robotics Team, which skews heavily Asian and Jewish.

So, not perfect diversity - but better than her parents' generation. She then went on, musing: "It's hard to know what to call people sometimes. Some people say 'black' is disrespectful. Other people don't want to be called African-American, because they're Haitian or something and are proud of that. You have to get to know them."