Some Happy Scribbles...
Hello!
How has your week been? One of the highlights of mine was an overnight visit to have dinner with good friends. We had plenty of time to catch up and covered many topics, including the fact that “vacations” with extended family should more accurately be referred to as “trips;” this excellent memoir from a few years back; and the rash of lawsuits where successful women are suing younger influencers, which is excellent research for the novel I’m working on about a personal growth guru who self-destructs when she feels threatened by a popular TikTok star!
I continued my crusade to get everyone to watch Hacks, which lead to a discussion about Designing Women, which I’ve never seen, but may get into now that I’ve sadly finished the second season of Hacks. I also came away with an excellent list of podcast recommendations: Where Should We Begin; The Tim Ferris Show; A Slight Change of Plans, We Can Do Hard Things; and this episode of This American Life.
And my talented friend gave me this gorgeous milk jug she made herself, which I’m using as a vase!
Another highlight was visiting Teddy (11) at sleepaway camp last Sunday. It was halfway through his four-week stay, and Jim and I worried that our appearance would be disruptive and upsetting, but it turned out to be just fine. We took Teddy and his buddy out to lunch and caught up on all the goings on at camp. To our surprise, the boys asked us about the news they’d heard from their counselors - who are allowed to have cell phones, while the kids are not.
“Didn’t someone in England resign, like the President?” Teddy’s friend asked me.
“And we heard that Technoblade died.” Teddy said. “Can we watch his final video?”
Later, Jim told me he was holding back tears as we watched together. I felt the same. And I can’t stop thinking about this line, and how beautifully well this young man lived his tragically short life:
“If I had another 100 lives, I think I would choose to be Technoblade again every single time, as those were the happiest years of my life.”
Meanwhile, Sadie (15) and I came up with a new code word. It all started when I e-mailed her a question and in response, she forwarded a message with only the word bomb in the first line.
I guessed it was some sort of shorthand the kids are using that everyone but me knows, so I casually asked her about it when she got home.
Sadie laughed. “Oh, that was an autocorrect.” she said. “I tried to forward you an email but Gmail wouldn’t forward it if I didn’t type something, so I put in the letter b, and the word bomb filled in. It didn’t mean anything.”
“Ah.” I said. “I was thinking it was a new way of saying “got it Mom” or “here it is.”
Sadie was now laughing hysterically. “Oh my God, Mom. It meant nothing. But it’s funny you thought that. It should be our thing.” She continued, “Like, if you ask me a question, I’ll just say bomb.”
“Um, yeah, that’s actually what I thought you were doing.” I said and we both laughed. I’m still not exactly sure what our new word means, but I am delighted to have an inside joke with my teenaged daughter.
On the home front, Jim made his summer anthem playlist! Take a listen - it’s definitely got summer party vibes!
And I made halibut ceviche for dinner again - I subbed parsley for cilantro and we used it as the filling for fish taco’s. Fresh fish can be hard to get where we live, so I have a subcription to the Wild Alaskan Company - it comes individually flash frozen and is excellent. I signed up after two friends raved about it, and I can’t say enough good things about the service and quality.
Speaking of home, do you ever fantasize about having a tiny house, all to yourself, with just the things you want inside? For some reason, this is something I think about a lot, so I loved this list of tiny houses available to buy online. Who knew?!
I’m now off to check on the chickens and then hopefully spend some time by the pool - we’re having a stint of dry hot weather. Thank you for reading and I’ll be back next week!
xoxo
Amelia
P.S.: Because it’s still tennis season, here’s some vintage SNL for your viewing pleasure: “To the courts!”