moussaka

This is a decadent, time consuming recipe.   It is also funny because the food network says it requires 15 min of prep time and a total time of 1 hr 35 min.   Maybe I'll time us as we make it this coming weekend.   I estimate 4 person hours.   This quantity is supposed to serve 8-10 people.  Because of the packaging size of  ground meat we often make a 1.25 version of this recipe.

• 3 large eggplants, peeled and sliced into 1/4 inch slices
• 1.5 c olive oil
• 3 large baking potatoes, peeled and sliced into 1/4 inch think slices
• 1.25 c. flour
• 5 tbs unsalted butter
• 1 medium onion, finely chopped
• 3/4 lbs ground lamb
• 3/4 lbs ground beef
• 1 tbs minced garlic
• 1/2 tsp dried oregano
• 1/4 c dry red wine
• 2 tbs tomato paste
• 1/2 c. crushed tomatoes
• 1/2 c. water
• 2 tbs minced fresh parsley leaves
• 1/2 c. salt  (for saltwater), plus more for seasoning
• ground black pepper
• 2.5 c. milk
• 1 egg 
• 1 egg yoke
• 1 1/3 c. grated Kefalotiri cheese, or Parmesan or Romano

1. soak eggplant slices in saltwater for 20 minutes.   Drain and pat them dry.
2. heat 1/2 c. olive oil in large skillet and cook potato slices until lightly golden on both sides (3-4 minutes).   Cook them in batches.  Cool and drain them on paper-lined plate.  Season lightly with salt.
3. place 1 c. flour in a bowl and dredge the eggplant slices in flour.  Shake off excess.   Add another 1/4 c oil to skillet and fry eggplant until golden on both sides (2-3 min per side).   Cook in batches.   Cool and drain on paper-lined plate.
4. melt 2 tbs butter in large skilled and then add onions.  Cook 4 min until tender.   Add ground meats, garlic and oregano and cook until meat is browned (4-6 min).  Add red wine and cook until evaporated.  Add tomato paste and stir for 1 min.   Add crushed tomatoes, water and parsley and cook 5-10 min, stirring occasionally, until almost all liquid is evaporated.    Add salt and pepper.
5. melt 3 tbs of butter in medium skilled.  Once hot whisk in remaining 1/4 c. flour and cook 2-3 min while stirring.  Gradually whisk in the milk, stirring until smooth and thick.   Add salt and pepper.  Whisk in egg and egg yoke.   Stir in 1/2 cup of cheese.   Cover and set aside.
6. preheat the oven to 350. Lightly grease 9 x 13 inch casserole dish.
7. place slide potatoes in the bottom of dish in an even layer.  Top with half of the eggplant and half of the meat sauce.   Spoon 3/4 c. of the bechamel sauce evenly over the meat and sprinkle with 1/2 c of cheese.   Top with remaining eggplant, pressing down to compress layers.   Top with the remaining meat sauce and spread the remaining bechamel sauce evenly over the top.   Sprinkle with remaining cheese.
8. Bake, uncovered until golden brown on the top and heated through.   50 min to 1 hour.   Let stand for 40 minutes before cutting into squares.

electric blue

Earlier this month we upgraded to a new electric car!  Since we are a one-car household with a very tight parking space, we had a lot of constraints.

• 4 wheel drive
• all-electric with a good range
• not much bigger than the RAV4
• turning radius similar to the RAV4
• rear-hatch that works under the overhang of our house
• comfortable for tall people

We considered Teslas and the Polestar but they didn't fit our parking constraints so we ended up with the well-reviewed Hyundai Ioniq 5.  Although we never planned to buy a new car, the dearth of used cars pushed us towards this surprisingly big purchase.   Jack saw one or two used but the price was basically the same as the new cars and they were in far flung locations.  Even buying a new one was tricky as there are not very many yet and they are sold before they arrive at dealerships.     

On a Monday morning, Jack got a text from a dealership in Edmonds about a car someone had changed their mind about so we dropped everything and went to check it out.   We actually bought it without driving it ourselves first because we didn't have enough insurance.   After that is was several hours of paperwork and phone work to unfreeze Jack's credit, upgrade our insurance and trade in our old car.   Thankfully we had Jack's mom babysitting that evening already so getting home late was ok.

The trunk capacity is similar to the RAV4 but it's more horizontal so it holds a Costco load more nicely.   Camping or weekend trips will push the car to the limit, but that's just a fact of life and a trade off we're accepting.

The 2014 RAV4 was a great car that we bought out of necessity before Dd was born in 2018 (https://aglie.blogspot.com/2018/08/vroooooom.html).   I think if we'd had more funds available at that time we would have bought a slightly newer hybrid version of the same car.   Hopefully this Ioniq lasts us for many, many gas-free years.  

I should note that we know electricity still isn't totally carbon free and we thought a lot about how we use the car, what we need and what it means to replace a functional car with one that had to be built out of raw materials.    Here's what our Seattle City Light electricity sources look like:

summer peach tomato salad

This recipe, from the NYtimes, is the breakout new hit recipe of the last year or so in our household.   I believe my mom directed us to it last summer.

Ingredients for salad

• 12-14 oz silken tofu, chilled
• 2-3 ripe medium peaches
• 3-4 ripe medium tomatoes
• flaky sea salt
• 1/4 c packed fresh basil leaves
• 2 tbs fresh mint leaves
• black pepper

Ingredients for dressing

• 3 tbs evo
• 1 tbs balsalmic
• 1 tbs unseasoned rice vinegar
• 1 tbs seasame oil
• 2 tsp soy sauce
• 1 tsp sugar

Steps

1. drain and blot tofu by wrapping in a paper towel
2. cut peaches and tomatoes in 1-inch thick wedges
3. place fruit on a platter, including the juices from the cutting board
4. sprinkle with salt
5. scoop tofu in mounds on top of the fruit, add salt
6. mix dressing in a shakable jar and spoon 4 tbs on the salad
7. chop the herbs and add them to the top
8. add pepper

summer of swimming!

D has been technically able to swim since last year (https://aglie.blogspot.com/2021/08/d-can-swim.html) but still has room to improve and, of course, Dd, at almost four, is at an age where he could start learning as well.   This summer, we tried to swim as often as possible and I made a point of trying out many different pools since our closest pool was, once again, out of commission.

Please forgive the following overly detailed saga about our neighborhood pool... 

The city pool near us was closed for renovation for almost an entire year, re-opening in Dec 2019, a few months before covid hit Seattle.  Then, it closed in March 2020 and only re-opened to children in summer 2021.   About six months later, in mid-February 2022 it closed again, purportedly for two weeks for mechanical and electrical repairs.   The big Omicron surge in winter 2021-2022 made indoor swimming seem too risky, so the last time we swam there was around Thanksgiving 2021.  That two week closure was extended three or four times throughout the spring, due to difficulty getting parts.   Eventually, combined with the national shortage of lifeguards, the city announced that the pool would be closed through the summer.

As frustrating as this pool's recent years have been, I do understand that many things are out of the city and pool management's control, like the supply chain issues, covid and the lifeguard shortage.   However, reflecting on the amazing aquatic center we visited in Vancouver and the challenge of finding local pools with reasonable swimming schedules, I've come to realize that pools are just too expensive and can only thrive in a state-sponsored environment.   Yes, I am a swimming socialist.   

Swimming feels like a very elite thing here and now in Seattle, rather than a healthy and fun life skill that should be available to anyone and everyone.   In addition to the experience we recently had in Canada, I remember visiting an incredible and expansive pool in Germany when I was 10 and our friend, who grew up in Germany, remarked that he was also surprised by how limited swimming opportunities are here.   It's not just the locations of pools but also the hours.   There, pools are more like libraries, where you can drop in during normal business hours rather than during a few short, select windows of time throughout the week.   

Boston was a lot like Seattle in this regard.  There was a public pool less than a mile from where we lived that closed just before we got there because repairs were just too expensive.    I dabbled with various YMCA pools there, which ranged from nicer pools at new Ys in the suburbs, to ridiculous 20-yard pools closer in to the city.   We didn't have a car, so accessing decent pools was even harder and it is no wonder many lower-income people just can't swim.

Anyway, enough about swimming in general.   Let me tell you about where we swam this summer and how the kids progressed.

In late March I re-joined the Y again, with the kids, instead of with Jack, who mostly was at baseball while we went swimming.  As I've mentioned, the Y no longer requires kids to wear life jackets so it is a fine place to swim, although the only open swim times over the summer were Friday evening and mid-day Saturday and Sunday, which are easy to miss for other activities.

Group lessons before a kid can swim a little bit on their own have proven to be pointless, but I decided to sign D up for lessons at the Y to improve on his basic skills.   At a minimum, he got to get in the water on a Tuesday evening, when he otherwise would not have been allowed.   He learned a little and got some practice in and it was awesome that I was able to swim laps at the time.   It's hard to talk myself out of a swim, when the alternative is just sitting there waiting for the lesson to end :)   D also did 3-4 private lessons, which were pretty good, but are expensive and can only be scheduled in a competitive, early morning registration frenzy, once a month.

In addition to our local Y, the kids and I swam in wide variety of pools.

• Jack's uncles' pool in Auburn, with cousins, once in the late spring and again in late summer

• Lake Washington - this was only me and my sister while windsurfing and falling in repeatedly
• Radium Hot Springs in Alberta, which had both a warm pool and a regular pool with a water slide
• our hotel in Alberta
• Okanogan Lake in BC
  
• Hillcrest Aquatic center in Vancouver, BC, which is the nicest pool I've ever been too, with a divided 50-yard pool alongside a 45 yard activity pools (super shallow at some points, a lazy river, etc), a large hot tub and an additional outdoor pool just outside the doors pictured below

• our family friend's beach on Angle Lake, which is an awesome, clean lake

• Mounger pool, an outdoor city pool in Magnolia that I had never been to
• Great Wolf Lodge - only Derek went with his grandparents
• Cottage Lake YMCA pool, outdoors with a water slide
• Normandy Park pool, where I learned to swim and started swim team, courtesy of an invitation from a friend.   Seeing my friend's three year old independently jump off the diving board really made me think about opportunities and access.
• Vashon community pool, which also had a slide and some fun foam platforms

• Colman pool, a 50-yard, public, outdoor, saltwater pool, buried deep within Lincoln Park, which I hadn't been to since I was about 12 years old
• Bellevue YMCA pool

D made lots of progress.  He re-learned to float on his back, which was easier as a chubby 3-4 year old than as a lanky 8 year old and got quite confident at swimming a modified backstroke.  At the end of the summer he started jumping in boldly and doing belly flops.   His freestyle reached the point of getting his arms out of the water consistently, but he's not quite side breathing.   He passed the swim test, earning a wristband, at all of the pools we went to at the end of the summer and got to go in to the deep end where he enjoyed swimming with fins on.

Dd's preference is to motor around on his own with a pool noodle under his arm pits.   He's quite independent and gets to his destinations fine, but I worry he'll accidentally slip off and I doubt he realizes just how much he can't actually swim on his own.    He'll blow bubbles if asked and when he's in the right mood will voluntarily dunk under water on the count of three.   

Two days ago our local pool did in fact, truly, actually re-re-re-open.  We haven't been yet, but the schedule looks relatively good and we are psyched.

our storied parking spot

Our neighborhood email list is abuzz with the news that multiple seven story apartment buildings are permitted to be built a block and a half west of where we live.  It's been an interesting discussion about environment, neighborhood character, gentrification, equity and the amount of density our neighborhood has been forced to accept.

Mostly we come down in favor of the density, but we're still very grateful to have squeezed in our little parking spot since street parking is about to get very competitive.   Someday we'll have an electric car and a good place to charge it too.   In the meantime, we don't complain about squeezing through bushes as we get out of the car, or having the kids climb through the back seat, entering the car through one door.

For your entertainment here are four bizarre incidents that have taken place in our parking spot.

1. When D was about 5 he awoke to the sound of a woman singing outside his bedroom window.   For security, we designed the ground-floor windows facing the parking spot small and high up, so D wasn't able to see out them, even while standing on the bed.   D spoke to the woman and she seemed untroubled by his little voice and kept rifling through our car, through a window a kid had accidentally left open.   She didn't find anything worth stealing so no harm done and we had a conversation with him about not confronting thieves.
2. Cars do get broken in to a lot and there are some weird people passing through our alley, so one night when we heard a knock on the door at about 11:30 pm, we were worried.   It was the police.   They had been passing by and noticed that our car doors were wide open, so they wondered if our car had been broken in to.   Nope!  In a flurry of unloading, Jack had left the doors open and had actually left his wallet in the cup holder.   In this case, any unsavory characters casing cars on the alley probably assumed the car had already been ransacked.  
3. Sometime in the early pandemic, when life was peculiarly paused, I found a paper bag behind our car, containing the contents of a woman's purse.   There was no wallet, but there was make-up and a glasses case and other odds and ends.  It looked like what a thief would leave behind after taking a wallet and a phone.  I looked through it all and found a receipt for a QFC nearby and I noticed that it had an employee discount applied.   I called the QFC and they found the employee who had recently had her things stolen out of her trunk, instead of her purse, like I thought.   She came and picked up her things and solving a little mystery and doing something kind made me feel good for a few days.
4. Lastly, earlier this summer, Jack returned home at about 9:30 in the morning after dropping D off at some camp and there was a car parked in our spot with a very naked man standing next to it.   He was not in the process of changing clothes, or thankfully any other unsavory activity, but was just standing there.  Jack hesitantly told him that it was our spot and then drove around the block and by the time he got back, thankfully the man and his car had disappeared back in to the streets of Seattle.

90+ records

In July we had a string of six days in a row with highs over 90°.  Last summers extreme heat in late June prompted us to buy an air conditioner over the winter.  Our house, with its many levels does not lend itself to air-conditioning and we view it as a last resort.  We got a portable air conditioner that is insufficient for the space but has the benefit of smaller size and portability.  I think it made the third floor slightly better but it was still about 87° in the kitchen in the evenings. In the case of wildfire smoke where we have to keep the windows closed overnight I think the impact will be bigger.

On the last 90° day we took a very short bike ride with friends.  It was only 4 miles on the Des Moines Creek trail, however it was good to see how easily D biked back up the hill and we get extra points for the hot weather.  It’s a nice shady trail and the breeze on the beach was lovely. It was also nice to catch up with friends.

Then Dd got to cool off with a sweet dog belonging to the kids’ cousin. 

GG's 90th

About a month ago Jack's grandma had a big 90th birthday celebration.   Now that a few weeks have passed, I can say that it wasn't a super-spreader event, so that's nice too :)   We got some good pictures I want to share here.

GG and her kids

GG and most of her grandkids and great-grandkids

2022 road trip with bikes

On the 4th of July we returned from our longest road trip yet.   Jack and I both took some family road trips as kids but we've never done any long drives together, even without the kids in tow.      This trip was a ten night, counter-clockwise loop from Seattle to Idaho to Alberta to British Columbia.   

Quantitative Overview

• driving distance from lodging to lodging: 1476 miles  -   daily activities added more miles.
• gas bill: 1196 - yikes
• miles biked: 85  - pretty good for a family trip :)
• longest ride: 36.8  - a one-way, mostly downhill ride!
• trips between Banff and Canmore: 8   We should have stayed in Banff itself.  Once I forgot the cabin keys at a restaurant and we had to turn around at 11 pm and drive back to Banff again to get them.
• bike rides: 6  - one was just Jack and D, while I drove the car down the road
• bears observed: 5  -   2 Grizzlies and 3 black bears, one of which we saw on the side of the road as we biked past it...
• swims: 4  -  Radium Hot Springs, the hotel pool, Okanagan Lake (Kelowna)  and Hillcrest aquatic center in Vancouver
• national holidays: 2  - Canada day on July 1 and the 4th of July on our way home
• rainy days: 2   - drizzles when we were in Banff one day, but not actually on our long ride followed by a downpour on our last day in Vancouver.
• museums: 1 -  Museum of Anthropology at UBC on a rainy day
• number of tantrums: 0  -   Awesome!
• unpatriotic thoughts:  ? ...... quite a few with the combination of national holidays, incredibly low covid rates in BC vs. WA, rolling back of American women's rights and even public investment in swimming pools.   

This was the longest trip we've taken since we went to the Azores in early 2019.  Thank goodness we took that trip when we did, pre-Covid.   It felt awesome to get away from it all - work, home and mostly covid.

Generally, this trip boosted my confidence a lot for future travel.   Dd, at 3.75 years, is at the point where naps aren't essential.   He took a couple, but mostly did fine without them and we didn't spend any time battling him to fall asleep in an unfamiliar and exciting environment.    We also pushed the kids by staying out pretty late several times.  There was lots of daylight and the drives were long.   They handled it like champs, and if you put it in perspective relative to jet lag, staying out until 10 pm isn't so bad.   One surprise success was on the hydration front.   I brought my osprey pack (thank you, Jack) with the hose and soft water bottle and the kids just could not get enough of drinking from it, so we all stayed hydrated.   

Keeping track of our stuff was a challenge.   We lost misplaced Jack's kindle a couple of times and it camoflauges extremely well against bedroom furniture.  Then D inexplicably put it in a drawer at an AirBnB.   Never put things away on vacation!   In the end, I think the only things we lost were a water bottle and two pairs of pyjamas Dd would have outgrown soon anyway.      

Also, our credit card had some fraud on it right when we got home, so that might be a souvenir of the trip as well.    All in all, it was a great trip.

covid update - day *5 million

*5 million is a reflection of how things feel, not real time

It's several months since my last covid update (https://aglie.blogspot.com/2022/01/omicron-update-and-two-years-of-new.html) so here's a snapshot of what life like these days.

Covid continues to be a menace, but we have plentiful rapid home tests now and Dd momentously got his first Moderna shot about two weeks ago.  Also this spring, D got a first booster shot.

Cases are way closer to home now.   At least four or five kids in Dd's class and a similar number of Jack's baseball teammates caught it in May or June.   My mom had a mild case in two weeks ago, presumably thanks to the combination of a flight from virus-riddled Hawaii and a relatively recent booster shot.   Only older people are eligible for a second booster.   Cases among my once-boosted peers are sometimes pretty mild but also pretty gnarly (though so far not requiring hospitalization of anyone I know who was vaccinated).

Seattle Public Schools remained more or less open for all of D's second grade year.   Public health, and thus our daycare, have reduced the duration of isolation and quarantines, so a case in Dd' classroom translates to 2-3 days of missed school for the affected class rather than over a week of shutdown for the whole school, as happened with the first case in November 2021.

The constant string of variants keeps changing the science subtly.   Recently I came across this blog, which is super helpful and informative.  https://yourlocalepidemiologist.substack.com/  . I credit it with helping me choose Moderna over Pfizer for Dd.

We've all (ok, maybe not everyone) become statisticians too now.   I'm still regularly watching the case counts in King County, but like in the early part of 2020, we all know that the official counts are massive undercounts of the real case load.   Therefore, anecdotal impressions of how many people around us are catching us are not a crazy thing to pay attention to.  More and more, studies of covid remnants in sewage provide the most meaningful metrics.  

I'm still afraid of long covid and most things I've read are pessimistic and still based on unvaccinated subjects.   

Some more food for thought on the subject comes from our recent trip to British Columbia and Alberta, Canada.   King County has a "fully vaccinated" rate of 82% while Canada has a rate of 84%.   While the definition of fully vaccinated is a moving target, these numbers come from the New York Times today and I trust they have made a solid effort to report comparable numbers.    In short, our county has taken a civilized approach to vaccination and masking, yet our numbers are shocking compared to our neighbor to the north.     As noted, all of these stats are imperfect, but still there is such a difference it must be significant.     Our trip was the first time I have felt like we were in a post-covid world where we ate indoors at restaurants and went to the grocery store without a mask on.

Could we have similar numbers if King County had been able to close its borders?

D turns 8 !

After very small celebrations for D's 6th and 7th birthday, we pulled off a relatively large party for his 8th!    The weather was good, though chilly for some.   You'll notice mask wearing in these pictures, that goes beyond what most of us do outdoors nowadays (2 years and 2 months in to the pandemic).  This is due to that fact that on the day before the party (Saturday) we learned that Dd had a covid exposure in preschool on Friday (and Thursday) but we decided to proceed with the party on Sunday after letting everyone know.   We tested Dd several times, but it was still to early to be definitive and a couple of guests couldn't take the risk of attending.   Happily Dd passed the PCR test he had on Monday.

We reserved a shelter and had costco pizza and cake.   I planned a scavenger hunt that went by in a flash and we played a few other little games like red light, green light and steal the bacon.   The party combined friends and family and we appreciate the help from grandparents!

Jefferson Park has lots of fun things, including drains.

I don't think I'm a germaphobe, but I no longer like the idea of blowing 

on the whole cake everyone else will eat.

The kids climbed on the sculpture before we saw the subtle "no climbing" sign.   The sculpture was created in collaboration with Red Bull as a skateboardable sculpture, but I guess it's been too heavily used in the last 8 years.  https://parkways.seattle.gov/2014/06/23/seattles-first-skateable-art-sculpture-lands-in-jefferson-park/

post party, at home

Why are the cats tired?

Scavenger Hunt Clues

The kids went pretty quick and made some guesses they couldn't explain.   I'll make them harder next time!

• Take a speedy ride on the
• What’s curly and red and found to the north?
• !υoγ ɿoʇ ƨɒʜ γɒઘ ɈoillƎ Ɉɒ Ɉυo ϱniʞool nɒmwonƨ ɘnoɈƨ γzoɔ ɘʜɈ Ɉɒʜw ɘɘƧ
• For clue number two, slide through a tube that is blue.
• L _ _ K  IN  THE L _ _ K _ UT   T _ WER

earth day '22

I celebrated earth day with some targeted recycling!

On Thursday, we finally dropped off some old (mercury laced!!)  light bulbs at a store on Capitol Hill that is part of the LightRecycle Washington program.   https://www.ecolights.com/residential.html 

Then on Friday I rode the bus and walked to drop off 11 months of daily contact lens packaging  and 5 weeks of plastic film.  I feel pretty guilty about wearing daily contacts because of the garbage so I'm glad for this opportunity.  My eyes just got too irritated by 2 week lenses a few years back and it felt like I constantly had sand in my eyes, hence the switch.  Jack and I both wear them less than 50% of days and it is quite nice to decide on a daily basis whether it is a glasses or contacts day.   Days where I need to wear a mask for longer than a grocery store trip are definitely better with contacts than with glasses.    https://www.capitolhillseattle.com/2022/03/grocery-outlet-will-be-capitol-hill-central-district-collection-point-for-pilot-to-test-new-option-for-plastic-film-and-bag-recycling/

The plastic film collection is a King county and Seattle pilot program to see if people will participate.   Thin plastic can't go in regular recycling and actually gums things up at recycling centers.  The idea is that if it is sorted out it can be turned in to more plastic film in a closed loop.

The other "green" things for the day were returning books to the library.   I am so grateful for our local library system.    All of these things served a dual spring cleaning purpose, getting things out of our house....ahhh!

Baja, Mexico

 Here's a disorganized list of notes and some pictures from our trip to Mexico at the beginning of the month!   This trip used up the Alaska Airlines tickets we had for a San Francisco trip that didn't happen in April 2020.  Thank you to my parents for staying with the kids and to the kids for not catching covid right before we left.

• We noticed some dust in the air while we were driving and then there was a forceful whump as the wind and dust hit our car, that we both heard and felt.   Something in the car beeped a few times, but no lights went on.   We realized it must have been a dust devil but still don't know what it was that made the car ding.
• We saw one rattlesnake and it was dead on the road, which was fine by me.  It was a western diamondback from what I could tell, with 4-5 black and white strips just before the rattle.  Hiking in snake territory makes me nervous.
• Out hikes smelled strongly of mesquite, which I'd heard of but never smelled before.  It kind of reminded me of maple syrup, which I don't particularly like.
• We drove across the Tropic of Cancer a couple of times.
• We took two hikes.  The first was up around a dry stream bed and the hills on either side, just north of Los Barilles.   The second was right near the Cabo Pulmo Marine Park.  Two pitbulls and a lab were running down the road on their own as we parked.  I was nervous at first and the two pitbulls even jumped in our trunk while roughhousing, but they were not aggressive towards us.  The lab and one pitbull joined us on our hike and it was kind of fun.  I also worried less about the snakes when the dogs were running ahead and crashing through the brush.

hike 1

hike 2

• Our hotel was in Buena Vista, which we picked because of the nearby windsurfing opportunities.  We only had two full days and the first day was too calm to go out.  The second day was too windy for our skill levels, but we tried.  Actually we decided to just get one board and take turns, but Jack went out first and couldn't get upwind at all really so after he struggled for an hour I passed on it.  It was fun to watch the kite surfing there.

• Before we caught the plane back we swam and played some pool volleyball, which was fun.
• I was embarrassed to learn that Mexico's official name is Estados Unidos de Mexico, rather than just Mexico.  Spanish class let me down!
• The future finally reached us on this trip and for the first time we had cell phone data on an international trip (through Google Fi)!  This means we weren't reliant on wifi, which wasn't readily available, and we also were able to follow the kids a little bit.  Dd's daycare sends notifications and we also saw doorbell rings (including D coming home).  It also helped with navigation, of course.   
• Credit card payment was flaky (slow, unreliable) or un available in most places and we didn't drink the water.  We did eat raw veggies from restaurants though, because we read that they are washed with filtered water.
• We snorkeled in Los Barilles and in Cabo Pulmo Marine Park, where it was a little more windy than we would have liked.    We saw lots of stripy yellow, blue and black and white fish and a california needlefish.   From the shore we saw large jumping Pacific Manta.

• While we were driving we saw what seemed like a display of force by the police.   About ten police trucks in a row drove past us, many with officers standing in the back holding large guns.   They didn't have sirens on or anything so it seemed like a display.
• People were quite nice.   We were in a very small town most of the time.   The only tourist snare we encountered was guys telling us that we needed to take a taxi to our budget car rental place, even though we had been told that there was a shuttle.   There was indeed a shuttle and the guys didn't even register on the scale of the pushiness we experienced in parts of Morocco.
• The food was great!  I'm a relatively recent convert to tacos and they did not disappoint.

• We spoke some rusty Spanish.   I couldn't remember "afuera" (outside) and I ended up saying "quiero comida ahora" (I want food now) instead of  "quiero comer afuera" (I want to eat outside), but hopefully I was convincingly unsure enough to not sound rude.

job updates and a reflection on ten years

 It's now been ten years since we moved back to Seattle after our grand adventure (https://aglie.blogspot.com/2012/02/part-where-we-come-home.html).   After we returned on Valentine's day in 2012, we stayed with Jack's mom and step-dad for a couple of weeks.  I interviewed at Nuance in downtown Seattle, but I believe I set up the interview while we were still on our trip.   I started work on March 21st, delaying my start date while I went through my slightly complicated name change (https://aglie.blogspot.com/2012/04/rose-by-any-other-name.html) which required two court appearances.   Jack found an architecture job on Craigslist, which was described as a 3 month, temporary position.   He started on April 10th.      

We moved in to our apartment at 5th and Washington in Pioneer Square/ID in March, got new cell phone plans and found a dentist.   When we moved into the apartment, we also got our darling cat, Emo, back from Jack's dad and step-mom who took care of her during our trip.   We joined the downtown YMCA which was a few blocks north of us and both had good walking, running or busing commutes.  

That same spring we started looking at properties for our future house, mostly in south Seattle, near the light rail, but also on Beacon Hill and in the Central District.    Eight months after we returned to Seattle, we bought our lot (https://aglie.blogspot.com/2012/11/we-are-landed.html).

It was a busy, but simple time!   Living downtown was fun.  Seeing family more often was nice.   We still had some old friends around and randomly running in to familiar faces was a treat.   Also, people kept giving us free tickets to downtown games and shows, and we ended up out and about a lot, at least in the eyes of this working (from home) mother-of-two, two years in to a pandemic....

I needed to write this little summary of our first year back home in Seattle as context for the double job update I want to share.   

For me, the news is that I now work for Microsoft, via an acquisition that just closed on March 4th, 2 weeks shy of my 10 year work anniversary.   The $19.7 billion acquisition was first announced in April 2021 and took a very long time due to the multi-national nature of it all.   For people paying attention to such things, I guess this wasn't a big surprise as we were already partnered on some projects for the past couple of years.   In retrospect the 2019 spinoff of our automotive domain (which I had been working on) was probably also done with the prospect of possible future acquisition in mind. (https://aglie.blogspot.com/2019/12/spinoff.html)

Microsoft is pretty exciting and the more I learn the more it seems like a company to be proud of.   Not much is expected to change.   Our CEO will still be our boss but he now reports to a VP instead of our board.   In a year or so we'll probably get better benefits.   We're all excited about data and tools and opportunities.   I don't have any plans to go to the office (my old one downtown, or Redmond) but am excited about the Eastlink lightrail that would make for a pretty good commute and will open as soon as summer 2023.

Jack's news is much more of a personal achievement.   This week we signed the contract (as a spouse I had to sign too) and he's now a 15% owner of the firm he's worked in for almost ten years.   He's the first partner in addition to the founder, a fellow CMU grad and Seattle native ten years ahead of Jack.   It means he's done a good job, is good to work with and brings value to the firm.    In his ten years there they've gone from three employees to eight, at present.   He's worked on new residential construction, townhomes, remodels and two apartment buildings.   

Sometime I'll blog more about Jack's projects.   

Jack's partnership has been discussed for several years and it's quite surprising how both of these longer term deals came to fruition within days of each other.

omicron update and two years of the new world

 A mini covid (omicron variant) update:

• Jan 19: one of Dd's preschool classmates had a case, but with the new policies (and shorter incubation period of this variant) he was only home for two school days.  No one in his class got it, even though all the kids are necessarily unvaccinated and they have relatively close contact.
• Jan 21: two whole years have passed since Washington announced the first confirmed covid-19 case in the country
• Jan 26: one of D's classmates had a case, but school continued as normal and again there was no transmission in his classroom
• Jan 27: D's principal shared that 60% of the students in his school are fully (2 dose) vaccinated and 73% have had one shot.   The New York Times reports that nationally those numbers are 18.8% and 28.1%.   I am soooo grateful to be in this vaccine-friendly community.

This pandemic has generated a lot of data that will probably be discussed for years to come, but as it lingers, the snapshot of how we feel about the information we have at a given moment might get lost.   It is tragic and still shocking how much politics predict vaccination rates.

Just for Dec 25 - Jan 23 in King County, this is how the impact of vaccinations is playing out.

We kept D off the school bus for the last two weeks after there were  two isolated positive cases on the bus for the first two weeks of January.  We've also not seen our parents indoor since late December.   We've used quite a few rapid home tests, which are still kind of difficult to acquire. 

The state has a great online resources for looking up vaccination records.  Early last week I checked it to see if my covid booster showed up yet, because soon I expect proof-of-booster will be necessary for going out and about.   It wasn't, but my doctor's office was able to add it for me.   

At the same time I noticed that all of D's infant and toddler vaccinations were missing from his record.   I knew he was actually fully vaxxed so I didn't take any action.   My subconscious was not satisfied however and served up a stressful dream about him getting denied entry to school.   Lo and behold, three days later in the real world I got a slightly irate email from the (way overworked) school nurse about this being the second notice and how we needed to call to explain our plan to get him up to date.  It turns out it was an automated email and the district now is tech savvy enough to check the state record, rather than the parent-submitted record we wrote out when he entered the district in in 2019.  I contacted the doctor's office again and they updated his record to.  Now, what should I do with my ability to predict the future?

2021 Year in Review

2021 was certainly not the year we hoped it would be.   I think the whole world can agree on that.  

First up are the pictures of the kids from the beginning and end of 2021.

Reading, Watching and Thinking

• We read Harry Potter 2-7 with D between the end of the school year (1st grade) and Halloween night, when we worried D would get a spoiler from friends.   Over the summer we had quite a few successful car naps for Dd while one of us read Harry Potter aloud.  Everyone was happy.
• Together, Jack and I read Piranesi and reread Jonathan Strange and Mr. Norell by Susanna Clarke.   We also enjoyed the fifth Cormoran Strike book (which is actually by JK Rowling).   It seems that nearly every good book is made in to a show these days, and we got to watch adaptations of Jonathan Strange and Mr. Norell and the Cormoran Strike series.
• Sometime in the middle of the year Dd's insistence on reading truck books eased up and we got to diversify a bit.   In December he liked reading (reciting) Eric Carle's Pancakes, Pancakes to us and was just getting in to his first Magic School Bus book.
• In October my book club of lovely people restarted.   Instead of hosting in our homes we met at restaurants with outdoor dining.   I particularly like Pachinko, a historical fiction book set in Korea.
• After fourteen months of steady progress on my Kindle I finished A Breath of Snow and Ashes, from the Outlander series.   I really like this series, but these books are quite long and I read many other books simultaneously based on many priorities.   It's funny that I read it a pace that was almost real time for the characters.
• D read dozens of Warrior Cat books, some Spirit Animals, Spy School and Wings of Fire among other things.
• This makes us sound like extremists, but D watched his first movie in a theatre in December.  It was Godzilla vs. Kong for a birthday party.   We never got around to it before the pandemic.   Dd saw his first movie (at home), which was Moana, and he's been singing it ever since.
• We have a google home smart speaker in the kitchen, which we use for music.... on repeat.
• I'm not sure this really fits in but the most annoying task of the year, at least for me, was switching off of Verizon to a cheaper carrier.   Last winter we switched to an MVNO reseller which was about 1/6th the price of Verizon.   We always put our phones on airplane mode at night and that contributed to us both having bizarre problems with group texts, photo texts and notifications for things that happened while our phones were on airplane mode.  I got a new phone (technically Christmas 2020) and the issues followed me on to the new phone, which defies logic.   We talked to a ton of customer service people, factory reset my new phone and put in an annoying amount of time.   In the end we switched to Google Fi, which works and costs more than the MVNO but still way less than Verizon.   
• D got to be a fun competitor in many board games.  Just ask his grandparents.  Popular games this year were Citadels, Monopoly and Ticket to Ride.  We started playing a little chess at the end of the year.

School, Work and Learning

• D finished out first grade with a return to in person school in early April.   Even though this only meant in person time from 8 - 10:45 four days a week, it was a big improvement over not leaving the house.  He had a couple of virtual classes in the afternoon, including PE, art and music.  In his 1-2 split class of about 18 kids, only 4 other kids opted for in-person school.   I think this was more about logistics than fear.   With both of us working from home one-mile from his school, pickup was still on the heels of drop off.   Second grade had a good start and with all of the disruptions of covid, we feel grateful for his teacher and school.
• Dd moved up to preschool at the beginning of the school year.  Aside from a closure after Thanksgiving due to the very first case of covid in the daycare, he attended regularly, unlike 2020.   As noted in covid lifestyle update he has brought home a ton of colds in the first half of the year, but none of note in the second half.
• In the summer Jack started going in to his office 1-2 times a week.   We suspended that few times based on case counts.
• We both stayed at our jobs.   2022 holds some exciting changes for us both - more on that in another post.
• D started online piano lessons in November.  I'm really excited about it and for now the online format works really well for us.  
• Jack and I psyched ourselves up to spend a few Saturday evenings studying (math on Coursera for me and a new kind of modeling software for him).   It was probably about 4 hours total, but it's more than nothing.
• After frustration with a the backlog at a local bike shop, Jack learned how to replace the spokes on his bike wheel by himself.   He used a sturdier gage so they shouldn't break as often.
• D went to six weeks of day camp, including a fun Harry Potter art camp and one in the Arboretum that had a two week long session with the same kids, as a covid precaution.  

Travel

Again we stayed (99.9%) in the state of Washington.   This was a result of time and pandemic constraints, but now it's also a point of pride that we didn't despoil the planet much this year.   

This year also brought an unusual number of trips consisting of various subsets of our family.

We've done our fair share of camping with little kids, but this year kind of broke us.   We cut short a two night camping trip with friends in June after sleeping only from midnight to 4:30 am.   Some kids sleep okay while camping, but Dd is not one of them.   I think we have finally learned our lesson about avoiding camping near the summer solstice for at least a couple years.   Then in July, we bailed on our reservation at Lake Wenatchee state park and booked a hotel in Leavenworth after I looked at the temperature and the reports of mosquito activity and contemplated our trip from June.  I immediately moved from dread to anticipation and rather then spending hours and hours packing and arriving at dinner time, we were enjoying a hike by 1 pm on the first day of the trip and then showering and eating at a restaurant.

• Packwood AirBnb and White Pass snowboarding (January) - Dd had a cold and so only Jack and D went.

• Sequim (February) - We dug our car out of the snow and headed out. - Snow and Sequim
• Shelton overnight (May) We had a great bike ride with our friends and camped in GG's yard, for what turned out to be one of our last visits there. - Memorial Day weekend
• La Push and Lake Quinault (June) - Jack and I went away for a week without the kids! - 10th anniversary trip
• Middle Fork (Snoqualmie River) Campground (June) - solstice camping, as mentioned
• Leavenworth (July) - the hotel hit the spot

• AirBnb on a lake in Lynnwood (August) - My parents and sister and the kids and I played at a lake while Jack played baseball. - 38th birthday
• AirBnB on Camano Island (September) - Camano with bikes
• Dosewallips State Park Yurt (October) - Dd turns 3
• One night in Ridgefield (SW Washington) at my cousin's farm.  We did dart across the state border to an NBA game in Portland!

• Motel in Ashford, by Mt. Rainier (December) - Again, we left home in heavy snow.   We snowshoed a bit and caught up with our friends since all the kids had been away from school (and hopefully covid) for a while.

Home

At first I thought we hadn't done many projects, but after listing them out I feel a sense of accomplishment.  2021 house projects

Buying stuff isn't the same as a project, I know but it can be quite satisfying.   My two favorite home related purchases of the year were our massive fruit bowls and our awesome Dyson vacuum.  The off-brand vacuum we bought a year ago is literally only fit to be a child's toy (Dd is in luck).  I also broke out my new sewing machine and made some Christmas bags with it and found the perfect storage spot for it on the stair shelf.

In our home we also have two furry captives who often hang out on our bed.   We finally have established a habit or pulling up this pretty cover over the bed during the day so that it is fur free when we take our turn in bed at night.  

Health

D and I spent the spring coughing, which wasn't fun and made pandemic life tough.  He actually got a doctors note saying he'd been cleared of covid for this ongoing cough in order to attend school.  I had a series of health scares that I think I'll write about another time.  

Jack and I were vaccinated as soon as possible in April and boosted around Thanksgiving.   D was vaccinated in November as well.

Friends and Family

• Jack's grandma moved out of her house and in to an easier house in early December.
• My parents bought a new boat in August and gave it the same name as the previous two boats.
• Other family members had various surgeries and bumps and falls, but everyone got through them okay.
• It now feels totally normal to have fully outdoor gatherings with most friends and family.
• My parents started babysitting once a week again after they were vaccinated in the late winter of 2021.   Jack's mom and stepdad also babysat often on weekends or when we were double booked.  
• Babies born to architect classmates: Cygnet to D&C (New York), Elwood to M&N (Michigan), Emery to L+1 (New York)
• Babies with non-architect parents (younger siblings to D's peers): Nolan to K&C (Germany), Eloise to M&V (Seattle), Jack to R&J (Seattle)
• We sent out Christmas cards for the first time, using this family picture.

Recreation and Sports

• Jack got to play baseball again.   He played on two teams which sounds tough (for me) but really did translate to more flexibility about missing some games to make family plans.
• D played coach-pitch baseball (with Jack as coach) in the spring and soccer in the fall, with two practices a week.  The practices and most of the games were walkable, so that was nice.  
• I swam laps some and taught D to swim.   https://aglie.blogspot.com/2021/08/d-can-swim.html   In the fall my parents or I took Dd swimming most weeks, which is still just getting him used to putting his face in the water.   He said things like "I live in this pool" and "I want to stay here forever."
• I raced (sailing) on my parents boat a couple of times in June.

Food

We ate less dairy on the whole this year.  Cashew yogurt is pretty good, it turns out.  Another favorite new food was the Keto nut granola (grain free) from Costco.      

In September we started getting a weekly delivery from Thistle, which makes delicious salads.   It's been nice to have a quick healthy lunch option.  They're even vegetarian, which feels good too.

We've tried so many meal kits in the last six years and watched many of them fold.   This year we loved Homegrown (from the local sandwich shop) and gave Gobble a try.    We hardly go to restaurants these days and I actually prefer the meal kits two take out, with the exception of picking up a PCC pizza.

Imperfect Foods has been a reliable grocery (mostly produce) source for us for over two years now.

We tried both Beyond Beef and Impossible Burgers (meatless meat) and now they are in light rotation.

Climate Conscience 

This needs to be on everyone's list nowadays.   In the fall I started reading (and finished, in early 2022) a book called Under the Sky We Make which was really powerful.    We have work to do in 2022, but the changes we made in 2021 were:

• getting a dedicated laundry drying rack for the roof and air drying much more often up there in the summer.   We've always had drying lines and a rack in the basement but we don't attempt to dry towels and sheets down there.   Solar and wind power make it a breeze :)
• using wool dryer balls after I read that they help efficiency.  They also prevent bottom sheets from tying themselves in soggy knots.  
• starting to use the setting that stops the dryer automatically when it detects that clothes are dry.  In five years I'd never noticed that our inexpensive dryer was that smart.   Now we've stopped habitually over-drying loads.
• doing a better job recycling a few things:
• my sister pointed me to a site called Terracyle where you can recycle directly with manufacturer and find recycling programs.   We started saving our daily wear contact packaging for special recycling.   They are too small for municipal recycling to deal with them. https://www.terracycle.com
• we used the Seattle Public Utilities special collection service to recycle Styrofoam and a few other things from the basement