It snowed yesterday, which was a cue that fall is about to slip into winter, and I haven’t shared fall updates in awhile. Highlights include Halloween and a visit from Grandoug Einstein and Mama Zombie; college applications dropped in the metaphorical mail box; I became a professional photographer; Kyiven signing the largest Bank loan ever; Clara and a dozen red roses; Finnittowinit and the Spot for Space; and reaching the extraordinary milestone of ten years of Roshan. Lowlights included the closing the U.S. Embassy in Kyiv and the election of Donald Trump as our next president.
Halloween was a spectacular orange and green spectacle, and I that’s all the Charleston Chew I can bite off for this first update. I love our block. We are chock a…block full of young families, which makes it fun for children of all ages, especially my parents. Check out Grandoug’s new Einstein look. Poppy showed up predictably unpredictable: He wore a green beret, spoke in something between an Irish and Indian accent, and sported a tight, bright yellow polo with a Redskins logo. When Clara pointed out that was perhaps not kosher, Poppy replied, “Yes, isn’t it wonderful?” In some kind of bad accent.
Finn declined to dress up but didn’t fully decline to knock on at least one door, the Donnellan’s, with his buddies—two of whom made a full-on effort to embrace the costume, Eli as an alien and Carter as a turkey. They scared the dog but I think the little kids mostly laughed at them.
Clara didn’t dress up, and Tatum went with Aiden as part of a video game couple but I couldn’t tell they were in costume. I know it was a priority, however, because college applications briefly took a backseat to the front seat drives (multiple) to the thrift store. Clara didn’t embrace a character but Mary was impressive as the lead druggie/chemist in Breaking Bad.
Even Kevin got into the spirit, as it were, with his colleagues in Kyiv. He said they decided to celebrate this uniquely American holiday because any distraction helps.
They were enthralled by Georgetown in all its glory afterwards, thanks to Sheila driving while I kept the candy machine going at home. Clara was a bit shocked by Palestine protestors seeming to drip blood, but loved seeing the world get wacky.
And they’re off! Like circus cats in a clown car, the tiny green Mini rolled down the street with Tatum behind the wheel, Clara beside her, likely fiddling with the radio, and Finn, now the tallest among them, stuffed in the back like a folding chair holding a fat backpack. It’s a miracle they can all get in the car—but I’m not worried, Tatum takes full advantage of the convertible aspect of the car to provide mental and physical space. There’s nothing like a happy teenager with hair flying to remember the real reason for a car, which is obviously joie de vivre.
There is going to much to unpack about my joie de vivre shimmering with all three pigs in one schoolhouse for one blessed year. However, there is still so much to unpack about the summer that I didn’t get to share yet. We can start with the fantastic karma that accompanies hard work and unparalleled motivation. Let’s call it “carma,” because look at the smiles on these two new drivers, who are absolutely glowing in the light of their new licenses. Go Tatum and Bridget! Tatum celebrated with brunch at Tastee Diner.
Tatum had a highly accomplished summer, because in addition to getting her license, she completed a year’s worth of French III online, got a certification, job and employee of the week award as a lifeguard at Palisades, and completed about 80 percent of her college application and list of schools of interest. Moreover, she has her first publication coming out in the fall, a chapter in a book about the desert, edited by none other than Joanna Biggar. Tatum’s time in wilderness, metaphorical and literal, has produced jewels.
Yet Kevin and I consider this Clara’s Epic Summer. At 15, Clara travelled solo to South Africa to participate for more than three weeks in a wildlife conservation program. Given Tatum’s immense growth during her time in the great outdoors, we thought Clara might love it as well. Outward Bound and similar programs didn’t align with our schedule, but Hugh told us about Global Leadership Adventures, “peace corps for teens,” and that captured our imaginations. Clara said yes before we even finished the invitational question.
She unfortunately didn’t write us letters or take her own photos, but I got some intel from a program blog and she told us more about it once home. It sounded, well, epic. I would say an experience of a lifetime, but I hope she’ll have many more. She learned how to track poachers, saw every imaginable animal on game drives, and made new friends.
Two weeks into the trip, Clara got Kevin and me on the phone at the same time—not an easy feat spanning three continents—and asked if she could go to a new school this year (hence the clown car, see above). Then she had the chance to talk it all over with Kevin when she hit the streets and plastic sheets of Costa Rica for a child care service project, followed by surfing and ATV driving on our vacation. See? An epic summer for Clara.
Of course, her favorite week may still have been the traditional summer trip to Deep Creek Lake in August. Tatum said the Fourth of July week at DCL was her summer highlight as well. Poppy and Grams have given us a magical gift with the family gathering at the dock each year.
Stones on the path of the week have to include fireworks and possibly swimming under the stars on the Fourth itself; cousin time; Blitz’s and Sean’s trivia night preceded by Patrick’s homemade pesto and followed by birthday cake for Blitz; a visit or six to The Creamery; an actual cinema showing of the latest good movie; dinners on the porch at the cottage and the big house; boggle and cam jam, books and tanning time at the dock; tubing and boat rides; coffee in bed with the aunties; and many games of telephone tag (“What? I can’t hear you. What judge is pickled in potatoes?” “No, I said don’t judge my salad, it should have triple the amount of tomatoes”).
There are so many moments over the summer that I want to etch into to my mind, but I can’t say I wasn’t counting the days til school started. There is a certain amount of crankiness that sets in when schedules are too fluid for too long. So school arrived just in time, and for once, I only have to keep track of one of them. But I’m guessing it will still keep me on my toes, and it will definitely have my heart as I watch the clown car roll slowly down Tomlinson Terrace.
“It’s really surreal. One minute I’m meeting with my team in the shelter and then I’m eating a $7 ribeye at this little European bistro on the sidewalk with some colleagues, and it’s beautiful,” Kevin said over the phone on his first night in Kyiv.
What’s also surreal was hearing the missile alerts speak to us decisively on his phone when he first returned to DC and forgot to silence them. They commanded us to go to shelter, repeatedly and, dare I say, alarmingly. However, when the alert was over, an hour later, they kindly blessed us to return to our lives with a cheerful, “May the force by with you.”
Kevin’s reports include the following. The 11-hour overnight train ride from or to the border of Poland allows for privacy but only a bench and not a bed per se. It was kind of cool being introduced at a meeting by the Prime Minister of Ukraine. Cyrillic is hard to get his mind around. And he loves the people in Ukraine, whom he says are unwaveringly committed to victory, open to nothing less. His team is close and they like to be at the office, now located in a big hotel with a safe bunker and back-up generator, because it feels like a reprieve from the intense pressure of everything else in some ways.
It doesn’t fully protect mentally, however. Kevin’s hardest day in his brief three weeks on the job came the day of a terrible missile attack that landed on a children’s hospital (only 10 minutes from his apartment, I might add). Being a day-time attack, the team was at the hotel-office at the time. Kevin had to refuse to let his colleagues leave work to collect their children, which he said was very hard, but one can’t be out during a raid. The mothers were beside themselves, as I could completely imagine. (Most of his Ukrainian colleagues are women because men are less available.) They came together for lunch and wine in the office the next day, just to decompress and collect themselves as a community.
In addition to the extremely disruptive power outages, which are frequent and make communication and working difficult at best, a big concern is disrupted sleep. Missile alerts happen almost nightly it sounds like, and there are limited sleeping spaces in the shelters. First come, first serve is the system. People shelter in subway stations and basements, as anyplace underground is best.
Unless you’re Kevin and have decided that sleeping in your bathroom is just fine. “Yeah, it’s fine. It’s pretty safe. I’m inside double walls. I don’t worry about my safety,” he told me. What does “pretty safe” mean—shouldn’t that be a yes or no situation? He has not yet gone to find his designated actual shelter in the building next door. (That shelter is under a kindergarten, which I can hardly think about.)
But other than those issues, Kyiv is a garden of roses. Literally. There are gardens everywhere, and summering in Europe is delightful. Kevin raves about the architecture, the cobblestone streets, the sidewalk restaurants, murals and street musicians. It sounds amazing, once you get over those pesky missile alerts.
Now that his two-week summer vacation is over, he’s off again, currently in the Frankfurt airport en route to Krakow en route to the border en route to the overnight train en route to Kyiv. (That sounds like the beginning of a bad children’s story.) He would love for me to come visit and see his stylish apartment with its balcony in the trees on one side and overlooking a charming market on the other. As much as I would love to eat pastries under fairy lights at some artful bistro, that doesn’t seem quite wise at the moment. In fact, that might be a little surreal.
It’s hard to capture Clara smiling in a family photo this year—and her school photos could wither a spider (no offense)—but this girl in the middle of some little kids and she’s lit up like a hot tamale. They banded around this beautiful child of mine like fans to a rock star, which she is. The photos are the proof of what she’s too modest to say, which is that people feel her care, her sense of fun and kindness and her spark.
International Volunteers Headquarters (IVHQ) assigned Clara to work in a child care program in gritty San José, Costa Rica. IVHQ is a program my friend recommended, and Clara initially asked to work on a 2-week turtle conservation project on the coast, in line with her love of beaches and the environment and Bali. That plan got upended by Kevin’s move to Kyiv because Clara wanted him to join the trip and he could no longer take 3 weeks of vacation.
Instead, they slept on plastic sheets in a narrow room in a home stay in San José for one week, and then Tatum, Finn and I joined them for a week of vacation in Montezuma for a week. While Clara’s slightly older peers in the program, those not joined by a parent, were possibly checking out dance clubs and local pubs, Clara and Kyiven were drinking tea, chatting with Vera in a flowery house dress and watching cat videos before falling asleep at 8.30 pm.
But look how worth it that was: Clara was amazing with the kiddos and loved the experience. They loved her, it’s plain from the adoring hugs, and she is super organized and responsible, which teachers need in a classroom. Whitman High School prepared her well, with a Child Development class and hands-on practica experience developing curricula and leading activities with pre schoolers—although in this case, Clara and Kev worked with slightly older kids.
Poppy prepared her well too, and she was ready to go with the hand games, no language skills needed.
Riding ATVs, the butterfly garden, swimming in the surf with Dad and Tatum, and playing Old Maid in The pavilion. Especially swimming with Tay.
Tay
Riding ATVs, swimming in the ocean with Clara, taking a nap in the hammock, playing Old Maid last night, and Finn’s competition.
Finn
Eating food with the family, walking in the jungle, ATVing.
Kevin
Breakfast every morning with Mamasita, the ginger kick smoothie, and yoga.
Heather
Finn’s family game, playing Marco Polo in the tropical pool, playing cards and scattegories at the ferry building, moonlight streaming over on the ocean, yoga with an ocean view and breezes every morning with Kev and Finn and once Clara, the massive evening thunderstorm, seeing my first pizote, bananagrams with Clara, the jungle hike, seeing my kids laugh with each other, mint tea with milk, and everywhere views of banana leaves, sea-green and cobalt ocean colors, fat, neon green iguanas, and deep raspberry-colored flowers. And Finn telling the server a joke in Spanish, getting the set up wrong, about snow. Snow balls in particular. Has Daniel the server ever seen snow? Regardless, Daniel laughed for five minutes straight and did that Latin snap with his fingers that expresses true appreciation.
Family yoga at 8.00 am overlooking the ocean is my new preferred way to start every day for the rest of forever. This little corner of Costa Rica in Montezuma at the Ylang Ylang Beach Resort, whose address is “500 meters north of the school,” is a garden of awesome. The tropics are so familiar and restorative, reminiscent of Bali, and we all love it.
Our area is next to a pretty cool little beach town, low-cost and low-key, and there’s not too much need to go anywhere. The waves are just the right amount of raucous, although you have to pick your swimming spot with care because of some rocky areas (tomorrow’s activity is surfing). When you can’t be bothered with the surf, the pool is right up the tropical path, where you might spot a pizone on the way—definitely from an inelegant angle up a tree at times. They are so cute, like a cross between a cat, a monkey and an anteater.
Evenings so far are spent at the pavilion for dinner, with an Asian and vegetarian-heavy menu for dinner and “tipico” for breakfast: rice, beans, plantain, papaya, crepes, huevos rancheros and tamarind or passion fruit juice. It’s so nice sitting on the front patio of one of our two bungalows, but mosquitoes join the party for their own happy hour over by the damp trees, so we prefer being under the fans of the pavilion at dusk. We play cards and 20 questions and “would you rather…”?
Last night at happy hour, there was a cracking thunderstorm that knocked out power and water for awhile. It was amazing and humbling to watch and hear. I was grateful to be back in the bungalow at that time, because we had just gotten back from a “41-minute” cum 1h20m drive to the other side of the peninsula. The roads, both dirt and paved, are so full of potholes, fallen branches, and deep ditches that you have to crawl along. The sites are reminiscent of Ghana and Sumatra, with the banana leaves and cement-block schools with rubber-tire playgrounds and the occasional rusting car.
To enter or exit, we have to drive along a portion of beach, littered with woodsy debris and some plastic and one huge half fish to cross the last 150 meters from dirt road to the resort. Sometimes the tide is too high to drive it so we park walk, timing against the roll of the waves.
We will be driving the five hours, including ferry ride, back to the airport, so hopefully no issues! On the way here, Finn, Tatum and I caught a ride on a puddle jumper from San José, and the three of us comprised half the passenger list. The view at 5,000 feet was amazing. I knew I was in another country because when we boarded, at the base of the steps on the tarmac sat an open cooler for us to take for ourselves a morning drink of bottled water or a can of beer.
My personal highlight so far is the family game we played yesterday, designed and judged by Finn. He randomly generated two teams (Mom and Dad v. Tatum and Clara) to be the first to achieve the following:
1. At the beach rock temple garden by the waterfall, build a tower of nine rocks.
2. Swim in the pool for 3 minutes.
3. Run to the hammock and perform a team dance to the 3-minute Moana song.
4. Take photos of two different colored lizards.
5. Loudly shout “froggy beans” three times in a public space.
6. Fist bump a random person (both team members).
7. Be the first to run back and touch the hammock.
The girls won, mostly because Kevin and I lacked the eyesight to spot camouflaged lizards, but our team dance was surely entertaining…aerobic, you could say. Winners’ reward: desserts of choice after dinner while the others were expected to look on “in despair.” That’s okay, I don’t need dessert because I needed to fit back into my single pair of leggings to start over on the yoga mat the next day.
Kids from the Indy Air Bears, Proform Airborne, The Comet Skippers, Raincity Ropes, and Kangaroo Kids, among other teams, shouted “You got this!” or “Yeah!” or “Push it!” Parents clapped and hollered from the bleachers—and may or may not have played a lot of bananagrams. Judges nursed thumbs sore from clicking clickers for hours.
Jump roping is an amazing sport. I’m totally a convert, willing to proselytize: you can do it alone in your garage or with a team of ten in front of a full stadium at halftime. You can do it for $5 a year, the cost of a rope. You can do at age 5 or 75. You can do it as a fat, frumpy granny or an elite world-champion athlete. You can do it to meditate in a zone or as a complicated dance routine with cowboy hats and riding pants.
This is not to say that I personally do it. I can’t jump for 30-seconds straight. But these athletes are incredible! And Finn is the best!
Okay, that’s totally a lie. He’s the best in our family and that’s the truth; but more than that, he’s one of four members of the second-best team in the country for Single Rope Speed Relay and Double Dutch Pairs Freestyle. That’s by official ranking in the 2024 National championships in Salt Lake City. That’s pretty cool.
Finn’s favorite moments of the past week included three highlights. One was seeing his friend and team member Alex overtake more established athletes to claim the gold medal for triple unders (the rope does three rotations each time the feet leave the floor); I think he did 204 triple jumps without stopping. The second was the team dinner over Olive Garden pasta and breadsticks in the lobby of the Fairfield Inn-Herriman. After dinner, everyone received a paper-plate award with artistically designed marker drawings for a specific strength: most likely to write this up in a Snapchat story, most likely to have a sugar high, most likely to live off of endorsements and sponsorships, and so forth. Finn received a plate reading, most likely to learn a trick after seeing it just once. I think he will treasure it more even than the many medals and two plaques he earned. And the social, a Hawaiian-themed party on the football field next to the inside venue for all the athletes, was a huge hit. Riley was seen running across the field on his toothpick legs carrying Finn in a fireman’s carry across the shoulders; and Finn particularly loved getting dunked. Boys are weird.
He had decided that being on the team is too much to do during the school year because getting to practice each of three days a week entails a full one-hour drive in rush hour traffic on the beltway and 270. He doesn’t get home until 7.30 pm, just in time for dinner, chores and bed, but not homework. In addition, he misses out on track and cross country with friends and Coach Smythe and possibly making the basketball team again.
But we will have to see if he reconsiders this decision after this glowing week. His teammates and coaches would be thrilled.
My favorite moments from the week were seeing Finn’s individual freestyle go so well that the national champion, Conner of the bleached hair and sleeveless shirts, gave Finn a high-five; and seeing Finn fully own the camouflage swim trunks, flowered Hawaiian shirt and funky blue beach hat, gift of Uncle Brooks, which he tipped onto his head with a flourish. A signature move to complement his jump combos.
Of course, there was also the handstand. Mason, 19, son of Coach Nicole and a super athlete, had flipped over and walked a couple steps on his hands. Coach Nicole saw Finn watching and said, “Finn, try it.” Never one too shy away from a request, flipped himself onto a perfectly balanced handstand and proceeded to dip into a push up and back up again. It took a lot of balance and strength. Coach Nicole laughed and told her son he just got showed up.
Just for the record, Finn got up before breakfast to swim laps in the pool. I sat on the side with coffee and a sunrise view, not to be mistaken as an athlete. One other memorable aspect of the trip was the pick-up truck. The rental car rep apparently took one look at me and said, “This lady needs to drive a monster truck.” So that was fun.
It’s not often a girl turns 21. Once to be precise! Plans to go to Rocklands Farm Winery were rightly superseded by friends whisking Marley out for a surprise picnic and bar hop, so we settled on alfresco dining with a sunset view over Bethesda and beyond from Blitz’s ritzy rooftop terrace.
Marley is creative and disciplined, drawing within the lines of her field and her life but still the beautiful 6-week-old and fanciful 6-year-old in my mind’s eye.
Her selected menu was decidedly unfanciful: burgers, green beans, corn and key lime pie. That’s my grounded, down-home goddaughter; she keeps things simple yet sprinkles in the magic.
June has been a whirlwind, and the first week started us off with a bang. Let’s break down the day-by-day with a play-by-play.
Monday morning, June 4, began with a visit by royal visitors from California stopping by en route to Namibia. Mom and Doug showed up at 7:00 am ready to rock and roll, while the rest of us held our eyelids open manually (or not, in the case of Tatum). They had a brief but spectacular three days at Tomlinson Terrace and as usual, managed to socialize, rest, shop, read, plan, fix and entertain despite the brief timeline.
Monday evening ended with a bang when Dad led a Meet the Author event at the Bethesda library to share from his book Eyewitness to AIDS: On the Frontlines of a Pandemic. It was very exciting and a little nerve-wracking job of moderating the event. Dad eventually, after much cajoling , let me introduce him and ask some questions. I didn’t ask too many, however, only three, because the room was packed. People were even sitting along the sides and back of the room. We do have a big extended family who showed up in force to honor Dad, but there more other people than family–we think there were almost 50 people there. Dad was amazing, very engaging, full of stories and facts. After the formal event, people lingered to ask more questions and have books signed. Staff had to try three times to shoo us out of the room. We quite literally closed the place down. Way to go, Dad. It was a gift to me that my three pigs got to learn more about Dad’s career and get a hint of what a bigshot he was. He is one the top 20 most-cited infectious-disease doctors from NIH. (Fortunately, I caught his error in that sentence, which originally suggested he was one of the top 20 infectious doctors.)
Tuesday, with the exceptional help and hard work of my beautiful, big-hearted goddaughter Marley, we packed a picnic and fled for the hills…of Wolf Trap. It was a big gift from Mom and Doug to take 10 of us to the lawn to listen to the R&B vibes of John Legend. I felt like I was on the island where Moana lived with the most idyllic temperature and stars and woodsy vibes. Mom made a steak salad with potatoes, dill and tomatoes that was literally from the 1970s Wolf Trap picnic cookbook. It was such a treat to have my parents here to celebrate the start of summer and my new year.
Wednesday brought an intense work load, as with the rest of the week, as I pushed to complete a draft of a paper for my World Bank Pakistan team on maternal mental health, stressors and child outcomes…go ahead, people, let the jokes roll. A civilized lunch at Dad’s broke the desk monotony, and evening included Mom’s chocolate sauce and angel food cake from Marley—my favorite birthday dessert—and a victory in at least one round of Kids Against Maturity. If you haven’t played it, it’s the least likely game ever to catch Mom and Doug playing (good work, Finn!) yet they won most rounds. For the record.
Wednesday and a half. It was most unpleasant when I looked at the clock and realized the time was 1:30 am. I willed myself to return to my dreams but my mind insisted on trying to cross the border between Poland and Ukraine with Kyiven. I was unexpectedly anxious all day Wednesday and through the night knowing he was entering territory targeted by missiles on a daily and especially nightly basis—“unexpected” because I thought I had processed all the catastrophic thoughts and fears earlier. He said the city is beautiful, people are out and about and they are unwavering in the goal of victory. Yet, people hold photos of young men and cry, and his first night in the city included three hours in the bunker. Electricity outages are all the rage in Kyiv these days, we learned.
Thursday was a happy-sad day, it being my birthday, hooray, but also the departure date for Mom and Doug. Although, to be honest, that was only a boohoo for me, as they were thrilled to be headed out on the most incredible adventures in Namibia via Paris and Aix-en-Provence. Finn also gives the day a thumbs up: he’s officially a sophomore (to Clara’s lowly freshman status). The day was capped off by barbecued chicken, my favorite birthday dinner, on the porch at Hampden Lane, followed by a (not) homemade lemon meringue pie. According to the candle, I am incredibly wise for my age.
Friday delivered relief as I turned in my paper, until we held a team meeting and decided to converge two papers into one. It marked the one-week anniversary of Tatum being home from Stuart Hall School and a frantic effort to unpack before starting work (life guarding at Palisades) in order to be able to socialize. Finn packed for a weekend away for speed camp in Virginia Beach with friends. And I lived vicariously through Hugh’s travels in Amsterdam, plus-plus.
Saturday, by tradition, brought the bright blue skies attendant to the Strawberry Festival for now 50 years. I captained the ticket table, Tatum helped kids with bird house painting, and Clara scooped ice cream and fizzed whipped cream into strawberries, good practice for her future dream job at The Creamery. We made $8,000 for the church, but more importantly, I bought four stripe-stemmed wine glasses for $5. Meanwhile, Kevin teleported to Singapore, where he lived the high-life quite literally at Marina Bay Sands above the Indian Ocean (where he ended up meeting by zoom with people down the hall due to a Covid case on the team), and Finn did whatever 15-year-old guys do on the beach and football field.
Sunday. Thank God for Sunday. I have nothing to report.
Tatum’s home and summer has started! Her friend Anna and Marina were tearful about her departure, giving the best compliment ever: “You’re the most girl’s girl I’ve ever met.” Dean of Advancement Katy also loved Tatum, as did several other staff and faculty
But there’s no holding her back when summer awaits. She will spend the next two days in full-day lifeguard training, hopefully followed by a job at Palisades pool. But the biggest, most pressing priority from the eyes of Girl, 17, is the driver’s license. She has completed her practice hours—thank you, Highways 66 and 81, between Staunton and Cabin John—but needs the class and exam passed.
In the meantime, she’s engrossed in her childhood Lego set, searching for the elf house, Little’s pet shop and the tiny horses. But that’s after an evening at home with Indian food, boyfriend Beaman and family…discussing how challenged and inappropriate immature high school boys are. Adolescence is an interesting time. (May I live through them and not in them.)
I’m so happy for Tatum that her summer has started; two weeks for Finn’s and three for Clara’s. Work has kicked into high gear for me so I will be thrilled when four weeks have passed, if I lived through them with grace and deadlines met. That’s when I’ll put my flip flops up by the pool, with a dewy lemonade in my right hand and a novel in my left. And I’ll watch other people swim—namely Finn, who just joined the swim team—and do nothing with great joy.
@theterrace 