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.
Finn rocks. And skips and jumps. With Clara along for the ride, we headed down to the Raleigh-Durham area a couple of weekends ago for the Super Slippers Classic. We were thrilled that Brooks and Presley came up from South Carolina AND Noelle and Mica drove west from Wilmington. We dined at Chili’s and remembered some glory days of me serving the famous Awesome Blossom.
Finn got plenty of ribbons, as usual, but let’s get to the important part: Team Brooks sneaked by Team Presley for the win in axe throwing with a slim margin of two points, 83 to 81. I see a future with a new sport if jump roping doesn’t work out. Or consulting for the World Bank. Love our family and friends, such favorite people.
Meanwhile, on the left coast, Rob, Amy and Hugh treated my own mother to a trip to the rose garden. Wish I could have teleported. Kevin and I had quite some fun using AI to create essays, songs and the spoken word about Mom and Mary Ellen. Mom received a mix of Shakespeare, Anne Lamott, and Edith Piaf. Mary Ellen was described by Enid Blyton and Dolly Parton, among others. Imagine that!
I just want to share Finn’s list of ten words/phrases describing Mom. It’s too good not to share.
I love these three little pigs. Every year on Mother’s Day, Josie and I are treated to the sweetest brunch. This year, Sophia and Tatum decorated and cleaned and cleaned, and Clara, Georgie and Finn served us delicious lattes on the front porch while the dogs ran circles around them.
There’s nothing sweeter than coffee stirred with a laugh and a dash of love, even if I am “bruh” on occasion.
It’s confirmed! Finn and Clara have finished the youth group year with a visit to the National Cathedral to be confirmed under strands of stained glass blue sunshine and gospel blues.
The girls in their pretty white dresses and Finn in his borrowed blue suit jacket knelt before one of the priests in his ruby red robe and we laid hands on them and felt blessed. Bishop Marian was an excellent speaker—joyful, humble and clear.
Deacon Adrienne commented more than once on Clara’s very thoughtful comments and questions throughout the study process. She felt called to the occasion strongly, it seemed. Finn was more skeptical about the need to get confirmed having been baptized in late elementary school. Both perspectives were great. Having twins is so interesting.
Lunch afterwards at Cactus Cantina was a nice way to close out the year. “Eating together brings joy,” as Strega Nona advised. Amen!
@theterrace 