A week ago, a small miracle occurred. Every year since Sarah was a baby, I have gone to Pittsburgh Shakespeare in the Parks. When she was a baby, she didn’t make it through a whole performance because, well, she was a baby. For many years after that, Carl would stay home with Sarah while I went to the play. Last year, we attempted attending as a family, and Sarah made it through the first few minutes before deciding she was done. This year, Sarah stayed for the entire performance!! I believe the miracle of her staying was due to the specific and wonderful way that The Merry Wives of Windsor was performed – in 80’s garb and with ’80s songs every five to ten minutes. If you live in Pittsburgh, I highly recommend making time to see the play, which runs through the first weekend in October.
Sarah woke up one morning desperately wanting a t-shirt that she either gave away or lost. After having many big feelings, she picked a shirt that was sufficiently similar, and we were still able to get to her school on time. Because I have a hard time accepting when something is lost or unattainable, I decided to go to the Goodwill where we most recently donated clothes. I thought maybe, just maybe, the shirt might be there on the racks for purchase and I could buy it back. No such luck, but I did find an absolutely gorgeous and perfectly Amy-ish dress. I found a Sarah-ish dress too, but she isn’t really a dress wearer, so you may never see her in the crocodile print dress.
We are still waiting for our new washing machine to be repaired and re-delivered. We also learned that our whole-house air-conditioner has some issues which will probably necessitate a complete replacement and addition of vents in a few places. As we wait for those repairs and upgrades, it was interesting to read the weekly discussion piece by Garrett Bucks about the things in life that AI still can’t do or will never do. I donated blood on Friday and did the power red donation, which I have never done before. That means you are hooked up to a special machine that separates out the red blood cells from the rest of your blood matter and gives you back some of yourself. It takes longer and can make your lips tingly, but it is basically doing a double donation all at one time. Garrett’s piece made me reflect more deeply on how amazing blood donation is. People literally give their life blood to help another person in a way that cannot (yet) be replicated by machines. And for now, we still need humans to fix and replace our appliances.
Yesterday we had our best Renaissance Festival experience yet. This was due to it not being terribly hot and due to us embracing Sarah’s love of watching the line of people using the ATM. This year she even got to use her new bank card to withdraw her own money at the ATM.
We didn’t ask her to do anything else except have lunch. Just like our time in Venice, it worked best to have Carl and I take turns hanging out with Sarah by the ATM and going with Amy to explore other parts of the festival. One of the most enjoyable parts of the event is simply seeing all of the people and the various creative outfits they wear, so even when I was staying in one place with Sarah, I was having a great time people-watching. Amy did her own face paint and mine, and we both got compliments on her work. When the royal procession went past us, many people called out specifically to Amy about how amazing she looked.
Amy and Carl explored, saw parts of some shows, and did archery.
I adopted a newly hatched baby dragon. I named him Bertram in honor of Sir Bertram de Buxton, my dad’s medieval storytelling persona. Bertram started his life with me by riding around on my shoulder, but now he prefers to nestle in my hair. I’m hoping nothing catches on fire if he sneezes.
Wishing you all the joy and comfort of being where you most want to be.
Leave a Reply