We made it through our trip and haven't got sick yet. COVID cases are starting to take off at kid's school, though. Not super optimistic their containment will continue to hold, and even if it does, they're going to have a spike in cases due to community transmission more broadly. Kid's teacher was out sick this week, her family has COVID.

I started ( Read more... )

So we're travelling for the winter holidays and visiting Julie's family for the first time in two years. If I'd made the plans in December rather than November, they probably would have been different. But ultimately I couldn't put Eris through the last-minute cancellation of her holiday plans after all she's been through so far. So it's down to ( Read more... )

Liz and Eli were married last Sunday on the floor of the US Senate. (Actually the model Senate at the Edward M. Kennedy Institute for the Senate in Boston.) Was really great to be able to join them for the happy event.

(Also was an opportunity for Julie to give me a quick tour of her new lab after. Seemed like a pretty cool setup, though one bio lab ( Read more... )

Loyal Nine in Cambridge is closing. Another favorite gone. I wonder what will be there next. The space is so incredible, if another restaurant doesn't take up the mantle it will be a real shame. Anyways I spent the whole weekend pretty bummed out about that, though we did go there for a last brunch. Service was very slow and lobster popovers were ( Read more... )

My great Aunt Alice died last week, which I didn't get around to talking about here because I'm so scattered. (To answer some obvious questions, wasn't due to COVID, and wasn't a surprise given her age and health.) My family visited her on the Cape every summer before she moved to a retirement home in Albuquerque some years back to be closer to one ( Read more... )

My parents are in town this weekend for a visit. So they're getting a little time alone with the grandkid today, and I'm getting a bit of remarkably quiet time, starting with a nice brunch with Julie. They're taking her to the DeCordova Sculpture Garden and Drumlin Farm today, and we have some zoo trips planned together for Sunday and Monday. And I ( Read more... )

Last weekend, my in-laws were here with our niece, Emilia. (And their dog, Elphie.) Eris was thrilled to spend some time with her cousin and crushed that the vacation couldn't last longer. Was certainly very nice to see them in person for the first time since 2019. We did as much of the visit as we could manage masked and/or outdoors, but it was ( Read more... )

Pretty dead this week. Eris has apparently been under more stress than usual for reasons I don't fully understand, but it's meant a lot of late nights in the past week and a few nights where I didn't get a four-hour block and was consequently wrecked. She's been extra particular and tempestuous. My parents, having heard of my plight, are sending me ( Read more... )

Last weekend, I went back to Cleveland for the wedding of my friends Markos and Michelle. Was a very happy occasion, they're clearly a great match.

This was also my first time seeing my parents and brother in person in well over a year. Plus was my first experience with pandemic travel, and traveling alone is always a bit surreal these days. (Very ( Read more... )

It's snowing. Really coming down, too, though I don't know if it will stick.

I'm continuously exhausted. Eris is a bit of a nightmare in the evenings. Mornings aren't great, either. She really wants a lot of hand-holding for everything, and is utterly uncompromising. Being tired makes her all the more inflexible, which doesn't help her get to bed.

As ( Read more... )