* Thankful for sure, but this year it wasn't easy.
It wasn't exactly the Thanksgiving we envisioned. All that talk in my last post about holidays not working out as planned, and sure enough, this one joined the club. My parents got back from their two-week cruise on Monday and one of their travel companions promptly tested positive for COVID. She had been feeling like she had a sinus infection for a few days, and tested upon arrival at home. But since my parents had spent significant time with her, we didn't feel comfortable spending time with them and possibly exposing ourselves. They tested negative for days but had cold symptoms, so we felt it was safest to skip. The morning after that initial revelation, we found out there were some challenging family dynamics happening on Craig's side. All those people in one house can be a challenge even on a good day, and some things came to a head which meant that Thanksgiving could be a bit...contentious. I wasn't excited about being in the middle of that (or knowing that any pleasantness was likely fake), so at that point I was close to just skipping it all. Had I had confidence in my turkey abilities (read: none), I would have given it serious consideration. To make matters worse I started getting some extra sniffles by Tuesday or Wednesday. Craig and Jacob have both been sniffly for a while--Craig's office mates got COVID a few weeks ago and it seems possible he was slightly exposed...or maybe just got a cold that's hung in there. I figured I was getting that since he inevitably rolls over in his sleep and breathes on me. Anyway, it just didn't seem like anything was going as planned.
Luckily my zinc seemed to help so it never went past some sniffles and sneezes and I was mostly functional by Thursday. But I took Wednesday off since the boys were off, yet I spent most of the day running around to Aldi, Walgreens, Target, and Dollar Tree. In the midst of that I found out that there had been an explosion on the Rainbow Bridge in Niagara Falls. It was rumored to be a terrorist attack but in the end it was determined to just be a horrible accident where a car sped out of control (possibly a stuck gas pedal), hit a curb, jumped a fence, and exploded near customs courtesy of its gas tank. But having grown up there and having crossed that bridge dozens of times, it was unnerving and I spent a good chunk of the afternoon just watching coverage. After that I went back out for a bit and tried to get glasses (second try, second fail), then stopped at Home Goods and the liquor store. At least I made the most of my day off by being productive.
Because we didn't have to go to Buffalo that night like we usually do, we opted to go to our church Wednesday evening. That left us an odd lazy Thanksgiving morning since the only food I was making I was assembling later. The slow morning wasn't a bad thing, but I was in such a rotten mood when we left because I just didn't want to go, both because I wasn't getting time with my parents and because the family time we were getting could be awkward. It just wasn't the holiday I was hoping for, and it was playing into all of my fears about what might happen for Christmas. Again.
Usually when I'm thinking about what to say when we go around the table, I can think of plenty of things to be thankful for. There are usually a couple special, timely things that jump out from the usual stuff. This time, I was struggling. Like, yes, I can say all of the usual things--my family, my home, my job, my health--but it seemed like most of these things had a bunch of asterisks this year. I wasn't getting to see my parents and the family we did see was all mad at one another--to the point one person left (and did a good deed in the process, but still--no one should feel unwelcome at Thanksgiving dinner). I'm grateful for my kids, but Jacob is still injured and the season is a week away, so that has been stressful for him and us. My job and my home are both good, but both are exhausting me in their own way these days. And my health...well, things did start improving a little bit in the head department last week and I did have a clear mammogram (which I was more worried about than usual for a couple reasons), but I was still frustrated because of the cold symptoms and the lingering issues I was still having. The worst of the neck/jaw/head stuff had finally subsided so I wasn't perpetually uncomfortable and fatigued, but I was still getting random little mild, short-lived headaches or neck tiredness and feeling a little less energetic than usual. Mind you, it was a lot better--I could function significantly better, for sure--but what were the odds that it was temporary? I still wake up each day worried I'll have slept wrong or that I'll do something that will bring it all back. I hope at this point it's clear what does it if it happens, but it's been a couple long months so I'm still worried. But at the time the relief was still so new that it felt a bit presumptuous to be thankful for health I hadn't necessarily regained yet. I guess I was grateful for the break, at least. But it just felt hard to find the positivity, which is actually pretty rare for me since I am constantly trying to find the bright side of frustrating stuff--like house chores mean I have a house and overwhelming Christmas decorating is a sign of so many amazing memories tied to my decor.
In the end, the gathering went okay aside from the one aforementioned hiccup. Food was great as usual, and even the extra (non-family) attendees I wasn't excited about were mostly fine. One was a student from Australia that goes to school with our nephews who got to experience his first Thanksgiving. He was very friendly and even shared Vegemite with everyone! A friend of the family who was there happens to spend a lot of time in the Dominican Republic and tried very hard to convince me to make the trip with Craig happen. We're currently leaning toward trying to get flights back early to not miss Jacob's birthday or the end of school, but we'll see. We have a few more days to figure it out. Oh, and we were a little amused because that same woman seemed to find Jacob very handsome--which could probably only be as charming as it was because she was a flamboyant middle-aged Hispanic lady--think Gloria from Modern Family. Jacob was a little creeped out, though, and I tried to explain that girls get that feeling a LOT, so keep that feeling in mind for future reference.
Even though it was overall okay, I still found myself a bit sad because I miss the Thanksgivings of old, when we all fit around an average-sized table, had a quiet family dinner, and could stay over at Craig's parents' overnight that night. Granted, some of those nights were rough--kids that wouldn't go to bed, my overly full pregnant nights, loud dogs or howling wind--but there was something blissful about having two fulfilling family gatherings with great food, getting kids to bed, and re-emerging to a quiet house ready to settle on the couch for a bit to Black Friday shop online or at least start thinking about it. We could go to bed, grab Christmas donuts at Tim Hortons in the morning, and head back home at our leisure. Now the rest of the family never leaves and there's nowhere for us to sleep, so it's either 45 minutes back to my parents' or braving the long drive home. We probably would have had to do that anyway this time because of Craig's work schedule, but this year's setup just made me miss that long-gone phase even more.
I managed to start decorating on Friday. I had to take down the fall stuff and clean the house before starting in on the Christmas decor. I did get the small tree decorated--all angels again, now that we've cycled through the four themes once. I love how it turned out. White lights, gold garland, gold star--simple but elegant. Saturday wasn't as productive as I'd hoped because Jacob had a workout followed by a scrimmage he had to attend, which meant we were out the door at 8:30. Carter and I killed time getting fun breakfast at Wendy's (which was a bit of a debacle), but then had to head right to the scrimmage most of the way across the county. I was hoping to drop Carter off at home in between but timing didn't work out so he was pretty grumpy about us having to kill a couple more hours. We dropped Jacob at the scrimmage and went to Aldi, Big Lots, and Dollar Tree, just for fun, and then got Slurpees as we headed back to the game. We only had to watch about 15 minutes, but then it turned out Jacob needed to ride the bus back to school with his team so we actually didn't have to be there at all...ugh. I dropped Carter off en route, picked up Jacob and got him fed, and finally got home and tried to decorate. I did get through most of it despite a pounding headache cropping up for a bit, which was a small miracle. It took most of the afternoon and evening, but I did it.
Sunday started out with church. We were supposed to go as a family since Jacob's practice got canceled, but Craig was up in the night with a headache so he stayed home to sleep. I had this moment in church where I found myself thinking about Christmas Eve and just desperately hoping for a normal, typical Christmas this year. I was almost trying to will it to happen as we sat there--almost feeling a peace that it would but not wanting to get my hopes up. Oddly, I feel like I'm having some sort of anxiety issue--maybe related to COVID's effect on my brain?--that's based on my long-term worries about this head stuff and a lingering general overwhelm with life. It's almost like a next step beyond the brain fog I was having for a while, a different kind of short circuit. When I think of something in the future or something that's a bit overwhelming, I have this moment of complete panic/worry/terror. I think if I indulged it, it could turn into a panic attack, but luckily that feeling passes quickly even if the worry doesn't. It's made my thoughts about the holiday extra challenging so far, to the point I can't fathom a holiday without problems or get my gift lists set yet.
The main tree took a solid part of Sunday, though I did sneak in a two-mile walk since the temperature was in the mid-40s before torrential rain came through at night. The Bills had another craptastic close/late loss, and with that the extra-long weekend came to an end. But I already know my boss isn't in tomorrow and I have a massive deliverable I wasn't expecting to do, so it will likely be the Mondayest of Mondays. I'm thankful for five days off, but it sure doesn't feel like it was that long. And there's no rest for the weary because the holidays are officially upon us. Here we go...
Usually I'm here this time of year complaining about how November is dragging. Halloween and "fun fall" are over, the weather mostly stinks, and we usually spend most of the month waiting--for Thanksgiving, for Christmas season, and for basketball season. Even with Jacob having been injured and not doing quite as much for basketball (don't get me wrong, he's still doing plenty), the month has blazed by. We're two-thirds through already and Thanksgiving is days away. It helps, I suppose, that Thanksgiving is early. I think it goes to the late extreme again next year, which unfortunately means a longer wait for most of the above and a shorter Christmas season. Maybe I'll have to give in on my "No Christmas before Thanksgiving" rule a little bit next year just to spice things up a bit.
Speaking of which, I'm actually bending that rule a little bit this year too. Jacob has been begging me to put up the tree, to the point of getting up bright and early last Saturday on his own and cleaning up the living room so it would be easier for me to do it. Unfortunately for him that just felt way too early so it didn't happen that weekend, but it did this past weekend--minus the decorating. Honestly, while Jacob's need of a pick-me-up played into it, it was mostly to minimize the amount of work I need to do this coming weekend. I can tell myself that without decorations the trees just add a pleasant woodsy winter feel, so I'm not super opposed to it as long as they're not decorated. Let's face it--the moving of furniture and assembling the trees is a lot of extra work in the midst of the rest of the decorating--taking down fall stuff, dusting and cleaning, bringing up the bins, decorating, and then finally tackling the trees. I sometimes like to put the trees up first anyway because then if decorating takes longer, at least the trees still look festive even if it takes a couple extra days to get around to ornaments. So, to ease that workload, it's worth it. The main tree went up Sunday night and I'll hopefully get around to the little tree this week sometime.
To be clear, I still don't love Christmas prior to Thanksgiving. I don't judge people who decorate early, mind you--you do you if you need it--but I personally have my own concerns with doing it early. Jacob has been playing music and watching movies all month and I'm merely tolerating it. He thinks I hate Christmas but I just try to explain that I like to give Thanksgiving its moment. We need to be more thankful and I think it's important to give that its moment in the spotlight. I don't want Thanksgiving to feel like Christmas part one because the tree is already up. I also don't want to water down the specialness--it's always been a unique
time of year, in part because it doesn't last very long. If we extend that, does it eventually lose some of that specialness? I also try to explain that Christmas is a lot to manage mentally so I just need to take things one step at a time. Once Christmas season hits, my normal challenging mental load gets doubled with the constant struggle to think of gifts, buy them, and do all of the fun seasonal things--decorating, baking, and trying to keep our traditions--before time runs out, while still running the household, getting my work done, and attempting to make sure my mental and physical health don't take a hit. Christmas as an adult hits different and while I don't want to shatter the illusion for my kids, I do want them to have reasonable expectations and understand why I'm hesitant to start that process early. I do love Christmas, it just takes a little time for me to ramp up the appropriate energy and be able to have enough to last the season as it stands now.
I feel like that's going to be a little extra hard this year with how I've been feeling. As I alluded to in my last couple posts, I'm just struggling with my body right now and I'm not entirely sure how to tackle it. It's fatiguing to feel this way, even if I seem to be functioning through it. The anxiety it's causing doesn't help, and I'm just stuck between wanting to call my doctor and beg for mercy vs. wanting to make sure I have a compelling case the first time and don't end up getting dismissed as a hypochondriac or going on a wild goose chase of specialists. I'm willing to try other things--I'll keep doing chiro and if she wants me to try antibiotics for my sinuses first, I guess that's fine--but most of all I'd like some sort of assurance that I'm not at risk for a stroke or some other head-related problem, since the pressure in my head has been the biggest issue. It's mostly not painful but it is uncomfortable and unsettling, if that makes sense. I always feel like I need to stretch my upper body or rub my head. I'm not sure any of those things actually work but my body is constantly trying to make them work just to get relief. After a long day of struggling through that at my desk, I'm just not sure how much energy I'll have to do holiday stuff. And the anxiety is starting to even make it hard to think that far ahead, like what if something happens and I'm not able to celebrate Christmas the way I'm expecting? I know that sounds dramatic but there are moments with this where my brain just can't dismiss it. One night last week I barely moved off the couch because it got extra uncomfortable and exhausting. I felt better by the morning but it's so hard to not know what's happening. There's been a lot of ups and downs since then. Better for a couple days, worse for a couple, and better again. But not gone. I'll take what relief I can get, but I foresee a lot of "pushing through" to get through this holiday season and hoping it's enough.
I suppose taking life a couple days at a time because of how I'm feeling has actually made all the days blend together, and now here we are on the cusp of Thanksgiving. Many times I've had a weekend getaway around this time to get over the hump of this dreary month, but because of Craig's work schedule that didn't work out this year. The memories that have popped up have been fun, and part of me is missing that experience. I'm still trying to get to Binghamton to see my fast-growing godson and his mama, and I've been itching for a getaway to Canada or something (it's been more than four years!), but weekend basketball practice and games, and soon Knighthawks games, will keep us pretty grounded for a while. I can make an escape if Craig is off, but those weekends are few and far between, too. I guess I'm lucky an escape wasn't as needed this year with the short pre-Thanksgiving wait since everything else feels more complicated.
Speaking of basketball season, Jacob is still struggling through his injury, so even when his season starts next weekend, it won't necessarily be starting for him. He's pretty unhappy with how a lot of things have played out so far this season, even beyond his injury. I keep hoping he'll recover quickly because I think getting back out there and contributing to the team will help with his mental state a ton--especially since he hasn't played consistently since his last high school season ended and that lack of confidence in his body is just another challenge he's facing. But alas, that doesn't seem to be the case just yet. I completely understand why he's discouraged and I just wish I knew how to help him more.
Right now my excitement for the holidays is probably mostly about the time off of work. It's been a heck of a fall there and my brain needs a break. I'm also excited for some family time. My parents have been traveling for a couple weeks so I haven't talked to them hardly at all, and I haven't seen Craig's family in quite a while, so it will be nice to have some time for that. I will admit that seeing a few Christmas lights pop up around town has made me smile a little, and I'm excited to break out some of my own decorations. I'm not excited for the process but am trying to focus on that moment when I finally get to plop down on the couch and take it all in. This week, as I have said many times before, always feels like a "deep breath" before the marathon that is the holidays. I was looking back at old blog posts for something and I came across this paragraph. It was from November 2019, and I had no idea at the time how true this would prove to be in the years to come:
But again, like the rest of life, the burdens of Christmas are merely
evidence of a life well-lived. The more people we have to buy for, it
means that we have a lot of people to love (and that love us back). The
decorations are all part of having a cherished home to fill with
Christmas cheer. The endless parties and school events are proof of the
many valuable connections we have. While travel is always challenging,
it means that we have family we love enough to make sure we can share
the holiday with them. It's all a part of the experience for us, and we
wouldn't have it any other way. But does it complicate things? Sure.
Still....worth it.
I had no idea at the time how the travel and all of those holiday events would both become endangered species a year later. Little did we know that a virus and weather would complicate things for years to come. I'm still not confident this year will go smoothly since the past three years have proven that expecting the unexpected may be our new normal. It's become even more apparent how precious those things are because we haven't had them for so long. In that same blog search I also came across a post from the following year talking about how decorating early was an odd COVID phenomenon, and that year people just needed it, likely to fill the holes that their holiday was shaping up to have in all those other areas. It now seems to be a habit for a lot of people. After years of wondering what a close-to-home, low-key Christmas would be like, we've now had two thanks to COVID and a blizzard. Even the one in between wasn't the same because COVID prevented the extended family gatherings that previously made Christmas so enjoyably chaotic. While the home ones have been special in their own way, I'm ready for one of our "old school complicated" Christmases like we used to have. Multiple stops, lots of gifts in both directions, tons of food and family, and complete exhaustion at the end. There isn't a whole lot that can fill those holes, that's become quite clear.
I'm trying to stay hopeful for a better holiday and hoping my energy and attitude remain strong in the meantime. I can't believe we'll be in the full swing of things in just a few days, so perhaps there's some denial happening at the moment that's keeping me calm. Either way, here we go again...
I don't know what happened over the last five years--whether it was bound to happen anyway or the pandemic just made it worse--but I feel like I have been aging at a rapid pace.
The challenging part for me is that for my entire life I have always been seen as much younger than I am. When I was a teenager I was forever mistaken for a tween. When I was in college I looked like a high schooler. When I was a young adult, people mistook me for a college student. And up through today usually people who don't know me think I'm much younger than I am. Often when my age gets out, someone will look at me and be like, "No way! I thought you were in your 30s!" I used to hate it, but somewhere in my 30s the tide shifted from it meaning that people didn't give me the respect I deserved to where they were just plain impressed by my lack of aging. It's nice, of course. But I feel like my looks are starting to betray me a bit.
The good news is that my hair is taking after my mom's side and holding steady. I've found maybe a handful of gray (or really blonde?) hairs over the years and that was it. I know I'm so lucky with that.
My face is where the problems start. I'm not super worried about smile lines. Eyes are almost impossible to manage, in part because my allergies will ensure I always have bags. Maybe someday I'll find a serum or something and see if that works. My forehead, which is already quite prominent on its own, is getting noticeably deeper lines, enhanced by a scar I got in the center of my forehead when I was eight. Remind me again why I grew out my bangs just in time to expose that area to the world as it aged? I am also getting a deep furrow between my eyebrows, and it has the extra nerve of being weirdly asymmetrical. I never thought I'd do injectables, but that one is bugging me. Speaking of eyebrows, all of the plucked hairs haven't stopped growing despite the world insisting they would, but yet other areas I've never touched are getting thinner, so I am trying to play with makeup to fix that oddity. Oh, and there's another scar on one brow (picked up a few years back courtesy of a really heavy car door) that makes shaping them extra hard. Good times. I have age spots aplenty (they could almost pass for freckles, but not really), and there are times where the sagging jowls get seen at just the wrong angle and I cringe.
My body is a bit of a mixed bag. Visually it's hanging in there, at least while clothed. My chest is still perky, which is great 364 days a year--with the exception of my mammogram, which hurts like heck because I have cysts and my breast tissue is dense so it's not like it's just a bunch of floppy fat. It also involves an extra ultrasound due to the difficulty of seeing through dense tissue. I do think they've gotten a little bigger in general despite my weight not changing that much, but I'm actually not thrilled about that because the bigger they are the heavier I look. They're fine, but it's just something I've noticed. Oh, and there are some mornings I wake up to wrinkles in my cleavage, which is clearly a sign of things to come. Sigh.
I'm definitely getting the middle age spread around my middle, no matter what I do, and the saggy arm fat is getting worse. My legs are oddly hanging in there and even look muscular sometimes--although my calves are not what they used to be. The one interesting thing about my shape now is I probably look far more proportionate than I used to. I used to think my shoulders were too broad (sometimes still do) and my hips and thighs seemed too big, but now that my waist is more proportionate, it doesn't bug me like it did. My butt is still pretty decent too--it benefits from some solid spandex but still doesn't turn into pancake butt without. Whew. I still remember when I lost all my lower body weight while nursing Jacob because I learned to miss my butt. It was flat and looked unimpressive even in jeans, and it gave me a whole new respect for it once it came back.
Functionally my body is...iffy. It could be worse, but it hasn't been as awesome as my young face would indicate. I've had my old age preview and I think I'd like a refund. I was talking to a colleague the other day who said her body went to crap around 40, and I tend to agree. It's been one thing after another. On any given day I could have digestive issues (although my reflux has mostly stabilized, interestingly), achy joints (mostly my arms and shoulders, but sometimes a hip), my back and shoulders are prone to tightness and knots, my sinuses are a mess, I can't smell or taste, my eyes have gotten old-age terrible (on top of having scarring, apparently from a hellish bout of pinkeye nine years ago), my energy level fluctuates wildly, I think I might have occipital neuralgia based on weeks of headaches (and the way something released when the chiro massaged that area last week), and I had to give up running because I had piriformis issues and I don't trust my cardiac health very much due to a high exercising heart rate (which my mom also has). My cholesterol is high, my iron and vitamin D are low, my thyroid seems like it might be crapping out, and the fun of menopause is on the horizon to throw everything into further chaos! I know I'm forgetting stuff, but suffice it to say I use an old person AM/PM weekly pill container and it's solidly full of supplements for a little of everything. I'm basically waiting for the day when I get some sort of autoimmune diagnosis based on something or another--there's definitely plenty to choose from. It's tolerable most days but it makes me wonder what old age might look like. My mom is my hero that she walks all the time and even does a 10-mile charity bike ride every year in her early 70s, but sometimes I wonder if my body will hold up even that well even though on the surface I appear to be in better shape than she was at my age.
For someone who has always looked young, seeing these very obvious signs of aging are a bit of a bummer. I know that makeup works wonders and I know I look better when I smile, but it's getting harder to look at old pictures of myself vs. new ones and not get a little discouraged. Again, I admittedly haven't put a lot of effort into reversing these things so if my self-esteem continues to take a hit, I guess there's always that. But who wants to spend all that money?! I suppose a lot of this is made worse by having a doctor that thinks everything can be cured with diet and already thinks I overthink things (I do, but what if my thinking is actually correct?). I'm hesitant to call her because I don't want to be held hostage by needing to change my diet to satisfy her thinking. I already have enough weird stuff and menopause is only going to make it worse, so I'm trying to find another doctor before that happens. However, it sounds like it's not going to be easy between finding one accepting new patients, in a good location, and within my health plan coverage.
I've also gotten to a point in my life where my age brings with it some odd realities. The passage of time and how other things relate to it is so weird, and realizing that I'm on the back end of my life facing down a lot of potential loss is rather depressing. I have a lot of odd realizations, like that when my mom was my age, she was about six months away from having one kid out of college and another out of high school. Craig is just about the age my dad was when I graduated from college. I know we waited a bit longer to get married and have kids, but...geez. I was looking at pictures of them from around that time of their life and it's just too hard to compare because styles are just so different. But I remember them so well at that age and to be there now myself is surreal. I also struggle with my parents' ages because for the most part I still see them as younger than they are, because I think about my grandparents at those ages and it boggles the mind a bit. But then I hear about someone dying in their late 60s or early 70s and reflexively think, "Oh, they had a good long life," and then realize that in the context of my parents that still seems terribly young. We have a lot of relatives that we will likely lose in the next 10-20 years, and that's hard to think about, especially as we head toward the holidays and realize that we just missed a few "normal" years and likely only have a short time left before traditions will have to change again and we'll be on to the next phase of Christmases when we are the older generation.
It's odd being one of the older, wiser parents at work and realizing all of the phases you've passed through, when sometimes you feel like it wasn't that long ago that you had babies. But at the same time, having babies seems like it was an entirely different life. Sometimes I forget I'm a grown-up--and an advanced one at that--because I'm now at a point in my life where I suppose I'd hoped I'd have accomplished certain things or be in a different phase of life. I'm sort of past the point of no return on certain things--like the moment you realize you definitely cannot have more kids--and it's just strange coming to terms with a huge chunk of life just having passed by almost unnoticed. Raising kids definitely has a way of distracting you at your "peak", and once you start to come out the other side, it's a bit jarring. It's weird watching friends who had kids even earlier go through high school or college graduations and become grandparents. Like, how is that our generation now? At the same time, I see all that my parents have done in the empty nest phase of life and hope ours will be full as well. I know my future can be as full as I make it, but then I remember not everything is within my control and I just have to hope for the best.
There are other little things like realizing you've had a certain article of clothing or something decorating your house for far longer than you expected. I think we've all had a moment looking at something outdated of our parents'--that thing on the wall in the kitchen or that sweatshirt--and laughed because it never got changed, but here you are 20 years later realizing you've become that person who doesn't bother to change things out--either because you still like them, because they're comfortable, or because it's just not that important anymore. It's finding that balance between realizing what doesn't really matter and not becoming a stodgy stick-in-the-mud, right? Another one that came up over the last couple weeks is watching celebrities age and die. Matthew Perry, one of the stars of Friends, the sitcom of my young adult years, passed away. It was already weird enough watching him and the rest of the cast age (although the women have done it fabulously--but still, it's hard seeing them so young on the show and realizing so much time has passed), but knowing one is gone now is just sad. I vividly remember as a kid watching The Cosby Show and thinking about the actors playing the grandparents inevitably passing away at some point, and then realizing that there would be a time in my life where Bill Cosby himself would die and it would be sad. Clearly that thought didn't age well based on the accusations against him, but the concept is still accurate and playing out now as the stars I grew up with are getting downright old and passing away. It's usually not as much of a big deal as this one because this one was tragic and it was such a pivotal show, but it's just another one of those things that marks the passage of time in a way I'm not always ready to admit is happening. The longer you're alive, the more your life becomes a time capsule--songs that bring back memories, photos you just can't bear to change out of frames, souvenirs of life that you just can't toss--everything holds some sort of weird significance and as time passes some things lose their power and others get stronger.
Yesterday was sort of a funny memory day. Sixteen years earlier I was in Pittsburgh with my aunt, uncle, and cousin for a Chihuly exhibit that essentially rekindled my obsession that continues to this day. As I'm sure you'll recall if you've been here for a while, I felt terrible on that trip but blamed it on too much food and a bad night of sleep. But when I didn't recover after a day at home, I was sure something was wrong with me, as I'd been feeling a bit off for a bit. I'd recently taken Clomid to get my cycle back on track so I could get pregnant but it hadn't seemed to work, and I was essentially at the point of calling the doctor and being like, "What is wrong with me?" But then I figured I should probably take a pregnancy test before I called to be equipped to answer the inevitable question, and sure enough, sixteen years ago tomorrow I discovered I was pregnant. I remember that moment so clearly, even though sixteen years seems impossible and so much since has been a blur. I look at pictures from Craig's and my trip to Disney a month later and can't believe what different lives we led back then, compared to now...Disney aside, haha. Then six years ago yesterday we were in Baltimore. Jacob was more than a year younger than Carter is now, which is crazy. Carter wasn't even in school yet. We'd had some rough travels in recent years but that trip has always stood out as one where we did a bunch of stuff and the boys actually cooperated. In one day we took the Camden Yards stadium tour, went to Fort McHenry, checked out the Baltimore Inner Harbor, and went to the aquarium. And the boys were really decent for that long day and the rest of the weekend. I came back from that trip feeling like maybe we could take decent vacations at some point in the future. But it oddly feels like that was a lifetime ago, way more than six years, with puberty and basketball and a second ADHD kid and an entire freaking PANDEMIC changing the entire complexion of our family in that time. And then there was yesterday, a pretty unremarkable day. The boys were off from school, Jacob and Craig spent half the day focused on Jacob's rehab, Carter and I had our first meal at our recently rebuilt Taco Bell, and I worked from home the rest of the day. It certainly didn't match the flash or significance of those other days, but the normalcy of it (maybe one I couldn't have imagined for a couple reasons even four years ago) holds some significance itself. We had a lot of hard years and while it's still not entirely easy, things have settled.
The phases and stages just keep coming. We have expectations of what life should look like, but in the meantime life just keeps happening whether reality matches expectations or not. I spend more of life in some sort of survival mode than I'd like, and it seems like each time I come out of the fog, I'm shocked by how time has passed, in almost every facet of life. The pandemic seemed to warp things further, but let's face it, life was doing a pretty good job on its own. Aging is just weird. Keeps things interesting, but weird.
Halloween was on Tuesday this year. It struck me as all sorts of awkward because my work stuff was the previous Wednesday (the day everyone's in the office--though my team did nothing) and Carter had a normal Monday after a day off Friday but before a parent-teacher conference half day Tuesday. His Tuesday morning was just harvest party time (with costumes, thankfully), and then he had the afternoon off. I went into the office in the morning on a normal home day because they were having really good donuts and cider, before coming home around lunch because I had a chiropractor appointment (more on that in a minute). I guess it all made a normal weekday into a bit of a non-standard one, which can be helpful for making it through the week, but it just felt a little all over the place. Oh, and did I mention it was cold? It snowed in some places that day--I only saw some frozen graupel-type stuff, but some areas had legit snow by that night. Not us, thankfully. November really came in with winter mode fully loaded.
Anyway, Monday after our fun weekend I dragged myself through evening stuff and still had to carve the pumpkin, which I did pretty much entirely on my own this year. Whatever--I did it fast. Just when my kids are mostly done with this stuff, I get efficient...ha. This was our pumpkin, complete with a fun top.
It looked better in the dark.
Carter got his Fortnite Skull Trooper costume the previous week in a semi-panic because it was one of the last costumes left at Target that was a reasonable price and would still look sort of cool without a mask at school. But it looked significantly cooler (and creepier) with the mask. Jacob's team had a scrimmage Halloween night so Carter and I were on our own (and we couldn't give out candy...boo for kids, yay for us?). We bundled up to go out in the 40-something degree weather with lots of layers and gloves.
Fortnite emote pose!
This one sort of cracks me up--scary guy, cute pumpkin.
We took our normal route around the neighborhood to maximize the number of good houses. Some of the best decorated houses in our neighborhood don't even give out candy, but at least they're fun to walk by!
This one did give out candy. I think they're in a competition with the house next door.
The house next door. They do not seem to give out candy. They seemed to have a spot for it, but it must have been gone? They have so many silly skeletons, including flamingoes and Bills Mafia members.
One house down our street had this ginormous pumpkin. They also have a cat arch and two spiders, one of which moves. But the pumpkin was amazing.
We had a really good time walking, and just stayed warm enough. Carter had some issues with condensation making the inside of his mask a little damp, but he loved getting compliments on his costume--be they "cool" or "scary". We enjoyed running into the golf cart ladies who give out candy and enjoy some beverages, and while there were a couple toned down houses (including the one I posted pics of last week that wasn't giving out candy either), it turned out to be a pretty awesome night. We ended up having to use every spare spot for candy--Carter's costume had a pocket and a pouch, and I had to use both of my coat pockets, and his pumpkin was still overflowing! One house (within the last 10 or so that we did) filled him up, and then the one across the street did it again after we shifted some of the candy out! He was a very happy kid when we got home!
The coolest part of his costume was that his mask glowed in the dark. I tried to take this in the basement and you can see how it looked...so creepy!
I forgot to take a picture of the pumpkin on the porch, but here was our full crew of pumpkins the next day. The warty one on the left came from my office. I'm a little annoyed the bottom one of the stack lost most of its green over the last couple weeks.
I did a half day in the office on Friday and came home for another chiropractor appointment that afternoon. It had been a busy week at work and Friday ended up being a pretty nice day so I took a quick, cleansing walk right after work before dinner. My watch's monthly reward is for closing my exercise ring 14 times this month, which might be a feat, so I'm trying to take advantage of any day when the weather is nice and any evening I have enough energy to hop on the bike or elliptical. It won't be easy. I spotted this leaf as I walked and I was obsessed.
As my dad's cousin's wife said, she couldn't decide what to wear, so she wore it all!
The leaves have taken a beating over the last week between last weekend's wind and this week's cold. It's now November and "blah fall" is upon us. Fall always feels magical and cozy and colorful and tasty from September through Halloween, and then the bottom falls out. It gets cold, it gets brown, pumpkin and apple everything get old before Thanksgiving finally brings up the rear. I moved all of my winter sweaters up into my closet so I have officially surrendered to the cold. The time changed this weekend so while I will embrace not waking up to pitch blackness for a few weeks, I am dreading the early darkness. I can only hope for some colorful sunsets on my evening commutes for a bit.
As I mentioned, I went to the chiropractor this week because my body is just not cooperating. I'm not sure what's happening, but I've had head pressure (mostly without pain) for a couple weeks. I honestly haven't been completely healthy pretty much since I had COVID. I have had ongoing bouts with congestion that seemed like they would turn into something more, but I kept fighting it off with Zicam. I can't decide if my immune system stinks because it's catching everything, or it's impressive because it keeps fighting things off. But based on the bloodwork I had done a couple weeks ago, I suspect my IgA antibodies are low and that can lead to more cold and sinus issues. But my doctor won't currently help me confirm that. Last week I had a ton of random stuff happening and it made for a rather uncomfortable week. Head pressure that sometimes seemed like sinus pressure, tooth pain like I get with sinus infections, jaw pain, tight shoulders, arm fatigue, and a couple close calls with back spasms. For a while I thought the jaw and tooth issues were from clenching my jaw (I caught myself once at night, but not since), but then I realized the sinus stuff felt like a sinus infection without congestion, if that's even possible. I used some of my nasal rinse steroids and the sinus stuff felt better the next day, so it added to that theory. But with everything combined, I realized that maybe something was off-kilter, causing tension through my shoulders, neck, and head, and maybe a little adjustment might work. I'm the last person to jump to chiro, but it seemed plausible. The first visit felt pretty decent but didn't do a lot, but the second one...holy cow. She found this spot in the occipital area (base of my skull on either side of my spine) that she spent a while rubbing out, and I'm still not sure what it did, but WOW. I felt so light and loose after that. I don't know for sure that it directly helped with my issues but I didn't have tooth pain on Saturday, and felt better overall. Not perfect, but better. Enough that it made me wonder if I could have occipital neuralgia, as that causes head discomfort. Seems weird and random, but it was interesting that whatever she did to that area made such a difference, even for a bit--at least until I did yard work, anyway. Then I was tired and achy and tense again, but at least my yard is ready for winter. I'm still not sure what to do moving forward, but I think I should call the ENT and ask if it's possible to have a sinus infection without congestion. If that's not a thing, maybe I need to get my head examined, literally. I mostly just worry about whether COVID might cause issues with clotting since my grandma had a minor stroke when she was young and my mom had carotid issues when she was around my age. They seem to have resolved for her, but when you add something like COVID into the mix that can cause unexpected clotting, it just makes me nervous that my head almost always feels off. It gets worse over the course of the day, too, especially when I'm sitting at a desk. So we'll see where that goes as I try to find the happy medium between taking care of my health and looking like a hypochondriac.
In other news, the boys have recently been working together and bonding over Fortnite, of all things. Tonight they made a great comeback after Jacob got killed off and Carter got a Victory Royale on his own, and it was fun to watch them celebrate together. Sometimes I wonder how life might have been different had they figured out how to co-exist and work together sooner. I would do so many things differently going all the way back to my pregnancy. We sort of backed off because we didn't want to freak him out, but I wish we would have talked it up--he's going to be your best friend, you have to teach him everything, etc. Instead we had years of annoyance. Slowly but surely things have gotten more tolerable, but there's still a lot of work to do. But it's nice to see signs of bonding, like the sports they've played together or the times they team up on video games and don't fight.
Speaking of Jacob, his leg is slowly but surely healing. He's started to do a couple jump shots, so hopefully he only improves from here.
Today was a good day for me because I finally got together with a friend I hadn't seen in ages. She was the friend who worked in the kids' school, whose son played lacrosse with Jacob, and who we saw at church. Between COVID and her MS-related immunity challenges and life getting generally exhausting as COVID wore on and life simultaneously got busier, we mostly lost touch without being able to chat at church every week. She's only on social media very minimally, and while we did text back and forth a bit a handful of times, it certainly wasn't what it should have been. One of our last text interactions we decided we needed to pick a day, and this weekend she had sent me a doctor recommendation because I had asked for them (since my doctor is frustrating), and I realized I had a whole weekend without plans. We made a time on Sunday to grab coffee at this sweet local coffeehouse and had a couple really fun hours. It was much needed but wasn't nearly enough so we've already made a plan to do it again next month. We deal with a lot of similar things--kids of similar ages, boys in sports, and being on the more liberal side of Christianity while dissatisfied with terribly extreme politics on both sides. It was nice to just chat with a friend, let alone one that I had missed and have so much in common with.
I know that I need to get back in the groove of a Bible study small group at church, or find a volunteer opportunity there, but all of it has felt like the one more thing I haven't been able to tackle (amidst a lot of other "one more things" that have felt hard lately). I am severely lacking connection--I barely see my co-workers, I don't have much opportunity to see long-distance friends or Buffalo family, and I've never been good at local friendships. It's my extreme introvert self just getting through the day and not knowing how to have a social life beyond that. I have never been one to feel confident calling someone and being like, "Whatcha doin'?" So, if no one's calling me, guess what? I'm mostly content to sit at home, at least until I realize I don't have a life. I keep hoping that in some phase of life I will get better at it, or hopefully have an existence that makes it easier--better church relationships, the right neighbors, a perfect-fit work buddy, fellow sports parents, or I'd even take a fun group text. I'd appreciate any sort of social structure where it lends itself to making plans more naturally. It hasn't happened since I worked in sports, when we all just knew we were going out after games, but I'm holding out hope for someday. But today was nice.
Overall it was a quality weekend--productive with some fun. The turkey decorations are out, Thanksgiving is less than three weeks away, and the Christmas pajamas were bought at 40% off. It's a start. We're officially on the roller coaster chugging up the hill as we anticipate the wild ride of the holidays. We're hoping for a normal one this year, for the first time since 2019. Yet I'm finding myself skeptical and nervous, because weather and illness have bitten us for three years straight. Jacob keeps getting annoyed that I'm not in a Christmas mood yet for music or movies, but right now it just feels like one more thing to do. He asked me tonight to put up the tree, and that was a resounding no. I like Christmas, I swear, it's just a one-thing-at-a-time issue for me. Also, if I start getting wound up now, it'll be even more of a disappointment if it doesn't go well again. But for now, another week awaits.
Note: This post may break the record for most pictures ever, but there were so many amazing ones and so many more that I didn't include!
One of my absolute favorite field trips as a kid was to the Albright-Knox Art Gallery. We went every few years, and we went there as a family once or twice, too. I just loved it every single time. I think I liked the sculptures better, or maybe paintings that had content that somehow resonated with me (like the Warhol Campbell's Soup cans or almost anything recognizably modern), but I just found it to be such a cool place. When I was 19, I went there over Thanksgiving break with my extended family to see some exhibit from this glass artist I'd never heard of...hahaha. Clearly that Chihuly exhibit was life-changing on its own, but I had also been in an art history class that semester, and the gallery included SO many works of art from artists I had learned about. I was a total dork running around and correctly guessing artists by sight and style, and it just solidified everything I had been learning. Back in 2014 I was able to go back again for the first time in years--this time to an exhibit specifically featuring most of the classics I remembered as a child--and once again, it reinforced how much I loved it there.
Fast-forward a few years and it was announced that the museum would be closing for a few years because a donor had stepped forward and they would be building a new wing, doing some other renovations, and renaming the whole museum to include this new donor. I was a little sad that it would be off-limits for a while, especially since I had fallen in love with the Memorial Art Gallery here in Rochester in the meantime, but I was super excited for it to reopen better than ever! The Buffalo AKG Art Museum reopened earlier this summer, but then a few more tweaks were needed so the new stuff closed again for a bit and I decided to wait longer until everything was in the clear. However, I knew I needed to go soon because one of the big things that I had to see, the Mirrored Room, would be leaving again in January. It turned out that our art gallery here had a different sort of mirrored room coming in and I was excited to take Carter to see that. But what's the fun in seeing one if we couldn't see the original, so that meant I had to get Carter to Buffalo to see that one before it left!
After our bazaar morning last Saturday, we grabbed a quick lunch (Anderson's--yum!) and headed to the museum. Everything is different now and it took me a second to figure out where the parking was. It's underground where the old surface lot used to be...and turned out to be super expensive because I didn't see when we were there that I needed some special QR code to get the visitor rate (ugh). You enter from a sort of hidden entrance in a circle in front of the gallery, and you come upstairs from the garage into the new building. This was the mural on the way up. It was sort of like carpet. But it looked really cool--almost like it was in motion!
The new building has this crazy spiral staircase. It was rather dramatic.
From upstairs we had a look over the lawn where the parking lot used to be and what's on top of the garage now. There was something happening out there, and it turned out I guessed right from a distance--people were recreating works of art! More on that later, but that's a cool public space.
The new wing reminded me a bit of the newer wing on the Corning Museum of Glass--all white, big windows, dramatic modern art. This piece was made out of wood. It was interesting, but the more interesting part was seeing it from a little window above. More on that later, too.
There was a winding elevated walkway from the new wing to the old wing and it had mirrored glass on the outside. When we walked past it in the new wing, we could see ourselves across the way!
The new wing was full of very interesting modern art. A lot of it seemed to represent a diverse set of cultures and races, which is probably much needed since a lot of classic art in the older part of the museum is pretty darn white and male. I can't say all of it was up my alley, but it was really interesting.
This painting of Niagara Falls was really cool. The frame is made of copper pipe and faucets. If you zoom in you'll see a bunch of chemistry stuff overlaid on the falls--element abbreviations, molecule diagrams--that represent the chemicals in the water in Niagara Falls. It was inspired by the creepy foam that's always at the base of the falls that the artist saw when he rode the Maid of the Mist and did some research. Great painting, though, especially because we were just down the river from there the previous day.
This piece was interesting. It was a like a big piece of rock on the sides but a bit more formed with the giant eyes on the front.
If you look in the background of that picture, there's something that looks like a white block on the floor. It's actually a pile of paper. Each sheet has two circles on it, and is considered to be infinite. People are encouraged to take a piece for themselves, to the point they even have rubber bands in a box on the wall. We grabbed one on our way out and I haven't figured out what we do with it yet. Add it to Carter's art wall?
Carter really liked this one for some reason. It was inspired by the HIV epidemic and featured images of birds in different positions. I should have taken a pic of the description, but this really doesn't do it justice. It was large and very striking in person.
This one was far from my favorite, but it was definitely one of the most bizarre of the day. I had to take video to truly capture its full strangeness. You can't really hear it, but it was talking.
This one sort of cracked me up. It featured images of Monet's house that were colored and bedazzled. Hard to tell but half of it was sparkly!
This is one I'd love to have in my super modern house of my dreams. Hard to capture it, but it was a giant, sparkly red bowl mounted to the wall. You can see how it refracted the image of us and the gallery behind us. It was so pretty and shiny!
This was in the hallway and I just loved it. The subtle blue lights looked so peaceful and pretty against the white, and the fall colors outside made the view even prettier.
This was a giant tire!
This is the view of that giant wood piece from above. It's a big 3-D version of a random woman's handwriting. We're still not sure what it says, but it's pretty amazing how it was built up like that. There was a perfect little glass window box popped out of the third floor wall to overlook it.
This might have been my favorite new piece of the day. I have lots of old favorites, of course, but I had never seen this one before and it was so lovely and so striking. The blues were so soft and peaceful. It was done with pastels, which I always had such a hard time using, but the lines were perfect and the colors bold. Someone else was standing there obsessed with it, too. I wish I could find a print of it, but no luck yet. Note to self: The artist is Nicolas Party and the name is Landscape (2019).
I was intrigued to see this one, for reasons you'll see in a bit. This one was about being vocal, and the outfits were made out of thousands of buttons and had these megaphone-type heads. Quite the centerpiece of the room.
This painting was in another room, and suddenly I was like, wait, I remember this one. There was another one across the way that was equally familiar, and I realized that these were on special exhibit the last time I was there. They were huge and use a ton of thick paint. I didn't really like them all that much the first time--although a couple of them then were pretty dreary so that's probably not surprising. But this time I actually really liked this one.
Here's a close view of the paint. It had to take forever to dry!
This was the dramatic walkway above one of the galleries. We actually missed it at first because it was on the first floor where we came in but in the opposite direction of the stairway. These paintings were very colorful...except for the one you can only see a corner of in the bottom right--that one literally had two or three small spots of paint along the edges and endlessly confused Carter. He said, "How is that art?" many times as we walked. Sometimes he was right.
The adjacent gallery had a ton of giant canvases across four rooms from an artist whose work I vaguely remember seeing there as a kid, who gifted his collection to the gallery years ago. I couldn't capture them all individually, so I took panoramas of the rooms like this.
At this point we were done with the new building and we decided to head outside. It wasn't raining, at least, but it was a solid 15 degrees colder than the previous day. We left our coats in the car so it was a little cool, but pretty tolerable. As I mentioned, there were a bunch of displays featuring groups recreating works of art. Many did works that were at this museum, but imagine my delight that my hometown's intermediate school did a Chihuly! They used the pool noodle technique I've seen used for Halloween costumes, and it was so cute! It's supposed to be one of the boats like most of his exhibits have. This one was from Chihuly at Cheekwood in Tennessee. I don't know if this page will stay live, but for now, if you scroll down on the page you'll see what this one was based on. It was so cute!
The other favorite from this event was the recreation of the megaphone people! We had seen them from afar, and suddenly it made sense when we saw the real piece! I give this group credit for standing there in these crazy costumes, heads hidden and bodies attached to one another, for hours on end!
They did a great job. We caught a couple of the groups taking a break and getting snacks, but they were all really fun and creative interpretations.
This was a view of the new building from outside. If you zoom in there's another artwork in front of it, based on a wacky, almost surrealist mural somewhere on a wall in Buffalo.
Back inside we walked through the elevated walkway to the original building.
There's a crazy head sculpture just outside it (you can see it in my 2014 post). I have a picture I took at the end of the visit of the front of it, but I really liked this shot from behind that was taken from one of the gallery rooms.
I think it was that room started the official path to some of the most famous paintings in the building. The beloved Jackson Pollack, one from Piet Mondrian, and of course, this one...
This Warhol was extra cool after seeing the MAG exhibit a couple years ago. It was always a field trip favorite, even if I never really understood why anyone would paint their soup cans!
This sculpture hall was very striking, and I absolutely adored the colorful painting on the far wall. I'm pretty sure the one in the foreground used to creep me out when I was a kid.
I learned about pointillism in my art class and I always liked Seurat, but for some reason the detail on this one was so striking to me.
I think I've mentioned before that Gauguin holds a special place in my family history for being told by my mom's cultured boss that we needed to visit the Gauguin exhibit at the art gallery in Washington DC when we went there when I was a kid. It definitely wasn't our thing, but it was an interesting experience for a few reasons. I vaguely remember us being excited about the Yellow Christ because it was an Albright-Knox piece, and here it is...
There were so many amazing pieces. It was hard to give them all the time they deserved and explain their significance to Carter, but I tried. I was extra thrilled when we came across this painting:
It's called The Marvelous Sauce, and it was my dad's favorite dating back to one of those aforementioned family visits when I was a kid. It truly is amazing. The colors are so bright and bold and the detail is so crisp and amazing. It's so incredibly close to photograph quality. It's stunning. And it turns out it's the favorite of an old friend of mine, too, who asked if we saw it. I bought a magnet of it for my dad the last time I was there to give him for Christmas, and it is still proudly displayed on their fridge.
We couldn't help but take a picture of Carter with this work, for obvious reasons...
There was gallery after gallery of amazing art, and eventually we had covered all of the rooms in the original building. We walked down the stairs at one end of the building to go down to the last part of the gallery. What used to be a hallway near an outside courtyard is now part of an amazing indoor space. I'll show a better pic of this in a bit, but this is a reflection of us in the ceiling of the former courtyard space.
At one side of the courtyard was this amazing children's area. It had a bunch of Legos to build with and all sort of other artistic activities. I liked these funky triangle mirrors on the wall.
These plants appeared to go on forever with mirrors.
There were giant building blocks and we managed to build this guy!
They also had video screens to draw separately but together, as well as these neat kaleidoscope things where you could change out pictures at one end (generally a bunch of the museum works) and look at it through a tube of mirrors. It was such a fun space, way cooler than anything they had for kids when I was little! I still loved art anyway, but it was fun.
After that we went outside because there's a bunch of cool sculptures outside. Most I had seen, but some I had not. I loved this one last time and took delight in using my then-brand-new camera's zoom to capture the mosaics. This time I liked the fall tree in the background.
This one is so jarring and strange but it is quite the view with the grand museum entrance in the background.
You gotta love the canoes.
This was a new one to me. It was a giant concrete room with colored windows. There were some art books on the window sill, so my silly kid apparently decided to make some art himself.
This is what the side window looked like, with different colors on different sides.
I should add it was really hard to take good pictures because they make you put your phone on a rubber lanyard that hangs on your neck so there's less risk of you dropping your phone and breaking the glass. You just don't have a lot of angles to take different shots when you have about a foot of slack!
I was trying to explain to Carter last week that there was a table and chair in the room, but that it wasn't actually real. There's no seat and no top (that I can tell anyway). He couldn't figure out until he saw it why I never tried to sit down!
It was a short walk around, but we loved it!
We wrapped up and walked back out to decide if we were done, and while we sat for a couple minutes, I was like, "Shoot, we didn't take a selfie!" Because it wasn't busy, we went back and did a second walk-through! The selfies honestly didn't work out very well, because of that darn short lanyard, but I did take this picture trying to capture just how endless it was!
Back outside, we took this picture on the mirrored outside wall. Behind us is a mural of photos from the history of the room--photos from people walking through in the 60s, 80s school kids like me, current selfies and so on. It brought back a lot of memories.
I will say, I was a little sad because that special exhibit room was located in what used to be my favorite part of the more modern building. There was this area where you walked down a couple steps into a modern gallery space that featured a bunch of modern art and sculptures. When I was a kid, most of my favorites were in that sort of U-shaped pit. All the weirdest ones, including the Mirrored Room, were down there, and now that space holds just a special exhibit space and the rest is studio spaces. I'm sure it's a better use of space, especially with a lot of modern stuff in the new building, but seeing that transformation broke my heart a little because the anticipation walking down those stairs was the best. This is how it used to look from the top of the left bank of stairs. As I recall, you'd go around the corner and that's where the Mirrored Room used to be. I was glad to see the fun orange plexiglass piece on the left was in the new wing this time.
. We went back out to the courtyard area, and here's a better shot of the new ceiling. It was breathtaking.
Across the way was the new store, which meant my beloved old store was no longer in its old spot around the corner. I remember shopping in that store as a kid, and that's where I first saw for sale the books like our favorite book in our school library--the series of kids' foreign language books like First Thousand Words in Spanish. I was obsessed with them and finally got one for my birthday when I was 13, I think. I still have it. It's such a random memory but I loved that store for so many reasons. Down at the end of the former store hallway was another picture that had been buried in my memories, an Andy Warhol piece featuring Seymour Knox, Jr., one of the museum's namesakes. His two sons, Seymour III and Northrup, were the first owners of the Buffalo Sabres, so clearly that family has held a special place in my heart for multiple reasons. I remember seeing this picture before and probably not fully grasping the significance of the subject or the artist, but they have it alone in an alcove now, creating a nice little contemplation spot with a bench.
Under the stairs there were some old school egg chairs--although these were more round!
We were walking back out through the new building, not only to get Carter's artwork souvenir from that infinite stack of sheets, but also because that was the easiest way to get to the car. Here's that picture of that creepy head I mentioned. Doesn't it look sort of superimposed here? It looks so strange even up close. There's something about its dimension or coloring that looks unreal. I have a better pic of it from outside in my 2014 post.
We snuck a few more looks at different works on our way out and took video of one whose picture didn't do it justice:
I just can't express enough how many amazing pieces there were there. So many interesting pieces, beautiful pieces, thoughtful pieces, colorful, creative, even jarring and somewhat ugly, but all just so thought-provoking and visually stimulating. I just loved it so much, and loved sharing it with one of my favorite people!
We went outside one more time and took a picture with this cool sculpture outside. Appropriate, no?
We took one more selfie on the way out because that wall was just too cool...
And we were off. We had to stop in Avon to pick up Jacob's donut order (last week of the season), and I decided to go the long way. It was such a lovely afternoon at that point, with the pleasant weather, sun, and fall leaves, that I didn't mind a little extra drive. So, I hopped off the Thruway at Batavia and took my old route to Geneseo. I saw the view I used to love and hate as I approached the village, where I would see the campus on the hill and get excited to go back and see my friends but also felt annoyed I had to go back and do homework. I drove by my old dorms and worked my way back up around to Main Street, though I was disappointed to see that the College Circle where you could park near the upper quad was completely blocked off with construction. So I went along to Main Street where we stopped at Mama Mia's. Carter had been wanting to try their pizza so I figured I'd stop and get him a slice to make dinner a little easier. Then we drove around the corner down to the bank parking lot adjacent to the campus. I needed to use the ATM and I wanted to run on campus for a minute. It turned out everything was under construction! The entire upper quad, which was built when I was a freshman (after much contention and many delays) was being redone; the Library had asbestos removal amidst a full renovation (going on year five, I think?); and the legendary Sturges Hall had all the windows covered in plastic (which makes Mary and me nervous because it was such a classic old building before. A little rough around the edges, maybe, but hopefully they leave the character). It was a little sad and I can't imagine how it feels to be a student right now. We just caught quick glimpses and hopped back in the car. We headed from there to Avon, grabbed the donuts (and cinnamon rolls and a couple cookies), and headed to pick up Jacob at the arena, where he'd been hanging out while Craig was at training camp. We came home and had a cobbled together dinner before a quiet evening. But what a day it had been!
