#DisarmHate

Friends and family,

Indulge me, if you will, as I get on my soap box.  I feel compelled to do this as I try to process the horrible events of this past weekend in Orlando.  I promise I will try to keep it brief.


I have been unable to shake the feeling of deep sadness as the media covers the events in Florida.  The usual "healing" process that we all go through after one of these all too common tragedies isn't doing it for me this time.  This time, my sadness for the families who have lost innocent loved ones to senseless violence isn't fading away.  It has turned into anger. Anger at the fanatic who did this. Anger at intolerance. Anger at a congress that did NOTHING after 6 year olds were gunned down in their classrooms. Anger at the idiotic politicians who are using the shooting to sow the seeds of fear, religious intolerance and isolationism.  But mostly, I'm angry that I live in a country that affords easy access to guns that can take away so many lives in so little time. We can't control an individual's mental well being, we can't control if someone becomes radicalized, we can't control someone else's anger.  But we can control how easy it is for those unstable people to get their hands on a weapon that can end another's life.  We can.  But we choose not to.

Gun violence is not something that happens to other people.  A few years ago, a mentally ill man entered my office building brandishing guns and claiming to have a bomb strapped to his body.  Lucky for me, I was in NY the day he chose to make his stand, but my team spent 3 hours locked in a closet terrified that he would start a rampage in the building.  He took three hostages before he was killed by a police sniper in our lobby.  Turns out his guns were fake.  I hate to think of the story I would be telling if that wasn't the case.  Given the ease with which anyone can buy assault rifles in the US, it's a miracle.

At this rate, gun violence will affect all of us one way or another soon.  91 Americans are killed everyday due to gun violence. 91.  So I don't know about you, but I've had enough. If we can't send our kids to school, attend church, walk into our offices or a movie theatre or a night club without worrying about getting shot by someone who legally purchased a gun, something has got to change.

So if you are no longer satisfied with feeling shitty about this state of affairs, no longer okay with feeling helpless and hopeless as another mass shooting takes the lives of dozens of people, I implore you to do something about it. Please check out Everytown.org and pick one thing from their list of things you can do to have an impact.  Take 5 minutes to email your representative asking for common sense gun reforms (they have form letters, it couldn't be easier), give $5 to the cause, sign up to your local Moms Demand Action chapter and spread the word.

Do something and then tell your friends to do something. If we all demand action maybe something will change.

May Round Up

Normally May is one of my favorite months 'round here, with delightfully pleasant weather, namely abundant sunshine without the unbearable heat and humidity of June, July and August.  Alas, this year Mother Nature had other plans and delivered us a rainy and cold month, one for the record books.  We had something like 19 consecutive days of rain and rain 23 days out of the month.  And it was cold!  Boo.  Totally depressing and the worst part was we couldn't take advantage of our cute spring outfits.  By the time the rainy cold weather moved on, it was full on 90 degree summer here.  Not that we were complaining by the time it rolled around!

Gus and best bud Walter on a rainy afternoon field trip

Our month kicked off with what I now know was a first class trip to crazyville concocted by yours truly in a moment of bravery and delusion.  First, some background. For the past year, I've been volunteering on the board of an organization called the American Dance Institute, run by my childhood friend Adrienne Willis.  It's a wonderful non-profit that provides funding and other types of support to contemporary dance artists as they work to create new pieces.  It's been based out of the DC area for the last 20 years but under Adrienne's helm they are turning their attention to the New York region and building a dance campus in the Catskills (about 2 hours outside of Manhattan) to provide performers with a space to live, rehearse and perfect their craft before they take their shows, literally, on the road.

Anyhoo, the ground breaking event for this new space was scheduled to take place in Catskill, NY the first weekend in May and I thought, hey, why not take the boys up to NYC for the weekend and show them my favorite place in the world?!  They're old enough by now right??!  So I created an itinerary that involved training up to New York on Thursday, spending the night in Manhattan, training up to the Catskills on Friday, attending the ADI event and spending the night, training back to Manhattan on Saturday, spending the night, and finally, training home to DC on Sunday.  That's 4 trains in 4 days.  The dream of 6 and 3 year old boys around the world, no? We would have a few mornings to go sight seeing (Central Park, the LEGO store, the Empire State Building), grab some yummy meals out at our favorite places and take them up through the beautiful countryside of upstate New York...

And it would have worked by gum if it wasn't for the pesky weather and Matt throwing his back out on day 2, hour 1 of the trip! It was freezing and raining the ENTIRE time we were there and as you may know, Manhattan in the rain is a special kind of hell, involving no taxis, lots of people jostling with umbrellas, filth in the streets (more than usual) and general misery.  Add to it a crippled Matt (who will NEVER try to put a pull-out couch away again) and two little boys who, it turns out are NOT old enough to go to New York, and you have a generally crummy weekend.

The boys on the streets of the city were actually hilarious - folks in midtown are just not accustomed to seeing children (at all) and the boys apparently cannot walk in a straight line so it was just nuts.  They were jolting all over the sidewalk, tripping people up, giving us heart attacks and, of course, lingering over every subway grate they saw for what felt like hours.  Seeing New York through their eyes was quite something.  They loved riding in the back of taxis without having to be in car seats and were super hyper every time we took one.  They LOVED the subway, which I broke down and took them on when we couldn't get a cab to take us to the hotel one afternoon.  We stood on the platform for 20 minutes just watching the trains come and go.  They saw "bad guys" on the street - their name for sketchy dudes and the mentally ill.  They liked Grand Central and Penn Station and checking out all of the really cool rooms at the Harvard Club, where we stayed.  We saw our friends Ali Schwartz (and met her new baby girl Cate) and Laura MacNeil and The Mishurovs who live in Manhattan with their 3 year and 10 month olds and who wouldn't change it for the world.  I have much respect for the parents who can navigate that city with their little ones.  Not a joke.

Hank excited for his trip on the train

Gus posing as "Gus looking out the window"

At Rockefeller Center

With Dad in front of the cool pool installation at Rock Cener

The SUBWAY

So it was the best of times, it was the worst of times, we laughed, we cried.  We need to go back to actually go see Central Park, the Empire State Building and the LEGO Store.  Maybe in 5 years.

Gus finished up at his little preschool down the road from our house at the end of May and has been on summer vacay ever since.  I was sad for his year to end there - he had a wonderful teacher and a great little class of kids and we'll miss the community next year.  Hank had a bunch of school events in May including field day, a trip to a farm to go strawberry picking and a trip to a pond. Not to mention both boys in soccer.   It's been a busy time of year with schools wrapping up and I for one am looking forward to the more relaxed pace of summer!

At the pond...

Strawberry picking.  Best damned strawberries I ever ate too. 

Gus with his soccer trophy

Hank with his soccer trophy.  Yes, everybody gets a trophy.  Well, the kids whose parents pay $6 get a trophy but who's going to let their kid be the only one who doesn't get one!? What a scam. 

The girls are really coming out of their shells and displaying quite different personalities as they get older.  June, finally walking with ease, is our happy-go-lucky, calm, peaceful little lady.  She's contemplative, quiet and a sweetie. Dylan, who has been running at full tilt for a few months now, is fiery, feisty, quick tempered, loud and a chatterbox.  She is also a sweetie, but she knows what she wants and she isn't afraid to get it. Hopefully she will use these powers for good and won't dominate over her sister, but we shall see.  I can also see the dynamics between Gus and the girls shifting, with an unlikely alliance developing between Gus and Dylan, frenemies of old.  They are still mostly at odds with each other, but I see glimpses of a friendship developing that could be trouble.  I've caught them on occasion laughing like little evil imps together and I wonder what we have in store there...

Dylan looking like totally 80's

June and her twin babies

Unhappily sharing a bicycle not built for two.

Rounding out the month, we spent Memorial Day weekend at the cabin and hosted Alice and Brian as our first guests in the newly renovated place!  It was a great weekend, with the weather clearing up at last so that we could enjoy the lake.  A & B brought along their little dog, Bella, who was a hit with the kiddos.  The boys discovered that they can use the paddle boat by themselves and they spent a lot of time out on the lake enjoying their new found independence.  Can't wait for our next few weekends out there now that summer has arrived!

Gus and Hank get ready to head out on the water - Alice gets the photo credits for this section of the blog.

June and Bell

And finally, recipes for this month:

• Baked Snapper with Harrisa and New Potatoes - Bon Appetit.  Throw all of the ingredients on a sheet pan and voila, you're eating dinner. 
• Cashew Chicken - Martha Stewart's Great Food Fast. A solid weeknight meal, better for you than Chinese takeout. 
• Leek Carbonara - Bittman's Food Matrix.  I highly recommend checking out Mark Bittman's Matrix cookbook.  It's a fresh take on the concept, taking one ingredient or dish and giving the reader at least 12 different ways to prepare it. This was a nice twist on a pasta classic.  
• Roasted Greek Chicken - Bittman's Food Matrix. See above; twelve different ways to make delicious roast chicken. This was a winner. 
• BBQ Brown Sugar Pork Butt - Epicurious.  Delicious slow cooked pork on the Green Egg.  Could not have been easier.  

Hope that your summers are off to a good start!  xoxo