Liya nearing the finish of a race at the Hole in the Wall Invitational at Lakewood High School.
Liya’s 15th birthday was back in August, but fell during a week in which we were away from home, so she finally has a proper sleepover birthday party with her friends. She’s joined by her former SCDS schoolmates Anya S., Radha, Yula, and Zelia. They spend most of the evening doing craft projects with Japanese washi paper.
We have amazing fall weather for a week: perfectly clear, temps in the 60s, and beautiful foliage.
Anya’s 17th birthday. Angela and Jan call her during the day to wish her a happy birthday.
During the phone call, we ask if she needs any food. She laughs and says to another girl in the room, “My parents are asking if I need any food.” The other girl laughs and shouts, “No! She doesn’t need any food!”
Anya started out the year with some snacks in a drawer. She’s now received multiple care packages from Angela. Angela’s parents visited Anya recently, and apparently bought her some more food. Finally, Anya’s uncle Johnny and his wife also sent Anya some food.
Anya has now developed something of a reputation in her dorm for having a lot of food. “Do you now have a drawer full of food?”, Jan asks. “It’s more like 3 drawers full of food”, she replies.
It’s almost time for Choate’s Parents Weekend. We’ve been missing Anya, and are also looking forward to getting a little more detail about her life at school than we’ve been getting over the phone.
Jan flies out a day early, and spends the night at with his stepsister Anne and her husband Jon in Pleasantville. Their son Henry has just started at Columbia University, but their daughter Katie is still at home. She recently started 9th grade as day student at The Masters School — the same school Anne and her mom Marlee attended.
Jan and Anne visit Marlee at the memory care facility where she now lives. Marlee’s dementia continues to progress, which is heart-wrenching to see, but we have a great visit regardless. She’s happy to see both Anne and Jan — she knows we’re both good people she likes. Jan reads Marlee one of her favorite poems, “The Owl and the Pussycat”, by Edward Lear, and she’s delighted. We all go outside to enjoy the pleasant fall weather for a bit, then come back inside so Marlee can get some lunch.
Afterwards, Jan and Anne have lunch themselves at a diner in Pleasantville, and then Jan gets on the road to Choate.
Choate Parents Weekend begins. Jan checks in, then meets up with Anya at her dorm. It’s wonderful to see her again!
Anya’s been doing well, but she’s been very busy since the start of the school. She says that she’s currently on top of her classwork — but feels like, if she slips even a bit, it would be very hard to catch up again.
Anya invites her new friend Elaine to join Jan and Anya for dinner. To give them a break from dining hall cuisine, Jan takes them out to Roodle, a Thai-style restaurant in neighboring Meriden that turns out to be pretty good.
In the middle of the night, Angela and Bree arrive from the West Coast. (Liya has a cross-country meet this weekend, so is staying in Seattle with her grandmother.)
We spend the morning following Anya through an abbreviated form of her class schedule. She’s currently taking English, Physics, Mandarin, US History, and Linear Algebra. Her teachers are all solid; most seem excellent.
As we walk around the campus, Anya and Bree hold hands. When Anya sees a friend of hers coming along the path from the opposite direction, Anya shouts, “Hey <name>! This is my sister!”
In the afternoon, Bree hangs out with Anya in her dorm while Jan and Angela have parent-teacher conferences.
The conferences feel like speed dating: all the parents and teachers are gathered in a single big space, and parents get 8 minutes with each teacher before a bell rings and everyone moves to the next conference. It’s not ideal, but it’s at least sufficient to get a sense of how things are going.
In the evening, the four of us have dinner with the family of Jan’s own Choate classmate Helen, who also has a daughter at Choate now. Her daughter’s a senior, but it’s nice that the two girls had their time at Choate overlap a bit.
Liya has a great day at the Bi-District Championship Meet at South Whidbey High School. Her grandmother Lyn is there to cheer her on. Liya runs a fantastic race: among her teammates, she comes in 3rd, behind the two captains. She does well enough to qualify individually for the upcoming Washington State championship! Her school team also qualifies for State, so it’s a happy team day overall.
Although we’ve enjoyed beautiful New England fall weather the past few days, today a small storm hits the area. We make our way through rain and wind through another morning of classes.
After lunch at the dining hall, Jan meets up with Diana Beste, his former Latin teacher, and the only Choate teacher of his who’s still at the school.
With the conclusion of Parents Weekend, the four of us drive down to New York City to spend a short weekend together.
We have dinner at Hakkasan, a chic Chinese restaurant near our hotel. After dinner, we see The Play that Goes Wrong at the Lyceum Theater. The play’s a slapstick comedy: very silly, but makes us laugh so hard it hurts.
It’s been a few years since we were able to see our friends Fiona and Peter and their daughter Tallulah. They join us for a walk along the High Line park. Bree and Tallulah have fun playing in a section of the park where some girders have been turned into a playground.
We stop for afternoon coffee at Blue Bottle Coffee, then walk over to The Strand bookstore.
Our friends Owen and Nicole make a long slog into the city from New Jersey so they can join us at Scarlatto for dinner. They only live about 30 minutes away from midtown without traffic — but tonight it takes 3 hours. Owen and Nicole haven’t seen Angela and the girls for a while, so it’s spend time together.
We bought pumpkins over a week ago, but have been too busy to carve them. We’ve almost given up, but Jan rallies Angela and Bree on the night before Halloween to finally carve the pumpkins. We’re all glad we did — it’s fun.
Pumpkins! Clockwise from the top: Angela’s, Bree’s, Jan’s.
Bree and her friend Annabel go trick-or-treating in the Broadmoor neighborhood. Happy Halloween!