This term Liya has been participating in a student dance group. They’ll put on a performance just before the end of the term. (Liya’s seated in the photo, the fifth person from the left.)
Our oldest child announces their new name: Evan. The child formerly known as Anya came out as transgender in February, and began transitioning over the summer. Evan goes by he/they pronouns.
Bree’s favorite show these days is “Critical Role”, a weekly live-streamed Dungeons & Dragons campaign. One thing distinguishes the show is that each member of the cast is a voice actor; they bring that skill to their roleplaying.
The show has a 4-hour live stream D&D session on most Thursdays — one of the show’s many catchphrases is, “It’s Thursday night!” During Thursday dinners, Bree will keep her eye on the clock to make sure she doesn’t miss the start of it. If she does, she’ll have to wait four days for the recorded session to appear on Critical Role’s YouTube channel.
This can give rise to some conflicts of interest. When Bree is reminded that Liya and Evrim are coming back to Seattle next week, she’s delighted. But when she realizes that they are coming on a Thursday evening, she’s torn. Meet them at the airport? Or stay home and watch Critical Role? What to do?
Evan returns from his term abroad studying in Santiago, Chile.
Skye and Jared come up from Salem with their boys for a quick pre-holiday weekend visit. They arrive by train late in the evening; some miraculously, the Amtrak train is only 20 minutes late.
In the late morning, we head downtown with Skye’s family. Our first stop is dumplings and noodles at Din Tai Fung in Pacific Place. After lunch we head to Pike Place Market to pick up ingredients for a fondue dinner. Leif and Auden are focused on visiting Golden Age Comics, where they’ve heard they can acquire more Pokémon cards.
Skye shares a story she remembers from when Anya was a toddler. One day, while Skye was watching Anya, Skye prepared a banana as a snack for Anya. Skye sliced the banana — which greatly upset Anya, who wailed that she wanted a whole banana. Bypassing the sliced banana, Anya reached for a second, whole banana, but Skye insisted Anya eat the sliced banana first.
Anya ate the sliced banana.
Skye: “Okay, now you can have a second banana. Do you want it whole or sliced?”
Anya [quietly]: “Sliced.”
Before Skye and her family have to head back to Salem, we go to Elliot Bay Book Company, eat lunch at the taqueria across the street, then do a short walk in the Arboretum before heading to the train station.
A severe cold snap hits the country just as Liya and Evrim are setting out from the East Coast to Seattle. Evrim takes the train from Providence to New Haven, where Liya gets on board, and the two continue together to Newark. Somewhat miraculously, their flight leaves on time.
Jan and Angela leave the house in the evening to meet Liya and Evrim’s flight — but on the drive over Madison Hill out of the neighborhood, Angela’s car makes ominous sounds. Pulling over, Angela discovers that her car’s right front tire is completely flat. Jan sets to jacking up the car and putting on the spare tire while Angela runs back to the house to make the airport drive in Jan’s car.
Happily, Liya and Evrim’s flight makes it safely to Seattle. Meanwhile, Jan manages to get the spare tire on despite the bitter cold and get Angela’s car back home. We’re thrilled to have everyone back home for the holidays.
An overnight ice storm has left the entire city covered by a quarter-inch layer of slick, glassy ice. Angela sets out early to get her flat tire fixed, then immediately comes right back in. “It’s a skating rink out there.”
No one’s going anywhere today.
A Christmas Eve to remember. The overnight weather warmed up and turned to rain, so by morning all the ice on the roads has melted. Jan gets Angela’s tire replaced so that we once again have two working cars for the evening. Angela drives Jan’s car to Buckley in the afternoon to begin getting ready for the evening service.
In the late afternoon, Jan collects Lyn in Angela’s car, then returns home to shop for dinner and begin cooking a dinner we’ll finish cooking at the church manse. With that prepped, everyone (Jan, Lyn, Evan, Liya, Bree, and Evrim) piles into Angela’s car for the drive to Buckley. Angela’s got the oven preheated so we can finish cooking the Christmas Eve dinner Jan’s brought from home. It’s a little tricky cooking in a different kitchen, but the meal comes out okay.
The Christmas Eve church service goes smoothly, and concludes with a candlelit “Silent Night”. After the service, Jan switches cars with Angela so he can drive Lyn home. Jan and Lyn walk out to Jan’s car, which Angela has parked under the manse carport. They get into the car, and then Jan begins backing out of the driveway.
At this point things go very wrong. The back end of the car drops suddenly, slamming down into something hard.
Getting out of the car, Jan discovers… there is no driveway connecting the carport to the street. The cement ends suddenly, and the back of Jan’s car is now hanging off the end of the cement, about a foot above a grassy yard.
Angela hadn’t driven the car forward from the street into the carport. She had backed into the carport from the alley in the middle of the block. Jan hasn’t really spent much time in the manse, and in the darkness had just assumed the carport was connected by a driveway. This driveway does not, in fact, exist.
He tries gently backing the car off the cement, but the front of the car ends up caught on the cement. The front wheels are barely touching the lawn, and can’t get enough purchase to back up further.
Jan heads inside to get help, and Angela comes out with a collection of men from the church. They’re very nice to offer their assistance. One could go so far as to say that they’re delighted to take up an engineering puzzle involving a stuck car. One man immediately goes off to get his giant truck and tow cable. Others begin to, variously: try pushing on the front of the car, fetch boards to stick under the tires, or stand back while offering suggestions.
Jan jacks up the front of the car and then people jam boards under the front tires. Jan tries slowly backing up as a group of people push the front of the car. The car slowly topples backwards off of the car jack and settles on the ground. Somewhat miraculously, the front of the car does not tear itself off on the edge of the cement. The car is now safely on the lawn, so Jan can just drive the backwards across the lawn and diagonally over the curb (no driveway = no curb cuts!) onto the street.
Everyone cheers. (Except possibly for the nice man with the giant truck who didn’t get a chance to use his tow cable.) After a bit of cleanup, everyone can head off to their homes for a quiet Christmas Eve.
Back at home, Jan tells Angela: “I’m sorry, but… no one is going to remember your Christmas message.”
Merry Christmas! Jan picks up Lyn in the morning, and Angela prepares a Christmas breakfast. We open presents in the late morning. Some of the best are the many things Bree has handcrafted: a red Blåhaj shark for Evan (to go with Evan’s growing collection of the Ikea-branded sharks), a pair of “brush buddies” for Liya (essentially furry mammalian snakes, from the manga, “Witch Hat Atelier”), and a small model of the Buckley Community Presbyterian Church for Angela.
Christmas Day walk with Evrim, Liya, Angela, and Bree.
Evan gives Bree a short haircut.
Jan completes a big Lego lighthouse model he received for Christmas. He’s happy that Angela, Evan, Liya, Bree, and Evrim all helped put the kit together.