Hans
4:34am
The five-year-old is yelling. He’s awake and wants to listen to something to calm him down. I shuffle in and turn on the BBC recording of “Winnie the Pooh,” then straggle back to bed, trying to keep the sludgy stream of my thoughts slow and thick. Sometimes, especially when I’m feeling stressed, I just stay awake after he wakes me up, and I can’t afford that, today.
I’m in luck. I sink back below the surface of uneasy sleep.
The sleep was weird, already. [two-year-old] has been sleeping badly in the past week due—we suspect—to some ongoing digestive issues, and woke up at 11 p.m. screaming and was unhappily awake until midnight. We thought it was unlikely that he was going to settle back down and sleep through the night in his own bed, and more likely that he was going to wake up constantly. When this happens, either me or Courtney sleeps in our bed next to the kid who’s going to need help throughout the night, and the other sleeps on the couch bed downstairs. I’m in bed with [2], which I was dreading but as it turns out, I feel bad for Courtney—he hasn’t woken up much, so I’m getting an okay night of sleep, and I know she doesn’t love sleeping on the couch.
6:56
Why did [seven-year-old] climb over his brother to get to me to ask if he and [5] can get up? Why not walk around to my side of the bed? What time is it? 6:56. Okay, they can go downstairs, but be careful, [7], Mom’s on the couch. [2] is still completely asleep.
Is it church day, [7] asks before he leaves, which is very thoughtful, because if it were, he would change before going downstairs, but no, it’s Saturday. We’re driving to New York to see Grandpa and Grandma and uncle P and his girlfriend S.
A few last minutes of the uneasy slumber.
7:12
Okay. I should get up. Jot some notes. Make some breakfast. See if Court needs to come upstairs and sleep a bit.
8:54
So I got up and made waffles and Courtney was able to eke out a few more minutes of sleep (I love this recipe, but Courtney is deeply suspicious of the amount of corn starch in it). I was pleased. We bought our waffle iron at a flea market in Delaware we went to with our neighbor Fred, and it’s taken a couple of attempts to get our technique calibrated. Truly, adult life is more complex than I expected; waffle machine technique?
I also made lattes, which I’m kind of embarrassed to admit, because it seems like probably grad students shouldn’t have espresso machines in their kitchens. But, like, we had Christmas money, and there was a sale. Anyway—I care deeply about proper milk texturing, as a result of having visited too many coffee shops as a young man (and having been a mediocre barista myself until the coffee shop succumbed to the financial crisis of ‘08-09) who cared deeply about the quality of their espresso, but appeared to believe that milk texturing was pretty much the same process as blowing bubbles into a cup of milk through a straw, but with really hot breath pushed really hard.
Anyway, I’m now sitting in the aftermath of the waffle breakfast. Courtney had some work stuff to take care of (she’s the administrator at our church, so Saturdays are full of errands to run). The bottoms of the leftover waffles are soggy.
9:20
A vague feeling of slipping momentum has come over me.
9:56
I was cleaning up from breakfast and doing dishes when [7] and [5] decided they needed a second round. Then I took some strawberries from [7] who took all of them, but [5] didn’t want them. Then [5] ate one bite. So then I was trying and failing to talk to him about how to ask for the amount he needs without coming on too strong. But I’m pretty sure I’m coming on too strong, so now I’m apologizing for coming on too strong and—
Now [7] arrives to inform me that the “change filter” light on the fridge is on.
I sarcastically suggest that he goes online and buys one. And then he used my phone to look up filters, which is an incredible way to handle it, and I got the filter out of the fridge to make sure we got the right one, and I ordered the filter he found and told him that he behaved much more maturely than I did, and I am reflecting that I literally could have just asked him to find one instead of being sarcastic.
Okay, so now the dishes.
[7] and [5] found jogging weights and are trying to figure out exercises.
10:15ish
This is where things start to fall apart—I start getting too busy to remember to keep notes and take pictures—I’m scrambling on the dishes. Courtney is scrambling at work; I’m trying to get the boys ready for the trip to New York. Courtney arrives at 10:30, and a new urgency spreads through our scrambling.
11:11
On the road. Right on Frankford, Right on Castor. 95 N.
We’re listening to a podcast about Greek mythology for the boys. [2] falls asleep almost instantly.
12:30
We’re not going to make it in time for lunch, and the adults need to pee. We pull off at a NJ Turnpike service plaza with Dunkin. The boys are sure they need donuts. It’s a kind of mini-vacation so we let them get donuts. They don’t eat the donuts. [2] nibbles icing, [5] takes two bites and announces he’s saving the rest for…sometime in the future; [7] eats half and says he’s full. I bite into the croissant sandwich and notice how I can taste the overheated electric components in the oven.
Oh, that’s the microplastics, maybe. I think. Like the flavor of the wood in smoked meat.
I hate and fear the New Jersey Turnpike. One time I ate something at a service plaza that rearranged my insides so completely that I thought I’d crossed an age-related threshold and developed an intestinal disease. Another time (or maybe the same time?!) they misread our PA EZ Pass and sent us a $200 fine. And then when we tried to contest it, they didn’t actually register our contestation, but they did send us a New Jersey EZ pass. Then two years later they sent us a $26 cancellation fee for failing to maintain the minimum balance.
Sometime after 1:00
I’m so tired. Not sleepy, but just weary. It’s been a long week, and [2] isn’t sleeping well. We’re on the Garden State Parkway, and it’s beautiful. I’m driving, but I should ask Courtney to take a picture for this record. Somehow I don’t - I think I’m just too tired. But the foliage that leans in toward the road is such an effervescent pattern of overlapping and interlocking yellows and oranges and reds.
The older boys don’t notice. We let them get out the Switch.
[NOTE: At this point, I forgot to take any more pictures of the day. Consequently, I’m supplementing this narrative with poorly-drawn digital images.]
Later, still on the parkway
WTF. We are approaching a toll plaza. There are many more open lanes in the plaza than there are on the road, but a surprising number of cars are abruptly changing lanes. Sometimes they’re turning sideways in the road to drive across two lanes. The issue appears to be that they don’t realize they can use their EZ Pass in the Full Service lanes. As soon as we’re clear of the tollbooths, the merge back down to two lanes is quick and easy and we’re on into the scenery.
2:00ish
Courtney’s brother lives in Peekskill, just over half an hour north of NYC. As we approach, the hills stretch and swell, the road begins to be punctuated by scenic turn-offs and trailheads, and to cross bodies of cold, running water or creep along their banks. Again, if I hadn’t been distracted by driving, by my exhaustion, and by anxiously tracking the Ohio State game, maybe there’d be a photo, here.
3:00ish
Up the hill in Peekskill, around a few familiar corners and into the visitor lot at Brother’s complex. As we struggle out of the van, shaking ourselves and shaking off a bad mood that somehow settled on the car, scenery notwithstanding, Grandpa pops out from a nearby row of cars, and the boys are immediately excited.
After the hugs, we give Uncle P the “Pennsylvania moonshine” Courtney bought on Friday, and we all sample a little. It’s tasty, but maybe too sweet. For a while, the grandparents are in the living room with the boys, and the four younger adults scatter ourselves in the kitchen, drinking coffee (I’m tiiiiiired), eating Grandma’s cinnamon rolls and catching up. I keep a surreptitious eye on the Ohio State game on my phone.
4:00ish
It’s P’s birthday, and he loves barbecue and whiskey, so as a group, we’re going to make a brisket chili recipe he found, using brisket from a nearby restaurant who claims their barbecue is Texas style.
I dice an onion, and it thoroughly gets in my eyes, and then I dice a jalapeno, and then after I wash my hands, I forget and touch my eyes with my jalapeno fingers because I’m still crying from the onions. P and Grandma are mostly relegated to giving the rest of us directions, which leads to lots of “Yes, CHEF!” Gordon Ramsey/The Bear parodying.
I mention that my dad used to premix containers of his preferred chili spice mix. He once had chili at a restaurant in…Pennsylvania? Virginia? Someplace my extended family lives, that electrified him, and whose recipe was a family secret of the restaurant’s proprietors. He immediately set out to recreate it on Sunday afternoons, the only day of the week when he wasn’t working at the fabrication shop or trying to keep our cars alive or both. He eventually abandoned the project of recreation and instead concentrated on elevating and extending the form. He stopped doing it eventually–it was an elaborate, exacting process that consumed his Sunday afternoons whole.
P opens a bottle of Laphroaig he bought in Scotland last year. We’re sipping as the chili simmers. He asks if the white beans are really necessary. I remember that my dad eventually completely eschewed beans, in favor of lentils and split peas.
I ask S why they have two portable microscopes on an end table. Oh, she says, those are gifts for the older boys. She bought them for some friends of hers and they already had some, but she thought the boys might be into it.
5:00-6:00
Dinner. The chili is really excellent. The whiskey is excellent. The conversation is excellent. There’s only room at P and S’s dining room table for the adults, so the boys eat their chili at the coffee table, with a towel to protect the ground beneath them. I eat a bowl of the brisket chili, luxuriating in the umami. [2] needs a diaper change.
I change [2]’s diaper.
S brings out a cake for P; but it’s a fake cake she made out of styrofoam as a joke. Everyone is pleased. The real cake emerges, and everyone is even more pleased. The boys and I take turns trying to blow out the candle on the fake cake from greater and greater distances. I try to blow it out from the opposite end of the table and fail. I tell a story, and it takes awhile, but as I write this, I don’t remember what it was. P has a free trial of full self driving mode on his Tesla, and Grandpa loved it. I joke about the Cybertruck, and Grandma and S both burst out in a chorus of disparagement against them. S says she was driving behind one recently, and told her passengers to tell her when she needed to stop, so she could close her eyes rather than subject them to it.
6:15
Tomorrow’s a huge day, and it’s almost a three-hour drive back to Philly. We need to get going. P asks if Courtney and I want to take a ride in his Tesla. We say yes. I’m delayed leaving the apartment, and so I have to race down the stairwell to catch up to them before we leave, but I’m proud of my reflex to charge down stairs rather than waiting for the elevator, which would have been too slow. Humans 1, machines…
…Okay, the acceleration of the Tesla is amazing. Machines not so 0 as I thought. We take a little loop around Peekskill, and then P turns on the Full Self-Driving as we head home. Courtney is in the front passenger seat, chuckling in amazement. It’s very cool, but it feels strange. Like holding a flip phone for the first time and feeling the wave carry you forward.
Later
We’re finally out the door. It’s dark and crisp and down and to our right, we can see lights shining around the edges of the lake. We’ve said our goodbyes and hugged our hugs. The boys are in their pajamas. We pile into the van. We turn on the Greek mythology podcast. The boys ask if they can play the Switch. We laugh. We say no. They bust out the portable microscopes and start peering around in the gloom.
Somewhere, sometime–maybe when I was jumping down flights of stairs?--I thought I got a stitch in my side. But it’s not going away. It’s like a muscle strain in my ribcage.
“I can’t see my blood cells!” bellows [5]. Apparently the box promises that you can. I ask him if his blood cells are out and about for the microscope to see. Courtney points out that they need batteries for the microscope lights to work.
Courtney drives. I’m so, so tired, and I drank the moonshine and the whiskey and one of Grandma’s preferred alcoholic seltzers at supper.
In the van, Courtney and I chat about family, about relationships, about her siblings and mine. The fall foliage is hidden in the dark, and the trip slips by. Behind us in the van, the boys breath has settled into a rhythm. Tomorrow’s going to be a huge day.
We’re both tired, so it feels like it takes forever, but really, it’s not that long before we’re lurching through a sequence of familiar lights on Allegheny. Then left on Witte, straight across Clearfield, three more turns and we’re home.
10:45ish
The boys are asleep. I carry inside [2] first, pulling off his shoes between the door and the stairs. When I get back outside, Courtney carries [5], and I get [7] to wake up just enough to stumble across the van to the open door, where I pull him up and out. He nestles against me. I give them piggyback rides on a regular basis, but it’s been a bit since I carried him like this, and there probably won’t be many more times.
When the boys are rolled into their beds with their shoes off, water bottles close, fan and bedtime stories turned on, we shuffle back outside and crawl into the van to make sure the snacks, the Switch, the backpacks, the clothes, the leftovers from Dunkin, the assorted paraphernalia all get from the van to the house. I put leftover Dunkin bacon in the fridge, and Courtney tells me I shouldn’t. She’s right, but I still do it.
She asks if I need to sit on my phone on the couch for a bit before I come to bed and I say no, not this time. If I need to read a bit to settle down, I’ll do it in bed. My side hurts. Tomorrow’s a big day.
Hans is an Ohioan transplant in Philadelphia. He likes making stuff, thinking about stuff, sports, and soccer. He’s on Instagram at @hans.shenk.
