The nicest thing you can do for yourself is eat a bowl of pho by yourself, very slowly.
My due date had come and gone. This was my last opportunity to enjoy a meal out, while I had one child.
They scheduled the induction that morning. Baby was over a week past his due date and seemed in no hurry to leave – peacefully floating in a sea of hazy amniotic fluid, snuggling his umbilical cord and snoozing away.
I ate lunch nearby at Pho Mai in Dinkytown near the University of Minnesota.
This was a month of reunions.
Two to be exact. But significant, nonetheless.
One was anticipated with great joy and the other, well, a surprise.
My friend Beth wrote about her great Iowa reunion tour. We shared two years of the Iowa chapter.
Beth and her husband tried to visit Minnesota earlier, but their plans got foiled by pandemic chaos.
Finally the stars aligned. Last month, their flights to MPS went smoothly, no one got sick. Suddenly we were heading to their hotel in Bloomington to meet.
I’ve said goodbye to a lot of homes.
With Jake’s job transfers, I was always the last one out the door. He was starting his new job in one state, while I tied up loose ends in the other.
I always felt introspective that last night while I sat in the empty home, alone.
The dog looked around befuddled, as he sat on his bed in the middle of an empty floor. Me, sitting crosslegged on the floor, eating takeout amidst the last bags and boxes. The TV packed up, so just my laptop playing some tunes and falling asleep to all of the echoes.
This move felt different.
The whole process of buying a house right now is wacky.
If you like a house, you have to put an offer on it. . .right away? No big deal just the biggest financial transaction of your life.
We’re moving to a nearby suburb. It’s closer to daycare, close to our parents, and the most affordable way to obtain some more space (unexpected baby coming this fall).
There are a lot of things that we’ll miss about living in the Mac Groveland neighborhood of St. Paul – most of all, our neighbors are really kind people.
We may not have spent time inside with family this holiday, but we did exchange food and gifts and Facetimed.
Of course it wasn’t perfect, but for being in the midst of a global pandemic, it was good enough.
It reminds me think of that Big Bang Theory episode where Leonard hauls around a virtual, mobile version of Sheldon on a screen to participate in life virtually from his room.
This year, our parents both prepared meals that tied in favorite family food traditions.
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