Jun 28
Well, the kids are now NYC-official, as D made multiple trips to New York last weekend and shared a bit of his home city’s magic with Munchkin and Junebug. Technically, they’ve set foot within New York’s city limits before — S’s aunt lives in the far reaches of Brooklyn, and we paid her a visit a few years back. That hardly counts as a trip to the city in D’s book, however. This past weekend, on the other hand, checked the box in a big way.
The ruling was no less shocking for being widely anticipated. The path — from the smug lies told during Senate confirmation hearings, to the oral arguments in Dobbs, to the leaked draft opinion previewing the Court’s decision to turn the clock back on fifty years of constitutionally protected privacy and reproductive rights — was straight and entirely predictable.
The event cancellations piled up quickly following our positive diagnoses, the kids’ social calendars — which are a lot fuller than ours — taking a particularly heavy hit. We were planning to return to Uvita, where Munchkin’s soccer team was to play their last away game of the season, but had to scrap our travel plans even before he got sick. Munchkin was the last in the family to come down with COVID, but once both of us tested positive, there was no one to take him. Even as we canceled playdates, lessons, after-school activities, and — most painful for the kids — their end-of-academic-year celebrations, we couldn’t help but thank our lucky stars that we got sick when we did.
Jun 20
After two years, our COVID bingo card was nearly full. We’ve experienced full-scale lockdowns and completed post-travel quarantines. We’ve double-masked, worn face shields, and submitted our vehicle and luggage to pointless disinfection protocols. We’ve done virtual school and homeschool, socially distanced outdoor playdates, and remote telework. We’ve taken more PCR and antigen tests than we’d care to count. And, of course, we got inoculated as soon as vaccines became available. The one thing missing from our COVID bingo card was actually contracting COVID, which is of course a good thing, though we always knew it would be a matter of when, not if. As of a couple of weeks ago, we can now check that box as well.
Jun 12
Newton famously wrote that if he could see further it was only because he was standing on the shoulders of giants. A similar thought strikes D every time he takes a walk alongside another serious ornithologist — whether they be a naturalist guide or simply an experienced birder intimately familiar with the local fauna. Even after a decade of birding, D can’t help his impostor syndrome. Other birding enthusiasts can identify birds by sound and seem to know exactly where to find particularly reclusive species — local knowledge D has never developed in part because he has no ear for discerning birdsong and in part because we move around so much. And yet, because we move around so much, D also has had opportunities to expand his life list that many more skilled birders can only dream of.
Today marks an interesting crossroads — an anniversary of new beginnings of sorts. Three years ago today, S flew to the Philippines with our kids for the start of her first Foreign Service assignment while D remained in Washington to start a new job that had taken six months to lock down. In those pre-pandemic days, the position was somewhat of a unicorn — a Washington assignment with the option for full-time remote telework to be carried out overseas. The only catch was that D had promised to start and spend a few months in DC to onboard — the final ace in the hole he had played to secure what has proved to be his favorite assignment in our eleven-plus years in the Foreign Service. Today was also D’s last day in this role, a bittersweet moment rendered no less emotionally confusing by his decision to remain in the same bureau in a new capacity.
There was no Volcanic Tournament the first time D lived in Costa Rica, but there was a fledgling Ultimate frisbee scene, largely dominated by expat players. This was in the days before social media had taken over our lives, and D stumbled upon it entirely by happenstance — a Tico who played saw D tossing a frisbee at Manuel Antonio and invited him to join the twice weekly pick-up games. Two decades later, Costa Rica has four full-fledged homegrown teams and organizes one of the most fun hat tournaments in the hemisphere. D, who has been traveling a ton during our first six months in Costa Rica, blocked off the month of May to ensure he’d be able to participate in the Volcanic Tournament.
For a few months it felt like Nikon was gaslighting us. “Your camera has been refurbished, cleaned, tested, and confirmed to perform to spec,” read more than one notice included with our repaired camera, which most assuredly did not perform to spec after multiple repairs.
After spending several days at the Arenal Observatory with D’s parents in April, we returned to La Fortuna over the Memorial Day weekend so that D could play in the Volcanic Tournament — Costa Rica’s premier Ultimate frisbee event, which combines locals and players from outside the country onto mixed teams for a weekend of hard-fought and fun competition.
towels packed, will travel 