Well, that happened more quickly than I expected. Someone from my Dad’s birth family wrote back just a day or two after I messaged them. Last weekend they sent me their phone number. My Dad called and had a nice chat with a cousin. At some point, I will drive my Dad to his birth family’s hometown to meet this cousin, outdoors, in a park or something. We are still in a pandemic, after all. Hopefully, the cousin can convince some of the closest family members to join us. I’m keeping my expectations low. My Dad and I have lived our lifetimes full of unanswered queries. Some of them mundane, related to medical history. But also bigger, “who are we” type questions. Those may never be answered. I do wish my brother had lived long enough to see this situation unfold along with us.
Other bittersweet topics:
- In Chadwick Boseman Disabled Black Kids Got Their Superhero, The Tragedy Is We Didn’t Get To Know Him As Such. Also, this video got me crying. Pure black joy. Representation matters.
- OMG Kelly is back! Strange to think that Shoes was THE viral video of 2006. I remember when that was making the rounds at work and we were all roaring. This follow-up promotes mask-wearing and tackles family dynamics. And I shared it on Slack with a group of former co-workers, many of whom I worked with in the Shoes era.
- On Witness and Respair: A Personal Tragedy Followed by Pandemic
The acclaimed novelist lost her beloved husband—the father of her children—as COVID-19 swept across the country. She writes through their story, and her grief. - The last few years I’ve attended more comedy shows alone. It’s sort of a strange thing. But it was either go by myself or miss out on the live comedy show and comedy usually wins. Now that we’re in the pandemic, it makes more sense, healthwise, to go solo. So I got myself a ticket to an outdoor event. Corona Borealis: A Night of Comedy Under The Stars will have Winstead performing a comedy show in a drive-in movie setting at Crooners!
- Desperate to Leave Beirut, Young Lebanese Are Also the Ones Fixing It
The young people leading the huge volunteer effort after the recent blast are bringing hope, but have lost it themselves. “I want to at least have Beirut on its feet before I go,†one said.
Last weekend I explored a suburban park I’d never been to. I had the place mostly to myself as I walked around a lake with some neat wooden walkways. On the way home, I found a vegetable stand where I picked up six amazingly delicious ears of sweet corn and some berries. The sweet corn was gone in under 24 hours. The raspberries seemed like they would go bad quickly so I transformed them into a delicious simple syrup. Now that it’s September we have to squeeze out the last bits of summer joy before the winter ahead. And planning for our long pandemic winter has me looking up different workout videos and tracking down kicksleds for sale.
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