Category — Uncategorized

I kept seeing people link to this site, but I didn’t really get it until I clicked over and started reading it. The explanation: “Edward Bellamy once imagined that music on demand would be ‘the limit of human felicity.’ A modern apartment is full of things that once drew the same kind of awe.”

Look around you right now. The everyday objects would be mind-blowing to someone living in another time, and the site walks you through quotes from an invention’s early days or wonder over getting food grown on far-away soil.

But what was eye-opening, to me, was that so many of the quotes were from the 1800s. You forget that the world went through such drastic change in the 19th century. And then think about the change that happened the century after that. The inventions that went from being in select spaces to in our homes to in our pockets. It puts the current day into perspective.

Anyway, I found it super interesting.

While we were at the beach, my flip-flops snapped. I love these flip-flops; they’re one of the last things I have from BlogHer. I’ve already hot-glued them back together once, and I knew I could do that once we got home, but in the meantime, I didn’t have shoes. But I was in a beach town. Surely I would be able to get beach shoes.

The first store did not have flip-flops in my size, but they started at $20 and only went up from there. The second store had flip-flops in my size, but they were $55. For a pair of super ugly flip-flops! I was going to give up and see if the hardware store had duct tape I could use to repair them when I decided to duck into a third store while Josh ordered dinner. This store had the most hideous beach slides for $11 (win!), but as I was about to bring them to the register, I looked down and saw a bin of flip-flops for $1.99. I took them up to the cashier, and she told me they were indeed only $1.99 because they had a weird stain that looked like spilled soda. Yes, I would like these stained flip-flops for under $2. I walked out feeling like a queen.

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I enter Goodreads giveaways all the time, but I rarely win. Until I do. I won a giveaway for the new Maureen Johnson book, The Velvet Knife. I haven’t won a giveaway since 2024. Thank you, Goodreads!

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What would be the third thing? If the flip-flops were on the weekend and the Goodreads book was mid-week, would I end the week with one final win?

Yes. Yes, I would.

There are Great Western Railroad posters up in train stations offering “delay pay” if your train is over a half hour late. We have had plenty of delayed trains over the years, but this time, Josh decided to submit a claim and see what happened.

GWR accepted the claim (the train was more than a half hour delayed getting to our destination), and sent us paper train vouchers, which would have been awesome if they had no expiration date, but they did. And they were going to expire a few months before our next trip. There wasn’t enough time to mail them to the Wolvog, who was still overseas, and we couldn’t transfer them outside the family.

Josh asked them if they would refund us in cash, and we went back and forth for weeks, proving we destroyed the vouchers, filling out more paperwork, etc. Finally, more than two months after our trip, we received our delay pay! My third win in a single week.

Epic.

The Washington Post had a somewhat great opinion piece on Dolly Parton last week, pointing out that “She was a reassurance … that parenting is far from the only way to invest in the kids who are all of our future.”

I say somewhat great because the repeated framing (emphasis mine) is that she hadn’t wanted kids.

• “She was a vocal nonparent who nevertheless cared greatly about kids.”
• “She was proof that a person could be an advocate and friend for children while personally choosing against parenting.”
• “She was a reassurance that voluntary childlessness doesn’t reflect inherent selfishness.”
• “Parton was a hero in ‘child-free’ circles, too, for publicly recognizing the choice to not parent as a valid and rewarding one.”

The writer acknowledges, “In the early years of her 58-year marriage to Carl Thomas Dean, Parton has said, she tried unsuccessfully to get pregnant.” But then goes on to keep repeating this narrative of they didn’t want to parent, which feels like they’re only telling part of the story, which is closer to they wanted, they couldn’t have, they made a choice based on that information, and they lived happily ever after.

Dolly saw the positives in not having children, felt at peace with the decision, and was even happy that things happened as they did. But her story was never, “Nope, never wanted to parent and glad I stuck with that.” Life is more complex than what can be contained in a handful of quotes.

And I kind of wish they had also used the space to point out that there are so many reasons a person wouldn’t have children along with so many ways we can all invest in the future generation.

We went to the beach because it was going to be the last summer to go to that particular stretch of beach. Nature had been washing out the parking lot, and the town finally decided to give up trying to save that patch of land and instead spent the last two years moving the beach a mile or two down the road.

It has been a long goodbye. We thought last summer was the last summer, but they pushed the move back one summer. We went to the beach last winter to watch them demolish the nature center. It has only been a few months, but the grass currently covers the old ground as if the building never existed.

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We went to the beach because it was going to be the last time we could go on the Haunted Mansion ride. We go every year for my birthday, and they announced this winter that they were closing the ride at the end of this summer and building a new Haunted Mansion ride using the original designer to open in 2028. I didn’t want a new ride. I wanted my janky old Haunted Mansion.

We got to the park over a half hour before the ride opened, but the line was already past the end-of-line marker. We got in the queue, and the woman in front of us commented that the entire state had shown up this summer to have one last ride. I love that thought; that we all made this pilgrimage across the marsh grasses and yellow sand to reach this ride, one last time.

Before we went, I thought we might go on a few times. But we got our one turn and left after I whispered goodbye to Frankenstein’s monster.

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We went to the beach because it was going to be the last summer I knew we would all be together. We weren’t even really together. We were mostly apart. But I really don’t know where they’ll be after they graduate. It’s like their senior year of high school x 1000. At least then I knew they would have breaks back at home.

I know we’ll still travel together, but we’ll have to make hard choices. If they have limited vacation time, we’ll have to choose whether they want to do A or B. We don’t know if we’ll all be able to take off at the same time. I hate not knowing how things will turn out.

Every summer since they’ve been two, we’ve taken the same photo in front of the same statue in the town center. We missed a year during the pandemic, but we mostly have a visual timeline from toddlerhood to grownupland. I made them stand in front of the statue when we went into town to pick up dinner. I didn’t care that we were all sandy from the beach, our hair frizzy and clothes sunscreen-stained. They stood side by side and smiled, and I snapped, wondering if we’d get to do it again next year.

I have been obsessed with going to Tivoli Gardens in Copenhagen, and 84% of the reason is the carnival game Galoppen. Everyone is assigned a horse in the “race,” and you roll balls to advance your horse. If the ball rolls into one of the holes, it jumps forward one, two, or three steps (depending on how difficult it is to reach the hole).

I’m not sure this video really captures the game, but it definitely captures the spirit of competition.

Anyway, I’ve wanted to go to Tivoli Gardens to play Galoppen. A few weeks ago, we were on the boardwalk at the beach — a beach only two hours from my home! — and what do I see but GALOPPEN IN AMERICA. My brain could not process that if I could elbow dozens of children out of the way, I was going to get to play Galoppen. And even better, with the exchange rate, a round of Galoppen at Tivoli Gardens costs over $3. And this Galoppen was a flat $2.

Josh told me I couldn’t elbow the children, so we had to wait two rounds to get four seats at the table. I plunked down $8, and we practiced our ball rolling skills while we waited for everyone to get settled. The announcers told us that we were going to be playing for a big horse stuffed animal, and she motioned to two choices: a grey one and a brown one.

“If any of us win, I want the brown one. Did you hear me? I want the brown one,” I hissed at my family.

And then… WE WERE OFF! I was rolling balls like my life depended on it. I didn’t even look up at my horse to see where it was on the board because (1) I was terrible at Galoppen, and (2) I was frantically hoping to get a ball in the red hole, which would advance it three steps. The buzzer sounded, and the announcer screamed, “We have a winner.”

It wasn’t me.

But it was Josh!

And I shook his arm and screamed, “The brown one! The brown one!” when they offered him a choice.

We all love the horse, who currently lives on the sofa. Except maybe Josh, who keeps asking if the horse really needs its own cushion.

It’s a good life reminder that you never know when something amazing will happen and then get even better.