July

Our month got off to a quiet start because Oscar was at sleepaway camp (a fun but exhausting experience for our little only child, who struggled with how much noise his nine cabinmates could make). Rather than get up super early to drive out and pick him up, Jeremy and I decided to celebrate our twenty-second anniversary a little early by spending the day relaxing in a nearby town and having a fancy dinner. We got a room in a little lodge in the middle of nowhere, which meant we didn't hear a single firework the night of July 4th. It was a nice break from work and noise.

Oscar had one last camp– one of his favorites, a nature camp that this year involved archery, climbing, and caving– and some nice afternoons bouncing at the trampoline park (the summer membership turned out to be a very good investment).

We got hit by a massive hailstorm in early July. We had heard that this area gets bad hail storms, but we really didn't know what that would look like until it happened. It absolutely trashed our garden. Poor Turtle was distressed for a whole day after the hail finally stopped. At first, we thought we had gotten lucky and had minimal damage to the house and cars, but it turns out that we'll have to have the roof replaced. Also, both of my car's tail lights cracked, and when I took it in to have those fixed, they somehow broke my tailgate (?!), so that's been a fun adventure.

We got started on some home renovations by repainting the entryway, hallway, and dining room. Next up, we're tackling the kitchen– new counters and backsplash, extending the cabinets, and replacing all of the (weirdly enormous) hardware. We haven't remodeled a kitchen since Oscar was born (that remodel was supposed to be finished long before he was born but actually ended up extending into the first couple of weeks after), and that one was an exhausting, taken-down-to-the-studs exercise. This one is hopefully going to be a lot easier. And shorter.

Oscar, Jeremy, and our friend Shawn spent a weekend in Denver at the Punk in the Park festival. I don't remember the names of most of the bands, but I do know Bad Religion was there and Propaghandi wasn't. It sounded like they all had a really good time.

The dogs continue to be adorable. Nutmeg now weighs almost seventy pounds and her coloring is changing rapidly, but she is just as sweet as ever, and Turtle is still being a great big brother.

We wrapped up the month with a long road trip to (mostly) Utah. We saw six national parks, plus Monument Valley and the Coral Pink Sand Dunes, and we also found time to stop and see a production of The Importance of Being Earnest and to check out this incredibly weird thing called Dreamwalk in Salt Lake City. There was too much to say and too many pictures to add here, so the road trip is getting its own separate post.

Now we are counting down the days to the start of school and fifth grade, which seems impossible. Jeremy's dad is coming for a visit, and we're going to squeeze in a few last summer treats, but mostly the next two weeks are all about relaxing and soaking up the end of this summer.

Books:

• Doppelganger by Naomi Klein: A fascinating investigation of cultural doubling, inspired by the ways that Naomi Wolf's going off the rails had an impact on Naomi Klein. As Klein spins out what she sees as the larger implications of her personal experience, she draws some really fascinating (and sometimes really tenuous) connections that at the very least made me think differently about political messaging, personal branding, and how having been constantly mistaken for one of my friends throughout high school might have shaped my identity. (I do highly recommend meeting your doppelganger early in life.)
• The Fiction Writer by Jillian Cantor: Daphne du Maurier's Rebecca for dummies.

TV Shows:

• Department Q: Set in Edinburgh, my favorite place. Stars Matthew Goode, one of my favorite actors. And it offers a pretty novel take on cold case detectiving, which is not one of my favorite tropes. While Goode does a lot of heavy lifting here, the show wisely surrounds him with a really talented ensemble playing (mostly) very nuanced and interesting characters.
• The Summer I Turned Pretty: Season 3 started dropping in July, so I'm putting this here even though it isn't going to wrap up for several more weeks. I read the trilogy of books this show is based on probably a decade ago and, frankly, the show is a lot better, but the final book really saddles the show with an almost unworkable plot. Still, Laurel Park remains one of the most interesting moms on TV right now. (In my imaginary project about TV moms on teen shows, she gets her own chapter, alongside Nalini Vishwakumar on Never Have I Ever.)

Movies:

• Mountainhead: An angry little satire that is primarily committed to poking at the self-importance of rich techno bros. The four men hanging out in the title house (its name itself an indication of their sense of how clever they are) are supposed to be having a friendly poker weekend, but since one of them just unleashed new AI on his social media site that has immediately been weaponized on a global level, they're a little distracted– not by the lives being lost as misinformation leads to violence all over the place, but by the prospect of taking control of embattled countries. The cast here is great, and things go off the rails in surprisingly interesting ways, especially considering how slow the build up is at times.
• The Sky Is Everywhere: Based on possibly the most YA novel ever (seriously, it hits all the tropes), this movie is a visually imaginative adaptation that doesn't quite match the melancholy of the text but does instead bring some interest to a fairly mundane story. I was drawn to it because it includes Jason Segel as the protagonist's Uncle Big, my favorite character in the book--and while he doesn't get a ton of screen time, he does give us a glimpse into what Nick from Freaks and Geeks might have grown up to be.

Oh, and I finally got back to work on my temperature stitch! I'm not caught up by any means, but here's an update: