January

Saturday the 1st was New Year’s Day and we were still in Boston, so we slept in a bit, then drove home (with a stop at White Castle, naturally). Sunday Jill kicked off cookie sales with this note: “Nina is going camping for the first time this year as a girl scout and is super excited! Her troop is also raising funds to try for a bronze award; so far their community projects have included making blankets for the shelter and decorating memorial rocks for our community memory garden for those we have lost through Covid at the senior living community. Thanks for your support”. Monday Nina was scheduled to be back at school, but Mother Nature had other ideas and we got a lot of snow. In fact, she was off all that week with another storm on Thursday. Friday we got Bollywood Bistro (Jill’s favorite) and worked on Jill’s Christmas gift, Lego Winnie the Pooh.

Nina

Saturday the 9th Jill and I had debated going to see Fortune Feimster at the new Capital One Hall, especially with the neighbors at the next 3 houses all positive and everyone back at school and work, but this graphic sealed the deal for me, and so we went to show #1 (also with Caitlin Peluffo). Glad we did, everyone was well masked in the theatre and she was hilarious.

Jill Nina

Saturday the 15th we had tickets for concert #2: Eddie From Ohio at the Birchmere. But vaccinated without masks required and still in the middle of the Omicron surge meant that Jill didn’t feel safe bringing Nina, so I went by myself. I loved that Julie changed the lyrics of “Old Dominion” again to “Baseball season’s over, and our football team is crap, so wintertime means Washington and rootin’ for the Caps”. They finally stopped burning CDs of the show that night, and instead started offering a download card for sale. Tuesday the misheard lyric of the day was: “I ate the sharpest tool in the shed”.

Eddie From Ohio

The new governor in Virginia had decided to lean into his far-right politics, and decided to issue an executive order prohibiting mask mandates in schools as soon as he got into office. So on Wednesday I shared a petition for Fairfax County parents to make their voices heard. I also shared a link to help fund a lawsuit against the executive order. Then on Thursday I seconded this.

Kerry Nina

Friday the 21st we got takeout from the final of the three open restaurants in Reston Station, Big Buns. And apparently saved the best for last, as we were all raving about our meals, especially Nina who got the Unicorn Shake (all the shakes were good). Sunday Nina made her own breakfast for a Girl Scout badge (fruit smoothie, scrambled eggs, and a frozen waffle). Tuesday we got takeout from On The Border for a PTO fundraiser.

Nina Jill

Friday the 28th Nina had her school picture taken and we got takeout from Cooper’s Hawk and Nando’s (I ended up getting Nando’s because Cooper’s Hawk has no low sodium entrees – or to be more accurate has only high sodium entrees). That night I shared the Peacemaker opening sequence to my buddy Eric. His wife had called me saying he was back in the hospital with pneumonia and might go on a ventilator that night, and he asked me if I’d seen the new Spider-Man and I told him he needed to get better soon so we could chat about this hilarious show and its extensive use of hair metal (5 minutes on Hanoi Rocks alone in the previous episode).

Unfortunately she called me the next day that he hadn’t made it through the night, so I shared “RIP Eric Kader. Friend, brother, roommate, record store co-owner, concert buddy. Gone too soon.” Sunday I had mentioned that when Eric and I went to Woodstock ’94 we had a four hour wait for a shuttle. Someone in line had a bottle of Goldschlager and we shared it while we waited. I got a nip of Goldschlager when we opened Jill’s birthday piñata in 2020, and I figured that night was the perfect time to drink it.

cocktail

That day also marked the end of Wizards Unite, the Pokemon Go style mobile app set in the Harry Potter universe. We finally finished the Harry Potter film series, which we started in August 2018 by listening to the audiobook first and then watching the movie. Then we watched the 20th anniversary of the movies special on HBO. I think we’ll have a conversation in the future of separating art and the problematic artist, but I think for now we’re done with that universe.

Nina

Throughout January, Nina had been preparing for Broadway Night, a selection of jukebox musicals presented by the South Lakes High School Chorus. They invite all the South Lakes Pyramid schools, and all the elementary students were singing the Go-Go’s “Vacation” as well as appearing in the “On Your Feet” finale. Nina started the month with twice a week rehearsals, but with one week to go, she was rehearsing every day and some days going straight from school to school. We felt we were getting a taste of high school and things to come. Also in January, Jill and I both joined the Wordle viral craze.