On the same day in April

Just as Millie and Phoebe had vastly different (and yet similar) days on the same day in March, Andrew and I are having vastly different experiences on the same day in April. And even as I was typing that last sentence our weekends got even differenter. 

He is in Chicago at MPSA (Midwest Political Science Association). 

I'm here at home.

He had lunch with Bonnie Goodliffe's son (who is a professor at BYU's Political Science Department so is also at this conference and reached out to Andrew for some networking).

I fed the kids tuna fish sandwiches for lunch, which I soon regretted when Phoebe had a coughing attack and vomited tuna fish salad all over the both of us while she was nursing.

This is the only gross picture in this post (unless you think lizard silhouettes are gross; there are a couple lizard silhouettes, too)

I helped Miriam through a meltdown over how many scales she has to learn for her next piano/organ recital (upwards of 90). (This point is related to Bonnie Goodliffe, who is an organist at temple square that Miriam has met before).

For dinner he went out and found some gooey Chicago deep dish pizza.

We had macaroni and cheese. From a box.

He went back to his quiet hotel room, probably watched a movie to relax, slept soundly without anyone kicking him or vomiting on his face one bit.

I had my very first poetry reading (with BCC Press). Phoebe was not interested in bedtime, so Miriam stayed up to help me juggle her. They played with playdough while I was reading and then I took Phoebe back from Miriam.

I finally had her settled at 11:00 pm and was just putting her down in bed when she vomited all over creation. And then we were up until 12:30 cleaning up that mess and calming down and getting resettled. And then she was up again by 1:30. We eventually settled into the chair for a few hours. And then I settled her into her bed so I could get up to make sure that Rachel was up and getting ready to head off with Grandpa, who was her ride to take the ACT (bless his little chauffeuring heart, and I mean that bless in the most genuine way possible (not the southern way)).

Andrew went to the Art Institute of Chicago.

He sent us this picture of Jackson Pollock's (untitled oil on linen, circa 1938–41) and said, "Look! I found Jason Potluck!"

You may have recognized the name Jason Potluck from our Easter Egg Smackdown. That's because Miriam decorated an egg in a very abstract way as a tribute to Jackson Pollock, but she called her egg Jason Potluck because she is terrible with names and mixes up all sorts of actors and artists and musicians and nonsense and comes up with names that are close but not quite right. 

One day she looked at all the scribbles on the easel that Phoebe (and Alexander) had made together and said, "Oh, very Jason Potluck of them." 

And we were all like, "What...?"

"Jason Potluck—the painter."

"Jackson," I said. "Jackson Pollock."

So now we casually refer to him as Jason Potluck at our house.

While I'm not hobnobbing it up this weekend (seriously—look at this hotel):

...It hasn't all been bad. Like I said, I got to attend my first poetry reading (as a reading poet rather than as an audience member). And I took the kids to the primary Easter Egg hunt this morning (Phoebe is sick, it's true, but all the kids have already gone through this cold that is really just a runny nose (Phoebe is done with that part) that turns into a post-nasal drip (this is the part that is causing Phoebe grief); there's no fever or anything...and we tested for COVID and it was negative...plus she's pretty keen on social distancing). 

Anyway, while I was uploading these pictures of me dealing with vomit and Andrew finding amazing pieces of art to look at, Miriam came to inform me that she and Rachel had a lizard in the light fixture of their bedroom ceiling. And sure enough they did!

Here's Phoebe reaching up to "touch" it:

Rachel was holding her up so she could reach the ceiling:

We opened up the light fixture and shooed the lizard (a five-lined skink) into a box so we could put it outside. There was a lot of screaming from our cinematographer (Miriam) and my co-animal wrangler kept trying to close her end of the light cage because she didn't want the lizard to come out her end (Rachel), but we go the lizard out and deposited it outside.

And this experience just kind of drove home the point that we are having such a different time than Andrew is!

The good that came of this was that Andrew decided we should buy a pass to Atlanta's High Museum because while it costs $16.50 to attend the museum (x7 for our family, so $115.50) we could buy a family pass for only $100. And unlike so many family passes around here, this pass was valid for two adults and all their children (rather than limiting it to two children, or four children, or whatever, as so many places do). So now we have plans to take the kids to the art museum.