Mersydotes

Growing up, I was fortunate enough to be very close with my maternal grandparents, and when I was in junior high and high school, I would see them every day.  Entering old age and adolescence are both difficult transitions, but there was a certain solidarity between us, and I knew my grandparents understood me more than anyone else.  All day long I would quietly glide through the school day hoping no one would really notice I was there, and the thought of coming home, seeing my grandparents, and then heading off either to my after school job or to my mother's old room to do my homework was the light at the end of the tunnel.  I could be me, and the world was suddenly bigger and more real than at school. I'm only just now realizing that food played quite a role in our relationship.  There was the summer I managed to grow exactly three peas and a single green bean under my grandmother's kitchen window, and the popcorn the three of us would munch as we watched Whe...

The weekend after our second full week here in Seattle, we woke up to a bright, clear Saturday with no clouds and no smoke taking away from the impossibly blue sky.  It was one of those days when you can feel the sun baking into your skin, but there's still refuge in the breezy shade.  And next to the water, things can be down right brisk.  I've heard that the summers here are short but precious, and I can see why- I've never seen such clear, clear skies in my whole life. So that morning we walked straight down the looonnnggg hill that takes us from our new home to the Puget Sound, and followed the signs for the ferry to Bainbridge Island.  We were all packed up with cherry tomatoes, mozzarella, boiled eggs, pretzels, and chocolate chip cookies (the Tate's gluten-free kind that are so good!).  The ferry pulled away from the pier with a deep bellow of its horn, and glided through the Sound until we reached Bainbridge about a half an hour later.  The islan...

Two weeks ago on a Thursday evening, Mr. Mersy came home and said he had Friday and Monday off of work.  It seemed like too good of an opportunity to miss for an impromptu summer vacation.  Where to go for a long weekend?  How about Canada?!  We thought it might be nice to escape NYC over the 4th of July and head somewhere nice and quiet.  So we hopped into the car on Friday morning, tossed a suitcase in the trunk, snuggled Penny in her bed in the back seat, and drove 6 hours north till we crossed the St. Laurence and reached Montreal.  Little did we know that we'd arrived not only on Canada Day, but also smack dab in the middle of the Montreal International Jazz Festival and the Quebec City summer fest- it was a hopping place indeed! Montreal In Montreal there were museums and botanic gardens and fireworks and street art galore. Quebec City In Quebec C...