My mother traced a branch of my family back to before the Revolutionary War and we are still amazed by that because all the family stories are about the immigrants. The part of the family that was presumed to have immigrated more than 4-5 generations back was said to be Scots, Grandma even claimed a tartan, but mom has found no evidence of that, just a 17th century English sea captain and most of his descendants leaving very little record of any kind. I like to think I have inherited that flair for anonymity and obscurity.

High School Newsflash: A boy has made Matilda a Spotify playlist for her birthday.

I mean, it's not as much work as a mixed tape but the impulse sure seems similar.

One reason we had a big dinner for Emmett's birthday this year is that Matilda jettisoned us from birthday party duties this year, preferring to get together with her friends and roam and whatnot. So my total contribution (aside from presents) will be to hand her a $50 bill and tell her to treat all her friends to ice cream.

But that's tomorrow.

The new-to-you sister thing is so exciting, Sophia!

We've discovered that if we buy a certain amount of property in Greece we can get a Greek passport, and then EU citizenship. Considering JZ's family over there it's viable and tempting.

Heck, even without family, that would be great. I loved my trip to Greece.

My most recently immigrated ancestors are from Finland, but I’m one generation past where it would be easy to repatriate. Which is a shame, as I love cold weather and socialism.

A boy has made Matilda a Spotify playlist for her birthday.

Sweet!

My ancestors, and some living relatives are in Ireland. DH's father was Canadian so that would be easy enough. Still hoping that the political situation here improves rather than devolving into civil war.

Had luncheon with my childhood friends today. Hadn't seen one in 60 years. The only reason I stay with the Evil FB is for those connections.

All my ancestry that I know about came over from the British Isles and Ireland in the mid 1800s, so I don't have any citizenship options. Guess I'll just have to settle for a mohawk and hockey pad armor when the time comes.

Turns out, my people have been in America a loooooong ass time, and not even remotely in the blue-blood kind of way. Carpenters and military, of no real renown, as far back as the mind can reach.

Yup. We've came over in the 17th & 18th centuries. Probably indentured servants. Mostly Britain.

We're going to shoot for a nomadic retirement, if our health holds out. Portugal is high on the list.

A boy has made Matilda a Spotify playlist for her birthday.

NICE.

Owen made me spotify playlists of all his radio shows since I couldn't listen to all of them.

No recent immigrants in my family. I think I'll be dead before things get really bad here, so there's that. I mean I could just retire somewhere else and return to the US whenever required by their immigration laws. If Ethiopia ever stabilizes mac could probably move back if he ever wanted.

Getting back into knitting and loving it, but I'm about to drop hundreds of dollars on yarn for 4 projects I've picked out to practice patterns. The yarns are all part of a Bridgerton themed color series.

Birthday week continues: Matilda is 15 today.

Her friend Mia slept over, and she will eventually roust herself and ditch her family to socialize with friends all day.

and she will eventually roust herself and ditch her family to socialize with friends all day.

As is right and proper. Hard to believe she is 15.

In grown children news, I took the clippers to my son's head Friday. His hair was probably waist length, but he had ruined it. Early in the summer, he worked in a distribution warehouse where he had to completely bind his hair and it was often in the 90s in the place. His hair ended up getting matted and his neglect of dealing with it made it get worse and worse. When he visited Friday I asked if I could attempt to untangle it, and he agreed. After about 45 minutes I told him it just wasn't possible. He asked if I had clippers and I took it down to about 1/2 inch all over. His beard is still several inches long! He has very thick glorious hair, and it will grow back. It probably hurt me more than him! Grateful that he let me fix it.

Matilda and Mia are stirring, with the assistance of caffeine and carbs, in her room and Hec is constructing something tasty but less carb-y for us grown-ups, also with the assistance of caffeine.

She was completely unconscious earlier this morning, so I went to church solo, and y'all it was SO GOOD. I'd say it was like a religious experience except that's what it literally was! Guest priest, a graduate student at Cal Berkeley getting his master's in non-profit administration, talking about his experiences in North Africa tending to refugees and asylum-seekers, many of whom settled to rebuild their lives where they were but some of whom attempted nighttime crossings to Europe and lost their lives. It made him look hard at what aid groups in his host country and back in Senegal were doing, and he decided to come to the US and get a master's so he could go back home and do something concrete for his fellow Senegalese, not just in the hereafter but in the here and now.

(I'd just been listening to a Reveal podcast about Médecins Sans Frontières and its struggles with *severely* different working and living conditions and pay scales for European vs. citizen medical staff, and about how it's one of many nonprofits that are absolutely well-intentioned but still structured in a very colonizer-centric way; it was amazing to go from the podcast to a real person standing a few yards from me telling the same story and repeating the same hard truths.)

(Also, he noted that his name is French but he is not, it's just that the French colonized Senegal for centuries, which put me in mind of Tahani saying, "Don't you just love the French?" and Chidi's reply, "Well, they enslaved my people for four hundred years, so, no.")

And at the very end, after the service had ended, two guests stood up--friends of two former parishioners who had died some time ago and for whom this mass was being said--and sang their favorite songs: Danny Boy, The Parting Glass and Amazing Grace. It was the first time since before Covid that I'd heard trained singers singing just for the sheer joy of the sound (cantors at church singing liturgical music, but not pure proper singers), and it was... oh.

The singer who did the first two had a pure, bell-clear, operatically trained soprano voice that just soared effortlessly through the high notes (I've heard a lot of Danny Boys before, but never by a single a capella soprano--holy crap, those high notes are high!) and the acoustics of the building absolutely loved on every note. The Amazing Grace singer had a warmer, huskier, almost Dollyish voice that perfectly suited that song, and her voice swirled around the room like a heater on blast thawing you out and making you feel warm and drifty.

Ahhhh, singing. Trained performers doing beautiful things with their trained voices, loving on old songs and perfect acoustics. I've missed drinking in live performances so very much--not that I even went all that often before, but I knew the joy of it and I liked knowing it was there if I could get myself up and out and motivated. But for so long it hasn't been, and now it just suddenly fell in my lap this morning.