I think I said last week that when we went to the beach we met some friends, and we had arranged to watch the F1 race today, if nothing came up to stop us. And this time, nothing did, so I made some pre-race burgers and fries for our lunch, and they brought some awesome desserts - banana bread and coconut sticky rice.
Our house is filled with peonies from the garden.
Now, only the daughter is really into F1 and the dad can fake it, but the son had a nap for half the race. No matter, we had a great old time talking nonsense during the race and then after, we "kicked on" with an informal game of Hitster, a music trivia game connected to Spotify, with Smallsteps as gamemaster/DJ - I knew the dad would both enjoy and be fantastic at this game, and he was. Thankfully, it was balanced as there were also Finnish songs in the mix (he is not Finnish) and my wife excels at that. But, it was a friendly game where while we started with teams, it ended up being a group game where we were just playing together.
We used to hang out with this family a lot for years, but the parents split up and their life changed, Covid came, I had a stroke and well - we didn't stay in touch. But, while the kids are now adults, today things hadn't changed and we just picked up where we left off, talking, playing games, and hanging out. Nothing serious, just fun times with lots of laughs. And what was cool, was that Smallsteps got to know a family that was there before she was born and when she was young, but she doesn't actually remember prior to this. I think she really enjoyed the day.
Lots of positive energy flowing.
After they left, Smallsteps was still full of energy (and sugar from the desserts) and was even more interested in their backgrounds and how we used to spend time together. Other than family, the neighbours and one of my ex-colleagues, she doesn't really know any of our friends from the "before times" in our lives. Meeting some of them gives her a bit of a different perspective and experience of us as parents also, which I think is valuable for her to see, so she understands that we aren't just parents, we have other complexities, other sides that she doesn't know that much about it - other than work.
While I am not overly social these days, I am the more social one in the relationship in the sense that I am willing to organise things and get people together. My wife enjoys seeing friends, but she is far more passive in actually seeing them, even though she has a lot that live not too far away, even across the road. It would be nice if there were more social engagements and positive interactions like today, but they tend not to just "happen" and require proactivity. Especially these days, where everyone is so busy doing something else.
It was a good day, and I will take it.
My wife has one more day of work before she goes on her summer vacation, so after that I guess we can perhaps be a little more social. There are a few outdoor dancing events so maybe we can dance a bit, or sit on a terrace as a family and enjoy some warm evening weather. The summers are not very long and the opportunities to take advantage are pretty rare for us, so I think we should make more of an effort to do more of the little things, since we are out of the market to do anything big.
How was the end to your weekend?
Taraz
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