Things I Am Looking Forward To This Spring
I got an email this week from the Brooklyn Museum with a subject line that read “A few things to look forward to,” all of it lowercase like that. I read it in the same voice I used when my kids were little and we’d be stuck at an airport for hours waiting on a delayed flight. It’s the voice one employs to sell a few high points during an otherwise pretty miserable experience, like art exhibits during the rise of fascism. Embracing the high points amidst our own suffering is what saves us from despair. And so through this era of fascism, I am finding things to look forward to. Or, you know what? I’m gonna go wild and capitalize it:
Things I Am Looking Forward To This Spring
Meredith cheese
I spent this past weekend in a rental house in the Catskills with seven other women in their late 40s to celebrate a mutual’s 50th birthday. I wasn’t sure what to expect, being in such close proximity with so many other perimenopausal people, five of whom I was meeting for the first time, but it turns out all I needed was cheese to feel at ease, and we had plenty of that. For 48 hours, we had a pretty constant all-you-can-eat buffet of cheese going. Different cheeses rotated in and out, and the location moved from the deck to the dining table to the kitchen island, and it eventually made its way to the living room coffee table where I found it the morning we checked out nestled between makeup samples and a pile of Korean skincare products.
Among the different cheeses on the buffet lineup was one called Meredith Dairy Sheep & Goat cheese and you have probably heard of it already if you’re like every other lady on the Catskills trip with me. If this is the first you’re hearing about it, let me also inform you it’s available for $14 a jar on Fresh Direct where it’s described as “a luxurious cheese [that] is incredibly addictive and very versatile.” I don’t know why you’d need versatility, to be honest, when once you taste it all you’ll want to do is bury yourself in it, but go wild with the charcuterie board, I guess.
Anyway, this spring I am looking forward to more of my new favorite food, Meredith Cheese.
The White Lotus
As I write this, there are three episodes left in the season, and considering how utterly unhinged the last couple episodes have been, there’s absolutely still time for plenty of weird shit, and if there’s anything better than versatile cheese, it’s weird shit. I can’t wait.
Liberty Games
I became a fan of Brooklyn’s WNBA team in 2023, a year before they won their first championship, which is pretty great timing if you ask me. I got all the fun and glory of a championship season without the 25 years of disappointment the Liberty’s most loyal fans endured first, which I just realized is probably how white male baby boomers felt during the 1980s. I’m not into sports, generally, but we started going to Liberty games as a family because we needed something to do together that each of us could at least tolerate and it turns out that watching women win is pretty fun!
I like everything about the games, including the post-game analysis and gossip about off-court drama that blows up on Threads afterwards. I truly don’t know who I’ve become because in October I even went to the championship parade in lower Manhattan and waited in the cold for over an hour and a half to high-five Betnijah Laney Hamilton and watch Breanna Stewart smoke a cigar on a float. The first game of the season is in May and I’ve already got my tickets.
Watching Tesla Stock Tumble
It’s called self-care, baby.
Spring Break
I’m 48, so I don’t really get Spring Break (especially with capital letters like that), but my kids do and this year we are taking a trip to Japan. We’ve been talking about this trip for years – since my 9-year-old was a toddler, and we’ve been actively planning it since last spring. We’re going to watch Sumo practice, take a private meditation class at a temple, and maybe sing some karaoke in the same room where they filmed a scene of “Lost in Translation” if the kids to agree to it without sucking any potential joy out of it for me. Or maybe Drew and I will just leave them at the hotel for a couple hours to binge of 7/11 snacks and Japanese TV. Anyway, looking forward!
How about you? What weird or not so weird shit are you looking forward to this spring?
The cheese sound so good I’ll look for a similar Canadian brand to try. I could live on cheese. Here hoping things improve for you guys in the states. ❤️🇨🇦
Thank you! Sending love to you in Canada, and I’m sorry for what the US govt is doing. It’s really embarrassing.
I’m looking forward to the ground drying up (hello from rainy England!) so I can walk the dogs without muddy paw prints.
I’m looking forward to going past the danger of frost so I can plant up my balcony boxes.
I’m looking forward to the builders finishing after six long months and unpacking everything from storage.
I’m looking forward to starting my new job (after a new CEO made my old, much-loved job a nightmare).
I might even be looking forward to turning 50.
All good things!
When do you turn 50?
Sorry for delayed response, I missed your comment! I turn 50 in July.
Since I last wrote:
– the balcony boxes are planted
– the building work is finished and I am mostly unpacked (today I am putting my pictures back up)
– I am enjoying my new job
And I have been purposely doing things over the last year that I have always meant to do, in celebration of turning 50 (everything on the scale from frivolous to serious, from trying a pole-dancing class to visiting Auschwitz). I hope my next decade is less talking about doing, more doing.
I am looking forward to turning 50. Muddy paw-prints and all.
Thanks for such a lovely and hopeful post! Well, now I’m looking forward to White Lotus! We didn’t like the first season and didn’t watch the second but you’re not the first to mention how good it is this year and the bits I’ve heard make it sound really different. Since we really, really like weird tv viewing, it sounds like a no-brainer.
I’ve had a few personal difficulties lately plus an extremely sad anniversary date just passed so I am looking forward to shaking off the funk and getting back to my usual serene state of mind. I admit that’s been rather hard to maintain in these times, but I have been very focused on enjoying as much of life as I can. (I’m with you on finding that watching Tesla stock tumble is definitely one of those fun things!)
We are going on a little trip next month and our adult son will be with us. He lives less than an hour away so it’s not like we never see him but he’s just really so much fun to be around that just thinking about it lifts my spirits.
Your trip to Japan sounds so special! Wow! Looking forward to hearing about that.
Then there are my friends. Besides other friend things like going out to lunch and chatting, we play board games so now that I’m settling again, I can get back to meeting with them on a regular basis and just forgetting all about the outside world for a bit each time.
Try the second season of white lotus and if you don’t like it, you don’t like it. Maybe it’s just not your particular flavor of weird, and that’s ok!
Your trip with your adult son makes me imagine trips we might take one day with our kids when they grow up. I think I’ll enjoy that a lot. 🙂
We’re heading home from Japan today actually, we’re already planning our next trip. We were lucky enough to see a local baseball game and a sumo tournament, both were absolutely awesome experiences.
My husband also went mad on tools that are 3x the price in Australia but I spent nearly a grand on skincare so I can’t talk!
That’s fantastic! Drew and Jackson have tickets to a baseball game in Tokyo and we have reservations to watch Sumo practice (no tournament while we are there, but watching practice and eating lunch with some of the wrestlers should be a fun experience). Let me know if you have an recs on skincare or anything else. I def want to get some sunscreen since I heard it’s much better in Asia, and I’m so fair skinned and rely on good sunscreen.
I have been loving the cleansers so far. You can’t really go wrong with any of them, however for cheap and effective I got Hatomugi Facial Whip for about $5. It’s in a plain blue and white container and goes really well. & Honey is good but a bit more pricey, their oil cleanser is great. C brand stuff in the yellow bottles is all vitamin C based and it’s great, it’s brightened up my skin considerably.
I haven’t tried these yet but EVERYONE recommends them, Keana Rice Masks in the light blue packs. They’re meant to be awesome.
Also for the trip if you can find them, you can get these self heating eye masks that are absolutely fantastic if you’re feeling stressed, headachey, or want to relax right before bed. I found a box of three that has different coloured cats on it and they’re lovely. They even have a little bit of relaxing scent in them and reduce puffiness a lot. I also strongly recommend getting some Lion brand foot/leg care patches. They’re SO GOOD if you’ve been walking all day. Pop some on the soles of your feet after you’re done for the day and you won’t be sorry.
If you’re anywhere near a Don Quijote you can get all this stuff from there, however it’s often (but not always) cheaper at a larger drug store. That said, Don Quijote is an experience in itself. Our first morning there we got up at 5am and headed there to avoid the crowds. We finally emerged at about 7:30 lol.
Great tips – thanks so much, Ange!!
Oh and do yourself a favour and get some of this early on. Spray it on any wrinkly clothes about 20 min before you go out and they smooth out like magic. It also deodorises as well, if you want to refresh anything without a full wash. We were in full on cigar bars and you wouldn’t be able to tell after a good go over with this. I even bought extra to bring home: https://www.amazon.co.jp/-/en/Wrinkles-Clothes-Remover-Wrinkle-Anti-Static/dp/B08JY5N19P
Amazing!
I’m looking forward to my first spring in North Carolina. The weather has been great since I’ve gotten here, and I hope I can get in some good hikes, drives in the country, and patio drinking. I’m looking forward to getting everything unpacked and really settling in. I’m looking forward to pool weather too, although not sure if that is a springtime activity here.
Sounds lovely!