A trip to the State Fair, the start of school, texting fun, and more (7 Quick Takes)

~1~

Summer isn’t complete without a trip to the Maryland State Fair. I always enjoy that one final burst of summer fun, spending money and consuming treats with reckless abandon.

We soaked in the summer heat of Labor Day weekend on a brief trip to the fair. We saw cows and quilts and old tractors, ate a crab cake and a pork sandwich and a hot dog, bought the large Icees in the reusable containers, and picked up a few free items—including Catholic holy cards from one booth. We even ran into my friend Christina and her family.

After skipping the rides and the games, we came home tired and hot and bearing a wonderfully absurd sack of candy that should last us until the next state fair.

There is something marvelous about the fair’s abundance and sense of fun.

~2~

Everyone is back to school, and the transition has gone relatively smoothly. The first day, the bus that picked up our eighth grader was not the number bus we had been told it would be. I wasn’t too worried about that—numbers, schmumbers—but my son texted me from the bus to tell me that our wonderful bus driver—who has always driven our boys—wasn’t driving.

I wanted to call the school to ask whether she was OK, but I held back—the way you do when you know what chaos the school must be in the first day. The next day, our driver was back! It was such a relief to know that Ms. Roberta was still in charge.

This week we have a simultaneous back-to-school night at one school and a mandatory band parents meeting at the other. Here we go!

~3~

The other day I was running an errand and got a text from our younger son with a photo of my phone charging at home.

“You left your phone,” his message said.

I panicked for a second—before I remembered that my phone was in my hand.

He’s apparently been waiting weeks to pull this practical joke on me.

I thought it was hilarious.

~4~

Sometimes when we text each other, we are in the same house. That might seem silly, but it certainly saves me some effort when I’m in the basement pantry wondering which soup someone upstairs wants to eat. I am sure Laura Ingalls Wilder would be impressed.

I wonder what she would think of the fact that you can now text with Jesus and get responses generated by AI. I haven’t tried it myself.

Jesus and I don’t need to text since I can talk to him without typing. But I wonder whether it’s helping anyone spiritually.

~5~

When we were visiting my father-in-law the other day, his landline phone started ringing. I didn’t get there in time to pick it up, so it went to his answering machine.

It occurred to me that our children had never seen an answering machine, so I took the opportunity to try to teach them about outdated technology.

What I didn’t tell them is that I’m so old that I remember when answering machines were cutting-edge technology that I wished my parents would invest in.

~6~

My colleagues at The Catholic Review are so kind to submit my writing for awards, and I am grateful—and a little astonished—to have won a few over the years. This week, they included me in a small awards celebration with Archbishop William Lori at the Catholic Center, where I was in awe of all the awards the team had brought home.

I’m always touched that they treat me as a colleague and friend, even though I do all my work for them on a very part-time basis from home.

Because I was right across the street from the Baltimore Basilica, I slipped inside the church for a few minutes to pray. The beauty and peace of that space are extraordinary, and I enjoyed a quick stop there before I headed out and continued my day.

~7~

My friend Jessica offered me some figs from her tree, and I happily accepted.

I had just been remembering that last year I made this wonderful fig jam that my sister-in-law Karin recommended when she gave me figs from her yard.

I couldn’t resist making more this year. Fig jam is delicious, and this is a great recipe.

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