Sunday, January 23, 2022

Sunday, January 22, 2022

Tonight's picture was taken in January of 2009. Mattie was home between hospital visits and was playing on the floor with Peter. After their Lego building session, they took a break and Mattie crawled on top of Peter. I thought this was such a cute and tender moment, that I snapped a photo! Our living room back then was full to the brim, with a hospital bed, a commode, IV poles, and a ton of toys.

Quote of the day: Today's coronavirus update from Johns Hopkins. 

• Number of people diagnosed with the virus: 70,699,416
• Number of people who died from the virus: 866,540

After another full day of caregiving and unpacking many more boxes in the basement, I decided to take my parents to the Normandie Farm Restaurant. It is a legendary restaurant in our region that dates back to 1931. I was saddened to learn today that the restaurant is closing in June, permanently. I imagine the type of fine dining it once provided no longer interests most people. Unfortunately I don't agree with most people. 

Peter snapped this photo of us today, and the first thing I noticed is I look exhausted. I know how I physically feel, but it is another thing to see one's self in a photo. We need to eat earlier in the day because after 5pm, my dad can't keep his eyes open. 

I looked up the restaurant and learned that the original owner was Marjory Hendricks. She was born in Seattle at the turn of the century and raised in Butte, Montana, Chicago and Madison, Wisconsin, moved to the Washington area with her family in 1918. She attended Bryn Mawr College, married in 1923, had a son, got a Reno divorce in 1927, spent two years in France studying cooking and returned to the Washington area in 1930.

A year later, according to Normandie Farm history, she drove by a patch of land in the Maryland countryside, once the Myers Farm, that was being transformed into a country club; construction had stopped when the Depression hit and the mortgage holders had put up the land for sale. Hendricks stopped in her tracks; 45 minutes later she had bought the land and began her life as a restaurateur. Her sister Genevieve decorated the place, and pictures in today's lobby from that era show a rustic interior awash in provincial-style fabrics. Genevieve also painted French sayings on the enormous wood beams that support the vast, barnlike roof of the main dining room and the lyrics to "Alouette" on the walls. The place became a destination, the end point of a trip to the country for some of Washington's elite; Eleanor Roosevelt was a regular.

The restaurant is famous for their popovers. Honestly you could just give me a basket of these cuties with jam, and I would be a happy camper. My dad ate for three people today!

I wish I could say that the basement is now empty. But Peter told me he did a count and we still have 50 boxes, 36 bins, and 20 framed art boxes to unpack. It feels like we have so much more to do and frankly today all I wanted to do was put my head down and rest.