✍️ May 2025: Are the months getting shorter?

That sounds like an obviously rhetorical question, but I think there is some sort of philosophy around that.

Picture this: you're 1-year-old. A month is 1/12th (~8%) of your life. A year later, that same time span is now 1/24th (~4%) of your life. The nominal amount of time definitely doesn't changes, but relative to your experience it does. So at this point in my life, a month is only about 0.2% of my lived experience.

I guess that's just my way of saying that the years start comin' and they don't stop comin'.

But seriously, it really does feel like May has just flown by. I remember the spring always felt this way when I was in school, with all of the exams, concerts, and events. But even this year, it feels like it was literally just April.

All that being said, we've had a busy month!

I rode the TD 5 Boro Bike Tour, finishing with a slightly-better-than-average time for myself (which is for sure a win, given that I've put on a few pounds and haven't gotten in as much cycling as I've wanted to). The weather was threatening rain all day, but I managed to make it through the entire ride before the sky opened up! To be honest, it's the kind of thing I wish I could do with people - it's a fairly easy and fun ride, and I'm always a little jealous of the groups of people who get to go it together. So, if anyone wants in next year, let me know!

Last year, Em and I started fully buying into the hype and jumped on the NY Liberty fan train (and, it wasn't a bad year for it, as they won their first championship in franchise history). On a whim, we were able to get some (moderately) cheap tickets to their opening day game this year, and it was awesome! They wound up pretty handily beating the Las Vegas Aces (one of the other top-4 WNBA teams heading into this season).

While it's obviously exciting to see the big names in the W play (Breanna Stewart, Sabrian Ionescu, Janquel Jones), it was SO MUCH FUN watching their new point guard, Natasha Cloud! I was a big fan of Courtney Vandersloot (who left the team after last season to head back to Chicago and who I felt got a little under-utilized in the playoffs last year), so I was a little bummed heading into this game. But damn, did Cloud give me something to hold on to! She's funny as hell to watch, brilliant on the court, and just seems to be having such a good time! Sign me up for Cloud-hive - I'm in!

I've never really enjoyed gardening - this is probably due to how much my dad loves it and how he'd always pull me and Sam into helping him when we were kids. But, as someone with a house and a yard, it's become increasingly apparent that I need to start giving a shit - a. because it just makes the place look nice and finished, but b. because I'm also part of a community and an ecosystem and it's my responsibility to do my part.

If you've been to our house, you know our...umm..."wildlife situation". We've got the usual - squirrels, birds, chipmunks, etc. But we've also got a family of deer (at least a dozen) who come through our yard 2-4 times a day (and, in full daylight, just hanging out and having a snack). We've had a family of foxes who lived in our forsythia for a while, apparently there's a new black bear in the neighborhood, and there were even reports of bobcats down the hill from us.

I don't say all of that to scare you away from ever visiting, but just to reemphasize that, while we may hold the mortgage, this is 100% as much their home as it is ours! So, as we were trying to figure out what to plant and how to make our yard look a little more finished, it was also really important for us to try to find plants that wouldn't disrupt the local ecology too much.

To be honest, neither Em nor I know much about plants (although, we definitely know more now that we did a few months ago). So, we did everything we could to get plants from as many local organizations that specialize in native plants as possible. Hilltop Hanover Farm, Teatown Lake Reservation, and Wild Gardens Nursery were just a few of the places we sources flowers, ground cover, and vegetables from.

We'll see what happens with all of it - I always feel that I'm a little too optimistic about our vegetable garden (although, our bush beans have absolutely blown up - they grew from seeds that the farm gave us because they were 3 years old and, technically, unlikely to germinate - you can see them in the back-most planter in the above photo - they're huge already!), but all of the flowers that Em planted seem to be doing really well.

There were even some native flowers that we tried to grow from seed last summer (black eyed susans, among others) and didn't take until this spring, when they've just exploded!

But we know why you're all here - how's Theo doing?!

I mean, he's great, obviously!

The big news in the Theo-verse was a trip to the Bronx Zoo a few weeks ago! Look, I love the zoo - a few years ago, I broke down crying because of "how amazing giraffes are" when we were in Florida. Theo and I would go to the Bronx Zoo a TON last year while I was on paternity leave.

So when I heard that their Dinosaur Exhibit was back?

Theo was definitely a little sleepy, but the life-size (maybe) dinosaurs definitely woke him up! Highly recommend if you've got little ones of any age (but especially if they're into dinos!)

With love,

What have I been...

📺 Watching: 
NY Liberty Basketball
New Girl
Game of Thrones
Shrek
Yankees Baseball
Chef Donald (Theo's really into this 8-minute Donald Duck short - I think it's fine)

📚 Reading: 
Rebecca Yarros' Iron Flame (and I finally finished it!)
Patrick Lencioni's The Five Dysfunctions of a Team
Sally Rooney's Beautiful World Where Are You?
Andrea Barnes' Wirecutter Article About My Friend Michi and how badass she is!
Ken Rosenthal & Levi Wheeler's The Windup Newsletter

🎧 Listening to: 
André 3000's 7 piano sketches
Emi Ferguson & Ruckus' Fly The Coop
I'm With Her's Wild and Clear and Blue
The Julianna Theory's Emotion Is Dead
Kacey Musgraves' Golden Hour
Molly Tuttle's ...but i'd rather be with you
The Flaming Lips' The Soft Bulletin
The Weepies' Say I Am You
The Wonder Years' Burst and Decay Vol. III and Live in NY, which I was at!
Yellowcard's Better Days (or, at least the two songs they've released so far!)