​A few unexpurgated selections from my journal during a family trip to Paris:

”I swore I would never take a vacation with these people again. And here I am.”

”I thought G and V were going to tear each other’s faces off in the car on the way to the airport.”

“Yesterday we were all quite out of sorts with traveling and jet-lag.”

”I have given birth and helped to raise spoiled people and I apologize to the world.”

“Never again.”

”Disneyland. Torture. Hell. No one really likes the rides. Pirates was closed and we never went back to see if it had reopened. It was cold. Food was overpriced. And Mickey Mouse is an asshole. At least there’s wine.”

”The museum has a kind of online app that is supposed to help navigate, but if you get into different floors the app picks up different floors and indicates you’re on a different floor. ???”

”Louvre. Lots of whining and grumbling.”

”Invalides. We went with just the younger two kids because S was still feeling sick and S was consumed with ennui.”

”S goes to great lengths to make sure we all know how unpleasant he finds us.”

”As I said, never again.”

”I think were going to impose an ‘under 18’ rule for family vacations. Over 18 they need to start paying for themselves.”

”Sunday. Rainy morning. Even though it has been in the 50s it feels cold because of the dampness.”

”In the meantime, laundry, shopping, dishes, cooking. Trying to remember if anyone said thank you. I don’t think so.”

”S didn’t leave the house.”

”It snapped something inside me and I said I was tired of everyone blaming me for everything. I smashed the rest of the dinner away and went for a walk along the canal. I’ll miss this place. I’m not sure I’d miss my family if they weren’t here. I feel like I’m constantly criticized for over planning, under planning, spending too much, spending too little, doing the wrong things, doing too much. Pretty much everything. Tomorrow I’m going to Sainte Chapelle when it opens and hope there isn’t a line."

Something like a resolution. I'll bold the ones I have been to, and then maybe cross out the ones I get to this year. 
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Tenement Museum, Lower East Side
New York Transit Museum, Brooklyn
Museum of the Moving Image, NYC
New York City Police Museum, Astoria, Queens
Steinway Factory, Astoria, Queens
Grounds for Sculpture, Hamilton
American Labor Museum, Haledon, NJ
Walt Whitman Birthplace, Huntington Station, NY
And then 8.2mi hike on the Walt Whitman trail
New Jersey Pine Barrens, Pinelands National Preserve
Fossil/Dinosaur sites in New Jersey 
Insectropolis, Toms River, NJ
Lambert Castle, Paterson (when the museum is open)
Long Pond Ironworks Museum, Hewitt, NJ
Marine Mammal Stranding Center, Brigantine, NJ
Meadowlands Museum, Rutherford
Museum of American Glass, Millville, NJ
Museum of Early Trades and Crafts, Madison
Museum of Russian Art, Jersey City
New Jersey State Museum, Trenton
Newark Museum
Northlandz, Flemington
Old Barracks Museum, Trenton
Paterson Museum
Rock Discovery Center and Sterling Hill Mining museum in Ogdensburg
Franklin Mines 
Stickley Museum, Morris Plains
Zimmerli Art Museum, Rutgers University, New Brunswick
Afro-American Historical Society Museum, Jersey City
Friar Mountain Model Railroad Museum, Sparta
Grammy Museum Experience, Newark
Hamilton House, Clifton (open Sunday for tours)
Hiram Blauvelt Museum, Oradell
InfoAge Science History Learning Center, Wall, NJ
Merchants and Drovers Tavern Museum, Rahway
Morven Museum and Gardens, Princeton
Moses D. Heath Farm, Middletown
Navy Lakehurst Heritage Center, Lakehurst, NJ (Hindenburg)
New Jersey Historical Society Museum, Newark
Behnke Museum, Paramus
Paranormal Museum, Asbury Park
Pinball Museum, Asbury Park
Stephen Crane House Museum, Asbury Park
Roebling Museum, Roebling, NJ
Thomas Edison Center at Menlo Park and Edison Memorial Tower
Crossroads of the American Revolution, Trenton
Appalachian Trail
Morristown National Historic Park
Paterson Great Falls
Thomas Edison National Historic Park
Washington-Rochambeau Revolutionary Route - National Historic Trail

​I've come up with a list of kinds of pets from best to worst, based on firsthand experience:
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1. Cats - but only if you're not allergic, they don't need to leave your house, you can leave them overnight, and they every once in a while acknowledge your existence and seem glad you're there
2. Dogs - actually better pals than cats, but they're behind cats because the require so much more care and are much more expensive to maintain
3. Beta fish - cheap, low maintenance and quiet!
4. Birds - they're messy as hell, but they don't stink
5. Triops - ours died in three days, which is fairly amazing considering they've been around for 300 millions years, so I guess triops should just be glad we are getting into "The Berrettini Period" now, but I actually think the short life expectancy was a feature, not a bug
6. Turtles - we babysat one for a week, and it was kind of mesmerizing
7. Frogs - unless one eats the other one overnight, which is what happened and then I really hated the one that ate his friend and I never trusted him after that
8. Chickens - we had them as kids, and, like turtles, they're fairly mesmerizing, not super easy, but not that hard, and bonus! free eggs!
9. Harvester Ants - trust me on this one
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10. guinea pigs - they smell so bad, their cage needs to be changed constantly, they poop a million times a day, and pee even more, they have creepy crawly nails that need to be trimmed, they hate being picked up or held, they basically hate people, because they know we eat them, but of course the thought hasn't crossed my mind....

...when the whole house is clean, all the laundry is done, dinner is on the stove, paperwork is done, your kids are getting along with each other and not staring at screens, and you can sit and put up your feet and have a nice hot cup of tea? Yah haha hahaha! Yeah, me neither.

About once a week I go food shopping and the fridge and all the cabinets are STUFFED, things are all over the counters, on top of the fridge, too, and I think, "This is going to last us a long, long while!" There is much feasting and rejoicing. We are like Vikings...if the Vikings ate cold cereal, salad, and apples and peanut butter. Then, about 3-4 days later, we're low on milk and eggs, no bread, no peanut butter, no cereal, and what happened to all the apples? And we're looking at each other like the last holdouts of the Donner party.