Karina Yan Glaser writes about the Vanderbeekers, a family with some similarities to her own.
Like the Vanderbeekers, the Glaser live in Harlem, in a two-bedroom co-op where most families know each other. Much like the Vanderbeekers, the Glaser’s have a lot of pets, five to be exact: Addie, Annabelle, and Nala are rescue cats. Ginger Pye is a rescue dog and Lalo is a 7 month old Corgi.
Cats and dogs complete the home Ms. Glaser, 41, shares with her husband, Dan Glaser, 49, a Salesforce Cloud Sales Architect, and their daughters, Kaela, 13, and Lina, 11. Ms. Glaser’s fifth book in the popular young adult series, “The Vanderbeekers Make a Wish,” was published this fall.
UP WITH BABIES FUR I get up around 6:30 a.m. If I had a choice, I would sleep later, but since we have animals to feed and walk, I get up. Some also need medication. Since Ginger Pye is 13 years old, and she has frequent urinary tract infections, she needs an antibiotic. And Nala needs eye drops. This is one of the reasons it has been in the system for years and not passed that long. But I’m glad no one got it. When people meet her they think she looks very old, I guess because she is sort of shaggy and unkempt. Maybe other cats are better at grooming themselves, I don’t know. But she is just adorable and she acts very young.
CHIEF LIBRARY If the weather is nice, Dan and I will take the dogs for a walk. We’re right by the Harlem River, and there’s this little path over there. Then after trying to wake my kids up, I walk through the apartment doing things that I haven’t had a chance to do during the week, like sifting through the boxes of books sent to me by the publishers. . As part of my job, I review children’s books. If there are any books that I have already read or do not need, I will bring them to the free library in front of our building. I started it seven years ago, and it’s great. A lot of people are now putting it in their own books. Sometimes there is garbage in there. I’ll go downstairs and clean it up.
GREEN LEAVES My husband doesn’t do a lot of cooking, but he makes really good pancakes. While he is cooking, I will water the plants. During Covid, I acquired quite a few houseplants, like double the amount we had. We have about 60 now. Our super drilled a bunch of hooks in the ceiling so a lot of them are hanging.
DIGITAL WORSHIP We go to church on a small laptop because we don’t have a TV and during the pandemic our church, All Angels’ Church on the Upper West Side, got online. Girls can go in and out or read while on duty, but I don’t blame them. It can be difficult to focus on a digital platform.
DUMPLINGS On Sundays, I like to cook something a little harder to do on weekdays, which takes a little longer. I could bake bread, or the kids could help me bake dumplings. We buy 150 Won ton packs in Chinatown, usually four or five at a time, then I’ll make the ground pork, tofu and garlic filling and different spices and they’ll pack them.
OVERVIEW My oldest daughter plays the violin in the New York Youth Symphony. They rehearse on Sunday afternoon a little east of Penn Station. We take the metro there. I’ll walk and think while she rehearses. She’s funny because she doesn’t like to be seen as I drop her off or pick her up, so I will surreptitiously walk by the entrance at pickup time.
QUILTED CLOTHES We have dinner together at home. If we made dumplings that day, we will have dumplings. And we will have to walk again and feed the animals. After that, I prepare for the week ahead and do my favorite leisure activity, which is hand quilting. At the moment I am working on a quilt which is a pattern of flying geese. It is made of scrap metal that I have been collecting for years. Until the girls were 3 or 4, I made all of their clothes. This quilt takes all of those pieces that they wore or recognized, so that makes it fun. I will do this by sitting on the couch and talking to Dan.
BODY I’m not a super digital person. I feel like a person who enjoys tangible things like physical books, cooking, gardening, and quilting. With my daughters, I’m really happy that they are both avid readers who also grew up with a lot of books around them. They also like physical books. They go to bed around the same time as I do, 10:30 a.m., but I think both are night owls. They like to keep reading.
Readers of the Sunday Routine can follow Ms. Glaser at @Karinaisreadingandwriting on Instagram and @KarinaYanGlaser on Twitter.