1. I’m slowly getting back to some degree of whatever passes for normal these days. My semester is done and the summer session hasn’t quite started. I’m between rushes in advising. I’m back from my trip east. I have managed to find the energy to read a book without suddenly snapping to and realizing I’ve been staring vacantly into space for … [checks time] … longer than I’d imagined. I spent the Memorial Day weekend doing as little as humanly possible and it helped, though we did have a nice picnic out at one of the local state parks on the actual day itself. Who knows? I may yet survive the year.
2. We had a lovely visit from my niece and nephew once we got back from Philadelphia. We threw them into the van when we left and hauled them out here and they spent a week doing the Small Midwestern Town thing, which is a very different experience from the New York City thing. Kids still cruise the strip in this town, and we have three Taco Bells for your dining pleasure. Lauren took them to Madison one day. Sara was still in school during this whole trip, but the joy of remote education is you can log in from anywhere. Josh is on summer break, so he got to sleep in.
3. We took them up to Devil’s Lake one afternoon and they had a good time climbing around on the boulders that surround the lake. They don’t look that big when you’re sitting at the north end of the lake where the picnic tables are, but when you get right up on them you realize that they range from shed size to house size. On the way home we went a little out of the way so we could take the ferry across the Wisconsin River, because why not. We also visited My Old Museum for their Civil War Days and watched them fire off the cannon toward the highway. We also introduced them to jalepeño poppers, which a) we are prepared to testify in court were a Civil War food and b) apparently have not made it to New York City yet.
2. We had a lovely visit from my niece and nephew once we got back from Philadelphia. We threw them into the van when we left and hauled them out here and they spent a week doing the Small Midwestern Town thing, which is a very different experience from the New York City thing. Kids still cruise the strip in this town, and we have three Taco Bells for your dining pleasure. Lauren took them to Madison one day. Sara was still in school during this whole trip, but the joy of remote education is you can log in from anywhere. Josh is on summer break, so he got to sleep in.
3. We took them up to Devil’s Lake one afternoon and they had a good time climbing around on the boulders that surround the lake. They don’t look that big when you’re sitting at the north end of the lake where the picnic tables are, but when you get right up on them you realize that they range from shed size to house size. On the way home we went a little out of the way so we could take the ferry across the Wisconsin River, because why not. We also visited My Old Museum for their Civil War Days and watched them fire off the cannon toward the highway. We also introduced them to jalepeño poppers, which a) we are prepared to testify in court were a Civil War food and b) apparently have not made it to New York City yet.
4. In a sign of creeping normality, we got to go to Lauren’s last band concert down at Local Businessman High School. They haven’t been able to have a real concert all year, but with vaccination rates rising and the pandemic slowing down, at least in this part of the world, we were allowed to attend and we were not going to turn down such an opportunity. There were three groups of performers and you were only allowed to attend the concert for whatever group your kid was in – and you were asked to leave right after in order to maximize social distancing – but it was a very nice performance and we were glad to be able to take it in.
5. We’re gearing up for Lauren’s graduation now – the official ceremony will be on Friday – and all the little things that got canceled last year are coming back. There was the Grad Walk, where the seniors get into their caps and gowns and go back to their old elementary schools to wow the little kids and visit their old teachers. And the drum line did its traditional sally through the halls of LBHS to celebrate the end of the year. There may or may not have been other happenings that shall go unreported. More news as the day draws nigh.
6. Today in fact was Lauren’s last actual day of school. We’ve had kids in this school district for a long time, and they’ve done well. I hope that the district can keep it up in the face of the short-sighted budget slashing that seems to be the lot of education whenever the GOP is in charge of writing the money. I’m just glad Oliver and Lauren made it through.
7. The cats have finally accepted that we are home and won’t be leaving them alone for the foreseeable future – they got rather accustomed to having us around since the pandemic hit and being on their own was a bit of a shock to them. The rabbits didn’t care. I’m not sure the chickens even noticed.
8. We have two of those cardboard scratching pads for the cats – one upstairs in the hallway and one downstairs in the mudroom – and Midgie has decided that they make fine beds. She is asleep on one or the other of them pretty much all the time now. We have a house full of comfortable furniture and soft places and she chooses to sleep on cardboard. Strange beast.
9. I spent an evening shoveling paper off my desk earlier this week, and now I can proudly say that I did indeed have a desk under there. I still have a long way to go before this office is in any kind of civilized state (or, more importantly, in a sufficiently cleaned state that the inevitable avalanche of paper that will form over the next semester will not overwhelm the place) but it is nice to see progress.
10. Home Campus has now lifted mask requirements for all students and staff who are vaccinated, though unvaccinated people still need to wear them. I am not sure what I will be doing, to be honest. On the one hand it will be nice to go out without a mask again. On the other hand there are a lot of delusional people out there who think they don’t need to be vaccinated or wear masks and many of them are just assholes about it, so we’ll see how it goes.
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