D's Notebook

Tag: parenting (Page 7 of 72)

Graduation Weekend Notes

May 22, 2023 /

Grad Week

We officially have a high school graduate! The week leading up to Sunday’s graduation ceremony was jam-packed for M.

Her final day of school was last Monday. They were supposed to go in for first period Tuesday but she (and most of her classmates) opted to skip that.[1] She had little activities each day but Thursday was when things really got cranking. That morning she met with a group of girls on campus to take pictures. One of her middle school friends, who graduated from a rival school this weekend, took the photos and they turned out amazing. If you are a Facebook friend these are the pics of the group in caps and gowns around the school sign, etc.

Afterward she changed clothes and helped the other class officers paint their spot on the school wall. That evening she attended her first grad party, then slept over with a group of girls who were all on the crew to help make breakfast for Senior Sunrise.

She was up at like 5:30 Friday to get to campus and setup the breakfast. They had a beautiful morning for their last time together on the Hill, then meandered over to the gym for the Irish 500, the annual tricycle race between classes. There was some controversy this year as a team of sophomores, featuring one of C’s best friends, won for the second-straight year. The seniors claimed they cheated but C was insistent that she had video that disproved the senior’s argument. Who knew a tricycle race could be filled with so much drama?!?!

That night was the baccalaureate mass. Because of the timing we were not very environmentally friendly as a family and had to take three cars. I felt a little bad about that, even more so since parking is such a pain on campus.

The class president gave a very good speech which was a bonus. In the midst of the ceremony C looked at me and said, “Is that rain?” referring to the background noise. At an appropriate moment I slipped my phone out to check the radar and, sure enough, there was a big, fat red storm cell sitting right on top of CHS. It had not passed when the mass was over and we had to run to our cars while getting absolutely soaked. And I mean soaked. My clothes were plastered to my body. Thank goodness it wasn’t graduation day!

We had to laugh when the kids walked in for the mass. They were in alphabetical order. There was a sequence that went from Xavier Booker (6’11”) to M’s ex-boyfriend (5’7”). That just didn’t look right. We were also thankful that the ex-boyfriend comes before his twin sister in the lineup, otherwise he and M would have walked and sat next to each other. They are on decent terms but that still would have been awkward.

When we got home M was in tears. She said she was tired, stressed, and sad. I told her it was 100% acceptable to be sad, but there was no reason to be stressed. This was going to be one of the best weekends of her life and she needed to take a deep breath and enjoy it. I think it was more the lack of sleep than anything else, because once she got a good night of rest, she was fine the rest of the weekend.

Saturday her best friend’s grandmother took a group out for lunch and then she had up to six parties to attend. She ended up only going to four, but that was still a pretty full day.

Sunday was the big day. CHS’ graduation is outside at their baseball complex east of the city. An outdoor event in Indianapolis in May? Holy taking a chance! I guess they haven’t learned from over a hundred years of Indy 500s, where the biggest drama of race day is often whether that storm developing over Terre Haute is going to make it to Speedway before the race ends.

We lucked out, though. It was bright and sunny and in the low 70s. The sun felt a lot warmer than 70, and we were all very hot. Plus we roasted in the sun, sunburns for all. But at least there was no rain or it wasn’t like 57 and windy.

The ceremony went well. M gave the opening prayer. One of her classmates was supposed to follow her by offering the prayer in Spanish. Apparently the band didn’t get the memo as they started playing immediately after M finished. It was hilarious watching her whip her head around trying to figure out what to do. We went back and watched the recording of the event that night. M said the school president told them just to wait for the band to finish and then give the Spanish prayer. After she got that message she just glared at the band. I found her indignation delightful, and was glad she was sticking up for her classmate.

Anyway, the whole event took about two hours. There were a few too many speeches, especially since we had speeches on Friday. There are 240ish kids in her class and it took about 45 minutes to call their names to walk the stage. I talked to the parents of some of L’s basketball teammates Saturday about their ceremonies at the big, suburban, Hamilton County schools. Their ceremonies often take 3–4 hours. That sounds fun.

One highlight from the ceremony was learning that M’s class destroyed the school records for both total scholarship dollars offered and, since they are a smaller class, scholarship dollars per student. She said when the school president announced that, the grads were all laughing that it was thanks to Booker and all his offers. I noticed he only listed about 10 schools, and a football player who is going to Kentucky did not list a couple schools I know he had official offers from, so their class total could have been even higher. Another kid, who is just a normal dude, had like a quarter page of scholarships listed. Good for him!

L took her camera and got some very good pictures. When going through them I laughed because she not only snapped M and her friends as they walked right behind us, but also Booker and her favorite assistant coach from the girls program.

After the ceremony we came home and had an Italian takeout dinner that was a combination celebration for graduation and C’s birthday last week with S’s dad and stepmom. Then M opened the time capsule made back in first grade. It was fun reading all the things she wrote about herself back then. My only kind of emotional moment of the week was when she read the letter I wrote to her and then I read the letter she wrote about me being her hero. The best stuff.

That was our graduation weekend. M will have two graduation parties in the coming weeks. On Memorial Day we are hosting a smaller one for just family and close friends. Then in June she and two of her best friends will have a mutual party at one of their homes. She has about 1000 parties scattered around those. I think S and I are only going to a couple of those, so our calendars are much less packed than M’s.

Driving

With M home, C went straight from getting her license to driving to school most days. Which means I’m back to how I was when M started driving on her own: checking my phone every 30 seconds until I’m sure C made it to CHS safely, or that she is getting home safely after school. Glad she got her license at the end of the academic year so I’ll have the summer to get more comfortable mentally with her being out on her own.

Kid Hoops

L’s team had a tournament this weekend, although she only played on Saturday. They won those two games by 29 and 45. Even the “close” one was never really close and we had running clocks for the entire second half of each.

L didn’t score much – four and two points respectively – but did a decent job passing and playing defense. The team we beat by 45 lost to us by 40 a month ago. The mom who ran the clock next to me said they came from Ohio. I wanted to ask her if it was worth driving two hours to keep getting crushed, but kept that question in my head.

In the bracket games Sunday our girls won by 43 and then played our program’s highest level sixth grade team for the championship. That team has a girl who can literally look me in the eyes. All she does is block shots and take 3’s. They have another girl who is pushing six-feet who is mostly an outside player, too. They’ve won two different “world championship” tournaments, so they are a really good team.

Our girls beat them 45–43 in overtime. Texting with our coach after it sounds like we controlled the entire game then got sloppy at the end to let it get to overtime. But after losing by a single point in overtime twice this season, the girls finally closed one out. I mean, to took paying sixth graders to do it. But these are “world champions,” so don’t knock it too much.

That was our last tournament of the spring. We take the holiday weekend off then the girls will all funnel out to their high school programs for June. We will reconvene after July 4 for three out-of-town tournaments and then be done with this iteration of the team. In Indiana only three girls from a high school can play on the same AAU team. As we have four girls who will go to the same high school, our team will need to be split up.

The good news for L is the CHS head coach also coaches with her AAU program, so I think she’ll be able to stay with her current travel coach for at least one more year. It will just not be with all the same girls.

  1. Their actual senior skip day was May 12. She and three of her friends spent the day at the outlet mall about an hour away.  ↩

Weekend Notes

May 8, 2023 /

This weekend was certainly slower than the previous one. Doesn’t mean we didn’t pack a few things into it, one of them rather momentous.

On the Road

The family checked off another big milestone when C passed her driver’s test and got her license on Saturday.

It has been a bit of a struggle with her; she was first eligible to get her license the week of Thanksgiving but wasn’t close to either being ready or having enough hours behind the wheel then. She was very anxious about the entire process and it was a chore to get her into the car on a regular basis. Where M was one of those kids who couldn’t wait to get her license, C was part of that cohort that saw no great motivation to get hers ASAP.

As recently as January I was worried that she would ever get it. She wasn’t driving very often, and when she did wasn’t making much progress in her skills. In March something clicked and it all came together, her ability improving quite a bit and those normal, new driver mistakes getting fewer and fewer. She still made me very nervous, or even yell at her, at least once per drive. The other moments were much better, though.

It is tough to grab a weekend test time around here and last weekend was the first chance to get one on the books once we thought she was ready. On the way to her test some other young driver pulled right in front of her in a roundabout. She braked correctly but just sat there. I reached over and punched the horn so the kid knew about his mistake. “Use your horn if you need to, babe.”

When we got to the BMV the test guy was walking out with a lady. They were gone for about half an hour, so C had an idea of how long the test would take. After she left I nervously tried to read, without much success. I checked her location every few minutes to see where they were. After only about 15 minutes I noticed they were only a few blocks away. As they passed the BMV I said a silent prayer, “Please keep going. Please keep going.” But they turned back into the lot.

Damn. That seemed way too quick and I wondered if she had done one of the automatic fail errors. When she walked back in she had a blank look on her face that I couldn’t read. The tester waved me over to his station and when I got there she whispered, “I don’t think I made any mistakes but he didn’t say anything.”

Seconds later he said, “Well, you passed.” Come on, dude, we don’t need to drag it out. Tell the kid how they did right away!

The only bummer was C didn’t realize that she would be taking a new picture and freaked out a little because she wasn’t prepped for one. The nice lady helping us with that part of the process told her she can come back and amend her license with a new picture down the road. I guess that means we’ll be paying for another license but since she thinks she looks like a criminal in the picture she took Saturday I guess that’s worth it.

We immediately violated all the rules by letting her drive a friend to dinner Saturday. I was, again, nervously tracking her location but she made it there and back fine.

Two teen drivers in the house now. Which means the first fight about who gets to use the car isn’t too far down the road.

Kid Hoops

A 1–2 weekend for L’s team, and we were fortunate to get that win.

In our first game we trailed by 14 early and were getting pummeled by their big girl. This girl was ginormous. I’m guessing 6’3”+ and very wide. She wasn’t super athletic but had a bunch of old-school post moves, long arms that helped her get any rebound, and she was blocking every shot in the lane. I know she scored 24. I’m guessing she was very close to a triple double with blocks.

Our girls made a run early in the second half to make it a game and it bounced between a 2–6 point deficit most of the half. We hit a couple threes and took a four point lead late. That got down to one with about 40 seconds left, us inbounding at half court.

One of the super annoying things about travel basketball is that the rules are never the same tournament-to-tournament. Some weeks you play 14 minute halves, others 16. Occasionally 20 minutes with a running clock. Some weeks it takes five fouls to foul out, others six.

This week you didn’t start shooting free throws until there were 10 team fouls. The other team only had six at this point. Despite our struggles with their pressure, their coach decided to start fouling intentionally. Inbound, foul. Inbound, foul. Inbound, foul. Four straight times until we went to the line.

This was super dumb. I can’t stress this enough. One of the worst coaching gaffes I’ve seen.

On three of those inbound passes we almost turned it over. If the coach had told them to trap first and then foul, they likely would have been able to get a steal. On one play I guarantee the ref would have called our girl for traveling but since the coach was screaming at him to call the foul he did. She was so worried about getting us to the line that she didn’t give her team a chance to play defense. If they get a stop they could go down, run a good play for their big girl, probably get a basket or put her at the line (she was 4–5 from the line), and then force us to get a shot up.

Oh, she only had six players. One of them fouled out in this sequence.

When we finally went to the line we missed – of course, we shot like 25% from the line for the weekend – but we got a stop and steal on the other end, then they fouled us again. Which was that player’s sixth foul. They played the last 30 seconds of the game with four players because their coach was super dumb.

We again missed the free throw but got the rebound, scored to go up three, and survived a last-gasp three to get the win.

Thank you, Ohio coach!

We got smoked by some very athletic girls from Wisconsin in pool game two. They led by 24 at one point, we got it down to seven late, but lost by 14.

Then in our bracket game we lost by 10. Again, we trailed by 20 by whittled it down to four. Our girls loved digging holes and then trying to get out of them.

A pretty crappy weekend for L. She hit a 3 right before the halftime buzzer of the first game – that’s her thing now – but rolled her bad ankle about 30 seconds into the second half and didn’t play again. She rolled it on her own, didn’t trip over anyone else or do it as a result of contact. Even with the light brace she was wearing she immediately went down and hobbled off at the next dead ball.

Not a lot of swelling but it is very sore and now we have to figure out how long to hold her out to give it a chance to heal. She wanted to play Sunday but I told her if she rolled it again, she was not only putting the next two weekends in doubt, but would put all her June activities with CHS in jeopardy.

We tried to get her a Steph Curry-approved brace Sunday, but the one we brought home seems defective so I have to return it and find another. We’re also going to keep her in a light brace at all times and do some home rehab once her pain level goes down. I badly sprained my right ankle my sophomore year of high school and it was never the same. I hope she hasn’t inherited my bad ankles along with my bad eyes.

Kid Soccer

I believe I mentioned that L signed up to play on the St P’s soccer team, which is an eighth grade tradition. Between her previous ankle issues, the weather, and basketball conflicts, she was only able to play in two games.

In the first she had one chance to score but took a terrible shot – with the outside of her right foot from the left side – from way too far away from the goal. A dad near me asked, jokingly, “What kind of shot was that?”

“A shot by a kid that hasn’t played soccer in four years,” was my response.

In their final game last week she had another good chance to score, took a great shot from the right side…and one of her teammates ran in the way of it and blocked it for the defense. I’m not sure that it had a chance to go in but it would have made it on-goal.

After the game we were parked by the St O coach and she came over and asked L, “Do you play travel? You’re a really good player.” That pumped up her ego more. She seriously told me two weeks ago she thought she could make the CHS team. I laughed at her and said, “Maybe if you quit basketball and play soccer all summer.” Then I reminded her that she told me her team was trash (it was) and not to get too excited about dominating practice.

Oh well, she had fun playing one more time even if she wasn’t the same player she was back when soccer was her thing.

Pool Season

We finally shook that cold spell and the girls were in the pool a couple times over the weekend. M had friends over Friday night and two of the local nephews took advantage of it on Sunday. I hate to jinx it but if it stays as warm as the next 10 days look, we might be able to keep the heater off except for that quick boost right before the weekends when people are coming over.

Now it will probably be in the 30s next week…

Weekend Notes

May 1, 2023 /

A big weekend full of big events.

Prom

The big event of the weekend was M’s final CHS prom. It was quite the stressful week leading up to the dance. There was way more drama in her friend group this year than last.

There was one breakup last week, another of her friends is dumping her boyfriend this week, and another girl has been a bit of a wank which has caused some rifts in their core group. Not all of her friends were originally invited to the same pre-party, which caused some more static. And then one kid invited the entire class – 220-some kids – to his house for an afterparty. He does not have a huge lake house with lots of property like the kid who hosted last year, so everyone just assumed it was going to be a disaster and not last very long before the cops showed up.

Oh, and the weather forecast sucked for Saturday.

Throw in all the normal pre-prom stresses, and M was wound pretty tight last week. On Wednesday she let out a big sigh and told us she just wanted it to all be over. We told her to do her best to relax, to control the things she could control, and focus on having the best time she possible.

You know what? Almost everything turned out just fine Saturday.

It was sunny and 75 when her three friends who were getting ready at our house arrived. We had the pool open, a few of our trees had some really good color, and it looked like we might get some great pictures. They got ready, gathered, I snapped two photos, and just before the third there was a big crack of thunder and rain started falling. I got a great shot of their faces all breaking when they heard the thunder.

We hustled them under the porch roof and got more pics, then they left for the pre-party, with us shortly behind. The hosts were gracious enough to open the party up to just about everyone so there were plenty of chances for more pics. In the 30 minutes between leaving our house and S and I getting there, it rained, hailed, and the temperature dropped 20 degrees. Suddenly it was a wet, chilly night. Although with so many people crowded together it wasn’t that bad. The kids would have been roasting had it still been sunny and in the 70s.

We took more pics then left for dinner with friends. All of us monitored our kids’ locations closely until they arrived at the Children’s Museum for the dance. Then we relaxed a bit. Or at least until we got home, when it came time to monitor their after-the-dance activities.

M was where she was supposed to be when she was supposed to be there all night. The after party actually went well. I drifted in-and-out of sleep on the couch until 2:00 when I saw she was at her friend’s house where she was spending the night.

I didn’t see her until Sunday afternoon. She said it was a good night. Some drama in the evening but not as much as she had feared. She went with a friend and they had fun. One of her buddies who she had a little static with last week pulled her aside and thanked her for being honest with her, and they have a picture together with big smiles, so that worked out.

I guess it is easier to have fun when expectations are low, but it seemed like everything turned out about as well as it could have.

Kid Hoops

After a week off L’s team was back to tournament play with morning games both days about 30 minutes east of Indy.

Saturday we split two, losing by 22 and winning by 32. We were only down four in the first game with 2:00 left in the first half before giving up a 12–0 run. The lead quickly surpassed 20 in the second half and we had a running clock for the rest of the game. These girls were good: long, athletic, and could shoot. Pretty much the kind of team we always lose to. They hit a ton of 3’s; at least seven in the first half alone. We missed at least 10 free throws which could have at least made it respectable. We heard this team had lost by 10 to the girls that beat us twice two weeks ago.

L was solid in both games, scoring 6 and 8 and playing really good D in game two.

Sunday we were back at 8:00 AM for bracket play. We trailed 12–8 about four minutes into our semifinal. This team was giving us fits on defense but didn’t seem to have much on offense. After we hit a 3 to take the lead we finished the half on a 14–2 run and had a running clock most of the second half. L scored six but was 0–3 from the line. I believe she went 2–7 from the line for the weekend, the only makes coming when she hit 2–3 after getting fouled on a 3 attempt.

Onto the title game against the team that beat us Saturday. Just like the tournament two weeks ago, the rematch was a much better game.

Our girls game out super fired up and led 12–8 before giving up a 12–0 run. We were down 8 at halftime, but were limiting their three-point looks. L was face-guarding their best shooter – who hit six on us Saturday – and she didn’t take a 3 in the first half.

We slowly clawed back in the second half and briefly took a one-point lead at 36–35, only to give up an 11–2 run.

Again we clawed back. We were getting great, open looks from 3 and decent looks inside but kept missing. Yet we chipped away.

With under a minute left, down two, L got the ball on the left wing and didn’t hesitate, draining a three to give us the lead. But we gave up four-straight points and were down three with 2.9 seconds left, inbounding under the far basket. Our coach called a timeout to set something up. Which seemed a little hopeless since we had struggled against their pressure and surely they would press, right?

The girl taking the inbound faked a short pass, L cut from across the court at the midcourt stripe, the inbounder tossed a perfect pass just over the D, L caught it, took a dribble, threw up a running 3…and it banked in! Pandemonium! Poor kid thought she won the game, not tied it, and was a little bummed when she realized we were going to overtime. She lost her shit for a minute.

I’m not a videoing parent, and took some grief from the others when I didn’t capture it. Lucky one of our players brought a sister and her friend, and they did video it. I tried to include it here but can’t get it to embed properly. Trust me, it was fun!

Also worth noting she was supposed to pass to the girl in the corner, but decided not to.

In OT we were down two, with the ball, and time running out. One of our girls lost the ball while driving, the girl who threw the inbounds pass to Lia grabbed it and tossed it up. It rattled in just as the buzzer sounded. Double OT!

Despite being a championship game, tournament rules dictated the second OT be sudden death. We lost the tip, but held on D and had a run-out. We pitched the ball into the front court and had a 3-on–2 break. The ref up with the break suddenly blew his whistle and everyone looked around confused. The ball was nowhere near a defender, so there hadn’t been a foul. He pointed to the scorer’s table and yelled, “Start the clock!”

Only problem was the other ref had told the clock operator not to start the clock on the tip since the period was sudden death. We had been on the wrong end of a couple close calls late in the game and pretty much our entire side of the stands let this guy have it. Our calmest parent said she wanted to go punch him when the game was over.

Naturally after the re-start, we turned the ball over, that same ref called a very soft foul 40 feet from the basket, and they hit the first free throw to win.

A real bummer ending to a great performance by our girls. I get the need to keep games moving, but in a championship game, there shouldn’t be sudden death OT. Especially when both teams are in the bonus and either a soft foul or a player making a hustle play who gets a little too aggressive can determine the outcome.

L played her ass off. She scored 14, including a really tough layup late in the second half against their tallest player (who hacked her pretty good but got away with it). She had five turnovers but twice immediately stole it back. Once she made a terribly soft pass they picked off, then she stole it right back, drove the lane and tossed a perfect pass to a cutter for a layup. She locked down that shooter, who didn’t hit a 3 when L was on her in the entire game. And she hit two of the biggest shots of the game. She was mad about the result but pleased with her play as she limped to the car afterward.

If we could just get the team to play as hard in pool play games as they do in championship games…

Sunday night we capped off the weekend with the callout meeting for CHS basketball. She now has a rough idea of what her summer training with her future high school teammates will be like. She’s taking two summer classes. Throw in basketball workouts and homegirl is going to be bizzzzz-y this June.

NFL Draft

I’m long on record as hating the NFL Draft. It’s the most over-hyped event in sports, and sucks far too much air out of the sports media complex for far too long.

That said, I was more interested in this year’s draft than any other I can recall. That was, obviously, because the Colts were drafting at the four spot and there was a lot of confusion about how those first four picks would go.

I think I turned the TV on about ten ’til eight and was immediately annoyed. I should have known the entire thing would be an over-the-top, completely manufactured NFL/ESPN event. Sure enough in the maybe 20 minutes between when I tuned in and Carolina finally made their first pick, I got good and pissed off. Can we just get to the selections? The show is going to take four hours anyway, why do we need to stretch out the beginning?

As for the Colts’ pick, I honestly don’t think there was a sure-thing pick among the four top QB candidates. I was relieved Carolina took Bryce Young, as I worry about his size. Which means he’s going to be great. I liked CJ Stroud, but I wonder about his upside vs being a game manager who doesn’t really elevate a team. So Anthony Richardson was kind of my guy, although I give him like a 25% chance of turning into a franchise-level QB for the next decade. At least he’s an interesting pick. At least he has insane upside. I can deal with the chance that he is a complete bust and this pick sets the franchise back another 4–5 years because it is not a dull pick. If you shoot for the moon and whatnot.

Because I can’t stand that shit, I only glanced at two draft summaries. One gave the Colts an A+ for their overall draft. The other had it ranked as the second-best group. These grades are always suspect, as you never know how an athlete will transition to the pro game, if their bodies will hold up, etc. But it seemed like a good weekend for the Colts, and could be great if Richardson turns into a legit dude.

Weather

Continues to suck. Sunday was especially terrible. We got back from basketball around 1:00. It was dreary and chilly with occasional sprinkles. We had been home about 10 minutes when the skies turned pitch black, it started pouring, and there was small hail. Fifteen minutes later a glorious sun burst through. This cycle repeated all afternoon, with the temps slowly dropping each cycle.

Today it is only supposed to be 45. On May fucking first. With our pool available for swimming.

Weekend Notes

April 24, 2023 /

It was a pretty boring weekend in our house. There were no games or practices. No parental social events. Nothing at all on the calendar.

C talked S into taking her to Ikea to get her birthday present a little early – a new desk set – so we spent Saturday afternoon putting that together and rearranging her room. As always, assembling Ikea furniture was maddening at times. The final result looked good, though, and C was pleased.

L got inspired and asked to move her computer desk from the bonus room into her bedroom. I told her she should just wait a few months until M leaves and make M’s room a computer room. She already plans on taking over M’s bathroom the minute she leaves. She didn’t like my idea, though, so we moved a few things around and her gaming rig is now probably way too close to her bed.

With nothing else really going on, I’ll use this Monday post as a chance to catch up on everything going on with M, as it is SENIOR SZN. Do the kids still say szn?

Friday she sent S and I an excited text that said “I’m a cum laude!” A few years back CHS went to the model where the top 15 percent of the graduating class get slotted into summa, magna, and cum laude honors groups. She had been telling us all year she wouldn’t make it because, “There are so many smart people in my class. I would have made it easily last year, but not this year.”

Damn, throwing some shade at the class of 2022.

My immediate response was:

She was not as amused by that as I was.

Anyway, about ten minutes later she sent another message: “Wait, I didn’t get it.”

The reason for the confusion was kind of fucked up.

The school office called all the seniors who earned honors over the PA in groups. For some reason the principal decided to call an extra ten kids, in between two of the other groups. M was in that extra group. When they got to the office the principal told them that they were all 0.002 GPA points short of making the cut, but she was still super proud of them and wanted them to know they were as valued as the kids who make it.

M was PISSED. The rest of the day she had to either correct people who congratulated her, or, after the official photo of the honors grads got posted and she wasn’t in it, answer questions as to why she was absent.

I get her frustration. You either don’t call those kids to the office over the intercom – have their counselors send them a message that they were close – or round up those 0.002 points and include them. Seems like kind of a shitty thing to do to announce them to the entire school just to tell them, “Sorry, you were soooo close…” She said she spent the day thinking “If only I had taken one more honors class,” or about an A- she got freshman year.

I thought about how since final grades aren’t in yet, how do we know that any of these 10 extra kids won’t end up with a better GPA than some of the kids who got selected ahead of them? Seniors don’t have to take spring finals, but there are still three weeks of classes and plenty of time to wiggle the final GPAs a bit. I guess there has to be a cutoff date, and that will always be before final grades are in.

S told her that no one really gives a shit If you were in the top 15 or 16% of your class. While the extra colors would have been nice on graduation day, M shouldn’t let it bother her once she woke up Saturday morning.

I get that the intent behind including these kids, but I’m not sure the administrators thought it through very well.

Prom is this coming weekend. I’m pretty sure there has already been way more drama around M’s group than last year. There’s some girl drama; one lady in the group has been kind of a wank for a few months and that has caused some problems. Then there has been drama about pre- and post-prom parties, and M’s friend group not all getting invited to the same gatherings.

Making matters worse, Saturday looks like it will be cold and rainy. So M is already stressing about how her hair will look, where we will be able to take pictures, etc.

Weight of the world and whatnot.

We got the invitations for her two grad parties sent out. We are doing a family/friends event at our house on Memorial Day, then she and her two friends are doing a bigger party together in June.

Saturday night, as S and I were winding down, we came to the conclusion that while the college years are certainly going to be expensive, no one warns you how costly the finals weeks of your senior’s high school days will be. Prom, baccalaureate, graduation, graduation parties, then the prep for going off to college. It ain’t going to be a cheap summer for us.

Oh, M informed us last week that she was going to need several dresses because she has so many grad parties to attend. We both laughed and reminded her that she has a job; if she needs more than one dress she can buy the others on her own. She thought we were being incredibly unfair by suggesting that. I kind of enjoy the moments when a kid who is very smart and pretty mature says really dumb stuff. It reminds me she’s still an idiot kid at times.

She is not our only graduating child. L has been bugging us for awhile to host a pool party on her last day of eighth grade. I was very much against this. Even though she has a tiny class – only 28 kids – I didn’t want to deal with all of them. Especially since the last day of school is a Friday and S would be at work.

I asked L if we could just do the girls but she said no, she wanted the entire class.

Then I realized her last day of class is the Friday of Memorial Day weekend, so a lot of people would probably be leaving town that night. I asked around among friends who have lake houses and, yep, they were all leaving Friday night.

S is home on Thursdays. M will have graduated and can help. S suggested we do it that day. Since it was now two against one I had no choice but to go along with that plan.

I sent the invitation out Sunday. I’m sure it will be fine. Although I wouldn’t mind if it stormed and we had to cancel. That makes me a terrible person/parent, doesn’t it?

S has also been trying to get L into dresses for her spring events. Eighth grade Mother’s Day Mass, graduation, and then M’s stuff. L is actually into cute clothes these days, but she hates to go shopping, so it’s been a struggle to find enough clothes for the next six weeks of activities.

Weekend Notes

April 17, 2023 /

A weekend of transition in various ways.

Kid Hoops

Back to tournament action for L and her travel teammates.

Her ankle is still recovering from the sprain she suffered over a month ago. In our games Saturday that showed. She seemed sluggish and a step slow.

We lost the first game by 18 to a very good team. They were long, athletic, took and hit 3’s, and were just a tough all-around matchup. We killed ourselves by missing at least 10 free throws and not stopping them in transition on several baskets. They were better than us, but those things were the difference between an easy win and a tight game late.

In the second game we played a flat-out bad team. We won by 41 and it wasn’t even that close. There was a running clock the entire second half so we only scored 10 points in those 13 minutes. It was one of those games where you wondered why these girls are still playing. I guess to give teams like ours someone to beat?

L had a single bucket in each game. In the second game I could tell she was getting frustrated. She made a sweet move on one drive, lost her defender, got to the hoop, and then short-armed the layup. A few possessions later she badly missed an open shot. I thought an invisible player fouled her because it looked like she got pushed from behind even though there was no one around her. Just terrible form, in other words.

On our walk to the car after she was pissed. “I am so bad!” She didn’t say anything else so I let her stew all the way home, figuring whatever I said would be the wrong thing.

We had an early departure Sunday as the bracket games were an hour from home. She still wasn’t saying much so I didn’t either.

We played a bad, but not as bad as game two Saturday bad, team in our opener. We crushed them by 40. And L was awesome. 10 points on 4–4 from the field, 2–2 from 3. A bunch of assists and rebounds. Solid D. And that was all after she got absolutely wiped out on an illegal screen and did a half flip that landed her on her shoulder. She popped right back up, though. I guess I need to start hitting her in the shoulder before every game.

We had a three-hour break so headed to lunch as a team. In the car we finally talked about Saturday. I told her I understood her frustration, but that she needed to focus on process not result. That missed layup? That stunk. But she needed to realize she made a really nice move that beat her defender, attacked hard, and did 80% of the shooting right. Do the same thing next time, just hit the shot. Four of her missed jumpers were fine: open shot, within the offense, good form, and got the ball to the rim. Don’t sweat those. Sweat the shot when she rushed things, ruined her form, and had no chance of making it because of her process.

She told me that she feels like if she only scores two points a game, she’s not contributing. I told her that’s not true; she can score zero points but if she gets a bunch of assists, plays good D and gets some steals or keeps her girl from scoring, she’s doing a ton to help win. And I reminded her that our best shooter has a lot of 1–10 games, but she keeps shooting.

She agreed and then whipped out a list of things she came up with that she can do everyday to get better.

That night I told S that was the best example of how L is our daughter. When she messes up she gets pissed and won’t talk for awhile, which is a very me thing to do. But then she sits down and makes a list of ways to change her path, the way S would react.

After lunch we played another team from our program. These girls were really tough on D, had a great rebounder, but didn’t have much going on offense. We pulled away late in the first half to lead by nine at the break. We stretched it out to as many as 20, which was the final margin.

L wasn’t as good scoring – just knocking in four on 2–5 shooting – but was really good in every other aspect of the game.

On to the championship game, against the team that beat us in our opener Saturday.

Unfortunately I had to leave for another event (see below), but got updates. We were up by one late in the first half but gave up a run to go down by nine. Our girls played their asses off in the second half, or so the texts I got said. We lost by one. Later in the evening our coach said there were three or four possessions where we played great D, got a stop, then couldn’t control the rebound and gave up a put-back. Rebounding will always be our Achilles heel for a lot of reasons, and sounds like it was the difference.[1]

Still I think everyone was pleased with how the girls played. They looked like they hadn’t played in three weeks in that first game Saturday. Over the next four games they shook off that rust.

By the time I got home Sunday evening L was in bed, nearly passed out. She was exhausted, sore, and her ankle pain was in pain. She claimed to have scored “six or eight” in the championship game, which wasn’t a bad finish to a pretty solid day. If I give her credit for eight, that means she averaged 7.3 points for the three games. Quite an improvement from Saturday.

NHS

I had to leave basketball because it was National Honor Society induction night at CHS, which meant the seniors who had earned enough points got the cords they will wear over their graduation gowns. M obviously got those points, otherwise I wouldn’t be skipping a championship game.

It was interesting seeing the number of seniors getting their cords compared to the juniors who were being inducted. It looked like a good third of the kids who got into NHS a year ago did not earn their cords.

How you earn your NHS points at CHS is kind of a bullshit process. No, strike that. It’s totally a bullshit process. The teacher who runs the program has been doing it since S was in school and plays all these BS, power trip, mind games with kids and forces them to jump through hoops to get the 10 points they need. I think some kids, once they’ve been accepted to the colleges they want to attend, decide to check out on all that nonsense.

One of M’s classmates is going to Notre Dame and is almost literally a perfect student: she earned a full ride to Cathedral, the first girl from St P’s to ever be awarded that scholarship. One of just three class of 2023 CHS kids to get into Notre Dame. But she didn’t get her cord. We joked that she was probably too busy applying for scholarships to worry about showing up at exactly the right time to get her name on a list of limited spots for whatever points the NHS sponsor was throwing out each week. Or, more likely, she figured, “Fuck that.” Although she would never say fuck.

But M got hers, and it will look very nice over her graduation gown in – checks calendar – one month. Holy shit! She has 20 days of high school left!

We also planned on taking some graduation invitation pics afterward. She and two of her friends are doing a party/open house together. The other two girls are going to Miami (OH) and brought red shirts. M was going to put on her black UC shirt. I was tasked with taking some super cute pics of them that S would turn into super cute invitations for the party.

Only problem is the weather changed Sunday and it was cold, windy, and rainy. Which made M pout. I told her she needed to knock it off, we can’t control the weather, and we could still find a way to take a nice pic. Then she told me she was tired because she only got four hours of sleep and I told her it wasn’t my fault she and her buddies stayed up until 4:00 AM when she had to be at work at 9:00.

Things were going swimmingly.

Then a miracle occurred: the rain stopped, the sun popped out, and the parents grabbed the girls and hustled outside. Of course it was like 40 degrees and windy, so there was much complaining. But I was able to snap a few pics and one of them turned into a perfect one for the invitation.

Two more pre-graduation jobs checked off.

Weather

It had to end. One of the very best weeks of weather I can recall in my nearly 20 years in Indy ended Sunday morning when a cold front blew threw. After over a week where the temps were in the 70s and 80s with almost no humidity or clouds, we got a nasty reminder that there’s still plenty of time for shitty weather in the Midwest. It felt more like mid-December with wind-whipped rain that soaked you even in the quickest run between car and building. We heard there was snow at the middle school track meet. As I type this Sunday night there is a chance of snow over the next few hours until daybreak.

Then it’s going to be back into the 70s Wednesday, 80s Thursday, then another cold blast for next weekend.

The girls were begging me to open the pool last weekend. I actually texted our guy Tuesday and he said there was a chance he could be here Thursday, but that feel through. I think he’s going to swing by sometime this week, so maybe the girls will be able to get in one of those warm days. Otherwise it might be a few weeks before they get a chance again. I probably should have stuck with our traditional second week of May open date.

  1. Size, ability, “want to.” We are short, have bad technique, and tend to watch the ball rather than go after it. My theory is our girls are too nice to be good rebounders, because you have to be a little mean to be successful.  ↩

Holiday Weekend Notes

April 10, 2023 /

A pretty good Easter weekend in our house.

Family Weekend

As happens when your kids are in Catholic schools, it was an extra-long weekend. CHS had a four-day weekend, while St P’s had early dismissal Friday and were out for Easter Monday.

Throw in C being home sick and L having her annual school service day on Thursday and it was even longer.

C has the “Punta Plague,” as M is calling it. It should be no shock that a big chunk of CHS came back from spring break sick. It took a couple days to reach her but has kind of wiped her out. She may have had Covid in the front, had a stomach bug in the middle, which may have been associated with strep that came on in the backside.

When we asked M if there were a lot of kids out sick last week her response was, “Bro, the entire school is sick.” Love it when she talks to me like I’m an idiot. She’s been coughing like a smoker but has no other ailments.

I guess that’s what mass travel in the post-pandemic age will be like: we all act like old people after a cruise and get sick for a week or so upon our return.

Like I’ve done every year, I volunteered to assist on the St P’s service day. That has usually meant going to some kind of donation center and sorting things, since there’s only so much these places can ask large groups of kids to do. Which really means I do a bunch of sorting while making sure the kids don’t do anything stupid.

This year L’s group got sent to an adoption center that had just changed locations and were tasked with organizing several rooms that were filled with donations. That was a bonus as there were a lot of diapers, wipes, lotions, bath soaps, etc that had that good, clean baby smell. And most of the clothes we sorted were either new or at least washed if used. Which made it a pretty pleasant experience, and far different from the year we dug through huge bins of donated items and found fun stuff like dirty diapers, broken glass, animal waste, porn, and drug paraphernalia.

Our kids weren’t super focused but they did more work in the four hours we were there than the lady running the place expected, so they left a good impression.

I got a hug from the St P’s teacher who organizes this day since it is my last time assisting. We joked that if she needed extra help next year she was going to reach out to me.

Saturday we spent the day getting the house ready for hosting our family Easter gathering. I decided the pool cover looked filthy after collecting crap for five months and spent nearly four hours cleaning it. For some reason I always forget how long that takes. I think my brain blacks out the memories.

When I was done I opened up the cover to do a quick inspection and get a head start on cleaning out the leaves and worms that worked their way in since October. There was a large frog/toad floating in the water. I tried to scoop him up and it slowly tried to evade me. I think the water was so cold it was still semi-hibernating. I got him into the net and when it looked like he was going to hop out, I flung him lacrosse-style about 30 feet to the grass. Not sure if he survived his flight or not.

Easter Day was super nice here. Sunny, pushing 70. Nearly perfect. We bought some pulled pork and I smoked a couple chickens to go along with.

We had 22 people in all. A very good meal, between the stuff we bought and made and all the contributions from the rest of the family. The five nephews had an Easter egg hunt after we ate, and we were able to sit outside and enjoy the ideal day. Easter is always better when it is warm and you can be out in the open.

The Masters

I watched as much of the Masters as I could, between prep, errands, meals, etc.

I was very glad that Jon Rahm won. He seems like a good, thoughtful dude and plays pretty amazing golf. For him to win by four strokes after four-putting his first hole of the tournament and then having to play in the worst weather of the weekend was quite an accomplishment. He could have easily doubled that winning margin.

Like a lot of people I had mixed feelings about Brooks Koepka’s early domination. I enjoyed his style of golf and brash personality at his peak a few years back, but was disappointed when he fled for the LIV Tour after insisting he wouldn’t. I get that a hundred million dollars, or whatever he got, can change a person’s point of view, especially when he was in the midst of a pretty serious injury recovery and questioned his golfing future. He may not have been villain #1 in the whole fiasco, but I still heap some blame on him.

That said, I couldn’t help but get sucked in by how well he played through the first three rounds. I was glad a lot of golf people that I follow were having similar mixed feelings; it was good not to be alone.

This was my favorite thread that came out of the weekend. It is also a reminder that occasionally there are still a few good things on Twitter. Tech Karen will probably ban threads like this soon, since they give people joy.

Ortho

I took L into ortho Monday morning to have her braces removed. She set the family record of just 15 months; she was originally slated for 23. Other than a little gap when she struggled with her rubber bands a little, I think she did exactly what they told her so she could get them off as quickly as possible.

I guess she’ll have a six-month visit and then we’ll be done with ortho after seven and a half years of regular visits. Knock on wood.

Spring Break 2023

April 3, 2023 /

A long week in the Dominican Republic to celebrate M’s senior class spring break. Not only did we take the whole family, one of C’s best friends came along with us. There was some drama, a few travel difficulties, but overall it was a pretty good seven days.

Location

We stayed at the Hard Rock Resort in Punta Cana. I never got an official headcount but around 70 kids from M’s class were there.[1] It is a huge complex, something like 120 acres, so we always had plenty of space and could get away from CHS people if we wanted to. There were students from at least three other Indy area high schools there, along with kids from Wisconsin and Michigan.

The draw for going to the DR was the drinking age being 18. As it is in Mexico, among other places, but for some reason the DR has been the “cool” place to go for CHS families for a few years. Which meant longer flights, fewer flight options, and greater expense. Joyous. We warned M and her sisters months ago that this was going to be about as much as we will ever spend on a vacation, so they needed to keep their shit in order while we were there.

Anyway, the Hard Rock was your typical all-inclusive resort. The food was decent; never great but never terrible. The drinks were watered down but plentiful. The service was a B/B+. We later learned from a friend in the travel industry that the DR has a reputation for not being as customer-focused as Mexico. We found that to be true. Most folks spoke English but some of them not very well. Most employees were very friendly but never in a hurry to complete your requests.

The biggest pain was trying to get change for tips. In Mexico we’ve never had a problem handing over a twenty and getting twenty ones in return. Or at least ten ones and a couple fives or a ten. That was extremely difficult in Punta Cana. Although the hotel website said the front desk could make change, we were often turned down. When we could get a bartender or waitstaff to bring change, they usually brought fives and tens. So we overtipped a lot. My biggest recommendation for others wanting to visit the DR is to take enough small bills to cover tips for your entire stay.

The complex had a ton of pools. Saturday was an awesome day as only a few of us were in town; most of the CHS crew was arriving in that day. We claimed a good spot at a pool with a swim-up bar, the seniors rotated in-and-out, and all was fine. Sunday almost the entire group had arrived and the kids kind of took over our pool. It was a little uncomfortable at times, between seeing them drink, them mobbing the bar so we couldn’t get drinks, watching kids who apparently didn’t pack sunscreen slowly turn red, and then some inappropriate behavior.

By Wednesday our core group of four families found a different pool were able to enjoy the day with the seniors only occasionally checking in.

The beach was ok, although we didn’t spend much time there. It wasn’t raked/plowed daily so you had to be careful where you walked. The water was beautiful, but once you stepped into it it was very rocky. And the surf was heavy all week – red flags more often than yellow – so even if I was a float-in-the-ocean person, I wouldn’t have spent much time in the water.

We never checked out the casino or any shows. We were usually coming in for the night about the time the seniors where heading to the club for their late night antics. M said the club was fun but what does she know?

Travel

Getting to Punta Cana was about as easy as we could have hoped for. We left our house at 3:00 AM for our 5:50 flight, thinking the airport would be a madhouse. I had been watching the parking lot numbers all week and was worried about finding spaces. But we found two next to each other in the covered area and were able to avoid the rain Friday morning. We had to wait maybe five minutes to check bags and enter passport information at the Southwest desk. There was one family in front of us in the TSA Pre line. Our flight was on time, we had a three-hour layover in Baltimore that allowed us a leisurely breakfast, then arrived in the DR as scheduled around 2:30. An hour in the immigration line then we pulled into the Hard Rock exactly 14 hours after leaving our house.

The trip home was a little dicier. We knew strong storms were forecast in the Indy area right around the time we were supposed to land. As we sat in the very warm Punta Cana airport Friday, we were taking collective bets on whether we would make it home or not. We got out of the DR fine, but since our plane didn’t have wifi we couldn’t track the Midwest storms or the status of our second flight.

As soon as we landed in Baltimore we learned the Indy flight had already been delayed from 10:45 until 11:30. That left us four hours to navigate immigration and customs – which was dead easy since we were the only plane that landed at that time – get dinner, and watch the weather. L and I also watched much of the Iowa-South Carolina women’s Final Four game.

We seemed to be boarding on time, albeit slowly, just before 11:00. We got on at the front of the B group, grabbed seats, and began to get settled. Then we noticed when the C group folks should have been getting on, the flow of people stopped. Soon the captain informed us that Indy was closing its airspace because of tornados and severe storms. Rather than have us sit on the plane, they were asking us to go back into the airport.

This seemed bad. There was lots of grumbling. Everyone was tired, sunburned, hungry, and ready to get home. For about 45 minutes we sat as the only people in the terminal, nervously flipping between Indy weather feeds and trying to figure out a plan B if our flight was cancelled. Our plan was easy: since there were no seats on flights out of Baltimore until Monday, we would rent a car and drive home. Problem was the rental car facility at BWI was closed for the night. And I was having a hard time finding a vehicle that could carry our six-person party. We joked about calling our friends who picked us up last year when our flight out of Sarasota was cancelled.

Luckily just after midnight they hustled us onto the plane again and we took off. Rather than fly the direct route and go through the storms, we flew almost to Detroit before hooking back around the front. We landed just after 2:30 then waited an hour for bags. We saw a number of people sleeping at IND. We are guessing their flights out were cancelled because of the storms. We pulled into our driveway at 4:10 AM. We made it!

Man were people assholes getting on the plane that second time! I was position B1, so could watch it all. The first time we boarded there were maybe 10 people in the family boarding line. The second time? At least 25, many with kids well above the age limit. The poor guy running the gate didn’t have the energy to deal with them. I can’t fault him, he was working late so we could get home. My girls were like five spots behind me and somehow at least 15 people squeezed in between us. We had rows 16 and 17 on first boarding. On second we were back in the high 20s.

Again, assholes.

Also, that Baltimore airport is dirty. Just like when L and I were flying out of there in October, the restaurants were running out of food in the evening. Fortunately we all got food or else things could have been even worse as we sat and stressed.

So so glad we didn’t get stuck there for the night.

Oh, and the storms here were legit bad. At least seven tornados in Indiana (as I write this) and several deaths. People were dealing with way worse than sitting in a dirty airport longer than we wanted to.

Nonsense

There was some nonsense of all levels over the course of the week. There was a parent-kid booze cruise that S and M went on. They behaved themselves, but S had to take care of a kid who was in bad shape after. He is a really good kid, just too much booze and sun and not enough lunch. He made sure he got a message to S later that night that he was thankful and loved her, which made us all laugh. Then the next day he found her and gave her a big hug.

Apparently some boys were pissing out the window of the buses on their way back to the resort after the cruise. Delightful.

S also had to take a look at a senior’s hand when we were waiting in Baltimore. He had it wrapped up and said it hurt. He wouldn’t admit it to S, but later we heard he had punched some dumbass sophomore several times.

A parent couple got in a huge argument during dinner one night. Like screaming and yelling and making the people around them super uncomfortable. Their kid was not around at the time (nor were we) but a lot of other CHS folks heard every word. Some friends of ours had the husband ejected from the restaurant. He also had some other serious issues over the course of the week. I’m really surprised he didn’t get his ass kicked by someone. I don’t know him, am glad he’s a stranger to me, and am thrilled our kids run in different crowds.

I know there was some kid drama, but it was fairly low key. M had one kind of rough night where it seemed like something was up with her and her friends. They next day they were fine, though. Teens gonna teen.

There was some other stuff. Like bad stuff. None of our kids were involved but they all heard about it. I think that’s all I should say about that subject.

We are lucky that our kids are mature, tend to follow the rules, and made sure they were always around friends. Still it was a stressful week. Mixing that many kids and alcohol in a foreign country has high odds of blowing up. Throw in a bunch of drunk adults and those odds go even higher. We are glad we survived our first senior spring break with our family all safe. I’m sure it can happen anywhere, but we were lobbying C and L for less exotic locations for their senior years.

Misc.

It may have been a blessing that KU lost before we left. It was very difficult to find a place that had NCAA games on. We hung in a bar Friday night that had six TVs with only one showing the games. The others had recorded soccer and NFL games from a year ago. I never turned on our TV but figure I could have found a game there or just streamed it had KU still been playing.

I met a mom who was in the same pledge class as a girl I sat next to in fourth and fifth grades. Random and crazy!

I was able to impress our friends with my music knowledge several times. I wowed people by knowing that Philip Bailey was Phil Collins’ partner on “Easy Lover.” I knew that Susannah Hoffs sang lead on “Eternal Flame,” not Suzanne Vega. Duh. And one day at the pool we heard a string of early ’90s songs that I knew artist, song, album, and year for each. The capper to that run was knowing that “Ice Ice Baby” came from the album To The Extreme. Frankly I don’t understand why more people don’t know this stuff.

If only I could somehow monetize this useless knowledge.

I learned that Michigan State people wear their gear pretty much all the time. I swear there was a lady who we flew down and back with and every time I saw her she was rocking Sparty gear of one kind or another.

C’s buddy who came with us has celiac disease. We had confirmed ahead of time that the Hard Rock had lots of gluten-free options. We found out that wasn’t necessarily true. It was hard work to find her food each day. It really made us sympathize what she, and others with true celiac, go through.

M burned her back pretty good the first day. So did her prom date. We laughed that you could pick them out in the pool based on their sunburns.[2]

While the week wasn’t a complete, 100% success, we did avoid any incidents within our travel group. I think M had fun, which was the important part. She was completely wiped out and very cranky on the way home. I think C and her friend had a good time. They kind of ignored us unless we forced them to spend time with us. Poor L got the shaft. When we originally booked, we expected a couple of her friends’ families to be on the trip, too. However, they all chose other destinations. The families we hung with had either kids a year or two younger than her or sophomores, leaving her stuck in the middle. She brought a stack of books and read them all. There was a gym and an outdoor basketball court, but she realized on our second day she didn’t bring any shoes suitable for working out. I’m not sure if you asked her she would say this was her favorite trip of ours.

As for S and I, we enjoyed getting away, especially the time we spent with our little group. We knew three of those families well but one was new to us, and we all got along great, reserving chairs together at the pool each day and eating together most nights. That said, I don’t think this trip would rank as our best spring break ever. Nothing bad, just enough to keep it from being an A or even A-.

Last summer I mentioned that we had four big trips booked. The first was our family trip to Kansas City and Lawrence. Then was L’s eighth grade trip to Washington, D.C. Thanksgiving brought our Italian adventure. And finally there was M’s senior spring break.

It’s been a fun and busy eight months. When we got home, S and I agreed if we are able to squeeze in one more trip between summer basketball and M’s departure for college, it needs to be a little more laid back. Not that all travel isn’t stressful, but we’d be fine with a long weekend someplace that is a car trip away.

  1. Out of a class of about 250.  ↩
  2. Not sure I’ve mentioned it but she broke up with her boyfriend awhile back. So this year’s prom date is a new kid and just a friend.  ↩

Weekend Notes

February 27, 2023 /

Kid Hoops

A week ago L’s team beat some good sixth graders in the best game they’ve played all year. This week they played another sixth grade team and got crushed.

It was a 50–26 loss. And that was with us scoring six points in the last minute. The team we played made at least 7 3’s to our one. They worked us over pretty good on the defensive end. They dominated the boards. Nothing really went right for us.

L was feeling under the weather and looked like she had zero energy. We were missing our best player. We had another girl who hadn’t played with us all year and was clueless. And another girl who has played a couple times but never goes to practice showed up and had no idea who she was supposed to be guarding when we were on defense. Not that any of that made any difference.

Our tournament starts Thursday, the first game against a team that beat the sixth graders that just beat us. So doubting that L’s team will make a run.

In good news, we had our parent Zoom meeting for the travel team Sunday night. They will start practicing in two weeks. We will miss the first tournament of the season because of spring break, so L won’t get a travel game until April. She’s excited to rejoin those girls, though.

Jayhawk Talk

Whew.

I had a bad feeling about this run of West Virginia and Texas Tech back-to-back. It felt like too many people were chalking them up as wins and assuming KU would be playing for, at worst, a tie for the Big 12 title next weekend in Austin. I hoped the team was taking them more seriously than KU fans were.

I’m not sure what the answer to that question is, whether it was the KU guys not being focused or WVU just playing great, but it was too damn close of a game.

I missed the second half for a social event. I was extra stressed because I couldn’t find the broadcast anywhere on Sirius while we were driving. I checked the score when we stopped to pick friends up and was relieved to see KU up by seven late. A few minutes later I checked again and let out an “Oh shit!” when I saw it was a one-point game. Reminded me of almost exactly a year ago when we went out as the KU-Texas game was going on and my peaks at the score of an intense, close, low-scoring game made me want to throw up.

A dub is a dub, especially on a day that saw crazy ends to games in Tucson and Iowa City. With Texas losing to Baylor, the Jayhawks are one win away from clinching at least a share of the title.

Social Outing

S and I attended Cathedral’s annual fundraiser Saturday evening. We’ve gone once before, and that was your standard “dress up, drink, eat, and donate some money” type deal. But this year there was a Yellowstone/Western theme.

If you know me, you know I don’t have much time for the cowboy thing. So I bought a hipster Western shirt and a $20 cowboy hat from Amazon. That was enough to fake the look for a few hours.

It was a fun night. We hung with some friends we don’t see often enough. Saw a ton of St P’s people. It was fun to talk college choices with the others who also have seniors. S ran into lots of people she went to school with back in the day.

We did not bid on anything. Someone did take home a very cute puppy for $10,500. Catholics, man!

M was working the event to get National Honor Society points. One of her friends was tasked with walking around and showing the puppy off to people before bid time. M made sure that girl kept swinging by us. My response each time was that she is four and a half years away from being able to buy her own dog.

Afterward she agreed $10K was too much for a puppy.

I haven’t heard the final haul but several fancy trips also went for over 10K. Again, Catholics!

The Decision

I supposed I’ve buried the lede. As some of you know from direct messages or my Facebook post, M decided last Wednesday that she will be enrolling at the University of Cincinnati next fall. She is excited to have made her final choice and relieved the process is over.

Now begins the work on housing. She confirmed that she can only request one roommate, so she’s back in the pool “meeting” people and trying to find a match.

She got more good news Friday, learning that UC accepts credit from Semester at Sea. That is now on the radar for her junior year, following the path of one aunt and one uncle who participated in that program during their undergrad days.[1]

So she’s going to be a Bearcat. KU plays football in Cincinnati next Thanksgiving weekend, which may be a tough one to attend. The basketball Jayhawks should be in the Queen City sometime in the next two years as well. I already warned her I’m going to be super obnoxious to her on those days, whether I go to the games or not.

  1. That aunt also went back as an adult and served as a counselor, guide, or whatever they are called.  ↩

Decision Time Coming

February 21, 2023 /

Our trip to Cincinnati was good.

We drove down with one of M’s long-time friends, A, who was planning on confirming her enrollment at UC on our visit. At check-in we ran into one of their CHS classmates and her mom. When the parents were comparing notes on the college search process, I mentioned that M was waiting to hear from Michigan. She butted in and said, ‘Yeah, that’s not happening, we don’t need to factor that in anymore.”

Probably the smart move and the timeline just got a lot easier.

We began with a large general session for all the kids that were there – there were hundreds – then broke into smaller groups to meet with academic counselors. M was admitted as an exploratory student simply because she isn’t 100% sure what she wants to study and wanted the freedom to be able to adjust if needed.

Between the two sessions we got a solid overview of the enrollment process, housing, advising, and what to expect from freshman year.

Although it was a school holiday for M, it was a normal academic day at UC. It was nice to be on campus while there were some things going on, there were students eating in the food court, etc. A much better view of campus life than we got last summer.

The girls had two lunches. First the four of us wolfed down some Chick-Fil-A in the food court. Then M and A met a couple girls that M had been messaging about possibly living together. They went to a little restaurant for about an hour while A’s dad and I sat in Starbucks. Apparently their meeting went well and M is excited about the possibility of living with these two new friends and another girl.[1]

After that we toured a few of the dorms. They have some weird combos at UC. There is one eight-person option which was very odd. It’s two three-person room-lets and a double that share bathrooms. Very strange and seems rife for things to go sideways easily. At least when I lived with eight guys we all had our own rooms and were spread across the levels of a four-story house. A’s dad is a couple years older than me and went to both Purdue and IU, so we kept boring the girls with stories from our old-school dorms. A couple of the buildings at UC are not much better than my rooms in McCollum Hall.

It was also really strange to be touring rooms with kids actually in them. The RA guides would lead us into a room and there’d be students sitting there, staring at their laptops or reading at their desks. We wondered what these kids get for there to be constant streams of visitors on admitted student session days.

We tried to stop at the Study Abroad office to ask a few questions, but despite the website saying there were drop-in hours on Mondays no one was available to answer questions. M very much wants to do Semester at Sea and wanted to clarify if/how UC accepts those credits.

Finally, we made the obligatory stop at the bookstore. M got another sweatshirt. I eyed some shirts that I might be interested in if she decides to enroll at UC. We ran into one of their good friends from middle school who is also thinking about going to UC. And while we were on campus they saw another kid from their CHS class and two kids who graduated from CHS last year. Weird that on a campus of 45,000+ students they would have so many brushes with Indy people.

Checkout was in the enclosed dining area behind the suites at the football stadium. While A and her dad knocked out their paperwork and put down her deposit, M and I stepped outside and sat in the good seats, watching the football team go through their spring practice workouts below. It was a beautiful day and perfect for watching some football for about 10 minutes.

At one point M told me she didn’t think we needed to revisit IU. I told her that was fine, but not to rule it out unless she was sure it wasn’t going to be worth her time. CHS gives students five days spread over their junior and senior years to miss school for visiting colleges and she hasn’t taken advantage of any. Might as well use it, although I guess if she’s not as interested in IU it’s kind of a waste.

She’s obviously a strong UC lean at the moment. I think she was excited about the prospect of living with those girls she met.[2] We asked about requesting roommates and were told you can only request one with no guarantee of joining with other groups. That could be a snag, as the two M met with are probably tied together and M would have to gamble by living with the fourth girl who she hasn’t met face-to-face. Housing at UC is kind of a mess at the moment, as with apparently most schools. I think she has some concerns about not being able to live with these girls, or close to either them or A and her future roommate(s) if her lottery draw goes poorly. One of those girls she met with Monday is going to call and get a clearer answer on requests. If they found out today those four girls are guaranteed to live together, I think we’d be signing M up tonight so we can get her on the housing list.

But we shall see.

It was a long-ass day – 12 hours door-to-door – but I think it was productive. No hat ceremony yet, but we’re getting close.

  1. M and A are really good friends, but would prefer to not live together. Which made the lunch a little awkward, although A has been talking to another girl who wasn’t in town Monday about rooming together.  ↩

  2. One is from Cincy, one from Cleveland. The fourth girl who was not visiting Monday is also from the Cincy area.  ↩

Weekend Notes

January 9, 2023 /

It’s back to semi-normal today. L returned to school after her Christmas break. M and C still have one more week of J-term, so they go in a little later and get out a little earlier. But all three have to get up in the mornings again.

Last week I had to get up to make sure C was up, so my alarm was 7:15 instead of my normal, school-day 6:55. Still, it was a little weird coming down this morning and finding the house dark instead of two Christmas trees already turned on filling the living room and front office with their soft light.

We took all the holiday decorations down Saturday. Since they went up earlier than normal and stayed up a little longer than normal, this was our most decorated Christmas ever.

We all have dentist appointments this afternoon, which wraps up a busy run of visits to health professionals over the past few weeks. I’ve been to the orthodontist three times, optometrist, sports medicine, MRI center, physical therapy, and had my annual physical.

I’m good, all that middle stuff was for C. She’s been having back pain for a few months, and even resting it plus a few visits to a chiropractor last fall didn’t help. Walking around in Italy was awful for her, and she was generally miserable at the end of each day, and progressively worse as the week went on. We finally got her in to a sports medicine doc three weeks ago. X-rays were clean but her MRI showed two interesting things. First, she has a bulging disk, the likely cause of her pain. Second, she is missing a vertebra and one set of ribs. That diagnosis got S into super medical research mode and she found about 4–5% of the general population has this issue. Weird!

The sports med doc said while there’s no research that would definitely tell us the bulging disk is directly tied to the lack of that vertebra, she also said it sure didn’t help. She also said it likely cost C an inch or two of height, which makes her topping out at 5’2” while her sisters both made it to 5’4”-ish make sense.[1] She took some teasing for that.

She started physical therapy last week and will do that for a month or so, with the hopes that helps her avoid anything more invasive to correct the issue.

Big 12 Hoops

Another crazy-ass weekend in the best conference in the country. Three teams are tied for first place at 3–0, all three getting there on the strength of two road wins. KU is not a huge surprise to be in that group. Kansas State and Iowa State, though? HUGE surprises. These were picked 8th and 9th in the preseason polls!

I think it’s too early to draw broad conclusions about any team. Especially in a conference like the Big 12. The Wildcats and Cyclones might be mid-tier teams a month from now. But they are off to great starts, and those road wins are huge bonuses in a conference that will likely be tightly bunched much of the season. 14–4 is always my default answer for what it takes to win the Big 12. Could this be the year that something like 12–6 guarantees you no worse than a tie?

More Jayhawks-centric talk later this week.

Pacers

The Indiana Pacers were expected to win right around 20 games this year. They just played their 41st game of the season, the exact midpoint of their schedule. After grabbing two more close wins this weekend, they stand at 23–18, good for sixth place in the Eastern Conference.

It’s been a remarkable first half. They are hella fun to watch, as my friends in Cali might say. Tyrese Haliburton is a legit All Star, and plays with a joy that is infectious. Buddy Hield leads the league in 3-pointers made, connecting on nearly 20 more than the second-most prolific shooter. Rookie Bennedict Mathurin is going to be a star. Second-round pick Andrew Nembhard could be one of the steals of the draft, an ideal backup to Haliburton who can also play next to him. Aaron Nesmith is beginning to show why he was a lottery pick two years ago.

But the biggest surprise is Myles Turner, a player most expected to have been traded by now. Turner is playing the best, most complete, most inspired ball of his career. I’ve always thought he was a little immature and disinterested in doing the hard work it took to be a star. At least for now he seems fully invested. To the point where the Pacers have made him a contract extension offer, attempting to capitalize on the big chunk of salary cap space they still have open. Turner has, for now, said he’s not interested.

That will set up an interesting game of chicken. Can the Pacers really trade their second-best player when they are in the running for a playoff spot and far too good to have a realistic shot at the #1 pick if they suddenly decide to tank? Can Turner turn down more money than any other team will be able to give him next summer no matter how badly he wants to end up in LA?

A year ago I would say the sides will come together and find an agreeable extension before the trade deadline, and Turner will quickly get injured. He’s always getting injured, and it would be just the Pacers’ luck for that to happen after they lock him up.

I think the Pacers’ luck has changed, though. So I think they either re-sign him and he stays healthy, or they can’t agree to terms, he plays out the year, signs with another team over the summer and that inevitable injury pops up in training camp. Meanwhile the Pacers use all their cap space to plug some other holes and immediately turn back into the solid 40–50 win team they usually are.

cLots/NFL

What a finish to the regular season! The cLots began the season with that humiliating tie in Houston, one that required a furious comeback just to get to overtime. They ended it with an even bigger embarrassment, losing to the Texans at home in the final minute of the game. Houston had a 10-point lead three times, but the cLots rallied to take a seven-point lead late in the fourth quarter. The Texans, who should have been satisfied with the loss and the #1 pick in April’s draft, for some reason decided to play full-out, converting on fourth and 20+ two different times on their final drive, including the touchdown that cut the lead to one. Then they went for two and the win and got it.

Amazing!

In the process they allowed the Bears to jump them for the #1 pick. The Texans’ owner was on the sideline after the game and he seemed to be the only person not celebrating. A few hours later he fired coach Lovie Smith. I like to think Lovie and his players knew what was coming and the final drive was a big Eff You to ownership.

The L could be good for the cLots. The Bears don’t need a quarterback, so perhaps they will entertain flipping that pick for Indy’s #5. Or at least that’s what speculation is around here. The Bears can certainly use the top pick to select someone other than a QB, and the cLots will have to hope either they can get a decent candidate in their fifth slot, or focus on one of the teams between them and Houston to swap picks with.

***UPDATE***
I heard at least four times yesterday that the cLots’ pick will be #5. Turns out they snuck into #4 thanks to Denver’s win.

I don’t know. It sure feels like the cLots will be stuck at five, reach for someone who is not ready to be an NFL QB, and remain mediocre, at very best, for the foreseeable future.

Not that I’m convinced either Bryce Young or C.J. Stroud are sure-things. Maybe it’s better not to pick them.

  1. And L is still growing.  ↩
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