D's Notebook

Tag: parenting (Page 9 of 72)

Weekend Notes

August 15, 2022 /

Some catchup from the last few days.

Shots Fired…Literally

Friday night we had our old neighbors from Carmel over for dinner. They like to rib us about moving from Carmel, which has little violent crime, to Indianapolis, which like most big cities has some issues. I joked that we hadn’t heard any gunfire from our home in over a year.

Later that night I was in bed, asleep, when I heard one of the girls talking to S. I rolled over and M and C were standing there. I heard them say something about hearing gunshots and police being outside our house. My eyes popped open and, indeed, there were flashing lights reflecting off the trees in our backyard.

I raced downstairs as C told me what she had heard and seen from her bedroom window, which looks out the front of our home. She said at 11:30 she heard a bunch of gunshots then saw a car make a quick U-turn on the main street our house sits off of.

When I got downstairs there was a police car blocking that street directly in front of our house, about 200 feet from our front door. Half a block down there was another police car, half a block beyond it a third. We could see police officers walking around with flashlights as if they were searching for evidence. Soon we saw them placing little evidence markers on the road. This was going on literally within shouting distance of our house, we’re talking 400–500 feet.

This was no bueno.

M must have been watching a lot of police shows lately, because she made the observation that no one must have been hit/hurt because there were only three police cars and no ambulances. I thought that was a pretty astute comment from a privileged kid like her.

As we watched the activity in the street, I pulled up the history from our front door camera and rewound backwards. Sure enough, at exactly 11:30, the quiet night was interrupted by a serious of gun shots. Seconds later you could see the lights of the car making the U-turn in front of our house. But no other cars ever appear.

The cops did their work for about an hour then left. It was a little hard to go back to sleep after that excitement.

Saturday morning I checked Nextdoor and saw a post from one of our neighbors. They had gone out and talked to the police when they first arrived. Based on what the cops found, they were assuming it was just a single car shooting into the air rather than shooting at another car, someone in a house, etc. They found 12 shell casings, which seems excessive to me. But I’m not a gun person. Maybe that’s a normal thing to do on a Friday night. Thankfully it doesn’t seem like the bullets hit any homes and, since it was 11:30 PM, there weren’t any people out doing yard work, grilling, or just hanging out as we had been doing a couple hours earlier.

There wasn’t a thing about the incident on the news Saturday. There were at least two murders in Indy that night, so some idiot emptying a clip on a dark street without any injuries didn’t move the needle.

An unsettling reminder of the world we live in.

Oh, L slept through the whole thing. And S didn’t get out of bed. I believe her comment to the girls was, “Tell your dad about it,” and went back to sleep. Apparently they are less affected by nearby gunfire than the rest of us are.

Fan Girling

The night before the first day of each school year, CHS seniors gather to TP the Hill. They take thousands of donated rolls of toilet paper and throw them over all the trees that line the main entrance to campus. Then on the morning of the first day, the students like the street and greet families by tossing toilet paper at their cars. It’s a mess, but it’s fun.

Wednesday night I volunteered to help serve food at the picnic before the TP-ing. I was given the highly coveted task of handing out hamburger buns. It was fun to see some kids I hadn’t seen since middle school, and to be greeted by M’s many friends. I even had a nice interaction with her boyfriend.[1]

If you are a college hoops recruiting junkie you probably know that, by one measure, the top senior in the country is in M’s class. He showed up, surprisingly, wearing a Team USA t-shirt (from a camp he was cut from) rather than any gear for Michigan State, where he recently committed. When he came through the line I offered him a bun, he accepted, said “Appreciate you,” and moved on.

A few minutes later M came running over.

“I saw you Fan Girling when X came by!” and made a face like I was starstruck.

I shook my head, “I was not ‘Fan Girling’, I just gave him a bun. And I’m disappointed he didn’t comment on my hat.” I was wearing my KU national champs hat. Not sure if he even glanced at it.

Anyway, I thought M accusing me of Fan Girling was pretty funny, even if inaccurate. I figure it was payback for me making fun of her Harry Styles obsession. Which is fair.

Hoops Tryouts

L had her tryout for the St P’s team Saturday. She said that she barely got to play. They mostly used her to set up other people so they could see how they played. She understood why – the evaluators know who she is, what her game is like, and that she had another tryout the next day – but was still bummed she didn’t get to ball more. That season starts in about a month.

The Sunday tryout was for a Cathedral-sponsored team that will play in the gap between the CYO season and when travel ball picks back up in March. She is excited to play with some girls she met at camp in June, and to learn from the high school team’s staff.

Her travel team jumps back onto the court this coming week, playing in a two-month Back to School league. She will re-tryout for that program in two weeks, although she will stay on the team she played for this past year. It’s just a way to get another $30 out of families.

Her (likely) final kickball season starts on Tuesday.

So Long Oooey Pooey

This weekend Indiana University Purdue University Indianapolis announced that it was splitting into two schools. IU will take over most of the campus and call it IU-Indy. Purdue will still control the engineering and computer science programs, likely as an extension of the West Lafayette campus.

The reason given was simple: branding. While IUPUI billed itself as offering the best of both schools, no one really got it. And the name was endlessly mockable. I guess this will help them get more applicants/enrollees?

I did most of my graduate work on the IUPUI campus, but don’t have any real connection to the school. I doubt many people have strong feelings about the split. I think we will all miss the name, though.

  1. It is official, she has used the term around us.  ↩

Weekend in KC

August 8, 2022 /

A very good weekend trip to Kansas City. Other than the heat, of course.

Travel

It was probably our easiest drive between Indy and KC we’ve ever had without driving at night. A few slowdowns, a few standard trucks passing each other or slow people in the fast lane issues. But otherwise it was kind of smooth sailing.

One side effect of me switching to a smaller car without a third row is that trips like this can be problematic. Our girls bitch when they have to ride 10 minutes to dinner three-across in the back seat. Eight-ish hours was going to be a shitshow. We decided that the expense of renting a van was worth the reduction in bitching and increase in comfort for all. That was a good call. Plenty of room for our bags, the girls weren’t on top of each other, and we got pretty solid fuel mileage.

Speaking of fuel, it saddened us that the father we got from Indy, the more the price of gas fell. I mean, it was good for this trip. But sucks that it reinforced the reality that Indiana typically has some of the highest gas prices outside of California.[1] Anyway, when I bought gas in Lawrence on Friday, I was paying a full dollar less per gallon than in Indy. Joy.

OK, onto the trip itself. Some of you know many of these details but I’ll go ahead and act like no one knows nothing.

Thursday

We mixed things up and stayed at the Hampton Inn near the Power & Light District rather than on the Plaza. We haven’t ever checked out downtown on any of our trips other than driving through, so it was cool to see the many changes that have taken place down there in the 19 years since we moved to Indy. The streetcar stop was directly below our room. More on that later.

Thursday night we met my aunt and uncle for dinner at Parlor. The food we sampled from the various vendors ranged from ok to very good. When I walked to the bar to order our first drinks, I scanned the QR code to pull up the drink menu. The bartender said that if I was a quick chooser I had two minutes to still get happy hour prices. I asked her if she had anything local. She began to rattle off the list and when she said “Boulevard Unfiltered Wheat” I said, “Two please!”

As she poured them she commented how Boulevard really isn’t local anymore since they got bought out awhile back. This very nice looking young woman sitting at the bar next to me shook her head and said, “They’re sellouts.”

Oh my!

I asked that they not hold it against me and took my beers and fled.

Friday – KU

Friday was our KU campus visit. This was my first trip back to Lawrence in 12 years, and only my second in 19+ years. Which seems crazy. It’s just hard to carve out a day in Lawrence when we have generally taken these quick trips to KC and are trying to see as many people as possible in a compressed time frame.

I honestly don’t remember the last time I took I–70 to Lawrence. It’s been well over 20 years, for sure. The girls were totally confused by the concept of toll roads.

We arrived on campus a little early, so I drove by a couple of my old apartments and then we hit the bookstore to scout out possible purchases for after the tour. M quickly piped up, “KU has way better shirts than anywhere we’ve been so far.” Score one for the Jayhawks! She was right. I think the KU bookstore had more shirts than the IU and Purdue bookstores combined.


The KU admissions presentation was outstanding. M agreed with me that it was the best of the six we’ve been to, so it wasn’t just a biased KU alum’s opinion. Most of that was because of the guy who was leading the presentation. He was great, funny and full of personality. He was a stark contrast to the lady who presented at IU last Monday, who basically read from a script and overused the word “beautiful.” KU really hits hard on being an AAU accredited school, and that got M’s attention. I told her IU and Purdue are also AAU schools, so that means KU has many of the academic benefits of those schools without the sheer size. In many ways it is the perfect blend of a Big 10 school and Miami, Ohio.

Between the shirts, our peeks at campus, the presentation, and the fat chunk of scholarship money M’s grades qualify her for, she was professing some interest. I’ll admit while I thought it was a long shot, I was getting excited about her at least applying.

Then we took the tour.

Listen, it was nasty hot and humid. It was a Friday late in the tour cycle. Our entire group seemed a little low energy. But the tour kind of sucked. Our guide wasn’t very good, he skipped some of the best parts of campus, we didn’t go inside a single building, and he did more telling than showing about the things that make KU an interesting option.

The tour walked out to a stopping point where families could grab a bus that would take them to stops at professional schools if they had appointments, dorm tours if scheduled, and eventually back to the Union where we started. We waited around for about five minutes and decided to hoof it back rather than wait, as everyone was getting hungry. I think the walk up the Hill in the heat extinguished any interest M had in KU. We were all dripping when we got back up to Wescoe beach.

On the way to the Union I walked us through the main part of campus the tour had missed. M said, “Why didn’t he take us here? This is awesome.”

Unbelievable.

I also corrected a few “facts” our guide had wrong. He was a nice enough kid and I’m hoping he was just off his game Friday.

In M’s welcome bag was a 20% off the entire purchase at the KU Bookstore, so we did some shopping. I was in heaven, but only walked out with a couple stickers. They had some amazing gear but I have purchased like eight KU shirts already this year. The girls all got nice sweatshirts, though.

So I don’t think M will be a Jayhawk. But L is interested so maybe we’ll try again in four years!

My brain was literally cramping last week trying to come up with a place to eat lunch while in Lawrence. Which of my old favorites should I hit? I reached the point of mental paralysis and consulted with brother in Jayhawkdom E$, who suggested the Ladybird Diner. This was a brilliant rec: the food and environment were fantastic. If you’re ever in LFK, you should stop by.

After lunch we did some more driving around and then made the pilgrimage to Allen Fieldhouse. This was my only misstep of the day. I didn’t research how to partake in all the new exhibits at the Fieldhouse. I figured you just walk into the building and you’ll see everything. They do have the little museum display in the main entrance. But the main part of AFH was closed off, so the girls couldn’t see the court. I assumed this meant the area with the original rules of basketball was also off limits for the day. It wasn’t until that evening that I read those are in a whole other building that may well have been open. L was bummed she didn’t see the court, but we did get to see the latest national championship trophy.


On our way out of town we swung by the house I lived in for two years, aka The Big Yellow House. Which is now brown. If you know, you know. Naturally there was an accident at 23rd and Mass when we were there. We used to call 911 at least once a week because of accidents there. Some things never change.

Friday night the Murray family graciously hosted many of you. It was great to see all of you who were able to make it.

Saturday – Raytown and More

Saturday morning we took the streetcar up to the River Market. I ate many lunches and dinners in the River Market in my adult KC years. But I don’t think I had been to the farmers market since I was a little kid. It was fabulous! I remarked at how when I was a kid it was pretty much all local Italian vendors. I did hear one old lady speaking some Italian Saturday. I was amazed by how many world cultures were represented in the area now. A Vietnamese place. A Thai place. The spice store with all kinds of exotic, wonderful smelling spices on display. Vendors selling all kinds of Asian and Latin foods. Good for KC.

We took the streetcar back down to Union Station and walked around there a bit. I showed the girls the bullet holes that remain from the Kansas City Massacre. I found that more interesting than they did.

A few weeks back M said it would be funny if we went to the Taco Bell I worked at in Raytown on our visit. That jogged my memory that I had read about a really good barbecue place that was right around the corner. We met the Nesbitt family and Stacey B at Harp Barbecue for lunch. Sure enough, the old TB building was still there, although now it is a Chinese takeout place. M asked if that was the actual building I worked in. Hell yes, it was! All it had was a new coat of paint.

Harp’s was terrific. I had the burnt ends which were top notch. The sides were solid. The rest of the family had pulled pork which they all approved of. The beer from Crane Brewery was good, too. A little oasis of culture in a town not always known for that.

After lunch I drove the girls by the three houses we lived in, my old high and elementary schools, and numerous car washes I used. We popped into a CVS and the girls were disappointed I didn’t buy any of the RHS swag they were selling.


After our Raytown sojourn, we headed to the Plaza for the obligatory shopping trip. It was sales tax free weekend in Missouri, which made the stores extra packed. Not the most fun on a day when the heat index was something like 107.

While on the Plaza I got stopped by a guy who was with Amnesty International trying to hit me up for a donation. I interrupted him and thanked him but said we were late to meet someone. That shut him down. I turned and there was a red light greeting me. So we just stood there awkwardly until it changed to green. The girls were trying to sustain their giggles the entire time.[2]

For dinner Saturday we met the Vogel family. Our first choice was going to have trouble seating us so we bopped down the street and went to Carmen’s. It was a great meal with great friends. As much as I miss the Plaza, I think Brookside is the part of Kansas City I miss most. We just don’t have an area like that in Indy. Everything that is similar is either just a couple notches bigger or smaller and lacks that special Brookside feel.

That was our weekend in Kansas City. Other than the heat and not getting into see Allen Fieldhouse, I have zero complaints. I think the girls all enjoyed it as well.

  1. This is mostly due to our gas coming from refineries to the north, which increases the transportation cost to get that gas to us. Plus those refineries are old and both constantly shutting down for repairs and under some more significant environmental restrictions.  ↩

  2. That’s only my second-best effort at avoiding solicitors on the Plaza. Years ago I was stopped by a very nice young lady. She asked how my day was going. I grabbed my stomach and said I had just eaten too much barbecue (truth), my stomach was a little upset (not true), and I needed to find a restroom. She encouraged me to find one. I walked in mock distress until I was out of her sight. Then I laughed and laughed.  ↩

Life and Times of a Rising Senior

August 2, 2022 /

A busy week for M. Two college visits and senior pictures have all been checked off her To Do list.

We went to Purdue last Wednesday and then IU on Monday. Both trips went well.

She liked Purdue more than she expected, and when we left she felt like it had pulled even with Cincinnati as her co-favorite. Or at least a school that would definitely be on her list for a second visit and more research.

We’ve heard tons of great things about Purdue, especially how they have really updated their campus from the rather boring, typically engineering collection of buildings it used to be. Perhaps that set the bar too high for me, because while I thought everything was just fine, I wasn’t awed by anything I saw. Lots of new buildings, to be sure. But it still felt rather utilitarian to me.

We both liked how they broke up the visit. We started with a 45 minute tour of part of campus, landed at the welcome center for the hour-long admissions presentation, then went out for another hour or so of touring campus. That was a good way to break up Purdue’s rather sprawling campus. Our tour guides were great, talking almost the entire time. And our admissions presenter was one of the best we’ve encountered so far.

Purdue has a lot going for it. Maybe too much, in fact. Last year it had way more freshman enroll that their algorithm expected, and the school had to scramble to find housing for everyone. Perhaps it was because of that you have to make a separate appointment to tour the housing options. We could have squeezed that in, but it was hot and humid and we decided to save that for a second visit, possibly popping in on people M knows who will be students at Purdue in the fall.

Purdue is the closet school M will consider, maybe 15–20 minutes closer than IU. Despite its engineering school rep, it can offer a great education even in the more liberal arts affiliated programs. And they’ve kept tuition frozen for over a decade now. It made sense why M liked it so much.

Then we hit IU on Monday afternoon.

We lucked out and avoided big storms that had cancelled the morning tours and even got about an hour of pleasant weather before the heat and humidity came crashing down again. We parked right by S’s sorority house and found the brick with her name on it, which is always fun.

The new IU welcome center is located in the remodeled building where I took my three graduate courses on the Bloomington campus. It was fun for me to have a personal connection. “I took classes in this building!” They went with the more traditional sit through an hour presentation and then get out and walk for 75 minutes format.

Our tour guide was great. Let’s see if I can remember everything she told us about herself. She’s in the Kelley School of Business, one of the top business schools in the country. She’s on a pre-law track with two minors, one in computer science the other having to do with data analysis or something. She’s in the honors college. She gives tours. She tutors both for the football team and the honors college. She’s in Panhellenic government. She’s in the campus Catholic org. And she sings in the campus choir. I might have left something out. Girl is busy, and seemingly going places! I thought about asking if she had time for a boyfriend but realized that would both come out wrong and sound super creepy coming from a 51-year-old man.

I’ve always loved IU’s campus. It reminds me a lot of the KU campus, just without the big hill in the middle. Acres of gorgeous, tree-lined paths. Big, beautiful limestone buildings. Downtown right across the street from the main campus entrance. It’s very much a proper college environment. You shouldn’t pick a school because of what it looks like, but it sure makes a great impression.

There was less talking and more general walking and looking around on this tour compared to Purdue’s. Even M has picked up on how the whole spiel is pretty much the same thing at every school, with some tweaks to highlight each one’s particular strengths. She has realized that her next step is to make a list of her favorite schools and begin doing research to compare how the meals plans work on each campus, what the academic advising programs are like, etc. to cut through the marketing and get closer to figuring out what school meets her needs the best.

When we completed the tour and began walking back to the car, she said, without being prompted, “I like this more than Purdue.” Which I expected.

One hangup I believe I’ve mentioned before is that she doesn’t want to go to the same school as a lot of her high school friends. Although we’ve told her many times that on a campus of 45,000 students she will not see the 5–10 people she went to high school with very often either at IU or Purdue, that remains a sticking point, and a big reason she likes Cincinnati so much. It seems like her friend group will send more people to IU than Purdue. So that’s going to be an entry in her spreadsheet. We’ll see if it matters when it comes time to make a decision.

After five campus visits I believe M’s power rankings look something like this:

1A – Cincinnati
1B – Indiana
2 – Purdue
3 – Miami (OH)
4 – Xavier

A bigger gap between two and three than between the top three schools.

Of course, she has one more visit remaining. It just happens to be to a school that A) I attended and B) that won the NCAA division one men’s basketball national championship four months ago.

She squeezed in her senior pictures on Sunday. I didn’t realize what a big deal these were until this time last year, when her friends a year older than her were going through the process. At Cathedral you have to go to the “right” photographer, a woman who took family pics for us about 10 years ago. I went with M to the planning session with the photographer last week. She could not have been more organized, helpful, and fun. M was pretty well prepared already but left with a clear plan for what to do in the five days before her pics.

I stayed the hell out of the way Sunday. There was enough stress in our house before she left that I wanted nothing to do with the actual photo shoot. Luckily my presence was not requested, although C did go along with S to help and watch.

I guess it went very well. She lucked out and got decent weather. It was in the mid–80s but the humidity was tolerable, it was a little breezy, and they were late afternoon/early evening so it was getting cooler through their session. She was happy when she got home. I guess we’ll see in a few days whether it was worth all the time, effort, and money.

I miss the 1980s when you just went to a photo studio with one outfit, sat for 20 minutes, and then ordered one or two shots a couple weeks later.

Family Notes

July 25, 2022 /

It has been a lazy few days around our house.

M spent last week in Michigan with one of her best friend’s families. She seemed to have a great time. Boy was the house quiet without the most talkative sister around. Kind of a preview of what awaits us next fall.

I had big plans to do something fun with her sisters while she was away, but every day one of them had something pop up that prevented that from happening. C had two more driving lessons, watched two of her cousins part of one day, and cleaned for one of her aunts another day. L pitched in with that aunt and mowed her yard for her. L and I got a couple workouts in between her hanging with friends.

Saturday we had most of L’s travel basketball team over for a season-ending pool party. Despite a forecast for a heat index approaching 110, it stayed cloudy all day and was actually a nice evening to spend outside. The girls seemed to have fun and it was nice to hang out with the parents casually rather than in the stands or while on a basketball trip.

Sunday we had some friends over for dinner. They have boys M’s and C’s ages and in recent years those gatherings have been a little awkward. These kids have known each other since birth but something about the teenage years turned it weird a couple years back. But everyone was happy and got along last night. We managed to avoid the heavy storms that split the area, although the kids never got into the pool because we could hear thunder in the distance. There was a possible tornado only about two miles from our home. Fortunately it was moving away from us and we were never in any danger.

Today is a big day in our house: M’s 18th birthday! Her sisters have been saying for weeks how weird that sounds to them. For some reason her turning 17 last year seemed weirder than 18. But it is still odd to have an adult child, legally speaking. Especially since she still has a year of high school left. I didn’t turn 18 until after I graduated so that has always seemed like the natural progression to me. You graduate, turn 18, then go to college. Obviously that only works for about a third of the population, but it was my experience and my “normal.”

Fortunately she has matured a lot the past 2–3 years and seems ready to be 18. She still has moments where we smack our foreheads at her lack of common sense or ability to figure things out on her own, but that’s normal. In general she’s a smart, mature, well-adjusted kid that seems comfortable in her own skin and in social settings.

Much of parenthood is spent hoping. Hoping that you are teaching your kids the right things and hoping that they are taking those lessons in. Hoping that they don’t grow up to be shitheads. M’s journey to adulthood is far from over, but I am proud of where she is at at this moment in her life. I’ve always said I wouldn’t be worried about her because, one way or another, she’ll figure out her path. I still feel exactly that way about her.

We had a rough patch, M and I, when she was 14–16ish, and it took awhile to come out of that. But we get along a lot better now than we did a couple years ago (and things weren’t really that bad then) and we enjoy each other’s company and giving each other shit.

We took C and her out for brunch today, then walked around the mall for a bit.[1] I mocked her for being excited about getting a birthday discount at Kendra Scott. We will have a big birthday dinner for her and a group of friends in the next week or so. She is headed to a local lake with friends later today. I imagine the young man she’s been spending some time with will be there as well. Not a bad way to spend your 18th birthday.

C and I went to the orthodontist this morning. She has struggled with her retainer regimen since she got her braces off over a year ago. We’ve already had to have it re-fitted once. Well, she went through a long spell of not wearing it, now it doesn’t fit, and her teeth have moved. So she’s going in Invisalign for the next 4–6 months. Which is lovely. I think she realizes this is her last chance and needs to take better care of her teeth if she doesn’t want her parents to ground her until she goes to college.

  1. L is spending the day with friends at a water park.  ↩

Weekend Notes: School Visits and Tennis

July 11, 2022 /

A pretty boring weekend around our house. I wrapped up Stranger Things. M went to a concert. But other than that the weekend proper was pretty low key for our family. We had great weather so we spent a lot of time just hanging out around the pool or on the back porch.

College Visits

Thursday M and I took our second trip to Ohio to visit a college, this time going to Oxford, home of Miami University. We went with one of her best friends and her dad, who is a Miami alum.

He had warned me ahead of time that Oxford is in the middle of nowhere. He wasn’t lying! Maybe there’s a main highway that connects the city to Cincinnati or Dayton, but coming from the west you pretty much have to take these little, two-lane county roads to get there. On one of them you even go through some Amish/Mennonite country. It feels very isolated.

We headed over early so our driver could give us his tour before the official one. Miami has a beautiful, traditional campus, lots of red brick buildings and green space. Despite being roughly half the size of the University of Cincinnati – MU has about 20,000 students total – it feels like the bigger school just because the campus is more spread out.

The main drag of town is right next to campus. You literally go from the president’s home to a fraternity house to a red light to several blocks of bars and restaurants. We cruised around this area a bit, popped into some shops, had some lunch, and headed back for the school tour.

Our tour guide was great. She was smart (Biomedical engineering major with two science-based minors), funny, and did a fine job showing us what we needed to see. There was a lot more walking than on our first two visits, though. Where at UC they played up football and Xavier basketball, Miami presents itself as a hockey school, complete with a tour of their hockey arena. I was not expecting that! The arena was filled with kids who were attending camp.

I’m already a little numb to the tour presentations even after just three. You just get a different version of the same pitch tailored to highlight each school’s strengths. I kind of wish M had specific academic interests so we could do an engineering or business school focused tour rather than these general ones.

M might be numb to them, too. Or maybe it was just the presence of her friend, because it seemed like they were talking to each other more than listening/observing. Although I should give her the benefit of the doubt and figure she was able to take it all in while having a constant conversation.

I saw two big bummers about Miami. First, the sheer difficulty of getting there. While it is right at two hours from Indy, same as the Cincinnati schools, because the final 30 minutes are on county roads, I have some worries about travel if we needed to get there in the winter. Second, while they provide some tuition relief to all students, they aren’t nearly as generous as either UC or Xavier. It isn’t Notre Dame expensive, and we told M if that’s where she really wants to go we can make it work. But it is the most expensive school, after various forms of tuition relief, she plans to visit. Since the school didn’t wow her, I don’t think that’s going to be an issue.

What could be an issue for M is how the sororities don’t have their own houses. You still live in the dorms or off-campus housing. Each house has a “suite” where they hold meetings, but they don’t have a true house to call theirs. I guess it all goes back to the old zoning rules that stated any house that had more than X unrelated woman was considered a brothel. You’d think they would update those rules. Also I had to explain to all of my girls what a brothel is.

Oxford is a cool little town, one truly built around the university. I’m not sure it would be much more than a couple traffic lights if the school wasn’t there to anchor it. It is a nice combination of elements: neither tiny nor large; excellent academic reputation; large, beautiful campus; not too far from home but still away.

I think M enjoyed the visit and will probably apply to Miami, but it seems like UC remains her favorite of the three schools she’s visited.

If you follow sports you know the school is always referred to as “Miami of Ohio” to avoid confusing it with the University of Miami in Florida. My favorite shirt I saw – that I totally forgot to take a picture of – was one that said “We were a college before Florida was a state.” That checks out! Miami University was founded in 1809 while Florida gained admittance to the Union in 1845. Crazy!

Wimbledon

Wimbledon used to be a huge part of my late June/early July sports routine. But that faded long ago. I can’t remember the last time I sat down and watched more than a few minutes of a match, even on championship weekend.

Sunday I caught most of the men’s final, between Novak Djokovic and Nick Kyrgios. That was mostly because of how entertaining Kyrgios is. I’m reluctant to use certain terms to describe his behavior because I genuinely do not know if he has mental issues or if he is just one of those super hardcore competitors that loses his mind a little on the court and is basically normal off the court.

Regardless of the cause of his conduct, watching him is a wild ride. Moments of absolutely sublime tennis. But when things go sideways, they go SIDEWAYS. He argues with the umpires. Screams at himself. Berates the people sitting in his box. Complains about people in the stands. Famously, in his round of 32 match, he pushed right up against getting into a physical altercation with his opponent.

You never know what you’re going to get and it makes for thrilling, if sometimes uncomfortable, viewing.

The final had it all. Punishingly powerful tennis from Kyrgios to win the first set. Shots that showed astonishing athleticism, skill, and courage. And then him losing it mentally when he blew two games he was a point away from winning, one a break opportunity at 0–40, another a service game when he was up 40–0. He got a warning from the chair umpire, and engaged him in long diatribes during changeovers. He treated the people in his box like they were responsible for his errors. He described a woman in the stands he believed was heckling him as looking like she had had “about 700 drinks.” It was amazing.

Naturally Djokovic, who isn’t quite as steady as Roger Federer but seems eternally composed in a championship match’s biggest moments, let Kyrgios work himself into a tizzy and then pounced. His 7–3 win in the fourth set tiebreaker was deceptively easy, as Kyrgios seemed mentally checked out by that point.

It was a fine way to spend a Sunday morning.

Miles on the Odometer: College Visits and Weekend Hoops

June 20, 2022 /

A long post about a long few days.

Thirteen months into my Audi lease I was in great shape, milage-wise, about 1000 miles lower than where I should be. I pretty much wiped out that deficit over the past few days.

Thursday M and I drove to Cincinnati to take her first college campus visits. We toured the University of Cincinnati and Xavier.

UC is a popular spot for Indy-area students as it offers nearly in-state tuition to most Indiana grads. Xavier always looks to bring in kids from Indianapolis Catholic schools, and is known for being very generous with scholarships. Seemed like a good way to knock out a couple schools on her list in one day.

M really isn’t sure what she wants to study yet, so we didn’t meet with any academic folks. And as her first visits, she had nothing to compare them to. But she loved UC.

It is a much bigger school than I realized, well over 45,000 total students with an undergrad population around 33,000. The main campus is a very tight, two square mile property near downtown. It has some older, traditional college campus buildings, but much of the campus is either brand new or recently renovated, giving it a very modern feel. The football stadium is smack in the middle of campus. You can literally look into it as you’re walking to class.

I think she liked that combination of opportunities that come with having such a large student body without the large physical size of the typical Big Ten campus. She has some friends with siblings at both UC and Xavier, so has heard the area around the UC campus has lots of cool restaurants and shops. It can also get sketchy pretty quick. I thought it was interesting how our tour guide played up the fact that UC has its own police force, the Cincinnati police patrols campus, and there are emergency phones all around if you do ever run into trouble. I guess that’s good info to have, but it also does as much to reinforce the narrative that it isn’t the safest campus as reassure parents that their kids will be safe.

When we were done with the official tour we walked into the Fifth Third Arena where the basketball team plays. There was a boys camp going on and, I swear to God, as we walked through the kids were all chanting, “Let’s go Kansas!” The best we could figure was the camp was divided into groups with names of different college teams, and the Kansas squad was going through drills while the other kids encouraged them. Or they knew I was in the building!

Outside the main doors is a statue of Oscar Robertson. There we found a recruit taking a picture in front it. He was a 6–5 white kid so probably not a high level recruit, but it was kind of cool to see the coaches walking him around. I got a pic with Oscar when the kid was done.

Our tour guide kept making a big deal about how UC is a football school now, which did make me chuckle to myself since that was not the case until a couple years ago. And there were signs and shirts everywhere celebrating UC’s admission to the Big 12. KU playing two hours away from my house isn’t the best reason to send my kid there, but it’s not the worst, either.

Again, this was M’s first college tour. I think she was a little too impressed with some things that were new to her. She thought the dorms were amazing, and we didn’t even see the high level ones. She thought the Bearcat Card, the debit card that works all over campus and at a few off-campus businesses, was the coolest thing ever. I didn’t tell her that I’m sure every school has their own version of that. She’ll probably think other schools are copying off UC when she hears about their payment systems.

After lunch we drove the six miles to Xavier. As I said, there’s a strong connection between Indianapolis Catholic schools and XU. We know a lot of people who went to Xavier or are there now.

While we parked in a big garage at UC and had to walk a few blocks to our meeting point, at XU we just pulled into a small lot in front of the admissions building, like parking at Walgreen’s. I think that immediately turned M off a little, as it didn’t seem very big or special.

The tour was fine, but I could tell she wasn’t into it as much as UC. Afterward when I asked her thoughts, she told me XU felt like a bigger version of Cathedral, and she didn’t want to repeat that experience for the next four years. (Xavier in in the 7000 student range.) I certainly understood that.

Everything about our visit reflected that size. We were in a group of 10 or so kids plus parents at UC. At Xavier we shared a guide with one other girl and her dad. It was a pretty quick walk around campus, and the buildings all seemed a lot older and smaller. The dorms were both far less impressive than UC’s and reminded me of the dorms I lived in at KU. I bet these were built in the 1960s like those old Daisy Hill dorms (RIP McCollum Hall).

I really liked the Jesuit educational concepts that Xavier is built upon, especially their embrace of social justice and a requirement that students do things outside the classroom to make the world a better place.[1] But M can do that at any school, with or without the Jesuits.

Where UC really pushed how they are a football school (now), Xavier plays up how they are a basketball school and the excitement about Sean Miller taking over the program. Our guide took us into the Cintas Center, where a girls camp was in session, and asked if either of the girls liked basketball and M shook her head and pointed at me, “I’m not but he is.” This day wasn’t about me so I just smiled. The guide took the bait, though.

“So what team do you follow?” she asked, I’m sure expecting me to say IU, Purdue, or Butler.

When I told her I went to KU she got excited. “I picked them to win my bracket this year!” I liked her a lot!

Xavier likes to throw money around. If M hits certain deadlines in the admissions process and goes to a local event, the day she is admitted to Xavier her tuition will be basically chopped in half through a series of scholarships.[2] I’m not sure she’s interested enough to pursue any of that seriously, though.

We bought t-shirts at both schools, as Cathedral seniors are allowed to wear college shirts all year instead of uniform shirts. Even though she’s lukewarm on Xavier, she was excited that they also gave her a shirt, so she ended the day with three she can wear to school.

It was a hot day for touring campuses, but I think it was useful. I joked that she was ready to commit to UC right away, like a football recruit overly excited about his first visit, but cautioned her to take some more visits and start learning more about the academics of all the schools she is interested in.

When we got home we nailed down four more visits for the summer. We will go to Miami (OH) and Purdue in July, IU and KU in August. She’s doing KU as a favor to me on our Kansas City trip, but claims she has an open mind about it. We are visiting Miami with one of her best friends, whose dad went there and will serve as our unofficial guide. Marquette has been on her list, but I think if she’s not serious about Xavier there’s no need to waste time on Marquette (although it is 50% bigger than XU). She’s kicked around a few other Big 10 schools, but hasn’t formally moved them onto her list or asked me to look into visits.

It’s pretty crazy to realize how fast this is happening. She just took her first visits, she’ll be sending out applications in a few months, and likely have an acceptance letter or two by Christmas.

Thursday was a long day. I got up at 5:30 in order to be at UC before our 9:00 tour. Friday morning I almost had to get up even earlier for my next trip.

L’s team played in a tournament in Knoxville, TN over the weekend. Originally we were scheduled to play at 11:00 Friday morning. As we had already booked our hotel for Friday and Saturday nights before the schedule came out, we were going to have to get up at 4:30 AM to make it down in time. Luckily the tournament took pity on us and moved things around. We left home at about 8:30 and drove back to Cincinnati, then south through Lexington to Knoxville. Along the way we dodged severe storms. We had to drive through one heavy storm and then through some exceptionally gusty winds. Friends who were 30 minutes behind us had to pull off the road for about 45 minutes because the rain they were in was so heavy.

We made it to the convention center just in time for our first ass-kicking of the weekend. The first three teams we played were all very long, athletic, and just way faster than us. We actually hung with the first opponent for about 10 minutes. Then a girl hit a 30-foot bomb and it kind of destroyed our girls. We were down 10 at halftime but lost by 34. That same girl hit three other 3’s, two of them from NBA range. You just can’t guard that when you’re also struggling to contain girls who are bigger, stronger, faster in the other four spots. L didn’t score in that game.

In game two L hit a 3 to put us up 17–14 just before halftime. The rest of the game was a 30–8 run. Unfortunately we scored the eight points. We just got out-physical-ed and hustled again, and the girls seemed to give up at a certain point. L had seven points, all in the first half. She had a sweet move where she faked a girl, blew by her, scored, and got fouled. Then she missed the free throw. And she got busted by the same move two times on the other end.

Saturday we lost our final pool game by eight. We trailed pretty much the entire contest but put a run on them late to make it interesting. L grabbed a rebound and went full-court to lay it in and cut it to four with just over 3:00 left. A possession later she faked a girl, took two dribbles, and pulled up for a wide-open 15-footer that rimmed out. We never had another chance to cut it to less than four again.

We went to lunch and worried about whether we were going to lose our afternoon bracket game, which would mean we played a late game Sunday. Our girls seemed kind of down and lacking confidence. We hoped we were just in a hellacious pool and that even though we were the #4 in a 3–4 matchup, we would get a weaker team than the ones we played.

We were definitely better than our first tournament opponent. But we seemed rattled by the pressure we faced in the first three games. This team was throwing light pressure at us and we kept getting called for traveling, throwing the ball to the wrong girl, or dribbling into traffic. Just dumb errors made because of indecision. Fortunately they couldn’t score, either. We were up five at half and then something finally clicked. We went on a 30–5 run in the second half to win easily. L had a weird line. She was 0–4 from the field but had four rebounds, four assists, and three steals with no turnovers. She was bummed she didn’t score but I pointed out her other stats and told her she still made an impact on the win.

We had a fun team dinner afterward. The girls were in high spirits and the parents were relieved.

Sunday morning it was back to the convention center for our semifinal. We were playing a team from the south side of Indy, which was kind of funny. On a court next to us two of our program’s fifth grade teams were playing each other.

We started great and had an early 7–2 lead. Then we hit a cold spell and were down six at halftime. That deficit stretched out to 10 midway through the second half. But our girls, for the first time all weekend, fought through the adversity and started clawing back into it. We hit a long 3 with about 3:00 left to tie it. With 14 seconds left we hit two free throws to tie it again. But the other team smartly spread our defense, put the ball in the hands of their best driver, and she hit a layup with four seconds left to give them the win.

We were bummed and happy. Bummed that we lost, but happy that our girls fought hard to come back. And also happy we wouldn’t have to stick around for another three hours for the championship game.

L had a decent weekend. Other than that one game, she didn’t score much. She was a combined 3–7 from the free throw line and hit just the one three. But her shot looked good. I took some pictures at various times and showed them to her after we got home. I wanted her to realize her form is good, she just needs more reps to add consistency. Her knees were barking a little but she looked quick all weekend. Most importantly, she was generally on the court when the team played its best.

Our drive home was long. There was a lot more traffic than Friday, but at least no storms. The approach to Cincinnati is a mess of construction, and it took us a good 45 minutes to go about 15 miles. There was an accident 30 minutes outside Indy that had I–74 crawling. But we made it home safely just in time for a Father’s Day dinner at home with S’s dad and stepmom.

Next week is the final tournament of the official AAU season. I think L is looking forward to some time off.

  1. The lady who did the admissions presentation called the Jesuits “Catholic hippies.”  ↩
  2. They explained the process like this: apply by October 1 and get $500, which repeats for four years. Go to a Xavier event in Indy, get $1000, which also repeats for four years. Then your acceptance letter will include a scholarship that will range between $15,000 and $26,000, also good for four years. College tuition is a weird racket.  ↩

Holiday Weekend Notes

May 31, 2022 /

The first weekend of the summer is in the books. We were busy.

M and C finished classes on Thursday. Unless there’s a surprise coming we don’t know about, they both had really good semesters with just one B between them and a handful of A+’s. And now M is a senior. Yikes!

I took C to finally get her driver’s permit on Friday. She wrapped up the written portion of driver’s ed over a month ago, but, for a variety of reasons, we never made it into the BMV. She’s still a month or two out from taking the in-car portion of the class because of a backlog in the system, but we can start working with her and getting those hours logged.

Friday was also L’s last day of school. She was bummed because rain last week ruined a lot of the end-of-year, outdoor activities that St P’s kids usually get to enjoy. And now she’s an eighth grader. Yikes!

Saturday night C had nine friends over for a late birthday celebration. They swam and took 10,000 pictures then sat around the fire pit and commented on each other’s social media posts. As kids do, I guess.

Sunday was Race Day. Thanks to some brisk ticket sales the IMS allowed the race to be shown live locally, if only on Peacock Premium. Which, thanks to being Xfinity customers, we have. I didn’t get to watch a ton of the race, as we were prepping for our evening plans, but seemed like a good race. Better, it was an absolutely perfect day for all the folks who were at the track.

That evening we had friends over for dinner and swimming. I don’t think I’ve shared that we got a Traeger grill a few weeks back. This was my first time showing off my skills for others. I cooked steaks and shrimp. While I’m still getting used to the differences between the Traeger and a gas grill, I have to say these were some of the best steaks I’ve ever made.

C went back to our old ‘hood with her buddy to spend the night. As they left they were talking about waking up early to watch the sun rise That made all the parents laugh, as both C and her friend will sleep all day if you let them. They showed us, though. They pulled an all-nighter and went to a local park to take pictures as the set came up just after 6:00 AM. Apparently there was an old lady there getting her morning walk in and she came over and checked on them. She was worried they had spent the night in the park, which also made us laugh. Anyway, in this case, Kids 1, Parents 0.

Finally, Monday we hosted a sixth birthday party for one of the local nephews. It was another near-perfect day, warm but not humid with a refreshing breeze. The first time this season all the nephews have been in the pool together.

S was also on call all weekend, which meant she had to go into the hospital in the morning to do rounds. Between her getting up, the cloudless mornings, and the early-rising sun, I was still awake before 7:00 most mornings. At least the girls can sleep in. I either need to get more motivated to do things early in the morning or insist on us finally getting some drapes in our bedroom.

Weekend Notes: Prom and Sports

April 25, 2022 /

Prom

We survived our first prom weekend with pretty much zero drama.

Well, I should say prom night was pretty easy, but there was plenty of drama leading up to it. M found a dress quickly and easily, got it altered well ahead of time, and had most of the basics squared away several weeks ago.

But the planning for prom night itself was a little tense. That’s only because the plan was constantly evolving and those changes were often presented to us as “Here’s what we are doing now,” instead of “Is it ok if I do this?” M’s choice in how she opened these conversations caused most of the tension. But teenagers are gonna teenage, I guess.

She was in a group of nine couples, eight of which were just partnered up for the night. She was going with a kid we had heard of before, but they were not/are not dating. We met him for the first time at the pre-prom gathering and he seemed like a good kid. S and I were laughing at how comfortable he seemed in the whole situation, intent on having fun, where a couple of the other dudes looked exceptionally uncomfortable in their formal attire and perhaps feeling stress about the night in general. One of M’s best friend’s dates looked like he might puke from nervousness.

One of the families hosted a big gathering for kids and parents, complete with a professional photographer, a chartered bus, and a big dinner for all. It was awfully nice of them to do that, and I appreciate families that have this in their DNA.

Pictures went well, the kids ate, got on a bus for the dance, and we took off to watch L play basketball.

One other element of the pre-prom gathering that was fun was that a former local/regional celebrity was in attendance with her daughter. I won’t identify this person, other than to say she used to appear on TV commercials across the midwest hawking hot tubs, pools, spas, and outdoor furniture, among other things.

I told a few friends that this person was at the gathering, and they insisted that I get a picture. Which was a little awkward because for much of the evening I was standing 10–15 feet from her in the kitchen/dining area. Her husband is also a lot bigger than me and I didn’t want a confrontation if he saw me trying to take surreptitious pictures of his wife. If S had a few drinks in her she might have made it happen. But we were both sober and not pushing any boundaries. Which is kind of a bummer.

I must say, whoever does the plastics work for her family does very good work, for both mom and daughters (chef’s kiss GIF).

We gave M more freedom than she’s ever had, but still limited her compared to several of her friends in what her after-prom activities would be. There was a series of three parties that we knew of. We gave her permission to go to one and then S would pick her and a couple friends up sometime between 1:30–2:00. We know some of the other kids were bouncing around parties, which seemed like a terrible idea, even if parents were driving (and we weren’t sure parents were driving).

M and her crew got to our house at about 2:30. They didn’t sleep super late before heading out for breakfast, then she went to a pool party with a bunch of other prom kids Sunday afternoon. She crashed around dinner time for a bit, but I could still hear her FaceTiming with friends when I went to bed.

She seemed to have a great time and was pleased with how everything went. That set a pretty high bar for future prom nights in this house.

LB Hoops

As I said, we ducked out of the parent portion of the pre-prom party (holy P’s!) to watch L play ball.

We missed the first game of the day, which her team won by 36 and she scored 8. We got there just in time to watch game two, against a team from Evansville with a couple tall girls, one of whom was probably the best player they’ve faced all year. She could score from anywhere, handle the ball, and got any rebound she could get her hands to. She was a load.

We were down by as many as 10 midway through the second half but our girls worked incredibly hard and only lost by 3. The players and parents all left thinking that was a great step for the team, playing against a bigger and better team and staying in it until the final horn. L scored seven, including two long jumpers from the left wing that helped kick off their second-half run.

We got home at about 10:00 Saturday night and had to be back in the gym at 8:30 for a 9:05 game Sunday morning. AAU life!

Game one was against another team with size, but these girls were kind of trash. Yet they uglied-up the game and made our girls afraid to shoot inside. We were up 14–10 at halftime after they banked in two 3-pointers late in the half.

I’m not sure what our coaches told our girls at half, but they played like KU against Miami in the second half of their game. The final was 36–15. We just ran them off the court. It was fun to watch. L scored four.

On to the semis, where we faced the team we lost to Saturday again. The seeding in these tournaments is dumb. The tiebreaker is points allowed. So another team that played two mediocre teams Saturday and went 1–1 got the two seed because they gave up 44 total points, where our girls, who played the best team in the tournament and thus gave up more points, was seeded third. Strangely the first place team gave up 30 more points than the second place team.

Our girls flipped the script a little Sunday. They led from the beginning. It was never a big lead – constantly bouncing from tied to +4, but it always felt like we had the Evansville girls on the back foot. We hit a 3 with about four minutes left to go up four.

And then things kind of fell apart. Not that we got blown out or anything. Just that we made a ton of bad passes and errors both unforced and forced. We missed some easy shots. We let them get multiple offensive rebounds. We took two absolutely terrible shots that didn’t need to be taken. And we just kept missing free throws, going 2–14 for the game.

We lost the lead, tied it, got the lead back, lost it again. In the end we lost by two. Unlike Saturday the girls were really down about this one, because they knew they let it slip away. But that’s a good coaching point and area for improvement. The Evansville team won the championship game 49–11; our girls were the only group that challenged them all weekend.

L struggled scoring in the semifinal, going 0–2 from the line and 0-fer from the field. She missed a tough, contested layup on a run-out late, and then had another layup where she did everything right – was in the perfect spot on the play, made the perfect cut, went hard to the rim, jumped at the correct time off the correct foot, put the ball up off the glass – and it just rimmed out. She was super frustrated after the game. But she battled when she was in there, getting a couple big rebounds and playing solid D. It just wasn’t her team’s day.

Other Kid Sports

M finally played her first tennis match of the year Friday. She got moved up to JV #1 doubles somehow. And she actually did ok, which was surprising since she refused to take any lessons over the past year. They lost 6–2 but every game competitive unlike many of her matches last year.[1] I wouldn’t say she’s made leaps, but she gets her serve in most of the time and can hit the ball halfway decently on returns. Good enough to win a few points in JV, even against a better team.

Because of prom a lot of girls were unavailable for Saturday’s match, so M was given a chance to move up to varsity for #2 doubles. But since junior class officers had to do prom setup, she had to decline. That was a nice ego boost, though.

The varsity team had a great week, winning three matches, including two over ranked teams. I don’t think they were ranked last week but should be this week.

C has run in two track meets after having two rained out. She’s run the 100 and 200 both times. Her times are faster than her CYO times, but there are A LOT of fast girls in high school, even in three-team meets. She’s generally run a later heat and been pretty far back in the overall standings.

I think she’s a little frustrated by that. Still, she enjoys being on the team and is always in a better mood on the days she has practice compared to the days she just comes home and takes a nap after school.

I must say, I would be happy if we could have a track meet when it wasn’t 52 and windy. Those were the approximate conditions for both of her meets so far. The 200 usually doesn’t get run until 7:30 or so, at which point it gets pretty nippy.

  1. There were 26 matches, so everyone played a single set of no AD tennis. TWENTY-SIX!!! Good on the coaches for making sure everyone gets a chance to play.  ↩

Weekend Notes

April 11, 2022 /

That was a weird weekend. No big sports of any kind. No basketball or football on the TV for the first time since Labor Day. No kid sports.

Sure, I watched some of the Master’s, but we were often busy during the peak watch times so I wasn’t able to give it a ton of attention. Plus it wasn’t a super interesting tournament this year, so when I did sit down to watch, I did not feel compelled to remain seated for hours.

Baseball has begun, but I’m in one of my baseball moods right now and not ready to dive back in. Out of protest at the owners’ bad faith during their lockout of the players, I cancelled my MLB.TV subscription rather than let it renew annually as I’ve done for at least a decade. A few days later MLB automatically put all accounts on hold pending a resolution to the labor conflict. But I still felt like I got one over on them, withholding my $120 on my terms.

I have yet to go back and re-up.

A big piece of that is the dishonesty and unfairness that the owners built their entire lock-out argument on. They wanted to prevent the players from taking their fair share of the revenue pie in a moment when said revenues are skyrocketing.

And as soon as an agreement was made, MLB started trotting out all these new ways that baseball will be broadcast. Each of which is a new revenue stream for owners but which also makes it harder for fans to see their favorite teams. National broadcasts that wipe out local broadcasts and require a subscription of some kind to see. Added to a refusal to adjust the existing, ridiculous MLB blackout rules, these are just another example of how hostile to fans ownership and the MLB office are. Throw in that it’s damn near impossible for a family with more than a couple kids to take the entire household to an MLB game without dropping $500+ and I can’t help but be soured on how the game is run and where it’s headed.

My little protest won’t mean a thing to any organization’s nor MLB’s bottom lines. But it’s hard to get interested in a game that really doesn’t seem interested in the fans in any way other than finding more ways to get money out of us.

Of course, if the Royals are playing well in a month I may cave and start watching again.

We did have one big family event on the calendar this weekend: M got inducted into the National Honor Society. The ceremony was Sunday afternoon and we drug her sisters along with us. They were thrilled. We told them we expected to do this again in two and four years for each of them, so no pressure.

That was the first moment in a big month for M. Prom is two weeks away. She has a dress, a date (a friend, they are going with a large group), and as a class officer is responsible for setting things up the morning of the dance. We’ve also told her to get serious about what colleges she wants to visit so we can start making plans to get on those campuses between now and September.

So This Is The New Year…

January 3, 2022 /

Happy New Year, everybody! Let’s kick off another calendar year of discussing random shit, shall we?

Our New Year’s Eve was rather quiet, as usual. M went to a party, which was a first. That meant we had to stay up until we were sure she was safely at the home of the friend she was spending the night with. What did our parents do before the Find My app? Just worry until we showed up the next day? Fortunately she had a good and safe time.

Our neighbors invited S and I out for an early New Year’s toast at 10 PM. We met at the end of their driveway, shared a drink, and caught up about how our respective holidays went. It was a humid 55, so we all had light jackets on. Those were the final hours of both 2021 and our balmy stretch of weather. It got cold New Year’s Day, snowed a bit overnight Sunday, and the windchills are down below 20 now. 2022, January, and winter are all here.

L had a couple games yesterday, her final of the early winter session. They won the first game by 34 and she had her highest scoring game of the year, dropping in eight. She also had a half-court shot rim in-and-out at the final buzzer. They played the team of a St P’s classmate in the second game. This team was tall and athletic and play together year-round. We hung close for about 10 minutes then gave up a 12–0 run that we could not come back from. We were down 20 in the fourth quarter before a little run turned it into a respectable 10-point loss. L didn’t score but played solid D and probably had her best rebounding day of the year despite facing the big girls.

Her team will now transition to a different league for the winter. Those games will be closer to home and usually just one per weekend. She will also start playing in an occasional single-day tournament with the travel team she’ll be a part of in the spring and summer.

After her games we got all the Christmas decorations taken down and stored for the year. As always the house feels a little emptier and colder this morning without the tree up.

I also watched a certain 10-episode Netflix show over the weekend. More about that later this week.

M and C went back to school today. Cathedral is doing a two-week elective thing; they call it J-term, I know there are other schools that do a similar thing. M is taking an art appreciation class, which includes a day in Chicago going to museums. Hopefully Covid doesn’t wipe the out. C and all the other freshmen have to go through the same set of courses that are a mix of leadership/mentorship/future planning stuff and some fun sessions. Neither of them is super excited about any of this even though this means no homework for two more works. They both said they’d rather be in their regular classes with their friends. L has two more days of playing Xbox before she goes back.

So now I guess we start counting down for spring break. Only 82 days…

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