Tag: school (Page 10 of 13)

Kid Catch Up

December 23, 2013 / DB

Here we are. Two days left on the Advent calendar. A couple loops left on the Christmas ring chain C. brought home. Done with school for the year. The cookies have all been made. Christmas day menu planned. Yep, it’s Holiday DEFCON level 1.

All three school programs went well. M. shined as Mistletoe the FBI agent in her grade’s The Christmas Files program a week ago. She had one minor hiccup with a line, but caught herself quickly and powered through. We had worked on her lines with her, but had not heard the duet she had with another of the FBI agents. They did a fine job with that, too. M. got a laugh for a line that was clearly written for her. After the Christmas mystery is unraveled, M. shouts, “I knew it!” Which is sooo M.. She always knows everything.

L. did a fine job as Mary in the Pre-K acting out of the story of the first Christmas. The baby Jesus doll she held was ginormous, though. It looked like a 20 pounder, at least. She had a silly grin on her face the entire time. I asked her after what was going on and she just giggled. I think Joseph may have been cracking jokes or something.

Her’s was our final holiday program at St. E’s after seven years and ten total performances by our girls. We sat by a family that started with us back in the fall of ’07, when M. and their oldest were in the 3’s class. They still have one in the 3’s class and another that will start in the 2’s next fall. We’re pretty sure they’ll have the school record for most kids and most total years when they’re done.¹

The first grade handles the annual living nativity at St. P’s, so C.’s class got to close out the school year with that on Friday. She was an angel, a narrator, and played a chime in a seven-angel performance of “The First Noel.” She did a fine job as well. She spoke very clearly and was easy to understand, which wasn’t the case for all the other performers.

There’s been some Elf on the Shelf controversy in our house this year. Completely predictable controversy, of course.

One morning a couple weeks back M. was the first to find Elfie. Given her personality, it was impossible for her not to immediately tell C. and L. that she found him and to point out where he was. They were not pleased.

So, two days later, C. and L. saw him as soon as they came downstairs. They immediately yelled, “There’s Elfie!” and pointed in his general direction. M. absolutely flipped out, screaming that they weren’t supposed to tell her. “It’s not fair! They told me where Elfie is!” She was literally crying. She’s nine-and-a-half years old.

I heard all this from the kitchen and intervened right away.

“M., knock it off! You told them where Elfie was the other day, so you can not complain when they find him first and show you. You can’t have it both ways.”

There may have been some more yelling involved. She and I are both pretty grumpy in the morning.

But she grasped that logic and shut up. I reminded everyone that they were not to tell the other sisters where Elfie was, and if that happened again, I’d send him back to the North Pole until next year. They’ve been good ever since.

“Grandma Got Run Over By a Reindeer” has never been one of my favorite Christmas songs. But it’s on a kid’s Christmas CD we have in the van, so I’ve learned to change the chorus to be about the girls. Usually the girl that gets run over hates it, but the other two love it. And I always rotate through each chorus so everyone gets run over and believes at some point.

This year, though, L. really hates it. Any time it comes on, she pipes up from her seat, “Dad, can we skip this song?” Honestly, I don’t mind her request that much. My mom hated that song, so perhaps that’s a little bit of her coming through, too.

Finally, the girls watched the Grinch movie, the one with Jim Carrey, at some point when I was working or running errands or something. While watching, they figured out how to stick their top teeth out and push their noses up to look like the Whos in the movie. Which is kind of funny.

But what’s really funny is C. does it all the time. She’ll be sitting there watching TV, and she has her top lip flattened and her teeth sticking out. Or coloring. Or reading a book. Or taking a bath. It makes me laugh every time, partially because I wonder if she did that at school the last couple weeks. Would she be working on her rocket math or her art project and have her Who-look going as her little concentration tic? It won’t be so funny if she’s still doing it in February, but I like it for now.

Busy Times

November 4, 2013 / DB

A very busy few days. So let’s catch up quickly.

Halloween was postponed a night in most of central Indiana thanks to some heavy rain and dangerous winds that rolled through Thursday. It actually wasn’t bad until most kids would have been inside, but I doubt walking through the rain would have been very much fun for anyone. Friday was a gorgeous, mid-fall evening. We had a peacock (M.), cat (C.), and Power Ranger (L., of course). They were quite successful in the 90 minutes or so we were out.

We hooked up with a couple other families and at one point had 10 or so girls in our group. Which of course is all kinds of difficult, as certain kids are running ahead while others are dragging behind. At one point a few of the girls were yelling at others “WE’VE ALREADY BEEN TO THAT HOUSE!” The parents had to let the screamers know they were two houses ahead of the rest of the group and needed to chill out so everyone could catch up.

Friday was also All Saints Day, as my Catholic friends know. This one was especially poignant as it was the final year one of our girls was participating in the St. E’s parade of saints. L. reprised her role of St. Margaret of Scotland, and did so with aplomb. She marched right up to the mic and owned it. “I’m St. Margaret of Scotland. I helped feed the poor.” Of course, she said the same thing last year. And she saw M. rock the St. Margie gear at least once. Still, not every kid was as confident as she was.

Saturday I covered the state cross country meet, which meant a long, boring drive out to Terre Haute. It was brisk but dry, and really a fine day for early November. I only had three kids to worry about, but one of them had a legitimate chance to do well in the boys race. He did extremely well, running in one of the top three spots for the entire race, well ahead of the main pack after about the first kilometer. He finished second, partially because the kid who was leading by 20 meters collapsed about 200 yards short of the finish. But still, my kid did great.

His sister took 10th in the girls race a few minutes later, and I had a nice little theme to build my story around. Never mind that I did the same thing when I covered the regional meet two weeks ago, or the writer who covered the semistate race between just wrote about them, too.

We hosted some of our soccer team friends Sunday night for dinner and fun.¹ I drank some good beer and ate a lot of good food. So with the Colts down 18 at halftime, I packed it in. You’d think I would know better by now. But in my defense, Houston looked fantastic in the first half, the Colts awful, and two huge calls went against Indy as well. Just seemed like one of those nights when it wasn’t meant to be. I even woke up in the middle of the night and wondered if I should check the score to see what happened, just in case the Colts made a game of it. I’m glad I passed. I may not have gotten back to sleep if I had seen the score at 2:00 AM. 6-2, 2-0 in the division.

Now soccer is over and we can move on to important things like blowing leaves three times a week. We need one more good storm to clear out most of the trees, although just about everything left is a gorgeous gold right now.

Coming up this week, some leftover baseball links, the books of October, and the giddy look ahead to the Andrew Wiggins experience, which officially begins Friday. Oh, and I think I already have a groovy vid picked out for Friday.

A soccer season round-up is coming later this week. ↩

Get Away Day

October 24, 2013 / DB

M. and C. begin fall break today. Well, actually it began at 1:00 yesterday thanks to early dismissal. Now they get today, tomorrow, and Monday off. Catholic schools know how to do it!

So naturally we’re off to Florida again…

Kidding!

Two trips to Florida is enough for one year. We are getting out of town, though. We’re heading downtown, first, and making our annual trip to the Children’s Museum’s haunted house. From there we’ll head to the LVS for two nights, making a day trip down to Bloomington in there as well. I believe this will be the girls first trip to B-town. And then on Saturday we’re meeting some friends down near Louisville for a night of adult and kid fun. We’ll be back in time for soccer on Sunday.

Before we go, a few kid notes while watching this strangeness that is Game One of the World Series.

We had parent-teacher conferences at St. P’s this week. Both girls are doing well and got lots of praise from their teachers. M. showed a lot of self-awareness when she noted on her self-assessment that she needs to work harder on raising her hand before talking and then not talking too much. I loved the note her teacher put on her report card. Sometimes M. shares too many ideas without raising her hand. At least she’s consistent. That’s been what every teacher has said about her since she began school. She has A’s in all but one subject and barely missed an A in that one.

C. is really doing well. She’s beginning to take reading and spelling to another level, doing more on her own. And she’s really taking to math, too. What we thought was coolest, though, was that she got voted by her class to be their representative at a school-wide student board. It’s some offshoot of the seven habits of successful students thing they’re doing this year. But she wrote why she would be a good representative, all on her own, and they voted her in. So she gets to go to a special meeting with representatives of every other class in the school and talk about how they can be good leaders. Or something. I’m really not sure what goes on there.

Not all was perfect for C., though. Last Friday I was looking at her spelling test and noticed she was way off on her attempt at spelling bench. See #9 below.

Bench?

Whoops!

I started laughing out loud, showed it to S., and she did the same. C. wanted to know why we were laughing. “Well, C., you accidentally spelled a bad word on your test.”

“What?” she had a look of confusion and shock on her face. I showed her the page, she covered her mouth, her eyes bugged out a little, and then she started laughing, too.

We told her it was ok, it was an accident, and we were sure her teacher probably laughed, too. Just don’t say it in class!

We had a sad moment Saturday. L.’s fish, Jake, who hadn’t been eating for awhile, was motionless on the bottom of his bowl when we came down for breakfast.

“Dad, why isn’t Jake moving?” asked L..

I tapped the glass, he kind of flopped over without moving any fins. “Well, sweetie, I think he died.”

Astute readers may recall C. bursting into tears and being inconsolable for some time after her first fish, Spike, died two years ago. L. just rolled with it.

“Can I get another fish?”
“Sure.”
“OK! Can I flush Jake down the potty?”
“Of course.”
“Cool!”

They’re very different, those two.

Summer 2013

September 3, 2013 / DB

Man, those four day weekends fly by. And now, as of about 30 minutes ago, all three girls are in school.

L. was wound-up and ready to go this morning, coming into our room before my alarm went off. Which was a good thing. She got waylaid by a stomach bug Sunday night and into Monday, which had us concerned that she might not be able to make her first day of Pre-K. But she rallied just before bedtime last night and seemed fine this morning. Hopefully we’re not infecting the entire school on day one.

It was a fine holiday weekend. As I promised, we made one last trip to the pool on Friday. Although our girls didn’t have school, we couldn’t roll in until shortly after 3:00 because of a party C. attended. When we got to the pool, there were only two older women floating in the water and one lifeguard hanging out with them. But about five minutes after we began swimming, kids who had been in school started pouring in from all directions. By the time we left around 5:00, it looked like any day in the middle of the summer. I’m sure the pool was crowded all weekend, as kids got their last dose of outdoor chlorine for the year.

We headed to the LVS Saturday. Friends from Michigan came down and a couple local families were there as well. Since it was still part of the summer of 2013, big storms rolled through Saturday afternoon¹. But not until all three girls could go tubing, including L.’s first-ever effort. She had been soooo excited to try it. When she got on the tube, she laid flat, locked her arms in, and got a look of intense concentration on her face. She kept that look the entire time she was in the water. Same thing when she had a turn on Sunday. I don’t know that she loved it; I think it was a little more intense than she expected, even with our buddy Mr. K not going super fast and avoiding the big waves. But it was another big girl thing that her sisters had done that she finally got a crack at.

It was a fine ending to a fine summer. There were no trips this year – we obviously hit our quota of traveling earlier this year. But we spent a ton of time in water, we got to visit with family and friends, and had lots of fun. And, of course, it all went by way too fast.

Now the girls get a very short week with our trip to Boston coming up Thursday. So there will be no big routine for me until next week. For the next two days I’ll be doing laundry, getting my hair cut, the lawn mowed, the house cleaned up, and running a few errands during the four hours L. is in school. Thursday I have my first library shift of the year at St. P’s and bring M. and C. home when I’m done so we can head to airport for our afternoon flight.

Next week I’ll have a breather and a chance to figure out what to do with this time I now have.

First world problem alert: I think it rained or downright chilly every weekend we were at the LVS in May and June. In July it warmed up, but still rained the first two weekends. And then, when it was finally dry, we had unseasonably cool weather in late July. At least it wasn’t 105 every day like a year ago. ↩

You’re Doing It Wrong

August 28, 2013 / DB

Week three at school and folks are still having issues with the drop-off procedure. Which naturally always makes me think of Mr. Mom, when Jack drops the kids off for the first time and does it all wrong. Each day the teachers who monitor the drop off area at St. P’s have to run over to a couple cars and explain that kids can’t get out off the left side of the vehicle, that you have to pull all the way up to the sign, or to wave cars forward who are just sitting in the drop-off zone. Come on, people. It’s week three. You should have this shit down!

Our morning routines are falling into place. Most days involve the girls taking turns being grumpy. Neither M. nor C. are especially excited about getting out of bed. But C. stays super-grumpy for the first 20 minutes or so. Usually during this time M. finds a way to get on her nerves. Then, when her blood sugar rebounds, C. is suddenly full of energy and M. gets grumpy. Yin and Yang, I guess. I can’t imagine where they get the morning grumpiness from.

This morning, M. made C. cry at the breakfast table. Fifteen minutes later, C. made M. cry while we were getting them dressed. Nothing but good times in the mornings here!

The Rush Begins

August 26, 2013 / DB

We have neighbors who are recent empty-nesters. For the first few years we lived here, we watched them come-and-go on weekends to their two boys’ various activities. When we would stop and chat in the front yard, the dad would always warn us of what was in our future.

“Enjoy this time,” he said. “One day you’ll be coming and going constantly to practices, meetings, games, performances, and whatever else your girls are doing.”

Tonight it begins.

This is the first fall all three girls will be playing soccer. Through the luck of the draw, they practice on three different nights (at three different times, no less). For the next nine weeks our weeknight schedules will be:

Monday: C.’s practice.
Tuesday: Nothing. Take a breather. Or, more likely, schedule playdates.
Wednesday: M.’s practice.
Thursday: L.’s practice (At 6:30, for an hour. Who schedules an Under-6 soccer team for the last practice slot and for a whole hour?)
Friday: I’m heading somewhere for high school football.

And then each Sunday we’ll have three soccer games. The best part about that is the league the girls are in plays all games, at all age levels, at a single site. So there may be some Sundays that we’re there for four hours. But at least we don’t have to race from one field to another 20 minutes away and then back again. Or have to be at two different places at the same time.

My favorite thing about Catholic schools in Indianapolis is the fierce kickball rivalries between the schools. I still remember laughing in my wife’s face when she told me kickball was a real sport here.

Anyway, that begins in fourth grade. A couple girls on M.’s soccer team are also on the St. P’s kickball team. I was recently talking to one of the moms about getting back-and-forth between soccer practices and kickball games.

Afterwards, in the van, I mentioned to M. that she could play kickball next year. I heard her sigh deeply. As we drove home, L. began asking questions about kickball. What is it? Where do you play it? Why was M. going to play it?

M. responded, in a very annoyed tone, “Mom just wants me to play kickball because she did,” and sighed again.

I laughed to myself and thought, who would have guessed that it would be the mom in our house pressuring the kids to play sports?

Monday Notes

August 19, 2013 / DB

We kick off the first full week of school today. Which means we can begin setting some routines around here.

M. was the first to show signs of being tired last week. She had a meltdown one night about doing her homework. It was an easy assignment based on her summer activities and she decided she’d rather have a meltdown than take two minutes to do it. It wasn’t just about being tired, though. There were some hormones in there, too. The really fun times with her are not too far down the road.

Sunday’s American Top 40 replay was from August 1984. As I’ve shared before, nothing triggers the nostalgic part of my brain more than music from that summer. While listening, I thought of a fine way to describe it. When I hear Prince, Bruce, Tina, Cyndi, etc. it’s like when you scratch a dog’s belly and its leg begins twitching uncontrollably. I can try to do other things, try to put my focus elsewhere. But those songs are going to cut through everything and make me sit around and think for awhile.

Freaking old man.

There has to be a story idea in there somewhere that I can turn into a project, right?

After twelve years away, I’ve been talked into joining a fantasy football league with a few neighbors and their buddies. I get the impression it’s not a hard-core league. I think a couple guys take it fairly seriously. But for the most part it’s pretty casual and chances are just about everyone in the league will forget to set their roster at least once.

Back when I played fantasy sports more often, I was pretty solid at coming up with fun names for my teams. But in my retirement, that touch went away. As I sat in front of the screen last week, creating my team, I froze when it came time to change “Team 8” into something more creative. I racked my brain for ideas that were equal parts creative, funny, and could serve as a way of introducing myself to a group of guys I don’t know very well.

I tried to come up with some Charlie Weis-related name, but each option was either too wordy (The Pronounced Strategic Advantages) or gross (Charlie Weis’ Panis. Nothing there worked.

I figured my old standby, The Phogtown Phunksters, wouldn’t make sense to a bunch of Hoosiers (and one Denver transplant).

So I settled on the Torn ACLs. Nothing very creative or fun about it. But it wasn’t Team 8 either.

And then I read the article I’ll discuss in the next section. It provided a great name and an image that can be found all over the Internet that can serve as my logo. And even if people don’t know the backstory, it’s funny and gets funnier as they learn more about it.

That’s right. My team is the Baby Manginos!

Which gives me a chance to link to this story about what Mark Mangino is up to these days. As I mentioned last week, I’m in the midst of some site changes. Part of that includes building a more extensive, complete archives section. Over the weekend I was reading through my 2007 and 2008 posts. Man, the days when Reesing was flinging the ball around to Fields, Meier, Briscoe, and Henry and handing it off to Cornish, McAnderson, and Sharp seems like 20 years ago.

But props to Mangino for finally making an effort to improve his health. He still, clearly, has a long way to go before he looks normal again. But the effort is what counts.

It is kind of funny how everyone gets rehabilitated, though. Mangino wasn’t just an intense coach who grabbed some facemasks and yelled. He said terrible, borderline racist, things to many of his players. He went beyond the normal <em>tear them down to build them up</em> levels of verbal abuse. I hope he's in a better place now, but you can't just blame KU letting him go on he and Lew Perkins not getting along.

One night last week I rolled over in the middle of the night and half-awoke. I must have heard her running full-tilt into our room, because half a second later, L. came flying into our bed. Literally flying. I think she got her foot on the frame of our bed and leaped across S. to land between us. I let out a little yell and then helped her settle in. She wasn’t crying but something had obviously disturbed her sleep. A little later she was thrashing around and yelling, “NO M.!” in her sleep. Even in dreams the big sister is bossy.

Which, finally, brings me to another old blog post I came across over the weekend. Four years ago we took the girls to a local water park and, after M. refused to go down a kiddie water slide, apparently S. shoved her down. That night, while she was sleeping, we heard M. yelling, “NO MOM! DON’T PUSH ME!” That’s our big, brave girl!

ↁ

Off They Go

August 14, 2013 / DB

(Administrative note: I’m in the midst of another big, blog redesign project. It will likely take months to complete and I’ll explain more as the re-launch gets closer. Part of that is no longer posting pics of the girls here. I figure most of you who are close to me are either A) friends on Facebook or B) know how to reach our family picture page. So that’s where you need to go to see the obligatory First Day of School pics.)

M. and C. are off to school. C. was bright-eyed and ready to go as soon as I woke her. M. was grumpier and not nearly as excited about the whole thing. It’s a short day, dismissal is at 1:00 today, so it’s a nice way to ease into the new school year.

L. and I walked the big sisters into the school this morning. M. ducked into her class on her own. I don’t think she wanted me anywhere near her desk. We took C. into her room and helped her get started putting her stickers on all her supplies. I tried to keep her focused but her eyes were darting around, seeing where friends from last year were sitting, who was walking in the door, and how Mrs. W’s room is set-up. The room was crowded with kids and parents, so L. was a little clingy.

Once I was confident C. was getting her work done, we ducked out and headed to the lunchroom for the first day coffee and donuts. Again, it was really crowded and L. was sticking very close to me and not saying much. We grabbed her a donut and some juice, and I guided her to a table near some parents I know that I wanted to say hello to. When she sat, she kind of stared at her lap, not making a move for her donut. I bent down and asked if she was ok and she burst into tears. When I asked what was wrong she blubbered, “I’m just tired…” Which probably was partially the case. But I think the crowds weirded her out a little. And, I’m afraid, she was either bummed she’s not starting school yet or sad that her sisters were leaving her. Which made me sad.

I picked her up, she hid her face in my shirt, and we hustled out to the van. She was very quiet all the way home, although she did eat her donut, and still seemed sad when we got home. But she seems to have rebounded. Hopefully this was just a one-morning thing and it’s not going to repeat until she starts school in three weeks.

But the big sisters are off.

The supply thing was odd. For the second-straight year we pre-ordered all the recommended supplies from St. P’s last spring. It’s nice to have them waiting there for you on the first day of school and be sure that everything is what the teachers want them to begin the year with. But I kept feeling like I was missing something last night when we got their backpacks ready. I threw in lunchboxes this morning and that was it.

ↁ

The Weekend That Was

April 30, 2013 / DB

We had a lovely, leisurely Monday, so I still need to catch you up from our busy weekend.

The highlight was M.’s First Communion. Like I’m guessing about 95% of her classmates, I don’t think the religious ramifications of the event registered with her completely. She was far more concerned with her dress, veil, tiara, and first pair of heels than getting closer to Jesus. So much for those months of preparation, I guess.

She could not have been more excited about her shoes. When we first got them a month ago, she would wear them around the house when we let her. It was still cold, so the sweatpants with white socks and white heels thing was a most excellent look.

It was a fine event. Her communion class was rather large, so it was split into two sessions. They still managed to just about fill the church for her group. There was lots of giggling and shrieking as the girls saw each other’s dresses. Meanwhile the boys all fidgeted in their suits and sports jackets. That doesn’t really change as we get older, does it?

M. got a couple necklaces from family and friends, and we gave her a pair of my mom’s (real!) diamond and gold earrings which she thought was pretty cool. She also got a carved angel she loves from our neighbors. She kept taking it out of its box then putting it back in. After about 30 minutes of that I heard her gasp and yell, “Dad! Look at this!” She handed the box to me and it was done by an artist in Kansas City.

Speaking of Kansas City (kind of), we asked her what she wanted for lunch after church and she requested pulled pork from the barbecue place that is near her school. That’s my girl!

Saturday night I took the girls over to our friends the H’s house so the girls could play while the dads hung out and drank beer. I heard Ella, who is a year older than M., quizzing her at one point. “So, tell me, what exactly is First Communion? We’re not Catholic, we’re Christian, so we don’t do Communion.” I had to laugh, not only at the way she phrased the question, but how M. couldn’t really explain the significance of event.

Both girls had their best soccer games of the year Sunday. C. scored a goal, her second of the year, but the first in which she controlled the ball through traffic and forced her way to the goal.

And M. spent her turns on the field mostly on defense or in goal, but did a great job running to the ball instead of away from it and clearing it safely most of the time. In fact, there was a girl on the other team who didn’t look like much¹ but was incredible. She whistled a shot in from about 20 yards out, could take control of the ball and keep it in traffic while moving faster than the defenders, and could change direction at will. She scored three goals in about five minutes at one stretch. When M. was on her in the fourth quarter, though, homegirl couldn’t get a shot off.

But my favorite part about it was M.’s demeanor after the game. We were praising her effusively, telling her it was her best game ever and how proud of her we were. She just shrugged her shoulders and acted like it was no big deal. Perhaps we’ve turned a corner with her and she will no longer be a shrinking violet on the field.

Finally, the referees are all high school kids. One of them is the son of good friends of ours.² He’s a great, mature kid who is completely comfortable around adults and fantastic with kids. He’s been ref for M.’s games twice and I always give him the Caddyshack “Hey, let’s keep it fair out there!” line before the game.

Anyway, a week ago we offered him a ride home after the game so his parents wouldn’t have to drive out and pick him up. At first he accepted, but as we were gathering our chairs and bags and snacks up to leave, he came over and said thanks but he would get home on his own. Then we noticed a very cute girl making googly eyes at him. Soon they were walking across the fields arm-in-arm. Nicely done!

ↁ

She was short and kind of stocky, although not fat, and had glasses on. ↩
The mom is one of S.’s best friends from high school, the dad officiated at our wedding in Indianapolis, and they are L.’s godparents. They were also our friends who were on spring break at the same time as us. ↩

Back To Back

April 9, 2013 / DB

No, I’m not talking about the state of Kentucky claiming its second-straight national title last night. I didn’t watch the game. Basketball is a stupid sport.¹

Rather, I’m talking about M. making it two-straight nights that a B. girl puked. She kept it in her bed, thankfully, so I won’t spend the day cleaning the carpet. I, somehow, slept through it all,² and didn’t know until S. told me this morning. For a minute I wondered if M. was just faking it to get a day out of school, as S. said she didn’t throw up very much and like C. the night before, seemed fine shortly after. Then I checked her sheets this morning, which S. had tossed into our bathtub. I don’t think S. completely woke up last night because there was more than a little.

Which I’m sure is exactly what you want to read about this morning.

So that’s two girls in two nights. I’m thinking we should put L. to bed on top of some plastic sheets tonight, because it seems like it’s going to be her turn.

Oh yeah, one other note from yesterday. St. P’s has an attendance line where you can send an email to if your child will be absent. I sent a message for C. yesterday, but did so by memory rather than pulling up the correct address in my contacts list. It didn’t bounce back, so I assumed I guessed right.

Then at 10 I got a call from the school asking if C. was indeed supposed to be absent today. Apparently I misremembered because my email did not make it to them.

A few hours later I got an email from St. P’s high school in Atlanta, saying there was no C. B. enrolled there. Whoops! A subtle difference in domain name can lead to interesting and amusing results.

ↁ

I had no strong feelings either way. I’m not a huge Pitino fan, but he is a great coach. And while it was Michigan that ended KU’s season, I really like their players. So I guess I was silently leaning their way, although I spent the evening cleaning up my iPhoto library and knocking out a few more chapters in the terrific book I’m reading. ↩
More Father Of The Year evidence. ↩