Jonah and Steve are taking off tomorrow morning for a canoe trip with the Boy Scouts. Not sure who's more excited: Jonah or Steve. Steve with his brown shirt and patches is the assistant scout leader. It's all a bit too militaristic for me. When I was in the Girl Scouts, the tree-hugging, hairy armpit, if I had a hammer leaders would never had tolerated this saluting and shit. I frown in their general direction.
While they're off doing some paramilitary nonsense, Ian and I will be going into the city for a good romp around Central Park.
Question of the Day: Whatcha doing this weekend?
Apt. 11d 
In no particular order (and all about the kids), bake sale for my d’s DI team, overnight with the girls from my d’s DI team so they can practice, and so that the girl we’re taking with us across the country can be vetted/vet us, d’s ultimate game, s’s play rehearsal, d’s playdate at a puppet show, s’s baseball game, a family fun run, d’s friend’s birthday party, kids’ piano recital.
(urrgh. I really don’t understand how this happens to us. Oh, and we’re supposed to squeeze in a piano lesson for d on Saturday)
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Writing workshop tomorrow. On Sunday, a birthday party, followed by a funeral. And it’s a particularly sad one.
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At least when I was a Boy Scout, we didn’t salute anything but the flag. You learned many ways to start a fire, which I have listed in order of decreasing difficulty:
Rubbing two sticks together
Using flint and steel
Using a battery and steel wool
Using a single match after a rain
Using a single match when it is dry
Using as many matches you want
Using a lighter a 14 year old carried for his cigarettes
Using bottle rockets over an extremely dry pasture
Using gasoline
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The cafeterias are closing down right now, so we’re in the awkward transition period where we try to remember how to cook dinner. I just went shopping with the kids and got ground turkey, chicken and hard tofu and I am hoping that with a little encouragement, it will turn into several dinners.
Tomorrow, C is “competing” in a horse show at the therapeutic riding place she goes to. This time, she’ll be riding with no lead-rope on her horse. There will be lots of pretty award ribbons in various colors. At some point this weekend, C needs to do her first draft for a book report on Pippi Longstocking.
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Tonight, Youngest Raggirl has her first piano recital. Tomorrow, Eldest Raggirl is competing in her first regional Science Olympiad after making the school’s “road team.” Then, on Sunday all the Raggirls have softball practice. Perfect mix of arts, sciences, and athletics.
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celebrate 10th anniversary with drinks/photo exhibits at Contact Photography Festival tonight
spinning class early Saturday morning
take the girl to a classmate’s birthday party on Saturday
attend friends’ house party Saturday night
read SNYT and drink pails of coffee Sunday morning
take the girl to another classmate’s birthday party on Sunday
go out to dinner and a cabaret show with girlfriends Sunday night
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Eagle Scout here, with three Eagle palms, and I don’t remember how many merit badges. As an adult, I’ve been a Scout leader, and am now our congregation’s Cub Master. I guess it’s the same sensibility that makes me in favor of school uniforms.
The Mormon church has always stayed away from the Girl Scouts for no good reason I’ve ever been able to determine. Our second daughter is in there now, and enjoys herself a lot. And our church Girls Camp invariably takes place at various rented Girl Scout campsites around Kansas, and they’ve always been pretty sharp places.
Tonight is Friday the 13th, so Melissa and I will go out. To do what I don’t know yet. Movie, probably. Tomorrow, I need to trim our slowly dying backyard tree.
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Home with a sick kid so cleaning up vomit and guessing who will get sick next.
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I’ll be “celebrating” my 5th law school reunion. Apparently reunions are big money-makers for the law school so they do them every 5 years. Since I’m terrible w/ names and haven’t seen most of these people in 5 years there will be a lot of “hey, hey, buddy! How ya been?” and the like said by me.
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Changed my mind. Going to drag Ian to this place.
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Going to the girls new kindergarten school for a “spring fling” tonight. Dreading it because it is a schmooze fest but the twins need to see the school. And I want to feel out the other K parents.
Tomorrow dinner out for 14th anniversary. I want chicken saltimboca, so we are going to a quaint wine bar down the street.
And sunday cook…like a load of spaghetti sauce and meatballs for the freezer.
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Wave Hill is very neat- a nice place for a picnic, w/ great views. Both Edgar Allen Poe and Mark Twain lived there briefly. It’s worth the trip.
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Work. Ugh. (At least no one reading here at 11d envies the academic!)
Although there’s a nice congratulatory lunch (at a restaurant hopefully not too expensive) to attend for a friend of mine. But then, back to work.
(Though I’d thought, heading into the comments, that I would have the worst weekend ahead, but I think Lucy beats me.)
Wave Hill seems an awesome choice, Laura.
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Yeah…probably pull an all-nighter finishing something I should have finished a month ago, and which my advisor is leaning on me to give to her by Saturday, so she can nominate it for an award (!) (sorry, I have few pleasures, so bragging to strangers on the internet has to be one of them). I’m also making pizza, which doesn’t go well with writing, but goes excellent with procrastinating. Probably Saturday I will be recovering from my all-nighter. Sunday I have to prepare to teach on Monday, and might go to a friend’s clothing swap. Depending on how I feel, Saturday night I might also go drink too much over-priced Miller Lite at pretty much the only bar in the neighborhood with my friends.
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Well, B.I., I guess I’ll take a moment to congratulate a stranger on the internet. 🙂
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I forgot to mention that the kids had a day off school for no good reason today. This is graduation weekend, the college is ripping up sidewalks (why not wait three days?), and I expect half of our neighborhood to be bulldozed within the next week or two. At least for a while, it’s going to look post-apocalyptic.
Tonight was the first dinner real dinner I’ve cooked in about 4 months (that being the date of the previous cafeteria closure). We had chicken and leftover garbanzos simmered in Patak’s tikka masala sauce (one of my favorites), basmati rice, whole wheat naan from the grocery store (lightly microwaved), baby spinach and raw baby carrots. If you look closely, you’ll notice that a lot of my preparation consisted of opening jars and sticking stuff on plates, but it was a reasonably balanced meal and everybody liked it. My new blue-and-white Spode plates made their debut at dinner tonight.
I like the new plates so much that I even did the dishes after dinner, an unheard of event.
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Congrats, b.I!!! You’re at u of c, right? You know that I got my MA there? Lived at I-hous and 53rd and kimbark.
Very sorry about the funeral, Anjali.
Steve was an eagle scout, too, Russell. He probably brags more about his eagle scout badge than his PhD.
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Thanks for all the congratulations! The support of people on the internet is quite heartening 🙂 Now I have to stop procrastinating and start writing…
Laura, I do go to U of C (did I mention that? or…I guess it’s not hard to figure out through process of elimination. How many universities only have one bar near them?). I don’t know when you went, but I’d imagine the neighborhood hasn’t changed much, though I hear they’re opening up a 24 hour diner here. I’d imagine the university hasn’t changed much either, except for some more fancy buildings (inc. a new library that looks like a giant domed greenhouse.)
Hope your weekends are fun and relaxing!
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“inc. a new library that looks like a giant domed greenhouse.”
Does it have a coffee place? Because nowadays, that’s all the rage. I think it would work very nicely in a space that looked like a giant green house.
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Saturday night I am adjudicating a community theater performance of Lettice and Lovage in Annapolis, and Sunday I’ll be on Maryland’s Sugarloaf Mountain for a wildflower identification class, weather willing.
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Amy P
It just opened today or yesterday, I think, and I haven’t been yet. Knowing the U of C, probably not though. We like to keep our coffee shops in the basement.
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DH and youngest child are gone for the weekend. The older kids take care of themselves. I’m a free woman! Will be doing a total decluttering of my bedroom drawers and closets, sending bags to Goodwill, etc. and spending the rest of the weekend researching how I’m going to incorporate RTI into my classroom for next year.
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B.I.
I don’t know how long it’s been there, but our main college library (built in the 1960s) has a coffee place/smoothie shop in the basement/ground floor. That could be dreary, but there’s a door that lets out onto an enclosed sunken garden, which in our Texas climate is an excellent arrangement.
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My weekend involves grading, writing a paper I’m giving at a conference next weekend, and probably some gardening. If you had asked this question any other weekend this month, my answer would have been way more exciting. 🙂
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Friday night: host church fellowship group, teenager goes to visit friend.
Saturday morning: Mom goes to yoga, Dad pays bills, teenager dawdles, then begins studying for SAT Math Level II.
Saturday afternoon: Dad goes to work (comforted only by the thought that he gets paid more than an academic), not sure what Mom and teenager are doing (but they are not likely doing it together).
Saturday evening: family dinner, everyone talks about college for teenager as she gets sulky if the conversation doesn’t involve her, and this is the only topic that interests her that the parents can tolerate for a prolonged period.
Sunday morning: church
Sunday afternoon: Mom and Dad nap/lie in bed. Teenager sometimes does the same (in different bed), or does homework.
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Seen around campus this graduation weekend:
1. a white stretch limo Hummer
2. “flauta dogs” at the cafeteria (hot dogs wrapped in tortillas, then deep-fried). It was the last meal served at the cafeteria until the summer term begins, and the staff got creative.
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I am also assistant den leader with brown shirt and patches. Maybe it would help to think of it as less military and more like a blinged up UPS guy?
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Two friends celebrated birthdays this past week (one her 45th, the other her 42nd). Our close-knit group of friends is having a fancy-dress party. We’ll be as wonderfully silly as ever, just looking much better than usual.
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grading.
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I ended up falling asleep instead of pulling an all-nighter, so I spent all day working and just finished. Now I’m celebrating with a beer and 80s sitcoms. Tomorrow it’s reading, preparing for class, and not thinking about the months of work I have to catch up on.
Amy P
At college, our cafeteria always had a meal theme, which they called xx bar, as in “cajun bar” or “breakfast bar” or whatever. The last day before break, they always served what we called “disappointment bar” which included things like warmed up veggie burgers with no buns, or whatever else had been in the freezer for the past 3 months and wasn’t going to last much longer.
Also, a basement sunken garden in Texas sounds nice. In Chicago, I guess the plus is the weather is miserable enough most of the year you don’t mind coffee shops with no natural sunlight. (They opened a frozen yogurt place in HP though, so I can’t complain too much.)
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