The One Act is back, with Eve on stage and Lex on lights! What a brilliant duo. The show was called Variations on a Theme and was a series of variations of how a scene at the train station could play out between a guy and a girl. The guy was at the station and each scene was him imagining a different outcome. It was cool and deeper than I was expecting as the guy worked through his feelings about their relationship coming to an end. I enjoyed it.
The cast will perform one more time at a Festival in April when many different high schools come together to perform their One Act plays. It should be interesting. Eve is excited for it. Lex will be at an FRC event that weekend, so he won’t go to the festival.
Eve had a plan with a friend today. She drove herself to Hanover (with me in the car!) and I dropped her off at the boba tea place to get a snack then go to the game store. I felt weird leaving her alone, and commented on it. As I spoke the words out loud, it occurred to me that in under a year she would be alone in a far away country! I’d better get used to her being in Hanover without me!
Time can slow down just a little. Please and thank you.
I went to a great jazz concert last night. Two of my favorite teens were in it. :)
The kid in the back isn’t mine. He is a former otter though and Lex’s protégé. :)
The big three high schools got together and put on a jazzy show. The jazz bands from each school performed three songs each, then they joined together for, as one director put it, “a wall of sound!” It was great.
Lex was on the drum set for the first two songs, and the xylophone for the third. In the combined performance he’s hard to see because he was in the back on the conga drum.
I learned a new word at work this week. Interception. Did you know the human body has more than five senses? I bet you did, though maybe you didn’t know the words for them. Through teaching I’ve learned about the vestibular and proprioceptive senses, but this week I learned about interception as well. It stuck in my brain because it seems to explain the reason why internal pains can be mentally all-consuming. Right now this sciatic pain is all consuming in my brain. When the ibuprofen wears off and the pain flairs up, it’s all I can think about. It’s hard to follow conversations, much less participate in them, or make decisions, or feel motivated to do anything but sit in the one pain-relieving position. This is obvious and I’m sure everyone has had internal stuff that was all consuming at one point or another, but it’s interesting to have a word for it now.
It would be more interesting to have a cure for it too! My hope for a miracle from the chiropractor has not panned out. I haven’t been going to the gym (see paragraph above!), and today he said don’t go to the gym until the pain is under control. He actually advised me to see my family practitioner and come back once the pain is under control. I was dismissed from the chiropractor. Not sure what to make of that. I guess it’s good he’s honest and not just trying to make a buck off me. I didn’t tell him that once the pain is gone I’m not going back to the chiropractor. :)
I have an appointment with the doctor on Friday. Maybe they will have the miracle cure this time around!
Eve and I had an awesome day shopping on Boston yesterday. We aren’t big shoppers in general, but I was finally ready to buy new living room furniture and I couldn’t find anything perfect around here. We drove down to Ikea with a list and all the enthusiasm. We tested all of the couches and many of the chairs and tables at Ikea, both because we wanted to buy them and because my sciatic feels better when I sit down. LOL. So we did lots of chair testing while I waited for the meds to kick in. We got some little stuff and a BLÅHAJ (Swedish for “blue shark” and something Eve has been wanting for awhile), but didn’t love any of the couches.
I like this, but didn’t buy it. :)
Ikea encouraged us to take a “sharkie.” So we did.
Did you know Ikea sells Legos? They are white and bland basic, just like Ikea. 😄
Then we went to Starbucks (I needed a pick-me-up!) and Target for some clothes for Eve. She never asks for new clothes, so when she does I say YES! 😄
With caffeine, snacks, and meds in my body, we headed to Jordan’s Furniture, a store that is even bigger than Ikea and a true shopping experience. They even has an IMAX theater and an “Enchanted Village” thing and lots of other random “experiences,” plus furniture!! We explored for awhile, until we found the perfect couch!! It was soo soft and comfy and we both loved it. A nice sales guy from Southie came over and helped us getting it all ordered. It took awhile and I was running down, so I went out to the car to get our Starbucks beverages and buy a little snack at the fancy Jordan’s snack bar, while Eve stayed with the sales guy and discussed colors and end tables. She was an AMAZING partner in the furniture shopping process. She advocated for the practical when I wanted to luxurious, she was chatting with the guy and held her ground when the guy tried to upsell us on stuff, and she kept me going. Also, she’s just a fun person to have around!
We ended up buying two couches and two “cocktail ottomans,” which are the big, firm, padded ottomans that are popular these days. We didn’t find any end tables that we loved, so we’ll buy those somewhere else. We were going to get two chairs to put under the TV, instead of the couch that’s there now, but both of the couches we bought are bigger than what we currently have, so we decided to hold off and see how it all fits in our space first. Once we have the new couches and ottomans in place, we can decided what else we need. Jordan’s will deliver the furniture too us sometime in late February or early March. That will be a fun day! (hopefully the cat and dog don’t immediately “claim” them!)
The dark blue is the couch color, the gray is the ottoman color, the blue/gray pattern will be on the large throw pillows, and the white fluffy “cloud” fabric will be on the small throw pillows. It’s going to be perfect!
When we finished furniture shopping at 7pm, we stopped by Petco to buy new (bigger) shells for the hermit crabs, then stopped at the Olive Garden for a little dinner. We got home at 11:30pm! We were both exhausted, but it was an awesome day. I can’t wait for the new furniture to arrive. :)
We went to Niagara Falls for Thanksgiving. After 14+ hours in the car and three nights on a terrible mattress, I came home with a terribly aching back. I did lots of stretches and rolling and Advil, and by Christmas it was 90% better. Two weeks ago I got sciatica! Or at least I think it’s sciatica, based on my previous awful experience with it in 2008. Instead of months and months of physical therapy, I decided to go straight to the chiropractor, hoping for another miracle cure. After two appointments no miracles have occurred yet. :/ So far it is bad, but not emergency room bad, so I’ll keep stretching, going to the gym, going to the chiropractor, and downing the OTC drugs.
Meet Eve’s newest friends — hermit crabs! She has been talking about them for awhile, but I told her I maybe it’s not the best time to get a new pet since she’s going away this summer. Instead she talked to her bestie who offered to “babysit” the hermit crabs for a year while Eve’s away. LOL. What are besties for?!
So on Friday we went and bought some hermit crabs. She named them Herman, Sherman, and Jessica. Your guess is as good as mine as to who’s who. She’s pretty psyched though.
Lex applied to two colleges and this weekend we heard back from the first one — Worchester Polytechnic Institute (WPI). They sent him a “Welcome to the Class of 2027!” email! Things are different these days. They send an email and tell you to check the portal. The portal had the welcome letter. A few days later they sent another email directing him back to the portal for his financial aid package. I was hoping for a fat envelope with lots of information and pretty colors and stickers or something. But I guess it’s just email these days. All that aside – Lex got accepted to WPI!!!
I was really hoping he’d get in to at least one of the two schools so we didn’t have to start the whole process over again. Now we wait until February to hear back from Champlain College. 🤞🏻
https://youtube.com/shorts/BJb2wiN328Y (I just spent far too long trying to get this 7 second video to embed in this post. YouTube changed something and I can’t figure it out. So, click the link if you want to see her finding out her country assignment.)
Last fall Eve applied to be a Rotary Exchange student and today we went to a district meeting and found out her country assignment. Sweden! It was her second choice, but she is happy and already getting excited about it. She immediately started asking me lots of questions about the language (she loves languages) and I got to display my poor memory and lack of language skills. We might be relearning the language together. 😄
Tonight we went through my hope chest and found a few of my stuff from Sweden so many years ago. I have old journals I kept and my calendar book (pre digital calendar age!) and some photos and stuff.
We celebrated New Year’s Eve in the usual way, sort of. Cheetos (puffs and crunchy) and card games. B’Lake and his girlfriend wanted to play Cards Against Humanity instead of Apples to Apples, our usual NYE go-to. Eve was in for it, but Lex was not comfortable with the game (or the change, or both). We played a few rounds of CAH, then switched to A2A, but people got cranky and annoying, and we probably started too early, so we broke to our own corners for awhile. The kids plugged in to their screens and I finished a puzzle – my second this vacation! We regrouped at 11:45pm to watch the ball drop.
Then B’Lake walked his gf home and I took Huxley out for a walk, which Eve and Lex both decided to join me on. Weirdly it was a nice way to end the evening. The three of us talking and giggling and enjoying the warm evening.
Happy New Year! May 2023 bring joy, love, family, and new experiences for all. <3
