Another Year
It's almost time for Zoë to start school, her senior year. She's not as excited about it as she would be in a normal world, because her school has adjusted a lot of the pomp and circumstance to make it safer.
Meantime, my over 70 year old mom is breaking her over 80 year old friends out of their assisted living homes and driving all over North Carolina because their mental health was suffering greatly from being stuck, alone, in their homes. My mom is a rule follower, so they got permission, and she is the only one taking these women out for their Thelma and Louise getaways. I asked my mom if she wasn't concerned about this additional risk, and she said when she was a child there was polio and no antibiotics and she vividly remembers an instance when she was quite young and had gotten her legs completely torn up on a fence, and her grandfather desperately afraid she was going to die. So, no, she's going to live her life and see her friends, and be careful but if this is what kills her, then she's had a life well-lived. I can't argue with her.
Which of course makes Zoë all the more frustrated about the changes that her school's making because these traditions are huge, and she's not overselling it when she says they've looked forward to these celebrations since Kindergarten. But the school's trying, and I feel so fortunate that she's at a school where she's well known and has relationships with, well, everyone. So she's not going to be alone and adrift her senior year. She already has study groups set up for her classes (AP Bio, AP Calc BC, Women in the Wilderness, Chesapeake Bay Ecology, The Works of Cormac McCarthy, Psychology, Chorus, Honors Latin 5). She's totally lucked out because she can finally fit her performance fine arts credit into her schedule, she begrudgingly picked chorus as the least offensive (she has serious performance anxiety - she loves music, hates performing), and it's unlikely they're going to do very many performances. She's upset about Latin 5, because it's the culmination of the Latin trek which she has adored, but because Latin's taught at Gilman instead of RPCS, it's going to be at least a semester before she gets to be at that class in person. It's a tiny class, I think only 7 kids have made it through to this class, so they should be able to do a really good job with online, but it's definitely a loss. She will hopefully go back in person at the September (the school's starting with the little kids, and if all goes well, allowing the older kids back), which she really needs. I have no idea how she's going to do AP Bio or Chesapeake Bay Ecology online. Those are hands-on classes, and Chesapeake Bay Ecology is mostly outdoors on the schools grounds. She couldn't fit French 6 into her schedule with her other courses, so she's not taking French this year. And she's thrilled to not be taking history.
She still hasn't gotten to take the SAT, not for lack of trying. 5? opportunities have been cancelled so far. I suspect this has something to do with her lack of motivation for working on her college applications. I kind of wish we lived in Kansas, assuming they still do this, where if you were a graduate of a Kansas high school you could just say "yep, I want to go." And there you were. It would be nice to have something that simple to fall back on. These kids have been through a lot, and it hasn't ended. She does have the AP scores from the 2 AP exams she took last year, so maybe that can demonstrate she's capable of college level work if it comes to it. Who knows. I've resolved not to pressure her about it. She's been through enough, she's got enough to deal with.
Zoë's been baking up a storm. It started when the kids were sent home from school, everyone was under the stay at home, and most kids weren't seeing anyone. She baked. And baked. And baked. And dropped off what she made at her friends houses. After a month of no-contact delivery, kids started venturing out a bit, she began hanging out with one of her good friends, and the two of them have basically been constant companions. We've gone through 100 lbs of all purpose flour since this started. And assorted specialty flours, as she could get them (for macarons, special breads, and so on).
The company that employed Mike went out of business as Maryland's shut down began. So we cut all expenses (except, obviously, baking related, for mental health reasons. Oh, and spotify, we didn't take the kid's music). We managed to live on the unemployment money until he got another job, with quite a nice raise too! We're still trying to live cheaply, but we're doing things like repairing the AC in the studio (been broken for a couple of years) because Mike's office is out there and his job's entirely from home. And he might be ready to take on the library project eventually, which would become my office since it's looking less likely that I'll return to the office. I offered to turn the music room into a study for Zoë for when school starts, but she says she'll just stay in her room. We'll see. I don't expect both of our jobs to make it through the ~2 year downturn I anticipate because of all this, so I want us to have a year's worth of expenses ready, not requiring us pull from our retirement accounts or Zoë's college. Mike thinks I'm being paranoid. I think I'm being practical.
I have my fingers crossed that Zoë's senior year goes without a hitch. She's worried about her classmates from China, whether she's going to get to row this year (the season was canceled last year), and if she's going to get to have class with her Latin teacher. I'm worried about her keeping it together enough to apply to college. Mike's focused on performing well in his job and making it through the probationary period. JWST's not scheduled to launch until Oct 2021, so hopefully I'm employed until then. And more hopefully the launch goes well and I continue to remain employed.
Meantime, my over 70 year old mom is breaking her over 80 year old friends out of their assisted living homes and driving all over North Carolina because their mental health was suffering greatly from being stuck, alone, in their homes. My mom is a rule follower, so they got permission, and she is the only one taking these women out for their Thelma and Louise getaways. I asked my mom if she wasn't concerned about this additional risk, and she said when she was a child there was polio and no antibiotics and she vividly remembers an instance when she was quite young and had gotten her legs completely torn up on a fence, and her grandfather desperately afraid she was going to die. So, no, she's going to live her life and see her friends, and be careful but if this is what kills her, then she's had a life well-lived. I can't argue with her.
Which of course makes Zoë all the more frustrated about the changes that her school's making because these traditions are huge, and she's not overselling it when she says they've looked forward to these celebrations since Kindergarten. But the school's trying, and I feel so fortunate that she's at a school where she's well known and has relationships with, well, everyone. So she's not going to be alone and adrift her senior year. She already has study groups set up for her classes (AP Bio, AP Calc BC, Women in the Wilderness, Chesapeake Bay Ecology, The Works of Cormac McCarthy, Psychology, Chorus, Honors Latin 5). She's totally lucked out because she can finally fit her performance fine arts credit into her schedule, she begrudgingly picked chorus as the least offensive (she has serious performance anxiety - she loves music, hates performing), and it's unlikely they're going to do very many performances. She's upset about Latin 5, because it's the culmination of the Latin trek which she has adored, but because Latin's taught at Gilman instead of RPCS, it's going to be at least a semester before she gets to be at that class in person. It's a tiny class, I think only 7 kids have made it through to this class, so they should be able to do a really good job with online, but it's definitely a loss. She will hopefully go back in person at the September (the school's starting with the little kids, and if all goes well, allowing the older kids back), which she really needs. I have no idea how she's going to do AP Bio or Chesapeake Bay Ecology online. Those are hands-on classes, and Chesapeake Bay Ecology is mostly outdoors on the schools grounds. She couldn't fit French 6 into her schedule with her other courses, so she's not taking French this year. And she's thrilled to not be taking history.
She still hasn't gotten to take the SAT, not for lack of trying. 5? opportunities have been cancelled so far. I suspect this has something to do with her lack of motivation for working on her college applications. I kind of wish we lived in Kansas, assuming they still do this, where if you were a graduate of a Kansas high school you could just say "yep, I want to go." And there you were. It would be nice to have something that simple to fall back on. These kids have been through a lot, and it hasn't ended. She does have the AP scores from the 2 AP exams she took last year, so maybe that can demonstrate she's capable of college level work if it comes to it. Who knows. I've resolved not to pressure her about it. She's been through enough, she's got enough to deal with.
Zoë's been baking up a storm. It started when the kids were sent home from school, everyone was under the stay at home, and most kids weren't seeing anyone. She baked. And baked. And baked. And dropped off what she made at her friends houses. After a month of no-contact delivery, kids started venturing out a bit, she began hanging out with one of her good friends, and the two of them have basically been constant companions. We've gone through 100 lbs of all purpose flour since this started. And assorted specialty flours, as she could get them (for macarons, special breads, and so on).
The company that employed Mike went out of business as Maryland's shut down began. So we cut all expenses (except, obviously, baking related, for mental health reasons. Oh, and spotify, we didn't take the kid's music). We managed to live on the unemployment money until he got another job, with quite a nice raise too! We're still trying to live cheaply, but we're doing things like repairing the AC in the studio (been broken for a couple of years) because Mike's office is out there and his job's entirely from home. And he might be ready to take on the library project eventually, which would become my office since it's looking less likely that I'll return to the office. I offered to turn the music room into a study for Zoë for when school starts, but she says she'll just stay in her room. We'll see. I don't expect both of our jobs to make it through the ~2 year downturn I anticipate because of all this, so I want us to have a year's worth of expenses ready, not requiring us pull from our retirement accounts or Zoë's college. Mike thinks I'm being paranoid. I think I'm being practical.
I have my fingers crossed that Zoë's senior year goes without a hitch. She's worried about her classmates from China, whether she's going to get to row this year (the season was canceled last year), and if she's going to get to have class with her Latin teacher. I'm worried about her keeping it together enough to apply to college. Mike's focused on performing well in his job and making it through the probationary period. JWST's not scheduled to launch until Oct 2021, so hopefully I'm employed until then. And more hopefully the launch goes well and I continue to remain employed.