No time for the present. Like the present. Whatever.
Gah, summer is kicking my butt. I have almost no time to myself during the day, with kids underfoot, plus physical therapy and various other appointments, obligations, etc and then in the afternoon there's what I like to call "enforced leisure" aka "taking the kids to the pool". I do get more reading done at the pool than I usually do during the school year, but I'm also falling behind on A) housework B) email C) LJ and D) fic writing. As in, haven't written a word on a fic due in 5 weeks. Now that the girls are older and staying up later, I have less time to myself in the evenings, as well, and I'm already struggling to get to bed at a decent hour, even without trying to squeeze in a lot of A-D.
(Speaking of getting to bed at a decent hour, Will had to work from home late Thurs night, doing planned software patches - he didn't get to bed until 2:20am. Poor lad.)
We'll see if this week is any different. MiniPlu left this evening for a week at my BIL/SIL's house, so I only have Two to deal with. Unfortunately, she's the more high-maintenance kid. Also, she was feeling a little "off" this afternoon, so I'm hoping she'll be well enough to go to morning camp as scheduled, otherwise, I won't get ANY free time.
Due to Two's "off"ness, she missed going with me and MiniPlu to see a local production of Jesus Christ Superstar, a musical I LOVE. Have almost all of it memorized, and I make a point of dragging it out at least once a year, during Holy Week. But, really, the music is just awesome, anytime. I've seen it performed live twice before - once at college, where, due to casting issues, they had a Queen Herod rather than a King Herod, and the outdoor amphitheater had terrible acoustics, and once here in PA at an absolutely tiny theater that, nonetheless, put on a smashing performance. No live music, but I didn't care.
Today's performance was part of a local college's summer repertoire; during the summer, they make use of a mix of professional and student actors (and crew). The director clearly had a dance-oriented production in mind, as the ensemble was constantly doing what I'd consider a balletic-modern sort of dance, which was both beautiful, often energetic, and also often distracting, IMO. Meanwhile, some of the acting done by non-dancing singers felt ... underdone. Not wooden, just ... not as expressive as it could have been, as far as gestures or use of the floor. It's not like it was a BAD performance - just that the director clearly had a particular vision in mind and it wasn't what I was expecting at all. But the singing was still awesome, and they made some striking choices for costumes and the set. I was disappointed it wasn't better, in that MiniPlu was sort of lukewarm about the whole thing and I wanted her to be excited, but she's also been spoiled by the STUNNING high school productions we've seen in recent years, including this spring's Les Miz.
Earlier last week, I attended an informative band meeting for incoming 6th-grade parents at the public middle school. First off, notification for the meeting was horribly organized. Apparently the kids (back when they were finishing up 5th grade) were handed a piece of paper which stated there would be a meeting in "mid-July" and in order to receive proper notification, they needed to email such-and-so address with their phone number and email address. How many kids do you think lost the paper or forgot to give it to their parents, and parents didn't look? (I've gotten much worse about looking in my kids' folders as they've gotten older and life has gotten crazier - I rely on them to say, "Here's my stuff" and dump it on me, but Two in particular doesn't always remember until three days later. :-P)
Also, even a few parents who DID respond never got notified about the meeting - it was by purest chance that they happened to know someone who DID know about the meeting, and came along. One of MiniPlu's classmates' mother only found out two hours before the meeting was to transpire. Of the transfer kids who are just being registered at the school, like MiniPlu - only one registration date has happened, the one we went to on July 9. And that's how *I* found out about the meeting. What of those new kids who aren't registering until the latter two dates later this summer, but will be in the instrumental program?
So, yeah, not well organized. For a band that is supposed to be roughly 250 kids this year - divide by three and there should have been approximately 80 parents, or a shade less if you count those people who just weren't able to come. I think we were more like 30-40. Maximum. Most of MiniPlu's friends play an instrument (like, of the eleven people she'd invited to her party, I think all but two or three play). I recognized the parents of TWO of her peers. That was it.
Anyway, apparently there's a parental band board; I knew two of the parents on there, which was nice. Mrs. D (the new director) and different members of the board each took a turn speaking about different aspects of being part of the instrumental family, from expectations to uniforms to fees.
Fees: $75 flat rate per kid per year, regardless of how many groups they play in. I actually have no idea what this money goes to, given that everything else I can think of has its own fee. I should ask one of my board-parent friends at some point. Uniform rental costs $15, including an end-of-year cleaning. You must purchase a garment bag for the uniform, or find someone who just graduated 8th grade and take theirs (no luck for us there, as far as I know): $10. Black dress shoes in this size are apparently tough to find. You are welcome to get your own pair, but at the next meeting (mandatory) in August, someone will be available to sell shoes at a reasonable price, and fit your child. All members must have an embroidered navy polo to wear to certain events: $12. And there's always a small trip in the spring - just an overnight thing, involving a music festival/competition somewhere and a little bit of sightseeing.
Part of the fee for that includes a "trip t-shirt" which I consider to be one of the stupidest things ever. They were saying, "It's good to have a single shirt that identifies us as representing [School] and is identical, to make it easier to identify members of our group in crowds." Okay, I get that. It all seems perfectly reasonable. But ... you HAVE one of those already: the navy embroidered polo. It seems dumb to shell out money for a special trip-centric t-shirt? The only thing I can think of is that a) kids like this and b) they must be getting fluorescent-colored shirts, feeling that navy is not easily-identifiable enough.
But I still think it's stupid.
Anyway, there was also a lot of talk about ways to reduce the fees - volunteering (where different activities are "worth" different deductions, depending on how much of your time and energy they require) - you can take up to $30 off your fees by volunteering. Fundraising - you can take as much money off your fees as you want, depending on how much fundraising you do. Some of it is traditional fundraising, selling hoagie/sub sandwiches and the like. Other stuff is more along the lines of what our church does - selling gift cards to various local chains. The band only does the two main grocery store chains, whereas church does a whole pile, but I've been buying gift cards for the store across the street for YEARS. Doesn't cost me anything extra, and is an easy way to raise funds for the church, or for our PREP tuition (or school tuition). (I don't have to pay PREP tuition as long as I teach, however.) So now I'm going to have to juggle which organization I'm going to be supporting, buying cards back and forth between church and band.
Kids will be measured for marching uniforms during band camp in August, and uniforms will be picked up in mid-Sept. We were told what they would wear for concerts, depending on whether they were concerts for band, orchestra or jazz band. More clothing to worry about.
Band meetings are generally the third Wed of every month, except for the mandatory August date which they deliberately scheduled during band camp week to ensure everyone would be in town. Given that public school PTO meetings are the *second* Wed of every month, and Wed is the week's SUCKIEST month for meetings since I have PREP each week ... gah. No, I don't HAVE to come to the band meetings, but it sounds like it might be useful. I'll see. They did say that they send out newsletters and emails and such to keep people informed, but I might want to attend the first few post-August meetings to see what goes on there and whether just getting the newsletters and such would suffice.
Oof. It was a lot to throw at us that night. Having never been a band geek, but a choral one, I had no idea band would be so ... involved. If you made it through all that, go get some ice cream.
And, finally, I've finished TWO books this week, although one was pretty short and both were easy reads.
Leviathan by Scott Westerfeld. Gift from hamsterwoman. Whee, this was so much fun! I loved the steampunk version of WWI events, told from the two main viewpoints, and I really loved the Darwin vs Clanker map of Europe drawn on the flyleaf. I think I'd have been a Darwinist, because the whole idea of melding together multiple breeds to achieve a particular set of skills - including flying machines - is just cool. I love all the characters, flaws, mysteries and all, and can't wait to see where this goes. I've already put Behemoth on request at the public library.
Adventures with Dad by Lee Gale Gruen. You've never heard of this book, I'm sure. It was a gift from my aunt/uncle, who happen to be friends with the author - I got a personally autographed copy, very cool. Anyway, it's an autobiographical account of how Lee Gale started going to acting classes with a senior educational group after her retirement as a parole officer, just to find something to do. (This being how she met my aunt/uncle, I think.) Anyway, she ended up dragging her recently-widowed father along as well, and it ended up bringing the two of them really close together. Her father had been a dominant figure in the household when she was a child - and not necessarily in a good way. (As my mother pointed out, the dad in this book was similar to my own grandfather in a lot of ways.) Through their acting class efforts, Lee Gale came to understand him better, and accept him for who he was, warts and all, and he became much closer to her. Also, Lee Gale found a second life for herself as an actress, showing it's never too late to jump into something new. Anyway, it's a really touching story, and the scripts she wrote for their joint scenes (transcribed verbatim, with photographs) are often hilarious. I zipped through this book in just one day. If you even think this might interest you, give it a whirl.
I've started Wolf Hall by Hilary Mantel, another birthday book; I'm having a little trouble with the writing style so far, but hopefully I'll get the hang of it, given that, in paper form (I've got the Kindle form), it's closing in on 600 pages.
Ok, ok. Time for bed. Whee, time to start the week all over again.
[EDIT: Totally unrelated, but I finally saw the new Amazing Spider-man a couple of weeks ago, and I just have to say that Andrew Garfield is the cutest thing EVER. I was glad to learn that he's almost 30, so I didn't have to feel like I'd dived back into The Bad Place by swooning over him.]
(Speaking of getting to bed at a decent hour, Will had to work from home late Thurs night, doing planned software patches - he didn't get to bed until 2:20am. Poor lad.)
We'll see if this week is any different. MiniPlu left this evening for a week at my BIL/SIL's house, so I only have Two to deal with. Unfortunately, she's the more high-maintenance kid. Also, she was feeling a little "off" this afternoon, so I'm hoping she'll be well enough to go to morning camp as scheduled, otherwise, I won't get ANY free time.
Due to Two's "off"ness, she missed going with me and MiniPlu to see a local production of Jesus Christ Superstar, a musical I LOVE. Have almost all of it memorized, and I make a point of dragging it out at least once a year, during Holy Week. But, really, the music is just awesome, anytime. I've seen it performed live twice before - once at college, where, due to casting issues, they had a Queen Herod rather than a King Herod, and the outdoor amphitheater had terrible acoustics, and once here in PA at an absolutely tiny theater that, nonetheless, put on a smashing performance. No live music, but I didn't care.
Today's performance was part of a local college's summer repertoire; during the summer, they make use of a mix of professional and student actors (and crew). The director clearly had a dance-oriented production in mind, as the ensemble was constantly doing what I'd consider a balletic-modern sort of dance, which was both beautiful, often energetic, and also often distracting, IMO. Meanwhile, some of the acting done by non-dancing singers felt ... underdone. Not wooden, just ... not as expressive as it could have been, as far as gestures or use of the floor. It's not like it was a BAD performance - just that the director clearly had a particular vision in mind and it wasn't what I was expecting at all. But the singing was still awesome, and they made some striking choices for costumes and the set. I was disappointed it wasn't better, in that MiniPlu was sort of lukewarm about the whole thing and I wanted her to be excited, but she's also been spoiled by the STUNNING high school productions we've seen in recent years, including this spring's Les Miz.
Earlier last week, I attended an informative band meeting for incoming 6th-grade parents at the public middle school. First off, notification for the meeting was horribly organized. Apparently the kids (back when they were finishing up 5th grade) were handed a piece of paper which stated there would be a meeting in "mid-July" and in order to receive proper notification, they needed to email such-and-so address with their phone number and email address. How many kids do you think lost the paper or forgot to give it to their parents, and parents didn't look? (I've gotten much worse about looking in my kids' folders as they've gotten older and life has gotten crazier - I rely on them to say, "Here's my stuff" and dump it on me, but Two in particular doesn't always remember until three days later. :-P)
Also, even a few parents who DID respond never got notified about the meeting - it was by purest chance that they happened to know someone who DID know about the meeting, and came along. One of MiniPlu's classmates' mother only found out two hours before the meeting was to transpire. Of the transfer kids who are just being registered at the school, like MiniPlu - only one registration date has happened, the one we went to on July 9. And that's how *I* found out about the meeting. What of those new kids who aren't registering until the latter two dates later this summer, but will be in the instrumental program?
So, yeah, not well organized. For a band that is supposed to be roughly 250 kids this year - divide by three and there should have been approximately 80 parents, or a shade less if you count those people who just weren't able to come. I think we were more like 30-40. Maximum. Most of MiniPlu's friends play an instrument (like, of the eleven people she'd invited to her party, I think all but two or three play). I recognized the parents of TWO of her peers. That was it.
Anyway, apparently there's a parental band board; I knew two of the parents on there, which was nice. Mrs. D (the new director) and different members of the board each took a turn speaking about different aspects of being part of the instrumental family, from expectations to uniforms to fees.
Fees: $75 flat rate per kid per year, regardless of how many groups they play in. I actually have no idea what this money goes to, given that everything else I can think of has its own fee. I should ask one of my board-parent friends at some point. Uniform rental costs $15, including an end-of-year cleaning. You must purchase a garment bag for the uniform, or find someone who just graduated 8th grade and take theirs (no luck for us there, as far as I know): $10. Black dress shoes in this size are apparently tough to find. You are welcome to get your own pair, but at the next meeting (mandatory) in August, someone will be available to sell shoes at a reasonable price, and fit your child. All members must have an embroidered navy polo to wear to certain events: $12. And there's always a small trip in the spring - just an overnight thing, involving a music festival/competition somewhere and a little bit of sightseeing.
Part of the fee for that includes a "trip t-shirt" which I consider to be one of the stupidest things ever. They were saying, "It's good to have a single shirt that identifies us as representing [School] and is identical, to make it easier to identify members of our group in crowds." Okay, I get that. It all seems perfectly reasonable. But ... you HAVE one of those already: the navy embroidered polo. It seems dumb to shell out money for a special trip-centric t-shirt? The only thing I can think of is that a) kids like this and b) they must be getting fluorescent-colored shirts, feeling that navy is not easily-identifiable enough.
But I still think it's stupid.
Anyway, there was also a lot of talk about ways to reduce the fees - volunteering (where different activities are "worth" different deductions, depending on how much of your time and energy they require) - you can take up to $30 off your fees by volunteering. Fundraising - you can take as much money off your fees as you want, depending on how much fundraising you do. Some of it is traditional fundraising, selling hoagie/sub sandwiches and the like. Other stuff is more along the lines of what our church does - selling gift cards to various local chains. The band only does the two main grocery store chains, whereas church does a whole pile, but I've been buying gift cards for the store across the street for YEARS. Doesn't cost me anything extra, and is an easy way to raise funds for the church, or for our PREP tuition (or school tuition). (I don't have to pay PREP tuition as long as I teach, however.) So now I'm going to have to juggle which organization I'm going to be supporting, buying cards back and forth between church and band.
Kids will be measured for marching uniforms during band camp in August, and uniforms will be picked up in mid-Sept. We were told what they would wear for concerts, depending on whether they were concerts for band, orchestra or jazz band. More clothing to worry about.
Band meetings are generally the third Wed of every month, except for the mandatory August date which they deliberately scheduled during band camp week to ensure everyone would be in town. Given that public school PTO meetings are the *second* Wed of every month, and Wed is the week's SUCKIEST month for meetings since I have PREP each week ... gah. No, I don't HAVE to come to the band meetings, but it sounds like it might be useful. I'll see. They did say that they send out newsletters and emails and such to keep people informed, but I might want to attend the first few post-August meetings to see what goes on there and whether just getting the newsletters and such would suffice.
Oof. It was a lot to throw at us that night. Having never been a band geek, but a choral one, I had no idea band would be so ... involved. If you made it through all that, go get some ice cream.
And, finally, I've finished TWO books this week, although one was pretty short and both were easy reads.
Leviathan by Scott Westerfeld. Gift from hamsterwoman. Whee, this was so much fun! I loved the steampunk version of WWI events, told from the two main viewpoints, and I really loved the Darwin vs Clanker map of Europe drawn on the flyleaf. I think I'd have been a Darwinist, because the whole idea of melding together multiple breeds to achieve a particular set of skills - including flying machines - is just cool. I love all the characters, flaws, mysteries and all, and can't wait to see where this goes. I've already put Behemoth on request at the public library.
Adventures with Dad by Lee Gale Gruen. You've never heard of this book, I'm sure. It was a gift from my aunt/uncle, who happen to be friends with the author - I got a personally autographed copy, very cool. Anyway, it's an autobiographical account of how Lee Gale started going to acting classes with a senior educational group after her retirement as a parole officer, just to find something to do. (This being how she met my aunt/uncle, I think.) Anyway, she ended up dragging her recently-widowed father along as well, and it ended up bringing the two of them really close together. Her father had been a dominant figure in the household when she was a child - and not necessarily in a good way. (As my mother pointed out, the dad in this book was similar to my own grandfather in a lot of ways.) Through their acting class efforts, Lee Gale came to understand him better, and accept him for who he was, warts and all, and he became much closer to her. Also, Lee Gale found a second life for herself as an actress, showing it's never too late to jump into something new. Anyway, it's a really touching story, and the scripts she wrote for their joint scenes (transcribed verbatim, with photographs) are often hilarious. I zipped through this book in just one day. If you even think this might interest you, give it a whirl.
I've started Wolf Hall by Hilary Mantel, another birthday book; I'm having a little trouble with the writing style so far, but hopefully I'll get the hang of it, given that, in paper form (I've got the Kindle form), it's closing in on 600 pages.
Ok, ok. Time for bed. Whee, time to start the week all over again.
[EDIT: Totally unrelated, but I finally saw the new Amazing Spider-man a couple of weeks ago, and I just have to say that Andrew Garfield is the cutest thing EVER. I was glad to learn that he's almost 30, so I didn't have to feel like I'd dived back into The Bad Place by swooning over him.]