There and back again // hot and heavy // crunchy car // new schedules and phone
So, I spent Wed through Sun on the west coast, first visiting my father in Oregon to verify whether his recent memory problems were causing "can't live alone anymore" issues, and then swinging by for a 24-hour whirlwind stop to see my mother in Calif. before taking the red-eye back home Sun night. Short version: my father is doing well enough for now, and my mother is the same as always.
Long version: my father has started having noticeable short-term memory issues, and also started requiring his bank teller to balance his monthly statements for him. Given that he has a PhD in chemistry/entymology, I found his inability to do regular math disturbing. But there's only so much you can glean from weekly 5-10 min phonecalls, so I felt I really needed to see him in person and have a better idea of how he was really faring. The whole trip was thrown together kind of last minute because I struggled to find a window that would impact my family the least. In the end, I just had to eeny meeny miney mo pick a date and go with it, because there really wasn't ANY time that was going to be ideal. Thankfully, Will's boss, warned in advance that I would likely be gone for several days (long before I knew WHICH days), was flexible enough to allow Will to work from home during my absence, so he could deal with the kids.
My father lives in the middle of nowhere, about half an hour from the coast in SE Oregon. In the nearly 30 years that he has lived there, I have visited exactly once, back in 1993, when he drove me home from college after I graduated, and, after dropping off my stuff at my house, we drove onward to his home, and then he took me up to Salem (4 hours away) so I could visit a friend up there and continue northward to Portland and Seattle before going home again. In recent years, a handful of commercial flights (all United, except for a weensy 5-person puddle-jumper) have begun using an airport about 40 mins away, on the coast, which makes it marginally easier to get to him, but it still requires 2-3 flights, each way. I considered myself lucky to keep it down to 2 flights.
I flew out on Wed, 12 Aug, at 6:55am from Philly, which necessitated getting up at 3:45am in order to drive down (1:15 trip). Security took ages, and it was my first time through the backscatter machine (the disadvantage of not having kids with me), but I still got to the gate ahead of boarding. I had the window; my seatmates were a older couple (late 50s, maybe?), well-dressed given they were flying, so my guess is they're fairly well off. The wife was the one next to me. She was very pleasant and calm, but in the course of conversation I learned that she was highly religious/devout Christian, because she kept inserting statements of belief into her conversation. And it's not like I significantly disagree with her, but it made me really uncomfortable. Then it turned out that she (and probably he, too, although she did all the talking - you'll see why in a min) was anti-vac, blamed her husband's yearly flu vaccinations (required, as he used to be a doctor) for his Parkinson's disease, and later pulled out a book on conspiracy theories. In other words, they were kind and polite NUTJOBS. Thank goodness I dozed a fair amount of the trip and thus avoided talking any more to her that way. :P
I had a 2+ hour layover in Denver, the first time I had been to that airport (or any part of CO). Pretty nice airport, I thought - especially as the place I got food offered a gluten-free bread option for an additional charge. I had to walk to Nebraska to get my next gate, as apparently the United Express planes are ALL the way across the airport, and my left knee has been bothering me lately, but I survived. The next plane, which was 2 and 2 (rather than 3 and 3) was delightfully devoid of whacko seatmates. I dozed a fair amount of this trip, too. As we came in to land, I could see some of the wildfires from the air. Scary.
Because of my dad's memory problems, I had worried he might not remember to come get me, but I could see him waving through the window as we disembarked (planes are small enough that you actually use stairs/ramp to the tarmac, rather than a modern jetway directly into the terminal). There's only one gate, and so people just wait upstairs from it, hence how I could see him through the window.
My dad, as you may recall, voluntarily lives a ridiculously spartan lifestyle. Knowing this in advance, I was prepared for three days of simple food and cold showers (his water heater died from lack of use) but at the last minute, his super-kind neighbors learned of my visit and gave my dad the key to their back door so we could use their (warm!) shower. Alas, they were away on vacation so I didn't get to meet them. So, yes, I ate simply for three days, but I didn't starve, and at least I got a hot shower when I wanted one.
As for his memory - his short-term memory is definitely problematic, as are his word-retrieval (especially name-retrieval for names he doesn't use frequently) skills. However, he is fully aware of this and writes himself notes, leaving them in prominent locations, for anything he wants to be SURE to remember. He has found reasonable workarounds for dealing with most bills and things he might sometimes find confusing, and I've told him to mail me anything he still needs help with. His house is dated, but in good repair and clean and organized. His yard is totally overgrown, but that's because this year he felt he could no longer keep up with it, physically, not because he has forgotten about it. He watches a lot more TV, in lieu of the constant yardwork he used to do, but ... eh, he's 88. I can live with that. Meanwhile, he can safely cook and store food, lock up his doors and windows when leaving the house, drive to his usual locations and drive safely, use a road map, pay cash (his usual modus operandi) and take care of his own personal daily needs. I was very reassured to see that his memory issues are not (yet) impinging on his ability to safely live on his own. He did repeat himself sometimes, in conversation, that being the one thing he is NOT aware of, but he can hold a fully lucid conversation. In fact, I think he can communicate better now, despite his significant hearing loss, because he can SEE so much better, and can thus see your face while you talk.
In addition to assessing him, I also got information regarding his pre-paid cremation plans, learned more family history, got to explain more about Two, he introduced me to key local people whose assistance I may need in event of his death, and generally had a lot of good quality time with him. We spent a couple of hours walking a trail along the cliffs above the beach one afternoon, and had an amusing experience digging up something he'd deliberately buried in his yard. It was a good visit, although somewhat weird to think that the next time I went to his house, it would likely be because he'd died.
On Saturday afternoon, it was back to the airport. United only serves 2-3 cities (depending on season) from this airport, San Francisco being one of them. Because the only flights leave mid-afternoon, and this would have gotten me into Philly in the wee small hours of morning, I decided to see my mom briefly and fly home nonstop from SFO afterwards. My dad had given me some valuable items to take along that were quite heavy, especially as I just had a non-wheeled overnight bag, which I got to haul through SFO en route to BART (the subway). But I made it to Mom's station without incident - she picked me up, and fed me dinner. The evening was fairly quiet, but the following day I took care of some jobs for her, including changing ceiling light bulbs, and helping her weed out and organize her fabric stash. She makes a LOT of baby and kid PJs for charity, and people often gift her with leftover fabric they think she'd like, and she had just been piling it haphazardly for awhile without deciding if she really wanted the stuff or not. Since she uses a walker and is fearful of her back, she didn't want to deal with anything involving lifting, hence my role. She sat in a chair while I plonked on the floor and did the physical handling of all the stuff. It was 102F/39C that day, and while dry heat is better than 102F and humid, it was still definitely a good day to be inside! I also got some laundry done.
In the evening we loaded my stuff back into the car and she took me to dinner at our favorite Japanese place before she then dropped me back off at BART for the return trip to the airport. Security was even worse than in NJ because I seem to have gotten into the slowest of the two or three lines (and it didn't help that I'd hauled my heavy bag to the signs pointing the way to security only to find THAT station was closed and I had to haul my way back the other direction to the next location). Thankfully, I'd gotten to the airport early because of when we'd finished dinner, so I still had plenty of time at the gate before boarding. Alas, I had the middle seat this time, so no chance to lean against the wall and sleep. Although my eyes were closed nearly the whole flight, I still hardly slept at all, finding it difficult to maintain a comfortable position for more than a few minutes. They don't call it the red-eye for nuthin'. :-P We landed early, a little before 7am on Mon (yesterday), I drove home, and was back shortly after 9am. And that was my trip West.
Despite having very little sleep and only a brief nap after getting home, I still picked up MiniPlu from band camp, took Two to the dentist for a filling (his first), helped MiniPlu weed out her clothing so we could see what she really had, and took her (and Two, although he was mostly just tagging along) for some back-to-school clothes shopping at a local teen consignment store and Old Navy. Then I took Will to drop off the rental car (more on that in a min) and pick up a new one elsewhere. On the other hand, I was asleep by 9:45pm, a rarity - and even more when you consider it was essentially 6:45pm for my internal clock.
It has been godawful humid here, so even though the temps have only been about 90F/32.2C or maybe a smidgen warmer the past couple of days, it has felt worse, to me, than the 102F dry heat in CA. :-P After five days of drier air, it was almost hard to breathe yesterday at its worst. MiniPlu reported that a bunch of kids keeled over in the heat during band camp yesterday, and although nobody fainted today, there were a couple of near misses.
As for the rental car ... Will, the kids and the dogs were in a car accident last Friday as they tried to leave town and head to NJ for the weekend. They'd only gotten about 10-15 mins when it happened. Highway traffic had slowed for an accident, then started picking up again. Apparently someone up ahead had lost a tire and traffic was veering around it, because it abruptly started to slow again. Will had taken his eyes off the road for a second - and a second was all it took. He slammed on the brakes and veered left toward the half-lane space by the center divider in an attempt to avoid hitting the car in front but was not successful. The front right corner hit the car - headlight and turn signal are gone - and he scraped the left side so close to the guard rail that he blew the left front tire. Nobody was injured - that's the most important thing. But he had to get the dogs out of the car so he could get to the spare tire, and of course they were terrified to be out on the highway, so Two had a job trying to keep them calm.
Thankfully, the car was driveable, at least to get as far as home, so they returned to the house and called me, understandably upset. I told Will that he clearly needed to be with his family more than ever, and to just rent a car for the weekend and go to NJ anyway, which they did end up doing. It was a sedan rather than an SUV or hatchback with open cargo space in the back, like our cars have, which meant the baggage went in the trunk and the dogs were squished in the back seat with Two, but they all managed. But, anyway - Will had rented the largest sedan he could manage in order to fit everyone and everything in it, and he clearly didn't need that on an ongoing basis; also, now that he'd filed the insurance claim, he could use insurance to pay for a rental car. So, anyway, he had to return the original car at one rental dealership and pick up a more reasonably priced car at a different one in a different location yesterday evening, hence my having to drive him around.
Because this is a no-fault accident, it's our own insurance that will pay for repairs. Not looking forward to seeing what this will do to our premiums, sigh. Will couldn't get in with the reputable assessor he wanted until NEXT Tues, so thank goodness our costs for the rental car are minimal, given how long we'll have it. (We also have an old beat-up pickup truck Will could use except the registration and inspection are out of date and he hasn't had time to rectify either yet.)
Will has been very depressed since the accident. He's starting to feel as if the Prius is cursed: it's less than 3 years old and has already been in 4 accidents (two for each of us :P). He had an almost identical, although less damaging, accident on the same stretch of highway about six months after we got the car. Then I backed into someone in a parking lot when we were in Baltimore last fall - I'm not sure I damaged the Prius any, but I slightly dented the front fender of the other car and they did want it fixed. Early this spring I swung a little too close to the curb to give more space to an oncoming semi truck and took out the front right wheel well and windshield washer reservoir. And now this. Plus, we've each scraped up the back hatch by forgetting not to lift it up while the garage door opener is in motion - the hatch is so large that it doesn't clear the motorized mechanism for the opener when it's fully extended, and has gotten scratched several times. Anyway, he badly wants to ditch the Prius as soon as it's repaired and get something else to be free of the "taint," but I'm not sure we can afford that right now. Need to look more carefully into our finances.
He's also convinced that the brakes didn't work properly because of their connection to the hybrid battery. I've felt the ABS kick in before during a panic stop and work fine, but he's convinced the brakes felt mushy when he needed them in that moment. I wasn't there and I wasn't driving, so I really have no idea what did or didn't happen with the brakes, but he's filing a complaint with Toyota anyway.
So, anyway, he's in this major funk and I really have no idea what to say or do to make him feel better. I haven't even seen the damage for myself yet (car is in the garage) - I feel it will only make him more upset to go over it again.
The kids got their class assignments last week. There's a bit of a story there, too, but this is already long and it's getting late, so I'll sum up: MiniPlu didn't get on the academic team she wanted (the drama teacher teaches 8th-grade English and MiniPlu REALLY wanted her) but did get on the same team as a lot of her friends/acquaintances, so hopefully it'll be the right place for her, regardless. Two got MiniPlu's two teachers from 6th grade, which I am ECSTATIC about because they were super nice and also good teachers, plus the other two or three teachers that got added to the team since MiniPlu was on it. Don't know them at all, but hopefully they're good. Because of the learning disabilities, Two will not get foreign language instruction this year - that timeslot will go to added learning support, which I'm sure he will hate, even though he needs it.
Two also got his first-ever cell phone today. Will connected it to our wireless network so he could download a couple of games because he was DESPERATE to use it for SOMETHING, but we're still working out the details of where we're going to be getting his actual cell service, so it doesn't yet work as an actual phone yet. To our surprise, he wasn't at all disappointed not to be getting an iPhone like his sister has - he said he actually wanted an Android phone, which is good because that was the best compromise phone (between price and quality) that Will and I found.
And before I go: I want a bunch of these things even though I have no use for them. The tote bag even though I already have a couple of HP-related bags. The pencil case even though I don't have any need for a pencil case. The awesome clock that I don't have any need for. The tablet case when I don't have a tablet. Ah well.
Long version: my father has started having noticeable short-term memory issues, and also started requiring his bank teller to balance his monthly statements for him. Given that he has a PhD in chemistry/entymology, I found his inability to do regular math disturbing. But there's only so much you can glean from weekly 5-10 min phonecalls, so I felt I really needed to see him in person and have a better idea of how he was really faring. The whole trip was thrown together kind of last minute because I struggled to find a window that would impact my family the least. In the end, I just had to eeny meeny miney mo pick a date and go with it, because there really wasn't ANY time that was going to be ideal. Thankfully, Will's boss, warned in advance that I would likely be gone for several days (long before I knew WHICH days), was flexible enough to allow Will to work from home during my absence, so he could deal with the kids.
My father lives in the middle of nowhere, about half an hour from the coast in SE Oregon. In the nearly 30 years that he has lived there, I have visited exactly once, back in 1993, when he drove me home from college after I graduated, and, after dropping off my stuff at my house, we drove onward to his home, and then he took me up to Salem (4 hours away) so I could visit a friend up there and continue northward to Portland and Seattle before going home again. In recent years, a handful of commercial flights (all United, except for a weensy 5-person puddle-jumper) have begun using an airport about 40 mins away, on the coast, which makes it marginally easier to get to him, but it still requires 2-3 flights, each way. I considered myself lucky to keep it down to 2 flights.
I flew out on Wed, 12 Aug, at 6:55am from Philly, which necessitated getting up at 3:45am in order to drive down (1:15 trip). Security took ages, and it was my first time through the backscatter machine (the disadvantage of not having kids with me), but I still got to the gate ahead of boarding. I had the window; my seatmates were a older couple (late 50s, maybe?), well-dressed given they were flying, so my guess is they're fairly well off. The wife was the one next to me. She was very pleasant and calm, but in the course of conversation I learned that she was highly religious/devout Christian, because she kept inserting statements of belief into her conversation. And it's not like I significantly disagree with her, but it made me really uncomfortable. Then it turned out that she (and probably he, too, although she did all the talking - you'll see why in a min) was anti-vac, blamed her husband's yearly flu vaccinations (required, as he used to be a doctor) for his Parkinson's disease, and later pulled out a book on conspiracy theories. In other words, they were kind and polite NUTJOBS. Thank goodness I dozed a fair amount of the trip and thus avoided talking any more to her that way. :P
I had a 2+ hour layover in Denver, the first time I had been to that airport (or any part of CO). Pretty nice airport, I thought - especially as the place I got food offered a gluten-free bread option for an additional charge. I had to walk to Nebraska to get my next gate, as apparently the United Express planes are ALL the way across the airport, and my left knee has been bothering me lately, but I survived. The next plane, which was 2 and 2 (rather than 3 and 3) was delightfully devoid of whacko seatmates. I dozed a fair amount of this trip, too. As we came in to land, I could see some of the wildfires from the air. Scary.
Because of my dad's memory problems, I had worried he might not remember to come get me, but I could see him waving through the window as we disembarked (planes are small enough that you actually use stairs/ramp to the tarmac, rather than a modern jetway directly into the terminal). There's only one gate, and so people just wait upstairs from it, hence how I could see him through the window.
My dad, as you may recall, voluntarily lives a ridiculously spartan lifestyle. Knowing this in advance, I was prepared for three days of simple food and cold showers (his water heater died from lack of use) but at the last minute, his super-kind neighbors learned of my visit and gave my dad the key to their back door so we could use their (warm!) shower. Alas, they were away on vacation so I didn't get to meet them. So, yes, I ate simply for three days, but I didn't starve, and at least I got a hot shower when I wanted one.
As for his memory - his short-term memory is definitely problematic, as are his word-retrieval (especially name-retrieval for names he doesn't use frequently) skills. However, he is fully aware of this and writes himself notes, leaving them in prominent locations, for anything he wants to be SURE to remember. He has found reasonable workarounds for dealing with most bills and things he might sometimes find confusing, and I've told him to mail me anything he still needs help with. His house is dated, but in good repair and clean and organized. His yard is totally overgrown, but that's because this year he felt he could no longer keep up with it, physically, not because he has forgotten about it. He watches a lot more TV, in lieu of the constant yardwork he used to do, but ... eh, he's 88. I can live with that. Meanwhile, he can safely cook and store food, lock up his doors and windows when leaving the house, drive to his usual locations and drive safely, use a road map, pay cash (his usual modus operandi) and take care of his own personal daily needs. I was very reassured to see that his memory issues are not (yet) impinging on his ability to safely live on his own. He did repeat himself sometimes, in conversation, that being the one thing he is NOT aware of, but he can hold a fully lucid conversation. In fact, I think he can communicate better now, despite his significant hearing loss, because he can SEE so much better, and can thus see your face while you talk.
In addition to assessing him, I also got information regarding his pre-paid cremation plans, learned more family history, got to explain more about Two, he introduced me to key local people whose assistance I may need in event of his death, and generally had a lot of good quality time with him. We spent a couple of hours walking a trail along the cliffs above the beach one afternoon, and had an amusing experience digging up something he'd deliberately buried in his yard. It was a good visit, although somewhat weird to think that the next time I went to his house, it would likely be because he'd died.
On Saturday afternoon, it was back to the airport. United only serves 2-3 cities (depending on season) from this airport, San Francisco being one of them. Because the only flights leave mid-afternoon, and this would have gotten me into Philly in the wee small hours of morning, I decided to see my mom briefly and fly home nonstop from SFO afterwards. My dad had given me some valuable items to take along that were quite heavy, especially as I just had a non-wheeled overnight bag, which I got to haul through SFO en route to BART (the subway). But I made it to Mom's station without incident - she picked me up, and fed me dinner. The evening was fairly quiet, but the following day I took care of some jobs for her, including changing ceiling light bulbs, and helping her weed out and organize her fabric stash. She makes a LOT of baby and kid PJs for charity, and people often gift her with leftover fabric they think she'd like, and she had just been piling it haphazardly for awhile without deciding if she really wanted the stuff or not. Since she uses a walker and is fearful of her back, she didn't want to deal with anything involving lifting, hence my role. She sat in a chair while I plonked on the floor and did the physical handling of all the stuff. It was 102F/39C that day, and while dry heat is better than 102F and humid, it was still definitely a good day to be inside! I also got some laundry done.
In the evening we loaded my stuff back into the car and she took me to dinner at our favorite Japanese place before she then dropped me back off at BART for the return trip to the airport. Security was even worse than in NJ because I seem to have gotten into the slowest of the two or three lines (and it didn't help that I'd hauled my heavy bag to the signs pointing the way to security only to find THAT station was closed and I had to haul my way back the other direction to the next location). Thankfully, I'd gotten to the airport early because of when we'd finished dinner, so I still had plenty of time at the gate before boarding. Alas, I had the middle seat this time, so no chance to lean against the wall and sleep. Although my eyes were closed nearly the whole flight, I still hardly slept at all, finding it difficult to maintain a comfortable position for more than a few minutes. They don't call it the red-eye for nuthin'. :-P We landed early, a little before 7am on Mon (yesterday), I drove home, and was back shortly after 9am. And that was my trip West.
Despite having very little sleep and only a brief nap after getting home, I still picked up MiniPlu from band camp, took Two to the dentist for a filling (his first), helped MiniPlu weed out her clothing so we could see what she really had, and took her (and Two, although he was mostly just tagging along) for some back-to-school clothes shopping at a local teen consignment store and Old Navy. Then I took Will to drop off the rental car (more on that in a min) and pick up a new one elsewhere. On the other hand, I was asleep by 9:45pm, a rarity - and even more when you consider it was essentially 6:45pm for my internal clock.
It has been godawful humid here, so even though the temps have only been about 90F/32.2C or maybe a smidgen warmer the past couple of days, it has felt worse, to me, than the 102F dry heat in CA. :-P After five days of drier air, it was almost hard to breathe yesterday at its worst. MiniPlu reported that a bunch of kids keeled over in the heat during band camp yesterday, and although nobody fainted today, there were a couple of near misses.
As for the rental car ... Will, the kids and the dogs were in a car accident last Friday as they tried to leave town and head to NJ for the weekend. They'd only gotten about 10-15 mins when it happened. Highway traffic had slowed for an accident, then started picking up again. Apparently someone up ahead had lost a tire and traffic was veering around it, because it abruptly started to slow again. Will had taken his eyes off the road for a second - and a second was all it took. He slammed on the brakes and veered left toward the half-lane space by the center divider in an attempt to avoid hitting the car in front but was not successful. The front right corner hit the car - headlight and turn signal are gone - and he scraped the left side so close to the guard rail that he blew the left front tire. Nobody was injured - that's the most important thing. But he had to get the dogs out of the car so he could get to the spare tire, and of course they were terrified to be out on the highway, so Two had a job trying to keep them calm.
Thankfully, the car was driveable, at least to get as far as home, so they returned to the house and called me, understandably upset. I told Will that he clearly needed to be with his family more than ever, and to just rent a car for the weekend and go to NJ anyway, which they did end up doing. It was a sedan rather than an SUV or hatchback with open cargo space in the back, like our cars have, which meant the baggage went in the trunk and the dogs were squished in the back seat with Two, but they all managed. But, anyway - Will had rented the largest sedan he could manage in order to fit everyone and everything in it, and he clearly didn't need that on an ongoing basis; also, now that he'd filed the insurance claim, he could use insurance to pay for a rental car. So, anyway, he had to return the original car at one rental dealership and pick up a more reasonably priced car at a different one in a different location yesterday evening, hence my having to drive him around.
Because this is a no-fault accident, it's our own insurance that will pay for repairs. Not looking forward to seeing what this will do to our premiums, sigh. Will couldn't get in with the reputable assessor he wanted until NEXT Tues, so thank goodness our costs for the rental car are minimal, given how long we'll have it. (We also have an old beat-up pickup truck Will could use except the registration and inspection are out of date and he hasn't had time to rectify either yet.)
Will has been very depressed since the accident. He's starting to feel as if the Prius is cursed: it's less than 3 years old and has already been in 4 accidents (two for each of us :P). He had an almost identical, although less damaging, accident on the same stretch of highway about six months after we got the car. Then I backed into someone in a parking lot when we were in Baltimore last fall - I'm not sure I damaged the Prius any, but I slightly dented the front fender of the other car and they did want it fixed. Early this spring I swung a little too close to the curb to give more space to an oncoming semi truck and took out the front right wheel well and windshield washer reservoir. And now this. Plus, we've each scraped up the back hatch by forgetting not to lift it up while the garage door opener is in motion - the hatch is so large that it doesn't clear the motorized mechanism for the opener when it's fully extended, and has gotten scratched several times. Anyway, he badly wants to ditch the Prius as soon as it's repaired and get something else to be free of the "taint," but I'm not sure we can afford that right now. Need to look more carefully into our finances.
He's also convinced that the brakes didn't work properly because of their connection to the hybrid battery. I've felt the ABS kick in before during a panic stop and work fine, but he's convinced the brakes felt mushy when he needed them in that moment. I wasn't there and I wasn't driving, so I really have no idea what did or didn't happen with the brakes, but he's filing a complaint with Toyota anyway.
So, anyway, he's in this major funk and I really have no idea what to say or do to make him feel better. I haven't even seen the damage for myself yet (car is in the garage) - I feel it will only make him more upset to go over it again.
The kids got their class assignments last week. There's a bit of a story there, too, but this is already long and it's getting late, so I'll sum up: MiniPlu didn't get on the academic team she wanted (the drama teacher teaches 8th-grade English and MiniPlu REALLY wanted her) but did get on the same team as a lot of her friends/acquaintances, so hopefully it'll be the right place for her, regardless. Two got MiniPlu's two teachers from 6th grade, which I am ECSTATIC about because they were super nice and also good teachers, plus the other two or three teachers that got added to the team since MiniPlu was on it. Don't know them at all, but hopefully they're good. Because of the learning disabilities, Two will not get foreign language instruction this year - that timeslot will go to added learning support, which I'm sure he will hate, even though he needs it.
Two also got his first-ever cell phone today. Will connected it to our wireless network so he could download a couple of games because he was DESPERATE to use it for SOMETHING, but we're still working out the details of where we're going to be getting his actual cell service, so it doesn't yet work as an actual phone yet. To our surprise, he wasn't at all disappointed not to be getting an iPhone like his sister has - he said he actually wanted an Android phone, which is good because that was the best compromise phone (between price and quality) that Will and I found.
And before I go: I want a bunch of these things even though I have no use for them. The tote bag even though I already have a couple of HP-related bags. The pencil case even though I don't have any need for a pencil case. The awesome clock that I don't have any need for. The tablet case when I don't have a tablet. Ah well.