Real life update
I love having my kids home from school. It'll become less common in the future, as our youngest will be going of to school this fall, at least 12 hours driving (one way) away from home. He's functionally away already, on a church-related mission trip to help reconstruct New Orleans. he'll be back next Sunday, long enough to throw his dirty clothes into the hamper, pack more clean clothes and have me take him out to Scout Camp. From then until about August 13, he'll be in the house on Saturday night only. There'll be about two weeks left before he goes off to school, and we won't see him back until Christmas.
Oldest daughter moved out of the house several years ago. That leaves our disabled daughter and mari4212 at home with my wife and I for the summer. The good news is, it means "chick food" - dinner meals with interesting ingredients and new flavors that my son won't eat. The bad news is - I have to share the computer. mari4212 has hers set up downstairs, but the cost of upgrading the Internet connection to allow for multiple users is just too much for her summer use. Between sorting at hogwarts_elite and mari4212's sorting (and checking her f-list for raves on her Supernatural fan-fiction, it's been hard to finish some of the pieces I want to post. I guess they'll wait.
mari4212 mentioned being stressed out serving as an acolyte at our Sunday service, because so many of our young people were out. She actually did a fine job. I was being three other people during the service. I was acting as the sound man, a job my son normally does. I also filled in reading the Prayers of the People for an older parishioner who played hooky. And I filled in for my oldest daughter, who was supposed to serve as a chalice bearer, but didn't show up at the service. So yes, I too suffered through the heat of wearing the robes.
We stopped by after church to see what happened to oldest daughter, and arrived just when her landlady was delivering a shovel to my daughter, who was in tears.
Her cat died.
Our entire family have been cat people, and as soon as my daughter moved from a near-campus apartment to a rental house, almost two years ago, she adopted an older, stray cat who had been visiting her landlady. She took care of some eye infection issues, had him fixed, and found herself owned by Stray Gray. He was very skittish of strangers at first, then started to warm up to family and friends. He got fatter on a regular diet. He had approval rights over my daughter's fiance, and when said fiance moved in, Stray Gray got along with the fiance's cat. He got sick very late last week, deteriorated rapidly and died late Saturday night. My daughter buried him in their garden.
And that brings us back to the family cats. We have three, all adopted strays or the offspring of strays. Ginger and Blackie are siblings, almost seventeen years old. Ginger is firmly patterned on my wife, but Blackie is mari4212's cat, and is glued to her whenever she is home. Schroedinger is a four year old adopted stray who worships the ground that my son walks on, but will snuggle up to anyone else who she can steal a cuddle from. We're just now realizing that as much as Blackie and Scroedie are patterned on our kids, that both of them will live out their lives as our cats, in our house.
So next fall, when mari4212 and my son go off to school, we won't just be almost empty-nesters (middle, disabled daughter will still be with us) - we'll become full-time cat parents.
Oldest daughter moved out of the house several years ago. That leaves our disabled daughter and mari4212 at home with my wife and I for the summer. The good news is, it means "chick food" - dinner meals with interesting ingredients and new flavors that my son won't eat. The bad news is - I have to share the computer. mari4212 has hers set up downstairs, but the cost of upgrading the Internet connection to allow for multiple users is just too much for her summer use. Between sorting at hogwarts_elite and mari4212's sorting (and checking her f-list for raves on her Supernatural fan-fiction, it's been hard to finish some of the pieces I want to post. I guess they'll wait.
mari4212 mentioned being stressed out serving as an acolyte at our Sunday service, because so many of our young people were out. She actually did a fine job. I was being three other people during the service. I was acting as the sound man, a job my son normally does. I also filled in reading the Prayers of the People for an older parishioner who played hooky. And I filled in for my oldest daughter, who was supposed to serve as a chalice bearer, but didn't show up at the service. So yes, I too suffered through the heat of wearing the robes.
We stopped by after church to see what happened to oldest daughter, and arrived just when her landlady was delivering a shovel to my daughter, who was in tears.
Her cat died.
Our entire family have been cat people, and as soon as my daughter moved from a near-campus apartment to a rental house, almost two years ago, she adopted an older, stray cat who had been visiting her landlady. She took care of some eye infection issues, had him fixed, and found herself owned by Stray Gray. He was very skittish of strangers at first, then started to warm up to family and friends. He got fatter on a regular diet. He had approval rights over my daughter's fiance, and when said fiance moved in, Stray Gray got along with the fiance's cat. He got sick very late last week, deteriorated rapidly and died late Saturday night. My daughter buried him in their garden.
And that brings us back to the family cats. We have three, all adopted strays or the offspring of strays. Ginger and Blackie are siblings, almost seventeen years old. Ginger is firmly patterned on my wife, but Blackie is mari4212's cat, and is glued to her whenever she is home. Schroedinger is a four year old adopted stray who worships the ground that my son walks on, but will snuggle up to anyone else who she can steal a cuddle from. We're just now realizing that as much as Blackie and Scroedie are patterned on our kids, that both of them will live out their lives as our cats, in our house.
So next fall, when mari4212 and my son go off to school, we won't just be almost empty-nesters (middle, disabled daughter will still be with us) - we'll become full-time cat parents.