We had some glorious rain this past week, but the coming week looks to be mainly hot and dry. I cannot complain about the heat -- we are doing so much better than so much of the country, especially the West. Still, I don't do well in heat, so I'm kind of dreading it. There's a slight chance of thunderstorms every afternoon, though, so I'll hope for those. A thunderstorm on a 90-degree day is a marvelous thing.
Nothing too exciting to report from this past week.
- Summer movies: Teen B and I saw "Joy Ride" on Thursday, my choice, of course. It was raunchier than I expected, but still in many ways kind of sweet and innocent. There was female frontal nudity, but only below the waist, something I don't ever remember seeing in a mainstream movie before (the actress used a body double). I enjoyed it. Laughed a lot. Cried a little, toward the end. When it was over, Teen B asked me, "Why did you keep laughing?" So that probably tells you what he thought of it.
I'm hoping we can see the "Barbie" movie this week, but since it's his turn to choose, I doubt it. - Ice cream: We all went to Sweet Cow on Friday night, because it was almost 9 pm when I thought of it, and Glacier closes at 9:30. I had coconut cream pie ice cream -- very good. Teen A had cookies & cream ice cream in a waffle cone and Teen B had a root beer float.
- Driving: Both boys had their second 3-hour driving sessions with the TopCops and I also took both of them out driving by myself. Teen A is really getting the hang of it, so I just have to keep taking him out. Teen B is *not* really getting the hang of it, so I also just have to keep taking him out, but probably on quieter roads until he gets more comfortable. Of course, I do not actually want to take anyone out driving, but I will do it. ... Now it's later and Teen A and I just finished a long drive with many stops -- the library, the gas station, Safeway, Home Depot, and the other Safeway (Teen A wanted to get a gift card). It was stressful, but he did very well.
- Yard work: Teen A didn't want to help with pruning this week, so I did the work by myself. That was OK, though -- I worked on some areas that I knew he wouldn't want to do. For instance, there's a big dead juniper in the southwestern corner of the back yard and I spent two half-hour sessions laboriously cutting off branches. It will take several more sessions to get rid of the whole thing, but I made visible progress. In the front yard, I cut a big branch off a volunteer tree that needs to come down. I had 9 leaf bags, plus the compost bin, for pickup on Friday.
- Teen B's PE class: Teen B continues to be not at all interested in this class, so I continue to drag him through it kicking and screaming. This week he had to learn the rules of tennis (by watching a video) and take a quiz afterwards. The quiz questions seemed to have nothing to do with the video, so we googled them and he ended up with an 8/10 which we decided was good enough. He also had to look at a Prezi about flexibility and write a paragraph about his thoughts on body image (I wrote most of it). Yes, I know, I'm not setting a good example here. But it's a really, really dumb class, and we're just trying to get through it. Today is the last day he can take his mid-term fitness test, so we'll have to go out to his old middle school and run around the track in 95-degree heat. His fault for putting it off this long -- there were many cooler days last week. I said we could do it after dinner -- and he can drive us there. (Post-note: it was actually down to 88 by the time we went out there, and we did the run, aka walk, in less time than at the beginning of the class, so it seems that we are actually getting fitter. Ha.) (Post-post-note: it turns out that it actually took us one minute LONGER to do the run/walk this time, so we are NOT getting fitter. However, it wasn't 88 degrees the last time we did it, so there's that.)
- Teen A's tennis class: There was a substitute this week and he really rode Teen A's ass, as they say. Teen A has a lot of upper body strength, so he can stand still and hit the ball pretty well. The problem is that the ball isn't always hit right to him. "Move your legs!" the teacher kept shouting at him, and eventually he started moving around the court. (I would shout "Move your legs!" at him regularly too if I thought it would do any good.) By the end of the hour his face was dark red. Since he had chosen to wear a black t-shirt that day, I was not very sympathetic. He drove us to and from the class, by the way.
It turned out she was not blocked at all, and in fact the vet thinks we're giving her too MUCH laxative, not too little. So he gave us permission to drop the dose to 1 ml a day (from 2 ml). However, she also had very dirty ears, so the vet cleaned them while Teen B and I watched (6 Q-tips per ear), and now I have to give her ear medicine twice a day for 7 days (2 days left). If you thought Sillers hated being given oral laxative, that was nothing compared to how she feels about ear medicine. I now choose my outfit for the day based on how I think it will show the spots from the medicine, which get furiously shaken onto me by a very angry cat.
I was involved the whole time -- holding the ladder, chatting with him as he worked, receiving bucketfuls of slimy yuckiness from him to throw in the junipers (see, junipers do have a purpose), bringing him the hose (and turning it on and off) to rinse the gutters and make sure the downspout extensions were clear, etc. He worked for 1 hour and 45 minutes and at the end of it I was a wreck. I had promised to pay him $20/hour, so that was $35. A lot of money, but much less than I would have had to pay a professional, and he did a good job. He can be very careful when he's interested in what he's doing.
Rocket Boy was pleased and impressed to hear about Teen A's work. The last time we cleaned the gutters was two years ago, and RB was very involved that time. I don't think he was too sad to have missed this clean-out job, but I could be wrong. He's really trying hard to move back here -- applying for any job that comes along, exploring every sort of possible option, talking talking talking to different people who might be able to help. I understand! He needs to get back to Boulder before our babies are all grown up -- and that is happening, so fast.
I still don't understand why ours rarely hold their tails up, but I've decided they are House Wrens. I played their song a few times and it really sounds like them. So I think that's what we've got, and I'm very happy about it. House Wrens. What a wonderful bird to have nesting in your yard.
Of course, flycatchers apparently also nest in cavities. So they could be flycatchers. But I think they're wrens. I think.
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On Tuesday it's my turn: to the orthodontist to get my bands off at 9 am, to the dentist to have my teeth cleaned at 9:30 am, and back to the orthodontist at 11:30 to have the bands put back on.
Wednesday and Thursday we don't have anything planned, so I suppose we'll do some driving. Maybe another movie. (Barbenheimer?) Mostly we'll just be trying to stay cool, since it's supposed to be in the 90s every day.
And Friday I'm taking my car in for an oil change. It was supposed to be a very serious appointment, because warning lights were coming on in my car (this was a couple of weeks ago). And then one day the warning lights went away (this can happen on an old Subaru Forester). So we'll just be getting an oil change, and hopefully they won't find anything else wrong with it.
Saturday, Teen A has his last tennis class. At some point, Teen B and I have to do his second hike for PE class, so that could be Sunday or maybe early the next week.
And then the month will be almost over and we'll be looking ahead to August.
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