Quiet days back home

I almost feel as though I shouldn't write a post today -- not much to say -- but I will, just to stay on schedule. Staying on schedule is starting to feel more important because we are three days away from the first day of school, ack! 

I seem to be the only person who cares about this very much. It drives me crazy how blase the twins are. They don't care what their schedules will be. I keep checking Infinite Campus to see if the schedules have been posted yet, but do they? No. When I asked them why they didn't seem to care, Teen A argued that their schedules don't matter. They will be in a bunch of classes with teachers they don't know. Who cares about that? "But we can look the teachers up on the high school website," I argued back. "And anyway, you don't know which classes you'll be in -- you put down various choices, but you don't know if you'll get them."

They don't care. It's so weird.

Another thing they care very little about is how they're going to get to and from school. I've told them I'm not driving them -- they have to take the bus. We live a three-minute walk from a bus stop, and the bus is free for all of August. They have about a seven-minute walk from the bus to the high school, but it's flat, or maybe slightly downhill. Not a big deal. On Monday, they had to go to the school to get their pictures taken and their ID cards made, so I said we'd take the bus, to practice. They paid a little bit of attention, and MAYBE they'll remember what stop to get off at. Rocket Boy still can't walk very well, so he drove himself and then drove us all back, which meant that we didn't get to practice taking the bus back. Teen A actually asked me, the next day, what stop to get off at on the way home, and I told him. But that's it. End of interest.

I'm worried about how much time it's going to take to ride the bus, because there's major construction on Broadway. I punched the times into the Trip Planner on the RTD website, and it indicates that if they catch the 8:10 bus, they can get to school by 8:30 (school starts at 8:35), but I am dubious. I don't think the Trip Planner is taking the construction into account. I want to practice on Tuesday morning. Probably no one will want to practice with me. They simply don't care.

They aren't used to dealing with public transportation. For the last three years, they've taken a school bus, but I don't think they're eligible for a school bus to the high school. I signed them up for it just in case, but haven't heard anything.

Only I am worried. They are not worried. They are just trying to spend as much time as possible playing stupid computer games before the spectre of classes and homework becomes reality.

If I were about to start high school I would be thinking about classes and teachers -- and what I was going to wear on the first day, and my wardrobe in general, and which cute boys were going to be in my classes. I would also be talking about this ad nauseam with my friends.

I guess boys are different, or at least my boys.

***

It's been kind of a funny week. I came down with Teen A's cold, which he had already passed to Teen B when we were still in St. Louis. Rocket Boy, weirdly enough, has never gotten it. I don't know how he did that, since he normally catches everything and gets it worse than any of us. I wonder if maybe it was some St. Louis bug that he's already had but the rest of us didn't have any immunity to. 

Anyway, I felt lousy for several days. Still not quite back to normal. Even after I got rid of the congestion (nasal cleanses and cold medicine helped), I still felt sweaty and shaky and weak and tired. The housework got out of hand very quickly. At one point I needed to put away the kids' laundry. I stood up in their room and reached into the laundry basket. I pulled out one shirt and hung it up. And then I was too tired to do any more. That's notable, for me. I can't remember ever feeling that tired before (I probably have been, just can't remember due to continuing covid brain). (I don't think this was covid again, but I actually don't know, because we didn't test.) I spent a lot of time sitting in the blue chair in the living room, reading or playing solitaire on my phone, watching hummingbirds at the feeder.

So the house is kind of a shambles. But fortunately the FlyLady won't mind. She always says, "I don't want you to catch up, I just want you to jump in where you are." So I'm trying to do that. But it felt weird not to do the dishes every night. I did them a couple of nights, but sometimes I just couldn't do anything. Rocket Boy did some, and some didn't get done.

***

We celebrated our 20th anniversary on Wednesday night by going out to dinner at the Boulder Dushanbe Teahouse. The last time we had our anniversary dinner there, it didn't go well, so we've been going to Chautauqua instead. But I studied the online menus for both places and decided I'd rather do the Teahouse this year. Rocket Boy felt that it would be easier for him to walk from the car to the Teahouse (I could park very close by) than it would have been to walk from the car to Chautauqua (because sometimes you have to park very far away), so it was agreed.

We had Rainforest Iced Teas, and I had Indian Vegetable Korma with tofu and Rocket Boy had Korean Pan-Fried Noodles with shrimp. For dessert we both had something called St. James Cake, which was gluten free and very tasty. Our server wanted us to have appetizers, which I didn't want, and then didn't seem to want to serve us dessert (and then expected us to share one instead of having our own). But we persevered and eventually got what we wanted.

We spent the meal reminiscing about the hikes we used to take with my cousins, starting in 2002, about 6 weeks before our wedding, and ending in 2012. My eldest cousin's wife died recently, and she was on all those hikes and trips, so it was kind of in honor of her. It hadn't occurred to me until that night that we spent the first ten years of our marriage doing those hikes. The ten years since then have been less fun! 

But they've been good too. I think both of us feel very good about our 20 years together and the prospect of more -- who knows how many more. I hope it's lots more, but I'll take whatever we get.

***

I'm not sure what else we did this week. Rocket Boy took the twins to play mini golf yesterday and this afternoon we went bowling at the Coal Creek bowling alley in Lafayette. It wasn't very successful. Rocket Boy couldn't play, on account of the stitches in his neck area, and Teen A was kind of nasty to Teen B... We ate out, last night, at the only Chinese buffet we could find in the Denver metro area, something called King Buffet. It was OK, but very expensive, almost $100/person including beverages and tax. I guess it was actually $94, and then I added a $6 tip for the girl who brought our drinks and took away dirty plates. Eating out is crazily expensive, but this week I wasn't up to doing a lot of cooking. We had nacho cups on Monday AND Friday, and tacos on Tuesday. Wednesday, we were at the Teahouse and the twins stayed home and had Lunchables. Thursday night Rocket Boy made scrambled eggs. Tonight we got Subway. I'm going to try to do better this coming week.

Famous last words.

My book group meets tomorrow, so at least I don't have to make dinner then. Rocket Boy can figure something out with the twins. He got his second drain out on Thursday, so he should be feeling better, but his recovery is slow. He still has pain and he's still having trouble walking. Our evening walks consist of strolling down the street to the twins' old elementary school and sitting on the picnic benches there for a while, then strolling back. It's about 15 minutes total, and it wouldn't even be that except that we walk so slowly. This is not the level of exercise I should be getting, but since I was sick this week, it worked out well for me too.

I think walking together with my sweetheart and my rapidly growing offspring is a little more important than getting a diabetic's correct amount of exercise. I could be wrong. But that's what I'm doing.

Teen B and I both see the orthodontist this week, and they have haircuts on Saturday. Oh, and on Wednesday, school begins. High school. Oh my goodness.