multipurposegoddess (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
multipurposegoddess) wrote2012-06-05 10:15 am
multipurposegoddess) wrote2012-06-05 10:15 am
Whee
Y'all, I have been out having adventures! Well, I left my hobbit hole and that is pretty adventurous for me. My nephew graduated from high school and I drove up to Portland, OR for the ceremony and generally hanging out with family.
Made the drive in one long day on Thursday. I was kid of expecting it to be all fraught with memories because that was a pretty common trip for me and H to make together, and it was full of memories, but not so fraught. So that was a nice surprise. It was a beautiful clear day and I got glorious views of Mt. Shasta pretty much all the way through California. Successfully found the semi-mythical Ashland Dog Park, fabled in song and story, and it was really pretty great -lots of open space, and also shade, and tubs of water for dogs who will get into clear water (Walter was conditioned by swimming in the Mississippi as a pup, I guess) and, almost the best part, handy bathrooms for humans. I couldn't find the gas station I like that has the huge selection of exotic sodas, but I may have figured out where to look for it next time I pass through. Got to Portland in time for a late dinner with my parents and niece, and finally had shawarma (yum!).
Friday the kids had school so we had a low key day hanging out, divvying up a cache of knitting needles my mother had acquired (I now have a hairpin lace loom. I'm not sure what hairpin lace is, but there are instructional videos on youtube, I'm sure I will be able to figure something out) and generally chilling out. The nephew had ballet rehearsal (he's never taken ballet but his friend recruited him to play the male lead in Coppelia because I guess they had no male dancers) so not much time spent with him, but the rest of the family got to chill together. My brother and his wife even got to town (somewhat coincidentally, they were transporting stuff from Idaho to Texas and just happened to time their passing through Portland well with Edan's graduation), though they were tired from driving so we didn't see them until the next day.
Saturday was the actual graduation, and that was great. It's a small school, the graduating class was 22 people, and it's pretty non-traditional - the kids call the teachers by their first names and design their own curriculum, it's all kind of town-meeting-style democratic - so the ceremony was, too. each graduate was introduced by someone from the faculty who had a couple of minutes to talk about them, and then the student had a couple of minutes to talk. Even not knowing hardly any of the students it was pretty moving and profound. And I'm so proud of my nephew - he was actually graduating early, finished high school in three years, and is just a great kid. I'm really looking forward to seeing what he does next.
He, of course, had a party to go to after graduation, and my niece went to see Bugsy Malone, but the rest of us went out to dinner, and I was stilling hanging around at my sister's when my nephew got back so I got to see him a little then. And watch the Legend of Korra and discuss how it's different from A:TLA (my niece is not impressed so far).
Sunday we brunched and went to the zoo, which were both pretty fabulous, and left enough time for hanging out and eating pizza and baking cupcakes in the afternoon so I could actually make an early night of it. Which was good, because whenever I got to sleep, Walter would get me up by 5:30 for his morning constitutional.
So I took advantage of the early rising and got the car all packed up and went to breakfast at Bipartisan Cafe to address my dangerously low pie-levels. My parents and my sister and brother-in-law were able to join me, so that was real nice.
Driving home was another long day, this time with nasty weather. Right around Lake Shasta it started seriously storming, with hail, and lightning, and sheets of rain making it impossible to see. That lasted until well past Redding. It was pretty unpleasant to drive in, and made Walter really unhappy since he prefers to ride out storms like that by hiding under the bed, but we got through it. Got home and managed to stay awake until it was dark. The cats were out of food, but didn't seem to have been starving for days, so I think my plan of just leaving out a large dish of food in addition to their usual portions worked okay.Taking today as a day of rest, since I didn't really get one on Saturday, and observing H's yahrzeit tomorrow (it was on Sunday) and then I'll work on re-establishing (or to a large extent just plain establishing) my normal routine.
Made the drive in one long day on Thursday. I was kid of expecting it to be all fraught with memories because that was a pretty common trip for me and H to make together, and it was full of memories, but not so fraught. So that was a nice surprise. It was a beautiful clear day and I got glorious views of Mt. Shasta pretty much all the way through California. Successfully found the semi-mythical Ashland Dog Park, fabled in song and story, and it was really pretty great -lots of open space, and also shade, and tubs of water for dogs who will get into clear water (Walter was conditioned by swimming in the Mississippi as a pup, I guess) and, almost the best part, handy bathrooms for humans. I couldn't find the gas station I like that has the huge selection of exotic sodas, but I may have figured out where to look for it next time I pass through. Got to Portland in time for a late dinner with my parents and niece, and finally had shawarma (yum!).
Friday the kids had school so we had a low key day hanging out, divvying up a cache of knitting needles my mother had acquired (I now have a hairpin lace loom. I'm not sure what hairpin lace is, but there are instructional videos on youtube, I'm sure I will be able to figure something out) and generally chilling out. The nephew had ballet rehearsal (he's never taken ballet but his friend recruited him to play the male lead in Coppelia because I guess they had no male dancers) so not much time spent with him, but the rest of the family got to chill together. My brother and his wife even got to town (somewhat coincidentally, they were transporting stuff from Idaho to Texas and just happened to time their passing through Portland well with Edan's graduation), though they were tired from driving so we didn't see them until the next day.
Saturday was the actual graduation, and that was great. It's a small school, the graduating class was 22 people, and it's pretty non-traditional - the kids call the teachers by their first names and design their own curriculum, it's all kind of town-meeting-style democratic - so the ceremony was, too. each graduate was introduced by someone from the faculty who had a couple of minutes to talk about them, and then the student had a couple of minutes to talk. Even not knowing hardly any of the students it was pretty moving and profound. And I'm so proud of my nephew - he was actually graduating early, finished high school in three years, and is just a great kid. I'm really looking forward to seeing what he does next.
He, of course, had a party to go to after graduation, and my niece went to see Bugsy Malone, but the rest of us went out to dinner, and I was stilling hanging around at my sister's when my nephew got back so I got to see him a little then. And watch the Legend of Korra and discuss how it's different from A:TLA (my niece is not impressed so far).
Sunday we brunched and went to the zoo, which were both pretty fabulous, and left enough time for hanging out and eating pizza and baking cupcakes in the afternoon so I could actually make an early night of it. Which was good, because whenever I got to sleep, Walter would get me up by 5:30 for his morning constitutional.
So I took advantage of the early rising and got the car all packed up and went to breakfast at Bipartisan Cafe to address my dangerously low pie-levels. My parents and my sister and brother-in-law were able to join me, so that was real nice.
Driving home was another long day, this time with nasty weather. Right around Lake Shasta it started seriously storming, with hail, and lightning, and sheets of rain making it impossible to see. That lasted until well past Redding. It was pretty unpleasant to drive in, and made Walter really unhappy since he prefers to ride out storms like that by hiding under the bed, but we got through it. Got home and managed to stay awake until it was dark. The cats were out of food, but didn't seem to have been starving for days, so I think my plan of just leaving out a large dish of food in addition to their usual portions worked okay.Taking today as a day of rest, since I didn't really get one on Saturday, and observing H's yahrzeit tomorrow (it was on Sunday) and then I'll work on re-establishing (or to a large extent just plain establishing) my normal routine.
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Your nephew sounds like a genuinely interesting individual.
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And thanks! I think he's super interesting, but, you know, I've got the doting aunt thing going on - getting his accomplishments and so forth laid out by a third party like a teacher is kind of ... eye-opening? Confirming my bias? Something.