Since finishing the fire pit itself, Zac has been working on the next phases of the project: adding in plants and a stone path between the deck steps and the fire pit. The plan is for it to extend around the side of the garage and maybe all the way down to the pond gate.
Simon goes bonkers many evenings right before bed. It's such a pity that parenthood saps you of the energy required to enjoy parenthood.
I took the kids on a fall hike to Eno River today. They brought fishing poles, which is really just a much more annoying and painfully slow way to hike. I hate it; Simon loves it. He caught nothing. But But the day was beautiful and we were outside. One year ago on this day I was in the hospital having my second surgery. So it was nice to be outside pushing against the earth.
I took Simon down to the creek one afternoon, and he started building a fort in the woods behind the creek. He made the lashing from tree bark.
This Friday and the Friday two weeks ago we had our friends and Anna and Jess over for a campfire supper in our newly minted fire pit. It's great for these times of social distancing. Both times Alice and Anna got bored at the fire and after a while we let them come up to play games on the iPad. Alice has recently become a gamer (an inevitability that I pushed off as long as possible). She's addicted to Minecraft and Animal Jam. There's no going back now.
We got a lot of rain today. Simon's school let out two hours early because of the rain. So we used to extra time to go on a walk to check out all the flooding.
We're finally getting around to trying to get the kids to be more independent. Sometimes this means they pick their own snacks. Simon is very hungry in the mornings, so his mid-morning snack is huge. Then he usually doesn't eat anything between lunch and supper (usually because he's out fishing). Although on school days he'll have a snack right when he gets home from school around 4:15.
Despite Covid numbers rising, the Wake County elementary schools are finally opening up again. The logic of it is baffling, but I guess we understand better now how to prevent the spread of the virus and everyone is just tired of trying to get little kids to do online classes.
This week Simon goes to school for four days (Wednesdays are still asynchronous remote learning days). He says he only has 4 other kids in his class this week. That's because they're rotating the kids in in small batches first, probably to practice all the new social distancing rules and work out the kinks. Next week all the K-3 students will be back, minus about half who chose to do virtual learning all semester.
So, I went back-to-school shopping in October and we sent Simon off to school today. Our new routine this year is that Zac will drop them off at school in the morning on his way in to work, and then they ride the bus home in the afternoon--the opposite of last year, but it seems to work better with our schedule and since they don't offer after-school care right now, plus we don't need it since I'm home all the time.
Anyway, Simon seemed content to go back to school just so he wouldn't have to do any more computer classes, which he (understandably) hates.
Since we're home so much, I feel compelled to take the kids on excursions just to add a little exercise and variety to life. Today's trip took us on a bike ride up the bike trail, where we stopped and played a few places. They had the most fun at this giant fallen tree.
Although the election was four stressful days ago, today there were finally enough votes counted for the networks to confidently declare Biden the winner of the 2020 election.
Election night was scary, because even although the polls had Biden leading by 10 points, we knew from the 2016 tragedy that polls couldn't be trusted and that nearly half of voters are amoral idiots. I didn't throw up all night like I did in 2016 when the NY Times had the needle pointing firmly towards Trump. But I felt nauseous and couldn't sleep, eventually dry-heaving over the toilet. Maybe the past four years have rendered me unable to truly horror-vomit.
Anyway, things were looking slightly better by the morning, and each day brought more favorable votes for Biden, so our anxiety eased. But let it be noted for the historical record that it was on Saturday morning at 11:38 am, while having a snack break near the fountains at the lovely North Carolina Museum of Art with our good friends Natasha and Izzy that I got a text from my neighbor Kelly Wiemer telling me it was finally time we could say, "Bye Don!" I'm not particularly excited about Biden or Harris (although the woman of color part is pretty cool!), but I am so relieved that enough people voted to end Trump's tyranny. The disconcerting part is that it wasn't a landslide for Biden and the dems didn't take the senate. Democrats are good people but terrible politicians.
So it was a great day. We had a beautiful morning at the museum. In the afternoon I took a walk on the greenway while talking to my friend Shanu. That evening, our neighbor Linda took Alice and Simon out for pizza, so I used my Postmates gift card (given to me back when I had surgery a year ago but just never used it) to order in some Mediterranean food for Zac and I to have a peaceful supper without the kids. Since I didn't have to cook supper, I baked some celebratory "dump Trumpcakes" and the kids decorated them after supper. That night, we watched Kamala and Biden's acceptance speeches while the kids went bonkers in the living room and drove us nuts. But at least our democracy will survive for the time being and there is hope for the future!
Portrait of Alice at the art museum.
