Unbelievably, Eliot is in eighth grade, and that means that we have to register him for Berkeley High School. To do this, we must first prove we are legitimate residents of Berkeley. After that feat, then we move on to the school registration stage. All students things must do this including students already in the BUSD system. For reasons that I am absolutely positive make sense if someone would only explain them to me, there is only a three week window in which they take administration takes registrations. If you miss the window, you’re out of luck until spring, and that means you’re not in the general lottery, placements, etc. I’m not sure I really understand the consequences since all students enter a “universal ninth grade” without smaller school lotteries, but it means that >500 students’ parents are flocking to the office right now. Sandy has offered to take on the responsibility of going to the admin building and putting up with the bureaucracy. I feel so so sorry for the people behind the counter.
The reason Sandy can do this is because he quit his job at Amazon! He’s returning to Google on the 18th. It’s a different job at Google, but it’s still in the city. He’s excited about it. I’m certain he’ll be happier with the more relaxed atmosphere at Google. He quit just before Thanksgiving, and in the week preceding, he had been dreaming about all the downtime he’d have between jobs. Hence volunteering to do the registration and other things. He even created a “Sandy isn’t working” list. As it turns out, nature abhors a vacuum. Or more a void. Nature, in this house anyway, really wishes for more vacuum(ing). But I digress. The first week was Thanksgiving prep, oh and the air quality here that kept the kids home from school. The week after was something, but I can’t remember what. The next week was jury duty. Then this last week, we woke Monday morning to find that our fence running between our front yard and our neighbor’s front yard had fallen down into our walkway. So he’s been very very slowly working with our neighbor on that. Appears that “downtime” means something very different than he’d expected.
The boys are good. It’s all year end concerts and performances here. Eliot is in the Berkeley Youth Orchestra; their concert was today. It was astonishing honestly. Such talented kids. Oh, and because it was professionally recorded, the audience wasn’t aglow with smart phones. Next is tomorrow and Eliot’s dress rehearsal for his clarinet recital. Thursday, Auden’s elementary school has their winter concert, then on Friday, Auden’s class has their class play, sorry, POU, performance of understanding. (I kid you not. That’s what they call it.) Next Thursday is the middle school winter concert. And finally, on Saturday, Eliot has his clarinet recital. Sandy’s parents are taking the boys after the recital for the night. Sandy and I may go out, or we may lay passed out on the floor at home.
Now I must rush off to remind the boys that there will be no dessert if they do not folder their clothing. I will entice them by telling them I made homemade Rice Krispie treats this afternoon. What I won’t say is that the Rice Krispies were from brown rice cereal that Auden spurned when I tried it instead of the real Rice Krispies and the marshmallows were probably stale as the bag has been open since our last camping trip, maybe July? Then there’s the minor problem of the mini-MM’s that I thought were such a great idea to swirl in. It turns out that mini-MM’s chip easily, so bits of chocolate melted into the mix making the whole treat look a little suspect. I tried to hide the mess by pressing the rest of the bag of MM’s on top of the treats, but mostly I crushed and chipped them further. What they don’t know.
Sadly, the whole thing used up the upper body muscle strength I have for the weekend, so I doubt I’ll be able to make cookies tomorrow which we were going to do for our holiday give aways. I have a substitute idea though. A few years ago, I gave my Dad a mushroom starter kit. I thought it was a great idea because basically it’s just a big box of dirt that you have to wait to see if it grows. Nothing better than giving your dad a big box of compost for his birthday. So my idea is this: I could send the boys out tomorrow to collect mud from the park. We can print some mushroom growing instructions and package it all up with a ribbon. The recipients will laugh and most likely throw it out, but for the few who give it a while, when it doesn’t grow anything they’ll think they did something wrong. Hm. Of course, it might actually grow something. Something entirely unexpected. Ok, scratch that. Cookies it is. Maybe I can get Sandy to make them in his free time next week.