News & Notes, Truly Random Edition

I can find no cohesive anything to string these topics together, so truly random it is.

• I started smell training this week.  We stopped at the natural food store over the weekend for the first time (the one whose commercials were always truly bizarre and like something out of a drug trip with dancing people in fruit costumes) so I could buy the essential oils needed for it.  We also found an odd treasure trove of other interesting things, like more flavors of Jacob's gluten-free licorice and an extra cheap price on Just Water, which Jacob loves, and every possible flavor of a stevia-based soda pop.  The training consists of smelling four oils twice a day - rose, eucalyptus, clove, and lemon.  I'm supposed to really think about what they should smell like and in theory try to rebuild some of those nerve pathways in my brain.  It seems pointless when I can smell nothing, particularly since I'm not 100% sure anymore what clove or eucalyptus smelled like--I'd know them if I smelled them--but supposedly that's not a big deal.  It's supposed to take months, but at this point it's worth a shot.  Sometimes I feel like I get a whiff of something, but who knows.  I really need to get back on track and call the acupuncturist, too.  I am convinced there's some sort of pinched nerve or something since I momentarily get taste now and then.  I just read about some specific acupuncture treatment that worked for someone who never smelled, so it always makes me wonder if it's just weird enough to work.

• Summer school has begun for Carter.  We dipped our toes in last week, just doing a lesson or two here and there, but I'm pretty confident now that if I give him medicine in the morning, he can do two lessons in a row three times a week pretty easily.  I figure on the other days I'll just try to get him to read, or maybe do a bonus lesson here and there.  We just know it is supposed to be 45 minutes each for math and reading per week, which is tough to measure since Carter sometimes takes a while because he stops to talk about what he's doing.  They can take about 10-20 minutes each, so I figure if he does three and maybe a bonus one here and there, he'll be fine.  I actually think he'll be fine regardless because I bet some kids won't even do that (based on the school year), but he does have a teacher looking over his work in the event something looks amiss.  He's been really great about it, though, which is promising.  No complaints or whining for breaks or anything like that.  Let's hope this keeps him in learning mode and carries over to the school year!
  

• COVID cases are going up again.  The delta variant is taking hold and it seems like cases in a lot of areas have doubled in recent weeks.  It's concerning for sure, especially because pretty much anywhere you go these days no one is masked and distancing isn't really happening either.  We've still been wearing masks almost everywhere, especially because the kids should anyway and we're trying to be supportive and also not catch anything and pass it to them.  It's getting downright awkward to go certain places because we might be literally the only people masked.  At Jacob's basketball game the other night (more on that in a second), there were maybe a handful of other people with masks in the entire building, and even kids didn't have them.  It just makes me wonder if people really don't think it's an issue?  Have they not read the news (or more likely, do they just not believe it)?  The tough part right now is that Jacob is eligible for the vaccine, but I'm a bit hesitant to have him get it.  To be fair, he's already had COVID, and depending on what you read, that can be just as effective as the vaccine, maybe for longer than they thought.  Add in that there have been cases of heart inflammation among young men, and we have a rather active boy who could be badly impacted by that, it's a little scary.  I do try to tell myself that COVID can cause that issue as well, and under normal circumstances it would be a higher risk of getting COVID and having that problem than getting it from the vaccine.  But if he's already had COVID, is that the case?  I feel like we'd never forgive ourselves if something went wrong either way, so it's an impossible choice.  Complicating matters is that the CDC said vaccinated students don't need to wear masks in school, and I know he'd much prefer to not wear one.  However, my guess is that by the time school restarts, community transmission might be bad enough to necessitate masks again for everyone so it might not matter regardless.  We'll have to make that call pretty quickly if we decide to get him vaccinated, so he's fully protected by early September.  I think we'll need to let it happen because the risk is tiny, but it's still one of those weird parenting decisions that's harder than it should be.  All of this makes me worry most for Carter, who still can't be vaccinated and is at the mercy of others to help make his mask-wearing effective.  But it's so frustrating that we basically just have to protect ourselves because pretty much everyone else has stopped trying.  It's going to be a rude awakening in the next weeks to months when things start getting bad again.  At least we never got out of the habit.
  

• The weather has been brutal lately.  Up until recently it had been a pretty decent summer.  Not a lot of rain, reasonable temperatures.  But then we had a couple stretches of 65-70 degree temps, lots of clouds, and a TON of rain.  I've never seen it rain so hard so many times as in the last couple weeks, and more is coming tomorrow, just in time for the first day of Carter's season-ending soccer tournament.  The night we went to the drive-in was bad, then last week there was rain that flooded a ton of areas from here to Buffalo (even my parents' basement had a leak when runoff from their garden made it through a basement window), and then a couple times over the last few week it has poured so hard I swore it was going to come through the roof.  I keep having to dump water out of my hanging plants, probably close to a cup each.  Mushrooms and fungal spores popped up all over the yard this week.  Our pool filter opening only has a couple inches above the water.  It makes it hard to do anything outside, even when it's nicer, because things have been damp and humid, and it's maybe even harder to schedule things since it's a lot of pop-up thunderstorms that move around a lot.  But the perpetual cloudy days and worrisome rain have taken their toll on me mentally.  It's depressing and frustrating when summer is short enough as it is.  I feel a lot more impacted by the weather when I'm home and can see it all the time, maybe even more so than when I worked in an office with windows because I can actually go out in it more than when I was on the 16th floor.  On the bright side, at least I have access during the periods of time when it's decent so I can schedule my daily wander accordingly.  I'll miss that when I go back to the office.  But it's hard to have a summer stretch like this where it's hard to enjoy it--in the pool or otherwise.
  

• Speaking of the office, it's official - I have to go back one day per week in August and then back full time in September, minus one remote day per week.  I picked Thursday, so I can schedule all of Carter's appointments that day.  I'm hoping they'll be flexible about the week before school starts, because it will be awfully challenging to manage child care for one week if they're not.  My one problem is that my big monitor will need to go back to the office and my plan to use our small TV did not work, so I'm either going to have to schedule big data days around my remote days or buy a monitor.  I really do need to get back to the office but I'm nervous about early mornings and adding a commute back into my day.  I'm really going to have to ease into it, particularly the early wake-ups.  That might take me all of August.  And let's not talk about how challenging it might be to dress myself after all this time--although I am looking forward to digging back into my lonely work wardrobe!

• As I mentioned earlier, Jacob had basketball on Wednesday.  While he is still playing with another team from the organization he played with this spring and summer for a tournament this upcoming weekend, on Wednesday he was with the JV team from his school.  Craig found out through a fellow school dad Facebook friend that the JV team was playing in a high school summer league, and through some series of events, Jacob ended up getting on the team.  Most of the team was the existing JV team, but it seems there's one other kid younger than him who was not on the team this year, along with the little brother of another team member who was on modified with Jacob but played up on the JV team at times this year.  That kid isn't actually that good but their dad is ill so we wondered if maybe they were doing that to make it easier for the dad to see them both play at once.  Anyway, the team isn't very good--three kids basically pass to each other or play "hero ball" taking it in on their own.  Jacob had four points and some great play in the first game but limited playing time and opportunities in the second against a stronger team.  We had to do a lot of talking him down after the game, but hopefully as the coach becomes more comfortable with him, he'll get more opportunities.  This all feeds into a whole other issue that could have Jacob switching schools next year (there's a whole big long story to that one), but let's just say this didn't help matters.  It's fine, he's fine, everything's fine...but next spring could have some intense discussions!

• Our local library has basically been under construction since the pandemic started.  Last February they started working on the bathrooms and lobby, and then the pandemic hit.  They finished up the bathrooms around the time the library reopened, but then they worked on the facade, which necessitated a different entrance.  Then they closed off the children's room for a massive renovation and expansion, which has led to some very close quarters maneuvering through the children's books for the last many months.  Well, last week it opened back up, and coincidentally we had books due this week so we had a chance to go check it out.  Of course, we had to wait out yet another massive rainstorm that hit just as we were ready to leave, which was already the second big one of the day.  We got to see lots of lightning in the distance and some ponding nearby as we drove.  But the library was pretty amazing!  I think the space has pretty much quadrupled, and it's so pretty and full of interactive activities.  Maybe too many, since I may never get Carter to give me feedback on books again!
  
  There's a spot that has a loft area, complete with a two story tree that has a ball track that sucks balls up to the top, where kids can then put them on tracks back down.  The whole thing makes noises, which I actually found really distracting.  The place must be downright chaotic during the day right now.  It was pretty much just us at that time of the evening (now that the library is finally open later than 7pm).
  
  

Top of the tree sending balls down

The space is so big that some of the shelves are still empty.  A lot of books seemed missing but I can't tell if there was a run on them in the first few days of the opening, or if they sent all the books back to the smaller branch that wasn't open, or they just haven't shelved everything yet.  It was weird, and I've decided a reorganized library is as bad as a reorganized grocery store, but it is quite the space.

The stone arch in the distance is basically where the old room entrance was.  There used to be fish tanks all along the wall to the left of it, and admittedly I miss those.

At the bottom of the tree sending balls up

There are tons of places to sit, and a whole bunch of creative play activities.  There's magnetic tiles and cool translucent blocks on light tables, a wall of movable gears, another wall of movable ramps, dollhouses, castle blocks, a garden with fake veggies, magnetic letters and tiles, a play kitchen, a giant Lite Brite, and a pretend store that scans products!

Carter had fun exploring, and I have a feeling I'll at least have an easier time convincing him to come with me in the future.  It's nice to have everything back open, though!

• Still not really any progress on the vacation front, but we're definitely heading into a busy stretch nonetheless.  Both boys have sports this weekend in separate cities, next weekend is a wedding and family picnic, then one quiet-ish week before Jacob does basketball camp and Craig flies to California for work.  That's followed by another potentially quiet week until my brother and his kids arrive and we have another wedding and another family picnic over the same weekend.  Hopefully the following week we can do some things with my brother's crew, and by then we're really in the home stretch of summer, which is slightly terrifying.  I have a couple potential weeks for vacation, should we be able to plan something, but one may not be feasible due to a work conflict.  I missed having a full summer slate last year but I'm finding all of this a little challenging nonetheless.  Coordinating all of this with work, then facing down a fall of possibly more normalcy if the virus doesn't ruin it again.  At least any boredom we have with our current state of affairs has an end date, but it's hard to trust anything anymore or even know if we can go back to our old ways and pretend like all of this never happened--at least as far as getting back in our old routines and being okay with them.  But the delta variant could blow everything up again, so who knows.

Well, I think that's enough for now.  Random, right?