Parents of the HS Class of 2009 (Part 1)

Parents of HS Class of 20xx
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<p>Oregon, I need to amend my advice to you about going easy on yourself, to add that at some point, you have to stop going easy on yourself. Remember how I said that I bought a huge bag of barbeque potato chips when I was home after my dad died? Well since then, in the name of going easy on myself, I’ve been eating pretty much whatever I want. </p>

<p>Today I put on a dress that was very flattering last fall. At this point I need to either (a) buy a new wardrobe of muumuus, (b) start wearing full body spanx, or (c) stop eating chips and candy and lose this weight I gained. I guess that’s one good point about not having a graduation to attend…I won’t have to squeeze into a dress that used to fit a few months ago, or a buy a size that will make me depressed.</p>

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<p>Yes, agree about sometimes going too easy on yourself. Self-indulgence over the course of a somewhat stressful winter is showing on me, too. I’m hoping warmer weather and paddleboarding will give me more incentive to get back into shape.</p>

<p>missypie, I’m very sorry to hear about your Dad’s passing. I’m sorry to have missed hearing about your Dad at the time - this is hopelessly belated - best wishes you and your family. My Dad died four years ago, and I still think of him every day. A few months ago, I was in an airport and saw a man (from behind) who looked and dressed like him. I couldn’t help myself - walked as discretely as I could to try to get around to look at him face on. Of course it wasn’t him, but just for a moment …</p>

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<p>S2 defended his capstone thesis yesterday, which was the last major hurdle. He only has three smaller assignments remaining, all due by Friday and then he is done. He is very excited by that prospect, to say the least. Graduation ceremony is on the 18th. </p>

<p>Woody, it’s great that your S is flying home for graduation. I was disappointed at first that S1 didn’t make it a priority, but he brings so much energy into a space that I think it would have been somewhat stressful to have him home and might even have distracted the focus too much away from S2 on his big day. We have other relatives flying in as well as my mother coming.</p>

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<p>We’ve got six more inches of “spring” on the ground, and another four inches of “spring” expected to fall before midnight. </p>

<p>D had a one of those wonderful to horrible evenings last night. She went to her department’s annual awards cocktail party, and pretty much every professor she ever had in the department was there. She got a lovely award, and the professor who spoke about her did a really nice job. Then she came home to learn that her friend – also graduating next week – just learned that her dad died suddenly. Just horrible, and two younger siblings still at home.</p>

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<p>arabrab, that’s so sad.</p>

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<p>Snowing here now. sigh… :(</p>

<p>arabrab…how awful for her friend.</p>

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<p>ararab - ugh…</p>

<p>TA - I know. I thought about the distraction thing but it will only be the 4 of us at graduation, so all is good. D is staying at her house for another 10 days or so after graduation. Should be fun!</p>

<p>Rochmom - I meant reservations for your S’s graduation. D goes to the same school.</p>

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<p>Next milestone passed. ShawSon turned in his thesis at 5 PM. Defense early next week. His graduation is not until the end of the month. </p>

<p>He got a request for a one hour interview with the school’s public affairs office that is writing an article or something on notable accomplishments in the graduating class. </p>

<p>ShawD got her first request for a job interview, not from connections but from one of her online submissions.</p>

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<p>So many fun and interesting successes. I need to catch up here. except arabrab–very sad.
NM–NO! I seriously am so sad for you and spent 30 minutes watering the veggie garden
That said our weird weather is sky high–80’ and more for the next ten days…? so very odd.
I may be in trouble soon. My H needs to update the (his) “spread sheet” re trip and I will probably end up in jail if he touches one single stack of papers that I have as a visual and touchable spread sheet…with stickies for everything left to do. And then I get the “well I can make that 8 am flight” Jolly good–what about 4 who need coffee and who is gathering lunch …
Have any of you read about the woman who cut her H’s (maybe ex?) you know what off and put it in the garbage disposal?:slight_smile: I told my H as he was going to sleep tonight:) do not make me the trip planner and then mess with me…
Also–If you happen to still be reading…I really believe that this first trip with D and her probable future H will make an impact on whether they/we will want to travel together in the future. How do I know this? because H’s family did not make me happy, feel cared for, comfortable or anything for many vacations so I simply did not go anymore–but did send H and “it was great for him”
Grrr.</p>

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<p>Got this out of order. Sorry not sure what I am doing yet with this</p>

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<p>Good morning! Arabrab, kudos to your d – and so sad for her friend. I actually thought about something like than on the highway yesterday when an idiot car was endangering others – please don’t kill me and ruin my son’s grad. </p>

<p>And Shaw, kudos to shawson for being selected for that interview!</p>

<p>Mcson is done! His live performance of his composition went very well and some of the performance students liked it so much they’ve asked him if they could perform the piece. Prof really liked it. So he had a stronger finish than he anticipated it what at times had been a challenging class for him (traditional classical composition).</p>

<p>He was also pretty flattered when his animation prof invited him to view something he, the prof, is working on, for his input, and for some tech tips. He had the presence of mind to ask this prof for a letter of recommendation for future employers - EDM ;)</p>

<p>In the mean time back at the mc-compound, I was up til midnight playing around with a loaner robot for the pool which has been deluged with maple droppings plus scrubbing the pool house floor because the cleaner ran out of time and didn’t get to the pool house. </p>

<p>Missy (and others with pools), I’ve been vacuuming the pool manually and have been reluctantly considering a bot but I wasn’t convinced any of them would handle this rather unique setting (lots of tree debris etc. in a Grecian style vinyl pool with sharp angles and a 9 ft deep end.) My gal at the pool place gave me a Dolphin Supreme to test out on it. After 3 hours, its fair to say it did the job of perhaps a drunken, blind, ADD pool tech. Then again, running it daily might give a more fair representation (eg once sufficiently cleaned to its level of scrubbing, it’s aimless wandering may maintain the pool better than my focused, infrequent sessions of yours truly.)</p>

<p>I was wondering what you use and if you like it.</p>

<p>On the weight front, I think it’s perfectly fine to be kind to yourself when you need it, even though I myself am on the loss trajectory at the moment. The trick is to be okay wherever you’re at…and if you don’t like where you’re at, you can change it then. </p>

<p>So still be kind to yourself…just reinvent what that kindness looks like if you’re wanting to focus on you health and energy levels. Because taking time to feel good is a form of kindness too :slight_smile: I’m now down 30 lbs but I wouldn’t be mistaken still for svelt.</p>

<p>NM, as a fellow northerner who was treated to mid-80s yesterday, I am so sorry that MN is having this ice age. Crazy as it sounds, I’d told mcson if the weather was above 70 on his grad day I’d heat the pool for his party…at the time i said it, it was 38 degrees. The kid is just lucky that way. What I should have said was “would you like me to heat the pool or pay your rent, because they’ll cost about the same!”</p>

<p>But in your honor I will heat the pool and toast your imminent spring and send you some warmer-weather-mojo! ;)</p>

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<p>Congratulations to mcson – nice that he is done.</p>

<p>Who else is done?</p>

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<p>arabrab, so sorry for your D’s friend.</p>

<p>kmcmom13, congrats on mcson’s final performance! It sounds wonderful. Your pool cleaning story made me laugh. We have a pool in our complex I use but do not have to maintain. We joke about living in our senior citizens complex, but to be honest I really like having someone else take care of the yard, the leaves, the pool, and the snow. It’s not technically for senior citizens (no age restrictions) but other restrictions make it a de facto old people place.</p>

<p>Speaking of snow, we were in the high 80s on Tuesday, and today there is snow in the forecast. I attended a friend’s garden party after work last night, which was held indoors because of the dropping temperatures. I made orange coconut cheesecake bars because they sounded so spring-like and refreshing.</p>

<p>S has four performances for his two choirs today through Sunday, with multiple solos in both. Unfortunately, with his sister’s graduation at the end of the month and his trip home in 2 weeks, we can’t be there. I’ve been trying to find out if any of it might be recorded. </p>

<p>At least I’m spared the high school’s annual Mother’s Day choral concert. It was cruel and unusual punishment the past four years. Just remembering it brings tears.</p>

<p>shawbridge, we’re not done here – D graduates the last day of the month. Speaking of which, I will be in the Boston area arriving May 29 and leaving June 1. Don’t know if anyone else will be in the vicinity for a mini-meet up?</p>

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<p>kmc, yahoo for mcson being done and finishing strong. </p>

<p>shaw, congrats to your S on getting the thesis turned in. S2 said their department requires it to be bound and the copying and binding cost $250. He was not happy about that.</p>

<p>Our weather is fairly cold. We went to our annual Shakespeare in the park last night (The Tempest) and had to have on multiple layers to stay warm. Everybody was wrapped in the blankets by the end of the evening.</p>

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<p>arabrab- so sorry about your D’s friend. How sad for her and her family. And dte, I’m sorry to hear about your co-worker. Sending prayers for all.</p>

<p>On a happier note, hooray for Shaw S and Mch S! </p>

<p>I will also be attending a Shakespeare performance tomorrow night at S’s HS. They are performing a version of “the Scottish play” with a popular action hero theme. (don’t like to identify as there are cc folks with kids in S’s class). Anyway, S tells us that his part has several lines and is then killed. I think he comes back later as a ghost.</p>

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<p>Whoops. Sorry Woody. No reservations for S’s graduation. He is now officially done per facebook. He actually graduates on the 12th. Not the same day as most of Cornell. He’s in the law school. Now he is also receiving his MBA but has decided not to walk for that as it’s I guess Memorial Day weekend and we will be attending D’s in Maine. He’s decided that he would rather go with us and get some seafood then attend the main graduation and we are fine with that. We will of course be down there on Mother’s Day for the Law School graduation. He’s indicated that he would like to go to 1 or 2 places and neither one takes reservations.</p>

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<p>Such excitement - sounds like some really strong finishes!</p>

<p>We have a pool robot - started with a Viper and now don’t know what we have. We don’t have any of our own leaves that fall into the pool but some from neighbors. While they work well for us, I don’t think any of them have survived past the warranty period. They die and we get another one, gratis, I think. Not a ringing endorsement, I know.</p>

<p>Oregon, I hear you about the trip planning. H starts his trip “research” on the flight there. Grrr…he also asks fellow travelers what to see and do. That would be fabulous if he was asking natives of that country, but he asks the other tourists and when they tell him to see the most common, well known places and he makes note of the suggestions having never heard of them, I feel so embarrassed… “Hey Missy, this lady says there’s a volcano that we should see while we are in Costa Rica!” [“Yeah, I’ve built the entire first part of our trip around that volcano.”] Jeez…I’m sure the other travelers think we have done ZERO research.</p>

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<p>C-q, I will be around 5/29-6/1. The last couple of days are definitely much better. Happy to get together. DTE and CBBB, are you around? If so, we should organize privately.</p>

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<p>Congrats to mcson!!! How exciting for him (and mom!). Very nice on the strong finish. I so want to hear one of his compositions! H has a cousin who lives and works in California who is according to Wikapedia " a composer, pianist and electronic musician, who creates music for acoustic instruments with interactive electronics, for computer networks, and for improvising ensembles." I always thought that was what mcson was doing!</p>

<p>Way to go shawson! Must be a relief to have that thesis finished!</p>

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<p>Congrats to those who have finished – theses, exams, the semester, their college career!</p>

<p>D2 has one final to go – the very last day/hour on which finals are given. She asked if she could take it early, but the prof said only with an acceptable reason. (Um, she’s a senior?)</p>

<p>She is trying to sell her car, fill out a ream of paperwork for the Fulbright, pack/ship some stuff, study for that exam, and the like. Lots of “lasts” – she says it’s a bit emotional …</p>