Parents of the HS Class of 2009 (Part 1)

Parents of HS Class of 20xx
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<h1>TM, wow. Congrats on all fronts—book, fellowship, painting, and dog.</h1>

<p>Arabrab, love your AT reference code for philandering.</p>

<p>Moda, good luck with the house listing. If you downsize, will your S need to take up residence elsewhere or will it not be that small? Maybe you can send him to the nook. </p>

<p>I agree with your take on NM’s D’s ex having another woman. People usually spend years, if not decades, being miserable before deciding to end a marriage. Even if he decided he was miserable the day after the ceremony, he wasn’t married long enough to have divorce even be an option to consider, in my opinion. Kudos to NM’s D for taking the high road and getting away from such a shallow person as quickly and cleanly as possible. </p>

<p>One of S’s college friends, who works for a different firm, was just transferred to S’s town, so S had him over for dinner last night. I’m glad S’s firm doesn’t move its trainees around. S1 wouldn’t mind, but S2 is the type to like to put down roots. Woody, any update on how your D’s bf is enjoying his job?</p>

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<p>So good to hear from you #TM! Sounds like your life has been busy! A reading at your show just sounds wonderful. Congrats on all fronts! Thanks for checking in.</p>

<p>CBB…we don’t have the new snow here, just the wicked sub zero temps. We should warm up today but next week they are predicting the coldest temps in 20 years. Wish I could just sit in front of the fire and read!</p>

<p>D1 is continuing her job search. She hasn’t heard a peep concerning the university position where she was one of the final two candidates. She is assuming she didn’t get the job. I don’t think it would have been a good match but it was a confidence boost to make it that far. She has a few feelers out for another university position and some in the corporate world. </p>

<p>D2 LOVED being at work yesterday even though it was mostly HR stuff and meeting the other interns. She is one of 4 tax interns. She said two were very nice but the young man from Wake Forest was a bit of a know-it-all. :wink: They company assigned them their laptops and gave them a backpack filled with sweatshirt, tee shirt, coffee thermos and other brand items. They were also treated to a big Mexican lunch buffet. She was just happy that she was getting paid for the day! :)</p>

<p>Moda…you should start writing a novel! ;)</p>

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<h1>theorymom, I think of you and your son often. Thanks so much for checking in and it’s so nice that you are full of good news!!! You will be my inspiration today…I didn’t do too well yesterday toward my theme of 2014 (“Action”).</h1>

<p>NM, when H was the PR director for a small college, it shut down for a couple of weeks around Christmas. So your D may still hear from them once they are “back in business.”</p>

<p>I was so itchy yesterday so I drank quite a bit of children’s Benedryl before bed, which is why it is 8 am and I’m nowhere near ready for work. The cold/allergy/whatever has settled in my eyes so I am looking pretty ghoulish this morning.</p>

<p>I’ve been trying to imagine how I would react if I was the parent of NM’s D’s ex. What advice would I give to a child of mine who wanted out of a marriage very quickly? Probably “end it before you have kids.” But I am like everyone else here - I can’t think of anyone I know who ended a marriage after a short time where one of the couple wasn’t either seeing someone else, or was gay (in a heterosexual marriage).</p>

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<p>Good to hear from you, TM. </p>

<p>Kmc – John Adams and Marilyn Monroe are both descended from John Alden, whose genealogy is well documented. Once I linked into that genealogy it was easy. And yes, it does sound like a time travel movie waiting to happen. (Or maybe it already happened, but hasn’t yet shown up in our time?)</p>

<p>Stay safe and warm if you’re in storm country.</p>

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<p>I hope you get some sleep MP, and wake up clear-eyed and not itchy.</p>

<p>And yes, I’d guess it is hard for NM’s D’s ex’s parents (I’m not even going to try and figure out where the possessives really go in that one.) Tough all the way around. A friend was blindsided with a divorce request from his wife a few years ago, and not only did it shock him and his family, it shocked hers too. He still doesn’t understand why, but he’s working through it. (Harder with little kids, however. Much. Both parents are forced to live where they’d rather not live geographically because to move would be to lose frequent contact with the kids. He wants west coast, she wants NY, and they’re stuck here in the Rockies.)</p>

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<p>Yes! Typo. H isn’t going skiing with a GF, and although confident that it doesn’t apply, I couldn’t be 100% sure that he doesn’t have one. :)</p>

<p>S is the one leaving and we just had a little discussion about how he really can’t be leaving here with his room a disaster, and no you can’t just shove all the crap in the closet since likely we’d hope to have the house on the market by the time he returns. This is not a long process to go back on the market, although I am changing realtors which likely means they will come back in to take pictures (which would include the loss of the 40 ft+ evergreens that used to line our property line shielding us from the neighbor). I actually wrote to the city to investigate that one after I read the city’s land use regulations. They should have never cut them down and doing so without permission from the city SHOULD land them in some hot water, although I just really want a few replanted (without me paying for them). </p>

<p>Anyway… What I want is a smallish house that needs remodel, but likely to be a three bedroom regardless, so there’s always room for someone to be home and ideally enough space for everyone for a short time. And sending S to the nook to live would be a very bad idea. It is a very poor county in general, and considered distant rural for general purpose. Plus - that’s MY refuge. :)</p>

<p>Yesterday morning he was concerned about how prepared he is for the MCAT and he was considering rescheduling his test date. I didn’t think this was a good idea for a lot of reasons but only said that he was underestimating himself. He went to my H’s office where he has a study room all set up and took a complete practice test using ALL the time available, which he hadn’t been doing. He ended up with a 38, so now he feels better and instead of more studying, will likely just keep taking practice tests at whatever they are a pop. </p>

<p>I also agree about not counting out the Univ position for D1, NMN. They would likely tell her they’ve gone a different direction if they had reached a decision. I hope she is following up. When SIL interviewed for his current job they told him they’d let him know the end of the week. It was nearly three weeks later that they offered him the job.</p>

<p>™ - so happy for you! HA! I am keeping the autocorrect on this one. :)</p>

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<p>The governor of Minnesota has announced that all schools will be closed on Monday due to expected cold weather. The meteorologists predict temps to drop to -25 with windchills bringing it to -40 to -50! Brrrr! This is really unusual for MN to cancel school. First time in 20 years!</p>

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<h1>TM, glad to hear things are going well with your son.</h1>

<p>TA, sounds like you had a great visit.<br>
Moda, best of luck on resale. At least with SATs and ACTs, doing every available practice test (and finding any areas of confusion) seemed to be the best approach. </p>

<p>We had a busy and fun time at our long weekend shindig. Lots of interesting people – Nobel and Oscar and Emmy winners, professors, corporate CEOs and former CEOs, lots of doctors and lawyers, former diplomats and spies, political types and political commentators, university presidents … . Some terrific discussions (and some less so). One thing that impressed me was the sheer number of remarkably accomplished women. In other events, there is often a plethora of impressive men and their spouses who may or may not be as impressive. Much less so here. Bravo to the organizers. Plus, I ran into people I haven’t seen in years (like 20) and someone (a UK professor) who had apparently met me five years ago and lost my card and was so pleased to meet again as she had been eager to get in touch with me. Not clear how hard I would be to find (if you Google my name, 9 out of the first 10 listings are for me), but OK.</p>

<p>ShawWife and I loved watching ShawSon interact with adults as an adult. He was really in his element as there were a number of ambitious, bright well-connected kids his age (actually mostly 3-7 years older) with whom he spent time (until 3 or 6 AM) and who gave him some visibility as to where he could be three years from now. A few adults took him under their wings – one said, “he gives me faith in the next generation” – and he partied until late in the night with his peers. Great.</p>

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<p>School canceled for the entire state of MN (as NMN pointed out)… Facebook update of kids private school? Business as usually tomorrow. Not only do they not follow the test driven curriculum of private school, they don’t take the snow days either. Last year they closed the upper school only once and that was for lack of heat. My kids didn’t have a snow day in all the years they attended or at most, one. They argued about it this morning.</p>

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<p>…and we’ve already had three snow days this school year!</p>

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<p>Hi all – We got back late, late last night from our two-week visit to see D2 in Germany and then seek the sun in southern Spain. Germany was mostly gray and dark (daylight, such as it is, from 8:15 to 4:15). In Spain, we found sun, although we would have been happy for it to have been a tad warmer. </p>

<p>I tried to post some greetings here along the way, but could not figure out how to get my tablet app to allow me to post or what my password/user name were for logging in to web site. Pathetic, I know.</p>

<p>Last night at Dulles we escaped the snow – apparently just barely – after 2 tedious hours of customs and then 2 hours of waiting to be de-iced. This morning both H and I applied for “Global Entry” to avoid such lines in the future.</p>

<p>D2 is having a challenging year: it’s much different to live and work on one’s own in a foreign country than to do a “semester abroad.” She’s really counting the days til she comes home. Hope the winter/spring are a bit less stressful for her.</p>

<p>And for all here: all the best for the New Year!</p>

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<p>I have a dryer! Installers just left. It was very difficult getting in to place but they were miracle workers! :wink: We have blocked the door to the deck and they used some illegal hose to connect to vent but it works! Guess I will be doing laundry all weekend.</p>

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<p>Welcome back, Z, we missed you!</p>

<p>And I am so happy for you, MN!</p>

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<p>Glad you got a dryer finally, NM. </p>

<p>Was the rain in Spain mainly on the plain? Or sunny and warm? I hope the latter, Zetesis. There was an article I started to read in the WSJ about hospitals taking a “no pain” approach to surgical recovery – until I read further and found out it was about German hospitals, and apparently Germans are every bit as stoic about surgical pain as you might imagine, and so I’m not sure how much faith to put in their reported reductions in pain levels. I’d rather see the experiments reproduced in Italy. (I wouldn’t let my mother come near me when I was in labor after hearing her complain about the other women in her labor ward who made noise during labor. “So what. It hurts. It gets over. No need to make a big deal out of it.”)</p>

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<p>Shaw, glad to hear your shindig went well and ShawSon made some good contacts. I think I read while I was out and not able to post that he was thinking about heading to grad school. Does he want to wait until his firm has generated enough profits to pay back the investors prior to moving on?</p>

<p>Z, welcome back. Sorry to hear that your D is not having an easy time of it. This will likely go into the bucket of difficult to go through, but worth it in the end for the personal growth. Speaking of not being able to post when traveling, my fear is that my auto signature would somehow show up in the post if I post from my Blackberry and I am not willing to risk that even on an experimental basis.</p>

<p>NM, great news on the dryer installation working and D2’s enjoyment of her job.</p>

<p>Moda, sounds like your S is all set for his MCAT. Is he thinking a fall 2015 start for med school, assuming all goes according to plan?</p>

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<p>We were on the southern coast of Spain – no rain; gorgeous sunrises and sunsets over the Mediterranean (which we could see from our place); and in spite of cool temps we did eat an early New Year’s Eve supper on an outside terrace restaurant. It did rain in Cordoba on the last day of the trip, but that was it. Not sure if that’s the plain or not!</p>

<p>Also visited a reserve that can host as many as 40,000 flamingoes in the winter, though we only saw several thousand. I had no idea flamingoes wintered in Spain --although the other good European place to see them is on the southern coast of France. Seems out of place somehow for flamingoes … </p>

<p>Speaking of dryers, NM – I empathize! The house we rented in Spain was typically European – a washer, but no dryer; as a result, am doing all the laundry now. Thank goodness for dryers!</p>

<p>D2 is just wishing everything were easier(from lab work to finding how things work in another culture/country to German itself, although hers has definitely improved). Even though we’ve traveled a good bit, I’ve always done the planning, made the arrangements, spoken the language, etc. I think she’d agree with Dickens: it is the best and worst of times. I wish there were more “best.”</p>

<p>Now the big decision: nap? or stay up and get nothing done??</p>

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<p>great to hear form you Zetesis!
(I think the flamingos are highly intelligent!)</p>

<p>TA so glad to hear of your fun trip! Sounds just great!</p>

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<p>Welcome back,z. I am now lost in fond memories of Southern Spain :slight_smile: I would soooo love to be in Mar Bella right now!</p>

<p>Fun night out last night at the brewery beside the new downtown studio. I can see how it may be a dangerous thing to be in proximity to a rich stout at the end of the day :slight_smile: I am going to have to make a long snowshoe trek today to burn up some of those fitness-thwarting calories!</p>

<p>So the painter has one coat of the main color on the walls in the studio, and h is not in love with the color but “thinks it will be ok.” I’m thinking perhaps he should have weighed in on that one one of the thousand times I’d asked earlier over the last several months…but I’ll take the “ok.” Because I love the color :slight_smile: (It’s a warm, heritage tan that I sampled off our existing studio building. I’ve always liked the color combos in our building so I figured I would just recreate same. I think the guys would have liked something less dramatic. But I could put newsprint on the walls and I don’t think they’d generally notice.)</p>

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<p>Hi z- Spain sounds wonderful! </p>

<p>Interesting about your D. S has been accepted to a college in the UK and I think that he is underestimating the cultural issues/adjustments that he would need to make to attend. Thankfully, while he was once very excited about that, he has other options now and I don’t think he will do it. I do admire your D for living abroad, though especially in having to communicate in a second language.</p>

<p>kmc- I wish you could pick out paint colors for me! We need some help here.</p>

<p>I was supposed to work today, but we stayed late last night and will put in long days next week, so I don’t need to go in. So this is a bonus day for me. Playing euchre tonight.</p>

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<p>eddieodessa, I enjoyed your story of the SIL who tops everything. Enjoy your dinner out!</p>

<p>NorthMinnestoa, glad D2 is enjoying her internship. Re the Kate Spade purse: there is a Kate Spade purse named for D’s college and there is a tradition where new grads with their highly paid finance jobs purchase the purse with their new earnings. D would love to have one (neither of us has ever owned a designer purse) but I don’t think she’ll be purchasing anything so fancy with her temp job earnings. She did get some new wardrobe items on super clearance.</p>

<p>I hope D1 can move on/shake the dust off her feet after her very quick divorce. And working at a college, I can attest that job searches can be VERY slow and have very poor communication. When my co-worker died in July, his position was posted in August. Our new hire finally started in December.</p>

<p>And congrats on the dryer!</p>

<h1>theorymom, Wow! Glad #TS is singing; my S needs to be singing for life to be grounded. Congrats on the book and the dog win!</h1>

<p>CBBBlinker, downtoearth, shawbridge, NorthMinnesota, modadunn and others who are in the deep freeze - stay safe! Our forecast for Monday morning is horrid. Late yesterday received a safety email at work about the frigid temperatures. One recommendation was not to venture outside if not necessary. We were wondering if that meant we could just work from home on Monday, since we have to venture outside to get to work!</p>

<p>modadunn, hope you make progress on putting your house back on the market.</p>

<p>shawbridge, your weekend sounds incredible.</p>

<p>Zetesis, welcome back! Sorry D2 is having a challenging year. Glad you visited the sun in southern Spain! We lived in Scotland for a summer in an exchange with another family, and while we had a washing machine in the kitchen, there was no dryer. I’ve never been so mindful of the weather as when I had laundry out on the clothesline. Between the clouds and the constant rain, I didn’t think our clothes would EVER dry that summer.</p>

<p>FallGirl, enjoy your bonus day off! And to everyone else I failed to mention/comment on, best wishes; it’s hard to keep up with everyone!</p>

<p>H came down with the flu on New Year’s Day and stayed home the past 2 days. Around 1 am this morning I received a text from the basement from S, he was vomiting so I guess he’s next. D and I are REALLY hoping we don’t catch it. S was having the chills but wanted a glass of ice water (and a warmer blanket).</p>

<p>D finally met the CEO, who came to work Thursday for the first time since she started. One of my co-workers has a good friend at the same corporation, who said she thought the prior executive assistant resigned because she couldn’t handle the CEO’s brusk manner. I mentioned this to D (after she met him) and she said she was used to news editors/news directors barking out orders in a stressful work environment with very hard deadlines. She earned brownie points yesterday by immediately making coffee upon arrival, and having fresh coffee available all day. It wasn’t part of her assigned job duties but she noticed they all drink a ton of coffee so she figured it made sense to keep it flowing. Although I think she lost brownie points with the facilities staff. She had been told how “green” the corporation was, and had noticed all the recycling bins for recycling paper were overflowing. She finally got them to come and empty them, and asked about containers for the cans and plastic bottles she had been separating out for recycling. Didn’t surprise me (we have lots of empty land around here and very little recycling) but she was told they only recycle paper at this point. I told her at my office we have paper recycling bins, and the janitors just empty them into the same larger trash bins with all the other trash. </p>

<p>Was thinking I need to undecorate today; will see if I get to it. It will depend on how demanding my sick patients are. Had to run out and buy more milk last night. Last year when we had our empty nest I had to purchase milk in the smallest possible containers and it was still going bad. With S home I am back to purchasing gallons and we are out of it constantly.</p>

<p>Hope everyone has a good weekend!</p>