Parents of the HS Class of 2009 (Part 1)

Parents of HS Class of 20xx
37261

We have about 7 inches and it’s blowing like crazy! Streets are all closed. Sand D were told to work from home.

My sisters - who are also snowed in - and I are texting and emailing constantly. Unbeknownst to each other, we all have been cooking and baking treasured recipes from our childhood. My poor mother may have been an often neglectful, alcoholic parent but she had the great good fortune to hire a woman who had an abundance of love, kindness and… skill in the kitchen! The recipes are all hers.
PS Please don’t think I don’t appreciate my mom. With 7 children, one of whom was severely disabled, I don’t assign her any blame at all.

37262

We are in the Virgin Islands after a stint on an island community of Miami that is so expensive to buy into that everyone is really rich. My client invited ShawWife and me there for me to work and ShawWife was on her own with access to a Limo all day to see art etc. As usual we meet other people through her. Fantasy land, but people really talk a lot about money. Interesting. Is that Miami? Some like my client are extremely interesting. Others, not so much. Except for one female CEO amid a couple of doctor/lawyers, the job of the females was to look thin and toned and surgically sculpted so as not to be replaced by a younger model. Yoga classes were filled to the brim. Prenups abound so the guy knows it costs $X million to switch to a younger model.

Apparently the blizzard is serious where we live --a tree fell on our neighbor’s car – but our driveway and walkways have been shoveled, the studio heating repaired the day before the blizzard. ShawD was told school was cancelled. I’m writing this from the beach digesting food before going snorkeling. We are happy not to be at home.

37263

Shaw, enjoyed the description of the wives. I attend a church with many wealthy members, some of whom have a degree of national prominence. Last week I decided to stop sitting in a certain portion of the balcony because I was not blonde enough, skinny enough or rich enough to fit in with the other wives. (Saying this only partially tongue in cheek. I would sit there in church and ponder how much more they must all spend on personal upkeep than I do. )

37264

Oh MP too bad you would feel this way at church of all places. Is your thyroid ok?
Shaw sounds wonderful. I cant imagine that way of life. I have been a little. but it so far form my reality. yes school is closed today and tomorrow .I did my work today though. I worked yesterday and driving home at 9 was difficult with the snow blowing. I have to work tomorrow.
Our snowblower isn’t working. H shoveled most of the driveway and a neighbor did the rest with his snowblower. tomorrow should be interesting. as our road isn’t plowed.
.

37265

DTE, yes my thyroid is great; meds are at the right level. You would have to see these women to understand…others in my church would get it. It’s not really inferiority that I feel…more fascination at the cost of the hair, the purse, the shoes, etc. And just so stereotypically Texas blonde!

Speaking of purse and shoes, who else on this thread loves to hunt for bargains? I had a good night at Marshalls after work…If I suddenly had the money that the church balcony women have, I still think I would love scrounging around at Marshalls and Nordstrom Rack looking for fabulous deals!

DTE, you could survive as a pioneer woman, driving to and from work in a blizzard!

37266

missy…I am also a bargain shopper. My girls have me do all of their shopping. I love TJ Maxx, Marshalls and Rack. My new place to haunt,however, is online sales. I just found a great black blazer with faux leather sleeves for the girls on sale at the Loft site for $36. Great deal. I follow several fashion blogs to get early sales notifications.

37267

Warning, self pity ahead:

It is 72 degrees outside and I am eating at my desk. I miss my friends from my real job! So tired of solitary indoor lunches.

37268

How much longer does this assignment last, MP? (And what happens with your regular clients during this time?)

37269

I have three more months (halfway through). I am willing to extend if needed to form better relationships here. As for other clients, everything else is farmed out to others so my eggs are in this basket (LOL, autocorrect just corrected basket to casket.)

37270

^oops!
That’s a bummer being on a temporary assignment.

37271

I need some help here. D2 is having some health issues that we are trying to figure out. In the past year she has had 2 little episodes where she starts to feel ill. The first time she was at a manufacturing plant last winter and it was warm and stuffy on the floor. She started to feel “off”, vision went blurry and then she dropped to the floor as she fainted. She was out for about 30 seconds but was shaky when she came to. Better after she had water and a snack. Yesterday she was at another client’s place and she started to feel “off” again so she sat down when others noticed she was pale. They got her water and she ate a clementine that she had in her purse. Better after that. She had eaten breakfast yesterday (Kashi cereal and piece of fruit) and this happened at 9:30 AM. Any ideas of what this could be? Low blood sugar, low blood pressure, anemia, etc??? Of course I want her to see a doctor but she says she doesn’t have time until after tax season. grrr…

37272

I hate it when all my eggs are in one casket. :slight_smile:

NM: I hope your daughter gets to the doctor. Yikes.

37273

NM, I’m no doctor and my closest tie is that I’m father to a nurse, so pay no attention to the man behind the curtain. ShawD was hypoglycemic for years and we used to have to give her food every two hours. Who knows?

We went kayaking in a bioluminescent bay a couple of days ago, snorkeling once or twice a day, and today hiked to a tidal pool. We are going to have dinner with the former president of my alma mater and take a dive boat to a reef for snorkeling. I am beginning to relax.

ShawSon is not overwhelmed but fears taht he will have to drop exercise and/or social life (precious little of that at the moment) and/or get better organized to make it through the quarter. He has never really recovered from the cold / flu thing he started the semester with. Sounded concerned when he called me. He said he can pick up anything quite quickly – his classmates are very impressed with how fast he learns and how well he does – but the programming course just takes lots of time. I’m not quite sure what to advise him.

37274

Shaw, that’s a tough quandary to my mind, because in my experience (eg at work all day) programming really does goes better when one exercises and has a social life :wink: At the same time, the eye-tracking that careful code requires has to be extremely taxing on your son despite his awesome capability to overcome his LDs. I know that tracking is difficult for mcson, though at the same time, he’s really loving code. And he isnt dyslexic, but does have slower line tracking related to his cognitive processing gaps. I have a bias that suggests physicality lends grounding to te heady notion of code.

Sometimes the coding gods favor he who walks away for a spell. By that, I mean, I will watch two of the guys try to debug or sleuth out a problem. The harder they try, the more the solution eludes them. They will carry on like this for hours…“brute force” programming ;). And I mean hours.

I, generally not even a programmer, might come at it fresh after going off to do something entirely unrelated, or after my morning snowshoe up the hill. And oddly enough, as often as not, I might come up with the key to the solution. Mcson has noticed this “background processing” phenom of mine, so likes to do a short (eg 3/4 mile) lunch walk to the bank to make the deposit when deep in the weeds. It often works for him. Kinetic infusion is what I might call it.

So, your son is in a place populated I suspect with extreme coders. He can, and to a degree, needs to emulate them, (for the purpose of the course) even though to do so requires a process that I suspect is more biologically challenging/exhausting for him than many. But his real gift is likely that he’s superior in the background processing, the solution, the innovative touch, the seeing of the patterns. And that requires a bit of zen, of balance, a holistic approach or kinetic infusion :wink:

These are all assumptions I’m making from our general discussion here over the years. So I could be in left field. But I will suggest that maybe shawson just needs to give himself permission to take an incomplete to have more time to let the coding breath a bit, percolate, or to consider a lighter course load to allow himself the space to keep himself biologically fresh and engaged. I’m not sure in the end that sacrificing exercise or social outlets serves either him or the work he is doing.

But given his drive, you might have a hard time convincing him of that.

I will say this – mcson took extra time beyond the semester in an engineering programming course that was rigorous and dense…and he’s now better at it than many :wink: (Including our 15-year employee…) so its a marathon, not a sprint as the saying goes…

37275

NM, also not a doctor…but I too would be suspicious about hypoglycemia and possibly low bp. I never outright fainted, but often had similar episodes when younger, eg in my 20s. But not sure which thing was responsible…b/c I had low bp, hypoglycemia and anemia :wink:

It doesn’t happen much any more, but I supplement iron daily (rx), take liquid b vitamins in am, eat high protein breakfast (omlette) daily, and there’s cromium in my lunch shake, which stabilizes blood sugar. Hard to tell which thing has improved the condition.

Missy, also meant to ask…is there anyone you’d naturally “like” at the new place that you could make an effort to get to know better? Having a lunch, break, whatever buddy would likely make your time there more enjoyable.

Even though I work through lunch because I just do a protein shake (and I notice that as a result, my employees do same even though I tell them to take lunch) I’ve also developed the compensating habit of calling out a social break wherein the juniors and I discuss upcoming concerts, exciting life developments, or look at funny stuff on the Internet. And on the odd Wed or Friday I offer company sponsored drinks at the bistro if we’re all on track for deadlines.

None of this is necessary, but it keeps things fun and helps the team hang better through the tough stuff.

37276

D also has hypoglycemia and low blood pressure. Similar incidents have plagued her for ever. She doesn’t go any where with out many “snacks” in her purse. She has learned to notice the signs. Nothing like getting a call from the school nurse when your kid is in 2nd grade and be told that she stood up in art class and feinted. Nurse wanted me to come and get her IMMEDIATELY. Asked to speak with D. Asked D if she wanted to come home - nope. Got back on with the nurse and told her to give her some juice, then some crackers, and maybe a piece of fruit. After that I had an emergency “pack” at the nurses office for just those occasions. She still has issues but has learned to live with it and know when it comes on. May not be your D’s issue. Until she does make it to the drs. however have her try to sit down when she feels it coming on and eat something that will get her sugar up and then something longer term that will maintain it until the next meal. D even to this day doesn’t really eat meals - she grazes her way through the day since she still eats about every 2 hours while awake and breakfast is a HUGE meal for her - only one she really eats. :slight_smile:

37277

Oh and she also might want to track what she eats and the time that she consumes it. That was a big part of the information that we had to give the dr.

37278

NM, hope your D can figure out the puzzle soon!

I am friendly with folks here, chat when we can…it’s just that I was brought here because everyone was so darned busy and they are still so darned busy. Like the day a couple of weeks ago when I had 7 meetings. That is the common day for many of them.

The attorneys in my group are sociable even though they don’t have time to socialize.

Saturday is supposed to be rainy so I have convinced H that we should clean out the garage. We’ll see what all I can persuade Mr. Packrat to get rid of but anything would be helpful. We had rolling shelves put into our pantry in 2000 but the old wire shelves…yes, still in the garage. Just one example.

37279

Missypie, in our former hometown we had a Habitat for Humanity ReStore. If you have one, maybe give them the old shelves? I have a hard time tossing perfectly good things in the trash, but am happy to find new homes for things.

37280

Also, Missypie, I will be coming thru your airport this afternoon while I change planes. Waving “hello”!