CQ - So nice that your D is able to visit and not take time off. Terrible though about the key card. I know my D drinks a lot of water so she would find that an issue to keep asking. 
Good luck to your S as well. We did the law school thing a few years back. Finances are still recovering.
Happy Granddaughter, RM! So exciting!!!
That would be so irritating. When I started at the Big Corporation in late '14, the woman who was supposed to be my admin was on vacation the week I arrived. What was supposed to have been ready wasn’t, but at least I was able to use the restroom! But glad you can see your D.
The international training center for older D’s company is about 15 minutes from our house. We will be able to see her the weekend before she goes for training, in May.
Tried a new yoga place last night. (The studio I’ve been going to is closing.) The new place is associated with a climbing gym. I was old enough to at least be the mother of everyone there, if not the grandmother of most. The class was good, but we could hear loud music loud voices the whole class. I really don’t know what I’m going to do. The other close studios offer hot yoga, and I just can’t.
I know what you mean, MP. I die in the heat anyway, hot yoga is so not happening.
Just booked our tickets for NYC early June. On to find theater tickets for something next. Won’t be Hamilton. There’s a new musical with choreography by Glover starring Audra McDonald opening this month (Shuffle Along) – and I am a sucker for solid dancing. I even enjoyed Newsies for that despite the paper thin plot.
Congratulations on the new granddaughter, RM. May you have many happy cuddles with her.
Congratulations, RM! Very exciting.
Have fun in NYC, arabrab. Great that some of you are getting to see your kids soon. Have fun. We are planning a trip to DC in June (saw them in March) when H has business there so will see our sons then. Youngest is possibly moving to Denver later this year so our opportunities to see both kids at the same time may be ending soon. Not positive but looks like it is moving in that direction. I’m anxious about it and the distance involved but I will have to get over it if that is what he ends up doing.
RM, so very happy for your and your family!
S and DIL will be here in a few weeks and I keep wondering if she is pg. I suspect she will be soon.
D finally admitted that her dog will be with us until Sept. She thinks that the dog is “good for the family” and that H adores her. Maybe a dog would be good for us, but not this one. She is a self centered thing that takes loads of mico managing. Thanks to my being alpha with her she stays workable. D did find housing for her for our upcoming trip to Iceland.
D will be back East and then return in July.
I am hoping her BF proposed soon…he mentioned the 4th of July which he loves and she hates but she will be happy no matter.
Went to SS office today, always an experience. I have no idea how someone who is not educated and/or English is their second language manages.
The New York Times magazine had a feature about Shuffle Along a few weeks ago. It sounds terrific. For the revival they had to turn the original show into sort of the “making of Shuffle Along” because the original story/dialogue was dated (in a way that would be offensive.)
I talked to someone when we were in NY who had just seen Fun Home and loved it. (I had wanted to see it but Son wanted to spend hours at the MOMA instead.) It is done in the round, in a very intimate space, so a touring production won’t capture the original (said the guy stage-dooring Hamilton with us.)
S has requested that DIL NOT be pregnant for their 3rd wedding anniversary. She has been for 1 and 2. I do expect that they are not “done” yet.
Ha ha, I think your S may have some control over that. You already have more info on that type of thing from your son than most parents get!
Congrats, RM, on the granddaughter!
sevmom - Yeah my kids are fairly open with us. We were always open (to a degree of course) with them as they were growing up. They knew that we had lived together prior to marriage etc. My mother had not been lucky with men and I was NOT going to make the same mistake. Today I’m still married to the same guy that yes occasionally puts me over the edge but I’m sure I do with him as well. I wouldn’t trade him really. This has come up because S only really wants 2 but DIL is more like 4 – we will see what transpires. Of course having 2 this close together could swing them either way.
Congratulations RM! So very happy for you and the young family! How nice to be able to snuggle with the kids. Enjoy all of your time together.
H and and I just returned from his quick business trip. He thinks it is fun for me to travel with him but I don’t think I will go in the summer as I am unwilling to give up my lake time. 
Our dock is in already and we are taking the boats to get serviced this weekend before we put them in the water. we are having beautiful warm days right now.
Congrats, RM! One more to spoil and have fun with!
I must be jealous because I dreamed last weekend that mcson and gf were pregnant - in the dream they were surprised but I was ecstatic It was the second in a series of strange dreams about him…in one he was telling me to step back from the edge of a large ship with no rail and huge waves (as if I were the rash child) and in another he was as a child living with his father and I was kidnapping him (at his request.)
When they were over at dinner Sunday and we were laughing about the dreams he theorized that my subconscious was haying a heyday over their imminent lease together. The dreams together certainly had a circle of life nuance…and interestingly in one I was the child/risk-taker, which he’d said “sounded about right” hi ho.
So, NM, I too am thrilled with the (finally!) shifting weather here. But I am also slightly nervous about a little project/experiment that comes with it.
Against h’s general druthers, I am converting my pool to a Salt Water Generator, which is normally not a big production. (Since I am the pool girl and the younger of the two, I’ve determined I really don’t want to be lugging carboys of liquid chlorine in my sunset years. Since I am the pool girl and have kept the pool sparkly gorgeous, mch sees no REASON for the switch
However, in the case of my funky, well-water, metal-sequestered, swamp-recovered and high water-table pool, I have an unheard of phosphate level to the order of 25,000 ppb, (about 50 times the “recommended” level…though in practice this matters not one whit in terms of regular care if one keeps the chlorine/cya ratio at .5%) which could theoretically foul the salt cell due to a rather obscure chemical reaction. So after research, I’m doing a major commercial phosphate removal that will quite possibly produce its own life form of goo, and I’ve got a week starting today to get that all underway and complete before the techs come back out to install the cell.
A fellow poster on my pool from tried this experiment with 8 oz of lanathum chloride and got a milky mess for a day…and I have to use 200 oz.! Even the mfg seems mildly curious about how this will go, and has called me directly with tips. So lets just say it will be an adventure!
If it all goes terribly askew, my backup plan is to get a trash pump to remove any goo, then truck in water, since the well water metals in part and the steady diet of metal sequestrant, which when spent, breaks down into phosphates, is what caused the condition. But that’s less than ideal for a couple of reasons including the extra cost of two truckloads of water and the fact that trucked water will have calcium when for two seasons I’ve softened the water via fill from our new dual softener to dilute the metal level, general hardness, and otherwise improve the water. (In a vinyl pool, you don’t need much calcium, unlike a plaster pool.)
At any rate, notwithstanding the boring chemical details, this little project will be interesting Pool opens today for round one, which begins tomorrow!
KMC - I think you lost me on the pool info but good luck!
GD and DIL came home yesterday. We are still watching GrandDog but expect him to go back this weekend. I"m dealing with some issues with his skin while we have him. He is part lab and has that lab dry skin with dandruff. Makes him itchy and when not under control he looses fur. Forced air heat can be a culprit which both S and I have. So working on getting the dog less itchy so he can grow some of that fur back!! I’m sure that it is annoying to him to itch constantly as well. This could of course be an allergy to his food but they have switch foods several times with no luck so I’m doing medicated baths with him and the first one went well and he seemed to be itch free for about a day. Doing another one this weekend before he goes back. Then he will wait about a week before I go and do another then it should be down to just once a month if I can believe everything that I’ve read about this. We’ll see!
Have a sand/water table for GS that I’ll drop off this weekend and lots of little spring/summer clothes for GD!
RM – You’re such a good grandma to your granddoggie.
KMC – do they give PhD’s in poolology? 'Cause I think you’d qualify.
We’re hunkering down for a night of heavy rain turning to …a foot of snow, if projections are correct.
Mind you, it was 66 and sunny yesterday. 
^ and I thought the weather was strange here! Wow.
Back to a normal week at work. D left on Monday and S and MIL flew to Illinois on Tuesday. S is now visiting friends at the school he attended last year ( btw congrats to your S on law school c_q). He will be back home on Monday. I have a tough time keeping up with him.
Yoga this AM, them working the annual rummage sale at church. We have already dropped off several bags of clothing and other items. Going to dinner tonight with one of H’s co workers and his wife.
RM- your S and DIL are so fortunate to have you, your H and other family nearby. H and I agree that the hardest part for us when our kids were young was that we had no family in the area. That’s why we are determined to live near our kids ( and future grandkids ) someday.
Good morning! Pool is open and looking good – ready for the big experiment 
RM, sounds crazy, but try the CBD/hemp oil product for the pooch – I’ll lay money on it improving the skin condition. Here’s a link to read more: https://canna-pet.com/. ( My vet friend points out that for someone allergic to dogs, I seem to have a high interest in them …probably since most of my friends are dog people )
So, Chicago-Earth-wind-and-Fire concert – absolutely fabulous on every front! In this case, age made fine like a really good wine I wish I could do it all over again. Gotta love these birthday-gifts-for-two
We met a hilarious couple in line and were comparing “best concert” stories. Mch won with tales of his sneaking off and hitch hiking to Woodstock at the age of 13 (yes, from Michigan…those preacher kids are something, aren’t they?)
That experience is why to this day, mch hates both crowds and camping (and also likely why he never messed with LSD) but its hilarious to imagine a Dewey-eyed Midwestern adolescent exposed to Woodstock.
What a story!
My older sister was the wild Midwestern preacher’s kid. My mother told me that if I behaved like her she would kill herself and I believed her.
@arabrab - my company is hosting a one-day conference in Denver today, a day in advance of a major Higher Education conference that begins tomorrow. I’m assuming those who signed up for our conference flew there yesterday and hope they stayed at our conference site hotel! I think this is the first time Denver was selected as the location for the higher ed conference (around 8,000+ attend); I wonder if it will be the last? Hope everyone is safe and makes it there eventually. I’m not attending, fortunately or unfortunately.
Put down a seat deposit yesterday for law school for S.
I’m glad my kids didn’t turn out to be wild Midwestern preacher’s kids!
Last night H, D and I went to see the musical Waitress, which is in previews (Broadway debut is a week from tomorrow). H’s birthday is today and D’s was earlier this month. Lots of fun, but show was definitely selected by D. It is the chic-flick equivalent of a Broadway musical.
@kmcmom13 - can’t wait to hear how the pool experiment goes! Glad you are doing all the work, and we just get to read the entertaining descriptions!
Sounds like a show I would love!
Speaking of shows I would love, kmc- I would love to see Earth Wind and Fire. We do have tickets to see Jackson Browne on H’s birthday in June.
Tonight i am going to see the team finals for NCAA women’s gymnastics. Son’s fiancé is going with me. I’ve started just buying tickets to things I want to see and finding a “date” for it later.