Tuesday, May 5 - Thursday, May 7: Maycember

We're deep into Maycember now, the frantic rush to the end of the school year when there are five million things to do in addition to all the usual things. Andrew was, once again, out of town, this time on a last-minute trip to a farm demonstration somewhere in Florida; but fortunately it was only two days. In the meantime, the kids had track and crew; I partnered with friendly frozen foods from Costco to keep us all alive; I forgot to take out the garbage on garbage night; and had my monthly labs and checkup. (Another decrease in my CA-125, plus an acceptable level of absolute neutrophils--good news!)

By Thursday, a few things had been achieved. I got Greta and her friend tickets to Olivia Rodrigo by waiting in the ticket queue and then refreshing the seat options one thousand times. Andrew, also in the queue, grabbed two more for Lucia and her friend. It felt like an achievement. 

Lucia ran the 1600 and 3200 at her "last chance" track meet--the last meet where the kids have a chance to reduce their times to qualify for WPIALs--and did well. She'll find out if she qualified on Sunday night. I took the afternoon off so Andrew and I could go watch her. If she does not qualify, then this was the last track meet of the season.

Also Thursday, Lucia finally found out she got the camp counseling job at school for the summer. This is a huge relief, since if she didn't get it she would have had to find a retail job, and working out a schedule with her daily SAT prep classes would have been tricky, not to mention our week in Cape May and our very-much-hoped-for two weeks in NH. I'll give up a lot of things...but not those weeks. Not yet. We are all feeling a little desperate to get to NH, ready for two weeks of it being quiet and just the four of us, doing what we do, which is read in hammocks, walk on the gravel road, sit around the fire pit, and hang out at the pond. Absolute bliss. It may well be the last summer where two weeks are possible, and I'm holding onto them with the steely-eyed, rabid defensiveness of a fisher cat. That New Hampshire-inspired metaphor makes no sense at all! But maybe the image of me with bared fangs and raised claws, hissing at our over-scheduled and over-hectic life and the spectre of future summer classes and trips and commitments, telling them to stay THE HELL away from us for one more summer, isn't so far off. 

Anyhoo! Molly and I continue to send each other nineties-tastic tidbits from letters and emails and journals. Along with the letters Molly found in Mom and Dad's attic earlier this week, she also found a huge binder of printed-out emails from the mid-nineties that she'd sent to her friend. Printed-out emails from our very first shared family email account! Saved from oblivion! And these are gems. Molly sent me some photos of these emails this week that were so funny I had to sit down because I was laughing too hard to walk. She is a funny, funny writer, and this is difficult for me to say, but she might just have more detailed and epic stories from our waitressing days than I do. Turns out she is just as much a chronicler as I am--it just took a different form than journaling. Unearthing all of her writings is a transformational addition to the archive, which is growing from a personal archive to a family one. What else will we find?...