Parent of a High School Student?

We met this week with EM's high school counselor to plan his classes for next year. He has decided to drop band so he can double up on math.

I can't decide if by supporting this we are encouraging his passion or giving him enough rope to hang himself academically. He has no doubts. He's convinced that honors algebra 2 is an easier class than band. (And it might be. Our band program is not for the faint of heart.)

Taking this route means that we'll be winging it a bit for his senior year, since he will finish the formal math offerings as a junior. There are options (independent study B/C Calculus, a summer class at the state university, a night class at the community college), but they aren't guaranteed.

But hey, I figure this feeling of closing my eyes and trusting EM can handle it should be good practice for when he gets his driving permit.

LW's on a Roll Today

On the way to church this morning
LW: Mom, look at me.
Me: I'm driving. I have to look at the road.
LW: I want you to see if I look cute.
Me: You always look cute.
LW: Yes, but I want you to tell me if this is the cutest ever.

During Children's Time, the minister was talking to the kids about the importance of focusing on the present.
Reverend Susan: So you shouldn't live in the past . . .
LW, interrupting: Because if you lived in the past, you'd be dead by now!

One of the other members of the congregation asked Susan how she felt being the straight man for a four-year-old.

Flooding

Sunday I drove down to Waltham for a week of meetings at work. It was raining heavily during the drive, but that's not unusual, so I didn't really think much of it, other than wishing my cute little rental car didn't have such a tendency to hydroplane.

And then I got onto the side streets. I've never seen water gushing up out of the storm drains before. The size of the puddles reminded me of the Cost Rica guidebook's tips on crossing rivers. I wished I'd left the rental car with Michael and brought the SUV with its high clearance.

Turned on the news Monday morning to watch people being evacuated from their homes in Waltham in the middle of the night. Luckily, the hotel sits on a hill, and the streets between here and work are relatively dry.

The rain stopped sometime Monday night, but the Charles River is still very high here in Waltham, in part because they've had trouble opening the floodgates on the dam. As of this morning, they had only succeeded in opening 5 of the 12.

I'm hoping the flooding concerns ease up by tomorrow night, because I want to go to the Irish pub for dinner so I can listen to the live Irish music on St. Patrick's Day. But the pub (and most of the good restaurants in Waltham) are on the other side of the river. In fact, I'm pretty sure that the news coverage about the dam that I saw this morning was shot from the patio of the Mexican restaurant I'm eating at later this week.

Stress

It's been a surprisingly stressful past few days.

Work needs me to spend a week in Waltham before we go on vacation, and once I factored in Michael's trip to Costa Rica, Passover (my boss is Jewish), and various kids' events, this coming week looked to be the best week. So I arranged my meetings and lined up my hotel room and rental car.

And then the floodgates opened. I am feeling decidedly guilty at the week Michael is going to have, and telling myself that the inn was his idea and we have two employees who can help him with breakfast is not making me feel better. Of course, by the time I realized how awful it was going to be, it was too late to change my trip.

We've also been trying to wrap up some financial matters before I go (corporate tax paperwork due Monday and a loan refinance). So we've both been corresponding with our attorney and loan officer (old and new) and the accountant. The loan officer was nice enough to stop by the inn yesterday, so we could sign papers with LW napped.

So far, today's schedule has looked like this:

5:30 Wake up and start prepping for an early breakfast (racers today and tomorrow)
6:30--9:30 Breakfast
9:40 Take the kids to swimming lessons
11:20 Back from swimming
12:40 Take IM to ski resort to sell Girl Scout cookies at the booth
2:20 Get back from cookie selling and have Michael drop me off to pick up rental car. (Garage is closed on Sunday.) Pick up tax forms.
3:00 Michael leaves for Costco. I deal with guests.

I still need to do laundry so I can pack, but at this point I need to wait until the guests have all showered and left for dinner.

It doesn't help that our streak of low-maintenance guests seems to have come to an abrupt end, right at the end of the season when our cheer is at its lowest.

I'm currently trying to reach a guest room to tell them that I've had complaints about their middle of the night party last night and there can't be a repeat tonight. This is not the room someone complained about at 10:30 last night. Michael called them then, and as far as we know they settled down.

Ironically, when our housekeeper went in this morning to clean the room of the complainer (who was quite angry), she reported that he's been smoking pot in the room. I thought pot was supposed to mellow people out?

Four-year-old wooing

LW just came down from bed sobbing.

I just love you so much when I grow up I'll never be able to find someone else to marry! I'll never find anyone as pretty as you!

On booking travel

We are finishing our trip in France with a stop at Disneyland Paris, and booking our reservations for that was at the top of my To Do list this weekend.

Disney's web site assumes if you are using a browser with English as the default language and you want to look at the Disney Paris pages, you must be in the United Kingdom. So I've been using the UK Disney site.

When booking, Title is a mandatory field, and on the UK site, in addition to Dr., Mr., Mrs., and Ms, the list includes Lord and Lady.

I was tempted to give myself a promotion.

On a related note, my ever-vigilant credit card company denied payment at first, despite my call to them yesterday notifying them that I would be booking travel in Europe this weekend. When I called to clear that up, the nice young man in India tried to sell me identify theft protection, so no one could make fraudulent charges.

Fraudulent charges? I can't even make legitimate charges without multiple phone calls.