Originally titled this one with the word Autumn, but that's next week (well, today as I finish this!). I always think of the first day of school as the first day of Autumn, but they're actually 5 weeks apart, at least this year, and at least in California.
First, picture proof that my kids are cute and their hair is getting long. Iain went through the "awkward growing out hair" stage in late winter / early spring, and now it is thick and quite lovely. Ria is growing her bangs out, also thick and lovely. Me, I got my first proper haircut in over 6 months last week! William is doing hockey play-off rules, it might get cut when he gets a Covid vaccine, i.e., when the vaccine play-offs are over.
Ria's eyes were very much unpleased with distance learning due to excessive screen time and losing their outdoor time (no biking to and from school, no outdoor class passing, etc.) Her eye cross went from barely noticeable at her check-up last year to so extreme they'd suggest considering surgery if they didn't know how good it was last year. Prescription is strongly up too. So, we've got her computer glasses now, an external monitor that is big and a bit more distant, and she's actively working with the school district's vision therapist again. Here she is with her new glasses and new school day setup. (Freya is helping, as you can see.)
Fire season started early, and came on not like a lion, but like a herd of thundering wildebeest being chased by murder hornets and tornadoes, where the tornadoes are filled with lions. The dry lightning storms occurred the Sunday night before the first day of school, 16 Aug, and by Wednesday the smoke started coming in. For 3 weeks we had variable smoke levels from the nearby CZU Lightning Complex fire, and the slightly farther but still close SCU Lightning Complex fire.
Then, just for fun, the dishwasher leaked. At 1 AM or so. Came out Saturday morning at 8 AM to a puddle on the family room floor. This picture is after I dried it all up. Doesn't look that exciting, really, there's just those little wet marks at the ends of the boards on the floor.
Turns out it was plenty exciting. 7 hours of puddling on the floor allowed it to buckle the floor and leave evil dampness on the subfloor. So a section of floor was ripped out, and some perniciously LOUD fans and dehumidifiers became part of our life. They were supposed to stay for 4 days, but only some were removed at 5 days, the rest stayed for 10 days. 10 very long days of exquisite noise.
So, the fans were originally supposed to be removed on Iain's 17th birthday, a little present, but they weren't. Meanwhile in the outside world the wind kicked in and some fires a bit out of the area went out of control. The day after Iain's birthday we all woke up to apocalyptic orange skies (and most fans were removed that day). It was an odd feeling birthday for him and for us; the air was suddenly unsafe to breathe, for nearly a week. It felt like the world just didn't want us to ever leave our house, and meanwhile inside the house it was loud and chaotic. Sanity level was not good.
Ah, but you say, at least the chaos inside the house was trending downwards.... Unfortunately, that was not true. The subfloor under the tile wasn't drying, and its wetness extended further than the original tech had even measured.... So, after the skies cleared a bit, and the air got better, we got to have the tile chiseled out last Friday and got another weekend of dehumidifier time (that's the 3rd loud weekend in a row, for those who might want to count). Well, chiseled is probably the wrong word, since we're guessing it was the previous owner who put in the tile, as a professional probably wouldn't have covered the floor with chicken wire and put down concrete to set the tile into, and the concrete wouldn't chisel cleanly, so the circular saw had to come out, and there was much dust, along with the noise. Joy, thine name is 2020....NOT!
In this case, though, we lucked out a bit. It was looking like it would require 10 tiles to fix/replace the removed ones, and we only have 7 spare in the garage. However, because of the chicken wire the moisture meter was overstating the problem and only 6 tiles will be needed to fix the kitchen floor...YAY! Today the last dehumidifier left, and we are officially done with the "water abatement" stage of recovery. (We already have the new dishwasher in!!) Air is a bit bad again, but not dangerous... in the yellow.
At the same time, Iain is a SENIOR, so college applications are to be started. Oh, but what about SAT's and ACT's you ask? The tests scheduled for March 13 were cancelled the day before they were to occur. April, cancelled, May? nope. June? Nope. I rescheduled the August tests we got into to Nov/Dec. (We're scheduling for both the ACT and SAT, figuring that at most we will manage one of the two.) If we get to January unable to test, we're going to stop trying. Everyone will understand. Not actually stressed about it, but jumping through the hoops of trying to get them scheduled so we can say we tried our best. Iain managed to pick schools to apply to, and we're starting the process. All the "conveniences" of the computer age make it more complicated and cumbersome than William and I had to deal with. Ugh, what a pain!! The 3 of us are working together to get the grunt work done, then Iain has the important "I'm awesome" essays to write on his own. Fortunately Canadian schools don't care about recommendation letters for undergraduate applications, so the bit where he didn't request them in the spring doesn't matter! Hah! Take THAT you silly over-cumbersome American college application process!
And, meanwhile, there's still a pandemic!!!! And, since California's numbers aren't the best, the kids are 100% distance learning. School is much better structured than it was in the spring, though, so both kids are doing OK. We're pleased with the way our county (and state) are dealing with the situation with well defined benchmarks that have to be met before X can occur, and a basically very conservative (safety-wise) approach to reopening plans. As one county said, though, they can put together all the best plans in the world, but if people won't stop having parties without masks and without social distancing there is nothing the county can do to fix the numbers. We have recently in Santa Clara gone down to the "red" category from the "purple" category, so soon the county and schools can consider whether to start a limited amount of in-person schooling. We're unlikely to see anything happen with our kids in a school until probably November, though, and even then it would certainly be only 2 days a week in limited number cohorts. The state's new system is here:
https://covid19.ca.gov/safer-economy/
I haven't checked against anywhere in England or New Hampshire or Rhode Island yet, but in California's system Toronto is down in the middle of the orange tier. It's nice to be able to compare and understand. (Post-edit.... Toronto actually is going up noticeably, more like 3.6 new cases daily/100k, so they're at the top of the orange, in danger of hitting red.)
Well, I'm caught up to "live", so this is pretty much it for the recent flurry of posts. Between the wildfires, the air quality, mild flooding in the house, and the pandemic, it is just a weird, exhausting, crazy, overwhelming time in our house. We're chugging along, though. AND the elliptical is finally on its way -- should arrive in San Jose this week! There's some good news!
