Percy Jackson and the Olympics

It's been awhile, again. Apologies. The kids have been home pretty much non-stop for the past 3 weeks, stuck in the house, bored, getting on my nerves and basically sucking away any and all time to myself when I'd normally write a blog entry. Thursday this week was the first time I'd had any quiet Me Time, and that was filled by an attempt to catch up on homework. How I'm looking forward to Monday when there are no more snow days and no more 2-hour delays. Right? The Farmer's Almanac had better be wrong. My mom mentioned it claims March will be our snowiest month this year.

The first day we could really get out without too much worry over roads, parking lots, etc., we went to Potomac Mills and saw "Percy Jackson and the Olympians: The Lightning Thief." I won't spoil it, but it is not the book. Major characters are missing, the main characters act differently than expected, and the storyline is changed. Aside from the general theme - lightning bolt is stolen, Percy must return it - the details are 80-90% different than the books, not just cut for time but different. Now, I do have to say that the movie is good, if you take it on its own. Katherine was the only one of our group who hadn't read the book first and she liked it. We all enjoyed it, and it was worth going to see at the theater, but it's hard to get past the disappointment that it wasn't what the story we enjoyed reading together.
The Winter Olympics hasn't disappointed at all. Our viewing of "Fringe" from Netflix has been put on hold as we watch skiing and luging and hockey and speed skating and snowboarding and all the rest of the death-defying sports that winter holds so dear. It's so much more fun than most of the Summer Olympics, and I far preferred Canada's Opening Ceremony to China's. Show of hands who thought the whales were amazing and the circus kid was awesome. If you missed it you can read about it on wikipedia or EW's best/worst blog. I wish there was an on-line video of Thomas Saulgrain's aerial performance but I can't find one on youtube or nbc.com. This is the first time I've really paid attention to the Winter games, beyond the ice skating, in fact this year we've hardly watched any pairs or singles skating at all. I've finally begun to enjoy (from far, far, afar) the craziness that winter sports entail. Aside from curling, every winter game has an element of danger you just don't always get in summer games of running and swimming and biking and throwing stuff. Even cross-country skiing, an exhausting but comparatively harmless sport, can get paired with shooting a gun. Skiiers plunge off a mountain top. Lugers and skeletons shoot down a tube of ice at 90 mph with blades under them. Ice hockey with blades, big sticks, speed, and a puck that can crush bones with the force slapped into it. What's not to enjoy? And to think there's only another week of midnight excitement.
Once the Olympics are done we'll go back to our normal programming. "Amazing Race" is back on Sundays, yay! "Lost" is back on Tuesdays, yay! Katherine and Rebecca have started "Lost" from the beginning this week and pepper us with questions after each episode, which of course we won't (or can't) answer. We'll continue with "Fringe" though I'm not that invested in it, and Ian bought the first season of "Glee" for Valentine's Day so we'll give that a whirl. What are you all watching nowadays? And what are you reading? Aside from my texts, I picked up Vampire Diaries and Vampire Academy. Vampire Diaries was far too similar to Twilight for me to care to continue past the first portion, The Awakening. Vampire Academy seems to have a different slant, so we'll see how that progresses. Out loud we're reading The Hunger Games and then we're on to book 3 of the Percy Jackson series. My plan to go go through all the Harry Potter books this year got waylaid.
All the kids are above grade level in Reading. That seems odd to me somehow. Nicholas is working his way through the Lloyd Alexander books, Jonathon hops around to everything from Diary of a Wimpy Kid to Spiderwick to Harry Potter. For a kid who can't write well or spell hardly at all, it's amazing how quickly he reads. Report cards finally came home and everything was either at or above expectations. Katherine pulled out 5 As and 2 Bs for the semester, Rebecca got straight As again, Nicholas got all As and one B+ for 2nd quarter, Jonathon is in the solid B zone. I'm pleased with their grades, but it does cause me some concern that they won't be ready to reintegrate to our next American/International School. Because guess what, we bid this year. Crazy. We'd better start packing in the fun U.S. stuff.
So, I have to mention a couple tidbits.
Last week we took the kids to KFC for a break from home cooking. It took us 45 minutes to get our food and for waiting patiently we got a free chocolate cake. Nifty.
As I was checking out at the grocery store, a lady came into the line behind me who knew the cashier. They started chatting when the cashier asked where person X was. Lady behind me said X was in the hospital, and she looked on the verge of tears. Cashier asked why so Lady said "Cancer." *uncomfortable silence as I'm still standing there getting checked out* Cashier breaks the silence by saying "Was it the drinking?" *um, I don't want to stand here anymore* Lady says it was. Cashier asks what stage he's in, Lady says they don't know he just went to the hospital on Friday and they're still running tests. Cashier asks what symptoms he had, Lady says he was having pain. They continue and I finally get to pay and gather my bags as Cashier starts checking out Lady and her 3 items. As I pick up bags Cashier asks Lady if there's anything else she needs.
Lady asks for 2 cartons of cigarettes.

Just because we got a ton of snow doesn't mean global warming isn't real.

We're not exactly in permafrost or a new ice age. Snow is a result of moisture, excessive moisture in our case this winter. Do as many people doubt that something is up when massive hurricanes hit? When our latest blizzard finally made it offshore the satellite images captured a Category 2 strength hurricane shaped storm. Just because it happened in winter and took on the form of snow actually continues to display how crazy the weather has become. Don't get caught up in semantics that global warming means everywhere around the world has to be roasting all at once. Our poles are melting, our jet streams are off line, our weather is getting harsher in all climates during all seasons.

Look at Vancouver... the Winter Games are starting up and Canada is having a too-warm no-snow kind of winter. They are trucking in snow from mountains hours away so the skiers have something to ski on. Wow.

Here's what Repower America has to say about it. And The Daily Show clip is well worth watching.

Now I'm just angry.

Yeah. I hate winter. Live with it. But I'll suffer in relative silence as long as winter just sucks. But when winter gets mean, I get angry.

Yesterday was Katherine's birthday. She's 14. It's her favorite number, she says, and she's acting more and more like a young lady. Oh she has her moments, believe me, but on the whole there are now more days when I like her than want to toss her out the window. But you know, no matter how difficult a year might be (and this has been an easy one by far), birthdays are special. You want your child, your spouse, your friend, to feel loved and appreciated and, well, special.

Then winter and snow hit.
Katherine's birthday fell on Friday, February 5th, a great way to have a complete birthday weekend. She was supposed to go to school, have Happy Birthdays tossed at her from every direction and her locker decorated. She was supposed to stay after school for an SCA sponsored Activity Day dance/games/snacks deal. Basically, a party on her birthday. My mom (who shares a birthday with her, so her day was messed up too), was supposed to come down to our house and celebrate with cake and presents. My mom was supposed to bring Katherine back up with her and to a metro stop so Katherine could train downtown and meet up with Ian for a Caps/Thrashers hockey game at the Verizon center. She opened her gifts which included ice skating lessons starting next Saturday for a month, along with passes for open skate times.
Want to know what happened? Winter happened. Snow happened. The threat of snow was enough that school was canceled on Friday even though we had barely a dusting stick by 5 p.m. No locker decorations, no SCA party. My mom couldn't come down for fear she'd get stuck here for days. Snow picked up at sundown and was gathering quickly, Ian (who had worked from home, just in case) knew it was too dangerous to make the 50 minute trip downtown because who knew what weather conditions would really be like 4 hours later. But... the game wasn't canceled, so the tickets are lost. They watched it on TV. A huge bummer. At least the skate lessons were still on, right?
Then today we read this: Prince William Ice Center Collapses. I kid you not, the center for her lessons collapsed. Thankfully no one was hurt, they were having speed skating races but when the roof started groaning they evacuated everyone.
[And my dad was supposed to get back in town last night to at least see my mom on her birthday. He's stuck in Chicago.]
Katherine is taking it well. She went sledding with her friends today, and played Rock Band with them too. I don't see school opening on Monday, so I'm guessing she'll do a sleep-over tomorrow night.
I'm just done with winter. I'm done with it interfering with life. We haven't lost power, which is a total blessing, because you know we don't have generators here.
If we do lose power, I'm moving back to Chennai. OK, don't hold me to that, but right this very second it's awfully tempting.

The search for a sled (or four)

Can't be done. They don't exist anymore. I've looked everywhere and kicked myself for not buying the 2-pack from Costco a few weeks ago. I checked Costco, ToysRUs (sign in the window: no sleds), Target, Wal-Mart. I decided rather than traipsing around to more places I'd look it up on-line. Sold out, everywhere, unless I want to wait a couple weeks. Snow is coming tomorrow, can't wait a couple weeks.

Today I figured it was time to get creative so I went to Lowes. I looked at heavy duty floor mats. I looked for large round flower pot bottom things (you know, so water doesn't run all over the ground), I looked at metal tubing to see if it could be cut to something useful, I looked at rubbermaid box tops, I looked at trash can lids and found something that I figured would work pretty well but I didn't need the $17 trash can that went with the lid. Up and down aisles, seeing bathroom things I'd like (oooh, a rounded shower door! French doors for the deck! a storm door for the front! and this way cool stuff for the kitchen counters, a do-it-yourself kit to resurface countertops).

And then I found this. What do you think, will it work?

Oh look, snow.

And guess what, more snow.

I'm tired of winter and cold and snow. More snow is expected Friday to Saturday, possibly another 12-20 inches. Don't believe me? Check out http://www.weather.com/newscenter/stormwatch/ Enough already, this is Virginia, this is the SOUTH. Did the weather systems not get the memo? Ugh. We didn't make it to church on Sunday because we were digging out from the 6-inches that fell Saturday night. Yesterday all afterschool activities were canceled which were drama and flute, and included Katherine's R.E. class at church in the evening.
And to make it all worse Katherine's birthday is Friday, she has an SCA-sponsored afterschool activity day scheduled, and then was supposed to celebrate at our house with my mom who shares the same birthdate before hopping a metro to go downtown and attend a Caps game with her dad. Everything is completely up in the air now, and looks more and more like it won't happen. This is so not fair. I'd better make a really great cake tomorrow.
Of course with family home all weekend, then kids home Monday for a teacher in-service, today Ian worked from home and the kids had a snow day, when am I supposed to get all my school work done? Tomorrow I have to return library books (can't renew them, arg), go to Costco, and bake a cake, it all really eats into my study time while the kids are in school. But it has to be done. I guess I'll try to finish studying tonight so I can take a quiz first thing tomorrow and log into my second class (which started on Monday and I just haven't gotten around to it). I'm really trying to exercise each day too, shoveling snow counted for me today, and follow my calories for a bit with http://www.mydailyplate.com to see what I'm really eating. Wow, the sugars are off the scale!
There aren't enough hours in the day.
Last Friday I did spend the early part of the day with my parents and the latter half with Ian at FSI for Flag Day. I didn't know anyone getting their flags, but it was fun to hear where all these folks new to the FS will be spending the next few years. Tajikistan anyone?
Oh, and has anyone seen my watch?

Drive-By

Quick, here are some photos. Nothing terribly exciting, but I finished Chapter 2 in my Geography class and still have to take a shower and get groceries, so nothing but bare bones today...


I know my parents will get a kick out of that one. They'll just shake their heads. Nicholas now has 2 nasty stuffed falling-apart dogs he drags around the house, even though we tell him they have to stay on his bed.

This is Katherine's new blanket. It took a couple weeks from start to finish and isn't as big as I wanted, but was quick and very fuzzy.

The whole third grade did a Jack and Annie musical skit about the government systems of ancient civilizations of Egypt (Jonathon's class), Italy, Greece and Mali.

It happens to everyone.

The day comes when you fall out of the habit of even minor updates to the blog. Well, it's time to get back on the horse, and this will be a Random Recap.

First off, Haiti. If you'd like to help check out the Center for International Disaster Information, and CNN has put up a list of aid/relief sites you can support. Physically useful items like the ShelterBox are hugely helpful. A full box costs $1000, but every donation helps support another box and another shelter for 10 people. If you are looking for an American, please check the State Department website on how to go about finding them. If you'd like to make an instant donation to the Red Cross, simply text "HAITI" to 90999 and $10 will be charged to your phone bill. You all have cell phones, put them to good use.

More than 100 U.N. peacekeeper staff are missing. Hundreds of thousands of Haitians feared dead. This is on par with the tsunami of 2004.

When I was in high school, my dad spent 18 months serving in Haiti. He lived in a house on the side of a big hill, and so did I when I spent the summer with him, up a rough and bumpy trail of a road more pothole than road itself. I would guess that house no longer stands.

So, as we continue on into 2010 and count our blessings while praying that those blessings are shared and helping those who desperately need help...
The last you heard from us, we were expecting a white Christmas and we finally did dig out from our nearly 2 feet of white stuff. But the snow, which is now large blocks of glacier ice where the plows piled it up, still lingers. Another dusting to an inch of the powder made everything white again. We're thankful not to be in the midwest where they have been pummeled by snow accumulation and frigid arctic air. Yet across the country, we are plain, frozen, cold. Even Texas and Florida are suffering. The crops in Florida may not make it if the snap doesn't end soon. And iguanas are falling out of trees again. Lengthy cold can kill them, which is either a good or bad thing, depending on who you talk to about these non-native reptiles. The frigid weather continues but a break is on the horizon.
I won't go so far as my friend, Danie, who spent a winter in Halifax, Canada and chose to embrace the season above her grumbles and complaints. I have chosen to suffer silently and try to spare my family from two more months of whines and angst. I imagine the past month hasn't been pleasant for them, so as an additional Christmas gift I will button my lip about how cold my feet are each and every day. I. Don't. Do. Winter.
Except for hockey. No, I don't play hockey, that would require an ability to skate well and funding for a ton of gear and a desire to intentionally be frozen on a sheet of ice for hours at a time. Right. But watching hockey, that's a different story. Ian and I gave the kids to grandparents the day after Christmas so we could go downtown, stay overnight in a hotel, and watch the Washington Capitals play the NJ Devils live at the Verizon Center. Caps won, I joined the Scarlet Caps for the fun of it and Ian might take Katherine to a game for her birthday. We watched the Winter Classic on TV on Jan 1st, and on Jan 2nd we took the kids to the Caps practice rink at Ballston Common to watch the FBI vs. US Secret Service. At $5 a ticket going to charity it was a perfect Saturday afternoon outing. Now if only I could figure out a way to put Jonathon in hockey. It would be perfect to expend some of his energy since you can't ever really relax or get sidetracked. Something to think about next winter.
Winter also brings Christmas, and Christmas I do. Christmas was great. Everyone got several special somethings. From fuzzy blankets and slippers, to new cameras and perfume, to gadgets and gizmos and clothes galore. After Midnight Mass we allowed the kids to exchange their gifts to each other and to us, but all the rest waited until my parents and maternal grandmother (Babcia) arrived on Christmas afternoon for lunch and brought a trunkload of gifts to share. We spent the entire afternoon opening, having dessert, opening, having another dessert, opening... No pressure but so many thoughtful gifts it was a bit overwhelming. As it is every Christmas. We are blessed to lack for nothing and be able to shower each other with tokens of our affection. The Holiday Shop at the boys' school saved the day with affordable and appropriate items for everyone in the family. This was the first year the boys really got in with the gift-giving and they really put a lot of thought into their choices of picture frames, jewelry and tools. As is the goal, they were as giddy about giving as they were receiving.
My goal next Christmas is to finally get each person in my family to choose a Kiva.org or GoodGifts.org or a similar program to join. What's your favorite service? Christmas should be a time for more than just our family to feel good. And once that idea gets going there's everything that says it should spread throughout the year.
Speaking of good feelings, a little aside - I attended the PTSO meeting at the girls' school on Monday. What a poor showing of maybe a dozen parents from a school of 1075 students (I'm to blame too, I had no intention of going) but Katherine was there as SCA president to introduce herself to the PTSO board and the rest of us. Before the meeting, Katherine's band teacher was chatting with her (he plays with an adult band group that practices at the school). One of the adult band members came up and her teacher introduced her by calling her a "gift from God" to his class as a good flute player and a good kid. Last week Katherine was moved to 3rd chair flute in band class, so to say that this is helping her reevaluate music in her life and giving her a positive influence outside the home is an understatement. It's these things that can truly form a person's character. Katherine has a good heart and being acknowledged as a good person can plant a wonderful seed of self-determination.
OK, back to my quick recap. Before my grandmother returned to Wisconsin, my dad took us all out for trip through ICE! and a fantastic dinner at the Gaylord Hotel at National Harbor. ICE! really was surprising, and if we thought we were cold outside it didn't compare to how frozen we were in the tent surrounded by millions of pounds of carved ice sculptures. Before entering everyone was give a hooded parka jacket and you could tell most people thought it was overkill on top of their own coats and hats. It wasn't. By the time we made our way by the funky penguins, our feet were aching with the cold. The clear ice angels and nativity were the most impressive in my opinion, though the fishing Coca-Cola bears were my favorite overall. If the ice artisans are coming by your neck of the woods some year, I encourage you to see their talent. They have a gift.
Speaking of gifts (again), a gift I'm giving myself this year is better health and a stronger body. Maybe next year I won't be so miserable in the cold if I'm feeling better and have more muscle overall. I'm attempting the hundredpushups challenge and maybe even the twohundredsitups challenge. I've pulled out the Wii Fit again (and the new Wii Fit extra, whatever that's called) and will try to do it each weekday. I've told myself I won't eat after 8 p.m. and I'm allowed a treat a day. What is a treat? A treat is a cup of hot cocoa, or cookies, or a piece of chocolate, or a slice of cake (you get the idea) but not all the above. Basically any source of empty calories is a treat. I initially had "a soda" in there too, but decided I'd just toss soda out entirely and I'm not missing it. I've had good days, I've had bad days like yesterday, but I figure a bad day doesn't mean I toss the whole plan out so I plug on. I'm also trying to eat breakfast before 9 a.m. and I'm trying to make breakfast a heavy protein meal, lunch a heavy vegetable meal, and dinner a more balanced lower fat meal. Today, I missed breakfast, so one strike there already. Tomorrow, I'll eat breakfast, promise.
So there you have it.
Except for one more thing. The other day while watching TV there was a toilet paper commercial. The commercial claimed that with its new thicker product a used could cut down from using 28 squares of TP to only 7 squares.
Is it me or did anyone else choke on those numbers? Who in their right mind uses 28 squares of TP, even of the worst, thinnest paper around. Who? And now we can "cut down" to 7? Really? ONLY 7?
I don't even know what to say.