That kid is so lucky to have you. 
Do please wish him a happy birthday for me (preferably with no explanation, just “random weirdo on the Web wishes you a happy birthday”).
Just came back from a 20-minute dip in our hot tub. Back feels a good deal better, good start!
Now, we wait to see the effects of 104-degree (Fahrenheit) chlorinated water on the COVID.
We are back from our Black Forest week-end with friends. Two families couldn‘t come because covid or „possibly covid“… but we were still 14 adults and 6 children for Friday evening through Sunday Morning—most of the time was spent just hanging out… organization was a bit stressful but absolutely worth it. Because covid most parties were canceled in the past two years so this was a great thing to be able to have again—we had planned this excursion for exactly two years ago and had to post-pone twice.
I brought along games in case of bad weather but except for a few late-night rounds of So Kleever and some hands of Skat the weather was just not cooperating with playing games, there were some demands from the piraty hordes to play Libertalia—my copy had arrived an hour before we left—but there just wasn‘t time between all the talking and catching up.
Survived a First Communion/Mothers’ Day/Birthday event weekend. I’m still nice and weak from Covid, so it feels like I ran a marathon. Glad to be back in my classroom, where I’m teaching a group of teenagers how to play Scrabble with a dictionary from 1938.
Applied for my managers old job.
eep.
I’ll throw into the mix that my walking treadmill has been brilliant. I can stroll all day while I’m working - except when dragged into the office of course. Could you manage a setup like that? I know it’s not going to be practical for everyone.
The school board for my district just banned 24 books, and demanded that school librarians account for all their copies, box them up, and send them to the district warehouse. One of them was a health textbook. The also eliminated the review committee, so now the process for challenging a book is:
single parent complaint > school board > decision.
heavy sigh…
Ask them when the book burnings are going to start. 
Reading what’s happening in the US from the UK, it genuinely sounds like a dystopian novel to me.
Certainly has Fahrenheit 451 vibes on the books.
If my book was getting banned, I’d put up a digital version for free…
I mean we certainly talk here about how some books aged badly and aren’t appropriate school reading without a lot of (historical) context. But I have a feeling that’s not the kind of books getting banned.
Someone at the school board meeting where they made the announcement shouted out that they would gladly take the books for burning on their property.
I would say something, but I do not want to inadvertently offend any of our forum members.
I’d imagine most of us can agree that the process/dialog is broken even if we didn’t agree on where exactly the boundaries for children should fall.
In better news, I pulled my first academic all-nighter since my undergrad to complete an assessment for my current grad degree. I wasn’t in a time crunch, but needed a distraction from things out of my control, and got into a flow state. I started working on it after the kids went to bed, and looked up and saw that it was 4 AM. I submitted it for scoring, which usually takes 2-3 days, but got word back from my professor that, when he saw the submission time stamp, he wanted to check and make sure it wasn’t a glitch, and then decided to go ahead and score it. Full marks! I should work in a fugue state more often. Let’s see how I feel after a couple hours trying to teach Language Arts after no sleep…
It’s probably a safer drug than those used by many great figures of literature. 
I did something very similar, but instead of academic, it was a project I am working on to make a splash in my new role at work (I got promoted to Team Lead).
4 fingers of scotch and a late night yielded an “a-ha!” moment around 1am, followed by a victory lap of another 2 fingers before calling it a night.
I started with Jameson, but switched to chai at about 2, once I remembered how old I am.
That’s… six fingers.
Probably explained by the first four fingers being absorbed.
You have six fingers? Someone was looking for you…
On the hangover of a really good work interview that could be really a nice move up in salary and responsibility (there is the word “Manager” in the title). I’m not holding my breath, but I think I did well. And here kicks in my self-doubt as self-protection, I guess…? Just airing it here a bit to let off some steam.