Friday Photos

A look back at the week, Monday through Friday, through photos:

The week started off quiet but busy. I was scheduled to sub on Monday and Wednesday but ended up subbing everyday except for Thursday. It wasn't bad but kept me on my toes and waking up early.

Wednesday was a very busy day; activities included me being fingerprinted. Fortunately this was not necessary pursuant to an arrest, rather for an updated background check to keep my sub license. I subbed Wednesday and instead of going home after the school day ended, I drove to nearby Lebanon to get fingerprinted.  Every five years (I think...) the state requires a new background check for subs to retain their license. To get fingerprinted for the background check, I had to drive to my official employer, an educational service center, whose office is in Lebanon. The good news is the fee for the background check is now waived. The bad news is that appointments are necessary and the last appointment of the day would be possible to attend but only by going straight from school to Lebanon.

When I made the appointment, I forgot that I had dinner plans at a restaurant with friends. I seldom eat dinner out during the week with non family members so this was an aberration in my schedule. When I arrived home from Lebanon, I had about forty minutes until I had to leave for the restaurant. In that time, Alyssa asked me if I'd run a quick errand with her so I did that. That gave me about ten minutes at home... I instructed Alyssa on making an easy meal for her and Donnie for when he came home from work. Donnie is fully capable of making himself something to eat. But, he comes home hungry after working hard all day for us. He does this five days a week about fifty one weeks of the year- he deserves to not have to do all that work and and have to make his dinner, too. (Also if necessity is the mother of all inventions, then me asking the kids, over the years, to help make a meal when I would be absent for dinner, has helped them sharpen their meal making skills which will serve them well later.)

I hadn't been that busy on Wednesday since mom's taxi service was necessary to get driver licenseless kids to their various activities. I have become accustomed to our quasi empty nest (and one where the remaining "bird" in the nest has her driver's license) and much less busy lifestyle. Wednesday wiped me up.... I didn't work on Thursday which was nice.

I just took one picture on Wednesday- when I was at school about ready to get out of the car in the morning, I realized that I still had a tag on my sweatshirt. Wednesday and Friday are casual days at school, ergo the sweatshirt.

Abby is interested in doing a study abroad program and to that end has begun the process of applying for a program and sending us information about the program that she wants to do. In addition to reading what she's sent us, I spent time this week reading in general about study abroad. I agree with most of the information that her college has on its website about the experiences/ expectation of such programs. 

Alyssa requested that we go prom dress shopping when she got home from school on Thursday so we did just that.

Some of the dresses that she tried on...

While she tried on dresses, I settled in on the seating area outside her door and took a few selfies (my kind of selfies- far away from the camera!)

I call this one, "A door (or four), lots of floor, and a bored mama waiting in a store."

We found a dress that we both liked and got it. It was the most expensive one in the store but I had "noped" so many that I was happy to find one that we both liked.

Then we ate at Agave & Rye- it's one of our favorite restaurants

Good tacos...

... odd decor

What a week politically! I mean, if this were a political blog, I would have more fodder than I would know what to do with (though in truth, every week contains plenty of important political events. This week seems to have an especially high number of big socio-political news stories).

First thing- the Grammy awards. They happened Sunday night but I wasn't aware that they occurred until Monday morning so I'm counting it as this week ;). One of the biggest stories to come out of it was the Satanic inspired? homage to? performance by a group of individuals. I'm not going to write about that event- the thing speaks horrifically for itself- but rather a couple of observations I made about myself. One is one I made earlier- I had no idea that the Grammys (ies?) was (were?) happening. That is because I watch no network TV so I didn't see any ads about it and have no interest in award shows. I'm almost positive in the almost half a century that I've been alive, I have never watched more than five minutes of any awards show- a Grammy, an Academy Awards, an Emmy, etc. Watching awards shows holds zero interest to me. It's not that I have zero interest in knowing, say, what movie won the academy award for best picture- I just have no desire to watch the award show itself. I'm grateful for the non interest. It would make knowing the devolvement of the entertainment industry that much more difficult. 

Growing up, we had a black and white TV in our house that got three fuzzy channels (that's what being poor and living in the boonies will do to ya'). Needless to say, I didn't watch a lot of TV growing up (my parents didn't allow us to watch much on that grainy screen whether I would have wanted to or not!). Now we have multiple large, crystal clear screens with which to watch hundreds of channels. But old habits die hard- you can take the girl out of the house with the barest TV watching capabilities but you can't take the results of living in a house with the barest TV watching capabilities out of the girl!! Donnie grew up in  a typical suburban household and as such had access to cable TV and watched more TV than I did growing up. But, he shares, for the most part, my lack of pop culture interest as it pertains to TV shows and especially award shows. I think we've passed down our non interest in award shows to the kids (though their lack of interest may have as much to do with the fact that social media and its time trappings have lessened their interest in  Hollywood "stars").

It's sad to me to think of how the mainstream entertainment industry has devolved (eg gratuitous half time shows at the Superbowl (we watched the Superbowl last year since the Bengals were in it but we turned the TV off at halftime to avoid what was likely to be bawdy "entertainment"), Satanic inspired performances like the recent one, etc.) but I'm glad that my time and emotional investment in the entertainment industry has been minimal. And as time passes, both of those investments for me are decreasing.

The Chinese spy balloon was shot down this week. While nothing about the spy balloon itself was funny, the reactions and memes approximated something funny.

 

Lastly, House Republicans voted this week to end the requirement for those entering the country legally to have the Covid-19 vaccine. Seven Democrats joined the House Republicans for this vote. 

Almost every country has done away with the requirement in light of the vaccine's failure to perform as a vaccine since it does not stop the transmission of Covid.

I found  many of the comments of this article to be interesting and ones that I completely agree with

I read many articles from The Daily Mail. Since it's not an American news outlet, it seems a little more dispassionate about American news and more balanced. It isn't as beholden to certain interests as the American mainstream media is. For example, it doesn't think that Pfizer is the best corporation to ever corporate. 

Finally, this isn't political, rather something that resonated with me. I mean, I hope it never applies to me because I hope I'm never killed. But, if I am, I hope that no one says that I light up a room because I don't ;)