It was warm enough this morning that we could have exercised
by the river, and the rain had stopped; but the ground was really wet, so we
stayed in for Tai Chi.
Though it stayed cloudy for most of the day, it was still
nice and warm; and Rowen and I spent as much time outdoors as we could
today. At school, I wanted to escape the
ongoing tween drama whenever possible, so we ate our lunch outside and didn’t
do anything that put us in the general vicinity of Lisa or her friends. There was one unexpected surprise today too
when we were both given invitations to Gil’s thirteenth birthday party on
Friday. Lisa didn’t look happy about
that when she saw that we’d been included, but since Gil invited everyone else
in our class; he probably just didn’t want to exclude us – even if that would
have been in his best interest. He
earned some bonus friendship points from us for doing that, though I also
expect to be in the tweeird zone while we’re at his party.
I didn’t have to wait until Friday to spend some quality
time in the T-zone, though Rowen and I had fun; and the after-school tween
issues I was dealing with mostly just went a long way toward helping me to get
over feeling sorry for Lisa. Being
followed and spied on for a couple of hours will do that to you.
Rowen and I did our homework first, and I wasn’t
particularly surprised that Michael, Tim, and Nora just happened to be getting
ready for a bike ride just as we were heading out to do the same. Nora convinced the boys that they really
didn’t want to go mucking through the woods today after all of the rain last
night, so we did a construction tour, and then went for a ride in the country
north on Quarry Road and along the roads to the northwest of town. We’d picked up a group of followers while
making the loop around the new section of town, and Lisa and her friends kept
within sight of us for the rest of the ride.
That was enough weird, but going riding with Nora was a close second.
First of all, she doesn’t really like biking for fun. Nora and Vanessa both belong to the group of
girls at our school that are hyper-fashion conscious. Biking is not conducive to keeping perfect
hair and clothes at all times – it’s an unfortunate, small-town transportation
necessity for kids and teens that they would normally only use when going
somewhere that was too far to walk or if car rides were unavailable. Michael and Tim, on the other hand, love to
ride, race, and show off on their bikes.
Rowen and I are still getting used to our new bikes, but then so is Tim;
and four out of five of us were having a blast with little races and trying to
do the standard bike tricks as we rode. Nora
did not race; and she definitely didn’t want to get hot and sweaty by trying to
do catwalks, jumps, slides, spins, or any other tricks. She needed to use the bathroom at Michael’s
house to fix her ‘helmet hair’ the moment we got back to his place after our
ride; though Rowen and I didn’t stick around to find out whether she was
successful in repairing the damage or not.
Rowen would have stayed longer, but I wanted to escape
before Miranda could have a chance to give us a snack invitation we couldn’t
refuse, and we were already riding toward my house by the time Lisa and her
friends slowly biked past Riverview
Drive. We
spent the last bit of play time we had left in the back yard with Ethan and
Ehlana until Rowen needed to meet up with her parents at the computer
store. Dad cooked up some burgers and
hot dogs on the grill for dinner, and Mom threw a couple of easy side dishes
together. We were going to eat at the
patio table on the back porch, but it started to rain just as Dad was finishing
up at the grill; so we went inside after that, and had another rain night in.
The rest of my night has pretty much been a repeat of last
night, including the play time with Ethan, Ehlana, and the parents; Magi
lesson; Jacuzzi time; and studying. I
added in a keyboard practice, and my bedtime is going to be more than an hour
and a half later than last night; but I’ve gotten a lot done, and I’ve been
having fun too. Rowen and I aren’t
working tomorrow – at least we aren’t working at our jobs. It’s Patrick’s tenth birthday, and we’ve been
recruited to join the work crew for his party.
Now that I’m thinking about the fact that we’ll be dealing with Patrick,
Scott, and a whole gang of their nine and ten-year old buddies for four or five
hours starting right after school, I’m seriously wishing I’d gone to sleep
early.
Before I wrap this up and try to get some rest, there is a
bit of family news to report tonight.
Mom and Aunt Leanne are working on a weekend trip to Granite Park
for us that will mostly be so they can work on the wedding with Aunt Grace,
Aunt Mercy, and Aunt Alison. That will
tentatively be for the last weekend in April; and I’m really excited about
getting to finally have a real first visit there since we didn’t even get to
see their homes when we went to see Jayden after he was born. It seems strange to think about it, but this
will probably be the only time I’ll go to Granite Park
while it’s still Aunt Grace’s home town.
Violet sent me an email to let me know that she was going to
be meeting Dillon, Jake, and Stephanie in Crystal Springs for Dillon’s birthday
next week; mostly in case I needed anything picked up that she could send back
for me with Stephanie. I thought she
might be coming home again this weekend, but I guess they’re both too busy to
do that. The last bit of family news
came from Kevin and Elaine Johnson, and was mostly a baby update for Robyn that
included new pictures and a couple of stories.
It’s going to be great to finally get to meet Robyn when they’re here
for the Memorial Day weekend, though it’s hard to believe that she’ll be nearly
three months old by then.
I guess that’s about it for tonight, and I really should get
as much sleep as I still can, so...
...until next time, this is Magi Master Cassie Proctor;
logging out!
P.S. Though it won’t be a big story around town tomorrow –
or at school – the Louisville Cardinals won the
NCAA basketball championship tonight; beating the Michigan Wolverines. I took a minute to memorize the stats
highlights on the off chance that someone actually wanted to talk about it at
school tomorrow; but don’t really expect to need the information.
