Happy 13th Birthday, Lisa!
I’ll get to the news of the day – and Lisa’s party – in a
minute; but I have our Magi Project on my mind right now, and want to write
about that first.
The main reason for that is because I found what I sensed
with Lisa’s family particularly interesting – especially after getting to spend
a handful of hours around them as a group.
Lisa is part of the extended Byrd clan, but there aren’t any Magi in her
immediate family line – including back at least through her grandparents on the
Byrd side of her family. That’s a little
unusual to not even have a single Magi in a branch of the tree for any of the
original families; and I may have picked up some hints about why that happened
– at least in this case. We’d actually
need to do genetic testing that might not be possible anytime soon even with
the lab opening this year; though that doesn’t even include the whole issue of
whether the Magi talents can even be genetically mapped – or affected.
For Lisa’s family, while the ‘children’ are all latents; key
members have particularly weak auras.
Two of those ‘parents’ married ‘normal’ partners, and while that didn’t
mean that all children had weaker latent auras than their parents; it
apparently has seriously weakened the genetic potential. That might even be true if the kids had or
someday have a Magi mate. That dilution
of potential isn’t something new, but the hints I picked up tonight might be;
and could help our understanding of the situation here in Witch Falls.
First of all, we’ve spent some considerable time studying
the concept of perfect matches in the context of developing stronger Magi; but
haven’t really thought about the possibility that a perfect match could have
the opposite effect too. I’ll admit that
I hadn’t considered that at all before tonight, but if you think about it for a
while; it does make some sense. There
are certainly cases we’ve looked at where evidence suggests that partner
incompatibility affected the Magi potential of the children; but tonight I was
able to study several examples of near-perfect aura matches with very happy
couples – and I suspect that every one of them also detrimentally affected the
latent potential for Magi abilities in their children.
There are certainly a lot of reasons why the proportion of
Magi in the total Witch Falls population has declined over the centuries, and
while this one needs a lot of study; it could explain at least part of the
mystery surrounding the hit or miss nature surrounding the births of so many of
the Magi – or lack of them in families where they’d be expected. I’ll write more about this in the Magi
Project archive; so mosey on over there if you’re interested in more details
about our research.
Moving on to the daily report, Roger did a pretty good job
in the boyfriend department this morning by having flowers, a birthday cupcake,
and a little gift on Lisa’s desk this morning by the time we went into home
room. That got him razzed by the guys,
but earned points with all of the girls; and Lisa was very happy. That got our school day off to an
entertaining start; but then we got to work and were kept busy all day except
for a mini-party lunch for Lisa that included more Olde Bakery cupcakes and some
gifts from friends who weren’t going to Lisa’s party – plus a second little
gift from Roger. That was seriously
putting his reputation in danger with the other guys; but he didn’t seem to
care – or at least he preferred the hugs and kisses from his girlfriend.
Those guys can joke all they want; but I’ll guess that they
were all taking notes too.
We had about an hour between the end of school and the start
of Lisa’s party, so that meant skipping our after-school study session so that
Rowen and I could get ready for it instead.
Yes, Michael and Tim went home to do that too; but they needed about ten
minutes to get changed while Rowen and I spent closer to forty-five before
Michael and I collected Rowen, then Tim, on our way to Lisa’s house. It’s winter, so we were dressed accordingly,
but while the guys might prefer sundresses, shorts and tees, or swimsuits like
we can do for summer parties; Michael and Tim were appreciative enough of the
cuddle factor that comes with the soft, warm sweaters that Rowen and I chose
for tonight.
A few of our friends were already there by the time we got
to Lisa’s home, along with her younger brothers, sister, mother, and a few
party work volunteers. After dropping
off our gifts in the dining room and stopping into the kitchen for the usual
‘passing-through’ visit with the adults; we moved on to the family room where
video gaming was already in progress. As
usual, the guys mostly had control of the gaming system while the girls watched
on, listened to music, and talked about everything from the latest celebrity
gossip and scandals to weekend plans and local grapevine news.
Lisa’s father worked until six o’clock, so we had time to
play before dinner. While we’re still a
long way from being buddies, and I’m sure that my invitation to the party only came
because Lisa wanted Michael there; she and I are getting along much better now. It’s still occasionally a little
uncomfortable for me when I see her look at Michael with sad, wistful eyes, but
then I noticed tonight that I have company in that boat; and it’s probably
harder for Roger to see that than it is for me.
In a way, he’s competing with Michael for Lisa’s affection; though only
in the sense of what might have been – or more specifically, what Lisa had
dreamed about having with Michael. I’m
fairly sure that she’ll always have a soft place in her heart for Michael, and
I’m okay with that, but if Roger keeps doing what he’s doing; he won’t need to
worry about how Lisa feels about any other guys.
Dinner was a buffet, fill plates and go event; mostly
because there were too many guests and helpers to feed everyone at the dining
room and kitchen tables. Michael, Tim,
Rowen, and I were among the teens that did sit down in the dining room; but
Lisa’s younger brothers were allowed to join the video gaming while we ate; and
they had about half of the guys with them and willing to compete while taking
turns demolishing plates full of food.
I wonder if the government has ever considered the need for
subsidies when birthday parties have more than ten teenage boys attending? There really ought to be at least a little
tax write-off for the parents! Let’s not
name anyone specifically, but Lisa would’ve needed to get precious gems gifts
or something equally valuable to cover the cost of food for between two and
four of the guys. I’m seriously
considering upping my birthday gift budget this year to compensate – though
that doesn’t really help the parents much.
Maybe I’ll come up with something else for them – like giving them
bottles of wine instead. In this case, I
actually know for sure that Lisa’s parents and the other adult volunteers were
ready for cold, adult beverages by the time they’d cleaned up from dinner, the
cake and ice cream, and Lisa’s gift-opening mini-marathon.
Note to future parents: encourage your teen kids attending
big parties to buy group gifts for friends.
Most of us don’t have attention spans that last through opening thirty
or forty gifts – we save that up for important things like video games. ;^)
While the guys ruled the Playstation before dinner, Lisa had
other plans when we moved back into the family room – starting with a Guitar
Hero competition. I’m sure that she
didn’t do that specifically with Michael in mind; but he fairly convincingly
destroyed the competition – which wasn’t at all surprising considering that
he’s by far the best guitar player in our school right now. We followed that up with some video game
dancing, and then got to the only weird part of the night for me – a karaoke
video game.
Michael and I really love singing together, but there’s a
big difference between doing that at home or even singing in front of a big
audience and singing in front of a small group of your peers.
In our case, that’s because we got a very different reaction
to our duet than anyone else got. That
was good and bad – especially when most of the adults joined us in the family
room to listen to Michael and me. The
bad included getting royally razzed by Tim and some of the other guys, and Lisa
was teary-eyed for good and bad reasons.
I’m seriously tempted to back off from any public singing; but that
probably won’t happen now that the cat’s out of the bag about this particular
shared talent.
There were a few more attempts at karaoke, but there wasn’t
as much enthusiasm for stepping up to the microphone and following Michael and
me; so we moved on to the chick flick movie that was the last main activity of
the evening. That worked for all of the
girls, and the guys didn’t mind the cuddle time with their girls; but half of
them also heckled their way through the show to the point where it was more
than a little annoying.
I really hope that every guy reading this knows better by
now since you’re all adults, but if you haven’t; get with the program – we
girls love our happy ending love stories; and you’ll be happier too even if you
have to fake it and pretend to be interested.
There were definitely some boyfriends in the doghouse by the time we all
headed home after the party tonight.
Though Rowen and I are having our sleepover at her house, we
split up for most of the walk home so that she could have a little alone time
with Tim while I walked with Michael to his house. Their goodnight moments took longer than ours
because Michael was inside and possibly in bed, and I was sitting on her front
porch steps already when Rowen caught up with me at about twenty-after-twelve.
Everyone at her house had gone to bed by then, but her Mom
joined us for some girl chat time shortly after we were in Rowen’s room and getting
ready for bed. Patrick had Scott staying
over too, which wasn’t a surprise; but if they were still awake; they didn’t
try bothering us tonight. Maybe we
really have passed through the worst of that stage with them. Patricia wanted the party report, and told us
about her evening; but then went back to bed and left us to wind down while
snuggled in Rowen’s bed with our computers fired up and ready for action.
For me, that just meant doing the usual, light version of my
nightly computer checks and this update while Rowen played YouTube vids and we did
our own, more detailed recap of the party.
It’s heading toward two o’clock now, and we’re both working in the
morning – either at the computer store and data center or at home; so I need to
wrap this up and we both need some sleep.
Other than some alone time with Michael tomorrow night after he’s done
at the Inn and that work, I don’t have much planned for tomorrow, but I do want
to be wide awake for that alone time opportunity; so that’s all for tonight,
folks.
Live long and prosper, fellow Magi of the Light!
