Happy 47th Birthday, Miranda!
Yes, I know the general rule for women
about birthdays, but most women can only wish to look as amazing as Miranda
does now – a fact that I’m sure Jacob is appreciating right about now because
they’re enjoying a kid-free night for one of her birthday gifts from Michael,
Rebecca, and me.
Having the bonus time with Michael was a
nice bonus for me; but I’ll get to that part of the story in a bit; since I
have a lot to cover from the rest of the day first.
There wasn’t a back-to-school rush this
morning; but we were all busy for other reasons. For Michael and me, it was because we were
busy with his mother’s birthday breakfast after Tai Chi; though I hit the
shower and got ready for school first before going over to his house. Mom and Dad were busy because they had to get
ready for the big open house and ribbon cutting ceremony at the lab. They aren’t doing a major ceremony and the
only media coverage will be for the town news website; but the ribbon-cutting
is really only for the people in town and the new employees anyway – and all of
the construction guys who worked on the project. It’s a paid day off for the work crews to
thank them for all of the work.
While I missed out on all of that while starting
my first day of high school; Miranda’s birthday breakfast was really awesome
and made for a great start to the day.
Jacob cooked some of her favorites; we had her open gifts; and then
Rebecca, Michael, and I took care of the clean-up before hurrying off to
school. It would have been nice if
Miranda could have the day off, but she and Jacob both ended up at the Inn
today to help out with the lunch and dinner rushes that came along with the
open house at the lab and the first day of school – though they didn’t stay for
the clean-up after dinner tonight.
Michael and I didn’t really have time to
even think much about the Inn or the lab while we were at school. There aren’t actually a lot of changes to our
schedules between grade eight and nine because there aren’t any optional
classes; and we also have a different curriculum to most schools with twelve
classes instead of four or eight – depending on whether the high school is on a
semester system or not. One thing that
is different, though, is that we have more teachers for those classes, and
while we know all of them; we also haven’t had most of them as teachers before.
Our home room teacher this year is Jane
Connor, and in addition to her morning duties with us; she’ll also be teaching
us our English and Health classes. Those
subjects are both on our Day One schedule, though, and we started the year with
our Day Two schedule today; so we only saw Mrs. Connor during home room before
moving on to our first class after a slightly expanded home room session that
included the usual first day back instructions.
The Day Two schedule begins with Phys-Ed; and we were outdoors for that
today. Coach Robinson is our teacher,
and while he didn’t make a big deal of it; Michael and Tim were obviously his
favorites in our class. Showing a lot of
promise for being stars on his football team would have a lot to do with that;
so nobody was surprised about that.
Rowen and I were okay with that; and also had fun showing that our
boyfriends weren’t the only good athletes in the class.
While I’m thinking about sports, though;
let’s take a moment to talk teen drama.
There was definitely some of that for Rowen and me today because we were
in close quarters with Vanessa and Nora in all of our classes. They’re still not happy with us; which meant
getting the cold shoulder again along with some glares and muttered comments
that were not particularly flattering.
One change from a year ago when we were on their hit list because of
Michael and Tim was that they kept those comments between themselves instead of
trying to divide the class, but to be honest; that probably had more to do with
our boyfriends than it did with us.
Michael and Tim are teen and kid heroes today because of the game on
Friday, so no matter how mad Vanessa and Nora are with us; they’re not going to
mess with that. I don’t know how long
it’ll be before the drama blows over; but I hope it won’t be too long.
That wasn’t any fun, but Rowen didn’t hear
those comments that I could pick up; I didn’t pass that on to her; and
everything else today was awesome, so I really can’t complain about this one
little problem. There were a couple of
guys who were disappointed that they didn’t make the football team too, but the
one big difference there was that they weren’t upset with Michael and Tim
because they did. I wonder if that has
something to do with the football tryouts being a contact sport – not that I’m
suggesting that the cheerleaders should start tackling each other to decide who
should make the squad! ;^)
Moving along, we’re going to love starting
our Day Two schedule with Phys-Ed; and that will hopefully make History and
Math a bit easier for some of our classmates – including Tim. We have new teachers for both of those
subjects, with John Paul – or J.P. – Sparks teaching our History class; and
Anita Reynolds taking on Math. I enjoyed
both classes, and Michael, Rowen, and I got off to our usual great academic
start with our new teachers – a fact that just added to Vanessa’s and Nora’s
annoyance with two out of three of us.
I’m a few college degrees beyond the level where name-calling bothers
me; so it was just a little amusing to overhear them exchanging insults
directed at Rowen and me. We’ll see if
they still feel that way when it’s time to get ready for mid-terms and finals.
We went outside for lunch, and that was
really the only part of the day that actually felt different. The funny thing about that was the fact that
nothing much changed except for the fact that we hung out with the high school
teens instead of the tweens and teens in Grade Seven and Eight. Sitting on the bleachers was the same; and so
was the football action on the field for the guys. Michael, Tim, Rowen, and I ate with quite a
few of the football players and cheerleaders; though I guess it would be more
accurate to say that we were at the center of a bigger group with friends and
classmates from each grade hanging out with us too.
I don’t really have anything all that
exciting to report from our lunch break, and to be honest; the girl chat and
gossip wasn’t very interesting to me compared to everything else going on
today. I was glad to move on to music
class when it was time to get back to work again; and the afternoon sped along
with Spanish and Politics being our second and third afternoon class. Cheerleading and football practices started
right after last class; so Michael, Tim, Rowen, and I all needed to hurry to
get to our respective work-outs. Our
cheerleading practice wasn’t as tough as they were last week, but we did do a
full warm-up; and then worked through our cheers and the half-time routine that
Dani wants to do this Friday. There
could be rain in the forecast on Friday again; but she doesn’t plan on using
the same half-time show two weeks in a row at home games – even though we could
use it again at away games this season.
The football practice went longer than ours
did, so Rowen and I waited for Michael and Tim and watched the action with some
of the other girlfriends and other spectators.
Rebecca wasn’t with us then, but she had stayed for a while after school
before going on to the Inn to help out there; and that’s where Michael and I
went once he’d showered and was done for the day. We didn’t really have time to help out by
then, but we were able to have a short break and visit with Miranda while
having a quick dinner and then we were off and running again. Rebecca came with us; we picked up overnight bags
at their house; and then we dropped them off at my house before hopping on our
bikes and riding over to the lab. We met
up with Rowen and Tim there; but had time for a visit with most of the members
of our family first while waiting for them to catch up with us after having
dinner with his family.
By then, Aunt Grace and Uncle Adam had
already shown off their lab to a large percentage of our friends and neighbors;
so it was just the stragglers coming for the evening tours – mostly the adults
who had been working all day. Ethan and
Ehlana had been at the lab off and on all day too, but they still went on the
tour with us; and Uncle Adam and Mom led the way. The entire building was open to the public;
though not unattended except on the main office floor where there were also
snacks, drinks, and presentations that could be watched that Mom and Uncle Adam
had put together. That won’t be the case
after today, but we wanted to make sure that nobody was worried about what we’ll
be doing there by restricting access to any of the labs. That isn’t to say we told the whole truth and
nothing but the truth because we didn’t.
For instance, yes, the lowest two basement levels are for records
storage and rare medical books for our ‘parent’ company; but we didn’t
advertise that the entire Magi archive from around the world was being
delivered there, and that we’re going to be protecting a priceless,
irreplaceable resource for the Magi of Witch Falls.
Ditto that theme for the high-tech labs;
particularly the level five lab on the first basement floor. It’s actually more secure than that when the
Magi-powered security is added; so there is no way that there is a risk to
anyone. We won’t even be using that lab
very much at first anyway because the first projects that Uncle Adam and Ehlana
want to focus on do not include any of the seriously dangerous infectious
diseases anyway. They’ll be advancing
work they’ve already been doing on drought and flood-resistant crops, cold
bugs, and cancer cures. I’m sure that
Ehlana would love to take a shot at a cure for the Ebola outbreak going on in
Africa right now; but she knows she isn’t ready for that yet. After all, she’s only starting her sophomore
year at college tomorrow! Let’s at least
wait for that kind of research until she starts on her Masters or PhD in a year
or two. Maybe Mom will insist that Ethan
and Ehlana at least be in kindergarten before playing in the lab with one of
the most infectious, deadly diseases ever – though she might change her mind if
it can’t be contained and becomes a pandemic.
You might be wondering if we could heal
someone of Ebola, and while I suspect that we could; I don’t actually know that
for sure since we haven’t exactly had the opportunity to try. There are some archive records from centuries
past that record how Magi Masters dealt with plagues and other disease
outbreaks that suggest there aren’t any limits on healing other than the
capacity of the Master; but the risks to the Magi were very high – and came
from the people around them, not the disease.
Even now I’m sure we’d have a lot of problems if Mom and I flew over to
Africa and started healing all of the Ebola patients. I wish that we could, but this is yet another
example of problems in the world where we can’t help out directly without putting
ourselves at risk. I seriously doubt
that we’d enjoy being lab rats any more than we would have liked being under
the thumb of Corwyn Hathorne. Making
decisions like that really sucks; but we also do a lot of good in the world too
– even if we can’t yet directly intervene with our Magi talents.
That got way off topic, so let’s get back
to the lab tour. We went around the main
floor first, and in addition to the administration offices, most of the support
operations are there too – with the warehouse and loading docks taking up a bit
more than half of the space. There were
lots of open areas there, but we built to grow; so that’ll be the case for
years to come as we expand our research and add new staff. The second floor is almost all research labs
and one amazing, atrium-style greenhouse where we’re going to grow the hybrid
plants that will hopefully lead to natural cures or new crops that can grow in
nearly any conditions. Uncle Adam and
Ehlana will have their own archives for the lab, so if you’re interested in the
details; check them out – especially at bedtime if you need help sleeping!
Just kidding, Ehlana!
Touring the level five lab was next, which
was cool but not very exciting because there wasn’t anything going on there
anyway, and while Ethan had to play it cool with other people around; he was
definitely fired up while we checked out both levels for his archives. As we intended, that was definitely the most
boring part of the tour with nothing to see but rows and rows of mostly-empty
book racks and cabinets. There were some
work cubicles, but the computers that will be going in there aren’t in place
yet. Mom will be doing that work soon,
and the wiring is done; so that’ll mostly be plug and play to get
finished. I guess that I should mention
that there’s a little office area by the elevators outside of the top archive
elevator; but we didn’t really advertise at all that the archives will have
special security with very, very limited access.
The security system for the rest of the lab
was part of the presentation, though, and from what we heard tonight from Mom
and Uncle Adam; everyone was impressed with the state-of-the-art equipment that
includes everything from retinal scans to elevator load measurements that
earned some jokes about things like the employees needing to be careful not to
eat too much at holidays anymore. I think
that’s funny, but the system is meant to detect extra, unauthorized people; not
to act as a health and fitness coach.
While the open house was going on until ten
o'clock, we still had homework to do, so Rebecca, Michael, and I headed home
after the tour was finished while Rowen and Tim went to get their gear before
joining us there to study with us. We
did that in the lounge, and worked for an hour or so; mostly because using a
little Magi power wasn’t an option. Tim
had the toughest time getting back into the study groove; but Michael, Rowen,
and I are going to drag him along and make sure that he has an even better
academic year than the last one – even with the added work that’ll go with
being on the football team.
We had a snack break and drinks with Mom,
Dad, and the twins after they got home from the lab; and then Rowen and Tim
headed home while Michael and I did the bedtime routine with Ethan and Ehlana
and Rebecca borrowed my Jacuzzi. She’s
using Violet’s room tonight, and while Michael and I were cuddling in the
lounge by the time she was done in the bathroom; she only stopped in to say
goodnight before going to bed and leaving us to enjoy a bit of alone time. That was fun, but not in a too-hot-to-handle
kind of way – we just cuddled and enjoyed having a little chat together while
winding down. Mom and Dad had both been
doing some work in the office after the snack break, and while they didn’t
specifically order us to bed when they stopped into the lounge to say
goodnight; the hints were there and we took care of the goodnight hugs and
kisses shortly after they left for their bedroom. Michael stayed in the third-floor bedroom at
the top of the back stairs tonight, and though we’ll probably get razzed about
that at school; Mom and Dad know they have nothing to worry about.
That brings us to my bedtime computing
session, and while it was nice taking the summer off; I really needed to get
back to work tonight – both on the family business and my ‘real’ language
studies. My plan for this fall is to
learn Vietnamese and Marathi. For those
of you who would need to look it up, Marathi is one of the official languages
in India; and part of the Indo-Aryan language group. I started with Vietnamese tonight; and worked
on that for an hour or so before moving on to the family business work.
I’m likely going to need to do family
business work every night now because I won’t have as much time to do that
during the school week with cheerleading and everything else I’ll have on the
go; which means that I’d better get used to late nights that are due to working
instead of staying up late and playing with my friends and family. After an hour and a half of going through
reports and proposals; I was able to move on to the rest of my nightly
computing – and even that took more than a half hour by the time I finished
catching up on things that I’d let slide over the weekend – like doing a
Hathorne Industries check.
Delving into the bowels of that business
can be disgusting, and they are doing everything they can to profit from some
of the problems in the world; but at least we can still find out what their up
to and try to mitigate the damage when we can through our charities. On the home front, they had their annual party
on the weekend to pretend that they actually care about their employees; while
the big news for Gwyneth is that she continues to be a little academic
phenom. She’s still exactly on a path
that will have her graduating high school the same year that I do; and it’s a
safe bet that isn’t a coincidence. I’m going
to need to keep at my Magi lessons and studies too; since I’m going to need to
be ready for what the twins and I know is the inevitable crossing of our paths
with Gwyneth’s.
That isn’t something to dwell on tonight,
though; and it’s past-time for me to get some sleep – even if that is only
going to be a few hours of down time. I’ll
either get used to having naps or start cheating now and then with a little
time-phasing, but if every day is going to be as much fun as this one; I’m
going to be enjoying myself too much to even notice being tired!
That is it for tonight, though; so I’m out
of here.
May the Magi Force be with you!
