Happy 14th Birthday, Reid!
No, that isn’t a typo – Reid’s a year
younger and in Grade Eight. He does hang
out with us at school, though, since he’s dating Lily; and he’s also a regular
member of Tim’s weight training workouts and the lunchtime football
scrimmages. That’s why Tim and Michael –
and Rowen and I – were invited to his birthday party today. They’re becoming friends too; but Reid
definitely looks up to the two older boys – and wants to make the football team
next season as much as Tim wanted to be on the team last year.
We’ve had an awesome weather day for Reid’s
birthday, and that was especially timely; since his party was on his family
farm and wouldn’t have been nearly as much fun if we’d been stuck indoors for
it. I’ll get to that part of the report
in a minute; but let’s back up and cover the news from the rest of the day
first.
Tai Chi by the river is always more fun
when we get to welcome the day with a beautiful sunrise; and Michael stayed for
breakfast before going on to the school for his morning workout. I had more time to get ready for school
before meeting up with Rowen for the walk there; and then we were into exam
review mode for most of the day. Since
Reid isn’t in our class, his birthday was only part of the daily fun for us
during lunchtime while we were at school; and Lily had a minor birthday
celebration set up for him that included all of his closest friends from both
Grade Eight and Grade Nine. That bonus
action didn’t keep Tim from having a football scrimmage too; but then Reid was
very okay with that too.
Before I get to the party report; I should
include a little update from around the rest of the family – and should have
included that yesterday.
After taking last week off, Violet and
Dillon started their summer jobs at the lab yesterday. Mom, Ethan, and Ehlana have been there both
days too; and will likely be there a lot more all summer. Violet’s official job is interning with Aunt
Grace; but she also has the family business job too that she’s continued to do
part-time while in school. Dillon’s
working in the lab with Uncle Adam and Ehlana; and they’re going to have lots
of fun playing there this year.
While they’re busy at the lab, Christina is
going to split her work time this summer between the Emporium and helping out
with the set-up work at the med center.
She’ll mostly help Aunt Deborah with that, and then work with her
part-time for the rest of the summer after it opens getting everything
organized – and possibly transferring patient records to the new computer
system Mom’s developed for them that meshes with other programs at the lab and
in the archives. If you’re interested in
those digital details, there are other places in the archives where you can
read all about that; so I won’t bore everyone else with the details. Josiah’s summer job is at the bank again this
summer; so that isn’t really news.
Since I’ve mentioned the medical center,
though, that work is kicking into high gear now. We’re down to just weeks until it opens, and
while I haven’t done a tour lately; all major new equipment is installed now
and it’s going to be the move from the old offices that is going to keep Uncle
Adam, Uncle Mark, and Aunt Deborah busy – along with all of the people helping
them with all of that work. That’s going
to leave Uncle Adam with less time for the lab; but Ehlana will happily make up
for that if she can find enough excuses to be there.
I feel a bit out of the loop for all of
that, but can’t exactly add more to my own schedule; and the lab, archives, and
med center are never going to be a big part of my life anyway. That doesn’t change the fact that I’m missing
out on things that are very exciting and important for other members of my
family, though; and I sometimes wish that I could be part of that too.
Too bad that time-phasing can’t be used to
travel back and forth through time. If
we could do that; then I could do both – or even live multiple, different
lives!
By the way, just in case you’ve been
reading or watching too much time-travel science fiction; jumping backward – or
forward – in time really isn’t possible.
Tim is a man-made measurement construct anyway, but what matters is that
all of creation moves ‘forward’; and you can’t jump from your ‘now’ either into
history or the future. Time phasing only
changes the speed of your present moments.
Concepts like time paradoxes are meaningless; since you really can’t go
back and change the past anyway – even if it is fun to imagine it.
In my case, I’m especially glad that isn’t
possible for Magi Masters. If it could
be done, I’d expect that Mom would have done it to go back in time and save her
parents from that plane crash; and then there’s a very good chance that I’d
have never been born at all. She’d have
never met Gawain Hathorne; we’d have never ended up here in Witch Falls; and,
well, you get the picture. Let’s just be
glad that things have happened the way they have – even though that means
taking the bad parts of life with the good.
That got way off-topic; so let’s move on
and get to the birthday party news.
Reid didn’t invite everyone from our class,
but he did have about half of our group and more than half of his own
classmates. The Spencer clan is fairly
large; and most of them were at the farm for the dinner part of the party –
some of them as volunteers and the rest as guests. Amy, Jared, and Drew were there with the rest
of Reid’s extended family, so I got to spend a bit of time with them too;
though Amy was pretty worn out after her day at school and dealing with the
usual first trimester pregnancy issues.
Tim’s Mom drove us out to the farm after
school; once Rowen and I had taken the time to go home, change, and freshen up
first. Michael and Tim got changed too;
but that was more about dressing for comfort and play than appearances – even if
they did also look great too. Sure,
Rowen and I are biased about that; but that doesn’t mean we’re not right. ;^)
We were closer to the first arrivals than
the last when we got there; though it was also mostly the other farm kids there
by then – and most of them had just taken their usual bus route and gone home
with Reid. Once we were there, it wasn’t
long before the boys were hanging out together and talking football, and while
we – the girls – stayed with them for some of that pre-dinner hang-out time;
Rowen and I did some socializing with other teens, adults, and younger kids. As usual for us, that included hanging out
with Reid’s younger sisters, Carrie and Julia; and they appreciated our efforts
a lot since they advised us that they were usually ignored by the teens when
Reid had his friends over.
Michael, Tim, and Rowen are different, but
Ethan and Ehlana likely feel the same way sometimes when we have other friends
over at my house – as we will start doing a lot over the next few weeks until
exams are over. Too bad they can’t just
join in and help with the tutoring! I’m
sure that my classmates would appreciate them a lot more if they could do that –
even if they’d be freaked out too.
Okay, so the start of Reid’s party was
mostly a social hour or so while everyone got there from school, work, or
elsewhere; and then we had dinner in an extended wave that started with the
kids and teens mostly being fed first while the adults waited for the last
batches of food to come off of the grills before sitting down to eat. That took a while, and after we ate, the kids
and teens had time to play for a while until everyone was finished dinner. Reid’s parents rounded everyone up again
after that for dessert and the rest of the usual birthday cake, song, and gifts
thing; we had fun with that; and then it was time to play again through until
the party ended at around nine o’clock.
That’s when the football scrimmage started;
other games were available around the yard ranging from baseball to flying
fairies and micro-helicopters. Swimming
in the pond was an option too for anyone interested in cooling off; and Rowen
and I were among the swimmers – though we only swam for about twenty minutes
after running around with some of the younger kids for a while. The early wrap-up for the party was entirely
because it was a school night, and I was okay with that; since all of my usual
work was waiting for me when I got home – along with the homework that needed
to be done for school.
Michael, Tim, and Rowen came home with me
to do that bit of studying that was mostly exam review assignments; and Mom was
our driver for the trip home. We did
that studying in the lounge; spent a bit more than an hour together; and then
Rowen and Tim left a bit ahead of Michael so that he and I could have a bit of
alone time before he went home for the night too. I followed that up with getting Ethan and
Ehlana off to bed; Mom did my Magi lesson with me in the office while Dad
worked at his computer; and then I came up to my room again to get started on
my nightly studies and family business work.
It’s a good thing that I got to bed early
last night, because it’s going on four o’clock now; and I only stopped the
family business work because I need to get at least some sleep tonight. In this case, the extra work was partly my
own fault. Getting the extra work done
yesterday brought more work my way today; and I’ll likely be dealing with extra
work tomorrow night too. That was mostly
fun for me tonight, since I was dealing with some of my favorite businesses;
but it is also tiring. On the languages
front, I’m nearly finished with learning my current language; and should be
able to wrap that up a bit early this year so that I won’t have that to do in
addition to the exam studying I’ll be doing over the next couple of weeks. I really could just wrap it up now; but I’ll
finish the entire program I originally set up – just as I do for all of my new
languages. Sometimes that sucks; but it’s
just the way I am.
Oh, I almost forgot one tiny little teen
drama news flash from the party tonight.
Allen and Karla have been having dating issues lately, and they apparently
did not have a good holiday weekend; but they basically didn’t hang out
together at all at Reid’s party. There
hasn’t been an official break-up yet; but I’d say that’s just a formality at
this point. I’ll stay out of the he-said-she-said
thing; and just report that they’re both unhappy, angry, and broken-hearted.
When things like that are going on with our
friends, it sometimes doesn’t seem fair that Michael and I are so happy, but I
can’t bring myself to feel even a little bit guilty about that; and I’m really
glad that I don’t have those teen dating issues.
Michael’s probably happy about that too,
since having a Magi Master mad at him might just be a bit scary for him! ;^)
Anyway, that’s it for tonight, and I really
do need to get started on that nap time now; so, until next time...
...May the Magi Force be with you!
