Cassie's Journal - August 18, 2012

Happy sweet sixteen, Alicia!

For some reason, Alicia had better things to do today than hang around at our house, but we did the gifts and a birthday bakery treat with her yesterday at lunch. Hopefully her friends and family are helping her to have a really great day.

Mom and I loved having Dad back with us for morning Tai Chi, and Rowen, Ethan, and Ehlana all came out by the river with us while we exercised. Dad cooked breakfast after that while Rowen and I got ready for our ball game, and then we had nearly an hour to talk more about what we’d all been doing for the past five days before it was time to head over to the park for our team warm-ups.

I don’t think that the party had anything to do with the results of our game this morning. The Gypsies didn’t have any more of their players there than we did, and they needed a big win to have any chance at playing us again in the Championship match, but that didn’t really show up on the diamond today. Rowen and I both played great; and helped lead our Rovers to a fourteen to four win. Even with our little baseball league undefeated seasons are pretty rare, so winning all of our regular season games is cool, and if we win the Championship game too, that’ll be amazing.

While the baseball and post-game trip to the Emporium was great, the rest of the day until dinnertime was all work around the yard for me; and Rowen spent the rest of the day at the computer store with her parents. Mom and Dad wanted to get the big cleanup out of the way instead of needing to do that next weekend; so we had a very long to-do list. We took lunch and one afternoon break, but other than that, we worked through until six-thirty before stopping for the day and getting cleaned up for dinner.

We didn’t have any specific plans for the night, but the Emersons came over after dinner, and while our parents spent a couple of hours visiting in the living room, Rowen and I played games in the lounge with Patrick, Ethan, and Ehlana. The Emersons stayed for the bedtime snack and story time too, and then went home while Mom, Dad, and I took Ethan and Ehlana up to bed.

I was in serious need of some Jacuzzi time by then, and have been doing a little Magi computing while soaking out a day’s worth of work and play dirt. There isn’t anything else to report tonight, so I’m going to wrap this up and move on to a little light archive reading; and doing an update in our Magi project archive about a few things I’ve been thinking about since last night.

Live from Witch Falls; this is Cassie Proctor, signing off!

Cassie's Journal - August 17, 2012

Rowen and I are sitting in my bed with Mandy; talking about the party that we got home from about an hour or so ago. We’re thinking about rating the night a seven-point-five on the fun scale, and an eight on the weird meter.

There are twenty-one kids in our grade, with me being the only change to the class list since kindergarten. Rowen and I do hang out with some of the other girls sometimes when we see them around town or at the park or school, but today was the first time we were together with everyone since school ended in June. There were some other kids and teens at the party too, including some of Roger’s cousins; younger and older friends; and a couple of his guests brought dates. Getting to spend the afternoon and evening with everyone was fun, but my analytical mind pointed out to me that Rowen and I really aren’t as close to the other kids in our class as they are with each other. There are probably lots of reasons for that, but we should probably work on getting more involved.

Some of our friends would probably tell us that we’re the weird at the party, and it was obvious to both of us that we are now the last two holdouts – nineteen out of twenty-one about to be Grade Seven students have crossed over. I suppose they could be right, but then Rowen and I weren’t doing anything that could even remotely be called weird, while most of the other guys and girls were busy trying to impress or be impressed with the usual array of strange and crazy antics. If you’ve spent any time around a gang of eleven to thirteen-year old kids, you know what I’m talking about.

The party started at four o’clock. Rowen and I didn’t get the memo to be fashionably late, and were the first two girls at Roger’s house. He had his closest buddies there already too, but that just made it a bit more awkward until the next group of girls joined us. Rowen and I went with sundresses, and that worked fine as a fashion statement; but not so well when, um, stacking up compared to the more physically developed girls. The guys all definitely noticed those differences, though that also put more than half of them at a height disadvantage – or advantage as I overheard one guy who shall remain unidentified here whisper to his buddy.

I wonder what he might have meant by that – not!

So the party started with a social hour and a half or so before the barbeque dinner. We weren’t completely divided along guys and girls lines, but it sometimes felt like we were – partly because the girls were mostly spectators to the guys’ efforts to show off. Wearing dresses didn’t exactly make running around the yard playing Frisbee or tossing baseballs or footballs around an option either – though I suspect the guys would have liked it if some of the girls did do that. Speaking of sports, the guys were doing a lot of football talk tonight, and while I don’t follow it much at all; apparently our school team is looking good this year for their small-school division. That might have something to do with Kyle Landry. He hasn’t actually doubled in size in the last year, but he is definitely on the way to being as big as his father, Lee; and I can see why that might scare the players on the other teams.

Moving along, Rowen and I mostly sat and talked with some of the other girls while listening to music being pumped out of a small DJ-type sound system that had one of the standard school laptops hooked up to it. The top topic was back to school shopping with starting Grade Seven being second on the list. Rowen and I didn’t say much about why we were looking forward to school; mostly because our reasons didn’t have much in common with the other girls. For instance, getting to see certain guys every weekday is not on our lists at all. Neither is getting away from stuck on a farm boredom; chores; work; babysitting; or too much parent time. About half of the girls, including Rowen and me, are going on the shopping trip on Monday, but all of us are doing at least one trip to the city before school starts. I expect that all of the guys will be doing that too, but none of them wanted to talk shopping or fashion.

Rowen and I know that crossing over is inevitable, but we’re hoping that we can delay it until after the guys get through this tween phase. Dinner was scary, and boys are definitely worse in packs. Yes, some are worse than others, though by their standards; that means better. Imagine a pack of starving wolves let loose at your average backyard barbeque, and you’d be getting warm. Just as scary was the fact that nearly all of the other girls at the party were as impressed as the boys’ intended. Let’s just not bother adding any more details. There was cake and ice cream for dessert; Roger opened his gifts; and then his parents led a cleanup crew that we weren’t allowed to help with even though some of us offered.

The dance wasn’t starting until dark, so we had some more time to hang out in the back yard, or do whatever we wanted until then. Some couples went for walks, and that included a handful of our classmates. Rowen and I kept up with that kind of news, so there weren’t any surprises; but it was still strange seeing those friends holding hands, hugging, or kissing. Here’s where there was some more weirdness for me. I haven’t specifically looked into the future for any of my classmates; though I do know about some things for the kids who will be closest to me – like Rowen. That said, my abilities still let me sense things about others, and what I was sensing most strongly tonight was that almost none of the tween and teen couples at the party were matches.

I really haven’t paid much attention to the dating game at school or around town, and maybe that’s a good thing. Seeing couples like Violet and Dillon, or Jake and Stephanie; and being able to tell that they are matches is cool, but seeing the flip side of that, like tonight, isn’t. Neither is getting a mental picture of watching the rest of my classmates taking turns dating each other until they find those matches.

Is that why you’ve been playing matchmaker with me this summer, Aunt Leanne? Are you worried that I’ll be the odd girl out if I wait too long to cross over? You’ve got nothing to worry about there, so feel free to turn your matchmaking attention elsewhere.

Let’s get back to the party. While there are only a few ‘official’ couples in our class, I’d guess there are a two or three more getting close to that point – or at least there are after tonight. Roger wasn’t one of the guys in any of those couples, but he did get asked to dance by a few of the girls; and he looked like he was having a great time. I’m sure that the burning question for some of you (Aunt Leanne) is whether I was out on the dance floor too. Yes, I was. Rowen and I were up and dancing with some of the other girls for most of the up-tempo songs. No, I did not go dancing with any of the boys, and neither did Rowen. That might have something to do with the fact that we did our best to find somewhere else to be every time we hit a batch of ballads in the playlist.

Try to look at that from my perspective. There are some things I don’t really want to remember, and what some of my friends and classmates were doing and whispering to each other during those slow dances are definitely some of those things. There’s also the fact that if I had gone dancing with any of the boys, and they’d tried any of the hand-wandering moves on me that I saw tonight; that dance wouldn’t have ended well at all for him. I really wouldn’t want to be responsible for that kind of a reputation killing incident. In this town, a guy would probably never stop getting razzed about something like that.

Rowen and I probably lost a few reputation points because of that, since we were the only two kids in our class who didn’t do at least one boy-girl dance, but we’re okay with that. We’ll probably know by the time we start school about any official new couples, but there were also some unsuccessful guy and girl chases too – or at least unsuccessful so far.

All right, Rowen, I’ll add that; but only because Aunt Leanne will hear about it by tomorrow anyway and have something to say. You know I don’t care about it.

Michael was one of those guys being chased tonight; and he went dancing with Vanessa every time she asked him. I’m sure that half the guys at the party were jealous that she picked him. If you insist on going down this road, though, maybe we should discuss whether any of the other guy-girl dances tonight were of any interest to you, Rowen. Yeah, I thought you might want to move on now.

The party started wrapping up by eleven, though the goodbyes took a while. Rowen and I ended up walking home with Michael and Tim, but only because we were all going the same direction; and Tim was staying overnight at Michael’s house. Unfortunately, that also led to the final weirdness of the night. Miranda and Jacob were out on the front porch, so Rowen and I stopped in for goodnight hugs. I don’t know which was worse – Miranda asking us why Michael and Tim weren’t getting goodnight hugs too when we were leaving, or having Aunt Leanne urging us to go back there and do that after we got home. She and Mom were out on our front porch with Dad and Uncle Adam, and the teasing started before I even had a chance for welcome home hugs with Dad.

Yes, it did occur to me that at least some of our favorite adults were out on their front porches specifically to watch out for us getting back from the party. Rowen and I are not at all sorry to have disappointed anyone with the complete lack of action.

Even though it meant getting teased for a while, we stayed downstairs for a while mostly so I could spend some time with Dad, and hear a bit about his week in the city. Our party recap skipped most of the details above, and just gave Aunt Leanne more ammunition to use against us for ‘wasting’ the opportunities of our first boy-girl party. We had fun and the weird didn’t get personal, so I think we had a really good night.

Now it’s time to get some sleep, and for me to figure out a way to not dream of soft, fluffy bunnies.

Live from Witch Falls; this is Cassie and Rowen, signing off!

Cassie's Journal - August 16, 2012

Congratulations Aunt Deborah and Uncle Nick – you’re pregnant!

The good news, besides the obvious, is that you won’t get teased about bringing home extra honeymoon souvenirs.

The bad is that you probably will get ongoing jokes and speculation about whether your first child was the result of some extra celebrating after Rob and Trish’s wedding.

I should mention that there are only a few of us in the loop on this news right now. Aunt Deborah suspected that she was pregnant, and stopped by our house on her way to work to get confirmation from Mom. The joke of the day is that she was trying to save the cost of an early pregnancy test kit. Anyway, yes, Uncle Adam could have done that check too, and did later, but Mom does have a perspective on these things that Uncle Adam never will. Somehow, I don’t see Ethan, Ehlana, or I getting asked to confirm Magi pregnancies anytime soon either. I will guess that Aunt Deborah will get invited to regular Magi Healing lessons with us for the next eight and a half months or so.

Let’s move on to the regular events of the day.

Tai Chi for one in Rowen’s back yard was accompanied by a pair of second-floor hecklers who were very creative, but unsuccessful in their attempts to distract me from practicing my forms. Breakfast for six was slightly more controlled, though Patrick and Scott are a bit scary when they’re having meals together. I still think there’s a chance that Rowen’s brother and his best friend will cross over before we do – they certainly are showing all of the danger signs that we see with the guys in our grade. Rowen and I helped out with the cleanup, which turned out to be a bit of a problem when we had to deal with getting ready while fending off the antics of two boys with nothing else to do but bug us until we were all ready to go. Rowen’s Mom was doing the riding lesson transportation today, so we all went in their van to the store; the boys were dropped off there; and then we drove out to the Ridge River Ranch. By then, I think Patricia would have rather stayed and gone riding with us instead of going back to the store, but she didn’t do that. This week, Pamela was busy with something else, and we got to have Christie and Cody Carter for our trail ride leaders. Half the girls in town go a bit mental over Cody, and his older brother, Colt, but Rowen and I really love getting to ride with Christie. She’s the most amazing rider, and the tricks she can do with horses are really awesome. The girls who are usually crushing on the Carter boys only had Cody to watch today. I haven’t really paid much attention to what goes on with the college-age teens and adults, but it is about that time for them to head back to school, and we found out today that Colt left a bit early for his sixth year of college. Rowen and I overheard a couple of the girls in our riding class joking about how lucky the animals around the Ridge River District were going to be in a couple of years when Colt was their veterinarian.

Why does it seem as if there’s no escape anywhere for that kind of stuff even on a trail ride where it’s supposed to be all about horses and enjoying the great outdoors? While ignoring the giggles and whispers around us wasn’t really an option for me, Rowen and I stayed close to Christie, and she kept those of us who were actually interested in the lesson and ride entertained while Cody mostly handled kid control for the guys and girls who were more interested in horsing around.

After getting home from our lesson, the Moms approved a picnic and bike ride to the caves that Rowen and I had decided to do for the afternoon. We hopped into the river to wash off most of the trail dust; packed up our food and drinks; and headed north on Quarry Road by a bit after twelve. Our afternoon caving adventure was more like what we’d hoped our trip there with Dawn and Jillian would have been like. The only blip in a great afternoon was when we needed to wait out a little rain shower that rolled through at about the same time we were thinking about biking home again, but getting held up at the caves was better than if we’d ended up riding most of the way home in the rain. A little more play time in the caves and needing to dry our bikes off once the rain stopped wasn’t really anything more than a little inconvenient; and it wasn’t like we had major plans to get back home for anyway. Well, I didn’t anyway; and Rowen wasn’t late for the plans she had for the evening with her family.

Rowen stayed to go for another swim with me after we got home, and then went to her house to grab a shower and get ready for a family barbeque. Mom was going with a ‘real’ meal after a couple of easy-dinner baseball nights, so Ethan, Ehlana, and I went for a walk to the park to play while she and Violet worked on that. We had dinner out on the back porch; cleaned up; and did a long Magi lesson that was really several lessons geared toward each of us – Violet; Ethan and Ehlana, and I – was working on. That took nearly until it was time to do the bedtime routine with the twins, and I helped Mom with their baths, snack, and story time while Violet went to meet up with Dillon, Jake, and Stephanie at the Inn.

I came up to my room after Ethan and Ehlana were tucked in, and have been working on my computer while having a long soak in my Jacuzzi. I’ve got the usual nightly computing done, and it’s time to get out of the tub and into bed with Mandy. With Roger’s party tomorrow, I’m probably going to need the extra sleep. Hopefully I won’t have guy-girl party nightmares keep me awake.

I will not dream of bunnies; I will not dream of bunnies.

(Watch ‘The Good Witch’ movies if you don’t know what that means.)

Live from Witch Falls; and hopefully soon to be surrounded by cute, fluffy bunnies; this is Cassie Proctor, signing off!

Cassie's Journal - August 15, 2012

Violet’s back.

Okay, she wasn’t actually gone, but was busy with Dillon, Jake, and Stephanie while they were taking their usual two days off from the Inn. Mostly, I just liked getting to spend a few hours with her in the office this morning while we both worked on our jobs.

That’s pretty much all I did between breakfast and lunch, and while I was working in the office; Rowen was working at the computer store. An impending major shopping trip can be very motivating! Mom and Alicia were busy all morning with taking care of Ethan and Ehlana; and working around the house. We stopped for lunch at twelve-thirty, and then Rowen came over, and she and I went canoeing for the afternoon. We went for a couple of swims, but the water is getting noticeably cooler after a few nights of dropping temperatures. We mostly paddled between home and the falls; stopped at the park for some playground action; had our afternoon snack break at the Emporium; and got home in time to play with Ethan and Ehlana for an hour or so before dinner.

Mom had her baseball practice, and Rowen and I took care of Ethan, Ehlana, and Naomi while she played with my uncles, aunts, and their friends. Now that Ethan and Ehlana can toddle around a bit in public, we’re having a lot more fun at the park and playground; and they’re definitely happy about being able to do more with Naomi. Most of the Arrows players were going to Sheldon’s after the practice, but I was out of the loop for that because Rowen and I were doing a sleepover at her house. We did find out while I was packing a bag and getting ready to go over there that Violet and Dillon were going to babysit Ethan and Ehlana so Mom could go to the pub too. I’m sure that the twins will let me know in the morning whether they went off to bed on time, or decided that they needed some cuddle time with two of their favorite teens.

I’m going to skip over all of the details about Patrick’s and Scott’s intrusions into our sleepover fun, except to note that they must have learned some new tricks from the older boys last week; and they were even more annoying than usual tonight. The good news is that Rowen’s parents eventually ran interference for us, and we’ve still managed to have a really good night. We watched a chick flick with Owen and Patricia; baked up a quick little bedtime snack; and had a little girl and Mom chat time after getting ready for bed. Since then, Rowen and I have been surfing the net on our computers and talking about everything from the shopping trip and plans for the rest of the week to speculating on what Grade Seven was going to be like. Talking about school brought us around to talking about something we’ve both mostly avoided until now – our first boy-girl birthday party with our classmates. We have absolutely no idea why Roger invited us to his party, unless he was just looking to invite the two girls who are shorter than he is for some balance. Whatever the reason, it’s probably going to be a strange day for us – especially if there’s a dance like we’ve heard rumors there will be.

We’re not sure what’s scarier about that – getting asked to dance by guys, or being there with nothing to do all night while most or all of our friends and classmates are paired up and having the kind of fun we’re not interested in experiencing anytime soon. What’s kinda funny is that our scary party worries are probably Cinderella story dreams for most of the other girls in our class.

This seems like a good time to change the subject, so we’re going to do that, and I’m going to wrap this up and get back to some surfing while we do that; so...

...live from Witch Falls; this is Cassie and Rowen, signing off!

Cassie's Journal - August 14, 2012

It’s been a fairly quiet day, and I don’t have much to report.

Rowen and I went biking; took a picnic with us; and ended up spending most of our time hanging out around the park or riding out along the river. We had dinner with Mom, Uncle Adam, Aunt Leanne, and the twins; and then had our baseball practice. Our last regular season game is on Saturday morning, and I think we’re ready for it. Whether we win or not won’t matter for us, since we’ve already won the home team spot in the Championship game, but it definitely does matter to the Ridge River Gypsies and Witch Falls Wayfarers. We’ll just play our best against the Gypsies, and not worry about which team ends up in the Championship game with us.

Uncle Adam and Aunt Leanne had dinner with us for two reasons. Mom and Aunt Leanne needed to work on the shopping trip plans for next Monday, and we had a Magi Healing lesson after I got home from baseball. With less than a week to go, Aunt Leanne’s guessing that we’ll end up with somewhere between eighty and ninety shoppers. Hopefully it won’t affect Rowen and me, but there are going to be a few boys going along this year too – including Patrick and Scott. Basically, some of the Moms – like Rowen’s – don’t want to make two trips to Crystal Springs. I’d suggest they get the guys to start up a father-son back-to-school trip; but after taking a moment to picture a gang of seventy or eighty of the guys from around here shopping for clothes at the Mall, the whole idea is probably absurd and unworkable.

Anyway, while I’m now trying to get that mental disaster scene out of my head, I’ll move on to our Healing lesson.

Uncle Adam and I were both really glad to get back to doing our lessons with Mom, and she spent an hour or so teaching us a fairly cool technique that can help purge viruses and bacteria from the body. That happens automatically for Mom, Ethan, Ehlana, and me; but that’s a lot different than understanding what’s happening, and being able to make that happen in other people. Uncle Adam doesn’t have the same automatic self-healing that we do; though he can consciously heal himself just as he can heal others, so this lesson was particularly helpful for him.

We both had archive homework to go along with the lesson, and after doing the bedtime routine with the twins, I came up to bed and have been doing that, and my usual nightly computing, for the past few hours. I wasn’t really thinking about it until Mom and Aunt Leanne started talking shopping trips, but we’ll be starting school again three weeks from today. Grade Seven. The good news includes getting Jenny’s Mom for our teacher again; and Rowen will be going through it all with me. The scary part is wondering if our year will be a strange as we thought last year was for Rebecca and Jenny.

Don’t go there, Proctor!

Rowen and I are both working in the morning, and this seems like a very good time to wrap this up and call it a night, so...

...live from Witch Falls; this is Cassie Proctor, signing off!