Nerdy Prudes Must Die!

For their art credit for spring semester at Burke, Noa signed up for Music Composition. When the administration cancelled that class, they placed Noa into Singing in the Spotlight. Noa was not particularly pleased with this development, as it was not on any list of classes that Noa indicated they wanted to take. But inertia is a thing, and teenagers that are informed they can either take the class they are currently enrolled in, or drop the class, find a suitable replacement that fits into their schedule, and submit all the associated paperwork to do so, tend to just go with the flow. Hence, Noa's performance of Just for Once from Nerdy Prudes Must Die.

Allen was out of town which meant I was charged with recording Noa, a fact I did surreptitiously because I wasn't sure if they were ok with it (they were). I was assured afterwards that my poor craftsmanship didn't matter since the school had also recorded the program (using a tripod and filters and other helpful, quality improving tools) and would make their recording available. However, they did not. So here is Noa, mostly in frame though blurry, performing their solo from Singing in the Spotlight. Enjoy!

(To see all the stills of Noa performing that Burke did provide, click here.)

Chess Club

When you've both started playing online chess, it's good to have your sibling home to play in person :-)

Rivalry Week

With Owen's deep dive into baseball fandom this year, he made a plan for all the games he wanted to see this summer. First on the list was a drive up to Baltimore to see a Nats v. O's rivalry week game. Owen reached out to his oldest friend Leo and the two of them made plans together and kindly invited the dad's to join along. So Leo, Owen, Micah and I made the trek up to Camden Yards for a 4pm game on a beautiful Saturday afternoon. The Nats made it worth the trip, jumping out to a 6-0 lead in the top of the first, piling on a bad week for the O's who just fired their manager after a disappointing start to a season with high expectations. The middle innings were mostly quiet (and a perfect opportunity for a delicious crab cake sandwich) with a bit of excitement in the 9th as the Nats scored three more runs for a 10-2 lead, and the Jackson Holliday hit a 3-run homer for the O's in the bottom of the 9th before the Nats closed it out for a 10-6 win.

 

Birthday Girls

We had a pretty quiet celebration of Elaine's real birthday at home on Tuesday, just some sushi at home and a very nice bottle of Sancerre. Mother's Day celebration on Sunday with Noa and I making brunch and homemade pasta for dinner, plus a long day of work on Tuesday meant we didn't plan too much for the actual day. However, we did make plans to jointly celebrate Elaine and Megan's birthdays on Friday with a lovely meal at Rose's Luxury. One of the benefits of our Pineapples & Pearls dinner for Don was a gift certificate to Rose's, and what better way to use it than going out with Steve & Megan to celebrate the birthdays of two amazing and wonderful women. The dinner was amazing and it is wonderful to have such good friends to share it with.

Return of the Teen

It was just two weeks ago that Owen headed back to school following Easter dinner, so it seems kind of crazy that he is already home, having successfully completed his freshman year of college (technically he's still waiting on his Chemistry grade, but still...). Even crazier, Owen had the last possible final at St. Marys (7 pm on Monday May 5th), which meant that most of campus had already cleared out before he was even done. It also meant that when we arrived at 10 am on Tuesday morning, Owen had already packed, staged all his his stuff (having done his laundry the might before), and cleaned the room, so that it only took 30 minutes to load up the cars and take him home for the summer (it would have been even faster if one of the glass shelves in his refrigerator hadn't broken).

Once we arrived back and unloaded the cars, Allen and I went off to do some work while Owen reacquainted himself with his room. Fortunately, Allen only had to work for a few hours before he and Owen left to catch the last few innings of the first of a Nats-Guardians double header, which was fortunate as the first game ended with a come from behind National's victory while the second...didn't. And while that's probably not how Owen hoped the night would end, overall it was still a pretty good start to his summer.