May 2024

School year comes to a close
The upside of the new school calendar is that the kids were done by the last of May, and it was a busy month indeed as everything seemed to happen all at once:
—Sports appreciation night: Lukas went to Castillero’s Sports Appreciation Night, going onstage with the handball team when they were called up. Unlike some of the other sports, the handball coach’s speech was brief; Lukas told us on the way out that “this was a waste of time” and he didn’t want to do it next year, if he even plays, lol.
—The AP European History test: This was the official AP exam, and it took most of a morning. Annika wasn’t sure how she’d done, but she thought it went well, and was hoping for a 5 but betting on a 4. Scores will be released in July.
—Underclassmen Honors Night: Exactly as titled, members of the freshman, sophomore, and junior classes were honored for academic excellence, nominated by their teachers and approved by the department chair. Annika was nominated by three teachers: Burrell (AP Euro), Luskin (Sculpture) and Goldman-Hall (Ethni Studies Literature - Honors), plus she was chosen as the Social Studies Departmental Scholar! We were all so, SO proud of her!
—Little Shop of Horrors: Annika and I went to see her friend CJ in Pioneer’s production of the musical; her part wasn’t a big one, but she did really well (and we bought her flowers — I had to deliver them the next day because I forgot that night but hey.
—D&D club: The Liches ended the year on a high note, with a final session and T-shirts for everyone that Lukas designed. Everybody loved the shirts, which count as uniform compliant because they’re school spirit wear!
—Annika had some fun social things, including going to her friend Ash’s birthday party — billed as a fancy tea party — in a dress (which is only notable because she literally did’t own a dress, lol — we had to go to Macy’s to get one, and she looked lovely, of course). Also, the two of us went to see the 30th anniversary re-release of The Crow with CJ and their mom. I spied the upcoming listing and impulse-bought tickets, because I knew from things that CJ had said on the drive home after badminton that it was an important movie to them and I knew they had never seen it in the theater; it turned out it was their mom’s favorite movie as well, so it ended up being the four of us, which was cool.
—Last day of school: Finally we got to the very end, and took the usual pics in the morning and went to get ice cream in the afternoon — but, sadly, it was just Annika and I, since Lukas was exhausted and didn’t feel well. :-(

Family stuff
—Grandma moves home: Grandma was finally pronounced recovered-enough to go home from the skilled nursing facility, so in advance of that, R. and I spent literally an entire day prepping for her to move back in — renting a U-Haul, pulling up rugs from their place (I think there were 7 or 8 area rugs, gaaaaaaahhhhh) and generally decrapifying and making space so she could get through in her wheelchair (and so neither of them would fall again). We took everything to a storage facility a few minutes from our house, and got home after 9:00 p.m. But it was necessary work, and we felt a lot better about her safety with it all done.
—Mother’s Day: Grandma was still in the SNF on Mother’s Day, so we didn’t really have much of a celebration; we took flowers to her and visited her there.
—R.’s birthday: This was a more low-key celebration than last year’s, lol … but there were presents and cake and a good dinner at home, more like our usual family celebrations. 
—Cirque du Soleil: We went to a San Jose performance of Cirque du Soleil with the Patels — it was really funny and of course as crazy as usual, and Manir and Amira got a kick out of it (they hadn’t seen one in years, whereas we’re gettin to be kind of regulars).
—Memorial Day weekend: Another holiday long weekend where it was too cold to swim, ugh! But we did get a couple of rounds of bowling in, since the Summer Games pass is back (one with just our family, one with the Patels), and Annika went to two days of Fanime Con with Elise and Sydney, this time with no adults present — I dropped them off, Sydney’s parents picked them up, and they managed themselves for the day — new frontier reached!