Junie Starts College

Today our Junie, our youngest, started college.  COLLEGE! 

The days are long, but the years get shorter and shorter. 

She reports that her first class - Philosophy of AI - was "dope." And yes, you Mike Rowe cultists, that has a practical application to her career choice.

Congratulations Junie! Kick some butt!

Junie and her man

Junie and her beau at National Night Out at the police station in West Milwaukee. 

Happy 18th Birthday Junie!!

It's over. 

8, 690 days after parenthood began, the last 519 days having been shored up by Junie's contribution alone, it's done.

The last of the kids has turned 18. I logged into my medical app and it's only my info. 

Not YaYa's.Not Lu's. Not Smiley's.

And as of today, no Junie's.

The childhoods of Team Slap are just memories now, and nothing more.  I hope, as the youngest enters adulthood, that she recognizes how much effort and sweat we put in to make it memorable for them all. 

My baby in the window. My Lump. My Ginger. My Junie. 18. A grown-up.

Damnit, i can't stop bawling.

Happy Birthday kid. Sto Lot!

Daiso

I had never heard of Daiso, a Japanese retail store that is apparently well known on the socials. To be fair, I'm not their target audience, and regardless, last Sunday I found myself driving Lisa, Junie, and two of Junie's friends to check out the place in Kenosha, about 50 minutes south of us. 

 

I was underwhelmed. It's essentially a dollar store, with a few sections of "higher end" items -  merchandise you'd expect to pay five bucks for at other places. That's fine, I like Dollar Stores, and I make no effort to hide that. 

Two things bothered me. One, other than a very small assortment of Japanese food items, nothing in the place was Japanese. Oh, it may have been from Japan, but if it's all copies of the stuff in the stores to either side, what's the point? I was expecting culture shock, and instead felt right at home. 

Two, the only REAL Japanese thing about the place was the pricing. Some items had prices in yens, and you'd look on a chart posted in every aisle and translate that to dollars. Whatever lacked a price - i.e. most of the place - defaulted to $2.25. 

 So you'd pay $2.25 for scads of items that you know weren't worth it, items you could find for $1.25 at any Dollar Tree, or even a buck or less elsewhere. What a ripoff.  But, just as you do whenever you're a tourist, you go and buy it anyway. I spent $33, and while $12 was reasonably spent on a set of bowls, the rest was just me being a sucker. 

Sigh. 

Afterwards Lisa treated the kids to White Castle before we drove home. The food, the travel, and the company made up for what was, to me, a disappointing trip to Daiso. 

Or, She Could Have Just Had Leftovers Like I Did

"This Father," Junie said,  tapping the side of the can with her fingernail, "this is a Recession Indicator. I haven't eaten fruit cocktail since school lunch in 6th grade."

The Wiz

Last night Lisa and I accompanied Junie to a performance of THE WIZ at the High School of the Arts. I have seen countess performances there for the last ten years, as well as a few back in the '90's, so please take that into account when I say that this was easily the best musical I've ever seen there. 

How ironic that this will also be the last performance I see there, unless a grandkid attends in the far future. I guess they saved the best for last. 

 

Lex Crump (Dorothy) and Jordan Rodriguez (Lion) were superb, showcasing talent and charisma at a professional level. The orchestra, which I've always considered hit or miss at performances, was note-perfect, as was the vocal ensemble. The dances were tight and full of energy. The props and scenery . . . well, with a few exceptions, let's not think about them. 

Now you'll note I only referenced two performers by name, but don't take that as an insult to the rest. Junie's friend Kevin was very sharp in his turn as the Wiz, and even Auntie Em had a heck of a voice.

The show was just dang GOOD. 

Junie, as always, came prepared with flower bouquets and gift bags for each friend in the cast. 

Kudos to the cast, crew, and leadership. Bravo!!

She's a Little Ungrateful

Junie on why she prefers talking over her teenage problems with her Mom:

 "No offense, but your advice lacks nuance. All you ever say is "Do you want me to kill those c--k suckers for you?" That isn't very helpful."

1st Place - Forensics

Last Saturday, the 11th, Junie finished first in a city wide forensics tournament in her category, "Special Occasion Speaking."

Well done, and congratulations!

The Parenting Victory of No-Dye Laundry Soap

 You don't think you make a difference in how your kids see the world until they say some random thing that makes you ponder if they've been paying more attention that you thought. 

The other day Junie wanted to wash her white dress shirt for work. No big deal that, the kids have all done their own laundry for years and years. She was concerned, however, with getting out some stains. So I gave her my secret stash of Tide, which I use only when I really need to get out a stubborn spot. 

"My shirt is white Dad," she said. 

"Yeah?" I said. 

"This is blue. It's gonna stain." 

And it hit me. 

She's so unfamiliar with conventional laundry soap that she doesn't know dyes are a ridiculous, but standard part of them. 

I was unduly proud. 

Upset by how much waste is produced by laundry products, from the large plastic bottles, to the watered down detergent itself, and the unnecessary dyes and perfumes, we long ago switched to eco friendly detergent sheets from Earth Breeze. Paper packaging, ultra-concentrated, and dye and fragrance free. They are packaged and sent out from Oregon, but manufactured in China, which is a fact that has been gnawing at us for awhile. Still, the benefits outweigh the negatives. 

Plus they work great, although ain't nothin' gonna take out a tough stain like old fashioned Tide. 

In addition to the laundry sheets, we try and recycle to a mad degree (we've got two carts from the city; a normal household is given one) but I do wonder how much of the plastic is actually recycled. 

We also use Grove for our dish and hand soap, as they come in aluminum bottles, and their toilet paper, which is made from bamboo. I love Grove and the quality of their paper products, but as with Earth Breeze I wish the product wasn't manufactured in China (although they claim net zero emissions by the end of supply chain) and I fail to see why paper that wipes your poop needs to be bleached white before such a task. 

But apparently, in our own small way, we've committed so hard to these practices that our kid has incorporated them into her reality. And yes, like I said, that makes me dang proud. 

My Third (maybe 4th? No, 3rd) Polar Bear Plunge

Let it be clearly known, that I did not decide to dunk myself in the freezing water of Lake Michigan until about forty five minutes before I did it.  Afterwards, it turned out that LuLu, in the days prior to New Years, had asked about doing it, and so I looked like a jerk when I proceeded without her. But this is not a retcon; up until midday I really didn't want to do the plunge. A lot of years I hem and haw and feel like a scrub for not completing the task, but this time, nope: I just didn't want to do it. 

And then I changed my mind. 

It was too late to participate in the official, public events (who can get up and ready and be somewhere by noon on New Years Day??), but the lake was still there, and we were about to reacquaint ourselves with one another. 

I picked a not-great day to do it, weather wise. It wasn't the worst weather Milwaukee can throw at you, but a brisk 29 degrees (F) did not make for comfort even on the walk from the car to the beach. 

I did succeed in getting Smiley to go with me and watch (and drag me out if need be). 

 But he claimed his phone was dead or at 4%, depending on the minute, and so couldn't be used to record the event. As I wanted both pics and video for different social media platforms, I needed two devices. So I called Yaya and she and Alex met us there. 

"There" not being the standard Bradford Beach, north of downtown, but the nearby South Shore, where a local , alternate version of the Polar Bear Plunge had taken place at noon. I didn't make it to the "x" on the map, instead going in at the boat launch. 

While we waited for YaYa, an elderly couple came, ignored the "don't feed the geese" sign, and dropped two big bottles of feed on the concrete. 
 

When it was time to go in the water, a shock, and not just from the bitter cold H20: Smiley had secretly decided to go in with me, and had his swim trunks on under his pants! Yay!

The water was brrrr and getting splashed didn't help any. 

Smiley went out to below hip height and declared, being a man of common sense, that he would go no further. He turned around and returned to shore. 

I continued on my own. 

I dunked myself to chin height but I did not dunk my head in, an act later criticized by Lisa, who, I might point out, has never done the plunge and if she did, would have hair on her head to keep her warmer. 

This pic is me in agony. Soaking wet, my feet pins and needles, desperately trying to get to the warmth of the car, and held hostage by the need for a final, positive pic for the post LOL 

Introducing Oliver

So I adopted a 17 year old cat today. I was at MAADC, the Milwaukee pound, as I'd given LuLu a ride to pick up her kitten post-neutering. I'm not saying I knew I would be adopting a cat when I went with Lu, but I'm not saying it wasn't a possibility. 

  I had seen, online, a cat named Oliver, age 17, and a hefty 13 pounds. So I asked to see him in person, and, while Lu waited in the car with her kitten, Junie and I were introduced to Oliver. 

He was as big as advertised, very chill, friendly (but not a purr-er, at least not yet) and spry for his age and size; twice the volunteer stopped him from leaping atop a filing cabinet. He had been a stray in 2009, when he was adopted and spent the next 15 years in the same household, coming back to MAADC after his owner's death. He had been front-declawed, something we would never do nowadays, but was common a few decades ago. 

 I had mixed feelings, knowing that at 17 our time together would amount to a few years at best, but in the end I said yes to taking him home. 

And then, as I was checking out, a family came in saying they were there to see Oliver. Perhaps, I thought, a family a little less chaotic would suit him better.  So I approached them and offered to let them skip the rest of the line and meet Olivier; if they wanted him, I would pass on him and wish them the best. In a burst of introspection, I also wrote this in the family chat: 

I'm also in a depressive episode right now, and I want to make sure I'm acting rationally [by adopting Olivier] and not out of a need to fill a void. 

A few minutes later the family came out and said they did NOT want Oliver; he was too old! Why ask to see a 17 year old cat if his age was an issue? 

I took it as confirmation from on high that I was making the right decision. I adopted him right there, on the spot. 

We ran some errands before heading home, and he kept popping his head out of the cat carrier, like a little furry tank driver

Once we were home, Kahuna was NOT having the new addition.  

Quoting Junie: 

Airplane ears. Mad as hell. Side eye. . . but she started purring immediately after being taken upstairs and thrown onto my bed lmao

So far the dogs have been ok with Olivier. Sawyer has honored the warning hisses and kept a distance, while frankly Huckleberry seems afraid of him LOL I'm sure they'll be a dustup eventually, as Sawyer will want to test him out, but Oliver seems to have a been there/done that attitude that I hope will end the matter quickly. 

I don't know how long he'll be with us - I hope a few years - but we hope to make the final chapters of his life good ones.