The little deposit book I carried with me everywhere and could use to withdraw money from some banks and almost any post offices...
Bank Book
general
Winter Walk
The weather is turning cooler: I head out for an evening walk with the dog wearing a jacket and sweat pants, covering my bald head with some cap or other. In the morning, we crank our cars a few minutes before leaving so that they're warm when we begin our journeys.
Later this week, it's supposed to drop into the upper twenties; next week, it's supposed to get into the lower twenties. It will only stay that way for a few days at most, though: we're likely to get back into the sixties for a few days at some point before Christmas.
Which is to say that, no matter the date, we'll not likely have any winter walks as we did twenty years ago.
The Start of the End?
I heard the news in the late afternoon: a missile strike on Polish territory. It's what we've all been worried about, consciously or unconsciously, since Russia's unconscionable attack on Ukraine began almost nine months ago. "It wouldn't take much for a Russian missile targeting western Ukraine to strike in Poland," we thought, and it appears to have happened.
Monday Evening Swim
It's slowly becoming a tradition borne from the limitations of scheduling and the necessities of an otherwise-sedentary life. Almost every Monday evening, we head to the local YMCA around seven to swim some laps.
We've been doing it for a few weeks now.
I swam in high school and find that although I've lost most of my strength and cardiovascular fitness, I continue to have a decent stroke and make decent progress through the water. Still, my lack of fitness means that I can't swim the distances I used to. About eight laps -- 200 yards -- is my limit at this point, and I usually keep it at four-lap segments. So I work my way, 100 yards at a time, through at least 1,000 yards of swimming over the course of forty minutes or so, which was not even the distance we swam in high school as a warm-up and more than double the time it took then.
"What can we say -- we're getting older," is K's refrain. I refuse to believe that, though. It's not age. It's lack of fitness. It's lack of movement over the last fifteen years. It's lack of swimming: I haven't really swum any since I finished high school over thirty years ago.
The best thing about regular exercise, though, is the progress you see over time. Our first time out in late summer or early fall, I couldn't even swim 500 yards. In a few weeks' time, I've doubled that.
Next, 2,000 yards at a time.
The Boy has experienced similar improvement. Today, he swam 300 yards in 100-yard segments. Once he was done, he decided to do one more 50-yard segment.
Next goal, 500 yards.
Conestee Afternoon
Recognition
The local hockey team, the Greenville Swamp Rabbits, invited the Mauldin girls to come out for some recognition of their achievement of winning the state championship.
They pulled off a last-minute (truly) goal to tie the game at 2 before scoring the winning goal shortly after overtime began.
"We're their good luck charms!" the Girl proclaimed.
Lot 403
Guitar with The Boy
When I was the Boy's age, I had no interest in guitar. When I was the Girl's age, my conception of volleyball was limited to what we played in gym class.
The Boy and I played guitar tonight for a while. The Girl went to sign documents for her fourth club season.
My life as a kid and theirs could not be more different in many ways. And that's a good thing.
Always Changing
If there's one thing I've learned in my years in the Greenville county school system it's that nothing last forever.
Don't like some software the district is requiring you to use? Don't worry: the powers that be will change their mind in a few years. (I'm lookin' at you, Mastery Connect.)
Tired of all the jargonistic names of things? Never fear: they'll create new jargon and new acronyms based on it shortly.
Don't like the required verbiage in the district's lesson plan templates? Don't fret: they'll change that within a few years.
Feeling antipathy for the district's teacher evaluation program? No worries: they'll change it in a few years.
Don't like the required template for self-reflection and the format of the accompanying meetings with administrators regarding such self-reflection? Don't worry: they'll change that.
Every year they change something. And every year, we hear the same thing: "This new gadget/program/template/software is a game changer." Always looking for that silver bullet.
The only constant thing in this school district is the inevitable major change every few years.
At first, this used to bother me greatly. Not anymore. I've come to expect it. Every time we have a meeting, my thought is, "Okay, what are they changing now."
Election 2022
It was a little after six when I realized I hadn't gone to vote. I'd been putting it off all day, spending the day working on our yearbook for 2022, taking the kids on a bookstore outing, and learning that the $3,000 we spent to fix our outdoor HVAC unit was completely wasted. So, a mixed bag.
The line for voting stretched into the parking lot, but it was moving fast. Even if it wasn't, I was going to stick it out: "Vote like democracy depends on it" has been an idea consistently popping up on social media, and I'm likely to agree. The radical GOP (which stands for Gaslight Obstruct and Project) seems determined to destroy our democratic institutions, and their traitorous support of a man who tried to overturn a fair election has made me say numerous times, "I'd vote for Satan himself before I'd vote Republican." Besides, the Republican party of the past is just that: they are, by and large, a bunch of conspiracy theory anti-democracy grifters who take their supporters to be naive children who don't remember what they said five minutes ago.
As I entered the voting booth, I clicked on the option to vote for the entire Democratic ticket, then clicked through the options to check each selection. It was only then that I realized how many races were one-person (usually one-man) races, with only a Republican running. In all of those races, I cast no vote, though I thought about writing in myself.
What an amusing situation that creates, though: so many Bible-belt Christians here are so anti-communist that they see communism where it doesn't even exist. They equate anything left-leaning with socialism, which they in turn equate with the very worst version of it (i.e., the Soviet Union). However, elections in the USSR looked more like elections in South Carolina than Republicans here would probably like: one option, and one alone.
If the modern GOP had its way, that's exactly what they'd enforce.