matching tracksuits

fun in threes, sometimes fours

Sports Saturday

It was a little like old times today: the Girl had a volleyball tournament; the Boy had a soccer game. L is playing on something like a rec team at UF. They travel to various universities and play other rec teams, and this weekend they're in Clemson, just down the highway from us.

The Boy had his first spring-season soccer game today. We had some worries that he wouldn't be on the same team as the previous three or four seasons, but with some polite asking and a little string-pulling, we managed to get him back on that team. It's a good coach with a good group of boys, and they should have a strong showing this season.

And so, as we so often did in the past, we had split duty today: K went to cheer on L while E and I stayed behind for soccer and youth orchestra make-up practice.

The Boy's team dominated in the early minutes, quickly going up 2-0. After that initial surge, though, their dominance waned a bit, and they even allowed a goal. "We got too comfortable after that," he explained as we were leaving after the first half to head to rehearsal. When I picked him up three hours later after rehearsal ("Oh, I forgot how awful those long rehearsals are," he moaned as he got in the car), he told me that he'd gotten a text about the game: 5-2. An overall dominant performance.

The Girl's team also had a dominant performance, not losing a single game and losing only one set. K said the Girl played as well as she's played in a long time, with some really strong kills and overall aggressive play. They walked away with the tournament victory and big smiles.

Afterward, just like old times, the Boy and I went out for Mexican at our favorite restaurant. "We've tried other places," I told the owner, "but we just keep coming back here."

Kamil’s Last Olympics

Three golds and a bronze in previous Olympics makes you a legend who gets to carry your country's flag in your sixth and final Olympics.

Saturday

Sick Frog

The End 2026

We took down the tree and most of the decorations in the living room weeks ago -- earlier than we usually do but certainly later than many. The decorations in the kitchen, though, stayed up.

"Just a little longer," K assured us. I personally don't really care how long the holiday decorations stay up: not having grown up with them, I'm kind of ambivalent and also kind of enjoy them. I guess you could say I'm largely ambivalent about how long they stay up. There -- contradiction resolved.

It seems to be the end of winter as well. We had a massive (for our standards) snow storm Saturday, but by Sunday afternoon, most of the roads were clear. Nonetheless, because we do live in the south, school was canceled for Monday and Tuesday. We were out last week Monday through Wednesday because of the ice storm, so we've been in that time-defying what-day-is-it period for some time now. But weather is returning to normal here: it's supposed to be in the sixties this Saturday, a week after it was in the twenties.

Snow Melting

Actual Snow 2026

afternoon

One Year Ago Tomorrow

A list of concerns about Trump 2.0:

2.0
  1. Cuts prescription cost-cutting measures
  2. Threatens to seize the Panama Canal
  3. Withdraws from the Paris Climate Accord
  4. Withdraws from the WHO
  5. Begins deportation process
  6. Pardons all insurrectionists
  7. Threatens to seize Greenland
  8. Expresses hope to make Canada a US State
  9. Does away with civil rights gains
  10. “Ends” birthright citizenship
  11. Threatens Columbia
  12. Fires inspectors general
  13. Mass firings of those who opposed in any way
  14. Freezes foreign aid
  15. Freezes grants with effects on everything from free lunch programs to housing subsidies, from Medicaid payments to child cancer research
  16. Offers to buy out federal employees

One year in, and he's done (or started) thirteen of them.

Ice Day

Snow 2026

Preparing for the Storm

Covering our meager supply of wood...
...in case everything gets covered with ice, we lose power, and we have to make a fire in the fireplace.

From School Site

Today, we continued working on our critical thinking/problem solving unit with a gallery walk of riddles. Spread around the room were nine different riddles of varying difficulty:

  1. Two fathers and two sons are in a car, yet there are only three people in the car. How?
  2. Forward I am heavy, but backward I am not. What am I?
  3. What starts with T, ends with T, and has T in it?
  4. What is it that no one wants to have, but no one wants to lose either?
  5. Mary has four daughters, and each of her daughters has a brother. How many children does Mary have?
  6. Two in a corner, one in a room, zero in a house, but one in a shelter. What is it?
  7. I am an odd number. Take away a letter and I become even. What number am I?
  8. A word I know, six letters it contains, remove one letter and 12 remains. What is it?
  9. Poor people have it. Rich people need it. If you eat it you die. What is it?

Students moved in their table groups from riddle to riddle and discussed them as groups. Some of the riddles were quite easy for the groups (numbers 1 and 3); some were a bit trickier (numbers 2 and 5); one was all but impossible (number 8), which stumped all but one student, a sixth-grade girl.

We used three riddle classifications to identify them as we went through the answers:

  • word riddles, which contain hints within the words itself;
  • faux-math riddles, which are actually just word riddles;
  • pure riddles, which have no clues hidden in the text.

We discussed how the riddles work and how various riddles use language to trick our brains to ineffective ways of thinking based on how we usually use language.

Monday

Looking Glass Rock

World Reaction

France

UK

Sweden

Finland

EU Parliamentarian Valérie Hayer