the girl
Champions
L's high school team won a local tournament with about 12 teams competing.
Return
The Girl has been sidelined for three weeks with a badly-sprained ankle. She did physical therapy the entire time, and last week she was hoping to get the go-ahead to return to play. Instead, her therapist told her, "You can return to practice, but don't play."
She was heartbroken.
Tonight was her first night back. It was their first region game -- all the other teams they've been playing have been out of region. They won in three straight sets: 25-6; 25-15; 25-17. Or all-told, 75-38, just under a 2-1 scoring ratio.
The Girl got to play about 1.5 sets. She indicated she was pleased with how things went, but I know she wanted more, wanted to do better. Still, after three weeks of not playing, she did a fantastic job. And as always, hers were the loudest cheers on the team.
Sunday at Home
Lake Tillery 2022
Saturday, Late August
It's late August -- the time of year when cooler autumnal temperatures approach, but sometimes not quite fast enough. Daytime temperatures can still get up into the mid-90s, and summer's humidity still lingers, making it feel even warmer.
That's all fine and good if your HVAC system is working well. Sure, it might work a bit more than you would hope. The heavy heat of July is a thing of the past, and although it can be hot, late August usually brings a bit of a break for one's HVAC system and one's power bill compared to mid-July. Not much -- just a bit.
Still, we have a relatively high-efficiency system, and the difference I guess is no big savings. Five or ten bucks perhaps.
But then the system starts stalling, starts leaking coolant, and the indoor temperature climbs despite the temperature outside. Specialists arrive, investigate, diagnose, and give a $2,200 quote for fixing the system or $800 for a temporary bandaid.
"How long will it last?"
"A few months to a few years."
Cheap is expensive; lack of information leads to poor decisions. It lasts less than 24 hours. $800 for 20 hours of cooling.
More specialists arrive. They'll do the fix for about 75% of the other company's quote. We go for it. The system works for a couple of weeks, still showing some strain and problems but keeping the house comfortable.
And then the whole thing shuts down. Completely. When temperatures return to the mid-90s. And the company we've been working with doesn't work on the weekend, so we're stuck until Monday. And so you start researching things like this.
Our Games
The Boy's first games with his new soccer team took place today. It was a tough start to the season: 0-4 and 0-5 losses. I was expecting him to be terribly disappointed about it, but he was surprisingly stoic: "We have some things we need to fix, but we could be good."
The Girl's high school varsity team, for which L plays middle, won their first tournament today.
A day of contrasts.
First Day 2022
The Boy had a rough day of it: he's been in a multi-age classroom for four years, meaning he's been with the same group of people (mostly) for those four years. Fifth grade, though, doesn't have a multi-age program, so he's back out in the general population -- and none too thrilled about it. All his closest friends from the last four years -- all of them -- ended up in different classes. A few of them got grouped together, but none of them are in E's class. Which makes him less than thrilled about school after this first day.
We tried to help the Boy see things from a different perspective, but for the longest time, he just wasn't interested. It was going to be a disastrous year, he was sure of it. There was no way it could get better -- he was convinced. He might as well just switch to homeschool.
After some time in the pool and a lot of reassurance, he informed us on the way home that "all of Mama's speeches" had made him a little more excited about tomorrow.
As for the Girl, she sat down in the car after volleyball practice, looked at me, and said, "Guess what we have in English class?" I raised my eyebrows in anticipation. "Articles of the week!"
I've been giving my students an article of the week for almost ten years now. It's one of the most effective tools I use.
"Do you know what this is?" one of the Girl's friends asked her.
"Yes," she whispered back. "I've been grading them for years." Which is dramatic sounding, and it probably got a laugh, but it's not quite true. I've had her checking multiple choice questions, adding up the points, and using my scale to determine and write the grade on the paper, but that's not really grading them.
"Same difference!" L playfully huffed when I pointed this out.
Final Full Day
Today was the last full day K and L will be here. Tomorrow afternoon we head to K's brother's house for a grill and a short nap before taking the girls to the airport at the ungodly hour of 4:00 am.
Today, we went to Spytkowice to visit with a few people we hadn't seen at all or had seen only shortly.
And of course, there was the lovely drive home.
But the highlight of the day came at the start of the day, so to speak -- before taking Babcia out for a final lunch, we had a short photo session.
The Boy took a picture.
I took a picture of the three generations of ladies.
But the picture of the day, in some ways the picture of the whole trip thus far, was a quick, informal portrait session with Babcia.
Babia Gora
I lived at the base of Babia Gora for seven years and only once tried to reach the summit. Shortly after that, I injured my knee while hiking in the Tatra Mountains. Some time after that, when my knee had healed, I injured the other knee. And so I never made it to the top of Babia. Until today.
Here's some video showing just how windy it was at the top.