Bill Roper's Journal

Today was Opening Day of the baseball season (not counting the out-of-country opener in Japan). There was much rejoicing. There was especially rejoicing, because the Cardinals are currently alone in first place in the NL Central, a position that they might not spend a lot of time in this year. But they are in first place for now and that is worth a small celebration.

In other news, K wanted to watch "Back to the Future". I would have sworn that I bought a boxed set of the DVDs some time back, but they were nowhere to be found, so I ordered a new boxed set of the three movies yesterday and it arrived today. K is now heading downstairs to watch one or more movies, which is the advantage of being on Spring Break.

And now it is time to go look at box scores, because the annual baseball draft is on Saturday and I should see who is actually playing... :)

It was time to catch up on laundry today. Four loads of mostly parental laundry later, we are caught up -- although three loads still need to be put away. But I managed to hump those three laundry baskets up to the second floor in a single trip, so I am suitably impressed.

The kids continue to have fun in New York. So far, they have seen "Six", the "Back to the Future" showing accompanied by a symphony orchestra, and have gone on a Hudson River dinner cruise tonight. I am told there are pictures. They'll be back late tomorrow, if all goes according to plan. They have a week off from school. I have plans for cleaning. :)

In other news, Gretchen introduced me to the "Cheese Tax" song today. Ouch! What a cute little earworm!

The kids were delivered to Terminal 1 at O'Hare this morning at about 3:50 AM, which is an absurd hour of the morning, but which was good, because it meant that they would be going out on the first United flight of the day to Newark.

If only their luggage had gone with them. I don't know how United managed to mess this up, but the luggage ended up going out on the next flight, which meant that they got to spend several fascinating hours in the baggage claim at Newark. I will, at some point, be interested in hearing the only slightly censored comments from the chaperones about this.

But they are there and I am presuming that fun is being had, because they have been mostly too busy to text us. Given the amount of sleep they got last night, I am assuming that they are *very* sound asleep now.

So we texted them "Good night!" :)

I was a bit light on sleep when I set out for Thing on Friday. I then compounded this by getting *way* too little sleep over the weekend in favor of conversation and being up in time for breakfast. As a result, by the time I got home, I was absolutely exhausted.

Unfortunately, there were various things going on that delayed my getting to bed. This was compounded by having to set an alarm for 6:30 AM so that I could get up and get an appointment at the DMV so that Julie could get a state ID to use when flying for the Band/Choir trip to New York on Thursday morning. But I obtained the appointment for the ID and then the kindly clerk agreed that she could go ahead and run a Real ID submission for her since we had all of the correct documentation in hand.

So Julie has a brand-new temporary ID, with a brand-new Real ID due to arrive in the next few weeks.

I am pleased.

The kids have to be delivered to the airport at 4 AM on Thursday morning to catch their flight to New York. This is my job, which I am not entirely looking forward to.

But when I get home, I am going back to bed. :)

It took an hour and a bit tonight, but we have now gotten K registered for room and board for next year at college. We've also determined that she's not going to try to go down for a visit on April 4th, which means that I am clear to go to Cubs Opening Day. :)

My condition is substantially improved today. I think that most of the problem was due to an unrelated digestive thing that seems to have cleared up. :)

Now, I am just trying to figure out how to get K appropriate ID for her upcoming school trip which involves flying, which has become more complex since she has turned 18. This may involve taking the driver's test. Doing that would be easier if there were actually appointments available...

I love bureaucracy.

This was the third performance of the musical and things are going well, save for the continuing microphone malfunction problem. Today, we lost Ursula's microphone for her entire first scene. The actress soldiered on valiantly and was able to carry most of the dialog to the audience, but getting the song over the top of the orchestra was a *big* challenge.

But that was the only real mic problem for the night, so...

And now it is time to go pick up K from the cast party. :)

Tonight was Opening Night for "The Little Mermaid" over at Maine West and the show went well. There were some problems with the sound system that K promises that they are aware of and will correct by tomorrow, but the kids all did a great job. And the work on the set pieces was quite spectacular!

I'll be back tomorrow, so we'll see how day two goes. :)

We're back from Ball State, which will shortly officially be where K is starting college next year.

I am fabulously tired. :)

Gretchen was dubious of my scheme to make pancakes for breakfast, but it worked out better than I might have hoped, despite a few pancakes that were a bit darker than intended. But this is the first time I've tried the assembly line approach for pancakes (feeds eight!) and everyone seemed satisfied, so I'm going to take it as a win. Jen cut up the roll sausage, so we had sausage patties, and I had prepped the scrambled eggs so that they could go into the pan at the right time so that Gretchen could tend them and the sausage while I worked at not burning pancakes. And, of course, all things are improved by maple syrup. :)

Shortly thereafter, everyone departed. Ruby misses everyone, but is officially tired.

And tomorrow, we will dive back into things that need to be done around the house.

But it was nice to have company!