2017

Well. It's a new year!

Things I expect to happen in 2017:

• Duchess will become a teenager. 
• Skipper will sleep over at a friend's house for the first time.
• Duchess will move into the basement (aka The Dungeon of Asbestos and Radon).
• I will get a new job. 
• Cook will finally get fed up with his job and will also get a new job.

I don't have any resolutions, though of course I'd like to be a better person. Though I think I'd like to wear more wool. And sing more. Sleep more. Try not gain all that weight back. (I don't have any actual plans to make these things happen, so they're just New Year's Vague Notions.)

We've had an exceptionally mellow two weeks. The girls have pretty much just laid around and read a LOT of books.  Duchess is done with it and ready to see her friends, but Skipper, unsurprisingly, says she'd be happy to log a few more weeks of this. We've also been enjoying a nearly-complete hiatus from extracurricular activities, and are musing over how nice that is and what that might mean for future choices.

Duchess attended one day of Zombie Camp this last week, and her reportage from that experience was interesting. She was one of the few kids who didn't get caught and "infected," and she spent the entire day pretty much running away from and hiding from the ever-growing zombie hordes in the woods. She said she was on high alert all the time, and that her vigilance, while exhausting, was what kept her "alive" because she was the first to realize whenever the zombies were attacking, and the quickest to leap up and sprint for safety. I find this reassuring given the growing likelihood that society will completely collapse in the next few years - Duchess will survive, at least for a little while. (She will, however, NOT protect any of the rest of us. She figures we'll be the sacrifices she'll have to make in order to get away.)

Skipper chose not to go to day camp that day. Skipper hates day camp, because day camp is all about new stuff all day - new place, new kids, new teachers, new activities. Ugh. New stuff is the worst. She instead spent half the day at my office and half at Cook's, with a shared pizza lunch interlude. Both offices were very empty and she was very quiet, so it worked out fine.

So - 2017. Let's hope for no zombies.