Updates

Hi! We're all healthyish. Things are feeling moderately springy around here, as we slog out of a very, very rainy winter. Here's a boring update:

1) I'm fine. Looking for a new job to replace the current one, which has a couple months left in it.

2) Cook's fine. Still not looking for a new job.

3) Skipper's fine. She walked herself home from school this week for the first time ever,* and felt very proud. 

4) Duchess is fine, but just middle-schooling up a storm. She is snarky and judgy and emotionally labile and just... exhausting. She did have a wonderful, wonderful spring break camp experience, at the same horse ranch/natural burial ground (seriously) where she went to summer camp last year. There were only two kids registered for the camp, so they just followed around the skeleton staff who was there anyway, and did stuff like feed the horses, feed the baby goats,** play with the puppy, wash the dishes, repair the electric fence, and clear brush. Duchess wept and wept when she came home because she missed everybody (especially the horses) SO MUCH. 

*It's only a few blocks, crossing only low-traffic streets. Don't worry. (Also, note that Skipper is competent as hell, as long as she doesn't have to talk to anybody or be seen by anybody.)  Cook's teleworking one day a week now (yay!), so he was home to receive her. He casually loitered on the porch as if he was just fetching in the mail.

**There are two males, and the ranch will keep one for breeding and eat the other one. Duchess has a strong preference for which one should get eaten, and cast her vote before she left.