I'm so sorry for all of you parents and your kids having to navigate this. I can't even imagine.

Pix, I should OF COURSE have added teachers into that list. Again, I really can't imagine.

Our school district has made a bad situation for teachers completely untenable.

I keep thinking this should be a great opportunity to redesign how we educate kids, taking into account all the post-Industrial Revolution / Information Age insights and capabilities as well as social and economic needs.

b/c with 5-6 hours of homework a night, time mgmt is key

Sara has never had that much homework, and we're supposed to be one of the top public school districts in this area. I think 5-hours is serious overkill, but the work Sara has been given is so frigging easy, it's insane. When I compare it to what I was doing in high school? It's infuriating.

Meanwhile the district went "hybrid" a few weeks ago, meaning grades are divided in two, and half the class goes in two days a week, and does remote three, and vice versa. It's a scheduling nightmare, and we've had positive cases every week the kids have been back.

Our numbers are climbing here, and we're just waiting for another lockdown -- Philly announced its new restrictions the other day, and just about everything is shutting down or being only very minimally open.

I can’t really get into a debate about the situation teachers are in about why reopening is just not a good option in California right now without getting super emotional

Pix, I get how complicated and frustrating and emotional it is. My mom is a teacher in a Friends school (with pre-K) and while they're in school right now, full time, she is EXHAUSTED by the protocols they have to keep in place, on top of reminding four-year-olds not to touch each other, hold hands, take their masks off, etc. They've had a few scares so far, but no positives. That said, it's a school of maybe 125 kids.

Aims, the house is awesome, and the address is perfect!

What Jen said about parent, kids, and teachers. This is just such a nightmare for all.

The plan was for me to take Molly to the vet today for some antibiotic and steroid shots in reaction to her loud, snotty breathing yesterday. But even after being dosed with a sedative she managed to escape the towel I was trying to bundle her in with some levitating snake corkscrew move, and then led me on an 80-minute chase in circles around my apartment before I gave up for fear of doing more harm than good. Fortunately, after a cooldown period from panting her breathing doesn't seem to be any worse, and she let me pet her while she was hiding out under the sofa.

In related news, my cardio goals for the next couple of days have been met.

I feel for parents, teachers, kids of all ages. I don't have kids, don't have any immediate connection with the issue, but from what I'm hearing it's pretty much a nightmare for everyone involved. I hope that the kids come through more or less all right and more or less educated. It just seems like it's being thrown together with unreasonable expectations from people who are running things and either don't have kids or have shunted the responsibility on to someone else (there was a university - in Florida, I think - that was going to require their people to prove that they either had day care or a nanny ... which got shut down fairly quickly).

I also saw a story about college-level students who were taking computer proctored exams and were being dinged for the number of times their EYES MOVED.

My mailbox today had $640 in it from the Supervisor of Elections for payment for services rendered on election day for me and DH. Seriously, we would have done it for free, but ChaChing, money is good too.

Laura, from a ways back -- how is the Far Northern Son faring in the decidedly non-Floridian weather?

It was a temp that started with a 2 here today so I'm really feeling dubious about this whole 'winter' thing.

It was distinctly cold here as well; luckily, my building JUST finished repairing the boiler, so it's warm inside. One good thing about having moved recently is that I had my winter clothes easy to find - I needed a real coat, rather than just a light jacket, and gloves today.

I remember reading years ago that Carl Hiaasen, a native Floridian, after college tried moving to Georgia (Atlanta, I think). He found it too cold and moved back.

There haven't been any official announcements yet, but I'll be stunned if either Seattle Public Schools or UW go back to normal in-person instruction before the fall.

Since Alex is an introvert who does most of his socializing with online friends, he's coping pretty well. But I was hoping this year he'd start making more friends *at school*, since he's more comfortable in his skin now that he's out as trans and on T. Obviously invisible friends count (she says to her invisible friends), but I'd rather he have both.