Wednesday: the return home

Of course A. and I never left. But husband and son returned home this evening. I was making a hamburger for A., and fries for both of us, but my fries went to R. and I made more for me, as well as a burger. T. took himself out to run an errand and to get dinner.

A. had a bunch of homework today, and really struggled with the social studies. I eventually convinced her — after reading the email from the teacher — that she might as well do a bit more and then turn it in whether it was done or not. I sent a reply back explaining that things had been weird due to the funeral. The teacher, in turn, was surprised to get the work turned in so promptly _and_ he was surprised how much was done. I was like, uh, all we added was a bit from a WSJ article that I’d remembered reading a few days ago, the citation for it, and we used that for two slides, both the explanation of what the current status of mandatory hijab in Iran was and how that connected to one of the four essential questions. There was _literally_ a perfect quote in the article to connect to one of those questions (the past influencing the present — kind of a no brainer in this context, really).

I _think_ I’ve convinced A. of the wisdom of front-loading, “doing a bad job early”, and turning it in early and waiting to see if they want it improved or not. It’s a solid way to calibrate just how much effort is required for what payoff. I don’t like routine use of extensions, especially in conjunction with perfectionism-driven procrastination. You wind up with a year’s worth of assignments due in the last two weeks of the term / the year and it’s just awful. It looks like an executive function problem, and it _kinda_ is, but the fix is way upstream. Here’s hoping we’ll get this diverted adequately.

I had a good phone convo with J., altho some distressing news there. Everyone is taking all the right steps in every way. Fingers crossed things start looking up for them. If nothing else, hopefully they get over whatever virus is dogging them all.

I also got email from the architect and some of the subs. I started writing email to the architect several times and kept tossing the drafts and finally gave up and just called him. He’s mentioned budget concerns several times, and that we should talk through priorities, but was thinking of doing that in the context of an actual list of costs generated from some value engineering calculations.

Good news, the glass pyramid is long gone. It’s sounding like we’re also getting rid of the green roof. It was one of those things that _we_ didn’t come up with, and while it had way more appeal than the glass pyramid, it still just felt … hazardous … in many ways. As far as I’m concerned, making it a roof deck / courtyard is way better, with a bunch of planters, outdoor furniture, etc. I did ask about the home theater, since the cost of burrowing that into the hillside has come up before. I didn’t want a music room OR a home theater, and I wound up with both and not even in a combined form, which I am _still_ fairly pissed off about. I suspect it’s sticking around, because getting rid of it would require significant volume changes. The windows / flow on the side of the pool is going in the direction I always wanted it — more wall, less opening, less glazing. So that’s all to the good.

I’m reasonably certain that this is NOT how this process should go, but I am so fine with that.