New Digs

Thomas moved into his new apartment a few weeks ago, after spending some weeks visiting our fold out in the sunroom.  OK, so I all it an apartment, and he calls it a house.  It's actually a duplex, so let's split the difference.  In either event, it's on the southern end of SoBro, which is the southern portion of South Broad Ripple, so he is now one of the cool kids.  Or not.  Oh well, he's close the the library, the police station and the fire station, all within a few blocks radius of his house.

He's living with one of his buddies, Ben, and my fourth child, Chris, who is in his element in his very first apartment.  Ben, not so much, since he had a good job at Lockheed Martin as an engineer or, as he called it, The Restroom Grand Tour, since he basically spent his whole day wandering around the building with the excuse of looking for a restroom..  After a few years of the grand tour, he ditched it all and came to Indiana, and is now tutoring some Indian kid up north, making more money than I do as a nurse.  But I digress.  Chris has the small, corner room and seems to be as happy as a clam.  Thomas got the big room and is still wondering why, since he really doesn't care.

Thomas' biggest complaint was that they needed a table.  Jim tried to give him our smaller kitchen table, but he declined, saying that they didn't have room for it.  Jim doubted this, and I just shrugged, till I was told by the heir to the throne that he couldn't believe that I hadn't seen his new digs yet.  "I mean, Dad has been here, and you haven't.  What's wrong with that picture?"  I went over, and his dog promptly bit me (see previous post), but before I toddled off to Medcheck, The Heir told me that it wasn't that they didn't have room for a table, it was that they needed a bigger table than what Jim had offered.

That afternoon, they followed my advice, went to the furniture store up the block and pad $50 for a dining room table, which was promptly taken home by the four of them, carrying it he-man style down College Avenue.  I wish I had pictures.  Or video.

They needed a bigger table because they like to play games, and the card table they were using wasn't big enough.  Seth spends lots of time over there, hanging out (it's closer to his internship than we are), or just hanging out with his bros.  I suppose when school starts, they will still hang out, because it's only a few minutes from Butler, where Seth will be living on campus.  And so it was that Thomas gave Seth a key to the house:

And Seth loves it.  I thought at first it was plastic, but Seth told me today, as we were waiting to pick up his car from Walmart's automotive department, that it's not only metal, but it has some weight to it, "so when I swing my lanyard around, I thought that maybe it would kill someone if I hit them with it."  This digressed into a conversation about how perhaps this is why Goths love Hello Kitty, because of the danger element.

Who knows.

The Three Things

Yesterday, The Spare to the Throne left the nest, complete with a computer that lacked some screws, a flat screen TV that lacked a power cord, and a tea kettle without a whistle.  But yep, he's livin the dream, because he's wanted to go to Butler  for pretty much all of his vertical life.  Heck, he's not even worried about the air-condition-less dorm.  He's pretty happy.

One of his roommates was already there when we arrived.  His mom was chatty, and his dad was on the floor on a beanbag chair.  The boys wandered off to unload and the parents chatted about the boys.  We found that both boys are pretty quiet, have a small group of close friends but know and get along with everyone, and both are messy (read:  pigs).  Roomie's mom mentioned that they've talked a lot about time management.  Hmmm.......I had a talk with Seth, but not about time management.  We talked about The Three Things.  "What three things," asked the mom.  "Drinking?"  "Nope, he knows my stance on that."  "Drugs?"  "Nope, if he doesn't know my stance on that by now, then he hasn't listened at all."  "Sex?"  "Nope, not exactly."

The three things are as follows, and in this order:

"1.  If you think that you want to change or deface this body of yours that I have looked at for 18 years, you need to call me first.  If you feel the need to get a piercing or tattoo, then fine.  I'm not going to try to talk you out of it.  I just want to be sure that you go somewhere reputable and that you aren't going to come home with a disease that you can't get rid of.

2.  If someone is pregnant, I do not want to hear about it through the grapevine.  This includes after you are married.  I need to be the first to know, or it could get ugly.  That being said, there are condoms in your first aid kit.  Use them.

3.  If you are calling me from jail, it had better be to tell me that you are getting comfortable for the night.  I will NOT bail you out.  You can, however, call Jim.  He might give you bail money.  I won't.  Call him, because I don't want to hear about jail after the fact.  And you know me.  I will find out.

All three kids met #3 with the same argument:  "what if it was something our friend did, and we just were in the wrong place at the wrong time?  Because then it's not my fault, so you'd bail me out, right?  WRONG.  I did not raise you to have stupid friends, so if you choose to hang with stupid people, call someone else.  "Geez Mom, that's cold."   I don't think so.  At least, not if I warned you ahead of time.

My mom is a little shocked that I tell them these things.  She says that I must think the worst of my kids.  I say nope.  If, by the time they go to college, they haven't figured out how I feel about smoking, drinking, drugs, and doing their schoolwork, then they haven't paid any attention for the past 18 years, and they should reconsider their plans, because they apparently aren't smart enough for college.  My Three Things are the three permanent game changers for a young person's life, and they are most likely to happen during the college years.

And that being said, none of them have ever cashed in on any of them.  And I'd call that a win for the mom.

Hand written

Jill texted me Monday night to let me know how her first day of her last semester of undergrad went, and said she was exhausted.  Rightfully so, since she's in school full time, working three jobs plus being a teacher's assistant in another class.  Girlfriend has got to be tired.  She called me yesterday and I was with a patient, so I tried calling her back, to no avail.  Texted her to be sure everything was ok.  She texted back later on saying she had just called to tell me about her first day of class, and that it was exhausting.  She's so tired she's repeating herself a bit, but that's ok.

So she called me today, and of course I missed the call.  Called her back and she said she is having great fun as a teacher's assistant for a class of 144.  She was particularly excited, however, that she had gotten an email from one of the grad schools she's applied to.

"Mom, it was a hand written email."

I'll give that a minute to sink in.

I figured that girlfriend was just exhausted, but no, she repeated it two more times during the conversation which, hilariously, was interrupted simultaneously by Michael calling Jill's phone from the next room, and Jim, who has the flu, was calling my phone from his sickbed upstairs.  Kind of the equivalent of the days when I used to IM Thomas to tell him to come down to dinner.  I did not, however, hand write the IM.

There are, after all, those who lament the passing of cursive writing, may it rest in peace.  And some day, the kids of the next generation will lament that passing of the hand written email.  And just in case you are wondering, the "hand written" email was, as Jill explained, not a canned response to her application.  It was an email that was obviously written to Jill, not "to whom it may concern."  Keep your fingers crossed that the acceptance letter isn't far behind.  I know I am.