Teens

A while back, Travis and Katie each decided that they wanted to attend concerts (originally the same concert, then different concerts, though both, I think, are in Charlotte), so they each bought themselves and their chauffeur/chaperone/fellow music lover tickets and have since been eagerly anticipating the adventure. Thursday, yesterday, was Travis's big night.

They headed out around three, off for an evening and night of father-son bonding. And, despite my creative worrying, they had a marvelous time! They had dinner out at a favorite burger place, then found the venue and enjoyed the music. And there was even seating, off on the side, for elderly father types, so Travis was able to dance around and enjoy all the electronic goodness (each artist had his own light show, and the last one had a Tyrannosaurus Rex on stage -- it is much more interesting, at least in Travis's pictures, than you would expect), while Ed enjoyed from a comfortably seated position. They were back a bit before 2:00 in the morning, which was nice because I planned to start worrying intensively at 3:00.

My other child also abandoned me for the night. Katie has been waffling about joining a dance school that a friend attends, but she's decided it's time, so a little after the guys left us I drove her over and signed her up. And left her. She went home with the friend afterward, for dinner and sleepover, and we didn't see her again until 4:00 this afternoon (she's pretty well set to catch up Friday's missed work on Saturday). She, also, had a wonderful time.

And I had Finn for company, so I didn't really feel too abandoned. (The picture is from a couple weeks ago, but I like it, and he still looks just like this. A big galumphing boy with an utterly deranged puppy brain. And no. He still won't fetch with any reliability at all. But we love him anyway.)

Finally, this came today! I was so tickled when LibraryThing let me know I'd won it, as part of the Early Reviewers program, but the last book I won through them never came (only time that's happened, though, and actually I was just as glad as it was quite thick and the reviews I saw were not so good). Anyway, this one Did come, and I'm really looking forward to reading it! Katie promises to help me if I have questions about the accuracy of the HP lore (I'd match her expertise against that of anyone, up to and not excluding J.K. Rowling), and I figure she can help with any questions about the classical references as well. I ought to get some benefit from all those expensive Latin classes I've paid for!