Back to my Roots

Recently I have been going to a new place for lunch. It was recommended by a friend. They serve steamed rice, along with a couple entrees. Their food is simple. If you complete a quick survey, you get an additional entree for free. Each dish has a few ingredients. That's nice because it makes it simple for me to choose dishes where I like everything in the mix.

Recently Momoko bought me some lunch from my old favorite restaurant. They give you a lot of food for a good price. However they always seem to add vegetables that I don't like to their dishes. They also fried rice with their specials. They are a little funny. They want you to pay in cash, and assess an extra fee for credit cards.

When I did get a taste of the meal from my old favorite restaurant, I was taken back to the good old days. I recalled how I loved this place. Today I went back to my old hang out. And I recalled why I went there in the first place. There is a storm coming into the area. Most places have closed down to prepare. This restaurant was open for business. And that is how I discovered them initially. They are the only place open rain or shine. Natural disasters don't phase them. They remain open for business.

Ingredients Debacle

Last Friday, Momoko went out with the people from her work for happy hour. Kit Kat always stays late at school on Friday. So when I got off work, I quizzed Little Kat about the status of dinner. He had not started yet. I told him to make sure he has all the ingredients ready to make his dish. He had planned to make a tuna casserole that was a new recipe. Little Kat reported to me that he only had about half the ingredients. I left a message for Momoko to call us.

Eventually Kit Kat came home. She was famished because she ate an early lunch. She was most disturbed that Little Kat had not started cooking yet. I sat the kids down to figure out what to do. Kit Kat thought it would be nice if we could eat out. That way she would not have to do the dishes. The kids recommended we go to my favorite restaurant. Good recommendation.

The next day, Momoko told the kids to go grocery shopping a day early since a storm was coming to town. I sat the family down to investigate what went wrong with the ingredients for Friday night's meal. Momoko made a shopping list for the kids. This was unusual. Kit Kat usually figures out the meals and shops from her head. The list from Momoko did not have the correct quanties for the new meal. In addition, some meals from earlier in the week stole the ingredients targeted for Friday's meal.

We have a solution in place to prevent this mess again. If that does not work, I explained a second solution that would require more work from everybody. Let's hope we get it right this week.

The Power of Flour

Last week, Little Kat got assigned some homework called Flour Power. He was planning to turn it in on time this week. However the kids in his class complained and got the teacher to extend the deadline by two days. Due to Little Kat's poor homework management skills this quarter, he has a lot of oversight from me now.

Every day Little Kat prints out all his grades for all his classes. This is available online. We compare all the grades that we have been tracking. We also keep an eye out for new grades assigned. Today we detected that Little Kat got a zero on his Flour Power assignment. Yesterday the grade was not zero. The teacher must have netered the grade in the last 24 hours.

Little Kat says he turned the assignment in on time based on the two day deadline extension. So I told Little Kat to email his teacher immediately. It should be fresh in the teacher's mind. This is our new process working to detect teacher errors. Because a few weeks from now, Little Kat will not know the details of this assignment, and would be in a bad position to contest the bad mark he did not deserve.

The goal is for me to teach Little Kat to be able to track these grades by himself, so he can keep on top of any teacher errors (and any surprise assignments that pop up online).

School Meeting

Today we had a meeting with Little Kat's teachers at school. Momoko took the day off from work. I took the afternoon off. I dressed up in my power suit and new dress shoes. Momoko felt obliged to dress up as well to match my attire.

We arrived early and went to the main office. They had to wait for Little Kat to come back from outside (his last class was Physical Education). We met Little Kat in the guidance office. Most of Little Kat's teachers came in to join our discussion.

We spent most of the time talking with his Math teacher. Little Kat is failing Algebra. Some of the failure is due to low test scores. But there are other factors like missed assignments. If you get a score of zero based on a missed assignment, it just destroys your average and overall grade.

Unfortunately we could not speak to Little Kat's English teacher. Little Kat missed his English project for the quarter. If his teacher did not email Momoko, and we did not get involved, he would have failed English this semester as well.

Momoko has been put in charge of trying to get Little Kat to complete and turn in work he missed during the first quarter. I am counting the current quarter as a loss, but am putting into place a lot of oversight to track all of Little Kat's future homework.

Luckily, these days all grades for students are online. Little Kat and I will be checking every grade for every assignment in every class. We will be doing that Monday through Friday. I will also be checking up on whether he writes down his homework assignments in his planner. Since I have insight into this online grading system, there is nowhere for Little Kat to hide any more.

Buying the Barbell

Little Kat went to the weight room at his school. He tried out a bunch of equipment. He liked bench pressing a barbell with weights. Momoko had previously purchased some dumbells for Little Kat. Now he wants a barbell.

Little Kat and I scheduled a time at lunch today to go barbell shopping. I used google to find a store close to us that sells barbells. There was one at the Target shopping center. I got caught in a meeting at work. But I still wanted to go shopping. We went late.

Our first plan was to buy a barbell. That way we could attach Little Kat's existing weights to the end of it. Little Kat brought one of the weights with us so we could make sure it fit the bar. We found a bunch of "curl bars". Those are for lifting weights in a standing position. Little Kat wants to pump iron while laying on his weight bench.

We found one barbell. But it did not have much weight to it. We wanted a bar that itself weighed around 35 pounds. That way Little Kat could add a bit of weight, and the whole thing would provide the resistance he needed. Unfortunately we could not find such a barbell there. We ended up buying a barbell with weight set combo.

A store employee went in the back and wheeled out the weight set. He came with us to the truck to help us load it up. He tried to be Hercules and lift the whole weight box into our truck. The box gave out, sending the weight rolling into the puddle on the ground. Great. Little Kat had to dry everything off when we got home. He already did a few repititions on the weight bench.

American Horror Story

Last season, the family watched the series American Horror Story. Well the whole family except for Little Kat watched it. There were some scenes of disturbia. But it was an exciting series as well. Momoko thought it was a bit predictable. I thought there were enough surprises to keep it interesting.

Last night we watched the premier episode for season two. There is a whole new story. Some of the cast seems to have stayed on. Jessica Lange is still an actress on the show. In fact, her role this time around seems more central. Little Kat was busy catching up on chores and homework to be watching any TV.

All during this first episode, I noticed that Momoko was playing Dragonvale on her iPhone. That in and of itself is not unusual. But she had an avid interest in playing the Dragonvale races a whole lot. Those were fun when they first came out. Now they just seem like a distraction.

After the show I found out what was going on. Momoko had downloaded the latest version of the Dragonvale app. They added a new goal. You must put together some sort of shrine to summon a really special dragon. You get pieces of this shrine by winning at the races. Figures.

I was pleased that that also increased the maximum level you can reach in the game. Momoko and I have been stuck on level 35, which used to be the maximum level. That meant all the experience we were earning was being wasted. Now we can start climbing the levels again.

Patch Inspection

Little Kat has been prescibed some medication to help him concentrate at school. In prior years, he just took a pill. But it upset his stomach. So we switch to a patch that he can wear. It feeds him the drugs he needs to stay ADD-free. Momoko has to refill his patch prescription at a frequent pace. She normally goes to the drug store once a month.

Some of Little Kat's teachers have commented that he just does not seem focused. Then it hit Momoko. She has not bought any new patches since last March. The verdict? Little Kat is not wearing his patches. He gave some excuse about the patches causing bad side effect.

Deciding to not wear the patches is not something Little Kat is authorized to do. If he has some problems with the patch, he is supposed to alert Momoko. Then she will make a decision or consult the specialist who prescribed the patches. We informed Little Kat that he needed to be wearing his patches, and that we would be inspecting him randomly.

Today I sat ouside our front house. Got there a bit before Little Kat's bus arrives around the corner. I saw a couple boys from our street who normally ride the bus with Little Kat. I said hi to them. Eventually Little Kat came strolling around the corner.

I was playing my iPhone game, but keeping an eye on Little Kat as he arrived. I did not want him to try and sneak a patch on his body if he had not worn one today. Once he got inside, he showed me that he had his patch on his thigh. Now I got to think of another time to do a sneak inspection on his patch.

I Got This

During elementary and middle school, Momoko and I kept close tabs on Little Kat's homework. He was just not diligent enough to track it and get it done. So we stepped in and kept him accountable. It worked. The guy made it through school without failing.

Little Kat said he would take what he learned during middle school and take care of his homework in high school. His words were, "I got this." So we started Little Kat in high school without any oversight. Bad idea. Little Kat's English teacher sent Momoko an email this week. He had an assignment due two weeks ago. She never got it.

Little Kat claims he forgot about the assignment. And that he lost the assignment. But he did receive a replacement copy of the assignment. He just did not complete it. The teacher was reaching out to Momoko because Little Kat was in danger of failing English. Oh snap.

Momoko did an investigation. One of Little Kat's responsibilities was to write his homework done in the planner that we bought him. Upon inspection of the planner, Momoko found that he had not written down a single thing. Oh snap. Oh hell no.

Now Little Kat is going to get more oversight than he bargained for. And it is going to start with his English assignment. We just cannot accept failure because someone did not bother to do or turn in some work. Not in this household. Little Kat needs to get his act together. And he will be receiving a lot of guidance in that department.

Insidious Troubles

I was working until after 5pm in the basement today. When I came upstairs, I knew something was wrong. The dishes were piled up in the sink. Little Kat is supposed to wash the dishes as soon as he gets home. He gets home by 3pm every day. Then I checked the other tasks Little Kat is supposed to accomplish on his return home from school. Laundry was not done. Fail. Little Kat did say that he read his book for 20 minutes.

I got ahold of Little Kat's Kindle reader. He said he polished off three pages from the book. I read over the pages quickly. Then I spotted the word "insidious" in the text. When asked, Little Kat had no idea what that meant. I had him look up the definition in the dictionary. That turned out badly. The definition started out with "processing in a subtle way". Little Kat did not pronounce "processing" or "subtle" correctly. Oh boy.

I had Little Kat keep looking up the definitions of words. But the definitions contained words that Little Kat did not understand or pronounce. This included words such as delicate, treacherous, and deception. Eventually Little Kat was able to determine what insidious meant.

It is good if Little Kat does not understand some words from his book. That means he is trying to read a book at or above his reading level. However he can't just skip over the words in question. He needs to research them in the dictionary. Of course that will require some oversight to ensure he does the work. Yay. More work for me.

Busy Kit Kat

Kit Kat always has class late into the afternoon on Friday's. She eventually came home. But I was sick. I turned in early and did not see much of Kit Kat Friday evening. I did see Kit Kat briefly on Saturday morning. However she needed to drive Little Kat to a festival all day for his birthday.

Kit Kat came home for some planning Saturday evening. When planning was done, she went over to her friend's house to spend the night. Once again, Kit Kat checked in briefly this afternoon. She drove Little Kat for some quick shopping. Then she went to drive her friend to campus and visit her friend's college. She stayed out until late.

Once again Kit Kat came home for another meeting at home with the family. Now I will see her for an hour or two before she goes to bed. I thought we would see much more of Kit Kat on the weekends since she quit her weekend job. I am still waiting for that to happen.

Pound the Alarm

I had to fight traffic across town coming home from work today. Little Kat beat me home. Kit Kat stayed late at school. Momoko went out with the girls at work for happy hour. I had to man the door for Little Kat's friend to arrive to spend the night. Also had to watch Little Kat and his friend when Momoko went out shopping.

I decided to watch some YouTube videos to pass the time. Saw a Nikki Minaj video. Then I saw an ad for her Pound the Alarm video. This video and song were well produced. The backdrop for the video is Port of Spain, Trinidad. That did not surprise me. Nikki is from Trinidad herself. The music is very catchy. Sounds like something one would blast at the club so everyone is motivated to dance.

I tried to decipher the rap from beginning of the song. Nikki mentions that she is in Ibiza. Not sure what that has to do with Trinidad. Maybe both places cater to parties and the night life. Nikki also raps about her own line of Giuseppe Zannotti's shoes. Those shoes go for $500 to $1000. I get it. She is saying she is rich.

The main theme of the video are the Carnival parades in Port of Spain. All the girls except Nikki are skinny and hot. There are dudes dressed up in weird costume. Everyone really seems very happy. Good editing I guess.

The Mack Daddy

I first heard this story second hand from Momoko. Then I asked Kit Kat about it. She coroborated the story. Kit Kat was eating lunch by herself at school. Some dude pulls up a chair and tells Kit Kat that she was cute. The after lunch, he offers to walk her to class. Kit Kat heads to her car to pick up her art supplies. Then she heads to class with the dude in tow.

Somewhere on the route to class, the guy asks Kit Kat what the most sponteneous thing she has ever done. Kit Kat, being the ever conservative cat, did not have a good answer. Then the smooth operator tells Kit Kat that he thought it would be most sponteneous if they made out at 1:53pm. Kit Kat checks her watch. It is 1:52pm.

Now for the amazing part. Kit Kat agrees that would be spontaneous. And she kisses the guy. It was not a peck on the cheek either. Apparently they went at it. Eventually Kit Kat goes to class. The guy sends her a bunch of instant messages. He later asks whether Kit Kat is his girlfriend now.

Kit Kat was perplexed. Of course she is not his girlfriend. Dude then tries hard to set up a date on the weekend. Kit Kat turns him down. I guess the sheer confidence of the guy caught her off guard. But Romeo apparently is not the guy for Kit Kat. She has not heard from him since. He is probably getting spontenous with some other girls on campus.