Month: March 2018

Dear Richard Montgomery parents and guardians,


As many of you are aware, on Wednesday, March 14, 2018 student leaders across MCPS high schools have planned a demonstration in support of increased gun control legislation and to honor the 17 students killed in the Parkland shooting. At Richard Montgomery, we want to support the academic and social emotional needs of our students while maintaining a safe and orderly learning environment for all. We respect and support the right of our students to advocate for causes that are important to them. To this end, I have been in close conversation with our student leaders about their plans for the national demonstration on March 14, 2018. Knowing they would want to participate in this nation-wide event, two weeks ago I offered them the opportunity to do so in a school-wide structured way, so as not to interrupt instruction or cause a large number of student absences. Initially, this idea was well received and we had an agreed upon plan which was to take place on campus. However, since that time, our student leaders have joined with students across the county to be a part of the #mocoforguncontrol demonstration on March 14. This event calls for students across all the high schools to meet before school and head down to Washington, DC to be a part of the larger, regional demonstration. Student leadership informed me that their plan is to gather before school at our flag pole on the Fleet Street side of the building and then proceed in an orderly fashion down Fleet Street before using the crosswalk to proceed right on Monroe Street. They will walk along Monroe until they access the Metro pedestrian bridge, where they will pass over Route 355 before entering the Rockville Metro station. They will join with students from around the DMV in Washington and proceed to the White House. I am in communication with Rockville City police and MCPS to replicate our safety plan we implemented for the smaller walkout on February 21, 2018.

As opposed to other student demonstrations that we have seen at RM recently, students will never actually enter the building and therefore, will not actually “walk-out” of school or any class. Any student who is not present in school first period and throughout the day will be marked as absent. Like any other school day, students absent on this day will be unexcused unless they submit a note from a parent with an authorized MCPS reason.

We know that some students may decide to leave campus to participate in the march in Washington, D.C. We ask that you speak with your child to let them know that if they leave the school building or walk out of class outside of the designated time, it will be considered an unexcused absence. Information about the impact of an unexcused absence can be found in A Guide to Students Rights and Responsibilities.

We understand that students feel very strongly, as do we, about school safety. We are committed to working together to provide them with opportunities to express their opinions in a safe environment.

Please feel free to contact the school at 301-610-8000 with any questions.


 Thanks,

Damon Monteleone,

Principal


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Vince spent the day on Wed going downtown to advocate for stricter gun control.   I made sure he turned on his location on his phone, that he had a fully charged portable charger, and that he wore a jacket.  I told him I would pay for his lunch at Shake Shack.  I suggested that he not wear a brand new pair of shoes on the day that he’d probably walk about four miles.  He ignored that final shoe suggestion.  He sent me the following photos: the Metro:

Walking!

Lunch at the Shake Shack.

My friend, Kate, texted me this photo of Vince on MSNBC.

Here’s a link to the MSNBC clip that doesn’t show Vince, but gives a shout out to RM.  And he did make the video on the Washington Post.  He’s in the first few seconds.  He came home all hoarse and tired and said that it was totally worth it.  I spent the day in Philly visiting Vidya who is going home today, Vidya seemed the strongest I’ve seen him since his stroke.  I was getting all these texts about the protests as I was driving up and then when I saw Vidya, I breathlessly showed him all the photos of Vince – he knew about the walkout today – and Vidya mouthed and whispered the phrase (which took me a few seconds to decipher, I’m out of practice with Vidya-speak although he is getting better and better with speech) – “you must be very proud of him” and though I had mostly been slightly worried all morning and fretting about his safety I smiled at Vidya and said that, yes, I was.

I bought some facial treatment masks with cute animal faces to give as hostess gifts (instead of wine or chocolates or soap/lotion), but I realized I couldn’t use some of them because I can’t give as a gift something that has in big letters – WRINKLE treatment of WHITENING treatment (these are Korean products with slightly lost in translation sentiments).  I wasn’t sure what to do with them, but Vince found my stash and begged to try some of them out.  Here’s the panda whitening treatment –

Edda woke up today in the midst of one of her seizure-y things.  Usually, Edda stays in bed until Ning starts work at 6:30, but today I heard her complaining at 6 am or so, so I went and kept her company. 

Vince went to the Wizard’s BB game tonight with a friend and we had childcare for Edda, so Jeremy took me out to dinner and ice cream.  We also got a lot of copies of our house key at Home Depot.  We have the best dates evah. 

I spent some time this weekend making this layered Jello dessert – mostly to entertain myself.  We were going over to Xiao Ying and Chenny’s house for dinner on Sat night and I wanted to bring something I thought the kids would like.  It’s a simple dessert, but it takes time – you have to wait for each layer to solidify so you can pour the next layer on top.  It took me about 24 hours to make (each layer took only 5 minutes to heat/mix up), but I think you can make it in 3 -4 hours if you hustle.  I did not hustle.

I was really surprised when everyone loved it – including my father who decided at the sight of this dessert to come to Sunday night dinner at our house the very next night where I was serving the 2nd half of this enormous Jello dessert.  It is, as Vince says, like eating a handful of Skittles.  If you want to delight anyone – go forth and make this crazy rainbow Jello dessert.

Vince turned 16 on Friday.  We started the day with our traditional birthday breakfast – Vince requested bacon and hash browns.  16!  A big milestone.  Vince has taught me so many things, he taught me to be a mother, because before him, I had no idea.  I never even babysat for anyone.  I might even say I was not a nurturing person & did not understand emotion as much I do now – I was a little self-absorbed/centered and too matter-of-fact/unforgiving then.  Sometimes I’m talking to him and I can’t believe he’s some weird combination of me & Jeremy and yet, still, fully his own person.  Happy birthday sweetie!  I’m also embarrassed to say that we didn’t get him anything for his birthday (though look!  we got bacon! hash browns! a yellow balloon! and a tablecloth and raspberries!) – I think I thought Jeremy would take care of it or maybe Jeremy thought I would take care of it – but we both knew that he just wanted cash, but we didn’t say anything to Vince about it and then finally at about 9 pm on Friday, he came downstairs and asked – uhhh, so do I *get* anything for my birthday?  And Jeremy and I looked at each other and said to each other – oh! yeah, about that.  And then I transferred some $ into his bank account and apologized for making him ask/beg for his birthday present.

It was a busy day for both of us, one of those days where we hope a week in a advance that Edda doesn’t get sick & need to stay home from school. Jeremy was on the hill. He did a good job –

 

Here’s the “lively back and forth”.

 

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 If I wasn’t off in a meeting, I would have tried to catch it on C-SPAN – I had Vickey tune in and she couldn’t find him on any of the 3 C-SPAN channels at 10:15. Apparently there were a bunch of hearings going on at the same time and his got bumped off of the TV schedule. Oh well, it lives on on YouTube.

I dropped my phone into a tub of soapy water tonight as I was making dinner.  I fished it out of the watery depths and the screen was still brightly playing the latest installment of The American Life, but I could hear no sound.  My phone thinks it has headphones in the jack after it’s little swim.  I will wait and hope that it dries out. 

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On Sunday night, Jeremy was in our (large) bedroom closet and saw that all of his biking water bottles had been knocked to the ground from the shelf that they had been sitting on – he did not know that I had knocked them down when I was grabbing a jump rope and just not bothered to pick them back up.  That’s how nice of a wife I am.  Anyways, he reached to grab them from the ground and smashed his head into our pull up station which has dip bars protruding from it like zombie arms.  He let out a yelp (but no curse words, he never curses even under the most sudden/painful/surprising things) and staggered into the doorway of the closet where I could see him from the bed where I was trying to read, for the 7th time, Vickey’s favorite book – Middlesex.  He touched the wound on his head, right smack on the top of his head – just below where his gentle widow’s peak starts.  It started to turn red and ooze.  Then he said – crap!  It’s going to still look bad on Wed when I’m going to be on TV!  I’m never on TV and now my head is going to have a flesh wound when I’m being broadcast nationally.  I told him I could find some makeup and cover it up – he scoffed at me and said – I’m not putting makeup on.  So, if you want to see Jeremy’s wounded forehead, tune into C-SPAN at 10:15 tomorrow (Wed) when he’s going to testify in front of Congress about the future of transportation fuels.  He’s been hard at work on this – go team!

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It was one of those days, again, where I didn’t get to really start the day until 12:30 pm.  So much happened before lunch, that I had to take myself out to lunch to relax.  I always take myself to the pizza place 3 minutes walking from my house. 

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I was downstairs making dinner, pleased with myself.  I was wrapping leftovers in puff pastry and turning not fancy into fancy.  (This is when I dropped my phone into the watery depths).  Then Vince came running downstairs with his computer on Facetime introducing me to friends – two sisters – who he has been Facetiming a lot with.  He also introduced Edda and Adriana who was putting a bib on Edda as we were beginning to sit down to eat.  He quickly said goodbye to them and then sat down for dinner.

I was like – what was that all about?  Oh, he replied, they didn’t believe I had a sister.  I was like – huh?  Well, he said, the two sisters were complaining to Vince that they were arguing/annoying each other and that Vince didn’t have to worry about it because he was an only child.  Vince said that he was certainly not an only child, but they didn’t quite believe him.   I was like – how can they not quite believe you?  Well, he explained, he doesn’t really talk about Edda, Edda doesn’t bug him or take away precious resources or use the shared bathroom too much so there is no complaining to his friends about his annoying sister.  He’s not seen walking around with Edda or going to things with Edda. So he told them that she not around him much because she’s disabled and then came downstairs to introduce Edda and her helper of the day to his friends. 

Vince & Edda.  Both kind of only children in a way because of how independent their lives are outside of the house.  But inside the house, I think they are bonded in a nice way – Vince will still snuggle up to her and look after her and make sure she is OK.  Edda loves all the people he brings into the house and looks for him.  I will have to ask Vince to take care of Edda when we get old.  He’s actually offered even before I’ve asked, but we shall see – I cannot be sure how the future plays out.

Hello loves, this was a strange day for me.  Sometimes some small things can derail me all day.  Today, I got hung up on Edda’s birthday party invitation.  Somehow, this task paralyzes me – even though we’ve been doing it for half a decade, it still sometimes overwhelms me.  I don’t like drawing up the invite list because I’m afraid of leaving someone off.  I don’t like sending out the invitation because immediately people say – I’m sorry!  I can’t come.  But I do like the party.  We originally had it scheduled on her actual birthday – Sat the 24th, but we are moving it because so many people are marching on DC that day – and I think we want to too.  So it’s Sunday the 25th.

It’s Vince’s 16th birthday on Saturday and he’s asking for a lot of new clothes.  (Thank you Kiki for the overalls.) He’s also been making bank babysitting certain weekends.  He looks so much like a teenager – I do not understand these clothing choices.  Also, the music!  The music!  I can’t listen to his music (said every parent that ever existed).

It was a nice weekend.  Started off a little early with school being cancelled on Friday due to the high winds knocking trees down all over the place.  Everyone was home.  Vince had predicted school being cancelled the night before, but I didn’t pay much attention.

I spent the day in the most dangerous part of the house, my 2nd floor study, closest to the enormously tall trees that swayed dangerously all day.  I scurried out of the space whenever the wind picked up – which was a lot.  We have one tree in the back that I’ve known has sustained termite damage at the base, and I spent the day watching it slowly topple over.  It first tipped over and caught onto a nearby branch.  I wondered if how long it would take to wear down that branch and snap it.  And I wondered what structures it would take down with it falling to the ground – no houses, but I think 2 sheds and a fence.

Later in the day, it had broken off the branch that it was resting on, but just by chance, it fell into a sturdy V split in a neighboring tree.  I was like – huh!  lucky!  It could stay that way forever.  Our power stayed on, we stayed warm, no trees hit our house.  Lucky.

Edda stayed in these yellow PJs from bedtime on Thursday night to lunch on Saturday.  Not our best showing, but very comfortable for Edda.

Sat, the winds had died down somewhat, Jeremy (who had been riding his new bike on the indoor trainer) took it out for a quick spin on Sat. morning.  Still slightly windy, but nice to get a short ride in before we went to lunch with our parents.

Mom and Dad wanted to take the kids out to celebrate their March birthdays, so I made a noon reservation at Urban Hot Pot in Rockville.  Vince drove us all to the restaurant in the minivan.  It was extra challenging because there had been an apartment fire in the structure above the restaurant – lot of fire trucks, police, blocked streets, U-turns.  It took us 20 min to move the final 400m to the restaurant.  Vince did great.

It was pretty nice, I’d recommend it if you like hot pot.

I went to the UU annual fellowship dinner on Sat night.  I never go to church, though I still give them some money.  Lots of people still recognize me from when I went regularly over five years ago.  It was very nice in a UU type way.

Vince and I went orienteering today together.  It was fun.  Then we went shopping at the outlets. He needed pants.  I asked him to try them on and he said that he didn’t need to.  And now we are home and the pants don’t fit.  Not a shocker to me.  Just a pain.

Edda wasn’t super excited about shopping.

A windstorm is moving in tonight.  I do not like the wind.  We are surrounded by tall trees and people keep cutting the trees down so the ones left are more and more exposed.  I worry that I’m going to be crushed by a falling tree while I’m at work in my home office. 

I’ve used my cell phone as a phone more in the past two days than I have ever ever.  Don’t worry, it’s still not much time – I have a very low bar for talking on the phone.  So I bought myself a bluetooth headset so I can fold laundry while I talk – it looks extra dorky.

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Jeremy had some time today.  The bike came out of the box:

And got put together.