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Scott had Science Olympiad practice for the fourth graders at two yesterday. They worked on math involving scientific notation (which is way ahead of their grade level but required).

One of the mothers stuck around, and she and I went for a walk. It wasn't truly warm, but it was warm enough for a middle weight jacket. We walked for about forty minutes. We had a pretty good conversation. It was really nice to talk to an adult who wasn't Scott.

After that, we went downtown to the library because we knew there was no way we could do it today. The parking structure was really crowded, so Scott let us out of the car on the first level down (it's underground). We finished up in the library about the time he emerged from the structure.

Rather than waste the cost of parking, we walked the two and a half blocks to TK Wu to get bubble tea. I got raspberry which wasn't on the menu but which they offered me as a substitute when I requested blueberry. Cordelia had honeydew with milk. She always orders flavors with milk. She's concluded that she likes those better than the flavors without milk.

Getting out of the parking structure was crazy. It took about as long as the library and trip for bubble tea combined. As we got toward the exit, we discovered one of the big reasons for the problem. There were cars just sitting there unmoving while their drivers were off doing something else (I assume they were paying for parking. I can't think what else they can have been doing unless they'd broken down). There was room to go around them, just, as long as nobody was coming from the other direction. One of the cars was stopped in the middle of the final ramp to the surface.

When we got home, Scott and Cordelia went out again after soccer cleats, shin guards and socks. Cordelia's new cleats are yellow. They should be easy to spot when she's playing softball. Sometimes her shoes are the only way we can identify her when she's playing softball. The kids all wear matching shirts and hats or helmets, so it can be hard to identify individual girls.

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I used the new kettle for the first time today. It whistled. It poured without sputtering and getting water all over everything. I don't know how hot the handle got because I always use a washcloth to grasp a kettle handle. It's reflex.

Scott threw away the old kettle yesterday and got really annoyed when I dug it out of the garbage. I told him I want to use the new one a couple of times before we get rid of the old one. I want to be sure the new one is an improvement. The last time we bought a new kettle, we got rid of the old one before all the problems with the new one had a chance to show up. If I had had the option of going back to the kettle before last, I would have. It was too small for the three of us, but in all other ways, it worked perfectly.

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I'm still narrowing down my choice of stories to remix. I keep finding stories that look perfect and then realizing that they don't qualify to be remixed because they're co-written with someone else. It's a pity, too, that I know nothing at all about my remixee's two biggest fandoms. That alone eliminates about three quarters of their stories from consideration.

I've narrowed things down to a list of seven stories in five fandoms, but I think most of those won't work for me. Only one of them is in a fandom I'm really comfortable with, and that particular story is probably not something I can manage for other reasons.

Scott and I discussed the different story options while we were in the car on the way to his sister's place. Cordelia was in the back seat, so I skirted around certain topics, but I think he agreed with me about which of the seven stories was the most likely to work. I'm probably going to end up using him a resource a lot because he knows more about that canon than I do.

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We had lunch today with Scott's sister's family and with our brother-in-law's parents and sister. It was an early Easter celebration because Scott's sister's family will be on the road on Easter. (Scott's parents will be, too, so we're on our own for Easter. Cordelia's displeased about that because she knows we're not likely to do anything really special.) We made potato bread and a very simple salad. There was ham (chicken for me as ham sets off my reflux) and scalloped potatoes. There was a broccoli salad. Our niece made a layered pudding dish for dessert. It was frozen rock solid because there hadn't been room to store it in the refrigerator and no one thought to take it out in time for it to thaw.

Our niece slept most of the time we were there. She had a sleep over with a friend last night and apparently didn't sleep much at all. She sat at the table for part of the meal but didn't eat and refused to be touched (tradition is that we join hands for the grace. She got hostile over that). She sat there with her hair over her face. Her mother ended up sending her to bed.

We had to leave right after the meal because we needed to get Cordelia back in time for her Science Olympiad practice. That's where she is right now. Scott's trying to get the grocery shopping done before practice ends (he'll be cutting it very, very close, I suspect).

Cordelia will miss out on all or most of Girl Scouts today because, at the last minute, the troop leader decided to have a field trip downtown to watch the Festifools parade. They had to leave fifteen minutes before Cordelia's practice began, and they'll get back about an hour after practice ends. If Scott took Cordelia straight downtown from practice (not going to happen with a car full of groceries), they might make the last ten to fifteen minutes of the parade. The troop leader promised to call me if there's going to be time after the parade for the girls to meet at their usual place. I'm a bit dubious about that because the bus only runs once an hour on Sundays. They'll get back when the bus dictates, not when the parade ends.