Family Update

My family -- Greta, mostly, but her mother is close behind, and Lincoln declared that he has bookmarked it on his Chromebook -- reads this blog way too often. Even when it's not updated, which it has been now only twice this year. They read old posts, laughing, wondering aloud if it really happened like I wrote it. (Honestly, I don't ever remember, but it's written down now and thus it's family lore.) I thought it was funny when they'd visit Max & Esme and joke that Olive has been sitting in front of the same door for 70 days. But now I feel embattled, desperate to post something, anything, just to satisfy them. Occasionally Carey will remark I posted five times in a row about Greta. "You should write something about Lincoln." Well, I would, if he did much more than slaughter his virtual friends or watch others kill theirs on YouTube. He does dance a lot (thanks, Fortnite) and makes this noise incessantly and likes to mispronounce "nice" as "noice."



He also calls everyone "dude," except me, because I was taught to respect my father.

His sister is about halfway through her first basketball season. She plays about half the game, but is rarely in position to shoot the ball. So no points yet, but lots of rebounds and solid screens. She says she likes it and I hope that's true. I sure love watching her play. I do find it telling, though, that the first thing she says to me when I pick her up from practice is, "I have about 30 minutes of math homework, I need to get started on my ___ project, and I have a French quiz next week that I need to study for." Schoolwork is never, ever, far from her mind, even when she's binging "Alexa & Katie," or much, much worse, "Fuller House."

Carey is working long days, coming home either bedraggled or happy depending on the vicissitudes of the governor's executive staff. The other day someone told her she is the most "relentlessly positive" colleague they've ever had. That is as good a description as any for why I married her. Tonight I asked her to cover the 2" unpainted spot on the back of the front door with something Valentine-y and she spent five minutes with some scissors, glue and a doily.

Me? The cold is mostly gone, cough still hanging on a bit. I'm amazed every evening at how much basketball is on TV, college and pros. Both of UAlbany's basketball teams are pretty miserable this year, so I doubt I'll get to any March Madness games. I've been working on a 30-minute video retrospective of the UAlbany Men's Lacrosse team's 2018 season and will post a link here when it's finally RTW, as project managers like to say. My boss is off on maternity leave in about a month-and-a-half, so I suspect I'll be learning a lot more about her job when I have to do it all. I just binged HBO's "Sharp Objects" and "Succession." Preferred the latter over the former, though time spent with Amy Adams is always well spent. Haven't seen many Oscar movies, but a former AP colleague promises to send digital screeners soon. Looking forward to "A Star is Born," "Roma," "Vice" and "If Beale Street Could Talk."

That's it. Hopefully Olive gets to go outside soon.