We’ve had a busy spring so far: William has baseball, the school play, math olympiad, and chess; Julie is the chair of the fifth grade promotion committee; and Felix has had terribly uncontrolled diabetes, which has at times led him to use parts of the house, such as the landing going up to the second floor, as an open-air latrine. It’s really very unpleasant.
But one of the highlights of the spring so far was a visit from Joe, who opted to spend his spring break with us. He flew in on the last day of February and stayed through March 8. Naturally, we have pictures, including a few from Julie’s birthday a couple weeks before his arrival. This set actually wraps around the contents of the previous collection, which covered a few specific events during Joe’s visit.
Joe had a fairly relaxing stay: I think some downtime was just what he wanted after the intense first few weeks of the semester. The opportunity for a break from the cold Boston weather was probably also a draw. His local friends were mostly out of town—their breaks didn’t line up with his—but he made time to connect with a few of them online to chat and play computer games. He also offered me a look at some of the work he’s doing in his first-year computer science class. Parts of the curriculum seem to have been designed based some of the same principles that underlaid COMP 210 when I took it at Rice eons ago (in fact, some of the same people may have had a hand in designing both courses), so I found it fascinating. It almost made me want to go back to school.
William, of course, was over the moon at Joe’s return. For weeks leading up to the break, he asked when Joe was arriving on a nearly daily basis, even though he knew the answer hadn’t changed since the last time he asked. I think he just enjoyed thinking about Joe’s upcoming visit. He was ecstatic when he woke up the morning after Joe’s arrival—the plane from Boston landed at SFO after midnight—and the two of them found ample opportunities to play and roughhouse while Joe was here. William loved it, and, I’m pretty sure Joe did, too. We’ve long held that William is as good for Joe’s mental health as Joe is for William’s.
The album also contains some pictures from William’s spring musical performance, his (and our) last ever at Booksin. Naturally, he dressed up for the occasion, as he loves to do, and his friend Sam joined him in wearing a suit. The class sang and played recorders—I hope to post video soon—and that was that. We’re well into the era of “lasts” at Booksin, and it’s a strange feeling to know that we’ll soon leave this part of our lives behind after so many years as part of the school community.
On Joe’s last night here, he, Julie, and I went to Symphony San Jose for a performance of Beethoven’s Eroica. Julie had reserved the tickets weeks before, looking to indulge Joe’s love of music, and made sure to book his return flight late enough that we could deliver him to the airport after the end of the show. I don’t think I’ve ever been to the symphony before, so I have no basis for comparison, but Julie and Joe, both of whom have deeper musical knowledge and experience than I do (which is to say, more than none at all) enjoyed it, which I take to mean that it was an impressive performance.
After the concert, we zipped home, changed out of our fancy symphony clothes, and gave Julia and William an opportunity to say their goodbyes before we drove Joe up to SFO to catch the redeye back to the East Coast. The next morning, he was safe and sound in frigid Boston, and we were back to missing him.
Occasional Dispatches from San Jose 