Puzzling words

Wednesday was Eric's first early release day. His teacher emailed to say they wouldn't have snack, so I asked if he wanted a sandwich for lunch, instead. He seems not to eat much from the school lunch, maybe partly because it takes too long to get through the line?

Nicole went to Coe again this morning, but I did not. I was outside looking at the yard when she returned. I collected some seeds from the Douglas irises to put in the refrigerator. Nicole reported that she had sold exactly one t-shirt. Perhaps the gloomy weather had fewer people hanging around? Or maybe everyone who wanted one already got one. In other yard news, our little pomegranate tree, which moved outside this year, is covered in flower buds.

While I was eating lunch, Nicole got a call from the school. Colin had collided with another student at recess, and his arm was hurting. She went and picked him up by bike. He was a little down, but a couple hours later he was feeling better. I don't think anything's broken.

Colin stayed home from piano lessons. I didn't even see the other kids between the end of school and their departure. Eric came back and reported that Nicole had gone in to listen to him play two songs. "Three Blind Mice" and "Mary Had a Little Lamb", maybe? I haven't heard him play, yet.

Rachel came home reporting that she had had nothing to do in her genius hour class and had to spend forty minutes reading. I couldn't understand why this was upsetting to her. I forgot to ask about her independent reading time in Spanish today. She says they just spent the time learning about it today, but she placed a hold on a book at the library. Her teacher also sent parents an email. Rachel also reported that she got a perfect score on her name project in Geometry, which was a drawing that incorporated a long list of required geometric features.

At work, we had games to end the day, and played a second round of Paris Connection, the French railroad speculation game. I came in last place this time, due to insufficient trading. As soon as we were done, Rachel wanted to go to the library to get books on hold, so I took her on the bike. The air was a little chilly, but it was pretty nice out. I was glad to be riding in it.

At home, dinner was ready. Nicole and Lydia had made crispy fried eggplant to top spaghetti. Then I helped Nicole with some screws that wouldn't come out of the boards she wanted to reuse for the next set of shelves in the garage. I had to straighten one before it would come out, and busted out the extraction tool for another that was stripped. (I think her dad suggested that tool. It's a drill bit that screws backwards into the head of the stripped screw. I had to use the burnishing end to deepen the hole a bit, but then it came right out.)

The rest of the night was spent on Overcooked, a dessert of chocolate zucchini bread with strawberries and whipped cream, reading The Black Cauldron, and doing the New York Times' Spelling Bee puzzle, whose letters today were ADILNOR, with I the required inclusion. If you're not familiar with this puzzle, it's pretty fun, though it can be very time consuming. Eric likes to work on it while I read, and Nicole often helps him. It can also be frustrating, because the word list is "curated", which from my perspective basically means they decided some words don't count, for no reason. They claim some things are too obscure or specialized for a general audience, like medical terminology. But today's glaring omission was LIANA, which doesn't seem especially obscure to me, especially given the inclusion of NENE yesterday. Arbitrary and capricious, is what I call it.

There were a couple communications from the school district today that also had me scratching my head. One is a flowchart with required isolation/quarantine under certain conditions. The thing that puzzled me is that a positive test result requires ten days of isolation, but exposure to someone with COVID requires a fourteen day quarantine, even with a negative test. Might it really take two weeks to become contagious?

The other thing was supposed to be an explanation of their notification policy. However, it's no more clear than before. They seem to be saying that under other circumstances, close contact would be spending more than fifteen minutes with a known positive case under six feet away, but in the schools, it might require someone not having their mask on, and somehow the presence of layered air circulation/filtration is also involved in the decision, but they don't say how. My take-away is that they think masks plus air quality are sufficient, even if kids spend hours together in close proximity, to prevent the spread, so they won't necessarily notify families even if, say, their child's table partner tests positive. I still hope that's not really their policy, but I don't know how else to interpret the words I've been given, which fall short of what I would call information.

I guess I may as well just quote it, so you can see what I mean:

In a classroom, the contact tracing team determines close contacts in partnership with school staff and consults with Public Health in response to several determining factors including: 

• Students being less than three feet away from an infected student for a combined total of 15 minutes or more within a 24-hour period when the person with COVID-19 was infectious

• Students within 3 feet of distance to the infected individual were not consistently wearing face coverings/masks 

• Vaccination status for students 12 years and older 

• Other layered mitigation factors present (e.g. ventilation)

Oh, one last thing. Rachel said they learned about fizzy water in Biology, which led to my riddle: What did the soda say when its cap was left off? . . . You flatter me. . . . A real knee slapper! (Highlight the white space to see the thrilling answer.)