on my own, this end

For the next five days, I get to play role-reversal as I stay home with the kids while patgreene goes off to Jackson, Mississippi for a niece's wedding and to visit with her siblings and mom and other blood relatives there.

Pat asked her sister what to wear to the bridesmaids' dinner. "Nothing too fancy, just what you'd wear to church on Sunday," replied her sister. When Pat repeated this to me after her call, I said "So, a T-shirt without anything too risque or political, or maybe a golf shirt, with no holes in the jeans?" California vs. semi-rural Mississippi... Pat was not amused. "You know what she means, no gloves!" Pat said. In all fairness, Pat's brother-in-law and oldest sister live in a palatial home on the fringes of Jackson, he's one of two priests at their Orthodox church there in addition to his daytime tech job, and undoubtedly they travel in circles with vastly different standards and ideas of dress and protocol. OTOH, both nieces there went to Miss. State and got engineering degrees like their dad, so they haven't bought into being social butterflies or debs. But Pat was still feeling underpacked at 5am this morning, with two large suitcases and her laptop bag and purse.

Anyway... kids are off to school, telecon in a couple of minutes, then proposal presentation at 10am today in the Ames center director's conference room. Meet with Pascal and sarahh at 2pm, then home early to meet the kids after school. I have nearly ten weeks of accumulated vacation and comp time, so I don't mind burning some this week in support of patgreene, she's usually covering for me instead. Not much in the way of evening plans over the five days... hopefully tenacious_snail will drop by tonight, as there's a between-session break in skating.