Chicken Wednesday

A note about the title: at my university, the cafeteria has served chicken on Wednesdays for as long as anyone can remember. Wednesdays are a happy occasion, because apparently one thing the cafeteria does exceptionally well is chicken. When a student is glum mid-week, classmates will remind him/her, "It's Chicken Wednesday!" I attended four years of undergrad and two years of grad school and never ate in the cafeteria, mainly because the to-go cafe that served coffee was closer to my end of campus. I can't vouch for the chicken but I can tell you the cafeteria ladies make some stellar Rice Krispies treats.

It's been a mellow day around here. I shuffled some paperwork and checked the mail; I discovered the kids' end-of-grade exam scores. They (and we) are thrilled with their results and their improvement over last year. We pulled them out of public schools halfway through the first semester over a year ago, so this is the first full year they've been home-schooled. Did I mention tremendous improvement? Our older kid (just finished 8th grade) made college-level scores in five of seven subjects. Our older kid (just finished 6th grade) made college-level scores in three of seven subjects. Yes, I recognize that --given the state of public education-- that's not saying much. We're still happy with the progress they've made this year. The Babaloo suggested that we reward them with a special outing of some sort. They both kind of shrugged and our older kid actually came back with, "My scores are reward enough. And, really, you need to stop saying you're proud of me. It makes me feel weird." Sigh.

I looked into requirements for home-schooling in Arizona. This led to my having to order certified copies of birth certificates. The podunky, rural Register of Deeds required a simple, five-minute process and I was able to order online, pay online, and upload my photo ID to complete the order. The metropolitan Register of Deeds doesn't offer any of that and their application isn't even fillable. I had to actually print it, complete the form by hand(!), put a stamp on it, and walk it to the mailbox. Sigh.

...

Surprise! It is raining here today.

Turn your volume down. Rain sounds like loud static.

Every time it rains, even for as little as ten minutes, my sidewalk floods. This is because the landscapers have not trimmed the bush out front in three years and they insist on throwing mulch all willy-nilly so the water has nowhere to go. I put in a request for them to trim the bush and edge the sidewalk. They edged all three of my neighbors' sidewalks and ignored mine and the bush. Grumble-sigh.

Nowhere.

But I don't have to go anywhere today so I will gracefully ignore the water. I snapped this photo and then went inside to serve dinner. I pulled two lemons and four chicken leg quarters out of the freezer (which we are trying to empty) this morning and stuck 'em in the crockpot. If you slice two lemons to line the bottom of the crockpot, the chicken doesn't stick and you get that awesome lemon flavor. That's it: two lemons, four frozen chicken quarters, and a good sprinkling of rotisserie seasoning on high for about six hours. 

Yummy.

Chicken was a pleasant way to end the day. Contented sigh.