Kemper Fi!

Fun fact #1: Kemper fi is prounced "Kemper fee" (not "Kemper fie"), because it derives from the Dog Latin Kemper fidelis that I just made up—which translates to "faithful to Kemper."

Fun fact #2: You won't have any idea who or what Kemper is—much less why we were faithful to it—until you slog through a bunch of paragraphs that have nothing to do with it ;)

Thursday

Athennia and I spent most of Thursday separately checking off some necessary boxes before our staycation with Riley over the weekend.

For my part, I had several varieties of tomato and hot pepper seeds that I wanted to save; so, I got the ball rolling on those.

I also threw some frozen chicken and a bunch of spices together so that my Instant Pot could do its thing and Athennia and I could have shredded chicken tacos for dinner later. That wouldn't ordinarily be a blog-worthy occurrence, except that I apparently used so much spice (relative to liquid) that the bottom of the pot scorched and the iPot decided it didn't want to do its job: It gave me the infamous "burn notice" TWICE (despite my name not being Michael Westen); but, it rather ended up pressurizing and heating the chicken just enough for me to shred it after the second cook attempt; so, things worked out anyway.

Meanwhile, Athennia had a far more eventful day...

We've barely mentioned much of the whole "K12 saga" on the blog thus far (because, again, it hasn't exactly been rivetingly blog-worthy); but, suffice it to say that anything and everything related to getting Taylor and Riley enrolled in charter school through K12 has been a giant, three-month-long headache...

No one there seems to understand that kids (like Riley) can sometimes have surnames that differ from that of their parents.

Or that kids (like Taylor) sometimes live at a different address from their parents.

Or that, when someone tells you they'll call you back and follow up, you're actually expecting them to do exactly that.

...And, for some reason, physical examinations and vaccination records are still a thing even for charter schools that exist exclusively in cyberspace. Not really sure why: Are the students going to catch something through their computer screens if they get put in a cyber-classroom alongside someone with questionable digital hygiene?

Welp, there goes Snot-Nosed Spencer, accepting third-party cookies and reusing the same password on all his social media accounts. Next thing you know, the CDC finds the Morris worm buffer-overflowing the UNIX finger daemon again for the first time since 1988, and the whole class has a nasty case of Y2K. Someone call Pfizer: We're gonna need eight or nine boosters on this one!

But, yeah; long story short, every step of trying to get Taylor and Riley enrolled in charter school through K12 has been an absolute nightmare... up to and including trying to procure the loaner laptop the school sent out to Riley earlier in the week...

Now, it's no surprise that something like a laptop would require a signature upon delivery; however, I seem to recall... something quirky about the delivery of Taylor's laptop just days earlier...

So, that was Taylor's laptop: Just leave it at the doorstep and set up one of those neon SECRET HIDEOUT signs with the giant arrow like in the cartoons.

But, Riley's? Nope: UPS is playing that one by the book: Thursday would be their third and final attempt to make delivery; otherwise, the package would get memory-holed for two months as they tried to figure out how to read a return address and get it back to where it came from (or at least secure it under K12's doormat).

Fortunately, Athennia had the foresight to leave work just before noon, and raced home intent on sitting around waiting for UPS all afternoon if need be: She pulled into her apartment complex just as the driver was walking away from her door... honked at him 8,000 times... flagged him down... identified herself as the bona fide recipient of the package (and as the owner of the perfectly good welcome mat he'd opted not to utilize this time around!)... and successfully took delivery of Riley's laptop!

And, as a bonus, she got the form for her lease renewal in the mail—which wouldn't be noteworthy, if not for the fact that she's had to wait through all of June and July and the majority of August to see whether her landlord would even extend the offer (after the odiferous effluvium had hit the fan when the kids turned the apartment into a zoo back in the spring).

The lease renewal of course means that it's finally time to go about bringing back Riley's cat Lucky (for whom Taylor has graciously been caring since early June—thanks, Taylor!); but, then again, the apartment's pet policy begins with a $50 nonrefundable application fee just to be considered for a pet permit... and, if there's one thing I hate in this world, it's shameless, blatantly-predatory bullshit that preys on the innocent.

So, I suggested that Athennia call the leasing office and play a little hardball: Tell them that she's been looking at other apartments (absolutely true) but is considering staying here another year (also true), and explain that she has no interest in gambling $50 on what might be a flat-out no regarding Lucky being able to come back. I told her to clarify that she'd be more than happy to pay the $50 application fee—and the $40 monthly pet surcharge—but she needed a hard yes first.

They've seen a steady increase in vacancies there, and Athennia has a perfect 12-year history there of paying her rent on time and in full—even during the scamdemic, when the government enabled tenants across the country to just arbitrarily stop paying their rents! I was confident that the landlord would readily concede... if Athennia could just get a conversation with someone to explain that Taylor and Ahlina had taken their menagerie to Lou's, and to assure them that barking dogs, smelly animal cages, and upwards of two dozen illicit pets from every known phylum of the animal kingdom were a thing of the past and would not be an issue this time around.

So, she got in touch with the woman in the leasing office and pled her case, only to be told that the apartment had recently changed their pet policy... to the extent that they no longer have one at all! (I confess, I didn't see that coming.) But, tenants who already had pets were grandfathered in; and, on account of Athennia's outstanding payment history (and probably her expertly-delivered sob story about how much her youngest daughter misses the beloved family cat), the woman decided to "forget" that this phone call had ever happened or that Lucky had ever left the apartment back in June:

He would be grandfathered in as though he had been there all along. And, because this was all hush-hush, Athennia wasn't on the hook for a $50 application fee or the monthly pet surcharge! So, I'm not even sure off the top of my head exactly how many discrete wins—and, I suppose, discreet wins—that comes out to. But, it's a lot, and we're going to take them, and we're thankful that Lucky is finally coming home soon :)

Friday

Friday was a lot calmer in comparison...

When Athennia got back from work, we checked in with Riley to see whether she was ready for us to come pick her up; but, she wanted to stay at her friend Kassie's one more night before school started.

So, Athennia and I had an unexpected free evening—albeit not a lot of energy to make much use of it. I suggested we grab some fried chicken from Popeyes and jump into season one of Letterkenny (which I bought two months ago but hadn't gotten around to watching yet).

Popeyes mildly disappointed us, but Letterkenny is better than I'd anticipated! It centers on the clashy coexistence among disparate subcultures in a rural Canadian town, and notably turns the stereotypical notion of small-town countryfolk as simpletons on its head. It's pure comedy gold that could be a master class in how to write witty dialogue—with characters that are varied, and intriguing, and artfully clever to the point that you'll actually have trouble hating them (contrasted with something like Friends, where literally every character is "the dumb, annoying one" <shrug>).

I wholeheartedly recommend checking it out... though, if you're Terry Rakolta, you probably won't enjoy it.

Saturday

Picking up Riley was the first order of business on Saturday.

We also popped into Lowe's to grab some chicken wire to reinforce my garden fencing (as my 4-D chess match with the grandmasters continues to test my endurance). Then we hit Arby's in Feasterville (the only one I know of in a 14,000-mile radius) for lunch. And, equally as important as the places we did go are the places we didn't go...

When we got back to my place, we walked over to my neighbors John and Tamar to see if they were home. We visited for a bit, and Riley got to meet the chickens and had a blast playing with Starr and Jackie.

Later in the evening, we took a trip to PetSmart so Athennia and Riley could stock up on new cat supplies to be ready for Lucky's return. (Taylor will still have two kittens after we take Lucky off her hands; so, Athennia decided to let her keep Lucky's current litter box and extra food and such for when the kittens are a bit older and start needing those things.)

Then we had burgers for dinner, binged a few more Letterkenny episodes, and watched Seventh Son—which, despite its all-star cast, had a thin plot, even thinner character development, and way too much CGI trying to make up for the first two. It was so underwhelming that even Terry Rakolta would probably endorse it. (Still better than Friends though. <shrug>)

Sunday

After breakfast on Sunday, we set up Riley's laptop so she'd be ready for school the next morning. Then, being all TV'ed and computer'ed out, we felt like doing something that didn't involve a screen; so, I started thinking of nearby parks we hadn't visited with Riley yet.

(Of course, what were we going to do at a park, if not use screens to take an obnoxious amount of pictures? But, whatever.)

Kemper Park in Warminster was close-by... and tiny enough that I had never even bothered to visit. I figured I'd check out some pictures on Google Maps to determine whether it was worth checking out: The pics were beautiful, but Google said the park was "closed permanently."

I found that hard to believe; and, since we were already planning to stop by Staples right around the corner anyway, I decided...

...wait for it...

Kemper fi!

We had faith that the idea of a small tract of land next to a stream being "closed permanently" in any sense of the concept was illogical...

...And we were rewarded!

Later on, we made chickpea penne for dinner—topped with some of our homemade meatballs and some augmented sauce (with spinach, Parmesan cheese, and garden-fresh tomatoes and basil).

Then we watched some more Letterkenny and some funny cat videos on YouTube to wind down for the night, and got to bed early for work and school in the morning.

Monday

The first day of school was finally here. Riley was still at my place so that she could have an adult (and a computer whiz 😎️) on standby if anything went wrong... And, let's face it: It would, because this is K12!

(In all seriousness, we started the day with an email from the teacher, sharing the link to get into the first live session because it wasn't showing up in the students' course info on the web site.)

Riley's first day was pretty rough, all in all: Unclear instructions and buggy web pages made for a minefield that was difficult for me to navigate in my late thirties; so, I can't imagine a kid trying to go it alone. But, Riley handled it like a champ; and, by the end of the day when the kinks started to get ironed out, she, Athennia, and I all felt confident that she'll be just fine going forward.

We also heard from Lou that Taylor made out pretty well on her first day too, which was awesome to hear. :)

After Athennia got home from work, we cooked some burgers for dinner, and I suggested a Burger King run for celebratory ice cream cones. We pulled into the drive-thru and waited for service; and, when we were finally asked for our order, Athennia prefaced it by asking whether the ice cream machines were working... to which the drive-thru clerk Larry all but exploded!

Man, why everybody be asking me that question this whole month? Girl, this ain't McDonald's!

Athennia retorted...

Well, we always have to check first... because, you know what? McDonald's doesn't do it our way.

Larry not only found that answer satisfactory: He completely conceded defeat! We heard him lament to a coworker over the headset, "Man, I just got my ass kicked for tryin' to be smart." 🤣️

We pulled around and shot the breeze with him at the window for a couple minutes until our cones were ready. And then we tried to devour our ice cream before it melted all over us.

Shortly before Athennia and Riley left to go home, Riley wanted a drink and asked me why I had a "pepper aquarium" in my fridge...

I explained that those were Thai dragon peppers, because my friend Richard gave me three plants that were puking peppers out faster than I can eat them; and so, I had decided to pickle some last Wednesday.

Riley's answer?

But, they're not pickles; they're peppers.

And, who was I to argue with that?

So, yeah; I guess I'm the proud owner of a pepper aquarium. Pepper fi!