Not Back to School Day

OUT IN THE GREAT WIDE OPEN: Today, my Facebook feed was full of adorable photos of friends' and family's kids heading back to school. I loved seeing the pics, and for about two seconds I wondered if we're charted on the right course, but today was a great day and based on the kids and their learning journeys so far, I'm thinking we're OK. ...

While CJ and Annabelle have never done the traditional Monday-Friday thing school wise, for many years we have been a part of co-ops and affiliated with official public school systems over the years. This year, however, we're totally "off the grid," so to speak. On our own. 

So what did our first day of 'school' look like?

Well, we worked on a pretty darn big home project (installing four new windows on the home front). 
Once we got to a good stopping point today, we headed to a local park that is usually hella busy, and we kind of avoid it for that reason. Today? Crickets ... and water fowl. :)

While at the lake, Annabelle found the time to do an art, of course.

I love her unicorn sandscape.

Afterward, we went on a meander up the hill and found ourselves at a Goodwill store. 

There, our scores included an amazing vintage Snoopy touch tone phone from 1976. I have wanted to own one for 42 years. Today was the day! Lucky me!

CJ looked for vinyl (records) but found none, but he did try on this creepy Kim Jong Un "Rocket Boy" mask.

 Terrifying, really.

All in all, just a normal day for MPA, really. 

Foo News

ROCKIN': For us here at MPA, this summer has been dominated by two things - smoky skies and rock-n-roll.

We've been shut in for weeks, but have ventured out repeatedly to see shows.

Case in point: This past Saturday night, we were at Safeco Field not for a baseball game, but for a Foo Fighters concert.

We love us some Foo. :) I was lucky enough to see one of their first shows ever. Dave Grohl is the Foo Fighters at the band's core, and he is also one of the Nirvana survivors. The first time I saw a Foo show, not long after Nirvana frontman Kurt Cobain's death, Dave didn't even have a full CD out yet, and he was afraid he'd get booed off the stage for not playing Nirvana songs. Fortunately, that wasn't the case, and the crowd showered him with love. He was sooooooo grateful, and so apologetic that he didn't have more songs. 

Fast forward about 23 years, and the Foo Fighters have a huge catalog and an international fan base. 

Interestingly enough, the first time we saw a mini Foo show was at the first EVER concert at Safeco Field - Sir Paul McCartney, in 2013. He invited former Nirvana founders Dave and Krist Novoselic to play with them, and we got to see "Sirvana"

Saturday night, Dave cited that night as his drive to play the Saturday show. He said it was an amazing experience and he dreamed of playing Safeco since that night. 

Here's a video of Dave and Krist jamming on a (pretty obscure) tune they played in their Nirvana days at Safeco last Saturday night.


Following is what CJ has to say about the show. ... 

On 1 September 2018, Seattle native band the Foo Fighters played at Safeco Field, a local baseball stadium. The show was nearly sold out, and it came less than a month after fellow 90s Seattle band Pearl Jam played two concerts in the same stadium. I went to the Foo Fighters concert, and here are some of my recollections:

We got to Safeco Field at about 7 P.M. While in line, I noticed four people in Nirvana t-shirts (FF members Dave Grohl and Pat Smear used to be in Nirvana.) During and after our time in the line, we heard The Joy Formidable (a band from Wales) play their setlist. After The Joy Formidable left the stage, there was an intermission. We got into our seats, and waited for the Foos to play.

The concert began with "All My Life," the lead single from their album One by One. The first ten songs, including One by One, were all original (as in, originally made by the Foos) songs. However, after Walk (the tenth song), the band played a cover of the late John Lennon's Imagine, with lyrics from Van Halen's Jump. Twas an unusual spectacle.

Towards the end of the show, Dave Grohl revealed that he had a cold, and that he was losing his voice. Before the encore, video of Dave making faces and hand gestures to the crowd showed on the screen behind the stage, during which the crowd shouted loudly. To end the encore (and, by extension, the show,) the band played their signature song Everlong.

Lastly, by the time we exited the stadium, I had seen a baker's dozen of people in Nirvana shirts.

And here are Annabelle's impressions. ... 

On September 1^st, the Foo Fighters played Safeco Field as part of their “Concrete and Gold” tour. We arrived via bus at around 7 and got in a long, yet fast line to enter the stadium. To our surprise, the second warm up act was already playing despite the website claiming the music started at 8. Despite this, we got our seats in row 28 on the main level (along the 3^rd base line) and listened to the opener, which was even louder than the show proper. We listened to them for around a half-hour before they left and setup began for Foo Fighters.

They began by playing some of their most popular songs, including “Run”, “All my life”, and “Learn to Fly”. They also played a few covers, such as a bizarre mashup of the lyrics to Van Halen’s “Jump” over the music for “Imagine” by John Lennon. Dave Grohl also mentioned how some of the most famous Foo Fighters songs were written in his laundry room and later his garage. The concert was stunning and lasted until around 11 PM, including the encore. 

As a fun concert 'pre-funk,' we went to one of our favorite microbreweries, Seapine. They were hosting the pre-show merchandise tent for the Foo Fighters' show. CJ and Annabelle picked up their pre-ordered t-shirts, but we also picked up some show-specific Jones Soda. 

Much Math

ALL A BOARD:  One of the ongoing volunteer art projects we've been involved in for a year plus is designing, making and installing a bulletin board that features students' birthdays once a month.

Even though we're not officially enrolled at a local learning center any more, we volunteered to take on the bulletin board for September.

We had been wanting to do a Pac Man-themed one for awhile. This month, we finally made that happen.

It's a great learning project because it involves lots of planning, math, and artistic elements. This month, the first step was scaling it all to fit the 47-by-47 inch bulletin board.

CJ and I pieced the black background together. Annabelle used the amazing Cricut to produce all of the pixelated ghosts and Pac Men.

We used blue painter's tape to make the maze lines. That took a lot of measuring and careful planning, so that things would match up.

 We laid pennies out on the background to figure out placement of the pellets Pac Man eats.

Then we picked up the pennies and applied round stickers in their place.

Lastly, we took it to school and hung it in the entryway. We were all really pleased with how it turned out.

FYI, the students' birthdays are written on the ghosts. I blurred them out for this blog post.

PUT TO THE TEST: This morning, we three (CJ, Annabelle and I) toiled toward a test. A  pretest, quiz and then the UNIT TEST (insert dramatic music here). This Khan Academy algebra unit featuring graphing lines, computing slopes and stuff seems to have lasted forever and a day.

There were tense moments and a couple of tears (not naming names), but in the end, a couple of us got perfect scores and the other one had a solid B. Yay, us.

We celebrated by having ice cream for lunch (well, at least just Bee and CeeJ). Beings that it's August 31, Baskin-Robbins had a scoop sale ($1.50 per). It was a sweet treat after hard work.