Teenagers

Marty applied for some jobs using online forms at the beginning of December. One was for the grocery store that's out our back gate and a few hundred yards up the alley.

I wrote a letter for the manager, saying he's homeschooled so flexibly that any 180 days can be schooldays, per the state, and so he could work any kinds of days. That's to the store's advantage because of child labor laws. If there IS "a schoolday" they can't schedule him past a certain time the night before, or before a certain time on the day. So real years being what they are, that leaves 185 days that aren't school days.

So Marty went in with this mom-letter to introduce himself to the manager and see what he would need to do to get an interview. He had waited a few days after we learned that the manager was off for a week. So Tuesday the 6th he went in and was informed by someone in the office that in order to be considered he needed "a green" on each section, and he had one red and one yellow. She advised him to do the online application again, but instead of agreeing, to always STRONGly agree. (Sometimes that was going to be "strongly disagree.")

How frustrating. But he came home and did it right away, and then went back up to say he had done so.

He came back about twenty minutes later saying "I got my interview!"

"When?"

"Just now." They were done. He starts next Wednesday or maybe sooner. He said they were already looking at the online report on him as he walked into the office.

The sooner had to do with a drug test and physical (not much of a physical). We did that Wednesday, got him the right pants and some new black boots and he's ready when they are. They're talking about 6:30 a.m. to 3:30 p.m., weekdays. It will be the first time (not counting the one week of junior police academy) that he will live on something resembling a school schedule. Also, you might note that it's a fulltime job. He had applied for parttime. But in the swirl of it all, he didn't object and we'll see how it goes.

Holly, meanwhile, is in a more quiet phase than she's been for a while. She's doing a lot of drawing with a big set of gel pens she got for her fourteenth birthday in November. She's fourteen now, and already has reminded me a few times that she can start driver's ed just before she's fifteen but that she'll probably want to wait until she's fifteen. She's ready to drive.

Kirby is working five days a week at Dion's pizza, and learned yesterday that they are going to start training him in pies, meaning he'll be making pizzas, probably, before long. I asked if it paid more, and he said no but it's more prestigious. So in the culture of large-crew pizzerias, he's moving up a notch.

They all three saw Chronicles of Narnia last night at the midnight showing, but didn't all go together. Marty left here about 8:00 for the pre-movie hanging around. Holly went with Kirby and his group an hour or so later. They found each other there, and several other friends. Marty says it was good, three hours, everything was fine.

Meanwhile, back at home, Keith and I had gone in the hot tub with the air outside below freezing, but it was still and the hot tub builds its own steam room. We had heated it from 42 degrees to 106, over four or five hours. We got two cords of firewood yesterday too, and were tired from moving that around. We're wood-rich and happy-kid rich. When they were little we paid tons of attention to them, and now that they're older they're able to pay attention to one another sometimes while we have the night off.

Very nice.