Holed up for the Holidays

 Alison came home Tuesday before Thanksgiving, and her boyfriend Jason came along. We had a great few days full of good food -- crab legs, steak and King Rib ribs and some truly decadent mac-n-cheese -- and lots of couch time for the kids. They lit up the outside of the house for me, too. 

All too soon, though, Ali drove Jason back to campus in West Lafayette because, "There's no way I can study if he's downstairs."

They had a week of classes before finals week starts tomorrow. Most of the students went home and stayed there. Jason lives in California, and won't fly home until after his last test. Alison might as well have gone back with him as we have seen very little of her in the past week.

She's holed herself up in the downstairs bedroom with her laptop, a whiteboard and assorted food items. She emerges periodically -- mostly for more food. She has asked Jeff and me -- separately -- to study with her on occasion, which is humbling.

I did flash cards with her for chemistry where she had to identify chemicals from a drawing or draw a chemical. Like this, for example. 

You all remember what this is, right? 👉👉👉👉👉👉👉

Yeah, me, neither. I don't know what Jeff got to dive into.

I mostly just read from the answers on the back of the flash cards, happy to be able to decipher her chicken scratches and pronounce things like carboxyisohexane and isobutylamine. No, I don't know what they are, either. 

I asked her if she'd talked much to Jason this past week during study breaks or whatnot. She looked at me like I was crazy.

"I assume he's busy like I am and studying," she said, reminding me that they attend a STEM school. 

Sometimes I worry that she's not getting the full college experience -- not that anyone is thanks to COVID. She's told me of parties and such, and I know she does have fun sometimes. But man. How I produced a chemistry major, I'll never know. I am a little proud that she's so focused.

Special note to Lyn and Amy: Yes, she's essentially given us "the hand" all week. She even told Jeff she'd appreciate it if she can have TOTAL QUIET in the house when she takes her calculus final. 

Her first test is tomorrow. Once she'd through with them, she promises she will emerge for good. I went down to say goodnight a bit ago and she was on the queen bed down there, plotting out her week on the whiteboard. As I've mentioned before, her upstairs bedroom is a third of the size of that room, but she's never moved into it, claiming that the basement is full of spiders and she can't sleep down there.

I asked her if she was going to sleep down there to make it easier for her to get up to study for the test. Nope. 

"If I did that I might as well be at school," she said. "I move a few inches from my bed to my desk there. At least here I get to walk all the way upstairs to get away. Plus, I'd have to move all this," she said.

Jeff and I spent some more time lumber-jacking - or essentially foraging for firewood down at Mike and Abby's as part of our plan to still be able to socialize as winter sets in. 

I helped collect, load and unload it but Jeff did a bunch of splitting and most of the stacking. We may be set for a bit of time now. I'm not altogether certain how long I will huddled around a fire outside in January, but I'm game to try. 

The big excitement post Thanksgiving was when Andy and Kate Seiwert came over to deliver a bar cart Andy had made for Jeff after deciding he needed one. Inspired by YouTube, it's beautiful. I never thought of Andy as a craftsman -- he's an attorney -- but it's a super cool bit of furniture.

Ali and Kate haven't really hung out since they were little girls, but Ali agreed to take a minute from studying to say hello. They caught up in the kitchen while Jeff and Andy discussed the nuances of the cart, the accessories that "had" to be purchased because they were perfectly matched to the galvanized fixtures of the cart and the best way to arrange them while also leaving room to concoct cocktails.

Andy had actually delivered it earlier in the month but as they examined it then, the maker decided it would be better with a third shelf and some tightening up, so he took it back. 

I struggle to find great gifts for Jeff. Trust Andy to come up with the perfect "must have" item. It's probably because Andy shares Jeff's appreciation of hard liquor.

I remarked that Andy had far out-gifted Jeff, and was reminded that Jeff had found a second bottle of some kind of booze that Andy had declared the best type of whiskey or bourbon that he'd ever had in his life. 

"If I could have licked the bottle, I would have," he said. "I shed a tear when I finished it."

I'll leave it to them to decide if they've equalized their gift giving. 

Wish us luck with finals week. And for God's sake, don't make any noise when Ali settles into that calculus final...