School Time

I’ve been procrastinating on writing this blog and many other things, liking going into Tori’s bedroom and walking by the tennis courts. It has been a little hard to get back to usual with Tori off at university. But Phil and I are just back from visiting her at parents’ weekend and feel confident that she is settling into her new environment with ease. She walked us around campus, through beautiful tree-lined quads and into Gothic buildings, to look at her various classrooms. We looked at the equations written on the chalk boards of her classrooms and listened to her talk excitedly about lectures and problem sets. She told us she was going to a Halloween frat party dressed as Schrodinger’s cat with a friend. One would be the alive cat and one would be the dead cat. That girl is fine and with her people.

We all took Tori to university in September. Her school started late so the twins and all of her friends were already off by the time she left. They all went around to each other’s houses for send offs but there was literally no one still in town for her send off. No matter. She had all of us and five huge suitcases to not only send her off but accompany her.

When we landed, we ordered an Uber XL. The car arrived and the driver jumped out and started putting the suitcases on the roof. He said he had a system and tracks and ropes. We watched him work and we finally set off. As soon as we got on the expressway, we heard a sound and then another. Two of the suitcases fell off into traffic behind us. Our driver pulled over and the other suitcases slid off the car. Phil and the driver ran into traffic while Adam collected the other suitcases. We shoved all suitcases inside the car and drove without talking to the hotel. The driver took off quickly and we all burst into laughter. All that college gear shopping on the highway! But no losses.

We moved Tori into her little dorm room, which seemed even smaller with the twins (both well over six feet tall). We ate at the dorm with Tori. Adam loved it! (It looked good that weekend but reports since have been mixed). We tried to help her unpack. We tried to stand in lines for registration. We tried to go shopping for whatever we missed. But mostly we were in the way. We went to a convocation ceremony. Tori marched through the gates with her freshman class. Bagpipes were played. We cried. We went to the airport. We cried. We flew home. We cried. We are still crying but getting busier with high school things.