Thursday, January 01, 2009

1/1/09 Happy New Year!

We had a delightful, inspiring and fun New Year's Eve with our longtime moto-friends, Reid and Rubye.

Though I've known Rubye just as long as Reid, Reid was the motorcyclist, and I got to know him over many, many rides across many mountains, deserts, forests and states. He knew Dave too, but I did a lot more rides with Reid than Dave did, and over the years, we became solid friends.

(I always marvelled at how this soft-spoken, gentle, kind, insightful, wise man was an animal as a rider. Don't try to keep up with him lane-splitting, and if you plan to ride home with him after a 3-day weekend, you'd better have your bike packed, gassed up and running at 5:30am! I remember numerous trips when I'd get up at O'Dark Early and find Reid's campsite vacant. He'd be home from Hayfork or Quincy by 10am, when most riders were still sleepily unpoling their tents and looking around for coffee. He wanted to spend the day with Rubye.)

The kids went to Melissa's for a New Year's Eve sleepover, and didn't give me so much as a glance over their shoulders when I tried to kiss them good-bye. Dave picked them up this morning and they were really wiped out by their sleepover, so we took it super easy today.

The only thing we did today was a short trip to the jobsite, where Katrina lasered right in on a wagon in the garage. "I'm ready!" she declared. To be pushed around at her whimsy, she meant.


The boys couldn't match her energy.

They passed on the fascination of the new granite bathroom countertops and a sliding door I just realized opens on the wrong side(arrrrrghGHGGHH!!!).

Katrina's been increasingly....increasing. Everything. For starters, she's doing more and more "girl" things. We're finding her baby doll and stuffed animals all over the house, tucked into blankets, with cloths wrapped around like diapers, or bibs set up in the high chair.


She's also getting more demanding, more insistent, bossier -- is that possible? She got two timeouts today for hitting. She needed to be put back a few times, but she mostly sat and cried in timeout. GOOD.

After a sound nap (the first she's taken all week), she happily played with Dad's iPhone. I think Dad enjoys these moments more than she does, though he won't admit it.


Julian got a terrific skeleton jigsaw puzzle book for his birthday. Tonight he came to me again and again, joyfully announcing something he's found in the book: "MOM! The hand has TWENTY-SIX bones!!" Dr. Doudna, perhaps??

First things first. Kindergarten before medical school. Incredible...the school district finally updated their archaic registration system of having parents fill out 1000 forms with all sorts of obscure information at the school. If you don't have your dentist's phone number, you're supposed to go back (I never did).

But now we can pick up registration packets ahead of time. Welcome to the 2000's. I guess an ONLINE FORM (Hell-LO?! Silicon Valley anyone?) will have to wait until the next century.

Kindergarten Registration:
February 2 – 12, 2009 at the neighborhood schools.

Registration packets maybe picked up by the parent at the neighborhood school beginning January 26, 2009. Packets are numbered sequentially and must be returned between February 2 - February 12, 2009, to be valid.

Any child who will be five years old on or before December 2, 2009, is eligible to attend kindergarten for the 2009-10 school year.


(That typo/spelling error of "maybe" instead of "may be" bothers me. This is a school for Pete's sake!)

I don't "think" this is a concern, but:

STUDENTS MUST BE RESIDING IN THE DISTRICT AT THE TIME OF REGISTRATION.

Well, define "reside."

When I submitted my TB test to Gabriel's school in December, an office staff member pulled me aside, acting verrrry serious. "What's this address?" she pointed out accusingly.

Duh, I'd written our rental address on the TB test application. Our rental house is in the same city as our real house, but in a different school district. I casually explained the situation, but she acted as authoritative as a hall monitor, put me on notice to submit a current PG&E bill, and warned me she'd report me to the school district. Oooh. I couldn't stand her "YOU'RE BUSTED" self-important attitude.

I can easily submit a current PG&E bill, despite the anachronism. So what? We do all our billing electronically and could easily Photoshop the proof. Whatever.

Regardless, I'll be registering my little boy for kindergarten next month!!!! Yay! Wah! Yay! Wah! Yay!

Mean time, happy next year, everyone!

1/1/09

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