New School Year

School has started anew this Fall, and every year is different. At the Girl's middle school, she says there are 200 more students this year! I guess the incoming 7th grade class is much bigger than last year's!

I was wondering what was going on the first week of school. I took the familiar route to drop the Girl off, and couldn't believe the traffic. After 3 years of having kids at this school (2 for the Boy and 1 for the Girl), I know the best place to drop them off, how to avoid traffic jams, etc.

But suddenly the street was full of all these parents that have no idea! They park along both sides of the side streets, so that only one car can fit in to drive, so that you have to take turns with people going the opposite direction. Some people are apparently blind or something, as they couldn't seem to figure out that they needed to take turns, and just went ahead and barged into the lane anyway, going the opposite direction!

So far, by getting too far to the right trying to avoid other drivers, I have knocked back a mirror on the van of a woman I know ("So sorry! I'm sorry!") and knocked over a trash can!

How embarrassing. Now I go a little later to avoid the crunch.

The girl is happier this year, since she has more friends and is no longer the younger class at school. Last summer her best friends never wanted to do anything - not even come swim once a week. But when she went to camp, the Girl made friends with a popular girl, and after that got invited to do a lot of things and made more friends. When school started again, her old friends got jealous. But really, what was she supposed to do?

I got a little worried about the new friend, however. The first day of school the Girl said she was sharing a locker with this new friend, as she doesn't really like where her own locker is (bottom row, downstairs). Later that night, the friend texted her that her parents didn't want her to share a locker.

So I was hoping that this new friend wouldn't turn out to be a problem, but so far it seems OK. You know how girls can be.

She is 13 now and I feel her pushing me away. She's taken to calling me "Monkey" - a term less endearing than I'd like. The other day I got excited when she sat next to me, in front, when I took her to soccer practice. It turned out, tho, that she only wanted to changed the radio station at will.

Last weekend her soccer team won a game on Sat., but the Girl was mad at one of her teammates and basically wanted her kicked off the team. The next day they lost a game, but the Girl scored on a great penalty kick and was very happy. She tries to get cranky with us trying to help her (bringing food and offering it to her), but I try to emphasize that we are only trying to support her.

Meanwhile, the Boy has visited us twice already this semester! Wow. He says he's going to try to visit more, as he now realizes how little he came home last year. Really? What about the year before that?

I think that because he's in an apartment now, he's more on his own than ever before. He called me one day, saying, "Mom, I hate cooking SO much!"

One day he called from Costco, asking what he should buy. I made some suggestions, and he said he'd already picked out rice, salsa, and bologna. OK, whatever. He asked what he could do with bologna, and I said, well, you can try frying it.

Later that week he texted me that he HATES fried bologna! He said he cooked it for dinner and couldn't even eat it! He asked what else he could do with it, and I suggested eating it with a lot of mayo, or trading it to his roommates for an egg or something.

He bought about 2 lbs of it, and wanted to bring it home, but I said don't bother. It's not even good for you. Technically, it's bad for you.

But I told K that now that the Girl is pulling away from us, the Boy seems to be coming back our way.

That would be nice.

Colorado Trip

Our trip to Colorado was really nice, I may have mentioned. I had an unexpectedly great time visiting my family. The Boy showed up after I'd already been there 2 days, with his GFF. He called the day before he left to ask us to make him a Dr. appt as his back was really bothering him.

So the next day we went in (luckily they have Kaiser there too) and they gave him stronger drugs and told him to rest it. Then we went to visit my friend in Colorado Springs and show them Garden of the Gods. Luckily my friend went with us, as she knew a lot more about the park than we did!

I was a little annoyed that the GFF slept the whole way there and back, but I guess that's to be expected in teenagers. The next day the kids went to Waterworld, and my Mom had a BBQ afterward. It was good to see everyone.

When we went to my in-laws, I became an unexpected hero when I was able to "fix" their computer so that they could view their email again. Whatever I did was fairly simple and I can't say how long it will last, as mainly it seems that their computer is very old and slow.

But K's sister kept saying that their father just had too many old email in his google account, and that was jamming him up. I said that no, those are actually on google's computers. This opinion was not met with favor.

When we got to their house, the Boy was now suffering because he picked up an ear infection at Waterworld, and had to be taken to ER. The cost of ER was actually the same as it would have been at Kaiser, but the medicine cost almost $200! He said, "Only a few days ago I was thinking, if only my back didn't hurt! Then I'd be happy..." But no, now an earache.

We always go for a hike when we visit them at their home in the mountains, and this time we went up high so that the Girl could see some snow. So the hike wasn't too far, but it was a steep slope and up high, where there's hardly any oxygen left.

But I guess all our "walking" around the neighborhood has finally paid off, and I was for the first time able to keep pace with everyone else. Well, at least I wasn't the slowest this time. K's mom complemented me on being in shape, but I think I picked up a little sadness from her about being a little slower herself.

Getting old is hard on all of us. I was telling my sister how I expected to get wrinkles, but I don't like the ones showing up on my forehead. I told her I was going to have to cut my bangs again, and she laughed and said it's the poor woman's botox!

One of the most fun moments of the trip was when we were in the airport waiting for our flight, and I pulled out a pack of cards I always keep there, but seldom play with. We played a few games of crazy 8's and then a game called BS, and it was really a lot of fun.

We got home late and ran into some unexpected delays (our highway exit was closed, we had to wait on the runway, etc.) so it felt good to finally get home.

Sunday dinners

My sister closest in age to me, M, recently finished a LONG educational experience and finally earned her long-awaited Nursing degree. Yay!

Then, she found there's currently no shortage of nurses, and she was discouraged at not finding a job right away. Then right when we visited, she got a job in a psychiatric hospital. Yay again!

So she was training much of the time we were there, although we did get to see her a few times. As part of her training, she spend two days learning defensive moves and how to "take somebody down" if she had to.

She told a co-worker, "Well, if nothing else, it might come in handy at Sunday dinners with my family."

And the guy laughed. He just doesn't know....

Cruise dream

I often have dreams about being on vacation, often around water. Last night I dreamed I was on a cruise ship. I went outside to look at the water, and saw that the waves were really high. In fact I looked up, and the wave seemed to be as high as the sky, ready to crash down on the ship. So I ran back indoors and everything was fine.

If water often represents emotions, this dream would seem to say that I'm overwhelmed and scared of strong feelings. My own or those outside of me? Probably both. I'm scared of feelings so strong that they might destroy me.

Back inside the ship, I had trouble finding K. When I found him, he was busy with friends and promised to meet up with me later.

I went into a room with some other people, and there was a guy sitting next to me. I was visiting with these people, and the guy put his hand on my leg. For some reason I left it there, and didn't tell him to move it away.

Later I was back to looking for K, and ultimately ended the dream feeling frustrated and disappointed that he wasn't around for me.

In real life, this is possibly because he stayed in CO a week longer than I did, and therefore is literally not around. Or it might reflect my frustration that when he gets around his friends, sometimes the needs of his family are put on the back burner, and I feel hurt that I'm not getting the attention and affection that I normally get at home.

Anyway, I don't often remember my dreams anymore, so I thought I would write this one down.