I skipped work yesterday ;) Took a personal day to take Michael to the allergy specialist and to get Heather to orientation at Nashville School of the Arts. I realized today that her sudden outbursts of anarchy (ie, "I'm not buying one of their stupid planners. I'm going to get one from Staples. I don't care if they do put me in ISS.") are really her way of panicking - she feels totally scared and out of control, so she attempts to regain that sense of control by being obstinate. But we worked it out, talked it out, and by the time she'd gotten her photo ID and met up with five or six of her friends from previous schools/school years, she was in much better spirits. The defensive posture was pretty much gone. She was disappointed that she'd have to take Algebra again this year, but passing the Gateway with a 96 wasn't sufficient to excuse failing the class. Same thing for physical science - it's round two, but hopefully with different results. Spanish she can forget - she's taking first year French. I won't be able to help her much, because everything I learned I've pretty much forgotten, but I probably can help with the conjugation of verbs. That part I do remember, for some reason. My baby's in high school - I'm getting old.
Like a bad penny.... We used to scuba dive as our hobby, a hobby which eventually led to the procurement/construction of a small dive trailer to haul four sets of gear and four cylinders. It was a simple but elegant design - a box on a single axle frame, with the beginnings of a mural painted on both sides, and dive flags at either end. The kids had helped paint it, with Stephen taking special pains with the sharks. When we moved to Nashville, we sold it. We didn't dive as often, and we had no place to store it. Nearly ten years have passed since that October in '99 when we came up here, and I hadn't thought much about the trailer. I thought I had seen it the last time we went to Greenfield, but I wasn't sure. Then Saturday my mother-in-law called to say the neighbor across the street had our trailer for sale. The neighbor was asking a certain price, and we offered a little less. She called back later to say it was ours for the picking up. Sunday we made the trip to fet...
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