Anxiety wrapped up her birthday with an outing to the Rocky Horror Picture Show, where sister Angst is part of the crew as a lighting tech (she used to be in the cabaret as a Trannie, but decided to get some backstage experience).
Damn, I have cute kids.
And a pic of my girls with Dustin (see recent entries for who he is) and Melee, just before they all trooped out the door headed for the Clinton Street Theater:
Meanwhile, I’m headed to bed due to having to work tomorrow. Le sigh.
My baby turned 15 today, amid well-wishes far and wide. It hasn’t exactly been an easy year for her (especially dealing with obstacles & changes in friendships, and finishing up her time in middle school), and this year — adjusting to high school — isn’t set to be much easier. But I know she’ll rise to the challenges. I’m so proud of my smart, snarky, lovely (and sometimes contrary!) daughter.
Her Auntie Lyse got her a new cell phone, sounding the death knell on the old, worn-out, falling-apart body of her ancient phone, which was literally being held together with heavy-duty tape. Anxiety isn’t entirely sure she likes Vivian’s new body…she’s stressing over the differences in settings and such (although we picked out the closest thing we could find to her old model). But now she has a camera in her phone, an .mp3 player, unlimited text messages, and IM capabilities, which should be very nice!
Geoffrey also got a new phone, to replace the one he lost on last weekend’s SCA camping trip — and it was free! Lyse still had her old RAZR sitting around, so we took it with us to the Deathstar Int’l retail store when we picked out Anxiety’s new phone — and they put a new SIM chip in it and tied Geoffrey’s old phone line into the new chip, for free!
Now I’m the only one without a new phone. I told Lyse I would upgrade mine in December, when I’m eligible for a free upgrade, and she said I wasn’t allowed to do that. Hmmm, so I have a hovering suspicion that she has ideas brewing in her evil little mind. *grin*
Ohmigods, my baby is 15. FIFTEEN.
I mentioned a couple of days ago that Angst’s pal Dustin said he wanted me to adopt him because I’m a cool mom, but joked that I wasn’t sure if I needed a son with that many piercings. Check out this email he sent:
I believe you will find, upon closer inspection, that piercings would, in fact, be an asset to an adoption. Notably:
I. Judging by miscellaneous role-playing games and fantasy artists depictions of women in armor, very small pieces of metal can, in fact, provide defense – therefore, my AC is increased substantially by my jewelry.
2. On Arrakis, the rings may be traded for water.
3. Rings may be employed in ridding your garden and yard areas of pesty pixies, gnomes, hobbits, and the like; if the touch of steel doesn’t get them, they will most likely be compelled to go on a quest to destroy the item, leaving your verdure in peace.
As you can see, your fine family is, in fact, sorely lacking in such amenities as provided by facial jewelry. For the good of yourself, your home, possibly the entire world, I’m going to have no recourse but to send you formal adoption papers in the mail.
Thank you,
-Dustin
OMG, isn’t that adorable?! (Of course, he’s a Gemini boy, and they are utterly evil. I should know, I was married to one once!)
I don’t want to go to work tomorrow.
I don’t want to fold the metric butt-ton of clean laundry sitting on my sofa.
I don’t want to vacuum, do dishes, sweep up the back patio, or any of the other chores on the very long list of things that still need doing.
I don’t want to do anything except crochet and watch BTVS and try not to get any more nervous about the coffee date I’m going to be having in the near future with someone I really, really like lots.
Okay, I do want to have great sex very soon. Preferably lots of it.
It would be nice if it actually felt like the autumn that’s supposedly right around the corner. I keep wearing the same 4 or 5 outfits because most of my work-appropriate wardrobe consists of cool-weather clothes. Hopefully it won’t be so warm by Friday night.
Anyway, here’s the update:
And now for something completely TMI…
Here is a picture of the world’s most expensive gerbil. His name is Caramel, and he belongs to my daughter Anxiety. He had a cage-mate, named Blackie (or something like that…it was a black gerbil). We’re having Blackie’s side-yard funeral service this evening.
[Edit: the black gerbil's name was Blackberry.]
And now for something completely TMI…
My baby’s in high school. She has an official student ID card and everything. I’m fairly flummoxed — but hopeful! This looks like exactly the kind of school that she’ll succeed in, and have a really good foundation for college and a career. This school is about as philosophically far from her middle school as it’s possible to be. From the Happy Hippie school to the Super Structured school…
Each semester the students are given a 64-page, 8.5×11-inch planner, which is mandatory to use. Wow. And they appear to be actually useful! The first 10 pages of the planner consist of the district & school rules (in small print), so kids can’t claim they don’t know the rules. Each page of the planner has studying & organizational tips, and a good-sized box for each class period as well as a separate section to record homework assignments. The mandatory format for written assignments is on the inside front cover of the planner. The district calendar, a map of the entire school, a measurement conversion table, and the periodic table of elements also included in the planner. They’re death on tardiness and unexcused absences, with a complicated detention system to strongly discourage either.
She has 8 classes plus lunch, and a block system to provide more intensive study. They have “orange” days (mostly Mon & Wed) when the odd-numbered classes are taken, and “blue” days (mostly Tues & Thurs) when the even-numbered classes are taken, with 4 classes of 89-minute periods. Then the “non-block” days (mostly Fridays) have all 8 classes with 35-minute periods (and an early release).
The classes she’s taking are: Intro to Health Occupations (which is both 1st & 2nd period, so she gets this class every day, totaling just over 7 hours a week), Algebra, Biology, Spanish, English, Health, and PE. I’m getting the feeling that the school views electives as vaguely frivolous. They encourage students to join clubs (there are 30 options) and sports (which she’s not interested in).
And that’s just the first semester.
There are a few obvious downsides to the school. The one I’m concerned about is that there are 1500 students; Anxiety is feeling pretty anxious about that! Any bus route she takes will have at least one transfer, and a commute time of at least 35 minutes. And the school colors (you guessed it — orange & blue) suck, but I suppose you can’t have everything.
This is all Karel’s fault:
Apparently I’m nerdier than I was a few years ago. Must be due to some of the DVDs that I’ve gotten since then (The 4400, Stargate SG-1, Battlestar Galactica, Resident Evil, Alien Nation, Serenity, all the Aliens movies, and all 7 seasons of BTVS). Speaking of which, last night my younger demonspawn and I spent some quality bonding time enjoying one of the special features on the Season 6 Buffy DVD, packaged with the Once More, With Feeling episode: Buffy karaoke!
That sweet Shady lady, Shades of Belle, has closed her eyes to rest in the next world. She was a wonderfully crotchety old lady cat, a very dignified and queenly damsel, and I like to think she tolerated my pettings with a bit less petulance than she did most other people’s.
My eyes have welled over more than a few times today, and I was only an occasional visitor in her realm. This has been incredibly heart-wrenching for both Molly and Fred, who held Shady for the last several hours of her life to let her know she is dearly loved (Molly wasn’t able to get home in time for those last moments, but had said her goodbyes earlier). Shady was a blessing in the truest sense to Molly, whose life is richer and better from Shady having shared so much love and companionship with her. Losing someone who’s been precious and dear to your heart for more than two decades is never less than shattering, no matter what their species; let Molly know you are thinking of her.
