2004-08-03

Jane!!!

* * * Like the new logo? This one was made by reader April. Very “me”, no? Thanks, April! * * * So, the travelogue is at an end. I’ll have more pictures to share once the three disposable underwater cameras are done being developed and I get the pictures back. I have no idea what’s on those cameras – I gave them to my father and Brian when they were snorkeling at Hanauma Bay and told them to take whatever pictures they wanted to. Should be interesting! * * * Last week (Wednesday, I think), the spud and I went to the high school to pick up her schedule for the 2004 – 2005 school year. Sophomores could pick up their schedules between 10 and 2, so we left the house at about 10 minutes before 10. In the past, picking up her schedule at the middle school has taken maybe twenty minutes at the most. We pulled up to the high school to see a line coming out the front door. It was maybe 30 people long, and I mentally bitched and moaned about having to wait, but I figured we’d be out of there in half an hour or so. A few minutes after we joined the line, a high school boy came along, handing out numbers, apparently so that no one would try to cut in line. My number? 135. I eyed the line of people in front of me and wondered how on earth that could add up to 134, decided they hadn’t started at number 1, and continued patiently waiting. Another few minutes later a woman walked along the line. “It’s going to take about an hour and a half,” she said. “Things should clear up after lunch, if you’d like to leave and come back then.” I briefly considered doing so, but didn’t really want to, so I stayed where I was. Besides, really. How on earth could it take an hour and half to pick up a schedule and pay course fees? Really, she had to be exaggerating. With incredible slowness, the line moved toward the door. I amused myself by watching the kids in line, listening to the mother in front of me tell her daughter “If you don’t keep your grades up, that phone is going!”, while the daughter text-messaged with her friends during the entire lecture, and half-listened to the spud OmiGAWD-ing with a friend. After about half an hour, we reached the door, and I sighed with relief. Show proof of residency, pick up schedule, pay course fees, I’d be out of here in no time! And then I stepped through the front door and found that the FUCKING LINE stretched the entire length of the hallway, and there were no tables with people handing out schedules anywhere in sight. Ten minutes later, when we’d inched forward a tiny bit, a teenager walked from the direction of the front of the line, and said to a friend “Oh my GAWD, I can’t believe you’re way back HERE! I was number 17, and I’m just NOW getting done!” WONDERFUL. But I stuck it out, and almost exactly two hours after we arrived at the high school, I had the spud’s schedule in hand and had paid $153 in course fees. If I’d had any idea this was going to happen, I would have dropped the spud off with my cell phone and told her to call me at home when she was about 10 people from the front of the line. Next year, god willing and the creek don’t rise, I’ll give her a blank check and she’ll be able to drive herself to the high school and pick up her own damn schedule! She signed up for driver’s ed, but won’t be taking it until after Christmas. Which doesn’t bother her in the SLIGHTEST. She’s such an odd child – I couldn’t WAIT to get my driver’s license, but she doesn’t seem to care at all. She must take after her father, who didn’t get his license until he was 25, and only then because I told him he needed to get his license so I wouldn’t have to drive my own ass to the hospital when I went into labor. * * * The last day the spud and I were in Hawaii, we went to the beach, as you may recall. While we were there, I wore my beach shoes, and got them wet. When we got back to my parents’ hotel room, I put them in a plastic bag and then packed them. Once we were home, I tossed the shoes – bag and all – into the garage. Where they stayed for a week. Last week when we got ready to go to the quarry, I took the shoes out of the bag, and HOLY CRAP they stink. I rinsed them off, and wore them in the quarry and then left them in the sun for a few days, but nothing’s helped yet. I think it may be time for new beach shoes… * * * Spanky lurves a good head scratch.]]>