May 31, 2009

Very Bad Marilyn - it’s been almost 4 months since I’ve updated the site. Of course, there are many more pictures in the Photo Gallery, but that’s not excuse. My sincere apologies to all of you regular readers of the Hollinger-Langmuir Chronicles.

Katelyn

Katelyn doing much better in keeping up with school work. She has a “library club” of kids who hang out in the school library and get their homework done during school. Needless to say, when most or all of her homework is done before she comes home from school, life is a lot less stressful in the evenings.

She has started her bat mitzvah training, working on her prayers and starting on her Haftorah portion. Mom and Susan and I are a bit nervous because we are thinking of reading a torah portion each, so we need to start practicing soon.

Katelyn played in the Taylor Spring Concert on 5/12, with many of us in attendance. You can see pictures here.

Katelyn's open house was 5/21. You can see pictures here.

On May 29 Katelyn was officially promoted to a second degree green belt in karate. Pictures here.

Katelyn has been accepted into the Leadership Development Program at the Coyote Point Museum. The application process was hard: she had to fill out a questionairre, write a letter, get a letter of recommendation, and go for an interview (supposed to be 20 minutes but lasted an hour). She will go for a week of training, and then will volunteer 40 hours of time over the summer to help teach kids about the museum and the environment. We're really proud of her for this!

Haley

Haley continues to do well in school. So well, in fact that sometimes she acts out from being bored. Her teacher is concerned that she can do more than can be offered in the public school, so we’re trying to give her more fun challenges at home, and to monitor her behavior. She’s so much my “mini-me” it’s frightening!

On 2/20, Haley's class did a short play on the life, work, and death of Dr. Martin Luther King. Haley played the part of the mother of children learning about Dr. King. Pictures here.

Haley has had a couple of fun field trips. First her class went to the SF Zoo on 3/27, and then they went to Elkus Ranch on 4/17 (accompanied by Aunt Susan). They will go to Angel Island (accompanied by Kathie) on 6/2.

Haley's open house was 5/28, but we didn't take any pictures.

Val

We celebrated Val's birthday twice, first with Nelee, Jenny, and Cara on her actual birthday (2/14), and then with Mom for her birthday, along with Kathie, Glynis, and Susan, on March 6th.

Val has a new boss at work, Andrew, another Brit, with whom she seems to get on well. A vast improvement over her previous boss, which makes Val happy.

Val took a 5-week class in VMWare that took up 2 nights a week for 5 weeks starting in early February. We missed seeing her in the evenings!

Marilyn

My shoulder continues to heal. I completely physical therapy sessions in April, and am mending slowly, able to do more and more each week. The fortunate side effect of this is that the girls now know how to do their own laundry, and have continued to do so. Yay!

I continued ny actitivies with Menttium with monthly mentoring sessions with my mentee, Nancy. I love mentoring others as I continue to learn more about myself in the process. I've continued my relationships with other mentees who went through the program when I did 11 years ago. We had a dinner on 4/6, something we try to do 4 or 5 times a year.

I attended my friend Stacy's birthday brunch on 5/8 at Garden Fresh Restaurant in Mountain View, a vegan Chinese restaurant.

I had a grueling week at work the week of 5/4. I taught 10 4-hour classes throughout the week. By the end of the week I was exhausted, but the classes were a success. I followed up with 3 "make-up" classes the following week.

Speaking of work, my contract at Genetech is ending 6/5. I've applied for several other positions, and have some interviews scheduled. I'm not desperate at the moment, and may just take it easy for a little while and enjoy the summer with the kids. I'll keep looking, but a bit casually for a little while.

Around the Family

Val & I attended the Leather Alliance Awards dinner on 3/7.

On 3/14 I judged the St. Patrick's Day. It was Haley's first performance with the Whelan Academy of Irish Dance. Luckily I wasn't judging the dance category! You can see pictures of her here.

Val & I attended the Internation Ms. Leather contest weekend 3/19-22.

The girls have finished religious school for the summer. The had an end-of-year celebration which I attended, and I also helped out at Haley's class's model seder for Passover.

We had a great Passover Seder on 4/11, with 26 people attending. Some were first-time attendees at our house, and several had never been to a seder before. As always, it was a lot of work, but also a lot of fun. Next year at Susan's!

We celebrated the Yarhtzeit for Grandma Frances, who died one year ago this month, but attending services on 5/2. We had planned to have her unveiling but it had to be postponed. Dad and Reggie had to make an unplanned trip to California earlier, and it's a grueling thing that they're probably not going to repeat this year. Since the plaque has already been installed we can put it off until they're up to the trip. We're working on rescheduling.

I took the kids and Adrian to the Spring Valley Carnival on 5/16.

Val and I have both been traveling. Val left on 5/13 and went to Italy to see her mom. Then we met up in Manchester, England for the Manchester Lesbian Conference 5/22-24, that took place at the Manchester LBGT Center. We stayed at a really nice place called the Palace Hotel. You can see pictures from Manchester here. From there I went to see Devlin and Shorty in Berlin (pictures here), and Val went to Capetown, South Africa for work. Whew!

Friends and Visits

Jann has continued to visit us regularly, about every month or 6 weeks. She and Trev came for Passover, and her next visit will be 6/20, also with Trev. Usually she brings bagels and we have a nice brunch.

Jennifer & Selena also visit regularly, generally monthly, to play games and socialize. They also came for Passover, and we hope to see them soon.

Val and I visited Nelee on 2/22.

I had a brief but nice visit with Michelle on 4/13.

I had a nice dinner with Rebecca on 4/17. We've known each other for about 20 years, but lost touch and recently reconnected.

I had breakfast with Stacy on 3/26.

Kathie and I took the kids down to Mom's, where we met up with Susan and Joe, and celebrated Mother's Day.