Haley’s Field Trip: Home of Peace Cemetery
Haley’s religious school class went on a field trip to the Home of Peace Cemetery in Colma. I accompanied. Rabbi Feder went over some of the rituals we have around death, reinforcing what had been taught as part of the “lifecycle” studies. We took a trip through history, looking at graves in different sections from different points in time. We ended up at the Peninsula Temple Sholom section, where Haley and I both placed stones on Rabbi Raiskin’s headstone.
Katelyn’s field trip: Church of Scientology
Katelyn’s religious school class had their last field trip of the year, to a Church of Scientology.
What a week!
Last Friday we learned of the passing of a dear friend, Ken Thomas. The most amazing thing about his passing is the amount of love and support offered to his partner Tim, and also how the community has supported each other as we grieve. So even in the sadness of his passing we’re surrounded by love.
Last Saturday we had a lovely visit from Jennifer and Selena, and on Sunday I accompanied Katelyn’s religious school class to the Mormon Temple in Oakland for a delightful educational session.
Haley continues to have lots of band rehearsals in preparation for Taylor Middle School’s trip to Disneyland in 2 weeks. So she’s now practicing Monday, Wednesday, and Thursday mornings, Monday evenings, and Tuesday after school. At least this week has been STAR testing so not much homework.
Had a lovely lunch with Francesca on Monday, although wasn’t feeling well. Now on antibiotics for a bladder infection. Sigh.
My friend Stacy came to rehearsal of the West Bay Community Band with me (where I play tuba) on Monday, considering playing clarinet but being lobbied to consider percussion since we’re short in that area.
On Tuesday I interviewed another house cleaner. We had one for a while and she stopped returning calls, and the next one isn’t very responsive so we’re looking again. Blessed to be able to afford this luxury, but one more thing to manage in our lives.
On Wednesday I got two shots, one Euflexxa shot in my left knee (synthetic cushioning, to help make up for lack of cartilage) and a cortisone shot in my left hip to deal with some recurring bursitis. So I’ve been limping around.
Haley has been having trouble with her left foot and it hasn’t gotten any better, so we took her to the doctor on Thursday. He recommended better shoes, so she got some fancy athletic shoes.
Katelyn continues to struggle in school with her ADHD, so we’re starting on a different path. She’s going to start seeing an adolescent psychologist who specializes in ADHD. He will take on managing her medication and hopefully help in other ways too. Her first appointment is scheduled for 5/16. We will also be moving forward with a “504 Designation”. This is for kids in school who have a medical impairment of some kind who may need special accommodations. For example, for kids who get easily distracted they can sit in the front row in class, or take tests in a separate room without distractions. There are apparently a number of such accommodations, which will go over with the folks at the school. Katelyn can choose what, if any, accommodations we think will help her. We’re trying to get the 504 meeting scheduled before the end of the year so we can decide what to do for next year.
We had a lovely visit with Liza and Jody last night, complete with sushi delivery.
Looking foward to lunch with Freda today.
Mills Spring Concert
A bunch of us attended the Mills Spring Concert last night. The acoustics were terrible because the auditorium is being rebuilt (will be out of commission for up to 18 months!) so the concert was in the cafeteria, which has no acoustic support. But the jazz band and symphone band did great, including Katelyn on saxophone. (pictures here)
Katelyn attended part one of the concert, the orchestra and choir, the night before. While ideally she would go just because she thought it would be fun and interesting, she really went because she has to review 2 concerts each semester, and was using it for one of her two. The other will be my concert with the West Bay Community Band on May 12th.
Katelyn at the CMEA Music Festival
On Saturday, April 21, Katelyn participated in the Mills Symphonic Band (and Orchestra too) attending the California Music Education Association’s festival at El Camino High School in South San Francisco. Pictures here.
Since vacation…
The week back was difficult because we were all still tired and had laundry to do. We got through the week, and Haley did the Play-a-thon with the Taylor band, raising a bunch of money towards her trip to Disneyland. Thanks to everyone who donated!
On Saturday (4/14) we got our new sofa for the family room. Picture coming soon…
On Tuesday, the kids and I attended the Mills Music Awards Banquet (really a potluck). It was fun to hear various performances, mostly solos. There are some really talented musicians at Mills!
On Thursday, Val, Adrien, and I attended Open House at Taylor. Haley was busy throughout as a “tour guide” in Mr. Ewing’s class. We had a nice time talking to her teachers. We only spent about 20 minutes doing this, but had to hang around for over an hour waiting for Haley to finish. Oh, and she spaced out about the time for arriving for a band performance, and completely missed it. This prompted me to send an email to Mr. McGaw asking for better communication. We’ll see what happens.
Ten Days: Adventures and Life and Stuff
St. Patrick’s Day was busy! First I judged the parade in San Francisco. Then I went to the LLW Kickoff. Then Val and I went to Liza and Jody’s for a fun night of friends and games.
The rest of the week was relatively mundane: my band practice, kids in school and band and after school activities. I had lunch with Freda on Friday, which I always enjoy. We usually go to Hobees in Redwood Shores; they’re starting to know us there!
On Saturday there was a lot of coming and going. Haley had a Feldenkreis lesson at Michelle’s, then went to Glynis & Susan’s. Katelyn went to her friend Jackie’s birthday party, where apparently she had a blast playing Guitar Hero. Then she went to Glynis & Susan’s.
I trekked down to Sunnyvale in the rain for a West Bay Community Band concert to celebrate the grand opening of Faith in Action’s Silicon Valley Rotating Homeless Shelter.
On Sunday Haley had a “Model Seder” in her religious school class. After that we went down to Michelle’s again for another lesson. Apparently we’d gotten our wires crossed because she thought she was coming to us, and we thought we were going there. Thank goodness we were a little early and she was a little late, so we caught her just as she was driving down her street!
On Sunday Val and I went shopping for sofa beds (again!), but didn’t find anything we wanted. We also went to Bed, Bath, and Beyond, and were only marginally successful at getting a few things. We came home and shopped online.
On Monday I took Val out to dinner at Alfiere at the Westin. I got a certificate for dinner from a silent auction benefitting the JCC in Foster City. It was nice to have someone else cook for a change!
Now we’re starting another week with the added stress of getting ready to leave on vacation on Friday. And of course, the kids have a *lot* of homework. Sigh.
Katelyn’s Open House
The Mills HS Open House was last night. As usual, the “entourage” went: me, Val, Kathie, Glynis, Susan, and Adrien. It was amusing introducing the “gang” to the teachers, especially those who remember a slightly smaller group from Back to School Night in September. It was chaotic as, for some reason, they’d scheduled the 8th grade (incoming freshman) orientation and tours for the same night. I guess it was more convenient for the staff to only have one evening they needed to be there, but it sure made it more crowded for everyone!
We were a bit disappointed based on expectations from elementary and middle school. At previous Open House events, you go and see a bunch of the kids’ work posted in the rooms. You get to see projects you didn’t even know they’d completed, and to compare their work to the other kids’. This really wasn’t the case. It seemed to be just a chance to have a short chat with the teachers (really short, since there was a line waiting to talk to each one), and see if the classrooms had changed much, which they hadn’t. At least we got to meet Katelyn’s history teacher, whom we hand’t met before since she just started in that class this semester.
Katelyn is turning in her registration form for next year. She needs to take a language, and has decided on Japanese!
Homework Hell Week
Some weeks are just worse than others. Usually Haley has just a few things to do for homework. She had 7 separate assignments on Tuesday evening, and had a mess-up with turning in a packet of work from the last 3 months. She’s pretty stressed this week.
Katelyn has also had a lot. Last night she spent hours making a scale model of a book. She’s a real perfectionist which meant it took even longer, but it’s really quite good. I’ll try to post a picture at some point.
If it’s not one thing, it’s another (furnace woes)
If life wasn’t already complicated enough…
Our furnace started malfunctioning yesterday. I got home around 5:30 and it was 85 degrees in the house; the furnace just refused to go off. So we had to shut it off at the source. Luckily we still have our home warranty so I filed a report online and got a call from the repair people at 9:30 this morning. They’re coming this afternoon! At least I seem to have a meeting-free day so it’ll work out. Especially for Katelyn, who left her Geometry binder at home; I’ll run it down to the school before the repair people arrive.
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