Jane!!!
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Like the
new logo? This one was made by reader April. Very “me”, no? Thanks, April!
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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!
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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.
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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…
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Spanky lurves a good head scratch.]]>
Laughed out loud about your ex getting his license solely so you wouldn’t have to drive yourself to the hospital while in labor….what a mental image!!!
Regarding your shoes– a Vinegar (white, of course) soak works AMAZING at getting out odors. I ran out of my Pet Miracle, so I soaked the dog bedding, etc. in the machine w/1 cup of vinegar– smells were all GONE (including the vinegar).
That is the cutest picture of spanky ever!
Thanks for the Spanky fix. He’s my favorite!
You can just see the ecstasy in that little face. 😉 And in the first paragraph, for some reason my blurry eyes read “disposable underwear”… 😉 The sunshines fit you to a friggin T. And I crack up reading your years-old posts, but I can’t comment on them! Are they in another kind of journalling software; have you ever thought of importing them into MT? If you wanted to, maybe I could write a script to help…
$153.00!! Here in Virginia, there are no course fees. Everything is free, or at least it was a few years ago when my kids were enrolled.
My son still doesn’t have his driver’s license and has no real desire for one and he will be 23 in October. Heh.
I love that photo of Spanky!
My senior year in high school, we had a new administration come in at the last minute. This includes a new vice-principal, who was in charge of schedules. Well, what that meant was everyone’s, and I do mean *everyone’s* schedule was screwed up. So after waiting in lines for schedule/school pic/locker assignment/etc., I went to the office to talk to a counselor about my bad schedule (I had classes missing, and was in classes I hadn’t signed up for). Then they handed me a number. I think I ended up waiting for an hour and a half, with only about seven people in front of me. And I lucked out, because later in the day when I went back to campus for some reason, I saw my friends standing in line– they’d been waiting for upwards of four hours. In fact, around noon they’d stopped giving numbers out. Can’t have them working past 5! Gah. I went to the worst. high school. ever.
Renee – thanks, I’ll give that a try! 🙂
Susan – I have thought of importing them, and I might in the future, but for now it’s just toward the end of my very long to-do list. 🙂
Sharon – Yeah, I’m pretty sure my parents never had to pay course fees either, and there was no going to pick up the schedule before school started – we got our schedules the first day of school.
Robin – When the spud and I were finally done and leaving, it was noon, and the line was just as long as it had been when we got there. So much for it clearing out after a few hours!
Sweet old Spanky. Such a cute little gomer.
That registration bullshit sounds worse than what we went through for university- which was about four sets of lines, some of which were at a stadium. But at least they were taking care of a university with a total of about 20,000 students, not a fricking high school. And they were so organized about the whole thing that it only ever took about half an hour in each line.
I still have no drivers license and I’m 34. When I was 16, my mother didn’t have the nerve (it would have required about five Xanax just to get her in the car) and my stepdad didn’t have the patience (it would have required a Xanax for me and he would have screamed at me the first time I made a mistake and I would have driven into a tree and then that would be that). Then right out of university I moved to Vancouver, which has several times won awards for having the best transit in North America and the world. But now, I’m starting to want a car for large errands. It’s a pain in the ass hauling canned goods on the bus in a backpack.
I really enjoyed reading your travelogue and looking at the pictures. Thanks for sharing your trip with us. Glad you got back safely.
What does that $153 cover, just driver’s ed? I’m boggled at going to a public school and having to pay extra to take classes.
I’m not a cat person, but that Spanky pic is priceless. What a bouby. (That’s a good thing, btw.)
Dreama – Basically, her elective courses all have fees ranging from $10 to $30 (driver’s ed was the most expensive with $30) in addition to that were PTA dues and a locker fee. I’m counting myself lucky this year, though – last year I had to pay closer to $200. I guess I shouldn’t complain, since in a few years we’ll be paying college tuition, and that’s not going to be anywhere near $153! 🙂
The Schools here have a staggered pick-up thing to help speed them along 🙂 I was stunned myself when I took a senior one year. Even more stunned when I took the same one to enroll in college the next year 🙁
Hey Dez, sounds like we have the same parents! My mom was a freak – no way she’d take me out to practice driving and my dad was a yeller. It would not have been too bad, except he’s 6’3″, 250 lbs and has a huge voice. He bellowed and I about hit an oncoming car. I immediately drove home, tossed the car keys on the counter and said – NEVER AGAIN. About 6 months later, my mom asked a good friend (old neighbor) to teach me to drive. She was so nice, but could not figure out how I could parallel park perfectly but could not angle park for shit. I still cannot get my car in the center of an angled parking space. Yes, I’m a freak.
Val