Monday, and a Renewal of Hostilities with the Santa Clara Unified School District

And other things generally...

What have I accomplished so far today? Let's see...

1) Woke up at 8am. Jeff came in to give me a shake, but I'd also set my alarm. I'm tired of going to bed at 4am and then sleeping until 12pm. You feel like you've missed 99% of the day, and since most people have been awake for hours and hours before you, it turns out, you really HAVE.

2) Made coffee. I'm now blissfully over-caffeinated.



It is by caffeine alone I set my mind in motion,
It is by the beans of Java that thoughts acquire speed,
The hands acquire shaking, the shaking becomes a warning,
It is by caffeine alone I set my mind in motion.

(author unknown - with thanks and apologies to Frank Herbert original masterpiece, and picture courtesy of I Can Has Cheezburger, of course.)

3) Did dishes. Yup, that's right, you can all pick yourselves up off the floor now. Dishes have been done. The world has not ended. (Did I say I'd finished all of them? Did I? Pu-LEEZE!)

4) Played with Shar. We've had about five or six bouts with Rope Dolly, who's starting to show her age. Poor thing. I don't think a facelift is going to be any help at this stage.



5) Well, there isn't a five yet. Five is still to come. The big mission today is to go back to the Santa Clara Unified School District Offices and talk to them, yet again, about getting Elise back in school.

The score so far - last week I went to the SCUSD office and put my case before them, which was that Elise needed a spot in school, but she couldn't go back to George Mayne. They spent about ten minutes conferring between themselves, and then the receptionist lady came out and said, "Good news, they have room at Don Callejon".

WTF??

These are the same people who DENIED my intradistrict transfer not two weeks ago! I put this (gently) to the receptionist lady. She went back for more conferring. She came out with Brad Syth, Associate Superintendent of Human Resources, who said he'd just called Lisa Farmer at Don Callejon and confirmed there was space available in the third grade.

WTF some more... but okay. I'm not one to look a gift classroom in the mouth. We dutifully trotted off to George Mayne, got the paperwork signed, and took it Don Callejon.

Which was closed. Whatever. We came back the next day. Closed again.

*Sigh*. Are you seeing something of a pattern here? What exactly are my tax dollars paying for, EXACTLY?

We went back again the next day, and this time the office was open, BUT Lisa Farmer, secretary for the elementary school, was out. I handed the transfer paperwork to Aracelli Arreola, middle school secretary, who told me that Hans Barber was the only person who could sign the paperwork, and he was out for a week and a half.

WTF!?!?!?

The last intradistrict transfer, the one that was denied, was not signed by Hans Barber. I don't know who it was signed by, but the signature was not Hans Barber's.

So today I'm off to the district office yet again, this time to ask, politely of course, what I should do next, because let's not be blind here - we all know, I'm going to get that intradistrict transfer back and it's going to be denied, and then Elise will have missed ANOTHER month of school while asses are scratched and bureaucracy is nurtured.

Okay, time to put some food in my body, and then maybe take a shower. Elise got up with me, but fell back asleep again after breakfast. I think she's caught Grandma Doris's cold, so I'm letting her sleep for a while.

I'll try to update this later to let y'all know what happened at the district offices.

Toodles!

--------------------------------------------

Okay, update...

5-A) Stopped by the SCUSD offices, saw Sarah Herrara, the receptionist lady I had talked to last week. Told her my concerns, and she got me the business card of the Associate Superintendent guy, and told me if I had any problems, to have them call him directly.

*Phew*. Relief. 'Nuff said.

4-A) Stopped by Petsmart on the way back to see if the Banfield Vets office might weigh Shar. As it turns out, they would and they did. She was 69.9 the day Eden gave her to me, and 83.3 today. She's gotten a bit taller since July, but mostly now I think she's going to fill out. I'm projecting 120 pounds by the time she's a grownup, but we'll see. She is quite huge.

Okay, on to making dinner. Boring old chicken, rice and veggies. I'm so middle America sometimes, it hurts.

Boulder Creek, CA

I know I just posted yesterday, and it usually takes me a few days to write up something new, but Elise and I went to Boulder Creek today, and I had to share.

Quick note: we've decided to move, and as part of that, Elise and I have decided to explore around the Bay Area to decide where we want to move to. Boulder Creek was our first stop.

We packed up the truck and took off, actually a bit late, around 2:30pm today, which is Tuesday, Sept. 15th, 2009.

In the above picture, we've stopped at the corner market before leaving, to get some water and some snacks. I decided to take Shar with us at the last minute, because she's just been so antsy and puppy-esque, and I thought it would do her some good to get out of the house for a bit of a trip.

Boulder Creek is a small town in the Santa Cruz mountains, more specifically in the San Lorenzo Valley (for local news, click here for the Press-Banner).

Boulder Creek is a nice little town, and if I'd been thinking, I'd have taken more pictures, just so I could show you some of the places we stopped to look. We parked at the New Leaf Market (think Whole Foods Market, only local and independent) and took Shar for a walk up one side of the main street and back down the other. Well, actually, we didn't quite go all the way - the main street stretches for a bit - but we went far enough to get a decent look at the businesses. There was a gas station, a regular market - Johnny's, which I'd intended to go in, but forgot - the organic market, a dry cleaners, a wash-your-own-dog place, three or four art boutiques, including the one art/antiques place we walked through (more about that in a moment), the water district office, a Fosters Freeze that, I think, gave me mild food poisoning from the hamburger I ordered, the Odd Fellows Lodge, one hardware store, one lumber yard, an auto parts store, and an old-fashioned "pharmacy" of the type that also sells knick-knacks, cards, perfume, soaps, etc etc as well (and didn't you used to love the one your mom used to visit when you were young? I did...). There was also a Round Table's, a chinese food place that was open but completely empty, a mom-and-pop-looking diner (The Mountain Inn? Something like that...) that was closed on Tuesdays, a brewery cafe, one other cafe that specialized in desserts, that was also closed... and probably a few other places I've forgotten. Point is, it was a pretty well-rounded downtown, for such a small place.

Now for the art/antiques place, which was really wonderful - the building said "Mac's 100-yr-old place" or something like that.

Here's the only picture I could find on the official website, and this isn't what it looked like when we were there today, so I did a bit more digging...







...and came up with THIS picture - no, we didn't get to see the cute Rottie - which is what the place looks like right now. (This picture was taken off of Flickr, from Lynna62).

Anyway, this was more "antiques" than "art gallery", but it was exactly my favorite kind of antiques place - the kind where you have to go carefully over every inch, because there are wonderful little hidden things in every corner. They have a strange outdoor-kinda-flea-market-everything-under-awnings-kinda-place out in the back, so not only do you have a million little hidey places for cool stuff inside, but there's a million more out the back door as well. I bought Elise a little Elise-sized parasol, which they let me have for $3 instead of the $5 it was marked, and I wanted to buy half a million other things, most not more than$5-$10, like the cool giant enamelware pot I could have used for a huge-ass canning bath, or the various pots and pans and copper molds I could have put on my kitchen walls, or the funky chicken porcelain thingy that would have just collected dust on a shelf, but would have looked bitchin' cool doing it. Oh well. It's not like all the good junk will spoil. I can always go back when we're a bit more flush.

The one thing I did get from their funky backyard weird fleamarkety area was the following: a series of eerily cool pictures, more chiaroscuro with which to leave a nice taste on the grey matter. I GOTTA ask for a good camera for Christmas! Please forgive these - they were taken with my cell phone camera...















So, anyway... We went back to the truck and drove down the road to the Fosters Freeze, where I got a hamburger and Elise got a hotdog and we both got rootbeer floats (too much softserve vanilla ice cream, and the rootbeer was flat), the consumption of which left me with a slightly-more-nasty-than-usual case of stomach unhappiness. At the writing of this, it's now nearly midnight and my stomach has finally settled back to a feeling of normalcy.

Before we left, I took Shar out to go poddy, which she did, in her own massive, inimitable fashion. I was caught unprepared, and yelled for Elise to bring me a plastic bag from the truck. There was a very nice lady taking out her garbage bins just down the street, who overheard and laughingly offered me a bag out of her trash, which I happily accepted. Shar had to introduce herself, as she usually does, head down and tail thrashing madly, leaning her full weight against the lady's legs for a good petting. We struck up the usual "OMG-she's-just-a-puppy?!" conversation, after which Elise, Shar and I climbed back into the truck and went on our way. It was sometime after 6pm at this point, and we decided to take Big Basin Way out of town.

I was originally going to follow it for only a mile or so, but we got kind of wrapped up in how cool it was, and after several miles had passed, I turned on Trevor (my gps - surely I've mentioned him before?) to "consult the oracle" and find out where we were. Turns out Big Basin Way empties back onto Hwy 9, which is how we got to Boulder Creek in the first place, so we just kept going straight.

It was an incredible drive, very lonely, and I have to be honest, it would have been scary without having Inny to depend on. There's just something about a 3/4 ton heavy-duty diesel that gives one a feeling of security, like wrapping yourself in several inches of solid steel, all driven by an engine that just about never breaks down... We went through Big Basin Redwoods State Park, agreeing as we did so that it would be a wonderful place to bring the trailer to, for a quickie camping trip once we actually get the trailer registered and are able to tow it again.





The road kept going, following a ridgeline for some ways. I stopped to take this picture...




... And then turned around and took this one of Elise and Shar.

After that, the light faded, and it was a pretty standard drive home. We got home about 9pm, and Jeff got home from class a few minutes after that.

The consensus between Elise and myself, after our expedition was complete, was that, while Daddy could get to work in Saratoga without too much trouble, he couldn't get to Game Kastle without a significant amount of difficulty, which has to be taken into consideration.

One thing we came to an agreement about - both Elise and I love the mountains, and the redwood forest, and the smells on the air, of woodsmoke when we were near campgrounds and smoke from fireplaces when we were near houses, of bay laurel trees and eucalyptus trees and cool mossy forest, of sea fog when we got closer to the ocean, and dry manzanita when we got farther away.

I'll have to keep you updated on our next trip out. We're not sure where to try next, but we might explore out on the coast, just for the heck and giggles of it... Maybe out by Half Moon Bay, and San Gregorio, a place I've been to a few times but not since I was much younger.

Okay, toodles for now.

Happy Freakin' Monday...

Sorry, it's been a while - the month kinda slipped away from me, but then, that's August all over. More on that later.

I found this today on one of my regulars (Ugliest Tattoos: A Gallery of Regrets). This is Rick, aka Zombie Boy. Now, before you get that look on your face... Well, okay, I know you already have that look on your face, but before you open your mouth and say anything, keep in mind, this is a lifestyle choice this guy has made. I wouldn't want my daughter to date him, but there you go, at least he's sincere. In the interview, he states that he's actually a happier person since having this done, because he gets a lot of positive attention. He also advocates NOT doing this to yourself unless it's really in you, echoing my own sentiments about tattoos, which should be spiritual, for any given definition of the word, and not because you saw someone with a ladybug and their name tattooed on their ankle, and now you want the same thing. To quote Rick, "I don’t want kids to go out there and ruin their lives because they think it’s cool – it’s got to be in you. You’ve got to know what you want. I sacrificed my whole future for this." (Taken from an interview in Bizarre Magazine, by Jack Ruby Murray, June 2008)

Which is about as serious and spiritual as you can get. Rock on, Zombie Boy.

Anyway, August. Back to August. I don't think much of August.

In June, sitting in the classroom looking out the windows at the spectacularly fine day, summer stretches ahead with all kinds of glorious promise. The mornings are cool and bright and you wear your shorts and your flip-flops and the whole world holds its breath for that last moment of that last class, when the bell rings like a starting gate and you bolt off out the door. Remember how you felt, in high school, climbing into your car, with everybody streaming out of the parking lot? You turned the key and the radio came on, you rolled down the windows, and took a deep breath...

Have you noticed how that feeling never really quite leaves, even when you're a grown-up? June at work is always a little weird, but happy, good weird. There's more standing around at cubicles laughing and joking about stuff. Things just get more casual. There's more time spent in the kitchen, getting a snack, making tea, talking with your buddies who show up to do the same. Wow. Yah...

Nothing, however, nothing at all magical happens in August, except that the summer dies a slow and nasty-tempered death, making us all suffer with it. With apologies to all those August-Born, August is hot, smoggy, lethargic, and if you're in school in any capacity, full of regrets. That happy June ripe with promise has turned into the gravid, exhausted, heavy-as-lead August. About the only good thing that happens, around here, in August, is that the air takes on a smell of garlic and onions. Okay, that's weird - there's a processing plant somewhere around the Pacheco Pass where they take in garlic and onions, and on cool afternoons in August, you can smell it, actually a lot more pleasant than it sounds, but maybe that's just me, because it reminds me that AUGUST IS ALMOST OVER. September is almost here. Fall is coming.

Okay, that's all. I'm done cappin' on August. Now it's September, and I LOVE September. I love the weather here in California in September - San Jose, Silicon Valley, Santa Clara. It starts to cool down again, and the breeze starts to pick up, so the smog clears out a bit. The light gets all soft and fuzzy and more golden - I can't rightly explain how that happens, but it does - and the wind starts to bring all kinds of brilliant new smells to your nose, the first woodsmoke and the first rain, cool and heady and glorious.

It's beautiful here today, 70's F. Elise has finished her school work, I'm eating a bagel snack, and then getting a shower, after which we're off to my friend Ellen's house just down the road to help her pack. They're renting a house in Los Banos to get out of the bay area proper, and it's going to save them a huge wad o' dough. They hope to be ready to buy in a few years.

Just to leave you with a nice taste in your mouth:


I love light and dark - if my art classes serve, this is called chiaroscuro. This picture is from the Flickr page of Aremac - please check out their other work... Very gorgeous stuff!

Toodles!