SCHOLA

Slowly but surely, we are getting moved in; not settled, never settled, but all of our stuff is nearly in one place now, or at least all the stuff that's necessary. At this point all renovation plans have been put on hold for the expediency of being done with this drag called, "moving." Not like over at Dy's place where miraculous things are happening. "Let's just be done already!" has become my new battle cry. Paint has been picked, well, paint samples and test quarts mixed anyway, but hey, that's progress, and today I shall splash some colors on the walls for my husband to judge the results. Honestly, it doesn't even matter what he prefers, because one color is as good as the next and I doubt he will remember which one he liked better, there are such minor shade variations. Let's just be done already! The floor guys came over Friday to figure out how best to clean off the waxy build-up on our we-all-might-fall-down-and-break-a-hip-slick terrazzo floors. Boy were we surprised when it turned out there wasn't anything on them but a little surface dirt. The previous owners were just cleaning maniacs and honed the floor down to a glass-like sheen with the industrial floor polisher that came with the house. I can't wait to crank that baby up. I want to ride it. So we'll have them clean the floors with their magic, professional juice, and we'll throw down our rugs -- with lots of rubber padding underneath. I don't want anyone pulling an Aladdin.

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My plan to drop out, er, I mean Jorge's plan, seems to still be top-of-mind. I was overjoyed to discover last year's Lehman's Non-Electric catalog mysteriously appear from whatever banana box it had been packed in and left on the tank of our toilet.

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The plan to get back into some sort of read-aloud, possibly holiday themed, bombed out due to time restraints and our present ships-passing-in-the-night schedules. A workable, though hopefully only temporary replacement during our brief shared family time has been brought to us by the kind people at Netflix. For Halloween we watched Soylent Green, chosen after the kids were intrigued by the snippet from AFI's 100 Movie Quotes (#77: "Soylent Green is people!") and their father's fond remembrances. I also dug out our copy of Freaks, but haven't yet had an opportunity to review that classic -- you most definitely have to be in a special mood for that one. In an effort to share some of our old favorites with the kids, we recently viewed Life of Brian (the girls' self-censorship was hilarious: hands clapped over eyes and scandalized gasps emitted when Brian steps out nude in front of the masses below) -- which reminds me in an "Always Look on the Bright Side of Life" kind of way, that the Sprint man unexpectedly showed up at our house today and fixed our DSL -- and Raising Arizona. Next up: This Is Spinal Tap
. After much begging and pleading, I bought the Phantom DVD, the movie adaptation of Andrew Lloyd Webber's musical, for the girls and their newest obsession. A rash of loud operatic singing has broken out. I dredged up some pretty impressive (to them) Phantom stories from the old days: the thank you note I received from Cameron Mackintosh for my creative and oh, so clever cast and crew gifts; my friend and co-worker who has been the paramour and professional associate of Michael Crawford, the first and best Phantom, for nearly fifteen or so years; seeing the trap doors and proscenium being built; and getting to sit in the perfect seats, fourth row, center orchestra, right smack under the chandelier, anytime I wanted. Yeah, their old mom had a fairly interesting life once upon a time.

I have to say, I think Andrew Lloyd Webber deserves a ton of credit and think he may be considered one of the great composers one day. His compositions are mostly lauded, but usually tempered with the dreaded "pop" label. Too bad. Well, there was that one horrible Cats thing...

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The girls, because their school is located in another county, are eligible for membership in that county's library system. At first I didn't think it was necessary, we have our county's crummy library for interlibrary loans and the Fust library for quality literature. Why would we need another? Then I discovered that the Reading Room, which shares the building with their school, is not considered a full-service library. You can reserve and renew books online, it has several computers for internet access, and because it is attached to a county that actually has a large city within its boundaries offers a full menu of specialty items just like a big library, but because it is so remote from the rest of the county they don't have any facilities for managing money. They don't want the librarian to be responsible for transporting cash on their behalf, liability for them, so they do not charge late fees. The due date is more or less a suggestion. Sign me up! It has taken me so long to get through Post Captain -- Miss B has kindly waived my overdue charges on each of my numerous return visits, and allowed me to keep the book for another extended stay -- that I am thinking I will finally return that copy and borrow the book from the Reading Room so as not to impose on Miss B.'s generosity.

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On the school front, the kids received their report cards, and, no big surprise here, did very well. Gracie's teacher recommended she be tested for the gifted program. That's about the only way she'll be able to attend our area middle school next year, even though Gracie insists she doesn't want to be a Krelboyne kid. Her teacher confided that while her other fifth grade student is already officially labeled "gifted," Gracie beats him in almost everything. He is planning to attend a public charter school exclusively for Krelboyners about an hour's drive north of here. Maybe they could carpool.

Homeschooling is still a viable option.

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On the work front, I am no longer intimidated working with Mount Vesuvius. He clapped me on the back the other day and asked if I was getting the hang of his crazy business. With a big smile I told him I've been married to a micromanaging technophobe for fifteen years now, working for one is no different.

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You Passed the US Citizenship Test