Partial to the bean…

Today, after school, I’m dropping Sammi off at a friend’s house and then Alice and I are driving in to Philly to see They Might Be Giants, with Jonathan Coulton opening for them! This will be my tenth time seeing Them live. It’ll be Alice’s fourth time, but since the first three times were kid’s shows (Penn’s Landing, Border’s, and World Cafe Live on that linked list of shows), this will be her first real concert. I’m really excited to be sharing that with her, and we’re both super psyched to see Jonathan Coulton for the first time! Eeeeeeee!!

The first three weeks of school have pretty much kicked my butt, which is why there’s been no bloggy. Don’t think that I’m yammering away on Facebook or Livejournal or email or even in meatspace, because I’ve been mostly in a stun-state since September 6. Guh.

Alice is mostly loving high school, but she’s still struggling a bit to adjust to the homework, the 5-day schedule, etc.

Sammi is, as always, mostly loving school, although she’s home with me today feeling a bit punky. It’s the second day of Icebreaker, which means that all of the staff and high schoolers, and some of the middle schoolers, slept over there last night. Therefore the school is basically full of shambling zombies today, and then plus it’s also rainy. Yeah, she’s not missing much.

As is traditional, may I present a picture of my lovely daughters on their first day of the new school year, September 6, 2011? (Click to embiggen) Remember, now, that this picture represents Sammi about to enter fourth grade and Alice about to enter ninth, i.e. high school.

I was unable to take this yearly picture in its usual location (the deck, with view of our so-green back yard), because it was dumping down buckets of rain all day yesterday. It’s doing that again today, basically, and the weather (combined with various other annoyances and energy drains of late) is hitting me hard at the moment. I’m enjoying my Quiet House today (I didn’t get any of that yesterday because I was out collecting annoyances and energy drains instead of staying home and enjoying the solitude), but only in a muted and grey sort of way. *self-indulgent sigh*

I think, and Alice seems to be solidly with me on this, that it’s not time for summer to end and school to start yet. So, yeah, that’s how it is. No school for weeks yet. Let’s go to the beach!!!

New recipe up: Road Trip Cookies. Yes, we took these on the trip that I haven’t blogged about yet. Now you know one thing that happened.

We had our start-of-year conferences today, and (as usual) we got a shock: A beloved teacher, someone we were all looking forward to seeing again and Alice was counting on working with, won’t be here this year after all. It’s become almost laughably predictable in our experience at this school — forge a connection with someone, then lose them. For all that I love about this place, I hate the turnover rate.

The good news is that Alice has picked out a pretty sweet schedule — Japanese II, Algebra I, Sociology, Lit & Comp, Biology, 3-D Art, and High School Ensemble (she is looking forward to pounding the drums again). Cross your fingers that none of these classes get moved into conflict with each other!!