Frenzied Daddy

So, I’m standing here, at Bipartisan Cafe at SE 79th and Stark. Miss B is reading from her comic book here; it’s an open mike with a program called “writers in the schools.” there are a lot of people to read here and a lot of supporters.

At Cleveland High, I was a writer, I ran the literary magazine my senior year (with Terri Hughes). I took an extra class after school across town at Benson. Both years, I went to the U of O for a writing symposium. I wrote lots, both prose and poetry. But I never got a chance to read my writings out loud like she is tonight.

I’ve been worried about how supportive this school will be, of her confidence in her art. We talked at the teacher conference about her talent and how the teacher is so impressed with her. But watching this and seeing this, I’m finding myself jealous of this experience and happy with our choices.

Well, you knew it was going to have to happen; we got a puppy. About three weeks ago, in fact. The Humane Society got several shipments at once of what they thought were Border Collie (mix) puppies, so we went over to take a look. We brought home “Thurston,” who they figured was a border collie mixed with some sort of hound. The vet says more “pointer” than hound, especially since he doesn’t bay like hounds do, and the way he stands. He’s smart like Perrin was, kind of sneaky like Honor was, and a ball of wild energy like a puppy is. He’s a lot of fun, and I’m sure I’ll post pictures. We’ve renamed him to “Akamaru” (Aka for short), who is some mangy manga dog.

Miss B is surprising us all with trying out for her high school’s performance of Pirates of Penzance. Don’t know how she did, but the tryouts were this week. Also this week, she brought home the “Battle of the Books” team permission form. Sounds great! She’ll have to read some non-fantasy stuff too.

Miss K had a special reading at her school yesterday. She read a story she wrote about growing and harvesting tomatoes and how proud she was of herself for tending them. I didn’t make it- I was buried at work. Had a client whose website was going live and it needed too much TLC for me to go running off. But I’m going to try to make it to her Winter performance; the classes are all singing rather than doing a play. Once during the day and then again in the evening.

And we bought a new car. A used car. Ms B’s car died on Thanksgiving, on her way home from work. It just stopped working. We found out later that it was the timing belt, a normal maintenance item that when it breaks, it breaks the whole engine. We bought a 2003 VW Jetta Stationwagon from Wentworth Chevy. I’m pretty happy. I’m very happy with the loan from First Tech CU- it’s 3.74%! (with a 1% discount for paying via automatic withdrawal). I took extra joy from that with the advertisement today of car loans “at less than 13 percent interest). Well, that’s something else.

Anyway, hope all is well in your lives.