Tuesday musings

1. Mac started co-curricular activities last week. He's doing fencing on Mondays (which he actually just started yesterday, complete with getting to wield one of those sword things) and tennis on Wednesdays.

2. Mac came home on Friday afternoon with his newly-rented-from-school violin. He has developed an instant attraction to it. He lovingly takes it out of the case, rosins the bow, holds the bow correctly (using the very cool dog-biting-the-bow technique taught by his teacher), and then absolutely wails on it in his attempt to play "The Devil Went Down to Georgia". We've tried to tell him that he's probably not going to learn that song in his first year of violin lessons, so he's apparently taken the approach that he'll teach himself. I'm waiting for him to pop some strings, which is bound to happen in the near future.

3. I have tried to teach myself the violin on Mac's violin and I can now knock out the "twinkle twinkle" part of "Twinkle Twinkle Little Star". I can't quite figure out how to get to the "little star" part but I'm working on it.

4. We find out today if our sea shipment is being delivered on Friday. I am hoping that some miracle happens and they can actually deliver it on Thursday because I have nothing planned on Thursday but I do have a ticket for Friday to watch a couple tennis matches for the Davis Cup between the US and Colombia.

5. No offense to any Sao Paulo Chapel friends who might be reading this one particular musing, but the PTA at Chapel is (or used to be) a Brazilian mafia run at the time by one woman that made it difficult for non-Brazilians to enter. I tried to participate but it was uncomfortably painful because I clearly didn't belong. So I stopped going to the meetings. Well CGB's PTA had a welcome breakfast for new families last week and I wasn't going to go because I figured it might be a Colombian mafia experience. Jimmy told me to suck it up and go because how would I know otherwise? So I went and these people are the nicest people. There are lots of Colombians involved but the president is Canadian (which meant the meeting was conducted in English with somebody translating to Spanish), the vice president is Costa Rican and the secretary is Argentine. And everybody was friendly and inclusive, which is how the whole school is.

6. On Thursday afternoon, Mac had an invitation glued in his agenda inviting Jimmy and me to the Year 4 Spanish program on Friday morning. Well I thought this was a mistake because he's in Year 3, so I blew it off. THANK GOODNESS I went to the PTA meeting on Friday morning and started talking to a mother who said she had to leave the PTA early to attend this program. I commented that Mac had had an invitation but he's Year 3 so it made no sense and I wasn't going. The head of the primary school overheard us talking and said that Mac might be getting a Spanish award so maybe I should go. Um. Does she know which child is mine? I'm fairly sure he's not getting a Spanish award, particularly after 3 weeks of school. But she checked quickly and said I needed to go. And by golly, that kid got an award (along with some other children) for enthusiasm in his Colombian social studies class. I was so proud of him.

7. Let's talk about Spanish class at CGB. Up until now, Mac had one Spanish class a week at Pinewood. I don't know that there was ever a test and we never did Spanish homework. And at Chapel they didn't start formal Portuguese classes until after kindergarten. Well let me tell you that we're making up for lost time. Mac attends Spanish as a Second Language classes everyday and he's got Spanish homework every week. Two weeks ago they worked on body parts in Spanish and last week they did family members. Last week's homework was for Mac to draw his family tree and label it with the names of the family members as well as their relationship like abuela/grandmother, tio/uncle, primo/cousin, etc. Mac had to turn it in yesterday and so last night when I checked his Spanish folder, I saw some additions to what it originally looked like. He'd added his pet fish, Pedro, from Sao Paulo and he'd made a gravesite at the bottom of the page for my dad (and he'd drawn a line from the top of the family tree where my dad was originally noted down to the gravesite). Once we get our printer (on Friday!), I'll scan and post it because it's priceless.

8. This is a call for help: we're supposed to be working on the multiplication tables because Mac has to memorize them. Any thoughts on how best to do this? If you have advice, I'd love to hear it because we don't seem to be making much progress.

9. The man is supposedly coming to hook up our Direct TV today, which means you may not hear from me for awhile. We get it out of Puerto Rico which means I can watch all the shows I came to know and love over the last year, which is going to be delightful. Hurray! I hope there are no unforeseen problems when the guy shows up.

10. Speaking of shows I know and love, The Amazing Race starts very soon. I love this show and want to go on it with Jimmy because I know we could win. But this season I'm not on it yet, so you need to watch for my hairdresser extraordinaire from Stella Nova in Summerville's daughter, Stephanie, who's on it with her boyfriend. Here's to hoping that if I can't win the big bucks on the show that Stephanie can. (And if you need a hairdresser extraordinaire in the lowcountry, go see Luanne at Stella Nova.)

11. Jimmy is hosting his first work cocktail party for 50 people in a couple weeks. I've held everybody off until we get our stuff because I'm not having a party at my house without pictures on the walls. Last night we decided on Sept 30 for the party, assuming Jimmy can schedule his work trip to Florida to get back on Sept 29. Worse than having a party without pictures on the wall would be having a party without the host present.

12. Finally - and this note is mainly for my mom because I couldn't get her on the phone yesterday and I know she'll want to know - I had my blood pressure check with the doctor yesterday and it's gone way down. When I changed my regimen a couple weeks ago, after a couple days I had to start taking the meds before bedtime because of dizziness and extreme lethargy, but one of the meds is a diuretic which meant I was going to the bathroom in the middle of the night more times than an old man. The good news is that I was sleeping like a rock even after the bathroom trips because my pressure was so low. So we're tweaking a little bit and I'm taking the diuretic in the morning and the other med at night and we'll see how that goes.

Hope you're well in your corner of the world!