School Daze Begins

The good news is we made it through the day and everyone enjoyed their new classes, but our day wasn't without its drama.  First, no one mentioned the first day of school traffic jam and ensuing parking nightmare around every school in town.  I missed it last year because La Nina was an afternoon kindergartner.  So, despite leaving early, we barely got La Nina to school on time.  

Then, it was not easy for the Magster to leave school knowing she was starting that very same afternoon.  She had another rough morning, but once we pulled up to school to drop her off, she primly told me it would be very rude for the Dad and I to stay on her first day of school.  I assured her we'd only stay as long as the other parents, and she seemed consoled.  

Both girls emerged from their classes with big smiles on their faces and tales of new friends, new learnings and even a real live skeleton.  Neither was overly tired and both were wishing for homework.  That will come soon enough.  Tomorrow is another day and hopefully the morning drop of goes a lot smoother.  

The Night Before School Starts

I thought I'd wax poetic tonight about my sadness over my baby starting kindergarten tomorrow.  Maybe I'd talk about our wonderful weekend in San Francisco or maybe I'd write something about what it's like to know I'll have two hundreds minutes to myself five days a week for the next nine months.  But no, the topic for tonight's blog came to me about ninety minutes ago, just after I put the kids to bed, even though the story started earlier in the day.  

While I was in the shower, the kids were playing at the kitchen table with art supplies.  For Magster, this is a daily event.  She needs her art hour.  For La Nina, this is more unusual, but not unheard of.  Anyway, as I'm toweling off, always the time when tragedy strikes, the Dad says to me, "Have you seen what the girls are up to?  It's a mess."  

I came into the kitchen saw little squares of green construction paper everywhere, glue sticks with lids off tossed all over the kitchen and scissors on the floor.  Clean up or no park, I told the girls. They went to work and I went back to deal with hair, make-up, etc.  By the time I reemerged, there was a box on the kitchen table with art supplies stuffed in it, green squares on the floor and a pile of papers.  It looked better, so I told them to sweep and we could leave.  They swept while I packed lunch and we headed to the park.  

Great play date.  A new Spanish speaking nanny appeared and engaged the Magster in a game of "Go Fish" in Spanish.  She did great.  She hung with the entire game and told me it was fun.  She even told me a few new Spanish words she learned.  

Then we stopped by the school to see her classroom and meet her teacher, then we wandered into La Nina's classroom and met her teacher.  At long last we headed home when the Magster informed me she couldn't start school because she can't speak Spanish.  I pointed out to her no one spoke English in the game she played and it wasn't a problem. She started to cry.  Not little tears, big gulping sobs.  La Nina cries like this, not the Magster.  

So I sat on the couch with her until she calmed down.  We went to La Nina's soccer practice which unfortunately was back at school and we had more sobbing.  By the third or fourth hour of this, I was worn out.  Yet, I stayed with her reassuring her all would be okay, it was normal to be nervous.

I fed the girls dinner, rushed them off to bed, figuring the only way to get Maggie over her fears is to get her in school.  She's going to be fine.  She's really a smart kid.  Maggie knows what to expect and she's worried.  I would too if I knew I was going into a classroom where I didn't speak the language.

So, after I get my kids to bed I head into the kitchen and there sits the mess from this morning.  With all the tears, I'd totally forgotten about it.  I bent to pick up the box of art supplies and it resisted coming off the table.  I looked under it and there I found hundreds of glue covered squares of green construction paper the girls had hidden under the box.  Unfortunately, now they were plastered to the table.  And the window sill.  And the banquet.  And the floor.  Dripping from the window sill onto my lovely, custom-made banquet back cushion was more glue and a few more squares of green construction paper.  Oh, and glued to the window sill, a paper towel.  I almost screamed.  

After nearly an hour of scrubbing and scraping, I think I got the mess cleaned up and all I can say is Thank Goodness Summer is Over!

Just when I thought I had it together...

I was so organized this summer.  Back in June, I downloaded the supply list for incoming first graders and went shopping.  I avoided the crowds and got everything I needed in one trip.  As an experienced parents, I knew there was nothing to worry about with the Magster.  In Kindergarten, you simply write a check for supplies, sign some forms and you are good to go.  Did I ever check the web site?  Of course, not.  Why would I?  I just finished kindergarten.  I know what to expect.

Fast forward to this morning.  We had a park playdate with several friends to yack about teachers and the upcoming school year.  I invited a friend who has kids going into Kindergarten, so the Magster would get to know them and my friends kids have La Nina's old teacher, so I thought she might like to meet the other parents in the dual immersion program.  

The conversation went a bit like this: 

Friend:  "Did you see that supply list?"  

Me:  "Oh it was terrible for first grade, but at least we don't need to worry about it for kindergartners."  

Friend:  "No, there's a list on the web site for Kindergarten.  I bought 96 glue sticks."  

Me:  "What?  There wasn't one in June."  

I came home and lo and behold, there's a kindergarten supply list this year.  It's officially four days before school starts and I have a fifteen item list that needs to be fulfilled AND I can't go to Office Max until Sunday.   The poor Magster.  I hate to send her to school without the supplies she needs, so I guess I'll be hitting the store and winging it with the crowds.  I thought I had it so together.

Soccer Kicks In

This was not the week to be operating with half a brain. Yet here I am with half my brain still in Tahoe, trying to function.  It hasn't been pretty.   Dance started again last week (didn't we just finish last season?) and this week, soccer fired up with practice.  I've been looking forward to the start of soccer season.  I'm coaching, both girls are playing, sounds like fun.  

Except the heat.  It's been over 100 for three days and we've had practice two of those days.  It's some awful rerun from my youth.  I remember starting soccer when it was so hot in the early season games I would fantasize about elephants from the African Plain trampling me every time I heard someone behind me. It always turned out to be some BIG girls from Livermore chasing me down when I had the ball.  Either way, I swear I heard big, pounding steps in my ears.   

Anyhoo, I figured this whole heat thing would seriously limit La Nina's soccer career.  In fact, I figured every degree over 95 meant one game less that she'd want to play. She's opposed to sweat in any form.  She doesn't like the whole mud/grass/ball concept.  She's more diva than soccer allows.  I didn't worry much about the Magster, she's fairly immune to the temperature.  And she loves to get dirty for a cause.  

My practice with the Magster was first.  It was 101 when we took the field.  The Magster did great.  Totally tough on the ball, gotta love it.  And the team did great too.  They look like they're going to rock the U5/U6 division.  After our practice we headed over to La Nina's practice and were shocked to see her running down the field with the ball firmly in control at her feet.  In fact, she looked like she knew what she was doing.  And she was smiling.  And sweating. Was she ill? I wondered.  

And even more shocking.   She came off the field asking a bunch of questions and including when she practiced next.  It led me to believe, she like soccer.  Alot.  As for the Magster, she's loving soccer, she's a bit out of control on the field, but she doesn't mind crashing, so eventually she'll stay on her feet.

So, now I need to figure out how I can make it to five dance classes, 4 soccer practices and a piano lesson while finishing a book.  Hmmmmm....good thing I like a challenge.

Home Sweet Home

I'm home safe and sound and as tired as I've ever been.  It's not really sleepy tired, it's more brain dead.  I don't think I can absorb another piece of information related to the written word, yet I'm oddly itching to write.  I'm only good for typing up my 45 pages of class and workshop notes, blog and watch the Olympics.  I'm not even sure I can read tonight.  

I don't know if I can really summarize the whole workshop experience.  It will probably take me a few months to get my head completely around the experience.  Overall, it was great, and I'd love to do it again.  But I'm not sure I'll be ready to go back next year.  It's hard to explain, but I'd only want to go back if I were in a very different place with my writing.  Maybe that's next year, maybe not.  

I learned a lot, made some fun new writing friends, met some real legends in the writing world and lived to tell the tale.  Definitely it was a good week.  

Bloody and beat

Well, I've had a long day. Actually everyday is a long one here.  Even the twenty something crowd is dragging.  My days begin at 7am and I'm in workshops or classes for 10 hours straight. If I go to the evening event it's 14 hours.  On top of that, I read 40-60 pages a day on breaks, at lunch and at night to prepare for workshop the next morning.  Then there are other little things, like meetings with staff, that we just have to work in.  Today, I had my staff consult.  That's the time when a member of the staff critiques my original conference submission. 

I was assigned to be critiqued by the editor of a literary magazine.  I heard him speak a couple of times and he seemed to have good insight.  So, I was sort of excited.  Until we met.  Our meeting was the longest 30 minutes of my life.  He liked one paragraph of the twenty pages I submitted.  The rest were long on information and short on substance according to him. My plot was overwhelming, characterization weak, descriptions cliched and frankly, the whole submission seemed a bit satirical to him.  It was quite discouraging.  I wanted to ask why they accepted me if my submission was so bad, but I was a little too stunned to get anything out.  

So, after hearing the bad news, I crawled back to my room, called a couple of writer friends and whined on their shoulders.  I'm feeling much better now, thank you to those with whom I spoke.  Getting bad critiques is part of this whole experience, I suppose.  It certainly brings me back to earth.  I'm lucky my workshop group is so supportive and constructive.  Anyway, I have lots of food for thought and I'll have to bandage up my bruised ego and figure out what works and what doesn't from his comments.  

Of course, if he thinks he'll ever get to publish one of my stories, he can just think again.  'Cuz his publication will be the last place I ever query.  

Greetings from Tahoe

I suppose there are many of you who are amazed that I can fire up my computer and find my way onto the internet without assistance.  But yes, years of business travel taught me many handy skills, including some technical ones I try not to use when the Dad is around as I like to give him something to do and he's good with computers.

So here I am.  At the end of my first full day of the writer's workshop trying to think of something to say about it.  First, I'll say I'm surprised.  I expected to be one of the older participants and I'm not.  I'm in the middle of the pack in terms of my age.  There are far fewer students than I expected are far more older writers.  Second, I expected to be the only person using this workshop as a break from my real life.  Again, not true.  Most people here have real lives and write as I do...seriously, yet not to the exclusion of things.  In fact, most people I've met balance writing with something else like child rearing or lawyering (lots of attorneys roam the workshops) or professional writing, not fun writing.  Finally, I always thought of this as a west coast workshop for west coast writers.  Boy was I wrong.  There are writers here from all over the country, writing everything from science fiction to comic books.  The only thing all of us have in common is we all are compelled to use the written word to tell stories...whatever they may be about.

The intensity in the workshops is palpable.  Everyone sits on the edge of their seats and leans into the circle, making our group physically closer.  It's like everyone is desperate to hear the next comment, because the workshop leader is so adept at generalizing the comments from one manuscript into something useful for everyone.  I learned more about writing fiction in three hours this morning than I have from the other two conferences I attended combined.  And that was just the workshop.    This afternoon I attended three classes on the craft of writing.  Every day for the next five will be like today. It's grueling.

Of course, all this learning made me see endless flaws in my own work.  And even worse, they took my manuscript yesterday when I arrived, leaving me with all this information and no hope of including it in my work until I get home.  I've actually considered stealing all fifteen copies of my submission back just so I can include some of my learnings before I'm critiqued. But I'm in the hot seat tomorrow morning and unless I'm willing to break into fifteen houses around the Valley tonight, I'm going to have to trust the manuscript I submitted.   

The walls of the main hall are lined with portraits of alumni who have published major works after attending this workshop. There are dozens of these black and whites of people looking very writerly.  Some of the faces I recognize, most I don't.  But I try to focus on those pictures when I feel intimated or insecure or anxiety-ridden, which are pretty constant emotions these days.   Because in the end, those folks sat in workshops just like me and learned how to make their writing better.  I hope at the end of this week, I'll do the same and maybe my picture will hang with theirs some day. I just have to get through tomorrow.

A Test

Multiple choice.  Which of the following things occurred this week sidetracking my preparations for next week's workshop?  

A.)  Spent four hours every morning running kids to three different activities.  Spanish camp, dance camp and swim lessons.  

B.)  When a child couldn't hear, spent an unplanned two hours at doctor getting ears flushed.  (Can you say waxy build-up?) 

C.)  So distracted by lack of progress on my writing, I sideswiped a parked car requiring an emergency trip to the dealership to have passenger-side mirror replaced.

D.)  Spent an entire afternoon completing administrative tasks for soccer team. 

E.)  All of the above

Feel free to chime in.