Just a quick note to say I dropped off my entry. Here are pics. Judging begins at 10am!
Fortunately there weren’t many entries in the Adult Beginner Special Technique Not On A Cake category.
Unfortunately, one of the ones that is entered is gonna whoop my sugar orchid making bootie…
Oh well! Off to the fairgrounds to grab me some carnie food!
This is the second year that I’m attending the Oklahoma State Sugar Arts Show. Last year I got the opportunity to meet some online friends from an online cake forum, The Bakers Bar, for the first time. It was a hoot (to quote my dear friend Maureen)! I didn’t enter anything (Actually it never would have occurred to me to enter anything had it not been for my cake pals who did enter AND WON!).
So this year my trip to Tulsa is a reunion of sorts. I’ll get to see Holly, Adele, Barb and her hubby, Greg (who makes a killer loaf of bread!). I also get to meet Lisa for the first time. As I type this on the plane, I can’t believe how excited I am to see this diverse group of people whom I’ve met only once but whom I’ve gotten to know pretty well thanks to our mutual friend, The Internet.
Yesterday after I left work it was a sugar flower making marathon. Go me for picking such complicated freaking flowers! (Now I doubt my choice of flowers for fear that the judges won’t be familiar with these exotic breeds and may not appreciate them as ‘real’ flowers. Oh well…) I spent about 2 hours putting dots on the orange orchids and another two hours painting the gridwork onto the purple orchids. They still need to be steamed to even out the color. (I hope my hotel room has an iron!)
After I’d done all the finishing work, I carefully wrapped the individual petals, throats, and leaves in quilt batting to help protect them on the journey. Then everything, including some supplies to put them together in the hotel room, was placed into an old sewing tote I have. I couldn’t think of anything sturdy enough to put them in that also had handles on it. I was a little worried about going through airport security. Imagine what they saw on their screen: a bunch of wires in various configurations (does dried sugar show up on their screens?)!
Images of them strip-searching my poor sugar flowers soon ensued. I’d heard horror stories from other cake friends about how their cakes had been man-handled and even turned upside-down while going through TSA.
Sure enough, as I’m going through security, the person behind the big machine says to me, “What’s in the purple box?”
“Sugar flowers,” I replied.
“Oh, right!” she replied, as if having sugar flowers come through her machine was an everyday occurrence. (And while I am happy I didn’t get any hassle, I’m a bit concerned. Don’t you think any would-be terrorist would have a better story than ‘sugar flowers’? And yet she didn’t bat an eye…)
The next challenge was the airplane. I found a great little airline called ExpressJet to fly to Tulsa. Super cheap too! The only hitch was I had to drive to Ontario, a local regional airport about 45 miles from home.
ExpressJet has smaller planes, three seats wide. When I got on the plane and tried to put my tote into the overhead baggage compartment, it didn’t fit! My heart skipped a beat. The flight attendant told me she could put it into her closet, but she would need to put it on its side. Although I’d packed it pretty securely, I wasn’t sure how being on its end would affect its fragile contents. The flight attendant could see my panic and gently said, “We’re not running on full capacity, so once everyone is boarded, I’ll check for a double seat so you can set it beside you.” THANK YOU EXPRESS JET!
A double seat ended up being available and my tote got its own seat. Actually, as I type, Mr. Tote is sitting across the aisle from me (the guy in front of me put his seat back and made typing on my computer a difficult task), strapped in (per flight attendant request), enjoying a light snack.
Oh, almost forgot to mention! I’m reuniting with two other long, lost friends. Surely you remember Monsoon and Cleo.
Sorry, no pics of my Monsoon socks!
Poor things haven’t seen the light of day in a while. I pulled them out because I wanted some relatively mindless knitting to work on during the off-hours of the show (of which there are many, well, in between the carnie food and gabbing with my cake pals).
Wish me luck!
Woo, has it been a whirlwind. At first I didn’t realize what was going on but then I read on someone blog something about someone’s head being in Uranus, I mean, pisces. And on top of that, it’s a freaking full moon! (OK, I have NO idea what any of that means, but I have to blame this roller coaster on something!)
For the last two weeks I’ve worked 6 days each week and then proceeded to run on my day off. Not to mention all the domestic responsibilities. (Yes, I know I could have just bought more underwear, but I just did that! I don’t think one person should own that many pairs of underwear.)
The best part of last weekend was that I got to take one of my former students to school. He moved up north to go to college. :sniffle: Although it was a lot of driving and took up a good part of my day, it was great to spend time with him and to help him get situated. I know he appreciated it as well. He said, “If my family would have brought me, they would have unloaded me and then just left.”
After helping him unload we walked to the bookstore to find out how much his books would be. Then we took a trip to CostCo to get him a fridge and stock him up on snacks for a while.
Sounds really mundane, but it was a very enjoyable day. Actually, it felt like I was dropping off one of my own kids.
Here’s a crappy photo from my phone.
I’m so proud of him. It was a tremendous struggle for him to overcome all the obstacles he has faced. But he persevered. I know he’s going to do great and be successful. (If he can get used to being out of his element. As we were walking across campus he said, “Wow, everyone is white”!!!!)
This week has been a combination of working and getting ready for the Oklahoma State Sugar Arts Show competition in Tulsa. No, I’m not doing a RuPaul wedding cake (maybe next year). I had planned to do some sort of smaller cake, but instead downsized to a sugar orchid arrangement.
By Tuesday I had succeeded in creating this much:
And then Wednesday night I had finished these:
and these:
And as of right now, I’ve dusted those so they now look like this:
and
(No, they’re not really Hunter Orange. I guess my camera thinks so though!).
Both sets still need spots and stripes. These are the inspiration photos from orchids I saw at an orchid farm while in Thailand.
So tonight I need to finish the pot they’ll go in, paint the spots and stripes, finish the tongues (the center pokey thing), steam every piece with a steam iron (to even out the color and give them a bit of sheen), let them dry, and then pack each individual piece with quilt batting to prevent them from breaking.
Of course I still need to do laundry and pack!
Then when I get to Tulsa tomorrow around 2pm, I need to put them together and get them to the fairgrounds where they’ll be judged on Saturday.
There will be copious amounts of red wine between dropping them off and judging!
Today was the second ‘pre-licensing’ visit from The State. It was supposed to happen at 1pm.
She showed up at 12:25pm!
Before I’d had time to move the cleaning products out of the downstairs closet!
So before she waddled up the walk I grabbed one armful. And as she situated herself in the dining room, I grabbed another armful, took the shortcut through the staircase to the kitchen thus avoiding her and the dining room, and deposited the second armful.
After this, another “thorough” coughbullshitcough inspection ensued. Although, to her credit, she did climb the stairs (and made the same, “Glad I don’t have to do that every day” comment she made last time.
When she told me we’d need an insert for our small car seat, I might have stretched the truth when I said it was in the washer (which she could hear running). Well, not so much a stretch as a fabrication. But in my defense, we’re buying new ones when we know what we have. These were just to get us through this bloody process.
Then when it was time to go check for the “wood with nails in it” behind the garage, she “took my word for it.” (Again, in my defense, it was taken care of. I mean, as soon as word made it out that two self-respecting homos had “wood with nails in it” I had to do something! (Although I guess I could have claimed we’d hired a handyman.
Then after much waiting for her antiquated computer to spit out its final report, she declared, “Your home is licensed.”
Which isn’t really how it goes. She explained she’ll put us in The System and our license will be generated and mailed from Sacramento to her. Then she will confirm the information and forward it to us.
So now we need to do our First Aid/CPR class, wait for our referrals to get their paperwork in, wait for our social worker to write his report (he’s very busy after all) and IT’LL BE OVER!
On her way out the door, The State (she’s not really a state, she’s a woman, but she represents, well, you know) said, “Good luck with your babies.” I barely kept myself from bawling and I just teared up thinking about it.
I finally found something to make for my impending little ones. Check out these and this and this and these (did you see how the mouse gets swallowed up by the snake?!) Aren’t they adorable?!
I started knitting this (the monkey to the right with the vest) but holy moly, my hands ache from trying to knit a double strand of worsted weight yarn on size 3 needles! So I think I may scrap it (big surprise there, me not finishing a knitting project after I bought all the yarn?!).
These don’t look nearly as painful (although that darned monkey looked pretty innocuous when I first saw him too, so what do I know?!).
And the best part?! They aren’t real animals! So if I mess it up, it’s not like anyone is gonna say, “That doesn’t look like a monkey!” It’s NOT a monkey, it’s a Gargle (although he does look suspiciously like a giraffe. But the Uh-Ohs don’t look like anything on our planet.)
Apparently HH has been working overtime on getting out our reference materials. Our friends and family have received their questionnaires. The reason I know is because my mom called to ask if it was alright to put that I was “moody”.
I said, “This is supposed to be your image of me; do you see me as moody?”
Silence…
“Mom? Are you there?”
“Yes, I’m here. Will be be mad if I put that you’re moody?”
She was afraid of me getting moody for calling me moody. How cute is that?!
One disturbing incident is that HH sent a letter to my personal therapist (who I’ve been going to on and off for 6 or 7 years of my own accord, not because I’m diagnosed with anything, mind you. And only because, “Being nuts” isn’t in the DSM IV.) Anyway, apparently in the introductory letter, where HH is asking for highly confidential information about me, he uses my name and address at the top of the letter and then in the body of it he uses someone else’s name and their issues!!!!
How can I possibly entrust my “issues” with someone who made such a careless mistake and inadvertently released confidential information about someone else?! I don’t know how to deal with that one.
So instead I’m gonna go knit a Gargle.
Can it really be Tuesday already?! WHAT happened to my weekend? I feel like I got picked up by a tornado a la Dorothy and Toto and got dropped back into the middle of another work week.
Saturday was a fun-filled day, beginning with seeing Stephanie Pearl-McPhee speak at the Los Angeles Public Library. I started reading The Yarn Harlot about a year ago when I got back into knitting (for the 10th or 15th time). Being who I am, I read her entire blog from the beginning. It took a while, but eventually I got though it. She’s a hilarious writer and her take on knitting is spot on. This is one of my favorite blog entries. I go back and read whenever I need a pick me up (and caffeine isn’t working).
I got a couple of photos, but I think it’s time to take up a collection for a new camera, cuz my baby isn’t feeling well lately. Squint, it might make it look clearer…
This is The Harlot taking her infamous sock photo of the audience.
And this is the only shot I got of her and I together. Again, squint.
After seeing The Harlot, I rushed over to The Greek Theatre to see Antidoto 2007. I got to spend the evening enjoying Latino music with Patricia and Vane.
You can’t tell from the pic, but were in THE FRONT ROW! Somehow our tickets in ‘nose bleed’ got changed. Whoever you are, THANK YOU! It was great fun; I got to see Julieta Venegas, whose music I adore!
(I can’t even blame this on my camera; it was taken with my phone.)
I love, Love, LOVE her music. Even if you don’t understand Spanish, the tunes are totally fun and upbeat (well, at least on Limon and Sal, not so much on her earlier stuff.)
I’ll leave you with this final thought: aren’t inventors great? I mean, I can totally understand how profound the saying, “Necessity is the mother of Invention.” While at Antidoto, I was walking into the bathroom holding our communal wine carafe. As I approached the urinal I thought, “Shoot, what am I going to do with this while I take care of business?” Lo and behold, someone had already thought of that for me!
To the upper right is a plastic carafe of wine with some plastic cups sticking out of it, SITTING on a shelf!
So, being who I am, I had to see if sit-down jobs got the same benefit.
Sure enough! Thank you Mr. or Ms. Inventor (I’m thinking it had to either be a gay guy or a woman. Do straight guys really worry about where to put their wine carafe so as not to cross-contaminate?)!!
Yesterday was our first interview with HH in our home. I took this appointment despite the date and potential omens it brought because it was his soonest opening. We were to meet at 10:00.
At about quarter to ten, I see I have a message on my cell phone: Hi Frank, it’s HH (well, he used his real name, but you get the point) it’s about 9:40am and I’m calling to confirm our appointment at 10a.m. (He left the message at freaking 9:40!! What kind of confirmation is that?! Call the day before, not 20 minutes before! :zen: ) Well, actually I won’t be leaving my office until 10:30 or so, so I will likely be there around 10:45 to 11. Sor-see you then.”
Didja catch the almost apology? I’m not sure if he started and then stopped or if he only ever gives half-apologies. All I know is L and I were stressing because L had canceled a morning appointment to be here and had we known HH was going to be an hour late, he could have gone. L also had an appointment at 2pm on the other side of town and needed to leave about 1:15. HH told us at our last meeting to plan on three hours. Needless to say it didn’t do much to improve our feelings off good will. grrr!
So he arrives and we go into the house to continue the interview. Over the course of the next two hours (!!) he asks us everything under the sun. From the stuff that would clearly have a bearing on parenting (our childhood, relationship with our families, how we deal with crises) to stuff that seems to have about as related to adoption as I am related to Paris Hilton (like questions about our sex and sexuality!). As I was sitting there listening to L respond to some inane question or another, I took a little trip in my mind imagining two heterosexuals who want to have kids having to go through the same grilling interview.
HH asked me when I first thought I might be gay and I relayed the following story:
It was also during this time that I had the first realization that I may not be like other kids. We had a tribe of Native America kids our age who were visiting from a reservation. They were there showing us their costumes, dances, etc. I was particularly struck by one of the boys my age. I remember thinking he was really cute. As I was standing outside the school waiting for my bus, the Native American students began boarding their bus. I saw him walk out of our gymnasium and get onto the bus. I said to one of the older boys waiting in line with me that I thought the Native American boy was really cute. I will never forget the look of disgust on his face as he looked at me and said, “That’s disgusting.” It was then that I realized that what I was feeling wasn’t what everyone was feeling and that I couldn’t share those feelings with the people around me.
It was at that point that HH yawned.
(I’d insert an icon with a jaw hitting the table if I could find one.)
Me being me said, “Sorry, I know it’s not terribly enthralling information.” Givemeafreakingbreak!
Also crazy-making was the fact that he kept implying that we didn’t submit this paper or that paper. And then he would find it in the pile of paper he has on us. Finally I told him that we had indeed submitted every single required form but if he needed a copy, I had a copy of it all. (While he was here we had to fill out a survey about our drug and alcohol use and abuse. Sure enough, he left them sitting on our table so I had to go chasing his car down the street to get them to him. Otherwise I’m sure THAT would have held up our process.)
One good thing about all of this is that all the pieces of the HH puzzle are beginning to fit together for me. It seems to me that he isn’t necessarily interested in doing more work than he has to do and wants this to be as short as possible. But there are certain things he has to do (like go through the house with a checklist of safety items to ensure we’re not living in a war zone), but he has clearly found ways to get through those quickly and relatively painlessly (at least for him, like ASKING us if we have the items on the checklist instead of LOOKING for them himself, which is what he told us he would have to do! “Do you have a fire extinguisher?” “No” “When can you get one” “Tomorrow” “OK, I’ll mark you off as having one.” !!!! Or here’s a good one, “Have you taken First Aid?” “No” “When will you?” “Next week” “Call me when you do and I’ll check it off. No, I don’t need a copy of the completion certificate.” Guess we look trustworthy. Sucker Thanks!)
So I’m trying to let it go. Willow in the wind…
It was also at this point that I began to realize that despite his pontification about how long the process was and about how many visits he was going to have to make to our home, this was going to be the only one!
Sure enough, he says he has everything he needs and we’ll be receiving in the mail a letter that states whether or not (HUH?!) we’re approved. And he begins to walk away.
Me being me, I said, HH, I need a bit more information than that. What is the potential time frame? HH being HH, he doesn’t like to give time frames because then then he doesn’t meet it (see appointment time discussion above) he can’t be held accountable. Before he started to hem and haw I said, “I know, I know, all situations are different and you’re a very busy man. Can you give us a ballpark figure? I don’t need it in writing.” JEEESH!
He explained he would take the information he has on us and dictate his report (I presume someone else does the typing?) and then submit it to his supervisor. She would likely need clarification, which would require him to add something to the report if he had the information (why wouldn’t it be there to begin with?!) or he would need to contact us. Then after she approves/rejects it, we receive a letter stating the results. I was finally able to get a time frame of about a month. After which, he said, is when the waiting begins.
A month. A MONTH! Holy heavens, only a month!
It’s true, time really does fly when you’re having, um, fun? Who the heck is having fun?! Sometimes I feel like my life is on cruise control and the little button to turn it off doesn’t work so when I do want to slow down, it just keeps right on going. Sigh…
I can’t even remember what my last post was about, THAT’S how long ago I posted!
Tomorrow, 9/11 is our second visit from HH, our social worker. I hope the date doesn’t have any bearing on our appointment. Even when he suggested it as a potential appointment, I thought, “Maybe I should stay away from that one.” But it was the soonest appointment he had and I’m dying to be Daddy Dearest, so I took it. To hell with the omens.
I don’t think there is much to worry about for tomorrow (Now I remember, in one of my last posts I said I wasn’t going to be nervous or worry any more! HA!). From what I could gather in between the sermons about his precious time, he will be looking to see we have supplies for children (which we don’t, other than this and this) and continuing with our interview. He will be coming back at least another time, so what’s to sweat? Whatever doesn’t “pass” now can be covered next time.
Saturday I ran 7 miles with my pal Vanesa. See, I don’t have nearly enough on my plate; I thought training for a marathon would be a good thing to do. So every Saturday we meet in Santa Monica with the LA Leggers and run a mile or 7, soon to be 8, etc.
I love the method they use, which is a run/walk combination. Most groups run for 5 minutes and then walk for a minute. The good part is that, mentally it gives you something to look forward to and breaks down the monotony. It’s also better for your body and it doesn’t reduce your time (because you’re running a touch faster during the run segments.) The bad part is you have to run faster to make your pace. So to make our 10:30 min/mile, we actually run a 9:50-10:00 min/mile. And of course our group runs for 8 minutes and then walks for a very short minute, which is more challenging but mathematically it also probably means we don’t have to run as fast.
So that’s a brief snippet of where I’m at. I tried doing this entry before work, but then got a call that one of our teachers was stranded because her car broke down. So I rode out on my white horse to save her went to her to retrieve her laptop so I could cover her class and administer a quiz while she waited for AAA. And now I’m in the midst of my day and have totally lost my train of thought as far as a blog entry.
Have a good day!
Our home inspection by the state licensing agency (Community Care Licensing or CCL) was to take place between 1 and 4 pm (yes, a window of time just like the cable guy!) on Friday.
At around 11:30am, while we were talking with HH, I got a call from a blocked number. Normally I don’t take blocked numbers anyway, but especially when I’m being sermonized about how valuable my social worker’s time is.
So I forwarded it to voicemail. When our time with HH drew to a close (for that day), I took the time to check the message.
It was CCL calling to say they were running late (at 11:30am!!) but that she’d be to our home within an hour. Which meant around 12:30, which meant about 7 minutes from the time I was listening to the message!!!
Needless to say I got worked up pretty quickly thinking she was going to show up to our home, not find anyone home, leave and then take us off her list.
So I rushed home (as much as Los Angeles traffic allows rushing)… And proceeded to sit and wait for almost an hour before she finally showed up (even officials from the state have direction impairments it seems).
She was very formal and professional but polite. We joked a little about the heat and other things but not in an overly friendly manner.
Her inspection took her through EVERY SINGLE drawer and storage space in our home. She would ask us to open the door/drawer and would proceed to ask, “What’s in there?” and “Is there any ______ in there?” (with ____ being sharp objects, alcohol, dangerous chemicals, etc. depending on the location).
Despite the seeming thoroughness with which she was scrutinizing our home, there were many things she overlooked or otherwise didn’t see. For example, she asked us to open the bottom drawer on the cake decorating end of the kitchen island (after having seen the three upper drawers which contained cookie cutters, etc. Nothing dangerous). This is what she saw:
And then she says, “Anything sharp in there?”
In my mind, I responded with, “Other than the metal grater, the slicing and grating disks for my food processor, the Zyliss cheese grater, and the hand blender, nope, nothing sharp whatsoever.”
But instead, I responded with this, “Nope.”
She checked her list and we moved on!
It was at this point (actually it was at the point when she asked if there were any cleaning products under the sink but then said she’d take my word for it instead of bending over to check) that I began to see things for what they really were: hoops and hurdles and checklists.
So when we came to my spice cabinet, and she asked what was in there, I said, “Mostly oils, vinegars and spices.”
In my thought bubble, “With the random half-full bottle of Two Buck Chuck, Myers Rum, Cointreau, and other miscellaneous liqueurs.” Check. Move on.
After a good hour of ignoring missing inspecting the rest of the house, we sat to do the report. She’d brought her own laptop and printer with her and spent a bit of time typing from her hand-written checklist. We get to the end, she flips around her fancy tablet computer, we all sign all three pages of her report and she prints it out.
I begin to read over it and it says we are petitioning to be licensed for 10-18 year olds… Slam on the brakes, SCREEECH. HOLD UP! I’d like to learn to love my kids before I hate them.
Apparently she’d copied and pasted from a different report and had forgotten to change the ages. And unfortunately since we’d signed it, she couldn’t go back and change it. So she had to retype it all!
This was one of the first days of this infernal heat wave, so it was warm in our house. We’d offered her water but she only wanted an unopened bottle (afraid of being drugged and taken advantage of by the gay guys I guess) of water and since we didn’t have any, she went without.
By the time she started typing up the second report she had water droplets dripping down her nose and forehead and complained about how dry her mouth and throat were, but still she refrained from drinking our opened (and possibly tainted (although we were drinking it too!)) water.
In the end, she had found eight items that we need to remedy before her return visit on September 20, including:
Overall it wasn’t so bad. Nothing that will take too long or cost too much. And it gets us one step closer to being done with the hoops and hurdles and checklists and on our way to being a family.
Well, we survived the interview with HH (our social worker) and the home inspection by the State. I’ve gone from being exceedingly nervous and anxious about being inspected and scrutinized to being slightly annoyed with the process. BUT, I can be patient when I need to be, so no worries. I understand it’s about hurdles and hoops and we just need to get over or through them and it’ll all be good.
I was up bright and early yesterday as I thought about all the things I hadn’t done (why I didn’t think of any of them on Thursday night is beyond me). So I spent a couple of hours in the morning scurrying around putting things away, taking dusting (!! because clearly that’s a potential hazard. Jeesh!). As I went to put up the gate at the top of the stairs, I realized (remembered?) that it wasn’t quite going to work without some modification (adding a strip of wood). Clearly there was not time for that. So instead, slightly before 9am, one hour before we were supposed to be with our social worker, I’m running to Tar-zhay to find a gate.
Oh, and a toilet seat. Somehow the toilet seat cover in the downstairs bathroom came up missing (don’t ask me!) and I figured that would be an obvious ding.
All y’all know how much I love Tar-zhay, so I had to stop in the baby section and ooh and aah at the sleepers and blankies and bibs. Sigh… I allowed myself to buy one crib sheet (we want to wait until we know more about the kids we’re getting before we buy too much stuff) just to make it look more homey. Oh, and a little snuggle worm thingie that plays a lullaby when you squeeze it. Oh, and that little toy with the rings on a cone.
Did you know they have new parking meters on LaBrea, right in front of Tar-zhay? They’re the fancy parking meters that are all solar and allow you to deposit coins or use a credit card or donate your first-born child. What they don’t let you do is deposit money when it’s a No Parking Zone (in LA they restrict parking on busy streets and open those lanes up for traffic). So I’m at Tar-zhay at 9:00 according to my phone. According to R2-D2 it was 8:57. It wouldn’t let me put in money! I had to stand there and wait until it said it was 9:00 and then I was able to put in my money. It’s becoming more and more difficult to be a good citizen! Used to be you could easily park at a meter 15 minutes before the official time, because really, how can parking officers or whatever catch you in that short of time?!
The interview with HH was actually much better more tolerable than I had imagined. He was slightly more personable than he was during or classes (which wasn’t difficult to do!), although he still interjected his ‘valuable time’ sermon twice or thrice. He also did his typical spiel at the end of our time (not the end of the interview, if the packet of papers he was writing on is any indication, we’ve got two or three more sessions to go!) he said, “So go ahead and go home and think about whether or not now is the time for you to be pursuing adoption and whether your schedules and your lifestyle will accommodate children blah blah blah. Then call me back at the end of those two or three weeks and we’ll set up something for a couple of weeks after that.”
Silence.
Shared glances between L and I. (We’d discussed this earlier and were somewhat expecting it.)
Finally, in the most tactful and respectful manner I could (which clearly wasn’t much) I said, “I think I speak for both of us when I say we don’t need more time to consider this, we aren’t uncertain about how kids will fit in our lives, and I, for one, don’t want to wait another two or three weeks to set up another appointment. What do you have available?”
So we have an appointment on September 11 for the second of what he told us would be three or four sessions together. He told us to block out about 3 hours that day to continue the interview and for him to inspect our home.
I’ll blog about the State’s visit in another entry. This one is long and I’m sweating like a prostitute in the front row of church during communion. See, it’s not like I have enough on my plate right now. Four or five weeks ago I also started training for the LA Half Marathon in December and, depending on the kid situation, the LA Marathon in March.
Oh, and I’m taking another piano class. 😉
Frank Notes 