Up and down

A little while ago I took a drive across town. My former boss is sick and at home, so I offered to take her calendar and laptop to her. It was a great opportunity for me to get out and feel some sunshine.

It's 75 degrees! Real Indian Summer. I even dragged her trash can and recycle bin up her (steep) driveway because it felt so good to be outside.

When I'm in my office, I can't tell if it's night or day, rainy or sunny; it's just flourescent lights, two copy machines, a fan, and an Ionic Breeze with Germicidal Protection. (No. I don't think it keeps the germs from making their way to me, but somehow it feels right.)

It was so great to get outside for a while; I felt like I was playing hookey. I called my daughter and chatted with her on my way across town, and that was nice, too.

Down--gas prices. Mostly $1.99, but I saw one station that was selling unleaded for $1.95. Isn't it sad that it's so exciting when gas falls under $2??? I guess that staycations are responsible for a lot of the price drop.

Whatever. It's all good.

P. S. I have to brag. A is in the 3rd grade, is reading at a 4.6 grade level, and is making all A's. She's in the top 3rd grade class (of either 6 or 8 classes of 3rd graders) and at the top of her class. This is after all the trouble at her old school, where she tested well but J was told that A was in the "lowest 4" readers in her class. From kindergarten through 2nd grade, she was consistently in the lowest classes until January when suddenly her grades shot up; the teachers cited "maturity". Uh uh. I'm convinced that it was that school's way of dealing with Florida's rating system. It was an A+ school, and they needed to have kids improving drastically each year to keep their rating.

Her new school was a D, then a C, and now it's a B. They try harder. When they saw A's transcript from her former school, they told J that A would be in the top class. A told me last week that her school has SmartBoards and she loves them; she said that it's so much easier to learn things with cool SmartBoards. She said, "My old school spent so much money on making the school building look good. My new school spends money to help make the kids smarter."

Pretty good assessment for an 8-year-old.