Yeah, growing up in the house your father lived in as a kid doesn't give you a lot of variant to track events by.

I have sense-memories rather than event-memories. I have a clear memory of seeing my left shoulder and arm, wearing a particular dress, the exact color of my hair falling over my shoulder. It's warm and I'm in sunlight, and I'm in our back yard. No event, no sound.

I know it's a real memory because I have a b/w photograph of me wearing that dress. On my tricycle, in our front yard.

I was dreadfully (and undiagnosed) nearsighted as a child, so a lot of my memories fade out a yard or two beyond my physical self.

Yeah, growing up in the house your father lived in as a kid doesn't give you a lot of variant to track events by.

Yeah, me too. 'Cept we tore down our 110 year old farm house and built a new one in its place in 1980.

My dad (who's in his late 70s) moved for the first time in his life when my parents moved to an apartment after selling the farm. I can't imagine what that would be like.

Updated XKCD map of the internet. There's a remarkable amount of it that I'm not familiar with, thank god.

Oh, look! I found LJ. And ff.net.

Where is LJ? I was looking for it before.

It's an island in the Sea of Drama, of course! (Better yet, Dreamwidth is there as a teeny-tiny island near LJ).

LJ is just above the Bay of Drama, west of the Photo Blogs, west of the Sea of Opinions. (eta: I love how close ff.net is to LJ) (one day AO3 will be grown up and get a spot)

People still use Windows Live Messenger?

Flat locked for 70 years contains €2.1 million painting

A woman left her Paris apartment before World War II and never returned. After her recent death, appraisers opened the doors of the flat for the first time in more than 70 years. Among many other antiques, they found a 19th century portrait of her grandmother painted by Giovanni Boldini, valued at €2.1 million.

Now that's some procrastination, not dealing with your Paris apartment for 70 years!

So Matilda's first day of school at Grattan was a success.

She was cheerful walking over. And when we turned up Cole Street towards her school, she noted, "This is the way to my new school."

And when I said, "Yes, this is the way to Grattan."

She said, "That's the school I always wanted to go to!"

And as we approached the school she started singing, "Grattan is so fun! Grattan is so fun!"

(Mind, she hadn't spent any time there except in the office while I filled out forms.)

More forms and then we went to the classroom. Teacher Helen was in a meeting, so we met Teacher Helper Lisa. And then I got to meet some kids.

Amara was almost exactly Matilda's age, and she'd been there last year so she knew all the rules and what went where. McKenzie was 3 and a half, but she was the tallest kid in the class. Very agreeable. Quan and Fulton were recent additions and still exploring stuff.

Then we met Teacher Helen, who was youngish (late twenties), and blonde. She'd worked the previous year as a curriculum specialist at another school and then got this job teaching pre-K right as the school year began. So she was new to the school.

And though she was young, she had no problem commanding the class's attention and getting them focused.

Kids arrived at different times, and all were there by 10am. I learned all their names, and it was a true cross section of San Francisco ethnicities:

Amara, Maya, Keilah, Phoebe, Olivia, Quan, Fulton, Luca, Kevin, Linda, McKenzie, Asa, Calvin, Omar, Louise, Jazlyne. And Matilda.

I stayed all day and played with them and helped Matilda get in the groove. Several kids gravitated towards me during the day so I played a lot with Olivia, Phoebe, Quan, Linda and Keilah and Asa. Though I did get some quality time with all of them just to suss out their personalities.

We stayed through school lunch where Matilda ate all her spaghetti, and I had vegetable medley for the first time since I was in 6th grade. Then we left as they were settling down for nap time.

Tomorrow, Matilda goes it alone, though only for half a day. Friday is her first full day with naptime and afternoon.

So far so good.