~ ma, Barb. Lots and lots.

Sparky, how wonderful!!

I just saw you tagged in a facebook photo along with one of my old friends (initials CSH). Small world!

Hmm. Was it the big composite pic? Oh!! Found her! She's a doll, and so is her husband. I have a pair of earrings she made me.

Okay, got off work early, ran errands and showered, now to put on some Rebirth Brass Band and finish the auction stuff.

I guess, NoiseDesign, but I am not talking about testing - SF has had that for decades with Lowell High School, as an example. I'm talking about MANY parents on a usual basis now having to do really extreme things for their kids to get into kindergarden.

K's been on the waiting list since before she was born.

When she's ready for actual school, our only issue will be whether or not she gets into the Spanish immersion program (lottery based, so no camping out) or goes to the fabulous English-based program that is well loved and why people specify their house has to be on certain streets.

Hmm. Was it the big composite pic?

Yup. So you might or might not know her. Still!

I'm talking about MANY parents on a usual basis now having to do really extreme things for their kids to get into kindergarden.

There's no waiting in line in SF. You just have to negotiate the lottery system. It requires a fair amount of research to find the best school, with workable hours and a convenient commute etc.

Where I grew up in San Diego there were a handful of Kindergartens where parents put their kids onto the waiting list at conception and still had issues getting them in. They were all private and feeder schools for a group of exclusive prep schools

X-post, see above. I do know her but haven't seen her in the last couple of years.

I guess I am just super thankful that none of that existed for me when I was growing up, because I would have ended up wandering the streets during school hours. (I mean, even more than usual). No way in hell was any adult who was in my life back then going to do any more than sign a paper to get me into school.

Thanks for the ~ma, guys. On the upside, FiL is alert and communicative, so that's good, but at the same time, we are dealing with something that's extremely serious and definitely worse than we might have expected given how quickly things have unfolded. It's bad enough that my MiL called a couple hours ago and said that Lewis or I or both of us or all four of us needed to get to Jax, like now. We decided that it would be easiest for Lewis to go right away and the rest of us play it by ear, rather than spend today scrambling to get all four of us on a flight and arrange for the dogs to board and everything.

So I've got Lewis on a red-eye tonight and I'm playing wait-and-see on the rest of it.

Oh Barb, I hope everything turns out okay. So scary.