Jessica, comments like your friend's have way more to do with their own anxieties about their kid's future than any verifiable facts about the actual school. I still remember Kat talking me out of my anxiety about sending Franny to school-- pretty much any school at that point--by gently reminding there are good teachers at every school, and that the biggest boost I could give my daughter in terms of her education was simply being her mother.

I would have been super steamed by the "No Offense" bit.

Yes, me too. Don't blame you for being angry one bit.

Or my favorite, "I can see where your son might need the special support of a more individualized program to do well in school."

Ooooh, nice.

comments like your friend's have way more to do with their own anxieties about their kid's future than any verifiable facts about the actual school.

I've known for a while that this guy is a judgmental snob, so it's not like I was surprised. I was surprised to hear him say it in such an assholish way while I was standing right there. I mean, I have opinions about his kids and parenting choices too, but I don't talk shit about them with other adults while he's in the room! Tact, people!

And, you know, the only appropriate response to "No offense" is "Fuck off" and you can't say that in an apartment full of 5 year-olds. So it wasn't a fair battleground.

OMG you guys, my daughter is so freaking adorable right now. She's got that cliche little-kid accent where "what are you doing" becomes "watcher doing?" Dylan never had that speech pattern and I had no idea it was a real thing outside of British children's books. "Whatcher doing Mommy? Are you pushing buttons on the COMPUTER?" "Watcher doing Mommy? Are you cooking in the KITCHEN?"

OMG you guys, my daughter is so freaking adorable right now. She's got that cliche little-kid accent where "what are you doing" becomes "watcher doing?" Dylan never had that speech pattern and I had no idea it was a real thing outside of British children's books. "Whatcher doing Mommy? Are you pushing buttons on the COMPUTER?" "Watcher doing Mommy? Are you cooking in the KITCHEN?"

That is adorable.

I have been somewhat productive today. Went to the library to return some books and get a new one, and went to the post office to send off my passport application. Now I ought to either do laundry or grade papers or both.

OMG you guys, my daughter is so freaking adorable right now. She's got that cliche little-kid accent where "what are you doing" becomes "watcher doing?" Dylan never had that speech pattern and I had no idea it was a real thing outside of British children's books. "Whatcher doing Mommy? Are you pushing buttons on the COMPUTER?" "Watcher doing Mommy? Are you cooking in the KITCHEN?"

Supercute! Matilda still retains a few of these, most notably her rather formal rejection of contractions, making her sound like a very proper and affronted Victorian at times.

"Did you make this mess?"
"I did not!"

She has a few other "puh-sketti" type phrases still in her vocabulary too.

The saddest words you can hear your 9-year old say, "O-dawg broke up with me." Apparently he did so via her best friend Elle, at lunch, and she's mostly angry not sad, and she doesn't want to talk about it.

The saddest words you can hear your 9-year old say, "O-dawg broke up with me."

I'll say this here, rather than FB, so O-Dawg's mom doesn't think I actually want to kill him in real life:

O-Dawg is dead to me. DEAD.

Timelies all!

Our AC was making odd noises and not giving us air, so there is a repair guy poking around it right now. Later we will go see an exhibit at the Strathmore about art and medicine.

So I am a little hungover because I went out for beer yesterday afternoon with my work-friend D and his new staffer L.

And I learned that apparently My Nemesis is already trying to claim she's in complete charge of my program, even though I'm not even gone yet, and even though it would be madness to give it to her, because she never actually does anything.

Which won't of course mean they won't put her in charge of it. But it kills me that I spent six years working on something that is going to be trashed by institutional ignorance and her self-important mismanagement.

What an utter, thoroughgoing piece of work she is, Suela. And how miserably frustrating. You've poured so much effort into making things functional there; I can't believe that woman is going to be allowed to shit all over it. If it all blows up and takes her with it, I hope D is around to give you updates (and maybe point out to them that they brought it all on themselves).

That is seriously adorable, Jess.

Shame on O-Dawg, both for being a coward and breaking up through a third party instead of in person, and for breaking up with Casper at all. Poor lamb.

I don't feel that it's significantly different from most crime/profiler shows, though.

Well, it is significantly prettier. I'm slightly disturbed by how much I want to live in Dr. Lecter's professional suite.

I have to agree with this [link] that installing eye-sensitive pause controls on my TV/DVR/XBox is radically ignoring the way life happens, TV gets watched, and how many people will turn it off immediately.

But they should tie the Nielsens to it. So that shows people never looked away from got higher ratings. And if you look away while heightened it's not as bad a thing as if your vitals are flat.