Self Pity

Life, is about to change. It's called Summer Vacation. Connor's last day is tomorrow. Scott's Friday.

Sorrow. For someone who is horribly selfish(cherishes) her time to herself, this is like facing famine. Miles to go before I sleep...

And the schools are trying to whittle the ends off of even these last few days.

Connor's teacher had some sort of 'award' ceremony on Friday. Hoping to be excused I asked Connor if he wanted me to attend. "Yeah, sure" he said off-handedly. Then, "Sure", as an afterthought.

The day was foreshortened anyway since Scott only has half days on Fridays, and there was going to be a potluck afterward and I had to make a dish. So that made it easier to surrender some time to go over to Connor's school for the 'award' only to find that I was a half hour early (Damn! Now I know it said 10:00 on the homework assignment.). I trudged back to the car. At least I'd thought to bring the i-pod and I was listening to an interesting interview with George Lakoff, author of "The Political Mind" (and an extremely long sub-title. The subtitles seem to keep getting longer and longer and longer). Caught in that odd crack between; by the time I'd drive home it would be time to turn around and head back.

I was one of 2 parents who attended that. Good mom.

So then Trillium school is having a 'moving up' ceremony today, Monday. It's at a beastly inconvenient time, 10:30 to 11:45--meaning an hour and a half to hang around if I stay in the area, or drive home for an hour before driving back. It's also a publishing party, held at a local women's bookstore. I'd figured it wasn't essential for me to go since 'moving up' implied to me that the 2nd graders who were 'graduating' to another room were the focus. Still, I couldn't dismiss it entirely, that nagging voice of conscience. So I called one of the parents, hoping for absolution.

Trillium school seems to attract a certain type. Free spirited kids, free-spirited parents. A prevalence of piercings, tattoos that you don't usually see around a school. The person I chose to absolve me of my responsibility is Felix's dad.

I've paused, for quite a little while, wasting precious battery time, because I've just realized that it appears I'm about to admit that because Felix's dad is heavily tattooed that he would have been the one to help me feel ok about skipping the 'ceremony'. Is that really what it is? I don't feel ok about that.

I called him, trying to gauge the temperature of this thing. Is this something that's kind of a big deal, part of the culture of the classroom that gives it more weight than what's apparent? He answered, "Well, no, it's not really mandatory so much...but I know that Felix would really dig it if I was there. I was going to go to Seattle, but then this thing kind of got sprung on me on Friday and I realized there weren't any trains that would get me back on time...so I had to change my plans. Especially since I don't have Felix on Mondays..."

Awwwww, well the bar is definitely a lot lower now for me to crawl under to skip this. I'd be scraping my belly through the mud. Felix's dad is definitely a far better dad than I am a mom. Hopefully he will keep my guilty secret.

So here I am in a wifi place, with a soggy scone and lousy coffee and no electrical outlets for my dwindling battery, in fact it just went into red. And I have an hour to go.

Waaaaaaaah.