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Aug. 24th, 2008 06:02 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
the_rckCordelia and I went over to the elementary school on Wednesday. I turned in the last of her paperwork and asked if anyone was free to give us a tour. One of the ladies from the office took us around. Cordelia's classroom isn't set up yet because her teacher is new to the school and has only had time to start bringing things in.
Cordelia enjoyed the tour and told me afterwards that she wishes school were starting this week instead of next week. I'm glad that she's eager for it. She looked around the classroom and said that she thought she could have fun there. I think it may have helped that she's seen what her pre-school's classrooms look like in the summer and so can imagine the changes reversed.
I found out that they had to put people in the morning only class who had asked for the all day class. The all day class is more than full. That makes me more certain that the two girls from Cordelia's pre-school are likely to be in the morning only class. Their mothers wanted half-day afternoons with half-day mornings as their second choice. (I e-mailed both mothers at the start of the summer to ask, but never heard back. I never managed to bring myself to call.)
We called my grandmother yesterday. She tripped and broke her arm a couple of weeks ago and is having to use a sling. I'm not sure when I last called her. I keep meaning to and then letting my anxiety over phone calls delay it. I finally told her yesterday that the problem exists. I hadn't realized that I'd not done so before. She was surprised and asked if I was okay getting calls. I told her that I am, and I'm hoping that she and my aunt and uncle will call. I think they thought that I just didn't care enough to call.
The phone call thing came up while I was explaining that I'd hoped to get up there this summer but that the process depended on my making rather a lot of phone calls. Anything that depends on my making a single phone call has about a 75% chance, depending on the urgency and the timing. The more phone calls are involved the lower the odds of completion become. Finding a cabin, making reservations and such would require a lot of calls to see who had what rates, where they were located, when they had openings and so on. I ended up finding a place only after it was too late to get reservations before the start of school.
I'm lucky that Grandma's still around, still sharp and-- at least theoretically-- close enough to visit. We lost Grandpa and the grandmother on the other side about nine years ago, within a few months of each other. My surviving grandfather is in the Florida Keys and has Alzheimer's. He's sufficiently far gone that I've been told not to call him. He loses track of who he's talking to after a minute or two and starts to get very upset as he tries to figure it out.
It's a three hour trip north to my grandmother's. We only manage the trip about once a year. The last couple of times we've gone, I've had medication troubles. Once it was asthma medications that made me pass out in the upstairs bathroom while everybody else was downstairs (the bruises were no fun at all). The other time, it was Lyrica giving me migraines. Grandma's a bit worried about my ability to travel. Last year, she suggested that it might be too much for me. A short stay with a rapid turn around is definitely exhausting, especially with Cordelia involved. I don't know for sure that a longer stay would be better, but I think I'd feel less pressured.
Of course, going up there, whether I stay with Grandma or get a cottage/cabin, means time with no internet. It means time on the beach or in the woods (my uncle's house is near a river and has woods nearby). I don't enjoy time outside and particularly don't like the beach, but Cordelia does enjoy it. We both enjoy seeing Grandma and all the other relatives up there. (My father's sister and her husband are in the same town as Grandma. My father's brother, his wife and granddaughter live fifteen minutes away. One of my cousins and his wife and two kids also live nearby.)
Cordelia enjoyed the tour and told me afterwards that she wishes school were starting this week instead of next week. I'm glad that she's eager for it. She looked around the classroom and said that she thought she could have fun there. I think it may have helped that she's seen what her pre-school's classrooms look like in the summer and so can imagine the changes reversed.
I found out that they had to put people in the morning only class who had asked for the all day class. The all day class is more than full. That makes me more certain that the two girls from Cordelia's pre-school are likely to be in the morning only class. Their mothers wanted half-day afternoons with half-day mornings as their second choice. (I e-mailed both mothers at the start of the summer to ask, but never heard back. I never managed to bring myself to call.)
We called my grandmother yesterday. She tripped and broke her arm a couple of weeks ago and is having to use a sling. I'm not sure when I last called her. I keep meaning to and then letting my anxiety over phone calls delay it. I finally told her yesterday that the problem exists. I hadn't realized that I'd not done so before. She was surprised and asked if I was okay getting calls. I told her that I am, and I'm hoping that she and my aunt and uncle will call. I think they thought that I just didn't care enough to call.
The phone call thing came up while I was explaining that I'd hoped to get up there this summer but that the process depended on my making rather a lot of phone calls. Anything that depends on my making a single phone call has about a 75% chance, depending on the urgency and the timing. The more phone calls are involved the lower the odds of completion become. Finding a cabin, making reservations and such would require a lot of calls to see who had what rates, where they were located, when they had openings and so on. I ended up finding a place only after it was too late to get reservations before the start of school.
I'm lucky that Grandma's still around, still sharp and-- at least theoretically-- close enough to visit. We lost Grandpa and the grandmother on the other side about nine years ago, within a few months of each other. My surviving grandfather is in the Florida Keys and has Alzheimer's. He's sufficiently far gone that I've been told not to call him. He loses track of who he's talking to after a minute or two and starts to get very upset as he tries to figure it out.
It's a three hour trip north to my grandmother's. We only manage the trip about once a year. The last couple of times we've gone, I've had medication troubles. Once it was asthma medications that made me pass out in the upstairs bathroom while everybody else was downstairs (the bruises were no fun at all). The other time, it was Lyrica giving me migraines. Grandma's a bit worried about my ability to travel. Last year, she suggested that it might be too much for me. A short stay with a rapid turn around is definitely exhausting, especially with Cordelia involved. I don't know for sure that a longer stay would be better, but I think I'd feel less pressured.
Of course, going up there, whether I stay with Grandma or get a cottage/cabin, means time with no internet. It means time on the beach or in the woods (my uncle's house is near a river and has woods nearby). I don't enjoy time outside and particularly don't like the beach, but Cordelia does enjoy it. We both enjoy seeing Grandma and all the other relatives up there. (My father's sister and her husband are in the same town as Grandma. My father's brother, his wife and granddaughter live fifteen minutes away. One of my cousins and his wife and two kids also live nearby.)
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Date: 2008-08-24 10:06 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2008-08-29 02:49 pm (UTC)My grandmother is a kind woman. I'm very lucky in my grandmothers as my other grandmother was kind, too. I miss seeing Grandma, and I'm very aware that we probably don't have too many years left. Her mother lived into her 90s, so I'm hoping Grandma will, too, but that's not even a decade. (There's part of me that wishes I'd had Cordelia much earlier so that she could know more of her great-grandparents. One out of eight seems very little when I remember four (and then realize that two of those four were step-great-grandparents)).