An I clipped from a we

Work's been great for me, except for the horrible watery-eye congested allergy. The kids are great and behaving well, reacting quickly to a few quiet words by me at transitions. I introduced centers today, and the kids burned through all the activities I assigned them. I've got a very wide achievement gap, a couple who can read with perfect and immediate fluency; a couple who can't with confidence identify the sounds of all the letters; and the rest somewhere in between. Bless those struggling little guys, they try so hard, even if they sometimes don't really know what they're doing. I've been getting some much-appreciated praise from a few of the parents, which is nice. Despite my other worries and time takers going on these days, I've been staying at work til nearly five. If all else was stable, I'd be happy doing that every day.

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The new place has electricity and water and gas now. Gas was a pain. I'm obviously unable to take any time at all away from work for the time being, and the gas company demanded that I be available to go home to watch the gas installer at any time from 8 a.m. until 5 p.m. Luckily, my very nice aunt (who can leave her work briefly) agreed to take the call, and went to let him in around 10 a.m. And then the guy left without lighting the pilot light. Which is kind of weird, I think; why wouldn't he go ahead and finsih the job as if someone was going to, oh, I don't know, live in the house? I had no idea where the damn pilot light was in the new place, and looked for it for some time. And then I called the gas company to tell me how to do it.

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My father made an exponential improvement in the first seven days or so at his rehabilitation center, but the last ten have shown a plateau. Today I took Dog in to see him, but she was distracted and a bit skittish of the new place and people and the wheelchair, and so I think he was disappointed with her perfunctory glance at him. He seemed to me rather clouded in mental acuity. I don't know what's going to happen to him. Will he need to be in a nursing home for the rest of his life? I wish I could take care of him or pay for the care he needs at home, but I can't. My brother wants him to come live up in Oregon (with the wife and three kids), but my father isn't very enthusiastic about that scenario. He and my sister-in-law don't see eye to eye very much, and the kids are a handful. And, conversely, my father is a crotchety, chronically depressed drug addict who may need help doing things like getting up and down stairs for the rest of his life. Oh Vishnu preserve us, it's all so maudlin and depressing.