Why I don't go to reunions anymore

My high school Class of 1977 just had its 30th reunion, without me. But through the magic of the Internet, I'm able to check out photos of the event on our class' Yahoo group site, and ... and ... well.

On looking at the photos, my first thought was, "What were so many of my parents' friends doing at our reunion?"

There's nothing to make you feel so old as seeing how old people your age look, is there? Dear me.

What team?

How overrun are we in High School Musical 2 mania at my house right now? Here's how much: This weekend, I got an e-mail with a subject line that read "Calling all Wildcats!" and I immediately assumed it was some Disney hype related to the movie. Opened it up and ... um, oh yeah, my son's special-needs Little League team is called the Wildcats. Hmmm.

Don't look a gift diploma in the mouth

The blog Spanglish Gringo linked to an interesting article in the Wall Street Journal about parents who are mad that school districts have given their mainstreamed special education students a diploma, when the parents believe that they have not actually received an education. And you know, I've often wondered how exactly my daughter is passing her classes, when test scores show her to be horribly behind in pretty much any useful skill, and she has to take exams multiple times.

But unlike these parents, I know my girl's trying hard, and if she manages to earn a diploma, I will kiss that document and frame it and never let anybody wrest it out of our hands. My fear is that because of some administrative curse, probably brought along by parents like the one in the article, she will not be able to get a regular diploma.

I can't help feeling that these parents are expecting and demanding something that cannot be done under the current educational system. But maybe I'm just easy.

Funky Winkerbean finally gets to the birthmother reunion

I've written before about the comic strip "Funky Winkerbean" taking on a storyline of an adopted child searching for his birthmother, and after a number of false starts over the years, the reunion finally came this week. If you don't get the strip in your paper (or never check the funnies), you can see them on the Seattle Post-Intelligencer site. The background of Lisa's pregnancy is available in an archive on the Funky Winkerbean site.

I'm glad this finally got resolved, and that the arc included young Wally talking to his adoptive parents about his search (albeit after the fact) and reassuring them of their place in his life. I'll be reading along hoping for more. If this storyline has been meaningful to you, or may be meaningful one day for your kids, check bookstores in October -- strip creator Tom Batiuk mentions in his blog that a book compiling all Lisa's storylines is due then.

Medical crisis du jour

My daughter had a colossal nosebleed today. A real gusher. It continued long enough to make me call her pediatrician's office, and a nurse told me to wait five or 10 minutes more and then take her to an urgent care center. By 10 minutes it was slowing down, and it finally stopped, with the help of an icepack to the nose.

Then, five hours or so later, just before bedtime, it started again. More gushing. So this time we did hop in the car and head to the Immedicenter, where a doctor cauterized a scraped-up area on her septum. No more nose-picking for you, young lady! If my admonishments to that effect couldn't stop her, perhaps that burning stick up her nose will.