I know, another baby photo. Yes, that's Hannah with her dad. Gotta love the '70's. It's too funny to see him with a mustache or any facial hair. He hardly ever wore it. I never think of him with it but it makes it more obvious where my red hair comes from. This is always a hard time of the year because he passed away in late August. Please think of our both families during this rough period. It's rough, for a number of reasons I can't get into, this year.

In memory of Grandma Bonnie Maguire. She was not doing well for a few yrs already but things got especially bad about a month ago. They tried to put a pacemaker in but they couldn't keep her stable. We saw her about a week ago Thursday, on a good day. Drew spoke to her on the phone a couple of days ago. She was much loved by all who knew her. She will be missed.

Flowers may be sent to Grissom's Mortuary, 267 E. Lewelling Blvd, San Lorenzo, CA 94580. The funeral will be Thursday at 6:30 PM at St. Felicitas.

Sunset at the San Leandro marina. I forgot my camera. These are from my phone. I threw out my back/hip the other day. I had nerve pain all down my leg. I think that sitting all day at a meeting at El Cerrito High on Monday might have brought it on. I sat on a very uncomfortable chair for 7 hours with only 2 short breaks. Plus I know I sit too much at home without getting up enough. A lot of the things I like to do (yes, like being on the computer) are sitting things. Then I try to work out and that makes problems. I've had a bad hip since birth. So, we are trying to just walk and roll more. I am hoping to make trips to the marina and other near by joints regular things. I will need to unwind anyway. Starting my time at El Cerrito High has been interesting. Here's the story...

There's lots of drama at El Cerrito High. All new admin (all young, too) and nothing was left by the old VP who interviewed me back in June. She said she was setting me up with a master teacher and would pass along all the info to the new admin. Surprise! That didn't happen. She never even contacted the teacher with whom she said she was setting me up. He didn't even meet me until today when I was introduced to the whole social science dept. Also because of the new admin being out of the loop, lots of teachers were scheduled for classes they have never or don't like to teach. School starts Tues so it's too late to change much of it now. So my master teacher, Mr Perera, had to give up his AP US hist first block (which I was going to observe). Another teacher was threatening to quit if they made her do a class she never taught so he gave her his AP and took this other. Fortunately, he was very open to having me work with him despite not hearing anything about it until last week! He's very experienced with student teachers and went SF state himself in the 70's. Initially he thought I needed to start teaching first thing in the fall. That freaked me out. One of many headaches these last few weeks.

ECHS is on 95 min block schedule. Due to the mix ups Perera just found out he has to do SDAIE ("sheltered" or English learners) World Hist 1st block, which he hasn't taught ever! I actually observed that last year at San Leandro High. But hopefully, they can change things for 2nd semester because we had a good arrangement set up. I was going to observe his 1st block AP US hist and then take over 2nd block college prep 2nd semester when I need to do my solo teaching. Of course, they aren't the same but still similar. Anyway, I DO NOT have to start teaching right away in the fall. I'm glad because I've never really even subbed in HS, only elem. I helped out in a HS class last year but I never led it for more than a few minutes when they had a crazy sub. So, I'm sure I'll have lots more stories throughout the year.
In baby news, my friends James and Kelly had their little girl, Zoe, Aug 15. Congrats to the new parents! I also got the 1st photo of my friend Marisol's little Joaquin. He was born on June 23.

Happy Birthday Laurel (today)and Vera (yesterday)! Here are some highlights of today's party.

Happy Birthday, Mom! Have a great day :)

My friend Angie visited from Fresno this weekend! I worked with her at Barnes and Noble there. Here's what we did, in a nutshell.
We had dinner on Friday at Filippo's in Rockridge, Oakland. We followed that with chocolate at a place another friend of mine suggested, called Bittersweet. Then we began our bookstore tour with Diesel and Moe's. Moe's is 4 stories of books. It was my dad's favorite. Angie was in awe ;) We finished the evening with cocoa and a cranberry torte from Au Coquelet in Berkeley. Oh and Angie texted before she went to sleep...
Saturday we spent the day in SF. We got sandwiches from Zain's on 3rd and Montgomery and ate them in Yerba Buena Park across from SFMOMA. This was my habit when I worked at SFMOMA. There was some festival going on there. Never really found out what for but we were treated to some interesting karaoke! And Angie texted... I hadn't known there's a Matisse exhibit going on at SFMOMA but the line was ridiculous so we just browsed in the store. Then we went to Union Square. Angie checked out J Crew, I found a cool tea shop, called Lupicia. They gave me a huge booklet when I bought some tea. They're based in Tokyo. Angie wanted to go to the 3 story Borders at Union Square. I didn't remember it being so clean! Then we headed to Chinatown followed by the Ferry Building. The weather was beautiful! Then back to the East Bay. We had dinner at La Mediterranee in Berkeley. We got there right before the rush. We walked around College a little and we found a bookstore I didn't even know about! I guess it's been awhile since I strolled in Elmwood. It's called Mrs Dalloway's. It's very cute. As well books and stationery they have a section of plants. They have a German Shepard who followed our take out chicken kabob for Drew. He wasn't feeling good this weekend so he wasn't able to go with us :( Anyway, I was exhausted after all the walking (and parking hunt failures-we missed going to one more bookstore in Oakland because parking on Grand on a Sat is really hard!) Despite that, I think Angie had a good time. Although she wouldn't take pictures because she didn't want to look like a tourist... uh-huh ;) So Drew took one of us at our house before we went to the train station in the morning. Yes, I'm not a morning person. Thank you ;)

Since we know this year will be crazy busy for me and Drew will be working we decided to start a date night/day arrangement. Of course, we're on a tight budget so we'll have to spread things out. The plan is to do some free things (like go to a park), do nights out and take a trip every few months. Well, we wanted to have a picnic yesterday but Hannah slept really badly the night before last. We planned to do it today (Sun) but it rained! After all this heat it was freezing and rained a little. Last night we took our coffee to the marina and watched the sunset. At the San Leandro marina you can see the Oakland airport across the water. We watched the planes take off and land in the sunset. Kind of cool. Tonight we went to a waterfront restaurant on the marina instead. It's literally down the road from us but we've only been once before. We always forget about it. Also Drew gave Hannah red roses. Totally unexpected, very sweet.

In other news, we have so many friends having babies! Here's a baby collage to share all their cuteness. Left to right: Hannah's friend Margaret's little girl Maya, Drew's friend Mark's little boy, Sebastian, Laurel's baby, Vera and Hannah's friend Anita's little girl, Paloma. Everybody say-awwww...