Tell It To COACHIE

Julia Child.

Our child.

She looked a little more put together before lunch, but all in all, I think it’s a pretty good match.

1 - Number of stores within 30 minutes at which I am willing to buy items for a Julia Child costume

2 - Number of items needed for costume - one plain blue collared shirt, one plain straight navy blue or black skirt

0 - Number of plain blue collared shirts available in the girls’ section of the PX

0 - Number of plain blue collared shirts available in the boys’ section of the PX

1 - Number of blue collared shirts purchased that approximate what Julia Child might have worn had she been an 10-year-old skate rat boy

1 - Number of Marty’s fingerprints that appear to be on the camera lens

5 - Number of searches on the internet attempting to determine what “Destricto or enablis” is supposed to mean

0 - Number of answers found from internet searches

3 - Number of blue markers needed to finish the “L’ecole des Trois Gourmandes” patch

10 - Number of minutes spent deciding how to attach said patch. Since Marty may be a 10-year-old skate rat boy himself one day, I decided rather than glue it or trot out the sewing machine, I would just loosely stitch it so it could be easily removed.

2 - Number of times I sewed the shirt to itself

1 - Number of times I sewed the shirt to my pants

14 - Number of times I quietly cursed Aislinn’s teacher while repeatedly stitching, pulling out stitches, and restitching

1 - Number of pictures I took of the finished shirt, after I saw the fingerprint and cleaned off the lens

1 - Number of pictures taken with the clean lens that did not seem any less fingerprinted

1 - Number of pictures of bags of onions that I took to see if it was the camera or the shirt causing the crazy lines (note to Erin, we will be bringing back those books on CD)

1 - Number of pictures I took of the finished shirt from above to see if it was the camera or shirt causing the crazy lines

0 - Percent interest I have in continuing to sort out the source of the crazy lines

Moving on:

0 - Number of skirts of any kind available in the girls’ section

0 - Number of black or navy straight skirts available in the juniors’ section for less than $26

8 - Number of rounds of the girls/juniors section I made looking for anything that might work

1 - Number of nonsleazy skirts I finally found on the sale rack that might fit a 9-year-old twig

50 - Percent off both items I finally bought for the costume

19 - Total number of dollars spent on the Julia Child costume

24 - Ounces of wine it may take me to put the Julia Child costume saga behind me

The schools are crappy. I choose the word “crappy” because I do not cuss anymore. But if I did, I can think of several other adjectives/verbs/adverbs/nouns that would fit quite nicely into that sentence.

This evening, after guitar lessons, Aislinn had some math homework to finish that dealt with “translation, rotation, and reflection” of shapes. Fine, she’s pretty much got that figured out, so when she starts organic chemistry in college and they start talking about stereoisomers, she’ll be all set. At the bottom of the page were a bunch of “review” questions - regular math, like adding and subtracting 4 digit numbers and money. Awesome, she’s got that down too, so when she gets a job at Station 7, she’ll be able to make change. But there were two multiplication questions that required her to multiply a 3 digit number by a 2 digit number. Apparently, they’ve gone over this once at school, and then had to move on to “shape transformations.” She had no idea how to do it.

I’m sure there’s any easy way to explain why you put a zero down before you start multiplying by the second digit. That is, I’m sure there’s an easy way to explain it during a comprehensive class on multiplying large numbers. I was unable, however, to come up with an easy way to explain it on the fly at 7:40 pm when we’re both ready for bed and desperate for the homework to be over. You know why I couldn’t explain it? Because that is the type of thing you don’t explain - someone tells you that’s how it’s done, and then you practice it and practice it until it becomes second nature, and then you don’t think about “why” you do it again, until 7:40 pm some evening 30 years later when your poor untaught daughter is desperately trying to get her homework done.

Aislinn is, and has always been, a little math wizard. She picks it up easily, and even though I really didn’t give her a very thorough lesson on how to multiply large numbers, I’m sure if we spent another 5 minutes on it tomorrow, she’d probably understand at least how to do it, if not why. But then, I have to wonder, what the bleep is going on in math class if I have to teach multiplication at home?

I confess that I’m on a hair trigger about Aislinn’s teacher due to an incident last week which I can’t believe I haven’t whined to you about yet. And really, I’m too tired to do it justice tonight, so it will have to wait until tomorrow. I will say, in conclusion however, that I have done multiplication this week. I have not had occasion to worry about how to draw the next iteration of a tumbling shape.

And so I ask you, while I know abstract thinking is important blah blah blah, can’t we nail down the basics first?

If you were a red panda, wouldn’t you want to live here?

Look how cute the landlord is:

But Marty informs me that I must come to his school in the morning, or he will never be allowed to read the alphabet book that he made.  Never. Ever.  I cannot be responsible for such injustice, so now I am off to bed.

Maybe I’ll have a big finish for you tomorrow.

I wouldn’t hold your breath.