Graduation!

Thrilled, n'est pas?

Cutie Pie graduated Kindergarten yesterday! I have no more babies. Sniffle. But it's not about me; it's all about him. He ROCKED his first year in full-on school, and I couldn't be more proud. If only first grade knew what was coming for them in September...



I will say that the ceremony was even more psychotic than usual, with the parents acting more horribly than the children. Crawling over one another, standing en masse in other parents' way so that they could get a shot of their child - I was fuming, and not very silently. When I saw one of Cutie's friends, shifting uncomfortably in his seat and I realized it was because the poor kid couldn't actually sit back in his chair because a parent was balancing her elbow there in order to hold her videocamera steady, I blew my stack. Luckily, being a member of the PA Board, my friend noticed me and brought me up to the front row, but that doesn't change anything. Rude is rude, and this was mortifying. Do we have to act like this in front of our kids, folks?



I turned in my second paper today, and got another 10/10. I cheered out loud, and then started looking up when the next paper is due. This class is great, but it is truly a trial by fire. It looks like I've got two weeks to work on this next one, but I'll make sure to devote some time to it every night. I've managed to stay pretty current with the readings and the writings, and I need to stay on track.



Knitting - still working on the Cirque sock; I go to it as stress relief between papers.



Reading - Finished Friends Like These - hilarious and perfect, as I mentioned before, for the Facebook generation. I am tempted to go get more of Danny Wallace's books, he's so accessible as a writer. In the meantime, I'm reading lots of great articles on the history of the library and the image of women in the library, for my paper.



I also finished another good book for the clubs; this one's Hungry by Crystal Renn and Marjorie Ingall. Crystal Renn is a model who started out "straight size" (amusingly enough, that's what they call 'regular' models); she suffered from anorexia for several years in her teens before finally deciding to go the plus-model route and found huge success in doing so. The fact that size 12 is a plus size, especially on a 5'9" woman is just unbelievable, as is the assertion now that size EIGHT women are modeling plus size. An eight?! I'm 5'3" and aspire to getting back into my size 8s. Clearly, the fashion industry is more delusional with each day. Anyway; Renn has revolutionized plus-size in that she does high fashion modeling in addition to the Lane Bryant, mainstream stuff. I even went so far as to Google Image Search her, and she really does have some beautiful stuff in her portfolio. She's even walked the runway for Jean-Paul Gaultier - maybe people are starting to finally wake up in fashion? Doubt it.



Okay, next book. I'm still reading Warriors by Erin Hunter, and Heartbreaker's waiting patiently to discuss it. He's reading book two in the series and just finished a Cornelia Funke book - Ghosthunters and the Gruesome, Invincible Lightning Ghost, which he really enjoyed. He's also working his way through the first book of Secrets of Dripping Fang; it appears he's inherited his parents' choice of fiction.

I'm also sneaking in chapters of another Jennifer Lancaster book, this time, Bitter is the New Black. I'd read Such a Pretty Fat by her last year, and am still laughing. I was kind of surprised by some of the hating going on when I read through her reviews on Amazon, even Publishers Weekly. Yes, she's self-centered; yes, she's brash and a bit shallow - but it's part of the character she's portraying. It's funny, people! Lighten up and laugh, we don't need to be the Greek chorus for everyone. Sometimes it's just funny.