Next set of Mountains to Cross

After more than 6 months of tutoring and general nail biting, the day of THE TEST finally arrived. Our entry ticket for Saturday's SHSAT test which is mandatory if you have any thoughts of going to one of New York's 8 very very selective high schools including Stuyvestant and Bronx Science, was for 12 noon. So Kate and approximately 10 to 15,000 other teens with their parents dutifully made our way to Chambers Street causing a major traffic jam which required extra cops to direct traffic both ambulatory and vehicular. We took the test. I say we advisedly because by that time I felt as if I had taken it too. Only I was able to go reeling off into the sunny afternoon to Oldeon which is one of my favorite restaurants to order wine and have lunch. I had company which made it all wonderful and just about the appointed hour of 4 went back to Stuyvesant to pick Kate up.

You have to know that there was an 8 o'clock test on Saturday and an 8 o'clock test on Sunday....

OK next life hurdle.

Oh, the results? We don't get those until February.

Morning sighting

Miss Murray and I saw fully dressed man who seemed office bound with his briefcase clutched firmly in his hand doing walking lunges down 37th street at 6:00 am. After 4or 5 steps he would turn around to see if anybody had seen him.

I saw you dude!

Days of Our Lives

It is my very real consideration that our lives these days reflect the kind of story arcs that you might see on Days of our Lives. Job arc: Arnie is safely and very happily, I might add, settled into a great 2-bedroom apartment with a working fireplace in Brentwood, TN. Living conditions are always better outside of the city which at its worst is like living in Deckensian London. But my comment is that after you enjoy the big rooms, sunlight and mod cons, you are still there not here. Ok, so I'm hopelessly parochial.

School arc: Kate is counting down the days to her test for the specialized high schools. let me say here again that finding a decent high school, public high school that is, in New York can be daunting to say the least. So we are just pawns moving through the mass of good citizens looking for the brass ring. Saturday is the day she takes the test for admission to one of the 8 specialized high schools. You can be a double slacker, ne'er do well, never even go to school and be chronically late but if you score in the high numbers, these schools will take you. forget charm, character, good will. Nothing counts but the numbers. I must add that Kate is really paying attention now and went to Brooklyn Tech last night which is now #1 on her list.

Health arc: I have graduated from wearing the awful orthopedic boot to real shoes. and one of my first outings was to buy shoes...OMG What fun. and then of course after I had this euphoric time with David, the very smoothest salesman from Harry's Shoes on Broadway, I realized that I need sneakers not exquisite slides...so then I had to go buy big white clunky sneakers. But oh so comfortable. I am a style statement about what not to wear.

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Transistions

I want to change the name of this blog to something more dramatic but I'm having some trouble with just the right label...It could be Road Trips...Actually I came up with something sensational this morning on the subway but since I didn't write it down....nothing happened.

But in any case we are in the middle of a celebratory transistion which means that Arnie got a job!!!!!very exciting and he will be working out of Brentwood, TN which according to me is really Nashville. And everybody I've talked with has positive things to say about Nashville. Kate and I will go out in early November and see what's what and whose who. More later after our fact finding mission.

And from that one event which happened on Thursday at 10:00 am in the morning, everything has changed. Our vistas have opened up, vacations are no longer forbidden topics and there may be some very cofortable and uncomfortable moments. Nothing is static any longer. One immediate postive benefit for Kate is that she and her Dad went out yesterday to buy a new computer....Then an immediate and positive consequence for us was that Kate cooked a terrific dinner of spare ribs because she wants to earn raise money so that she can buy some electronic gadget or another. Not only did she cook but she cleaned up too.

Cheers.

Name change

I'm changing mine to Sartorius Johnson. Isn't that great?

School Days - Golden Rule Days

I love September because it marks the beginning of the year with new clothes for school, untouched notebooks and new text books. But that's just stage 1. This year there is a Stage 2 which is the long twisty road to finding a high school for Kate. We could continue to send her to her excellent school but we also have to send her to college and since I don't think she will thrive at Bob's college in Podunk, USA, we are making some mid course corrections. So here we are as minor but intense players in an annual New York ritual called find the right high school and figure out how to get your child in and forget the other 200,000 kids who want the same 125 places. It totally reminds me of Suzanne Collins' book The Hunger Games.

Got the picture? It's pure Marat Sade plus crowd control. Education is hardly even on the table. It's numbers, metrics, open houses, screening tests and being in District 2! Luckily I have a number of friends who are veterans of these education games and we've had great support and tips all around. We got Kate some tutoring, signed her up for the Critical Test which is part of an endurance spectacle. We will list our favorite schools based on a wish and a prayer and then hope like crazy. We've been to many of the fabled NYC schools and I discovered that Brooklyn Tech which I had no thoughts about is really a good school. Who knew. And my favorite even though I haven't seen it yet is Brooklyn Latin.

Yesterday we visited Baruch High School -- affiliated but not part of Baruch College -- which occupies a brand spanking new building in our neighborhood and then in the evening we went to Bard -- affiliated but not really part of Bard College -- which sits inconviently in the middle of no where. None of these schools have elevators and most people climb up and down the stairs which has become soemthing of a problem for me with my post operation big shoe. By the time I got home last night I was exhausted.

Today it's all about Eleanor Roosvelt which is also district 2.

Lets see if they have elevators...

Clothes Make the Man or Woman

Monsoon rain all night. Monsoon rain all this morming. And the TV weather reporters were whipping up hysteria for what seems to be our last days on earth before we all succumb to this rain which is chasing up Interstate 95. It's all a bit much. The Doppler 4000 that ate everybody's common sense but in reality I was drenched in 10 minutes from walking the dog across the street so I carefully chose a practical costume to take me on my morning path from from the house to Kate's school and then to work. I donned my current favorite outfit of Cargo pants because they dry quickly and stuffed a pair of black tailored pants in my bag so that I could transform myself into a grown up at work. Only I didn't get my pants wet, and then I felt no pressing need to transform myself. So I wore cargo pants all day in the office.

As my farewell gesture on my last day as the director of public relations at a local but well known college, I wore what I thought at the time was a very daring outfit of black slacks and a purple blouse. It was my last day and so what were they going to say to me when i showed my rebellious side. Of course everybody commented on my apparel. Thirty years ago Women just didn't wear pants that much and purple was an unusual and bold color.

Now I wear pants almost all the time and since purple is good enough for Barney, it must be good for me too.

Shazam