We were told to expect to be freezing cold and wet so we bundled up in long underwear, t-shirts, sweatshirts, boats, mittens, scarves, blah blah blah. When we were ashore in Juneau the day did eventually turn out to be pretty wet but we were very lucky in the timing of the showers. We got rained on while shopping but it was not a big deal ( Read more... )

The biggest feature of this cruise for me was the glaciers. At the entrance to Glacier Bay the ship brings aboard park rangers who do a lecture on the glaciers and the history of the area. They also bring aboard a Tlingit woman who does a lecture on native culture in Glacier Bay ( Read more... )

Cruise Day came at he ungodly hour of 5:30am when my rabbits, bad little bunnies, woke me up by crashing around in their cages like they were trying to make a break for it. After that I couldn't get back to sleep at all so I just sucked it up and got ready to go. Another mom from Orca gave us a ride to the cruise terminal at exactly 9am and we ( Read more... )

I've been on a blogging hiatus. Too much going on, most of it I can't blog about because it's grindingly mundane or just too damn personal to be spreading all over the internet, especially in light of the sorts of people who have been looking me up in recent weeks ( Read more... )

The Seattle School District is the largest public school system in Washington. It contains 97 schools and serves about 45,000 students. Unfortunately, every year the Parent-Teacher-Student Associations have to raise money on their own to keep programs, retain teachers and support staff, and safe-guard things once believed to be inextricably linked ( Read more... )

Last April I described how I learned about Kate's activism in her school, petitioning the school district about the school lunches and basically being a ringleader for a nutrition revoltYesterday there was a nutrition committee open meeting during the school day that she attended. We had company last night for dinner and gaming so I didn't have a ( Read more... )

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Tonight was the performance of Kung Fu Jackson by Orca school's resident playwright and Star Wars-loving teacher Donte Felder. Donte is currently teaching 5th graders (as is my daughter's main classroom teacher, the outstanding Katherine Law) and both he and Katherine will be moving up along with the fifth grade students when Orca adds its sixth ( Read more... )

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Last night was MCOW (Many Cultures, One World) night at Kate's school. Kate's classroom was Brazil and the kids made "Carnival" masks, had a Capoeira demonstration and a table full of Brazilian food. One over-achieving family had feijoada brought in from a restaurant. There was, as always with these events, rice everywhere. Every culture has rice, ( Read more... )