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August 8, 2005Parenting - The Continuing SagaMiss Marie turns seventeen next month, and her first day of school as a Senior was today. There are a lot of firsts going on, and a lot of lasts. For instance, this is the last year that we will be obligated to buy a butt-load of school clothing. This "last" is causing more chagrin on the part of Marie than it is myself, I must confess. The School Clothes Blowout Extravaganza has been an eight-year-long tradition, and we celbrated its finale in fine fashion. Because I am not one of those parents who thinks that a child's need to wear "cool clothes" is a silly one. I mean, I am certainly not against shopping at Target and Mervyns and Kohl's, but if Marie needs five pairs of American Eagle Outfitter's jeans, who am I to say nay? I need at least four pair myself. At least a third of the "school shopping" bill is for clothes for myself. I'm not superhuman, after all. How am I supposed to react when Marie picks something out and I discover that I, too, "need" it, only in about a 6 instead of about a -2? Old Navy has been my own saving grace, though. And did you know that if you shop on-line with them and put so many items in your shopping basket that they say it's "full" and you have to order now or delete some shit, woman, they take a whopping 20% off of the total? And still charge $5 for shipping no matter how many boxes it takes. I found this out last week. I think it was 27 items? Something like that. But all of you who shop at Old Navy know that their stuff is Dirt Cheap, this wonderful bastard stepchild of The Gap. If more people knew that they could get the EXACT same stuff from Old Navy, The Gap would quickly be out of business, I think. A couple of firsts have been and will be happening, as well. Marie has her own parking space at school. She was laid off from her first job. She only has four classes this year and gets to leave at 11:30 each day. She'll be going to the prom (oh god, I guess we're not done with the clothes shopping quite yet). She'll be taking her SAT's, and applying for college. She'll learn All About Student Loans. She's getting her Senior pictures taken on Thursday. This is her LAST YEAR OF HIGH SCHOOL. I'm having the vapors much worse over her than over Michael. I can't quite figure out why, but I am. As is Calvin. We're all vaporey. This past summer has been interesting. Long-time readers will recall just how challenging Michael's last year of school was (refer here and here and here and here and here...). Marie, on the other hand, has been fairly easy on us. However, teenage angst and attitude have finally arrived, in the form of missed curfews and partying and untruths and deliberately withheld information (which the relatives will gasp and tsk at, so at this point I must remind them of what they were doing at 17). There were three or four groundings, multiple stern lectures, and some door slamming. Ladies and Gentlemen, I would like to announce that Marie is Normal and not some freakishly obedient and perfectly behaved daughter. We were worried there, for a while. Forgoing any pomp and circumstance, I have begun to update in traditional form once again. You all don't mind that none of the areas of my website have continuity, and they all look different, right? Well, really I just futz with the index and entry formats - all the background stuff like archives and bio pages and whatnot are all in the same format. Justification! I adore. I know I said this once before, but now I mean it. Storyteller is starting up again on September 1st. If anyone out there is interested in participating, please e-mail me! I'll be updating all the various aspects of the website over the next week or so. Excitement! Control yourselves. Comments on this entry? Head on over to The Blog!
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