Takin' Care o' Business

I was up before the sun this morning so I had time for a cup of coffee before we headed down to Seattle for the day. I had an appointment with our accountant to turn over all the numbers so he can file our tax return for 2008. Now I just wait until he waves his magic wand and tells me the outcome. I used to be able to file our taxes, but they just get more and more complicated every year and I finally gave up. I hate that I’m not smart enough to do them anymore, or perhaps, not motivated enough to try and make sense out of all the rules. Either way, I don’t like it. Thank God I’m done with it for now anyway.

Kory needed to come along today because his front tooth came loose again and the dentist that made that tooth is in Seattle. He rearranged some other appointments to fit Kory in once I explained he can’t drive himself down there and today was the only day that worked for me. I so appreciate good customer service. He didn’t even charge to refit the tooth. I hate the thought of living with a toothless Hillbilly, even though all my father’s family were from the Ozarks in southern Missouri. Just cuz I’m half Hillbilly doesn’t mean I want to be married to one.

For the first time since we’ve been back in Seattle, we stopped by our apartment building on Greenwood Ave. (see photo). We had friends managing it for us while we were gone and it seems they did a better job than we did at maintaining things. The place looks incredible. We also have an on-site manager and the one we had when we left town moved to Texas so we asked another tenant if she’d be our new caretaker and thankfully she agreed. We discovered today she has an obsessive compulsive cleaning disorder because all she does each and every day is sweep and vacuum and dust and pick up things and trim bushes and make that property sparkle. Both Kory and I were in awe of the condition of everything when we got there. We’ve never kept it so nice. What a HUGE blessing that is to have her in charge. All we expect is the hallways and stairs to be vacuumed once a week, and litter picked up outside, but we got way more than that. Hallelujah!

Kory and I went to Home Depot to buy a few hot water tanks while we were there. Some retired plumber neighbor guy Kory knows will replace them for us, so that takes a load off Kory and saved us a little money. Kory’s now got his own to-do list to tackle once he gets back on his feet, but he thinks of it all as his hobby. Fixing things is what he loves to do so I guess owning an 11-unit apartment building is just the ticket. I still think we should sell it, especially since we have plenty “to do” at our house. (We’ve lived here ten years now and there are still things not done that should have been done before we moved in.) Kory believes in the ancient Chinese proverb that says, “House done when man die.”

Kaleb came along for the ride today, armed with a pile of books. He didn’t make a peep all day. I took him shopping while Kory was at the dentist, but he didn’t find anything he wanted to buy, surprisingly enough (probably because he was going to spend his own money.) It was also weird to see that he’s moved beyond toys now and passed up all the toy aisles to head straight for electronics. (I do hope this means we can now purge a few toys in the basement.) We also stopped off at the library and got more books. It’s not uncommon to check out a hundred books a week for this kid. He can read about 700 words a minute (maybe more). He read one of the Harry Potter books that had over 700 pages, in just a day. He said that’s what he liked least about living in Norway – not having access to so many books.

On the way home we stopped by our beloved Grammy J’s to have dinner with her. (She used to be my Bible study teacher many years ago and she adopted us as her family and has taken on the role of Grandmother to Kaleb.) She just got out of rehab with a broken leg so we brought Chinese food over and waited out rush traffic. It was good to see her again but she’s not her perky self, so that was hard to take. I don’t do well seeing people I love in pain. I’ve had my share of it for a while. But God is faithful and He promises in the Bible, He will work ALL things together for the good. Sometimes it just takes a while to recognize the good.

"I'm likin' this life," says Kaleb.

Kaleb was thrilled this morning that his fever broke and he was feeling well enough to go to school. He felt it was bad enough being sick, but it made it all the worse that he had to stay home from school because of it. Kory was off to work for the day and I was off to school. During break today in my class, Mai, from Thailand, again offered me a taste of her snack. “I make. You try,” she said. I asked what it was. “Ga-lic bacon. I make. Little salty. Bacon salty. You like.” I tried a piece and it was packed with flavor but I can attest to the fact it had the opposite effect of a breath mint.

Tuesdays are a long day for Kaleb. He goes to the afterschool program til 4:00 then has to hurry home and change into soccer gear for practice by 4:30. Tonight he had to come home to an empty house as he doesn’t finish until 6:00 and Kory and I had to attend a parent’s meeting at his school from 6:00 til 8:00. I was a bit distressed about leaving him alone to get his own dinner and take a bath, but we had limited options. Our dear Turid, who we count on to save us time and time again from such quandaries, is in Rome this week on an art tour (she’s an artist and is going to art school). Kaleb asked me to write down “the rules” for him being home alone. I left a piece of paper on the table that said, “Make your own rules,” and we came home to the scene in the picture today – him floating in an overfull tub, munching on an apple and reading George Orwell’s Animal Farm. Too funny.

The parent’s meeting was quite interesting, although they talked so fast neither Kory nor I understood much of what was said. It was a meeting held for all the parents of kids in the 4th grade. There are 90 kids that age at his school so they have broken them into four classes. They listed all the teachers and assistants for 4th grade and I counted 16 employees on the list. Each group has a main teacher but then they have specialized teachers in gym and swimming, Norsk, English, handwork (sewing and knitting), art, and religion. They mentioned that they were under some special mandate from some entity in Europe that they could NOT just teach Christianity in the schools anymore – that they had to teach other religions and cultures and world views, but they were still allowed to follow Christian traditions and celebrate Christmas and Easter and other Christian holidays. They went over the kids schedules and how the days are structured. They said when the bell rings, the children come in from outside and take off their outside clothes (jackets and boots, etc.) and they line up and wait for the teacher to come get them and escort them to their area. Instrumental music is playing as she greets each one every morning and they shake hands with her and give her a greeting as well. They break off into different groups throughout the day for different subjects and they are each assigned a partner to work with for some weeks so that by the end of the school year all the kids have worked one-on-one with all the kids in their class. They also have groups of five that work together on different projects. (I noticed half of Kaleb’s math book pages were not written in and he said, “Because we did the work in the other kid’s book.” You are not an island in this country – it’s all about working together to solve problems.) Kaleb’s teacher said he is an absolute delight to have in class and is a very quick learner. The other parents were thrilled he was there too so their kids can practice their English – so all in all so far – he’s a hit. Yahoo.

The funniest thing about the meeting was that all the parents had to put on these little “footies” like surgeons wear over their shoes in an operating room. Norwegians care deeply about the condition of their floors. (All the kids have to bring indoor shoes to school that have never been worn outside and they change into them when they come in from outdoors. And all their gym shoes have to have white soles so they don’t leave black marks on the floor.) They have baskets of these footie things at every door at the school and even if you stop by to pick up your kid, you put the footies on when you come into the building (unless you want to leave your shoes at the door like they do in all the houses.) So it was hard not to just giggle the whole time at the sight of everyone wearing these blue colored bags over their feet, walking from room to room and listening to this very important information about the future of our children.