Light at the end . . .

Stephanie - who, even though kids keep coming to her school for two more weeks - has kids in her English as a New Language pull-out classes for only a couple of more days - as they begin to spend times on field trips and in parties in their main classrooms - started cleaning up her room. She is slated to be teaching summer school there - in the same classroom - in mid-June. But she can see the light at end of the tunnel for the regular school year. A couple of times lately we've had hummus and fresh vegetables and hummus and bagel chips - at the Brown PTSA picnic and at home. The usually mediocre, very lower-middle-class "American" lunchroom at Stephanie's school typically doesn't serve international food, but there they were today at lunch trying to market grapes and hummus (which almost no one had heard of) to the kids. Stephanie asked them if they had pita bread. When they said NO, she - remembering our recent hummus meals - asked if they had sliced carrots. When they said Yes, she went for this. And the next batch of students coming through all had hummus and carrots. She doesn't know whether the kids actually tried and ate the hummus, but she felt good having made the suggestion and laughed at how it all connected with some of our recent meals. Stephanie talked with her Mother seriously for the first time this week, and learned that preliminary interpretation of a biopsy of suspicious tissue of Stephanie's stepfather, Bob - who beat cancer 20 years ago - was that there is no cancer recurrence, which we and Bob and Nancy were relieved to learn. Additional analysis is forthcoming. Also, Stephanie's mother was originally slated to undergo chemotherapy every two weeks, but it turns out that she will do so every week. So, apparently, Nancy started another bout of that on Wednesday. Stephanie was excited to share family memories with readers from her family, including her mother (see the "Powell, Ohio, and a bell" entry), and Nancy printed off the entry (with the picture) for others. (I also talked with my father today about his health - linked somewhat with talking about Nancy's health. He apparently has pills he takes if he thinks his high blood pressure if about to lead to a stroke or heart attack. He speculated about his longevity partly because of an investment issue that faces him.) I was originally slated to turn over final results of evaluation survey research - somewhat like what I've down before, but streamlined - about two Presbyterian committees earlier this week and be available to discuss the results both late this week, to the committee leadership, and at my first General Assembly ever, this one in San Jose, in late June. However, we did not get the surveys out in time. So, instead, tomorrow at downtown Louisville's historic Seelbach Hilton hotel (pictured above, as it appears tonight [and as when we left it at the end of the downtown Louisville ghost tour], instead of as it will appear tomorrow morning), I'll be explaining to the committee leadership, that they're getting no results. In the background will be Gradye Parsons. The PR about him as the stated clerk nominee endorsed by the Nominating Committee mentions that one of his responsibilities as associate stated clerk was working with these review committees (and me - doesn't mention me) evaluating various Presbyterian agencies and committees. Our new deadline - set partly by our own timeline - is the Friday after Memorial Day, because after that I go to Florida for 10 days to help Mom before, during, and after her surgery. A year ago I was trying desperately to beat a June 30 deadline for one of these reviews, the day before we left for Guatemala. And, this past fall, I missed several deadlines and then my manager and another client pushed hard to get evaluation research for another review done in early October (which I made). Since then, we've streamlined the process somewhat, but we're also not evaluating anything nearly as amorphous as what we were evaluating last year. Let's hope we get done by the end of May.