briefly

 Good morning! Today is our third day of school and our fifth day without power. We are slowly but surely getting the hang of first grade, but life without electricity continues to challenge us. Yesterday at pick up time I circled the jammed parking lot and surrounding side streets twice at the Key School, getting increasingly frazzled as the time got later and Gabriel continued to cry because, just woken from his nap, he had dropped the picture of a "football guy" cut out for him from yesterday's sports section and couldn't retrieve it, and so I pulled over in the parking lot, jumped out of the car, tried to ask the nice mustachioed man directing traffic what in the heck I should do so I could get my kid already, and burst into tears instead.

"Are you new?" he asked.

"Yes, I'M NEW," I sobbed, "and I don't know why I'm crying."

Well, we made it through. He was very sweet and helped us. I thanked him this morning at drop off time, then picked up a load of our laundry from our dear friend Milena, who has also been supplying us with extra ice and loads of moral support. I returned home to find a bag of ice left on the porch by another dear friend, Katie. The candles have burned pretty low, and we are appreciating phrases like "the dying of the light" in a whole new way, having lived for a week with the reality of darkness. Once it's dark, it's dark. There's no going back. But it sure is nice to have the unwavering light of friends and neighbors at a time like this.

These pictures were taken during the storm. The children were so tickled with their abilities to put each other into "packages."

Now off to get some work done! Happy new school year and new beginnings to all of you. The reports come in fragments and small details, but overall my impression is that our daughter is already starting to love her new school.