B-Days, Travel, and my first day of School

Monday morning I woke up at 7:30. It was my rest day from training, so I ate breakfast and wrote my post about Sunday’s auction. After stretching and chatting with my parents I caught the 9:30 bus so I would be at University of Washington campus with 40 minutes to spare before my first class. by 1:05 I was the first person to Honors Organic Chemistry and I took the premier seat. It was the front row of the bleachers, with three rows in front, but no seats directly in front. That way the prof can see me, and will know who I am, but I’m not so far forward that my bobbing afro becomes a daily part of the lecture (after workout I tend to nob off). I was pleased with myself. A state of mind that is comfortable to be in, and which didn’t change until 10:27 when I looked up from my book to see that with three minutes I was still the only person in class. I opened my laptop and confirmed that I was in the right room number. I walked out to building entrance, and, sure enough, it was the right building.

You should have seen the look on the secretaries face when she explained to me that the quarter starts on Wednesday, and the reason nobody else showed up to class is because, rather than 30 minutes early, I had shown up two days before class. I wasn’t sure if she was dumbfounded at my stupidity, or impressed that somebody would up the anti to such a degree in the battle over prime seating in honors chemistry.

Tomorrow is Loren’s birthday. I’m celebrating by staying home from school for another day. Actually, I called him up yesterday because I’ll be skipping my second day of class for a trip down to California. Apparently B-Day celebrations are being held off a couple days, so Erica (the nanny) and I can join in.

For today, however, I’m gong to say “Happy Birthday” to Loren by sharing a story with everyone about the smallest of the Pokornies (plural of Pokorny).

In late July I was staying in Tiburon with the Pokornies. Geta’s mom (a.k.a Karen, a.k.a Grandma), Loren and I were working on dishes (by hand because the dishwasher was going to give us Botulism) while Greta showered Sada and Piper. There was an indiscernible shriek followed by laughter from the bathroom and a moment later Greta was calling Loren to come quickly. The moment would probably have passed and been put off as a family moment, but luckily Loren thought to share it with Grandma and me. Moments after disappearing from dish duty, Loren returned with a completely nude kid, and said, “Piper, tell Uncle Huli (That’s what they call me) what you just told me.”
“Piper, you’re making Uncle Ben uncomfortable!” I started edging out of the kitchen to avoid the nightly naked stamped of two and four year old girls.
“Piper? Tell Uncle Huli!” (Loren doesn’t give up easily.)
“I’M NEKED!!” (should be read as “NEEAEIEIEKED!!!!!!!!!!!” Listen to the audio link, and imagine this coming from a two year old blond girl with an afro and a multi-megawatt smile.)

She says it with such conviction. At the time her tone seemed justified, but we gave her so much attention for it, that pretty soon she was just flat out lying.

My last night in Tiburon we went out for Pizza. We were all exhausted from work, kids, training, racing, wine tasting, etc, so it was hard to devote the kind of energy a 2 year old craves. Piper (fully clothed) fought this by starting to scream, “I’m Neked, I”m neked” in the middle of the restaurant.
“Piper, your making Uncle Ben uncomfortable!”