Tails of a 17th Street Geisha

What a week! It actually hasn’t even been a full week since Drea and I touched down to DC, but here’s a non-chronological breakdown of events:

• 3 legs of flights from Austin to BWI airport. We stopped at Houston Hobby AND Jackson Mississippi before hitting BWI
• 2 nights at Wendy’s house, which included one fabulous late night dinner at Ben’s Chili Bowl and one delicious house welcoming dinner of home-made chicken teriyaki by the ever-talented chef Wendy.
• 30 dollars for the cab to Rockville, home of the Montgomery County School System. we had no idea that it was so far from the metro and we took the wrong metro anyway because I based it off of the bus I would need to take to get there (bad idea!)
• 3 times on the Q2 Bus from Silver Spring to Rockville, home of the Montgomery County School System AND Pepco and Comcast (two places I attempted to get utility bills when services was barely connected)
• 10,000 miles of bureacratic red tape that Montgomery County Public schools attempted to throw at us
• 10 calls and finally, 1 trip to Takoma Park middle school which resulted in an immediate enrollment, sans Montgomery County hoops to jump through!
• 2 late nights and many hours with several good friends spent moving boxes and finally leaving DC for Silver Spring (THANKS to Shannon, Roz, a drunken friend passing by jim-darhling!!! and especially friend Chris, who drove us around when we grew too sick and tired of the Q2!)
• 10 heart attacks that I had on Wednesday and Thursday and Friday, trying to get a doctor’s letter signed from my sister’s pulmonary hypertension doctor who was out of the country. without this letter, the Montgomery County School System could not process Aundrea’s enrollment

Here’s the chronological:

Tuesday night: arrive, Wendy cooks delish dinner, stay up late talking. Drea meets cupcake who we chatted with the night before on IM from Texas!

Weds AM: Appointment with Montgomery County Schools at 9:30am. Took a cab to get there on time, if not early. Realized that we needed 3 forms to complete the application and once completed, then a review process would commence taking 2-3 business days AND THEN, we would get a letter and get permission to meet with Takoma Park middle school!!! I’m on the verge of a nervous breakdown. The three things needed: lease copy signed, utility bill and doctor’s letter stating my sister is too sick to take care of her three kids! Drea and I spent 3 hours waiting around our apartment leasing office for the woman to return from lunch (she was gone from 11:20-2:20!!!!!!!!!) while we waited, I called Comcast and Pepco whose customer service reps told me that they don’t produce paper work for me to prove my residency until 3-4 weeks (pepco) for the bill, and 3-4 business days for the work order to install the cable (comcast). Well, for me to add 3-4 business days with comcast and then 2-3 days for the application w./ the school district would have Drea starting school end of September! I WAS DOUBLY FREAKED!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Thursday–was asked to come into work today. Realized later that it was because my boss had a family emergency and had to leave to the west coast and Thursday would be our only day of overlap. It was good for me to be @ work, but had a breakthrough with a utility company so I had to leave at lunch to go BACK to Rockville to get a letter written up to prove residency for Montgomery County. Chris drove us to Rockville and we had pizza afterwards.

Friday–still no letter from Dr. Frost, no answers from the office and finally they told me that all the nurses were @ conferences or on vacation and the doc was overseas. That morning, I called the middle school and finally asked the right questions and spoke to the right person. At 2:30pm I was told to come in immediately to enroll Aundrea for school! I came in at 3pm and she was enrolled by 4:30. Drea was so scared when one of the counselors spoke to her about how big the school was that she cried a little. After the counselor left, Drea got REALLY sick and nearly threw up, she was so stressed! We went home, power napped and…

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