I have very little to report. Most of us have been feeling sick. Dylan brought home some kind of tummy bug and gave it to Maggie and me. Sarah seems okay so far. I can’t tell about Steve. Dylan’s been a right pain today. Crying almost all day. Very cranky. I don’t feel well, which limits my patience.

We had Curriculum Night (or Open House, Parent’s Night — a rose by any other name) on Thursday. It went very well, I thought. I was told by some parents that their children were enjoying my class. That’s good to hear.

We had a September 11 memorial for our morning program on the 10th. I believe strongly in remembering. I wonder, though, how people who live with terrorism as a daily part of their lives — Israelis, for example — feel about the way we commemorate September 11. My friend is right about one thing: our lives have not changed much. We have to spend longer in the airport going through additional screening. But we are not any more cautious or vigilant than we ever were. We lived through one horrible day of unspeakable terror, and it taught us little. I am not saying we deserved what happened. I will never say that. I don’t believe it for a minute. I don’t think anyone deserves to be the victim of terrorism. Am I wrong, or do I just not see the sympathy for those in our world who live with terrorism on a daily basis? Am I just missing it? We don’t know what it is like to take our lives in our hands when we step on a bus. We don’t know what it is like to watch a bomb go off across the street. We don’t know what it is like to have our schools close because they were bombed.

I don’t know. Maybe I’m not making sense. I don’t feel well, and I’m tired. I do know that come November, I’m going to take my little voter registration card down the street, hold my nose, and vote for the candidate I hate least.

This won’t be my usual long blather. Just wanted to tell everyone Frances is bearing down on Atlanta in a much gentler way than she did Florida or South Georgia. My school was closed. They apparently tried to call me and tell me, but I had already left the house. I was stuck in traffic and called the school to tell them I was running late, and the receptionist told me. We got home after being in traffic for an hour and a half and Sarah was there. Her school district was one of the few that didn’t close today, but her bus never showed. I wonder if the driver assumed there was no school? I wonder if she’s still employed? Anyway, Sarah didn’t say so, but I think being forgotten by the busdriver in the pouring rain and wind was depressing and scary, so I let her stay home. We had Burger King for lunch. I graded all my papers. I left the babies at daycare, because Maggie would not have been happy to leave before she got her playing done. Dylan would have been ecstatic to be picked up early, but I figured I should seize the opportunity to grade papers with no little ones around. Listen to me feeling guilty for leaving them at daycare when I would have had to pay for the full day whether they stayed or not.

In other news, Vickie is safe and blogging about Frances. It would seem she was at least able to keep power this time (most of the time, anyway). Sure hope Ivan doesn’t slam them next.

The oddest thing to me about hurricanes, speaking as a former resident of Hampton Roads in Virginia and Cape Fear in North Carolina, is the large amount of debris from trees and plants. There is all this fresh greenery all over the ground. It looks so out of place there. Of course, I haven’t experienced a hurricane that tore houses apart, which I am sure is extremely surreal to see. Just all the limbs and leaves littering the roads and yards. This morning I had some stray green leaves plastered to my car, and it made me think of those hurricanes in Cape Fear.