I'm either going to have to start taking French again...

or hire Jennifer a tutor.

I was grilling her for her French final last night, and her vocab final. On the vocab, I was doing fine, and she, not so much, so it will be interesting to see how that test goes today. And the French final, I was asking her how her day was, where Martinique was, if she liked her Chemistry class, all in French mind you, but as she spit back the answers, I realized she was lapping me in my knowledge.

So back to class for me.

Get out of the car...now

We were late for J's first period Chem class, again. And really, we didn't have any excuse because it was late start anyway.

But she was jonesing for Jamba Juice, oatmeal with blueberries to be specific, and she wanted what she wanted. Unfortunately, a train came on the tracks, a long one, just as we pulled up to Meeker and 4th. And we waited. And waited. Penned in now, we couldn't turn around, so we resigned ourselves to be late, and get the oatmeal anyway.

So 15 minutes late, imagine our surprise when we pull up to the school, and at least half the student body is out front waiting for us. A fire drill, or some such, and it was pouring. We sit in the car a minute, but now I'm going to be late for my director's meeting, so she has to get out...now.

And of course she's lost the umbrella I gave her, and she leaves the oatmeal in the car, where it quickly gets cold.

"Jennifer, sorry for the downpour, and the fact the whole school now knows you're late, but get out."

"Mommy!"

"Now."

"Beezee"

Fine, but you still need to get out of the car.

So she calls to Adam, who seems to magically appear wherever she is, makes him carry her stuff so she can use her coat as a shield.

Mom, I'm walking to fred meyers

OK, OK, fine, I wasn't in the mood to questions this, since I was about 45 minutes late in getting to her anyway, and she was pissed. So it's about a block walk from her school to Freds, although by this time it was dark.

But when she told me how she'd gotten there, I about had a heart attack. It was literally through the river and the woods. Or more specifically, high school, through a skanky housing development, through a cemetery and then a community garden. In other words, all the must-see places for creeps to hang out.

She's reading The Lovely Bones. I had to ask as we headed to the safety of the cosmetic department "What were you thinking! Why didn't you just stay on the main drag?"

"There are weird people who talk to me on the main drag."

"Well, they won't talk to you on your route, true, they'll just pull you into a secluded lot and rape you."

I suddenly noticed the conversations in our aisle had gone strangely silent. OK, we'll talk about this later.