Greetings, my fellow port swillers!

Ol’ Robbo just got home from attending freshman orientation with the Youngest Gel.  What with all the hubbub over the Eldest going away to college this year, it has been quite easy to overlook the fact that the Youngest is transitioning up to high school, too.  (That’s the way it is, I suppose.  The trade-off is that she’s got the collective experience of her older sisters and of us to help ease her in.)

The Gel has been worried that she won’t know anybody in her class since she was in the AAP program at the middle school across town from us and not at the one which feeds into our high school.  I pointed out to her a) that she’ll already know a number of kids from church, the pool and girl scouts, and b) that she has her mother’s gift for striking up acquaintances very easily (unlike her rayther misanthropic old dad), so there’s no need for concern.

And I was right.  She met another girl within about two minutes after getting to the gym and hung around with her for the whole program while Ol’ Robbo sat in the auditorium with the other parents, quietly dozing through the pleas for volunteers and money.

The Gel’s ambitions this year are to make the swim team and get in on the fall theater production.