Rain

There's been huge amounts of rain here this past week. The pool was 'to the top', completely. I slept very little last night in the storm - J. was in LA with the boys and I fretted that the pool would be overflowing any minute. Combined with some loud 'drip' - water hitting metal periodically throughout the night outside the window which totally kept me 'on edge', I slept very poorly last night. And I worked this afternoon in my office so I didn't nap - it is just after 6:30pm and I'm ready for bed. I'm tired. I'll be heading upstairs shortly because I'm planning to head in early - at my desk as close to 5 as possible, which I also did a couple days last week - I have so much to do and so little 'in office' time to do it. Meetings, classes, more meetings. Crazy.

The college visit was a great success, from the sounds of it. The trip down was through storms both directions. The Grapevine reopened on Friday morning just before they left and J. said it was pretty scary - high winds, pouring rain, slick roads. But they made it fine and then repeated the exercise on the way home. I was glad they were able to make it via that route since the alternate would take them down Hwy. 101 - a much longer trip and even less fun to drive in a torrential rain storm. We almost cancelled - but we'd taken the kids out of school on Friday for the trip and I wasn't going to do that again. And of course, both boys, believing they had no school on Friday did not prepare AT ALL for any of the things due or the tests the had that day - so upon announcing that J. was thinking of not going, they pretty much freaked. And then I freaked because I wasn't going to let them play 'hooky' again in a month to go down then for the open house.

The college is a great school - 30 years in existence. Geared exclusively to musicians who want a career in the music industry. It's in the heart of Hollywood and is a 'first stop' for all music genres (recording, shows, bands, artists looking to add to their group - Annie Lennox is visiting there this week) when they are looking for musicians. B. is very excited - and so are we. We think the plan is: 2 years at a community college (probably Delta because it has a much better music program than LPC) and then down to Hollywood for 2 years there. The program is very expensive - let's just say that the 2 years down there will cost what we would have spent on a 4 year traditional college experience - if not more. But it really makes sense to us since it puts him in the industry he wants a career in. Versus attending a traditional school for 4 years and maybe graduating with a music degree and then having no 'practical experience' that would lead to a working job in music. So it looks like that's where he's headed. We are encouraging him to continue improving his high school grades and get to where his grades are solid and he can then think about getting a part time job somewhere to start saving money for his adventure in Hollywood. We'll have to find him an apartment and everything since the school doesn't have student housing. So this is a very expensive proposition. But that's OK. We have 3 more years to prepare and save for it and now that we know what the 'goal' is, we know what we need. We will most likely have to borrow some in student loans - and we're OK with that, too. We will help him as much as we can - but he will have to be prepared to pay for some of the expenses himself.

I'd like to think that he'll be able to make it on his own. There is some evidence that he has a ways to go, like: he drove to Staples today to get a binder for school and called J. to say he only took $4 with him and didn't have enough $$ - nor did he have the Visa Buxx card which I periodically load with $$ for just these kind of events - so he had to meet me at the bank (which I was on my way too anyway to get our weekly cash). Hard to imagine that in 3 years, this same person will be 'on their own' in Hollywood. Boggles my mind and scares the crap out of me.

Three years will go by in the blink of an eye. And around the time B. leaves for Hollywood, H. will be heading to college also - also (most likely) 2 years at a community college first and then a four year school to get his Bachelor's. H. wants to be a teacher - most days. Some days he wants to be 'a high level business person'. We'll see.

I tell them (and myself) 'it will be better than you ever imagined'. Because believing that will make it so...through hard times, trying times, scary times and long times. I know it from personal experience. It will be better than they ever imagined - and better than I could have wanted for them.