First day of 2nd grade: September 1. This is our 3rd year with the school+I love it. They've done renovations to the school. I'm not working both jobs+look forward to being more involved with the school this year. PTA MOM IN THE HOUSSSSE.

Images:

1: Excited. Nails painted white for her first day.

2. Trying to figure out who her teacher is. Her teacher is the one she was wishing for since last year. I met+like him already. Very kind.

3. Reunited with her best friend, Rachel.

4. The requisite, "stop taking pictures of me, mommmmm," photo.

Adventure Playground+the Berkeley Marina on August 8.

A mountain lion was found (and killed*) wandering the streets of Berkeleyyesterday in the "Gourmet Ghetto" section for those familiar with the area.

The streets of Berkeley! A few blocks from my kid's school, which is gated. Thank goodness.

It is Lorelai's first day of school today (more on that later)+I was able to hang out at the school for a bit to see her off+catch up with parents from last year+meet new parents. One of the ladies I met brought up the lion:

"What was he doing in Berkeley?? It was probably a socially conscious mountain lion. Going to Cheeseboard or somethin'."

I laughed. Hard.

*Poor mountain lion. The article that I linked quotes, "is the first instance that we've had of this sort of thing in recent memory." And, "authorities said they haven't found any reason why the animal would have wandered this far into the city."

It is obviously an anomoly. It wasn't there on purpose. It shouldn't have been killed, it should have been knocked out by a tranquilizer, treated for injury if it had any+released. Not ok. :(

Oscar Grant III was murdered on January 1, 2009.

The verdict of involuntary manslaughter for Johannes Mehserle, the BART police man responsible for Oscar Grant's murder, was read on July 8, 2010.

A protest in Downtown Oakland was held that evening. Things were communal for a while until unrelated stupidity took over. I left when a glass bottle came flying towards me from a crowd about half a block away.

Before I left, I took some photos of our community who had peacefully gathered for approximately 3.5 hours to lament+grieve.