A note to my many, many fans. I haven’t posted in so long that I even forgot how to use this site, but I’m here after about twenty minutes fishing around for it. I’ve got to take one of their classes.

Please enjoy, and they won’t all be about Maddy.

I often pick up my granddaughter, Maddy, at her school, El Camino Real Charter High School in Woodland Hills.  

I go quite early so that I can have a good spot next to the curb on the road alongside the south side of the school.  I have to strategically park the car so that it’s pointing forward to the signal on Valley Circle, and I like to be in the very end spot along the sidewalk, just in front of the red curb. That way, I have a bit of space to back up and then pull out.  

The school has four thousand students.  When that last bell rings, a kind of slow chaos begins.  People picking up are jockeying for a good waiting spot, if not along the curb, then double-parked. There is not one spot in the official parking lot for the school.

I usually see a woman jogging and a man waiting who gets out of his car to smoke a cigarette.  If I have a lot of time to wait, I go for a walk, but usually I read and doze, read and doze.

As the students pour out, I observe them.  Although there is not a uniform requirement, they wear a uniform of sorts.

Most of the boys and girls wear sweat pants and sweat shirts or flannel pajama bottoms — even in the warmer weather. I think teenagers are immune to the temperature.

The boys have the Patrick Mahone – quarterback for the Kansas City Chiefs – haircut.  It’s short on the sides and then puffs up to a a kind of shrub or cloud on top of their heads.

The girls have long, long hair.  Mostly dark hair. This school is SO diverse – except that there aren’t many blondes here. Is that a form of racism, too? No, because they don’t ban blondes.

I mistake every other girl for my granddaughter because of the hair, but then I realize she’s the cutest girl in the school once I catch a glimpse of her walking toward the car.  

I usually text her just before her escape to let her know approximately where I am in the lineup alongside the curb, and I remind her that I have a new car in case she forgot.  This is the first day I am picking her up in my new Subaru Forrester

I am always so happy and grateful when I see her approaching.  She doesn’t talk much on the way home, but she’s been like that since she was a toddler.

I would pick her up at daycare, put her in the car-seat in the back and just observe how she would look out the window pensively and to tell the truth, a little sadly, but at the same time relieved to be on her way home.  I loved her, and love her, so much that it breaks my heart at the same time it fills my heart with joy and gratitude.

As I said before, she’s the cutest girl in school, but I’ll bet those other grandmothers waiting to pick up their granddaughters feel the very same way as I do.

The End