Day 94: Gracie Meets the Students!

Gracie says, "4:50 a.m.? You've got to be

kidding me!!"

Though we have been on campus several times, this was the first day that Gracie came to class with me.  The class starts at 7:45 a.m. and the drive to White Bear Lake where Century College is located is a 50+ minute drive from where we live.  Though I teach composition, I am able to do the math.  Adding in the morning routine we have developed so that Gracie is comfortable--fed and toileted at least, I decided we needed to get up at least by 4:50 a.m.  I was a bit nervous because we missed the alarm on Monday and overslept.  Nature must have tuned in and decided to protect me from oversleeping again because about 4 a.m. the wind began howling and a thunderstorm blew in.  We waited until the alarm went off before getting up though.  We got in a walk, Gracie's breakfast, a shower for me, and managed to be out the door, dashing through a new wave of thunderstorm by 6:00 a.m., our goal time!  Once we arrived on campus, we took a brief walk, dodging a garbage truck at the mouth of the Wood Duck Trail, amazingly not flooded today!  We took the elevator to the third floor since I had my rolling briefcase and arrived at the office about the time we need to arrive on Thursday in order to open the campus writing center for the day at 6:50 a.m.  Gracie strolled right in and settled on the bath mat rug from Target.  While she dozed, I went over my class plans another time and had just finished that with the student tutor that will be working with the early Tuesday/Thursday class arrived.  He met Gracie: two calm, friendly souls, they hit it off right away.  We went over the get-acquainted activity and then down to the classroom on the second floor the three of us marched.  I put Gracie's mat in the corner and she again settled right in.  Gracie was terrific.  If my children had behaved this well, I would probably have twelve of them instead of just the two!  If the rest of the semester goes this well for Gracie and me, we might not be ready to take our show on the road, but we will certainly be ready for Spring Semester and just maybe anything anyone cares to throw at us.