Andy Smallman

That’s Elisa on the left and Alexandre on the right. They’re the daughter and son of Annabelle, who is Frédérique’s sister. You blog veterans may recall that when Melinda, the girls, and I first moved to Nantes in July of 2010, we stayed for almost two weeks in Annabelle’s apartment while she and her kids were on vacation.

Well, last month while we were in Nantes, in fact, while we were longing next to the Boudeau’s pool, Annabelle told me that she was bringing Elisa and Alexandre to the US this month. Earlier this week they were in Chicago. Now they’re in Seattle for a couple of days. And they leave on Monday for a few days in San Francisco.

Melinda & I hosted a dinner last night, barbequing sausage and corn on the grill. I took Elisa and Alexandre to Ravenna Park to toss a Frisbee. Today Melinda took Elisa and Annabelle kayaking, followed by a Mexican lunch at Agua Verde (where I took this picture). Next up, it’s meeting up at Dwight’s & Michele’s to watch the Sounders FC game with their new star Clint Dempsey.

For some sabbatical references related to today’s post, I recommended these two:
Day 70 (8 September 2010) – My New Friend Elisa
Day 16 (16 July 2010) – Chez Boudeau

And then this one from last summer when the Boudeaus were in Seattle:
Manon Can be Silly!

The title of the post is an inside joke that right now only makes sense to the young woman in the photo, Maddie, and me. Before explaining it so more people can be in on it, let me just say that back in June I made plans to travel to Olympia today (70 miles south of Seattle) to visit Maddie and see her house. You see, Maddie is a student at The Evergreen State College, where I went. Before that, she was a student at Puget Sound Community School, that I co-founded.

Maddie and I are connected.

So that’s Maddie’s cat in her arms here. And her cat’s name is Frances. At one point in our conversation today, Maddie said, and I quote, “France is the most important thing in my life.” At least that’s what I heard, a sentiment that makes sense to me.

I came to learn that what Maddie actually said is, and I quote, “Frances is the most important thing in my life.”

That’s different.

I remember being in kid in early August and the commercials started up with back-to-school sales. I HATED that. There was still a month left in the summer! Don’t start telling me about going back to school!

But here’s a back-to-school catalog that’s pretty slick, spicy, in fact. It’s from Penzeys Spices and their 2013 back-to-school catalog includes a picture of my mom and me (taken by Ella, no less), along with an article that includes snippets of an interview with me and two PSCS students (download it here and go to page 30).

Maybe back-to-school isn’t so bad!

The short version of the story is that this spice company likes to feature human interest stories in their catalog and decided that for this issue their focus should be on kindness and schools. They found PSCS and me!

The photos included here are the one of my mom and me from the catalog, the case of “Kind” spice gift boxes they sent me at PSCS to distribute, and the note included from the company founder.