I was up at the crack of dawn today in order to go to court for Casey. This is a six-month review, and six more months must go by before we make all the hard decisions. Those would be, do we allow the family six more months to reunify with the child, do we put the child up for adoption or guardianship and with whom, or is this child doomed to long-term placement? Today is just a review, unless reunification was going well. That's not the situation with Casey. I went in and introduced myself to the presenter. I noticed right away that this courtroom is friendlier. The bailiff in the other one is always suspicious of me. Here the judge turns up for calendar call. When the social worker, whom I met yesterday, came in, I sat with him. The child's lawyer came to talk to us about future plans. It doesn't look like six months more will help family reunification, so the lawyer wants to make sure Casey is in a home where they might adopt.

There's a problem with the dates when services were offered to the mother. They talked about it quite a bit during calendar call. To my surprise, when the trial came up, the social worker and I were invited to sit at the horseshoe-shaped table with the lawyers. That's certainly never happened to me before! Unfortunately, the child's lawyer wanted to clear something up, and the mother's lawyer objected, and the case was continued till next Monday. I'll still be in town, so that'll work.

I chugged downstairs to see my judge friend, but he appears to be on vacation.

The Active 20-30 Club of Sacramento donated $3500 to CASA and it's to be used for things like Scout membership (I might have benefitted with that with Sam) or field trips, or summer camp, or school pictures, prom tickets, all the sort of thing that the foster-care money won't cover. I have no use for anything for Casey at the moment, but I think this is just great.

My knitting was chugging along real well, and then I went to knot off a color. Apparently I dropped the needle out of the end stitches and I didn't discover it for three rows. There was no picking up that big a mess, I had to undo it all back to the knot and do it again. When I did that, it almost happened again, so now I know HOW I made the mistake.

Vince sent the right phone number and I FOUND NICK! The trip is on!

The Rest of the World's verdict on the new administration was deftly summarized by the Reuters diplomatic editor, Paul Taylor, in his assessment of the first 100 days: "In just 14 weeks, he has angered China, cold-shouldered Russia, humiliated South Korea, worried Japan, dismayed the Arab world, irritated the European Union, outraged environmentalists and snubbed campaigners for global justice."
Wow! Now that's what Broadway producers call a money review! I cut it out and stuck it on the fridge, and it was only on rereading it that it occurred to me Mr. Taylor might have intended his remarks disapprovingly.
--- Mark Steyn, in Opinion Journal.