Bills, Schools, Dance, Christian Wicca and Ashley wants me to start dating again.

Charter Cable has now proven to be a "normal" cable company. They had actually been pretty good for us. The price was good, the installation painless and repairs after the storm handled well. Of course this was too good to be true. Cathy noticed an extra charge on our bill last month for "DVR installation and Service" ($15). Well, since we never authorized this service and do not use it (in fact didn't know it was there), Cathy called and they agreed to credit the charge. Well, imagine our surprise (not) when the same charge was found on this month's bill. Their explanation this time, "You have a DVR cable box installed so we thought you were using the service." HUH!!!!

It turns out that the installer had put in a DVR capable cable box (needed for HD content) because he thought they were out of the normal boxes. This was mentioned to the home office and was OK for 5 months. So now we are told that we have to exchange the cable box and then they will credit it back. It seems that many utility companies have these complex (and mostly automated) billing systems which cause their customers grief.

Open house for the new school year was yesterday, so we went to Ryan's school first and "met" his teacher (same as last year) and picked up paperwork. Later in the evening we went to parent orientation at Ashley's school and found out new policies and met Ashley's 2nd grade teacher. It turns out the first fundraiser starts on the first day of school. It seems that the entire year is just one big fundraiser sometimes.

Ashley's teacher is quite ambitious, but seems confident that the students will progress quit quickly this year with reading, writing, math and science. Cathy and I are excited about the curriculum with a major focus on science and critical thinking development. They are having school-wide science themes including field trips and are teaching many subjects with a "how does it work" approach rather than the traditional "do it like I do it" approach. We will keep you updated throughout the year.

We also stopped by Dancers, Inc. in Decatur yesterday to sign Ashley up for ballet and tap classes. It has been a year since she has danced, but we are sure she will catchup quickly. While sitting in the car waiting for the girls to come out, I noticed an interesting building located right next to the dance studio called "Shadows and Light". The artwork was eye-catching on an extremely vanilla building, but it peaked my interest. An internet search yielded the following description:

Shadows and Light Occult Shoppe - shadows and light carries supplies for the entire magickal community specializing in New Orleans Voodoo, Ceremonial Magick, Christian Witchery, and Neo-Paganism. There are many paths to enlightenment.

A further search found the owner "Gypsy Nancy" was also a guitar player in the band "thejudasgoat" and a Christian Wiccan. Not only was I completely surprised to see an occult shop in the heart of the bible belt, but now had been introduced to this religion. Wikipedia list the definition of Christian Wicca as the "syncretism of Christianity and Wicca which uses the organizational and festival framework of Wicca while professing belief in the teachings of Jesus." and is credited to John Michael Greer's 2003 book The New Encyclopedia of the Occult. I have to admit, I am quite intrigued.

And lastly, as we were getting ready to go to the open house, Ashley uttered the quote of the week as far as I'm concerned. She had a small bottle of hand sanitizer from Bath & Body Works and asked me if I wanted some. I said "no thanks" and guess what she said?

"Oh come on Daddy, it smells good. It will attract more girls for you!"

I thought Cathy was going to fall down.