Madeleina Dancing All the Way....

Well, she's not looking at things properly but from my perspective, this is a good week for my Madeleina. She's graduating from high school. Just graduated an hour ago, actually. And she's slated to go to Tarleton State U in the fall, with at least a good portion of her way paid for by grants and awards and the rest by dear old dad's check book. Her best friend is going there, so she's got something to start with. And one of the people I worked with, Dan Malone, a writer for the Fort Worth Weekly up until about 2005 or 2006, is teaching there. He's won a Pulitzer for her reporting, so if you're planning to study journalism, you can't do much better. Anywhere. For any price.
    More: Two days ago at a senior function, she won a beautiful trophy for "best supporting actress" in a play she recently did. She was fantastic. Not the lead, but a great supporting player. One trophy given. She got it.
    On Sunday she went with me to the Union Pacific Rail Yard in Fort Worth, one of the biggest rail yards in the US. We had to breach security to get in--at several different places--but we did and I had her take photos. She's got a keen eye and takes good, rock-steady pics. The art director today asked if he could buy a few from her for my cover story next week. She's non-plussed by the idea, but I can tell you, it takes years to get your first photos published for money. And here she's got it on during her second or third shoot. That's several hundred bucks out of the blue! That's a credit! Yikes!
   Somehow, this is not ringing in as a good week for her. She's sad about high school ending though she's detested most of high school. Just a little afraid of change, I reckon. But if she saw things the way I'm seeing them for her, well, she'd see a very different picture than what she's seeing.