Meta tag description/keywords never appears - is_home is always false

I'm using Atahualpa 3.2 on WP 2.8.4 and the Meta tags for description and keywords don't ever show up on the home page. As far as I can tell, that's because the WP function "is_home" always returns false. My understanding is that's because my WP home page is a "static" page. I'm not sure why that's true (seems silly). Is there a way to get the Meta tags to appear on the home page?

Jason