I always wanted a nickname

Hi, you guys!

2012-01-17T20:29:00.006-05:00

Yeah, I'm not sure who "you guys" is in that title up there. I haven't posted in several years and besides a couple friends and a couple family members, it's not like I had any dedicated blog followers. However...

I finally, finally have a new camera in my life. It's a Nikon D3100, with two lenses, and it's beautiful. All of my free time for the foreseeable future is going to be spent learning to use it well. I've decided to use this site as a way to share some of that journey for anyone who's interested. And I might accidentally write something funny along the way.

On MLK Day, a friend (who knows lots about cameras and picture-taking) and I went to the zoo to play around with the camera for the first time. It was a good day for it - overcast so that shadows weren't a big problem, and not too crowded early in the day because it was chilly. Here are some of my favorites from the day. I haven't learned much about photoshop yet, so they're presented with a very minimum of tweaking as far as color or light.

Remembering...

2008-12-14T23:14:00.002-05:00

When I was very young, I was confused about my grandfather's name. I knew that my mother's father's name was Charles. However, everyone called him Sammy. To make matters worse, my grandparents always had a sticker on their car from the College of William and Mary, and so since I knew my grandmother was named Mary, I naturally assumed that the college had something to do with them as well.

That is probably my first memory about my grandfather - being confused about his name. (For the record - his name was indeed Charles Watkins Rose, his nickname was Sammy because he was born during World War I when the soldiers were called "Sammy", and so he became his father's "little Sammy", and of course, the college had nothing to do with them besides the fact that their son had gone there.) I have many, many more memories of my grandfather ranging from that early memory to the last time I saw him, which was last Christmas.

I wasn't lucky enough to grow up in the same town as my mother's parents. We always lived at least two or three states away from them. That didn't make them any less precious to me - or I to them. When I think of Christmas and Easter, it is often their house I remember. I recall Christmases in Richmond, Virginia, in the big split-level house they had. One whole level, it seems, was always taken up with the tree and the mounds of presents spilling out from under it. Later, in the big farmhouse on the side of a mountain in New York, there was again an entire room filled with a tree and presents. Christmases with my grandfather were magical because invariably, there were gifts he made in his woodshop. A stool for me. A creche for my mother. A doll-house for my cousin.

Pipe smoke will always remind me of my grandfather. He quit smoking his pipe when I was in middle school, but the smell is forever linked with him. When I was in college, my cousin and I even took up smoking pipes...and probably looked very silly doing it. But oh, that smell. Not many people smoke pipes anymore, but when I run across the odor drifting on the air, I'm immediately transported back to grandpa's side.

I am incredibly lucky. I am 36 years old and until this past Monday, I still had three living grandparents. That's some good genes right there. But early last Monday morning, my grandfather died. He left behind his wife of 66 years, his four children, and his seven grandchildren. He left memories and friends and extended family. He lived a long, productive, loving life. And I will miss him.

Wow

2008-11-17T23:43:00.002-05:00

I guess it's been a while since I had anything intelligible to relate here. Does that mean nothing funny ever happens to me? Or maybe just nothing interesting. Sad commentary on my life, perhaps.

Just had to write a note about the insidious beast that is Facebook. I joined, oh, I don't know...perhaps a year ago? I don't even remember what prompted me to join, but I had a page on there for ages without ever doing much with it. And now suddenly in the last 6 months, it has exploded. Friends from high school and college are finding me - and I, them - and writing and exchanging pictures and it's all nice, but a little odd. To suddenly be face to face with these older images of people who last existed for me when they were 18 or 20 or 22 is just a little disconcerting. I mean - some of these people have GREY hair. That's a little heavy.

And it's also a little odd in other ways. I see most of these people in marriages and with kids, and I wonder when exactly it was that I forgot to have these things. I know that I've made (mostly) the right choices for my life, and I'd rather be where I am today than in a bad marriage or raising kids on my own. But it's more than a little disheartening sometimes to feel like the last single person in the world. Note: I know that I'm not, and enough of my friends - especially the college ones - are also single so that I'm not despairing. It just makes me pause for thought sometimes.

Oh well. C'est la vie!

Herding Cats

2008-08-18T23:17:00.004-04:00

The title is exactly what Asha has been trying to do for the last few days. The kittens continue to grow apace - as all babies seem to do - and they are now trying out their wobbly legs to explore the wide world. Their mother Does Not Approve. She spends a good portion of the day watching them take a few steps out of the closet they've been living in, and then chasing them down and grabbing them with her teeth to pull them back in. Which they complain about. Loudly.

They are darling, though, and starting to pounce on each other and on Asha. One of them (the blonde one that I currently call Jake) will be going to live with a family in about 6 weeks. The black one, whom I call Maggie, is staying with me. For some reason, all pictures of Maggie turn out not in focus. Perhaps she's just a little blurry? She's not as brave or as big as her brother, but she can yell just as loud.

Behold:

And the result...

2008-08-02T00:13:00.001-04:00

For three weeks.

In August.

In Georgia.

'nuff said.

Why I Am Going To The Doctor Tomorrow...AGAIN

2008-07-31T21:05:00.004-04:00

I think I've mentioned that I'm a klutz. My mother used to seriously believe that I was at best self-destructive and perhaps at worst suicidal, but no...I really am klutzy enough to knock out a front tooth by running into the side of the GARAGE, to f*** up my knee for life by slipping on some ice, and to sprain my ankle by falling down a hill in San Francisco. Sober. In broad daylight. And now I can add to these tales of woe.

I was playing on a softball team this spring and summer. I am a spectacularly bad softball player, but I enjoyed it. Last Thursday, (one week ago almost to the minute as I write this) I stepped off first base to begin running, heard a snap in my calf and went down. And was carried off the field. I knew I'd torn a calf muscle, but was leaving for the beach the next day. I didn't see a doctor, but I figured there was nothing a doc could tell me anyway besides the RICE routine (rest, ice, compression, elevation for all of you out there that may not be as conversant in treatment of injuries as I apparantly am...). So I went to the beach, walked carefully, rested as much as possible (not hard...it was the BEACH, after all) and generally felt a lot better within a few days.

Wednesday, I returned to work. And Oh My God. My leg went from feeling better to looking like I had allowed the softball team to use it for batting practice. See below:

The picture is gross, but it doesn't do the bruise-that-is-my-lower-leg justice. It is bruised from the knee to below the ankle. That ankle there that is usually normal sized. Which is attached to that foot that is normally not puffy. I may not have an anywhere-near-perfect body, but I do have nice legs. This is not my leg. It is a distorted caracature.

And that is why I'm going to the nice doctor tomorrow for (hopefully) some verystrong pain meds, even stronger anti-inflammatories, and perhaps a prescription to wear long pants for a month. Which will be fun in Georgia in August.

Now appearing...

2008-07-23T16:18:00.004-04:00

I specialize in procrastination.

I also own a cat.

This time, my procrastination and the cat caught up to me, the indoor cat got out (for FIVE MINUTES) and 65 days later, there are two brand new kittens at my house.

Do not lecture me. I have owned cats before, and have always gotten them spayed or neutered. This time, time just got away from me. But...I think this will turn out to be a blessing in disguise. Asha was found abandoned when she was barely 6 weeks old. She didn't have time to be socialized by her mother or siblings, so she is very skittish, afraid of people and other animals, and not very friendly even to me. But with two kittens of her own, she might become a little more relaxed and friendly. She's already very chilled out. She lets me handle them (while watching me closely, of course). And I knew I was going to keep one of the kittens all along, but since she only had two I might just keep both of them. After all, they are SO CUTE.

But they're all getting fixed ASAP. :-)

Ahhhhhhh

2008-06-06T18:01:00.002-04:00

I frequently get very defensive when people tell me that teaching is great just because of all the vacation days we have - summers, spring break, Christmas break, etc. But you want to know a secret? Those people have it partly right.

Teaching isn't easy and teachers are underpaid. Blah blah blah, we all know that. But it sure is nice after a stress-filled year dealing with teenagers and all the baggage they carry around every day to know that in just an hour or so I'm leaving for the beach. For 10 days.

Don't get too jealous - I'm coming back and teaching at a summer camp and have the rest of the summer pretty well filled up with work either in the yard or at the camp. But til then, I guess I can say... "nyah, nyah - I'm at the beach while you're at work!"

Graduations

2008-06-02T00:05:00.004-04:00

As a teacher, I relive many things about high school quite frequently. I've often thought (and said) that many people who go into teaching high school are those that never really wanted to leave it in the first place. That can make for some...interesting dynamics between teachers and students, teachers and teachers, etc.

I like to think that I was not one of those who chose this career out of a desire to stay in high school. For one thing, I am not one of those people who looks back on high school as the best years of my life. Don't get me wrong - I had some great times. But I also had some bloody awful times that I never, ever would live through again. One of the things that I've discovered about being 30-something is that my 30's have been soooooo much better than the years that came before. They aren't perfect - I haven't found the love of my life or started the family I hope to have, for example - but then, what is? But I know myself better, I'm more self-confident and self-aware, the depressions that I used to experience before have finally been brought very much under control.

Occasionally things happen that bring me right back to being 18 again. Watching my seniors experience graduation every year is a bittersweet experience. I remember my graduations. I remember the elation and the fear and the incredible possibility that lay before me and wish I could experience it again. But then again - if a guy I hoped would be something special turns out not to be, I remember the utter devastation that would have wreaked in my life at 18 and I'm glad again not to be there. Instead I pick up my head and keep going forward because I've learned that there really isn't anything else to be done.

I guess that's a kind of graduation, too.

Trivial things...

2008-05-13T23:07:00.002-04:00

We lost at trivia tonight.

But I think I won.

Yes, it's cryptic, but I'm happy. Go figure.

Pain and Suffering

2008-04-03T09:34:00.005-04:00

People have odd reaction to migraneurs. Sympathy, empathy - often. But there's also the desire to tell the story of their father/mother/friend/whomever who has migraines. There's the advice to just lie down, take this drug or that drug, quit eating this or that. There are the doubtful looks, wondering if a migraine is made up or preventable if you would just do...something.

I have now been in various degrees of pain for two weeks straight. In the last two months, there have been perhaps a fortnight's worth of days that I have not had some form of a migraine. People ask all the usual questions. Here are some I've had:

What causes these? (Don't you think that if I KNEW that, I'd STOP it??)
Have you seen a doctor about this? (That's hilarious. Only about 10.)
Have you taken any medicine? (About 75 different kinds at last count...)
Have you tried [insert various folk remedies here]? (The answer is that I've tried everything but acupuncture and Botox - and I'm about to try the former, and can't afford the later.)

I've read books about migraines and remedies. I've read articles written by fellow migraneurs recommending different approaches. The latest one was written by a woman who says that she has come to "accept" her migraines as part of her and simply retreats to a room where she is quiet and can "be one" with her headache. That's fine if you're a free-lance author. Doesn't work so well when you are a teacher and coach.

I cannot live like this.

Being a Grown-Up...

2008-03-27T22:30:00.004-04:00

Y'know that house I've been posting pictures of? Well - I OWN IT now! Hooray!

Of course, since it was *me* buying it, there's no way that the closing went off without a hitch. Sit back and behold the wonder that was my day:

I arranged to have the morning off school. The appointment with the lawyer was at 9:30. I showed up at the bank to get the certified check, and the fun began. Naturally, I had a trainee teller, who took 15 minutes to write a single certified check. So I rushed out the door, already late.

In Atlanta rush-hour traffic, I now had 15 minutes to make it across town. Every road - and I am not exaggerating - EVERY road I traveled on had construction on it. Highways, surface streets, back roads that no one knows about - ALL OF THEM were under construction. Therefore, I arrived at the lawyer's office at 9:55 instead of 9:30. However, this turned out not to be as big a deal as you might think. You see, the power at the attorney's office had just come back on. The construction crew outside (see - you thought I was joking about the construction) had cut a power line. So the lawyer was behind already.

Now comes the really fun part. The seller of the property (who is also financing this deal) and the lawyer had thought they each understood each other, and it turns out they had not. Lots of boring/frustrating/bordering-on-angry conversations followed, the settlement statement was re-written TWICE, and I sat and did basically nothing for THREE HOURS. I had to call work and get someone to cover my classes. I developed a headache, which my migraine drugs did nothing to alleviate. I ate quite a few mini Three Musketeers candies out of the dish in front of me. Finally, an agreement was reached, papers were printed, I signed and signed and signed and it was done.

Now, in the middle of all of that, my mother called to tell me that she was heading to Pennsylvania, where she was going to have to take my 90-year-old grandfather to be admitted to the hospital for what we believe is bleeding in the brain. I don't know what will come of this, but of course, it won't be good. So that added a new dimension of drama to a day that had quite enough already.

All of that happened by 1:30. I rushed out of the office and back to school. I grumped and yelled and basically took out my frustrations on the last class of the day. I foisted my track runners off on the boys coach, went home and took a nap, and then got up and drove an hour and a half in MORE rush hour traffic to play in a double-header with the softball team I'm on. But hey - at least I got a couple of decent hits tonight!

Anyway. I sincerely hope that all of you have had/will have far easier closing days when you buy houses. As for me - if this is what happens when I buy a house, I'm not planning to move, oh, EVER.

And some more

2008-03-16T22:53:00.004-04:00

This is the last major change that was made. The house was built somewhere around 1915, and originally had no indoor plumbing. What used to be a back porch is now a laundry room and the bathroom. The laundry room is long and narrow, with jalousied windows. I still haven't decided what to do about window coverings back there (you know - it's been almost two years now and I don't like to rush into these decisions...) but Todd made the room eminantly more fuctional with the addition of shelves!

Before (this was when Todd was staying here trying to get the house sold, hence the air mattress....):

After (note that I've also replaced the 25 year old dryer! :-):

And the view in the other direction:

More with the house...

2008-03-13T22:59:00.007-04:00

Ok, so on to the living room.

This will be the first room of the house that gets completely done the way I want. The painting phase is over (although I still need to touch up the TV cabinet and get now knobs for it). This summer, with extra money from a summer job, I'll be replacing the couch and making new curtains. Oh, and moving in the piano from my mother's house. Anyone out there want to help get a piano from Knoxville, TN to Atlanta, GA? Anyone? No? Hmph.

In any case, behold the progress so far:

Before (really before...as in before I ever moved in, hence no furniture). Notice, especially, the pine mantel around the bricked-up fireplace:

And a slightly different view, immediately after I moved in, with my unpainted TV cabinet and un-slipcovered couch:

After:

(This is a view of just the fireplace, obviously. The bricks are now matte black, so as to recede a little, the mantel is white to match the trim, and the walls are a very pale blue-grey.)

And a view with the painted TV cabinet and covered couch.

Still to come: the laundry room!

Before and After

2008-03-10T22:37:00.003-04:00

I am addicted to home improvement shows. I like watching the transformations, but really, I'm perfectly happy to miss most of the show and skip to the end where they show the before and after shots of the rooms they've transformed. And now I get to do my Very Own Version! Woo-hoo!

Last week, as a house-warming gift, my friend Todd (who is the one selling me the house) came up from Savannah and absolutely SLAVED for a week, doing many projects. I helped, but he did almost all the real work. So here are some shots of his (our) results!

#1: The kitchen, specifically the sink. Someday, I'd like to have this kitchen be the perfect kitchen. Unfortunately, that costs tons of money. So this go-round, I settled for replacing the antique, cast-iron sink and the cabinet under it that was rusting away. I hate throwing out a good antique, but it just couldn't get white anymore, didn't have enough room, etc. Also, notice that the ugly piece of crappy counter over the dishwasher is replaced. The cabinet and counter are from IKEA, the sink is from Lowes.

Before:

During:

After:

It is missing the small door for the cabinet to the left of the sink (I just got it from IKEA, but haven't installed it yet) but isn't it great?? And the greatest thing is that now I can replace the other cabinets as I have time/money!

Stay tuned for more tomorrow.

Moments in House Renovation With Mary

2008-03-06T13:53:00.003-05:00

(And, by the way, I know it's been two months since I wrote anything. Chalk it up to a case of terminal laziness and a spectacularly uninteresting life.)

************************

male: "I need to paint over this caulk by the bathroom mirror with white paint. I don't understand why the caulk has turned pink."

female: "The caulk didn't turn pink. That's from my makeup."

*************************

person who is not Mary and doesn't know how clumsy she is: "Don't worry about a drop cloth. Since I'm on the ladder I'll be the one who makes a mess...oh, wait. You've stepped in some paint and tracked it all over the floor."

*************************

Yes, that's right. I've been participating in home repair and renovation! Whoo-hoo. I'll have pictures soon...

Conversations With My Neighbors

2008-01-08T21:33:00.000-05:00

The house next door to me has been empty for the better part of 6 months now. This is Not Good in a sketchy neighborhood, so I was glad to learn on Saturday that a young couple has moved in next door to "fix up" the place. I learned this because the young lady (around 25 and only missing a few teeth) showed up on my doorstep asking to borrow my phone to call her sister-in-law since her husband had dropped their phone in the toilet. Don't you hate it when that happens? In any case, I have since learned interesting things.

Hand to God - all of these are direct quotes. They were said by one or the other of my neighbors either directly to me, or while on my phone standing directly in front of me. I'm not sure whether to laugh or cry or pray...or all three.

"It's just the two of us right now, but I'm hoping my girls will be with us soon. I hear Fulton County is real quick about getting your kids back to you."

"Nah - he's doing real good. He ain't done that in three whole days."

"I forgot to tell you - the DNA results came back! Now no one can deny that he's her father."

"Don't you worry - if someone tries to break into the house, they'll get shot. And then I'll hand the gun to my wife 'cause, you know, I ain't supposed to own no gun."

"You've been so generous - when my food stamps start up next week I'm gonna buy you something special."

Maybe when I was wishing for neighbors to make the neighborhood a little safer, I should have been more specific. Sigh.

In Which I Display Momma Bear Qualities

2007-12-07T17:34:00.000-05:00

Maybe I'm not understanding this because I'm not married. Or because my family would not make demands on me like my friends are experiencing. Or...maybe I'm just a bitch. Whatever.

I have several friends who are married (no, really! We still talk and laugh and everything!). And the thing is, several of *those* people are being dragged all over hell and back at the holidays by their families. Now here's the thing - I've met most of these people. I know that their families are by and large nice and loving and want only the best for their children. But OH MY GOD. The demands I see my friends go through! Waking up at 0-dark-thirty to fly on Christmas Eve and then drive, or drive to several states/cities in one day, or spend a major holiday *not with* their spouse in order to accommodate both families. Am I crazy for just absolutely knowing that I would long ago have told people that I was crossing my arms and stomping my feet and NOT MOVING AT ALL until they stopped acting like it was the end of the world if Thanksgiving was celebrated on Friday?

I don't mean to imply that I look down on my friends for doing what they choose to do. They all have their own balancing acts to create and they choose what matters, and I really do respect everything that they do. But oy. It really makes me appreciate the fact that for all the differences I may have with my family at times, I know that I would never be made to feel bad if I had to choose a place to be for a holiday.

Almost Done...

2007-11-28T17:50:00.000-05:00

Much as I love my shoes, I'm ready to have this series over with. For one thing, I'm running out of comfortable shoes to wear to work. The 4" spikes don't work so much there for some reason...

Anyway, these are as comfortable as shoes get. Plus, they're ballerina flats with bow, which I seem to have developed an obsession with (I just realized that I have four different pairs in that style). Oh well.

I Have Returned

2007-11-26T18:31:00.001-05:00

Returned to work, that is. It's always hard after an extended vacation, but we all made it through the day. But it was a long day, so upon coming home I felt the need to change into my cheeriest tennies. They always make me smile!

Boot Weather!

2007-11-25T12:11:00.000-05:00

There's this weird thing happening here in Atlanta today. There's water falling from the sky. I haven't seen that happen in so long, that I'm not sure what it is anymore. I think it's called...rain?? In any case, in order for my tootsies to stay warm and dry I have excitedly pulled out my boots as we are officially entering Boot Season. Yeay!

And - I am NOT wearing gauchos!! I simply have my jeans pulled up to show off the glory that is the boots.

Complementary

2007-11-24T18:32:00.000-05:00

These are nice enough shoes. Comfortable, low-heel, still stylish. But the best part about them is that they go with the Best Coat Ever. Found on sale (which, of course, makes it exponentially better) it's a leopard-print trapeze coat with green lining. How can that not make a great outfit??

I'm back!

2007-11-23T19:10:00.000-05:00

So - not so much with the updating the blog whilst on vacation. Oh well. But here are the shoes that I wore today. Very soft and comfy for sitting on an airplane, and easy to take off in the security line. Comes in handy!

I'm cheating

2007-11-19T13:54:00.000-05:00

Yesterday, I cleaned and cooked and then had people over for a Thanksgiving dinner. Today I'm catching a plane to Illinois to spend Thanksgiving vacation with my father. This means a few things:
1. I didn't get a chance to post the shoes from yesterday, so see below for those.
2. I'm wearing a pair of shoes today that I've already worn this month (the brown tennies). But they're the only ones that go with my comfortable traveling outfit that are warm enough for fall but still easy to walk through the airport in and take off at the security lines. So...sue me.
3. I *will* be able to update on the different shoes that I'm taking to Illinois. I know you're all relieved! :-)

PS - please ignore the yucky nail polish - it's fall and the only reason I was wearing flip-flops was because I didn't set foot outside. And the kitchen was approximately 112 degrees from the turkey and everything else cooking.

Date Night

2007-11-17T18:38:00.000-05:00

Saturdays, of course, are date night. And date nights are wonderful opportunities to wear those cool shoes that are too uncomfortable or too impractical or too sexy for work. These might fit into all three categories, but I sure do love 'em.

Casual-but-cute Friday

2007-11-16T07:02:00.000-05:00

These are moccasins, and as such are comfy. They're suede and so therefore are warm and soft. And they have a purple velvet bow and thus are mega cute. What more could I ask for?

That's More Like It

2007-11-15T18:52:00.000-05:00

After the shoes-of-depression yesterday, I present my comfortable-but-spiked, neutral-but-rocking, bought-to-go-with-a-Halloween-costume-but-quite-possibly-my-favorite shoes-of-the-moment 20's inspired beige heels. I'll expect loud applause at computer terminals all over the world.

funerals and whatnot

2007-11-14T07:21:00.000-05:00

These shoes have a history. They used to belong to my roommate (who was the only person I've ever lived with who wore the same size shoe as me) and I loved them so much that when she moved to Washington DC, she gave them to me. Maybe seems strange to give a pair of shoes to someone like me, who buys them compulsively, but I still love them.

Today I'm wearing them to the funeral of a student. He was a senior, in honors classes, sweet and funny. And in trying to avoid rear-ending someone, he swerved into a guy wire, flipped his car and was killed. I'm sad for Matt and his family, but all week I've also often been moved to tears because it reminds me of the friends I lost when I was in high school and the total waste of it all - then and now. It also reminds me of how good and generous teenagers are: Matt's mom didn't have life insurance on him so didn't know how to pay for the funeral. In the last two days, the kids at our school have donated more than $2000. That's without even going into the community - that's kids, some of whom didn't even know Matt, giving their lunch money, their fun money, their savings so that a mother in tragedy doesn't have to worry quite so much about this one thing.

And now I'm crying again. Enjoy the shoes.

Yawn

2007-11-13T07:27:00.000-05:00

They're black. They're Aerosoles. They'll be comfortable all day at school and all evening at the dress rehearsal I have to attend. But they aren't black-and-red-polkadots. They aren't 20's-inspired spike heels. They aren't even horse-print pumps. Sigh. I have such exciting shoes that just aren't practical for school. Why can't I be independently wealthy so I can be photographed wearing my loveliest shoes while shopping for more lovely shoes?

Brown

2007-11-12T07:32:00.000-05:00

It's the color of a lot of shit. Ha!

But it's also a color I wear a lot. And therefore, I have way too many brown shoes. But these are one of my favorites (two of my favorites?). Plus, they're a rare occurance: comfortable heels.

Lazy Sunday Shoes

2007-11-11T16:14:00.001-05:00

These are another pair that used to look better. But at least they are cute. Or once were. At least they're comfy??

Party Shoes

2007-11-10T18:38:00.001-05:00

It's 6:30 and I've been pretty much barefoot until now. But now I'm headed out to a party and have on my fun red loafers. And fun red purse to match. Yeay!

Plain Jane

2007-11-09T07:28:00.000-05:00

I'm almost ashamed to show these. They were cute once but they've gotten rather dirty, as athletic shoes tend to do when you use them for, you know, *athletic* things. But it's going to be a long day at work today, and I need comfy shoes so there you go...

Clinton and Stacey, Beware

2007-11-08T07:26:00.000-05:00

In general, I think I dress (and accessorize) pretty well. Lord knows that I love to shop. But, I have one prediliction that the hosts of _What Not To Wear_ would chastise me for. I like weird socks. Hoidays, stripes, polkadots, you name it...I like it. So here are some shoes that I seriously only bought because they show off whatever socks I'm wearing.

Different Emphasis

2007-11-07T06:56:00.000-05:00

Today, the part I'm most proud of isn't the shoes (which are cute) but the tights. I love these tights and it's finally cold enough to wear them!

No kids...

2007-11-06T07:11:00.000-05:00

...means I get to wear tennis shoes to work. These might be my favorite tennis shoes that I own. Of course, I wouldn't think of playing tennis in them. Maybe sneakers would be a better description? Oh - and two things: First, I don't really wear my jeans rolled up above my ankle bone. And those socks? I've had them since I was a senior in high school! Bought them to match the outfit I wore for senior pictures. I know you're fascinated...

New Shoes!

2007-11-05T07:12:00.000-05:00

As the title says - these are new. Which means that I will probably regret wearing them to work before breaking them in a little - but I'm not known for being sensible when shoes are concerned, anyway.

By the way, I couldn't get the color to come out very well - these are a much more vibrant blue and purple than they seem.

Who knew?

2007-11-04T11:43:00.000-05:00

I've had these shoes for several years now. I rarely wear them, but when I wore them to church this morning, every person who saw them (including several straight men) told me how great they were. So now I'll have to wear them more often!

PS - it's hard to tell in the picture, but the grey part of the shoe is actually a white/grey/blue plaid. Tres chic.

Do These Count?

2007-11-03T10:26:00.000-04:00

I'm cleaning, so flip-flops are appropriate. Some people (females, mostly) that I know own tons and tons of flip-flops. I own only a couple of pairs. But these are sooooo comfy - and cute. I mean, really, how can I not buy a shoe that has a picture of a monkey on it? Or maybe that's a marmoset? Or a golden tamarind? Anyway...

Old and Comfy...

2007-11-02T07:00:00.000-04:00

Yes, I've had these forever. But they're so soft and cushy. And pink! Pink is always fun.

(Notice Asha's paw next to my foot. Apparently, she wants to show off her feet, too...)

Look: A Series!

2007-11-01T07:02:00.000-04:00

And for the month of November I offer: Mary's shoes!

I own too many pairs. But to prove to myself (and perhaps my mother) that I really do *use* them, I hereby vow to wear a different pair every day. Here are the pair of the day. I love them. Purchased at Ross, and I get compliments every time I wear them.

Good News and Bad News

2007-10-16T18:13:00.000-04:00

Good News: After my hedge trimmer broke in the middle of the last hedge-trimming session (leaving my very large hedge rather scraggely and lopsided) I FINALLY (as in a month and a half later) purchased a new hedge trimmer.

Good News: The hedge trimmer works very well, and is even a little lighter than the old one.

Bad News: The hedge trimmer works so well that I now have to buy a new outdoor electric cord before I can finish trimming my large hedge. Sigh.

Oy

2007-10-06T02:11:00.000-04:00

I've mentioned that I run an after school program for the HIGH SCHOOL that I teach at.

Yesterday I got a call from the bus "depot" saying that one of the students taking the late bus home after the program was over didn't know where she lived. No, this is not a special ed student.

Don't they make kindergartners memorize their addresses? Oy, again.

Fun With Insomnia

2007-10-02T01:05:00.000-04:00

The great Kidney Stone Crisis of 2007 is (almost) officially over. Although the incident did confirm that I am a medical freak - I put off going to the doctor until Monday, on the grounds that since I didn't have a fever, I didn't have an infection so just needed pain killers. When I saw the doc on Monday, she did give me some painkillers, and confirmed that I didn't have a fever (my temp was 98.4 for the record)...but found that I did have an infection as well. Sigh. I'm the only person I know who gets bacterial infections (strep, urinary tract, etc) and doesn't get a fever. Oh well.

Now, of course, we are back to our regularly scheduled bouts of insomnia. As an example: I took TWO Vicodan before bed last night. That was, to be precise, exactly 3 hours ago. Um, yes. And now? I'm wide awake after less than 3 hours of sleep. Is that normal? I think not.

I swear - is there anyone out there who is prone to colds and flu who would like to trade medical proclivities? I'll take some constant sniffles over only occasional but always frustrating weird medical ailments.

Only me

2007-09-29T08:33:00.000-04:00

It's been a while since I went to the emergency room. I'm about to break that streak.

A couple of years ago, I had a fairly mild bout with kidney stones. Not fun, but frankly, not the worst pain I've ever experienced (yes, I've had an injury/weird illness filled life). I thought all that was behind me. But then...

Woke up this morning (7 AM on a Saturday!!!) in incredible pain. Of course, by the time I had hobbled around the room finding clothes (yelling, "ow, ow, ow, ow," the whole time) the pain had subsided. And that's a good thing since I have a flipping PROJECT due today for my free-lance job. So now I'm feverishly (quite literally...last time I had kidney stones, I ran a fever for three days) working to get that done and once it's done and it's a reasonable hour, I suppose I'll call a friend and get myself to the ER for some treatment.

I swear - why can't I do something normal like come down with the flu? I NEVER get the flu! Kidney stones, shingles, strep tongue (yes, you read that right)...now THOSE I get. Sigh.

Refreshing

2007-09-15T11:26:00.000-04:00

Can I brag on myself here? Is that allowed?

I don't think of myself as overly modest, or as having particularly low self esteem. I think I'm a realist. I know my faults but I also know that I have some strengths. However, every once in a while I'm knocked for a real loop when someone complements me unexpectedly. Actually, this is probably the second time in my life I've been this surprised and pleased.

When I entered graduate school, I had taken a year "off" after college. Part of the reason for that time off was the incredible stress I'd incurred working with my college advisor. Perhaps I chose unwisely, but I had selected a professor whom I got along with personally very well; we often went out for drinks, I'd baby-sit for him and his wife, etc. Professionally, however, the man was a nightmare. Nothing I did was ever good enough for him and after four years of working with and for him, I really had become quite neurotic about turning in anything at all. When I showed up for grad school and met with my appointed advisor to choose classes, it turned out that the best option for fitting in the required credits would be to do an independent study with her. She sent me out after that first day with instructions to "look up a few topics" and prepare a proposal. This sent me into a frenzy of activity. I spent the *entire* next day in the library, put together a proposal, got very little sleep after writing all night, and turned it in the next day knowing that it would be ripped to shreds. And it would have been, had my college professor looked at it. My graduate school professor, however, read it over and told me how well written and insightful it was and that she'd seldom seen anything so well done by a first year graduate student. Well. It suddenly occurred to me that all the stress I'd been through in the last four years had a) taught me to write really well and b) been caused mostly by my *advisor's* faults and not my own. A huge weight lifted off my shoulders then, and I started to enjoy school again.

Now let's jump ahead to yesterday. I have a free-lance job working for a company that writes correlations for math textbooks. Simply put, I document that a given textbook meets a given state's requirements. It sounds straightforward, but somehow when state boards of education come up with requirements for a class, they manage to invent the most esoteric, repetitive standards which are often hard to decipher. I just finished my second project for this company, which was aligning a text for New York - probably one of the weirdest states in the country when it comes to these requirements. I was under a tight deadline, the standards were hard to understand, the textbook was about the size of the OED, and I just wasn't pleased with what I turned in. I thought I'd skimped too much, was outright wrong in some places, etc. But yesterday I received an email from my supervisor telling me that my work was "refreshingly wonderful". Happy sigh. I guess I'm more of a perfectionist than I ever suspected.

So that's my bragging story of the day. Hope all of you get some unexpected complements as well.

Exciting Event

2007-09-02T23:33:00.000-04:00

Exciting doesn't mean good.

I came home tonight from a friend's house around 11 PM. I actually paused for a couple of minutes on the front porch, picking dead-heads off the hanging mini-petunias in front of my door. Then, I turned, unlocked and opened the door and hear a loud BANG from the front office. Louder than my crazy cat could possibly make. I peeked around the door and saw the side window open wide. Um, I thought. This is Not Good.

At that point, I was stuck...the person who had (I was pretty sure) gone out the window could easily have been standing 6 feet from me, at the end of the porch. Or they could be inside the house. Or they could be running through the back yard. I grabbed my cell phone and dialed 911 - and the damn thing wouldn't connect. Seriously, wouldn't connect. I dialed 911 at least 4 times and each time, it would be silent for a minute and then hang up. So, with shaking hands, I cautiously entered the house, walked into the office where the phone was, picked it up and called 911 on it. Now, there is something about the walls in my house. My cell phone doesn't work inside and my cordless phone doesn't work *outside*. So I had to call 911 standing just outside the front door, poised to bolt either way should someone creepy appear.

Here's how the conversation went:
Dimwit Operator: 911, what's your emergency?
Shaky Me: I need to report a break-in at [my address].
Dimwit Operator: When did this break-in occur?
Shaky Me: Right NOW. I think the person might be around here, so I need someone here immediately!
Dimwit Operator: I have them on their way. I can barely hear you.
Shaky Me: That's because I don't want to go INTO my house in case they're still there.
Dimwit Operator: But I can barely hear you. An officer is on his way.
Shaky Me: That's great, but can I stay on the phone with y-
Dimwit Operator: click

I swear. So I talked nonsensically on the phone, pretending 911 was still on the phone with me while I frantically called friends on my cell (which WOULD connect with non-emergency numbers, apparently) until one answered, at which point I could close my front door and sit in my car with the doors locked for the few more minutes until an officer arrived.

As it turns out, nothing is missing. Nothing. They literally must have been prying the window open as I pulled in the driveway. You think they would notice something like that, but... The officer looked around the whole house, checked the other windows, and helped me make damn sure that this (apparently the only window that wasn't secure) will NEVER open again. I didn't even file a report - no point to it.

I love my house, I even love the small-city-enclosed-in-a-big-city that I live in, but oy. Enough with the crack heads/juvenile delinquents/idiot thieves who keep breaking in, taking nothing, but giving me heart attacks!

Post Script: They apparently got exactly ONE thing. My g**-d***, m-fing camera. The LAST time my house was broken into, that's one of the only things they got. Am I just not meant to have a camera? Really? And damn it, I LOVE my camera, take it everywhere, annoy everyone by how many pictures I take and I CAN"T AFFORD A NEW ONE now. Sigh. Insurance wouldn't be any good - making a claim on a silly $150 camera would jack up rates and not even pay for a new one.

Sudden Realizations

2007-08-27T20:56:00.000-04:00

I came to, well, a sudden realization today. Now, some of you might want to smack me upside the head when I reveal this and yell, "We've been TELLING you that," but really - it took me by surprise.
In the last, oh, year or so I've dealt with several friendships gone awry. One is strained off-and-on, a couple have just ended altogether. And I've very much blamed this on myself. Wondered constantly what else I could do, if I'm a bad friend, if I ask too much of my friends, etc. But it dawned on me today that IT MIGHT NOT BE ME. Perhaps - just perhaps - the other people involved are the ones who are not behaving rationally. Perhaps I'm not to blame. There are other people that love me. I still have friendships that have lasted for oh-my-god-two-decades or more.
Probably my inability to see this before now stems from a combination of self-pity and misplaced guilt and also some self-centeredness (me me me me me, it must be about me). But wow. I feel like a weight has been lifted.
Whee!

Um...See What Had Happened Was

2007-08-23T22:19:00.000-04:00

Yeah. I'm really great at updating this blog, aren't I? What happened to my summer? I'm not really sure...all I know is that one day I was thinking about getting an extra job to help make ends meet and the next, I had *four* extra jobs and hardly enough hours in the day to do them.

And now school has started. Oh well.

Sadly this was NOT one of my extra jobs:

But it was a fun night anyway.

More later when, well, when something happens worth writing about. Or when I find a meme I like. Or, well...

Picking Up Where You Left Off

2007-06-19T11:21:00.000-04:00

I took a "personality quiz" last night (I was bored). It, like every one of those silly things that I take, told me that I am a "people person", needing interaction with others to be happy. Well, duh. I've said before that my friends are one of the most important things in my life.

Sometimes, bad things can come out of being reliant on others. I am sometimes easily hurt by a rejection from someone I thought cared, I often don't let go of relationships that should be ended. But when friendships are healthy and sane, they are the best things in the world. Take last weekend, for example.

Years ago, I worked at a summer camp for gifted students. The instructors and TA's and RA's at that camp tended to come back year after year, not because the camp was so awesome but because the people we worked with were. To paraphrase of one of the instructors I worked with, there was the highest concentration of people worth knowing at that camp. It's now more than 10 years since I started working at that summer camp, and some of the people I worked with are still among my best friends.

Now that we're all grown-ups (more or less) and scattered from North Carolina to California, a group of us get together every summer and take a vacation together. We got together in the mountains of North Carolina this year. We saw Asheville and Dollywood and beautiful views in the Smokey Mountains. But more importantly, we saw each other. I can't imagine being around better people, who know so much about me, who care about me anyway. I hope everyone out there has a group of people like this - who can pick up where they left off the last time they saw you, who are funny and intelligent and just plain nice.

Meme redux

2007-06-13T03:28:00.000-04:00

I had a series of books when I was a child called "Stories From Grandma's Attic", "More Stories From Grandma's Attic", "Still More Stories...", well, you get the point. At some point they finally ran out of ways to say moremoremoremoremore and came up with actual names for the remaining books. I feel like that will happen with me and memes. Meme redux, meme again...whatever will I call it next time?

Anyway, I'm following Shawnee's lead here (as I always did, of course. Especially when it came to breaking laws. Wait. No. We never broke anything, ever. Ahem.).

What were you doing 10 years ago?
Um - I'd just finished grad school and was teaching at a summer camp in Davidson, NC. I was dating Jim, and was in reality slightly homeless...I ended up staying with a couple of different people after the camp ended since there was about a month's lag time between the end of camp and the beginning of my new lease with Karen. Oh - and I'd just bought the first car I ever bought. Woo-hoo.

What were you doing one year ago?
Packing feverishly for the move into this house. I hate moving. And I think Andy was here about this time. I don't hate Andy.

Five snacks you enjoy.
1. Popcorn. Lots of butter (or butter flavored grease...doesn't matter).
2. Pretzels. I like them plain, but they're even better dipped in cream cheese. Fat makes everything taste better.
3. Chocolate Chip cookies. Soft and warm ones.
4. Guacamole
5. Brie and baguette with tomato.

Five songs you know all the lyrics to.
1. Mercedez Benz, Janis Joplin (I just sang this song on the beach, to a bunch of people who didn't know it. I NEVER sing in public. But I think the fact that it was Janis, who really didn't have much of a voice either made me feel better about it!)
2. Bohemian Rhapsody, Queen (Yeah, yeah...I knew it BEFORE Wayne's World came out.)
3. Closer to Fine, The Indigo Girls (You ever have a song just slap you across the face the first time you heard it? This one did to me. I still remember exactly where I was.)
4. The Weakness in Me, Melissa Etheridge (A lesser known one by her, but her most beautiful.)
5. Looking for Space, John Denver (Actually, I could list any of his songs...this is just one of my favorites.)

Five things you would do if you were a millionaire.
I'm with Shawnee here: Let's assume this means multi-millionaire / billionaire, m'kay? Lots more fun to ponder.
1. Retire. To Hawaii. With all the friends I could pay for/convince to retire with me.
2. Buy my mother a house. Buy my father, well, something he wanted.
3. Travel. To Australia and Africa and Greece and...well, all over.
4. Convince John Cusack that I'm the woman of his dreams. Money can do that, right?
5. You don't even want to know how many shoes I'd have. Imelda Marcos? An amateur.

Five bad habits.
1. Biting my nails
2. Eating late at night
3. Procrastination. About everything.
4. Is *not* exercising a habit?
5. Spending too much money on shoes.

Five things you like doing.
1. Shopping
2. Reading
3. Laying on a beach. Any beach.
4. Throwing parties
5. Cooking

Five things you would never wear again.
1. Anything neon. Especially neon yellow.
2. Shoulder pads
3. Acid wash jeans with pleats (my skin is crawling just typing the words...)
4. A tube top
5. My prom dress (first of all, I don't think it would fit around my THIGH. Beyond that...why?)

Five Favorite Toys.
1. Digital Camera
2. Food Processor
3. My new car!
4. I don't think I have any other toys...not that I can talk about in public, at least.
5. Wink, wink, nudge, nudge

There you have it. Now you know more about me.

Shopping Successes

2007-06-07T20:29:00.000-04:00

Several shopping successes have occurred in the last 24 hours. I found a sofa cover that I like and that was affordable. I did NOT purchase the extremely cute but extremely impractical black-polka-dot-with-red-heels shoes that I soooooo wanted. (As seen here.)

But most importantly, I bought a car! It's a Kia Optima (sorry, Scott, no Jeep. I wish!). Black, 2005, low mileage, and this chick even bargained the finance rate down more than half a percent. I feel so...grown-up.

Now I just need nominations for her name. Check it out:

Cars. Again.

2007-06-06T08:58:00.000-04:00

Do cars SMELL money? I mean seriously.

I was in an accident a year and a half ago. On my dearest friend's wedding day. (Hi, Shawnee!) I FINALLY got the settlement check last week. Deposited it Monday. Yesterday (Tuesday if you're keeping track) my car died. How do they know???

The good news is that I'm going car shopping this afternoon. Any advice?

I take it back!

2007-04-27T11:05:00.000-04:00

I decided about a month ago to have knee surgery. I have a bad knee. I mean really bad. As in, the last time I wsa in therapy for it, my therapist looked at me with wonder in his eyes and said "how old are you????" I have an 80-year-old knee in a 35-year-old body. So. After conferring with my orthopedic surgeon and looking at options, I came to the conclusion that this knee surgery was the best option for trying to replace some cartiledge and reducing the daily pain.

I take it back. On Wednesday, I underwent a procedure known as a microfracture. The pain in my knee right now is fairly minimal. The pain in the ASS factor, however??? Geez. I can't get around the house. I can't go grocery shopping. My arms hurt from supporting the weight of my body on crutches. I can't turn over in bed without wincing. Sigh.

I know this will pass, and I have every reason to believe that it will significantly improve my quality of life for quite a while. But oy. Right now, that painful-but-mobile life that I had just a few days ago is looing better.

Interview with the Track Coach

2007-04-17T22:14:00.000-04:00

I've been tagged by Shawnee for this meme/interview. Which forces me to update this blog which is never a bad thing. Is it??

Name five "luxury items" that you could not live without. (i.e., not necessities such as food, water, air, cocktails or George Clooney. Although that last one may just be me.)

Books. Shoes (in multiple colors/heel heights/styles). My computer/internet connection. My food processor. Colored felt-tip pens for grading (red ball points are so boring.)

What is your favorite recipe?

Oooo - I don't know if I can answer this. To eat or to cook? To bake or to serve for actual meals? If it's to make for an actual meal, then probably wontons. Easy, but very impressive. To eat? Ida's cavatelli. To bake? Fudge-filled-peanut-butter-bars.

Of all the places you have visited, which was your favorite? Where would you most like to go next?

This is hard. I've been so many places that I liked. I think in terms of sheer number of things to do, San Francisco was one of my favorite places ever. As far as next? I'd LOVE to see Hawaii. Or New Zealand. I'm not thinking either of those trips will happen anytime soon. Instead, I'm heading to a South Carolina island that I've never been to so that will have to do!

Which is a bigger temptation - shoes, bags or jewelry?

No contest. Shoes. By a landslide.

If you were to change one thing about yourself, would it be physical or emotional / mental?

Physical, definitely. I've worked hard on my emotional and mental health over the past few years. I haven't worked as hard on my physical health. That's about to change, though, as I've taken a vow with a friend that I will use the upcoming knee surgery as incentive to recover and train to run a half-marathon.

You want to play along? Ok.

Leave me a comment requesting an interview.
I will email you five questions. I get to pick the questions. I'll try not to be too mean. Ha.
You will update your blog with the answers to the questions.
You will include this explanation (or a reasonable variation) and an offer to interview someone else in the same post.
When others comment asking to be interviewed, you will ask them five questions.

Inordinately Proud

2007-04-06T11:56:00.000-04:00

So, I changed the layout of my site. All by myself. Whoo-hoo. The old girl hasn't lost everything, even if I haven't programmed any code for *anything* in years.

I'm teaching myself HTML just for the challenge and it's purty cool. And easy. So if you want a page - just ask me. Now, I'm not promising fast results... :-)

decisions

2007-04-05T16:10:00.000-04:00

I went with the first one. It got the most votes (including the votes of two gay men, and you *know* I have to listen to their fashion advice...) and also advertises itself as having "power mesh" lining for figure control. Which really is kind of laughable when you think that in a swimsuit, people are pretty much going to figure out what shape my figure is in no matter what, but it still is tempting. I love the second one, which got nearly as many votes, but I'm not convinced that the cut of the legs wouldn't make my legs look two inches long. I'm 5'1"...I don't need to look shorter!

And thus ends swimsuit shopping drama '07.

Oh - and the first one does have a detachable halter strap, so no worries about the girls getting too much exposure. Accidental exposure, anyway...

because I am indecisive...

2007-04-04T15:18:00.000-04:00

This may be a little weird, but what the hell...I'm weird.

Summer (and therefore a beach trip or several) is coming up and so I'm swimsuit shopping. Online, because that's where the best deals and the best selection are. Really - women, if you haven't discovered Newport News for swimsuits, they're to DIE for. Anyway...I can't decide on one. So you get to vote. (Oh - and I know that I am not blond, 5'10" or 110 lbs. Nevertheless, I'm fairly confident that the styles here will be as attractive as anything that contains lycra and shows off my thighs can be...) Here are the nominees:

I like the red here.

Another red one. I think I'm really going for red this year.

I don't know about the jewels here. And it's pictured in blue, but they only have it in "Pomegranate" and "White Multi". I figure the Pomegranate is what I'd get...you know...red!

And for something *not* red:

whew

2007-04-01T16:07:00.000-04:00

I've made it to spring break.

This is the break that feels like it will never come every year. By the time school let out on Friday, kids were wild, teachers were burned out and snapping at the kids and at each other, and the whole school was just generally walking on a knife edge. But every year we make it, and return after the break ready to hit the last few weeks of the year at a dead sprint toward graduation.

And speaking of sprints, (like how I segued into track? Great, huh?) track would be the reason that this poor blog isn't ever getting new entries. Every year I forget just how busy I am in the spring and get surprised all over again by my complete and utter lack of any free time. Fer cryin out loud - I was so excited that I had time to see a movie last night that I didn't know what to do with myself.

So here's to a week of no school, no track...just relaxing. Oh, and cleaning the house and mowing the lawn and getting the car fixed - but compared to wrangling several hundred kids a day, that's a cake walk!

Calling all cars...

2007-03-07T22:38:00.000-05:00

So, I live in the hood. Or da hood. However you want to say it - it doesn't change the fact that my neighborhood is best described as "transitional". Down the street is a house that's been under construction for the better part of a year now, another house that's been burned out for at least 20 years, two brand new houses, and several houses that contain perfectly nice families or single people.

A few weeks ago, my house was broken into. They came in through the back door, and they didn't get much. The cop and I were pretty sure they were kids, as all indications pointed to the fact that I came home while they were in the house and they dropped everything and ran. It's not the first time that a house I lived in was broken into, and it was certainly less traumatic this time than it was last time, so no big deal.

Last night, though, there was a new incident, even for me and my history of "interesting" incidents in the many "transitional" neighborhoods I've lived in in Atlanta.

I pulled into my driveway after a looooong day (school followed by track meet). There was a strange car in my drive already. My drive is not in a place where it would make sense for any visitors of my neighbor's to park there, so I was immediately weirded out. Called several friends, but as it was late at night, no one was answering. So on the better-safe-than-sorry theory, I called 911. The operator asked what kind of car it was. "A Hyundai Sante Fe," I replied. "Is it green?" she asked. Um....yes. It's never a good sign when the 911 operator knows the color of a suspicious car in your DRIVEWAY.

Suffice it to say that the police were dispatched, they came, told me the car had been stolen earlier in the day (gee, really?) and towed the dang thing away.

My friends and family wonder why I don't want to live in a more...stable neighborhood. I say that at least it's never boring around here.

Better late than never

2007-02-21T20:37:00.000-05:00

Only a couple of weeks after being tagged by Shawnee, here's the world's most popular meme: Six Weird Things About Me. You've been waiting. I know you have.

1. I hurt myself. On accident. All. The. Time. I wrote a whole blog about all the times I'd been to the emergency room on my last blog address, and now I can't find it, so suffice it to say that at last count I'd been to at least 12 different emergency rooms in at least 10 different cities. Only some of which I lived in. I've fallen down hills, sprained ankles, stuck myself with scissors, slipped on ice, hit my head, come down with mysterious or unusual ailments. And yet I've never broken a single bone. Go figure.

2. I am almost never early. I am rarely late. I am almost always exactly (as in 1 or 2 minutes on either side) on time. Even when driving long distances, I somehow manage to pinpoint arrival times. Now, that might have something to do with my willingness to break the sound barrier when driving, but...

3. Birds hate me. I've never met a pet bird that didn't bite me or shriek at me or try to kick their shit at me. Seriously. I lived with two love birds (they were my roommate's) and if I walked by their cage, they would fly to the bottom and quite literally kick their *shit* at me.

4. I love Magnum P.I. I don't mean I love Tom Selleck. He's ok as an actor, I guess, but I've never thought he was the hottest thing going or anything. There's just something about the show that I adore. The intrigue, the semi-serial storyline (especially in the later seasons), the cheesiness - whatever it is, I love it.

5. I almost always remain friends with my ex-boyfriends. I don't mean "on friendly terms" or friends-with-benefits-until-we-get-each-other-out-of-our-systems or any other perversion of the word "friend". One of my very closest friends is an ex. I went out to dinner last night with another ex. Another one used to fly from Oklahoma to Georgia to visit me. This has gone on since high school, through college and into my (nominally) adult life. Can't explain it...just happens.

There you go.

Heat

2007-02-20T20:18:00.000-05:00

Heat. As in the condition my kitten is in. Is this how mothers feel when they're daughters hit puberty? "But she's not old enough!! Just yesterday she was a baby..."

In this case, she's only 7 months old, but apparently that's plenty fast enough. She doesn't go outdoors, so pregnancy isn't a danger, but homicide is. The next time she wakes me up at 4 AM with horrible groaning meaow that she's making, I just might kill her.

I promise to follow all the memes that have been sent to me recently soon, soon, soon. Coaching track is kicking my butt right now...

Why February Has Not Been Great

2007-02-05T23:00:00.000-05:00

This post could also be titled Why I Have Not Completed the Meme That Shawnee Tagged Me With.

Or simply Why I Am Exhausted.

But I digress.

Thursday, February 1st. Arrive at school 7:45 AM. Shit. Late for meeting with parents about student who refuses to do work. Sit and listen to parents argue about whether it would be better for me to phone or email to track said student's progress. Rush to 1st period class. Continue to have fairly normal but hectic day, including a well-intentioned but not as effective-as-I'd-hoped review game for below-level Algebra I students. Suffer disapproving looks from the special ed teacher who collaborates with me in that class. Go to track practice. 40 degree weather, girls who are late and/or complain and/or refuse to run entire workout. Wonder what possesses girls who have little interest in running to go out for TRACK. Come home and collapse exhausted on couch.

Friday, February 2nd. Arrive at school 8:20 AM. Shit. Late. 10 minutes before class, students are waiting at door to classroom. Open email to find slightly reprimanding letter from school bookkeeper asking where track fundraising monies are. Spend ENTIRE planning period running around school reminding girls that these monies are due. Go to track practice. See February 1. Work gate at freshman basketball game, sitting by a door which opens periodically to let in arctic blast. Head home at 7 PM, hoping to catch movie with friend. Enter house to find said house has been broken into. Call 911, find out what is missing. Am at first broken-hearted, thinking all heirloom jewelry is gone, but am then relieved to find it dropped on floor. Realize this means that I actually *came home while thieves were in house*. Freak out a little about this. Fight with Sprint over stolen cell phone.

Saturday, February 3rd. Try to straighten out new account at bank to make up for stolen checks. Fail. Hurry home to meet friend who will board up broken in back door and cable guy who is supposed to fix intermittent cable problem. Cable guy fails miserably. Friend succeeds. Rush to store to purchase new cell phone and fixin's for chili cook-off taking place next day.

Sunday, February 4th. Fix chili. Forget to fix matching blue-cheese cornbread until last minute. Curse self for being stupid. Find out cell phone number has been messed up by Sprint. Curse Sprint. Go to Super-Bowl Party, drink too many beers, win 3rd place in chili cook-off. Take home big wooden spoon as prize. Realize I forgot all about grading papers, and grades are due Monday. Grade feverishly until eyes cross. Collapse into bed, leaving all chili paraphernalia on counter to congeal nicely.

Monday, February 5th. Arrive at school 7:50 AM. Shit. Not as early as I'd meant to. Feverishly enter grades. Yell at classes because grades are so bad. During planning, rush to bank to try to take care of account. Fail. Rush to middle school to do various stuff. Rush back to high school to teach rest of classes and yell at kids. Go to track practice. See Feb 1 and Feb 2, but subtract 10 degrees. Rush back to bank. Finally succeed at changing account. Go to Sprint store. Fail to resolve phone issue. Curse. Drive to rural school, getting lost along the way, for mandatory track rules meeting. Curse slow-talking country leader of said meeting for stretching a 20 minute meeting into 45 minutes. Miss dinner date for sushi with friends. Come home, too tired to care, change into pajamas and sit in front of computer for mindless entertainment.

And one more thing. It's my birthday in 45 minutes.

Al Gore May Just Have a Point

2007-01-15T13:36:00.000-05:00

Ok, so I know that Denver has been having quite a time of it this winter. And I also know that Oklahoma and Texas are currently digging out from under a huge storm. But here in Atlanta? I'm sweating. I don't sweat easily. I'm often cold, known to wear jeans in the summer and sit under an afghan when it's, oh, 70 degrees in the house. Now, though? I'm in yoga pants and a tee-shirt, carrying items from the house to the storage shed. All the windows in the house are open, ceiling fans are on, and I'm considering pulling shorts out of the bottom drawer in the bedroom. I'm not complaining, exactly, but it is just a wee bit weird to have this weather in the middle of January. Even in Atlanta.

The thing is, this isn't just a warm weekend. This whole "winter" in Atlanta has been, well, warm. Color me worried.

And also? I can't have shorts weather in the winter. My legs are pasty white and definitely not ready for shorts. This global warming thing is definitely bad for fashion.

Again With The One Word Answers

2007-01-08T22:33:00.000-05:00

Once again, Shawnee has tagged me with a meme. One word answers only, so sit back and enjoy. And copy. (I copied one of her answers...)

* You Just Finished: changing
* The Weather Outside: cold
* Character On Your Childhood Lunchbox: none
* Your Mood: sated
* Britney Spears: pathetic
* Favorite Place In the House: couch
* Proud To Be: liberal
* Favorite Condiment: mustard
* Food Indulgence: popcorn
* Scent You Hate: musk
* Most Recent Purchase: sushi
* American Idol: vapid
* Last Part of Your Body Injured: wrist
* Your Desk: wreck
* Favorite Kind of Juice: tomato
* Animal That Freaks You Out: spider
* People Irritate You When They: ignore
* Your First Kiss: awkward
* Your Last Meal: sushi
* You'd Rather Be: tanning
* The Future: cloudy
* Hate To Look At: suffering
* The Ocean: fun
* Time Since You Got Up and Left The Computer: short

Bell the Cat

2007-01-07T11:57:00.000-05:00

Asha is quickly growing, and she snuck out of the house on New Year's Eve. I had a wretched 24 hours wondering if she would make it back here, but she did. She was probably at some wild and crazy cat NYE party and had the time of her life. That incident did prompt me to decide it was time to get her used to wearing a collar. The one I picked up had a bell on it. And oh, the hilarity. The video is a little blurry, but it's not because my camera couldn't focus. It's because she was moving JUST THAT FAST trying to get at the bell on her back. Hee!

Just One More Day, Please!

2007-01-04T14:24:00.000-05:00

Why are vacations never long enough? Tomorrow I return to work, and kids show up on Monday. I had grand plans to have the whole semester mapped out before I laid eyes on kids AND have my house cleaned and organized so I wouldn't have to worry about it while school is on AND have my budget laid out so I could save more money this year AND AND AND...

As I type this:

I have some of the semester planned. Like, oh, the first day. Maybe the first two days.

Three out of six rooms in my house are cleaned. And fairly organized. Of course, as those rooms got cleaned more and more stuff was dumped in the rooms not yet cleaned, so by the time I get to the last room, I'm not sure I'll even be able to open the door.

I know how much money I have left for this month. And it's, um, well...the word pathetic comes to mind. Sigh.

So much for grand plans. I'm going to eat one of the cookies I baked last night. That will solve, well, nothing. But it will taste good.

I Never...

2007-01-02T20:51:00.000-05:00

Well, I guess this is kind of the opposite of that "I Never" game we played in college. Thanks to Shawnee for tagging me with this meme. I guess since she figured I'd copy it from her anyway, she might as well invite me to play along...

You're supposed to bold all the things you have done. I've tried to suggest the mitigating circumstances for some...

smoked a cigarette - ok, so I smoked throughout high school. And ran track. I wasn't hypocritical. I was complicated.
crashed a friend's car
stolen a car
been in love - almost constantly from the age of, oh, 8. And usually unhappily. Woe is me.
been dumped - see above. Sigh.
shoplifted
been fired
been in a fist fight - with my little brother. That counts, right?
has feelings for someone who didn't have them back - what is this? Let's remember all the depressing times?
been arrested
gone on a blind date
lied to a friend - yes, but I'm quite sure I had a good reason. Ahem.
skipped school - but only during the lunch period. Or AP English. Because she didn't care.
seen someone die
had a crush on one of your internet friends
been to Canada
been to Mexico
been on a plane - just two days ago
purposely set a part of yourself on fire
eaten sushi - every Monday, standing date with several friends. I crave it often.
been jet-skiing - and I love it. I'd love to live on a lake or some body of water.
met someone in person from the internet - and doesn't it usually turn out badly? I still have hope...
been moshing at a concert - I love to do it, but since I'm only 5'1", I usually end up with an elbow in the eye. No joke. I got a black eye once.bold
taken pain killers - almost daily
loved and missed someone - again with the depressing questions
made a snow angel - I lived in Illinois and Ohio as a child. Snow angels were a way of life in the winter
had a tea party - I'm almost certain I did as a child. A pretend one, at least.
flown a kite - never very well, I'm afraid
built a sand castle - again, not very well. I'm not so...artistic. Or patient enough to stick with it until it's an actual castle. It usually ended up more of a sand lump
gone puddle jumping - does this mean jumping in puddles? I still do that occasionally. It's fun. When it's warm. Not so much when it's cold.
played dress up - I loved this as a child. I still remember some "glass" slippers we used to play Cinderella.
jumped in a pile of leaves - although now I'd be scared of slugs. Or spiders. Ewww.
gone sledding - Pasfield Park, in Springfield, IL. FABULOUS times as a child. No sledding in Atlanta, though. Sigh.
cheated while playing a game
been lonely - who hasn't?
fallen asleep at work or school - thankfully, not while I was actually *teaching*.
used a fake ID
watched a sun set - I think that is supposed to be sunset, but I'll let it go...
felt an earthquake - would you believe we had one here in Georiga a few years ago? Very strange. Woke me up in the night, and I remember thinking, "oh, it's only an earthquake" and falling back to sleep. In the morning, I sat up and thought, "what the f***???" Apparently, there is a fault in Alabama. Make your own jokes.
touched a snake - duh. Oh, you mean *the animal*? Tee hee. That too.
slept beneath the stars - I love camping
been robbed - house broken into, and the worst thing they took was the camera with pictures of my recent vacation. I'm still mad about that.
been misunderstood - I teach MATH. When do my kids EVER understand me??
petted a reindeer/goat - um. I'm not sure how these go together. No to the reindeer, but yes to the goat
won a contest - well, I've won a drawing. Does that count? Or winning scholarships?
run a red light/stop sign - nearly daily. I'm horrible.
been suspended from school
been in a car accident - several. But only one on the day of a wedding. (Sorry, Shawnee!)
eaten a whole pint of ice cream in one night - oy. Don't remind me

had deja vu - does this mean I'm in the Matrix?
danced in the moonlight - with the devil? Oh, sorry, Batman flashback. We did have outdoor dances in high school, though. And there was one very romantic night with the guy I was dating ...
liked the way you looked at least at one point in time - um, ok. How pathetic is this question? I like the way I look a lot of the time. I'm not perfect, but...
witnessed a crime - you mean besides ones I've been involved in? I teach high school. You'd be surprised what crimes go on. Or maybe you wouldn't.
been obsessed with Post-It notes
squished barefoot through the mud - just yesterday, while trying to find my lost kitten
been lost - Not often, but it happens
been on the opposite side of the country - just once. I do like San Francisco!
swam in the ocean - every summer, now that I'm only a couple hours drive from it. I love just floating...
cried yourself to sleep - lots, but probably the most ridiculous one was the time when my parents wouldn't let me stay up late to watch the final episode of M*A*S*H. Good lord, I must have been at least 11. Sad.
played cops and robbers - I'll always remember the time we were playing and I was acting as though I'd been shot. One of my friends leaned over me and yelled, "she's dead!" just as a *real* cop drove by. We were mortified when he stopped to check on us. Although in hind sight, good for him!
recently colored with crayons
sung karaoke - regrettably
paid for a meal with only coins
done something you told yourself you wouldn't do - all the freaking time.
made prank phone calls - yes, but I'm sure it was all Shawnee's idea
laughed until some kinda beverage came out of your nose - I remember a particularly painful experience with a slush puppy in the skating rink once.
caught a snow flake on your tongue - again, I grew up in Illinois and Ohio. My brother and I loved to do this.
written a letter to Santa Claus - I'm quite sure I did. Although I really don't remember really believing in him. I knew it was just a wish list to my parents!
been kissed under the mistletoe by your boy/girlfriend
watched the sun rise with someone you care about - remember that romantic dancing under the moonlight I mentioned? Yeah. It was a nice night.
blown bubbles - I still love doing this.
made a bonfire on the beach
laughed so hard you pee your pants
cheated on a test - only in French class in high school. I *cannot* do languages. Plus I hated that teacher. Good reason, I know.
been kissed by someone you didn't like - only when I hadn't yet broken up with them...

gone skinny dipping in a pool

New Year's Eve Extravaganza

2006-12-31T18:28:00.000-05:00

We're all set here at the I-Always-Wanted-A-Nickname household for a great big NYE blow-out. Yessiree. Here's the checklist:

1 package brie cheese
1 loaf French bread
1 package tomatoes
1 pint Ben and Jerry's Chubby Hubby ice cream
Knife for cutting bread and tomatoes and spreading brie on same
Spoon for eating ice cream straight out of container
DVD's received for Christmas (original Star Wars trilogy, Brokeback Mountain, Buffy the Vampire Slayer Season 3, Magnum PI Season 2, trio of Vin Diesel movies that are mindless but fun)
DVD Player
TV
Couch
Cozy Blanket

Yup. Looks like the makings of the perfect New Year's Eve. Hope everyone out there has as much fun as I will!

PS - Lest you think I'm being snarky and/or feeling sorry for myself, I turned down invitations to three parties and one sit-down-in-a-fancy-restaurant dinner for this. I've been traveling for a week, I'm exhausted and my couch looks so good right now I may never rise from it again!

Let It Never Be Me

2006-12-21T18:09:00.000-05:00

Some parents are their kids' worst enemies. And they don't even know it.

The fall semester is over today. (FINALLY. Ahem.) One girl in the SAT class I teach is receiving a 17% on her report card. No, I did not reverse those numbers. This particular girl (let's call her, oh, Matilda) has some issues such as ADHD. Matilda's biggest issue, though, is the fact that her mother has apparently taught Matilda that she (the mother) will fight every battle, make excuses, give her extensions, write excuse notes whenever she has a small tummy ache and generally let her get away with anything she wants.

The salient points:
- Matilda has missed 22 complete days of school and 7 partial days. Every single time, she had a note from mommy saying that she didn't feel well.
- We had three projects in class. The first two, she turned in late. Once because her cell phone had been stolen and she was "upset", and once because, well, I never was clear on the reason for that. Her mother emailed me both times, demanding that Matilda be allowed to turn in her project late AND be given full credit.
- After the second week of school, Matilda stopped turning in her weekly assignment. This was NOT a major undertaking. Most students turned theirs in every week. Some students missed a couple of weeks here or there, but I was very flexible with my due dates since this was an elective class. By November 14, when Matilda's parents had a meeting with her teachers, she was 12 weeks behind. I was promised that the missing assignments would be in that week. They weren't. Nor were they in the next week or the next or... The only thing I've gotten from this child was two out of an eventual 15 missed assignments - both of which contained essays that had blatantly been plagiarized from a web site and for which, of course, she received no credit.
- Yesterday (the last day that I had Matilda in class) I received a note from her mother asking that Matilda be allowed to turn in all her weekly assignments the NEXT DAY. I sent an email saying HELL NO. Oh, well, maybe I didn't use those words, but that was the gist of it.
- The last project (due, also, yesterday) was one in which students had to find 10 scholarships for which they could apply. They didn't have to apply for all 10, mind you - they simply had to briefly (one paragraph) summarize the scholarship and what they could do to qualify for it. I gave suggestions for where to look. EVERY student in the class turned this in, and most turned it in early. Matilda sent me an email last night telling me that it was "too hard" and asking that she be allowed to turn this in on JANUARY 5 - the day the teachers return and start planning for NEXT SEMESTER. My response upon reading the email was "Are you fucking kidding me?" I didn't email this response, you understand. I just ignored her.

Today, I saw Matilda in the hall. She asked if she could turn in her work "later". (As this was the last day of school, and she was on her way out of the building, I'm not sure what "later" means in her world.) I said no. She said, "So I fail???", with tears welling up in her eyes, and I said "it's over, Matilda," and kept walking. I know, I'm an unfeeling bitch.

Sure enough, within an hour or two, her mother was calling the school demanding that she be given another chance. To their credit, the school administration is (so far) backing me on this one.

Sigh.

May I NEVER have such a blind spot when it comes to my children that I end up hurting them when I mean to help them.

Meme me

2006-12-20T23:22:00.000-05:00

Thanks to Shawn for assigning me the letter "K" (and for skipping the letter "Z"...)

10 Things I Love That Begin With the Letter "K"

1. Kids. Well, some kids. All kids under the age of, oh, 2. And some of my students. And most of my friends' kids...

2. Knives. Necessary for my favorite past time - cooking. I'd love to get a really good set of knives someday, but they're sooooo expensive. Isn't everything good?

3. Kimberly. And all the rest of my friends. Shawnee, Stacy, Chad, Jean, Andy, Mitch, Paul, Dan. I couldn't get through the day without emailing or talking to at least one of them!

4. Kodak. Well, not really, but I refuse to spell camera with a "K", because that's cheating. But I DO love my digital camera. I love taking pictures and being able to see them right away (I'm big on instant gratification...) and manipulate it on my computer.

5. Kevin Smith. The last time I laughed out loud at a movie was at Clerks II. He doesn't hit a bullseye with every movie, but when he gets it right, it's freaking hilarious.

6. Kenobi, as in Ben. And all those other denizens of the Star Wars universe. Yes, I am a walking stereotype. I majored in math AND I love Star Wars and Kevin Smith. So sue me. I'll win, because I'm smarter than you. So there.

7. Kebab. Yum. Meat on a stick is always good. Now go make your own dirty joke.

8. Kitty. I do love my cat, even if she drives me insane. She's currently in "cute" mode, curling up inside my open suitcase as if to say "take me on vacation with you." Makes me feel guilty to be leaving her alone for a week. What? Someone is coming in a few times to feed her. What? Don't look at me like that. I feel guilty enough.

9. Kanga. And Roo and Pooh and Piglet and Eeyore and Owl and of course Christopher Robin. Not the Disney crappy incarnation, but the original stories that enchanted me as a child. I used to make up songs to go with the poems in _Now We Are Six_ and _When We Were Very Young_. Too much information?

10. Katsu California Roll. And almost any other form of sushi that exists. I currently have a standing date with friends to eat sushi every. single. Monday. And sometimes I go more often than that. I'll never get sick of sushi.

There you have it. Join the fun!

I'm a fake

2006-12-12T22:35:00.000-05:00

Well, perhaps *I'm* not. But, for the first time in my life, there is a fake *tree* in my house.

I never believed I would allow fake greenery into my house. I grew up with a mother who hated fake Christmas trees. I don't share a ton of views with my mother, but that's definitely one I hold dear. I love the smell of a real tree, I love lugging it home, I even love the damn pine needles that get everywhere. It's kind of like the pain of getting it is a rite of passage of Christmas. I've even forgone having any tree at all in previous years when it wasn't practical or possible to get a real tree. I always seemed to get more depressed those years, though...

In any case, I was determined that I wasn't getting a tree this year. No one besides me would see it, since I don't have that many visitors at my house right now. Besides, Asha is in that climbing kitten phase, and while I can live with the shredded screen in my bathroom, I would be forced to kill her if she pulled over an entire Christmas tree after I put it up. Besides - too many ornaments are irreplaceable and I couldn't bear the thought of her using them as toys. But then I went to the Atlanta Festival of Trees. It's put on by the local children's hospital that my friend works at, so we get in for free. And there was the cutest table-top tree put together by a girlscout troup, for the same amount (or less) that I would pay for a real tree. And it was already decorated with lights and sparkles and a big bow...so I had to buy it. After all, it was for charity.

So now it's set up in the one room that I can shut off during the day so that Asha has less of a chance of pulling it over on herself. Asha is actually enjoying sitting on the shelf of the table that it's on, under the tree skirt. It must be like a little cave for her.

Sigh. This doesn't mean I'll have a fake Christmas, does it??

Bandwagon time!

2006-11-14T18:31:00.000-05:00

Since I jump on it every other time, why not this? Thanks to Utterly Brilliant Thoughts...

One word only...here goes...

Yourself: frustrated
Your partner: imaginary
Your hair: red
Your mother: worried
Your father: bachelor
Your favorite item: books
Your dream last night: none?
Your favorite drink: tea
Your dream car: Kharman Ghia (I know it's two words, but that's the name of it!!)
Your dream home: old
The room you are in: office
Your ex: alcoholic
Your fear: spiders
Where you want to be in ten years: content
Who you hung out with last night: Asha
What you're not: content
Muffins: blueberry
One of your wish list items: Buffy
Time: fleeting
The last thing you did: change
What you are wearing: comfy
Your favorite weather: sun
Your favorite book: L'Engle
Last thing you ate: pudding
Your life: unexpected
Your mood: blech
Your best friends: loving
What are you thinking about right now: food
Your car: old
What are you doing at the moment: typing
Your summer: awaited
Relationship status: single
What is on your tv: plant
What is the weather like: chilly
When is the last time you laughed: today

Today is Bad Poetry Day

2006-11-13T17:20:00.000-05:00

Ok, it isn't really. I just felt like writing it, so...

Where's "The End"?

If this was a movie
and I was cast in a role,
today would be the third act.
All the audience would know
there is more to come -
that boy will realize he loves me,
I'll wear a beautiful wedding dress.
The women would leave the theatre
with tears in their eyes
and the men would feel a little happy.
But then I'd be stuck
back in the projection booth,
rewound to the beginning
and waiting for the next show.
Somehow, I keep getting rewound
before the fourth act ever comes.

I Feel Pretty...

2006-11-06T18:36:00.000-05:00

I'm really quite proud of the fact that I'm not usually a girly-girl. I like to camp, I enjoy sports (both watching and playing, although I'm not so good at much of the playing). I often go without make-up or washing my hair and I'm not above being seen in public in a ratty tee shirt. If no one important is looking, at least. But there's something about getting your hair done that turns everyone into a girl for a little while.

I don't remember what the natural color of mmy hair is. I think it might be somewhere between a mousy-brown and a dirty-blonde. Since high school it's been a rainbow of blonde/brown/red/purple/pink. At different times. Mostly. Often I do the color myself quite cheaply. But on Saturday my hairdresser dyed my hair a lovely deep auburn that I am still in the process of adoring. AND she blew my hair straight, so for one day I got to pretend that I had lovely shiny straight hair instead of curls all over. I like my curls, usually, but I felt so...posh.

So, of course, I came home and took pictures of myself. Is that weird? Probably. That's ok. I'll be back to talking like a sailor and sitting in a decidely unladylike manner in no time.

Wishing and waiting

2006-11-05T12:32:00.000-05:00

Maudlin line from a song time: "Don't wish, don't start. Wishing only wounds the heart."

Doesn't matter what you wish for. That certain man to think you're terrific, grandparents to live forever instead of fading into nothing, more money so that you can do whatever it is you're wanting...wishing does no good. And yet we all do it.

So I wish and I wait and I know that none of the things I wish for will ever happen. Sigh.

See Here's The Problem...

2006-10-09T20:31:00.000-04:00

...with blogs. Whenever I want to write something, it feels like I do nothing but complain. I'm not laboring under the assumption that I'm writing this to entertain or uplift anyone, but neither do I want to wallow in my own frustrations.

The thing I'd like to know right now is why I always manage to get myself so incredibly overcommitted. Teaching three classes, establishing and running a tutoring program three days a week, supervising and encouraging budding track stars two days a week, taking care of ordering supplies, etc for the math department, dealing with parents and other day-to-day teacher-rtype things...oh, and tracking gifted kids in the school. Even if there was someone I was interested in, I couldn't date right now. I don't have time to sleep, let alone go out one more night during the week.

That's ok. I'll crash and burn one of these days, I'll recover, and then I'll be fine for a while until it all happens again.

I THOUGHT I Was Getting A Cat

2006-09-19T21:04:00.000-04:00

Y'all know I have a kitten now. But she's showing traits that are decidedly un-kitten-like. Oh, she does the tearing around the house at 3 AM for no good reason thing. She regularly attacks my feet and hands - I constantly look like I've been digging through a thorn bush right now. But her favorite thing to do? Play fetch.

This is her returning the ball to me for the, oh, 1000th time.

She'll jump off the bed, get the ball, bring it back, repeat. Of course, if I don't throw the ball fast enough, I get this look:

I call it, "throw the ball, you idiot".

Needless to say, I put down the camera and threw the ball.

I Love Teaching, I Love Teaching, I Love...

2006-09-16T10:32:00.000-04:00

Maybe if I say it often enough, I'll convince myself.

Ok, actually, I do love teaching. At least, I love it more than any other job I've ever had (and that's A LOT) and sometimes I just plain love it. But.

This year I started teaching an SAT Prep class. It's exactly what it sounds like - a class which helps kids prepare to get better scores on the SAT. I don't know how many people who aren't in education (or who don't have kids in high school) know this, but the SAT changed formats a couple years ago and now includes an essay. The students have 25 minutes to write a persuasive essay on a given question. Part of my job is to try to get them to know the difference between there/their/they're and our/are, etc, but part of it is also to give them better strategies for writing. To that end, I assigned a poster project two weeks ago (TWO WEEKS. This will be an important point.) on which different pairs were to work together to create a poster detailing things that the graders were looking for or tips on time management, etc.

Here are some things that happened yesterday: One student e-mailed me, included a digital picture of her poster to prove she had been working on it, and told me she'd be sick the next day and could she please turn it in Monday. One student brought me a note from her mother saying that her cell phone had been stolen the day before and so she was "too upset" to finish the poster. One pair of boys were quite unhappy because *25 minutes* before the end of the period in which the poster was due my printer was out of ink so they could not print the pictures they wanted to put on the poster. At that point, their poster was A BLANK PIECE OF POSTER BOARD.

Two weeks, people. This is a class in which I don't lecture and the kids don't have specific things they must accomplish every day. They have a list of items they are to work on each week and they are to learn to budget their time (this, in theory, will help them prepare to budget their own time in college). In two weeks, these darling children could not - or would not - finish a *poster*. Now, in fairness, the vast majority of the dear children did finish, and some of the posters are quite good with a lot of effort put into them. But oy.

Safety Goggles and Other Dating Hazards

2006-09-13T23:13:00.000-04:00

Remember when I swore off dating? I knew it wouldn't last. It should have.

Last Friday, I went out with a guy I'd met online. We'd met once before for coffee and a walk in the park and had a perfectly pleasant time, although no fireworks or immediate chemistry were evident. He did invite me out again, and offered to make reservations at a restaurant he liked. Since I couldn't remember the last time a male-type person took me to a restaurant that actually took reservations and since a friend was encouraging me to break my habit of only being attracted to bad-boy types, I went out.

I drove up to the close-in suburb he lives in and we went to the restaurant. It was a lovely dinner, nice conversation, and I was beginning to think that even without fireworks he might be nice to hang out with. Then we headed to his car.

We got in, he started the engine and began to pull away from the curb but then stopped and said, "Oh, my glasses." I thought nothing of the comment until I glanced at him and saw he was putting on "glasses" that looked suspiciously like "goggles" See: equipment for high school science lab. I just had time to think, "hmmm...." when he explained the following: When he switched from wearing glasses to wearing contacts, he had an experience while driving on the highway. He watched a piece of cardboard come over the median and hit his windshield. This apparently convinced him that if something big hit the windshield, it would shatter and blind him and therefore he needed to wear safty glasses whenever he drove. Silly me. I'd always assumed that car makers had, you know, taken things like this into account and installed such things as, oh, safety glass in cars. Guess I'm just a wild and crazy type of girl who takes chances with my vision.

It was at this point in the evening that my brain said, "ding! Thanks for playing. Buh-bye." I talked for a little while longer, made my excuses and then got in my car and hustled home. I mean really. What does a guy like this do when having sex? Surround the bed with pillows in case you fall off? Wear safety goggles in case...well, I'll just leave the rest unsaid.

Sigh.

Join the Rebellion

2006-09-02T22:22:00.000-04:00

This weekend, DragonCon is in town. It's (I think) the largest sci-fi/gaming convention in the world. It's certainly the largest in the Southeast. And it's going on now in downtown Atlanta. My friend got a pass for the weekend since he is, ah, shall we say a HUGE Star Wars fan? That might be an understatement. Anyway, I headed downtown today to keep him company for a little bit, and it turns out that the hotels are so crowded with people that they won't let you in even to look around unless you have a DragonCon pass or are staying at the hotel. Can you imagine the poor people that booked rooms there not knowing about this convention? But I digress.

Turns out, all that sneaking around I did in high school paid off. We were stopped going in one entrance, so when we tried another we timed it so that we could slip past security while he was stopping some other poor soul with no pass. So I went in and got to behold the wonder that is DragonCon.

Here's a partial list of what I saw: Superheroes (from classic to obscure), a man dressed as a LEGO person, tons of Storm Troopers and Jedis and several Princess-Leia-in-a-bikinis (several of whom should have SERIOUSLY reconsidered that costume), one really good Lara Croft, Wallace and Grommit, catholic school girls in various states of undress, mother and daughter bondage outfits, pirates, sexy interpretations of all sorts of characters from stories like The Wizard of Oz and Little Red Riding Hood, and many other costumes that were so obscure I had no idea what they referenced.

It was geeky and filled with strange people and I am so buying a ticket so that I can go next year without sneaking around.

This Is Not A Pity Party

2006-08-26T10:46:00.000-04:00

I'm giving up men.

Not forever, just for a while.

Twice in the last month now, I've heard a version of the following: "I'm attracted to you but I'd rather have you as a friend than risk screwing everything up by trying to have anything else so let's leave it there."

Is this better than "I'm not attracted to you, but I'd love to be friends"? I don't know. Honestly, I don't. I think it's more frustrating. I know it's a little depressing. So screw it.

I'm giving up men.

Trials and Tribulations

2006-08-13T23:57:00.000-04:00

Remember the ringworm? Mine's all gone (thank god) thanks to oral Lamisil. The kitten, on the other hand, must be bathed. From head to toe, every three days for at least two more weeks. The most fun part about that is the fact that after shampooing her, the shampoo must sit on her and soak for 10 minutes. You ever try keeping a wet, unhappy kitten sitting in a sink? She just loves it. As evidence? See below.

I call this one "Why Me, Lord?" Either that or "I really, really loathe you right now."

And this one is obviously taken while she was plotting escape. (As a side note, I turned my back and she did jump down from the sink. Unfortunately for her, I was able to follow the wet, soapy footprints to her favorite hide-out behind the stove.)

After it's all over, she lets me cuddle her. But I think she's just humoring me while secretly plotting to kill me in my sleep.

The Lord Giveth...

2006-08-07T22:18:00.000-04:00

and we all know the end of that little bon mot.

I went to school yesterday to get work done, a day before I actually had to report. I was rewarded for this hard-work-ingness by the presentation of a check that I had no idea was coming. It was for some travel I did back in May and it was in the amount of $186. That's a nice chunk of change to have fall on you.

Oh ho, says the lord. We can't have that.

I had dropped off my car earlier in the day to have a tire repaired. These were new tires, so with the warrenty, I owed a grand total of $1. I'm not joking. So I handed the man the $1 bill, walked to the car, turned the key and heard "click-click-clickety-clickety". Uh-oh, thinks I. But the nice man at the garage assured me it was simply corrosion on the battery (a battery that's less than a year old, I think, but don't question), jumped the battery and the car started right up. I drove 30 minutes home, turned off the car for, oh, 30 minutes...and again it wouldn't start. That's right, folks, the alternator was fried. To make a long story somewhat shorter, I ended up calling AAA and having them jump the car so that I could drive to the town my school is in and stay with a friend last night. She and I got up this morning, took the car into the shop and headed to work. And now my wallet is $450 lighter. This on a car that is worth maybe $1500. Probably not even that.

Oh well. Easy come, easy go, right? Sigh.

Midnight Blues

2006-08-04T02:51:00.000-04:00

Actually, it's well past midnight. I have to get up in 6 hours. That's not an outrageously short amount of time, but it's certainly shorter than I like to sleep. The problem is, I probably won't be able to sleep for several more hours.

There's something about these middle of the night hours, though, that have always suited me. Even as a child I preferred to be up late, sleep in late. It might be the quiet, the peace that settles over everything. It might be that my brain works differently at this time of the day. Who knows. All I know is that when people talk of babies having their days and nights mixed up, I wonder just who it is that decided the babies were wrong. Maybe the babies are the ones who have it right.

Ewwww - gross.

2006-07-30T01:44:00.000-04:00

I have recently adopted a cat. Well, a kitten. She was found in a dumpster and I agreed to take her off the hands of the woman who rescued her. Her name is Asha, and here she is:

Adorable, no?

She's not the first cat I've owned. She's not even the first stray I've found and adopted. She is, however, the frist one to give me a communicable disease. Sigh. Yes, my friends, I have contracted that childhood bane - ringworm. I thought only little kids got it. Apparently not.

I noticed a strange red mark on my ankle about a week ago. Thought it was a mosquito bite. Noticed another the next day on my leg. Then another on my other leg. Then another in a place I was pretty damn sure no mosquito has ever had access to. So I looked on-line (what did we ever do without google image search?) and was dismayed to discover pictures of my spots and explanation that ringworm is not a parasite, but only a fungus. Oh, well that's a relief. Essentially, I have athlete's foot on my body. Or jock itch. The same treatments are used for all three, so pick the most amusing one.

I bought some cream at Target, started applying it and hied myself and Asha to the vet today. They took her in the back to run her under the blacklight that apparently makes it easy to identify where the ringworm is on a cat and therefore treat it. The vet returned to the room with a rather awed (and, I think, disgusted) look on his face and told me that my adorable calico kitten turned into a green, glowing ball under the blacklight. He gave me gloves to use when handling her, told me to isolate her, disinfect my house and get to a dermatologist. Again - ew.

So now Asha is all alone on the back porch, crying to be let in to cuddle. Everything in my house has been either thrown in the washing machine, vacuumed or lysol-ed. Some have had all three treatments. I have to take her back to the vet *three* times in the next three weeks to be dipped from head-to-toe. I know that in the end, ringworm is easy to treat and will be gone quite soon but can I just say ew one more time?

No good deed goes unpunished, right?

I will never be a model

2006-07-25T22:07:00.000-04:00

I am about to embarass myself horribly.

I am single right now, and 34, and wishing to have a date or two occasionally. I'm too old to meet men in bars and meeting men through work or church is iffy at best and so I decided to go on-line. Again. Lots of people do it. This is not the embarassing part.

In looking for a picture to post on-line, I found that I didn't really have an appropriate one of me alone. There were of me with my ex-boyfriend (probably not the look to go for when advertising yourself for a date), me with various students (ditto), me looking rather, well, spectacularly bad or tired or fat or whatever...but none I would be proud to put up on the web. So this past weekend while at a wedding where I was dressed up nicely, hair done, make-up perfect, I asked a friend who is rather good at taking photographs to perhaps get a shot of me. Here are some of the results.

Yes. I am so photogenic. Sigh.

Exactly *one* picture was acceptable. Not great, but acceptable. There goes my second career as a cover girl...

Appliances Hate Me

2006-07-20T22:14:00.000-04:00

Who knew that the small things of home owning would be the things that send me over the edge? Take mowing the lawn.

My parents never believed in "girl's work" or "boy's work". So mowing the lawn was a chore I was taught fairly early, and something I've never had a problem doing. It's not that taxing, it's good exercise, it's certainly more appealing to me than dusting or sweeping. So earlier this week I took out my new lawnmower and began mowing the lawn. Well, the kudzu in the back of my property. This is when the fun began.

I looked down when I was a little more than half-way done with the lawn and thought, "hmmm. That wheel doesn't look like it's at the right angle on the mower." Just as I thought this, the wheel fell off. I turned off the mower and found that the nut had simply fallen off the bolt holding the wheel on. I did a cursory search for it, but knew I'd never find it in the yard, so figured I'd just take a break and finish the next day. So I went to Home Depot, bought a nut, and came home ready to be a handy-woman, fix my mower and get on with life. I tipped the mower on its side, screwed the nut on as tight as I could and started again. Took one pass and the wheel fell off again. Sigh. Turned the mower over again, got a different tool, tightened the nut even MORE this time, and started. Tried to start, actually. There was something wrong with the primer button. I pushed it, but it whooshed half-heartedly. Hmmm, I think. On closer examination, there appears to be oil spilled from the machine. Ok, I think. By turning the mower on its side, I've poured the oil out and I must replace it. No problem.

I trubdle back to the hardware store, buy oil, get home and put the oil...in the carburator. Yes, I did. After pouring some in and wondering why it is so inconvenient to pour a little and wait for it to go down, I spot a little cap in the back of the mower with the familier drop-of-oil symbol on it. Uh-oh, I think. So I quickly put the cap back on the carburator, fill the real oil tank, and try to start the mower. But the pull cord suddenly becomes obstinate. It won't pull out. I try, and have no luck. I look carefully at the bottom of the mower to see if anything is blocking the blades. No luck. I start to panic. This, you understand, represents a significant investment of money at the moment. I cannot just replace this mower. And the lawn is about to swallow me - it needs cut NOW. I try again to start it. No luck. It was about this time that I called my mother in tears. Yes, I am 34 years old, and I still call my mother and cry when I can't figure things out.

Now, my step-father assured me that I just needed to drain the carburator overnight, let it dry and all would be well. And it turns out he was right. With a little milking, it started right up today, and after nice blue smoke poured out from the engine for a minute or two, the mower is right as rain. But oy. If this is what happens to me everytime I attempt to fix something, I'd better move back to an apartment right now.

Double Entendres Abound

2006-07-17T23:04:00.000-04:00

Summer is drawing to a close. Oh, it doesn't seem like it, what with the 100 degree days and the air conditioning running at full tilt, but it's a matter of a few free days and then school starts again. For students and teachers, the year doesn't start on Jan 1. It starts on the first day of school.

My students live for vacations. Actually, during the school year, so do I. Days off are part of a teacher's life and they are desperately needed. Mental release from the constant needs of 100's of kids, the planning, the beauracracy. But about this time every summer, I find that I desperately need to return to school.

My moods can swing wildly, as can anyone's at times. But when I don't have a schedule and I'm alone more than I'm with people, I find that my moods swing even more wildly. So the return to school gets my routine back in order, my moods under control, my mind back in the groove. So vacation is looked forward to all year, and then it is that vacation that drives me a little mad every summer.

It's a funny thing how something that looks so appealing is in the end something that is so bad for us.

Hey Jealousy

2006-07-15T11:30:00.000-04:00

Tell me do you think it'd be alright
If I could just crash here tonight
You can see I'm in no shape for drivin'
And anyway I 've got no place to go

And you know it might not be that bad
You were the best I ever had
If I hadn't blown the whole thing years ago
I might not be alone

Remember that song? I used to love it. Described a relationship I had at the time to a T. But I never really got the "Jealousy" refrain. Why is it about jealousy? Seems to me that it's more about regret.

I don't understand jealousy. Even when I experience it, I don't understand it. Either you trust or you don't, right? Either you're told the truth or you leave. Seems to be simple, but somehow it never is.