Curd Your Enthusiasm

I just finished up a nice, healthy dinner featuring marinated, baked tofu.  Under the circumstances, that seems rather unfair in my opinion.  Insult to injury...

I was late to work this morning due to the fact that I have yet to process the reality of winter weather.  Winter weather means that snow falls sometimes (like it did yesterday) and that the temperatures will plummet (like they did today.)  This requires scraping ice from the windshield and that takes a little bit of time.  You need to allow for that, especially on a morning when you will find yourself rather close to your working destination but trapped behind some poor dude who's truck has broken down right in the middle of the road you must travel.

I barely had time to read my email before the kids started trickling in demanding that I teach them stuff.  I kind of wish I hadn't read it.  It was not great news in some respects.

The state of Maine is slashing budgets like a samurai behind on his To-Do List.  The Department of Education is one of the targets and the administrators in my school district have been frantically trying to come up with some kind of plan that doesn't involve laying off all the teaching staff and having the kids teach themselves.  They finally reached a decision and are taking it to the Teacher's Union.  

Essentially, they are planning to have all staff take two furlough days throughout the course of the year and have our paychecks reflect the days of lost pay during two upcoming months.  It could have been worse and I know that.  In fact, I support the administrator's decision on this one.  The idea is to spread the burden and try to keep anyone from feeling too much of the sting.  The superintendents of the schools will take three of these enforced vacations.

This, on top of all the other cuts they are making (and those are drastic, believe me) should keep us afloat with minimal lay-offs.  This is a good thing.  Also good will be the half-days where they simply usher us out the door and let us run free like the buffalo.  But I will surely miss those two days of monetary reward.  Most of us will probably spend the afternoons handed to us grading papers for free.  

Hence, we see the reason why I think that my having tofu for dinner tonight was kind of mean.  Especially since I did this to myself.

I struck a blow for teachers everywhere, though.  I blatantly knit during the kids group time with the school social worker today and didn't even try to make an excuse for not working on paperwork like I was supposed to.  I also only kept one of the five million kids who owed me lunch detention in the classroom and let the rest go eat lunch without having to look at me the whole time.  Then I knit some more.  It was kind of hard to eat my hearty lunch (an apple) while doing so, but I stayed the course.  They'll probably write one of those cool protest songs about me or something.  I'm like a Leader Among The Oppressed!

On a happier note, I am pleased to report that the Christmas tree remains upright and unsullied.  (Mostly...)  I had a few twinges of worry this morning as I watched the Absurdly Gi-normous Kitty discover the ornaments on the lower branches.  He was tentatively batting at them as I was rushing out the door so I could be late for work.  However, upon my return to hearth and home, I found but one small bauble on the floor.  He just doesn't seem to have any real interest in a tree having sprouted in the corner.  

He'll periodically investigate it...

Then he moves on to more important matters such as cleansing between his toes.

I guess if you can't run through it like a Dollar Store Cat Cave, eat it or get chin-rubs from it, then it isn't all that interesting.  

I wonder how he'd feel about the leftover tofu.  We are belt-tightening and I hate to waste it...

SA