WNBP: Spring Is In The Air

Ah...March!  It always amazes me how I can have a week off in February and so completely lose track of time.  When school starts back up, I leave the house in broad daylight instead of pitch blackness and I suddenly start thinking that spring might just make it to my corner of the world after all.

The downside is that it is not spring yet and no one really has any patience left for this winter nonsense.  I think that it is worse to have to suffer through this particular time of year with middle school students.  Suffice it to say, it has been a long stretch since those halcyon days of winter break.

I'm just going to use the Wednesday Night Bullet Post to work through it all.


*I am seriously not going to make it another four months with these kids.  It is them or me.


*What am I saying?  I know perfectly well how this is going to play out.


*It is them.


*They have youth and sheer numbers on their side.  I am but one old, tired woman...


*The Very Complicated Kitty has decided to take a break from wallpaper removal.


*He's back to removing the molding from around the bedroom door.


*Serves two purposes.


*One: Redecorating.


*Two: Making me get up at the crack of dawn because this results in food and his general amusement.


*Students have their uses.


*Spunky Girl's sister is a Girl Scout.


*The kind who sells cookies once a year.


*Spunky Girl arrived at school yesterday laden with bags.


*Filled with cookies.


*My order plus all the ones that she got when I took her cute little face all over the school and guilted my colleagues into buying.


*I am eating too many cookies now.


*I may have gotten a little over-enthusiastic when I saw the cookie form...


*Cookies are keeping me from sock knitting.


*Hey, it's almost spring.  How many socks do I really need?


*Cookies are for all seasons.


*The Future Farmer came back from lunch today blushing, stuttering and sweating.


*Girl punched him repeatedly.  Then asked him to sit with her and her friends.  Who giggled at him for fifteen minutes.


*In addition to the whole spring-thing, Love is also in the air...

*Best Conversation Of The Day:

*Future Farmer:  She's in my gym class!  What am I gonna do?  Am I supposed to talk to her?  Omigod, I can't feel my feet!!!

*Ms. Sheep:  Calm down.  We'll get you through this.  Just breathe...

*(the boy who is) Dark & Disturbed:  (kneeling down so he is eye level with the hyperventilating younger boy):  It's OK, little feller.  Relax.  The Love Doctor is here.

*MS:  The Love...oh for crying out loud!!!  You never leave the classroom.  You just sit there predicting the end of days!

D&D:  Hey!  I am TOO the Love Doctor!  Just the other day, this clerk at the store asked if I was 18.  I'm a chick magnet!

MS:  I'm feeling very dizzy right now.  And you are 14.  I am going to start putting up posters to that effect immediately.  Then I'm calling your mother.  And any state agency who will take my call.

D&D:  (waving off the threat dismissively):  Look, little dude.  Here's what you do.  Quote the Bible.

(silence and puzzled looks all around)

D&D:  I'm serious.  It makes you sound wicked smart.

MS:  Wha.....???

D&D marched to the front of the classroom and for the next minute proceeded to pace and gesture dramatically whilst quoting scripture as if born into the pulpit.  There was nary a closed mouth nor a dry eye in the house.  He finished and there was silence, broken only when Ms. Sheep finally dared to speak.

MS:  Wow.  That sounded...wicked smart.  I am not sure about that saucy wink at the end, though.

D&D:  Too creepy?  I kind of thought it might be too creepy, but the ladies seem to like it...

MS:  Just so you know, they do not cover this in any college class I ever took.


*It might help you to know that D&D owns an extensive collection of Japanese fighting swords, writes his own manga and will only break up his black wardrobe with festive touches of gray.


*He's kind of a Renaissance Man, I guess...


*I've been reading a lot of really good books lately.


*Well-written books.  With finely crafted sentences and imagery so sharp you could cut your finger on the page.


*I think I may have lost my ability to appreciate a "fun read."


*Too much fillet Mignon and you can't see the beauty in a simple burger, I suppose.


*I think that's why I had a hard time getting into Tempest Rising (Jane True).


*This is the sort of book whose advertising has something along the lines of "If you like Sookie Stackhouse..."  in the wording somewhere.


*I like the Southern Vampires series.  Honest, I do!


*But, after finishing The Darkly Luminous Fight for Persephone Parker it was kind of jarring to read something so contemporary and not so much with the "literary."


*But I am a simple girl with simple roots and a love of hamburgers so I stayed the course!


*Everyone needs a fun read every now and again, right?


*I'm so determined to get back to the fun that I also picked up the sequel, Tracking the Tempest (Jane True).


*This isn't the best series I've read, but it is a nice quick fix when everything else you want to read has yet to hit the shelves.  


*And it's fun.


*Heads up:  I read a few online reviews for this one and several people commented that they mistakenly got this for their young teen readers.  The cover art does make it look like a YA/Middle Grade book, after all.


*Ignore the Bratz Doll image.  This is not a novel for your impressionable offspring.  Adults only, dear friends.


*Spring may be in the air and cafeteria romance on the rise, but let's not rush things here!



I see by the clock on the wall and the gathering of starving felines at my feet that it is time to move on.  I'll need to get an outfit suitable for work tomorrow if I want to keep paying for the foodstuffs these two seem to be demanding.  Spring fever and the brightening of our mornings is no excuse for altering the schedule, after all.

Maybe if I don my best black sweatshirt and start reading from the Bible, they'll be impressed enough to stop yowling.  I'm not doing the wink, though...

SA