WNBP: It's A Numbers Game

The thing about long weekends is that, with Monday out of the way, Wednesday rolls around pretty darned quick. Not that I'm complaining, mind you.  The idea of a shorter work week is delightful. However, the day-count gets a bit muddled and I darned near lost track of myself before remembering the Wednesday Night Bullet Post.

While I'm fairly certain the world would have kept right on spinning had I not hit the blogging circuit, I still think it would have resulted in some confusion.  At least for me.  I really need Wednesday to keep me grounded, you see.

Let's take a gander at the Wonderful World Of Sheepie and tally up the events of which it is made:

*According to Deadliest Catch, King/Blue crab season managed to start and end with reasonably good crab counts for most.


*Not all.  Most.  That stupid Elliot couldn't seem to take a hint and, as such, wasn't anywhere near where he should have been come the season finale.


*That's what you get with a young, egocentric captain, right?


*Junior told him not to move.  He told him to be patient.  But did he listen?  No he did not.


*I felt rather smug about the whole thing so it's probably good I'm not a crab boat captain.


*All the other captains would hate me and my poor attitude and I'd never have anyone to talk to when I was bored at sea.


*I was awake at 6:00 Saturday morning.  That is early for a Saturday.


*But Memorial Day Weekend marks one of my favorite events: My parent's annual cookout and gathering of many, many relatives.


*Ribs are grilled, beans are baked and lemon bars are presented unto me.


*The least I can do is bake Cheesy Bread.


*Actually, it is not the least I can do.  It is the one thing I must do.  Seriously.  I can't even get in the door without it.


*I am not bragging when I say I make amazing Cheesy Bread.  I am stating a fact.  I know this because everyone has told me so it must be true.


*Again, the crab boat captains would just hate me...


*Whatever.  I was up at 6:00 on Saturday morning so I could bake 6 (count 'em SIX) loaves of bread and a dozen rolls.


*The rolls were kind of an afterthought but I was already hot and exhausted so I figured I might as well keep going with the carb production.


*I'm popular at the annual cookout.


*When I arrived with my 5 (count 'em FIVE) loaves of cheesy bread, there was great joy.


*Yeah, I kept one.  Don't judge.


*I also happen to think I make pretty good cheesy bread...


*If you come to my school, you will see a whole lot of adults wandering around muttering.


*The mutterings all involve a number of some sort.


*Today's numbers were 9 and 10.


*As in, "If I count today, I only have 10 days left."

*Or, "After today, I only have to get through 9 days without locking a child in the utility closet and my criminal record will remain unblemished for another year."

*At our weekly meeting, our director once again bemoaned the fact that we are getting out a week earlier this year and how little time we have left to get everything done.


*Crazy woman...


*That said, I don't see any way I'm going to get everything done but I'm still not requesting an extra week of school.


*I can't get anything done with the kids around.  They are needy and tend to hit each other with textbooks when I try to do paperwork or answer the five million phone calls that are coming in on a daily basis.


*Today, Little Einstein managed to get his entire body inside his t-shirt.


*To make room, he stuck his head out of his sleeve.

*"Look!" he cried. "I don't have armpit hair...I have armpit FACE!!!"

*He is really smart.  I swear it.  I've seen his test scores.


*I took a picture and sent it to his mother because she is the type to appreciate that kind of thing.


*Plus I think that all moms want something to put in the wallet and flash around for bragging rights.

*"Here is my son.  The genius.  Demonstrating the complicated concept of Armpit Face.  One day, he will win the Nobel Prize, I'm sure!"


*The Siren (who lures the boys to their doom with her clarion call) has gone completely on strike and is now only coming to school so I can read Catching Fire (The Hunger Games, Book 2) to her.


*She spends less time luring the boys to their doom if I comply so I do it.


*Things get horribly loud when the clarion call backfires and the males start infighting.


*I am never going to finish this book by the end of the year.  Much less the third in the trilogy.


*I've checked the numbers on this.  Pages vs. Days.  Hours vs. Words.


*Ms. Sheep's Patience vs. The Siren's Attendance Record And Time Spent Cooling Her Heels In The Office.


*Stuff like that...


*When I wasn't baking a truckload of bread this weekend, I was reading Eye of the Tempest (Jane True, Book 4).


*I wandered back towards this series recently and suddenly felt the need to find out what happens next.


*Good stuff, save for the author's tendency to overuse pop culture references.  


*Not a crime or anything.  It just tends to date a book and make it a little less "relevant" later on.


*That aside, I love the first person, heavy on the snark prose.


*I loves me some snark!


*Let's add that to the list of reasons all the crab boat captains will shun me.


*Does that put me up to three?  Four?  


*With the number of school days left down to single digits, I'm listing all the things I want to do this summer.


*If I count naps, learning Cantonese and ending world hunger, that list is longer than my arm.


*I'll probably manage the naps but the rest doesn't look good...


Yes, it certainly seems to be all about the numbers these days.  How many days of school are left.  How many of those days will include heat and/or humidity.  The length of my sentence should I give in to the urge to herd them all out the door and into the woods to fend for themselves...

Counting keeps it real.  And helps with the focus when all I really want to do is stay home, bake bread and watch my favorite crab boat captains once Opilio season starts.

SA

WNBP: Time Marches On

Hard to believe it, but another Wednesday is here.  Frankly, I am kind of stunned by the rapid approach of June.  When did that happen?  The last clear memory I have is of taking down the Christmas tree, although I think I might have some vague recollection of discounted Valentine's Day candy making it into my home at some point.

I could wax philosophical about the passage of time, but that sort of thing tends to get a bit "rambly" so I think we shall just stick with the Wednesday Night Bullet Post for now.  There is always time to go to the "Oh dear, however did I get here and where did my lost youth go?" place if I so choose.

Probably best to not subject the blogosphere to that anyway...

*I managed to muddle through another birthday last week with few, if any, ill effects.


*I think that might have something to do with the fact that I took the day off from school and away from the children who might attempt to make that a kind of "challenging" day for me.


*Staying home to eat fried chicken and chocolate cake while the kidlets remain in the classroom making aesthetically "unique" birthday cards is the best way to go when one's natal day rolls around.


*I was supposed to have Friday off for a doctor's appointment, but another member of my staff also needed that day so I didn't get the long weekend I'd promised myself.


*In hindsight, taking the actual birthday off was really the better way to go...


*I was in a meeting today where my director said, "The reason we are all so stressed out is because we have one week less to work with this year.  The mild weather and resulting lack of snow days is forcing us to scramble to get it all done."


*We all nodded and added our own personal tales of time management woe which resulted from this shortened school year.


*Then we paused to realize how utterly stupid we sounded because this has been The School Year From Hell and why the heck are we bemoaning a week less of it?????


*I'm putting my current time/workload imbalance in perspective from this point forward.


*My birthday gift to me this year was a thick slab of foam.  Two inches of polyurethane.  Another two inches of the "memory" kind.


*This, when added to my aging mattress, has created a most delightful sleeping experience.  My hip hardly hurts at all!


*The joy with which I made this purchase and the number of people I am willing to tell about it horrifies me on many, many levels.


*Sore hip.  New mattress support system to accommodate it.  For my birthday.  Ye Gods!!!


*How did I get to this place in life??????


*I don't care.  I like it.


*As do the cats.  I have to squiggle around to find a spot where I can sleep.


*Which is why my hip doesn't hurt anymore, but my back is killing me.


*The Siren (who lures the boys to their doom with her clarion call) is celebrating the end of the school year with great gusto and a marked lack of academic interest.


*The only thing that soothes her jangled teenaged angst is being read to.


*And, since the book she wants to hear is currently not available through the school library and I can't seem to remember to buy it, I finally downloaded it to my little ereader.


*I now read Catching Fire (The Hunger Games, Book 2) until I am hoarse and begging for water.


*The Siren isn't exactly sympathetic.


*If summer vacation ever does arrive, will The Very Complicated Kitty come to terms with the fact that I am not getting up at 4:30 anymore?


*He doesn't seem to understand this on the weekends.  I honestly don't think things are going to work out any better for me come June.


*Memory foam doesn't make him sleep any longer than he does normally.


*I'm not sure whether it is a good thing that I discovered I can access episodes of Coronation Street on YouTube.  That is the sort of thing that could get a person in trouble.  It can suck up hours and hours of one's time.  One can lose entire weekends.


*Sue me.  It's a guilty pleasure.  I'm not proud of it.


*But c'mon!!!  How bad can it really be for me?  It's been on for, like, fifty years.  It can't be actually harmful...


*Although I do find myself talking kind of oddly after a while.  Sort of a hybrid accent that doesn't make any sense whatsoever.  That might not be good...


*Oh, glorious news on the Sheepish Annie Zombie Apocalypse Front!!!


*Blackout (The Newsflesh Trilogy) is out!!  And I have it!!!


*I've waited almost a WHOLE YEAR for this!!!


*Maybe I'm a little overexcited about the whole thing.  Except I don't think I am.


*I think I am actually the correct about of excited when you take everything into consideration.


*But I'm waiting to start it.  I'd already been re-reading Tracking the Tempest (Jane True) and I figure anticipation can only make all that zombie goodness better.


*Might even wait until summer vacation starts just to kick things off with a good, old fashioned undead bang.


*Meanwhile, I'm almost finished listening to Beautiful Creatures (Beautiful Creatures, Book 1) during the morning commute.


*And now I have a dilemma.  I probably don't have enough school time left to listen to the next one in the series.  A responsible person would wait and save it for the fall.


*I am not a responsible person and, deep down, I think I know that.  


*For now, though, I am staying the course.


*If I falter, just talk about me behind my back.  I'll probably not be open to reminders that I shouldn't be listening to something that I will really want to listen to in the fall.


*I don't want to talk about September.


*The Sheepish Family Memorial Day Cookout is this weekend and oodles of Sheepish Family members are making their way to our corner of the globe perhaps even as we speak!


*Daddy Sheep has reminded me twice to bring the Cheesy Bread.  


*This is necessary because I am old and forget things.


*And I'm not sure I'm allowed to come to the cookout if I don't have Cheesy Bread.


*Picture a herd of angry Sheepish Relatives driving me out of the homestead with torches and pitchforks and the like.


*That's not really true.  I think people would get past it.  


*On the other hand, if my aunt and uncle didn't bring the lemon bars, I'd probably stage a tantrum of epic proportions so who knows?  


*I'm making the bread on Friday.  Probably a couple of extra loaves on Saturday morning just to be on the safe side.


*There is, after all, a little extra time to play with during this holiday weekend.


*And who doesn't like it when time slows down for just a bit?  Especially during the hectic last few weeks of the school year?


And speaking of time, Da Boyz seem to think that their dinner time has arrived.  The clock says we have another ten minutes, but I don't believe I have a lot of wiggle room here.  They are currently taking time away from co-opting my new mattress and are hanging their heads over the computer monitor.  The yowling I can handle, but the drooling is probably going to start any moment now and I can't see how that is good for electronics.

When did the cats learn how to tell time, anyway?

SA

WNBP: The Things People Say...

Another Wednesday Night Bullet Post is on the schedule and I can't help but use it to reflect upon the things that have been said to me lately.  I generally try to avoid talking to the humans whenever possible.  However, since I have to work, shop and periodically get the mail, I sometimes have to suck it up and interact.

That is when people say stuff.  It is a necessary risk, I fear.  I'll share one or two of these little tidbits as I process the past seven days in bullet point format.  Perhaps it will all make sense to me then...

*I finally managed to make my way over to the DMV and secure a new driver's license.


*I remembered my birth certificate.


*As well as a back up copy of something that looked official and seemed to indicate that Mommy and Daddy Sheep were graced with a living, breathing, snotty-faced girl child many moons ago.


*I also brought along several utility bills, none of which were yet paid and all of which seemed to indicate some loss of a very important service in the near future.


*This is how I was supposed to prove that, in addition to being born, I also reside somewhere.


*The nice lady didn't ask for the unpaid bills.


*The "please take a number machine" was broken.


*Someone had written numbers on sticky notes and stuck them all over the machine.


*We all figured it out.


*I am one of the lucky individuals who is going to help shake up the renewal rotation by only getting four years out of this license instead of the usual six.


*The nice lady, who probably has been taking a lot of guff about this lately said the following to me in a very nice, loud tone:

"No!  This is a GOOD thing!  You see, when you come up for your next renewal you will be FIFTY-ONE.  Wait...let me do the math again.  Yes.  FIFTY-ONE!!!  You will be excused from The Mandatory Old Person Eye Test because only fifty-two year old people have to do that.  And you will be FIFTY-ONE!!  Did you hear me?  Shall I repeat it?  Louder, perhaps?"

*I did not punch the nice lady in the throat.  I wanted to.  No jury would convict me, of this I am certain.


*But she really was a very nice lady and clearly so thrilled by my good fortune that I didn't have the heart.


*I shared this horrific story several times today.


*Little Einstein, who was working on his math under a pile of discarded cardboard in the other room overheard me telling the Various Teaching Assistants.

*"Hey, Ms. Sheep?  Are you old?  It sounds like you might be old..."

*For the record, I don't have to take this kind of crap from a kid working on long division under a pile of discarded cardboard.


*I don't even have to dignify it with a response because that is the rule when dealing with 6th graders who burrow under cardboard as if this is a perfectly normal thing to do.


*Look it up.  You'll see I'm right.


*I trust everyone had a nice Mother's Day.

Da Boyz bought me flowers.  Roses, even!

*Of course, I had to get in the car to get them. And fork over the cash.  And there wasn't a card or anything.  Cats can't drive or manage money and you can't get them to sign a card no matter what the occasion.


*But I'm spinning it the way I think works best.


*I met up with Mommy and Daddy Sheep, along with Baby Brother Sheep, SIL Sheep and Niece Sheep.  Also present was a very little Great Nephew Sheep and a Little Sheep In Progress Who Is Nothing More Than A Bump.  We were a jolly Mother's Day Gang!


*I like it when there are a few mothers in the group.  I get to walk into the restaurant and shout out a hearty "Hey all you Muth-ahs!!"

*This tickles me to no end and no one can really say anything about it.


*That joke doesn't seem to land as well on Father's Day...


*The best Mother's Day Story EVER was told to me today by a colleague.


*She was called out of a meeting on Friday because her 86 year old mother knocked down the delivery guy bringing her Mother's Day flowers.


*Then she kicked him.  


*Because she saw him reaching for something (which turned out to be a lovely bouquet but how was she to know that at the time, right?)


*My colleague had to call her brother and tell him to get over there quickly because mom was going to jail.


*The moral of this story is: Never Wake Up An 86 Year Old Woman Early On A Friday Morning And Fail To Identify Yourself Whilst Reaching For Something Her Cataracts Obscure.


*The other moral of this story is: The Fastest Way To Convince A Disgruntled Delivery Person To Not Press Charges Is To Point Out How It Will Look In Court When You Confront The 86 Year Old Defendant Who Kicked Your 40 Year Old Butt.


*I wish for nothing more than such a story to be told of me in my golden years....


*Which, according to certain students and government employees, will be very soon.


*Look.  I knit a dishcloth.

*This is still technically a knitting blog, right?  Figured I should give a shout-out to my dwindling skills with sticks and string lest people forget that...


*The Siren (who lures the boys to their doom with her sultry song) says, "You should be reading to me now" every time she enters the room.

*Since, whenever I am not reading to her, she is wreaking havoc, I am plowing through The Hunger Games at an unprecedented speed.


*If she agrees to behave, I agree to read more.


*It is a working system, if not exactly one conducive to my having a voice left by the end of school.


*Meh.  I'd be losing my voice anyway what with all the screaming at her to stop the havoc.  Might as well get some literacy in instead.


*The other day, The Boy Who Likes To Shout Toot-Toot made an observation.

TBWLTSTT:  Wow.  You just got so mad your eyes literally crossed.  That was the coolest thing I've ever seen!

Ms. Sheep:  (gazes at him blankly, unable to formulate a response or possibly trying to summon a really good death stare)

Cheerful Teaching Assistant:  Way to read a room, dude.

*The best part of my teaching career right now is the commute.


*I'm loving the audio version of Beautiful Creatures (Beautiful Creatures, Book 1) and I take back what I said about the reader last week.  He may not be great with narration...


*But this guy really does rock the dialogue.


*A great way to pass the time between home and school.


*And on the home front, I've been enjoying By a Thread (Elemental Assassin).


*I somehow managed to forget how much of this series I'd already read but memory has returned and I'm glad I checked back in with my favorite assassin.  


*Someone should be keeping an eye on the assassins, after all.


I think that I should say, "good night, all" at this point.  I feel like I've managed to work through the things I've seen and heard this week.  Besides, I need to clear my aging mind for all the new things people will be saying to me.  It is my understanding that people of my advanced age and fragile temperament should keep a section of the brain open for new stuff since we don't retain important facts like we used to.

Maybe I'll even come up with a snappy retort for the people who want to discuss my ever-increasing age...

SA

WNBP: Contents Under Pressure

It is the time of the year when I do a lot of complaining and annoy a whole bunch of people.  People have the right. I am a hair's breadth away from having the entire summer off and it seems kind of childish to complain about work under those circumstances. But it is also a highly pressurized time of the year, one during which I have a lot to do, very little time in which to do it and a group of middle school students determined to keep me from doing anything but screech.

Fair warning. This post will contain a great deal of pressure-induced complaining. Feel free to skip this week's edition of the Wednesday Night Bullet Post.  I will understand completely.

*It has been raining. Raining + Cranky Middle School Students = Pressure.


*Today, Mr. Assistant Principal came by to share with me his plan for dealing with the umpteenth crisis which arose during this most ridiculous of days.


*For the record, MAP and I have been consulting on a regular basis of late.


*When he finished, I asked him how my request for a mini bar in the classroom was coming along.  It felt like ages since I'd filled out the paperwork, after all.


*He said he'd given it conditional approval based on recent events and saw little opposition from any other quarter.


*He then offered me a sip from the paper cup he was carrying.


*"People think it is coffee," he said with a smile. "People don't have a clue, do they?"


*I'm 97.3% sure he was kidding...


*Yesterday, The Future Farmer (who is wrapping up his 7th grade year in style but not in a good way) asked me the following question:


If you got one free slap per student per week, with full parent permission and no way you could be fired for it, would you use it?


*I said I would not.  Hitting, I reminded him, is wrong and only leads to more physical violence.


*But I'd be lying if I said I didn't hesitate first.


*The FF is one of the reasons I am currently under a great deal of pressure these days.


*I'm still not going to slap him, but it was probably not the best time for him to be asking that question.


*The Siren (who lures all the boys to their doom with her clarion call) has been demanding that I read
The Hunger Games to her in every spare moment.


*I'm good with that.  I really like the book and it is a nice thing to spend time with a student who appreciates it equally.


*Furthermore, she is going to the program at the high school next year and I'd like to leave her with a memory of me that is touching and sweet.


*As opposed to the screeching that she makes me do for the rest of the day.


*She is also contributing to the pressure.


*I had brunch with The World's Greatest Stylist And Life Coach on Sunday.


*There was no pressure there.


*Her husband did the cooking.  He then cleared the dishes, cleaned the kitchen and cheerfully went about the five billion chores she suggested he might want to look into.  He seemed nothing less than thrilled to be doing all this.


*He gazed upon her in utter adoration throughout.


*If I'd known the Husband Package came with that option, I might have considered giving one a test drive...


*He washed the dogs while TWGSALC and I did decoupage.  He thanked me for coming over to play with her since she's still feeling kind of poorly after her spinal surgery a few months ago.


*Again...why didn't anyone put that in the brochure?????  Women should know about this kind of thing before they decide marriage is a restrictive state and not something to be endured unless there is a need for quick cash.


*I came home after this rainy, pressure-filled, no-mini-bar-yet day and decided to wash the horror from my face.


*I felt better after that, but my glasses were missing.


*There are a great many logistical issues involved with finding missing glasses.  Especially when you need glasses to see where your glasses are.


*Glasses were in the living room.


*I know what you are thinking: Silly Sheepie!  Leaving her glasses in the living room like that.  Surely she is having the worst of Middle Aged Moments these days!


*Not so.


*Even if I were capable of wandering The Manse without my spectacles, I probably wouldn't have left them in the middle of the living room floor.


*Furthermore, the teeth marks all over them lead me to believe that there is really only one suspect.


*Very Complicated Kitties like to chew things.


*Very Complicated Kitties are pretty quick for their size.


*Very Complicated Kitties can steal your glasses and eat them in a flash.


*Don't say I didn't warn you.  Frankly, I should have been more careful.  The cat has eaten everything else of a non-food nature in the house, ranging from the wallpaper to my printer.  Why should I have expected my glasses to be any different?


*He's chewed the bow on the right hand side to the point where it is pricking my ears dreadfully.


*I am going to think of this as VCK Kisses that I can feel all day long.


*It is that or bill him for replacing the glasses and I don't think I'm going to get too far with that.


*The Classroom Mini Bar seems more likely at this point...


*Today, we discovered that Little Einstein had smuggled the following in his book bag:


One set of free weights


One set of leg weights


One sixteen pound bowling ball


Another sixteen pound bowling ball


A fully stocked box of fishing tackle, complete with live worms.


*LE weighs eighty pounds soaking wet.  Don't ask me how he did this.


*I think he is shorter now...


*I felt I deserved spaghetti-os for dinner tonight.  When I went to nuke them, I found a spider in the microwave.


*This begs several questions.


*How did the spider get in the microwave?  It was a very, very BIG spider.


*Did he sneak in when it was open?


*If not, should I be concerned about the level of radiation I absorbed during the heating of my dinner?


*If he's been in there a while, should I be worried?


*If he bites me, will I develop super powers?


*That could be kind of cool, but I am afraid of heights and I see no way in this world I am going to be swinging around from the rooftops and stopping crime.


*Frankly, my being tapped as the next Spider-Based Superhero would be a waste of perfectly good super powers.


*The spider is no longer in the microwave, but he got away before I could smoosh him.


*There is a gigantic, possibly irradiated spider somewhere in my kitchen.


*Between that and my VCK-Kissed Glasses, I am under as much pressure here as I am at school!


*Not reading much of anything new.  Just re-reading some stuff.


*But I am listening to Beautiful Creatures (Beautiful Creatures, Book 1) during the daily commute.


*The reader isn't the most talented I've heard, but you get used to it after a while.  And the story is really quite compelling.


*Not too far into it yet, but I think you'd like it if you are into that sort of thing.  I'll certainly check out the others in the series.


*It takes my mind off the pressure, you see...


Yeah.  Pressure is the word of the day here.  I guess I should just look at the positives and smile until I feel it for real.  The students who are creating the worst of the drama are really only mine for another month or so and then they will move on to the high school.  The glasses still work and the spider stayed out of my way so I could enjoy my little rings of pasta in fluorescent sauce.  I haven't grown a third eyeball yet either so the microwave hasn't had any obviously negative effects.  These are all good things.

And tomorrow is Thursday.  It is really only a matter of time before someone dumps a weekend on me.  Surely that will be less pressurized.  Right?

Right???

SA

WNBP: Reaching

I hate to admit it, but I am really going to have to reach tonight if I'm to come up with anything entertaining to say.  It is not the week before school vacation.  It is not the week of school vacation. It is not the week after school vacation.  It is the space in between.  We can count the number of days left in the teaching year in weeks and without really having to do much math.  It is a matter of hanging in there and trying to reach the finish line without losing our collective teacher-minds.

The best thing to do is get my Wednesday Night Brain on and forge ahead with the weekly bullet post.  Maybe the mere act of typing will inspire something...

*Have you ever been to an hour long meeting and walked away without recalling a single thing that was discussed?


*I've had a lot of meetings this week.


*I can only hope that I didn't volunteer for anything.


*Or make any promises.


*I'm a big talker sometimes...


*The rain isn't helping matters.


*I have Rain Brain.


*Yesterday, I forgot my lunch.  That made me sad and I resolved to never again leave my lunch bag hanging from a hook in the kitchen, thereby ruining a perfectly good Tuesday where I may or may not have said brilliant things in meetings.


*Today I remembered to bring my lunch because I am nothing if not dedicated to keeping promises to myself.


*I forgot to eat my lunch and now there is an unopened container of yogurt in my lunch bag on my desk at school.


*This tendency to forget things like sustenance might be part of the Meeting Stupidity Syndrome.


*Hey, have any of you seen my birth certificate lately?


*Apparently I need it in order to prove to the DMV that I deserve a new drivers license.


*These are the sorts of things a responsible adult would have already taken care of.


*Responsible adults can lay their hands on their birth certificates without having to set aside an entire weekend to find it.


*I am fairly certain I was born.  Surely someone somewhere certified this historic event.


*Highly likely my birth certificate is carved on a stone tablet.


*Hard to believe I could lose something like that...


*Did I mention that there are only something like 28 days of school left?


*I am honestly shocked by that since I don't know where the rest of this year went.


*Not that I am complaining, mind you.


*But I also have to get my teacher recertification paperwork done in that time and, much like my birth certificate dilemma, I am a little behind.


*To recap:  I am soon to be an unemployed pedestrian.


*That should make things more interesting and blog-worthy.


*Of course, I won't have internet access when I'm living in a cave on the outskirts of town, but that's a bridge I'll cross when I come to it.


*I have decided to give the House Of Night series a little bit of a break
(Chosen: A House of Night Novel)


*I need a palate cleanser.


*Decided to re-read Trick of the Light (Trickster, Book 1)


*I like Rob Thurman even if she sometimes tends to write a little too casually, more like a person might speak.


*Which doesn't always translate as well into prose.


*Can be confusing.


*Still a favorite author.


*The Siren (who lures the boys to their doom with her clarion call) wanted to read
The Hunger Games 


*But she found it to be a bit of a challenge so I agreed to read some of it to her during the school's Sustained Silent Reading time.


*I've wanted to read it for a while so no hardship there.


*She is happy.  She wishes the whole class would listen to it.


*She thinks that "They'd like it if they weren't a bunch of jerks who didn't pay attention when Ms. Sheep read to us at the beginning of the year.  Stupid boys who don't listen and act like big, dumb jerks.  They should be more like us girls!"

*Nice sentiment so I'll ignore the fact that she was the worst offender back when I first tried reading to the class.


*The Cheerful Teaching Assistant is irked because we went into my office to read.  


*She believes we have started The Super Cool Club For Cool People Who Only Hang Out With Other Cool People.


*To recap: Boys are stupid jerks who don't listen, girls can go into more denial regarding their own behavior than is even believable and I am cool enough to start my own club.


*I'll have to figure out a way to include the CTA tomorrow lest she develop a complex.


*The stupid boys are on their own.


*My home phone rang yesterday. That was nice since it reassures me that I still have friends.


*I couldn't find my phone.  It was gone.  I know it existed because it was ringing.


*Phone was under the couch.  As was the charging base.


*I do not keep my phone under the couch.  I do not keep the charging base there either.


*I would very much like to know what my cats are doing during the day and why they feel the need to cut off my communication with the outside world...



That's it.  I've reached as far as I can for one night.  I think I've managed to prove how seriously devoid of excitement my life is right now.  Any day, I expect things to turn around and then I'll have more for you.  For now, I'll just sit back and leave the reaching to those who have something more interesting to attain.

At the moment, I'm settling for just reaching the weekend.

SA