My favorite season, when the smoggy, sun-burnt brown, dead vistas of the Southwest give rise to life. Our summers look in a sense like winter, anything not profusely watered withers and browns and looks like a Canadian winter, sans snow. But our early spring becomew shangri-la.
Thursday, February 28, 2013
spring
Meteorological Spring begins tomorrow. There may be bits of snow in my yard, bare branches above, possible snowstorm next week, but a half hour away, the fields are green, trees blossoming, poppies blooming.
My favorite season, when the smoggy, sun-burnt brown, dead vistas of the Southwest give rise to life. Our summers look in a sense like winter, anything not profusely watered withers and browns and looks like a Canadian winter, sans snow. But our early spring becomew shangri-la.
My favorite season, when the smoggy, sun-burnt brown, dead vistas of the Southwest give rise to life. Our summers look in a sense like winter, anything not profusely watered withers and browns and looks like a Canadian winter, sans snow. But our early spring becomew shangri-la.
Wednesday, February 27, 2013
Dark of dawn, dark of mind
It's not quite 6 am, I am not a pre dawn person, and I dread waking my son so is the same way.
I dread going to work. I do not like my job. There. I said it to the world. My last job in education was pretty awesome, even with some major bumps along the way. I was eager most every day to teach some great lessons; I woke excited to go to work, or at least enough that if I got there in a bad mood, it would lift quickly.
I feel powerless where I am at, no one listens to me and I'm drowning in despair. I've tried every classroom management trick in the book but it is me. Me. I am the flaw. Plus just so many other not-classroom management things factor in and paint my day a murky puddle of brown.
And this is me after pep talking myself every work day. I CFO to work with a smile, I did zillions of hours of theater in my past, I can act the part and do, minus the whole the kids won't actually. Be quiet part. I give it my all but I am tired of giving.
Am I done with teaching? Lord no. I love all that is education, I plan someday to write books on the subject, to try and. E a change agent for the betterment of education, of learning. This is just a set back. Summer is two days after Memorial Day. It seems so far away but I can get there. Without a breakdown. Okay with some emotional upsets but I can do it. If only I fully believed myself, if only I could really embrace that and say lets do this! Carpe diem! They can't take our freedom! I am Sparta! Or whatever. But I cannot shake this cloud that I carry with y, murky dread hidden behind a theatrical smile, trying to claw it's way out, tearing me up inside.
Sigh.
I dread going to work. I do not like my job. There. I said it to the world. My last job in education was pretty awesome, even with some major bumps along the way. I was eager most every day to teach some great lessons; I woke excited to go to work, or at least enough that if I got there in a bad mood, it would lift quickly.
I feel powerless where I am at, no one listens to me and I'm drowning in despair. I've tried every classroom management trick in the book but it is me. Me. I am the flaw. Plus just so many other not-classroom management things factor in and paint my day a murky puddle of brown.
And this is me after pep talking myself every work day. I CFO to work with a smile, I did zillions of hours of theater in my past, I can act the part and do, minus the whole the kids won't actually. Be quiet part. I give it my all but I am tired of giving.
Am I done with teaching? Lord no. I love all that is education, I plan someday to write books on the subject, to try and. E a change agent for the betterment of education, of learning. This is just a set back. Summer is two days after Memorial Day. It seems so far away but I can get there. Without a breakdown. Okay with some emotional upsets but I can do it. If only I fully believed myself, if only I could really embrace that and say lets do this! Carpe diem! They can't take our freedom! I am Sparta! Or whatever. But I cannot shake this cloud that I carry with y, murky dread hidden behind a theatrical smile, trying to claw it's way out, tearing me up inside.
Sigh.
Tuesday, February 26, 2013
Fear the Ear
My son has constant ear infections. He had an unrelenting double ear infection from 6 months old to a year, when he got tubes put in. I had a clingy, don't leave me, miserable child for 6 months straight.
The tubes helped but helped is relative. His ear infection would be just...one ear, then both, every month or two. He had a terrible bout over the summer, and we saw the doctor three times, the last time she said "wow, the worst case I have seen in a while" and we ended up staying out f state, extending our vacation and pocketbooks because there was no way my amazingly ill boy would do a 2,000 mile road trip.
This January he got croup which morphed into an ear infection. Then a double ear infection. Then an ear oozing blood from the infected ear being so swollen.
Guess what? He has napped two hours today (he is usually a brief napper) and I look over to see his ear glistening in waxy orange. I grab the pen light and look into his ear to see...blood. Not oozing out, not staining the pillow, but freshly dried blood coating the ear canal.
His January ear infections did go away, as he saw the ENT specialist last week who said he looked great, but that the tubes had turned, ready to fall out, time for new tubes and an adenoidectomy, the adenoids likely spewing germs into his eustacian tube and causing never ending infections.
So now I hold my sweet napping guy, it's three weeks till his surgery (gosh I hate surgery, surgeries freak me out like no other) wishing he could be well. Always. Heck, I will happily settle for more often.
The tubes helped but helped is relative. His ear infection would be just...one ear, then both, every month or two. He had a terrible bout over the summer, and we saw the doctor three times, the last time she said "wow, the worst case I have seen in a while" and we ended up staying out f state, extending our vacation and pocketbooks because there was no way my amazingly ill boy would do a 2,000 mile road trip.
This January he got croup which morphed into an ear infection. Then a double ear infection. Then an ear oozing blood from the infected ear being so swollen.
Guess what? He has napped two hours today (he is usually a brief napper) and I look over to see his ear glistening in waxy orange. I grab the pen light and look into his ear to see...blood. Not oozing out, not staining the pillow, but freshly dried blood coating the ear canal.
His January ear infections did go away, as he saw the ENT specialist last week who said he looked great, but that the tubes had turned, ready to fall out, time for new tubes and an adenoidectomy, the adenoids likely spewing germs into his eustacian tube and causing never ending infections.
So now I hold my sweet napping guy, it's three weeks till his surgery (gosh I hate surgery, surgeries freak me out like no other) wishing he could be well. Always. Heck, I will happily settle for more often.
Monday, February 25, 2013
Everyone Knew
Everyone knew to stay away from 1200 Clover Street. Jehovah's Witnesses, vacuum salesmen, even the police seemed to turn away at the sight of the white Victorian missing the picket fence.
Those who dared visit were subject to mum's promiscuity; she'd answer the door in lingerie, that hollow look in her eyes, searching you for life, love, attention.
If pop answered, he'd spew out some Irish-twanged curses and likely clock your temple if you weren't already running towards the street at the second "fucker" drunkenly expelled in your direction.
The children ran wild, breaking neighbors' windows and picking on the weak just like pop.
Inside the dim house, mum and pop would kneel down at night and pray to God, taking sips of whiskey after each breath.
Come Sunday, if they remembered, they'd hop in the car and enter the hallowed grounds of Saint Mary's Catholic Church, asking for forgiveness, performing Hail Mary's, walking the walk and talking the talk. They'd leave with haste and return to their ways at home.
Little Kathy didn't understand the church and why her family transformed for a few hours a week. She didn't understand prayer when mum and pop just kept drinking and cursing. Of all things religious, she most hated mum's bedside figurine of Mother Mary, how she held Baby Jesus and looked so happy, so peaceful. What a juxtaposition to mum, kneeling in prayer, bra strap showing, bags under her eyes, shooing Kathy away, paying the whiskey bottle more attention. Kathy envied that little Baby Jesus, yet she yearned to break him to little pieces.
One dark night, she heard a car screech into the driveway and a haunting rat-tat-tat of gunfire. Mum didn't unbutton her shirt, dad didn't even curse, and no one answered the door. Pop and mum merely grabbed Kathy and her brothers and ran to the car to hopefully escape with their lives. it was a rare close moment that seemed to last forever, the family holding hands. The last thing Kathy remembered, etched into her skull, was Mother Mary, the figurine, her serene smile that was trying to tell Kathy something, something she could not decipher through the panic of the situation, something it seemed, everyone else already knew.
A fiction piece for the Speakeasy
Those who dared visit were subject to mum's promiscuity; she'd answer the door in lingerie, that hollow look in her eyes, searching you for life, love, attention.
If pop answered, he'd spew out some Irish-twanged curses and likely clock your temple if you weren't already running towards the street at the second "fucker" drunkenly expelled in your direction.
The children ran wild, breaking neighbors' windows and picking on the weak just like pop.
Inside the dim house, mum and pop would kneel down at night and pray to God, taking sips of whiskey after each breath.
Come Sunday, if they remembered, they'd hop in the car and enter the hallowed grounds of Saint Mary's Catholic Church, asking for forgiveness, performing Hail Mary's, walking the walk and talking the talk. They'd leave with haste and return to their ways at home.
Little Kathy didn't understand the church and why her family transformed for a few hours a week. She didn't understand prayer when mum and pop just kept drinking and cursing. Of all things religious, she most hated mum's bedside figurine of Mother Mary, how she held Baby Jesus and looked so happy, so peaceful. What a juxtaposition to mum, kneeling in prayer, bra strap showing, bags under her eyes, shooing Kathy away, paying the whiskey bottle more attention. Kathy envied that little Baby Jesus, yet she yearned to break him to little pieces.
One dark night, she heard a car screech into the driveway and a haunting rat-tat-tat of gunfire. Mum didn't unbutton her shirt, dad didn't even curse, and no one answered the door. Pop and mum merely grabbed Kathy and her brothers and ran to the car to hopefully escape with their lives. it was a rare close moment that seemed to last forever, the family holding hands. The last thing Kathy remembered, etched into her skull, was Mother Mary, the figurine, her serene smile that was trying to tell Kathy something, something she could not decipher through the panic of the situation, something it seemed, everyone else already knew.
A fiction piece for the Speakeasy
Sunday, February 24, 2013
A view worth viewing
Today we had sustained winds over 39mph and gusts to 70mph (the joys of living on a ridge in Santa Ana wind territory) and our power went out for two hours. That meant, since it was daytime, that we could see but no surfing the net, no Sesame Street, no opening the fridge for a snack. So we went for an aimless drive and ended up somewhere gorgeous.
Strawberry Peak rises 6,000 feet with a view over the basin and probably a 360 degree view in spots. A fire lookout tower is there, open to scaffold in the summer for a better view. However, in snow...it is not accessible by car, even though it is along a paved road...mostly because it is not plowed. We traversed the snowy terrain as far as our SUV could take us.
This meant we did not reach the tower, but did get to see a view worth seeing. It was one of those times where I wished I brought my camera, but I did have my iPhone so that is a camera, just not an artsy fartsy one, so I did what I could, blindly shooting as my phone was drowned in glare.
I think I did pretty well. I liked the juxtaposition of dead, burnt trees and live. yet dormant oaks , the snow, sun, and semi-desert urban sprawl thousands of feet below. I miss exploring my mountain and I miss photography, but with a much too adventuresome toddler and a cumbersome "baby bump", all the adventures I yearn for are on hold...as you cannot just go all "mountain goat" and climb a steep rock for a dazzling thousand foot drop view. But today was a simple trail, not exactly "adventure" but exploration never the less, and quite worth my time. It made my day. On the way home, I saw the Pacific shimmering pink in the distance, a view I could have seen from the inaccessible tower. Enjoy my photos!
you can see the shimmer of the Pacific, above.
Where the road got too hairy to keep going....the tower is around the bend
yeah. My thumb is in the may of my favorite, best, most awesome shot.
burnt trees and live, dormant trees with the valley below.
Strawberry Peak rises 6,000 feet with a view over the basin and probably a 360 degree view in spots. A fire lookout tower is there, open to scaffold in the summer for a better view. However, in snow...it is not accessible by car, even though it is along a paved road...mostly because it is not plowed. We traversed the snowy terrain as far as our SUV could take us.
This meant we did not reach the tower, but did get to see a view worth seeing. It was one of those times where I wished I brought my camera, but I did have my iPhone so that is a camera, just not an artsy fartsy one, so I did what I could, blindly shooting as my phone was drowned in glare.
I think I did pretty well. I liked the juxtaposition of dead, burnt trees and live. yet dormant oaks , the snow, sun, and semi-desert urban sprawl thousands of feet below. I miss exploring my mountain and I miss photography, but with a much too adventuresome toddler and a cumbersome "baby bump", all the adventures I yearn for are on hold...as you cannot just go all "mountain goat" and climb a steep rock for a dazzling thousand foot drop view. But today was a simple trail, not exactly "adventure" but exploration never the less, and quite worth my time. It made my day. On the way home, I saw the Pacific shimmering pink in the distance, a view I could have seen from the inaccessible tower. Enjoy my photos!
you can see the shimmer of the Pacific, above.
The theater
About a month ago, my students had to go to the theater at school to meet en masse about SAT testing, scheduling for next year, and the like. I walked in and it was like heaven meets a time machine.
I spent hundreds of hours (if not more) in the school theater in high school. I began high school without theater, and came home crying every day. I might have been a too student but I hated hated hated high school and wanted to drop out because I couldn't wait until age 16 to enroll in community college. It was theater that saved me.
As a painfully shy child, one wouldn't expect me to want to act in front if a crowd, and due to type casting, I never had a speaking part in all of my four years there. Regardless, as an extra, a background person in the crowd in stage, I still got my "fix". The exhilaration of the bright lights, holding your breath for a extra second as you walk on stage and see hundreds of strangers...it was addictive.
I also worked on the set sometimes, helping paint scenes and the like. Tear down was the best and worst, staying till the wee hours of the morning destructing things, tearing down all the hard work.
I remember scrounging together change to give to someone going on a Burger King run, as during hell week (the week before the performance) we could be at school from 7am to 2pm, and the theater until midnight without sustenance.
I recall munching on a burger, sitting outside the theater, looking towards the valley 5,900 feet below. I recall roaming the halls when I had to attend "extracurricular drama" for credit but yet was not needed for the day. I remember walking the cat walk, the concessions lobby, the green room, sitting in the choir or band room waiting for my part, slathering on goopy stage makeup and dressing as a slutty fairy or young boy (that sounds weird.
So when I walked into the theater at work/school, it was déjà vu for me. The theater smelled like the theater, a smell I forgot over ten years ago. The rows of folding chairs like a coliseum, the dark curtains, backstage, the lighting... It was like returning home after a long journey away.
I spent hundreds of hours (if not more) in the school theater in high school. I began high school without theater, and came home crying every day. I might have been a too student but I hated hated hated high school and wanted to drop out because I couldn't wait until age 16 to enroll in community college. It was theater that saved me.
As a painfully shy child, one wouldn't expect me to want to act in front if a crowd, and due to type casting, I never had a speaking part in all of my four years there. Regardless, as an extra, a background person in the crowd in stage, I still got my "fix". The exhilaration of the bright lights, holding your breath for a extra second as you walk on stage and see hundreds of strangers...it was addictive.
I also worked on the set sometimes, helping paint scenes and the like. Tear down was the best and worst, staying till the wee hours of the morning destructing things, tearing down all the hard work.
I remember scrounging together change to give to someone going on a Burger King run, as during hell week (the week before the performance) we could be at school from 7am to 2pm, and the theater until midnight without sustenance.
I recall munching on a burger, sitting outside the theater, looking towards the valley 5,900 feet below. I recall roaming the halls when I had to attend "extracurricular drama" for credit but yet was not needed for the day. I remember walking the cat walk, the concessions lobby, the green room, sitting in the choir or band room waiting for my part, slathering on goopy stage makeup and dressing as a slutty fairy or young boy (that sounds weird.
So when I walked into the theater at work/school, it was déjà vu for me. The theater smelled like the theater, a smell I forgot over ten years ago. The rows of folding chairs like a coliseum, the dark curtains, backstage, the lighting... It was like returning home after a long journey away.
Saturday, February 23, 2013
book nerd
I am a book nerd. There. I said it. I was reading Dr. Seuss in pre-school and was able to go to the 3rd-5th grade section of the school library in first grade. I am not bragging here, just saying I was a voracious reader and while I sucked at math (okay I still do; I still count and do multiplication with my fingers) reading was my "thing".
As a child I read everything. Sure, I had my favorites...anything by Beverly Cleary (esp the Ramona series), Roald Dahl (esp BFG and Matilda).....but you would catch me reading the cereal box or even browsing my dad's hunting or guns and ammo magazines. I read the entire Audobo nencyclopedia in 4th grade since I loved animals, and I also read every Nationak Geographic I could get my hands on. Okay, I still read every National Geographic I get my hands on. I recall in college my first boyfriend and I walked past a yard sale that had National Geographics and they sold us probably three or four dozen, at a canadian quarter's amount each. My home ,as a child, was filled to the brim with books, mostly about Native American history, weapons, art, edible plants, flora and fauna...and whatever book for children that was at a yard sale. One of my parents (usually my dad, my mom worked her butt off) was always reading it seemed.
I lived at the library every summer, trying to read the most books in town to win a small prize...a goal I never quite met because I might read longer and fewer books or get "stuck" re-reading a good one. Reading exposed me to new viewpoints, places, knowledge.
Nowadays I read less, what with a busy life and all, but a lot of my reading is farting around on the internet, researching various "I wonder" moments throughout the day. I am a more selective reader now, with varied but picky interests...if a few pages in, I don't itch to turn the nsxt page! I stop reading. If it is a certain genre ie romance, I stay away. But I am always on the hunt for a new book to read and could very easily spend my yearly eaenings all and solely at bookstores. I love Barnes and Nobles for their expansive selections, coffee, and comfy chairs where I can grab a book off the shelf and dissapear for hours....you know, back before I had kids. I like some ma and pa book stores.....one in Seaport Village in San Diego seems to just have unique reads as does some bookstore (forget the name) in Portsmouth, NH. And one can not forget the behemouth of awesome, Powells in Portland ,Oregon- a block long and wide plethora of books that is also a curse as I get a headache when I visit because I get overstimulated.
Recently I have struggled for a good read. Within the past two years though, I read a few books that I loved. As in, they need to be recreated as different but similar, just as awesome books.
Salt by Mark Kurlansky was an impulse buy (I mean who wants to read a huge huge book about Salt?) Yet it was chock full of history, food, and my favorite thing....completely random facts.
Piece of Cake by Cupcake Brown...real life story of a girl who descended into drugs and prostitution, homelessness and foster homes, a real tell-it-like-it-is book. Despite all the sugary references in title and author, nothing was sugar coated and it was raw and real.
The Underground History of American Education by John Taylor Gatto is one I have read more than once. It is my...I don't even know. It was an epiphany, a transformation for me, a new goal and drive and passion all came out of this kind of jumbled format of an educational manifesto. It changed my life. Seriously.
Quiet by Susan Cain. Let's just say, if you meet me and say, I don't get this chick. She needs a users manual... This book is a damned good start. I think I highlighted more of the book than not, exclaiming "yes, that's soooo me!" But to add to my users manual you can read The Highly Sensitive Person by Eliane Aron. It wasn't an earth shaking page turning read but it did really explain part of me.
Lets Pretend this Never Happened by Jenny Lawson... This is my favorite book and she is my pretend best friend since, well, I don't actually know her. But if I did I bet we'd be best friends. She is eccentric and "real" and who else had dead animals in their freezer as a child? I mean, we are soul mates right there. This book is beyond hilarious.
IQ84 by Haruki Murakami. Really, any if his books. I say he is my favorite author but I love all the authors I have mentioned (and more) but he has what, a dozen books? So there's more to love. A bit if a dystopian view, with lots of it could be real magical realism. He spins his magical realism like no other in my opinion, and I cannot put any of his books down and read them all more than once. I think I read this book in three days and it is not a quick read.
As a child I read everything. Sure, I had my favorites...anything by Beverly Cleary (esp the Ramona series), Roald Dahl (esp BFG and Matilda).....but you would catch me reading the cereal box or even browsing my dad's hunting or guns and ammo magazines. I read the entire Audobo nencyclopedia in 4th grade since I loved animals, and I also read every Nationak Geographic I could get my hands on. Okay, I still read every National Geographic I get my hands on. I recall in college my first boyfriend and I walked past a yard sale that had National Geographics and they sold us probably three or four dozen, at a canadian quarter's amount each. My home ,as a child, was filled to the brim with books, mostly about Native American history, weapons, art, edible plants, flora and fauna...and whatever book for children that was at a yard sale. One of my parents (usually my dad, my mom worked her butt off) was always reading it seemed.
I lived at the library every summer, trying to read the most books in town to win a small prize...a goal I never quite met because I might read longer and fewer books or get "stuck" re-reading a good one. Reading exposed me to new viewpoints, places, knowledge.
Nowadays I read less, what with a busy life and all, but a lot of my reading is farting around on the internet, researching various "I wonder" moments throughout the day. I am a more selective reader now, with varied but picky interests...if a few pages in, I don't itch to turn the nsxt page! I stop reading. If it is a certain genre ie romance, I stay away. But I am always on the hunt for a new book to read and could very easily spend my yearly eaenings all and solely at bookstores. I love Barnes and Nobles for their expansive selections, coffee, and comfy chairs where I can grab a book off the shelf and dissapear for hours....you know, back before I had kids. I like some ma and pa book stores.....one in Seaport Village in San Diego seems to just have unique reads as does some bookstore (forget the name) in Portsmouth, NH. And one can not forget the behemouth of awesome, Powells in Portland ,Oregon- a block long and wide plethora of books that is also a curse as I get a headache when I visit because I get overstimulated.
Recently I have struggled for a good read. Within the past two years though, I read a few books that I loved. As in, they need to be recreated as different but similar, just as awesome books.
Salt by Mark Kurlansky was an impulse buy (I mean who wants to read a huge huge book about Salt?) Yet it was chock full of history, food, and my favorite thing....completely random facts.
Piece of Cake by Cupcake Brown...real life story of a girl who descended into drugs and prostitution, homelessness and foster homes, a real tell-it-like-it-is book. Despite all the sugary references in title and author, nothing was sugar coated and it was raw and real.
The Underground History of American Education by John Taylor Gatto is one I have read more than once. It is my...I don't even know. It was an epiphany, a transformation for me, a new goal and drive and passion all came out of this kind of jumbled format of an educational manifesto. It changed my life. Seriously.
Quiet by Susan Cain. Let's just say, if you meet me and say, I don't get this chick. She needs a users manual... This book is a damned good start. I think I highlighted more of the book than not, exclaiming "yes, that's soooo me!" But to add to my users manual you can read The Highly Sensitive Person by Eliane Aron. It wasn't an earth shaking page turning read but it did really explain part of me.
Lets Pretend this Never Happened by Jenny Lawson... This is my favorite book and she is my pretend best friend since, well, I don't actually know her. But if I did I bet we'd be best friends. She is eccentric and "real" and who else had dead animals in their freezer as a child? I mean, we are soul mates right there. This book is beyond hilarious.
IQ84 by Haruki Murakami. Really, any if his books. I say he is my favorite author but I love all the authors I have mentioned (and more) but he has what, a dozen books? So there's more to love. A bit if a dystopian view, with lots of it could be real magical realism. He spins his magical realism like no other in my opinion, and I cannot put any of his books down and read them all more than once. I think I read this book in three days and it is not a quick read.
Friday, February 22, 2013
Rawr close encounters
Hubby just spotted a mountain lion going up the side of the house. As in a foot from the window. A person a block away said they have seen him/her multiple times. Makes taking the trash out which borders the game trail a little more of a death defying experience since I am edible-sized. I will try and post photos of the tracks later if they haven't melted...not going to take pics in the dark since well I kind if like my life and stuff.
Amazing and scary...the life of living in the forest!
Amazing and scary...the life of living in the forest!
since yesterday was good
Today had to suck. I kept my sh*t together, smiled, had a positive attitude and energy and blah blah but it sucked.
Confidentiality is the law so let's just summarize...today in class I experienced a student walk out en masse, drugs, and graphics of guns and fascination thereof.
Now that i am home my sh*t isn't together and I really want a nap.
Confidentiality is the law so let's just summarize...today in class I experienced a student walk out en masse, drugs, and graphics of guns and fascination thereof.
Now that i am home my sh*t isn't together and I really want a nap.
Thursday, February 21, 2013
a good day
Today was decent. I dreaded work. I dreaded my son having to go to daycare.
Was today perfect at work? Ideal? Was I super strict and all that? Nah not quite. But my worst class was the best behaved today. I could hear myself think. The floor was not covered in crumbs and paper shreds. While not perfect, it was a start.
And my son cried only at drop off and pick up. This is a first beyond measure, as he is that highly sensitive whiney kid. And he actually kind of interacted and explored his environment. Did he let go of his comfort object (today, his bottle)? No. But he succeeded in my book which makes my day.
Let's hope this good karma follows us tomorrow!
Was today perfect at work? Ideal? Was I super strict and all that? Nah not quite. But my worst class was the best behaved today. I could hear myself think. The floor was not covered in crumbs and paper shreds. While not perfect, it was a start.
And my son cried only at drop off and pick up. This is a first beyond measure, as he is that highly sensitive whiney kid. And he actually kind of interacted and explored his environment. Did he let go of his comfort object (today, his bottle)? No. But he succeeded in my book which makes my day.
Let's hope this good karma follows us tomorrow!
Wednesday, February 20, 2013
One of those days
Ever had things building inside you and bam! They all spill out and make for a crappy day?
To sum it up and not bore you with my whining...
My job prevents success. I'm tired of the educational system as it is. I can't do classroom management for the life of me. I can't wait for summer when I can not-Renew my contract and can just stay at home with my son and soon to be newborn. I dread tomorrow cause it's a workday.
I need an organization fairy to visit me and train me in house cleaning and especially organization.
I need to break my Internet habit.
I need to love being a housewife and mother and not see it as a waste of my "talents" or "gifted intellect" (not my words btw).
I need to just make it through the school year and somehow find joy in it, and them learn to love being....me.
To sum it up and not bore you with my whining...
My job prevents success. I'm tired of the educational system as it is. I can't do classroom management for the life of me. I can't wait for summer when I can not-Renew my contract and can just stay at home with my son and soon to be newborn. I dread tomorrow cause it's a workday.
I need an organization fairy to visit me and train me in house cleaning and especially organization.
I need to break my Internet habit.
I need to love being a housewife and mother and not see it as a waste of my "talents" or "gifted intellect" (not my words btw).
I need to just make it through the school year and somehow find joy in it, and them learn to love being....me.
Monday, February 18, 2013
The homestead
If you squint you can see where I grew up...my yard, driveway, house, storage barn.
The tree on the left with signs on it had a little notch where I was convinced an elf lived in. Behind the tree, a forgotten dog was buried and sometimes I would walk past with sadness.
The wooden fence holds in a steep grass lawn where I would play slip and slide on a steep incline, sometimes plowing into the fence (ouch!) and I would also roll down the hill on summer days. A large oak tree provided a branch for a large slow porch type swing and other branches to climb. Daffodils lined the hard and shielded eggs during an Easter hunt. Two like trees lined the left side of the fence and one held a huge wooden moon, pained white with lights around it.
Between the chain link fence and the winding stairs is the steep dirt driveway which was a blast to sled down and a pain to walk up. The fence wasn't there when I was a child, and a small pine tree stood partway up, the "home" to my imaginary friend, Betty.
Near where I am parked is the spot my mom parked, and sometimes channel 9 news would pull in and film the falling s is for the flatlanders to see on live TV.
The storage barn was my summer home for a summer or two in college, giving me a private place except of course I had to walk outside and inside the main house to use the restroom or get food.
The house is a cabin, a modified a-frame built by a man, Mitch, for his wife. It has gnarled wood and little holes that let in the cold and spiders. An old wagon wheel hangs as a light fixture.
And this my friends is where I grew up. Not the best photo as there is window glare but I did not feel like hiking up for a better shot...I have hiked that hill enough for a lifetime.
I moved nearby and have decided to stay put now that I will have kiddo number two. I want my children to get outside, appreciate nature, use their imagination to look for elves and other types of "pretend". I see so many city and even suburb kids with no appreciation I the outdoors and no imagination. Kids that ask, why would you want to play outside? What do you do outside? I want my kids to have an awesome exploratory childhood just like I did.
The tree on the left with signs on it had a little notch where I was convinced an elf lived in. Behind the tree, a forgotten dog was buried and sometimes I would walk past with sadness.
The wooden fence holds in a steep grass lawn where I would play slip and slide on a steep incline, sometimes plowing into the fence (ouch!) and I would also roll down the hill on summer days. A large oak tree provided a branch for a large slow porch type swing and other branches to climb. Daffodils lined the hard and shielded eggs during an Easter hunt. Two like trees lined the left side of the fence and one held a huge wooden moon, pained white with lights around it.
Between the chain link fence and the winding stairs is the steep dirt driveway which was a blast to sled down and a pain to walk up. The fence wasn't there when I was a child, and a small pine tree stood partway up, the "home" to my imaginary friend, Betty.
Near where I am parked is the spot my mom parked, and sometimes channel 9 news would pull in and film the falling s is for the flatlanders to see on live TV.
The storage barn was my summer home for a summer or two in college, giving me a private place except of course I had to walk outside and inside the main house to use the restroom or get food.
The house is a cabin, a modified a-frame built by a man, Mitch, for his wife. It has gnarled wood and little holes that let in the cold and spiders. An old wagon wheel hangs as a light fixture.
And this my friends is where I grew up. Not the best photo as there is window glare but I did not feel like hiking up for a better shot...I have hiked that hill enough for a lifetime.
I moved nearby and have decided to stay put now that I will have kiddo number two. I want my children to get outside, appreciate nature, use their imagination to look for elves and other types of "pretend". I see so many city and even suburb kids with no appreciation I the outdoors and no imagination. Kids that ask, why would you want to play outside? What do you do outside? I want my kids to have an awesome exploratory childhood just like I did.
Not for the squeamish
Tmi stands for too much information and I give that warning right now for this post. Extreme tmi.
If maggots or needles or rotting flesh disgust you, leave.
If bodily functions of the most horrible kind, an descriptions thereof, disgust you, leave. Read any of my other posts but this ones not for the weak.
Still here? Okay...
So I have ummmm tummy problems. They come and go and flare up. Pregnancy makes them really flare up.
I will try and stick to some medical terms to keep this not so disgusting and personal. Not only does pregnancy flare this up but on and off, without warning, gluten will.
I sometimes have emergencies but they're not even that. I get a sort of fecal incontinence where a little bit leaks out without my even trying..not that I'd ever try. Without cramps, warning, indication of any kind. It happens maybe 2x a year. Once it happened in middle school while on vacation. Another time my senior year. Since then, 2x a year. Including today.
Then, I get these flare-ups where I get steatorrhea and bloody stool, with constant "goings" (as in I have to be home bound that day) and constant rectal pressure.
I am no doctor but fit the symptoms to a t for ulcerative colitis. It's no picnic.
Sure I could go to the doctors but there is no way in hell I am carting a nasty goopy poo down a winding road or them to look at. There is no way I am having them out tubes down or up me to scrape and biopsy a chunk of my butt or colon. It getting a colonoscopy till I am 50. I'm not having a barium enema. I'm not living off a liquid diet for three days and then injecting tons of laxative and sh1tting myself for 24 hours so that someone can shove something up me and hurt my already hurt colon. Especially when pregnant. Oh and also they often put you under general anesthesia and I have panic attacks and get violent and disoriented under anesthesia. When I wake up, I don't recognize anyone and curse and hit and kick and try to harm everyone including myself and I sob uncontrollably because I cannot control myself.
So I will just whine and moan and stay away from the best food ingredient even, gluten, and hope it un-flares
If maggots or needles or rotting flesh disgust you, leave.
If bodily functions of the most horrible kind, an descriptions thereof, disgust you, leave. Read any of my other posts but this ones not for the weak.
Still here? Okay...
So I have ummmm tummy problems. They come and go and flare up. Pregnancy makes them really flare up.
I will try and stick to some medical terms to keep this not so disgusting and personal. Not only does pregnancy flare this up but on and off, without warning, gluten will.
I sometimes have emergencies but they're not even that. I get a sort of fecal incontinence where a little bit leaks out without my even trying..not that I'd ever try. Without cramps, warning, indication of any kind. It happens maybe 2x a year. Once it happened in middle school while on vacation. Another time my senior year. Since then, 2x a year. Including today.
Then, I get these flare-ups where I get steatorrhea and bloody stool, with constant "goings" (as in I have to be home bound that day) and constant rectal pressure.
I am no doctor but fit the symptoms to a t for ulcerative colitis. It's no picnic.
Sure I could go to the doctors but there is no way in hell I am carting a nasty goopy poo down a winding road or them to look at. There is no way I am having them out tubes down or up me to scrape and biopsy a chunk of my butt or colon. It getting a colonoscopy till I am 50. I'm not having a barium enema. I'm not living off a liquid diet for three days and then injecting tons of laxative and sh1tting myself for 24 hours so that someone can shove something up me and hurt my already hurt colon. Especially when pregnant. Oh and also they often put you under general anesthesia and I have panic attacks and get violent and disoriented under anesthesia. When I wake up, I don't recognize anyone and curse and hit and kick and try to harm everyone including myself and I sob uncontrollably because I cannot control myself.
So I will just whine and moan and stay away from the best food ingredient even, gluten, and hope it un-flares
Sunday, February 17, 2013
Friendly firearms
Friendly firearms? Huh? Well here goes my ramble and I will stay politically neutral.
If I could ever go shooting for sport (you know, like if I weren't pregnant and had a babysitter) I would. I hate competition sports but using a 22 to shoot a paper target is fun. I'm not a super gun nut, just so you know. I just have grown up in a gun-sports enthusiast family and it must be in my blood as my half brother whom I've never met enjoys shooting for sport. My dad has win local clay shoot competitions, called "turkey shoots" and the prize is a holiday turkey. He donates the turkey to the food shelter.
So today we went to Bass Pro Shops and because of paranoia, truth, nut jobs, evil government, logic...whatever you pin it in, there were very few bullets and they were very expensive. In America, right or wrong, this is not the norm.
I can say, either way, the hunters and fj sports folks in the aisles were all wet friendly. Just like when you go hiking and. Total strangers wave and say hello to you, and genuinely mean it. The folks in the aisle scooted over for pregnant ok' me and a cranky toddler in the stroller, and when my son dropped his toy a boy picked it up and grabbed it but he wasn't the only one reaching to grab and return it to my son.
Sure, there had to be some cranky whack job in the store, no group of people is perfect, and a few bad apples ruin the bunch. But the shoppers today were very congenial. The guys dressed up in leathers, sitting under canvas tents at the Mountain Man Rendesvous when I was a kid, loading the muzzles of their guns to shoot gunpowder rifles in a 1800-something battle reenactment were super friendly. I like friendly.
So what's my point here? I'm actually not certain. I am not arguing for or against guns. I'm just stating an observed fact and the people I interacted with. And that's that.
And yeah I suck at the nablopomo love theme but hey at least I am blogging every day, go me!
If I could ever go shooting for sport (you know, like if I weren't pregnant and had a babysitter) I would. I hate competition sports but using a 22 to shoot a paper target is fun. I'm not a super gun nut, just so you know. I just have grown up in a gun-sports enthusiast family and it must be in my blood as my half brother whom I've never met enjoys shooting for sport. My dad has win local clay shoot competitions, called "turkey shoots" and the prize is a holiday turkey. He donates the turkey to the food shelter.
So today we went to Bass Pro Shops and because of paranoia, truth, nut jobs, evil government, logic...whatever you pin it in, there were very few bullets and they were very expensive. In America, right or wrong, this is not the norm.
I can say, either way, the hunters and fj sports folks in the aisles were all wet friendly. Just like when you go hiking and. Total strangers wave and say hello to you, and genuinely mean it. The folks in the aisle scooted over for pregnant ok' me and a cranky toddler in the stroller, and when my son dropped his toy a boy picked it up and grabbed it but he wasn't the only one reaching to grab and return it to my son.
Sure, there had to be some cranky whack job in the store, no group of people is perfect, and a few bad apples ruin the bunch. But the shoppers today were very congenial. The guys dressed up in leathers, sitting under canvas tents at the Mountain Man Rendesvous when I was a kid, loading the muzzles of their guns to shoot gunpowder rifles in a 1800-something battle reenactment were super friendly. I like friendly.
So what's my point here? I'm actually not certain. I am not arguing for or against guns. I'm just stating an observed fact and the people I interacted with. And that's that.
And yeah I suck at the nablopomo love theme but hey at least I am blogging every day, go me!
Saturday, February 16, 2013
Learning, watching, waiting
My son is barely two and can say about a dozen words. A dozen. By 2 1/2 he supposedly should be able to say 200 words, words clearly understandable by non-family members. He's got a long way to go, and has yet to reach his "language explosion".
Sure, kids reach milestones when they reach them. Part of me tells myself that all is well. I mean, who doesn't want their child to be nearly perfect? And everyone is different, right?
Part of me worries. I've already diagnosed him with verbal apraxia although I am not a speech language pathologist, so really it isn't a diagnosis. Just a suspicion. With apraxia, they meet all other milestones and comprehend spoken word quite well. Check. Somehow their wiring makes it so they can't reproduce speech well. Check. Sometimes they will master a complex word or sentence and use it once, therefore lost forever afterward. Check. Daisy is awesome, Daisy is eating it, Sam is silly, yellow Lego come to mind, heard only once and much more complex than his rare "mom", "yes" "amo" (Elmo), Joosh (his "name"), up.
Navigating the system to see if my paranoid suspicions are correct, simply suck. Every county offers early intervention but our bankrupt county offers it from one over burdened regional center which says, when you call, that call-backs can take months. No mention of now long to even be seen. The doctor's offices are told to wait till age 3 to act on it and then you do an initial pediatrician appointment and then they refer you to a specialist which takes months and... you get the point.
So here I go, asking my son what he wants to eat. I know he understands. I try and help and suggest his favorites, hamburger, hot dogs, Chinese? I slowly annunciate and patiently wait for a response. And wait. I get ag dad badee a da ba ba Ajee. I decide on hamburger.
It's nerve wracking to watch him jibber-jabber (he is fluent in that) and get frustrated with us and himself because we cannot understand him. I wonder if I am being ridiculous or not...should I worry? So many nagging questions and doubts...
Sure, kids reach milestones when they reach them. Part of me tells myself that all is well. I mean, who doesn't want their child to be nearly perfect? And everyone is different, right?
Part of me worries. I've already diagnosed him with verbal apraxia although I am not a speech language pathologist, so really it isn't a diagnosis. Just a suspicion. With apraxia, they meet all other milestones and comprehend spoken word quite well. Check. Somehow their wiring makes it so they can't reproduce speech well. Check. Sometimes they will master a complex word or sentence and use it once, therefore lost forever afterward. Check. Daisy is awesome, Daisy is eating it, Sam is silly, yellow Lego come to mind, heard only once and much more complex than his rare "mom", "yes" "amo" (Elmo), Joosh (his "name"), up.
Navigating the system to see if my paranoid suspicions are correct, simply suck. Every county offers early intervention but our bankrupt county offers it from one over burdened regional center which says, when you call, that call-backs can take months. No mention of now long to even be seen. The doctor's offices are told to wait till age 3 to act on it and then you do an initial pediatrician appointment and then they refer you to a specialist which takes months and... you get the point.
So here I go, asking my son what he wants to eat. I know he understands. I try and help and suggest his favorites, hamburger, hot dogs, Chinese? I slowly annunciate and patiently wait for a response. And wait. I get ag dad badee a da ba ba Ajee. I decide on hamburger.
It's nerve wracking to watch him jibber-jabber (he is fluent in that) and get frustrated with us and himself because we cannot understand him. I wonder if I am being ridiculous or not...should I worry? So many nagging questions and doubts...
Friday, February 15, 2013
Leg-less pirates
Drop kick Murphy's has a song, "Shipping off to Boston" how he climbed the topsails and lost his leg, so he ships off to Boston to find his wooden leg.
Some weird distant echo of my heredity likes this song and is all, ooh sexy leg less pirates. My logic and well 99% of me says eew leg less pirates! But 1/4 of my ancestry hails from dirt poor scots-Irish shipbuilder's blood and that party is my crazy pirate side.
And it isn't just me. My dad claims he was a pirate wench in a past life. I can't make this ><¥# up; he says he was a red-headed pirate's wench in a past life because he has these déjà vu type dreams where he is the wench.
So perhaps the sexy leg less pirate is some distant relative of ours?!?!
Some weird distant echo of my heredity likes this song and is all, ooh sexy leg less pirates. My logic and well 99% of me says eew leg less pirates! But 1/4 of my ancestry hails from dirt poor scots-Irish shipbuilder's blood and that party is my crazy pirate side.
And it isn't just me. My dad claims he was a pirate wench in a past life. I can't make this ><¥# up; he says he was a red-headed pirate's wench in a past life because he has these déjà vu type dreams where he is the wench.
So perhaps the sexy leg less pirate is some distant relative of ours?!?!
Thursday, February 14, 2013
Bad mom
I'm the bad mom today as I learn mommy etiquette. My son's daycare wrote on Facebook to bring Valentines cards. I did. I did just that.
What does my son bring home? A bag full of elaborate home made cards and store bought cards embellished with candy an stickers and toys.
Word to the wise. Preschool moms are competitive as can be so "cards" is code for " the most awesome card, with candy and stickers and sparkles...it means you are a good mom.
What does my son bring home? A bag full of elaborate home made cards and store bought cards embellished with candy an stickers and toys.
Word to the wise. Preschool moms are competitive as can be so "cards" is code for " the most awesome card, with candy and stickers and sparkles...it means you are a good mom.
Wednesday, February 13, 2013
I say, no more pre-dawn!
A simple post today....
If I ruled the world, I'd change high school start times. My high school began at 7:05 I believe. Kids had to walk to the bus stop at dark, many boarded the bus well before 6:30. Where I currently work, school begins at 7:30 and staff must be there at 7:00 and I have a drive nearly an hour long.
Studies prove the illogic of all this, how circadian rhythms work and bla bla and no one listens, just sending kids off before dawn cause its always been that way. I say, no more of this nonsense!
If I ruled the world, I'd change high school start times. My high school began at 7:05 I believe. Kids had to walk to the bus stop at dark, many boarded the bus well before 6:30. Where I currently work, school begins at 7:30 and staff must be there at 7:00 and I have a drive nearly an hour long.
Studies prove the illogic of all this, how circadian rhythms work and bla bla and no one listens, just sending kids off before dawn cause its always been that way. I say, no more of this nonsense!
Tuesday, February 12, 2013
well that was close
You may habe heard of Chris Dorner the cop killer loose in California. He was prob 30 miles from my home where he left his truck (right by where my parents married) and went missing. It is all over the news.
So today I had to venture down to the city to take my son to his pediatrician as per direction of the urgrnt care PA who diagnosed his double ear infection and broken ear-blood vessel. And an ENT appt as well he almost never doesn't have an ear infection. Those ENT appts book 6 mo ahead of time. So I headed on down while my son snoozed away.
I rounded the last bend, right into the city limits but a bend before any buildings and traffic was dead stopped. Thank God for smart phones and sparse reception right in the exact spot I was at, so I could check highway patrol reports. No accidents. Hmph. I check facebook and a friend wrote, "the mtn is shut off". My friend at getoffmyroads.blogspot.com texts me to listen to the news. I call my hubby and he tells me "officers down. Guns. 40 King 'copter searching. Get home. Now." I turn around and speed home, the two upbound lanes empty of traffic. I want to get home before they block the turned around to get home traffic. I don't turn on the news, too frightened, and just crank up some Bad Religion and cut corners, not obeying the speed limit, the road my game (but I was safe!). I get home and unlock my car doors, glad I am home, wishing I had a gun to protect myself as I drove home, knowing nothing but "get home now".
Looks like my theory this dude had some crazy friend on his side may have been correct bht it is just a rumor. Hedid tie up some people and steal their car and drove from Big Bear to the city, stopping halfway to crash the truck and barricade himself in a cabin. A "mtn folk" local either saw and reported him, or tried to shoot at him. Same goes for Fish and Game. Teo officers were wounded, sheriffs I probably have chatted with at the grocery store. There is a cuurent active shootout reported on the scannere but not on the news. Cause us mtn folk have our ways, the scanner tells the truth. The hrlicopters have been told to back away, the scene unviewable by cirizens. Trauma centers are in alert and multiple ambulances are headed that way. All I can do is offer prayers, while thanking God I am home. Safe. My son, unborn baby, husbsnd, friends are safe. Today has been an eventful day. Off to call and reschedule these appointments.
So today I had to venture down to the city to take my son to his pediatrician as per direction of the urgrnt care PA who diagnosed his double ear infection and broken ear-blood vessel. And an ENT appt as well he almost never doesn't have an ear infection. Those ENT appts book 6 mo ahead of time. So I headed on down while my son snoozed away.
I rounded the last bend, right into the city limits but a bend before any buildings and traffic was dead stopped. Thank God for smart phones and sparse reception right in the exact spot I was at, so I could check highway patrol reports. No accidents. Hmph. I check facebook and a friend wrote, "the mtn is shut off". My friend at getoffmyroads.blogspot.com texts me to listen to the news. I call my hubby and he tells me "officers down. Guns. 40 King 'copter searching. Get home. Now." I turn around and speed home, the two upbound lanes empty of traffic. I want to get home before they block the turned around to get home traffic. I don't turn on the news, too frightened, and just crank up some Bad Religion and cut corners, not obeying the speed limit, the road my game (but I was safe!). I get home and unlock my car doors, glad I am home, wishing I had a gun to protect myself as I drove home, knowing nothing but "get home now".
Looks like my theory this dude had some crazy friend on his side may have been correct bht it is just a rumor. Hedid tie up some people and steal their car and drove from Big Bear to the city, stopping halfway to crash the truck and barricade himself in a cabin. A "mtn folk" local either saw and reported him, or tried to shoot at him. Same goes for Fish and Game. Teo officers were wounded, sheriffs I probably have chatted with at the grocery store. There is a cuurent active shootout reported on the scannere but not on the news. Cause us mtn folk have our ways, the scanner tells the truth. The hrlicopters have been told to back away, the scene unviewable by cirizens. Trauma centers are in alert and multiple ambulances are headed that way. All I can do is offer prayers, while thanking God I am home. Safe. My son, unborn baby, husbsnd, friends are safe. Today has been an eventful day. Off to call and reschedule these appointments.
Monday, February 11, 2013
The Breakup
I threw it on the ground and burst into tears. The dull whir of the ended call echoed into my mind like a drill. Mocking me.
"It wasn't supposed to end like this. It wasn't supposed to even begin, you know. You're better off now" I told myself but the tears kept coming. I walked away, leaving my phone to fend for itself, leaving the last bit of you, of us, out in the cold. "I deserve a gold star, good karma, a million dollars for putting up with your emotionally wretched shit" I screeched, as if you could hear. As if saying that made it all better. Why was I still bawling my eyes out? I got rid of you for a reason so why did it still hurt?
a fiction piece for the Speakeasy at Yeahwrite
"It wasn't supposed to end like this. It wasn't supposed to even begin, you know. You're better off now" I told myself but the tears kept coming. I walked away, leaving my phone to fend for itself, leaving the last bit of you, of us, out in the cold. "I deserve a gold star, good karma, a million dollars for putting up with your emotionally wretched shit" I screeched, as if you could hear. As if saying that made it all better. Why was I still bawling my eyes out? I got rid of you for a reason so why did it still hurt?
a fiction piece for the Speakeasy at Yeahwrite
Pissy rant because I suck
I am my own worst critic. As an introvert and highly sensitive person, criticism really gets to me.
So many of you know I am a teacher. Education is everything to me, I hope to write education-related books someday and my head in the clouds aspiration is to be a "power that be" person and be a voice of reason in education.
Anyways, I got an email from an administrator that my 6th period class is out of control. (No (@($ Sherlock). I have 38 students and the majority are those with many suspensions and endangerment of failing and all that. The "at risk" kids who are each a handful. I had two of my most "lovelies" out of class-one in the restroom, one in the nurse, or so they told me. They were actually way down the hall and had hidden their passes. They got caught by an administrator. Odd thing was, they were supposedly doing schoolwork. But they got sent back and the administrator saw a few kids with electronic devices. I try and control the use of them (not allowed) but a few kids will actually sit down and be quiet if they have third stupid iPod playing. So now I have to not allow iPods at all and keep better control of my class. Magically.
See the students tell me I have to tell at them for them to behave. Seriously, thy told me this. First, I don't yell. I have asthma and it somehow made it that I can't yell. If I do it comes out alien like. It's an unintelligible high pitched growl that quivers and cracks and cannot be taken with any seriousness. The crazy cat lady on the Simpsons is scarier and more intelligible than I. Second, should I even have to yell, if, say, I could?
I should have procedures in place and every minute should count as fast paced no time to waste instruction. It is it if they don't want to learn, I can't make them. I can nag. I can call home. I can fail them. But they don't care and tell me as such. They complain I give too much work but don't do any of it anyways because only the midterm and final count as a grade. Nothing else. So why work?
Anyways yes this is a lengthy rant. I feel powerless to get 38 students, most who don't want to be there and aren't held accountable, to "behave". I'm quiet and understanding and they walk all over me. But I can't even be quiet and strict or mean or whatever as it isn't in my nature.
Maybe I am not cut out for teaching.
Maybe I should just write my damned book and pray someone publishes and then buys it. I have to succeed at something, right?
So many of you know I am a teacher. Education is everything to me, I hope to write education-related books someday and my head in the clouds aspiration is to be a "power that be" person and be a voice of reason in education.
Anyways, I got an email from an administrator that my 6th period class is out of control. (No (@($ Sherlock). I have 38 students and the majority are those with many suspensions and endangerment of failing and all that. The "at risk" kids who are each a handful. I had two of my most "lovelies" out of class-one in the restroom, one in the nurse, or so they told me. They were actually way down the hall and had hidden their passes. They got caught by an administrator. Odd thing was, they were supposedly doing schoolwork. But they got sent back and the administrator saw a few kids with electronic devices. I try and control the use of them (not allowed) but a few kids will actually sit down and be quiet if they have third stupid iPod playing. So now I have to not allow iPods at all and keep better control of my class. Magically.
See the students tell me I have to tell at them for them to behave. Seriously, thy told me this. First, I don't yell. I have asthma and it somehow made it that I can't yell. If I do it comes out alien like. It's an unintelligible high pitched growl that quivers and cracks and cannot be taken with any seriousness. The crazy cat lady on the Simpsons is scarier and more intelligible than I. Second, should I even have to yell, if, say, I could?
I should have procedures in place and every minute should count as fast paced no time to waste instruction. It is it if they don't want to learn, I can't make them. I can nag. I can call home. I can fail them. But they don't care and tell me as such. They complain I give too much work but don't do any of it anyways because only the midterm and final count as a grade. Nothing else. So why work?
Anyways yes this is a lengthy rant. I feel powerless to get 38 students, most who don't want to be there and aren't held accountable, to "behave". I'm quiet and understanding and they walk all over me. But I can't even be quiet and strict or mean or whatever as it isn't in my nature.
Maybe I am not cut out for teaching.
Maybe I should just write my damned book and pray someone publishes and then buys it. I have to succeed at something, right?
Saturday, February 9, 2013
Summer Vacation's Ancient Secret
As a child with ahem, interesting parents, summer vacation never included Disneyland or backyard parties, kid-friendly hotels or Las Vegas.
Summers included loading the husky-wolf mixes, terrier mix, and tortoise into our salvaged Ford Ranger and driving up to Oregon to visit family. I would cram into the jump seat with the smaller luggage, terrier, and tortoise and stare out the window for seventeen hours straight. We would listen to Alabama and the Judd's as the Mojave Desert's mid day heat made the black truck without air conditioning even more oppressive. If we were lucky, we'd detour and spend a few days camping in the High Sierra.
We didn't camp in an RV or really with any creature comfort, sometimes not even a restroom. Just a tent with sleeping bags and a fire pit to call home. I do have find memories of these days though, as I loved nature and travel (still do) so every day was an adventure.
My parents had skewed but interesting ideas for fun along the way, like stopping in he aforementioned Mojave to rock hound. Hours spent with necks bent to the ground, in blazing heat, looking for some rare mineral or crystal while doing our best to avoid heatstroke, Mojave Green rattlesnakes, and black widows. Or we'd tour narrow desert-patina black canyons for ancient petroglyphs.
I recall one summer when I was probably twelve, and we were high up in the Sierras, 9,000 feet, where summer hasn't come yet. I was bundled up in pink sweats, moon boots, and my mom's spare brown jacket (in which it looked like I was drowning), my long hair disheveled, as we hiked up a creek bed. I don't know why we were hiking but I loved hiking and exploring so I did not care. We came upon a gentle hill by the creek side and I sat down for a moment, tired. I was getting bored and began poking the pine-needle covered earth with a stick, when I uncovered a nice round rock. It fit in my hand perfectly. It fit inside the rock it nested in quite well. This is when it dawned on me what it was, a metate, molcajete, grinding stone probably used to grind acorn meal.
This stone had been used at least 100 years ago, something that had not been touched or discovered by anyone for decades if. not centuries. We took a phot and I deftly covered it up in mulch, to be undisturbed again.
Summers included loading the husky-wolf mixes, terrier mix, and tortoise into our salvaged Ford Ranger and driving up to Oregon to visit family. I would cram into the jump seat with the smaller luggage, terrier, and tortoise and stare out the window for seventeen hours straight. We would listen to Alabama and the Judd's as the Mojave Desert's mid day heat made the black truck without air conditioning even more oppressive. If we were lucky, we'd detour and spend a few days camping in the High Sierra.
We didn't camp in an RV or really with any creature comfort, sometimes not even a restroom. Just a tent with sleeping bags and a fire pit to call home. I do have find memories of these days though, as I loved nature and travel (still do) so every day was an adventure.
My parents had skewed but interesting ideas for fun along the way, like stopping in he aforementioned Mojave to rock hound. Hours spent with necks bent to the ground, in blazing heat, looking for some rare mineral or crystal while doing our best to avoid heatstroke, Mojave Green rattlesnakes, and black widows. Or we'd tour narrow desert-patina black canyons for ancient petroglyphs.
I recall one summer when I was probably twelve, and we were high up in the Sierras, 9,000 feet, where summer hasn't come yet. I was bundled up in pink sweats, moon boots, and my mom's spare brown jacket (in which it looked like I was drowning), my long hair disheveled, as we hiked up a creek bed. I don't know why we were hiking but I loved hiking and exploring so I did not care. We came upon a gentle hill by the creek side and I sat down for a moment, tired. I was getting bored and began poking the pine-needle covered earth with a stick, when I uncovered a nice round rock. It fit in my hand perfectly. It fit inside the rock it nested in quite well. This is when it dawned on me what it was, a metate, molcajete, grinding stone probably used to grind acorn meal.
This stone had been used at least 100 years ago, something that had not been touched or discovered by anyone for decades if. not centuries. We took a phot and I deftly covered it up in mulch, to be undisturbed again.
Thursday, February 7, 2013
change of plans
I had a mandatory training to go to today. Exhausted after lack of sleep but ready, I ut on my sweather and eyed my son, which was easy as he was stuck to me like a baby monkey. Hubby walked in and said. "Crap, busy day, meetings all day. The kind that if I miss, I am fired." I eye my son again, listless and clingy, whimpering. I cannot send him into daycare like this, with a severe ear infection. I sigh and take off my sweater and turn on Sesame Street.
I grab my laptop and go to send in my substitute lesson plans, the ones I had because of being in training. The school site is down. I cannot send lessons. Crap. I call and no one answers. Double crap. Finally someone answers and I am able to send my lessons to the right person via a text. Phew. I call the training and explain my predicament. Now I am free to....watch Sesame Street.
I hakf ignore Elmo and start writing my Liebster award blog post. Yay, I won! Then my tummy grumbles so I look in the fridge to find amost-expired hamburger meat. I make tsco meat and head out to get tortillas, toting my sicky with me who is in better spiritd after his antibiotics and some tylenol. I decide to drop by the used books store except they aren't open even though it is 15 minutes past opening time. So I go get the mail and head for the grocer's and the book store is open! I mentally add it to myb"do after lunch" list. I get tortillas. I argue with the post office and get my complaint sent to the highest of higher ups. Then the phone rings.
It is my hubby asking when I am coming home. I figure he is just hungry, too. Nope. He says, "lock the doors and get home now". See, there is a cop killer on the loose. He was made national news and has killed a handful of people. He is now to be believed to be i nmy community. The highway (which I avoided as sidestreets get me to town faster) are lined with police forces, guns drawn. The schools are on lockdown. I cautiously but quickly drive home. I lock the doors. I invite my ocerprotective dogs inside for extra assuredness as I make my tacos.
Needless to say, I didnt go to work. Or training. My son Thank God is not in lockdown at his daycare a BLOCK from the police station, a prime target. I am not going to the bookstore. I a mhanging out at home.
I grab my laptop and go to send in my substitute lesson plans, the ones I had because of being in training. The school site is down. I cannot send lessons. Crap. I call and no one answers. Double crap. Finally someone answers and I am able to send my lessons to the right person via a text. Phew. I call the training and explain my predicament. Now I am free to....watch Sesame Street.
I hakf ignore Elmo and start writing my Liebster award blog post. Yay, I won! Then my tummy grumbles so I look in the fridge to find amost-expired hamburger meat. I make tsco meat and head out to get tortillas, toting my sicky with me who is in better spiritd after his antibiotics and some tylenol. I decide to drop by the used books store except they aren't open even though it is 15 minutes past opening time. So I go get the mail and head for the grocer's and the book store is open! I mentally add it to myb"do after lunch" list. I get tortillas. I argue with the post office and get my complaint sent to the highest of higher ups. Then the phone rings.
It is my hubby asking when I am coming home. I figure he is just hungry, too. Nope. He says, "lock the doors and get home now". See, there is a cop killer on the loose. He was made national news and has killed a handful of people. He is now to be believed to be i nmy community. The highway (which I avoided as sidestreets get me to town faster) are lined with police forces, guns drawn. The schools are on lockdown. I cautiously but quickly drive home. I lock the doors. I invite my ocerprotective dogs inside for extra assuredness as I make my tacos.
Needless to say, I didnt go to work. Or training. My son Thank God is not in lockdown at his daycare a BLOCK from the police station, a prime target. I am not going to the bookstore. I a mhanging out at home.
Wednesday, February 6, 2013
Stay at home mom
I suck at being a stay at home mom. And I hated it....yes, past tense.
I was unemployed for a year and a half, even though I have a MA and experience and bla bla. Long rant short, no one outside of education hires teachers in this economy, not even minimum wage jobs. There are 50-500 applicants per education job.
So I stayed at home and raised my son. I love him and watching him go from newborn to toddler was something I would not trade for the world.
But I hated being a stay at home mom. The mom part, albeit challenging, was fine. I mean I have worked in preschool through adult education so I love working with children.
It is the wife part, the homemaker part, I despised. I still hate the cleaning part. My house is a disaster. Partly I blame my son's poor health and 6 months of non stop double ear infections. Poor guy! So I could barely leave his side. I partly blame my parents because my mom's house...isn't a case of Hoarders but every surface is covered with trinkets, framed art, etc., every inch. I grew up thinking that was normal and it is a hard habit to break. Besides, I still must argue, why out away the can opener, toothbrush, Elmo doll, laptop, etc into a drawer if you are going to take it out and use it multiple times a day? Drawers are to put stuff away. Away away. I also partially blame myself cause I am lazy and hate hate hate cleaning. Especially folding and putting away laundry (yeah so it lives in the dryer or heaped on a chair), mopping, and anything requiring fine detailing.
I also at least hated cooking. No let me rephrase that. I love food and enjoy cooking but am slow as hell. I have lots f disasters. I forget ingredients. I try and get too creative and make inedibles. I also have an often sick child so it makes cooking a pain.
So I got a part time job. Yippee!
However, now I am expecting a second child due right when work is back in session, IF my contract is renewed. I have never been renewed, always victim if "Last In First Out" (google it!). I don't want to take 6 weeks off with a sub in my class. I don't want to only take 6 weeks off. I want more time. I don't want to lose my job and go through the pains of unemployment again. Of adding another temporary job to my repertoire of having worked over 15 jobs in 13 years.
I have began to come to terms with being a stay at home mom even though I am currently working. I want finances to magically do cool things so I can stay at home come August. I have began to learn to clean. Hubby wants a house that looks like a hotel. Ummmm it doesn't. I am so far from that but I am working on it. I am cooking almost every day and having fun doing it. My speed has increased and I have had less inedible disasters...although hubby is bummed I made goulash today instead of beef stew. I have psyched myself up to be a stay at home mom, in the face of adversity. I will either get renewed and work 6 weeks postpartum- boo a 6 week old in full time daycare. Or will struggle to find a job and end up doubting my abilities, while embracing being a stay at home mom.
Who knows what will happen, only time till tell.
I was unemployed for a year and a half, even though I have a MA and experience and bla bla. Long rant short, no one outside of education hires teachers in this economy, not even minimum wage jobs. There are 50-500 applicants per education job.
So I stayed at home and raised my son. I love him and watching him go from newborn to toddler was something I would not trade for the world.
But I hated being a stay at home mom. The mom part, albeit challenging, was fine. I mean I have worked in preschool through adult education so I love working with children.
It is the wife part, the homemaker part, I despised. I still hate the cleaning part. My house is a disaster. Partly I blame my son's poor health and 6 months of non stop double ear infections. Poor guy! So I could barely leave his side. I partly blame my parents because my mom's house...isn't a case of Hoarders but every surface is covered with trinkets, framed art, etc., every inch. I grew up thinking that was normal and it is a hard habit to break. Besides, I still must argue, why out away the can opener, toothbrush, Elmo doll, laptop, etc into a drawer if you are going to take it out and use it multiple times a day? Drawers are to put stuff away. Away away. I also partially blame myself cause I am lazy and hate hate hate cleaning. Especially folding and putting away laundry (yeah so it lives in the dryer or heaped on a chair), mopping, and anything requiring fine detailing.
I also at least hated cooking. No let me rephrase that. I love food and enjoy cooking but am slow as hell. I have lots f disasters. I forget ingredients. I try and get too creative and make inedibles. I also have an often sick child so it makes cooking a pain.
So I got a part time job. Yippee!
However, now I am expecting a second child due right when work is back in session, IF my contract is renewed. I have never been renewed, always victim if "Last In First Out" (google it!). I don't want to take 6 weeks off with a sub in my class. I don't want to only take 6 weeks off. I want more time. I don't want to lose my job and go through the pains of unemployment again. Of adding another temporary job to my repertoire of having worked over 15 jobs in 13 years.
I have began to come to terms with being a stay at home mom even though I am currently working. I want finances to magically do cool things so I can stay at home come August. I have began to learn to clean. Hubby wants a house that looks like a hotel. Ummmm it doesn't. I am so far from that but I am working on it. I am cooking almost every day and having fun doing it. My speed has increased and I have had less inedible disasters...although hubby is bummed I made goulash today instead of beef stew. I have psyched myself up to be a stay at home mom, in the face of adversity. I will either get renewed and work 6 weeks postpartum- boo a 6 week old in full time daycare. Or will struggle to find a job and end up doubting my abilities, while embracing being a stay at home mom.
Who knows what will happen, only time till tell.
Leibsters like lobsters minus the butter
liebsters, an internet blogging award like a chain letter kind if, but not. I'm I award 11 liebsters to bloggers with less than 200 followers, like the Grammys of blogs for us small fry. But I can't think of 11 people with few followers so I will break the cardinal rule. So be it. If you get a liebster from me, answer my questions of you (there's 11), write 11 facts about yourself and write 11 questions for the award winners to answer. Make it a blog post.
Oh and thanks to yetisaurus at therealyetisaurus.com for giving me the liebster. She seems like the kind of person I woukd enjoy hanging out with in real life.
So here goes. Voila.
Questions asked of me..
1.Have you ever shot milk out of your nose?
No but I was lactose intolerant most of my life. I do recall shooting squirt soda out my nose which burnt like hell but only fueled my laughter that had probably caused the shooting in the first place.
2. If you could only eat one thing for the rest of your life, what would it be?
That is a hard one, pasta? Cause its variable. But if I had to choose one exact thing? A toss up of hummus, fresh blackberries, or zucchini.
3. What's the most embarrassing wardrobe malfunction you've ever had, and where did it happen to you?
Oh I am sure there are lots especially after too much "beverage" in college. But in high school I remember a time that seemed like a malfunction. I was a nameless fairy in the school production of Midsummer Night's Dream and we had skin colored leotards and leggings. Attached was a small velour tankini bodice thing and around my waist, maybe 6 strips of toile fabric. Six. So most of me looked to be completely exposed and we were to frolic around going class to class to advertise the play. Near the end, you would hear kids say "here come the naked fairies". Kids would actually ask, are you naked?
4. Tyrannosaurus Rex or Velociraptor? Velociraptor. Cooler name, and T Rex has had the spotlight for far too long.
5. What's the most important thing you've ever learned that someone else taught you?
A simple thing but you only have one body treat it right
6. What's the most important thing you've ever learned that you discovered yourself?
Forgiveness, mostly of myself.
7. How long can you hold your breath?
Not very long. I would lose any competition. Having asthma, the feeling if no breath is sheer torture. I swim by doggy paddling so I can breathe the entire time.
8. What are you most afraid of?
Fire as in forest or home fire. I have been evacuated from forest fires too many times.
9. Have you ever accidentally glued something to something else?
I can't think of an example but somehow know I have done it. More than once.
10. Have you ever punched someone in the face?
Not the face. I bullied the bully boys in 6th grade and picked them up by the shirt collar and shoved them off the curb. I also slugged an ex boyfriend cause he would say overtly, "whoa she's hot I'd do her". In front of me. Without shame.
11. If you had to live 200 years in the past or 200 years in the future, which would you pick?
Past. First, if the world ends in the next 199 years I would have chosen the wrong deal! End of the world stuff scares me. I love history and find recent history the most fascinating so I would go back 200 years. I would want to speak to my decades relatives about their lives...I have so much to ask.
MY QUESTIONS for the winners
1. What is the strangest food you have eaten?
2. What is one political/ hot button issue you are really passionate about?
3. Do you believe the environment shapes someone- not the house, the family, but the actual place? Why?
4. What is your earliest memory?
5. If you have an iPod or similar device out all songs on shuffle. What first ten are played?
6. What are some words, when mispronounced or even accented, really bother you?
7. List up to 5 books you have read that were awesome. Feel free to say why.
8. Do people ever call you by the wrong name? What names do they give you?
9. If you were to be you, now, but go back to high school or college (manically looking the right age) what would you do differently this time around?
10. When is a time you were quite scared?
1. Do you believe in the supernatural? If so have you had any experiences? Do tell!
11 FACTS ABOUT ME
1. I'd prob be dead if it were 200 years ago, being I have survived what could kill- anaphylaxis, pleurisy, asthma attacks, severe months long dysentery to name a few.
2. I am incredibly blind. Incredibly. I could beat most people's bad vision.
3. I have touched a mummified hand
4. I got lost in Munich Germany and found my travel group by complete accident as they left to board the train. My credit card had been stolen and I had no money and didn't know German and it was a cold winter...I would have been screwed
5. I got bitten by a fox once.
6. I was science partners with Olympian Michelle Kwan for like...a week in middle school before she disappeared to become famous.
7. I was the shortest skinniest kid in my grade every year until Michelle Kwan. Then girls stopped growing and since I still hadn't reached puberty, they stopped growing and I kept growing...yay!
8.i cannot snap, ski, snowboard at all and I can barely swim. Which reminds me I didn't learn to ride a bike or even kind of swim till I was twelve.
9. I had never had food more "ethnic" than pizza, ground beef hard shell taco, or orange chicken until I was 18z
10. I didn't learn to drive until 22. I mean I could kind of drive at 16 but didn't get my license or drive proficiently until 22.
11. I like to make up words. Hell, if Shakespeare can do it, why can't I?
Award winners if you choose to accept
1. http://www.jamiemiles.com/blog/
2. http://mythoughtsonthesubjectareasfollows.wordpress.com/
3.http://getoffmyroads.blogspot.com/?m=1
4. http://sublurbanmama.blogspot.com/?m=0
I make a terrible liebster-ER but I got it once before so I used up my 11 and now have less. If I forgot you, let me know and I will seriously add you.
Questions asked of me..
1.Have you ever shot milk out of your nose?
No but I was lactose intolerant most of my life. I do recall shooting squirt soda out my nose which burnt like hell but only fueled my laughter that had probably caused the shooting in the first place.
2. If you could only eat one thing for the rest of your life, what would it be?
That is a hard one, pasta? Cause its variable. But if I had to choose one exact thing? A toss up of hummus, fresh blackberries, or zucchini.
3. What's the most embarrassing wardrobe malfunction you've ever had, and where did it happen to you?
Oh I am sure there are lots especially after too much "beverage" in college. But in high school I remember a time that seemed like a malfunction. I was a nameless fairy in the school production of Midsummer Night's Dream and we had skin colored leotards and leggings. Attached was a small velour tankini bodice thing and around my waist, maybe 6 strips of toile fabric. Six. So most of me looked to be completely exposed and we were to frolic around going class to class to advertise the play. Near the end, you would hear kids say "here come the naked fairies". Kids would actually ask, are you naked?
4. Tyrannosaurus Rex or Velociraptor? Velociraptor. Cooler name, and T Rex has had the spotlight for far too long.
5. What's the most important thing you've ever learned that someone else taught you?
A simple thing but you only have one body treat it right
6. What's the most important thing you've ever learned that you discovered yourself?
Forgiveness, mostly of myself.
7. How long can you hold your breath?
Not very long. I would lose any competition. Having asthma, the feeling if no breath is sheer torture. I swim by doggy paddling so I can breathe the entire time.
8. What are you most afraid of?
Fire as in forest or home fire. I have been evacuated from forest fires too many times.
9. Have you ever accidentally glued something to something else?
I can't think of an example but somehow know I have done it. More than once.
10. Have you ever punched someone in the face?
Not the face. I bullied the bully boys in 6th grade and picked them up by the shirt collar and shoved them off the curb. I also slugged an ex boyfriend cause he would say overtly, "whoa she's hot I'd do her". In front of me. Without shame.
11. If you had to live 200 years in the past or 200 years in the future, which would you pick?
Past. First, if the world ends in the next 199 years I would have chosen the wrong deal! End of the world stuff scares me. I love history and find recent history the most fascinating so I would go back 200 years. I would want to speak to my decades relatives about their lives...I have so much to ask.
MY QUESTIONS for the winners
1. What is the strangest food you have eaten?
2. What is one political/ hot button issue you are really passionate about?
3. Do you believe the environment shapes someone- not the house, the family, but the actual place? Why?
4. What is your earliest memory?
5. If you have an iPod or similar device out all songs on shuffle. What first ten are played?
6. What are some words, when mispronounced or even accented, really bother you?
7. List up to 5 books you have read that were awesome. Feel free to say why.
8. Do people ever call you by the wrong name? What names do they give you?
9. If you were to be you, now, but go back to high school or college (manically looking the right age) what would you do differently this time around?
10. When is a time you were quite scared?
1. Do you believe in the supernatural? If so have you had any experiences? Do tell!
11 FACTS ABOUT ME
1. I'd prob be dead if it were 200 years ago, being I have survived what could kill- anaphylaxis, pleurisy, asthma attacks, severe months long dysentery to name a few.
2. I am incredibly blind. Incredibly. I could beat most people's bad vision.
3. I have touched a mummified hand
4. I got lost in Munich Germany and found my travel group by complete accident as they left to board the train. My credit card had been stolen and I had no money and didn't know German and it was a cold winter...I would have been screwed
5. I got bitten by a fox once.
6. I was science partners with Olympian Michelle Kwan for like...a week in middle school before she disappeared to become famous.
7. I was the shortest skinniest kid in my grade every year until Michelle Kwan. Then girls stopped growing and since I still hadn't reached puberty, they stopped growing and I kept growing...yay!
8.i cannot snap, ski, snowboard at all and I can barely swim. Which reminds me I didn't learn to ride a bike or even kind of swim till I was twelve.
9. I had never had food more "ethnic" than pizza, ground beef hard shell taco, or orange chicken until I was 18z
10. I didn't learn to drive until 22. I mean I could kind of drive at 16 but didn't get my license or drive proficiently until 22.
11. I like to make up words. Hell, if Shakespeare can do it, why can't I?
Award winners if you choose to accept
1. http://www.jamiemiles.com/blog/
2. http://mythoughtsonthesubjectareasfollows.wordpress.com/
3.http://getoffmyroads.blogspot.com/?m=1
4. http://sublurbanmama.blogspot.com/?m=0
I make a terrible liebster-ER but I got it once before so I used up my 11 and now have less. If I forgot you, let me know and I will seriously add you.
Tuesday, February 5, 2013
First Love
My first love may have been really an infatuation or obsession but nevertheless here goes my lengthy story.
P went to my high school and man oh man was he hot. Olive-tan skin, that 90s curtain hair style the skater boys had, haunting olive shaped Spanish eyes...and he was SMART and funny. Yet also an bad bit and yet he went to church and had manners. I mean what was not to love? A bad boy you could bring home to impress the parents, who was smart (yeah I'm into brains...not in the zombie way) and beyond hot. Like the hottest guy ever, Johnny Depp's doppelgänger or something.
And in science class, we got assigned seats for the entire year and his was fatefully next to mine. Oh how I swooned and how my heart pitter-pattered. I looked forward to science class every single day. Being science partners, we chatted some- the seating arrangement forced beyond-painfully- shy me to, gasp, communicate. We competed with one another for the best grade in class. We talked about our shared love for Metallica. We had matching skater shoes (even though I am too uncoordinated to skate. Ever.) We even wrote a silly story about the pig we dissected, Lenny. A match made in heaven.
But those who read my post about my first crush ( http://disorderlywanderlustblog.blogspot.com/2013/02/saint-valentine-was-arse.html?m=1 ) will know I had been scarred for life. I just sat there all year, dreaming of what would never happen, him just popping the question (date me, not marry me...although I was guilty of signing my name with his surname in my diary, as every teen girl has ashamed lay done). I mean, how could he not like me? We were like soul mates!
Summer was fast approaching and who knows...I might never see him again. What to do? I tried to hint things, test the waters. My uncle was renting a cabin nearby for the summer and I was excited to spend the summer away from home, going inner-tubing, fishing, creating ruckus. So I asked what his plans were and mentioned mine. Nothing happened an a proverbially kicked myself for the rest of the day.
The next day I psyched myself up as I had back in 4th grade, and this was a critical mission as the last day of school was the following day; sink or swim! So when the other two science partners at our table were discussing pubic hairs or something(they were gross boys) I mumbled something like, hey, have you ever been water skiing? Cause you can come up to my uncle's cabin this summer, I am having a few friends up. (As in me, myself, and I, and occasionally my real life BFF). And he said....
....he said, sure, maybe. I was probably turning blue at that moment, from holding my breath, and I likely said while shaking from nervousness and disbelief, @hey then let's exchange numbers". And we did. And I am sure I was blushing and grinning ear to ear like a big old fool but I was so ecstatic I did not care. I probably danced through the school halls that day.
I eventually got the guts to call him and his mom said he could come for a week! A week! We went and picked him up an he spent the night on the couch at my house because my mom was too tired to drive us to the cabin. He kissed me that night but felt all guilty or something? So my best moment turned into a moment of pensive silence but by the time we got to the cabin, things were better. We hung out with my cousin and watched bad movies and played truth or dare. My cousin who was only 12 was not dumb so he knew I liked P. So he dared P to ask me out and P said he had wanted too anyways. OMG!
We finished the night watching bad movies and all crashed in the same bed but it wasn't, you know, sexual because my cousin was there and plus I was a good girl. But I didn't sleep a wink that night, thinking, OMG my boyfriend is in bed with me. I mean my cousin was in between us but OMG a few feet over was my boyfriend. My first boyfriend. My first kiss.
We had fun making flaming arrows and holding hands and cracking jokes for the week. The next week we chatted on the phone a bit and all was wonderful.
Until the call. One day he calls to say he had been arrested for vandalism or something, and that his mom says he cannot see me again. I said okay, hung up the phone, and fell apart. I cried and hollered for hours.
School started the next week and I saw him in the hall and he ducked away from me, looking at his feet. Granted we broke up but he wouldn't even look my way? So in some sort of masochistic torture, I purposely made sure I walked past him every day after first period. Was it to torture him or myself? I really am not sure but I was not done with him. I was not over him and our relationship lacked proper closure, and now had this "ignore her" mystery. I don't deal well with mystery. I then learned he had history third period and I knew the history teacher well- his wife taught next door to my mom and I had helped his wife in her classroom a lot. Plus he secretly sold candy at passing period to collect money for the team he coached. Who couldn't resist a snickers bar, friendly teacher, and a glimpse at P?
My senior year, supposed to be the best, was punctuated with sorrowful depression, self doubt, hatred. I had finally got the guts to ask a guy out again and it had crashed and burned. With him now actually averting his eyes to my presence, did he ever actually like me? Was it all one big lie, the only guy in all of high school to even note my existence really didn't like me in the first place?
I spent my days penning sad poems and listening to sad songs on repeat. Fade to Black or any song by Stabbing Westward for hours straight. It was a dark time that in retrospect was kind of pathetic, but I didn't know it then. I thought my world was dark and done for, and I wallowed in it.
The story here of first love, infatuation, obsession does not have a proper ending. I graduated that year and he was younger so he was still in school. I never saw him again but my mom ended up being really good friends with his mom (also a teacher) and his aunt (yup a teacher). I ended up going to concerts with his aunt and went swimming at her house where I had missed him by a half an hour! So I got random updates which fueled my pain.
I have forgiven him and forgiven my obsessed crazy self since I was young and dumb and it was 15 years ago, but, you never fully forget your first kiss, boyfriend, love. Even though I could care less about him and the past is passed, the past is still your past and shapes you somehow.
P went to my high school and man oh man was he hot. Olive-tan skin, that 90s curtain hair style the skater boys had, haunting olive shaped Spanish eyes...and he was SMART and funny. Yet also an bad bit and yet he went to church and had manners. I mean what was not to love? A bad boy you could bring home to impress the parents, who was smart (yeah I'm into brains...not in the zombie way) and beyond hot. Like the hottest guy ever, Johnny Depp's doppelgänger or something.
And in science class, we got assigned seats for the entire year and his was fatefully next to mine. Oh how I swooned and how my heart pitter-pattered. I looked forward to science class every single day. Being science partners, we chatted some- the seating arrangement forced beyond-painfully- shy me to, gasp, communicate. We competed with one another for the best grade in class. We talked about our shared love for Metallica. We had matching skater shoes (even though I am too uncoordinated to skate. Ever.) We even wrote a silly story about the pig we dissected, Lenny. A match made in heaven.
But those who read my post about my first crush ( http://disorderlywanderlustblog.blogspot.com/2013/02/saint-valentine-was-arse.html?m=1 ) will know I had been scarred for life. I just sat there all year, dreaming of what would never happen, him just popping the question (date me, not marry me...although I was guilty of signing my name with his surname in my diary, as every teen girl has ashamed lay done). I mean, how could he not like me? We were like soul mates!
Summer was fast approaching and who knows...I might never see him again. What to do? I tried to hint things, test the waters. My uncle was renting a cabin nearby for the summer and I was excited to spend the summer away from home, going inner-tubing, fishing, creating ruckus. So I asked what his plans were and mentioned mine. Nothing happened an a proverbially kicked myself for the rest of the day.
The next day I psyched myself up as I had back in 4th grade, and this was a critical mission as the last day of school was the following day; sink or swim! So when the other two science partners at our table were discussing pubic hairs or something(they were gross boys) I mumbled something like, hey, have you ever been water skiing? Cause you can come up to my uncle's cabin this summer, I am having a few friends up. (As in me, myself, and I, and occasionally my real life BFF). And he said....
....he said, sure, maybe. I was probably turning blue at that moment, from holding my breath, and I likely said while shaking from nervousness and disbelief, @hey then let's exchange numbers". And we did. And I am sure I was blushing and grinning ear to ear like a big old fool but I was so ecstatic I did not care. I probably danced through the school halls that day.
I eventually got the guts to call him and his mom said he could come for a week! A week! We went and picked him up an he spent the night on the couch at my house because my mom was too tired to drive us to the cabin. He kissed me that night but felt all guilty or something? So my best moment turned into a moment of pensive silence but by the time we got to the cabin, things were better. We hung out with my cousin and watched bad movies and played truth or dare. My cousin who was only 12 was not dumb so he knew I liked P. So he dared P to ask me out and P said he had wanted too anyways. OMG!
We finished the night watching bad movies and all crashed in the same bed but it wasn't, you know, sexual because my cousin was there and plus I was a good girl. But I didn't sleep a wink that night, thinking, OMG my boyfriend is in bed with me. I mean my cousin was in between us but OMG a few feet over was my boyfriend. My first boyfriend. My first kiss.
We had fun making flaming arrows and holding hands and cracking jokes for the week. The next week we chatted on the phone a bit and all was wonderful.
Until the call. One day he calls to say he had been arrested for vandalism or something, and that his mom says he cannot see me again. I said okay, hung up the phone, and fell apart. I cried and hollered for hours.
School started the next week and I saw him in the hall and he ducked away from me, looking at his feet. Granted we broke up but he wouldn't even look my way? So in some sort of masochistic torture, I purposely made sure I walked past him every day after first period. Was it to torture him or myself? I really am not sure but I was not done with him. I was not over him and our relationship lacked proper closure, and now had this "ignore her" mystery. I don't deal well with mystery. I then learned he had history third period and I knew the history teacher well- his wife taught next door to my mom and I had helped his wife in her classroom a lot. Plus he secretly sold candy at passing period to collect money for the team he coached. Who couldn't resist a snickers bar, friendly teacher, and a glimpse at P?
My senior year, supposed to be the best, was punctuated with sorrowful depression, self doubt, hatred. I had finally got the guts to ask a guy out again and it had crashed and burned. With him now actually averting his eyes to my presence, did he ever actually like me? Was it all one big lie, the only guy in all of high school to even note my existence really didn't like me in the first place?
I spent my days penning sad poems and listening to sad songs on repeat. Fade to Black or any song by Stabbing Westward for hours straight. It was a dark time that in retrospect was kind of pathetic, but I didn't know it then. I thought my world was dark and done for, and I wallowed in it.
The story here of first love, infatuation, obsession does not have a proper ending. I graduated that year and he was younger so he was still in school. I never saw him again but my mom ended up being really good friends with his mom (also a teacher) and his aunt (yup a teacher). I ended up going to concerts with his aunt and went swimming at her house where I had missed him by a half an hour! So I got random updates which fueled my pain.
I have forgiven him and forgiven my obsessed crazy self since I was young and dumb and it was 15 years ago, but, you never fully forget your first kiss, boyfriend, love. Even though I could care less about him and the past is passed, the past is still your past and shapes you somehow.
Monday, February 4, 2013
Beef stew eww
I had Cafe Rio yesterday, their pork barbacoa tacos. I really wanted the pork salad but my son loves the rice that accompanies the tacos and is all but lost in the salad. So tacos it was. Today, I thought, I bet there are knock off recipes online! Cause that sweet Barbacoa is like crack and the dressing for the salad..I could drink it by the cupful.
And no this isn't some pregnancy craving as the pork and dressing have been an ongoing obsession of mine since I discovered it last year.
So I googled my taste buds away and found recipes! I was so excited. Still an excited and salivating.
But alas hubby had to deliver the bad news. No barbacoa and no cilantro dressing because we had been shopping. This week was to be steak and beef stew. Beef stew? Barf stew or beef eww is more like it. I have never been much of a beef fan and have nightmares of my mom's "stew" or "pot roast" (interchangeable terms in my house) which was more God awful than even boiled dinner. She would sear an unseasoned beef chunk, drop it into a pot of water, add an onion and a few potatoes, a grind of pepper, and let it boil all day. It was super brothy bland ands gross.
Sure, I was excited to learn stew and pot roast could be edible. Gravy like. So I ate it a few times, relishing it in its glory of, well, edible-ness. And then, I got over it. I am just not a meat and potatoes girl. It took me 20 years to even eat more than one bite of beef, and to touch a potato that wasn't fried or mashed into a butter and cream stupor and suffocated in a cat of gravy. I have come a long way.
But upon hearing that I was to make beef stew this week, an inescapable fate since we have all the ingredients which can't go to waste, I sulked. Barf. Even in a stewy-gravy sauce, boiled meat and potatoes is just no fun. I pick at the stringy meat and weird fatty sinews and stab uninterested at the potatoes without flavor. I have tried many a recipe but beef stew and pot roast always taste like beef stew or pot roast. When they are as exciting to my taste buds as pork barbacoa or lamb gyro or vindaloo, cool. Until then, you will see a happy hubby suck down a bowl of meat and potatoes and a sullen girl who forces herself to eat enough not to go hungry.
Oh pork barbacoa, how I long for you.
And no this isn't some pregnancy craving as the pork and dressing have been an ongoing obsession of mine since I discovered it last year.
So I googled my taste buds away and found recipes! I was so excited. Still an excited and salivating.
But alas hubby had to deliver the bad news. No barbacoa and no cilantro dressing because we had been shopping. This week was to be steak and beef stew. Beef stew? Barf stew or beef eww is more like it. I have never been much of a beef fan and have nightmares of my mom's "stew" or "pot roast" (interchangeable terms in my house) which was more God awful than even boiled dinner. She would sear an unseasoned beef chunk, drop it into a pot of water, add an onion and a few potatoes, a grind of pepper, and let it boil all day. It was super brothy bland ands gross.
Sure, I was excited to learn stew and pot roast could be edible. Gravy like. So I ate it a few times, relishing it in its glory of, well, edible-ness. And then, I got over it. I am just not a meat and potatoes girl. It took me 20 years to even eat more than one bite of beef, and to touch a potato that wasn't fried or mashed into a butter and cream stupor and suffocated in a cat of gravy. I have come a long way.
But upon hearing that I was to make beef stew this week, an inescapable fate since we have all the ingredients which can't go to waste, I sulked. Barf. Even in a stewy-gravy sauce, boiled meat and potatoes is just no fun. I pick at the stringy meat and weird fatty sinews and stab uninterested at the potatoes without flavor. I have tried many a recipe but beef stew and pot roast always taste like beef stew or pot roast. When they are as exciting to my taste buds as pork barbacoa or lamb gyro or vindaloo, cool. Until then, you will see a happy hubby suck down a bowl of meat and potatoes and a sullen girl who forces herself to eat enough not to go hungry.
Oh pork barbacoa, how I long for you.
Saint Valentine was an arse
As a small child, I loved Valentine's day. I still fondly recall in school that halfway through the day, we'd stop our studies and get out shoeboxes, doilies, glitter, and colored paper and craft our own Valentine's day card boxes. We then would display the boxes on our desk and walk about the classroom, placing a valentine card into every box. Some cards included candy, and often a few mothers would come in bearing cupcakes for the classroom. It was a sugar and crafts filled fiesta of great awesomeness. On a sad side note, few schools do this anymore, what with NCLB, testing, healthy school initiatives...
Once the opposite sex became part of the marvel of Valentine's Day, coincidentally around the time Valentine's Day class parties became simpler, this special day became anything but.
I had my first crush in 4th grade; I was head over heels in child-like love with a boy named Kevin. He was the popular and "hunky" boy of the class, not my usual forte, but he seemed to like me back..something that was unheard of for dorky old me. He chose to sit next to me, me of all people! So when Valentine's rolled around, I decided to say goodbye to painfully shy me and into his Valentine I slipped a candy heart which read, "Date me".
I remember watching him open it up as I held my breath, the envelope seemed like it took forever to open. Slowly, a smile began to creep across his face when, lightning fast, his jerkwad friend ripped the card from his hand and laughed deviously,"Kevin has a girlfriend". The class went quiet and I did my best to find composure and stay unnoticed. A whisper began to fill the room, as the jerk whispered to the person to his left who then whispered to the person to their left...a game of telephone sped towards me. I then heard the words in my ear, something about a date me candy inside the card, ha ha, how funny, pass it on. I shuffled my feet nervously, bit my lip, and pretended to pass it on. I could feel a heat rise in me, could feel tears swell up behind my eyes, could feel my body expand like it would explode in a wail of pain. I sat frozen, in agony, looking at the door. To leave the class to say, use the restroom, "cost" 200 points, something that could take weeks or months to earn. I did not have 200 points. I could not get out of jail free, but I had to. I had to let this pain and sorrow, this humiliation, this hatred of myself and my stupid stupid lovestruck decisions, out. I did it. I ran for the door and collapsed in the hallway, racked with sobs. A few minutes later, my teacher walked out to find me sitting in the hall, sniffling, trying to calm myself. She had to know, I thought, but no one can know. This was my secret. I mumbled a pathetic lie, that I had to use the restroom but was short points and that was why I was in tears. My teacher, not the consoling type, said whatever points I had would be used, and at least to tell her next time in such an emergency. I walked back into class, numb, and do not remember the rest of the day.
After this day of doom, I began to hate Valentine's day, yet still romantically held onto hope. I would see girls get extra lovey dovey cards from a cute boy, flowers, chocolates...boys would strut around with teddy bears and chocolate heart boxes. As classes no longer had everyone give Valentine's, my figurative card box went empty. Like my sad little soul. I would hear announcements over the PA system in high school, about candy grams and Valentine's dances and hold on for hope, yet knowing I would just be lonely. No one wanted me, and I sure as hell wasn't going to take the initiative again and give a boy a candy gram or ask him to a dance. I had learned from my mistake. And I had come to conclusion that Valentine's day exists to torture the less fortunate. That Saint Valentine's guy (and the Hallmark card industry) was a giant arse.
(As a happy ending, I am married, loved, and yet still harbor a resentment for Valentine's Day. But duh, I of course gorge myself on a huge heart shaped box of candy. It is Valentine's Day after all.)
Once the opposite sex became part of the marvel of Valentine's Day, coincidentally around the time Valentine's Day class parties became simpler, this special day became anything but.
I had my first crush in 4th grade; I was head over heels in child-like love with a boy named Kevin. He was the popular and "hunky" boy of the class, not my usual forte, but he seemed to like me back..something that was unheard of for dorky old me. He chose to sit next to me, me of all people! So when Valentine's rolled around, I decided to say goodbye to painfully shy me and into his Valentine I slipped a candy heart which read, "Date me".
I remember watching him open it up as I held my breath, the envelope seemed like it took forever to open. Slowly, a smile began to creep across his face when, lightning fast, his jerkwad friend ripped the card from his hand and laughed deviously,"Kevin has a girlfriend". The class went quiet and I did my best to find composure and stay unnoticed. A whisper began to fill the room, as the jerk whispered to the person to his left who then whispered to the person to their left...a game of telephone sped towards me. I then heard the words in my ear, something about a date me candy inside the card, ha ha, how funny, pass it on. I shuffled my feet nervously, bit my lip, and pretended to pass it on. I could feel a heat rise in me, could feel tears swell up behind my eyes, could feel my body expand like it would explode in a wail of pain. I sat frozen, in agony, looking at the door. To leave the class to say, use the restroom, "cost" 200 points, something that could take weeks or months to earn. I did not have 200 points. I could not get out of jail free, but I had to. I had to let this pain and sorrow, this humiliation, this hatred of myself and my stupid stupid lovestruck decisions, out. I did it. I ran for the door and collapsed in the hallway, racked with sobs. A few minutes later, my teacher walked out to find me sitting in the hall, sniffling, trying to calm myself. She had to know, I thought, but no one can know. This was my secret. I mumbled a pathetic lie, that I had to use the restroom but was short points and that was why I was in tears. My teacher, not the consoling type, said whatever points I had would be used, and at least to tell her next time in such an emergency. I walked back into class, numb, and do not remember the rest of the day.
After this day of doom, I began to hate Valentine's day, yet still romantically held onto hope. I would see girls get extra lovey dovey cards from a cute boy, flowers, chocolates...boys would strut around with teddy bears and chocolate heart boxes. As classes no longer had everyone give Valentine's, my figurative card box went empty. Like my sad little soul. I would hear announcements over the PA system in high school, about candy grams and Valentine's dances and hold on for hope, yet knowing I would just be lonely. No one wanted me, and I sure as hell wasn't going to take the initiative again and give a boy a candy gram or ask him to a dance. I had learned from my mistake. And I had come to conclusion that Valentine's day exists to torture the less fortunate. That Saint Valentine's guy (and the Hallmark card industry) was a giant arse.
(As a happy ending, I am married, loved, and yet still harbor a resentment for Valentine's Day. But duh, I of course gorge myself on a huge heart shaped box of candy. It is Valentine's Day after all.)
Sunday, February 3, 2013
America Loves Football
...Which must be a generalization as I do not love football. I call the Super Bowl the stupor bowl. I respect people's rights to love the game. But for me, no thank you. It saddens me that we waste millions on the idolatry of football stars, halftime shows, commercials, merchandise. Super bowl parties...when there are much better things to throw our momey at. Education and poverty to name a few. And the sheeple spend their money and look glazy-eyed at the screen, rooting on some team throwin around a ball when we have real heroes amongst us that go without congratulations.
Alas, I will be spwnding the super bowl away from the tv screen, and I do not intend to claim I an better or mightier than asuper bowl fan. We are all human. I just, as said, woild like to see us idolize real heroes who sacrifice all ,beat all odds, to bring beauty, love, paeace, freedom, and enlightenment to this world. So, I silently celebrate the Gandis, MLK jrs, Mother Teresas, military vets, etc etc today. They deserve much fanfafe.
Alas, I will be spwnding the super bowl away from the tv screen, and I do not intend to claim I an better or mightier than asuper bowl fan. We are all human. I just, as said, woild like to see us idolize real heroes who sacrifice all ,beat all odds, to bring beauty, love, paeace, freedom, and enlightenment to this world. So, I silently celebrate the Gandis, MLK jrs, Mother Teresas, military vets, etc etc today. They deserve much fanfafe.
Friday, February 1, 2013
Hipsters
My family was at Starbucks, sitting outside in a rare but nice 80 degree February day, when I realized my last-bits-of-the-flu demanded a tissue. I asked hubby if he could go in and grab me one since he was going in for a refill. He obliged. Kind of.
He comes back empty handed.
Hubby: Sorry didn't get you a napkin
Me: why?
Hubby: hipsters. There were hipsters.
Me: huh? You were scared of hipsters? Dude, you power lifted like 800 pounds. You have been to the Amazon and in the worst part of Los Angeles dressed as a fairy (Halloween) and you're scared of hipsters?
Hubby: well...the napkin area was like ten deep in hipsters! You should have seen it! I just couldn't...
Me: again, you've done all this stuff and they scared you off?
Hubby: well yeah, you should have seen-
My son: I skee
Hubby: what do you see?
Son: I skee
Hubby: ice cream?
Son: (smiling) I skee.
Me: ok I will get napkins from cold stone. (Yup it was hipster-free)
He comes back empty handed.
Hubby: Sorry didn't get you a napkin
Me: why?
Hubby: hipsters. There were hipsters.
Me: huh? You were scared of hipsters? Dude, you power lifted like 800 pounds. You have been to the Amazon and in the worst part of Los Angeles dressed as a fairy (Halloween) and you're scared of hipsters?
Hubby: well...the napkin area was like ten deep in hipsters! You should have seen it! I just couldn't...
Me: again, you've done all this stuff and they scared you off?
Hubby: well yeah, you should have seen-
My son: I skee
Hubby: what do you see?
Son: I skee
Hubby: ice cream?
Son: (smiling) I skee.
Me: ok I will get napkins from cold stone. (Yup it was hipster-free)
nablopomo some mo'
Here I am doing nablopomo some more and this time, despite the short month, it will be difficult. Last time was themeless and this time, love and all that stuff that I am not good at. So it is a personal challenge...28 posts about mushy gushy love stuff! Yuck! So let's go....till tomorrow...
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