Not to be missed

Sometimes I just get on my knees and thank God for local officials.

Check it.

I particularly am fond of the third paragraph from the end wherein they list other names that have been restricted from usage by other crack-head parents.

No up-down! Go side-side! Oh that we could all have Mr. Miyagi's wisdom

The first half of 2008 has turned out to be quite eventful for us, not so much in a good way and mostly through no fault of our own. Sure, I could have eaten more green vegetables when I was a lass, but I always thought I could make do just with the minimum required bites. In any case, much of the turmoil of this year has been rather financially straining, and we've mananged, but now I'm thinking I may need to revive the Misfit Fund (you know, the money most people set aside for a rainy day but that I keep in reserve for when I make bad decisions).

I will say that the Typical Me stories have died down a bit since I've gotten married. Maybe I actually don't leave the house as much, leaving less room for public embarrassment. Mom came in town this week and since Dr. J won't let me get a tatoo (another story, another day), I am in need of some other sort of change and decided it would be a great time to color my hair. I've always had the attitude of It's Just Hair so we opted just to go the highlights-in-a-box route. The mere fact that I am blogging about this should be some indication of how wise was this decision.

Our selection: Clairol's Herbal Essences- Shade on Shade Highlights. Check out the deceptively menacing pink plastic comb in the picture. A lesser man would have shyed away from such an applicator, but not us. We were undaunted even by the 10 very detailed "hints to great highlights" (aka ways we think you will probably screw up). We danced around at least a few of those. But a little dancing goes a long way, and in the end, it's just you and the spoils of your labor.

Looking back it really could have been much worse. My hair could have fallen out, I could have gotten third degrees burns on my scalp, the excess could have spilled onto my cat, each possibility more horrific than the one before. To only be left with a patchwork of gold/orange, complete with 3-inch diameter solid gold discs of hair just above each of my ears ... well, someone upstairs was just plain watching over me.

And then, just to kick me while I was already down, I got hit by the meter maid with a parking ticket while I was at the stylist today "recovering".

Thuggery in the Shrubbery

I would have blogged about this sooner ... but, well, you'll see...



Monday was the beginning of my two weeks of summer completely free of committment. I was so excited! I had my week planned full of things like do some reading for school (that never ends), have lunch with friends, you know ... things I never have time for. The only thing I needed to do was go to the dentist Monday morning. I left at 11:35 a.m. and returned about 12:20 p.m.

As soon as I pulled into the drivewayI could tell the door was ajar, the door frame was broken (this is where I did something stupid) so I took off running into the house. I know. Really, really dumb. Breathe easy, the thugs had already come and gone ... leaving the absence of our home computer, my work computer, and our bedroom tv. Pretty much the ONLY things of value we even own. I hope they fully appreciate the HOURS AND MONTHS AND YEARS of my life they now have in their possession in the form of everything I have ever created for my classroom. Please, dear thieves, let it not go to waste.

That's where I almost vomited. Fortunately, I backed up my work computer during spring break, but since my burner wasn't working at the end of the year, I lost a few months. Dr. J had our music, photos and home computer backed up on the external hard drive. I beg of all of you to do the same if you haven't already.

The fallout and drama isn't completely over, but we're working on it.

Irritating? Yes. Devastating? No.

Another year better

I called my mom to tell her that her youngest daugher is thirty years old. Because that makes someone else sound old, not me. She replies, "I think of it more like my friend is closer to my age".

If you know me, you know I'm not much for sappy lines. But ... AWWWWWWWWWWW!

My mom rocks.

What do you want for your 30th birthday?

A few years ago, I decided to embrace the fact that the, or at least a, major summer blockbuster released on or within a few days of my birthday. Since then, I've had a Spiderman party, Superman party, (see releases on or near 6.30 since 2002) last year the theme practically wrote itself with the release of the 4th in the DH series, Live Free or Die Hard ... into 29.

This is actually a great summer for movies and I've missed them all so far, including Get Smart which I've been anticipating since I was about 7 years old. It couldn't truly be a birthday movie because they released it too early, curses!! Gettin Smart in my 30s, could've been great, alas, it was not to be.

The choices for this weekend are two-fold, Wall-E and Wanted. Which makes the possible themes "Wanted: Decade 3" or "Up Against a Wall-E: 30 and Counting". Darn them for putting James McAvoy in one of them and making the choice practically select itself; I'm so glad to know he'll have a happier ending than Atonement. Dang, I just teared up again over that movie.

And I always get popcorn at the birthday movie. It's in the by-laws.

What would you vote for?

Exhausted

To gear up for one of my two weeks of works this summer, I went to Colombia for 12 days, came home, had a houseguest for 4 days during which time we went to Asheville and toured Biltmore, and made a chocolate cake for J's thirty third birthday. Saturday morning, Dr. J and I got up about 3 a.m. for a 6 a.m. flight out of Charlotte (it seemed like a good idea at the time!). I barely remember either flight to Pittsburgh. After we got here, we checked into the hotel downtown and noticed there was an arts festival going on a few blocks away. After unpacking, we visited there and because we are such cool and hip young folk, we opted to go visit the Science Museum rather than hit a Pirates game (even though we are only a few blocks from the stadium).

Jealous much? You didn't get to use hands-on activities to determine the most effecient airfoil shape, now did you? hmm???? HMMMM???? that's what I thought.

After all that good fun, I slept almost 15 hours last night. That's more than twice what I usually get. Poor Dr. J decided to work this morning while waiting on me to wake up instead of going to get breakfast. And he waited. And waited.

Incidentally, I LOVED my darling houseguest and we had a blast! Please come back someday!!!

You know how parents will worry about you no matter how old you are?

Not mine!!!!!! Guess how many emails / blog posts / phone calls / any-form-of-modern-or-otherwise-communication I have recieved from my parents?? Let's count 'em ...

NADA. That's Na. Da.

I'm sure the concern for my safety is buried deep, deep within them, which falls under We Have Our Own Lives Now That Our Children Are Grown, Category 9b: We Have a Dog Now.

Yes I know today is father's day. I hope the puppy gets Daddy something nice.

Mosquitos

I have so many mosquito bites on my feet / legs / arms that one of my ankles has entirely disappeared into swell. I have cankles from the mosquitos. Not to mention cankles covered in red circles with a dot in the middle.

This was the result of the asado (BBQ) yesterday, which was great and we taught lots of colombian women to play Nertz. And man can those ladies CHEAT! Within minutes of telling them the "one hand" rule, they had family members - multiple - backing them up four and five hands all playing for them. But they can suck it because I still won!! HAH! I would have shown mercy if it weren't for all the flagrant cheating.

On vacation day 1. I was only conscious for a total of 7 hours yesterday

Sleeping in, the two hour nap, and early to bed just doesn't leave much time for being awake.

I'm back in ColOmbia; the origins of this here blog. You either join the alzheimer-like pace here or you go nuts trying not to. Hey, if you can't beat em ...

Two of our adventurous friends are joining us tonight. This is the first time to bring an outsider into our little foreign fog. Kinda scary for us, but probably moreso for them. They get mad props for braving the Other America; it's certainly going to be an experience, one way or the other.

Things I have missed since my last visit; the food here is so good and all so fresh. Also, the culture here always keeps at least one servant in the house to cook all the meals and clean up after you, clean the house, do your laundry, make your bed, bring you coffee in the afternoon. The first time I came I felt a huge amount of guilt about it. That passed because, really, who doesn't want to be waited on hand and foot. For vacation purposes it so SO relaxing!! And, thankfully, it opens up more time for important things like the 2 hour nap i took yesterday. Don't blame me for being lazy, it's exhausting pretending to speak spanish all the time. I'm such a poser.

Morphing into my parents. Chapter Three hundred and twenty two

Saturday, I met a bunch of my students up at school to finish building a roller coaster that we will be taking to Carowinds next week for a competition. I have this nagging feeling that it's going to be disqualified somehow because the rules are so vague, but at least we tried. The coaster doesn't have to be backed with design drawings or calculations, so it's really been designed from trial and error. "Trial and error design" is a nice way of saying we wasted a lot of materials in the process and it doesn't remotely look like what we were going for, but hey.

Anyway, we were getting the finishing "touches" on the structure Saturday morning (AKA it didn't work in the least and something had to be done). Hands were everywhere ... once something worked, it got drilled and screwed together ... something else functions properly ... more drilling ... more screwing (in the power tool sense of the word.) (not that power tool.) The last hand was taken away and the wall of the track was screwed onto the support. Alas, it was time to see if it was entirely functional and independent.

The pinball was dropped ...

and it ran smooth...

Until it got to that last screw"ey" spot.

We ran it a few more times and realized that the person had been twisting the track when they held it, so we needed to re-twist it. Hmm ... twist it ... how to ... ... just need to push the base of the track slightly away from the post ... and if ... and it hit me like a mac truck. I took a page from my father's Book of Life and folded a piece of paper in half about 4 times and stuffed it between the base of the track and the supporting post.

How bittersweet it was when it worked.

Immediately, I had flashes of folded up pieces of paper shoved into every rattling crevice of every car dashboard we ever owned. Our family station wagon was a poster child for the plethora of uses of 3M products.

So, here's to you dad. If only today had been Father's Day.

Traumatized.

Well, I'm not so much but Ashley would have been, if she had been me ... bra shopping at Belk, when the pushy 85 year old lady came walking in to the dressing room to see how my bra fit. And then told me to try on the other size. And then stepped back. To wait for me to change.

(crickets chirping, pins dropping)

"Honey, I been doin' this 25 yeers and you ain't got nothin' I hadn' seen before!"

Gulp.




(incidentally, who knew I'd have two posts about bras inside of a week! hooo-yah!)

The dinner party that crosses cultural lines ... or maybe just generations

I made this dessert for a dinner party on Friday night. Occasionally, all the Colombians in town gather. I pass a few hours fumbling through my rugged Spanish and trying not to embarass myself during the evening. It wasn't exactly formal, nor was the dessert, and I've been short on time because of the online classes and houseguests. Which is why I made something simple, and just barely in time for it to be cooked before we had to leave.

The dessert was something similar to lemon squares, harder crust on the bottom, softer layer on top, in spite of the rush I took the time to sprinkle it with cocoa and powdered sugar all over the top. I wanted to cut it into squares, but short on time, we took it as it was in the 9 x 13 cooking pan. As we were going through the buffet to get food, the hostess wanted to cut it, but said she was worried about cutting the pan. I was worried too when I turned around to see her about to dig in with a 12" steak knife. I told her that no, it was soft, and a normal dinner knife would be able to do the job. Either she didn't own a normal dinner knife, or she disagreed with me because the next thing I know is that she has flipped the entire dessert upside down onto a cooling rack instataneously putting a 9" x 13" dusting of cocoa and powdered sugar on the countertop. The soft topping was moments away from gravity turning the whole thing into pressed garlic.

What did I do? What would you do?

Hey friends ...

Remember when you were all whispering behind my back about whether I was ever going to get married or not? With the onset of ... count'em ... NINE babies in my sunday school class this year and more pregnant, 5 friends from college (several on their second babies), 3 friends from St. Louis ... no wait ... 4 .... yikes. That's a lot of gerber. And a lot more poop.

Whisper away, little parents. I still gotta beat my own drum.

I used the phrase "stuff your bra" in a faculty presentation today

How many of you can say that?

I feel as though I have officially shed the last of my shell that I lived in until 7th grade. Who knew that someday that fragile little bumpkin would be brave enough to speak in front of a crowd, let alone make a public poke about stuffing your bra with recycleable materials on Green Day? Ok ... so it was funnier in person. And yeah, that's what it was about.

I didn't say it was a good joke.

Accepting donations

Nothing was stolen. Our brilliant plan to hang onto the hand-me-down TV has finally paid off! Well, I guess I would really like it to pay for the damage to the wall and the door frame that was split in half, but that's probably asking too much. Nothing stood in the way of the would-be burglar on Friday except that perhaps our collection of electronics was a bit disappointing for his pawn-shop-resale taste. Dr. J got a call from the security company saying the alarm went off and were we at home. He then called me to find out what I had done. As likely as it is for me to leave a door ajar or something equally ridiculous, this time, I didn't do a thing and had only been gone for about 15 minutes. Dr. J raced home only to find a couple of Columbia's finest sneaking their way into our house, guns drawn. Way to go, blue.

That was almost one month exactly after the surgery. I'm just holding my breath for the festivities at the end of April. With any hope, maybe we can drain our entire savings in a single year.

GRRRRRR ....

Will someone explain to me what was going through my head when I scheduled a dentist appointment for 7 am in the middle of spring break?!!??

Nmmeeph?

Rachel, there's still a tag on the bottom of that cute pump you were wearing. The right one.

I meant to tell you right after class except I was distracted by the oldest woman on the planet.

I say this because a) Rachel doesn't embarrass easily and knows how to laugh at herself. And at me. Thank God. You can only have so squares in your life and I max out around 2. What's so great about being perfect anyway, I ask you? b) It's important that friends are the ones that tell you when you have spinach between your teeth, your shirt on backwards, your fly undone ... there is nothing worse that helping give directions to someone that pulls up in your driveway lost only to have that person tell you that you have a booger hanging out your nose. And then tell you that you didn't get it. You still didn't get it. And then just back out of your driveway.

You can't even make stuff like this up!

Let your minds' eye travel with me to ... Easter Sunday ...

Sunday school class. Nothing special other than our teacher was doing a creative number with discussing the resurrection story of Christ ... our Lord ... what the ... ???

Enter 9 hundred and 32 year old woman, barely 5 ft tall. Shaking and feeble. Literally enter. As my class of 30 or so young marrieds has our heads to our teacher, an elderly woman at death's door sneaks into our classroom and gums a few Bisquick sausage balls from the Snack Station. I really don't know how I even saw the quiet little mouse. As quickly ... maybe sluggishly is a better adverb ... as she came, she left, but not until she nestled a handful of sausage balls into a napkin to go.

I had the worst church giggles of my life. At least of my adult life. Dr. J's elbow jabbing didn't help things, nor did the two or three other people that also witnessed the mischievous thievery. Thank goodness I already knew how the story ended.

Another step of me morphing into my mother

Mom always called me during the workday just to chat whenever she was on spring break / summer / whatever teacher holiday she got that I didn't get. And she would just ramble on about the fish in the pond that dad accidentally killed, again ... or tell me that she was going to go to the grocery store ... or or that she saw a car she didn't recognize drive by the house - twice. All while I'm trying to politely squeeze into her ramblings to find out if she needed to speak to me because I was, of course, working.

Anyway, today is the first day of my spring break. I could have an accident with a kitchen knife a little later today and I'd still be grinning ear-to-ear. But I just picked up the phone to call a friend in California that I haven't talked to in months.

1. She works.
2. Like I said, she's in California, and it was only 5:30 a.m. PST

What? I'm up.

The Hardest Part about Teaching

I have to be an adult all day long. Seriously.

And then the moment the students leave and another teacher comes in I turn into a sophomoric idiot. Ironically, it seems that the more mature my kids are, the less mature I become, whipping out ridiculous puns and slapstick routines like there's no tomorrow. I mean, there really must be balance.