hmmm...

Holiday vacation...ten days away from all that is everyday.

Lots of running around...two round-trips up to the Boston area, one to Providence...or is that three trips to Boston? Was there one before Christmas? Oy! 'Tis a seasonal blur, it is.

Skipping out on a work-people party tonight because a) running all over when I really did have a horrible stomach bug makes me feel entitled to lay around doing nothing for at least one day now that I'm over my horrible stomach bug and b) I'm a big dork. Sometimes, I just don't have the wherewithall to hang with the cool kids. Tonight, I feel my dorkiness like a warm woolen blanket...comfy, familiar, but totally unsuitable for a night out on the town. Wouldn't want to move up to a Linus-level with that dork-blanket.

The foundation for our mega-garage was modified over the course of the last two days. We built it anticipating wood-frame construction, but had to shift gears to a steel-frame construction for various reasons. This meant that we had to make cut-outs in the foundation wall for anchor bolts. Two guys with a really big saw came and chopped notches in our wall. The pups were fascinated, and astonishingly good. In fact, they barked when the truck pulled up the driveway today, only to calm down immediately as soon as they heard the saw start up. "Ah, it's those guys," they seemed to say. "We know them."

Puck has always enjoyed construction work. He made a thorough inspection of the work today after the guys left. Brittany has always enjoyed potential toxins. She taste-tested the concrete dust today after the guys left. Mmmm...concrete dust.

Now that the foundation is fixed, all we have to do is assemble the steel trusses, frame things up...uhhh...y'know, other stuff...and then: poof! mega-garage! As may already be evident, when I say "we," I mean my hubby and other helpful people, not so much me. I plan to stand by, ready to spring into action, should vainly hopping around worrying about power tools be called for. Tricksy power toolses.

In addition to new notches in our foundation, we have a nifty new pile of concrete chunks sitting slightly to the left of our garage-ish. So, the hubster has grand plans (coinciding with the grand garage-building plans) to rent a dumpster and rid ourselves, not only of the concrete chunks, but of all of our assorted meaningless clutter. Yup, we will de-clutter our lives. Poof.

Mmm-mm. Poof, and then poof again.

If all goes according to plan, then, the new year will find us finally garaged, and (could it be true?) clutter free. So much for all my plans to use the garage as a storage place for limitless amounts of clutter - stacked on shelves, arranged chronologically perhaps, or alphabetically - indulging my genetic tendancies towards pack-ratitude, curatorship, and cataloguing.

Oh well, woulda been fun.

Is it at all significant that I'm so stunned by Victor's desire to fill a dumpster with the assorted detritus of the past seven years? I'll admit: there were things that got packed when we moved from the apartment that should have been thrown out. There are things that have yet to be unpacked (and could therefore most likely be thrown away without me every noticing), and there are a few oubliettes throughout the house where out-of-the-way corners have become hidey-holes for things we'd like to pretend we've already thrown out. But to actually throw it all out? Shocking. Strange. What if I decide later that I want it?

Ah well. I suppose it may be time to take arms against a sea of clutter, and by opposing, end it.

apple tree

does the apple never get to fall far from the tree? is there any hope at all for soggy little apples, rotting away at the foot of their tree? will no one pick them up? they are probably still good for cider.

sometimes i feel like a soggy apple.

blergging in the blog

So. I feel compelled to speak out in defense of the mundane.

I enjoy fast food. I love the deep-fried goodness of french fries from somewhere socially, morally, and nutritionally unredeemable.

I love movie popcorn with an almost religious ferver. And I don't just love the movie popcorn. I will sit in a dark theater and watch all manner of crap just for the experience of, well, nothing more than just that.

I love having the same thing for breakfast every morning, and picking it up on my way to work. I have a coffee maker. I have a toaster. I have sugar, and milk, and cream cheese. I have bagels. But I love that morning ritual of stopping, and getting my coffee and bagel from the magic little window in the wall next to my car.

I watch way too much tv. I do the work I bring home in front of the tv. I just like having it on, and it's often on from the time I get home until the time we go to bed. I feel so fine and upstanding when I do something else instead...but, boy oh boy, the shiny moving people in the box are fun to watch.

I read trashy magazines with gusto. No, not the super-duper trashy kind...just the kind with tips on making the most of your less-than-runway-ready butt and figuring out just how compatible you are with your significant other. I also love the ones with long analytical articles about the plots (and subplots) of prime-time television shows: Two guilty pleasures in one! And I think that magazines with literary pretentions are just a waste of a perfectly good genre. If I want to think, I'll read an actual book.

ok. enough gazing at my navel.

me oh my oh cherry pie oh

I've been so effecient and productive so far this school year. I come home. I sit down and peruse my to-do list, and then I do the stuff, happily checking things off as I go. I am filled with the warm fuzzy glow that is the fulfillment of the Puritain work ethic. I don't even (so far) have a pile of shamefully uncorrected work sitting in the corner of my desk staring at me from across the room making me sad. It's odd.

But...

Oh, I'm just not...

happy...

about teaching right now.

Bleh, I say. Bleh.

Am I bleh? Hee hee...now, there's a song to have stuck in my head.

dreams

For a while, I used to dream about our fish tank when I was stressed out. I dreamt of miniature polar bears swimming in my college fish-bowl, with our goldfish Anikin (he killed Obiwan...we felt a little guilty about the names after that). That was my first fish-as-metaphor dream.

Tiny little polar bears, dog-paddling on the surface of the water as Anikin flounced back and forth below.

Later, I dreamt that my husband and I bought two malard ducks for our fifty-gallon fish tank. Then, they started eating the fish! We (for some reason) were shocked and dismayed. Most of the dream concerned our more-or-less successful efforts to get our ducks to settle for life swimming in five-gallon buckets instead. They kept ending up back in the fish tank. We bought a second fish tank; the ducks kept winding up in the one with the fish. Maybe they were hungry.

I've had more dreams than I can count about spotting fish who I thought were dead and burried (no, we don't flush them...) swimming around between the plastic plants...or all of the fish in the tank dying.

Once, I dreamt that the fish kept getting bigger and bigger...and once that these strange oceanic crabs kept mating in the back corner of the tank, changing colors every time.

Then, my stress-dreams shifted to houses. I never dreamt about our house, though...always about strange, slightly-occupied houses...occupied by memories of former inhabitants, or the ghosts of tiny children, or odd pets.

Victor and I would move in...once to this huge, gothic house on the corner of a suburban block. The former owners had left behind all of their furniture...shelves full of black and white pictures of ancestors on safari...jewelry boxes that rattled but would not open...and Puck kept running out into the cul-de-sac, oh, I was so worried that he would be hit by a car...

After we moved in, things would become stranger and stranger...rooms where there were no rooms before, stairs that ended in closet doors...attic rooms full of furniture draped in white sheets...endless hallways.

Once, I dreamt that Victor sold our house without asking, and we moved into the blue-green house across the street from my parents...the one where the family of 12 kids used to live, where we used to go after school to watch cartoons until mom came home...it slowly grew to become this huge two-family house, again full of furniture that wasn't ours, the windows cloaked in voluminous drapes - no sunlight anywhere at all...just the hint of it shining through the heavy fabric. We shared the house with my parents, my sister, and her boyfriend. Oh, I was mad about that.

Always, there were extra rooms...unknown rooms at the tops of long, narrow stairways. Eerie rooms, abandoned by unhappy children.

tenyearolds

There is so much that is good about September.

September is a month of new backpacks, fresh notebooks, and unsharpened pencils. In September, everything smells like leaves, and all the sneakers are new.

Nobody is the "bad" kid yet. Nobody is the "smart" kid.

Everyone smiles at the teacher in the morning.

And on the first day of school, everyone's desk is clean. There are none of the papers that will soon be scrunched, unrecognizable, in the deep back corners...behind lost homework assignments and notes from the teacher that say "please sign and return."

So, let's hear it for September...even though school always starts in August in Connecticut (maybe that's why I'm never quite ready for the first day).

Whoah...

Fresh back from a day god-son-sitting...his new favorite word (aside from "mine!") is "Whoah!" always said with great enthusiasm and an air of breathless awe.

So, as he might say: Whoah! I have no memory of writing that post about Jet-lag. I think that says all there is to say about jet-lag.

Oy.

European Vay-cay

Fresh back from a wonderful trip to Germany for my friend's wedding, I am nursing a serious bit of jet-lag/up for 24hr.s-lag. I just couldn't sleep on the plane. With the sun shining brightly through the window throughout the entire flight, it was impossible to convince my brain that it was time to sleep. "No, no!" it kept saying. "It's daytime. We'll sleep at night, silly girl!"

Darn that brain o' mine!

My faithful doggies are trying their best to match their normally fiesty moods to mine. They are currently snoozing away: Brittany close by on the sofa, and Puck in his favorite spot at the bottom of the basement stairs. Every now and then, they jump up and scramble around, trying their very doggie best to convince me to play...but I will no be moved. I grunt in their general direction, and they (after a few pounces on each other, as if to say, "Well, we're fun to play with!") curl up to wait for me to recover my vigour and vim.

Ah, vim. Good word, vim is.

imaginary cats

When I was a Brownie, my mom was the troop leader, and we had meetings at our house. Our troop was a strange amalgamation of girls from different layers of the elemenary school social strata, and meetings were one of the few times some of us sat in the same room without engaging in biting, pre-teen conversational jousting.

As a meeting place, our house held several fascinations for troop members: a phone that you actually had to dial (many a girl felt it necessary to call home to confirm that her ride was on the way, just for the experience of using the phone), a Frankenstein-esque home computer - housed in a cabinet that was taller than I was, and a framed picture of a sculpture of a small, naked boy. This you had to climb up on the radiator register to see, leaning precariously over the living room floor, braced against the door jamb...but it was worth it.

Anyway, though my mother was the leader, my position in the troop was always somewhat borderline. I was never cool. I was always awkward. But, it was my house, my mom was the leader, and I was willing to stand look-out for girls who wanted to climb onto the radiator. I was keenly aware of the need to bolster my social standing in the group by adding to my collection of strange and unusual objects...honestly, how long could I expect the popular girls to be distracted by a phone, a computer, and a tiny penis? So, I made up a cat.

Our household was not short on cats...we had nine...but this was no ordinary cat. The cat I created was pure white, with blue eyes and long, silky fur. He was deaf. He had disappeared tragically and no one in my family, conveniently enough, was willing to talk about it because the sadness was so deep, the grief so overwhelming. He was exotic, mysterious, and perhaps still alive somewhere. I bravely held on to hope.

I would answer questions about the deaf cat sometimes when mom was out of the room, getting a snack or overseeing the girls being picked up by the pre-minivan collection of station wagons outside our house. "We could call him by tapping on the floor," I'd say in a hushed, stricken tone. "He had to stay inside because he couldn't hear the cars," I'd whisper...my voice trailing off as though I were unwilling to discuss the implication of our beloved pet's escape into the outside world. I got pretty good...

Then, our troop merged with the troop across town. More girls. A more complicated social labyrith to navigate...and meetings in the basement of a local church. No more phone. No more computer. No more standing on the radiators. My imaginary cat stayed out of the picture as well. No one asked about him. He had disappeared...for real, this time.

Years later, my friend's family opened the door to find a cat, apparantly lost, mewing pitifully on their front porch. Already home to quite a few cats, they took him in while they searched for his former owners. They never found any. They decided to keep him, and named him Jesse.

He was pure white, with blue eyes, and long, silky fur. He was deaf.

Puck's Latest Adventure

Puck and I just went outside to monitor the backyard for suspicious activity...the catbird has been getting pretty cocky recently...and as Puck was checking the property line for signs of intruders, I heard a rustling under the porch.

"Hmm...was that a rustling?" I wondered.

Then, I heard it again. Puck heard it too, and his ears twitched. We turned to look at the porch just as a cute little raccoon poked its bandit-masked face out from under the stoop.

"Oh, how cute," I thought. "A raccoon." Then, my thoughts shifted to ticks and rabies and everything in between as Puck, too, noticed the raccoon. He charged under the porch, a growfling growling woof deep in his throat.

The raccoon looked mildly surprised, ducking back under the porch as Puck barreled his way.

"PucknoPuckdon'tPuckCOME," I managed, rather incoherently. And, to my great surprise and relief, after a second or two under the porch, he did! As I grabbed him by the collar, he rather emphatically laid claim to a tall clump of grass, as if to say, "Ok, buddy, but this is mine."

In we went, and I inspected his face for raccoon scratches...none to find, of course, but I'm a seriously over-protective doggy-mama.

Hopefully, the raccoon was at least as freaked out as I was by their close encounter, and will decide to move on.

Robins in the doorjamb, sure. Bluebirds in the eaves, absolutely. Groundhogs under the woodpile, yup...raccoons under the doorstep? I'd really rather not. I just think they're way to interesting for the doggies to successfully ignore. Cute little human-like hands be darned.

Am I too over-protective? Should I just let the doggies work this property dispute out with their fellow quadrapeds? Hmm...no.

And on Paul McCartney's birthday, "All You Need is Love," is a credit card commercial.

What an afternoon for us all.

sum-sum-summer time

It is too hot to teach. Wednesday is gym day. Wednesday at 9:50. She has 'em for half an hour, and they can really work up a sweat.

Wednesday at 10:20 I pick them up and bring them back to the classroom...and open the windows.

geeks in love

oooh....my hubby dedicated his donation to NationalPublicRadio to me yesterday.

Now that is love.

Don't Ask the Dogs

Over the past three or four days, we've been taking on some extra godson-related responsibilities, as his grandmother (who, in an average week, helps out way more than we do) copes with some health issues.

So, this morning I left even before my firefightin' husband...no one who knew me in high school would believe that such a thing was possible...and got home a good twelve hours later. Needless to say, the dogs were...relieved...to see me.

As I approached the door, I realized just what a stressful day it must have been for them. You see, there is this package that the very patient delivery person keeps trying to deliver to us when we're not home. And since we weren't home today, they again attempted to have us sign for it. They left a note on the door. I can only imagine how vigorously Puck defended the porch (and all that goes with it). He takes this kind of thing very seriously, and this has been going on now for three straight business days...how aggrivating for all involved...

But as if that weren't bad enough, there were signs of other would-be trespassers. The porch and the doorstep were strewn with clumps of dried grass. As I unlocked the door, I couldn't help but notice that small bits of it were scattered all around the welcome mat, and (what's this?) tucked behind the horns of the metal bull's head that holds the bell next to our door (not quite dinner bell, not quite door bell...it's a conundrum and it came with the house...). What could it be?

Turf wars?

I pondered that question as I set Puck loose to survey recent happenings in the back yard. Then it hit me.

Birds. Our house is going to the birds. Someone is trying to build a nest...right here, by our door.

So, don't ask the dogs, but, do you think we've been spending too much time away from home?

yelling at my husband

It's hard to yell at one's husband when the reason he's late coming home is his professional obligation to stick around and answer questions after having pronounced someone dead.

It's also more than a little creepy to a) watch the news because there's a chance the reason your husband's late will make the news, and b) be right.

So, when he comes home, I will make him waffles.

Friday

The school where I teach has a "School Spirit Day" at least once a month. On school spirit day, we're all encouraged to wear the school colors...blue and white, as befits a school in Connecticut... and I always forget.

But once a year, we do a "mismatch day" rather than a plain ol' run-of-the-mill School Spirt Day. Last year it fell on Tuesday, so it was called Tacky Tuesday. This year, it fell on Friday so (despite the fears some of us had of waking up on the morning in question only to find that we had switched bodies with our mothers) it was called Freaky Friday.

Whatever you call it, I love mismatch day. Maybe it's the memory of outfits worn circa 1986. Maybe it's the leftover angst from never owning a Champion sweatshirt that I could wear inside out. Maybe it's something even deeper...but most likely, it's just my long-term love affair with playing dress-up. No matter...

So, this year I was a little bit warry of celebrating Freaky Friday with my accustomed zeal. Last year, there were two other fifth grade teachers who were brave enough to dress up special for mismatch day. This year, one has transferred to the nearby middle school, and the other has been out for the past two weeks...leaving me with some very conservative colleagues.

But, I soldiered on...and I have to say, once I got over my lingering self-doubt...I really enjoyed spending the day in tights, pants rolled up to the knee, and shirt (all with stripes of different colors and in different directions), a snappy hat, purple elbow-length gloves, moss-green sneakers, and assorted pieces of chunky jewelry. It was liberating.

And my kids, especially those who freaked out themselves, had fun. It was kind of nifty, as the day went on, the ones who hadn't dressed up slowly began channeling thier inner freakiness... each time we stopped at the bathroom, more of them came out with their clothes on inside out or backwards, the girls with their hair in sloppy, off-balance pony tails...until the whole lot of us was wacky lookin'...we were quite a crew.

Next year, I'm coming prepared with a bag full of argyle socks, plaid shirts, tie-dyed t-shirts, costume jewelry, and paisley print scarves. That way, when I walk past a fellow teacher who's wearing their standard professional looking gear I can slap a hat on thier head, drape a scarf around their neck, and pull a tacky t-shirt over their head.

10

I spend so much time with ten-year-olds. I find myself thinking a lot about what it was like to be ten. I remember moments of crushing uncertainty and awkwardness...Did the fact that the cute boy in the desk next to mine gave me all of his extra pencils when he cleaned out his desk mean that he liked me, or did I just come across as a person who would be grateful for someone else's discarded pencils? Someone, perhaps, who would remember those pencils for twenty years...And, oh, I bought the wrong shoes for picture day...
But, I also remember moments where I just felt good, and smart...funny, and grown up, and cool.

I must have been a little older when the new family moved in across the street. There were two boys in that family, both immediately fascinating to my seester my seester my seester and I (me). Our cousins were sleeping over the weekend that they moved in. We dressed up. I'd like to think it was just by coincidence. I don't remember any ulterior motives. Oh boy, what did I wear? Shiny, gray parachute pants and a pink sweatshirt with the neck cut out so it swooped over my shoulder...an armfull of jelly bracelets...and high-top sneakers. There may have been some long strands of pastel beads involved. And there was definitely a pony tail on the top of my head...well, slightly to one side, actually. Whoo boy. I thought I was such hot stuff. And my seester and my cousins were dressed in a similarly fashion-conscious way. We were all, collectively, hot stuff.

We were poking around the grounds of our elementary school...laughing and self-absorbed... and the boy was there, the new boy...sitting there, laughing at us from his perch on the forbidden fire-escape. We fought back...I, as the oldest, the closest to a teenager, even swore at him. I remember feeling like I was someone else, someone powerful, someone who could be one of the popular girls...and then a dad, playing in the tot-lot with his little girl, yelled at us...scolded us soundly for swearing where his little girl could hear us...

Suddenly I was me again. Horrified at my own scandalous behavior. I wanted so badly to go over and explain to the dad that we were nice kids...harmless little dorks, really...just playing at being bad-ass teens.

But I couldn't. I was trapped...by my own dorkiness of course, and by the crystal-clear image of us as I thought we must appear to this dad, to this little girl.

Mean girls with big hair who swore.

Junk...

So, why does one watch bad tv? (something to explore later...what's with the word 'one'?)

Hmmm...bad tv...I'm currently watching "Top Chef" on Bravo. The chefs are making sexy food for a...specialty shop...in San Fran. Many an edible unmentionable. Watching the culinary hopefuls try to interact casually with a striking collection of drag queens and people in leather is highly entertaining.

As bad tv goes, this is not nearly as rivetting as "Project Runway" was. Partly, I think, because I don't get to eat anything. On "Runway", at least, I could look at stuff, and looking was the point. I don't get to eat the questionably yummy stuff on this show. I can only pick my favorites based on how they look, and how neurotic the chefs are. This is not nearly as satisfying, food-wise, as picking based on how they taste.

And there's no Santino.

Hey...now when people google Santino, leather, drag queens, and yummy, they may just end up here.

Interesting.

Cheese, Grommit!

Let's hear it for Wallace and Grommit (and their human creators) who have snagged an Oscar for their vegetastic "Attack of the Were-Rabbit".

Yay!

dogs v kids

I spent today taking care of my godson, Nicholas, who is just a day or two past the 15-month mark. He is an expert at sweetness, and has just learned to say "hi," and "uh-oh," two very useful phrases in the life of a toddler. He can say a great deal more using baby sign language. His favorite things to ask for are music and books...when overwhelmed by his need for either one, he will frantically sign, "more!" It's sometimes hard to tell what he wants more of, but, all in all the sign language is very helpful and makes caring for a preverbal kiddio much more pleasant than it might otherwise be. And really, how much can you complain about a kid who costantly wants more music and books? And dancing...let's not forget about dancing.

So, inevitably, his mom or someone else will always ask whether caring for him makes me want to have a kid of my own.

And the answer is no. Nope. Nuh-uh. No.

I like my children permanently preverbal...perpetually on all fours, never bipedal...I like them to be mainly interested in chewing on things...and, most importantly, I want them to be furry. If they're not furry, I like any and all children with whom I am associated to have mothers that I can give them back to.

I'm stickin' with my dogs, folks. No amount of Tinky-Winky-esque "Uh-oh"ing is going to change my mind on this one.

Although, I have to admit, it is seriously cute.

heat

Grumbled and rolled over at about 5:45 this morning when the hubster left, as usual...woke up about two and a half hours later, ready to luxuriate in my February-vacation-sleep, but the pups had other plans. So, I got up to let Puck out, and it was COLD. Very cold. Chilly, chilly, cold...so, I went to adjust the thermostat, and it was telling me that it wanted to make it a very nice temperature, but that it just couldn't right now. It was set for about 65...nice and toasty...but the temperature in the house was about 58...not nice. Not toasty.

I went downstairs, and bravely checked to see if I could tell whether the pilot light for the furnace was out. I think I may have been paranoid, but it did smell a litte bit of propane down in the furnace room...the safety label says to call the fire department or the gas service number if that happens :) Before I did that, I decided to check the level on the propane tank...and, boy howdy, it was just about totally empty. Grrrr...brrrrr!

So, I called the propane delivery people and asked them to come fill it up. While they are here, I do believe I will ask the nice professional gas person to check the pilot light on the furnace. I called my connection at the FD, and he says he doesn't know how to turn them back on...so much for that plan...As long as the house doesn't blow up, I'm happy. And as long as the dogs don't eat the propane delivery person, everything should be fine.

It is very cold outside. It was even colder last night. The dogs are my friends. They are warm and furry.

updating for seester

I feel I must say more...not about Merlin, per se, but just in general...about, y'know, stuff.

My seester, my seester, my seester and I...

I'm often surprised by what I read on my seester's blog. I have no idea how to insert a link to her blog here, but, well, she's the only one who reads this, so, I don't feel so bad.

It's strange to read what she posts because it allows me to see a side of her that is different from the seester I grew up with (er, with whom I grew up). It's odd to encounter her as a person, rather than a seester.

I'm sure I provide much less interesting reading material, updating at two-month intervals as I do...

Still teaching, still frustrated by "No Child Left Behind," standardized tests, scripted lessons, etc. Feeling the sting of condescension from the administration recently. Nothing stings more than being taken down by one's own personal method of putting other people down.

Gaining on the laundry, though. Oh frabjous day.

'at'll do, dog

the great merlini, senior dog to the clan, has gone on to the great sofa in the sky, where, perhaps, he can run, with his nose in the snow, through fields of amazing smells, fed cheeseburgers by ardoring angels, while his littermates frolick at his side...with coop and tilly, ebony and rosie...and granddaddy dick...maybe even ginger, legendary ginger.

my ideas about animals in the afterlife are very egyptian. it started with dinidan, who was burried with spinach noodles, because he loved them...

and if merlin were an ancient, chinese emperor, we would bury him with terra cota statues of cats, life-sized bronze bags of purina dog-chow, sealed jars of peanutbutter dog buscuits, and a great variety of jade bones to gnaw on. the story of his triumphant victory over doggie james would become legend, and be told to small dogs the world over.

what do doggies, wise and wonderful, know of death? what did merlin think, when mom told him that when he opened his eyes he would see, "tilly and mr. dick"?

i hope she was right.
i believe that she was.