This and That

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1.  Cassie spends the night at our house once a week now so that she doesn't have to stay in a hotel when she comes to the SAV for work.   We call it Sleepover Tuesday, or ST.  Every week we say that this will be the week that we don't drink wine.  And then, inevitably, every week we find some reason that we need to drink wine (like, "Wine is delicious" or "I had to go to work today.")  So, with every ST, there seems to be a HW.  Shooooot.  This week, though--BECAUSE WE'RE AWESOME!--we managed to imbibe responsibly.  You know it's sad when the content of your email exchange during the day is just self-praise for not being hungover.

2.  I will never learn which ones are the high def channels.  Matt insists that they're actually easier to learn, but, hey, I'm an old dog.  And it wasn't terribly convincing when he tried to point out the difference between high def and non-high def by using MSNBC's Lockup.

3.  Also, who the hell watches Lockup?  Couldn't MSNBC make more money showing reruns of Friends or something?

4.  Slate is totally making me self-conscious about my overuse of the dash.  F you, Slate!  Just for that, I will keep reading you all day every day.  And I will use more dashes than ever.  And fragments.  (And parentheses.)

5.  I've been an ellipting fool lately.  It's a good thing, too, because I quit Weight Watchers a couple of weeks ago.  I figured that since I quit my second job, I didn't need to be spending $40/month just to feel more guilty about eating cake and ice cream.

6.  Seven more days of school with my kiddies!

7.  Brag time.  Totally whipped up a cake on the fly for Iris's pre-birthday celebration last night.  And it was, um, out of control delicious, and beautiful.  Cassie had the idea to swirl Iris's favorite colors in the batter, and then she made an i stencil for the top.  It was a completely last-minute decision to even make the cake, and it ended up being just lovely.  And we didn't have any birthday candles, but we did have a tall hot pink taper candle that Iris jammed into the cake.  Two years ago I didn't even know that vegetable shortening could go bad (it can, by the way, especially if it's been in your pantry for five years), and now I'm just baking a cake from scratch in less time than it takes to watch an episode of True Blood.  So proud!

Hope your Thursday is the bee's knees!  Thursday's going to be a doozy here.  I'm already thinking about my Friday afternoon nap.

Slackass.

Okay, so I've been a real slackass lately with the blog.  And with everything else in my life.

Why?  Am I sick?  Am I depressed?  Are Matt and I on the verge of divorce?  Has our internet been out?  Was I bitten by a brown recluse? No, no, no (but he has made me wake up from naps three times this week which is making me consider it), no, and no*.  

Nope.  Just lazy, and unmotivated to do anything but play Mario 3, watch Mad Men, watch Friday Night Lights, eat Hershey's nuggets (damn you, Publix, and your buy one get one free temptations!) and snuggle with the dog.  Oh, and nap.  I've been very motivated to nap.  Last night I took a 6-hour nap.  Yep, Matt was at work (so he couldn't wake me up.  HA!) and I slept from 6:00 until midnight.  It was. . .amazing.**

Just wanted to check in and say what's up.  We've got a fun and relaxing weekend planned, and maybe--just maybe--I'll be able to muster up the energy and motivation to get some stuff done around this joint and then share it with you.  At minimum, I'll post pictures of me lying on the guest bed, playing Mario 3*** and eating chocolates.  Clearly, thirty has been good to me so far.

What have y'all**** been up to?

P.S.--I actually wrote this during lunch, and in the meantime had a work episode that is making my blood boil.  Can't say anything about it here, but I'm suddenly feeling a surge of energy.  Golly, maybe I need to be angry more often!  I'll be super productive then!

*But I do have a really bad mosquito bite.  Can I blame my vegetable state on this?

**And don't even think about going and getting yourself all hot and bothered thinking that I'm with child.  Because I'm not.  

***Send me all of the secrets you remember or find about Mario 3.  I mean, I'm good and all, but it's been like 20 years (ACK!  I can even pull that "20 years" bull jive out and use it for real!) and I don't remember everything.

****How do you feel about y'all?  Love it or hate it?  I love it because I think the English language needs a word like it.  (Spanish has one, after all.)  I also love split infinitives, though.  And excessive parentheses and exclamation points.  And fragments, apparently.

Weekend Fun!

Last year I was a jealous mess when my friends and family up north were getting pounded with snow.  Then it snowed here, which satisfied me. 

This year, in what I believe is a testament to how I've worked to have a good attitude about stuff, I haven't really been jealous of other people's snow at all. 

And when I looked at our forecast for the weekend and saw that we were in for a weekend of mid-70's and sunshine, I had not an ounce of envy for those who are covered with the white stuff.

Top that with the promise of a chili dog feast with good friends, and I knew we were in for good times.

So our weekend consisted of:

Snugglin' dogs.

An IKEA rat infestation.

More dog snugglin'.

Grapefruit juice squeezin'.

Outside lunch eatin'.

Lots of ice creamin'.

Not pictured:

• Room rearrangin'.
• Phone talkin'.
• Nappin'.

And now (and seemingly until the end of time), paper gradin'. 

When I find my way out from under this stack of ninth graders' persuasive essays (my Everest!), I'll share some more fun stuff from the weekend.

Hope your weekend was just lovely!

Kiss My Ass, Sarah Palin.

Hey, Sarah Palin, you piece of shit:  (1:08)




There are a lot of us teachers.  If only some of yours could have taught you how to use the English language. . .

Tell me again about how effective abstinence is.

My Blank Monday Thoughts

• Thomas Jefferson removed from a school's curriculum?  Are you f'ing kidding me?  F'ing Texas.
• Matt and I spent $195 at Publix today.  But we won't go grocery shopping again for three weeks, so that's good.  And we're ready for Y2K.
• Re-caulked the bathroom over the weekend.  It's amazing the things you'll do to avoid grading poetry portfolios.  It's also amazing that a person can have such a flat learning curve as to assign poetry portfolios two years in a row.
• Cassie came over for dinner tonight.  I think she should move into the house next door.  It's for rent, people.  And it's cheap at $825/month.  Don't you want to move in and be our neighbors?
• This week is going to be good.  It's just got to be.
• Mitch is the greatest dog on the planet.  But you already knew that.
• I love Sharpie markers.  I love the smell, love the colors, love the permanence.  Had to look up the correct spelling of permanence, and I'm a pretty good speller.  I did win the eighth grade spelling bee by correctly spelling the word nougat.  Oh yeah, I'm also fat.
• It's = "it is."  Its = belonging to it. It's sunny outside.  The dog wagged its tail.  Is it so hard?
• Professional maternity pictures are a creepfest.
• Next three weeks are going to be awesomeness wrapped in awesome.  Dogs and friends and birthdays and days off and food and wine and more friends and food and dogs and wine.  You can be jealous.  It's okay.
• Matt and I both have newly-cut hair.  I love the convenience.  Less time spent blow drying and hair that's not so heavy.
• Mitch just farted in my face.  That's the last time I give him a delicious hamburger.  I swear that dog positions his body so that the farts float up into my face.
• An exchange:

Matt:  He's the one who was interviewed on 60 Minutes last night, the guy who wrote The Blind Side.
Me: Oh.
[five minutes later]
Me: Hey!  Wasn't he on 60 Minutes last night?
Matt: You really don't listen to me at all, do you?

Guess I should get off here now so that I can pay more attention to the insightful things that Matt says.  Happy Tuesday to you.  Happy Ides of March, hope nobody killed you.  Also, happy St. Patrick's Day Eve [tomorrow].