Tidbits

Just a few thoughts from my life recently:

• I'm running a half marathon on Saturday. Last year I caught a chest cold. This year it looks like I may catch a snow storm.
• I've decided to change my answer to the question, "Why did you become a teacher?" to, "Because I love meetings. I really feel like I can be utilized well in meetings. The greater the amount of meetings, the better. I especially like meetings where we talk about how to conduct ourselves in other meetings." Cynical? A tad.
• Me + a peanut-covered caramel apple = true love
• It's weird thinking that I am raising two Minnesotans. A transplant myself, it occurs to me every once in a while that my two kids will claim the Land of 10,000 Lakes as their home. The other day Caeden said, "Mom, should I put this in the bag (long a)?" I shivered a little and said, "Caeden, we don't say that. We say b-aaaaaa-g (short a)."
• The batteries on the Atari game that we have ran out and I was worried that my high score on Super Pac Man would be lost. It wasn't.
• My husband, who is an English teacher, plays word games with the students he teaches in the Alternative school; his favorite is Scrabble. They told him that instead of putting a tatoo of a tear by his eye for every person that he has killed, he should put a comma.
  

Circle of Life

I haven't seen it since second grade.

At least I'm pretty sure it was second grade because my third grade teacher, Mr. Sam, was an abusive curmudgeon who literally picked me up by my head and moved me back to the end of the line when I budged.

Nothing good ever came out of his class.

And by fourth grade I was living in Germany and far, far away from Mexico. So I'm fairly certain it was second grade.

That was the year when our teacher, Mrs. Bivona, brought in the yellow, black and white striped monarch caterpillars. They chomped their way through milkweed leaf after milkweed leaf (they were hungry, hungry you know) until they turned into chrysalises. Every day we watched them, waiting for the moment when their little sleeping bags would wiggle and they would break free and land, wet and unable to fly, on the bottom of the insect jar. And they didn't disappoint.

So I was really glad this year when we went to the state fair and into the Butterfly House to find out that you could buy a monarch caterpillar complete with milkweed leaves. Caeden picked out a caterpillar and we brought him home to watch. Armed with his magnifying glass so that he could, "Look at the caterpillar closely," (his words) we watched that little worm climb to the top of the jar and hang down in the proverbial J shape.

Later that night we watched him spin a chrysallis around his body. Caeden and Avery were enthralled.

Every day for two weeks the kids would wake up and run out to the kitchen where the chrysalis hung and see if there was anything new.

Finally, he emerged. Unfortunately it was while we were all away for the day. But when we got home the kids were crazy with excitement. Butterflybutterflybutterfly!

The next morning we gently eased this little miracle from his jar to a flower in our yard. We watched him for a few hours while he stayed perched primly on that flower. We had some errands to run and by the time we got back home, the butterfly was gone.

"Butterfly fly away?" Avery asked.

"Yes honey. The butterfly is finding a new home," I told her.

That's what I want her to believe.

But it's probably just as likely that a bird swooped down and made a tasty meal out of our friend.

Cable Lust

My house is the Bermuda Triangle of cable.

I've never seen Project Runway.

I've heard of the Real Housewives of New Jersey, but don't know what all the hype is about.

I've been spared the Jon and Kate Plus 8 reality disaster.

But I'm not happy about it.

Every year a plucky new cable installer knocks on our front door and extols the virtues of digital television. Every year we try to explain that our house is where cable waves go to die. And yet we wind up opening our door and saying to the perennial, confident, not quite battle worn cable installer, "Do your worst."

After whizzing and whirring machines measure this or that wavelength, a shimmy is made up the power line, and various cords are tested, the cable guy inevitably returns to us, eyes round and head shaking back and forth, "I've never seen anything like it."

So you can imagine what a treat it was a couple weekends ago when my in-laws came over to babysit and we were wild and child-free in Minneapolis for a whole night. Not only would we get to go out to dinner without having to worry about our daughter climbing over the booth into the other patrons' laps, but we were also able to see a comedy act AND watch cable tv in the hotel room. A trifecta.

Dinner was divine. The comedy club was halfway funny, enough to put us in high spirits. But the cable. What is UP with cable tv?

The commercials are. Well. Weird.

That guy selling some sort of food chopper? He actually said, "You're gonna love my nuts." The guy with the super sharp knife? He cut a pineapple in midair. In slow motion. Okay, cool, but, seriously? Is that the selling point? Buy this knife for all of your midair pineapple cutting needs? Then there was the guy who said all of your car troubles could be handled with a paint pen. Keyed car? Paint pen. Runaway grocery cart? Paint pen. Won't start? Paint pen.

I don't know. Maybe we're not missing all that much after all.

Bumping up against stereotypes

Every day as I leave school, I pass a meditation center. In the front of the center is a small plot of foliage, a place where, I assume, members occasionally respite, meditate, and enjoy the simple pleasures of nature.

So was I wrong to do a double-take when I noticed a small, brown, bald man dressed in a bright orange robe of (what I think is) traditional Buddhist garb standing in the garden, not contemplating, but talking animatedly, arms flailing, with his cell phone pressed to his ear?

Holly is contemplating Facebook

A while back I joined Facebook in order to see the pics that my sisters--who live 12 hours by car and free minutes only after nine o'clock (which, in my two-kids-under-two-years-induced stupor, I can barely stay awake for) away--have posted, and yanno, keep up on their lives.

For those of you who don't have Facebook, it's kind of like, hey, I haven't heard from that person in a long time, or wow, those are cute pics of the new baby.  With all of the status updates, it's a little like SIMS in that you know what all of your friends are doing at any given time, minus the gibberish tantrums the characters throw when they aren't getting enough love, of course. 

And sometimes that too.

In other words, it's kind of fun, uuuunnnnnntillllllll the Facebook gods drop someone into your current life from your past that you still find goosebumpingly creepy.  Then your heart starts racing, your mind starts whirling, and you wonder, like the eye of Sauron, if I can see them, can they see me?  

And that's not the only weird situation that Facebook orchestrates.  

In my mind I totally understand that my friends have other friends.  But when I see their actual conversations, my hackles raise a bit.  I'm not proud of it, but I kind of wish that the lives of my friends would pause when we're not together.  And that they would be sitting at home, bored out of their minds without me.  Or if not, that they're at least chuckling about some memory of us.

Also?  I feel guilty looking through my "friends list" because I have been really bad about keeping in touch with people who were really good friends at one time.  Maybe Facebook should categorize the "friends list" into, "really, really close friends," "friends at one time," and, "I just added this one to increase my total number of friends so people are impressed when they see how many other people like me."

Of course, that really just adds pressure.  Kind of like the "relative" status.  This begs the questions, "Do I limit relatives to biology, or add close friends to this list? If I add close friends, but not other friends, will feelings be hurt?"  And then of course I have to see if I was added to their relative lists.  And then nurse my hurt feelings.

And another thing.  Seriously, how many quizzes can one take?  In one day?  And then post?

I know there's someone out there who knows what all these things mean, but it's not me.

Admittedly, I am curious about what my birth requests.  And what a superpoke is. 

BUT, it is fun to take a peek into the lives of relatives, friends, those who are merely added to increase my friendworth, creepy people who should stay in the past, and chronic quiz takers.   Even if it does elicit weird emotions and stalkerish tendencies.

Fresh Faces

I have been thoroughly enjoying my summer so far, even though I have had to sub for my husband at the alternative school (summer school) for the past few days.  Imagine my surprise when I showed up to class and saw a good handful of some cherubs that I've had in the past when they were middle school students.  I can't believe that I've been teaching long enough to see some of the scrawny, hyper sixth graders fast forwarded and graduating from high school.  

Walter, for example.  I distinctly remember Walter because he was this chubby little sixth grader with a major attitude.  Classified as having Emotional Behavior Disorder, I was nervous that this kid would wind up in jail some day.  I distinctly remember breaking up a fight between Walter and another student (kid made fun of his name), sending him to the principal's office, hearing him screaming obscenities the entire way there, and then learning out that he was curled up in the fetal position inside the principal's office, crying.  Six years later, Walter is about to graduate, talks football, is polite, courteous and has a general peaceful air around him. He gives me hope for some of my most rascally kids.

Speaking of rascally kids, we brought our two in for pics the other day.  Enjoy some updated photos!

Serious attitude, with a twinkle in the eye

Striking a pose

Trying to figure out how to smile on command

Trying to pull off the cool, casual look

Hey, they're both looking at the camera--it's a win in my book

Oh Crap!

So my friend and I used to joke about extreme weight loss plans.  We imagined a commercial with a thin woman cheerfully saying, "I lost forty pounds and all it took was one bite by this mosquito.  Thanks West Nile!"  

Or, "I lost thirty pounds by eating a single burger.  Thanks e-coli."

After my appointment yesterday, it turns out that, in my case, surgery is inevitable; the only question is when--not if--I should schedule it.  In all of the discussion about the implications of the surgery, talk eventually turned to the lifestyle changes that will come about as a result of being without a gallbladder--gallbladderless?

Apparently, sans gallbladder, your body has a hard time digesting fat.  So if you want to indulge with a piece of cheesecake, dip your crab legs in butter, or enjoy a steak, you run the risk of your body not being able to digest the fatty parts of these culinary delights.  

The unfortunate side effect of this is what the surgeon gently referred to as explosive bowels.

I suppose nothing helps you choose the less fatty options and lose weight quite like the threat of messing yourself in public.

"I lost 15 pounds and all it took was organ removal.  Thanks gallstones!"