TO DUNK OR NOT TO DUNK

There is very little in this world that beats out cookies and milk.  Truly.

The very best would have to be homemade chocolate chip cookies, the Toll House recipe, of course, with ice cold milk in a tall plastic cup.  Tonight, though, I just don't have the strength to bake, so I have to wing it.

Chips Ahoy cookies are the exact opposite of freshly baked chocolate chip cookies, but sometimes a girl has to do what a girl has to do, and tonight is one of those times.  I have the little snack packets of cookies, so (hopefully) I'll eat only one pack with four cookies inside.

I'm not a dipper.  I never understood the concept of dunking a perfectly grand cookie into a perfectly flawless glass of milk.  The whole idea is to make the magic happen when the two collide on the palate, not when the cookie melts and crumbles into a cup of dairy liquid.  That just ruins an otherwise dandy cup of milk and trashes a once-edible cookie.  Dunking, for me, is just bad form.

I inhale the Chips Ahoy without hesitation, and the milk isn't far behind.  Truly, very little in the world better is than this.  Now, if there were just a way to prevent Chips Ahoy from becoming Hips OhBoy, I think I'd really be onto something.

FULL MOON MUSINGS

Full moon -- That means two things:  1. crazy dreams, and 2. restless sleep.  Yes, there is a difference.

Restless sleep is general agida caused by the moon.  Sometimes my sleep is interrupted by the moon shining so brightly that I awaken during the night thinking I've missed my alarm.  (Nope; just being a dumbass.)  Sometimes I'm so damn tired that I doze at my desk.  I have some days when I try to catnap at stop lights or while sitting on the potty tinkling or while standing at the sink washing dishes.  This condition goes into hyperdrive during full moon phases.  Decent sleep becomes elusive.

As for the crazy dreams, it's like I cannot shut off my brain.  All night my brain plays movies: I'm in the movies; I'm not in the movies; I know people in the dreams; I don't know the people in the dreams; my dreams are scary; my dreams are funny; my dreams have music (and I wake up with major earworms every day).  I always dream in color and I do not understand anyone who claims to dream in black and white.  How is that possible?  The full moon?  Dreams all night long, instantly upon sleep and continuing right up until I awaken.

This is all bad enough on regular days, but it's more pronounced during a full moon.  Thankfully, we're on the waning side of things, even if barely so.  Maybe in a week or so, I'll sleep.

DECADES DAY

We are still in the midst of Theme Week/Red Ribbon Week at school.  Today's theme: Put drugs in the past and dress as your favorite decade. I don't really have a favorite decade unless it's my personal favorite, which would probably be my twenties.  Of course, those days are far into the rear view mirror and this isn't about me, so I settle for whatever is in my closet.  I have tie-dye shirts and big sparkly Elton-John-type sunglasses, but I'm not really sure that's flashy enough.

My coworkers are besting me no matter what.  My neighbor in room 111 is wearing a wig and a red flapper dress.  She is so totally '20s.  Another coworker is wearing 80s spandex in neon brights.  I am completely trashed by my former teammate (now grade 6 -- traitor!) who dresses up superbly as Punky Brewster.

I go with something more sedate.  I decide to be mid-70s ... just past the Indian muslin shirt and embroidery phase but not quite out of the purple cotton print phase.  I grab a maxi-length sun dress, complete with the elastic band bust line, layer it over a purple shirt, and add in my army-green lace-up high-heeled Granny boots over tall socks.  I let the hair air-dry today, frizzing it up as much as I can as it goes -- not big like the 80s, though; I never could make that hair happen.  (We call that Methuen Hair because the Methuen girls used up enough hair spray to pollute entire continents.) I intend to add a wooden and silver beaded choker to the look, but I opt for giant gold hoop earrings, instead.  I figure I'm as good to go as I'll ever be.

My youngest teeters down the stairs to start his morning pre-work routine.  Half asleep, he looks at me wide-eyed.  "Jesuschrist," he gasps, "WHAT are you WEARING?"

I smile.  "It's Decades Day.  Do I look 70s enough?"

He frowns.  "Yeah, you look like you're about to take acid."

Excellent!  I guess I really have reached back to the 70s.  I give him a quick double-thumbs-up, grab my car keys and stuff myself and my giant maxi dress into the front seat of my small vehicle.  It's going to be a good day, and, if I avoid getting in an accident and having to go to the ER like this, it'll be a great day.

TUESDAY CLASS - A VERY SHORT STORY

Chapter #1
Once upon a time there was a Tuesday night education class at an old school that smelled bad.  I fell asleep.  The end.

Chapter #2
I am still asleep.  The end.

Chapter #3
The teacher came by our table to inspect our work.  I pretended to be awake, aware, and interested.  I am, however, still asleep.  The end.

Chapter #4
 Forty minutes of my life that I will never get back in addition to the wasted two and a half hours ... and that's just tonight ... that I will newer get back.  Fuck my life.  The end.


Chapter #5
Oh. Dear. Lord.  Save me; I'm drowning under words.  The end.

Chapter #6
The teacher read some vocabulary words, and she said, "Frig it!" but she really said, "Frigate."  Either way ... frigate.  The end.

Chapter #7
My coworker claims that we are being punked.  I agree.  The real end.

TEAM JERSEY DAY

Red Ribbon Week at school means we have theme days every day that tie into and support the war against drugs.  Our local towns have a huge heroin problem, and, among other things including tobacco and alcohol, we are trying to raise the students’ awareness.

Friday is a Halloween theme since the holiday falls on Saturday when we’re not in school.  The idea is to scare drugs from our school and our lives.  I have black lip gloss, dark eye shadow, and black Halloween-themed t-shirts.

Thursday is Put Drugs to Bed day, and the theme is for pajamas to be worn.  I don’t usually wear theme clothing on pajama day, but I will probably break into the sweats this time around.

Wednesday’s theme is Put Drugs in the Past, and we can dress up as our favorite decade.  The last time we had a decades day, I put on the tie-dye and the Janis Joplin glasses.  This time around, I might go for the Indian-style maxi dress, though, but still be living in the 70’s.

Tuesday is all about wearing school colors, green and gold, and I’ve got that one covered.  I have green jeans (yes, I know that sounds like a character from Captain Kangaroo) and several school-themed shirts to wear, or maybe I’ll just wear a color-appropriate shirt.

Monday the theme has to do with Teaming Up Against Drugs, and I can choose any team jersey I want to wear to school.  My first thought is to go raid the old town lacrosse jerseys that I keep in my closet.  I love those jerseys.  They’re blue and gold and just the right size.  Or I can choose to wear Red Sox gear or a Patriots jersey or a Bruins jersey.  I can raid my son’s closet and borrow any number of professional soccer team jerseys.  Heck, I think he even has a team China basketball jersey hiding somewhere in that room. 

He overhears me telling my sister on the phone that I have to find a sports jersey for school.  “Mom,” he calls down the stairs, “Wanna wear my college lacrosse jersey?  It’s the yellow one.”

Oh.  Oh my.  He knows I loved those yellow jerseys and cried a little bit when the team gave them up for the more standard (and boring and ugly and ordinary) white ones.  Of course I want to wear that jersey.  When am I ever going to get another offer so grand?

He brings the jersey down and carefully hands it over.  I peruse it and quickly realize one thing: I should be holding this jersey by one finger; this thing needs a good wash.  It can practically walk on its own.

Two hours later, the jersey is washed, dried, and hanging up on the back of the door awaiting Theme Day #1 for the week.  It may not be the most recognizable jersey, and it may not be a shirt of champions, but it surely feels that way to me today, and, luckily, it won’t be walking away from me on its own anymore. 

Besides, he was the starting goalie for much of his college career.  That jersey can deflect anything.  Knowing what kind of day I’m going to have (multiple meetings and freshly back after taking Friday off to travel), I’ll need all the deflection powers I can muster.

I MAY NOT BE A REAL WRITER, BUT...

While away from home, I bring along my trusty but slightly older laptop computer.  I need to write my blog entries for the weekend because I did not plan ahead and get them done before leaving on an adventure.  It's also good to stay connected to the world when important things are happening, like a tropical cyclone (with winds the like that haven't been recorded before) makes landfall, and when Bruce Jenner raids Kate Middleton's closet.  Truly earth-shattering stuff.

I have some trouble connecting to the hotel Internet, though.  This has happened to me before with this computer (and also with my more updated work computer, which I did not bring along this time), but I really, really, really have to post the blog.  The blog has become my daily writing regimen, and it also serves as my cheapo-psychiatrist.  Remember I wrote that last sentence when the people in white coats and a strait jacket come to haul me away.

I write the blog on Friday night very quickly because my sister, with whom I am traveling, and I are both exhausted, but we want to get in some heated Cribbage time (I beat her sorely twice, by the way, which rarely --- may have never -- happens) before we konk out.  Saturday, while my sister is off at a singing gig at a wedding, I start working on the next few blog entries, not so much as a writing regimen activity, but more as a schoolwork avoidance strategy.

When it all boils down, I'm a teacher before I'm a writer, mostly because my paying job sucks the life out of my otherwise free time for creativity.  This weekend, though, I can dream and pretend it's the other way around.  After all, I may not be a real writer ... but I DID stay at a Holiday Inn Express last night.

HUDSON VALLEY ADVENTURE

My sister and I are on a wonderful adventure in New York state.  She is singing in a wedding at the Mohonk Mountain House Resort, which, for all its beauty, is a bit of a leprous monstrosity from the outside.  It's so big and textured that it's almost too big and textured when you see it rising like a behemoth over the tree line on the top of Mohonk Mountain. 

It is, however, magnificent in its own way, especially considering when it was built.  In 1869, two brothers purchased Lake Mohonk, established a preserve, and proceeded to build a huge Victorian castle-styled resort.  From all I can read and from what I saw yesterday when I was able to get into the preserve and Mountain House for free (I was "on the list") to witness the wedding rehearsal, it seems to be well-run, well-kept, and continues to be a legacy of giving to the community and preserving the natural beauty of the area.

I have planned all along that Saturday would be my work day out of the three days of adventure that we strategically planned.  Of course, all plans go out the window when we follow the GPS instead of our maps (beneficial since I found again the Panera at exit 15 on I-84 that I accidentally discovered traveling to a lacrosse game ... and then could never find again even though I traveled that way several more times but got GPS-rerouted), and also when we excitedly pass the exit for Sturbridge Village.  Note to selves:  Historical Massachusetts on tap for the return trip.  But, still -- Saturday is supposed to be my day of grading and catching up on work while my sister is at the wedding.

Briefly this morning I toy with the idea of going to the Mohonk Mountain House with her, lugging my papers to correct and my book to read with me; these should keep me busy for hours.  After all, the resort is open to day hikers (for a fee), and there are such magnificent things as tea and cookies on the verandas, and lunches and dinners, etc.  I'm quite certain that I can keep myself entertained for hours and hours.  I mean, it may be $800+ a night to stay there, but surely they must have some affordable amenities.  How much could brunch possibly be, right?

Brunch costs $73 per person.  PER PERSON.  $73.  Good god, I cannot eat $73 worth of food in an entire week, let alone in an hour or two.  I check the "light fare" lounge menu.  No prices.  Hmmm.  No prices means "If you have to ask, you're a useless pauper and we fart in your general direction."  Yes, apparently I have decided that this fabulous Victorian castle-like manse is actually the French castle from The Holy Grail.  Yup, my mother was a hamster, and my father smelled of elderberries.

Instead, I stockpile breakfast foods from the free hotel morning buffet to supplement the stockpiled assortment of stuff we brought with us: grapes, bananas, apples, crackers, cheese, cookies, wine (there must always be wine).  I now have a corn muffin, oatmeal, milk, strawberry yogurt, and access to an array of items in the hotel mini-shop as well as access to a multitude of delivery places.  It's not like I'll starve to death in the hours that my sister is at the wedding.  Did I mention wine?  I do have wine.

Tomorrow is supposed to be drizzly and perhaps somewhat dreary, at least in the morning.  That's okay by us.  We will stop up the street at the Walkway Over the Hudson, the nearly 7,000-foot long footbridge constructed in 1889 to connect Poughkeepsie on the east bank with Highland on the west bank.  We will either walk its length and back ... or not.  No pressure and weather-depending.  Then, we're traveling to the Rhinebeck Farmer's Market.  From there, possibly Sturbridge Village and beyond.

Either way, though, I must finish the correcting I brought with me (and have managed to ignore all this time).  Maybe, just maybe I'll start reading the Stephanie Plum novel I also brought with me, or do a few puzzles, or play some cards, or play Yahtzee, or maybe take a walk across the street to the cemetery and snap some pictures. 

It doesn't matter.  We're on an adventure, and it is, much like the Mohonk Mountain House, a magnificent, behemoth of an adventure all on its own.

WISE WITH LIP GLOSS

Driving by a random state police barracks in New Paltz, NY, my sister, who is driving, is applying fresh lip gloss.

ME:  What are you doing?

SHE:  Putting on lip gloss.

ME:  While you're driving?

SHE:  I still have one hand on the wheel.

ME:  But ... we're passing the police station!

SHE:  I know.  I want to look good for my mug shot.

Folks, this is why I love traveling with my sister.  She is wise beyond her her years.

MILLION DOLLAR POCKETBOOK

I own a few different pocketbooks -- nothing fancy and nothing flashy and certainly nothing trendy.  There's no way on Earth that I will ever buy a Coach bag or a Kate Spade or a Vera Bradley or Givenchy...  Why in the name of all things sane would I spend hundreds, even thousands, of dollars on a damn pocketbook?  I buy them on sale ... sometimes at Kohl's ... maybe even Target ... usually DSW in the clearance section marked down 70%.  I think the last two pocketbooks I bought at DSW came to a combined total of $29.98.

There are times, however, that a pocketbook, regardless of its price, can make me feel like a million bucks.

All summer I carried a smaller pocketbook with a long strap that I could sling over myself to prevent purse snatchers from getting to it unless they intended to take me right along with it.  I've spent the last few months cramming most everything I need into that little bag, usually opting to leave the wallet at home and just bring essential cards and cash stuffed into a zippered pocket of the bag itself.   It totally worked, even if I could never find anything in it, though I knew it was there.

Take today, for example.  After lunch I suddenly develop a killer headache.  I fumble around in the tiny pocketbook, knowing damn well that I have everything in there for any disease known to man.  You need a vaccination?  I got it.  Malaria?  Covered.  Diphtheria?  Sure enough.  Poisonous snake bite?  Stick with me.  Severed an artery?  I have enough tissues with me to soak up a battlefield.  In my blinding pain today, though, I cannot find the container with the Tylenol in it.  My pocketbook is too crammed with essentials to find the mega-essentials.

I come home after work and find the larger brownish purse.  Oh, sure, it doesn't match a whole helluva lot of my stuff because I wear a lot of black, but tough shit.  It has five different zippered compartments for hiding and organizing, and it has two outside pouch pockets so deep I can even fit a medium-sized notebook into it.  (Yes, writers do that kind of crazy shit like stuff paper and a hundred pens into their pocketbooks.)

I'm so happy I can find stuff in my purse now.  It's like moving into a bigger house.  It's like packing a larger suitcase.  Why, it's like ... it's like ... IT'S LIKE OPENING THE TOP BUTTON OF YOUR PANTS RIGHT AFTER THANKSGIVING DINNER.

(Not the exact one ... but close)

Yup, I changed over to my larger, cheapo, old model, semi-fashionable Tyler Rodan pocketbook.  I can find stuff, I can pack it full and still see the bottom, and I have room for everything from my wallet to my phone to my notebook.

A pocketbook for 75% off that only costs me $15 and fits all my shit?  Yup, I feel like a million bucks right now.

PARSE THIS

Today we are diagramming sentences.  Not full on diagramming, but at least looking what full-on diagrams look like.  In the olden days (or as recently as the 60's), this practice was called "parsing."  Parsing a sentence means splitting it into its most basic parts and charting it on a glorified number line until your paper looks like some kind of secret alien invasion code.

There are two reactions to diagramming a sentence:  Love and hate.

I love diagramming sentences, and I heard several students today mentioning how cool it is and how they "get" it.  Honestly, I don't care if everyone gets it or not.  As long as they can find the basic building blocks of any given sentence (simple subject and simple predicate -- or verb), I am a happy, happy person.  But, I also believe that to be better writers, they must first learn the rules before they start breaking them.

After scaring the buhjeezus out of them today by ramping up and ramping up and ramping up some more about parsing sentences, I told the kiddos to go home and tell their parents what they're doing in English class.  You see, if you remember diagramming, you'll have one of two reactions and nothing else in between.  You will either raise your hands in joy and rejoice in the diagram that will become your parsed sentence, or you will start twitching uncontrollably.

One of my co-teachers is a twitcher.  I love diagramming and have a hard time understanding how anyone cannot enjoy working a sentences to its bare naked core.

Tonight they have diagramming homework.  We will see how many show up believing they are Einstein and how many show up just looking like him all frazzled and spent.

WTF, LADY

I'm taking a class that is every Tuesday night from 4:00 to 7:00 p.m.  The teacher took pictures of us last week, all of us holding our name paper trifolds, and several of us solo or together with one other classmate.  I remember it well because she had accidentally hit the video record button before she got to me and my teammate.  We smiled then, and waited patiently for the teacher to figure out 21st century technology.

Obviously, she fucked up a simple cell phone camera.  So much for progress.

This week, the teacher decides to go around and name everyone because she studied our pictures.  She gets to me and to my teammate and says, "Who are you?  Are you even in this class?  You're not in this class."

What the fuck, lady.  Really?

This is week #3 of the class.  We've signed in, submitted our work on time online, and contributed at every single class.  Last week I was the one who verbally blew the whistle on a school system (not mine) that was breaking the law, prompting her to drop a dime the following day.  How in the hell can you NOT remember me?

So, my teammate and I say, "Yes, we ARE in the class."

"No, no you're not," she says.  "I don't KNOW you."

Um, you attempted to take our picture last week.  She denies this.  The rest of the class, who all know we ARE in the correct class, stays silent.  Thanks.  Thanks a lot, ya maggots.

I pull out my name trifold and hold it up.  Still, she denies I'm in her class.  Meanwhile, the attendance sheet comes around, and I sign my name to it right next to my printed name on her roster.  She continues to insist that we are not part of her class.

"I don't have any students with your names," she growls.

Oh, honestly.  If I hadn't just sucked down a beer before I got here, I'd drag my fat ass across the room and twist her ear lobes right off.  Worse than this, the indignity of the entire exchange is not the most aggravating part of the evening.  The most aggravating part of the evening is knowing I have to spend three hours with this woman tonight ... and three hours every Tuesday for the next ten weeks.

That's it.  I'm wearing a wig next week just to fuck with her brain.

DOWN WITH ICE

Damn, it’s here already.

This morning I almost have to warm my car up to defrost the windows.  Almost.  I can tell tomorrow will be a pre-warm-the-car kind of morning, but today I escape.  No ice to scrape off the windows; no frost clogging up my commute.

I mistakenly believe I’ve sidestepped winter for another few moments.  I head off to work where, surprise, the heat is actually on for a while.  I wear my extra fleece over my sweater for most of the day, and rejoice when I leave work and it is nice enough to open car windows if even for a little while.  (Okay, I have heat on my feet with the windows open.  Sue me.  It’s a New England thing.)

It isn’t until I get home and fire up the computer that I realize winter may have arrived already, slightly ahead of schedule but here just the same.  I see via an Internet post that my friend has fallen and broken her collar bone in multiple places. 

How does this happen?  She isn’t a clumsy person.  It’s not like she’s frail and aged.  But, a collar bone?  Broken?  Multiple times? 

Seriously – how the heck did this happen? 

The answer:  Icy driveway.

That’s right.  Ice.  In her driveway.  ICE. 

Even worse, what’s the best way to keep the swelling down and reduce the pain?  Yup, you guessed correctly: ICE.

Oh, the irony.  Oh, winter.  Oh, damn.

It’s here already.

GOLDILOCKS AND HER (MY) MATTRESS

Today I take my bed apart.  Well, not completely apart.  You see, I’m having  Goldilocks moment. 

Recently I told the tale of getting rid of my old bed.  Somewhere someone has a beautiful, free, full-sized black iron bed frame complete with everything except a canopy.  I traded my beat up mattresses for a firmer mattress (stolen from another bedroom in my house) and added a brand new, thick, rather expensive Tempurpedic foam topper.  It’s supposed to be luxurious … the last word in sleep.

I’ll admit it – the foam is ridiculously pliant.  It forms to every curve of my body, which, at my age and life experience, involves more curves than is necessary.  It’s so soft and so comfy, like lying down on a cloud. 

I thought I was going to love it.

Wrong.

I flipping HATE it.

Every night I try to get right into the middle of the bed.  This maneuver requires a bit of a hop-leap-roll technique that I finally mastered after a month of trying.  I swear I have a sensation of rolling toward the edge, as if sometime during the night, my hip will pop out of its foamy grip and launch me into the middle of the room onto the floor.  My brain tells me this cannot be so; the mattress has me nestled deeply into its softness.

I also like to roll onto my back during the night when I shift positions to accompany the restless dreams I have.  One would think the thick foam would envelope me into its softness, molding to my every spinal need.

Wrong.

 

Instead I have the sensation that I am sitting up in a semi-prone position.  I have to toss the pillow away just to relieve the pain in my shoulders and neck.

Look, I’m a firm mattress kind of gal.  I always have been; I always will be.  Not too firm, though, and not too soft.  I’m like Goldilocks – I need the mattress just right.  Maybe what I need is one of those sleep number control beds that I can set to my liking.  I don’t know anymore.

What I do know is that I hauled that foam slab off the old mattress this morning and am looking ridiculously forward to sleeping on a lumpy old stiff crappy mattress.  My hip and shoulder will line up when I sleep on my side, and my spine will be stretched instead of crunched up when I turn halfway.

If the three bears find me still snoozing in the morning, then I guess the bed is finally just right.