FIRST SUMMER BEACH WALK

So far we've had a couple of hot, hot, HOT days. 

This means that if I try and get near a beach, I've got to leave absolutely no later than nine o'clock in the morning to get a spot in a lot or on the sand. The water is still way too cold for most sane people to go in. Of course, most of us who live in New England are not sane. The water temperature has been fluctuating between 61 and 63 degrees, and, after sitting on a hot beach in the direct sun, the water could be fifty degrees and we would be going into it in some capacity.

The main problem with my favorite beach is that it disappears at high tide. I can sit on a rock and wait for the waves to subside (not a bad day, either), or I can look at the tide chart and figure out when the beach will be wide open for low tide. Another problem is the fact that my super-sun-sensitive skin cannot be in the cloudless weather for extended periods of time. This is why it's better for me to go to the beach alone rather than insist my cohorts leave after two hours or so. 

Finally, a day arrives that is warm and sunny, and it happens to be a day when low tide occurs around 9:30 a.m. This means that I can get a good two-plus mile beach walk in well before the beach disappears. It almost seems silly to drive forty minutes from home to the coast for a walk, but those who have been to the ocean will completely understand my logic. So, I pack my beach bag (never truly unpacked) quickly and jump in my car.

The beauty of my favorite beach is that car-to-waves is less than thirty seconds and requires zero hot sand. Parking is three dollars per hour, and I gladly pay my nine-dollar fee, though I will probably only be there for about two hours. The time buffer allows for walking to the bath house, if I so desire.

I walk for an hour, read for an hour, and go into the water up to my knees. I am tempted to jump in, but I've settled my chair in the black-and-white checkered flag area. This is the surfers' zone and, even though no one is really surfing today, there are several lifeguards patrolling who will keep us out of the water on the beach's south end.

When I'm ready to leave, I am surprised to find that there are some parking spots open, probably because it's a weekday and many school systems are still in session. I head south on route 1, watching the traffic begin its predictable back-up as the day's heat climbs. I am home shortly after noon, sun-kissed and sand-toed from the walk, less than ten dollars lighter, with a renewed serenity and my first real dose of summer beach life.

SPOTTY WI-FI FLOOR PLAN

It's the most wonderful tiiiiiiime of the yeeeeear! School is done. 

I've said it before, and I'll say it again:  Teachers do NOT get paid for the summer (nor any "vacation" breaks, nor holidays, nor snow days); teachers are per diem employees. If teachers didn't have a summer break, there would be no more teachers because we would all be in the mental institutions.

Before I leave, I have to make a map of my room for the custodial and painting staff, which is normally easy-peasy because I have not changed my classroom footprint in years. However, I am already in the only room that has spotty wi-fi, also known as The Bluetooth Room From Hell. In February, our district decides it's a super-dee-duper time to update our network.

Now, the wi-fi situation is even worse. I get calls from the office: Why didn't you send your attendance? I did send the attendance. The software says so. I can see it right in front of me. It has already been submitted. 

Oh, but wait! It looks like I'm on the wi-fi. My tabs work. I can bring up Google and other sites, but, apparently, I am not connected. At least, not to the district's network. I don't know whose network I am on, but I'm not on theirs. This happens multiple times a day. If I move from one classroom to another, I "lose" network connectivity. Unless I stand in the windowsill all day, I don't have internet access for the full day, and I never know when I'm off the network because, hey, I'm still connected . . . somewhere.

The final full Friday of school, I cannot sleep, so I haul my butt to school. I am the very first car in the combined middle-high school lot. I arrive at o-dark-forty, park my car, and get into the building. The kiddos will be watching the final installment of a curriculum-based movie and having the final quiz on it. (Yessir, we don't just sit and watch movies. I make them pay attention and earn points for it. I even told them if their neighbors start to doze off, give them a little virtual pinch because this is worth big money.) 

While the students are occupied, I quietly sit at my desk in the far right corner and rearrange drawers, and get files ready to put away because the very moment they finish the quiz, I will be posting their final, unquestionable, solid-in-bedrock term four and year-end grades. No amount of emails, phone calls, nor district complaints can save anyone now. The moment the grades are finalized, I formally submit them through my spotty wi-fi connection along with those infamous conduct and effort comments. 

We. Are. Done. Here.

Except that now comes the hard part. Before I create a room map, I have to find a new space for my desk, somewhere in the room where I might possibly be able to maintain wi-fi connectivity to our district website more consistently than once or twice every hour. Eliminating the rest of the lyrics, let's just say I had a very brief Lil Jon moment: To the window; to the wall.

I start moving stuff across the room. First, the bookcases, still full of books. The file cabinet, three drawers full of files. Two tall file cabinets don't move much but still need to scooch a bit. Thirty desks with chairs need to be put into play, as well. The desktop cannot move because it is attached to what used to be an interactive board and is now just a glorified overhead projector for showing movies and videos and the daily agenda. Finally, the desk to the far left corner. Inch by slow inch, that loaded desk is going to move if it takes me all afternoon.

Hours later, long past the time that just about all of my colleagues have left, I have my desk in the new location, the bookcases where they need to be, the files all organized, the closets packed with loose textbooks, thirty desks are in group formations, and I have made sure that I seem to have district network Bluetooth working. I'll draw the map on Monday, when I'm sure this will be the final layout. 

I gather up the one lone teacher still in the building, and we walk out together, somewhat wilted but completely triumphant. She gets in her car first and tears out of the lot like her weekend is on fire, which it is at this point. I take a moment to get my phone up and running, check and see if anyone loves me, and make sure the air conditioning is coming on in the car (since it is broken inside the building).

I glance around and realize that I'm right back where I started, eleven-and-a-half hours later, alone in the parking lot. It may have been a long day, but it is a day like today that staves of the mental institution I mentioned earlier. 

STEAK THAT MOOS

I'm never going to be vegan nor vegetarian.

To pervert the Most Interesting Man's words: "I don't eat steak all of the time, but, when I do, I like it to 'mooooo' back at me when I stick a fork into it."

 The store doesn't carry the steak marinade I have used for decades. Either the company went out of business, or it has been rebranded. After trying other marinades and trying to create my own versions, I finally give up. There's simply no point in eating steak without a decent marinade.

I'm in the grocery store the other day when I spot a display of packaged marinade mixes along the meat counter. "Whatever," I think to myself. "They don't carry what I want, anyway." 

For some reason, though, the rack of colorful little envelopes calls to me, and, much to my delight, I spot an almost identical cousin to the steak marinade I've been missing. I pick up a packet, throw it in my carriage, and head off toward the produce section. I mean, who doesn't love a good salad all smothered in feta cheese and croutons?

As I roll my cart away, I glance into the meat display. Oh, look! There's a sale on London Broil steak! I study all the packages, moving them around carefully. I don't need a huge steak, but I can certainly cut one in half and freeze it for next time, right?

That's when I see it.

Hiding under the bigger steaks is a smaller cut, or so it appears. However, this slab of steak is fatter than the rest. This hunk of meat says "London Broil" but mimics a piece of filet mignon. Better yet, since it's just under a pound and on sale, I'm paying well under $5 for it.

I marinate the steak for an hour, then broil that sucker up in about twenty minutes. I cook it medium rare so the center isn't still chilling on the animal's hide, just in case. (Insert lip-smacking sounds here.) Man, oh, man, that steak is delicious. Fabulous. So darn tasty is that London Broil that I eat the whole entire steak, completely dismissing the intention to save some steak for my salad the following day. 

Yup, tomorrow I'll be vegan, when I have to eat the salad without any meat in it. I'm simply doing my part to support my fellow plant-eaters.

POLLEN POOP EVERYWHERE

Welcome to New England Pollen Season, where everything inside of the house and outside of the house is coated with a thick layer of yellow-green dust, and massive sneezes are the norm.

My car finally gets to the point of zero pollen visibility, so I wait in a long car wash line with other similarly pollen-coated vehicles. It is a long line because, dumb us, we all decide to go on the weekend. So, on a gorgeous Sunday afternoon, rather than being outside doing normal people stuff, we are wreaking havoc with street traffic in order to give ourselves a moment of pollen reprieve.

The staff is on pointe. There is a zipper system through two turnstiles feeding us into the one drive-through car wash. Oh, sure, I could go to the do-it-myself bay, but, at this point, I just want the damn stuff off my car, and I'm not willing to run the risk of missing any of it. So, through the car wash I go.

Car washes of old were simple affairs. You drove in, managed to get right into the tire tract (I'm remarkably accurate at this), and you could see the spray hoses, the dryer vents, and, sometimes, the workers strolling along the cat walk beside all the machinery.

Not now!

Now, going through the car wash is a disco experience. Lights flash, colors change, and the spray wash mimics a bad acid trip kaleidoscope of melted water weirdness. It's almost like falling down Alice's rabbit hole. Coming out the other end, where the world is normal again and the sun is its regular color, is a disorienting experience after thirty seconds of psychedelic auto bathing. 

I am so proud of my car! It's black again, just like in the old days when I first bought it. It's no longer a dusty neon greenish.

However, this glee is short-lived. Pulling back into the parking lot of my complex with my vehicle, I drive through what appears to be a thick fog of yellow pollen. As I lock the car doors and head to the building entrance, I cough with each inhalation of pollen as it beelines for my nostrils. I know where this is going. Dear gawd, I do know exactly what will happen.

Fifteen hours later, as I prep to leave for work, I head toward my car. It is no longer black. No, not a single car wears any color except the freakish lime green of nature. While I am quite glad that I managed to get the first coating of the crap off of my vehicle, it doesn't help much since I will have to bring it back to the car wash. 

The worst of it is that the new greenish marks looks more like the trees just decided to crap pollen on my car. But, this time I'm not giving in. I ignore the fact that all of the recent rain on the radar map has dissipated before it got to my area. The Spring joke may be on me, but I can wait it out. 

Score!

It has been a very long week.

First, the steering in my car let go. I had an inkling that something was slightly amiss, but it went full-on crap-to-the-max over the long weekend. That meant that I had to still get to work on Tuesday or be docked pay, wait at least a week for an appointment, and rent a subcompact car that turned into a giant, hearse-like SUV.

I ended the work week with a meeting so blatantly strange that I verbally questioned my own sanity in front of my coworkers and administrators. Afterward, two other people in the meeting immediately told me that they agreed with me, then two more came to me with the same concerns that I raised. Apparently, we all questioned our sanity at that point, I was simply the first to admit that my brain wasn't following the so-called logic.

All that coupled with the school book fair . . . Yes, so very many things went horribly wrong. 

However, The car rental place was a three-hundred-yard walk to the repair shop. Score! I left my car six days early since I couldn't drive it anyway and needed a loaner. My car was not only checked out but completely repaired two days later. I saved five days on the rental, and the service was nearly 30% cheaper than the quote. Score! I didn't even have to put gas in the rental. Score! I had my car back in time to visit my friend's new grandbaby. Score!

It's the weekend and, unlike last year when it rained for eighteen straight weekends (no lie), it's actually beautiful weather. Score more! I even had a chance to read a book this weekend. Score to the max!

Of course, I still have papers and slideshows to grade, so there is that. Plus, I was cleaning out my old car today, getting it ready for kayaking season, so I missed the wine tasting. But, I did spend some time sipping way too much Pecorino wine, eating way too much food (the salad is deceiving - makes it look like I was being healthy), and spending way too much time on Kindle and Nook with my tablet.

Eleven and a half more days and four more meetings. That's all I have to do to get to summer. It may have been a long week, but I can taste that summer sun in the Pecorino. Score - and then some.