HALLOWEEN HOWLING (OF THE WIND)

Happy Halloween!

Hopefully, all of the scary stuff is happening Monday, while I type this on borrowed time.  Yes, I still have electricity ... for now, and, yes, I still have Internet ... for now.  I am, however, one of the few still hooked up to Thomas Edison and beyond.

The winds associated with leftover storm Philippe have caused wind shears strong enough to knock several tractor trailer trucks off the highways or onto their sides.  At least one such incident blocks a highway in Portland, Maine, and another one has caused a hazmat situation with a fire that has shut down the highway near my house.

Schools have been cancelled, businesses are closed, and people who are out driving around are probably about as unsafe as those of us huddling inside our homes waiting for tree limbs to impale us.  We are seeing winds steadily blowing well over 40 mph with speedier gusts.  Some areas are seeing winds between 70 and 96 mph, hurricane force, to be sure.

I have done the housekeeping things between last night and this morning: laundry and dishwasher have been run and done.  The air conditioners are still in the windows, which was helpful during the night when it was too windy and rainy to open any windows lest my house flooded, but now it sounds like every gust is going to rip the heavy units right out of the windows for me (and toss them carelessly onto the lawn and onto the patio two stories below).

Sorry, kids, but unless I can get to the store on Halloween right after work (if the school has power by then and if the stores have power restored by then), there will be no candy at my house for you.  Don't bother.  If I make it to the store before 5:00 for Trick or Treating, I'll leave the light on.  Otherwise, I'll be the mean old lady who huddles in the dark for two hours until it's all over.

So, happy Halloween, anyway.  With any luck at all, Monday is the worst of it, and Halloween will bring us back to normal, or as normal as ghouls and costumes and candy can possibly be.  For now, though, the only howling going on is thanks to Mother Nature ... that witch!

PURPLE BOX AND PICTURES

{A real text conversation between my daughter (She) and me (I).}

SHE:  Where are you?

I:  Running errands.  Why?

SHE:  Are you stopping at CVS?

I:  Wasn't going to.  Why?  (I'm thinking she needs toilet paper or something.)

SHE:  Never mind.

I:  No, really.  What do you need?

SHE:  Forget it.

I:  Okay.  (Long pause here.)  (Lots of guilt sets in.)  (Damnit)  (Ten minutes later...)  I'm at CVS.

SHE:  I need dry mop pads for the Swiffer.  Not the wet ones.  The dry ones.

I:  I don't know what they look like.

SHE:  They're purple, I think.  Purple box maybe.

(I go into the store and locate the household goods aisle.  They have Swiffer pads for the dry mop and Swiffer pads for the wet mop, but the dry ones are green, and the wet ones are purple.  I take a picture of the green box and text it to her.)

I:  The green box says "dry."

SHE:  Let me see the purple ones.

(I take another picture, this time of the purple box.  People are staring at me then walking away.)

SHE:  Yes, purple.

I:  But you texted the dry ones.  They say they are wet.

SHE:  No, they're FOR the wet one.  They're not wet.  Some are wet.  Maybe those aren't wet.

I:  Are you SURE?!  They clearly say WET.

SHE:  Yes.  Please buy the purple.  They're dry.

I:  Okay.  Swiffer brand or CVS brand?

SHE:  I don't know.  Send me a picture...

WAITING A LITTLE LONGER

I have occasion during my busy weekend to sit and wait for someone to return to a nursing facility.  On any day this might be fine ... okay, it's not really fine on any day because I look like a creeper wandering around trying to pass time.  I am exhausted after work, a little irritated that the person is not even on-site, and bored out of my mind.

In my wanderings, I pass some decorations.  The festive atmosphere is kind of nice, certainly more than I've done at my own home or in my classroom, so I snap a picture (without being too creepy).  There is also a pumpkin decorating contest that has just culminated, so I snap a picture of that, too.

Finally, when I am just about to leave a note for my pal and jump ship, she shows up.  I only have about five minutes to spare now, not the hour I'd planned, so I have to rush through my visit.  It's not so much because I have any place to be as it is that dinner is being served, and now I'm in the way.

No matter.  My time spent wandering the decorative hallways inspires me to start planning my own seasonal decorations.  Besides, it's almost time to start decorating for Christmas.  Sorry.  I know, I know; I'm as bad as a retail shop.  Get through Halloween first, right? Soon, though.  Like waiting for my pal, I'll have to wait a little longer.

WHATEVER WE WANT. GOSH.

Long week.  Looooooooooong week. 

In my brain I understand that it is, technically speaking, no longer nor shorter than most weeks, but my body feels like it has been wrung out, wound up, and spit out.  After being at work, an observation at work, a long meeting at work, and an afternoon of arduous errands that includes standing around waiting an hour for someone to show up, I want my first free weekend in over a month to be full of a whole ton of nothing.

On the way to pick up dinner (yes, another round of take-out), one of the radio's satellite stations is alternating between old school music like the Drifters and more modern and progressive selections of anything heavy metal.  Really heavy.  Heavy on the heavy. It's rather entertaining, this old school/new school approach.  Sometimes the station plays the old version of a song plus its updated version right afterward, such as "I'm Not Your Stepping Stone" first by the Monkees and then by the Sex Pistols.

Driving down the road toward the sub shop that is halfway to the next town, my youngest and I are having a conversation about our day.  He is taking a much-needed evening off to stay in and relax.  I am spouting off about the crammed week I've had between work and errands.  Suddenly, a song comes on I've never heard before, but it fits my present mood perfectly: Demolitian 23's "Same Shit, Different Day."

After we pick up dinner and head back toward the house, we are both in better moods.  Finally, the day is starting its denouement.  As we turn off the main road to the side road that cuts over toward our house, the radio is blasting White Stripes "We Are Going to Be Friends," otherwise known as the theme song to the movie Napoleon Dynamite. 

Of course.  After all, what are we going to do with our Friday evening off (finally)?  Whatever we want. Gosh.

THEME DAYS AT WORK

Red Ribbon Week is an anti-drug theme week designed to raise awareness and also to foster community spirit at our school.  I wear a flowery shirt with brightly colored capris for Tropical "Lei Off Drugs" Day.  Two other theme days we've had so far involve a space theme and dressing like a decade.

I don't own any space-type stuff.  I suppose I could've gotten a hat, suit coat, a super-long scarf, and pretended I was Tom Baker's Dr. Who ... except that I have always been more of a Red Dwarf fan and Farscape fan.  Instead, I take two old glow-in-the-dark space satellite decorations right off the wall and make a headband.  Add in a silver shirt, gray pants, some silver cloth clogs, and I have Theme Day costume #2.

For Decades Day, I channel my inner Jackie O.  Of course, I go old school: pencil skirt, 3/4 sleeve sweater, pillbox hat, white gloves, pearls, cat glasses; very Jackie Kennedy before that whole crawling across the trunk fiasco in Dallas.  The somewhat horrifying part of this ensemble is that only the accessories are costume.  The clothing is stuff I wear on an everyday basis.

Tomorrow is Superhero Day.  This is a tough one because I am not into superheroes.  I go to the store in search of my favorite superhero, except, of course, that I've no idea what I'm doing and I am beholden to none.  I suppose I could say that I liked Green Hornet when I was a kid, except that he rarely took out any bad guys; it was always Kato (who was Bruce Lee).  I was madly enamored with Kato.

I spend a good ten to fifteen minutes in the store, circling the table of superhero gear.  There's one more place to look, though: the back wall display.  While perusing the possibilities, I come across a perfect shirt, a shirt to which I can relate, a shirt with true superheroes on it.

So, folks, I don't remember what tomorrow's official tagline is.  I just know it's Superhero Day, and I will have the best superheroes of all.  Everyone else can be Batman, Superman, Supergirl, Wonder Woman, and anyone else Marvel-iscious.  I will proudly sport my new superheroes t-shirt: Chip and Dale's Rescue Rangers.

HALLOWEEN HAIKU

Continuing from
The blog I wrote yesterday
This happened today:

Kids wrote poetry.
We were going for the rhyme,
But they said, "Oh, LOOK!

We can write haiku!"
"Halloween HAIKU?" we asked.
"Yes, we'll write Haiku."

So, the lesson changed,
And they wrote Haiku instead
Of rhyming rhythm.

Yes, it all worked out.
Some poetry was written,
Poems were syllables

Written on pumpkins
Made out of orange paper.
Then, the class ended.

EARLY HALLOWEEN

Wednesday is Halloween for one of my classes.

My friend and I teach this class only once a week.  It's more of an academic support than an intervention because, to be honest, I'm not sure how much of a numerical impact we are having on the students. 

Not yet, anyway.

We won't see this group together again until after Halloween, so Wednesday is our day to get into the spirit (so to speak).  We'll enjoy some lightly eerie e.e. cummings, write on gold-colored pumpkin paper, and read poems from a book I've had since I was the same age as the kiddos in our charge.  We'll even throw in a short video and some instrumental Halloween-type music.

It's too bad so many kids are allergic to so many things.  It would be nice to share with them a little Halloween trick-or-treat, too.  Okay, so it would be nice if I could have a little treat.  Seriously. The upside, though, is that Halloween (for real) is only a week away, so this kicks off seven days of anticipatory celebration.

Those who know me also know what happens next: post-Halloween means some furniture moving and some box hauling from the basement because November means Christmas gets set up, hopefully on or around Veteran's Day.  I like pre-mixing my holidays, which is why Wednesday is going to be so much fun. 

Bring on the early-Halloween, kids.  I'm ready.