AUTUMN MUSINGS

The leaves are starting to change.  Trees near the water sources, like lakes and ponds, are changing in patches, and random trees have also started transitioning.  Today at an outdoor gathering, one of the nearby trees shed beautiful yellow petals of small leaves onto unsuspecting people sitting in chairs below the branches.  When a breeze came by to gently ripple the thin limbs, autumn petals rained down onto us, covering us all momentarily with the magic of the season.

A friend, who has long-since moved away, lamented today about how much she misses fall, and how jealous she is of those of us living in the northeast.  I feel the same way about her when the cherry blossoms bloom in late winter and flowers start pushing up through the thawed soil while we are still shoveling multiple feet of snow from our lives.

Driving home from an event in New Hampshire today, I grow bored with the stop-and-never-go traffic on the highway.  I manage to get myself over to an exit, side-track my way east about four miles, then head south on a country back road that parallels the interstate.  The solitude of the ride (in addition to the fact that I am actually moving) and the beauty of the early foliage make the extra fifteen minutes of the trip worth every millisecond.

Autumn in New England happens fast, too fast.  If you don't stop and enjoy it for all its worth, it will pass you by without a second thought.  I am still regretting passing by the beautiful sugar maple I saw in front of a school on my excursion home.  If I get up that way in the next week, I will pull my car over, stop, and take photos.  Lots of photos.  But if I wait much longer than a week, I may miss some of the better colors and I may well miss fall altogether.

It's the magic that nature tricks us into believing before pummeling us with ice, snow, and terrifyingly chilly temperatures.  I'd better enjoy it while it lasts.  All thirty seconds of it.

THE QUEST FOR COFFEE

I am on a quest to drink coffee.

Let me state upfront that I am not a coffee drinker.  I worked at Dunkin Donuts for years and never discovered any palatable way to endure coffee.  I love the smell of it; I just cannot tolerate the taste of it. 

People usually have two reactions to this quest.  The first reaction is, "Why at your age would you want to start drinking coffee while the rest of us are suffering severe bouts of withdrawal trying to wean ourselves off of it?"  The second reaction is, "Who the frig doesn't drink coffee?"  Me, that's who.  I am probably the only person in the entire civilized world who does not drink coffee.

I truly want to like coffee.  I see how happy it makes people in the morning.  I have a coworker who cannot speak coherently nor listen attentively without a shot of the stuff.  At cold sporting events, coffee is often a free or reasonably priced way to keep warm inside the body, whereas I just hold it until the entire cup goes cold.  People comment about how they prefer one coffee over another, or Starbucks over Dunkins over Honeydew over this one and that one.  People vehemently argue about coffee brands in the store.  Some shoppers even grind their own coffee, a smell that makes me nostalgic when I walk through the aisle that is, coincidentally, the same one that houses tea and hot chocolate and the baking goods (like chocolate chips and cake mixes and small plastic tubs of fudge frosting).

I want to try pumpkin-spiced coffee and like it.  I honestly do.  Every time I taste the specialty coffees like the ones with caramel or peppermint or mocha, I almost like the first few sips.  Then I get a mouthful of the coffee that has mysteriously settled to the bottom, and I shiver.  It's the same face every time no matter how valiantly I fight it off -- my nose scrunches, then my whole faces pinches in, and my entire skull shakes back and forth.  This always ends the same way, too, with my mouth sagging bitterly and the expression "yeeeeeeeeesh" leaking out of its corners.  This is, for folks who've seen it, an involuntary response that I have been unsuccessful at avoiding.

I try coffee again this morning.  I do own a coffee maker, which is probably a strange truth, so I brew myself about twelve ounces' worth and use the smallest mug I can find (the one that says Bitch Bitch Bitch on it).  I start with Dunkin Donuts creamer and take a sip.  It tastes like Betty Botter's bitter butter.  I add sugar.  Lots of sugar.  Hmmmm, almost drinkable.  I take about three small sips and dump it down the sink. 

I repeat the process adding York Peppermint Patty creamer, taste it, react almost the same way, and add some sugar.  Two sips later, it's a goner, as well.  I take the pot off the hot pad at this point, the glass container still holding a few ounces of my brewed arch nemesis. 

Defeat, yet again.  Well, sort of.  I did manage to drink about one ounce of the stuff before I trashed it all.

I know, I know.  You're all calculating different ways to season and enjoy coffee that you're planning to share with me.  I can hear your brains turning because that tiny bit of coffee I inhaled is making me jump around and tic like the Tourette's Guy (Shit!  Bob Saget!) on speed, so my senses are in overdrive right now.  Everybody just stop think-talking at once so I can form a thought, will you, please.

I truly do wish I liked coffee.  I could smile and chat pleasantly at faculty breakfasts like all of you do when the coffee box arrives, or so that I could swear and spit and rage like all of you do when no one brings free coffee to the faculty breakfasts.  I feel so damn left out sometimes.

But I've accepted my fate.  If I were desperate enough, I could grab a coffee and put enough cream and sugar in it to make it taste like a luke-warm coffee shake and maybe drink two or three ounces of it.  Reality is I'm a tea drinker: Earl Gray, oolong, Orange Pekoe, Constant Comment, and some unbelievable Turkish apple tea my son and his bride brought back from their honeymoon.  I like hot cocoa and can drink it with or without marshmallows, with or without whipped cream, or the way many New Englanders drink it with a dollop of Fluff.

Coffee and I are never going to get along.  I just sneezed, and the whiff of my own coffee breath from deep inside my nasal tract almost sent me into apoplexy.  I will sniff coffee from afar and continue to enjoy its freshly-ground aroma; I will jealously watch coffee drinkers wake themselves at morning meetings and warm themselves at frosty lacrosse games. 

Coffee, we have made our peace, but truth be known, we will never truly be friends. 

Now, if you don't mind, I'm going to break in my brand new tea kettle and fill Bitch Bitch Bitch with some tea and honey.  Salud!

BUT I DON'T GET IT

I am reading a book for my grad class.  The subject matter is literary theory and teaching literature, which is where most folks would either fall unconscious or start projectile vomiting.  I don't necessarily buy into the whole theory aspect, but I'm kind of fascinated with the idea that people can read anything, and I do mean ANYTHING, they want to into a piece of literature, even if it takes some bending, squeezing, and restructuring.

I have to have several things read for an upcoming class, one of them a smaller text with larger font.  That's good for me and my eyes.  I start reading the book, assuming it's another book on theory or a practical handbook on teaching lit.

The first chapter goes on and on about people watching the news and how some strange incident happened years ago and it's on every channel.  At the end of several pages, I have no idea what the point is supposed to be.  Chapter two is exactly the same shit about how it's lighter out longer and how the day has gained 56 minutes and how the news is still everywhere.  I still don't get it and start writing swears all over the margins.

Honestly, when is the teacher who wrote this going to make a point and tell me what great literary theory she discovered that could change a whole universe?!

Finally after the third chapter I decide to flip the book over and read the back of it.

This isn't a theory text book.  It's a sci-fi/fantasy book about Earth getting knocked out of orbit.  The only reason I can think we might be reading it is because we're going to perform literary theory all over this book's ass.

Not a fan of sci-fi novels and I despise fantasy writing.  I continue to write swears and other dead-pan commentary in the margins.  Gotta choke through it in the next ten days.  Normally a book this size would take me a day, maybe two, to read.  But this convoluted plot line is going to be a buggah.  I have an incredible imagination, but when it comes to reading, my thinking is much too concrete for my own good.

I'll be a good little do-bee and get it done, even if it kills me.  Don't worry about finding clues near my body; just look for the footnotes I've written into the text describing the various ways I might commit Hari Kari before the book itself does.

Hey, in "theory" it's my own damn fault for not reading the blurb on the back first. 

PAPER-WEIGHTS

I keep trying to correct papers at home.  I don't know what the hell I am thinking!  I have my own homework to do, wedding favors to help with, books that need to be read by next week, and a Spanish test to study for.  All of these things are manageable and even fun except for the correcting part.

So I have decided not to correct the stacks I brought home with me.  I'll work on them tomorrow morning at school, but then that's it.  

Friday includes my daughter's dress fitting and a few women coming by to work on favors and have a relaxing evening.  Saturday there's a lacrosse parents' meeting and then my high school reunion.  Sunday is an all-day lacrosse jamboree that my son's team is hosting.  Somewhere in there I have to finish my reading for this week, write a journal, and post some stuff on the class site.

There is not one single thing on that list that I am willing to sacrifice for papers that need to be corrected.

Look, I like my students, but I love my friends and family, so sorry but those papers you've been waiting for will just have to wait another day or two.  Those paragraphs you wrote aren't going anywhere. 

Next week is Back To School Night.  I promise I'll be organized and ready before then, but please give me the weekend to show my family some love.  After all, I'm giving you the same opportunity with your family, right?

In the meantime, I'll keep lugging the papers home as if I'll actually have time to look at them.  It's my newest exercise program, and it actually seems to be working.

STOP TOUCHING ME!

I've tried.  No, really I have.  I've tried deep breathing exercises, I've tried thinking of other things, I've even tried imagining myself not actually being me.  It's always a momentous failure.  There is one absolute truth in my life:

I don't like strange people touching me.

I've tried to have a mini-massage, but the woman got frustrated as soon as she started, working away at my shoulders with the force of a WWE wrestler.  I couldn't understand the problem until, exasperated beyond her limit, she barked at me, "Relax your shoulders!"

I barked right back at her, "They are relaxed!  Lady, this is as relaxed as I get."

Fail.

When I had foot surgery, the first consultation went badly.  The x-rays were fine; I had no problem with that, but then the podiatrist touched my foot and all hell broke loose.  The one place I despise being touched amongst all else would be my feet.  Either foot, doesn't matter.  Don't freakin' mess with my feet.  I've cut them, broken them, snapped almost every one of my toes at one time or another, stepped on nails with them, and I practically severed my left heel.  They've suffered enough, so move along, people, because there's nothing to see here and certainly nothing to touch.

The surgery went fine because I was unconscious through it, but the recovery -- not so smooth.  When the stitches came out, the doc tried to shoot my foot with novocaine until I damn near ripped the needle out of his fist. 

"Just pull the damn things out," I insisted.  "I'll try to hold still."  I only flinched a few times, but mostly it was because the incision itself made me queasy.

"You have a high tolerance for pain," he said after he finished.  Coincidentally, this is the same man who yelled at me weeks later when I insisted that I could feel him sawing off the cast.  "You can't feel that," he assured me, "it's impossible."

Bullshit, Dr. Bombay, I sure as shit can feel it.  My leg jumped involuntarily so many times the guy nearly sawed off my kneecap.

Fail.

And then there's the mani-pedi.  I'd never had a manicure before.  Somebody tried it on me once, and as soon as she pushed back my cuticles, I was out of the chair.  I don't know what in the hell she thought she was trying to do or where she thought those cuticles were going to go, but under the pads of my fingernails was clearly not the correct answer.  So when I went for my first official mani-pedi a few weeks ago, I knew what I was in for: A stranger was going to be touching me.

 I had to get a grip.

The nail filing shocked me at first.  I had never attacked my nails so brutally and vigorously, but I was pleased with how smooth the edges felt.  The French manicure went on with a shellac finish, and all was right with the world until she massaged my hands and arms.

Holy crap, she's touching me.

I suddenly felt like Sheldon from The Big Bang Theory.  It's not that it felt wrong or even that it felt bad.  On the contrary, it kind of felt of refreshing.  But I obsessed about the touching, and damn-near ruined it for myself.  I remained calm and collected, even drank two glasses of champagne on an empty stomach.  Hurrah!  Success!

Success, that is, until I remembered the pedicure part of the mani-pedi was about to begin.  I explained that I didn't like people touching my feet, and I gave a convoluted account of why: broken bones, surgery, cut, etc.  I told the sweet girl who was caring for me (and it really was nurturing because I was on the verge of bolting, bare feet and all) not to be offended if my foot twitched.  I was fully prepared to blame everything on medical conditions.

First came the foot bath, which felt amazing.  Then the feet came out of the water and touched a towel, followed by hands touching the feet that were touching the towel.

NASA could not have staged a better lift-off.  I was gripping the sides of the chair and had risen probably ten inches off the seat's surface, and that was just foot #1.  By the time she got to foot #2, my mind was unraveling and I was in serious need of medication. 

The woman hostessing the event quickly brought me more champagne.  I would just like to say here that she is an angel of mercy, and I also want to say that having a mani-pedi honestly is a glorious experience.  Much like my deeply-rooted aversions to thunderstorms and to fireworks, this anti-fetish of mine (not to have my feet touched) bears its root in real life experience.  But still.  It's a foot.  Get over yourself, appendage.

In the end, the chair survived, the towels survived, the manicurist survived, and I survived… until I realized my fingernails had shellac on them, and the only way to get the polish off was by visiting the salon again.  And so it is how I find myself back at the nail salon all by myself with no moral support and no liquid reinforcements. 

The manicurist is fantastic, and she's funny and makes me feel like this isn't merely my second attempt at a manicure.  (Skipping the pedicure part this time… Did I say "this time"?  I meant to say "forevermore.")  I insist on regular polish this time, though.  I want something I can take off myself.  And it's all going relatively well, I'm almost done, I've almost made it to the sit-and-dry stage.  Almost.  But then…

She touches me.

That's right.  I said it.  She starts massaging my forearms.  I am seriously willing myself to relax, but even as she is working out the kinks in my wrists and lower arms, I can feel my shoulders tensing as they involuntarily try to pull my limbs away from the table top.  My shoulder sockets are working so hard that they feel as if they may tear.  All this and I haven't moved one inch.  I am still sitting serenely as if this massage is the best thing since sliced bread.  And it may well be.  Except to me.

Because I don't like strangers touching me.  Dear lord, lady, STOP TOUCHING ME.

Fail.

Can you even imagine me at a spa?  Mud packs and deep tissue massages?  For chrissakes, they'd be peeling me off the ceiling.  I'd be in the asylum after that … but don't they tie down mental patients who do things like walk the walls and climb the draperies?  Oh, that would be bad because to apply the straps they'd have to touch me.

There must be no touching. Please, strange people, stop touching me.

And while you're at it, strange people, stop talking to me, too.  But that's a whole other blog for another day, right?

WHAT TO WEAR...

I am so glad that I take grad classes at a nearby university.

Okay, it's not really that nearby; it's a 60 minute drive there and a 45 minute drive home due to traffic that will only get worse for the entire month of October.  Salem, MA, is like that near Halloween.

But here's why I'm glad:  I can wear any frikkin' thing to the university that I want to.  I could wear a clown suit and still no one would notice.

Today, a day barely into the low 60's in temp, I see while walking through one of the academic buildings a girl wearing short-shorts, striped long-sleeved shirt, bare thighs and knees, black calf-socks, and slippers; she kind of reminds me of Miley Cyrus but with a half-yard more fabric.  I also see a tall beanstalk of a young man wearing jeans, a short-sleeved t-shirt, and an enormous fuzzy winter hat that makes him look like Khrushchev in the dead of winter.

It doesn't matter what we older, non-traditional evening grad students wear.  We could be wearing the emperor's new clothes and no one would bat an eyelash.  When I walk across campus in my dumpy work pants and my silly but sensible shoes with my stretched-from-the-day shirt covered by my slightly pilly old fleece zip-front jacket, I don't give a shit.

Nobody cares.  Seriously.  Nobody.

I nod my head at Calf-Sock-Girl and smile slightly at Fuzz-Head-Boy and go on my merry way to class.  I may not dress like they do nor look like they do, but I have one thing they don't, so tough luck!  My hair is gray and it's all natural, kids., alllll naturallllll.

See?  I can be a trendsetter, too.  

 

WARM AND FUZZY

I am barely five minutes into a meeting when my eyes glaze over and my brain shuts off.  This may be a new record even for me.

It starts when my supervisor announces that all the work we've busted our asses doing for the past two years is null and void, and we have to repeat the process all over again and produce something new.

I swear I can literally hear and feel the switch inside my brain just click into the off position.  Done.  Fin.  Over.

I remain like that for a few minutes while the supervisor drones on and on and on and on about this mandate and that norm and this standard and that outcome.  I remain comatose until she reawakens my brain with the words:  "…so you MUST sign up and do this work on your own outside of school.  But you'll get PDP's for it!"

Say what?

To whom does she think she's talking?  A moron?  I won't get shit for this work.  The guy who holds the purse strings purposefully sets it up so that we never actually do get paid for the extra work we do.

Then my superior puts the nails in her own coffin and says, "You will HAVE to do the work, anyway."  Like she's in on some cosmic joke the entire universe thinks it's playing on me.

Say frakkin' WHAAAAAT?  

I fell for this line two years ago and got burned.  I was strong-armed into doing this last year and haven't seen a bump in my pay. 

No.  Just say NO.  No.

This time, I'm digging in my heels. 

I ask, "We have all these professional development days, so why not do this work at that time?"

"Well, some of it will be done then, but you'll have to work on your own time outside of school," she smiles sweetly, albeit a bit nervously.  She is, after all, sitting within arm's distance of me, and I can slap that smirk right off her face in the bat of an eye if I want to (not that I will). 

This time it is I who smiles, and it's not sweetly and it's not nervously.  "No."

Silence. 

Not another person in the room utters a sound.  Hell, I'm not even certain they are breathing at this point.  So I repeat, "No," then add, "I already did this work.  I already did what he wanted, and now he says he doesn't want it.  I'm done."

Fake authoritative voice, "But you'll still have to do the work!"

"I will?  Really?  Watch me.  Make me."  The only thing I don't say out loud is I dare you to.

And yet it will be I who gets into trouble.  I will be insubordinate for refusing to redo a project for the third time.  I will be screamed at by the big boss for creating a hostile work environment.  I will be the one vilified and chastised and strung up from the nearest oak tree so staff members can throw acorns at me while they're re-writing the work we already completed twice before.

Honestly, what … the … fuck.

It's a good thing these people are salaried.  If they were actually held accountable for billable hours, we'd have an entirely new administrative hierarchy in the district, and taxpayers would totally shit their drawers.

Ah, public schools.  Makes ya feel all warm and fuzzy, doesn't it?  

IT'S MONDAY

Oh dear God almighty it's Monday.
How in the name of all things sane
Did things go by so quickly Sunday
To bring us back to Monday again?

I suppose I should be happy that I
Am alive and can breathe and eat and work,
But reality is such I cannot deny
That Monday is really a jerk

I'm tired, I'm achy, I'm quite a bit cranky.
I'm dragging my ass out of bed, out of home.
But the Red Sox are better than even the Yankees,
And that fact makes Monday better all on its own.

Happy Monday, suckers... you know who you are.

BENSON'S ... NOT THE ANIMAL PLACE

A friend and I take a side trip to Benson's today.  For anyone who grew up in New England, Benson's is not the Wild Animal Farm; that Benson's closed decades ago.  Benson's is the home of some great locally made and sold ice cream.  I haven't had ice cream all summer, so this is a huge treat.

While standing in line to reach the order window, my friend and I gab about what a beautiful day it is -- sunny, breezy, warm.  Perfect day to take a ride.  Behind us, two gentlemen are having the exact same conversation.  We turn around to butt in, you know, like we usually do, and realize they're bikers.  Their motorcycles are parked about ten feet away.

We start talking about the weather and how much nicer their ride must be on motorcycles than ours is in the car.  They tell us they had lunch at Stonehenge in Salem, New Hampshire (also known as Mystery Hill).   After all, today is the equinox.

It is the autumnal equinox, officially about the exact moment we are ordering ice cream for the first time this ... fall.   

Shit.

My friend and I suddenly realize that we went the entire summer without getting ice cream.  We got frozen yogurt twice, but not ice cream.  I don't know if I've ever gone an entire summer without stopping for ice cream. 

I am crestfallen.

After all, I aim to get a nice late summer ice cream, and it turns into an early fall one, instead.

Oh well.  Maybe to make up for it I'll just have to get ice cream twice this fall.  That should keep the world in balance.

Happy autumnal equinox, people.  Bring on the foliage.

WHAT A WEEK

What a week.

It started with a co-worker coming completely unglued and accusing my teammates and me of spying on her, and it ended with a new door.

That's right.  New door.

I like the new door so much that I might have my daughter stand outside in front of it to have her wedding photos taken rather than inside in my teeny tiny living room.  Besides, I still have to bleach out or paint over the ice jam stains in the living ceiling, and only then will I be good to go.  If she stands in front of the door, problem solved.

But, oh, the new door. 

I've waited months for this door to arrive and for the door jamb to be repaired.  I've had plastic taped to the outside because the kitchen would flood every time it rained really hard.  Small animals and rodents could've fit under and climbed into the house with me.  (They didn't.  But they could've, and that's what counts.)

This past week has been full of clarity.  It became clear to me that my co-worker is unstable when it all started with accusations of counter-intelligence.  It all ended with a window-topped door that makes the whole world crystal clear.

What a week.

LIVING IN COMCAST HELL

I have been living in Comcast Hell.

All of a sudden my home phone stopped working.  When I finally figured it out (it may have been down for days), I called Comcast and got the recorded message that the phone lines were experiencing difficulties in my area. 

Okay.  Fine.  So I waited.  Hours.  Days.

I finally called back, and the girl on the phone ran a check on the modem feed.  I never had to worry about modem feeds when I had the old phone system, but Comcast sucked me in with a year of savings only to turn around and screw the crap out of my monthly bank account later on.  The girl told me to unplug the phone line from the jack and plug it into "line 1" of the modem.

Well, if anyone has ever looked on the back of the modem, you'd see that "line 1" is so microscopic that it's impossible to see.  After I finally figured out which of the many open spaces she meant, this act restored the phone service to one phone, that one jack, but not to my other phones.  So I booked a service appointment for the following evening, called it a night, and went to bed.

The next day there was a Comcast van next door when I got home from work, three hours before my scheduled appointment.  I almost went up to the van and left a note: Hey, I'm home.  Feel free to move my appointment up.  I wasn't sure if it would be the same technician, though, so I just waited.  Impatiently.  As usual.

Eventually I could hear Mike, the Comcast Guy, calling my cell phone from right outside my door.  I knew it was Mike because he said, "Hi, this is Mike from Comcast," and it came through in stereo on my cell and through the screen of the open living room window.  We laughed about how he had to kill time between the installation next door and my appointment.  He had been working in my former apartment (a neighboring house), so he gave me the skinny on the new electrical rewiring job at the old place.  When I used to turn on the furnace for the first time every October, the attic would always catch on fire.  Go figure. 

Mike came into the house, looked at the modem, and immediately determined that Phone Girl should have told me to plug the modem cable into Line 1 not the wall jack wire.  Once he made the switch, my phones all came back online.  Voila!  Ten second fix. 

I apologized profusely and told him I hope he got paid by the hour for the time he had to spend just coming over here.  He said it was okay; he was filing today's appointment as a code 666 (evil and clever): Phone coordinator error.  "You shouldn't have been given an appointment.  She should've been able to walk you through this on the phone.  I'm sorry I took up your time."

I was back in business before my scheduled appointment time was supposed to even begin.  Almost immediately my phone started to ring.  So much for silence.  I'm back out of Comcast Hell, or maybe I just fell back into it.  Either way, the phone lines are open and ready for business.  One ringee-dingee, two ringee-dingees…

WORKING IN A VACUUM

I work in a vacuum. 

Because the new school is being built and attached to my windows, I never know what it's like outside.  If I want to see the weather, I have to crane my neck and gaze far to the edge of the construction, focusing my eyes beyond the steel and concrete and menagerie that is happening outside of my window.

Every day my immediate neighbor and I go to the teacher lunchroom and are genuinely surprised to see sun.  We both say the same thing:  "Oh, I thought it was raining out!"  Neither of us sees the sun from 7:30 a.m. until 3:00 p.m. when we try to escape the building. 

I am beginning to suspect that I have Seasonal Affect Disorder.  The only rays of light we see come from welding sparks that spray from the girders on the other side of the plexiglass.  It's dark …. so depressingly dark … all day long inside my room. 

I think I'm going to tape yellow and orange construction paper all over the windows.  This way the construction workers aren't staring into my classroom all day long nor am I staring out at their expansive workroom.  While it is fascinating to have the best seat in the house for the construction, it is somewhat creepy knowing the fluorescent lights in my room make us the creature double feature on the lit-up big screen to the men outside.  Not that they look, but they're digging major trenches less than six feet from my view.  If I can see them in the dark, surely they can see me in the light.  The construction paper will give us all some privacy while creating the illusion that I can see sunlight.

In the meantime, I'd really appreciate one of those funky visors like they gave Walt in Northern Exposure.  I'm not certain if my depression is because it's gloomy all the time outside of the building or because there's so much bullshit making it gloomy to be inside the building.  Either way, it's affecting me, it's disorderly, and I hope to hell it's just the school-year season. 

The worst part is with the approaching change of seasons (and clocks), soon it will be dark still at 7:00 when I leave for work and dark by 4:30 just after I've come home.  It will be dark 24-7 for me like the kids in Bradbury's All Summer In a Day, only there will never actually be that day.  It's just going to be a hazy shade of brownish-blackish-gray all damn day long, day in and day out, every single day of the school year.

Is it almost summer?  If not, send me that fancy visor or a shitload of yellow and orange construction paper.  I'm going to need it.

ME VS. THE PANTS

My damn pants have let themselves go.  I'm serious. 

For two years I have been unable to fit into anything but about three pairs of pants and some jeans.  I've been rotating through the same pairs for about twenty-four months because every time I buy a new pair to add to the mix, they pill up or get all linty and refuse to de-lint even with a roller.  So I give up.

In the meantime to make myself feel better, I tell my pants that I don't care about them anymore.  I stop taking them out for fast food, stop drinking soda with them, and give up keeping chocolate in my top desk drawer at work.  I don't take my pants out to trivia where I eat appetizers and drink draft beer.  I stop inviting my pants out for pizza or even filet mignon.  My pants and I are done. 

I decide to give a few pairs to the clothing bins down the street, and the rest, all but my go-to pairs, are folded into piles.  Some pants go into the oh if only I could wear them again pile, which stays on a wire rack in the spare room.  Other pairs are put into the gosh it would be awesome to wear these again if only my ass weren't so big pile that is hidden on an upper shelf in a closet.  The rest of the pants, the ones that are going to the bins, I PUT directly into the when the frig did I ever fit into these damn things garbage bags.

Recently I went out and bought a bunch of dresses that accentuate my waist and shirts that hang below the belt line, camouflaging what age and Mother Nature consider the Lower Belly Laugh of Menopause.  Sometimes I take my dresses out with me, but mostly I decide if my pants can't come out to eat, then I'll stop going.  Maybe they plan to go out without me, I don't know, but I stay in and start eating stuff that isn't deep-fried or full of carbonation and sugar.  My dresses don't care.  They seem to love me no matter what and never gave me a lick of trouble trying to get the zipper over my rearend because most of the zippers don't even go down that far.  Dress zippers are smart like that.  So there!  Take that, pants!

The other day, though, I notice my jeans are extra-baggy.  The next morning when I get up for work, I spontaneously reach for brown pants from the oh if only I could wear them again pile.  And … they … fit.  They need a quick ironing after two years of collecting dust and being all folded and packed away on the wire bin, but I can actually wear them.  I try it again this morning, and … the gray pair of pants fits, as well.

Sonofagun.

I am shocked and somewhat disheartened.  My stupid pants must have gotten larger, more stretched out.  They've found a way to work into the rotation again.  The damn things must be inhaling French fries and hamburgers and sodas and ice cream and cookies and chocolate and beer and all the things I've had to give up all because of them and their skinnier ways. 

My pants have betrayed me and tricked me back into them again.  My damn pants have been going out without me!  My stupid pants have let themselves go!

Not any longer, pants!  Here's fair warning: You'd better watch yourselves.  First of all, I've no intention of joining you for fast food and junk ever again.  Secondly, I might have to throw you over for the gosh it would be awesome to wear these again if only my ass weren't so big pile of pants.  But if I find out those pants have been letting themselves go, too, I'm totally screwed.  After all, I've already tossed out the when the frig did I ever fit into these damn things pants. 

If that happens and I need to go shopping, you other pants are out of here!

I'm just saying.

SADISTIC EPI-PEN TRAINING

Epi-Pen Training is one of my favorite days of the year.  It's always the first faculty meeting of the fall, usually mid-September.  Our school nurse gives us a lecture about the dangers of allergens, and we sign off on the paperwork confirming that we understand the appropriate steps to take in case of an emergency.

Then she hands us all pretend-Epi-Pens, and the fun begins.

We practice on ourselves, and we practice on each other.  Once we have perfected our snap-bash-and-hold techniques, we get to stand in line and stab a facilitator.  Our targets:  the nurse, the principal, and the vice principal.

I don't want to stab the nurse, even if it's just a fake stab.  I like her a lot, and she's just an itty-bit of a thing, a wisp of a woman, who probably bears the bruises of this meeting for weeks to come.

I don't want to stab the principal because she has enough evidence already to see me strung up on Plato's cave wall with no hope of escape.  Better to maintain tenuous complacency.

Instead I line up to stab the vice principal.  He was one of my closest colleagues before he turned evil and joined the administration.  As a matter of fact, I used to cover for him when he'd slip out the computer room back door, run to Dunkins, and quietly slip back in again, all done without permission or proper procedure.  I don't know why, but for some reason the thought of stabbing him (albeit with a fake Epi-Pen) seems ridiculously appealing at the moment.

I am fourth in line, and the wimps in front of me, men and women alike, hesitate to attack with the force necessary to trip the injection delivery system.  They have to keep trying, afraid of either hurting the man or perhaps of getting a surprise addition to their dossier.

I have no such fears.  I know my file is a shit-show.  There is no mercy to be delivered here on my part.

I edge up the line until I am face to face with the VP.  Well, to be fair, I am face to about lower rib cage.  He is a tall and foreboding administrator, and I am but a lowly, shrunken, waif of a teacher.  I carefully uncap my practice pen, arc my arm out with extreme force, and bring the Epi-Pen to the vice principal's outer thigh with the velocity and ferocity of a madwoman.

The practice pen explodes with a loud and resounding click, and I grind the spring-loaded end of it into his leg while sweetly smiling and chirping, "I'm supposed to count to ten, right?"  I whistle a little bit, a melodious tune, while averting my eyes lest he catch even a hint of the devious enjoyment I am getting out of this.  After all the times administration (this one and the ones before it) has shit all over me and my teammates, I really am getting a satisfying sense of payback knowing I will be largely responsible for the bruise an administrator will sport for the next few days.  I reset the pen and hand it off down the line of colleagues for subsequent practitioners to take their best shots. 

It may not be as exciting as the training session when one of the social studies teachers accidentally grabbed a live Epi-Pen during the self-practice round and shot herself full of Epinephrine, but I personally believe it's damn close.

(Disclaimer: In all fairness, I really hold no personal animosity toward my vice principal.  In truth, his Epi-Pen training line was the shortest.  But he really did used to sneak to Dunkins, and I really do have a personnel file that could apply for its own zip code.)

(Disclaimer to the Disclaimer:  Never mind the disclaimer.  It's all true, damnit.)

STRAWBERRY SPAM

I am standing in the produce aisle of the grocery store, attempting to buy strawberries.  I say "attempting," because the containers of strawberries are all spread around and suspiciously stacked.  I realize this is done in hopes that shoppers will buy the very first plastic container they can grab.  It's kind of like Jenga With Berries.

I have fallen for this trick before.  It usually means the produce workers have carefully placed the most rotten ones in the front after shaking the containers a bit to hide the skunky ones in the middle of the good ones.

I start systematically checking the bottoms of the containers.  Any with red juice swilling along the bottoms of the plastic are immediately placed in another produce location, like on top of the plums.  These ones are clearly rotten and not even in need of consideration.

The next step is to look into the containers.  If I see any yellow or white berries, I know there's a whole slew of under-ripened ones (that some idiot picked) just taking up space and adding weight to the good ones.

Now comes the fun part.  I have about five containers left from which to choose.  I start staring into the containers from every angle and I make two piles:  one with several smooshy strawberries inside and one with only one or two smooshy ones inside.  Narrowing the whole process down to two possibilities, there's eeny-meeny-miney-moe until I am holding a package of strawberries, mostly properly ripened, not too overly ripe, and weighted with predominantly healthy berries.

It makes me sad when I have to decide which of the least spoiled fruit I am actually going to pay full price for at the supermarket checkout. 

But what makes me happy is that I can sing while I do this.  Yes, sing.  You see, buying grocery store produce is like reenacting Monty Python's Spam routine.

Me:  Whaddaya got?

Produce:  Well, we got strawberries, strawberries, mold, strawberries, mold, mold, mold, and mold.

Me:  Well, I only want strawberries.

Produce:  I got this batch here.  It's mold, strawberries, mold, strawberries, strawberries, strawberries, and mold.

Me:  I don't want ANY mold.

Produce:  It doesn't have as much mold in it as strawberries, mold, mold, mold, mold, mold, mold, and strawberries, now does it?

Me:  Don't you have any strawberries without mold?

Produce:  Whaddaya want those for?  I got mold, mold, strawberries, and mold.  I could hold one mold but not all of it.

Me:  I DON'T WANT ANY MOLD!!!!!!!!!!!

Down come the Vikings:  Mold, mold, mold, mold, mold, mold, mold, mold … Strawberries covered in mold!  Strawberries covered in mold mold mold mold mold mold mold mold….Lovely mold!  Mold … mold … mold … MOLD!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

In the end, I get a batch that's not too bad after all.   

Me = 1; Monty Python = 0.

FRO-YO FOR BIG KIDS

My friend and I decide to go to Orange Leaf this evening.  For those not in-the-know, Orange Leaf is a really good frozen yogurt chain.  We go there after having a sensible dinner, you know, so we can blow our healthy diet all to hell in a cardboard bowl with jimmies on top.  

The fro-yo here is really good, more flavorful than at other chain stores, and this particular shop even blows the doors off its sister stores in the surrounding towns.  We have tried comparison yogurting, and this place is top-notch.

But it could be better.

There should be a frozen yogurt shop that only caters to the +21 club.  Instead of Orange Leaf, it could have a more suggestive name, like Fig Leaf.  This concept does not mean there will be cabana boys there -- it's not that kind shop.  This shop would cater to +21 by using drink-based frozen yogurt.

Imagine the possibilities:

Mudslide (chocolate and coffee with a hint of vanilla + Bailey's and Kahlua)

Pearl Harbor (pineapple and lime + Midori)

Harvey Wallbanger (orange with a hint of vanilla + Cointreau and vodka)

Bloody Mary (pomegranate and vanilla with a dash of hot sauce of your choice + vodka)

Singapore Sling (cherry and lemon + gin and brandy)

There could be high-end wine yogurt, like a rich red pinot noir or a fruity chardonnay flavor.  There could be beer-gurts that run the gamut from light to dark, ale to stout, with fruit and without.

Frozen yogurt is a wonderful treat, but every time I take a Playdoh-like squirt of the fruity stuff from the lever-operated yogurt machines, especially the pineapple or coconut or lime, it just makes me think of Pina Coladas and frozen Margaritas.  Imagine that in an after-dinner treat.  Don't even try to lie -- you're imagining a frozen yogurt Tequila Sunrise combination right now and thinking how nice it would be to start your Sunday morning with a frozen Tequila Sunrise. 

Fro-yo … but better.  And no teeny-boppers pushing their way past you like you're someplace you don't belong.  It would work, too, except you know someone will get greedy and start charging a cover fee and then the college kids with their fake IDs would come in and ruin everything.  Pretty soon you'd be saying, "Oh, let's not bother with Fig Leaf tonight.  Too much hassle.  Let's just get Orange Leaf and call it a night."

Okay, so maybe it's an idea before its time.  But don't tell me I didn't try.

I'm going to grab some strawberry fro-yo now.  I'm feeling a daiquiri coming on.  Pass the rum, kids.  I think it's time for dessert.