WHEN I'M NOT CHARLIE BROWN'S TEACHER

It's Halloween.  I don't have a costume.  I don't need a costume.  I'm a middle school teacher - There isn't anything on this Earth that's scarier.  Except silverfish.  And those nasty hornets that look like yellow jackets only red... Red jackets.  And maybe the Ebola Virus.  Yup, those things are scary, too.

I've looked at witches' hats a few times.  Eh.  Too expected.  I looked at the cheapo wigs, but why bother?  My real hair with its grays and fly-aways is far more frightening than synthetic horror. 

I am in the fabric store when I spot colored t-shirts.  Sure, the t-shirts are for decorating, but they're on sale plus I get a discount.  And, truth be told, I've no intention of decorating a shirt at this late hour (or any hour, for that matter).  I find the brightest orange shirt there is and search for my size.  There's an electric orange one that's a little big and a subtler orange one that's my size.  I buy them both plus a teal one just because.  All three together are $9 plus I get a teacher discount; three shirts for just over $7.  Score.

It's Halloween.  I'm going to wear the orange shirt (whichever one I decide on) over black school clothes, which is the best costume I can put together because it's quick, it's easy. it's cheap, and it requires no outrageous make-up.

"What are you suppose to be?" the kids will ask.  "A fluorescent ghost?  The first sign of Thanksgiving?  A construction worker? The sun?  The moon?"

No, no, no, no, and no.  I am something everyone wishes for but never sees.  No, not a middle school teacher who still has her sanity.  I'm something that has been elusive for decades and generations:  I'm the Great Pumpkin, Charlie Brown.

Happy Halloween, Kids.

(P.S.  Thank you, Red Sox, for wrapping this all up so I can sleep again.)

LONG WINTER AHEAD

Damn, it's going to be a long winter.

It's only in the 40's, occasionally in the 30's in the morning, and I am already freezing my ass off inside my own home.  Right now I have the heat on, plus an electric fireplace, plus an electric heater, and I'm still feeling a chill all the way to my bones.

I prefer to be hot, except that being too warm makes a body sweat.  But it's a lot easier to cool down instantly when you're hot than it is to warm up quickly when you're cold.  When I'm cold, I'm cold down to the core of my being.

It's not like I'm walking around in shorts or anything.  I'm wearing a long-sleeved shirt, corduroy pants, and thick socks.  The only thing missing is the winter jacket.

This is one of the first falls in recent memory that the furnace has actually started and kept running.  This happy and momentous occasion is marked by me knocking on wood.  Oh, wait.  Never mind.  Turns out that's just the sound of my ice cold body as my legs shake from the chilly air, making my knees smack intermittently against the wood of the computer desk.

What will I do when the weather really turns cold and ugly? 

Yup.  Long winter, indeed.

POSERS AS POSERS

Sometimes posers become posers ... and it's all good.

Richard Renaldi is a professional photographer who has been working on a years-long project where he takes people who've never met and poses them together as if they are family, great friends, or even lovers.  The resulting photographs are amazing.

He takes these unrelated, unacquainted posers and literally puts them as posers into his photos -- Posers becoming posers for a cause.

The most fascinating part of this is that he is currently doing this project in the heart of New York City.  Renaldi calls his project Touching Strangers.

It's amazing to me that such a large and often impersonal city as New York has so many hidden gems of people willing to partake in this experience.  It makes me want to create a similar project in my middle school.  Well, not the strangers-as-lovers part, but the strangers-as-friends and strangers-as-family part would be cool.

I could go to the lunchroom in front of all the kiddos and see if I can get volunteers of people who either don't know each other or simply have never, would never, hang out.  It might be kind of interesting to see which kids are willing to bridge the barriers, which kids will follow, and which would never be caught doing it.


Anyway, I know this is slightly different than my usual posts, especially since I'm not complaining about some part of my body committing hari-kari on me, nor ranting about some workplace injustice, nor recounting some tale of horror from my time on a road trip.

I'll get back to all of that.


But for now I am simply enthralled by Renaldi's genius.  What a wonderful gift to the people who get to be part of this project.  If only the world were a lot more like this.



This is the link to a short article and a video about the photographer and his project:
http://elitedaily.com/news/world/photographer-puts-two-strangers-together-for-intimate-photographs-and-the-results-are-surprising/

MIDDLE AGE SUCKS EGGS

I've injured my back.

Nope, I am not doing anything spectacular.  Nope, it doesn't happen when I lift heavy potted plants while helping a friend bring her patio greenery inside for the winter.  Nope, it doesn't happen while breaking down a huge, thick cardboard box for the recycling.

You want to know how this all happens?

I turn.

That's right, damnit, I turn.  I get up from my chair too quickly and pull something in my back right at the top of my hips, in the back of my waist, right smack where I have to bend to stand, lean over, or pretty much just live in general.

I immediately treat myself with naproxen.  When it becomes clear that naproxen isn't going to touch the pain, I start raiding the medicine stash.  I find meds to treat Floyd the Uterine Fibroid, and I find a huge stash of antibiotics, neither of which will help me.  Damn, damn, damn!

I keep reaching as best as I can -- the stash is up on a high shelf so I have to stretch, which hurts like burning knives in my spine.  Finally my fingers reach it: Super Motrin.  I pop it like it's candy, suck down some gingerale, and wait.

In the meantime, I have to get laundry out of the dryer.  Yeah, try that without bending over.  I have to carry the full laundry basket up the stairs with what feels like a contorted spinal cord then try to fold everything without moving too much.  I am in agony.

An hour later the Motrin has sort of kicked in.  Either that or I am just healing a bit.  Instead of it taking me 25 seconds to unfold myself once standing, it's down to about 18 seconds.  I'm going to suck down some more of that medicine before bedtime, which is shortly.  And when I wake up, I'd better be cured.

Did you hear me, back?

I'm not taking your shit.  Just because I'm middle aged doesn't mean you can go out on me whenever the hell you feel like it.  And I'll prove it to you.  I'll take more medicine, that's what I'll do.  I'll walk right over to that medicine bottle, chew me some of those Super Motrin pills, and march my ass up to bed.

If I can just unbend my sore self long enought to stand up, that is.

Damnit.  This totally sucks eggs.

TRADUZCA ESTO

I'm working toward another degree,  a Master's in English with a writing concentration.  I am about eleven weeks from starting my thesis.  In the meantime, there's a foreign language requirement I must pass. 

That's right: Foreign language ... to get an English writing degree.

The funny part is that I have already completed the requirement of two or more semesters of foreign language at the undergraduate level, but it was so long ago that even the Grandfather Clause has long-since died and been buried. My only option is to pay for, take, and pass the Graduate Foreign Language Exam. 

It's not that big a deal.  I am allowed to bring my own pencils and a Spanish-English dictionary.  I have ninety minutes to translate about 300 words of text.  After reviewing the multiple tenses of verbs (present, past, past perfect, imperfect, preterite, subjunctive, future, future perfect... etc., etc., etc.), I'm reasonably certain that I'm ready. 

Driving to the university, which is in the heart of Salem, MA, it dawns on me that I'm a little perturbed.  It also dawns on me that I am not nearly as bothered by taking the exam as I am about the date on which they chose to administer it.  The exam is being given late morning on the last Saturday before Halloween.  In Salem.  Witch City.  Pre-Halloween Saturday. 

Pissah.

I have been stuck in Salem pre-Halloween gridlock twice before.  I remember both times well enough not to make the mistake a third time of driving through Salem on the last Saturday before The Big Day.  I know that the center of Salem, the same area that is the most direct route to school, is loaded with ghosts, ghouls, and zombies today and every day until Halloween passes.  I also know that they get really ticked off if you hit them with your car.  I mean, come on - The guy is already a zombie.  (By the way, that excuse cannot be used in traffic court.  I'm just saying.)

I drive in a giant circle on my way to the university, completely avoiding the main action when I remember I am almost to Gallows Park.  Round and round and round I go (where I'll stop, nobody knows!  Oh, yes you do: I'm heading for the school.)  This route brings me parallel to the park and runs me by the middle school, hospital, and high school.  I arrive at university exactly thirty minutes prior to test check-in time, park my car in the lot, and head to the in-school Dunkin Donuts for a tea.  Alas, Dunks is closed.  CLOSED!

I do some homework for my regular class then saunter over to the building and classroom where the test will be given.  The teacher proctoring the exam is late.  Yup, time's a-wasting.  Eventually I am able to see my exam -- a passage about Fidel Castro.  By the time I am done translating the words and phrases I don't know, I have wasted almost an hour of time.  By the time I am done with the passage, I know a helluva lot more about Fidel Castro than he will ever know about me.

When it's all over, I am sorely tempted to drive into Salem center and get myself stuck in the thick of it all, but I remind myself that I have made that mistake before.  Twice.  Because I'm an idiot.  I opt for the back roads, cutting over again near Gallows Park and turning on the street that runs parallel to my all-time favorite named store, Bunghole Liquors. It's still early.  I have time to help a friend move plants inside for the winter, take college-dwelling's son's left-behind car for a ride, and bring my sister her birthday card. 

All of this I do and still the burning question nags at me even now, hours later:  Why must I prove competency in reading another language if I am earning an advanced degree in English writing?

En fin, todavía no sé por qué.

LET THEM EAT CAKE!

My daughter got married last weekend.  It was a lovely wedding, and there was a lot of cake.

Lots and lots of cake.

I end up with a huge chunk of it, and the last thing I need to do is be eating cake.  I barely fit into my clothes as it is.  So, I pack up a few pounds of cake and send it off to college with my youngest son, but my refrigerator is still overflowing with more cake.

I am incredibly busy this week.  I make sure the leftover cake is wrapped tightly in plastic until I can finish cutting it into smaller pieces.  I mean, seriously -- the slabs of cake are pretty tall, and there is enough frosting to cause severe sugar shock in an entire small village of people.  Finally, though, I put some time aside and manage to fill two good-sized containers with cake.  Lots and lots of cake.

It's a half day at school, so not too many people will be filtering through the lunchroom, but I'm going to leave the cake there, anyway.  Hopefully someone will see it and spread the word.

Today, though, Lady Luck is clearly on my side.  There is a PTO-sponsored faculty breakfast.  That means everyone including the office staff and the superintendent's office will pile into the lunchroom for goodies.

I push some of the freshly baked munchies aside and grab a spot on the table.  "Do you mind?" I ask the PTO ladies, completely oblivious if they say no.  That cake, all of it, all lots and lots and lots of it, will be on that damn table if I have to stand guard to make sure it's on display.

I happily watch as people load up on coffee, juice, breakfast breads, and cake.  Yes!  Apparently the best way to make people happy at the end of the week is to slide them a breakfast full of wedding cake.

I am thrilled at the end of the day when almost all of the cake has been eaten.  It's gone!  Yay, it's all gone, gone, gone!  All lots and lots and lots of it.  However, so is my plate; my plate is also gone, gone, gone.

Oh well.  Small price to pay for happy staff. 

HOW TO BE IN THE RIGHT PLACE AT THE RIGHT TIME AND STILL MANAGE TO MISS IT -- WOW. JUST WOW.

Wow.

I mean, there truly is no other word except wow.

After work I decide I'm not cooking tonight.  I order myself a pizza, tell the pizza parlor I will be there in twenty minutes, and head for home.  I actually have to pass my own house to get to the pizza parlor because my street cuts over to the safest roadside parking available.  I could walk, but I have a car full of work stuff.

There is a camera crew from WHDH TV parked almost directly in front of my house.  They are here to get footage of the church attended by a family who recently suffered a horrid tragedy.  The camera crew members may only be doing their job, but they descend like vultures in search of meat scraps. 

Immediately after parking my car in the driveway, before I even enter my house, I march myself down to the van to speak with whomever I find.  Turns out to be a lone camera man.  I ask him what he's doing, knowing full-well what his answer will be, and remind him that some people really deserve privacy and that's all the family asked for.  Yes, yes, he agrees, but I doubt that's how it will go.  I head into my house with my work stuff and my pizza.

The camera crew and van are still there hours later.  But so are a bunch of cops.  And so is an entire crew of workers.  And the railroad crew.  And a huge flatbed truck.  There are flashing lights everywhere.

A friend of ours works at the pizza place right on the tracks.  He posts on Facebook that a train and car have collided.  I am certain this is an old post because this happened not too long ago.  Nope, this is the real deal.  So I grab my camera, my cell phone, my keys, and I haul ass down to the crossing at the end of my street. 

Now, by haul ass, I mean I am running so damn fast that I almost topple down the street as I go.  That would be hilarious because I would do so in front of police and rescue personnel as well as the channel 7 news team.

When I get to the scene of the accident, the SUV is still partially under the train, the crossing sign has been annihilated, and a few maintenance people are milling around.  The camera crew is mysteriously missing.  This is strange because the Lawrence Eagle Tribune (aka The Lawrence Evil Rag) is only miles away and has a direct association with WHDH television.  I decide they must've already been there as the accident happened about thirty minutes earlier.

Wow, talk about timing! How often is a news crew right there, I mean, like seriously right frigging there when a train and car collide at a crossing?  Just wow.

I get my pictures, the SUV is eventually hauled away, and I hear the screaming whistle of an approaching train.  It's amazing to me that the tracks could be clear after what I have seen, so I haul ass one more time down the street.  I see the new train stopped.  I see the news van door open.  Yet still the camera man has not reappeared.  I peek my head toward the open van and see a different guy, a tech, who is not the same camera man I spoke to earlier.

"Talk about being in the right place at the right time," I say to him.

"Yeah, what's going on down there?" he asks me.

Wow.  I mean, dude.  Really?  You're about 150 yards from the scene.  Might you, oh, I don't know, walk down there and see why there are multiple police cars blocking the road?  Some frigging news crew you people are.  Just wow.

So I tell him what I know, what I have discovered on the local website in the time between taking the pictures, loading them onto my computer, and hearing the approaching commuter rail coming upon the accident scene.  I tell him that some idiot woman in an SUV drove straight into the train as it slowed and stopped at the crossing while pulling up to the platform. 

Camera Man looks at me funny.  "I didn't see anything.  Down this street here?"

I reply, "No, the one on the other side of the pizza parlor."

With this, his eyes grow large as tennis balls and he asks incredulously, "There's a pizza parlor over there?"

Mother of god.  These guys are professionals?  There are three people in the van, they have a second vehicle with them that they have been driving presumably around town to film the high school and the family's home that they're here to get footage of, and they must've passed the pizza place at least twice.  I can even see the pizza parlor through the leafless trees.  How can they not see it?

Wow.

So, let's see what we have here.  You're paid news people here to do one story when another story falls right into your lap, and you miss it?  Some insane middle-aged lady running like a banshee to the crossing by the pizza place didn't clue you in?  I mean, do you normally film in a quiet town and think nothing of a person with a camera blowing by you on foot doing about 15 mph toward all the blue flashing lights?  Do I look like a Kmart Blue-Light Special shopper to you?!

I'm sorry to say I believe it takes amazing talent to be at the scene of a breaking news story when and as it breaks … and you still manage to miss it even an hour later.

There's only one word.  Just one.

Wow.

THINGS ARE HEATING UP AROUND HERE

I turned on the heat today. 

I didn't have to.  I could've gotten by with the electric fireplaces a little bit longer, but, truth be told, I wanted to make sure the furnace started before sub-zero temperatures descended.

The last apartment I lived in was an electrical nightmare.  Every time I turned the heat on for the season in October, the attic would start on fire.  I live in a townhouse now.  For the last several years the furnace has busted every winter, usually both the first few times I turn it on and also on the coldest motherf***ing days of the winter.  So this year, I put off starting the gas furnace for fear that the damn thing would mock me and refuse to start at all.

So far, though ... so far the furnace seems to be working.  Hot air is being forced up out of the vents just like God and the furnace man intended it to be.

Life is a little sad when the high point of one's day is turning on the furnace.  But life is infinitely sadder when the high point of one's day is knowing that the furnace repair person can have the heat restored in two-to-four days. 

Here's a toast to toasty rooms.  Furnace, I love you, but if you give me a lick of trouble this winter, so help me God, I will kick your fat ass.

HIGHLIGHT OF MY DAY

1.  I am quickly making notes on the white board about how to write context clue sentences, something we do all year long.  I shorten the word highlight to highlight, which I don't normally do, just to get through the notes. 

2.  Kids take notes from the board (except those who refuse to lift a pencil).  Notes go into "NOTES" section of binder.

3.  Co-teacher takes picture of board, and we post it on my teacher website so every time we do context clue sentences, the directions will be there.

4.  Parent sends scathing 3-paragraph email about how stupid I am that I cannot spell highlight and that I should be fired and shouldn't be teaching.  And, oh, by the way, Little Natasha is doing more creative writing than ever, but I suck as a teacher, so fuck me and the horse I rode in on.

5.  I take the picture of the context clue directions off the website, essentially leaving the students who didn't bother to take notes (Little Natasha) without directions on how to write context clue sentences.

6.  I assign context clue sentences for homework.  (This was already in my planner, and, in truth the sub assigned it as I was out for a personal day.)

7.  I check and grade the homework.  Little Natasha has neglected to highlight any of her vocabulary words and has forgotten to include definitions as she did not highlight to make sure she had included both the words and their meanings into the sentences.

8.  Little Natasha gets the lowest score on her homework out of all of my students because she is the only one who didn't follow directions and highlight.

Not that I think it is EVER good when a student does poorly, but in fairness it is only a 5-point assignment out of hundreds of points.  Her grade doesn't even budge, and she is still in the A range, so no harm no foul. 

Except that there is something incredibly poetic about one dad complaining and then costing his own child points.  I mean truly, irony is a wonderful thing.  If only I could use this example as a life lesson, it might help to highlight exactly what irony is.

Sometimes God just gives you one when you need it the most.  Thanks, God.  I owe you a Highlighter. 

SECRET TO HAPPINESS

Ladies, I am about to share the world's greatest secret about being a female that only women (and possibly male swimmers) know.  I'm sorry -- I know it's a sacred secret that none shall share, but I just have to because it might save some rocky relationships.

Men, are you ready?  Are you ready to learn the true secret that makes every woman happy about herself?

Clean sheets +bath/shower + freshly shaved legs = Best night's sleep EVER

So gents, the next time your better half starts pouring a bath or shower, if you see a razor and shaving cream, run and change the sheets on the bed.  I'm not even kidding.  You will be the best husband/boyfriend/date that woman has ever had, especially if you let her have that nice clean bed all to herself.  For the entire night.  I said ENTIRE night.  No, that doesn't mean only until 12:01 a.m.  Back off, buddy -- She has a fresh razor and she knows how to use it.

WARNING:  If bed sheets have been changed within hours (or worse, within minutes) of this bath, be warned that changing out clean sheets for more clean sheets will only put you in the Laundry Dog House.  In that case, it won't be only the razor that gets you thrown out of the bedroom.

I'm just saying.

WEDDING DAZE

2/3 of my kids are married off now.  Wonderful days with the families and friends twice in the last six weeks.  Ready for a little down-time, though.  Just a little.

Thank you, Mother Nature, for smiling on us both days.  And thanks for not having disaster strike until I got home out of my car:  centerpiece fell to pieces when I leaned over and it had to be put back together (my fault), purse strap got caught and snapped completely off (my fault again), and I ended up with three favors full of chocolate even though I still have a bowlful plus two bags of the stuff (my youngest's fault -- he hid the favors in my car after the wedding).

My feet hurt but my hair still looks great.

Congratulations to two out of three of my kids for pulling off two great autumn weddings and all you did on your own to make these days happen.  Very proud!

Now remember -- like I said yesterday, NO RETURN POLICY, therefore ... BE HAPPY.

HERE COMES ANOTHER BRIDE

Today my daughter is getting married.  She is marrying one of my former students, which is a little creepy unless I clarify that he was my student in the spring of 1999 when I taught middle school. 

My daughter is following her older brother down the aisle, separated by a mere six weeks.  I have jokingly referred to this as The Autumn When My Kids Tried To Kill Me.  In truth, these two weddings, though close in proximity, have been relatively seamless, painless, and stress-free.  Also in truth, it shouldn't a big surprise that my kids planned weddings soon after the other.  After all, they are separated in age by less than two years. 

Most of all, my kids have chosen great matches, great life partners, and great people to call their spouses.  Very proud.  Very happy.  

And I just want to remind their spouses, especially on this auspicious occasion, that there is a strict and enforceable NO RETURN policy on them.  You picked 'em; they're yours now.

 

LAKE BREAK

North-bound I-93 traffic sucks eggs on the best of commuting afternoons.  On Friday of the last decent leaf-peeping weekend, traffic is already beyond suck levels.  Gridlock at the Massachusetts-New Hampshire border has set in by 3:15 p.m.  I don't need to be in Manchester until 6:30.  It doesn't matter.  I'm on my way already.  I'm a border dweller and have been for decades, so I know what I'm up against.

I stop at the mall in Salem to pick up a suit coat that's needed for a weekend wedding, then I head up route 28 into Derry, where I keep going on Bypass 28 through Londonderry.  There are multiple methods to my madness in heading straight up to Manchester with three hours to spare.  The first is obvious, which is to avoid some of the interstate traffic, passage by which already seems futile.  The second is to arrive at my destination early enough to get some homework done for my grad class. 

The main reason I am heading north via the back roads, though, is for the view.  I do love a good snow storm, but every time I get sick of the New England weather, which is usually mid-February to mid-April, spring happens.  When spring allergies become unbearable, summer comes along, bringing the ocean with it (how anyone can live too far from the salt-water coast is an unfathomable mystery to me).  The end of summer is a killer, and the separation anxiety has many of us wondering why we are still here and not living in the tropics with fruity beverages in our hands.

This is why autumn is so important.  If fall weren't so damn beautiful, we'd probably have to hibernate like the bears do and not come out until it's fit for man and beast again.  Autumn here in New England is spectacular.  Along the route I've chosen for my northward quest is a local body of water, Lake Massabesic.  Although in this area peak foliage has barely passed, it's still pretty impressive on nature's downside.

I stop first along the roadside, snap a few pictures with my phone, then head north to the main parking lot.  I am not the only person there, but it is far from crowded.  After backing in to a space, I step from my car (it has been warm today so the windows are wide open and my shoes are off of my feet) barefoot and snap some shots.  The colors are no longer spectacular, but they are worthy.

I don't stay long.  I could do my reading here, get caught up on my homework, but it's too distracting, too scenic.  After doing what I came to do (pick up son and his girlfriend for my daughter's wedding), we all head south on I-93 in my car, tooling along at 70 mph while the north-bound side remains gridlocked at 7:00 p.m., four hours after commuters first hit the skids.

The traffic may suck, the prices may suck, the housing market may suck, and the weather may often suck, but you can't knock the beauty of autumn in New England.  It makes suffering through the weather for the rest of the year entirely worth the wait.

A LITTLE DITTY TO MY TV

I'm watching some stuff on TV
And I find that it's all quite amazing
I turn between channels - All three
Different shows I can watch without phasing

The Red Sox are still holding steady
By the time that this posts we will know
Just which team has won this already
And which team is saying, "This blows." 

The Bruins played well in their game
They managed to score rather late
The end result was almost insane
Thankfully Thomas ain't great .

And then came the season finale
Of that sewing show Project Runway.
It's fun when the designers rally
But only one seamstress could stay.

So I switch back and forth through the channels
Trying to catch shows cable brings
In the end it all just unravels
And I end up not watching a thing.

STOP BREATHING

Listen up, sick people:  I WANT YOU STOP BREATHING RIGHT NOW.

We have children who come to school sick.  Worse than that, we have adults who come to work sick.  Now, I am guilty of this, too.  Matter of fact, I feel a cold coming on and I went to work, anyway.  You know why I feel a cold coming on?  Because teachers come to work sick and sit at the lunch table with us, that's why.

It's like watching measles spread through the natives after Columbus stopped by for the first time.  It's like watching cholera spread amongst the Native Americans after we introduced them to Western diseases "accidentally."  It's like watching the plague wipe out half of Europe off and on for a few centuries.  It's like forcing sane, rational people to watch reality television non-stop for hours on end and expecting them to retain brain waves.

I have a wedding coming up this weekend, one which I must attend.  "Sending regrets" is not an option since it is my daughter's wedding.

So you thoughtless people who believe that sitting at a small table in an enclosed space while spreading your evil madness and pestilence amongst us is remotely an intelligent idea, I have this bit of advice:

Stop.  Stop eating with us, stop touching the door knobs, stop leaving your snot-filled tissues in the open-air bathroom trash can, stop sneezing in the hallway, stop coughing when you talk to us, stop running to the bathroom and blaming it on the coffee.  Just stop.

As a matter of fact, just stop breathing ... on us.  Not truly stop breathing, just not in our direction.  Right now my nose feels stuffy, my throat is scratchy, my joints ache, and I was too generally uncomfy to sleep more than three fitful hours last night.

If you continue to breathe on us and at us and among us and beside us and around us, I will have to advocate for the more severe JUST STOP BREATHING mentality.  If it were a zombie apocalypse we would not worry about you because you obviously have no brains to suck out and upon which to gnaw.

Cardinal rule #1 - Do NOT come to work sick.  Cardinal rule #2 - If you do choose to come to work sick, YOU MUST NOT BREATHE.  Ever.  Never ever.

THE TWILIGHT NIGHT GALLERY ZONE

We are reading a teleplay in class.  It's one that I've taught for years, and it's in most middle school literary anthologies.  An episode from The Twilight Zone, we got through the entire script today for The Monsters Are Due On Maple Street.

This is a classic tale of mob mentality meets mass hysteria meets alien intervention.  Yup.  Classic.  But certainly not my all-time favorite.  Actually, I would have to say that out of Rod Serling's television genius moments, The Twilight Zone isn't my favorite at all.  Night Gallery is.

Far creepier, more sinister, and much gorier, Night Gallery scared the living shit out of us when we were kids.  There are several episodes I remember fondly, but the one that sticks out in my mind is Cool Air.  It's the story of a man who lives in a refrigerated apartment in New York, and it ends very badly for him.  As a matter of fact, I remember the ending so well that even though this episode is on youtube, I'm still to this day scared to death to watch it again.

Perhaps that's why it is my favorite of all Rod Serling's creations (stolen shamelessly from and H.P. Lovecraft story).  I saw this particular show when I was ten or eleven years old, and at my age now, after raising three kids, after facing many a horrid scar in life, I'm still terrified of an itty-bitty partial episode of an old television series.

I might just break down and watch it again in the spirit of Halloween approaching.  Maybe.  Possibly.  And I'm sure it's not remotely as good nor as horrifying as I remember.  However, like the old movie Taste of Evil (coincidentally released by its studio and seen by me the exact same year as that Night Gallery episode) when the supposedly dead guy grabs the girl's ankle and scares the shit out of her and viewers, I'm sure the old Night Gallery show is still worth a go-round.

Not tonight, though.  Tonight it's going to be dark, and I'm going to be home alone, and I might hear strange noises as the old house settles.  No, tonight the only cool air coming into this house will be from open windows.  In the meantime, I'll settle for The Monsters Are Due On Maple Street, where the only thing we have to fear is an alien spaceship disguised as a meteor.  And each other.  And cars.  And maybe some general mayhem.  Other than that, we should be all set.

THE DAY SUMMER DIED

It's a sad day in my household.  A very sad day, indeed.

Today my soon-to-be son-in-law and his best man are at my house pulling the air conditioners out of the windows.  I like having the kids stop by; that's not the part that makes me sad.  It's the part that happens after they leave.  It's the part where I put away the air conditioners for another six months.  It's the part where I accept that summer really is over.

The air conditioners have been relocated to their winter home -- south, in the basement, underneath the stairs, up on cardboard, covered with a sheet, then a light blanket, then a heavy blanket.  After that, all of the luggage and the sleeping bags get re-piled onto them, and they are hidden away out of sight and out of mind, unable to mock me, and safely cocooned until the first heat wave hits next spring.

After the air conditioners are nestled all snug into hibernation, I go around and lock the downstairs windows as if there will be no more fresh air until the shoveling is done.  I know darn well I'll probably be opening these same windows at least a dozen more times this fall.  I had them open just today.  But it's a ritual.  It's like I'm having a wake for summer. 

I love autumn.  I live in the best place in the world for this time of year. 

I liked it even better when I lived in the woods of southern New Hampshire, and I could walk through trails around the property and look up into the changing trees, letting the colorful leaves rain down, making giant piles to jump into.  We had to be careful of branches, but we often slid down the side of the small cliff next to the pool, the hill where we dumped cart-loads full of leaves.  We had so many trees and leaves that it took us three full weekends every fall and three more again in the spring just to clean the property up.  Back then I considered this ritual a royal pain in the ass.  My father was a maniac about the clean-up.  Miss one pine sprig and we were liable to be berated well into the cold, bleak winter.

I love the snow, too, until February.  By the end of January, I'm reasonably sick of it since I'm the only one left at home to shovel.  The older I get, the less I like the cold.  It goes through me now like it never did before, and when I spend too long outside the coldness stays in my bones for hours, sometimes days, afterward. 

But it's only for a short while.  That's the joy and the drawback to living in New England.  The weather changes so often, so dramatically that it's hard to want to live anywhere else.  Just when you can't stand the ice and frigid air and snow any longer, spring comes with damp days and flowers and the end of school.  After the spring rains end (hopefully without flooding), summer arrives with beach days and late sunsets.  The only saving grace to summer ending, because truly I hate to see it go, is that autumn is so damn beautiful here that it seems one must be insane to want to live anywhere else.

So, my air conditioner friends, I will take good care of you all winter as you did for me all summer.  I will remember fondly how you kept all the wedding favors from melting when we had an early October heat blast that drove temperatures back up into the 90's.  But it's time.  It truly is time. 

I miss you already.  See you in May.

MY COMPUTER HAS CRS SYNDROME (CAN'T REMEMBER SHIT)

Damnit.  It's time to clean up my old computer again.  

I could be using the newer computer more, but loading pictures and editing them and sorting them into folders is so much faster on this old junker, and I don't want to clog up the new one with so many photo files.

Seems I've overloaded this one, yet again, and it's not the sports pictures that are being sacrificed -- It's the load of pictures I took outside today.  The ones I took for fun and shits and giggles.  The stop I made spontaneously that got me within feet of an egret that apparently was just as curious about me as I was about it.

I have so much to do.  I have homework to finish, a paper to write, a house to clean, laundry to get done, papers to file, bills to pay, magazines to recycle…  and now I have to sort through old files, transfer them to DVD's, and start cleaning up the computer backlog.

It's a damn good thing it's a holiday Monday.  Now I can spend my day off doing crazy-ass chores all around the house and sitting at the computer for hours while I dump junk from storage files.

Thank goodness I filled the cooler earlier with beer and ice.  Something tells me it's going to be a long night.

Happy Italian By Birth Then Portuguese By Choice Guy Who Sailed For Spain and Brought European Diseases to the Natives Who Were Perfectly Happy Until We Stuck Our Foreign Asses On Their Hallowed Soil Day!

ODE TO LEAF PEEPERS

Birches are yellow
Maples are red
I wish a big curse
Upon leaf-peepers' heads

You drive all your cars
And clog up the lanes
back from leaf-peeping --
You are royal pains.

Must you all pile in cars
To peep leaves this time?
And why must this poetry
Have rhythm and rhyme?

The highway is blocked
And you are to blame!
Just like in the summer --
It's more of the same!

So here's to leaf peepers
Wherever you roam --
May it be far away and
The rest may STAY HOME.

POST-MEETING MUSING

So, I survived yesterday's meetings.

In the morning there were three meetings running simultaneously.  Our meeting was the only one missing food and drink as both other meetings had coffee, bagels, etc.  By 9:00 we had finished the work that was supposed to take us through to 10:30, but we had to dick around when the bosses came to sit in on our meeting.

The second meeting started at 10:45 and had two (out of six) people who were totally unclear on the concept of what we were doing.  No matter how many times and ways we explained it, we couldn't make them understand, so we finally just barreled through, damn the torpedoes ... and the people unclear on the concept.  Some of us wanted to eat lunch before the last round of meetings.

The afternoon session was a throwback to some paperwork we had to do two weeks ago.  Mine was already 75% done.  The meeting started at 12:30; my work was complete by 1:00.  I consulted with others, met three times with one of the bosses to make sure I was filling everything out properly, and basically busted my ass on the packet we were handed regarding our evaluations.

Finally I pulled the vice principal aside and asked him with whom was I supposed to be meeting to discuss the work I put together? 

He opened his laptop, pulled up the list, and smiled when he said, "Oh, you're still on the old plan.  You don't even have to do this work for another twelve months."

Say, whaaaaaaaaaaaaaaat?!

I just sat here for two and a half hours, yawned my butt off,  wrote until my hand cramped, and sprinkled in my best imitation bullshit big words and bigger sentences mentality, and now you're telling me I didn't even have to do that shit?

I started laughing.  Life is like that some times.  But, next year when they ask for my paperwork, I've got it all done and ready (if I don't misplace it before then).

MEETING BOREDOM

Mwaaaahaaaaa mwuuu mwaaaaa nnnnnnnnnneeeeehhhhhh whaaaaaaaaaahhhh….

You know what that is?  That's the sound I hear all day long as I sit through meeting after meeting after meeting.  The students get a four-day weekend.  Teachers get sentenced to Hell and have to sit through multiple professional development activities, beginning at the normal school day start time and extending beyond the normal finish time.

I will try to listen; I will try to pay attention; I will try to behave myself.  But all I will hear as I listen with about as much attentiveness as I can muster through seven hours of lectures will be the sound of Charlie Brown's teacher.  

Mwaah mwahhhh uuuhmmmhaaah.

My eyes have glazed over and I'm not even in the first meeting yet.  I should paint eyes on my lids so I can sleep and no one will notice.  

Once my friend and cohort sitting across the table from me called me on the cell phone, and we told each other we had to leave the workshop early due to emergencies at home.  We almost made it, too, until someone at our table realized every time she said, "Oh, it's an emergency?  You need me right away?"  I answered back with, "Yes, right away.  Leave your meeting immediately."  Then we switched parts and repeated the exact same conversation but from opposite sides.

"Are you two talking to yourselves?" the interloper finally asked.

I leaned into the phone, "I don't know.  Sal, are you talking to me?"

"I don't know.  Are you talking to me?  Are you talking to meeeeeee?!" 

I've a sad feeling this ploy will not work today.  Please wish me luck.  Send me happy, wakeful thoughts.  Telepath jokes my way.  Anything at all, please, to help me get through this brutally long day. 

But if your phone should happen to ring during this intensely slow day, you'll know it's me by the drooling, yawning sound I make instead of just saying "Hello."  It'll sound a lot like Charlie Brown's teacher.:  Mwwwahhhh iiiiimmmmmmmm booooorrrreeeedddd saaaaaaaaaaavvvve meeeeeeeeeeee.

If I don't come up for air by tomorrow afternoon, send out the rescue party.  

REDESIGNING MY OUTLOOK

At grad class we are doing one of my favorite activities to throw at the kids: Shut up and color.  My professor doesn't call it Shut Up and Color, but that's essentially what we're doing.  Unfortunately, this is the kind of activity that clues my classmates in to just how twisted, warped, and depraved I truly am, so after we Shut Up and Color, I'm probably going to want to do the No One Can See Me Duck and Cover defensive maneuver.

Let me start at the beginning.

We have a young adult novel assigned to us.  It's a book that has very little plot, nothing really happens, and the ending jumps ahead fifteen years without any explanation whatsoever.  Characters are introduced by name, dozens of them, only to have these characters disappear from the remainder of the book.  There are so many holes in this book that a fully-loaded pellet gun couldn't have done a finer job.  In short, the book is packed with pretentious, purple prose juxtaposed with the theme of death, all death, nothing but death -- the earth dies, crops die, people die, whales die, birds die, and the storyline commits massive hari-kari by the fifth chapter.  It is a story about what happens if Earth's rotation slows down so much that days are 60 hours long and everything, absolutely everything except most of the people, amazingly enough, dies.

In simplest terms, I hate it.

Our job for this class is to redesign the cover.  Right now the book has a standard cover with a silhouetted face.  You know, like the cover of so many other disenfranchised young adult novels (Things Not Seen, Speak …)  We have our crayons, markers, and our colored pencils (I brought along a dozen sharpened pencils), and we're ready.  I even charged myself up with an iced coffee.

We are about five minutes into the activity when I look around at my own group, peeking over the protective arms they flung to block others' views.  I see sunshine, phases of the moon, and all kinds of positive imagery.  I peek down at my own paper.

Uh-Oh.

My newly redesigned cover idea is desolate.  It's warped.  It has tints of blood-color in it.  There is a dead bird front and center, and the only thing green on the cover is the warped-from-the-sun house.

The professor is making the rounds, oohing and aaahing and saying wonderful commentary to the others.  Until she gets to mine, that is.  She stands behind me, wringing her hands but with the slightest hint of amusement.  "Oh," she smirks, "What are we going to do with you?  I can't wait to hear you explain this one."

Let me be the first to admit that I'm no artist.  I want that out there right away.  It seems that I am also the only student in the room who took such a bleak and dismal outlook on the story itself.  When it's my turn to defend my artistic choices, I spiel off some bullshit about not including people, leaving the green only for the wooden, non-living structure, and how there is a tinge of blood-red to almost everything.  Folks, that's not because I'm brilliant; it's because I only brought along twelve colored pencils and one of them is uselessly white. 

The class votes on the best newly redesigned cover, and mine doesn't even make it out of my tiny group.  Our top three covers turn out to be hopeful, colorful, cheery masterpieces.  Then there's mine that floats around the fringe like a fungus.

We rename the book, too, from The Age of Miracles to such things as To Kill All the Mockingbirds, I Know Why the Caged Bird Doesn't Sing, The Sun Also Rises … Eventually.  Our titles are irreverent, humorous, dark.  But none so dark as my drawing, which gives me a nice, warm, grisly, somewhat creepy feeling inside. 

Apparently I don't feel too guilty about it either because I sleep like the dead when I get home, as if the whole world is slowing down, spinning endlessly but with such prolonged rotation that I feel as if I sleep for days.  I guess nothing warms my heart like a novel about desolation, death, and destruction. 

Hmmmm…. Sounds like another good topic for a redesign.  See ya later, folks, I've got to get myself ready for a day with the kiddos.  I can't wait to tell them that I've gone completely to the dark side. 

Now Shut Up and Color!

IT'S HUMP DAY, MR. PRINCIPAL. GET OVER YOURSELF.

Dear Vernon Center Middle School Administration in Hartford, CT:

Guess what day it is in your school?  It's CHump Day.  You people and your entire staff should be fired immediately and replaced with people who actually understand the middle school mentality.

Look, honestly, who cares if the students are going around saying, "Guess what day it is?  It's HUMP DAY!"  I could understand if this were a high school and they were using "hump" as a euphemism for ... well ... hump (wink, wink, nudge, nudge, ya know what I mean).  But apparently the only thing annoying staff at your school is the fact that the kids are always yelling, "Guess what day it is?  It's HUMP DAY!"

For the love of Mike, do you have any damn idea how LUCKY you are?  This is your biggest, most pressing issue?  You don't have anyone at all trained in adolescent development to solve this huge, horrible, dangerous problem at your school?

You people are a bunch of fucking idiots.

I could stop this phenomenon in one day, one class period, hell, I could probably stop it in less than five minutes.  Are you ready?  You sure?  Here it comes.  I wouldn't want you to miss it, being Hump Day and all.  Lean close... closer ... put your eyes right up against the computer screen so you don't let it pass you by.  Here's the secret solution:

Have all the adults in your building start asking, "Guess what day it is?  It's HUMP DAY!"

Start every announcement with, "Guess how many more days until Hump Day? ... Today is Hump Day ... It has been two days since Hump Day..."  Have the teachers ask the students in the hallways and the lunchroom and the classrooms, "Guess what day it is?  C'mon, c'mon, guess guess guess guess... Guess what day it is?"

Once the students see and hear the adults tossing the phrase around, it will no longer be cool.  Not only will it not be cool, it'll be freakin' freezing.  They will stop saying it and they'll be quite annoyed by it... You know, like your staff is annoyed by it right now.  Middle Schoolers are annoying -- it's their job, and they're damn good at it.  It's sort of the basic behavior of that age group.  You people need to get over yourselves.

But that's really not the point.  The point is that you could have a gunman in your building slaughtering children.  You could have a roof collapse during a sudden tornado and wipe out entire grades-worth of students.  You could have a rash of cancer deaths due to contaminated water polluting the school filtration system.  You could have kids committing heinous acts of violence upon each other. You could have kids committing suicide, doing drugs, hungry, homeless...

No, you have kids who annoy you because they keep saying it's Hump Day.  Hump Day.  Goddamn mother-fucking Hump Day.

What the hell is wrong with you people?  I'd tell you to grow up, but I seriously think that's what your problem is -- you've grown old and stale and irrelevant.  I wish that were the biggest problem at our school, I truly do.  I wish the worst thing I had to worry about today is how many times I have to hear, "Guess what day it is?  GUESS WHAT DAY IT IS?!"  I would kiss the ground those kids walk on if they were all healthy, happy, and alive enough to tell me 1,000 times a day every single day, "It's Hump Day!"

I apologize, Vernon Center Middle School administration and staff.  I don't know you, this is true, at least I don't know you personally.  But I know of you.  I know dozens of people like you.  If you're burnt out, take a leave of absence.  But if Hump Day drives you into the Middle School Overload Zone, then there isn't enough Valium nor training courses nor professional development opportunities in the world to cure you.

Instead of punishing the kids for saying. "Guess what day it is?  It's Hump Day," why don't you worry about truly crucial things like making sure the kids get educated and feel safe and nurtured in your school.  Please remember that to some of these kiddos, you are the only sane, stable, secure adult in their lives.  Don't fuck it all up over Hump Day.  Jump on the damn camel and join the fun.

Sincerely,

A Middle School Teacher Who is Mysteriously and Perpetually Stuck in Junior High Mode Who Wants You To Guess What Day It Is ... C'mon, Guess Guess Guess Guess Guess Guess ...

MONDAY NIGHTMARE

Sometimes my dreams scare the shit out of me.

This doesn't happen because they're actually scary, although that does happen on occasion.  What scares me is how damn real they are.

Take Monday morning, for example.

Mondays suck ass to start with, so I think my brain should be forgiven in advance for anything it conjures.  But this Monday is insane.  You see, I'm an alarm clock addict.  I obsess and check and recheck and triple check and quadruple check my alarms before I go to bed.  I set one alarm that's in the room with me, and I set a second battery-operated alarm clock in the next room, you know, in case the electricity goes out during the night or the radio station is fuzzy or I've slept-walked and already shut the damn thing off.  (All of these things have happened, by the way.)

Imagine my sheer horror waking to no alarm and discovering it's 7:00 a.m. on a Monday morning.  I snap out of bed, start clicking off the list of things I have to do:  finding something to wear and getting ready to call work to tell them I'm running late and throwing the bed together and turning on the television to try and get a weather report so I can figure out if it's an open- or closed-toe shoe day.  My heart is pounding out of my chest, and I'm sure I'm having a dizzy spell because suddenly I am very light-headed and the room melts away a little bit at the edges.

And I wake up.  No, seriously, this is where I wake up for real.  I focus on the clock that says 5:24 a.m., the clock that is currently set to Power Ocho Ciento, the local Latino station, but has six more minutes of sleep time before blaring out a fiesta of music into the air.  I am still in bed under the covers, and I realize I have been dreaming the whole damn time.

Dreaming.   

Dreaming.  

Dreeeeeeeeeeammmmming.

Like I don't have enough things keeping me awake, now the dream of not being awake on time is waking me up on time.  Then comes the deja vu.  I make the bed haphazardly, trudge downstairs, shower, watch the news to decide what to wear, run late, and panic as 7:00 a.m. chimes on an even different clock, and I realize I have somehow managed to run myself a few minutes late even though I got up on time.

Ack!  My dream is coming true.  Like the guy in Chris Van Allsburg's The Sweetest Fig (by far the darkest, most frightening, twisted children's book you will ever read), life is imitating dream-states, and it's going to get ugly if I get caught in anything that slightly resembles traffic.

Monday morning.  Small wonder even dreaming about it scares the shit out of me.

PRETTY IN PINK

Who saw the video of the postal worker driving over the front lawn to chuck mail on the porch because she was too lazy to walk fifteen feet up the sidewalk?  If you're a postal worker, don't bother raising your hand; we already know you're too lazy.

My former stepfather-in-law worked for the post office.  He used to say it was the cushiest job he ever had, and that says a lot from a one-time town selectman.  He used to complain all the time, too.  "They actually expect me to SORT MAIL."  Yeah, Dan, that's kind of how it works, buddy.

But this... this video is just insane.  First of all, the dumb bitch was too lazy to even get into her uniform.  Lest you think the video is a joke, the local post office has already apologized for the woman's behavior.  The video shows this lumbering moron toddle out of the mail truck after she has maneuvered and re-maneuvered the vehicle to be exactly in line with the front steps, half on the asphalt and half on the lawn.  The lawn, you know, where the sprinkler system is.  Her pinkness, for she is wearing a fluorescent pink shirt, isn't even mildly close to the regulated light blue required by the USPS.  But hey, she wasn't planning on actually exiting the mail truck at all today, so who cares that she's still in her Princess Cinderella nightshirt.

In the video, it takes this USPS driver three tries to pull up to the porch and just as many to back out again.  This really shouldn't be so complicated a process.  After all, she's not being scored on her routine; a simple dismount followed by about a dozen steps would've done the trick.

We talk about the government shutdown, and we talk about essential versus nonessential employees and we have a high unemployment rate and we have rampant cases of nepotism in the government job sector.  The least thing this woman, this lazy employee can do, is get off her bulbous ass and walk back and forth to her mail truck.

Hey, lazy USPS woman, you pull that shit at my house, you'd better be prepared to meet my security team, Smith & Wesson.  No, that's not a threat.  Let's just pretend those are the names of my really, really vicious guinea pigs.

And there is great wonder about why many of us don't give one flying shit if some of these hacks never go back to work.

YOU WERE EXPECTING A BLOG?

I know, I know; you're expecting a blog.

Let me be perfectly honest with you: We are in Red Sox playoff season and Bruins opening season.  Did I mention the Patriots are playing on Sunday?  Guess what.  The Patriots are playing on Sunday. 

I'll be lucky to produce gibberish at this point.

The Sox and the Bruins overlapped Saturday, and I speed-channel-changed between the two games, catching a Bruins' goal, seeing a Sox run come in, catching another Bruins' goal.  I did miss two goals in the B's game, but it's all good because one of them belonged to Detroit.  I like the Red Wings' logo, but I don't like it enough to want them to win or anything like that.

Pats play the Bengals, who have great helmets (or used to -- I'll find out tomorrow if they still have them).  But the Sox are playing Tampa Bay, a team with a lame logo.  I'm thinking we should beat them just on logo style alone.

So I apologize in advance to my neighbors who have to listen to the loud television and me yelling and/or cheering at it during the season, especially when two of these seasons overlap.  There's no need to call the asylum.  It'll all be better in a few weeks.