MONDAY, OH, MONDAY

Monday, Oh, Monday,
How I do hate you.
You sneak up so sneakily
Just like you meant to.
You make my life miserable,
You are so vile,
Getting up on a Monday
Takes such a long while.
Monday, oh, Monday,
It's an altercation:
Get ready, let's rumble...
Um, wait.  It's vacation.

Never mind then.

I'LL GIVE YOU MY SPOT WHEN I LEAVE

There are three reasons why I get up early and haul my butt to the beach by 9:00 a.m. on a Saturday morning. This "early to the coast" has been a habit of mine for decades -- When someone says, "Let's go to the beach" (or when I decide to go by myself), there's no point in drawing the process out.  Get up, get going, get there, get sunburnt, get home.  These are my simple concepts.  Why?  Why would I choose to get up so early just to relax?

Reason #1:  All of the best parking spaces are taken by 10:00 a.m.  All of the other parking spaces (mediocre to crappy) are taken by 10:15 a.m.  Really, if you're later than that, why bother?

Reason #2:  If I get to the beach early enough, I can leave early and the whole day hasn't been blown sitting in the sand.  Take Saturday, for example.  I get home in time for the singing of the national anthems at the noon World Cup soccer match, and I end up missing nothing.

Reason #3: There are not too many people on the beach that early.  I hate people.  This gives me the chance to be asocial without appearing too weird.  People are supposed to pick their own spots at the beach - It's not considered weird to separate yourself from humanity when picking a spot in the sand.

The water is warmer than I expect it, which is nice except I can't go in too far because I have chosen a spot in the midst of the surfers.  I remember to come back over the breakwall before the incoming tide isolates me from the stairs that lead up to my car.  (Actually, there are many stairs all leading to a sidewalk that leads to the parking spaces, but it's better to walk along the sand than the pavement.) 

The best part of going to the beach early today is that it is low tide. That means that the entire beach is exposed and walkable.  At high tide, most of the beach disappears as the water crawls right up to the famous Wall, but this morning I walk two miles up and back again.  I stop near the end to collect two giant quohog (locally spelled sometimes as guahog) shells.  Walking/jogging back I hear a girl whine to her mother, "But LOOK.  SHE found shells!"  Sure I did, Kid.  I worked/walked for those shells.

There are two equally compelling perks to being at the beach and leaving the beach early.  The first perk is that strangers vie for the parking space as I vacate it, making me a hero to one car and a villain to dozens more.  The second perk is laughing and waving at all the cars backed up for miles and miles and miles and miles waiting to get to the coast, people who decide that a 10:00 a.m. start time from their driveway is going to get them to the beach any time before dinner.  There are spots of the highway that are moving at a semi-normal pace, but those spots are few and far between.  Traffic is backed up off and on for twenty miles on routes 1, 95, and 495.  For all those poor suckers who won't see the beach until it's too late to really enjoy it (aka "No spot in the sand"), I've already been there and done that.

Sometimes pals tag along, but it's a rare friend willing to head out by 8:15 a.m. at the latest.  So when a pal asks, "You wanna go to the beach tomorrow?  I can pick you up around 10:30..."  I just laugh and laugh.  I'll be halfway through my beach day by then.  I tell you what -- meet me up there; I'll give you my spot when I leave.

WHY I DON'T TOLERATE SCREAMING CHILDREN

I am going to say something that might piss off a lot of people.  Good thing not a whole lot of people read this blog.  Doesn't matter - It's my blog, and I can say whatever I damn-well please.  Okay, ready?  here it comes:

If your children scream bloody murder in public, do not bring your children out in public.

No, I'm serious.  I don't care if your toddler is cranky and tired, and I don't care if your kid has emotional and sensory issues, and I don't care if your kid has other things going on that force it to scream and cry and throw tantrums in public.

It's unacceptable.

Okay, maybe it's acceptable at Chuck E. Cheese or McDonald's Play-Land or the kiddie section of the amusement park, but in an otherwise polite society, your out-of-control kid has no business assaulting other people's ear space.

Take this morning, for example.  I'm at the track, which doubles as a playing field and a kids' playground.  I should expect kids to be at a playground, which I do, but it's barely after 8:30 a.m.  I'm at about mile 2 when I first hear the noise.  The noise I'm talking about is a screeching, crying, out-of-control toddler being carried sideways by its older sister, howling so loudly that its voice is reverberating across the field and echoing back from the trees and river beyond.  They are coming from a van and to the open field area.

Now, some of you are saying, "Oh, that poor little cherub must be tired..."  Yes, well, then at 8:30 a.m., perhaps its mother or guardian ought to keep it home (or in the van with her) until it is properly awake and functional.  Some of you are even thinking, "Screw that, maybe the kid needs to let off steam.  Don't be so judgmental."  Really?  because, you see, there is an elegant apartment building and several rows of single-family homes all within yards of this merciless noise.  I'm not the only one being treated to this horror.

The poor soccer coach who is giving a lesson to a teenager in the middle of the field must yell to be heard over the piercing cries.  Let's be honest -- NO ONE wants to listen to this child freak out at 8:45 in the morning.  I, personally, don't want to listen to it EVER, but I'm trying to be reasonable.  It's too frigging early for this shit.

I make it to mile 2.5, and the little fucker is still screaming, louder and more persistently than before.  I do feel sorry for the lone adult having to listen to this all day long, which I assume she does since she is coddling the screamer and cooing to it gently while it arches from her grasp and continues its tirade like a trapped alien life form.  Finally, at mile 2.79, I've had enough.  The noise is deafening and irritating as well as just plain goddamned impolite.  I won't be making 3.0 miles this morning.

As I pack it in and go back to my car, another mother shows up with more kids, one of whom whacks my car while I'm sitting in it.  The mother, clearly unconcerned about the damage her child is inflicting, simply says, "Watch your head!"  Your head?  Watch the damn car next to you, you little fucker!

Deep breath.  deep breath.  It's only the start of summer break.  I'm still in kid-withdrawal mode, apparently, and my patience is ragged.

Although, I never allowed my children to behave that way in public.  They tried that trick once and only once.  One of them, I do not remember which of the older two it was, attempted a meltdown in a department store over a toy.  Calmly but rapidly, out of the carriage they both came, and we swiftly left the store. 

Shocked and unclear on the concept, one of them asked, "Why did we leave?"

The answer is simple:  "We do NOT behave like that in public EVER.  NEVER."  And we left the parking lot, the half-filled carriage still sitting in the aisle of the store. They never pulled that stunt a second time.

My parents did the same with us.  If any of the five of us couldn't behave while out in public, one parent completed the mission (or finished the meal) while the other took the offender(s) to the car.  It's just how it was.  Tantrums were not tolerated, and, if we absolutely had to have one, it wasn't going to be in a place that disturbed others.

Am I mean-spirited?  Do I not understand children?  Am I hating on children with issues?

Naw.  I just think there's a little something called "parenting" that needs to go on.  It may be your right to bring your tantrum-throwing child into public, but I have the right not to listen to it screech.  Since I was at a semi-playground, I chose to leave.  Be aware, though, if it's an adult establishment like a nice restaurant or a movie theater, I will ask you to shut your kid up and I'll only ask nicely once.

USA AT THE PUB

Day #2 of summer break ... Don't worry, I won't give you a day-by-day, play-by-play of my entire time off.  Today is important, though.  Today is USA World Cup Soccer Day, the day that will determine if we continue on from the Group of Death or not. 

I head down to Newton to meet up with my son and his friend, who is also a teacher.  Son has taken the day off of work, so the three of us are going to a pub near his house to watch the game.  The place isn't too crowded, but, then again, it is basically a bar, and it is only 11:45 a.m. on a Thursday.  It's probably not peak time for the place.

The game starts at noon, and we strategically sit at the corner of the bar, able to watch both the USA vs. Germany game and the Portugal vs.Ghana game, which also figures into the USA team's chances of moving on to the knock-out round.  The barkeep asks us if we want to order food, and we decide to wait a little bit.

Bad decision.

Apparently the pub staff did not count on a heavy workday crowd because within minutes the place is packed, not one open table or stool, and the bartender is having a tough time keeping up with the orders.  His lone cook pokes his head out once and only once -- the guy deserves battle pay today.  By the time the national anthems have been sung, the entire pub is knee-deep in chicken wings and beer. 

At one point after Ghana has scored on the opposite television screen, someone in the bar cheers.  We all jump on him to stop cheering because we need Ghana's goal differential to stay low (nonexistent would've been better).  Poor guy didn't know he was amongst serious futbol fans in a small pub around the corner from the police station.  We forgive him and crawl back under two baskets of wings and three mugs of beer.

In the end, even though USA loses in a rainy slug-fest, the team advances.  The diving, though still embarrassingly blatant, isn't as horrible as some of the other games, but there is still a fair amount of B-movie-level acting going on.  Within fifteen minutes of the games ending, the bar is practically a ghost town again.

I go home the back way, an experiment to avoid commuter traffic, and I only screw up the directions once.  I end up in Woburn instead of Billerica, which is fine because I know my way home from both towns.  I avoid the highway like the plague, which I encounter four times while driving over it and under it and around it, and each time it is at a four-lane stand-still parking lot.  I also realize that even though it has taken me longer to get home because I went the wrong way, I still get home six miles shorter than I do taking the highway, and it has been a much more relaxing drive (even with the screw-ups).  I even realize that the tapas place I've been to is pretty close to my son's house.  I make a mental note to mention it the next time we're hanging out --

-- which won't be Tuesday.  I have Tuesday off, but I know my son doesn't.  Game is on at 3:30, I believe.  Any takers?  I know a great pub...

SUMMER BREAK - DAY #1

This is my first summer break in three years that I have not been attending grad school full-time.  This is also the first summer in two years that I have not been planning nor living through children's weddings, which is sad because both weddings were a blast.  I have plenty to keep me busy if and when I get to it:  Going through a three-foot-high tall pile of files from school, going through a two-foot-high tall pile of thesis drafts, de-cluttering the spare room, clearing multi-files off my desk-top computer, and cleaning out the basement.

So, which chore shall I tackle on my first day of summer vacation?  Here's my schedule:

5:30 a.m.  --  Wake up like it's a usual school-day; realize it isn't; go back to sleep until alarm goes off

7:00 a.m.  --  Alarms goes off

7:15-7:30 a.m.  -- Make youngest child's lunch and dinner (working two jobs today) for his cooler

8:00 a.m.  -- Check email; Post blog; decide to take a walk

8:45 a.m.  -- Download Map My Walk app to cell phone

9:15 a.m.  --  Finally get out the door to begin walk; start all up hill for a mile

9:15 - 10:15 a.m.  --  Walk all over the place, through Phillips Academy, touch Harriet Beecher Stowe's grave marker, head to the middle school track, realize construction of the youth center is destroying said track, walk halfway back up the hill, cut over, get sprayed by a lawn sprinkler, double-back over my original tracks, arrive home and realize I only went about 2.41 miles and spent way too much time stopping to inspect things.

11:00 a.m.  --  Make a fruit smoothie because I intend to be healthy; take vitamins for the same reason.

12:00 p.m. -- Shower

1:00 p.m.  -- Pick up friend and head to New Hampshire to exchange a shirt I bought my son; see construction blocking south-bound lanes of I-93 and make mental note to go home a different way; return one shirt and buy two more.

1:45 p.m.  -- Driving home the back way, we remember to find one of the two bakeries that sells fresh pita bread and hummus, and the owner thinks we're insane (because we are so excited) so he gives us a discount (and locks the door behind us...)

2:00 p.m.  -- We sit in the shade of friend's backyard for a few hours and eat hummus, pita bread, pita chips, and some spinach/feta/onion concoction that is amazingly tasty.

5:00  --  We decide to head to the grocery store so I can get sandwich meat (for youngest child's lunches) and my friend can get a cucumber for her gazpacho.

6:15 p.m.  -- I get home and still feel good about myself for eating healthy on my first day of vacation; then I stuff my face with chicken and corn bread.

6:45 p.m.  --  Turn on air conditioners all over the house because it's in the high 80's outside with high humidity, and I don't want that inside my house for sleeping weather tonight.

7:00  -- Run laundry because youngest child needs clothes for work.

8:30 p.m.  --  Bake a batch of chocolate chip cookies (the cheating kind that you buy in the refrigerator section and cut into squares); eat three of the twenty-four cookies I make but drink down a glass of milk, too.  Does this make me healthy still?  Isn't chocolate a food of the gods?

9:00  --  Fold laundry.

9:30 p.m.  --  Youngest arrives home from both jobs; I show him the new shirts; he is properly and politely appreciative.

10:00 p.m.  --  Watch the live weather radar as four inches of rain dumps all over parts of northwestern Massachusetts and southwestern New Hampshire, flash-flood warnings are issued, and I hope to God that shit doesn't come here with the same vengeance.

11:00 p.m.  --  Write up the retrospective of today's First Official Day of Summer Vacation and declare it an absolute success.

MOVING DAY

Turns out it's harder to leave the old school than I thought it would be. My school is undergoing both construction and re-struction (remodeling) over the next year, and the entire middle school will be relocating to the old high school for a year. 

Honestly I never thought that our 1960's era school was in such bad shape, and this belief is confirmed when I tour our temporary digs, which are in need of more than a facelift.  We have the best janitorial staff in the universe, so after every single vacation and often times just because, our school has always been shiny and spiffy and polished.  Even on its worst day, it still seemed fine. 

I have a fondness for the cinder block walls of the old schools.  When I started elementary school, my first classroom was cinder block.  My second one was in the old wooden part of the school, the original school house part, which was also very nice, too.

Maybe I just like school buildings. 

Leaving this building today is difficult.  I am fine all day until around 11:00 a.m.  Then I begin getting sentimental.  I've been in several rooms in this building.  I started in A-4, then shared A-4 with A-27 and A-33.  Then I moved to B-8-B (which eventually became a hallway when the new construction started and the mods moved), and then upstairs to A-22, then back down to A-4, then to A-6, and finally to A-8 (my favorite room because it has a little stage in it, which is really a constructed platform hiding something awful like electrical wires or a sink hole or old grade staff members).

Around 11:21, when the kids are dismissed, the feeling creeps up even more.  By 11:30, I kind of don't want to leave the building at all because it's going to be gone soon.  Well, not gone gone, just gone as I know it.  I was hired here right out of grad school when I decided this would be a career

change for me.  This building put its faith in me, and I feel like I'm letting it down somehow.

True, I draw on its recovered blackboards, and I let the kiddos write all over the plywood walls.  We give the room and the school a wonderful send-off, writing precepts and good advice on the cinder block walls of the gym.  But still.  This has been my home for fifteen years.  Plus, I'm being moved to another team, so there are even more changes afoot along with the move.

It's sad.  And it's happy.  And it's bad.  And it's good.

Here's to my final classroom, how it looks on moving day and how much I'm actually going to miss it -- plywood prison and all.

MAY THE CHALK BE WITH YOU

As promised, I arrive at school today with chalk for my absolutely glass-like chalkboards.  Turns out these beautiful, brand-new surfaces were covered over with white boards because the cherubs have chalk allergies.

Chalk ... allergies.

Now we cannot have school supplies because someone has chalk allergies.  What next? Ink allergies?  Paper allergies?  Math allergies?  Homework allergies?  Thinking allergies?

I did not ask my students if they are allergic to chalk.  I don't care.  No one ever in the history of my entire school career has ever had a chalk allergy nor has anyone whom I know ever died from being near a chalkboard (unless it fell on his head, in which case he could and might be dead and then the chalk dust would be the least of his problems). 

The crates have all been packed for the move, and I have one drawer with a few bags of supplies in it that will take me less than two minutes to stuff into a file drawer.  So today, while the kiddos are playing a survival game and signing their names to my plywood prison walls, I decorate my two chalkboards.  One board is about 4'x3' and one board is about 4'x8'.  They are both clean (I washed them Saturday) and absolutely smooth as beach stones.

Two and a half hours later, I am done.  I could keep adding to the masterpieces, but I am afraid that more may not be better.  I am pleased when later the vice principal stops by and I show him what I have done.

"See?  I told you all I needed was some chalk!" 

He smiles, but I know in his brain he is wondering what the hell is wrong with me.  I mean, truly.  I am way too excited about these chalkboards, and we both know it. 

Anyway, I am not erasing my work.  I am going to let it go down with the building.  Be at peace, my wonderful masterpiece.  Be at one with the school.  Godspeed, blackboard.; May the chalk be with you.

PUT A STICKER ON IT

On Saturday I'm up at the ass-crack of dawn, just after 5:00 a.m., and I cannot fall back asleep.  Part of the reason is because I nap for an hour Friday evening on the couch.  The other part of the reason is a school email I receive.

The email contains a detailed list of what teachers must do to get out of the building on time on Tuesday at 11:21 (but who's counting?).  We are moving temporarily to the old high school for a year while our school gets remodeled and connected to the new school, so everything, and I do mean everything, has to be packed into crates, and the crates must be packed in increments of four crates to a stack. No more, no less.

The last full week of school has been fraught with fun activities that keep interrupting our attempts to close grades.  Truth-- The field trip to the Aquarium to watch a 3-D movie about Great White sharks is way cool, and Friday's field day goes off without a hitch (except for my finger and one kid's mouth).  Another truth -- I need to finish packing.  I need time alone in my classroom.

Which brings me back to the email… Nonchalantly placed near the bottom of the extensive list of bullet points is the information that the building will be open on Saturday from 7:00 a.m. until 2:00 p.m.

I haven't put in a Saturday school day since I was in fifth grade and we had so many snow days in our small New Hampshire town that we had to put in some half-day Saturday classes.  I remember it fondly: the bus partially-full as the high schoolers either had sports, work, or sleeping to do, and we youngsters in our most casual Saturday attire.  As long as we hit a certain attendance percentage and put in a half day, that state didn't care what we did, so we made puppets out of paper mache, put on plays, and played games.

I honestly have no intention of going in on Saturday, but the email eats away at me, and I wake up at 5:00 a.m. (remember - I took an hour-long nap before hitting my regular sleep cycle), completely restless and ready to go finish this packing.  I head off, water bottle in hand, and stop off at Dunkins for a blueberry muffin.

As soon as I near the school, I notice another car on the road with me, and I watch from my rearview mirror as it pulls into the parking lot.  It's another English teacher, arriving to pack up her room, as well.  Our electronic fobs don't work, so we knock on the metal front door and grab the attention of the workers who are already there prepping the move and collecting our desktop computers.

I am an expert packer and have moved classrooms seven times in the fifteen years I've been at the school, but I must abandon my boxes and pack everything into crates, which I do with incredible precision.  I also clear out one of my filing cabinets, and stuff much of what I might need over the next few days (like markers, writing utensils, headache medication) into it. 

Before I have a chance to get to the serious work of the day, which includes going through my desk, packing up pens and pencils and thumbtacks and staples removers, etc., the vice principal comes by with a drill.  He is removing usable white boards to stockpile at the old high school in case we need them.  We take down two of my three boards because they are still somewhat coated, and we discover pristine blackboards beneath.  I am so excited about this that I start babbling, "Is there any chalk in the office?  Tell me we have chalk in the office!  Please, please, please.  I need chalk.  I need chalk right now!"  Unfortunately the one box of chalk left in the school has been packed, so I write myself a note to buy white and colored chalk when I leave the building today.  I am so going to color on my chalkboards on Monday and Tuesday.  I even wash them down to make sure they are ready for me at 7:30 a.m. when the last full-day of the school year starts.

I have already packed most of my personal files and school paraphernalia, so I decide to tackle the large pile of text books that belong to grade seven English.  I get to the last crate and still have room for nineteen more hardcover anthologies. 

Another English teacher has shown up (what the hell is wrong with us, anyway?!), and I sneak through her class to grab nineteen more text books from a stockpile in the room connected to hers.  Closing the top flap of crate #16, I have packed my room up completely, packed up my class library of hundreds of novels, my class set of dictionaries, my class set of writing books, my class set of anthologies, and my class set of the grade-level novel.  I have also packed up more than three hundred extra books.  There is not one whisper of spare room in the crates, they are stacked four high as instructed, and I am smugly pleased with myself.

Until (there must always be an "until" in these tales) one of the other English teachers mentions we are supposed to take our printers with us.  I thought the printer would be part of the tech-computer collection, but apparently not.  Sonofabitch.  There is no more room in my file cabinet, and the crates are packed to the gills.  I refuse to go grab four more crates to pack a printer because then I will be madly obsessed with filling them all, and I will end up packing up another English teacher's textbooks just to fulfill my OCD.

The vice principal comes by for a second time.  I ask him about the printer, and he tells me to go get another crate.  No, I tell him, I'm not packing another set of crates.  I am packed to perfection.  He instructs me to put a sticker on the printer with my new room number on it.  Will that get it to the high school? I ask.   Yes, he assures me, after the movers plop it into a crate.  So much for space economy.  Oh well.  I put a sticker on it.

I leave Saturday School feeling damn good about myself knowing that I have packed better than anyone in the known universe, that, like my brother Chris, who is an expert packer/mover/storer, and our father before us, I, too, have inherited the Perfect Packing gene.

This feeling is wonderful and sustains me.  Until (wow, two "untils" in this tale can only be bad news) … until I wake up in a cold sweat at 5:00 Sunday morning and realize that the movers now have to unpack everything that I have packed, bit by bit, book by book, piecemeal by piecemeal.  This also means that it will be loose all over my new room, and that the summer janitorial staff may flip out having to move it all to clean the rooms for the new school year.

Damn damn damn damn damn damn! 

WHY did I not just load the books into boxes and load the boxes into the crates?  Oh yeah.  Because originally we were told we could only have four crates, so I stuffed them as full as scientifically possible.  I was just following directions.

I roll around and let this thought invade my brain for like an hour, then I get up at 6:00 a.m. and send an email to the vice principal, explaining my conundrum.  Should I repack everything?  Should I leave a note of apology inside each top crate?  Should I volunteer to roll all the crates to the high school (halfway down a rather steep but small hill and around the corner)?  Crap.  What to do, what to do.

The vice principal assures me that I can probably get into my new classroom on Friday.  I will take the remainder of the boxes that I had been giving away (no more), along with a bunch of shopping bags, and organize what I can of the loose books after the unfortunate workers have to unload the bins. 

Now my perfect packing seems like a perfect flop. 

Tell you what.  When next spring rolls around, I need YOU people to remember this conversation.  Remind me:  Pack the damn books into boxes and fit the boxes inside the crates.  BRILLIANT.  A day late and a dollar short, but brilliant, just the same.

Now, if I can just remember to bring a tape measure with me so I can measure the insides of the crate to see just what size boxes will fit the best, I'll be in great shape… for next June.

IT'S BUNNYLAND AT CAT TV

We are sitting outside at Cat TV, minding our own business, just like always.  Cat TV is my friend's patio, where she has strategically placed a bird feeding station close to her sliding glass door.  Close enough for her indoor cats to watch the birds' feeding frenzies, but far enough contained for her indoor cats to be unable to disturb the birds' feeding frenzies.

It's a wonderful evening, a bit chilly even, so we pack it in after an hour.  We could build a fire in the pit, but that would require energy, and both of us have expended three day's worth of reserve strength today.  This leads us to abandon our stations at the patio table and come back inside.

When we do this, a strange phenomenon takes over the yard.  It becomes Bunnyland.  All of a sudden, a half dozen wild bunnies come running across the grass, and by running, I mean tear-assing like escaped mental patients on trampolines.  They chase each other, play Tag with each other, and jump like kangaroos over each other.

It is, to be completely honest, frigging hilarious.  It's also fascinating to watch.  My friend and I cannot take our eyes of these little furry acrobats. 

The show goes on for about ten minutes.  We are completely sober, which probably makes this even funnier.  Had we been sipping Sangria with alcohol in it, we might think this scene is completely normal.  "Oh look, here comes Cirque de Rabbit.  I didn't know we'd gotten tickets again this year..." 

As we stare through the glass doors at the crazy shenanigans, we have become one with the cats.  We are now witnessing what they witness every day.  Maybe this isn't Cat TV after all.  Maybe it's Nature TV and we've just been selling it short.

Nah.  We never sell Cat TV short.  We understand how great Cat TV is.  We just didn't realize the birds weren't the best part of the entertainment.

ULTIMATE FUN!

Today is field day, that wild card of a day when weather can wreak havoc on the best laid plans.  In years past we've had torrential downpours (indoor activities) and heat so bad that severe armpit sweat was actually the driest of our bodily perspiration zones.  This year, though, the weather totally cooperates -- sunny, breezy, high 70's, blue skies.

I've signed up to help my teammate on the Ultimate Frisbee field.  I know a little bit about Ultimate Frisbee, but the whole end zone change-up drives me crazy with my short attention span and my lack of a sense of direction.  I figure that I can tag-team my buddy, though, so we can take turns sitting in the shade if necessary.

We gather some kiddos and start a game.  I've watched this game for years but never played, so we all warm up with some disc tossing, which turns out well.  Apparently throwing a Frisbee is a skill never forgotten, like riding a bike or spitting cherry pits into a strategically-placed bowl.

By the time we pick teams and start a game, I have enough energy to actually run down the field.  My first handle results in me scoring a goal, and I'm very excited about that.  I might've cheated, I don't know because I don't know the rules, but I'm pumped.  I jump around and scream, waving the disc in the air and scaring the buhjeezus out of the locals who've made the mistake of coming to the park on our field day.

After the game winds down, we go back to flinging the Frisbee around.  Suddenly I get a severe pain in the middle finger of my left hand.  When I look at it, it is obvious that I have dislocated it.  This has happened to another finger when I popped it out and back in again lifting weights at the gym a couple of years ago.  I try to pop it back in myself, but it's not quite working.  My teammate comes up and pulls my finger back into place.  By the time we have accomplished getting my hand back to almost-normal, my finger is turning a little black and blue in the middle and tingles like pins and needles, but I have my finger back.  I can play with the Frisbee and/or chuck the bird if necessary.  I'm as good as new.

As soon as that injury is taken care of, a student takes a Frisbee to the mouth.  He seems okay and doesn't lose any chicklets, but we go in search of ice because he is bleeding a little bit and the lip is swelling some.  No ice can be found, and we wait five minutes for the nurse, who never shows up, so we haul our bloody mouth and purple finger back to the Ultimate Frisbee field.

After a while of more playing, we take a break to play World Cup Soccer.  This involves my teammate and me running at one another, pretending to smack into each other, counting to three, then falling onto the ground like we've been shot while we motion to the make-believe ref.  My teammate also pretends to blend into the grass (we are wearing green shirts) while I hide (not very effectively) in the shade of a flag pole. 

We continue doing this off and on for about an hour -- playing Ultimate, tossing the disc, pretending to be soccer players, and hiding in the grass and shade.  We accost everyone, teachers and students alike, who comes near the field, assuring them that if they touch the field, they must play with us.  We fling Frisbees at them if they refuse.

Our game of Ultimate Frisbee never really catches on.  Sometimes we play, sometimes we blend into the grass, and sometimes we have impromptu chicken fights (piggy back wars) with the students.  No one is really supervising us as the administration mistakenly assumes my teammate and I are the mature adults at our field station. 

Ultimately (get it?  Frisbee joke!), we make our way back to the school via buses, have enough time for a brief locker cleanout, and prep for our last day and a half of school next week.  Next year my teammate won't be my teammate anymore after seven years together -- she's moving down to sixth grade and I've been moved to the other grade seven team -- but we can still sign up to supervise Ultimate Frisbee again. 

After all, we got through it with only two injuries, one of which is mine so it doesn't really count.  That rates as a success as far as I'm concerned.

PACKING TWICE -- IT'S ALL THE RAGE

My school is moving for a year to the old high school.  This is part of what the town refers to as "progress."  We have been packing rolling crates for days now, including personal student files, confidential material, curriculum files, etc.  The only instructions we were given:  "Pack the crates carefully because to unpack them, you'll reverse the process..."  (Duh.)

After spending an extra three hours in my class this afternoon/evening packing stuff up, we all get an email tonight:  "Crates will be unpacked by the moving crew..."

What?  WHAT?!

So the electronics that I packed will be sitting in a room for anyone to grab until September.  And the toys and games that I packed will be sitting out until September, just calling out to anyone passing through the building ... the old teachers who are moving from the high school to the new school and the teachers (like me) moving to the high school building for a year.

That means there are two, probably three, crates that I need to unpack and hide the contents inside my now-empty file cabinet instead, like my electric hole punch and my Apples to Apples game and ...

I have to be honest.  I started throwing loose shit into the crates that still had space, stuff like pencil holders and a bloody arm from Halloween and score sheets for Yahtzee.  I figured that I'd be the one doing the emptying, so I wasn't too concerned with law & order amongst packing.

I mean, really.  What will the movers think when they come across stuffed Arthur the Aardvark, a plastic frog, a Staples "Easy" button, wire coat hangers, and the giant glass paperweight with the strange orange thing inside that looks like a giant wart?  Or when they see the Snoopy playing cards, the Polly Pocket with her own beach chair and sandals?

Yup.  I'm going to go repack some of that shit tomorrow.  All over again.  In the heat of my plywood prison.

Progress sucks.

DUDE, WHERE'S MY RIDE?

My teammate at school is having a bad day. 

I am halfway to work when my phone rings.  Instantly my brain goes to the bad place:  Who's hurt?  Who's locked out of the house?  Who got arrested?  Turns out it is my team leader on the phone.

ME:  Hello?
SHE:  Hey, have you left for work already?
ME:  Yup.  Why?  Do you need a ride? 
SHE:  Well ...
ME:  I'm at Wildwood Road.  I'm turning as we speak.

Before she can finish telling me the story, I have squealed my tires in an effort not to miss the street that is more to my left than it is in my line of vision.  Thank goodness the car behind me isn't driving up my ass, as is the customary morning routine along route 28 where we all drive up each others' asses in an effort to outrun the school buses that stop at every other house.

Turns out my teammate and trusty team leader's car won't start.  The extent of my car knowledge is pretty much this:

1.  If the brakes squeak, you might need new pads.  If they grind, you need new brakes.
2.  If the car sputters and stalls out, you either need gas or the choke throttle is shot.
3.  If the car won't start and the lights won't come on, your battery is dead.

Turns out to be option #3.  After deciding the battery can wait until after work, she hops into my car, and off we go.  This could be the happy end to the story. 

But wait.

We are going on a field trip today to the New England Aquarium and the IMAX Theater.  We're taking over 200 children plus chaperones with us, and we manage to squish onto five yellow buses.  Add to this the fact that it's in the high eighties for temperature with humidity levels of epic proportions (instant sweat, underarms are like pools, and foreheads are like sprinklers), and then throw in the added twist of a bus (my bus, of course) that doesn't show up on time, and we have a typical school field trip.

The field trip goes phenomenally well, and I only lose three of my ten charges for a minute when we leave the theater and someone in front of us screws up the exit procedure.  Lining up to leave, we realize that we are one bus short again, but this time, it's not my bus.  My trusty team leader, the one whose dead car battery started the day for her, decides to go from her bus to the other buses to see if the four vehicles that are there have gotten all of their cherubs onto them while the bus-less people wait patiently on the sidewalk.

The moment she steps from the bus to do the check-ins, the driver of her bus slams the door shut and pulls away from the curb, leaving my team leader speechless and rideless on the sidewalk.  The other teacher on the departing bus yells, "You left a teacher behind!"  Apparently, the driver neither cares nor understands English, because they are on the highway before my team leader can even finish her text message to ask where the heck her ride has gone.

Luckily she can hitch a ride with the late bus that finally shows up after ten minutes, and we all arrive back at the school in relatively short order, although my team leader's homeroom is left wondering where their chaperone has gone.

At the end of the day, I write myself a note not to forget my teammate and leader, as she will also need a ride home again.  Walking toward her room, I yell down the hallway, "See?  At least I didn't leave without you!"

She throws up her hands in defeat as she knows that, like the social studies teacher who shot herself with a live Epipen during training a decade ago, this too shall be a joke that never, ever gets old.

SAMPLE THIS COLOR

I have a great plan to steal paint samples, and if I'd only gone to Home Depot, I would've been able to pull it off.  But I go to the teeny Ace Hardware store up the street instead because I work really late and need to get home at some point.

Let me explain what I need.  I need those paint sample sheets with swatches of five colors on them, colors with names like Soda Fountain Delight and Hemlock Hangover.  I don't give a rat's ass what the colors actually are.  I just need them to have bizarre names.  And I need at least eighty of those paint sample sheets.  I know they have them at Home Depot because that's where I stole them from the first time I needed them last summer.

Okay, I'm not truly stealing them since they're free.  But I assume they're meant to be free to people who will actually use them to buy paint to really paint something, like a wall or a fence or a garage door.  I intend to use them for a writing project with my students.  The colors and their names serve as writing prompts to an exercise one of my professors had us do during a writing seminar class.

The little hardware store has the sample sheets with three colors per, and those are the ones I intend to take: 80+ sheets of triple-color samples.  When I reach for the first one ... a sales clerk comes over.  She starts asking me all of these questions and I'm dumbfounded.  I don't expect a Spanish Inquisition (nobody ever does).  I just want to steal the damn paint sample sheets.

So I make shit up.  I start talking about some friend who wants to repaint.  Which room?  oh, several.  Several rooms.  What color pallette?  Um, that's why I need the samples.  I need lots and lots of samples.

She promptly steers me away from the sample display and hands me pamphlet after pamphlet with stupid round splotches and lots of pictures.  I don't want the pictures!  I want the sample sheets!  I want the --- I want -- I -- LADY, LET GO OF ME!

She literally yanks me from the color swatches, over and over.  Every time I try to go back to grab the samples, she growls at me and forces me back around the corner to the useless end display.  She is not going to give me any of those sample sheets, let alone the 80+ that I need.

My lesson plan for Thursday is screwed.  Big time.

I end up grabbing four identical pamphlets that boast "120 colors that all go together!", which I know is absolutely impossible from my years as an assistant manager of a fabric store where color-coordinating calicoes proved that there are some colors, many less than 120, that definitely do not go together.  These color swatches have names like "Lamp Shade" and "Change of Heart," which will work.  But many of the colors won't work with 'tweens, colors with names like "California Cabernet." 

This conundrum, though, inspires me to come up with an alternate to the original assignment, still using the pamphlets.  I'm going to cut the usable colors with appropriate names into Scrabble-like tiles, and we'll need more glue, and then ...

HA!  The salesclerk thinks she has thwarted me, but all she succeeds in doing is making me crazier than I already am.  Actually, she probably figures that out when I take four identical pamphlets.  She probably figures that I am insane for the duplicate booklets in addition to trying to steal the random samples in the first place. 

I should just tell her the truth.  She might help me pick out the most creatively named 80 samples as she knows them, anyway.

Oh well.  Live, learn, and hoard paint sample sheets.  I'll let you know how it all works out.

THE QUEST FOR COFFEE

Every morning we teachers are expected to stand in the hallways and monitor the students as they arrive and go to their lockers.  This is because we've had several bizarre accidents over the last couple of years: slamming fingers into lockers and severing veins badly enough to shoot blood across the hallway, slamming lockers shut onto people's heads, standing up from lower lockers to cut faces open on upper lockers, stealing others' locks and locking them onto random lockers, jamming pencils and pens into the locking mechanisms so that the lockers will seem locked but actually aren't, sticking ABC (Already Been Chewed) gum on the bottom of the opening levers so unsuspecting students get handfuls of sticky crud stuck to them when they try to change out their books in between classes.

You know, the usual junior high/middle school hijinks.

Every morning the principal comes down and stands in our hallway as the sixth graders go one way and the seventh graders go two ways.  She seems to be checking up on the teachers, which I think is hilarious because out of every single corridor in the building, ours is the most populated with teachers ... not because we care so much what goes on, but because we're incredibly social. 

I have chosen as my post the strategic point where there is a cubby of about two dozen lockers in a now defunct (due to construction) hallway, the Hallway to Nowhere.

Every morning my routine is the same.  I greet the kids loudly and exuberantly and ask them if they're all oh-so happy to be in school.  They are usually still bleary-eyed and grumpy, and many of them are downright embarrassed that I am even speaking to them, let alone so loudly and with such gusto.

Finally, ten months into our school year and mere weeks from its end, one of the students comes up to me and asks, "Why do you drink so much coffee in the morning?"

I smile.  I don't drink coffee, I explain to her; love the smell but hate the taste.

She gapes at me for a moment then asks, "Tea?  Soda?  Red Bull?"

Nope, I reply honestly, nothing but water in the morning for me.  Not a breakfast person.

She shakes her head sadly, completely confused.  "You mean, " she states incredulously, "you're like this ... NATURALLY?"

I grin.

"Please," she begs me, "please, please, please don't start drinking coffee, whatever you do."  Then she walks off down the hallway to her homeroom.

As she disappears down through the lobby and into the opposite wing of the building, it dawns on my why the principal stands where she stands.  She's either there to see my morning show, or she, too, is wondering what the hell I would be like if I were to ingest high-test caffeine before coming in to work in the morning.  Probably be a lot like watching a mouse on speed try to maneuver a maze. Gotta admit.  I'd pay money to see that. 

I bought coffee at the store today.  I think my summer vacation quest will be to train myself to drink coffee in the morning.  I'm curious to see how that will work out when September rolls around.  I welcome your suggestions for combos.

NOTHING BUT YOURSELF

Just when I thought it was safe to go back in the water, along comes that beast with the giant proverbial teeth to bite me in the ass:

MONDAY.
 It seems to me that Monday continues to roll around once a week, and damn if it doesn't always appear sandwiched between Sunday and Tuesday as if I won't even notice it.  As if it's a pill wrapped up in cheese.  As if the doctor is going to reset my broken bone right there in the office at the count of one... two ... (CRACK!) .... um ... three?

Only two more Monday early-calls for school this year, though.  Then I start with the early-morning beach trips.  Don't be jealous; I don't get paid for the summers off.  No teacher does.  I'm not complaining.  If it weren't for the weeks away from the children, cherubs that they are, I would be in Baldpate Mental Hospital by now.  

Monday, you may have me for the time being, but soon, very soon, I will have you.  I won't even know nor care when you come knocking because for a few weeks, for a short time, for several moments of joyous rapture, Monday, YOU will mean nothing to ME.  You know, kind of like right now I mean nothing to YOU.

Bring it, Monday.  Bring it today and next week, then I'm going to bring it right back and flaunt it so bad.  Maybe I'll do some kind of Monday Watusi (like an old school booty dance, for you teeny-boppers) right in your Monday face.  Then you see how much YOU like it.

Monday, you may have me today and you may have me on the 23rd.  I can take it.  After all, I have Tuesday to look forward to, and what have you?  Monday.  That's it.  That's what you can look forward to, Monday: Yourself.  I have six other days, but what have you? 

Nothing.  You will forever be Monday.  You have nothing but yourself. 

Oh, and me ... for  another Monday after today.  Then we can be friends again, but until then, I still don't like you.  Just so you know, anyway.

EMBRACING TECHNOLOGY

Today I embrace technology: I set up the calendar for the entire next year on my cell phone.

This may be a no-brainer to the rest of the world, but to me, I need a paper calendar I can visually see right smack in front of my face, and even then sometimes I space out and miss appointments.  I am also notoriously late when mailing gifts and cards (except at Christmas time).  This new techno-system may not cure me of my scehduling ways, but now I can have my schedule with me whenever I have my cell with me.

This whole process of scheduling my life via technology takes a long time because I have a busy schedule.  I decide to sit outside and enter my crazy life into the cell phone one painstaking appointment and activity at a time.  Part of the way through my semi-efficient hunt-and-peck method for finding the right keys to press, the sky decides to drop a light rain onto me.

Time to go back inside.

After working on entering data for another hour, I look down and realize that the front of my cell phone is filthy from rain and fingerprints, so I grab a cleaning packet and start glossing my phone to its former, pre-scheduled self.

During this process, though, I fail to lock the phone. Epic fail on my part.

My telephone starts calling one of my school teammates.

I madly hit "end call," but it doesn't end call.  Or maybe it does, but, when I hit it again, it goes back to what it was originally doing, which is making the call.  Just my luck that in the middle of all of this, I can hear my teammate's voice as she answers the phone.  I lift the receiver to my face in time to hear it cut out ... and start ringing again... then cut out ... then start ringing again.

The conversation goes like this:

(Ring ring ring ring ring ring ring ring)
ME:  Oh SHIT!
(Ring ring ring ring)
ME:  Goddamnit.  Goddamn fucking phone.
K:  Hey! What's u--
(Click)
ME:  Hello?  Hello!  PISS.
(Ring, ring, ring.)
(Hit "end call."  Hit "end call" again ... and again ... andagainandagainandagain...)
ME:  FUUUUUUUUCK!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
K:  Helllllooooooo?
(Click.)

Then one text comes through from my teammate:  "Dude?!?!"

I must explain that my phone is possessed and apparently really, really, really wants to call her but doesn't want to actually speak.  I have interrupted her afternoon, her day off, and made an asshole out of myself in the process, all because I'm trying to make my own life more efficient.

I will say this -- the screen of my cell phone is immaculate and will probably stay that way for a long while because right now I'm just too damn nervous to even touch the thing.  If it starts random dialing on its own again, though, that frigging phone is going in a drawer somewhere.

BREAKING OUT THE PLAID

In honor of summer almost being here, I am breaking out the plaid.  Yup!  It's a time of picnics and shorts and swimsuits and sandals.  So out comes the plaid material, all set and ready for ... summer.

Wait. Hold on one second.  These are not plaid blankets to spread out under the stars or out in a field or across the hot beach sand.  These plaids are soft, medium-weight cotton.  These plaids are made for walking.

That's right -- I break out the flannel pajamas pants again.

It's nearly the middle of June, and I am freakin' cold, even with hot flashes.  That's impressive!

So ... Here's to Spring, you miserable wretch, and here's to having a ready supply of flannel pajama pants for nights just like this:  Cold, raw, and very much like early fall (not spring).

Come on, weekend.  Turn this around!  My shorts and tank tops are ready and waiting very impatiently.

HYDRATED AND HOPEFUL

I've been pulling double-duty the past few days: Teaching on my feet all day, and packing up my classroom into special crates for the one-year move to the old high school.  Aside from the fact that my windowless room is twenty degrees hotter than the air outside (it was cool and in the 60's outside and broiling in the 80's inside), the packing is going quite well... except for the fact that the crates sit on top of each other after I pack them, and I need a chair to reach the top one.

This afternoon I stay even later at school and start packing up more stuff.  Little by little, my things have to come home or else they will be thrown out.  It's with this in mind that I think I should bring old computers and the two broken dehumidifiers to the school and just leave them in my classroom to be someone else's problem.  The microwave came home yesterday.  Today I bring the computer desk home.  I have what seems to be tendonitis in my right elbow, so I can carry but not lift things. I enlist the help of two young gents to carry and load the desk into my car at the end of the day.

I also pack up two bags of stuff to bring home -- my electric teapot, packets of sugar and tea and hot chocolate, paper plates and bowls, and plastic utensils.  I have eight days left and it's going to be in the high 80's outside (90's+ inside).  I doubt very much I'll be needing hot tea.

I survey what's left to pack.  The school gave us those four crates.  Most of us could easily use four more.  Truth be told, if they expect me to pack the text books, I'm going to need about twelve more crates.  I'm an English teacher.  My personal library of young adults novels (400+) took up the bins they gave me with no room to spare.  I still have more to go with my literature circle collections and the classroom set of novels we read at the end of the year, all books I paid for, so all books I intend to pack myself. 

Moving sucks.

I'm used to it because I have yet to stay in the same classroom for more than two years in a row.  I seem to be the mobile teacher in the group.  One year they told me I'd be moving to one room, so I cleared that one out, only to find out I'd be going to another room, so I had to clear that one, as well.  Maybe they move me around because I'm efficient at it.  Last year the room to where I was moving still had the other teacher's crap all over it.  I had to go back the day after school ended, move all her shit to the middle of the room where students desks belonged, and set up my new room around her.

The other day some of us surveyed our new digs at the soon-to-be-demolished-after-we-spend-a-year-there high school.  The place is kind of a pit.  It smells, it's moldy, and the classrooms are the sizes of postage stamps.  The students desks are on top of the teacher desks, and I'm not kidding -- they are crammed in so tightly that the first row is desks overlapping and balancing on the teacher's desk.  I really don't want those kids THAT close to me, especially middle schoolers who still tend to underestimate the time it takes to get out of the desk and run to the toilet when they feel like puking.

I still have so much more to do in the room to get ready before we are kicked out at 3:00 p.m. on June 24th, our last day.  In the meantime, we have a field trip to Boston, field day at the local park, meetings, assemblies, and a whole hoopla of interruptions.  Oh yeah, I have to teach in that time, too.

It's a good thing the kids are flexible and like to work on the fly like I do.  Between my mess, their help, and the ever-growing heat index inside the plywood prison that is my classroom, we're sprinting eight more days to the finish line.  As long as we stay hydrated and hopeful, we just might make it.