BEING PRODUCTIVELY UNPRODUCTIVE

Wonderful weather today. 

I am supposed to be working on school stuff, and I am to a point, but I've had a really horrid week and I'm disgusted with spending the waning time I have on Earth on people (adults and children) who really don't give a flying fig if I lose my mind or have a coronary. 

I start my day by sleeping late, really late (for me). I wake up several times but roll over and refuse to let the morning interfere until just after nine. I get up and attempt to get dressed when I realize that I ran laundry last night, but I forgot about it in the washing machine. It's still damp enough, and it smells clean, so I toss it in the dryer with an extra static sheet.

Schoolwork happens while I'm waiting to get dressed. I might as well make good use of my time. I rewrite a worksheet because some people seem to believe that having kids draw and color how they visualize novels is a horrible waste of time. Apparently, I am supposed to teach picture books or only books that have movies. Who knew? Not I. I guess you can teach old dogs new tricks, after all. So, now the students have a worksheet and will be filling in blanks. Oh, how exciting and creative for them.

I realize that it's afternoon, and I know there's a wine tasting about fifteen minutes from my house. Okay, that sounds good to me. I spend an hour sipping whites and reds and making friends with anybody and everybody, then hit CVS for things that I might need. I know, I know. I said I'd never go back to CVS, but, in my defense, it's a different store, and I want to see if my 25% coupon works. It does.

On the way home from the wine tasting, I drive past my favorite kayaking pond to see if I still have easy access with the redesigned parking area. I drove by a new pond on Thursday afternoon, so I am making a mental list of places to paddle and best access points. My kayak is a two-piece design, so I can't be anywhere that requires me to hike too far while carrying equipment. 

Back home I decide that it's too nice a day to work inside, but I can't work on my porch because I have to build two new plant shelf units. I can't put out the plant shelf units until I move my kayak. I can't move my kayak until I clear the winter sports equipment out of the trunk of the car. I can't clear the winter sports equipment out of the trunk of the car until I make room in the closet for the winter sports equipment. I can't move the kayak into the car, anyway, because there is a white unicorn chair taking up the back seat.

So, I do what any person who has too much work to do on a nice day would do: I leave the papers all over the place and start moving stuff around inside the house and hauling things out of the trunk of my car. Once everything has been changed over, I build the two plant shelf units and rearrange the porch. I work for a little while then redo the top shelf of the closet so I can put away my skates and snowshoes. I also have a new friend - a unicorn chair.

Time to do some more work for school. After all, there's a Red Sox game on the telly. I watch the Sox absolutely kill the Cubs. That is, until I decide that maybe I should go to the store since I have not shopped in two weeks. When I come home from the store, I eat dinner then wash dishes. After dinner, I decide to add more questions to the quiz I will be giving because why not. But wait. What's on television? A Bruins playoff game! Oh, well, that's important.

I still have my Ed Eval portfolio to finalize, there are about ninety essays to grade, and I have not yet completed the edits to the quiz. I may not have put in much time today, but I do consider the rest of my time well spent. It's one of the most productive unproductive days that I have spent in a very long time.

UP THE ARSE AT THE MUSEUM

My friend's birthday was this past week. We're at the age when we beg people not to give us anything. It's time to thin out our possessions partially because we're on the shadowy side of the Great Mountain of Life, and partially because we're damn tired of dusting knickknacks. 

So, I get this great idea to take her to a museum at a local college. Not only is it culturally enticing, but it's free. In theory, it's a brilliant plan.

Indeed, when we arrive, we are thrilled to discover that the museum actually has some decent stuff in it, including paintings by Monet and Sargent and deVries, and sculpture by Rodin. It's decently impressive as far as collections go.

But, as our visit progresses, we are accosted by a very large male security guard. There are other people in the museum, and, goddamnit, I am actually behaving myself (which, for me, is a huge imposition and an unmistakable challenge) for a change. This guy is practically up our asses as we attempt to tour the artwork.

Eventually, we make our way to the next floor and are immediately accosted by a mature, matronly security guard who also follows us all over the exhibit. It's creepy and insulting, and she yells at my friend for "touching the glass." She was not touching the glass, and the very next display is interactive and requires touching, anyway, so what the hell is she bitching about?

Let me point out that we are most certainly not the only people in the museum. However, we are clearly not students nor professors of this particular high-brow, uber-liberal college mainly due to our ages but also due to the fact that we are wearing clothes from JC Penney and TJ Maxx rather than Newbury Street and the Shops at Chestnut Hill. Also, our hair color is natural and not somewhere in the land of Roy G Biv. Not that there's anything wrong with that; it just contrasts how badly we stand out.

We may not look like Wendy's mascots, but we hardly look like flaming criminals, either.

By the time we get to the special exhibition on the bottom floor, which students on the Quad raved about, we are thoroughly disgusted with security guards poking at us with their two-way radio antennae. Anticipating artistic greatness (after all of those random kudos), we are instead met with really horrible and unfocused photographs of the same masked people over and over again. The "artist" probably shot the pictures for this display in about thirty minutes. We turn a corner to find a few torn newspaper words glued onto white copy paper. Apparently, it took the artist five months to create these "poems" (my middle school students could have done a better job in forty-five minutes). 

This final special museum presentation is a symbolic representation of the intelligence and taste of the people we have encountered on campus: slow-witted and pompous to the point of absurdity. At $65,000 per year (excluding meals and housing), we can only hope that the smart ones were busy in classes. 

I AM THE BOOB

It's the most wonderful time of the year! It's mammogram time. Joy!

Seriously, mammograms are important. Plus, mammogram is a fun word to say. Every time I say it, I think of the Mel Brooks movie Blazing Saddles, and the scene when he announces, "Candygram for Mongo." Sure, you know what I mean: "Mammogram for Mongo!" ("Mongo love mammaries!")

I walk into the health center, get myself all registered, head to the back, take off my shirt and bra, wipe off the deodorant (some of us had to work today) under my armpits, and do another pass across my chest in case I have body spray lingering from getting dressed hours earlier. I throw on that lovely open-air, front-never-closes partial johnny, and walk into the technician's room.

After checking me in and matching my information, she says, "You've lost weight."

Well, I don't believe that I have. I pretty much wear the same size pants (okay, maybe one size down if the pants have built-in stretch in the denim). Now, I have never met this woman before in my life, so this is kind of weird to me, but I say, "You are my favorite person!"

Then she clarifies. "What you told us last year, I don't think you look that weight." No, she doesn't weigh me, bless her for that, but I still don't know where she's going with this conversation. I mean, I am naked from the waist up, but on the bottom I am wearing my somewhat-stretchy black denim jeans, and black, as we all know, can be slimming.

"I don't know," I tell her. I honestly don't. I've had some weird health issues these last couple of years, so I have been making a conscious decision to change my eating habits. Well, semi-change my eating habits. I still like chocolate in moderation, and I am still a bread and cracker fiend.

"Well," she says, "I think we can use the smaller paddles!"

WAIT. WHAT?!?! Smaller . . . What the hell. What the serious hell.

Do you mean to tell me that all the black and blue marks, the actual rib bruising, the pinched skin on the front of my arm pits, the horror, the pain, the torture of the last decade is because you see me as a blimpous fatty boombalatty?! 

And, worse than that, you technicians can chose your goddamn weapons?!

While my boobies (and I) are quite pleased to have a tiny bit of relief (moderate on the pain scale as opposed to "holy crap, I think I need percocet"), I am somewhat disturbed that my perceived weight should be the determining factor on breast-squishing machinery. Let's be serious. My bra cup size isn't getting me any dates. Even if I weighed ten pounds more (or ten pounds less), my chest isn't going to be that different. It wasn't until I was largely pregnant with my first kiddo that I even knew boob-sweat was a thing.

As I leave the changing room and head back toward the waiting room, I wave to the technician. Now that I know about this whole secret paddle-size thing, I think I might drop ten pounds for real by this time next year. Who knew there would be such strong incentive for the Mammogram Diet? 

I know; it beats the alternative. Trust me, I really do know this several times over, which is why, despite the discomfort, it really is the most wonderful time of the year.

 

COFFEE, TEA, AND RAIN

 The weather outside has been frightful. It rains buckets for days, and then it snows for about a day and a half, but, since we have so much rain, it all just turns into three inches of slush and ice and muck. 

I've been trying to get together with a friend, a former town-neighbor of mine who now lives south of the tunnel. (For those out of the region, that means I'm north of Boston and she is south of Boston, so commuter traffic makes it impossible to actually get together.) When the weather sucks, the commute is ten-fold worse. I can jump on the T and be in the city in very little time. She doesn't have it so easy. Despite being able to practically spit and hit the city, public transportation from her area is spotty, at best, on any given day. Between trains and rains, getting together has become an epic event.

Finally, we manage to meet at Assembly Row. It's a Tuesday afternoon, and the rain is just about to start another multi-day drop. Most people would say, "Oh, yay, you can go into all the stores!" Nope. Not us. I suppose we could go to Trader Joe's or TJ Maxx, but that means hauling our personal and store-bought booty through the crowded parking lot while getting drenched.

Instead, we decide to go to a bakery/cafe. If you don't know the story behind Tatte, I highly recommend that you read about the innovative woman who founded the brand. If you haven't been to Tatte, I can only speak of the baked goods, although the food menu looks amazing, too. My friend has something marvelously chocolatey, and I have the biggest, fluffiest, most incredible croissant I have ever eaten. My friend also orders a coffee concoction (I know nothing beyond hot and iced where coffee is concerned), and I order English Breakfast tea -- bravo to the place for serving the tea hot, hot, hot. So many places serve tepid tea, and it's annoying as hell.

We end up having Greek food for dinner, which is fine except for the stroll in the rain that starts along with the wind whipping sharp, cold drops against our faces. Yes, the weather is horrid, and, yes, it gets progressively worse for the following forty-eight hours. The company, however, is worth it in any weather at all. The tea and crumpets just make it that much more decadent.