NO CATERWAULING ZONE

I work with kids all day, every weekday, for ten months every year.  Sure, sure, I “get the summers off,” which means I write curriculum for two months and don’t get paid for it.

Whatever.  This blog entry isn’t about my schedule or why I have a love/hate relationship with my career choice.

It’s about going to lunch.  That’s right, going to lunch.

Today a teacher friend of mine and I go shopping.  I teach middle school kids, and she teaches elementary school kids.  After hours of perusing through stores, we decide it certainly must be time to fuel-up at a local watering hole.  There are plenty of family-friendly restaurants around – McDonalds, Applebees, Panera, etc. – so we figure an adult-oriented place would be in order. 

We decide to go to the British Beer Company.

We were here a few weeks ago after a long trip to Connecticut to liberate my friend’s “illegally borrowed” purse.  What we remember about the place is that there weren’t any children there.  None. The place is predominantly a barroom, and it is dark, musky, and a little over-priced for the menu.

In other words, it’s a perfect place to avoid children.

We walk in, adjust our eyes to the dimness, and are greeted by the hostess.  I say nonchalantly, “Seat us anywhere but near children … not that there’d be any here in an adult-fare restaurant…”

She promptly leads us to a table … next to a family with kids and within proximity of the screaming toddler at another table.

Without even sitting down, I protest loudly, “No.  No, no, no, no, no, no…. NO.”

My friend, who is far more articulate than I, translates for me.  “This won’t do.  Find us a booth in the bar.”

I don’t even give a shit if my outburst offends the families.  So what -- they have a right to bring their ankle-biters into a finer restaurant; not everyone wants to take their young family for fast food.  I understand this.  What I do not understand is the screaming.  Why … why … why on God’s green earth would you allow your child to howl away in a public place like that?  The parents aren’t even attending to the child, just letting its lungs roll on.

I can’t be mad at the kid, either.  I mean, the British Beer Company is a foreboding and dark place with dark brown furnishings and walls and ceilings.  It’s not exactly a visual fun house.  I can, though, be a little ticked off at the parents who don’t bother to attend to their child nor remove him from the premises until he calms down (you know, like take a quick walk around the building or just get some air in the front lobby).  It’s what most of us would do (and have done) when our kids disturb other patrons in any place of business.  No, I cannot be mad at the child.

I can be, and am, royally pissed off at the hostess who takes my one request (I don’t want to sit near children) and attempts to put me smack-dab in the center of not only children, but children in chaos.

Look, I like your kids … a lot.  I spent much of Friday talking a girl off the figurative ledge when she arrived to my class sobbing about having to stay after school to finish a math test because it would interfere with dance class.  I pat your child’s back when he vomits into my trash bucket.  I cheer your child on when I see her suddenly understanding a difficult concept as all the lights turn on in her eyes.  I pop into band practice to tell your kids how terrific they all sounded playing together at our Veterans Day assembly.  I greet them in the hallways every morning with “Welcome, children, it’s a beautiful day!” and send them away every afternoon with “Go home children, goooo hooooome!  Be safe.”

However, when I’m out for lunch, paying $20 or more for my plate (and a beer), the last thing, the very last thing I want to hear is your child caterwauling.  I am inspired by the Monty Python Holy Grail Ale that I am drinking, and I take some advice from Chapman’s King Arthur when he meets the rabbit:

RUN AWAY.  RUN AWAY!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

SHUTTING DOWN A SCHOOL

Friday a local middle school (not mine) is closed due to the stomach flu.

Ew.  Just ew.

My first thought is this:  Food service workers.  After all, it seems highly unlikely that one school is so severely affected as opposed to the elementary schools, which are inherently places of snotty noses and sneeze patrols.

But, what do I know?  My school is Strep Central right now.  I'd rather have strep than the flu, to be honest.

Now watch me curse myself and get hit with both.

My second thought is this:  The poor janitorial staff.  I've already had one case of Puker on the Loose in my room this year.  Luckily, the kiddo made it to the bucket, but still.  Once one pukes, they all feel like puking.  I feel like puking.  Everyone thinks about puking for the rest of the day.

It's like lice.  All you have to do is hear the word and your scalp starts itching.  Yours is itching right now, isn't it?

If only this flu epidemic were more "power of suggestion" and less "disease."  Doubt it, though.  I think I'll restock my classroom Lysol supply.  The holidays are coming, and I don't have time to be sick.  In the meantime, send positive thoughts to that poor middle school.  When hundreds of 'tweeners and new teens get sick at the same time, there just isn't enough sawdust in the world to take care of that mess.

Stay healthy, my friends.

THESIS THREE

Today I want to give kudos to two people who’ve had to put up with a lot of bullshit over the past twelve months – my two Thesis Buddies.

When we started this odyssey three or so years ago, we never realized we’d end up kindred spirits who survived on sheer exhaustion, a few legal drugs, and lots of alcohol.  For me the exhaustion was nothing new.  I earned my undergrad and first graduate degrees while operating on fumes and an average of four hours of sleep per night – six hours would be a luxury.  I ate bottles full of ibuprofen and acetaminophen, settled my cracked-up digestive system with periodic doses of loperamide, and battled pneumonia more times than there have been Crusades. 

What I found in my Thesis Buddies were (and still are) kindred spirits.  I found another person in the program who understands that when we write bad poetry we often receive good grades, and when we write good poetry we often receive vile criticism and ridicule.  I found someone who makes better shadow boxes than Martha Stewart could ever dream of creating. 

I found people who were (and still are) willing to be seen in public with me while they type methodically on their laptops and I write old-school longhand in wide-ruled notebooks like some kind of an anachronism.  It’s almost hilarious.  We all have computer bags, but mine is stuffed with notebooks, reading books, and a pencil case of various writing implements (and always stocked with a hand-powered pencil sharpener).

We handed in our thesis drafts, some with great ease and others (wink wink) to near-incompetence.  But – we finished.  As of this week, the final thesis has been submitted.  Two of us finished in May, and the final Thesis Buddy is officially beyond the Lunatic Fringe.

Bottoms up to us – we survived another round of grad school, all three of us, signed and sealed and delivered.  The last one may have been a bit of a straggler, but her topic is momentous and so is her final product. 

Kudos – and may the Thesis Gods accept the last of the three theses as quietly as they accepted the first two.  Not sure any of us could handle a set-back when we are so close to closing this chapter and finally moving on.  Not sure the pharmacy will have enough OTC drugs nor will the liquor stores have enough wine if that happens, either.

Here’s to the Thesis Three.  May any and all gods have mercy on our overly-edited souls.

CAKE!

Cake.  Yup, I love cake.

I really like it when a birthday happens at work because there's usually cake.  Sometimes I work at my desk right through lunch, but if I know there's going to be cake, I'm down in the faculty room pretty much before anyone else.

The best, though, is the surprise birthday lunch.

The other day I went to the lunchroom just to get away from all the work I was trying to do.  I walked in, spotted an open seat at the long table, and... noticed a giant round cake in the center of it all.

Cake!

It was someone's birthday and a woman with whom I work brought in cake.  It was vanilla cake with tons of sugary-sweet frosting, and it had small chocolate mint patties on top.

It ... was .... awesome!

I wish someone at work had a birthday once a week ... heck, every single day.  (That would require much more staff, but still.)  That way I could have cake every single work day.  What on earth could be better than cake every single day?  I know, right?

Cake -- it's not just for breakfast anymore. 

Happy birthday, everybody because I really do love cake.

YOU KNOW WHAT I MISS?

You want to know what I miss?  I miss being an assistant manager of a book store, that’s what I miss.  You want to know what else I miss?  I miss having time to read.

I’ve had a lot of jobs and a lot of different careers.  I excelled at being retail assistant managers not because I like telling people what to do – I actually don’t – but because I’m good at math.  Damn good at math.  I can balance a drawer like it’s nobody’s business … because it isn’t anybody else’s business except the assistant manager’s business.

The best part about the bookstore job was the discount.  Oh sure, I got a fabulous discount at the fabric store, too, but sewing and I never really clicked too well.  Reading and I clicked the moment I picked up my first book.  Working at the bookstore let me combine my two greatest academic loves: Reading and math.

I love math.  I love algebra.  I love trigonometry.  I go crazy over quadratic equations.  And I love, love, love to read.

There just isn’t enough time in the day to read.  I used to get all kinds of magazines, but I cancelled a lot of them because I ended up getting backlogged a few months at a time until I got a break from school and could sit down and read them all.  I felt guilty waiting so long to read them and missing out on timely articles like “How to Grill for the Fourth of July” … in October when I finally got to it.  I’m starting to reintroduce magazines back into my life, though. 

Which is another thing.  I crave the paper in my hands.  I don’t have a Kindle.  I don’t want a Kindle.  I need to have the book in my physical possession.  I’m tactile like that, and olfactive --  There is nothing in the world like the smell of a book.  Ever gone into a store that sells old or rare books?  Yup, then you know the smell I’m talking about.  I melt just walking around a book store.  Screw Amazon – It’s not the same.  I want to see the books, touch the books, smell the books.  (And count them sometimes, just to get the math rush.)

I miss having time to read.  It’s a pity I actually have to work for a living, and it’s a pity I’m not a junior editor somewhere so I can read books all day long.  Maybe I’ll get fired from my job.  I did send off a couple of controversial emails yesterday to colleagues who seem to think my professional opinion is unimportant.  Maybe I’ll get hauled into the office and placed on administrative leave. 

Then -- I can read.  I can read all day and all night (which I sometimes do, when I can).  I’ll read every damn book in my giant library.  I’ll read the book my brother-in-law lent me that I haven’t gotten to yet.

I’ll read until the words come out of my ears and eyes and nostrils.  I’ll read until it hurts as much as it hurts right now not having time to read.  I miss books; I hope they miss me, too.

HITTING THE WALL

Holy smokes.
I hit the wall today.
No, I don't just hit it -
I slam into it.
Head on;
Face first.
     BAM.
Someone says to me,
"How can you have so much energy
This late in the day?"
She was mistaken;
I am simply play-acting,
Faking because I am dancing
As fast as I can:

I'm en pointe,
Constantly en pointe.
I have so many plans for today -
     SPLAT.
All of them,
All those plans,
Right against the wall.
It's seven o'clock...
Seven-freaking-o'clock ...
And I'm snoozing.
I have a headache and feel
     BLAH
Oh dear gawd
     NOT
          THE
               FLU
I think it is just the wall
And not just any wall but
     THE
          WALL.
I'm going to bed.
Don't call me.
Don't text me.
My battered body and mind
Will not be catching any of
The Bruins game later tonight.
Hopefully this is just the
Post-Thanksgiving / Pre-Christmas
     CRASH.
If anybody needs me,
I'll be crumpled at the base
Of the wall I hit
The moment I walked through my door
After work.

DECEMBER -- THE RACE IS ON

Hard to believe December is here already.  So much to do. 

The first Sunday in Advent arrives with me completely unprepared.  I’m improvising with candle colors again this year, so the traditional all-blue or the three-purples-and-a-pink will have to give way to three whites and a purple, or whatever I can dig up to replace them.  It’s not the first time I’ve changed up the official Advent seasonal colors and it probably won’t be the last.  Of course, if Yankee Candle actually sold taper candles in multi-colors and scents, buying Advent candles wouldn’t be such a chore every year.

The shopping is started and the decorating is partially done.  The tree has been up and decorated for a week, and the boxes of additional decorations are sitting in the living room waiting to be unpacked.  I’ll get to it, I know, but time is running out.  Time always runs out this time of year.

It’s a sprint to the holidays.

I’m okay with that.  I’ve always been a sprinter not a miler.  The holidays and I will sprint together, and we’ll either make it, or we won’t. 

No matter.  It’s all over but the sweating now.  I have less than twenty-five days to put a bow on all of it and tie it together.  Take a deep breath – December really is here.  I’ll meet you at the finish line, and we’ll untie that ribbon together.