BUS-TED

It's still last week -- stay with me a day longer; I promise I'll catch up to you -- and I am going into my own classroom to secure the borders.  It's Walk-About Day, a day when parents and students that I am about to have are able to come waltzing through the school and our classrooms to see where they're going to be having classes. I don't have to be here, but I want to be here.  I might be able to get about thirty minutes of work done in the two hours we have open campus.

I don't want to be too early, so I make a loose plan to leave my house around 7:20.  My backpack has stuff I need to bring to school: tea to restock the team's supply, papers to copy, water bottles, etc.  I leave my driveway, turn right onto the one-way street and --

Damnit.  Damn, damn, damn.

Twice in less than twenty-four hours I have forgotten that school has already started in the town where I live.  I am stuck behind a school van-bus that is waiting ... waiting ... waiting ... waiting for the kid to come out of the house.  Finally, after the line of cars stretches back onto the railroad tracks, the van-bus moves forward without the student and pulls over into a parking space.

Thank you, considerate bus driver!  Now I can get going and no one behind me will be hit by the commuter train.  So far, it's a win-win. 

I head up a side street, trying to calculate the possibility of being stuck behind another bus.  I mean, I'm in no real hurry.  The Walk-About at my school doesn't start for another ninety minutes.  But, once it does start, I will be on point and en pointe for two straight hours.  I just want to get to my classroom and get some stuff organized before the mayhem begins.

Oh, no. I see one of the big yellow buses up ahead.  Booooo.  Luckily, it turns before I have to merge on to the main road that will take me out of my hometown and into my work town.  At the end of the street, I look to the left and see a line of traffic coming.  An endless line.  It's as if no one has taken the highway this morning; they're all on the back road track.  I decide to take a deep breath and relax while waiting for the line of vehicles to move past.  I even get a little misty-eyed when an eighteen-wheeler hauling Bud Light crosses my path.

Finally, I am on my way, but I hit every possible red light except for one that has been yellow for a bit, and I run it anyway as it turns red.  I know, I know; this is illegal.  Then I remember, "Oh crap.  School started yesterday.  The police will be EVERYWHERE."  I check out the speed limit, get my car to that exact miles per hour, and set my cruise control.  No way am I getting a ticket (now that I've already broken the law this morning).

The Walk-About goes well, except that parents and children are still coming into my room and invading the building over an hour after the end time of the event.  Finally, I shut off my lights, close and lock my classroom, and skeedaddle out the back door.  If I'm not going to get anything done, then I can "not" do it at my own house.

Besides, if I don't leave soon, I'll be stuck in the afternoon bus traffic back in my hometown.  It takes me two days to figure out this simple truth, but I guess I can forgive myself.  After all, I still have a little bit more of my summer before I need to get my head on straight for my own daily commute.

DENIAL FILE

I am writing this post last week.  Yes, I can time travel!  (I'm short, so does that make me Dr. Who-Little?  Anyone?  Anyone at all?)  Seriously, I am writing this post after the town in which I live has commenced its new school year, but the town in which I teach still has yet to start its school year.  [As of this posting, I have been teaching for exactly one day, but now I'm just fucking with your brain because I am bending the time-space continuum with my blog post.]

Okay, so it's last week... It is the hottest day of the year -- temperature around 97 degrees and humidity at something akin to a gazillion percent -- and I am helping my daughter move a friend.  We get the U-Haul (well, they get the U-Haul; I sit in my air conditioned car waving at them through the tinted glass), then they do the heavy lifting far away, and I tell my daughter to text me when they're back in town.  I am willing to sweat for a good purpose.

I get myself all ready to go: no socks but decent lightweight sneakers, sports bra, a pair of my youngest son's old team lacrosse shorts, and an alcohol-sponsored t-shirt with its bottom and sleeves hacked off.  I pull back my hair, and, by gawd, I look absolutely stunning for a sweaty, kind of old person.  Then, I sit down and play games on my phone until her text arrives.  I know it will be soon because they have been gone with the U-Haul for about four hours.

At 2:05 p.m., my phone makes a noise and vibrates slightly.  "We're back," she texts.  I know she and her friend and their small crew are trying to eat sub sandwiches, so I text back that I am going to swing through the post office near the high school to mail some bills.  I jump into my car and start heading the mile or so down the street to mail bills and other critical stuff that may or may not be overdue.

Just as I near the turn to go down the street to the post office, I notice a back-up of cars from two different directions, all trying to merge into one lane.  I can see the right turn I need to take, but I am completely blocked from reaching it by people attempting to go straight and merge into the street that goes straight.  Even if I were to make it to the road I need, throngs of teenagers are streaming through the streets, ignoring crosswalks like some kind of crazy giant ant invasion.  These kids are everywhere!

Oh, shit.  Oh, damnation. Oh, fuck my life.

The high school and middle school at the top of the hill where I am trapped has just dismissed all of its students from the very first day of school for the year.  Kids are leaking from the buildings, and parents are madly in line trying to find their poor babies so that their offspring won't melt in the blistering heat.

I finally make it to my turn-off, head away from the mayhem, drop my bills off at the post office, then continue toward my daughter's house, which just so happens to be about one hundred yards from another middle school in the town.  There are more students clinging to sidewalks and crosswalks, and, even worse, since they have a head start on me, they have already infected the center of town.

I finally arrive at my daughter's house after twenty minutes, a trip that is about two miles around in total.  Even though I've been inside my air conditioned car with the fan blasting, I am sweating it out.  I burst through her door and don't even bother with informal nor formal hellos.

"Rugrats," I say, still in a serious state of shock and swearing under my breath, "I forgot about the rugrats today."

I stare blankly and shake my head a little, more like twitching movements.  You see, I don't go back to school until the following week (which is now, I guess, but it's then while I am typing this), so I think this whole "school starts, watch out for children" thing is somewhere tucked into my Denial File.  I don't know.  Maybe I'll ask Dr. Who when I see him (at school next week ... today). 

ZEBRA SHOES

My daughter has been in the exact same "clean out your life" mode as have I.  She has pruned stuff from her life and has about ten bags of crap at her house that all need to go places.  Some of it will go to a collection box, some of it will go to friends, but the bulk of it is going to Goodwill or Salvation Army.

Then she tells me she is dumping shoes.

This makes me sad because my daughter has some bitchin' shoes.  There's one pair in particular that I love, love, LOVE -- Zebra shoes.  These shoes are heels with a zebra-like print on them.  I cannot believe she would get rid of these shoes because her feet look pretty damn good in these shoes.

In the midst of all this purging from both her home and mine, I receive a text from her: "Do you want the zebra heels?"

Of course I want the zebra heels, but I have big feet.  Even worse than the fact that my feet are long, they are incredibly thin.  They used to be AAAA width.  Now they're more AAA.  I have a hard time buying regular shoes, so there's no way these will fit me.

"They're size 8," she texts.

Damn.  My feet are size 8.  But still, I have that whole "narrow foot" crap going on.  I decide to take a ride over (she lives close by) and try on the shoes.  Like Cinderella with the glass slipper, I'm more of the evil step-sisters who will cut off toes and heels to fit into the coveted shoe.  I fully expect these shoes to be too short and too wide for me.

I get to her house and walk in, where she takes the shoes out of the donation bag and hands them to me.  I don't know, I don't know, I don't ...

Hot damn!

I'm like Dorothy with the ruby slippers.  I start admiring the shoes and their magical zebra powers.  Amazing.  Simply fricking amazing that my damn long toes and my damn thin feet can pull off these shoes.  I pack both shoes into the bag and prepare to take them home.

Home ... where I am trying to purge.  Oh, well.  I don't know what my other shoes will think now that I've cleaned out and am starting to hoard again, but I don't care.  It's not every day you get to put zebras on your feet and they actually work.

REGISTRY, SHOPPING, AND BEER

What do normal, sane people do after spending time at the registry?

My daughter has to go to the Registry of Motor Vehicles.  I know, right?  Some of you just actively shudddered simply by reading that sentence.  She has to renew her registration and pay some tolls she didn't know she had because she had moved to a new address.

Normally we would go to the registry closest to where we live, but it's in the charming city of Lawrence, and the line is usually about a mile and a half long.  Instead, we head over to another town, but when we arrive, the line is still pretty long, stretching out the front door and to the rear of the building like a disjointed snake that gets more and more pissed off as its scales extend.

After about twenty minutes of waiting in line, those with registration issues are ushered to a different line, circumventing the fifty or sixty people in front of us.  Within two minutes of approaching the window, we are finished with our business, and my daughter is good to go for now.

Amazing.  It's like a fucking registry miracle!

We leave the registry, pop on the highway, and run about a dozen errands.  When we are done with our errands, it's still not too late, only about 10:40 in the morning.  We decide we need something to eat, but we don't really want breakfast, so we search the Internet to find out when the nearest 99 Restaurant opens.  When we arrive, we have to sit in the parking lot for ten minutes until they unlock the door, but once we are inside, we do exactly what we've wanted to do since we first saw the ridiculous line at the registry: order ice cold beers.

If we had gone to the city registry in Lawrence, we'd probably still be sitting there.  Instead, we are sitting in a lovely air conditioned environment enjoying icy beverages after shopping, which is all post-registry business.  Honestly, it doesn't get any better than this, and I almost hope she has to go to the registry again tomorrow.  After all, most normal people need a beer after dealing with the registry, so our pre-noon drinking is completely legit.

FOREVER IN THE FRONT OF THE FERRY

When I visit my relatives in New York, I get to take the ferry.  Not THE ferry, as there are several, but a ferry, just the same.  I usually take the Burlington, Vermont, to Port Kent, New York, ferry.  It's a long ride, an hour or so, and it has gotten pricey ($30 one way with a car), but it's still the best scenic ferry ride around.

That particular ferry usually runs when the lake is not frozen, and it usually has two ferries working simultaneously, passing each other about halfway while several of us hang over the sides searching for Champy, Lake Champlain's version of the Loch Ness monster.  I am surprised, disappointed, and a little miffed to discover that there is only one ferry, despite it still being summer and tourist season, so the ferry crossing times are severely limited.

No worries.  I drive north a few exits on I-89 and find my way over to the Grand Isle ferry.  It runs every fifteen minutes (less, actually) and costs less than $11 with my car.  Plus, several ferries operate at the same time up here.  I am relieved to be fourth car in line.  This means that I won't be stuck at the front of the ferry.  I don't like the front spot since once I had an eighteen wheeler parked right up to my bumper, and I was afraid its brakes would let loose and push my van and me and my kids into the lake.

As soon as we start loading, everyone in front of me goes to lanes one and two.  The ferry worker points to me and steers me all the way to the left into aisle four, making me once again the front car.  Next to me there is an eighteen wheeler, putting him first in line (also first to get off the ferry).  It's a short crossing, though, so within a quarter hour, I am third car off the ferry and on my way.

Coming back home days later, I make it to the 10:50 ferry at Port Kent.  I am the third car to arrive, just in time I notice as there are four cars behind me in line.  Great, I figure, there's no way I'll end up in the front this time.  But, again, I am instructed to pull away from the other cars and move my arse forward to the front.

This time, the crossing will take just over an hour, and, as soon as we pull away from the dock, it begins to rain and the wind whips up into a frenzy.  I get out of my car and make my way upstairs to the observation area (indoor and outdoor).  People walking along the outer railing are blown around like rag dolls, and I am waiting for little kids who are running away from their parents to be lifted from the decks and tossed into the churning water.

Eventually I head back to my car, riding out the storm as spray comes up and over the front deck, swishing across my windshield like a car wash.  By the time we reach Burlington, the rain has stopped and the sun is trying to come out.  It's not my first squall on the ferry and certainly not my hairiest ride -- I rode through a squall from Nantucket on the open top deck of a huge ferry that rivaled the Titanic's sinking with the number of times the boat lurched and the many angles at which it leaned.  But it's still a little sketchy when riding in the first car that might go into the drink even on a smaller craft.

As payback for my car getting covered with lake water, I am the first one let off the ferry after we dock (once walkers and bikers are unloaded), and I'm on my way home quickly.  I should be happy; I need to beat the returning college kiddos and their families at St. Michaels, University of Vermont,  Middlebury, Norwich, Dartmouth, Colby-Sawyer, Southern New Hampshire University ... I only end up stopped in traffic three times and make it home in a decent amount of time, leaving the lake, my family, and the shenanigans behind.

It's okay, though.  The entire family, all extensions of it, will be together for a wedding this coming weekend.  More travel, no ferries, but tons of shenanigans, so it's all good.

CURIOUS ABOUT GEORGE AT THE STATION

One of the attractions of visiting my brother and his family in New York is a special event being held at the local PBS station.  My sister-in-law works at the station, which is hosting a Curious George brunch as part of its summer series.  Best of all, the station needs a few extra volunteers.

We show up as an entire familial unit and descend on the station like Tasmanian devils.  We're in the studio, in the kitchen, outside, in the activities room... We are anywhere and everywhere.  One of my nephews and I end up in the activities room.  I am in charge of The Rainbow Fish craft activity; he is in charge of the Green Eggs and Ham activity at the table next to mine.

It's a whirlwind two hours from start to finish, and there are surprisingly few tears (from the children, the parents, or us).  Glue is flying everywhere (one of the bottles on my table springs a leak) and someone (not I) dumps coffee all over a girl's rainbow fish.  Other than that, though, things go well.

Toward the end of the event, my other nephew, who has been working in the studio, strolls in, colors and cuts out a rainbow fish, then attaches it to a paper fry pan.  We hide it under some green eggs fry pans so no little kiddo gets upset that we are frying up rainbow fish for lunch.

I am very excited when Curious George makes a visit to our activities room.  This is what I came out for, after all.  I've never met Curious George before, so it's all kind of cool.  Oh, sure, I know it's someone inside the suit.  Heck, it could've been me if I hadn't grabbed an empty table to run, but it's still awesome to watch the kids, some younger and some older, hugging Curious George and totally getting into the event.

When it's over we take our booty with us, along with a few leftover donuts, and move on to the next shenanigans for the day. 

MARSHMALLOW KNEECAP AND GRAHAM CRACKER BELLY

Still in New York on a mini-vacation, I am shocked to discover that my second-to-youngest sibling is S'more Challenged.  I know, I know -- it surprises me, too.  It's hard to accept that someone related to me lacks inherent s'more coordination, but it is all true; every last moment of it.

My brother (said sibling) does a decent job of creating a small but well-coaled fire.  It's a little breezy out, but we can easily fit the five of us (my brother, his wife, their two sons, and me) around the fire pit without too much smoke-in-the-face action.  We have the usual shenanigans: marshmallows catching fire, marshmallows getting ash on them, and chocolate bars melting all over our hands and clothing.  Mostly, however, our marshmallow toasting is pretty darn on point.

This is when everything goes to Hell in a hand basket.

My brother, who has toasted his jumbo marshmallow to absolute browned perfection, attempts to release the cooked confection onto his s'more set-up when the marshmallow has other ideas.  The marshmallow adheres itself to my brother's hand.  This causes mayhem as the burning sugar reacts with his skin, forcing his mallowy hand to swing wildly into the air above his head.

The jumbo marshmallow careens from his hand through the space-time continuum, completing an absolutely magnificent triple-gainer, and landing directly onto the inside of his left knee.  The ensuing burning of the flesh and leg hair creates havoc, and he flinches, catapulting what is left of the now-imperfect marshmallow onto the grass beneath his chair.  He sits in stunned silence, staring at his empty marshmallow roasting contraption as if he cannot comprehend what has just happened.

His wife and I, on the other hand, are howling with laughter.

My brother does manage to roast another marshmallow, this time making it all the way to the s'more set-up.  We look over at his happy but chocolatey face, and realize that he has graham cracker crumbs all over his stomach and marshmallow smeared on his knee.  Even stranger, the area around the spot on his knee looks a little burned, so I suppose we shouldn't have laughed.

But laugh we do, and, even better, the following night my brother repeats the performance almost movement for movement, except this time the hot marshmallow sticks to the exact same spot on the inside of his left knee.  It's obviously painful (and smolders the leg hair and skin), but he is adept enough to smear most of it back onto the graham cracker, therefore saving his s'more.  Probably tastes a little like singed leg hair, but it's okay.

My brother isn't nearly as s'more challenged as he had been, so it's progress.  We toast (not marshmallows this time) with some sangria and watch the coals dissipate, safely covering everything with a wire screen so my brother and the marshmallows cannot be tempted a third time.