lesliee41

What the fuck were you thinking, Student too Dim to be in College, while I was touring you around the course website during our first class, which was plainly entitled SHAKESPEARE?  What were you thinking last week, when I spent the whole time talking about Richard III, and not one minute talking about comma splices and thesis statements?  What were you thinking this week, when I showed Ian McKellan's Richard III? 

Were you thinking "This is my English Composition class, taught by a man named Robert?"  I need to know.  It may stop me from killing myself.  

In other news, I was stung by a wasp this evening, between my fourth and fifth toes, as I walked innocently around my kitchen.  Stepped on the damned thing.  And here's more proof that my husband is too good for me.  He hovered over me, as I hopped around on one foot, yelling "OWOWOWOWOWOWOWOWOWOWOW!" (because wasp stings really hurt, fuck they hurt), trying to soothe me, fetching medications, and getting me a beer.  Which I followed with two more, and now my toe is not as bad. 

Of course, I did rape him on Sunday evening.  Maybe he's still jonesing over that.

Now I must sleep.  Daughter has first ballet lesson tomorrow.  She is very excited.  

I personally feel like throwing up. 

Okay, I am one of those people who LOVES spoilers.   I read "The Movie Spoiler" all the time.  

As such, I am rabidly curious about spoilers for the latest Harry Potter book, which comes out in two months.  

But of course I'm also pretty much a moron when it comes to hunting things like that down on teh internets.  I googled  "'deathly hallows' spoilers" and all I got was a bunch of crap from people that DON'T want spoilers.

I WANT SPOILERS.    

Do any Potter People (or people who aren't mentally challenged like me) out there know where to look?  Or, even better, have linkies?

Pretty, pretty please?

I don't know why, but I find this hysterical...

I've watched it like three times, and have laughed myself sick.   It's perfectly work-safe, I think, if laughing like an idiot for five minutes straight is work-safe.

Ha!

Seems almost obligatory to post about 9/11 today.  I am one of those people who tries not to think about it much, well, just because it's too much to think about.  Can't process.  Circuits overload, and I'd much rather listen to Sarah Silverman talk about it in a way that elicits horrified laughter, instead of just...horror.

I was far from NY that day, but I do remember it fairly vividly.  I was home recouperating from a miscarriage.  I turned on the television after my husband left for work and there as plain as day were the towers, already burning.  I sat there watching, just staring, until the first one fell.

"Did that just happen?" I remember saying out loud.  "That can't have just happened..."

I could not get through to my mother, who lives in Staten Island, for three days, but I do recall calling her the night before to wish her a happy birthday.  Her birthday is 9/11 and she told me she was going to go into the city.  I don't remember worrying much about her, because she's one of those people whom fate seems to spare such things.  She flew into Madrid the day of the bombings there, and stayed at a hotel near the train station.  My brother called me and asked if he thought she was okay.  I said, "Are you kidding?  It's mom.  They ought to send HER to find Bin Laden.  She's bomb-proof."  We joke sometimes that Al Quaida's real target is our old Jewish mother, but they keep missing.

Of course, mom was fine.  She was driving down to the ferry to go into the city when she crested a high hill and saw the plumes of smoke and ash across the water.  No trip to NYC for her, just a birthday that's forever going to be tainted with very bad memories for a lot of people.  As for my mother, she told me something that made me sadder than anything else I heard about that day or after.  Everyone knows that many of the police and fire fighters who lost their lives could not afford to live in Manhattan.  They lived in the boroughs, mostly in Staten Island.  Mom lives across the street from a Catholic church, and out of her front window for weeks after, all she saw were mourners, and the bells would not stop tolling.  The coffins were empty, though.  Just for show.  The bodies, most of them, would never be found.  They were bulldozed, what was left of them, along with the other detritus, and steel and flesh alike were all brought in barge after barge to Staten Island, where they remain today.  If you go there, you can see what's left of them.
  
My cousin's wife lost a relative.  They never found her either.  Just her purse.  It's actually in the Smithsonian now.  And if you go there, you can see what's left of her, too.   

Been too long without a real update.  As for GAFF, it’s getting easier to get on, which is a good thing and a bad thing.  I was really nasty to BM last week and now I feel guilty.  I blame feeling guilty on that damned Tiffany window in the church, of Jesus looking all divine and perfect and merciful after the resurrection. Not that BM didn’t deserve nastiness, because she’s a self-absorbed twat, but that’s not a reason to BE nasty, especially since it doesn’t do a damned bit of good. 

Nothing much real to report.  My daughter suffered through an extended bout of the rota virus, which I definitely recommend avoiding at any cost unless you actually enjoy scream-worthy intestinal cramping and pooping something that looks like egg drop soup. 

Students continue to try my patience, because they procrastinate so terribly and then pull long, pained faces when I tell them that the paper they have only been working on for two days instead of the required two months isn’t going to earn a passing grade.    

In other news, my birthday is here.  May 1 is a good birthday to have.  At my age I wonder why people bother to make a fuss over anyone's birthday, let alone mine.  But for some reason it seems like birthdays still turn into a week long party, even when I don’t remind anyone.

My best friend and her husband had us over last night, saying nothing of course, but they made steak fajitas and brought out a cake and gifts.  Tonight husbo took us out to dinner.  Japanese food.  Yum.  Next week another friend and another...

And Husbo has been bugging me for ages about a present.  Why won’t men give you what you really want?

He asks me what I want.  I say “A love letter.”

Husbo:  No, really.

Me:  Really.

Husbo:  What do you want me to buy you?  How about a new mixer?  Yarn?  Perfume?

Me:  Nothing.  You are the best husband in the world and I have everything I want.  But if you’re asking me, I want a love letter.  A real love letter, hand written on nice paper, that I can keep forever and look at when we’re old and grey.

Husbo:  (commences visible squirming) 

Oh, he wrote me a love letter before, a very nice one, so it’s not like he can’t do it.  But he wrote it only after much pleading, and he wrote it on the back of a sketch he did of the three of us.  After I read it once, and cooed over it, he promptly put it into a frame, where I can’t ever read it.  He promised to copy it before he framed it but he didn’t.

What is it with you guys, anyway?  Who can explain this behavior?  Why would my husband press to purchase me hundreds of dollars of perfume and yarn, or a $400 kitchenaid stand mixer I've been coveting (but don't need), instead of just writing me that bloody love letter?  I know he loves me because he constantly tells me, and he's extremely affectionate not just in private but in front of other people as well (almost too much so, really).  What's with putting it in writing?

Maybe since I'm an English teacher he's afraid I'll grade him.  But I swear I wouldn't, even if all he wrote was "L0v ui 111!"  Okay, maybe if he wrote that.  Definitely if he wrote that.  

OMG!  My husbo's afraid I'll grade his love letter!



 

I am over my most recent Knorg-induced (albeit unwittingly) bout of the heebie jeebies.  I would try to explain why Samara frightens me so, but that would involve thinking about her more.  Which is something I definitely do not want to do.  

I had to write because I recently experienced a coincidence so serendipitous I am almost tempted to believe in Phineas' theory about magical thinking, which heretofore I thought to be pretty much a bunch of twaddle.

Okay, here's the story:  A few weeks ago, I decided to knit my first bag to felt.  I picked some springy colors--in Nashua Creative Focus worsted.  An orangy-pinky-red, a blue green, and a bright mustard yellow, just done in three simple stripes.  I'd had the blue green around for awhile, anyway, and wanted to use it.  So, I knit the bag, a lovely bucket bag with a flat bottom and a gentle taper at the mouth. It turned out beautifully.  

But when I finished it, I knew I couldn't keep it.  I had to give it away to someone.  I thought of my friend D., my best grad-school friend,  who's in Lithuania now for a year.  I knit her a cashmere hat, scarf, and fingerless mitts before she left.  But now spring is coming, even in Vilnius.

So I put the bag in a box and sent it off to her.  

Today, she writes me this note.  Apparently, I have somehow managed to knit a bag that looks exactly like the Lithuanian flag.  Not just the colors, but the order of the colors as well.  Like this:



Nice flag, eh?  The bag was nice too.  I can only think that something wonderful will happen to D. when she carries it.

http://www.0800-horoscope.com/birthchart.php

http://www.alabe.com/freechart/

Fill in the specific data and you will have a complete chart of your birth, and where all the planets where at the moment you were born.

I also have big plans for the neighbors--who in the Sims visit all the time, whether you want them to or not. Snatched an incredibly realistic Angelina Jolie skin. Looks exactly like her. Then there's Johnny Depp's Jack from Pirates of the Carribean, and my own version of Severus Snape. I think I'll put them in a house with Angelina Jolie. At least when they visit it will be interesting. More news as it occurs...I've gotten quite into downloading lots of modern furniture, and am actually building the houses based on actual floor plans, so it might take awhile for it to get up and running.

But the biggest news has been our new dog. Yes, a dog. We have been thinking about getting a dog for about a year, since my old cat Dave died (at nearly nineteen). I am rather picky--I wanted a smart, small puppy that didn't shed and was good with kids. That's a tall order. Anyway, I didn't think I would find that at the pound. I thought I'd have to go to a breeder. I was thinking of a yorkipoo, actually, or a bichon frise.

My best friend Cindy told me I really needed to save a life and adopt a pound dog, and of course she was right, but again, I despaired of finding one that would meet my specifications.

"You just have to keep looking until you find the right one..." she said.

So, we figured today was as good a time to start as any. We went out there to look around. In the first kennel there wasn't one puppy or dog I'd want to take home. Ditto in the second kennel, and I thought we'd just have to come back another day, when there, in the last cage on the far end of the room, was our dog.

A purebred rat terrier, between 8-12 months old, spayed, crate-trained and housebroken (mostly), and very good with children. Her owners just had too much on their plates with two full-time jobs, school, and three kids. They couldn't keep her.

Anyway, like I said, she's perfect. A sweet lapdog who loves to play with children and hasn't a nippy bone in her body. All she needs is a rabies shot, ear mite medicine, and a deworming (which is standard for a pound dog), which we will get taken care of tomorrow.

The name? Dinah.

And hey, what's the deal with GAFF? Pay site? Really? Someone send a linkie...

The utter mediocrity of my resolutions prove how lucky I really am.  In no particular order, some resolutions:

1. Keep on top of the laundry.  Really.
2. Do yoga on a daily basis.
3. Drink more tea.
4. Finish Snape opus.
5. Improve my knitting skills.
6. Clean the bathrooms more.  Or shave husbo's entire body.  Hair everywhere.  Ick.
7. Finish paying off old house. 
8. Clean out closets, donate stuff or sell on ebay.
9. Try to eat healthier.
10. Bake fresh bread for daughter and husbo regularly.
11. Pray more.
12. Try to be more appreciative of everything I have, and everyone that loves me.

Now, I'm putting a little twist on the latest meme going around.  Here's my f-list.  You don't have to reply.  In fact it probably would be better if you don't.  Just have fun guessing which stuff is about whom.  

dropdeadred, _flame_god_, anti_nation, aphrodeia, aries_ascendant, cindaedna, danalwyn, elaryn, gasphemer, knorg, misskitten88, moon_very_thin, nightdog_barks, phineas7, saraswathi_rani, spotts1701, squirrelly42, tripathy

1. You are my guide to everything I ever wanted to know about brainiac scientists
2. You are smart and reasonable by half.  Your "rants" often seem more like the Gettysburg Address 
3. You remind me of my younger brother 
4. Take off your pants.  Now.  MMmmmnnnn....
5. I think about what it would be like to be you--and sing for real, instead of just in a choir.
6. Mucho icon lurve.  Mucho 
7. I still want to know why you left, and where you're going
8. You are my new best friend.  Well, you and...
9. Number 9, also my new best friend.  I need to be around more truly nice people like you and #8.
10. If you're really the asshole you think you are, I'm a bad judge of character.
11. We can share Billy Bob, if you like.  You can have him first.  But don't tire him out to much.  I've got plans for him.
12. You have another alternate life that I've thought about a lot.  But your life is like mine, also.
13. Don't just tease us with little hints here and there.  You must discuss your sex life in more detail.  Us marrieds like to live vicariously.
14. I didn't know people as young as you liked OS Trek as much as you do.  It gives me hope for the future.   
15. You are me, about 15 years ago. 
16. Your journal entries and contributions on GAFF about God and religion make me less embarrassed to talk about my own beliefs.  But I'm still embarrassed
17. I found that story you mentioned concerning Hagrid rimming Snape to be quite well done.  If one wants to see Hagrid rimming Snape, that is
18. You seem to like yourself more lately.  That's very good to see.

Nightdog always seems so stable.  Maybe it's the bread. 

So, I baked bread this evening.  I am not an innovator. White bread is fine with me. And I am also lazy.  So I used this breadmaking machine my best friend gave me for Christmas a couple of years ago.

Not to actually bake the bread, you understand.  That would be heresy.  But I did use it to make the dough and give it a first rise.  Then, all I had to do was plunk it out and plop it in two loaf pans.  The loaves are bee-yoo-tee-ful.  And smell great.

To further steady myself I also made homemade ham and navy bean soup, using a big ole hambone and some ham left from Christmas dinner. I am not fond of ham and bean soup, but husbo is.  What with the bread and the soup, he pretty much pawed at me the whole evening, patting and stroking and generally hovering over me adoringly as a result.

Generally my previous beaux before husbo have been far more aloof.  They didn't really love me, though.  And I kinda liked it that way.  Less to worry about. 

Eh, he'll wise up soon, I'm sure.  All good things must end.  He looks especially sexy these days since I "accidentally" shaved all his hair off.  That won't go unnoticed. Some nubile coed will come along, with her firm breasts and her flat tummy and her appreciation of all things Public Radio.  How can my brilliant husband possibly stay in love with a woman who loathes public radio?  He can't.  The coed will bewitch him away, tra la tra la. 

Then I will have to go back to moody, intense men who don't love me, and absolutely positively don't follow me around with puppy dog eyes just waiting for the moment that they can hug me for far longer than is convenient.

Sigh.       

Here

Ah, Hellfire is back.  And just when we got rid of Millyfan.

A nice Christmas, overall. I have discovered, however, that lots of presents make my daughter grumpy. Too much, too fast. Best present? Santa brought an elaborate, contemporary dollhouse, stuffed with furniture.

And then there were wrapped presents of all sorts from her grandmother and aunt. Last night she was completely wired, and didn't fall asleep until almost two in the morning, so her lack of sleep may have had something to do with her mood. But I couldn't be cross with her. She wanted to stay up and watch "A Christmas Story" with me, and then when we snuggled she kept saying "Merry Christmas, mama!" and "I love Christmas!" Husbo grumped about her being up at the late hour, because of course that meant we were up until four setting up the dollhouse, but Christmas only comes once a year. She ate candy for breakfast, and who cares?

As for me, I have reached that comfortable and longed-for stage in life where I have the means to buy pretty much what I want, and the luck not to want very much. I yell at husbo if he even thinks about buying me expensive jewlery, and I didn't even want an engagement ring. (He married beneath him, but at least I won't bankrupt the guy.) I got books, and a couple of little tidbits from Origins. The gloomaway body scrub (delicious), which I get every year, and a ginger sampler pack. Just pointless excess, of course, like my latest preoccupation with luxury yarns, but that's what Christmas is for.

Then there's the whole birth of Christ thing, too. I sang at the Christmas eve service, and my beloved priest, the man who baptized me last March, is retiring and I won't ever see him again. Sigh. I adore him. An old radical from the sixties and seventies, he got death threats when he set up an integrated head start program here thirty years ago.  I wish I was noble enough that people would threaten to kill me. Actually, no I don't. 

Anyway, I will end my little Christmas missive with a few lines from my favorite Christmas carol, the Wexford Carol, which originated in 12th century Ireland.

Good people all, this Christmas time,
Consider well and bear in mind
What our good God for us has done
In sending his beloved Son.
With Mary holy we should pray
To God with love this Christmas day;
In Bethlehem upon that morn
There was a blessed Messiah born.

God bless the Irish, eh?  And Merry Christmas to you and yours, and the happiest of new years. 

Are you ready?

Are you sure you're ready?

Are you really really sure?

Okay, then...

"water park"

Gacked from a small red-headed boy named Jackson in my Wednesday night Bible class, after another small boy named Troy punched him right in the crotch.

You learn something new and wonderful every day.

This week has been better than last.  At least no students have died or collapsed.  The weather has been cool and lovely.  And our heat has been fixed so we won't all die of carbon monoxide poisoning in the middle of the night.  That's good, even if it did cost $2000. 

My biggest adventure today was taking my daughter and her best friend to our pathetic little mall for a couple of hours.  First stop, the dollar store, where my daughter chose some sunglasses, a knight's helmet, and a small vampire bobble-head filled with citrus bubble gum. Her little boyfriend took a helmet as well, and more gum.  I don't know how we managed to spend 45 minutes in there.  Probably because they had to look at everything, and claimed, loudly that they wanted everything, before they were forced to choose.

"What the heck are you going to do with a feather duster?" I asked my daughter.

"WANT IT!" she said.

"Put down that generic pregnancy test..." I told her boyfriend, who's all of three.

"WANT IT!" he said.

I made them choose, then took them to the nearby crappy outlet store.  It's an outlet that sells mostly Wal-mart castoffs, if that tells you anything, but you can find the occasional treasure, and they have a wealth of really nice kids' books and some toys, for very little. My daughter immediately crawled under a rack of clothing and pooped herself.  She's not toilet trained yet so that's normal.  Sort of.  Except that she's nearly three and categorically refuses to sit on the potty.  Pretty soon we're going to have to choose what kind of mental complex we're going to give her.  It's either the one you get when your parents force you to use the potty, which terrifies you, or the one you get when your parents tell you that unless you use the potty the police will arrest them and take them away forever and it will be all your fault.

I'm leaning towards the latter.  She might as well get used to people fucking with her head early.  (Okay, so it won't be as bad as all that, but we are going to tell her that it's illegal to sell diapers for use on anyone over three.)   

Anyway, I was starting to think that it might be a good time to get the kids back to the house, when the boy, who has been absolutely vibrating over the assortment of Spiderman folders and notepads he's found, says "Eddie (not my name, but it's what he calls me), need to go to the baffroom."

"Oh, well let's find you a bathroom then," I say, taking his hand.  It is about that time that I notice the wet stain spreading across the front of his corduroys. 

Well, of all the places to get stuck with two toddlers with human waste in their drawers, this was at least a good one.  I bought a $3 pair of pants for the boy, some brand new Hulk underoos, and took them both into the ladies room, where it took me fully twenty minutes to get them both cleaned up.  (Of course, part of the time I was attempting to keep the boy from picking used gum off the trash can and eating it.)

Then I took them for lunch, where they inhaled chicken tenders and shoestring fries and peanut m&ms and diet coke.

I'm having my uterus removed on Tuesday, by the way. 

And am I the only one interested in Loki's sex life? You know why I am? Because he's not married. I'm interested in everyone's sex life, when they're not married.

Married people have sex lives but no one wants to hear about them, because they're not that interesting. Single people have all this stuff to wangle and it's a big drama. Then, like Loki, they go all mysterious on you, just hinting at the sturm and drang surrounding the heated coupling.

Married people just have to wait for the kid to fall asleep. Witness this little exchange from my own life, ca. last night.

Husbo: Mmmm. Baby's asleep...

Me: (staring at my knitting needles, futilely attempting to master the purl stitch) Ah, so you want to make love?

Husbo: Yup. I'll go wash up and wait for you.

Me: (Not looking at him, but still stabbing at the yarn and trying to purl) Okay. Be there in a sec. Don't start without me. You know how I hate that.

Husbo: (from down the hall) Then put the yarn away!

Oh, it's late. I am still up, still suffering from insomnia. MUST SLEEP.

And master the purl stitch.