But, really, what woman doesn’t? I know my mother did/does. The greatest achievement of her life was likely the day she convinced my sister and I to start washing our own clothes. And when she married the second time around, she was smart enough to find a man too OCD to let anyone else wash his clothing. Be jealous, World. Be jealous.
In college I got around the washing laundry thing by buying more clothes. There were numerous occasions where I would walk to my dresser and discover that I was on the last insert-article-of-clothing-here. That’s when I would immediately head over to Target and purchase insert-article-of-clothing-here.
Now that I’m married, the laundry sings a different tune. I’ve accumulated enough clothing that I only have to do laundry for myself about once a month. Impressive, isn’t it? Husband, on the other hand, does not have the multitude of choices that I do when it comes to attire. His wardrobe must be laundered and pressed on a weekly basis. (Oh, kill me now.) Because I dread the task so much, it is typically saved for Sunday evenings.
Flash forward to this evening. It’s 9:45 pm (EST). We are getting ready to dope up on cold meds and head to bed. Husband calls to me from upstairs: “Do I have a shirt for tomorrow?” I respond: “I don’t know. Do you?” Husband answers: “No.” I swear profusely at the kitchen counter before trudging upstairs to his laundry basket and pulling out the soiled articles in need of washing. I mutter as I go back downstairs, clothing in hand, to the laundry room. After I start the wash, it then dawns on me that in order for all of his clothing not to be wrinkled, and thus me not ironing, I now get to stay up another two hours.
I use to brag to my colleagues at SHS about how great I was with time management. It was my finely tuned efficiency that allowed me to be a car 4.5 hours a day to go to and from work, while still managing to have dinner on the table at 5:30 every evening and lessons ready for each school day.
Turns out my bragging is coming back to haunt my ass. There is no such thing as efficiency in my world right now. To use a metaphor one of my kids brought to me this week, my world is tumbling around like underwear in a dryer with no Bounce. Everything is sticking together. I’m forgetting things. My to do lists are getting longer and no boxes are getting checked off. I’m trying to maintain my focus on academics, but there’s so much other stuff that’s getting in the way. Mentally I’m exhausted. And as it’s only the second week of school, I’m thinking I’m screwed.
Here’s to hoping whatever time management skillz I “had” back in the day will come back to visit for a while. I think I miss them.
2. When you ask teachers to pick the photo that best represents how they feel right now (start of the school year), they will all pick the one that depicts a natural disaster.
3. If a teacher doesn’t pick the natural disaster photo, they are flippin’ clueless. Be afraid.
4. The school system does not pick opportune times to shut down servers for maintenance.
5. Coming to a consensus is really easy when you do whatever the other person says do because you’re too busy to give a flip.
6. There is no song that will not be cheesy when put to a bunch of photos of freshmen on orientation day.
7. When your school server is down, your school email will not come through on your shiny BlackBerry.
8. My knee can predict low pressure systems.
9. You can tell who your true friends are when you start asking for favors.
10. Whenever you stand up to address a room full of people, your phone will go off. Even if it’s just an alarm. An alarm that you’re not sure you set. And it will be loud.
I was trying to clean up some stuff around here because, well, it’s been neglected. I found this post that I drafted, but never published, on July 18th. Let’s pretend like it happened today because that would balance out the fact that I have yet to change out of my pajamas and I’m about to go back to bed. Most constructive moment of the day: finally pulling The Graduate out of its plastic sleeve and watching it. Most enlightening thought during most constructive moment: Mrs. Robinson was ca-ray-zee.
Saturday, July 18, 2009
Today, I’m working at The Wine Seller. Eight months ago, being at The Wine Seller on a Saturday morning was a regular deal for me. However, back in January, I decided that having three jobs was just not working out. I mean, after all, who was going to be there to make sure that Sadie could go outside and chase every leaf that blew in the wind? Or who was going to heat up left-overs for dinner at 5:30 so that Husband would have something to eat? (His cooking skills extend to toast and frozen pizza. But really this is beside the point…) So, I left The Wine Seller and moved on to the greener pastures of having only two jobs. But I realized today just how much I’ve missed being here…
Normally, my Saturday morning shift would start with a quick trip to the bank and a stop by Starbucks and the newspaper stand. Today was the first time I’ve had a grande Starbucks coffee in over seven months. And let me tell you, lovelies, it was gah-lorious! After returning to the store with the coffee and despoit slip in hand, I would then cut on a few lights, pull out a few bottles of wine, and kick back while reading the paper. I got paid to read the paper. It still astounds me.
After about an hour, a few customers would start to wander end. Most of these guys were regulars, and today, it’s been like going to a huge reunion of friends. I’ve been met with several “Oh my god, it’s Amber!”s. There have also been a few “I can finally get good recommendations again!”s. I kind of forget how awesome it is to talk to adults who aren’t Husband or teachers on a daily basis. I have had a blast this morning.
…it’s my fault really. I saw all of those shiny, blue recycling containers lined up against the wall, and I thought to myself: “Self, wouldn’t you just love to knock all that junk down?” And Self was all like “Hells yeah!” So what did I do? Oh, that’s right, I made a wall with CW. Then we knocked the wall down because we were all juiced up on that JHS Kool-Aid.
Have you ever looked up into a tree? I mean really looked at the way the sky cut through the leaves? Really looked at the texture the leaves have against a flat, smooth sky? Looked at the areas where sunlight illuminates the green until it becomes almost yellow? What about the places with heavy vegetation that are darker and obscured?
I start back to school tomorrow, though I’ve been working for the better part of two weeks. I’m trying to look at this year differently, kind of like looking up into the leaves of that tree. Rather than focusing on the leaves, I’m trying to stare into the sky, to see the goals of my year in whole. It’s an interesting perspective. For the first time in my teaching career, I’m looking at the end goal of the semester to guide my planning. I’m not focusing on the novels that I’m teaching, but I’m focusing on the overall lessons that I want my kids to take with them. In some cases, the lessons are very concrete (maybe one day I’ll make the their-there-they’re issue make sense to an ENTIRE class), but in others, the end results are much more abstract.
I hope that this new perspective will leave me with a lot more of those sunny, illuminated yellow patches. I’m excited about going back to work and getting back into the classroom because I love what I do. The summer months are always good for reflection, but I begin to miss the routine and the faces by the time July ends. I hope I never reach a point in my career where I begin to see the summer as the only illuminated patch in a world of dark, shadowy leaves.
Here’s a sure fire way to tell if you are sending an email too late at night:
i’m rethinking my whole “i’m not coming to vermont” thing. i almost feel like i can totally fake democrat if i had too, though they can probably smell the conservative on you up there. i bet it smells like mcdonalds and moth balls. come to think of it, i think i sometimes smell like mcdonalds and moth balls. well there’s sadie too… i think i’m starting to smell like her, which isn’t bad except she smells like fritos and that makes me hungry most of the time.
This was part of the closing of an email I sent KvB. She just moved to Vermont, which made me really sad. To put all of the conservative/liberal jokes in context, I managed to make it through an election year in an office of mostly liberal people without revealing my republican status. I’m normally not one to talk politics anyway, and my views on a lot of things are middle of the road, but it was quite a feat, let me tell you. After that, we all started playing with the whole opposite end of the spectrum thing. When she moved to Vermont, I told her I’d never be able to visit because I was sure someone would try to drag me to some grassroots, democratic rally on a commune where people don’t shower in an effort to convert me. I don’t think that would really happen. Well, at least I don’t think the not showering part would happen because I’m pretty sure there’s running water up there.
Kidding. Really. Please don’t send hate mail. Vermont is a lovely place with lots of snow and maple syrup. I don’t really like either of those things either come to think of it. I do like the smell of snow, and that’s gotta count for something. Right?
Last week, in fact, a week ago today, I was listening to the radio and the DJ announced that he would take caller 16 right then to win. Well, I didn’t know what I’d be winning, but I’m a sucker for a contest, so I whipped out my handy, dandy cellular device and started a-dialin’. About nine calls later, the phone actually rang and someone finally picked up. I mumbled something about being caller 16, and the guy on the other end said, “Hmm, you wouldn’t want to go see Brad Paisley on Friday night, would ya?” I kind of screamed back, “Holy heck, I’d give you my first born [knowing you don't have a first born makes it a lot easier to say that] to go see Paisley!” And he said, “Well, guess what. You just won two tickets to go see Brad Paisley and Dirks Bentley on Friday night.” And I was all like, “Heck yes!”
Fresh, Free Ticket
So after being on this cracked out high from winning something (thank God, we don’t live near Vegas or Atlantic City), I called Husband and was all like “Guess what we’re doing on Friday night.” And he was all like, “Taking Donnie* out to the Marina for dinner.” And I was all like, “Crap. I just won free tickets to a concert that I can now not go to.” And he was all, “Don’t you have friends?” And then I hesitated for about ten seconds before finally coming up with “I think so.” And I could tell he was busy at work because he gets that impatient-I’ll-call-you-later tone, which basically means ‘I don’t get summer’s off like you do, and I’m really jealous about that, but I could never be a teacher.’ So I ended that conversation and started scrolling through my phone’s contact list, quickly landing on one good friend (check) who lives in the area (check) who is also off all summer (check) and who likes country music just as much as I do (double check!). CW sounded more excited than I did, which was even more awesome, so we made plans for an afternoon of beach and an evening of music.
All in all, I have to say that the concert was pretty phenomenal. Once you move past the bug bites, spilled beer, smell of cigarettes, and sound of drunk rednecks, really it was a lovely evening. Paisley changed guitars nine times, something that thrilled me to no end, as each of his guitars is custom. Bentley gave a pretty rock solid show in his backwards trucker hat and flannel shirt. And the opener, Jimmy Wayne, played a beautiful jazz-acoustic version of his song “Sarah Smile.” Jimmy Wayne also hung out after the show to sign autographs and meet the fanaroos. He was a pretty nice fella. But the most miraculous part of the whole day was the lack of traffic on the peninsula and southside at least in my direction. I managed to get from CW’s house to the oceanfront in 55 minutes flat, which is a miracle in and of itself. Then we got from the oceanfront to the concert in ten minutes…which is like the parting of the Red Sea because of the sheer impossibility of that act. And lastly, I was home an hour and ten minutes after we left the show, and considering I live 25 minutes from CW and that I stopped at Taco Bell, the traffic gods were totally on my side. It was a perfect American Friday Night.
I honestly think that my favorite time of year is when the first school supplies roll out at Target. Perhaps it was a good thing that I became a teacher after all because by golly do I love school supplies. Sunday, Husband and I went to Target on a mission: find a plastic bin to store his car “rags” in. I, however, caught a down draft of notebooks, graphite, and plastic and was forced to follow it to the back of the store where I found school supplies. I then spent twenty minutes wandering approximately four aisles before deciding that I had to have that 10 pack of fine tipped colored Sharpies (especially because it had one of the new Sharpie pens in it (seriously, Sharpie, it is the best pen I’ve ever used and I now pledge my eternal love to you) and I’m a sucker for a “free gift with purchase”) and the Crayola 120 pack of crayons. Yes, the Crayola 120 pack of crayons.
Have you ever stopped to smell a brand-spankin’ new crayon? Aside from laundry that’s been on the line, freshly sharpened pencils, and library books, you know what the best smell in the world is? It’s opening a fresh box of 120 count crayons in Target while the whole world (or just Husband) watches you and realizing you don’t care because you’ve just stumbled on something that smells like frankincense and myrrh all wrapped up in bacon and dipped in the darkest chocolate known to man. Baby, let me tell you, that smells good.
You know how I know it’s summer? I look at my feet. Why do I look at my feet? Just follow the arrows.
Ever Present Flip-flop Tan
So I deduced that it was summer, just the other day, when I saw those pearly (ahem, pasty) white lines on my feet. Then I realized that I have been busy. You know how I knew I’d been busy? That’s right, I looked at my feet.
Chipped Polish... For shame...
If you follow those poorly-drawn-in-paint arrows, you’ll see that I’ve been neglected my toes. Poor toes… they don’t understand all the pressure I’ve been under this summer.
