Advice from Bunny

When all else fails, take a nap.

Also a view espoused by cats, as seen in
Suzy Becker's All I Need to Know I Learned from My Cat

 

Happy Memorial Day

We are grateful to the servicemen and women who gave their lives that we might be free, even in little things like expressing ourselves in the blogosphere.

The Cat is celebrating her freedom to sleep
on top of the fridge (freezer, actually).

Today, I'm doing my best to keep cool; will go over to my parents' house later to help finish off the leftovers from yesterday's "cook-in" (technical problems with hooking up the grill!).

I'm not thinking about how I might have missed the opportunity to submit an application for a job opening at one of the school districts where I did student teaching.  (Here's hoping the way I submitted it will still get their attention and convince them to ignore the deadline.)

I'm not thinking about how I have to face all the nightmare camp registration stuff (and eventual, inevitable cancellations and shuffling around) when I go back to school tomorrow.

And I'm definitely not thinking about how I sort of hurriedly babbled (through a screened window, no less) hello to the (disarmingly funny/cute) son of a certain lady you might recall who put me on the phone with him previously. . . if you read my other blog.

Nope!  Gonna go eat lunch, put on some music--and probably the air conditioning--and do the summer/winter wardrobe switch. 

It Took Me All (School) Year. . .

. . . but I finally realized who my one fourth-grader with the cute tiny voice sounds like: Bubbles the Powerpuff Girl (the yellow-haired one).

See? There's a perfectly good reason to be watching the Cartoon Network this late at night.

Where I've Been in a Week

Monday: At the funeral for my co-librarian's father.  After that, on the phone/computer returning calls/e-mails to a handful of moms annoyed that (a) I dared notify them there was a problem with their children's camp applications, and (b) I was not available to take their calls.  I whipped "where I was" ever so sweetly back at them.

Tuesday: Trivia night, where we kicked butt while cracking jokes about the original Three Musketeers--"Athos, Porthos, and-"
 Shemp (Teammate S.)
 Cousin Oliver (Me)
Where I was not: training for my new part-time job at the public library, feeding the cats dinner at my parents' house.  Training was postponed at the last minute, and I totally spaced out about the cats with all the changing around of my scheduled.  They got dinner at 8:30 when my dad got home, and the cats still love us all. 

My original journal (created last summer)

Wednesday: In the midst of a flurry of cutting and pasting fourth-graders, as they put decorated the covers of mini-notebooks to make journals that I hope will be used to log their summer reading.  (I asked them to bring them back to school in September so we can see how far they got.)
Incidentally, my cold-induced forgetfulness had me realizing I forgot my original journal to show as an example, so there I was at 10 a.m. throwing together a new one.  Not my best work, but they were impressed nonetheless. 




Thursday:  Mass for the holyday, training at the library for my new part-time job.  Also, before I left the house for the library, my mom called to say she was home from NJ.  Tired, but home.  Yay.
Also on the sofa, finishing The Unwanteds, which honestly I thought was just O.K.  There were some imaginative parts but then they veered into elements of "preciousness" or kinda "twee" moments or too convenient/weird characters, inventions, or occurrences that made me feel talked down to.  Even if it is middle-grade fiction.

Friday: Getting partial highlights--hello, summer; bye-bye, random grays.  I've had that money in reserve since I sang for a wedding last month.
Where I was not: the gym, sadly, because my head and neck hurt too much, and this afternoon I was having short bouts of sweats and chills.  I hope it's better tomorrow, because in the afternoon I have a vigil Mass to cantor.  

Two more books (this and that) to finish that I owe back to the school library, laundry--oh, and I have to shop for birthday presents for Oldest Nephew (last Thursday) and Younger Sister (today, and it has to be good because she's spending the weekend traveling to a funeral).

Soooo, how was your week?
   

Adventures in Jury Duty

It all started with the joy of getting up at 5:30 to feed The Cat. . .

• Train ride
• Four-block walk (ruminating on how much I do not enjoy being in the city by myself)
• Stop for coffee
• Walk too far and--after enjoying the view of Louise Nevelson's sculpture--ask a nice older gentleman who I think was wearing a city uniform (not sure for which service) to point out the entrance to the building (BTW Sara knows why I know who Louise Nevelson is)
•  Get purse x-rayed by security, then personally scanned by security and thanked for doing my civic duty
• Instructions delivered live by one person and then via instructional video read by a justice who says "particular" the same way my Great-Aunt E. used to ("par-tick-ler")
• Wait through all the names called and numbers assigned, and there I am near the tail end of the second selection set
• Seeing the inside of a courtroom, with a real judge!  Neat!
• Sitting through all the questions. . . I honestly could not say yes to any of the screening-out-problems questions, and being at the tail end--not selected for the jury!
• Back to the waiting room where it is freezing; reading for about half an hour
• Another half an hour later, after all the other "non-selecteds" have returned, we get our certificates and are outta there
• Walk four blocks back
• Have a soft pretzel and some Coke Zero (to settle my stomach which was bothered by "woman troubles" all morning) and people-watch as I wonder what happened to what used to be a nice shopping center (fugly neon and sequined clothes in the display window? Yuck!)
• Miss the train by a couple of minutes, of course; sit and read and people-watch some more
• Finally back to my car by 2:00

All that adventure--and to think, I get a check for $40 or so in the mail for it in a couple of weeks!

I wonder how things went at school without me. 

Good News, Bad News, and Crazy News

Good: I was offered the part-time job last night.  I'm thrilled and I can't wait to start!

Bad: My co-librarian's father passed away Tuesday evening.  I feel so bad for her and her family.  The elder of my co-librarian's kids had college graduation today so that must be bittersweet.
Also, I heard from my mom who went to help take care of my grandfather after his surgery and she already is exhausted.  Seems he gets out of bed several times a night.  Did I mention she has to do this through the middle of next week?  Happy Mother's Day to her.  (Ridiculous because she's the only mother among her sibs and I think they forgot or something.)

Crazy: I've been on the hook for checking back with the juror phone message system thingy every night. . . and wouldn't you know, I have to go in tomorrow.  School's a half-day, and I have to put in a full one somewhere I've never been before.

Of course, the real irony is that there's a major event tomorrow, and while I already said there was a chance I might not be there, now I'm really not.  Too bad for the people expecting me to do all the singing.  I told the students they'd better get the music down today, so. . . good luck to them.

 

The Week, So Far

The Cat is protesting the recall of her dry food.  I am scrambling to find something else tasty that she likes.  She's kinda crabby when she doesn't get her dry food.  It must be like potato chips or something.  She also has been refusing to take her (anti)thyroid meds as of late, and I don't know why.  That makes her somewhat crabby, too.  Maybe a round of poker will turn her attitude around.

Yesterday, I picked up the rest of my co-librarian's second grade class as she got a phone call that her father's condition, which had been declining the week before, had taken a very bad turn and she had to leave.  This morning, I taught first grade.  (I don't know how she does it, because sometimes those little ones are kinda wacky.)

I did go for an interview with a prospective part-time job, and it seemed to go well.  It's just knowing that I'm up against five other candidates that unsettles me.  But, hey, do they have the mad skillz and charm I do?  I think not!

As of tonight, I do not have jury duty tomorrow. . . but I have to call back again tomorrow night to see if I have to go on Thursday.  And possibly Friday.  All my contingency plans are in place, so I just have to go along with whatever comes up.  Oh, and keep processing the lovely camp registrations and accompanying parent call/e-mail questions that continue to roll in.  That last bit might be considered a new part of my job description, because, you know, when the staff member who's been doing it for years goes out for surgery months ago and doesn't come back, the responsibility gets thrown to the department that is thought to have "nothing else to do."  Nah, I'm not annoyed by that at all.

I'm too busy grading work, writing lesson plans, prepping contingency plans, helping out my department during a difficult time, and doing all my other duties to be annoyed.

And we're all just praying that God will be merciful to my co-librarian's father in his suffering.

A Little Bit of Wallace and Gromit. . .

. . . always makes me smile.  Enjoy!