That'll put you off your feed

Have you ever had to interact with someone whose teeth were obviously rotting?

Have you ever had to have a whispered, confidential conversation in a room of little pitchers with big ears?

Now, imagine attempting to have this conversation with the person in question.

I'll leave you to it.

~~~~~

Speaking of little pitchers, I've been thinking about the customs of youth these days. Especially the customs of young males.

In the wild, they size each other up  and often bash each other about the head to prove dominance. One could make the obvious comparison to football, but I'm sure some PhD anthropology thesis somewhere already has.

Primitive Cultures!!

But here in the city, I notice a strange behavior among the young males. Starting around 4th grade, they start sizing each other up with handshakes.

How weird is it to see the variety of handshakes among these little kids? There's the business shake, the "hey bro" pat on the shoulder while shaking shake. Then, there're the crazy bump, slap, slide, pinwheel combinations that they come up with.

It's almost like a secret language... that no girl anywhere has any interest in understanding. Of course, girls have the giggle language, so I suppose boys have to have something to counter that annoyance.

I wonder if my boys are learning this language? Is it just a city thing? I heard Stinky say that the Moth was "salty" the other day. At least Moth didn't reply that Stinks was "out of pocket." But does Sean greet his fellow scouts with a fist bump? A slide? Or the bro slap?

I do wonder.

Innuendo is Bad

So, the secretary of the school sent a note to all of us to update us on a certain student's long-term absence. Please mark all absences excused, she informs us. Then she ends the brief note with this intriguing little bit:  "quell rumors by not entertaining them."

I'll admit, I'm out of the gossip loop at school. I had no idea there WERE rumors. But now? I'm so intrigued! Not that I'd ever entertain rumors. After all, I have a rep as the world's worst hostess to uphold. No entertaining for this hag!

More nefarious, though, is the idea that SEPTA is handing out "safety travel tips" on my subway lines. This just days after Homeland Security was riding the train in a "boo-ya" kind of manner. I'd blow it all off, but who'd have thought that some morons would go blowing up the Boston Marathon? I mean, really? What was THAT supposed to prove? So, is the Orange Line or the Blue Line a projected target? Or are they just being super safe?

I don't get it, and I don't want to think about it. So, stop alluding, folks. I like my world to be innuendo-free.

~~~~~

 We're doing ok here. Soccer season has started back up (bad). Moth's team meets twice a week: once to practice and once to lose. They're the bad news blues (teams are colors). Moth spends more time eating dirt than running. But he's having a blast and meeting lots of kids (good). Additionally, a new Krispy Kreme donut shop opened right up the street from the soccer field I must take Mothman to (bad?). At least Stinks doesn't complain if I drag him to practice or a game anymore!

They've got Stinks in a compulsory Spanish class. Which I think is awesome. But then they make the kids take French in the 7th grade, and Latin in the 8th.

I can see taking Spanish. It's super useful, as lots of folks speak it, not just here in the good ol USofA, but globally.

I get the Latin bit - a good part of our own language derives, right?

But French? Unless you're planning on surrendering sometime soon, I'm not sure why you'd be a francophone. Maybe they think we're all going a Quebec?

I don't understand why rudimentary Chinese isn't offered. It makes a LOT more sense than French, these days. Hecks, even Russian makes more sense than French. But French is classic, so that's what they waste their time on it, though it's not much useful.

I lie, actually. At my old school, we had a huge number of Haitian students, many of whom did not speak English. I was able to get a little bit through in French, so I guess Mademoiselle Marshall would be proud.

~~~~~

As I type, Grandma is listening to some Irish drinking tunes while she needles (and probably tipples a bit of the Irish!). John is still at work, while Sean is off to scouts. Tim's eating popcorn and playing "angry birds" as Loki the Dog looks on with guilty eyes. It's his fault, you see, that the birds are angry. I found him this afternoon after he had found a bird to "play" with. He was tossing it in the air, trying to get it to fly again. Alas. I just hope he didn't eat any of it - gross. Dogs. Yuk.

And now, it's almost 9 and I'm turning into a pumpkin. So I shall bid you all... a bientot (in french!)

(*)>

Lousy employment

You hear the strangest things when you ride the train.

This morning, Jerkface (thus named because he decided it was all cool to smoke in the passenger waiting area and then tried to cut in front of everyone else when the train came) loudly approached another waiting passenger.

“What are you doing here?”

“I’m on vacation.”

“Did you volunteer to work?”

“No, I’m on vacation”

“Where are you going?”

“Home. But I should go see my husband”

“Yeah?”

“He’s sick”

“Sick how?”

“He got sick at work”

Now this is all said very calmly, like they’re talking about Sixers scores. Except they’d be more excited about that.

“What kind of sick?”

“He fell.”

“Is he ok?”

“Yeah, I think so. He’s in the hospital.”

“Did he break his arm or something?”

“No. He hit his head. Good thing I’m on vacation.”

“Hit his head… is he conscious?”

“Yeah, I guess. Kind of. I think he can talk a little.”

Again, not a bit of emotion to this. Wow. Husband fell at work, was hurt / is ill enough to be in the hospital, semi-conscious, and all she can think of is that she’s on vacation. Her job must suck.

My job is good. But there’s this thing. If you’re from these parts, you’ve seen that we’re in contract negotiations.

They want any of us who make more than 35k a year to take a 13% pay cut, another 13% cut to pay for benefits. That’s a quarter of my salary, taken away. Which, yes, I get that the district is broke and that they have to cut. I get that I need to pay for bennies. But damn, that is poverty level. I already took a bit short of a 50% pay cut to take this job, because time is more important to me than money.

Except now they want us to work another hour a day, and cover the lunch room during our lunches, and not have any periods where we can grade or plan. I already spend 2 hours extra a day on this stuff, beyond working through lunch and my “prep” period. So, now they want me to work an extra 3.5 hours a day, with no break at all (isn’t that against labor laws??) for 25% less pay?

And they call it an opening negotiation stance?

I am grateful I have a job. I love my job. I love my kids. But jeez, this is nuts!

So here’s one of the reasons I’m in it. I have this class – contemporary issues in science. It’s an elective. So, one of the things I do is read a science news blurb, daily. One of the recent blurbs was about North Korea testing nuclear weapons (it registered as an earthquake).  We talked about how North Korea is flexing its military might, and I said, they hate us, but they hate Japan more, and they’re closer.

My kids asked why and I said that, though I had never learned about it in school, I had read that there was some seriously bad blood in Asia against the Japanese after what they did in World War II.  But that I could be wrong because history was not my area.

Now, they’re doing projects, so one of the kids started doing research on this, because she was interested. I told her to look up the Rape of Nanking. She came up with the Rap of Nana King… After correcting her google, she looked at the stuff, and suddenly she has a new project she’s going to do in her world history class.

Moments like that? The humor and the spark? No other job has that.

I Am Not An Animal!

Today is parent teacher conferences. I wore a skirt and heeled boots. Now, I haven't worn heels in forever because of that foot injury - it's all due to an injured achilles tendon. If that tendon gets cramped, I rip the muscles in my foot. So I wear flat shoes. But today, for the parents, it's a skirt and fancy schmancy boots.

First mom calls me a "lady." A LADY can you believe?
Then the Spanish teacher whistles at me and asks if I have a hot date.
The principal looked at me and started smiling and congratulating me on my outfit.

Sheesh, you'd think I normally dress like a slob... wait...

They should be tolerant. At least I no longer wear my dead uncles' clothes!!

~~~~~

Things are well in the dusty aviary. Tim has decided chorus is fun again, since he got to sing the national anthem at the high school basketball game, then Dad let them stay for the whole game (go Fords! Yes, apparently the team mascot is a ford. I totally get where it comes from, but come on. That's got to be the lamest mascot since John's alma mater: the hustlin Quakers. Go Quakers! Fight!... No! Don't Fight!! Be Peaceful but Hustle!!)

Stinky was not amused. He went because 1) the alternative was staying home with mom and 2) he knew dad was taking them to mickey d's for supper. But he didn't expect to have to watch an entire basketball game. What is the world coming to? Much eye rolling was witnessed, and several heaving sighs. I believe that my stinky comes from an Austen novel. I hope, however, it is not Sense and Sensibility. I hate that book.

Dad was amazed that the boys eat as much as he does at McDonalds. I wonder where he's been for the last 2 years. They're both as tall as I am and they haven't hit the major growth spurt yet. He's yet to understand that if he wants them not to eat their own food and his, too, he has to order something they don't like. Those new fish mcbites might do the trick.

I sometimes think I "prefer" to drink bitter, barely milky coffee simply to keep the kids out of it.
 
~~~~~

Speaking of coffee, we have a "carafeless" coffee maker. (ours didn't cost this much.) Four times now, my mother has stated that she didn't realize our coffee maker didn't have a pot. "How long have I been here and I didn't realize that?" Except she did. :(  She used to clean it out. Heck, she even used to make coffee in it.

So, what do you do when this kind of blatant memory lapse occurs? Do you ignore it and agree with her (what I've been doing.)? Or do you gently correct, making her realize that she's losing her memory way faster than she thinks but hoping to spur memory? I honestly don't know, but I'm going to ask the doctor. I'm not a psychologist, and no matter how much I need one, I've never gone to one.

and now, parent teacher conferences. Yeah!

(*)>

Funny Girl!

So, last night's Final Jeopardy question was "This 1964 Broadway show was originally going to be called 'the Luckiest People in the World'". So I sang through the song "People, people who need... people"

Oh, dammit. That is the classic earworm. Chuck the best man Mann, dammit, where are you? You deserve this earworm worse than I do! 24 hours later, it's gone, because my Mother has put another one up there.

"There once was a farmer who took a young miss
in back of the barn where he gave her a ... lecture
on horses and chickens and eggs,
and told her that she had such beautiful ... manners
that suited a girl of her charms,
a girl that he'd like to take in his ... washings
and ironings and then if she did,
they could get married and have lots of.... Sweet Violets"

There. If you're a Harvey, you've got it stuck in your head, too. Who says I'm not generous?

My mother lives with us in the winter, ostensibly coming "south" because the farm is too darn cold. Inevitably, she brings the cold with her.

The dusty aviary is a very boring, quiet place when we're here. Imagine what it's like when we're not. So we've decided to try to get Mom to hang out  with some other hip oldsters while we're gone during the day. I think she'll like it... eventually. Anyway, to get her there, we had to get a physical. Part of the physical was a TB titer. However you spell that.

You know that you have to go BACK to get the damn thing read, right?

So, Friday afternoon, I run out of school like a bat out of Hades to catch the early subway. And don't you know, they had "scheduling" issues at about 30th street, and we sat for 4 minutes. Just long enough for me to miss the early train.

SEPTA: never there when you need them.

So, I get out to Bryn Mawr at 4:25 (the docs close at 5) to find 3 inches of snow on the ground.

And every light was red. I swear.

We got to the doctor's office (I practically ran through the hospital. I would have piggy backed mom if she would have let me) just as the nurses were locking the office. DAMMIT.

But they read her arm, and I have to go back on Monday to get the paper. I do not have to take Mom with me. Thank the lord.

The next circus was getting back to CVS to get her meds, as they had to get one of the scripts from far away and couldn't get them before Friday afternoon. Of course. So, trekking through the snow on the Main Line, where people either drive like me (paranoid freaks) or like testosterone poisoned morons, we passed one or two CVS stores. Mom kept pointing them out, and I would say, Wrong One! We have to get to Bryn Mawr!

Finally, we got to Bryn Mawr. I "parked" - surprisingly, there were few cars there, but the lot was a mess. I told her to stay in the car while I went in and got the meds (and toilet paper, bread, eggs, and milk, as it was snowing, and this is PA). So I did. And when we were pulling out, she looks up at the store and says "There's a CVS! Is that the one?"

Oh boy.


~~~~~

Have I talked of the audacious squirrel yet? I don't believe I have.

We have a squirrel issue.

It started when the boys wouldn't put the lid on the garbage. I'd see Rocky out there, digging for choice tidbits, which he'd escape to the corner of our fence with, and munch away. Just out of reach of Loki, who goes a little nuts over squirrels.

So I talked the boys into putting the lid on.

Rocky just took the lid back off.

Then we started locking the lid on with the handle.

First, rocky took a crap RIGHT ON TOP of the garbage can, as if to tell us what he thinks of that. Then he learned how to pull the handle down enough to take the top off.

One day, Stinky was taking out garbage for me. I hear a screech (Stinks still wins the "scream like a girl" contest in this house. No puberty yet.) and suddenly I see him marching back toward his fort cussing the whole time (apple falls far from the tree??). Apparently, Rocky had jumped out at him when he took the top off the can.

Stinky comes back, slams the lid on the garbage, and puts a BRICK on top of it. My kid is smart.

Two days later, we see Rocky eating through the lid of the can. Rocky is smart, too.

Now, Rocky is probably a 10+ pound squirrel at this point. Never let it be said that the Rogers don't have some tasty treats in their garbage. That furry rat is positively ROTUND. And he likes his standard of living very much, thank you.

He left us another love note when we only put bathroom garbage out one day. Wasn't quite up to the usual food caliber, I suppose. But most days, he gets to chow down. So, as he eats:

1. it's harder for him to get out of his pre-chewed hole (because he's FAT now) and
2. this means, you never know when he's going to jump out at you when you open the can

Enough is enough.

We have gone to the nuclear option of garbage cans.

Metal with locking lids.

Bright side? If he chews through this, it's aluminum, and he'll get Alzheimers, so he won't remember where our house is. Win win. If I have to have dementia in my world, I'm going to use it to my benefit.

And that's birdwoman's life in a - ha ha - nut shell (squirrel? nut? I know it's a stretch. But I'm only flexible when it comes to humor. You should see the jokes I subject my students to: like "he threw sodium chloride at me! That's a salt!!" Say it out loud. If you don't get it, you need to take chemistry again.)

I'll take you through the trial I was on last week (jury duty for 2 weeks) sometime, maybe. Then again, that was boring enough to live through. I doubt you, my faithful reader, wants to live through it again.

(*)>

When did that happen?

At some point in the last year, I got nailed.

No, really!!

So, a month or so ago, the dreaded "Court of Common Pleas" letter came to the dusty aviary. Tag. I'm it. Again.

It's standardized testing week at my school: Jury duty. State test monitoring. Root Canal. Same diff... So today is the day. I got to sleep in, all the normal day-off stuff, without the day off. Go out to drive to the courthouse, and realize I have a flat tire.

Good thing we have that cheap basketball pump. Got me to the gas station, which got me to the courthouse. (and back)

I took all my papers to grade and my noise cancelling headphones. 2 hours in, they call the first panel. Guess who's on it. Of course they had to pick me, I was being productive. Lord love a duck, lawyers can't stand it when people are being productive!

Well, so many minutes into "jury selection" it ends up that the lawyers are being argumentative or some such nonsense, and we have to break for the day and come back tomorrow. Maybe they were punishing me further for productive use of my time? Who knows.

Of course, we're still testing at school tomorrow, so I feel guilty, but I actually don't mind. And since I got my grading AND lesson plans for next week done today? I won't be productive tomorrow. So, they'll exclude me. I feel certain of this.

Meanwhile, I decided since I had the afternoon, and a mechanic's shop is no different than the jury lounge, I went to our local Midas and asked them to look at the tire. Sure enough. It had a nail in it. I'm betting it was from the new roof we got, but who knows when I got nailed. Not like it really matters at this point.

(*)>

Thoughts on a movie

Our school had a field trip today for the US History students. We went to see Lincoln.

Now, I'm not one for long movies. I'm also not one for history. But I really, really enjoyed this movie. I thought it was a tribute to the man and the trials he went through. There was good, subtle humor. All in all, it was quite good.

But man was it uncomfortable being in the theater with my 100 students, most of whom are black, hearing white people expound on how blacks are not human, how they don't deserve to be held equal under the law. It's one thing reading that people espoused these views. It's another completely to see them arguing it.

I don't think most of them got what was being said. I don't think they understood that the Stevens school - the beautiful school across the street from our own school - is named for that ugly man who fought so hard for the amendment to pass. (and who would have thought Tommy Lee Jones would be in a period piece?)

Talking to them after the film, many said they slept, or they thought it was boring. One quote: "We didn't even get to see him get shot."

Alas. Teenagers.

But since this image is what came to mind when they said we were doing this trip, I guess I'm not much better.

~~~~~

So, we're all ready for Santa to send us the coal this year. No Rogers Chronicles is forthcoming. The dirty bird is too "depressed" to write them. Harumph. He's reading too much Drudge, I tell you. He should stick to Entertainment Weekly. That's what I read. That and New Scientist. None of this "gloom and doom Mayan apocalypse would be a relief" attitude for me. It's quite the trend switch. Usually I'm the grump.

The boys are quite excited. Moth hasn't stopped bouncing since turkey day. Stinks is even nice most of the time, and picking out holiday tunes on the keyboard. Even Loki's got into the spirit with a pair of jingly antlers. Well, he doesn't don them voluntarily, but it's still festive, and quite funny.

I have dug out all my myriad Christmas tunes. I want to know where the trend in songs about women prostituting themselves to santa got started. There is, at the least, "I saw mommy kissing santa clause" and that horrific ditty "Santa Baby." If I had a time machine, I'd go back and disembowel the writers of these songs. These tunes have no redeeming traits. None. And they encourage talentless hacks like Madonna and Brittany Spears to have holiday singles. That, alone, is a firing-squad offense.

Well, on that note (ha ha) I'm going to go take the kids out to supper. Check it out. Happy Christmas to all, far and near. And, Mary, if you read this, Mom got a card here from Donna Brown. I'll forward it this weekend, if I can remember to!

(*)>