Made in Richmond

Robin gets married on Saturday and as her maid-tron of honor, it is up to me to take care of certain duties. Tonight I did the favors for the wedding. They involve very small jars, large quantities of red hots, and tying ribbon into little knots. I worked on them for 2 hours last night and 3 hours tonight. I called her immediately after I finished. This was our conversation:

Robin: Hello!
Me: They are done. Please come and get them. I don’t want to see them ever again.
Robin: I love you.
Me: I’m serious.
Robin: Ok, I’ll be right there.

She then came over and we had a conversation during which I was only partially coherent. Our chatting consisted of me asking her questions about the wedding, yelling at my oceanography notes, telling her about school, and yelling at my oceanography notes again. Needless to say, she didn’t stay very long because I had gone insane.

Determined to stay on top of things for my oceanography class, despite the craziness that is this week, I then made my way upstairs to settle in and get my crappy homework done. I was halfway done when I realized I needed a Sharpie to draw on my globe (don’t ask, it’s a stupid explanation). I turned and slammed my knee into the corner of my desk. It was one of those times where you have a full second to think, “Damn that is going to *hurt* in a few seconds. It will be a hurt that I know will pass, but one that will make me want to vomit nonetheless.” I was right. I then curled up on the floor groaning, “Ooooooooh, ahhhhhhhhhhhh, ooooooooh, ahhhhhhhhhhh…ooooooh…….ahhhhhhhhhhhh…………ooooooooh” for about 10 minutes.

After finishing my homework, I realized that I actually had time to knit. I hobbled downstairs and scurried into the living room. I picked up one of my knitting projects (they’re both scarves, but they’re *different*) and proceeded to sing this song to it; yeah, that’s right, I was singing to my knitting:

Oh, knitting!
How I missed you!
Oh, knitting!
How I love you!
It’s been so looooooooooong,
Since we’ve had fuuuuuuuuun,
Oh knitting I love you so.

Clearly, it’s time for bed.

When is the last day of school?

If Columbus sailed the ocean blue in 1492, how come he didn’t get here until 1607?

Are we going outside tomorrow if it’s raining?

Are you Swedish or something?

How do you spell dictionary?

Why doesn’t Mr. Benedict have a real job like my dad does?

My tongue hurts, can I go to the clinic?

Sigh…

Every month a different grade level prepares some kind of “treat” for the staff. Usually this involves putting food in the teacher’s lounge for people to snack on during the day. October is 5th grade’s month, and we decided to do something different. Debbi, Janie, and I all love tailgating, and Jason just does what we say, so today we pulled their SUV’s up on the playground and served a bona-fide tailgating breakfast. Everyone came wearing their team colors and we had us a good old time. We had bubble bread, coffee cake, sausage balls, pigs in blankets, trail-mix, and cinnamon rolls. It was freezing cold, and sunny, and windy, and glorious. I had so much fun, even though I think I still smell like sausage from slaving away yesterday, up to my elbows in pork products.

I’ve got an INsane week coming up with about a million things going on. Here’s the run down (and please note that not all of these are considered work, I’m just amazed how jam-packed everything is):

Monday: Get to work early, set up faculty breakfast, run about a zillion copies of a zillion things, teach the children, come home, make the wedding favors, do homework, maybe say hi to my husband

Tuesday: Teach the children, come home, go to Bible study, do the homework that I didn’t do Monday night

Wednesday: Teach the children, get together plans for my substitute, go home, clean my house, have people at my house to watch Project Runway finale/go to Leah’s bachelorette party

Thursday: Keep Robin from going insane, get a manicure and pedicure, freak out that my students are misbehaving, keep Robin from going insane again, go to Robin’s bachelorette party

Friday: Pull Robin off of the ceiling from stress/excitement, freak out again that my students are misbehaving, go to wedding site and help set things up, pick Robin up off of the floor, rehearse for the wedding, go to rehearsal dinner

Saturday: Pick Robin (now called the Bride) up, make sure we’ve got all of the Bride’s things before leaving, take the Bride to get her hair done, get my hair done, driving the Bride to the wedding site, squeeze my top-heavy self into my dress, getting the Bride into her dress, get the Bride down the aisle, cry during the ceremony, get a new brother, pose for pictures, eat some food, make a toast (eek!), dance with the hubs, roll my eyes at things the hub says, get the Bride and Groom off to their hotel, load up the car with stuff, take the stuff to the Bride and Groom’s apartment, go home, die from exhaustion

Sunday: Get miraculously resurrected from death by exhaustion, sleep late, go to church, go back to sleep, wake up and pester Ross about my birthday present

Geesh.

Today my children were acting like puppies. They were all over me every second of the day, swarming me at every turn. Finally, I picked up my yardstick and beat them. Just kidding. Actually, I picked it up, held it out from my body, and declared that they were not allowed to get within three feet of me. It worked amazingly well. See, guys? All kids need are very specific boundaries.

My school is full of ladies. As we know, ladies are often concerned with their weight. Every year, my school has some sort of weight loss competition. They divide into teams and whichever team loses the most weight over a given period of time wins a reward. This year, it’s gotten ugly.

We walked into the lounge this afternoon and found our tables covered with trays of cookies, cake, and candy. A sign stood next to the treats stating, “Please help yourself and enjoy!” At first we thought, “Oh how sweet.” However, upon closer inspection of the handwriting, we discovered that our school secretary, a member of the winning weight loss team, wrote the note. It was a set up. An awesome set up which, being that I (notably not a member of a weight loss team) thoroughly enjoyed as my colleagues ate their South Beach microwave meals.

These precious words were exclaimed by young Nicholas as he watched the trapdoor spider (we think that’s what is was and since I’m the science teacher and I said it, it is so) go about his ferocious feeding habits.

We came across the spider’s web while walking out to recess. There are 4 distinct groups out at recess and they are as follows:
1. The kickballers
2. The jungle gym kids
3. The double-dutchers

and my personal favorite…
4. The dirt diggers.

I generally stick with watching the double dutchers and the dirt diggers. It’s not my affinity for the letter “d” but rather I fell into both of these groups when I was a kid. I can’t double dutch, but sometimes they will cheapen themselves and turn one rope so I can play,

Anyway, the dirt diggers were crawling around on the dew-soaked ground (yes, they all look as if they’ve pissed themselves by the time we go in) when all of a sudden I saw them all freeze. This is usually what happens when they’ve found something awesome. A complex web was spread out on the grass, reaching about 12 inches in diameter. The center of the web funneled into a small hole leading to the bottom of the mound of spider gunk. Now, dirt diggers understand that you do not mess with something as amazing as this. There will be no stepping on it or stirring of it with a twig. They must investigate. I was beckoned over, consulted, and it was decided that I should gently prod at the hole with a piece of grass. I did so, and out scurried a big brown spider. Dirt diggers don’t shriek, no matter their gender. Instead they explode with shouts of “AWESOME” and “OHMYGOSHTHATISTHECOOLESTTHINGIHAVEEVERSEENINMYLIFE” and the like.

Being the awesome teacher that I am, I told them to go find a cricket to see if we could get the spider to eat it. I thought this would keep them occupied for the remainder of recess, but dirt diggers are a determined folk. They were back in less than five minutes with the lucky representative cupping a cricket in her hands. The young lady then gently (because, I mean, she didn’t want to kill the cricket, she wanted to see the spider do it) placed the cricket near the hole in the web, making sure that it got stuck. Then we sat. And we watched.

After about 10 minutes of frantically telling each other to “shhhhhhhhh” and “back up so they wouldn’t scare the spider” my little nerdy friends were rewarded. As the cricket made a valiant but futile attempt to leap from the web, the spider bolted out of its hole, jumped on the cricket, and dragged him to his doom down in the hole. This is when dear Nicholas placed his face directly on the grass to peer into the spider’s mound and gave us the play-by-play destruction of the cricket’s “abdomonian” (it was too funny to correct) and eminent death.

So, what did you do at work today?

Ross: Sometimes, I wish you were more of a slut.

What the mess.

Ross and I ventured out into the monsoon tonight to finally cash in our movie passes. See, when you buy a house through Cabell Childress, he randomly sends you gas cards, vouchers for basketball games, and movie passes, just to thank you for doing business with him. We had gotten the latest passes a while ago, but just tonight found both of us with enough time to go and see a movie together.

We’d been wanting to see Little Miss Sunshine for a while. Luckily it was still playing at the Westhampton. So, after stopping at CVS for more large adhesive bandages (see here for why) and contraband, i.e. non-concession stand candy to be stashed in my ridiculously large bag prior to entering the theater, we made our way up to Theater #2 (our favorite-don’t ask me why) to watch this movie we’d heard so much about.

I’m very hesitant about giving two entire thumbs up or five stars. I’d much rather cop out by throwing a ½ in there so I don’t have to really commit to anything. But, I’m gonna say it: this movie gets full marks. I won’t go into the storyline because I’m not very good at summarizing, and if you really care, go see the movie. However, I will tell you that this movie is one of the best ones I’ve seen in a very long time. I didn’t even realize how long it’d been since I’d seen a good movie. But this one was great enough to show me that I’ve been watching crap for a good long while. There’s nothing pretentious about it, but it’s not fluff in any way. Its message is simple yet important, and you leave it feeling good – but not a cheesy good, like an authentic, useful, real-life good.

Greg Kinnear and Toni Collette are perfect as the married couple dragging their family along in their efforts to get their daughter to a beauty pageant. Steve Carell is hilarious as usual, but not in his typical ridiculous way. I think we often forget that comedic actors are typically the best ones. I’m not saying that I want to see him as the leading man in an epic romance, I just mean that he is capable of giving a very layered performance, without beating you over the head with his character’s plight. Paul Dano is great as the angsty (I really hate that word and I don’t think it applies, but I couldn’t think of another one), even though he doesn’t speak until the movie is almost over. And, I must say, I am totally in love with Abigail Breslin. This child makes you want to have a million babies in hopes that you will have just one like the character she plays.

So, in short, go see it. Or just Netflix it. But definitely watch it. And FYI: The horn is the best part.

Watching someone take off a sweatshirt when they don’t know you are watching them. Woo.