IT'S SNOWING!

I have seen this happen all of my school life, which goes back to the fall of 1958. A class can be as quiet as a church, children working, intent on what's before them, but if one person happens to look out the window and see a flake, that person can announce in any tone of voice: IT'S SNOWING! Everyone turns and looks out the window, determines to his or her own satisfaction that it is, indeed, snowing, and goes back to what was going on before without missing a beat.

IT'S SNOWING!

It's about noon now, and it's barely snowing at all; nobody would even know except that The Announcement has just been made. It was supposed to flurry late tonight, after midnight. As for me, I'm not looking forward to walking around in flip-flops later on my way to and from the pedi, but I'll live. I don't think I'll get frostbitten toes during the five foot walk from door to car.

The celebration of the SCM's last day has gone very well. He was surprised by the decorations and breakfast in the office this morning in his honor, and the gifts, and people have been stopping by all day to say goodbye to him. He's very touched by it all, and very happy.

As for me, all I want is a pedi and a quiet weekend, which I anticipate. A bit of cat-sitting and feeding tomorrow morning, and then a short trip to the Vera Bradley store with a $20 coupon in hand.

I meant to write this yesterday, but I forgot. I still really don't get Facebook. Part of what I don't get is the difference between the anonymity here in diary-place and the upfront this-is-really-me over there. I don't want any Facebook friends I don't actually know -- I consider that I actually know those of you from this world who have friended me over there, unless I know you and didn't recognize your real name -- so I haven't accepted anyone I don't know, including someone from high school I never knew then, so why would I need to know her now? (I did get a friend request yesterday from someone who was a friend in high school, so I okayed that one.) But once I get past the friend thing, the bottom line is that I don't know what to do with the whole thing. It's not a blog, so I'm not really sure what gets posted there or what I'm supposed to do. If either of my daughters had patience to teach me, that would be good, but they wouldn't for this. Well, maybe K, if she's in the right mood. Maybe if I offer to grade her last set of papers for her. (Just kidding.)

So, later.

I did, in fact, just reply to something the old high school friend wrote on my "wall," whatever that is. Now, here's a question. How is it that everyone I ever knew and haven't seen since 1971 knows that I still work at the high school we went to together? Because anyone and everyone seems to know. Cannot for the life of me imagine why.

The era of the SCM is over, then. He had a lovely day, a nice way to go out. I did choke up a little on my goodbye, but it's okay; that's done. Moving on.



WATCHING FRIENDS :: ENTRY #1976
READING: ---- by ----

Food, and Tunes

New food for today: honeydew melon.

Funny, I've been very fruit-phobic since I got sick, but honeydew is a kind of odd comfort food for me. After the brain tumor, my tongue was affected for a couple of months, and most foods didn't taste their normal taste to me. One of the few things that did was honeydew, and it was so cold and refreshing; I would eat it all the time. But I've also heard that if you have hay fever -- as I do -- avoid honeydew during hay fever season, because it's part of the ragweed family of plants and will make you worse. Anyway, I'm safe, I guess, given the weather. I also just put together a jello lime pie, but that's for later.

Today is supposedly the first day of a week of warm weather, and the temperature is actually about 42, but it's still windy and damn cold. It's getting into the fifties this week, but there's rain a-comin' on Tuesday.

Okay, so I have a bitty problem, and I'm curious to know if anyone has thoughts on it. I finally got around to my first stage of sorting papers for taxes today, which means I threw out all kinds of stuff that I kept for no reason, put aside other stuff to shred, and now I have only a very small pile to sort for tax stuff. Buried in the pile -- okay, it was in a big paper shopping bag -- were Christmas cards from people at work.

Here's what happened. On the last day of school before Christmas break, someone came by and dropped off a manila envelope for me of school mail, including paycheck stubs, that had been accumulating. I took out the paystubs, and somehow managed to keep bills paid while I was sick (No "Oh, you're so sick; should I pay the bills or something?" but that's another complaint) and then threw the other stuff on top of the bag and went back to bed to collapse. Anything that was not super-urgent got thrown in the bag, until today, because I forgot all that stuff was there.

I picked up the half-dozen or so cards today, and noticed that one of them was thick. I thought, okay, maybe someone sent out hand-made cards, I don't know; I opened it, and there was a $25 iTunes card, and note from the SCM.

Now, here's my dilemma. Ordinarily, each year, we library folk exchange holiday gifts among each other. I wasn't there this year, and by the time I came back, it seemed awkward to bring it up, although I had -- have -- a bag in my living room of wrapped gifts for them all. Neither Media Girl or the Secretary brought it up, either. We always give these gifts in person, as in, I wasn't there so there was no gift giving. (I'm sure the other three of them gave each other gifts, which is as it should be; I just wasn't a part of it this year because I was lying in bed like a limp rag.)

So now, this is strange. If he had said to me on my first day back, "Oh, by the way, did you get the iTunes card?" I would have found it, thanked him, and brought in my gift for him. He didn't, because I know him, and he doesn't care if I got it. He only cares that it was on his list of tasks to do -- to give it to me -- and he did it. This is how he operates. He cannot bear to have even the most minor task hanging over him; if it exists, it must be done now.

But I think it's also awkward for me to say now, in March, "Oh, I just went through my mail from December; thanks for the gift."

What I'd really like to say is Hey, idiot, we give our gifts in person, or at the very least, we indicate that we've given a gift, and we provide the receiver the opportunity to reciprocate. He does know how sick I was and that I wasn't reading or doing anything except lying there with the TV on. Okay, I wouldn't call him an idiot to his face, but our relationship is such that I do sometimes have to correct his social blunders, the way a sister would. (If you tell him a secret, you also have to remind him not to repeat it in the faculty room. He's like an 8 year old.)

Say something or let it go?


WATCHING PROJECT RUNWAY MARATHON :: ENTRY #1691

Nothing to Speak Of

Nothing going on here, life is quiet, but I didn't write yesterday so here I am. I simply could not fall asleep last night, and then I remembered -- ! -- that I've been collecting these various sleep-enhancing tunes and things, so I got up, made a mix of them that would last about two hours, put on one earphone (since I don't sleep in the hearing aids) and laid myself down. I heard the first selection, about a half hour long, and fell asleep at last during the second one, I think. They were all over when I woke up again, pulled off the equipment, and stumbled into my real bed.

So I'm a little tired today. Looking forward to tonight's TV, however.

What else can I tell you about today? The SCM was still out; that's three days in a row with the weekend in between. I know he took them as personal days, so he's not sick, but I have no idea where he is, really. We have a strange relationship sometimes. If I give him an inch, he grabs the whole mile with both hands, which is why I never say to him "How are you?" or "How was your weekend?" But a five day vacation in October in an odd thing for a teacher to take, even if you have the days coming to you. (We get three "personal" days a year to use as we see fit, and yes, I'm using one of mine for a day-early Disney flight.) But I had a nice substitute for him today, so that was good.

I called the local elementary school, and they're going to put the word out about the lost/found Nintendo thingy. We'll see what tomorrow brings on that front.

And that's my life, folks. Perhaps something of greater interest on the morrow.

WATCHING SPONGEBOB SQUAREPANTS :: ENTRY #1606

Back at the Book Mine

Okay, my job may occasionally make me ill, but I do realize that I am not doing manual labor in a salt mine, or in some similar location of metaphoric horror. I work in a library. In a school. Which sucks. [lets out deep breath.]

So, back at school! I actually had very little contact with the SCM today, which is amazing since he seemed to be very much in self-centered mode and usually he needs to tell everyone all about it, but great because he was in self-centered mode and I didn't have to hear any of it. As soon as I walked in and he said "Hi, how are you?" I told him I was sick, so maybe that let me off the hook. I shared neither the sad news about Q nor the good news about R's apartment with him. Both Media Girl and the Reputed Secretary were sweet and sympathetic, though.

The Reputed Secretary, I think, is on the verge of being assigned elsewhere. She has not been a good secretary for us, although I like her as a person. She fucked up something else today in the short time that she was there. What I need to do is negotiate with the principal for what I need in terms of somebody taking care of the library's business. I emailed him today and asked, among other things, if I could see him sometime this week. He never reads emails from me -- I send them with a read-receipt request, so I know -- so I doubt that it'll get me anywhere.

Today is the last day of the semester for K, although she has finals during the day next Monday, but no more night class after tonight. Two weeks from today she starts her first summer session, which is, I think, a six or eight hour day, four days a week, for three weeks. That's two classes.

And R signed her lease today. Yay!

The Other Chai and I have concocted a plan to go to DisneyWorld next November when we get two days off for teachers' convention. We'll see how that goes. I think we would travel okay together. If nothing else, we find each other pretty amusing, and we did spend a great deal of time together years ago when our kids were small, and not just with the kids; we would go shopping and such, or just out for lunch. So I guess I could travel with her.

And now to see if I can finish my book before Heroes comes on.


watching Reba :: entry #1447

Random Sunday, and Today's Report

Sunday, later

I just remembered this conversation I had the other day with the SCM. I was telling him that I was hoping to buy a pair of rubber gardening boots after school, for working in the wet basement. I told him that I had planned to wear the Hubs' boots, but realized at once that that would be absurd, as I wouldn't be able to walk in them and would probably kill myself just going down the basement stairs. He says:

"You and [Hubs' name] don't wear the same size shoes?"

I swear, I did not know what to say at first. Finally, I said the only thing that really you possibly could say: "No-o-o!" with that tone in my voice that says "Of course not! What's wrong with you?" And he says, after a minute,

"Oh." I just looked at him.

"[Wife's name] and I wear about the same size. We can wear each other's shoes." Now I didn't know where to look. And he continues!

"I have really small feet and hands."

I said, looking at all the important papers on my desk, "Uh ... oh. Okay."

Seriously. What man will say that to anyone?

---

Here's a bit more on the Yiddish glossary. The syllable in caps is the syllable that is stressed. Any time you see "kh", it means the guttural "ch" sound, which you may know from the Yiddish word "chutzpah", often seen in English.

Okay, little bird is faigeleh. That's FAY-gu-luh.
Farblunget, for mixed up, is fah-BLUNGE-it.
Farcokte, full of shit, is fah-COCK-tuh.
Farbissiner punim, two words for a bitter face, would be fah-BIS-sin-ner POO-nim.
Farmisht, bewildered, is fah-MISHT.

It's not knowing where to put the accent, really. Because the words were not originally written in the English alphabet, all English spellings are more or less just the way the word sounds. (Real Yiddish, the way all my grandparents wrote it, is written in Hebrew script, which means there are no vowels used. Don't ask.)

---

So the Hubs finishes all his garden work on Sunday and comes in to take a shower, and comes out of the bathroom, all dressed and squeaky clean, and stands before us at the family room doorway, and K lets out a shriek. I look up and his beard is gone. His beard is gone! He has had a full beard and mustache for about 20 years; K barely remembers him without it. (Or with black hair, for that matter.) He had told us on Easter during the ride down to his parents that he was toying with the idea of shaving it off. And he did. He left the mustache. How does he look now? Like every picture of his grandfather I have ever seen. Like every old Italian man. That's the neatly trimmed little mustache he has. If it were up to me, I'd say grow the beard back or shave off the mustache, or grow the mustache long like Mark Twain. He didn't look like everyone else before, and now he does. It's very weird.

---

All over our neighborhood, and in various parts of town, it looks like the houses have been turned inside out. It looks like there are more possessions out on the curb for trash pick-up tomorrow -- all water-damaged, I presume -- than what could possibly be left inside. Hmm. Our curb is only about half-full, that is, only about half the width of the house. Hmm.

---

Monday, almost 6.00 pm

I have had me quite the day. Grandma Ida would be bursting with pride. (Except she would be kvelling.) I have worked my ass off. My back is very sore (as would be anyone's without an ass to hold it up), but not spasming, as my back is wont to do, just sore and achy from bending and lifting all day. To whit:

I was at Target by 8.15 to buy more shelves (I had bought some nice big ones yesterday, which the Hubs had brought downstairs, but I was getting some smaller ones), and then to the supermarket for a few things, my first trip of the day to the recycling center (with empty cardboard boxes), and then ... home, I guess. I started working downstairs a little after 9.00.

All I can tell you is that over the course of the next five hours, I only stopped to go back to recycling twice, and followed up one of those trips with a short break on the phone with my sister while I sipped a Dunkin Donuts iced latte. Other than that, I worked continuously, assembling shelves, shifting stuff around, taking out more garbage. I filled the curb. I had gotten the latte on my way back from recycling trip #2, and on my way out to #3, I decided that what I wanted more than anything else -- for lunch; I hadn't eaten -- was to fulfill my recent longing for coffee ice cream, so I did that, had an ice cream cone for lunch. I had already worked it off, in spades.

One itty bitty tiny glitch for the day. Trip #3 included an old printer that was down in the basement, never to be used again. After the nice man at recycling took it out of the car for me, I saw ... an ink stain on the front passenger seat. A good inch by two inches maybe. Ink. On the front passenger seat.

Of R's car.

That was the closest I came to breaking down and crying all day. I have her car for two days so that the Hubs' and mine can be serviced. After trip #3, all I had to do was eat my ice cream and drive home. But no. I ate the ice cream (of course), but once I was home, I had to go to work on that stain. I got most of it, but some remains. Now, there's some other kind of stain -- coffee, probably -- only an inch or two away, and much bigger, but you know how bad you feel if you borrow something and can't return it in the same condition. I don't think she'll care since it's not actually a big wet inkblot at this point, but I feel bad about it. I'm also over it.

As you may have gathered, I've had very little to eat today. It seems that the secret to weight loss for me is to keep busy and for it to be hot. I can't eat when it's too hot, and it's 85 degrees now, at 6.10. So here's another year when we went from winter directly to summer, without stopping for spring. I guess when I go back to school next week, I'll find out if the a/c in the new library works.

And now I must eat, because I'm having a whole low blood sugar experience. I was going to cook something -- really, I was! -- but I think something quick in the microwave is a better plan. But of course, first I must post this! I have priorities!


watching Reba :: entry #1440

The Etiquette of Blog

[copied from dland]

I wrote in one of my first entries about how I had come to start keeping a web diary, and I continue to be intrigued by the process. Who reads these, and why? And now, a new question: what is the proper thing to do when the writer of the blog is no longer anonymous?

To recap, I stumbled onto this whole thing when I came across two web diaries that were being kept by students in the school where I work. One of these was the typical "Omigod I had a test tuday my teacher sux" and it was, thank god, written by someone I couldn't identify. The other turned out to be a continuing work of poetry by someone whose life I have become privileged to observe somewhat closer than I ever expected to. I read her writing and I look for her in the halls the next day, hoping to see that she is still happy, and still arm in arm with the sweet boy I know her to be in love with.

The mistake I made, I don't remember when, was in telling the SCM (Self-Centered Man) about it. I think I was just trying to demonstrate how this new search engine I'd found worked, and I told him that I had done a sample search on the name of our high school and that it turned up interesting results. The next day he asked if I too had begun to read S--'s web diary, as of course, I had.

I feel as if I have violated her privacy. Yes, I know she writes it and she posts it, but can she really expect that her teachers are reading it? I don't feel that I'm invading her space by reading it myself; oddly, this seems okay to me because I know I will never, would never, indicate to her in any way that I know what I know. But I cannot say the same for the SCM. He is curious and nosy. This is because he cannot estimate the damage that he might do by saying things, because if it isn't happening to him, it isn't happening. What if he sees her in the halls one day and says "Are you still seeing T--? Did you have a good time hiking at (wherever) last week? My wife and I like to hike there; when we went two years ago, we brought our dog, and she almost got sprayed by a skunk, although she didn't. But that was our old dog; we had to have her put to sleep last summer. She developed ............."

And so on. Because he really isn't interested in you at all, S--, he's just looking for a way to talk a little more about himself. And if knowing something about you gives him a hook to start talking, he'll use it. And he won't even notice that you are feeling open and exposed and violated.

So what's the etiquette here? If anyone knows, I'd sure like to hear your advice. I'm considering just telling SCM "You know, it's not polite to tell people you've been reading their blogs. It's really an anonymous kind of thing." Isn't it?


ENTRY #14

Self-Centered? Me?

[copied from dland]

I may be self-absorbed, but I don't think I'm self-centered, as in the world has to revolve around me and my concerns. If anything, I don't think that anything should revolve around me at all, since I'm a pretty insignificant cog in the machine. So I thought I would record my observations about the very good yet very absorbed individual with whom I share my workspace.

For someone who survived the hardcore guts of the 1960s, he is amazingly unconcerned with the welfare of those around him, except in a kind of generic-people-don't-deserve-to-be-randomly-murdered kind of way. Peace and love are okay with him as long as they're happening to him; he really doesn't give a shit about anyone else. The deceptive thing is that on first appearance he absolutely appears to be a renegade from a commune. Then he'll start to talk about his portfolio. I think he just doesn't like getting haircuts, and it adds to his hippie mystique. Also the fact that he owns one single sports-jacket, and this, a brown corduroy deal with a belt across the back (circa 1975) adds to his hippie mystique. He's really about as hippie-like as George Bush.

Every so often I have a conversation with him that leads me to say to our third colleague "I'm going to kill him today." Generally she will answer "Not if I get to him first," but sometimes she'll just say that he's not bothering her today. So here's what bugged me today:

He was extremely concerned that our work schedule for next week turned up three late shift days for him and only one for me. (Monday doesn't count.) He's been stewing over this for weeks. It really just worked out that way. I'm sure that there's another week somewhere down the road where I've got three late and he's got one. The difference between late and early, by the way, is leaving school at 2:30 or 3:30. This is the time by which most people in the real world (i.e., not working in a public school) are just getting started. It's also significant here that we worked out a schedule so that each of us would have exactly the same number of early and late days each month, and for the whole year. Okay, I worked it out, and he agreed to it.

So finally I said I would make one of his late days mine. His emailed reply was "Thanks, I think that's very fair."

Bullshit. It's fair to him because I gave him back the one fucking hour out of 180 days. One hour. How is it fair to me? Did he offer to give me back one of his precious little hours?

Here's the difference: although I'm miffed about his obsession with this and his pouting until it worked out his way, to me, the hour doesn't mean a thing. What could I possibly need to do at 2:30 that I can't do at 3:30? How can it mean that much to him? And even if it does, why does he think it shouldn't mean as much to me? Why, ultimately, is one hour of his life so much more important that one hour of mine?

And there it is. I guess when you're that self-centered, each hour means another opportunity to do what you want, get what you want, and screw anyone else. And when you can't imagine why the universe would care about you to begin with, the hour doesn't mean a thing.


ENTRY #8