First of all you must know that I thoroughly enjoy office supplies. New pens? Thrilling. Highlighters? Captivating. Post-it notes in all shapes and colours? The highlight of my life. So it shouldn’t surprise you that the whiteboards they put up in my room yesterday are like new toys for me. I don’t have to contend with hives or wheezing anymore from the chalk (or the chalk breaking and me accidentally scraping my fingernails against the board). The markers are low-odour so I don’t get all high off the fumes or anything, either.
I hadn’t used my chalkboard that much at all this year – I’ve been using my overhead projector for pretty much everything, even though my projector kind of sucks and is always the tiniest bit out of focus (or, maybe I need new glasses). Today though? Today was like “I’m going to … write something on the board!” five seconds later “Oh! We really need a diagram to show where Louis-Joseph Papineau was hiding out as compared to where Wolfred Nelson was assembling his troops!” And when I did use my projector, instead of having to contend with the 30-year-old screen in my classroom (it takes so much effort just to get it unrolled and then half the time takes me 10 minutes to get it rolled up gain), I could just project directly onto the whiteboard.
Yep. I’m a nerd. But I’m a chalk-dust-free nerd, and that counts for something.
I have been watching Heroes since the first season, and for themost part, I have loved it. This season though, it’s just getting too confusing for me. No one is who they seem. peoples’ parents aren’t really their parents, but they’re other peoples’ kids, and siblings of other people, and they’re al rnning around in Africa and shooting each other (hopefully they have family health insurance) and partnering up with bad guys and some of them are dead but their twins are showing up and it’s making me crazy (although honestly? it could all just be because of my short attention span).
But! One thing I have been really enjoying this season is the little Veronica Mars reunion. First Kristin Bell joined up last season and is some kind of lightning-throwing lady. And this season? Francis Capra! He can yell really loud! I’m inexplicably happy about seeing Weevil again.
Now we just need Logan and Wallace to join the cast, and I might become 100% invested in Heroes again.
1- Just paid $90 to have the brakelines on our van fixed. Considering most mechanics charge at least $35/hour plus parts, and it took him three hours to do it, I think we got a good deal.
2- Y’all are going to laugh and call me antiquated, but just this afternoon, a dude showed up and installed whiteboards in my classroom (no, he’s not just some random guy who showed up; obviously he was hired by the school board, but I had no warning). No more chalk! No more sneezing every ten seconds! No more constantly searching for my chalk! Although I will probably constantly be searching for my dry-erase markers but whatever.
3- Four-day week! Inservice on Friday.
4- Very much enjoying True Blood. Sure there are tons of boobs in it but that’s maybe part of the charm?
Years ago, when I was teaching 3rd grade, there was a little boy in my class who was… interesting. Every day he would be running around the classroom, screaming “Shabbideee, shabbidoooo” while we were working on our multiplication tables. He would hide under his desk when it came to Reading Circle time. He stole the other kids’ lunches. He broke another boy’s arm at recess one day. Dealing with him was a challenge, to say the least. I would get home from work each day, exhausted, and flop down on the sofa, mumbling incoherently. Rob would ask me what was wrong, and I would say one word. The boy’s name. “Kyle!” This sounds terrible, but it became sort of an all-purpose cry of frustration around our house. No milk left in the fridge? “kyle!” Lose an eBay auction? “Kyle!” Flat tire on the car? “KYYYYLE!” Imagine it being said in a combination of the way that Seinfeld would say “Neuman!” and the way Captain Kirk would say “Kahn!” and you’ve got it.
So it’s no surprise that today, we have a hurricane warning.
I hate when writers of blogs that I read post something dramatic and scary and then leave for a week, because then I worry about the blogger and whatever situation they’re in. I totally understand that blogging is usually the last thing on your mind in times of crisis, I do. But I still worry.
Anyway. My dad. His lungs collapsed. After they inserted (installed?) the chest tubes, they just had him laying around in the Emergency Room on a stretcher for like, forever. Anyway he couldn’t sleep and it didn’t look like they were going to be finding a bed for him anytime soon so they sent him home, with instructions to come in twice a day for x-rays.
He’s very weak, which anyone who’s ever had pneumothorax knows, is normal. The doctors here are sending him to a specialist (although specialists are few and far between around here so it might be six months before he does) to see about performing another surgery to repair weak spots on his lungs.
This all sounds very complicated to me. So for now, I’m clinging to this: He’s home, and he’s alive, and he told me the stupidest joke on the phone yesterday so it’s all good.
This morning at 10:00 I answered my mother’s pounding on my front door (apparently my phone had powered off and even though I’ve been up since 7:30 she couldn’t get through). My dad has had a cough all week. His lungs collapsed this morning and he’s in surgery right now having chest tubes put in.
Guys, I’m terrified.
I had the same thing happen to me when I was 21 – I kept having asthma attacks, both my lungs popped, I was in the hospital for a week and could barely move for two weeks after that. I was relatively healthy (aside from the asthma).
My dad’s 62. He’s NOT in the best of health. Some of you might recall that he had an aortic aneurysm a few years ago. He’s been on all kinds of medications including blood thinners since then. He’s painfully underweight (he eats all.the.time. but he’s like, 150 lbs on a 6’2″ frame).
I may be overreacting, I don’t know. But this is my dad, and I’m scared.
Yesterday Rob and I were in the supermarket parking lot, when a car we were walking past started backing up. We were trying to get out of the way but we were like, a foot and a half from the car when it started moving so Rob was yelling “HEY HEY STOP” and I was trying to pull him out of the way (we were moving as fast as we could). The car actually hit Rob before he had a chance to get all the way out of the way. Not that hard, because it had just started backing up and wasn’t going that quickly, but yeah, it hit him. And THEN the driver stopped and looked back (he had been looking straight ahead the entire time, and didn’t even have a rearview mirror), then when he saw that we were out of the way, didn’t stop and see if Rob was okay or anything, just kept backing up, then took off.
Anyway, Rob’s fine (except just now he banged his knee on the corner of the sofa) but some people need to check behind them before they start backing up.
My husband knows that my brain needs mindless fodder sometimes. Therefore he has procured for me Seasons 1 through 4 of Night Court. I am very happy.
Tomorrow is my long day at work (no breaks, plus lunch hour duty). After that, I have to take the van to the mechanic (the “check engine” light is on, then off, then on, then off, plus one of the brake lines needs fixing) which is up by my parents’ (about half an hour away). This gives us the chance to visit with my folks which is great. I have a little present I’ve been saving for my mom. I had originally thought of giving it to her at Christmas but I am horrible and can’t wait.
News I have learned from Night Court: John Laroquette and Harry Anderson are both 6’4″. Richard Moll is 6’9″. That’s all I have to say for now. Gosh, boring? yes me.