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 |  Welcome to Whatsit's Wild World. |
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Sometimes I think we're all tightrope walkers suspended on a wire two thousand feet in the air, and so long as we never look down we're okay, but some of us lose momentum and look down for a second and are never quite the same again: we know. ~Dorothy Gilman The Tightrope Walker |
| I'm sick of teaching. Even all the time off is not making it worth it. Although I know in my mind that when next August rolls around, I will be refreshed and ready, right now in April, I'm sick of fooling with other folks' children - other folks being the people who have not taken the time to teach their children some manners. I have a librarians' meeting at 2:00. I'm glad I'll be getting out of here, even for an afternoon, even to go to a boring meeting. Especially since my assistant called in sick. My daughter, at age 12, is talking of becoming a teacher. I'm trying to discourage her from doing this. My principal got on the intercom and griped at the teachers this morning. I bet I work at the only school in the world where that happens. |
| This is going to be blog stew tonight. I got through with The Great Gatsby . I enjoyed it a lot better this time than when I tried to read it twenty years ago. I may have to give up on Corelli's Mandolin. My daughter, Emily, made it into All-State Honor Choir. The performance was this morning. They did very well. Hudson's, the store that buys out other stores and resells everything at a discount, had some teacher things for 50% off - mostly books to run worksheets from. Once I got up there I decided I didn't want to spend the money. I did look through a few of them and get ideas to make my own worksheets. I'm too stingy and there are too many free things I can print off the internet. We have a new dog. My old beagle, Katie, went to dog heaven. We still have Wimzy, our Beagle/Jack Russell mix. Now we have Bitsy, a terrier mix. The shelter said she was a terrier-poodle mix, but we don't see poodle in her at all. She's black and fluffy, and she was so glad to come live with us! She sleeps with one of the kids and Wimzy still sleeps in her place under Mama and Daddy's covers. Bitsy is sitting on my feet right now, like a little black powder-puff. I had broccoli for supper. Broccoli always makes me feel nutritionalized. Also stew over rice, which was good. My kids are in the tub so I am having some peace and quiet. We are heading toward bed, including me. Good night. " . . .my doctor says I have a malformed public duty gland and a natural deficiency in moral fiber . . ." Douglas Adams |
| I am fascinated by book lists. I would go as far as to say I am ADDICTED to book lists. The other day I found a list of 100 books that some random person on Facebook had read, so of course I printed it out. This time was different. I actually took the list to the public library with me. Usually I don't have that much initiative. I have a full-time job and three kids. Folding laundry is almost another full-time job for me. Most of the time when I run up on a new list, I drool over it and that's it. I was thinking how lucky it is that I am a book addict because of libraries. Books are the only thing that are offered for free somewhere. Shoe addicts can't get free shoes. Make-up addicts can't get free lipstick because what would be the point of returning it? Nobody else would want it. Books are different, and my perpetually-broke self is glad we have public libraries. Anyway, I took my list to the public library. I ran in 10 minutes before closing, so I had to just run through and grab, but I did get five books. Four of them, I had read already, but it had been a long time and they bear re-reading. See, the problem with me is, I re-read books. Over and over. I get into a rut with them. I have a nice collection of books, plus I work at a school library, so I don't tend to get out where some fresh books would be. So it was nice to get some new books to read. Here is what I got: 1. Corelli's Mandolin by Louis de Bernières. I am reading this about one paragraph at a time instead of charging through as fast as I can go as I usually do. Interesting, but takes concentration. This is the one I had not read yet. Somebody had recommended this to me a couple of years ago and I had never gotten around to it, so when I saw it on the list I grabbed it. 2. The Great Gatsby by F. Scott Fitzgerald. I read this in college. It's better than you expect. 3. The Handmaid's Tale by Margaret Atwood. Will make you think. 4. The Fellowship of the Ring and The Two Towers. The first two books of The Lord of the Rings trilogy. They didn't have number three or I would have gotten it. Your assignment: send me your booklist so I can read that too! One thing I have always wondered is why we don't have book clubs on Writing.com. I think that would be a good thing. I know that the answer to that is why don't I start one, but I want somebody ELSE to start it and me join it. |
| It kills me that just about all the people I used to blog with have left. I think Scarlett and Michelle are the only ones who are still here out of the ones I used to read. Does WdC have the cooties all of a sudden? I don't have the energy to develop a new group. About all I ever do now is Facebook, that seems to be where a lot of people have drifted off to. What's up with me: I got a new car: a Ford Expedition. It seats seven. We need this because we are always taking my mother and grandmother around, plus we have five in our family. I had an 8-year-old dented-up Hyundai Sonata I was driving around. Not that anything was wrong with that. I was perfectly willing to drive it until it fell apart around me in the road. I'm not one of those who is going to have a new car all the time. I believe in getting my money's worth out of cars. I'll probably drive this new one until I retire. It's not really new, it's a 2007, but that's new enough for me. It really is a super-nice vehicle. I'll tell you what killed me, though, Last night I took Emily, my 12-year-old, to soccer practice. Usually the parents just sit in their cars and read or whatever during practice. Even during actual games, when we are out on the field, the other parents don't really look my way. This is mostly my doings because I'm such a non-people-person that I keep to myself. However, I'll say that out of all the soccer teams my kids have been on, these parents have been the most content not to have to talk to me. Last night I drove my shiny new vehicle up, let Em out, not thinking about it too much that anything would be different. Anna Claire, the 9-year-old, was playing with my i-pod and watching the DVD player (another reason we got this car, my husband and I might can have a conversation on trips), and I was reading. All of a sudden I had all these new friends among the other soccer parents. I'm sure the fact that their kids begging them to be able to watch TV with Anna Claire didn't have anything to do with it. Ah, well. |
| Here's one thing you won't hear in the mass media. I heard it on Mississippi's Public Radio station and nowhere else. J. D. Salinger died yesterday at age 91. Catcher in the Rye is one of "my" books. There are books that I read casually, and then there are what I call my "personal" books. These are books that I relate to from my inmost being. The main character, Holden Caulfield, is uniquely uninhibited, which is what I like in a character - he lets us see absolutely into his mind. Mr. Salinger had been a recluse for a number of decades. I like to think that he has finally found what he was looking for. Rest in peace, Mr. Salinger - thank you for what you have left us. |
 I am reading Advise and Consent, one page at the time. It is actually pretty interesting, believe it or not. My dryer has an extremely loud squeak when it is running, which is excrutiatingly irritating. Last year my principal fussed at me for teaching the multiplication tables. Yesterday she fussed at me for NOT teaching them. This is how she is - she acts this way toward everybody. I cleaned my refrigerator out. We had roast pork or ham sandwiches and homemade soup for supper, and now I have a clean refrigerator. A cleaned-out refrigerator is an exquisitely satisfying thing to me. We may have a snow-day Thursday. I have my fingers crossed. |
| I tell you what I most sincerely can't stand: 1. People who will NOT quit talking. Especially boring people who will not quit talking. 2. People who take a hard attitude toward children. 3. Dumb movies. 4. Dumb commercials. 5. Dumb anything, for that matter. 6. Those GEICO cavemen. 7. Snow when it falls on Saturday or Sunday. It needs to fall on a weekday so the school where I work can declare a snow day. 8. Men who comb their three strands of hair over their bald head. 9. Women who wear too much jewelry or too much lipstick or too much perfume. 10. Parents who allow their kids to run over them. Weak-willed parents make strong willed children, and a hard head makes a soft behind. |
| Happy birthday to me! Number 40, if you please. Here is what hubby and the kids gave me this morning - they spoiled me: Some chocolates in a pretty box (you notice what I listed first). A mug and keychain about being a librarian. A Webkins giraffe, which I had been wanting. I love giraffes! They are my favorite animal. Now I can have a Webkins page and see what my kids have been talking about. A musical card that plays Unchained Melody. Oddly enough, it came on the radio a few minutes later. We thought that a remarkable coincidence. A pin that depicts my family in snowmen - a big fiddle-playing snowman, which is my husband, and three short snowmen, which are my kids. A Christmas ornament in the shape of a cross. And the denoument: a watch! It has a button I can push that lights up the face for telling time when it's dark. So: now I have the big head for getting so many nice presents! |
| We decided to go to Lookout Mountain in Chattanooga. To get to the entrance, we rode a thousand miles up a road with so many twists and turns that we got dizzy. There was a sheer drop off right outside our car window. The altitude was making our ears pop. However, when we got there, we were immediately rewarded, for our very first view on top of Lookout Mountain was that of a . . . Starbucks. |
| I am in Chattanooga, TN. Tomorrow we are getting up and driving the rest of the way to Gatlinburg where we have a cabin. Hooray! We are going to Lookout Mountain before we leave. My mother and grandmother are with us, as well as PsychoPuppy, my mother's poodle. Lord have mercy. I'll let you know whether I survive. " . . .my doctor says I have a malformed public duty gland and a natural deficiency in moral fiber . . ." Douglas Adams |
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Well, it is the time of miracles I guess.