Deep Thoughts

The term chafing dish makes me imagine someone serving up a heaping platter of Chub Rub.

Want some cheese with that whine?

I'm whining and I know it, there are people with worse problems than mine and I know it, but this is my blog and if you don't like it, read the Straight & Shiney Chronicles. That's just how sassy I'm feeling right now.

Today's Reasons:

• I am sick. Like sinus infection, sounding like Janice on Friends, waking up in puddles of drool and snot sick.
• I was bitten by a student today.
  
• Parent/Teacher conferences are this week.
• I have work, plus afterschool program, plus class, plus evening conferences tomorrow, which means I will actually be in the building from 7am to 9pm.
  
• I cut my finger on a broken Snapple bottle.
• PMS.
  
• I used a plate to cover my frozen Wegman's meatballs in the microwave, but they weren't cooking, and I attributed this to the fact that my Wegman's dishes are so earthen and sturdy that the heat of the micro-waves could not possibly penetrate them, and so I recovered the bowl with plastic wrap, which melted to the bowl.
  
• My apartment is a gross and dirty mess, complete with overflowing trash, crusty dishes, piles of snotty tissues, loads and loads of need-to-be-washed clothes, and a ring in the toilet.
• I have $34 in my checking account.
  
• I miss Alex. I just saw him on Sunday. But still.

The Bright Side (so I don't alienate all of my reader...)

• It's not scurvy.
• I had on long sleeves, so there is no broken skin-- only bruises in the shape of teeth.
• I only have 5 students.
• I have a job... and an education?
  
• The wound is small.
• At least I can still have children...
• The meatballs are fabulous. So is the Wegman's bolognese sauce and Wegman's shells I made them with. (A prize to anyone who can guess where I do my grocery shoppping.)
• I have my own apartment.
• Payday is Thursday, but direct deposit goes in tomorrow.
• Alex will call tonight and cheer me up, because he always does.
  

Music

I wouldn't say that I'm very varied when it comes to my taste in music. Sure, I like to listen to classical sometimes, and on occasion you will find me tapping my foot to a country song, and we have already discussed how street I am, so you know that there's a little rap in my repertoir.

But ultimately, it all comes down to I Listen to Whatever is on the Top 40 Stations and Even Then, Only if it is Upbeat.*

Tonight while I was driving home from work, I forgot to change the station from my usual morning show, and I heard Green Day's Brain Stew, U2's Where The Streets Have No Name, and Bush's Glycerine. It made me remember that I do like some rock music here and there, but that everytime I try to listen to a rock station for more than a song or two, they throw in something craptastic by The Who and I am forced to change the station.

Which brings me to the point of this post: For those of you who are more eclectic with your music tastes, 1) When people ask you what kind of music you like, how do you usually answer? and 2) If you were making a mix of great rock songs for jamming in your car, what are some songs you'd be sure to include?

* I have slightly more tolerance for ballads now that I am in love, but when I say "slightly," I mean it like "Oh, how nice, her heart will go on! Okay next station."

To Whom it May Concern:

Please just help me get through this day without jumping off a bridge or strangling a child. I will repay you in Christmas cookies.

Sincerely,

J

And another thing...

I ran out to Wegman's tonight to get ingredients for the bread pudding I'm making for TheBoy's birthday (weird, I know, but it's on of his top fave 3 desserts) and as I was leaving some random guy approached me in the parking lot all "good evenening ma'am, how are you? I'm doing a promotion for Circuit City-- have you heard of them?-- yes? okay well take a look here" at which point he showed me some blue flashing keychain thing and it freaked me out and probably erased my memory too. I stammered, "uhhh, no thanks," and he promptly said, "Okay! No problem!" and walked quickly toward the back of the parking lot, away from the store. I pulled up to the store as I was leaving and told the manager who was walking around, but apparently someone had beat me to it, because he told me that was the whole reason he was out there. But then when I was driving away I thought what if that wasn't actually a manager and he was in kahoots with the light stick guy and he is just saying he already knew about him so that I don't go in and they don't call the police and now they are going pull the same scam on some other poor girl out shopping alone in the dark and it's all my fault for driving away and not taking a closer look at his name tag???

Okay, I know I'm probably being rediculous... it just freaked me out, is all. Okay? I had to share.

*****

By the way, I have labled this post "Foibles," and I know that was one of Whinger's categories, but I've gone to type it in and then erased it enough times that I have finally decided to just give in and use it. If anything, it should just be a friendly reminder of Whinger, whose web address no longer links to an actual site, but who I miss reading dearly. And P.S. I was probably supposed to use "whom" somewhere in that runon sentence, but I didn't. So there.

Mystique

I took today off so I could go to the Voldemort*.

You will all be happy to know that I am the owner of very healthy Woman Parts.


* I believe this phrase was coined by K... just giving credit where it's due, is all.

*****

You will also find amusement and disgust in the fact that one of my students told my sub that his dad takes him to the bar to "watch the pretty ladies dance" and that they only wear underwear and sometimes small bras, and that no, he doesn't live near Cheerleaders; they go to a place in Camden. No, mommy doesn't know.

No wonder your kid is a sneaky, lying bastard. (At this point, I think of this PSA: "Who taught you how to do this stuff?" "You alright?! I learned it by watching YOU!!")

*****

Alex sent me this link, and I actually found it so funny that I'm passing it on... which is unusual for me. (And if not sending on email chain letters was actually bad luck, I'd be the unluckiest person ever.) Most of the hilarity might just be in what you make it say. "Taco. Burrito. What's that in your speedo?" was my personal favorite.

Monday Monday...

So there wasn't quite the amount of drunken debauchery I had hoped for on Saturday night, but what I will say is 1/2 of a roast beef sandwich at noon was probably not the best way to go about the wine before dinner at 8pm. Good thing Alex has an entire family of drinkers.

Also? I didn't tell you this before, but last week, my debit card was declined for $4 (coffee and a bagel) because, yes, I had a negative balance and didn't even realize it. This caused great stress over the course of the entire weekend, and the stress meant that although Alex spent his entire Sunday with me, I hardly said 2 words to him. I do give him kudos, though, because when the shit finally hit the fan (in otherwords, when I finally broke down crying hysterically and cleaning fanatically) he made me feel way better. He helped me figure out a budget (something I probably should have done way back in the day) and even offered to help me pay off some of my credit cards, although I declined. He was so sweet that I even stopped being fake-angry at him for telling me that his favorite Jess is One-Glass-of-Wine-Jess. Because hell, even I like myself better after a glass of pinot noir.

A licky boom-boom down

Heh. Remember that song?

Anyway.

New Jersey kids are lucky when it comes to November, for not only do you have the Thanksgiving 4-day weekend, but you also get an extra 4-dayer for the NJ Teacher Convention (a time when all teachers are supposed to go and... convent(?)... in Atlantic City. My kids were especially lucky because our school gave students the entire week off, while Monday through Wednesday were spent having teacher in-service workshops. And don't forget about the half days coming up for parent conferences! Regular ed teachers hate November, complaining that they can't teach anything this month with all the days off and irregularities in scheduling and general feeling of Why Bother coming from the students. Special ed teachers, or at least, this special ed teacher, thanks her lucky stars because ohmygod this is the only thing getting me through to winter break!

So what, you might ask (or you might not give a shit, in which case, stop reading), am I doing with my current 4-day weekend?

Well, my parents are visiting my brother, who is on deployment in Curasao, and I was forced politely asked to dogsit. But the days off, whether sitting around in my apartment, or sitting around in my parents' house doing my laundry for free, have been so far relaxing, if not Couch Coma-enducing.

(And if you must know, my childhood bed was devirginized on Thursday night. Oh yes, it was. I have to say - and let me add the disclaimer that it had nothing to do with TheBoy's manhood or ability to perform or anything whatsoever - the whole thing seemed like it was going to be much more exciting than it actually was. For some reason, sex in a twin bed with a curious dog whining outside the door is not so great.) (P.S. Hi Mom! Ignore what you just read. I am still a virgin and will be until I get married.) (And if you don't believe me, just remember that it was your SON who you actually caught banging some chick in your pool.)

Tonight I think we'll be partying it up with Alex's brother and bro's girlfriend, who are in for the weekend from Boston. I'm looking forward to seeing them again, as I haven't since St. Maarten, but I'm also a little stressed because apparently I was put in charge of planning the evening while TheBoy works all day, and I don't know what time he's getting out of work or if they want to go to dinner or Philly or what and I can't get in touch with him and grrrrr.

But I'm sure a good time will be had, and I'll surely fill you in on all the drunken deets, if there are any. And I hope there are.

It's gonna be hot in my big silver pot

When you buy Mrs. T's frozen pierogies, you can cook them in the pan from frozen and they come out perfecto. Apparently this is not true for Trader Joe's pierogies... I mean there were no directions saying that you didn't have to boil them first, but I just assumed... if Mrs. T's pierogies can be cooked from frozen in a pan, then why not TJ's?

I'm guess it comes down to the outside part already being cooked, because I'm definitely eating mashed potatoes in raw pasta right now.

And you know what? If they don't make me sick, I'm gonna have to go with a, "they ain't so bad!"

This is probably why I was not asked to cook the turkey for our upcoming special ed classes Thanksgiving party...

I want to be a part of it...

This was an awesome weekend, but everytime I started writing about it, I realized how boring my writing has been lately. I find that I'm much better at writing lists because they warrant no expectations of entertainment. A list is a list. An entertaining list is just a bonus. Here is a no-bonus list of my weekend activities.

• I took the TheBoy to Alison's Halloween party, aptly entitled "Alloween." As far as I can tell everyone loved (or at least said they approved of) him, and Meg even said she thinks he's The One.
• I dressed up as Alison, which I thought was pretty freakin' clever, and which everyone there seemed to appreciate. I even fought with her sister a little to make it really authentic.
  
• We stayed overnight at the Hyatt, and because they didn't have any rooms on the "Quiet Side" of the building, they upgraded us to a suite.
• We took the train into New York.
• We saw Wicked, which was an awesome, awesome show. And what was even awesomer was that when we got there, the show was actually sold out, and so we waited on the Cancellations line, and ended up with sweet 15th row, center section tickets- probably better than what we'd have gotten if we were on the ball and ordered them ahead of time!
• We ate dinner at Virgil's BBQ, which was super tasty.*
• My car didn't stall out due to lack-of-fuel on the Turnpike!
  

* Do people in Canada eat barbeque? Like real BBQ with coal smokers and stuff?