The Art of Unsexiness

This is a clip of Carrie Heffernan on King of Queens, attempting to pole dance for Doug. It is painful to watch. Poor Carrie has no idea how to be seductive. Sadly, she reminds me of me. Not because I've pole danced before (I haven't. Not on purpose). But because I am the unsexiest person. Okay, this is only amusing because, like Carrie, I have a relatively fit body that should lend me at least a little sex-appeal, but my clumsiness and general lack of seductive know-how (or whatever you call the female equivalent of 'game') totally detract from that.

Last night was a perfect example of this. I decided to try on three sets of lingerie Clint had ordered for me. While I tried on each piece inside the bathroom, he sat waiting, ready to enjoy my fashion show. The following is more or less what he heard through the bathroom door:

Okay, babe, I'm trying on the first one...
(banging noises, cupboard doors slamming) Almost there...
Wait--why is there an extra hole?
Damn it--
(more banging) Okay, I think I've got it...
Crap, where am I supposed to put THAT?
No, this isn't right...
You're still there, right?
(muttering) If I put this leg here, and that one here...Okay, GOT IT.

*Saunters out gracefully like the whole process was a breeze*

At least I didn't hurt myself through this process by, I dunno, stabbing myself with a knife or something. Oh wait--YES I DID. Lingerie attempt #2 went something like this:

Alright babe, I'm putting on the second one...
Oh, this one is really cute!
Hold, on, I just have to figure out how to strap this thing-a-ma-jigger...
Oh, I think I got it...
Wait--why the hell would they put a tag there? No, no, no, that's a terrible spot for a tag. Do you have a knife...? I need to cut this sucker off...
(knife passed through door) (banging) Babe, you need to sharpen this knife. It's completely dull--
(giant bang)
FUCK.
(metal object clatters to floor)
(hubby cries out "Are you okay?")
(pause) (then singsong voice) Yeah, everything's going great!
(more slamming, clanking)
Um, do we have any band-aids?

*Saunters out gracefully again, looking hot as all get-out in skimpy lace garments accessorized with massively bloody thumb*

I never did get to lingerie attempt #3. By this point I was worried I'd burn the house down.

Maybe I should take lessons from Doug?

I swear the dude would get more tips than I would.

My One-Winged Chicken

Remember that post I wrote, Why You Don't Want to Be a Bird in my House? Yeah...here's a new one to add to that list. Our new cloister (is that what you call them?) of baby hens was attacked by...something. I never saw the culprit. But of the five chicks, one of them completely disappeared, and another one lost her entire wing. It's just...gone. Nothing left except for a nasty groove where the wing used to be. It's pretty gut-wrenching to look at.

The good news is the chick is presently recovering in our indoor medic center (aka: cardboard box on dining room table), and is doing surprisingly well. I didn't know if she would make it, because she kept falling over on the first day and was taking a lot of naps. But today--on day 4--she's eating like a pig, chirping louder than should be possible, and the wound is almost completely scabbed over.

I'm going to keep her inside for one more day, and then put her back with her siblings. I hope she is able to adjust to life without her wing. It's not just the flying thing, but chickens use their wings for balance. It will be a huge struggle for her to even run forward on the ground without the benefit of flapping her wings, and I don't know how she will be able to roost with the other hens at night beneath the eaves of their chicken coop. When we first discovered her injury, a part of me contemplated putting her out of her misery. But I couldn't. She was still chirping and seemed to want to live. Big or small, I think every creature has the right to choose life, and to fight for that choice.

Oh, we're calling her Maleficent, by the way. You'll get the appropriateness of that name once you've seen the movie.

I had more profound things to write about tonight, but somehow I blabbed about my one-winged chicken instead. Ooh, I still have time to turn this into some meaningful metaphor about life or struggles or something, or impart some universal lesson. Hmmm. Hmmmmmmmmm. *scratches head*

"Don't lose appendages. It sucks."

Win Once, Good for You; Win Twice--Bite Me

Last weekend Clint and I went to Vegas for my mom's birthday. On Saturday night, all of us girls found a somewhat hidden section of the bar with four video poker machines in a row, where we could play a ridiculously silly and slow game of Double Bonus Poker (we added our own element to the game to make it funner and last longer, but it would take too long to explain). Given the fact that it was a crowded Saturday night at the Rio, finding four video poker machines in a row was practically a miracle in itself. But right when I sat down, I noticed my machine had just paid out on four aces. I thought, Dang it, this machine is never going to pay out again tonight. But everyone had already chosen their machines, and I really had no lofty notions of winning anyway. I just wanted to nurse my $20 bucks while enjoying some good drinks and fun conversation.

I played my first hand on maximum bet and lost. I was now down to $18.75. The game I was playing with the girls now required me to wait about ten minutes before I could play my next hand. So I waited, and drank, and waited some more. Finally it was my turn to play. I was dealt a king of spades, a bunch of crap in the middle, and an ace of spades. I held onto the suited royal cards and discarded the rest of the hand. That's when THIS happened:

A Royal Flush--on a maximum bet! I was so shocked, at first I couldn't digest what was happening. I just watched, frozen, as my "credits" race from $18.75 to $1,018.75. I finally broke through my trance and started shaking my mom's arm. I said (or squeaked), "Mom, something just happened." She glanced over at my machine and went ballistic. Shannon and my mom were hugging me all over the place, squealing, and within seconds the whole bar was cheering.

It was a fun, FUN experience. I'm not all into gambling, but wow is it exciting to win. I tipped the bartender a $20 bill for getting my friend Sarah a bottle of water. FUN.

About ten minutes later, the same machine gave me this:

It was only 60-some bucks, but oddly, when I showed this hand to my mom and sister, my mom said "Damn it Jodi" and Shannon strangled me and punched me (she's very violent for a psychologist). I asked "What happened to all the hugging?" and Shan said, "Yeah, f* you."

So just so you know, there's a saturation point to the amount of luck you're allowed to have when you're around people.You win once and everyone is happy for you. You win twice and everyone hates you. But it's all good because you still have a ridiculously obnoxious smile on your face. You know, like this.

Valentine's Day Rogues

Best Valentine's Day EVER. Last night I got back from the So Cal Writers' Conference in San Diego, and wow. What a ride. I drove down there with Clint and the kids on Friday morning. Since Clint wasn't attending the conference himself, he decided to take advantage of my already-paid room at the Crown Royal by having a mini-vacation with the kids. So while I was conferencing, they were visiting the San Diego Zoo, Balboa Park, the Natural History Museum, and so on.

My first workshop started on Friday at 2:00, so I didn't have much downtime once we arrived in San Diego. I went to two workshops that night, then reunited with Clint and the kids for dinner. We went to Shakespeare's Pub & Grill:

It was actually night time when we went (this picture came from their website), so green rope lights lined the patio, and tall propane heaters kept outdoor patrons warm. There was plenty of seating inside the restaurant, but we chose to sit outside because it was such a gorgeous night, and I personally love the ambience of downtown San Diego. It was an awesome dinner. The food was delicious, the beer tasted great (I had hard cider) and we had a great view. The green you see beneath the patio is MUCH taller in real life--we were at least two stories up from the street, above an entire wall of vines.

Saturday was my busiest day. I woke up early that morning to start my workshops; six hours of classes, with a lunch break from 12:10 to 1:00. I found this awesome spot to sneak off to eat my lunch:

This oasis was situated right between my hotel room and the conference center, so I was "forced" to walk past it every morning. It seemed to be a hidden gem, because no one else was ever there. I ate my lunch at the table shown above, working on my manuscript right next to a stream and a rock fountain. Such a beautiful, serene setting...I need to get one of these babies installed into my house (in dreamy sparkle-lala land, of course).

Quick selfie while there was no witnesses

My workshops ended at 4:20 on Saturday, and I went back to my room and got dressed for the writers' banquet. The banquet was a ton of fun. I sat down at a table with some acquaintances I had made during the workshops, and we never stopped laughing. Best-selling author Laurence O'Bryan, who had flown to the conference all the way from Ireland, asked if he could join us. He was the instructor for one of the workshops I had attended earlier that day, so it was great to hang out in a more upbeat, social setting. It turned out that he was also the special guest speaker for our dinner that night; a fact I didn't realize until they called him up. He gave an endearing speech about his journey to becoming a best-selling author, although I'll admit--even a mediocre speech would have come out great with that awesome Irish accent. 

The banquet ended shortly after 9:00, at which point I headed straight upstairs for my "Rogue Read and Critique" workshop. Rogue workshops are a purely optional choice for the writing die-hards, beginning at 9:00 p.m. and ending whenever the participants can't take anymore. When I entered my particular workshop, I knew I had chosen the perfect group when I saw this message scrawled on the whiteboard: "Anything less than 3 a.m. is weakness." Our workshop that night was run by author Linda Taylor. We selected five pages from our manuscript (most people start with the very beginning of their books, since the beginning is both the most challenging and everything), and Linda read our pages out loud to the entire group. Then she went around the room, allowing everyone a chance to give feedback on what they heard. Finally, she herself gave feedback on the piece. 

If you've never done one of these before, it is terrifying the first time the author takes your work into her hands. Holy cow. Can't even describe. But once you hear the way your words sound rolling off the lips of someone else, and everyone in the room is listening to your story, it is exhilarating.

We took a ten minute break at midnight. Somehow our group ended up doing really bad yoga while discussing theology. I think this was the threshold by which we were starting to get tired. 

By 1:00 a.m. our little conference room was freezing, so we moved downstairs in front of the main conference room and pushed some tables together. At this point there were only seven of us left. That's when a correspondent from NBC News showed up. NBC had heard some "rogues" were still up at the Writer's Conference, and they wanted to air some footage. Wes, the director of SCWC, was with us when NBC showed up, and he was able to do a quick interview to go along with the footage that was taken. Someone must have fetched Michael (the executive director of SCWC, also an author/screenwriter), because he showed up shortly after, as well, and did an interview. The rest of us were filmed doing our "normal thing." That was hilarious. The reporter told us to be natural, and here I'm smack-dab in the middle of a sentence when a camera is shoved right under my nose. It took all of my willpower to keep talking and not laugh (we did end up collapsing into hysteria once the camera moved elsewhere).

Here's Mark, our camera guy:

  
He was a really good sport.

Five still standing (er--sitting, but it still counts)

At 2:00 a.m. we realized we were STARVED (it had been seven hours since dinner), so we all pulled out every snack we could dig up from our bags and put them in the middle of the table to share. We ended up with a buffet of peanuts, Cheetos, Girl Scout cookies, M&Ms, and rice cakes. The fact that some of these snacks were already opened/half-eaten was irrelevant.

Sometime in the wee hours of the morning, we all trudged back to our rooms. I remember my mind was still buzzing when I went to bed, and I felt like liquid all over.

I slept for a few hours before it was time to wake up for my morning workshops. I might have let myself skip at least one to sleep in, but the sessions I scheduled for Sunday were the ones I wanted to attend the most. My fellow rogues obviously felt the same way, because they were all there at my first session. I had four total workshops on Sunday (with a lunch in-between), and they were worth being sleep-deprived for. The most valuable sessions I attended were: How to Write a Killer Query (led by author Maralys Wills) and "Your Book is Finished - Now What?" (by author/editor Robert Yehling). I absorbed more information from these two workshops than I have in months of internet research. After Yehling's session, I stayed after for a few minutes and he showed me how to format my pre-chapter quotes in my manuscript, along with the various song lyrics and text messages that appear in my novel.

Once my last workshop ended, we drove home, and the rest is history. Overall this Valentine's Day weekend ROCKED. I will definitely be hiding away nickels and dimes now, hoping to save up for next year's SCWC. Who needs roses and chocolate when you can have Cheetos and rice cakes in the company of delirious writers? Romance shmo-mance.

An Unsolicited Visitor

Elijah was playing outside when he came running in the house to announce "There's a bunny in our front yard!" I was pretty underwhelmed because, well, it's a bunny. The occasional rabbit isn't anything out of the ordinary in our neighborhood. But Elijah informed me that this particular rabbit seemed friendlier than normal, so I went outside to check it out.

The rabbit was sitting right in front of our side yard, hanging out with Pumpkin (our flemish giant) through the fence. He seemed pretty comfortable with our presence, so Trinity ran back in the house to get some rabbit food, wanting to see if she could feed him. We were all surprised when the rabbit ate right out of her hand. But then...she picked him up! I was standing there, stunned, thinking, "Wait, you can't do that! You can't pick up a wild rabbit!" But the guy didn't mind at all. He never kicked or protested in any way, acting like being picked up by humans was an every day thing.

So it became clear to me that this was a domestic rabbit. We brought him in the house so he wouldn't get caught by a stray dog (he already had scratches on his face as if he had scrapped with a cat that morning), and we gave him some more food and water.

Here he is, chilling under our coffee table.

The kids named him PJ. He's in our giant outdoor rabbit hutch right now, but I need to come up with a more permanent situation for him. He has zero interest in being a wild rabbit and has seemed to claim our home as his own.

Let the record show that I have put forth an exerted effort to downsize my pets. It's hardly my fault though when they deliver themselves to my doorstep.

Pepper for Breakfast

I'm feeling pretty moody with blogger.  Last night I wrote a big, beautiful post, but for some reason there were inordinately large spaces in-between paragraphs and I couldn't get rid of them.  So I switched over to HTML.  I successfully deleted most of the spaces, but then accidentally deleted the closing tag for a certain section.  When I hit the "undo" arrow, my ENTIRE post disappeared, along with the "redo" option.  I thought, "No big deal, I'll just go to the previous page before my changes are saved."  But the second I went to back out of the page, it auto-saved my blank blog.  Ughhhh.

Okay, that was a long-winded way of saying I lost yesterday's post (by the way, it's only a "big, beautiful" post because there's no evidence to the contrary).  I'll never recreate it, so that's that.

So new stuff.  Yesterday I was at a training with the rest of my department, when we got the news that there had been an incident at school.  It happened in my friend Jen's class (Niecy's former classroom).  Jen was sitting at the same table with me at the training when she got the news.   A student brought in a pepper bomb, which is basically pepper spray in powder form, compressed into a ball.  He never intended to use it; he just brought it to show his friends.  He had procured it from his dad, who's a correctional officer.  But it accidentally came apart when he was rolling it around on his desk (the sub either didn't see it, or thought it was a red toy ball).  Three girls who were sitting directly next to this student immediately ran out of the room, unable to breathe.  The rest of the class followed soon after.  Eight students were treated by ambulance before being released, and a correspondent from Channel 2 News interviewed our school about the incident.  Poor Jen had to relocate to a different classroom today so that her room could be deep-cleaned and her filters replaced with new ones.  Several kids left their backpacks, and they weren't even allowed to retrieve them.  RMS Cafe was supposed to be held in Jen's room this morning, but it was relocated to Naomi's room (my other language arts colleague/friend).  In addition to the usual splay of donuts, fruit, and coffee, Naomi supplied a plate of...peppers.  

One thing that stands out in my mind was a few hours before the incident, Jen was expressing her nervousness over having a sub in her classroom for two days.  But then she comforted herself by saying, "I have really good kids this year, so I really have nothing to worry about."  That right there is why I'm a strong advocate of KNOCKING ON WOOD.

Clint's schedule is brutal this month.  He's driving a train from Needles, CA, to Winslow, AZ, so he's gone for six days at a time.  Poor guy; he comes home with enough time to mow the lawn and repair things that need to be repaired, and then he's gone again.  And there is always something that needs to be repaired.  I swear this house very calculatingly waits for him to leave, and then decides to dump problems on me.  Like the smoke detectors that went all manic a few weeks ago.  Or the ice-maker last week, which would do nothing but growl every time I pushed the button, but then the second I opened the freezer, ice would explode on me.  On the plus side, I was showered with the specific ice I had requested, whether it was cubed or crushed.  So ten points for accuracy there.  Now our latest problem is the voltage on our electric fence around the petting zoo...it's too high.  I'm not sure what changed...maybe the fact that the ground has been moister than usual lately?  But on top of zapping two sparrows, the fence fried one of our hens.  Now I have more unfortunate critters to add to the ever-growing Why You Don't Want to be a Bird in Our House list.  So Clint will have to tweak that on Monday, plus get rid of the dead chicken that no one wants to touch.  Thankfully by next week he should be back to shorter routes, where he is gone for only 2-3 days at a time.

Clint's parents are taking the kids to an insect fair tomorrow.  Trin is all sorts of excited because there are supposed to be a few entomologist there from UCR, and she plans to pick their brains about the world of entomology.  Right now she's torn about what she wants to be when she grows up; either an entomologist or an aviary veterinarian.  The aviary vet idea has me laughing my head off.  How great would it be for a child whose family has a history of unwittingly massacring winged creatures to become a veterinarian of BIRDS?

Teri invited me to go along to the insect fair with them, to which I gave her a very polite hell no.  With Clint gone all the time, I'm saturated with kids 24/7.  The thought of some peace and quiet (aka: uninterrupted writing time) sounds like pure bliss.  I'm hoping to go to Starbucks tomorrow and make my word-meter bar grow.

Oh, I wrote a vignette (exactly 500 words in length) on my other blog, but I'm not crazy about it.  It was in response to another end-of-the-world-type writing prompt that one of my twitter followers mentioned me in.  I love creating short stories...they make for fun little interludes between chapter revisions.  But for some reason I only like to write them when I get a prompt of some kind.  Same for painting--I like being given some direction, like "paint an angel or paint a willow tree"--I feel too aimless if I'm just supposed to "paint".  Anyway, I failed a little on this one.  500 words was too shrimpy of a word count for me to flesh the exposition out, or to get the reader to care about the character or her plight.  I guess this highlights my shortcomings as a writer.  Although Apathetics is a flash fiction of sorts, and I managed to pull that one off in 440-some words.  So I don't know.  Maybe the repetitiveness of the topic was a problem too.  I do love the concept of vignettes--and flash fiction--so I might look for some more prompts here and there when I'm feeling ready to take breaks from DoT.

Blogger Issues

I just reread that last post, and I am laughing, because it is SO terrible! I don't know what is going on right now, but Blogger won't allow me to put spaces between paragraphs, insert pictures, italize words, add links, or basically do ANYTHING besides write a steady stream of word vomit. To make things worse, the "space bar" on my laptop isn't working properly, so I am having to go back and add the spaces beteeen most of my words after the fact. Anyway, I apologize if that last post strongly resembles a spontaneous Bipolar manic episode.

Why You Don't Want to be a Bird in My House

I'm a bit wary when it comes to taking in birds.

When I was a kid, I put my heart and soul into raising a baby pigeon that I had rescued.  Her name was Annie.  Ultimately she died.  I sobbed like a baby for that stupid bird.     

In Silver Lakes I rescued a baby duck whose mother had abandoned it on the street.  I even took that bird to my credentialing classes with me to keep up with its demanding feeding schedule.  It died.

Then there was our parakeet Lewy.  He escaped when his food was being changed, smacked head-first into the stairwell ceiling fan (which was on. Full blast), and fell two stories down.  He looked as dead as a...very dead bird (I'll work on a better simile), splayed out on the floor with his neck twisted all funky.  But as the kids cried over him, he suddenly spun his head around like something in the Exorcist, and stood up.  It was the creepiest thing I've ever seen.  He was like some sort of immortal, vampire parakeet.

A month later, our immortal vampire parakeet died of a heart-attack when the cat stared at him through the cage.

Then, three years ago, one of our chickens escaped her coop and was attacked by our dog.  I tried to save her.  She survived for three days before she got gangrene and her eyeball fell out.

Yes, her eyeball fell out.

A few months after that, the easement in our backyard was struck by lightening, and all of our remaining chickens dropped dead.

A perfect example of having your fried chicken and not eating it too.

Last year Trinity saved up her money for months so she could buy a baby, hand-fed cockatiel.  Dimples.  Remember her?

That's her memorial.  Yeah, she died on the fourth of July, her heart stopping after a particularly loud bout of fireworks.  

Then there was my personal favorite: Loki.  He was not only a beautiful pineapple conure, but he was a sweetheart of a bird.

Loki dropped dead right off his perch.  No apparent reason.  One second he was standing there; the next second we heard a thump, and he was dead.

So yeah.  I feel like I'm the unwitting Grim Reaper of all things feathered.

But I wouldn't be writing all of this if I didn't have SOME good news...so here it is:  We finally--FINALLY--saved a bird!  Remember Brooke, the sparrow Trinity rescued?

Given our history with birds, I had zero expectations of her making it.  But she did make it!  Brooke got past that precarious baby phase, learned to eat solid foods, toughed through the fireworks, learned to fly (practicing all over our house--she gave us a scare last week when she got stuck behind the stove), and as of today, she was finally released into the great big wild. That part was sad.  Trin was super attached, but she recognized that it was selfish to keep her in captivity.     

Here's a sweet little video Trinity made of Brooke's release:

I love the song she chose, Arms by Christina Perri.

It took years and years of trial and error (aka: bird massacres), but we FINALLY got one right.  Thus if you are a bird that finds yourself in my home, the good news is you have a lofty 10% chance of making it.

(That sounds better than saying you have a 90% chance of dying a very grisly death).

From the Real Shannon

This will be a quick post. It has been SO long since I have last written, and I knew it was only a matter of time before my sister started acting like a butthead about it. On the bright side, I learned a lot about my life from Jodi. I guess I spend my days "therapyzing" and working on my "paper thing." (Jodi, what paper are you talking about???! You know I'm not in school anymore, right??). I guess I'm "psychoanalyzing" as well, which is pretty remarkable in an acute facility (average length of stay for inpatient is 5-7 days), considering psychoanalysis takes a minimum of two years.

I really just wanted to offer a brief explanation of why I haven't written for a while. It has been brutal the last few weeks. It started about a month ago, with our Vegas trip. The trip was actually REALLY fun. However, I started to get sick that weekend, and that bug clung to me for about 2 1/2 weeks (extreme fatigue, chronic headache, sore/burning throat,and acid reflux IN my throat, which was really freakin' weird). After taking every OTC med possible (including Prilosec for a couple weeks), it finally disappeared.

 In the meantime though, I rear-ended a brand new Camaro (still had dealer plates on) on the 60 FW. My car was fine, but hers was pretty jacked up (on the bright side, I discovered my car kicks ass in a crash...I had like...ONE tiny scratch, while her bumper was falling off). She got herself an attorney, and she is claiming injury now (although she didn't look that injured when she was running around her car road ragin', screaming, and dropping F bombs...but hey, I'm not a medical doctor). Luckily, it seems as if my insurance is handling the lawsuit and all that.

Then my son's school calls to tell me he is having an asthma attack. I was like, my son has asthma? So I had to take time off work to get him an exam, blood work, chest x-ray....Jeremy also had to take time off work to take him for an echocardiogram, because the doctor wanted to rule out a rare heart condition. He has an inhaler now (which I like to take hits off of sometimes because...well...it's fun). Adding to this was trying to enroll Shelby in Kindergarten. The school wouldn't accept her physical exam from February because it was supposed to be done after March, so that was another appointment. AND Samantha got some infection on her head, which was ANOTHER appointment. I feel pretty sure our family doctor can put his own kids through college now.

I also got a flat tire, but that is nothing new. I am cursed when it comes to tires.This was actually a nice one. Rather than the tire violently blowing off my rim and leaving me stranded somewhere with no cell signal (which is what typically happens), this one just calmly deflated into a pancake.

In the midst of all of this, I have been trying to study for this nightmare test (the only part of my life Jodi got right). And that's all. I am going to try and write another post over the weekend, because I still have more I want to write, but I'm too drowsy right now.

Parfum de Salad

We've all had our routine doctor appointments.  But my most recent one was...well...let's just say at one point I think I was pinching myself.

I had lost my hearing in my right ear for two days, so on Tuesday I called my ENT doctor--Dr. A--to schedule an appointment to see what was wrong.  I was thrilled when they said they could squeeze me in that very same day.  Once there, I was seen almost immediately.  Dr. A examined my ear, and it turned out I just had a bad case of swimmer's ear.  A simple irrigation process would restore my hearing.

He and a nurse's assistant started the irrigation process, which basically involved blowing a bunch of hot vinegar into my ear with some other stuff.  In the beginning it wasn't too bad.  They kept saying, "Are you okay?" and I said, "Yeah, this is like a jacuzzi for my ears!"  But then the power suddenly went off.

I ended up with a doctor on my lap and hot vinegar down my shirt.

Then Dr. A says "Mmmm.  You smell like salad." 

We were laughing so hard we were nearly crying.  At this point most of the office staff was in our exam room, because, well, that's where the party was.  The lights came back on, and Dr. A eventually got back to work shooting bottle after bottle of hot vinegar into my poor over-scoured ears.  He said, "Okay, now this is getting personal. I don't care if I kill you with vinegar, I'm going to get this damn ear cleaned out!" I told him that killing me seemed counterproductive and that he was incredibly unprofessional and asked if there was a comment box on the premises.  He said "No," so I then asked if I could talk to the manager.  He said, "She's the manager," (pointing to the sweet, blond secretary).  I proceeded to file a complaint with her regarding Dr. A's bedside matter, but she didn't seem to be taking the matter seriously and pretty soon we were all in hysterics again.

Dr. A, who apparently likes his women antagonistic, then proposed to me in front of his entire staff.  I told him I was married, but he said he didn't care; he wanted to whisk me away and take me to Italy (maybe my wafting aroma had delicate Italian dressing undertones).  I told him "I can't marry you."  Hurt, he asked "Why?"  I said, "Because you'll always be the man who said I smelled like salad." 

Unfortunately the fun ended shortly later.  The nurse was in my ear with some sharp tool when the lights flickered again, and she slipped and nicked my ear drum.  That hurt.  A lot.  I ended up with a ruptured ear drum, but it's not as bad as it sounds.  I previously thought a ruptured eardrum meant that the whole thing had exploded or something.  It just means a tear in the tissue that separates your ear canal from your middle ear.  I had light bleeding in the ear for two days, and loss of hearing.  It was kind of perfect though because I had a crazy end-of-the-year party at a laser tag venue with my Builders Club members last night, so you couldn't ask for a better time to lose your hearing.   Today my hearing still isn't up to par, but it's improving every day, and the ear's not hurting anymore.

So yeah, between having my life threatened with hot vinegar, insulted with vegetable-dish digs, hit on by the doctor, and leaving the exam room with a bigger injury than I showed up with, Dr. A. should count his lucky stars that I'm not the suing type.

So this is Therapy

There are times at my job where I am confronted with such madness that everything I learned in school just seems totally irrelevant.

I had a family meeting the other afternoon (on Unit 3, which is always a red flag). Prior to the meeting, I asked the case manager, "Do you believe the patient is stable enough to participate meaningfully in the meeting?" She said, "Sure, he's good!"

Famous last words.

The patient (who I will call Pete) rolled into the meeting in a wheelchair, holding a Bible. I guess this should be a perplexing thing, since he isn't disabled at all. A couple hours ago, he was running all over the unit (you know, on his feet, which work quite well). I'm not even sure where he got the wheelchair. Anyway, Pete gave a cheerful "hello" to his family (who were already appearing confused about the wheelchair), and then started singing at the top of his lungs: "I fell into a burning ring of fire! I went down, down, down and the flames went HIGHER!" They looked totally stunned, and I was trying to hide my smile (I can't help it, but I REALLY like that song).

I asked Pete, "How are you doing? Are you feeling any better?"

He looked at me and loudly recited from the Bible:

"Put on the cooking pot; put it on and pour water into it.

Put into it the pieces of meat, all the choice pieces--the leg and the shoulder.

Fill it with the best of these bones; take the pick of the flock.

Pile wood beneath it for the bones; bring it to a boil

And cook the bones in it."

 Ummm.....so was that a "yes" or a "no"????

I glanced at his family, and they stared back at me, wide-eyed. His father tried to ask Pete a simple question, and before he could finish, Pete interrupted loudly, "I FELL INTO A BURNING RING OF FIRE! DOWN DOWN DOWNNNN AND THE FLAMES WENT HIGHER!" His father, not to be deterred, continued to persist with his question, albeit louder this time. Pete's response became thunderous, "AND IT BURNS BURNS BUUUUURNS, THE RING OF FIRE, THE RIIIINNNNG OF FIIIRRRRE!!!"

The family looked at me, probably hoping for some kind of meaningful assessment of his behavior. You know, since I am the clinical therapist and stuff.

In that moment, the best I could come up with was, "Well, on the bright side, he really DOES sound like Johnny Cash..."

Not my most therapeutic moment.

I said to Pete, "I really want you to be able to participate in this meeting, so I want to give you one last chance-"

Pete interrupted me, "PUT ON THE COOKING POT, PUT AND POUR WATER INTO IT, PUT INTO IT THE PIECES OF MEAT, ALL THE CHOICE PIECES THE LEG AND THE SHOULDER..."

Pete's grandmother sweetly declared, "That Bible passage sounds like a recipe."

I replied, "You're right, it DOES...I'm waiting for the 'just add 2 pinches of salt' part." Then I kicked Pete out of the meeting.

The meeting was actually really productive after that. At some point, I unearthed my brain, and was able to educate the family about the onset of Schizophrenia and give them a little hope.

Changing the subject, Andrew has been bringing an umbrella every day to group lately. It started a couple weeks ago. I asked him, "Andrew, why are you bringing an umbrella?"

He looked at me like I was the biggest moron in the world, and flatly stated, "In case it rains." I walked over to the window, and peered out into the sunny, blue sky. There wasn't a single cloud.

Earlier this week, Thelma told me she had an iron marble lodged in her brain. I asked her why she thought that. She said, "I was taking my medication, and I accidentally swallowed the marble, and now it is in my brain."

I said, "Don't worry Thelma, since you didn't choke on the marble, that means it went in your digestive system, and you'll probably just poop it out."

"Really?" She asked, hopefully.

"Yep! In fact, you may have already flushed it down the toilet!" 

I'm telling y'all, it is such a good thing I went through all those years of school.  

I Spayed my Cat. Twice.

I had this really weird dream that I accidentally spayed my already-spayed cat, and then a transformer box blew up at my work leaving me trapped in a dark classroom with my rowdy 7th period class all day, and then I won Teacher of the Year.

Oh wait.  Those things actually happened.

Let me start with the power outage.  It happened today,* on an upside-down week.  On upside-down weeks, kids start with their 7th period class in the morning, and then proceed to 6th, 5th, 4th, and so on.  Today started perfectly normal.  I conducted an in-class Spelling Bee during our 7th period morning class, the kids took a break (I have each group of kids for two periods), and then we started reading A Wrinkle in Time during 6th period.

That's when the power went out. 

The kids immediately screamed because, well, that's what 12 and 13 year-olds do when their classroom descends into darkness.  I just played it off and said, "Come on guys, this is no big deal."  There was no way for me to call anyone up front to see what was going on since our classroom phones were dead, and the level of darkness in my room made it impossible to do any work or read, so I took the kids out into the sunshine where we finished reading our chapter.

Right when 6th period was nearing its end and students were packing up (in the dark) for their next class, a campus aid walked in and informed me that I would have to keep this group of students in class with me until the power outage was over.  I think my response was, "Um, wha...?  Come again?"  She explained that for accountability purposes, all students were required to stay with the last teacher who took their attendance, that way they would know exactly where everyone was.  That just went in one ear and out the other.  I was like, "No Amy, you can't leave me here!  Take me with you!" as I flung my arms around her feet and allowed her to drag me across the campus (this might be a good time to mention that 6/7th period is my rowdiest bunch. And that I might be bit of an unreliable narrator). My students, on the other hand, were elated, with shouts of "Yay! We get to stay with you all day Mrs. P! ALL DAY FOR ETERNITY." (Again, unreliable). Basically the prospect of spending the day trapped in room 405 didn't bother them a bit.

So I did what any sensible 7th grade teacher would do in this situation.  We played Heads Up Seven Up.  Followed by Silent Ball.  And Spelling Bee Ball.  I even came up with a little slogan--a mantra, if you will:

Staying Alive in Room 405.

Catchy, huh?

Anyway, a few minutes before lunch (yes, it's been half of a day at this point--aka: Half of eternity) the school counselor came into my room and told me that I was allowed to dismiss students for a 30 minute lunch.

"And after lunch would be a perfect time for them to go to a different class, right?" I asked.
"Nope.  These kids will return to your class."

Oh good.  Because I hadn't gotten my fill of them yet.    

After a very dark and strange lunch (I think the students ate emergency peanut butter jelly sandwiches or something), I plodded dejectedly hurried enthusiastically back to class where I was greeted by my now-high-on-sugar 7th period.  Because I was starting to look like this,

I decided to send two of my students to fetch some board games from nearby teachers.  We managed to procure four games of Monopoly.  This was a GOD send.  I divided the class into four groups, and we spent the rest of our time together playing a classic game that has virtually no end--which is perfect for a day that has no foreseeable end either. 

On a side note, I am now adding Monopoly to my survival kit for both home and school purposes.  As far as I'm concerned, it's right up there with food, water, flashlights, and batteries.

Oh (another side note), speaking of flashlights, did I mention that mine was dead?  I've had an emergency flashlight in my classroom for seven years now, and the first time I go to use it, it doesn't work.  Words can not describe how much fun it is to try to use the staff restroom in pitch darkness.  Especially for those who enjoy stubbing their toes on porcelain and head-bashing walls.  And don't even get me started on the damn toilet seat liner.

So back to my story.  Monopoly saved my hide, and the power finally did come back on that afternoon.  Turned out a transformer exploded underground.  Trinity was in P.E. jogging right passed the transformer when it happened, so she heard the boom and saw the cloud of dust.  But even better than that is the fact that she was stuck in her P.E. clothes all day.  That's every girls dream, right there. 

During 1st period, the principal came into my classroom, and announced in front of all my students that I had won Teacher of the Year at my school site.  That was just...wow.  My kids went crazy, and I cried a little.  She told me to dress nice on Wednesday because they're coming to take my picture for the paper.  I don't know who "they" are or what "paper" she's referring to, but I told her I had already set aside a nice sloppy outfit for Wednesday and now she was jacking with my mojo. 

After 1st period ended, it was time for homeroom.  And I'm sure you can guess what kids I have for homeroom.

7TH PERIOD.

Yep.  They came in, and I said, "Hi guys!  I missed you!"  'Cause, you know, we just didn't have enough time to truly bond.

And that officially ends the story of the longest Friday I have ever had in my whole life.  But hey, did I mention that I won TEACHER OF THE YEAR??  And let me tell you, I was truly feeling the whole teacher of the year thing when I was screaming, "No, I get to be the thimble!"

Oh, one more little thing.  As I alluded to earlier, we dropped off our new cat (Toshi) to the vet to get her spayed.  They called around lunchtime where the following conversation commenced (Vet = red):

"Where's your cat's uterus?" 
"Um, I don't have it." 
"Well we can't find it." 
"Okay...do you want me to go over there and look for it?" 

After exploring around in her stomach some more, they finally concluded that the cat had already been fixed and stitched her back up.

Yeah, that's a little awkward.

But it was an honest mistake.  Clint's sister had the cat before us, and when she took Toshi in to get her vaccinations, she was told by the vet "your cat is in heat."  Little did the vet know that Toshi is just a really affectionate cat.

So the poor cat came back completely stoned last night from a surgery she didn't even need.  Not many animals get fixed twice, so I'm glad this one has nine lives.

*(post written on 5/10 but published later to give Shan's very cool  technology post more time on top)