Cute and Fuzzy

A few weeks ago Mr. Mamie and I were dropping off our folding chairs at a friends to be used for our Bunco night. The friend had recently gotten a Yorkie-mix puppy, and Mr. Mamie was pretty taken with it. Maybe someday Copper will get to have a cute, fuzzy little friend!

~Mamie "When the going gets weird, the weird turn pro!" (Hunter S. Thompson)

Random Thoughts

 

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I have nothing particularly witty or stimulating to offer, but if I am going to survive NaBloPoMo, I gotta post something. So here's my collection of random thoughts for the day.

A kid in my class has Scarlet fever, according to what her mom told the secretary when she called after school. OH, JOY! So is half my class going to fall victim to raging strep and miss the First Grade Thanksgiving Feast? I hope not!

I spent an hour after school at the dentist, getting my teeth power-washed and sand-blasted. I mean, cleaned and polished. It seems a shame to sully them now with food...

...but I am! I'm fixing Sweet, Sticky, Spicy Chicken (new recipe, highly anticipated) and Yellow Rice (well-loved favorite) for dinner, and them smells are making me delirious with desire!

My principal came in this afternoon to go over my observation/evaluation (which she did in the classroom on Wednesday). She marked me "distinguished" in practically every category, and was full of gushing praise.  Ha! She missed the part where I shrieked at the 20 little imps that they were on my LAST NERVE and that EVERYONE MUST PUT THEIR HEADS DOWN NOW, or else there would be a massive meltdown (mine).

We did the funnest thing today - we made "Noun Town," which I'm going to post about next week (with pictures!) and I'll link to the teacher blog where I got the idea. It was such a hit with the kids that I think we'll extend it next week by making "VerbVille."

The local high school football team played in the state championship today. They lost by a field goal, for the second year in a row, to the same team. There is weeping in the Village.

The Igor family is gone to a town in another state (but only about 40 miles away) in order for Nephew to participate in a weekend of football-ness. When HE'S on the high school team they WILL win the championship! GrandmaT has to dog-sit the Maniacal Igor Hounds, otherwise they will eat the whole house.

I know Harry Potter opens this weekend (duh), but I'm holding off seeing it for a couple of weeks... I don't want the experience ruined by hordes of noisy "fans."

Dinner's done, and so is this moment of randomness. Enjoy your Friday evening!


~Mamie "When the going gets weird, the weird turn pro!" (Hunter S. Thompson)

Listen up, kids! Or not....

Lately I've been lamenting my class's TOTAL inability to follow directions, and this seems to be a common theme among primary grade bloggers.

I'm sitting here on Saturday night, geeking away with the Mizzou-Oklahoma game on the TV. The stadium officials made an announcement to the fans/students about NOT coming onto the field at the end of the game.

Mizzou just won, and you guessed it - the field was FLOODED with fans and the goalposts were down within 10 seconds.

I guess college kids are as bad as first graders when it comes to following directions!

~Mamie
"When the going gets weird, the weird turn pro!"

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Funny

I just read this joke, and it made me laugh. No, my sense of humor is not very sophisticated!

"Last night I dreamed I ate a 10-pound marshmallow. This morning I woke up and the pillow was gone!"


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Sunday Morning

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I love this time of year - when the air is cool in the mornings and evenings, but I can still wear flip-flops! I'm sitting on the patio in shorts, t-shirt, flip-flops... and a fleece jacket to keep the arms toasty. Sunday mornings are great, because first there's sleeping in, then there's a trip to Maverik for two Sunday papers and a treat (either cold, delicious, carbonated chemicals - or, hot, delicious, liquid candy posing as "coffee"). Then it's patio time, with papers and computer and snacks/brekkie... watching the various neighbors load up their many children and head to church for three hours. The birds chirp and fly around, and at this time of year gaggles of geese fly overhead pointing south. The neighborhood dogs carry on woofing conversations, and I sit here reveling in my boring, middle-age complacency.

One thing that's annoying me at the moment are the colors of the links on my blog. I have changed them over and over, and they will not switch from the blue/purple. So, sorry for the ugliness! I will keep trying.

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In other news, we've been watching "24" via streaming Netflix. We're about a third of the way into season 3 (the one with biological terrorism), and the episode we watched right before bed was just so violent and mean that I told Mr. Mamie I needed a break. He agreed, and we're not going to watch any more episodes for a while. We decided to look for something more"uplifting," but sadly, "The Waltons" are not available to stream... and yes, I LOVE that show!

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Hmmmmm, tough decision!

Here's the question of vital importance I asked Mr. Mamie today:

Where would you rather continue your education?

S

Starfleet Academy

or... 

Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry

????????

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Foot-grater

On our way to The Walmartz to pick up a prescription for Mr. Mamie, I told him that I thought I might buy one of these:

I tried to describe it, but maybe didn't do such a great job. When we got to the store and The Mister saw it, he said, "Oh, so it's pretty much a cheese grater for your feet!"

Um, yeah. Pretty much.

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Just can't hang on anymore...

Poor lil' lizards!

What I both loved and hated about Berkeley...

I lived in or right next to Berkeley, CA for almost 12 years of my adult life. Important years, impressionable years, AKA my twenties and early thirties.  I retain many Berkeley-esque tendencies, mannerisms, and beliefs.  I miss the amazing variety of produce at the Berkeley Bowl, Barney's Burgers, Zachary's Pizza, fresh fowl for roasting from Magnani, coffee from the French Cafe and Peet's, and any other number of edible delights. Heck, I even ate - and enjoyed! - "round green things" [peas] upstairs at Chez Panisse in about 1993.

But...

I read a restaurant review like this one and I realize that sometimes it all becomes just a little too precious and precocious, ya know?  I'm sure it was all very lovely and delicious and all, but this is just too much for me.  And I used to live right down the street.

Now I live where I live, pining for Trader Joe's.  You can't have it all...

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One Word

This site it too cool!  Writerly people, you gotta check this out:

http://oneword.com/

I did it, and it was fun!

Oh, and have you ever made a Wordle?  That's awesome too!  Here's one I just made:

How I often feel...

Hair, There, and Everywhere

Niece has rather unruly hair. There's a lot of, it's wavy and curly, and impossible to contain/control very effectively. I understand this hair, as mine was almost identical to hers when I was a wee lass. Mrs. Igor came up with a good summer solution, though: she took Niece to one of the local beauty colleges (when a friend's daughter is currently a student), and got Niece's hair put into bunches of little braids. It's WAY CUTE!

I'm a little jealous. A couple of years ago, when KP and I went to the SnoopyFest in Santa Rosa, she did my hair in "spider braids" one day. It was cool, but the rubberbands kept poppin' off, I guess because my hair was too slippery or something. Sorry, can't seem to find a picture, but here's one of KP checking out the Snoopy statues instead:

A peeve

Okay, some folks are going to find this kinda mean, but I'm going to say it anyway:

Anyone who calls herself "mommy" repeatedly on her own blog, or who markets herself as a "mommy blogger" immediately earn my mockery. They may have great blogs (well, it's possible, isn't it?), but the overwhelming "mommy aura" puts me off. I read plenty of great blogs by intelligent, interesting women who are moms, and I have nothing against mom-ness. It's the "mommy blog" genre as a concept that grates on me.

Somehow I see this as connected, though I'm not sure why: Yet another whine from a first-year teacher who's pregnant and doesn't have enough days for a paid six-week leave appeared in my email in-box this week. Sorry Chickie, but NO! See this post for the reasons why.

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Oooooooh, A-7... wait a minute!

Another buggy commercial: The one for Milky Way candy bars, with the woman cooing seductively "oooooooh, A-7..." to the Milky Way bar in the candy machine. The problem is, if you look at the machine, the Milky Way in the A-7 position is clearly at the far RIGHT of the machine. How could this be the "A" position? Typically candy machines Start with A-1 in the upper LEFT corner. I just can't see that an item in the A column would be on the RIGHT.

I suppose that the machine in the commercial could have the ROWS lettered, in which case A would extend to the right side. But it also looks to me like the Milky Way in question is in a position near the bottom of the machine, and if the ROW was "A," wouldn't that likely be at the top?

Can anyone explain this to me???

What decade (century!) is it again?

I'm experiencing some time confusion.

In the car, I'm listening to the audiobook of the last of the "Anne of Green Gables" books, which is set during WWI.

I finished "The Winds of War" on Thursday, and have started in on the sequel, "War and Remembrance" - so that puts me deep into WWII.

But today I spent the afternoon watching "Gone With the Wind" and "Glory" and went spiraling back to the Civil War.

I thought maybe I could find a showing of "Platoon" or "Full Metal Jacket" on one of my many satellite channels, which would have made the time-travel experience complete.

No Viet Nam war flicks available, though, so I'm settling for "Norma Rae" - which is hardly "settling" - Sally Field is rocks as a union organizer!

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