Miz S

Annual Beach Vacation #mypredictablelife

Our rental house in Southern Shores, NC.

This is our first beach vacation without my mother-in-law. You may recall that she died only a month after we returned from the Outer Banks last summer.  We wondered if it would feel strange to be here without her energy and humor, but it's not.

Not really.

Well, maybe a lot.

In any case, we are at the beach.

Edgar Allen Poo is with us, of course.  At home he sleeps with my father-in-law, but here at the beach house he is sharing a bed with Josh and me. The first night we were here, I reached down to tenderly pat him before I fell asleep and was rewarded with a sharp nip to my hand. I'm suing, of course. Edgar's defense attorney pointed out that he has arthritis and is tender in certain areas, but my lawyer countered with, "Well, April had much WORSE arthritis and never ever EVER nipped anyone in her entire life. GOD!" 

I will let you know how it turns out.

Oh, and fyi, in case you wanted to know how the doggie diapers are working, they're NOT. So now we're just taking Edgar outside every 30 minutes or so to try and prevent accidents. With mixed results, I might add.

Sophie and Edgar. She's a huge help with him, fyi. He's a damned pain in the ass.

When I am not catering to Edgar's every need, cavorting in the ocean with my family, or eating something delicious that #1 Future Son-in-Law Paul has prepared, I am usually getting my ass kicked playing Boggle with Emma and Nathanial.

I think my score in this game was 27. Nate's was probably around 90-something and Emma likely topped 130. Brats, both of them.

Emma encouraged me to download the Scramble app to my phone, which I did, and now I am obsessively playing Scramble and getting my ass kicked there, too. Any minute now I will uninstall it in a huff and reclaim my life.

We had some excitement last night when #2 Future Son-in-Law Nate, who was gallantly helping my niece and her girlfriend get the coals going on the grill, stepped on some stones that had been super-heated by the charcoal chimney and sustained serious burns on the sole of his foot.

IT WAS A MEDICAL EMERGENCY AND I LIVE FOR THAT SHIT!!!

I may have gotten a little bit hand-flappy, I'm not sure.

I know the basic first aid for burns, which is immersion in cold water for at least 15 minutes. But I was certan this was a 2nd degree burn (large blotchy white areas, blisters forming quickly, foot swelling).  Small 2nd degree burns can be treated at home, but this was 2/3 of the sole of his foot. A little hand-flapping followed by some swift Internet research revealed that this injury required professional medical care.

Josh and Emma took him over to the urgent care center where they inspected, bandaged, and prescribed. He came home looking pale and in a lot of pain, but seemed to relax when the pain meds began to work their magic. He has to go back in this afternoon to have the blisters cleaned and scrutinized.

Oh, and may I just say? Nate was cheerful and uncomplaining throughout it all. Apologetic even, for causing such a fuss. I love that boy!

More developments as they occur.

Josh and Nate goofing for the camera in the waiting room. Picture courtesy of Emma.

Clever, naughty, diapered Edgar.

Do you guys remember my late mother-in-law's poodle, Edgar Allen Poo? Clever, naughty Edgar?

Edgar is still super playful and has picked me as his special favorite. Here he is being excited because I came home one evening.

Edgar has earned advanced degrees in dog obedience but is decidedly disobedient when it suits his purposes. He will nip at people who bother him, he is an incorrigible beggar, and he once chased our cat around our house with obvious malevolent intent. Poor Pushkin, who had never been chased by a dog, was considerably shook up and stayed under the bed for a full day. (Imagine Pushkin's horror a few years later when we moved into Edgar Allen Poo's house.)

 

2 summers ago, he bit my sister-in-law's finger HARD, and there was some controversy about whether it was Edgar's fault or SIL's fault. We are still reviewing the videotape to try and reach a settlement agreement.

But that was all years ago. Edgar is 15 now, almost completely blind, and more or less compliant. He chased Pushkin a few times after we moved in here last October, but it was obviously a huge effort and not worth his time. They coexist peacefully now.

But lo, how the mighty have fallen.

Edgar was just diagnosed with kidney disease and high blood pressure. He is on 2 different medications and a special diet. And, best of all, he gets to wear doggie diapers inside because he no longer has full contol of his bladder.

Doggie diapers are the funniest thing ever.

Edgar standing guard at the front door, barking at dogs passing by.

Honestly, when he wore the diapers for the first time yesterday I followed him around for like an hour taking pictures and squealing.

2 questions:

1. Why didn't we ever do this with Rosie? Rosie was an inveterate sneak-urinator, and we were never able to completely house-train her. (The poor little lamb. May she rest in peace forever-n-ever Amen.)

2. Why is an old dog in diapers SO ADORABLE whereas an old dude in diapers is just sad? We need to change our mindset, people. That way it will be easier for us when the inevitable arrives.  We'll be all, "Cool! Dad's wearing diapers! He looks so cute! Dad! Turn around so I can take a picture of your adorable diapered bottom!" etc.

That's all I got for right now. Remember, I'm super out-of-practice with this blogging thing. I have to go do my algebra homework now. 3 more days of class AUGGGHH!

Oh, and here is a video of Edgar Allen Poo dancing with my late mother-in-law. I swear to God, it is really cute. You should watch it. If my mother-in-law were here she would make you watch it.

 

 

 

Solve for x? I got your x for you right here.

Please notice that I always write my answer in pink.

I signed up to take a math class for teachers this summer. It was billed as a class for elementary teachers to review algebra concepts and learn new teaching strategies to take back into the classroom in August. NOT TRUE. LIAR LIAR PANTS ON FIRE. It is a full-on algebra class where we are covering 2 semesters of algebra content in 8 days.

Thank goodness I'm a genius otherwise it might be hard learning a YEAR'S worth of algebra in EIGHT FREAKING DAYS.

I'm kidding. I'm not a genius. Honestly, I'm not even that smart. But I'm SUPAH SEX-AY!

Ha. No.

Let x stand for the number of instructional days in a school year. Let 8 stand for the eight days I have to live through this class. X/8 = 22.  When I solve for x I find that we are covering 22 days of instruction per day of the stupid class.

When do you suppose I last laid eyes on an algebra book? Let x stand for how old I was in 8th grade. Let y stand for my age now. Let's see, y-x = many, many years.

I'm exaggerating just a little. After all, I did take math in college when I was getting my teaching degree and that was only about 15 years ago. But you get my point.

I don't have a math phobia or anything. Math is alright. I'm just not very fast at it. I painstakingly copy down the equation, carefully subtract and divide to isolate some goddamned variable or another, make sure I don't forget to flip that inequality symbol when I divide by a negative number (ha, just learned that yesterday), and always, ALWAYS check my work.

I am the slowest person in the class.  I haaaaaaate being the slowest person in the class.

Dudes, I have to present a lesson on polynomials next week. Polynomials. From the Greek, "poly," meaning "many" and "nomials" meaning "pains in my ass."

Why, God? Why did they lie to me? I thought I would be playing with math manipulatives all week and creating math games for my little first graders. Instead I'm finding the slope and the y-intercept and the absolute value and God only knows what else. And I'm doing it all at a snail's pace. 

Adding insult to injury, when I was looking at my school district's website for lesson plans and such, I found a flipchart created by a teacher and generously uploaded to the website so that we can all use it to review counting and at the same time expose our English language learners to an idiom about counting SHEEPS. AUUUUGHH!!

For the love of God. How will the children learn to speak English properly if the teachers are unclear on the concept?

I feel super defensive when I hear people say that teachers are "dumb," but JESUS, teachers are dumb.  Oh, and check it out. I just found another mistake when I was glaring at the picture. See if you can find it.

I weep for our youth.

Wouldn't it be funny if there were some glaring spelling or grammar error in this post that would cause my myriad* fans to mock me in the comments section?

*SAT vocabulary word, fyi.

Seriously? It's been 2 months since I updated? That is disgraceful.

My new bike.

It's not that I'm bored and have nothing to say.  I'm just so out of the habit of blogging now that I can't seem to make myself sit down and do it.

Let's see if I can condense the last couple of months into something readable.

• School is over for the year YO BITCHES I ONLY WORK TEN MONTHS OUT OF TWELVE. And yet, I felt wistful about saying goodbye to my class. They were such sweethearts, this bunch, and at the same time such a drain because, Jesus, the neediness. No matter how hard I worked, there was no way to fill the holes in some of these kids' lives.

• Josh and I drove to Niagara Falls to see Nik Wallenda cross them on a wire. It was awesome! We watched the event from the comfort of an air-conditioned bar with a big screen TV, and I suppose we could have done that just as easily from home but hey, ROAD TRIP!! AUNT CRAZY!! Plus, long-time readers know that I am more than a little obsessed with Niagara Falls.

• In September I will be teaching first grade at a different school, a wonderful school, a school that has me really excited about teaching again. My old school, you see, is broken, and I hesitate to say anything more than that.  I was resigned to teaching there again next year because I just couldn't muster the energy to put together a resume and go on job interviews. But a good friend of mine emailed me and said something along the lines of "There's a big beautiful world of teaching out there. Don't be afraid to put your toe in the water." So I mustered my courage and went on the interview and knocked the ball out of the park, if I do say so myself. Go me!

• Jane came to town! I love me some Jane. She is little and cute and a very sympathetic listener. I was super chatty and quite possibly over-caffeinated. We had drinks and went out to dinner and she kept lording it over me with her private sector job perks. "Oh, let me. I'll just comp this," she would say airily. "Here, I'll pay for parking. I can comp this."  And I was all, "GOD! That is so unfair! Lowly public servants like me have to buy pencils for our classrooms!"  In the interest of full disclosure, I will confess that while driving Jane to and fro I made a super illegal turn right in front of a DC cop who immediately pulled us over and asked to see my *ahem* expired drivers license. I guess he didn't look too closely--he sort of squinted at it with a disgusted expression on his face and then sent us on our way with a stern warning to obey traffic laws.

• Our bikes got stolen out of my father-in-law's garage when we were in Portugal way back in April. And you guys, I LOVED MY BIKE. Lesson learned. We live in the city now. Don't keep shit that you are fond of in a garage that doesn't have a reinforced steel door.  The silver lining is that now I have a BRAND NEW SHINY BIKE that is waaaaaay better than my old bike. I think I'm gonna call her "Christine". I think I will become obsessed with her and I will develop a sinister attitude and bad things will happen to people who try to come between Christine and me. I'm just speculating.

• We had a big storm and lots of damage and power outages in the middle of an unpleasant heat wave. Here at our place we lost power for 4 days, but I know lots of people who suffered for 7 or 8 days. It sucked. Except it wasn't really THAT bad because we have a generator with enough power to run the TV, the fridge, some lights, and a window a/c. I worried that some desperate soul would come and steal my precious generator and I considered staying up all night with a gun to protect it. Except I don't have a gun. Stupid gun control laws. You watch, I'm going to start getting reeeealy crazy about the coming apocalypse and the need to prepare.

• I'm not even kidding.

• My mom is doing well. I want to do a separate post about her.

 

I miss you guys. xoxoxoxoxoxoxoxo