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.

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.

Rainbows and Swallows.

There was a beautiful rainbow on the ocean yesterday evening, so I dispatched one of my minions (Josh) to take a picture of it for me. It's very Hallmark-worthy. There is even a little speck of a seagull flying around. The seagull represents MY SOUL YEARNING TO BE FREE.

Then Josh noticed some birds sitting on the neighbor's clothesline.

These are baby swallows. They aren't really babies anymore, but their parents are still working their asses off to feed them. The parents were flying around in the air catching insects, and...

...swooping by the little ones to feed them on the fly.

HOW ADORABLE IS THAT?

And how patient was Josh to sit there waiting and waiting to get that picture?

Last, but not least...

 

...the intrepid Miz S in her sex-ay Bathing Costume sizes up the approaching wave.

 

She moves forward confidently, gracefully, rather like a mermaid...

 

...a really dorky mermaid who doesn't like to get her face wet and is a little bit afraid there might be a shark in the water. 

Okay, I don't really have a punchline for that series of pictures but I did think I looked hilarious and I wanted to share.

Thursday will be our last full day here in NC. On Friday we will have time for a morning swim and then be on our way.

There is still time for a big, huge FAMILY FIGHT so stay tuned!

Home Again Home Again Jiggety Etc.

I type to you from my own kitchen counter. I loved my beach vacation but DAMN it's good to be home. I apologize for my crappy updating/visiting. Internet access was quite limited. In the next day or two I will be around to see what the rest of you all have been up to.

I noticed a couple of things when I was on vacation.

1. It takes me 3 days to adjust to an extended-family vacation lifestyle. For those 3 days I will be tense and out of sorts and might possibly hide in my room and not play Fictionary with the family. Oh, for shame.

2.  I can be kind of a bitch. No, it's true!

3. Our niece (16) and our nephew (13) --the only cousins on that side of the family -- are growing up very quickly, and I wonder why I (we) don't spend more time with them. They are sweet and funny, and I love them. I know from past experience that they will be gone, GONE, off to college, in the wink of an eye.

4. I claim that I don't really like the beach all that much, but I think that I lie. There were moments this week, floating in the cold, cold, salty ocean, or walking the beach road at dusk with Josh, that were almost heavenly.

5. I like being naked outside on a summer night. This is difficult to arrange so will probably not become a habit.

I guess that was it as far as epiphanies go.

********

Today is Josh's 51st birthday. Since it was also our pack-up-and-travel-home day, it hasn't been very celebratory yet. I feel guilty-ish.

Sasha arrived home today after finishing her second consecutive summer semester of Arabic. She spent the entire afternoon making out with the dogs and cats. God, I love that girl.  Tomorrow she flies to Buffalo, NY, where she will be met by her sister, Evangeline, and 3 of her girl cousins for a Cousin Road Trip. They will visit Aunt Crazy in Niagara Falls and party in Canada. Wooo! Cousin Power!

It's All Muscle.

I feel that I have given too much of a lead up to this new haircut which may engender disappointment when you actually see it. Anyway, here it is. My kids said it looked good, and Josh said I AM MORE BEAUTIFUL THAN EVER. So, there you go.  It's got a lot of layers, and it's shorter in the back. Also, I think my upper arm looks abnormally large there but I assure you, it's all muscle, and I could kick someone's ass if I wanted to but I'm not saying whose. Ass, that is.

Don't worry, my mood is once again beatific. My brain, she is mercurial. Go ahead, bang on the shower door. I will only smile enigmatically and warble something noncommittal. 

Hey, guess what? I went swimming in the ocean yesterday. This is news, because I generally demand that conditions be absolutely perfect before I venture in the roiling surf.  Conditions were decidedly imperfect yesterday--chilly wind and freezing ocean. 65 degree water, y'all. Too damn cold. But I went in anyway, just galloped in like it was nothing at all. It was quite pleasant and invigorating, what with the frozen extremities and all. After awhile I felt sleepy and was hallucinating so I decided to get out and go take a nice, long, warm shower and use up all the hot water.

See you in a day or two, unless I drown.

Full of Beachly Goodness.

Oh the agony of being at the beach with only dial-up internet and no way to post AN ADORABLE picture of Rosie and ME with my new cute haircut. I'm all about the self-esteem this week.

I miss you, my internet lovelies, but I am having fun with Josh, Sasha, Evangeline, Sasha's boyfriend Paul, and my in-laws, niece, nephew, etc.

Rosie and April stayed home with my friend Cindy.

I am able to check my email now and then, so if you care about me AT ALL, you will leave a comment or just send me an email.

If I can find a damn wireless cafe around here, I will do a real post.

okayloveyoubye.