Excuses, Excuses.....

Tonight's blog entry is actually a guest post. She didn't mean to be a guest post, but I have laughed so hard over this email today that I decided to post it. It is from a student in my online course. [She gave me her permission. Not that it probably matters to any of you, but I do have SOME ethics. Okay, one. Ethic.] Keep in mind that I'm usually a hard-nose when it comes to excuses, and the virtual school has very strict penalties for submitting assignments past the due date. Although their course schedules are structured with daily assignments, they actually have until Friday at 5:00 PM to turn in work for the entire week. [I used to extend the deadline until midnight on Sunday night, but I learned in a hurry not to do THAT.]

Before I got this email, I had already sent this student a text message that she was missing 3 assignments and her grade had dropped. I'm sure she was thinking, "Oh great. What next?" The "Amber" she references in her email is a girl who goes to her high school and is also in the online course with her.

You're an experienced teacher so I know that you don't want to hear excuses. I just wanted to inform you before hand that it's going to be impossible for me to turn in the rest of my work on time for this week.

My Excuse (because, of course I have to give it.)

I worked after school for an hour on this class and then had to take my sister home. I finished reading The Piano Lesson and then sat down at my home computer to cram in at least one assignment before I had to rush off. (Did I mention that my battery on my car was dead when I went out after school and Amber had to jump me off? Yeah. That happened.) Well, when I sat down to work at home my internet just... failed. Epically. It was like my firewall turned into Pat from that 90s movie, Smart House, and just blocked me from even opening up the internet. For my own good, I suppose. Ok, that was a pretty devastating blow but I was bound and determined to be optimistic. So, since I had rehearsal coming up I grabbed my stuff and went for my car.

My car that was gone.

My mother had stolen my car. Can I report grand theft auto when my mother takes it to Walmart and I have two rehearsals to attend and a book to return to a friend? I figured I couldn't because 1) it would take too much time and 2) she pays my insurance. Anyway, I called my mom. She decided she would return my car to me since I had bought her coffee creamer out of the goodness of my heart earlier. I get my car twenty minutes later. I'm too late to go to Mock Trial practice. Whatever, moving on. I race to Amber's house (managing to get lost twice and stuck behind every maw maw in the county) and return her copy of The Piano Lesson. (That's another thing I forgot to mention. Amber bought the last copy from Barnes and Noble. We have one copy between us.) Then I got stuck in her driveway.

This is all true. I can't make this stuff up.

Once I free myself, I rush off to my My Fair Lady rehearsal in Rome (forty-five minutes away.) We're doing our first full run-through. Great. I sit there for two and a half hours and sing twice. Rehearsal went over half an hour too long. Thinking I could still make something positive out of the night I rushed to Barnes and Noble to buy my copy of The Road before Amber can snatch it away. (haha, just kidding... but really.) I get there. It's 9:58. I can make it! I run up to the door.

Some guy with a handlebar mustache beats me and locks it first.

I give up. This night is a fail. I buy a caramel macchiatto instead and taken my defeated tail-end home. Since I stop to check my schedule for the McJob first, it was around eleven before I got home. My internet still obstinately refuses to work. I stayed up until one making plans with a friend on Haiti benefit concerts we're doing and then I fell into an exhausted rest.

To top it off, I've got a measely three hour shift tonight from five to eight. When I return home I plan either turning my computer into a flowerpot or a litter box or, in the instance that my step-dad fixed it, sitting down and working until I have finished at least, this week's course load and then, some of next week's.



So, while I'm asking for a midnight extension for my work, I'm not expecting it. I would just like you to note the ridiculous night I had (a few more minor, but still unimaginably annoying, events I have left out) and, if it doesn't entice you to give me an extension, I hope you still got a chuckle or two out of it.

Thank you so much for you time,
Erica

How could I NOT give her an extension? I was prepared to give her an "A" for the course on the spot.

I'm Scared......

I have tentatively agreed to go on what is to be MY first bicycle ride of 2010 this Saturday, and I'm scared.

Scared that it will be too cold.

Scared that it will rain.

Scared that it will be windy.

Scared that I will whine.

Scared that I will suffer two flat tires like I did the last time we rode from this particular location.

Scared that I won't be able to keep up.

Scared that I don't have enough cycling clothes to layer sufficiently.

Scared that my fingers will freeze, because once again I have failed to buy cold-weather cycling gloves that actually have fingers in them.

Scared that I will get back home so late tomorrow night from going with my friend WWP to take her teenage son to a concert that I will regret agreeing to ride at 10:00 AM on Saturday. [We aren't going to the concert, just dropping him and girlfriend off. We're going to take our laptops and sit in a coffee shop somewhere and watch the gymnastics meet from Utah on the computer. We're dorks that way.]

Scared that the Gym Dogs will suffer another loss tomorrow night. Oh... that has nothing to do with cycling.

Scared that I will forget the route again and cause us to make a wrong turn. That adds mileage. I don't like to add mileage.

Scared that Katydid will see that I bought two new water bottles for the tandem and refuse to ride with me. We have three cages. We crave symmetry. I don't know why I only bought two bottles.

Scared that I will look pretty stupid on the tandem by myself.

Scared that I'm going to have to face shaving these legs. I KNOW I will have on tights, but the hairs might just stick through at this point. You're welcome for that visual.

Dissection in the Loo.......

DISCLAIMER: DO NOT READ THIS POST IF YOU ARE EATING BREAKFAST. OR DINNER. OR A SNACK. OR ARE IN ANY WAY CURRENTLY CONNECTED TO OR INVOLVED WITH FOOD.


I used the word "loo" in deference to any British readers who may happen by here. Or Aussies. Do they call it the "loo" also?

We have a faculty restroom at our end of the building, and it's convenient to all five of our classrooms. There is another faculty restroom all the way at the front of the building, but I rarely use it because it's about three quarters of a mile away. Maybe not quite that far, but it involves several turns. It's also the restroom where a former paraprofessional admitted to sitting and eavesdropping on the assistant principal, because she could hear everything coming from that office. I don't want anyone to think that's why I'm in there, so I just don't go in there much. Plus the light switch is really high up on the wall, and I have to stand on my tiptoes to reach it. And when you turn on the water you might as well be taking a shower, because EVERY SINGLE TIME you're going to forget that the water in that particular bathroom comes on with a lot more force than it should. And you forget that because you rarely go into that bathroom. It's in the same room as the faculty mailboxes, and I rarely visit those either. Once a day, usually, when I sign in at the front office. Actually, teachers don't get much mail in their boxes anymore, not with the advent of email. Is that the correct use of the word "advent"?

Occasionally I might have to make a trip up to the office, however, and today was one of those days. I figured while I was up there, I would use the "loo" on that end of the building, just in case ours was occupied when I got back. With a staff of only 5, you'd be surprised how often two (or more) of us feel the urge to go at the same time.

Aren't you glad you stopped by here?

There are catalogs in that bathroom, and I find that disturbing in the first place. I know for a fact that they must have been put there by a man, because (forgive me for being sexist), men are the only people who go into the restroom with the premeditated idea that they will be there long enough to read. Or peruse a catalog.

When I left, I took one catalog with me, and I dropped it into the trashcan in my classroom when I got back.

Like I said, I don't go in there very often, but every time I do, this is what I find staring back at me:



Let me say here that I am definitely NOT squeamish. My friend Carol and I had to dissect a fetal pig in Mr. Smith's biology class in high school, and we had a great time doing it. We named it and everything. I still remember it had its little tongue sticking out the side of its mouth. When the quarter changed and Carol wasn't in that class anymore, I cut the snout off and put it in Carol's locker. I knew she would want a memento of her experiences with whatever-we-named-the-pig. Mr. Smith had threatened dire consequences if one cell of any fetal pig left that room. Naturally I took that as a challenge.

These pictures are on the front of a catalog called Dissection Materials 2009. They have an entire CATALOG of those? And it comes out every year? Seriously?

I didn't thumb through the catalog, so I don't know how much a fetal pig runs, or a frog, or a ... is that a mouse? I don't really want to look at it that closely. I think you can get quantity discounts.

I'm not squeamish, but I find these images just a little disturbing. Especially if they are staring back at me when I'm in the loo.

Only the Long Ones Hurt......

Get your minds out of the gutter!

We have altered our route to the casino in Mississippi, leaving the interstate much earlier than we used to. The new route takes us through some very rural, lightly traveled country roads (is that redundant if I already called them rural?), but it cuts about 30 minutes off the trip. So far (**knock knock**) we have never run into any problems with slow cars or logging trucks getting into a most dangerous place, between us and the casino.

The roads do take us through some logging areas, one of which has prompted this silly little post. One of Hubby's buddies accompanied us this time, and he made a comment about a sign when we passed it.

I so wish I had stopped to take a picture of it. Even on the way home, when we weren't NEARLY in as big a hurry. I may take a picture of it next time we go, but it won't have the same impact, will it, since I will have already written about it?

We've seen this sign every time we've driven that route. I've read it every time, but the silliness of it never sank in until Wayne commented about it.

I haven't been able to stop laughing about it ever since.

Next to one of the places where logging trucks enter the road, there is a sign that says:

"WATCH OUT FOR LONG LOGS."

Like I said, it didn't seem all that significant to me, until Wayne asked,

"I guess the short ones don't hurt if you run into one of them?"

You may now return to your regularly scheduled lives and pretend you never had to read this post.

Ain't Technology Wonderful?........

I mean, when it works?

Sometimes I find myself cursing technology and wishing some things had never been invented, because they just make my blood pressure go up. Like when my iPhone arbitrarily shuts itself off and won't come back on. But then I use another wonderful piece of technology, namely Google, and I find out how to jump-start it again.

But that's not at all what this post is about.

Today I got one of those pesky, annoying "toll free" calls on the caller i.d., the ones I usually ignore and let go to the answering machine. Yes, we still have one of those, but it doesn't use a tape, so there.

I don't usually answer those calls because it's either the American Red Cross calling again, asking me for a donation of my rich O+ blood because it's the universal donor type. I don't understand why the folks who told me thanks but no thanks, I can't donate blood again until after April because I had the audacity to go to a malaria-risk country such as the Dominican Republic can't talk to the folks who man the phones and tell them to stop bugging me until after my year's penance is up.

Or it's the mortgage company where my ex's house is financed, wanting to know why I won't catch his payments up for him. I explain that I signed a quit claim deed to the house, and I have no legal claim on the house, and although I realize that it will shoot my credit to hell and back because he refuses to refinance the mortgage and get my name off of it (10% interest he's paying ... uh, I guess not paying), I have no intention of helping with his financial crisis. Which isn't really a financial crisis at all, just a terminal case of sorriness. I actually told the last person who called that my ex would never take her calls, would never return her calls, and probably had no intention of ever paying his mortgage again, and the best thing she could do was to foreclose on it. Oh yeah, and leave me the hell alone.

Or it's someone wanting me to answer a few questions for a survey, the subject of which I've never determined because I don't let them get that far.

Or it's the golf equipment company from whom Hubby has ordered a few times in the past, offering him three new irons (or woods or putters or drivers) for free if he will just give them a try. That's one way we wound up with 892 golf clubs in our basement.

I'm not sure why I answered the one today, or why I stayed on the line once I realized it was an automated caller. Nothing irritates me more than a toll-free call, unless it's a toll-free call that turns out to be a computer.

It got my attention when it said it was conducting a "fraud" alert on Sweet Girl's bank account. It asked me to verify the last five transactions on her checking account, and I felt pretty confident doing that, since I had just looked at her account online this morning. Our checking accounts are still linked because it makes it easier for me to keep up with her finances when she goes out to sea. It's also quite convenient to transfer money from my account to hers if the need arises. Which it doesn't very often.

I guess the fraud alert was triggered because she still banks with our little hometown bank here in Northeast Georgia and most of her transactions occur in Florida. Yesterday she and some girlfriends went to Savannah, so those transactions must have raised the little computer antennae.

It gave me great pleasure to know that some little gerbil running on a wheel inside a computer somewhere in the world is looking out for my girl.

This happened one time before, when she was on one of her two Persian Gulf cruises. That time I talked to an actual person. She called because a transaction had come through at 4:00 AM from Chicago in the amount of $3325. She declined it because of the amount and the time of day, and she called me. I laughed when she told me the amount, because it would have taken a whole lot of luck plus an act of God to get that much out of Sweet Girl's account anyway. But when she told me the name of the business, I recognized it as a place Sweet Girl had told me she and some friends had gone to eat when they ported in Dubai. (Why the transaction went through Chicago is beyond me.) I figured out that the amount of the transaction was incorrect because they had left out a little bitty decimal. By the time the transaction was declined, Sweet Girl and her friends were long gone, so I guess they ate for free at that establishment. The girl who called me was so proud of herself for declining it based on the time of day. I told her that when it was 4:00 AM here, it was noon in Dubai, so it wasn't that out of the ordinary at all.

She never DID understand that one. I'm not sure she knew where the Persian Gulf was.

Smoke it Over.....

First of all, I apologize for my absence last night. When we finally left the casino floor and went to our room, it was 11:58 Georgia time. It just wasn't worth trying to blog with my thumbs just to have a (probably) lame entry for yesterday. I suppose I could have backdated it, but again.... I just didn't have anything really noteworthy to say anyway.

Let me preface the rest of this blog (can you preface something if you've already started it?) by saying that I used to be a smoker.

I apologize to any smokers who might stumble upon this pitiful little blog. I've tried to run through the list of people I KNOW of who read it, and most of them are either non-smokers or have quit. Still, just on the off-chance some of you reading this still smoke, I apologize if I offend you.

Smokers make me sick.

Sort of literally.

I desperately wish they would have no-smoking poker tables.

If you've never sat at a poker table, it's a half-moon shaped table with 7 chairs around it. You're in pretty close quarters. And if there is a smoker sitting near you, you're a smoker too.

My eyes watered, I sneezed, I coughed.

I truly wish that when I was a smoker, someone had told me how badly I STUNK!!! And how horribly annoying it was for me to sit there with a cigarette dangling from my hand, smoke drifting into the breathing area of anyone sitting near me.

I tried to be courteous by moving away to smoke (or hiding in some cases, like on bicycle rides where I was ashamed), but I'm sure there were situations where I couldn't get my smoke away from non-smokers, and I'm just as certain that I continued to smoke anyway.

I never knew how rude and obnoxious I was being.

And if I didn't smoke around people, just the smell on my clothing and hair must have been horrendous, particularly when my hair was long and thick. The smell of smoke must have been a semi-permanent part of my being.

Some smokers just light a cigarette and put it in a nearby ashtray, leaving it to burn insidiously while they remain oblivious of it. Then there are the ones who finish a cigarette, and just as you thank goodness that it's over for a few minutes, they immediately light another one.

I saw one woman riding her little power scooter across the casino floor, puffing away on her cigarette. Insurance companies help pay for those little scooters. It may sound harsh, but I think anyone who smokes should be denied a scooter. Perhaps they should be denied ANY health coverage. My blog, my harshness.

I know it's a struggle to stop smoking, but if Nurse Jane, her husband, Katydid, our mother, and I can all do it, some other folks can too. They just don't want to.

I think I'll build my own casino, and it will be a completely non-smoking one. Anyone know of an active Indian Native American tribe around here I can be in?

By the Numbers......

I'm going to come clean here and say that I play a lot of mind games with numbers.

There, it doesn't look nearly as freaky as I thought it was.

It all started way back when I was a teenager, and my cousin came to visit. I had just gotten my first DIGITAL clock, and she probably already had one. One night when the clock read 11:11, she said you were supposed to make a wish.

I got hooked, always making a wish if I caught the clock reading 11:11. It only counts if it's a digital clock, of course.

I added the stipulation that you couldn't TELL anyone what you were wishing. Maybe that's the rule for all wishes.

I taught for 8 years at the same high school, and all the rooms had digital clocks. Somehow the wishing at 11:11 thing spread to my students, and once it started, there was no stopping it.

The STUDENTS added the stipulation that in addition to stopping to make a wish at 11:11, everyone had to remain SILENT until the clock switched to 11:12. It was easier to go along with them than to try to fight it. Besides, sometimes that was the only peaceful minute I had in the whole day.

One time there were visitors from UGA in my classroom. Not the usual student teacher types, but real live professors, important people.

When the clock turned to 11:11, I continued teaching, trying with all my might to remain professional. My students immediately began saying rather indignantly, "Hey, it's 11:11!" and shushing me and each other. I gave up and stood there in silence until the clock read 11:12, then I carried on as if there had been no interruption. I'm sure the visitors wondered into what altered dimension they had ventured.

At some point I decided that 4:07 was a good time too, since that's my birthday. I make a wish if I see the clock read 4:07, which almost always happens in the afternoon on my way home from school. Rarely do I see 4:07 AM, unless of course that is the time that Hubby wakes me up to travel home from the casino.

When I started cycling, this obsession with numbers extended to my odometer. I don't exactly make a wish, but if I see the mileage read 11.11, I think it's a sign that it's going to be a good ride. I've never actually examined the data to see if it plays out. If I have a bad ride, like a flat tire or a fall, I don't know that I'm ever thinking about the mileage when that happens.

I know it doesn't seem like a big deal, but keep in mind that I don't look at the odometer CONSTANTLY. I do occasionally look at the road, turn signs, scenery, dogs that pose a potential threat, traffic, and other cyclists. If I miss 11:11, it's not like I can turn around and go back. Or put it in reverse, as I once read about a young driver doing to try to conceal the miles he had put on his father's car over a weekend.

I'm convinced that my mind games with numbers absolutely saved my sanity during one particular century ride. I was riding alone, and I managed to see the matching digits at every possible time for a century ride: 11.11, 22.22, 33.33, 44.44, 55.55, 66.66, 77.77, 88.88, and 99.99. I felt like I had scored a major victory.

I've played other numbers games on my bike. Like if I've ridden 15.2 miles and I look down and notice that I'm going 15.2 mph. My new computer, however, shows hundredths on the mileage and not on the mph, so they don't every match.

I'm less likely to play such silly games when I'm captaining the tandem, since I have Katydid to talk to and keep me from going insane.

Some of you are probably thinking that it's too late for that.