(Clever Title)

Okay, I'm a little embarrassed about being such a Debbie Downer in my last post (you're right, Jane)  Wa wa for me, healthy, normal kids, boo hoo.  I know, I know.  I'm just a little depressed.  Post-partum lasts a LONG time.  And no, Anne, not in a million years would I (purposely) get pregnant again.  I was nuts during pregnancy.  And you know what nobody ever tells you about having babies?  After you pop that kid out you lose TONS of hair.  I lost my bangs.  Like, all of my bangs.  I had to comb hair from my crown to cover the fuzzy bald patches.  I looked like Jane Pauley for years after having both my kids.  I can't pull off that look anymore. 

I could take my sister's baby.  In fact, just today she told me that if she dies I can choose which one of her girls I get.  My other sister gets the one I don't pick.  They are both pretty good.  Watch your back, Beth. 

On second thought, Beth, try to hang on until they are out of diapers, ok?

So what have I been doing to ward off the post-partum depression?  I've been making terrariums! 

Mini-terrariums. 

Many, many mini terrariums

My dad thinks I need a job.  I think I need more terrariums.

BTW, thank you so much to Yandie at Inspiriation strikes.  In the Kneecaps. for the mention on her blog today.  For the record, my pre-teen infatuations were with Doctor Bricker from the Love Boat,

and Trapper John M.D.

And it really wasn't fair that all the Tiger Beat magazines were full of Leif Garret and Simon LeBon and NOT ONE had a spread on Pernell Roberts or Bernie Kopell!  It was BULLSHIT!



Mid-parenting Crisis

My kids are making a big jump this summer.  Kira is no longer an elementary school student, she's now a big middle-schooler, and Sam will be going to HIGH SCHOOL.  I just can't wrap my head around this because it seems like time is going too fast.  I'm having a hard time with this.  They don't NEED me anymore.  If I left for a day or even a week and left them alone, they would most likely be fine.  I was stressed when they were little at the thought that if I took my eyes off them they would do something stupid and get hurt, and now I'm stressed that they don't need me to watch every move they make.  What's my role here?  Crisis.

The other night I went to bed and looked around at some of the pictures of them when they were little.  Oh man, they were so cute!

They are still cute but now they have more chin hair than me (Sam) and can share shoes with me (Kira).  Where are my little kids?  I feel like someone took them and it makes me sad.

I was thinking about this yesterday as I was petting my dog and I thought to myself:  If I'm this sad now, what will I be like with an empty nest?  And then I looked down at my wonderful dog and the thought occurred to me that right around the time the kids leave the house, the dog will be reaching the end of her natural life.

An empty nest and a dead best friend.  And that's what will happen in a best-case scenario.  Life sucks sometimes.

What Would Higgins Do?

Kira is in sixth grade right now and a lot of girls in her class are totally in love with Justin Bieber and New Kids on the Block (no? not anymore?) but not Kira.  She thinks those girls are sick.  She would rather go to summer school than be caught screaming for the attention of a teenage boy (after all, her brother is a teenage boy.  yuck!)


That's not to say she can't be star struck.  She spends a lot of time thinking of her two favorite tv stars.

Adrian Monk

Jonathan Quayle Higgins

She wonders what they would do in certain situations, what they would think of each other, what they would each in turn do, for example, in response to her letting a gigantic fart that makes her family say, "KIRA!  Gross!" (For the record she thinks Monk would cover his face with his jacket and leave the room, and she thinks Higgins would say, "Oh My GOD!")

She is pretty sure that Higgins is the star of Magnum P.I. and can't understand why anyone would make or watch an episode that he isn't in very much.  She loves his hair, his stories, his hobbies, and how high he wears his pants.  Tom Selleck in his prime, half naked, tanned and gorgeous?  Who cares.  Where's Higgins?

  

Summer begins

Summer is getting off to an ominous start, what with the forty degree temperatures and my baby girl catching what sounds to me like it must be tuberculosis.  We were supposed to leave on a girl's road trip yesterday to tropical Des Moines, IA.

 But when I woke Kira up (AFTER I showered and packed for us both) she croaked, "I think I might have strep throat."  Ugh.  We went to get a strep culture instead and then she spent the day laying low, and I spent the day feeling sorry for her.  BORING.

Sam and Grandpa

Sam finished eighth grade last week.  The day after school let out he went up north to my parents' house to help my dad out with some yard chores.  I am so glad he is able to do this because some of my best childhood memories are spending time at my grandparent's house in the summer.  My grandma spoiled me ROTTEN.  I got whatever I wanted.  She got me Lee Press-On nails, she let me drink coffee every morning, we had root beer floats every night, and I saw her bawl-out a nurse who was not-quite nice enough to me at the clinic once.  It was great.  So I'm glad Sam can go somewhere that people will spoil him because I certainly don't.  They are having a great time together, but when Sam calls me, I get a little concerned.

Me:  Hi!  Are you having fun?

Sam:  Oh yeah!  I drove 17 miles today!

Me:  What?  Drove?  Drove what?

Sam:  Grandpa's truck!  

Me:  Where did you drive?  

Sam:  On the road!  Grandpa said that before I leave I can drive 100 miles.

Me:  You are fourteen.

Sam:  Grandpa says I'm a good driver. 

Sam:  Today Grandpa took me shooting.
Me:  Shooting?
Sam:  Yeah
Me:  Shooting a gun?
Sam: Yeah!  What else would you shoot?
Me:  Oh.
Sam:  We had a quick draw contest.
Me:  ....... You had a what?
Sam:  Quick draw, you know, to see who could unload their gun at the target the fastest.  Grandpa won because my gun jammed.  He shot all his bullets before I could even shoot once!
Me:  Oh Jesus.

After all that, I'm half-expecting to hear how much fun they had while bull riding, or going over a water fall in a barrel, or swimming with sharks.  Oh wait a minute, they've already done that one:

In my opinion mosquitoes are annoying, but that's just me.

I have a mosquito bite on the hardest, thickest part of my big toe.  It might drive me insane because if I scratch it, it just makes it itch more, and it can't really be scratched because the itch is way underneath the thick skin.  I have even gone outside and scraped it on the sidewalk thinking that would give me some relief, but it didn't.  The itch is way inside there.  While I was out there scraping away I noticed a branch clipper leaning against the garage and thought, hey, if I clipped my toe off, I bet it wouldn't itch anymore!  Then I reconsidered because that seems a bit drastic.  I really have no tolerance for slight discomfort.

Actually I have about twenty mosquito bites just on my feet because apparently when I slathered my entire body in bug spray the other night I forgot to put any on my feet.  I have one bite on the arch that's really itching right now, about five on the backs of my heels, and the rest are on my toes.  How did I not even notice this was happening?  I'll tell you why.

I read about mosquitoes and in their little tiny proboscis they have two tubes.  One for stealing your precious blood, and one for administering anti-coagulants, pain killers, immunosuppressants, along with the occasional case of yellow fever, dengue fever, and malaria.  Yuck!  And how is that little proboscis strong enough to penetrate any of our skin, much less thick toe skin?  It's really thin and sharp, that's how.

earth's biggest asshole

Mosquitoes have been around for about 30 million years, honing their craft, so we really don't have a chance against them.  They are disease carrying, thieving little bastards.  If they were humans they would be the kind of people who would kidnap you in South America and steal your kidney to sell on the black market, and you wouldn't even know what happened to you.  You would just wake up in a hotel bathtub with a terrible headache and a sloppy incision in your side.  Do you think they'd care if they gave you hepatitis or sepsis?  No they wouldn't care at all.  All they care about is your precious kidney.  That's what kind of people mosquitoes are.  You wouldn't put up with someone injecting you with dirty needles or stealing your organs, so why is it okay for someone to inject you with drugs and gorge themselves on your blood every chance they get?  I know it's not PC to call for the extinction of an entire species (like pandas), but I don't care.  I say we kill all the mosquitoes.

Our Weekend In Pictures

Mitch did some landscaping.  There was grunting involved, and possibly a hernia.  I should have taken this picture with a person in it.  It's bigger than you think.  If I wrapped my arms around this trunk they wouldn't even come close to touching.

I watched a squirrel gorge himself on seeds from my squirrel-proof feeder.

Kira tried to catch the squirrel with this grabber and came closer than you think she could.  Now it's sitting by the front door, ready for the next time she wants to try.

My bird annoyed the crap out of me by flying all over the place like a total shithead so I clipped her wings and gave her a shower which I thought would bring her down a peg or two but it didn't.  I brought her outside, (BECAUSE I DIDN'T THINK SHE COULD FLY, THAT'S WHY!) and she flew away.  I think she was just as surprised as I was.  She flew into the tippy top of this tree:

and I couldn't find her for hours and hours, but I could hear her squawking so I told Kira I'd take her out for ice cream if she could get the stupid bird down.  There was a lot of shaking of branches, and eventually she came down.  Now the bird is back, safe and sound.  I wonder what she thought of being outside, so high up in a tree?  I really wonder.  I think she liked it and now harassing Mitch by stuffing her head up his nose is not going to be enough for her.  (she really likes Mitch)

I also got two bags of these because I had a coupon for buy one get one free.  Did you know that if you eat the better part of a bag of pita chips you might get diarrhea?  I didn't either.

Movie Review: X-Men First Class

I just got home from watching X-Men First Class and I LOVED IT!  But to be fair, I can't say I'm really all that impartial because I love all the X-Movies, even the third one that all the movie snobs say was horrible, trite, predictable, silly, blah blah blah.  SO WHAT if at the end, when Dr. Jean Gray was totally freaking out with her crazy mind power so much that only Wolverine (Hugh Jackman) could get near her, and her power was so intense that it kept blowing off his shirt and his chest flesh (but not his pants)?  It's called DRAMA, people!  Wolverine loved her, but had to kill her to save the world, but he loved her, but the world depended on him.  But he loved her.  DON'T YOU GET IT!  IT WAS A TOUGH DECISION!  It plunged further into the murky depths that make up Wolverine.  How anyone could sit through that without shedding a tear, I will never know.

That all being said, this X-Men was fabulous!  And part of the reason I am saying that is because I am newly in love with Michael Fassbender who played Magneto, who also played Mr. Rochester in this year's movie version of Jane Eyre.  I went to see that movie a few weeks ago at the new hipster theater downtown and the tiny theater was packed full of people, most of whom probably remember when the book came out.  They were OLD.  I think it might have been a nursing-home field trip.  Anyway, I also LOVED Jane Eyre (because I think I might love every movie) and Mr. Rochester was soooooo wonderful.  Crazy, lovable weirdo.  Mitch calls Jane Eyre "19th century pulp fiction" so he wouldn't go see it with me.  Apparently the Bronte sisters were the 19th century version of Danielle Steel (according to Mitch; crazy, lovable weirdo!)

The movie starts with the same scene that starts the very first X-Men movie.  Magneto is a teenager, in Germany, in 1944, and he and his family have been taken to a concentration camp where he was separated from his parents and he can't stand it and he is calling out and trying to get to them, and in the process bends a gigantic metal fence with his unharnessed power.  I know that's what happened because I've seen that scene a million times.  However, I did not really see it this time because some lady came down my aisle (which is always up at the top so I can avoid this very problem) and needed to get past me.  OF COURSE!  There are hundreds of open seats all over the place, but you have to sit in MY row, in a seat on the other side of me, during the first scene of the movie!  So I missed the big fence-bending because I was looking at this lady's ass and she was stepping on my feet, but I got the idea.

Shortly after that the movie jumps ahead in time 22 years to 1962.*  Magneto is trying to avenge his parents, and Dr. Charles Xavier has just gotten his degree from Oxford.  Blah blah blah, yadda yadda yadda, they get together and prevent the Cuban Missile Crisis from turning into a nuclear war.  (Oh, sorry.  Spoiler alert.)  Sam was watching it too with some of his friends and I take great comfort in the fact that this is now and forever going to be the first and therefore most credible version of the Cuban Missile Crisis that they ever learn.  (I wish there was a way to make sarcasm come through in typing because that last sentence was supposed to be sarcastic. fyi.) This movie answers the questions we've all always had about the X-Men:  How did Professor Xavier get paralyzed? Why does Mystique walk around naked all the time?  Why aren't Charles and Magneto rivals who always call each other "old friend?"  How did the X-Men school get started?  Where'd they get that big plane?

 It's very good.  You should see it, if only for Michael Fassbender.

Mr. Rochester/Magneto/Michael Fassbender, (but mostly Mr. Rochester in this picture.)

*UPDATE:  My dad kindly pointed out to me that 1944 + 22 years does NOT equal 1962.  I guess I meant to say that the movie jumps ahead 18 years.  Soooooooooorrrrrrrrryyyyyyyyyyy!!!!!!! (again, I wish there was a way to convey sarcasm in type)  I don't need basic math skills right now, it's summer!

Reason 12,349 why I think grown women who have affairs with adolescent boys are mentally deranged:

This is about five or six days worth of laundry, cleaned, folded and ready to be put away.

You know what's not represented in this huge pile of laundry?  Any underpants from the resident 14 year old boy.

More About George...

I'm reading a biography about George Washington written by Ron Chernow.  It's really good.  Recently, I came across a couple parts that made me laugh.  GW kept a journal where he kept track of things.  He didn't really tell how he was feeling or expound about the big important things that were going on in world events, he mostly told what the weather was like, what he bought or sold, or what he hunted.  He was an avid hunter and one day his journal says, "killed five mallards and five bald eagles."  I don't know why, but that made me laugh out loud when I read it.  Take that, majestic national bird!

I also read a blog about GW (see the sidebar) and today's post features a tackle box of George's.  He liked to fish for fun, and also he had a pretty successful commercial fishing venture going at Mount Vernon.  The blog post also tells us that when Washington was in Barbados when he was 19, he enjoyed some fishing time and he caught a shark and a dolphin.

Ohhhh, he didn't, did he?  
Yes, he did.  

Later that trip he caught small pox and pleurisy.

Killing Spree

Spring has finally arrived in Northern Minnesota.  I think.  I bought flowers today anyway, and planted them and if we get anymore frost and it kills them all I will be peeved.  While I was outside just now planting away with all my little bird friends, I was swarmed with mosquitoes and gnats.  I took some time hunting them down (which wasn't hard because they were mostly in my nose and mouth) and killing them like a heartless mercenary which involved slapping myself about a million times a little harder than was probably necessary.  But I feel like it's worth it, especially this time of year because every mosquito I kill now can't go on to have a billion babies throughout the summer so it's like I'm making Duluth a more habitable place for humans.

I used to have a crippling fear of bugs, especially spiders and beetles, and a few years ago I had to make a conscious decision not to let them bother me so much or else I would go crazy and would never sleep again after waking up one time and seeing a wood tick crawling on my arm.  I desensitized myself by picking wood ticks off my dog with my bare fingers and making myself hold them slightly longer than absolutely necessary.  It worked!  I can sleep now even if I don't check my entire body for ticks before bed.  (Actually, I still do that, but if I forgot one night, I could still sleep)  I think I might need some more desensitizing therapy though, because I found a tick on the dog the yesterday and between picking it off of her and the three steps it would have taken me to throw it in the fire, I involuntarily spazzed out and threw it and I don't even know where it went.  I have worked to long and too hard to not be a spaz to have a setback now!

A bird hit my window while I was writing the last paragraph so I went outside to see if it was still there.  It was.  It was a robin and it was stunned so I held it while it recuperated, and it pooped on me FIVE times in about ten minutes.  Now I'm back by the window and I see a huge stain of poop right where it hit.  Who knew that birds got the trots?  Apparently they do.  Really.  I just looked it up on Google and if you notice a bird has diarrhea, you should feed it pound cake.

Okay, I'm going to go back outside now to plant more flowers, kill more mosquitoes, and look for more birds with diarrhea.

Why I have so much gray hair (under this cheap dye-job)

Last night I went to Book Club and we got to talking about our kids.  All of us have two kids, and our older ones are responsible and kind and do what they are supposed to do, and the younger ones are a "challenge." (to say the least)  One woman told us that her younger daughter, who had a Spanish teacher she hated, prank called said Spanish teacher late on a Saturday night and ominously sang songs to her in Spanish which scared the teacher so much she called the police.

This does not bode well for me and my children who seem to be following this pattern to a cartoonish extreme.  Sam is helpful, works hard, sees what needs to be done and does it without being asked, gets good grades, is neat and tidy etc. etc.

He even eats a taco neatly.  We didn't even have to wash his plate that night.
What a good boy!

Kira, however, wants to know towards the end of every school year, "Hypothetically, what if a person, say, in [fifth] grade, didn't pass the [fifth] grade?  What would happen to them?" And she doesn't want to know because she's worried about her academic future, she wants to know how much grief she would get, and how it might affect her summer fun. When I decide to really get on her and be a good parent and make her straighten up and fly right, she manages to get me off track every single time and then does what she wants.  I don't even know how it happens.  She is a master.

In first grade she brought home this paper which totally sums up her life-time motto which I think is "Eh, good enough":

As you can see, it was a problem solving exercise and the poor elephant has a hole in his pocket and is losing his money.  The question for the first graders is, how can the little elephant solve his problem?  Kira drew the little elephant with stick arms and no torso and wrote, "He didn't solve"  So in her world, that's just the way things are going to have to be for the little elephant, because solving problems is not what she's about, and if he can't solve his own problem, or better yet, get someone else to solve it for him, he's just shit-out-of-luck and probably doesn't deserve any money anyway.  

It's not that she isn't smart because she is smart enough to get me to spend an entire day in her shithole of a room, cleaning things out and making things really nice, and even manages somehow to get me to think that spending hours and hours doing that is a good idea and that it's fun.  That's a gift that I wish I had.  What worries me is her total lack of any pride in a job well done.  She has no internal motivation.  She does things because if she doesn't do them, she won't get something she wants.  For example, in our never-ending room-cleaning fight, she won't do it unless I threaten to not let her have something she wants.  Total external motivation.  She doesn't care one bit that sleeping in a bed that has pillows and blankets on it, instead of on the floor, under the bed, and in her toy box, would be more comfortable; or that finding something to wear would be oh-so-much easier if she ever put her clean clothes in her drawers instead of throwing them on the floor intermingled with the dirty clothes and garbage. 

But she's highly motivated by external factors.  Her school is having an awards ceremony today and her teacher told the girls in her class that if they wear a dress he would give them a piece of candy.  She came home and said, "I have to wear a dress tomorrow."  (She didn't own a dress.  She only wears velour track suits.) (She also doesn't care about fashion.  At all.)  I told her I would give her a piece of candy and save us both a trip to Target, but she wanted the special school candy, so she got a dress which involved shopping (which she hates), trying on (which she hates), and wearing a dress for an entire day (which she really hates), all for a tootsie roll in school.  

Her lack of effort in doing things well is exemplified in her art which she loves to do (to a point):

This is a piece she calls "Three Blind Mice."  When I said I didn't get it, she said, "You know, because they have tails but no eyes."  I said, "But there's only two..."  and she said, "Well, you get the idea."  I guess she didn't want to be bothered to crack another pistachio and take half a second to glue a scrap of paper on it.  

Or this one:

She got all the craft materials out but only managed to glue one googly eye onto a shell.  The poor little shell can't even have two eyes, much less a mouth or hair or a nose.  When I asked why she made it like this she said, "It's young."

When I sit and wonder how my kids will turn out and if they will make it as adults, I never worry about Sam.  He'll be fine.  But Kira really makes me wonder and worry.  She will definitely have people working for her in some capacity.  Either she will be a high power boss, making money hand over fist, having people cater to her every need, or she will be living with me and Mitch, and we will be working to keep her in art supplies and velour track suits.

Mitch Provides Captions for my Childhood

I recently took some pictures of when my sisters and I were little from my parents house.  Mitch was looking through them the other day, giving each a title based on what he thinks is their main theme and then yelling it.  This one he titled SOCKS!:

SOCKS!

This picture was taken at a zoo in Hawaii when we were taking a trip to Australia.  Obviously my mom picked out our clothes because I don't think all three of us would coordinate our knee-high socks.  But looking closer, we were all also wearing our little plastic wings that we got on our flight to Hawaii, and I can't imagine my mom insisted we all wear wings, so maybe we did coordinate our socks when we were coordinating our wings.  "Hey!  I think today we should all wear our wing pins!  And really long socks!  And shorts!"  Also, I was twelve.  A middle school kid.  And I was wearing wings, tall socks and enormous glasses.  It's a good thing I was 6000 miles from school or I probably would have been punched.

Mitch calls this one "I'M DAINTY!"

"I'M DAINTY!"

And if you don't agree she's dainty, so help her, she will punch you in the face.  

This one he called "SLACKS!" I'm pretty sure because of our neatly ironed, pleated pants, but then again maybe because he thinks we are lazy.  

"SLACKS!"

And finally, this one is called, "PANTSUIT!" 

"PANTSUIT!"

It's another first day of school picture.  I thought this outfit was the bee's knees until I had to go to the bathroom and get naked just to pee.  Note to parents:  Third graders don't like to get naked at school.  

Watch out, Bird!

Kira:  Dad, you know how people get shivers down their spine?  Do you think that ever happens to birds?

Mitch:  I don't know.

Kira:  Can we check?

Brainless

This morning I got on the scale after a week of pre-rapture gorging, and I lost 2.5 pounds.  How in the heck did that happen?  When I'm being really strict and starving myself, I can't seem to lose more than a half a pound a week, if any; and for the last several weeks I've been gaining and losing the same two pounds (the two pounds BEFORE the loss of the pre-rapture pounds.) 

At first I was really excited, but now I'm thinking maybe my soul did get raptured and that it weighed 2.5 pounds.  So now I'm ten sticks of butter thinner, but soulless.  Fair trade?  I'm not sure.  You'd think a soul would be worth more than 2.5 pounds.  The funny part is, if that's what really happened, I don't feel any different without a soul.  I don't feel like going on a murder rampage (any more than usual), I don't feel like committing any of the seven deadly sins (that's a lie), or breaking any commandments except 3,4, 8, 9, and 10.  But that's also not different than pre-rapture Sarah.  I don't feel any different except my jeans are slightly looser, I know I no longer have a soul, and I know that a soul weighs the same as ten sticks of butter.  About the same as a brain.  Hey, I just thought of something... maybe I lost my brain in the rapture. Crap.

I've got the post-rapture blahs

Okay, we made it to May 22 and nobody got sucked up into the sky, and there was no, grave-opening earthquakes.  I didn't really think it was going to happen, but I thought some crazy people might do something stupid like have a mass suicide/murder party or something and that stuff really creeps me out because it reminds me of how truly nuts some people are, and you know that you must run in to those people at the grocery store, or when you get gas or something, and who knows if you are going to happen to be in the same place as one of them when they completely flip their lid?  I stayed home yesterday and read my book just in case.  The only concession I gave to the rapture was that I ate whatever I wanted for about three days because if the rapture is going to happen, how pissed would I be if I spent the last days eating oatmeal and carrot sticks? Pretty pissed.  So I had some pita chips and pizza and a candy bar.  Big whoop.  Now I have to get back on the old health wagon which, when I'm in the groove makes me happy and feel good, but when I'm not in the groove, like right now, it makes me wish the rapture would have happened.

I also have to clean the basement, which is another reason I wish the rapture would have happened.  It's a dump, but I have to do it because the next end-of-times scare isn't until October, and I can't wait that long to vacuum up old popcorn seeds and bird feathers.

Or can I?

666

You want to hear something weird?  When I opened the "new post" window to write this post which is going to be about the rapture happening on Saturday, I saw that this is my 666th post!  SPOOOOOOOOOKKKKYYYYYY!!!!! 

Anyhoo, if you haven't heard, the rapture is happening on May 21, Saturday; and the end of the world is happening on October 21.  On Saturday all of Jesus's bffs will be stripped naked and sucked up to heaven, and all of the rest of us will remain down here to endure what sounds like a really shitty five months, this according to Harold Camping and Family Radio.  I have been following a blog about this, and yesterday they were advertising t-shirts that say "rapture ready" and they are on sale "for a very limited time."  HA HA HA!  (get it?  the world is ending?  limited time?)  They are charging 18 dollars for them.  Why not just give them away?  Who needs the 18 bucks before Saturday? 

I heard about this story originally on NPR, of all places, and some people really really believe this is going to happen and they have quit jobs, given away all their money etc. etc.  Yikes.  I was thinking that these people are going to feel so stupid on May 22, but then they interviewed one man who said, "If I wake up on May 22, I will be in hell," so no matter what happens, if May 22 dawns beautiful and peaceful and bright, if he doesn't get sucked up to heaven on May 21, he will be living in hell.  Poor guy. 

I'm 99.9999 percent sure that the rapture will not happen on Saturday (or ever), but just in case, I'm going to put my diet on hiatus until Sunday. 

One time when I was the director of an alternative school that was a program of a larger high school, we got a new high school principal who was technically my boss, but I hated him and he hated me.  He hated me because I was a female in her 20s and didn't fawn over him, and I hated him because he was an incompetent douche.  He didn't like the idea of providing an alternative to traditional high school, even though it had proven to be wildly successful, so he tried sabotaging our program.  One of the ways he did this was by giving me a science teacher who was a born-again Christian and was very preachy, didn't believe in science, and whose main theme of his Earth Science class was that the earth was only 6000 years old.  The kids, bless their little hearts, politely challenged him by asking about dinosaur bones, and carbon dating, and he countered by telling them that the fossils were planted by God to fool us and test to see who really had faith. 

THIS WAS MY SCIENCE TEACHER. 

He taught them all about Adam and Eve (not Adam and Steve, thankyouverymuch), coelacanths and how they proved that scientists were sinful idiots and evolution was a joke, and he briefly broached the science of archaeology by having a series of lectures about the remains of Noah's ark on some mountain somewhere.  I couldn't really do much about him except tell the principal (who knew exactly what was going on,) and tell the kids that their science teacher was full of shit, and remind the science teacher of his job and of state curriculum guidelines etc. etc.  The guy wouldn't budge from his preaching because he was a true believer and needed to spread the word.  He really was sincere in his beliefs, and I find myself thinking about him this week.  I wonder what he is doing to get ready for the rapture and I wonder if he would give me his car or his 401k to make the impending 5 months of apocalypse a little easier for me to endure.  I would give him his keys and money back on May 22, but I wouldn't do it without a Nelson-like HA HA!

Summer Camp pictures, etc.

Last year I wrote a post about going to summer camp and told you all about how I went to horse camp when I was fourteen with my friend Susie.  I wanted to include a picture of myself with my horse, Tomahawk, my extremely high-waisted jeans, and my mullet, but I couldn't find it so I just put up this picture

of my sisters, Amy and Beth, for a place holder because I was pretty sure Beth had the picture of the horse and me and I wanted her to send it to me.

Turns out she didn't have the picture.  Sorry, Beth!  It was in a box at my parents house and I found it, so after waiting for almost a year for the most embarrassing picture of me in the entire world, IT'S FINALLY HERE!  Aren't you excited?  Actually, it's not that bad.  Looking at it through my forty year old eyes, I think I look kind of cute and nerdy.  When I was a teenager, however, knowing those picture and negatives were out there in the world was mortifying to me, much like Dr. Laura must have felt for the years and years of being a conservative, judgmental harpy on the radio, all the time knowing there were nude photos of her on the internet.  And not classy nudes either, beaver-shot nudes.  Gross, Dr. Laura!  Okay, here it is:

See, not so bad.  Kind of cute, right?  You can clearly see what an asshole Tomahawk was, can't you?  There are more:

And:

Oh geez!  This isn't from horse camp!  This is marching band!  But still, incredibly embarrassing for me in my high school years when I was trying to be cool and pretend these days never happened.  My friend Susie is standing behind me and she was mortified when my dad came running into the band with his camera to take a picture of us.  She was yelling, "NO!  NO!  DON'T DO IT!  GET AWAY!"  and when she saw he couldn't be discouraged she just casually looked away when he snapped the picture.  I was smiling about her tantrum, and so was the girl behind her.  

Amy, are you laughing?  Beth?  Laughing?  Well, you better stop because when I was looking through the pictures I discovered that the picture from the top of the post was taken as a part of a series, in what you might call  an amateur photoshoot of the two of you in those costumes.  Enjoy:

I imagine it all started with this photo of Beth.  My parents took the obligatory photo of her in her costume, in front of the fern and thought she looked cute.  So they took another one:

They said, "One more" and this time, she put her hands on her hips and posed and they knew they were on to something.  They said, "Amy, get in there.  Let's get a picture of the two of you together."

"Good, good!" said my parents as they laughed, thinking to themselves that these pictures, although adorable, would probably haunt my sisters for the rest of their lives.  So they took more...

Thank you, Mom and Dad, for taking these pictures.  I can't tell you how happy they  make me.  

I love having a blog.

I need parenting advice

I was cleaning up the house yesterday (basically throwing all Kira's shit in her room) and I started to nag her about leaving crap everywhere she goes, and she said, "SHHHHHHHHHHH!"  Naturally, I'm annoyed about being shushed by anyone, much less my messy messy daughter when I find myself cleaning up after her again, and when I was about to say, "Did you really just shush me???"  she pointed to this:

and whispered, "The chicken is on the phone."

What am I going to do with this kid?  When she can make me turn into a quivering mass of laughter, how am I supposed to parent her?  I really want to know.  I really really do.

Kira in the Car

"Mom, when I grow up I don't really care what kind of job I have, I would just like to be suspended with pay."

Sarah Lindahl Poops (yes she does, yes she does!)

Today I have a great job.  I'm subbing for an adult basic education teacher who is on vacation for two weeks.  She only teaches two days a week so for the next two weeks, Monday and Wednesday are going to be quiet and peaceful days.  And I get paid hourly at a wage that is twice the going rate for regular sub jobs.  Sweet!  I have spent my day leisurely helping people with GED preparation, or reading skills, and during the down times I have been reading or on the internet.  A few minutes ago I was looking at my stats page, and I looked at the "recent keyword" analysis again which is the page that tells you exactly what people typed in to Google to get to your blog.  My mouth literally hung open when I saw the following:

Someone actually typed in the words "sarah lindahl poops" to google and got my blog.  I am dying of curiosity to know who wants to know about my pooping habits.  (Dad, was it you?)  So then I hit the link and this is what Google shoots back for anyone who googles "sarah lindahl poops":



There are FOUR entries that lead to my blog for anyone that wants to know about me and poop.  Wow.  I love the internet SO MUCH. 

UPDATE:

Ha ha, BETH.  I know this was you:

Virtuoso

I was visiting with my sister Beth this past weekend, and she shared with me a story that I am still laughing about.  When she was in high school, she was in band and she played the saxophone.  She admitted that she could hardly play a note, and she played "air sax" 99.9 percent of the time.  She showed us the intricate finger moves she would make, and she really does look like an expert.  She said her mouth-piece was broken for over a year and she didn't bother telling anyone she needed it fixed because what did she care?  She wasn't really playing it anyway.  Occasionally the band director would make sure all the instruments were in tune by going down the line and having everyone play a G.  Beth knew G, but she said because of the broken mouth-piece she had to push so hard that she would get dizzy.  However, she could play a G well enough to keep  from being found out.

Unfortunately, she did get found out.  At a competition once the director (who was kind of a witch) was walking through the aisles and she looked at Beth's sax and said, "What's this?!" and swished her conductor's baton in the bell and fished out two shoulder pads that my mom had made Beth wear under her shirt (it was the eighties).  Beth didn't want to wear shoulder pads, so instead of fighting about it with my mom, she just put them on and then when she got to the competition she took them out and shoved them in her sax.

My Mother's Day Poem (from last year)

Happy Mother's Day!  Today is the day to tell your mother's how special she is and why. This year I am going to do that using an acrostic poem.  Enjoy, Mom!


M is for the many Medical students Dad said could watch my birth after you already spent thirty hours in labor.


O is for that One time that I was choking on a hard candy in the locker room before skating practice and you gave me the Heimlich maneuver.  Thanks for that. 


T is for the Time that Amy and I told you to put your hands on the counter and stick one leg up behind you and we'd show you a good Trick.  We lifted your legs up until they touched the ceiling and held you there and laughed and laughed and you kept saying, "Put me down!  My arms are going to give out!" We made you promise that we wouldn't get in trouble or we wouldn't let you down.  And then you kept your word and we really weren't in trouble (although, it would have totally been worth it.)  I can't believe you fell for that more than once.


H is for the Hip 1970s one-piece pant-suits you dressed me in for the first day of school every single year of elementary school.  I thought the pant-suits were cool until I had to go to the bathroom and had to get naked in the stall to take a simple pee. Not cool, Mom.


E is for the Elephants you let me visit that were with the circus that was taking place a block from our house.  I loved those elephants so much and I never told you this but the caretaker, who I'm pretty sure was mentally handicapped, secretly let me come in their enclosure and feed them and pet them if I let him wear my photogray glasses.  He took off with my glasses and I had some alone time with the elephants.  Best deal I ever made.  It was AWESOME!


R is for the Rum you drank with Kelly that one Fourth of July that caused you to get a little tipsy and wild and you got our dog Gizmo on a drunken whim.  She was the best dog ever and if you were sober, you probably would have passed by the mangy puppies that were in a free box at the street dance without a second thought.  Yay, Rum!

Happy Mother's Day, Mom!  I love you and hope you have a great day!

Mother's Day Poem from Kira to Me

Mother's Day

My mother is so kind

She always has me in mind.

My mother is like no other

She gave birth to my hideous brother.

We will always be together

Through all the bad weather.

She taught me to ride my bike.

She was even there when I caught my first pike (not really).

My mother is the best

Because she has so much zest.

Thanks Honey!  I love it!

Keyword analysis? Did you know about this?

I was looking at my stat page and I guess I never really explored this service in a very in depth way before because today I discovered that I can find out what people typed in to Google or some other search engine to get directed to my blog.  Wow, put a picture of Angelina Jolie on your blog and people will find it.  I guess she's kind of popular, or something?  Anyway, strangely enough, the most searches were for a movie review I wrote on the movie The Rite. People are still searching for information for this mediocre movie that came out months and months ago.  Get over it, people.  Here are some of the things people have recently typed in to Google to get to my blog:

Boobs and glasses
Dog + bag of money
ativan shut up juice
What is a chicken swap?
gigantic vagina
choke and puke

God, people are weird.

My blog is my sty

I'm having a great morning.  I got a job teaching for half a day for a health teacher who I get called for every spring when she is teaching something totally awkward and embarrassing.  I don't think she is embarrassed by it at all, in fact, I think she's totally immune, but I have to wonder at her needing a sub in the spring and never any other time.  Hmmm...  Anyway, today the kids have guest speakers talking about date rape.  They are doing a unit called "One by One: Teens explore Date Rape"  Just the title alone is enough to cause a 15 year old to claw hopelessly at the ground hoping to dig him/herself a giant hole to climb in.   I LOVE that ninth graders, who can be pretty obnoxious at times, are reduced to looking busy and interested in the most insignificant scribble on their desks when someone asks, "What are three ways a girl might say "no" in a date rape situation."  Is there any good answer a 15 year old boy can give to that awkward, potentially incriminating question? -- "Well, when I dabbled in date-raping, I found girls usually just said, 'WHAT do you think you're doing?'"  -- No, there really isn't a good way a kid can answer that question,  so they stay silent and still, knowing that the guest speaker can only see movement, and if you stay still, avert your eyes, and blend in, they won't even know you are there. 

I needed a good job today.  Yesterday I taught kindergarten again.  I only sub for one kindergarten teacher and only because I like her, but I might have to break the news to her that I HATE kindergarten and can't do it any more.  She's kind of a big shot and is gone to meetings a lot, and that means a lot of work for me, but I don't know if it's worth it.  Yesterday three kids peed their pants.  My mom, who was a kindergarten teacher for many many years said that she thinks it is because they are afraid of me, but I know that isn't it.  Two of them are best friends and both peed their pants during a bathroom break after lunch.  They peed their pants together in the bathroom.  Like it's what all the cool kids do.  Another one came out of the bathroom that is located in the classroom with pee all over her pants.  Excuse me, aren't you six years old?  WTF is with all the peeing? 

One girl came in to class first thing in the morning and told me that she needed a student to assist her for the day because she went blind. Here's our conversation:

Girl: Can Ava sit by me and help me today?  I need help because I went blind.
Me:  You're blind?
Girl: Yes.
Me: When did you go blind?
Girl: Yesterday after I went bowling.
Me: Do you mean you can't see anything, or you can't see well?
Girl: Yesterday I couldn't see anything.  Today I can't see well.
Me:  Did you go to the doctor?
Girl:  No.
Me: Did you tell your parents?
Girl: Yes.
Me:  Do you have a headache?
Girl: No, I'm just blind.
Me:  -----
Girl: So can Ava help me today?
Me:  ...........  Yeah, sure. 

I agreed to teach that class again tomorrow.  New class rule -- NO DRINKING LIQUIDS ALL DAY LONG.

I have to say that after my last post, exposing to the world my true nerdiness (and my sister's true nerdiness) that I am loving the comments!  My aunt emailed me and called me a big nerd, and then went on to give me her opinion on which Hogwarts houses she thinks the Founding Fathers would be placed in. (NERD.)  Diary of a Mad Bathroom made me crack up this morning when I read her comment that kindly suggests I find like-minded nerds to talk to, like if I don't find an outlet for my nerdiness I might do something dramatic and irrational.  Of course, this is all happening on my blog, which in itself is an indication of my immense nerdiness.  I embrace my nerdiness and roll around in it like a pig in a sty.  My blog is my sty. 

Nerd

I just had a thought go through my head and came to the realization that I may be the biggest nerd on the planet. I've been reading a lot about the American Revolution and the Founding Fathers lately, so I've been thinking about it a lot. Today the kids watched a couple Harry Potter movies. I was sitting here watching Harry Potter and I thought to myself,

“I wonder which Hogwarts houses the Sorting Hat would put the Founding Fathers in?”

Yeah, I know. Go ahead and punch me in the mouth and steal my lunch money. I would punch you and steal your lunch money if you asked me the same thing.

So anyway, this is what I think: George Washington would definitely be in Gryffindor. Oh my god, that's such an easy one! John Adams would be in Ravenclaw or Gryffindor. I'm not really sure on that one. He was pretty brave, but also pretty clever, but he was ambitious too, so maybe Slytherin? The Sorting Hat would really have its work cut out for it with old J.A.! I'm pretty sure Thomas Jefferson would be a Ravenclaw. Alexander Hamilton would be in Slytherin. James Madison would be in Ravenclaw or Slytherin. Ben Franklin would be in Ravenclaw. I can't think of any Founding Fathers that would be in Hufflepuff. The Hufflepuffs of the 1770s and 1780s were probably more behind the scenes people.

I have to go to my Na'vi study group now and then come home and do my light-saber skills exercise tape. Live long and prosper!

UPDATE:  Okay, I'm sorry to have to do this to my own sister, but she commented on this post and in the interest of diverting the attention of all the cool-kid bullies from myself to her, I'm going to put her comment right here on the post because it is so funny/nerdy that I can't stop laughing.  Here it is:


"For one of my military classes when I was in Monterey, we had to write about a great battle and disect the strategy on both sides, etc.....I did mine on the Battle for Middle Earth. Got a "B" on it, too!! Maybe we get a ticket straight to Geek City once we're over 30...."


OMG

Some Blog Business and a Tiny Rant

Hi Everybody.  I have some blog business to discuss with you.  You know how commenting on my blog is easy as pie with no word verification or anything?  Isn't that nice?  Well, I have to change it.  I thought I could put up with the spam in order to make commenting so hassle free, but I am sick of it.  I get an email every time I get a comment and lately most of my emails are because of spam comments on the blog, so I'm afraid I am going to have to put the word verification thingy back up.

I know, it's a pain in the ass, but I don't want any more ridiculously phony comments from who I suspect are non-English-speakers, that have nothing to do with the post and everything to do with the link to the online casino they are trying to get people to visit. ("Your blog are best I read!  Please sent a link!) I also am pretty sure I don't need a bigger penis, discounts on Viagra, or to learn how to unlock an iPhone 4, so, there you have it.  Word verification is re-activated.

I worked today in my favorite third grade class and at lunch I was talking with another sub who said she works pretty much full-time as a sub, but also has a job as a cashier at a grocery store for the money and benefits.   She makes more in a 6 hour shift swiping groceries over a scanner than she does teaching an eight hour day at a school, not to mention health and dental benefits that she says pays 80% of her health and dental costs.  WTF?  Seriously,  What.  The.  Fuck?