Movie Review No. 2: Les Miserables

I know I already wrote a review of Les Miserables, but I don't feel like I did it justice.  I really REALLY loved this movie.  In case you've never seen a production of the musical, it's about a group of people struggling through the French Revolution.  Hugh Jackman is Valjean, the main character.  Russell Crowe is Javert, the policeman and antagonist to Valjean.  Anne Hathaway is the single-mother factory worker-turned syphilitic prostitute. Valjean promises to take care of her daughter when she dies.  He raises her but is always on the run from Javert.  And so on.  If you don't know the rest, go see the movie.

I LOVE Hugh Jackman.  And it's not just because he's so handsome.  Or that he is Wolverine.  I like all the movies he's been in (except maybe Van Helsing).  And he has a real-life wife who seems normal and sensible who he loves.  That's pretty cool.  He was a fabulous Valjean.  His voice gets a little too Kathryn Hepburn-quavery for my taste sometimes though, but what do I know?

I've heard a lot of criticism about Russell Crowe playing Javert.  I don't get it.  I thought he was fantastic.  Javert is a tough, no-nonsense, black-and-white hardass, and Crowe played that perfectly.  I liked his singing too.  What was wrong with it???  I don't get your beef, Adam Lambert, so just shut it.

Anne Hathaway has always kind of bugged me because she's such a beautiful doofus.  Despite that I thought she was outstanding. OUTSTANDING. She has earned any and every award she gets for her part in this movie, no matter how annoying her acceptance speeches may be. (Blerg) The woman starved herself and lost 25 pounds in a few weeks, had her gorgeous head of hair chopped off onscreen, and sang that song how it's supposed to be sung (I'm talking to you, Susan Boyle) with her whole face filling the screen.  She was awesome.

The kid that played Gavroche was fantastic.  The first time I saw the movie I watched him with my jaw hanging open.  He's so good.  His part is small but man, he was good.

I liked Sacha Baron Cohen as Thenardier too.  He was a smooth con-man.  He was great.  So was Madam Thenardier played by Helena Bonham Carter.

Samantha Barks was a name I never heard before this movie but she was another one that I watched with my mouth hanging open.  She's a perfect Eponine.  Perfect.  When she sang "Little Fall of Rain" with Eddie Redmayne I was weep-choking.

I'm not really one to cry at movies but this one had me crying in several spots.  Usually I avoid movies that can do that to me because who wants to cry in public?  Not me.  This was a good cry though.  I cried during Anne Hathaway's raw rendition of I Dreamed a Dream.  No, I didn't cry.  That implies that I had a single solitary pretty tear flowing down my cheek.  That's not how it was.  My face was contorted and my nose was running.  It would have been embarrassing if I was the only one who was doing it, but every other person in the theater was sniffling too.  The other place that got me was when Marius (Eddie Redmayne) sang "Empty Chairs at Empty Tables."  Weepy bawling.  So good.  And of course, when Eponine died and sang "Little Fall of Rain."  Weep-choking.

"A little fall of rain can't hurt me now.  (Because I've been gut shot and I'm going to
bleed  and die here in the rain next to a boy I love who loves someone else. )"

I bought the soundtrack which is wonderful but is lacking some key songs from the movie.  I'm hoping there will be an additional volume coming out sometime or else I will have to wait for the movie to come out on DVD and just play that all the time.

If you haven't seen it, you should.  It is one of the best movies I've seen in a very long time.  Except for the sewer part.  That part still bugs me.

MinnCAN

Last night I went to a program at school that the PTA was sponsoring.  It was given by a group called MinnCan.  It's an educational reform group.  They are basically a lobby group whose aim is to make public schools better. I'm all for a political lobby group that wants to make public schools better, but I am highly suspicious of this particular group. They successfully lobbied the Minnesota Legislature to pass a bill that allows for "alternative" teacher licensure. This basically means that anyone with a bachelor's degree can be  certified to be a teacher with FIVE WEEKS of training.  Americore is one of the outfits that provides "teachers" in this way.  These young college grads take a summer course after they graduate with degrees in anything from marketing to nursing to engineering, and in a miraculous five weeks they can get enough credentials to go into a public schools to teach, all on their own, classes with 35+ kids.  But you know what? Their education and experience isn't nearly as important as their ❤heart and enthusiasm and if they believe they can make a difference! EEEEEEEEEEEEE❤!!!❤!!

(Sorry.)

I have a real problem with that.  If the goal is to improve public schools and to close the achievement gap, isn't putting unprepared people who are not teachers in the classroom in charge of teaching the kids, the exact opposite of what you want to do? And isn't that obvious?  So why would a supposed educational advocacy group want to do that?

I went to this program with a group of about twenty teachers and I was easily the least educated person in the bunch, and I've had five-plus years of college dedicated to the sole purpose of educating children.  Altogether I've done almost 20 weeks just student teaching to get various degrees and certifications.

Before the program I was talking with a man who is in his fifties and has been teaching for decades.  He was telling me about all these new apps he's using with his geography class.  He's also doing an educational fellowship.  And then the program started.  It was called "Improv to Improve" and it was supposed to be an improv group doing an entertaining show about public education.  The gist was that old teachers and methods are obsolete and we need new blood in education.  What a kick in the teeth.  I was sitting in a group of people who together have had hundreds of years of teaching experience and we were being told that old is bad and obsolete, and new and young is better.  Screw education and experience; to improve education, we need to employ LESS educated, experienced and prepared people.  Please.

The teachers watched the show and clapped politely, but when it ended, we were asked if there were any questions. Oh, there were questions.  The teachers wanted to know what MinnCan's stance is on teacher seniority, alternative licensure,  union busting and other specifics.  The MinnCan people cut the Q and A portion short and told us they had another improv performance for us instead.  No thanks.

But I guess I have to look at the silver lining of "alternative licensure."  If a nurse can be a teacher, then it only makes sense that with a few weeks of preparation, a teacher can become a nurse.  Or a lawyer.  Or an airline pilot.  When the alternative licensure law came up in Minnesota I wrote a post about all the things I will be doing when anyone with a bachelor's degree can do anything they want.  Here it is again:

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Minnesota legislators are soon going to vote on a bill that would allow people with a bachelor's degree, but no teacher training, become teachers!  You could spend four years in college, get a degree in underwater basket weaving and then get out and teach school! All you will have to do is take a 200 hour crash course in teaching.  (I was a real sucker for taking over five years to learn to be a teacher.  It apparently only takes five weeks.)

The second having to have a license or any kind of specific training to practice a profession is moot, I think I will try out all kinds of things, why not! I have a bachelor's degree!  I can do anything!

The first thing I'm going to do is become a nurse.  RNs  have bachelor's degrees, I have a bachelor's degree, therefore, according to the Minnesota legislature, I could probably do a pretty decent job of being a nurse. Better than the old hags that have been doing it for decades, anyway! I'm new! I'm fresh! And I want some scrubs.  However, I'm kind of squeamish so as soon as bodily fluids come into play, I'm out.  Kind of like when I joined track in high school to get the cool sweatsuit, but then learned I was expected to run. Every day. Yeah, right.

Then I think I'll be an electrician.  I use electricity literally all the time.  In fact, I'm using it right this minute. I'm an electricity expert; flip switch up: on.  Flip switch down: off.  I'm trained (enough)!  I have a bachelor's degree in education.  I'm educated.  If I'm educated, I can do anything, right?  All that's been in my way are these pesky standards and licenses!

Need anything rewired?

Oh, you know what I'd really like to do?  Fly commercial airliners!  I'm sure that YEAR LONG course I suffered through: Methods and Materials of Teaching Secondary English will really help out with takeoffs and landings. Once I get my job being a pilot, flying will be much more pleasant (for me).  Trips go by so much faster when I'm the driver.  I have lots of experience driving a car, and a little bit driving a boat, and I actually took over the yolk (that's what they call it!) in a small plane and controlled it myself once for about five minutes (actual flying experience).  I'm totally qualified.

Then I think I'll become an architect for a while.  I live in a building, I go in buildings all the time, I've built Sims houses.  I could do it.  I'm qualified because I have a bachelor's degree, and more importantly, I ❤BELIEVE❤ I could be an architect although I have a degree in English Education; just like some Minnesota legislators believe that anyone with a four-year degree can walk into a classroom and teach 30 kids.  Easy.

If this bill passes and you can do ANYTHING with your bachelor's degree, what do you want to do?

I'm Elderly

My boy got his driver's license.  I have a son who DRIVES A CAR BY HIMSELF.  God, I'm old.  

Science Whiz

Kira entered a project in the science fair and won a first place ribbon for her project on why skates glide in the physics category!  No, YOU shut up!

Here she is getting her award and a big handshake from her teacher.  They announced the third place first, then second place, and then first.  She was disappointed but hopeful when she didn't get third.  She started to panic and was about to lose it a little when she didn't get second, and was totally surprised when she got first.  Now she gets to go to the regional science fair at UMD in a few weeks!  Wish her luck!

Blue Ribbon, Baby!

Kira in the Car

Kira: Dad, if you got in an accident and got your legs chopped off and they brought you to the hospital, but didn't have any more human legs in the freezer, but they had horse legs, pig legs and dog legs, which legs would you want them to put on you?

Mitch:............... I guess horse legs.

Kira:  Dad, don't be dumb, if you had horse legs you'd be about seven feet tall!

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Kira: Dad, if you had to choose between a baby alligator and an adult platypus to have for a pet, which would you choose?

Mitch: Adult platypus.

Kira:  What if it sweat milk?  Would you still want it?

Mitch: ....... no.  

Movie Review: Les Miserables

I went to see Les Miserables on New Year's Day.  It. Was. Awesome.  You should see it.  The only part I had a problem with was when Jean Valjean dragged an unconscious and flesh-wounded Marius through a fully functioning sewer.  Not very hygienic.  The people of revolutionary Paris needed more fiber.  Yuck.  It reminded me of the time when Sam was five years old and he broke his leg.  He had an external fixator that he had to wear for a couple of months.  It was an external bar that was screwed into his femur in three places so he had open wounds that I was responsible for keeping free from infection.  Talk about stress.  The doctor only made it worse by saying, "If there is any redness or fever bring him to an emergency room IMMEDIATELY!"  Needless to say I was frantic most of the time for those couple of months.

During that time Sam was invited to a birthday party for one of his little preschool buddies.  It told him I would take him because he needed to do something fun.  I knew the mother from picking up and dropping off the kids at preschool.  She was a very nice lady.  What I didn't know about her, and never would have suspected, is that she lived in abject squalor.  Her house was a nightmare.  There were piles of what I hope was animal poop in various stages of dryness on the floor.  There were food stains all over the walls of her kitchen as if there had been a cafeteria food fight, and she had upholstered dining room chairs that were covered with crusty stains. How do people spill that much food?  Some of the kids were outside playing with the hose and thought it would be funny to squirt it into the kitchen window.  The mom laughed and didn't tell them to stop it.   I almost started crying when I carried my baby with open wounds into this figurative sewer, much like Jean Valjean must have felt when he dragged Marius through the actual sewer.

I told myself that we would stay for half an hour and then I'd make some excuse to get the hell out of there.  I sat on the very edge of the filthy couch and tried not to smell the smells I was smelling when a disgusting little wiener dog walked into the middle of the room and peed the longest pee in the world right on the floor next to the kids.  I jumped up and said, "Your dog is peeing!"  and the nice filthy lady just laughed and waved it off like, "Oh, he's always doing that."  NOBODY CLEANED IT UP!  It just sat there, saturating the rug and the carpet pad.  I told Sam it was time to go.  He didn't fuss much about it like I thought he would, instead he said, in front of everyone, "Okay, but I have to poop first."  I was going to have to take my open-wound boy into the bathroom of the dirtiest people in the world.  I said, "You can hold it til we get home," and he said, "Nope, I really have to go."  I couldn't decide if he really did have to go or if this was just another stop on his tour of every strange bathroom in the world, and then I had to decide what would be worse, holding my son six inches off the toilet in what was sure to be a biohazard bathroom, or having him crap his pants.  I opted for the biohazard bathroom.  I suppose that is much how Jean Valjean felt when he had to decide whether to leave Marius at the barricade to get killed by the French army, or drag him through the sewer and save his life.

Seafood and Computer Magic

Okay, I've really sucked at blogging lately.   I have to get back on the ball.  First of all, I want to tell you about the high points of Christmas.  I told you before about the presents my sister Beth has gotten me over the years: the appliance box of old rated R VHS tapes for my kids; the case of dollar store fish-n-crackers; the receipt for a case of Diet coke she bought me the previous summer that I forgot to pay her back for, wrapped nicely in a box with a bow.

Well, this year I was looking for something for her.  I got her some nice(ish) things but I wanted to get her one more thing.  I shopped around and couldn't decide on anything.  So I went to the dollar store to get some wrap and tape and stuff.  I looked through the food aisle to see if they still had the same fish-n-crackers.  They did, along with a surprisingly wide variety of canned fish.  I know, I thought, I'll get her a seafood extravaganza!  Who doesn't love sea food?  I got her a box of the fish-n-crackers she loves so much, a can of tuna, a tin of kipper snacks, a tin of anchovies, and best of all a dented, dusty can of clams.  I got a cute basket and a teeny bottle of Asti Spumanti (to class it up) and wrapped it up beautifully.  She loved it.  Who wouldn't?

Over Christmas I also learned that my dad is a gifted computer whiz.  We were going to Skype with my sister Amy who is in Afghanistan right now (she's in the service, not on vacation) and my dad couldn't remember his Skype password.  We told him to reset it.  So he clicked the "I forgot my password" button and Skype sent him a link to make up a new password.  He couldn't get it to work so he handed me the computer in frustration and told me to do it.  I said, "What password did you choose?"  He couldn't remember the password he made up two minutes before.  No, I shouldn't say that, he couldn't remember if it was the dog's name, or the dog's name1.  It was either/or.  I figured it out by typing one, then typing the other to see which one would work.  He was amazed.

While I was there I used his computer to go on Facebook and I forgot to log myself out.  Then I got this email:

UMmmmmmmmmmmm, Sarah you turd! You dicked around with my Facebook setting so when I click on it, your page comes up, not mine. How do I get it back to mine. Next time you come up I get to spend an hour using your computer and we'll see how you like it. Why has my typeface changed? NOW What did you do to this computer? Dad

Yeah, that's right, I can now make his computer switch to italics anytime I want.  Don't mess with me or I'll do it to you too.

Kira Next To A Car

Kira and I pulled in to the school parking lot one day and parked right next to a car that had this bumper sticker on it:

And she said, "That must be my English teacher's car.  She has the same sign in her room."  I said, "You mean the Coexist sign?" and she said, "I don't know what it says, it's in German."

Awkward Family Photo

This might be my new favorite Christmas picture.  These are my sister's daughters, in their pjs, in front of their Charlie Brown Christmas tree middle (their dad had to cut the top off to make it fit in the house), they are holding hands, and Millie (the little one) looks to be choking to death.

Here's another picture of their tree middle:

The sparse branches seem to grow right into the ceiling.  Christmas magic!

Merry Merry

Wow, what a week.  These really are the darkest days of the year aren't they?  Did you know there was a school shooting in Connecticut?  There was.  It was awful and now thanks to a 24 hour news cycle everyone can relive it every moment of every day.  In the little bit of TV news I have watched since last Friday I heard one political type on Fox news say that if the principal of that school had a similar semi-automatic, loaded and ready in her office, maybe this could have been avoided.  If this wasn't so grim and depressing and horrible that would make me laugh and laugh.  An elementary school principal with a loaded military rifle in her office.  That would be like Santa having a sleigh full of mustard gas "just in case." Oh. My. God.  I also heard a guy interviewed on NPR who has a mentally ill son and he said that it's easier in this country to get a semi-automatic weapon and  hundreds of rounds of ammo than it is to get mental health care.  Again, Oh. My. God.

Winter solstice is on Friday and after that the sun will shine longer and the days will get brighter and better. 

Unless the Mayans were right.  Then we're all fucked. 

Merry Christmas!

Sam at a Mexican Restaurant

Sam and I went out to dinner tonight.  I was trying to be international and asked Sam if he had to use el baño? (What? So what if he shaves, am I not still his mother?)  He said, "It's pronounced baahhnooh.  I learned that in Spanish class."  I said, "No it isn't.  You didn't learn anything in Spanish."  and he said, "Oh, I learned aaallll about N's stupid little brother, Ñ."  

Fond Christmas Memories

Having-a-job is really cutting in to my blogging time and you know who suffers for that.  Nobody You do. And I'm sorry about that. Also we are having a feud with our Internet provider so wifi at home is sporadic and slow. It's not that I have nothing to write about, I do, I just can't get myself organized enough to do it properly. For instance right now I'm writing this on my iPad at a coffee shop which seems so lame-o, but that is what's happening. Its really hard to type on an iPad.

I've been getting ready for Christmas, decorating and shopping and stuff, and that got me to thinking about Christmases past and my funny sister Beth.  She usually gets me a passive-aggressive, and hilarious gift. Last year she gave my kids every single VHS tape she has ever bought, and she put them in one giant box. I think it must have been the box her washing machine or dryer came in. It was enormous. The kids, of course were thrilled with it. As I was sitting there thinking about how I was going to get her back for that she said to me, "You better go through those before the kids do. Some of them are extremely inappropriate for kids."  Nicely done, Beth.

The year before she gave my kids about thirty packages of "tuna snacks" she had gotten at the dollar store. My gift was the story of what happened when she bought them, and it's still to this day one of the best gifts ever.

She bought a package of the tuna/cracker combo one time just to try it, and she liked it. The next time she went to the dollar store she saw them again and had fond memories of them so she decided to buy all of Dollar Tree's stock. She got one of their teeny carts and cleared the shelf of all their tuna snacks and, feeling proud of herself, headed for the checkout. That's when she ran in to one of her old boyfriends. They said hi and he looked in her cart, and then looked her up and down and said, with sincerity in his voice, "How are you?" which I choose to translate as, "How long have you been homeless?"

Anyway, after that she lost her taste for dollar store tuna so she gave it all to my kids for Christmas. But the joke is on her because they really liked it, ha ha, Beth!

Candy

As any good middle school teacher will tell you, a bucket full of candy is a must have school supply.  Adolescents will do almost anything for a piece of candy.  They will do almost anything for the mere promise of candy.  I suspect that is why pervs use candy as a lure to getting kids in their teardrop-window vans.  It just never fails.

"Hey kid, you like Twizzlers?"

I usually get to school a couple hours before my first class to do my work because I refuse to bring anything home with me.  Yesterday I opened my candy drawer and ate candy while I worked.  Usually I'm not that crazy about the stuff I buy, but yesterday for some reason, it was really hitting the spot.  I'd eat a piece, throw the garbage away, work for a few minutes and eat another piece.

When my first class came in, the kid that sits right up next to my desk looked into the garbage and we had this conversation:

Kid: Mrs. Lindahl, do you have a class before this one?

Me: No, why?

Kid: Well, who ate all that candy then?

Me: I had a few pieces before you guys came in, so what?

Kid: A FEW PIECES?  There's like, a hundred wrappers in there!

Me:  There's not a hundred wrappers.

At this point other kids came up to look at the collection of empty wrappers.

Another kid: Hey! She has Twizzlers!

Different kid: Are there any left, Mrs. Lindahl? Can we have some?

Original kid: Did you eat breakfast this morning?

Me: Yes, there are some left, and yes I had breakfast, why?

Original kid: You did have breakfast?  Wow.

Me:  Hey, it's not that much candy!  I like candy too, ya know.

Original kid: Not that much?  There's enough wrappers in there to feed a village!

At this point my aide was curious also, so she came to look at the wrapper carnage.

Original kid: Mrs. P., you must have been in here helping her eat all that.

Mrs. P.: No, I wasn't invited to this Twizzler party.

Me:  I'm never sharing my candy with you guys again.

Original kid: That's because there's probably none left.

Me: You have detention.
 

Kira in the Car

Sam, when you start driving I'm going to put a bumper sticker on your car that says "I heart my sister's hugs".

Sam said, "Pass."

Happy Thanksgiving!

Here's something from the past to get us in the mood for the big day tomorrow.  Happy Thanksgiving!

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Happy Thanksgiving! I'm sitting here with my sisters and dad talking about Dolph Lundgren and his relative hotness (I think he's not, my sisters think he is, my dad says "he doesn't really think about that.") and discussing whether my dad has ADHD. (We all think he does) I don't really know where my kids are. I think they are outside somewhere probably buried in 40 feet of snow. I hope they are okay. I will be very thankful if they are okay. We are having a late dinner because of work schedules and I haven't eaten anything all day long (except for a giant breakfast) and I am getting HUNGRY. I also think I might be having a heart attack. Or heart burn. But how could I have heart burn if I haven't even eaten anything? (except a giant breakfast) I bet beer will help. Also, my foot is asleep and it's annoying me. It's my left foot. Isn't that a sign of a heart attack? Uh oh. I have to go to Webmd.com. BRB.

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Good news, according to Webmd, a sleeping left foot is not a sign of a heart attack, so I am free to sit around and eat my weight in stuffing with no life-threatening consequences! Yay! Kira just asked me, "Do you think if I threw Amy's dog in the fire, it would stink?" I think maybe I have to look into some counseling for my sweet little angel. Between her potential horrifying animal abuse and her milk farts ("Oh my god! I farted and smells just like milk!") she's both getting on my nerves, and causing some serious worry. Be back after dinner.

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Okay, dinner is over. Everything was delicious, as usual; and the company was great. We had champagne and Beth (who is six months pregnant) wanted a glass and wavered on whether to have a small one or not. My mom and her friend said, "No! You can't! What about FAS?" and were indignant until they were reminded about how much they smoked and drank during pregnancy in the 60s and 70s. They said, "Well, we didn't know about it back then!" and then looked at all of us like they were seeing us for the first time, inspecting us for small head size and short attention spans. To their relief we all have enormous heads so whew, that's one bullet dodged! Score one for drinking during pregnancy! Beth decided that a few sips of wine would be okay considering all the mouthwash she "accidentally" ingests.

Then we got in an argument about why the Kardashian's are famous. Amy said it's because their father was one of O.J. Simpson's lawyers and the rest of us were all, "Yeah, right! Bruce Jenner was not O.J. Simpson's lawyer!" and she tried to tell us that he's not really their father, but please, we've seen the show! How dumb does she think we are? Whether Bruce Jenner is a world-class athlete as well as a cracker-jack defense lawyer still does not answer the question about why the Kardashian's are so famous.

And then Beth told us a delightful story about how she had to go to the bathroom really bad while she was on the road with her toddler and she couldn't hold it so she had to stop at a gas station. She, of course, had to bring the baby in the bathroom stall with her because leaving toddlers in running vehicles right next to the highway is a no-no (apparently). She tried her best not to let the baby touch anything because gas station bathrooms = blech. She was pretty successful until she flushed and it was one of those super loud powerful flushers and it scared the crap out of the baby who jumped, screamed, and fell; smearing herself against every gas-station-bathroom surface she could on her way down and the whole catastrophe culminated with the poor scared baby spitting her binky out and it skittered across the disgusting floor, and then she screamed even more when Beth wouldn't let her put the gross binky back in her mouth. Fun times! I also watched Beth change a diaper that made her gag THREE TIMES. I thought she was going to puke on her baby. Oh my god! I want to get pregnant again RIGHT NOW!

But seriously, I'm thankful I'm not pregnant, and that my kids are old enough to leave alone while I use the bathroom by myself. Really, super thankful.

Happy Thanksgiving Everyone! I'm going into a tryptophan/wine coma now for the next 24 hours or so!

A day in the life of a bad haircut

When you have been given a bad haircut every day is filled with unwanted, unwelcome stress that emphasizes how shallow you are for feeling this amount of stress over something as inconsequential as a hairdo.  Then you are stressed about how shallow you are.

First of all, there is no more waking up looking adorable and slightly tossled.  You wake up looking like someone spent the previous eight hours sliding your head through a mangle.  Also there is no wondering if you can go one more day without a hairwash because this is what you look like when you wake up.

So you take the shower you didn't want to take, and you put in extra conditioner to discourage your hair from getting any of its own ideas.  You want it as limp and lifeless as possible because the above picture is what your hair looks like with life and vigor now.

You get out of the shower and prepare yourself for spending a ridiculous amount of time on your hair when you'd normally spend about three minutes on it.  First you have to decide how much product to use.  Too much and you will have to rewash and start over, not enough and your hair will revert to the original "fat bird with teeny wings" style it had when you walked out of the "salon."

After about twenty minutes of hairstyling that only takes you from looking like a mental patient to looking like you cut your own hair with a dull knife (mentally outpatient), you are ready to face the day.  You have pasted down the teeny wings that want to flare, you have tamed the hair on your cowlick in such a way that you can only hope it won't silently stick up like a  flag in an hour, and you have fought the top part that only wants to be in the shape of a cone.  Time for work!

You go to work and even though you've had this horrible cut for several days now, people still look at you with wonder and pity like you just walked away from a terrible car accident.  Several people say, "You got a haircut!" to which you can only say, "Yes, I did.  Thank you?"  Your students say, "I liked your hair better before."  And you agree.  Then they say, "Then why did you get it cut?" to which you have no answer.

You stop in the bathroom for a mid-morning pee break and glance into the mirror to discover that your hair has somehow, without you even knowing it, transformed itself and now you look just like Dwight Schrute.

You wonder how long you've been walking around like that and wish that someone would have said something, but at the same time you're thankful nobody said anything.  You frantically fingercomb the hair back into some semblance of a purposeful hairdo and go back to work.

The day goes on and on with many more "You got a haircut!" comments and bathroom breaks to see how ridiculous you look.  Finally, you can go home and relax.  You stop worrying about your hair for awhile and just let it do what it needs to do.  When you go to the bathroom to brush your teeth before bed, this is what you see:

And you remember fondly the old days when your hair was glorious enough to earn you the name "Lord Farquad" by a couple of jealous sisters.  You think that the stylist must have had some style in mind that was so good it was worth not listening to a word you said and giving you this cut instead.  "I just haven't figured out how to fix it right," you tell yourself.  "Tomorrow I will figure it out."  Then you go to bed sure that it will grow quickly and soon you'll be the ugly duckling no more!  Then you wake up to another morning and it's like it's Groundhog Day all over again.

Be careful what you wish for...

Well don't you all just loooooooove the idea of me sending my sister who is in Afghanistan a picture of myself with the worst haircut ever given to anyone who has had haircuts.  I have spent most of the past four days trying my hardest to keep my head from looking like a fat bird, but last night I stopped the constant smoothing for a while and then took some pictures of myself for my sister and I SENT THEM TO HER.  Are you all happy now?  I did that for my own personal troop.  What are you doing for your troop?  Don't have a troop?  You can share mine.  She says she loves getting mail over there so send her something.  Some magazines, or some gum, or some cookies, some holiday decorations, or some pictures of YOU with a bad haircut.  Her address is:

LCDR Amy Lindahl

PRT URUZGAN

FOB Tarin Kowt

APO AE 09380

Send her something, Smarties. Now I know you are all dying to see my crazy awful bird hair so I am going to post it, but this is not for you, dear reader, this is also for my troop because nothing makes a sister happier than when another sister looks silly, right Amy?  Right, Beth?  Right sisters all over the world?  (And also because Amy has a blog and I wanted to scoop her on this hot story.)

There must be some magical under-cutting on the sides that I can't find because without constant management those wings want to fly.

Side view.  There is nothing in the back to support those wings.  And nothing on the top to hold them down.  Just fluffy feathers.

This is just for Amy and Beth.  A gross, lipless, multi-chinned oversmile.  You're welcome.

Decision 2012

This is a Facebook chat between my sister and me this morning:

Amy: I DO have a package to send you....since I didn't get you a b-day present....

Me: Is it a blue burka?

Amy: I got Sid and Mills some 'jewels' at the bazaar last weekend. And no, it's not a blue burka. You're NOT getting a blue burka. Those are creepy.

Me: But that's what I want!!! I got a horrific haircut on Saturday. I've never wished more for a blue burka.

Amy: I want to see a picture. And I'll see what I can do....there's certainly enough of them around here. Geez.

Me: No pictures. Just imagine a fluffy fat bird with teeny little wings. That's my hair.

Amy: HA HA! PICTURE!! Come on....your followers would LOVE it!!

Me: No. It's too horrible. That's why I need a burka.

Amy: NO you don't! What does Kira say about it?

Me: I would wear the burka and say it is in protest of the taliban, but really I'd just be waiting for my horrid haircut to grow out. Kira calls me "Sir."

Amy: HA HA HA HA HA!! I'm going to tell her to take a picture and send it to me....

Me: No.

Amy: Come on, that would be a GREAT Christmas present!! Framed, please.

Me: I will send you one of my school pictures.

Amy: No, I've already seen that.

Me: But it's a professional portrait!

Amy: Sarah, I'm in AFGHANISTAN. Don't you want to lift my spirits? I won't be able to Afghanistand it if you don't....

Me: Oh.... My .... God.... That was horrible.

So, should I throw vanity and self-respect to the wind and send her a picture of my horrific hairdo? Or do I say tough shit, I will not sacrifice my dignity for the cause of troop morale and just send her some gum instead? You, my readers, get to decide. Vote in the comments...

Person of Walmart

About a month ago I got my 150,000,000th bad haircut.  Like many in the past, it was almost right, but not quite.  I had to come home and hack off a couple pieces to make it better which seems so stupid, but it simply has to be done.  Of course, I didn't do a very good job because it's hard to cut the hair on the back of your own head.

So today while I was out and about, I thought I'd stop in somewhere and just get the back part shaped up a little.  I got in right away and told the cute girl that I just wanted the back fixed where I cut it because it wasn't very neat.  We talked for a long time about what I am looking for in a haircut and I thought she got me.  I told her I liked the sides and top, but the bottom of the back needed to be fixed.  She took my glasses and assured me that she was doing what I was asking.  It even felt like she was doing what I was asking.  I'm no stranger to cutting my own hair so I knew what I wanted, I just needed someone to do it that could actually see what they are doing.

Like the optimist I am, while she was cutting I thought maybe she was the one.  The girl who would be my haircutter for the rest of my life.  The girl who I would be so loyal to that when she got promoted to a super-fancy salon that charges 80 dollars a cut, I'd still go to her because it would be worth it.  She seemed so happy with her work, and genuinely excited about what a good job she'd done and how good I looked that I was excited too when she turned me toward the mirror and handed me my glasses.

I looked in the mirror and could hardly keep from crying.  It is the worst haircut I have ever gotten, IN MY LIFE.  Yes, worse than the crop-topped poodle cut I got in seventh grade when I asked to look like Stephanie Powers.  Worse than all the cut-THEN-perms I stupidly got.  Worse than all of it put together.  I am at a loss for what to do about it because there is no way in hell I'm going in to have someone else cut MORE and try to fix it.  And I don't even know where I would start if I try to fix it myself.

How to describe it... hmmm.  It's like she heard that I didn't want the sides touched, but then totally stopped hearing me so she gave me a supershort "mom-cut" but left the long sides.  Like a Hasidic Jew.

Like this. (NOT the woman)

It's like I have three different ugly haircuts all morphed together onto one head.  It's horrifying.  It's a pixie cut with long chunks on the sides.  When will I meet her, the one who will get that I don't want to look like Velma or Peggy Hill or an Orthodox Rabbi?  The one who will laugh with me about all the shitty haircuts I've ever gotten and will never give me a bad haircut again in my life?  I found a husband.  I even found a dentist, but still the hair stylist eludes me.

When I was in the car on the way home I called Mitch and told him how upset I was because of this, sort of giving him a heads up so he wouldn't laugh at me as soon as he saw me or say something like, "What the hell have you done?"  He was appropriately sympathetic until he said, "Where did you get it?" and I said, "Walmart."  Then he laughed and laughed and said, "What did you expect?!"  I guess now we know where the "People of Walmart" get their hair done.  Honestly, I only wanted two or three quick snips to fix the back and since I was there anyway to pick up a prescription, I thought Walmart could handle that.  Nope.  I am now, and for the next several months until this can grow out, a Person of Walmart.

This lady has better hair than me.  

My Hot Hot Body

Like everyone past a certain age (40) I am not a perfect physical specimen.  I have my little health issues, but I usually don't talk about them too much (shut up, Mitch!) because although my problems aren't frightening or deadly, they tend to not be glamorous maladies like amnesia or elephantitis (shut up, Beth!).  One of my problems is that I have to wear a CPAP mask to bed because I have sleep apnea.  I've had it since I was a little kid.  My doctor says I have "dainty respiratory passages."  (And that's why she's my doctor.)  The reason I don't tell people about the CPAP machine too often is because I get into conversations that I think are genuinely supposed to make me feel like I'm being commiserated with but are just humbling.  Kind of like this:

Me: I wear a CPAP mask to bed.
Other Person:  Really!  My uncle has one of those.
Me: Oh?
Other Person: Yes.  He's morbidly obese.
Me: Oh.
Other Person:  He lives in the nursing home now because he couldn't wash himself.
Me: ....Oh.
Other Person: He had to be taken out of his house with a fork lift.
Me:...
Other Person: Because he's so fat, not because of the CPAP.
Me: Okay.
Other Person:...
Me:...
Other Person: They had to use a chainsaw to remove a wall to get the fork lift in there.
Me:  Alright.
Other Person: But he's doing great now!
Me: Well.  Good, I guess.
Other Person: The only thing he's mad about is that they don't let him eat his favorite breakfast anymore.
Bacon and egg yellows.
Me:  I gotta go.

Or when I recently had vertigo and had to explain myself to other people.

Me: Sorry I couldn't make it.  I had a bad case of vertigo.
Other Person: Oh! That's terrible!  I'm so sorry!  My great great grandma has that.
Me:  Your great great grandma is still alive?
Other Person: Barely.
Me:...
Other Person: Anyway, she has a walker because her balance is so bad.
Me:...
Other Person:  It's a really nice walker. It has a seat on it.
Me:  ...
Other Person:  And a basket.
Me:...
Other Person:  Want me to ask where she got it?
Me:  I gotta go.

Seventh Grade Sucks

Kira has FACS class this quarter (Family And Consumer Science (home ec.)).  She had the rotten luck of being put into a kitchen with three girls with food allergies.  One girl can't eat gluten, one can't eat eggs, and one is lactose intolerant.  She came up to my room the other day in a total huff and gave me a baggie with what looked like a couple of misshapen candles.  They were her pumpkin muffins.

yuck

They are as disgusting as they look.  She said she was so looking forward to pumpkin muffins and when they were cooking, she looked in an oven at a pan she thought was from her kitchen, but was from a kitchen with some kids who could safely eat eggs, flour and dairy.  She said they were puffy and golden with just a hint of crispness on the top.  Her mouth was watering.  You can imagine her disappointment.  No, actually you can't.  She was more disappointed than a person should be about bad muffins.  I don't think saying that she was outraged would be overstating.  She was outraged.  What really put her over the top was that the gluten girl (who never does the dishes!) wouldn't even try their muffins.  She had the gall to go and try one from another kitchen and then came back and raved about how good the other muffins were while Kira was doing the dishes, AGAIN.  

First World Problems UPDATED!

Some unpleasant things are going on around here.  Firstly, I'm not what I would call sick, but I feel like something crawled into my digestive system somewhere and died.  Maybe a squirrel. It feels like there is a huge ball of raw over-kneaded pizza dough in my stomach and it won't go away, it just rolls around all day.  You can imagine the effects of having a undigested tudball of dough/dead squirrel stuck somewhere in your intestines. It's not good.  Also, the corners of my mouth are chapped and irritated so I look like I just took off clown make-up all the time.  I'm disgusting right now.

The other unpleasant thing is that apparently my upstairs bathroom is the central destination for all the flies in the world.  There were hundreds of flies buzzing around the window yesterday, and many more hundreds of teeny fruit flies that hang out on the mirror.  I took the vacuum in there and took care of business, and then cleaned the place until it smelled like a hospital thinking that would take care of the problem, but the flies are back today.  Why is this happening?  There are no carcasses in there for flies to breed on, and there is no rotting fruit for the fruit flies so I really don't understand the attraction to this particular destination.  There is only one possible explanation:
My upstairs bathroom is possessed by the devil.

Remember in Amityville Horror when the priest was killed by the millions of flies in the upstairs?  I have the same thing except they haven't killed anyone, yet.  One of these days I'm going to be sitting on the pot, trying to dislodge the squirrel, and I'm going to hear "GET OUT" in a devil voice, I just know it.  At least if that happens the squirrel will probably come shooting out, no problem.

But then that makes me think that maybe the two problems are related.  I mean, it seems like a ridiculous coincidence that I could have dry-rot in my innards and a demon-possessed bathroom at the same time. That's just stupid.  Maybe the flies are coming from inside my body and I am the one possessed by the devil.  Holy crap.  It's not a dead squirrel inside of me, it's Lucifer.  If that is in fact what is going on, I have to say that the little girl in the Exorcist was kind of a drama queen.  It's not all that bad.  In fact, if it wasn't for the flies, I wouldn't even bother bringing it up.

UPDATE:  Anonymous wrote me a helpful comment about how to solve my problems.  She told me to take a probiotic for the dead squirrel, and to set up a fruit fly trap.  I got a jar and filled it with some fruit (didn't have apple vinegar) and put in a paper funnel.  I am catching fruit flies.  Then I thought, "Huh, anonymous really knows her stuff!" so I looked up probiotic on Wikipedia because I didn't know what it was.  Is it a pill?  Yogurt?  And I found this:

Probiotics are also delivered in fecal transplants, in which stool from a healthy donor is delivered like a suppository to an infected patient.^[2]

Oh. My. God.
I would rather be possessed by a dead-devil-squirrel-demon than have a fecal transplant.

Juxtaposition (I've never written that word before)

Yesterday Sam had a friend over who started the year going to a charter school, but a few weeks after school started, went back to his old school.  Mitch asked why he did that and he said that at the charter school they made him take all kinds of tests and found out he is really smart (he's super smart) and they made him take (free) college courses.  Well, he was having NONE of that because in college there's lots of homework!  Yuck!  No thanks!

Mitch told me this story and we laughed and even as I was laughing at how dumb a smart kid can be, I glanced out the window to see my own brilliant little daughter bent over in front of the car and she may or may not have been licking the headlight.  Mitch and I watched her for a while and we couldn't decide if she was actually licking it or just resting her face on it.  Either way her head was really close for a weird amount of time.  I stepped out of the door and said, "WHAT are you doing?"  She said, "What do you mean?" innocently.  I said, "I mean with your FACE on the headlight?"  She said, "I was just looking at it."  Maybe she needs new glasses.

How Fantastic is Facebook?

My answer is:  Pretty Fantastic!  My sister is in Afghanistan on a military base and she gets the internet and can access her Facebook account which allowed us to have a chat conversation yesterday morning when we were both supposed to be working.

Years ago I would have had to tell her how I had an abundance of stomach gas and was apprehensive about going in to a meeting in a letter.  Then I would have had to get an envelope and fill it out.  Then I'd have to find a stamp.  Then I'd have to send it and wait for her response for about two weeks.  Now, because of the miracle of Facebook, she can advise me immediately that I should try to "take care of business" before the meeting because she recently put off going until after what she thought would be a 20 minute meeting, which turned in to a 90 minute meeting, and let's just say everyone was sorry.

Of course, everything that is wonderful also has its down side.  During the very same bathroom chat I had with my sister across the globe, I happen to read a status update by a former student who is upset that Obama is going to take away his "right to bare arms."  If he has ever seen a picture of Michelle Obama and her beautiful guns, he would know that Obama is an obvious advocate of sleevelessness.  I guess I should have taught homophones a little more.

Hot hot hot!

Things overheard in my bedroom last weekend:

“You have to line the holes up or it won't fit straight.”

“What do you think, upper holes or lower holes?”

“I'm not ready! Don't push yet!”

“You want me to pound that in for you?”

“Maybe don't screw that in all the way yet.”

“Ha, I finished before you AGAIN!”

“Okay, let's do this again.  WAIT Wrong hole! Wrong hole! Back up!”

“Oh, I don't know, I think this is going to be TOO HOT.”

“This is IMPOSSIBLE to get in.”

“Just fold it over your thumb and shove it in.”

All this because I went to IKEA and got a brand new bed!  Ta da!

I wasn't going to buy anything but then I saw the duvet cover and I LOVED it.  But I didn't have a duvet, so I had to get a duvet.  Then since I knew I had to go through the cash registers anyway, I went a little nuts.  I got a bunch of other stuff and then I thought to myself, "Self, why not get a bed frame as long as you're going to pack your car up to the gills anyway," so I got the bedframe too.  Then I came home and Mitch and I assembled our bed and stuffed the new duvet into the duvet cover, hence the dialog at the top.  The duvet is nuclear hot but I'm so determined to use it that we sleep with the window open.  

Curse my dainty ear canals!

The vertigo I had all last week is somewhat over.  Aren't you glad?  And when I say "somewhat" I mean that I'm still kind of dizzy, but not in a grab-a-chair-because-the-world-is-spinning-out-of-control-and-I-can't-get-my-eyes-to-stop-jumping-and-OMG-get-me-a-bucket-cuz-I'm-gonna-puke! kind of dizzy, but the regular, "boy, I feel kind of spacey and shitty" kind of dizzy. I blame the icky way I feel on the medicine.

The medicine I take for it is Scopolamine.  When the first wave of vomiting hits, the drug seems like a miracle, but after a couple of days on it, the novelty of not constantly throwing-up wears off and I start to get concerned about my blurry vision and constant headache, and I start to wonder about the drug that is coursing through my body.  Apparently it is used in Colombia as a date-rape drug.  It's street name is "Devil's Breath" and there is a video on YouTube called "The World's Scariest Drug."  Great.  The real problem is that in high enough quantities, it inhibits your ability to make memories. So you can be on the drug, seem totally normal and coherent and then the next day you don't remember anything at all.  Which I guess might explain why I woke up in a bathtub full of ice with a ten inch incision in my side and a note that said, "Thanks for the kidney.  You better get to the hospital."

Vertigo is worse than most things

I've had vomit-inducing vertigo for almost a week.  I had to take a day off of work to let my sea-sickness medicine kick in.  The medicine mercifully eliminates the nausea and vomiting but otherwise is almost as bad as the vertigo itself.  Here are some of the side effects:  temporary vision loss, headache, drowsiness and vertigo. Which led me to think of things I'd rather have than this horrible affliction and its horrible treatment.

Things I'd rather do than have vertigo. Again.

grocery shop in the nude
let my carcass-eating dog lick me on the mouth
watch professional wrestling
vote republican
eat sauerkraut
lose a toe
get bad haircuts for the rest of my life
go to the dentist
get a root canal
get sprayed by a skunk
gain weight
go on a date with Mario Lopez
get a home perm
get syphilis

As Promised...

I got my school pictures back.  Remember when  I told you that I forgot it was picture day and then I found out that not only do all the kids have their pictures taken, but the teachers do too?  I am notoriously unphotogenic and this was emphasized by the laughing and re-taking of my picture three times by the photographer who saw the pictures on a monitor.  She eventually put me in the most unnatural position ever, had me crane my upper body one way, tilt my head down, and then look up off to the side.  It felt so weird.  It was so weird.

It doesn't look like a totally unnatural position when you look at it here, but my legs were pointing out behind me. I especially like the way my chin bunched up because she had me look down, and the way my eyes are pointing different directions because I was confused about which direction I was supposed to be looking.  I have chameleon eyes, did you know?  Mitch insists that I give him one of the wallet-sized ones and write something meaningful on the back.  "Hey Mitch!  You're AWESOME!  We should totally get together and party this summer!  BFFs 4EVA!  Love, Your wife!

Beauty is in the eye tooth of the beholder

Mitch and the kids and I went to see that movie Here Comes the Boom with Kevin James as a teacher who goes on the ultimate fighting circuit to raise money for his school.  It wasn't a good movie, but the kids liked it.  Salma Hayek was in it and was gorgeous as usual.  I said something about how pretty she is on the way home, thinking Mitch would be all over that and he said, "Her teeth are weird.  It's like her molars are only about a millimeter long."

He sees a picture like the one above and now I know that he's not looking at anything but her back teeth and judging her negatively on their shortness.  Luckily for Mitch and I, my back teeth are looooooong..... ooo baby.....