Still here!

OK, I know, I know, I’ve been negligent. A private school teacher who also coaches and has less than a month before her wedding has little time to blog, but I admit I could be better. Wait until a month from now—I’ll have much more time!

I will quickly say that I just had a milestone birthday (thank you all who sent love and good wishes!) and had a blast. I think I can be thirty and flirty. Just not with the students. Anyway, I will say that this past weekend family friends threw DF and I an engagement party/30^th for me that involved dear friends from the area, great food and conversation…and videos of my third and fourth grade plays, along with a video of the one good friend’s 10^th birthday party. God, we were such awkward little things. I knew it would happen; her stepdad’s threatened for years. I would have been disappointed had he not done it, really. Funny enough, my hair now has that same shade of blonde as at ten…with $50 worth of help from my hairdresser.

Vacation starts this weekend. This means I have two free weeks to do the last-minute planning for the wedding, which gets closer every day! I think my mom’s more nervous than I am; should I be more so? I refuse; the wedding will go just fine, the guests will have food, drink, dancing, and a place to sit, and I will be married to the man I love most of all, so I think that’s all good. She does better at the details anyway; at least that’s how I look at it. Practical or ostrich-like? Still not sure.

Oh, and we got our marriage license! We’re legit to wed! Although I will say I’ve found out this whole change-maiden-name-to-middle-name has waaay more complexity to it than I ever dreamed. How sexist and red-tapey. But I want to do it because I get a kick out of that fact that I’ll be KFC. I plan on taking a picture of myself in my dress in front of said eatery. How many brides get to do that?

Difficult Day

I was going to write this spirited blog about letter writing and how it’s fallen by the wayside and we should try to rejuvenate the whole practice, but it got erased. I’ll get to it later, because I really do want to comment about it…ironically through a blog.

But today was a hard day, so if you’ve had a hard or sad day, give this entry a pass for now. This morning I went to a funeral for the eleven year-old brother of one of my students. It was a tragic accident that I don’t really know the details of, but I know it happened quickly and ended in the hospital three days later. I never knew him but the girl is a real sweetie and she always livens up the class. A friend and mother told me it’s a parent’s worst nightmare to outlive their kids. I can see why, of course.

The service had such a mixture of tragedy, beauty, and laughter, for I realize that a funeral not only allows those who lost to grieve but it also serves as a celebration of a life, however short. The priests all knew him well from his involvement as an altar boy at his church, and they sent such a message of love, that we would all become better people for having known this boy and hearing about his ready smile, quick wit, and excitement for life. And I actually do feel a little better for knowing someone like that touched so many lives and managed to touch mine as well, just by hearing all of these stories about him. On the one hand, I found it heart-wrenching to see his fellow classmates walk in—they all had looks of disbelief on their faces, replaced with a raw realization of death as they walked out. On the other hand, they all have such great memories of him that they can allow those to influence their own lives. I felt such conflicting feelings: It kept going through my head how terrible it was that we all had to pack a church to support the family and friends of a little boy, but the fact that they didn’t have enough seats for all the mourners serves as a testament to him and his entire family.

I think tonight when I go to my future cousin-in-law’s art opening and watch the hockey game, my interactions with everybody will seem sharper, brighter, and more significant. I won’t go through the night passively; I’ll focus on the colors, the sounds of laughter, the taste of cold water in a glass, the feel of DF’s hand in mine. Maybe I’m just trying to say that these little moments that we don’t even think about make up a life, long or short, and we need to make the most of them and be aware of them.

Five Senses Friday:

Sound: A DVD of this little boy sweetly singing “It’s All Right to Cry” in a school play

Sight: The world through the lens of my new camera! Thanks for the tip, Mogs!

Smell: The spicy tomato soup I made the other night

Taste: Ditto the soup

Touch: The mink-like feel of our new blanket from the latest wedding shower—so soft!

Eye-Opening Video

Hi peeps--it's been the usual, grading papers and wedding planning. Sorry I've been so reticent in posting.

However, I did want to mention this. We're eventually going to have all the students have laptops at my school and today in Tech class we watched a fairly amazing video, which I've linked to here called "Shift Happens". Check it out--it's mindboggling what kind of world we are actively living in. It boggles my mind that when I'm 80 I'll be able to look back on this sort of technological explosion. P.S. Watch it with the sound on--great music from Last of the Mohicans.

Now that we're shoveled out....

Whew! Finished the papers, for now. Now I think I have about a week break before the next slew come in. Next year I will be a lot better about scheduling these things….

So I said I’d give the update! Well, I can’t believe I haven’t before now, considering we’ve had so much time off due to weather and holidays. We were out AGAIN on Wednesday due to snow! Truly, the driving was awful—it took me ten minutes to get off our little street, which they never plow. Thursday morning the only reason I got out at all was because our neighbor across the street saw I was having trouble, backed up his car, and he and his two young boys pushed me out. What a good-Samaritan act! I have to get them some cookies or something; they really didn’t need to help me. It renews my faith in humanity in a world filled with contested Anna Nicole Smith wills and shaved rehab-bound pop star heads.

Well the wedding dress fit fine—so well that they don’t even have to shorten it; just bustle it. Guys, that just means that during the reception it’s pulled up a little in the back so it doesn’t drag the ground, subjecting me to dirt and ill-placed high heels of guests. Other minor millinery adjustments in the back must be made, but nothing major. So that’s out of the way, and my wonderful mom stuffed all the envelopes! And peeps, you don’t mind if there’s a bar code across the bottom, do you? The post offices don’t have time, they say, to hand cancel all of them (they really do have to do each invitation by hand to not have that code), so forgive me for being gauche.

The wine shower, oh, the wine shower. If anyone you know is getting married or having a birthday, I highly suggest one. Guests were asked to bring wine or “wine accoutrements” and boy, did they. We have a fully stocked wine rack, a gorgeous bottle of Möet, good tequila, good bourbon, one of those rabbit things (vacuum sealer), wine glasses, and a joke bottle of Wild Irish Rose. The last sits on our mantel with its fellow bottle of Courvoisier and a package of Kools, which I received those last year when working in the public schools. They’re the shiz-nit, yo. But anyway, the shower was such fun—this whole getting presents thing is a great gig, I have to say, and we have wonderfully generous friends. My one friend H. and her husband M. (the ones who had the surprise wedding) gave us a bottle of wine for each day of the week with an appropriate, Weight Watcher friendly recipe attached. Who could ask for more? We also had a fairly disparate group who came together and found topics of conversation, which I always find pleasing. Yay new friends!

My next objective is to find fun sites to share with you all like Ouiser does. How do you find these fun places? You must share your secret.

P.S. My Valentine’s Day (last one with my maiden name!) was spent in front of a fire with Norah Jones on the stereo and take-out sushi. Can you top that? I felt it was perfect. I think we might have to make that the tradition—until we have kids and feel a desperate need to get out of the house.

Full post soon, promise!

I’m in papers up to my eyeballs, kids. But here’s a breakdown of what’s coming:

- got the wedding dress fitted (won’t be too detailed, men, promise)

- had a lovely wine shower this weekend—our entire rack is now full

- probably something else that will attempt to be witty or at least interesting

Superbowl Ads

Did anyone else think most of them were seriously lacking this year? We also thought there was a large number that had to do with violence or sadness, like the suicidal machine at the car plant (Ford? Chevy?). Kind of downers. Personally, I liked most of the Coke ads the most. AND, the one at the end about the rabid fans being sad that football was over for the season was done by a guy from Buffalo! Still, my favorite is "Terry Tate, Office Linebacker".

Another question: Does anyone else turn up the volume when the commercials come on, as we do, and everyone quiets down so they can hear?

The weather outside IS frightful!

(Picture from the Buffalo News) Well! I get a chance to add an entry because we don’t have school today! Why, you ask? It probably has something to do with getting 2-3 feet of snow in the southern areas of Buffalo, a good six inches in the metro area, and sub-zero wind chill. I scraped off my car last night just in case I had work today and it was FREEZING. We’re talking bitter, bitter cold where hypothermia begins in about five minutes, no exaggeration. I think the best part was realizing yesterday afternoon that our heat was out AGAIN. Fortunately our landlady’s was not, so we camped out in her guest room last night. The heating company tried to give her some rigmarole about low gas pressure on the street, but I just don’t see how it would affect only our apartment. This morning when DF went in to get something, the thermostat registered a balmy 50 degrees. For some reason our heat only conks out on the coldest days possible. It has some twisted sense of humor, I suppose.

Fortunately this gives me a little more time to plan lesson and get some reading done for school—and I kindly e-mailed my students, telling them they were still responsible for turning their papers in (they can post them to our school website) and we’d still have our quiz tomorrow. I know, I’m such a queen. But seriously, they all check their e-mail twenty times a day, so I don’t see many of them claiming the “I never checked it” defense. And, these are pretty conscientious girls, on the whole; I have to give them credit. I just hope they don’t get frostbite trying to ski or snowboard. That’s where the common sense of a teenager sometimes becomes an oxymoron. I plan to stay indoors as much as possible, cozy in my fleece pants and wool sweater!

Feather nester, you are soooooo glad you’re not in Plattsburgh today…. One article even says “Plow drivers are saying it's so cold that the salt isn't working on the roads.” (http://www.wivb.com/Global/story.asp?S=6037543). That's cold, folks. But we love it! Love it! Maybe because we're too cold to realize just how freezing it is??

On a lighter note, I did get shoes for my wedding dress and DF and I chose wedding bands last week. That was actually pretty fun. :-)