Think Wicked Witch of the West

I'm melting! Meeeeellllltiiiiiiiiiing! Oh, what a world, what a world!

OK, not that bad. But teaching on the third floor is simply an exercise in [chemistry? physics?] today: Hot air rises. It's 7:30 a.m. and already 80 degrees outside. Girls wear their shortest and strappiest clothing, and I may have to let a lot of it slide. Eyes will droop with lethargy. I will do my best, but I can't quite fathom how I can get my students enthralled about literary and poetic terms when they can't think straight in our bad-kind-of-sauna classroom. On a Friday. With three days of classes to go. Truly this constitutes a day when all dedicated teachers should get Oscars, because boy, do we have to put on a show to get them interested when all we want to do is go home and sit in the dark in front of a fan with a tall, cool glass of [insert favorite summertime beverage here].

This morning the seniors have their picnic and SADD (the DD now stands for "destructive decisions", BTW) stages a car explosion/crash and simulates a drunk driving accident. Any minute now we'll hear said explosion. Apparently the cops come, the fire trucks come, and students "die" and are taken away, all to show what happens when you drink and drive. This weekend they have prom, so you can make the connection. One colleague said she worried that the kids would get jaded about it but every year they don't, which I find terrific and sadly necessary. Everyone goes through their lives with a story of someone they knew having that happen, and I hope this type of demonstration allows for fewer stories.

So off I go to prepare the kids for talking about allusions, archetypes, irony, oxymorons, and the like. Whee! Friday fun day! Thank God for linen dresses and in-laws with pools. Have a great weekend, folks!

p.s. M., I did not mean to neglect the lovely time I had last weekend in Albany/Ellenville with you and C's family. I will post about it soon. It will work better if you send me some pictures....

Did it work this time? My picture?

Mosaic of Me (thanks, FN and Domesticali!)

I got this idea from feather nester, who got it from Domesticali and thought it was fun. I'll list the questions below and how to do it. Funny enough, when I put in my first name, that's the girl who came up. And I'm really not sure about ol' Jake anymore but I couldn't think of anyone else.



Here's how you play:
a. Type your answer to each of the questions below into Flickr Search.
b. Using only the first page, pick an image.
c. Copy and paste each of the URLs (right click on the image, choose properties, then the image URL) for the images into Mosaic Maker.

Here are the questions:
1. What is your first name?
2. What is your favorite food?
3. What high school did you go to?
4. What is your favorite color?
5. Who is your celebrity crush?
6. What is your favorite drink?
7. What is your dream vacation?
8. What is your favorite dessert?
9. What you want to be when you grow up?
10. What do you love most in life?
11. What is one word to describe you.
12. What is your flickr name? (If you don't have one, use whatever you usually use for a user name)

Memorable Memorial Day

Well, I couldn't have had a better Memorial Day weekend, in my opinion. Friday I graded (gross but necessary) and got in some quality plunking time (on the couch, in bed with a book, etc.). Saturday we went whole hog and had Mom and R. out to help us with our backyard--R. brought a chainsaw and shovels, so he and T. did many manly things with cutting down tree limbs and unearthing an old stump that became our new fire pit. DH is VERY excited about this, as well he should be.

Here's how economical and green we did things: We used the organic material from the stump as one level of dirt for my new, tiny vegetable garden! We had a bunch of old tree trunk parts to use as the border, dug up the soil, laid the organic stuff on that, add a dash (OK, a lot) of peat moss and cow manure, add plants and water, and hopefully I'll send future shots of my gorgeous little tomatoes and peppers. Either that, or I'll send pictures of my brown and dead efforts, lamenting the fact that I didn't put the garden in full enough sunlight or something. Seriously, the four of us had such fun weeding and cutting and creating. As Mom says, gardening works so well because it's instant gratification: When you weed, you immediately see a difference. She directed me and we did quite a good job, only flinching after R. pointed out that we had poison ivy growing near one of our trees. Thus, I am saving money for the future, AND I got the plants at the farmer's market, so it goes from pretty local to backyard-local. Plus we used all the weeds and sticks as fuel for the fire. Not bad, I say.

Once a stump, soon to be a fire pit

See what I mean?

My wee garden!

Sunday must have rocked, because I can't even remember what we did--oh yes, nice, slow day doing more puttering in the yard and getting full use of the new hammock. Oh, and while I biked around town (exercise, no gas, no emissions--can you tell I feel a little proud of this? I do. I totally do.), DH went and bought me a present: A red wheelbarrow ("So much depends..." for you William Carlos Williams fans out there). It's not every woman whose husband buys her a wheelbarrow that she'll actually use. I did get excited: This is one of many reasons why we're together. DH got to use his fire pit that very night as we entertained, and I have to report there's something very satisfying about sitting around enjoying something you created, no matter what that something is. Life doesn't get much better than this, my friends.

Monday I did a bunch more grading (again, gross) and that evening we went to Mom and R.'s for an absolutely delicious dinner that we did not have to cook, although I did ring in summer officially by making gazpacho. Just cutting up the cilantro and parsley made me decide to have a small indoor herb garden when winter comes: I loved the smell of fresh cut greenery!

If You Never Watched Beverly Hills, 90210, Skip This Post

Truly, Papa, just ignore it. You won't like it. It has to do with 90s TV you disliked intensely.

For the rest of you, have you seen this? It's the NEW 90210.



I think the Fug Girls put it best in their post at NY Mag, but seriously, can we please find something new to watch instead of more of the same old crap? At the same time, I may find myself watching an episode or two in order to know what my students are watching, laugh myself silly, and stare in that can't-tear-my-eyes-away, train wreck kind of way. For those of you who admit to having watched Nip/Tuck because it's so completely voyeuristic and trashy (I have, on occasion, for that reason), I think the one chick was on the show, mainly dressed as a Catholic schoolgirl tart who liked to entrap older men in her web of young sexiness. Yuck. I can only assume she'll reprise that kind of role on this new show.

At least they got Kelly Taylor--possible Dylan McKay showing???? Oh, he was sooooo dreamy!

Separated at birth?

My friend L. made the comment that Penny looks like Fizzgig from The Dark Crystal. You be the judge:

Taking your time

So as I looked at my iGoogle page today, I scrolled down to see my latest eHow: How to Get Started in the Slow Food Movement. Well, first of all I had to see what Slow Food meant: Basically and simply, it's the opposite of fast food and has to do with taking time to eat food that's good, clean, and fair. This means no more fast food, pre-packaged, chemically- and DNA-enhanced foods. It means buying from your local farmer's market instead of getting something that came thousands of miles by plane, truck, and who knows what else. It means taking time to actually cook and grow your own food when possible. Really, it espouses what a lot of us have tried to do already--and thanks to my sister C., I will soon plant my own tiny vegetable garden complete with tomatoes, red onions, zucchini, sweet peppers, and hot peppers. That's all I got this past weekend at the farmer's market; I may even get more if things go well, but I don't want to go crazy. She's also informed me how to make my own compost heap, which greatly excites me. It all goes along with the Slow Food movement. If you check out the site, a lot of places have "conviviums" where like-minded slow-foodies get together and discuss...how to eat, buy, and grow more slowly, I guess. I've already found one in my general area, so I may check it out.

It's all about what Crunchy Chicken and Feather Nester have written about lately, in a way. I think it all comes down to slowing down and taking stock of what we have. Now, I'll admit freely, I do love the convenience of a Lean Cuisine sometimes. I do. Call me a hypocrite if you will, but I do what I can to make my little changes, and I love to cook, so if I can incorporate good, healthy, local/organic food with minimal prep time, I'll be the happiest camper in the world. And if you have any suggestions as to how to do this, please let me know.

Here's my real question: How do you buy local/organic, Weight Watcher-friendly, non-expensive food and put it together in a fairly simple, timely way? Riddle me that, folks. Ooh, ooh, and it can't always be salad. Any thoughts? Want to help me put that cookbook together, Savory and Sweet, after your current one? Seriously, I'd love to hear any of your thoughts!

P.S. If you go to the eHow page and scroll to the bottom, it always has "thing you'll need". The first one listed? Time. I got a kick out of that, on several levels.