I saw him, just once, and knew I had to meet him

20 years ago Richard and I walked down the aisle. Not together, of course. My father walked me down, with tears in his eyes. I couldn't look at my hubby to be for fear of giggling.

I crossed my left hand over to him so he could slide the ring on (actually I think there was some shoving involved). I tried to put the ring on his right hand! I figured that since I had crossed my arm over, so should he. Heh. I thought (just for a nanosecond) he was trying to pull out of the marriage. Still cracks me up.

We've had our ups and downs (like a roller coaster- what movie is that from, dangit?) as you do, and we had some moments in our life that I'm glad we'll never go back to, and some I can re-live in my mind a thousand times and still smile. We have our private jokes that make us giggle. We have three wonderful children.
He's like my chocolate- I cannot be without him for long. My friends tease me about it. That's okay. I just smile. When so many people get divorced, some more than once, I wonder why they can't be more like us. I guess we were made for each other.

I love you, Darling. Here's to 50 more!

Did someone say Cookies?

Polygons, a 100 word story

I've decided to try my very 1st 100 word story, ala Ellison.

Anna stepped outside, her re-breather hissing quietly in the background. She was frustrated with her math homework. Side angle side, limits, Pythagorean Theorems. Why did basic math have to be so hard?

Her life was full of hard things- rocks, extreme temperatures, everything red.

She lived in a half-sphere, with triangular windows, perfect circles for glove-tips for repairing the outside of her dwelling.Her clothes were boringly tubular, no curves to show off her curves- no one to show then to, either! Dammit!

Even the ground outside was geometric- polygons everywhere!
Life on Mars sucked for a teenager!

Click on the picture to travel to Mars...

3 Doors Down

Woohoo! The new 3 Doors Down Album came out. We have it, of course. I'm giving it a listen now. I found this website, where you can listen to some of it.
You should go buy it.
Now. Go!
Why are you still here?

hmmm.

I saw a lady at the gym the other day, on one of those Elliptical Machines. If you do 'em right, they'll kick your ass. She was moving rather sedately, reading a book. I instantly saw a LOL caption below her:

"Exrciz- yur doin it rong"

Island Salad

I had a really great time Saturday, even getting quite drunk on Chocolate Vodka. There must have been some strange Brain waves going around, since three people had the Chocolate Goodness. Zonker (YAYYY!) even brought Cherry Vodka to mix with it. Mmmmmmm. Ellison and SWMBO came, much to our delight, and we decided to trade recipes- Island Salad for that Wonderful Cake he brought. I tried to email it to them, but I don't have his address. If you see him, tell him to stop by here and get the recipe. This can be doubled or trebled or quadrebled quite easily.

The party was a hit, but I did not make nearly enough of this stuff. Here is my recipe. I got it by watching this really great guy make it when we were in the Bahamas. This is so incredibly easy to make, but comes out so very, very fresh.

6 tomatoes, somewhat firm
1 medium onion
3 bell peppers, I like to use different colors to make it prettyful, Red and orange give it a milder flavor than the green
limes
oranges
sea salt, or kosher, 'tis up to you
pepper- I use jalapeno, but habenero rocks,too.
3-4 cans minced clams

You can spend much time slicing and dicing all the veggies, or you can pulse them in a food processor. I do each veggie separately and make sure I don't over-do the pulse. I put the veggies in a colander (you have several of those, don't you, Ellison?) to drain thoroughly. It's important to get the liquid out, since you'll be adding citrus back in later.
I put 3-4 cans of minced clams in there to drain as well.

I chop the jalapeno by hand, adding a liberal amount of sea salt to the mix to release the flavor and heat, Scovilles, anyone?

Mix it all up in your favorite bowl, and then add the juice of several limes and at least 3 oranges. Taste and add heat and salt as needed.

Chill and serve with the beverage of your choice.

Voila!
Holder

Babble babble babble

So we're on Day 3 of Virus 2008. We have runny noses and general malaise and lethargy. Can you have both of those at one time, you ask? You can if you're five and eat little of nothing to begin with.
I'm busy trying get the house ready for Saturday. I've ordered mild weather- Sunny, but not hot. It looks like it will be delivered on time.

If you know me and know where I am, consider yourself invited to the BBQ. We're celebrating our 20th Wedding Anniversary. At least drunk dial us.

It is currently 63 degrees here, in the middle of May. At least the house will get a good airing out.
Speaking of airing out, on the way home this morning ( I actually made it to work for about 2 hours before having to leave) Re-Pete sneezed, coughed, and farted all at the same time. Then said, "Ewwww, that stinks" and then giggled at herself.

Whilst I'm babbling about nothing in particular, I had a dream the other night that there were these two people- broccoli people, that were chasing me while I was at the county fair. I was standing by the dart throw when I saw them. They were Very Tall, as some broccoli people are, I guess. They were hybrids, not the short fat kind, but the tall skinny kind- Rapini, I think. I remember on had a fuchsia top. Not a shirt, but her/it's flowery part was fuchsia. I was a little jealous that she had that color and I didn't. Someone standing beside said she looked "pretty cool." I turned around to run off.... and that's all I remember.

Now, I know dreams have hidden meanings. Do you guys (all 3 of you) have any thoughts as to what my dream might mean?

Antibodies and entero viruses

I learned something new today. Entero viruses can affect more than one part of your body, apparently. Re-Pete has tonsillitis (swollen tonsils) due, probably, to an entero virus. I thought it was the entero virus that gives you diarrhea and the pukes. Now, it can also give you a sore throat.

Ewww.

Which led, of course, to a discussion on why viruses only make you sick once and the role of antibodies in your bodies. No funny quips this time, drats. Pete's usually good for a funny quote, she just thought the information for the antibody would be kept in the brain, I guess because that's where memories are kept. Makes sense. But of course, antibodies are proteins and the instructions or "memory" for those are stored in your DNA.

Man, I'm smart, huh? Mayhaps we need a refresher from Dr. Doches. Haven't seen her in a while. Maybe I can get her to do a post on memories in the body.

Makes a Certain Kind of Sense

You just never know what will come out of my children's mouth. This time it was Pete. The conversation went something like this:

Pete: Do Chickens eat worms?
Mom: I'm not sure. They do on TV but that that doesn't make it real. I know they eat grains.
Re-Pete: Birds (pronounced bo-wuds) eat worms.
Pete- Some birds eat dead things. Like vultures. If you lay really still they'll come peck at you.

...... Bou blink .....

Mom: I'm pretty sure you have to have that dead-smell for them to peck at you.
Pete: Or if your hugging a dead person outside and get that smell on you and then you lay down really still.

...... crickets chirping in the silence....

Mom: Maybe so.


Reminds me of a shirt my sister used to have:

If you can Dazzle 'Em with Your Brilliance,

Baffle 'Em with Your Bullshit.

Expanding her vocabulary

Re-Pete learned a new word today. From of the boys at school.

Sex. She doesn't know what it is, "but boyfriends and girlfriends do it"

Great.

My babies are leaving the nest.

Literally. The baby birds that are nesting under the back porch are learning to fly. I can't believe how big they've gotten!

I know they're crappy pictures, but it was late afternoon and all I had was my cell phone.

There are six birds total I think. I picked them up to put them back in their nest. And no, it's not true about the Momma killing the babies if you touch them. If your hands are dirty or you squeeze too tight that'll be enough to do the trick.

I'll tell you one thing- there's not much room left in that nest!

Ack!

The day started out quite well, no blood or whining, we left on time, got to work on time. Then a teacher told me about a new policy- "credit recovery". Students with a 65-69 average can come in during post planning and complete an assignment to get those extra points.

I have a twitch in my right now.

It doesn't matter all the other stuff that we have offered and the student hasn't taken advantage of- in the last 15 and a half weeks of school.: extra credit, extra time, retake quizzes for full credit, correct tests for half credit, tutoring, progress reports, Saturday school. We are only supposed to give work for excused absences. But now we are required to give this recovery work.

I know- I'm taking Thursday and Friday off, but I'm coming in on Saturday for 14 hours to make up the time- I won't lose and sick leave that way, I can "recover" my hours.

At what point are students held responsible for their own actions?
God, I am so sick of this.

Checkit:

Students will rise to your level of expectations. If you lower your expectations, students will not have so far to rise. Kids are kids. It is total BS to give them yet another chance. I don't even want to hear about that "one student who'll pass" That kid will pass anyway, because he/she will do the work all along.


And while I'm at it, at some point in your life you figured out that you are part of a community, and that there are acceptable behaviors and unacceptable behaviors. Like, don't spit on a sidewalk, people walk there. Or, you can't solve all of your issues with violence. You have to learn to use your words, and to hear the words of others. I have a junior who has really gone off half-cocked over some horse-playing. The horse playing had been fine for several days, then Bam, it's not and the Junior is charging the freshmen and won't back off until the freshmen gets hit and pushed. Both students got the same consequence, but the Junior just won't stop. To the point where there will be more consequences. Freakin' Drama Queen. Go ahead and hit the kid so we can send your ass to jail so we can finish the year in peace, fer' crying out loud.

Bunny Speak

Last weekend Re-Pete was a super spy, complete with gadgets,(I tried to put a link to Hubby's site to the picture of her gadgets stuck to his back but alas...)

This weekend she was a bunny. Complete with bunny language:



"Boing Boing" means "I love You"



and



"Ching Ching" means "Watch me"



Heh, what will she think of next?

Curiosity

I had to go to the doctor the other afternoon, seems I've developed a case of the galloping cruds in my sinus passages. Antibiotics were called for, and since I'm still not Queen of the World, I have to go to the doctor for all my bacteria popping goodies instead of just getting the prescription called in.

My doctor works with her husband in the same building. He's OB/GYN she's a general practitioner. It's kinda fun to try and guess which door the people waiting in the chairs will get called from. You know- is she pregnant or sick? Oh, I bet she's just having a Pap today and so forth. Then the teenage couple walks in looking lost, and we know she's pregnant, right?
I'm a people watcher for sure, just can't help myself. I like knowing information about people, it makes them more real, I guess.

And no, I'm not a busy body, I'm just curious.