We've reached the time in the school year when I get really exhausted.  We're really busy all day, then I have after school coaching that I have to stay for, sometimes, until 5:30 or 6:00.  I got up on the grumpy side of the bed today and I feel like I'm gonna rip somebody's head off (of course, not literally, but I'm sure you know what I mean ...).  I'm tired of asking kiddos that I'm coaching to turn in permission slips so they can ACTUALLY PARTICIPATE in Saturday's event.  I'm tired of working practices around kids' myriad other commitments.  Hey, I know we all want it all, but at some point we need to teach you to prioritize your commitments so next time around, it's gonna be "fish or cut bait, kids ..." I'm tired of telling the same kids for the 100th time not to play games on the 'puters in the liberry.  I'm tired of telling the same kids that if they're going to "study" as loudly as they are (largely having a friggin' party like it's a friggin' pub) that they should move to a table outside on the terrace.  

Previous to tonight I haven't been a very good furniture shopper.  Two spring breaks ago I was charged with buying sofas for S/O's and my condo in Honolulu.  I ended up paying $1200 for sofas that were worth only about $250-$300.  Needless to say, the experience made me feel less than great about myself.  It was a big painful lesson learned.  Recently, I've been looking for two pine armoires to hold my clothes and I turned to Craig's List.  I found a pretty nice pine armoire for $150 that was a really good buy.  Tonight, however, S/O and I picked up a second armoire that is of MUCH better quality.  It's solid (and heavy) as hell and we got it for ... $40!!!  The owner just wanted to get rid of it.  Apparently a good number of people had come to see it, but because it was so danged heavy there were no actual takers for it.  Well ... It now has a new home!!! 

Yay for Craig's List and used furniture!!!

I went out for dinner with some co-workers last night.  Now, I'm not the most sociable person on the planet, city, block, faculty ... Let's just say that I don't present myself well in groups where I don't know the other people very well and it wouldn't surprise me at all if the term "socially awkward" has passed the lips of multiple colleagues when describing me to others ...  Anyway, I've come to realize that, being a tad socially awkward tends to make one into Bubble Boy--I'm totally not plugged into the good gossip and I don't have even the vaguest sense of what colleagues' opinions about one another might be.

In a lot of ways, being Bubble Boy is kind of a good thing (though being socially awkward ... not so much). Every once in a while, though, it is MOST FASCINATING to venture out of my bubble and find out what the world outside is thinking.

It's nice to know, for example, that other people keep a mental list of co-workers that they'd vote off the island in a heartbeat if given the chance because it doesn't make me feel as bad about mine (though, from the conversation I suspect that I might be the only one who keeps an actual physical list ... ha, ha, ha ... just kidding ... sort of ...).  It's also distressing, though, to think that you might be on someone else's top four (actually, I'm sure that I'm probably in the top two of at least one person's list, but he's a total bag of intestinal gas so being on his list is something I can live with ...). At work, I try to pretend that I'm a nice person, but you know it is REALLY HARD to fake that kind of thing for as long as I've been working at the place.

Anyway, the upshot is that it was fun and I'm a Bubble Boy ...  

Every Tuesday and Thursday, Scooter Kitty and I take part in early morning swim sessions with a bunch of other co-workers.  We get into the outdoor pool (which thankfully is heated since it can sometimes get as cold as the 40s even in La La Land) at about 6:20 and we swim until about 7:15 or so. What is really nice is that our school has faculty locker rooms and they even provide clean towels for us to use (pretty crazy, huh?). 

Anyway, here's the thing ... Most of the time the place is pretty clean, but I guess men being men there are times when it crosses the line into grossness.  This morning I got into the locker room, changed into my swim gear and got going with my swim.  Nothing seemed much out of the ordinary and the locker room was in normal civilized human being locker room condition.  After finishing my swim I entered the first of the double-doors to the locker room and I was greeted by the very distinct smell of gym clothes in VERY BAD need of a LONG dance with some 2X Ultra Concentrated Tide with Febreze! 

OMFG!!!

Talk about RIPE!!!  Thankfully, whoever belonged to the togs had left by the time I returned to the locker room and wasn't there.  As curious and I am about who the offensive togs belong to you should know that there was NO WAY IN HELL that I was going to touch any of the togs left sprawled on the locker room bench in order to find out!!!  Geez, though ... I just CANNOT believe that someone actually allowed that set of clothes to touch their epidermis!!!  OMFG!!! GROSS!!! 

Ewwwwwwww!!!

Honestly (and this is NOT hyperbole for entertainment value, but the honest truth), I literally threw up a little in my mouth before catching my self and forcing myself to breath through my mouth!!!

Ewwwwwwww!!!

I successfully finished my shower without gagging any further, but ...

Ewwwwwwww!!!

And just so all of you know, I NEVER shower in locker rooms without my trusty flip flops

(or slippers if you  are reading this in Hawaii).  Because ...

Ewwwwwwww!!!

If people will wear clothing that smells like that who KNOWS what they have on them when they get in that shower!

Ewwwwwwww!!!

clipped from www.towleroad.com Grief Via National Geographic: "Cameroon—At the Sanaga-Yong Chimpanzee Rescue Center, more than a dozen residents form a gallery of grief, looking on as Dorothy—a beloved female felled in her late 40s by heart failure—is borne to her burial."

Do you ever scratch your head and wonder how our economy got so messed up so (seemingly) fast?  I do.  I just finished watching an episode of PBS's Frontline and, apparently, it didn't happen overnight and the Clinton Administration and Alan Greenspan would seem to have some 'splaining to do ...

This one is very much worth an hour of your time! 

I don't know about the rest of you, but all of the crazy (think ... The Balloon Boy saga), angry (think ... Witnesses to crimes in LA apparently being knocked off), and just plain sad (think ... 97 Year old woman homeless and living in a Chevy Suburban in California) news has been making me feel like I need to get into bed and curl up into the fetal position for about a month. 

Fortunately, sometimes there is good news to share and this is one example.  Stories like this give me hope and remind me that most teenagers out there truly are nice kids who want to do nice things ...

Why is ABC trying to do Betty in by moving her to Friday nights?  Who the hell is home (other than me, of course) to watch tv shows on Friday nights?  Why do they want to kill Betty?  Why??  Why???  

clipped from www.latimes.com Woman, 97, has a front seat to homelessness Bessie Mae Berger and her two sons, 60 and 62, live in a rusty 1973 Suburban. Getting a place is hard because they insist on staying together. Bessie Mae Berger sleeps in the front seat of the 1973 Chevolet Suburban she shares with sons Larry Wilkerson, 60, and Charlie Wilkerson, 62. Among the items on the dashboard: lottery tickets. (Ricardo DeAratanha / Los Angeles Times) She's 97 years old and homeless. Bessie Mae Berger has her two boys, and that's about all. She and sons Larry Wilkerson, 60, and Charlie Wilkerson, 62, live in a 1973 Chevrolet Suburban they park each night on a busy Venice street. For the most part, it's a lonely life -- days spent passing the time away in public parks, parking lots and shopping centers around the Westside. Occasionally, when they need cash, Bessie sits by the side of the road and seeks handouts. She holds a cardboard sign in her lap: "I am 97 years old. Homeless. Broke. Need help please."

Retreat ... That means RUN AWAY!!!  RUN AWAY!!!  SAVE YOURSELF!!!

Okay ... It isn't really THAT kind of a retreat, but Scooter Kitty and I went on "retreat"--camping with 200 young people.  On our agenda, four fun-filled days and three fun-filled nights in luxury cabins (not being facetious ... truly lovely high end luxury cabins) with one night tent camping at a nearby beach, a crazy cool ropes course, and an amazing sounding sea kayaking experience.  Best laid plans, however, sometimes go awry ... 

40-hours of continuous driving rain falling nearly vertically meant ... Tent camping. Ropes course. Sea Kayaking one two-and-a-half hour hike in the driving rain which the kids and I actually LOVED doing, LOTS of cabin time, LOTS and LOTS and LOTS of trust and team building games (which in small doses can sometimes inspire one want to want to sit in a circle and sing Kumbaya or This Land is Your Land, but when administered in copious doses makes one's head feel like it will implode ...), one short walk to the beach through a grove of poison oak, a showing of Kung Fu Panda projected onto the roof of a huge tent (which was rather drive-in like and quite enjoyable ... even with two skunks running about outside the tent), and a few hours of board games.  Long story short, going on retreat in the rain with 200 youngsters is ... REALLY A LOT OF VERY HARD WORK with a very tiny amount of fun mixed in.

Enjoyable parts included:

• a group of kiddos who were troupers and very nice to one another ...
  
• sitting in the camp store eating Hagen Daz ice cream with Scooter Kitty and CZ while turning kids away from the "off limits" zone (sorry, but age has it's priviledges) ...
  
• hiking in a driving rainstorm ...
  
• laughing about 8th grade girls who try to cook instant mac and cheese in the microwave without adding water which tends to make one's cabin a very smoky place ...
• the five doe and one buck that went running across side of the canyon as we ate breakfast in the rain ...
• My Big Fat Greek Wedding on the bus ride to and Princess Bride on the bus ride back ...
  

Scariest part:

• hollering at 8th grade boys who take it upon themselves to attempt to reset the circuit breakers on their cabin while they stand in a big puddle in the driving rain (apparently they haven't gotten to the physical science unit on electricity just yet ...) ...

Annoyingest part:

• putting wet shoes onto dry feet and socks ...
  
• "princesses ..." I only had one, but say your prayers for Scooter Kitty who had more than her share ...
• cabin fever ...
• psycho bus driver dude who drove us up to the camp went off on me after we offloaded the kids because one of them had pulled the friggin sun shade down and "now it's broken." I gently tugged it down and it sprang back into place. I'm a teacher and we had lessons in college on how to use big pull-down maps so while the whole "sun shade" thing was completely different, I used my professional problem-solving skills to get the job done. Apparently, though, he didn't like that I fixed it without his permission which set him off even more.  Seriously, sitting on my butt and driving in traffic all day would make me very tightly wound, but if you have that temperament, maybe you should have studied a bit in school and gone into another profession.  Truly, don't really have to be THAT all bright to be a competent teacher so I'm guessing that you were just a bit too lazy during your school years ... Yes you provide an important service, but your company charges us an assload of money and I'm thinkig that you wouldn't treat a non-school customer so damned disrespectfully ... As one of my 8th graders would say, "You are SUCH an anus!!!" ...
  

Thankfully, the skool gives us Friday off so we can sleep in tomorrow!!!