And so the day begins....

We're sitting in the hotel lobby. It's 10:45 AM. The busses were supposed to be here at 9:45 AM.

The cut wasn't too deep

Today's trip update:

Yesterday, we took the kids to Muir Woods. One of our boys tripped on a tree root. It only took 7 stitches to close the wound. Unfortunately, he wasn't able to go on to Six Flags with his friends.

Today is our last day. Please pray for us. Our biggest fear is having our red eye flight cancelled and needing to spend the night in the San Fran airport with 83 8th graders. Maybe I shouldn't have mentioned it. I may have given Fate a cruel idea.

Gloom, despair and agony on me....

If it weren't for bad luck, I'd have no luck at all....remember the old "Hee Haw" song? That's my theme these days.

WFH: Spring Break continues:
We showed up at Bubba Gump for dinner on the first night; Bubba Gump had changed our reservation to a different night. We ended up going to Lori's Diner (where we were SUPPOSED to eat tonight). Lori's originally said they couldn't take us because they already had a large group coming in. We finally figured out that large group was US, and that we were going to finally be able to feed 95 hungry people.

I told you we went to the Giants Game yesterday. What I DIDN'T tell you is that when we got there and gave the kids their tickets, they all went skipping off to the gate, only to come promptly running back. "These tickets are for TOMORROW night." The stadium had sent us the wrong tickets. Luckily, we got them changed and had a fabulous time. After the game, we were supposed to have 2 tour busses to take us back to the hotel. Only one showed up. We have 95 people in our group. We had to shuttle two trips of tired adolescents at 11 PM. Luckily they were great!

Today, we were stuffing dim sum down our throats as fast as we could manage (an annual ritual that we quite enjoy) when the tour company called us. Bubba Gump (rescheduled for tonight) was off, because their pipes burst and the restaurant is flooded.

Of COURSE it is. Welcome to my week!

WFH continues....

I just got a call from my pastor, who is watching Peanut for me while I'm in San Francisco. She didn't wake up this morning. She was 15.

What a game!

In case you didn't know, I'm in San Francisco chaperoning the eighth grade Spring Break trip. We went to the opening night Giants game today. The game was awesome, the stadium was awesome and the fireworks show was AWESOME. Made us all realize how much the Marlins organization doesn't get it!

The Week continues.....

So after all the excitement of Sunday morning, I was hoping to get to bed early Sunday night. I went to bed at 9:30 and was a little restless. Then the phone rang at midnight. A friend had gotten into a fight with her husband and needed a place to stay for the night. She came over and we talked it out for 2 hours, then she felt good enough to go home.

Yet another night of little sleep. But it was for a good reason.

WFH Grand Finale (NOT an April Fools joke!)

So I didn't get to recap the rest of my week, but I'll skip right to the ending. It officially ended at 3:49 AM when I woke up to find a strange man in my kitchen.

LONG story short - I yelled, He ran. He took $28 but left my wallet. How considerate. The police finally finished dusting for fingerprints at 5:30 AM. I haven't slept since. Could be because the police said, "He found an easy target. He'll probably be back." Very comforting.

Oh, and I just found out my dog's food is now on the recall list. No wonder she hasn't been eating.

(Insert multiple expletives at a very loud volume here.)

WFHDTDAB, Monday

This has been the "Week from Hell due to Dumb-Ass Behavior." Spring Break starts tomorrow and the kids can't seem to keep it together. It started on Monday with a discipline committee meeting over a student who had been written up about 14 times for different things. He'd served cafeteria duty, detention, and even a Saturday detention just last week. We had a parent conference; he screwed up again about 3 hours later. 3 hours before the discipline committe meeting, he decided he was too tired to actually CARRY his 25 pound bookbag down the stairs, so he just dropped it off his back over the 2nd story balcony railing. No, he didn't look first. YES, it did land on someone's head. No, she's not SERIOUSLY hurt, but she did get hurt. Due to "Dumb-Ass Behavior."

So 3 hours later, we're sitting in a room with the 3 deans, his advisor and another teacher for a meeting that had been scheduled for over a week, pondering how he could A) do something so stupid B) do something so stupid KNOWING that we were having this meeting. After 2 hours of listening to this kid and his parents babble on and say NOTHING of consequence, the committee voted to "separate him from the school." That's Prep school talk for expulsion.

Then I had another hour of talking to the principal, who was a little nervous to kick him out. (Hmmm...I wonder if she was worried that our head of school would be angry, since the parents own a very successful business and had just been invited to a "cultivation" dinner for donations.) The head of school wasn't in a great mood when we called her, because she was in the hospital getting chemo, and was getting a needle inserted RIGHT at the time the principal called. In any case, the expulsion stood, and as hard as it was, it was the right thing to do.

Then came Tuesday.......

Cats in Space

Would you rather live in....

the Star Trek Universe 14% 1 vote
the world of Dr. Seuss 86% 6 votes

I guess maybe I should have specified which Star Trek universe. It may have made all the difference.

I got a raise!

Monday, we had a student switch places with our principal. It's one of the items sold at our annual auction; I have no idea how much his parents paid for him to be able to skip classes. During assembly, he told the kids to untuck their shirts and said he would write up anyone he caught with their shirts tucked in. He also gave them a FULL dress down for Tuesday (which meant jeans and t-shirts. The kids LOVE that and so do the teachers. The best part of the day is that he told the teachers he was giving them all raises. Then he stood outside the auditorium and gave each of us 4 pennies. I gave him a hard time about not springing for the whole nickel. So he gave me another penney. Then he put a stack of 4 pennies in every teacher's mailbox, but somehow, I got 2 stacks. So all in all, I got a 13 cent raise. Not bad considering the week I've had. I'll tell you all about that next time.

Only a Band Director's Kid!

I have a band director friend whose 2nd grade son seems to be having a little trouble playing recorder in music class. A note was sent home that little J needed to practice 20 minutes on his song. Dad sent him into his room to do his work. When he went to check on the progress, he noticed that his son had turned his Spider-Man poster backwards and wrote "Warm Up Room" on the back.

I guess the kid has been around WAY too many festivals lately!

Freakish Alien Arrives!

Got a call Thursday night from R & M in Chicago. The baby formerly known as the Freakish Alien has arrived. Molly Grace was born at 8:06 PM on Tuesday after 36 hours of labor. In true M form, there was heard the phrase "Well. THAT'S a first!" when she had not one, but TWO epidurals, neither of which did the job intended. She ended up going under general anesthesia and having a C section.

The family is home and doing well. It won't be long until that child starts rebelling, I'm sure!

God moments are NICE!

So I'm sitting in small group tonight, discussing Hebrews 3 and what our responsibilities are when holding fellow believers to a higher standard and confronting their behavior when we feel it's destructive or unhealthy. WideDaddy Dave asked us to think about the person that we've created a relationship with whom we trust enough to ask to hold us accountable, and then my phone rang. It was MY "trust buddy." I was thinking SO hard about them that they felt the need to ring in.

HOW FREAKIN' COOL IS THAT?!

More Dwarves.....

I just found this list of names for Goth Dwarves. I love McSweeney's lists!

Who's worse?

So Spring Break officially starts at 3 PM next Friday, 3/30. The kids went on Spring Break officially at 2 PM today. I quickly followed. We're all just dancing around in limbo for the next week or so. Who are we trying to kid?

Multicultural LUNCH!

Since about 90% of the students at my school have parents and/or grandparents who were born outside of the US (and probably 50% of the students themselves!) we celebrate "Multicultural Day" every March. The highlight is that the parents send in native dishes for lunch. Today was an International FEAST! I had Cuban Arroz con Pollo, Jamaica patties, Thai noodles, Indian Curry Chicken, Chinese Won Ton soup, Jewish Keugel, and so many other things that I can't even remember. I was SO mad when the bell rang - I never even got to the dessert table!

WARNING!

It's spring. I'm fried. My mind is mush. I haven't had a date in about 8 years. Just remember that before you read the Dwarves post....

Remember, this whole blog thing started here because Tedley made a comment "I'd like to see what goes on in your mind." Well, there you are!

Seven Dwarves of Porn

So I hear that some good friends of mine were having a spot of fun whilst roaming through the Magical Rat Land in central Florida. It seems they were coming up with possible porn names for the Seven Dwarves. I didn't get to hear them all, but "Snowball" would be a good choice. Either that or "Hot Carl."

OK, never mind....

DON'T drink the Kool-Aid!

Would you rather.....

have a permanent grape Kool-aid mustache 0% 0 votes
have permanent Dorito residue on your fingers? 100% 4 votes

4 votes total

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While I agree that Doritos are finger-lickin' good, I can't help but wonder if the Kool-Aid aversion has anything to do with the Jim Jones cult in Guyana? Just a thought......

San Fran Foodies

Today, the 8th grade Dean (Lamburrito) sent me an e-mail regarding the upcoming annual trip to San Francisco.

My response was "I’m getting excited, although I may STOP eating between now and then to compensate for the food orgy in which we are about to partake."

He wrote back "I hear you. My mouth unfortunately is deaf!!!"

It's going to be a fabulous trip, as always!