Friday Fragments--A Short Overview of My Week

I'm really into the whole "Friday Fragments" thing ... what a great way to do a quick catch-up on the week :-)

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So I got my hair cut last night.

It was kind of interesting because I went through a long phase of really not caring what I look like.  However, the grays were starting to get to me, and I realized that I'm 34 years old and, realistically speaking, the days when I can look really good are limited.  Plus, I'm single and looking, right ;-)?

My hairdresser was great ... I explained that I've decided that I want to start looking good (like, wear my contacts every day instead of my glasses and so on), so I gave her complete artistic license with both the color and the cut.  I'm glad that she didn't go far from my natural hair color, though ...

I was also reminded while trying to take pictures of it so that my friends could all see it via Facebook and Twitter how truly atrocious I am at taking pics of myself.

To wit ...

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On Wednesday, my mother brought Addie and Belle up to visit my sister, brother-in-law, and nephew at their cabin in Maine.  My aunt and her partner were also there along with a lot of other cool people.  I was sorry to miss out, but I had to work in the morning and then had a dentist appointment in the afternoon (my life is currently revolving around dentists between Belle, Addie, and me).

Anyway, a good time appeared to be had by all :-)

On the way home, though, there was a very bad accident on the highway.  My mom and the girls were stuck in traffic for almost three hours ... they were about five minutes from home, but because the accident was so bad there was nothing they could do but wait.

Addie was especially shaken up by this because she is petrified of car accidents, particularly those involving big trucks.  My hearts go out to the victims of this terrible accident, and my thanks go out to whatever higher power exists for keeping my family safe.

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I am loving the summer school gig, even though I grumble about it from time to time.

Last week was especially exciting because I came up with an amazing lesson (actually, I totally stole an amazing lesson that one of my former colleagues did, but of course I adapted it a bit).

We'd been working on sequencing, following directions, and precision of language.  I felt like things were going well until I asked my students to write directions for how to make a peanut butter sandwich and most of the responses were something like:
1.  Put peanut butter on the bread.
2.  Eat it.

So I figured I'd try to come up with a creative way to get the point across ... and thus the robot game was born.  Basically, I brought in a bag of props (ranging from straws to a flyswatter to chocolate syrup), and the kids worked in small groups to give me, "the robot", directions for what to do with the props.

They loved it ... and also learned the very things (directions, sequencing, and precision of language) I'd been trying to get across.  To a child, they were able to articulate what they could have done differently and why some of the directions didn't get the results they'd envisioned because they weren't specific enough.

Regardless, I ended up covered with chocolate syrup, animal cracker crumbs, applesauce, and sticky garbage bags that were intended to protect my clothes.

Here's what happened  ....

Also, I figured I'd let the kids eat the animal crackers that were left over, and one of them found this:

Sometimes you just don't know whether to laugh or cry ;-)
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I noticed that there is a lot of bad stuff going on in New Hampshire this summer when I was reading through some of my recent Zelda Lily pieces.  I'm giving links and short descriptions, and I hope you check them out. Zelda Lily is a very cool site :-) (and not just my stuff, either!).

+ A 34-year-old mother left two bags of doggie doo and a nasty note on the doorstep of a kid her daughter was having problems with.  That sends a great message to a thirteen-year-old, don't you think?  The idea that some parents want to be "friends" with their kids ... it just scares me badly.

+ A little boy was found dead and abandoned on the side of the road.  It took several days before he was identified as Camden Hughes of Texas ... and that evidence points to his mother as the one who killed him.

+ A man was found guilty of the rape of a fifteen-year-old girl in his church congregation ... fourteen years after the fact.  In spite of the guilty verdict, it does not exactly give rape victims a lot of encouragement in terms of coming forward.  The girl's treatment by her congregation was dreadful, and this only underscores the myriad of difficulties faced by rape victims that go beyond the act itself.

+ An Amber Alert was issued for a four-month-old baby in order to capture his father, who was wanted for a crime; there was no evidence that the baby was "missing", and it was in fact known that the baby's mother was also with him.  The idea of such an important tool as the Amber Alert being used in kind of an underhanded way bothered me quite a bit.

+ A young mother disappeared without a trace, her abandoned (and still running) car with her baby daughter in the backseat puzzling the heck out of police.  Turns out the woman was killed as the result of a drug deal gone bad, and she went from a media darling to a publicity pariah overnight.

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Finally, I got over my literary snobbery (again ;-)) and read Suzanne Collins' The Hunger Games trilogy (the other two books are Catching Fire (The Second Book of the Hunger Games) and Mockingjay (The Hunger Games, Book 3).  I highly recommend them and once again wonder why I am so reluctant at times to read books that "everyone" is reading; I almost always end up loving them!  So odd ...

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Hope everyone's had a great week :-)

Friday Fragments #1: Giving it a Try

I'm a huge fan of Mrs. 4444's blog, Half-Past Kissin' Time. One of her regular tidbits is Friday Fragments, which is basically a collection of stuff collected over the past week. I figured I'd give it a try ...

Addie and her best friend tried to make coffee cupcakes from a Tumblr recipe a few weeks ago. The results were disastrous because they used coffee grounds instead of liquid coffee. They went for the redo this week, and they were the best cupcakes I've ever had. They got really into decorating them, too :-)

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Burger King has come out with something called a "Bacon Cheddar Ranch Tendercrisp".  Addie has been salivating ever since, and we had a recent lunch date to indulge in one.

When we went to BK, however, it was like a Saturday Night Live skit.  The cashier was named Phyllis, and her co-workers sounded like crows when they bellowed her name.  Nothing she did made any sense ... like, she would run off to stock lids in the middle of cashiering ... and then someone would squawk, "Phyllis!"

It was ridiculously funny.
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I've been reading a young adult medieval fantasy series geared to boys for the past week.  One of my students recommended John Flanagan's Ranger's Apprentice series, not exactly my usual cup of tea in terms of literature selection, and I haven't been able to stop.  I've slowed down, though, because I'm on the last one ... and I don't want it to end!












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I changed my Facebook status to "single".  I had just left the relationship status part empty, and now it's officially single.  I mean, I've been single for a long time (a long, long time), but I think maybe this means I'm ready to start looking.  Like, in earnest ... not just bemoaning how difficult dating is when you're in your thirties (because, let's face it ... dating is hard at any age).
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Belle started summer camp this week.  She went part-time last year; she was at camp while I was teaching summer school, but I got to spend afternoons and weekends with her.  This year, she wanted to go full-time ... and I miss her terribly.  When I get home from summer school, she's still at camp for several hours, and I'm kind of at a loss.  She loves it, though, which makes it worthwhile.  I suppose ;-)
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Addie sent me this grocery list via Facebook. 

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I'm glad that summer school is only Monday through Thursday (and only three hours).  It is exhausting! 
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My roof is being reshingled.  When I went to go to bed after the first day, it was covered with debris (that's what comes from having your bedroom be the attic of a barn, I guess).  The roofers are decent guys, and the fact that they sing along with the radio (loudly)is especially entertaining.
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I have been having some really strange, extremely vivid dreams this week.  It's odd, because if you can't tell from this list, it's been a pretty dull week.  Maybe that's even why ... I don't know, the whole concept of dreaming is just fascinating to me.

In fact, I wish I was organized enough to keep a dream notebook.  The dream I had last night was like a mystery movie, and I bet I would have had the makings of a new novel if I'd written it down right away.  Now, I can't really remember the details of it at all.  

So How Do You Date When You're 34?

This is me. I am sad. Here's the story ...

I volunteered to chaperone a dance last night for my schooltown's (as opposed to my hometown) youth community center.  It was virtually all middle school kids, and they thought it was more fun to stand around and complain, text each other (when they were in the same gym ... I just don't get it), and try to touch the bottoms of the basketball nets.  My friend Holly was also chaperoning, though, so it could have been worse.

Holly and I knew we would need to go get a drink after the dance ended, so we texted our friend Harry and he agreed to meet us at the restaurant where Holly's husband bartends. It was pretty low-key, but it was nice to hang out with my friends for a bit.

Anyway, I got home and I could not sleep. It was just totally dreadful. I'm an old hat at insomnia, but last night was rough (if you follow me on Facebook or Twitter, you can see how unpleasant I was at one in the morning).

I tried all the tricks--deep breathing, relaxation techniques, shutting the light out, keeping the light on, getting an extra pillow, and so on. It was far too late for pharmaceutical assistance considering that I had to get up with Belle, so I finally just put on my iPod and listened to music.

Worst mistake ever. Now, I love music--it is, in fact, one of my favorite things in the world. For some reason, though, the playlist I had going was heavy on some stuff I don't want to admit having on my iPod, but I guess I need to in order to get this post back on track. We're talking Peter Cetera's "Glory of Love", Howie Day's "Collide", Boston's "Amanda", Sinead O'Connor's "Nothing Compares 2 U", just embarrassing schmaltz like that. It's like my iPod was trying to depress me or something (I did put on the Barenaked Ladies/Chili Peppers/Dave Matthews Band playlist, but it was of course too late by then).

I posted recently about logistical challenges faced by single folks, but last night I got hit hard with the, "Everyone else in the world is happy and with someone and you are alone" pity party. Not a good place to be.

I don't normally go into detail about certain parts of my life, and dating is one of them. Just because somebody hangs out with me does not mean that he should be blog-fodder. The sad thing is, though, that I can pretty much generalize that my dating forays over the past year have involved a) men who think they will get sex on a first date (I don't pretend to be a saint, but this is really almost comical), b) men who drink a lot of alcohol (not that I'm against alcohol, but it's just kind of a collectively large--and therefore noteworthy--amount), and c) men who really don't know what they want out of life. Oh, and let's not forget d) men who are married but still think you will give them sex because you went to high school together or you know their parents or whatever.

Where are the men who are nice and normal? Do they exist in the year 2011? I'm convinced they don't in the northeastern United States, at least.

Bottom line, I am tired of being alone. Last night, when Holly was joking around with her husband about how she wasn't leaving him a tip because it would be like him tipping himself or when Harry was talking about his girlfriend pulling the grays out of his hair when they're in bed at night, I felt lonelier than I've perhaps ever felt in my life.

Man, I need to listen to something uplifting next time--Nirvana, maybe, or Seether. Heeheehee.

Oh, and if you want to make me smile, enter my very cool giveaway :-)

Realization of the Day: The World Isn't Made for Single People

I just got home from my surgery, and as you can probably tell, I've lived to tell the tale. Seriously, it went very well and I'm hoping that the ERCP procedure will ease some of the pain. I did get a little goofy when they started talking about "starting the Propofol" and had to bite back Michael Jackson references, but other than the multiple IV attempts, it wasn't bad.

But the whole situation made me realize the disadvantages faced by single people, a thought that, believe it or not, had never really occurred to me before.

When I went to the gastroenterologist on Friday for an office visit following the agonizing and unspeakable physical pain of Wednesday, I knew I would be having an ERCP (I have chronic pancreatitis that has occasional hellish flare-ups). I assumed that it would be scheduled for next week, which would have been great because it's my school's winter break.

Nope. He wanted to get it done sooner than that, so the procedure was scheduled for Tuesday. Which was fine, although I wasn't thrilled about having to miss work. No, the really stressful part came when the check-out receptionist reminded me that I needed to have someone with me after the surgery to drive me home since I'd be loopy from the anesthesia.

This is the first time something like this has come up since I've been divorced, and it was crazy how shocked I was to realize that, when you're married to someone (or even in a serious relationship), you can say, "Hey, I'm scheduled for surgery on Tuesday, need to have someone with me since I can't drive myself home".

I have a very supportive family, but my mother had a very important meeting scheduled at work on Tuesday that she couldn't miss, and my father and his family are on vacation in Florida this week. My brother has a limited amount of sick time that he needs to save for his own family (although, to be honest, I suspect that he would have brought me if I'd called and asked him directly), and my sister lives in Maryland. Addie and Belle are on vacation this week, so Addie could have taken me ... but how fair is it to make her sit in a hospital waiting room for several hours, never mind trying to keep Belle occupied?

I am also blessed with wonderful, amazing, supportive friends. However, the friends that I would be comfortable asking a favor of this magnitude--and having to put up with me both before the procedure (I could not have coffee this morning ... it was not pretty) and afterwards (when I might well be loopy, to say the least)--all work. Most of them, in fact, work in my school. So, yeah, that wasn't really a viable option.

I spent the weekend really stressed out about this. The thing is, it had to be done; it's not like I had the option of pushing it back. I also hate--HATE--to ask for help. Finally, I put up a Facebook post asking if anyone would be near the hospital on Tuesday and be able to bring me home after the surgery.

And I learned that I also have wonderful, amazing, supportive friends (and family--my aunt was willing to drive down from northern Maine to take me if necessary) on Facebook. A number of people offered to help me out, although what came up as a challenge was that I didn't have specific times. Because the surgery was set up after hours on Friday afternoon and the office was closed on Monday, I did not have a start time to work with. This was further complicated by the fact that my gastro wanted an abdominal ultrasound done before the procedure itself, which I also didn't have a time for when I put up my desperate Facebook post.

As it turned out, the abdominal ultrasound was scheduled for 8:15 and the ERCP for 10:30, so there was a lot of sitting around time in between and I would have felt terrible making someone wait for that long at the hospital (I brought a book, so I was happy as a lark).

What ended up happening was that Addie (and Belle) dropped me off at the hospital early this morning then went back home (Addie had never driven home from the city that the hospital is in, so this was a big success for her), and then my mom left work after her important morning meeting to pick me up and bring me home. She also bought me coffee at Dunkin' Donuts on the way home, which was pretty wonderful :-)

It's funny, though ... my mom had to sign off on all the paperwork because I "can't make any major decisions" until the anesthesia has worn off. I felt like I was twelve or something. I'm not the most crazy-private person in the world, but I would have felt really awkward if one of my friends (or even Addie) had to sign off on my medical papers and assume responsibility for me post-surgery. It was bad enough to have my poor mother have to do it.

And then I got thinking about the people who are not as fortunate as I am, who might not have people willing to help them out in a situation like this. Okay, I don't have a husband (or even a boyfriend) to have the assumption of responsibility for this sort of thing, but I have family and friends that were willing to juggle.

A lot of people don't. So what about these people? Do they just say, "Sorry, guess I can't have the surgery because I don't have anyone to drive me home from"? I think that would be horribly humiliating ... trying to explain that my mommy was coming to pick me up was awkward enough.

There were a couple of other interesting observations from today, most notably the pregnancy test debacle. (TMI Warning) I am currently menstruating, ergo I am not pregnant, and yet they still insisted on doing a pregnancy test. Not to be gross, but the freaking urine sample was, like, tinged with menstrual blood (no tampons during surgery ... haha, maybe that's what that crazy label that Addie and I laughed so hard about meant), and they still felt it necessary to test it.

Me: Um, I, like, HAVE my period. Do you really need to do this?
Nurse: Is there any possibility you're pregnant?
Me: I literally have my period. As we speak.
Nurse: Have you had sex in the past month?
Me: (blushing) Um ...
Nurse: If there is any possibility you're pregnant, no matter how small, we have to do the test.
Me: That's fine, I understand, but ...
Nurse: (laughing) I hear you, but it's one of those lawsuit paranoia things.

So I did the test, but I still thought it was awkward and kind of unnecessary.

But discovering the strange and unexpected challenges that impact single people is what really struck me about today ... and made me grateful for the wonderful support system I have in place even as I'm suddenly feeling very sorry for single peeps that are not so lucky.