Levedy

It's official - I am old

While teaching on my birthday, my students were talking about their extensive (and expensive!) prom plans. I told them that I went to my senior prom in a 1984 Ford LTD, and I was not scarred for the rest of my life because of it.

Quoted verbatim from a student in response: "Wow. So they didn't have limosines back then?"

No, Georgina. We rode to the prom on Stega-friggin-sauruses.

And So it Begins...

...It's open season for pestering Jen about having babies. Not that I mind it, in fact I think it's sweet, but silly.

People's tactics range from the exceptionally subtle to the outright in-your-face. And it's not just coming from the Greeks.

Sophie (Dim's mom) as soon as we set foot in Vegas after the honeymoon: "You pregnant yet?"

Stella (Dim's Aunt): "Gee, I really enjoyed babysitting Dim when he was a baby. I wonder when I'll ever be able to do that again? Jen?"

Andrea (Dim's mom's friend): "I just happened to be getting rid of my son Andrew's books. Do you need a set of Beatrix Potter books? How about mother goose? I think I've got Hop on Pop, too."

Lindsey (former boss): Gave me a Home Depot gift certificate with specific instructions to use it on paint for the nursery.

Nicole (friend who has a month-old baby): "Now Jen, when I take you shopping for your baby registry, you'll need to remember x, y, and z. So, when exactly will we go do that?"

Adrienne, my hairdresser: "Some pregnant women are a little nervous about using bleach for highlights. Sooo.....are we going to be using bleach today or no?"

Geez.

Pee-Tejas

Saturday morning I went to the Las Vegas springs preserve (website) for the first time. That place is really cool. It features demonstration gardens for desert-friendly plants and offers a ton of free gardening and landscaping classes. I will definitely go back. Susan, I think that you would get a big kick out of it.

Sunday was reserved for church and lunch with my church girlfriends. We ate at Z-Tejas and gabbed for three hours. It was great. We talked about everything from our husbands’ urinary quirks to how grateful we were that we had friends that we could talk about man-pee with. Nia just lost her father to cancer and Angela is in the process of losing a grandmother to the same. We talked about how our lives are so geared to looking to the future, when we should be focusing on the present and the loved ones we have with us now. And then we discussed our husbands’ pee.

It was great.

Hosanna, Dimitri’s aunt from Salt Lake, stayed with us last night while here on business. We went to dinner at P.F. Chang’s with Hosanna and Dim’s mom and sister, too. It was a lot of fun. I really love Dim’s family. I lucked out that his family is insane, but entertainingly so.

Today is reserved for weeding, visiting a friend with a new baby, and teaching.

A recent commentator to this blog did a great job of describing me on my worst days. Sylvia, I don't deny anything that you said. Everyone else, please feel free to read the comments in the previous two posts.

My blog has of late become a clearing house for my rants. The last several posts are acidic, and do reflect a bit of me that is my less-than-attractive side. I wasn't aware that my posts had turned so acidic. Thank you, Sylvia, for pointing it out to me.

However-

Am I, as you suggest, bitter and negative? Yes, at times. Who isn't? Am I, as you suggest, "self-serving, narrow- minded, and without empathy for anyone else who crosses [my] path?" No, I'm not. Do I go home to an empty house every night? Thankfully, no.

People elect to visit this site. No one has to come, and no one has to stay. I make no promises to be funny, rational, or even remotely entertaining. I'm no one's monkey. You get what you pay for at this site. If I bore you, leave. If I anger you, leave. If I occasionally make you laugh, stay a while.

Do not, however, lurk about this blog and come out of hiding only to lash out at me. Do not assume that I need to be cheery for your benefit. Do not assume that you know me well enough to judge me. Do not assume that I post to this blog for your or anyone's benefit (including my own).

Asking me to spend my time on worthwhile activities like writing to Amnesty International is an interesting suggestion. Doing it would, however, interfere with my other philanthropic activities that I choose not to brag about. Your sanctimony is misplaced and unwelcome here.

Save it for Bono, sister.

I'm too busy posting about important topics like my deodorant and scorpions in my bathroom.

New Haircut

Newer, blonder highlights and less mullet action in the back!

Good air in, bad air out

Okay. I'm calm now. I still think that my boss is "Xerakefalo" as my Greek teacher would say, but I don't feel murderous rage anymore.

I might spit on his chapstick, though.

Gritting. Teeth. Fighting. Urge. To. Maim.

How angry does it make you when your boss royally messes something up and 1) places the blame on you and 2) is really rude about it? Does it make you want to:

A)Quit in the middle of classes so that you’ll be free of the clusterfuck that is your job

B)Ride it out (why hurt the students?) and quit after classes are done so that you’ll be free of the clusterfuck that is your job

C)Ignore it because you enjoy being taken advantage of and enjoy being underpaid in the clusterfuck that is your job

D)Have a martini and forget the clusterfuck that is your job

Grrrrrrrrrrr.

Now that THAT'S over...

Sorry. I'm over my PMS now. I still fume when I think of the asshat that drove the Escalade, but it will pass.

The weekend was fairly dull. (Nothing like Kat's Mullet and Fried Snickers weekend, though. Saturday I taught an SAT class for four and a half hours. The kids were real troopers, though. I ordered pizza for them, which they enjoyed (of course).

Saturday night we went out for sushi with Athena and Sophie. I stuck to California rolls and teriyaki chicken. Sunday was chucrh and Rubio's with Sophie (Dim didn't get himself out of bed, the little punk), gardening, and teaching until 9:30 at night.

I'm tired, but at least I have tomorrow off (Finally! A day off!)

How to annoy me

-Accuse me of stealing your dry erase markers. Neglect to mention that you didn't have any to begin with.
-Accuse me of rearranging the furniture in your classroom: the long heavy lab tables in your classroom
-Don't put the crate of bottled water I bought into my cart. Sigh heavily when I call you from home to tell you about it.
-Sink your back claw into my big toe after attacking me while I'm on the toilet. Puff up and look inconvenienced by it.
-While driving your big-ass Escalade in front of me, slow down to 5 miles an hour to go over a dip the size of a Bic pen.

Happy Friday.

Dial W for Weekend

My weekend was not exciting, but it was entertaining.

Kat took me to First Friday. It was interesting, in a dye-your-hair-pink and call yourself an art fan way. Some of the work was great, other pieces were dreck that I could come up with sitting at a red light.

I came home to an empty house (Dim was busy with a server install or phaser gun alignment or something) so I tucked into bed with Alfred Hitchcock’s “Dial M for Murder.” It was GREAT! I really liked it. I hadn’t realized that Michael Douglas and Gwyneth Paltrow’s “Perfect Murder” was a remake of the movie (or the play that both were based on). While I recognized the plot, the story lines were different enough that I was still entertained by both.

In the Hitchcock version, the ending made me laugh out loud. After the detective gathers everyone to explain the crime and after the murdering mastermind is revealed, everyone sits down for drinks. No arrests, no handcuffs, just a “Too bad old chap, what? One martini or two?”

I love Grace Kelly. Dial M for Murder was her first Hitchcock movie, and I think that she did well. Rear Window is still my favorite, though.

Saturday I taught an LSAT class at the library. I like the two students that I’m teaching. Saturday evening, I couldn’t attend the St. Patty’s Day party because we were having dinner at Sophie’s. I love spending time with Dimitri’s sister Athena. She has an infectious giggle that leaves your sides hurting. I can’t wait for Greece when we’ll all be together. I (as usual in Sophie dinners involving turkey) made the gravy at the last minute. I have to say, the gravy turned out looking terrible; it was all lumpy and warty. Not my best effort. Oh well. The turkey was tough, too. So there.

Sunday was reserved for pulling weeds in the backyard.(If I spent an hour a day out there, the yard will be cleared in about 30 years.) teaching SAT, and not being able to fall asleep properly because of the time change. I do love the instant extra hour of daylight in the evening, though.

My girlfriend is coming to stay at my house while she’d here on business the next few days, which is nice. I have to teach all afternoon and late into the evening, which does not excite me. Other than that, same old, same old.

Look at me when I'm talking to you!

I showed up 45 minutes early to the office so that I could talk to my new boss before my MCAT class. He was talking to one of my MCAT kids about how shitty the chem teacher was, so I slinked off into another room while they chatted. They chatted until 2, which was when my class was supposed to start, but only one student (the complainer*) was there, so we rescheduled. I finally had a chance to sit down and talk to my boss about the issues that I had already (twice or three times) asked for assistance with, as well as a few niggling issues.

He seemed really tired. At least, the backside of him looked tired. He wouldn’t turn away from the computer to talk to me.

I had to ask him to look away from the computer screen while I talked to him. I told him (again) about the problems I was having getting assistance from the office (this was my first time telling him in person, though. Email was apparently not cutting it, even when the regional vice president was cc:ed on the emails.)

He said that he’ll take care of the issues...I just hope that I don’t get dooced for publishing this.

*The student’s complaints were totally justified. The chem. teacher was a total asshat. He quit before he got fired, leaving the office in a lurch 15 days before the MCAT.