I'm ba-aack!!!

Sorry folks--my internet has been down. (I don't know why. Mate fixed it--that's all I ever need to know.) Hence, the lack of Disney photos, although Chicken tried valiantly two days running.

Unfortunately, I've got SOOOOO much to tell you, and such a short time to do it. I'll stick with happy things again today--not because I'm an emotional coward, but because I want to do the sad stuff right--although I will clue you all in about the weirdness of my last post. On Wednesday, I was in the middle of a really fun rant (which I will resume today, I think) when my friend--the one who remarried a really wonderful man after being married to Fuckhead the Filanderer and then lost both her parents-- called me.

Her husband--the one she'd been married to for almost exactly a year-- had been killed a car accident.

I'm still stunned. Too stunned to write anything, too stunned to think about what I want to say--too fucking heartbroken to want to say anything, although I think tomorrow, after the memorial service, I may have my shit in a can about it. This won't be the last time I mention it--but right now, I just want to give a news update, bitch about a grumpy colleague, and blather on about nothing. Hope you all don't mind?

News update:

School started this week. I still love my students--not sure how long that will last, but right now, I'm totally honeymooning. They're a sweet group--so far, even the sophomores. For instance, I was building 'Masterpiece sentences' the other day--you know, list a bunch of interesting nouns, a bunch of interesting verbs, and then put them together. Then add cool adjectives. Then neat adverbs. Then prepositional phrases. And keep going until you've turned 'The cat sat.' into "My daughter's psychotic wackoid cat spazzed out over the older cat, did a flip, mooned the rat, and sat right down gobsmacked on my daughter's face as she was sleeping." Or, you know, something like that. Anyway, I was doing sample sentences on the board--and since I had about a zillion ants take over my room, I figured I'd use the little beasties, and turned, "The ant mused." into "The pre-deceased ant mused." The kids all wanted to know what a 'pre-deceased' ant was--so I pointed out a couple of the little bastards climbing on my desk. "See these ants?" I asked them. They all nodded. BAM BAM BAM BAM!!!! I killed them all dead with the flat of my hand and then said, "Those ants WERE pre-deceased. Now they are DEceased. Do you understand now?"

They laughed their asses off, and I was charmed. A class that laughs at my jokes--holy shit, I didn't know such an animal existed.

But now for the shitty part. I told that exact story--a story which made my husband, my children, and a friend at work totally crack up, I might add--to a group of people in the lunch room. The curmudgeonly colleague--the one whose room I invaded to complain about fucking up, looked at me sourly and totally killed the buzz for anyone else inclined to laugh.

"That wasn't funny. You haven't told a funny story in six years."

And the hell of it is, he wasn't kidding. It was actually pretty damned cruel, and I'm wondering, "Holy shit--what did I do now?" I'm sure I did SOMETHING--I mean, people aren't just that petty for nothing, right?

Anyway, there's more!

There was a brouhaha in which we almost had to re-enroll the Cave Troll in another district because they put him in the PM class instead of the AM class--after I'd totally rearranged my life around him in the AM class I might add. That took some years off my life and some time out of my day! And then there was shopping for school and shopping for clothes, and six nights of soccer a week, and Chicken getting put on another team and... and... and...

Holy shit, it never stops, does it?

We had opening day for soccer today, right? All day--I snuck the little ones out early to get them ready for a BBQ at my parents house (which I have to leave for in five minutes so I'll make it quick) and we're all exhausted. Seriously--Ex.Haust.Ed.

Tomorrow? I'm doing memorial service all day, while Mate does more shopping and an Australia reunion for Chicken. I'm getting seriously panicked. I might not have time to write this year, right when it's taking off!!!

But on the plus side? I got to watch the Cave Troll play soccer today--which is always a crack up. It's like sending a puppy after a mechanical ball. "Gonna get the ball... gonna get it... love the ball... the ball is my FAVORITE THING.... Hey, wait...there's a flower. Pretty flower." At this point, the coach goes in, turns his shoulders towards the other puppies, yells in his ear and gives him a shove. "Gonna get the ball...gonna get it... love the ball...the ball is my FAVORITE THI...OOOOHHHH look... bounce houses..." And so on. I could watch him do that and laugh all day.

But that's the short of it, and I've gotta run now. I'll probably post seriously tomorrow--or, if I'm still wrecked, I'll show Disneyland pictures. We'll see.