"You Go Glen Coco!"

Lately my days have been filled with so many "friends" desk-side I have resorted to calling my four chairs club seating for my fans.  I actually tell students to have a seat in my fan club area.  They look at me with this queer sort of gleam before they get it. When I returned a text to my daughter telling her I had lots and lots of friends one day, she replied "you go Glen Coco."  So here I am thinking for the last week that my nickname could be Glen Coco, when today I discovered it is "bay-bee gurrrrl." Yes only in a middle school can you enter a classroom and have a student blurt out, "hey there, how's it going bay-bee gurrrrl?"  Snarl.  Bay-bee gurrrrl doesn't exactly having it going on lately.  (Except a few times last week when a glass of Pinot Noir eased my influx of "friends.")  Some kids are just too cool for school.

Working in a school means there is always that "one kid" that can turn a smile on a face, on even the worst of days.  Although today was far, far, far from being a bad day, that "one kid" for me not only made me smile, he made me giggle--in a happy kind-of-way.  This kid loves everything about weather.  I swear one day we may all see him on TV and I'll be saying I knew him when...  Last week I got a seven slide power point on the weeks severe weather...today I got an email  

 The Weather Service says we have the chance for significant snow SUNDAY NIGHT. Believe me, I am NOT looking forward to more snow, but I must be honest.

"There are model-to-model and run-to-run differences with
thermal profiles impacting Ptype with the later system, but this
one has the potential for significant amounts IF all stays on
track."

SNOW!  Please let this weather prediction be an absolute hoax.  I truly can not take another flake.  I can't stomach pulling my snow boots on my feet, or putting a shovel in my hand.  I could however enjoy a quiet friendless day in the office while wearing my workout clothes.  Either way I adore that "one kid" to pieces.  Bad weather forecast or not.

----------------

When I got home from work I made it my mission to call a neighborhood trustee and voice my opinion.  Lucky for him he wasn't home so I left a gentle nasty gram voice message. 

Let me paint a picture for you.  The date is February 24.  Since, say, January 6, we've had several spring-like break out days.  The kind of days that had folks strip their homes for glistening colored lights and green wreaths.  I almost have to believe that some neighbors froze their tukhuses off striping the Christmas holidays off their homes. 

Not. Our. Subdivision. No!  It is a week from the start of the Lenten season and this is how I would give directions to my house....make a left at the hideous bell tower that is the subdivision entrance, oh ya, the one that has all the Christmas decorations adorning it.  Grrrrrr! Red jingle bells. Pine wreaths that light up at night.  Candy canes.  Really?!  Where is the lazy prick who hung that holiday cheer? 

So in my gentle nasty gram I offered up King Ralph and I to de-Christmas the hood. I sit here waiting to see if the trustee returns my call or sends the decorating committee to clean up. 

And that my friends is how bay-bee gurrrrl works it!

They Came. They Went.

Every time the girls come home from college this scene dialog is played out
as we say our good-byes and bid a safe trip back to campus. 

President's Day

It's not just Washington, Jefferson, and Lincoln day.

  It's.  President's.  Day. 

So let's take a minute to remember this guy, who wasn't too popular, but lowered the price of postage.

Happy-paid-day-off-work!

Puppy Love

D came home for 24 hours.  M is home and begged her sister to come home to hang with her.  While M gets to enjoy a President's Day holiday from classes, D does not and made the best of her time home before departing this afternoon.  D is completely fine with the lack of holiday because SEMO had four and a half days of canceled classes due to ice and snow.  Monday is college class catch-up day. 

There was no one living thing happier to see D than her puppy dog.  D squealed when she greeted Uli, and Uli rolled over to have her belly scratched.  They have been best pals since we gifted D with Uli for her 12th birthday.

This is how D and her best furry pal spent three hours of their day on Saturday.

 Puppy Love.

Day Interupted By Love

Valentine's Day.  The day King Ralph asked me to marry him twenty-seven years ago.  One of the best things I ever did in my life!  While he always gives me a sweet gift on this day, usually in a small box, I write him a love note--that has a romantic movie connotation. This year's note was a reflection on King's Ralph famous saying "I say black, you say white"...because he will never accept, no matter how many years we are married, that I'm usually the right one [in this relationship]. (excuse me while I giggle) We bicker like Al and Peg Bundy, and love.  A love that will live way past the test of time.

They didn't agree on much

In fact , they rarely agreed on everything

They fought all the time

and they challenged each other everyday

But, despite their differences,

They had one important thing in common

They were crazy about each

 

--The Notebook

 

 

Happy Valentine's Day! xoxo

  

To top off this day of love King Ralph and I decided that we didn't want to fight all the young lovers in restaurants, opting to create a magnificent meal of love in our own kitchen...well me in the kitchen, King Ralph in the frigid-icy-outdoors grilling.

MENU

Biltmore Mansion Century Red Wine

Rum and Coke

 

Shrimp Cocktail

Morton's Steak House Salad

Sister Shubert's Rolls

Bacon Wrapped Beef Tenderloin

Red Wine and Garlic Mushrooms

King Crab Legs w/ Clarified Butter

 

Bailey's Hazelnut Chocolate Martini

   

The happy-loving-couple was stuffed with food and love!

 

THE END

 

A Night at the Opera

I have to admit that when D left for college, and my castle was emptied of princesses, I had a bit of an emotional break down.  It caught me off guard.  I mostly cried because I had dropped M off to live, three hours away the week before, in a house that I like to call a shanty shack--that faces a building that looks like a crack house.  (Reason to SEE for one's self where your kid picks to live before co-signing a lease.)   But having my baby D gone meant my job as a mother had taken a big turn in the road.   A turn that had me eat a half of sheet cake in three days.  No joke!  I shit rainbows for a week.  No joke!  Icing dye does strange things to one's system. When I flushed the toilet it hummed Judy Garland singing "Somewhere Over the Rainbow."  

Taking time to reflect on why I was sad meant accepting the voids of the very things the girls each add to our home. Princess A has a calm balance.  She is a voice of reason in the house.  M it's her constant humor.  She just has a way of making just about anything and everything funny. D is her music.  Her voice is always in song  (a radio you can't turn off Princess A likes to refer to her as) and the tinkering of the piano adds to the musical joy that fills our castle.  When they leave--silence.

So it is pleasing to my heart that D is attending college so close to home that it allows us to enjoy her musical moments.  Sure most of them are in the middle of the week, which has me rushing home from work, collecting King Ralph and jetting 100 miles down the highway, leaving me sluggish at my desk the next day.  All worth it!  So imagine our glee when the opera was on stage on both Friday and Saturday night.  I took the Saturday option. 

It was D's first college production and her first opera. D studied all summer long for this moment.  She studied a woman who works with mature, seasoned opera voices.  She was thrilled to be the only freshman cast...not only in the ensemble but as an under study for a main role.  She viewed the understudy as a learning experience. 

D had fun sending Snap Chats to me from back stage during dress rehearsals   

 

 

 I have to say, regardless of the confused, choppy nature that The Magic Flute is sometimes reviewed as presenting...I think its whimsical and humorous staging was a good place for an opera maiden like myself to start. 

 

D models her costum Turkish costume



     

It has always been custom that we give D flowers on show night. 

 That will never change no matter how far from home the stage is.

 

When the curtain on the opera came down we were waiting in the lobby to give her hugs and kisses and high fives for a job well done!

Where she accepted another gift of flowers from her dorm roommate.

 

It's these moments that keep me from eating sheet cakes. 

Breaking Up Is Hard To Do

I sent this text to my friend:

February 5, 2014

Dear Snow Shovel and Snow Boots:

I wanna break up with you!  I just don't want to love you anymore.  What do you say?  Maybe we can get back together in a year, but for now I think we really could use a some time apart.

With warmest affection,
Jodi

She told me to let her know if I heard back from my snow shovel and boots.  Imagine my surprise when yesterday I did.


February 9, 2014

Dearest Jodi:

I beg of you, don't say goodbye
Can't we give our love another try
Come on baby, let's start a new
'Cause breaking up is hard to do

Fondly,
Snow Boots

Dear Snow Boots (and Snow Shovel)

I call "uncle!" You win!!

Regretfully,
Jodi

That's right folks, shoveled another two inches of snow.  Uhg! 

Say No to Snow

Winter seems to have grip on us and I am tired of it!  I swear I am developing a case of SAD.  I feel like I have no oomph.  I feel lackluster. I just want to curl up under a blanket in the corner of the couch, looking at King Ralph holding fort in his leather recliner.  I feel like going to work is a huge chore.  I'm tired of freezing in the office, wearing my winter coat at my desk.  I feel like...like I am pinned under the blanket of snow that, if it melts returns just as quickly.  A matter of fact it's snowing again.  Enough!  Enough I say!! 

That first big snow--the one that called off school for the first three days returning from the holiday/winter break--didn't seem so bad.  Well driving home from New Orleans through the storm seemed pretty bad, but the no school the next day, going to work in a quiet building, finishing up those loose ends that had been sitting on my desk since December 23, 2013, that didn't seem bad. 

Our sweet abode glistened in the 12 inches of snow

 

I made it to work despite the snow

 

I entertained myself at work by writing on the white board

 

With D still home on her college winter break she played in the snow after work with me...

 

We made snow angels

 

and built a big ole' snowman

 

The snow melts and returns

 

and school is called off.  Yet I still have to keep going in. 

Which causes me to have a bit of a temper tantrum...

until I calm down and reflect on the fact that on these days

 I can wear comfy work out clothes to the office.

 

 I'm going to go out on a limb here and predict that I will have a few more days of workout wear to the office this winter.  In the meantime I will continue to hash mark my calendar to the day I get my summer hall pass again.