I miss my husband when he works nights.

Not only do I miss cuddles, but conversations and together time where we're just in the same room being together.

Even when he's home, he's sleeping when I'm awake. And trying to keep the kids quietly occupied for his sake is hard.

I don't know how couples do this long term.

Today, at school, one of my students said he saw something on TV about a guy who could make sounds exactly like a Wookie, and it was just so strange that someone would take the time to learn doing that.

I made Wookie noises at him. He blinked at me, not exactly in surprise.

Across the room, my Star Wars fiend, who has corrected me on my trivia of that universe, starts in on the Wookie talk, and I note that as he's talking, he's making the American Sign Language for "water."

I make nodding gestures and Wookie approval noises, and jerk my head towards the door. The student leaves, making some terrific Chewbacca conversational bits as he walked out.

The Youth Leader was like, "Wait a minute. Where's HE going?"

"Oh, he just asked me if he could go get water. I told him it was okay, and to head out," I explained breezily. The Youth Leader takes this perfectly in stride, and goes back to his paperwork.

I turn back to the first youth. "You don't seem surprised."

"Well, you are so strange," he says matter-of-factly.

"Well, yes, yes, I am." And class went on.

Today, at the Y, whilst waiting for Irish to finish class, I was reading a copy of American Rifleman, the NRA magazine that I happened to find. This older gentleman came up to my table as I was reading, and said genially enough, "What's a little lady like you reading a magazine like that?"

Some bee in my bonnet made me reply sweetly, "Let's hope a nice, law-abiding citizen like you will never need to find out."

He was actually amused, and went away laughing.

( Earth, Water, Air and Fire: got 'em all covered. )

There is a force in the universe that knows just precisely how much savings I've built up and how much credit line I've cleared, and manufactures a disaster to match or exceed it, I swear...(and why so often right before the holidays?)

What I want to do for this house is to replace the horrid gray brown kitchen grungy carpet with tile or linoleum, and all my budgets keep getting hijacked for disasters, durn it!

At OVFF this year, batyatoon sang her "Gabriel Gray's Song," and I, never having heard it before, was in awe of how this song went. Signing it, I was amazed at how effortlessly it seemed to fit together, and wondered if it was as kewl watching it as it was satisfying performing it. I've been checking periodically on YouTube to see it posted, and discovered it tonight. (I think I've amazed myself - it looks better than I even thought!)

batyatoon , you so totally rock. Hearing this song gives me shivers!

hsifyppah, I heart, heart heart you!  My students were just plain not getting the difference between simile and metaphor, and persisted in confounding the two, with mix ups with symbols, to boot.

So, I brought in my copy of Steel Cage Match!  (Already, I knew my classes would be made of win.)

"You're a pricetag on a sticker; I'm an ebay auction bid" is the favorite metaphor that really seemed to sink home with most of the kids.  (I rather think that some of the other techie comparisons were meaningless for their age), but "Whenever you're a perfect 10, I'm playing Sudoku" was also high up on the list, too.

And they *got* it.  What use are metaphors?  Not only to make comparisons without using "like" or "as," but to imbue the qualities of that comparison in a stronger way.

As one girl put it:  "He might like, be a totally kewl guy, but like, not for her.  Like, when we were learning unknown words, and you were like, doing context clues, you said that the word you didn't know followed by a list was like, understanding through example.  Metaphor is like, making you understand something by like, totally making it the example, not just like, like-ing it to the something."

Like, I think she got it!

One of the guys in a different class thought that "Type Mismatch" was referring to how the class had been confusing the types of simile and metaphor.  (I'm clever-er than I thought, doing that.)

All honor and respect for your duty and sacrifices.

This week, our school is getting the outer walls torn off (made of wood), replacement plywood , and added insulation and new siding put back on.

The noise is not to be believed.  (Reminds me of the commercials "I have a headache this big, and it has EXCEDRIN written all over it.")

So, unwarned of this event, I am attempting to read a short story, drowned out by howling buzz saws, pounding hammers, cracking wood from the crowbars prying them off, and construction workers hollering at one another.

The students, youth leaders and I are all giving one another disbelieving looks as the noise just does not stop.  And then, there are a number of really loud thumps and whacks, getting louder and louder, faster and faster.  A voice on the other side of the wall suddenly snarls "What the f*ck is this sh*t?" as he uncovers something outside he doesn't like.  Every student eye in the room flashes to me.

I slam my book down on my teacher desk.  "Villains!" I shrieked at the wall, "Dissemble no more! I admit the deed! -- Tear up the planks! -- Here, here! -- it is the beating of his hideous, tell-tale heart!"

Every student just about fell out of his chair, laughing.  There is a looooooong silence on the other side of the wall, followed by a sudden flurry of activity and thumping, without any more shouting.

At school, one of the students in one of my afternoon classes said something funny, and I giggled.

Another student just stared at me, drop-jawed.  "No way, man, that's just wrong," he said when I looked at him quizzically.

"What's just wrong?"  I asked.

"Bitches don't giggle, and you're an English teacher, and you just, like, giggled and that's wrong."  he said.  "Oops.  Shit.  Um, sorry?"

It made me giggle more, and I didn't send the bewildered student to time out, as my moral authority to do so was out the window, giggling away.

"Dude," another kid helpfully put in, "She was not only smiling, but dressed as a pirate and singing earlier this year.  If teachers aren't supposed to smile before Christmas, and she's giggling before Thanksgiving, what do you think the New Year will bring?"

"Dude.  I don't even know.  I don't even know.  She's just not right.  Giggling.  Happy.  It's just too weird."

We went over to a friend's neighborhood for Trick-or-Treating, as our traditional venue, the godmother's neighborhood was beset by construction, with yawing five-foot-deep trenches that could double as mass graves.  Too creepy and dangerous for my blood.

So, my beggars were:  Sparkle, a princess in a yellow gown, brocade bodice and pink cloak;  Brion, a *Clone* trooper with blue highlights to his armor (they're still good guys during the Clone Wars, you know, and only become bad guys as Imperial Storm Troopers); and Dino, who wore his grandfather's vintage flight suit and bomber jacket from the Vietnam War era, with kewl patches.

We tromped about with Sparkle's best friend, dressed as a Flower Fairy, with pretty ballerina skirts and brigt pink wings, and her little brother dressed as Elmo from Sesame Street.  He looked very Muppet-y, indeed.

Sparkle kept doing something that took me a while to figure out.  As she came up to the houses, she would ask the adult at the door "Hi!  What's your name?"

The adult would answer, "Hi, there.  I'm Mrs. Smith," or "I'm Karen." 

Whereupon, Sparkle would say, "Hi, Mrs. Smith.  Trick or Treat!"  or  "I'm Princess Sparkle.  Trick or Treat!"

It is my opinion that Sparkle was obeying the rule of not taking candy from strangers by introducing herself first.

My children all want to go back to the same neighborhood next year; they got large sized candy and relatively little bubble gum (which they aren't allowed to have.  I do trade our candy for it, though, so I don't know why they'd complain.)

OVFF was relatively low-key for me this year, which is a good thing, because it meant that I could relax and have fun without stressing!

Thursday, I got to socialize, and ate dinner with markbernsteinat a nice chinese place, with good hot tea.  This was important, because I could barely talk!  I ended up having to go home for the night, so DH could work in the morning.

Friday, my van broke down at the bus stop as I let the kids off at school.  I had to wait for the tow truck, and my DH to drop me off at the hotel.  I almost didn't make TOYBOAT's concert!  (But I did, and it was a blast!)  I also picked up their new CD, and i can recommend it as a good, fun listen.

The Pegasus Concert went smoothly, and I felt like I was in good form.  I really loved signing Batya's nominated song; I'd never heard it before, and it was soooooo kewl!  Practise made perfect, too.  I was able to keep up with hsifyppah's rollicking tune, (for which she won her first Pegasus; congratulations!) and was grateful for all the times I'd listened to the CD.  fuzzyvanmanhad made me a copy of recordings he'd taped live of some of the other songs so that I could practise a bit, and I think my performance was the better for it.  Thanks, dude!

Saturday, I attended several workshops, and helped catsittingstillwith her rounds workshop.  My voice didn't hold up well with my cold/ smoke inhalation irritation, though.  I was able to sing "Green Willow" for Cat, though, playing the countermelody on the guitar as I sang.  Sadly, pondsidewasn't feeling well at the con, and we didn't get to do the songs we'd been practising together before the con with solomons_pond, although he did do chamberfilk, and very well, too.

Saturday night, I was able to play instrumentally along with peteralway, which made me very, very happy, because it sounded so nice with me fingerpicking on guitar, and he on the dulcimer!  Someone joked "How do we follow *that*?"  Well, sweetmusic_27( Thank you, Bill!) had another violin instrumental that followed quite nicely!

I had to crash early, because I couldn't burn the candles as much as usual, being a bit sick.  Still, I did make both Saturday and Sunday's YOGA class with quadrivium, and felt tense muscles stretch out of griping.

I went to Jeni's ice cream twice; once after the banquet, when I'd budgeted for dessert in my diabetic planning, and then there wasn't any.  catsittingstilland Donald took me.  On Sunday, markbernsteinand I did a field trip before the jam, and he was thinking about getting some in a cooler and taking it back to Michigan!

The jam seemed like it ended earlier than usual.  But this year, I did make the trip to the Mongolian BBQ.  mgucciardgave me Duckcon CDs and DVDs of Seanan and Tony and Vixy, so I could practise signing them, too.  Thank you again!

Outside the Dead Dog filk, peteralway had his telescope set up, and I got to see the moon, and Jupiter!  I could see four moons, all lined up, and brown stripes!  Sooooo kewl.  I went inside, and told everybody, and lots of people trooped out to take a gander, too.  When my DH and kids arrived to pick me up, it was still set up, so they got to have a look, too.

Sparkle, looking through the eyepiece, said. "I see dots."
I said, "Yes, those dots are the planet Jupiter and four of its moons."
Sparkle pointed up to the sky.  "I want to go there."

So do we all, sweetie.  So do we all.

edited to fix LJ names

This weekend, the place where I was doing teacher training had a kitchen fire, and we had to evacuate the building, which filled dramatically up with smoke. 

My cold, which had been holding steady through Boy Scout weekend the week before, took a plunge for the worse due to the smoke inhalation.  My throat feels horrid, I feel horrid.

I hope I am better by OVFF...

So, today's story in "Creep Month" is Edgar Allen Poe's "The Tell-Tale Heart."  So, as usual when we do a story, I read it out loud for the class, using voices, intonation and lots of drama.

As the narrator is totally losing it on the last page, ranting and raving and gesticulating, it naturally follows that my narration also ranted and raved, with raised voice, and beating on the desk like it was a heartbeat.  Suddenly, bursting into my classroom, come four hurly-burly youth leaders, ready to take out the troublemakers banging on the desks and making threats.  (That would be me, thanks for coming to my rescue!  Oops.)  I was more softly insane in subsequent classes.

In addition, I put on filkertom's song "Telly-Taley Heart" at the end of my classes, and signed the song.  The kids all thought that it was great.  After all, he did a song that Miley Cirus' dad wrote.

In every class, there were students who doubted that I actually knew a songwriter / musican who'd put out a CD.  I would say something to the effect of "So, you don't believe someone as weird as me knows someone as weird as he?" and the class would usually agree that it was a likely scenario that I did. 

But the convincing factor was that I showed filkertom's picture from his CD.  The fact that he looked like a normal guy round and geeky, and not like Nelly or the Jonas Brothers meant that I could know him.

Ah, talent.  One must be cute to be talented, did you know?  (Well, *I* think filkertomis cute...)

 Back from camping with the Webelos.  While not a natural camper, as a teacher, I do know how to get kids from one place to another and keep them on track during planned activities.  Several of the people running the activities for the scouts to earn pins said that I was very helpful, and that our group of several dens was the best-behaved and most on track of the weekend.

Damned by faint praise, indeed.  

( the moaning and complaining behind the cut )

Once home, my husband graciously let me go back to sleep for awhile, which I desperately needed.  I also got a desperately needed shower, and chicken noodle soup.  My cold is no better, but no worse for being outdoors all weekend in cold that put frost on the grass, and misted our breaths wherever we went.

Well, wobbly or not, sick or not, it's off camping to Webelo Woods with Irish to get his potload of We'll Be Loyal Scouts pins.

I love my son.  (Repeat mantra.)

The camp is at Camp Lazarus.  I keep thinking of Tom Smith's comment every time he comes past Camp Lazarus on his way to OVFF, that he keeps expecting the zombie boy scouts to come shambling out of the woods.  He's right you know; but that actually describes me if I don't get coffee this weekend...

Sparkle has been having a nightly crisis right before bed:  a conveniently "lost" toy, wanting to win a computer game, a specific set of pjs, etc.  Anything to ramp up being upset and delay bedtime.

Tonight's bid for crisis:  she wants her "Christmas sweater," which is the cute elf outfit from her holiday pictures 3 years ago.  She re-discovered the hat, and wants the whole kit and caboodle.  (Not that the little hat will stay on her head now, either.)

Not much I can do about it, kiddo.  I said I'd buy her a new elf outfit closer to the holidays.  It hasn't stopped the waterworks, squealing, or self-stimulating rocking.  I've walked away from giving her attention, and she can fuss in her room allllll she wants;  I'm done.

Parenting techniques of the night:  broken record of repeating expectations, and flat affect to not feed into the crisis-mongering.  (Flat affect enhanced by still being low-grade ill with this expletive deleted cold.)

Goodnight, Internets.

Today was the Apple Festival at school, a rewards activity involving bobbing for apples, caramel apples and cider, apple slingshot chucking, apple broomstick racing, and a hayride.

I was a hayride monitor, and rode around on the hay-wagon on a blustery, cool day.  It was a very nice day for it, too.

The driver gave us a bouncy, fun, stop-and-start ride to get us giggling as we toured the open areas of our facitlity, including the barns, pastures, baseball fields and open grassy areas around  and between buildings and trees.  (Low branch!  Everybody down!)

As I was riding with the deaf class, I kept asking the kids if they were having fun.  They stared at me pleasantly each time, smiling and nodding sort of blankly.

At one point, we stopped along a horse pasture, and kids were giving horses apples as a treat.  I turned to the young deaf girl across from me, and asked if she was okay.

"I'M FINE", she signed to me.  "I WAS TOO BUSY HOLDING ON TO ANSWER YOU BEFORE."  The other deaf kids nodded, agreeing with her.

I got to tell the driver that the ride had left the Deaf children speechless.

Last night, at 3 A.M., two hours into Sparkle's wakeful period, I was trying to rock her to sleep in the cushioned rocking chair.

"Momma," she said, "Why is it dark when I am awake and want to play?"

This is the most complicated thing she has said to me that isn't a quote from something else, and the first "why" question she has ever asked.

I told her it was night time, when it is dark because the sun was on the other side of the world, which means it is time to sleep.

"We make it light on the switch and then I play," Sparkle suggested.

"No, honey," I said.  "It is dark, and night-time, and time to try to sleep."

Big sighs all around.