On Mountains and Classrooms and Misquoted Me

So…

I’ve come down from two weeks in mountains of the wooded/wildlife/rushing stream type and reentered modern life, with its mountains of the laundry/email/ message type.

Phooey.

Although, one of those messages does mention that I will get my own classroom this year.  That sort of made the other 536 messages worth sifting through. I went into town today to check out the alleged classroom, but it appears to be the catchall for every other moving teacher at this point. Floor to ceiling fire hazard. I’ll check back in a week and hope it’s all gone before school starts.

If not, maybe my first period class on the first day of school will start with a bonfire in the courtyard…

I also get to trade one of my English 10 classes for Speech and Debate, which will be great fun–just as soon as I figure out what that is… I know there is a team and they travel around doing whatever it is that speech and debate teams do, and which I assume involves a lot of talking.

Therefore, I think we will start out the year by learning to listen.

Yes?

I think that homework for the first two weeks will involve a lot of listening to others–audience awareness activities. By then, maybe I’ll have figured out a curriculum.

Also, someone sent me a clipping of the notorious newspaper article. And yes, they did put the post-tennis picture on the front page. (Of course.) It was a fascinating read, largely because it was all news to me–including the alleged direct quotes. Who knew that it’s acceptable for journalists to put their own words in quotation marks and attribute them to public figures? Oh wait… We all knew that. But I have to admit it’s disconcerting when you are the public figure in question. I find solace in the fact that anyone who knows me will be suitably skeptical.

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What’s Growing in Your Closet?

After 8 years of chasing my broom (who am I kidding? my brooms, my many, many brooms, which I keep buying and which keep disappearing), dust pan, and mop all over my house, today I finally pounded three nails into the back of my vacuum closet and hung the various and furtive implements up.

I also cleaned out said closet so that said vacuum can actually fit in it. No more half-empty gallons of paint and rumpled scout shirts or 8 gallon buckets of honey. Also, none of these:

I also knocked down quite a few cobwebs and cleaned out my junk cabinet by the fridge. You know the one.

I have this recurring nightmare wherein everything I’ve ever owned–from before the house fire when I was four until now–is knee deep, all over my house, and I’m supposed to pack for an extended, or possibly permanent leave of absence, for my entire family, in the space of about three minutes.

I have this dream at least  once a week, sometimes more, and I’ve had it for as long as I can remember.  It makes me a bit phobic about keeping things. When I get stressed, the garbage sacks always come out. And still, every time I go on a cleaning rampage, I am astonished… where does this stuff come from?

So after that bit of purging, of course, I went shopping.

It was necessary–and we aren’t keeping any of it here. Well… mostly. I did buy some work clothes. But that’s only because for the past two years I’ve worn the same three pair of slacks to work on an ingenious, rotating schedule. Now, every day of the week will have its own outfit.

Anyway.

The rest, my daughter is taking with her to Mexico City and I highly doubt much of it will come back in salvageable condition after 18 months of wear.  We decided it would be best if all 8 skirts, 8 shirts,  2 sweaters, and two pair of  shoes were interchangeable.  Right?

Try to accomplish that shopping trip in Moses Lake.

I dare you.

Also, I dare you to not let your imagination run wild with all the terrible possibilities inherent in sending off your firstborn, gorgeous daughter to Mexico for 18 months.  Yeah. There might be a LOT of cupboard and closet purging going on around here.