How are you today? I'm superfantastic.

Meet Paolo

Paolo is my new MacBook.

I had no intentions whatsoever, going in to this whole needing to buy a computer thing, of buying a Mac. (This despite repeated urging from the Mac faithful among my friends, of both the real life and invisible internet varieties.) I was, in fact, focusing my search on "cheap and adequate".

Then I heard that Apple offered good deals for teachers and I had a friend who needed to go to the Apple store for purposes of continued flirting with the Genius who fixed her computer. So, what the heck? Might as well ask what they'd do for me and what type of proof of teacherhood they would require.

It turned out that something written on letterhead stating that I am a teacher would be sufficient proof, which I could totally get. And the deal? Well.

$100 off the computer
$75(ish - was trying to do the math in my head while MacBoy was talking) off the 3-year warranty
Free $100 printer
Free THREE HUNDRED DOLLAR iPod Touch

Ok then. Where do I sign?

I went back the next day, after procuring said letterhead proof (I wrote something to the effect of "Lori is a teacher here" and had my boss sign it) which turned out to be unnecessary anyway. I told the guy I was a teacher and I had this proof and he said, "That's ok. You look honest." (See, I told you.)

Thus did Paolo become mine. And his as-yet-unnamed friends, Touch and printer. I was a bit concerned about carrying them into the house, in plain sight of the most-likely-felons next door, but happily our new alarm system was installed earlier that day. What perfect timing! You're safe now, Paolo. From everyone but me and my not actually knowing much about how Macs work, now that I think about it.

To all of those people who urged me to get the Mac and then celebrated, depending on the source, me coming to "the side of goodness and light" or "the dark side", I say this: I hope you anticipated all of the HOW DO I WORK THIS THING? calls, emails, Twitter direct messages, etc. that are about to be coming your way.

Everybody else: hopefully this will mean more regular posting! Please note my use of the word "hopefully". Because I seem to recall that posting requires not only one's own computer, but also doing interesting, noteworthy things, and I am sensing a lot of quality time at home with Paolo in my near future. But, as always, if I do anything stupid, you'll be the first to know.

(IF! Ha!)

I remembered clean underwear, if that makes anyone feel better.

At some point I started phrasing it "I have The ADD" because it sounded funnier to me that way.  Now I can't even say it without The, the same way I started saying Pflugerville pronouncing the P and now hear it that way in my head every time I see it written.

So, anyway, Holly and I have had numerous recent conversations which involve me having The ADD, including on Saturday, when I was getting ready to leave for my parents' house to catsit for the weekend.  I stood in the kitchen, writing out a deposit slip for the security deposit check from my Madison apartment, which I finally received last week.  The plan: drive through the bank, drive to parents' house, meet Holly (who would be giving me a bank-related headstart) at the parents' and then go to the pool.

Me: I think I have everything. Pajamas, toothbrush, clean clothes...my swimsuit and towel are at my parents' house already.  Ok, I'll see you there.

Begins walking out of kitchen.

Holly: Did you want to take this check?

Me: Damn it.

Holly: It's ok.  You have The ADD.

Me: Now you know I'm not making it up.

Holly: Oh, I already knew that.

I went ahead and reinforced it anyway by leaving and immediately coming back in for my sunblock.  Then calling fifteen minutes later to ask if she'd bring my book.  She doesn't know yet that I wore my contacts and brought the case, but no contact solution or glasses. 

You'd think a grown up person could pack for an overnight stay in less than five minutes without benefit of a list.  And you'd probably be right.  But you wouldn't be thinking of me.  I have The ADD.

Dispatches from Reading Camp

One of my students growled at another one today.  In his defense, the other one totally had it coming.

These are my little ones.  I have them every morning from 8:30-12:00.  One boy is six, has ADHD, and is not medicated.  He is a sweetheart, but he makes me crazy.  Apparently he makes his seven year-old classmate crazy as well.  The other little boy is the quiet, calm one in the group and struggles much more with reading.  While he was reading, the six year-old kept talking and trying to read for him, and he finally had enough.  I had had enough too, but I'm not allowed to growl at kids, I don't think.

The same hyperactive six year-old (who, let us all remember, I had just spent three and a half hours in a small room with, attempting to make him learn) was picked up twenty minutes late on Monday.  Which meant that I spend the first twenty minutes of my lunch break entertaining him in the waiting room.  I was not overly friendly in informing his mother that we do not have staff to babysit children, as we all go to lunch at noon.  She understood.  It wouldn't happen again.

The next day, I only sat with him for ten minutes of my lunch break before he was picked up.  I don't know how late she showed up today.  When his mom called at 12:10, claiming car trouble, I went to eat, only because our high school worker was eating at the desk and could watch him for me.

All of this would be annoying, yet not infuriating if it weren't for this little jewel: today, when our clock read 8:28, she went to the desk to ask our office manager Kathy when I was coming to get him to start camp.  Kathy, because she is awesome, coolly replied "At 8:30.  She still has two minutes." 

Seriously, woman.  I've lost forty minutes of my life in three days to waiting for you, but if I don't show up at precisely 8:30 on your watch, you're complaining?  This makes me incoherent with disbelief.

So let us move along.  Perhaps we could discuss my nine year-old student who comes for several hours a day, despite being above grade level.  His parents want him to be a doctor.  I think he'd rather be a nine year-old for a while first. 

Although perhaps not, based on the way that when I tell him he misspelled something, he types it into the computer and uses spell check before he'll believe me.  I swear to you, kiddo, "until" has only one l and "everything" really is all one word.  I neither joke nor lie about spelling.

Today I nearly made a Go-Go Gadget Arms! reference with him before realizing that he probably wouldn't get it.  He was also able to write about a three hour boat trip without singing "a three hour tour, a three hour tour..."  Kids these days.

And now, I must get to bed so I can get up tomorrow and do it all again.  I can still get eight hours if I'm asleep...crap, fourteen minutes ago.  Let's hope I'm not the one growling tomorrow.

Left Behind

Here is where the robbers made their mistake.  In their haste to empty my backpack so they could use it to transport our stuff, they dumped out the most valuable item in my possession.  Something that could have gotten them exponentially more money than my computer.  Ladies and gentlemen, I give you THE RUG OF FAITH:

Also known as the Prayer-Soaked Rug, a.k.a. Faith Church Prayer Rug, a.k.a. large piece of paper with a picture of Jesus on one side and instructions on the other.  It was mailed specially to me from St. Matthew's Church in Tulsa, Oklahoma, which they tell several times is 57 years old.  They chose me out of everyone because they could feel that something very wonderful is trying to come to me.  Here something wonderful had been out there trying to come to me and everyone connected to my address and I would have had no idea!

I am going to go ahead and quote the instructions because they are just too outstanding to paraphrase:

"These next 24 important hours are crucial to you.  Timing is important to God.  After you kneel on this Church Prayer Rug, or place it over your knees, place it in a Bible, on Philippians 4:19.  (If you don't have a Bible, it's okay - just slide it under your side of your bed, for tonight, if you can.  If you can't do this, it is okay.)  Leave It There No Longer Than Tonight Only!  God sees.  Then, in the morning it is a must that you get this unusual blessing Church Prayer Rug out of this house and back to us, here at the church's chapel prayer room, in faith...You must get this Bible Prayer Rug back to the church so we can rush it onto another family that's in need of a blessing.  Do this without fail.  Please, do not break this flow of power between us."

But THAT'S NOT ALL.  You also let the fine folks of St. Matthew's know what you prayed for and they will continue praying on your behalf.  Do you have to spend a bunch of time tediously writing out your prayer request?  You do not.

All you have to do is check which blessing you'd like to receive.  Unless, of course, you'd like a specific financial blessing (And who wouldn't?) in which case you should specify the amount.  Perhaps you should be careful though.  You don't want to ask for too much or you might look greedy, right?  THINK AGAIN.

Sister Y. was blessed with over FORTY-SIX THOUSAND DOLLARS.  Wouldn't asking for less than that just indicate that you don't think God is capable of blessing you with more?  What kind of paltry faith do you have, sir or ma'am?  Personally, I feel that somewhere in the mid-six-figure range would demonstrate a proper degree of reverence.   

That's probably all you get out of this church though, right?  I mean is it not more than enough?  But again I tell you THAT'S NOT ALL.

There is also a sacred, spiritual prophecy JUST FOR ME.  It contains a sign from the Lord about my future.  It also contains my Holy Ghost instructions.  Obviously I can't tell you what is in my prophecy, but I can tell you that the Holy Ghost writes in all caps.  Surprising, right?

Surely that must be all, you say.  Of course it is not.  You can also get your very own, St. Matthew's blessed Prosperity Cross!  Because who has ever been more concerned with your prosperity than Jesus himself?  It's what the cross was about. 

If you'll read there at the top, you'll see that not only is it blessed personally for you in order to bring you prosperity, but "This collectible Bible Cross is one of the most beautiful in the world, and it is not sold in stores."

For those of you who are godless heathens wondering, Deuteronomy 8:18 reads: "But you shall remember the LORD your God, for it is He who is giving you power to make wealth, that He may confirm His covenant which He swore to your fathers, as it is this day." which I am sure is not taken out of context AT ALL!

Too bad, burglars.  I guess all of these riches are still destined to be mine. 

Internet, I apologize for rubbing your face in my good heavenly fortune.  Maybe one day something very wonderful will be trying to come to you, too.  I could even have the good people of St. Matthew's pray for that! 

Except I'm totally going for the money.  Get your own blessing.

Underwear as far as the eye could see...

It's the ice cream sandwich that really pisses me off.

See, the burglar or burglars who broke into our house today while we were gone took the time to take an ice cream sandwich from the freezer, eat it and throw the wrapper in the trash.

NEVER MIND that they had left our underwear scattered all over our rooms when they pulled our drawers out or just dumped out the contents of my backpack onto the couch before using it to carry out the stuff they stole.

AT LEAST THEY DIDN'T LITTER.

The stuff they stole includes my computer, iPod, garnet earrings, and a bag containing every necklace that I owned (none of which have one damn bit of value to anybody but me) along with Holly's iPod, CDs, and her jewelry, some of which was actually quite valuable, both sentimentally and monetarily.

For those of you who are wondering, I think I last backed up the contents my computer a year ago?  Maybe?  And yes.  I KNOW.  But it is TOO LATE NOW.  LESSON LEARNED, "BACKING UP IS ESSENTIAL" SERMON NOT NEEDED.

As much as I am not in a position to buy a new computer right now, I think it's the loss of the stuff that was on it that bothers me more.  Along with the idea that anybody could be looking at anything on there right now.  No, I do not think the most likely teenage miscreants who took it have any interest in my photos and Word documents, but they can see them and I can't and that makes me very, very upset.

I say most likely teenage because of the stuff they did not steal, which includes a whole box of checks that was in my bedroom.

The police officer says they can check the pawn shops for my computer and our iPods if we give them the serial numbers (although he also said the burglars will most likely keep the iPods).  The fingerprint guy says since this is probably the work of kids, they'll probably get a match on these fingerprints when the perpetrator is arrested years from now for something else.

But I really want the fingerprints to help them catch the guy.  Because wouldn't it be some kind of justice if the asshole got caught based on those very nice fingerprints he left on an ice cream sandwich wrapper?

Oh, Lori. Is nothing sacred?

From an actual conversation I just had with the roommate regarding what to wear for happy hour/dinner/post-dinner drinks tomorrow:

"Not too hoochie.  Just hoochie enough.  Like if Goldilocks were a hoochie."

In that spirit, coming soon (out of my mouth):

• Jack Sprat could eat no fat and his wife had a muffin top coming over her low-rise jeans.
• Little Jack Horner sat in a corner throwing napkins at two girls down the bar.  (Keep up people!  Honestly, it's like you're not even reading my Twitter.)  (Hey, look!  All of the tweets that disappeared are back!)
• "Rapunzel, Rapunzel, let down your hair."  "I can't.  I cut it off because it was totally covering up my lower back tattoo."
• Jack and Jill went up the hill, Jack mostly so he could watch Jill bend over in her miniskirt to fetch a pail of water.
• Little Miss Muffet sat on her tuffet, eating her curds and whey.  Along came a spider who sat down beside her and said, "Hey, baby.  Nice tuffet."
• Peter, Peter pumpkin eater had a wife and couldn't keep her, so he bought a Porsche and some hair plugs and went on a singles cruise.
• There was a crooked man and he walked a crooked mile, thus failing his field sobriety test.

And they all lived happily ever after.  The end.

It was all yellow.

San Antonio, that is, according to one of my students.  He said he thinks that every place has a color and while where he's from in Connecticut is green, San Antonio is yellow.  I can see where he's coming from there. 

Yes, the grass is all yellow-looking now, thanks to the drought, but there's also the sunshine and a certain brightness about the place.  Moving here from DC, where everyone is perpetually dressed in black, brown, gray, or navy, I noticed right away that people here dress in bright colors (I think no matter how long I live here, I'll still stick closer to the DC palate.) and there's also just a certain fiesta vibe about the place that has a bright yellow feel to it.

When I got back from Europe, I bought three photo albums in green, red, and blue (sort of a cornflower/periwinkle, really).  Italy went in red, France in blue, Germany/Czech Republic/Switzerland in green.  I don't remember putting any real thought into those choices, but they all make perfect sense to me. 

Vegas, to me is an easy one: gold, all garish and glittery.  Madison, I am thinking of as light blue.  It's the sky and the lakes and sort of a general clean simplicity.  But it's also a frosty shade for, let us not forget, I damn near froze to death there.

All of this reminds me too of Elizabeth Gilbert being told in Eat, Pray, Love that every city has a word that sums it up.  Rome's word, she is told, is sex.  She decides that New York would have to be a verb, like achieve.  This causes her to set out to find the word that is her.  It turns out to be a word in another language that I don't remember and am not going to find for you since I have yet to unpack my books.  You'll just have to live with suspense, I suppose, unless you've read the book or just really don't care.

Because I am terribly self-involved, all of this makes me consider what my color and word would be.  The color was fairly easy to choose.  I think I'd be a shade of blue-gray.  Mellow, yet indecisive.  I've been told that my element (of earth, air, water, or fire) is water because I appear tranquil, but there's a lot going on in the depths that can't be seen from the surface.  So I wouldn't be that brilliant aqua shade of the Caribbean that lets you see all the way to the bottom.  More like the steel blue of the Atlantic off the beach I used to visit in North Carolina, I think.  Somewhat impenetrable.

But I don't know about my word.  It has been easy for me to choose for other people.  For Katie, I first chose driven, but then realizing that she, like New York, needed a verb, I decided on strive instead.  Katie seemed agreeable to my choice.  When I told my friend Krystal that I thought her word was sunshine, she said that Sunshine was a nickname of hers with some people I don't know.  So, while I'm not sure if it's the one word she'd choose for herself, I have to think that means I wasn't too far off.

I've been trying out words for myself, but nothing seems quite right.  Please don't say that this makes my word indecisive.  I can't quite bring myself to accept that.  I think I just haven't quite struck on the right word yet.  I'll keep searching the recesses of my vocabulary and let you know if I come up with anything.

In the meantime, tell us what your color and word are.  Also, please tell us why you chose them.  And if you have an idea for my word, by all means, enlighten us.

You see my true colors, and that's why you love me

I read someone not too long ago writing about her inner cynical bitch.  Except she said it like it was a bad thing.

The thing about my inner cynical bitch is the extent to which she tends to take people by surprise when they first meet her.  Get the slightest glimpse of her, even.  Because, as I have already mentioned, when people first meet me, they tend to think I'm sweet.

I'm usually pretty quiet around new people, especially in new work situations.  It's a common misconception, assuming that quiet and sort of non-threatening-looking equals sweet.  I think we all know what happens when one assumes, don't we?

Apparently I also have one of those honest faces.  Which, frankly, can come in rather handy in certain "I would have been here on time, boss, but there was this train..." situations.  But it does make my first use of sarcasm in front of a new person perhaps overly convincing.  Like when I told my co-practice teacher (another wanna-be teacher from my program) that I thought the best way to teach the spirituals in our lesson would be for her to sing them.  She took me seriously, as proven by the look of horror on her face.

Then in class the other day, when told to work with some other people in a group, I answered my advisor very dryly that no, I didn't really care to work with those people.  And she was SHOCKED that I would say such a mean thing.  See, because she had thought I was sweet.  Can you even imagine what it is doing to me, keeping all of that stabbiness contained for three hours every day to the extent that anyone could doubt my capacity for meanness?  If I don't rupture something (or alternately, stab somebody in the eye) by the end of this thing, it will be a small miracle.

So I'm going to have to let the cynical bitch seep out a little, here and there, which is totally going to ruin my nice girl rep.  But who ever wanted a nice girl rep anyway?  Currently I believe I am becoming known as the girl who doesn't want to make a poster about this if we're allowed to just summarize it aloud.  There are three of us now.  We sit together in the back.  Then we smoke cigarettes in the bathroom at lunch and shove weaklings into lockers.  Not really.