Slush

I just watched Rachel Ray make baked ziti and spinach/artichoke salad. I've started watching Rachel every night from five 'til six, two back-to-back 30 Minute Meals episodes. I can't watch unless I'm cooking, too. All of her meals involve a lot of chopping, and I find that very therapeutic. So while Rachel is pulling all of her ingredients out of the fridge and pantry, I do the same, pretty much deciding what we'll have as I go. Tonight, I quartered some of every vegetable in the house--two kinds of potatoes, squash, onions, carrots--put it all in a pan drizzled with olive oil. It's roasting right now and smells great. When Tim and the girls get home from the gym, we'll have those with some pork chops, peas, and rice.

This weekend, I read two novels. One by S. E. Hinton, who wrote The Outsiders. Strange, strange novel, this new adult one she's written. I would never have picked it up if I'd known it was a vampire story, but nothing on the jacket indicated that it was. The other is about a woman who coddled her son from the moment he was born--never let him suffer any consequences for his actions, had him switched around to another class if a teacher crossed him in any way, made phone calls if a coach wouldn't play him, etc. Sick. The novel was a sort of retrospective piece; she was looking back on his life the night before he was sentenced for murder in a drug deal gone bad. Now I've started The Life of Pi.

I'm doing a lot of reading these days and I'm beginning to have problems with my eyes. My arm is not quite long enough anymore. I just sat here and read through several course outlines from MIT's online courses. I was talking with Vernon earlier today, just for a second or two, and he gave me the link. Some of those courses look great. The readings and handouts are all there. It looks like a gold mine to me. Of course, you don't get any credit but I have never cared about that. Speaking of that, please don't anyone tell Alfie Kohn this, but I actually made a--are you ready for this?-- star chart Friday. I know. It's terrible. I felt cheap and ridiculous. But that's just how big a problem I'm having this year with parents bringing their children late and checking them out early. So I started a star chart for attendance and --you will not believe this--there will be rewards attached. I almost could not even type that. It's a long story and those of you who know how I feel about these things need to just trust me when I say it was necessary.

I guess we all have our quirks. One of mine is that I cannot be without earrings. I just don't feel right without them. The other morning, I went to the bathroom when I got to work, and noticed I only had one earring in. I didn't know if I'd lost the other one or what. One of my favorite pairs, too. I knew I didn't have any in my purse, but I searched through it anyway. So I just picked up the phone and called the florist when they opened at eight. Do you have some earrings, silver-tone, medium-sized, around ten or fifteen dollars? Let me check, ma'am. Be right back. (Pause.) Ma'am? We have some nice ovals with a dangling gemstone in the center for thirty. Is that all? Well, there are some small sterling silver hoops for ten, and some medium-sized ones for fourteen. Okay, I'll just take the ten dollar ones. I have an account there, and I need them delivered to the elementary school, room 104. What do you want me to put on the card? No card. No card? Do you want me to say they're from you or is it a surprise? No surprise. I lost an earring and I need a pair to wear today. (Pause.) Okay. You know there's a delivery charge? Sure, that's fine. Just bring them as soon as you can.

She brought them, and declined the tip I offered for hush money. She said my secret was safe with her. But. When we went out to the buses that afternoon, several people asked me about it, laughed, thought it was funny. Small towns are like that.

There's a slush machine in the cafeteria now. I cannot understand their thinking at all. About three weeks ago, all soft drinks were removed from the coke machines and replaced with "fruit drinks" that, according to the Coke man, have several more grams of sugar than any of the soft drinks he took out. The reason we were given is that there were some concerns about the health of the children, childhood obesity, etc. Fine. Okay. However, a typical lunch in the cafeteria is corn dog/cheeseburger/nachos, fries/tater tots, a vegetable that the children are not required to pick up, a dessert, a freezer full of ice cream sandwiches, chocolate dipped cones, etc. that they can purchase for fifty cents extra. Now a slush machine. WHAT????? Well, as if lunch were not already stressful enough for first grade teachers--we already serve all the food, clean up spills, open milk and ketchup and ice cream and plastic-wrapped plastic forks-- now we have to handle the slush money and remind them to take it to the cafeteria, etc. Shontelle says the only way we can survive is to laugh. She says we absolutely, positively must laugh. It is imperative that we laugh. Imperative. So we crack ourselves up by exaggerating the whole slush thing when the children leave to go to P.E. A typical conversation, with her words in italics, mine in bold: Slush machines are vile instruments from the pits of hell. Yes, straight from the bowels of Hades. Slush machines were invented by male Nazis. Yes, the plans were drawn up in a bunker in Berlin, perfected in the council halls of Mordor, constructed in Calormen. Well, there's one good thing, at least. They took those wicked Sprites and Mr. Pibbs out of here. At least.

I'm listening to a tape series by Robert Oden on Comparative Religion. It's really good; better than I expected. There are twelve lessons, I think, and I've only heard four.

I'd better go check the food. In the middle of this, I put on a pot of pasta and threw in every kind of cheese we have in the refrigerator. That's what Rachel does.