Bonbini!

Bonbini means welcome if you're in Aruba. How do I know that? Well, I'm thinking about moving there. When Daryl initially asked me if I wanted to move to Aruba, I laughed. "Haha. You silly man. We can't move to Aruba. What would we do with our house, etc, etc?" So, Daryl did not put in for the job transfer to Aruba, but his friend Rich did. So, Rich is seriously moving to Aruba with his wife. They will live there for two to five years. Now that I know the deal, I'm working it all out in my head, and I pretty much think that we will be moving to Aruba the next time the opportunity presents itself. I am pretty darn sick of my job, so if I can move to Aruba and lay on the beach all day, so be it.
You know, this is the problem with my life. It is far too normal. I have always had everything nice and planned out. Of course, it has worked out well for me. But I think it's time to cut loose a little bit, you know, kick off my Sunday shoes. I think it's time to move to Aruba or some other tropical paradise.
When I started seriously considering Aruba, Daryl thought I was a little crazy, but I think he's just about ready to get on board. At first he said, "Won't you be bored in Aruba after a little while?" I said, "Well, I think they probably have a Barnes and Noble somewhere on that island and that solves all my troubles."
***I just sneezed about ten times and it's making me really mad because my nose is making it almost impossible to finish my blog.****
What's good about living in Aruba? Oh, lots of things. First, I could just take a sabbatical from my job probably and say sianara to all of that for a little while. Next, the government would pay all of our moving costs. Also, we would get a weekly allowance for food and housing. Now, the good thing is that the government doesn't give you what it costs to eat in Aruba....They give you enough to pay for what it costs to eat here, so you have tons of money left over. Lobster every night, baby. To top it all off, they would give Daryl extra vacations for "home leave" so that we could visit our loved ones whenever we wanted. Sounds good to me. Sign me up. So, who wants to come visit us in Aruba?

82 Degrees

Did you know that the average high in Cancun in February is 82 degrees? I do. How do I know? I know because I am obsessed with my upcoming trip to Mexico. I cannot wait to blow this popstand and get somewhere warm. Today I opened the back door to let Barkley out, and I said, "Gee, it feels pretty warm out." I actually said that. It was 37 degrees. So, yes, I need some help.
My other vacation for 2006 will be an all expense paid trip to Washington D.C. The airfare, lodging, transportation, and admission fees to wonderful sites are all included. Am I the lucky winner of a contest? I'm afraid I am not. It's called "8th Grade Class Trip." Thinking back to my own days in middle school, I remember going on two field trips. We went on a foreign excursion...to a fort in Canada, which was very boring. This was in 6th grade. Then, the biggie came in 7th grade. We took a two-parter, actually. One week we went to the waste water treatment plant, and the next week we went to the water clean-up facility. The first smelling much worse than the second. You could actually see the poo floating in the water. It was disgusting. After seeing the whole process, I can't say that I was excited to drink tap water anymore.
My trips don't even begin to rival my dad's middle school trip. They went to the sanitarium. Fun, fun.
So, I guess things could be a lot worse, but I'm not sure going to our nation's capitol with a throng of Polo-horse wearing, Evian drinking 13 year olds is going to be a joyride either. I'll let you know. Happy 2006 if I don't talk to you before then.

No One Ever Said It Would Be Easy

Well-
My big fat giant paper is due tomorrow. So, this is classic Sandy. I am such a procrastinator. My paper is called, "Reading Choice in the Middle School Classroom." I am thinking of changing it to "The Metacognitive Effects of Independently Read Texts in the Adolescent Learning Environment." What do you think? I am planning to talk about "standard deviation" and "n=" and all the other things that professors like. Before long, my coffee will wear off, and as usual I will wake up at 4:00 AM to finish my paper, go to work, edit after work, then send it in the email to my professor. Cuz that's how I roll.

New topic. My mom has made a hobby of posting fake Christmas gifts on her website. She picks out funny things for Paul, Daryl, and me. When she isn't busy finding and posting these ridiculous gifts, she spends her time asking me if I've checked to see my new gift yet. What she doesn't know is that I would actually use the gift that she has up right now so maybe it's not so funny. Here it is:
What she doesn't know is that I would not put the dog in it. I would put the cat in there and roll her around the neighborhood. I might put the horns on her too and maybe even wear horns myself. She would like that. Then, she would probably get home and bite me. Cuz that's how she rolls.

I have to tell you how this whole Christmas gift fiasco started. You see, it's been a favorite pastime for my mom and me to find the most hideous item in the weekly circulars and say, "That's what I'm getting you for _______." You can just fill in whatever the most appropriate holiday is in the blank there. Generally, there's good stuff in the jewelry section of the Sear's flyer. My mom has obviously taken this game to a whole new level though. So here....drum roll please.... is what I know my mom desperately desires to get for Christmas. You can bet your buttons that it will make it's way to her stocking on December 25.....

She has always wanted a "Kenneth" ID bracelet. Haven't you? Okay, okay. Time to get serious. What would mom really like to see in her stocking on Christmas Day? I'll give you one hint (okay.. a couple). She sees him every single night. He's a really good cook. He eats ham. He's really funny (to my mom at least).... Give up?


Alton Brown!!! Har har har....


Look how handsome. See the way his brow scrunches up? That's because he's so serious about food. I put his picture up REALLY LARGE for you, mom. When he's not wearing his super cool sexy shades, he has dork glasses. Sorry, mom, but he does. Here he is in his dork glasses. I don't know what the heck's wrong with the photo, but you can see his dork glasses, and that's all that matters. (Capital letter compound sentence comma conjunction end punctuation) I need to go write my paper now.

My Biggest Fear is Put to Rest

Ever since I was a freshman in high school, I have been terrified by opossums. I think I have mentioned them before. There is nothing good about them. They hiss, they are ugly, and they hiss. Like I mentioned in my blog before, my fear of opossums really took root when my dad told me that they would drop out of the trees as I was walking to high school in the black of night at 6:45 in the morning. My fears can now all go away. I have found out that opossums don't even hang by their tails! Check it out. They do, however have opposable thumbs. Who knew?

Top ten signs you live in Michigan in November

10. You are currently using a vat of lip balm each day.
9. You thoroughly enjoy the entertainment value of your neighbor's sprinkler system freezing and producing a giant geyser when the underground pipe system cracks.
8. You are so entertained that you take pictures of the geyser (that do not turn out because it is 5:00 and pitch black out).
7. It takes you longer to get dressed to go on a walk with your dog than the actual walk takes.
6. You are cold 24/7.
5. It takes about 15 minutes to get up the courage to get the mail from the mailbox on your front porch.
4. Because it is so cold, one of the local radio stations assumes that it is okay to play Christmas music from November 1st onward. Let's remember what happens when we assume.
3. Run out of refrigerator space on Thanksgiving day? No problemo. Put it out in the garage!
2. Your jaw is sore from mashing your teeth together when you have to leave the comfort of the house.
1. You think about that vacation to Mexico at least once each hour.

Happy Belated Halloween

Well, I realize it is well past Halloween, but no worry. You will still appreciate my Halloween pictures. My costume was in the works for several months. I thought about exactly what I wanted to wear in order to create the perfect Napoleon Dynamite costume. Now here comes the irony. Daryl made up his costume in five minutes and won a prize for his costume at O's Halloween party. How unfair. He was fifty-cent. Friggin' idiot.

Great Expectations.

C/O the Associated Press

OGDEN, Utah - There's a new fad of students — mostly girls — wearing pajama bottoms to school, and so far administrators are not making a fuss about it.
"Some days you don't want to get dressed up for school. Like when it's raining and cold. You just want to be cozy," said Ben Lomond junior Elvia Escalante, 16.
School administrators in Ogden, Weber and Davis school districts say the pajamas have been modest and there hasn't been a problem.
"There are worse things a kid could wear to school," said Ross Lunceford, principal of Hillcrest Elementary School in Ogden.
"There's a fine line there, and I think sometimes we need to pick our battles. Should we get into a tussle over pajamas?" said Eileen Nicholas, student and family services teacher specialist for Ogden district.
Administrators say there are daily dress-code struggles with students who like to wear short skirts, high- and low-cut shirts, gang-affiliated apparel and sagging or low-cut pants that show their underwear.
"Pajama bottoms would be an improvement for some of our kids," said Ogden High School Principal Ed Jenson.
"I just look at it as something silly. I don't know why teenagers dress the way they do," said Ogden High math teacher Mary Courney.
Some students don't think much of the attire.
"They may be comfy, but it makes you look trashy and it gives you the idea you can just slack off for the day," said Ben Lomond High School senior Alena Marshall, 18.
"Pajamas are for bedtime, not school. It makes the students more relaxed, so they're not focusing as much on their school work," said Ben Lomond High senior Tiffany Church, 17.
Ben Lomond High junior Lori Wayment, 16, was wearing pink-flowered cotton pajama bottoms last week, because, she said, "they're warm"
Ogden High freshman Karen Chacon, 14, said she was wearing her white pajama bottoms with blue vertical stripes, because "they're comfortable."
And Ogden High junior Jessica Hannah, 16, wore red pajama pants decorated with black AC/DC letters because "it's Friday."

Ta Dah!

My new piano is the most beautiful thing I've ever seen. Ever.

So Many Funny Pictures, So Little Time

As I was eating my shrimp egg foo young and getting it all over the keyboard, I was looking for good pictures. Mmm...shrimpy. Anyway, I found this one you see right here. This lady is on her 16th kid. Somebody, anybody make it stop. As my mom would say, "They know what causes that now." But really, that's not what makes her funny. Her mega mullet makes her funny. There's another picture on the web that makes it look like she is wearing her dog on her head. I'm not kidding. Ok. Wait. I just read the article and her hair is not the funniest part. She says she is ready for more children. And...

"The Learning Channel is doing another show about the family's construction project, a 7,000-square foot house that should be finished before Christmas. The home, which the family from the northwest Arkansas town of Rogers has been building for two years, will have nine bathrooms, dormitory-style bedrooms for the girls and boys, a commercial kitchen, four washing machines and four dryers.

Their children include two sets of twins, and each child has a name beginning with the letter "J": Joshua, 17; John David, 15; Janna, 15; Jill, 14; Jessa, 12; Jinger, 11; Joseph, 10; Josiah, 9; Joy-Anna, 8; Jeremiah, 6; Jedidiah, 6; Jason, 5; James, 4; Justin, 2; Jackson Levi, 1; and now Johannah."

When you need four washing machines, I think it might be time to stop. My favorite name by the way is Jinger. "Is that Ginger?" her teachers ask. "Oh, yes. Jinger with a J." Because she's special.

In other news, The Smurfs are on fire. You know what would be really funny? They could have this and then the Smurf song over it. Dah, Dah, dah dah dah DAHHH....dah da Dah di DAH. As if the world isn't miserable enough? Why do they need to set the Smurfs on fire. Okay, we get it. There are disasters all over. We feel bad. STOP IT.

And then there's this guy. His name is the troll. He is a Mexican wrestler.

Just some crazy guy...

I just saw a picture of Chris Elliot (of Something About Mary) on the internet and it reminded me of my dad. You know who else he looks like? Van Gogh (as in the guy who cut off his ear and then Don McLean wrote a song about him). I think they both have more hair than my dad though.

Ah, Squirrels.

On a Squirrel Crossing the Road in Autumn, in New England
by Richard Eberhart

It is what he does not know,
Crossing the road under the elm trees,
About the mechanism of my car,
About the Commonwealth of Massachusetts,
About Mozart, India, Arcturus,

That wins my praise. I engage
At once in the whirling squirrel-praise.

He obeys the orders of nature
Without knowing them.
It is what he does not know
That makes him beautiful.
Such a knot of little purposeful nature!

I who can see him as he cannot see himself
Repose in the ignorance that is his blessing.

It is what man does not know of God
Composes the visible poem of the world.
...Just missed him!

Ouch!

Does this picture hurt anyone else's eyes?

Grandma Bure

Don't get me wrong, we love our neighbors....just not the one who lives next door. Daryl and I refer to her as Grandma Bure after the crazy old woman from the Drew and Mike show. (Click here and you can listen to her drops...Scroll down to the Grandma Bure section) Her name is really Josephine. Her hobbies include collecting garden statues and driving us nuts with her incessant whining about our lawn. (Our garden friends from left to right: Rooster, Duck, Seagull, Canadian Goose, Fawn, Regular Goose, Eagle, Doe.) Our lawn is fine, but she somehow sees some imperfections when she spends countless hours each day hunkered down next to it. Yes, there are blades of grass that occasionally stick through the fence into...gasp...her flower bed, but what else is new? I'll tell you what...! The green stick infestation in her front yard, that's what! All I know is when I came home from work today her front yard looked like this...

Now I couldn't get ALL of the green poles (or whatever they are) in the photo, so you'll have to use your imagination. Maybe she's trying to call the mother ship to take her home. I don't know. I cannot for the life of me figure out what they are. Anywho...I think she's just about had enough...

I HATE Bugs

I thought gardening was supposed to be relaxing and tranquil. Well, in my experience, IT IS NOT. I tried to go in the front garden to pull some weeds about a week ago only to find that the gutter above the garden was infested with wasps. Not wanting to get stung, I canceled my plans and got out the wasp spray instead. And set it on the kitchen table. And waited. And then Daryl came home. Because, you see, I don't like to kill wasps. It's just not my thing.
So, this weekend I figured it was safe to garden because Daryl had been on wasp patrol. I checked on the wasp situation and it was all clear. So, I went to work. I was working hard to pull this giant viney thing out of the bushes when I felt something squish juicily between my fingers. I knew the instant that I felt the liquid sensation in my hands that something completely disgusting had happened. I was right. Do you know what a horned tomato worm is? Because you're going to find out. I was so grossed out that I had to take a picture of this garden fiend.
I had not squished it too bad, so it was still bucking around the twig during its photo op. I put a quarter next to it so you can understand how big it is. Daryl said it was "very forensic" of me. I think so, too.
See, I didn't know what it was. I just knew that it was the biggest, ugliest bug I think I had ever seen. Ever. So, I did a little research. Come to find out that the horned tomato worm can lead a pretty sad life, but no matter. You do not want one of these bad boys in your garden chompin' at your maters. Good thing it was FAR away from Daryl's tomatoes. It turns out that the BFTK (big fat tomato killer) has a pretty good chance of being taken over by a parasite. If it does, then it will have white thingys all over it and they will kill the BFTK and little Braconid wasps will hatch out of the white things (the internet teaches me so much). Look at the pictures and you'll know what I mean. So I was thinking that maybe we shouldn't have been so fast with killing those wasps. I honestly would rather have Braconid wasps than the BFTK. BUT...ew...I just thought of this. What if the BFTK would have been covered with those white thingys when I grabbed at it. EW EW EW.
If the BFTK makes it through life to be an adult, it turns into a gigantic moth. It can be up to 5 inches and people can mistake it for a humming bird. I'm not kidding.

What is a question?

? I'm generally fairly confident in my teaching of English. I feel like I've got the concepts down myself and can explain them well. Today, however, my task was far more daunting than usual. I have discovered in my class a child who does not understand what a question is.
Let me explain.
I asked my darling 8th graders to pick one particular event in their life (we had a giant bru-ha-ha leading up to this...we did drawings, we made timelines, the whole deal). So, pick an event. No problem. Everyone was good with that. Then, I said, "If someone wanted to know more about this life event of yours, what kinds of questions would they ask you?" I showed them what I meant by using my own life. "We want to know about when you went to college," they said. "Fair enough," I said. What would you like to know?
Was it hard? Do you feel smart now? Where did you live? Was the food good? Were you in a sorority? (If they only knew...) Did you have a boyfriend and did he get in your way? (If only they knew...)
So, then we talked about the difference between "yes or no" questions and questions with a lot of meat. We decided meaty questions were the way to go, so they beefed up their questions for me...
Then it was their turn. "What do you think people might want to know about the life event that you picked. What kinds of questions would they ask? Write them down." As I was roaming about the room, I noticed that one lad's paper said: 1. Lived with my grandpa.
"Is that the event that you're going to ask questions about?" I asked.
"No, I'm going to write questions about when I moved," said the boy.
"Ok. So, is that your first question?"
"Yes."
"Lived with my grandpa. When I read that does it sound like a question? Something that you could give an answer to?"
"Yes."
That was not the answer I wanted. "So I walk up to you and ask, 'Lived with my grandpa?' What would your answer be?" See, this is a trick question for the boy....There couldn't be an answer because it's not a question. I'm so sneaky.
"I would tell you about moving."
"Really. Hm...A question is something you ask. It has a question mark at the end. That's not a question. It's kind of a statement. A fact."
"No, it's a question about how I moved."
"It's the answer to a question," I prodded.
"No, it's the question."
Dear Lord. Someone help.
I really, really, really think this kid had no idea what the difference is between a question and an answer is. None. How can you go through school and not figure that out? Isn't questioning and answering the basic premise of school? I promise you that he wasn't being a jerk or a smart alec. This kid was dead serious. When I made a suggestion as to how to revise his "question" he didn't want to.
So, for tomorrow...how do I explain what a question is to someone who does not understand the concept?

So Random

Note: After hundreds of years on the "no can do" list, the Shakespearean/Elizabethan collar ruffle is back! Also, huge sleeves and necklaces will compliment the look.

You can't control my techno.

Remove Foot from Mouth

"Everyone is so overwhelmed by the hospitality. And so many of the people in the arena here, you know, were underprivileged anyway, so this, this is working very well for them," Mrs. Bush told American Public Media's "Marketplace" program, before returning to her multi-million dollar Houston home."

Thanks, Barbara B. I guess there's only one thing to say for those poor jerks in the Astrodome. LUCKY!
No, seriously. Those Bushes. They have one heck of a problem in their gene pool. If you don't believe me, look here. Or here. And my favorite....is he drunk?

Middle School

Penis Penis Penis Penis Penis Penis Penis Penis Penis Penis Penis Penis Penis Penis So, in case you have never played, that's how the penis game pretty much works. You see, I was sitting in one of my three rooms after school today with the windows open when some boys outside began a vigorous round of the penis game. The goal (in case you've never played) is to take turns saying the word penis at a volume somewhat louder than the person before you. Curiously, this is a game played mainly by boys. The nice thing about the game is there's no limit to the number of players you can have, so nobody feels left out. Everybody can participate. And usually everybody does. So, that's my experience teaching middle school in a nutshell.
In other news, we went to Julie and TJ's wedding on Saturday. It was lovely. Tania and I danced like crazy fools and embarrassed our husbands as much as possible. I was drinking cranberry and vodka. Need I say more?
Also, do you want to hear the story of Why the Opossum's Tail is Bare? Click Here. In case you don't know, I am deathly afraid of opossums. I hate them. Did you know they hiss? Like cats? Well, they do. My total and utter disgust of opposums stems from my dad. He told me untrue stories about opposums dropping out of the trees and made me think that they would do so while I was walking to high school.

Knockin' Around in My Head

My brother gave me a CD with his favorite music on it and I am in love with the song Banquet by Bloc Party. So good. Guess what? You can love it too. You can download it FOR FREE at Amazon. Trust me when I say that this will be your new favorite song that will never get out of your head. The best things in life are free for once.

Today I Will Use the Giant Quotes

Let's just see here.

"And yes, the giant quotes are ON. Good. Good.
Yesterday Daryl and I watched The Aviator. I can't remember whether you're suppose to italicize or quote movie titles. I think italicize, but I will do nothing since it is my blog and doesn't have to be all proper and whatnot. I get enough of that with my day job. Anyway, The Aviator. Yes. It was pretty good, but long. The guy likes to wash his hands a lot. Also, you get to see Leo's butt, which is pretty flat and skinny. He's just a pretty skinny guy overall, so I'm not really surprised about his butt. "

No more giant quotes. Do you like the three headed dragon? I do.