Random weekend ramblings:

How fishy would it look if I ended up calling in sick tomorrow after a four-day weekend? I’m all sorts of sniffly-fuzzy-grumpy miserable. This cold SUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUCKS.

The good news: the deck is more than halfway done (man, I loves me some power tools!)

Mom made me a new fleece blanket – hot pink and lime green with froggies all over it – and I’ve been carrying it around, Linus-style.

Alisa, Mom & I planted all sorts of new goodies out front, and some yummy veggies in the back – including this plant that’s supposedly going to grow weird stripey tomatoes.

We all watched “Closer” last night, and my dad managed to feign sleep through the raunchy language scenes (which was about the whole movie).

Three more weeks of school. What the hell am I going to do with six whole weeks off?
There are officially 23 days until I turn 30! I’m actually excited about it. I love my life – if I’ve grown and experienced this much in the last 10 years, I can’t imagine what the next ten have in store for me!
So…. since it’s a big birthday and all, how about an early birthday present? I’ve raised $1,285, but I’m still $815 away from the $2100 I need in order to do the 3-Day walk this summer, and I have no qualms about begging and groveling for donations! *grin*
Fuzzy-brain aside, I had a really great weekend – I toast to it with the swig of Nyquil I’ll be knocking back in about 10 minutes. Mmmm…. Nyquil. Almost as good as Robitussin. Almost.

The rain held out and we had the most beautiful evening sky as a backdrop for their ceremony. What a great wedding – lots of incredible people (we finally got to meet so many of Jessie’s family whio we’d only ever heard about – hi Barb! Hi Dad! ), an amazing venue (a refinished barn on an incredible piece of farmland), a few too many glasses of wine, and for some reason, I’m having a hard time getting Justin Timberlake’s “Rock Your Body” out of my head. But above all, Jessie and Nate are married, and it was amazing and wonderful to be by their sides for it! We love you both!
Whew. We’re just getting way too old to party like rockstars two weekends in a row.

It’s a four-day weekend, baby!
I woke up – and there was sun! And the sound of birds instead of wind and rain!
I woke up – and hubby had taken the day off too, so we went back to bed and actually got to sleep past 6.
I woke up – and listed for the hubby all the good things I get to do today -
Because today, our little Jessie, miss Jess-Bess, our Princess Dragonfly, is getting married! On the list: meeting her at 10 to get our hair done; running around after to get last minute things taken care of – batteries for the cameras, an “emergency” bag for Jessie with nail polish, mints, tums, water, etc; possibly getting new shoes because I *ick* hate the old silver ones I assumed I’d wear until I put them on last night; picking up Su at the commuter rail so we can get all bridesmaid-prettified here; heading over to Jessie’s to help her get ready and take pictures; heading to the wedding and meet up with the hubbies; trying not to sniffle too loudly when Jessie says “I do.”
Mom and Dad come into town tomorrow; friends come over Sunday to help rebuild the deck and get the garden up and running; relaxing and vegging on Monday.
I so needed this weekend. Yay!

I enjoy my Ethics class waaaaaaay too much. Apparently, my need to constantly push them to question further is carrying over to my English classes as well – yesterday, I handed back work to two of my students with a “good – but have you thought of this?” and they got upset. “Ms. L,” they said. “We always think we’ve done such good work, and then you make us feel bad because we didn’t think of this or that, and we worked so hard on it in the first place.”
Bad, bad Ms. L.
Anyway, Ethics just finished watching Super Size Me as part of their Responsibility unit (personal vs. corporate vs. government). I just spent the last half hour devising their discussion questions. (I can’t wait to watch their little heads spin. Of course, in all our discussion of bias, we might have to identify my own biases and how they affected the way I wrote these questions – I think there’d be some value in that discussion.) Anyway, here’s a sampling:

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Here’s a whoppin’ shock – I fell asleep during American Idol last night. So to atone for that sin, here’s a couple of Bo tunes for ya. Be nice and right-click, save to your computer:

• Bo Bice – Drift Away

• Bo Bice – In a Dream

Still raining. I’ve got a mean headache and an overwhelming desire to call in sick. Of course, I won’t, but it definitely doesn’t make getting dressed and walking out into 40+ mile/hour winds and 45° rain any easier. At least my Ethics kids are watching Super Size Me, so I can veg in a half-asleep state through first period. I spent an hour and a half trying to wake up and get out of bed, and the coffee’s not doing much more than making my tummy very not happy. Blech.
The kids are weird – I’m sure it’s “end of the school year” syndrome, but the problem is – I’ve got it too. It’s not so much what they’re doing – or not doing – as much as it is a general vibe in the school. I think we’re all just tired.
Three weeks with seniors, four with everyone else. Crazy. I pledge to spend only the first two days of my summer vacation cleaning, and then taking a full week to do nothing but relax. Of course, that won’t happen, but it sounds good in theory.
Bah. Rainy days and Wednesdays always get me down. Tell me a funny joke? Anyone?

Ok, I’ll admit it – Revenge of the Sith was good. Almost so much that I’m willing to sit through the last three again. Almost. However – there should NOT have been little five year-old children at that movie. It was way too graphic and violent for kids – I can’t imagine being a little kid sitting through RotS. No way. There were scenes where I had to bury my head into Jay’s shoulder – a kindergartener should not be watching the horrific bloody battle near the end.
Though what made going yesterday totally worth it? The preview for The Lion, the Witch & the Wardrobe. I’m not a fan of movies made of my favorite books – they never seem to get it quite right. However, I still have goosebumps from the two minutes I got to see yesterday. December 9th, baby. Is it too early to buy my tickets?
Speaking of winter, it’s still in the 50s up here in New England. We’re almost to JUNE, for chrissakes! It’s really starting to make it difficult to be bright and cheery all the time when all I want to do is curl up under the blankets on the couch and sleep until the sun shows up again.
Happy Monday – we’re one day closer to Friday. Aren’t you excited?

So we’re off to see Revenge of the Sith.
I had seen the traditional Star Wars movies as a small girl, and I remember being dragged to the rerelease of Star Wars when I was in college, pretending I wasn’t with the two guys who were playing with plastic light sabers when really, one of them was my then-boyfriend. I sat through the movie then, like a good little girlfriend, but I just never *got* Star Wars or the fascination or the obsession.
Jay thought, since he knew we would go see this one, that it would be best for me to sit through Phantom Menace & Attack of the Clones in the week leading up to the release of ROTS. Phantom Menace was HORRIBLE; Attack of the Clones was pretty good. I still don’t know much about the whole series or what I’m about to see, but I do know this:
If Jar-Jar makes a single appearance, I just might be forced to make horrible gurgling noises and eye-rolls and demand my money back.
Meesa thinks Jar-Jar sucks. Throw things at the screen I will!

Jessie, me, Su

Perhaps one of the very best Saturday nights I’ve had in a long, long time. It started around 1 at an incredible restaurant in the North End of Boston (Little Italy) in celebration of Su’s graduation from law school, and ended around 11pm at a sports bar by North Station. In-between, there was lots of bonding with old and new friends, drunken debauchery that rivaled some college times, phone calls to vacationing friends, and somewhere in there, Su’s mother-in-law pulled me, Su & Jessie aside and reminded us how very, very lucky we are to have one another. For every moment I feel so far away from the people I love, I need to remember that my life is so full of more love than I could ever ask for. I’m coming up on five years of memories with these girls, and they’re the best friends I could ever imagine having. I’m one very, very lucky girl.
And the fact that the night ended with a car full of me, Jessie, the hubby and Druzba singing “Tiny Dancer” and “Send Me on my Way” at the top of our lungs didn’t hurt, either.

You know, I thought moving to the town where I teach would be a good, fun thing. I’d bump into them outside of school and it would be like one, big happy community.

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