Ordinary Friday

Well, I'm determined to get back to daily blogging; but today had not a single amusing thing in it. Well, except poor Simon and the Bitch From Texas (AKA the BFT). She is bringing a group of skiers to the resort next winter, and this plan is already set in stone. But now she wants to visit so she can: take photos of the insides of the rooms; note the depths of all the pools; ask Simon if he can't manage to wrangle this or that freebie; etc... He had to stay at work until 9:30 tonight, taking her out to eat and tour all the restaurants at the resort. And he has to drive to the resort tomorrow, pick her up, take her to tour an elegant restaurant in the valley, then drop her off at her aunt's house in Riverton. Yeah, enjoy your weekend, Si. If only they were having an affair! Then he would at least have some intrigue. But she only seems to irritate him. Poor guy.

So, since it was a totally ordinary day, I'll record what I did. It'll help you sleep. The routine of a working mom who's dying for a weekend.

7:00 AM: Up and dressed. Wake up the kids. Breakfast with the paper. Cup of tea. Supervise the making of beds, brushing of teeth, application of sunscreen. The kids are going to work with Si these days, as Snowbird has an awesome daycare/summer program. They all leave together and I straighten up the house and get my lunch packed.

8:55 AM: To the rec center. Run for about five minutes to loosen up, then lift weights until a little before 10:00 AM. Then it's off to Guadalupe.

10:20: Arrive at work and change into regular clothes in the girls' bathroom.

Voice mail first. Deal with incoming, then make calls. Today, it's the Labor Commission, with questions about one of our students whom I think is being stiffed out of a worker's comp claim. Please-leave-a-message-and-we-will-try-to-return-your-call-within-two-business-days. Believe me, I didn't expect better. The Labor Commission is a black hole.

E-Mail. Deal with incoming. Then I have a whole bunch to send, about stuff like: one of our tutors who was ordered to do volunteer work by the courts and is not going to complete his hours on time- he wants me to find him more things to do. A lady who runs a diabetes education group - I'd like her to do some seminars for our students next month. Looking for someone with a NetFlix account who can get me a particular episode of the George Lopez Show, which we want to use for a class in a couple of weeks. City Hall to RSVP that I will be attending their conference on workplace discrimination next week. And a bunch more. Blah, blah.

12:10 PM: Leave school and zip over to another part of town from my laser appointment. Ladies, it is extravagant, I know: but lasering my bikini line is the best money I have ever spent. I have annihilated razor rash! For Evah!!!

12:30 PM: Get zapped, which takes about 15 minutes, apply aloe vera and zip back to school.

The afternoon is spent pleasurably in filling out my annual reports to our local United Way about how much our program has accomplished with the money they gave us. Click "SUBMIT"!

Aaaaand it is the end of the month, so I have to update the rolls, the tutor files, the testing rosters, add students, drop students, etc.... But I can't, yet, because I still haven't finished archiving all of my 09-10 records and getting the new spreadsheets ready to start entering 10-11 data into them. This is what I get for going on vacation. I put on my archiving hat and get busy. This is a soporific job,and I am grateful when my boss interrupts me to take me on a little walk to the classrooms upstairs.

All of the classrooms are being rearranged so that Guadalupe Schools can expand and start taking 4th graders next year. This means that the one multi-purpose room that we used to have will become another kids' classroom and the multipurpose room will be moved to the evil portable out in the parking lot. I was hoping for one space in the main building that work for a class of 30 adult students, so my boss and I examined rooms, counted desks, talked about white board positioning.

Back to archiving. Shit. It is after 4:00 PM at this point, and I am not ready to leave. I still have a lot to do before I can pack a crate with the month-end books, which I will have to work on at home over the weekend in order to have them ready for the arrival of August. Booger. I'll probably have to spend a couple of hours at the office tomorrow, on sacred Saturday. Blah.

BUT. I must be on the road at 4:40 PM. Simon is dining with the BFT this evening, and so he is sending the kids down from the resort on a bus and I have to be at the bus stop to meet them at 5:20 PM.

I arrive a little early and have a second to start my new book, What Looks Crazy on an Ordinary Day. This is so absorbing that I hope the bus will be late. Alas, it is on time.

The kiddos tell me about their days as we drive over to Walgreens and drop off Nathan's little disposable camera for development. He has filled it with shots from our vacation and is in a hurry to see how they turned out.

Home again by about 6:00 PM. Out to the garden first ting. Find a few cherry tomatoes that are ripe already! Do some weeding.

Inside and make spaghetti carbonara for super. Sara helps. She is getting good at helping. As much as possible, I sip a gin and tonic and supervise. I have this fantasy of coming home from work some day and finding dinner on the table.

The three of us eat together. A little more time with the newspaper and with my book. Clean up the kitchen. Go in Nathan's room and clean out under his bed, which has been getting on my nerves. Pajamas. Teeth. Story. We start The Prince and the Pauper by Mark Twain. I had forgotten how fabulous this book is. The kids are enthralled and keep asking for more. MORE![Buzzer!] Forget it! Outta time!

Open the windows wide to try to catch a breeze. Roam around the house, picking up bits and pieces of kid-flotsam. Si comes home and complains about the BFT. I make a show of sniffing him to see if he smells like extramarital sex. He laughs and goes to ride his exercise bike. And here I am. And now I will go and take a bath. Cuz it's Friday and tomorrow will be another busy day. Hopefully not as boring as this one has been.

Favorite PIctures

I'm afraid that my well is a little dry at the moment. So busy digging out my desk after vacation. But here are some favorite vacation shots.

Ooof!

I haven't forgetten about my blog. Just busy as hell getting ready for the new school year, packing for our extended camping trip in Wyoming and trying to find the source of a musty-ass smell in my kitchen!

It's Gonna Be Spain vs. Holland

I love watching World Cup soccer. When it's exciting, well...then I'm excited. And when it's boring, I have a little nap. Either way, I win! This year's tournament is not as thrilling as 2006, when (in my opinion) there was more style to the play, more dramatic goals, more fights, more jersey-kissing and praying, and...the famous head-butt.

This year, I am not sure which team I prefer. True, the Spaniards are major hotties; but I have a soft spot for the Dutch team, because I know that somewhere out there Willem van Santen is watching them.

When my dad went to the Boy Scout World Jamboree in...1983 or so, I asked him to bring me back some pen-pals, and he did. I exchanged letters with several boys a few times, but the correspondence with Willem stuck. We wrote tons of letters to each other over the next eight years or so. The year that I lived in England, I went to the Netherlands, met him and stayed with his family. After that visit, the letters between us became a little more revealing and emotional. I wondered if we might...what? Have a relationship? It was the same problem I had in my relationship with Simon: how can you know when you can't spend any time together? The Atlantic Ocean is big. And in those days there was no e-mail. When I went to live in Poland, he said he would come to see me there. His letters became warmer than before. I thought that would be the opportunity to see if there was anything there. We made plans to meet, but at the last minute, he wrote to say that he had met a girl and was in a relationship with her. According to him, he was not very serious about her, but she had problems in her life and needed him.

Well, that was that. In the letter, he said that, when the time was right, he knew he would end this relationship because he didn't see it leading to anything permanent.

By the time I get the letter saying that he had left that relationship honorably and wondered if I still had feelings for him, I was back in the USA and had been married to Simon for about three weeks.

I suppose it turned out the way it was supposed to. But Simon has sharp edges; and whenever he hurts me, I think about Willem, who was a much kinder person. Maybe it would not have come to anything, but I wish I had had the chance to know for sure. As it is, the lost potential of that friendship tantalizes me, even 20 years later. I especially wish that we were still in touch. We have both moved numerous times and I don't have a good address for him anymore. There are five Willem van Santens on Facebook, but some of them don't have pictures. I'm too embarrassed to contact each one and ask if he is the right one. He could find me if he looked; since he hasn't contacted me, I guess he does not want to go there.

Of course, he was crazy about football. Every time the Netherlands plays, I think, "Well, Willem, for just a couple of hours, I at least know what you're doing, even if I don't know where you are."

Why I Prefer Fiction

I am all out of escapist reading material at the moment. I've requested What Looks Crazy on an Ordinary Day and This Much I Know is True from the library; but until they arrive, I have magazines (an issue of Shape and one of Runner's World) and my training manual, Running 101. Yeah, this is my punishment for my marathon reading jags. Forced non-fiction.

So, maybe I'll learn something? So far, Running 101 has taught me that, if I were going to make any progress in my times, it would have happened in my first ten years of running. After ten years (according to the book), runners will plateau and can only expect to maintain. So, how many years have I been running? Uh..... 23 years. Running in races and paying attention to my time? Six years... Oh, dear. Like sand through the hourglass...so pass the days of our lives. God dammit. Even Mobey Dick is more uplifting that Running 101. I must have a copy around here somewhere.

Well, the Bolsheviks Thought is was Patriotic...

I was driving last night with the radio on and there was some sort of very conservative message about our patriotism here in Utah; our love for the flag and all it stands for, etc...

The music in the background was the typical orchestral pomp common to this sort of message...but... wait! I knew that tune! Whoops! It was the Internationale!

Finally Over!

I had to finish Your Blues Ain't Like Mine, by Bebe Moore Campbell. It was making me a useless junkie. I had it with me today, because I started off at the dentist this morning. I took it in case I had to do any waiting around. But then it was time for the gym. I pulled up to the rec center and realized that I had forgotten the little index card on which I had written my weight-lifting routine. Why, yes, I could have gone running instead; or, yes, I could have zipped home and got it - the rec is just a couple of minutes from my house. But instead I found a little shade for my truck and read this book. For two hours. I thoroughly recommend it.