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.