I'm off to school tomorrow. Unofficially. For free. To see what needs to be done in my room. Because as any teacher can tell you, summer is a dangerous time. The custodians do a bang-up job of cleaning and polishing, but then replace the classroom furniture in a pattern that they might use if it was their classroom.
I also expect to mount a safari to find items captured by my fellow faculty. You know. Because they saw it in the hall, and figured I was wanting to get rid of it. Like the hall is a giant curb where you put your stuff for passers-by to help themselves.
In addition, I'm curious about the locking thermostats which were touted at the end of last school year. I need to know if a fan will be required for me to keep my cool. Sorry to be pessimistic, but if I bring a fan, it's going to be on ME. The years of turning them on students are gone. If the kids are hot, they can just complain at home. Them maybe somebody will see the error of the lockbox ways. Hopefully, it was just a threat, not a promise. I am a very responsible thermostat juggler. And I always put it back on the timed setting overnight. And I never leave my windows open. And never go below the recommended 72 degrees. It's just that sometimes, you have to set it on 70 to maintain 72 with a room full of students.
The new textbooks should be here, so I need to familiarize myself with their layout. It's not like any scientific theories have changed over the summer. Unless it's that global warming business. And that polar bears are not sweatin' endangeredness all that much.
I'll need to see what wicked web has been woven of my computer accessory wires, and inform my assistant, the #1 son so he can set it up the right way. For pay. I'm all about paying him for a service that the people paid to do won't get to until the first day. Or later.
I'm a regular Boy Scout when it comes to starting my job all over again. Mrs. Hillbilly Mom will never be caught unprepared.
Sunday, August 7, 2011
Saturday, August 6, 2011
A Period Piece
For something completely different, The Pony and I did our business with The Devil on Saturday instead of Sunday. Not that you could tell.
On our way in, a motorist dude swerved around a woman with a toddler and blew through the crosswalk area, running the next two stop signs as well. Crackhead.
I was almost backed over by a woman riding a cart on the pest spray aisle. I was actually looking for some dust wipe thingamabobs, and thought maybe some Lemon-Pledge-like products may be grouped with other aerosols. No. I searched four aisles and never found any dusting products.
Because it was the first weekend of the month, and back-to-school time, and a Saturday at 11:30 a.m., The Devil had his minions blocking foot traffic and displays with industrial carts loaded with product. Because the busiest shopping hours of the month are apparently the best time to stock shelves. What do those employees do from midnight until dawn? Have a hoedown with The Devil? I had to wait nigh on ninety seconds for a blue-vested girl to unload a milk crate of...well...milk into the cooler. I thought about grabbing a half gallon out of a crate on her pallet, but thought that might be a bit aggressive. So a bald, bearded dude and I made do with sighing heavily until she finished unloading that crate. Then we swarmed the cooler like a couple of Supermarket Sweep contestants.
The strangest obstacle I encountered was on the back aisle of the health and beauty products department. While The Pony was busily sniffing the assortment of Axe antiperspirants, I was stymied by three people camped in front of the feminine hygiene shelf. One woman was a worker. A man and lady, fairly young, were quizzing her on the availability of what sounded like some kind of pygmy tampon, the kind that's like somewhat folded up in itself, that a girl can carry in her pocket. Their words. Not mine. Sweet Gummi Mary! Were they shopping for a birthday gift? It's not like this was some hoity toity boutique dedicated to the disbursement of tween period products. It was The Devil's Playground, for cryin' out loud! What you see is what you get. Bait and switch. They get you hooked on a certain brand and size, then discontinue it and foist Sam's Choice or Great Value on you. Did these folks think they could ask that clerk to special order a custom item?
Seriously. It made me look for a hidden camera.
On our way in, a motorist dude swerved around a woman with a toddler and blew through the crosswalk area, running the next two stop signs as well. Crackhead.
I was almost backed over by a woman riding a cart on the pest spray aisle. I was actually looking for some dust wipe thingamabobs, and thought maybe some Lemon-Pledge-like products may be grouped with other aerosols. No. I searched four aisles and never found any dusting products.
Because it was the first weekend of the month, and back-to-school time, and a Saturday at 11:30 a.m., The Devil had his minions blocking foot traffic and displays with industrial carts loaded with product. Because the busiest shopping hours of the month are apparently the best time to stock shelves. What do those employees do from midnight until dawn? Have a hoedown with The Devil? I had to wait nigh on ninety seconds for a blue-vested girl to unload a milk crate of...well...milk into the cooler. I thought about grabbing a half gallon out of a crate on her pallet, but thought that might be a bit aggressive. So a bald, bearded dude and I made do with sighing heavily until she finished unloading that crate. Then we swarmed the cooler like a couple of Supermarket Sweep contestants.
The strangest obstacle I encountered was on the back aisle of the health and beauty products department. While The Pony was busily sniffing the assortment of Axe antiperspirants, I was stymied by three people camped in front of the feminine hygiene shelf. One woman was a worker. A man and lady, fairly young, were quizzing her on the availability of what sounded like some kind of pygmy tampon, the kind that's like somewhat folded up in itself, that a girl can carry in her pocket. Their words. Not mine. Sweet Gummi Mary! Were they shopping for a birthday gift? It's not like this was some hoity toity boutique dedicated to the disbursement of tween period products. It was The Devil's Playground, for cryin' out loud! What you see is what you get. Bait and switch. They get you hooked on a certain brand and size, then discontinue it and foist Sam's Choice or Great Value on you. Did these folks think they could ask that clerk to special order a custom item?
Seriously. It made me look for a hidden camera.
Friday, August 5, 2011
With Nary A Watch Nor Warning
The atmosphere was angry today, my friends. Like an old man trying to send back soup at a deli. Well...technically, that was what George Costanza said about the sea, shortly before revealing that as a fake marine biologist, he had removed a Titleist hit by Kramer off a cliff at the beach from a dying whale's blowhole. Let's just say that a wicked thunderstorm kicked up this afternoon in Hillmomba.
The Pony and I had just returned from town. Dark skies followed us along our winding route like a Boston terrier nipping the heels of a hurried mom dropping off her toddler at an in-home daycare. Just before we left the gravel road for the Mansion driveway, fat drops of rain pelted T-Hoe. Just enough to create a muddy sludge on his back hatch and bumper.
The Pony carried in our belongings and went back to the garage for more. I was setting down my things on the kitchen counter when I heard a large crash. I feared that The Pony had fallen down the porch steps and onto the concrete sidewalk. It was a thumping sound like thin-skin-covered bones on wood. Not the whump of the metal door slamming on the wooden door frame of the garage. I rushed outside onto the back porch and around the corner made by The Pony's bedroom. He was nowhere to be seen. But the two-piece bookshelf/chest of drawers that Farmer H had set on the side porch had lost its top. The bookshelf was laying face down, sticking off the wooden planks, soaking up sideways rain.
I could not see The Pony. I hollered for him. He finally appeared in the garage door with his Kindle in a plastic Devil's Playground bag. He trotted three steps through the horizontal-pour, and hoofed it up the steps. But didn't. The Pony put a foot wrong. It slipped out of his Adidas slide and he crashed onto the four steps to the porch. The Kindle was OK. The Pony had a red leg. Not bloody red. Angry skin red.
We righted the porch furniture but did not put the bookshelf back on top of the drawers. The dogs paced and shot us the stinkeye. They don't much like storms. I don't much like dogs in the house. We left them to stew in nature's juices and retired to the safety of The Mansion.
There was nary a watch nor warning to be found on broadcast TV.
The Pony and I had just returned from town. Dark skies followed us along our winding route like a Boston terrier nipping the heels of a hurried mom dropping off her toddler at an in-home daycare. Just before we left the gravel road for the Mansion driveway, fat drops of rain pelted T-Hoe. Just enough to create a muddy sludge on his back hatch and bumper.
The Pony carried in our belongings and went back to the garage for more. I was setting down my things on the kitchen counter when I heard a large crash. I feared that The Pony had fallen down the porch steps and onto the concrete sidewalk. It was a thumping sound like thin-skin-covered bones on wood. Not the whump of the metal door slamming on the wooden door frame of the garage. I rushed outside onto the back porch and around the corner made by The Pony's bedroom. He was nowhere to be seen. But the two-piece bookshelf/chest of drawers that Farmer H had set on the side porch had lost its top. The bookshelf was laying face down, sticking off the wooden planks, soaking up sideways rain.
I could not see The Pony. I hollered for him. He finally appeared in the garage door with his Kindle in a plastic Devil's Playground bag. He trotted three steps through the horizontal-pour, and hoofed it up the steps. But didn't. The Pony put a foot wrong. It slipped out of his Adidas slide and he crashed onto the four steps to the porch. The Kindle was OK. The Pony had a red leg. Not bloody red. Angry skin red.
We righted the porch furniture but did not put the bookshelf back on top of the drawers. The dogs paced and shot us the stinkeye. They don't much like storms. I don't much like dogs in the house. We left them to stew in nature's juices and retired to the safety of The Mansion.
There was nary a watch nor warning to be found on broadcast TV.
Thursday, August 4, 2011
Chinese Chicken Crow
You know you're a hillbilly when...
...you have to step out on the porch for cell phone reception to call town and order Chinese food, and during the call, a black-and-whited checkered banty rooster hops up on the porch of your Hillbilly Mansion and crows so loudly that you have to repeat your order of Sweet & Sour Chicken and General Tso's Chicken.
Apparently, chickens understand English.
*************************************************
...the UPS man ignores the two dogs lounging on the porch, but eyes the flock of approaching chickens with distrust. "I haven't been flogged by a rooster in quite a while."
Apparently, chickens make good watchdogs.
*************************************************
...you can't walk five steps from the basement door to your backyard pool without chickens swarming around your ankles, looking up longingly into your eyes.
Apparently, chickens are well-schooled in Pavlovian conditioning.
...you have to step out on the porch for cell phone reception to call town and order Chinese food, and during the call, a black-and-whited checkered banty rooster hops up on the porch of your Hillbilly Mansion and crows so loudly that you have to repeat your order of Sweet & Sour Chicken and General Tso's Chicken.
Apparently, chickens understand English.
*************************************************
...the UPS man ignores the two dogs lounging on the porch, but eyes the flock of approaching chickens with distrust. "I haven't been flogged by a rooster in quite a while."
Apparently, chickens make good watchdogs.
*************************************************
...you can't walk five steps from the basement door to your backyard pool without chickens swarming around your ankles, looking up longingly into your eyes.
Apparently, chickens are well-schooled in Pavlovian conditioning.
Wednesday, August 3, 2011
Ooh, Boys! It's Hot!
On a day when the thermometer reads 90 at 9:00 a.m., and the forecast is for a heat index of 110...is there anything better to do than lounge around your Mansion soaking up the cool, cool air conditioning?
Why, yes! Apparently, there is. If you are Mrs. Hillbilly Mom, you schedule a routine medical test that requires you to drive 20 miles in your black, sun-absorbing T-Hoe, for the test that requires you to go without deodorant. Timing is everything, my friends.
And after that, why not go to the County Health Center with updated information on your son's Tdap shot, so you can walk across the sweltering blacktop through shimmering heat waves to find out that yes, he does need the "ap" part of the Tdap, because he only had the Tetanus and Diphtheria part at the ER when he gashed his eyebrow open in 2009, but that the "and Pertussis" part is not required for school attendance, so he can skip the hordes at the upcoming shot clinic on Monday.
Then you should drive even farther out of your way to turn in that half-sheet scrap of yellow paper you got in the mail called a "contract" and turn it in to Newmentia's main office.
From there, you can go home and relax for a few minutes in your cool, cool air conditioning, until your mom calls with a question about The Pony's new computer game that won't register with the code number, and asks if you can please consult the resident computer genius who happens to be floating in Poolio's buttwater soup on an air mattress two sizes too small. Which means you have to stand in the sun while he talks on the phone, and the chickens swarm you because they think your name is FOOD FOR US. So you feel guilty and go get the rest of your taco salad to throw them, but the #1 son wants to eat it, and then he needs a fork, so you go back inside and bring not only a fork, but some pineapple chunks from Dollar Tree that only expired a month ago to feed those chickens, who must be so hot that they are practically frying right before your eyes.
Problem unsolved, you take the phone back inside your cool, cool air-conditioned Mansion, and call The Pony with further questions. You find that a deal has been struck to pay #1 $10 to solve the gaming issue, then do a simple Google search and make The Pony's day. For free.
Ooh, boys! It's hot! So say the Ozark Mountain Daredevils, anyway.
Why, yes! Apparently, there is. If you are Mrs. Hillbilly Mom, you schedule a routine medical test that requires you to drive 20 miles in your black, sun-absorbing T-Hoe, for the test that requires you to go without deodorant. Timing is everything, my friends.
And after that, why not go to the County Health Center with updated information on your son's Tdap shot, so you can walk across the sweltering blacktop through shimmering heat waves to find out that yes, he does need the "ap" part of the Tdap, because he only had the Tetanus and Diphtheria part at the ER when he gashed his eyebrow open in 2009, but that the "and Pertussis" part is not required for school attendance, so he can skip the hordes at the upcoming shot clinic on Monday.
Then you should drive even farther out of your way to turn in that half-sheet scrap of yellow paper you got in the mail called a "contract" and turn it in to Newmentia's main office.
From there, you can go home and relax for a few minutes in your cool, cool air conditioning, until your mom calls with a question about The Pony's new computer game that won't register with the code number, and asks if you can please consult the resident computer genius who happens to be floating in Poolio's buttwater soup on an air mattress two sizes too small. Which means you have to stand in the sun while he talks on the phone, and the chickens swarm you because they think your name is FOOD FOR US. So you feel guilty and go get the rest of your taco salad to throw them, but the #1 son wants to eat it, and then he needs a fork, so you go back inside and bring not only a fork, but some pineapple chunks from Dollar Tree that only expired a month ago to feed those chickens, who must be so hot that they are practically frying right before your eyes.
Problem unsolved, you take the phone back inside your cool, cool air-conditioned Mansion, and call The Pony with further questions. You find that a deal has been struck to pay #1 $10 to solve the gaming issue, then do a simple Google search and make The Pony's day. For free.
Ooh, boys! It's hot! So say the Ozark Mountain Daredevils, anyway.
Tuesday, August 2, 2011
Hot Time In Hillmomba Last Night
Whew! The Mansion lost her air conditioning last night. The fan blew tepid air, but the temperature started to rise. It was 78 at the time I went to bed. I woke Farmer H to share that information with him. He who turns on the ceiling fan in the bedroom every night because he says a setting of 74 is too hot. There he was, covered to the gills with a quilt, mumbling that it felt fine to him.
Farmer H arose at 4:00. I heard him whacking something metallic out back. Then he took a shower and reclined in the La-Z-Boy until time to go to work at 6:00. When I got up at 7:00, the house felt cooler. I called Farmer H. "I spun the fan on the condenser and got it going. It had frozen up. The guys are supposed to come look at it sometime this morning."
Farmer H had set the thermostat on 72. I left it. I didn't want to jinx it. But by 9:00, the temperature started rising again. When the repairman came at 10:20, it was back up to 75, and climbing. The repairman put in a new capacitor, and I felt a puff of cool air again. It's still working right now. I'm hoping the problem is solved, and that we don't lose electricity tonight from everybody using too much power.
I kind of wish Farmer H hadn't called that repairman a couple weeks ago when nothing was wrong with the AC.
Farmer H arose at 4:00. I heard him whacking something metallic out back. Then he took a shower and reclined in the La-Z-Boy until time to go to work at 6:00. When I got up at 7:00, the house felt cooler. I called Farmer H. "I spun the fan on the condenser and got it going. It had frozen up. The guys are supposed to come look at it sometime this morning."
Farmer H had set the thermostat on 72. I left it. I didn't want to jinx it. But by 9:00, the temperature started rising again. When the repairman came at 10:20, it was back up to 75, and climbing. The repairman put in a new capacitor, and I felt a puff of cool air again. It's still working right now. I'm hoping the problem is solved, and that we don't lose electricity tonight from everybody using too much power.
I kind of wish Farmer H hadn't called that repairman a couple weeks ago when nothing was wrong with the AC.
Monday, August 1, 2011
Somebody Needs To (Part 2)
This morning, the #1 son invaded my living room territory as I was half-way watching The View. He laid back on the couch and spouted his opinion of guest Dana Delany as she talked about some show where she's a coroner. On of the mouthy hosts asked about how she prepared for a role where she works with dead bodies. Apparently, she did that by working on actual dead bodies. Which is just a waste of dead bodies if you ask me, which nobody did, because you know that on the show, she works on prop dead bodies. So why she felt the need to desecrate the dead I'll never know. But it's not like her 'patients' were complaining.
Then Ms. Delany brought up something about her 84-year-old mother still working. I was not paying close attention, but I assumed she was talking about her real-life mother. And I said, "Shame on her, making all that star money and not letting her mother retire. And drink box wine like Kathy Griffin's mom, Maggie."
I looked at the #1 son. "You'd be like that. 'Oh, Mom. You really need to keep working. It doesn't matter that I am the new Bill Gates. That's MY money. Now somebody needs to pump up her wheelchair tires and get crackin'.' I know you. That's exactly how it would be." He laughed like I was joking.
Soon after, we left so I could take him to get shot. The bacterial meningitis vaccine that all kids must have to live in a college dorm. No need to put it off. It's a one-time thing. He could have driven himself, but what with that unfortunate flu vaccine faux pas in which he left the doctor's office dragging one leg and declaring that he had lost all feeling in it, he wanted me to take him.
"I can see it now," I told him. "I'll be rolling you out of the health center in a wheelchair, while you shout, 'Somebody needs to push a little faster!' "
Then Ms. Delany brought up something about her 84-year-old mother still working. I was not paying close attention, but I assumed she was talking about her real-life mother. And I said, "Shame on her, making all that star money and not letting her mother retire. And drink box wine like Kathy Griffin's mom, Maggie."
I looked at the #1 son. "You'd be like that. 'Oh, Mom. You really need to keep working. It doesn't matter that I am the new Bill Gates. That's MY money. Now somebody needs to pump up her wheelchair tires and get crackin'.' I know you. That's exactly how it would be." He laughed like I was joking.
Soon after, we left so I could take him to get shot. The bacterial meningitis vaccine that all kids must have to live in a college dorm. No need to put it off. It's a one-time thing. He could have driven himself, but what with that unfortunate flu vaccine faux pas in which he left the doctor's office dragging one leg and declaring that he had lost all feeling in it, he wanted me to take him.
"I can see it now," I told him. "I'll be rolling you out of the health center in a wheelchair, while you shout, 'Somebody needs to push a little faster!' "
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