I fell off the photo wagon for a few days this week also – not as much as last week – and so I’m supplementing those few days with outtakes from earlier weeks.
Another week shot to hell – and I mean the week before last. This wound up late and then later, and so I’m posting this week and last’s Not A PhotoBlog back to back. I also fell off the photo wagon – life gets busy – and so I’m supplementing several days with a few of the outtakes from earlier weeks. Sue me.
Here it is already Friday – another week, another chance to catch up with your own personal astroillogical future for the weekend and next week.
Aries (The Ram): You will wake with the dawn most of this week, but you’re still getting to bed at midnight. When you see a 7-11 on your left, you’ve gone to far – there will be no return without stopping for coffee and a lottery ticket. Your lucky numbers are 3, 27, 18, 34, 42, and 3 again.
Taurus (The Bull): You’re not swimming with the fishes so much as diving with the dolphins this week. That’s not what the blow-hole is for, and you’re going to be banned from SeaWorld if you keep that up. Faa loves Pa, but not like that. Your high-risk disease this week: Bacterial Walnut Blight.
Gemini (The Twins): The stars show that a new gutter will be in your future on Monday. Enjoy it, it’s probably the only bright spot in an otherwise dull week – aside from all the sex, that is.
Cancer (The Crab): The words “Now I’m driving the bus” will factor heavily into your week, starting with the hijacking of city bus number 22-L on Tuesday. You can’t use your umbrella like a sword, but you’ll want it with you when the rain of frogs begins on Thursday next. Your high-risk disease this week: Stripe Rust of Wheat.
Leo (The Lion): This week, you will become more familiar with lubricant. Best of luck with that.
Virgo (The Virgin): You know what you know, you do what you do, but you don’t do what you know. This weekend may be your big chance. Bring your cleats, a 3/4 inch grommet wrench, and a dozen bagels. Your high-risk disease this week: Scrub Typhus.
Libra (The Scale): You have to work on uncorking your army of flying monkeys without justification – it’ll get you talked about. Also, that scarf does not go with that blouse.
Scorpio (The Scorpion): You will find a new chandelier this weekend; it’ll freak you out as you will fall asleep staring at it from Monday through Wednesday. Your high-risk disease this week: Meliodosis.
Sagittarius (The Archer): The next band you fall in love with may be your own. Grab a guitar on Monday, learn how to make it talk on Tuesday. Quit shaving in favor of practicing.
Capricorn (The Sea-Goat): This week will bring nothing but misery and car repairs. You will wonder why until Tuesday, when you will hit yet another pothole and think the words, “Who’s the hack now, buddy?” Also, don’t shave if you can avoid it – you look like a sexy beast. Your high-risk disease this week: Muscular Sarcocystosis.
Aquarius (The Water Bearer): Your song is as tired as your radio, and you still haven’t told anyone your name. Congrats on keeping a secret, but the cat’s coming out of the bag on Monday. Tuesday, put the cat back in the bag and tie it tightly.
Pisces (The Fish): Stop trying to dance – you look like Mick Jagger after a 3-week bender and hip-replacement surgery, assuming he was missing a leg below the knee. Your high-risk disease this week: Visceral Leishmaniasis.
So there I was, Dining and Dancing with the SOLs. This involves taking your 3rd grader, by which in this case we mean the Reigning Queen of Pink, to her school around 6pm, eating fundraiser-priced pizza, and listening to a lecture about what the Standards of Learning tests are, when they are, why they’re important, why they’re not important, why your students shouldn’t stress over them at all, but why you should pleasepleaseplease not go on vacation during test week and make sure they get enough sleep and make sure they get a good breakfast and make sure they’ve studied all the stuff we’re going to send home with them for 2 months beforehand and make sure to quiz them and drill them on the practice tests that you shouldn’t stress over but the URLs are right here, and we’ll have sample test questions sent home every day, but really, make sure the kids don’t worry about this in the slightest – it’s no big deal.
Really. Not to worry at all. It’s just our jobs on the line. Which is the sad, sad, and odd part of it – for most of the kids, this test really won’t affect their lives. Their teachers’ lives, however, will be measured and found full or lacking based on the results of the kids’ scores. As a project manager, I understand this completely – but I have a lot more control over my team’s performance than any teacher ever had over a 3rd grader. To say that this is a goofy way to run an educational system is to risk understatement, but it’s a perfectly valid rationale for the slightly schizophrenic tone to the message. Also, this is a goofy way to run an educational system.
Then we got to the dancing part. This is hook to get people to show up – promise the 3rd graders pizza and dancing, and they will drag their parents.
We retired to the gym, which still conjures in me flashbacks of Hell – from being picked last (well, next to last, most of the time; I was at least reasonably tall and didn’t wear glasses) to coming in last to not being at all athletically inclined, the gym was never exactly a sanctuary for younger versions of myself. This particular gym wasn’t helping with that – we’re going to line up and everybody gets to dance with their kid, isn’t that nice! You’re invited regardless of inclination or ability. It’s like the draft, only with line dancing.
We started with a dance routine lead by an amazing drill sergeant dance instructor gym teacher who was somehow capable of being in 4 places at once. Her voice is bigger than her frame, which I suspect comes from dealing with small children at a distance, and she moved through the crowd so fast I thought she was disapperating and apparating over on the other side of the room. We “did the Hustle” for one of the dances, but she did it for the whole dance. Every time we turned to face a new wall and clap, there she was! She must be a hell of a gym sergeant.
Anyway, the music teacher / DJ had us start with some new fresh wedding hell called the Cupid Shuffle, which I’m certain was invented by some wedding DJ bent on highlighting the dance floor inadequacies of overweight white guys. I mean, not that I blame him, but I resemble that remark, you know?
Truth: I have all the rhythm of a busted metronome trying to swing, tick-tock-splot, in a bucket of jello. Thanks to events like this, I have the opportunity to prove it to not only my 3rd grader, but to the rest of the 3rd grade cohort. And their parents. And the PTA President. And her camera.
For one brief, shining moment, I held out hope that the evening would end as the last one did – when I was here with Number One Son 2 years ago, he bailed out after about one song. Alas, it was not to be – when the Reigning Queen of Pink dances, she’s in it to win it, baby.
We danced to my Achy Breaky Heart, which (I never knew!) involves moving your hands up to the right and then left, down to right and left, and then slapping your hips – right and then left – and then doing some other stuff. Needless to say, this lasted for about 15 seconds before my “right hip slap” sent my Blackberry skittering across the floor (one of the dangers of coming without changing from work).
There was a brief medley of 5-second musical vignettes that seemed like a combination of “Flashdance in 15 Seconds” and “Name That Tune.” In less than 3 minutes, we covered everything from “Do You Love Me” and Glen Miller’s “In the Mood” to the Velvet Underground’s “Heroin” to “The Twist” to “Day-O” to Katy Perry’s “Last Friday Night.” We danced to them all, my white bread, jello-shot metronome notwithstanding.
Consolation prize: When we came home, someone mentioned that it’s National Margarita Day. Also, this is my last 3rd grader – I am done with line dancing until the next wedding. The Reigning Queen of Pink came home perfectly happy and content – after all, she’s got nothing to worry about.
SOBUMD got a new coffee maker the other day…
Yep. It’s a Koirig.