More Bath and Body Works

Am I the only person who finds humor in some of the names of the scents at Bath and Body Works? Especially one, Midnight Pomegranate. Why midnight? Why not noon? Why pomegranate? Why not avocado? The possibilities are endless. Every time I see the name of this scent, it makes me think of the book title Midnight in the Garden of Good and Evil. Then it makes me think of a website I ran across while I was learning about playing the blues - it had a formula for creating a blues musician's name. I think the formula was to use the name of an odd fruit or vegetable and then the name of a dead president. Ex. Cucumber Eisenhower or Kumquat Wilson. I think extra points were given for alliteration - Rhubarb Roosevelt, for example. Anyway, all this runs through my mind when I see "Midnight Pomegranate." Seems like to better sell their product they'd want a potential buyer to picture something restful and relaxing instead.

Bath and Body Works

Today as my 13 year old son and I browsed the sale at Bath and Body Works, we sniffed every scent they had for sale. We found some scents we really liked and some that 'bout knocked us to our knees - especially the heated oil - whew! My son then made a sound observation. He said, "This would be a great place to work - no one would ever know you'd passed gas!" Hmmmm... Then he added... "And I just gave it a test run!" He was so proud.

Rats

No, actually it was cats. Well, really just one cat. She gnawed on a nice Ponytail Palm plant that I've had for years. I've been trying to nurture it into a bonsai-type form. However, that was cut short! lol. Not sure if it will make it. Now I just have to find it a home. I guess I should take it to work then. :-(

give me a hand

things that are hard to do one-handed:

• use the shift key
• blow-dry hair - blow-drying whilst using a brush can just be totally abandoned.
  
• pull up slacks
• wear clothes w/o elastic
• read a dtb (dead tree book)
• hold & read a Nook (& turn pages)
• open items with lids, such as pain meds
  
• fasten a seat-belt
  
• apply shampoo and conditioner in any amount smaller than 1 cup blobs
• applying deodorant
• opening zip-lock bags
• taking off jackets
• rubbing left eye with right hand
  
• kung-foo fighting with 12-year old son
  

so it's probably wise to steer clear of one-handed people until they reaquire the use of both hands. sigh.

Oh Deer!

It's all in perspective. Funny how one's view of things change over time. For years I've seen this image all over the place on the back windows of trucks.
Each time I saw this image I thought it was a dancing figure, maybe on fire, the bottom two lines being the legs. I wasn't sure I was right, but thought maybe it was a company logo. The problem I had with this logo was that I saw the positive space only - the lines of the shape. Whomever created the logo counted on people's brains being able to see the image in the negative space - the white part of the image. Just within the past month I finally saw what Browning, the company this logo represents, meant for me to see - a deer. It's the image of a buck's head facing left and the antlers above. But then most people probably already see that. Just not me. I just found it amusing to have seen this image so often and only recently figured it out. So, what do you see?

Bean-Oh-My!

We were watching TV together a few nights ago. On came a commercial for Bean-o. The commercial announcer said, "It prevents gas!" My 12 year-old son said completely deadpan, "Why would anyone want to prevent gas????" Need I say more?

Language Barrier

My son and I were walking slowly out of the school building yesterday. Darling son was playing his personal gaming device of the moment. A cutie-pie kindergartner walked past us going the opposite direction and I heard him say, "buenos dias" as he walked by. Ah, how sweet I thought to myself - what a groovy, multi-cultural school we have. Sigh with grin.

Of course I said "buenos dias" back to him, albeit a little delayed. My son then looked at me oddly and said in that know-it all middle-schooler tone, "Mom, he said, 'Nice DS!'"

I cackled all the way out of the building, promptly embarrassing the cool middle-schooler with the "nice DS." Maybe time to get my hearing checked??? or take some Spanish lessons!

Middle School Boredom Gone Awry

Today: I'm awaiting my son's arrival at my school via carpool so that I can zip over to a meeting on the other side of town. In walks 12 year old. He is complaining to me about a problem at dismissal, a girl keeps trying to take his bookbag. "Wait. What is on your upper lip?" I say. "Oh, he he he. A mustache." "Why do you have a blue Bic mustache?" Twelve year old responds, "I was bored."

So I finish listening to his story about the bookbag kidnapper. Then I ask him to please get rid of the mustache because we're headed to a education meeting with people I'd like to keep working for and bringing a 12 year old with a blue mustache might not be the best career-advancing move for me. Luckily the mustache did wash off.

I was amused how little the mustache bothered the twelve year old. How strange that an age when most are uber self concious, my son bravely models a blue mustache! I only regret that I was in such a rush to get to the meeting that I didn't take a picture. :-( Would have been great for the "rehearsal dinner photo montage" when/if someday he gets married!

Third Grade Night at the Roxbury

So I'm teaching a lesson in Social Studies up at the board. I finish writing on the board and turn around to see one student in the front of the classroom bobbing his head to a silent beat only beknownst to him. "How odd," I think. I continue my lesson and write something else on the board. A minute later I look back at the class and now there are three students bobbing their heads to the same silent beat. All of a sudden I have a vision of the "Night at the Roxbury" SNL skit. Never mind that these are third graders who are doing the head bobbing and most likely have never seen that skit nor have probably heard of SNL since it's not on Nickelodeon. Here's a link if you need to refresh your memory of SNL days gone by. Needless to say it was hard for me to give those 3 students the evil teacher eye to stop the head bobbing. After class my student teacher and I were able to laugh hysterically about it. Luckily she had seen the SNL skit.

The Many Uses of Ziplock

My 12 year old son returned today from a boy scout camping trip in the frigid cold of the northern outreaches of our state. He came back with almost all of the stuff we sent him off with, and didn't get in trouble, so we decided it was a successful trip. Plus they'll get a polar bear patch because it got below freezing - snowed even. The humor lies (luckily for a change) in the tale of my son's pal. To protect his identity, as I'm sure his parents will appreciate I'll call him "Jay." In the middle of the night last night my son and Jay who were sharing a tent swear they heard either a cougar or bear rubbing up against their tent. (Gee, now maybe they'll take heed when told to not keep any food in their tent!) Poor Jay found himself in the predicament of needing to go to the bathroom and yet too scared to go outside of the tent per the bear or cougar roaming around. So, being the resourceful scout that he is he made quick use of a ziplock bag. The punchline is that he toted the bag full of pee back home with him in his pack - a four hour drive. The expression was priceless in seeing his dad's face when Jay told him that he'd toted the pee back in his pack. My husband and I just grinned, glad that for once the parental groaning was from someone other than us!

Oh How Cute

Oh, how I cute I thought. They're having a "Wee Day" at the pub! Kids eat free or Irish entertainment for munchkins, etc. Or perhaps someone meant "Wii." This was exactly what I thought when I glanced at this sign.

Only as I walked around the corner and saw a correct sign did I realize I must spend too much time around kids to not realize what the sign was trying to say...
Gee, I miss grown-ups.

Squeaky Clean

I, like most elementary school teachers, keep a junk drawer (and cabinet) where all the odds and ends I take away from students throughout the year are kept. Items are babysat in the aforementioned locations either until the end of the class, day or sometimes until the last day of school. But like most kids, and teachers, a number of items get forgotten.

My son was cleaning out one such junk drawer for me after the end of the school year. He organized items I actually wanted to keep in the drawer like pens and sticky notes. He also came across the random stretchy bracelet, matchbox car or gum ball machine jewelry and asked me what he should do with it. Of course it all went in the trash. One item was more random than the preceding ones however. He pulled out a nice, clean, seemingly unused, bar of soap. Not a little tiny one that you steal from a hotel, but a large, regular size bar. I had totally forgotten about that bar of soap. And no, despite what you're thinking, it was not used for washing mouths out.

I remember one of my students holding a bar of soap during class activities. I remember asking her about it. She said it was from home. She'd been cleaning her bathroom at home and just slipped it into her pocket and forgot about it. Yep, that's what I do when I'm cleaning in the bathroom, just put any items I have to clean under in my pocket! Not!

I told her to put it away and take it back home. However, the soap kept reappearing at different times, days and locations in the classroom. Pet soap maybe? Maybe there's a marketing niche there? Who knows. I kept the soap. It was such an odd item to see a student with after so many toys, jewelry, gel pens, etc. etc. Just thought I'd share...

Proofreading is Invaluable

New Life Philosophy

So, the town where I live is a great boon for finding interesting signage as a form of entertainment. Yesterday, I came across "Accept Foo" painted on the side of a local convenience store. (The name of the store is fodder for a later post...stay tuned!) Obviously "food stamps" was what the painter's goal was. But, for some reason paint, money, or time ran out before the completed thought came to "f00"-ition. But that's good for those of us looking for local laughter.

I also think that "accept foo" makes a great life motto, in addition to its humor quotient. If I could only accept everything around me as it is at that moment, life would be much less stressful. No worries. It'd be great. So, for a teacher now looking at a lovely, free summer, I think this will be a good mantra to keep in mind. It'll give me time to practice it before the students return all too soon! :-)

Not a Slave to Fashion

Ok. So I was a leetle beet tired. I'd stayed up until 11:30 last night completing insanely detailed lesson plans for my sub for the week. I worked on the plans for about, oh, 7 hours give or take an hour. We're talkin' detailed!

But I digress. (Symptom of tiredness). Today I was happy to wear comfy jeans to work. (Yeah!) Got dressed in a jiff and ready to go. Out the door we went. Morning went great, kids worked hard, blah, blah, blah.

So, then at recess, my gradelevel bud just happens to take note of my Friday footwear and casually says, "Why are you wearing two different shoes?" Luckily I was able to stay on the bench I was seated on while I laughed so hard I nearly had tears running down my face. I hadn't realized what a fashion fauxpas I'd made until that moment. Now, to give myself some credit, both shoes were sneakers. Both shoes were white. But to look at them from above it's very noticeable how different they look.

Boy did I need that laugh big-time. My gradelevel bud was truly curious about my shoe choice and admitted that she thought maybe I'd done it on purpose to accommodate an orthotic insert or something. Sheesh! It is my 16th year teaching, but gimme a break! That, to me, made my goof even funnier. Only after that did one of my students note the different shoes. I just had to take it in stride, haha! and laugh with them. I'm glad I afforded those around me with a moment of amusement. I count today as a success! Just tryin' to keep everyone on their toes!

"To sleep, perchance to dream- ay, there's the rub." - Hamlet

Being in community theater is a wonderful thing. You meet new people, you test yourself on your ability to remember all of your lines and perform them consistently each night of the show. I enjoyed it. There was a point, however, in which exhaustion took over. A week of getting up at quarter til 6 for work, doing work all day, then quickly eating something and heading to call at 7 pm was beginning to take its toll. The show finished up each night around 11 pm. Then there's that high one is riding after a show which takes an hour or so to settle down enough from to go to sleep. So exhaustion took over.

I only realized this after waking up one morning not hunting for my glasses before I got out of bed. In fact, I had awoken a time or two during the night to let the cat and/or dog out and ne're gave it a thought that I hadn't grabbed my glasses. It wasn't until I was showered, dressed, and putting on makeup did I realize that I was in very clear focus. No taking off the specs to put on eye makeup. Hmmmm... that's the moment that I realized I'd slept in my contacts. Sheesh! Luckily the contacts I sometimes wear are the kind that can be worn overnight...my dry eyes just never have been able to wear them overnight. In 23+ years of wearing contacts I'd never slept in them! I was disappointed that the hand of God, or the Sound of Music for that matter, hadn't touched me in the night and healed my nearsightedness. Ah well.

The punchline on the tiredness occurred the next night when I was onstage talking to Maria. Instead of delivering the line about the "Von Trapp" family, my body musta really been a-needin' some caffeine, I told Maria all about the "Von Frapp" family! Musta been a subconscious message that I needed a Frappucino and fast!

Nazi Lions

The local cherry blossom festival was great. We roamed around all afternoon Saturday eating fair food, watching our son play ride kiddie rides, ran into local and not so local folks we hadn't seen in eons. It was great! Beautiful weather too. What more could you ask for? Well, how about sea lions!

I've seen the oreo-eating racing pigs and the tigers that are sometimes at local fairs, but sea lions? Come on! But there were really sea lions - the small, small, baby ones (seal-size in case you were wondering). They travel in a tank of water enclosed in a trailer truck thing.

So we trudged over to the sea lion area for the show. Of course this was not Sea World, so no amphitheater. There were bleachers. Being somewhat vertically challenged however, the three of us were only able to hear the sea lion show. Whoop-dee-do. Somehow something is lost when one cannot actually view the show. Then my son got the brilliant idea to sit on his dad's shoulders to see the show. So he got to actually see the show, the lucky guy. So my husband and I continued to just listen. Ah well. Once it was over I asked my son what he thought about the show. He said it was great! Sigh.

Later, I was telling a friend about this show that was not for short people and called it a not-see lion show. Her mind was in a different place however and what she heard was that it was a nazi lion show. So we both, well no just me really now that I think about it, had a good hearty gaffaw over that one. So beware your homophones! or words that are sorta kinda like homophones! That is if you know what a homophone is! I know there are some of you out there!

U2 sings.."But I Still...Haven't Found...What I'm Lookin' For..."

Ok. So I admit perhaps I've been burning the candle at both ends lately. Work, rehearsals, sleep occasionally, even surviving picture day at work. Today this fact was brought to the forefront. It was time to leave work for the day. It had been a rough day, picture day. Teachers, you know what I'm talking about. If you're not a teacher, ignorance is bliss, shall we say.

Anyway, I called my husband on my cell phone to see how his day was and relay how fun mine had been. While we talked I got together my stuff to take home, one item of which was my purse. I kept chatting while I checked the outside pocket and then frantically the inside pockets of my purse for my car key (found it), and my phone. I couldn't find my phone! Suddenly, my side of the conversation paused for dramatic effect when I realized I really had lost my phone. Then, (finally), my brain synapses refired and I laughed hysterically as I realized the missing phone was being held to my ear, by my hand and being talked into. Kinda like when one goes looking about for one's sunglasses, only to find them located comfortably on top of one's head! Oh man, what a day!

Come on Baby Light my Fire...

Nothing like a little fire and flammable objects to enliven a church service! My darling son was an acolyte last weekend. However, the decorating committee didn't seem to take a few things into account. My son and the other acolyte are short. Short as in can't see the tops of the candles to know whether they've been lit or extinguished. Short as in barely taller than the altar.

The decorating committee also didn't think about the decorations they chose in context. There were 7 fat, lit pillar candles once the acolytes got some assistance lighting the candles they couldn't see. The decorations were beautiful, loopy, bundles of kindling! Yikes!!!!!! All of the sticks/vines curved up very near the flames! What were they thinking???? What were they doing???? Playing with fire????

Ok, no fire occurred during the service thankfully, but I know the four acolyte parents and the congregation members who were paying attention were on the edge of their seats during the acolyte action. The extinguishing of the flames was a bit tricky. The two acolytes were finally able to get all of them out except one whose wax had melted in such a convoluted way that the flame couldn't be seen at all. The two acolytes were still deliberating (motioning back and forth in front of the altar about who should do what and how) and trying to get that last flame out even after the pastor and assistant pastor had processed back down the aisle and the choir was finished with the benediction. Finally, (thank God), the choir director came to their rescue extinguishing the remaining flame and they were able to quickly zip down the aisle. We were so thankful our son was able to supply the congregation with such suspense! Stephen King watch out!

Kids These Days

I love my school's live TV news broadcast. It is very cute and is well done for elementary students. I got tickled the other day when some students were interviewed by a student news anchor about an amazing dance program that was brought to our school. The interviewer asked a young girl, "What did you like best about the program?" to which the student being interviewed pensively replied, "It was casual."

Yes, it _was_ true. The performers wore jeans and untucked shirts. But of all the adjectives that could have possibly been supplied to answer that question... dynamic, rhythmic, amazing, fantastic, fun, etc., "casual" was quite unexpected. My class however had no idea why their teacher was guffawing at that response. So is it just me? Or are there others out there in the blogosphere who find "casual" equally amusing as a response. Just curious.