Zombies

I’m in Florida for a week with my good friend and partner-in-crime, Linda. Vacationing with friends can be a double-edged sword. You obviously enjoy spending time together or you wouldn’t be friends, but do you like each other enough to live together 24-7 for a whole week? This isn’t the first time Linda and I have vacationed together. Heck, it’s not even the second or third time. I’ve spent time on the shore of Lake Michigan with Linda. I’ve lived in a tiny cruise ship cabin on rough seas with Linda. I’ve paddled past glaciers in a canoe with Linda.

You think you know somebody. You think a week on the beach is going to be cake, but then after 12 years and multiple vacations, you find a fundamental crack in the foundation of your friendship. A philosophical difference upon which all else is a house of cards just waiting to crumble.

Religion? Nope…we are of a mind on that. Politics? Nope…we’re both generally on the same side of Center in those matters.

What could divide us after all these years?

Zombies.

No, Linda is not a zombie. She is quite articulate, doesn’t sound like she’s hocking a perpetual loogie, and I’ve never seen her take a bite out of anybody. Well…literally anyway. I’ve seen her chew people up and spit them out intellectually. I actually like that about her.

Linda is a Walking Dead aficionado. A Walking Deadhead. She lives and dies…metaphorically…every week with Rick and Darryl and the gang.

How do I know these characters' names?

I’ve spent 72 hours in the company of people who HAVEN’T TALKED ABOUT ANYTHING ELSE!

Linda’s daughter and three of her friends are also in Florida with us. Linda’s daughter and the two boys are also rabid Deadheads. Friday night before we left Georgetown, they made me watch an episode. Saturday night after we got here, they made me watch an episode. Apparently, there has been an all-zombie, all-the-time, all-day, all-night, round-the-clock, 24-7 freaking zombie marathon on AMC. Every time the TV was turned on it was zombies. I’m having nightmares about zombies.

All of this, of course, was leading up to the season finale last night. Watching the finale was AN EVENT. It was planned more precisely than D-Day or the raid on Osama bin Laden’s compound. Everything from grocery shopping for JUST THE RIGHT snacks to when dinner would be served centered around when The Walking freaking Dead came on.

Being the instigator I am…Linda used a different word…I couldn’t help but mock my Deadhead traveling companions.

(I suppose I should stop here and explain that I really do get it even though I don’t watch it. To be transported by characters into another world, to be invested in those characters, to live and die with them like they are real people in the world that you know and love or hate….that is a beautiful thing. That is story. That is why I’m a writer and an English teacher. Story is everything. It’s how we make sense of the world. It’s how we define the past and shape the future. Story is EVERYTHING. And when you find a good one that you connect with, well that’s just magic right there. I’ve been every bit as rabid about other stories as Linda and the kids are about The Dead, so yeah….I get it. Zombies just don’t resonate with me for some reason. My son loves it and tried to get Bruce and me to watch with him, but it was in the middle of the second or third season or whatever, and there was just too much backstory we didn’t have. And we couldn’t get past the ever-present loogie hocking noise. We kept looking at each other, wanting to burst into laughter at the most dramatic parts.)

So if I understand all this stuff about story and connection and characters and such…why was I mocking my friends? Because I’m an instigator…or that other word Linda used. Because it was funny to watch those kids turn on me like zombies snacking on newly dead flesh.

“See? It’s not really about zombies. It’s about the people…the survivors…and how they are moving on in a lawless world. How they react in the face of terrible decisions. Who tries to keep order and who tries to create a new order? Zombies are mindless shells that just shamble along looking for something to eat. Aren’t there a lot of people like that?”

“Why, yes there are. Where was this level of analysis when you were in my class two years ago?”

Boy suddenly remembers I was his teacher, backs off and starts apologizing for contradicting me. He just really loves the show and I’m not mad at him am I? Hehe…not until you started apologizing for good analysis. Second boy and Linda do not apologize. They barrel ahead guns a-blazing.

“Why do I find vampires interesting and not zombies?”

“Vampires are about immortality….parasitic relationships…they seduce to get what they want, but underneath the illusion of beauty, they are monsters. Unless they are sparkly vegetarians, and that’s just stupid.”

“Yeah…but how is that more interesting than zombies?”

“Do I have to explain that immortality and parasitic seduction are more interesting than shambling, flesh-eating mindlessness? Then I think we’re done here.”

When I reached the point where people were actually getting pissed off, I backed off. I committed a sin that I don’t have a lot of tolerance for in others. I believe in story and clearly there is story in The Walking Dead. Freedom to tell or connect to any story you want should probably be added to the first amendment. Oh wait. I think it’s already there. I have less patience for story intolerance than for religious intolerance, so I reined it in.

I sat through the whole finale. The reviews were mixed. The body count wasn’t high enough for some. The daughter admitted she just watches it for the blood and guts. I like that about her. Others were happy that there was a sense of resolution. I like that in a story myself, so I would have sided with that camp if I cared. Everyone was in agreement that the people still with the governor were idiots for not shooting him when they had the chance. I’m always in favor of shooting the bad guy. Bad guys who open fire on their own people in a fit of childish pique aren’t generally redeemable. Although, in one of the episodes I was forced to watch on Friday, I could see that the governor had issues…keeping your zombie daughter on a leash and feeding her brains qualifies as issues in my book anyway. (I can’t unsee the images I’ve been forced to see this week.)

And then they watched an hour long talk show rehashing the episode. I went to bed.

I’ve had nightmares….actual freaking nightmares about zombies for TWO nights because of this mess. Yesterday, we were watching a guy windsurf and Linda was narrating his story. She made him a zombie windsurfer. I argued that the salt water would be highly corrosive to dead flesh and that he wouldn’t have enough left to stay harnessed to his parachute. This is the vacation conversation to which I’ve been reduced!

Thank god the finale has come and gone. Maybe now we can get on with sun and sand sans The Walking Dead.

Addendum…when I read the blog draft out loud to the gang, the apologizing boy reminded me that something called “Hannibal” comes on later this week. Lord, help us all…..

Beef Jerky and Hot Dogs

Anyone who has been teaching for more than five minutes has had a class go off the rails. Stuff happens. An unsilenced phone suddenly blares, “I like big butts and I cannot lie!” Someone breaks up with someone right before class. A mouse sprints across the room. Gastrointestinal issues occur. Several years ago, when the school was under renovation, the pumper truck backed right up to my window to empty the construction port-a-potty.

The good classroom manager rolls with the punches, acknowledges the issue, and redirects students back to the lesson. The dumbass sends the class off the rails herself.

Today, I was the dumbass.

Basketball homecoming is on the horizon, and this year the high school student council decided to make two changes. First, they are replacing the winter formal with a homecoming dance, and second, just for kicks and giggles, they’ve decided to have an all-male homecoming court to balance football homecoming’s all-female court.

Preliminary voting to cull the four most popular boys from each class occurred during English today. Everybody, including seniors, has to take English, so our classes are the school’s polling places. For most of the day, I made quick work of the process. Then we hit 6^th hour…

“So,” I explained, “this year there will be a homecoming dance after the game, and the homecoming court is going to be flipped. It will be an all-guy court instead of an all-girl court.”

My class comedian piped up. “Oh man! It’s gonna be beef jerky and hot dogs!”

Laughter ensued.

Chalk it up to a long day, one too many interruptions, or the need for a Snickers bar, but I snapped.

“I don’t know what that’s a euphemism for, but it’s disgusting! Have some class!”

The laughter died to a few twitters, and the comedian wore a look of utter confusion.

“Euphemism?”

The kid sitting directly behind him caught on first and lost it.

“Beef jerky and hot dogs!” he howled.

“Yeah,” the original kid said, still confused. “That’s what we’ll end up eating at the dance if a bunch of guys are in charge.”

“Oh. Nevermind.”

And then the class went off the rails. Even the painfully shy girl who never speaks had her hand over her mouth to hide her laughter.

I apologized to the kid and collected the ballots, red-faced, laughing, and feeling like the dumbass I was. Roll with the punches. Acknowledge the issue.

I redirected them back to the lesson, but today, even Scout, Jem, and Boo Radley couldn’t hold a candle to beef jerky and hot dogs.

How eating lunch inspired me to fire up the blog, or why Cracker Barrel is the 4th level of hell

Hey blog readers(assuming there are still some of you out there)! Long time no see, huh? I had a meal at Cracker Barrel today, and I felt the need reconnect. And no, that is not a non-sequitur.

I may be the only person in the state of Kentucky, nay, in the whole southern tier of the US, who does not like Cracker Barrel. A bold statement, but judging by the mass of humanity in any given franchise on any given day, I don’t think it’s hyperbole. In fact, I probably just lost half my audience to daydreams of grits, beans n greens, chicken-fried chicken, and a heaping portion of hash brown casserole.

For me, that’s no daydream. It’s a nightmare. The mere thought makes me want to eat a roll of tums and curl up on the couch in a what-have-I-done food coma.

You’re thinking that’s nice, weird, whatever, but so what? This is a free country. You are an adult with free will. No one is forcing you into that bastion of down-home country goodness.

(Cue whiny voice.)

Except people are forcing me, dammit! They totally are. Not in a twist-my-arm-behind-my-back, threaten-my-loved-ones kind of way (because, well, they are my loved ones), but in an exasperated, why-does-everyone-have-to-suffer-because-you-are-too-snobby-for-down-home-country-goodness kind of way.

I am not too snobby for down-home country goodness. I was raised on down-home country goodness. And Cracker Barrel is NOT down-home country goodness! Cracker Barrel is the commercialization of someone’s idea of what down-home country goodness should be. And holy cow has America bought into it!

My good friend, Linda, will not allow us to begin a girls’ weekend without breakfast at Cracker Barrel. She was raised in Connecticut by her British mother. And ironically, we leave Cracker Barrel and go straight to Starbucks so she can get an iced mocha. Yep, a bonafide, down-home girl, that Linda.

Even worse is my husband, Bruce. He loves Cracker Barrel with the devotion of a true zealot. Grits, greens, chicken n dumplins, cornbread, and OMG…Uncle Herschel’s breakfast…don’t even get him started. Sounds like a good ole boy, doesn’t he? Bruce was born on Staten Island and raised in a large city north of the Ohio River.

So maybe Cracker Barrel is the place where wannabe down-home country folks go to get the food they never had as a child? That would be a nice theory if real, down-home country folks didn’t like it so much, but they do like it. They really, really do.

WHY DO YOU PEOPLE LIKE IT SO MUCH?!?!

I can picture my friends and neighbors out there shaking their heads, thinking, “Why do you hate it so much, Kathy? Geez, girlfriend, chill out.”

Okay…maybe I do need to chill out, but let me share. My husband got out of bed this morning and announced his intention to eat at Cracker Barrel. Normally, I would talk him out of it, and I’m pretty good at getting my way on this. He usually acquiesces because he doesn’t want to sit through a meal with a sullen, unhappy wife. I’m not proud of my attitude, but it is what it is. This morning, I made a half-hearted attempt. Something about how I could cook breakfast, blah, blah, blah. I didn’t really want to cook. Our youngest son was being a pain in the butt, and adding to his bad attitude didn’t seem reasonable, so I said, “Sure. Sounds good.”

Okay…I didn’t say that, but I did say something not sullen and unhappy, and I put the best possible foot forward given that Bruce was pissed at young son and I was smoothing the waters by consenting to eat at Cracker Barrel.

We drove past the long porch with its rustic, hundred-dollar rocking chairs and saw that the parking lot was completely full. We ended up in the back next to the dumpsters, and in the long hike to the door, we made small talk about the friend we had passed and mistaken for someone else because they were both so jowly. Really, I was mentally girding my loins.

Cracker Barrel on a random Tuesday night in April is not my favorite place, but on a Sunday morning two days before Christmas, it is the 4^th level of hell. People were packed wall to wall in the “Old Country Store.”

Bruce weaved his way through the labyrinth of humanity and kitsch and put our name on the list. Ten to fifteen minutes they said. And in spite of the crush, they were true to their word. I am thankful for this because I only endured fifteen minutes wedged against a display containing Mickey Mouse Pez dispensers, giant Hershey’s kisses, toddler-sized fedoras (wtf??), and holiday sweatshirts containing snowy landscapes and the implicit message, “I stopped staying up past nine o’clock ten years ago.”

We saw people we knew. I could not talk to them because I was trapped between the aforementioned display and people blocking every possible path to my friends. Bruce moved a box on top of the display, so I could at least smile and wave. The only open path led into the dining room, Shangri-La if you judged by the sheer number of people trying to get in. If there had been a kitchen fire, I’d be dead right now.

When our name was called, we made our way into Shangri-La, squeezing sideways to get past the servers in the narrow aisles between tables. I can only assume the fire marshal has seen the number and configuration of tables and deemed the place safe, but damn! Seriously…just damn…

I shouted my drink order to our server over the din of plates clanking, children screaming, and voices raised in raucous conversation and opened my menu. Oh, the menu! A culinary ode to all that is breaded, fried, buttered, and sugared! They actually have an entrée called chicken-fried chicken. My grandmother was born, raised, and lived her whole life in the country on a farm, and she made the best chicken that was ever breaded and cooked up in boiling Crisco (the kind that came solid in a large can). She spared neither the breading nor the grease, and even then we just called it fried chicken. Chicken-fried chicken??? What is that?

I’ll never know. I ordered a grilled chicken salad with the extra-creamy buttermilk dressing on the side. I’m not a health food freak, but I refuse to consume 10,000 calories in an insanely heavy “down-home” meal when I have the option of consuming 10,000 calories in rich and wonderful Christmas treats.

I don’t remember what Bruce ordered, but it made him happy, and I was glad. The conversation turned from the aggravating 18 year-old to more pleasant subjects. A couple of friends stopped by the table to say hello and Merry Christmas. And on the way out, when a Stetson-wearing fellow with long gray hair and matching beard (think Gandalf meets Waylon Jennings) grabbed a pecan pie off the counter display, I realized I had a story for my poor, neglected blog. And that made me happy.

I left The Old Country Store with a smile. (Knowing I was off the Cracker Barrel hook for a while didn’t hurt either.)

The Cult of Disney

My friends, Linda and Robert, are bona fide, Kool-Aid drinking members of the Cult of Disney. They have good reasons to be, and I, for one, am glad they are because I got to go on a cruise to Alaska with them. I am not in the cult, also for good reasons, and I observed some things from the outside looking in.

Cult members speak Disney. They discuss vacation points, exchange statuses (gold or silver), and rattle off the names of Disney cruise ships and their respective destinations like it’s their own personal fleet. They know the names of restaurants, rides, and shows both on the cruise line and in the theme parks. They know the names of the most obscure Disney characters.

During the pirate night extravaganza, a long-eared alien creature ran out to challenge Captain Hook and company.

“Who is that?”

Hannah looked at me like I had a second nose growing out of my forehead. “That’s Stitch!”

Oh, of course. How silly of me. How could I forget that classic Disney character, Stitch?

WTF?

Of course, Hannah is the same girl who won the trivia contest with young Aiden. Hannah knows her Disney so well, they didn't just win, they annihilated the competition. 

I’m so out of the Disney cult loop that I didn’t even recognize all of the Disney princesses. Oh sure, I could identify Snow White, Cinderella, Belle, and Ariel, but the pretty black girl in the green dress was new to me. I’m thrilled to see a non-white girl get Disney princess treatment, but I didn’t know who she was. (Yeah, yeah…Pocahontas and Mulan aren’t white girls, but seriously, are they ever included with the rest of the princesses?)

Speaking of Disney characters, cult members go to every show on the cruise. Our evening ritual was drinks in The Outlook Café or Diversions (yeah, that’s Disney-speak right there), show at 6:15, and dinner at 8:30. I’m not complaining. Nobody puts on a show like Disney, and honestly, who among us doesn’t feel something when the music swells and a powerful voice belts out “The Circle of Life?” Add a couple of glasses of wine and you have a freaking deep moment.

We went to Opening Night, The Golden Mickeys, Toy Story, and Disney Dreams. The productions rivaled anything I’ve seen on screen or stage. Amazing costumes and special effects, brilliant singers and dancers, and over-the-top acting all combined to delight the audience. Even our group’s 16 year-old contingent left the boys and the teen club to catch the show each night.

I’m not gonna lie. I laughed. I cried. I sang at the top of my lungs. 

Disney, man... 

They’re good at this cult thing. They built the tension toward the end of almost every show in anticipation of the arrival of the great one himself, and when Mickey finally entered the stage, I found myself cheering just as loud as the kids.

Nick and I tried to wear our non-cult membership like a badge of honor, this pic to the contrary.

In Nick’s defense, he has a child who was delighted by his participation in the madness.

At one point, though, during the parade of nations at the end of our Animator’s Palette dinner (OMG! I think I speak Disney now!) after the black and white room became a Technicolor dream and Mickey appeared in his Fantasia wizard’s garb, I leaned over and said, “They’re sucking me in, Nick!”

He clasped my hand and said, “Be strong, Kathy!” I tried, but it was hard!

Every Disney employee or “cast member” is Walt’s personal emissary. They are so friendly it makes your teeth hurt, and I’m no jaded, abrupt Northeasterner. I’m from the South for heaven’s sake. We had the same servers every night at dinner, Yansen and Recon, and they knew our names before the first meal was over. One evening, I asked for ketchup, and instead of handing me the bottle, Recon set a small plate down and painstakingly poured the ketchup in the shape of mouse ears. I must have worn an expression that said, “Seriously?” because she laughed, but she didn’t stop until I had perfect tomato-y Mickey ears for my fries.

While we were at dinner, the magic Cinderella mice entered our staterooms to turn down the bed and leave swans (or maybe a cobra?)…

Dinosaurs…

And monkeys…

Linda was so taken with the towel animals that she dragged Hannah, Kaitlyn, and me to a towel-folding class.

I took pictures and repeated instructions as Linda spent most of the time talking over the nice lady trying to teach her.

Even the Disney sub-contractors who ran the excursions were enthusiastic and friendly. This became apparent during my only non-Disney contracted excursion. Victor and I wanted to whale-watch while Linda and her crew were shopping, so we bought tickets after we disembarked. At every port, there were all kinds of folks trying to sell you something. The actual excursion was great, and we did, in fact, see the whales we paid to see…

…but holy cannoli, the tour operator was not in the Cult of Disney. He was everything Disney is not. You might even say he was the Anti-Mouse. This is John.

He was transplanted from Yonkers, but he was fond of slipping into a fake Russian accent. Why? I have no idea. Southeast Alaska is quite far from Russia, and John’s dueling accents were jarring.

This was our opening conversation. (I made the mistake of smiling when I greeted him):

“Well, hello Miss Nebraska with your pearly whites.”

“I’m not from Nebraska.”

“Yeah? Well you have that Rebecca of Sunnybrook farm look.”

Victor had only known me four days at this point, and still, he almost spit his coffee all over the pavement. Rebecca of Sunnybrook farm indeed.

Where our Davidson Glacier guides regaled us with tales of bears and wolves and the road kill club, John had this to say about life in Alaska. “This place was built on gold and greed and lives in its past glory. Everyone here is depressed. We drink ourselves to death or commit suicide. Oh yeah, there’s an eagle estuary on your right. But anyway, Juneau has the highest per capita rate of suicide in the nation.”

John never stopped talking in his Yonkers/Russian accent, and Victor and I were crying by the time we got to the marina. We didn’t realize we had paid for whale watching AND a comedy show. The Anti-Mouse piece de resistance was when we were exiting the shuttle, and John said, “See ya, Salsa!” to the gentleman from Phoenix. An audible gasp escaped the two young Disney cast members who had the morning off and had bought tickets to see the whales.

“Toto, I don’t think we’re in Disney anymore.”

So John was the counterbalance to the Stepford friendliness of Disney’s employees. When I ran in the morning, the same maintenance guy was always on deck sweeping water, straightening furniture, whatever, and every time I passed him, he stopped working and said hello. And I mean every time…every single lap. After the fourth or fifth lap, it became funny, and I couldn’t say good morning without laughing. He was from Indonesia, so I’m not sure if he understood why I was in hysterics at his greeting, and that brings me to another point…

Every Disney cast member on the cruise was from some foreign country. The only American employees were Jimmy, the cruise director, and a few ship’s officers who were introduced on opening night. Most of the workers were from Eastern Europe or Southeast Asia. They had interesting stories and were willing to share them with us when we asked. Many of them were saving up to start a business of some sort back in their home country. Several were married to other cast members.

One night toward the end of the cruise, the night of the epic waves I think, we were sitting in Diversions, watching the light fixtures swing back and forth when Nick decided to ask our server a personal question.

“Not to be nosy, but how much do you make?”

“$13.50.”

“An hour?”

A chuckle. “No. For the week.”

We all sat a moment in stunned silence trying to process that, and then I think we all said the same thing at the same time in the same incredulous tone. “You make $13.50 for the WHOLE week?”

“Plus tips.”

Nick, “Could you tell me who I can punch in the face for you?”

The guy laughed and went on about his business while we tried to sort it out. The ship is registered out of Nassau, Bahamas, so minimum wage laws don’t apply. Room and board was included for employees and Disney is aggressive in encouraging guests to tip well. A 15% gratuity was added to every drink we bought, and envelopes were left in our staterooms with instructions for tipping the housekeeping and wait staff. But still…

Hannah, a devout Disney cult member, said earlier in the trip that she would like to work for Disney someday. I think she was rethinking that after our conversation with the waiter. However, she still wants to get married at Disney World, so it didn’t disillusion her too much.

Shady employment practices aside, it’s hard not to at least sip the Kool-Aid. I skipped the character breakfast, but I did wear the pirate bandanna.

I didn’t recognize Stitch and the pretty black princess, but I know every word to “Can you Feel the Love Tonight.” I didn’t learn how to make towel animals…

…but I did learn how to make a Cadillac margarita.

I’ll never achieve gold status, but I’d go on another Disney cruise in a heartbeat.

Gotta Have a Plan...or It's Cold in Alaska!

This guy is talking about Russians, but he could just as easily be talking about my friend, Robert.

 

Robert is married to my very good friend, Linda. They are taking me to Alaska with them in just under two weeks. We had a meeting tonight because everybody needs to know the plan. And everybody who knows Robert knows there is a plan.

He made copies for the meeting of course. First, he passed out the itinerary. It’s online, but there’s no guarantee that everyone would log on and look at it. And we have to know the plan.

Then, Robert explained that he had printed out the 10 day forecast for each stop on the itinerary from weather.com. He read the highs and lows for each port of call. Now, we won’t be visiting any of these places in the next ten days, but it’s incumbent that we understand it is cold in Alaska. However, with a little foresight we can all have a comfortable vacation.

Robert followed up the weather report with another handout, “Packing for Paradise.” Dressing in layers is the key. His daughter, Sydney, produced two articles of clothing.

“Exhibit A.” She held up a fitted cold gear shirt and did her best Vanna White.

“Exhibit B.” Another Vanna moment with a waterproof rain jacket.

Robert stepped back a moment and let the girls examine the evidence and discuss their own wardrobe items. After an appropriate amount of discussion time, he stepped back in and explained that it wasn’t only the type of clothing that was important, but the amount of clothing. It would be best if we packed in duffel bags instead of hard shell suitcases because we could store them easier in our cabins.

There was a moment of silence, and then five teenage girls and three grown women howled with laughter, and Robert promptly lost control of the meeting. He suggested that the blow dryers provided in the ship’s cabins would be sufficient to service all our hair drying needs. Eye rolls all around, and the girls pow-wowed to determine who had the best blow dryer. They were at least willing to limit themselves to one good blow dryer per cabin. Then, he suggested ONE pair of shoes was really all we needed.

I asked, “Are you hiking on a glacier in the same shoes you’re wearing to dinner at the fancy restaurant?”

“Yes I am.”

Linda noted my bemused expression and piped up, “Back off Missy! I saw him first!”

Robert’s older daughter Hannah just shook her head and mouthed the word, “No” over and over.  Mind you, this is the same daughter who took three suitcases on their last cruise and wanted to pack a heater to keep her feet warm at night. Apparently, it’s cold in Alaska.

Sydney returned to the room with an unscheduled “Exhibit C,” a very large hard shelled suitcase. “This is what I’m taking!”

For one uncharacteristic moment, Linda got on board with the plan and suggested everyone bring a carry-on with our toothbrushes and a change of underwear. You know, just in case.

Hannah’s friend, Kaitlyn looked confused. “Is the flight going to be so scary that we’ll need a change of underwear?”

Robert tried to get back on track by switching gears and talking about the excursions we’ve chosen at the ports of call. All of the girls are canoeing next to a glacier on one of the stops. Robert wanted to talk about appropriate footwear some more, but Linda began making like Hiawatha and chanting.

“By the shores of Gitche Gumee…”

Suddenly, Sydney gasped, “Hey, it’s only going to be dark for like an hour!”

Robert shook his head.

I asked, “We won’t be in the Arctic Circle will we?”

“No! We’ll be a long way from the Arctic Circle.”

Kaitlyn, “Will we see the Northern lights?”

Linda, “Will we see a reindeer?”

Sydney, “Will we see a whale?”

Hannah, “Will we see Russia?”

Me, “Will we have wifi?”

I’ve given Robert a way to get back to the plan. Thank God for me.

“The wifi on the ship is sketchy and very expensive.”

Now this is an issue that calls for a plan. I began mentally working it out. I’ll have to write my blog posts offline, and then find some place to upload them when we disembark. Hannah informed me that Alaska is lousy with Starbucks, or at least it seems like it should be. She’s never actually been there. Robert ended the wifi discussion by putting the fear of GOD into all of us regarding cell phone usage.

We will be stopping in Canada, and what it will cost us to use our phones in the land of maple leaves and hockey is anybody’s guess, but just in case we were inclined to poo poo his warning, he told a cautionary tale. There was once this guy waiting to get back on his cruise ship, and he used his phone to watch a ball game. When the phone bill came, it was $4,000!!!

The moral of the story? Don’t watch football in Canada. Or throw our phones overboard. That way we won’t be tempted to use them, and it will be cheaper to simply buy new ones when we get home than to fall into the watching-football-in-Canada money pit.

One of the girls suggested walkie talkies. I suggested code names. Robert could be Red Leader and we could be Red 1, 2, 3, and so on.

Linda held an imaginary walkie talkie to her mouth. “Red One this is Red Leader. Stay on target.”

Then Hannah suggested we all get matching shirts “like those dorky families you see sometimes.” Kaitlyn was good with that as long as they aren’t yellow. Yellow is a bad color for her.

Robert seemed to realize his window of opportunity for communicating the plan was closing. He established the rendezvous place and time, and once again admonished us to pack light.

And pack warm.

It’s cold in Alaska.

50 Shades...You read what?!

Many of my friends have been waxing lyrical over 50 Shades of Grey. Some of them are reading it furtively on their Kindles and Nooks where no one can see the title while others are reading it proudly, cover showing, telling anyone who’ll listen how hot it is.

I haven’t read it. Honestly, I probably won’t, but not for the reasons you might think.

I don’t care that it was originally self-published, although the general consensus of reviewers in the blogosphere is that it could have benefitted from some professional editing. I have no beef with self-publishers. I’ve considered it myself. Get your stuff out there. Get paid. In E.L. James’ case, get paid a lot.

I have no issue with the erotic content of the book. I LOVE a good romance, and many of my favorites don’t fade to black when the hero and heroine finally make it to the bedroom. 50 Shades is part of the subgenre, erotic romance, which I generally don’t read. For my readers who aren’t romance aficionados, the difference between erotic romance and another subgenre of romance with erotic content is that in an erotic romance, the hero and heroine find their way to Happily Ever After (HEA) through their sexual journey. So…the sex is front and center rather than something that occurs along the way.

My favorite subgenres are romantic suspense and paranormal romance. In these subgenres, the protagonists find their way to HEA through a mystery or some sort of spooky doings. Sometimes, they get freaky while they’re being spooky, and hey, I’m all for that, as long as it makes sense in the story.

In a world full of many wonderful romance choices, 50 Shades isn’t something I would pick up and read in the normal course of events. Add to the mix the fact it was written as Twilight fanfic, and I’m really not interested. Edward and Bella explore their relationship through kinky sex? No thanks.

So, you might be thinking, why bother blogging, Kathy? You’re not jumping on the 50 Shades bandwagon. Bully for you. Do you want a cookie or something?

No, I do not want a cookie. Wait! Is it an Oreo? Oh, nevermind. I do not want a cookie. And I really, really, really do not want to read a book review over 50 Shades written by a 15 year old boy. Yes, you read that right…one of my freshman boys wrote their final book review of the year on 50 Shades of Grey. 

He strolled into my classroom with a question. “Hey, Ms. Owens, have you read 50 Shades of Grey?”

I raised my eyebrows. “No, have you?”

“Yeah, my mom let me have the whole trilogy after she finished with it. I couldn’t put it down.”

“I’ll bet. You say your mom gave you the books?”

“Yeah. Do you know what they’re about?”

“I’ve heard about them.” Now the grin starts spreading across his face. He was just waiting to see if I knew anything about the book. 

“Seriously, Ms. Owens, seriously, it’s a great story. Even without all the sex.”

“Seriously?” I repeated in the same tone of voice. Mind you, he hasn’t stopped grinning like the cat that ate the canary.

“I swear to GOD, Ms. Owens, it’s a really good story.” I was so tempted to tell him he sounded like every guy who’s ever read Playboy. “I read it for the articles.”

Uh. Huh.

Instead I said, “Well, I guess it’s up to you to convince me of that in your book review.”

Fast forward to Friday. I read his book review before school started, and handed it back to him in class. 

“You gave me a C.”

“It was a week late and a bit sparse.”

“Sparse?”

“No detail.”

“No detail? You wanted detail?”

“You have the rubric for the assignment. You talked all around the story without really telling me anything. I could’ve gotten what you wrote from the book jacket.”

“I promise I read that book. I read all three.”

"Oh, I believe you read it. That’s why you worked so hard not to tell me anything.”

He changed tactics. “It’s the book I chose, isn’t it? You said you don’t believe in censorship.”

I threw my hands up. “Did I say you couldn’t do your book review over this book? You still have to write a good review, no matter what book you choose. You’re lucky I know you’re a reader and I believe you read it.”

“So you don’t read books with sex in them?”

He knows he wrote a subpar review, and now he’s fishing. I know it. I’m not having the conversation he’s trying to have.

“I don’t read Twilight fan fiction.”

“WHAT???”

“Well, yeah, the main characters are based on Edward and Bella.”

“No way! They aren’t vampires!”

I took his review back out of his hand and read out loud. (I’m paraphrasing here and I don’t remember the characters’ names, but the gist is the same.) “Sally is fascinated by Joe, but then she finds out he has a dark secret. At first she is afraid, but before long, she is drawn into his secret world and wants him to make her a part of it. Now let me read that again and substitute the names Edward and Bella.”

“OH SNAP!”

I laughed and went on with class. I did notice several times that he was staring off into space with a bereft look on his face, and I felt kinda bad. He had an “innocence lost” expression. I think 50 Shades was just a titillating story for him until I offered real faces to put on it.

I like to think I’ve been teaching long enough that things don’t surprise me anymore, and boys wanting to read books with sex in them…that doesn’t surprise me. Heck this book is selling like hotcakes. A lot of suburban moms want to read sexy books. What surprises me is a suburban mom giving the sexy books to her teenage boy.

One day of school left…

Thank God.

Running on Empty

I updated all the apps on my phone a couple of days ago. Today, I discovered a new feature on my running app when my music dropped out and a robotic female voice informed me that I was running REALLY SLOW.

What she actually said was, “You have been running for 13.13 minutes. Your distance is 1.0 miles. You are running at a pace of 13.13 minutes per mile.”

I might have responded with something like, “Shut up bitch! It’s been a long week. I KNOW I’M RUNNING SLOW!”

She didn’t answer and that pissed me off even more. Her silence felt as accusatory as her snide announcement that I was running at a turtle’s pace. So I walked her through my litany of woes (in my head this time because I’m pretty sure a guy watering his lawn thinks I called him a bitch).

My dog almost died on Saturday.

She is diabetic, and went into hypoglycemic shock. I’m not exaggerating when I tell you it was one of the scariest things I’ve ever seen. She seized twice at home and again at the vet’s office. My 17 year old son had to carry her rigid, 90 pound body to the car. He held her, stroked her, and crooned softly in her ear while I drove. When she went into full seizure for the third time in the vet’s ER, he knelt on the floor next to her and openly sobbed.

These are my babies when my son was 10.

They stabilized her, brought her blood sugar back up, and kept her overnight, and today, I’m happy to report she’s almost back to her normal self. But emotionally, the whole experience felt like being run over by a truck.

So yeah…I’m running slow.

(Side note…I know that technically, I should say “slowly” but I’m ignoring that green squiggle under “slow” because I’m intentionally using the vernacular AND because I’m tired of computers telling me what to do.)

Sunday, I had to do the stinking taxes. Yes, I know Sunday was the 15th. Don’t judge me. My first career was as an accountant, and honestly, at this stage in my life, I’d rather have my fingernails pulled out slowly than do taxes. The software downloaded wrong, and I spent two full hours on the phone with tech support. So that was fun…if your idea of fun is installing and uninstalling the same program 3 times and then thinking you’ve lost the whole return you spent all day preparing.

So yes, it’s a 13 minute mile! STFU!

Four days of school done this week, and I’ve lost my planning period for three of them because of state testing. Losing your planning period SUCKS for reasons too numerous to list. The biggest? You don’t get any time to catch your breath without kids in the room.

Don’t get me wrong. I like the kids. I love my job, but I am human. I need that hour to not only grade papers, return emails, plan lessons, meet with parents, meet with my department, and a hundred other things that come up, but also to breathe. On any given day, the pregnant 16 year old in my freshman English class might tell me she wasn’t even f’n texting when I ask her to put her phone away. Zen is critical in a situation like that. While reading Shakespeare, I might have to answer the smirking kid in the back of the room when he asks what a girl’s maidenhead is. When ten other smirks turn my way, I can’t afford to be rattled.

Today, a student told me I seemed edgy. Nevermind that he had just randomly asked me why women didn’t lactate all the time. Yesterday, we discussed the fact that the nurse had indeed “nursed” Juliet as a baby, but he asked the question today in the middle of a discussion about Mercutio. AND NO! He didn’t use the word “lactate” in his question. The question was not artfully worded. My reservoir of Zen was low, and YES! I was edgy!

So excuse the hell out of me and my 13 minute mile!

There’s more, but really, do you want to hear it? Probably not. The stupid robot woman in my phone wasn’t interested.

I hit the mile and a half mark and realized I was sprinting. Uphill. Where was the snarky bitch now? I kept the pace thru all of the Eminem song blaring through my headphones, and when I hit two miles, she informed me I had increased my pace to just under 11 minutes.

I would have been triumphant, but my sustained sprint left me sucking wind. I staggered home short of the distance I had intended to run.

I’m not blind to the fact that the new feature did, in fact, make me pick up the pace, but I wasn’t smart about it, and I missed my distance. I’m self-aware enough to know I have to play mind games with myself to meet my running goals. Until Johnny Depp or Kiefer Sutherland’s voice gives me distance and pace, I’m turning that sucker off.

To cut or not to cut; that is the question

I got my hair done today. Nothing drastic. My awesome stylist, Sheri, touched up the color and trimmed up the ends, gave it a little shape. My hair is fairly long now, the longest it’s been since I was a child. That pic over there in the corner is 3 years old. I should probably update it. Several times, I’ve thought about cutting my hair short, and then, the day of my appointment comes and I don’t.

Why?

Midlife crisis? Maybe.

Fear of appearing old? Maybe.

Too lazy to do anything besides blow it dry? Definitely.

I had a conversation with a close friend this morning before my appointment, and I asked her if my hair was getting ridiculously long “for a woman my age.” She was indignant.

“For a woman your age! NO! Meryl Streep had long hair into her sixties!”

Well, there you go. If anyone is the definitive model for appropriateness, it’s Meryl, and I’m a long way from sixty. (It might be fair to note that my indignant friend is exactly the same age as me.)

Meryl’s example notwithstanding, where is the line? At what point do I stop looking like a fun-loving woman in the prime of her life and start looking like an aging hippie or a Pentecostal matron? I’ve never identified as either a hippie or a Pentecostal, so I hope the answer to that question is never.

A better question might be at what point will long hair stop being appropriate for me and my lifestyle? Perhaps a list of pros and cons is in order.

Times when long hair is awesome:

1. At a Foo Fighters concert when you want to bang your head in solidarity with Dave Grohl.
2. On the dance floor when you want to wave your hands (and hair) in the air like you don’t care.
3. When your bff snaps pics of everything and you don’t want your face in another pic where you’re doing something stupid.
4. When you’re nervous/bored/agitated/deep-in-thought and you need something to do with your hands.
5. In the winter, when your neck is cold.
6. When you’re a sibling in my family. My little brother’s hair has been longer than mine since he was 18 or 19.
7. When you’re riding in a convertible with the top down. It’s carefree!

Times when long hair is a pain:

1. When you’re riding in a convertible with the top down. It’s a rat’s nest!
2. When you close it in the door of the car. OUCH!
3. When you’re brushing your teeth.
4. When you’re eating a taco.
5. When you’re sick. Sure, we all have a friend who will hold our hair after the party, but where are they when you have the stomach flu?
6. When you’re in a fight. I’ve never actually been in one, but from what I’ve seen in the halls at school, when girls fight, they go for the hair.

The data is there. Let's break it down.

The convertible thing is a wash, and I can use a clip when brushing my teeth and eating tacos. And of course, I can wear a scarf in the winter, but then I'd close that in the car door. My hair will never give me the aura of laid-back cool my brother enjoys. So what is the answer?

Well...Since I’m not finished going to concerts and dancing and doing stupid things and since I rarely get sick and never get into fights, I think my long hair still works. And I have faith that the day I start to look like an aging hippie or a Pentecostal matron, one of my friends will tell me.

You will, right?

Two women and a movie

Two years ago, I read The Hunger Games on the recommendation of our school librarian. It grabbed me from the beginning, and even before I finished the first few chapters, I recommended it to my friend and colleague, Linda. She plowed through it as fast as I did and even bought and read Catching Fire, the second in the trilogy, before me.

I clearly remember the day she finished The Hunger Games.

“This would make a GREAT movie!”

And then, several weeks later, “They’re making a movie! I CAN’T WAIT!”

I was excited too, but two years is a long time to wait. In the meanwhile, I recommended the novel to every kind of kid in my classroom: the honors student, the reluctant reader, girls, boys, scifi/fantasy readers, realistic fiction readers, romance readers, kids interested in politics, kids who could care less about politics. I recommended the book to adults too. Word of mouth spread like wild fire…it always does with a good read.

After a while, I would ask, “Have you read The Hunger Games yet?” and three or four kids in the room would chime in with “OMG! That book is so good!”

Linda and I periodically discussed the movie, analyzing the choices as actors were cast, wondering how they would deal with various plot points and whether they would dial back the violence to allow a larger audience to see it. Our discussions always ended with “I CAN’T WAIT!”

Fast forward to yesterday, opening day. My boys, both of whom have read the book, bailed on me and went to the movie with other people. Bruce wasn’t interested, and Linda had other plans. My frustration reached a fever pitch around 9:00, and I had just decided to get in the car and go by myself when Linda called.

“Okay, I’m done with my stuff and Robert is dropping me off. Meet me at Wendy’s in 15 minutes with a corkscrew, some plastic cups, and a bag of ice!”

There is a reason why this woman is one of my closest friends in the world.

We chattered like excited school girls all the way to the multiplex and arrived in time for the 9:40 showing. Linda had a very large purse and brought her own refreshment into the theater. I was driving and opted for a soda and some $10 M&Ms from the concession stand.

Our movie started right about the time UK tipped off, and thanks to the statewide insanity over basketball, we had great seats. The lights went down, and Linda turned to me.

“I AM SO EXCITED!!!”

“I KNOW!! ME TOO!!”

The first preview was for a remake of Dark Shadows by Tim Burton with Johnny Depp. I LOVE Johnny Depp in bizarre roles with weird make-up. Seriously, read my review of Alice in Wonderland. The trailer for Dark Shadows was hilarious, classic weird Johnny Depp. Can you imagine him as a soap opera vampire?

I CAN’T WAIT!

We were frothing at the mouth by the time the previews ended and the movie started. I dispelled the froth with a large swig of Diet Coke. Linda uncorked the bottle in her purse, refilled her red solo cup, and read the opening text on the screen out loud…

North America has become Panem, a country composed of twelve poverty-ridden districts which provide resources to the ruling elite in the Capitol. Each district must send one boy and one girl between the ages of 13 and 18 to the Capitol to participate in the annual Hunger Games. The teens are chosen through a lottery called the reaping.

The movie opens in District 12, Appalachia, on the day of the reaping. District 12 looked exactly as I imagined it. The mountains were beautiful juxtaposed against the poverty of Katniss’ family home. The town reminded me of a 1950s era mining camp. Then, superimposed over that, was the stark dystopian future in which it existed with Peacekeepers reminiscent of Storm Troopers and large Orwellian telescreens.

From the beginning, Katniss, District 12’s female tribute, is the strong heartbeat of the story, and kudos to the moviemakers for getting her right. She is smart, courageous, resourceful, self-reliant, and self-sacrificing, imbued with a sense of responsibility for family and community. She is everything the heroine of another monster franchise which shall remain nameless is not. She is not defined by the boys in her life, nor is she rescued by them. She fights alongside of them, and more often than not, they look to her for rescuing.

And forgive me for editorializing, but hey, it’s my blog. Katniss is an image of femininity sorely needed in a time where politicians use women’s health issues as a lightning rod to obscure their lack of vision (or repugnant vision) for the economy and foreign policy, a time where pundits on both sides freely throw around pejoratives like “slut,” “prostitute,” and “bitch” when a woman has an opinion they don’t like. Katniss is the image of capable femininity that scares the living hell out of the kind of man who needs male privilege because he doesn’t have the goods to earn it fair and square.

But I digress…

Having said all that, I honestly thought Peeta, Katniss’ male counterpart, wasn’t quite strong enough in the movie. As a player, he can’t match Katniss’ skill in the woods, but he is wily and has a better grasp of human nature than she does. Josh Hutcherson just doesn’t have the chops to play opposite Jennifer Lawrence, and his Peeta came off a bit weak. Liam Hemsworth’s Gale is strong, and I look forward to the second and third films where he will have a larger role. I won’t post spoilers, but for those of you who have read the whole trilogy, the disparity in the strength of the actors playing Gale and Peeta poses a potential problem for those movies.

Woody Harrelson was an inspired choice for Haymitch, former winner and mentor to Katniss and Peeta, although my younger son thought they cut too much of his part out in the movie. I tend to agree. Donald Sutherland was excellent as President Snow, the epitome of the evil despot packaged as benevolent father figure. His conversations with Seneca Crane, the head gamemaker, gave me chills.

Most of the gore in the arena was implied and not explicit, making way for a PG-13 rating. I would still be wary of taking young children. Sometimes, what is unseen is more frightening than what is seen. I remember being particularly horrified by the tracker jacker scene when reading the book, and not seeing Glimmer’s body up close in the movie suited me just fine.

Explicit violence notwithstanding, I honestly don’t think the movie captured the tension of the book. The horror of using children to keep a country subdued and defeated just wasn’t there. There were glimmers, especially in President Snow’s scenes, but overall it was lost. Frustrating because there were so many opportunities to show it: Haymitch’s disappearance into a whiskey flask, the Avox servants, Cinna’s subversive packaging of Katniss and Peeta. Lenny Kravitz was wasted as Cinna.

One of the aspects of the novel that made it brilliant, at least in my mind, was the way it captured the zeitgeist of reality TV. Whether it be celebrity scandal, American Idol, or hard news, the media frames everything for us. They give us the storyline and tell us how we are supposed to perceive what they are presenting.

In the novel, Haymitch invents a star-crossed romance between Katniss and Peeta in an attempt to frame their story and make them more appealing to the audience. Audience appeal means sponsors. Sponsors mean timely help in the arena. Haymitch is the architect, but Peeta sells it because he really is in love with Katniss. Maybe it was because they cut too much of Haymitch or maybe it was because Josh Hutcherson wasn’t up to the challenge, but I thought that important storyline was muddled in the movie.

The movie is entertaining. It doesn’t suck, but as movie adaptations go, I’ve seen better. Both of my boys agreed with me that the book far outshone the movie.

Isn’t that always the way?

What did Linda, my partner in crime, think? Funny that. We whispered back and forth during the first part of the movie, but then I became engrossed and assumed she was as well.

After the final scene faded to black and the credits started to roll, she stayed seated, so I did too. Sometimes, when you wait out the credits, you are rewarded with an extra scene, a teaser, or something. Since she wasn’t moving, I assumed she thought there must be some little nugget. I like reading credits, and I noted that Suzanne Collins, the author, was listed as one of the screenwriters. I said as much. No response from Linda.

Finally, I turned and looked over at her, and there she sat, smiling beatifically and SOUND ASLEEP!

I had to nudge her twice to bring her to consciousness.

“Linda! How long have you been asleep?”

“I don’t know. She was running in the woods and I dozed off. Every time I opened my eyes she was still running in the woods. I knew she was alive and I went back to sleep.”

Two years of waiting, and she slept through the whole second half of the movie. Take what you will from that. Luckily for her, she is going again tonight with her girls. She plans to leave her big purse and plastic cup at home, so maybe this time she’ll see the end.

May the odds be ever in her favor.

Honking for Freedom!

This was the scene in front of Qdoba Saturday.

Members of the Syrian community in Louisville were drawing attention to the plight of their homeland with a protest on Bardstown Road. This came as a crushing disappointment to me and four of my girlfriends. Don’t get me wrong. We have nothing but sympathy for people struggling under the boot of oppression. Our disappointment stemmed from a simple misunderstanding.

As we approached the protest, multiple cars honked their horns. Of course, we automatically assumed the horns were for us, five attractive women beginning our girls’ weekend with an afternoon of shopping. When we piled out of my car earlier, another car slowed down so the occupant could yell, “Woo Hoo! Ladies night!” at 1:00 in the afternoon. We obviously had it going on.

Imagine our chagrin when we got closer and heard the shouts, “Honk for Freedom!”

Truthfully, Freedom is pretty cool. My friend, Pam, took the pictures and even had a brief conversation with a couple of the women protesting. I hope their friends and family in Syria find Freedom and peace.

My girlfriends and I found our own brand of freedom (Note the lower case f. I do realize it’s not in the same universe as Syrian Freedom.) in our second annual escape from work and family responsibilities. We strolled up and down Bardstown Road all afternoon, wandering in and out of funky boutiques, consignment shops, artists’ studios, used book stores, and even an African bakery and craft store. We tried on hats, shoes, vintage dresses, and handmade jewelry.

I bought a pair of awesomely funky shoes. Here they are looking hot beside Tammy’s boots.

The day was gorgeous, partly sunny and mid to high forties. No sign of the “white death” the hostess at Cracker Barrel had warned us was coming. Tammy thought she was warning us about the 2012 apocalypse. We were momentarily confused since it’s only February. I’ve decided White Death will be my karaoke stage name…or the title of my next book.

We stopped for a late lunch/early dinner at Impellizzari’s Pizza. Linda ordered a beer and claimed it would probably fill her up too much to eat. After which, she proceeded to make a massive piece of the deep dish Sicilian sampler her bitch, along with two slices of the thin crust margharita pizza and several breadsticks.

The pizza was excellent, but the company was better.

We shopped a bit more after eating, but decided it was time to call it a day when a member of our party who shall remain nameless spent $20 on a bracelet made of string. In her defense, $20 for braided string seemed perfectly reasonable after a couple of beers, and it was cute.

When the shopping wound down, we geared up for an evening of music and dancing. On the way in to the tavern, a car honked. Pam declared that it was NOT a honk for Freedom.

We heard some great music. The band opened with Pink Floyd, and four teachers belted "we don't need no education" at the top of our lungs, but sadly the dancing did not come to pass.

We were ready. See? Don’t we look cute?

We had our dancing shoes on, but when we got there…

Linda, “This is like the Inferno. What fresh hell is this?” (You’ve gotta love a friend who combines Dante with Dorothy Parker.)

Pam, “This is enough to make me never drink again.”

Tammy, “Not enough alcohol in the world to get me out there.”

See Linda’s face?

Let me paint the picture she’s gazing upon in horror.

Three women dancing, all wasted, beyond wasted, probably didn’t leave the tavern under their own power wasted. Now, I’m not throwing stones at their degree of drunkenness. And Linda is no shrinking violet. A trio of trashed girls in and of themselves would not elicit this face.

One of the girls is overweight. So what, right? There's more. Her shirt is askew, and her bra is twisted. The only thing sort of covering her large breasts is the stack of Mardi Gras beads around her neck. She rips her shirt open again in front of the band’s lead singer. He hands her the beads, but turns his head. She is way too drunk to notice, but seriously, if the dude is turning away from your breasts, you should probably quit flashing them.

The second girl keeps her shirt on and would probably be cute sober and not grinding on everything with a pulse. Boys, girls, it really doesn’t matter. She grabs people and loops her beads around their necks, essentially trapping them in an obscene embrace. Some, like the bass player in the band, look slightly alarmed as he tries to keep the beat with a girl humping his leg. Others, like the chick with the boobs and the beads join in with gusto. At one point a guy squeezes in between me and Tammy to get a better look.

“What the hell? Is she motor-boating that girl?”

“I’m trying not to watch.”

“It’s a f’n train wreck. How can you not rubberneck?”

Tammy turns and looks at him like he is a piece of toilet paper on her shoe. It's daunting, and he backs away.

Pam has this to say about the last girl in the dance floor triumvirate. “This is her night off. She’s way too good on those stilettos to be an amateur.”

She is over six feet tall in the heels, and she has a banging body. She drops to the floor and slides back up a person in one smooth motion, even blind drunk. We see that move a lot. When she gets up close and personal with the lead singer, her boyfriend pulls her off. Her boyfriend is a mountain of a man. If she is six feet, he’s six-five easily, broad shouldered with hair past his waist. I can’t tell you if he’s cute. I never see his face under the lion’s mane of blond hair. Together, they get into a head-banging, hair-slinging contest that clears the dance floor. Even boob girl and bitch-in-heat get out of their way.

Can you see it now? Just out of the frame?

So yeah, we didn’t dance. But the band, Stone the Crow, was very good. They mostly played classic rock covers, but they did it well. The lead guitarist was incredible. Watching him almost made me forget the train wreck on the dance floor.

The icing on the cake came when we left. The temperature had dropped, and our coats were in the car, so we sprinted from the exit. I dived into the front seat without looking right or left, so I didn’t initially see why Pam was screaming.

“OH MY GOD!!!”

OMG indeed. In the SUV right next to us, live in Technicolor, a woman was “taking care” of her man. Or a man. One wonders if it was actually her man since they didn’t wait to go to their house to do the deed. We backed out of the parking place and rolled down our windows.

“Look in that car!” Pam yelled to a group of people approaching. “Hurry! Right now! Look!”

Six people pressed their faces to the glass. They screamed and then laughed. We honked on the way out of the parking lot. For Freedom, baby!

We ended the night at Krispy Kreme followed by Steak and Shake. What? Life is short, eat dessert first, especially if dessert is hot and fresh Krispy Kremes.

Youth and Beauty

I’ve enjoyed the hell out of the last several weeks in my classroom reading To Kill a Mockingbird. The kids have enjoyed it too. Every day, we challenge a different stereotype. What does it mean to be black? White? Southern? A girl? Poor? Educated? Mentally healthy? Religious? Old? Young?

Our discussions have been rich, and the kids seemed to embrace Atticus’ philosophy. You never really know a person until you get inside his skin and walk around in it. I was energized. Attitudes were adjusting, including mine. One book really can change people’s lives.

Cut to today.

“Who were you rooting for yesterday, Ms. Owens?”

“The Giants.”

“Really? Why?”

“Well, normally I’m not a fan of either team, but we have a couple of connections to the Giants, and that seemed like a good reason to root for them. Plus, I’m over the Patriots, and yeah, that’s probably sour grapes from when they beat teams I like, but whatever.”

“But Tom Brady’s hot! You have to root for him.”

“So is David Beckham, but I’m not buying his underwear.”

I watch a girl’s eyes glaze over. “I totally would.”

I realize my eyes have glazed over, and I shake myself back to reality. “Come on people. You do not have inferior minds. Surely, you base decisions like which team to root for and what products to buy on more than just physical beauty?”

Beavis and Butthead in the back of the room, “huhuhuhuhuh…Go Daddy!”

“I bought M&Ms this morning, but I based that on humor. They had the best commercial. Plus, I like M&Ms.”

“OH! It’s that kind of party!" Everyone laughed amidst general agreement that M&Ms had the best commercial. (This was the first commercial mentioned by students in every class. Good job M&M/Mars! You reached your target audience.)

“What about that half-time show? How old is Madonna anyway. She’s like my grandma’s age or something?”

“Yeah, seriously. Why do they keep getting old people?”

Ouch. This one hit home, and my knee jerked.

“Madonna hit the charts when I was in high school. She has adapted for thirty years. How many of your favorite artists will still be relevant when you’re in your forties?”

“Justin Bieber.”

I’m not making that up. I might have thrown up a little in my mouth. I resisted the urge to make a snide remark and further pigeon-hole myself. I had already planted a flag in “old people” land.

“Who says Madonna is still relevant?”

“We’re talking about her aren’t we? She played to a billion people last night. A lot of them are talking about her too. Plus, that awful song she just put out is on the radio every five minutes.”

“SEE!! You don’t even like her anymore! She’s old!”

“I don’t like that song because it’s stupid. Let’s see if I can sum up this discussion…Only hot people are worthy of our attention and fandom, and old people need to get out of our faces because they aren’t relevant anymore. Is that about right?”

Beavis and Butthead, “hehehehehehe….yeah.”

Everyone else backpedals warily, smelling a trap.

“Betty White is old, and we like her. She’s funny.”

“So old people are good for a laugh in a commercial, but leave the half-time show to us young, relevant folks?”

“You are totally twisting our words, Ms. Owens!”

“Then, please, tell me what you really mean.”

Several false starts, then, “Nevermind.”

“Uh huh…get out your homework.”

I’d like to say victory was mine, but it was hollow at best. I’d like to blame it on the fact that these kids are 15 years old, but I saw the same discussion on Facebook and Twitter last night.

We are only willing to get inside someone else’s skin and walk around in it as long as we can go back to our own young, beautiful skin to live.

My favorite commercial? The Audi headlights that blew up those eternally young, eternally beautiful vampires.

Margaritas, Snow, and Black Sludge

I've had an interesting week. It began with a margarita tour of San Antonio, included one day with freshman drunk on the prospect of the year's first snow day, and ended underneath my bathroom sink clearing that which shall not be named from my pipes.

Why a margarita tour? Why San Antonio? Bruce had to go to San Antonio for the AFCA convention, but since I'm not a football coach, I went for the margaritas. I was not disappointed.

Sunday: Patron Mango Mint Margarita at the Iron Cactus paired with lobster tacos and tortilla soup.

The Iron Cactus boasts the largest selection of tequila in San Antonio. The menu listed more than 80. My margarita had two different kinds of Patron, along with fresh-squeezed agave, mango, and a mint leaf. To say that this margarita was good would be like saying Michelangelo was a decent sculptor, Mount Everest is fairly tall, Eric Clapton doesn’t suck. I would order this margarita as part of my last meal. If I was stupidly rich, I would fill a swimming pool with this margarita and dive into it like Scrooge McDuck. Not being stupidly rich is the only thing that kept me from drinking them until I slid out of my chair and into the river. At $10 a pop, moderation was a given.

Monday: Prickly Pear Margarita at Boudro’s Texas Bistro paired with blackened prime rib.

This was the only frozen margarita I sampled. I’m a rocks girl as a general rule, but sometimes decadence trumps the rules. The real star of this meal, though, was the steak, spicy and crunchy on the outside, tender and juicy on the inside. I ate everything on my plate. If I hadn’t been in a fancy restaurant with the entire Vanderbilt coaching staff at the next table, I would have picked up my plate and licked it clean. Being full of prime rib and prickly pear margarita made me all warm and fuzzy, and I actually dozed off at the BCS Championship party we went to afterwards. In my defense, it wasn’t a very exciting game.

Tuesday: Traditional margarita rocks at the Lone Star Café paired with a thinly sliced brisket sandwich slathered in barbecue sauce. No picture on this one, but it was good, reasonably priced, and within walking distance of our hotel. I ordered the second (and third) guilt-free.

Lest you think all I did in San Antonio was eat and drink margaritas, here is some photographic evidence to the contrary.

We explored the Riverwalk…

Visited the Alamo….

Stayed at the historic and beautiful Menger Hotel (OMG, their breakfast buffet!)…

Hung out at the Menger Bar where Teddy Roosevelt recruited the Rough Riders…

And even did some actual AFCA convention things like pose with the Heismann…

…and study current marketing trends. This is how they sell shoulder pads.

Wednesday was a travel day. We returned home to find that the boys had not trashed the house in Risky Business fashion (if you don’t count the pile of dishes in the sink and laundry on their respective floors). The dog wasn‘t languishing. The cat had food in his bowl. The neighbors hadn’t left nasty notes in the mailbox.

Being able to trust your kids -- priceless.

Thursday: I realized I need to leave for three straight days more often, so I can hear this when I return. “Ms. Owens! You’re back! We missed you!” The kids were genuinely happy to see me which was nice and completely manic because of the snow predicted for that afternoon which wasn't as nice. I have no windows in my classroom, and they invented every excuse in the book to walk down the hall and see if it was snowing. Talk of snow seemed to bleed into everything.

Consider this: At the end of chapter 17 in To Kill a Mockingbird, Jem is pleased with Atticus’ questioning of Bob Ewell, but Scout thinks Jem is counting his chickens.

“What does Scout mean by Jem counting his chickens?”

Crickets.

“The whole idiom is ‘Don’t count your chickens before they hatch.’ Think it through. What does that mean?

Crickets.

“Okay, it’s like this. Snow is predicted, but it’s not here yet. You decide not to do your math homework because you just know we’re getting a snow day. See? That’s counting your chickens before they hatch. You might get a snow day, but you might end up in Ms. Bleuel’s class tomorrow with no math homework. Don’t count your chickens before they hatch.”

“Ms. Owens, I don’t know anything about chickens, but I’m definitely not doing my math homework tonight CAUSE WE‘RE GETTING A SNOW DAY TOMORROW!”

Friday: We get a snow day. The snow day coincides nicely with the exact moment my frustration with the slow-draining sinks in my bathroom reaches critical mass. Armed only with rubber gloves, I remove the curvy pipe underneath and clear a foul mass of methane-infused, hair-clotted, slimy, black sludge from each. Eldest son came looking for a roll of toilet paper and ran screaming from the room. Youngest son squatted down next to me, fascinated, and asked me where it came from.

Happy thought for the day: All the lotions, potions, unguents, and sprays I use become black, hair-clotted sludge in my drain.

So there you have it. The week that started with a Patron Mango Mint Margarita ended with black sludge, apparently run-off from my face. I’m pretty sure there’s a profound metaphor in there somewhere, or maybe it was just a really weird week.