It's floodin' down in Texas.

Yesterday was crazy. I helped my sister move her things to Kevin's house in Breckenridge (the wedding's next weekend)...and severe thunderstorms and hail kept me there until about 10:30 when I braved the weather to get to my own shower and bed. I was exhausted (I've been getting up before 5:00 a.m. for more than a month now with the new puppy.) Got back to town around 11:30, went straight to sister's house & let her dog out, put him back in, fed her cat, and went home to take my own dogs out and work on May Bee's puppy training *at midnight*.

It was well after midnight when I stepped out of the shower, and it felt SO WEIRD to be *getting ready for bed* as the BBC Sunday morning news show was on. (I RARELY get to hear that show! Sometimes, if I wake up really early on Sunday morning, I can hear the tail end of it--usually interviews and cricket results--before "Speaking of Faith" comes at six o'clock.)

Then up at 6:00 a.m. this morning to take my dogs out to their Special Corner and feed them (and myself), run to sister's house to let her dog out, and I took pictures of the storm damage there.

Josh surveys the damage.

Her back fence is down so she can more fully enjoy the neighbor's sunflowers. (Her dog already "enjoyed" them, sprinkling them with his Retriever Marking Spray. If one of these sunflowers immediately starts to grow better OR takes a turn for the worse, they'll know which one.) I had to physically get Josh out of the neighbor's yard when he conveniently acquired a case of Instant Onset Acute Deafness this morning and suddenly couldn't hear me calling him back onto Karen's property.

The Triad office building between Karen's house & mine.

Then to U-Haul to return the dolly. Then to Walgreen's to get Mike a Father's Day card from the dogs. I've finally crashed in front of the computer and am considering a second coffee and some ibuprofen... :-)

Happy Father's Day, everybody!

Hot enough fer ya'?

Tuesday night, I read a book in the backyard from 8:20-9:00 p.m., and when I came in the house, the guy on our public radio station said the temp outside was 95 degrees. I thought it was hilarious that a COLLEGE STUDENT didn't know how to read a thermometer...but quit laughing right away when weather.com confirmed the current temp as 93 degrees! (The radio station is on the other, and apparently *hotter*, side of town.)

95 degrees at 9 o'clock at night? That's just sick.

He once was lost…

…but now he's FOUND! Josh is safely back at home, thank Heaven.

Guess who's dog-sitting AND housetraining a new puppy? Yes, that's right…Bethany and Kristy. We went over to Karen's 3 times on Saturday, and then yesterday, I went over there at 8:30 to feed Josh breakfast and let him out. (It was *supposed* to be "let him IN," but when we went over there on Saturday night at 11:00 p.m., it was raining so we had to leave him inside--REALLY raining, not just sprinkling, with shockingly bright lightning bolts. Oh, yeah…and I had just had my car washed a few hours earlier, thinking "It never rains in Abilene.")

So, anyway, Josh was so happy to see me and get sugar and get to "go"; he'd been holding it since 11:30 the night before. What worried me was that he would come to me on the deck step to get some affection, and then he'd run into the grass and tinkle. After he did that a couple of times (with decreasing amounts of pee each time), I was afraid he had another bladder infection. (He was recently on antibiotics for either a bladder or kidney infection--can't remember which--but it affected his bathroom habits.)

So, since it wasn't hot yet, I just decided to leave him out so he could pee to his heart's delight and then let Bethany come back before noon (when it really starts to heat up & shade disappears) to put him in. But the plan was all ashes when Bethany called and said that Josh WASN'T IN THE BACKYARD!!!

We were frantic. We went through the neighborhood calling his name, up and down every street in Lytle South SEVERAL times. We called animal control, but they were closed. We called the police non-emergency number and the policeman called the animal control guy's on-call number, but then the policeman called me back to say that they hadn't picked up any dog like Josh. He said our best bets were door-to-door queries and flyers.

So Bethany and I made 40 flyers and put them up all over the neighborhood.

LOST!

13 year-old Golden Retriever with white muzzle named JOSHUA.
Please call Please call 660-**** or 660-**** or 660-****! Bless you for trying to help us find our old friend…

As Mom drove slowly up and down each block, Bethany would hop in & out, stapling flyers to each and every pole; by the time the Staple Gun Queen had plastered the community, we only had six left to take with us door to door. Now it was Bethany's turn to drive, and Mom's turn to hop in and out. One lady HAD seen him in her front yard, but the rest of the people were washouts. (One man told me that he knew Josh, but hadn't seen him because he was too busy "babysitting the tv" since the Indianapolis 500 was on, followed by the Coke Something-or-Other race.) Some people wouldn't even come to the door, even though I could hear them inside! (My theory on that is that they saw the flyer in my hand and thought it said "LOST?" instead of "LOST!")

Sunburned, hot, and exhausted, we finally gave up around 5:00. (I'd already called the Tech Team at church and told them that I couldn't make it to the 3:30 training.) We hid Karen's lawn mower in the garage and propped open her fence door...just in case Josh decided to give up The Great Escape and come home.

Two hours later--and SEVEN hours after this whole ordeal began--we got the call. A man said that Josh was at the corner of Cornell & Purdue and that he seemed hurt. We were on our way!! Bethany beat me there and was shocked that the man actually took the $20 reward (we both agreed that we would have turned it down). We tried in vain to lift Josh into the back of my Tribute so Bethany just walked him the rest of the way home. We gave him lots of water and lots of love and agreed that Karen and Houston could go get all 34 flyers out of the neighborhood when they got home on Monday.

However, after our phones kept ringing with questions and congratulations, we decided that we'd better take them down asap. Bethany had a brainstorm--Joe was coming over later to see May Bee, but after that, they could remove all the signs and "decorate" Karen's house with them when she went over to let Josh out for the night. Mike and I fortified our two favorite vandals with chocolate milkshakes and they were off on their mission like Ninjas of the Night.

I'll bet Bethany's happy she spent Memorial Day weekend in Abilene…Szechuan with Pokey, movies with friends, the guy she struck dumb at Hasting's (I swear to you--he took one look at her and lost the ability to speak), vandalizing her aunt's house, backrubs & Green Jeans & watching Shaun of the Dead & Amelie with Mom, the Josh Adventure, taking the puppy out at 2:30 a.m., and Buffalo Wild Wings with Karen.

Life is so wonderful…thank you, God, for my beautiful daughters, happy dogs, a library full of books, and for more blessings than I can begin to count!!

Maybe. Maybe not. Maybe...

Want to see May Bee, the new puppy?

I have until Monday to give my answer on whether we're keeping her or not...which is why the school secretary suggested the name "Maybe."

The more I think about it, though, the more I adore the name "May Bee," and here are a FEW of the reasons why:

*I loved the tv show Arrested Development (even though I only saw it a handful of times) and it had a 14 year-old character named Maeby Fünke who was very cool.

*She came to live with us in May.

*I just read a book about a beagle named Bea that I've been telling everyone to read. (It was a true story about a beagle, a runaway lab animal, who was rescued by the author, Kristin von Kreisler...who never dreamed that Bea would rescue her right back. See http://www.eyeonbooks.com/ibp.php?ISBN=1585422223 for more info and a cool audio link.)

*Plus, she's a girl...a little Queen Bee! (Oh, and Bethany has always laughed at how the Bee Girl from the Blind Melon video is my Mini-Me.)


* Because of Mayberry's "Aunt Bee" on the Andy Griffith Show. I even bought her cookbook back in the '90s!

*"Misha" and "May Bee" just sound cool together.

*Oh, and she's a Texan, so she NEEDS two names...Ruby Fay, Betty Sue, etc.!


Yeah...I think we're keeping her...maybe...

Update #1: Mike says I have to post that Misha will ALWAYS be Queen Bee around here! ;-)

Update #2: May Bee has had 4 accidents in the house...and only 3 of them were liquid, if you know what I mean. (One of them--the liquid kind, thank goodness--happened ON a houseguest last night! Marty was showing us online video of himself running with the bulls in Pamplona, but when the Windows Media Player came on, it was WAY too loud...it sounded like the bulls and people were barreling through our computer room! We ALL jumped and I scrambled for the speaker control...and May Bee piddled on Renee's white capri pants.)

Update #3: We have a huge half-acre lot; our backyard is flat and sun-baked and enormous...and yet, somehow, May Bee found the only mutilated bird wing contained in this giant space. She gnawed on it until I pried it from her clamped puppy teeth. Ick. Ick. They don't make an anti-bacterial soap strong enough to get the feeling of bird blood and gristle and puppy spit off your hands...

Update #4: Make it 5 accidents in the house. I just finished mopping the kitchen. Thankfully, Sunday Baroque was on so it was almost enjoyable. Oh, and May Bee tried to nurse this morning, but Misha was having NONE of that. ;-)

Happy Mother's Day!

Okay, Flickr is plumb addictive. I've been playing on it off and on all day as I obsessively-compulsively check my Inbox to see if either one of my daughters has sent me a Mother's Day message yet. (Not yet.) My Flickr URL isn't ready to reveal since only two photo sets are uploaded. Keep checking back...

Hey, have you ever heard of the "corpse flower" plant? The Titan Arum, or amorphophallus titanum, comes from Sumatra, can be up to 12 feet tall, and its odiferous bloom (which smells like a decaying body) draws carrion-eating insects to the plant, thereby helping to pollinate it. (Head to: http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=1355093 and choose the "Listen" link to hear more.)

Well, IMHO, Misha and I may be on the brink of a new botanical discovery. The last three or four times we have run through the area of Red Bud Park I generously call "The Grove" (about 8 mesquite trees and their patchy shade), I have been *overwhelmed* by the smell of URINE. The first time this happened, I thought someone had let their Great Dane (or pony) pee all over this thirty-foot stretch of track. The second time it happened, I thought maybe it was kids who come hang out at the park at night. Today, however, when the Wonder Lab and I walked/jogged our three miles, it dawned on me that there might be some new kind of undiscovered "Pampers Plant" that grows at the base of mesquite trees.

Just think--if WE discover it, we get to name it! I'm mulling over a few names, just in case...urinius titanus, numerus unum americana, Texas Tinkle Weed, and a few others are rattling around in my noggin. We'll keep you posted...

Thank you, God, for mothers! Happy Mother's Day to all the happy moms out there!

Uh, oh. It's Puzzle Day!

Did you ever hear the comedian Brian Regan describe the morning a kid wakes up remembering that his Science project is due that day...and how his head POPS off his pillow? It's hilarious...and it happened to me today.

At 6:00 a.m. (an hour later than I usually sleep), my head came up OFF my pillow as I recalled that the Ohio judge who usually types up and distributes the NPR puzzle had asked me to sub for him today...but that he hadn't sent me a template like he *ALWAYS* does. I've filled in for him quite a few times over the last few years, and he's ALWAYS sent me a template! (I once told him that it was appreciated, but not necessary so I guess he took me at my word this week.) A search of every email Inbox I own proved fruitless so after feeding the dog and me some breakfast, I got right down to work finding a blank tape, setting up the tape recorder, finding the template Richard sent me back in March (the last time I subbed), searching my hard drive for my login and password to Topica Lists, creating my own template with new pertinent information, etc., and pretty soon I was transcribing Liane Hansen & Will Shortz as fast as my fingers could type.

So, anyway, here's what went out to NPR puzzle fans around the world this morning.

Synopsis of
NPR Weekend Edition puzzle
with Liane Hansen and Will Shortz
2006-05-07

The Current Challenge (given 20060430): from
http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=5372106
From Merl Reagle: Take the word formaldehyde. Rearrange its 12 letters to spell two shorter words that are uncapitalized and very common. Each one has just one syllable. Not counting a slight variation, we think the answer is unique. What words are they?

The answer Will and Merl expected were the words RHYMED and then either LOAFED or FOALED. Liane, who was back this week (hooray!) after a three-week hiatus, reported over 1,400 entries.

The on-air player was Derek Tier (phonetic), a retired research engineer from Grantham, New Hampshire who has been sending in entries since 1998. From where he lives, Derek can listen to NPR stations in five different states; he is a member of several stations, including WGBH in memory of Julia Child and Robert J. Lurtsema ( http://robertjlurtsema.org/ ).

For the on-air puzzle, Will brought familiar phrases and titles, all of which take the form: "BLANK on the BLANK." Will gives the end of the phrase, and the player must come up with the start. For example, if Will said CAKE, the answer would be ICING to make the phrase ICING on the CAKE. (As a hint, Will says the answer will always be a noun.)

CLUES (answers are near the end of this message):
1. cob
2. wall
3. range
4. floss
5. wrist
6. Nile
7. bounty
8. spot
9. Mount
10. roof
11. hearth
12. Rhine
13. wild side
14. River Kwai
15. Orient Express
16. half-shell
(two-word answers for the next two clues)
17. block
18. prairie


The Current Challenge (given 20060507):
From listener Mike Rice of Los Angeles: Take two words that go together to make a familiar phrase in the form "BLANK AND BLANK." Both words are plurals (like "bells and whistles"). Move the first letter of the second word to the start of the first word, and you'll get two new words that name forms of transportation. What are they?


Answers must be received by 3:00 p.m. Eastern Time on Thursday.
One one entry per person. NPR will no longer receive entries by
email. Entries must now be made at the web page:
http://www.npr.org/templates/contact/index.php?columnId=4473090

No word yet on whether regular mail POSTCARD entries will be accepted.
NPR's address is:
Weekend Edition Sunday Puzzle
National Public Radio
635 Massachusetts Ave., N.W.
Washington, DC 20001

* ~ * ~ * ~ * ~ * ~ * ~ * ~ * ~ *

Guest editor’s notes from Kristy Fowler Coker:

Thanks to Richard for letting me type up this week’s synopsis as he enjoys a family gathering in beautiful San Francisco! I'll try to keep my jealousy to a minimum and just focus on sending out a quality synopsis.

Liane also was in San Francisco recently and, while there, visited station KQED. She was also at the White House Correspondents' Dinner, which she likened to a "prom" for journalists and politicians. She admitted that she was "dressed to the nines," and joked that "for someone in radio, that's really hard."

Serendipitous links, suggested by today’s on-air puzzle:

If Neal Conan and Liane Hansen were at the White House Correspondents' Association Dinner, they must have heard the now-infamous speech by comedian Stephen Colbert...who insists that he didn't bomb, but that the audience simply maintained a "very respectful silence." You can see sixteen minutes of the performance here:
http://msnbc.msn.com/id/12597899/ .

You can read many of George Eliot's novels online, including her 1860 _The Mill on the Floss_, at:
http://www.princeton.edu/~batke/eliot/

TWO of today's on-air puzzle answers were books by Agatha Christie. Many speculate that Christie once faked her own kidnapping in hopes that her husband would be charged. (He had just asked her for a divorce, admitting that he was in love with a younger woman.) Her second husband, an archaeologist, was apparently a much better match; Christie once claimed, "An archaeologist is the best husband any woman can have. The older she gets, the more interested he is in her." :-)
http://www.bbc.co.uk/bbc7/drama/progpages/christie.shtml

Have a great week, NPR puzzle fans!
Kristy

http://abilene.region14.net/webs/kristy.coker/home.htm

* ~ * ~ * ~ * ~ * ~ * ~ * ~ * ~ *

Editor's notes:

Puzzles, and contents of Weekend Edition/Sunday puzzle segment
are copyrighted 2006, by Will Shortz and NPR. Reprinted here with
permission.

* ~ * ~ * ~ * ~ * ~ * ~ * ~ * ~ *

If you'd like to subscribe to these synopses (and receive them
free each week), send a blank email from your email account to:
nprpuzzle-subscribe@igc.topica.com
and you will receive the weekly challenge and the on-air puzzle.
If you want to remove your address from the list, send a blank
email from your account to:
nprpuzzle-unsubscribe@igc.topica.com
To change the email address of your subscription, remove the old
one (from the old email account), and add the new one (from the
new email account). For more information about this list, and an
archive of those distributed by Topica.com, visit:
http://igc.topica.com/lists/nprpuzzle@igc.topica.com/read
or, for more information about the Topica mailing service, visit:
http://lists.topica.com/

NPR posts the weekly challenge (and the previous answer) on its
World Wide Web page. Go to www.npr.org , and "select" Weekend
Edition Sunday from the drop-down combo box to the right of the
big npr in the top left corner. You can also pick up a recording
of Weekend Edition Sunday program in the Real Audio format, after
1:00 p.m. Eastern time each Sunday. In the alternative, for the
text of the weekly listener challenge and a photo of Will and
Liane, you can go directly to:
http://www.npr.org/programs/wesun/puzzle/
Podcasts are available at:
http://www.npr.org/podcasts/
From:
http://www.npr.org/rss/podcast.php?id=4473090&uid=3ba205bf25adca5af473ab1102e03b75
How do I subscribe to this podcast?
Copy the URL [above this paragraph] into your preferred
podcasting tool software (e.g. Odeo, iTunes, iPodder). You will
automatically receive this podcast each time it's published.

National Puzzlers League: http://www.puzzlers.org/
From: elaine , The 2005 meeting will be in
the Los Angeles area.

The NPR puzzle Web page also has links to books edited by Will
Shortz, a Will Shortz bio, and these links:
World Scrabble Championship
http://www.wscgames.com/
American Crossword Puzzle Tournament
http://www.crosswordtournament.com/
It references a Merl Reagle article on constructing crossword
puzzles. It is available at:
http://www.crosswordtournament.com/1997/art01.html
World Puzzle Championship:
http://www.worldpuzzle.org/
http://www.ms.mff.cuni.cz/acad/kam/babilon/wpchist.html
Register for the USA team at:
http://wpc.puzzles.com/register/index.htm
More of Yoshiyuki Kotani's puzzles are available from
http://www.tuat.ac.jp/~kotani/
More of Ed Pegg Jr.'s puzzles are available at:
http://www.mathpuzzle.com/
Kristy Fowler Coker recommends:
http://www.wordsmith.org/awad/
You can join Kathie Schneider's email list for accessible word
and logic puzzles. To subscribe, send a blank email to:
blind-puzzlers-subscribe@smartgroups.com
Frank Morgan's Math Chat is at:
http://www.maa.org/news/mathchat.html

Richard R. Renner (r3)
New Philadelphia, Ohio
rrenner@igc.org
rrenner@igc.org
www.taterenner.com

* ~ * ~ * ~ * ~ * ~ * ~ * ~ * ~ *

ANSWERS TO WILL'S CLUES:

1. corn
2. fly (or writing)
3. home
4. Mill
5. slap
6. Death
7. Mutiny
8. Johnny
9. Sermon
10. Fiddler
11. Cricket
12. Watch
13. walk
14. Bridge
15. Murder
16. oysters (or clams)
(two-word answers for the next two clues)
17. new kid (or New Kids)
18. Little House

Liane thanked Derek for not making her whistle the theme to _Bridge on the River Kwai_.


End of NPR Puzzle Synopsis.

***

Whew. Done. After all that stress, the Wonder Lab and I hit the park for a three-mile walk/run. Tonight, the kids and I have church and then dinner...and then I can come home and crash with a good book. (Doesn't that sound like a wonderful Sunday?) :-)

Work party!

Whew. What a day. Libby organized a work party at Harlan's house, and work WE DID! Below are a few of the photos...go to http://mad4books.photosite.com/Album2/ and watch the slideshow to see more.

A sweet day...

Here's something weird and wonderful that happened to me yesterday. I stopped by Karen's teen consignment store to drop off some homemade cookies that I know she likes. (In fact, we're the *only* two people in the world who like these cookies; they're made with Splenda, stone-ground whole wheat flour, and natural peanut butter. Very healthy...except for the brown sugar and CUP of butter.)

So, anyway, I kept my distance from the counter because Karen had a customer. A sweet, older lady was trying to sell Karen some jewelry, but Karen was telling her that they didn't take jewelry consignments. The pieces were so pretty and interesting, though, that Karen called me over to see the lady's canary diamond ring, cluster pearls, and other unusual items. The lady was so nice and sweet, and Karen asked me who she reminded me of. I thought about it for a while and then said that I wasn't sure exactly who, but that she could totally pass for someone in our family. They both burst out laughing and admitted that, unbeknownst to me, Karen had said the *very same words* when the lady first came in the shop.

I suggested she try selling some of the nicer pieces to Weinkauf Jewelers because he not only MAKES jewelry, he sells it, too. She thought that was a good idea, and we hung out at the counter talking about teaching and other things. I asked if she liked cookies made with Splenda and offered her one from the Baggie in my hand. She said that she hadn't had much to eat that day, and could she please have TWO instead? Karen exclaimed, "Wow! You really are from our family!" and we all cracked up.

Karen got the lady a tissue in which to pack her "to go" snack since she said she needed to get to a manicure appointment. The next thing I knew, she pulled a ring I'd been looking at earlier from the jewelry box and gave it to me. (It had nine red stones arranged like a tic-tac-toe board, and she must have heard me ask Karen if garnets were Mom's birthstone.) I refused to take it and put it back in her jewelry box and closed the lid. She handed it to me again, but I gently pushed it back and said that I absolutely could NOT accept it because I'd accidentally overheard that she was going into the hospital next week.

She said, "I want you to have it. I don't need it, and I have a husband who works!" I weakly replied that it didn't seem like a fair trade for two peanut butter cookies. She finally handed it to me again, insisting that it was a Love Gift and that she WANTED to give it to me. She also said that I'm not allowed to tell anyone who gave it to me so last night, at Bronco Bonco, the ladies made up all kinds of funny stories about how this ring is hot.

It doesn't help that an armed fugitive who pulled jewelry heists in Odessa and the Metroplex escaped police this week by running into Abilene High School and blending in with the students. See http://reporter-news.com/abil/nw_local/article/0,1874,ABIL_7959_4629493,00.html .

So now all the ladies are teasing me about "aiding and abetting" armed fugitives by providing them diet peanut butter cookies.

Oh, and then I won the consolation prize last night because I lost more rounds of Bonco than any other player. Check out the booby prize:

Lucky in life, but unlucky in love..I remain,
mad4books

I know I bombard people with requests to read Haven Kimmel, but I can't help it and make no excuse for it. (I just got her new book yesterday and am already on page 180. The greedy joy of reading this book is tempered by the knowledge that each page turned means one fewer page left.)

The author Lee Smith says "Haven Kimmel can do anything she wants with language." That is a powerful compliment in my family of preachers and readers and linguaphiles.

Every page is as good as this one, page 49 in her new book, She Got Up Off the Couch, dedicated to her Quaker mother who lost 100 pounds, performed the titular deed, and put herself through college:

"I never could get what was the big deal about being pretty, it all seemed like a bunch of hokum to me. Who had time to think about such things, and who would bother? I knew girls who even had those life-sized decapitated Barbie heads, and they would concentratedly paint Barbie's eyelids a shade of blue not seen on a human face since Mooreland's too brief acquaintance with a town slut (or as my mother called her, man-dependent). And Barbie's lips would get painted a cheap crayony pink, with lumps and streaks, and it was not many hours after Christmas morning that my toiletry-leaning friends discovered that no matter what one did with Barbie's hair it turned out creepy and couldn't be undone. Then there she sat, gathering dust on her cheerful, ruined face and chopped-up vinyl hair and I don't know why my friends didn't just get themselves a talking evil clown doll and be done with it."

And here's Kimmel's description of a cat she found at the city dump:

"I could see that he was junkyard-colored, probably a gray tabby under all the layers of grime, and one of his ears was a hopeless jigsaw. Every cat I'd ever owned had, during some brawl, lost a hunk of ear. It was a standard cat condition. The Dumpcat's left eye drooped, too, and he appeared to have lost all his whiskers. This stopped me in my tracks, because I knew from my dad that cats used their whiskers to help them see. Dad told me a cat won't stick his head anywhere his body can't fit through, and his whiskers tell him how wide his body is. Good Lord, I thought, this cat is headed for disaster.

As I got closer, he made a little rumble sound deep in his chest and darted away. This kind of cat was a test; one could either lose one's temper and dive at him or be a good Quaker and keep going at him with gentleness. I pursued him nicely, in a way that would have made my sister proud, with the vague idea that I might catch him and put him in the treehouse with the chair and the dirty magazine we'd found in the barn and couldn't hardly stand to look at."

Do you see what I mean? Run, do not walk, to the closest library or bookstore and get yourself some Haven Kimmel. For an amazing interview, go to
http://www.ibiblio.org/wunc_archives/sot/index.php?p=526
and download the audio.

Goodbye, National Library Week.

I had a WONDERFUL day yesterday! It was the last day of National Library Week and right before I got on the P.A. system to give out the final day's reading prizes, the principal used the P.A. to brag on the Madison library. She told everybody to pat Kirsten and me on the back and thank us for a job well done. She also gave me a beautiful plant and announced that there would be a cake in the teachers' lounge for faculty and staff to celebrate National Library Week.

All day long, people sent cards and sweet email messages or just said kind words in the hallway. One student even came up and hugged me as I did hall duty! If Mayor "Stormin' Norman" Archibald had given us the keys to the city, I couldn't have been more pleased.

What a wonderful day. What a wonderful campus. What a wonderful job.

The other day in the park, there was a guy who just didn't seem to *grasp* the concept of walking on the right-hand side. Both times we passed each other, I had to take my dog and cross to the other side because he and his GIANT dog were walking toward me...on "my" side of the track.

The dog wasn't the only scary thing about this guy, BTW. This man was terrifying...huge, overly-tattooed (IMHO), a straggly beard which came nearly to his enormous waist, denim overalls, and a permanent scowl on his face. His dog was on a metal chain which led to a metal choke collar, and in the man's right hand was a big stick. I definitely got the feeling that he was on some kind of weird power trip as everyone who walked/ran/skated/etc. either had to move left or WAY over into the grass to get out of his way.

So about a quarter of a mile after I passed this guy, I started wondering *why* we all walk on the right. 99% of the people in the park circle the track in the same direction, probably without thinking about it. Kids are taught to do it in school hallways. Americans even do this in our shopping malls. (Think about it...no matter what mall you visit, it feels like you're going against the flow if you try to walk on the left of the kiosks/benches/fountains in the middle of the mall "boulevard.")

Okay, then I thought...Oh, maybe it's because we DRIVE on the right. I've been told Americans drive on the right because during wagon-train days, men walked to the left of their animal teams to keep control of them with their (usually) stronger right hand. Therefore, when two teams met each other, both "steered" their teams to the outer, right-hand side of the road.

But, wait a minute. If that's the case, do Britons walk and jog on the left-hand side of the track? If I went to a shopping mall in London, would everyone circle the mall in the other direction?

Hey, maybe Scary Beard & Overalls Man wasn't weird! Maybe he was just visiting from another country...

Generation gap.

My favorite exchange this week occurred during Hall Duty after I saw a student walking toward me with enormous black jeans and a FACE on his lower legs. (One half of the face was on one calf of the jeans, and the other half of the face was on the other calf.) Since the boy was walking and not standing still, I didn't recognize the celebrity until the young man was nearly next to me.

Me: "Cool jeans! Is that Redd Foxx?"

Student: "No, miss. It's Fred Sanford."

Next to apples, friends are God's greatest invention! Wait...maybe it's a tie...they're equally good...

This week has been kind of an emotional one, with me helping Bethany leave Tech mid-semester and Mike finding out that Courtney's pregnant & he's going to be a Grandpa in a month. (Everything's fine, and we both love our kids unconditionally, but news like these two announcements can kinda rock your parental boat. Love and approval are not at all the same thing...)

Anyway, this week someone posted a sign in the Madison ladies' restroom about how girlfriends stay even when pets die, kids grow up, and husbands leave. (It was one of those Maxine-type email messages that circulate a half-million times until it has so many forward marks that it's practially unreadable.) And it's true...friends are always there to keep us steady and remind us that our glasses are half-full. (And to suggest that we *completely* fill them with a margarita after we go shopping!) :-)

Here's a FEW of the ways my friends, knowingly or unknowingly, made me happy this week:

*Amber isn't just the lady who does my hair; she's also a friend. When I walked in to her salon on Tuesday, I'd just gotten off the phone with Bethany. She said that she'd be upset, too, and that I was handling the news better than she or her husband (the principal at Mann) would have, which made me feel good. We talked about how much we loved our girls and how hard it is to let go and how we probably never will be able to and how we finally realize what it was like for our parents to watch us succeed or fail on our own.

*I got a hug from Crystal on Wednesday.

*Thursday, my sister took the two back seats out of her minivan and drove 5 hours round-trip to help me move all of Bethany's stuff back to Abilene, plus I received an email with a good book recommendation from my sister-in-law and a great email from my childhood friend Melanie in New Hampshire.

*Bethany P., Kirsten, & I had an International Night on Friday night...American wine, Thai food, and a German movie with English subtitles.

*And then, yesterday, eleven Franklin Middle School teachers/former teachers went to San Angelo to drive along the river, eat at Miss Hattie's, and enjoy Shopping Therapy on the "tourist row" of shops. My therapeutic purchases? A cool picture of Lady Liberty being built in Paris, a set of coffee-themed Christmas ornaments, a 6-ft. Christmas tree for the school library, two candles, a robe, a 1972 cookbook (from the Corpus Christi Jr. League that has at least one recipe from my pediatrician's wife), a bracelet, and...

...sitting in my livingroom with a Raggedy Ann in it...

...a vintage, 1950s wooden high chair!!!!

I snuck it in the house at 3:00 this morning when thunder woke me up. Mike will get a big surprise when he goes in the livingroom to read the Sunday paper and drink his latte.

Well, gotta run. This house has been anxiously anticipating Spring Break for a good cleaning. It's so messy that it looks like we've been burgled! If the cops walked in here, they'd start taking fingerprints...

Wednesday nights well-spent...

The other day, I was telling Kirsten how I dread helping with the Kindergarten class each Wednesday night, but how much I love it once I'm there and how I leave in a good mood each week. (It's kinda' like working out at the gym!)

So, anyways, each week there is a craft, a lesson, songs, prayer, and a snack. Our craft has been an ongoing project for the last few weeks because we're building little "Mini Me"s who are ready for battle in the Lord's Army. The cardboard template of a tiny human dressed in flannel clothes & yarn hair that we started with weeks ago now has a shield of faith, a belt of truth, a breastplate of righteousness, a helmet of salvation, etc.

Last Wednesday, we used muffin cup liners, glitter glue, and tinsel to make our helmets. While they dried, we gathered for circle time and songs across the room. (This part is so cool because the kids LOVE to sit in our laps or beside us; unlike middle schoolers who rarely like or respect their teachers as they should, kindergarteners and first graders RACE to see who can get in our laps or leaning against our sides first. It does wonders for the self-esteem of a middle school librarian!)

Sarah, who looks like Bethany did back in Kindergarten, but with brown eyes instead of blue ones, beat everyone to my lap this week. The kids were singing and laughing and taking turns being the song leader in Circle Time when little Sarah--perched in my lap and leaning against my chest--looked up at me with her big brown eyes and said, "Miss Kristy! I'm your breastplate of righteousness!"

We both cracked up and laughed until Miss Crystal asked what was going on. As soon as I told her why, the student in her lap said, "Yeah! Me, too. I'm your breastplate of righteousness, Miss Crystal!" Everyone had a good laugh, and we gave cuddles to the two lucky enough to get to that coveted lap position first.

How cute is that? I swear to you...I get so much more from these sweet children than I give...

Here’s what I received for Valentine’s Day…orange roses from my husband (to support my Madison pride) and a giant crawling COCKROACH from the Dyess librarian (to remind me of the “friends” I left behind in Austin).

Last week at the technology convention, I had to switch hotel rooms after they found a nest of bugs in my room (including the HUGE bug that the guy armed with a can of Raid called “the muddah”). After killing 7 roaches in less than 12 hours, I complained at the front desk; I was trying to be tough, but the one on the nightstand between the two beds was the LAST straw…

That was a heck of a day, BTW. It ended with two Austin policemen in my hotel room. (It’s not nearly as exciting as it sounds. Apparently the guy they sent to kill the roaches thought he would come knock on my door at 11:15 that night, but he wouldn’t show his face at the peephole. The first time he came a-knockin’, he said that he needed my last name. The second time he came a-knockin’, he said my room wasn’t “registered.”)

BTW, if Raid Guy would have tried to come in, he would have had to “say hello to my little friend.”

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