Going to the Vet

I took my kitties for their annual examinations at the vet. They HATE this above all things. I think that they have memories of being boxed up and carted off to the humane society. That is where I got my two older cats, Milano and Bella, at the humane society. My third cat, Pumpkin (no, I did not name her so don't blame me for that silly name, blame my sis), was a stray that ran into our apartment one night in October a couple of years ago.

Bella has allergies that cause her to have some eye gunk. We picked up some drops at the vet and they are clearing up nicely. However, she has some tartar build up on her teeth, a condition that the vet says is causing her to have, "objectionably bad breath". I can't believe the vet actually put that on the report! How rude.

Milano is my wussy boy cat. Every girl has to have a gay guy friend and since I don't have a real life one, he is my pseudo-gay guy friend. He is very skiddish and jumps at his own shadow. His whine is the most pitty-enducing meow you have ever heard. He was overweight last time we went to the vet but he has since slimmed down and was given a clean bill of health.

Disclaimer: to all of the extremely masculine gay guys, sorry.

I think that Bella and Milano were litter mates because they have similar markings, but I have no way of really knowing. But they are an inseparable pair. They drove out our previous cat, Jezebelle, who now lives with my mother. Brit and I were shocked when Pumpkin, whom I like to call 'little one', ran into our apartment, into the kitchen, and straight for the food one night and fit right in with Milano and Bella. She chose us to be her caretakers and has become one of the family.

I feel that it is an oxymoron to call her 'little one' now that she has been spayed and taken to overeating. The vet said that she gained 3.6 lbs this year and is now over 13 lbs. Time to go on a diet.

She is still very cute, though! She is the one who always loves and appreciates the toys we bring home for them from pet smart. Milano feigns interest and Bella flatly refuses to acknowledge the gesture.

But Bella is the most fickle because she is my favorite and she knows

that I won't throw her out (haha). She just wants to make sure I spend the right amount of money before she acts interested. Between the three of them and the eye drops for Bella, I dropped $300 for these 'kids' at the vet. Thank goodness this only comes around once a year, but I was given some rare attention as a reward.

Health and Happiness

Health and Happiness. That is what the radio wished me today. Are these two things inextricably linked for a reason? Is my good health because I am happy? And if I am not happy will I become unhealthy?

During this time of year I look back and think about all of the great things that happened last year. I finished my first successful year as a teacher. I found a perfect job that fulfills me intellectually and emotionally. I ran a 1/2 marathon. I applied for a home loan and took a step away from my apartment-renting youth. I met, loved, and broke up with a great guy.

Two days ago I decided to follow through with the decision that I had been debating for the entire holiday season and broke up with BK. If there were no holidays, a time to reflect, take stock, and make resolutions for the new year would I have broken up with him? Probably not.

I plan to be alone for the new year. The fear of being alone is easier to handle when it is chosen rather than forced. But loneliness is still there. But with him I essentially was alone and now I am free to be with someone on my own terms. So much of the relationship revolved around him and conceded what I wanted or needed. An added bonus is that I forgot my charger at my mom's house and couldn't call someone even if I wanted to.

Besides, internal reflection and cleansing is what this time of year is all about. I have been playing solitaire, watching DVDs, blogging, and reading Beowulf (for work). I may even resort to putting a puzzle together since I have already cleaned my apartment.
My only regret is how painful this is for BK right now. He says he will never love someone like he loves me. The hopeless romantic in me doesn't think we ever love anyone in the same way we love another and the heartless cynic believes that we never fully love anyone besides ourselves and knows that he will eventually stop the 'I will love you forever' crap and find someone else quickly.

I sure hope he does. I don't think I ever gave myself fully to him and hope that he will one day find a woman who can completely love him with a whole heart. I never will. I will always be 60/40. 60% intellect and 40% heart. It is stupid to give yourself completely to a single person. Because of the way the human heart is flawed, a girl must always sleep with one eye open. To love, but love smartly is best because when a man gets too comfortable he stops trying. A relationship is work and dynamic and can never be left unattended.

And yet I want to end this blog by saying that I hope there is someone out there to dispel my philosophies on love. Man, our Cinderella society has trained me well. Wishing you the best year ever...Mel.

I am getting so old

Today I applied for a home mortgage loan....scaryness.

Best movie of the year!

If you are lucky enough to have a movie theater in your city that shows indie films like mine, (thank you to the Bijou at Crossroads) then you have got to check out the greatest movie of the year.....Slumdog Millionaire.

It will rock your world.

Cooking Tip

Just so you know, do not put wax paper into the oven. I nearly burnt my apartment down.

When I told my mom about it she gave me the Burt sigh...you know the exasperated one that Burt would give Ernie whenever he would do something stupid.

I don't think that it necessarily warranted the "you're an idiot" sigh because wax paper and parchment paper are very similar and can easily be confused.


By the way, none of my blog entries will be in chronological order--deal with it!

Faculty Choir Concert

So, as many of you know, I love to sing. So much so, that I volunteered willingly to participate in the Faculty Choir for this year's student choir concert. I had a blast. We sang The Christmas Song (better known as Chestnuts Roasting on and Open Fire) and Rockin' Around the Christmas Tree. We were a huge hit. There is a long instrumental during Rockin' Around the Christmas Tree so some of the students came out on stage and danced so that the audience was entertained throughout the whole song. You'll notice that I am dancing too.....but I am the only one dancing at "the grown up table".

That's me in the upper right hand corner of the pic. Suckers. They should know that the only reason we were invited to sing was so that the audience could have a laugh at our expense. Therefore, I felt obligated to give them a good show. The young man dancing in the forefront of the pic is one of my students--he rocked this show!

A special note goes out to my good friends Jac and MC. The both of them sat through this entire, boring concert that was filled with way too much Jesus to be a public school concert, just to see me live out my dream of singing on the stage. ***They didn't schedule the faculty songs until after intermission--and not accidentally***

The song after us featured my superintendent in angel wings pretending to be a tone deaf angel auditioning for the heavenly choir--again, way too much church for school. Sorry if the pic quality is bad.

After all of the squirming from the uber religious songs, I was beginning to feel incredibly bad that I had not forewarned my friends in respect of their anti-religious sentiments, sentiments I share by the way, when all of a sudden we hit paydirt. For the very last song of the night (Go Tell it on the Mountain, which I did not realize was a 'holiday' song, but apparently is because I was at a holiday concert afterall, what the fuck happened to Frosty the Snowman????!!! but ANYWAY) the choir director asked for all of the alumni to come on stage to participate in the singing of the final song, apparently this is a time-honored tradition.

A couple of recent high school grads bounded on the stage and were greeted by the hoots and hollers of their underclassmen buddies who were excited to see them back from a semester away at college and were immediately absorbed into the upper risers and took places next to their closest friends. Lastly, a near 40 year old man follows the young 20-somethings and shakes every hand belonging to the choir students along the first row of risers on stage. He then remains on stage at stage left. Alone. The young girls that were positioned closest to the stranger turned their backs to him and squished towards the center of the front row of singers as far as they could without looking off balance in an attempt to physically separate themselves as far from the 'alumni' as they could. Apparently all of his underclassmen admirers had all graduated long, long ago.

The choir director, not wanting to postpone the end of the show, prompts the students to begin singing. This song is labor intensive and supposed to be fun for the kids because they have traditional hand gestures and body movements that all of the current and past choir members know and join in on, all except the odd looking 40 year old at stage left.

Everyone in the audience, some of whom have been too polite to not notice the mistake that the man has made, cannot help but snicker to see the realization come over the strangers face as he too figures out that the choir director's call for alumni was for choir alumni, NOT Marshall alumni. But it is too late for the man to retreat and he just stands there swaying back and forth, clapping his hands, and hand gesturing 'bravo' at the students as they sing. The look on the students' faces as they quickly finish the song seems to scream..."Stranger Danger, Stranger Danger!" But as quickly as they sing, the song is way too long and the awkwardness of the moment has me shaking with laughter because I am at a work function and could not laugh out loud, but the situation was way too funny for me to just sit there stone like. It was a case of the church giggles.

After the show, MC tells me that the ending made up for the rest of the concert hands down. I jokingly ask DDV's hubbie what his brother was doing up on stage to which he quick-wittedly replied "I don't know, you used to date him. You tell me!" Fun times!

P.S. My conscience makes me add to this story, but I am adding it to the end after all of you have laughed so that you can share in my guilt. I later found out that the 40 year old man was actually in the choir at our school a long time ago, but it was the special education choir. So technically he was a choir alumni, he was just....wishing you the best year ever...Mel!

Christmas at Work

Thursday we went to the Ramblin' Inn where the food service students prepare food and sell it during holidays to teachers and staff. Me, DDV, Ruthie, and Chris (my regular lunch buddies) went down and had some great food.
Isn't it hilarious how guys never smile in pics?







But gals have no qualms about!
DDV decided to be funny!






And now just the girls! Ruthie doesn't share the same philosophy on classroom management and can be a bit uptight, but we still love having her in our group. She has been the source of many laughs!

A toast to my first xmas at my new school.

I am ready for the break!

Friday Before the Holiday Break in High School

Well, today is the last day in a very long week. I spent every day up at the school until at least 7:30 working with one of my more brilliant students. She is going to go great place if she can get organized. Since I was there so late a ton of other students came in and stayed with us to work on their own homework. The way schoolwork is structured, it builds on itself until the semester ends with usually large research project. With a research project in 5 out of 7 classes the students get really stressed this time of year.

Thankfully, it is all over and we can all go home. I will be reading Beowulf over the break--yes, it sucks being in academic support because I have to know all of the information and assignments for all 4 core classes and that can get tiring. But my geometry is getting good though.

I am ready for some sleep, but Jac is moving to Austin tomorrow and I am helping her pack at 9:00 a.m. She is promising blueberry pancakes and mimosas so it will be well worth it. Shout out to her for getting into grad school at UT. Wishing you the best year ever...Mel.

The straw that broke the camel toe

As most of you know my boyfriend BK is living in Los Angeles, CA with his family. Although I would love to, I can't afford to visit this holiday season. That along with a myriad of other small issues between us has made me realize that absence does not make the heart grow fonder.
In a recent conversation he asked me if I had ever seen the BK Show on youtube. I of course said no, what is the BK Show? He told me that it is a show that he is uploading to youtube where he goes around asking strangers at his job unusual questions. His most recent episode's topic was....."Do you like camel toe". I know, I know what you are all thinking--of course! everyone loves camel toe.
There was a long silence between BK and I on the phone and I broke it by asking him how old he was. He told me his age and then I asked him whether he was a grow up to which he responded "sometimes". I promptly told him that I was completely disgusted with the vulgarity and immaturity of the topic, the show, and him. I told him to never speak to me about the whole BK show idea again. About 20 minutes later in our conversation and he tried to bring it up again. I quickly interupted "No, no, no, I don't think you understood me earlier, I never want to hear about it again". I still don't think that he understood the severity of my irritation, what with the language barrier and all. It is like when the asian women are giving you a pedicure and are trying to hold a conversation with you. They smile and bob their head up and down, but you can tell that they really have no clue what you are talking about.
I still like to have BK around, but it is more out of familiarity now than out of need or want. I am shopping for a newer and updated model so my blog entries may get more interesting in the next few months...wishing you the best year ever...Mel

Habitat for Humanity

Well since my students have to do community service, sometimes I am a chaperone at events that are outside my general repertoire. Take building houses for example, although I love the color pink, I am not a girly girl in the sense that I can lift at least 50 lbs and can hammer, measure, saw, etc, but these are not things that I choose to do on a regular basis. But for a good cause and for the betterment of my students (not to sound high and mighty or anything) I woke up early on two Saturday mornings, 11/22 and 12/6, and fought the cold and the rain to the south side of San Antonio to build houses.

I got to measure siding, hammer the siding to the house, and then paint. At first the students kind of stood around doing nothing and I quickly realized that as a chaperone I would not be able to just stand around and take pictures, say "good job!", or direct the operations, but that I would have to lead by example and get my hands dirty. Ugh! was my first thought, but after a while I realized that it was kinda fun putting all of that stuff together for a family that would otherwise be forced to live with family members or forever rent.

I even had something to bitch about. The site leader was a cranky guy who was obviously pissed that the majority of his crew that day were high schoolers. Everything that we tried to do was critiqued, so much so that his critiques began to contradict themselves. "You don't have to cut directly on the line that you traced as a measurement, they can be a little to the left or right" and in the next breathe say "You have to make sure that you measure so that the siding doesn't hang off the end so much' to which I thought, so it matters after all that we saw on the line that we measured. But alas, I am not in construction so my performance was not going to be 100% accurate the first time out.



Later, the site leader saw that I was standing next to some siding staring expectantly at a couple of students as they chatted amongst themselves. He asked what I was doing and I said waiting for them to notice me staring at them. He took it upon himself to motivate the girls and shouted "Hey, get her number and call her later we have work to do". Well naturally, in mother hen fashion, I was a bit annoyed that this man thought that poor little female me didn't have the authoritative bravado to get my students to do what I wanted them to do and felt he would exert his construction worker 'leadership' and embarrass my young students. I told the girls to ignore the man because he had very little power in the world and takes it out on those who he sees as having less power than him--a nice little circle of oppression--and vowed to myself, privately of course, that I would get him back. (I am not sure if doing so makes me continue the oppressive circle or champions the little guy and really have no desire to philosophically debate that idea since it made me feel great to blast the guy).

Later the same man was chatting up a couple of my tiny senior girl students and I needed him to use the power saw for me. I called his name politely. When he ignored me and continued to harass the jail bate I yelled across the build site, "Hey Pete! Get their number, call them later, we have work to do!" He pointed to the girls and mouthed 'your teacher wants you', but I corrected his error by saying, "No, I was calling you." Needless to say he stayed clear of correcting my efforts and away from fraternizing with my students too closely the rest of the day.

The second build day was better, but it was mostly my sophomore girls and they were pretty worthless. I was proud of one student in particular that was gracious and kind to the Asberger's syndrome boy that followed her around all day chatting idly about nothing because he mistook her polite listening for genuine interest. Not all children are bad, there are a few that will support us when we are old. I also got to know a particularly introverted student of mine while we waited 45 minutes for his parents to pick him up. (By the way, if you have children attending a school-chaperoned event, be on fucking time because somebody is missing time away from their family, friends, and fun to wait on you-not that I am bitter or anything) So dad is in the Mexican Mafia and mom just had a tumor removed and now she can tell the future. Mom was really nice though and I told her to call me if she saw anything major in the cards for me. Getting to know my students and their families is the BEST part of my job. Wishing you the best year ever...Mel

This just in..special report...Rock n Roll 1/2 Marathon--Completed!

I know, I know, it has been a long while since I blogged. But really, it took me this long to recuperate from my 1/2 marathon. No, that's not really true but I figured some people would buy that excuse and the others would know it is just my laziness that prevents me from writing.

The marathon was intense. The night before myself, DDV and her hubby, and Clay and Kristel went to eat at Macaroni grill to carb up. Unfortunately, the other 40,000 racers had the same idea and we spent 2 hours waiting to sit down and 1 hour to get our food. I know we should have left after hour 1, but we were so pissed that we has wasted the hour and figured that every other place in town would be just as crowded so we stubbornly stayed. The food was bad and I probably will never go back to a Macaroni Grill in my life since the waiter told me that the reason our food was taking so long was because I ordered a 'create your own pasta' and that it was holding up the food line instead of realizing that it was because they were unprepared for that large of a crowd on a Friday night and were behind.

Race day was cccccooooolllllddd! It was 35 degrees outside. We were dropped off at the start of the race by my sis in the dark at about 5:00 a.m.--DDV and I wanted to make sure we got to where we needed to be and on time, with this being our first race and all. The race began with a speech by the governor, Rick Perry in which he started of by saying "Gooooodddd mooooorning AAAAuuuuussstin-no, San Antonio!" What an idiot, he couldn't even get the city right in front of 40,000+ people. The race began at 7:45 and was a wave start. That means that the crowd was separated into corrals of 1000 people who would cross the starting line every 40-90 seconds. Me and DDV were at corral 29. We crossed the starting line at 8:45 and the race was on!

The bands weren't all that great, but it was super fun running in front of the Alamo and seeing all the people that came out to cheer for us. There was a little girl singing the Taylor Swift song "Baby just say Yes" and we sang along and slapped the outstretched hands of the fans as we fell into our 2/3 pace.

Remember last weekend when I hiked at Enchanted Rock for nearly 13 miles!? Well, unfortunately I was wearing the same shoes for that as I was for the marathon and by mile 6 it was clear that I should have purchased new shoes two weeks prior to the race so that I could break them in because these shoes were 4 months old and had been seriously used. My foot felt like it was on fire. There were no blisters or anything like that, but it felt as though my middle toes were going numb and my 2nd, 3rd, and 4th metatarsals were grinding together in my left foot. I quit my 2/3 pace and let DDV go on ahead of me and continued to walk. At mile 10 I hit not only my physical wall, but more importantly my mental wall. I kept looking at the ambulances that were strategically placed along the race route and just thought of how easy it would be to just walk over, lay down in the stretcher, and ask to be driven to the finish line.

But then it happened, the motivation that I needed to kick my ass back into gear. An old, fat man began to pass me up. "Oh, hell no" is all I thought. I could not let this dude finish before I did. So for the rest of the race I was motivated by this overweight old man and my pride. I finished in 3:44, which was 44 more minutes than my goal, but considering I walked the last 7 miles I figure 15 minutes is not that far behind.

Sunday afternoon I hung out with my best gal friends Elizabeth and Jac (Jac also did the race) and sported my medal for everyone to see. I really am proud that I did the race and will continue with the running. I am planning to do a 4 miler in February--nothing as extreme as 13.1, but definitely a challenge for a notorious athletic slacker. Thanks again to all of those who supported me on my road to the Rock n Roll marathon, especially DDV and her hubby and mom and bruce--you guys rock! Wishing you the best year ever...Mel