Work is bittersweet.  One asshole, 134 sweethearts.  Who should I focus on? :) I'll try the good ones.

Can't wait to get out of this city of hell and on to a more like-minded space. I'm made for small towns, not big cities where diversity creates walls of isolation. I'm confused by people who love it here.  Community college town. 

Parents, heed this:  Teach your kids that if they write on a social media site they need to make sure it is private!! 

My week at a glance...

•Found out my neighbor collects scorpions and keeps them in her freezer.

•Finally finished Macbeth with my Seniors.

•Had a great dinner with my cousin, Joyce. She is so sweet and always cooks a wonderful meal. We laughed a lot and had a great time.

•Received the most sincere apology from a student that I've ever received.

•And she and I decided to just start over with each other.

•Went bike riding with some ladies from work. I enjoyed it.

•Bought a dwarf pomegranate tree and planted it in my big pot outside.

Fall Break in Wisconsin

The air in Holcombe was clean and crisp this week. We had a great time doing "fall" things. Namely, raking and burning leaves. It reminded me of burning leaves with my dad when I was a kid. We would just stand there and watch the flame. Occasionally, something would fly out of the fire pit, and my dad would go over and step on it to quash the fire. Well, Andrew and I did that.
I raked up about 8 huge piles of leaves. Andrew decided to make a huge pile and jump in them. I videoed the experience...uh, fiasco. Basically, he missed and jumped right over the pile.
We had some nice kayaking, too. The water was choppy but we didn't capsize, although that was a real possibility at a few moments. The water was about 45 degrees and boy was it windy!

This beautiful Wisconsin fall

We made a last minute decision to take a ride to Bloomer today. We traveled down Hwy M and decided to stop by the Chippewa Valley Ice Age Moraine. The leaves were changing and sometimes our world briefly was covered with orange, red, yellow, and asphalt.
We saw a huge bald eagle today on our drive.
The Ice Age museum was really neat. Badgers, bear, owls, beavers...LOTS of animals. A taxidermist's dream! I had a good time asking questions and finding out everything I could:
The difference between birch trees and aspens.
Viewing the ticks and fleas under a microscope.
The contents of a particular owl's belly.
And, Wisconsin coyotes vs Arizona coyotes, for example.
The most interesting, of course was learning how to throw a tomahawk.

I love it here.

11-year-old boys

There are a few phrases that can no longer be used in our house without a roar of laughter and knee-slapping. No longer does the sign for the "Auto Tune & Lube" go unnoticed. "Hit the sack" is now a signal for something that would make my mother shudder. If the football is flat, don't you dare say, "Blow it up." All of these things, and many more, have become code for hundreds of bawdy ideas that my once-innocent angel is obsessed with. I don't know how long this will last...I'm afraid it's the beginning of the journey through perverted teen years.

Phoenix Jingles: Lerner and Rowe is the way to go

During my travels, I've realized that each town has their own local attorney commercials. I've also realized that they are cheesy and obnoxious. One of Phoenix's most prominent "douchebags" is Glen Lerner. His main practice is in Las Vegas but he graces us Phoenicians with his douchiness. Here goes:



These two guys LIVE in front of the blue screen and their commercials have even included flying pigs. I don't like this one.

Phoenix Jingle Day #2 Empire Carpet

Gotta love the Empire Carpet commercial. No matter the content of the commercial, this little jingle always follows it up:



I don't find this one as endearing as yesterday's "George Brazil" commercial. This one somewhat grates on my nerves. But, it's still not the worst. It's just a constant. Played several times a day, and it never gets any better.

Phoenix Jingles

I love how horrible I am at blogging. I go through spurts of writing everything down, and then it's like I get slapped into reality and realize "who gives a crap?!"
Maybe it's because I don't have a difinitive plan for my blog. I kinda just ramble on here. Does anyone really want to hear my daily schedule? No. Does anyone really care about my clever little thoughts? No. So...I quit. And then, when I forget, I start again.

On my mind today are Phoenix jingles. My all-time favorite is the George Brazil commercial. Bob and I sing it EVERY time it comes on. No matter what we are doing, we stop, select parts, and belt it out! We have been mid-argument before and still didn't let that hinder us from fulfilling our calling. It's something we can't escape. Nor do we want to. Check it out:




We have gotten the chorus down perfectly. We follow with a quick critique of our performance and then continue with our business. Oh, we love our jingles.

On the 6th day of Christmas, the flu bug came to me...

On Monday, I came down with the flu and spent the entire night "throwing out" (as my mom says). I had never been so sick. Tuesday was spent in the bed, wrestling around trying to get my body to quit aching, only to fall asleep and then to wake up an hour later and stumble my way into the bathroom and collapse on the floor. Needless to say, it was no fun. And, I might add, I have a tendency to think the worst. So, I was pretty much convinced that I had some type of stomach disease that was finally proving too much for me to fight. (I get a little dramatic when I'm sick!)
Wednesday was filled with aches and pains in my lower back and, although the vomiting had stopped, I was very weak and dizzy. I googled my symptoms and, as suspected, didn't like what I saw. Perhaps I had kidney disease. Maybe I was dehydrated and in hours I'd be passed out and shriveled up! I went to Urgent Care on 75th and Thunderbird, but took a pain pill first. By the time I got to the doctor, the pain had subsided a bit. The doctor confirmed that I didn't have kidney disease (at least at the moment) and that I was a tad dehydrated. He gave me a prescription.
By this time, I was feeling a bit better. The anti-inflammatory pain medicine I took had kicked in and life was beginning to look colorful again.
I suffered like this for 2 more days. And really, I didn't start feeling good until yesterday (Monday). I'm going to blog about Christmas in another post but I must say it was one filled with sketchy memories and clouded conversation. I'm glad I'm feeling better now, though. I had started feeling sorry for myself and had even stated to Bob: "I don't think I've felt good since Halloween. Something's wrong with me. I think something's seriously wrong with me."
Feeling good yesterday was such a relief. To be completely exhausted for 5 days, unable to eat (although I lost 5 pounds!!), and aching all over gets the best of you.
As I said, I'll be blogging about our first Christmas together in another post--minus a lot of pictures, though. I didn't take many at all.

Oh Christmas Tree, Oh Christmas Tree

We went to Whitfill Nursery for our Christmas tree. Andrew immediately found the tree he wanted and claimed it as ours. Of course, we insisted we keep looking. "You don't want to take the first one you see," I told him. We looked for 20 minutes and didn't find anything else, so we went back to Andrew's tree and grabbed it.


Andrew helped a lot getting the decorations on the tree. He was excited and adamant about making some popcorn tinsel but unfortunately he has failed to actually put that into action!
Bob and I combined our ornaments for the first time. We have...umm...a small selection. Gosh for so long I had only a tiny little tree; most of the ornaments I had were really cheap and small. We had bought a few ornaments together on our travels and I had secretly ordered two ornaments from etsy.com, representing our travels this summer. I got an Edelweiss ornament and a glass spoon with a drawing of the Eiffel Tower. They look cute.
And, I'm clever! You see, I contacted Bob's mom weeks ago and asked about getting some of the ornaments that were on his tree as a kid. She sent four ornaments and I got to surprise Bob with them while we were going through the ornaments. He's a sucker for things of his past.

Here is our tree, "pre-trimming":
And of course, smiley Andrew walking through the tree farm:

Band Concerts and Sing-offs

Tonight is the big night for Andrew. We had his saxophone serviced last week and the technician said it's good to go. But, Andrew came home yesterday complaining that his saxophone "doesn't work". Now, I want to be supportive of his confidence in this new-found interest of his, but sometimes I have to wonder, could it be that you're just not blowing in the mouthpiece hard enough? I'm refusing to let myself ask that question though. He said he talked to Dr. L about it and Dr. L said that if it's still messed up at the concert, he can borrow his saxophone, "because I'm good, and Dr. L's good, so he doesn't mind if I use it," Andrew explained. I love that he has confidence about his music.
He did something really funny yesterday. He said, "Mom, this kid at school, Joseph, is always bragging and we are all SICK of it. So, I told him that I am sick of his bragging and I challenged him to a 'sing-off'." I bit my lower lip to keep the corners of my mouth down. "I told Joseph that we are gonna sing three songs each and the teacher can pick who's the best. I said, 'If I win, you have to quit bragging, and if you win, you can keep bragging'." I asked Andrew which three songs he chose. Very proudly, he responded: "GRANDMA GOT RUN OVER BY A REINDER, ABC-123, AND JINGLE BELL ROCK." I couldn't believe I was hearing this. So, I asked him, "Who won?" He replied, "I did!"
That entire conversation made me smile. He is so darn funny and cute!

The Band Concert

Andrew's band concert did not end up the way we expected. In fact, my sweet little 9-year-old referred to it as "the worst day of his life." And, it probably was. He looked so cute in his navy corduroy pants, button down shirt and Christmas sweater. His hair was curled "just right" and he even spritzed on his Benetton cologne. He looked adorable. But the smile and excitement of Andrew's first band concert was to be short-lived.

He was nervous walking into a new school where he didn't know anyone. His band teacher, Dr. L, had asked him to play along with another school. In fact, he was listed as a special guest on the program and Dr. L even had him stand up before the performance and introduced him to the audience, all to Andrew's surprise. But as the other students were warming up, Andrew sat there, nervous, with his saxophone in his lap, staring out into the audience; I knew his nerves were working overtime. He didn't warm up one bit.

I noticed Andrew fiddling with his sax and a few minutes later, he called me over. "A pin came out of my sax; it's messed up." I looked at it and sure enough, there was a pin coming out, keeping one note from coming out all the way, and another note from going in. We tried and tried to fix it, but we couldn't get it back in. "You're just going to have to make it work," I told him.

But, during the first song, Andrew realized he couldn't make it work. His sax was squeaking and he couldn't get on top of any notes. His face dropped. For the next 20 minutes, he had his sax in his lap, not even pretending to play along, and tried and tried to get the pin in. Poor kid. He didn't play even one song.

I began to get frustrated with him, thinking, Why doesn't he just pretend to play?! But, Bob gently reminded me that he was only 9 and had no idea what to do. After the performance, he began putting his sax away and glanced at me dejectedly. As we walked to the car after the show, he cried. Sobbed, actually. It was "the worst day of his life." I felt so sorry for him. He thought he had let Dr. L down. He was afraid it was going to happen at his upcoming concert on Thursday. He thought everyone noticed.

It was a parenting moment. And I don't think I'm always good at those "parenting moments". But this time, I had to be. I told him my sob story of falling up the stage during my piano recital when I was a kid. Bob told him how he was announced as "Roberta" in front of all the students and families when he was 9 and how everyone laughed at him as he walked up to the stage.

I don't often think that I have made Andrew's pain any easier. But this time, I know I did. Andrew came through it; we came through it together. And thank God I have Bob to go through this kind of stuff with. My heart ached because Andrew's ached. And my heart healed as his did. And the next morning, Andrew said, "I'll do better at my next concert; I know I will." Wow. What an amazing kid. I'm so lucky.

The saxophone's cool, but please put down that clarinet!

Andrew's band teacher asked him to sit in at another elementary school tonight and play his saxophone. He's stoked...and so am I! He has only been playing since September but he seems to really enjoy it. And, on the plus side, he's not too bad! I tried to sway him into playing the drums or guitar, but no. He wanted to play the saxophone. I'm happy about it, of course; but I adamantly put my foot down when he came home saying he wanted to play the clarinet. Absolutely NOT, I said. There are a million worse things in life than him playing the clarinet, but I knew that he would not continue his clarinet playing in high school. So, if the saxophone is good enough for Lisa Simpson and Bill Clinton, my little Andrew can surely do it! Plus, I think he really likes the fact that I know NOTHING about the saxophone, so I can't be "bossing him around" on how to play it. :)

Tonight's his big show. It's actually more of a practice rehearsal for him because his own school band performs next week. Bob's going to meet us there at 6 and then we'll take the little star out for dinner. I'll post some pictures from the event!

Our trip to San Francisco

Bob and I went to San Francisco for his birthday. It was a quick trip of just two nights and the weatherman offered us an 80% chance of showers and 40 degree weather. Typical of most of our trips, we weren't too surprised by the weather report. My mom came in on Thursday and stayed with Andrew throughout the weekend. Bob and I flew took the 6:15 flight on Friday...which turned in to 7:15 because of the weather in San Fran. The flight was boring, and oddly LONG. I guess we circled the airport numerous times because we didn't land until 9pm....and that's with GAINING an hour!
We rode the shuttle to The Westin on Market Street. When we got up to the 26th floor and I looked out the window, I couldn't believe the view!! Here's a picture:


Now, keep in mind that I've never been to San Francisco. The only big city I've been to is Chicago and I stayed in the suburbs. So, I haven't seen a big city before. We ate dinner at the hotel restaurant, called DUCCA, and it was GROSS. So bland. And we ordered a dessert to take back to the room and they basically just threw the cheesecake in the box. The dinner wasn't an entire loss though. We had a great time watching people and talking.
The next morning, I woke up early; afraid to miss even a minute of the city. Rain was on the horizon but had only produced a beautiful rainbow up to that point. Here's another picture. You can see the view from the day and also the rainbow in the top, right corner:

We left the hotel around 9am and I was surprised to find that most of the restaurants downtown were closed. We were dying for some good coffee and were about to enter the "Starbucks-like" coffee shop when we noticed it's neighboring door open. We were pleasantly surprised to find a newly-opened, little restaurant. A musician was setting up to play his morning set, another musician sat beside me at the bar referring to everyone as "cat", and there was football on the tv in front of us. It was a great respite from the cold, harsh weather outside.
I had never seen China Town in real life. I was hoping to find a "Gizmo" but I guess they only sell those in New York's China Town. I did find a cool metal sculpture of a guy playing a saxophone that I bought for Andrew. We walked all the way to Fisherman's Wharf
Have you noticed something about my news so far? Well...I haven't mentioned the RAIN!! That's right! It didn't rain. In fact, it cleared up so much that we were able to take a ferry out to the Golden Gate Bridge and around Alcatraz. What a pleasant surprise. We were planning on being stuck inside and underneath an umbrella all day. Of course, it was still FREEZING on the boat, but that didn't hinder our gratitude at being able to enjoy the city. I was like an icicle when we got off the boat but we hustled inside Alioto's and had the best clam chowder that either of us have ever eaten. We went to Ghirardelli and got some chocolate and began our walk back home. OH, but first we hiked up to Lombard Street--the "crookedest" street in the world.

Bob at The Stinking Rose:

For dinner, I took Bob to dinner at a place called Acquerello. It was nice to get dressed up and go out in the "big city". We got a cab to the restaurant and I was scared to death by the driver zooming up and down the steep hills, especially since the streets were soaking wet! We had a beautiful dinner, and enjoyed watching people. I saw "me and Bob in 20 years"--and they looked happy. I had a wonderful octopus antipasto. It was the largest octopus I've ever eaten and it was very tender and not "fishy" at all. In fact, the only way I even knew it was an octopus was because it had hundreds of suckers on it's long tentacles.

We always have such a good time on trips. I want to go back and tour Alcatraz, AND I'd like to experience some of the downtown nightlife of San Francisco. The flight home was quick and uneventful. We read our Kindles and I worked some puzzles. I'm looking forward to being home for a while now. Nowhere to go until....New Years?

Happy, Happy Birthday!

On what is proving to be the most popular day of births, Bob celebrated his own birthday yesterday. A popular day of births, I say, because everywhere I looked, someone was celebrating. At school, I had three students with Nov. 23 birthdays. My Uncle Wayne celebrates the day, Robin from Prescott, a teacher here at Apollo, and many celebrities including Bruce Hornsby and Harpo Marx.
My mom started the day off right by making a breakfast of bacon, eggs, and toast. It was so good! No wonder people say breakfast is the most important meal of the day. By eating such a good breakfast, I wasn't even hungry at lunch. For dinner, I made tacos and we had birthday cake. Andrew and I got Bob the funniest card. It said:
"If you guess the phrase, a great surprise is in store for you:
_A_ _ Y B_ _ T _ _ _ _!!"

No, no, it didn't actually say Happy Birthday; that would be too easy. Instead, it said:
HAIRY BUTTOCKS!

funny, funny.

We got Bob some cool biking sunglassess (also in order to replace the pair I broke last year). Then, we actually hung out! It's been a while since we have had an evening to just do nothing. We didn't watch tv, we didn't clean house, we just hung out and talked. It was nice.
And tomorrow is Thanksgiving. I'm ready for some stuffing; I miss my Grandmother's stuffing...actually it's called dressing.
My parents are in town and I guess it's going to be a regular ol' Thanksgiving.

Much better than the Fockers

After a year and half, Bob finally decided to introduce me to his family. We flew to Michigan early Sunday morning and stayed in the Westin in the Detroit airport. We got there around 4pm and were really excited that we didn't even have to leave the airport to get to our hotel. Lisa and Mary, Bob's sister and partner, respectively, picked us up at the hotel and we went to a small little suburb for dinner. They had us laughing the entire time. It was so nice to be around such funny, happy people.

The next day we headed out to Alpena, Michigan....four hours north of Detroit, to meet Bob's parents, Rex and Ruth Ann. As we drove to Lisa's office on our way out, we went past Eight Mile Road. I admit, I was a little excited to be so close to his hometown--and I'm not even a fan! The ride to Alpena was fairly uneventful but Bob and I always have fun on road trips. Especially when there is SIRIUS radio! We found some great tunes and even unlocked what became Andrew's favorite--the comedy channel! Fortunately, the "clean" comedy was much funnier than the raunchier comedy, so we all enjoyed it.

I've gotta say, meeting Bob's parents was a joy. They are so sweet, and of course I'm fond of the fact that Bob's mom was an English teacher and then a librarian. She made a pot roast with lots of fresh vegetables from their garden. It was great. Made me miss my mom and grandmother. We visited a shipwreck museum and then a lighthouse.

We were at the shore of Lake Michigan and Lisa showed Andrew how to search for Petoskey stones. Our trip was short but we drew names for Christmas and I got invited to participate this year. (I'm secretly STOKED about that!)

We had a really good time. Mr. and Mrs. Spurlock were sweet and kind; I just felt...at home.

I'm attaching a few pictures from our trip.

Tales of Shopping with a 9-Year-Old Boy

It was just last year that teachers were commenting about Andrew's amazing sense of style. His fashionable wardrobes were admired by his P.E. teacher who wanted her grandson to "dress like Andrew", and a myriad of on-lookers who remarked about his "sharp" fashion trends. Sure there was picture day, when Andrew insisted on wearing a tuxedo. (Yes, yes, I had bought him a tuxedo. Good grief, he had been begging me for months to get him one.) And, then there was "Nerd Day Tuesday," which Andrew trademarked after discovering Steve Erkle on TVLand. But, those eccentric days aside, Andrew always looked a bit trendy.

But, I've seemed to let that focus on fashion slip by the way-side this year, as I've struggled with organizing after our life-changing move. But, I think it's time to start calling forth that little fashion bug and setting him back on the path of good looks.

I started prepping Andrew for today's shopping trip last weekend. At 9-years-old, he has suddenly developed his own likes and dislikes, and...to my dismay... shopping is nothing but a waste of time to him. So, I had to come at him from several angles.

First up, the "big boy" approach: "You're just growing so much; you're not a little kid anymore. All your old clothes are just too small for you now." I was met with little enthusiasm.

Then, I tried the "girl" approach: "Girls definitely like boys to wear nice clothes and to take pride in their appearance." He certainly did not care at all about that.

I stooped to the "guilt" approach: "Bob really wants to buy you some new, nice clothes; he's taking you to meet his mom and he wants to show you off!" That got a little sign of approval from the kid but within two days he couldn't remember why exactly we were going shopping.

Then, the perfect idea came to me. I promised Andrew that if he didn't complain, and if he tried on the clothes with a good attitude and acted happy, I would let him hang out and play in the Microsoft store when were finished. That WORKED perfectly!!

This morning, over blueberry muffins, Andrew's first comment was "I'm gonna have a good attitude today." I was stunned.

So, we made our way to Fashion Square and sure enough, Andrew was a dream child. GAP kids is always a quick favorite of mine for (very) inexpensive clothes for a (quickly) growing boy. A few sweaters, button-downs, and some kahkis.

Then, I discovered...ABERCROMBIE KIDS!

I tried to contain my excitement, for fear Andrew would use that as a reason to be a little contrary. But, he tried on clothes and even allowed us some humorous exchanges, like when he tried to put a shirt on thinking it was pants.

All in all, the day was fun and eventful. After much shopping, Bob and I dropped him off at the Microsoft store and tried on jackets in Burberry. Much to my dismay, the jacket I wanted was not in my size. The eager-to-make-a-sale associate practically begged us to order it and ship it to our house, but, I couldn't justify, to myself, going through all that work just to make it happen. We had sushi at Kona Grill and then picked Andrew up after an hour of intense gaming action.

A quick stop at Nordstrom and some Ecco shoes for Andrew and we were ready to go home. It was a fun day; Andrew made it fun. I can't say that about most visits to the mall with him.

Long Time No Blog

Wow, I just happened to find this blog of mine. I didn't even remember that it existed. I guess I started it when I first opened this gmail account, back in May. Lots of things have happened since that first post on this site.

I am living in Phoenix, now. With Bob. And it's wonderful. It's such a blessing to have another adult to share my life with. I cuddle up with the security of knowing that no matter how my day is, I can talk to him about it when I get home.

...Not that I have had any really bad days. I'm happy. And it's a genuine happiness that at one time I would never let myself feel. I don't even want to talk about it too much, for fear that my words will instill a sense of uncertainty that I no longer even need to feel.

I won't promise to begin blogging; I'm certain I'll forget about it for another few months. But, maybe, just maybe...

Paris??

I should, right now, be on my way to Paris for a wonderful 11-day vacation. Instead, I am sitting in the Charlotte airport eating nachos and drinking Diet Coke. Our flight was delayed (probably cancelled) and after sitting on the runway for 3 hours, they towed the plane back to the terminal and told us to stick close in case we get to leave at 10pm. It doesn't look like it's going to happen though. In fact, we probably won't be able to get out of here until tomorrow. US Air is flying in a "part" from Atlanta...I can only imagine how this flight is going to turn out.
But, you know, it's not all bad being here in the airport. Thank goodness Bob brought his laptop. Not only that, we have met some really nice people: A kid that just graduated from Orme who is going to Paris with his mother- what a great graduation gift! A man and woman from Phoenix that are spending a month in Ireland and Scotland. And don't forget the 50-year-old man that looks 35 who is going to "find himself" in Southwestern France and practice his French kissing.
If our plane leaves at 10 tonight, we will get to Paris around noon and will have had a good rest on the plane. Otherwise, Bob scheduled us on a backup flight for tomorrow at 2pm.

Oh...just heard that the flight cancelled. WTH. More tomorrow.

First trip of the summer!

We are back from Costa Mesa and fortunately we were able to squeeze in some fun while there. We took Andrew to The Rainforest Cafe at the mall across from our hotel. It was his first time there and he was in awe when the animals "came to life".

Bob took a bunch of us out to dinner on Sunday night after a visit to the beach at Corona Del Mar. Andrew, Bob, Lillian, Rick, Erin, Jamie, Carol, and I went to the beach and then met up with Sam and Ty at Romeo Cacino in Laguna Beach. I had never been to this part of California before and it was just so beautiful. I had ravioli (my favorite), Andrew had lasagna (his favorite), and Bob had...I have no idea, but I tasted it and it wasn't as good as my ravioli! Here are some pictures of the gang at the beach and at dinner:

:

We are leaving right now to meet Janet and her family in Tombstone.