Could be a Vampire Thing

As a seventh grade teacher you tend to get a little immune to weirdness.

Especially if teaching middle school is your second career and you've already spent a lifetime dealing with the weirdness that is corporate life (which is perhaps why the movie Office Space is one of my favorites) along with helping hubby deal with the general rock'n'roll public with his music business. You want weird? Hang out at a record and CD music show in any big city and see what comes strolling in. Green and pink hair is nothing new.

Oh, and I grew up in L.A., so there's little that phases me these days.

Which is why I wasn't completely freaked out, or even remotely concerned, when one of our boys, Skater Goober, started to wear really heavy foundation makeup.

Mrs. Aide was the first one who asked me about it. "Did you notice that Skater Goober is wearing really heavy makeup?" she asked me the other day.

I had to think about it for a minute. "Yeah," I finally said. "I did notice that. Didn't pay much attention truth be told."

"Really? Isn't that a bit odd? I mean for a boy?"

"Well, I had the glam rock kids a few years ago where the boys were wearing eyeliner (skaters again, interestingly enough) and I've had the goth kids, and now we've got kids who want to be vampires, so no, I guess I didn't think it was odd."

I'm not sure at this point she didn't think I was nuts.

(On an aside, Skater Goober has done a pretty impressive turnaround. He's passing all his classes but one, which is amazing since he failed most of his classes last year and was on that path again this year. He's doing great, and I've got to give him credit for that. He's matured and learned that - amazing - when you study, you pass!)

Mr. Math, youngster that he is, thinks it might be a medicated thing for acne. Could be. After all this is seventh grade where the hormones are raging and making life miserable for my kids, not only emotionally but with the curse of acne, stringy hair, cracking voices and just general overall misery.

However, considering the raging popularity that are the Twilight books, and how the kids are all of a sudden obsessed with vampires, I'm seeing quite a few kids, mostly girls, who are trying to look a bit more pale than normal. I figured Skater Goober might just be in the vampire camp at this point.

Too bad he doesn't sparkle.

The Best Gifts...Ever!

I'm always just flattered and tickled to death when a student of mine presents me with a Christmas card or even a gift. A lot of my students have families where there's more month than money so the fact that they spent anything, even a dollar for some bubble bath at the Dollar Store, really touches my heart. I love the homemade cards (complete with misspellings - I'm supposed to have a "happy and heathy Christmas" this year), and the drawings of stout reindeer and flying cats (figure that one out) make my day. Even the coffee mugs (and we teachers have more coffee mugs than a Starbucks, don't we?) are appreciated.

However, every once in a while you get a gift from a student that really lets you know that they thought about it, carefully selected it, and it was definitely a gift that was intended for you and no one else.

Freckled Boy gave me one such gift this year. I love this kid. He's in my homeroom, and sits right in front of my teacher station. He's always the first kid in every morning, and he's made it his mission to take all the chairs down every day while at the same time engaging me in some of the most interesting conversations. He asked me this morning if I'd be here for a few minutes after the students were dismissed. Apparently his mother was bringing a few presents for him to hand out and he wanted to make sure I'd get mine. I assured him I'd be here, and then promptly forgot about the conversation with the craziness that is the half day before break.

After the buses rolled and the other kids were dismissed, I was walking back to my room and he came up with a shoebox-sized box wrapped in holiday paper.

"Merry Christmas Mrs. B!" he said as he handed me my gift and dashed off to deliver another one to Mrs. Language. (I found out later that he gave her a stapler!)

I went back to my room and unwrapped my package. First, I had to take off the outside paper. Then unroll lots and lots of tissue paper. And finally got to an object about 10 inches long that was also wrapped in paper. A giant pencil? A pen? What on earth?

It was a screwdriver.

Now this may not sound like the best gift ever but you have to kind of understand the back story here. Earlier this year my handy little screwdriver (both flat head and phillips head) was stolen from my pencil cup. I loved this screwdriver and used it all the time. It tightened the screws on the hole punches so they stayed in place. It allowed me to disassemble the hand crank pencil sharpener to remove the broken pieces of colored pencil that got stuck inside. It let me fix chairs and tables which are slowly falling apart on a regular basis. There probably wasn't a day that went by that I didn't use that thing. And it was stolen and that really ticked me off. We had a rash of thefts that week, and that was just icing on the cake.

Freckled Boy was actually standing in front of me when I discovered the missing screwdriver and he'd seen how often I'd used it. So he got me a new one. Granted this one is a lot bigger (I definitely won't be working on pencil sharpeners with this one!) but the fact that he took the time to think about what I really needed and then went out and got it, really made my day.

I totally love the little curly ribbons he tied on the top. I kept them on it when I put it in my pencil cup. It's an awesome screwdriver!

Just when I didn't think it could get any better, my team came trotting around the corner with sneaky grins on their faces and a big silver bag with shiny paper sticking out of the top. What on earth???

Inside? A big huge bottle of Bailey's Irish Cream and two Bailey's glasses, and a great card thanking me for being a great team leader.

Ahhhhh. Made me want to cry. I've got a great, wonderful, fantastic team!

Where's Draco Malfoy when you need him?

"Are you going to be around next week?" Mrs. Eagle asked me last week while we were out shopping for really, really good shoes.

"I should be. I don't leave for summer camp until after the Fourth. Why?" I asked.

"Well, grandma is coming to visit and I need a place to keep Keiko while she's here. Would you mind snake-sitting?"

You really never know what kind of things Mrs. Eagle is going to say some days.

Keiko is Mrs. Eagle's ball python. She usually lives in her classroom, but The Principal is very adamant that we take all pets (especially snakes) home over the summer. However, Mrs. Eagle's grandma is absolutely terrified of snakes so Keiko needed a place to hang out for a week or so.

"Don't think it would be a problem," I said. "I don't think Mr. Bluebird would even notice she's here." I did, by the way, tell him we'd be snake-sitting. His comment? "Really?"

So, yesterday, Mrs. Eagle and I dropped by the school to drop off a file cabinet I no longer needed at home (and could use in my room), and then we continued on to her house so I could take Keiko home with me.

Keiko is now in my guest room, on a desk, along with her heat lamp. She hasn't budged from under her rock, which is pretty much what she does most of the time anyway. Mrs. Eagle informed me that she's probably shedding right now so she won't be very active.

I'll say.

Duke the cat was very curious about what this thing was that I brought into the house so after a few minutes of looking through the glass, he decided that was boring and took off to get into trouble somewhere else. I am, however, keeping the door shut so that he won't do something dreadful, like knock the aquarium over at three am.

I think we'll just let Keiko molt under her rock in peace.

Too Smart for His Own Good

Last fall, Mr. Bluebird and I lost our cat Bedford to a brain tumor. It was a pretty miserable experience, as we tend to view our pets as our children since we don't have any human children. Bedford was an awesome cat, very smart, lovable, and very large. We still miss him.

However, we realized that we missed having a boy cat around the house. We had three girls, and we love them to pieces, but we kind of missed the little personality traits we tend to find in male cats. So, I found a wonderful pet rescue organization, The Privileged Pet, and we found Duke.


Duke has been an eye-opener. He was under a year old when we got him, only about 8 months, so he still was very much a kitten. Our girls range in age from 10 to 12, so this little guy was a bundle of energy that really woke all of us up. He's a character. He was highly socialized before he came to live with us, so he gets along with everyone and he and Spicer, our youngest girl, tend to play together a lot. It's been great for everyone.

And he's also so smart he's beginning to freak me out a bit.

I tend to wear my hair in ponytails during the summer, especially when I'm going to the gym and working in the yard a lot. I recently bought a pack of about a dozen or so ponytail do-dads, not quite scrunchies, but similar.

Duke is obsessed with these ponytail holders.

I have found these ponytail holders, obviously chewed and played with, all over the house. He's completely destroyed an orange one so I decided to let him keep it for a toy, especially since I don't like orange anyway.

I then found a yellow one on the living room floor.

Apparently Duke has figured out that I usually toss these on the bathroom counter. Hubby and I have both caught him snooping around the counter, looking in baskets, and dashing off with a ponytail holder when he finds one.

So, I started making a very determined effort to keep them in a drawer, which is then shut, so he won't destroy all of them. After all, he won't figure out they are in there, will he?

Wrong.

I thought I'd solved the problem of Duke snagging and destroying my ponytail holders and was enjoying a cup of coffee and sudoko the other morning when he trotted by, went to his shoebox (a box he likes to play in, sleep in, and apparently hide toys in), grabbed a yellow pony tail holder, and trotted back to the guest bathroom where he hopped in the tub and played hockey with his new toy.

"Okay," I thought. "Maybe I forgot to put it in the drawer and he found it."

So I made another real determined effort to keep the ponytail holders in the drawer, and the drawer shut.

And the next day I caught him on the bathroom counter twice, and found two ponytail holders on the floor.

This morning he was sitting in the sink, looking innocent. Later on, I found the drawer open and another ponytail holder in the living room.

Duke has not only figured out that these ponytail holders are kept in a drawer, but he's figured out how to open it!

Which brings us to this question: Are they putting catnip on ponytail holders now?

****Silly Cat Update****

This is now a continuing game with Duke. I put the ponytail things in the drawer and shut the drawer. Next time I go into the bathroom, they're out on the floor. Repeat. Obviously he needs a challenge to keep himself occupied!