For supper today I made fish sticks, french fries, and fruit salad mixed with leftover Cool Whip.

"This meal wasn't so much cooked as assembled," I remarked at the table.

"I want more," Sasha said, reaching for the fruit.

"Sometimes it bothers me," I said, "that I don't know how to butcher a pig or a cow, though I could probably do a chicken if I had to."

"Sometimes it bothers me," Kala said, "that you think about things like that."

"In my country," Sasha put in, "we killed pigs every year. We stick something in their chest, into their heart. They squeal for a long time, and then they finally die. Then we burn the skin to . . . to . . . "

"To get the bristles off?" I supplied.

He nodded. "Yeah. That's it. You know what my favorite food from a pig is?"

"What?" I asked.

"I don't know the name," he answered. "But you take the tubes from inside the pig and fill them with blood and cook them and eat them."

"That's blood sausage," I said.

"Yep," Kala said.

"It's delicious," Sasha said.

"Where the heck would you get blood sausage around here?" I asked.

Kala shrugged. "No clue. Zingerman's?"

We have some of the weirdest conversations at our table. And now we have to track down a supplier for blood sausage.

I . . . I can't look away! http://www.peopleofwalmart.com

Store flyers deliberately try to confuse you. This store offers Thing A at Price 2, and that store offers Thing B at Price 4, and the other store offers Thing A at Price 4, but only for an hour, and another store offers . . .

Yeah.

Thursday evening I sat down with a mess o' shopping flyers and a list. I circled what interested me in each store, tossed flyers that weren't worth anything, and then went back through the ones I'd kept. I pulled everything, organized it by category, and listed everything by when the stores opened. I wrote a new list, checked it twice, and went to bed.

I didn't sleep well; I think I was anticipating the alarm too much. So when it finally went off at 3:30, I was basically awake. I just pulled on my clothes, grabbed a bag of leftover piragis from Thanksgiving for sustenance, and headed out.

( Read more... )

We went to my brother's house for Thanksgiving this year. So much delicious food! The turkey and stuffing--yum! The sweet potatoes--tasty! The pie, both pumpkin and apple--wonderful! Great conversation, too. My cousin Mark, my sister-in-law Kristi, and I had a long, involved conversation about grammar and how it can be unexpectedly important in your life. There was also much Guitar Hero-age. Some of Kristi's relatives came by later, and we played Apples to Apples. I took several photos on my phone and emailed them to my sister, who couldn't be there. And then home.

We have a new kitty from a local shelter. Kala has named her Maybe. She's four months old and a calico, or would be if she didn't have white on her. She adapted to Sam the Dog very quickly. Sirius is outside and hasn't met her yet.

So yesterday I was working in the kitchen. The Thanksgiving pies were done, and I was working on the bread when a familiar pain started in my lower back. I know this pain--I've been getting it for twenty years. It always heralds yet another kidney stone.

Usually the pain fades after a few minutes. This time it didn't. It grew progressively worse and worse and worse until it was all I could do to stand up.

Kala took me to the emergency room. By now I was sweating and it felt like a goblin was carving his way out the side of my torso. I managed to tell the triage nurse what was wrong and that I've had this problem before, but usually not this bad.

"When did you last have a stone?" she asked.

"About two weeks ago." Meanwhile another nurse was trying to take my blood pressure, but I couldn't straighten up enough to let the machine work.

"Were you admitted here for it?" she asked.

"No."

"How do you know you had a kidney stone?"

I stared at her. Was she kidding? If I'd been in less pain, I would have said something like, "How do you know you've just had a baby?" or "I bought a home surgery kit, opened myself up, and had a look."

Instead, I just snarled, "I've had four or five dozen in my life, and I know what they're like."

Finally they got me into a room and plugged an IV into my arm. And then the pain started to fade. Clearly the stone had moved. Kala stayed in the room with me, and twenty minutes passed. Still no meds. Good thing the pain was nearly gone. I would have had to scream aloud otherwise. Finally a nurse did come in and administer a pain shot. I almost refused it, then decided to keep it--what if the stone lodged itself somewhere again and the pain came back?

Once the pain left, they wheeled me down for a CT scan, and then it was back to the room to wait. And wait and wait. Kala finally had to leave--the boys needed supper and we didn't want them left alone for so long. I was only half-conscious anyway. She left and came back two hours later. Still no word about the scan.

Finally we got word about it. Three stones. I need to see another doctor on Monday for follow-up. They loaded me up with various scrips and sent me home.

Totally wiped out for the rest of the evening. Between the meds and the pain exhaustion I wasn't any good to anybody!

I discovered that tomorrow is the Michigan vs. Ohio State game. Oops. That means all Ann Arbor/Ypsilanti residents who aren't football freaks will be hostages in our own homes. You can't go anywhere on MvOS day. The highways, streets, stores, and restaurants are clogged all day long. It's good for the local service economy, I suppose, but it's a pain in the neck for the rest of us.

For instance, it meant that I had to go do some grocery shopping tonight. Now. Because it would be impossible on Saturday.

Thanksgiving this year is at my brother's house, and I'm bringing the pies and the piragis (Latvian stuffed rolls). I'm doing all the baking this weekend so it'll be ready to go on Thursday. Headed out to the store to pick up various ingredients and get weekend stuff before the football freaks took over the town.

It turned out a good thing. First, unsalted butter was on huge sale, so I stocked up on that for the holidays. And then I discovered the canned pumpkin shelf was bare.

Uh oh. I remember reading that this year was a bad one for the pumpkin harvest--too much rain--and that pumpkin was in short supply. I asked a clerk, who said an endcap still might have some. I made a beeline for it and found a few cans left, but not many. I snagged what I needed. Whew! If I'd come on Sunday, there'd've been none, I'm sure.

Close call, that.

Budget cuts were finalized yesterday evening.

We're losing $600 per student this year. The school board announced last night that:

--five teachers have lost their jobs effective January 25
--all high school librarian positions have been eliminated
--all info tech positions at the schools have been eliminated (which means at Nameless we'll have 5 computer labs and over 350 computers in the building, but no one who can fix them when something goes wrong)
--many, many secretaries have lost their jobs (including one woman who is one year away from retirement and whose husband is dying of cancer--all medical benefits cease)

In addition to the personnel cuts:

--all but ten computers will be eliminated from the high school libraries
--all subscriptions to research databases (magazines, newspapers, journals, etc.) have been eliminated

And this was just the first round.

Meanwhile, the legislature in Lansing, who is supposed to be figuring out how to fix these problems, has decided to go on vacation for two weeks.

Book View Cafe is now posting chapter one of my novel NIGHTMARE. Each week a new chapter will follow. Go look. It's free!

There's this local organization that was instrumental in defeating the county school millage at the last election. I learned the bastards continue to exist and have taken on a new goal: reform local school spending. (I don't want to name them because I don't want their attention drawn to this blog. Speak of the devil and he is like to appear, and all that.) I don't teach in the county, of course; I live there. I learned they were having a public meeting about their new goal tonight, and as a county resident, I decided to attend. Just for fun.

( A Fox Enters the Henhouse . . .  )

They're available! My Silent Empire books are now up and running in nearly all existing electronic formats: PDF, EPUB, MOBI, .prc, .lit, and .lrf . No DRM. Each book is $1.79, a great price!

You can find them in all formats here, at Book View Cafe.

The books are Dreamer, Nightmare, Trickster, and Offspring, and were originally published by Penguin/Roc. My editor was suricattus (Wave, Laura Anne!) The back cover for Dreamer reads:

It is through first contact with an alien species that humanity learns of the Dream. It is a plane of mental existence where people are able to communicate by their thoughts alone--over distances of thousands of light-years. To ensure that future generations will have this ability, human genetic engineering produces newborns capable of finding and navigating the Dream.

They become known as the Silent.

Rust is just one planet among many in the Empire of Human Unity. It's nothing special, nothing unusual...except for the fact that it is home to an unknown boy who may be the most powerful Silent telepath ever born--a Silent with the ability to possess the bodies of others against their will. This mysterious child may be causing tremors within the Dream itself.

For now, only the Children of Irfan know about him. A monastic-like order of the Silent, the Children protect their members even as they barter their services with the governments and corporations that control known space. But power like that cannot be hidden, and soon every Silent in the universe will know about the boy--and every government will be willing to go to war to control him.

And if the Children of Irfan cannot find him first, the Dream itself may be shattered...

Go check them out!

Full set of photos of the completed student Peepshows here: http://www.sff.net/people/spiziks/peepindex.html . Go look!

UPDATE

We have winners!

Later that day, the OP posted a Peepshow video.  I hate watching myself on video.  But here it is, if you want to see it.  My students thought it was pretty cool!

The Oakland Press ran the article today--on the front page!  The web version is available here:

http://theoaklandpress.com/articles/2009/11/11/life/doc4afa8aada4472229018090.txt#photo1

Every year, each building at Wherever Schools awards Teacher of the Year.  This year, I was nominated.  (!)  I got a certificate and a congratulatory letter from the principal, and a copy of the original nomination.  (Nominations can come from students, parents, and other staff.)  I didn't win, but it was great to get the nomination.  Cool! 

I just got off the phone with a repeeper--er, reporter--from the Oakland Press.  They're doing a little story about the Peepshow!  The reporter interviewed me on the phone and they're sending a photographer around tomorrow to have a look at the peeps in progress.  Neat!

New music freaks Aran out--it's often a struggle to get him to learn a new piece, and he often goes into a full autistic meltdown over mid-song key changes.  No lie!  He hits the key change, and just freaks.

And yet, he loves to transpose music on the fly.  One song that he just hated because "It's so hard!" he finally mastered. Just today he sat at the piano and played it, watching me out of the corner of his eye as he did so.

"Did you hear me play that?" he said.  "It's in C instead of G."

"Pretty good, " I said.  "Did your piano teacher tell you to do that?"

"No," he said.  "I did it because I wanted to."

Oddly, this was the song that has a key change in it.

Sheesh.

Peepshows have been an Internet meme for a long time.  I think it started with The Lord of the Peeps , and went mainstream when the Washington Post did a national contest.  Last year's finalists are here.  (If you've never heard of a Peepshow, as opposed to a peepshow, it's a diorama made with marshmallow Peeps--chicks and bunnies--and given a silly title with the word "peep" or "bunny" in it.)

And then it occurred to me: why not do this at school?  What fun!

But Peeps in the fall?  How?  Ah, grasshopper--this is why one studies Google-fu.  A fair amount of searching led me to a secret web site that sells chick Peeps year-round, but only by the case.  Fine by me!  I ordered three cases (24 boxes of five Peeps).  I also bought popsicle sticks and googly eyes.  The day after Halloween, I also went around and bought up a whole bunch of ghost and pumpkin Peeps for half price.  That, in addition to the resident supplies I have in my classroom and what I could steal scare up elsewhere in the school building, set me up!

The Peeps weren't supposed to arrive for another few days, but UPS turned out to be surprisingly efficient, and they arrived way early.  I checked the calendar.  In a week we have parent-teacher conferences.  Perfect!

Today I handed out the assignment.  "You'll be creating a Peep diorama about a myth we've read in class.  On the due date, we'll put them in the library.  I'm going to gather a set of secret judges who will decide the winners for Best in Second Hour, Best in Sixth Hour, and Best in Show.  I'm also going to alert the local paper and the TV station--what the heck--so maybe there'll be a write-up there.  I'll post all the Peepshows on the school web site as well, and the Peepshow will be on display during parent-teacher conferences, too."

Both my sections of mythology got pretty enthusiastic about it.  They plunged through cardboard boxes, cut paper and cloth, and altered Peeps.  The ghosts turned out to be surprisingly popular--several students wanted to try depictions of Hades--so this evening I had to run out to the store and score a couple more cases of them.  I took pictures with my digital camera so we can post the Peeps process.

The best part is, a lot of my students dove back into their mythology books to re-read descriptions of certain scenes--without prompting from me.  Yay!