I Made Only One Inappropriate Comment At The Ritz

Today, my grandmother took my aunt, cousins, and me to the Sarasota Ritz Carlton for afternoon tea. I was nervous because I am a social klutz and my grandmother is very, very formal. I wasn't as bad as I'd thought I'd be. The sandwiches were the most delicious I've ever had. Here's a quick one we can all make:

Slice of smoked salmon
Herb farmer's cheese (creamy)
Mini
pumpernickel
bagel

Wrap the salmon into a tower on the cheesed bagel slice, garnish with caviar, and lean the other bagel slice jauntily against the rest. When you want to eat it, slap the top bagel slice above it all, squeeze, and bite.

Anyway, I clanged the china loudly only once, dropped some food on my chin only once, and made only one tacky comment! "Did you see the collagen in that woman's lips?" Which went over like a led balloon. Well, the woman had left the building, and she was one of several aged trophy wives with trendy enormous lips roaming the building. Oh, and you know the term "putting on the Ritz?" Obsolete. Tons of people walking around wearing only a sheer shirt over bikinis, sweats, jeans, flip flops. Sigh. Where is it okay to be fancy anymore?

If you do not like tea but want to go to the Ritz, you can have a Mani-tini, Pedi-tini, or both. It's a mani/pedi at the Ritz spa with a free martini. Mani/Pedi + alcohol = genius.

I'm building a lesson plan collection

I've been in Florida, had a beautiful pedicure with white nail polish, buying books, getting sunburned on the beach, and reading Emmy And The Incredible Shrinking Rat. Playing card games with my grandparents over, and over, and over again. I just finished my course, and have read the first two chapters of my net text book.

What I really need to do this summer, though, is build and prepare lesson plans for the library. I need to get ready and make sure I go in prepared. I am determined to do exceptionally well this year. I want to stretch my wings and prove that I can do it, after a rather dissatisfying year. I want my next year to be beautiful.

So, I will be getting a filing cabinet, and dividing the lessons up between the grades. Since I can recycle some of them, I would need 43 for each grade, but hopefully I can divide them into chunks. I'm planning K-1, 2-3, 4-6. So really, I would only need 14 for a good starting point.

Trying the hookah lounge again 2night

Well, the belly dancer comes on Saturdays, not Fridays, so I spent the evening learning how to smoke a hookah. Which left me dizzy and light-headed. Daisy Boots and I had mango flavor, and watch a man make orbs out of the smoke. I could only make tiny little puffs. It was fun but it seems an awfully fussy way to damage your lungs. They did not card, so I wonder if it was really tobacco? Was the smoke just steam or something else? I live in a smoke-free state. The place was full of high schoolers. Tonight I don't think I will smoke; it's too expensive and I really only want to see the belly dancer.

Off to a Hookah Lounge

I am leaving in about twenty minutes to go to a hookah lounge, to hopefully smoke a hookah and watch a belly dancer! I haven't danced in so long, and will this August at Omega. I will take pix if I can- I don't know if my phone is good enough. But it will be lovely to go on this beautiful night, anyway.

Beware the Mac And Cheese

8 children in our building will never be enchanted by radioactively orange elbow noodles again. Our hallways were flowing with vomit, and plenty of teachers were buzzing the custodian. None of my students got sick, thank God, but the mac and cheese is only our first theory about what happened. It may well be swine flu. Which I thought had been dying down. The students look like they're going to be alright, though. Whew. Hopefully there will be a push for healthier, higher quality food anyway. My students don't get enough vitamins I'm sure.

Escape to the garden

My co-teacher is a bitch, and I was told pretty much up front today that she had made a statement about me that could have cost me my job. Had the principal believed it. It sort of blew up in her face, which should make me feel pretty damn good, but it doesn't. I was crushed- I'd been trying so hard to be nice to her this year and her ice queen crap has been so hard to swallow. I feel like there is no one I can trust in my school. The only solace is that next year I will be here part-time, and can spend the rest of the time at the other library.

Going to work every morning leaves a stone in my stomach, even though it's the end of the year. I had hoped to end it on a warmer note. So anyway, I had had enough of looking at her when the kids went to gym. I went to my car and drove to my garden. It's a fun little escape- setting the combination to the padlock, dragging the gate open across the weeds that haven't been yanked yet. Checking on the peppers, tomatoes, eggplants, cucumbers, squash, and onions. I pulled out weeds. I ripped them out with a wicked feeling that I wish I could apply elsewhere. It's fun to yank them up by the roots, especially when they make a "ggggrrrriiiiiipppp" sound. I kneeled down to study the first pepper flower I've ever seen. I watched the blackbird hop around, listened to the cops arrest a few teen-agers down across the road. I dragged the heavy hose across the garden to my plot in my wedge sandals. I turned it on, making a shimmering water arc that splittered all over my veggies. The hose was leaky and dribbled all over my toes, making the gold nail polish gleam. If only the polish looked so pretty dry. I shook the hose up and down, watching the water make waves and rainbows. Once my veggies were wet and soaked, I dragged this heavy, dirty hose over to the rose bushes and drenched them, as well.

I drove back to my well manicured, de-frizzed co-teacher with unkempt hair, dirty feet and fingernails. I wonder if she added that to the list of reasons why she is superior to me.

My LMS and Multicultural Fiction

My latest course in library media sciences, Materials and Services for Children, is absolutely charming. Who doesn't love children's books? I've just completed a ten page paper for developing a collection policy in my school. It's basically the same as every other collection development policy in American schools, so hopefully I will get an A. Besides the collection policy, I was assigned to read Little House on The Prairie and The Birchbark House. Louise Erdrich wrote The Birchbark House as a response to Little House on The Prairie, from the American Indian point of view. Considering that portrayal of American Indians in LHoTP could be downright vile, this is an excellent idea. Best of all, it's an excellent idea that's actually well carried out, too. It even has a glossary of Ojibwa words and terms.

I would have loved this book when I was a child! I was fascinated with books about different cultures, peoples, and times. A particular favorite was Native American cultures. I admit my love for it was based more on romanticism and wonder than reality. But I would have loved learning about the day to day life of Omakayas. The smoked cedar smell of the winter cabins, the soft, rabbit skin blankets. I adored historical fiction- I treasured my American Girl Books. If I had this I would have spent hours in the woods pretending to be Omakaya. It would have been the perfect novel for me.

So, as I'm between books (I just can't find a good one lately) I'm reading this one before I go to bed tonight. I promise I will read like a grown-up next week, if I find a good one.