A mere few weeks from a significant developmental milestone, I find myself increasingly fascinated with the noble art of going down in a flame of wonder.







Heh. She said "going down."

To Shine And Poses
Due to Unforeseen Circumstances involving good sleep, great company and splendiferous surroundings, The Marcy May Show of Woe has been temporarily suspended.

Thursday afternoon I received an email at work from my husband, announcing that the contract work he has been slaving over on evenings and weekends at home, has been put on hold, so would I like to go to the cottage for the weekend?

Boy Howdy, would I.

In fact I was so in need of this weekend, that the mere suggestion of it in the email made my eyes well up a bit. ::Not a good thing. Nothing scares the masses more than seeing the soshel werker crying.::

At the wisk of the wongful waising of woe, I will say that it had been a hellacious week. And I have no idea how I was able to get out of work on time Friday, to drive across town to pick up Cakers at school at the bell, and get home to pack small enough to get all our items into one laundry basket and two small bags, by 5:00, without anybody getting hurt, drunk or arrested. ::We had to all squeeze into my smallish SUV. With a dog. This is because my husband's hatefully huge SUV (but remarkably wonderful for travel) is in the body shop. Again. But we'll wave that wand of woe another day.::

We started the day on Saturday with a lovely sleep in. Well, at least I did. 10.5 hours total. Then we headed out for a days' adventure.

First stop was the river, to watch wild monkey sex amongst the native fish. Well, I think it was more like foreplay, which appears to involve nothing more than rubbing fins and kicking up muck. But we did see two huge salmon frolicking about and appearing ready to, um get nesty.

As you can see by the Cakers' non-verbals. These were big fish.





Yeah, that big.
::Actually they were bigger than that. Really. About 3 feet long. No, really.::

Next stop was Lake Michigan.



::Per usual, embiggenment is encouraged on all shots.::

Then it was on to Frankfort for some lunch and eye candy.







A quick stop by the Dollar Store netted me this beauty.





A mere buck eighty-seven.
Don't hate me.

Meanwhile, Back at the Ranch
I went for a walk, and made lots of f-stops.







After a dinner of hotdogs cooked over the fire, Cabana and Cakers sat around the firepit while I wrapped up what remained of daylight, with a big dusky bow.







::Please make that last one bigger. It's my favorite of the day.::

I'm sorry for all the bandwidth suckage, but believe you me, today's show is but a smidge of the over 500 shots I took yesterday. Umm yeah. 500. Everything but the moon shot and one shoe was taken using manual settings. I'm still not able to remember what settings go with what view, but I am getting the hang of knowing at least where to start experimenting.

While tooling around the lakeshores, I played around with the video function on my purse camera, and ended up sticking it out the open sunroof for some excelerated foliage footage. It wasn't until near the end (the point where I stop singing, and try to remember if I was singing the whole time) when I realized that I was on to something here, and this video might be shareworthy. Otherwise I definitely would NOT have been singing along. And for the assault on your ears, I apologize up front. I still can't get over how nasal I sound whenever I hear myself on these clips. I even thought of taking out the sound, but I think the Steppenwolf makes it work. Therefore, I forgo ego. You're welcome. ::It loses some visual quality through blogger. Go figger.::



::And I still don't know why two video thingies show up. I think only one works though.::

See you on the other side.

P.S To all my Ho's (including My Little Ida-Ho. Love you!) to whom I owes emails and loves and affections and commitments and beyond. I have not forgotten you. It's been hard out there. I keep sitting down to write but I only have time for one at a time, and then I feel guilty writing one and not the other, then I turn off the computer and go to bed. I'm hoping that My Life as I Knew It will show up on my stoop any day. Broke and bedraggled, no doubt. But she will be mine and I will take her in and make for her a grilled cheese sammich, then slap her once upside the head, and send her to bed.

P.P.S. I didn't spell check and I know there are errors glaring. But I only have a few hours left in the weekend, so it's all you get for now. Cuz I'm gonna giddy up.

Time is short and brain waves shorter, so I'm resorting, once again, to a two-part post, buckshot style.

1. My Gob
A review: Last spring the district I work for cut two full time positions from our department. Of course, redistributing the collective workload of six people between four people means all of us added additional building assignments to our previous load. My reassignment includes my current spot at the high school, with the addition of one day per week in another building. On paper, the changes for me are not overly dramatic. In fact, I've had higher total caseloads in years past, in just one building. ::Sometimes its quality, not quanity, anyway.::

But. You know how sometimes you run into someone you know, and while you recognize them right off, of course, you also note that something about them is somehow different? It's typically a subtle change, like a newly arched eyebrow or weight loss, or maybe a freshly tatted forehead. Okay, I added that last one to see if you were paying attention.

Anyway. That's kind of how I feel about my job this year. When I first returned from summer break, my job looked the same as it ever did. I attended the usual inservice days. I listened to the usual Blah, Blah, Blah. I reassembled the usual caseload files and related paper work.

It wasn't until I was few days into the first week of school that I realized there was something different about my Job Face. Subtle, maybe. But impossible to ignore.

It's like my Job Face is missing an ear. And its glasses keep falling off. So this year my professional goal will be to find out if duct tape really does fix everything.

2. New Job Jitters (Or, the Things That Scared Me The Most But Shouldn't Have.)

A. The Staff - Not too bad. Taste like chicken.

B. Loo Loo, Skip to My Loo- Years ago I was in this building (my new assignment) for a meeting. While attending this meeting, I had cause to use the staff bathroom that is closest to my new office.

When I entered the bathroom at the time, I was immediately assaulted by the stench of what can only be described as The Aftermath of a Biological Exorcism.

Now, I had to go bad. But not so bad that I would chose death over pissing myself in front of the secretarial pool. In fact, the self-preserving drive to get out of that virtual butthole was so strong, I cared not that the secretaries would witness the tears on my cheeks and my pants still undone, as I exited Satan's vortex.

But this was several years ago. I am older now. More mature. Wise, even. And it us upon those merits that I make this vow to you. I will never, ever again step foot in that bathroom. I will not. I have not. Ever.

I did find another staff bathroom down the hall and around a couple of corners. While not in the most convenient location from my office, it is a nice, airy place; equipped with three regular stalls and a fourth stall. A room, really. Inside this room is a toilet, a sink, a chair and a little round table, complete with cigarette burns. (From days gone by). I have no idea of the purpose for the extra chair. And neither do I care. For I have found Evacuation Nirvana.

After my highly successful (and anonymous) maiden voyage into that wondrous, mystical portal, I almost immediately concluded that things were gonna be okay.

Almost.

C. Is That a Huge Ball Hanging By a Thread Or Are You Just Happy to See Me?
The last person who used my new office was really into Public Service Announcement posters and handouts. Not that that is a bad thing. I think it shows not only professional drive, but a proactive commitment to the population to be served.

Anyway. She took a lot of the stuff she had hanging on the walls, when she left.

One thing she didn't take was this flyer about the dangers of inhalants:



Do you see what I see?

My first day on the job there, I was wildly distracted by this flyer. What the hell is that?

Then I was kind of scared.

See, I'm not sure I'm ready to be that kind of soshel werker. The kind who is not only brave enough to say that the large ball hanging on a string gives her nightmares, but who also has the courage to tell middle school-age clients that she is totally unprepared to answer any questions about that,ummm, thing. Hanging. By a string.

I do share the office with another another soshel werker who services the 7th graders. He has been working in the district for over 35 years. Recently he stopped by the office for a minute, and I brought up the flyer.

"What is that thing?" I asked.
"No idea." he said. "But it scares me."

The revelation by this sage cohort gave me a sudden burst of confidence, as I plucked the hapless, uni-balled wonder from the bulletin board and stuffed him into a drawer.

3. If I Stop to Think About It, It Takes My Breath Away.



Last weekend we celebrated The Cakers' 7th birthday and The College Blob's 22nd. It blows me away, really, how fast it goes.

In my experiences to date, with the aches and pains of aging, I find that the pain is not so much within my joints, as it is in my heart.

Where are you goin' my little one, little one?
Where are you goin' my baby my own?
Turn around and you're two.
Turn around and you're four.
Turn around and you're all grown,
Going out of the door

-Reynolds/Greene/Belafonte