4-8-2012

One of the luxuries we have up here is satellite TV.  Even up here we can keep up with Snooki’s latest antics.  We don’t, but we can. I get that the lowest common denominators of the population need something besides shiny things to keep them attentive.  What I don’t get is competitive jousting.  I’ve seen the previews for them while watching other shows.  These are grown men, and women I suppose, who try to knock other people off horses with big sticks while riding around on their own horse.  We’ve all seen this in the movies about medieval times, and it usually had something to do with impressing a princess.  Princesses were easily impressed back then.  I would think surviving the Black Plague would be enough, but no.  Now, if Snooki would joust the Situation, maybe I’d watch that.

This past week was our school’s yearly assessment.  The scores from these tests will determine the success or failure of our school for the past year.  This tends to put a little bit of pressure on the teachers.  The students, on the other hand, don’t always put the success of their school ahead of their own self-interest.  Meaning, they would rather be in the gym playing dodge ball than finding grammatical errors in a standardized test.  Or determining how many pieces of candy Johnny has if he gave away 2/3s of his stash.  The real question for the kids wasn’t how much he had left, but why he was giving away his candy.  But we made it through the tests for this year.  I had zero absences for the week, so we don’t have any makeup tests. 

Pay no attention to the exposed wires.

We received some bad news this week.  The school district informed us that they would not be building new teacher housing next year.  This wouldn’t be so bad if they hadn’t already told us that we were.  The house Monica and I live in is about 50 years old.  Buildings don’t age well out here, so there are signs that the house may have outlived its ability to safely provide shelter.  One sign is that snow will blow in through the kitchen ceiling when the wind is blowing a certain direction.  Another is how the house is becoming more uneven, to the point where the walls are separating from the floor and ceiling.  You can feel the unevenness when walking in the house, tilting the floor towards the kitchen.  It must be gravity pulling me to the refrigerator, forcing me to locate snacks there.  One cannot fight gravity.  Crap, now I’m hungry.

This gap is just over 3 inches and growing.

With the floors dropping, Monica has developed a fear while in the shower.  It’s not a fear of me throwing ice water on her, although I’m sure it’s in the back of her soapy head.  Her fear is having the floor completely drop while she’s in the shower, spilling her out in the frozen tundra.  My picture is of her rolling around in the snow, completely naked, trying to get up.  That picture also has me pointing and laughing.  I know it’s not nice, but in my defense, well she’s rolling around naked in the snow.  I dare you not to chuckle just thinking about it.

There are six more weeks left of school.  The students can already feel it, but the weather has yet to hint that summer is coming.  That means I’ll probably end up watching some more bad TV.  Maybe the History Channel will bring back the lions and gladiators.   Watching Jersey Shore being eaten by lions would be entertaining.