April 24: Melissa found L’madja and Angel playing family on the play structure during recess. Angel was the mother because of his long hair, and they were both gently taking care of their baby, an orange from snack wrapped in a paper towel. Two minutes later, she caught D’madja playing stripper and trying to convince kids to give him money for a private show.
April 25: Dad thinks Nate’s essay could use a nut graf. He had to explain to me that this term refers to a few sentences near the beginning of an essay to summarize its focus and not something akin to spaying and neutering; but I think I can figure out a way to do both at the same time.
April 26: It was Wednesday and I told Robert so. He thought it was Thursday. He spent the next hour crying hysterically.
April 27: I found three fourth grade boys hanging out in the garden during morning recess. I told them that they already know the garden rules, they are not allowed in there unless the gardening teacher is there. They flunked out towards the the basketball courts. One of them turned around, glared at me, and then yelled, “snitches get stitches!”.
April 28: Jen mixed up about five different stories when we discussed the suitcase filled with body parts on the corner of the block where I used to live. She was convinced that the murder and the victim were once lovers, that the murderer and the victim were somehow the same person who managed to zip themselves in the suitcase and “Romeo’d” himself, and that it had something to do with a girl who was beat up outside of a Jack in the Box.
April 29: Nick texted a photo of his nerdy high school self. He was wearing a long blond wig, playing a broom like it was a guitar, and looking suspiciously like Vince Neil from Motley Crue.
April 30: Nothing has ever been able to live up to the hype for me. Until we saw Hamilton. I cried four times and when we got home, Nick and I listened to the entire soundtrack while cleaning the apartment.
much love,
hedgie
Sunday, April 30, 2017
Sunday, April 23, 2017
bees make cheerios
April 17: It was Orange Day. Most of my kids still struggle to peel the oranges at snack, so they’ve developed a habit of sticking their straws straight through the skin and doing their best to suck out as much as they can.
April 18: While in the throes of my third cold this year, I woke up at 4:50 in the morning, pulled a raincoat and Doc Marten boots over my pajamas and wandered out into the drizzly darkness to go look at a fire hydrant.
April 19: I caught Abel pulling two twenty-dollar bills out of the pockets of the black sweatpants he wears every day. All morning, he had been desperately trying to leave the class so that he could find Antoine, who was going to sell him a single Pokemon card. His dad has now learned the lesson to not leave his cash on counter tops.
April 20: Paloma is teaching her third grade class all about interesting bugs this semester. She is in the middle of her bee course and paused a video about queen bees to quiz them on what bees make.
“Cheerios!” they all shouted in unison.
April 21: My class of seven-years olds is the most terrifying group of people I have ever met. Today, our school’s Vice Principal passed out popsicles to only two of my fifteen students there that day. They spent the next hour going into graphic detail about the different ways they would mutilate his various limbs.
April 22: Paula Poundstone is the first to admit that she is a bad driver. She also wants people to know that honking at her does not improve her performance. Her personal theory is that the angry driver behind her wants that moment of friction when they try to berate her. But she usually ends up disappointing them because she rarely disagrees with them. If someone were to blare their horn and yell “asshole!”, she rolls down her own window and yells back “you don’t know the half of it!”.
April 23: We placed third in the 90’s Simpsons Bar Trivia this month. Rob texted Kristen to let her know about our victory. She asked if there were only three teams competing.
much love,
hedgie
April 18: While in the throes of my third cold this year, I woke up at 4:50 in the morning, pulled a raincoat and Doc Marten boots over my pajamas and wandered out into the drizzly darkness to go look at a fire hydrant.
April 19: I caught Abel pulling two twenty-dollar bills out of the pockets of the black sweatpants he wears every day. All morning, he had been desperately trying to leave the class so that he could find Antoine, who was going to sell him a single Pokemon card. His dad has now learned the lesson to not leave his cash on counter tops.
April 20: Paloma is teaching her third grade class all about interesting bugs this semester. She is in the middle of her bee course and paused a video about queen bees to quiz them on what bees make.
“Cheerios!” they all shouted in unison.
April 21: My class of seven-years olds is the most terrifying group of people I have ever met. Today, our school’s Vice Principal passed out popsicles to only two of my fifteen students there that day. They spent the next hour going into graphic detail about the different ways they would mutilate his various limbs.
April 22: Paula Poundstone is the first to admit that she is a bad driver. She also wants people to know that honking at her does not improve her performance. Her personal theory is that the angry driver behind her wants that moment of friction when they try to berate her. But she usually ends up disappointing them because she rarely disagrees with them. If someone were to blare their horn and yell “asshole!”, she rolls down her own window and yells back “you don’t know the half of it!”.
April 23: We placed third in the 90’s Simpsons Bar Trivia this month. Rob texted Kristen to let her know about our victory. She asked if there were only three teams competing.
much love,
hedgie
Sunday, April 16, 2017
no sense of irony
April 10: The principal changed the morning recess schedule without telling anyone. School is almost out for the day and even the people in the front office can’t tell me when exactly I’m supposed to start recess duty.
April 11: My kids decided to rank all of their teachers according to how much they like us. They put me at 5th place. Ms. Caritas, the teacher who left them last year a month before the term ended, was awarded first place. Immediately after, Arianna asked me to help her with her math homework. I told her she should go ask her first favorite teacher for help.
April 12: Robert’s aunt came in again and added Ana in on the threats, telling her that she was more than willing to make this battle physical. Apparently, the one-sided conversation included her repeating how pissed she was about Robert getting bullied and absolutely no sense of irony.
April 13: We watched the San Francisco Symphony play the soundtrack to Raiders of the Lost Ark. It makes me so happy to see such devotion taken to present a movie that required two men and forty takes to create a Nazi-Sympathizer monkey.
April 14: The entire school is dressing up in colors of the rainbow to celebrate LGBTQ people. The staff was a bit concerned about how the parents would take this, considering that 90% of Catholic and the rainbow parade happened to coincide with Good Friday.
April 15: Elaine got the results of her DNA test back. She was excitedly showing me how the program was even able to suggest possible family members and found a first cousin of hers that she did not know existed. I asked her how she could have a first cousin she never met. Turns out, her uncle had faked his death for over 35 years and started a new family in a different state.
April 16: Christiana always manages to leave something behind every time we see her. Today, she left a bag of weed and a bigger bag of ham on our kitchen table.
much love,
hedgie
April 11: My kids decided to rank all of their teachers according to how much they like us. They put me at 5th place. Ms. Caritas, the teacher who left them last year a month before the term ended, was awarded first place. Immediately after, Arianna asked me to help her with her math homework. I told her she should go ask her first favorite teacher for help.
April 12: Robert’s aunt came in again and added Ana in on the threats, telling her that she was more than willing to make this battle physical. Apparently, the one-sided conversation included her repeating how pissed she was about Robert getting bullied and absolutely no sense of irony.
April 13: We watched the San Francisco Symphony play the soundtrack to Raiders of the Lost Ark. It makes me so happy to see such devotion taken to present a movie that required two men and forty takes to create a Nazi-Sympathizer monkey.
April 14: The entire school is dressing up in colors of the rainbow to celebrate LGBTQ people. The staff was a bit concerned about how the parents would take this, considering that 90% of Catholic and the rainbow parade happened to coincide with Good Friday.
April 15: Elaine got the results of her DNA test back. She was excitedly showing me how the program was even able to suggest possible family members and found a first cousin of hers that she did not know existed. I asked her how she could have a first cousin she never met. Turns out, her uncle had faked his death for over 35 years and started a new family in a different state.
April 16: Christiana always manages to leave something behind every time we see her. Today, she left a bag of weed and a bigger bag of ham on our kitchen table.
much love,
hedgie
Sunday, April 9, 2017
jesus and lady gaga
April 3: Arianna and I read “Child of the Sun”, which is a Cuban legend that explains how and why eclipses happen. The story involved the first two humans being created by the sun and the moon. Neither of us were able to figure out how to pronounce these humans’ names, so Arianna settled for dubbing them Jesus and Lady Gaga.
April 4: Miss Connie has never had lice. This has only caused her problems when she still lived in the Philippines and the monkeys her family owned would comb through her and her cousins’ hair, searching for parasites. They would comb through her locks and found nothing to eat, they would bite her instead.
April 5: Robert’s aunt came in to give Melissa a 40-minute long thinly-veiled threat. She said that she tells her cousins about Robert’s treatment at this school and that they have said they are more than willing to all come out here and show us who is boss.
April 6: Abel asked me to make a fortune teller for him out of green construction paper. I was in the middle of taking attendance, so I told him I would make one for him, but he would have to wait a few minutes. “But it’s an emergency!,” he yelled desperately.
April 7: Lianna had a rabid dog in her improve scene with Brenna. The dog bit Brenna and she gently suggested that Lianna take him to a vet. “I have,” she said. “But they are so unhelpful. All they ever say is put him down. Put him down where?”
April 8: Nick keeps putting off talking to his family about help they could give us for the wedding. I find it strange he can’t just ask them. I guess that’s the difference, I have family and he has relatives.
April 9: The pizza here has cornmeal in the dough. When they brought it to our table, it wafted the unmistakable scent of corn bread.
much love,
hedgie
April 4: Miss Connie has never had lice. This has only caused her problems when she still lived in the Philippines and the monkeys her family owned would comb through her and her cousins’ hair, searching for parasites. They would comb through her locks and found nothing to eat, they would bite her instead.
April 5: Robert’s aunt came in to give Melissa a 40-minute long thinly-veiled threat. She said that she tells her cousins about Robert’s treatment at this school and that they have said they are more than willing to all come out here and show us who is boss.
April 6: Abel asked me to make a fortune teller for him out of green construction paper. I was in the middle of taking attendance, so I told him I would make one for him, but he would have to wait a few minutes. “But it’s an emergency!,” he yelled desperately.
April 7: Lianna had a rabid dog in her improve scene with Brenna. The dog bit Brenna and she gently suggested that Lianna take him to a vet. “I have,” she said. “But they are so unhelpful. All they ever say is put him down. Put him down where?”
April 8: Nick keeps putting off talking to his family about help they could give us for the wedding. I find it strange he can’t just ask them. I guess that’s the difference, I have family and he has relatives.
April 9: The pizza here has cornmeal in the dough. When they brought it to our table, it wafted the unmistakable scent of corn bread.
much love,
hedgie
Sunday, April 2, 2017
sharks, alligators, and bears combined
March 27: Corrie’s family dog has suddenly developed a paralyzing fear of bowls. She will only drink water that is squirted into her mouth using a turkey baster. Her mom has to dump her food directly onto the kitchen’s linoleum floor, and they feed her wet food.
March 28: A very daring person sat in this airline seat before me. They filled in half of the Southwest Magazine crossword puzzle in a thick, black pen. I finished the rest of it. It's strange to think that a complete team was made up of two people who will never meet.
March 29: But for arguments sake, let’s say someone did manage to creep up on an unusually inattentive cow. Could you really tip it over? (If you plan to try, keep in mind that the CDC estimates that 22 Americans are killed each year in bovine-related incidents; that’s more than the number of deaths caused by sharks, alligators, and bears combined.)
March 30: At the Exploratorium After Dark event, they had a two-way mirror and dials that adjusted the lighting so you could line your face up with someone else and see what happened when both of your features were combined. As an added surprise, there’s a blue button you can push that gave each person one half of the face. Nick was smiling while I has me mouth closed, which gave the immediate impression that I was looking at a dim painting of Batman super villian Two-Face.
March 31: Over the years, I have discovered the helpful but depressing fact that every time a dog’s name is featured in the name of a movie, the dog is going to die by the end. I was hoping Turner & Hooch would prove me wrong, but it did not.
April 1: Nick and I were in the fruit snack aisle when a man looked up from his phone with a shocked expression on his face and asked us if we had heard the news. Trump had resigned as president. This, of course, was an April Fool’s Day prank he had apparently unloaded multiple times. He’s playing a very dangerous game.
April 2: Today marks one year since we adopted George. We celebrated by shaving him completely because he got poop stuck in his butt hair again.
much love,
hedgie
March 28: A very daring person sat in this airline seat before me. They filled in half of the Southwest Magazine crossword puzzle in a thick, black pen. I finished the rest of it. It's strange to think that a complete team was made up of two people who will never meet.
March 29: But for arguments sake, let’s say someone did manage to creep up on an unusually inattentive cow. Could you really tip it over? (If you plan to try, keep in mind that the CDC estimates that 22 Americans are killed each year in bovine-related incidents; that’s more than the number of deaths caused by sharks, alligators, and bears combined.)
March 30: At the Exploratorium After Dark event, they had a two-way mirror and dials that adjusted the lighting so you could line your face up with someone else and see what happened when both of your features were combined. As an added surprise, there’s a blue button you can push that gave each person one half of the face. Nick was smiling while I has me mouth closed, which gave the immediate impression that I was looking at a dim painting of Batman super villian Two-Face.
March 31: Over the years, I have discovered the helpful but depressing fact that every time a dog’s name is featured in the name of a movie, the dog is going to die by the end. I was hoping Turner & Hooch would prove me wrong, but it did not.
April 1: Nick and I were in the fruit snack aisle when a man looked up from his phone with a shocked expression on his face and asked us if we had heard the news. Trump had resigned as president. This, of course, was an April Fool’s Day prank he had apparently unloaded multiple times. He’s playing a very dangerous game.
April 2: Today marks one year since we adopted George. We celebrated by shaving him completely because he got poop stuck in his butt hair again.
much love,
hedgie
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)