eight grown adult women spend half an hour trying to take a picture that had all nine dogs in it

November 24: For National Heidi Day, we ended the night by building a blanket fort and watching “Big Trouble in Little China” with wine and while wearing cartoon animal face masks. We are adults.

November 25: I watched eight grown adult women spend half an hour trying to take a picture that had all nine dogs in it. They did not succeed.

November  26:

When I first met Michael, he informed me that he had yellow fever and I prayed to god that he had the viral disease transmitted by mosquitoes.

November 27: The kids like to play a game where they ask you your name, ask you to name the part of their face they are pointing at, and to ask what they are holding in their hands. This way, they can try to get me to say “Ms. Heather knows nothing”. But a lot of them manage to ruin the joke on the first question by asking me “Ms. Heather, whats your name?”

November 28: A Mission Graduates student from Bryant died in a car accident over the weekend. Everyone is trying to raise money for her mother because the girl’s body won’t be released until she can pay for the expenses. Who does that to a person who just lost her ten year old daughter?

November 29: All the parents actually remembered it was pool day today and they packed their kids with their swimsuits and permission slips. Unfortunately, about a third of them neglected to give their children towels to dry off with after.

November 30: 50,000 words! I won NaNoWriMo. Now I’m to go to bed and dream about this book getting published and then made into a movie starring Benedict Cumberbatch, Dame Judy Dench, and Simon Pegg.





much love,
hedgie

crying and hyperscream

November 17: Maria’s class are making little super hero versions of themselves. Some of their super powers include crying and hyper scream.

November 18: Nick made us start the drive to Mission Viejo at six this morning. I immediately fell asleep in the car for four hours, but I still don’t love Nick anymore.

November  19: We had Nick’s dream birthday party: board games and all food stuffs are covered in melted cheese.

November 20: Katie had a severe hangover after Nick’s birthday party. She, Dylan, and I went out to Irvine to get some ramen and watch surprisingly graceful sumo wrestling.

November 21: The server at Casa Franco’s shaved off his mohawk. I almost didn’t recognize him. Everything is now officially fixed from when that car drove in through their front wall.

November 22: Nick took dad and me to the Venice Beach Google office. Nick had a conference call, but dad and I found a quiet room in the rounded section of the building’s binoculars that was full of beanbags and one giant light bulb hanging from the ceiling to write in.

November 23: We started drinking by lunchtime and the only note I had in my phone for the entire day was: “Ghost haunting poop—unfinished business”.






much love,
hedgie

i feel like fire

November 10: Nick’s dad decided to call his brother that Nick and I did not invite to the wedding on speaker phone. He brought up the fact that we didn’t invite him to the wedding twice. I feel like he’s trying to start a feud between everyone. He knows that so many of his family members have refused to speak for decades over smaller things.

November 11: I never thought that I would ever write the phrase “a giant golden dick” on my wedding gift thank you cards, but here I am now.

November  12: Nick bought me a plain rose gold band so that I can have a full set of rings to wear at work that won’t scratch my kids. I love it. Now our rings also match a little now since Nick’s wedding ring is wood and rose gold.

November 13: For a team building exercise, Melissa lead up in a group MadLib. We ended up writing about expensive summer vacations where people hunt teachers and parents ate teachers for dinner.

November 14: When we got into our discussion groups, Eddie told us we had three minutes to go around and each share our biggest mistake. Miss Connie went first, saying that her biggest mistake was putting the wedding ring onto her husband’s finger.

November 15: Briana wrote a beautiful and heartbreaking poem in Scores Poetry today.
“I feel like fire because I don’t have my dad. He is in another country and my dad is sad. When I am eleven years old, I can go to the other country where he lives.”

November 16: Nancy Q. and Kaylee got had a huge falling out over something that one of them did in kindergarten. Melissa had to lead a peace talk for something that happened half of their lives ago.






much love,
hedgie

hell has cell service

November 1: Everyone is still on edge today. Yesterday, a woman wandered to the school’s front gate, claiming that god had sent her here to rescue the children. She intercepted a woman who was picking up her niece early and tried to run off with the first grader.

November 2: María was sick today, so I taught her fall art elective class. Her first graders cry almost as much as my third graders do. Almost.

November  3: Nick and I drove through a car wash while playing “Car Wash” on Nick’s iPhone. We thought it was funny. Addie and George did not enjoy it as much.

November 4: We had breakfast with Nick’s paternal grandparents this morning. They kept going on about immigrants stealing jobs, so I excused myself to the bathroom. Their bathroom had personalized towels with matching bars of soap. Is that what rich people do? Monogram their soap?

November 5:

Me: I’m currently in a room full of people who watch Fox News. I’m in the Twilight Zone.

Dad: Still at the in-laws’?

Me: Where else could I be?

Dad: Hell?

Me: I really doubt hell has cell service.

November 6: Abel uses a strange mixture of letters and numbers when he writes. It’s like trying to read hieroglyphics when he writes his daily journal entry. It’s actually pretty amazing because he can actually read it and probably is the only one who can.

November 7: I hit my first NaNoWriMo word count today. 10,000 words, which means Nick and I went to the Silent Reading Party. We saw Daniel Handler again. We cannot shake that guy off.

November 8: Ms. Jay strummed her guitar and had the kids repeat after her as she sang. It was pretty straight forwards until she got to the free style part of the song and started complaining about how her birthday was yesterday and her grandson called her and talked to her for an hour without mentioning her birthday once. My 8-year-olds were not quite sure how to react to that.

November 9: The sun sets before 5:30 now. It is dark before program closes. It has been putting the kids in the mood to tell spooky stories. Jai’von tried to scare everyone by claiming he saw a little girl outside the window when he was going to the bathroom. It worked for awhile until I pointed out that we are in a school and seeing little girls is actually quite common





much love,
hedgie