What I’m Reading
Sep
29
After going home a few weeks ago, Chris decided that upon his return to Boston he wanted to make for me a classic Rochester meal: the garbage plate. Traditionally the foodstuff of hungover Rochester hipsters and college kids, the garbage plate is both a blessing and a curse. I have only ever sampled one garbage plate despite many trips to Rochester with Chris, a fact that can be attributed to most of the locations where one might procure them being places you might also be killed in a drive-by shooting.
Still, when you hear the siren call of one of these piles of meat and carbs it’s best to get as far away as possible, lest you be dashed to death on the shores of caloric annihilation.
I wasn’t kidding. Anyway, despite my misgivings about eating something that could potentially cause immediate cardiac arrest I agreed to help put together this regional culinary masterpiece. Chris started the hot sauce which seemed like it had about eleventy kajillion different spices and ingredients, including a pound of hamburger.
Can’t you just feel the arteries clogging? I suppose in a way, Rochester is lucky to have its own culinary claim to fame. I mean, Boston has the cream pie, Maine has lobster, Kentucky has the Colonel’s own fried chicken, and Rochester has a giant pile of meat, fried foods, macaroni salad, and then more meat. And ketchup!
Right. So you start off with what is supposed to be greasy homefries, but for which we substituted baked steak fries to alleviate some of our guilt. Alongside that you throw down half a pound of macaroni salad. Because who doesn’t need that much pasta and mayo?
Then you add two cheeseburgers that you’ve cooked on the griddle with the homefries (or, in our case, on the stove while the fries were baking). I pared it down to just one cheeseburger in the spirit of living through the night.
Then you dump that steaming hot sauce all over the entire plate, throw on some raw onion (for your serving of veggies, of course!), and add mustard and ketchup at will. If you’re in Rochester, you enjoy this last meal with a Gennessee Cream Ale, made from the finest waters of the Gennessee River, straight from the can. If you’re in Boston, you do it up right with a Shipyard Pumpkin Ale.
If you’re thinking, “Gross! That looks disgusting!”, you would be correct. The garbage plate is aptly named. It looks like a giant pile of meat on top of more meat. But! You should also be thinking, “God, that looks so awesome“, because each bite is like a little bit of western New York heaven, spicy and delicious.
I think what makes our dinner seem even more negligent to our health and well-being, though, is that we spent the entire day at the fair, where our diet consisted of apple crisp, caramel apples, fried pickles, lemonade, maple sugar cotton candy, and… a burger.
I KNOW.
Sep
26
What’s Next? Bubonic Weepul?
Filed Under Uncategorized | 18 Comments
Okay, so every year the school has its annual fundraiser and the kids sell the names and addresses of their next door neighbors and loved ones to a marketing company, all in the name of ridiculous prizes. In the past week I have confiscated: two of those sticky hands that you throw at the wall and they ooze down, four giant bendy pencils that were being used as whips on their friends, an “Excuse Maker” keychain that had broken and was repeatedly squawking “MY DOG ATE IT”, and one Beer Hat which they have renamed the “Drinking Hat”, out of which the kids were attempting to drink their yogurt.
But the most insidious of the prizes is the Weepul. And don’t even bother to pretend like you don’t know what a Weepul is. If you were a kid in America and your middle school ran any type of fundraiser, you definitely got Weepuls as prizes. Maybe you don’t remember, so let me refresh your memory. See? I told you. And also, does anyone else find the Pregnant Weepul as creepy as I do? If I ever get pregnant, those will be the baby shower favors. That was your fair warning.
Anyway, over the afternoon announcements yesterday the Principal threw in that the next day’s fundraiser prize was the Scurvy Weepul. Obviously I thought I had misheard because, yeah, what the hell? Scurvy? A disease-ridden Weepul? I am clearly missing something here. Then I heard kids after school promising all kinds of complicated trades involving the Scurvy Weepul and something called the Funtown Weepul and I stopped one of them. “Is it really a Scurvy Weepul?”, I asked. It totally is! I then asked if it was missing teeth, had open sores or a peg leg and oh, did they have to feed it lots of Vitamin C?
They looked at me quizzically. “No, Ms. NPDubs! It has an EYE PATCH!”.
“But isn’t that just a Pirate Weepul then? Scurvy is a disease, you know.”
They looked doubtful for a second, glancing at each other. “No it’s not! That’s not what the prize people said!”
Oh. Well I guess I should get a big fat DUH stamped on my forehead then.
Sep
25
It’s The Little Things
Filed Under Uncategorized | 20 Comments
I’m a little disgruntled today after battling with the HR Department all morning. I just barely refrained from email name-calling, which would have included such choice words as inept, disorganized, snotty, and total ass clown douchebag son of a bitch. And then I would be unemployed and I’d have a whole new set of things to whine about like being homeless and having no place to store my shoes.
Basically what the argument came down to was that I have been busting my ass taking all these extra credits that go towards my pay scale. After three years I finally have enough to skip to the next level, which means a pretty significant jump in salary. And by significant, I mean I will actually be able to afford gas on a bi-weekly basis now. So after putting in my time taking classes like Guitar (useless), Beginning French (I have a degree in French), Bookmaking (aka Arts and Crafts), and Technology in the Classroom (which made me both sad for the complete ineptitude of my co-workers and also want to take my own life with a computer network cable noose just to not listen to anymore of their insane questions), I WANT MY GODDAMN MONEY.
After receiving an email from HR a few weeks ago stating that anyone with enough credits should get their hard-earned money this week, I was eager to see that $.75 extra in my pay and logged into my online banking. Only, my check was exactly the same as ever with the added bonus that they’ve started subtracting the $100 a month for mandatory union dues. So I sent off a very pleasant email to HR asking if there was something wrong with my paperwork that I had sent in in MAY and went in over the summer to DOUBLE CHECK and then chatted with the head of HR all about how my paperwork is TOTALLY READY TO GO IN SEPTEMBER, and got a response that had nothing at all to do with my question.
Then I sucked it up and called them on the actual telephone, even though I hate the telephone more than Sarah Palin hates foreign policy questions, and talked to the dude in charge, who explained that he was behind and that none of the paperwork had been processed yet and he had over a hundred changes to process and couldn’t everyone just leave him alone to NOT DO HIS JOB?
I know if I could just go home and nap off this crankiness all would be well. Instead, I am going to hang out here at school till 9 pm, shaking hands with parents and then handing around a hat for them to give me cash money tips.
What? If the woman who hands me my burnt coffee at Starbucks every morning gets a tip, surely so should I. I am dealing with the future of America, people. PAY UP.
Sep
24
I’ll see what I can do about getting some photographs for you on Fancy Dress Friday. I’m still debating about whether or not it’s a good idea to put my old peeps on display on my public access blog, just in case anyone from this town ever discovers the site. On the other hand, the pictures might come out so awesome that I’ll say screw it and post them for you anyway. You could get lucky.
My Quiz Bowl kids are back! We had our first meeting of the minds, and let me tell you, nothing is more discouraging than taking the cream of the crop, the best and brightest of the students, handing them a trivia buzzer, and having them stare at it blankly. One button! You’ve all done this before! When you know the answer, you hit that ONE BUTTON. Remember last year, when you did it EVERY SINGLE WEEK? I have never seen kids so perplexed. It’s a wonder we managed to ever win at all last year. Then, once they got the hang of taking their thumb, placing it over the button, and pressing down, they thought it would be grand fun to continue to press it until my fragile mind broke and I ran screaming from the library to get away from the infernal beeping. Three cheers for the smarties!
Speaking of smart, did I tell you about the other day, when Chris accidentally shaved off half his eyebrow and I had to draw it in when we went out with some friends? No? It was a good one. Luckily for him, there’s nothing I find sexier than a man with one and a half eyebrows.
Oh, hey, remember how last year my office smelled like a sewer drain? Right, yeah, it still does. They put in a new air ventilation system over the summer and now my work space has double the awesome of being freezing and smelling like total ass. I’m sure the rest of this year will involve many butt-cleavaged men lying on the floor of my office in their attempts to locate the river of feces that surely must accompany this rank smell. At this point there is no other explanation. Until those men show up, however, I am going to build myself a nest from the pages ripped from old paperback novels and cocoon myself in until summer.
There you have the Wednesday morning updates on the life and times of NPW. You may now return to your regularly scheduled daily activities.
Sep
23
In It To Win It
Filed Under Uncategorized | 25 Comments
My senior citizen volunteers and I are having a fancy dress competition on Friday. I’m not really certain how this came about, all I know is that I already had to threaten the oldest of the group, Victoria, that she better not wear anything “sexy” after she declared she was going to be the sexiest of the group. I mean, I know she is French, but seriously. This is a school. I can’t have a bunch of 70-somethings running around in bodices and lace.
Anyway, this Victoria always dresses as though she is attending a runway show, even when I tell her I am going to have her dusting bookshelves and cleaning mold off of the windowsills. The other day she wore a mink stole with a silk blouse, a long skirt, and high heeled boots. Most of the time she also wears blue eyeshadow and pink rouge on her cheeks and she has a very strong French accent. All of the other senior citizens call her “Queen Victoria” behind her back. The other woman that comes in on the same day, Theresa, almost always wears black track pants and a black t-shirt, and it drives Victoria crazy. According to Victoria, “one must always dress as if it is our last time to be dressed”. Pretty profound philosophy from the woman who calls our school’s custodians “the help”.
Theresa stubbornly refuses to give up her (completely appropriate) casual attire even though Victoria has been begging her for years. So when Theresa announced that this Friday would be her last day volunteering until 2009, Victoria seized the chance to challenge Theresa to wear something fancy. Old lady showdown! Because she is pretty much insane I expected Theresa to not only refuse, but to also rip Victoria a new one for buying into the stereotypical female mores of dress. In a shocking twist, Theresa agreed and then said I must compete as well. I humored them and said I would participate, but now I’m thinking longingly of wearing jeans on Friday and besides, I don’t think I even own anything I would consider fancy. Do I need to run out and buy some elbow-length gloves?
Actually, maybe Fancy Dress Friday will be good for me. I’m going to see the Cirque du Soleil show on Friday night anyway and I should probably not wear jeans to that. Plus, even if I lose to Victoria, I know for a fact that I will win against Polly because I’m 90% certain her wardrobe consists solely of appliqued sweaters and elastic-waist pants. Don’t you wish my life were a reality TV show?
Sep
21
New Digs
Filed Under Uncategorized | 26 Comments
Well hello there, my internet loves. I hope you all had gorgeous weekends and that you weren’t subjected to the torture that was Sunday’s Patriots game like I was. In an attempt to distract myself from the eye-gougingly horrible train wreck that is New England football sans Tom Brady, I spent many hours poring over Wordpress themes. Because nothing cheers me up like an endless procession of websites that seem like they were possibly designed for lunatics.
And of course, by the end of the day I had an acute computer headache, some vague nausea from not stepping outside all day, and this new template that was the best I could find. So I hope you like it! At least it is widget-friendly. Sigh. If you’re reading via an RSS feed, swing by and check it out. As of right now, it still needs some retooling. The pictures in the posts are somewhat messed up and I can’t seem to get them to right themselves. If only I had spent more time learning CSS code and less time reading Judy Blume!
Anyway, Chris has promised to help me with an entire redesign as soon as we have time to sit down and play with it. Which, I hope you like this one, because looking at my google calendar it seems I have no time for “sitting and playing” until June of 2010. And also, judging from past experience with changing templates, my patience is very short-lived and I end up looking at it for a while, shrugging, and giving it a “good enough” nod.
Now I’m off to spy on the neighbors, who have about fifteen chairs out on the sidewalk where they are shotgunning beers and singing En Vogue’s Never Gonna Get It while watching the TV they have dragged outside and set up on a card table. Earlier in the day they had placed the TV in a sideways cardboard box to shield it from the sunlight while they watched the football game and smoked cigars. Either these people are very clever or I should have spent the day searching craig’s list for new apartments instead of blog templates.
Sep
19
Huey Lewis’s “Back In Time” Said It All
Filed Under Uncategorized | 18 Comments
Yesterday I boarded a yellow school bus so that I could chaperone a field trip to a replication colonial village. It was a long haul out to western Massachusetts but I whiled away the time by talking to kids about the bands they are into. One sweet little girl told me that she recently started listening to a German punk band called Tokio Hotel, which caught me totally off guard. Then she said she also loved Kanye West and Katy Perry and my ideas on what middle school kids were listening to were restored. I also had a philosophical discussion with another student where he attempted to explain to me why Nirvana was the greatest band ever even though he hadn’t even been born when Nevermind was released. He pointed out that I wasn’t alive when the Beatles were around but still loved them, which I conceded, but then I pointed out that no matter how much he talked about Coldplay he would never get me to agree that they were anything more than whiny, no-talent losers, which shut him down. NPW 1, middle school student, 1.
Then he spent the rest of the bus ride bellowing “Yellow”. You win, kid. This time.
Anyway, the colonial village was pretty entertaining. We got to watch people in period dress churn butter, bake bread, make horseshoes, and weave cloth. First of all, people in period dress are always hilarious. Second of all, the kids were really into it, which made it even funnier, so I just followed them around and let them ask anything they wanted, including my favorite, “Were there any townspeople who walked around after the horses picking up their poop? Didn’t anyone get mad that they were always almost stepping in it when they walked?” I had to pretend to study the diagram of a sawmill after that one so as not to explode.
They even had a town meeting, where the kids got to vote whether or not to buy a farm for the paupers to work so that they weren’t a burden to the community. When the moderator asked if someone would make a motion to vote, one of the kids in my group stood up and silently waved his arms around. I was glad when the whole town hall erupted in laughter so I didn’t have to stifle my snort. Then the moderator asked if anyone had any ideas on how the town could raise money without raising taxes and another kid stood up and said, “We could hold a stagecoach wash!”
Thankfully I didn’t lose any of my kids in 1840, even though the other teachers thought it would be hilarious to put this kid in my group. I told him to keep one eye on me and the other eye on the ground so he didn’t walk through the copious amounts of horse poop because I did not need to spend the two hour drive back smelling manure.
After we got back from the trip I caught a train downtown and met up with Noelle, who was in town on biznass. We had dinner at one of my favorite downtown locales and then we each caught trains back home. Well, I suppose technically Noelle went back to her hotel, but it was really quite ritzy, so I am considering it her temporary home. Plus, then I can pretend she lives in Boston and not in Poughkeepsie so we could hang out more than once every couple of months.
Sep
17
In my school we have these rolling carts that store about twenty laptops apiece. I have four of these rolling carts, which in theory gives me eighty portable computers. Also in theory, this would mean that I can wheel those carts right into classrooms, giving me insta-labs and freeing up the overcrowded library. Hypothetically, I could actually go up to a classroom to give a lesson on searching databases or creating citations and the students would all have a computer in front of them as they follow my instruction.
In practice, this is crap.
The carts are not taken care of. Teachers allow the kids to throw the computers back in there without plugging them in to charge, so the next time someone goes to use them they are all dead. In addition, half of the computers are from circa 2001 and have a battery life of somewhere between two to five minutes anyway. So the plugging and unplugging of 25 computers in a classroom creates this huge maze of wires, like an obstacle course for me to run while I’m trying to also teach and make sure that everyone is on the same page. Once I tried not walking around the room while I was explaining and by the time I had finished my spiel and started moving around to individual students I saw that four of them were still staring blankly at the login screen.
The other problem is that although they are technically laptop computers, the school itself is not wireless. The only wireless hub in the whole school is in the library, where there are no laptop computers, except for my work computer, which has no battery and thus cannot be removed from my desk at any point. So really, it’s just a desktop with less memory. ANYWAY, the classrooms are not wireless and so the rolling carts have these mini-hubs on them that are constantly breaking. Since I have been deemed the “Tech Person”, the task of fixing them falls to me, but, in a most convenient fashion, I do not have admin access to actually fix anything. Dudes, I can’t even clear an error message in the printer queue without calling someone in the technology department. FOR REAL.
So last year my Principal had the brilliant plan to move two of these roll-y carts to the library where there is a wireless hub so that the laptops are- gasp!- wireless. A couple of be-buttcracked men showed up over the summer and installed a bank of electrical outlets and voila, a makeshift computer lab was born.
Twice I used the laptops with my students and twice everything went swimmingly. Finally I convinced one of the older, jaded teachers to bring her students down to try them out and oh ho ho, guess what? TOTAL FAIL. I was completely perplexed but of course, having no admin rights, could do nothing to help them and sent them away researchless.
So this morning I was staring at the carts, willing them to tell me what I had done to deserve such treatment, when it dawned on me. The carts were being stored on the opposite side of the library from where the wireless hub was located. I had been using them close to the hub so they worked fine, the other teacher was 15 feet away and somehow this meant COMPLETE MALFUNCTION. I tested my theory and I am correct.
So I will amend my previous statement that the library is the only place in the building with wireless access to half of the library is the only place in the building with wireless access.
Now that you all know the dizzying thrills my working day entails, I’m off to use the typewriter to order some stuff from Amazon, AN ONLINE COMPANY.
Sep
16
Maybe The Universe Is Trying To Tell Me Something. I Just Have No Idea What.
Filed Under Uncategorized | 23 Comments
To tell you all the truth, I really thought I was going to be a whiny baby about getting back into my regular writing routine. I mean, I’m totally whiny about being back at work so what’s the difference? But hey, what do you know, I’m actually enjoying getting back in the blogging saddle. At the very least it’s an opportunity to put the crappy work days in perspective, but I also kind of forgot how much I love all of you who read and comment.
So, thank you for that. End sappiness.
And actually, things here in the library aren’t so bad. The walls are now a calming blue and tan color, I have a couple of couches and tables and rugs on order, and things are really shaping up, design-wise. The next step is to have a shaman stop in and make sure all my chakras are aligned. Or maybe I can just have the Chinese people do that part; they’ll owe me one for providing them with a couch to nap on.
I also have a new air ventilation system that sucks in clean air from outside and spews it around my office. Right now it’s kind of like having a nice breeze, but I won’t lie, I’m a little concerned that come winter it is going to be pulling in the subzero temperatures and I’ll be storing my Lean Cuisines right on my desk. The teachers upstairs have the same ventilation system in their rooms and by the time they come down for lunch they’re blue-lipped and shivering inside their parkas. I suppose it will give me a chance to test drive all those new wool sweaters I’ve been eyeballing at J. Crew but dressing like Nanook of the North for six months out of the year does get a little tiring.
In other news, I came close to being crushed to death this morning by my rolling bookcases. One of my senior citizen volunteers didn’t realize I was in between them looking for a copy of Gossip Girl I knew I had stored somewhere, and started pushing the bookcases together. My shirt got snagged on the corner of the shelf and suddenly, very quickly, my face was crammed against a classroom set of The Adventures of Tom Sawyer and my left ribs were crushed by an oversized atlas of North America. Taken by surprise, I only managed a grunt of pain and then started trying to twist my way out of the trap as Polly continued to push harder and harder, confused as to why the shelves weren’t moving.
Finally I managed to rip myself free, twisting my ankle in the process, and Polly gasped when she saw me stumble out, bruised and battered. She ran next door to the school nurse who gave me ice for my wounds and laughed at my indignity.
I haven’t come that close to death since 2005, after a harrowing adventure in re-shelving books. Is it any coincidence that both times it was someone over the age of seventy-five who came to my rescue? I think not. But then again, it’s probably also not a coincidence that both times my injuries were also caused by someone over the age of seventy-five. I’m going to call these senior citizen volunteers a wash and go lie down in the Media Closet for a little while until my ribs stop aching.
Sep
15
I’m a Fool for the Fall
Filed Under Uncategorized | 21 Comments
Full working week number two has just begun and the temperature in the library has already climbed to well over 80 degrees. What happened to my beautiful cool and breezy fall days? Apparently Mother Nature didn’t get the memo that Starbucks brought back their pumpkin spice latte because hello, pumpkin and clove definitely means sweater weather. Instead I am holed up in my dark office trying to decide whether to open the windows and hope for a breeze, or keep them sealed and hope they will keep the hot outside air from broiling me alive. For now I’ve decided on windows shut so if you don’t hear from me again you’ll know I’ve met my demise at the hands of my library.
Onward, yes? I’ve been thinking of all the fun fall activities I have lined up and then started to panic a little because holy crap, how did my Google calendar fill up so quickly? Would I even have time to fit in all the fun stuff I want to do this year? I need a stunt double to do all the boring stuff. Union meetings? Hop to it, NPW Stunt Double! Back to school night? You go ahead and hang out in the library till 9 p.m., NPW SD! I’ll be kickin’ it at ye olde King Richard’s Faire with a turkey leg in one hand and a jousting lance in the other.
A few other fall activities on my list:
First, my all-time favorite event of the entire year is the Deerfield Fair. Some people might mock the fair for its corniness, but then again, some people are stupid. The D’field Fair is the be all, end all of fairdom. There really is nothing greater than getting bundled up in a wool sweater, grabbing a caramel apple, and hitting up the tractor pull, the smell of diesel fuel lighting up the cool night air. Set in a remote town in New Hampshire, Deerfield is the provenance of many mullets, oversized pumpkins, and livestock. And that’s just the beginning! There’s also the As Seen on TV live demonstrations, the equestrian show, and the place that sells awesome NH pins, not to mention all the food and the amazing people watching. Last year was Chris’s first Deerfield experience and he’s been counting the days until we could go back.
Second, I was thrilled to read that the Museum of Bad Art has opened a new branch- right down the street from my house! It’s in the basement of the historic Somerville Theater, next to the men’s room. The only catch is that you have to buy a movie ticket to gain admission, but that’s a bonus as far as I’m concerned. Date night is only four days away!
There’s also the upcoming Cirque du Soleil show, for which we have crazy awesome tickets, a Boston blogger meet up, for which plans are in the works, and various parties on the agenda including the fourth annual Acerock Zombie Bash. Not to mention apple picking, pumpkin carving, and haunted houses!
You know, screw this 90 degree weather. I’m putting on a sweater anyway, in solidarity with the Fall. Who’s with me?