Things That Have Made Me Feel Old Recently

12 year olds don't use the W when saying the name of the current President. Why? Because they are only vaguely aware there is another guy with the same name. Why? Because they were born in the Clinton era.

Realizing this is the last year we can ask 7th graders to journal about 9/11 as next year the kids would have been four years old at the time and probably won't have any firsthand memories.

12 year olds seem to love 70's music. It is music so old it is "even older than their parent's music!"

Movies

Superbad ♣♣♣½

Catch and Release ♣½

Reno 911 ♣♣¾

Blazing Saddles ♣♣♣¾

Probably a Sign that it is Time for Sergio to Come Home

I am watching Stephen King's The Stand. It is like eight hours long and I have seen it before and I wasn't all that thrilled about it then. I also worked out for well over an hour today just because. Yup, I'm bored.

He is Physically Older At Least

Happy 25th!

Unrelated Topics

I kind of want to talk about how the student teaching is going here on the blog, but I don't think that would be wise. One day I will need a job and wouldn't want anything incriminating here. Not that it is going badly or anything, but the only way to talk about it in an interesting manner would require some amount of privacy violation. Oh well. Overall I haven't done much of anything except watch. What have I learned? 12 year olds are the most intimidating people on Earth. Intimidation is like an art form to them, or a complicated dance.
One, Two, Snide Comment and Whisper to Friend, Five, Six, Giggle and Point.

Eliot got attacked at the dog park today. It was that sort of slow-motion awful moment where all sound drops away and all you can hear is your poor little dog screaming like a small child as he runs around in terror and your husband yelling to nobody in particular, "Heeey, Whaaat the heeellll (cuz its slow motion). First some large dog went after him and then nearly every other dog in the park decided it looked like fun and ran after them both biting Eliot's back legs. It probably looked comical from far away, 30 dogs chasing a panicked yelping poodle while 30 humans chased the dogs in circles. But it wasn't really. Afterward Eliot hung limp in my arms while little girls swarmed him to see if he was ok. I knew he was in shock when he let them touch him. Other than emotional damage he seems fine except for a scratched eye. To add even more insult to the event, he had to have a bath when he got home which he probably thought was punishment. On the bright side, I got to see Sergio in full Lawyer Mode, which is always fun.

Has anyone seen the South Park episode where Cartman gets trained by the Dog Whisperer? I haven't laughed that hard in a long time.

This One is Big...

but I've seen bigger.










Oregon slugs should be declared one of the wonders of the world, in my opinion.

Holiday Hijinks

This is going to be a very haphazard post. I have been trying to find time to write about our Labor Day weekend since it was over, but there just hasn't been any time. I wanted to do something more than just recite our activities in a boring monotone kind of way, but it isn't going to happen. Sergio is still going to school and working when he isn't in school and doing homework when he isn't in school or working. I began my internship with 7th graders this week, along with school. When I am not doing those things I am driving Sergio around to all of his places. We call it quality time together.

So, the weekend. Finally on Sunday we were both healthy enough to leave the house for more than a couple of minutes at a time, but not having expected to ever be healthy ever again, we had no labor day plans. So around noon we decided to go to the Portland Zoo. When we got there we realized you NEVER go to the zoo on a holiday weekend. We had to park in emergency holiday zoo parking and were supposed to catch a shuttle. However, the line for the shuttle was alarming and we walked to the zoo, making it long before we would have gotten transportation. Then we waited in another line to get tickets. It was kind of like that all day. However, it was lovely. The zoo is small and nice and has some neat things. It was warm by Portland standards, but still cool enough that all of the animals were out. One of the better groups of animals were the bats, which I had never seen so closely. Kind of creepy, yet very cute. We were told there were six babies somewhere in the group but we never saw them. We did see a bit of bat baby-making, though. The other highlight of the trip was when I wanted Sergio to lean in and see the naked mole rats a little closer. To accomplish this I smacked what I thought was Sergio on what I thought was the leg without turning around. It turned out to be a strange guy and his strange rear. He and his girlfriend did not see the humor in this event.

And on Monday we went hiking along the Clackamas River. We usually come home from a hike with mishap stories. I have to say, though, this was the perfect hike in every way. 7.2 miles is the perfect distance. It ended at a secluded waterfall. It never went up or down for too long. We just had the best time. We played by the river a few times, watched kayakers, and ate lunch next to the secluded waterfall. At the end Sergio decided he should jump off of some rocks into the very cold river. So he did. Then he decided I would think it was fun. I stood on the small rock ledge and I stepped off...and back on. I was cheered on by a sweet couple near us who probably would have liked me to just get on with it so that could get back to their romantic moment. I moved to a shorter rocky ledge. 15 minutes later after several false starts, I gave up. A few minutes later, I moved to the shortest rocky ledge, just a couple of feet high. Sergio counted to three and I did nothing. He counted to three again and I did nothing. The third time, at the encouragement from the nearby (probably frustrated) girls, I jumped. I am glad I did, though hiking another two miles in wet clothes, shoes, and socks? Not out brightest idea.

Please click on the flickr picture box to the right of the screen to see the Clackamas river pics. I can't load them right now. They are under Everything Else.

Do Not Fill in the Blanks, Please

I hesitated to post this picture the other day in the big group of other pictures, because I specifically wanted to talk about this one. I also meant to ask our friends for a copy of a similar picture from Reeanna's wedding that does not include me, Seth, Courtney, or (Trainer) Matt, but does include (Cajun) Matt, Bryson, Kelly, and Iggy. I never got around to asking for this picture, so we are going to go with our imaginations. Don't worry about it if you don't know the faces to match these names. It isn't important for our purposes here. These pictures are known as the "Pomfret Pictures" and if you put them both together, you have a pretty good chunk of the group from freshmen year in Pomfret dorm. Even if we weren't all close friends at the time, we were all there and we all hung out.

The thing that keeps bringing me back to these pictures again and again is the photographic proof that we are all adults. Or at least well on our way. Those people beside us in the pictures, a lot of them are married, some of them are planning for kids already, and most of them have jobs that make my eyes glaze over because the titles are three paragraphs long yet I still can't figure out what it is they actually DO at work. They have titled jobs! It still floors me.

But that isn't the most amazing thing about these gatherings. The most incredible thing is that we are all there at all. Why? Well, here are some samples of conversations we had recently,
"Do you remember when _________ used to ________ a ________ of ________ every weekend?"
"Do you remember that time when _______ got ________ and had to go the hospital for ________ because he ________ his _______?
"Do you remember when _______ had to pull _______ from ________ ________ after he _________?
"Do you remember that time _______ got so ______ she lost her _______ at the _______ _______? ***
"Remember how ______ always _______ when she ________?

I think these are referred to as the good old days.

Seriously though, we were all pretty good kids. The fact is, we were just kids who went through a fun and formative time together. I hope that in seven more years I look back at this picture and realize how we were all still babies in this picture as I compare it to all of our friends who still get together for something important...like a football game or dinner.

***Upon rereading this sentence I see that it could look more incriminating than it is. The answer is "she lost her shoe's"