I would’ve blogged Monday, but I was too distraught. We have a chance of flurries to a light dusting this week. Specifically tonight. Dusting. What a nasty word. I’ve been riveted to the TV, watching every weather report available. And I’m so blue, I don’t know how I’ve even made it to work. It’s all so punishing. Here are some words I don’t want to hear any more:
1. The front is heading south.
2. Gonna miss us.
3. Should pose no travel problems.
4. Small amounts of snow. Maybe.
5. Luckily, we’re going to dodge this one.

When I hear that negative, unholy talk, it makes me so mad, I want to say my own bad words. Like some of these:

What the French, Toast? That STILL makes me laugh. Great commercial. Super Bowl worthy.

So today was the six week anniversary of my aspartame ban. And how did I celebrate? I bought a Diet Dr. Pepper.
Seriously.
It was a weak, weak moment! I caved! I was tired (woke up late), sad (I hate you, Weather Channel!), and I missed the burn of Diet Dr. Pepper, you know when you take a drink and it’s like your esophagus is being acidically burned away. Love it!

But my guilt got the best of me. I placed it on my desk. And stared at it for ten minutes. Finally students filtered into my classroom, and I forced the drink on one of them and made her promise not to let me see it, no matter how much I begged.

So yeah, rough week. But nothing a little snow and ice wouldn’t help.
Please keep me and a blizzard in your prayers.

It’s been a wild week of Britney watching, tornado ducking, and of course…no snow.

I know you’re dying for an update, so I wanted to let you know that I’ve made no progress in my yoga and my quest to balance myself on my elbows while upside down. But I bet when I get there, I can also do this:

But apparently roller skating under cars is much like yoga–you have to practice. And that’s not my strength. Just ask my mom, who paid for five years of piano lessons. (But I do play a mean Mary Had a Little Lamb.)

You know in teaching, we often don’t get the old parental support. A lot of people like to believe they have the perfect child (you don’t). That their angel wouldn’t do anything wrong (he would). And that it’s all my fault (Actually I’m the one who’s perfect). We love, love, love our parents who believe in discipline and accountability. I think I would really like the mom from Iowa who recently took out this ad after she found alcohol in her son’s car.

OLDS 1999 Intrigue. Totally uncool parents who obviously don’t love teenage son, selling his car. Only driven for three weeks before snoopy mom who needs to get a life found booze under front seat. $3,700/offer. Call meanest mom on the planet.

Another reason to love her? She makes her son drive a ‘99 Oldsmobile. Not only does mom believe in discipline, but she believes in humility. Your first car should always be an old, outdated piece. You haven’t lived until the ___________ (insert automotive technical term here) goes out on your car that Chevy no longer makes and you’re doing 35 miles an hour on the interstate in falling snow, and with the remaining life your car has, you pull over to the truck stop on top of a mountain and wait for your mother, who’s over an hour away and also doesn’t drive in snow, to come and get you. That builds character! (And it could’ve built a healthy smoking habit, but I resisted.) My car, Poopster, gave me lots of memories. And lots of repair bills. Some of her problems I fixed myself. Like I fixed the radio, which I found wouldn’t work unless you stuck an eye glass holder up in the back of it. And the many times I locked myself out of the car? No problem, I could just crawl into the back hatch (which couldn’t lock for mysterious and unexplainable reasons) and over the seats.
The Poopster and I went to high school and college together, and she taught me all about faith. Because every morning the only thing that started her was prayer. And promises to never give her up.
Obviously one of us was a liar.

Have a great weekend.

Seventy degree weather in the winter doesn’t just make Al Gore angry. It makes Mother Nature totally freak out. Ugh. last night was cray-zay! It all started about seven. Then continued through two a.m. Funnel clouds, rotations, get to your safe place (really? I should take cover from a tornado in a vat of Ben and Jerry’s?), all is safe, no, cancel that, take cover again! Etc. EXHAUSTING.

A lot of things go through your mind when twisters show up.
Like:
1. Should this be my last night on earth, I am really going to regret not eating a high calorie dinner.

2. If all this torrential rain was frozen, I’d be out of school for like a week!

3. Should I risk the hail and drive down the street to hang out in my friend’s cellar? Yes, I think so. What kind of snacks should I pack for that?

4. Should wind sound like that?

5. If I take cover in my bathroom, the most interior room, my car could crash in on me. I think that would hurt.

6. Is it irresponsible to sleep through a tornado?

7. Who are these freak storm chasers who keep calling into Channel 5? “Um. . . yeah, it’s uh, raining here. That’s all.” You’re a disgrace to true storm chasing!

8. And why don’t they have winter storm chasers? Snow seekers? I would totally sign up for that.

9. Why do true storm chasers get in the most dangerous places? “I’m calling from the top of the overpass, looking right into the eye of a funnel cloud. I think I just saw my house fly overhead…”

10. And my final thought at 2:15, as I woke up to screaming winds,my house shaking like it was going to collapse, and the electricity going off. . . Should I put pants on?

I need a vacation. The lack of snow in my 68 degree world is about to do me in. I’m about to go all Britney and call Dr. Phil.

And when I get stressed, I like to think about. . . otters. You can’t look at these two and not get a peacful, easy feeling.

You know those otters are like,
“Ugh. They’re staring. Again.”
“I know, like watch the flash, lady!”

Otters aren’t always that calm though. I may have shown this one before, but I like it so much.

“I am otter. I like to get my groove on. Shake it…Shake it…”

My friend Andrea, a world traveling composer (initially I typed composter. Ha! She travels the world, searching for that perfect combination of manure and corn husks…) sent me a website that sell these:

My cats would scratch my face off if I tried to put one of those things on them. And what’s with the electric blue color? Cats have taste. What about some nice highlights and lowlights?

Not only do my cats not want any wigs, but they also don’t want to play any musical instruments, like this one:

I like the one hand moves. And I wouldn’t recommend watching it that long, but after the first minute, he starts banging on the cabinet. So talented! Mine just stare at me like, “Gimme something to eat!”

So more heatwave weather on tap for this week. It hurts my heart. Al Gore, you were right all along. We do need to stop this insanity. I mean, I wasn’t too concerned when Al said our excessive lifestyles would affect future generations (yawn), but if it’s going to deplete me of my greatest natural resource–snow days–then, I’m all ears. I will buy those swirly lightbulbs. I will take canvas bags to Wal-Mart. I will cut my bathing frequency by half. ANYTHING!!! It’s time to reclaim snow days, er, the environment.

Call me, Al Gore. Call me.
(No, actually have Leonardo DiCaprio call me. He seems to know just as much and he’s a little easier on the eyes.)

Have a great week!

Wow, lots going on in the world. Trouble in Pakistan, chaos in Kenya, the hustle and bustle of Iowa, my former governor on Jay Leno.Lindsey Lohan boozing it up on New Year’s, Brit’s lawyers quitting (the third set), and Brit finally sitting down to her deposition (a whole whopping 14 minutes–what’s that about?).

And a story that also came out this past week–the poor girl whose essay won her four tickets to see Hannah Montana, only get them snatched out of her hands because her little essay apparently wasn’t all true. I guess she wrote about her military dad dying in Iraq…and then she won the tickets…then the truth came out and she lost her expense paid trip to see Hannah M.

A few people I know brought this story to my attention. See when I was in the eighth grade there was this contest in our local paper. You were to write a STORY about the best Christmas you ever had. That’s totally what our English teacher said to do. And she said if we won the contest, the prize was a frozen turkey. But if we didn’t want the turkey she’d give us ten bucks. Well, I saw dollar signs and wrote myself a little story about a girl and her brother who lost their dad, but found the true meaning of Christmas. It’s okay, you can shed a tear. I know it’s heart-tugging already, isn’t it? And I won the contest. The story was published and then the calls started coming in. People we knew wanted to pass on their condolences over the loss of my father–seems they hadn’t even known he was sick, let alone bought the farm.

Apparently the story was supposed to have been true–not fictional. But in my defense, I never saw a rule sheet–that I recall anyway. And our teacher never said it had to be true. So I kind of feel for the girl who wrote the made up story about her not-so-dead father. Sometimes a girl just needs to fake a father’s death, okay?
But I do have a friend (and her mother) who will NEVER let me forget my subterfuge. My accidental trickery. My shenanigans in the name of free poultry. But I still contend (Sheila, if you’re reading this!) that I won that bird fair and square. Plus my dad probably needed to reconnect with some of those old high school friends anyway.

For 2008 I would love to really do yoga on a regular basis. I do it about once every two months. You know, often enough to pull something. This week I watched Gelman, the Regis and Kelly producer show off his yoga skills. The guy is in his 50s and he can do this.

So this really inspired me. I am always amazed what these yogis can do, lifting their own body weight and basically making themselves all pretzely. So I tuned into FitTV (love that channel) for Namaste Yoga and did some yoga myself. Then they broke out the advanced moves. And I thought…I’m gonna try this. It looked like this:
Tripod Handstand Pose: Tips for Mastering Advanced Yoga Techniques
I thought, how hard can it be?
I nearly fell into the TV.
And I didn’t feel any too relaxed afterwards.
I think I forgot to “ommm.” I’m sure that will make all the difference.
Well, that and the fact that only silly putty should be twisted like that.

Have a good weekend.
Ommmm….