My new year's resolution

This time of year it seems that everyone makes their new year’s resolutions. Usually it’s something like eating healthier or exercising more. Nah, I’m not interested in either of those. I mean I’m not giving up my Sour Patch Kids and Krispy Kremes. And the idea of jogging isn’t as tempting as say lying on the couch watching back-to-back episodes of Bromance and The City…..while eating Sour Patch Kids and Krispy Kremes. I guess mine isn’t a resolution per se, but simply something I want to accomplish. I have DVD’s out the rear that are sitting in boxes out in the garage. I just don’t have the time to watch them anymore, so I need to just put them in someone’s garage sale and get rid of them. Here’s the problem: I can’t seem to let them go without watching each of them one more time. So my new year’s resolution is to re-watch 400-odd movies by the end of 2009. Now some may scoff and ask where’s the challenge in that. I would respond by asking them if they have ever tried sitting through a second viewing of From Justin To Kelly. Ya, keeping your butt on the treadmill seems like a walk in the park next to that. When I told Rachel my plan, her only objection was to make sure I didn’t get rid of the classics. I, too, would have a hard time tossing aside Casablanca or The Godfather or Field of Dreams. When I asked her what other pillars of cinematic excellence she wanted me to set aside, Rachel had the audacity to utter the words How To Lose A Guy In Ten Days. I almost swerved into the oncoming lane of traffic. After taking a few seconds to regain my composure, as politely as I could I told her that a more apt categorization would be something like “expendable chick flick trash.” That didn’t go over well. So basically we’ll also be saving the entire Kate Hudson film catalog, along with Hope Floats, 50 First Dates, and Runaway Bride. The things I do for the woman I love.

The curious case of Ella Ritchason

Tonight the kids and I ran to Kroger to pick up a few items. Ella is at that stage where she asks questions about everything. It's like living with a three year old Diane Sawyer.

• "Why are we getting chicken?"
• "Why are strawberries too expensive?"
• "Why can't we eat the donuts now?"
  
• "Why did Liam open that new box of cereal?"
  
• "Why is it too cold for popsicles?"
• "Why is that boy in that cart eating his boogies?"

With only one more thing to buy, we headed down the toilet paper aisle. I stopped midway down the row next to an elderly gentleman who bore a striking resemblance to a young (or is it old?) Benjamin Button. He was very kind and said hello to both Ella and Liam. I made my decision and threw the package into the cart. As fate would have it, just as we passed the man, Ella pointed and exuberantly declared, "Look Daddy! That man has diapers just like Liam!" I'll admit that I was tempted to grab the Depends from the man's grasp and shove them in my daughter's mouth. As you can imagine, while we were waiting for the cashier the ring up our groceries, young Katie Couric had a laundry list of questions about the man and his adult diapers. I finally just said that maybe he was getting them for a baby that was at his house. She replied matter of factly, "Daddy, grandpas can't have babies."

Rerouted

This morning I ordered some items from Amazon for some last-minute Christmas gifts. When I received my confirmation email I noticed that I hadn’t chosen our home address as the shipping address. Instead it would be delivered to school. After tomorrow at 3:10 there won’t be a soul in sight around here until January 5. I found the customer service number and dialed. When an actual person actually picked up it sounded like I was calling Santa himself at the North Pole. The line was so full of static that I could barely make out the Indian elf on the other end. I tried to explain what the problem was to which the woman on the other end responded with what sounded like “odor blubber.” I think she mistakenly thought I had ordered a rotting dead whale carcass, which I hear is one of the hot ticket items for the holidays. After the fourth time repeating “I’m sorry, I can’t understand you” I think she was mad and sounded out in her best American accent “Orrrrrrrrrderrrrrrrrrrr Nummmmmmberrrrrrrrrrr.” I gave it to her and she pulled up my account. She said that she could reroute the shipment to the other address I had on file. I told her that would be great and she confirmed that the order would now be shipped to 106 Constitution Drive in Milford, Connecticut. Of course I immediately tried to explain to her that this was not my address and by her silence on the other end I could tell that this completely baffled her. She asked me when was the last time I lived there to which I responded with “never.” I think she was beginning to wonder if I was a battered husband that had gone into the witness protection program. I then had to repeat my address over and over. “No, not Girl Street….Earl Street….E-A-R-L…. No, there’s no B….I don’t live on Barl Street.” Exactly 21 minutes later I ended the call, praying that it would get delivered to the right address. If not, my brother will be opening up a gift of leftover apple juice from our Christmas party today.

And the day just started

So it’s been a crazy busy morning so far. I was out on playground duty this morning and saw one of my students get out of her car and start walking my way. As she was walking a deep-voiced man in the car yelled her name but she didn’t hear it. It sounded like her mom’s boyfriend who picks her up from school on occasion. So I spoke up and said “Arianna, that guy in your car needs you.” She looked at my quizzically, glanced back at her car, and said “That’s my mom.” My mistake.

As soon as we got inside another girl brought up a note to me. It read:

Sydney has a bad cough. Sucking on things makes it better. I’ve sent her with a bag of suckers. Please let her eat as many of these as she needs to. This will help her throat feel better.

Yes, because having a student eating a never-ending supply of Blow Pops all day isn’t going to create any problems in the classroom.

Fashion forward

I don’t understand Ella’s fashion choices. I’m definitely out of the loop because everything she throws on looks like an outfit designed by an eliminated Project Runway contestant. This morning she came down the stairs wearing this, saying that she was going to Starbucks. Unless you’re Gwen Stefani, I’m not sure that you can pull off that look. Something tells me that Garrett the nineteen-year old barista wouldn’t understand it either.

Tonight Rachel was at work, so the kids and I had a simple meal of bacon, eggs, and English muffins. Ella’s all about helping out in the kitchen these days so I placed her in charge of putting butter on the muffins. She ran off and came back twenty seconds later dressed as a ladybug because we all know that you can’t spread butter without resembling a three-foot beetle. She put enough on one English muffin to kill someone instantly with one bite. I’ve seen Scottish castles that are smaller.

Secret Santa

This last week of school is our annual Secret Santa festivities. It can be a mixed bag because one year I received great gifts (Starbucks every day for a month) but the next year really sucked (a peach candle anyone?). Now I realize I can’t control who my Secret Santa is, but I can conspire to pick out who I want to buy gifts for. So two weeks ago when we had to draw out names I picked over and over until I got someone I was excited about. I made up a variety of excuses for the first seven names I drew out:

• “Oops, I picked out myself.”


• “Oh, I had her name last year.”


• “She wrote down that her favorite snacks are Werther’s and peanut brittle. She’s so old she might not even make it until Christmas.”


• “It says that she collects Precious Moments. I’m against that on multiple levels.”


• “Um, I don’t know what to get for someone who already owns every sequined snowman sweater from HSN.”


• “Her classroom smells like cantaloupe. I’m allergic to cantaloupe.”


• “She’s so miserable that it would be like buying Christmas gifts for Hitler.”

Finally, I drew out the name of one of my third grade colleagues. It only took eight tries. Over the last week I’ve been picking up gifts for her. It’s just small gifts for the first four days like candy bars, potato chips, ornaments, peach candles. On Friday is when we reveal ourselves and present our large gift. (Wow, that last sentence could come across as highly inappropriate. Imagine that Christmas party.) Last night I snuck into school long enough to leave my first gift on her desk. I’ve gotta tell you that the school at night really freaks me out. It’s so dark and of course I had to walk all the way down to the end of the seemingly never-ending hallway to put down my first day gift of Cherry Coke and Dove chocolate, which I’m pretty sure is what one of the wise men brought for the baby Jesus. Before leaving, I coded out on the security system and waited to hear the signal to exit the building. While I was standing there waiting in the darkness, I heard the automatic toilet flush in the restroom right next to me. It frightened me so badly that I almost had to run home to change my pants. I don’t know why or how it happened, but I burst through the front doors and ran like a steroid-raging Marion Jones out to the car where Rachel was waiting. Perhaps it was God’s way of telling me a) not to interfere with the integrity of the Secret Santa drawing or b) not to link someone with Hitler.

Lost in translation

This week we read a story about a gorilla named Koko who is able to understand more than 1,000 sign language signs. Naturally this led into a discussion of sign language and we took a look at the sign language alphabet. Each of the students first spelled out their names using sign language. Then I passed out note cards with the names of different animals on them for each of them to sign for the class. The rest of the students, in turn, would try to figure out what animal it was. The students got zebra, alligator, and giraffe right off the bat. However, the fourth one seemed to baffle them and with good reason. I noticed his mistake and asked him to try it again because he had misspelled his word. Unfortunately once again, instead of “duck” he spelled “dick.” Common mistake. The funniest part about it was another boy raised his hand and said, "Um, Mr. Ritchason, I don't think that's an animal."

Diarrhea of the mouth

I just got back from taking Ella and Liam to the library to pick out some Christmas books. They love it there with the birds, the fish tank, and all of the toys and puzzles. It’s always quite the scene when it’s time to leave because Liam screams and cries all the way out of the door. Ella especially loves the puppet theater and every time she goes behind there and puts on a puppet show for us. Liam likes to go back there for one of two reasons. He either quietly knocks over all 38 puppets to the floor or sits in the corner and craps his pants. Today it was number two. Literally. When he emerged from behind the curtain it smelled like he had just finished an 18-hour shift with the sanitation department. I rounded both of them up along with the books and movies and headed for the counter with our library card. Of course, Liam started throwing a fit and I think deliberately arched his body so his butt came two inches away from my nose. Ella asked me why we couldn’t just take him to the restroom and change him. I hate trying to maneuver him on one of those fold-out contraptions on which you don’t know whose dirty butt cheeks were on there right before your child’s. As the librarian was scanning our items, Ella reminded me that “Daddy you went poop in there last time.” I couldn’t bear to make eye contact with the woman behind the counter, so I told her thank you with my head hung down in embarrassment as we headed home to change my son and beat my daughter. Just kidding.

The emasculation of Michael

Tonight while Rachel was at work and the kids were at my mom's house, I did some errands in Peoria. Before I left Rach called to ask if I would run past Michael's, the arts and crafts store, to pick up some beads she needed to make some bracelets. I hemmed and hawed for several moments but reluctantly agreed. Before hanging up, I made sure she gave me step-by-step directions of exactly how to maneuver through the store, capture the prized items, and get out without being spotted. Tonight as I got closer to the store I could feel my masculinity slowly being stripped away. By the time I parked and walked through the front door, I'm pretty sure that I was now the proud owner of a vagina. The sign on the door that advertised "Part time floral designer needed" didn't really help the situation. I retrieved the map that I had drawn from my pocket and made my way through the maze, like a soldier trying to avoid the land mines of detached Asian doll heads and styrofoam balls the size of a small African village. I've gotta admit that Rachel's directions were spot-on and I made it to the aisle of choice without any incidents. Unfortunately, there was a woman there looking in the exact same section that I needed to be. From a distance I saw the beads that Rach described, but I didn't want to reach in front of her like a fat girl trying to grab the last ladel-full of moo goo gai pan at the Chinese buffet. So I waited my turn and acted like I was looking at other things in the aisle. Wow, what impressive do-it-yourself gingerbread houses! This just made me look even more awkward and out of place. Finally, I leaned over and said one of the gayest things to ever come out of my mouth. "Excuse me ma'am. Could I just grab two bags of those sterling silver alphabet beads please?" I'm pretty sure at that moment my menstrual cycle kicked into gear. I hightailed it to the front of the store to discover seven people in line at the only register open. I towered over everyone else in line, kind of like that video they showed during the Olympics when Kobe Bryant was swarmed with Chinese fans that were as tall as his belt buckle. I began praying that the Apostolic Christian in front of me wouldn't strike up some conversation about crocheting or the Gaithers or riding around in horse-drawn buggies. (Oh wait, I think that last one is the Amish. My apologies.) The line was moving slower than the plot of The Love Guru so I found myself drumming on the boxes of beads with my fingers while singing along in my head to Celine Dion's version of "Felize Navidad" that was playing throughout the store. (Darn you, Michael's!) The next thing I knew one of the boxes had broke open and pieces of silver were dancing on the floor like a slot machine for tiny Hobbits. Of course everyone turned to look at me and I immediately knelt down on the floor to try to pick up all 100 pieces up. My cover was blown. I was so flustered in the moment that I blurted out that lame "I guess I didn't even know my own strength" line. The lady in line behind me was trying to be helpful and pick some of the beads up but all I felt like doing at that moment was knocking her over to make myself feel better. I then heard the cashier come over the intercom and it began to turn into one of those SNL skits where the person asks for a price check on some tampons. Come to think of it I was pretty close to needing one myself. In an instant a high school aged girl was there with a broom and a dust pan to clean up my mess. Someone else brought up another box of beads and thankfully it was my turn to check out. The smiling lady behind the register joked "I'll double-bag these for you so you don't lose any more" as she handed me a 40% off coupon for my next visit. I dropped it in the parking lot.

Humpty Dumpty

Word has spread throughout the hallways at school that if you need someone to help you in the restroom look no further than Mr. Ritchason. It should be noted that just because I cleaned up one student’s fecal matter doesn’t mean that I’m a rubber glove-clad Superman swooping in at a moment’s notice to remove a still-warm turd from the floor. Yesterday I was walking back to my classroom when an assistant from one of the special ed rooms stopped me to ask for help with one of her boys in the restroom. He had peed his pants a few minutes earlier and was trying unsuccessfully to get on some clean underwear. When I walked into the restroom I discovered that he had gotten them almost all the way up but couldn’t get them past his little privates. It looked like two little Humpty Dumptys sitting atop the elastic waistband with his little wiener poking out the top. Um, how exactly was I supposed to help him with this? Keeping a considerable distance between the two of us, I used my go go Gadget arms to hold on to the sides of the underpants and pull them up. I immediately realized what the problem was. He hadn’t thought to clean himself up so his nether regions were still wet. It’s like trying to shove cucumbers into those cheap plastic bags in the produce section after those misty sprayers have just washed them. They just keep sticking to the sides of it and your fingers end up wet. I reached out and tugged them up even harder trying to get them past the Berlin Wall of genitals. As I pulled them up the elastic snapped against him and he screamed out “You hurt my nuts!” Satisfied that my part of the task was complete, I passed him back off to the assistant. All the king’s horses and all the king’s men, couldn’t put Humpty’s nuts together again.

Conferencing

My last set of parents have just walked out the door, officially bringing an end to two days of parent/teacher conferences. I’m not sure which group of people dread these meetings the most, the parents or the teachers. Here are some highlights of the past couple of days:

During one of my first conferences I was talking about a student’s graphs and showing the progress he had made when his dad’s cell phone started ringing. Now this wasn’t some standard ringtone that played silly polka music or a Kenny Chesney song. Instead it was a guy singing/screaming lyrics that went something like “I want to devour your soul!” I have a suspicion that I heard the voice of Lucifer himself. Instead of silencing the phone, he chose to answer it and carry on a conversation that included the words “slutty,” “douchebag,” and most offensive of all “It’s all good.” When he concluded his conversation, I began talking to him about how his son needs to add more descriptive words in his writing. On second thought, maybe the douchebag dad is the last one I need to be talking to about that.

One of the girls in our class transferred to our school about a month into the school year from Arkansas. She’s a really sweet girl, but she’s so far behind where she should be at this point. When her dad came in today I went over all of the objectives and showed him the areas that his daughter desperately needed to work on. His response was an instant classic. He said “I really try to help her with everything, but I wasn’t too good in school either. I was in fifth grade for three years in a row.”

A girl in my class has an older brother with special needs who I met at the beginning of the year. He always comes with them to every school function, including conferences today. Every time I see him he’s carrying a purple Easter basket full of Matchbox cars and today was no exception. I said hello to everyone and made a point to check out his collection of cars. I asked him where he had gotten all of the cars. No response. I asked him which one was his favorite. No response. I reached into his basket and picked out a shiny red car and told him that it was my favorite. Immediately he grabbed it out of my hand and screamed at me “The battle has begun!” (Is that a line from a movie? I’m thinking either Gladiator or one of the Lord of the Rings movies.) It was apparent that his parents had heard this before because his mom jumped in between us like an agent on Obama’s Secret Service detail. In hindsight, I think I was about 1.2 seconds from getting murdered by a plastic bumper and four incredibly tiny wheels. When all of the commotion subsided we sat down at the table and began the girl’s conference. I noticed the boy sit down at my desk, but I didn’t really mind. After all, I had learned my lesson. I plunged through the conference with one eye on the parents and another on Maximus the gladiator at my desk. I soon saw his hand gracefully going back and forth over the desktop like a conductor leading the San Francisco Symphony Orchestra. His parents had their backs to him so they were unaware of anything going on. Sensing that my desk could be toppled over or set on fire at any moment I quickly wrapped up their conference and set them on their way. As I walked to my desk I quickly discovered that he had used my desk as a canvas to color on with an orange crayon. The top of my desk now looks like a graffiti-splattered underpass.

gaum-less adj. lacking in intelligence; stupid

Today was our annual third grade reading day. For me it's always one of the highlights of the school year as students wear their pajamas and bring along their pillows and sleeping bags to read in a relaxing environment. I like it because it allows me to roll out of bed, put on some slippers, eat coffee and donuts all day, and catch up on some reading that doesn't feature Elmo or page after page of rhyming lines ("I see a nose on every face. I see noses every place."). In my class this year I have one of my all-time favorite students. He's a phenomenal little guy that could possibly be the smartest person I know. His reading level is on par with a high school sophomore and he can vividly share events surrounding the 1939 blitzkrieg in Poland. Um, I had to Google the word "blitzkrieg" to even figure out what it meant. The best thing about him is that he's always smiling. In fact, I'm beginning to wonder if it's even possible for his mouth to change shape. Today students were scattered throughout the room reading Harry Potter books or some of my Thanksgiving books, but not this particular young man. Instead he brought along his personal copy of Merriam-Webster's Collegiate Dictionary from home. I watched as he flipped to the start of the "G" section. "I've already read all of the words from the first six letters," he informed me. Throughout the day, he'd pop up at my desk to quiz me on some words he came across.

• "Mr. Ritchason, what color is garganey?" (a blend of teal)


• "Mr. Ritchason, do you know what a gendarme is?" (a French policeman or soldier)


• "Mr. Ritchason, what does it mean if someone is glabrous?" (smooth or hairless)

Finally, as we were getting ready to pack up for the day he asked me one final question. "Mr. Ritchason, do you know what gombroon is?" I admitted that yet again I wasn't familiar with that word. "It's a type of Middle Eastern pottery," he reminded me. Without a hint of arrogance or disrespect, he added "You know Mr. Ritchason, you're not really as smart as I once thought you were." I just laughed because it's hard to take things personally from a 9-year old that still wears one-piece Scooby Doo footsie pajamas.

A crappy afternoon

I’ve eaten enough school lunches to know the difference between the good (french toast sticks, soft shell taco; pepperoni pizza) and the don’t-even-consider-it (chicken salad pita; salisbury steak; ravioli). Yesterday one of the choices was a burrito, which definitely falls into the latter category. There’s nothing like a dried out tortilla filled with cheese made out of Silly Putty and hamburger that is so tough that you literally think you’re biting through a cow’s artery. If you can get past the taste, you’re only halfway there because if your gag reflex isn’t working overtime, soon your butt hole will be. Imagine sitting in a circle on the floor reading a book about the rain forest to your students when three minutes into it you have to excuse yourself before you give them an even more fascinating story to share with their parents that night about how their teacher defecated on the floor right next to Billy.

Whenever there’s a truly disgusting item on the menu I always joke with the students who ordered it that I know who will be raising their hand asking to use the restroom that afternoon. Some of the boys take it as a challenge and brag to me at the end of the day that they’ve survived the dreaded “enchilada eruption” or a visit from the goulash fairy. (It’s kind of like the tooth fairy but instead you’re the one leaving a gift behind. Can you see why third graders and I get along so well?) Yesterday only one boy was brave enough to order the burrito, which it should be noted, also comes with Spanish rice and fruit cocktail. I mean who can resist topping off a fine Mexican meal with some syrupy peaches? As I picked my class up from the lunchroom, I leaned over to the boy and asked him how he was feeling. He smiled back and said that he felt great. “Give it time, my friend,” I uttered back. I kept an eye on him as we read through a poem we had been practicing and finished reading a book about a Native American girl. He looked like a rock and I thought maybe he would defy my expectations. Later on the students were working on finishing the Native American stories they were writing when he came up to my desk. Eyes wide, he asked “Mr. Ritchason, can I go to the restroom?” A-ha! It had arrived! (Yes, I took delight in the misery of an 8-year old.) I knew it was bad because he kept moving up and down on his legs as though he was riding an imaginary teeter-totter. Trying hard not to smile, I sent him on his way and he scurried out the door like a raccoon that had a pinecone stuck in his butt.

Ten minutes had passed and he still hadn’t returned. This wasn’t good. Usually a bad school lunch returns to earth quicker than the snap of your fingers. Something had gone wrong. I sent another boy to go check on him and he returned a few seconds later to report “He says that he needs you, Mr. Ritchason.” Yes, something had gone wrong. Terribly wrong. I walked down to the restroom and called out his name. He told that he hadn’t made it to the toilet in time and got a little bit of poop on his pants and on the floor. I told him not to go anywhere, as though he was going to venture down the hall with no pants on and crap smeared on his butt. Luckily the nurse had an old pair of pants that fit him, so when I got back to the restroom I handed them to him under the stall door and waited for him to get dressed.

When he came out I sent him back to the room to finish writing his story and, rubber gloves in hand, told him I’d clean up the mess. Let’s just say that I was deceived when he told me it was just a little accident. It looked like a herd of elephants had been eating pork and beans for every meal in that stall for the last six years. Not to be gross, but I feel it’s my duty to paint a picture (with brown paint) of what it was like in there. If I hadn’t known what was going on in there I would have sworn that he was eating hot fudge sundaes off the toilet seat because that’s how brown it was. It was smeared on the floor so much that it looked like a murderer had dragged his victim through on it on the way to the trunk of his car to dispose of the body. Even the door latch was unsafe to touch. I turned my head, grabbed his soiled clothes, and threw them in a garbage bag. I tried to clean up as much as I could but I was gagging so much I was afraid that I was just going to add to the mess. I found the janitor in the hall and said “There’s a present waiting for you in the boys’ restroom.” In her lady-like manner of speaking she replied “Don’t tell me another toilet is plugged up with someone’s shit.” I paused, smiled, and said honestly that a plugged up toilet wasn’t the problem today before hightailing it back to my room. I found the boy slumped down in his chair, trying his best to finish up his story, yet looking as though he had just completed a marathon (which in some ways had). I whispered to ask him how he was feeling and, shaking his head, he replied “You were right about the burrito.”

The natives are restless

Today was our annual field trip to Dickson Mounds, a Native American museum in Lewistown. Personally this is my eighth time there in seven years. (My first year I had to go twice within the same week. Brutal.) I'll be honest that it's not always the most exciting place to go but I've gotta give them props because they teach the students quite a bit about Native American culture. My one complaint each year is that as soon as you step through the museum door you are face to face with replicas of life size Indian women without any tops on. Since I've been there so often I now know to warn my class about what they will see before we even get there. So on Friday afternoon I prepared them for it and we discussed how their culture was somewhat different than ours in that way. When we arrived today there were a few giggles, but I was really impressed that it didn't become an issue. Every year we go we get stuck with the same crabby, unenthusiastic woman who I had a run-in with two years ago (http://mritchason.blogspot.com/2006/11/politically-incorrect.html). She was telling the students about various types of pottery when she asked "What do you think Native Americans used this gourd for?" One of my boys instantly raised his hand. When she called on him, rather than answering the question, he asked "Why can you see those ladies' titties downstairs?" At that moment I would have paid an angry Native American to come in, scalp me straight Apocalypto style, and put me out of my misery. As I hopped up to take the boy out into the hallway for a not-so-nice conversation, the lady responded "I don't think this is an appropriate place to say the word 'titties'." At that moment I just wanted to yell out "CAN EVERYONE PLEASE QUIT SAYING TITTIES!" By the time we got outside the door I was bathed in sweat as I bent down eye level to him and let him know how completely inappropriate he was being. I soon remembered that he had been absent on Friday, not that this excused him from saying what he had. As I finished, I stood back up only to discover that his head was right next to yet another breast. He looked over at the voluptuous statue and then back at me. I gave him a raised eyebrow and not another word was spoken.

A household divided

Well here it is, the day before what's being billed as one of the most important elections in U.S. history. For Rachel, it's her first election to vote in since becoming a citizen so naturally she's excited. However, the two of us will go to the polls tomorrow focused on two different candidates. We're like the poor man's Arnold Schwarzenegger and Maria Shriver. I guess the photo below from our front yard says it all.

#44

For the last several school days the students have been researching both McCain and Obama to make reports to share with the class. I asked them to also draw pictures of the two men as part of their project.

I think this is a picture of McCain after he tried to put Sarah Palin in another $150,000 designer outfit. The black eye says it all. You don't mess with the Palin.

I smell another Republican smear campaign. Are they trying to make the American public believe that Obama spent much of his youth as a go-go dancer at a gay club in Honolulu? With the blue eye shadow and glittery mascara he looks like a Tammy Faye Bakker drag queen. And as a side note, does he have that Michael Jackson disease which caused his nose to fall off his face?

So in the last picture Obama had lost his nose somewhere along the campaign trail. In this one he has a nose that resembles a butt. I’m not sure which is worse, to not have a nose at all or one that looks like it belongs sitting on a toilet seat.

I know Halloween is coming up later this week and that it’s all consuming right now to my class, but does John McCain really look like a jack-o-lantern with a dead black cat on his head?

Throughout this election unit we’ve been doing, it is clear to see where the political allegiance of the parents lie. A girl in my class has die-hard Republican parents who would literally give up their very daughter to get McCain elected. Her picture of Obama is pretty good, but it’s the name below the drawing that makes me smirk. In fact, I have a pretty good guess that her parents will be yelling something similar at the television screen when the results start pouring in on election night. Oh damn….uh!

I really believe this picture could help McCain capture all of those still-undecided Oompa Loompas.

This is supposed to be McCain, but to me it looks more like his elderly grandmother. Well maybe more like his elderly grandmother if she was prescribed steroids and ballooned to 500 pounds. Look for her as the new balloon in the Macy’s Thanksgiving Day Parade.

What kind of racist homes are these kids living in where they think every African-American looks like Buckwheat? I’m surprised the boy who drew this didn’t include every overtly black stereotype by showing him in a field picking cotton with one hand and eating collared greens with the other. Only in Pekin.

The big O

On Wednesday night we headed up north to spend the night in the ‘burbs since we had an early morning appointment with a billionaire. After grabbing a quick bite at Chipotle (my first visit and sure not to be my last) we checked into the hotel. Rachel cut my hair and afterwards I took a shower, so we had already exhausted the two towels that were left for us in the room. We also shortly discovered that neither of us had packed the toothpaste, so Rach called down to the front desk to see if someone could bring some up for us with some new towels. When the man arrived, however, he only had towels in his hand. Rachel tried to speak her best broken Spanish but it was highly unsuccessful. She called back down and explained the situation and soon the same man arrived with the toothpaste, a toothbrush, and another towel. I expected to unwrap the towel and find a letter stating “If you ask for one more thing I will kill you in your sleep.” However, soon after I was trying to iron my shirt and discovered that it wasn’t getting very hot. Rather than calling the front desk a third time, I simply walked down there myself iron in hand. I explained my problem and she assured me that another one would be sent up to the room immediately. “What room are you in?” she asked. When I replied with the now famous 451 she rolled her eyes at the other woman working behind the counter. Rachel and I had officially one of those customers. I could picture her going back into the manager’s office and blogging about us on hotelgueststhatreallysuck.com. As I made my way back down the hall to the elevator I was spotted by our Spanish friend, whose face made it apparent that he had already gotten our latest request. He motioned for me to come to him and soon he was leading me into the secret housekeeping lair. There were boxes full of tiny bars of soap, plastic cups stacked high to the ceiling, and enough ice buckets to build a small castle. He pointed to a large stack of phone books in a corner, where I soon figured out he wanted me to sit. As I sat there he took six irons from a bottom shelf and plugged them all in. After only a few seconds he began running his hands along the heated metal parts of each of them. I began to have a suspicion that he was trying to see which one would cause the most damage when he smashed it into the side of my face. He then said the words “touch” and “hot” as he pointed to the collection of irons. Well those are usually two words that I don’t usually use in the same sentence, like “eat” and “salmonella” or “talent” and “Jessica Simpson.” I politely refused his invitation to fondle the scalding metal, so he unplugged one of them and handed it to me as I rushed out before he could molest me.

The next morning we were in line for Oprah by 6:10. A group of women behind us were from Washington, D.C. One of them was so obnoxious, droning on about her collapsing stock portfolio. To make matters worse her entire outfit was the same shade of purple from head to toe which really bothered me for some reason. She looked like a big lavender tulip. When they let us inside we were handed a bag and promised that there was breakfast inside. However, when we sat down and I looked inside all I found was a large cup of yogurt with fruit on the top and a cranberry muffin. Um, this was no kind of breakfast that I’d ever eaten. Where was the bowl of Frosted Flakes or the large cinnamon roll that I was used to? I slumped down and tossed the bag under my seat. On televisions throughout the large holding area were several television sets playing the Oprah 20^th anniversary DVD’s. (What else would you expect?) The woman right across from me was loving it. She threw out phrases like “human connection” and “how remarkable” as she watched. What had I gotten myself into?

A little before 8:30 we were led into the studio and assigned our seats in the far left section, directly across from where the Big O would soon be sitting. The warm-up lady told us that we’d actually be here for the taping of two shows. Twice the chance to see myself on TV and make Letty jealous. My excitement soon turned to disappointment when she announced that both shows were with Dr. Oz. I never watch when he’s on because I haven’t started to worry about menopause nor do I care what letter my poop is supposed to resemble. Later Oprah let it slip that we would be missing Nicole Kidman who would be there in the afternoon. We traded in an Oscar winner for a doctor who wears his scrub pants uncomfortably too high. Seems like a fair trade. When Oprah finally came out it was pretty exciting. I’m not a die-hard fan, but I’ve gotta admit seeing someone of her massive fame was a kick. Oh, and just for the record, from the looks of her it doesn’t look like she’s been eating that crappy “breakfast” she hands out to her audience. Just saying. The first show was about overweight teens, which was actually incredibly interesting. They talked about what foods you should and shouldn’t be feeding your kids. At one point they showed a video of one of the girls chowing down at McDonald’s. The audience was shocked at what the girl had eaten, yet I leaned over to Rachel and asked “Is it wrong that all that piece did was make me hungry?”

The second show was entitled “The Science of Beauty.” The uninteresting title can’t even compare to how truly bored I was during this. Woman came up on stage complaining about their adult acne and their hair loss. I wanted to raise my hand and ask Dr. Oz from a medical standpoint if it was possible to die from listening to middle-aged women drone on and on about the fungus on their toes. About twenty minutes into it I really had to go to the bathroom. I tried to go in between the two shows but the line for the men’s room was surprisingly long that I ran out of time. To make matters worse the Chipotle spicy beef burrito from the night before started talking back to me. For the next thirty minutes I squirmed uncomfortably in seat, knowing that if I ruined one of Oprah’s chairs she no doubt had the power to have me killed. Finally the show wrapped and I darted out of there faster than Oprah can devour three Egg McMuffins.

A step backwards for equality

Over the last couple of weeks we've been in the midst of a unit on the election where students have learned about choosing a running mate, taking an opinion poll, and what the heck the Electoral College is. Later this week the students will be researching and writing up reports about both of the presidential candidates. To begin this today we read two short articles about McCain and Obama. When students were finished I asked them to answer six questions about the men based on what we read together. One of the questions was "What was Barack Obama's occupation before going into politics?" We had read about how he had gone to Harvard Law School and eventually ended up as a civil rights lawyer back in Chicago. Well as I was grading them this afternoon one boy's response caught me off guard. I should preface this by saying that this boy is so ADHD that he makes Robin Williams look like a corpse. I shouldn't be surprised by his answer since most of his day is spent eating the erasers off of pencils and grabbing his crotch. So what was Obama's job prior to politics? "Barak Obuma was a slave." Somewhere Harriet Tubman is rolling over in her grave.

Trespassing

It's been a crazy exciting day around here as one of my Willow colleagues was "surprised" by Ty Pennington and the gang from Extreme Makeover: Home Edition this morning. Let's just say it was the worst kept secret in Pekin. Even the KKK rallies of the '60s that took place here were more hush-hush. When my own mom runs into Ty on the street the day before it's not like it's exactly being kept under wraps. No matter, it's a really amazing event for such a caring family. I've gotten text messages and voicemails all morning from people giving me up to the minute accounts of the action. Feeling left out, my third grade colleague Jeff and I ran over by Steve's house today during lunch. There was a side street that was blocked off but we thought it just meant for cars and such. So we're walking down the sidewalk when we pass the catering tent where all of the other designers minus Ty were eating lunch. We couldn't get through all the way so we hopped a fence (or four) and cut through some people's yards only to get busted by ABC security which escorted us all the way back to my car. I think we narrowly escaped getting arrested and I think this ruins any dream I had of being a guest star on Pushing Daisies.

A strange family dynamic

I sat down today to read a book about foods around the world with one of my small groups. This is one of my lower groups that needs a lot of help just building background and trying to think about what the book will be about. To help with this I made up a poster of various animals and asked the students whether or not these animals are eaten as food in different areas of the world. I jotted down their predictions along the side of the photos of snakes, bees, kangaroos, and bats. When I got to the fifth animal on the list, I asked if anyone thought people ate cats in other countries. Several of them looked around the table at one another, unsure of what to guess. Yet a big smile came across one boy's face as he thrust his hand high in the air. When I called on him he said "Mr. Ritchason, I know this one" as he nodded his head proudly up and down. To confirm, I repeated "So you think people eat cats?" "Oh, I know they do. My dad hunts cats with a rifle in our backyard and he puts the meat in the garage freezer." I should also add that this was the same man that was arrested three weeks ago for peeping into a teenage girl's window and trying to escape the police, so I guess nothing this man does should surprise me. However, it has taught me to always make sure Rachel and Ella close the blinds when they're getting ready for bed and to never accept an invitation from this family for Thanksgiving dinner.

An R-rated morning

This morning one of the girls in my class was supposed to be getting her assignment notebook out of her backpack yet instead pulled out some handcuffs. Naturally she had the attention of everyone in the room. Before telling her to put them away, I asked her where she got them from. After initially responding that they were fake, I asked her the question again. She went on to explain that she found them in a box in her 16-year old sister's closet. Now really there's only two reasons why a 16-year would have hidden handcuffs. Either you're fighting crime as a superhero when the sun goes down or you're the most popular member of the pom squad for some not-hard-to-explain reason. I'm thinking positive and hoping that she's Wonder Woman.

Today one of the boys in my class came up to me in distress, holding the book he had been reading about an expedition to Antarctica. His eyes grew wide as wide as he shoved the book in my hand and stammered "There's a bad word in this book, Mr. Ritchason!" I instantly got nervous, thinking back to my first year of teaching when I had assigned two girls to read Bridge To Terabithia, completely forgetting that the author had thrown in a "damn" and "hell" for good measure. After listening to one of the mothers berate me over the phone and equate me with some Russian dictator (To this day, I still don't understand the connection), I've been very conscious of what books I add to my classroom library. So I asked the boy to show me where he came across the offending passage. He flipped to it and read aloud "Siegal quickly took readings with compass and sextant." It should be noted that he couldn't bring himself to say the last word. I soon realized that he thought it read "sex tent." I explained that it was simply an instrument used to track the location of something and that it was not a frosty love shack formed from blocks of ice for two hot-blooded Eskimo looking to get it on.

You did WHAT in the bathroom??

In my class we have a behavior chart and if students misbehave they are asked to move their clip down the chart. Strike 1 is just a warning, strike 2 loses you five minutes of recess, and strike 3 makes you miss an entire recess. There's even a dreaded spot lower and if you move it all the way down there you get a note sent home to your parents. (Cue the Law and Order music here.) In addition to me writing up a letter I also make the student write a letter as well, outlining what he did to warrant said note. One of the boys in my class this year is a really sweet, endearing kid but has a bad case of the old ADD. He can't pay attention to save his life. Really. He could be gasping for air and wouldn't realize it until he was dead. Today by early afternoon he was all the way down to the bottom so I gave him a sheet of paper and asked him to write a note to his dad and stepmom. Usually when students write these they include the requisite "I was talking during the math lesson" or "I pushed Cheyenne in the lunch line" or "I purposely threw a football at John's nuts." After about ten minutes he brought the letter up to me. As I started reading his first sentence I learned that he was confessing to something that I didn't even know he did and if I'm not mistaken is an act that is still illegal in Vermont and one of the Dakotas.

Full translation (for those of you who don't have a Doctorate in third grade spelling):

I was squeaking my feet in the bathroom. I was yelling out the poem that I was supposed to read. I poked Leah, Arianna, Kevin, and Chloe. And I was not following directions. I was not listening. I was not behaving.

You might be a big fish in a little pond

Okay, so I've been watching this over and over again all week. It's the video for Coldplay's new song "Lost" which I think is awesome. They recorded this when I saw them live at the United Center in July. If you look closely on the right side of the stage you might see a certain tall, lanky guy doing the cliche white guy bobbing of the head while singing at the top of his lungs. Ya, it's that good.

S.O.B. (Save Our Balls)

Today was one of those days that played out liked a juvenile Mike Myers script full of fart jokes (i.e. The Love Guru). I don’t know what was going on during recess, but they might want to rethink some of the activities given the injuries today. One of my students came in from recess walking like a bow-legged duck, which can only mean one of two things. Either he crapped himself or he got hit in the privates. This was confirmed when he came in and said “Mr. Ritchason, I got hit in the penis with a football.” If only he was as articulate in his weekly writing assignments. “Could you hold some ice on it for me?” I explained that I would get some for him, but he would be the one actually holding it on there himself.

Not even 45 seconds later another boy came hobbling in. “What happened to you?” I asked. Despite the conversation I had just a minute earlier, his response still caught me off guard. “I hurt my wiener,” he sputtered. I asked him if he too was playing football. He shook his head and said that he was playing tag instead and ran into a wall. I can see how that could injure your head or your arm but not your privates. All I could picture was him running back arched and his crotch sticking out leading the rest of his body. What a look. He added that he thought he had cut it on a brick because it felt like it was bleeding. End of the story, thank you. That was all I needed to hear so I sent them both down to the nurse together with a note that read “Ask them to show you where it hurts.”

As if the day couldn’t get any stranger, I was walking down the hall during lunch with Rachel and Sarah who had come to visit me. As a group of first graders were walking down the other side of the hall a little boy who I had never seen before just stopped to tell me “Mr. Ritchason, I hurt my nuts at recess.” Did I mistakenly add this to my resume? Creates engaging, standards-based lesson plans. Utilizes technology in instruction. Diagnoses testicular ailments.

Yearbook photos, saving lives, and a training bra

Today was school picture day. Some students really dress up, while others apparently couldn’t care less. I had a girl who looked like she was wearing some Project Runway-designed gown to a state dinner at the White House, while one of my boys wore his favorite Green Day t-shirt. I led my class down when it was our turn to get our individual photos taken. The 40-something photographer that looked like a librarian who lives in a house full of cats motioned for me and said “Sit down right here, handsome.” Apparently I wasn’t posed properly because she tilted my chin down, yet did so by slowly rubbing her hand all the way from my ear down the side of my cheek. It was kind of like one of those long, lingering scenes you see in soap operas that takes forever to fade into a commercial. “So, you have a busy day today?” she inquired. “Ya, we’re learning to round to the nearest thousand this morning. Pretty exciting,” I rambled. She followed this up by asking me what I was doing later tonight. Before I could answer that I was going to be taking care of my daughter with pneumonia and giving my wife a much needed break, she said “I heard about this new restaurant in Dunlap.” Immediately she followed this up with “Say cheese.” I was so confused by this woman that I guarantee that my yearbook picture is going to be ruined by a confused, quizzical look on my face. Don’t get me wrong, the greasy hair, cat hair-covered blouse, and urine-colored teeth are hard to pass up, but unfortunately I had to decline.

Today we were reading a story about fire safety. In the article it outlined some fire safety tips and I wrote them on the board as we came to them. One of them was remembering not to re-enter a burning building. Now throughout the story almost everyone had a story to share. We heard about a boy throwing his pets out his bedroom window and another boy who admitted to playing with matches in his house. Ya, not exactly the brightest class I’ve ever had. As I called on another boy who proudly said that his grandmother once rescued two children from a burning house and ended up with her back badly burned. What a great heroic story. When I asked if she’s doing better today, he simply said “She died.” Hey, what a heart-warming story right before lunch! Who’s ready to go eat some ravioli?

Throughout the school year you really want to form a true relationship with your students, one where they feel comfortable with you and will really try to do their best in everything. Well I think I might have gotten to that point with one of the girls. We’ve started reading a book about a boy who runs for president, which has lead into some really rich discussions about the upcoming election. We were talked about term limits and how old they would be when the next election comes around and how long it will be until they are old enough to vote. At the end of the day as students were lining up at the door for dismissal one of the girls said, “If I have to be eighteen to vote, how old do I have to be to get a training bra?” That’s one of those questions that stumps teachers such as “What was the smallest dinosaur?” or “Why do I need to learn about isosceles triangles?” I told her that I wasn’t an expert on that and she’d have to ask her mom about it. She responded, “Oh, I thought you would know since you have a daughter.” If Ella has such large breasts at the age of three that she’s wearing a bra, then Lord help us.

The most unanticipated concert of the year

For Father’s Day this year my dad surprised me with tickets to see The Eagles. The only problem was that I’m not really a fan of them. Sure, who doesn’t like to sing along to Take It Easy or Hotel California, but I own one, count ‘em one, Eagles CD that I haven’t listened to probably since the youngest Jonas brother was born. My dad went to see them four years ago when they were in Peoria and came back raving about their live show. I think he mistook my feigned interest for disappointment that I wasn’t able to go. When he presented me with the ticket in June and I looked at the $187.50 price (yes for one ticket) I immediately wondered if it would be rude to ask him to sell it on eBay and just give me the money instead. Two hundred dollars can buy a lot of donuts and Sour Patch Kids, my two basic daily food groups. I thought better about that and tried to get myself excited about the upcoming show. I borrowed my dad’s stack of Eagles albums and loaded them on my iPod, yet in full disclosure I’ve yet to listen to a single track. Well the day finally arrived and yesterday we headed to St. Louis.

When we got into town we went to Union Station to eat. There was about a 45 minute wait so we stood off to the side near the dessert tray. Now I get annoyed by people who think they know everything. This girl in her mid-20’s came up to the dessert tray with her friends while they were waiting and started pointing to each dessert and loudly naming them like she was Wolfgang Puck’s personal pastry chef. I was particularly impressed that she could identify what a piece of cheesecake looked like. The girl had mad skills. The best part about it though was she thought that she was so smart but she butchered the name of almost all of the desserts. She pointed out “bananas forester” and “creamy brule.” Now most people hearing their friends mispronounce something would just keep it to themselves, but it was apparent that one of the members of her party could be a little catty. This other girl wouldn’t stand for this blatant misinformation and busted her out. “It’s bananas FOSTER, Shelley,” she called out, speaking even louder than Shelley had. “That’s what I said!” she yelled back. It rapidly became one of those lame SNL sketches where two characters just argue back and forth at one another. Dad and I slowly took a few steps to the side so no one would think we were associated with the Lauren Conrad and Heidi Montag of St. Louis.

After we ate we made our way to the Scottrade Center and found our seats. The lady right in from of us was from Romania. It was kind of obvious she wasn’t from around here before she even said it because she was wearing two-sizes-too-small purple overalls and a Hillary Clinton headband circa 1992. The look was completed with eyeglasses the size of Lake Huron. A friend asked her what her favorite Eagles song was to which she replied “Go Your Own Way.” I wanted to warn her that she’d be waiting all night for that one considering that she wasn’t at a Fleetwood Mac show. By about 9:30 I looked around our section and saw a number of older men asleep in their chairs, which is incidentally how I envision a John McCain presidency. A lot of old, white guys passed out in their chairs as Larry King Live flickers on the television.

Set List
How Long
Too Busy Being Fabulous
I Don't Want To Hear Anymore
Guilty of the Crime
Hotel California
Peaceful Easy Feeling
I Can't Tell You Why
Witchy Woman
Lyin' Eyes
Boys of Summer
In The City
The Long Run
No More Walks In The Wood
Waiting in the Weeds
No More Cloudy Days
Love Will Keep Us Alive
Take It To The Limit
Long Road Out Of Eden
Somebody
Walk Away
One of These Nights
Life's Been Good
Dirty Laundry
Funk #49
Heartache Tonight
Life in the Fast Lane

Encore
Take It Easy
Desperado

Texting with mommy

Yesterday a boy in my class repeatedly had his cell phone out. (Yes, third graders now have cell phones in their book bags along with Magic Tree House books and Fruit Roll-Ups.) I warned him that if I saw it again I’d take it away and keep it until the end of the day. Well twenty minutes later I followed through on my threat and confiscated it. While carrying it to my desk it started vibrating in my hand. I looked down to see that he had a new text message. I opened it up to a note from his mom that read “We’re going to Pizza Hut tonight.” What mom in her right mind would be texting their kid at school? The only thing she should be writing back is “You are a spoiled kid. Quit texting me. Pay attention in class or I will flush your cell phone down the toilet. Love, Mom.” I looked back through his inbox to find that he had text (texted?) her seven times that morning and she had written back each time. So what important things did he have to tell her that couldn’t wait until 3:10?

• 8:33 At school


• 8:51 Orderd chiken nuggets


• 9:11 I lost my sissers


• 9:40 I forgot my snac


• 10:22 Playin tag


• 10:54 School is borin


• 11:32 Im hungri

After receiving the Pizza Hut message I personally wrote her back with the following message: “This is Mr. R. Billy is not allowed to have phone @ school anymore. No more texts pls. Thanx. Enjoy ur pizza.”

Good for a laugh

Other than someone getting hit in the balls, nothing cracks me up more than seeing someone fall down in an extraordinary fashion. It helps when the person in question is Geraldo.

Slips of the tongue

So Grandparents Day has officially come and gone for another year. Fifteen minutes before it's always hectic, re-gluing crafts that have fallen apart, pouring 75 cups of lemonade, and reminding students to speak up so the grandparents on the other side of the room can actually hear the cheesy poem I'm forcing them to recite. The amazing thing, however, is that it always magically comes together.

I stood at the door as the grandparents arrived, shaking hands and directing them to their grandchild's table. They were a lovely group of people, except for the man with the Schwarzenegger handshake and the vodka breath. He said "I've heard a lot about you Mr. Richards" as he rammed his index finger repeatedly into my sternum. For one of the first parts of our program a group of students recites a reader's theater about grandmothers. One of the sections describes sitting on grandma's lap and explains that "there are no bony places." After hearing this line Mr. Smirnoff arched his eyebrows, leaned over to his wife, and informed her "I know where there's a bony place." His wife smacked his arm and this led him into a smoky, wheezy laugh. I braced for more to come throughout the afternoon, but thankfully the smack seemed to sober him up.

At another point in the program a few of the boys read a humorous story about a grandfather snake. One line in the story reads "The asp let out a deafening sound." Well one of the boys replaced "asp" with "ass". Luckily none of the students caught it but I saw a couple of grandparents turn to look at one another rather quizzically. No real harm done. Unfortunately less than a minute later another one of the boys accidentally read "His booby slithered out from behind the bush." Um, actually Anthony the word was "buddy." I wasn't so lucky the second time around and as you can imagine all of the students lost it. But, not surprising, the one who was laughing the loudest of all was the grandpa who smelled of cheap Lithuanian liquor.

Celebrating grandparents

Well the much heralded Grandparents Day program finally takes place tomorrow. Much blood (a few nasty paper cuts), sweat (our room's air conditioning hasn't worked for the last two weeks), and tears (not every grandparent is able to come) have gone into making this the biggest event since, well, last year's Grandparents Day program. The poems have been written, the skits have been practiced, and the coffee filter flowers are ready to be unveiled. Today we made our final craft, a lookalike that was made to resemble one of the grandparents that would be coming tomorrow. They'll be hanging around the room and at the end of the program the grandparents will walk around and try to figure out which one is theirs.

* After looking at the grandparent lookalike that she made out of construction paper, yarn, and wiggly eyes, one of the girls morbidly said "I'm secretly going to put this in her casket when she dies." Yes, a pink faced caricature with a pig nose and eyeglasses the size of Lake Michigan is what every rotting corpse needs.

* Most of the students always get excited the closer Grandparents Day gets. They want everything they make to be perfect and continually go on and on about how amazing their grandparents are. It's actually really sweet to listen to. However, today I overheard a girl whisper to a boy at her table "My grandma is retarded." All I could do was pray that she didn't write that line in her letter to her grandmother. "I love you because you are such a retard." When the boy asked why she said that, she responded "Well she ran over her dog on the way to pick up her friend for bingo."

* I noticed that one of the boys had colored in small circles in the center of both of his grandpa's hands. When I asked him what they were he said that his grandpa had round scars in the palms of both hands. If his grandpa is Jesus, well then I'd better get my act together before tomorrow. By the way, does the Lord like Oreos?

* While they were putting the finishing touches on their lookalikes a boy asked if he could use the rest of his yarn to make a moustache. I said yes and then added rather jokingly to only do this if you were making a grandpa and not a grandma. A sweet girl across the room, in all manner of seriousness, raised her hand and said "Well Mr. Ritchason my grandma does have a moustache." I cautioned her against adding this last detail as I wouldn't be able to contain myself if tomorrow the girl pointed out "Grandma, that's yours up there. Ya, the one with the caterpillar above her lip."

Lost shirts, demonic undertones, and a third grade Britney Spears

The other day one of the girls in my class was sick at home with a fever. To pass the time she laid on the couch sewing and stitching. (Are those two the same thing? It's so not my scene.) The next day she came in with a gift for me. She said that it was a label for me to sew onto the front of my shirt so in case it ever got lost someone would be easily be able to return it to me. If my name was Nate Richerson it would be a worthwhile idea.


We started working on some things for our Grandparents Day program coming up this week. One of the crafts the students are making is a flower with their faces in the center of it. So I took everyone's picture the other day and when I got them back this weekend one of them left me a little unsettled. In fact, it scared the crap out of me. It looks as though he wants to devour my soul. Judge for yourself.


And finally, I turned around at one point last week to see one of my students doing this. With a close-cropped haircut and some questionable parenting skills, he could have been Britney Spears circa 2007.

Riding the bus with Helen Keller

This past weekend Rach and I went up to Chicago for a couple of days. We had an amazing weekend, catching Wicked one more time, eating Garrett's popcorn, and being completely blown away by Hillsong United. On the bus ride to Union Station on Monday to catch the train back home, we sat across from an elderly lady whom just the sight of her cracked me up. Now I'm not sure if it was just too loud for her on the bus or maybe she had just finished her shift landing planes at O'Hare. Also, with the oversized sunglasses it looked as though she had routine cataract surgery over her lunch break. The whole Helen Keller act made me laugh, albeit inappropriately. If you look closely at the photo she looks like one of those old ladies that would be yelling "Who's making all that loud racket?" Um, Estelle, that's just the sound of your rapidly deteriorating hips.

That's huge!

Well the second day of school has ended and now we only have 178 more to go. So far they seem to be a good group. Today we did an activity that's called Me in a Bag where the students bring in three things to share with the class that tells us something about themselves. Usually they'll bring in photos, trophies, books, movies, or instruments. It's kind of a good way to learn about them and what they're interested in. As we went around the room today one girl said that she likes to help her grandpa in his garden. She then proceeded to pull out the largest cucumber/zucchini in history. I'm still not sure exactly what it was but nonetheless when it stretches from the waist of a third grader to their head it's mighty impressive. Plus it was a lot more interesting than looking at yet another Pokemon action figure.

Fleecing the tweens

This morning we were at the mall when I came across a Hannah Montana wig. It was one of the ugliest things I’ve ever seen. It kind of resembled Jennifer Aniston. Well that is if Jennifer Aniston was stuck in the eye of a hurricane and a riding lawnmower landed on her head. It was actually on sale….but then again it wasn’t. I know our education system is flawed in places but surely the tween population isn’t dumb enough to fall for this deal right?

Change

A couple weeks ago my brother Colin signed up for the Obama VP text message to be notified the second he announced his running mate. This is Col's first presidential election to vote in and he's taking it really seriously. He's actually taking time to learn about both candidates rather than listening to the masses drone that McCain with his numerous houses (Is it 7? Is it 10? I'm so old I can't remember.) is out of touch with the common man and that Obama loves killing babies. So over the last few days he had anxiously been awaiting the text. This morning he called to tell me that his phone started beeping maniacally at 2:09 a.m. He awoke long enough to see Joe Biden's name before rolling over and going back to sleep. If the change that Obama hails in every stump speech involves awakening me from my dream as a hang-gliding prince who fights crime with Helen Mirren while eating cotton candy and Sour Patch Kids, well then count me out.

Still waiting for the stars

It’s no secret that I’m not a fan of Dancing with the Stars (http://mritchason.blogspot.com/2007/02/dancing-with-people-who-look-vaguely.html). I find that they throw around the term “stars” much too liberally. I have yet to see Will Smith doing the foxtrot or Meryl Streep waltzing across the dance floor. Yet in all truthfulness I’ve never endured an entire episode, so I might have missed that when I flipped the channel to order the pancake puffs pan from that infomercial. Mmmmm, crab cake puffs. Today online I came across the lineup for the next season which starts September 22. I’ve already marked my calendar. Here’s a look at some of this year’s competitors:

Warren Sapp (retired NFL player) – Um, it’s football so…..well…..I’ve got nothin’.

Ted McGinley (Actor) – With this guy’s not-so-illustrious track record on TV, Dancing with the Stars will be cancelled by October.

Misty-May Treanor (Olympic gold medal-winning beach volleyball player) – A teacher at school today was shocked that I didn’t know who this was. “Haven’t you been watching the Olympics?” she lashed out. Unless your name is Michael Phelps, Kobe Bryant, or those American gymnasts I’m not really interested.

Mark McGrath (Lead singer of Sugar Ray) – I’m docking him a vote for each time I’ve heard that annoying “Every Morning” song. That should leave him at - 2,873,024 votes in the hole. Good luck!

Cody Linley (Hannah Montana actor) – If a pop culture junkie has to Google someone’s name to figure out who he is, then he’s probably not a star.

Brooke Burke (Model/TV host) – I remember her from that Wild On show on E! and she’s married to that guy from Baywatch. “That guy from Baywatch”? Hey, with a description like that he’s just what the producers are looking for next season.

Lance Bass (former member of N’Sync) – As long as I don’t have to listen to him sing anymore, it’s all good.

Kim Kardashian (star of Keeping Up With The Kardashians) – If all it takes to get on this show is to star in your own sex tape, then I look forward to seeing Screech, Mini Me, and my grandma in the mix next year.

Cloris Leachman (82-year old actress) – This will probably be the death of her. Literally. I hope she’s updated her will and someone at ABC is on set with those defibrillator paddles.

Toni Braxton (Grammy-winning singer) – She’s my pick to win it this year. If the poor man’s Whitney Houston can’t do it, well then nobody can.