The Kitten Days Of Summer

My summer officially ended today. I was back on the chain gang. I was singing it like The Pretenders before Marilyn even told me to.

I had a good summer. The weather was very cool and rainy, my garden wasn't great. But I didn't get sick, I did some fun projects, hung out with Lila (even though we didn't technically do anything), had a good visit with Dhyana, did some cooking, and just enjoyed my time away from work.

Monday was a fabulous next to last day of summer. Carla and I saw "Julie and Julia". It was such a fun movie. The food was glorious and the love of the two different couples was sweet and patient and comforting. Then she and I had lunch at La Baguette. I had the butternut squash ravioli. Then we went to Michael's to look at stamping stuff and I bought more pages for the epic photo project. Our check-out clerk was one of our former students. She looked good. I don't know if she was ever a druggie, but she looked pretty clean. She said she'd had a baby and gave it up for adoption. She talked easily about it, but the profound sadness was unmistakable.

When I got home, two gifts were waiting for me. First, Larry sent me a card full of fortunes out of fortune cookies. If you've never been to my house, the upstairs bathroom walls are decoupaged with fortunes. So I'm gonnna have to bust out the Modge-Podge again soon. Personally, I think Larry should do it himself. Why do I gotta do all the work? Hmmm?

Second, Marilyn, in her quest to convert me to Catholicism through humor, sent me a gift to help me observe August 15th, The Assumption of the Virgin Mary. She sent me a Holy Toast Stamper. I tried in yesterday morning....Our Blessed Lady did not manifest. She can see into my heart. But, yesterday morning, I did watch "A Nun's Story" on TCM. I felt a little closer walk with Thee after that. I felt bad for the nun cuz she had to choose between being a nurse and being a nun. Being a nun meant she had drop whatever she was doing when it was time for mass or vespers. Even if a patient needed her. They should let people be part-time nuns. Like the National Guard.

Speaking of TCM, I watched a few movies either on that channel or AMC. A few that stick in my mind were "The Courtship of Eddie's Father" with Glenn Ford and Ronnie Howard, "The White Cliffs of Dover" and "Mrs. Miniver". I don't remember who's in those. They were British war propaganda movies overtly designed to elicit American support to join WWII. Keep a stiff upper lip and all that.

Back at work today, I had a new flat screen TV installed in my room. It's up on a wall bracket. The DVD slot is on the upper right-hand side which means....I can't reach it! I told Sharie, our admin assistant. She came back to my room a few minutes later and said, "Jen, you don't get a raise this year, but here's a step stool!" Awesome. It's kinda running joke in our school district. They do things that are jacked up and try to pass it off as something great. Like recently we got a minuscule pay raise and we had to work 3 more days. Um...I'm not a math teacher, but that's not a pay raise.

Ah...good times, good times.