Sorry, Wrong Number... You DUMMY!

So, apparently, my cell phone number is one digit away from the phone number for a local Chinese restaurant which delivers.

There is a woman who is having a great deal of difficulty with this concept.

The first time she called me and asked to order some delivery, I politely told her she had the wrong number. She asked if it was thus and such number and I told her no. The number she quoted was one digit away from mine. Apparently, she can NOT grasp this concept. Or she has some sort of difficulty with dialing.

She called me again the other day. Same request. One would think when I answer with "Hello" instead of "Wang Cho's takeout, how can I help you?" that would give her a clue, but no. She began giving me her order for Moo Goo Gai Pan. I interrupted her and told her she had the wrong number. She sighed impatiently and hung up.

She called again today. Again, she asked to give me her takeout order. Again, I told her politely she had the wrong number. And I said (politely, mind you) that she might want to check the number the next time.

And she said "Get a life, honey". GET A LIFE! GET A LIFE! Me get a life? I'm not the one ordering Chinese food three times in one week in the MIDDLE OF THE DAY. I'm not the one who is physically incapable of dialing the correct number. Get a life. I'll get you a life. I'll END your life. You just better not call me again. Or I'll take your order and then sit back and wait for you to realize that your Chinese food is never, ever going to be delivered.

That will show you. Get a life. YOU GET A LIFE. HONEY.

"Imagination is More Important Than Knowledge"

The above quote is from Albert Einstein, who, one would think, would consider knowledge much more important than imagination. But I am in total agreement with him. Imagination is much more important. Just think about all the great inventors who had very little education.

Several years ago, I designed an online story for my kindergarten students to teach them about library manners. I took stuffed monkeys and arranged them in a variety of situations, such as surrounding them with books they had pulled from a shelf, and took pictures of them. (And didn't I have fun doing that!) Then, I added narration and showed it to each class, talking about the bad monkeys and how they had to learn manners. From the first time I showed it and talked about it to the kids right up to today, I get the same response. Some immediately want to know if the monkeys are real. Were they REALLY bad when I left at night? Did they REALLY mess up the library? And there's almost always one or two who look at them with exasperation and say "Of course they are real. DIDN'T YOU WATCH THE STORY?" They watched the story. They processed the story. They believed the story.

The difference between those students who questioned and those who believed is that some of them have imagination. Here's the formula I invented and am proud to share with you right now. Any money generated by sharing this formula, of course, is entirely mine. A money order is fine.

Good Writing + Imagination = Belief

I have a good imagination. This can be both a blessing and a curse. When I see a traffic accident or read about a tragedy, my imagination often goes into overdrive. I fall into a mini-daydream of what if. What if that happened to this family member? And then this happened. And then that happened. And then this completely horrible thing happened. It is so real in my mind that I can literally make myself sick with remorse and sorrow. And then I snap out of it. That's the curse.

But it's a blessing when it comes to creative design - like the story I wrote for the kids. Or when I am reading or watching TV or a movie. With good writing and my imagination, I can completely fall into a story and become so enmeshed in these people's lives that I worry about them when I am not watching or viewing.

One example is when Tom and I became seriously obsessed, as I have mentioned before, with watching the DVD releases of the Buffy and Angel series. Although the shows are about supernatural beings and occurrences, the primary story line is about the doomed love affair between the petite, blonde vampire slayer and the hunky vampire. I can't express to you how anguished I was while watching this show. I was so completely involved in their lives and the lives of their heroic friends that they were constantly in my thoughts. Even though, in reality, I knew they could never be together, my imagination was constantly conjuring up stories about how it could work out. We have finished watching the shows and they both came to satisfactory endings. As satisfactory as they could be, anyway. And I still worry about them and think about ways that, maybe, just possibly, they could work it out and be together. See.

Good Writing + Imagination = Belief

The same thing happened as we watched the previous episodes of

Smallville. The difference with this show is that, since we know the superman mythos and what will happen in the future, everything in this show is technically a flashback. So, even though we both know the intense love Clark and Lana feel for each other is doomed, we still want it to work out. Our imaginations work overtime trying to make this happen. One of the main characters was killed the other night and Tom and I were upset for days. We still talk about it. The sadness. How it will affect all their lives. These are IMAGINARY people, y'all. Yet, we are seriously concerned.

Books are even better than any of the visual media in this regard because your imagination can not only envision what might happen with the characters, it can paint a whole visual landscape of where they are and what is happening, what they might look like, wear, how they would think. One of the books I can remember this happening with most clearly is Outlander. If you haven't read this, you should immediately click on Amazon and order it. It's a time travel romance story, a genre that probably began with the excellent story A Knight in Shining Armor and has since degenerated somewhat with a plethora of silly books about heavily muscled Vikings appearing from the past in women's bedrooms. In Outlander, Claire travels to ancient Scotland through the mysterious standing stones in England. Although it's a rather thick book, it is easy to read because of the excellent writing and because you become so involved in Claire and Jamie's story that your imagination brings them to life just as if you knew them personally. When Claire, inevitably, must return home, my heart just ached and I worried about them for ages. Until the next book in the series came out. Always a satisfying situation.

I get discouraged occasionally about how few of my students show real imagination. I honestly don't know if this is a result of reading less, watching too much mind-numbing television and movies and playing video games which require just a flick of the thumb for action to occur, or if there have always been just a few students in every group who have an active imagination. I don't know. And I don't know how many adults have an active imagination like mine. Sometimes, it can be a curse. I'd like to rein it in when it upsets me with visions of what could be. But most of the time it's a blessing.

When it, again, shows me what could be.

What, with a little imagination and some good storytelling, it could be. Should be. Satisfyingly, heart-warmingly, happily, should be.

So, So Lucky

It is absolutely pouring rain outside. The sky looks gray and dreary and too close to the drenched grass through the windows and the sound of the rain pounding on the roof is strangely lulling. On days like this, I always wonder about homeless people. What they do. Where they go. How they stay warm and dry and comfortable.

For some reason, I think about this often. When I dash outside late in the evening to take out a trash bag and it's quickly getting dark and an icy cold wind is blowing, I think "What if I had to STAY out here? What if I didn't have my nice, warm, cozy house to run back into?" I look up from the trash can and see my windows glowing with a golden, welcoming light and I wonder how they manage.

I can't even imagine an existence that does not include a safe place to live. If you are reading this, you have a computer, a home, a safe place to live. And aren't we so lucky? So, so lucky?

Rapunzel, Rapunzel, Let Down Your Hair!

So, remember when I told you I was going bald? I was trying to be funny and light-hearted and all that crap but, really, I was a little nervous about it. You know how when you are pregnant, you see ALL these other pregnant women and you think, "Wow, everyone else is pregnant, too!", when, in reality, there were just as many women pregnant around when you were non-pregnant, you just never noticed them!

Same exact thing with going bald. All of a sudden, I noticed all these other women my age who had, like, seriously thinning hair. I mean seriously. Where did all these women come from? How come I never noticed them before? And, last and by far most important, AM I GOING TO LOOK LIKE THAT? But. At least at this point, it seems to have stopped falling out. I mean, I still get random hairs in the shower and on the sink but it's just a few here and there. It's not like the wads I was taking out of the shower drain after every single shower. So, I'm thinking (and hoping) maybe it was a fluke. A one time thing. A surge in hormones. Or it could have been my hairdresser.

I mentioned my hairdresser (who knows nothing about this blog so I can LAY HER OUT) in another post about divorce and how I felt sorry for her, divorcing after 14 years of marriage. Well, I take it all back.

She and I had a knock-down, drag out fight last time she did my hair and if she didn't normally do such a good job and I hadn't been going to her for years and if I wasn't a wuss about finding someone else to do my hair, I would totally never go back. She refused to admit that she had made my hair a different color the last time she colored it. Adamantly refused. Even though I was sitting there with a different color on my hair and everyone had agreed with me that, yes indeed, it was a different color, she insisted that she had done exactly the same thing and it must have been my hormones. My hormones turned my hair from a pretty strawberry blonde to a brassy, metallic looking dark blonde? Uh, no. I know hormones can do crazy things, including messing with your hair but it WAS A DIFFERENT COLOR.

I was insistent, she was insistent, it became kind of embarrassing because the other stylists were all listening and shuffling their feet and acting like they couldn't hear.

Anyway. We worked it out. She fixed the color. It's still not perfect, but it's better. And now I'm thinking. When my hair was falling out was one of the times she had made it kind of a weird, darker blonde. I'm sure she wouldn't do it on purpose because, really what kind of as stylist doesn't want return business, but maybe...while she was thinking about her cheatin' husband...she mixed up the dye a little too strong.

I'm hoping that was it. And it was just a one time thing. And also. I'm thinking now maybe it's not a good idea to piss off the person who was maybe responsible for making some of my hair fall out. I really don't want any more to fall out. So maybe I just won't worry if the color of my hair is not exactly right.

As long as it's all there.

Books That Made A Difference To Me

Have you seen that feature in "O" magazine where celebrities talk about the books they have read that have made a difference in their lives? I read it every month and just CACKLE OUT LOUD at the books and authors they choose. Come on, now. Is one of your absolute favorite books REALLY a book by Ernest Hemingway and another by Philip Roth? Their lists always include classic books, books by authors I have never heard of, books that, frankly, sound extremely boring. Do they REALLY choose these books? They always have these completely deep, insightful things to say about the books also. COME ON. I'm not saying celebrities can't be intelligent, articulate, perceptive...OK, I am.

That's not really fair, since I am sure some are. I mean, some have actually graduated from Yale and other fancy-schmany places. But why don't they ask some average, normal people about books that have made a difference to them? Like ME?

And, now that I have said that, it would be very difficult to come up with a list of books that have made a difference to me. Because every single book I read makes a difference to me. I'm a ruthless reader. If a book does not grab me pretty quickly, I throw it aside and pick up another one. I always have a pile of books available. I visit the library every week and buy books as well. I read voraciously and omnivorously. I am not a slave to genre. Here is my criteria for a good book. It must tell a good story. That's it. It can be a Romance, a Western, a Science Fiction story, a Fantasy, a Mystery, or any combination of those, but it must tell a good story.

There are authors and titles in my head right now clamoring for attention and I am sure as soon as I exit from this post, I will think of more, but let me share just a few of my favorites.

Lightning, by Dean Koontz
Several of his books are trying to make their way onto this list and I would love to list them all because I think he is an author who makes his characters so alive that when you think about them later, you actually have to make an effort to remember if you read about them in a book or met them at a party. But this one is my favorite because I love time travel stories with all the many different outcomes that could result. The central premise of this one is a surprise to the reader, which doesn't often happen to me. I almost always figure that stuff out. Not this time.

Outlander, by Diana Gabaldon
Another time travel story, but in this one, she travels into the past back to Scotland, though the standing stones. One of the most powerful love stories I have ever read, this is the first in a series and will keep you enthralled from the first page to the last with the story of Jamie and Claire.

Confessions of a Shopaholic, by Sophie Kinsella
Ernest Hemingway? Pah! I'm much rather read something that makes me laugh out loud. Chick Lit has gotten a bum rap from some other bloggers recently, but, like all genres, there is the good and there is the bad. This is the good. You will love Rebecca and all her adventures in shopping, money management and romance in this one and in the sequels to this book.

One For the Money, by Janet Evanovich
If you haven't met Stephanie Plum, bounty hunter and owner of the perfect big hair and hastily applied mascara, you have a treat in store. There's also several in the series, so once you are hooked, you can read them all.

Atlas Shrugged, by Ayn Rand
And now one that is a little more serious. I discovered Ayn Rand in college and, although she does get a little wordy at times, I still love her characters and the stories she tells. I still think about events that happened in this book and it's been decades since I read it. And I want to BE Dagny Taggart.

The Stand, by Stephen King
I am faithful to Stephen and always read his new books, even though some of them make me...queasy. But my favorite is this one (although it was a close contest with The Talisman) because I love a story that pits good against evil and has great characters.

The Crystal Cave, by Mary Stewart
This is the first in a trilogy she wrote about the King Arthur legend. I love it because it tells the story of Merlin from the time he was a little boy and makes all the characters we have read about before, seem so very real.

OK, I'm going to stop. I could write and write and write about books, but there's a few you might want to check out. I think I'll just go read instead of writing about more. And so should you.

"Everyone has a photographic memory. Some just don't have film."

Do you have Microsoft Office 2007 yet? Well, I do. And it is making me CRAZY. The programs are all fairly similar and not too difficult to use but Outlook 2007 has a new feature that is making me CRAZY. CRAZY, I tell you.

You know how when you used to just type in a url in Outlook, that http thing, or copy and paste it, and it would just AUTOMATICALLY, because it was just SO SMART, make it into a hyperlink? Well, it doesn't do that any more. Instead, you have to click on Insert, THEN copy and paste the url, then it will insert it as a hyperlink.

Do you know how many times I have copied that url into an email instead of going through those steps? Do you have any idea? Approximately four skillion. Because I CAN NOT remember that you have to do it that way now. I. can't. remember. I seem to be physically unable to remember that I have to do that. And, of course, it seems like I insert a hyperlink into my email messages constantly. So, every time. I have to go through the two steps. Do it the old way, realize that doesn't work any more, then do it the new way. EVERY SINGLE TIME. God.

I guess once I do it the new way enough times, I will finally remember. But maybe not.

Last night, as I was going upstairs, Tom asked me to plug in his beard trimmer. It has a battery that has to charge so he wanted it charged up when he came upstairs to take his shower in a few minutes. I came upstairs and promptly forgot. I think I might have actually forgotten when I was about halfway up the stairs.

He came up, went back in the bathroom and called out "Why isn't my beard trimmer plugged in???" Oops. Sorry. No memory. None at all. NON-EXISTENT.

You Like Me! You Really Like Me! (With apologies to Sally Field.)

Well...well...picture me blushing here. The folks over at So Many Blogs, So Little Time just gave the nicest, kindest review of my blog. They are the second reviewers to grade me down on my template, so I guess I'll have to get that certain graphic artist in the family (I'm talking to you, Liz!) to design me a fab new template. Keep checking for updates.


In other news...I just had the greatest weekend! No, it wasn't jam-packed with activities and outings and parties and orgies. Oh, sorry, that just slipped in. Not that I have ever been to an orgy. But you are wondering now, aren't you? Good. I have to have SOME secrets on this blog.


Anyway, I had a great weekend because I did...NOTHING. NOTHING. Well, that's not strictly true since all the regular, fun stuff that makes my life worth living EVERY SINGLE DAY still had to be done, like cooking and cleaning and laundry. But I did not have to leave the house. I slept late, stayed in pajamas until late (afternoon) morning, got some reading done and just geared...back...mentally. It was lovely. And I needed it after that first week of school.


One would think that working with elementary school age children would be a breeze. Especially in the library. Reading to them. Checking out books. How hard can it be? The other school librarians out there are nodding their heads knowingly. It's just...hard. It's wonderful every day and I love my job, but it's...hard. It's hard to have a kindergarten class walk out the door and a fifth grade class walk in and have to change your entire way of teaching and talking. It's hard to help a teacher find materials, help a kid find a book they will love, work on the school web pages, help another kid, teach a class, shelve some books, work on a literacy bulletin board, print out a brochure you have created for a program, teach a class, work with a group of kids who are doing research on the Internet, help a teacher choose a DVD, teach a class...you get the idea. By the time I get home in the afternoon, I am ready for a nap. One of my fellow librarians told me the other day she fell asleep sitting up her couch at 4:45 in the afternoon and didn't wake up until 7:00.


I'm not saying that ever happens to me. Or that I wake up with a crick in my neck and drool on the couch pillow. That almost never happens.

How Can You Mend A Broken Toe?

Flash Back Friday

I have little, tiny, white scars on all the toes of my left foot. You would never notice them. I don't ever think about them. But they are there. They are there because, when I was about six years old, I broke every single toe on that foot. Yeah. I bet you are thinking, "Every toe? How does someone break every single toe?" Well, it wasn't hard. It was actually pretty easy. It happened in an instant.


They were redoing the storm drains in my neighborhood and had brought in these big, huge, cement (uh, I mean concrete, sorry Tom) pipes and left them strewn around in this grassy field. What great toys! (And wouldn't the parents have been horrified to know what we were doing?) They were big enough for a kid to run through but mobile enough for another kid to stand on and roll. Can you see where I'm going with this? As I ran through one, another kid rolled the same pipe. My right foot made it just fine but my left foot was trapped under the pipe as it rolled.


In hindsight, I guess it could have been worse. I could have fallen under the pipe and had something much worse than my foot crushed. Like my head. But just my foot was trapped. I'm sure I made a sound like a thousand cats having their tails rocked on by a rocking chair. I don't remember all the details. I do remember falling down in pain and looking down to see that my shoe was absolutely crushed.


There really isn't anything the doctor can do about a broken toe. It's not like they can put a teeny tiny cast on it. You just have to let them heal. And they did, finally. But the healing left tiny white scars across my toe. You have to look hard to see them. But I can see them. I can see them VERY clearly.

Coordinating Your Bath Gel And Lotion. Or, Being Just A Little Too Anal

I don't use bath soap. Ever. And before you back away, shaking your head to rid your nose of the odor of an unwashed body (and really? Do you READ my blog? Do you think a person who wears matching underwear and has innumerable shoes is gonna be stinky?), I don't use bath soap because I switched to bath gel years ago. I use the Bath and Body Works bath gel and lotion. And that is not a paid endorsement. Although it TOTALLY could be. I would be completely open to getting some free bath gel and lotion from Bath and Body Works in exchange for endorsing their products. Is anyone listening? Oh, well, it was worth a try. Because I do love me some good smelling bath gel and lotion.


But here's the problem. Does anyone else find this to be true? The lotion always runs out before the bath gel. I finally got smart and started buying TWO bottles of lotion for every bottle of bath gel, but I STILL end up with a couple of inches of bath gel in the bottle. Then I have to buy more lotion and I end up with more lotion than bath gel. What a quandary. Maybe it's because I slather lotion over every inch of my body, but I HAVE to. Otherwise I am dry and flaky. And it is not a pleasant experience to be scratching your boobs because they are so itchy when you are trying to teach a class of elementary students. So, the problem.


This morning, I looked at the bottles of bath gel and the bottles of lotion and realized I have several that don't even match up. So, I decided to make a bold move. A move that I am sure will land me in some kind of hall of fame for those bold and brave enough to make a major change in their bathtime ritual. I used bath gel and lotion THAT DID NOT MATCH. I know you are shaking your head in disbelief. I know. And I am just a little bit concerned that someone might report me to the bath gel and lotion police. Or at least to Bath and Body Works (did you notice how I got their name in this post twice? Surely that is worth some free products?) for mixing products. I couldn't match, but I at least tried to COORDINATE. I have on Warm Vanilla Sugar bath gel and Wild Cherry lotion. Sort of like a piece of candy you might find in a Whitman's Sampler. (More product placement. Ooooooo....Whitman's Samplers...).


So, I smell good. Good and sweet. Actually, sweet enough to eat if you consider the above titles. I may not match. But I smell good. And maybe those damn bottles will empty out at the same time. I'll keep you updated.

I'm golden. A kindergarten student just told me I smelled good.

Ni Hao (Nee HaOW)

Ni Hao. Hello. In CHINESE. I am SO multi-lingual! We have a new Chinese teacher at our school this year and, since she is teaching several of her classes in the library, I will probably be COMPLETELY FLUENT in Chinese by the end of the year. I could probably travel in China and converse with eloquence and ease with native Chinese. Or maybe not.


We have several new teachers this year. Every year, when I see the bright, young (are they getting YOUNGER?) faces of our new teachers, I can't help but think about my first year of teaching. I cried SEVERAL times. I have since learned this is not unusual and that most new teachers cry several times their first year. It's just so overwhelming. The responsibility. The planning. You have to be ready to think on your feet, to be extremely organized, to listen with amazed interest to the lost tooth story for the hundredth time, and to move an entire group of children back in an instant when one of them barfs on the floor. It requires specialized training. Although the reaction to barfing is a built-in talent.


My first year of teaching, we still had sixth grade in elementary school. The next year, they were moved to the middle school and all I can say is, Thank God. They terrified me. Most of them were bigger than me, they talked loud and walked with a swagger and they knew I was a weenie. And they took advantage of it. They were on me like vultures on a wounded wildebeest. Basically, they ignored me. When I was teaching, they talked. When I was reading aloud, they talked. When we were watching a video, they talked. I tried and tried to get control. But they had it and they knew it. You are probably thinking this was like one of those teacher movies where I came in and taught them to dance or showed them my karate moves I learned in the Marines, but no. I never got control. At one point, I went to the principal and CRIED because they WOULD NOT LISTEN TO ME. She listened, sympathized, gave me some advice. But she had other teachers to deal with. I was on my own.


It took time, but I have control now. I own THE LOOK. The teacher look. That surprised, slightly amazed look that says "What? What do YOU THINK YOU ARE DOING? I KNOW you are not doing that." And it works most of the time. Almost all the time. The teacher voice works the rest of the time. Tom still mocks me for saying "EXCUSE ME?" in the teacher voice one time when he was in the library. But it works.


I wish I could tell all the new teachers that they will perfect THE LOOK and THE VOICE. In time. With lots of practice and lots of patience. They will make it. They will probably cry this year. But they will make it. They will make it.