Sad Katrina news..

Too exhausted and have too many papers to grade to write much. Easton's mom, stepdad, and 91 yr. old grandmother escaped New Orleans at midnight Sat. night to go to their friends' house in Birmingham. Linda (Easton's mom) told me that she was pretty sure that their house was destroyed and her mother's house in another part of N.O. So sad. Haven't heard from Easton's dad, stepmom, and brothers. I hope to soon and really hope they're okay. The Bedfords - old, family friends - Mr. and Mrs. B, their two dogs, Shelley, and Shelley's baby, Lauren (10 mths) arrived at Mom's Sat. and Sunday. They are hunkering down for at least 6-8 weeks. There, very unfortunately, may be nothing to return to. Devestation everyone. Brian Williams did an excellent piece of journalism on NBC tonight. Looting everywhere. The poor man from AL whose house split in half and lost his wife. The news said tonight it is the worst natural disaster in the nation's history. Hard to stomach and fathom the extent of damage Katrina did. I feel so sorry for the people of Miss., N.O., and AL. Katrina didn't discriminate based on wealth, but it surely will affect the poor the hardest. Pray, mediate, do what you do, but keep Easton and Shelley's families, and all the other people affected in your thoughts.

dog tired part II

Just returned home in my non-airconditioned car (long story - AC is totally shot and car is a FREAKIN' HONDA AND ONLY FOUR YRS. OLD!!!) and my 45 min. to an hour commute home. It was the first day of school. La. I love saying "La." It seems like a good way to end a thought....and a cheerful one at that. My friend Mary C. used to say it all the time in h.s.
Speaking of h.s., I wore this great pair of black heels that killed my freakin' feet today. I thought they were comfortable but my feet are clear evidence that my original idea proved to be false. So, I did my shpeal (sp?) five times - three times for my regs...(11th graders) and twice for my honors babies (10th grade). I had to go stand near this kid that was falling asleep the first day. C'mon kid, I know my eight page syllabus (half of which had to include the new state language arts standards and the three page Internet usage policy --- kids, you may not look at porn at school, you must save that for home..) is not exactly mentally simulating but I DO try to punctuate it with my semi-amusing anecdotes and give my scary lecture on plaigarism....actually, that worked out relatively well because my team teacher (I have a few kids with IEP's so I have a team teacher) gave the story of our student who copied another kid's research paper word for word and got busted, failed with a 69% and had to go to summer school. HAHA!
I also told my regs and esp. my honors to avoid reading Pink Monkey/Classic Notes/Spark Notes/Cliff Notes etc. because I want their original analysis and if they read them they may unintenially (or inteninally plaigarize).
All of my honors kids turned in their summer reading essays and vocab. thingies so I have 60 of each of those to grade already. Geesh. We did begin an interesting conversation about Catcher in the Rye though....some of them seem to be really on the ball. I just got an email from a mom that mistakenly should have gone to the childs' chemistry teacher and said "________ really likes horses. She'd have one in our backyard if she could." I was like "HUH?!?" and then I received a second email from the parent telling me she's sorry she send that on accident and that she's glad I assigned Jane Eyre to her daughter. Okay, cool. What's funny is her daughter must have just gotten home and she already told her mom what she was reading and then her mom must have immediately emailed me.
I did assign JE and I'm glad. It's a great book to start out with. Plus, since they just read Catcher with a male narrator, I wanted to balance it with a female one...equality of the sexes, ya know and all.
I came home with a big bottle of Pinot. Easton laughed when I brought it in the door. I told him I'm allowed being the first day of school. Background on this: I am trying to lose weight and prob. drink (okay definitely...) drink more than I should for any kind of weight loss to occur, so I make up these rules- actually one that my mom suggested - like drinking once a week - but then I break them by excuses - like it's the first day of school. Good excuse, don't you think?

Okay, must go throw together a salad and make spaghetti and pour myself a glass of aforementioned wine.

dog-tired

What a week already! And there's two days left of the work week. I'm sorry to a couple of you who I've been so out of touch with. I owe at least two people phone calls back from two-three weeks ago. Okay, I just actually made one. Go me. I don't want to make this all about dry work details, but that's mostly been what's going on with me lately. I'm so exhausted from endless meetings (oh, how I hate them!), unpacking and decorating my classroom, curriculum planning and student registration. Despite my venti latte this morning and few diet cokes, I'm dragging. I actually took a two hour nap after work today and now at almost 11 pmish; I'm tired again. Luckily, Easton made dinner. He was sooo good and actually took the skin off the chicken before baking it. He needs to watch his blood pressure and cholesterol and I need to lose about a billion pounds, esp. if I don't want to be a big, fat bride on our wedding day.

I'm trying to gather materials together for my 10th grade honors class. I've taught 10th grade in the past, but it was Amer. Lit, not world lit. or whatever it is. I do love the novels/plays for 10th grade. Summer reading was Catcher in the Rye and I'm starting the year with Jane Eyre. If you haven't read either of those books in your life thus far, you should really make the time. Both are excellent. Anyhow, I found some great stuff on the web. I'm becoming a big fan of Wikipedia. It's such a cool concept - it's an online encyclopedia and the creators have designed it so that everyone can edit, add new material and revise what's already written. I love it. Check it out.

I wanted to have a webpage made for my classes, but it doesn't look like it's going to happen. I'm keeping it in the back of my brain for now -- too many things to think about as it is. On that note, I'm going to bed. Unfortunately, Easton has his nerdy, yucky, sci-fi, crappy dvd, Animatrix, playing on the dvd player in the bedroom. Woe is me (I). I sooo don't want to fall asleep listening to that.
Ciao.

old lady aches and pains...

My last night in Florida is beginning right now. I can't believe that I've been here eight days. My, how the time has flown. I'm including an email that I sent to Easton with our wedding info. I must say my wedding is going to be much better than I originally thought. My mom bought Easton a joke gift today from B&N, complete with a sparkly gift bag. I think the title of the book is something like "Everything You Should Know about Being a Groom." They do love each other; I must say, which is way better than the alternative.

Old lady aches and pains have struck again. You could set time to my back pains. Every six months, without fail, I do something to fuck up my back. Right now it feels like someone his pinching my lower back...um nerves, I guess you would say...or whatever is back there (groan - bad pun). Anyhow, I just got off the couch after a couple of glasses or Merlot, some hummus and tortilla chips that Mom made, after experiencing her super-sonic massager/heating pad combo. It just hurts now when I stand for ten minutes or more. I can't stand it - the pinching and pain. Unfortunately, I left the muscle relaxers at home. Hopefully, I can get better before next Monday when we go back to school for pre-planning. I'm ready and not ready. I just spent over $90 at Barnes and Schnoble. $22 of that was a B&N 10% off card which I fortunately found out I can use in the cafe for a year. I bought two wedding books - one overall type planner deal and one on weddings on a budget, and a couple of chic lit. books - "Shopaholic Takes Manhattan" by Sophia Kinsella and Marian Keyes, "Lucy Sullivan is Getting Married." It's a guilty pleasure I must say. My 16/17 yr. old junior girls were obsessed with the Shopaholic books last year. They generally speaking, are not the most literate bunch and it feels weird to be reading the same lit. of choice they are, but ahhh well, we all must step off our academia pedestal every know and then, I guess.
Some of the bridal books have good tips on user gowns and rip all over the bridal factory dresses at David's Bridal. I know a couple of my friends have bought dresses there and all has worked out well, but I'm a little leary because of a couple of points the book brings up.

When I was in B&N today, I heard two women in their 40's talking about who R.A.B. was in Harry Potter 6, and I wanted to interrupt and share my BFF, Catie's theory on who RAB. Sirius' brother, if you must know. Catie's read the book twice. Me, just once, so I will defer to her as the HP authority. Plus, she has a better memory than me and she's read each HP book at least twice.

Okay, I transgressed....here's the wedding info. that I sent Easton.
http://staaa.org/ - Ceremony location. Not so exciting on the outside. We'll be getting married inside in the central art display area. It's beautiful. Art and sculptures all around the room. A big central area where chairs will be set up and mom and I are arranging for an arc that will be decorated with flowers. It's two blocks from the hotel and its definitely within walking distance. We are going to have to advise everyone to get to the hotel early and valet their cars - otherwise they're going to have to fight for a street parking place which will be hard during Labor day weekend. We put down the deposit to reserve the place today. There is a room for the bridesmaids and me to change and do hair/makeup, etc.

http://www.hilton.com/en/hi/hotels/index.jhtml;jsessionid=0ILJFY1P4MOXMCSGBIV222QKIYFC5UUC?ctyhocn=USTHDHF

Of course, you've seen this already. This is the hotel. I cannot express how pretty it is. The hotel fits in with the architecture of St.Augustine and was an old historical hotel that the Hilton totally redid. It's actually 18 separate buildings and takes up about half the block. It opened Feb.2, 2005, so it's really new. We met with the head chef (who designed the menu for the restaurant) and the events coordinator. He seems excellent - really creative dishes. Of course, we're doing heavy hors'de uerves (I know I spelled that wrong!) and the reception will go from 2-6pm. The wedding will start at 1 pm. I told the chef I'd like some New Orleans flavor so he's going to develop some cajun and creole appetizers that we can choose from. Since they've only had a couple of weddings, they don't have a full menu designed, yet, so we will have a lot of options to choose from him and he will basically do whatever we want within the price range. We put a deposit down today for the hotel/food. The view is gorgeous. We are going to open up the ballroom doors to the hotel for more open space and circulation. If you walk down the hall a bit, there is a balcony with a gorgeous view. It's such a good deal for the money. I feel so lucky we got these two places.

So, we have flowers almost done. Flowers for my family and yours. If your grandmother can make it down here, we'll add flowers for her, too. I think I'm going to ditch the celery green color for the bridesmaids and go brighter. I like the purple, orange, and fucsia flower combo. that I picked out for the reception area, so the bridesmaids will wear gowns to match that. I also had the idea of making some beachy/flowery centerpieces for each table.

Ohhh...I almost forgot...one of my kinda dreams was to ride in a horse drawn carriage.. We would take it from the ceremony site to the reception...I know you're prob. excited about this one.

On a post note, Mom got lobsters for us tonight. They were not cheap. She is so goddess-like to me. She's talking to Tim right now. He is spending lots of time with new gf in the chic, trendy West Village. She has a baby grand piano and a new dog that he likes quite a bit. She went to Brown and Columbia, so she is no slouch in the intelligence dept. and is a writer. She freelances for magazines and just wrote a book. He likes her a lot. I hope she feels the same way. After his last long term relationship with Psycho Emily, we all just hope for someone that is nice and relatively normal.

Okay, must go begin packing and get into my shopaholic book. I bought it in the wrong order, hopefully, it shall not matter. I should be reading Catcher in the Rye, Lord of the Flies or Anthem which I will be teaching shortly to my 10th honors classes.