Grinding Away . . .
Sep. 7th, 2002 07:36 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
omorkaLong week . . .
I'd ordered Libana's three CDs of Goddess/Women's/Pagan music, along with the songbooks, and they arrived this week. Samhain's Chanter's Chorus meeting is going to kick ass. Even better, "Lo Yisa Goy" is on there - and not only do I finally know the words, I finally know the correct *name* of what we've all been calling "The A-O Chant"! "Autumn Time" and "Dark of the Moon" I am *totally* looking forward to teaching everyone . . .
Thursday was Open House. I bribed my kids with a free 100 for a daily grade if they brought their folks (I'm giving enough dailies and quizzes that it'll end up being maybe 3 points on the final grade, so I don't feel too bad about it). That day, I did the rubber-band stretch experiment with the kids to illustrate line-of-fit, and RR asked me to bring a couple of copies of the completed graphs to the table, so I did.
Mrs. M and MN and I all went out to "Cliff's," as Ms. M keeps calling it, for dinner. This time I got to see the sign that said "Don's Deck." I was highly amused, and had to explain to Mrs. M why I found it so funny . . .
Now, instead of having the parents try to find their kids' classrooms (and having dozens get lost on their way to or from the Annex), this year they had us all in centralized locations - math and science in the South library, English and history in the North library, and everyone else in the North cafeteria. Each team - PreCalculus, Biology, English III, etc. - had their own table set up. I had pseudo-business cards photocopied off, as well as contact info slips for the parents, so I stuck them behind the sign at the Algebra II table. Everyone else was joking about having a quiet evening.
I got 33 parents, mostly Alg. II but a couple of Geometries. I didn't get to sit down all evening. Wow. Dr. R came by at one point, when I had one parent in front of me and one waiting to get a word in, and seemed impressed. I even have enough parents' e-dresses to send out an e-mail newsletter.
Friday I gave the Geometry kids their first test. First period went just fine. Second was terrible - I had to send one kid to the office and threaten four others. Football and basketball players, all of them (except one girl). How did they get to tenth grade without learning how to take a test? To make things worse, I don't have a correct home phone number for the kid I had to write up. Third managed to get through the rubber band experiment just fine, but they are being dense as hell about parametrics - they want me to boil it down to a single algorithm they can memorize. Sorry, can't happen!
To make things worse, we spent the day knowing that Fay was bearing down on us (I jokingly chastised RR for using her cell phone in the hallway; one of her daughters called her about it). The Spouse finally Rain-X'ed the car, which was a good thing on the way home - it never rained really hard, but it rained enough that it was useful.
We got home around 7:15, after getting dinner. There was a message on the machine, so the Spouse checked it. It was the MIL, in total hysterics - I couldn't even tell what was the matter from the message. The Spouse called her back immediately - it turned out she'd been in a major wreck. Some frat jock in a truck ran a red light in the rain and smacked right into the front passenger tire area; the impact skidded the Storm clear across the intersection - fortunately, there was no one on the other side. (Mr Jock got the ticket and is at fault, so his insurance gets to pick up the tab; he was apparently rude enough to the cop that he'd probably have been ticketed even if he wasn't the one at fault.) The Spouse went to pick her up; he called me from there to tell me that she was basically okay, but that we'd need to take her to the emergency room at the clinic to have her checked out, and the paramedics were still taking her information - I should go ahead and get ready, since they'd swing by to pick me up in a minute.
Now, I seriously questioned the wisdom of having more people than absolutely necessary driving around in the bow-wave of a tropical storm, but they insisted. So I got my stuff together and waited. And waited. (Fortunately, I got all the Libana ripped to MP3 for portability while I was waiting.) Apparently the paramedics were concerned enough to want to seriously check the MIL over if she wasn't going to the hospital with them.
They did eventually get here, and we took her to the emergency room connected to the Kelsey-Seybold clinic that she and I both use. The Spouse and I then got to wait for another hour and a half while they took x-rays and everything. She has major muscle bruising and a minor laceration on her foot, but nothing broken, and, incoherent hysteria notwithstanding, no concussion. Now she's refusing to get the prescription for painkillers filled. She's going to be seriously sore by Monday . . .
We haven't heard from any of the insurance people, and probably won't until Monday at the earliest, but both the MIL and the Spouse are guessing that the Storm is totalled - front passenger has major frame damange. (I suppose we're lucky there wasn't anyone riding with her - they'd have had to be cut out of the car . . .) Back to one car for the three of us again, although *if* the insurance comes through we can probably fix that within a few weeks this time.
Meanwhile, Fay turned south and petered herself out without smacking us with really heavy rains or wind, although Kemah took some minor damage.
In other news, I'm actively hunting for a tabletop gaming group in the Houston area, preferably in GURPS, but pretty much anything other than Rolemaster, Champions, or D$D would be okay. Anyone reading this knows of one, give me a holler.
I'd ordered Libana's three CDs of Goddess/Women's/Pagan music, along with the songbooks, and they arrived this week. Samhain's Chanter's Chorus meeting is going to kick ass. Even better, "Lo Yisa Goy" is on there - and not only do I finally know the words, I finally know the correct *name* of what we've all been calling "The A-O Chant"! "Autumn Time" and "Dark of the Moon" I am *totally* looking forward to teaching everyone . . .
Thursday was Open House. I bribed my kids with a free 100 for a daily grade if they brought their folks (I'm giving enough dailies and quizzes that it'll end up being maybe 3 points on the final grade, so I don't feel too bad about it). That day, I did the rubber-band stretch experiment with the kids to illustrate line-of-fit, and RR asked me to bring a couple of copies of the completed graphs to the table, so I did.
Mrs. M and MN and I all went out to "Cliff's," as Ms. M keeps calling it, for dinner. This time I got to see the sign that said "Don's Deck." I was highly amused, and had to explain to Mrs. M why I found it so funny . . .
Now, instead of having the parents try to find their kids' classrooms (and having dozens get lost on their way to or from the Annex), this year they had us all in centralized locations - math and science in the South library, English and history in the North library, and everyone else in the North cafeteria. Each team - PreCalculus, Biology, English III, etc. - had their own table set up. I had pseudo-business cards photocopied off, as well as contact info slips for the parents, so I stuck them behind the sign at the Algebra II table. Everyone else was joking about having a quiet evening.
I got 33 parents, mostly Alg. II but a couple of Geometries. I didn't get to sit down all evening. Wow. Dr. R came by at one point, when I had one parent in front of me and one waiting to get a word in, and seemed impressed. I even have enough parents' e-dresses to send out an e-mail newsletter.
Friday I gave the Geometry kids their first test. First period went just fine. Second was terrible - I had to send one kid to the office and threaten four others. Football and basketball players, all of them (except one girl). How did they get to tenth grade without learning how to take a test? To make things worse, I don't have a correct home phone number for the kid I had to write up. Third managed to get through the rubber band experiment just fine, but they are being dense as hell about parametrics - they want me to boil it down to a single algorithm they can memorize. Sorry, can't happen!
To make things worse, we spent the day knowing that Fay was bearing down on us (I jokingly chastised RR for using her cell phone in the hallway; one of her daughters called her about it). The Spouse finally Rain-X'ed the car, which was a good thing on the way home - it never rained really hard, but it rained enough that it was useful.
We got home around 7:15, after getting dinner. There was a message on the machine, so the Spouse checked it. It was the MIL, in total hysterics - I couldn't even tell what was the matter from the message. The Spouse called her back immediately - it turned out she'd been in a major wreck. Some frat jock in a truck ran a red light in the rain and smacked right into the front passenger tire area; the impact skidded the Storm clear across the intersection - fortunately, there was no one on the other side. (Mr Jock got the ticket and is at fault, so his insurance gets to pick up the tab; he was apparently rude enough to the cop that he'd probably have been ticketed even if he wasn't the one at fault.) The Spouse went to pick her up; he called me from there to tell me that she was basically okay, but that we'd need to take her to the emergency room at the clinic to have her checked out, and the paramedics were still taking her information - I should go ahead and get ready, since they'd swing by to pick me up in a minute.
Now, I seriously questioned the wisdom of having more people than absolutely necessary driving around in the bow-wave of a tropical storm, but they insisted. So I got my stuff together and waited. And waited. (Fortunately, I got all the Libana ripped to MP3 for portability while I was waiting.) Apparently the paramedics were concerned enough to want to seriously check the MIL over if she wasn't going to the hospital with them.
They did eventually get here, and we took her to the emergency room connected to the Kelsey-Seybold clinic that she and I both use. The Spouse and I then got to wait for another hour and a half while they took x-rays and everything. She has major muscle bruising and a minor laceration on her foot, but nothing broken, and, incoherent hysteria notwithstanding, no concussion. Now she's refusing to get the prescription for painkillers filled. She's going to be seriously sore by Monday . . .
We haven't heard from any of the insurance people, and probably won't until Monday at the earliest, but both the MIL and the Spouse are guessing that the Storm is totalled - front passenger has major frame damange. (I suppose we're lucky there wasn't anyone riding with her - they'd have had to be cut out of the car . . .) Back to one car for the three of us again, although *if* the insurance comes through we can probably fix that within a few weeks this time.
Meanwhile, Fay turned south and petered herself out without smacking us with really heavy rains or wind, although Kemah took some minor damage.
In other news, I'm actively hunting for a tabletop gaming group in the Houston area, preferably in GURPS, but pretty much anything other than Rolemaster, Champions, or D$D would be okay. Anyone reading this knows of one, give me a holler.
