Ms Fix-it

When I had fully recovered from my weekend of fun and frolic and went back to work on Monday, I turned my attention to my classroom. You remember, the one in which there had to be a massive cleanup due to the discovery of vermiculite laced with asbestos? Oh okay, if you want to be picky, it ended up being a cleanup of every single classroom in the whole school, but this is my blog so I’ll write what I want. And I want to write about my classroom.

So: one of my tables was wobbly. I only figured this out when I sat down with a kid the other day and got him to do some writing. He was just a little kid, but that table nearly buckled under the pressure of his skinny little arm. So that needed to be fixed. All that was necessary was to tighten the screws on each adjustable leg of the table, so this wouldn’t be a huge job.

I had also unearthed a room divider to separate the kids’ computer station from the rest of the room. This divider is necessary because while I’m teaching small groups of kids, I’d prefer that they not be disturbed too much by other kids who come in at various times during the day to work independently on this special computer program on one of the two laptops in the corner. This program is supposed to “retrain the brain”, but we only got it at our school last spring and no one has yet completed the program, so I’m not sure if anyone’s brain has actually been modified thus far.

But anyway, this divider was exactly what I needed – except that it too was extremely wobbly. When the principal and I had carted it down to my classroom, we had flipped it over to see how its stands were attached, and he had quickly deduced that the nuts just needed tightening. Preferably with a wrench. Finger tightening wouldn’t quite work for this job.

Now, for little repairs like these, we are supposed to ask our custodians. They, of course, have nothing better to do than to fix things for teachers. Clean the school? Nah, not when there’s things to fix!

And if the job is too big or complicated for them, we are supposed to put in a work order for someone from the maintenance crew to come out and do whatever it is. Sure, and they’ll show up in about six weeks. And in the meantime, whatever needed to be fixed has now completely broken and must now be replaced at great cost.

So I brought my good wrench and my trusty screwdriver to school this morning. And I tightened the screws on that table just like that. And I quickly got the nuts on that divider good and tight too. Nothing wobbled any more. I was most pleased with myself!

I put the room divider back into its place beside the computer station. I’d had to move out another table (not the previously-wobbly one) to pull the divider out, so now I shoved that table back against the wall. Just a little too enthusiastically, possibly …

The clock on the wall of the classroom next door to mine immediately crashed to the ground. Its plastic cover popped off and the clock stopped ticking. I don’t think I can fix it with my wrench and screwdriver.

Cleaning lady

I haven’t been able to set up my classroom prior to the start of school, due to circumstances beyond my control. My mom has just moved into a lovely, clean, well-maintained condo. What do these two events have in common? Well, oddly enough, they’ve combined to make me want to clean my house.

So today I got busy.

I vacuumed. I do not like vacuuming. I try to cajole DD into doing it, and although she did do it out of the goodness of her heart last week, she usually weasels out of it. But today, she was at work, so if it was going to get done, I was going to have to do it. So I did. But I forgot to do the basement TV room.

I finally washed the damn kitchen floor. And all the stairs. I have been putting this off for months, but when DD actually noticed how dirty the floor was and mentioned something about it needing a wash, I realized that I would have to quit whining and just do it. And it wasn’t so bad. But I’m not doing it again till next summer. It’s just not a priority. Till my feet start sticking to the floor.

I took down my curtains and washed them. That is definitely unusual behaviour around here. They probably didn’t really need it, since I think I might have washed them sometime last winter. Or the winter before that.

I also wiped down the mini-blinds in my bedroom as best I could. I never do a really good job, but they were filthy, since the window has been open all summer. Again, this is one of those jobs that I hate, so I avoid doing it. And I only did the mini-blinds in my bedroom. Because I’m thinking of getting new ones with wider slats anyway. For three years I’ve been thinking about it.

I did three loads of laundry. DD often does this, but I actually don’t mind doing laundry. What I mind is folding the clean, dry laundry and putting it away. How can two females generate so bloody much laundry anyway?? I just DID laundry a couple of days ago! I need a laundry fairy. Or more clothes.

I washed dishes. I know, I know – I have a dishwasher, but this was plastic containers and frying pans and stuff that I don’t put in the dishwasher. It’s been accumulating for a while. I’ll just leave it at that. A while.

I scrubbed three bathrooms. Usually DD does her own bathroom, but hey, I was on a roll. But I skipped cleaning the mirrors. I am awful at cleaning mirrors. I have been known to leave them streakier and spottier than when I started. It doesn’t seem to matter what product I use, either. I just cannot get the hang of it. Darn. And I really want to clean mirrors. Very badly want. Oh, double darn.

DD will be home soon. I’ll get her to finish up the dusting because I’m tired now. I’ve worked very hard. There’s vodka in the freezer and cranberry juice in the fridge. It’s time to reward myself.

Bill, please

I sat down last night with all the receipts and various other bits of paper that I had accumulated on our recent trip. I save everything because I will (eventually) get prints made of the photos we took and I will (eventually) create a scrapbook of the trip, complete with captions for the photos and adorned with ticket stubs and brochures and anything else appropriate that I had collected. I’m not a true scrapbooker (those people are weird and obsessed!), but what I make could be considered a more laid-back, cheap imitation. I’ve done this for all of our trips, and they are lovely souvenirs. They are time-consuming to create, however, which is why I haven’t really started yet.

Anyway, while I was sifting through all that paper, I thought it was time to figure out roughly what the cost of the trip actually was. I also do this after every trip, because it helps me for planning and budgeting the next trip – and there is always a next trip! (I’m just not sure where or when yet.)

I didn’t have exact figures in Canadian dollars for everything, except airfare and our mini-tour. There were a few more items for which I had prepaid with my credit card, so I checked on-line to see what those prices were when converted from euros to dollars. I used a bit of guesswork to change a few other expenditures to Canadian currency. I also didn’t have entirely accurate numbers for our daily living costs (food, entrance fees, souvenirs, etc), so I just used the figures from my bank account from each time I withdrew money while we were away.

I added it all up. Then I checked my provisional budget that I had drawn up while I was planning the trip, sometime late last spring. I was actually below that budget. By 500$.

I am a legend.

I may not comprehend much about math, but when it comes to money, I am simply a legend.

You may want to hang out with me.

Hunt and gather

DD and I do a lot of walking together. We have wonderful conversations, and we seem to quite enjoy each other’s company. All that mother-daughter together stuff, plus it’s great exercise. Can’t lose, right?

Except for the time DD was wearing her current favourite earrings, the long dangly purply-red ones that she found at a kiosk at her university. We’d only walked for about ten minutes, when she realized, to her horror, that she’d lost one of them.

We stood there on the sidewalk, in the dark of the evening, as she quickly ran through all the places she’d been since the last time that she’d actually noticed that she was wearing both earrings. She came to the inevitable, but hopeless, conclusion that she’d lost it somewhere between the house and where we were currently standing.

“Do you want to backtrack and look for them, or should we just carry on?” I asked her.

She hesitated, torn between the knowledge that she’d likely lost that earring forever and the faint hope that if we hunted in the dark, there was a slim chance we’d find them.

I sighed. “You know you’ll just beat yourself up if we don’t at least look. Let’s go.”

So we backtracked. She took one half of the sidewalk, I took the other. I asked her to place the remaining earring on the ground so we could get an idea of what we might be looking for. I’m not sure if it helped, it was so dark, but we slowly made our way back home, trying to follow the exact route we’d just taken.

And I found the damn earring. It was across the street from our house, a few doors down. I don’t know how I found it, mixed in with leaves and dirt and twigs (there’s a lot of trees along this part of the street). But there it was, shining in the weak light from the streetlamp. DD was ecstatic! She really does love those earrings.

Fast forward several weeks later. DD had bought me two pair of pink earrings at the same kiosk, and I quite like both pairs, even though they’re really nothing special. One is a lighter pink, the other is almost a shade of fucshia. As you probably know, I wear a lot of pink, so I wear both sets of earrings a lot (but not at the same time!).

So what did I do when I went for a solo walk one evening? Yes, I lost one of the earrings. Only, I noticed it missing when I was already more than halfway home, so although I searched valiantly the rest of the way, I didn’t spot it. I couldn’t even remember when the last time I was sure that I had both of them, so I had no way of knowing exactly where to look. I could have lost it at work that day. Or any of twenty places I’d been throughout the day. It was impossible to know.

I went into the house, and told DD my sad story. She commiserated with me, and assured me that she would look for another similar pair the next time she was up at the university. I went into my bedroom to get ready to take a shower, and noticed that the floors badly needed vacuuming. I bent down to pick up a particularly obvious piece of fluff – and it was my earring. Just laying on my bedroom floor waiting for me.

And then it happened again. It was a pair of stud earrings this time, and I lost one. The backing stayed in my ear. This was in my car, a location which does not bode well for finding anything ever. But I found that earring, in a fold of my t-shirt, in just a few minutes.

So if anybody needs an earring found, I am apparently your woman. And all I need in return is your thanks.

Save me a chair, okay?

When I came home from my weekend away at Whistler last Sunday evening, there was a plastic patio chair abandonned at the side of the road near my driveway. I remember thinking, “Oh, somebody had a garage sale and forgot to take their chair in.” Then I thought no more about it.

Monday morning when I left for work, the chair was still there. Monday afternoon when I came home, it had been tipped on its side, but it was still there.

Tuesday morning, still there, tipped on its side. Tuesday afternoon, it had been moved behind the sidewalk and was sitting properly.

Wednesday morning, it was still there. Wednesday afternoon it was in the same place but tipped over.

Thursday morning, still there. By this time, I was thinking, “Whose damn chair IS this?”

By Thursday afternoon, I’d had enough. I marched over and claimed it. It’s a perfectly good chair. Now I have another chair on my back patio. For free. Yay me!