I am too tired and lazy right now to write up anything, but upcoming are two posts.  The first is about an interesting day I had on Friday with a musician who came in and talked to the students.  What sort of musician?  You will have to wait for the post for an answer to that.  😮

The second post will be about the winter retreat we just had, essentially a 24-hour lock-in at my church, also known as the reason I am too tired to post right now.  Note the lack of an accompanying picture to complement this post which just serves to give proof to my tiredness. 8)

Why bother making this post at all?  Why to add to my diminishingly-increasing post count of course. 😉

Until tomorrow. 🙂

Recalled peanut butter and peanut butter products are in the news. Another outbreak of salmonella. Salmonella in spinach, lettuce, carrots and other salad fixings, but now in peanut butter.

What got me on this is that I heard about the recall right after finishing off a box of nutty bars. No, I didn’t eat they box all at once, I just ate the last one right before I heard about the recalls. Quick check of the recall list, and I found out these were not on the list. But what kinds of foods that I eat are on there? Peanut Butter Cups? Cookies, Ice cream, candy?

So far, the things I normally buy are not on the list. Unlike the recall of the baby spinach last year. I guess I will have to keep an eye out as this recall expands or contracts. Peanut butter is in a lot of things I buy. I sure am glad I don’t have peanut allergies.

More about the peanut butter recall and list of products not recalled.

The following post, while going beyond my normally tame fare, just could not be resisted.  Besides, it reminded me of one of my favorite moments in the entire Brady Bunch mythos.  You know the moment when Peter threw a football and it came flying into the daydreaming face of Marcia, Marcia, Marcia.  Marcia screamed “OWW, MY NOSE“.  This gave the young lady a huge swelled nose and a severe blow to her ego as well as throwing any chance of her big date with the star football player out the window.  Well… a similar incident recently occurred at an establishment in Akron, Ohio.  However, it did not involve a football.

AKRON, Ohio — A northeast Ohio man who was smacked in the nose by a stripper’s platform-style shoe is suing a nightclub for $25,000 over injuries he says will require surgery.

Yusuf Evans says he wanted to entertain his cousin, who had come to visit from out of town, so he took him and a friend to the XTC Nightclub in Akron. 30 minutes later, Evans says he was doubled over in pain.

“When the boot hit me in my face all I could do is drop…and just holler for about ten minutes”, he said.

Evans says, while performing a dance move, a stripper’s shoe flew off her foot and smacked him in the face. “She ran, at a nice speed, grabbed the pole and flung her whole body around, all her weight flung like that in a circle around the pole and her boot flew off and it hit me in my nose”, explained Evans, who filed a civil lawsuit on Tuesday in Summit County Common Pleas Court. He’s asking for $25,000 in damages over injuries he says will require surgery. “Right here. It’s chipped”, he said, pointing to the left side of his nose. “This side of my nose, I often get clogged all the way up, where I can only breath out of (the opposite) side”, he said.

The lawsuit says XTC management allowed dancers to wear improper attire and required strippers to perform dances that made the stage a hazardous place.

“Safety reasons and that they’re responsible because it happened in their establishment by their employee”, Evans told FOX 8.

The owner of the XTC Nightclub had no comment.

Evans filed the civil lawsuit the same day he says he was injured exactly one year ago. The 37-year-old Akron man says he still has pain from the chipped bone in his nose.

He says he saw a doctor the day after he was injured. He has medical bills and was told he’d need surgery. “The bills, the pain, my nose that ain’t gonna go away unless I have surgery and I don’t like surgery so I don’t know what I’m gonna do about that.”

I guess next time I decided to invite a cousin to a night on the town, I would choose a safer place to be entertained.  I wonder what the man’s significant other thought about the incident.  The evening news reports that the victim is not a frequent patron of clubs and just wanted to show his cousin a good time.  I guess he thought the good time would be a little safer. [poll id=”15″]

Jamiahsh, a fellow blogger friend of mine, had a point when he noted that it’s been a long time since one of my famous anti-Walmart posts.  I hate the place, but as a mom of 4, I don’t have any other options that compare to the time and money I reluctantly have to admit I save shopping at Walmart.  It’s just their dirty tricks that drive me crazy, and I’ve ranted about those long enough – if you’re interested, flip through my blog posts and search for Walmart.  Right now, I need to address my most current Walmart disappointment: no more free cookies for the kids.

Those of you who have kids know that Walmart used to give out cookies at the bakery as a sort of rescue for tiresome kids whose parents are taking too long with their shopping.  I shop at Walmart once, sometimes twice a week.  It is a familiar habit for my two-year-old to get her cookie at the bakery while we shop.  If I’m lucky, it will keep her busy until I hit the dairy section.  But the other day during my weekly visit to Walmart, imagine my surprise when the lady in the bakery said they didn’t have any cookies.  Not only that, she thinks they won’t have them anymore, ever.  She wasn’t sure because the lady who usually handles the cookies (?) was on vacation.  Sounds like a cop-out to me…  I mean, is there really a lady who regularly handles the cookies?  I think she just didn’t want to have to tell this angel-face ‘no cookie’:

My daughter actually took it quite well…  of course, I bought her a pack of donuts instead…  It’s not that I’m a softie, but I just don’t think it’s fair that a two-year-old should have to bear the brunt of a mega-company’s policy change.  They gave cookies every time before this, and she has had to sit in the shopping cart and be good and do her time, and now all of a sudden, no cookie?  So I HAD to buy her a replacement treat, at least for this shopping trip.  Maybe in the future, I’ll try to prepare her ahead of time or just bring my own treat from home.  But in the mean time, their little plan worked, didn’t it?  Lure all the housemoms over to the bakery to get free cookies for their kids…  over time, they will grow to expect it, and then one day, no free cookies will cause them to pay money for something else for their kids – $CA-CHING$!

I admit it was a nice gesture on Walmart’s part to offer the free cookies in the first place.  Then again, we do spend enough over there; they should be able to afford it…  But it was a nice little perk, and as I said, something for the kids to look forward to about shopping at Walmart…  But in the end, it ended up being just another disappointment from our favorite big box retailer.

Our local non-Walmart grocery store still has free cookies for the kids, AND they’re fresh baked…  If I find more time and money, maybe I will make it a point to do more of our shopping over there…

How about your grocery store?  Is it a small mom-and-pop-owned place or a big box retailer?  Do they give free cookies to the kids?

The regular reader knows just what letter to place in the title parentheses to complete the picture of my day today.  Some time ago I wrote about an experience at a school that left me passing over certain assignments for the next year.  A couple of months ago took the challenge and subbed for that teacher again since most of those former ELL students were gone and was relieved that things had changed for the better, so when another ELL assignment popped up at that school I took it without a second thought.  It was for a teacher I don’t remember, but it shouldn’t have been a problem.  Well, we have second thoughts for a reason so taking the job without one was akin to famous last words like, “Nothing will go wrong; trust me.”

So, at the beginning of the day I arrived and it was mentioned that it was a two-day assignment.  What?  Two days?  I had to check my schedule again because I was sure it was only one day.  The teacher, who was there but would be testing students, finished going over the plans with me and I went right to a computer.  Yep- just one day.  At that point I was actually hopeful there was a mistake and it was supposed to be two.  By the end of the day I was glad it was not a mistake at all.  For some reason the two-day absence was put in as two separate assignments- my guess being that the software they use cannot support multiple-day assignments as I have never seen a multi-day assignment posted.  I had two such assignments a few months ago in this district, but it was put in manually as a different job number for each day which just serves to validate this theory.  So apparently what happened was I got one day, another sub got the other day.  I do hope she is up to it.   Ironically, she was there today subbing for another ELL class, the one I had no trouble with earlier this year.

When going over the plans I was somewhat pleased to find that I would be covering three math classes.  I expected the toughest would be 8th grade, so once that was over (it was the second class- 7th grade was the first) and things were still going, if not smooth, only slightly rough I thought it would be a pretty good day.  The rough spot for 8th grade was really no more than the quick quiz at the beginning being anything but quick for a few students, making less time for going over homework and letting them get started on their assignment.  So, after a two-period break I was ready for sixth grade math.  Remember those famous last words?  Ready- Uh-huh.  This was the loudest and most complaining class I’ve had in the last couple of years with some boys who loved knocking over the books of each other while I wasn’t looking.  Sigh.  They even complained when I didn’t check in their homework.  I mean, who complains about that??  Just take the extra day to have it done as a gift and keep quiet about it!  Then the plans called for them to take a test which they had in their packets.  Did you catch what was wrong with that sentence?  In their packets.  So what happens when some students couldn’t find their packets and the teacher didn’t leave behind extras?  Well, I found out.  I had three kids run to the office, which I only did because it was just down the hall, so someone in the office might take pity and make some copies for me.  Then I found some students only had one of the pages.  They had ripped the other page out, which had a prior assignment on the back.  Back to the office?  Not a chance- the secretaries suffered enough with the two runs (they only copied the first page last time) so I just marked down their names and let it go.  I also forgot to thank them after school too when I checked out- oops.  And throughout this there were some students who just would not stop talking.  I needed this class before the two-period break, not after.

So after this class was a multi-grade language arts class.  Needless to say, some of the 6th-graders from math were back for two more periods (block period).  While not as bad as the prior math class, it had its own challenges.  8th grade left after the first half to see counselors from their respective high schools they would go to next year, and that relieved some pressure but not all- remember 6th grade was still there and so was a very obnoxious 7th-grade girl who loved talking back and doing as little work as possible.  After this class and a tutorial class (study hall) the day was finally over.  Now I’m writing it up for you to enjoy too…

INSERT DISK HERE:

My son Christopher passed his 6 month baby checkup at the pediatrician with flying colors.  If only adult physical tests were this easy – pass a block from hand to hand, pick up a raisin (which was promptly taken away because he’s too little – where’s the reward in that?), a turn of the head when your name is called…  He has mastered all of it and is right where he should be developmentally.  Except for one thing – sitting up.  No I didn’t forget the ‘p’ – he has mastered spitting up…  haha.  But he can’t sit up unassisted yet, and he doesn’t even seem to be close to doing so.  The problem is that he refuses to bend at the waist.  If I can get him into a sitting position, (and that’s a big IF!) he arches his back immediately and tries to stand.  I tried to explain this to the nurse so she wouldn’t think he is physically slow, but he lost points anyway.  Never mind that he can use his legs to jump vigorously in his bouncer that hangs from the doorway, or that he can single-handedly pull and move a heavy dining room chair with his iron grip – he still loses points for not being able to sit unassisted.  Oh well, if that’s how they score it, that’s how they score it.  It’s not like it bothers me at all; I actually find it amusing.  I think he might be crawling and walking before he sits…

Other news from the doctor appointment is that he weighs 16 lbs. 13oz. which is in the 30 percentile for weight.  An easy explanation of the percentile comparison is this:  If you take 100 babies my son’s age, 30 of them would be at his weight or lower and 70 of them would weigh more than he does.  He is 27¼ inches long, which puts him in the 75th percentile for height.  His head circumference is 45.2 cm which is exactly average.  I think he is probably our most average-sized baby; our oldest was always small for her age and the two in the middle were huge – Disney was once in the 100th percentile for height!  Just another example of how different kids are, even ones in the same family.  My 4 children physically remind me of each other, yet it’s so fun to watch their differences emerge as they learn and grow!  Here are Disney and Christopher, my two youngest:

Today while at work, a yound girl and her mother came through my line.  The mother asked her 6 year-old daughter if she still remembered Morat from the Idol show.  The little girl’s eyes lit up and she very enthusuatically nodded her head.  I could not pass up a golden opportunity to entertain a young fan so our friend from Liswathistan returned for a few minutes.  He even asked if there was a song she would like to hear.  She a tell Morat she would a like to hear the “Twinkle Twinkle Little Star.”  So a Morat he a do his best and sing the song for the little people.

Morat just returned from Ton of Washing and see new owner America country.  I also see Plumb Joe in other country for TV box or news web or something, I a not know what he do.  But is Plumb Joe like a the Bob from Idol show?  They a both very strange people.

Ok… thank you, Morat.  I just think it is wonderful that someone that young remembered a character from a show she saw when she was probably 4 years-old.  Was he really that memorable?

Even though I don’t live in Chicago anymore (thank goodness because I’m not a big fan of crowds or traffic, two things which help define the city!), I still appreciate the humor in the following forward sent to me by a relative who ironically also moved away from the Chicago area a few years ago.  If you’ve ever lived in or near the 3rd largest city in the country, or even if you’ve just visited Chicago a few times, you will be able to appreciate the humor in the following one-liners:

If your local Dairy Queen is closed from September through May, you live in Chicago.

If you’ve worn shorts and a winter coat at the same time, you live in Chicago.

If you’ve had a telephone conversation using more Spanish than you thought you knew with someone who dialed a wrong number, you live in Chicago.

If “vacation” means going anywhere south of I – 80 for the weekend, you live in Chicago.

If you measure distance in hours, you live in Chicago.

If you have switched from ” heat” to “A/C” in the same day and back again, you live in Chicago.

If you can drive 75 mph through 2 feet of snow during a raging blizzard without flinching, you live in Chicago.

If you carry jumpers in your car and your wife knows how to use them, you live in Chicago.

If you design your kid’s Halloween costume to fit over a snowsuit, you live in Chicago.

If the speed limit on the highway is 55 mph — you’re going 80 and everybody is passing you, you live in Chicago.

If driving is better in the winter because the potholes are filled with snow, you live in Chicago.

If you know all 4 seasons: almost winter, winter, still winter and road construction, you live in Chicago.

If you have more miles on your snow blower than your car, you live in Chicago.

If you find 10 degrees “a little chilly”, you live in Chicago.

First one big cheer!! I finally got my truck back from the body shop. It looks great and I can’t even tell a deer hit it. 1 week without my truck and driving around in a mid-sized car, grump, grump. Even though I have a mid-sized truck, I missed the higher ground clearance and view. What really surprised me, was that I missed the gas mileage. The car I was driving got around 20-22 miles per gallon, my truck on the other hand gets 25-28 miles per gallon. This is mostly highway driving, I’m sure the in-town driving is much less for the truck. Since I usually drive highway miles, that is what I need to measure. The 3+ extra miles per gallon made a difference in the driving I had to do last week.

For those who aren’t in the know, I use my truck as a truck. If there had only been dents and dings on the body after the deer hit, I would probably have left it alone. But I was without my front driver side head lights, and that needed some attention. I was 1 week without my truck during the coldest/snowiest week of our winter. So it was a bit harder moving firewood and driving through deep snow.

The other part of my afternoon was spent with a Doctor. Turning 50 early next month has prompted my Dr. to want me to get all sorts of preventive procedures. Today was a meeting with the Dr. who will perform the first of many procedures. I won’t go into what will be involved in the procedure, just need to say I will be sedated through the whole thing and then need a ride home. I really don’t like being driven anywhere, and it gets worse when I am in an incapacitated mode. My daughter should have fun!!! This will be the first of many such tests and procedures I will have over the next few years. Can’t wait.  😯

I just marvel at the sight of witnessing an Inauguration Day on television.  Actually being within miles of the actual ceremony must be exhilarating.  The pomp and circumstance of the changing of power from one administration to another is just inspiring.  Millions of people gathered at the Mall facing the Capitol Building (I heard an estimated report that there was 1 port-a-potty for every 400 people), a chilly day indeed unless you are wearing layers upon layers of clothing.  The appearance of the three living past Commanders-in-Chief as well as their seconds in command preceding the oath is yet another traditional element of the passing of the torch.  Of course, there was a small snafu involved in the ceremony, it was a moment or two behind.  Is it in the 20th Amendment that the oath must be administered at noon?.  It does state that the President’s and Vice-President’s tenures ends at 12PM on January 20th.

Poor President Bush was mocked so heavily by David Letterman (among other talk show hosts) in what seemed like nightly installments of Great Moments in Presidential Speeches.  Mr. Letterman may well have his first moment for President Obama even before he was even sworn in.  The President-elect rushed over the Chief Justice in the recitation.  I believe that this inadvertently caused Justice Roberts to slightly flub the second line of the oath.  Probably the excitement of the moment.

I was impressed with the history making address of the new leader of our country.  He pulled no punches and made it blunt that there is work to be done in the U.S. as well as abroad and that it would not be easy days ahead but necessary.  I think the moment was made more profound when he alluded to the fact that 40 years ago, his family and others like him could not enter certain restaurants and be served;  now he is now the leader of that country.  A change has indeed come.  Let us hope that the next four years are filled with a new spirit and new prosperity.  I just hope that the president and his mother-in-law are on good terms.  Of course, the White House is a big place.