Woo Hoo Hola to the One Week Countdown!
Last week of icky bad super chemo to go, right? You got this. I’m so confident that I buckled and succumbed to the cheesy dog “Heal!” card ala sick people. Gotta hurry and get those in before you chemicalize the hell out of the big C. There are so many “Heal!” dog cards in the get well section that it took me a while to pick the best one. Which was, of course, the one that looks most like Hugo.
I overheard Syd and Julian talking about what kind of person Hugo would be if he were human. I thought they’d say “kind, charitable, slow learner now that he’s an old dog.” Nope. What did they come up with? Indigenous Gay Black Man. I’m not sure what that means, but all of their friends in kitchen concurred. Who knew we here on our little corner of Hampshire Woods were so covertly diverse? If we cannot recruit the actual gay community in throes, we can at least get their dogs. That or maybe we need to watch more PBS and less Queer Eye.
Hugo always had a head like a furry anvil. But the rest of him was – at a time long long ago – almost svelte. THEN he got attacked by a pit bull when I was walking him in the city one snowy day, and I gave him about 10,000 calories of dog pity bones daily. I didn’t realize they were each over 2,000 calories a bone.) THEN he won his vet’s biggest loser contest (from 120 to 76 pounds). So we’ve gone from Jailhouse Rock Hugo to Fat Elvis Hugo. Syd says he is Pretty Hot And Tempting (“PHAT”). I prefer “full-figured”.
The latest from Upscale Mayberry:
Nobody interesting showed up to the HOA meeting. Pete and I bailed before I could get guilted into being on the board. Plus, Foxfire’s $5 martini special was going on and we didn’t wanna miss it. Nobody even brought up the issue of yard signs. Bummer. But this is the heart of the midwest where we are home to the continental breakfast and passive aggressive problem solving.
More deets on the Bigsby’s move, which we know because Julian heard it in the school lunchroom and Anna paid her painter an extra $20 to verify that his crew had been at Bigsby’s painting all the rooms neutral to make it show better for their realtor. Rumor has it that they are moving to Arizona; but that’s as verified as Ferris Bueller needing a new kidney, so jury’s still out. Everybody is moving. Losing Piper is a little bitter sweet as she is tough to work with on anything because she’s so overpowering, but she is also wholly unafraid of embarrassing herself – especially if it benefits her kids.
I spoke with Celeste – they love being back in Paris but miss the big open space of our oversized American homes. Parks there, like urban life here, are their saving graces. She no longer worries about bringing rose’ to school functions; she worries about running out.
I get nastygram emails from Julian’s teachers all the time. One reported him for chewing on his headphone cord as if it were a felonious infraction of school policy. They’re his headphones and I’m sure the onslaught of standardized testing has the kids acting out in all sorts of frazzled ways. The latest report involved him losing his Chromebook privileges for a week because he was “engaging in unauthorized use in an improper manner”. I had no clue what the hell that meant, so I asked via response email if it was just Julian and for examples. I secretly prayed that inappropriate was not teacher slang for naked people search engine results. Turns out it was four boys who are all in advanced track math. They finished their assignment early, returned to class and sent each other sports smack talk messages on their school devices. Julian (a huge Sox fan) wrote and “Sox Rule. Cubs Suck” over and over for about 3 pages. The teacher is:
- a HUGE Cubs fan who
- Left four nine year old boys Chromebook access with free time and no direction.
If anyone was at fault here, I’m not sure it’s the minors involved.
I don’t condone writing, sending or Julian uttering the word “suck” on a school device (although I was relieved it wasn’t worse). At least he spelled “suck” right. And one cannot wonder if this had more to with baseball allegiances than user audience. I told Julian I wasn’t mad, but that words he did not want his teacher to see were off limits, which includes but is not limited to suck, fart, boobs, wiener, or any other body part covered by a swimsuit. He now has to handwrite his assignments, which was really the teacher punishing herself as Julian’s handwriting is ATROCIOUS. So, Ms. Andrews can have fun interpreting those test scores next week. The other three boys also have to handwrite their work. Even the Cubs fans. Maybe Kevin Bigsby will do something to top the chromebook deviants. I don’t want him to get in trouble, but if he’s already moving, then he’s a convenient sacrificial lamb and a little diversion can’t hurt. Friends in the city whose kids go to public school say they don’t have to worry about this since the school’s are too broke to issue Chromebooks to each kid. The trial they did resulted in half of the chromebooks being sold on ebay within 24 hours. Plus, every other year the city teacher’s strike which means they’ll likely never get that funding.
Off to bed – early start with the UK team. They call an action for “pain and suffering there” a “motion for injury to feelings.” Way better than ours.
Hang in there – xoxox love ya’, Stormy
StormyWrites 