Seriously. What are you wearing right now? I’m still in my work clothes (nice jeans and a black v-neck t-shirt) but within minutes will be changing into old pajama bottoms and a tank top.

My training went super good — learned a lot, had a couple of fast one-on-ones, and talked about all the serious stuff too. Libraries are serious stuff, especially when they’re under-funded or de-funded entirely.

I will spare you the details, but please support your school, local and college libraries. Love Your Local Librarian. Ooh, I need to make up some new bumperstickers!

Also, read to the kids, and listen to them read. They will love it and you will, too. Especially if it’s this book. This is the funniest book the kindergartners and I have ever read in our lives. Tulip underpants!!! ROFLOAO!!!

For the weekend, we have planned too much, as always. I desperately seek my workplace on Monday a.m.’s just to get a break from Chaos That Is Our Weekend Schedule. Laundry, chores, yardwork, tomatoes. Book fairs, pumpkin patches, parties I am too tired to attend, church??? I wouldn’t mind going to church again. I actually enjoy church — I don’t see it as a chore or something on my “to do” list. This weekend Hockey God has a big conference where he’s been invited to speak. (When I asked him what it was about, he said, and I’m quoting here, “Some newspaper guys want to know about blogging.”) Turns out it’s SPJ. Yeah, “some newspaper guys.” He’s funny, that boy.

What am I forgetting? Cats to the vet, work that I brought home, Christmas shopping? Wait! We’re not doing any this year. We’re skipping it all — presents for each other, the kids, the extended family — and, along with my sis and bro-in-law, and my mom, we’re making a donation to the Oregon Food Bank.

People who are hungry will get fed, and I don’t have to shop, wrap, ship, etc. (Private note to my in-laws: Don’t send gifts. Please send checks to the food bank, instead.)

I’m asking you — and be honest here — Do you really need more stuff? We need more love, and food, and shelter. That’s about it. And puppies, we need more puppies. But we’re not getting ’em, over here. Sigh.

Peace OUT,

WM

Happy, happy weekend to y’all! I’m in trainings and busy the next few days, but Will Post As Able.

love,

your girl,

wm

ps — vote. VOTE. VOTE!!! Go, Obama!!!!

I do not have time to write, friends, but I will tell you this…

1) I love my girlfriends. I love you, L.S., and I am sending so much love out to you right now, I hope you feel it like a warm coat wrapped around your shoulders. We all love you so much and I am thinking of you for most of the day, every day.

2) L.G. — you are a good friend, a good woman, and you have a good heart. We would be lost without you.

3) B.J. — wish you were here. Wish I was there. That’s the way it always is. Thank you for always being “there,” even when you’re “there.” I think you know what I mean.

4) A.M. — it was nice seeing you. And thank you for getting me reading the blogs, way back when. You: “You have to read this Amalah!” Me: “Ama-who? Blogs?”

5) C.H. — You do a great job wrangling those preschoolers, and all of the others placed in your care.

6) B.L. — good luck with the project, I hope it all goes well.

7) N.R. — how many more? You’ll be done counting soon. Yay. YAY!

8) B.K. — aren’t you planning some sort of vacation for us? Remember, I won’t fly anywhere anymore.

9) S.D. — Give C a hug for me and a big kiss on the head. You are doing a great, superwonderful job. Don’t ever doubt yourself.

10) N. from T. — I love your blog.

11) TOL — yours, too.

12) That’s enough with the private notes. Sometimes you just have to thank your girlfriends all over the internet, then go light your candles. That’s what I’m going to do right now.

Hockey God, just now at the dinner table: “…because if that’s the way it’s going to be, then no effin’ way.”

Wacky Girl, helpfully: “Fuckin’. No fuckin’ way?”

Hockey God, chagrined: “Jesus.”

Kids really do say the effin’ darndest things!

This is one of my favorites. Happy Monday to you.

wm

ps — the word for the day is…

obambulate
PRONUNCIATION:
(o-BAM-byuh-layt)

MEANING:
verb tr.: To walk about.
Alternate meaning: To get elected President.

And after I asked him if he was taking a pumpkin to carve for the contest:

“I’m not taking a pumpkin to carve. There are going to be tattoo artists there! No way am I winning any contests against the tattoo artists.”

(Why didn’t I go? I’ve been sick all week. And I brought home two days’ worth of work to finish at home. Because I am dedicated like that.)

(Also, I told all of my students last week that Halloween is next Friday. Because I thought it was. Mean trick! No treats! Whoops. Guess they’ll figure it out if they try to go tricker treatin’ on Oct. 24th.)

Finally, a memoir where someone doesn’t lie their head off. “Grace After Midnight” is the story of Felicia “Snoop” Pearson (who played Snoop on the acclaimed HBO series “The Wire”). (Grand Central Publishing, 2007, $22, 233 pages.) She is one amazing Baltimore woman. As a teenager, she landed in Jessup State Penitentiary for killing a woman in self-defense.

Whether Pearson is writing about her birth (as a three-pound, cross-eyed baby who was addicted to crack), about her mother tearing the dress off of her baby girl’s body and selling it for drugs, or about her knack for selling dildos and perfume in prison, she writes it raw, pure, and poignantly. She’s got a sense of humor, too, thank God for her. (more…)

I love Tinker Bell, know why? No, why? (Sorry, couldn’t resist.) The new movie is coming out, and I am even more excited about it than my children are. And they are quite excited, having just seen the original Peter Pan not long ago.

Read more…

(Comments open on full post.)

POEM AGAINST THE FIRST GRADE
by George Venn

“Alex, my son, with backberry jam
smeared ear to ear and laughing,
rides his unbroken joy with words
so fast we let him get away
on the jamjar without clean cheeks first.

I hope for a bad seal on Ax and tister,
encourage the mold of joyous error
that proper sad giants, armed to the ears
with pencils and rules, all forgot.”