What kind of name is Perpika?

Nearly my first concussion...

 Poor Brodyman. He thought softball season was over, so I'd finally be home, but I'm around less than ever this week it seems. Ugh. Almost summer, little man. I have a Vietnamese student, whom I completely adore, and as her English gets better, she makes a point to try conversational English, and today she pointed to a picture of B-man and asked if that was my dog. She apparently has three dogs and three cats...back in Vietnam...poor kid misses her dogs. This girl is brilliant, actually, and I feel like a constant failure that I can't communicate with her better.

So this is what happens when Steve has an idea and I let him run with it. And I mean my third brother, Steve, not the one that lives in Nebraska. This is the Steve I work with (for now anyway) and he's my third brother. Which puts him in the running to beat out Nebraska Steve as my second favorite brother. So I'd have my second favorite brother, Steve. And my second favorite brother [that is named] Steve, putting him third overall. It's complicated. Try to keep up. Anyway, Steve the math teacher is mean to me constantly. No wonder Rob The Engineer and Nebraska Steve welcomed him into the family with open arms. He is my assistant coach for softball. He assists me. I've enjoyed being able to say that. Last two years it was the other way around. Like my other two brothers, I don't get many victories. So he's assisting me after one game, and decides to have a brilliant idea, and no filter, just blurts (runs in the family) it out, "Hey, how about a parent/coach versus player game?"

I didn't think it would actually catch on...My sole involvement in planning this event was batting my eyelashes at the varsity coach and sweet-talking him into letting us use the varsity field for the game. It actually worked! And even Steve admits he couldn't have gotten that done. Beyond that, he did all the work, made invitations for all the parents, blah blah blah. He's kind of a girl when it comes to stuff like that. He must get that from Laura. Oh yeah, I ordered the pizza.

Not expecting a huge turnout, I didn't give it too much thought...it's a busy time of year. Turns out, every parent we had was willing to knock off work early to play softball with their daughters. We had way too many players on the parent/coach team. We had daughters teaching mothers to bat, tagging out their fathers, and other such heartwarming moments. Our athletic trainer was even there, because, like us, she just really wanted any excuse to play a little ball. Steve and I look at each other and say, "You can't buy better PR than this." Sometimes he's a genius. Rob taught him well.

So everything is great and I'm really thinking Steve is OK afterall. I'm about to tell him what a winning idea I think this was. Here was my fatal mistake. I forgot, just for a fraction of a second, that he is my third brother.

After careful mental reconstruction, I pieced together most of what happened in that fraction of a second. Somewhere in there he conferred with Megan and Tori, two seniors who were our junior assistant coaches. I didn't process it: rookie mistake [palm slapping forehead]. The athletic trainer asked me something about leaving something, a cooler I think, with ice...again, didn't think about it. Tori asked me a question that struck me as slightly dumb for her [puzzled expression].  And then, in the Zapruder film, in FRAME 161, you can clearly see in slow-motion as Megan hefts up the Gatorade cooler (you know, the orange one; you've seen it on the sidelines at major sporting events...usually when they win something) and BAM!!! dumps it on me. If the film had audio, you'd hear me shriek with surprise and cold; our athletic trainer really loaded that puppy up with ice. FRAME 172 shows me visibly grabbing the top of my head, where Megan nailed me with the cooler. Can I get some stats on coaches injured by Gatorade dumpings? FRAME 180 shows me wringing out my clothing and looking from Megan to Tori to Amy, our trainer, to Steve, my third (and currently least favorite) brother. This, ladies and gentlemen, by definition is a conspiracy.

Sigh.

The things I do for America's Youth.

I am a little dizzy, and have a major freaking headache. It's like, take the brainfreeze you'd have from gulping down a mega-size, supercold Slurpie on a hot day, and then hit yourself in the head with a heavy plastic object. And my socks are soggy. Don't think I have an actual concussion, but it didn't tickle. Didn't think to worry about this with a 6-11-1 record.

To top it off, the athletic trainer told me she overhead the varsity coach say that if there was a wet tee-shirt contest, I would be the winner.

On second thought, maybe two brothers is enough.

End of softball, countdown to summer and why I wouldn't eat off the floors at the trade center...

It's been an absolutely gorgeous weekend...which I will admit I fully needed...not that last week was so hard, with MCAS and all, but the end of softball season is always a tiring time. My girls had three games in a row; the first was game 4 with an undefeated team...I think they plated over 100 runs against in four games. The second was a loss...I was trying to preserve my pitcher, putting all my eggs in one basket for the final game. I figured, we've had a tough season...our record is...unremarkable, but if we could end on a win, all would be well. Our last game of the season involves, of all places, a trip over the Cape Cod Canal...What a hike for a Hockomock League team!! So I make a little "psych-up" bag for each of my girls for the bus ride and spend the hour-plus ride strategizing about how to minimize my weaker players' impact...We get there and can't find the team on the field, so I track down the athletic director. He knows nothing about a frosh game; his JV and Varsity traveled to our house for a game. This is why I have my AD on speed dial; he swears the game has been scheduled and both Varsity coaches confirm it. But that doesn't put an opposing team on the field. And it doesn't shorten an hour bus ride home after no game. "Can we just run around the bases and slide into home?" my girls ask. The AD at the school pulls a $50 bill from his wallet and holds it out to me. That's a first. Not sure why I said no. So that was our season...Luckily we have a parent/coach vs. player game scheduled for Wednesday.

And I'm relieved that the season is over...it'll be nice to have my life back a bit. Especially as the Tweeter season kicks off.

Brody needs a bath bad, man...It's all this outside time and warmer weather. Poor little stinker...should Fabreeze his butt.

I think we're down to four weeks or something like that...three full weeks maybe...like no time basically. I think I am teaching summer school though, so I won't have much of a break till July. This year really can't end fast enough.

So yesterday was the big day:  Rob, Guy and I ran the Run to Remember's Half Marathon. What a neat course...From the world trade center, up Atlantic Avenue and then blah blah State Street to Cambridge along Memorial Drive and then back again, over the bridge, around the Common and then back again...13.1 miles, so a lot of it was a blur. Not Memorial Drive though, I remember most of that pretty well. But I did it, and I'm still just a bit sore. Nothing terrible. My new pair of Asics were good so I'm happy. After the race, which was thousands of people, everyone was collapsed on the blue carpet at the trade center and it just made me wonder if they would shampoo it before its next use...because it had to be pretty gross! That place had a funk to it!

So it makes me realize that I will need to do a bit of training before a full marathon, but I think I can do it. After that we pigged out at Maggiano's, which I love. Put back a lot of those calories. I can't wait to eat my way through a marathon's worth of calories!

Speaking of other momentous undertakings...I finished Moby Dick. Wow was that a slow read. I think I started it in February or March, and granted I've read about 10 other books at the same time, but even these last 200 pages I've been reading nonstop and it just took awhile. It's an interesting book...man am I glad I don't have to teach it. There's just a lot of pages, like 100s, with nothing happening. And it's amazing how quickly everything else moves after reading that.

Jackie and I did a little mini-golf the other day, which I wasn't sure I was in the right mood for, and I was right. I did have two holes in one, which is amazing, but I bogeyed like 5 other holes! I nearly threw my club a few times...and this kid behind us kept teeing off before we were off the hole...I almost chucked his ball in the water hazard (which is under a pirate ship). Maybe woulda been a better driving range kind of day...we hit the cages after that so I could get out some frustration.

Anyway...think I still have a few spare calories from yesterday (at least my sore muscles are telling me that better be the case after what I put them through) so that's where the chocolate cake enters...

Where did the weekend go? Have you seen it?

I'm not sure where my weekend went to...seem to have misplaced it...think I may have left it with a bottle of wine and a block of cheese...and an apple at Ash's new house in CT. And I shouldn't tell Brody that I spent the weekend with another doggie. Bella could potentially be another girlfriend for my little studmuffin, but Ashley seems convinced that she'd eat him. Maybe so.

But it was for sure good to see Ash and Lynn...Lynny and I manage to catch up more easily, because of our common schedule, but it had been way too long since I had caught up with Super Ash, so it was good to see her for sure. She took me to a super good diner...ha ha Super Lynn, that's what you get for leaving early!!! But I wish I had gotten the chocolate malt, Ash. Brody spent the weekend at camp...he's still tired!

Hmm...the kids take MCAS this week, so it's not much teaching. Should give me a chance to catch up on stuff. And to start packing up my classroom. I get to move rooms this summer. And teams. Long story. How many days are we down to? To give you an idea of my motivation level, a teacher on my team asked me this morning to go help out with some field trip permission slip stuff for other teachers,  I walked away, and said, "No way. I've got coffee to drink."

My girls have just three games left. Kind of relieved, even though I love them and have had a blast. I just kind of need my life back. Never matters the sport or the season, I'm always ready for it to be over. We finally whacked a team Saturday morning, so it was nice to actually be on the winning end of the slaughter rule.

Very little else going on. I think there's some chocolate chip cookie dough calling my name.

My third Monday in a row...

Every day this week has been a Monday. Today, I remembered my coffee (because I got it when I stopped at Dunkin Donuts), my phone and my purse, so I'm thinking I've beat the Monday Syndrome. I couldn't bring my Special K to work though, because yesterday when I had cereal I must have been afraid I'd misplace the milk in my refrigerator, so I decided to make it easy to find...by leaving it out on the counter all day. BAH! New gallon too. So...no cereal for me. OK. I'm better than this, I think. And I was better than this...for about a minute.  Until, as I head out to my car, I trip walking down the stairs and barely catch myself from falling headfirst down them. One of those falls where your flip-flop catches and it still makes a big thud because you catch yourself. That would have been bad.

My girls lost again today. Slaughter rule again. I hate admitting my superstions, but I think it may have been because I couldn't find my lucky orange pencil and had to keep the book in pen. We were up on them, hitting well, running well, a coupld of quick innings defensively, and then BLAM! we have the fourth inning. They batted around twice. Plated 15 runs. 15. We had like 7 or 8 batters in between outs. Oy. It was a 9-9 game apart from that inning. With that inning...we lost by two touchdowns and a field goal. I'm beginning to wonder if the pencil's absence was at fault after all. It's possible we were distracted by a pre-game injury sustained by one of my girls. She took a pop-fly off the nose while taking infield. That's two pop-ups off the face this year for girls on my team, if you're keeping score at home. The last girl sustained a "stitch-shaped" scar on her forehead and never actually came back to play. I think this kid'll come back; the poor thing kept apologizing that her nose was gushing blood.  I  informed her that there are probably way easier ways to score a ride on the athletic trainer's golf cart. 

So yeah. We lost.

And the indoor team lost a tough one last night. This team was just much better than us, but still it smarts a little when you lose close games. I think I actually prefer being on indoor teams that get stomped by double-digit scores; at least there are no expectations and consequently no disappointments.

Sigh. I give up. Can I just say, "uncle" and have the Monday Monster let me out of the sleeper hold?!

A beautiful day...for a Monday.

At least the weather was gorgeous today. It was SUCH a Monday, other than that. Woke up later than I wanted to, couldn't find the shirt I wanted to wear, walked out the door without my coffee and had to go back, drove away without mailing the letter I needed to mail...so I had to go back. This is a lot to handle pre-coffee. [Sigh]

I just wasn't feeling it today. One of those rare Mondays where I don't chat with my kids at all, don't ask them if they missed me over the weekend; I just tell them to take out their homework. I hate being like that...it's no fun but that's all I had today.

My pitcher got snagged by the JV team again. This has been a problem lately. On Friday she was tired from her Wednesday game with them, where they used her 5 innings so she had nothing left for us. Poor kid's arm is gonna fall off. We have Wednesday/Thursday games this week so I told her to fake a sore arm after an inning or two. We'll see. I am still sore myself from Friday's game; it was the birthday of my assistant coach (It was also Marie's birthday on the 2nd; but she and I managed to celebrate without the need for me to sustain any injuries). Since the team didn't manage a win for his birthday, the team asked him what he wanted. He pulled them in for a huddle and I didn't even have to wait for it; I just dropped my scorebook to protect the team's stats. I knew he was going for the pig-pile. Before I knew it, my catcher completely leveled me to the ground and the team piled on. Good thing they're all tiny girls! But I still sustained some bruises.  I told her if she ever wanted to play rugby, she had some potential.

Lynny's birthday is today. Happy Birthday/Drinco de Mayo Super Lynn!

Rob and I have an early soccer game tomorrow. I guess it'll be nice to not be out at midnight on a Tuesday.

Wait, what was I complaining about? Anyway... I have tons of papers to grade. I have laundry to do. My dog is crazy and my fantasy baseball team last week lost to a team called The Adverbs. [Sigh]
I don't like Mondays.

S'Mores, meals with friends, and the warm spot where my dog was lying...

I find myself dreading school tomorrow. Oh well. That doesn't happen all that often, but for some reason I'm just not feeling it. Oh well.

So I have finally given in and gotten myself a Facebook account. There are just too many people I know who do it; I caved in to the peer pressure.  I added my sister-in-law as a friend recently and now she keeps "poking" me. Two weeks ago, I had no idea what Facebook even looked like/did, (except for what Marie told me, and this girl at the Tweeter last year hiding from one of her "friends." It didn't make sense that you should want to have people as friends without actually knowing them or wanting to, you know, see them) and next thing you know I'm throwing sheep at her. How did this happen?

I met up with Marie yesterday for lunch and got to see her doggies. Brody was a little mad at me, but it was nothing some leftovers couldn't fix. But then...I went to Mark and Deirdre's house this morning for brunch and came home smelling like Alfie, Lucy and Doris...that took some explaining. But we had a great brunch and took a walk on the beach. My little boy is totally pouting right now as if he's completely neglected. He's maybe a little starved for attention...

I'm a little jealous since Steve (who is my second-favorite brother) told me he and Erin saw Daniel Tosh in person. I would like to see him at some point...but he'll never come to a sleepy town like Boston when he's big enough to play places like Lincoln, Nebraska.

I had a weird craving for marshmallows...really just on their own, but then I realized that I own chocolate and graham crackers so I couldn't help making some s'mores.

Poor B-Man...I should take him outside. He keeps napping on the floor under my chair and then he gets up and there's this little heated patch of my floor where he was lying. I think he's just pouting because I didn't make him a s'more.  I can't really string together thoughts any more coherent than that.

I got nothing else. If you'll excuse me I think I have to go throw a cow at someone.