The Things We Do For Wheels

Would you take your grandmother-in-law to her foot doctor appointment in order to be allowed to borrow her car?

I would.

Well, actually, I did.

Rex and I are visiting family in Kalamazoo, but we have no car.  I had fun lunch/coffee dates lined up with some of my girlfriends, but I found myself in the unfortunate position of being without any sort of transportation to get to those meetings.  When we took Rex's grandma out to lunch, she suggested the proposition.  I could borrow her car as long as I'd drive her around to the places she needed to go.  Awesome!

I didn't doubt my decision at all until I found myself sitting in the foot doctor's office at 9 AM the next morning staring at a sign that said "GOT FUNGUS?"  There was a slew of informational pamphlets under the sign I could pick up to read about various foot problems.  The waiting room was boring, but I decided that it wasn't quite boring enough to read informational pamphlets about foot fungus.  Grandma assured me that she "wouldn't be long," so I decided to do some people watching.

Most of the people in the waiting room were quite unremarkable, which made for boring people watching.  The average age of the people in there was probably hovering around 90.  It was as if time had stopped...no one was moving.  Every once in a while I checked around to make sure everyone in the room was still breathing.  The occasional ring of the telephone behind the check-in desk reminded me that time was progressing and I would be free soon.  I thought about reading a magazine, but have you ever looked at the magazines in a doctor's office waiting room?  Where do they order these subscriptions?  I don't remember the titles, but they're all weird.  Things like Clarinetists Weekly, Turtle Lovers, and Quilting Quarterly (although that one would probably be quite popular among the crippled geriatrics).  I decided that I would pass on the magazines.

Suddenly a perfect vision of foot-doctory glided out of the examination rooms and into the waiting room.  When I say "glided," I don't mean that metaphorically.  I mean that this chick literally glided out on a custom made scooter that had a special stand for her injured knee to rest on.  Her hot pink cast was the kind of cast I dreamed about having when I was in first grade and everyone cool had some sort of broken bone.  I was always too cautious, and it was never my turn to have the cast.  Dang.  Anyway, this girl was a teenager, and you could tell that she felt super cool gliding along in her custom-made scooter.  No fair - she gets to scooter around in school, in stores, even in church!  I wanted to stop her in order to ask how she got that injury so that I could try to get a similar one, but that seemed a little too weird.  I later asked Rex was her injury was, but he didn't have enough information to tell me.  I'm never going to get that scooter.

Finally Grandma was finished with her appointment.  Apparently all the doctor did was cut her toenails.  She went to a foot doctor to have her toenails cut?!  I could have taken her to the mall to have those nice Vietnamese people do it for $5.99!  Oh well.  As we were leaving she said, "I really should have been a foot doctor.  All they have to do all day is sit around and cut toenails!"  I smiled and nodded...but she was serious.  She really thinks that all they do is cut toenails.  No surgery, no therapy, no other foot-related medical issues?  I guess not.  She made another appointment to have her toenails cut again in September. I'm not taking her to that appointment.  I hope to never go to a foot doctor ever again (unless of course I am going to pick up my super cool scooter to compliment my pink leg cast).

I Love My Sister. I Hate Twitter.

I only have one sister, and she lives over 2,000 miles away from me.  I hate it.  I try so hard to keep in contact with her, but it's tough.  She's busy with her friends and with being in high school, so she doesn't have a lot of time to keep in contact with me.  I try my hardest to write, text, message, e-mail, etc., but I feel really lucky if I ever get anything back.  It kind of stinks sometimes.  I know she's busy.  I KNOW.  I just love her a lot and want to talk to her.  So sue me.

Anyway, even though she doesn't keep up with me too often, I try to figure out what's going on in her life by watching her facebook profile, talking to my parents about what she's been doing, etc.  It really makes me feel like a creepy stalker sometimes, but she's my SISTER.  I want to know how she's doing.

Today I texted her about something I saw on facebook, and she scoffed at me and said, "Facebook?  Who checks facebook any more?  It's all about Twitter now."

WHAT?!  Geez louise.  I try to stay up on the latest trends...my students generally keep me informed.  I guess I missed the twitter boat.  Is this a whole new way to stalk my sister?  I decided that I must investigate.

Apparently Twitter doesn't let any average Joe look on their website.  You actually have to make an account.  Let me tell you - I am so anti-twitter.  I feel like it's totally pointless.  Why do you need a website to constantly alert people to what you are doing?  It's actually quite creepy.  There are just things you don't need to know.  Example:  "I am eating dinner."  "Now I am pooping."  "Now I am wiping my butt."  "Now I am washing my hands."  "Now I am washing my keyboard because it's dirty from my typing that before I washed my hands."

Sorry to be crass, but you get the idea.  I just think it's really weird.  I've always said that I'm never going to have a Twitter.  This new information from Cara put me in a pickle though: do I go back on my anti-Twitter values in the hopes that I might glean some more information about my little sister's life, or do I stick to my hatred of Twitter and hope that she just decides to start talking to me about what she's doing lately?

Because I am so tricky, I found a way to solve both problems.  I did not make a Twitter for myself, but rather I made one for ELVIS, so that Elvis can follow Cara and then I'll just peek once in a while.  Muahahahahaha!  So technically I am still Twitter-free, but I have a window into Cara's world.

I asked Cara for her username so that I could follow her.  Trying to be hip, I asked for her "hanger," since that's what Twitter usernames are called, right?  No, my friend - it's not.  They're called "handles."  Oops.  I was already feeling dumb because earlier today I tried to text her "Hooray!" about something, but the new phone that I got has autocorrect and my text turned out "Bootstrap!"  Here's what I want to know - in what universe is "bootstrap" more commonly used than "hooray"?!?!  Anyway, Cara says I'm "old."  I say I'M TRYING.  Cut me some slack.

Anyway, back to Twitter.

Do you have a Twitter?  Let me tell you - it's WEIRD.  In order to make a Twitter account, I had to choose five people to follow.  Obviously I chose Cara, but I didn't know anyone else.  I decided to venture a guess that my most technologically hip friend Bri might have an account....and she did!  Bingo!  She hasn't updated since 2009...but at least I had two people to follow.  Unable to find anyone else I knew, my last three choices were Justin Bieber, President Obama, and Governor Mike Huckabee.  WOW.  A very eclectic Top Five.

Anyway, with my five people chosen, my account could be confirmed.  Hooray!  I (I mean...Elvis) has an official Twitter!  I immediately clicked on Cara's profile to see what she's been up to.  When someone posts an update about what they are doing, it is called a "tweet."  CARA HAS TWEETED 57 TIMES IN THE PAST TWENTY-FOUR HOURS!  This is going to be like a whole new world of sister-stalking.

Unfortunately, because I'm unfamiliar with Twitter, I don't understand half of the stuff that's on her page.  Like, who's "Mrfreshindian"?  She certainly talks to him a lot.  Who is this kid?  Can I stalk him?  Why is he talking to my sister?  Oh, she just called him a "whore" in one of her tweets.  Lovely.  Why is my sister using such foul language?  Why does my baby sister even know words like "whore"?  Aaaaaaaah!

Oh, and she mentioned something about Family Guy in one of her tweets.  My baby sister watches Family Guy?  What?!  I don't even watch Family Guy!  That show's inappropriate!  Let's go back to the days when she watched Lamb Chops and Raffi.  I liked those better.

Anyway, just to get my toes wet in the Twitter world, I sent out a tweet from Elvis.  It said, "This is my first ever tweet.  I am a beagle.  If you follow me, I am going to require that you give me a squeaky toy."  A few minutes later, my Twitter home-page-thingy said that I have a new notification.  Cool! So...where do I read it?  I looked all over for the notification, but I still don't know where to access it.  I just got an e-mail that said, "Your post has been retweeted!"  What?!  What's "retweeted"?  Is this an entirely different language?!  What is going on??

I discovered that Cara copied my tweet onto her twitter nest/wall/message board/whatever the heck you call it, and that's what a "retweet" is.  So now who will see Elvis's post?  All of Cara's friends?  I decided to take a look at Cara's friends to see who would be reading the retweet.  I've known one of them since she was literally in church nursery, so I thought, "Cool!  I'll follow her!"  I shouldn't have.  I started looking at her page, and she follows things such as "sexology."  What the.............?!?!?!?!  When did Cara and all of her friends turn weird??

Maybe I don't want to stalk my sister any more.  It's freaking me out.  Plus, Twitter is confusing.  The site is now telling me that I have another notification, and I still don't know where to find them.  GAH!  I think I'll just settle for assuming that Cara spends all of her free time reading the Bible and helping the homeless, and perhaps it's time for me to give up on stalking her.  It's getting too complicated.

Last Day of School

I've had my eyes on June 7 since about mid-September, but there are days that I thought it was NEVER going to get here.  Still, time marched on as it always does, and I finally arrived at the last day of school.  Wooooot!

I woke up so excited to get to school.  We only had a half day, and I had fun activities planned for the entire morning.  I had even roped Rex into coming with me.  He seemed less than thrilled, but I didn't really care.  I figured he would have fun once he got to school and realized how awesome my kids are.

When we got to school, the middle school girls fell in love with Rex.  It was actually kind of creepy.  I don't think middle schoolers know how to express their attraction in an appropriate way, because here are some quotes that were said to me throughout the morning:
"Mrs. Webb, I'm going to steal your husband when you're not looking."
"No offense to your wedding or anything, but your husband is waaaay more attractive in person than he is in that picture on your desk."
"I want to take your husband home and keep him in my basement."

And this is my personal favorite, said TO REX:
"I just really like you.  You make me want to kidnap you, take you home, and lock you in my freezer or something."

What the?!?!?!?!  Middle schoolers are weird.  This brings me to my next point:  even though I'm not going to teach middle school next year, I did not feel sad at all in embarking on my nine weeks of paid vacation.  I was really ready to be finished.  Apparently that was not the case for my kids, though.  I projected a "Countdown to Summer" countdown on my wall that counted down the time left in the school day.  When there was about one hour left, the entire middle school completely fell apart.

I've never seen anything like this in my life.  The students were sobbing.  SOBBING.  I don't use the word "crying" here because it's not descriptive enough.  There were less tears at funerals I've been to.  I'm not just talking about a few weirdos, either.  I mean the girls, the guys, all students in grades 6-8 were congregating in the hall to hold onto each other as if the "countdown to summer" was actually "countdown to your brutal execution."  They were holding their friends as if they would never see them again, even though the vast majority of them will be back in the fall. I didn't really know what to do, so I just grabbed a box of Kleenex and ventured into the hall.  All of the Kleenexes were gone in about 20 seconds.  Once my kids saw that I was okay, they said things such as, "Mrs. Webb, aren't you going to miss us?"  I tried to express my deepest remorse at having the school year end, but I'm not sure how genuine it sounded.  One student said, "I bet she's just barely holding herself together because she has to be strong for us."  Yeah, we'll go with that.

Rex looked completely flabbergasted.  He hid in my room and played a board game with the handful of students (probably five or less) who weren't lamenting the coming of summer break.  When I came back into my room, he passed me his phone so I could see the message he'd written to me: "THIS. IS. INSANE."  There's really no better way to describe it.

When 12:00 finally came, the students went outside for dismissal.  Actually, let me rephrase that:  I practically kicked them out.  No one wanted to leave.  Each time a car picked someone up, a whole new wave of sorrow came over the crowd.  I think I will always remember this one particular incident:  Maia's ride arrived, and as she got in the car her friend screamed (SCREAMED)  "Maaaaaaaaaaaaiiiiiiiiaaaaaaaaa!!!!!! Noooooooooooooooo!"   as if she were watching Maia get run over by a car instead of getting into one.  I think the entire school could hear her screams.  It was really, really weird.  It was also kind of scary.

Anyway, when I finally packed up all of my screaming, sniveling middle schoolers into their cars to go home to the horrific fate known as summer vacation, I went back inside to clean out my desk and get everything set for summer.  Rex was a huge help, and we were done in about forty-five minutes.  After that, we went home and took a three hour nap, because that's just how exhausting that half day was!

Once we woke up, we decided to kick off summer by going to Olive Garden.  Yum!  On the way home, Rex pulled into Barnes and Noble because "What better way is there to start off summer than by getting a new book?"  I knew I loved him.  So the first part of my day was completely nuts, but it ended up okay.

And now......SCHOOOOOOOOL'S OUT FOR SUMMER!  Life is good.