ok, so even my spouse claims that his mother never had an unspoken thought.....if it came to mind she said it.....so it should come as no surprise to my blood kin and to my cadre of readers that ecw chose a bride quite in keeping with his mamma's example.........keep this in mind when i say that there are those who are thinking about leaving the nest prematurely.........and to those young ones i want to voice caution.........yes, high school is a teenage wasteland.........you are certainly not the 1st to figure this out.........but it can remain a haven until you are ready to fly the coop....not intellectually, but emotionally....no one will argue that you have the brains to move on.......but until the hard veneer necessary to survive the real world has a chance to really crystallize, it may be wise to stick a little closer to home.......

ok, so there is no angst like mm angst....now that ecw and scw have decided to finish their cross-america bike trip this summer...after school ends and before scw leaves for belgium..........i have concluded that i have to actually be there when they finish....so i have decided that cayle and i will fly into denver after the band festival is over (we are very busy that weekend)........and drive 690 miles or so til i find them and their tandem.......and be their sag wagon until they finish....we will meet up with them about the time they enter yellowstone........i really like this idea....and i have convinced my partner that he doing a very good thing by agreeing to cover for me/pay others to cover for me........they will finish the journey somewhere in wyoming (i cannot remember the name oif the town) as they are riding east from oregon coast rather than west......the winds are presumably better that way........i am so excited to be able to be there for this monumental event.......

ok, so last night i changed the mean mamma likes section of my actual blog site......and it hasn't changed as of this morning.....i went back in to check, and it shows my changes on the template...........what is a blogger to do? we have a lot of catering work between today and saturday night........while this is good, i am already so tired i cannot think straight..........on a purely competitive note, i have a rose blooming. today, april 30....therese bugnet, a once-flowering fuschia colored rose, is blooming behind the garage.......the same bush in the front yard has yet to burst forth, though the petal colors are clearly visible......many irises have yet to bloom...it is somehow unnatural for roses to bloom before irises....speaking of blooms, somebody on my route to schools/work has planted fake flowers in the ground outside their front steps.....like they are real flowers....oh my.......and not even the same house that kept up the christmas lights til march.........

ok, so i have read over several recent blogs, and my spelling is atrocious (sp?) many apologies.......i rarely look at my actual site.....amd today i realized that i will have to make some changes.....my chair in the front room is...as we speak......being recovered............imagine.....just 2 years..or more in the making.........on another note.......i brought scw home before going to eku...and the mail was on the front table......clearly, acw had been home.....as robbers do not tend to bring in mail from the road.......

ok, so my worst employee quit abruptly today..right before centre's performance.........and my 2nd to last eku class.......luckily, everybody pitched in to help so the evening was not an entire bust..........for the record, gentle readers, quitting without 2 weeks notice is unforgivable in today's working world........

ok, so danville is a small place, but today at cayle's soccer game i was asked by yet another parent of an 8th grader if i was disappointed with danville schools and was scw transferring to 1) centre 2) out-of-town boarding school 3) st. john's.....the latter is humerous, as they do not presumably transer in 10th graders.......but the scuttlebut is troubling.....i answered with my usual.....scw neither complains nor speaks of moving on before graduation......both statements are true....lets see what he says after american studies with ms scott.........who was acw's burr in the butt junior year........ he could not do anything to please her...let's see if scw can so better.........speaking of schol systems.....i read overe the exhaustive listing of boyle a and b students in the paper today.........either the standards are different or the boyle students are each bloody einsteins..........

on a more interesting note.....i am studying up on paris.........i do believe that i need, rather than want .......to go to paris in january.........

ok, so a yellow iris bloomed overnight, despite the frost.........i wasn't there yesterday when i weeded........last night the c-w's went out to eat......this just never happens, as there are always leftovers from trc to eat for supper.....but last night mm just wasn't up to eating her own cooking....so we piled in the van and went to gualulahara (sp), the new one with the l. liscense......they were packed, but we got a table within 1 minutes....alas...we were not done with ordering, receiving food, getting scw's dessert, or getting a check for 2 solid hours.......the wait staff looked shell-shocked, and were clearly not prepared for the volume, either in number of servers or kitchen staff.......i really felt bad for them, and had to restrain myself from getting up and clearing off tables just to help out........when we got home i walked on the treadmill and watched igby goes down....which i rented because it starred susan sarandon........this was a bizarre tale of famiy dysfunction.....kind of like catcher in the rye in some respects, like holden caulfield with a perfect older brother, so sister, a parent in the looneybin, and a mother meaner than me...certainly not a feelgood romance.........like the movie we watched friday night...sweet home alabama.....predictable, but i didn't lay awake wondering what it all meant.........

ok, so mm may just go to a concert this summer...j.taylor is playing riverbed july 29....that might make a romantic road trip for two.......ecw and i have not been to a concert since we say crosby,stills and nash at riverbend pre-children.......the other concert at riverbend i could see myself attending is counting crows august 6......but 1 do not see myself buying tickets to 2 concerts at those prices.....not when i want to go to paris in january......

ok, so i stopped on the wayhome from work to get movies and to get chinese...this time i opted for wok and go, because it is across from titlewave.......big mistake...it is not nothing like wah mei in harrodsburg.........i will not be going back to wok and go.......

ok, so it is friday, finally.....of course, i still have to work tomorrow, but friday remains a milestone for the promise of sunday off........as noted yesterday, i found a neat apt. online..in the 3rd near the pompidiou centre......now i just have to convince my significant other that i really need to go to paris in january for a non-driving, non-manic stay of immersion in french culture..........

in other news, i am on a rose watch....i have 2 differetn bushes that look like they could bloom any moment...both are therese bugnet, a shrub that has a fuschia-colored double kind of floppy flower to it....only blooms once......the color of the yet-to-bloom buds is quite visible...all they have to do is to burst open......maybe a little warmth would do it......the rose watch is an informal competition with my brother-in-law nick in d.c.,,,who is the king of old roses and who gave me most of my bushes.....for some reason, my climate allows a tad bit earlier bloom season than his does........anyway, first bloom is worth at least a phone call..........

ok, so mm has seen it all.......as i was reading the new gourmet, out on the deck with a glass of wine........i heard the unmistakable sound of someone talking on the phone........yes....it was someone fishing.....and talking on the phone while he fished.........he was trying to cast and hold the phone under his chin/crooked neck......i can just see that phone flying out into the creek...never to be seen again..........

ok, so i am so excited.....there has been a new vitamin discovery...the first in 50+ years......pqq, which stands for some sort of quinone ...it appears to be a b vitamin...who knows what b-number it will be......good sources are fermented soy, kiwi, parsley, green pepper and green tea..........the discovery was made in japan......they are the ones who discovered a new taste (savory....unami...) and now the newest vitamin........

ok, so mm has gotten this wild hair about chilling out in paris for a week in january..l.there is an adorable apartment with 2 bedrooms available near the rambuteau metro in the 4rd, near beauburg..it has a sofa bed, a bedroom with a queen bed and a bedroom with 2 twin beds...so it could sleep up to 6, though it is advertised as 4 people.......1080 euros a week.......not bad for that much space......

ok, so discussion at book club was the most intense thus far...about whether the mother who died in as i lay dying was just plain mean or a tragic figure worthy of sympathy because she did not have access to birth control and the man she married turned out to be a lazy good for nothing.........obviously i agreed with the latter sentiment........the bundren family was quite a bunch of dysfunctionals.....the discussion turned to the likelihood that most families have their share of dysfunction if we were all honest about our troubled lives......no one took that bait......i, for one, did not see the point of telling this group just how dysfunctional my family can be.........

ok, so i have read about the 'straightedge' movement and i am both impressed and surprised.........in this day and age that commitment takes a lot of balls.........

ok, so as it is still technically earth day, i will go on record...and state that i have recycled every bit of plastic, glass, cardboard and metal that came out of trc over the past 3 years...and that the people at the boyle county recycling center think i am demon-posessed.....i see them 3-4 times a week, and they see my stuff the other days.......i oftren drop stuff off on saturday nights after closing...around 10:30 or so.....i call those 'daring midnight drops'.......i have even given up on turning off the van when i pull up.....or turning off npr.....i just leap out, open up the back end, pile up the goods, and drive back to work......after all this time i am annoyed that some of my staff have yet to 'get' what this is all about.........they still try to throw away pop cans....or mayonaise jars......and i still drag them out fo the trash for recycling...we save the earth one jar at a time............

ok, so acw came home for a few minutes tonight....to get his easter basket, and to see grandma's new puppy......i chanced upon him as scw and i were getting back from our drive to h-burg for hot and sour soup and shrimp lomein..........there he was......i had a quality 17 minutes with him before i left to teach my class..........i miss that boy....so bright and talented......such good company......i miss him terribly......

ok, so i have picked out a hotel in the marais.......for my tentative january trip to paris.....scw claims that i am incapable of a calm, non-frenzied trip to paris.....i may go just to prove him wrong.......well...maybe i could prove him wrong.....i have never been to paris and just lingered........and i have been to paris 10 times.......i have either gone with my parents for a few days, or my new spouse for an afternoon....or deedra...well...i took the train out of town nearly every day so when i was in town i was a madwoman..........and then 3 trips with bate....all carefully orchestrated with no free moments...and the trip with just us...the one that started in london with the chunnel crossing and ended in paris....well....that was also jam-packed..........scw does make a valid point....i visit paris like someone who will never return....and yet i do return......only to scurry about like a woman posessed........i love the stores, the museums, the cafes, the gardens......even in winter.......even when they try to pick my purse..........i long to tell you that my people are parisian, but so far we have no direct connections to paris.......just dubious relations to charlemagne......my mother-in-law posessed a discharge paper, signed by napolean, from some relative let out of prison during the empire..i guess that is dubious, as well......like being related to someone sent to australia as a thief............presumably sister elaine has said paper now, but she is not telling at this point...........on one of my bate trips. my mother-in-law asked if i could take a 1/2 hour or so and look up this paper in the library.......of course, it is in french, which i do not speak,and we were on a tight schedule...and she became quite annoyed that the entire bate escursion did not revolve around a napoleanonic discharge paper..........for the record, this is the same woman who would not tell me the address of the family home in baltinglass, ireland, presumably because i might actually go there..........anyway, back to paris...........it is the city of colette, my favorite author.......she dealt with the bad weather, and the changable political scene.....and got a state funeral outof it.......maybe i could just sit in the palais royale, outside of her windown. and read her books (en anglais) and get a bit of rest and relaxation.........

ok, so i dreamed about making bread...all last night.....someone kept adding extra water, so i couldn't get the consistency right.......then someone kept moving the pans........so frustrating............i have been rereading one of my paris guidebooks.......there is so much of paris i have not seen because it was not of interest to 7th/8th graders or because the metro didn't run close by.....maybe i am due another jaunt to the city of light.......

ok, so blogger ate a long entry yesterday, the one where i was feeling sorry for myself because my firstborn didn't come home for easter, and how his easter basket was sitting on the counter after lunch even though he lives but 36 miles away........but.......he did end up calling to wish us well and to let us know he was writing papers or he would have come home for lunch........i know that easter is not like christmas...and i know that eventually he will not even come home for that holiday...as he will be with his wife's family at some point......i might as well get used to this........maybe we will have to get into the habit of going away for holidays.....i would mind less about the children not coming homne if i were in hawaii or cruising new zealand.........