Cartoon Hot

Being the wonderful teacher that I am, I not only teach the students academics, but I aim to teach them life and social skills. Today we took some time to read about and discuss a difficult situation (for a ten year old). 

We gathered in the back of the room, for what some would call a class meeting. Each child got a copy of a student magazine that had the particular "sticky situation" we were going to discuss today. The situation was certainly a difficult one. It asks you to imagine you are only allowed to invite four friends on your birthday adventure. One of your friends, that you did not invite, asks you why you did not invite her. 

There were mostly good, thoughtful responses. One girl responded that she would tell the friend to, "get out of my life!" She needed a reminder that this was a friend and that that really isn't a nice thing to say even if she wasn't a friend. But, rather than focusing on the one negative response, the most reasonable to me was: "I would tell them I could only invite four friends and that I would invite them next year."

Most kids gave a response similar to this one. Then I called on a little boy one might describe as, odd. He  took the cartoon photo into consideration when giving his answer. 

He rationed that he would not be in this situation in the first place. He would have definitely invited this particular friend because, well, look at her, she's hot! 

I wasn't quite sure how to respond, but I didn't really need to say anything. His classmates simply pointed out that he was talking about a cartoon. Regardless of that fact, the kid is ten. Should he be thinking about hotness yet? Well, we all had a good laugh about. 

After class, this boy made a point to explain himself to me. "You may think it's weird that I said a cartoon girl is hot, but I'm just a weird kid." Touche, little buddy, touche. 

Pelted

Shea and I left for our afternoon run, beneath partly sunny skies and at a milk 45 degrees. It felt good. Eventually, I noticed that it had started to rain.

It was funny, because this rain felt different. I have run in the rain many times, in fact, it is one of my favorite times to run. However, today it just felt different. Not that it wasn't enjoyable, but it kind of hurt. Without thinking, I figured I must be running super fast. My amazing speed must be causing the rain to hit my face with extra force. So, I simply put my head down and continued running at my fast clip.

Then, like something had fallen from the sky with the answer, I noticed that small white balls were bouncing not only off of the ground, but my shoulders as well. Of course, that was the answer. It wasn't rain at all, I wasn't running any faster than normal, I was simply running, face first, into hail.

My boy didn't seem to mind, so we continued on our way to the park. Knowing that there wouldn't be any children out in the park, playing in the hail, I brought Shea to the nicely fenced in playground area. 

We ran around like idiots having a blast, as per usual. While doing so, I realized that it was quite a nice evening. In fact it was beautiful, even with hail pelting off my face. Gotta love mother nature! 

Walker Please

Jeff is training for a marathon. He is working really hard and has built up his stamina from the man who begged for red lights on a two mile run to the 18 miles he had to run yesterday. He's not thrilled about doing it, but he does it.

Jeff's Red Light Loving

Jeff has a 4.5 miles route that he runs around campus. A simple four times around, and bingo, you've got your 18 miles. Since this was the longest run Jeff has had to go on thus far, I told him that I would meet him for the last lap. 

The good thing, it was a beautiful day and the loop has some nice scenery. However, from Jeff's point of view, the scenery isn't as nice the fourth time around. 

When we finally finished and began to walk, poor Jeff was having difficulty just doing that. He debated taking the elevator to go down one story to get his clothes. He didn't, but it took quite a while for him to get down the stairs. 

Beyond that, in the past few months, I have noticed that if Jeff runs more than, say, eight miles on a given day, he is as good as a chopped liver for the rest of the day. I certainly expected the twenty miles to cripple him for the remainder of the day. I pictured it going somewhat like this: laying on the couch watching basketball, dozing off for a while, and then ordering dinner due to being too tired to go out. 

You can imagine my surprise when he said he wanted to go out for dinner. We could watch the games at the restaurant. Of course, I was all over this, however somewhat reluctant that that was really going to happen. 

We did make it out. Jeff, barely, but he did. Thank goodness the back steps have a railing, and thank goodness I picked him up right at the walkway. As Jeff hobbled into the restaurant, an old lady with a walker cut us off, beating us to the door. We got there in time to both eat her dust and hold the door for her. While doing so, Jeff had his most honest moment, as he blurted out, "I sure could use one of those right now!" 

There was no doubt about it that I was thinking the same thing. Lucky for Jeff, today he wasn't walking quite like an 80 year old! 

Welcome to the 21st Century

We live in a great time. A time when I don't have to make an ultimate decision about what to watch on television. I'm not big into watching TV. Many days you can stop by and find me doing whatever around the house with the TV not even turned on. But, when there's something I want to watch, you better have no doubt that there is a conflict with something else I'd like to watch.

With March Madness underway, basically everything takes a back seat. From here you can turn between the four channels carrying games and chose whichever is at a more crucial moment. There are, of course, a few games that I want to see every moment of. Of these, BYU is included, for I have quite the fandom for Jimmer.

So, last night, with Jimmer's BYU game tipping off at 7:30, I had some issues with a non-basketball related broadcast that I wanted to watch.  A few in a lifetime opportunity in which my little cousin, Ryan, would be on ESPNU, as her nationally ranked #2 softball team played against the #1 team in the country. Like I said, this kind of thing doesn't happen everyday, although, with Ryan being a freshman, she will definitely have a few more games on ESPNU.

I had a hard decision to make, until I realized that I am living in the 21st century. All I had to do was DVR Ryan's game. I chose to put her game on hold, because there undoubtedly would be BYU updates constantly running across the bottom of the screen. I'd hate to ruin the outcome for myself.

And with that, my dilemna was solved. I did find myself flipping to Ryan's game during commercials, but it seemed as though it was usually between pitches. Another major plus of DVR, you can fast-forward through all the idle time. Turns a softball game into a fast-paced  occasion!

Madness

It's a beautiful time of year: March Madness! I love everything about it, except one minute detail. I hate the fact that non-fans come out of the woodwork and are all gung-ho NCAA basketball for the next few weeks.

I find that most of the people coming out of nowhere are those pretending to be diehard Duke fans. While I am not obsessed, I am sorry to say that I check my facebook page everyday. I am a person who has very little to get upset about in life. So, in order to allow myself to get worked up every once in a while, I check two people in particular's pages. This is where I get my anger fits, since my day to day life does not supply me an outlet for anger.

As luck may have it, both of these people whose comments anger me, have come out of hibernation from last March, to cheer on their once a year beloved Dukies. You better believe they would never be one of those. They probably aren't even sure that Duke is Blue.

Don't misconstrue my message. I am not a Duke fan. Quite the opposite actually. However, I can out-duke both of these falsified Duke fans. I am sure that I can answer more questions correctly about Duke, as well as the fact that I've undoubtedly been to more Duke games than them. And, the sad thing, I've only been to one.

Please ignore the Duke shirt. It was a deal...wear a Duke shirt, get second row ticket to #1 and #2 game. 

What all of this reminds me of is one year during the NCAA tournament. I would say it had to be 2003. I was watching a Duke tournament game and it was in the final seconds. Timeouts were being called as it was a tie game. At this exact time, one of my friends at the time, one of the self described, hard-core Duke fan called. 

I couldn't help but call her out on it. I asked her if she was watching the game, which to me, it seemed obvious that she was not! But, of course, she said she was. So, then, quite bluntly, I asked her, "then why the HELL are you calling me right now?" 

She giggled it off and then I simply hung up on her. Amazing that I even had friends. But, when it comes down to it, I just don't appreciate people pretending they are something they are not, especially when it interrupts my basketball!

Thursday or Friday

I was expected to be a St. Patty's day baby. I'm glad I wasn't. For one, I wouldn't want to share my birthday with a semi-holiday. And, secondly, I don't really like the Irish. All they do is get drunk, red, and annoying, from my experiences with Irish people anyways.

So, as luck may have it, I decided to make my big exit a day late. This means that Friday is my birthday. Awesome, I am just huge on birthdays. They mean so much to me.

If there is anyone out there apt to forget a date, it is my father. It's just who he is. He knows it and has been working on. Hence, the conversation we had on the phone today. He recited his schedule for the remainder of the week for me, specifically noting that tomorrow is March 17th and then Friday is March 18th, which just happens to be my birthday. I guess saying it aloud and repeating makes him remember things better.

Later, I spoke to my mother. She had a lot to say about this and then. She informed me to look for a package that she had sent out on Monday. It should be here tomorrow or Friday. When she went to hang up, she told me to have a great birthday tomorrow and that she would call later in the afternoon. 

Interesting huh? The woman who gave birth to me does not quite remember the day I was born. Yes, she was close, only a day off, but sometimes close doesn't count. I informed that even my father knows my birthday isn't tomorrow. 

Oh well. Does that mean he loves me more? If that's the case, Nick must love me the most. He sent me my birthday gift a week early!

Jeopardy!

I have been a little mindless lately. I will be the first to admit it. However, there are certain things I vividly remember from last night.

I remember sitting on the floor playing with Shea, while Jeff sat on the couch. We had Jeopardy! on the television, something I often have on, listen to, and attempt to answer questions, but don't necessarily "watch." I don't watch because there isn't much action to see, and I am usually doing other things like playing with Shea or jump roping. What I remember so well from last night, is Jeff pointing out in the Double Jeopardy round, that the woman leading the show had been way in the negatives. She made a huge comeback and was now way ahead of everybody else. So far ahead that she could bet just about anything on Final Jeopardy and not worry about losing.

There was no doubt that this woman made an exceptional run. Exceptional enough for Jeff and I to be impressed, but not enough for me to pay attention to this woman's name or face. 

This afternoon, speaking to my parents on the phone, I was asked an odd question. My father brought up a name from way in my past. My past being about 4th and 5th grade. This woman from my past had mentioned to one of my father's co-workers that she knew me. This, the same woman that had won some big bucks on Jeopardy! last night. The same woman that would be vying for more winnings tonight. 

I told my father it was ridiculous, he must have his information wrong. I get excited when I see someone on Jeopardy! from within a 200 miles radius of where I live. I think I would notice if I actually knew someone on the show. 

So tonight, with vested interest, I really "watched" Jeopardy! Sure enough, there she was, a Mrs. Lori Cain from Altamont, New York. My religious education teacher from 4th and 5th grade. 

Don't believe me? Check it out!

Now, I was always a good student in school. Did my work correctly, was well behaved, quiet, never caused trouble. However, religious ed. was a different story for me. My buddy, Mark, and I were the only ones from our school in Mrs. Cain's class. For some reason, we let all our demons out during her class. Ironic, isn't it? I haven't figured out why to this day, blame it on the long days, blame it on the fact that we would have rather been playing baseball or basketball or pogs, or blame it on the fact that we may have had a little crush on each other. Either way, Mrs. Cain was the poor recipient of our bad behavior. In fact, I remember a few times, being sent out in the hall. Yup, that's right, kicked out of religion class. 

Turns out Mrs. Cain is an awfully smart woman. Smart enough to win a pretty penny on Jeopardy!, and certainly smart enough for me to gain something from her in religion class. But,  I didn't because I was too busy making her life miserable. The misery of Alicia continued for Mrs. Cain tonight, as I watched intently, rooting for her, jinxing her to a loss. 

Sorry Mrs. Cain, for then and now!