Once again, to hell in a handbasket

I can't believe how long it has been since I last blogged, however, since things are falling apart and I'm alittle strung out and can't sleep, figured I'd catch everyone up.

My little tale of woe begins on Saturday afternoon. I was working on The Book. I was converting my finaled indesign spreads into pdfs. I had old pdfs that I decided I needed to delete. So, I grabbed them all and threw them into the trashcan. . . only I didn't throw the pdfs out, I threw the Indesign files out. Yup. I'm a dumbass.

As soon as I realized what I'd done, I opened up the trash. BUT because the files were so huge, the trash automatically deleted them.

I become mildly hysterical, call Chuck my very favorite techie and Shelly, who works in the building on technology. Chuck tells me to turn the computer off immediately and take it to school on Monday.

I then proceeded out to the back yard and worked on yard stuff. I thought I would sweat my misery out. While doing that I also broke/seriously damaged my right pinkie finger.

Monday morning Chuck starts working. He worked all day. We left the school at 9:30pm. He worked all day today - left at about 9:30pm. He finally gave up and we called a company in California. For a mere $3,000, they will resuscitate all of the files.

Of course, if they don't save anything then I pay nothing, but, of course, what I need is EVERYTHING.

In the meantime, in the morning I have to send an email to the book committee some how explaining that I'm a total dumbass and that all is not lost, I hope.

Deep sigh goes here.

Oh, and in the middle of this, I ain't sleepin'. Last night I had a hard time going to sleep, hard time staying asleep. Woke up at about 3am, had a horrible nightmare that a big fat cat KILLED Cat. I found him dead. I was so upset that I had to get up and find Cat to make sure he was ok. He was. But I didn't really go back to sleep. Misery.

It was also really hot in the house, and I didn't turn the air on last night. Probably won't turn it on tonight either because I'm even more poor than I was last night.

Will also comment on how much I love (most) of my neighbors. Both last night and tonight, Gene and Linda fed the dogs and Emily checked on Cat (who happened to be out of food.)

I am so stressed and miserable.

Oh, it is also THEME week. You know the week I force all of the sweet children to start working on themes for next year's yearbook. Means I have to actually be in front of the classes all day talking and harassing.

Oh, and the English class as always requires that.

OK, that sums up my life.

Oh, back to Friday and what have I done

This week I have kept myself out of jail. (That should count for something).

I went with a friend to the doctor's so that she wouldn't have to sit there alone. (Good friend points since I appear to have reduced inventory in that category).

I went to see my friend Pam ( she is looking fabulous). She was the first to finish proofing -Go Pam. I have to say I had no idea there were so many hyphens in the world. I knew there were many commas that were under appreciated, but hyphens, good heavens.

I have managed to do all of Pam's corrections, and I have worked on some of the other copy.

I have also done laundry. But that, is that, as they say. I'm a little disappointed that I haven't accomplished more. Oh well.

I also had my house cleaned for the last time (professionally that is). Let's have a moment of silence to mourn the passing of my home being cleaned regularly. Let's face it; it is going to be a little more slip shod now that I'm back in charge.

That's all I got.

Random things in my life

I had a cool Mexican star hanging in the front corner of my porch, but these silly birds started building a nest. So, Emily told me I should take it down. As it turns out, it didn't slow the birds down because they just started building on the column. Crazy birds. Sabrina and Buddy love their rawhides. Sabrina, loves them most as you can tell by the fact she has hers and the one that she stole from poor Buddy. You know for as many pictures of my silly dogs sleeping, they seem to still do a fair amount of damage to everything in the house. Hmmm, curious.

Land of puppies

I can't remember what day it was, but I met up with Cindy, had lunch, and then we went to pick up her new puppy. He is a yellow lab. Sooo cute and huge. What a beast. But soooo adorable.

What have I done with my time?

It's Friday afternoon, and I'm not sure that I have much to show for my time this week.

Let's see, I showed up at the crack of dawn, well, ok 6:45 at the Dallas Court House to get my number for court. I took a picture so that everyone could appreciate how dark it is and how long the line was. I got an afternoon slot. So off I went for lunch with the boys (went fine, I think they are happy with the book so far).

Back to the court house for my 1pm appt with the judge. Actually it was an appointment with a long line of people. The photo is of Officer Smiles (What a great name). The girl talking to him is Jennifer. I met her while in line. She was really nice and a great reality check for me. She was driving along when she got stopped. She already had a ticket that hadn't been paid, so she got sent off to jail. Talk about sucking!! While sitting there I had time to check out some of the outfits people chose to wear to work. I was worried about looking appropriately contrite. This woman might have wanted to just look. Good grief, it doesn't even look comfortable!

Things you really shouldn't forget

I got a letter in the mail from a law firm in San Antonio that said it represents the City of Dallas. It further stated that I had a citation that I needed to clear up immediately.

I started calling this morning, but the lines were busy (totally frustrating). I did manage to get through the automated line to find out it was for a speeding ticket.

I finally spoke to someone this afternoon. Weeeellllll, I got a ticket in September of 2006. I now remember the incident. I was driving with Ann heading south on Preston following her husband when I got stopped.

I apparently called and got a court date for April. This is the good part . . . I failed to record on the palm pilot that I had a court date, so that went flying by.

So, now I have to get up and be at the court house before 7am!!

A Story to tell

OK, so I have a story to tell, and I'm going to tell it because I think more will unfold as time goes by.

Yesterday, we had something going down in the parking garage. A student called me and said there was an accident. Did I want her to take pictures? Of course.

I toddle off after her to see what is going down.

At the garage all of the counselors are milling about keeping kids out. The head of counseling tells me that something is going down with a kid and the police are there etc. so they sent the photographers away.

Stood around for a little bit talking. One of the counselors said that maybe we should make an announcement about students being late to class because we weren't letting them park in the parking garage. I, of course, had my phone. So, I asked if they thought I should call one assistant, no call a second one. He doesn't answer, so I call my friend Susan, principal's sec.

One of the other counselors, we shall call her Hotpants (another story entirely), comes waddling up to me (I know I'm being rude) and says that I shouldn't be calling anyone, that it was none of my business. Then she went running off in the other direction. I thought it was a little freaky, but didn't think much else of it.

I finish talking to the other counselors and mosey my way up to my classroom before 6th period starts.

Moments later I get a call from the principal's secretary that I needed to just teach my class. She was very obviously passing a message along, so I say ok. I call her later to find out moments after I called her the principal called her and asked why I was telling everyone what to do and that we were not going to make any announcement and I should just teach my class????????? What???? She told him that was not exactly what happened, and that she would let me know.

Pretty easy to tell who waddled her butt over to the principal. So, I go down to counseling actually looking for the head of counseling who I really like and figured I could vent to and be done. She wasn't around, so I ended up venting to her assistant. Ok, fine.

No, later I get an email from Hotpants saying that if I'm upset I should talk to her and that she was trying to protect me. Give me a freaking break. It turns out I can take care of myself.

So, I responded, "I'm confused, you were trying to protect me by going to Patrick?"

She of course doesn't respond directly to that, but says that I should stay with my class in the event of an emergency, as if I had a class at the time. Freaking wack job.

Then I find out that one of the assistant principals this morning was saying that I was trying to tell everyone what to do yesterday (I never saw him and word is he got his info from Hotpants)

So now I am really, super duper unhappy. I have sent an email to the head of counseling that I would like to meet with her and with Hotpants (only with another person there).

More later . .