Top Ten on a Tuesday

Top Ten Things That Happened (or didn't happen) on Tuesday

10. I scheduled a parent meeting with a problem student, all his teachers, the vice principal and his parents. Guess who showed up? The kid and his teachers. Fantastic!

9. We got a notice that someone is impersonating maintenance men at our apartment complex and we're to be on alert - and it made the local TV news. Lovely!

8. No one at school was arrested. Yesterday they caught 2 girls with pot, last week it was 2 of my boys. Apparently pot is the drug of choice for preteens.

7. There were gang-related shootings in town. However, they did arrested 4 people on Friday in connection with the Valentine's Night shooting and in the process, 2 elderly people were shot. No idea how that happened. Also, we're still on high alert for gang activity after school bathrooms were damaged by girls claiming revenge for their gang. And we're talking over $5000 worth of damage. Nice.

6. My kids seem to already know there spelling words and it's only Tuesday, I have no idea how this happened.

5. I graded tests from when I was out sick and realized when I was out sick, my kids were out to lunch. Not good.

4. I worked ten hours today and was not wearing ten hour shoes. Ugh.

3. The chicken spinach lasagna we made last night was even better tonight.

2. I decided I am officially sick of both Hillary and Barack. And it's no where near November.

1. We watched "Gone Baby Gone" - the movie co-written and directed by Ben Affleck, starring Casey Affleck and Boston. I thought it was great but then again, I usually like movies. I'm a big fan of most films. It had great acting, some plot twists and can I just say, Casey is an fantastic actor in my opinion. If anyone's asking.

Oh - and here's a bonus:

On Saturday I got a summons in the mail. I was to appear for jury duty next Tuesday. While I've always always always wanted to serve on a jury, it was going to be a big hassle right now with school and arranging for sub, etc. But I was going to suck it up and serve my county! And then I got another summons yesterday, telling me my trial had been canceled. Ah well, better luck next time!

A bunch of wild and crazy girls!

We're home from Vegas, and as much as I anticipated and enjoyed the weekend, I'm glad to be home. Even if we have had 2 earthquakes this afternoon/evening. We had a 5.0 quake while I was still at school, the chalkboards shook but nothing came down thankfully. Then there was a little 2.0er tonight while we were eating supper. Gotta love livin' on a fault line!

So back to Vegas. There were 6 of us who went, our friends Caroline, Becca, Julie and Christina, Angela and I. We left Saturday at 10am and got there about dinner 5pm. It shouldn't have taken so long except we got a bit mixed up on the drive and ended up on the back side of Joshua Tree, not where we wanted to be. But the trip there is always fun and we sang along to the radio, watched a movie, got a little car sick, ate at McDonald's (even though I really didn't want to and surprisingly, I did not enjoy it at all), and finally got into the city. We checked in to the Excalibur and headed up to our rooms to relax and get ready because we were going out on the town.

We donned our best duds and cutest shoes (they were cute at 7pm, not so cute at 4am) and hit the walk way to New York, New York. We had Scililian pizza and then walked across the street to buy our bus passes ($5 for 24 hours, much cheaper than the limo we wanted to take). Then we loaded onto the bus with every other Vegas tourist and headed down the strip.

Caroline had a friend who's an accountant at a casino so he was able to get us on to 2 VIP lists for the night. First we went to Tao, in the Venetian, which is the hot spot of the moment. We were told to go early so we got there before 10pm. Once there what happened was very cool. We inquired as too who's list we were on (there are many VIP lists come to find out) and waited while our names were located. Then we were whisked past the 100 or so people already in line. You're herded in almost like cattle, the restaurant on the bottom was so full, and stamped on the inside of your wrist with an Asian symbol that glows in ultraviolet light and shuffled up the stairs. That's where the club is. It wasn't completely full yet and we were able to get to the bar very easily. Julie and I were served by a female bartender who charged us $12 for a vodka and water. Angela and the rest of the girls were served by a male bartender who charged them $10 for the same drink. Disgusted, I stuck a matchbook in my pocket. But what I loved was later when Becca went to order another drink she got the woman and before being told a price, she stuck a ten on the bar and walked away! You go Brit Girl!

So here's the low-down on Tao. It was kinda dark, with a crowded dance floor, really crowded. The music which came from the walls, we never saw a DJ or band, was Asian in theme and loud but not bad. Also, woman from the crowd were pulled up to dance with women who worked there on what looked to me like a big curb at the front of the dance floor. We danced for a while but we decided to leave pretty early because it kept getting more crowded and warmer, and because someone was letting off toxic farts. Seriously. It was horrible, you'd be dancing away and this horrible smell would come over you. A cool place that I was so glad to get to experience but would not have paid $50 to get into and so would not have waited in line for hours (when we left there were hundreds circling the club waiting).

So we decided to head over to the Bellagio, to their new club The Bank. This is the other happening spot of the moment and after a few moments our names were located and we were whisked up the escalator right into the heart of the club. Immediately we liked this place better. We recognized the music and it was just very cool. Exactly what I had imagined. We paid for our drinks ($15 for a vodka and water here - yep, the cooler the bar, the more you pay) and found a spot over looking the dance floor. While most of us never made it down to the floor, we did plenty of dancing right where we were and the music was awesome. A mix of old, new, hip-hop, rock, very cool mixes by a DJ with a MacBook (Ang now thinks she can rule a club!). Let's see, what else - oh yes, there is no free water at the Bank, just an FYI. You can't get tap and a glass bottle of about 4oz of Evian runs 7 bucks! And a plain soda is $6. Guess we now know why it's called the bank! But they do some cool things, they light sparklers and do a little sparkler parade every time someone orders a bottle of champagne. Which is surprisingly often. We stuck to cheaper drinks and were not shy when the older British guys next to us offered rounds of Bud Light. I didn't want to be rude so I held my bottle for a long time before switching with one of the girls. Beer's just not my thing. But it was a sweet gesture and they seemed to enjoy buying them!

Oh, and another note - there is no seating at these clubs. Unless you are willing to shell out a few hundred bucks to buy at least 2 bottles of alcohol, that'll get you a couch and a table. Maybe next time....though I still can't imagine throwing out 50 bucks just to get in the door! It's much cooler to be a VIP and leave everyone else in the dust!

We ended up staying until about 3am which was 4am our time and then we had to find the bus stop and walk a few blocks back to our hotel. This would not have been so bad except for the fact that we all had cute shoes on. And by this point, blisters and pain beyond our capacity to bear. So we had some girls without shoes and some girls laughing at those girls. What a night! Needless to say, when my head hit the pillow around 5am, I had never been so happy!

Sunday we found our way to the Zappos.com outlet and Fashion Show mall, much to the chagrin of my feet, and the got dressed up again for dinner at Chin Chin's in NYNY. This is also the night I learned how to play roulette. No, I didn't win, in fact I lost my 20 bucks in 2 spins but it was fun! And next time I'll look for a smaller buy in!

Monday we hit the Cheesecake Factory in Caesar's after a return trip to the mall (Ang's newly purchased iPod case was cracked and needed to be returned) and then headed home, driving into Yuma about 8pm. Home sweet home! Never thought I'd say that about Yuma:-)

Quite a week

Whew, it feels like this has been a very long week and it's not even finished yet. I'm trying to think back to what has happened and while some of it seems a blur, certain moments stick out like a bruised toenail. (Not that you'd be able to tell on my freshly pedicured toesies, they're purple!)

- I missed 4 days of work: last Friday, Monday, Wednesday, and Thursday. I managed to go on Tuesday, mostly because I was expected to present a writing lesson to my first hour class and eight of my fellow teachers/bosses. They were all evaluating me and while I wasn't necessarily nervous, I wanted to do it and do it well. I went and I presented and then somehow read the final 2 chapters of The Outsiders to each of my 3 classes before collapsing in bed for a 2 hour nap. The good news is I passed my evaluation with a perfect score.

- The major highway between Yuma and San Diego was shut down for 24 hours yesterday due to SNOW. Yes, that's right, SNOW. In sunny southern California. Mother Nature's gone looney.

- I have read 2.5 books this week and every magazine in the house. This is terribly exciting to me. I finally got through Prep which was very good, just like the New York Times said, and then read Meg Cabot's Queen of Babble which is addictively good, and now I'm almost done with Kristen Gore's Sammy's House (a follow-up to Sammy's Hill which was great and so is this one, a great comedic peak at the White House and Capitol Hill from someone with insider knowledge (she's Al Gore's daughter) and the comedic chops (she won an Emmy for writing on SNL)).

- There was a shooting last night, at the Yuma Palms Mall. The mall Ang and I frequent on a weekly basis. It happened about 8:30pm, outside the movie theaters, on Valentine's night (tons of restuarants right there) when there was no school today. It's a wonder only one person was killed and another injured. Apparently a 16 year old shot an 18 year old. Gang-related. Yes, I feel safe in my own backyard.

- Ang and I attended Yuma County's Professional Day for Teachers today, which really wasn't a good use of an in-service day. I could have been developing lesson plans, lessons, putting in grades, figuring midterms, reading sub reports, mapping curriculum, ANYTHING else. But no, I was there. Listening to grand ideas and things I already knew. Yep yep.

- Oh yeah, did I mention the writer's strike ended?!?!?! (Yay!)

- Ang and I treated ourselves to pedicures today, which is the best 20 bucks ever spent can I just tell you. It's so relaxing to sit there reading, having someone pamper you so. This signals 2 things. One, summer is near in Yuma; it's sandal season! And two, we're heading to Vegas tomorrow morning! There are 6 of us going and word on the street is we've got our names down on the VIP lists at several hot clubs which essentially means we pay for drinks but not a cover (which I understand can be 50 bucks and up). We're so money baby! We'll be back Monday (assuming we don't hit the jackpot!).

- Happy long weekend everyone!

100 long days

That's how long the Writer's Strike lasted. Although in ways, it seems like it's been going on a lot longer. I've mostly forgotten what good broadcast television looked like (thank goodness Lost brought us out of that reality TV hell that had been festering). But it's over!

This LA Times article offers a good summation of what came from the agreement. It's not the perfect resolution but a lot of ground was made and the contract, which will be voted on at the end of the month, will last three years. That's good news for me because within the next three years I'll hopefully be a lot closer to being a member of the Guild.

The good news for all of you is that many of your favorite TV characters will grace your screens with new dialogue come April and May and certainly next fall. Some of the bigger shows (i.e., CSI, Grey's, etc.) will be back sooner but the most important part is they'll be back. And Hollywood is back to work today.

Wish I could say the same for me. I'm down and out again with this darn cold, and according to the Physician's Assistant at PrimeCare, I have an upper respiratory infection. All I got was some decongestent and nose spray (that burned when I used it, nice). Here's hoping a few days of rest will have me back on my feet for Saturday - Vegas baby!

Apparently we're overdue

2nd UPDATE: at about 9:45pm we had another aftershock although really, it just feels like another earthquake. This one was a 5.0 and Ang and I just stopped and looked at each other. It lasted a little longer than the other ones and as soon as it started, the birds in the tree outside our window flew away. The door shook this time, and the TV table and I still felt like I was shaking a minute or two afterwards. We have yet to come up with an emergency plan but figured we should because we were both sitting here on the bed and I was like, should we be here, should we go downstairs or something? Ang thinks we're supposed to go into a room without windows but I think I'll do some research tomorrow to figure out exactly what to do. It doesn't seem to be a good idea to stay on the second floor during one but by the time I had decided to move it was over. Man, at least with tornadoes you have enough warning to get to safety. This is crazy!!!!

UPDATE: We've had about five aftershocks since this morning's earthquake, only one of which I've felt - it registered a 3.6. We're shaking here in Yuma!!!

I have survived my first two earthquakes in three days. Yes, I know, it's weird to me too. I grew up hearing about earthquakes as things that happened on the other side of the world, in far off places I never imagined I'd live in. But now there's a different reality - I live in the southwest which is prime earthquake territory. Go figure, something else I didn't see in the brochure...

Friday night I went to bed early, before 10pm. I read for a few hours and around 12:15am, the wall next to my bed shook. My bed is right up against the wall so I felt it, for a few seconds and thought it must have been a semi-truck or something, read a while longer and fell asleep. It wasn't until Ang asked me the next day if I felt the earthquake did I connect the dots. I grew up on a busy street in Howell, Michigan and that street had semis going down it frequently. Our house shook at times because of these trucks and because of how close we were to the road. Our living room has cracks in the walls and paint because of them, and I remember lying in bed at night, feeling them go by. So I didn't realize that this wasn't a truck.

It was an earthquake. A 5.1 earthquake that left 400,000 people without power and 1,200,000 people without cell phone services - mostly in Mexicali, Baja, Mexico where the quake originated. Mexicali's just over an hour southwest from Yuma. And then this morning, about 11:30am, I was lying on Angela's bed reading and all of a sudden, I felt it. Another 5.1 earthquake.

At first I heard the vase on her bookcase shake and then the bed started to move and it continued to move for maybe 20 seconds. It was weird, there was no noise, just the movement that was strong enough to move me on a queen-size bed, on the second floor of a condo. At first I thought, no, it can't be, I'm hyper-sensitive now. But then I thought, maybe, what else could it be. Five minutes later when Ang called it had been confirmed, I wasn't the only one who felt something - her desk and computer shook and other teachers noticed it as well.

You can check out this article to learn more but apparently we're, as in Yuma, is overdue for a larger quake. I'm not terribly excited by this news. That shaking was more than enough for me. I wasn't scared but I began thinking about all the things in my house and whether or not I should move them off their perches or maybe pack them away. I won't because I realize this is the first tremor I've had since I've moved here but it got me thinking. Yes, I still plan to move to L.A. and yes, I realize they are more prone to quakes over in sunny California, but I guess earthquakes are really no different from the snow and cold or tornadoes we have back in Michigan. Weather is crazy, it's scary and it's dangerous. I'm just thankful all that happened was a little shake this time.

Sick Day

Turns out I wasn't overreacting on Monday, I did get sick and then sicker. By Thursday I was losing my voice which wouldn't be too big of a deal except for the fact that I have to talk all day long. And we were reading the climax of The Outsiders and my kids really love it when I read it to them so of course I did which means by 1:35pm I had no voice left. Then I had to sit through an hour and 20 minute parent meeting. Needless to say, I put in for a sick day today. And of course, there were no subs.

But some of my fellow teachers are awesome and they came to my students' rescue and gave spelling tests and retaught point of view and figured out what a heater is in our novel (a gun, if you were wondering). And I stayed in bed.

I am feeling better, not great but hopefully I am healing. I slept ten hours then watched 2 and 1/2 movies (half of Bridget Jones' Diary, Shall We Dance, and A Walk to Remember) and 20 minutes of an infomercial before I realized it wasn't just a long commercial. I ate soup and crackers, drank camomille tea and had 3000 mgs of vitamin C (a co-worker who's husband is a doctor said these were the best remedies), pushed down as much water as I could handle, drank Airborne three times, and stuck to a regimine of Mucinex. Here's hoping we kick this cold's butt!

Not much else is happening. I am going to lay low this weekend, sleep and read and watch movies and rest. We finished the final season of Arrested Development tonight (and did you hear about the potential movie!?!?!?! YES, they're really talking about it!!!!!) and have some Netflix to catch up on. What is everyone else up to?

Odds and ends

I haven't posted in a few days and feel the need to communicate, even if it's just a briefing. So here goes:

- I am getting sick/sick/maybe over-reacting about sickness. I have pains in my chest, my throat hurts and I stuffy. Also my voice is getting weird.

- I have a formal observation tomorrow, my second in two weeks, and I am determined to get EVERY SINGLE box checked this time (I missed 2 last time and while that still equals an excellent observation - I need perfection!).

- I am one-twelfth of the way through reading the Bible.

- I am getting my taxes done Wednesday afternoon at H&R Block. And while getting all my stuff together I found out I spent $510.27 on school supplies last year. That's gotta count for something...

- I am all caught up on my Entertainment Weeklies and Newsweeks. Thank goodness, they really were starting to pile up.

- I have all of my outfits figured out for our President's Day trip to Vegas. It was a real dilemma figuring out what was "club" wear, etc. but I think I've got good options, all of which have been photographed to ensure that I don't look horrible.

- I am effectively addicted to online Facebook scrabble. And thank you to all of you who support and encourage this habit.

- I have not read any of the seven new books sitting next to my bed and this saddens me. Someday...

- The Writer's Strike may or may not be close to settlement. If it settles in a week or so we'll get the Oscar's and possibly some hour-long new dramas this season. If not, the rest of the season's a wash. Thank goodness for DVDs. We've been going through Arrested Development again, all three seasons, and the commentaries. If you haven't seen this show or heard the commentaries, run to Target and buy the DVDs. Best. Show. Ever.

- I am going to bed now. I am tired and achy and feeling blah. And I need to shower in the morning and get to work on time and I already know that'll be a struggle. Wish me luck!