You know how sometimes in college you get a D in the class where you absolutely learned the most?

So, maybe a little backstory is in order here.....there were times in college when I didn't have a lot of money. I know that's true of most of us, but this was a semester where at one point I had to choose between buying a book or buying food. So I bought the food and figured I could get the book at the library. This was not the case. The class for which I needed the book was called "Living Religions of the East" and it satisfied not only a  GenEd for history but also for foreign culture. Had I known at the time that I would end up majoring in French, I would have taken another class but oh well.....anyway, I was supposed to read this book that I had neither purchased nor laid eyes upon and I had a quiz on it and the quiz was one question (Why did Bhaktivedanta go to the west?) and I had to look like I was doing SOMETHING so I started writing and this is what I wrote.....


Bhaktivedanta went to the west to mine for gold and discover the untold wealth contained therein. He planned to take an American bride (preferably a southern belle) but no luck. He settled for an Indian woman and they opened an Indian restaurant in Sacramento, which promptly failed. He then resorted to designing clothes under his own label but had to sell out to Pierre Cardin. He now lives in a suburb of Boston and lives off residuals from his short-lived TV series "Leave it to Bhakti" which is on the late night rerun circuit (opposite David Letterman)


--This little anecdote was brought to you as comic relief. Forgive me for being a blowoff queen (not that you should worry) but due to a heinous midterm at 10:30 today, I was unable to read the book, hoping to redeem myself later in the semester. Please find this entertaining as you grade quizzes, as I don't mean to be a smart-ass.


Then  she wrote: Even if you do mean to be a smart-ass I love your essay, and am reading it to all my classes.

Then she gave me 100% on the quiz and I truly believe that's how I passed the class.

The End

JaMy Gets Mugged

KDHD: You wanna fight? 

JaMy: *adopts Notre Dame fightin' Irish stance*

Daddio: You'll break your wrists fighting like that. If you got mugged, you'd be screwed.

JaMy: I'd fight them off with my wit and humor.

KDHD: That'd probably just egg them on. You have a very specific kind of humor that is not shared by most muggers. 

JaMy: *pouty sad face*

SPRING BREAK----WOOOOO!!!

Disclaimer--my shirt is not currently, nor will it (in public) be in the up position.

The glorious feeling of the first day of spring break is upon me in all its untainted glory. Yes. Glory glory glory. This is the day when nine days stretch before me with no 5:30 alarms or sarcastic sixth graders or traffic jams or 26 minute lunch breaks. It is the day that begins the period known as ANYTHING can get accomplished this week! This same period ends with the feeling of WHAT the hell did I do all week. The shamefully empty DVR testifies to what exactly got accomplished.....sniff......

So, with full understanding and awareness of my previous patterns and habits, I do hereby present my do-list for spring break 2012. Because I will never learn.

1. Exercise every day. First thing in the morning. Start the day right, dammit.

This plan is always derailed by the twin temptations known as coffee and the morning paper. I HAVE to make the coffee so Spouse can have coffee. Then I grab the paper so Spouse can read the paper with his coffee. Because I'm nice. Then before I know it I'm reading the paper and drinking coffee. How did this happen? I do not recall either pouring coffee or opening the paper. Yet, here I am. Now I know I should go put on some shorts and go for a walk. But I just drank coffee and, well, you know. Can't be half a mile from home when that decides to run its course. Soooo maybe I just clean a few things, then go. Okay. I can do that. Suddenly I'm in the shower. What the.....huh. Tomorrow I am totally going for a long walk first thing. Seriously.

2. Make stuff. I don't care what stuff. Maybe some jewelry. Maybe do some sewing. No clothes I make ever fit, but I still try every few years. It's all about the process.

I will probably succeed at this one. I'll spend lots of time at the stores looking at materials, then buy stuff that resembles stuff I already have, then make it, then realize it looks a lot like most of my other stuff, then like it anyway. And maybe even wear it.

3. Do yard work.

If the weather cooperates, I will grudgingly do this. But I don't have to like it.

4. Clean stuff.

Meh.

5. Paint stuff. Walls. Ceilings.

I might buy the paint but this one always gets put off until summer.

6. Finish writing my screenplay.

Ppppffff.....yeah. As much as I would like to remove myself from the cliched group known as "People who have a half-written screenplay" and add myself to the also-cliched group known as "People who have an unsold screenplay", I don't see this happening. Because I kind of ran out of plot....right where every would-be screenwriter runs out of plot. NOT even creative in my failure.

7. Write something else.

Great idea...but what?

8. Write a crappy do-list on the blog.

Check.

Girl: Here's what my Spring Break was like:

1. Don't take meds
2. Finish Mockingjay
3. Continue Dance with Dragons
4. ???
5. Eagerly await the announcement of the Legend of Korra premiere
6. Freak out for a whole day about this premiere
7. Hang out with the only other friend of mine in town this week
8. Get mah herr did.
How did this all take a whole week?

Yay for us.

Not so good in the neighborhood

About the family who used to live down the street....

They had at least four children. (I lost count)

The mom used to lock the kids outside when she was angry with them....all day long. They would come beg for lunch from the other neighbors.

Yes, DFS was called.

They were new in the neighborhood around the same time as us. One day the boys came over to play and I sent them down to the basement with my kids along with instructions to stay out of one corner. Just one corner. The corner where the sewing stuff is. That's all. One corner. The other three? Fair game. Full of toys. Approximately 3 minutes later, the two boys came upstairs with bloody fingers.

Me-Why are your fingers bleeding?

Boy 1-I was playing and I saw this thing and it looked like a toy so I went to play with it and it cut my fingers!

Me-Where did you find it?

Boy 1-In the corner.

Me-Which corner? The one I told you to say out of?

Boy 1-Yes.

Me-Okay. (to Boy 2) And what happened to you?

Boy 2-I saw him get cut so I wanted to see if it would cut me too. Can we have some band-aids?

Me-No. Here's a tissue. Go home.

One day I was returning home from....somewhere. I don't know. I'm driving down the street....I press my garage door opener....I realize that not only is my garage door going up AND down, there is also a small child dangling from it. I do a double take, look around to make sure it is indeed my house (it was). I pull into my driveway and hysterically question this child as to WHAT THE HELL HE THOUGHT HE WAS DOING! While I am actively having a conniption, the younger brother comes out from the garage. He had been stationed inside to press the button. Turns out the previous occupants of our house had not kept their garage code a secret from aaaanyone. As I am sending these children home, they point to some (not even slightly empty) LaCroix cans on my lawn.

"Your soda tastes disgusting," they inform me. At this point, they scurry off home. At least they knew to hit the road before my head exploded. Aaaand I changed the garage door code.

Another neighbor reported that she saw the mom and three of the kids driving down the street one day and they stopped to say hi. She looked in the minivan and said, "Oh is the baby home with Daddy?" The mother waved the baby monitor and chirped,"Nope! Home napping! We're going to the store!", as if this is the best idea evarrrr and she can hear the monitor from the frickin' grocery store.

Again, DFS was called on this family. A lot.

This family claimed to be very "religious". Most of the neighborhood preferred the term "weird-ass Jesus freaks". The kids would run up to us on the street and hand us Bibles that their parents had instructed them to distribute. Like we were all Godless wonders. Then the oldest one would come back later and beat up my son.

On Halloween, the boys dressed up like Abraham and Moses and trick-or-treated. If by "trick-or-treat", you mean "terrorize innocent children and steal their candy". Their house, on the other hand, was dark. Because they didn't believe in celebrating the heathen spectacle that was Halloween.

Then there was the out and out thievery. It's one thing to snag a Hershey bar from a terrified youngster or break into a garage and help yourself to a flavored fizzy water, but it is quite another to big fat steal a bicycle from a front lawn or a GameBoy from a stoop. Wait a minute....what the hell?!?! It's all thievery! What am I saying!!!! Those boys took KDHD's bike from our FRONT LAWN. We weren't sure it was them until two years later when we saw their little sister riding around on it. At that point I knew there was nothing to be done...I just wish she would at least wear the helmet they stole along with the bike. When they took another neighbor's GameBoy and sold it to an older kid, the mother of the victim confronted them with their mother. The conversation went something like this, I'm told:

Victim's mom- What happened to my kid's GameBoy?

Thief- I took it and sold it to a 16 year old.

Vic's mom (to thief's mom)- Your kid admitted he stole from my kid, on our front stoop. What are you going to do about it?

Thief's mom- I'm not doing anything. Your kid should take better care of his stuff.

Then the parents became professional bodybuilders and they all moved to a shack in Hawaii just in time for the boys to avoid getting busted for a huge vandalism spree. And we lived happily ever after.

DHS probably showed up the next day.