Last Monday I was quietly freaking out because I didn't have any work scheduled for the year except for a few Saturdays and a chunk in January. As part of my hyperventilation, I called the temp folk and told them I was available.
One week later, I've been offered enough real and potential work to last me through next August and I'm wondering why I agreed to sit here at this temp job.
It happens this way every year. I think I forget because the part of my brain where that information is stored gets cluttered with the 600 names I have to learn over the summer and the fact that even though it's a sunshiney time, I spend ten weeks in a dark and scary theatre. It's all deja vu down there.
All of the work I have this year is mostly the same as last year except I'm teaching a class at an arts school. In the south. Like, I'll have to catch a bus at 6:30am. I think it will be all right, though. I go in for training tonight, so we'll see. I hated the last school I taught at, but I have complete control over what I teach in this class...which starts next Wednesday.
But truly, the biggest thing on my mind is how in a few days Yellow Dog and I will be riding dune buggies in Oregon. And sharing a mailbox in Ballard in October. Yep, dune buggies and letters are rapidly clearing 600 names outta my head.
I can't decide if it's more enticing to hope for my classes to run as usual tomorrow or to hope that the electricity doesn't get turned back on in time, thus turning Wednesday into a Secret Summer Snow Day.
Obviously, the title of the latter sounds better, but how will it affect Pauline the Octopus? Will we be able to save her in time if we miss an entire day?
Okay, Pauline the Octopus isn't real. She's just a dramatrue kid who got turned into a dramatrue river-dwelling octopus by some mysterious dramatrue instrument played by her dramatrue brother Petey (although Petey is also her sister in some classes as Petey is also me in a ponytail, which can be very confusing if you're five). The real question is if classes are canceled will my paycheck also be canceled? Because probably yes.
I also have to go tell the ed director that I do not want a certain someone to be my assistant next year. I will have to use words such as "non-intuitive" and phrases such as "does not follow directions" in this telling. And that makes me sadder than Petey in realtrue.
I went to bed at 5am and now I'm up.
Yesterday, I went to neither a party nor a theatrical event.
I was trapped at home by nausea and a headache: the day included prone activity, the wish to gouge my left eye with a spoon, and a variety of work-related computer activity interspersed by tears and sweets.
Today, the headache continues. As it is neither so puke-inducing nor so spoon-gouging, I am inclined to think that it and the fog are working together to give me the ability to be stealthy and serene. These qualities shall inspire the completion of event planning, substitute finding, laundry cleansing and curriculum crafting.
The result of last week's Egg Stealer? Turned out there was not just one, but one-two-three-four-five-six-seven-eight-nine-ten-eleven-twelve! Egg Stealers (coinciding remarkably with the number of students plus assistants in the class). When they picked up the decoy eggs, the clay from which they were formed began to hum. The Egg Stealers could not let go of the eggs; they were dragged by the river clay eggs back to the river, their egg-holding hands plunged deep into the riverbank. After a night of bellies in the mud, we were able to discover that they longed to return to their original forms.
Unless you were in the morning red group, where it was discovered that the Egg Stealers—with green frosting on their heads—were jumping on their bed. And it just so happened that underneath their bed were ten rainstorm eggs. All we had to do was rile them up so they'd jump more rambunctiously and break the eggs, thus causing a rainstorm that washed them away and dissolved their sugar bodies.
These are the words the increase bed-jumping: Happy Birthday! I have a present for you! It's a surpriiiiiiiiise!
(Maybe I'll try them on the headache. I'm sure there're rainstorm eggs in my head somewhere.)
A four-year-old in a wife beater gave me a squeezy hug around the legs yesterday right before class.
A different four-year-old said "She's the silliest girl!" in a manner which implied that girls are never silly but always prissy.
But do they still suggest that the best way to deal with an enemy is to punch it or kick it or stab it with a sword? Even if they are five or six or seven or eight?
Of course. My favorite violent suggestion--and, really, the only one I would actually consider due to its Russian folklore similarties--follows; please read with the image of a curly-haired kid in glasses and a pink sundress speaking with elaborate hand gestures as some words are elongated and whispered:
"Oh, well, I think we need to put the Egg Stealer in a bag. And then tie it up and shake it. Then we put the bag on top of the tallest tree. Then fire the tree. And fire the bag."
Today is the day we see if the Egg Stealer will go for our decoy eggs, hidden in Mrs. Hatch's nest. There most likely won't be any burninating, but it's sure to be dark nonetheless.