Just another week.

At lunch on Wednesday I started feeling funny, well less "hilarious" and more "gee I hope I stay vertical without retching". It was sudden, and not a feeling I am used to. In hind sight I wish someone had shot off a starter's pistol so I realized this was the starting line for the next few fun filled days.

Of course, as I was weaving around my room that afternoon putting on my "everything is normal" face for my students trying to stay focused long enough to remember the next set of plans and instructions without sounding altered, in walks my principal. For what felt like longer than the moment of hesitation that it really was, all I could think was... awesome... the italics indicating more than a little sarcasm.

My principal is amazing, truly and honestly. All teachers are frequently observed by administration, it is part of the process. Newer teachers are observed more frequently with pre meetings, post meetings goals and plans all included. We had already had our pre-observation meeting. I knew she would be visiting sometime. The actual day I had thought she would be coming, where I made sure to ring a bunch of bells and tweet a few whistles had come and gone. A principals schedule is more than hectic and I was fine with her dropping by whenever it worked out for her... The irony that she was finally able to make it to my classroom right at the time that conveniently aligned with my head weighing five times it's normal weight somehow and my tap dancing stomach was just proof that the fates had turned against me.

Of course she came to the class that had fallen a little behind and that needed a little extra time to work on some assignments. But, it's not like I was going to kick back behind my desk and take a nap while she posed, pen in hand, to take note of my instructing prowess. So, I forged on. I dodged a few bullets and muddled my way through the class. Not my best performance, but I figured I hadn't offended her principalness too badly.

Kristen was busy at her own school with parent/teacher conferences... or SEPs if you like your acronyms. So it was necessary for me to hurry a little faster and to pick up Greydon (Amy rules). So I threw whatever papers were on my desk into a drawer or five, and took off and sped towards home. My normal route involves coming down 15, taking the Bangerter exit to Redwood and continuing south to our neck of the woods. I continued to feel more and more out of it, which isn't saying much, but it was affecting my driving. I weaved a little more than normal and frequently slapped myself to attention and turned up the air conditioning for alertness on the hour drive home. I made sure to get over to my exit lane just in the nick of time and then turned south onto Redwood road... I thought. I am still not sure which one of those facts is actually a lie, but somehow I ended up in a neighborhood that was not part of my normal commute. I was also unsure if I had turned too soon or gone too far. So as I guessed a few times which way to go to make my way back to a road I recognized I literally ended up on a two lane dirt path that clung to the muddy side of a steep hill overlooking chasms, valleys, pig farms and the back yards of track mansions. Ridiculous... and the clock kept ticking as Greydon was surely sitting in misery waiting for my arrival.

Well, I eventually made my way back to pavement and got to Greydon who was blissfully unaware of his abandonment. I took a bunch of tylenol which hopefully made a difference.

Thursday I was scheduled to carpool. Greydon's Aunt Ang had the day off and wanted to spend some time with him. There wasn't any really good solid ground to stand on to refuse to bring him up to her, since I pretty much drive within a few blocks of her house and have dropped him off before. My throbbing head and my sour stomach simply made me unwilling to do much besides scowl. But a plan was figured out, I would just swap who was driving the carpool which day and added Greydon's car seat to the pile of debris I call my backseat. We woke up Greydon, kept him in his jammies since it was earlier than his normal schedule, wrapped a blanket around him and I headed towards the carpool lot.

The road noise sounded wrong.

The car wasn't pulling, but it was just really noisy. So I pulled over, said something reassuring to Greydon, who was now very excited to see Ang, and patrolled my car. Sure enough, rear driver's side tire completely flat; and I had only succeeded in getting far from home without getting close to carpool land.

After some texting and calling. I started pulling out the jacks and such from the back of the car waiting for Kristen to come and retrieve Greydon while the guy I carpool with came to rescue me and get us both to work. It was freezing out side, so not willing to get Greydon sick, I closed the back of the car and decided to just leave it in the parking lot for the day.

The principal had not had time yet for our post observation meeting, so I spent the majority of Thursday wondering how I fared, well wondering really translates to stressing. In all of the extra melee of getting Greydon going early, I had forgotten my lunch. So I was starving, and sick, and wonder stressing. My carpool buddy went and bought me some nuggets and caffeine.. the caffeine was heavenly. He is awesome.

Kristen came up to SLC to pick up Greydon, so I met her on the way and headed over to Angie's. The nuggets were complaining and the carbonation was trying to come back up so I spent the rest of the night sweating and shivering on Angie's couch. Forget the car that had been abandoned, and forget the test I was supposed to go take that night... convulse convulse and whine.

We got Greydon up early again on Friday so they could both drive me to our carpool lot that morning; my car still lonely in a parking lot. Fridays are a strange schedule at my school and my lunch time is about 9:30 am. We had an assembly where I loomed over talking kids I don't know and then I ate the microwaved breakfast sandwich I was proud to have remembered. As a few other teachers ate in one of our teacher areas we noticed a large group of kids "escape". We called the office and then watched the police cars and vice principals go round them back up. There was one hiding group of kids the administration had not looked in the right place for. Though we were on the second floor, we were within hollering distance from the searching administration. So, not afraid of a little climb, I climbed precariously onto the back of the broken down couch and got my face up and underneath the window that only tilts open at the least convenient angle, and proceeded to tell them to head a few houses north. Which they did. Then I climbed down from my perch. I'm not as flexible as I once was, but the lunging step backward I had to take was impressive... until I heard the ripping sound.

Now, if the butt of my pants had ripped, I could've jauntily wrapped my jacket around my waist... but I just stood and stared down in shock and horror at the multiple huge and long rips that now replaced the most importantly private area of the front of my pants. Seriously, I was under dressed for a role as Tarzan. The entire front left half of my pants was now strips of fabric lazily fluttering in front of my underwear. Luckily most of the teachers had already gone back to class, but I had this next hour free for prep... or it would have been worse. Well, if it had happened in front of students I might have actually died.. but, there was the problem, I wasn't done for the day, I still had to teach for another couple of hours and go to meetings.

I waited for the halls to empty out and limped back to my room with a pulled down shirt and an awkwardly held lunch bag, looking as casual as possible, good thing I wore a polo that day. I'm not a sit at my desk kind of teacher, but I sure was the rest of the day.. and for meetings after school was soooo cold that I had to just carry my coat with me everywhere I went... ridiculous.

To top it all of, while changing my tire, with shredded pants in a thankfully empty parking lot, it quickly became apparent that this tire was not going to be salvaged as huge chunks were missing, that might have been the odd road noise I was wondering about... awesome... and of course they are the weird expensive tires.

So here it is Sunday night.. the tire has been fixed, I had a post-observation with perfect pants that went great. She said she rarely gave a first year teacher such high marks. A new tire is back on the car, I'll carpool a few times in a row this week to make up for the days I missed. Greydon is cute as ever. And I have no intention of opening up the pantry to figure out what just fell off of a shelf and almost scared the heart out of my chest.

Just another week in paradise.