My Week

...and what a week!

A week ago this time, I was happily playing around on the Internet, and having a somewhat normal Friday night. I went to bed that night, and got up early-ish on Saturday to go to a five-hour "singers retreat" for Chorale. We got a big head-start on Brahms' German Requiem, which is fabulous, by the way. Brahms was a Romantic composer. In other words, big, sweeping, epic-type music. Beethoven's later work and Chopins piano pieces were also Romantic. Basically, they took all the rules set up by the Classical musicians (Mozart, early Beethoven) and broke them, big-time. The results are incredible.

Anyway, we spent five hours working hard. I wasn't hitting my high notes, as I had residual phlegm from a small post-Christmas cold. But I was soaking in the text and the notes. I had lunch with a lovely lady named Pat, who I previously spent a few hours chatting with while wrapping packages at Barnes and Noble to raise money for Chorale. Pat is a very nice lady, and we had a lovely lunch at Boudin (which...oh, bliss...has a store within a few miles of my apartment).

After the retreat, I went home, intending to go to a party later at our conductor's house...only to find I couldn't get the directions (stored in my email inbox) because I had no Internet.

DRAT!

I tried this, I tried that. I called AT&T, and grumpily waited on hold. A man named Victor told me that the problem was "external," and would be fixed "remotely" and "within an hour, you'll receive a call, and you should have your service back."

Needless to say, an hour came and went...and no Internet.

The next day, Summer came over for a day of scrapbooking and catching up. She arrived at 10:00 to find me with the phone to my ear. "I'm on hold. I have no Internet!"

Summer put up with my moodiness over the complete lack of customer service at AT&T, and also my jittery Internet withdrawls. It was well over 24 hours since I'd been online at this point. I didn't quite know what to do. I set up an appointment to get an AT&T person here to help me...and the earliest slot they had was Friday. A whole week without Internet?!

Nonetheless, I had a lovely day with Summer (as ever!) and we were both quite productive. I love scrapbooking when I have the time, but it's even more fun when Summer can join me.

That evening, I readied for going back to work the next morning. I was actually ready to get back into my routine. I took a picture of Harley being...well, Harley.



Monday morning I was up bright and early, wearing a black long-sleeved top, black skirt, black tights, black shoes, black scarf--and, to avoid the inevitable "are you going to a funeral?" questions from my middle school students, a bright blue sweater vest Mom got me for Christmas.



Shortly after I arrived at school, I walked up to the office to check my mailbox and pick up my attendance sheets. I found two teachers crying. Our assistant principal, T, looked a little teary. I immediately knew that the worst had happened. An email from our principal, G, confirmed it: a 6th grade student at our school died over the break. He had a horrible accident at home, and broke his neck. It happened on Christmas Eve.

I did not know him (I don't work with the 6th graders) but there was definitely shock and grief for all of us that day. Our district has a crisis team, and they were immediately dispatched to our school to assist. We have one counselor, an awesome lady, but this job was way too big for one counselor. T had the awful job of telling the 6th grade classes the bad news. G had to compose a letter to send home to all of the parents. I stopped by her office to ask her about another topic, and she looked so tired. I said, "How are you holding up?" She just shook her head and said, "It's so...senseless." The death of a student was a first for her, and while she handled everything as she should, I know it was very difficult for her to know what to do.

Mostly, my students were unaffected. The middle school students knew it happened, and rumors flew, but were quickly shot down by the middle school teachers. One of my 7th graders was good friends with the boy, so she missed a lot of class that day to talk to the counselors. They allowed her to join the 6th graders in the afternoon in a writing/drawing exercise.

So Monday was a sad day. The 6th grade teachers were in the staff room during my lunchtime, and they were red-eyed. One burst into tears while they sat there, and it was all I could do not to bawl along with her in sympathy.

Monday night found me at the first Chorale rehearsal for this semester, and feeling very excited about things to come. Our Pops concert with Stockton Symphony was great, and I very much look forward to performing the Requiem with them in April.

On Tuesday, I was calling one of my students on something he'd done. He was stealing a girl's pencil and throwing it to another table...trying, unsuccessfully, to flirt, but succeeding only in annoying her. Ahh, middle school hormones!

Anyway, the kid responded, "I didn't do it!" I just laughed out loud and said, "I see we're blaming the invisible guy in the room!"

I got inspired. While my kids worked on their assignment for the day, I went to my desk and made the following:


Hey, I laughed, anyway.

Wednesday found me oohing and ahhing over my most recent eBay splurge--the most gorgeous little tea set and cup and saucer. I put them with my London shrine, and I think they look darling there.





Maybe tomorrow I'll have Tea for One with my new set.

Also on Wednesday, I dragged my bottom to the gym for the first time in 2009. That night, I admired Harley's six-pack abs. He's got the cutest little kitten tummy, but his markings make it look like he's got a six-pack. The picture isn't the best, but you get the idea.


Speaking of Harley, he's doing very well, as is Millie. They're getting along pretty well. He ambushes her, she pins him to the ground in a headlock, growling. An hour later, they're side-by-side in the Sweet Spot. At night, he sleeps in his donut bed next to me, and Millie sleeps on me, inches away from him. I give them equal love and affection (though Harley gets slightly more attention at times because he's into everything).

The week pretty much flew by. Harley had a follow-up vet appointment for a booster shot. The vet is very pleased with Harley's overall health, and seemed charmed by Harley's inquisitive and friendly nature.

I only made it to the gym once (bad Meg!) but ate salad for lunch once, too (good Meg!) and avoided overeating (good Meg)...except for that huge pasta dinner a few nights ago (bad Meg!).

I have been playing my piano more, practicing some Czerny finger exercises and a few easy sonatinas. I want to get my technique back. My scales are pretty good after two years of playing them every day while warming up various choirs. I've also been putting some effort into my choir music...which reminds me, I need to purchase the Requiem on iTunes so I can listen to it in the car and learn the soprano line...not to mention getting some help with the German pronunciation! It's not as hard as French, but let's just say I'm a Latin/Spanish/Italian kinda singer. Gimme pure vowels any day!

The really cool thing is that I'm just enjoying making music, whether it's hitting high Bb in Chorale rehearsal or playing an easy little tune on my piano. After the debacle that was my time in Antiyuck, it's so NICE to enjoy making music again!

I finally found myself facing a busy Friday. I had planned with one of the kindergarten teachers to have my 6th period class help her class with a project they were going to do. They've been learning about the sun, moon and stars in science, so she wanted them to make cute mobiles. Trouble is, stars are hard for kindergartners to cut out, and tieing them to the moons would be difficult, too. Enter my middle school kids. It so happened that my most difficult class fell on Friday this week, and I was a teensy bit nervous about how they'd act.

They did me proud. I am still smiling. I took pictures, most of which I can't post here because they have faces. I can post this one, though. The big kid is one of my most frequent behavior problems. He really can have attitude when he wants to. In this picture, he's reading to his Art Buddy after they finished the project.


Too cute.

I was happy to finally arrive tonight, after the huge ordeal of braving traffic to get across town to Kaiser to pick up a prescription. I barely made it back by 4:00, which was the start of my four-hour waiting period for the AT&T guy. While I chatted with Mom, he called and said he was about 20 minutes out. By 5:30, I had my Internet back (yay!!!) and pizza in the oven.

I've found a new way of doing veggie pizza. I bought some cheap cheese pizzas from the Safeway deli. I used my awesome Vidalia Slice Wizard to slice onion, green pepper, zuchini and tomato. I added chopped mushroom, spinach and olives. I ended up with a slice of heaven.





Millie watched me.


So here I am, relaxing and loving that the weekend is here. I'll head to bed soon. From 6 to 10 tomorrow morning, there's an Asian market in downtown Stockton that I want to check out. It happens every Saturday. I won't be there at 6:00 (it is, after all, Saturday), but I'd like to see the sights and sounds. Apparently it's got foods and goods from all over Asia, including India and the Phillipines. I look forward to seeing it.

After the market, I have to stop by PetCo. My fur-babies are eating me out of house and home, and both the cat and kitten chow are in low supply. Then I need to do some laundry, but the rest of the weekend is all about relaxing. Next weekend I'm going to Mom and Dad's, so I might do a spot of cleaning, too.

And I'll enjoy having my Internet back!