Happy Monday (I'm totally being sarcastic).

You know what the best way to start a Monday morning is? 

Waking up at 5:30am, spending the next 5 minutes in the harsh blinding light of your bathroom failing at numerous attempts to stick a contact lens in your right eyeball because your eyelids refuse to be crammed open wide enough to accomodate a contact lens that early in the morning, getting on the road 45 minutes later only to be greeted by horribly unusual traffic, causing you to spend 20 minutes inching down 1 1/4 miles of highway, FINALLY getting to work 20 minutes late only to find the school COMPLETELY DESERTED because, as I would find out after getting back home and consulting the intarwebs, that today is a Staff Development Day for the school district*. 

MONDAY BLAAAARGH!

Meanwhile, this means that I STILL have not gotten paid by this district after nearly 6 weeks of work. Jack-in-the-Box Value Menu Chicken Sandwich**, here I come!

In other news: Tony Bourdain is fiiinally doing a No Reservations episode about my Motherland! I can't wait to see it!

* Which, in retrospect, is just a teeeensy bit better than my first paranoid thought, which is that I had somehow completely screwed up on the whole Daylight Saving Time.....? thing seeing as how my cellphone really really wanted to push the time back one hour yesterday morning when it wasn't supposed to. But I didn't. Because CNN told me not to.

 

** Actually quite delicious, as far as meat-product sandwiches that cost $1 go.

The very definition of Blurgh.

Someone please tell me what the point of going to the grocery store in order to make delicious turkey sandwiches for dinner is when you're just going to arrive home to realize that you bought neither bread NOR turkey.

Bluuuuuurgh!

Meanwhile, yes, I know I have made a disappearing act yet again. Apologies, but I have been too busy teaching clarinet lessons out of my ass (not literally, of course) and NOT getting paid a dime for it yet because apparently, a certain school principal in a certain school district that a certain someone teaches clarinet lessons for, likes to leave town all of a sudden, leaving a gigantic pile of employee timesheets unsigned. Also: parents of high school kids are really.bad. at remembering to pay their kids' clarinet teachers. 

One last thing: I have to say that I am one of the few that held a slight glimmer of hope that this third season of Heroes would be a triumphant return to its glory years (otherwise known as "Season One") - and not the bizarre clusterf*ck of yore (otherwise known as "Season Two"). Sadly, my hopes have been dashed. It's a blasted mess. What the hell happened to this show??

A 12:30am post.

How do I know that I am a certified, card-carrying adult?

Because I just called the cops to complain about a loud party happening in our building.

As much as I'd like to think I'm cool and hip and blabbidy blah, they've f*ing spilled over from their balcony and out onto the pool and hot tub, which - goddamn it - I'd like to be able to use once in while without feeling like I'm about to be invaded by a bunch of rowdy twenty year old drunken morons. Also, I heard a bunch of them talking drunkenly slurring LOUDLY about how Barack Obama wants to take their guns away so they want McCain to win. Oh no they di-in't! 

RAGE.

Just call her "BB" for short.

Meet Beamer Boodles Buxtehude.

Praise Jeebus, she is not a yipper. For the first several days, she did yip for a bit at night when we kenneled her up for the night, but that seems to be falling by the wayside. However, she likes to chew on fingers, as well as eat her own poo and then lick your face directly afterwards, thereby causing Ysabel to erupt in a cruel cycle of constant gagging and dry-heaving.

I was very glad to make a purposeful visit to Chez Target this afternoon to buy a little baggy of finger-sized chew bones in order to dissuade BB from chewing on my beloved and much-needed fingers. Also purchased earlier this week? This.  Because that habit is f*ing disgusting, yo.*

At the suggestion of my younger brother, my next puppy purchase is going to have to be a miniature brown robe so as to turn BB into a baby Ewok for Halloween!!

Bela is slooowly but surely coping with the new addition better and better with each passing day. They are not Bosom Buddies quite yet, but at least at this juncture they can be in the same room for an extended period of time without barking and hissing at each other. I still have hopes that they will be BFFs before long.

*****

In other news: I teach lessons from 8am to 7pm STRAIGHT on Thursdays. Just think about that for a second. Thursdays are now officially my Just Take Deep Breaths And Think About How Glorious The Weekend Will Be And Try Not To Take Your Clarinet And Run Over It With Kablooie In the School Parking Lot Day. I have now reached my goal of having 40 students (criminy!) per week, with probably one more day of lessons to set up... So far I have only noticed one instance of me walking down the halls of a middle school and hearing a whispered "...she looks like a student..." behind me as I walk by a gaggle of 14 year olds who are all bigger than me. Le sigh.

* Also: How hilarious is that chihuahua on the box? Haw!