Tell It To COACHIE

Why do people live here?

When I heard the first boom, I assumed it was artillery on one of the training ranges. The second boom I heard was a little louder and stranger than I’m used to, so I went to the window to investigate.

Fortunately, it didn’t break the window.

That’s really the only nice thing I have to say about the whole situation.

I couldn’t reach any part of it to pull it down, so I had to call the HP home from work, and together we managed to get it back on the ground. The HP started unscrewing the legs and told me he had everything under control, so I went inside to get ready for my snack time date at Marty’s school.

A few minutes later, I heard him call “Shannon,” which may well be my name, but it is not anything he ever calls me. I found some shoes and went back outside where the HP stood in his grass-stained ACUs. The wind had gotten under the trampoline again, had thrown the HP into the neighbors’ yard, and had reattached the trampoline to the side of the house. We finally got the stupid thing down again, the HP got the stupid legs off of it, and now it sits on the stupid side of the stupid house, weighted down with big stupid rocks. I’d take a picture of it, but that means going outside again, and I don’t see that happening.

The trampoline is likely a total loss.

Haven’t these people ever heard of spring?

Yeah, so I wasn’t burned out or anything last week, and I had every intention of getting right back here after a day off, but somehow I was swallowed whole by the book fair at the girls’ school.  And then there was the tutoring.  And the “adopt-a-reader.” And basically I spent as much time at school last week as any teacher or student without getting any money or stickers for my trouble.

This weekend we went to St. Louis, and when we returned I was buried under so much laundry that I couldn’t reach the keyboard.  This week I’ve got more tutoring plus two “student-led” conferences on two different days (for the record, I hate “student-led” conferences with a white hot burning passion), plus the “adopt-a-reader” and an all-day field trip on Saturday (for which I will also receive no money or stickers).  And so it is you, my poor friends who are being neglected.

But if by some miracle I do have a few moments to myself, I will pour my heart out to you because there is an incident that occurred at DSW this weekend that I really need to get off my chest.