O Say Can You See

We begin every morning with the Pledge of Allegiance and the Star Spangled Banner. When I was a girl, it was the Pledge and My Country 'Tis of Thee, which I prefer, but just the same I feel so patriotic as a public school attendee. It's funny to hear the kids get it wrong sometimes. They say "for" instead of "o'er" and they put the wrong hand over their heart (or somewhere around their stomach). I tried to create a big poster with all the words to the Star Spangled Banner on it so we could see the words as we sing (to get them in the right order and, prayer of prayers, learn how to spell some difficult words) but one of my hoodlums ripped off my silver marker and we haven't been able to finish the navy poster without it.

One of my little angels is in in-school suspension for two weeks. I don't know what he did, the vice-principal collared him, but I get to find out at the parent-teacher-principal-child conference I get to attend during my planning period tomorrow.

I ate polish sausage and cabbage for lunch today. I only had a spoon, so I looked very elegant as I ate it, I can assure you, but it was tasty. There were about 10 of us in the teacher's lounge stuffing our faces at noon. In the middle of a bite of my organic cabbage, the vice-principal came striding in. He's an ex-cop and he puts the fear of God in my kids, so I really like him. He doesn't take any shit but he's funny as hell. One day, as I was heading out the front door, he passed me really quickly and apologized for running around me. "Sorry," he says, "I've got to get to my paycheck before my wife does."

So anyway, he comes rolling into the lounge and looks over at me. "Hey," he said, "Was that you I saw yesterday at Valencia Town Centre with the guy with his arms all over you?" Well, that was the last thing I expected announced in the staff lounge at the moment I had cabbage hanging out of my mouth. I tried to play it cool. "Oh, yeah. That was me." And calmly returned to cutting my sausage with a spoon.

"I thought so," he said. "I was going to catch up to you and say hi, but one of my kids got sick and I had to haul him outta there." I was like, "It's ok, don't worry about it!" And then he strode out the back door grinning. Later on I saw him outside patrolling the playground. "You thought you were safe all the way down in Valencia, didn't you! Ha ha ha!" he yelled across the field.

What a funny guy. In the lounge I felt a bit smug, at first. I mean without any effort on my part, half the school knows that I have a guy that likes to hang all over me in public. On the other hand, I'm trying to maintain an image here, folks. About 20 minutes later in the lounge one of my colleagues says, "OK, we want to hear about the guy Doug saw you with." I tried to keep it simple because I don't want to join the sordid-detail club and exclusively talk about my personal life, but it didn't work. I just smiled and looked down and said shyly, "Oh, I think he is really nice." So the other teacher says, "Oh I get it. When I hear that I usually think that the person isn't very good looking. Does he have a face only a mother could love?" I got so pissed off, but tried not to show it. This is the same bitch who told me that my car was cheap because it's a Kia. When that happened I had to explain 100,000 mile warranties in teenie-tiny words. So I decided to be blunt. "No, he's incredibly handsome, actually. He's dead sexy. In fact, it's threatening to go out with him because he gets so much attention from women. But maybe that is just because he's a pilot and he's Italian. I'm not sure." And then I smiled sweetly and walked off. The super-Christian male teacher sitting next to her had his mouth hanging open when I left. I'm not sure which part offended him.

I feel really tired and a little achy. So I'm trying to cure myself with a margarita. I'm going to bed soon. I really am turning into a little old lady.