Happy Birthday, Ailleann!

I've got a ton of grading to do. And the professor I'm working with seems to expect it to get done a lot more quickly than I can get it done. But, on the other hand, once this grading is done, I'll be done with everything for this semester. (And, I'll be done with the needy clingy student who's been driving me nuts.)

Happy Birthday, Ailleann!!! I hope you had a great day.

Am home. Am slightly snockered.

Airport run with Big Boss went well. She thinks she has my Program Manager and Contract Manager reined in. Time will tell. She was EXTREMELY supportive and complimentary of the way I have dealt with all this crap. Nice to have my management happy with me.

So darned tired. MUGS to ALL!!!! Glittter and chocolate too!!!

You can choose anything you like for drinking my share, but keep in mind that I really love appletinis. Maybe I should Kristin in charge of drinking those :).

I think I should join Kristin in appletinis, for the good of, well, everyone. Plus, it looks like I have to work Saturday and I've never had one, so it's really perfect, right?

And Fay, if you're still here, or really even if you're not, have I ever told you how much I love you? My day gets better every time I see one of your posts. You're a perfect example of someone being interesting, fun and kind, all at the same time.

La singe est sur la branche.

La singe est....disparu! Because the monkey would fuck off!

Il fume une pipe....il joue au banjo....il conduit l'autobus....

Je suis le president du Burundi.

Oh, dear God, it's funny 'cause it's true. I am living every Eddie-speaks-Crap-French moment, I swear. But I reckon that it's all to the good, because the fact that I am making a gibbering tit of myself in a valiant attempt to communicate, despite the sheer awfulness of my French, is surely modelling that it's better to have a crack at communicating than not. Plus she gets to feel good about being much better at French than me. So it's all good, and she's getting palpably braver and more inclined to have a crack at saying things in English, which is good. But, really, I'm all:

"Right kids, thumbs up if I explained it well enough and you understand. Thumbs down if I didn't explain properly, and you're baffled. Thumbs to the side if you KIND of get it. Okay, cool, that's about what I thought. Right....er, [French Kid's Name], er, maintenant nous sommes ecriyer la...er...story de les trois petite...er...pigs...er...cochons, possibly? Possiblement? Cochons? Oui? Oui! Cool! Er, bien. So, er, le story de les Trois Petite, or possibly Petit, Cochons, et le Big Bad Wolf. Loup, possibly. Le grand mal loup. Or possibly mechant? Or something like that?"

painful pause.

"Est ce'que vous comprends? Un peu? Maybe?"

painful pause.

"Er, [insert name of other French speaking kid in class, who's being a little star at doing the translation thing, but IS a boy, and thus doesn't really want to be glued to the new girl 24/7], would you mind just running that by her in proper French? Please? Sorry."

Bless him. (He's the same wee boy who showed up for our performance of Whoops A Daisy Angel in jeans sans underwear, having forgotten to put his undies on after his bath. When I tried to suggest he go onstage commando as a dancing angel, we very nearly had tears. In the end he was an angel with secret jeans under the robe. Bless him. Cutest kid EVAH. Outcutes Ray, even.)

And Fay, if you're still here, or really even if you're not, have I ever told you how much I love you? My day gets better every time I see one of your posts.

blushes FOREVER.

Right back at ya! Although, being painfully British, I must now hide.

Quiet night. I hope this means that good sleep was happening.

Hi Fay! Good thing you look so cute blushing because you are indeed loved here.

Stayed up too late working. DH has been out of town all week, which combined with us both being gone a few days means too much work for Laura. For mother's day all I want is to stay in bed all day and do absolutely nothing. But I will probably be doing stuff for my mom and MIL.

Timelies all!

Timelies!

I am guardedly hopeful that this post represents my reappearance in actual life, versus the stressed-and-panicked running around of the past few weeks.

I actually had that dream where I have to take my calculus final and I haven't been to class in 20 years.

Otherwise my dreams have been no different from my waking thoughts, a series of fretting about houses and Mallory and my To Do list.

flops down on cushions in corner

But hey! It's good to see everybody again!

Oh, Raq! It's fabulous to see you! I'm sorry your return has been so stressful. I share your hope!

And, I talked to a "friend" that I haven't talked to in a couple of months today. I'm having a party at the end of May to celebrate finishing school. I asked if he was coming and his, paraphrased, response was that he was waiting to see what else was going on that night and if nothing better came up, he'd come by my place.

Can I dis-invite him now?

Oh, please do. "I was thinking about our conversation and I never want people to feel obligated to come to my parties, so please forget I ever invited you and go out and have a good time."

Asshate.

Er...that was a typo and I clicked edit to fix it, but now I think I'll let it stand.