girlfiend

Does anyone else find it absurd that Leonardo DiCaprio got a Lifetime Achievement Award?

One of the bad things about my new strapless dress workout is that it requires me to use a treadmill. I hate running. Before my knee surgery ten years ago my knee would lock when I’d run, causing me fall on my face. Now it doesn’t lock but any type of jogging or running is a gamble. Nonetheless, every few years I decide that I should take up running just to challenge myself. It works out well for a week or so, then my knee swells to the size of a cantaloupe and I stop running– until the next time I get the bright idea to train for a marathon.

This time it wasn’t my idea. Dreamboat, the hot trainer at the gym, suggested that adding a treadmill workout to my routine will help me achieve the Linda Hamilton body I’m striving to attain. Even at a fast paced walk I still suck at the treadmill. I don’t know why the treadmill affects me so much more than any of the other cardio machines at the gym, but I’m always seconds away from flying off. It happened to me once before. In college, I was at the gym trying to impress this hot environmental science major who was incredibly fit after years in the Marines. I was 25 minutes into my run on the treadmill, when out of nowhere I lost my footing and flew off. The gods were smiling upon me, and rather than fall facedown on the treadmill I was propelled directly into the wall behind me. Mortified, I used the stairmaster or ellipical machines from that day until now.

Aside from running, there are a few other things I’m not so good at. Drinking is one of them. I cannot drink and walk at the same time. Inevitably, I’ll drip whatever it is I’m drinking down my chin and onto my shirt. Riding in Jeeps is another challenge for me. Whenever I attempt to drink something in Boyfiend’s Jeep it ends up on my shirt or pants. Even when I sit still, drinking is a problem. My laptop is often in danger of taking an unexpected bath in a Margarita. Last night I managed to spill a glass of red wine all over the table and floor, and I wasn’t even drunk yet.

I’m also terrible with clothes. There’s no point in spending any more than $20 on a piece of clothing because I can’t help but ruin every article of clothing I love. As a child, any light colored article of clothing had at least one chocolate ice cream stain. As an adult, bleach speckles all of my good shirts and pants, and every sweater I love shrinks in the dryer. Any skirt purchased with a dry clean only label ends up pilling in the washing machine, and every one of my winter coats has pockets that open into the lining. My peacoat is like the bermuda triangle. It wouldn’t surprise me if a family of squirrels was living in there.

Gloves? Forget about it. I lose gloves minutes after buying them. Saturday I lost a mismatched pair of gloves- one cashmere lined green leather glove and one pair of $1.00 stretchy gloves worn on the same hand for warmth. To avoid losing yet another pair, I’ve decided not to wear gloves until the temperature dips back down into the twenties.

So there you have it. I’ve got drinking problem, a gimp knee, a closet full of stained and shrunken clothes and a collection of single gloves trapped in the abyss of the lining of my coat. I’m sure that my friends and family could add to my list, but I’m a much better speller than any of them. So there.

A few weeks ago when I read the blog of a member of Philly Future, it occurred to me that she probably worked out at my gym. She does. I saw her yesterday and ignored the urge to say something to her.

I’m getting married in seven weeks. I had to give up my engagement ring yesterday so the jeweler could fit my wedding band to it. My finger feels naked without it.

E2 asked: i’ve always wondered, what are your spiritual leanings? are you an aethiest? do you believe in a soul? are you psychic?

I don’t come from a family of believers. Although my mother was raised Jewish and my father was raised Catholic, neither of them are religious. I’m sure that their influence, or lack thereof, is partially the cause of my complete lack of faith.

As a kid I wanted to believe in God. I went to an Episcopalian school and Hebrew school in the evenings. I was a Jew by day, a shiksa by night. It was awkward. People at Episcopal made fun of me for being Jewish. I was forced to pray to God every day and go to chapel to pray to Jesus three times a week. When I stopped kneeling in chapel kids and teachers gave me dirty looks and whispered. At Hebrew school the kids thought it was weird that I went to a Christian school. I tried to pray at home, but it didn’t seem to change anything and I felt silly kneeling by my bed. I didn’t know which God to pray to.

When I started high school I began searching for something to believe. I read a bunch of books that were more spiritual than affiliated. I read the Tao (wonderful), the Tao of Pooh (charming)and friends gave me The Way of the Peaceful Warrior (crap), and The Journey to the East (a must-read). Reading about other forms of spirituality was enough to convince me that I had no interest in the Judeo-Christian-angry-male-sky-god. I was fascinated by Wicca (and occasionally rattan) , and thought that the belief that what you put out is what you receive, made sense. I began to believe that whatever good there is lies in everything, and while some sort of higher power may exist, people make their own choices and control their own lives.

Around the same time I was into witchcraft I started calling myself a feminist. By the time I entered college I had a marked interest in how organized religions perpetuate patriarchy and the subjugation of women in our society. I was fascinated by Ecofeminism, the role of women in the church, and read a number of books written by Jewish feminists trying to reconstruct a traditionally patriarchal religion. Outside of my theater major, almost every class I took was somehow related to feminism, religion and philosophy. If I hadn’t been so damn lazy, I’d have completed a minor in Women’s Studies.

I still strongly identify with my Jewish roots, but I’d never feel comfortable going to synagogue for prayer. I’ve dabbled in atheism and agnosticism and I’ve found that neither word accurately describes my belief system. More often than not, I’ve found that astrology is accurate in describing how people relate to each other. I don’t believe in daily horoscopes, but I’d trust an experienced astrologist to read my chart (Astrodienst has better than average horoscopes.). I don’t know if I believe in a soul. I know I don’t believe in heaven or hell. I’m not psychic, but I experience deja vu pretty regularly and can read people better than most. I’d like to believe in something, but I still don’t know what.

I hope that answers your question.

Google needs to work on their translation. Here’s a recipe for Aelpler Macaroni. Whatever the hell that is.

Aelplermagaronen (Aelpler Maccaroni)
Added
500 g medium sized potatoes (e.g. Charlotte)

250 g large Hoernli
250 g of rezenter cheese rubbed (e.g. Appenzeller)
1 DL cream
0.5 DL milk
2 large bulbs
1-2 garlic toes
little butter for the form
Salt
Flour to the Darueberstaeuben
Roasting butter (simmered butter) to the roast

Preparation
The potatoes peel and into small cubes cut (than the Hoernli, thereby they in the same time become somewhat smaller).
Hoernli and potatoes together in easily gesalzenem water cook to the Hoernli “aluminium dente” are.
Preheat baking-oven on approx. 160 degrees and furnace celebrations a flat Gratinform buttern.
The cooked and well dripped off Kartoffel/Hoernli mixture lagenweise with the rubbed cheese in the form distribute.
Cream and milk boil up and over it pour.
Form into the center of the furnace to push and about ten minutes in stand leave until the cheese is however gebraeunt melted.
Cut in the meantime the bulbs in approx. 2mm thick rings, garlic finely chop. Flour over it types of dust and in the roasting butter under turns golden roast. On kitchen paper to drip off let distribute and over the Magronen.

In addition one serves apple mash or Ankestueckli

Tip: as large, thick-walled a Hoernli as possible uses some longer
Kockzeit borne and nevertheless still “aluminium dente” is

My job is incredibly frustrating. I teach the kids who are two years or more below grade level in reading. Because these kids struggle in reading, they struggle in most of their classes. Many of my students fail at least one class a marking period, if not more. Many of them fail my class because I won’t accept laziness. If a kid does his or her homework and pays attention in my class they won’t fail. I try my best to make my class easy enough that a kid has to try to fail.

Here’s the really frustrating part. My vice-principal deals primarily with fifth graders. Most of my fifth grade students are failing my class, social studies and science. Since reading is the most important of these subjects at this grade level, the vice-principal has decided that I have to test the kids and formulate intervention plans for them.

In the past few weeks, I’ve discovered that my students are not reading two years below grade level. In one on one situations, they’re quite capable of reading a passage and answering both explicit and implicit questions about what they’ve read. Students whose tests cause me to mutter, “dumb as a fucking rock” under my breath as I grade, have proven that they are not only instructional at a fifth grade level, they’re capable of understanding texts written at a sixth grade level. Yet, these scam artists are unable to pass a quiz when I’ve spoon fed them the answers two minutes earlier.

All but one of these kids has tested as reading at a higher level than my sixth grade students on two different reading tests. So why the hell are all of my sixth graders passing, while almost all of my fifth graders are failing? How the hell do I write up an intervention plan for kids in classes of 25 students who clearly need to be isolated in order to succeed?

One of my cats pukes once or twice a day. It’s not because of an ailment, but because he likes to remind me that I’m his bitch. Sometimes Howard pukes up a hairball or the plant he just ate, but most often he’s vomiting his undigested cat food. This is the easiest to clean when he pukes on the hardwood floor, but more often than not he chooses to regurgitate on the carpet. My carpet is sisal, so while most of the pile is easy to clean, some of it is inevitably stuck between the fibers, leaving a tan residue on my red rug.

I try not to be disgusting, but occasionally I just don’t have it in me to scrub the stain. That’s where stacks of magazines come in handy. A strategically placed pile of magazines makes it very easy for me to forget about Howard’s mess. Sort of. You see, I always know that the cat puke stain is waiting for me, and that eventually I’ll have no choice but to attempt to clean it. It’s usually useless. Sisal doesn’t clean easy, and when stuff’s stuck in there, no amount of scrubbing will do.

Yesterday changed everything. A few months ago I bought the dyson vacuum that’s specifically made for animal hair. It’s fabulous. I love my dyson more than I feel comfortable admitting. Last night, as I vacuumed my rug, it occurred to me that perhaps my spiffy purple vacuum with it’s unstoppable suction could assist me with the icky cat mess. Not wanting to touch it, I took the cap of a ball point pen and tried to loosen whatever was still stuck between the fibers. I positioned the dyson’s hose over the stain and pressed the button. The concentrated suction began to lift the carpet from the floor. I moved the hose an inch over and let it suck for another few seconds. Voila. The puke was gone.

I moved to another stain. This time I didn’t bother scraping with the cap of the pen. 30 seconds of concentrated suction later, the puke was gone. If it were up to me James Dyson would be sainted for his contributions to humanity. I love my purple vacuum.

James Van Der Beek from Dawson’s Creek has the biggest forehead ever. My TiVo recorded the show for me for me and I couldn’t resist watching. Unexpectedly, the sight of Dawson and Joey all snuggly and postcoital made me feel slightly nauseous. My TiVo also decided I might enjoy watching Highway to Heaven, but I wasn’t in the mood for Michael Landon circa 1984.

Random Girlfiend fact of the night: When I was very young I wanted nothing more than a career as a dog walker.

When I was in sixth grade I very clearly remember sitting at the dining room table cutting into a steak when it suddenly began to move. I sat and watched it slowly pulsating, as though it was breathing. It was very similar to the episode of the Simpsons when the lamb says, “Liiisssa. Dooooon’t eeeat meeee.” Pushing the plate away from me, I announced to my mother that I wasn’t eating meat anymore.

For the next five or six years I didn’t. Much. Occasionally I’d eat some chicken and I remember a very drunken 7-11 hot dog experience in high school, but for the most part I stuck to my proclamation, subsisting primarily on Cap’n Crunchberries, grilled cheese sandwiches and the #2 from McDonalds- please substitute the meat for lettuce and tomato.

My second year of college changed everything. After a year of the college meal plan and the ensuing 10 pound weight loss, I found that I was really, really hungry. My roomate Kate decided to take me out to breakfast. She bullied me into ordering the platter that came with pancakes, eggs, bacon, sausage and an enormous ham steak. I ate almost everything on the plate and spent the next several hours in the bathroom. Deciding that my suffering shouldn’t be for naught, I continued to eat meat as often as possible. Ironically, Kate stopped eating meat shortly after that breakfast.

Now I eat meat. All kinds of it. I enjoy chicken, beef, sausage and the occasional veal cutlet. I love ribs and bacon. I’m not so fond of pork or ham and I can’t stand fish, but I am definitely a meat eater.

I’ve never understood people who will eat meat, but only if it’s unrecognizable as such. For example, I’ve had several friends who will eat bacon cheeseburgers and chicken cutlets with abandon, but won’t eat ribs or wings because of the bones. One friend told me, “I can’t eat anything on the bone because then I remember where it came from. A hamburger could be anything. A roast chicken is too… Chickeny.” Chickeny? When I go to the supermarket and see the sterilized packages of steak and boneless chicken breasts I don’t stick them in my cart blindly. I know that I’m eating a dirty nasty, clucking chicken or big-eyed Bessie the cow. When I eat ribs I know that they’re just that- an animal’s ribs. I’m not thrilled about it, and though I may someday, I have no interest in changing my eating habits at this point in my life.

With that said, I had the most bizarre experience the other night. Twice a week I’ll make a big hunk of meat, usually a roast chicken or meatloaf. My last trip to the supermarket, rather than buying a genetically modified, god knows what hormores you’re eating purdue roaster, I bought a kosher chicken. I let the chicken brine for 24 hours in the fridge. When I took it out of the stock pot, dried it and began to rub it with seasoning, I realized that the chicken still had feathers.

What a pain in the ass. In my sheltered life, it never occurred to me that I’d have to pluck a chicken’s feathers. It was incredibly difficult. I tried to pluck them with my fingers to no avail. I thought about pliers, but didn’t want to get raw chicken all over them. The only other thing I could think of was tweezers. It was a painstakingly slow process. I had to pluck one at a time and they were concentrated around the wings, which made them hard to get to. Raw chicken is really fucking slippery. So I gave up. The majority of the chicken was featherless, so I told Boyfiend not to freak out if he got a mouthfull of fuzz. Wondering what that was all about, I checked out the website and learned that it’s not unusual. I guess a couple of feathers aren’t going to kill you.

Even with the feathers, Kosher chicken is far superior to most of the frankenchickens they sell in the supermarket. I’ve also found that it’s tastier than the free range chickens they sell at Whole Foods. I just wish they could do something about the feathers.

In other bird news, Go Eagles!

How do you keep a straight face when talking to him?

This question reminded me of an incident that occurred at the beginning of period four on Tuesday. After much pleading,I allowed the kids to read a story with a partner. Everyone paired up quickly leaving two kids stuck with each other. Looking at her disdainfully, Briana said she didn’t want to work with Sierra.

Sierra is a trip. I don’t know what planet she was conceived on, but that girl is unlike any child I’ve ever known. Sweet as sugar, Sierra is a complete ditz, and can’t finish a sentence without forgetting what she meant say two or three times. “Ms. Ummm. Ummmmm. Umm. Ms. Fiend? I umm. Ummmmm. Ummmm. I forget. Oh yeah. Ummmm. Ummmm. Can you check my um reading log?” I don’t know what goes on when the teacher (me) is out of earshot, but the others are always accusing Sierra of being mean. The girl can hardly speak, let alone hurl insults at her classmates, but I suppose there has to be some truth to it.

On the one hand, I see why Briana wouldn’t want to work with her. But on the other hand, Sierra’s a good reader, much better than Briana, so pairing them wasn’t such a bad idea. Also, I feel like it’s my job to teach these poor kids social skills. In the workplace you don’t often get to choose your coworkers and if you tell your boss, “I don’t wanna work with her, I wanna work with Dana and Nellie. She can work by herself,” while Sierra is directly in front of you, you definitely won’t be Employee of the month. I told Briana that she could pick her own partner to work on during language arts, but she had to read the story with Sierra.

Briana loudly informed the class that she didn’t want to work with a retard and why can’t we just work in threes. I told Sierra to join another group and asked Briana to step outside for a little hallway conference. I don’t know what the hell was wrong with her, but Briana refused to apologize, so I told her to work in the hall until she was willing to follow the school mottos and “give hugs not slugs” and be a Bounder, a person who “builds others up, not down.”

Twenty minutes later, when she was still out in the hall refusing to be nice, I gave the kids a few minutes of free time. Seeing that others were having fun and she wasn’t, she came in and apologized. Mikey, who has a bit of a crush on Briana, started showing off by dancing to the Destiny’s Child video they were watching online. Mikey grinned, shaking his fat ass to the music, and Ollie asked, “Why are you so fruity, Mikey?” Exasperated, I threw him out in the hall. Again, I saw Ollie’s point. Mikey did indeed look a little fruity. But it certainly wasn’t appropriate to announce it.

The principal walked by as I was in the hall with Ollie and asked, “Ms. Fiend, are your students behaving today?” I informed her that they weren’t using kind words. She shook her head and said, “They’re giving slugs, not hugs.” I agreed and added, “They’re not being Bounders today.” Ms. F headed toward the cafeteria, as Mikey, out of nowhere, slid into the hall and tattled at the top of his lungs, “Ms. F. Ollie called me fruity!”

I’m embarrassed to admit it, but I completely lost it. Tears rolled down my face as I leaned against the doorjamb, struggling to stop laughing. So no, E, as hard as I try, it’s impossible to keep a straight face around him.