Oh I love the folks at the Washington Post! Here's a little excerpt from one of their articles:

" ...For the past several years, Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin, the Republican vice presidential candidate, has been embroiled in a bitter family feud that has drawn in the state police, the attorney general, the governor's office and the state legislature.

A bipartisan state legislative panel has appointed a special prosecutor to investigate whether Palin improperly brought the family fight into the governor's office. The investigation is focusing on whether she and her aides pressured and ultimately fired the public safety commissioner, Walter Monegan, for not removing Palin's ex-brother-in-law from the state police force.

Interviews with principals involved in the dispute and a review of court documents and police internal affairs reports reveal that Palin has been deeply involved in alerting state officials to her family's personal turmoil ..."

Intrigued? Read the rest of the article here.

If she has sticky fingers so soon in her political career, I'd prefer not to have her in a national office, please. That, plus the fact that she (and others like her) believes her opinions regarding reproductive rights and marriage trump issues like economics, health care and our current problems with the global economy helped me make my decision.

In school.

In. MEETINGS.

Yesterday, morning meeting with everyone from the school district. Was good! Got to see old friends, see new ones, and actually paid attention! Sort of. ^_^ 8AM to ... what - 9:30, 9:45AM?

Yesterday afternoon, meeting with the high school faculty. Yeah, kind of boring, but not that bad. Started to grind to a halt at one point - was saved from banality by the new assistant principal - hooray! 1PM to 3:30 PM. Butt was okay because we were in the auditorium. That's important, you know. Butt comfort!

Now, for TODAY .......

ARGH. Again I say ... ARGH.

This morning was death warmed over, served cold, and we were forced to eat it with ketchup. AAAAAAUGH!!!

For THREE EFFING HOURS, from 8AM until 11AM, we sat like good little sheep, listening about all the critical changes (NONE) in Special Education Initiatives. First there was the requisite 20 minute ramble by the head of SpecEd, and THEN ... a 45-slide PowerPoint Presentation by someone from PaTTON from King of Prussia. Know that 45 slides does not equal 45 minutes; in fact, if you take approximately 4 minutes per slide, you come out with 180 minutes. AUGH.

Move from there to the black box, to discuss how well everything was presented, and you have a home run!

Take a couple hours off to have a few annoying words with your colleagues and eat lunch, and then - wow! Time for another workshop again! This time, though, it's actually practical. It's about the new grading system, Pentamation, and how you're going to use it during the year.

Sadly, you only have 30 minutes to spend at this meeting, because you (like the idiot you are) scheduled your doctor's appointment for 2:30PM today, thinking that you were on the regular high school schedule. Bad you!

Ah, well. You can redo it all tomorrow!

Migraines, why, oh why, do you plague me? We already had this conversation on Wednesday AND Thursday, on the left side of my head; why is it necessary to have it again, but now on the right side?

Yes, it's been three weeks since Monty went to the vet for his initial screening, and here's his report:

He gained 2 pounds, 1/3 of his original weight, so now he's up to 8 pounds. Wow! @__@

He's a healthy, bouncing little puppy, very friendly, who loves the vet. He jumped up on Jonathan, stretched out, and licked every part of him he could reach.

He can be distracted by anything when he's getting a shot - a pen, the other hypodermic tube, a toy ... anything.
I never thought I'd say this, but we're actually teaching him and he does all these things:

( What Monty knows he can and will do )
Mini schnauzers (and the breed in general) are very intelligent, so you have to keep them busy 24/7 or else they get into trouble. Our schedule and his schedule are now blended together. There's no way that he would ever 'fit' into our schedule, because he's just not that mellow - nor would we ever completely 'fit' into what boisterous Monty wants to do, because we're just not that high strung. I think we've finally struck a compromise good for everyone - we get exercise, and Monty gets downtime.

So what do we think of Ms. Torres at 41, being in the finals of the 50 meter swim - and then Ms. Torres winning the silver medal!

I am in awe! She's had a 24-year swimming career where many people would have said, "Oh, grandma, stay at home with the kiddies/grandkiddies and let the young ones have all the glory."

You go, girl!

We have a new addition to our family! His name is Monty, he's a mini schnauzer, and today he's 10 weeks old. He looks like the puppy in this pic -

- except his ears have been trimmed to stand straight up. Ostensibly, 'we' bought the puppy, but it's for Dave because he's wanted a dog for such a long time.

But and son are working this summer, so I have the pup during the day - training, feeding, listening to him yowl, etc., etc. Day starts early for puppy and doesn't end until late at night. Puppy decided, today, that it's not okay for me to leave the room while he's in his crate, which is when 'temper yowling' set in. Gods, he's loud.

All in all, having a dog like Monty will be fine, but right now it's like having a 2 year old with sharp teeth! This one, though, will sit for a piece of freeze-dried liver ~_^.

Have read (or stopped reading):

Labyrinth by Kate Mosse
Grail mythology, 510 pages
Good writing, fast pace, interesting setup, grabbed me in the bookstore and that's not easy! However, once I realized what was going on and how things would play out, I lost interest. *sigh* May try again later.

Reading now:

Emperor: The Gates of Rome by Conn Iggulden - finishing today! SO good!
Emperor: The Death of Kings by Conn Iggulden - starting next! Ahhhh....
When You Are Engulfed In Flames by David Sedaris

Re-reading now:

Third and Indiana by Steve Lopez

Scheduled:

Shadowplay by Tad Williams
Genghis: Lords of the Bow by Conn Iggulden

To get, to finish the series:

Emperor: The Field of Swords by Conn Iggulden
Emperor: The Gods of War by Conn Iggulden

I must keep my eyes open - how could I have missed Conn Iggulden? While his story is following the standard hero scenario (hero was shown to be weak in the beginning, at some point departs homeland to prove himself, overcomes major obstacles, becomes 'fuerte,' eventually returns in triumph, etc.) in this case there is truth to the fable. His Gengas book was recommended to me, so I've put it on my list.

There's a lot to keep me busy! ^_____^

Ah, such a good weekend. We should have weeks like this all during the year. Really, I'd appreciate them all the same.


First:

Eli's home! Not only that, he has over 900 photos for us to look at. Incredible!

Then:

I had a wonderful day with a friend, visiting and playing WiiFit, and then went to the Mann Center and heard Allison Krause and Robert Plant together. Who would think of that combination? Robert Plant from Led Zepplin, and Allison Krause the singer/fiddler. SO GOOD!!!

And lastly:

We're going to the movies tomorrow. Yay!

Summertime is sooooo good. ^________^

Oh, my, my, so tasty and true!

Here's a little gem I didn't realize I saved - wow! Some of these are bad enough to make your eyes bleed and they even made ME groan - but the worst part is that I hear our elected 'officials,' the people I work with, and even anonymous people at Starbucks use these phrases everyday. AAACKKK!

( 24-7 With the Cliche' Expert )

Didja love it, or what? Word.

I'm decompressing after what was a fairly good end-of-the-year period with both my schools - frenetic as always, but without any of the nasty parental shouting that has happened in past years. I was SO pleased.

Eli's in Europe with his choir, having a great time. If you'd like to read about how he and 27 members of his grad choir sang in front of Prince Albert of Monaco in their boxers and PJs, go here. It's a real hoot! If you page back (with that blog, it's actually "Next Page" - it's weird) you can see pictures of the choir singing, on the paddleboats, etc. Probably only interesting to Dave and me, but that one blog is funny. ^_^

Dave's working as the Director of CITs at the JCC camp this summer (!), and he loves it. Again, a better thing couldn't have happened for us. He has a great group of students to work with, and so far they've received high marks from their counselors. He comes home each day feeling good, full of energy (well, as full of energy as you can with this heat).

We're really fortunate that we don't live in a flood zone or a fire zone in the US, but we do live in the 'humidity' zone. I can't stand humidity anymore, if I ever could stand it. Certain incidents stand out in my mind:

I remember not being able to sleep when I was a teenager because my parent's home wasn't air conditioned

I recall buying our first air conditioner for this house - we invited friends over and we all huddled in that room, loathe to leave it because the rest of the house felt like an oven!

I remember buying the first large air conditioner for the downstairs - it felt luxurious, needed and wasteful at the same time.

I also recall buying a unit for my mother and putting it into her downstairs window

And, we're looking forward to adding a little Schnauzer to our happy family sometime in August! We'll all have to make adjustments, including BooBoo. But thanks to a little guy named Akage, BooBoo's learning all about little Schnauzers.