The best home fries in town

I LOVE to go out to eat (which is synonymous with I HATE to cook) but I only have a few favorite restaurants. Small diners and eateries can be tricky. Do you know what I mean? Some of them can be click-ish. You feel like an outsider the minute you walk in the door. But not Laurie's Restaurant in Warsaw.

My family specifically goes on Sundays in hopes that my friend Naomi is working. When Naomi is there, it's not like we're at a restaurant at all but like we've just popped in at her house. Coffee and orange juice appears without our even asking (water for Savannah) and Naomi waits patiently for us to deliberate the generous menu selections even though she knows we'll all end up ordering the same thing as last week.

Laurie's is a popular place to eat and we weren't surprised to see it bustling Sunday morning. We gratefully took a table...an island in the middle row that serves as a raceway for waitresses running orders to hungry customers. When a booth suddenly became available, Naomi materialized and herded us to it like a mother hen. "You'll be more comfortable there," she said before dashing off to orchestrate the arrival of a battalion of breakfast deliveries.

I love love love Laurie's home fries. Whenever I order home fries ANYWHERE else, I will inevitably sigh with profound disappointment and say, "They're not like Laurie's." And Naomi knows I love them extra crispy. When she brought our order to the table last Sunday, she hesitated as she handed me my plate. "Do you want these crisped up some more," she asked, frowning at my potatoes. I felt three pairs of eyes glaring at me...demanding that I accept my order with demure graciousness. But she ASKED. "That would be great," I smiled at my kind and understanding friend before facing the wrath of my mean and unaccommodating family.  "Mom...you are so rude," Sydney hissed while Savannah proclaimed that I was a complete embarrassment to the good Mosiman name. Can you imagine? Me...an embarrassment?

My home fries were back in a flash, accompanied by a bottle of Red Hot. They were perfect. Crunchy and salty on the outside with soft, warm potato-y goodness on the inside. My favorite potatoes at my favorite place. "Bye Naomi," we yell as we head to the door. She grins and waves as we leave. My favorite potatoes at my favorite place WITH one of my favorite people.

Dragging my marriage through the mud

"Are you listening to me," my husband asked (for the fifth time). I nodded as I held the mud-encrusted tow chain as far away from me as possible, my dainty, pinkie-drinking-tea fingers shaking with the effort. He sighed, trying to re-focus my attention away from my cold, wet and dirty hands. "I'm muddy too," he said. I looked at him. His Carhartt suit, once an attractive shade of deer-hide brown, was glimmering with several layers of heavy-with-winter-weight mud. I decided to keep my complaints to myself (for the time being).

With an onslaught of relentless February rain, my driveway mutated into a van-enveloping mud-pit. I arrived home to a vehicle tilted alarmingly at a gravity-defying angle, trapped between two trees on our little hill. "Are you listening to me," Brad asked again. Yes. I understood the plan but was trying to piece together how it had shifted so drastically. When Brad had initially called, he explained how he would be manning the Titan while I sat, placidly and pretty, in the entrenched van...my only job would be to make sure the tires were pointed in the correct direction. When did I become the tow truck driver? Apparently, my husband was worried about my safety in the precariously parked van.

"Okay," he said, after slithering underneath the vehicle and securing the tow chain, "when I give you the signal, proceed forward slowly...SLOWLY...SLOW-LY." I nodded, noticing mud drying underneath my nails. "And," he continued, "when I say stop...stop." Uh-huh. Was that a mud splatter stain on my coat?


So it began. We successfully shifted the front end of the van from between the trees. One step forward. The back-end slide alarmingly back down the hill. Two steps back. "Hang on! HANG ON!" Brad yelled. I put Titan in park and leaned out the window screaming, "S-T-O-P...you said you were going to say STOP!" After an hour's worth of emergency marriage counselling, we tried another approach. Fresh from a unit on 4th grade angles, I examined the position of the van and the surrounding trees and suggested, "Why not let gravity do the work for us and just take it the rest of the way down the hill and Titan can pull the van out of the field?" Always open and accepting of others, Brad considered my plan as we embarked in another hour's worth of counseling before trying my idea.

"Go down the hill so you can tell me if I'm getting too close to any of the trees," Brad said, climbing back into the van. So much for him caring about my safety, I thought as I stood, clearly in the path of a woman-crushing vehicle. "What are you doing," he yelled out the window. "You told me to watch down here," I responded in a patient and loving manner. "Stand BEHIND a tree so you won't get hit, honey (He actually used another word that I'm sure, in his heart, was synonymous with "honey."). With precision driving and the grace of God, Brad managed to maneuver the van through a maze of evergreens to the field.

We (Brad) re-hooked up the tow-chain and rolled, un-hindered from the field. The next obstacle was the three-foot snow-packed barrier at the end of our seasonal-use road. "Start your turn," Brad yelled. Without hesitation, I followed his direction even though my vast background with 4th grade angles told me that I wouldn't make it. One more round of emotion-cleansing therapy before Brad systematically backed up and surged forward until he hit that wall like a bull, busting through. We did it! Both the van and the marriage survived!

"Sarong" that it's gotta be right

Being a teacher at my school is NOT easy. My entire corridor oozes haute couture. The lovely ladies (and two dashing gentlemen) who inhabit my hallway are stylish and trendy and old-school cool. I, on the other hand, find the gentle swish of my beige corduroys comforting and love any shirt that envelopes me like a Snuggie. Make-up for me is a battered Blistex. The closest I get to nail polish is when I accidentally write on myself with a Sharpie (sometimes it's colored though!).

Tall boots. Flared skirts with accentuating leggings. Scarves that wrap poetically around the wearer like (real) whipped cream...sigh. I have a Ghostbusters key-chain dangling from my lanyard as accessorizing jewelry and am the proud collector of a wide variety of animal-themed socks to accentuate my otherwise redundant wardrobe.

When I found the SCARF-TO-END-ALL-SCARVES in Connecticut, I thought to myself, This is my chance! I snapped it up...plotting and planning the killer ensemble with which to wow my fellow workers. I wonder if I should iron this, I debated, holding up my very wrinkled plum/magenta/pinkish/sorta red blouse. Naw, I decided, everyone will be so entranced by my new scarf that they won't even notice. I watched a video on "101 Ways To Tie a Scarf" and then spent an hour practically strangling myself before going with the classic Red Baron-style. Excited, I walked faster all day to allow my scarf to flow freely behind me for dramatic effect.

After school, I was walking down my hallway and encountered a former student who complimented my stylish scarf. I unraveled it so that she could examine the pattern and then proceeded on my way. Cruel and mocking laughter soon stopped me short. "Are you modeling a scapron," one colleague inquired. "You could market it on "Shark Tank," he suggested, "Half-scarf, half-apron."  I was confused. My (former) friend Geri added, "If you were going for Parisian elegance, you failed." I glanced down and, to my horror, realized that my beautiful and fashionable scarf was still unwrapped and clinging to the front of my body like a sarong. Once again...I was a fashion disaster. "Actually," my (former) friend Sarah corrected, "You veered off-course the minute you thought that a dachshund-patterned scarf qualified as the SCARF-TO-END-ALL-SCARVES." Despite this set-back, I have not completely fallen off the fashion horse... although I would contend that I have certainly slipped off the saddle. I wonder how my scarf would look coupled with my beige corduroy pants?

An electrifying week-end with my husband: A shocking date night

Depending on who you happen to be talking to...I may or may NOT have had something to do with our washing machine breaking down this week-end. I can confidently say, though, that my careless inclusion of 4-6 white socks in a batch of colors did not alter the time/space continuum of my washing machine enough to cause the consequenting flood that followed...no matter WHAT Brad says.

Anyhoo...I was an enthusiastic and active part of the repair process. "Here..." Brad grunted, heroically lifting up the washing machine, "put something under this to prop it up." He was ungrateful about my first choice of a sturdy glass bottle but seemed pleased by my second selection of a piece of plywood. I wasn't thrilled to join him in his little pond of stinky run-off water but he made me a little lily-pad lifting me away from the spill-age so I could continue in my quest to help him.

I blinded him with the flashlight half a thousand times but he still managed to successfully disconnect the motor assembly for "us" to inspect. "We" decided to test it. So there I stood, with a washing machine motor in my shaking hands, as Brad connected wires to it to thrust into an electric socket. "Uh..." I said, hating to interrupt him. Crouching near the outlet, he glanced up at me, "What?" "Isn't it a little...dangerous...to insert foreign objects into outlets." He nodded absently, "Yeah...it can be." To my dismay...he moved the wires closer. I almost dropped the motor as I gently interrupted him again. "Honey...is it safe for me to be holding this?" He leaned back on his heels and sighed. "Are you the one pushing bare wires into a socket," he asked. "No."

Good news. No one got electrocuted. Good news #2:  The washing machine motor still worked! And even with my expert flashlight assistance, Brad was able to re-assemble the mechanism.

A penguin please...with a cherry on top

 As you already know from yesterday's blog, be it Polar Vortex or braking problems, there's no "stopping" our perky protagonists on their cold Connecticut quest for adventure. "I was able to get discount tickets to the aquarium," Savannah suggested. "Well...I did want to go on a hike," I sighed, ignoring the rolled eyes that swept the room, "but I guess a day playing with penguins would be fun, too."

Unlike my non-animal-loving friend Sarah (her only flaw), I love love love the New England Aquarium with their plethora of penguins. The aquarium also boasts a spectacular jellyfish exhibit. Sydney and I were disappointed when we learned that a group of jellyfish is referred to as a smack (or bloom or swarm). We made an executive decision and changed it to the more appropriate "jam" of jellies. Anyhoo...Savannah's discount aquarium made an excellent first-impression with their well-lit, pulsating pillows of protoplasm. Turns out, unbeknownst to me at the time, the similarities to my beloved New England Aquarium ended there. After I spent an hour in a hypnotized trance, Savannah and Joan were able to coax me over to the seahorses. "The male seahorse is the one to have the babies," I murmured to Savannah as we watched them languidly lunge at floating flotsam. Again...the eye-roll. "Mom...everyone knows that." "Well," I returned as we watched the spectral figure of a beluga whale drift by, "did you know that the beluga whale, also known as the Canary of the Sea..."(ignore eye-roll)..."is the only whale that can swim backward?"

"Ma'am," a timid voice interjected, "Would you like to take a survey?" The irritation that I felt about being called "ma'am" melted. I have a strange sympathy for survey-takers. "How would you rate the aquarium," she asked, pencil poised. Fresh from the jellyfish exhibit, I enthusiastically awarded the aquarium an 8.5 rating. It turned out to be a somewhat pre-mature decision. The rumored alligator was guarded by armed (meaning that they had two arms, crossed, and were frowning) guards and the penguin (singular) was unavailable because the weather was "too cold." No...I am not kidding. We learned that many species of penguins actually reside around the warmer waters of South America so this wasn't as super-stupid sounding as we initially thought. "But wait..." I protested, "the Buffalo aquarium has penguins and they're always accessible!" I began to scan the crowd for my survey-taker to change my rating. "No penguin for you," laughed Joan, referring to the aquarium-Nazis. "No 8.5 rating for an aquarium located near the ocean," I growled. It was time to go...I was as mad as a Moray Eel (cue photo).

It was also time to salvage the day. "Have you decided yet," our calmly charismatic waitress asked. I frowned, debating. "I'm torn," I admitted, "between your chocolate-covered cherry drink special and a hot chocolate." She smiled. "How about I combine the two," she suggested. Day...saved!

That's a tough "brake"...Sometimes you have to stop before you can start

To understand why my friend Joan was laying prone beneath my truck at 11:00 at night during the on-set of a Polar Vortex, we must travel back several months to when we first began the habit of periodically topping off our brake fluid reservoir.

Now that you've refreshed your memory...

Ready to depart for Connecticut immediately after school, I received a text from Sydney...obviously being used as her father's mouth-piece. "Make sure you check the brake fluid," she reminded me. I arrived at my friend Joan's house to pick her up. She emerged, clutching her bag and a container of brake fluid. "I got a text from Sydney," she said, shaking it at me.

As we embarked on this by-now familiar journey, I carefully monitored any change in the emergency dashboard warning lights but, in the process, overlooked the fuel gauge. "Uh, Joan," I said casually, "We might want to start looking for a gas station." She leaned over to see the line struggling valiantly to perform a pull-up over the empty indicator and glared at me. "Again?" she sighed. Having left the gas station-littered lanes of the free-way, we were a wee bit worried about finding fuel options at this late hour along the winding roads of Connecticut.

The GPS led us, first, to a closed station where I decided to pull over anyway in order to top off the brake fluid as a warning light had popped on and I could feel the pedal was somewhat spongy. That accomplished, we proceeded the 2.6 miles to the next, hopefully open, gas station. "I don't mean to alarm you," I said in a slightly-alarmed voice to my friend who was already fighting the impulse to punch me as she anticipated our running out of gas on a dark country road in near-zero temperatures, "but the brakes aren't bouncing back like they usually do." "What does that mean," Joan asked worriedly as we careened along a 45-degree downgrade approaching a 25 mile-per-hour curve.

Good news! We made it to a gas station! Bad news. Brake fluid was erupting like a whale's blow hole from beneath my truck. Joan heroically duck-taped the brake line while I heroically ripped off strips of duct tape with my bare fingers in near-zero temperatures while pointing out Joan's exposed legs to drivers racing blindly through the parking lot.

"Did that help," Joan asked as we merged back into traffic. "Yeah," I reassured her, rising up out of the driver's seat to slam my entire body weight onto the brake pedal. Joan gave me a quick lesson in down-shifting an automatic vehicle while I bemoaned the loss of my standard-shift Ranger. We were an hour away from our destination. We called Savannah to be on alert in case we needed her to come get us but, as traffic was light and Connecticut turns all its traffic signals to blinking yellow after 11, we thought we could do it. "Did you top it off with brake fluid?" Savannah advised, "Sydney said that you were going to need to do that anyway." "Thank you, Savannah," I said, gritting my teeth as I death-grip clutched the steering wheel and told Joan that I would understand if she felt compelled at any time to yell, "Abort!" and leap out of the truck. "No way," she said loyally, "at the worse, I'll hang out the window, open my coat like bat-wings and try to provide some drag."

Much later than expected, we arrived. We sat in the (thank God) stopped truck, counted our blessings and pondered our immediate future. Would there be a mechanic open and available on a Saturday to repair Titan? What if we couldn't get it in until Monday? Oh no! Missing a school day connected to a holiday would cost me two personal days! This was a nightmare! How were Joan and I going to get home? As you can see from the picture...we would stop at nothing!

Emotionally and economically victimized by a vending machine

One of the determining factors of selecting my choice of two possible classrooms was the eighteen-step distance from the faculty room vending machine. It can actually be reached in fourteen steps if I put forth a modicum of effort. How I rue the day of that fateful decision!

Cardinal rule in vending machine etiquette is:  Don't shake the vending machine. Well...I claim self-defense because that worthless piece of garbage tries to rob me on a daily basis. It's more of a slot-machine than an actual vending machine. You plug in your quarters and hope...watching the spiral snack mechanism slide forward, praying that it relinquishes its metallic hold of your bag of cheesy popcorn. "You know," my friend Amanda said, observing me as I threw myself bodily against the unyielding exterior of the vending machine, "You'd save yourself a lot of trouble (and money) by purchasing a big bag of popcorn and then transferring reasonable snack-sized amounts into baggies." I paused a moment, rubbing my sore shoulder, to stare at her with a mixture of both horror and disdain. Surely she wasn't serious. Mathematically-speaking, if I bought a big bag of popcorn, it would be gone in the same amount of time that it would take to consume my one ounce

bag. And what about the thrill of the hunt? The collaborative team-work when co-workers would come together and jostle that vending machine around like we were lifting a Volkswagen off a pregnant woman?

Which leads us to today. Four quarters in..."C'mon, baby," I whispered, rubbing my palms together hopefully. Nope. Sadly, I trudged eighteen steps to my room for another fistful of change. All I wanted was a popcorn push...a bag bump. I would gladly pay two bucks of Brad Mosiman's hard-earned money for one ounce of cheesy goodness. Wow...this was rare. A two bag back-up. Fortunately, the faculty room was vacant as I railed against the fates...howled about the humanity of it all...and threw myself, again and again, at that blasted machine. Thirty-six steps later, armed with an assortment of dimes and nickles...I was ready to try again. YES...YES...YES...YES!!!       NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! The three bags, broken free of their spiral-corded confinement, landed at the base...waiting to be retrieved. I pushed against the little door, only to discover that, like protective sandbags piled to prevent the rising water, my three little bags of popcorn were effectively blocking the threat of enemy invasion.

But as you well know...I will NOT be thwarted! Sure, one bag had to take one for the team...pulverized into tiny popcorn pieces. My friend, Laurie, passed me as I was carrying bags of snack food like so much cordwood, back to my room. She and I had once been unified in a (failed) attempt to dislodge one of Laurie's vending machine hostages so she was very sympathetic. "Well, look on the bright side," she said smiling, "Now you don't have to buy snacks for a few days." I laughed as I walked the eighteen steps back to my room and closed the door,

The Smartboard Ghost of Room 24: The Case of the Cursed Cursor

I was in the midst of a riveting lesson on poetry. The children stared, immersed in the content, at the Smartboard when one of my little honeys inexplicably got up from her seat in the darkened room and slowly moved toward my computer...reaching for the mouse. "Josie!" I snapped, breaking her hypnotic spell, "What are you doing? Get away from there!" She turned robotically at me, pointing a shaking finger at the wall behind me, "But Mrs. Mosiman...look."

I turned...and like the rest of the class, was stuck dumb in horror. The cursor on the Smartboard was moving...of its own volition...methodically...deliberately...across the screen. Students closed their eyes, cupped frightened hands over their mouths to hold back screams of terror, or just stared as goose bumps swept over their skin. A screen was minimized before our astonished eyes. The cursed cursor moved to the "Start" button and did an inventory of the choices filed there.

It was time to pretend to be an adult. "There must be an explanation for this," I stated firmly, walking to the phone (which was located conveniently next to the door in case I would need to hastily retreat should a poltergeist re-enactment occur. Remember the saying...Women and children first. WOMEN and then children...) to call the only exorcist I knew equipped to deal with this paranormal occurrence: My IT guy. My fears were almost immediately calmed because he answered the phone on the first ring. That NEVER happens as our IT guy is a bit of a ghost himself. "It was me..." he said in lieu of a greeting, "I'm sorry. I was trying to override a problem in Room 21 and clicked on you guys instead." He laughed as I explained our concerns--not realizing that several children were, at that moment, being revived from varying states of hyperventilating. I feared, at the least, reports of nightmares...at the worse, documented cases of PTSD. I discovered that none of my students would ever be stupid enough to "check out that strange sound in the attic" or think, "Oh my...Disposable Character #4 has been down in the basement for too long...maybe I should see what's keeping him." Like the Cowardly Lion, we "do believe in ghosts...we do believe in ghosts...we do.. we do...we do...believe in ghosts." And I finally have a reason to genuinely fear using technology in the classroom.

Sixty reasons to celebrate Geri

 "So...how about black balloons," came one suggestion as we brainstormed ideas for our friend, Geri's 60th birthday. No...

Obviously a HUGE fan of the limelight (I'm being facetious for those of you who continue to take everything I say literally), Geri was not going to take kindly to a big fuss. So naturally...we made a big fuss.

As Geri has the classic features of a movie starlet, I began the search for a picture that would encapsulate her timeless beauty. I texted her daughter for help:

Me:  We want to print a younger-version picture of your mom on t-shirts for her b-day...can you

help?

Cait:  I don't have any young pictures of her. I'm in Boston.

Me:  Yes...thank you, Captain Obvious. I thought you might have a picture in mind and could direct your Dad to where to find it for us. 

Unbeknownst to me (because Cait is a TERRIBLE communicator), she called her Dad and he squirreled two amazing pictures of Geri to me. Thoughtfully (because I am an AMAZINGLY thoughtful person), I took a picture of the one we were going to use and texted it to Cait.

Me:  Thanks for the help!

Cait:  That's an awful fuzzy picture of he took.

Me:  Why do I talk to you? 

So while the 4th grade team was taking pictures of each student holding a dry erase board that finished the line "I like Mrs. Dobbin because..." ("My favorite," Geri revealed later, "was the one that read I like Mrs. Dobbin because she teaches good."), and Rachel was staying up until 2 am, frantically ironing twenty t-shirts, and I was making a giant collage that was suppose to say "60" but looked more like "GO", and Brad Mosiman was making crème brûlée from scratch...Geri awoke to the day of her birth, convinced that she wouldn't live to see the next decade because she has psoriasis. "You don't drop dead from dry skin," I snapped when I heard her dismal prediction over lunch.

The morning was pretty rough. Apparently she spotted my affirming "GO" message and stormed in to complain to our administrator which didn't go very well seeing that he was sporting a t-shirt emblazoned with her classic features. The office staff cowered in fear (shielding their own t-shirts from view) as Geri stormed out of his office. In the middle of a hallway tirade, a small voice asked Geri if she'd read the messages of the children on the wall. "What messages," she groused, "I left my glasses in the car." The sincere adoration of innocent children began to melt her malevolent and murderous plans of revenge. I began to believe that I might actually live to see my husband and children again.

To keep the spirit of the day fun and informative, colleagues happily burst into Geri's room on the hour, like the ghosts of Christmas past, to recite 1956 pop culture trivia. So every sixty minutes, Geri's day was interrupted to remind her that (a) it was her birthday and (b) she was sixty. "Heartbreak Hotel" played at 11 am and our friend Tyler introduced the children to some cool Elvis moves.

Finally, it was time for the children to leave. The school day had concluded. "Whew...I'm glad that's over," Geri sighed as people began to pour into her room. "What now..." she grumbled. Oh! The obligatory group photo! Geri LOVES to have her picture taken (I'm being facetious for those of you who continue to take everything I say literally)! After a couple of shots, Tyler put in a request for a reprisal of Geri's original photograph. It is out of love and respect that I did not include the shot where Geri flopped over in her attempt to create her over-the-shoulder movie star rendition. Oh...nevermind. The woman threatened my life. Enjoy!

Gourmet Groundhogs ("How do you know they're gourmet?" "They're placed on lace doilies")

 Call it a sixth sense...but I can immediately tell when information is being deliberately kept from me. The 4th grade team had signed up for faculty meeting snacks and it turns out that our "school caterer" (and Reading Specialist) was going to be out of town. "How dare she..." my team fumed before turning to look at one another in horror..."Don't tell Amy." So secret plans of Tim Horton's donuts..."Should we get frosted, glazed or filled donuts," Kelly asked. "Let's go crazy and get a variety," advised Geri, glancing over her shoulder to make sure I was out of earshot.

The minute I found out that 4th grade team was solely responsible for February treats, I immediately began an exhaustive search of suitable snacks for our co-workers. "Oh no," Geri and Kelly groaned as I presented  dozens of options for their perusal. After a lot of yelling and crying, we decided to scrap the donuts and focus instead on a theme representing the holidays of February. Naturally, this would require the 4th grade team going out unnecessarily to lunch for a largely unsuccessful ingredient acquisition.

The week of the faculty meeting arrived. An inventory was made:  Eyeballs? Check. Brown mini- M & Ms laboriously sorted by Rachel? Check. Chocolate Teddy Grahams mercilessly slaughtered in a food processor and then heartlessly disregarded because they weren't as pretty as the silver sprinkles? Check. "You know...grades are due this week," Kelly remarked worriedly. "Get your priorities straight, Woman," I snapped, unwrapping sixty miniature Almond Joy candy bars.

Call it a sixth sense...but our friend Tyler can always tell when I'm in the middle of doing something stupid. I swear that, like a German Short-Haired Pointer, he stops, turns eyes heavenward, and then radars his way to ridiculousness. "What are you doing," he asked happily, addressing the candy-making assembly-line of unhappy women. I held up a groundhog for his inspection. "Geri thinks they look like Groucho Marx," I complained before admitting, "I'm actually afraid that they resemble Hitler." Tyler laughed. "So, if he sees his shadow does that mean World War II isn't over?"

Well...it was too late now. We were committed (pun intended). Kelly was at home whittling a million carrots and cucumbers into tiny heart shapes after wrestling cheese and pepperoni into a flag formation while her boyfriend systematically cut cherry tomatoes at a 45 degree angle to re-shape into hearts with toothpicks. Our groundhog faces were sliding to the side and Geri was having a nervous breakdown because she couldn't find raspberry sherbet for her "Love Potion" punch.

Carrying supplies, I made a million trips to the library while Kelly frantically stuffed woodchucks into their cupcake burrows. Tyler gallantly opened the door for me despite my snapping ungraciously at him every time. "You mean there's MORE," Dee gasped in surprise (or horror) as she and Pat cleaned off the top of a book shelf for me. They were more than happy, though, to help us adorn our display with themed books.

The line of ravenous educators began. "Oh! They're groundhogs," our friend Kathy exclaimed before lowering her voice, "At first, I thought it was a graveyard."

"I don't know how you guys do it," one treat-taker commented, balancing three blueberries on her spoon, "I just wouldn't have the time." Call it a sixth sense...Geri tackled me as I lunged across the line. "Well...we don't have the time either...we make the time," I hollered up from the carpet. "Remember Amy, two wrongs don't make a right, but three rights make a left," Geri said cheerfully, prying open my clenched fist to give me some chocolate. "I'm alright," I said, standing up to see my friends looking at me with concerned expressions, "Nobody worry 'bout me." I turned to my tormentor, "Why you got to gimme a fight? Can't you just let it be?"

"Whew! I'm glad that's over," Rachel sighed as we cleaned up. "Well, we really set the bar high," I smiled. "Is that why you make us do all this," Geri asked in disgust, "as a measurement of performance?" Surprised, I turned to her. "I don't measure myself off of other educators." "How do you measure yourself then," Kelly asked. I plucked the eyeball off a groundhog, popping it in my mouth before answering, "By height."

Wonder Twins Activate...Wait! Is that X-rated?

http://moviepilot.com/posts/1363687

There is no part of this story that is going to make me look good so why on earth am I sharing it?

So...Thursday, to reward the cherubs for not swearing profusely during my observation and actually pretending to pay attention and learn, I hosted a rare "Lunch in Room 24 with Mrs. Mosiman" which I have yet to figure out why they view this as even remotely pleasurable because I mostly just make them sit in the dark quietly and stare at the Smartboard while they eat.  The main rule during "Lunch in Room 24 with Mrs. Mosiman" is to NOT talk to Mrs. Mosiman. At all. 

But anyway...there they were and, to occupy their time and to keep them from interacting with me...I went Old School and put on an episode of "The Wonder Twins." The children were entranced but the tone of silence suddenly shifted when...

The twins were playing ping pong when the Justice League alerted them. Jayna placed her paddle and ping pong ball on a shelf before turning to her brother to say, "Well, Zan...we're really going to have to go balls to the wall on this one." No one in Room 24 moved an inch although I realized that I was the central target of everyone's peripheral vision. I nonchalantly continued eating my Snickers bar, seeming lost in the wonder of the Wonder Twins and the atmosphere of my classroom returned to its semi-normal state.

"Can you believe that a children's cartoon from the 80s would use that phrase," I stormed to my husband over the phone the following day after he had called to wish me "good morning," having worked all night. He sighed (He does that a lot when he talks to me). "Why do women in their 40s and 50s immediately jump to the most profane conclusion?" he asked, unable to see me turning red with rage through his cell phone. I cut our conversation short as I was driving to work. As luck would have it, we passed one another. Brad waved enthusiastically to me. Let's just say that I kind of waved back.

My friend, Geri, nodded sagely as I fumed over this conversation. "You're not mad about the origination of the phrase," she explained, "You're mad that, instead of lumping you in the 30 to 40 year-old-category, he rounded up."  "Technically-speaking," she added, "he should have put you in the same category as twelve-year-old boys." As I was now officially done talking to Geri as well, I wandered the halls in search of a compassionate and sympathetic ear. Instead, I found my friend Tyler who just laughed. "As a coach," he admitted, "I'm not going to use that term, but I don't think it means what you think it means." I had already researched the phrase back to its early days of steam locomotion before its adoption by fighter pilots. Synonymous with "full-throttle," I now know more than I ever wanted to about "balls to the wall." Fascinated though we were by my dissertation, deconstructing this colorful phrase, Tyler and I agreed that including "balls to the wall" in our idiom lessons would probably not be appropriate. Imagine the illustrations! Who knew that the Wonder Twins main super-power was to activate discussions on what could be deemed as dirty language?