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A Horrifying Shower Experience
Well, not like “Psycho” horrifying, but still.
So yesterday, I crankily and blearily crawled out of bed, already in a grouchy mood because a) it was morning, b) it has been a bitch of a week at work, and c) it was morning. I headed off into the bathroom for the few moments of blissful, relaxing solitude I was likely to get all day: a nice hot, semi-leisurely shower. We have a very efficient water heater and blisteringly hot showers are one of my favorite things in life.
Anyway, I jumped in and started the water, and just as I reached up to adjust the angle of the shower head, the hose on the hand sprayer popped off and water started flooding out all over the place. After a few choice epithets hurled at the shower, I got the water turned off and started pathetically bellowing for my dear husband…because I don’t fix stuff. That’s a manly man job. Yes, call me sexist or whatever but there it is.
Fortunately he was already awake because his dear daughter had kicked his balls into a pulp in her sleep for several hours and he couldn’t take the abuse any longer, and got up early. He calmly assessed the shower situation, retrieved some kind of manly tools, as I stood there pathetically shivering, and then came back to at least temporarily reattach the cracked hose. He informed me it wouldn’t last forever but would probably get me through my shower. Right, ok, so off I go back to my steam-enhanced solitude.
About halfway through, the devil cat (AKA Cookie) who apparently was locked in the bathroom with me, began SCREAMING. I’ve never heard her scream before, EVER, and it startled me so bad I almost fell out of the shower. I poked my head out expecting to see broken limbs, spurting blood, whatever, and yet all I saw was her calmly sitting on the rug nonchalantly staring at me. I muttered a few more choice words and went back to the task at hand, and another few peaceful moments went by and then all of a sudden the little cat slut started screaming again! I looked out of the curtain AGAIN, only to find her calmly sitting there staring at me without a care in the world.
She was so loud that FF heard it in the other room and came to investigate. He opened the door and Cookie casually wandered out of the bathroom with no indication of anything amiss.
WTF people? She always follows me around in the bathrooms and such and never, ever complained before about being locked in for a few minutes. Hell, if she has to poop, she just uses the toilet anyway! For that matter, she very rarely meows at all. She chirps, purrs, and makes chittering noises but doesn’t meow much at all, and never screams. So I have no clue what was going on in her little pea brain the other morning.
But anyway, I was just praying to finish my shower without anymore bizarre inconveniences, and I was just about to rinse the conditioner out of my hair….and the hose popped off again. ARRRRRRRRGGGGGGGGGGGG!!!
It’s enough abuse to make a person call in sick for the rest of the month. 
Just 5 More Minutes Mom, Really…
I am very tired. Why am I so tired, you ask? Well, aside from the chronic sleep disturbances of graduate school, a preschooler that has major nocturnal issues, and generally being a night owl, I am a sincere believer in the sanctity of the “just 5 more minutes” lifestyle. Yes, this does mean I am one of those annoying people that will set the alarm early, and then hit the snooze button every 8, 9, or 10 minutes repeatedly (depending on which clock I am using), sometimes for an hour or more until I cannot delay the inevitable and HAVE to get up. I just hate mornings SO much, and have such a hard time waking up, that my way of coping revolves around the importance of snoozing. Judge away, Internet.
Anyway, back to the topic at hand. Last night was already challenging, what with K waking up around 5 crying about her feet hurting. (huh?) We don’t know if she was having some kind of growing pains, or her feet fell asleep and were tingling, or she was dreaming it all up. But regardless, it kept her, and obviously us, awake for awhile trying to get her settled again.
And then, my alarm went off at 7:15. This has never, not a single blasted time, woken her up before. But for some reason, today it woke her up, she hopped out of our bed, ran over to the door and opened it to go play with the cat. She is not much of a morning person either, so I have no clue what was going on in her head. Maybe aliens abducted her and gave us a lookalike child?
Anyway, she then instigated a noisy, rousing 15-lap episode of Cat-Kid NASCAR. Unfortunately, our bed was Turn 3. At that point, I didn’t even bother with the snooze buttons, but just let her squealing, singing, squawking, laughing, and bouncing wake me out of a drowse every 1 or 2 minutes. I vaguely recall begging her to just let me sleep 5 more minutes…and I heard FF groan piteously a few times too. Remember, in my world, snoozing is a sacred barrier between me and the pain of morning. She ripped it off like a day-old bandaid. (sob)
And then, the pièce de résistance: at the height of K’s war chant, the cat made a flying leap onto the bed, did a kamizake run under the covers and plastered against me. K then proceeded to jump onto the bed as well (still whooping) which caused the cat to roll over and plant her claws in my butt and legs. My barely clad, half asleep, butt and legs.
It was quite possibly one of my fastest morning risings, ever.
RACE OVER.
Only Two Weeks
…into the semester, and already my head feels like this. I am really struggling this semester, with motivation and engagement. To be honest, if I didn’t “have” to finish this degree, I don’t know that I would even continue through this mid-point slump. There is just SO much to do in the next year, and so much of it is busy work. Part of the problem is my own, for choosing a program where most of my peers are in very different professional contexts, so there is little sustained camaraderie / connection. I’m clueless about a lot of things in life, but especially K-12 education, and that’s where most of my peers “live”. Hell, I can barely figure out the school thing for my own kid, let alone the thought of being actually involved with the process of teaching.
I’m taking an especially annoying touchy-feely class about education and culture. It is heavily discussion based and quite frankly, boring as hell–so far, anyway. I don’t disparage the notion of cultural sensitivity/competence in the education domain, but the execution of the class is sorely lacking, and hello, where’s the relevance? I hate discussing stuff for the sole reason of minimum number of postings to get a minimum number of ‘points’. If the conversation isn’t executed as part of the learning process, why bother?
OK, this was a downer post, and maybe I’m just tired and overwhelmed, so we’ll check back in on this a few weeks and I’ll regale you with tales of exciting exploration of education and culture. If only I could delegate my homework to someone else.
