Mamacita says:

1.  I haven’t entered my students’ names in either the online gradebook or the hard copy gradebook yet.  I really need to do this because writing the scores on a piece of paper with first names only on it is getting pretty awkward.

2.  I haven’t figured out all the bells and whistles my new laptop is capable of, yet.  In a way, it’s almost like getting to know a person. . . .You fall in love, and then you discover that he can sing, play the banjo, and shimmy like my sister Kate.  After a while, you realize that he doesn’t put the toilet seat down, adores clutter, and farts like a steamboat fed with cheap coal.  And you’re still not finished exploring!

3.  There are two empty Oliver Winery Soft Red bottles on the kitchen counter, yet I did not touch a single drop from either bottle. I save the empties for my friend, who makes his own wine.  I did not ask him if he stomped his own grapes, a la Lucy and Ethel.

4.  I still haven’t put away those green candles yet, and I also noticed that there is a musical Santa still on the kitchen wall.  I love that musical Santa; my dear friend Irene made it for me before she and her husband John Orman moved to Connecticut.  I will never stop missing them.  When our daughters became college roommates, we were all ecstatic!  I love you, Irene and John.

5.  I still haven’t come to grips with the fact that my adult children know a lot of people I don’t know.  When they were little, I knew all of their friends and their friends’ parents.  They didn’t go visiting unless I knew for sure that things were supervised and “okay” in someone else’s house.  I’m still in shock over the mother – and I use that word as part of a compound word – who invited my daughter over for a playdate with HER daughter, and then left the house for the rest of the day, leaving the two little girls alone except for the father, holed up in his office, who didn’t even know my child was in his house.  I had met this mother at various school functions and she seemed fine.  After that day, I knew she was not.  When I came back in a few hours to pick up my daughter, her friend’s father answered the doorbell and didn’t even know HIS daughter was home, let alone a visiting child.  Every time I drive past that magnificent house, my entire body clenches up like a fist.  My daughter laughs at me over this.  It was many years ago, and she is quite right.  But I still get angry when I remember it.

6.  I am still angry over injustices meted out to my children – and other peoples’ children – five and ten and fifteen years ago.  Things that mean nothing to them now, still make me fume.  I haven’t learned how to let it go, yet.  I hope I learn soon.

7.  My daughter is a sweet, understanding, forgiving person.  I would like to be more like her.  So far, I haven’t learned how yet.  I’m glad she is not like me, in this respect.

8.  I still haven’t found my missing Mp3 player.  I feel as if I KNOW where it is, but I can’t wrap my mind around a location.

9.  I have to get up early this semester.  I haven’t gotten used to that yet.  Never will.  I am a vampire.

10.  It’s nearly one in the morning and I haven’t gone to bed yet.  Don’t want to, either.  But if I don’t, I’ll regret it when that early morning comes.

I wish I had more interesting things to write about; however, I also understand that the ancient Chinese saying “May you live in interesting times” was actually a curse, not a wish for cool things to happen.  I certaintly don’t need any more interesting times, in that case.