Week in Review

This has been some week. Let’s review:

1. It started with my jury-duty-that-wasn’t time downtown. I didn’t really have time to serve, but I’m still disappointed that my name didn’t even get called. I know that the point is my willingness to give my time. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Whatever. I was going to be Henry Fonda. I was going to have some impassioned dialogue about justice and truth … and we were going to do the right thing and save John Savoca’s life (Yeah. John Savoca, whoever he is … why have I always thought it was Sal Mineo who played the accused?)
2. The post-cyclone situation in Burma gets progressively worse and hearing about it on the news gets more and more frustrating and upsetting, and I can’t figure out why no one can do anything.
3. The earthquake in China and it’s aftershocks (most of which are big enough to really just be earthquakes in their own right), rain and landslides make me feel hideously impotent.
4. A misstep from last week haunts me through this week. As students started getting ready to present their personal history projects, I asked Jorge if he’d like to present. He and Jamila had finished before anyone else. Jamila made her presentation, so I turned to Jorge. “I’d rather not.” And I said it was ok if he didn’t want to present just then … but “You’ll have to present eventually, you know.” What? Since when? Since when do I force a student to make a presentation in front of the class? I don’t know where that came from. (A throw-back to my own schooling, to be sure. It didn’t make for successful presentations or bolstered self-esteem back then, either.) I didn’t worry about it, though. I’d just reassure Jorge on Tuesday that he wouldn’t have to present if he didn’t want to … except he didn’t come to class on Tuesday. Or Wednesday. Or Thursday. And the contact number I have for him goes straight to voicemail with a voice that isn’t his. I left a cryptic message, but I doubt it hit its mark.
5. I go to work Wednesday disguised as the one-eyed, one-horned, flying, purple, people-eater, taking off the head of anyone foolish enough to come near me.
6. I get a really awful, accusing email from a vice president in my parent organization, giving me a dressing down for something that wasn’t my fault … and I couldn’t respond because I knew that my awful mood would have meant writing a response that I really shouldn’t send, so I just had to swallow it (yeah, take a guess what a great job I did getting that to go down).
7. My Thursday morning commute brings me a closer acquaintance with death than I wanted to have. I realize that all my earlier-in-the-week whining and fussing has been exactly that: whining and fussing, that there are much more important things in the world, much more important things right on a quiet Brooklyn sidewalk. I put my ego back in its jack-in-the-box.
8. I grab a quick ham sandwich from the shop on the corner near school to inhale for dinner since I’m late-late-late for class … and I proceed to get so sick that I have to let the students go home early.
9. Friday I am sick to my stomach for half the day, carrying-over my ham-sandwich sickness from Thursday. So miserable that I think I’m going to have to miss out on the plans I have for the rest of the day.
10. I manage to get to work and … more importantly, I get to attend K’s wedding in the afternoon and the reception last night.
11. I wake up Saturday morning with all sorts of out-of-the-house plans for the day … only to find a mystery leak in my bathroom that has water all over the floor … just when my landlords are out of town for the weekend. So I spend the whole day home, hoping for a call from the (Lithuanian, not Polish) handyman-contractor guy to see if someone can come fix this thing so I can use my bathroom.
12. My landlords are generous enough to tell me to just use the bathroom in their place (for which they have just (conveniently) left me a key. And, ok, yeah, that will work since I can’t use the toilet in my house … but it’s really awkward, too, especially since they have a friend coming in to walk their dogs. But of course, I did go on up when nature called. I’m just glad their friend didn’t choose just that moment to come in for the dogs! And what do I do in the middle of the night? I’m already in my pajamas, and I’m certainly not going outside and up to their house at midnight. Hmm …

And that’s just the highlight reel! (Have you noticed that I do an awful lot of exclaiming? Enough that I could be a staff writer for Rex Morgan, M.D.!)

K’s wedding was nice. She was gorgeous and soooo happy. And I finally got to see the inside of the huge church we rent our building from. (It’s lovely inside, not oppressive at all!) And tomorrow I get to go out to Westchester to see my niece and nephew perform in their school musical. That is going to be a lot of fun! My camera battery is charging even as I type this!