I know, I know. Thanksgiving is over. Time for a new post. Well, I’ve been busy…
I’ve been learning a lot about maintaining a thirty year old pinball machine. And, ummm, playing one.
Digesting food. Seriously. I weighed myself TDay evening, and then again then next morning (barely–it was almost afternoon). Six pounds difference. I don’t know where it goes. Well, I guess I know where at least some of it goes.
Trying to stay ahead of my video class. Since there aren’t as many hardware issues this quarter, things are moving along much more quickly. I have a couple of pairs who are two weeks ahead of last quarter. D’oh.
Enjoying our 70+ degree weather. In November. Sorry. It’s one of the reasons I live here.
Reading. Latest in progress:
- Damned
(narrated from Hell by a 13 year old girl…there are certain contexts when a 13 year old girl’s perspective is the best one to have), by Chuck Palahniuk, the same guy who wrote Fight Club (never read it or seen it… I might now). Damned funny. Sorry.
- 1Q84
by Haruki Murakami (an epic in three parts totaling 1000+ pages — I’m about 1/4 of the way in). I love his work. It’s just so…so…precise.
- Dark Tide
by Stephen Puleo. Nonfiction account of the Great Molasses Flood of 1919 in Boston. A 2.5 million gallon tank of molasses burst (due to greed and mismanagement), and flooded a whole neighborhood 15 feet deep in molasses. Dozens of people died. Great reading. The company tried to blame it on “anarchists.”
Anyway, I was looking through the archives, looking for something funny that I hadn’t rerun before. Preferably from the early days, so it’s new to some of you.
I found one from January ’09, back when I used to teach Tom Sawyer. I had almost forgotten about this one already. (I guess that’s what happens when you turn fitty. OMG! I’ve started getting AARP mailings already.)
Yesterday, we were going over chapter three, where Tom sees Becky (“The Adored Unknown”) for the first time, and falls in love. He shows off for her and she tosses a pansy over her shoulder. They always ask why he picks it up with his foot.
“Being a boy, he can’t be seen picking up a flower. So he’s trying to be all nonchalant about it”
There are also always some that ask what a pansy is, even after I just get through with my previous response. This time though, a girl in my friendly class says,
“Oh, now I get it. It was a pansy, like the flower. Phew. I was a little worried about this book. I kept wondering.”
“Why?”
“I thought it said panties.”
Let’s all just take a moment to contemplate the reaction a seventh grade class might have to a line like this. Pandemonium. I counted at least three kids laughing so hard they were crying. For the rest of the period, once we got back to some semblance of normalcy, there were random giggles and guffaws and lip-biting. Even today,
“Remember yesterday when “Kara” said panties?”
I thought I was going to need a mop for under “Chuck’s” desk.
