If you have a problem, if no one else can help, and if you can find them...

Classes are over, final exams are in progress, and it's easy to find a parking space on the D2U campus. The English Department is nice and quiet; only a few faculty members are here at this early point in the day. (Very few of us grade final exams in our offices. Most go home to do that.) My two Intro to Lit classes will be turning in their final essay and their take-home final on Tuesday. I sent out an e-mail to both classes last night, reminding them that I'll be leaving at 12:05pm sharp on Tuesday, so their assignments had better be turned in by then. Grades are due by noon on Wednesday.

SBCC also wraps up this week, thank God. Grades there are due by 10am Friday, but I plan to have mine done by Thursday afternoon at the very latest. I'll be turning in grades for both classes at the branch campus closest to my house--I'm staying the hell away from Dr. Murphy's office on the main campus. My SBCC online students are extremely pissed off (with good reason, of course), and there is nothing I can do to make them less so. Dr. Murphy can say nothing more to make me realize I need to do a better job. One more semester is all SBCC will get from me. Then some other poor sucker can have the online English gig come January 1.

I'm looking to report SBCC to some governmental authority about their contract-signing practices, but I don't know where to go. Here's the deal: adjunct faculty don't get to sign a contract at the beginning of each term, as they do at every other place. Part-timers sign their contracts at the end of the term, and the contracts are dated to reflect the beginning of said term. Am I the only one who's weirded out by this? Is there anything illegal about it? And why on earth would any employer conduct business in such a shoddy way?

When I began teaching at SBCC, I was just desperate for a job and didn't bother to ask when I'd get to sign a contract. Now that I'm wiser about such things, it makes me think the college is looking for an easy way to fire part-timers mid-way through the semester if they choose to do so: "Oh, well, you didn't sign a contract, so you have no claim to the rest of your pay. Too bad!" Something's rotten in the state of Alabama, and I think it's SBCC. (OK, so there's a lot that's rotten over there, but we won't go into it now.)

Where do I turn to report this sort of contractual weirdness/shoddiness? Sadly, adjunct professors' unions have zero presence down here, so calling them won't do any good. Should I call the college accreditation board? The Governor's office? The A-Team?

Can I get a witness?

Wandering Author commented the other day in response to my breaking the "rules" for my SBCC English class:

Sadly, it seems to be the skilled teachers and professors who are able to find better options, and the incompetent, who cannot do better for themselves, who stick it out. If the system really cared about educating students, it would take note of this phenomenon and make it worthwhile for the gifted teachers to continue teaching...

Word! I couldn't agree more, W.A.

School will (mostly) be done by August 4, so I'll put together a portfolio/intense-peer-review system post around that time. I hope E&P readers will find it informative and helpful. It's revolutionized my teaching, and the quality of students' papers has gone up dramatically since I began using it seven months ago.

My friend Linda-Lou*, a full-time professor at D2U, met me for drinks the other night at our favorite local hangout. She, too, taught at SBCC once upon a time; Linda-Lou* kept up my schedule for several years before she got the job at D2U. (This may come as a surprise to some, but college English professors can really put away the booze.)

"SBCC had two full-time positions open up this spring," I told LL between sips of my drink, "but I didn't even bother applying for them. I'd rather stay an adjunct at four different places and struggle than teach somewhere that's so damn conservative that a person can't even access NPR.org from a school computer. Seriously--when I type 'npr.org' into the address bar, the school's computer warning pops up. 'This Site Has Been Blocked by Small 'Bama Community College Due to Objectionable Content.' And besides, I don't think they're smart enough to hire someone like me, who has teaching experience and new ideas and wants to see students do better."

"Yeah," Linda-Lou* sighed, "it is mighty conservative over there." She took a deep swig of her Long Island Iced Tea. "More than anything else, though--what really sealed the deal for me was how I kept seeing the same students over and over in my classes, students who'd taken English 101 five and six times, and whose money SBCC just kept taking and taking. These kids either should've been asked to leave the school, or they should've been put back into an intense remedial program. But SBCC just keeps on taking their money, keeps putting them back in classes where they'll never pass, semester after semester. Classes where the instructors get in trouble if too many people pass--and those students earned their passing grades. It's almost as if they're scamming the Pell Grant program, you know? That's what made me finally leave. It was just unethical, and it hurt my heart to participate in the whole thing."

I nodded. "I had a guy in my very first class over there who was taking English 101 for the fifth time. He told me it took him four tries to pass the remedial reading class, too. He'd finished his diploma requirements four years before, and the only thing holding him back was English. He was afraid that all his coursework was going to expire before he passed the class." I finished my Crown-Royal-'n-Coke. "And he didn't pass my class, either. Had a 66 average--a solid D."

We changed the conversation to happier topics: Linda-Lou's two young sons; her husband's getting named Athletic Director at the local high school; Neko Case's latest CD. But what she told me about SBCC kept echoing through my mind. And I kept thinking how glad I was to be leaving SBCC in December, with or without the extra money coming in from elsewhere.

Taking heart

Horoscope for Scorpio, Saturday, July 29, 2006:
Life is on the upswing for you today, dear Kitty. People finally are coming around to see matters from your perspective. There is no need to doubt yourself for any reason. Look in the mirror and know that the person you are looking at is capable of accomplishing anything. Your powerful emotions are your allies today. Don't be afraid to let your heart speak up loudly and clearly, the way it wants to.

Sure was nice to see this today. I feel better already.

Summer of Tomato Glory: Update #2

While the 'Better Boy' hybrids continue to produce fruit, they're still experiencing this weird dieback. The formerly yellow branches are now brown. Mom and I moved this container off the patio and onto the grass, hoping it's simply too much heat that's causing the problem.



Ah-ha! This one's ready to go!



The first tomatoes of the season, in all their cracked, green-spotted glory!



Oops--in our excitement to move the container, Mom and I knocked a nice green one off the vine. More for Myrtle Mae!



Well, that didn't take long.



Here's another 'Better Boy' ripening up...



...and here's a 'Rutgers,' about a week behind.



This is up here solely for the benefit of my architect sister, who has a deadline today, but alas, no BBQ.

Mr. Greenjeans treated me to lunch today at my favorite BBQ joint. From left: chopped pork barbeque, Brunswick stew in tall bowl, blackeyed peas in shallow bowl, white bread. Heh.

A day off (sort of)

Yesterday was the last day of Summer Term at D2U. Thankfully, I'm (mostly) able to take today off. I'm returning a few students' e-mails and phone calls, but other than that, I'm doing very, very little. It was a real treat to be able to sleep in until 10:00 this morning...ahhhh. Mom will be dropping by shortly with some lunch. I requested Taco Bell, combo #4 (four crunchy Taco Supremes). Junk Mexican food is calling, and I must answer.

My washer should be fixed relatively soon. It's been broken since October 2005, and I told the repair tech that if it'll save me some money, he can just wait until he has another repair call in the area. I have three different places to wash clothes in the meantime--people who don't mind my coming over and using their hot water while socializing. Seriously, if it's been broken this long, I can surely wait a little longer to get it fixed. [grin] I just like knowing it's going to be fixed fairly soon.

Hope everyone's having a nice Thursday!

Tomorrow: Summer of Tomato Glory Update #2

Thou lily-livered bladderwag!

Shakespearean Insulter

See? Folks were playing the dozens even back in 16th-century England.

This is wonderful, random fun--nobody makes up insults like Wild Bill. The site even has an "Insult Me Again!" button you can press for more random insults in Elizabethan English. The best things about it are that...

1. it'll make you laugh in the middle of your otherwise intellectually pedestrian day, and
2. if you use the insults on anyone, he/she probably won't have the faintest idea what you just called him/her.

How do I not give a damn? Let me count the ways.

Perhaps--just perhaps--I should count instead the different directions this post is taking.

• Usually, I dread seeing on my cell phone display that I have a voicemail. But today I'm on edge for the appliance repair shop to call. I finally have the money to get my washing machine fixed--it's only been broken since October!--and I'm past ready to be able to do laundry at home again. I keep looking at the phone and muttering, "Call! Call! CALL, for Pete's sake!" under my breath. Students passing by in the hall now know I've lost my mind.
• Wednesday--tomorrow--is the last day of Summer classes at D2U, and it'll be here not a moment too soon. I'm only having office hours this week, as 1) students are finishing up their end-of-term projects and will need extra individual help, and 2) my brain has turned to complete mush and is no longer capable of maintaining an interesting discussion about literature. I have had one student come by to chat about his essay this morning. My only other visitors have been Mr. Greenjeans and a lost student who was looking for the Academic Advising Office.
• The new version of BlackBoard is giving me a hell of a time. I went to the trouble to write up a new quiz for my Tiny Tech online Comp I class, but now I can't get the damn thing to make itself viewable to the students. Aaaaaarrrgh! Any BlackBoard aficionados out there who can help? I sure would hate to write up another seven quizzes only to have them stay invisible. I keep clicking "Yes" under "Make Quiz Available to Students," but to no avail.
• Isn't the writing process a wonderful and mysterious thing? I love the portfolio system that I use at D2U, as it's helped improve students' writing in just the short time I've used it. The department head and the chair of First-Year Writing also think it's great, and they helped me with some new ideas to further implement it in my teaching. So I get extremely frustrated when, after a day at D2U of this wonderful new way of helping students make their writing better, I go over to SBCC for my evening classes to find the "in-class essays only" paradigm still hanging on for dear life. (For those who don't know: I'm currently teaching one in-person class and one online class at SBCC. For the online class, things are very different anyway--they have to be.) Most SBCC students will eventually go on to four-year colleges, and I think they deserve to be prepared when they get there. Almost never will an English professor at a four-year college or university ask stduents to write an in-class essay for anything other than the final exam. Sure, I can understand SBCC's wanting to do in-class essays, as they cut down on cheating...but it's damn hard to cheat on an English essay these days, thanks to TurnItIn and other anti-plagiarism technologies. And 16 weeks of in-class essays only make writers underconfident and doubtful of their abilities.
  
  So I broke the rules last week and started using the class-wide, anonymous peer review portfolio system with my in-person SBCC class. I did as professors do at four-year institutions and coached them through the stages of the writing process, then I let them write their rough drafts at home and bring them in for peer review. The final drafts were also revised/expanded at home, e-mailed to me for comment, and turned in clean and retyped. And guess what? It works SO WELL for the students!

To hell with what anyone thinks. It's helping improve my students' writing--out of a class of 15 students, 13 scored higher on the new system essays than they did on the in-class essays. They'd managed to catch major mistakes (such as comma splices, sentence fragments, and run-on sentences) long before the final versions reached my desk. They'd managed to catch organizational problems and logical flaws before I saw them and counted off for them. And they'd seen for themselves how their writing is getting better! That's the most amazing thing!

As my SBCC students were leaving last night, many stopped to talk with me and have me give them extra feedback on their essays. Six of them made it a point to tell me they were really enjoying the new system. "I got so many helpful opinions on my paper," one said. "Yeah!" another chimed in. "The people who've looked over my paper had some really good points, and I think it's really helped me out. And since it's anonymous, they're not afraid to hurt my feelings. They can be honest about what I need to fix, but nice about it, too."

Out of the mouths of students...

SBCC's English Department will not be adopting this system; if my supervisor finds out that I've strayed from the all-essays-written-in-class model, I'll be in hot water. But, as I said before, I am fresh out of give-a-damn. My job is to help students, not stick with the status quo. My job is to help students, not to make someone who's been there 43 years feel justified in sticking with the same old pedagogy. All of us need a kick in the pedagogical pants now and then. If my views and methods don't change every once in a while, I know I'm getting stale and need to either switch things around...or get the hell out of teaching.

I think SBCC's English Department revels in keeping students unable to write, unaware of their own power as writers. Staying stuck in 1952 and ignoring new research and technology--as well as the needs of their students!--gives them a reason to continue doing as they've been all along. Very sad.

Too bad that I won't be sticking around long enough to let SBCC folks in on how great this system is for improving student writing. I've had enough of my ideas falling on deaf and willfully ignorant ears.

Summer of Tomato Glory: Update #1

My tomato plants are doing fairly well, despite the heat and drought. Yes, I know the cages are upside down. Leave it to my neighbors to let me put them on incorrectly and not say anything until the damn plants are too big for me to safely remove the cages. [sigh]



Except for this weird yellowing of a few branches, everything's all right with the 'Better Boy' hybrids. All I can figure is it's the extreme heat causing the wilting. A big dose of lime got rid of the blossom-end rot.



The sign does seem to help.

These plants are 14" taller than those without "Grow...Damn It!" Field trials begin next spring, in conjunction with the University of Georgia Agricultural Extension Service.



Lewis, you haven't been "watering" Mama's tomatoes, have you?



How about you, nutty bird? Oh, you're just sneaking a juicy green 'mater now and then. No bother. You can pay me back in eggs.



Despite the yellowing branches, a few tomatoes are beginning to ripen. I should have loads of ripe ones within a week.



The 'Rutgers' heirloom tomatoes are doing really well--no problems to speak of. They seem happy in the same bed with the gladioli and the peony, believe it or not. They'll be ripe within the next two weeks.

In the meantime, Mom's got some weird bugs eating her tomatoes. We thought it might be severe sunscald at first, but the pencil-sized, black-and-gray decayed areas definitely look as if something's burrowed its way into the fruit--some type of borer? Anything's possible. Sadly, Organic Gardening has been less than helpful as we try to figure out how to get rid of whatever this is ruining her precious tomatoes. Has this happened to anyone else's tomatoes besides Mom's? Dammit, this is the Summer of Tomato Glory! All bugs and pathogens, step off!

Tell me something I don't know

Career Outlook for Scorpio, July 23, 2006
You are off balance today with regard to your career. As you reflect on the past few days, you realize that the bottom line is that you are not emotionally satisfied through your work. Be more conscious of this in order to manifest change.

I can't think of a time when my daily horoscope has been more accurate. The other day, my career outlook was forecasting a "large bomb" in the middle of my best-laid plans. Yep!

It was the kick in the butt I needed. I hope the renewed energy will help me pull through the last few months at SBCC. I've decided I'm leaving there at the end of Fall Semester whether or not I have something else lined up--I can cut back and survive without the extra dough for a little while.

The Kitty Spice Channel

Clark & Davy in an intimate moment.

I'm still speechless, so I'll just let you E&P readers caption this yourselves.

Update on Student from Hell #312

Both phone numbers that #312 left for me to call her back (URGENT! URGENT! URGENT!) have been "temporarily disconnected."

She really, really cares about getting those grades changed. Oh, yeah. So much so that nobody can reach her by phone. And the letters I've sent to the address she listed in her student records come back marked "undeliverable."

What will be even more costly than her past-due cell phone bill? Her past-due karmic bill.

Ha.

Poultry in motion

A too-soft Georgia-grown peach--or any leftover fruit or vegetable--never goes to waste when you have a backyard chicken.

At the right edge of the photo is a watermelon rind that a certain Chicken Grandmama brought us today. Myrtle Mae will have completely hollowed it out, down to a bare 1/8" of green-striped skin, by this time tomorrow.

There's nothing like fresh free-range eggs from a chicken who eats mostly bugs, weeds, and fruit. Even a novice palate can taste the difference.

Tomorrow: Summer of Tomato Glory Update

One small happy thing

So it's not that small. More like 12" x 16" x 18".

Yes, I have a new air conditioner in my bedroom window, which I bought and my friend Mr. Greenjeans installed. (What a sweet guy!) Now I can sleep without soaking the bed linens in sweat.

Today Dr. Murphy* from SBCC called me again. We had a frank conversation about my awful performance in teaching that school's online classes, and I was as up-front with him as I could possibly be. I told him I was working four jobs to make ends meet, and that that was why I had been a non-presence in the class. (I didn't tell him about, on top of all this other crap, my utter disgust and heartbreak over the end of my four-year relationship with the Colonel. That would've been Too Much Information.) Dr. Murphy said he wanted me to keep on teaching the class, but only if I felt I could do a good job at it. I told him that I'd give Fall Semester another shot, and that I'd let him know as soon as I could whether I'd be able (or willing) to do it for Spring Semester.

I'm not sure whether I made the right decision there. I'm so burned out right now that my stomach falls at the mere thought of Fall Semester. I wanted to tell Dr. Murphy, "No, sir, I just can't do it. My heart isn't in it, and I'm a much better teacher in an actual classroom. Hope you can find someone on this short notice--forgive me for not resigning sooner. I'll see you folks somewhere down the road." But I don't have anything lined up to take SBCC's place in the monthly cavalcade of paychecks, so I didn't tell him that I wanted to give up the class.

Dr. Green*, SBCC's wonderful crazy-Southern-belle tech division chair, left me a message today. She was offering me two sections of Technical Writing--one on Monday mornings, and one on Friday mornings. (Fall and Spring SBCC classes meet at very odd times, and only one day per week.) I've not yet called her back. I just don't know whether I can handle anything else. I'd love the extra money, but something tells me I'm really going to need my Monday and Friday mornings in the fall.

But I started looking around on the internet and made a couple of phone calls at lunch today. There might be something else, something different, out there for me; I'm in a wait-and-see mode. So just maybe I can push through Fall--just four more months, starting August 17--and find something else to fill the void come January. I sure am tired of SBCC's low pay and students who don't give a damn about learning. This is the kick in the butt I've been needing.

It was all I could do to teach my D2U classes today. My students could tell something was wrong. "Miss Kitty? Are you all right?" one of my basketball players asked as I hung my head in front of the snack machine and stared blankly at Cheez-Its and Little Debbies. "You sure look like you don't feel well." I walked into my 11:00 class and felt a weird vibe pass through the room. "You feelin' okay, Miss Kitty?" two students asked in unison. "Yeah, I'm fine," I mumbled. We ended up having great discussions in both classes, though; maybe my students felt they needed to pep me up. God bless them.

Until a little relief comes along, I'm shell-shocked, dull, lifeless--a zombie in professor's clothing.

Student from Hell #312

As you'll recall from yesterday's post, I've finally hit burnout stage and am trying to deal with it as best I can until I figure out what the hell else to do. But I felt a little better after writing that post, and I left Division II University on Monday afternoon still feeling shell-shocked but ready to push for another week and get done with Summer Term.

Boo-Boo the Wonder Truck likes to go only 55mph when I'm running the air conditioning, but I had to get to SBCC quickly, so I used the 270 Air Conditioning System yesterday (2 windows down, 70 mph). With a heat index of 105 degrees baking me as I drove down the highway, I arrived at Small 'Bama Community College sweaty, limp, and exhausted, but otherwise okay. But the campus administrator met me at the door with bad news. Student from Hell #312 had resurfaced, and she had gotten the Academic Dean involved this time. "Dr. Murphy* wants you to call him about a student," she said. "He's already gone home for the day, but he'll be in at 8:00 tomorrow."

Ahh, Student from Hell #312. She was in my SBCC online comp class in Spring 2005 and quickly distinguished herself as combative, rude, and willfully ignorant. After I didn't reply to an e-mail from her as quickly as she would have liked, I got this message from her:

i cant believe your disregard 4 your studnts not email me back when i have a problem IF I FAIL THIS CLASS IM GONNA BLAME IT ON YOU!!!! i fell it is your fault that im not doin well this is my last em,ail until i hear from you

And even though I e-mailed #312 right back that she was indeed passing the class (she had a C- average when she bothered to use SpellCheck), it really was the last I heard from her.

This is how our teacher-student relationship started out. I wish I could have whooped her ass in the SBCC parking lot, but that was out of the question (even though #312 sure was asking for a knuckle sandwich, and I could've defeated her in under three rounds by either a TKO or a unanimous judges' decision). None of my schools pay me enough to put up with this kind of treatment, though, nor to deal assertively/kindly with this kind of person, so to keep from getting any more grief from this rotten bitch, I gave her an Incomplete at the end of the semester. This allowed her an extra school term (about ten weeks) to turn in those last two essays. I was trying not to give her the F she had earned--talk about bending over backwards for someone. And I thought it odd that I didn't hear from her immediately after final grades went out; I expected a phone call or e-mail asking, "What's this 'I' on my report card, and how do I fix it?"

Someone once defined insanity as "doing the same thing over and over again while expecting different results." I expected logic, reason, and a level head from a person who had absolutely none of these qualities, so I guess I was at least temporarily insane. But I let the whole situation and #312 drop from my mind. What the hell, I thought. At least she'll have done it to herself and gotten the F she earned.

As luck would have it, I was at SBCC during the last week of Summer Term, giving the final exam for my Comp 2 class, when my cell phone jumped off my desk and into the floor like a cheap string of firecrackers. I picked it up and saw no fewer than ten pages from an Alabama phone number: URGENT! they all read. PLEASE CALL 555-1234. URGENT!

It was #312, wondering about her incomplete. Why the hell weren't you worried about this 12 weeks ago? I wondered silently. I explained to her as nicely as I could that I wasn't sure I'd be able to change her grade to what she'd earned, as it was almost too late. But if she got those papers in in the next three days, I could change it and she wouldn't get an F.

Of course, I got the papers two weeks later. So her "I" became an F.

The next term, she began calling me, calling my supervisors, calling the college president. "Miss Kitty robbed me!" she'd shout to anyone who'd listen. (Of course, not many people were listening, so she had to call many more.) She'd call twice a day for a couple of days, then back off for six weeks, then begin the barrage of phone calls again.

So finally, this week, she got SBCC's Dr. Murphy, my big boss, involved. "Just take care of it," he told me a few minutes ago on the phone. "Whether it's an F she'd earned, or whether you decide to change it to the C you mentioned, what you decide will be final, and I'll either change the F or let it stand. Whatever you decide will be it. But she's making a lot of noise about the whole thing, so please make sure you get it settled quickly."

"Yes sir," I replied. "I'll call her this afternoon and straighten things out. Thanks for your help."

"And another thing," Dr. Murphy continued. "On the online English class: make sure you're responding to your students' e-mails, because they get really uptight and start calling everybody down here--I've heard from a couple, Dr. ______ has heard from a couple, the IT department's heard from a couple...don't leave them out in the cold, all right?"

"Yes, sir," I replied, rather embarrassed. "I certainly will get right on that."

I am changing #312's grade to a C, even though she earned an F and deserves an ass-whipping. I'm letting my SBCC online students by with the bare minimum for end-of-term requirements, and I will still e-mail them as infrequently as I can. I don't care whether they learned anything. I don't care whether anyone has learned anything this term.

I am going to Professor Hell for this. Or perhaps I'm already there.

No serenade, no fire brigade, just pyromania

Last night I came to the realization that I am really, truly burned out. This is neither PMS nor summer-itis, but instead the real thing: Career Burnout.

I was talking on the phone with my sister right before I went to bed, and when she asked if I'd gotten any grading or lesson-planning done over the weekend, I answered, "Nope, and I don't give a shit, either." And I really didn't, which was scary.

I haven't returned my students' grades to them, and we have only ten days to go in the term. Most of them have no idea where they stand in the class--whether they're going to pass or fail. The midterm "free withdrawal" point was weeks ago. This is extremely slack on my part and grossly unfair to them. And I don't care. Well, OK, I care about the unfairness to my students, so I'm probably going to go really easy on their papers. And I don't care if some get away with higher grades than they earned. I just don't. Leave me alone and I won't bite your head off is the message my expression and demeanor must be giving out. Ten students (of 40 total) have come to meet with me this term. And I still don't care. To hell with it all.

Mr. Greenjeans stopped into my office on his morning break and asked me, "Are you feeling okay?" I replied that I was--you know, the reply we give people when we want to be polite yet left alone to wallow in our private misery. But he insisted: "No, Kitty, really. Because you don't look okay. What's the matter?" After he left, I went into the ladies' room and took a look in the mirror. Despite my great new hairdo and doing nothing all weekend, I still look as if I've been pulling all-nighters all semester long. I've got it all: dark circles under my eyes, blotchy/dull complexion, puffy eyelids, weight gain, bloodshot eyes. What happened to the fun, healthy-looking English instructor I used to see in the mirror every morning? The one who loved her job(s) and her students and everything comp & lit?

As the old cliche goes, it's a vicious cycle:

• Because none of my part-time teaching jobs pay very well, and because I can't get a full-time one, I have to work three or four of them to make ends meet.
• Working three or four jobs (and teaching six to ten classes per semester), I get burned out and exhausted.
• When I'm burned out and exhausted, I do a less-than-stellar job of teaching.
• When I do a less-than-stellar job of teaching, the schools for whom I teach are more likely to keep me as a part-timer instead of offering me a full-time position.*
• Because none of these part-time teaching jobs pay very well, and because I can't get a full-time one, I have to work three or four of them to make ends meet.

No doubt there'll be a few readers who say, "Well, if it were me, I'd do something. I'd just get out of that situation." What would you do? Do you have the ability to force colleges to hire you full-time and give you benefits in the face of shrinking state budgets and high overheads? Please clue me in on how you do this, because I'd sure love to know. Do you have a sugar daddy? I'm currently accepting applications, so please send any leftover lonely, wealthy men my way. Can you predict your lottery numbers? Please tell me how you do it, because the Georgia Lottery's at $49,000,000 this week, and I sure would like to go buy my guaranteed-to-hit ticket this afternoon.

If you think you can do a better job than me, come the hell on. Come teach ten sections of first-year comp every semester and we'll see how you hold up. I'd love to see people like Bill O'Reilly or Sean Hannity give it a try. Or even Georgia Governor Sonny Perdue. The three of them would last a week combined. "Where's your Protestant work ethic now?" I'd taunt them. "What's the matter? You chicken-shit? Can't handle a bunch of 18-year-olds? Can't help the poor little things write worth a damn? Oh, now, come on! You've said yourselves that teachers have it easy! So how come you can't do it?"

Back in March, I met a fellow college instructor at the PAC conference who earned his Ph.D. from the University of South Carolina a few years ago. He was presenting a paper the next day and was then flying back out of the country on Sunday. I asked where he was going, and he replied, "Back to [relatively liberal Middle Eastern country]. I teach English as a Second Language at So-and-So University in [capital city]." When I asked why he taught there, he replied that jobs in his home state of ______ were scarce for someone with his degree and expertise, and that going overseas had earned him a really good salary and the respect that he couldn't get in the U.S. He told me, "A colleague of mine at Cow-Tipping College has just been hired full-time there. He got his Ph.D. ten years ago, and he's been keeping up your kind of schedule all this time."

I've been doing this ultra-heavy course load thing for almost two years, and I'm burned out. I can't even fathom another eight such years. And I don't even have a Ph.D. If I go to the trouble (and expense!) to get one, chances are that I'll have to wait just as long for full-time employment as my acquaintance's colleague did. And the few full-time jobs that do occasionally open up while I'm stuck here? Oh, they want people who have Ph.Ds, not highly-qualified people with only Master's degrees. It's a crapshoot all the way around.

Never, ever in my wildest dreams did I imagine that having a graduate degree would mean I'd be working three or four jobs just to make ends meet. I can't quit any of my jobs, no matter how much I need a break. The mortgage has to get paid, and I have to eat.

I don't know what to do. I know that something has to change, but I don't know what. Sis said last night, "Look at it like this: you've been priming the pump for a while now..."

"You sound like my old acting coach," I told her. "Whenever I was starving and not getting any work, he'd tell me, 'Oh no, you're just paying your dues and priming the pump.' It was such bullshit."

"Well, you've gotta consider the source with him, because he is full of bullshit," she told me. "But try thinking of it like this: you've been setting up the dominoes for a couple of years now. When the right thing finally happens, all of your dominoes will fall out of the way quickly and easily, just zooooom! because you took the time to set them up evenly and correctly. See what I'm saying?"

I could see what she was saying, and I thanked her for helping. "But I keep thinking that that light at the end of the tunnel is a train," I said.

Really, though: isn't that the whistling I hear?

*FYI: At many colleges, a mediocre instructor is better than none at all. This is why a large number of colleges keep mediocre instructors as part-timers instead of firing them and hiring good ones.

Too hot to lay an egg? Not quite!

Rhode Island Red hens lay, on average, 260 eggs per year--amazing. And what's even more amazing is that Myrtle Mae has laid an egg 32 of the last 33 days, despite a heat index of 100+ degrees on many of those days. Right beneath the gas meter, of course.

We interrupt regularly scheduled programming to bring you this Myrtle Mae break

Chicken Smorgasbord! All you can eat! Tomatoes and cilantro! All for the low, low price of ONE EGG!

I thought you folks out there in E&P-Land would enjoy a new Myrtle Mae picture. Above, she's enjoying the trimmings from fresh salsa. She made very short work of this plate of cilantro stems, wilted leaves, and tomato pieces. It took her a day to slurp it all up, and she gave me that thoughtful head-turned-sideways chicken look and clucked for more.

Here are a couple of rather interesting links, which I found via WordSmith.org's weekly e-newsletter:

• The Language Police and the Quesadilla
• California man makes bad writing judges cringe
• Reuters: "Mind Your Language, This is Malaysia"

A meme. Why the hell not?

I got this via e-mail and am simply too lazy to send it back out that way. And too lazy to think of any interesting, insightful blog postings this afternoon. Today's heat index is 101, for Pete's sake.

1. First name? Miss Kitty, here in the blogosphere.
2. Were you named after anyone? The saloon owner on Bonanza.
3. When did you last cry? Last weekend, when I realized that the Colonel really is an idiot and that he will probably never change.
4. Do you like your handwriting? Yes. I'd better like it. I'm the only one who can read it.
5. What is your favorite lunchmeat? Publix deli chicken salad, with almonds and tarragon.
6. If you were another person, would you be friends with you? Yes.
7. Do you have a journal? Yes, if you count this blog.
8. Do you use sarcasm a lot? Oh no. I'd never do that, not in a million years. [rolls eyes]
9. Do you still have your tonsils? Yes, amazingly.
10. Would you ever bungee jump? Maybe.
11. What is your favorite cereal? I like Cocoa Pebbles and Cracklin' Oat Bran.
12. Do you untie your shoes when you take them off? Yes, if they have laces. Hard to do that if they don't.
13. What's your favorite ice cream flavor? Homemade custard-based peach ice cream, that Mom & I make every summer. Full-fat milk, heavy cream, eggs, fresh peaches...mmmmm.
14. Shoe size? 7.
15. Red or pink? Both.
16. What do you like least about yourself? That I'm an awful, habitual, disastrous procrastinator. And I have no idea how to change this, either, which makes me hate it all the more.
17. Who do you miss the most? My dad (died January 1997) and my sister (lives 1500 miles away in Colorado).
18. What color pants and shoes are you wearing now? Actually, I have on a Madras plaid seersucker dress, sewn by my mom, in bright jewel tones. Shoes: black-and-blue woven flip-flops, $3.99 at Wal-Mart.
19. What are you listening to right now? National Public Radio and the noise of the fans in the house trying to keep me cool.
20. If you were a crayon, what color would you be? New Orleans Bordello Red.
21. Favorite smells? The outdoors; lavender; citrus; cedar; incense (especially moldavite and the stuff the Episcopal Church burns on high holy days); old-fashioned roses; collards & yellow squash cooking for Sunday dinner; my sister's house; freshly-cut grass; gasoline; dirt; a freshly-painted room; sawdust; tomato plants; fresh corn husks; bread; kitty fur; Old Spice aftershave.
22. Last person you spoke to on the phone? My sister.
23. The first thing you notice about people to whom you're attracted? How they treat others.
24. Do you like the person who sent this to you? Yes! She's my mommy!
25. Favorite drink? Amaretto sour...barring that, either Crown Royal or Jack Daniels & Diet Coke.
26. Favorite sport? None, really, unless you count competitive reading as a sport.
27. Eye color? Blue-gray.
28. Hat size? Ummm...whatever size Mom sews that fits.
29. Do you wear contacts? Sometimes. Usually have on my glasses, though; you know, the "professor trying to pretend she's not a hot chick" thing.
30. Favorite food? Potatoes!
31. Scary movies or happy ending? Neither. I prefer the classics or independent films--movies with brains, excellent acting, and well-written scripts.
32. Last movie you watched at the theater? Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire. I guess this fact totally undermines my credibility on #31, doesn't it?
33. What color shirt are you wearing? Please see #18.
34. Summer or winter? Summer. I'm so much less depressed when it gets dark at 9:30pm every night. Plus fresh veggies are hard to come by in January.
35. Hugs or kisses? Both.
36. Favorite dessert? Please see #13.
37. What book are you currently reading? The Bedford Introduction to Literature, 7th edition, edited by Michael Meyer (my summer text for D2U classes).
38. Your mouse pad? Generic black Dell.
39. What did you watch on TV last night? Nothing. I don't have cable or satellite, and I rarely miss them.
40. Favorite sounds? Purring/meowing cats; thunder; rain; birds chirping in the morning; hummingbird wings; Myrtle Mae clucking; the high-pitched whine of a Ford fuel pump; the "big horn" on my stepdad's 18-wheeler; Mom's sewing machine; the whole-house fan on a hot summer night; rustling of tree leaves in the wind; snow/sleet falling.
41. Rolling Stones or Beatles? Both. "Smithers, have the Rolling Stones killed." "But, sir, those aren't the Rolling Stones." "Do as I say, Smithers."
42. Furthest you've ever been from home? Marseilles, France--August 1997.
43. What's your special talent? I'm a cat magnet.
44. When and where were you born? November 8, in Randolph County, Alabama.

95 degrees, 46% humidity...feels like 101.

Lewis just rolls in the kitchen floor because it's too hot to do anything else.



Little Guy's growing like a weed, despite the heat.



Myrtle Mae doesn't give a crap how hot it is, just so long as she's got fresh fruit. Brk-brk-brk!

I know you like to think your sh*t don't stink

I'm trying to write this blog entry in between quick trips outside the building--it's 63 degrees in my office and 83 degrees out there. Today's forecast for D2U-Land is 95 degrees. I'd stay in here more and get some work done, but I'm freezing to death. Honestly, I could hang a side of beef in here and not worry about it spoiling. If I leave my Diet Coke alone for any amount of time, I'll have a Slurpee with Splenda. Thank goodness for the poly-fleece shawl that Mom made for me; I'm wrapped up in it as I type.

Remember the three students who earned plagiarism F's in my classes back in June? I got a visit from one of them a few minutes ago. Ugh. I'd just talked to Dr. Pepper in the hall, and she'd given me a heads-up that the student had come to see her to try to get her F reversed, and that Cheatin' Student was probably going to pay me a visit today. Dr. Pepper looked over the student's paper, told her it looked really suspicious, and then told her to come see me. Oh, how I had hoped this mess was over. Guess not, because zoom! there was Cheatin' Student in all her hair-tossing glory, walking through the door of my office as if nothing were wrong.

She told me how she couldn't understand what had gone wrong, and that she "had a solid B in [my] class" before the F. This was not true, and I told Cheatin' Student so. "Actually, you were going to get a C. Those last two papers you turned in were not up to par, and neither was your final portfolio." Where on earth did she get that idea? I wondered to myself. Talk about willful suspension of disbelief. She mentioned that her English teachers at Uppity High School had taught her that "cut-and-paste was OK." I doubted this. "Who did you have for English at UHS?" I asked her. She had to think for a second before she could tell me their names. "Ummmmm...oh, I had a bunch of them: Mrs. T------, Mr. S------, Ms. D----..."

Mm-hmm. Whatever. There's no way a self-respecting English teacher from UHS, one of the best public high schools in the state, would tell students that cutting and pasting a research paper without citing sources is all right. I have half a mind to call over to Uppity High School and talk to some of these teachers--just to find out what they really taught.

"Oh, and I'm going out of the country on Saturday," Cheatin' Student added. "I'll be in [foreign location] for a month, so I wanted to get this settled either before I leave or while I'm over there." I was unimpressed, and I didn't appreciate this little bit of manipulation. If this is so important, why did you wait nearly two months to come see me? I wondered silently. And how do you think you're going to get me to make a new decision in two days? Suddenly, I recalled the e-mail that Cheatin' Student had sent me the week after I assigned her the F. In it, she wrote, "You're the only professor at D2U who has earned my respect."

What she didn't consider was whether she had earned my respect.

Cheatin' Student sat in the very back of the room all semester long, talking with her friends, giggling, not paying attention, falling asleep, walking in late, handing in sloppy work that was entirely too informal or didn't even answer the essay question...and so on. She was a slacker if I'd ever seen one. And when I discovered the cut-and-paste job on her research paper, my low opinion of her had been validated. She'd shown me enough of her character to tell me that she was one: a character who had the gall to plagiarize 53% of the research paper and expect not to get caught.

But, somehow, I couldn't just come out and tell her she was out of luck, that she was wasting her breath and my time. "Listen," I said. "This research paper looks really fishy. There are a dozen places in here that look like you cheated on purpose." I pointed out these places to her. "However, I'll give this some thought. It just doesn't look good, but I'll talk about it again with Dr. Pepper, and I'll let you know. If you don't agree with my decision, you can appeal it to Student Judiciary."

Of course, she told me she didn't want to go through Student Judiciary. I think she knows they'll find against her. But she thanked me and said she'd take her grammar book with her and keep checking her e-mail while she was overseas.

I don't know why I couldn't just tell her, "Tough titty." Maybe because I feel better doing it via e-mail? Maybe because I'm chickenshit? Maybe because I run from most conflicts where there aren't people around to help me out?

I think I'll call Uppity High School on Monday and try to get in touch with those (supposedly) cut-and-paste-endorsing English teachers.

Idiocy in motion

Today in D2U-land, it's 95 degrees with 45% humidity--and that's just what The Weather Channel website is telling me. So it's probably even hotter and more humid than that. If that's even possible. The serious drought we're experiencing this summer in Georgia has laid low almost every garden and yard, including much of the landscaping at D2U.

Lately, I've had the good fortune to become friends with Mr. Greenjeans, an older fellow who took a part-time job on the D2U landscaping crew when he retired early from his career with a major airline. Mr. Greenjeans is one hell of a nice guy, always stopping by to make me laugh or brighten my day--a real gentleman. (He was among the first to compliment me on my new hairdo, and he's been kind enough to bring me a homemade lunch twice in the last week.) Imagine Mr. Clean, except about 20 years older, without the earring and wearing a green Dickies work uniform, and you have a good picture of my new friend.

Today, Mr. Greenjeans stopped into my office during his 1:30 break. He flopped down in the chair I usually reserve for students. He was drenched with sweat. "You know," he sighed, "I've never minded hard work, but I sure do hate workin' for idiots."

I laughed. "Yeah, me too. What've your idiots got you doing today?"

"Well," he began, still mopping his brow, "Bubba Joe [D2U landscaping chief] has finally decided we need to start watering the big plants." He and I had noticed on Monday how pathetic the nine-feet-tall-and-wide azalea plants outside my building were looking; we exchanged a knowing look. "I mean, it takes azaleas 40 years to get that damn big, and once they die back, it'll take half that long for 'em to regain their form. Oh! But we've been watering little old petunias and monkey grass all this time, not the big foundation plantings. And Bubba Joe just said we're planting a whole truckload of roses out behind the Admin Building."

"More plants? In this weather?" I was astounded. "Isn't this campus already on water restriction, like the rest of the state?"

He rolled his eyes. "Yep. But that don't matter. Nope, we can't do any preventive gardening. Just plant somethin' else if what you got dies."

"Does Bubba Joe know anything about plants or gardening?"

"Sheeeeit, naw."

I grabbed the phone. "What's the number over there? I've got a handy Southern Living Garden How-To Guide to give him, teach him a thing or two!"

The joint is jumpin'

Whew! I'm glad the weekend is over. Maybe life will be sort of normal and ho-hum for a while. The less drama, the better. It wasn't all bad--mostly good--but I have to admit I sure do like my life better when things are boring.

First, the bad news: the Colonel is about to earn himself a one-way deployment to Ft. Dumpville, whereupon he will receive a dishonorable discharge for conduct unbecoming. If Hollywood made a movie about him, they'd have to title it An Officer and a Dumbass. It's sad that two people can spend four great years together only to have one party poop out and lose interest...and not have the guts to say, "I've found someone new, so maybe we should go our separate ways." Imagine: you're a 59-year-old man, and you date a good-looking 32-year-old woman who thinks you walk on water. What do you do? You shout it to the world, that's what! You tell her every day that you're happy to be with her! You go visit her every chance you get! But not the Colonel. Disappearing for a week or two at a time and offering up as his excuse, "Oh, I just don't stay by my phone all the time"--that's more his style. Hmph. He's recently accepted a new job back down here near D2U, which he claims will lead to our seeing each other more often, but my prediction is that I'll see even less of him when he's back down here than I did when he was living in the Great Hillbilly Yonder (and I told him as much). My guess is that he's been seeing someone else. He says he's not. But why else would someone be incommunicado for a week or so at a time? (Maybe he doesn't have another girlfriend, but rather a crystal meth habit I don't know about.) In any case, he's a moron. As my friends Troy and J.L. say, "Kitty, that's what you get for messing with a commissioned officer." (They were enlisted, just so you know.)

In happy news: I got a new hairdo over the weekend and am thrilled with it. I've had the same style for 14 years and decided I wanted a really drastic change, something that looked professional yet fun, and that didn't age my face or make me look dumpy. So my shoulder-length platinum blonde hair has been cropped to 1.5" in the back and 3" on top, kind of funky and spiky and fun. I love it! This is the best thing I've done for myself since I started bleaching it.

In crazy news: I realized at 2:00 Sunday morning that I had forgotten to retrieve Myrtle Mae's daily egg from her nesting spot. So I went out into the backyard to get it, only to find Myrtle walking around the yard, clucking softly and looking rather worried. At 2am? This had me rather concerned. But then I saw what had scared my red-feathered girl: an opossum in her nest. This possum was no bigger than Lewis--maybe five or six pounds--but ugly and and hissy and moth-eaten and fierce-looking, with its steel-pointed beady little eyes and its 92 teeth that all stuck out in different directions. BLEH!!! I knew it was about to eat Myrtle's precious egg, so I distracted it and looked for a stick to poke it out of my way. I didn't want to get any closer to it than absolutely necessary. So I found a flimsy dried-up privet-hedge stick...[pokepokepoke]...and the damn thing hissed and fell over on its side, eyes quickly glazing over. Oh God, I killed it! I thought. What am I supposed to do with a dead possum? But then I realized it was "playing possum"--going into a fake seizure to divert my attention and give it time to escape. So I poked it a dozen more times; "Hissssssss!" and more dead-possumness. It was NOT going anywhere. But I sure as hell wasn't going to touch it--possums carry all kinds of nasties from eating carrion and scrounging in garbage dumpters. I looked around for a way to move it so I could get the egg and go back indoors; I suddenly thought of my shovel. So I went around the side of the house, got the shovel, and returned to gently scoop up the thoroughly-frozen-on-its-side Still Life with Possum. I got him/her onto the shovel--no reaction--and walked outside the fence--still no reaction--and then gently lay the possum in the driveway...where it stayed for God knows how long. Then I collected the egg and got back indoors as quickly as I could.

The only trace of the possum in the morning was a small pile of dry leaves and straw that I'd scooped up under it from Myrtle's nest, so I was relatively certain I hadn't dreamed the whole thing. If only I'd had a camera that took good night-time photos!

How would you look if you had no ears?

Sweet as can be, that's how!

Plenty has happened this weekend that I look forward to sharing with all of you. I'm grading papers and revising syllabi right now, though, and will post the interesting things this evening. Gotta get this work done and off my mind!

Return to Sender

Where are we going, and why am I in this cage?



This cannot bode well for my fluffy ass.



Maybe I should try lying down. Perhaps the horrific visions will stop then.



Wait--this place smells familiar! [sniff sniff] Lemme outta here!



I have this overwhelming sense of deja vu...



Yep, this is home.



Mama, I love you. Thank you for rescuing me.


Dr. Mike called me Thursday morning while I was in my D2U office. "Miss Kitty, this is going to sound weird," he said, "but Elvis has already been neutered."

"WHAT?!?"

"Really, someone has already neutered Elvis. I thought he looked kind of small for an intact tomcat, so I examined him, and he doesn't have any testicles back there."

I was trying not to fall out of my chair. "You mean to tell me--so could they still be--"

"That's what I was thinking," Dr. Mike said. "He could be one of those orchidal bilaterals, which means his testes are still in his body and haven't descended. But cats with that condition are infertile. The higher temperature inside the body kills all the sperm cells, and they can't reproduce. I seriously doubt that's Elvis's condition. His head's just not big enough to be an intact male, and he doesn't have the big jowls or the muscular shoulders and front legs. He looks exactly like a neutered male cat, which is what he is."

"But what about the kittens in my neighborhood who look exactly like him?" I asked. I was beginning to chuckle now.

"I'm not sure. It could be that there's another cat in the neighborhood that looks a lot like Elvis who's the sire of the kittens, or perhaps Elvis impregnated the queen and then was fixed a short time later. When did you say they were born?"

I thought for a moment. "Umm, late March, I think. They're about three months old."

Dr. Mike paused. "Yeah, it is kind of weird, but I can tell you that Elvis isn't in the kitty-making business anymore."

So we shared a good laugh, and I asked the good doctor to give Elvis a rabies shot and put a small "neutered" notch in his ear. What a day! At least poor Elvis didn't have to go through the trauma of surgery again, just a shot and an ear-notching. But I think he thought he'd been abandoned again; he trembled so hard he shook the carrier most of the way home. I petted him through the bars and told him Mama had come to take him home, and that I wasn't going to throw him out ever-ever-ever. So I think he's forgiven me. I'll give him some Fancy Feast tonight just to be sure.

I guess I should call the Family Court judge and tell him to rescind the warrant for Elvis's arrest. No sense in paying kitty support if he's not their daddy.

New series on PBS

Faith & Reason with Bill Moyers

I saw an ad for this new PBS special on another site; I can't wait to see it. But what really grabbed my attention was this quote in the ad from Mary Gordon:

Faith without doubt is just either nostalgia or a kind of addiction.

Preach it, sister!

While the King's away...

YAWWWWN! Just a little Elvis filler until The King comes home tomorrow afternoon.

Courtesy of my friend Rob:
A cat died and went to Heaven. God met her at the gates and said, "You have been a good cat all these years. Anything you want is yours for the asking."

The cat thought for a minute and then said, "All my life I lived on a farm and slept on hard wooden floors. I would like a real fluffy pillow to sleep on."

God said, "Say no more." Instantly the cat had a huge fluffy pillow.

A few days later, six mice were killed in an accident and they all went to Heaven together. God met the mice at the gates with the same offer that He made to the cat.

The mice said, "Well, we have had to run all of our lives: from cats, dogs, and even people with brooms! If we could just have some little roller skates, we would not have to run again."

God answered, "It is done." All the mice had beautiful little roller skates.

About a week later, God decided to check on the cat. He found her sound asleep on her fluffy pillow. God gently awakened the cat and asked, "Is everything okay? How have you been doing? Are you happy?"

The cat replied, "Oh, it's wonderful. I have never been so happy in my life. This pillow is so fluffy, and those little Meals on Wheels you have been sending over are delicious!"

Elvis has left the building

Mama's going to feed me all by myself 'cause I'm a special kitty! I'll just be sweet and quiet while I wait. Oooh, there's her hand near the cage. No, lady, don't shift...feed!



Hey, wait a minute...waaait just a cotton-pickin' minute...



Heeeeeelp! Heeeeeelp meeeeee!!!



Well, maybe the A/C here in the car isn't so bad after all.

I just wish I had had a way to record his pitiful meowing so I could post it here on E&P. Priceless! I've always enjoyed the yowls and growls that kitties do when they're in that cage on the way to the v-e-t (shhh, can't say it--gotta spell it so they won't know what we're talking about!). I think that once-yearly Voyage to Small-Animal Medicine Purgatory pays them back for being such little stinkers the other 364 days.

The big cross-eyed fella comes home Friday morning, post-neuter. Don't worry, I'll blog that, too. Heh-heh-heh.

A relaxing July 4th

I spent the day not doing much at all, and that is what I'd hoped for. Mom and Steve spent their day finishing a toy box Steve built for Bella, my stepbrother Clint's little girl, and they're driving down now to deliver it in time for their first real grandbaby's first birthday party. (By the way: "first real grandbaby" = grandchild that is actually human and not a cat or chicken.) I might or might not go out to their house later; I do have to work in the morning, and I don't really want to be hung over with watermelon breath in the morning. Those Watermelon Margaritas kick ass.

It's finally overcast here in west Georgia, thankfully. All day the thermometer's hovered close to 95 degrees; at one point it read 97 on my front porch. Now it's 82 degrees and cloudy with 70% humidity. The cats are all passed out and pitiful. The only fighting today happened when Graya, who at ten years young has earned the title "Oldest-Bestest," got sick of Lewis's crap and thoroughly whipped her butt in the middle of the bedroom floor. Ha! Otherwise, it's too hot even to meow.

I think I'll run to the store and get a few things--going to make some of Farmgirl's Beer Bread out of the fresh herbs my friend Lois brought over on Saturday. I just hope this six-pack of Coors Light that the Colonel left at my house six months ago is fresh enough. I don't like beer at all, so any that I purchase either 1) is for visitors, 2) gets put in recipes, or 3) goes to waste.

Sorry, kids, but we're fresh out of give-a-damn

I am burned out.

Try as I might, I simply can't seem to make myself do any sort of school-related work. Pre-grading papers for lit class, putting together the new English 1 website for Tiny Tech's new quarter next week, returning students' papers in a timely fashion, returning online students' phone calls, replying to e-mails...nope, can't do any of it. And it's not getting any better as the midpoint of Summer Term approaches. Students are worried sick, and I find myself not caring. This is really scary.

At first, I thought it was simply procrastination. Like many people, I have a bad habit of putting off unpleasant tasks until right before a deadline. But the last few weeks have been incredible in how the pull of doing anything and everything except schoolwork keeps me from fulfilling my professional obligations. I've already pushed back the essay due dates in my D2U lit classes by a week, and since I've yet to complete the pre-grading for more than half my students' rough drafts, they may well get pushed back again until Wednesday.

Yep, there it is: I just don't give a damn anymore. Pass, fail, stand on your heads, drop out, y'all students do whatever you want. Just leave me alone.

I wish I could quit two of my jobs. That would be wonderful. But it would be financial suicide, and besides, I couldn't leave my respective colleges in the lurch. That would be professional suicide. "O, Kitty, had not the Almighty fixed his canon 'gainst thy career self-slaughter!" (Whoops, Hamlet and his Act I soliloquy just came bursting in, stage left, through the thick velvet theatre curtains of my mind.)

I hope this is hormone-related--you know, a touch of PMS at the wrong time of the month. Or maybe it's just the lure of summer, which is my favorite time of the year. The students are often slack during Summer Term, and maybe I've finally caught the summer-itis bug that's been going around. Man, I sure hope that's it. Because I cannot afford to be burned out.

I bet I wouldn't be so worried if D2U had given its students and employees Monday off. SBCC is closed July 3 and 4; so are Tiny Tech and AM4C. It's the only sensible thing to do, right? (I think I'll have ten students total tomorrow out of 40. I told the early class I'd bring homemade coffee cake for them if they came to class, and we could sit in an informal "breakfast circle" while we eat and discuss John Updike's "A&P.") And I think that if I knew I was going to have a four-day weekend, as are many people across America this week, I would feel much better. Alas, no.

"One Day at a Time." Perhaps that old Al-Anon phrase is what I need to keep repeating to myself right now. One day at a time, one hour at a time, one minute at a time...

More kitty to whoop ass on

It looks as if Booda Baby was right in her June 22 comment on my adopting Little Guy to balance out Lewis's aggressive nature:

Did you bring the little fellow home for balance? In my experience, that's just more kitty to whoop ass on. Can't wait to hear details.

Those were funny sentences nine days ago! I chuckled and kept reading, confident that Little Guy and Lewis would get to be big-time friends, and that Lewis would finally meet her kitty-ass-whooping match in her little brother.

Wrong.

Lewis and Little Guy have tussled a couple of times in the week since I've adopted my sweet little cross-eyed fella, but that's been about it. And Lewis is continuing her habit of getting outside--she's supposed to be indoor-only--and mixing it up with the outdoor cats. On Tuesday afternoon, she got out three separate times, only to have me scruff her and drag her evil little butt back into the house. Incorrigible! Little did I know it was only to get worse.

This morning, I walked out to get the mail and to feed the outdoor cats; Prue was sitting sweetly on the front porch, all meowy and prrprrprr, knitting-on-the-ground, happy-to-see-you-Mama. But ZOOM!!! out came Lewis behind me like a rocket before I could close the screen door! WA-BA-BA-BA-BA-BOWWWWW!!! went her paws on Prue's head! Oh, the growling and hissing and yowling as Lewis dived into a pile of sweet, unsuspecting tabby cat! Then ZOOM!!! off they went--Lewis chased Prue for 50 yards, across the street, into the neighbors' yard, down their driveway, and back into the strip of pecan trees and privet hedge at the edge of the neighbors' back yard!

Prue, of course, was both surprised and scared half to death, and Lewis was a total maniac. Prue disappeared into the bushes, and I asked the neighbors, who were sitting on their back porch having a cup of coffee, if I could look around in their yard for my cats. "Oh, here's one over by the car," said one lady. There was Lewis, panting, eyes dilated, and crouched down beside the Cutlass. I scruffed Miss Badass and called for Prue, who was well hidden and probably not planning on coming back to my front porch for a good long while, then thanked my neighbors and walked back to my house, cursing under my breath the whole time in one long string of comma splices: "You stupid little turd, think you're so tough, scarin' off my only decent cat, I oughtta throw your scrawny ass outside for good, see how you like that, skin your sorry little ass if you think you're gonna beat up Pruedle..."

When I got back into the house and threw Lewis down in the floor, I went into the kitchen to make myself something to drink. But I suddenly smelled cat pee--wait a minute, I just cleaned out the cat boxes yesterday! Why would they pee in here? Then I felt something wet on my dress, and I sniffed my hand where it had touched the side of the garment. Whew! Lewis had peed on me in her excitement as we walked back to the house. My dress is now soaking in a big bucket of Nature's Miracle and warm water.

*sigh*