It's New Year's Eve!

The New Year's Resolutions post will have to wait until tomorrow—I ended up shopping much of today with my mom and stepdad. But there are silly new photos coming, yes indeed!

Happy New Year to all of you, regular E&P readers and newcomers. I wish you a great 2008.

Moseying toward the New Year

Even though Clark here isn't planning on giving up his nursing-on-all-things-fleece habit for 2008, he does have a couple things in mind for the New Year. Kitties and I are all working on our lists of New Year's resolutions—as well as the list of party supplies for our dual New Year get-togethers at Mom & Steve's.

New Year's Eve will probably be a lot of watching VH1 and munching on various snacks: cheese straws, Chex party mix and "White Trash," Mom's homemade macaroons, a veggie tray, various chips and dips, shrimp cocktail, and the usual eggnog and whiskey (or Crown Royal and Coke, in Steve's case). New Year's Day will be the traditional Southern good-luck meal: ham, collard greens, and black-eyed peas.

I'm feeling a lot better, thanks for asking—not quite 100%, but a whole lot better than I was earlier this week. Resolutions will be posted tomorrow, of course, in plenty of time for me to get to the shindig at Mom's!

Still sick, but getting better

"WTF are you doing at home on a Saturday night, Kitty?" I know, the rest of the blogging world is out having fun. But I'm still getting over this cold, and have been resting pretty comfortably (if bored-ly) the last couple of days. This staying-at-home-and-doing-very-little-except-sleeping stuff is pretty nice. Especially seeing as to how I'll be back to work before long; the first day of Spring Semester is Monday, January 7.

Adding to my happiness about staying at home and doing nothing is our very weird weather forecast. According to the Weather Channel's website, we here in drought-stricken Small Town—22" below normal yearly rainfall totals—are supposed to be getting almost an inch and a half of rain between now and this time tomorrow. Now, I know it's the holidays, but those poor meteorologists must be hitting the eggnog pretty hard. Back away from the punch bowl, fellas, hands where we can see them. I'll believe this crap about "near 1.5 inches of rain" when I see it.

And in other news: by hook and by crook, I've managed to become the proud owner of a hand-me-down HP digital camera. It came to me without a USB cable, though, so I've just let it sit on my desk the last couple of months while I found a replacement cable. I had to send off for the cable, which only cost $11 with shipping, and let me tell you, I am so excited that I spent that money. Now I can take lots of varied pictures, and not just blurry ones with my cell phone! Hip-hip-hooray! Better photos for E&P!



Kitteh lazerz charged. Fire at will. I think that's Ernest back there.


Yep, with this new camera, we can see more of Squirrel (aka Martha Ann) in all her disappointed glory. Pretty good detail on her fur; the flash always makes her squint.


With the new-to-me camera, I can capture Joy on my bed in all her sleepy, crooked-eared, rumpled glory.

"Nyaaaaah!—"
Hush yo mouth, kitteh! I'm just happy 'bout my new camera.

I can capture more of Graya in all her cluelessness.

I can capture more of General Clark E. Pie, Supreme Allied Litterbox Commander, in all his garbage-gutted glory. Ha! Alliteration! And note how he forgot to put his tongue back in.

FYI: That's not cat grass; it's liriope. My Clarky's been trying to get outside to eat. fucking. monkey grass. [sigh]

Other than a showdown between my sweet baby-kitty-faced Ernest and the much-larger Fred, the new camera's pictures also capture lots of details I hadn't had to consider with the camera phone. Like fine details, things in the periphery of each shot—the camera phone probably wouldn't have picked up the magazines had I used it.

Oh, the nasty floor. Umm, yeah. Gotta vacuum before I take pix.

Chicken Run

A few readers have been asking for a Myrtle Mae update, but I've been so perturbed by my own chicken's behavior that I've held off on posting anything for a while. She's still eating her own eggs, of course, and that has royally pissed off my mom: "It's the holidays. I'm cooking a lot. My daughter has a chicken. And I FUCKING HAVE TO BUY EGGS!!!"

Yesterday morning, as I was trudging back indoors after checking the mail, guess who I heard brk-brk-brrrrking her way down the driveway, out of her safe, enclosed yard?


That's right. She's been figuring out a way to get out of the back yard for about six weeks now. Try as I might, I still can't foil her. Other than keeping her locked up in the coop 24/7.

Who's the birdbrain now?



I managed to get Myrtle to follow me back through the gate and into the back yard; I gave her a little cat food for being such a "good" [ahem] chicken.

It's time to either expand someone's coop, trim someone's flight feathers, or get some feathered buddies. Something to keep me from worrying about my crazy bird when I'm not out in the yard with her.

Sick at home

It figures for right after a holiday—I have a monstrous cold. Ugh. I'm sneezing my head off and am achy all over, so I've stayed home all day today. The farthest I ventured from the Happy Kitten Cottage was about 40 feet, to let Myrtle Mae out of the coop this morning.

So the last 24 hours—and probably the next 24 hours as well—have been/will be all about rest. And eating hot soup. And drinking lots of fluids. And rest.


My hairstylist/friend/distant cousin Bonnie showed up on December 23 with gifts for people and critters alike. The kitties got a bag of treats; I got a bag of this great snack mix called "White Trash." It's Chex corn cereal, mini pretzels, and peanuts covered in white chocolate. In four days, I've eaten almost this whole bag. It's that good.

Have you ever tried these wasabi-coated green peas? No? Then don't. They are super-spicy and highly addictive. And they also will clear up a stuffy nose in a heartbeat. Ha! Take that, Alka-Seltzer Cold & Flu Dogshit Flavor!

I was too sick and blah-feeling to cook, or to go out and get anything, so I heated up some frozen T.G.I. Friday's southwestern egg rolls. Also spicy, and good.

Ernest helped clean the plate when I was done. Surprising, seeing how spicy these egg rolls are. Usually, kitties turn up their noses at anything cooked with spices or sauces.

Pictures from Christmas 2007

WOW! Santa left me a teardrop-shaped kitteh! Just what I always wanted!

Oh...never mind. It's just Davy's fat ass again.

Graya, who at 12 years old is the Grande Dame of the Happy Kitten Cottage, got a special handful of treats Christmas morning. Other cats got coal in their stockings.

No, not really. Every kitty got some Christmas morning treats. Graya just got more than everyone else.

Fred came to wish me a Merry Christmas, and posed in my lap for this picture. Note awesome robe and flannel nightgown, all made by Mom.

When I arrived at Mom and Steve's, the woodstove was roaring, and the house was nice and toasty. Squiggy [right] and Cong were basking in the warmth from the wood fire.

Little eight-month-old Poppy was looking very cute on the kitchen bench.

I can has outside?
No, kitteh stayz in house, plzkthxbai.

Mom had Steve/Seeben/El Seebeno help her get our delicious nine-pound ham out of the oven so she could put the glaze on...

MOM: [finishes drizzling glaze on ham] Okay, that's it.

ME: Mmmm, smells good.

MOM: [to Seeben] Leave the foil off and put it back in the oven for 20 minutes.

SEEBEN: [looking at ham] This damn thang looks like my left nut.

ME: God, I'd hate to see the right one.

The feast was finally ready around 3:00pm, and it was excellent.

On my plate: ham, mashed potatoes, crescent rolls, corn souffle, and homegrown blackeyed peas and green beans. Sweet tea (iced tea with copious amounts of sugar, "Southern style") and eggnog with whiskey round out the meal. Red velvet cake and carrot cake were our dessert.

Steve, even though he's a big, tough guy, loves his and Mom's cats. He talks a lot of shit about how rotten they are and how he and Mom "don't need no more damn cats," but he's also the one who most frequently is the Cat Adoption Instigator. And he always feeds the kitties off his plate at holiday meals. Above, clockwise from lower right: Cong, Lenny, Calvin, Teddi, Poppy.

[loud meowing from floor]
MOM: Well, for God's sake, Steve. Feed these animals. They look like they're starving. [rolling eyes]

SEEBEN: [cutting up small morsels of ham and dropping them into floor] Yesh, dat's Daddy's kitty. You want shome more, Cong? Tum on, darlin'. Tum git shome ham. Awww, dat's a good kitty. Here, Poppy.
MOM: [to me] You can't tell it now, but I just cleaned the damn floor yesterday.

SEEBEN: [to Mom] My kittehs are STARVIN'! [continues feeding cats]
ME: You talk a good game about kitties, Seeben, but we know how you roll.

Later, we went to D2U City to visit my stepbrother and his wife. They're holding up pretty well, thanks for asking. And what was their three-year-old daughter carrying around when we arrived?

A chihuahua puppy. Their fourth Chihuahua. Her name is Precious.

So, of course, I fell in love with Precious, and she fell asleep in my lap.

SEEBEN: Well, y'all about ready to go?

MOM: Yeah, I guess. Kitty, you ready?

ME: No.

MOM: Why not?

ME: I can't move. I'm being weighed down by a little dog.

SEEBEN: Your cats would eat that poor little puppy.

ME: [sighing] I know. But I'm in wuv, just the same.

MERRY CHRISTMAS, EVERYONE!!!

MERRY CHRISTMAS 2007!

Merry Christmas to all my wonderful readers out there! I'm thankful to have you all on board—thank you for your friendship and readership. May your Christmas be filled with love, peace, hope, and laughter.

It's raining this morning in Small Town—talk about a Christmas miracle! I'll be going to Mom and Steve's for dinner and a small present-opening this afternoon; we mostly got each other practical gifts, and kept it under $30. Mom already got one of her gifts on Saturday: a sturdy wooden stool for the kitchen, so she has somewhere to rest while cooking, instead of standing at the stove and throwing her back out yet again.

And of course, there'll be pictures after the whole shebang is done. The kitties (both here and at Mom's) have been in rare holiday form.

Nothing to do except play with cats and make Christmas cookies

While Fred here isn't happy about being made to pose for a blog picture—he bit the living hell out of me right after I snapped this one—he is happy that Mama can stay home and pay him and his foster brothers and sisters some attention, for once.

Not much is going on today, and it's a wonderful thing. It rained much of last night and this morning, and we really needed the rain (this part of the state is 24" below usual yearly rainfall totals). I'll be heading out to Mom and Steve's shortly to help make Christmas cookies, and then it's back home to play with kitties again. Oh, and to decide what the hell I'm going to cook for our meal on Christmas Day.

Happy Anniversary, Mom & El Seebeno!

Today marks seven years of wedded bliss for Mom and Steve/Seeben/El Seebeno. HAPPY ANNIVERSARY!!

I went shopping in D2U City this morning, where (unbeknownst to me) Mom and Steve were also going to be shopping. So we found each other via cell phone and met up at the local Steak 'n Shake for a late lunch. I don't often eat at Steak 'n Shake, as it's out of the way for me, but boy, is their food good. And I bet my sister doesn't know that Steak 'n Shake has a franchise opportunity available for Denver. Just in case she gets tired of architorture or something. Or for the food.


The happy couple. One of us had just said something off-color to make the others laugh. Something about those orange candy circus peanuts and bungholes.

The couple that flips each other off...oh, never mind.

Mom had a turtle milkshake. Just looking at it made me gain five pounds.

Toward the end of the meal, Seeben said something obnoxious, and Mom decided to set him straight with the very dull and non-frightening dinner knife lying next to my plate...

MOM: [stabs at Seeben with knife]

SEEBEN: What the hell dawgsheeit are you tryin' to do?

MOM: You could at least look scared!

SEEBEN: Goddamighty... [feigns horror-movie look of fear]

MOM: That's better! [resumes stabbing motion with knife]

Happy anniversary to the best set of folks a person could ever have! I love you, Mom and Steve.

A rainy evening

It's finally raining in Small Town, and I'm at home, just taking it easy. Not much went on today; I did some shopping with Mom and just enjoyed myself.

Here are a couple pictures from this week, when I was grading so hard.


Hobo Kitty likes having her head scratched.

And she evidently likes books on poetry, too. In the picture is Accent on Meter: A Handbook for Readers of Poetry by Joseph Powell and Mark Halperin. I borrowed it through Interlibrary Loan and have found it to be very helpful.

I Made a LOLCat: EPIC FAIL Week #7

moar funny pictures

Postscript: EPIC FAIL Week #6

I had my D2U students turn in portfolios and research papers way early—the last day of classes, December 7—so I could get a jump on grading before the due date of Monday, December 17. So, on the aforementioned Monday, I opened up my D2U e-mail to see this message:

Hey Prof Kitty I just now checking my e-mail and see that the research paper and portfolio was duw December 7 and i thought it you said it was due december 17! Is is still possible for me to turn it in tomarrow cause i have most of my paper written and is almost done.

We talked about the final due date in class on five different class days. This date was on the syllabus from the start of the semester. I sent out three different announcement e-mails. [sigh]

I have a very strict late work policy: I don't accept it. When I do make an exception, such as in the case of severe personal illness or serious family crisis, I take off ten points for each day it's late. Had this been the case with this student, then ten days late = zero.

My reply to the student:
You have been informed of this due date numerous times over the course of the semester; it is even on the syllabus. My advice is to save your paper for next semester.

Done at Last: EPIC FAIL Week #5

Even Squirrel (aka Martha Ann) and Fred can see it coming!

I posted the last of my Tiny Technical College grades this morning before heading to another search committee meeting at D2U (whose grades I posted yesterday morning). So, EPIC FAIL Week is over for Fall 2007. Thank you, Lord.

Out of the loop

This morning finds me at Tiny Technical College, where I'm watching my last three students take their final exams. I will be so glad when Fall Term is over. But that's not until Wednesday morning, as I still have grades to post and meetings to attend.

William*, my immediate supervisor and longtime friend, spoke to me in the hall a few minutes ago. He was aware that I'd been pals with Penelope*, another TTC English instructor, who teaches part-time at D2U on the side. "Watch Penelope—watch what you tell her," he whispered. "It's Jekyll-and-Hyde with her."

"Whaaaa...?" This was news to me. "Penelope's* always been fun-loving and kind around me..."

"Well, yeah. But she tends to take what other people tell her and use it against them later, for reasons unknown to anyone but her," William* told me. "She's gotten a couple of adjuncts fired this quarter, and run off a few more. Jimmy* and I expect to get our walking papers any day now, just because we've somehow crossed her. She's buddy-buddy with enough people in power around here to get us canned, though I hope Dr. McFly* [TTC president] won't buy what she says." I've known William* for a long time, and I'm pretty sure he wouldn't make up something like this.

I quickly thought back over all the things Penelope* and I had talked about last Thursday afternoon. "I don't think I said anything bad about anyone," I told William.* "I mostly was telling her about my personal problems. But—damn, I miss a lot by not being on campus very much. I mean, I had no idea she was like that."

William* sighed. "We've found it out the hard way," he said. "I just wanted to give you a heads-up, keep you in the know. You're our entire online English program, and we can't afford to have her get you fired for looking at her cross-eyed, or telling her something possibly incriminating about your personal life."

Sometimes, being out of the gossip loop is a good thing...and sometimes a bad thing. As Dr. Who*, my esteemed colleague at D2U, once said, "There's a lot of mental illness in academia. The profession just seems to invite it."

While Mama grades papers...

...we drink from the bathroom faucet.

Davy (left) and Clark enjoy dripping faucets. I let the faucet drip a teensy bit for about two minutes every morning and evening just so my fat-boy kitties can have a fun drink. The other cats are unimpressed by the whole dripping-water thing.

When you think you have problems...

Since I haven't had a home computer lately, I've been stuck with checking my D2U e-mail once every 36 to 48 hours. Students don't much like it, but it's the best I can do.

I opened up my e-mail Wednesday evening to find a message from the D2U Dean of Students concerning a student in my 10am Comp II. Matt had been in a terrible car accident Monday evening, she explained, and had been helicoptered to an Atlanta hospital with severe head injuries. He would not be able to take his final exams, and his parents would update the university as to how he was doing.

Matt is one of my favorite students in that class. Even though he's from a wealthy family, he's putting himself through college by working 40 hours a week at a local factory, and insists on paying his own bills for his own apartment. He plays guitar and sings in his church's youth group band, and his research project had to do with the influences on two of his favorite folk-rock singers. He brought his guitar into my office one afternoon a couple months ago and played a few songs for me to demonstrate what he was thinking about doing for his project. I admired his guts; not many college students would be brave enough to risk singing and playing guitar for their English prof.

Then I opened up my Tiny Technical College e-mail to find a message from a student I hadn't heard from in several weeks, a female firefighter:

I am sorry that I haven't called before.
I am very sick. Nov 24th I had to go to the hospital.
They gave me a biopsy and they found out that I have brain cancer. I am going radiating now and my doctor says that I have a going chance.
I can't finish my classes, but I want to finish when I feel better.
Would you please call [advisor's name] for me and let him know what is going on for me. I am not very "with it" right now, because my biopsy has affected my talking and thinking. They say I should get my talk back totally, eventually. I am going to speech therapist.
I can't reminded who my other teacher is.
Thank you!
I am going to finish my classes when I'm better!

This young woman, Leslie, had beaten the odds to become her county's first female firefighter, and now she and her husband (also a firefighter) are dealing with this huge setback.

My life is pretty damn good, even when I think it sucks.

Please keep both Matt and Leslie in your thoughts and prayers. Updates as soon as I hear something on each of them.

From the ladies' restroom at Tiny Technical College

This sign struck me as funny yesterday afternoon, as I was taking a break from giving final exams here at Tiny Tech. I guess not everyone teaches their kids to be sure everything flushed.

When the shit hits the fan, it covers us all, Part 2: Update on Professor X

If you're just now tuning in to this story, here's Part 1, the original post.

************

The last few weeks have been a whirlwind of damage control and make-up work in the Comp I class I took over from Professor X. Since she hadn't been to class in nearly three months, many of her students had stopped coming to class, too; the other fill-in profs and I had to send out mass e-mails and make dozens of phone calls telling students to return to class, that they were indeed still registered in the course and would be getting a failing grade if they didn't come back and finish the work. A few were genuinely stunned at this. Since Professor X hadn't been to class in so long, their reasoning went, they shouldn't be held accountable for their performance in the class, and should all get A's for their [ahem] "hardship." Uhh, wrong. So the dean mandated that all Professor X's students were bound to complete the classwork, regardless of what had transpired through mid-November. And boy, were some of them pissed about that. But they trudged along and managed, whether they wanted to or not.

I attended a Comp Committee meeting several days after I'd taken over the class, and Dr. Rhettencomp*, my direct supervisor and chair of the English Composition Program, started off the meeting with a uneasy look on his face. He'd been running interference for nearly a month with the Professor X classes, and it showed—he was wan, pale, drained, about to fall over from exhaustion. He'd been struggling to keep up with his own upper-division teaching demands and deal with the mess in the orphaned classes, and looked as if he needed a very long vacation with copious amounts of alcohol, fried foods, and sunny beachscapes. As Dr. Rhettencomp* was getting the meeting started, Mr. X, Professor X's husband, walked in and seated himself. Mr. X is on many of the same committees that I am, so seeing him is an even more frequent and awkward occasion for me.

"Well," Dr. Rhettencomp* began, "glad you could all be here. We've got a few things on the agenda, and there's a lot to cover in the short time we have..." he trailed off as he handed out copies of the agenda. First on the list was Professor X orphan classes. Ugh. This would be weird. Dr. Rhettencomp* told us, "Okay, I think everything's squared away with Professor X's classes; umm, Kitty, Tom*, Dale*, and Sammy* have those orphans"—Mr. X looked down uncomfortably at his notepad—"and I hope Professor X is better soon, and back teaching with us for Spring Semester." We all shook our heads in silent agreement while Mr. X kept looking down at his notes. Then, mericfully, Dr. Rhettencomp* moved down the agenda. Thanks be to new in-class writing prompts and the Regents' Exam for getting the conversation off of Professor X. The rest of the meeting went well, and Mr. X excused himself quickly as it ended and left campus.

Beyond weird. Beyond awkward.

The aforementioned Sammy*, a recent graduate of Cow-Tipping University (CTU) and new-hire English prof, stepped into my office a day or two after the meeting. "So you took over one of the X classes, too?" he asked. When I shook my head yes, he closed the door behind him and sat down. "Maybe you can tell me what the hell's going on," he whispered, motioning toward Professor X's long-empty office. Mr. X was right down the hall talking to someone, and we didn't want him to overhear us.

"I haven't heard a thing," I replied. "Guess I'm out of the loop. Everybody else hears stuff long before I do, so anything's news to me."

"Well," he began, "from what I can gather, it seems like a 'perfect storm' of physical, emotional, and marital problems hit the X's all at once."

"Oh, Lord." I certainly knew what that was like.

"There's physical illness, brought on by mental illness, which was in turn brought on by infidelity." He shook his head sadly.

"Man. That sucks," I replied. "Do you know who cheated on whom?"

"No," Sammy* said. "Nobody's saying who cheated on whom, or with whom."

I began thinking of Professor X and her husband. Neither of them seemed like the "cheatin' type." Both he and she are average-looking, nothing special...but then again, I remembered that temptation's everywhere, even for those of us who don't look like pro athletes or Victoria's Secret models. Intelligence and personality can be powerfully attractive, and both the X's are exceptionally smart, well-read people with great personalities. "I can't imagine either of them running around," I said. "They just seemed really happy together—you know, like the honeymoon's still on. I don't think they've been married more than a couple years."

"Yeah, it's sad," Sammy* sighed. "And when I went to the poetry reading at the library the other night—" Professor X had supposedly scheduled all of her classes to go to a poetry reading by an author she knew from grad school, though it wasn't on the syllabus and was more of a "he said, she said" among the students. Professor X had invited this fellow to come to D2U from almost a thousand miles away to give a talk, yet none of us had known whether he'd still be doing his presentation, since Professor X had disappeared from all her classes.

"Oh, right. How'd it go? Did the speaker show up?"

"Yeah, the reading was okay," Sammy* told me. "But Professor X actually showed up at the reading, and sat right behind all her orphaned students."

"Dude," I whispered. "She showed up? What the fuck?" I shook my head in bewilderment, like the AFLAC Duck after a talk with Yogi Berra. "You know, when I screw something up colossally like she has, I tend to disappear, take my ass home. I know when I've bombed and don't want to call any more attention to myself."

Sammy nodded. "I know. It was surreal. And she just sat there, like nothing was out of the ordinary. There were a lot of frozen stares cast her way; none of her students spoke to her. And what was even more weird," he said, "is that she was sitting in exactly opposite from Mr. X."

"So—okay, wait. They were both there, even though she skipped campus and they're having marital problems? Ohhh, man." I put my head into my hands. "Well, I guess all we can do is all we can do. Just help the classes get to the finish line, and keep the X's in our thoughts and prayers." Sammy agreed, and we started talking about the upcoming Regents' exam and how many of our students we thought would pass it. It seemed like the X's were in the midst of a long, slow, painful breakup, and we had the misfortune to see the "director's choice" scenes from it. Poor Professor and Mr. X were suffering in front of the whole department.

Monday afternoon, I walked into the D2U English office only to be stunned by the sight of Professor X, sprawled out in the middle of the floor with two dozen employment dossiers around her. She had been on the search committee for the new 19th-century poetry position, but I'd assumed she was off of that committee due to her disappearance. But here she was, right in front of me, poring over the files as if her life depended on it.

And somehow, I think it did.

To be continued...

Fred as filler

That's right. Fred is now serving as filler material while I get a decent Professor X update post written.



My big orange/yellow boy in the kitchen window, as seen from indoors.

And from the outdoors, as well.

Thanks to all for the great comments. I should have my home computer back by Friday or Saturday, and will be back to posting regularly. And yes, it is 9:53pm Eastern Time, and I am still working like a madwoman here at D2U. But I'm getting my work done, dammit, which means more time to go to the fabric store with Mom!

Blogging from the country today

Since my computer is still horked, and I'm getting jack-squat done at home, I'm working and blogging from Mom's house, which is waaaay out in the country in Booger County, Georgia. There are many, many fewer distractions here, and even though it's just dial-up, she does have internet access. Cats? Oh, same number of kitties here as at my house. Just different ones hanging around.

Mom's house is mostly free of distractions, except for the sound of kitties playing with a catnip mouse in the floor; occasionally, a car zooms by on the (usually quiet) two-lane state highway. I think I might go sit in the rocking chair on the front porch and grade. It's also nice to sit here in the living room with the Weather Channel playing softly for background noise.

Today, I'm answering e-mails and grading final essays from the Professor X takeover class. There's a little bit of news to report on that situation, so I'll post on it soon.

"The Cat Ate My Homework!": EPIC FAIL Week #4

I Can Has Cheezburger: "Homework-eating cat / knows dog will be blamed"

Somehow, I've not yet received any frantic e-mails talking about how students' dogs, cats, hamsters, or llamas have eaten their research papers. Hmm, weird. But, of course, I've gotten many an e-mail (well, seven or eight) pleading for more time because a student's computer crashed at the last minute. "The machine ate my homework" is the 21st-century student excuse.

In other bad news: Myrtle Mae has gone missing. I carelessly left the back-yard gate open last night, and forgot to close it when I let her out of the coop this morning. She is gone. I scoured a two-block radius calling for her—nothing. My neighbor and my mom are now out looking for her while I'm here at D2U, grading papers in my office. Please say a prayer for my poor red-feathered girl.

UPDATE, 11:08am: Myrtle Mae is safe! Mom just called to tell me that my creepy bird had been hiding under the shed out back the whole time; evidently, she was afraid I was going to put her back in the coop again. HOORAY for safe chickens!

This says it all: EPIC FAIL Week #3

I Can Has Cheezburger: "the hand / talk to it"

Yeah, that's basically it. I had about a dozen e-mails in my mailbox this morning, begging for a chance to turn in the final research paper late. But that's how it always goes, isn't it? Too bad...so sad.

Off to grade now: D2U and Tiny Technical College both finish around the same time this December, so I'm doing double-duty with the paper-grading. But eggnog and whiskey are here to lend their magical help!

By Popular Request: Mom's Chicken Curry

A few readers have requested that I post my mom's famous (well, famous in our family) Chicken Curry recipe, which I mentioned in yesterday's post. Of all the things Mom has cooked over the years, this is hands-down my favorite, and the one I most often request for my birthday. No cake, no party, no gifts—just a big helping of chicken curry, served over rice. Well, and a good cat-box scooping, too. Those are always nice birthday presents.



This is a dish that your kitties will meow and meow and meow over, until you let them sniff the spoon, and they realize there's curry in that there sauce. Ernest and Fred are all, "Eww. Never mind, Mama."


It might look like ass here, but it tastes heavenly (unlike ass). Hey, blame my crappy camera phone and bad lighting in the kitchen.

If you bring chicken curry to any sort of covered-dish (potluck) supper, everyone will act a fool trying to get the recipe from you. Even my notoriously picky stepfather loves this stuff; he asks Mom to make it several times a month.

MOM'S FAMOUS CHICKEN CURRY

(probably adapted from a Good Housekeeping cookbook, circa 1969—Mom says she can't quite remember)

--1 medium yellow or "sweet" onion
--1 to 1.5 lbs. cooked chicken (white meat, dark meat, doesn't really matter)
--1 8-oz. container sour cream
--1 12-oz. can cream of chicken soup (non-diluted!)
--1-2 tablespoons butter
--2-3 tablespoons curry powder (or to taste)
--Salt and pepper (to taste—optional)
--Cooked white or brown rice


Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Chop the cooked chicken into small pieces (about 1/4"). It goes farther if you cut it up into little bits. Set it aside in a cat-proof place; you'll prepare the sauce next.

Chop the onion into thin (1/8"-1/4") rings. Separate the rings from one another, and in a skillet, saute the onion in the butter over medium heat until rings are somewhat translucent, 5-7 minutes.


Next, add the sour cream and and cream of chicken soup. Stir the whole shebang over medium heat until you have a nice, creamy sauce with only a few lumps.


Add the curry powder—start out with two tablespoons, stir it into the soup/onion/sour cream mixture, and taste it. Work up from there, one teaspoon at a time, if you like yours hotter. (Mom likes 3-4 tablespoons in hers, but that's too spicy for most mortals.) The mixture should be a nice medium yellow by now, with the brown flecks of curry powder showing through.


Add the chicken to the skillet and stir it in well, being sure to coat ALL the pieces thoroughly with the curry mixture.

Pour the entire contents of the skillet into a greased 2-quart casserole dish. Bake COVERED at 350 degrees for 30 minutes, or until the casserole is slightly browned and bubbling at the edges. Serve immediately over cooked white or brown rice. This stuff is even better the next day after the flavors have had time to intensify, so no need to fear leftovers (if you have any). Makes 4-6 servings, or two servings if you're Miss Kitty.

It's Too Late, Baby: EPIC FAIL Week #3

I opened my D2U e-mail this morning and found the following message, with the subject "HELP! RESEARCH PAPER!" As every professor knows, any student e-mail beginning with "HELP!" or "URGENT!" is bound to be bad news, especially before 10am.

its probably too late to start again but i think i'm going to do it.. I started my research paper on two of poes writings but its trash.. and its not going to be even close to enough to be 5 pages... Can you give me a few m ore topics that you think i would be able to nail... I have the majority of the day tomorrow dedicated to making you a decent research paper.... What is the bulk of the info supposed to prove? Or explain? I understand it should be asking a question.. but were looking things up to prove a point? or is it similar to out essays?

What I wanted to write back:
Dude, you're fucked. Hang it up, crack yourself a cold one, and take Comp II again next semester.

What I actually wrote back:
You're trying to answer a question or prove a point with your research paper, and you look up outside information to help support your own conclusions about the stories/poems/whatever you've read. Did you try looking at Poe's stories "The Tell-Tale Heart" and "The Black Cat" and "The Cask of Amontillado" and trying to figure out whether the narrators in those stories have guilty consciences for their actions? They ALL THREE kill somebody, but only the narrator in "Cask" gets away with it--though he's confessing to us, his readers, as he tells the story! "Heart" is in our book, I think; check the index to be sure. The other two are fairly easy to find either online or in the library.

How the hell did this student miss the copious research paper discussions we had in class the last five weeks?!? "Houston, we have an EPIC FAIL, over."

Thankfully, we have a departmental covered-dish lunch (what you Northerners would call a potluck) this afternoon; I brought chicken curry and steamed rice, my mom's awesome recipe. Perhaps some home-cooked comfort food will make the bad papers and frantic e-mails go down a little more smoothly.

Or maybe I'll vomit just the same.

Read All about It: EPIC FAIL Week #2

That's right. It's EPIC FAIL Week, also known as Final Exam Week, here on E&P. Sometimes it's sad to see students mess up during finals week, but often these tales are tinged with humor, or irony, or justice, or all three. EPIC FAIL Week is among my favorites, just for the abundance of crazy student stories.

But today's crazy student story? Ugh...

For the first time in about eight weeks, I actually had time this morning to sit in my office and read The 12th Street Rag, D2U City's main newspaper. By special arrangement between D2U higher-ups and Rag publishers, the newspaper is distributed for free on campus five days a week. The newspaper boxes around campus are empty by about 10am, so I take that as a sign that somebody's reading the paper during the week. God knows they don't read their textbooks.

Usually, the front page of the Rag contains either national or world headlines. Once in a while, there'll be some local news, such as a tax referendum or City Council scandal. When Dale Earnhardt, Jr. announced a few months ago that he would be leaving his late father's racing team, the story was treated like an obituary by the 12th Street Rag, taking up the entire front page. It even quoted various yokels on the [ahem] tragedy: "This is a terrible day for racin'. Just awful. I just don't know how I'm gonna get past this." In any other paper, that story would be the epitome of the phrase "slow news day," but for the rednecks around here, it was a major news event memorialized on newsprint. Yee-haw, y'all.

Today's Rag front page featured a mugshot of a vaguely familiar face, and the headline "D2U Student Charged with Vehicular Homicide." I did a double-take—whaaaa...?

Early Sunday morning, one of my former students, a dull, spoiled young woman who had barely passed my class—from a wealthy family from whom she inherited a love of all powdered CNS depressors—hit and killed a teenager who was walking down a local highway. She didn't even stop to see what had happened; from what I can gather from the news story, she "thought she had hit a deer."

I have hit two deer while in my car (or someone else's), and trust me—you KNOW when you hit one. The blood, fur, and deer-shit scattered all over your windshield are the first sign. I cannot imagine that hitting a human being with your car would be much different (okay, except for the fur and deer-shit). Was she high? She had to have been under the influence.

She reportedly told police that she didn't stop because she was "afraid she'd be in trouble for the damage" she'd done to her dad's shiny, new, very expensive foreign car. She drove the car, with herself and her two drunk friends in the back seat, to a friend's apartment complex, where she turned off her cell phone and tried to hide out.

Meanwhile, a young man lay dead next to the road, his two friends screaming out for help to any and every car that passed by. They gave a description of the car to police, who tracked the car down at the apartment complex several hours later. They traced the tag to the student's father, who managed to find her, call a lawyer, and take her to the police station.

When this young woman was in my class, I thought she was a twat. And now I know she's one. I hope they put her under the jail.

Student Essay Insanity #24!

You know the drill, folks: real bloopers, real students, real essays. I couldn't make these up, even if I tried—they're just too good. Or bad, as the case may be.

This is from one of Professor X's students, from the "takeover class":

The author vowels to accept her disability with a positive attitude and strive to live a normal life.

I'm guessing that the author also remains steadfast and consonant. (Thanks, Pixie.) And was I the only one who caught the subject-verb disagreement?

In the margin next to the above goof-up, I wrote, "A, E, I, O, U! Sometimes Y and W!"

Fred in the kitchen window

Your hilarious comments on "Ernesto is fixed!" have been cracking me up; thank you. I needed to laugh.

Fred, whose family I still haven't gotten off my ass to look for, is slowly getting along with the other Happy Kitten Cottage residents. He and Clark touch noses and get along well, as do he and most of the rest of the cats. Fred and Davy (aka Shithook) are still fighting it out. I was awakened at 4:00 this morning by growling, hissing, and spitting in the living room. Simmer down now, kittehs.


Computer's still in the shop, and probably will be through Thursday or Friday, so I'm posting from D2U. Frequent commenter Faded put very eloquently what happened to my computer: "Your computer has decided to pull its lower lip over its forehead and swallow." I couldn't have said it better myself—thanks, Faded.

This week is mostly office hours, with my Professor X "takeover" class meeting for what I think is the final time this afternoon. I have to slap grades on 50 papers and throw them back at students. Hopefully, none of them will be asking for an incomplete. I just don't have the energy or patience to keep up with who's done what work after this semester.

Much more interesting stuff to post as soon as I get this week's grading done. Bleh!

Ernesto is fixed!

"But Mama, I wasn't even broken!"

Ernest got neutered this past Tuesday. It was time—his meow had dropped from the high-pitched kitty whine to a deeper, more mellow I'm-on-my-way-to-tomcattery "mrroww." And he had started meowing almost 24/7, which gets old fast.

He's slowed down only slightly, and seems to be doing all right. The constant pointless meowing has just about stopped; Ernest is now leaving that to Fred. Yes, that's now the yellow foster kitty's name.

Life without a home computer...

...is actually not too bad.

This afternoon, I'm in my Division II University office, getting computer-based work done. I can grade essays at home, but for my Tiny Technical College online classes, I have tons of stuff to do and many pages to update. I figured I could at least get some things done here, where I have internet access. At home, I won't be distracted.

A little more than 48 hours after I realized that my home computer was shot, I'm finding that suddenly, I have a lot more free time when I'm at home. The distraction/temptation of the internet isn't there to keep me from grading or cleaning. It's a little disconcerting—kind of like when I first gave up my cable TV subscription—but I think I'll get used to it in time.

This is the perfect time to start getting the 9 x 15 shed behind my house turned into an office. And I think that, once that's complete, I'll just leave the computer and internet access out there, not in the main house, and keep my work life very separate from my home life.