a cruddy (couple of) day(s)

it's not that i try to be in a crummy mood when a few days of serious rain and clouds come along...but sometimes even when i try my hardest, rainy days always get me down.

it doesn't help that i'm low on money, still feeling the effects of taking a few months off from teaching and only starting a new part-time job 4 weeks ago and about to start another job next week...but finances can really get ya down, too.

it probably has to do with having a really fabulous weekend last weekend and knowing that i have a not-so-fabulous weekend coming up...

it might have to do with the fact that the front right wheel on my car was bent in 3 places when they looked at it at the garage...that i had to rotate my newer front tires to the back and then get rid of the rear tires (they were REALLY bad) and get new ones...which thankfully, only ended up meaning i had to buy one tire because my full-size, never-been-used Michelin spare was more than adequate and meant that i only had to buy one more Michelin to put on the front (to the tune of $129.00)...

it might have to do with the fact that i've wanted to get 2 people gifts in the past 3 months and i can't afford it.

it might have to do with the fact that it's embarrassing to even talk about...

whatever the reason for my glum mood, karen carpenter says it all when she sings Rainy Days and Mondays in the video above.

so you begin the healing process by writing, curling up with a good book, or grabbing a Hershey's Milk Chocolate Bar and eating the entire thing yourself.

amy winehouse

i celebrated Halloween evening with several of my friends...a former teaching partner, Sarah, her husband, Ryan, her sister, Emily, and another couple, Jimmy & Ashley. Sarah, Emily, and Ryan went as Three's Company, Jimmy as Hannah Montana and Ashley as Billy Ray Cyrus...and then there's me...as Amy Winehouse.

don't ask me what caused my costume to transpire...maybe it's the weird obsession i have with seeing her sickly photos...

maybe it's the way her raspy English voice sounds in her song, Rehab.

maybe it's her crazy tattoos and the fact that i really wish i had a crazy tattoo...

maybe it's because i finally purchased a pair of much-wanted skinny jeans in order to create my character's costume...

but whatever it was, it was fun to be amy for one night. actually it was so much fun that i dressed as her the next night, too.

Election Day

If you're a fan of Duran Duran...then you might like my new favorite music video. Appropriate for this historical Election Day, 2008!

Take the time to appreciate the hair, clothes, make-up, and semi-goth seeping out of this video!

25 minutes

When I began writing, there were only 25 minutes until lunch for my 2nd graders. I just spent 8 of those minutes trying to figure out how to save this graphic as an image on my computer rather than just clipart in Word. 8 minutes later, I've learned a new task!
Our 2nd graders were able to enjoy the sounds of Los Gatos, a Latin Band featuring Afro-Cuban, Puerto Rican, and Chilean rhythms at school today. The band was very interesting. They had many different instruments, including one of music teacher's favorites, a wooden frog percussion instrument that sounds like a frog when you run the mallet up the frog's back. That was my favorite part of the assembly: when they had 4 different-sized instruments and they played them in a little frog choir that made me feel like frogs were all around.

Anyway, the reason I even began this post in the first place was to comment on a song I heard in the car on the way to a run last evening. I Want a Hippopotamus for Christmas is a very interesting song. I did a little research and found out more from the ever-handy, always (ha!) reliable, Wikipedia. Here's what they said:

I Want a Hippopotamus for Christmas is a Christmas novelty song written by John Coctoasten and performed by Gayla Peevey (11 years old at the time) in 1953. According to legend, she was a regional child star of the Oklahoma City area. This 1953 hit was recorded as a fund-raiser to bring the city zoo a hippo. When released nationally by Columbia Records the song shot to the top of the charts, and the city zoo got a baby hippo named Matilda.

It is a Dr. Demento Christmas staple, and is currently available on Dr. Demento's The Greatest Novelty Records of All Time Vol. 6: Christmas. (Wikipedia)

Interesting how songs get started and then written...

Anyway, if you haven't heard it lately, you should check it out on iTunes. It's worth the 99¢. You can't get much better than the whiny, snot-nosed Gayla Peevey begging Mommy and Daddy for a vegetarian hippopotamus for Christmas.

Just a thought.