1 You know what's cool?
2 Being able to handle the sudden onlsaught of Winter.
3 When we had a quick cold snap last week, for example, I thought I had handled things readily.
4 For one thing, I had rid myself of the terribly ridiculous AOL mail that made me late so many days this year. AOL had stopped allowing me to send the DN a few months ago when it "upgraded". Just suddenly wouldn't let me send the DN off to the same people it has allowed me to send it off to for the past five or six years.
5 It always took too long anyway, and it would buffer and sputter.
6 So I moved my entire DN operation to a new camp called gmail. At first it felt strange, but quite soon I got the hang of it, and now all I do is type three letters into the send mail area and it goes out in about four seconds, no buffering, sputtering, or any other song-and-dance.
7 This added close to fifteen mintutes to my morning. Long story, won't bore you, but I always had to "trick" AOL into behaving. I just finally got fed up, and wound up with faster service with no delays.
8 What this did was to free me up to do other things, like get to work on time, for example. And to take a huge pitcher of water out to the frozen T000000NDRA to get ice and frost off the windshield. I was SO proud of myself for thinking ahead on that one last week.
10 Fast foward to yesterday. After having listened to the weather report, I got on a stool in my kitchen, took out this huge Tupperware pitcher, filled it with COLD water (wouldn't want to crack the windshield, right? Schmart guy, schmart guy!), and headed out the front door TEN minutes earlier than normal, due to gmail. For once I hoped all the neighbors were watching, because I needed redemption for the Winnie-the-Pooh window debacle a few days earlier.
11 As soon as I walked outside with this enormous pitcher of water, I saw that the sun was out, that the ground was dry, and that the windshield had absolutely no ice or frost. All I could think of was all the same neighbors sipping coffee, shaking their heads, and thinking, "What an idiot!" They had to KNOW why I would be standing outside with this twelve-gallon pitcher of water.
12 So looks like I was all over Winter last week, even though it is technically still Fall.
13 I ALSO have prided myself in remember my school keys after weekends, because after an earlier break this year, I went in on a Monday and had forgotten my keys. I swiftly found my pal Vernon, the custodian who is a huge Giants' fan, and he let me in, saying, "Buh, Buh, Buh, what a' we gonna do witchu?" He never says the "d" in my name, which is just cool to me. But nobody else really knew, and a few weeks later, I saw our department chair standing outside her door sheepishly saying to me that she had forgotten her keys on a Monday.
14 "Dude!" I said. "It's Monday. You gotta fly low." You know how you get. I sort of smiled and went back to my room thinking, "Rookie."
15 Fast-forward to yesterday morning. I had gotten out of my normal Sunday routine of preparing for school way early, like 4 p.m. so I am always able to be WAY ready for Mondays. After the first debacle with the keys this year, I had decided to prepare for Mondays at 4 p.m. every Sunday so that I would never go in with "the Mondays". It worked, and each Monday since I have been able to "fly low", meaning all I need to do now is to get through the day without incident and leave early.
16 I also have been getting to bed early each night, fully prepared to give it my all each day. I go in each day with LOTS of energy and try to give it everything I can. It feels great, and the students stay engaged.
17 But this past weekend I had decided to do a classic, "I REFUSE to work during the Thanksgiving weekend!" and so wasn't AS prepared, although I still had begun preparing lessons at 4 p.m. I just did a few other things and got to bed really late, the way I used to.
18 So yesterday morning I got up with less sleep, corrected the DN, gmailed, and then looked at the clock. I thought I had timed things right, but I was actually five minutes late! Huh? I think I relaxed a bit TOO much, so I flew out the door only to see around a sixteenth of an inch of ice and frost on my windshield! I tried NOT to panic, but I did anyway. I filled that big o' pitcher full of COLD water, turned on the engine, turned on the wipers first so I wouldn't get splashed, and hurled water across the windshield.
19 I figured it would slush and slop, but it actually did the trick almost immediately. Now I felt like Mickey Mouse in Fantasia. In the Hall of the Mountain King started playing in my head, and I hopped my Wizard self into the T000000NDRA and took off for work. I had BEATEN the frost!
20 About five minutes down the road, I hit a traffic jam, looked around, and every car in San Jose decided to shoot past me as I attempted a right turn. I started mumbling stuffs like, "Aw come on!" "MOOOOVE bitches!" and other 2010 classless stuff. When I finally merged, it occurred to me that...I FORGOT MY KEYS!
21 The Greeks call this "hubris".
22 So now I had to circle back, sneak through a few back alleys, and found myself fack home in no time. I grabbed my keys and shot back out the door.
23 I wouldn't say I sped on the freeway, but some days you can glide a bit faster than normal without endangering others. Nothing annoys me more than people who speed to work and weave in and out of lanes without signaling. But I picked up a few minutes by moving in a faster lane than I normally do.
24 I started timing it all down, and still figured that under the best of circumstances, I was going to be a minute late.
25 Fortunately, I have a very polite first class. When I pulled into the school parking lot, I heard the morning announcements. It reminded me of some of those old YB days when Buzz would be standing in my portable shaking his head with a half smile. Good old Buzz.
26 I had on these Lennon shades and a straw hat, so that I looked sort of like an author or something. It was a fear-and loathing thing, but a semi-costume of sorts anyway. The students were at my door, the floor silhouetted against the window at the end of the hall.
27 I put a little swagger into my walk, smiled, and just said, "Good morning!" as though nothing was the least bit wrong. They parted and let me to the door, which I opened with magical ease. All was right when I heard a voice say, "Why are you late, Mr. Harrington?" I turned swiftly and mumbled.
28 "Avalanche." They laughed, I turned on the lights, and we were on our way.
29 In some strange sort of way, I managed to handle the very onslaught of Winter.
30 And the fun thing was this: they never knew.
31 They never knew. Just a quick chuckle and all was immediately right with the world.
32 And the rest of the day?
33 Dude. Here's a lesson.
34 Fly low.
35 Anyway, I made it through the day. I was still caught on radar by others who wanted things, but it was a great day, and a Winter wake-up call. This won't happen again. I had let down my guard over the Thanksgiving weekend, and almost had to pay.
36 They never knew.
37 My advice to you this glorious Tuesday?
38 Fly low.
39 Peace.
~H~
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