REPOST: Do you know your wild turkey tom?

I didn't think so.

Now click the picture to git yerself educated!

The Down & Dirty Blog Frolic (III): Between a Rock & a Hard Roll

A few posts back I implored the blog community to supply me with questions so that I would have something to post. And they delivered like Domino's! Here then is my attempt to do right by you all:

Edge said...
Best sex you ever had and what made it so steamy? Naughty boy!!! Since my entire family and my co-workers read this blog, I will put my answer in Arabic. You can go to Google Translator to find out what I said.

وما رأيت ان ابدأ اود ان افيدكم عن أي جنس مشبع بالبخار الاطلاق؟ وهي كثافه الخاصة وتجربة خاصة انني لن اشارك احدا فقط! لكن ، فقط لانك لن ترضى ، وهنا بعض الكلمات الرئيسية : الصبي ، عاريا وحمام البخار والوصابي والشرطة السجن مرة البنت الاطراف والايدي ، والترحيل. ان كفى لك؟

the psycho therapist said...

Where is he? In my heart and soul, every minute of every day. Wait ... what? Who did you think I was talking about?

Why do you need "constant validation" and attention? What are you, some kind of psycho therapist? Since you are new around here, I will allow a certain amount of play in this piece of twine, but not too much! You should know better than to press me on anything I have said; I will only lie to sidestep the discomfort. If you were to examine my Johari and Nohari windows, you would discover that I am a complex, alluring, and immature beast. Now, to answer your question! I need constant validation and attention because I am, at heart, an actress; you, my audience. The classroom, the blogosphere, the family dinner table, the grocery checkout line, the daily path I tread ... is my stage. What of it?

What has to happen inside of your mind before you'll swallow a man's [soul]? If you knew me better, you'd know that the [word] you used is one of my least favorite words in the vast lexicon of human mating behavior. I did say I'd answer any question, though, so I'll answer my [edit] instead: Before I even consider taking a bite of anything, I read the nutritional label. However, once I commit to opening the package, I eat 'til it's empty.

Do you prefer the finger or the tongue? As a pianist, I much prefer the finger. I tried to play Flight of the Bumblebee with my tongue once, and landed myself in the hospital. Not cool!

When will Axis II Personality Disordered individuals have their own reality show and who will kill first? I had to look up this terminology, and once I did, I realized that it is already happening, and it is only a matter of time. They are biding their time.

Diedre said...
Have you ever been to Estonia? Indeed! I went in 1999 with my two sisters, for the Song Festival.



I'll post about it someday. It was quite extraordinary to be surrounded by people speaking my language, and actually took some getting used to. It's a beautiful country and I recommend you visit!


jb3ll3 said...
How does a thermos really know? How do keep hot things hot and cold things cold? How does it really know? Silly girl! Everybody know that within the depths of every Thermos lives a tiny little Eskimo family:

When your food starts to get too warm, the Eskimo mother chips out an ice block and puts your food on it. If your food needs to stay warm, the Eskimo father goes out and clubs a seal, skins it, wraps your food in the fur, and makes a tallow-candle out of the blubber to warm your vittles by. Duh!

Marisa said...
Should I or shouldn't I? Ahh, if we could only be sure ahead of time! There is no security on this earth, there is only opportunity. [General Douglas MacArthur]


Freewheel said...
Which bloggers have you met in person? After you met them, did they seem like the person you imagined when you read their blog? I spent a weekend with Monkey, and he was much more fussy and indignant than I ever had imagined. To make up for that, he was infinitely more cuddly and lovable. And what a diva! Read all about it starting here.

Kat said...
I believe a lot of your kids look to you as THAT teacher. What teacher was your biggest inspiration and why? Besides my parents and grandparents, who were the most influential teachers I had, I believe that my high school science and Spanish teachers had the biggest impact on me; I suspect it was their humor and their own love of learning that impacted me the most.


jamwall said...
if I tell you that you have a nice bottle of wesson cooking oil ... will you rub it against me? I no longer have welts. If you had been paying attention when I told you, the Wesson is all gone. I have about 1/4 cup of jalapeño-flavored corn oil left, and a giant rubber spatula! Start running! I'll give you a head start.


miss kendra said...
do you miss me, even thought we've never met? I crave your sequin-swaddled self every tick tick tick of the clock.

sometimes I'm so happy that the internet allowed me to meet you (and others) and then other times i resent that i have friends who are so far away. do you agree? Very much so. It's an odd and endearing community, and I think of you as friends. Friends as dear as any. And I have the presents to prove it!

salty, sweet, spicy, savory? I like a greasy mishmash of all of the above.


MsLittlePea said...
Can you disco dance? Does an ant have teeth?

Do you know how to make pies? Yes! I have made at least two floorpies, and also pumpkin.

Do you love your neighbor as yourself? Not quite, but I did give him a jump-start today.

Do you love cupcakes? Yes, and do you want my address?

Have you ever went and ate worms when you felt unloved? No, but when I was 6, I discovered that some rocks taste salty. I used to walk around with a fistful of small pebbles in my mouth, just for the taste. I had my own personal salt lick; I used to store them under my bed and then re-suck them on the sly, whenever I had the opportunity. Then one day, I choked on one. After my dad saved my life, he thrashed me for having rocks in my mouth and I told him I didn’t know why I did it, I just wanted to see what they might taste like this one time. My twin sister, ever vigilant, sang like a bird: “Nuh-uh, she’s lying; she does it all the time! She has a huge pile of them under the bed!”

Bill said...
Why are you making me think when it's after midnight? Because, like all writers, you need to be pushed to avoid fading into mediocrity.

If life's for living, what's living for? (That's a line stolen from a Kinks song.) Living is for giving ... and forgiving.

I'm going to redo my kitchen, so - what colour? My blog colors (that's American for colours), or else pale yellow and periwinkle, or baby blue and brown (very hip and very now). Whatever color you like, go here to find colors that [surprisingly] work well together. Happy painting!


yournamehere said...
When you eventually marry me, can we have red velvet cake instead of boring old white cake? I would absolutely have a red velvet cake, as long as it wasn't shaped as an armadillo. As for you & me, this will only work out if you are OK with matriarchal polygamy, or with being my pool boy, 'cause I gots me a boy toy I ain't partin' with.

Übermilf said...
How many doughnuts are too many? What do you mean?

Also, of COURSE you love cupcakes! Yes, and do you want my address?

And, if you and Kendra want to meet somewhat halfway, you can both come to my house for tea. I couldn't imagine meeting one of you without the other.

Tits McGee said...
Why have so many people recently arrived at my blog after having searched for "pear tits?" I don't know, but if you moved to The UK you could have Great Tits.

BadGod said...
Do you listen to Opie & Anthony? Still no. Wait ... you're Opie, aren't you.

Am I the greatest thing ever? Close to it, and may I add how delighted I am to see you here, haunting my blog despite your own blog absence? My first blog friend, back to visit.

Ever 'done it' in the..uh...place of....poo making? I'm sorry, I can't break your top secret code; could you be a little less cryptic?

Does anyone really know what time it is? Mark does.

Why should I not "fear the reaper"? Because seasons don't fear the reaper. Nor do the wind, the sun or the rain. We can be like they are!

Will you keep answering my questions? Sure, baby.

Where have I been for the last few weeks? Sleeping in your truck.

I think Estonia is a neat word. (that's not a question.)

Who would you like to see play Roland, Eddie, Jake or Susannah if a Dark Tower movie is ever made? Oh, now you've opened the Pandora's Box, haven't you. All right then:

Who can really play Roland? I assume that I can choose anyone, from any time, so I choose the much younger Clint Eastwood of Man Without a Face. He is the only one who could do it. (Click on Roland's photo at left for a spooky click-through. Ooooohhhhhhhhh ...)

Susannah could be played by Angela Bassett, who can look like a real badass when she is mad. Remember in Waiting to Exhale when she burned the guy's car? What ... you haven't seen Waiting to Exhale? What is wrong with you?!?!?! I considered, then rejected Jada (the tough Matrix Jada, not the smiley Oscar-night one). And why???? Because I am sick of her face. Reason enough!

Jake: River Phoenix. A young, pre-My Own Private Idaho homoerotica River; a Stand By Me River. A living River. Oh, when will my heart stop mourning the loss of this wonderful boy? Yes, Joaquin, I love you, but there is a River-shaped hole in my soul where your brother once was. Oh yes, what was I saying? I think this photo captures the Jake I imagine; sensitive, tough, twice-born, twice-dead.

I struggled with Eddie, but I think I may have found him in David Beckham. He would have to have hair, and lose about 25 pounds for the heroin addict parts, but I think the handsome toughness is there. Now let's just hope he can act.

Where did all of these great questions come from? The Activity Book at Bible camp?

Should I go to sleep now or have one more cigarette? Oh, go for it.

What is the square root of 78,345 divided by pi? 89.0954999

bye! Godspeed, angel, and when shall we meet again?

jiggs said...
what happens if we pressure you? To answer this, let us all recall the Ideal Gas Law:

PV = nRT

[pronounced piv-nurrt]

Where P = pressure, V = volume of blog traffic, n = number of times I send you spam, R = how many times I say the word "retard" in one day, and T = How many of my Kitten in a Sandwich Thongs I throw in the incinerator. Notice that, according to this formula, Pressure and Thong-burning are proportional. You do the math.

B.E. Earl said...
Where is fancy bred? In the heart or in the head? Neither. Everybody knows that fancy bred is in Aisle 1, between whole wheat and dinner rolls.

Shanshu said...
How many times in a single day have you ever taken a picture of yourself, and then re-taken the same picture in the hopes of making yourself look better? Or, to make the entire picture look better? Usually about 3 takes to get the shot where I don't have a double chin and my hair looks the most fabu.

miss kendra said...
how do you take your coffee? strong, with half & half

eggs? Any way that's not raw.

what is your favorite song? or top three? what is it that you like about those songs? I love saddish love-related songs, like Gypsy (Suzanne Vega), Love Song for a Vampire (Annie Lennox), and Secret World (Peter Gabriel). They verbalize an emotion that I love feeling; listen, and you will know.

jamwall said...
how many licks does it take to get to the center of a cowbell gene? A cowbell jean? I lost count after the first one.

This was too too fun; let's mingle again soon. Thanks for indulging me!

Repost: The Baby Bonnet Pandora's Box

So when I wrote about my baby dream, I wanted a picture of a baby with a bonnet, so I could photoshop it and replace its face with a question mark. Cute, right? Because I am the photoshopping MASTER. Little did I know that I had fallen down the rabbit-hole of human strangeness. First, the good. Then the bad & the downright skeevy. Buckle up.

Now this is just plain adorable.

This makes me want to release my eggs

so that I can dress a little girl this cutely.

Of course, if it's a boy ... well, that's OK, right?

It's been done before.

Aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa!

Not so cute.

I just love dolls so much. Especially dolls with Kleinfeldter Syndrome (apparently) and possible ocular dysplasia. I'm just making up diseases, but whassup with scary big-head dolls?!?

Other dolls that scare me: Chucky, clowns (especially the ones that bounce back up after you hit them), the potato head couple and all their evil brood, white dolls turned Black or Hispanic (hell, Asian too---or Pacific Islander), anatomically correct female dolls (with delicate little folds of plastic labia), uncircumcised boy dolls, dolls that cry, politically correct Barbie (like Barbie, but with fallen arches, tiny tits, & cellulite. I think it's called "Happy to be Me" or some up-with-people shit like that), dolls that urinate, dolls that defecate, dolls that spit up ...

I don't get the whole infantilism thing.

Adults in diapers, sucking pacifiers?

You know I love adults sucking thumbs, right?

The bonnet? Not sexy.

Whatever. Live and let live.

Please just tell me there's not a load of Enfamil Green in that diaper.




Try to read my mind on this one.

Yes, I know it's a shar-pei, but unless it's cuddling David Hasselhoff,

shar-peis are just skinbags with feet.

(Story: I used to shop at a boutique where the owner had a shar-pei named Albert. Every time I went in, Albert would come running with a new toy. She bought him full-sized stuffed animals, which he would eviscerate in a few days, to be replaced. One Thanksgiving, he had a life-sized turkey. The next time I went in, he greeted me while shaking a suitcase-sized Pikachu. Also, who names a dog Albert?!?)

Related stories: The Joy of Teddy Bears Dressed as Other Animals

Now here's something interesting. Costumes for fetishists and cross-dressers. Now, I got nothin' against a fun little fetish; you know that. Who am I to judge human behavior? To each his own. I guess I just didn't realize what I've been missing out on. Now I know, and I wish I didn't. Won't you help me carry this burden? Be sure to check out the Gallery.

Thanksgiving vocalizations.

aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa!!!!!!!!!!!!

mmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmm.

... and thank you, George Frideric Handel,

for this most wonderful thing.

School of Life II: The Bag of Tricks

Teacher School of Life highlights some of the experiences I have had in my teaching career, for which my schooling (methods classes, Ed Psych, and student teaching) did not prepare me. The stories & events in this series are all 100% true. This is the second post in the series. Follow the link to read the first post, entitled The Gifts.

The Bag of Tricks

In my 16 years of teaching, I have developed numerous tricks of the trade that help me to be successful. None of these were learned in Teacher School, but they serve me quite well. Here are 10 of them.

1. I charm the kids into loving me and then they perform for me. Little do they know they have been charmed. Humor is my greatest weapon; I can outwit just about anyone who takes me on. I don't know how I would manage if this were not the case.

2. When kids in my class or the hallway get into physical altercations, I say, "Hey! Do you want me to get in there?!?!?! 'Cause I'll get in there! And I will flail!!!" This always breaks it up*. I think I just confuse them; it's not as if they were really scared of me or anything. They are caught off guard, and also don't know the meaning of the word flail, so they ask and I tell them. This is called "taking the teachable moment."

*This tactic did not work on the two gigantic high school girls who were using hard-bristled hairbrushes (bristle side out) as weapons. Nor did it work on the two girls who tickled me for candy (though, had I actually flailed, they would have backed off); nor the street gang with pipes and chains that put two teachers in the hospital. Nor the boy with the shotgun. "I will flail" is for your small-time, white-collar middle school tussle. Not for the real thing.

3. When I show a movie, instead of giving a quiz (which requires pre-watching and writing questions), I have the kids take notes and then do a verbal quiz in which they state one interesting fact from the movie. The catch: they are called upon at random, and they have to give a fact no one else gave. Tricky!

4. In my classroom, I use rock-paper-scissors to settle disputes. Thanks, Jiggs, for reminding me about the joys of that game. You just can't argue with it. Rock beats scissors. Paper beats rock. Scissors beat paper. Fin. I love the Far Side in which the cavemen play Rock (the other two as yet invented) and get frustrated by all the ties.

5. I use popsicle sticks with the kids' names on them to quick-pick groups and partners. So much better than having them write their names on slips of paper or choosing their own partners (this is very difficult for many kids). And you can't argue with a stick, either. If someone wants a different partner, I just say, "But look! It says it right here on the stick!"

6. If my floor is a mess (from cutting paper, for example), I play a game called "Exit Ticket." Every student has to pick up one piece of trash off the floor and then I stand at the door as they leave, collecting their tickets. No ticket? Go back and get one! Everybody wins at Exit Ticket!

7. Grading a whole notebook takes too long. I choose 5 items at random and just grade those. A random sampling reflects the overall health of the notebook, in my opinion. It's all about shortcuts ... but not sloppy-cuts. Just time-savers, really.


8. If I need everyone's attention, I have little gimmicks like saying, "If you can hear me, put your pinky in the air." Then when all/most of the pinkies are up, I chant, "pinkies in the air ... pinkies in the air ... now do a dance!" and we wiggle in a circle.* Now I have their attention and I can talk. To this day the students who were on my bus to Boston in October pass me in the halls and put their pinkies in the air. I will also quiet the class down by quietly singing the Bumblebee Tuna song, or sometimes Me & Bobby McGee. Or I will ring my Zen chime. It's so much better than yelling. *It is the hallmark of most great teachers that the students think they are a little bit crazy.

9. I never yell.

10. I will call your mother from my classroom and make you talk to her. Don't think I won't! You don't believe me? Ask Ryan; it just happened today.

Nostalgika II: Hungry Hungry Hippos & Mr. Mouth

Now here was a game I could understand.

Four hungry quadripeds, in a circle, gobbling marbles at a speed that would induce dyspepsia in most people. Why, it's just like Thanksgiving!

Also:

Similar concept, but it's just one hungry guy, and you shoot Necco Wafers into his mouth, as his head spins. I was always frustrated by the lack of control I felt with this one. With the hippos, I knew I just had to be the fastest, biggest pig. Mr Mouth wasn't as predictable. I like the illusion of control.

These were just a few of the games in the 4-spastic-kids-huddled-in-a-circle genre. See also: Cat's Eye. Your 5th friend would always read your Little House books during this time, as there was no room for a spare in this setup.

Next in Nostalgika: The freakiest TV show ever. Hint: Sleestacks!