A Series of Interesting Events

What interesting last few days I have had!  I've been on my own these last few weeks, and forced to hold down the fort as best as I could.  I've realized, if I was single, I would think long and hard before I bought a house or at least one with a large yard on my own.  I've been mowing the lawn a bit, and I noticed that I cut the grass about as well as I shave my legs: patchy at best with some missing sections.  In my defense, I have had to avoid recently fertilized areas, but I can't seem to figure out how to use the edger (I'm blonde, give me a break!).

This Friday was super exciting at the end of the day.  My students were enjoying a little cookie and as I am getting my students ready to get in line to go out to the bus, I notice one of the students choking, and she was ghostly white.  She managed to gasp out "I.  Can't.  Breathe!", and so I started smacking her back and encouraging her to cough.  Then she stopped gasping, as she wasn't getting any air in at all.  My years of lifeguard training must have kicked in, and I immediately took her aside and gave her the Heimlich.  It was so weird - I was completely calm, and after a little piece of cookie (and lots of slobber) came out, I just started shaking, and I had a stomach ache all weekend after the adrenaline rush.  I always wondered when I was taking those CPR/First Aid classes - would I really be able to keep my cool in an emergency situation?  Amazingly, I was.  It was like something just took over me, and I was cool as a cucumber.  Thank God, my student is just fine, and not freaked out at all.  Hopefully I will never have to do that again!!

So after all of that insanity, I have had a pretty vanilla weekend.  Yet in the midst of doing laundry this morning, I came downstairs to change loads and noticed water everywhere!  I called the Rotor Rooters, and it turns out that in these old houses, the floor drains and house trap (yeah, I still don't really know what that is) clog very easily.  Since I've been bacheloretting it up lately too, not as much water has been running through our pipes, so it made the clogs even worse.  So basically, I need to pee/shower more often, and use crappier toilet paper.  Luckily, the clog is fixed (knock on wood!), but the basement reeks.  Sigh.  That balancing crap - save a life, flood the basement.  Oh well.  Hooray for the Real Housewives of New Jersey marathon!  Life is still good. ;)

Kate Suarez: lifesaver, often unshowered bachelorette.

Putain!

Ok, so after this big vow to renew myself (and write often), I realized, it has been close to two weeks since I've posted!  Jeez.  So here we are...

I got to spend a fabulous weekend with Rob, who was finally able to come back to the house after being away for more than five weeks!  Yay!  While we didn't do anything especially fun, (Rob spent most of Sunday doing taxes while I mowed the lawn and killed weeds) it was actually nice to do "normal" things around the house, and not make it more or less a vacation stay.  I will say, though, it was weird to have him back in the house, and the kitty had a hard time giving Rob back the side of the bad he claimed after he left.  But anyways, we went to the movies, cooked dinner, walked around the Plaza, and snuggled a lot.  I really missed him, and it felt good to have him back for a nice (albeit short) visit.

Work has been going well - we've been really working on story writing in the morning, and the kiddos are trying so had to write in French, and I'm so proud of them!  I've also received a lot of awesome artwork, as displayed above.  The top one is a heart that is supposed to say "Je t'aime, Madame Suarez" (I love you, Madame Suarez).  The bottom one was created on one of those frozen pizza cardboard sheets, and it is a picture of me.  I LOVE IT!

Here we are 9 weeks away from the end of the year, and I still have some students mispronouncing my name.  I get "Madame Saress", "Madame Scorss" (???), "Madame Sore-ass" (lovely) "and my favorite, "Madamasaurus".  That's Madamasaurus REX, children! 

Here I am:
Kate Suarez, dinosaur (?), slacker, fine art collector.