Shellybird (Kinda) Short Post:

Welp, I'm back, and as far as I know, ok. I got the CT scan of my liver and it came back normal, meaning nothing awful like cancer. My doc still wanted an ultrasound though just to be sure-sure. Apparently even in my advanced, middle-aged, need-to-be-shopping-for-cats years, I'm awful young to have a spot on my liver. I had that done Friday and I guess I'll hear something by Tuesday. I said in a previous post that God is still in the blessing business, and I know he hasn't taken his shingle in since then. So I'll just be over here waiting on my next blessing...and trying to quit smoking.

On a slightly lighter note, the doctor who did the CT scan of my liver looked--from what I could see of his face around the mask--and sounded like Ben Stein. He was a very sweet guy who walked slowly with a slight hump in his back. I'm a sucker for male doctors who have a kind and gentle manner and this one did *daddy issues*. As I was laying on the table waiting for him to shoot the dye into my IV (to illuminate my liver in all its spotty glory), I was also rambling on asking questions. I stay looking out for #1. I asked how my liver could be jacked up since I only drink 3 times a year. His bespectacled eyes looked over the mask at me sadly and he said, "Even three times a year is too much." (I told you this was only a slightly lighter note.) But I did amuse him with my lack of knowledge about the location of my liver. My high school guidance counselor wouldn't allow me to take human anatomy because I was shooting for the 22-credit diploma for college-bound students and I sucked at math and science already. She said there was no need for me to bring my gpa down any lower. THAT'S why I thought the liver was in the back near the kidneys. That's why I call the swirly, cartilagey part of the ear the "crispy-crisp". Don't judge me.

I need to hit the hay because I have school tomorrow. I have a lot going on, and I've been stressed. The tax deadline is tomorrow and I need to find a preparer to file an extension for me for free after school. I really need to do better and eventually, I will. Until then, I'm going to try not to worry because...GOD.

Spring Breakin' and Praying For Time

While it makes our paychecks a wee bit shorter, we subs have a healthy appreciation for spring break. At least THIS sub does, and what a spring break it has been. (This could be a long one, so bear with.)

A few weeks ago--well, I guess it was early March--I started feeling this mysterious soreness on my right side at my rib cage. It was under the skin, not sore like when I take a bath the soap and hot water would light me up. Just sore to the touch. I could feel a lump and a welt under there too. I lost my daddy to a smoking-related cancer back in '07 and I smoke, so I'm all like, "Ohhhhhh shit, CANCER!" You'd think I would have quit smoking long ago, but not yet. *side eyes self*. My Obama care has kicked in though, so I made my way to the doctor. He felt the lump and sent me to a surgeon who also felt the "THING" and thought outpatient exploratory surgery was in order. (Does Obama Care even cover that?????) I requested that the surgery be scheduled for spring break so I wouldn't miss any school. Between the doctor's appointments and x-rays, I'd already missed enough. I ain't a salaried employee yet, honey.

Well, guess what? Weeks of worry and an Easter Sunday visit to the church altar later, it was time for the surgery. I'm prepped and wheeled up to the operating area (?). I don't know the technical term for it. My iv juice was making me feel all nice and relaxed when the doc strolls in and asks me about my spot. I couldn't find it. HE couldn't find it. It was gone, so Doc said there was no need for the procedure because he'd just be "digging around" and my name was stricken from his dance card for that day. You'll not tell me that my God ain't in the blessing business.

I will say I was slightly embarrassed because I hate to feel like I'm wasting anyone's time. Maybe I should have been checking on it all along, but in my mind I was already dead and buried. I apologized--a cornball move in retrospect--and the doc asked me why I was apologizing, that I should be glad I didn't have to have surgery but before he left me laid out there he apologized too. He also left me with a little nugget of information regarding my health: When they did the CT scan of my problem area, they found a spot on my liver. My LIVER. You know that organ that you CANNOT live without, unlike at least one kidney or lung, the tonsils, gall bladder, or appendix...MY LIVER. After he left, I just laid on the bed being pumped full of feel-good juice with my eyes misting. I had spent the days and weeks leading up to the "surgery that wasn't" imagining my funeral, playing George Michael's "Praying For Time" repeatedly, imagining how sad my mama would be without me, imagining the wedding, guilt-free intramarital sex, and pretty babies I would never have, imagining seeing my beautiful grandma again--if I got into Heaven...I had also stocked up on post-surgical cuisine--soup and jello. I guess it's just sitting in the cupboard waiting for me to actually have surgery...or the flu.

I hate canned soup, so I eat ramens.

Meanwhile, I'm trying to figure out what went wrong with my liver. I drink 3 times a year: Christmas, New Years, my birthday, and those occasions all depend on whether or not my bestie is in town. There are no drinkers in my immediate fam and I don't drink alone. Where am I going to get a liver if my current model has become a dud? Those things are hard to come by, you know, and don't people with liver problems swell up? Call me shallow, but I don't want to swell up. I don't want to be on the liver donation wait list, basically waiting for someone else to die. I don't want to be sick period. My menstrual cramps, migraines, and allergies are enough to make me take to my bed. What will I do? Now that I mention migraines, my drug of choice when I don't have a maxalt prescription is Excedrin Migraine which contain acetaminophen. Which is bad for the liver. LORD, have mercy. So school starts next week, and I'm already down one day for a CT scan of my liver.

Sub Adventures 5: NOPE (A Shellybird Ventpost)

As Cartman used to say at the end of every episode of South Park, I've learned something today. (At least, I guess that was Cartman, and I guess it was every episode. I stopped watching that show after they went too hard in the paint with the Jesus jokes. The way my soul's salvation is set up, I have enough to answer for. Can't be all laughing at the Messiah.)

Here's the lesson: I am NOT a middle school teacher. I just CANNOT deal with those chaps and their attitudes. Give me sweet little ones who cry at the drop of a hat, count on their fingers, and need their shoes tied. Those big(ger) kids just aren't for me. The high school--with the REALLY big kids--doesn't even factor into my equation. I was at the middle school today and the air was so thick with "Screw this, I don't wanna be here, and I DON'T have to listen to a substitute," that I could have cut it with a knife. I would take into consideration the fact that spring break starts Friday IF this wasn't a regular occurence for me when I go to ye olde springboard to high school, but nah. I can count on ONE FINGER the number of times I've subbed at the middle school and my students have acted the way they were supposed to, so let's not blame the much maligned spring fever, cuz he ain't do nuffin'. It's a fundamental lack of respect for authority and elders.

I am not now, nor have I ever been perfect, but I knew how to act when I left the house. I didn't want to be that kid who showed her ass (a euphemism for showing off) in public or at school and give myself a "bad name". My mama and my grandma would have beat enough shades of black off of me to make me light skinneded as Vanessa Williams. Ok, I was being facetious with the Vanessa Williams part because they were by no means abusive, and in all honesty my spankings were few and far between.* I was raised to behave a certain way, and I adhered to it. I don't know HOW the younger generations are being raised these days, and I'm sure it's a sign of the apocalypse that a gen X-er even has to say that. Here's what I DO know: I'll be burned out before I even get my teacher's licence if I don't take the middle school off my list of preferred sites. (FYI: My transcripts are at the Department of Education even as we speak, so the wheels are in motion.) I don't get paid enough as a sub to put up with the behavior I'm confronted with at the middle school EVERY SINGLE TIME I go there. Teachers  certainly don't get paid enough to put up with it everyday. I say all of that to say, no middle school for the kid. Just NOPE.

*Even though I was spanked as a child and turned out friggin' AWESOME, I'm not a proponent of corporal punishment. Laying my hands on kids just isn't for me. SO DONT EVEN TRY TO SAY that this post is suggesting in any way that my "baddies" deserve beatings. That's not what I meant, and I'm not up for the bullshit.

Sub Adventures 4: Near Misses....

Some of my bloggiest moments (when I REALLY have a lot to say and want to write about it) usually come on nights before I have to sub. For me that is usually not an option because of my fear of oversleeping. Let me just tell you that I had a week of near misses towards the end of February, and I didn't even write the nights before. I still have chills thinking about it, but here's the story:

I live down country, in my grandma's house, the house that raised me. *insert heart emoticon* How far down country am I? Let me put it to you like this: I have NO LESS than a 20 minute drive to get to the nearest convenience store for gas or a pack of Nabs. (Google it, city slickers. We country mice already know what Nabs are.) The schools I choose to work at are at least a 30 minute drive for me; there is nothing closer. If I selected all of the elementary schools in the county--and I wish I could have, for more experience--there would be days that I'd have an hour drive to and from school. NOPE. When I'm on my way home from school in the afternoon, I get what I need to get while the getting is good because I AIN'T going back out of the house, except in case of medical emergencies...or the occasional nicotine fit.

I set 2 alarms for school: A standard battery powered clock and my cell phone. The clock is set for 5:45am, but my actual rise-n-shine time is 6:15am at the latest. I never actually get up and hop in the shower before 6:15. That early alarm buys me 30 minutes of "Lawd Jesus, WHY can't I win the lottery?!?!" time. Even though I love subbing, those years spent in retail hell--especially the last few leading up to my firement--have scarred me. The sound of my alarms triggers Pavlovian feelings of dread no matter what the alarm is for.

So for 2 days straight, I woke up at 7am!!!! That's the time when I'm usually moisturizing, getting dressed, and taking my rollers out of my hair! My survival--or LAWD-JESUS-I-CAN'T-GET-FIRED-FROM-THIS-JOB-TOO--instinct kicked in. I managed to get myself ready and out the door in 30 minutes, you know, normal people time. It usually takes me an hour because I putter and daydream, but I nipped that in the bud on those 2 days and got to school on time! Woo!

Shellybird Ramblins: Another Saturday Night Wasted

Wow...I think I need a life, a date...SOMETHING. While getting Sunday dinner ready for tomorrow, I've been on the innanets, watching Lion Babe and Nina Simone videos, the type of songs that I should be trying to get 1 of my last 10 eggs fertilized to. I was also watching kitten videos because lately I've just been DRAWN to them. It's like the universe is telling me, "You're never going to find a man. Look at these cute kittens on YouTube. And pick one...or 100." Oh, and for variety I've been Google image searching Alfred Enoch from "How to Get Away With Murder", and the Harry Potter films. I'm more interested in HTGAWM Alfred. I've never seen the Harry Potter films (or read the books) and Harry Potter Alfred was a boy, so that would just be creepy. He's all growed up now though!

May I borrow a cup of sugar, suga?

I've always said that after my ex-fiancé, who was 8 years my junior and a nucking fut (switch the letters), I would never date a young guy again. Like, 5 years younger than me is the lowest I will go. Alfred is 16 years younger than me though, and I gives NO damns. He could get itttttttttttt....I'm just saying. Alas, he is taken, but he has the starting role in my fantasies. Another Saturday night wasted...Told you this post was random.

*I wrote most of this post on Saturday night, February 21st. I got around to adding the link to the cat video and posting...now.*

Sub Adventures 3: Swapsies.

Last week, I had a 2-day stint with a first grade class because their teacher had the flu. Of course, I find this out AFTER I'd been at the teachers desk for an hour touching stuff, but hey, I've had 43 decent years.

Anyway, since Valentine's day--known to us adults as Penis Christmas or the Ultimate Side-Chick Check--fell on Sunday this year, the students were going to exchange Valentines on Friday. On Thursday, one of the students --unbeknownst to me--was going around passing out Smarties. Somehow--also unbeknownst to me--"Cody" and a little girl I'll call Imani swapped a roll of his Smarties for her shiny red plastic pencil sharpener. Well, the next day, we had a reading and a spelling test. The only pencil sharpener in the classroom was broken, so Cody was generous enough to let the students use "his" pencil sharpener before the tests. Imani stood up and said, "Can I have my pencil sharpener back please?"

Cody responded, "But you gave it to ME."

I gently reminded Imani that you don't give someone something and then take it back.*
This was the day that Imani had to learn one of life's hard lessons: Don't swap food items for non-food items, except in the case of some sort of apocalyptic food shortage when exceptions can and should be made. She scarfed down her roll of Smarties on Thursday and had to come back to school on Friday--when the Smarties were probably sewage--and watch Cody traipsing around with her shiny red sharpener. I know her six-year-old soul was crushed. But Miss ****** really did not have time to play Solomon; there were tests to administer. I put the pencil sharpener on the desk with a post-it note attached explaining the situation so the teacher could make the final decision. Whenever a student needed their pencil sharpened, I let Cody know I was letting a student use it, like it was still his. HOWEVER, it was on the desk and not in Cody's hand, so Imani had nothing to cry about. (I guess I did Solomon the situation for the moment after all.) And what did we learn, chirrens?

THIS

IS NOT EQUAL TO THIS.

*I stopped short of calling it "Indian giving" because that's offensive to our Native American brothers and sisters. The teachers don't even tell students to sit on the floor "Indian style" anymore. Now it's called "criss cross applesauce"...no offense to apples. (I was being facetious there. Trust me, I'm Black. I really do understand these things.)

Shellybird Shortpost: Let It Snow???

Ever since the weather finally broke--meaning that the warm tank-top holiday season we had gave way to bonafide winter--I've been checking the forecast for snow. (My last few sub adventures, including today's shenanigans make me want a snow day even more.)

The weatherman had been all over the place for the last week with his predictions. At first we were supposed to get a half-inch to 2 inches by tomorrow. It's 50° today though. Can temps like that foster any accumulating precip? I don't see how. During lunch at school today, the teachers and I were talking about what we'd been hearing. I looked at the Weather Channel app on my phone and saw rain drops for today and 1 huge snowflake on the Friday graphic.  Well cool, a 3 or 4 day weekend would work. I just looked again (after school) and it's gone.  No snow in the forecast at all, except for an ALLEGED snow/rain mix next Tuesday which will do me no good at all now. I don't want an ice storm, just 4 or 5 fluffy inches of the white stuff. Around here, that's all we need to close school. I know I said in a previous post that I was good on snow. I'm taking that back. Today. Am I the ONLY sub who needs snow days? Is there a substitute teacher support group? I need answers.

SERIOUSLY?!

*The preceding YouTube video is not my property, but Lord knows we share the same sentiments.*