Eight Points with No Return

1. I want to comment on the Atlanta Public Schools' cheating scandal. I've typed out my observations [rantings] and general conclusions [more rantings], but I've found that they come across as rather scrambled and crazy. Maybe I can revise it?

*raises puny fist*

2. My friend Laura's in town from Florida and camping out at her daughter's condo so that she can be there to allow the installers of new cabinetry access to the kitchen. I hung out with her yesterday, and Laura asked [cajoled] me into helping her put together her daughter's new gas grill. There were two brains [Laura's and mine], two sets of directions [Laura had the ones in English; I had the ones in another language, but we had the same pictures], and not much brawn. We needed brawn, then brains. I guess this is why God created Adam first and then Eve.

*remembers own grill being outsourced to nephew, Andrew*

3. Tallulah has taken to camping out in a potted plant on the deck to watch the birds. She thinks the greenery camouflages her rather superb, yet geographical location to the bird bath.

*shakes head*

4. It dawned on me yesterday that I now have three former students[that I know of] who are high school English teachers: Claire, Tabitha, and now Mary.

*shakes head again*

5. I read Same Kind of Different As Me. Loved it.

6. Last week's yard work brought me this week's poison ivy. I chatted with a PA at the Clinic in the Walmart in Clayton, Georgia, just to make sure that this inflamed mess on my arm was indeed poison ivy.

Me: I just want to make sure that this is poison ivy and not a virulent form of an unknown infection or a bite from some pesky, but deadly, insect.
PA from Walmart's Clinic: Yep. Poison ivy.
Me: Why does it look so inflamed?
PA: Cuz it is.
Me: Should I buy something to put on it?
PA: You can, but it won't do no good. Two weeks with stuff on, it will be gone. Two weeks without stuff, it will be gone.
Me: I've been putting Benadryl on it.
PA: Uh huh.
Me: Any other advice?
PA: [drily] Don't get in it any more.

Bwhahaha. So funny. Except not.

7. I'm in love with Healthy Choice fudge bars. It's probably the chemical additives.

8. I heard this song the other day on the radio. The first time I have heard it in years. I know that we [my friends and I -- this song came out in 1967] used to speculate [just like the folks at the dinner table in the song's lyrics] as to why Billie Joe McCallister jumped off the Tallahatchee Bridge.




But I don't think that's the point of the song.

*shrugs*