Tenor, Pregnancy, Teacher

I am a tenor in my barbershop women's chorus, and I have been listening to the two new songs that we will be doing this year. Unforgettable and the song for Cheers, (where everyone knows your name). If you don't know about barbershop music. There are four parts, but they have different names than in choral singing. There is the tenor (above the lead), the lead (the soprano in choral music, singing the melody), the baritone and the bass.

The tenor part can be quite high and when warmed up and singing with the chorus, others have told me that how high I can get is impressive :) But here in my own home, singing with the learning tapes is so high it always gives me a headache, and I can't do it for long. So, I just realized that I need to practice along with my part, but an octave down and then it is comfortable. That is what I have been doing for the last half hour. But it took a while to realize it, so I have a headache from the first 15 minutes.

I could be pregnant. My boobs feel different, a little fuller and bigger, and my poops have been strange - insistent and frequent. I have read online about the boobs thing, but not the poops. (Sometimes I hope that no one is actually reading this as I am honest to the point of embarrassment, so if you have read it, no need to comment.) But there is no need to buy a pregnancy test yet, as my ovulation time could have been as late as the 24th and you need to be 10-12 days past your ovulation time for any kind of accuracy in the tests. So I am hoping and waiting.

I'm not sure what to write about most days, my life is not that exciting right now. Nothing about funny things my toddler said or did, no anxiety about not getting enough sleep with a baby around, no job to stress over or to tell little stories about, no crazy maniacal principal who has it out for me, no angry parents to e-mail me, (not that there were many of those when I was a teacher).

I was thinking for the last week or so about the "exit interview" I forced on the assistant superintendent of the Mountain View Schools, when I was let go (not tenured). The unfair part of it was that there was no consideration given to the many people who thought I was a great asset to the school district. The previous principal (who had been there my first year), the parents who loved me, the other teachers who heard so many complimentary things about me from our fellow students, the opinions of the mentor teachers who had observed me over and over for both years, none of them were considered. The only person who mattered was the principal, who ran the school and staff with fear and unreasonable behaviors and lies. Even though the district heard from the teachers many times about her behavior, it didn't matter to them, they kept her for the second year and listened to her in the face of all of the positive things being said about me. It was so unreasonable.

So, I had been rehearsing and ruminating how I would have expressed all of that if I'd been able to think that clearly at the "exit interview". At breakfast on Saturday (Fred and I went to our favorite place, the Country Gourmet on El Camino. We go there every Saturday and split a breakfast.) I told Fred my thoughts (he has a way of injecting sense into my concerns and making me look at things differently.) He said that it could have been a few things. One, they were just lazy and did not want to look into things fully or Two, they were idiots or Three, they wanted to close their eyes to the truth and put their hats in with the principal (whom they seem to like, at least enough to keep her for an additional year.) I did feel better after he said that. It really had nothing to do with me.

I am able to get a lot of exercise this year having my days free and keep my stress down which could help with the getting pregnant thing.

Thanksgiving

We kept little kitty out of the bedroom last night to see how my nose and face would do. The poor soul meowed almost all night long. (Fred said, my head was under the pillow, but I did dream about cats and there was a lot of meowing going on.) I did wake up well and was able to go back to sleep after getting up around 6:30, which I couldn't do the day before because of the sneezing and blowing of the nose.

We had a lovely thanksgiving dinner this evening, friends from our church, who are on weight watchers. I am going to visit a meeting on Saturday to see what I think, of course I wouldn't officially join until after the baby is born. Who knows how long it will take to get pregnant, but you shouldn't diet while trying to get pregnant or the body will think that there is not enough food to go around. So I am enjoying the periodic small bowl of Haagen Daz.

I also tried a Skinny Cow treat tonight, a yummy ice cream sandwich. Wow. So good.

The couple have a daughter who is 10, and she and I talked for a long time at the end of the evening. I do so love talking to kids and they love being listened to, so it was fun. I do miss kids. So much. I keep praying for direction in what I should be doing now, we'll see. I was looking online for a job and there is basically only one and it is about 2 hours a way at a private school, which would mean that I would get paid much less than public school. Hmmmm.

The biannual clothes switcheroo

I finally decided to change out my closet. I took out all of the t-shirts and summery skirts and traded them out, into the big blue Wal-Mart bin, for the winter sweaters and long sleeve T's.
Ah, the amount of dust or whatever I am allergic to in clothes sitting in a bin for 6 months was making me sneeze about 100 times an hour. My overall body heat rose and I had to open a window and change into a short sleeve shirt. My nose became bright red and is now chapped. Let alone the amount of stress when I am deciding which clothes should stick around and which should go to the Goodwill. Did the clothes going to the Goodwill mostly originate there anyways? Should I shop there less??? Should I take the time to pick out the still valuable clothes and take them to a consignment store to try to make a little back? There was that one time that I painstakingly washed and placed on hangers a ton of what Fred calls "teacher clothes" to take to a consignment store and they were all rejected! Rejected! Maybe I am scarred deep down from the cold hearted treatment of that fateful day. Or maybe I'm a little lazy.
I wonder how the percentage compares of clothes that I buy at a real store going to the Goodwill and clothes I purchased at the Goodwill going back. I wonder why giving clothes away makes me feel guilty? If I haven't worn it in a few years, it must not be that interseting to me and it should go. This I have learned from multiple home organizational shows.
Maybe someday I will have enough closet space to put all of my winter clothes, and summer clothes, and old clothes I feel guilty getting rid of all together. Ahhhhhhh.

Fall Days

I was walking over to the library today, listening to the crunch of red leaves under my shoes (so glad that in this ideal climate there is some autumn for me to enjoy) and remembering a great fall day from my past.
It was my first date with Fred. We had been talking on the telephone for hours a few times each week, he in Columbus and me in Chicago. We had just finished high school and met over the summer at some church functions. He had asked me if he could write to me and I said not unless the intention was that we were going to get married, otherwise it would be a waste of time. (Crazy, hey) He said that was fine and so we started our 5 year long distance courtship.
I got lots of advice that we were too young (I was 18 and he was 17 when we met) that we would grow away from each other and should not be making this kind of a commitment at this age. That we would be different people when we were 25 than we were at 18.
My first visit to him was a day late in October, when fall was in full swing in Columbus Ohio. Back then a round trip ticket from Chicago to Columbus was $44 on AmericaWest Airlines. I got into Columbus at 9 am and was scheduled to leave at 9 pm. Fred picked me up in his red Nissan Pulsar NXSE (which I was so enamored by) and we drove to the Ohio State campus. We walked and held hands and talked as our feet crunched through the leaves and the scent of fall wafted up around us. I'm not sure where we ate that day, or what else happened, but as we were waiting in the top level of the parking garage for me to go back to Chicago, we decided that we would get married as soon as we finished college. A perfect fall day.

High Heels and The Stanford Theater

I knew it would get to this point. I have nothing really to write. But I have to write so I can know that I have been working every day, EVERY day towards becoming a writer when I grow up.
Well, I did wear high heels today.
It was very exciting. I am not at all sure how to do it. Do I drop my heel first, or concentrate on starting out with my toes? If I start with my toes, I sort of clomp around, but when I start with my heels, I hear tapping sounds and it feels like I am walking heavily.
I got the heels for 5 dollars from the Loehman's sale on clearance items. They are Saychelles that started out at 90 dollars, then went down to 30, then 20 and then I got them for 5. Better than Goodwill prices!! They hurt a little and made me the same height as Fred, but I felt lovely.
We went to see Rebecca (the film depicting the novel by DuMaurier, which I read in high school and loved, but have forgotten almost all of as I have so many other things from high school, alas.) I love seeing old movies at the Stanford Theater. The organist playing between the movies. My feel illegally up on the banister in the coveted front row of the balcony. (Until the lady whose job it is to tell me to take my feet down stops by. I saw her once tell an older gentleman to take his feet down and then go sit a few rows up. When he thought she had gone he put his feet back up and she came back down and told him again. Then she really left, but he did not put his feet back up!) Fred and I enjoying the wonderful inexpensive (2.50 for a LARGE) popcorn with butter. Me studying the old time clothes and us laughing at the sometimes overdramatic acting.
I think we have been there 10 times at least since we've moved here.
My mom loves old movies, so I call her and give her the run down of what is playing that weekend and she tells me what is worthwhile to see and what we could skip. She said no to The Birds and Psycho. Who needs to be scared to be outside, or to shower. Not me.
I love to look at the restored paint on the walls and ceiling of the theater. The feel of the red velvet seats. I actually like that there is no place to rest my head on the seats and that you can't really lean back. I always wonder what the hair was like on the million persons who have sat in a theater chair before me as they have leaned back and rested their heads. I had lice in college twice, TWICE you know, possibly from theater seats! But not at the Stanford theater, the seats are not tall enough in the back to rest your head!
I have used a lot of exclamation points in this post!