HOME EC, HUH?

Another of my famous "remote" posts. I'm sitting in the classroom/kitchen that houses the Home Economics program (wait, isn't that called "consumer science" now?) at the Encampment School. I'm pretty glad to be here after a scary, slushy drive down 130/70 to get here, first putt, putt, putting along after a schoolbus, then dodging snowplows. All good material for my NaNoWriMo novel, which among other things concerns the experiences of people enduring three straight years of winter (Fimbulvetr). I have a strong feeling that a certain Anglo-Saxon-syllable-intensive entry from this here blog (PLOP!) is going to mutate into a scene...

So yes, I'm a substitute teacher, for the first time in charge of junior high and high school kids, Bog help me. First period was quiet, two guys I last remember as goofy seventh grade football players (now juniors in high school!) making cookie dough. Now there's a little girl (ok, probably a sophomore, but you know) sewing together little pieces of paper with a sewing machine. I'm keeping my distance. Sewing machines and I, well, we have a long and ignominious history. I'm convinced they've all developed a taste for my blood.

One nice advantage to subbing in the Home Ec room: there is a coffee maker right here, and a freshly-opened can of Folgers. I have a whole pot of coffee to myself, in other words, and don't have to meander down the hall like so many sixth graders seeking soda every time I need a refill. Hooray!

All in all, not a bad way to earn a few bucks with which to maybe actually do some Christ-X shopping. Oy, I can't believe that's coming up already. One's Halloween Hangover is barely banished (okay, not mine personally, because I was just one day off my sickbed and stuck to club soda), the glitter from one's last-minute costume (I glammed it up and went as the "Anti-Kate" in a Stevie Nicks skirt, high heeled boots, gold lame tube top fashioned from a scarf, tons of makeup, and enormous hoop earrings. People all night kept telling me I looked "hot", leading me to wonder how I look the rest of the time. Am I really that frumpy?) still stubbornly clinging to one's face and cleavage despite one's best and soapiest ministrations, and suddenly everything is red and green and jolly and there's Christ-X music all over the place and the sixth period Foods class is going to be decorating Christ-X cookies this afternoon oh Bog!

Oh well, at least it's pretty much time to start skiing again. Rex?