life is good

I should be ashamed of myself for thinking this, but I have had an awesome two days thanks to a near-natural disaster and how the false alarm raised around it stole two days of education from already vulnerable young minds. Lives could have been changed! Artistic impulses and literary passions ignited!

Our neighborhood was bone-dry and utterly still until this afternoon—hours after the alleged hurricane had passed—when it rained maybe half an inch. My fantasy came true! Two days off of work, without having to cower under a mattress or eat cold Spaghetti-Os! Now I get to savor delectably piping-hot Spaghetti-Os, with a nice Montepulciano.

Some women need cabanas at the Four Seasons, full-body skin peels at the spa, 15-dollar poolside drinks made out of cucumbers, and shopping sprees to feel they’ve gone on a real vacation, but not me. Over the past two days, I have read the last few chapters of Harry that I’d been saving for the past week; learned that we have the Travel Channel (Missymussy + Tony Bourdain = Luv); organized the linen closet; and subsisted almost entirely on canned vegetarian chili and Country Time lemonade. I haven’t been this happy since “Breakfast for Dinner” night at Colorado College. (Go CC.)

And now my 4-day weekend begins! Today a sub is seeing what it’s like to be ME as I get my teeth drilled, then spend the whole day blissfully reading stacks of literature textbooks as I try to get the whole semester planned in advance. Then, Friday is Admissions Day (one of Hawaii’s many extra state holidays, this one to celebrate the day we became a state and won the right to have frivolous holidays), and that still leaves two whole normal weekend days.

I'm starting to think that the perfect profession for me is as a teacher who doesn't have to teach. I believe they are called "curriculum developers," and I believe they make about three times as much as teachers. However, I also have a tendency to think of them as Satan's spawn.