Monday Monday

Today is Monday.

The kids are back at school. Geoff didn't want to go. He wants to stay here with me, now that he realizes I'm unemployed. I informed him that I would be going out, working on websites, doing the shopping, hopefully going on interviews and cleaning like mad -- that here with me is not going to be fun. His friends await him. He should be with his friends and be learning.

"I want to skip school and go straight to college. I already know everything that they teach in school," he answers.

"Okay then, Smitty Smartypants, what's a hypotenuse?"

"It's an animal."

"No. It isn't. What does perpendicular mean?"

"It's something you do with a computer."

"No. It isn't. Go to school, learn. Find out what these words mean. If you don't find out today you'll find out later. But you don't know everything right now. Be patient, someday you'll be in college, and you'll long for the days when you were in first grade. Trust me."

Grudgingly, he readied himself, grumbling and muttering like an old man. I plan on showing him what hypotenuse and perpendicular mean after he gets home. And I hope he doesn't drive his teacher nuts asking her. He'll mispronounce them, and she won't know what the heck he's talking about, and then he'll get mad and insist that she's stupid. And he'll land in the principal's office...

Joy.

And so they're off. They are at school. After a long week off where Jessica desperately wanted me to take her to the movies and I took them bowling instead, she's kind of disappointed in her "vacation." She wanted movies and the mall. Doug got home after 7pm each night, so going to see ROTK was out of the question for me at 8pm. I do know I disappointed her, but. It is what it is. We went bowling, she saw Barenaked Ladies in concert, there was a pool, hotel, and all sorts of fun and insanity. I think we did okay.

The funny thing was yesterday we decided to do some geocaching, as is our wont when it is not snowing or negative eleventy degrees out. She got mad. "This is my LAST day of vacation. I do NOT want to waste my time GEOCACHING!!!!!!" So we gave her the bums rush out the door, and we had a lovely time. And SHE had a lovely time. We did three caches, and only the first one was of any distance. The other two were a walk up to this telephone pole in this person's backyard and there's a box under it (we parked 300 feet from the pole) and one was a "virtual" cache, where you go read a sign, and answer questions about the location, email the site owner, and you get credit. Easy Peasey.

Cache number one was a multi stage cache in Magnolia/Manchester. We parked and walked the .47 to the first clue, found it with little difficulty, and then we went to check out the ocean. We didn't have the dogs with us -- good thing too. They would have been in the water the whole time. Cold. Wet. Smelly. Meh. But we met other dogs, and they were nice. We headed to the second stage, and had to walk past the first stage. Coming down the hill was a dad and his two little boys. I heard one of the boys say "did you hide it really good?" and I knew they were caching. So I stopped to say hi.

One of the boys said "What are you doing?" with his compass in his hand. I replied, "Oh, I don't know. Maybe the same thing YOU guys are doing?" and the dad laughed. They told us that this was their first cache, and he offered to let us go ahead and he'd keep the boys busy on the beach while we got ahead of them. I told him that wouldn't be necessary, mostly because I knew no matter what the headstart that his boys would catch up to us and pass us because our kids are pokey. Instead, I suggested that they come along with us.

They live near the cache, and they started planning going out about two months ago, but the winter had been too cold. We had a nice talk, and he knew a lot about the property where we were, so he filled us in on the history of the place. His boys were very fast and eager, very fun and happy kids. Geoff kept calling them "dudes" and I don't think they liked that... Geoff is a little peculiar, as you all know, and some kids just don't get it.

Jessica seemed genuinely happy to have someone new to talk to, and regaled the dad with stories of our geocaching mishaps. With a laugh and a smile. So she actually seemed to enjoy herself.

The final stage of the multi was way way up on some rocks, and the trail getting up there was steep and (for me and our kids) kind of slow going. Doug and one of the new boys jetted up the trail, the little boy could just about taste the cache and couldn't wait to find it.

I got to the top and stepped on a rock, which was covered in some invisible oceany slipperiness, and I fell flat on my chest. Ouch. The dad was really concerned with me, but I was fine -- just really worried about everyone else. One of his boys found the cache, and I took some good pictures of everyone, including the gorgeous view from on top of the hill.

We packed up and went down, and it was Doug's turn to wipe out on the slippy rocks. He landed on his hip and is convinced his wallet saved his life -- he thinks he would have broken his hip if he hadn't landed on it. He's got a huge bruise and lump there. One of the little boys from the other team wiped out on the same rock that I did. Getting down proved to be more challenging than going up.

After making it down to the parking area, we parted ways and went on to do the other two caches.

We have one cache left for 100. I so desperately want to go caching by myself this week, but if I do, I'm going to have to log it after we hit 100 together as a team.

I've got two new places to scope out for hiding caches, one in Rowley and one in Ipswich. I can do some hiking without actually caching if I go survey the terrain and find a good place for a new hide.

On the job hunt front, I've sent out a million resumes and have gotten one phone call and two emails. One email to inform me that the job was filled but they liked my credentials and resume and they'd keep me in mind if something else came up. Thanks. The other email was for a job at a private school. The director of technology personally emailed me to let me know that they were impressed with my resume, and how thorough and wonderfully written my cover letter was, but that they really wanted someone with my credentials who had experience in a preK through 9 setting.

I live with that every day.

So I mailed her back and let her know that I was voted "Best Sudstatoot Teacher Ever" by a group of first graders in Amesbury, and that I had tons of Pre-K experience at Geoff's school. I even dropped my old boss' name because his daughter is a student at their school and he has told me that he'd provide reference for me wherever needed.

This would be a fabulous job for me, I hope she checks with Old Boss and gets the reference, and takes my Best Sudstatoot Teacher Title under consideration.

The phone call -- now this one is interesting. I had sent my resume into a recruiting agency. The woman has called me twice but I can't understand a damn word she's saying on my machine.

I can't tell if her name is Valerie... I can make out the name of the agency, but they have several offices in the northeast and the one I called said they had no Valerie there, nor did they have my resume on file.

I can't understand the phone number she's leaving. In the two messages she's left, it sounds like two completely different numbers.

What the hell? And she sounds bitchy. Totally rude and bitchy. So I either wait for her to call and get me in person, or, I wait for another bitchy voicemail. hmmm. Either way, I'm not sure that I would like to do placement business with this agency. I can't remember the job that I sent my resume in for, and I can't find it listed again on monster so they took it down.

Gah.

Well, I'm going to hit a couple job search sites, do some cleaning, drink some coffee, watch the noon news and love my dogs.