Outhouse?

As our old-school gallon guzzling toilets need repair, I have been replacing them with low flush toilets. The latest toilet to be replaced is destined for the transfer station so I stuck it on the side of the house to make it easy to load into the van on my next run to the town "dump".

Later that same day, Sebastien went outside to enjoy the nice weather and was looking for a place to sit and enjoy his snack. I old him that I had just put a nice "chair" over on the side of the house that he could use. He looked and just rolled his eyes and went to sit on the steps. Wonder what the neighbors are thinking ("We heard he was from Alabama, but really...").

Hmmm.... Looking for a spot to read the Sunday paper this afternoon...

Canned Goods, Breakfast, and Imports

Isabelle: "Why can't we get any more of the fish-with-beans for the shi-fan?"

Irene: "The Chinese store doesn't seem to carry it anymore"

Me: "Is that the can that you buy that doesn't have any english on it at all?"

Irene: "No, it does have some english on it - it says "Not for sale outside of China"

Me: "Oh, and the store doesn't carry it anymore - huh..."

Hot Peppers-N-Anchovies

We were having pizza night and I was adding some anchovies to one of my slices.  The kids were fascinated/disgusted by this when I remembered we had a jar of hot peppers in the fridge.  Suddenly, I was back in Squirrel Hill, eating at that cheap pizzeria with PK where all we would ever order was hot peppers and anchovies.  Those were good times.  I told the kids about that and they asked "why did you always order that?"

I thought on it and said "Contrariness - none of our other friends liked either of those toppings so we never got to eat them on pizza unless we ordered it for ourselves so we ordered just those toppings as a statement to the world."

Don't be intimidated

Often, I will mock my own (lack of) drawing abilities by telling my students "Don't worry  - I will not expect you to be able to draw such a nice picture as I did on the test.  I understand that you all can not have the same artistic sensibilities as I!"

The other day, after making the joke for fourth or fifth time in the same class, I then interjected some of the metacognitive stuff that goes through my head when I have these moments and I admitted to the class "You know, I get a special thrill when I say these crazy things and I can identify that one student who has a doubt and is asking him- or her-self "I wonder if he actually thinks he is good at drawing?"  That moment of confusion gives me great joy.

By the way - that's a picture of  car demonstrating conservation of angular momentum as you take off from a stop.