Cake or Death?

Last night I had a total PMS moment and decided that I needed chocolate...STAT. Of course, now that I can almost fit into a size 8, I have absolutely no unhealthy snacks in my house. Except for...drum roll please...BROWNIE MIX! So after inhaling an omelette for dinner (complete with diced ham and chunks of kielbasa masquerading as sausage) I fired up the oven and set about baking my brownies. The whole time I was "blending the ingredients in a mixing bowl" I kept thinking, If only I had Hershey Kisses to bake into the brownies. Unfortunately, I couldn't even go out to the store and buy kisses because I'm totally flat broke! But the wheels in my head kept turning as I "generously greased an 8X8 pan". Then it hit me. FROSTING! Then something else hit me. SPRINKLES! Then yet another something hit me. A can of soup that I pulled down on my head while reaching for the frosting!

It's All Fun and Games Until Someone Gets Glass in Their Crotch

I have a complaint for the makers of the fabulous toilet wand, which has made my life substantially easier in every way... until last night that is. Since Riley really seems to enjoy doing the breast stroke in the toilet, I figured I'd clean it. Who wants a soggy cat with questionable stains on his fur, I mean really. So I'm scrubbing away with my handy dandy toilet wand because I, unlike Riley, despise having to submerge my hand in cold, dirty water in order to clean the bowl, and suddenly the scrubber head pops off and sails right down the toilet just as I'm flushing away the bleach! For all you engineering majors out there, can you tell me what happens when a large spongey thing attached to a plastic disc that is twice the circumference of the hole, decides to make a break for the river? That's right! IT GETS STUCK!

My mother's all too helpful suggestion was to take apart a metal coathanger and try to drag the sponge back out. So here I am on hands and knees, jamming a coathanger into my toilet when Riley decides NOW would be a fantastic time to play in the water. He starts trying to attack the coathanger and in the meantime winds up soaking me with toilet water, and of course the sponge is STILL stuck. I throw the hanger down on the bathroom floor in exasperation and watch as Riley pounces on it just to make sure it's dead, and I realize I have only one option. Sticking my arm in the cold, dirty water to fish out the sponge that is currently making my life damned near impossible. Oh, and did I mention I REALLY REALLY have to pee at this moment?

I don a yellow rubber glove and try sticking my hand into the drain hole to see how far the sponge has gone. But of course, since I had flushed the toilet unsuccessfully the bowl is almost completely full so when I stick my hand in, the cold, dirty water floods into the top of the glove, thus negating the purpose of said glove. I try not to gag as I reach in and finally feel the plastic nib of the sponge. I yank it out with a triumphant, "HA!"... which of course was a bad idea because HEY GUESS WHAT sponges retain water! Imagine that! So yeah, had to wash my face after that....

She's Dibbling a Couple of Kids Across the Hall....

Week two of the job successfully completed! The crowning achievement was receiving a paycheck after two months of living off of frosting and Ramen noodles. Of course, after paying rent and all the bills that have been piling up, I have a whopping $66.60 left in my checking account. Obviously, in fulfillment of the prophecy that the world will soon burst into flames. Anyway, the kids are great, being that they're actually normal. They all work hard but still like to goof around which makes the day go by so much faster, even when I find myself reteaching a concept. I can suddenly see 5 or 6 years flying by at this place.

Other than that, life is pretty slow lately. I have a new cat named Riley who is as dumb as a bag of rocks but has definitely livened up my apartment. For some reason he has a fascination with water and I frequently find him perched in the kitchen sink or sticking his head in the shower. It's cute and all, but he's developed this bad habit of going for a swim in the toilet. I don't think he ends up in there on purpose. I'm fairly certain he hops up there, intending to simply drink out of it, but he's such a chubber that his fat causes excess momentum and he takes a header into the can. And it's funny. Until he crawls into my lap and I realize he's soggy. He also likes to crawl between the comforter and the blankets on my bed and tunnel his way around. He's an odd creature but I never get the normal animals. Brain damage seems to come as a package deal with my pets. But at least he fits in...

Bliss!

So the new job? FAB!!! So quiet, so restful, so... different. Nothing gets thrown at me except for the occasional salad container that Joanne accidentally tosses at me in the faculty room. No one hits me, pinches me, spits on me, scratches me, or bites me. Not even if I ask nicely.

Tropic Thunder

This afternoon I was reading through some of the more recent posts on the SPEDWatch forum that I belong to and I have to say I'm finding I really truly disagree with the current soup du jour: the movie Tropic Thunder with Ben Stiller and Robert Downey Jr. Right now the people on SPEDWatch are up in arms about a scene in which Ben Stiller talks about having played a person with disabilities in a failed movie. He and Robert Downey Jr. have a conversation about not going "full retard" (which you can view a transcript of by following this link) and the members of SPEDWatch have decided to launch protests against the movie.

I have two words for the members of SPEDWatch: THE RINGER. Where were all the protests when Johnny Knoxville played a "retard" in order to crash the Special Olympics? Yes, people with disabilities were also included in the cast of the movie, but they were also so obviously objects of comedy. I mean hell, consider the line blurted out by the funny looking kid from Super Troopers (you know, the kid who loves acid and licks the partition in the cop car?) when the evil boyfriend character says something about getting ice cream... (If you've never seen the movie he yells, in a decidedly affected voice, "When the FUCK did we get ice cream?")

Yes I agree that our society has a long way to go in accepting individuals with disabilities. I feel it every time I take kids from a residential out into the community and I get stared at just as much as my kids do. And yes, I frequently feel the urge to slap the old ladies who *tsk tsk* my "poor little angels" as if they're pets who should be kept caged as much as possible. I'm considering adopting an autistic child and I'm well aware that at the age of 5 the fact that she doesn't speak, only sings, is considered adorable. But what will it be like when she's 15 and still in a substantially separate program and stimming in public? Yeah, it's going to be difficult to adjust to. However, demonstrating against a movie that is exercising its right to free speech...

Consider all the characters you've ever seen in a Ben Stiller, Vince Vaughan, Will Ferrell type movie. Milton in Office Space... no one calls him "retarded" but the humor is certainly in the fact that he is portrayed as slow while he sits in the basement muttering about his stapler and burning down the building. Never Been Kissed... one of the high school students asks style-challenged Drew Barrymore's character if she's in Special Ed because she's socially akward. Much of our modern humor is derived from jokes and comments that target those who are weaker or don't necessarily fit into society's definition of normal. No matter the subject of these jokes, the screenplays are still a product of one individual's creativity. I will never tell one of my students that the word "retard" or any of its various forms is acceptible, but I will also never tell someone that they shouldn't produce their own work because I or someone else may view it as offensive. The last time I sat down with the Oxford Compact English Dictionary, that action is defined clearly as CENSORSHIP.