Just another manic St. Patty's Monday!

It really was a manic Monday.....I woke up feeling good....well rested and ready for a LEAPLESS day at school. I got into the bathtub after walking the dog and found a tick buried in my waist...so I got him out kicking and screaming.....well, I guess if my ears were bionic I would have heard a little tick scream. eeeeekkkkkkk! Then on the way to work the town cop....(her name is Harriet so I am told) went by me and then did a quick U turn and ran right up behind me very CLOSE. (Don't ja just hate when that happens?) Paranoid person that I am I figured I must be guilty of something even if it were going 26 in a 25 zone. Breaking out into a cold sweat and getting ready to dig for the insurance card and the title, she zoomed out around me....across a double yellow line I might add....and turned on her blue lights and pulled over the car in front of me. Well, I was already shook up about my encounter with the tick and then this!!! It is Saint Patty's day for goodness sake.....Grampa Joe's favorite holiday. I always thought it was lucky....four leaf clover lucky, but so far it really wasn't so great. To top it off I had this strange metallic taste in my mouth .....the same tasted I get when I get stung by a wasp. I have been stung two times and both times I had this terrible taste in my mouth and now the tick was giving me a taste....not as strong, but very similar. It was creeping me out. I am sure this little tick hitched a ride on a giant, white, fluffy puppy named Sophicious the vicious fuzz. (She is not really vicious, but you should hear her when she goes after her stuffed sheep!) I just wasn't having a good day.

When I get to school and I find out LEAP testing is all over except for in library land...hahaha. I am in the library so I was to monitor some eighth graders and some 7th graders as they finished the last part of the test. I knew one boy would be in there as his grandfather passed away and he said he was going to the funeral....anyway......we had to tippy toe around again. Thankfully they finished up by third hour and classes could resume their visits to the library.

All my neighboring teachers were moving to other parts of the building today so they can paint their rooms, redo the lights, and paint. Jeananne my immediate neighbor....through the secret doorway into the computer lab will be gone. It will seem strange to think she is not over there to rescue me if something goes wrong with one of the library computers. All this shuffling around of classes has been a routine every few weeks.....move out, redo and then move back in.....but I am the only one my neighborhood who was not moving. I went through all of that last year in April right after the Book Fair pulled out of the driveway. I am thankful that is all behind me.

It was just a strange day; it was manic because there was a good note. I met Marj, former secretary to RJHS for many years and fellow N. Pennsylvanian native at Starbucks. We hugged and I had my usual Chia Latte and it was sooo good. YUM! (No, it didn't completely wash the metallic taste from my mouth, but it helped.) Marj is retired and she was telling me about her latest trips and her plans for her next trip. She is loving spending time with her grands in Alabama and just getting out of the rat race of the work world. We talked very little about school and hashed over several subjects. It is always good to talk with Marj. I really miss her at school....I know she is going to move someday, but I try not to think about that cuz that will leave me without any PA buddy to hang out with. She ended up following me home to meet baby, Sophie and see Jim's yard barn. Jim had just given Sophie a bath so she was WHITE and FLUFFY. Naturally, she loved Marj and wanted to lick her hand off. She didn't act quite as crazy as she usually does, but the bath had taken a lot of her vim and vigor....so she behaved rather normally. I think Marj liked her and enjoyed the tour of Jim's "man shack". She loved the attic.

After Marj left she took the good part of the day with her. Sophie and I were walking around the yard and I saw she had something in her mouth and I picked her up and reached into her mouth to see if she had a gumball, but she had a mushroom....or rather a toad stool. One of my library aides just told me about her little Maltese that died from eating one from her yard. I read on the net and find out that most of those things are poisonous....especially to dogs. Well, I had gotten out of her mouth, but there is a small chunk that was missing, so I am wondering if she has swallowed it. If she did swallow it there wasn't much at all, but one mushroom from LA. I was reading about said half of one would kill a large man! So to kill a five and a half lb. dog wouldn't take too much. Jim feels sure she will be just fine...I feel about 90% sure. I will be glad when 48 hours have passed and she is fine. Between the tick and now this....our yard is a dangerous place!

(I still can taste that strange taste a little bit....I am praying it is gone when wake up in the morn. What the heck is it anyway!? )

So you see this really was a manic Monday! Hopefully, tomorrow won't be so lucky. :-)