32 Weeks: A Synopsis in dialogue.

Eight months after starting this blog with only TWO posts to my name, and not much to show for my "great idea."

BUT I'm gearing back up, and I've decided to look at the 32 weeks between when I started this blog and today.

I suppose it would be more "blog-like" to make an enumerated, chronological list. I started to do that and it seemed WAY too irritating for me to continue writing it, much less ask anyone else to read it.

Instead, here are some snippets of dialogue that led to their own lessons, in one way or another. Maybe that will be less boring...so, in no particular order...the most bizarre, wonderful, terrible, hilarious, heart breaking, and frightfully mundane 32 weeks of my adult life...

1.
LD (me): "Wait...that van battery has posts coming out of the top. This one doesn't."
Rupert: "Huh. Yep. That's a problem."
LD: "Okay then."

2.
Lois (yelling into the phone): "My GPS is dead and I have no idea where I am and I need you to tell me how to get to the apartment."
LD: "Can you see any street signs?"
Lois: "It's a very WIDE street. It doesn't have a name."
LD: "But you just got off the highway, right?"
Lois: "Right."
LD: "In Chicago....?"

3.
LD: "Okay. Show me how this works. I've never actually done this before."
Evan (who is 6): "You've NEVER lit a firework before!? Wow!"

4.
Tay: "I think we need to have it catered. For 75 people."
LD: "For tomorrow morning..."
Tay: "Yes."
LD: "Okay. Great. Um...Good. I guess I should call them, then."

5.
Dad: "What's wrong?"
LD: "I need you to help me fix something."
Dad: "What's up?"
LD: "He won't give me my car key back."
Dad: "Done. I'll take care of it. What's his number?"
3 days later
Dad: "Here's the envelope with the keys."
LD: "Thanks, Dad. Really. Thank you."

6.
My students: "Wait, you don't know how to Dougie!?!?!?"
LD: "Who is Dougie?"
My students: (raucous laughter) "Its not a person, it's, like a dance. You really don't know what that is!?!?!"
LD: "Are you saying 'Dougie' or 'Doggie'?"
My students: (additional raucous laughter) "Dougie!! What's how to doggie!?!?"
LD: ".....nothing. nothing. So show me this 'Dougie' then..."

7.
LD: "I think the apple pie sounds good."
Waiter: "You won't be disappointed. It is THE best apple pie ON THE PLANET."
LD: "Ooh great!"
Waiter returns with pie-shaped food, LD and Katy both take a bite.
LD: "Augh! Is that pepper!?"
Katy: "I think so...mine tastes like potatoes."
LD: "This isn't just not the best pie, this is basically the worst pie ever."

8.
Ray: "Okay, so you put this part down first, and hammer it a few times"
(BANG BANG BAG)
Ray: "And then you take this part and put it underneath, put this part on top, then this ring goes on and you stick this in the middle. Then you hammer it a few more times."
(BANG BANG BANG BANG BANG BANG BANG BANG BANG)
Ray: "And there's your grommet."
LD: "How many of these do we need to do..."
Alex: "About 200."

9.
Amber: "Are you sure you want to do this? Are you mentally ready for what it means if you see something you don't like?"
LD: "Yes. Something is wrong."

10.
Lara: "I. Sachs on Roosevelt is where I get our leather dye. Should work fine!"

11.
Marc: "So, all you do is basically go to whatever page you'd normally go to, then copy the address into the 'create subscription' box on the google reader page. There you go!"
LD: "Oh my god. I'm never getting any work done ever again. Ahh! There are already 10 updates on Cake Wrecks!"

12.
Nice Cat Lady: "Would you be willing to meet the FIV positive kitties? They tend to have more special needs, or need daily medication, but otherwise they are just like normal cats."
LD: "Sure. I have a long, strange history with giving medicine to animals. Particularly rabbits."
Nice Cat Lady: "Great, just come in and wash your hands."

13.
Steve: "I don't know why no one thought to build a soundproof dog house."

14.
Marc C.: "I swear, its the best thing ever. Now whenever I first start to feel like I'm getting sick, I get it out. Works like a charm."
LD: "Is it gross?"
Marc C. "I mean, yeah. It's gross but the cool thing about the netty pot is you can see it all come back out...so kinda, yeah."

15.
LD: "Tell me when it started. Tell me right now."
Nameless (name omitted for privacy): "I don't remember, I don't..."
LD: "You don't REMEMBER? Tell me right now."
Nameless: "It was a month...I don't..."
LD: "A month? WHAT month?"
Nameless: "October, okay. It started in October. We went out for drinks after work, we got drunk, and slept together."
LD: "And then you just kept doing it????"
Nameless: "...yes."

16.
Amber: "I ran into X (name omitted for privacy) at Noah's birthday party this weekend. Apparently Nameless confessed himself to X right after everything happened. Just plopped himself down in his office. I didn't ask him anything other than to tell me when Nameless told HIM it started. I said he'd been telling you October. He sort of laughed and said, 'October? It started this summer...'"

17.
LD: "I can't get the flapper to respond to the board...I have it patched into the right universe and everything, and its getting signal..."
Ben: "Wait...its running on DMX right?"
LD: "Yeah so it should....oh...wait...I bet it needs a power supply..."

18.
Lois: "Oh, come up, won't you. Have some tequila and cheese. We'll visit. It'll be divine."

19.
Mom: "Thank you for doing everything, for setting it all up, making sure things went okay."
LD: "Of course. I learned how to do it from you!"

20.
Lovely Cleaning Lady on the Phone: "Yes! We clean units in Hyde Park!"

21.
LD: "That was worse than the year with the interpretive dancing."
Sarah: "Oh god...that's right!"
LD: "And everything was all out of order, and we sang the wrong song at the end..."
Sarah: "Maybe next year we should just skip church..."

22.
LD: "I am so deeply moved by the continual offerings of knee-cap breaking and face punching."
Room full of Co-Workers: "Yeah! Hey, anytime! Just call! Totally. We're there!"

23.
Amber: "I have good news that is also terrible news. They just opened a Papa John's on Lincoln, in the old Quizno's space."
LD: "OH MY GOD WHY ARE WE NOT EATING THERE RIGHT NOW!?"
Amber: "I know!! And we're in the delivery zone!!!!!"

24.
Panda: "now we can facetime!"
LD: "facetime, yay! okay. Call me back."
(phone rings, as facetime, LD answers, video engages)
LD and Panda:"FACETIME! YAY!"

25.
Panda: "CAKE IS THE ONLY THING THAT MATTERS."

26.
LD: "I guess I just can't get past feeling mad all the time..."
Counselor: "And you think that you don't deserve to be mad? I mean, I'm mad for you..."
LD: "I'm just not a mad person. It makes me feel crazy."
Counselor: "Fair enough. But, you have every right to be mad. Don't forget that."

27.
LD: "oooh! What baby-fruit week are you at now?"
Heidi: (consults her iphone) "Oh my gosh its Thursday and I haven't even looked yet. I'm falling behind here."
LD: "tsk tsk."
Heidi: "Okay...huh. Corn."
LD: "Corn?"
Zac: "Corn!?"
Heidi: Recently it was spaghetti squash, now its corn.
LD: "Are they going by volume?"

28.
INSERT PICTURE OF MY MOM'S FAMILY TREE, AS EXPLAINED TO ME CAREFULLY BY MY AUNT TAY AND HAND DRAWN BY ME ON A SHEET OF YELLOW PAPER.

29.
LD: "Those are Texas style mashed potatoes on top."
Erica: "What makes them Texas style?"
LD: "The brick of cream cheese."

30.
Mom: "Oooh good here comes the food."
LD and Panda: "Oh wow, that's really big...wait..it stacks?"
Dad: "It's a seafood scaffold!"
All: drool

31.
LD: "Can you stay in the car with the cat while I run in and buy a litter box?"
Amber: "(laughing) totally."
LD: "I really didn't think I was going to get one today..."
Amber: "I had a feeling you might..."

32.
Panda: "Have you heard any of the new Florence and the Machine album? I'll send you a grooveshark playlist."
LD: "I just accidentally typed Grooveshart. That is not the same thing."

So here we are. I hope, as Miss Florence says, "The dog days are over/the dog days are done/Can you hear the horses/Cuz here they come."