The title is just a little fact. We've had the new hamsters for about six weeks now, and I've probably not held Heidi even 100 times. She's perfectly friendly, but she's also unusually zippy and rather small. Zoom, zip, fly. (Throw self into crack of space next to Gingerbread Cottage and conk out.)
I did force June to cuddle tonight. Her tumor seems the same, and she's as padded as can be on the front (tumor) side, but pretty bony/scruffy on the back, like a much older hamster. Maybe she is a much older hamster who just has fatty tumors. (See Arthur and his saddlebags.) Who knows? She was fine with the hand-holding once I picked her up, but she's certainly her own girl in these matters, and I know to leave her alone unless she's planning on staying out for awhile.
Pepper finally went into the orange today. She was scampering and ran in there, then just poked her head out and looked at us. She'd left the orange completely bare since Edith died in there. (Yes, it was washed.) Perhaps it bothers her less now, I don't know. Pepper is smaller than Heidi, even, and has lost some of her top coat, and she's somewhere past two years old. When I see her, which is perhaps once a day, I go ahead and give her Heidi's unused cuddles.
Had a good day at school yesterday, until sixth period when what all day had been described as a "fun" assignment (who knew I was capable?) turned into students requesting that certain parties be moved. Far away. Perhaps to the hall. "Can you make them shut up, miss?" And this is why we can't have nice things. Or pick our own groups tomorrow for the group ball*d-writing (using news stories) project.
Pedagogy books discuss many interesting ways to create small groups for a varied, enriching, learning environment. Words like "scaffolding" get bandied about. For me, I usually boil things down to two factors:
1. You're annoying. Work with these less annoying people, away from your friends, HA HA!
2. You're annoying. Too annoying to impose upon innocent classmates. Work with these other annoying people. Your menace will be contained, but good luck getting anything done. HA HA!
We'll be using a mixture today. (#1 for the regular classes, #2 for the Honors.)
Speaking of teaching, it is hard to be cranky about the proposed 6% pay cut when such a slew of people lost their jobs today. On the other hand, lumping teachers in with certain deskjobbed sinecure types in state government seems a little unfair. Also, even the "For the Children!" types are starting to talk about only working contracted hours, as class sizes are projected to be even larger for next year. (I can't believe "they" finally got to me, and I find myself hoping for no more than the 37 max I "enjoy" this year.) Is this really a time to wear down a workforce that is paid for Job A, but really does Jobs A-K? (Keeping in mind that Jobs D-H contradict Job A and make it so much harder.) A workforce that actually talks about only working the hours for which they are paid, like that's a crazy, selfish idea?
(I've bombed on my resolution to stop coming in early, but I have it down to 30-40 minutes, tops.)
I think I might move this website off of TypePad. It was a nice change a few years ago, when comment spam was killing me and having multiple blogs/authors off a single installation was important, and when I lost my ("free") server space without notice and had to relocate quickly. Despite the horror of no longer doing the Cool Kid Thing and installing my own software and hosting it myself (and accessing everything via a Linux shell), I've been pretty pleased with TypePad.
(At least until they changed their interface and started using <br><br> instead of <P> tags, but that's another issue.)
However, TypePad costs money. This expense used to be covered by ad revenue, but then I moved the Google ads to where only I would see them, and other things happened that we don't talk about but that everyone does, but suffice to say that having Mike move from Australia to the same home sharing the same IP has meant a reduction in clicks and therefore a reduction in ad-based income.
So, I suppose I should save a little money by paying up for webhosting and doing it myself again. And remapping the domain. And seeing all of the current links to this site die since every bit of blog software seems to have its own file-naming conventions. And moving all of the TypePad-hosted files. And spending a lot of time troubleshooting crap (like redoing the entire interface for a new system) instead of playing all of those Hello Kitty-like games on Facebook.
Or maybe I'll just come up with Plan B. What's $10/month extra for a little sanity, a little longer? It's, like, two Frappuccinos, and I don't even drink Frappuccinos any more.
One sounds really good right now, though.
You know, we went out to eat twice this weekend, once for a fancy lunch at the Bellagio buffet, and once for a swell locals-deal (almost 2-for-1) for brunch at the Hilton. Both times, a tiny bit of fun gambling paid for the meal before tip. Golly, perhaps there is something to this gambling business. Perhaps my destiny lies in unlocking the Tribbles bonus game in the Star Trek slots!
Or moving the Google ads back up so I can make that last $20 needed to cash out.
Or writing a bunch of Epinions this week while there is bonus income.
Or cashing in my current Epinions balance.
Or doing all of the above, plus moving the blog, which - plus Amazon gift certificates - will fill the coffers for 75% of my "I Want a Kindle" fund.
Or I could declare the Kindle to be unnecessary until such a time as you can read library books on it.
Then, like with the Frappuccinos, I'm practically making money, just sitting here, Kindle-less.
Or-or-or, I could stop looking with interest at the $98/rt flights from Las Vegas to San Francisco. Even if I already picked out a hotel. And a hop-on hop-off doubledecker bus plan, with Bay cruise.
The more I sit here and think, the richer I get!
(Unless I think about getting my wisdom teeth extracted. Or dealing with that looming brake job.)
I'm going to stop thinking now. I had a nap earlier, but it's time to get the last couple of hours of a night's sleep. Except sleep has been rather unpleasant lately, because I keep dreaming that a certain unhappy event has happened, and these dreams are so vivid. The first time, a week or so ago, I got out of bed and spent several minutes pacing the hallway and breathing deeply, coming to terms with said event before checking online to see if it had actually come to pass. Last night I just staggered up, sad and resigned. The eye-crust flakes away, but the lingering feeling of inevitability remains.
All of these issues - the dreams, acknowledging The Economy - could be easily worked out if Stevie Nicks hadn't been so rhetorical when asking, "Have you any dreams you'd like to sell?"
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