Category: life

U-pick, U-shoot and then U-sleep

On By Luther M. SilerIn lifeLeave a comment

Today’s Fun Family Time included a two-hour drive to an apple orchard up in Michigan; my wife’s side of the family has apparently been doing it as a yearly thing for forever and just decided to invite the out-of-towners this year.

I don’t know if you’ve ever used an apple cannon. I can tell you that after firing $10 worth of apples out of one, I’m going to find a way to build one in our back yard. The apple cannons were absolutely the highlight of the trip; I discovered to my consternation that despite apples generally being among my favorite fruits, when rotting apples is the only thing I can smell in a given location, it’s going to leave me feeling a bit ill, so I was fighting off a shitty mood for most of the afternoon and just mostly trying to keep a smile plastered on my face. The apple cannons totally fixed that problem.

(Also, Christ, there’s nothing that can reduce people to ‘splosion- and cannon-loving Americans faster than seeing someone hit a target with an apple at 50 yards. Wow.)

There was also a large corn maze. Despite having grown up in and spending most of my life living in Indiana, I have never been in a corn maze, and I still haven’t, because the three of us figured we were going to get lost and decided not to make the time investment. I figure you want to do a corn maze when you have time to get hopelessly lost and not when you want to be home before it’s dark.

Then once we got home, in accordance with our most ancient traditions, all three of us retired to separate rooms to recharge and not speak to each other any more, and I fell asleep under a pile of cats, which is why this post is just going up at 9:00 PM.

Tomorrow is not a day off officially, but I took one anyway. I’ve been pretty good about attendance this year and upon realizing that the wife and child would both be home, had a “fuck it” moment and called in a personal day. Hail Columbia, or whatever.

In which today got away from me

On By Luther M. SilerIn life, ParentingLeave a comment

Three or four Saturdays in a row now have involved a lengthy afternoon nap; my body has been doing this thing to me where I’m waking up at 6:30 on Saturday mornings whether I want to or not (spoiler alert: I don’t want to) and have been completely unable to get back to sleep. This has led to hours-long naps on each of those Saturdays, eating my entire afternoon.

Well, tonight the boy had a birthday party to go to that was a good 45 minutes from our house, so after driving him out there my wife and I had dinner at Das Dutchman Essenhaus and spent some time attempting to shop in Amish country; it turns out Amish country shuts down entirely at 6:00 PM on Saturdays other than that one restaurant so we didn’t really get to do any actual shopping, instead driving around and alternately dodging horses that were supposed to be in the road and chickens and deer that weren’t. We just got home; it’s 9:00 and I still feel like we dragged the boy away from his party too early.

(The family of this friend of his is richer than God; the building we originally thought was their house, because it was house-shaped and considerably bigger than our own house, was actually their gym, an entirely separate building from their actual house. When he got in the car at the end of the night he said that they had spent a fair amount of time at the party digging a tunnel in their foam pit, which means they have a foam pit. We do not have foam pit money in the Siler household.)

Anyway, I’ve spent all day writing a review of Keith Ammann’s new book in my head; I got an early copy of it and it releases this week, so absent any world-shaking events that absolutely must be written about, expect a book review tomorrow.

Friday melancholy

On By Luther M. SilerIn life, MusicLeave a comment

Today would have been Mom’s 74th birthday.

I’m sitting alone in the office listening to the new Taylor Swift album, which I, being a man of intelligence, have not purchased yet, since she’s sure to release an extended edition with 2345 more songs any minute now.

Initial verdict is it’s okay. Not sure about the song about Travis Kelce’s dick. And apparently at least a couple of them that I didn’t pay close attention to the lyrics of are about Charli XCX and, instead of Taylor’s exes, one of Travis’ exes, which is an exciting new realm of petty for Taylor to move into.

I dunno. I feel like I should be doing something more significant than sitting in my office, listening to pop music, and waiting for a game to download, but it was an insanely long day (eight teachers out, so I not only covered a class on my prep, I doubled up my advisory too) and this might be the limits of my mental capacity at the moment. At least going to bed at 8:00 last night stopped my stomach from trying to invert itself.

In which my body speaks to me

On By Luther M. SilerIn lifeLeave a comment

Unfortunately, the language it’s using is mostly stabbing abdominal pains, which, translated into English, mean “you’re taking your ass to bed early tonight.”

Be good, y’all.

I don’t wanna talk about politics

On By Luther M. SilerIn life2 Comments

I feel like there needs to be a post here about the general hysteria around all the corners of the internet I frequent about That Man last weekend, and whether he had died or not, but there was a two-hour Thing at Hogwarts this evening, and I just got home from that, and I have lesson planning and some other business to attend to so I can sleep, so … yeah. Instead, have a picture of Jonesy in his new sky bed I installed last weekend.

In which I tempt fate

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I just went and looked, and it has been five years since I did not post about being horrendously sick sometime during the last week of August or the first week of September. Tomorrow is the last school day of August. I am, at the moment, healthy. Will I make it to work in the morning? We shall see.

Honestly, this year continues to be the best start to a school year I can remember; I’ve now made it through two and a half weeks of school without even threatening an office referral, although we did have a little drama blow-up between some of my girls today that threatened the peace and harmony of my little universe for a while. Everyone decided to be reasonable, though, so we’re all good over here in Silertown.

Anyway, I’m going to spend the rest of the night with my face buried in Katabasis, so y’all be good.

Na Ga Ha Pen

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I got … maybe four hours of sleep last night, and it wasn’t a good four hours. Today was a good day at work but it ended with a surprisingly comprehensive interview for a supplementary position that I didn’t realize was an interview going in, and I’m *exhausted*. I will be in bed by 8:30 and asleep by 9 tonight, I swear.

BLeurgh

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That capital L was originally a typo, but I’m keeping it because it feels appropriate.

Tomorrow is my son’s fourteenth birthday, meaning that I left a building where I had been teaching 8th graders all day and came home to a house with four extra 8th graders in it. Tomorrow we are going to a local Renaissance festival, at his request.

I have officially had one of the best first weeks of school of my entire career, and am nervously waiting for the other shoe to drop. That said, if it’s coming today, it had better be fast, as I’m going to bed early as hell tonight.