In which awwwww

On October 22, 2018 By Luther M. SilerIn life7 Comments

I came home from work, played Spider-Man for a bit, ate dinner, and since then I’ve been staring at the wall with a kitten sleeping on my stomach.

The kitten had a vet visit today. She has ear mites and kitty lice. Her parents were both feral and we got her from a farm, so none of this is terribly surprising, and yes, we’re still isolating her from the Great Old One until all of the various parasites are taken care of. Apparently other than that she’s in stellar health and, luckily for us, apparently ear mites and kitty lice aren’t especially prone to being transferred to hoomanz.

I did not take her to the vet today– my wife took care of that– but she was apparently the unhappiest kitty in the universe after her ear treatment today. Look at how pathetic and sad she looks:

Here, these two are cuter:

44533033_10156971227829066_6264258927051931648_o

44509525_10156972018439066_5871417823472910336_o That’s what I got. How was your Monday?

It is Sunday and I am not at work

On August 12, 2018August 12, 2018 By Luther M. SilerIn Teaching1 Comment

We went to the zoo today. I haven’t been to the zoo in two damn years, and I love our zoo. I am probably going to have a sunburn on the top of my bald-ass head tomorrow and I feel good about it.

They have two peacocks; they just let them wander around.

A brief note about the dog, if you’ll indulge me again a bit: you may recall that while I was finishing up that piece yesterday the doorbell rang and I didn’t answer the door. That wasn’t an invention for the piece; it actually happened. My wife and son were out of the house for a little while and they got home just a few minutes later.

There was a vase of fresh flowers on our doorstep, delivered to us on behalf of our vet’s office. The dog had been gone for maybe three hours. Guys, if you live anywhere near me, and you have pets, you could do a lot worse than letting Clayview Animal Clinic take care of them.

Tomorrow should be an exciting day: I actually get to find out what my job is! I’m not teaching this year, as you’re probably aware if you’ve been paying attention, and while I know the broad outlines of the new position it’s not necessarily immediately clear what I’ll be doing on a day-to-day basis. For example: the first day of school? I have absolutely no idea what I’ll be doing right now on the first day of school, or really even the first couple of weeks. I mean, I’m on the administrative team in a school; there’s gonna be stuff to do if I decide I wanna do things (and I do,) but none of those things will be my job. The next couple of days I’m in training for my specific position and I’ll be much clearer on what my day-to-day job is going to look like by the time it’s over.

So yeah. I’m excited.

What’s your week looking like?

Presented with minimal comment

On August 5, 2014August 5, 2014 By Luther M. SilerIn Photography11 Comments

One of our cats was just put on these pills. Check the ingredients:

In which awwwwwwwww

On November 12, 2013 By Luther M. SilerIn Teaching3 Comments

So, the cat.

Remember the cat? The same cat whose continued existence and life on Earth I generously agreed to prolong, just last week, by virtue of spending one thousand dollars of American money which I had worked hard to earn? That cat?

Little fucker’s feeling better, because he decided that no one in the house had any fucking reason to want to sleep last night and spent the whole goddamn night yowling. A week ago I literally spent over a week’s salary to keep him alive. Now I’m thinking about feeding him to the dogs.

Let’s tell a nice story for once.

I have this girl in my class; let’s call her Paprika, which is close to her actual name in a fashion that has me cackling just a little bit right now. Paprika was one of my kids last year, too. She’s not special ed, but she’s low– low enough that she probably got tested for special education at some point and just missed the cutoff. I like the kid; she’s a sweetheart, if perhaps a bit too obnoxious at times, but she’s never going to be a Rhodes scholar.

Last year, at the beginning of the year, this kid literally refused to do any math at all without a calculator next to her and a pregenerated math facts list. Flatly refused. She didn’t get it, she didn’t know, she’s never been taught that before, every excuse you can imagine. I worked and worked and worked with her on basic math facts last year to the point where by the end of the year she was occasionally forgetting to ask for her crutches– and I was rewarded with one of the higher ISTEP gains I got out of my kids last year. She still didn’t pass, but she did a lot better.

She broke a couple of fingers this week– I’m not sure how, but her writing hand is wrapped to hell and back and she’s got at least one solid brace in there, but she’s got some pincer mobility with her thumb and index finger– the affected fingers are the middle and ring fingers on her right hand.

We were doing some calculations today and she called me over to ask a question. I answered it for her and then literally instructed her to “check that with your calculator” to make sure it worked as we expected.

She, with a broken hand and a calculator sitting three inches away, pulled out a piece of paper and solved the problem manually.

Every so often– not often enough, unfortunately, but every so often– they make me proud of them.

Wednesday grab bag

On November 6, 2013November 6, 2013 By Luther M. SilerIn Music, Reviews, Teaching1 Comment

microwave-etiquette-meme-generator-vaguebooking-that-s-a-paddlin-94d7ad.jpg Sorry about the vaguebooking yesterday; one of our cats has been sick for a while, got abruptly really sick yesterday and we spent the whole evening shuttling him around from home to the regular vet to the emergency vet and it really really wasn’t a good evening. He looks like he’s going to pull through, though; he’s coming home (from the regular vet, who we had to deliver him back to) tonight to spend the night at home where, the thought is, he’ll be more comfortable. Then he goes back to regular vet again tomorrow for the day. Assuming there are no disasters tonight. Cross your fingers; I’ve had enough of medical issues in general lately.

Did my first observation for the probation assistance team today; I have three days, more or less, to get my notes compiled together and sent out to everyone. I have less to say than I thought I would, honestly; I spent most of the observation musing about what might come from putting the teacher on probation in my classroom. Because, honestly, there were things working in there that simply don’t work for me, and the lesson plan itself may as well have been ripped directly from corporation paperwork– which is interesting. Is that a weakness, because there’s none of the teacher in the lesson? Is a strength, because they presumably recommend that lesson plan for a reason and this teacher is Doing it Right? Which means, then, that I’m Doing it Wrong? I dunno. I didn’t see much that made me think the teacher should be let go, which is a good thing. I just hope everybody else on the team feels the same way. Writing up the notes will be interesting.

Day Three of wearing a Fitbit Force: I walk about seven thousand steps a day, maybe, when I’m not spending the entire evening in my car shuttling a cat around to doctors. I haven’t tried pairing it with MyFitnessPal or doing any actual exercise yet; I want to take a week or so and get a baseline for how much I move around during a day and then we’ll set some goals and make some adjustments. One development: I’m way more into the idea of a smart watch than I’ve been in the past; the idea of notifications being delivered via a vibration to my wrist rather than an an audible tone is wonderful, and I don’t ever want to be awakened by an alarm again. Seriously, I could completely give up on the idea of fitness– fuck it, I’ll just be fat forever– and I’m still gonna wear this thing to bed. Silent vibrating wrist alarms are fantastic.

Posts that are percolating; reviews of the new Eminem and Latyrx CDs, as soon as I find the time to listen to the damn things, and that reminds me I never really wrote about the new Pearl Jam album, and probably a post on theology based on this piece at the Atlantic, which quotes people who I know from grad school. Who somehow teach at Oxford now.

Yeah. I know Oxford professors. I think that probably confers nerd baller status, but maybe not.

I’m not writing that last piece unless I can do it in a way that doesn’t sound like I’m gleefully tossing grenades and lit torches around; I’d like to participate in a conversation and not just be an asshole. We’ll see how well it works. In the meantime, click on the link; it’s worth the read.