Mumbling Madly

A crazy gentleman on the #3 proclaimed the entire bus to be part of his family. (In hindsight it was really pretty heartbreaking). All the bus riders were of familial ties to this nutty old guy. The two little girls sitting in front of me were his grandchildren, the two women sitting across from him were his ‘women,’ and he was the royal grandfather of us all…the patriarch of the bus. He kept calling to the little girls, “How is school? How’s school going for you?”
The #5 traveling to Fremont at 1:45p is driven by an extremely good-looking, overzealous, bus driver. The man croons into the bus speaker: “Please stay in your seats until the bus comes to a complete stop for your safety.” He announces every single street that travels past, every single bus stop is announced by name, and he graciously welcomes everyone on the bus. Think you’re getting on before the passengers exit the bus? No way, Mr. Man throws out a warning hand and a “hold up a minute sir!” while he waves the passengers off. Only until the last person has stepped down are you given a permissive nod to board.
On an unrelated note I have begun to collect lightweight jackets for the upcoming winter. Since arriving to Seattle I have acquired several snazzy little jackets, some long and some short, for canoodling around town in. The weather is terribly unpredictable, obviously, and I spend a lot of time at bus stops regretting the t-shirt I chose instead of the jean jacket. Hidden in the back of my closet is one of those gigantic LL Bean raincoats with all the snaps and trimmings. The darn thing has several snap-on hoods, a million pockets, and is considered indestructible AND waterproof. My Dad bought it for me during my last year of college, when I finally just gave up trying to look cute and went for function. Of course it’s electric red, it must have been on sale because my Dad owns an identical one. I only pull it out when it’s raining sideways, and I actually left it behind when I moved to CO. My Dad handed it to me during my first trip back, “You’ll need this now, right?” Yeah, he’s right, I’m destined to be a big wet red blob sloshing my way through a northwestern winter. In the meantime, I’m buying coats on sale, stocking up, trying to look cute while I can.
Of course, this is a far cry from when I would just toss a jacket in the backseat of my car, carelessly wearing open toed shoes on a predicted snow day, the car serving as my shield against all elements. Gone are the days of keeping snacks in my glove compartment, my cds lined up inside the dashboard, my belongings stuffed into a simple small bag that rested in the passenger seat. Now that public transportation is my only means of travel, I must carry everything on me. I have tried to leave my gigantic backpack from college home, I really have. Today I carried around: Wallet, keys, mini mp3 player, sunglasses, glasses, dance pants, nalgene water bottle, coffee mug, fresh produce from the market, new jacket from Nordstrom’s rack, and 2 frosted pumpkin cookies.

Fourth of July weekend:
Saturday I ended up at an LDS BBQ with a few of Josh’s co-workers. He was going to have a talk with the host before the party about how I have never been a member and that he has been ‘out of touch’ or ‘retired’ from the church for seven years now…but the talk never happened. (I kind of figured my big mouth would lead them down our ’stray path’ anyway, so to speak). We showed up at their immaculate house which was built like, yesterday, way out past Renton. Immediately I felt like I was hanging out with my in-laws–only thirty years younger and wearing modern clothing. The host took us on a tour of the backyard and right smack in the middle of the bright green lawn was a trampoline. After ho-humming about it, trying not to act too excited, I was given the blessing to go for it. I hurled my body towards the trampoline, kicking off my shoes, and threw myself on it. The trampoline was soaking wet…I don’t know what’s going on here, it’s July and our heat is on, the drizzle has been relentless. I tried to play it off but after a few solid bounces I realized my entire ass was soaked. I went back inside looking like I had a major accident in my pants. The water plowed through my Vickies and into my skin leaving me freezing cold. The tough part was trying to refer to my ass politely when people noticed it was wet, like, I can’t say “yeah, my ass is wet” but can I say “butt?” Oooh, that’s skirting the line, but do I really have to say “bum” or “bottom” when my butt cheeks are freezing? I ended up sitting down a lot during the gathering. I ate half a hamburger, politely listened to the men banter about where they went on their missions, drank water, admired the baby, and generally had a good time. I raised eyebrows, however, when I ranted about how Josh and I were Rental Veterans, what with having rented together for six years–oops, Josh previously revealed we’ve only been married two years. I felt like all these fresh faced youngsters were, well, so young and earnest. I just knew they bought into the whole freedom fries, hanging in there, America the Brave jargon that’s been circulating within our politics this last week. The young wives sat enraptured as I regaled them my tales of public transportation–how radical! But, you know, Josh and I are kinda lonely in this big city. It was good to get out and meet some new people.
We were wildly ambitious on Sunday. We went to Greenlake and rented a canoe. Josh decided to give me the Ultimate Canoe Challenge by throwing his oar into the water and making me row to it. I came close, both times sailing right past the floating oar, itches away. Embarrassingly, the oar was rescued by a Mom and her little girl in a kayak. I failed the Ultimate Canoe Challenge–and was beat out by a kid no less!

We rowed near the shore and witnessed a man throwing rocks into the water at his Golden Retriever. The poor dog was frantically searching for the rocks–which is a stupid thing to throw because rocks sink–the poor little guy was unwilling to exit the water until he had successfully retrieved something. Josh was furious, and had to contain his rage. We rowed away once the dog was safely on land. Here is a picture of me and the dog, before we realized his abuse:

We returned the canoe, realized we were starving, and split an overpriced polish dog and a slushy. We went downtown, which was mobbed with pleasantly sun-drenched tourists. Before we knew it we got sucked into the void that is known as Nordstrom Rack. We were unable to leave without buying Josh a long-sleeve Ezekiel tee and a sleeveless, Hurley, hoodie for myself. I bought us gelato to celebrate our purchases and than we went and saw Batman Begins. I enjoyed it. I did not enjoy Katie Holmes, blame it on the whole Tom Cruise-jumpin-up-and-down-like-a-maniac scandal, but neither she nor her character did anything for me. Christian Bale is hands down the sexiest Batman, EVER…Holy Smokes! I think he ties with Christopher Reeve’s hottie portrayal of Superman, and that admiration goes way back to my childhood infatuation with the character.
On Monday, we dilly dallied around, washing dishes and laundry. Not to sound like a commercial, but there is no comparison to fresh laundry drying on the clothes line. The smell and feel of the sheets at night are heavenly–no matter what they say, dryer sheets can not imitate the sweet scent of sun dried laundry. Josh struggled with the push mower, (it was his turn on our mowing rotation):

We realized, after much debate, that fighting crowds to see fireworks would result in us coming home really late–on the bus no less. In order to feel festive, we decided to go get a barbeque at Lowe’s. On the way there and back we watched two people run red lights…blatantly. I think the holiday has promoted some sort of weird, crazy, vibe–at least in our hood. We bought a really tiny non-charcoal grill, bought some food at Safeway, and managed not to get hit on the way home.
Josh trying to put the damn grill together:

Nearby our neighbors were drunkenly whooping up. In Colorado fireworks were illegal–the excuse being that our dry climate would grab hold of a firework and turn it into a wildfire. I forgot how loud fireworks are, how brazen people are with explosives, and that most folks ignore warnings and insist on holding Roman Candles. Before heading off to Madrona Beach to admire the Eastside’s fireworks from across the lake, we ended up having our own private celebration in our backyard:

Just a quick post to let all you know: I’m going for it! Thank you for your kind, insighful, posts despite it being a busy holiday weekend.

I have a dilemma, a decision, a problem to be solved: I have been offered 1 of 10 coveted resident teaching positions at a nearby alternative elementary school. Over 200 people applied for this 10 month program where essentially you are working along side the head teacher of a classroom of 17 kids….I don’t know what my age group would be, but they organize the classroom by skill level versus age. I interviewed two months ago, dismissed it, and moved on. (I also recently accepted a part-time sales position at another dance store with the possibility of a management position opening up in January…however, I had to talk them up from 7.50 an hour to 9, so even though it would suck to back out of the job, it’s not like I’d be climbing any major ladders there).
Pros and Cons of the resident teaching position are as follows:
Pro: It’s only 10 months. If the long hours suck, if the school sucks, if teaching sucks, it’s only 10 months.
Con: It’s only 1o months. What to do after the program is up? I had initially been concerned because when I asked this question during the interview they told me most of the resident teachers go on to grad school. OK, so what if grad school is not in my near future? I asked this question again when the position was offered and I was told that this year’s residents are older, many of them already have their certification and/or master’s degrees, some of them are planning on perusing social work, etc. So it sounds like it can be whatever you make of it….but still, when the ten months is over it’s back to the job hunt.
Pro: It will get me out there, provide a vehicle for me to do really meaningful work, allow me to develop any dance/theater type programs I envision for elementary school age. It will be a good networking tool because the school is very connected to the alternative education community.
Con: I have no interest in being an elementary school teacher. I have always been drawn to high school aged kids. I’ve never taught in a classroom setting, only taught small, 45 min. to 60 min. classes one day a week to various age groups.
Pro: The money…it’s pretty good money. More than I’ve ever made in my life. I could look at it almost as paid education.
Con: You work up to 9.5 hour days; really, truly earning that salary. This sounds pathetic but I would have to get up at 6am in the morning…it would be a big challenge for my selfish, sleep-hungry, ass to drag myself out of bed every morning. I worry that it will take me away from things that I enjoy, like taking dance and theater classes and performing, that it might suck my soul, it would exhaust me and keep me from cooking dinner and making my bed, (although it’s only 10 months).
Pro: Paid holidays, Christmas and Thanksgiving time off, Spring break, the school year also includes field trips, traveling with the class, valuable opportunity to teach a real live classroom full of kids.
Con: What if I wasn’t meant to be a teacher, what if I hate it, what if I was meant to be a dance retail manager or buyer, what if I was meant to be a fashion designer, a jewelry designer, what if I am doomed to be a struggling, starving artist.
Pro: Working with respectful people, gaining new insight and developing new ideas, possible wealth of inspiration just waiting to be untapped, facing the unknown, being valued and respected by colleagues, gaining a sense of purpose. It will give me something to do for the next year instead of constantly wondering: What next? Why haven’t they called? How am I going to find work?
Con: Terrified of the unknown, scared to lose myself, afraid of exhaustion, worried I’m putting all my eggs in one basket…and god, the time commitment sounds huge.
After the initial interview I thought, whatever, I don’t want this. But I never thought seriously how I could turn down a potential opportunity…and I admit, I’m flattered. They saw something in me, something that said, hey this kid could be a good teacher, a good asset to our school. It’s like they gave me the recognition I’ve been hungering for…just by offering me a position that over two hundred people applied for. I said I needed the weekend to think about it. Please, give me your feedback, and any potential questions I may be missing, I’m really torn.