I Have Not Yet Reached That Age... or maybe i have....

There is an age at which adults need to realize and accept that they are no longer teens. That their bodies have more rule on them than they have on their bodies. 

Today my students got to go on a field trip to Skate Heaven, Roller Skate Rink.  And they begged to come roller skating with them.  I was good, really good at roller skating in highschool.  But it's been a good 9 or 10 years since i last put on a pair of roller skates.  But I gave it a shot.

I can still roller skate.  And i still do decently well.  I got a few kids of mine going at a decent pass on their own, and i had a good time and a good work out.

And then I learned how much more it hurts to fall when you're older.

So it was time to get back on the bus and return to school.  I got one of my students off the rink and went to check on her older sister who'd just fallen.  After she was up on her feet again i circled around to leave the rink and help my students get their skates off and turned back in.

One of the "Refs", those employed by the rink to keep watch over the rink, in the rink, and I collided.  He didn't realize i was exiting the rink and tried to cut between the exit and myself.  I couldn't stop, neither could he.

He hit hard.  I heard him lose his breath. I didn't hit as hard as he did, but i did hit my elbow off of his knee.  I have a nice lump and bruise on my elbow.

Lovely...

But i had fun and so did my students

SPIDERS!!!!!

Hello, My name is Rhiannon, and I suffer from arachnophobia.

THERE I SAID IT

I'm pathetic when it comes to spiders.  I get freaked out by pictures of spiders.

My grandmother likes to tell the story of when i was a teenager, freaking out over a spider in the shower.  I screamed as though i was being killed, hit my leg off the faucet, bent the faucet.  Grandma couldn't find the spider even with me pointing at it.  It was small, and was the same color as the wall.

In highschool I had a teacher who had a pet tarantula in his classroom.  I was less than fond of it.  My teacher wanted to show me that they were harmless so he got it from it's tank and stood next to me with it on HIS hand.  I shook and cried.  When the spider escaped from its tank, my teacher told me he'd taken it home while it molted.  when it showed up in the tank a few weeks later, he THEN informed me that it had been loose in the classroom.

I asked him what he would have done had it crawled up by me during class.  His response? "Probably scrape you off the ceiling".

So flash forward to today...

One of my students brought a GIANT remote controlled spider to school today.

I knew it was there, he was good about it.  Only got it out to play at recess

I was watching the play ground, not the ground.

I feel something touch my ankle and.....

THERE WAS THE SPIDER

I screamed, jumped, ran

He laughed, fell on the ground, laughing to hard to even stand back up.

Then he took to chasing girl in my class around with it.  After that the spider was forced to be a captive to his book-sack.

I hope he enjoyed himself.  I'm afraid I'm going to have nightmares.

Is It A Full Moon? Because the Crazies are Out.

This morning, as i sat and waited for a traffic light to turn green, I noticed a large cross at the corner across the street.  In the south, crosses in someone's front yard isn't that uncommon.  It is after all part of the Bible Belt.  What got my attention was that the cross had never been THERE before, and there was a street evangelist standing in front of the cross.

I've been involved in street evangelism (when i was a teenager - something we did at church camp), i can tell you, that standing by  a 4 lane highway at an intersection with a two lane high way and jumping out at the cars, screaming and waving a Bible, is NOT an effective way to bring people to God.

It is, however, an effective way to get hit by a car.  Or carried off in a straight jacket.

I mentioned this to one of my co-workers at work.  She replied, "we passed by there this morning, my daughter kept asking me; ' mommy why is that guy yelling at us?'"

I wonder if he got arrested, i think you might need a permit to be crazy on the side of the road...

My other question is.... How did he get that 6ft+ cross to the street corner?