A winter's tale

It's cold. Very cold. Freeze your ass off through your longjohns cold. And yet Adam and I walked the two blocks from Emil's to the Lansing Civic Players Firehouse to see "The Winter's Tale." It was well done. Many good performers who made the language easy to understand. It was nice to see some new talent--the girl who played Perdita was especially lovely and handled the language well. The more seasoned actors were great, especially Erin Cline as Hermione. It's been a pleasure to see her grow as an actress.

Tutoring is going well. Dami is really doing well with her vocabulary. However, she hadn't done part of her homework so we did it during the lesson, which meant we didn't have time to do vocabulary. I think we will do two vocab lessons on Tuesday to make it up. I also think I will have her write a list of what she is to do. She has four different areas to cover and it may be confusing her. We're also getting into the really good part of "Paint the Wind." I try to engage her by stopping to ask her questions about it as we're reading. For instance, today I asked her to compare and contrast the ranch house to Grandmother's house. This goes along with the writing lesson we are doing, which is about comparing and contrasting things.

I need more students though. Tomorrow I will put up more flyers, even though it is very cold. I would like to have five or six students. It would be nice to have more adults. And I would really like it if I had some students that needed help with their schoolwork rather than parents who just want more work heaped on the poor kid. The parents I have worked with are very demanding. Dami's mom wants her to do six pages EACH of spelling and language arts, and four pages EACH of writing and reading skills per week. That's aside from her regular schoolwork, violin lessons, Girl Scouts, etc.

I am experiencing the joy of giving Spot a pill every day. I wrap her in a towel and use a pill syringe to shove that sucker down her throat. She has scratched me a couple times, but I'm usually successful in getting her front paws in the towel. Last night was a wash though. I feed her Whiskas afterward to reward her and because you're supposed to give it with food. However, I saw the pill on the counter after I had started feeding her, so I picked her up and did it again. She puked about ten minutes afterward. At least the pill had been metabolized. She puked three more times that night and I didn't give her the pill today. Tomorrow, though...!

I switched to Verizon and got a new phone. The plan should save me about $30 over Centennial. That's money I could really use, especially since I have to get my car fixed. I had an accident coming home from the gym a few weeks ago. It was really icy and I skidded into a cop car. He was really nice but I got a citation and have to get a new door for my car. It will run me $125. That's not bad all in all, but considering I don't have a lot of money coming in, it's going to hurt.

One more thought before I hang up: What do you do when you see your crush every few months and don't have his email or phone number?...

Hanging up now....