Voldemort started attending a new preschool yesterday. We loved his daycare, but it was out of the way of both Brandus’ and my commute, plus they had a LOT of staff turnover recently, and we got tired of never knowing who would be in there teaching.

We looked at a Montessori preschool, which would have been awesome, but it was in Jacksonville, where I teach, which is 45 minutes away from our house, so if I didn’t go to work, he didn’t go to school, which wouldn’t work.

So, we kept looking, and agreed, cautiously, on a Christian preschool. Cautiously, as neither of us is what could be considered Christian. Brandus is Buddhist, and I…well..I consider myself pagan, but only in a WOW THIS HERE IS A GREAT UNIVERSE AIN’T IT kind of way.

And, really, when brandus went in to check it out, the director immediately offered that they dont teach religion – they teach the Bible.

Ok, I’m down with that. Bible stories are good to know, Jesus was a swell guy, I don’t mind him singing Johnny Appleseed before lunch. It’s all good.

And it was. Until today. When I went to pick up the Dark Lordling and asked the teacher how his day went, she frowned and told me he had some trouble being rough and keeping his hands to himself. But, after they prayed about it, his day got better.

…..excuse me, what was that?

Look, you want to pray before meals? Go for it. You want to lead a group prayer because someone is sick or in the hospital? AWESOME, I AM ALL ABOUT THAT.

But, my kid shoves someone, so you PRAY with him about his behavior?

Needless to say, my concern was high.

So, on the way home, as I was worrying about this, I decided to broach the waters with the kid.

“Hey, buddy? Has school said anything about Jesus?”

Kiddo is highly involved in destroying a piece of paper, and therefore, says nothing.

“Bud?”

He finally grunts an acknowledgment, paper now in 4 pieces, which seems to be satisfactory or something.

“Bud, what has school told you about Jesus?”

He ponders for a moment.

“…Jesus is what happens when you sneeze. ACHOO! So we say, ‘JESUS!’ to me.”

Somehow, I’m comforted.

Earl passed us by here on the NC coast, although we did have a mandatory evacuation from the island. Brandus had to stay home with Voldemort, as daycare was closed, even though the schools we work in were NOT, so I ended up packing my suitcase so he wouldn’t have to deal with it.

So, my suitcase ended up sitting in my car, which was fine on Thursday, as it was cool and overcast. On Friday, it was baking hot and blazing, so my suitcase sat in the trunk and now smells like my now-melted massage bar from Lush. *sob* Fortunately, my face soap (Lush), and my shampoo bar (LUSH!) came through unscathed, but I’m still mourning over the loss of the massage bar and the half of a bath melt (yep, Lush!).

…these were important things to take when evacuating for a hurricane. For one thing, we stayed in a hotel where the bathtub was clean and I wouldn’t spend the entire time I soaked wondering what that weird black stuff on the shower curtain might be and whether it was going to try to attack me at any point. For another, with us staying in one room, we had to turn off the lights and reduce activity until Voldemort went to sleep, which can take an abnormal amount of time in a new place, so I needed something to do where I didn’t have to do much. So, bath!

And the Happy Blooming bath melt was so yummy smelling and left my skin crazy soft, even though I only used half of it.

Not that i would have used the other half any time soon, as that would involve me cleaning the bathtub and shower curtain, but anyway!

Now, recently, my entire skin and body care has been overtaken by Lush, which is expensive but OMG SO WORTH IT. I had never been into a Lush before I went to Las Vegas a month ago, but I had heard about it, and when we were walking from one casino to another, I spotted it and went, “LUSH OMG CAN WE GO IN?” and then proceeded to spend a large chunk of my fun money (and almost an hour) in this fabulous fabulous place.

I love it so much I came home and told Brandus I didn’t care where we moved next, so long as there was a Lush nearby, as I was planning on quitting teaching and working there for the rest of my life. And not even just for the discount I would get on skincare. YUM. I LOVE IT.

So, losing bits of Lush, which is no where near here, and buying on the website isn’t nearly as much fun, nearly made me sniffle with sadness.

On the upside, my suitcase smells amazing.

I have been traveling for the last two weeks, completely without internet for the last 8 days, school starts tomorrow and the very thought makes me want to swallow my bottle of xanax whole, especially since my TA called me yesterday and told me she resigned, so instead of examining my issues, unpacking, or helping my child deal with jet lag, I’m going to tell you a secret.

Brandus does not know how to make a peanut butter and jelly sandwich.

The first time he made me one, I just turned and LOOKED at him, because how can you get a peanut butter and jelly sandwich WRONG? I mean, bread, peanut butter, jelly. This isn’t hard.

And ok, all three of those ingredients are there in the sandwiches he makes, but the proportions are all sideways and weird.

HOW TO MAKE A PROPER PEANUT BUTTER AND JELLY SANDWICH
by alianora, age my-brain-is-fried-and-i-honestly-dont-remember

1. Obtain 2 slices of bread. No nuts or weird crap in the bread, just nice normal wheat.

2. Locate peanut butter. Ensure jar says “Creamy.”

3. Spread both slices of bread with thorough covering of peanut butter. Yes, I said both sides. This is very important.

4. Locate jelly in fridge.

5. Curse when you realize you have raspberry and strawberry, but no grape.

6. PB&J sandwiches aren’t really PB&J unless it’s grape.

7. Sulk.

8. Locate honey in cupboard.

9. Destick self from honey bottle.

10. Attempt controlled pour of honey onto one side of bread.

11. Wipe honey off the table with fingers.

12. Place two pieces of bread together.

13. Proudly show husband that THIS way, with two sides of peanut butter, keeps the bread from getting all soggy.

14. Nobly ignore the mocking from husband over the fact the bread isn’t soggy, but the honey is dripping on the floor.

15. Leave the mess for your 3 year old to find and spread throughout the house.

FINIS

I must have offered up the correct sacrifice this time, as I had no major instances over the past week, both traveling to and from Las Vegas.

Which, by the way, was awesome, and at no point involved anyone getting drunk or publicly naked, so some people will point out we clearly did not do Vegas right, but we had a blast.

Unfortunately, I got in this morning after traveling all night, and tomorrow I turn back around with the husband and the kid and head out to Colorado to see the in-laws.

Hold me.

A question about defending yourself came up, and I started to think back over times I had needed to defend myself. This story came to mind, although I never actually defended myself either verbally or physically. None the less, it is a story that still boggles me somewhat, even though I lived it.

My junior year of high school, I attended a summer camp at a college – my sister Natalie’s college, actually. It was a young scholars’ thing, and so everybody was taking some kind of class for college credit. We stayed in the dorms, and I ended up rooming with another girl with my same first name. She was nice enough, I guess, at first, but she would have several girls over late at night, and they would sit on her bed with the lights blazing and talk in loud voices while I tried to sleep. I’d like to point out that we even had something that was sort of a separate room where the dressers were that was more than a foot from my head in which they would be able to sit on the floor and talk. I even vaguely remember asking them to keep it down please, but sometimes they would come in WHILE I WAS SLEEPING and turn on the lights and chat and whatever. It was annoying, but whatever, it was only for two weeks, but I ignored it as best as I could.

We were pretty much allowed the run of campus until about 10 or so, when we had to be in or close to the dorms, but we weren’t allowed off campus. About 15 to 30 minutes before we had to be back to the dorm, I went across campus. See, there was only one vending machine on the entire campus that I had found that had Dr Pepper, and it was a good 5 minute walk to get there and back. But, I have addiction issues with Dr Pepper, so I made the trek regularly.

It’s late-ish, like I said, so it’s dark, and I’m about halfway to the building where the machine is, by myself, a good minute or so from the dorm. All of a sudden, I hear a girl screaming behind me.

“YOU BITCH! YOU BITCH!”

When I turned around, it was one of the girls who hung out in my room when I was trying to sleep. She is RUNNING at me, and I’m looking around like, “huh?” because why the hell is she calling me a bitch?

She comes up and starts posturing towards me like she’s going to hit me, screaming about how I told the counselors about her boyfriend, and I’m just standing there like, “what?” I’m not even trying to defend myself or scared of her or anything. I’m just standing there.

And then I started to laugh.

Turns out that “someone” had told the counselors that she was planning to sneak off campus to meet her boyfriend, a townie, and spend the night with him. Something she had been talking about one day on my roommates bed while I had the covers pulled up over my head wishing they would die.

And this is pretty much what I told her: This is ridiculous. I don’t care if you go off campus. I dont care if you go meet your boyfriend. I don’t care about you AT ALL.

And I just kept laughing. She started to take a swing at me at one point, and i just stood there and laughed. And this wasn’t hysterical laughter, this was, “Are you fucking serious, you moron?” laughter. So, I’m actually laughing AT HER, she is so pissed off she’s cussing me up and down and about to take a swing at me, and I’m not even scared.

I don’t really remember how it was resolved, except for she didnt punch me and I did get my Dr Pepper, but I’m pretty sure she didn’t step foot in my room again. At least, not while I was in there.

It’s not really defending myself, but it’s just such a weird story. How many people get actively threatened and mock their tormentors without getting punched in the face?