It's Been A While...

Here it is. October. It's no coincidence that my last post coincided with my last weekend of summer vacation. I just spent an eleven-hour day at school today, the latest in a series of long days that have been punctuated only by weekends --which are hardly days off-- and the all too brief time I spend sleeping.

I suppose I should give some sort of closure to my tremendous summer odyssey, which culminated in a strange sequence of rental company haggling, art museum exploring and free baseball game watching with Crinus, MarcusBrody and Murph. We got a new rental car (recall that the old one had been slightly mangled by suicidal wildlife) only after the unspeakably bitchy lady behind the rental counter conceded that we could get one if we had an accident report from the insurance company. This was after a good half hour of her assuring us that we'd have to wait 48 hours to get one. I mused with Crinus that this was the equivalent of:

"Oh, you can't do that."

"Why not?"

"You'd need five dollars to do that."

"I have five dollars."

"Oh, then you can do that."

...But strung out over a laboriously long back-and-forth exchange that nearly had all of us wanting to strangle this woman. Rental car finally in order, the three of us went to MarcusBrody's museum, where he wasn't. So we looked at some exhibits, grabbed some refreshments at a local pub (with the greatest selection of Scotch in the Western Hemisphere!) and strolled by the Denver Art Museum while awaiting his return.

We found that he had returned with free Rockies tickets, which was fun because baseball is a Good Thing. The Rockies were playing the Brewers, who would later collapse their season like a leaning tower of bar coasters. I was happy to root for the home team and thereby vicariously help my Cubs, who weren't quite in town. Of course, as of now the Cubs have managed to smash their heads repeatedly into a brick wall (possibly covered with ivy) and fall from playoff glory without the aid of a doofus with 1985 headphones in the 3rd base box seats. So none of that matters. Still, the game was fun at the time.

The next day, Murph and I bit adieu to our gracious hosts (who officially need to come to NYC, *ahem*) and headed for Rocky Mountain National Park, where we drove high enough to mingle with elk, bighorn sheep, and crazy cyclists with death wishes. Our evening was spent in the House of Amazing Comfort, where we got a dinner lovingly prepared by people neither of us had ever met who are strangely hospitable to all geologists they encounter.

We had to leave the Great Geologist Loving Family at about 4 AM the next day to catch our respective early flights. While Murph headed back to the pancake-esque topography of Kansas, I flew to the sweltering jungles of Alabama. It was 110° in the shade. I was going there to move furniture. What the hell was I thinking? I was thinking that my loving parents had helped me move five times before (to college and back freshman year, to college sophomore year, to grad school, to New York) so I figured I owed them at least one. I am insane.

I forgot that my parents have at least five times as much stuff as I do. Guys, we're now even. I mean seriously--I assembled your bed. The Freudian issues from that alone should spare me from future moving duties. BrynJoe and Art-History, time to step to the plate.

Granted, I spent a good part of my week enjoying the free food and booze, ample air conditioning and cavernous living space of my parent's new gigantic house, whose 15-foot ceilings only served to make my mother appear even shorter. But another, sweatier part of that week was spent lifting and unpacking innumerable boxes in insane heat. Undoubtedly, without my help, old NoHips McRugbyWounds and his better --though significantly smaller-- half would have been unable to move many heavy objects.

As of this writing, Art-History and his taller --and significantly better-- half have already been down to visit the 'rents, who've since transformed the box-filled abode that I got to know into a passably habitable Southern mansion.

So since getting back to the joys of city life, I've acquired a new set of students (now with 40% more...students!) and begun year three of my tenure as a teacher. At least this time around I'm teaching the same thing as last year. But with 130 children to worry about and the ten-hour days starting to pile up, I'm already counting down to the approaching Thanksgiving vacation, when I'll return to the House of Innumerable Boxes and, hopefully, find it boxless at last.