just TRY and follow this one...

so today . . . was kenneth's last day in my classroom. thank goodness!

now before you light up your torches and prepare to run me out of town, let me just say that i like kenneth. but having him in my class for the last two weeks has created something of an issue...

kenneth was one of my pre-k students last year. while most of the students have moved onto their new classrooms for this coming school year, kenneth's new school doesn't begin until tomorrow. so he has been in my class for our first two weeks of kindergarten....

i also got a couple of new students this year. their names are luke and kevin. these are children who started out in public school, but when their parents realized they were going to be in a class with 28 other kindergarteners and one teacher, they went looking for a better child/teacher ratio...

today we read a story called "we are all alike, we are all different." it talks about how we all have similarities and differences. but my class was looking around like, "well, some of us are boys and some of us are girls, but that is where the differences end." because most of my students are asian. they have dark, smooth hair and dark eyes. i, of course, can tell them apart, but to the untrained eye, some of them do look similar...

i have taught for several years. a lot of students have come through my classrooms. it is always nerve-wracking when i see a previous student at jack-in-the-box or the mall. because they run up to me and call me by name, and their parents smile and look at me expectantly, and i just stand there smiling, saying something like, "hi! wow, look how big you have grown! what grade are you in now?" do you notice that the child's name never falls from my lips? that's because my brain is like a sieve when it comes to those names. once they are out of my class, their name goes too, because i have a whole new set of names to learn...

(don't worry, i am going to tie all of this together in a minute. keep reading.)

last year i had a megan and a michelle--two girls whose names both began with the letter m. although one was chinese and one was vietnamese, they both had medium length straight dark hair, they were both slim, and about the same height. i mixed their names up ALL YEAR. i was constantly calling them by the wrong name. they kept correcting me. i started getting it right some of the time. but i would look at one of them, the "m" would form on my lips, and i would blurt out the wrong name. they would just roll their eyes.

kenneth was in that same class. for some reason my brain refused to let me call him by his correct name. my brain thought he should be called kevin. so i did. and he corrected me. about mid-way through the year, he decided to go by ken (i think because it was shorter to write on all his papers.) you might think this would help me, but it didn't. i just couldn't call him ken. every time i started to say it, my mind would say i should be addressing a tall, slender, blonde-eyed, plastic man with flat feet--yes, barbie's boyfriend! thankfully, unlike poor megan and michelle, i did finally call kenneth by his correct name. most of the time.

but wait, i'm not done... sometimes a child just looks like someone else to me. this year i have a kaitlyn, who i am sure must really be a megan. she looks like a megan. except i also have a megan, who just confuses me, because i know i don't have two megans in my class. and since i want to call kaitlyn 'megan,' i just look at megan blankly...

and now i also have a kevin, which is what i used to call kenneth. so now i am back to calling kenneth 'kevin.' and of course i am also calling kevin 'kenneth.'

now do you understand why i am glad today was kenneth's last day? i am hoping that once he is out of the picture, i can at least get kevin's name right. although...

...this morning the kids were sitting on the rug as we prepared for story time. one little boy was squirrelly. he was wiggling and talking, and was turned around backwards. i kept saying, "brian, turn around. brian, listen to my words." he seemed to be ignorning me. i hate that. so i looked right at him and said, "brian, i am waiting for you to be ready to hear the story." by then, i was leaning toward him as he was repositioning himself. finally i looked into his eyes and said, "brian, are you ready for the story now?"

and he looked at me and said, "my name's not brian."

yep, it was kevin. that boy sure looks like a brian.

hey...stuff happens...

so today . . . we may discover the answer to that burning question, "how long is too long to boil an egg?"

rollie eats a lot of boiled eggs. usually he boils his own, 18 at a time. he has it down to a science--boil water in the biggest saucepan we have, gently lower 18 eggs into the boiling water, boil for 12 minutes exactly, remove from heat and douse with cold water, and refrigerate. this results in perfectly boiled eggs with lovely bright yellow centers. i know there are other methods, but this is the way he does it, and it works! every. single. time.

last night i went into the kitchen for a handful of nuts (which is my healthy substitute for chips. although i am not sure how healthy it is when i eat 12 handfuls a day...) and i noticed the egg box was on the counter. this tells me that we are out of boiled eggs, and rollie is planning to boil some in the morning. which is a perfectly good plan.

except...

... i suddenly decided to be susie homemaker and boil his eggs for him! yes, i love him that much! just think, i think to myself, how surprised and happy he will be when he gets up for breakfast and the eggs are already boiled. i got out the big saucepan, filled it with water, and put it on to boil. i even took the eggs out of the refrigerator so they would warm up a little to avoid unnecessary cracking! (see, i know how to cook!) i gently lowered the eggs into the boiling water and started to set the timer.

but there was a problem--two actually. first of all, i kind of forgot about the water boiling, so by the time i put the eggs in, the water level was just a little bit low. i decided it was ok--only a few egg tops were poking out of the water, and i thought i would just flip them over halfway through the cooking time and they would be fine.

the second problem was the cooking time. i didn't want to set the timer, because rollie was sleeping and i wanted the eggs to be a surprise. so i just looked at my watch, took note of the time, and headed back to my computer and my blog.

later i went into the kitchen for more nuts (no, it isn't an addiction! they are just nuts!!) and saw the pan on the stove... uh oh... i looked at my watch. it had been 40 minutes since i put the eggs in the water! forty minutes!!! i grabbed the pan and put it in the sink, thinking that maybe if i ran enough cold water over the eggs they would be fine. really. surely they would be fine. i mean, once an egg is hard-boiled you can't burn it, can you??

you see, this is why i don't cook. cooking requires a certain amount of attention to the task. cooking requires me to stay in the kitchen. if i walk out of the kitchen, i totally forget that i am cooking. i am the poster child for "out of sight, out of mind," especially when it comes to certain tasks...

the eggs are still cooling in the sink. now i just have to decide whether to crack one open myself to assess the damage, or leave them for rollie to discover.

i did, after all, want to surprise him...

brilliance--it's a curse . . .

so today . . . i did the most clueless thing i have ever done. ever.

i blame my sickness. i am convinced that my mind and body are working so hard to get well (i hope,) that they don't have enough resources left for the mundane things i have to do. like thinking . . .

you may remember the fight that my brain and my body have been having over if i can be mildly productive while being sick. well today i felt a little bit better, so i thought i could side with my brain and tackle some minor computer tasks. i had this pile of little pieces of paper with notes scribbled on them that required computer attention.

this never used to happen to me. i used to be much more efficient at this sort of thing, but for the last several months my internet access at school has been out of commission. so now, when i remember a small task that i need to do or a fact i need to check, i can't take care of it during the day. and by the time i get home, i do not remember what it was i needed to do. so i scribble short notes on whatever paper is at hand all day long, and then occasionally i sit down with my computer and take care of them all.

today i decided to do that.

so there i was, sitting on the couch in the family room, computer in my lap, surrounded by my little slips of paper. i was settled in front of the fire, watching the rain occasionally fall (see, aren't you glad i didn't write a whiny california rain blog today? because i could have . . . ) and i started working my way through the stack. some tasks required the internet, some required my phone, and some just required my computer and more time than i had to give them during a regular school day.

i was also waiting for rollie to call me. he was at church this morning teaching a class, and i knew that he would probably finish up around lunch time. which meant my chances for eating lunch somewhere other than my kitchen were very, very good, but only if he could reach me. so every time i had to leave my little work nest, i put my phone in my pocket, just in case he called. and when i came back i would put it on the arm of the couch, nice and handy, just in case he called.

and then it happened--my moment of panic. i happened to look at the arm of the couch and noticed that my phone was not there. i checked my pocket--not there either. where could it be? i just had it a minute ago . . . it was just here . . . i reached toward the end table to rustle through all my little notes, and there it was . . . IN MY HAND!!!! i am not kidding you.

i could not believe it. sheesh! i mean i was looking right at it, entering some information when i first missed it. how could i miss it?!?!? i was holding it!!!! i was using it!!! I WAS LOOKING RIGHT AT IT!!!!

maybe i need new glasses.

my only defense is that i hadn't been using it like a phone all morning--i was using it like a computer! i had been accessing the internet, storing information, checking email--all the things you do on your computer--and i guess i had subconsciously stopped thinking of it as a telephone . . .

and then i remembered a professor rollie had when he was in seminary. this professor was a brilliant, brilliant scholar, but he was a bit forgetful. he would routinely push his eyeglasses up on his head, and then forget they were there. he would put his tie on in the morning, and then when he went to brush his teeth, he would flip it to the back to keep from splashing toothpaste on it. then, on his way out the door he would notice he didn't have a tie on and go put another one on. really. rollie said he showed up at school more than once with two ties on--one in the front and one in the back.

but the funniest and most horrifying thing he ever did, was the night he stopped by a friend's house for a few minutes to drop something off. when the friend asked if he wanted to stay and play a game of chess, he eagerly agreed. forty five minutes later the friend's wife looked out the window of their house and said, "um, i think there is someone in your car!" and there was. it was his wife. he had completely forgotten she was out there!

so maybe it isn't because i am sick, and my brain is preoccupied with trying to get well. or because my short term memory occasionally takes a vacation without me. maybe, just maybe it is because i am brilliant! so brilliant that i forget the mundane things, because my mind is so busy with, you know, other stuff.

yeah, let's go with that . . .