Black Is Beautiful

I arose this morning at 5:00, packed The Pony's lunch, took a shower, looked outside at some overnight snow flurries...and the phone rang. Thinking that it was the school automated phone system, telling me that we WERE having school today due to make-up days, even though we had previously been scheduled to be off for Martin Luther King Day, I picked it up. Yep. Recording. But then I heard Mr. Automaton say, "Due to weather conditions, school will not be in session on Monday, January 19, in the Newmentia, Basementia, Elementia school district." WOOHOO!

I was still not believin' it. I looked outside again. Just a few dry-looking flakes on the brick walkway, a few in the edges of HH's truck windshield. The phone rang again. It was my phone tree buddy saying that we didn't have school. I called my phone tree buddy on the branch below me. She didn't believe it, either. I sat down and called my mom on the cell phone. Isn't that what any normal person would do at 5:45 a.m.? She, too, was surprised. She looked out her window. "It just looks like the road is wet."

The announcement was not on the channel they tell us to watch. The phone rang again. I told my mom to shut up for a minute (not really, I respect my elders) and picked up the house phone. Same recording. OK. I figured that should do it. One for Elementia and one for Basementia. Both kids' schools accounted for. I went back to talking to my mom. The news had done two weather segments. They started the 6:00 news. Still no announcement. We chatted for a while. The phone rang again. I got up to answer it. This being off from school business was wearing me out. Same recording. You'd think they could coordinate things a little better.

The Pony got up five minutes early. I told him his grandma had something to tell him. He took the phone while she was prattling to me about something. I forced him to say, "Hello." He nodded his head. His looked at me. "Grandma says you have something to tell me." I said that grandma could tell him. His eyes got bigger. He gave the phone back to me. "Is it true? Are we out of school?" I told him yes. He didn't believe me. He wanted me to take the TV off the Morning Joe Obama Lovefest and put it back on the St. Louis channel. HH came out of the bedroom. He grumped when we told him we didn't have school. He can't stand it when he has to work and I don't. The Pony still was not a believer. I got off the phone. HH fed the dogs and left. The 6:17 weather came on. The weatherman said that our district and a neighboring one were canceled due to black ice. Everybody else was probably out anyway for MLK Day.

The #1 son's crazy squirrel phone alarm went off. I sent The Pony to tell him there was no school. The Pony flipped on the light. #1 squealed like a schoolgirl. He didn't doubt the news. He went back to bed until 9:30. I got out my undone school work and graded papers from 7:30 to 10:30. The Pony played computer games. #1 got up and played Guitar Hero. We went to town to mail an insurance bill, even though the mail didn't go out today. We picked up Subway for lunch. I got on the school website by way of #1's phone internet thingy, which is faster than dial-up, and downloaded the gradebook program so I could enter grades at home. His gadgetry is quite handy.

All in all, it has been a productive day. Now I am off to find out if Reese's Puffs cereal is included in that peanut butter recall. I just found out yesterday that the #1 son's 10% benzoyl peroxide gel was recalled in November. He used it to the very end of the tube, too. Perhaps that explains the cough he had for three months, what with this contaminating bacteria causing lung infections.

Put down that phone. Do NOT call 1 800 BAD MOM. Do not.