It’s an official end to summer on that first day I return to my classroom to get real work done.

During the break, I hired a student who’s good at woodworking to fix my desk (a nice mission style, very similar to this, given to me by the Music Parents Org. 15 years ago). Over time, some hardware worked its way loose, causing the drawers to be all janky and off-track.  Now that it’s fixed, it’s time to go in and put everything back together — including all my sound equipment and laptop station, which were disconnected in order for the carpet cleaning guy to do his thing.

In other words, I’m out of excuses to avoid the school house. Have I mentioned that with each passing year, retirement looks better and better? Not because I don’t love my job, mind. I do. Anyway, what would I do if I retired? We don’t have a big enough nest egg to build a home on a lake, or just travel and relax all the time. Mortgage and student loans won’t wait. Even if I didn’t have to work, I probably should. I’d drive everyone around me batty if I didn’t.

Still, I get kind of, well, grumpy about it sometimes. But I shouldn’t complain (I can see all my private sector readers rolling their eyes), so I’ll zip it. Why so serious, after all? Life is wonderful and everything is great. The gym guy at my high school jokingly calls me The Angry Midget. Whatever could give him such an idea? I’m such a delicate flower.

Are you Happy today, and not Grumpy? I hope so, because Brother does look a bit nettled. I’ll make the transition to smiling myself, once I get showered and gussied. But maybe one more coffee first…

Maybe it’s because work is staring me in the face, or that the morale at my place of employment could use a shot in the arm (several, actually), or that I paid four bills yesterday morning and the total came to $1400 and change — but I’m kind of perturbed today.

What do you do when a black mood strikes you? Go for a walk or run? Think of better days ahead? Look at vacation photos? Paint? Write? Usually, the latter makes me feel better, so I suppose I’m in the right place.

If I wanted to be really honest with myself and with you (which I do), I’d say what’s bugging me the most today is my infuriating propensity for procrastinating on unpleasant tasks. I’ve only just submitted the first purchase requisition for the music I will need for school in 16 days, when I should have taken care of it when the fiscal year rolled over three weeks ago. Oh well. At this writing, high school is done, and now I need to total up all the middle school stuff and fill out the online forms, which work precisely 71% of the time. (Refer to Cute Rat Girl at right.) Yeah, I’m peeved. May as well go for it and get it all said…

I’m sick to death of reading about who’s to blame in the Palestine/Israel conflict. You’re both to blame, jackasses. ALL of you. This whole issue has degraded into an embarrassing, tragic political catastrophe, and the kids of these countries are paying the highest price. You can’t have a decades-long war without two participating sides, so cut the crap with the throwing up of hands and saying, “We want peace; they started it!” It’s a mirror image (without the physical casualties, of course) of the Republican-Democrat battles here in the states. No one backs down, no one listens with his mouth shut, no one concedes graciously, and no one puts his pointy finger away. No minds are changed, and the rhetoric and acrimony ramp up exponentially with each passing day. I’m sick of hearing about it. B00M. Boot to the head.

I “met” our new high school band director on the phone yesterday, and we’ve been texting back and forth today with questions and answers. He seems really cool and nice. I sure do miss our other guy, though. I’m starting my 16th year in the district, and this will be the 7th band director I’ve worked with. I guess it’s somewhat to be expected in a small, rural school system. I’m far from what you’d consider a “country girl,” but I do love teaching in the sticks. I love the people. Love ’em.

OK fiends, middle school music isn’t getting ordered this way. Back to the other browser tabs. Hey, one awesome thing: In continuation of the Thriller’s birthday weekend, we’re all getting together tonight at Eva’s Frozen Yogurt, where we’ll all make our own sundaes and hang out for a bit. Fun!

I’m skipping lunch in preparation.