My Last Day.

I was going to call this I Survived but apparently I already said that when I was talking about that Crazy Race and that isn't what I'm talking about now.

Now I'm talking about Preschool.

Today was the last day for my little ones.

Tomorrow night they graduate, then they will spend the summer making their parents insane before they head off to kindergarten.

I've learned a few things along the way and I wanted to share them with you in case anyone ever offers you a group of young minds to mold. I mean teach. I totally meant teach. Not mold. That would be weird.

1. Stockpiling is a necessity when it comes to red paint and glue sticks. Hoard them like they are the only weapon that will work against the zombies.

2. Snot is sticky. You might already know this but it needs repeating.

3. Whining is contagious like Ebola. You need to stop it at patient zero or it can turn into an epidemic.

4. Structure is great but you need to go with the flow sometimes and that might mean your perfectly cut craft turns into a fairy unicorn instead of the horse and carriage you found on pintrest.

5. Kids can be frustrating beyond words.

6. Kids can be insanely funny, sweet, kind and insightful.

7. Yesterday was the most exciting day ever. Or it's hard for four year olds to grasp the concept of time.

 8. Mom's cry over their babies big moments. Some times it's my fault, some times it's not. Either way you have to comfort them.

9. Adding dots to letters is fancy. 

Now I don't remember anything about being in Preschool personally. I know it was in a church in Queens but I don't remember any classmates or teachers. I don't remember what color the walls were or what songs we sang at circle time.

I'm not so vain as to think I have somehow changed their lives but I hope I gave them a good start so that one day when they meet that teacher that they remember forever it's for all the right reasons.

For me it was Mrs. Hall. She taught 3rd grade and I remember sitting in her class and learning how to fold an origami swan. I know she taught me about the states and multiplication and a thousand other things but that one moment I remember like it was yesterday.

If you've ever sat in a boring meeting with me than you know I can still do it. I can still fold that perfect swan 30 years later.  

Lost and Found

So Triple S flew home from the tugboat yesterday. While he was hanging at the CLT airport waiting for his ride he found a lost phone. I told him to use the white courtesy phone and page the owner but apparently that isn't an option anymore.

He tried texted someone called "sweetie" assuming they might be able to help but they didn't respond.

So this morning I tried to contact them again only to realize the phone was shut off.

Challenge accepted!

I checked email, the address book, the navigation. I was hoping for something that could lead me to the owner.

The phone isn't new. It is a 3 year old HTC and it certainly isn't worth anything but I couldn't help but think about how awesome I would feel if it was mine and it was returned.

Google to the rescue!!

I found enough facts to find an address. It's in the mail on the way back to it's owner. Of course I left a super obnoxious note along with it.





You're welcome random traveller! 

Fact #476 About Me

OMG OMG OMG OMG OMG OMG

I know what fighter pilots felt like when Top Gun came out!

Seriously, this is so freaking cool.

So here is the fact about me and why I'm overly excited about this movie.

I went to Boat College. Yeah that's a real place. Where you get actual college credit for learning how to tie knots and what is in a life boat.

Bailer
Bilge pump
Boat hooks
Buckets
Can opener

If you are reading this and you just finished my list with 'compass' then you know what I'm talking about. If you didn't, sorry you can't cheat by watching a marathon of Deadliest Catch. (Those guys are NOT my shipmates. They are insane lunatics with a death wish and serious impulse control issues.)

My shipmates include Captains of some of the largest vessels on the ocean, tugboats and cruise ships, port engineers and lawyers. Environmental clean up specialists and building managers for skyscrapers.

Boat school is surprisingly more versatile than you might think.

But none of that is important right now.

Mearsk Alabama was Captained by an Alumni of my school. Richard Phillips.

This isn't' like when some UNC grad finds another UNC grad. Thousands of kids go there and none of them have anything more in common than a piece of paper.

Massachusetts Maritime Academy is different.

Training Ship Patriot State

It's not a regular college.

We call them sea stories, although not all of them involve the sea.

Me (on the right) and my roommate about to initiate some pollywogs into Neptune's realm.

Stories of trips to foreign lands and insane feats pulled off under the normally watchful eye of a commanding officer. Stories about the mid watch or the hand rail cooling system.

Most of them make us laugh out loud while strangers listen in horror.

What is so funny about being made to stand with your flashlight on your head screaming "I'm a lighthouse." over and over again? Or about being woken up by a screaming man at 3 am to run into the ocean surf and then roll around in the sand fully clothed?

This is me dressed and ready for a lifeboat drill.

These things can't be explained.


 The point of this is when you are watching Shane Murphy be all hero like I want you to think about me yelling at him to swab a deck, or needle gun some rust. That was how he spent his freshman cruise.

Pretty sure that's why he didn't crack under pressure.

That or he comes from a good family that raised him to be an honorable man.

Nah. I'm taking credit. I was really good at yelling.

Was? Sorry, good point. I AM really good at yelling.

Bottom row all the way to the right, me.

“Sir/Ma’am. Mine is not to question why. Mine is but to do or die. Mine is not to

question how. Mine is but to do it now, Sir/Ma’am.”

Google ME

Have you ever googled yourself?

For the most part unless you are a celebrity this is a pointless endevor.

My name brings you a really boring list of my online accounts. Facebook, twitter, linked in (why do I still have that?)

There's some chick on youtube that posts fitness videos. Despite my recent insanity that is not me.

Another one in New Haven, Connecticut working in a radio station, also not me.

If you switch it up, using my nickname or maiden name you get a lot more of the same.

There is an article about Triple S and I doing college fairs A LONG LONG time ago.
Who knew the internet could remember that far back?  (Check pg 21)

For the low low price of 39.95 you can even check my criminal record. (I'll save you the money. I don't have one. Although you might want to splurge because it is my understanding that criminals aren't always honest.)

This is totally not me. Unless it is in the evil time line? Pretty sure I haven't killed anyone in this timeline yet. It's all very wibbley wobbley, timey wimey.




I totally just got sidetracked for like 20 minutes. If I was famous I would google myself into full on Howard Hughes crazy.

The point of this was people searching for this blog.

Sure most people just search for my name but every once in a while it gets interesting.

Someone searched "Veronica Douglas Nascar Driver"

How awesome would that be? 

I might add that to my experience on my linked in page. Maybe I'll get an offer? Sounds reasonable to me.

Last Night

I couldn't sleep.

I tried warm tea, reading, watching the news.  

(That last one only served to make me chuckle. When you are raised on New York News, the A team, local news is very entertaining. It's kind of like watching student films, something is just wrong. We call them the B Team. Their clothes are just a little too loud, the makeup looks like they did it in the dark plus they stumble over words and their transitions are ridiculous.)

Please note the spelling. Nice work B team!

That was a crazy sidetrack! Not like it was the first time that's happened.

I talk about this insomnia because it is so weird.

I can fall asleep almost as soon as my head hits the pillow. Regardless of caffeine or noise or time. It's seriously freakish. It only serves to make Triple S annoyed beyond words.

Sometimes when he gets home from the boat he has been up for almost 24 hours and it still takes him an hour to fall asleep. Poor guy.

The car, the couch, Airplanes. Just some of the places I have no problem sleeping. I've slept on the floor.  I sleep before tests, before big days, with things to worry about, with stress and sickness. Heck I even slept at the hospital after my water broke with my first child and my husband was trapped on a boat.

Seriously freaky.

So you can see why last night was such a rare occurrence.

I was up till almost 4am. Once I accepted that I wasn't going to sleep though I did get to catch up on all the NCIS episodes sitting on the DVR.

Still no resolution of Vance's wife and Ziva's father's killer. In case you were wondering. Tonight I'm shooting for an early bed time. I assume I'll be asleep before the light bulb cools as per usual.

Why I Love Doctor Who

An ode to  my nerdiness.

We all have TV shows we like. Shows we consider 'must see'.  Maybe we even get a little upset about them changing a major character, about a story line, but at the end of the day we move on.

Sometimes though we fall in love with something. We get sucked in. We go down the rabbit hole and hope we never have to come out.

There was a TV show called Firefly. It lasted one season. 13 episodes. That's not even a real season.

Gone in a blink but the fans weren't happy.

They wrote letters and staged protests.

You can get this at ThinkGeek.com

3 years later they got a movie made.

One barely half season and the fans somehow turned that into a movie.

Hell, this crazy show still gets a top billed panel at Comic Con TEN YEARS LATER! (I was going to explain to you what Comic Con is but I'm guessing if you don't know you stopped reading after the title.)

I love Adam Baldwin on this show.



It's still entertainment news when the characters from this show meet up again in their new shows. Not that I pay attention to that sort of thing. I just picked this show at random. I had to look these facts up on Wikipedia. My text alert is most certainly not a quote from the movie.

If it was it would totally be "I'm a leaf on the wind." But it's not cause that would be crazy.

Wasn't I talking about Doctor Who? I just checked the subject and it appears that was what I was going to talk about. Got a bit sidetracked.

I'm so shocked!

I never watched the original series. I was aware of what it was. Knew that giant multicolored scarf meant someone was a huge sci fi nerd. I might have been able to hum the theme song but I had never actually seen it.

Like a lot of things though it was brought back. The BBC decided that while we were stealing all their shows they would bring back an old one.

I wasn't going to watch. I certainly wasn't part of the group that was freaking out about a re-imagining of a beloved character.

But it was a Sunday and there was a marathon. The first episode was a weird one with gas masks and creepy children and The Doctor wasn't wearing some old scarf he was wearing a leather jacket.

I was LOST. It was seriously weird but there was nothing else on. Or I was checking facebook or the remote was hidden in the couch. I'm not sure. What I do know is that by the third episode I was hooked. I watched the rest of the first season and found the episodes I'd missed online.

I loved #9 and Rose. There was a promise of romance and adventure and with time travel on the table there really was no limit.

It's been 7 seasons and 2 more Doctors and I couldn't love this show more.

9 10 and 11

It's insane. Funny, smart and the twists and turns lead you to places you never saw coming. Plus it folds back in on itself over and over again and leaves you amazed you didn't see that coming.

SPOILERS (You can stop judging me if you read this in a British accent)

This is the only show on the planet that could have a reverse love affair. I don't mean May/December I mean one person's first kiss is the others last. Plus River Song is amazing.

She's BA.

Just when I think I can't love it anymore something happens to prove me wrong.

If you're not watching may I suggest starting? Everything is on Netflix. Seriously. Give it three episodes and if you don't agree well...... I was going to say something about everyone being entitled to their own opinion but forget that. YOU'RE WRONG.