Unexpected Company

What a long weekend! John and I went to Palm Beach Gardens, FL for the weekend to take part in the FCSS (Florida Council on Social Studies) conference. We left Friday morning and drove the 2 1/2 hours south stopping for lunch along the way. When we arrived, we checked in and just relaxed in the room for a couple of hours.

The room was beautiful. We had a great king size bed, nice flat screen TV, and a good size bathroom. There was a desk area set up for the laptop. The best amenity of all...a balcony! We were on the 4th floor and had a balcony! But, as is usually my luck with balconies, we had an awesome view of a wall! You know what? I didn't care...we had a balcony!

The rest of Friday and Saturday were pretty uneventful. We went to several sessions at the conference and collected some good materials and information. Sunday morning was a little more exciting.

I got up and was going to go out on the balcony to enjoy my coffee and have a cigarette. I pulled the sliding glass door open and something caught my eye. Underneath the little table and chair set on the balcony was a little black and yellow/orange bird.



This is the little bird under the chair.






I moved the chair to get a better look at the bird and I knew that something was wrong as it didn't move. I called John out and he brought it some water in one of our used creamer containers. We also happened to have a granola bar that we broke up and tried to give him, but the bird really wasn't interested in food or drink.

The bird held my attention for awhile, but then I had to get ready for conference sessions. I went back inside to get dressed and ready to go. By the time I returned to the balcony, the bird was gone.

It's always nice to have that unexpected company drop by and say hello.

What am I going to do with you?

Every year, it never fails, I get a few students that just don't feel it's necessary to do homework. Their reasons vary for not completing the work from "I forgot" to "My mom made me go shopping so I couldn't get my homework done". Whatever the reason, it's not usually the truth and they're just being lazy.

It's the same this year. I have a couple of students that just don't seem to care to do their homework. They know that they will get an "F" for the assignment and a color change (3 color changes in one day = detention) which will prevent them from getting the recess reward at the end of the week, yet they still don't do it. So I decided to talk to each student individually and ask why they don't feel that homework is something they need to do.

I asked one of my boys why he chose not to do it. He looked at me and said he just forgot. After a little further discussion (it's impossible to "forget" since I remind them several times throughout the day, have them write it in the agenda and sign it, and watch as they pack up everything they need) I finally asked him, "What am I going to do with you?"

He looked at me and said..."Love me?"

Ok. I can't argue with that.

Brush with fame

I have lived here in central Florida for 9 years now. There are a lot of people that live in this area and many of those people are famous. Athletes, movie stars, and musician have homes here. I don't usually see any of these types of people as we don't exactly run in the same circles, but tonite was different. Tonite I had my first brush with fame.

John and I went to the movies tonite. We went to see the latest Harry Potter movie. It's been awhile since I read the book, but I remembered a lot of key parts. Like the hand. I knew it was going to happen..I even knew when it was going to happen, but that didn't stop me from jumping out of my seat!

But I'm off topic already. I'm not here to talk about the movie. I'm here to talk about my brush with fame.

The movie was playing at Pleasure Island in Downtown Disney. We parked the car and started our walk to the ticket office. As we stepped out of the parking lot and onto the sidewalk, I noticed Joey Fatone walking down the walkway with his daughter! Wooohoo! Joey Fatone! Now for those of you who don't know who he is, Joey used to be a BackStreet Boy. You may have seen him on TV as host of the short lived TV show, The Singing Bee.

He stood behind us in line to get the movie tickets. He followed us inside and stood behind us again in the popcorn line. After that I lost track of him. I don't know what movie he was going to see but it was Harry Potter.

That's it. My brush with fame. I was in the front of Joey Fatone in the ticket line at the movie theater.

So much excitement for me. I think I need a nap.