Edubabble and other Blither

Here I sit on my hotel bed in Port Town after my first day of class-- nice people. It went well. One of the people taking my class has known Jon Bon Jovi for years-- his grandma, it seems, lives or lived here in Port Town. This student says he's an ass.

Yes, it's a small world after all. As I was sitting at the bar after dinner, I noticed a familiar-looking black man leaning on the other side, dressed in chef's whites waiting for a pitcher of water. He and I worked together at the Sgt. London while I attended SNU. He's a large man, but thankfully not a violent man. When I worked as a desk clerk, he lived in one of the rooms uptstairs at the Sgt. London. A woman called wanting his private phone number. I told her it was private, but she proceeded to explain that she was his wife, a bad thing had happened, and she really needed to talk to him. (Yes, I did. Yes, I did. Yes, I was very young and very stupid, and very naive.)

Tony didn't remember this, though. Whew. We simply had a nice "Hi, how the hell are you where the hell have you been over the past 14 years?" conversation.

The bartender here is from a local town that's even smaller and more insular than Dogpatch, and we know some of the same people. He has his master's in political science or policy or something like that. Nice boy.

Cool Student Teacher Chick and I were speaking on my cell phone while I was at the bar. (She also student-taught with a former English teacher of Poli-sci Boy's.) Friday she has her third interview in Big-Time Steel Town School District. It's very exciting, and I can't wait to hear how it goes.

When she called, I was looking through the daily local newspaper, searching for a report of the wilding that occurred last night on the streets of Port Town below my hotel room. Okay, it probably wasn't a wilding in the strictest sense, but the street was blocked off and hundreds or dozens of sinister looking teenagers were running wild, screaming. A canine unit was mustered up as well. I was kind of antsy for today's class anyway and couldn't get to sleep, so I went downstairs to find out what was going on. (Somewhere, deep down, there's a reincarnated Nellie Bly in me, I know it.) A hotel desk clerk (a kindred soul!) stood out on the street, and I joined her. She said kids had fought at a local underage club, and the perps had taken off. There was no mention of this in the paper or on the news, even though there were more police cars involved than exist in the entire Dogpatch force. Go figure.

So, that's how things stand here in Port Town at the moment.

This past weekend Tripper and I attended a wedding of gargantuan proportions, a Big-Mac, Cadillac, Texas of Rust Belt Town weddings. More on that later.

We also partook of Dogpatch Electic's summer picnic-- beer, pig, volleyball, it had it all. The best part, though, was when one of the matriarchs gazed upon my newest niece, all of two weeks old. You see, she was born with what the doctor determined to be the beginning of an extra finger. Yes, you read correctly. You certainly couldn't tell that's what it was-- it looked like a tiny black scab attached with the thinnest dental floss imaginable. Her parents were getting impatient for it to fall off, as the doctor assured them it would, but they couldn't just yank it off themselves. As the old lady held the baby, she glanced down. "What in god's name is this?" she said as she plucked it off, thinking it was some kind of lint or foodstuff that the baby might accidentally swallow. Proud parents were thrilled. Now Baby has her first story.