One Twenty-five, Eleven, Eighten, Fifty, and Two Ninety Six

Sometimes it seems numbers are the most important things in our lives. For example, it has been about seven weeks since I last posted here. Much has happened in the intervening fifty-one days, but to those who might be reading this now, the passage of the months and days and weeks and minutes of my own life count for little. So it goes. My last post here was July 10. John officially retired from the Army as of August 1. He has applied for numerous jobs, but has so far not gone on a single interview. He's been concentrating first on organizing our finances in the light of drastically reduced income (and also apparently to make sure he has an =exact= figure to tell he me how much money I spent in the 18 months we were apart), and second working on the house. So far he has completely ripped off the back deck and is in the process or rebuilding it at about 1/3 its original size (rather like our finances, come to think of it). He had the house hydro-blasted in preparation for painting. (We've had the house just over a year now, and we've ALMOST agreed on a color scheme: white with ocean blue trim.) He and his father are going to install gutters on the house as well. I have some gardening to do in the area where the big deck used to be, and I'm thinking seriously of doing primarily an herb garden. I like the shape (half-moon) and the proximity to the kitchen door. Sheryl has offered to give me cuttings and plants from her own, quite healthy herb garden to get started. What I really need, though, is dirt. Lots of gravel and rocks, not much dirt there at present. I also need to pull up a bunch of weeds and a few day lilies to make room for more useful vegetation.

I started my job as an instructional aide, working with the kindergarten literacy program at the local elementary school. I like the people I am working with and the kids are a constant delight. The job pays minimum wage plus fifty cents extra per hour because I am a certified paraprofessional. WTF? I have tried to be pragmatic about the salary - $7.75 per hour is $7.75 per hour more than I have been earning for the past three years that I haven't had a job. I work with two other aides who are good people (the BOW is the second grade team - she was text-messaging at the seminar the principal sent us to on the first day of work, and didn't show up for the second day since the students were not there, but for some reason STILL has a job... but then, I am not an administrator, and for minimum wage, I don't give much of a shit what anyone else is doing as long as it doesn't impact what I have to do). The teaching time is fascinating - we tested the kindergarteners last week to see where they need to be placed in the reading program. Tremendous disparity shows up immediately - some know how to read independently, some can't even name the letters of the alphabet. It has been wonderful to get to know the children and to try to see how their busy minds work. That's the good part of the job.

The less good part of the job involves "duties" - the aides are responsible for the children in the mornings - getting them off the bus, lined up and ready for assembly, then into the classroom. Then the aides have recess and lunch duty. Recess and lunch have so far been the most problematic. The teachers bring them to the back door and let them go. Five classes of about 25 students in each class. That's a hundred twenty five four and five year olds running around on an aging wooden playset, with THREE aides to keep them safe. Then we have to get them to line up in alphabetical order for lunch (because the school secretary takes everyone's lunch money each morning and writes down who paid and then manually ticks off the names of the kids as they go through and get their hot lunch), separate the cold lunch from the hot lunch kids, take them into the cafeteria and monitor the getting of lunches, seating, eating, dumping of trash, and then lining up to go back to class. The ratio of 125:3 seems insane to me... especially when you consider that we're earning minimum wage.

Speaking of minimum wage, I got my first paycheck on Friday. I labored as aforedescribed, and took home Two Hundred Ninety-six Dollars. That will cover two weeks' of groceries, and very little else. So again, I must remind myself, that's $296 I didn't get when I was unemployed.

Since school started, I have been on my feet for nearly seven hours a day. This has served to illustrate very graphically and painfully that my current selection of footwear is inadequate for such a job. The first week I tried a different pair of shoes each day, and wound up with a different set of blisters, spots rubbed raw, and footaches each day. The worst was a pair of my old work shoes - flat closed shoes which were perfect for working at a law firm... considering that I sat at a desk most of the day and kicked off whatever shoes whenever possible. I realize I spend most of my time unshod. This is not an option at the school, because I am actually moving almost the entire day. By 2PM, I could barely walk, every nerve in my feet were shrieking. The closed shoes came off as soon as I was out of the building - I rode my bike home barefoot, even. Not the best idea, generally, but totally necessary in this instance. That pair of shoes did not make it back inside the house even, they detoured directly to the trash can. I had been using a pair of John's old running shoes as my own sneakers for at least two years - I got astonishing blisters from THEM even, when I had to wear them all day. Apparently John's feet are narrower than mine, and the insole cut into the outside edge of the ball of my feet and my pinky toe.

I finally resorted to a pair of white walking shoe/sneakers from the back of my closet, one of which Samwise had chewed up when he was still a puppy. I wore those most of last week. At least I wasn't hobbling by noon.

I ordered a new pair of shoes through Amazon.com, at the same time I ordered a book required for my lone college class this term. The shoes are Propet brand, Mary Jane style walking shoes. They're not remotely sexy, but my feet are happy. WHich brings me to the next numbers.... I used to wear a size 9.5, but started wearing size ten some years ago. Lately, size 10.5 has been so comfortable, I've started buying size elevens. I've won several other pairs of shoes on ebay over the last few days - Born, Dansko, and Ecco - all brands I know my feet like.

The next number is 18... I started off the school year barely able to squeeze into my size 18 pants, but between riding the bike everywhere I can and all the walking on my job, I wore a pair of size sixteen jeans on Friday. Happy dance!! I hope this particular downward trend continues.

I am tired of numbers now. I want a nap.

Myfi