Ordering in box-loads, then transporting 100s of cans of cat food home has been high on the agenda this week, along with bulk hauling of litter bags and associated paraphernalia for the golden girls, Virg'nMary. Despite the fact that they appear to be Belsen horrors in comparison to their former rotund, roly-poly carriages, they seem to be in good health with glistening coats, shining eyes and moist noses. We can only hope for the best as we prepare them for the long, hot summer ahead!
These machinations have kept us reasonably pre-occupied for a while, as we've experimented with all sorts of flavours and brands of wet food. We've ditched the special formula "health food" from the vet's as one or other of them turned their nose up at it the other day. It is essential that they both eat it and that they are rabid consumers, not fickle "lick then walk" creatures. We've narrowed it down to just a couple: a gourmet feast of mackerel in an impossibly tiny tin and a can of tuna and sardine from the discount supermarket. Who knows what is really in it, but we're satisfied if they eat anything at all at this stage!
We ate out at the Thai restaurant at the neighbourhood SOGO on Saturday and although I didn't try it, I was intrigued by a pink version of a favourite beer (see photo). We ordered all our favourites and forgot about our hectic lives for an hour or two. Afterwards, we drifted down a few floors to grab some Uniqlo product. I got some shorts and a light jacket, while Cass got some of her favoured 3/4 length t-shirts, all for our anticipated daily walks along the coast which we'll be embarking upon ever so soon.
Shaun (our friend and middle school principal) just told me that I'll be switching assignments yet again next year. He wants me to teach a full load of Grade 8 English, so after a decade and a half, I'll be ditching the second language students and teaching purely literature. I've put a lot of effort into writing a coherent and detailed curriculum for all my classes this year in anticipation of an easier year next, but it's not to be. Luckily for me, an equally detailed and superior set of planning documents has guided me in my English class this year: I'll just have to replicate that for larger numbers next year in both class and student numbers. This curriculum, of course, is all thanks to my wonderful leader in the English department: who could that be??!!
So, in what may be the fading dusk of a long career in teaching, I'm getting set for one of my most different preparations ever. Who would have guessed this all those years ago when I was teaching Japanese to high school kids? There's never a dull moment when you teach, that's for sure! I'm going to cut this short, relatively speaking, as we've just been handed a little doorstep of extra grading of To Kill a Mockingbird paragraphs due to a colleague being ill....best get to it!
Photos: the newly svelte grand old duchesses in various languid poses, pink beer, my classroom, a sushi cart crossing at the intersection and a flower. Video above, or later here, shows my classroom, and its proximity to Cassy's, at a quiet point early one morning.
Meanwhile, on the east coast, this is happening!