Walking Backwards

Nicholas is now plugged into his new Baby*Einstein video, so I have a few precious moments to let you in on how my class was last night before I feed him his beloved cream cheese and jam sandwiches. First, I realized quickly that I was going to have to learn how to parallel park or face the prospect of walking ten blocks (downtown on streets with no streetlights) for the rest of the semester. I got there early enough to allow me to circle the area a few times, but the only spot I came to required more parking abilities than I possess. Well, I had to attempt it because I'm very stubborn and secretly think I must have some innate ability in all that I do, how else have I gotten some of things done that I have. I was also running a little late. I pulled into the spot and did the whole back-in-turn-wheel-pull-forward-turn-wheel-back-in thing about five times. Finally satisfied with my success, I got out and checked my margins. I was about three feet from the curb, I was crooked, three inches from the car in front of me and six feet from the car behind me. Yeah, I got skills.

The class itself does not seem like it is going to be fun. The teacher is a rambling talker who kept going off onto unrelated tangents the whole time we were in class. Normally I wouldn't worry too much about it, but the class is almost three hours, leaving lots of room for rambling. The assignments and his descriptions of the tests and daily quizzes also seem like they are going to require him to stay focused on the discussion. He told us that we were going to have to identify direct quotes from the writings we were going to be studying. Blech. Who knows, though, the class might be great and I was reading to much into things at the first meeting. Tonight my philosophy class begins and I am hoping for better. We'll see.

I started work on my spring garden yesterday. I started turning the soil and am about to mix the compost and fertilizers in and cover it until March. Amazingly, this little activity turned out to be the most eventful of the day. I ended up turning over a snake. Who knew snakes could move so fast? Good thing it was going in the other direction or I would have has a fit. I'm not afraid of snakes normally, I can hold them, pet them, and look at them at the zoo, but this was an unexpected and unknown snake. That is an entirely different story. The shock of my backyard visitor just showing up sitting on the end of my pitchfork wasn't good for my heart. I dropped the fork and bounded back several feet. The entire time this was going on, Nico was laughing at me declaring that my actions had garnered me the title "silly mommy". Later on, when I had regained my composure, I went to go see where our little friend had wandered off to, but he was no where to be found. At least I know what I am in for when I go to work to finish this little project.