Incidents and accidents

I think I’m about to eat it on the little camera. It’s only got three hours, 30 minutes left, but it’s only up to $153 with no reserve. I was expecting something along the lines of $300-$450 out of it. Here’s praying it turns up real soon…

One of my newly-hired co-workers told me today that when she was interviewed, the school director asked her if she was christian (it’s a christian school). Not only is that illeagal, but after it was confirmed that the co-worked was indeed a believer, the director then procedes to tell her that there’s a non-christian working there (me, duh) and that it’s caused ‘a lot of problems’ with the other co-workers. She then goes on to say that the school has kept me because being around so many ‘good christians’ might help me learn ‘by example’.
The director never asked me if I was a chirstian. I told her to her face about a month after she hired me, thinking it might make a few of the other people there not-cool with me. She told me then that no one had said a damn word to her, and that she’d let me know if anything of that ilk was said. Furthermore, not one of my co-workers has actually said anything to me or even asked about my beliefs.
Obviously, these ‘good christian’ woman have not only talked about my religious preferences (of which they know nothing since they haven’t asked) behind my back, but the director has actually lied to me about it when I asked if it was an issue. To tell a potential teacher that they’re having ‘problems’ with another’s belief set before they’re even hired is just unprofessional. Then to know that they’re just keeping me around to ’save’ me instead of my teaching skills makes me sick.
Honestly. if being ’saved’ means I have to turn into a lying bigot, I’d rather not be. I can forsee this turning into a big problem.

John and I are headed to ARIZONA! John’s dad is sending us for a week in early May so I can slobber all over 13 species of hummingbirds (and photograph them) while John laughs at me. Here’s the sketchy pre-planning phase schedule:

Day 1: Leave Atlanta, arrive in Phoenix. rent car, drive to tucson. Check in to hotel, spend the rest of the day messing about in tucson getting coupons and transit schedules.
Day 2: Arizona Sonora Desert Museum has a hummingbird aviary among some other really awesome stuff.
Day 3: ASDM again, since it’s reccomended to take 2 days to go through.
Day 4: Drive down to Sierra Vista for Ash Canyon, Beatty’s Guest Ranch, and Ramsey Canyon.
Day 5: Ash, Beatty’s and Ramsey some more. Or if done head to SABO’s banding station. Perhaps drive over to Paton’s Feeders or Patagonia-Sonoita Creek Preserve.
Day 6: Another day for the canyons or drive back to Tucson for Colossal cave Park, Tucson Botanical Gardens or Reid Park Zoo.
Day 7: Zoo, Cave, or Botanical Gardens again.
Day 8: Drive back to Phoenix, drop off car. Get on plane, return to ATL.

Here’s a map! We may change the entire Sierra Vista bit with the first two days in Tucson, just so we can have the entire tucson stay at once, rather than in two seperate bits. It’s just hard to say how long we (meaning I) will want to stay in the canyons. I will have to get some more memory cards for my camera, or borrow a laptop to download pics to. I will certainly have to get some more batteries. Let me know if you have any borrowable/sellable Compact Flash cards.

After unsucessfuly offering the Sony for sale here and a few other places, it’s now up on Ebay.
http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&item=7579554540
I’ll be out of a daily use camera for about 2 weeks or so until I buy and recieve the tiny Canon s500. Augh!

Actual phrases that have come out of my kids’ mouths:

Child: Miss Hedder! I need to tell you a secret!
Me: Wassat?
Child: (whispers in my ear) I love you…

Child: (holding up a lump of playdough) I made poopie!

Me: I’d be so happy if you peepeed in the potty next time.
Child: I sorry. I no mean to peepee in my diaper.

Me: (Just walked in to work) Morning!
Child: (pointing to his butt) Miss Hedder. I can’t talk to you. I got diarrhea!

Child: (pointing to his penis) It’s just too big!
Me: It’s what? Who told you that?
Child: Daddy.

Chil: (running back from the bathroom) I peeped the pot!

Me: Your pants are falling down again.
Child: Yeah! I need a belt!

Child: (holding up a large and small stick) It’s a mama stick and a baby stick!

Child: (hands down her pants) Look Miss Hedder! I got a body!

Child: Miss Heather… I like your breasts.
Me: You what?
Child: I like your breasts. I have a penis.
Me: Oookay.. we’re not talking about that anymore.

Child: (spinning around in circles) I’m so busy!

Child: (pointing at her nose) I gots burgers!

Me: We’re having some cole slaw too!
Child: No. It’s COLD SLOP.

Me: Here, take this egg, okay?
Child: Thank you! That’s so sweet!

Thanks to Scott anda few other Flickr freinds, I’ve become somewhat addicted to flickr. The more time you spend on it, the more you find you can see and do. Just today I figured out how to tag images with geographical coordinates so others can see where they were taken. Not only does it offer groups and such, but it’s free for anyone! Everyone should totally sign up.

Larken threw a New Year’s party last night! It was tamer than we’re usually used to because of babies and all, but still very awesome. Jeff, Angel, Larken Blixem, John, Me, Tim, BrianS, DavidB, Sara (Larken’s mom), Eric and Sara were all there. There were also four children, three dogs, a cat, and lots of fish. They don’t really count though. I photo-geeked with DavidB for the begining of the party, then jumped in on the rest of the games played. We played the requisite Apples to Apples (awesome!), and also a fun guessing game. Everyone writes down one thing that happened to them in the past year, then the papers are all mixed up and numbered. One person reads all of them aloud, and the rest have ot guess who wrote what was on the paper. I wrote “Wasps nested in my car door.”, but the best one was “I had a finger up my butt.” All in all, a good time had by all.

Angel and Jeff were also finally back from Texas, which means that we had Christmas presents to exchange! Jeff and Angel now have a Player’s Handbook 3.5, and I now have a brand new hummingbird feeder with copper! I love it. I replaced the apple feeder with it, as it’s much prettier. I didn’t fill it up though, because there are no hummingbirds around here now. I keep the other two feeders filled just in case, but that one doesn’t need to be filled just yet.

I got bored this afternoon, so John and I took a walk. I grabbed the XT with the new huge lens as we left, thinking I might get somehting. As we were walking along a creekside, we nearly stepped on a well camouflaged Mourning Dove on the ground. She(he?) was watching us carefully, but not moving away. I whipped up the camera and shot a few frames before wondering what was wrong with her. I got about a foot away and was bending down as she finally flew off, landing heavily on the shore of the other side of the creek. She seemed like she could fly just fine, so i shot a few more frames and we continued on. When we came back around, she was still in the same place. Doves are really stupid birds, so I crept down and scared her out of the creek bed. She hid herself in some bushes, but I still think there’s something wrong with her. I did enjoy the photos I got though.