News bits

The freeze in south Texas is over and things are getting back to normal. School/work for me started an hour late and the classes for the kids had a bit of a confusing focus. Instead of shortening every class the principal decided to just pick up where we would have been so school started in the middle of 2nd period. The next day was advisory schedule but one team wanted to make up for lost time so they tried to send the kids to their regular classes instead. Wow...mutiny? or a practical approach to the schedule problems caused by the ice? You decide.

On the feel good side, I got to start Thursday by doing Morning Prayer. It turned out that I was the first officiant since Monday morning. Yeah! And the church felt good. I even had time to do a much more thorough service because I had an extra hour to get to work. So I am very happy with that.

My friend, the one with the new home, and I went by his old apartment complex and looked for his cat. We didn't find her but the complex manager said she had been seen around a certain building and he went over there and looked. He left fliers which had his number on them and described the cat as a Torbie. That was an interesting term. Seems she has tortoise coloring but is also more of a Tabbie in that she has very little white thrown in. Her coat actually looks like someone took all the tortoise colorings and just mixed all the colors together and got an almost spiky appearance in the hair. No spots...just totally mixed colors so that the hair color is not even mottled but more of a blend. Back to the locating of the cat, the manager promised that if she saw her again she would grab her and hold her till she could contact my friend. So I have some hope for the cat's survival.

Yesterday one of the teachers had me show the class a movie while she went to an ARD meeting. We watched 8 Below. I'd never seen this movie but was so fascinated with it that I couldn't leave it even though class was over and it was almost time to go home. It is based on a true story and the concern that the owner of the team of sled dogs has for his "left behind" team is truly heart warming. The things the dogs survive is chilling. I definitely need to add this to my DVD collection. I have to admit that I didn't see the tail end of the video but once I knew that the dogs and their owner got reunited I was ok to go clock out. One of the outstanding features, at least for me, is that the movie shows true pack behavior of the animals when they are surviving on their own. This makes it a good teaching tool. My friend who was anxiously waiting for me to give him a lift home teased me about almost crying over the movie. It's true. I did almost cry. And I was thrilled and excited at the end when they got back together. So if you love animal/human interaction stories this is a good one to watch.