Baptism by fire.

One of the teachers came in this morning and asked me when Diane will be back. Diane is the other Admin Assistant in the secondary program, and she's on vacation for three weeks. I'm doing her job as well as training for mine, and it ain't easy. It requires a much better knowledge of the individual students and staff than I have yet. I told him she was out all week and possibly next week, and he said, "Wow, it's really baptism by fire, isn't it?" I couldn't have put it better myself. And eight teachers (EIGHT!!) are out today, which means for every student they have I have to reschedule them on a case by case basis, period by period, which is part of Diane's job and is going to keep me from getting a lot of my work done today. Of course, my work is building new student files which is less than thrilling, but it's what I am here to do, and I am not doing it.

All whining aside, I had an EXCELLENT weekend! A friend of mine had a small, private wedding and afterwards hosted a dock party on a houseboat to which I was invited. Jimmy and I went and had a grand old time. Saturday morning we watched Always Sunny before getting in the car, picking up Monique and driving to Vermont to hang with the wedding folks and friends for the weekend. We went to Lake Caspian on Saturday evening and lit sparklers and had a fire going and drank beer and were merry. There weren't enough beds, so Jimmy and I slept in a tent, which was quite lovely. Sunday we went back to the lake, swimming and tubing and being tickled by minnows. I did not much enjoy the tubing, as it seemed the whole goal was to knock me off the tube into the water. This goal was met with much success, as well as some bleeding. Jimmy was the champion of the tube by far, staying on until the other Jim and I were almost ready to give up because we were so tired from driving the boat around.

Sunday night we set off some excellent fireworks, although I was beat and went to bed early. Monday we went to the Cabot Creamery, which was awesoooome. Jimmy and I eventually peaced out and came home, exhausted. We watched some Always Sunny and then went to Sweet Chili for Thai food. They had Kikkoman plum wine, which I haven't had in a long time and was super delicious. As was the Pad Thai, which I will continue to consume for at least the next three meals. The apparent endlessness of Pad Thai led Jim and I to speculate that the Feeding of the Multitude might actually be misrepresented, and there was in fact one order of Pad Thai rather than five loaves and two fish. Thai noodles and shrimp... close enough, right?