By Threes

For balance after my last post, here's three pictures of things that made me happy:


Sheets!


A handy tip for you theater teachers out there: If you're willing to make a lot of phone calls, you can get free sheets!

I first tried this trick for my theater at DPJH a few years ago. I called about 10 hotels before hitting the jackpot - 100 free sheets! We used them for everything - painting drop cloths, giant Seussical puppets, ghosts, movie screens, all kinds of stuff.

I handed my MTHS assistants a list of 30 hotels in the greater Denver area earlier this week. They were quite dubious when I told them to ask for housekeeping and then ask if they had any sheets they could donate to a high school. That is, they doubted me until one housekeeping manager said, "Sure. How many would you like?"

And so I drove downtown today and left with 50 free sheets and an offer for more anytime I wanted them, just in time for my drama class' performance of a scene from "Funny Thing" next week. Togas, here we come!


Lights!


When I bought my Vibe it was still under warranty until April. I figured I would drive it around for a few months to figure out all the kinks, then I'd take it in for repairs before the warranty ran out. With April just around the corner and a busy next few weeks, the time had come.

The problem, though, as always, is figuring out how to get around without my car. Today was a teacher work day, which meant no rehearsal, which meant I could carpool with Tiffany and John, which minimized the driving, but there was still some transportation needed.

I looked into car rentals, but at $40 a day, I was very reluctant.

Then I called the dealer I was taking my car to. They told me they would "arrange transportation" for me.

I dropped my car off last night to discover that the warranty actually covers a rental car as well! Within twenty minutes my car was in the shop and I was in a white car from Enterprise heading home. Woot!

I had a marvelously quiet work day of grading papers, 504 accommodation meetings, previewing Terry Jones' Medieval Lives episodes, and filing papers. Tiffany decided she wanted to go home early, so we took off down the mountain a little after 2:00 (man, I love teacher work days - I got tons done and we got to leave early!). I headed over to the dealer to check on my car.

My list of repairs and their results:

Brakes are squealing off and on
- They checked them and cleaned them, all's well

One of the lights in the radio's display is burned out
- They ordered in a new radio today and installed it

One of the cubbies pops open every time I go over a bump
- They tweaked it as much as they could, and have ordered a new one for a better fit

Something rattles every time the heat/cooling system's on (which was my biggest complaint - the constant rt-rt-rt-rt-rt-rt-rt sound drives me batty!)
- At first, the tech guy couldn't hear it. Then the owner of the store checked it out, and she could hear it. Then a third tech guy tried, and he could hear it, too. They think it's the blower motor, since it gets louder when they press on that. A new one is on it's way.

When I got to the shop, they were still working on it (they had asked me to swing by so I could help them identify the rattling sound, but found it right before I got there). They called Enterprise to pick up my rental for me, and I graded two more sets of assignments while I waited for them to put the dash back together. Then they washed my car for me, which was very nice and much needed after a week of peeling up the muddy hill to the MT condo, and promised to call as soon as both of the ordered parts were in.

I left to pick up said sheets without paying a dime. Best warranty ever!


Eden!


This week I split my Humanities class into pairs and assigned each pair one of 14 Bible-Stories-to-Know-to-Get-Western-Culture. They had to research the story, write a summary for me, then come up with an entertaining way to teach the story to the class without using any written language, illiterate Dark Age peasants that they are.

Some of the presentations were lousy, obviously done without much thought. Some were hilarious in both good and bad ways. Some just made me want to watch a movie again (the Moses group showed the opening scene of "The Prince of Egypt"). Some made me look twice when I realized that was David Cross:



And one group made me absolutely delighted when they showed up to class toting two bags of stuffed animals, two naked Cabbage Patch Kids, a bunch of fruit, and two trees on a push cart. "It's Eden!" they said, matching my own excitement while the kids who had slacked on their projects looked on with apprehension and fear.