Stripper 101

So today's Vegas adventure was a stripper class.

Stripper 101 graduating class of 2011
(The hot one holding her boob was the teacher)

Not only can I now give a mean lap dance, but I can work the pole like a champion tether ball player. And with these tips, now you can too:

• Give the cookie, take it away.
• Just pretend you're putting on lotion.
• Don't do the good stuff on the first song.
• Boob check and sexy stretch.
• If you get tired or bored, just bend over, hold the pole and sway. That'll buy you at least five minutes.
• If you freak out, just turn around and shake your ass.
• Insist on payment upfront.
• Layer your panties.
• Don't get too close to the pole or you'll break your cookie.
• Bruised shins are the sign of an amateur.

Breaking my cookie

Midnight in the garden of drag queen bingo.

So, it's midnight and my brain is so not functioning right now and I reek like cigarette smoke and I just spent nearly three hours at drag queen bingo.

It was pretty awesome.

I'd tell you all about it, but I'd have to use words I wouldn't normally say.

I'll leave you with this:

Unfortunately this isn't all of us. Three are missing. This was the conversation immediately after the picture was taken:

Jen: "You just got your picture taken with a bunch of Mormon housewives."
Drag Queen: "Can I be a sister wife???!!!"

Awesome.

On the first day of Vegas my true love gave to me...

...A pair of shiny, glittery whore shoes!


So, in the interest of full disclosure, I've had about three hours sleep in the past 48-ish hours, so I'm not really that coherent right now. I'd love to say that it was because I was gambling or drunk pole dancing in some den of iniquity until the wee hours, but really it's just because we've stayed up way too late talking.

Sunday night I arrived and met three of my friends. We stayed at the gayest hotel ever (not a bad thing, by the way) and thought we'd be experiencing a huge gay spring break bash. Except that we were pretty much the only people in the hotel. Despite the hotel calendar's claim that it was the kick off bash for gay spring break that night, the gayest spring breakers there were the four of us.

Around midnight we decided it would be the perfect time to go get some dinner. The restaurant in our hotel was closed, so we wandered across the street to the Hard Rock Hotel. Now, I'm a pretty liberal person. I'm not fazed by much. But I'll admit that I was a little taken aback by the debauchery going on in that hotel. And I totally saw my first pole dancer. Also, at the table next to us was what I'm pretty sure were a group of porn stars. One of them wearing handcuffs. There may have been some straddling taking place, too. I just ate my potstickers and stared.

Monday three more of our contingent arrived and we moved into the rental house. And because we're all badass, we spent the day shopping at Costco, eating at Cafe Rio and making knitting needle run to Michael's.

Last night we went to the strip and walked around for awhile. I won fifteen cents on penny slots. And not just any penny slots--Star Wars penny slots. We ate gelato at The Venetian and then took a stretch limo back to the parking garage at The Bellagio where our cars were . We're rock stars like that.

Tonight the final three ladies arrive, and we'll be off to Drag Queen Bingo. And when I checked my e-mail this morning there was a Groupon offer to take a pole dancing class for $20. I am THERE. I'll even get a souvenir Las Vegas Stripper license.

What good are stripper heels if I can't also work the pole?

Merry Christmas, Will!

Love is in the air.

(Horny Robin and her nest of unwed sin)

So, it's Spring here. The trees are blossoming, the flowers are blooming, my lawn guy is about to start taking away my extra spending money, and the robins are getting frisky.

Very, very frisky.

There's a robin couple (Shhh! Don't tell, but I'm pretty sure they're not married) that have built a love nest in a tree in the back yard. And they've been doing some sort of elaborate mating ritual all week.

Granted, I know nothing about the mating habits of robins. Maybe they don't have a mating ritual--maybe they're just freaking insane. But I'm pretty sure they're hornier than than a couple of sexually repressed teenagers.

It was kind of fun watching their antics while they were in the back yard. It wasn't so fun when they moved their hot date to my driveway.

I had the garage door open while I cleaned out my van, and they flew in not once, not twice, but FOUR times. Four times they flew in, raging hormones making them completely oblivious to their surroundings and the fact that they were on my water heater.

Oblivious, that is, until I whacked them with a broom and shooed them out.

If I'm not getting any at my house, neither is anyone else.

Leaving on a jet plane.

So, first of all, I need to say this:

HAPPY BIRTHDAY, WILL!!!!

O.K., now that that's out of the way...

In two days I'm leaving for Las Vegas to spend five days with a bunch of awesome women, NO children and hopefully more than a few drag queens.

In an hour I'm heading to the airport to pick up my parents, who are spending the week here taking care of my spawn their grandchildren.

I need this vacation. I need about five of them a year, but I'll settle for the one.

Anyway, I'm going to try something different this trip. I'm going to challenge myself to accomplish something I never have been able to before.

This insurmountable challenge?

I'm going to attempt to only have a carry on and no checked luggage.

Anyone who has ever traveled with me is laughing right now. I'm a notorious over packer. But I just know my luck. I know that my luggage would be lost and I'd be stuck wearing the same outfit for the whole week and borrowing someone's toothbrush. So, I'm going to try. I have a carry-on approved rolling bag and my laptop bag. I'm going to attempt to fit all my clothes, shoes and toiletries for five days into this bag:

Shown actual size

Wish me luck.

Also, I can probably look forward to a few full body pat downs and cavity searches. It was cheaper to buy two one way tickets on different airlines than a round trip ticket. So, I'm flying one way with no checked luggage. If that doesn't send up a red flag or two, then our system has failed, because that would make even me suspicious of me.

Anyway, I have a couple of posts set to go up over the next few days because I'll be kind of busy. I never pre-write posts, so hopefully they actually post when scheduled. And I'll be checking in frequently from Vegas. I promise.

Ribbed, for her (birthday party) pleasure.

So, I was at the commissary earlier, and saw these.

I have nothing more to say about this.

Lunch Time Poll Topic #8675309

Yeah, so I have no idea what number Lunch Time Poll Topic we're actually on.

Today's topic was submitted by an old friend. As in, I've known her for a long time. Not that she's old. Anyway, she needs some feedback about a situation with the school, and we all know that you guys always have the best answers on the internet.

A couple of things to note:
1. She's a teacher, so the workload of a teacher is something very familiar to her.
2. Powerschool is a program many schools use so that parents can have access to their kids' grades and attendance on a daily basis. You can even see the grades for individual assignments and tests. It's like a report card every day that includes all graded work.

Without further ado, her letter:




Today I got a heavy-breather phone call from my 11 year old daughter. My cell rings after I put my students on the bus. It's not a number in my phone, so I don't know who it is, but it is local so I answer it. I hear, "Mom?"

"Yes, dear what's wrong?" More heavy breathing. . .So I ask her if she's going to talk or breathe in my ear.

Eventually she spills her guts about how she is with her teacher, and she is calling me because she wrote something not so nice directed toward a boy in her class.

Should I get that phone call? Absolutely. I am super disappointed in her for what she did. Though I am grateful that she used her pen, and not her mouth to express her sentiments about this boy. I am also disappointed that she was (insert sarcasm) smart enough to turn in the assignment that the words were written on.

But I digress. My real issue is this:

1st quarter her report card showed that she was failing science. We never got a phone call, so assumed that things were fine. I ask during conferences what's going on, and the teacher pulls up her grade book on the computer and says, "Well she just didn't do very well on the test that we took last week." As in, that was the only science grade in the book for the whole 9 weeks! And the teacher goes on to say something like, "It was just the first science test, lots of them struggled with it." So we go home and tell her she needs to be more diligent and take the opportunity to retake tests if she does poorly.

2nd quarter.
We assume she's doing better--we haven't had anything tell us otherwise. My husband works for the school district too, and this teacher sees him every day when she takes her students to lunch. This time when the report card comes, she is failing social studies and language arts, but her science is grade up. The middle school principal was out on medical leave, so I talked to the counselor. I asked her, "Isn't there some policy requiring some sort of parent contact when a kid is failing?" She listens to my concerns, says she thinks there is such a policy, and promises to talk to the principal about it when he gets back because other parents are having the same issue. We tell our daughter to get it in gear etc. . .

This week, 9 days before the end of the 3rd quarter, the counselor asks me if I knew my daughter was failing 3 classes? Ummm, no. Are you kidding me? I teach in this district too, last year this teacher taught in the class next door to mine (now she's in another building). We as parents are around, not hard to get a hold of. She has access to both our personal phone numbers, and email as well as our work ones. Like I mentioned earlier, she sees my hubby every day. We even go to church together.

So after my child is done breathing heavily into the phone, and done getting around to telling me about the bad thing she did at school, I ask to talk to the teacher. We discuss today's issue, and then I ask her why, since she knows how to get a hold of us, can't she let us know that our child is failing THREE classes?!? I got responses like: "Don't you check powerschool? I can't call all 17 parents (this is a regular 5th grade class). In the 5th grade I want to let them take on more of the burden of responsibility. I need to get them ready for middle school where they change classes every 45 min and can't turn in late work. Didn't you get the note/s I sent home? I didn't know she was that far behind. I really don't know where she is (meaning academically)."

So I answer: "WHAT DO YOU MEAN YOU CAN'T CALL ALL 17 PARENTS!?!?!? They aren't all failing are they? I call parents all the time especially if their kid is beginning to fail. Obviously this kid isn't ready for this kind of responsibility. What makes you think she's going to give me a note if she isn't doing her work?" In my mind I'm thinking: BS, I turned in late work all the way up through college. If you really are keeping your powerschool grade book up-to-date, how do you not know she's failing? How do you not know where my kid (and all the others) are academically when the state tests are coming up in 3 weeks? It's her responsibility to know where they all are. Since I teach in this school I know that my daughter scores at the top of her class on the state tests. She knows the content. She just hasn't been turning things in. She's been known for hiding her homework under her bed, in her laundry hamper, behind her bedroom door, and who knows where else.

So my question is:
Who's responsibility is it to make parent/teacher contact when a child is failing? This is the first year she has ever failed a class.

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O.K., internets. What do you think? I'll weigh in with my opinion in the comments.