Run Away!

Last weekend was a much needed retreat from the "real world." Friday morning I opened a ridiculously hateful email from a parent criticizing me for "correcting" her student's paper "incorrectly" (five weeks after the fact). It was seriously the most condescending, vitriol thing I've ever read in my entire professional teaching career (and I was once a cheerleading coach!). This self-professed queen of linguistics chastised me in an email containing multiple spelling and punctuation errors. The ultimate irony was that she misspelled her own first name. Needless to say, that dulled the sting a bit. If I were to write an email to my kid's teacher bashing the quality of English teachers at her school, then I would make sure my email was pristine. Just saying...

I know I went on and on about how awesome my outfit would be for the NBC Christmas party in my last post. Cut me some slack... I was excited! Well, I didn't bring a camera to actually get a decent picture of me in the dress. Doh! Luckily, there was a photo booth. My husband might be one of the lost Village People, but that's not a big surprise.


Joe and I brought the doggies and stayed the night at the Omni. Turns out I was mistaken, and the party was actually at the Omni Mandalay in Las Colinas. Oh well, I write creative non-fiction. It was nice, but it definitely was not as modern as the Omni in Ft. Worth. The first 'Frock siting occurred not long after I arrived at the party. He walked across the ballroom with a Shiner while Joe and I schmoozed with the other engineers. First impressions: omg...there he is! He's much shorter than I envisioned. He's probably my height (minus the heels). Joe was bound and determined to tell everyone at the party that I was a freak for Finfrock. I'm sure that sounds a little odd to someone who barely knows me. Let me make myself clear: I adore Finny in a strictly platonic fashion, nothing oogie. This year I was content to admire him from afar, and I kept scanning the ballroom for him the entire night. I'm such a nerd. Imagine my delight when the deejay put on the dance music and Finfrock boogied to Billie Jean, BEP, and Ke$ha. It was the highlight of my evening. Maybe next year I'll let Joe introduce me to him.

I tried to be as discreet and non-stalkerish as possible and snap a pic with my iPhone, but we all know that the iPhone 3Gs cameras suck. Here he is at the edge of the dance floor...I promise it's him. LOL

Anyway, the weekend was a nice break from work and school. Joe and I had a chance to hang out and really talk, something that we do not have a chance to do very often with our hectic schedules. We all need that break from the "real world" some time.