JOSH MILLER
The Principal Chronicles continue ...
We have arrived on Valentine's week, which is one of the wildest weeks of the school year. Luckily for us, the weather has been outstanding and not cold at all, so behavior around the school has been pretty good for the most part. Usually, we have a ton of time indoors, and the students are itching to run around, and Valentine's Day allows them to go nuts and release all of that energy at their parties. Although I love the change in seasons, I can't say that I hate all of this warm weather. I'm sure when Spring hits, it'll be freezing and snowy just when we want everything to warm up.
Here at school, it is a very busy time of year. We have budgets to turn in, schedules to create, staffing to figure out, and just about everything else you can think of. We also have a professional development day this Friday. We get to begin our day at Eagle Ridge Elementary school. It'll be fun to spend some time over there as they have the exact same school design as we do. It is always interesting to see how they do things and as always, I am excited to learn from them. Then in the afternoon, we have some of our very own brave teachers presenting to our staff. I'm excited to see what they have to offer.
On the home front, last weekend my mom used the Christmas present I bought her. Instead of presents, I always buy my parents experiences since they are 80 and don't need any more stuff. I took my mom to see a lady named Stella Cole who was singing songs from the Great American Songbook. If you don't know what that is (I sure as heck didn't) it is a book of songs from back in the day. Like WAY back in the day.
My parents were supposed to be at my house at 5, so naturally they arrived at 4:15 because they were worried about traffic even though they drive most of the way on E470. From there, we hung out for a bit and then decided to walk over to the Blue Island Restaurant which is close to my house. My dad asked me if I had made reservations which of course I hadn't because it was 4:45 and I wasn't sure anyone actually ate dinner at that time. So I quickly jumped on my phone and scheduled a reservation for 5:30 as I didn't want to be lit up by my father for NOT having reservations. So we walked over to the restaurant and made it there right at 5:30. Since my parents are 80 it takes them a bit to get places (and yes it was their idea to walk, not mine). I told the host we had reservations at 5:30 but the host couldn't find our reservations anywhere. Fun fact, there are not one but TWO Blue Island Restaurants in Colorado. Guess which one I DIDN'T make reservations at? Luckily we only had to wait around 20 minutes or so for a table. Keep in mind we would have only had to wait five minutes for a table but the first table was too loud and the second table was too close to the door.
Dinner came and it was pretty tasty but my mom got a little overly animated during a story retell about a cake she had at her friends house that had three different colors in it. The story was so exciting that she karate chopped her water glass and broke it in half on the table. Although it was impressive that my 80 year old mother could break a full water glass in half like a kung-fu master, it did cause water and glass shards to spread all over the table. After that it seemed as though the entire restaurant decended down on our table to clean, pick up, replace, and check on my mom. It was some pretty nice attention for her and made an embarrassing situation, not so bad.
After that, we headed over to the Lone Tree Arts Center for the concert. We got in and sat down and I was surprised to learn that Stella Cole is 27 and sings songs as though she was 87. In all fairness, she was an excellent singer, but what I wasn't prepared for was the audience. Keep in mind that the average age of the audience was 138 years old. For every single song that Sella Cole sang, the gentleman next to us sang right along with her in full volume like we were at a Karaoke bar, and let me tell you his voice sounded exactly like Stella Cole's, if Stella Cole took her vocal cords and drop kicked them into a cactus. I guess I got double my money worth of the show since I heard not one but two singers for every song. Not only that, the couple next to me had a running debate (at full voice volume) through out the performace on whether or not Stella Cole changed her dress after every song (Stella Cole only left the stage once, and no she did not change her dress).
After the show was over we walked back to my place as my parents were going to spend the night so they didn't have to drive home in the dark. Once inside, my parents went literally through every room in my place asking questions. They went through my refridgerator asking what I was eating, they went through my closet and asked about my socks and if I had shirts with a button down collar, they went through my pantry, my dishwasher, my daugher's room, everything. By the time the FBI search was completed, it was 10 at night and I was ready to go to bed, but then my parents parked themselves on the couch and went full on interrogation mode. Was I happy, do I like my job, what was I going to do in five years, and about 8 zillion more questions. By the time they were finished, it was midnight and I felt like I had just been in a police station with the bright white light in my face and I had to justify my entire exsistence. Before they went to sleep they asked what time was going to get up, which I turned around to ask them: What time are YOU getting up? They said 7 and so off to bed I went (in my daughter's bed which I spent most of the entire day prior to my parent arrival sanitizing because she is gross).
At 5:02 AM I hear the shower turn on, lights are on, and I hear my parents rumbling around my place. No doubt looking for Colonel Mustard and the candlestick by this point. So I walk out of my daughter's bedroom to find my parents both up, packed, and completely dressed for the day lying in my bed staring at the ceiling. I guess it was time for breakfast. I then whipped up some belgian waffles and eggs and we watched the Olympics. In a morning where I thought they would head home after breakfast, NOPE they stayed until nearly lunch time and again asked nearly every single question I answered the night before.
It was a long stay but of course I love my parents and they mean well, but I was absolutely wiped out after they left. It felt like a parent tornado ripped through my life and then as quickly as it came, it was gone.
That is it for this weeks episode, stay tuned for next week when the Principal Chronicles continues....
