It's Baaaack! The Royal Crown of Hillmomba

YES! The Royal Crown of Hillmomba has been returned.
Rebecca said she was putting it in the mail. I didn't believe it.
I used to have rental property. Every time those tennants mailed
me the rent, the USPS lost their checks. Go figure. So I sent
my teaching buddy, Mabel, to get it back. The crown, not the
rent money. I wasn't teaching with her then. She is a no-nonsense
kind of gal, that Mabel. Job well done, Mabes.


As your Christmas bonus, here's a little holiday tune:

"On the 12th day of Christmas, my teaching buddy Mabel
brought to me:

12 tardies from my students so now they get ISS
11 hugs in the hall when I really needed moral support
10 minutes of good gossip during my first hour class
9 unit multipliers that took me 4 years to learn to do
8 pieces of advice about using sick days
7 stories about her cat "Lovie" who's a boy but she calls him "she"
6 scary faces with her nose pressed against the door glass
5 explanations of slope equations
4 copies of memos I've misplaced
3 doorstops that someone steals if you don't mark your name on
2 shoes that only one was walked in
AND THE ROYAL CROWN OF HILLMOMBA!!!!!!!!!!"

Yes. Well. Mabel has returned the Royal Crown of Hillmomba
to its rightful owner. HOORAH, Mabel. Ya done good. It's the
gift for a Hillbilly Mom who has everything. It was quite a surprise,
I must say. My students loved it. One even took my picture.
There's some future blackmail money. My students are smarter
that people give them credit.


Now, to explain her other gifts:

2--Mabel wore two different shoes the entire first quarter. Yes,
she knew it. Her story was that she had foot surgery, and needed
a larger shoe for a while. Just because she came to school without
a real shoe for a few weeks, with wires sticking out the ends of her
toes, people believed her. I think she's a bit eccentric.

3--When we moved into our new high school 5 years ago, Mabel
was the one who bought doorstops. Wooden ones disappeared
like Oreo Cake at a teachers' potluck. The secret is to write your
name with Wite-Out (That's a trademarked product, people. I am
not such a bad speller.) so others won't steal it.

4--Hey, I travel. Sometimes I pick up a memo and stuff it in my
briefcase, or gradebook, and it ends up at the wrong building.
Mabel always has hers on file.

5--You have to RISE before you can RUN, she tells me. But I
forget what rise and run are. If the student has good notes, I can
figure it out from there. Something about an "m" confuses me.
You mathies might know what she's talking about.

6--There we'll be, everybody working away, as my students are
wont to do, when one will squeal with horror, "There's that cow
lady!" and we'll see her nose pressed against the glass. She likes
cows, she doesn't resemble one.

7--HE was named after the old St.Louis Rams defensive
coordinator. Mabel thought HE was a girl for a while. Then
she refused to call HIM by the proper pronoun. I hope HE does
not develop gender confusion.

8--Use the sick days, she says. When you're dead and gone,
nobody's going to say, "That Hillbilly Mom! She even came to
school when she was sick." No. They're going to say, "Who's
Hillbilly Mom?" She's great for my self-image, that Mabel.

9--I've mastered the concept of unit multipliers. It's some
newfangled way to convert thingies, like meters to inches, or
quarts to milliliters, or some such nonsense. I've always known
how to convert them, just not how to show it in such an anal-
retentive way. Go figure.

10--Mabel keeps me informed of the goings-on at her end of
the hall. Not every day, mind you, because my kids this year
are extremely high-maintenance. It's Mabel's prep time. I think
she puts a stack of about 500 copies on the machine and comes
down to my room while they're running.

11--Sometimes, even Hillbilly Mom gets the blues. I am not a
touchy-feely person, but I can deal with it.

12--Mabel is the official recorder of the tardies during 6th hour
each day. Or maybe 7th. Ha ha! The little punks can't get away
with it, and I get a vacation from them while they're ISSing.



I know, it's a catchy little tune. I'll bet you go about your holiday
humming and singing it. And don't you like that bird theme on my
kitchen wall, courtesy of my Hillbilly Husband? It looks all artsy-
fartsy...the duck's neck curved almost like the crown's neck.
Oops! My face seems to be obscured. I was rubbing that crater
left in my skull from when that metal tin at Wal-Mart fell on me.