40//In which life pulls me away, but not forever

[spritechan]

Wow, I've fallen super behind on these, because I've had such crazy busy days with a ton of things that either kept me up too late to be able to write an entry, or worked me so hard I crashed right when I got home. Don't despair; I will write and backdate those entries.

So let's pretend that today is Tuesday. Because this will be posted on the date of Tuesday the 12th.

I slept quite awhile — I failed to wake Steve up in time for morning coffee, but amazing snuggles were had. I had a weird dream right before he woke me up I was having a dream that my coworker Brian and I were "getting fizzy," kind of literally. Brian offered me homemade wrapped candy that was drugs of some sort, and when you put one in your mouth, it fizzed as it dissolved. The spiked candy made me feel warm and fuzzy, like mushrooms. It was all the more surreal because we were simultaneously hanging out but then there were a couple of students there and THEN I needed to go to an IEP meeting that was being held in the middle of a pool? There was a little white dog walking by me, and I was trying to figure out the best way to get to the meeting without apparently getting too wet. Which seemed impossible. The meeting was being held on a platform in the middle of the pool, with a table and chairs and everything. And of course the platform wasn't rigid, but more like one of those massive rectangle floaties used in swim therapy and everyone was seated precariously around the table. Good dream.

After Steve left, I was supposed to get up and leave, but I lazed around scrolling and snuggling the cats for at least an hour before finally getting up. I got dressed and headed to Nokomis. I settled in and put on a knitting podcast, and not two minutes later, Janice opened the door that separates our offices. I didn't even notice she was there, otherwise I would have said hi! We chatted for a few minutes and then I got down to business: finishing progress notes, printing out documents, finding the signed pages on drafts, putting it all together and filing it all in the kids' SpEd records. This took (as usual) forever, and I had no concept of time or how long each kid would take to put together. It all depended on how many things I had to print, how many things actually WENT to the printer, and how much organizing their file needed.

After I was done with that, I started packing up my office. I ended up having more stuff than I anticipated, but most of it was in easy reach and all the "junk" I'm leaving behind was already there when I got there. I have a ton of resources left, like notebooks and colored pencils, and the white boards and magnetic pockets and stuff were treated really well so I'll have all that stuff ready to go at Maplewood Middle. I haven't figured out whether I'm going to take all the crates that I stored curriculum in... at least 3 or 4 are mine for sure, but I like how I set everything up, and I like an excuse to buy better crates — since I'm pretty sure I only bought 1 and the rest I acquired at Parkway somehow. They were actually probably Tealie's to begin with. lol.

I had a time crunch, so I mostly collected all my things and put them on the table to bring out tomorrow. I definitely did not have the time or the patience to inefficiently walk things out to the car and back 8 times. 

Finally I left around 12:30 to meet Steve for lunch. He is in his second week at the University of Minnesota, and there are tons of food places within walking distance of his work. I found a good spot right away and only had to pay $1 for parking. The plan had been to go to Sprout, a salad place. We both had assumed it would be good for me because... SALADS. You'd think that would accommodate vegetarians, but it SO DOES NOT. It appears the place revolves around chicken. Maybe I missed something and you can like, sub in chickpeas or something. But it was very disappointing and we instead walked a couple blocks to Naf Naf. Naf Naf knows what I need. And what do you know, it was international falafel day, so I got an extra falafel on the house! Steve got chicken and the lady cutely stuck a falafel in his, too. We ate outside and chatted, and it was just a good time. 

Other than the fact that I always want to have lunch with Steve, there was another reason for the meeting: Steve and I got EX Raid passes in Pokemon Go. For those not familiar, Pokemon Go has a few elements to the play. One is simply catching Pokemon in the wild. They show up on the map, and different types are more likely to show up in some areas or others. These are caught with Poke Balls. There are Pokemon that hatch from eggs, where you walk a certain distance and when it hatches (at either 2km, 5km, or 10km — the rarity of the Pokemon is proportional to the distance) you get a random Pokemon that is more likely to have better stats. Then there are raids. There is a scale of 1-5 stars for raids, with the star relating to the difficulty. 1- and 2-star raids can be done individually you're a decent level, 3-star raids are toss-ups depending on the strength of the Pokemon (1-3 people). 4-star raids needs at least 3-4 people, and 5-star raids need at least 10 people. 5-star raids are the legendary Pokemon, like Ho-Oh, Latias/Latios, Kryogue, etc. 

An Ex-Raid pass is a special invite-only pass that happens after you beat a raid at a participating location. The "ex" in Ex-Raid literally stands for exclusive, and it's an invite to try to catch MewTwo at a specific place at a specific time. There are crazy-intense people who track all these locations and are in like discord groups and stuff to do raids together and try to trigger the passes, but Steve and I prefer to just have fun with the game and hoped to get one at some point, and last week we opened Pokemon Go to find invitations! The invitation was for 3:00-3:45 on Tuesday the 12th at Mall of America! We were much relieved that it wasn't on the weekend, since we were going to be out of town. However, Steve couldn't leave work at 2:30pm to get to the raid in time. So, as we parted ways after lunch, he gave me his phone and I headed to the mall.

I got there with about 15 minutes to spare, went to the bathroom (god I hate public restrooms, they are SO GROSS) and sat down slightly away but near enough the group that was already forming. I made sure I was within range of the raid and just relaxed, waiting. People started dividing themselves up by "faction" — there are 3 teams, and the more of your team beat a boss, the more chances you get to catch the Pokemon. A group was created, and of course 20 seconds before the raid began, Steve's app froze, and mine said I wasn't in range of the gym (a lie). I panicked and and frantically asked if anyone knew how to close an app on an Android phone (lollll). Someone helped me and I got us in. The raid itself was fine, and catching MewTwo felt easier than a lot of the other 5-star raids. I had more than 5 chances left when I caught him, whereas for every other raid I am regularly down to the last ball. We both got quite good stats. I spent another half hour spinning stops and catching Pokemon for us, and then I headed home!

I laid down for nap, slept maybe 20 minutes total, scrolled for awhile and then listened to snaps from Haley (she's having roommate problems). Steve was trying to 99 Charlene in ITG, and I got to watch him do a hilarious frustration hop before I headed out to yoga. Yoga was with Stephanie, and we did a lot of balancing poses. I was good until the last standing balancing, when my individual ankles were too fatigued to hold my body up. I also still have quite a weak core that I need to improve. I was pretty sweaty the whole time, and the class had a pace I liked. After class, Stephanie mentioned that we need to get together again, which is funny because I was just thinking about that. I'm not sure why the ladies at yoga like me so much, because I'm friendly but not insane like most yogis at the studio. 

When I left, Noah had texted me earlier in the day chastising me for ignoring a dumb joke he made. I didn't MEAN to ignore it, I just was at the raid! Then we talked a little about yoga and food and exercise. Steve had also texted me asking to pick up Jamba for dinner (we have NO food in the house right now), and there's a Hallmark in the same area so I picked up a card and some Godiva chocolates as a gift for Melissa, my principal at Nokomis, as a goodbye gift.

Got home, drank my Jamba and then Steve and I started a shower before getting insanely distracted. It had been like, a week, which is forever. That was amazing. THEN. Shower. I had wanted to go for a walk, but as I dried off I realized I was sooo tired, and suggested bedtime cuddles watching Kripp.

Perfect end to a perfect day.

Comments

[ragnarok-08.livejournal.com]

Sounds like quite the day :)