And a Fight Breaks Out

I had a bizarro teaching experience last night. For 3 Mondays this month I got suckered into teaching a class I've never taught before, "Folk Remedies: What Does the Science Say?" which is a class on Complementary and Alternative Medicine Therapies. It is not my class but rather a class belonging to the National Library of Medicine's Regional Medical Libraries. It's a long story on how I got "picked" to be the one to teach this class, but whatever, who cares, it's another thing I can add to my resume. (Plus, I'm sort of into this topic lately on a personal note, what with the aromatherapy and all so it's a little fun and interesting for me.)

So last night, tired as I was from the incredibly busy weekend I had, I had to truck on out to the extreme west side of town to teach this class at a local public library. I had noticed earlier that the library hadn't even advertised my class on their website so I wondered if anyone would even show up at all, and consequently didn't feel too bad that I arrived at 6:01 pm for the 6pm class, har. One lady was in attendance, but another lady showed up late. Maybe because there were only 2 of them they saw no problem with freely inserting their own discussion, multiple questions, and debate into my presentation. But when the fight between them almost broke out, that's when it got truly interesting! I had just gone over the top 8 dietary supplements and what they are used for when the 2nd lady loudly declared that dietary supplements and herbs have NO side effects, like medications do (!). The other lady responded heatedly--and correctly, duh--that that was absolutely not true. They both had raised voices and were interrupting each other. Me and the staff librarian in attendance were watching it like a tennis match. I was hoping he'd take over and make them behave, but then I remembered this was MY class so I interrupted them as diplomatically as possible and forged ahead. When I came to the evidence showing how many serious side effects some of these herbs and dietary supp.'s indeed have, the 2nd lady actually quieted down. Finally!

It reminded me of when The Band played at Jack Ruby's club in Dallas back in the 60's, the Skylight Lounge, and there were literally 4-5 people in attendance. And a fight broke out! WTF?

Man, was this past weekend a doozy. I worked all day Saturday at the Latino Book and Family Festival. This festival is aging, and not well. Attendance, exhibitors, and enthusiasm were all way down from previous years. It didn't help that I spent a lot of time hiding behind my booth on the phone, catching up with J. Fu and L. I never have time to talk on the phone anymore, so I had the opportunity and I grabbed it! Sat. night S and I went to eat at a local Mediterranean restaurant near the house--yum! Plus I got to use my coupon there before it expired.

Sunday was back at the festival but only for a couple of hours. Then I raced home and Mudflap came to pick me up for yet another fun day of patrol at the Mexican Flea Market. I had threatened Mudflap that we were only going to stay out until about 8-ish. But now that it's getting darker sooner I couldn't resist staying out a little bit after that b/c that's when all the idiots with their stupid vehicles with the stupid blue undercarriage lights come out to play! I was handing out tickets like candy. My favorite one was the pinhead who had no license, no insurance, and claimed he couldn't afford insurance but was driving an obscene Ford F-150 with tons of blue lights all over it. I should've towed his dumb ass, but wrote him 3 tickets instead and made his friend who had a license drive him home "right now!!!" Merry Christmas, jerky!

As I told S yesterday, the FlakeFest continues with this other p/t job that I recently interviewed for. Now we are playing phone tag with each other. The guy called me from his cell phone on Monday and left a message when I was gone for lunch. I used a strategy of waiting a few hours to call him back. But before I could do that he tried calling me again when I stepped out for a few minutes to make copies! So I called him right back--and he voicemailed me. D'oh! I left him a message but today he did not call me back, that I know of. But I've been gone most of the day, having left work early. Anyway, here tonight at Job #2 I got my annual evaluation. (I didn't even know they evaluated p/t employees, but whatever.) And my ratings were darn good and they also told me I was doing a "great" job. I even got an "Outstanding" rating on one category! For some strange reason, they even evaluated me as "always being on time" which is so not true on Saturdays, hee hee! Ah well, they know I'm a solid worker and an exceptional librarian, thank you very much.

The rest of this week is more of the same: work and then more work. I am working at the Greek Festival Thursday night and Saturday night, 4pm-midnight. It's a lot of hot, outside, sweaty work, but the (free) food definitely makes up for it! Plus it is fun to stand around and bullshit with my other deputy friends that I don't get to see very often. I am taking S and the baby with me on Saturday so she can play in the kids' playground section.