I went to the Centrum Blues Fest concert at 1:30 yesterday and danced my ass off. Almost no one danced. Don't know why. Uptight folk, I guess. Or so seriously musician they just had to watch the guitarists' and pianists' hands every moment.

Yesterday am there were four tomatoes and a bouquet of sunflowers on my front stoop. I would like to fantasize about a secret admirer but I just can't do a wet on for that. Someone asked if I wanted garden produce and I can't remember who.....so friend/patient.... small enough town that overlaps. But anyone that can produce full size ripe tomatoes in the Pacific Northwest is a brilliant gardener or has a greenhouse. Many thanks secret garden friend.

The sunflowers were wilted and still are in water. I think they were on the porch all night. They look very Van Goghish.

My son came with me to the concert. He asked why more of the people playing weren't black. I said, dunno, I counted how many women were teaching (six) but didn't count the black to other ratio. Daryl Davis, who played at my wedding a good while ago, was teaching again this year but I didn't see him. I hear he's doing a new edition of his book. Get it.

I bought music at the Blues Fest, only ones with women this year. I'm in a mood. I'm listening to Lauren Sheehan right now.

Last year I did the gospel track at the Blues Fest but work has been too busy this year. My receptionist's last day was Friday. The new one is still learning. It's just complicated. July was just chaos with her learning and new computers and the program updating and snafus all over. I slept 10-12 hours every night. Hope August will be slightly less crazy. Tends to be the slow time as everyone runs around doing summer things then come in sick as snot in September.....

It's been a while.

Summer is almost over for me, and I've been preparing for my Phase Two Student Teaching. Yes, despite all the issues I had, I did pass Phase One. This semester, I'm at a middle school, and I have my pick of 6th, 7th, or 8th, since my mentor has all three classes, as well as 5th graders that are part of a special STEM-focused program at the school. I'm technically going to be teaching inside that program, which has a heavier emphasis on cross-content curriculum (meaning that while I'll be teaching English, I can use historical fiction, or non-fiction materials that cross over with history or science or whatnot).

I'm already really looking forward to this round; my new mentor is much younger than my last, and has already met up with me to discuss curriculum, school atmosphere, his own background, and his ideas on teaching younger kids. He's invited me to a school meeting that's going to be taking place either the 10th or 11th.

My younger brother got an accounting job at the church where we work. He still works at the coffeeshop, but now he also works upstairs in the office. He actually has his own office now, with a nameplate and everything. My younger sister got a job at Petsmart working in the doggie daycare. She literally gets paid to play with puppies for eight hours a day.

I'm so proud of them. It's weird; I'd always been the one making more money, so I was the one buying them random stuff, but now I'm the poor one, and they're the ones buying me lunch and soda and stuff. It's slightly emasculating, but I'm so stoked; I didn't think my sister would ever get a job, and my brother is so HAPPY!

All last week was some big religious Worship Leader's Conference that was heinously expensive to go to (upwards of 225$ a ticket) that we in the shop got to watch for free because someone didn't turn off the church broadcast. I even landed a bit of overtime-- which is a big deal because the church HATES giving out overtime to anybody.

One of the newer girls at the coffeeshop is a bit of a flake, so Joey and I landed our buddy Kevin a job there. I'm pretty stoked; he's a cool dude and demonstrably more reliable than she is. She's a super nice person, but she doesn't get that if you're going to be off, you have to tell us a few weeks in advance, not just a day or two.

We got a new chicken. She just showed up in our yard. I have no fucking clue where she came from, but she sleeps in the garage while the others sleep in the coop. She's not very social.

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