I Think I Need a Sunrise*

Rough lab day yesterday. Apparently reading instructions is not required. I guess I didn’t make that part clear enough. Don’t worry. I will today. Lab skills in the hands of 12-year-olds. Plus mud and water and knowing what NOT to put down the sink. Back to the mantra of “If Nida didn’t tell you to do it, then don’t do it!” It’ll be fine. Sometimes 7th graders are the most frustrating creatures on the planet…and sometimes they are awesome. Today maybe we’ll hit awesome. I can hope.

Staff meeting after that…I draw to occupy my brain.

Seriously, if I’m really tired, this keeps me awake. If the meeting is stressful, this keeps my brain at an even keel. Works for me. Mindfulness and a Sharpie.

Then science meeting after that. Racing home to find enough daylight for this walk with the furry beasts. They need it. I need it. I don’t know if the boychild needs it.

But he comes along anyway.

We pass a new vineyard in the neighborhood.

And he finds this skull.

Pretty sure it’s a raccoon…no lower jaw, missing some teeth, definitely an omnivore. Yes, I carried it home and washed it out, and now will take it to school. Even though I don’t really teach biology anymore. It’s still cool. Maybe someday I’ll unearth that skunk skelly I have down by the garage.

Dinner was already in the crockpot (that I had to buy yesterday), so that was easy. Oh yeah, I did that. After dinner and all that, I started drawing…and then this happened. Katie is needy. And bitey.

She misses her real parents. We mostly suck because we don’t give her cheese and we don’t walk her twice a day. Like they do. Maybe they will come back for her some day (don’t worry…she sounds pitiful, but my parents will return eventually and continue to feed her all the cheeses).

OK, so I added a faucet and some overfishing and a Humboldt squid, because apparently the squid are totally happy with warming oceans, plus some oil drums and spillage.

Leading into ocean acidification and bleached coral and the requisite dead fish.

Then I finished the waterway and the hill…trying to keep it simple…for some definition of simple.

But then debated and put sky behind the bird, because I was thinking about how to make things pop and knew dark background would be an issue for that bird and the water below, so now I have an option to work with that.

It’s done. I actually finished around 11:10 PM, and thought about starting the numbering, but I was tired of standing at that point, so numbering will be tonight. I’m a little scared of how bad it will be, but whatever. It’s done now. If I don’t finish it for the deadline, I’ll still finish it and it will still be awesome.

OK, gotta be at school early to let kids measure stuff on their test makeups. I’m hoping they behave well enough that I can get some other stuff done at the same time, instead of starting the day playing babysitter. We’ll see.

*Augustana, Boston