Friday Bitch & Brag: Double Header
May 2 & May 9, 2025 - The Post-Nasal Drip Edition: allergies, testing, and treats
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Yes, another double header because the weeks leading up to the end of school are the ninth level of hell and I come home too exhausted to do much of anything. Circle up, kids!
Bitch: The last weekend of April was so bad for me allergy-wise that I had to start taking Claritin again. It’s helped with the post-nasal drip but that medicine dries me out way too much.
Brag: On Fridays during rush hour the Howard County Democrats have been demonstrating on one of the I-95 overpasses. It’s great to see their signs & I wave, honk the horn, and roll down the window to cheer. Fight the power!
Bitch: I ate way too many sweets this past week thanks in large part to Teacher/Staff Appreciation events at Wagstaff, which involved a lot of desserts and candy.
Brag: We had a gorgeous rose blooming early outside the house! I saw Canada geese with goslings! Nature can bring me such pleasure, even if all the pollen does not.
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Bitch: My favorite local notebook maker, Write Notepads, is closing its retail business and shifting to only custom orders for businesses. I’ve known and loved this company and the people there for seven years, so this one hurts a lot.
Brag: Last Friday I met Tanya for happy hour and we hung out for nearly three hours talking and laughing. I’ve said it before & I’ll say it again: it is so good to have a close female friend in the area.
Bitch: Last Thursday I had a mini-cupcake catastrophe in the car as I transported them home from the bakery. I bought them for a little “wedding reception” in Ms. Hoffman’s class at the end of my week with her students, and while the presentation was beautiful, it wasn’t designed for transport in the back of a SUV on bumpy streets. I may have dropped a ton of f-bombs as I worked to put frosting back on the cupcakes that had slammed into the sides of the plastic cover…
Brag: …but I salvaged many of the cupcakes, thankfully. The students enjoyed them and only a couple kids managed to sneak a second one. Kids in one class did the Chicken Dance and a conga line, which had me laughing a lot. Several students made cards for Ms. Hoffman, too. The kids had fun and so did Ms. Davies and I.
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Bitch: When I cover a class I tend to write detailed notes for the teacher about what happened, focusing on who was misbehaving. On Tuesday, I had a lot of 6th graders pissed at me because their teacher Mr. Geary* went nuclear in response to my notes: he called home. I even had students coming up to me asking why I’d given them a bad note. The lack of accountability and unwillingness to take responsibility for behavior is astounding, but then look who the president is.
Brag: Several 8th grade girls have gotten into fiction writing and they are telling me about their stories, which I love to hear. One girl came to me very excited to share the plot and the images she’d created of her two main characters using an online app.
This week on The Corinne Channel: two BONUS bitch & brag, free food and snacks, and more!
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