Without peer.

Tonight we saw The Class, which is pretty much the best film I have ever seen about teaching, classrooms, students, and education as a social enterprise.  Everyone should run to see it, as fast as you can, so we can all talk about it.

This was but one activity in a pretty much terrific Saturday that involved: 

• a long and loving reading of the sports pages, post the Jazz win, with
• muffins, after which 
• a walk with the dog under a perfectly clear, perfectly blue sky, and then
• dropping clothes off and picking clothes up at the cleaners, and then
• buying vegetables and eggs from Chad and Chad's dad, followed by
• a lunch with the historian's son and his family, which led to 
• visits to several furniture consignment stores at which we were looking for nothing at all, and 
• a visit to Ken Sanders, then
• the movie, after which we drove to the Red Iguana which had scads of people milling around waiting to get in, so we skedaddled along Redwood Road, and had
• dinner at a new-to-us Mexican restaurant.  

Just as we were sipping (in my case, guzzling) the last of our Cokes, the historian said to me: "I wonder how late that new Nordstrom is open?"  

I said I figured it'd be open till 9.  

He said, "Would it be okay if, after we finish here, we went and looked around a little bit?"

The historian does not like to shop, a dislike which extends to pretty much all places where shopping takes place, such as department stores, malls, and department stores located in malls. But he loves me, which is why this brought tears to my eyes.  Yes, the people, I was brought to tears over a Coke in a west side Mexican restaurant because my husband offered to take me to the mall.  So we went, and it was glorious and shiny, and then we came home, to find that West Jordan took the 5-A state championship, which I find absurdly gratifying.  Actually, I taught their coach in an Intro to Lit class at the University.  I'm pretty sure, therefore and ergo, that I had A LOT to do with their victory tonight.  Boo ya!

It is the 30th of November. Rejoice!

Although, having said that, I'm not entirely sure why rejoicing is called for. Let us enumerate:

1. I posted every single day for an entire month. Some of my best blogging ever, in my humble opinion! (can an exclamation point be humble? I think not.)
2. Several of my friends and compatriots posted every day for the month, and it was a joy and a pleasure to know I could look forward to that.
3. It's Friday. Friday is a de facto day of rejoicing.
4. I just got a voice mail from IT Guy, and the new motherboard is in and everything looks good in laptop-land. Yeah!
5. This weekend promises two movies, a jazz concert, a party, fresh local vegetables from Chad.
6. I found the two books I was looking for. Behind other books. You really don't want to imagine what all went on in the way of searching, overturning, upsetting, etc., the frail vestiges of organization in my world. But I have the books! I have been diverted!
7. On Monday, there are new episodes of Saving Grace and The Closer!
8. Next Thursday, there's an extended new episode of Law and Order: Criminal Intent, featuring Vincent d'Onofrio, aka Det. Bobby Goren.
9. All week: good classes. Which may mean the kids may actually have learned something, which in turn may mean I taught them something, or at least didn't get in the way, at least not too much.
10. Because of my relentless searching for two books, I found, and therefore could scan and share, this photo of running son when he was about ten years old: