School Daze

Today is my first day back with the first and second graders, after taking the month of January off. I woke up feeling kind of reluctant; I'd just gotten into the groove of having my days to myself, but I know once I get in there, my fellow cohorts (the kids!!) will make it worthwhile.

I have to admit, it kind of feels like being a rock star, to be the guest mom for the day. All the kids wave at me and yell, "Hey! It's Mrs. Toy!" Look at this bunch of hamasauri posing for the camera! I've worked with this teacher for 3 and a half years because I really like the way she does things and we've developed our stride working together (I think that translates into we have a lot of fun!).
Sorry for the lack of substance today, but as I only have 45 minutes to compose this before dashing off, I'm sure you'll understand.

OH! OMFG Update-on the creek-kill situation of last week: I thought it might be the public utilities who had contaminated the water and it would appear I'm right. They've been working on replacing the water lines around here for several weeks now.

I was packing lunches yesterday, after school, and went to fill the water dish for the cats. I noticed the water was very bubbly and shortly after that, I was overwhelmed by the extreme chlorine smell of the tapwater. I ran a little in a glass and sipped it cautiously (FYI - NOT SMART). Oh My God - it burned my mouth! There was more chlorine in that glass than you would even find in a swimming pool, I kid you not. I spit it out and rinsed my mouth out with bottled water. Then I called the utilities to let them know something was up with our water. Of course, it being my lucky day, I got some lady with a snotty attitude who told me that "we don't know if there IS a problem yet", when I asked what might be going on to cause this. Nice, huh?

They did send a guy out, pronto, thank god, and when he checked the water he got very concerned and had to check in with his boss, to figure out what to do. Then his boss showed up, looking very grim, and tried to downplay the situation while he tried to figure out how to get this crap out of here. They ended up having to flush the lines of several houses and of course, they opened the hydrants and let it flush into the creek (Damn It), so if there was anything that had survived before, it got the boot this time. And these are the guys we trust to deliver us clean drinking water?

I still have a gallon of the tainted water. I was going to send it down the boy's toilet (what better place for extreme bleach?), but thought it might behoove me to hang on to it, in case I needed to get it tested as evidence. I'm not looking to harass the utilities company, but it does seem that they haven't been particularly careful, and maybe some whistle-blowing is in order.

I'll keep you posted.