The Smokey Mountains, but not the Smokey Mountains

From the bed of Captain Spazzmataz:

This week has once again been fairly uneventful. I’ve been going to zoom class, practicing, and doing homework. Here is a picture of Churro to demonstrate our laziness/lack of leaving the house.

There is a new weather phenomenon that has developed. Forest fires. There have been some massive forest fires all around Wyoming pretty much the entire time I’ve been here, but now there is one just about 30ish miles from Laramie. It is actually very close to where Tyler and I went hiking. It was apparently started last weekend, but just since Wednesday the smoke has been really bad here.

Here are two crazy pictures of the sun. You can’t see the mountains from my window anymore, and there is literally ash falling from the sky. When you go outside, it is stinky and the smoke makes your throat hurt. The air quality has been deemed unsafe to be outside without a mask on, so maybe that will prompt more people to wear one.

Today, we did go on a bit of a roommate adventure. Since it is the last Friday in September, it was the last opportunity to go to the farmers market. Even though it is super gross outside, I asked Corrie if she wanted to go because she had never been. We were both being lazy watching Cutthroat Kitchen, so we decided that we should do something mildly more interesting on a Friday night. Brooke spends a lot of time in her room, but she came out as our episode was ending, so we invited her to come along as well. I took a picture to commemorate our adventure.

On our way back home, I mentioned that I liked looking at all of the houses around Laramie because they are all so cool and different. This prompted an unplanned house looking adventure that took us to all sorts of different areas of Laramie. Corrie wanted to show me some of the huge houses by where a couple of her friends live and it turned into an hour and a half long car ride looking at houses and seeing what we could find. I saw new areas of Laramie, and we saw some crazy big houses that I didn’t even know existed in this area.

When we got back, Corrie and I started watching a new show called Get Organized. It is fascinating and inspiring. Now I just want to have a home and a lot of clear containers to put things in.

Overall, it was a pretty good week, and there was a nice little adventure to cap it off. I was going to try and do something exciting this weekend, but I don’t think the air quality will allow it. Maybe next weekend.

Captain Spazzmataz

Little to Note

From the bar stool of Captain Spazzmataz:

I have had a pretty lackluster week filled with homework, practicing, and dog park times. I just fed Lenard because Corrie is gone for the weekend, and watching him eat his dinner is probably the most exciting thing I’ve done.

Oh! Something exciting to note, I finally finished all of the Harry Potter books! Now when I come home for winter break, we can watch all of the movies. I am also very happy to be reading not the Harry Potter books after spending all summer trying to get through them. I finished them on Saturday, and now I am about halfway through Sing, Unburied, Sing, and when I started to read, it took me a second to grasp that I wasn’t reading Harry Potter. The writing style is so different, and I had to re-read the first paragraph a couple of times to get my brain to realize that there are other forms of narrative.

Another semi exciting thing that I did this week was make cool ranch Doritos mozzarella sticks in the air fryer. I wish I would have taken a picture of them, because they were delicious. It was super easy and they only took 6 minutes in the air fryer. I am going to be very sad when I am no longer in a home with an air fryer. It makes cooking so much more enjoyable.

I will end my post with some photos of Churro, and hopefully I will have something more exciting to report next week. Today, she decided to destroy one of her toys, which is quite odd for her.

Until next time,

Captain Spazzmataz

Brand New Day!

From the recliner of Super Koala,

Le sigh. I have this nice new day for posting, and still so little to report. Tragedies of tragedies. Have we learned the word ‘tragedy’ in Italian yet? I need it.

On Friday, I was burdened with many critters in need of pets and affection. You can definitely tell that they’re getting used to the school year, and that their neediness increases once we settle into our weekend time.

Saturday was officially grading day. I had my first progress submission at the new school due Sunday, and I didn’t want to have everything entered too last minute. It was a very productive day, and I got all the grading done, but as a result, nothing much else happened.

Sunday was take care of house and home day. It was also finally cool enough to wear this!

I ran some errands and did some tidying around the house. Sparhawk took care of my care and TRIED to make baguettes, but someone ate ALL OF THE DOUGH while it was proofing on the counter. IT WAS THREE LOAVES WORTH. Below, you can see him being very sorry he made this decision because his stomach has been pretty trashy ever since. (As you can imagine, he also got in a considerable amount of trouble.)

Today, I was hoping to use some of my classroom work time to decorate my room a little more, but unfortunately, that didn’t happen. I only ended up having about an hour and a half to work in my room, and I had a lot to accomplish in that time. Instead, I’ll leave you with this photo of my teapot mouse in his new home. I at least got him placed! (I had to use one of the rejected books on my shelves to make him tall enough to see over the shelf edges.)

Alas, I don’t really have much else to update. We turned some shelves in our stereo case into this excellent spooky shelves that Sparhawk got some small purple lights to illuminate, but they’re too dark to successfully photograph. You’ll just have to see those in person.

Fortunately, we do have some plans for next weekend that should make for better posting material. Wish me luck that they actually come true!

Have a wonderful week! Take care of my sweet, injured baby Churr!

Arrivederci!

Super Koala

Weather Whirlwind

From the bed of Captain Spazzmataz (I’m back):

This week has been quite the adventure in many ways. First off, Tyler was here and we spent a lovely weekend exploring the outdoors. We went up to Lake Marie where Mom, Dad, and I went, but this time we did real hiking. I wore my hiking boots and everything!

We had a great day seeing the sights and we even packed a lunch and ate it on a nice comfy rock. We also drank mountain lake water because it was so clean and we ran out of water that we brought. I tried to insert a panoramic photo as my featured photo, but alas, WordPress is once again poopie and won’t allow this format in their media library. In the photo with the elevation sign, there was a lookout point which is where I took the panorama. From this lookout point, you could see smoke from one of the massive forrest fires in Colorado! It was impressive and sad.

After our mountain adventure, we were very tired, so we had a nice lazy day on Sunday to round out our weekend.

We finished watching Avatar, and I finally unpacked my winter clothes with the impending snow on the horizon.

There was snow in the forecast for Tuesday for about a week and a half, and it did indeed snow. It wasn’t a crazy amount, but it was enough to cover the ground and for Churro to frolic.

We went to the dog park once it stopped actively snowing, and there was one other dog there who was just as excited as Churr. They played so well, and they ran for about 45 minutes while we were there. Churro thought rolling in the snow and shoving her face in it were the most fun, so she was quite damp when we returned. Unknown to her, she will be getting a bath this weekend because now she is very stinky.

All of her playing and frolicking left her quite docile and sleepy in the house.

I had an additional blanket folded up on my bed because it was so cold, and Churro found this to be a most delightful nap spot.

Other than this, our week has been rather lackluster. I’ve mainly just been doing homework, practicing, and watching trashy reality TV with Corrie. We are currently watching a show called Selling Sunset about real estate people in LA. It is terrible, but also great. If you need something to have on in the background, I highly recommend.

Have a great weekend, I can’t wait to hear from you on Sunday!

Captain Spazzmataz

Weekend Update

From the kitchen chair of Super Koala:

Hello! It is I, belated but returned. I am here to provide you with another weekend update since my week wasn’t terribly exciting. I did teacher things, we took Herm-Verm to training where he did much better this week (he has been living a disciplined life), and really that’s about it.

Now that I’m sitting down to type, I realize I don’t really have much to tell you about Saturday either. I must get more interesting soon. The only particular item of note was the Oz man came over, and then Sparhawk insisted upon bringing Rayanne ice cream to make her feel better, which I thought was nice. (You need to provide your significant people with nicknames to continue our theme.)

To Sunday!

Sunday was Sparhawk and I’s 10 year anniversary. We didn’t do anything too crazy as, alas, there is still a pandemic afloat. We had also mutually agreed that this could be a lower maintenance anniversary year since, even though 10 years is a big mile stone, we’re getting married very soon and that is expensive.

We began the day by basking in the sun with the puppies and feasting on Waffle House. Nan’s tummy treatment is going quite well so far, so that’s something to be grateful for.

After we had some home times, I got fancy, which hadn’t happened in a while. This ended up not being the greatest decision, as my mask did not appreciate being friends with my make up. I tried a new foundation technique that I will likely not be replicating.

After fanciness, Sparhawk and I went on a quest to obtain his low-key anniversary gift, which was the Tony Hawk reboot for ps4. He didn’t even know this was a thing yet, so it was a good surprise.

We then went to the south side of town in search of some home supplies. We got some more crates for our shelves in the living room space, which looks much nicer than how they were before. We also found some excellent spooky finds at Joann’s, one of which shall be posted below. Finally, we went to the mall where Sparhawk bought me my new favorite item of clothing, which is this most excellent and ridiculous Jack Skellington “summer” sweatshirt. It’s terrycloth instead of fleece, and it’s also delightful.

We ended the evening with Nakato (second feast!) and a movie night at home. We watched Poltergeist, which for some reason I thought was supposed to be completely terrifying. I didn’t find it scary at all, just strange and peculiar. Occasionally gross. I guess it’s one of those movies everyone is supposed to watch it at some point, but I’m not altogether very interested in watching it again.

Since I didn’t have a lot of life to tell you about, let me instead tell you my Married at First Sight thoughts. I think I’m about halfway through. They just moved into their apartments.

– Matt and Amber: trashy trash trash. I hate Matt. I feel like he doesn’t understand the concept of them being married at all and doesn’t actually want to be married. Amber makes me uncomfortable, but she’s far too nice for this garbage.

– Deonna and Greg: Greg is adorable, so I hope this works out. Also, I’m rooting for Sandy. She’s the MVP of the show. Can Greg win her over? Can he?

– Jamie and Beth: This appears to be working? They make me feel like there really is someone for everyone in the world because they would both drive me crazy, but appear to make each other happy at this point.

– Keith and Iris: I like them both very much as people, but I have the least feelings about their relationship. Maybe that means it will be the most successful? Either way, they both seem very nice.

That’s all the Gremlin and I have for you! She’s been laying over my arms on the table as I type. I hope you had a lovely weekend seeing Tyler, and I hope you survive your impending tundra doom. We were supposed to have some fall weather this week, but the forecast is already predicting warmer temperatures than anyone said originally. Just think how happy sweet baby Churr will be!

Until next time,

Super Koala

Last Warm Days

From the Couch of not Captain Spazzmataz:

I have finally moved from my ever persisting bed location! I promise I don’t spend as much time in by bed as it seems, but Corrie’s mom brought her new couch up, so now I have a secondary comfy place to sit!

This week has been more of the same routine, with Churro and I spending a lot of time on walks and at the dog park. I made sure to capture some epic action shots of her playing, and here are a few of my favorites.

She has found a few doggo friends that we see fairly often, and they play so well together. Last weekend, we went on an epic walk, and she wound up laying in the grass because she was tired. Since then, she has realized that she likes to lay in the grass and will do it just for funsies.

I have spent much time practicing this week, and I had my first lesson. I knew it wasn’t going to go great because I wasn’t really focused in my practicing last week. It is funny though because he has a way of telling you that you were not very prepared, but does it with a smile on his face so it doesn’t seem so bad. This week, I came up with a plan for each day of practice so I would be better at reaching my goals.

I was also much more motivated to get my schoolwork done before the weekend because Tyler is here! Last week I was bad and didn’t do the homework for one of my classes until Sunday night and it was due by midnight. I have turned it around this week, and I completed all of my assignments by Thursday evening!

Tyler arrived Thursday night, and we spent today looking around Laramie. We went on a walk where I showed him all of my favorite houses, to the dog park to let Churro burn off some energy, and around downtown so he could see the quaintness. We are going to spend the rest of the weekend exploring some of the outdoor activities Wyoming has to offer. Wish me luck, we may go hiking.

My new glasses arrived Thursday night as well! I really like them and they are super comfy! They came a lot sooner than I was expecting.

I am very jealous of your pumpkin spicecapades. I have not had any pumpkin anything yet, and seeing your post made me long for the warm spicy smells. I do think you need to give the classic pumpkin spice latte its fair chance and have it hot. I do believe that it is much better hot because it invokes more feelings of fall.

Speaking of fall, Laramie is deciding to skip the season all together and go straight to winter. This weekend is supposed to be quite warm with the high on Sunday being almost 90 degrees. However, something truly terrible must be coming because the hight on Tuesday as of now is only 30 degrees and is is supposed to snow. I don’t know what kind of mystical land I have moved to. It is supposed to be 78 degrees on Monday. What is going to happen? I am mildly stressed for Churro and I’s walk on Tuesday morning. Will it be blizzarding? Who knows? I will have to give you a weather update next week to let you know what actually happens.

Soon to be very chilly,

Captain Spazzmataz

First Week of School!

From the chaise of Super Koala, where I am pausing Married at First Sight in order to better compose my thoughts to you:

Dearest Captain Spazzmataz,

(As an aside that is also a beginning, I made my title and, afterward, was both amused and delighted to find that your post was titled the same thing. Clearly, our creative juices are hard at work.)

I am writing to you on this Sunday eve of the first Monday in which I do not have to go to school. Last year, having regular Mondays off felt bizarrely stressful. I’m always so obsessed with my extra time and the certainty that I’m not using it well enough, and that just carried consistently throughout my year. With a pandemic, I feel little to no pressure to use my time more effectively exploring the world around me, and am quite content to be a guilt-free hermit in my home. Also, with not having so many Mondays off at my new school, they feel more gift-like, like a three day weekend did when I worked a traditional, students-all-five-days kind of week. All in all, it has been quite nice.

That being said, it does not make for incredible posting content. I will admit it. So, to provide you a run down of any notable events in my week:

Monday:
– I can’t remember much from Monday, so it clearly wasn’t terribly important. It was our last teacher work day before the students came, we got to leave early and I, for once, actually did, and I made some last minute adjustments to my classroom set up/environment. This included some of the fun new things Eric and I picked out last weekend! The bottle next to the sign says “Raven’s Brew.” It was fate.

Tuesday:
– Tuesday was the first day with students! It was a little strange; because of Covid, we couldn’t have an assembly or anything. The school essentially had a building-wide Zoom meeting from our classrooms.
– I discovered it is going to be very hard to learn everyone’s names with masks on. I find this to be a bummer since I’m normally really quick at learning their names. I also learned that, on the rare occasion I do glimpse them without their masks on, I have no idea who they are.
– The most important discovery of all was made: there are dispensers filled with lemonade, iced tea, and sweet tea in the teacher’s room every day. I can make an Arnold Palmer whenever I want, fo’ free.

Wednesday:
– As I already explained to you, Wednesday was the night of the baddest training. We don’t talk about Wednesday.

Thursday:
– Thursday was my first day of actually having the students do something academic, which means they needed my help. I forgot how much energy you have to force into the room for successful, engaging teaching. My spirit is out of shape.

Friday:
– Friday began my weekend of pumpkin coffee celebration. (This is a new, personal holiday I have decided to celebrate.)
– I kicked it off with whatever the ridiculously long name is for the pumpkin coffee frappuccino. It was nice enough, but it did not keep me awake. And I hate how ice crystal-y frappuccinos are, and how it’s hard to balance the goodness of the flavor with the level of freeze in your cup. In terms of preference, it came in third out of three. They also left the whipped cream on. Tragic.

Saturday:
– Saturday began with the most wonderful of all pumpkin beverages. You know who I’m talking about. She’s still number one.
– A monstrous morning storm rolled in and hung out for a good hour. It was magnificent. I tried to get a good photo to display the stormy-wonder and the sheets of rain and the very blustery wind and how a small stream was moving down our street. I thought you might miss those Midwestern weather phenomena. The picture I got shows very little of that.
– Sparhawk was gone the majority of Saturday being the wedding singer, but really the wedding trumpeter. They just haven’t made that movie yet.
– I finished two books.
– Herbert drove me CRAZY, so we played frisbee until we achieved exhaustion.
– Sparhawk brought me home rather delightful wedding favors and cake.

Sunday:
– I started out today with the one, the original, PSL. I got it iced. It’s fine. Cold foam cold brew is way better. Maybe I should get one hot tomorrow to have it as a contender in it’s true form.
– Today has been my teacher day. It’s interesting, having two whole new classes to teach. I find it’s always most difficult to begin a unit and harness direction; it gets much easier to plan as we move into a unit and have a clear end goal in mind. It has been a good kind of mental challenge. Hopefully it’ll go well this week, since we’ll be doing actual things and not just “getting to know you” and pre-assessments.
– Herbert has been feeling unwell today. It’s actually been quite gross. I think he might be one of the bad tums, like Nan. Because of that, it has been a relatively quiet evening with some sleepy puppers.

That is it for my week! I’m so happy for you and my sweet baby Churr out in the West. It looks like you both have been having an excellent time. I’m so impressed with you getting all fancy and being so productive. It looks like a lovely start to your new adventure.

Fondly,

Super Koala

First Week of School

Once again, From the bed of Captain Spazzmataz:

(I really should change up my posting location more often)

This week school has started! I have three classes that will consistently be only online this semester, and three that will hopefully get to go in person at some point. Because everything is currently online, I feel like I am sending an absurd amount of emails every day.

My daily routine starts with taking the sweet baby Churr on a walk so she can be relatively relaxed through the day. Then, after a shower and breakfast, I ride my bike to go practice.

Here is a lovely photo of me in the practice room on Monday.

My first few days biking were quite a struggle. On Monday and Tuesday, I had to bike with my backpack and my saxophone. This, coupled with the thin air, made for a challenge I was not expecting. I solved this situation by requesting a locker in the music building so I can store my things there. I was met with another problem on Tuesday. I have not ridden a bike in quite some time, and my bottom was SORE. When I went to get on it on Tuesday, it was difficult to sit down properly. This problem persisted until today. This morning was the first morning since Monday that I could comfortably sit on my bike.

I decided to do my makeup to commemorate the first day of school, however I forgot to take a picture of it in the morning. I did however remember to capture the moment before I took my makeup off in the evening, and I would say everything held up pretty well through biking and practicing.

Almost every day this week, I have taken Churro to the new found dog park when I get home from practicing. This allows her to let out some energy so she will hopefully be calm while I try to do work the rest of the afternoon/evening. It has been quite successful.

She mostly just lays like this while I work on homework and then gets one last spurt of energy before bed. The only downfall of her being so sleepy all day is that she has made my bed quite hairy. She is still shedding like crazy, and I can’t wait for that to stop because it is disgusting. It is worse than when Nyxie sleeps on my pillow all weekend.

I haven’t really done a whole lot this week. It has been mostly just figuring out a routine that works. I did remember to start the list journal that you gave me!

I have completed the first two. I decided that in order for me to remember to do them, I should do them before I post each week. They are going well so far. Currently, the book is having me reflect on different things that make me happy. It is a nice little reminder of all of the good things.

Hopefully I will have more exciting things to report next week.

Lots of Love,

Captain Spazzmataz

P.S. I will try to capture some photos of Churro being cute at the dog park, but usually she is much too fast for my camera shutter.

First Recovery Weekend

Dearest Captain Spazzmataz,

It is I, returned and victorious from my first in-person week of work in five whole months. It has been a tiring week, and as such, this weekend was dedicated to much recovery time with the animals, who were clearly upset with me for leaving them so much. As evidence, I woke up to this face on my chest Saturday morning.

Pretty desperate right? While we got up to greet the day, this rapidly evolved into:

And also:

Can you tell who missed me the most?

Altogether, it’s been a productive but calm weekend. Friday night, as you know, I went to dinner with the friends from past work. I have missed them very much as I begin the new job, so it was nice to spend time with everyone.

Saturday, after the wake up cuddles depicted today, Sparhawk and I went out to run some errands in the best places. We went for coffee, to Barnes and Noble, Michaels, and Maxon’s to pick up our rings! It was such a nice series of places, and you would be quite proud of me. I practiced terrific self-control and only bought what I went there for. With the exception of some bonus Halloween decorations at Michael’s. But they’re for the classroom, so it’s acceptable, right?

Afterwards, I spent a lot of time looking at farm houses on the Internet, and working on some reading for school. That theme continued today. I have some texts I’ve never taught before that I need to prepare for, and I’ve received four whole PD books that people recommended I look through. One of my goals at this new school is to devote more time to teaching as a practice and an art, as opposed to just how I fill my daily time and make the scant dollars. I feel like delving into these books that people nicely gave me is an excellent start.

I almost forgot! (This is bad writing practice, I should go edit this back in chronologically.) Before Sparhawk and I went and ran the best of all errands, he made me the most delicious and precious breakfast. Behold!

Those are mini-pumpkin waffles he made from scratch! I used some of our shower dollars to get this most excellent tiny pumpkin shaped waffle maker, instead of the regular one I had originally picked out. The pumpkin one seemed too perfect to pass up. Beneath my egg scramble, this whole breakfast rests upon one of our spooky plates, and I ate it with one of our new black forks. The spooky aesthetic is coming together quite nicely, I do believe.

These are the real highlights of my weekend. It wasn’t too eventful, but it was nicely. Sadly, there is nothing of note to report from the week, as I just went to work every day. But the new work place seems nice, which is comforting. We begin with students on Tuesday. Wish me luck!

Have a great first week of your own, even if it is virtual.

– Super Koala

We Walk All Day

From the bed of Captain Spazzmatazz:

It has officially been one full week in Wyoming. So far this week, I have done lots of walking and reading because I cannot yet get into the practice rooms on campus.

Last weekend, Mom and Dad were still here, and on Saturday we went to a mountain lake! Churro got to come along and she loved splashing in and drinking the cold mountain water.

Dad was not at all upset by her paws being wet, and actually encouraged her to get in the water because she was probably thirsty. So proud of him for coming so far. It was quite chilly as we had reached an elevation of over 10,000 feet. I definitely should have brought a jacket, but once we got moving around it warmed up.

They left early Sunday morning, so the rest of the week I have been pretty much by myself. My roommate that is present in the apartment works 8-5 Monday through Friday, so I have had the days to cuddle Churro and read books.

I have been taking the sweet baby Churr on long walks every morning. My longest walk this week was 5.3 miles and my shortest was 2.4. She has been loving them, and when we get back she sleeps for the rest of the day.

Her most favorite things to do on our walks are:

• Smell the flowers as we walk by
• Chase any creature that moves including, but not limited to – squirrels, bunnies, birds, prairie dogs, and chipmunks
• Chomp at the many sprinklers we pass
• Refuse to walk over anything that isn’t grass, sidewalk, or road (grates and those big metal plates are her worst enemy)
• And get really excited when we encounter wet grass

On our walk today, she came across a damp lawn that must have just been watered. She stretched her paws out in front of her, did one quick roll, then was so elated that she sprang forward almost pulling me down.

After our walks, she is much more pleasant and spends most of the day sleeping. Here are some of her many glamour shots.

As you can tell, her favorite spot is on her bed while I am reading on the couch. This week I finished the rest of Harry Potter book 5 and started and completed book 6. Only one left! I think book 6 has been my favorite so far.

That’s pretty much it for the week. Classes start on Monday fully online, so I imagine I will have far less free time soon. I hope your first week at your new school has been delightful even though you haven’t had students. Also, you should refuse to still go to the building if it has to shut down and come see me!

Anticipating your post on Sunday,

Captain Spazzmatazz