Cooking SUPER With HM

Whew! Let me give you some advice. It's hardly worth it to cook
real food. Yeah! Who knew? I made my world-famous meat loaf
tonight. Famous in the world of Hillbilly Mom's mansion, anyway.
Both boys ate everything on their plates. That is uncommon, except
when it is a plate of fish sticks or buttered noodles. They even ate
the mashed potatoes, with #1 son going back for seconds. This
from the kids who used to cry for boxed instant potato flakes every
time I made real mashed potatoes. #2 son begged for the juice out
of #1's pears, but that was no deal. He didn't want the pears, only
the juice. They have decided that I should invent pear juice, like
orange juice, only I squeeze the pears by hand. Yeah. That's gonna
happen. Two hours of cooking and cleaning up doesn't seem worth
it to me, for a meal that lasted 15 minutes. I suppose it would if
someone else did the cooking and cleaning.

HH has gone to Lowe's for something he doesn't need. I'm not
sure what it was, but I know we don't need it. Something like
labels for shelves, or some such thing. He couldn't make #1 son
go with him. "Noooo. That will waste my whole niiiiiiiiight," he
whined. HH offered a stop by the ice cream shop, and some
lottery tickets. Nope. The boy was havin' none of that. Finally,
HH persuaded #2 son, even though it will be his bedtime when
they get back. The lottery tickets did it. I suppose tomorrow
night, I'll have to tie a pork chop around HH's neck to make
Grizzly play with him.

Today was my writing day at school. Every week, each teacher
has to give a writing assignment to each class. There are no
strict rules on the subject matter. It can go along with the subject
you teach, or not. I try to give writing prompts to get them
interested enough to want to write. I don't grade them on each
little error in spelling and punctuation and tense and subject/verb
agreement. I loosely use a little rubric like "Always uses correct
spelling and punctuation" to "Rarely uses correct spelling or
punctuation", etc. Most of them pass the assignment, as long
as they stick to the topic, and write enough. I give them 20 points
possible for 3/4 page. Most get around 17 points. Mabel dropped
in the other day while I was grading them. "You mean you actually
READ those things?" Um...yes. I thought we were supposed to.
Perhaps I should check the fine print.

Anyhoo...the point I am getting at in such a roundabout and not
very interesting way, is that today my writing prompt was: "If I
was a superhero, my special power would be..." They had to
include how they would use the power to benefit the world.
Otherwise, every boy would have picked 'see-through vision'.
Yeah. I teach 9th graders. They also had to tell their superhero
name, what their costume would look like, and how they turned
into a superhero.

I first told them my superhero fantasy. My special power would
be reading people's minds. I would know what they were planning
to do. Thus my name, "Mrs. Know-It-All". I would show up at
the door of somebody planning a dastardly deed, and waggle my
finger in his face, saying, "Don't even think about it!" My costume
would be something outrageous, like a Mary Poppins kind of get-up,
so the bad guy would think, "Man, that lady is NUTS! I'd better lay
off the dastardly deeds for a while." I wouldn't have to call on my
power. The bad thoughts would be allowed into my consciousness
while the good were filtered out, so as not to clutter up my valuable
brain.

It was interesting reading, I must say--MABEL! I had superheroes
such as Mr. Speedywalker, The Flash Jr., Granny, Super Chick,
Dr. Private Dancer, Candy Andy, The Mesmerizer, and JimRod.
There were more, but I can't remember them all right now. Some
had interesting ways of getting into costume. Super Chick would
hide behind a tree or bush to change into her black leather jumpsuit.
She had many accessories as well, all coordinated. The Flash Jr.
had his suit hanging from the side of a building, so all he had to do
was jump off the building into it. I hope he had the power of flight.
And that he at least wore boxers. Granny had a cane tucked into
her belt, and a fold-up walker on her back. Dr. Private Dancer
had a black T-shirt that said, "I'll be you private dancer." Which
he was also wearing today. Streed, whose powers were speed
and stretchability, had a costume like a race-car driver.

The powers were interesting as well. Candy Andy would turn
things into sweet, sweet Pixie Stix sugar and feed the world.
Granny slowed down the evildoers until a fast superhero could
deal with them. One superhero's power was to make sure all
people had enough to eat and a place to live. Another would
teleport to a fight, grab the bad guy, and teleport him to the
middle of nowhere. One had power over cold and hot. He
made sure nobody ever froze or burned up. Perhaps I need
to adjust my room thermostat. Then there was the one with
the power to make all girls love him. I reminded him he had
to justify how that would help the world. "That would make
ME happy, and the world wouldn't have to deal with me."
Fair enough. He said he acquired the power when some acid
spilled on him in the lab. I must have a talk with the science
teacher. One got his power when struck by lightning. He
controlled fire and lightning. If lightning didn't kill the bad
guy, he'd set him on fire. We may have some issues here.

That writing didn't take the whole class period. We did other
work as well. These things usually only take about 20 minutes.
Perhaps next week, we'll see what inventions they can come
up with worthy of a Nobel Prize. I'm choosing a perpetual
motion machine.

The best part of the whole day was at middle school, where
two 8th graders tried to guess my age. I told them I'd never
tell, even if they guessed. One said, "You must be between
29 and 32." I replied, "I know I said I'd never tell...but you
guessed it!"

Stop laughing, Mabel. Or I'll tell people you're imaginary.