AAAAAHHHHHHHH!

I live next to a Catholic school. Every morning at 7:30 a.m., if I'm still asleep, as I was this morning because I am so very tired lately, the screams and shrieks of the children playing invade my subconscious and drag me to wakefulness.

Or sometimes, when I've had a rough night of not really sleeping and I'm sleeping the sleep of the purely exhausted, as I was this morning, it's not until the teacher, or principal, or whatever she is, starts booming through the PA system, "Good Morning CES!" She does it just the way that Robin Williams said, "Gooooooood Morning Vietnam," in the movie

Then she hands the microphone off to whatever student gets to lead the entire school, which is lined up on the playground outside my bedroom window, in the Lord's Prayer and then some other poor student leads them, in a quavering off tone deaf little voice, in the singing of God Bless America. Since this school goes through middle school, sometimes the singer is a young man who's in the middle of "the change," and while I squirm for him I also feel deep affection for the kid. After all of that is out of the way the announcements begin. Because I am so used to the zippy welcome of teacher-lady and the droning of the students as they pray and sing, this morning I didn't really begin to wake up until I heard the lady leader say, her voice starting low and getting higher till she was hollering with excitement, "today is the day you've all been waiting for, the last day of school until next year! And can you believe it a week from today it will be CHRISTMAS EVE!"

As the children all screamed with joy and excitement the reality of that statement sunk in and I sat up, now fully awake and screamed in terror!

I've got so much to do!!!!