Biblio-Biography

Some recent blogs I read have written about the sound-tracks of their lives and I thought it was an interesting idea. But then, I realized that I didn't really measure my life with music. My life has been defined more by books I read. They don't necessarily follow in a straight narrative, but some books have had a prominent place in my biography. Such as....

Misty of Chincoteague

I first read this book because it had a horse on the cover. I couldn't pronounce the name of the island when I was eight years old, but I was obsessed with horses and horse books. I lived on a farm, we had horses. But I was so frightened by them that I rarely enjoyed them. My sister and I were bucked off once when our horse took a pitching fit at the sound of the ice cubes clanking around in our lunch water bucket that was strapped to the saddle. I can still picture myself lying on my back under a piece of farm machinery seeing him bucking and gyrating just a few feet from my face, trying to get rid of that horrible sound the way he'd shed us two girls. So, reading horse books was much more soothing than my dad's real-live, real-frisky, real-big horses.

I cried when I read Misty. It was exciting and tender, and had nail-biting suspense. The end was triumphal and thrilling. I read the library copy three or four more times. Then, as an adult I found some beautiful copies of Misty in a store and bought my very own. I also got several other books by Marguerite Henry because all of her books were horse stories--real stories about real horses. Even though I'd had my own horse from age 12 till I left home after high school, and I'd broke him, and I wasn't afraid of horses anymore, and he was my good friend, I still couldn't read Misty without crying.

In my Navy wife home, I read one day in the San Diego paper that Marguerite Henry was appearing at a department store to sign her books. !!! So, I snatched up my books, and went down there and bought another copy of one of them (for my cousin, who shared my obsession) and stood in line with about 20 nine-year old girls (I was nearly 30 and had three tiny children not old enough to read this book to yet.) We were all so excited to meet our hero--the author of our favorite books. She knew the "Real Misty" and we were thrilled to be in her presence. I still keep my signed copy in a special place.

When those first three children grew old enough to understand it, I read Misty of Chincoteague to them. We'd sit on the couch each evening and read a chapter before bed. We got to the exciting Pony Swim chapter, and we just had to know what happened next, so we read an extra chapter that night. I read the book again, twice, to our next two children when they each reached that age to appreciate my literary treasure.

Then, I became a school teacher. In Maryland. To the East, in a straight line, across the Chesapeake Bay and the Eastern Shore, was Nine-year Girl Mecca: Chincoteague Island. Of course nothing is in a straight line if you're in Maryland. Only birds can travel in a straight line there. Everyone else must go up and around and down and around to travel across the maze of creeks and bays and inlets. But, after many years of reading Misty aloud to my students, I resolved to make the pilgrimage.

Many of my students had visited the two islands in the book. Assateague, the place of the wild things, is a National Seashore, and Chincoteague, a little island town, is where the people live. I even became friends with a woman who remembers going to the movie when she was a little girl and seeing the REAL Misty at the theater, at a fundraiser to help the pony herds that had been devastated by a hurricane.

Finally, Cool Guy and I made a trip over there. It was winter, but we saw ponies. We saw all the places that I'd read about in the book. I took home with me a handful of sand that I scooped up from a pony hoofprint, and a seashell from the beach. We saw Misty's hoofprints in the cement in front of the movie theater where the Misty Movie had premiered. We saw Pony Ranch. It was pretty close to Nirvana for me.

Then, I did the ultimate. Two summers later, I drove over on a July evening (about three hours from our home in Southern Maryland -- western shore) and just slept in my car in a parking lot at the beach. At dawn, I walked over to the water's edge and I wasn't the first person there, either. It was the most exciting day of summer: Pony Penning Day. If you haven't read the book, then you must to get a sense of what anticipation I was feeling that morning. For almost 40 years, I'd read about this event and finally, here I was, in person, to witness it myself. And it was totally worth it. Everything I'd read about, probably 15 times, was in living, breathing reality, right in front of me. The crowd had a preponderance of middle-aged women and nine-year old girls. The Misty people.

I followed the Salt Water cowboys and the herd to the fairgrounds. From the side of a corral filled with wet ponies, I called my cousin at her home in Arizona to tell her where I was. She was as thrilled as I knew she would be. Her youngest son was reading Misty that very week at his mother's suggestion as a cure for summer boredom. I mailed a T-shirt to my sister--her daughter was also a fan. I soaked it up and reveled in it for several hours, and finally got in my car to drive home, knowing that now I could die, having been to the site of my childhood obsession. It was a good day.

I still cry when I read Misty of Chincoteague.

A Tiny Glimmer of Light on the Horizon

Tonight I took the second test for my Really Hard Graduate Class. It was all about regression equations and standard deviations of error, and coefficients. Yeah. But--this time I remembered the advice I've given my own students a zillion times--

• Read through all the questions and answer the ones that you can figure out right away
• Then, go back to the hard ones, or the ones that will take more time and calculations
• Look at your notes
• Take a deep breath
• Eliminate the obviously wrong choices
• Guess from the remaining ones

I actually finished the test 45 minutes before the class was finished. Which made me a little nervous. But, I worked carefully and I calculated an answer for each one that matched one of the choices she offered. More importantly, I felt like I'd understood the work. So, I just packed up my things and turned it in.

Next week, I have an obligatory night at my school--Harvest Festival--(annual PTO fund raiser night) so I can't be in class when she returns the tests. I've already told my professor, so I plan to e-mail her on Monday next week to remind her, and see if she has the tests corrected. And, if so, would she be so kind as to tell me my score.

I really think I passed it. I need at least a "C"--hopefully I got a "B"...I truly do not want to repeat this class. It is required, so if I don't pass it, I'll be taking it again. Both CoolGuy and I don't want this to happen.

Living a Patient Life

Most people who know me probably wouldn't use the word "patient" in a description of my characteristics. I have numerous scars on my hands and fingers that are the result of impatient actions--vigorously washing dishes and breaking them; quickly grabbing for some sharp implement and hurting myself; cramming something into place that actually needed gentle coaxing and causing a cut or a slash on my hands. It's a gene-pool thing according to CoolGuy: he worked with my grandfather and great-uncles. They were usually set on "high" "fast" "zoom". I know, we aren't lackadaisical. I used to think my gung-ho style was an asset. (And sometimes it is...don't get me wrong.) But, in a spiritual, philosophical, metaphysical way, it is a handicap. Let me explain.

Today in Sunday School, I got a new outlook on an old principle. We were reading from Doc. & Cov. 21: 4-6. It is God telling us how the church should give heed to His prophet. When the prophet is walking in all holiness before Him, and receives commandments, then we should receive these words from the prophet "as if from mine own mouth, in all patience and faith."

The last four words were what got my attention. I've known about the admonition to regard prophetic statements as "if from mine own mouth" -- referring to God's mouth my entire life. But today, as we contemplated this scripture, I was struck by the Lord including the need for us to show patience with our faith. I have a lot of experience with faith. I've had mine tried over and over. I've exercised faith in many situations. Faith is my friend and companion and hero. But patience is an infrequent partner of mine.

We humans are always measuring time. I know that the nine-year olds with whom I spend my day generally only consider the moment. Their whole life occurs in that day. I can ruin their life or make their life. It is an awesome power I don't take lightly. As we grow older, into our 20's and 30's we don't get much more perspective than my fourth graders. Oh, sure, many of us learn to budget our time and plan enough to complete college or some type of vocational training. We learn to be an employee or a parent. We know we have to save up our money, defer gratification, go to work on time, wait for the green light. We learn lots of things that nine-year olds can't do well. Those young adults that don't learn this end up in jail fairly often. But still, we do not really know about patience yet.

Finally, as a woman of A Certain Age, I'm starting to get a teeny-tiny glimpse of my existence as God sees it. I'm a work in progress. I need guidance continually. I need an anchor or a standard to use as a reference. If I listen to the words of God, as spoken by His prophets, I'll have the anchor. But only if I listen to them using faith and patience. It takes a whole life of listening to the prophets to learn to see things the way God sees them, using the outlook of eternity. I am so often rushing about that I don't stop and gaze at the long view. God's words, through His mouthpiece, the prophet, are usually unchanging. They are usually unaffected by fashion or current vogue. These words are focused on my inner qualities and require me to monitor my passions and actions regardless of what others do or say.

In other words, God needs me to be patiently listening, patiently correcting myself over time, patiently doing His will. He doesn't ask me to rush about accomplishing tasks. He asks me to have faith, to align my desires and goals with His. This is something that can only be done through a slow process of continual, careful, patient work. If I have been seeing my life as series of milestones to achieve, He sees it as a process of refinement. What I do isn't the goal. What I become is the important thing. Patience...

Doing It The Hard Way

I'm taking a statistics class for my master's degree. It is hard. It is especially hard for me because I tend to do it the hard way. CoolGuy pointed out tonight that I'm having a little war with my calculator because I'm using it the way I use the computer. Meaning: I wait until I absolutely, positively need something done (the correct way) and then I try to use the tool, but discover that I don't know how to do it because I've never sat down and learned how to use the tool. True, I do that. I've been struggling with the calculator in exactly that way, too. Tonight in class, a fellow student had to show me how to decipher my screen so that I could find the square root of a number. (It was a big, elaborate number, with a decimal...in my defense.) But, my eyes had not seen the parenthesis mark at the beginning of the number there under the square root sign, so I had not learned how to add the final parenthesis and make my calculator understand what I wanted it to do. It kept displaying Syntax Error and making me crazy!!! Oh. I see. Sigh....

I met with my professor this afternoon (taking off a half day of work in order to do so, which involves lesson plans, etc. etc. I'm just saying that nothing about this class is making my life more simple.) But, it's good that I did because one simple thing she showed me will make a huge difference. I asked if it should take almost an hour to calculate the standard deviation for a set of data she had given us and she said to show her how I was doing it. Well, turns out the formula I was using was wrong. Oh, it would get me to the standard deviation, but it was an elaborate, twisted way to do so. Here's my analogy:

Say I wanted to eat quesadillas for supper. My way (using the wrong formula) was the equivalent of going out and milking the cow, bringing in the milk, making the cheese, and grating it with a fork onto the tortillas. Her formula showed me how to just go buy grated cheese. Yeah.

A Night on the Town, Down Memory Lane

Last night my sister and her husband came to town for a weekend visit. Their main incentive was to watch a college football game tonight, Saturday. Huh--I just realized--I'm an actual student, enrolled in the college that is playing tonight, but I didn't even consider attending...I'm so not a sports fan.

But, I heard on the radio that The Lettermen were performing in the showroom of the casino where they had gotten a deal on a nice room. So I e-mailed her and suggested she might want to go. So they got three tickets and I met them there. (CoolGuy is out of town this week.)

We had a BLAST! Now, you've probably gone to the link I embedded above, for this group. If you're a person of a Certain Age, you knew exactly who I meant. But if you're a contemporary of my children then perhaps you said..."Who? Aren't they all dead?"

No, none of them have died. But the group itself has gone through many permutations, with the one constant being Tony who has been performing under the name since 1961. Yes, I was 8. But I LOVED their songs. The other two fellows in the trio have been part of it for 20 plus years.

My sister and I knew all the words to their songs. We sang along. We cheered and laughed. They told lame-0 jokes, but it was in such fun we couldn't help ourselves. The singers each performed solos and wandered through the audience. They glad-handed folks, stood for photos with women older than me who were just giggling in delight. They sang all their greatest hits and more recent ones made famous by other people. They have terrific voices and great stage presence.

During a couple of the songs, I leaned over to my sister and said, "Are you transported back in time to the SVHS gym? Sitting on the bleachers, alone, while all the other girls are dancing?" That was my reaction! High school dances...what a torture chamber when I was a freshman, sophomore and junior.

Finally, as a senior, I got smart. I had to attend a number of functions in high school because I had a leadership position in several clubs. The clubs were the sponsors of the dances, and we arranged for the music and the decorations, etc. So I couldn't very well stay home, but going to dances was such a drag, because I didn't get asked to dance. And back in the olden days, the boys asked the girls, except for Sadie Hawkins. So, anyway...as a senior, I identified a nice person, who had a car (and a job so he could afford to date and have a car) and asked him out to Sadie Hawkins (always held in the fall) and then, he was my date for the rest of the year.

I liked him enough. He was nice, and he was pretty fun, but it was business for me. I needed to go to these events and I was sick of being without a date. In our school, most everyone was "attached" to someone. Some of these relationships actually turned into marriages that have lasted over the decades, but many of them didn't survive graduation or the following years of leaving home and being part of the great big world. I did, in fact, use this nice person. And I feel badly about it now. It was more than business for him. Sorry.

BUT....the Lettermen---despite those momentary bits of bad vibes---the concert was awesome, we had a great time. I used to sing all those songs in the barn while milking my cows and it was interesting how I could remember all the words last night. Yet, I can't remember some of my co-workers' names. Sigh. After the show, we went to a nice restaurant on the second floor, ate a great meal, and talked. It got very late and we finally called it day, but it was a groovy, awesome day. (And I'd like to note that "groovy" is an appropriate adjective for the occasion--no eye-rolling.)

One interesting aspect of going to a show featuring performers of that vintage, is that most of the crowd was significantly older than me...Or maybe I just need to look more closely in the mirror. There were a lot of geezers there, but we were enthusiastic geezers!

Wake up Call

CoolGuy is three time zones away for a week or so. We talk on the phone periodically during the day. Yesterday I texted him photos of us on our field trip. Technology is good. Usually.

This morning my phone rang loudly and persistently and I was dragged from deep sleep stumbling to my desk where it was plugged into the charger. "Hello? Hello? Hello?" No one answered my froggy morning voice. I listened and could hear the calming tones of the NPR morning show in the background. But no one responded to my greeting.

I looked at the time on my phone: 4:01 A.M. Pacific Daylight Time. No way CoolGuy would be calling me for real. So I hung up and went back to bed.

Later on we determined that he had used his phone as an alarm clock and when he pushed at it to shut off the alarm, he'd pushed "redial" by mistake. Since he'd put the phone down on the bed shelf by the radio and gone off to shower, he hadn't heard me answering...

Oh well, it was time to get up and let the cat in. Or out. Or something, I'm sure.

Good Things from Today

• I love the song "Come Thou Fount of Every Blessing" and it was performed by the Tabernacle choir on "Music and the Spoken Word" just before conference started. It is such a beautiful tune and the words are so poetic. It was written in 1758 by a minister to conclude a sermon. I especially love the third verse:

O to grace how great a debtor

Daily I’m constrained to be!

Let Thy goodness, like a fetter,

Bind my wandering heart to Thee.

Prone to wander, Lord, I feel it,

Prone to leave the God I love;

Here’s my heart, O take and seal it,

Seal it for Thy courts above.

• I concur with Ann M. Dibbs final point: "It [the Gospel] is everything."
• The performance of "O, Divine Redeemer" just before Elder Holland's talk. He was quite emotional and could barely speak. But that song has that effect on me, too. It is so great to sing and so great to hear.
• Elder Holland's talk was as powerful as the song. He fervently bore testimony of the Book of Mormon as the word of God. He left no doubt that he believes. I believe that as well.
• Pres. Monson recounting his birthday presents: all the acts of service performed by children and adults around the world, as he requested. I'm not sure he expected to receive a vast pile of letters and cards detailing what people did in his honor.
• Elder Cook pointed out that we cannot rationalize our failure to honor the committments of our stewardships. We are accountable to God. We can't hide from Him. It is like when little children cover their eyes and think we cannot see them anymore.
• Elder Oaks: The effect of God's commandments and laws is not changed to accommodate popular behavior and desires. God's love doesn't give us a "pass"-"If you think that, you understand neither law nor love."
• Pres. Eyring's recitation of the words from "I'm Trying to be Like Jesus" was very moving. I LOVE that song and everytime I sing it, I feel emotional. I try really hard to live the message of that song. "I'm trying to love my neighor, I'm trying to serve my friends." "Love one another as Jesus loves you, try to show kindness in all that you do. Be gentle and loving in deed and in thought, for these are the things Jesus taught."
• Brigham City is getting their own temple! I wondered if they would some day. It is a treacherous drive up over the pass to Logan. It'll be nice for them.

(Happy 400 blog entries--whew!)

Autumn--Sin City Style

You know how it feels in a temperate climate zone in autumn? One day, you realize that the air is different, the leaves are starting to turn colors, the shadows are longer and you think that maybe you'll wear a sweater this morning?

Here in Las Vegas, the city of nuance and understatement, we had autumn arrive, too.

On Monday, the high was 100 degrees. Monday evening, the wind started to blow and by Tuesday morning, it was 60 degrees. The high on Tuesday was 73 degrees.

FALL--BAM--WE GOT FALL, RIGHT HERE!! SEE FALL, ALL NEW!! GET YOUR TICKETS NOW!! BEST SHOW ON THE STRIP!! AUTUMN WILL COME TO YOUR ROOM!! BEST RATES!!

Here It Is!!

Our Other Grandpa

I've written several times about my dad here, but today is dedicated to our other Grandpa. Today CoolGuy's dad would have been 100 years old. Happy Birthday to him.

You may be doing the math and thinking, "Wait, CoolGuy is a geezer?" Not exactly...he was a caboose. His parents were grandparents already, about to enjoy their empty nest as their third son was set to graduate from high school, when---SURPRISE! Another little boy was born. CoolGuy was an uncle before he existed.

Grandpa was married just six months before the Great Depression was officially kicked off with the stock market crash of 1929. He and his dear little wife actually lived their first few months in a teepee in a sheep camp. By winter they'd moved into a house and they had three boys in the 1930's. He worked hard at whatever jobs he could get and taught his sons to be hard workers. All of them have been successful in their careers.

CoolGuy was almost 12 when his mom died. It was a really tough time for all of them. His dad remarried about two and half years later, and she has been a really fabulous Grandma for our kids. She also took good care of his dad as he got old and sick and nursed him well until he died about 20 years ago.

Here are some great photos of their family:

This is the "honeymoon teepee."

CoolGuy's talent with the internal combustion engine is an inherited trait. His dad had motor oil in his veins, too. He was once a mechanic for the Army.

This is CoolGuy and Grandpa with the packhorse string on a trailride. This was a family business from the 1960's in which they would take (rich) people, mainly from the East Coast, for a two-week long camping trip in the wilderness area around Yellowstone Park. It was a tremendous amount of work requiring experienced trail hands who could pack up the camp and move it to the next stop before the trailriders would arrive in the late afternoon. Of course, the camp couldn't be moved until breakfast had been cooked and served, all the lunches packed and the riders sent off. Then camp was broke, packed, hauled to the new stop, (on a shortcut trail to get around the paying riders) unpacked and set up again, in time to cook that night's supper. Whew. At least they would keep that camp for a few days before the marathon started again. CoolGuy is eight years old in this photo and on his first trailride with his dad. His mom worked as a telephone operator.

So, we salute our other Grandpa in this, his centennial year. The life his grandchildren live is so incredibly different from his hard-scrabble world. They've traveled all over the world and live in big cities. He lived so much of his life up in the mountains and really didn't like big cities. But he was a kind and gentle good man, and that trait has come down through the generations pure and clear. Thanks for the inheritance.

School Daze

Another nutty week in teacher land.

First, we had the little girl who, when cutting out pictures to glue on a paper to show how the water cycle works, turned to her seatmates and announced, "Look, I'm going to cut my lip." They of course all said, "Oh, no, don't do that." And she proceeded to actually use her scissors to, yes, cut a big gash in her lower lip. DUH...

I turned to see everyone gasping and exlaiming and her with both hands clapped over her face, blood seeping through the fingers. We rushed her up to the nurse. Mom came and took her away. Today, two days later, she is back with 6 or 7 stitches holding her lower lip together. It isn't at all swollen like I thought it would be. But then, there really wasn't any bruising trauma or blunt force, it was a pretty surgical cut--clean and quick. I don't get it at all.

Although, her previous teacher told me this morning that she didn't allow the child to have scissors at all in the last two grades because she would often cut other students' clothing. Gee, I wish I'd have known that. However, the scissors she used were her own, from her backpack.

Second, we were discussing the water cycle and how evaporation happens and that when water evaporates it leaves behind all the other non-waterish parts like minerals and salts. I asked if any of them had noticed that a glass that had contained a tiny bit of milk will eventually have just a smear of white on the bottom from the milk sugars after the water evaporates and a juice glass will just have a smear of fruit sugars, etc. Somehow, and I'm still trying to figure this out, we got from there to mammals feeding their babies milk. And that mothers feed their young milk from the mother's bodies, and I had two boys immediately deteriorate into the gasping, laughing, red-faced mode that sometimes happens whenever human body functions are mentioned.

But significantly, they both proclaimed complete ignorance of, and total disbelief in, the concept that mothers feed babies milk from their bodies. Any mammal mothers....I asked about dogs, horses, cats, cows??? Nope, never saw anything like that, didn't believe me, couldn't conceive of it.

By then, other kids were chiming in to back me up. In fact, one guy backed me up with, "I remember watching my mom feed my little brother from her boobies all the time." You can imagine the reaction we got then. Sigh. So, I just used my "quiet down gesture" and then said, "Well, since we're talking about science, we'll use the science terms--the milk comes from breasts or nipples, or udders, depending on the mammal."

As you can imagine, it didn't really calm things down all that much, but I bravely marched on and we returned to our original topic of the water cycle and evaporation and all that. But, first I implored that anyone who still needed information on the topic to sit down with their parents and talk about it. And to look up mammals on-line or in a book and get the facts. Really.

I'm not adverse to discussing it at all, but sheesh...decorum is needed ladies and gentlemen and that is in limited supply with nine year boys. Bless their hearts.

Sleeping Sickness

Wow, I spent the weekend alseep. I was really sick on Saturday and had a long nap. Then Sunday I went to church just to play the organ and then came home and had another long nap. Then I went to bed and slept for nine hours on Sunday night. I awoke Monday morning feeling terrible. I went over to school, wrote some substitute plans, attended a meeting to sign papers for a student who has qualified for some official special help and went home.

I thought I'd have a little nap, and woke up six hours later at 3:00 P.M. Whew. But today, I feel a little bit better and I went to school. I'm dead tonight.

Last night I told CoolGuy that I'd better be feeling like a ball of fire in the morning so I could go to school. Well, I only felt like a little glowing charcoal briquet, but that was enough. The glow is dimming, so I'll eat some supper and hit the pillow again. I don't know what this is, but sleep is the cure.

What's Up Here

It was a busy week. So busy, that I didn't even write anything on the blog. School is going well. By that, I mean that I don't have any students that I loathe, yet. I can handle my schedule. My co-workers (both new to our school) are competent and pleasant. I was observed by the principal and, even though it wasn't glowing, some really good things happened, so she wasn't too disappointed. Transitions are always a problem time in a class room. Think about getting your own child changed from one activity to another and then multiply that times 25, and consider that maybe 1/3 of them are not really there to learn, just to mess around, and you can see why transitions are a problem...

I'm still understanding the teacher in Introduction to Differential Statistics, my graduate class. We have a take-home quiz that I need to work on later tonight so that it will be finished on Wednesday. Then in class we will have the multiple choice part of the test. We are allowed to use anything we need from the notes we've taken, her powerpoint notes, and our text for the test. So, hopefully, my continued understanding of her lessons will enable me to at least know what formula I need to look up.

We had some visitors Friday and Saturday. They are the children of friends from Maryland. They are going to school at BYU and their cousin was being married here in Las Vegas, so he called to see if we would be willing to put them up overnight. They are really good friends, so of course we said yes. They were really here just to sleep, mostly, because of the wedding festivities all day Saturday. But it was funny, the guy's wife (it was a husband and wife and a cousin) is a music teacher at a high school in Payson. We were chatting over breakfast Saturday about music, naturally, and he turned to her and said, "Now think of your best AP student and then square their talent and double it, and that is Peter's musical appitude." He was referring to our son, his good friend from high school. The wife turned to him and patted his arm. "I know dearest, you've raved about him any number of times." Ha ha ha ha! It's fun to know someone who also thinks my kid is a genius!

I am sick, however. Whatever germ has been causing so many of our fourth graders to go home early with a fever, and then miss three more days of school attacked me on Friday. I mostly spent Saturday and Sunday lying on the couch coughing. I went to church to play the organ for Sacrament meeting, and then went home to sleep some more. If I feel this rotten tomorrow, I'll just go in and write sub plans and go home.

Saturday Was a Special Day

They were tiny special things...but I enjoyed them.

1) I was in the craft/fabric store waiting in line behind a lady who was holding a twenty dollar bill. When the clerk rang up the total and turned and said, "$31. 53" the lady looked at her a minute without speaking. Then the clerk repeated the sum and finally the lady replied, "Treinta?" and several more words that neither I nor the clerk understood.

She picked up a couple of her items and gestured toward the register's screen. I saw the twenty dollar bill and realized what was going on. The clerk definitely did not have a clue. So, I pointed at the screen to the cost listed for each of the three items she was holding and said, "Seise, seise, seise..." Oh, the lady realized her problem. So she handed one of them to the clerk and gestured to return it and reduce the cost of her total. She had to do it with a couple of more items, and then the clerk declared, "$17.02" and everyone looked at me expectantly!

"Diecisiete...y dos centavos" I immediately blurted out. I was flabbergasted that I knew how to say 17 just like that! I usually have to count up to get the right number. And then, half the time I end up saying it in French instead. (My first foreign language counting encounter.) So, everyone smiled, she turned over her $20 and told me something about her casa and ingles and I nodded and smiled and said, "Si, ingles es muy dificil." Hopefully that translates to "English is very hard."

Imagine!! Me---translator! I'm sure my children and grandchildren who actually speak Spanish are cracking up.

2) So, I cooked dinner and Coolguy came in from the garage as I was finishing the "plating". He looked over my shoulder to see what I was fixing and said, "Oh, look, we're having [EarthSignMama] potatoes." Huh?

"You know...sweet potatoes--lucious, delectable, succulent, wonderful [EarthSignMama] potatoes."

Ahhhh... :)

Uh-Oh

Well, it just can't be a good thing when three out of three of your teachers contact your mom in one week. Hmm.

This morning we had conversations with a mom of a boy new to our school. She'd come over to see who was threatening her son. But, I had called and left a message last night about the need for a talk about his behavior. And, unknown to me, the other two teachers had also called her this week!!

It turned out that, indeed, a boy had been trash-talking him this week, and then had met up with him outside one day at dismissal and shoved him. This was to head-off the big-brother-from-middle-school threat. But, still, you can't put hands on other kids. Anyway...the shover was sent home for the day, a mandated result of committing physical violence.

Then the boy who'd stated he was calling in the big brother reinforcements had to own up that, yes, he had called the other kid names, he had been acting out in class all week, he had told everyone that his big brother was going to come over and kick some butt.

I heard mom saying as they left the office, "Now you'd better be telling me everything this time, you hear? Because when all three teachers call me and none of them knew the other one had called and they all have the same story, it isn't a good thing." No, indeedy, not a good thing.

At the End of the Day

We rode about 120 miles today on the motorcycle. Not all at once, of course, but eventually. The weather was marvelous--sunny, cool breeze, clear and beautiful. I remembered the sunscreen this time. Last year, I fried my face because I forgot how it is in Southern California. Even if there is a cloud cover, you are getting the rays. But, I greased up good today, and so tonight I'm just a little pink.

However, that 120 miles...Let's just say that the backseat of CoolGuy's motorcycle isn't really made for that much sitting at once. Or perhaps it's not the motorcycle's seat, but my "seat" that is no longer up to the challenge. At any rate, I'm rather tired tonight and it's too bad my hot tub is in Las Vegas.

But the most painful part of my body is the bottom of my feet. I have blisters. CoolGuy says that only I could spend all day on a motorcycle and end up with blisters on the bottom of my feet. Well, it's because of the hiking. We spent some time driving around looking at a couple of different state beach campgrounds. When we got to one of them, I wanted to go look around at the campsites and then I started following the trail that led to the beach (under the highway, around the corner.) Well, it was a rather long trail, turned out. And I didn't want to give up because next spring when I'm booking my campsite for the August Go-Camping-at-the-Beach-with-Grandpa-&-Grandma I wanted to have some good data for choosing a great beach. As I hiked up the trail from the beach, back to the parking lot, I could feel the blisters starting on the sole of my right foot, right by my big toe. Tonight it is a huge swollen blob. The left foot isn't so bad, but it is very tender.

You know why cowboys ride horses all the time, right? It's because it kills your feet to walk in those boots very far. So, anyway, after putting all those miles on the bike, my biggest problem is sore feet. Weird, huh?

Another Reason to Be a Good Person...

...Just in case the Buddists are right about the scheme of the universe....

You might qualify to be reincarnated as a Golden Retriever.

Who lives at the beach.

And whose owner has a tennis ball.

Nirvana defined.

Not-Laboring Day

We got up and drove south till the thermometer in the truck dropped 30 degrees. And here we are at the ocean! We are in Ventura for the Primer Nationals, a show we attended last year and it was fun and -- hey, it doesn't take much motivation for me to go to Ventura.

CoolGuy (aptly named) got a reservation at the Inn on the Beach. Just outside the sliding glass door of our room is the beach. A well-chosen moniker for this motel, c'est non? So, we unloaded the motorcyle from the trailer, put all of our stuff in the room and I headed out to the ocean.

It is a perfect beach day. I swam, I splashed, I body-surfed. Drat, I forgot the boogie board....Then I laid on the beach for a while to catch my breath.

After I washed the seaweed out of my hair, we got on the motorcycle and rode over to our favorite (because it was our first experience with the cuisine) Thai restaurant, Charn House, in Camarillo, and had a succulent supper at their sidewalk table. It is really a pleasure to just be outdoors and be comfortable. I've become aclimated to the desert, and I don't whine all the time about the temperatures, but the contrast is extremely vivid when you're in the perfect climate of SoCal.

Tomorrow we'll go look at all the old cars and motorcycles and freaks and their chicks. We'll just be another couple of geezers wandering around looking at cars and bikes as old as we are. It'll be fun.

Things I Like

I like salmon cakes. One of my daughters made them for us at dinner last year, and I'd never had them before. Yum...now it's one of my favorites.

I like Green Day. Yeah, I know. I'm an old lady. But I still like several of their songs. I was an old lady when they first came out, but I was introduced to them by one of my sons and I thank him for that.

I like mango salsa. This was served to me by another of my sons, who happens to be a terrific cook and I don't believe I'd really eaten it before. Wow. It is awesome. Now our house will always have a mango ripening on the counter, when they're in season, of course.

I like LOL Cats. It's a website that is absolutely ridiculous! You must click on the link. Then I dare you to leave the site in less than 15 minutes. You won't be able to because you'll need to see "just one more" and you'll laugh and find you need to forward at least three of them to your friends. I was introduced to it my other daughter and I love it!

I like riding bicycles. I didn't have a bike when I was a child. That sounds so sad, huh? But, ahem...I had a horse. It was much more functional on the farm. However, when my oldest son became a teen, he really got into mountain biking. He subscribed to a magazine, he went out with friends, he got the merit badge. He made it look so fun that I bought a bike. My first, ever. Wow. I loved it! It's been a few years since I've owned one, but I'm saving up for another. In California I rode mine every day, everywhere. Thanks for introducing your mom to a great thing.

Thanks to all of my children for bringing new ideas into my life. It's one of the best parts of motherhood.

My Fan

I went to a training meeting after school on Thursday. At one point in the evening, we were instructed to regroup at our tables into teams that would mix up the disciplines of the subjects we were hired to teach as professional trainers. Then we were going to use the laptops there to do the next activity.

As we waited for everyone to get settled and turn on the computers, my partner to the left of me introduced herself and asked my name. She then said, "I know you from somewhere..." We exchanged current teaching assignments, past teaching assignments, possible training classes we'd attended together. She was sure she knew me. She inquired that perhaps I'd been here or there with her. No, it was pretty clear we'd never been enrolled in any professional development classes together, nor taught in the same building. I assured her that I had "one of those faces" and fairly often I met folks who thought they knew me, but it turned out I just looked like someone else they knew. No, she was still perplexed--she knew my voice--I was just so familiar.

Finally, I laughed, and said, "Well, I was on t.v. last fall. Maybe that's it!" And she stared at me and said, "The Millionaire show??" ....Yes...Well, it turns out that she had just watched me in re-runs last week. She didn't usually watch it, but as it came on, the announcer said it was a teacher from Las Vegas and so she sat and watched it to see if she knew her. "Yeah, you called your daughter for help, right?" ....Yes.... She went on to say I had been so sweet as a contestant and she really thought it was so cool that I'd won a bunch of money. And then she could relax and enjoy the rest of the meeting because she DID know me from SOMEWHERE and she finally knew where.

I live in Bizarro Land.