Today I took an anachronistic object to school and puzzled my students. (No, not my old, rickety Self--knock it off.) It was the beaver skin/hide that I bought from my nephew, the trapper and taxidermist in Wyoming. When I first started teaching school here in Nevada, and we got to the section of our state history book about the early explorers, the students were stumped. What was a beaver and why were these guys coming to Nevada to trap them?
First, the girls were all aghast: those cute little furry creatures? They killed animals? Oh my! Then, we discussed that there weren't fake furs back then, and people had to wear something to keep warm. Plus, people earned their living doing lots of things the students had never heard of before. And, I pointed out, people still wear furs and use them for other things, and there are still trappers who go out and get those furs from animals in the wild. Like my nephew, for instance.
It was that clash of farm-girl/Wyoming person and the city kids/modern life people all over again. It has happened to me lots of time since I left the land of wild animals and hunting and fishing. So, to help my students understand the history of the West and their own state, I bought a beaver hide from my nephew. I bring it to school each year for this unit. Every year we have the same conversations.
"Oooooh!!! What IS that???"
"It is a the skin and fur from a beaver. Remember what we read about the early explorers of Nevada? They were here to trap beaver, or they were traveling through the state trying to find a way to get to California without dying?"
"Is it real?" "Does it stink?" "Where did you get it?" "It's dead!! OOOOH!"
So, I show them, I tell them about my nephew (and my great-grandfather, the trapper) and how people would do this to earn money. Then, I lay it in the middle of their table where everyone can reach it, and I stand back. At first, many of them recoil slightly, then they cautiously reach out to give it a little touch. Then, they rub their whole hand over it, then they squeeze the plush layers of fur between their fingers and start saying, "Oooh, ahh--it's so soft!"
Occasionally there will be a student or two who are completely repulsed by it. After all, there are the hard spots where its eyes, ears and nose were. In fact, a couple of whiskers are still present on the edge by where its face once was. But most of the students are so amazed at how plush and smooth and inviting the fur is as they touch it. They imagine having a whole blanket of them sewed together, and how warm it would be, and how soft and pleasant it would be to sleep wrapped up in it.
We meet for a small moment: the girl from Wyoming where animals were a resource for humans and used to support our lives-- and the kids from the Big City where clothes are bought at Target, and food is shaped like nuggets and comes with a toy. There is no consciousness of the animals who may have been deeply involved in that meal or those shoes.
I knew where my leather gloves came from that I wore to protect my hands as I hauled bales: I helped my dad haul the deer skins to the glove maker after we'd eaten the deer. I knew that those delicious pork chops were once the cute little piggies that raced around the barnyard in the spring. Before putting it in the fridge to cool, I had to strain the errant piece or two of cow hair out of the milk I brought in from the barn.
I know I risk sounding like a cranky old lady, waving my cane. Really, I'm not upset at all. I'm just always amazed at how different my life is, as an adult, from how it was as a child. And how vividly different my childhood was from that of my students. A couple of them told me stories of deer hunting with their families as we admired (or not) the beaver hide today. Some of them tell about helping on a farm in Mexico, while visiting their grandparents. But mostly, this whole "natural world" thing is a mystery to them. So, each year I'm pleased to further their education with a relic from the past: an animal hide.
Thursday, December 08, 2011
Friday, November 18, 2011
Birthday
Today is our youngest son's birthday. Except that he isn't young. He's not "old" but he is definitely a grown-up. He's staying with us for a couple more days and then on Tuesday, he will check into Navy bootcamp at Great Lakes Training Center. He's an accomplished musician, and he's decided to go for a sound career through the acoustics of sonar in the submarine force. Whew. Wasn't he just in marching band in high school? Well, no.
We were reminiscing with him tonight about his birth. He was a born a couple of weeks past his due date and I said how each day of the last couple of weeks before the baby is born seems to last for such a long time. The hours drag with the anticipation of the birth. That phrase---"heavy with child"---is not figurative, it references those last few days. But, then, the baby is born! And, seemingly a few hours later....you look up and realize that it's been a week! How does that happen? Zooooom....he's a month old. Zooommm....a year.
Now, it hasn't zoomed exactly, to be at this point in his life. But it is weird to realize that four of my children are now older that I was when I gave birth to them! Parts of me feel that old, but not my brain. It's interesting to be at this point in my life.
So, Happy Birthday; Anchors A'Weigh ; and here's to the next phase of your life!!
We were reminiscing with him tonight about his birth. He was a born a couple of weeks past his due date and I said how each day of the last couple of weeks before the baby is born seems to last for such a long time. The hours drag with the anticipation of the birth. That phrase---"heavy with child"---is not figurative, it references those last few days. But, then, the baby is born! And, seemingly a few hours later....you look up and realize that it's been a week! How does that happen? Zooooom....he's a month old. Zooommm....a year.
Now, it hasn't zoomed exactly, to be at this point in his life. But it is weird to realize that four of my children are now older that I was when I gave birth to them! Parts of me feel that old, but not my brain. It's interesting to be at this point in my life.
So, Happy Birthday; Anchors A'Weigh ; and here's to the next phase of your life!!
Here he is in his very first sailor suit:
Monday, November 14, 2011
Music Man
My house is filled with the sound of guitars. Yeah! Our youngest son has been living with us for a couple of weeks. In one more week he leaves again to go to Navy bootcamp. He has decided to participate in the family tradition of being a sailor. His grandfather and his father were also Navy men. I'm so proud. And while he's here, he is making music.
I miss music made by my children. There was so much of it when they were growing up . We had years of piano lessons. Then the first one started in band in sixth grade and it just went on and on. No one took guitar lessons, but each of the three boys became so good at playing them. Several times, I'd come home from being somewhere...work, college, the grocery store...and find that an impromptu band had been set up in our living room or on our patio. High school boys who'd borrowed a drum set from the school, and then brought over their guitars to go along with the ones we owned, had a rowdy jam session going on. Or, there would be someone seated at the piano, laboring over the new book of the latest hit movie score, or maybe they'd been learning the music from an Andrew Lloyd Webber blockbuster.
I remember one of my children discovering that when they took a break in band practice, if he went over to the piano and started playing the pieces he'd memorized from "Aladdin" or "Phantom" that girls would flock to the piano and ask for requests. Popular men know how to charm the ladies through music...
Anyway, it's just nice that for this short couple of weeks, while he anticipates this new chapter in his life, I get to relive an old chapter of my life: the one when the talented people we made, made music in our house.
I miss music made by my children. There was so much of it when they were growing up . We had years of piano lessons. Then the first one started in band in sixth grade and it just went on and on. No one took guitar lessons, but each of the three boys became so good at playing them. Several times, I'd come home from being somewhere...work, college, the grocery store...and find that an impromptu band had been set up in our living room or on our patio. High school boys who'd borrowed a drum set from the school, and then brought over their guitars to go along with the ones we owned, had a rowdy jam session going on. Or, there would be someone seated at the piano, laboring over the new book of the latest hit movie score, or maybe they'd been learning the music from an Andrew Lloyd Webber blockbuster.
I remember one of my children discovering that when they took a break in band practice, if he went over to the piano and started playing the pieces he'd memorized from "Aladdin" or "Phantom" that girls would flock to the piano and ask for requests. Popular men know how to charm the ladies through music...
Anyway, it's just nice that for this short couple of weeks, while he anticipates this new chapter in his life, I get to relive an old chapter of my life: the one when the talented people we made, made music in our house.
Monday, October 17, 2011
I'll Take "Cool Children" for $800, Alex
This week, our daughter is a contestant on Jeopardy! ! The game show! Yes, someone in our family besides me likes to be on television game shows.
Actually, she has been a quiz contestant many times. In high school she was on the championship Geography Bowl team. They won the county contest after a tie-breaker question. It was quite a coup, because our high school was well-known for having the most parents who picked strawberries for a living, and their big competitor was the private, all-boy high school. It was a very satisfying win, believe me.
Then, in college, she was on the Brigham Young University academic competition team. They traveled to contests all over. Once they came out to the University of Maryland when we were still living there, so we got to watch. Then, the school cut their minuscule budget to nothing. Blah. They were great! Really, I believe they were in the top ten. She was the only girl on the squad, and she held her own. One of her team members was the guy who won all those games on Jeopardy! a few years ago. They are still great friends, so I'm sure he'll be excited to watch her, too. She qualified as a contestant several years ago, and finally this summer, she got the call. The taping was the second day of my new school year, so I didn't even dare ask for the day off to go watch. CoolGuy went, however, and he said they had a fun time. Alex Trebek is a very pleasant fellow.
So, anyway, this Thursday, Oct. 20th, sit and watch her. She's the one from Orem, Utah---the beautiful, intelligent, witty, clever one. Not that her parents have a bias, or anything...
*Go to the Jeopardy! website and look up what time of day the show comes on wherever you live.*
Actually, she has been a quiz contestant many times. In high school she was on the championship Geography Bowl team. They won the county contest after a tie-breaker question. It was quite a coup, because our high school was well-known for having the most parents who picked strawberries for a living, and their big competitor was the private, all-boy high school. It was a very satisfying win, believe me.
Then, in college, she was on the Brigham Young University academic competition team. They traveled to contests all over. Once they came out to the University of Maryland when we were still living there, so we got to watch. Then, the school cut their minuscule budget to nothing. Blah. They were great! Really, I believe they were in the top ten. She was the only girl on the squad, and she held her own. One of her team members was the guy who won all those games on Jeopardy! a few years ago. They are still great friends, so I'm sure he'll be excited to watch her, too. She qualified as a contestant several years ago, and finally this summer, she got the call. The taping was the second day of my new school year, so I didn't even dare ask for the day off to go watch. CoolGuy went, however, and he said they had a fun time. Alex Trebek is a very pleasant fellow.
So, anyway, this Thursday, Oct. 20th, sit and watch her. She's the one from Orem, Utah---the beautiful, intelligent, witty, clever one. Not that her parents have a bias, or anything...
*Go to the Jeopardy! website and look up what time of day the show comes on wherever you live.*
Saturday, October 15, 2011
Bureaucracies
I've started teaching the Saturday class again. It is good. Again. Instructional aides from elementary and middle schools come two Saturdays a month and my partner and I teach them all about the writing curriculum and how to be more effective with their students. I enjoyed it so much last year, and it looks like this year will be just as pleasant. It is hard work, but at least I have last year's lesson plans to revise and reuse parts of so that we're not just re-inventing the wheel.
But...there is a new person at the top of the food chain in the department that sponsors this class and so our requests for supplies were not automatically filled (small stuff: copy paper, single subject notebooks) and so today when we started the class, we didn't have the notebooks. I didn't find out until we arrived at the building. The supervisor was so apologetic. She thought she'd be able to approve our supply lists at her level, but was stopped, and she explained it most tactfully. New supervisor, new rules. It is obvious that the new person is just attempting to assert the "who is in charge" vibe. So, while my partner teacher taught a section he'd planned, I zipped down the street to the store and picked up the 29 notebooks we needed to pass out. The writer's notebooks are an essential part of our curriculum. That's why I asked for them...duh. But, problem solved. They'll reimburse me. She thinks. I don't actually care if they don't; I needed them.
Then, at school, we've got a wonderful field trip planned. We go to this local nature park every year. I call and get our date on the first day of school, because it is a popular destination and they have limited times. If you don't get your appointment within the first two or three days of school, you won't get one. We sent out our two permission slips, stapled together: one copy we take with us (it explains the field trip, collects phone numbers of parents and offers them a chance to come with us) and the official school district form that allows us to take their children from the school site on a bus to this area. This form stays in the office. On Friday, our secretary came to my room with a THIRD form required by our newly reconfigured "area" (the division of the gigantic school district to which we are now assigned after our new superintendent started making his changes.) I read it and flipped out. Then, I apologized to the secretary.
This form requests from the parents the information about their medical insurance coverage---on the level that you would give to a doctor's office so that they can bill your insurance company! What company; who is covered; who is the person that the insurance is assigned to; what or if the secondary insurance is; what your child's medical conditions are, etc. etc. Then, in the legal fine print at the end of the form, it attempts to have the parents sign off that they will not sue the district over any medical care we give their kid on the field trip, if it is needed. The principal was out of town on Friday. But on Monday, I'm going in to discuss this intrusive form. I know it isn't her fault. It is some anal person in our new "area"--but there is no way I'm sending this form to my parents. If I were asked to sign that type of form just to let my child go on a three hour field trip, I'd write across the front of it ---"NONE OF YOUR BUSINESS"---and return the paper to school.
It is completely obnoxious. And redundant. One of the forms they've already signed has the legal language that allows us to take their children on the bus away from school. The nurse already has all the health information about each child, from a form the parents completed as part of our First Day of School paperwork. It is none of our business what insurance they have, if they even have any. If their child needs medical care at a hospital, the EMTs are going to transport that kid and the hospital is going to treat that kid and no stupid invasive paper is going to facilitate or allow that. Okay, I'll take a breath. I just hope that I'll have calmed down enough when I go in and talk to our principal. I'm pretty sure she'll see it my way. She may be able to get the bureaucrats in the central office to be reasonable and see how obnoxious this THIRD field trip permission form is for us to give to parents. I've been going on field trips in this district for six years without this new form. Where did it come from now??
As I ranted to CoolGuy last night, "I sent my teenage clarinet playing son to NYC from Maryland on a three day band trip and I didn't have to tell the school who my insurance policy was with or who the adult in our family was who paid for it." CoolGuy patiently listened to me stomp around and wave my arms and vent and then started to laugh. "Next time, I'll let the secretary know that she should just call me first before asking you to do ridiculous assignments like this. I could save her a lot of trouble by vetting these things for her. Don't ask Mrs.[ESM] to offend her parents or jump through these kind of hoops. She'll come at you with logic and reason and passion. You don't have a chance."
But...there is a new person at the top of the food chain in the department that sponsors this class and so our requests for supplies were not automatically filled (small stuff: copy paper, single subject notebooks) and so today when we started the class, we didn't have the notebooks. I didn't find out until we arrived at the building. The supervisor was so apologetic. She thought she'd be able to approve our supply lists at her level, but was stopped, and she explained it most tactfully. New supervisor, new rules. It is obvious that the new person is just attempting to assert the "who is in charge" vibe. So, while my partner teacher taught a section he'd planned, I zipped down the street to the store and picked up the 29 notebooks we needed to pass out. The writer's notebooks are an essential part of our curriculum. That's why I asked for them...duh. But, problem solved. They'll reimburse me. She thinks. I don't actually care if they don't; I needed them.
Then, at school, we've got a wonderful field trip planned. We go to this local nature park every year. I call and get our date on the first day of school, because it is a popular destination and they have limited times. If you don't get your appointment within the first two or three days of school, you won't get one. We sent out our two permission slips, stapled together: one copy we take with us (it explains the field trip, collects phone numbers of parents and offers them a chance to come with us) and the official school district form that allows us to take their children from the school site on a bus to this area. This form stays in the office. On Friday, our secretary came to my room with a THIRD form required by our newly reconfigured "area" (the division of the gigantic school district to which we are now assigned after our new superintendent started making his changes.) I read it and flipped out. Then, I apologized to the secretary.
This form requests from the parents the information about their medical insurance coverage---on the level that you would give to a doctor's office so that they can bill your insurance company! What company; who is covered; who is the person that the insurance is assigned to; what or if the secondary insurance is; what your child's medical conditions are, etc. etc. Then, in the legal fine print at the end of the form, it attempts to have the parents sign off that they will not sue the district over any medical care we give their kid on the field trip, if it is needed. The principal was out of town on Friday. But on Monday, I'm going in to discuss this intrusive form. I know it isn't her fault. It is some anal person in our new "area"--but there is no way I'm sending this form to my parents. If I were asked to sign that type of form just to let my child go on a three hour field trip, I'd write across the front of it ---"NONE OF YOUR BUSINESS"---and return the paper to school.
It is completely obnoxious. And redundant. One of the forms they've already signed has the legal language that allows us to take their children on the bus away from school. The nurse already has all the health information about each child, from a form the parents completed as part of our First Day of School paperwork. It is none of our business what insurance they have, if they even have any. If their child needs medical care at a hospital, the EMTs are going to transport that kid and the hospital is going to treat that kid and no stupid invasive paper is going to facilitate or allow that. Okay, I'll take a breath. I just hope that I'll have calmed down enough when I go in and talk to our principal. I'm pretty sure she'll see it my way. She may be able to get the bureaucrats in the central office to be reasonable and see how obnoxious this THIRD field trip permission form is for us to give to parents. I've been going on field trips in this district for six years without this new form. Where did it come from now??
As I ranted to CoolGuy last night, "I sent my teenage clarinet playing son to NYC from Maryland on a three day band trip and I didn't have to tell the school who my insurance policy was with or who the adult in our family was who paid for it." CoolGuy patiently listened to me stomp around and wave my arms and vent and then started to laugh. "Next time, I'll let the secretary know that she should just call me first before asking you to do ridiculous assignments like this. I could save her a lot of trouble by vetting these things for her. Don't ask Mrs.[ESM] to offend her parents or jump through these kind of hoops. She'll come at you with logic and reason and passion. You don't have a chance."
Monday, October 10, 2011
Rolling, Rolling, Rolling...
There are just not enough minutes in a day when school is on. Then, we added stake roadshows to that and the usual extra time for the graduate class. Oh, and I got to blow off two hours at the dentist on Saturday, too, having another tooth extracted. Life is just buzzing along at the usual frantic pace.
Last spring I was asked to help figure out what our roadshow was going to be, then I was tasked with writing the script. Really, that was not a problem---if someone gives me an idea, I can write stuff. Then, when summer ended and everyone was finished with camp and vacations, etc. etc., we started in on the rehearsals. And finally, Thursday (dress rehearsal) Friday, and Saturday (performances) we threw our whole selves into it and it was lovely. Although, watching the others, I realized that the next roadshow I write needs some big, flashy dance numbers, or at least more running around on the stage. The roadshows that had those elements were extremely entertaining. But ours was pretty good, too. CoolGuy came on Saturday and watched and he said, "They were very entertaining and lame--just like the roadshows I remember from my youth!" So, you see: success!
But, Saturday, I spent the morning reclined at my dentist's office while he and his assistant went through the lengthy torture of extracting another of my stupid teeth. It, like the others, had an aging root canal that developed an infection around the roots. But teeth that have had endodontic treatments grow brittle with age. So, naturally, it could not just be pulled. Noooooo....Instead there was a great deal of drilling (to get the old crown off) then tugging and loosening, then more drilling to divide it into pieces. Then more tugging and more drilling and this and that and this and that. He'd leave me alone for 10 minutes or so, while he went in to do examines on other patients who were in just for their bi-annual cleaning and check-ups. (He had to change his smock twice to do that because we were generating a lot of debris and ...blood...yuck.) Then he'd come back and (trying to hide his dismay) start up again. He's a great dentist, and I give him many props for his cheerful attitude and kind manner. I know he felt quite gloomy when he read the report from the endodontist I'd visited, in the slim chance that I could re-do the root canal and save the tooth. He extracted a molar last year, too. And it was the same type of ordeal. But, eventually, every last little bit of cracked and infected root was removed. We were all delighted to be done with it.
Now, it is even more fortuitous that I've been hired again to teach the instructional aide writing class two Saturdays a month from now through February. I'm devoting all that pay to my new implants. Hurray for modern dentistry! Right now, I'm eating soft foods--stitches and soreness, but also: no bottom molars! Geez, I'm really a certified geezer now.
But, the weather is nice! On Sunday afternoon, we opened all the doors and windows and let the pleasant 75 degree breeze waft through the house. Tonight, I'm going to soak in the hot tub under the full moon, and then after a nice sleep with KittyCat by my side, I'll start the whole marathon over again on Tuesday.
Last spring I was asked to help figure out what our roadshow was going to be, then I was tasked with writing the script. Really, that was not a problem---if someone gives me an idea, I can write stuff. Then, when summer ended and everyone was finished with camp and vacations, etc. etc., we started in on the rehearsals. And finally, Thursday (dress rehearsal) Friday, and Saturday (performances) we threw our whole selves into it and it was lovely. Although, watching the others, I realized that the next roadshow I write needs some big, flashy dance numbers, or at least more running around on the stage. The roadshows that had those elements were extremely entertaining. But ours was pretty good, too. CoolGuy came on Saturday and watched and he said, "They were very entertaining and lame--just like the roadshows I remember from my youth!" So, you see: success!
But, Saturday, I spent the morning reclined at my dentist's office while he and his assistant went through the lengthy torture of extracting another of my stupid teeth. It, like the others, had an aging root canal that developed an infection around the roots. But teeth that have had endodontic treatments grow brittle with age. So, naturally, it could not just be pulled. Noooooo....Instead there was a great deal of drilling (to get the old crown off) then tugging and loosening, then more drilling to divide it into pieces. Then more tugging and more drilling and this and that and this and that. He'd leave me alone for 10 minutes or so, while he went in to do examines on other patients who were in just for their bi-annual cleaning and check-ups. (He had to change his smock twice to do that because we were generating a lot of debris and ...blood...yuck.) Then he'd come back and (trying to hide his dismay) start up again. He's a great dentist, and I give him many props for his cheerful attitude and kind manner. I know he felt quite gloomy when he read the report from the endodontist I'd visited, in the slim chance that I could re-do the root canal and save the tooth. He extracted a molar last year, too. And it was the same type of ordeal. But, eventually, every last little bit of cracked and infected root was removed. We were all delighted to be done with it.
Now, it is even more fortuitous that I've been hired again to teach the instructional aide writing class two Saturdays a month from now through February. I'm devoting all that pay to my new implants. Hurray for modern dentistry! Right now, I'm eating soft foods--stitches and soreness, but also: no bottom molars! Geez, I'm really a certified geezer now.
But, the weather is nice! On Sunday afternoon, we opened all the doors and windows and let the pleasant 75 degree breeze waft through the house. Tonight, I'm going to soak in the hot tub under the full moon, and then after a nice sleep with KittyCat by my side, I'll start the whole marathon over again on Tuesday.
Thursday, October 06, 2011
Here Comes the Sun
And that's what I like about living here. This morning, the sun is coming up over the towering stark rock mountain outside my east windows. The sky is (mostly) blue. The entire outside has been washed clean and every desert plant is refreshed and glistening. The back door is open and freshness is flowing into the house (and no money is flowing out to keep the air conditioner cranking.) It's going to be a beautiful day.
We have new tomatoes growing on the plants that we cut back when they melted in the August blast. The basil has turned into an enormous bush that has overtaken half of the garden bed. We'll be back in the caprese salad business, soon. I should plant beets. And sugar snap peas. MMMM...vegetables.
We have new tomatoes growing on the plants that we cut back when they melted in the August blast. The basil has turned into an enormous bush that has overtaken half of the garden bed. We'll be back in the caprese salad business, soon. I should plant beets. And sugar snap peas. MMMM...vegetables.
Wednesday, October 05, 2011
Enough Already
It has now rained for three days. Yesterday, we missed recess because it was pouring. Today after school, I directed traffic in a drizzle. Right now, it is pouring again. I'm done with it.
Bring back the sun!!
Bring back the sun!!
Monday, October 03, 2011
It's Raining, It's Pouring
It really is nice when it rains in the desert. The scent of all those resinous plants is intoxicating. It doesn't rain like in Maryland or California, where the entire sky is just grey and rain comes dumping out. Instead, we get big towering thunderheads that grow up over the mountains. The blue sky is gradually overtaken or just a portion of it sometimes. You can be driving along the road on one side of the valley with sunshine all around, but across the city you can see the lightening jagging out of the black mass and the rain blurring the horizons. Then, the clouds and the wind spread the storms to a new sector. Finally, tonight, the entire sky is involved and it has been pouring rain for about 20 minutes. I was going to hot tub, but I just washed my hair this morning, and I don't want to get all of me soaked, just the skin parts--plus, the rain is chilly.
The bad part about rain in the desert is that it doesn't happen too often, so when a really big storm comes blasting through, no one knows how to drive in it. This afternoon, I had to get across town to my graduate class by 4:15. It's bad enough that every school in the city is dismissing right then, but it was also raining. We crept through all the cross-walks just fine, but in the areas where people could go the normal speed--they did. Big Mistake... When one steps on the brakes during the first hour of a rainstorm on a street that hasn't been wet for weeks or months, one just slithers and slides. Right into the back of the car in front of you that may have slowed for the light. It wasn't me....But I drove past four of these events on my way to class. One scene was almost comical---four cars all smushed together, like a cartoon accident. Everyone standing around in the median with their cell phones up to their ears, the police officer picking his way around the fallen headlights, and pieces of bumpers. And the rain just kept washing over everything, creating havoc in our normally dry habitat.
I'm driving carefully, Pooh. (go to 3:30 to start the scene for the money quote)
The bad part about rain in the desert is that it doesn't happen too often, so when a really big storm comes blasting through, no one knows how to drive in it. This afternoon, I had to get across town to my graduate class by 4:15. It's bad enough that every school in the city is dismissing right then, but it was also raining. We crept through all the cross-walks just fine, but in the areas where people could go the normal speed--they did. Big Mistake... When one steps on the brakes during the first hour of a rainstorm on a street that hasn't been wet for weeks or months, one just slithers and slides. Right into the back of the car in front of you that may have slowed for the light. It wasn't me....But I drove past four of these events on my way to class. One scene was almost comical---four cars all smushed together, like a cartoon accident. Everyone standing around in the median with their cell phones up to their ears, the police officer picking his way around the fallen headlights, and pieces of bumpers. And the rain just kept washing over everything, creating havoc in our normally dry habitat.
I'm driving carefully, Pooh. (go to 3:30 to start the scene for the money quote)
Sunday, September 25, 2011
Viva Las Vegas
I've driven past this house on a street near me over and over and, especially on Fridays, there is a crowd of people on chairs, seated on the patio of the side yard. There are fiesta banners hung overhead, and sometimes I see people standing there with guitars playing music. There is a little shed with opened doors too, but I can't see inside. It doesn't really look like a wedding, a quincinera or a birthday party. So, I've been baffled. On Saturday morning I drove past it around 10:30 A.M. and people were in the yard, powerwashing the patio and there was a new banner announcing....something. Since I wasn't in a big hurry, I turned around and went back to investigate.
The banner said, "L'Aniversario de Virgin de Talpa"--I've heard of the Virgin of Guadalupe; I have a great book by Tomi de Paola telling the story. I parked and walked up the sidewalk. I chatted a bit to the fellow who was manning the broom and the power washer man stopped spraying for a minute so we could chat. It turns out the the Virgin de Talpa is the special Lady of Jalisco and inside the shed is shrine to her. There are prayers every Friday night, so people come from the neighborhood to worship.
Why build a shrine in a little wooden garden shed in your side yard and invite people to come and worship your icon? Because there was a miracle. The miracle was the little daughter; he pointed to his sister. She was born with Down's syndrome, and was supposed to die. She'd suffered a series of strokes when she was three, and wasn't expected to live. At the very least, she should be paralyzed and crippled and unable to function. But his mother and aunt prayed to the Virgin and---look---a miracle! I could see. There was a little girl, about 5 or 6, playing, skipping, jumping all around. She clearly had Down's syndrome, but she certainly wasn't paralyzed. We talked a bit more about Jalisco and this Virgin and then I thanked him, and agreed it was a miracle, and told him they were obviously blessed. Then I went on my way.
What a lovely concept! Their little corner of the block is a beautiful sanctuary, and every Friday night they open the shrine, plug in the twinkling over head lights and set up the chairs. Devout women and men come from the surrounding blocks and listen to the gentle music and pray. So different from the ganster inspired cacaphony just a few blocks away.
Later that day, CoolGuy and went over to the recycling center to off-load a collection of cardboard. Our favorite place to lunch was....gasp! CLOSED. FOREVER. The owner was a proud lady from Guadalajara, and her tortas were to die for. CoolGuy always got a torta and a Jarritos Mandarin soda--Hecho en Mexico. I always got two carne asada tacos and one fried jalapeno. (By dipping it in the hot oil briefly, it roasts it and kills some of the fire, so you can just pop that yummy thing in your mouth and slurp it down, leaving the seeds behind.) Closed?? Now what? We were so hungry, and just salivating for some authentico Mexican food. Not Taco Bell, Del Taco or Taco Time, each of which had a building along that street.
Ah, there was a little establishment a couple of blocks away: Don Tortacos. That looked promising. (get it: torta and taco spelled together?) It was delicioso, muy, muy delicioso. It was a different type of torta, but stunningly yummy. My carne asada tacos were to die for, too. We had a flan for dessert. While we waited for our food, a young man was dishing up some salsa for himself, and as he stood there filling little cups, a classic Mexican folklorico song was playing. He looked mischieviously over to the table where his teenage brother sat, and the guy at the salsa stand started to do the dance that I've seen over and over. music. His feet were going, he leaned over and really got into for a moment. Then he burst out laughing and sat down. A few minutes later he walked by our table and our eyes met briefly, so I spoke, "Looks like you've done that folklorico dance a few times." He smiled, "Yes, since I was a little kid. You should see my little daughter now! She's great!" I replied, "I could just picture you with the sombrero and the boots." We laughed and he walked away.
His clothing and tattoos and the shaved head and goatee were those of a fellow that I would normally feel somewhat wary of if I were walking along the street, and he and his guys were walking toward me. But, there in the restaurant, grooving on the music, and licking the salsa from our fingers, we were just two friends having a conversation. All because I knew exactly what he was doing when he was showing off for his brother. I didn't feel at all self-concious stopping and talking to the people at the little home-shrine because I knew all about the Virgin of Guadalupe and so could relate to the Virgin of Talpa. I like having my life enriched by knowing about other people's cultures. Yeah for books! Yeah for learning! Yeah for living in parts of town with people from other cultures! It's fun!
The banner said, "L'Aniversario de Virgin de Talpa"--I've heard of the Virgin of Guadalupe; I have a great book by Tomi de Paola telling the story. I parked and walked up the sidewalk. I chatted a bit to the fellow who was manning the broom and the power washer man stopped spraying for a minute so we could chat. It turns out the the Virgin de Talpa is the special Lady of Jalisco and inside the shed is shrine to her. There are prayers every Friday night, so people come from the neighborhood to worship.
Why build a shrine in a little wooden garden shed in your side yard and invite people to come and worship your icon? Because there was a miracle. The miracle was the little daughter; he pointed to his sister. She was born with Down's syndrome, and was supposed to die. She'd suffered a series of strokes when she was three, and wasn't expected to live. At the very least, she should be paralyzed and crippled and unable to function. But his mother and aunt prayed to the Virgin and---look---a miracle! I could see. There was a little girl, about 5 or 6, playing, skipping, jumping all around. She clearly had Down's syndrome, but she certainly wasn't paralyzed. We talked a bit more about Jalisco and this Virgin and then I thanked him, and agreed it was a miracle, and told him they were obviously blessed. Then I went on my way.
What a lovely concept! Their little corner of the block is a beautiful sanctuary, and every Friday night they open the shrine, plug in the twinkling over head lights and set up the chairs. Devout women and men come from the surrounding blocks and listen to the gentle music and pray. So different from the ganster inspired cacaphony just a few blocks away.
Later that day, CoolGuy and went over to the recycling center to off-load a collection of cardboard. Our favorite place to lunch was....gasp! CLOSED. FOREVER. The owner was a proud lady from Guadalajara, and her tortas were to die for. CoolGuy always got a torta and a Jarritos Mandarin soda--Hecho en Mexico. I always got two carne asada tacos and one fried jalapeno. (By dipping it in the hot oil briefly, it roasts it and kills some of the fire, so you can just pop that yummy thing in your mouth and slurp it down, leaving the seeds behind.) Closed?? Now what? We were so hungry, and just salivating for some authentico Mexican food. Not Taco Bell, Del Taco or Taco Time, each of which had a building along that street.
Ah, there was a little establishment a couple of blocks away: Don Tortacos. That looked promising. (get it: torta and taco spelled together?) It was delicioso, muy, muy delicioso. It was a different type of torta, but stunningly yummy. My carne asada tacos were to die for, too. We had a flan for dessert. While we waited for our food, a young man was dishing up some salsa for himself, and as he stood there filling little cups, a classic Mexican folklorico song was playing. He looked mischieviously over to the table where his teenage brother sat, and the guy at the salsa stand started to do the dance that I've seen over and over. music. His feet were going, he leaned over and really got into for a moment. Then he burst out laughing and sat down. A few minutes later he walked by our table and our eyes met briefly, so I spoke, "Looks like you've done that folklorico dance a few times." He smiled, "Yes, since I was a little kid. You should see my little daughter now! She's great!" I replied, "I could just picture you with the sombrero and the boots." We laughed and he walked away.
His clothing and tattoos and the shaved head and goatee were those of a fellow that I would normally feel somewhat wary of if I were walking along the street, and he and his guys were walking toward me. But, there in the restaurant, grooving on the music, and licking the salsa from our fingers, we were just two friends having a conversation. All because I knew exactly what he was doing when he was showing off for his brother. I didn't feel at all self-concious stopping and talking to the people at the little home-shrine because I knew all about the Virgin of Guadalupe and so could relate to the Virgin of Talpa. I like having my life enriched by knowing about other people's cultures. Yeah for books! Yeah for learning! Yeah for living in parts of town with people from other cultures! It's fun!
Wednesday, September 21, 2011
Mmm, mmm, good
And may I just say that the peach I ate for supper tonight was like a teeny piece of heaven? I stopped at one of my favorite markets on Monday evening and bought some vegetables and fruit and fresh mozzarella. Outside the store was a sign advertising "Utah peaches" because everyone knows that they are the most delicious peaches this side of the Mississippi. So, I bought four of them. They've been ripening on my counter for a couple of days and tonight, I sliced one and ate it for dessert after I gobbled down my caprese salad.
Oh. My. It was perfection. Perfection. Thank you, Utah, for the peaches.
Oh. My. It was perfection. Perfection. Thank you, Utah, for the peaches.
Tuesday, September 20, 2011
Teacher Needs A Time-Out
Well, today was one of those lessons that I wish I had video-taped. Not because it went so fabulously, but because it was so bizarre. It could be a winner on America's Funniest Home Videos, or (since there is no one falling down, or getting smacked, perhaps not....)
I've started this new system this week, after weeks of planning and training. The students are divided into sections. One group is practicing typing on the computers. Really---fingers on the home keys---real typing. Another group is practicing spelling through word sorts, another group is revising and writing a final draft (because we've met together). A fourth group is writing the next first draft, and the fifth group of five students meets with me at a table and we discuss and practice a writer's technique. So, today--it was all about a strong lead (beginning) to captivate your reader and make him want to keep reading.
I showed them a list of strategies, and we practiced a couple of them, by changing a story they knew. We started with a quote from a character; next we tried a vivid description of the scene; then it was a question; after that we used a sound effect. Same story---different beginnings. Then, I went around the table and suggested a couple of concepts to students based on their own writing. But when I got to the only boy in this group, he didn't seem to get it. Here's a little sample:
T: So, you could say, "As my dad finished parking the car, I looked around. "At last, " I thought excitedly, "We're here at Universal Studios!" [His beginning was: I went to California and we went to Universal Studios and had fun.]
S: My dad wasn't driving.
T: Well, then, say "my mom parked the car."
S: My mom wasn't driving either.
T: Who was driving?
S: My aunt.
T: So, "My aunt parked the car and I thought, "At last, we are at Universal Studios!"
S: Well, we went to the beach first.
T: Okay, but then you went to Universal Studios, right? And you were excited?
S: I thought we were going home.
T: So you were surprised it was Universal Studios?
S: No. I thought we were home.
T: When did you notice you weren't home? Didn't you have to buy tickets to go in?
S: My aunt had already bought the tickets.
T: Well, did you notice you were going through the gates, and that there were a lot of other people?
S: No, I didn't see them.
T: (Teacher is starting to feel a little dizzy by now.) When did you figure out you weren't home?
S: When I saw the giant robot shark.
T: I think I'm just going to put my head down here for a minute and rest. You write whatever you want.
At this point, the four girls who made up the rest of the group just burst out laughing and blurted out: "[boy's name] Good Grief!! She is trying to show you how to fix your boring first sentence. Don't you get it?? It doesn't matter who was driving!! You just write down something more interesting. Sheesh..." They really jumped him, and told him exactly what they'd learned, and what he was supposed to do. I just watched and smiled and shook my head. Those girls got it!
Well, it turns out that this trip to California happened when he was five years old, and he can barely remember anything except his astonishment at seeing a giant robot shark trying to eat a scuba diver, when he truly thought he was going to his house. So, no harm, no foul.
Next time, I told him, try to write about something that happened more recently so that the details are clear in your mind and you can tell a vivid story. But, I'm not too sure that much is clear in his mind, ever, so that could be a challenge, too. Sigh.
I've started this new system this week, after weeks of planning and training. The students are divided into sections. One group is practicing typing on the computers. Really---fingers on the home keys---real typing. Another group is practicing spelling through word sorts, another group is revising and writing a final draft (because we've met together). A fourth group is writing the next first draft, and the fifth group of five students meets with me at a table and we discuss and practice a writer's technique. So, today--it was all about a strong lead (beginning) to captivate your reader and make him want to keep reading.
I showed them a list of strategies, and we practiced a couple of them, by changing a story they knew. We started with a quote from a character; next we tried a vivid description of the scene; then it was a question; after that we used a sound effect. Same story---different beginnings. Then, I went around the table and suggested a couple of concepts to students based on their own writing. But when I got to the only boy in this group, he didn't seem to get it. Here's a little sample:
T: So, you could say, "As my dad finished parking the car, I looked around. "At last, " I thought excitedly, "We're here at Universal Studios!" [His beginning was: I went to California and we went to Universal Studios and had fun.]
S: My dad wasn't driving.
T: Well, then, say "my mom parked the car."
S: My mom wasn't driving either.
T: Who was driving?
S: My aunt.
T: So, "My aunt parked the car and I thought, "At last, we are at Universal Studios!"
S: Well, we went to the beach first.
T: Okay, but then you went to Universal Studios, right? And you were excited?
S: I thought we were going home.
T: So you were surprised it was Universal Studios?
S: No. I thought we were home.
T: When did you notice you weren't home? Didn't you have to buy tickets to go in?
S: My aunt had already bought the tickets.
T: Well, did you notice you were going through the gates, and that there were a lot of other people?
S: No, I didn't see them.
T: (Teacher is starting to feel a little dizzy by now.) When did you figure out you weren't home?
S: When I saw the giant robot shark.
T: I think I'm just going to put my head down here for a minute and rest. You write whatever you want.
At this point, the four girls who made up the rest of the group just burst out laughing and blurted out: "[boy's name] Good Grief!! She is trying to show you how to fix your boring first sentence. Don't you get it?? It doesn't matter who was driving!! You just write down something more interesting. Sheesh..." They really jumped him, and told him exactly what they'd learned, and what he was supposed to do. I just watched and smiled and shook my head. Those girls got it!
Well, it turns out that this trip to California happened when he was five years old, and he can barely remember anything except his astonishment at seeing a giant robot shark trying to eat a scuba diver, when he truly thought he was going to his house. So, no harm, no foul.
Next time, I told him, try to write about something that happened more recently so that the details are clear in your mind and you can tell a vivid story. But, I'm not too sure that much is clear in his mind, ever, so that could be a challenge, too. Sigh.
Ha! Ha! Ha!
"Dyslexic devil worshippers sell their souls to Santa." (bumper sticker my friend recently saw)
Saturday, September 17, 2011
Multiple Intelligences
The concept of multiple intelligences is popular in education circles. The point is made that different people have different ways of being skilled. "...our schools and culture focus most of their attention on linguistic and logical-mathematical intelligence." There are other ways of learning and having innate ability. I've attended workshops and classes that explain and promote this theory of learning and teaching, and I have antecdotal experience that there is something to it.
But, I'm not talking about Dr. Gardner's work today. I've had my own theory of "multipile intelligences" for many years. Actually, it may be more of a "multiple beings" theory. I posit that we all have our intellectual/logical being, and our emotional/impulse being, and...our spiritual being. Yes, there are more than two sides to the coin. Now, as you read this, you may being thinking--duh--who doesn't know this. And that is because you may have been accessing all three of them throughout your life. Many people do.
But, as I've read and listened to various works, I've begun to realize that there are people who are unaware that there is a spiritual being. They have learned to rely on their intellectual/logic being only. I recognize that our emotional/impulse being is the one we spend our lives trying to control and dominate if we hope to stay out of jail, save money, keep our jobs, maintain good personal relationships, etc. But, sometimes that effort prevents one from recognizing, or trusting, the spiritual being.
I heard some terrific talks recently from people who became participants in religious congregations as adults and I learned a powerful idea from them. Several of the people were, at first, frightened or put-off by the "feelings" they experienced when first coming to church, or participating in a funeral or some other religion-related affair. The feelings were powerful, real and intimidating, and the speakers explained that they'd never felt this way before. It was confusing and difficult to deal with because of their lack of context or understanding. Later, they came to know that it was the Holy Spirit giving them knowledge. But, when one only has experienced emotional/impulsive or intellectual/logic reactions, a powerful spiritual experience cannot be immediately understood or processed.
I've been working on this concept for some time. And today I read another writer's explanation. I will quote him here, but you should definitely go to the source and read his entire article.
Christ spoke in parables to both friends and enemies in Jerusalem. His followers grasped what He was teaching because they were tracking on a deeper level. But his enemies were baffled; they were the blind ones with eyes to see but see not, and ears to hear and hear not. They were strangers to spiritual intellect.
So what appears to the world to be stupid may instead be deep and profound. What appears to be blind following may turn out to be well-informed discipleship. All because of spiritual intellect and its attendant personal revelation.
See: spiritual intellect! That's what I've been trying to articulate. Everything in this world cannot be understood through logic. We also need to access our spiritual intellect. It isn't emotion, impulse or superstition. We have a third way to process our experiences. Just like our logical intellect, the spiritual intellect needs to be cultivated or it will weaken and lose acuity. Use or lose it--brains, muscles or spirituality--it makes sense to me.
But, I'm not talking about Dr. Gardner's work today. I've had my own theory of "multipile intelligences" for many years. Actually, it may be more of a "multiple beings" theory. I posit that we all have our intellectual/logical being, and our emotional/impulse being, and...our spiritual being. Yes, there are more than two sides to the coin. Now, as you read this, you may being thinking--duh--who doesn't know this. And that is because you may have been accessing all three of them throughout your life. Many people do.
But, as I've read and listened to various works, I've begun to realize that there are people who are unaware that there is a spiritual being. They have learned to rely on their intellectual/logic being only. I recognize that our emotional/impulse being is the one we spend our lives trying to control and dominate if we hope to stay out of jail, save money, keep our jobs, maintain good personal relationships, etc. But, sometimes that effort prevents one from recognizing, or trusting, the spiritual being.
I heard some terrific talks recently from people who became participants in religious congregations as adults and I learned a powerful idea from them. Several of the people were, at first, frightened or put-off by the "feelings" they experienced when first coming to church, or participating in a funeral or some other religion-related affair. The feelings were powerful, real and intimidating, and the speakers explained that they'd never felt this way before. It was confusing and difficult to deal with because of their lack of context or understanding. Later, they came to know that it was the Holy Spirit giving them knowledge. But, when one only has experienced emotional/impulsive or intellectual/logic reactions, a powerful spiritual experience cannot be immediately understood or processed.
I've been working on this concept for some time. And today I read another writer's explanation. I will quote him here, but you should definitely go to the source and read his entire article.
Christ spoke in parables to both friends and enemies in Jerusalem. His followers grasped what He was teaching because they were tracking on a deeper level. But his enemies were baffled; they were the blind ones with eyes to see but see not, and ears to hear and hear not. They were strangers to spiritual intellect.
So what appears to the world to be stupid may instead be deep and profound. What appears to be blind following may turn out to be well-informed discipleship. All because of spiritual intellect and its attendant personal revelation.
See: spiritual intellect! That's what I've been trying to articulate. Everything in this world cannot be understood through logic. We also need to access our spiritual intellect. It isn't emotion, impulse or superstition. We have a third way to process our experiences. Just like our logical intellect, the spiritual intellect needs to be cultivated or it will weaken and lose acuity. Use or lose it--brains, muscles or spirituality--it makes sense to me.
Thursday, September 15, 2011
Happy, Happy Birthday to Her
It's late, but we just finished talking to her, so I need to wish our daughter a Happy Birthday! It is getting too weird though, that the people with whom I work at school will say things like, "Oh, we're the same age! My birthday is next month." It is making me feel old...that and the Frankenfeet.
But, I've whined about that before. So today I'll say that it is a pleasure to be the mother of grown children who have dynamic lives and are busy living them and being of service to the world. I look at her career and realize she is energetic, caring, powerful and intelligent. You go girl!!
Here are a few views down through the years. (CoolGuy has such a great collection of photos that he's made over the decades.)
But, I've whined about that before. So today I'll say that it is a pleasure to be the mother of grown children who have dynamic lives and are busy living them and being of service to the world. I look at her career and realize she is energetic, caring, powerful and intelligent. You go girl!!
Here are a few views down through the years. (CoolGuy has such a great collection of photos that he's made over the decades.)
Tuesday, September 13, 2011
Listening to Interesting People
I was listening to a podcast recently of an interview with an author named David Berlinski. He writes about math, and has a great deal of experience in the field, but he is clearly a philosopher. Anyway, the interviews were meaty and interesting and as I listened to them (each segment was published one day at a time) I sometimes had to start it over to hear it again for more comprehension. It was fascinating.
But here is a quote from it that I loved and wanted to share because it was insightful. The discussion was about a statement from another gentleman that both the interviewer and the author knew. It was something like "Well, I say to those who ask what I'll say to God when I meet Him upon my death, [on the reason for the speaker's atheism here on earth] You just didn't leave enough evidence of your existence for intelligent people to know you..." The author laughed at the quote and replied to the interviewer that he'd heard their mutual acquaintance say that often, but here was the author's response to this witty remark:
"There a point of presumption in that particular argument --that Bertrand Russel also used--[the argument about not enough evidence]. The point of presumption is that human beings, constructed as humans are constructed, could so interact with God as to be persuaded by the countenance of Diety when they were left unpersuaded by the evidence of His handiwork. That's a remarkable presumption. Much more reasonable to me is that those who cannot see the handiwork could not see the countenance."
Awesome, huh?
But here is a quote from it that I loved and wanted to share because it was insightful. The discussion was about a statement from another gentleman that both the interviewer and the author knew. It was something like "Well, I say to those who ask what I'll say to God when I meet Him upon my death, [on the reason for the speaker's atheism here on earth] You just didn't leave enough evidence of your existence for intelligent people to know you..." The author laughed at the quote and replied to the interviewer that he'd heard their mutual acquaintance say that often, but here was the author's response to this witty remark:
"There a point of presumption in that particular argument --that Bertrand Russel also used--[the argument about not enough evidence]. The point of presumption is that human beings, constructed as humans are constructed, could so interact with God as to be persuaded by the countenance of Diety when they were left unpersuaded by the evidence of His handiwork. That's a remarkable presumption. Much more reasonable to me is that those who cannot see the handiwork could not see the countenance."
Awesome, huh?
Monday, September 12, 2011
New Semester
Tonight, I started my last required class for the master's degree. (!!) I still need more credits, but they will be earned by doing some type of project. I have already put out my feelers to the research division of our school district and a guy is going to get back to me after he's spoken with my faculty advisor at the university. They've worked together often. So, I have to finish this semester, do the internship/project and write a paper about it all and VOILA---I'll be done. Cool. I'd love to have a summer vacation again. It may not be next summer...but soon.
This class is about testing and test validity. Tests like the IQ test, and other sorts of human measurement. The teacher is an experienced researcher and has created and published tests and a whole plethora of research projects. He's a classic brainy professor. He's changed the syllabus twice on-line and then changed it again tonight. He's awesome when it comes to explaining his craft; and his knowledge of, and ability to explain, this very math-y and scientific subject is superb. He just has a l-i-t-t-l-e problem with some paper work details in the class. So, if I stay on top of it, I'll learn a lot and be fine---but I'm going to have to pay close attention to the on-line messages to keep abreast of the "Oh, and I forgot that I needed to change....." stuff.
Another great detail about this class is that half of it is being held on-line, so I will only have to drive across town at the same time that every elementary school in the city is dismissing just five more times this semester. Life is good.
This class is about testing and test validity. Tests like the IQ test, and other sorts of human measurement. The teacher is an experienced researcher and has created and published tests and a whole plethora of research projects. He's a classic brainy professor. He's changed the syllabus twice on-line and then changed it again tonight. He's awesome when it comes to explaining his craft; and his knowledge of, and ability to explain, this very math-y and scientific subject is superb. He just has a l-i-t-t-l-e problem with some paper work details in the class. So, if I stay on top of it, I'll learn a lot and be fine---but I'm going to have to pay close attention to the on-line messages to keep abreast of the "Oh, and I forgot that I needed to change....." stuff.
Another great detail about this class is that half of it is being held on-line, so I will only have to drive across town at the same time that every elementary school in the city is dismissing just five more times this semester. Life is good.
Sunday, September 11, 2011
Ten Years
Of course I've been thinking about it all week. We've been talking about it in school, too. Half of my students this year weren't born yet when the terror attacks happened. The others were just babies. But they know what we're talking about. Actually, I've spent this week talking about war and an attack on the U.S. every year since I started teaching sixteen years ago.
This is also the week of the anniversary of the Battle of Baltimore in 1814, when a man named Francis Scott Key was on a prisoner exchange trip out in the Chesapeake Bay aboard a British war ship. He'd gone to get his friend Dr. Beane, who was being released after having been wrongly arrested. But the men had to stay on board the British ship until the bombardment of Fort McHenry had been completed. Fortunately, the British lost that battle, as Mr. Key learned in the smoky dawn as he peered from the deck of the ship looking to see which nation's flag was flying over the fort after the two day fight. "T'was the star-spangled banner..." So now, since 2001, I've taught a history lesson where we compare the two battles that happen 180 years apart--how frightened everyone was that our country was under attack, who was attacking, what was the outcome, how did we fare as a nation. It's a good way to teach and discuss and show them that history just keeps happening, whether it was long, long ago, or just long ago (in the life of a 9 year old.)
I was teaching fourth grade in 2001, too. I kept seeing people go in and out of the library and huddle around the television that was on in there. Finally, around 10:00, I took my students to gym or art or something and I went into the library. It was appalling. I knew that CoolGuy would probably stay late at work and I knew that nothing would ever be the same. By noon, parents had taken away most of my students. They were just frightened. Our school was located 30 miles south of Andrew's AFB, and one mile across the river from Patuxent NAS. We were accustomed to jets flying overhead, but we didn't know yet how many jets were still waiting to crash into something.
My students wanted to know what was going on, since there were only about 8 of them left in our classroom. They guessed a plane crash; I told them, yes, a couple of them in New York and one in Washington D.C. One of the students left in my classroom looked stricken and said, "My mom works in Washington." No one had come to pick him up. He left on the bus, and until the next morning when he returned to school with a smile, I didn't know if his mom had come home or not. A girl in our son's high school lost her father at the Pentagon. One family in our school lost an uncle in NYC.
The worst part of our day was waiting for our PTA president's husband. He worked in DC for the FAA and was scheduled to be in the Pentagon that morning for a meeting. You couldn't get a cell signal for hours. She was in the building helping with her children's classes. We were really good friends. My first year there, her daughter had been in my room. She just quietly worked on copying and cutting and pasting in the office, and we all just prayed silently as we went on with our lessons.
At 12:30 he came striding through the front door of the school. Our building at that time had open pods, so it was possible to see the length of the school and into the foyer by the office from just about anywhere. As we saw him come into the building, we all just fled to the front and he was engulfed in a group hug of teachers, office workers, and his wife as we all (including him) cried with relief.
He'd been driving to his meeting when someone called and said that the plane had hit the Pentagon and that he should just get out of town. Everyone was leaving and the roads were a mess. Every government building was being evacuated because there was still a plane up there that was known to be hijacked. The last we all heard was that jets had been scrambled from Andrews to intercept it.
I got home that afternoon and hugged my sons. CoolGuy came in later and we knelt and had family prayer. It was so surreal and way too close to home. I can't even imagine what it was like for people in Manhattan. It simply made us want to hug our families and friends and thank God for our own safety.
This is also the week of the anniversary of the Battle of Baltimore in 1814, when a man named Francis Scott Key was on a prisoner exchange trip out in the Chesapeake Bay aboard a British war ship. He'd gone to get his friend Dr. Beane, who was being released after having been wrongly arrested. But the men had to stay on board the British ship until the bombardment of Fort McHenry had been completed. Fortunately, the British lost that battle, as Mr. Key learned in the smoky dawn as he peered from the deck of the ship looking to see which nation's flag was flying over the fort after the two day fight. "T'was the star-spangled banner..." So now, since 2001, I've taught a history lesson where we compare the two battles that happen 180 years apart--how frightened everyone was that our country was under attack, who was attacking, what was the outcome, how did we fare as a nation. It's a good way to teach and discuss and show them that history just keeps happening, whether it was long, long ago, or just long ago (in the life of a 9 year old.)
I was teaching fourth grade in 2001, too. I kept seeing people go in and out of the library and huddle around the television that was on in there. Finally, around 10:00, I took my students to gym or art or something and I went into the library. It was appalling. I knew that CoolGuy would probably stay late at work and I knew that nothing would ever be the same. By noon, parents had taken away most of my students. They were just frightened. Our school was located 30 miles south of Andrew's AFB, and one mile across the river from Patuxent NAS. We were accustomed to jets flying overhead, but we didn't know yet how many jets were still waiting to crash into something.
My students wanted to know what was going on, since there were only about 8 of them left in our classroom. They guessed a plane crash; I told them, yes, a couple of them in New York and one in Washington D.C. One of the students left in my classroom looked stricken and said, "My mom works in Washington." No one had come to pick him up. He left on the bus, and until the next morning when he returned to school with a smile, I didn't know if his mom had come home or not. A girl in our son's high school lost her father at the Pentagon. One family in our school lost an uncle in NYC.
The worst part of our day was waiting for our PTA president's husband. He worked in DC for the FAA and was scheduled to be in the Pentagon that morning for a meeting. You couldn't get a cell signal for hours. She was in the building helping with her children's classes. We were really good friends. My first year there, her daughter had been in my room. She just quietly worked on copying and cutting and pasting in the office, and we all just prayed silently as we went on with our lessons.
At 12:30 he came striding through the front door of the school. Our building at that time had open pods, so it was possible to see the length of the school and into the foyer by the office from just about anywhere. As we saw him come into the building, we all just fled to the front and he was engulfed in a group hug of teachers, office workers, and his wife as we all (including him) cried with relief.
He'd been driving to his meeting when someone called and said that the plane had hit the Pentagon and that he should just get out of town. Everyone was leaving and the roads were a mess. Every government building was being evacuated because there was still a plane up there that was known to be hijacked. The last we all heard was that jets had been scrambled from Andrews to intercept it.
I got home that afternoon and hugged my sons. CoolGuy came in later and we knelt and had family prayer. It was so surreal and way too close to home. I can't even imagine what it was like for people in Manhattan. It simply made us want to hug our families and friends and thank God for our own safety.
Thursday, September 08, 2011
Working My Way Back Down the Ladder
Hmmm...tonight, my checking account indicates that I have received my first automatically deposited paycheck for the 2011-2012 school year. It is $93.23 smaller than my last automatically deposited paycheck for the 2010-2011 school year. This is not a good career plan. The reason, I know, is because our school's budget can no longer allow us to have our extended day, for which I was paid for an extra 40 minutes of work everyday. Our students were in class for half of that time, and we used the rest for team planning. Hmmm...bummer.
On the other hand---I still have a job. Many of my students' parents are not that blessed here in Sin City.
On the other hand---I still have a job. Many of my students' parents are not that blessed here in Sin City.
Tuesday, September 06, 2011
Who Knew It Would Be This Much Work?
As I have mentioned, I'm working on a master's degree at the local state university. I enrolled two and half years ago, and I've been plugging away at my classes one at a time each semester. I'd take more, but each of them is quite a bit of work and, as I've also mentioned, I teach fourth grade full-time. During this last summer term, I took two classes to make up for the one I had to drop in the Spring semester due to the Frankenfoot Saga.
Well, when I wrote the title above, I wasn't actually referring to the courses I take. Yes, yes, they are a lot of work. But I expected graduate level work to be challenging. I want to learn something after all. The reference in the title is all the attendant folderol that keeps occurring due to being part of big bureaucracy--a state university system.
Last Thursday, I had a hard time sleeping. So I decided as long as I was awake, I'd go on-line and order my yearly parking pass for campus. I needed to add a vehicle--CoolGuy's truck---because my car's air conditioner has experienced a fatal failure, so for the next month I need to drive something that will provide a cool interior. By October, I can go back to my own car. But, the parking sticker can be moved from one vehicle to another by one owner.
As I was typing in the information, I inadvertently made a typo and so the truck's license plate was wrong. But I didn't know that till the next morning when I opened my e-mail to find a notice from the university that I owed them $30 for a parking ticket I received four years ago on my Range Rover, license plate XXXX--the typo plate. !!! I figured, "Oh, I'll just call someone and get this straightened out." I tried to go on-line and fix the typo, but I couldn't make that happen.
I called right as I got to school at 8:00 A.M. and got someone on the line. She was able to fix the typo and insert my actual license plate number, and generate my parking sticker (to be mailed...I got it the next day.) BUT---the ticket. No can do. Sister, you said that was your license plate, that is now your ticket.
Seriously. That was her best advice. Oh, no, actually she had other advice: contact the DMV and see if they would tell me who the real owner of the Range Rover with that plate was, and then tell the university and then they could contact those people and tell them to pay the ticket. I asked her if I just ignored it, would they keep me from graduating? Yes. She recommended I could just pay it, or try DMV---
I asked her for her name, I said thank you. I hung up. GOOD GRIEF. So, since it was Friday, and we were going out of town for the weekend, I just decided that Tuesday, when the parking office would be open again, I'd drive down there straight after school and try and sort this thing out. Actually, what I was really thinking was "I'm going down there and not leaving until someone removes my name from that bogus ticket and if they won't do there then I'll hire a lawyer."
Well, it only took a face-to-face with a very pleasant young student worker. I told her the problem, I showed her the e-mail "ticket notice," I pointed out that there had been a typo. She noted that on the computer screen she could see where the typo had been fixed. She said to wait a sec and she'd be right back. And in about four minutes, she was right back. "Everything is straightened out. Your name is off the ticket. No problem." She said that they'd been having quite a few complaints about one of their new workers and her information on the phone. I mentioned the name, the girl nodded, I leaned in and said, "Well, put one more mark by her name from me, okay? And thanks ever so much for helping me!"
So I stopped off at a delicious pizza place and picked up a half-mushroom and half-pepp to celebrate. Wow, college is hard, sometimes.
Well, when I wrote the title above, I wasn't actually referring to the courses I take. Yes, yes, they are a lot of work. But I expected graduate level work to be challenging. I want to learn something after all. The reference in the title is all the attendant folderol that keeps occurring due to being part of big bureaucracy--a state university system.
Last Thursday, I had a hard time sleeping. So I decided as long as I was awake, I'd go on-line and order my yearly parking pass for campus. I needed to add a vehicle--CoolGuy's truck---because my car's air conditioner has experienced a fatal failure, so for the next month I need to drive something that will provide a cool interior. By October, I can go back to my own car. But, the parking sticker can be moved from one vehicle to another by one owner.
As I was typing in the information, I inadvertently made a typo and so the truck's license plate was wrong. But I didn't know that till the next morning when I opened my e-mail to find a notice from the university that I owed them $30 for a parking ticket I received four years ago on my Range Rover, license plate XXXX--the typo plate. !!! I figured, "Oh, I'll just call someone and get this straightened out." I tried to go on-line and fix the typo, but I couldn't make that happen.
I called right as I got to school at 8:00 A.M. and got someone on the line. She was able to fix the typo and insert my actual license plate number, and generate my parking sticker (to be mailed...I got it the next day.) BUT---the ticket. No can do. Sister, you said that was your license plate, that is now your ticket.
Seriously. That was her best advice. Oh, no, actually she had other advice: contact the DMV and see if they would tell me who the real owner of the Range Rover with that plate was, and then tell the university and then they could contact those people and tell them to pay the ticket. I asked her if I just ignored it, would they keep me from graduating? Yes. She recommended I could just pay it, or try DMV---
I asked her for her name, I said thank you. I hung up. GOOD GRIEF. So, since it was Friday, and we were going out of town for the weekend, I just decided that Tuesday, when the parking office would be open again, I'd drive down there straight after school and try and sort this thing out. Actually, what I was really thinking was "I'm going down there and not leaving until someone removes my name from that bogus ticket and if they won't do there then I'll hire a lawyer."
Well, it only took a face-to-face with a very pleasant young student worker. I told her the problem, I showed her the e-mail "ticket notice," I pointed out that there had been a typo. She noted that on the computer screen she could see where the typo had been fixed. She said to wait a sec and she'd be right back. And in about four minutes, she was right back. "Everything is straightened out. Your name is off the ticket. No problem." She said that they'd been having quite a few complaints about one of their new workers and her information on the phone. I mentioned the name, the girl nodded, I leaned in and said, "Well, put one more mark by her name from me, okay? And thanks ever so much for helping me!"
So I stopped off at a delicious pizza place and picked up a half-mushroom and half-pepp to celebrate. Wow, college is hard, sometimes.
Monday, September 05, 2011
This Post Was Meant For Friday
There should be some type of law, or rule, or something....
NO ONE SHOULD EVER HEAT UP FISH IN A MICROWAVE IN THE TEACHER'S LOUNGE.
It stinks all over the school. It is very unpleasant for those of us not eating fish. I mean, seriously, why do we have to say this? But, then again, none of us dare say it...so periodically (except that it happened THREE TIMES THIS WEEK) someone will heat up fish and, even though it may taste good to the eater, the rest of us seriously need to retch when we catch a whiff of it as we walk down the hall. BLEH....
NO ONE SHOULD EVER HEAT UP FISH IN A MICROWAVE IN THE TEACHER'S LOUNGE.
It stinks all over the school. It is very unpleasant for those of us not eating fish. I mean, seriously, why do we have to say this? But, then again, none of us dare say it...so periodically (except that it happened THREE TIMES THIS WEEK) someone will heat up fish and, even though it may taste good to the eater, the rest of us seriously need to retch when we catch a whiff of it as we walk down the hall. BLEH....
Wednesday, August 31, 2011
FrankenFoot Gazette: Another Milestone
This evening after school, I got a pedicure. The first one since February. (I've been clipping my own toenails, just in case you might be thinking "EEEWWW....February??") My toes look elegant and well-groomed and have a shiny mocha polish.
Now if only the rest of each foot looked as nice as the toes...
Now if only the rest of each foot looked as nice as the toes...
Monday, August 29, 2011
Cool...
...my house, that is! All hail air conditioning! I just came home from the first day of school: footsore, sweaty and hoarse. And I opened the door and cool air flowed all around me. Yay!!!
The workers arrived at 11:00 and finished at 2:00, and even though the interior of our house is still at 90 degrees, the exterior is 112 this afternoon. (yes--112!!!) I got to stand outside the school and direct traffic for ten minutes at 3:30, and 112 on the pavement feels even hotter than 112 should feel. Whew...it's a good day for air conditioning. I love modern life. These guys are my heroes.
The workers arrived at 11:00 and finished at 2:00, and even though the interior of our house is still at 90 degrees, the exterior is 112 this afternoon. (yes--112!!!) I got to stand outside the school and direct traffic for ten minutes at 3:30, and 112 on the pavement feels even hotter than 112 should feel. Whew...it's a good day for air conditioning. I love modern life. These guys are my heroes.
Sunday, August 28, 2011
Au Natural
And by that I mean our house...the air conditioner's compressor died sometime on Friday afternoon. CoolGuy was working in the garage and so when I got home about 6:40 from school and walked into the house, it seemed a bit warm. But to him, it was more comfortable than the garage, and it was. But as I started to prepare dinner, I thought, "No, this isn't just the usual "energy-saving" thermostat shut-down that the power company will do for 15 minutes during peak demand periods.
So, I mentioned it to CoolGuy who'd just come in to wash up for the cheese enchiladas. He went down the hall and checked the thermostat. It was blank. I mean dark, blank, nada. Hmmm...not a good sign. I put the cookies in the oven and watched him prop the ladder up to the roof. A few minutes later, I could feel air blowing down on me from the vent in the kitchen ceiling---ah, good sign. Then, it abruptly stopped--bad sign.
I took the cookies out of the oven and shut it off, but by then, of course, the kitchen was super hot from that. About 20 minutes later, after more air blowing followed by abrupt stopping-- blowing --off, blowing---off---he came in with the diagnosis: the compressor is dead. The air blowing was the fan, but without the compressor, the default position was to shut down the system by tripping the breaker.
We ate the enchiladas and the cookies and sweated, and then we just went out and got in the pool. Yes, dead compressor means no air conditioning. We slept on top of the covers.
The next morning, Saturday, I went to my classroom to work. CoolGuy texted me later that a technician would be over between 2 and 4. At 10:30 CoolGuy came over to join me in my classroom at my invitation and he set up, plugged in, and tested my student computers. We went to lunch (eating there of course) and then we went home to meet up with the guy. Yes...dead compressor. We can get another over here Monday morning. (!!)
So, we ate out on Saturday night, soaked in the pool again, slept on top of the covers again. Church was great!! Cool air...Sat in the pool all afternoon and read the newspaper. We'll sleep on top of the covers again tonight and tomorrow the new compressor arrives.Yeah!
Actually, most of the rooms aren't bad. We have ceiling fans, we've opened the doors so the air is moving. We have a well-insulated attic and tile floors, so really, because of the "dry heat" thing, it isn't so bad today. Yesterday, we had thunderstorms in the area, so it wasn't "dry heat". Today is better. I definitely wouldn't like to live like this all the time, but a few days...okay, we're not going to die.
So, I mentioned it to CoolGuy who'd just come in to wash up for the cheese enchiladas. He went down the hall and checked the thermostat. It was blank. I mean dark, blank, nada. Hmmm...not a good sign. I put the cookies in the oven and watched him prop the ladder up to the roof. A few minutes later, I could feel air blowing down on me from the vent in the kitchen ceiling---ah, good sign. Then, it abruptly stopped--bad sign.
I took the cookies out of the oven and shut it off, but by then, of course, the kitchen was super hot from that. About 20 minutes later, after more air blowing followed by abrupt stopping-- blowing --off, blowing---off---he came in with the diagnosis: the compressor is dead. The air blowing was the fan, but without the compressor, the default position was to shut down the system by tripping the breaker.
We ate the enchiladas and the cookies and sweated, and then we just went out and got in the pool. Yes, dead compressor means no air conditioning. We slept on top of the covers.
The next morning, Saturday, I went to my classroom to work. CoolGuy texted me later that a technician would be over between 2 and 4. At 10:30 CoolGuy came over to join me in my classroom at my invitation and he set up, plugged in, and tested my student computers. We went to lunch (eating there of course) and then we went home to meet up with the guy. Yes...dead compressor. We can get another over here Monday morning. (!!)
So, we ate out on Saturday night, soaked in the pool again, slept on top of the covers again. Church was great!! Cool air...Sat in the pool all afternoon and read the newspaper. We'll sleep on top of the covers again tonight and tomorrow the new compressor arrives.Yeah!
Actually, most of the rooms aren't bad. We have ceiling fans, we've opened the doors so the air is moving. We have a well-insulated attic and tile floors, so really, because of the "dry heat" thing, it isn't so bad today. Yesterday, we had thunderstorms in the area, so it wasn't "dry heat". Today is better. I definitely wouldn't like to live like this all the time, but a few days...okay, we're not going to die.
Kitty Cats melt however:
And the best place for lunch is in the pool---mangoes and ice cream:
Yes, it is hot here, by the way. The truck thermometer says 108, but it was in the sun, and this one is shaded by a large tree.
Saturday, August 27, 2011
Forty Years
So, if you want to realize how old you really are, then go to your 40th high school reunion. Eeek! I keep saying that I still feel about 35 in my brain. (My feet, of course, are 102.) But, going to your high school reunion is a serious reality check. Yep...we're getting old.
One of the reality checks is my realization that when my parents were my age, I had decided that they were sooooo old that they didn't even have any way to relate to me. I was just so different from them. Now, I realize that they, too, were astonished at how quickly they'd turned into "old" people, and that they, too, felt about 35 in their brains, even though I'd always looked at them as "old" people. My dad died when he was 63 from leukemia and he'd gotten diagnosed finally at age 56, after feeling symptoms (but not knowing why he felt bad) for two years before that. So, I reflect on these things at age 58 and wish we had some way of knowing that no one is ever actually "old" in their own head, ever!
At the reunion, the mood was pleasant and festive. We were seriously happy to see one another. Ten of us have died since we left high school---a couple of those were within two or three years after graduation, tragically, but none of the others were less tragic. No one wants to lose young friends. Many of us married a classmate or someone who'd attended our small high school a year or two ahead or behind us.
Quite a few in our group have always lived in the little valley where we grew up, but most moved somewhere else. Some of those moves were to earn a different living than our parents (many were farmers or ranchers) and some of those moves were to get away from the small-town scene. Some people married a person who preferred a different location. For me--weather is the big thing. When I discovered the joys of year-round summer, I never looked back.
I was amused to discover a new thing about myself when a guy I'd dated my senior year walked through the door with his just-married (2nd) wife. I was nervous to go greet him. I knew I'd been the mean one. Our relationship was one of convenience for me. I was in charge of a couple of clubs my senior year in high school, and we sponsored dances and other events, so I had to be there. I definitely didn't want to go alone. I knew this guy through mutual acquaintences and he was okay: he was taller than me, he had a car, and he'd said "Yes" when I asked him to the girl's choice dance in October. Excellent--I had myself an escort to all the significant senior year events: Homecoming, New Year's Eve dance, Prom, weekly after-basketball dances, etc. etc.
I know that he felt stronger about me than I felt for him. And yes, I used that to my advantage. He continued to pursue me after high school when I worked in a nearby resort town. He called me up and dated me during Christmas break when I was home from college. He wrote me letters while he served his mission. And I wrote back--I actually wrote letters to several high school friends while they served missions. However, his communication started to be more serious as he approached his release date, so I obliquely said that I'd be at home when he returned and I needed to talk to him in person. Of course by then, CoolGuy and I were planning our May wedding. This guy was due home at Easter.
Then he extended his mission by a few weeks. Oh. So, he got home the day before I got married, and came to our wedding reception still wearing his missionary name tag, accompanied by a mutual friend. Oh. That was uncomfortable. There was never an opportunity to tell him what it was I wanted to talk to him about (getting married--not to him). I just didn't want to be the "Dear John" of his mission. But, seriously, he was not, and never was, The One for me. I realized then that I was his (hopefully) One. Oh, well...
So, now, forty years later, we meet again. He's been married, divorced and remarried. I was so uncomfortable. He smiled and greeted me, introduced me to his wife. I stood there and smiled and greeted her. Then I said, "He took me to the prom when we were seniors." And he said, "Yes, I did, didn't I?" And then we both laughed, "Ha ha ha...so long ago." And quickly moved on to other topics and soon, other conversations with folks.
Later we had the chance to chat again, and I asked him where he lived and what he did, and we had a more comfortable conversation about current life. Isn't is bizarre that after forty years, I could feel embarrassed and nervous to talk about something that happened so long ago, was never resolved and now will not be discussed together ever again?
So, when you look at "old" people, remember---it's just their bodies that are old. In their brains, they may feel like they felt when they were 18 or 19 or 35. Only our bodies age---nothing else.
One of the reality checks is my realization that when my parents were my age, I had decided that they were sooooo old that they didn't even have any way to relate to me. I was just so different from them. Now, I realize that they, too, were astonished at how quickly they'd turned into "old" people, and that they, too, felt about 35 in their brains, even though I'd always looked at them as "old" people. My dad died when he was 63 from leukemia and he'd gotten diagnosed finally at age 56, after feeling symptoms (but not knowing why he felt bad) for two years before that. So, I reflect on these things at age 58 and wish we had some way of knowing that no one is ever actually "old" in their own head, ever!
At the reunion, the mood was pleasant and festive. We were seriously happy to see one another. Ten of us have died since we left high school---a couple of those were within two or three years after graduation, tragically, but none of the others were less tragic. No one wants to lose young friends. Many of us married a classmate or someone who'd attended our small high school a year or two ahead or behind us.
Quite a few in our group have always lived in the little valley where we grew up, but most moved somewhere else. Some of those moves were to earn a different living than our parents (many were farmers or ranchers) and some of those moves were to get away from the small-town scene. Some people married a person who preferred a different location. For me--weather is the big thing. When I discovered the joys of year-round summer, I never looked back.
I was amused to discover a new thing about myself when a guy I'd dated my senior year walked through the door with his just-married (2nd) wife. I was nervous to go greet him. I knew I'd been the mean one. Our relationship was one of convenience for me. I was in charge of a couple of clubs my senior year in high school, and we sponsored dances and other events, so I had to be there. I definitely didn't want to go alone. I knew this guy through mutual acquaintences and he was okay: he was taller than me, he had a car, and he'd said "Yes" when I asked him to the girl's choice dance in October. Excellent--I had myself an escort to all the significant senior year events: Homecoming, New Year's Eve dance, Prom, weekly after-basketball dances, etc. etc.
I know that he felt stronger about me than I felt for him. And yes, I used that to my advantage. He continued to pursue me after high school when I worked in a nearby resort town. He called me up and dated me during Christmas break when I was home from college. He wrote me letters while he served his mission. And I wrote back--I actually wrote letters to several high school friends while they served missions. However, his communication started to be more serious as he approached his release date, so I obliquely said that I'd be at home when he returned and I needed to talk to him in person. Of course by then, CoolGuy and I were planning our May wedding. This guy was due home at Easter.
Then he extended his mission by a few weeks. Oh. So, he got home the day before I got married, and came to our wedding reception still wearing his missionary name tag, accompanied by a mutual friend. Oh. That was uncomfortable. There was never an opportunity to tell him what it was I wanted to talk to him about (getting married--not to him). I just didn't want to be the "Dear John" of his mission. But, seriously, he was not, and never was, The One for me. I realized then that I was his (hopefully) One. Oh, well...
So, now, forty years later, we meet again. He's been married, divorced and remarried. I was so uncomfortable. He smiled and greeted me, introduced me to his wife. I stood there and smiled and greeted her. Then I said, "He took me to the prom when we were seniors." And he said, "Yes, I did, didn't I?" And then we both laughed, "Ha ha ha...so long ago." And quickly moved on to other topics and soon, other conversations with folks.
Later we had the chance to chat again, and I asked him where he lived and what he did, and we had a more comfortable conversation about current life. Isn't is bizarre that after forty years, I could feel embarrassed and nervous to talk about something that happened so long ago, was never resolved and now will not be discussed together ever again?
So, when you look at "old" people, remember---it's just their bodies that are old. In their brains, they may feel like they felt when they were 18 or 19 or 35. Only our bodies age---nothing else.
Saturday, August 20, 2011
Where has the Time Gone?
Wow, I'm astounded that I've let weeks go by without posting anything. I've been doing a lot...just not blogging about it.
One of the things I did was attend a family reunion. I may have mentioned it. We had a great time, we ate and talked and shared pioneer ancestor stories. And we went swimming at a big resort in a teeny little town in Idaho. There is a natural hot springs there, and the pool was built years ago, and over the decades has been expanded until it is a mega-complex with diving platforms and three-story slides and picnic areas, etc. It's really terrific, and since the water comes from deep inside the earth, near the molten core (as explained to me by my four-year old grandson) the pools are pleasantly heated and quite comfortable.
One of the things I did was attend a family reunion. I may have mentioned it. We had a great time, we ate and talked and shared pioneer ancestor stories. And we went swimming at a big resort in a teeny little town in Idaho. There is a natural hot springs there, and the pool was built years ago, and over the decades has been expanded until it is a mega-complex with diving platforms and three-story slides and picnic areas, etc. It's really terrific, and since the water comes from deep inside the earth, near the molten core (as explained to me by my four-year old grandson) the pools are pleasantly heated and quite comfortable.
However, even as the resort has grown, and people love to come there for family reunions, and small weekend vacations, or just to soak in the therapeutic original hot pools, the town has struggled to keep up. There are a few motels, some are pleasant and some are a little less pleasant. I didn't start looking for a room for me and my daughter's family until about a month before the reunion, and so I kept hearing from the desk clerks I'd call that they were all booked up. So, I felt relieved when finally one woman told me they'd had a cancellation and so they had a two bedroom suite available. I was looking at their site on-line and it seemed reasonable, so I grabbed it. It was a deal, too, but I assumed that their remote location might factor into it.
Well, here it is: Napoleon Dynamite's Grandmother's Motel. This is actually the "veranda" just outside the office door. Yes, those are plastic flowers in that arrangement in front, along with the deer antlers. One could, I suppose, sit here in the shade on a warm afternoon, or enjoy a beverage during the cocktail hour in the evening. There's a liquor store across the highway.
Actually, as I walked around the edge of this area, looking for the office, there was a girl (turned out to be the maid) sitting there, reading a magazine and drinking a soda. I looked into the office, but saw no one. I looked around for a bell or something to ring, but not seeing anything, I called out, "Hello?" The girl still didn't say anything to me, but she did look at me without blinking. I heard a voice from a doorway shout, "Just a minute!" and then something flew right past my head across the little counter. A BAT!!! It landed on the window frame by the opened doorway.
A very old lady came around the edge of the door behind the counter, using a cane. She said, "Are you looking for a room?" I just pointed and said, "Um...a bat just flew through here, and it is perched on the window ledge right here."
"Oh, that silly bat! He's not supposed to be in here. He needs to be outside. Hold on a minute, Honey." She wobbled back through the door, returned with a handful of paper towels, and shuffled to the window frame. Her first pass at the bat was a miss, and he fluttered up and circled over my head as she waved her arm toward him. Then he landed on the window sill again, so she attempted to capture him a second time, but, fortunately her gesture scared him toward the open doorway and he flew outside and away. This all took about a minute. I think bats should live outdoors, too. Really. It was a small bat, about as big as a sparrow, but still...bat (!!!!!) flying around my head in a tiny room. (!!!!)
So, we got me checked in. She wrote a phone number on a small piece of paper that would me connect to the Internet, but I didn't bring a computer, so, hey.
I walked down the sidewalk, found room 4. Very interesting...The door isn't all that unusual, it was yellow--really yellow--but it had an interesting, arty touch at the bottom. It looked designed, as though someone had a plan.
That was the last time I thought anything at all about a plan, however, because when I saw the wall paint in the first room, I realized that, actually, someone just had a lot of yellow paint. Perhaps left over from when they put the stripes on the highway? And the paintings on all the walls---Deseret Industries or maybe a motel furnishings sale? And there were lots of paintings. Every wall had several.
These are the curtains at the window by the door. Yes, they are big towels. I think I learned how to make these in Homemaking, in 1976. My granddaughter commented on them. "Hey, Grandma, why do they have towels hanging in the windows?" Indeed---but the yellow matched the walls.
 Here we are in the second room of the "suite." It seems to have formerly been a screen porch. But with a little clever carpentering, and lots of wood paneling, it has been transformed into a bedroom/sitting room. There is a queen bed, and a single platform-type bed along one wall. The love seat faces a television that had a VCR balanced atop it. Behind the television stand was a fold-up cot that, frankly, I'm not sure would have fit into the room anywhere.  This is the "twin bed" in the second room of our suite. Note all the paintings on the walls. Actually, there were several wall treatments back here. Some sections were cinder block, some painted wallboard (yellow, of course) and some wood paneling. The ceiling was wood paneling, too. I kept expecting Uncle Rico to drop by.  When I made the reservation on the phone, she pointed out that this was the handicapped room, and so there was only a curtain, no door, on the bathroom. I said that it wouldn't be a problem for us. Of course, I'm thinking standard motel room bathroom. But, frankly, I don't think that this bathroom could have had a door on it anyway. The edges of the doorway weren't parallel. But, we just needed a place to brush our teeth and go potty, so we were good.  The bedding was also fascinating. It seemed to have selected it so that nothing matched anything else. It was awesome. Note my bed, as an example: quilted polyester floral bedspread, plaid flannel sheets, paisley brocade pillow covers.  But, the water worked, the refrigerator worked (we ate cereal, as we sat on our beds, for breakfast), and we were able to sleep very nicely. There was a bit of an off odor. I'd gone to the grocery store to get some yogurt and dried fruit and I picked up an air freshener spray--which I left for the next lucky patrons. But after we spritzed around the "suite" it smelled a little fresher. The next morning, I walked down to the office to drop off the key, and I noticed another man video-taping his room interior. I leaned in his door and said, "The real name of this place is "Napoleon Dynamite's Grandmother's House." He looked at me for a sec and then burst out laughing as he nodded and replied, "Yes! That's it!" I probably won't be back. But it was an adventure! And I'm also really, really glad that I didn't need to stay there any longer than one night. My lips would probably have gotten chapped real bad. |
Saturday, August 06, 2011
Poems
I'm still cleaning off piles of paper from my desk and sorting through pieces of paper in boxes. I found a notebook I evidently first obtained in 1970. It has a interesting assortment of musings and mottos that I apparently liked. Some of them are still relevant.
Here are some poems I wrote that I found in it. I know that they were written between 1971 and 1973, but I can't date them exactly. The first one is about the view from the barn door during the morning milking.
Here are some poems I wrote that I found in it. I know that they were written between 1971 and 1973, but I can't date them exactly. The first one is about the view from the barn door during the morning milking.
Sunrise
Slowly and carefully
The morning sun
Dribbles its rays on the tips of the mountains.
Then,
Gathering speed and losing caution,
It spills light into the valley
Like a pot of molten gold.
This one is about driving through the marshes between Evanston and Randolph on Highway 89.
Benediction
Ducks on a twilight pond
Kissing "goodnight"
The fading wet image of sunset.
This poem doesn't have a title. But it's the view of the sky in June when the milking is finished and we were just hanging out on the lawn, or maybe playing ball in the field.
As the last of the dragon sunset dies
Down behind the hill,
A single little star peeks out cautiously.
"It's safe now!"
He gleefully calls.
And
one-
by-
one
His pals twinkle out to play.
I think I've already put this poem on here once before. But here it is again. It's about my parents.
To My Parents
Everyday I see
another Chicken Little
Shouting:
"The sky is falling, the sky is falling!"
How nice
Knowing
That my sky is held firm
By the eternal rafters
Of your love.
I've probably written this one here too, but it was also printed in the New Era in 1974, so I'm quite proud of it and, since I wrote it in this notebook, I'll include it. It's about the weather in Wyoming where I grew up.
Enter October
Wrapped in the feather boa of
The Season's Premier Snowstorm
October makes her entrance.
But, after the introduction,
She drops the frozen front and gleams gold so bright
That wild geese echo the musical applause
Long after the last curtain call
That cuts into November's ice act.
So, here are some remnants of my life that I am glad I kept hauling around in a tattered box. This notebook has managed to survive for 40 years. It remains precious to me. Don't be in a hurry to throw away stuff. Be discerning. Some things will maintain their value through the years. People are in this catagory, too, you know.
Monday, August 01, 2011
My New Way to Choose
I was cleaning out pieces of paper from a box last night, in my never-ending quest to winnow and sort and reduce, and this was written on one of them, (it's a book title, I think.)
Normal Is Just a Setting On Your Dryer
I remember, especially after each baby was born, thinking "Well, when things get back to normal..." then, I'd realize (finally) that this was the new normal and I'd just better adjust. So, for all of us who think that some time in the past was better, or some future period of our life is going to be better or calmer or less stressful, let's all just fix this new motto into our psyches. Normal should be coming from within: we can be normally cheerful or normally irritated. What do we choose?
Yesterday in church, I heard a talk that taught me how to make this choice. I know that we're supposed to be inspired at church, and frequently I am. But this time I honestly got a whole new outlook on a familiar topic. Read the scripture in Moroni 7:45. The new, to me, reflection on this scripture about the characteristics of charity was that charity enables us to cope.
Charity, the pure love of Christ, gives us the power to endure all things, and rejoice in the truth, and be not easily provoked. Previously, I've read this scripture and was actually a little discouraged by it. I knew I was, in fact, easily provoked quite often. I whine, rather than endure. I am generally kind, but I totally envy selected people. And so, as verse 46 states, I sometimes feel like nothing because developing these traits of charity is such a challenge to me. I felt that I had to work really hard to become this person so I would be acceptable to Christ--be in His Club of Charitable Ones.
But, yesterday, I got a whole new vision. Christ isn't saying that we must develop these abilities and then come to Him and show Him we're ready now. He is saying that by believing Him, and believing in Him, we can get help from Him in dealing with all the challenges of our mortal lives. His pure love "endureth forever" and by relying on it, and accepting it into our lives, we will be transformed. We cannot do it alone. He will help us cope.
Life isn't easy. Life is often very difficult. And I don't mean things like cancer or tornadoes. I mean dealing with co-workers; talking to your spouse about money; acknowledging that your little children's constant bickering is deeply irritating and you aren't handling it well; disappointments over failed dreams. But, we can get help in coping with it all.
Do you hope to become a person who is less easily provoked? Christ can help with that. Do you need to graciously bear some relationship things that you cannot change? Christ can give you the power. He isn't demanding you develop these attributes in a vacuum. He's the source. Cling to Him, call on Him. Do all you can and He'll do the rest.
When the scripture says, "Charity never faileth" I've always thought of the long-suffering, ever-present Relief Society who pitches in and hangs in and keeps showing up. I'm one of those ladies. But yesterday I realized that Moroni wasn't talking about people. He was pointing out that Christ will never fail us. That if we rely on Christ as our power, then we will never fail. The Relief Society probably has this motto because those original sisters already figured out what I finally understood yesterday.
We aren't being told to get perfect...or else...in this scripture. We are being told that we have the ultimate resource for coping with life, and the only way to survive our mortal journey well. That's what one part of the scripture says: v. 47 Whosoever is found possessed of it at the last day, it shall be well with him. It just means that we cannot do it alone. We were never required to do it alone. The whole idea was that Christ would enable us to do it with Him.
But we have to choose. We can choose love or despair. Despair makes me want to give up. Don't give up. Choose love. Choose charity. I'm going to strive for it to be my new normal.
Saturday, July 30, 2011
Frankenfoot Update
Guess what I did on Thursday?? I bought new shoes! You realize what that means?
1) I got to do one of my favorite activities--try on shoes.
2) I have new shoes!
3) My right foot isn't swollen anymore...yeah, imagine?
I went to my doctor Thursday afternoon to ask questions:
*Do I have to wear the brace any longer?
*Is it supposed to hurt this much still?
*What are the best exercises to increase my stamina?
Answers:
*No; the brace was to help control and relieve swelling. If you're not swollen, don't wear it.
*Yes; a bone in my foot was cut nearly in half and a titanium wedge was inserted. That area has to heal and it will take a really long time. There's a nerve that sits up on top of my foot and it can be shot up with cortisone if I think that will help. No thanks--the pain is deep inside.
*Walking is actually a poor choice--ride a bike, or do water aerobics in the deep part of the pool so I don't use all my weight on my foot. But, it will take many months to rebuild my calf muscle, and it will take time to get my stamina back up. After all, I have babied it for six months. (And since getting around in the ortho boot was so hard, I tended to lay around a lot. I'm a total flab-bag right now...can't even climb stairs without huffing and puffing...need more pool time...need to get up early and ride the bike before it gets too hot.)
Anyway, after that appointment, I went directly to Dillards, to the Ecco section of the shoe department and tried on shoes. Now, I have a pair of blue ones and a pair of brown ones. I also found an awesome new brand called Dr. Weil's and so I bought some red ones, too. This gives me four different pair of shoes that will hold up my healing foot properly and afford wardrobe variety.
I looked longingly at all the cute shoes...and walked out with my bag. But...I walked out on two feet, dressed in two shoes, with no ortho braces or boots or anything!!! Yea!!!
1) I got to do one of my favorite activities--try on shoes.
2) I have new shoes!
3) My right foot isn't swollen anymore...yeah, imagine?
I went to my doctor Thursday afternoon to ask questions:
*Do I have to wear the brace any longer?
*Is it supposed to hurt this much still?
*What are the best exercises to increase my stamina?
Answers:
*No; the brace was to help control and relieve swelling. If you're not swollen, don't wear it.
*Yes; a bone in my foot was cut nearly in half and a titanium wedge was inserted. That area has to heal and it will take a really long time. There's a nerve that sits up on top of my foot and it can be shot up with cortisone if I think that will help. No thanks--the pain is deep inside.
*Walking is actually a poor choice--ride a bike, or do water aerobics in the deep part of the pool so I don't use all my weight on my foot. But, it will take many months to rebuild my calf muscle, and it will take time to get my stamina back up. After all, I have babied it for six months. (And since getting around in the ortho boot was so hard, I tended to lay around a lot. I'm a total flab-bag right now...can't even climb stairs without huffing and puffing...need more pool time...need to get up early and ride the bike before it gets too hot.)
Anyway, after that appointment, I went directly to Dillards, to the Ecco section of the shoe department and tried on shoes. Now, I have a pair of blue ones and a pair of brown ones. I also found an awesome new brand called Dr. Weil's and so I bought some red ones, too. This gives me four different pair of shoes that will hold up my healing foot properly and afford wardrobe variety.
I looked longingly at all the cute shoes...and walked out with my bag. But...I walked out on two feet, dressed in two shoes, with no ortho braces or boots or anything!!! Yea!!!
Wednesday, July 27, 2011
You Know You're in Wyoming...
Well, of course there is the big roadside sign with the bucking horse saying "Welcome to Wyoming" but there are other hints, too.
Such as, you're standing in line at the fast food place and the boy in front of you has this hat on: it's not a costume, it's his everyday wear.
Then, as you wait for your order, you step back into the room next to the playground area and these are the seats that little buckaroos can sit on while they eat their grub.
Such as, you're standing in line at the fast food place and the boy in front of you has this hat on: it's not a costume, it's his everyday wear.
Then, as you wait for your order, you step back into the room next to the playground area and these are the seats that little buckaroos can sit on while they eat their grub.
This McDonald's, mind you. I like that the corporate image is, in fact, a little adjustable for individual locales.
Saturday, July 23, 2011
The Life I Didn't Live
I drove up to Wyoming on Friday night from Utah. It is a wonderful time of day to be driving. The sun sets later at this higher latitude and so, even though it was 7:30 at night, there was still sunshine; but, because it was evening, the shadows were long. This gives a glorious luminous glow to everything. Also, because there was so much rain and snow this year, the countryside is absolutely green and gorgeous.
I drove along the highway beside beautiful ranches tucked up along the mountainsides or on a little rise surrounded with quaking aspens. Several of the houses were log homes, with beds of brightly colored flowers up against the foundations. The barns and hay sheds set back to the side, some with saddled horses tied to a corral fence. The fields were dotted with sleek fat cattle grazing.
I felt a little longing to be married to one of the ranchers, keeping house in that beautiful home, owning one of those good-looking quarter horses. I wouldn't even mind herding those cows, or stacking those big fresh bales dotting the fields that curved down to the river. I mean, I wouldn't mind it on a fabulous summer evening in June or July.
It didn't take long to remind myself that the summers here are as fleeting as foam on root beer float. Most of the time, that rancher is bundled up in layers of coats and gloves, feeding those big old fragrant bales out on the crunchy snow, stamping his feet to keep them defrosted. Most of the time, those beds of wildflowers are buried under many feet of snow, the quaking aspen trees are bare, their slender trunks bending in the blizzard wind.
Summer in Wyoming is glorious beyond description--especially the evenings. But one of the reasons it is so fantastic is that it is short-lived--like many things of beauty: shooting stars, spiderwebs covered in dew, a perfect rose. But this does not make them any less enjoyable, and I forget the perfection when I stay away so long.
I drove along the highway beside beautiful ranches tucked up along the mountainsides or on a little rise surrounded with quaking aspens. Several of the houses were log homes, with beds of brightly colored flowers up against the foundations. The barns and hay sheds set back to the side, some with saddled horses tied to a corral fence. The fields were dotted with sleek fat cattle grazing.
I felt a little longing to be married to one of the ranchers, keeping house in that beautiful home, owning one of those good-looking quarter horses. I wouldn't even mind herding those cows, or stacking those big fresh bales dotting the fields that curved down to the river. I mean, I wouldn't mind it on a fabulous summer evening in June or July.
It didn't take long to remind myself that the summers here are as fleeting as foam on root beer float. Most of the time, that rancher is bundled up in layers of coats and gloves, feeding those big old fragrant bales out on the crunchy snow, stamping his feet to keep them defrosted. Most of the time, those beds of wildflowers are buried under many feet of snow, the quaking aspen trees are bare, their slender trunks bending in the blizzard wind.
Summer in Wyoming is glorious beyond description--especially the evenings. But one of the reasons it is so fantastic is that it is short-lived--like many things of beauty: shooting stars, spiderwebs covered in dew, a perfect rose. But this does not make them any less enjoyable, and I forget the perfection when I stay away so long.
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