The Graduates

We attended our daughter's graduation on Monday. She is now a Master of Nursing Practice. We went up to Portland to eat and visit and applaud and we accomplished all three. Here are some photos we took to commemorate the grand event.

 

Yes, she is tall. However, she was also wearing four-inch heels

 therefore dwarf-izing her parents.

 

 

Dad and daughter beaming with joy and pride.

 

Matching outfits---aren't we cute??

 

 

A Little Break

My job this week has been somewhat like juggling live grenades. The students are about ready to blast off. We brought it on ourselves. On Friday, a week ago, there was a staff development day. The students were off, the teachers mostly worked. Then it was a three-day weekend to celebrate Memorial Day. So the children had four long days to realize that summer is here and they want to be FREE!!!
I don't blame them. I really, really didn't want to return to school on Tuesday. What a drag...However, we had a lot of things to do and we jumped back into the harnesses and shouted, "Giddy-up!"

The key word there being "giddy"....Everyone is just so over the school year. Good news for me---I'm going to Oregon tomorrow morning to visit my daughter and watch her graduate with her master's degree in nursing practice. The graduation is actually on Monday, so we return to Nevada late Monday night. I don't have to deal with the wild people on Monday! My poor substitute....

When I get back, we'll be very busy. On Tuesday, it is clean out your desk day, put together our Memory Books day, awards assembly day, Memory Book/Yearbook signing party. Then, on Wednesday it is Pancake Breakfast day. It's my end of year tradition started in my poverty school when I realized that some of my students might not get any lunch when they went home at noon. Plus, it really burns up that final three hours, especially now that I have 96 fourth graders to shovel pancakes into. It's fun and I have help and, seriously, the day just zooms past till---suddenly---it's 12:15 and everyone can go home.

Except the teachers. But, finally, we can put everything away and pack up and stack up and take a deep breath. I keep reading these proposals to make all schools into year-round or some other version that eliminates the ten week summer break. And I say "Please...you don't know how intense it is to be a teacher. We really need that break, so that we can recover and generate enthusiasm for the next fall." Seriously. I was in a year-round school for two years. I was exhausted. There was never an "end"---it just went on  and on. Three weeks is simply not enough time to regenerate and recover.

I stayed tonight until 8:30 to finish copying the Memory Book pages so lovingly written and illustrated by my students. The copy machines were ridiculous and obstreperous, but I finally managed to outwit them. Three class sets from 33 students in each room. They're so awesome, too. Each student wrote about an event or a class from fourth grade, then drew a little picture. I copy them back to back, and we assemble the books in class. Then, everyone gets a memento from our year. You'd be impressed how grateful they are, too, because many of them can't afford a yearbook. So the "free" Memory Book (card stock bought by me, hours of copying done by me on my time) is a wonderful gift.

So, off to Portland I go tomorrow. I'll eat the succulent food we always find up there. I'll cheer on my amazing daughter for her awesome accomplishment. I'll relax and I won't even think about my class for three whole days. Whew...I just hope none of the grenades go off for the substitute. She is my hero this weekend.

Memorial Day

When I was a child, Memorial Day was May 30th. The Federal Holiday act was passed in 1971, the year I graduated from high school. That moved the official celebration to the last Monday of May. Memorial Day was always the first event of summer vacation--school was over. Since so many people in our community back then had farms, the students were needed at home that time of  year to work with their parents. The calendar said Spring, but in the Rocky Mountain valley where we grew up, that just meant that the storms were less likely to leave snow that lasted more than a day. Many Memorial Days of my childhood featured cold rain and, occasionally, sleet or actual snow.

My mom had several cemeteries to visit and many relatives to whom she paid homage with flowers. I especially liked to be present when our visit coincided with the Presentation of The Colors by the local chapter of the VFW.  A bugler played "Taps" and the (usually) older men would stand at attention with the flags whipping around in the wind, or lying wet and still against the flagpoles.

I'm proud to be part of a family who served our country in the military. I have a veteran grandfather, father, husband and son. Several uncles, brothers-in-law, both my father & mother-in-law, nephews and one niece are veterans. So Memorial Day is a day of remembrance and honor in our family. We do miss those who have left this life, but I also like this quote from General Patton:

"It is foolish and wrong to mourn the men who died.

 

Rather we should thank God that such men lived."

 

 

Lynn Ray Welch

U.S. Navy 1941-1945

Radioman



 

 

Kelly C. Frome

 U.S. Navy 1972-1986

TRADEVMAN

 

Peter Kelly Frome

 U.S. Navy 2011-present

Sonar Technician

 

They Say It's Your Birthday

You know I always have to write about my sister on her birthday. This year she would have been 59 and I'm sure her platinum blonde hair would have had to have started showing some gray, finally. But, it would be hard to see. I know that many people thought she colored that hair, but she didn't. It was just a fabulous blonde all bestowed on her by Mother Nature. Clairol and L'Oreal should be so lucky.

I thought about her all day. We were on a field trip and the bus driver was an especially nice woman. Trish was a bus driver, too. She loved that she had the same job that our dad had all those years. It was a great day for her when she got to drive him on her route. My parents were visiting, and she invited him along. Isn't is fun when we can treat our parents to an experience of our own childhood?

I've probably told all the stories about her too many times. But, if we don't keep telling the history of loved ones, then someone might forget. This winter when I went to Oregon to visit my daughter, one of our fun adventures was to visit the Tillamook cheese factory. I got to recount cow milking adventures, and in the gift shop, I found an awesome mouse pad with a beautiful photo of a doe-eyed Jersey cow that looked just like my sister's pet cow Malice. So, of course I bought it. I wanted so much to be able to mail it to her, and then call her on the phone and laugh with her about it. It sits on my souvenir shelf in my bedroom because no one else can appreciate it quite like she would have.

Her grandchildren are growing up and are so delightful. I know she can admire and guide them from heaven, but I still feel so sad that they are missing out on her love and adoration in person. Not to mention her fantastic culinary treats. I never eat baklava without thinking of her.

So, that's pretty much it. Another birthday comes and goes and I can't send a snarky card, or call her up to chat. I can't drop by her house and admire her flower beds and marvel at how she kept everything so astonishingly clean and neat (I have obvious dust on my furniture and I need to hire someone to come and really scrub my kitchen cabinets.) No one gets zucchini bread---with homegrown zucchini--anymore. And no one can pronounce the name of that wacky cat she loved when we milked cows. I can't even spell it because it wasn't a real word.

On the field trip, we went into an old barn that is part of a whole group of buildings that tell the history of the county, and there was a stall with an old automatic milker, some milk cans and a cream separator. The students were asking me what it was and how it was used. I tried to tell them in as few words as possible, because even when I explained, they weren't sure what I meant. But, Trish and I would have looked at that paraphernalia and been transported back to teenager life where we spent so many hours bonding in the barn. Maybe that's part of the reason we felt so close---shared drudgery. We carefully didn't marry dairy farmers, either of us. But, I know she felt like I felt: all that hard work turned us into the women we became who were never afraid of hard work or a big challenge. Maybe that's the beauty of sisters. You don't have to explain yourself, ever.

Here's how loyal she was: in the photo, she is being held up by our brother and our mom because she was only a fews days out of a surgery to replace her knee joint. Why was she hobbling off to the temple with a newly reconstructed knee?? Because my daughter was getting married, and CoolGuy and I were being sealed to our children. She wouldn't have missed it. She would have come on a stretcher if she'd had to. That's just what sisters do---this one for sure. 

Pomp and Circumstance

 

 

This is me, standing with around 1300 other people at the UNLV graduation ceremony this afternoon. (Another ceremony graduated 1300 other people in the morning.) Yeah!!!  I graduated from college today with a master's degree in Educational Psychology. It's all about research---consuming and performing and writing about it. I learned a lot of great stuff, met a lot of wonderful people and persisted until I finally finished the whole thing. And I do mean persisted...I had both of the stupid feet operated on during my course work. I also taught fourth grade, and, for two years, I taught a four month long course to instructional aides most Saturdays. I took a class every semester -- including summers -- and finally, today, a professor read my name and I crossed the stage and shook hands with another professor and went back down to my seat. Done, done, done!

 

My son and his family surprised us by coming to town last night to join the celebration. Our daughter came down from Oregon to attend too, and in two weeks, I'm heading up to Portland to attend her graduation for her master's degree in nursing practice. So we're just celebrating, celebrating and celebrating this spring in our family!

 

Weird note: Jimmy Kimmel was awarded an honorary doctorate during my graduation today...he attended years ago, and has been a generous humanitarian to the high school from which he graduated here in Las Vegas. So, it was a Bright Lights, Big City kind of day, after all.

 

 

Here is my fan club.

 

CoolGuy and I

 

I wish I'd had a mirror....Oh, well. It's the real me, sans sunglasses. The lapel pin commemorates the 50th graduation that the college has held. Also, one of us today represented the 100,000th alumni of the university. They declared that we all represent that person, so they didn't single someone out, like at Disneyland.

 

 

Anniversary

We got married today. In 1974. In Wyoming. The next day, it snowed three inches. Aw...Springtime in the Rockies! So when I got home this afternoon from a rollicking day with fourth grade ---it was Field Day!!!--we decided to go out on a date. It was pretty low-key because we're going to eat out at a really nice place tomorrow night with our daughter who is coming for a short visit.

But, it was such a fabulous night here in the desert that we just wanted a little motorcycle ride and a quick meal. What a gorgeous evening for a ride, too. It's about 80 degrees, and the air is perfectly clear from the breeze that was going all day. After we ate some yummy Mexican chicken, we drove up over the hill and down into the desert that is on the north shore of Lake Mead. It's a great ride, through a little canyon and down and around past huge rocks and the hardy little plants that somehow survive out there. We stopped at a turnout and just looked up at the stars that were finally starting to pop out into view.

CoolGuy asked me if I remembered my first ride on his motorcycle. Umm...no, actually, neither of us could recall it. We figure it was probably to the beach. That was a favorite place to ride because both of us couldn't get enough of looking at the ocean. We often drove down to the beach and then headed up along the edge of the tall cliffs that overlooked the ocean a little south of that beach. So, it could have been there. Here are some photos of motorcycle rides through the years.

 

1974:  This is the first motorcycle we shared, and this is the year we got married. We were on Mount Palomar in San Diego. SoCal was just the best place ever to ride a motorcycle. (1938 Knucklehead)

 

 

1975:  This was after we were married, before we had kids. I think I was on my way to a night class to learn shorthand or something. I didn't end up pursuing that career. But I really liked riding this motorcycle, too. (1950 Panhead) (my favorite motor)

 

 

1980: We'd been married long enough to create three kids when we had this motorcycle. We shared babysitting with some friends and this time they had our kids overnight while we went to a camping/biker event. We watched their girls while they went to a dental convention in L.A. for a weekend. (1961 Panhead with Shovel top end)

 

1982: Everyone liked to ride the motorcycle. There was a Saturday tradition that each week someone got their turn to ride down to Denny's and have breakfast with Daddy.

(1961 Panhead with Shovel top end)

 

 

 

1983: One year we decided that we needed a Christmas picture. Three rolls of film later, we managed to finally get one that had everyone smiling, looking at the camera, and no dogs were running through the shot. (1961 Panhead with Shovel top end)

 

 

1987:  We moved to Idaho after thirteen years in San Diego, and immediately realized that we actually didn't like winter anymore. We lasted there about two and a half years and then CoolGuy got a transfer back to California. In the meantime, he bought this bike from his late friend's estate. A good memory of a life-long, almost-brother. 

 (1969 Shovelhead)

 

1992:  It's so much nicer to ride when the grass is always green and the sky is usually blue. We lived near the ocean for six years, and I don't think he took the truck to work more than a few days. Contrary to a really old song: It does rain in Southern California, every once in a while. (1969 Shovelhead)

 

 

1997: From the Pacific to the Atlantic...well, the Chesapeake Bay, at least. We got transferred again. It's very, very green on the East Coast. There are an amazing number of bugs,too. So, keep your lips closed when you ride, or you'll be scraping insects off your teeth when  you get home.

(1969 Shovelhead with a new paint job.)

 

 

2010: After ten years in the East, we came home to the West. Although we live in the desert, sometimes we take the bike to SoCal and visit our old haunts. My favorite ride is still Pacific Coast Highway.

(1969 Shovelhead)

 

 

2011:  This is an old tradition, too--the New Year's Day ride. We do it because we can...I hope to keep this tradition going till I'm older and grayer. (1969 Shovelhead) (still...)

 

 

 

2012:  Now we've got grandchildren who join in the fun. Everyone likes a motorcycle ride. You can't beat it! CoolGuy has been wrenching and improving and refining this same bike for over twenty years. It'll be the one we drive for the next 39 years, probably. And if we can't keep riding together on two wheels, then we'll just have to wear our leather jackets in our wheelchairs.

Happy Anniversary to us.

The Last Class

Tonight, I walked down the stairs after class, and with each step I thought, "Last time I have to walk on these stairs!" I walked across the campus and admired the beautiful trees, and realized that I don't need to walk across that quad any more. I decided to stop off at Seafood City and pick up some shrimp to serve at a celebratory "Last Class" dinner.

I've finished the master's degree. YEAH!! It was the last class tonight. I'm walking in the graduation on Sunday afternoon. (after I play for Sacrament meeting...) YEAH!! I started in  2009 and now I get to graduate. I'm getting a master of science degree in Educational Psychology. It's mostly about research and how to do it and how to be an intelligent consumer. So, I don't know exactly what I'll do with this new cool credential, but I'm so relieved to have achieved it. Ta Da.

A Beautiful Song

Hymn 127

 

Does the journey seem long, the path rugged and steep?

Are there briars and thorns on the way?

Do sharp stones cut your feet as you struggle to rise

To the heights thru the heat of the day?

 

Is your heart faint and sad, your soul weary within,

As you toil 'neath your burden of care?

Does the load heavy seem you are forced now to lift?

Is there no one your burden to share?

 

Let your heart be not faint now the journey's begun;

There is One who still beckons to you.

So look upward in joy and take hold of His hand;

He will lead you to heights that are new.

 

A land holy and pure, where all trouble doth end,

And your life shall be free from all sin,

Where no tears shall be shed, for no sorrows remain.

Take His hand and with Him enter in.

 

Written by Joseph Fielding Smith

(1876--1972)

 

I read this song today during the sacrament service, and it felt like a warm, comfortable arm had been placed around my shoulders. It isn't used much in church for singing, so it isn't familiar to many. However there was a really gentle version performed by the Tabernacle Choir in conference last fall that is faithful to the quiet spirit of the poem. It made me think of a few dear ones -- family and friends -- and I wanted to post this so that they might read the words, then listen to the performance, and feel that comfortable hug that I felt today. I recognize that the "joy" in the song may be referencing the Eternal Joy to be experienced when we return to our home in heaven. But, it is my experience that we can feel joy now, too, as we toil 'neath our burdens of care. I'm sharing your burden, too. I know you share you mine, dear friends. So together, let's just send out those good thoughts to one another and look upward in joy. Take His hand, now. 

 

 



Happy Birthday To Her

It's a birthday post again. Our second child, first daughter, is celebrating today. I heard that she's rubbing off on her daughter who got up and made a delicious pancake breakfast for her mother to celebrate! Being a good cook is a family tradition for them. I remember my daughter started to bake cookies when she was about that age, too--fourth grade--because, she told me, "I wanted cookies more often than you had time to make them. So I thought I'd just start making them myself." It was a success.

Now, she is a college graduate (all paid for by scholarships) and has just started a superb new job in a university library in acquisitions. It is probably the most appropriate match-up of interest to vocation I could ever imagine. Her----Library---New Books.  Here are some adorable photos to celebrate her life.

 

One of her first cooking successes: Christmas cookie decorating.

Ballet dancer

 

 Carousel riding in Seaport Village, San Diego

 



 

This is the branch from which she fell that resulted in that broken wrist.

 

So adorable...

This is not a particularly flattering photo...but it is a true rendition: reading all the time, regardless of whatever else needed done. (Such as finishing dressing.) She taught herself to read at three and a half and has never looked back. Her new job as a university librarian is exactly the right career.

 

LOVE YOU FAYE!

In Praise of Modern Medicine

I'm lying here on couch, with a four inch long bandage taped to my shin. My leg is still orange from the betadine wash, and the word "yes" in permanent purple marker on the leg just below my knee.  I'm typing on my iPad. The surgery went very well, it didn't last long, the recovery will just be a couple of days. I have a deep incision in the muscle so he could get to the nerve, so it aches quite a bit. But...I have a really nice little pill that knocks that back effectively.

But...prepare the trumpets...when I stood to walk to the bathroom this morning, my foot did not have an ice pick jabbing into the side!!  So far, so good.  I'll test it again several more times as the weekend progresses. My leg is quite sore, so I don't feel comfortable really putting my foot through the paces.  So I'll let the surgical site heal up.but...looks good so far...I'm cautiously optimistic.

(And thank you so much for all the kind words, thoughts and prayers.)

Franken Foot Update

Haven't heard about the feet for quite a while, huh? Well, tomorrow I'm having a little "procedure" done and I thought I'd tell you about it. It's been two years since I had the first surgery for the torn posterior tibial tendon. I laid on the couch for six weeks, then went back to work in the boot till school ended. I finally got back into shoes about mid-June and it felt rather sore still. But, hey! It'd had been totally rebuilt only a few weeks earlier, so I didn't worry much about the pain. I did head back in the doctor to complain about it a little. He really thought it just needed more time, too. About the first of October, I realized one morning that my other foot was now the messed up one. It was really flopped over, in a lot of pain, etc. etc. I went in, got it diagnosed and we started up the whole stupid process again--months of wearing the cast, then the surgery, then the recovery, etc. etc. Well, the right foot was still in pain.

And I don't just mean a little achy...I mean an icepick stabbing me in the side of my foot with each and every step. That kind of pain. I attributed it to my having to favor my new messed-up foot. And then stomping around in a cast for months. But, finally, I got the new messed-up foot all fixed and well again, and still I was in agony. We tried this and that and another thing. Finally, when nothing made any difference at all after nearly a year of messing with it, my doctor referred me to a neurologist.

Which brings me to tomorrow's "procedure." We're pretty sure that a group of nerves got pinched in that area when the bone was healing around the metal insert that was put into my foot to restore it to a normal position after the tendon graft. Rather than go in there and try to un-pinch them, because there are so many little tendrils of it, the neurologist is going to cut the main branch of that nerve up in my shin, so that the impulses from that area will be shut off for good. Of course, I'll have a numb toe, too. BUT...I would choose that over the excruciating pain-with-every-step I've been dealing with for two years.

So, tomorrow afternoon, I go in for a short visit to my old friends at the hospital, and once again get conked out, and cut open, and sewed up. However, this will be a much shorter, less complex surgery and I should be home fairly soon to sleep off the anesthetic. I'm staying home from school until Monday to let things heal up. Then, back in the saddle on the run-away horse of the Last Month of School. And hopefully, I won't be on the lame horse anymore!!! Wish me luck!

Tell About A Time....

The learning standard was to write a personal narrative and the prompt was "Tell about a time when you were disappointed and things didn't turn out like you wanted."  It was part of long diagnostic test that the students had taken, and many of them wrote very little or wrote a fairly boring introduction along the lines of "I am going to tell about a time when I was disappointed."  Now, I'd spent a great deal of time in the last month grinding away on the concept that when one is answering a small question (called a "constructed response" in test jargon) that it is critical to restate the question and then answer it. Then, in the next sentences explain your reasons for that answer with details from the text. Don't use because in your topic sentence; then it isn't a topic sentence any longer---it's a detail sentence. So, I know why they used that dead form "I am going to tell you about...."

However, we re-read the directions and it explained that they were actually not responding to a text they'd read---they were supposed to write a personal narrative. Sigh. Teachers are always changing stuff on us, just when we kind of get good at something. Sigh. Read directions??? Are you kidding???

So, to stimulate thinking for this, and to help them to understand the idea of explaining a "disappointment" I wrote a paragraph to read to them. We've studied before how to write a narrative and how to start it out with a compelling opening; something that will motivate the reader to continue reading. So, I tried to write a paragraph that would get them thinking about how they could try to motivate their readers. (ahem...me.)

I turned the corner in our high school hallway,  and headed down toward the junior lockers. There was Deb, talking to Chad, and my heart started to beat nervously. Now was my chance! It was two weeks until the Sadie Hawkins Dance and I planned to ask Deb to be my date. I was almost there, when, suddenly, all my plans were ruined!

 So, do you want to know more? Are you interested? Can you tell that I was excited and happy and then found myself "disappointed?"  My students got the message. In fact, when I read each small group that tiny paragraph, they all leaned in toward me, and when I ended the last sentence, nearly simultaneously and breathlessly said, "What happened next?!?!?"  It was an awesome lesson. I asked them, "So...you want to know what happens next, huh?  So, did I write an interesting opener? Do you understand that this is definitely about a time I had a disappointment? Can you tell that, at first, everything was going great, I expected to get what I wanted and I was excited, and then.....blah."

It changed the whole lesson. Suddenly everyone (well, most everyone) figured out how to rewrite their story. 1st: let the reader know that everything was going to be great and why. 2nd: let the reader realize that something went wrong with your plan.  Then, go on and tell about the let-down. Voila: a great personal narrative about a time when you were disappointed. They eagerly rewrote their opening paragraphs, and next week, we'll spend some time completing those stories and sharing them.

And, yes, I did tell them the end of my story. Just then, another girl came around a different corner, and she got there to Deb about three steps ahead of me. I saw her approach him, realized why she was there, heard her ask, heard him reply "Yes" and then suddenly, I needed to figure out how I was going to pretend that I was walking up to him for some other reason, or that I wasn't really walking over to him, or something!!  It was a terrible disappointment. I'd developed a serious crush on him, and now it was not meant to be. In fact, I had to figure out how to get out of there without being embarrassed. The kids were very sympathetic as I told "The Rest of the Story" and some suggested that I should have stepped up and tried to get him to change his mind. However, I asked them if they'd ever seen a cartoon or a movie where two people are walking toward each other, and there are hearts and little birds flying around and beautiful music is playing as their eyes meet?  Well, that's the way it was with Deb and Marie. Then I told the students that a couple of years later, after high school, those two got married and they've been married ever since: nearly 40 years! Oh. Well, they optimistically asked me, "Who did you go to the dance with? Did you go ask Mr. [CoolGuy] then?"  Um....no. He had a girlfriend already. I did find a nice boy to ask, and he had a cool car, so it was okay ultimately.

They love to hear stories of my life, and they love to give me advice about how I should have conducted myself. I assure them that someday their traumatic life events will simply be a good story to tell their children and that they'll get over almost everything. Plus---all these things that happen can be turned into really interesting stories to write the next time some test prompt asks them to write a personal narrative!!

More Spring Fever

As I walked out of the school on Friday night, the air was fabulous! The sun was low in the sky, the wind was still, it was pleasantly warm. I crossed the parking lot and ducked under the foliage of a mesquite tree and was enveloped in a sweet scent almost like honeysuckle. I'd forgotten that mesquite trees have such a lovely aroma when they bloom. It doesn't look much like a flower. They're just a fuzzy, long tube-thing that, upon close inspection, have teeny little blooms all up and down the stem. They hang in clusters on the branches.

 

They're about the size of an adult finger.

 

The mesquite trees in our parking lot are loaded with these blooms.

 

 

These trees provide shade for our cars during the school day as the weather begins to heat up. They're native to southern Nevada, so they tolerate the high temperatures and need very little water.

 

You see how small the leaves are, and they're very resinous too--all important features of a desert dweller. These flowers will turn into seed pods, and--I learned from my nature field trips--that coyotes are a main consumer of these seeds. The early people who lived here ground up the seeds on a metate to make a cake or a porridge. The seeds are full of protein.

 

 

Well, I wasn't the only one enjoying the beautiful evening air filled with the scent of the honey mesquite. Ummm...I guess that's why they call it the "honey" mesquite, huh?

 

Every one of these trees lining the median in our parking lot was vibrating with hundreds of bees, gobbling up the nectar from those tiny, tiny flowers. I'm going to have to look for some mesquite honey in the grocery store. I'm sure that the beautiful scent has to translate into some really tasty toast topping. The bees were working enthusiastically and I'm sure their honey will be terrific.

 

And, yes, I spent about twenty minutes photographing bees and flowers. It was such a great night to be outside. I think we need to plant one of these in our yard so we can enjoy the beautiful aroma and be a host to bees every spring.  



At The Buffet

Who says I don't do Vegas-y things? Last night, I crashed the Birdy Happy Hour and tonight, I stepped into the Caterpillar Buffet.  Yes, worms, creepy crawlies...caterpillars. Lots of them, all over the place.

I was huffing and puffing my way from the student parking lot to the CEB (Carlson Education Building) for my (fifth-to-the-last-ever) college class and, as I rounded the corner approaching the door, I came across a whole flock of sparrows and finches hopping around the sidewalk, and all over the plants and landscaping rocks. One of them was gulping an inch long black thingy down its gullet and another was walking backwards on the sidewalk, dragging some sticky black tube along. Mighty curious. I had to hurry into class, but I realized it was some type of worm.

I came back out the same door a little over two hours later, but the sun was so low in the sky that all the birds were now gone. However...Caterpillar City was flourishing!  There were several furry black ones scrunching their way along the sidewalk. I looked around to see where they were going to (or coming from) and I realized that there were several identical bushy plants in the landscaping that were coated with caterpillars!

 

 I put the pen there to give it some scale. 

 

Curl, stretch, curl, stretch--he was moving along quite efficiently.

 

You have to look closely, because in this photo they look more green than black, but along the stem on the lower right side of the photo, you can clearly see two of them.

 

Notice the black fellow with a yellow head in the center of the photograph? Notice the leaves all chewed and full of holes all around him?

 

I made this one bigger so you can more easily see all the caterpillars coating this plant. There were at least 15 that I counted before I took the photo. This plant resembles a weed that I have growing in my yard, but the black fuzzy ones were also on other greenery in the plant area, too.

 

 

I'm guessing that as soon as the sun comes up tomorrow, the birds will be back with gusto. I don't know how long the Caterpillar Buffet will be open, but, just like the eateries on the Famed Las Vegas Strip, this one on campus, in the shadow of the Strip, is packed with tasty treats, and the customers give it Two Thumbs--er--Feathers UP!!

In the Way

I got home tonight about 6:30. The sun was still up, but low enough in the sky that the back yard was shaded by the wall. I brought in the groceries, but I couldn't see CoolGuy anywhere. I stepped out onto the patio and there he was reclining in the hot tub, recovering from being ill today. I was sorry to see he wasn't feeling well, but I was thrilled to know that the tub was ready to get right in.

It was another exciting day in 4th grade. I've been doing "centers" this week. Which means that while I work with a small group, the other 25 students are supervising themselves. Yeah...right. No, really, sometimes Centers works well. Most of the time, actually. I divided them at the beginning of the year into skill groups with a test, but some people have been adjusted when they've shown me they've increased their skills. Then, the groups of six children each work quietly. One group is at the desks on the current writing assignment; another practices typing using home row keys on my classroom computers; a group uses whisper phones to practice fluency and then write a story with the Fry Phrases they've read; and the last group practices spelling patterns, again, according to skills and needs. I'm at a table with the fifth group.

Well, today, a couple of groups were just unable to work quietly. We've rehearsed their activities, we've rehearsed their voice levels, we've rehearsed our classroom expectations. But...every once in a while some people are just out of control. So, some spent recess with me and there's a group tomorrow who left the building screaming and running (and I couldn't hobble fast enough to catch up) who'll be spending recess with me tomorrow.

So, by the time I cleaned up and prepped for tomorrow, bought the groceries, and navigated the roads to home, I was sweaty, foot sore and exhausted. Awwww...the hot tub was PERFECTION!!!

Except. Usually we soak out there after dark. And since the sun was going down, roosting time for the local dove and pigeon population was approaching fast. In other words: it was Birdy Happy Hour and we were sitting in the martini. Maybe you've never heard a dove say, "Harrummp....excuse me, lady." But I did this afternoon. The wall around the pool had seven or eight doves. There were three or four pigeons on our roof, and four more on the neighbor's roof. They fidgeted a bit, then one or two of them flew down to the far end of the pool surround. One dove tried to get a drink from the pool, but it wasn't happening.

I felt a little bad, but not bad enough to get out of the hot tub right then. Finally we went in, and it was just in the nick of time. The sun was almost touching the mountains! Happy hour was ending! It was almost bedtime and the birds needed one more drink! They clustered on the tile between the tub and the pool where the water flows over the edge and had their little rendezvous and hurried off to their nests.

Sorry, guys, but my sore feet trump your routines.

Keep Looking

I think I've discoursed on this topic before, but it's worth talking about again---being conscious of the Tender Mercies of God. Every day at school, we gather as classes in rows on the playground at the conclusion of morning recess. Then, we join our principal and recite the pledge of allegiance, which is followed by a thirty-second Moment of Silence. I realize that this is the Nevada legislature arranging for a period of daily prayer or meditation for students and teachers, so I've started to thank God for something during this time.

Usually we're outdoors, so it is easy to silently express my appreciation for the beautiful world in which we're standing as we observe our thirty silent seconds. The sky is often bright blue, the mountains are in sharp relief against that azure backdrop. I can see the Las Vegas Temple from our playground---it's just a few blocks away. I love my job, and I express my thanks that I have it. I have superb co-workers in fourth grade and I'm grateful for them. My final university class is completely do-able in the middle of everything else that overwhelms me.

For several days last week and over the weekend, our daughter and her three children visited us. They were on Spring Break from their school, and so their mom took a couple of days off work for a little trip to the land of lovely weather. And it was really lovely while they were here--sunny, 70's and 80's. Winter has been long and harsh in Utah, and it ain't over yet, apparently. (Snow forecast for tonight and tomorrow...)

They visited two popular nature areas here in the desert and soaked up some sun. Then, the kids played in our sandbox, and twice we warmed up the "little pool" so that we could all play in the water. On Saturday afternoon, it was warm enough to use the big pool, too, so we all swam in it. The water was just warm enough...after today's relentless wind storm, I'm sure it's too chilly again.

These are all blessings for which I've expressed my gratitude to Heavenly Father: being a mom and grandmother; sharing meals and fun with them for several days; getting to enjoy a "grown-ups only" evening with our daughter as we experienced near gluttony at a really nice restaurant that recalled her eighteen months of living in Madrid, Spain.

Now that I'm carefully looking, I continually find blessings, large and small, that Father in Heaven is showing upon me. You should look too---I'll bet you'll find you're richly blessed, also.

 

We licked the plates clean.

It's Time to Celebrate

As I sat in my principal's office today, to sign my yearly evaluation page (and it was a good one, yes....) she murmured, "What's the date?" and I replied, "April 2nd, my son was born today." And then I looked at my watch, and continued, "About one hour ago..." She looked up at me, smiled, and remarked, "I guess you don't forget something like that, huh?" She is married, but chose not to be a mother -- she has pointed this out. So, she really wouldn't understand that no matter how many years pass, no matter how old I get--or my children get--that moment of their arrival here on earth is indelibly etched into my mind with the vividness of a technicolor movie. It will never fade and will never grow tiresome to remember that marvelous moment when we first met.

It was a sunshine filled morning in Southern California and he came out hollering. His sisters, two and three years old, were playing in the yard, watched over by a dear friend, and they hurried into the house to see their new brother. Back in the olden days....when I was giving birth...we didn't get sonograms to know which gender the baby would be. (They weren't a routine technology.) However, CoolGuy was unfailing in his predictions. I think he got inspiration from his mother, who was with each of our children in heaven while they awaited the completion of their bodies during the nine months. We "knew" it was going to be a boy, and didn't even have a girl name picked out. He was a very loved little brother. It's kind of amazing he survived all the hugging and loving. He was tough then, too.

 Through the years, he's always been a goer and kept everyone entertained. Today, that is his business: entertainment. He's in a band and he has a recording studio so he produces their music and other groups' music too. He's still a pretty cool cat, just like when he was kid.

 

I'll always think of him as my little boy, no matter how many decades he's been around, though, because that's what mothers do, huh?

 

Energetic and intelligent--he maintains those two qualities as an adult.

 

 

 

 That's him playing the bass in the top part of this photo. Like I said...he's still cool.

Here is his BFF, Leroy, helping in the studio in Baltimore.

 

Happy Birthday Daniel. I'd bake you a cake if I were in Maryland.