The Time Is: 11:00 P.M.

Last time we were with S-Boogie, Grampa Cool Guy let her play with his watch. It's a pretty cool watch with lots of buttons and sounds and gizmoes. It even lights up. There's an alarm, too. We know, because S-Boogie set it for 11:00 P.M. and every night it beeps right on the dot. It keeps on beeping after all these months because we're not quite sure where the direction book is and, so far, the various things that Grampa Cool Guy has tried haven't un-set the alarm. We need to go see the grandchildren so S-Boogie can fix Grampa's watch. In the meantime, everynight at 11:00 P.M. we have a sweet little reminder that she's a pretty clever girl. Like we needed to be reminded!

Oyster Snobbery

I bought some really delicious looking oysters to put in my stuffing for Thanksgiving and they were very fresh and yummy. They were from Washington state. But when we ate the rest of them in oyster stew, I realized that my oyster love is definitely reserved for those "arsters drudged" from Chesapeake Bay. There's something about those bivalves that are absolutely fabulous. They are mild and light tasting--eating them is like breathing the air near the ocean--light, sweet & salty all at once. The west coast oysters were good, and the milk broth was just fine, but the oysters themselves were just too strong. They weren't "gone 'round the bend" bad, just too strong.

My oyster love started when Cool Guy and I went to a seafood restaurant in Malibu. We tried some raw on the half-shell and they were really yummy. Then, five years later we moved to Southern Maryland where oysters were king for many years, and now, in their decline, are still pretty darned regal. We ate them at the seafood restaurant near our house. The oysters there were so fresh they had probably been dredged that very day. Then we went to the National Oyster Shucking Championships at the county fairgrounds and totally gorged ourselves. Once we were gifted with a gallon of freshly shucked oysters by our son who brought them home from the restaurant where he cooked. They were closing for a week and all the fresh food went home with the workers. Wow. We had them fried, stewed, baked and creamed. I used my cookbook from the oyster shucking festival! Ymmmmmmm. We really didn't get sick of oysters everyday for five straight.

When I was a girl, my dad used to have oyster stew several nights a week. He'd open that can of oysters to pour into the hot milk and I'd have to leave the room. They looked like boogers and tasted like an old shoe filled with horse poop. Blecchh...

Don't know why as an adult I've gained a taste for them---raw, no less! Guess I have to make up for all the oysters my dad missed out on since he died too young. Happy to do my part, Daddy.

Baby, It's Cold Outside

Ha! Looking at my weather box on the computer I see that everywhere I've ever lived, or my children (in the western hemisphere) are living is FREEZING COLD. Even here in Vegas Baby. But...wait...in Southern Maryland it is warm! What? That's just wrong. Oh well, at least the brothers are not shivering. The rest of the family is.

But of course, if we were in Port Hueneme, the 65 Degree Town, we'd be okay, too. My friend there used to say that it would either get up to 65 or down to 65, but everyday, it would be 65. And in six years---I can validate her remark. Hmmm...California.

Olive Blah

I have always like Olive Garden's soup and salad combo. Their soups are tasty, the salad dressing delicious, the breadsticks to die for. So tonight, I thought I'd stop there, get that for dinner, and take home another entree to feed myself for the next two days before the Season of Cooking officially begins. Blah...what a yucky experience! My soup was tasty, but they apparently just chopped and tossed in the kale about two seconds before serving it to me. What? Then the salad: a pathetic collection of the yellowed inner leaves of really old iceberg. You know, that bitter core part? And TWO, count them (apparently someone did!) TWO olives!!! Come on!! One measly peppericini and two tiny tomato slices. GOOD GRIEF--I've had better salad at Denny's. And the ultimate failure: pasty, undercooked breadsticks. I got there at 5:00 P.M. so I figured they wouldn't be too busy. Wrong. Evidently they were "between shifts" or something. My server disappeared shortly after I finished eating what I could of my icky salad and raw breadsticks. So I finished off the soup. Sat there. Sat there. Sat there. Someone cleared my table. I sat and sat waiting for my check. But I didn't see the server again! Finally I went up to the front and asked a hostess to find her. She appeared with the take out bag, handed it to me and said bye. I could have just walked right out, because no one seemed to notice that I'd never been asked to pay anything by anyone. I offered my money to the bartender, but he had to find the server and eventually she came back and charged me. Sheesh...it'll be a long time before I go there again. Bummer, I really love their breadsticks and soup. Guess I'll have to find an Olive Garden in another part of town. Or another town---it was all too much like many of my Vegas experiences.

Things I Wouldn't Camp in Front of A Store to Get

Tonight I stopped off at Target and there were seven people in lawn chairs sitting in a line outside the door. One person had a small tent pitched at the end of the line. I asked why they were there and one woman said, "To get away from my kids!" I told her that was a good enough reason for me. What they were actually doing, however was lining up for tomorrow morning's release of the new Play Station version whatever.

This, I would not camp in front of a store to get.

But then, we did without t.v. for eight years. It broke, we couldn't really afford the part right then for Cool Guy to fix it, and after about a week, we looked at one another and said, "Hey, this is pretty nice...." and threw it away.

Now, mind you--our children were 4 and 2 and 1...there was no cable t.v. yet...no one at our house watched sports...VCR's weren't invented yet...and we loved to listen to music and read. Although, one year I had two children who quit my home daycare after a week when they couldn't handle living in a house, even for three hours after school, without a t.v. or a video game set-up.

I grew up in a home where the television was mostly always on. I loved and still love to watch the tube. But, honestly, we rarely missed it! Occasionally, I'd rent one for Christmas break, still pre-cable, but we lived in a big city and so could easily get the broadcast channels. And no one was forbidden to go to a friend's house and watch it now and then. But mostly our kids played and read and made crafts and dressed up and wrote family newspapers, and dug huge pits in the pathetically ratty backyards we seemed to always have. And had wars with GI Joes during which Barbie was taken as prisoner and inevitably died and a funeral and burial followed. (I didn't buy Barbies again after she was lost in an unmarked grave...)

We bought a t.v. again one year after Cool Guy was given a broken VCR which he repaired. We figured we could watch movies. Well, cable had been invented and so we started watching regularly again. But, if we wanted to see a show at 8:00 and then another one at 10:00, we'd shut it off in between. And we still read books, and played GI Joes and made crafts and dug huge pits in the backyard (curious how that activity remained popular over the years even as the children grew older.)

But at no time would I have considered owning a game console. Yes, I was [and am] the evil mother who would not permit one to be purchased and installed. Okay, we had computer games. But no way, no how, will I ever live in a house with a game console. To me it is the equivalent of crack for kids. I've taught nine year olds for 12 years. And the kids who play a lot of video games have no imagination for story-telling. They do not read for fun. They don't even play outside very often! They live, eat, and breath X-BOX/GAMECUBE/PS3/whatever. I think it is a path to brain inertia at the least, and brain damage at the worst.

So, you'll never find me camped outside a store, waiting for the release of the newest, bestest, coolest brain-cell sucking object for my children. I just laughed with/at them in a nice way and went into the store.

I didn't tell them that as a parent and a school teacher I was appalled and horrified that they would waste the time and the money on something so destined to stunt their child's intellectual growth and physical health. Since none of them asked.

Kitty Cat Schedule

5:00 A.M. Get on the bed and knead the bladder of the sleeping person so she will wake up and let you out the door. Even though there is a perfectly fine cat box right there by the door.

6:45 A.M. Sit on the counter and sniff everything that the person is putting into her lunch box. Lick the top of her glass of milk.

7:15 A.M. ---6:00 P.M. Nap

6:01 P.M. Hearing the garage door open, assume position on front rug in order to meow loudly as soon as she walks in the kitchen door.

6:01 --- 6:15 P.M. Continue meowing loudly until the kitty-chicken is served. (If foolish person does anything prior to kitty-chicken service continue meowing as you follow her around and, if necessary, jump up and pound on her leg if she still fails to deliver the kitty-chicken.)

6:15--6:18 P.M. Gobble down half of kitty-chicken.

6:18--7:00 P.M. Rush back and forth between patio and kitchen and living room in a state of delirious dervishness for reasons known only to Kitty-Cats.

7:00 P.M. Curl up at the side of person correcting math tests on the couch.

10:30 P.M. Curl up beside person who FINALLY went to bed.

Repeat....

Forgetting the Hidden Rules

In coming here to teach in a very poor part of this town, I spent several weeks over the first summer in a class sponsored by the school district that, among other things, gave us some specific information on generational poverty and its impact on student learning and behavior.

I forgot some important parts of it this year. And it has led to serious misunderstandings with parents and students--but definitely parents.

Ruby Payne, PhD. has a terrific book about this and one important part is about the hidden rules. She points out this:

Understanding and Working with Students and Adults from Poverty:
The hidden rules of the middle class govern schools and work; students from generational poverty
come with a completely different set of hidden rules.
In generational poverty, the driving forces are survival,
entertainment, and relationships. That is why you will have a student whose Halloween costume cost $30 but the textbook bill is not paid. Relationships and entertainment are more important than
achievement.

Hidden Rules
Generational Poverty

The driving forces for decision
making are survival,
relationships, and
entertainment.

People are possessions. It is
worse to steal someone’s
girlfriend than a thing. A
relationship is valued over
achievement. That is why you
must defend your child no
matter what he or she has done.*

(*there are several others...this is the relevant one)

So, when I invited the guardian of one of my most difficult students to come over one afternoon and sit in my class to help me keep him under control---as she volunteered to do on several occasions---it was a mistake. It actually just allowed her to "gather evidence" that indeed, the white teacher wasn't being fair to her "boy" because other students talked some, and other students were off task, too, now and then. So WHY WAS I PICKING ON HIM???[her surrogate person--therefore I'm picking on the adult]

I had forgotten the hidden rules. When I had a child acting badly in a class years ago, I volunteered to come and sit in the back of the room and the humilation factor for that young teen worked great!! I only had to do it twice before I was promised (and the promise was kept) that no more bad behavior would interrupt that teacher's class.

It's those pesky middle class values: you can change your behavior because you are in charge of you; the future DOES matter; education is important. I can't forget that I'm working in a different culture, and I need to play by the rules.

The Creeping Alarm Clock

Every Sunday night, I get to bed before ten. I set my alarm for 5:30, I go to sleep, I get up right on the dot. Then, I'm at school by 6:45 A.M. and I get a lot of prep done and I'm ON THE BALL. Tuesday, I get up about 5:45, then by Wed. I've moved the alarm time to 6:00 and sometimes I barely get to school on Friday by 8:20, my official start time. I just don't know what happens...But I'm beginning to get a clue---

THERE ARE NOT ENOUGH HOURS IN THE DAY TO GET "FINISHED" IN THE ELEMENTARY SCHOOL TEACHER'S JOB.

Do other employees experience this??

I know farmers do, and mothers do. So...why the heck did I choose teacher after 20 years of farming, and 25 years of mothering? This is sick.

Jeopardy! Lite

Okay, okay, It's really an addiction when you're willing to watch Jeopardy! even during Celebrity Week. Blah. Many of the questions have to do with topical-to-the-celebrity items such as Broadway, NYC, t.v. etc. But yesterday there was a catagory called "Molecular Biology". It was no doubt to flatter the guests/contestants so that the catagory on deli foods wasn't so obviously for the non-thinkers. (ooh this is getting mean) But, when the celebs finally ventured into the biology catagory the first thing that occurred to me was "These are questions they would have asked during Kid Jeopardy! week..." Something on the lines of..."What legume did Mendel study to learn about genetics?" and today all three of them stood mute till the time ran out because NONE of them could tell who was president when Fort Sumter was fired on. Sigh. But I still sat there and watched. Sigh. I really need to get out more.

The Evolving Roles of Mother

According to a post on her fabulous website , I recently caused my daughter to cry from happiness. (Well, at least get teary-eyed.) I'm pleased to have made it to this phase of our relationship. I've caused her to cry a number of times in our lives, and most of them were NOT from happiness. And I'm very sorry for all of those times, except for the (extremely rare) ones where she was being really naughty and spanking was the inevitable consequence.

But---I vividly remember several instances where the tears were a result of my careless, rude blurting out of the first (usually self-centered) thing that popped into my head without regard to her view or feelings. And these are the ones I wish to officially apologize for now and for the remaining years of our lives...hopefully there will be fewer and fewer of these events. They shall remain unenumerated because I'm confident that there are more instances of which I am unaware than any that I could recount.

Here's to a future of more happy tears!

Fright Night for Kitty Cat

Every time the doorbell rang tonight, announcing the arrival of the next wave of costumed children, the Kitty Cat froze and stared at the door. Would the next little person standing there, shouting something in an excited voice, be that same Little Person who comes and stays for extended periods? And hollers at the Kitty Cat and tries to get the Kitty Cat to "come out here!" And NEVER SEEMS TO GO AWAY? Whew...finally the noise died down and Kitty Cat was all alone with the Old Quiet Big People. Whew.

The Washing Monument

There has been a lot written about laundry lately in the family blogsosphere here and here. And I'm adding a little more. We just replaced our Harvest Gold washer and dryer (that came with the house) with a new set of front loaders. We stacked them so we'd have room to put in a deep sink, and WOW does it look cool! I must explain why the front loader: my mother had a front loading washing machine all of my life. She insisted (correctly I might add) that it does a better job of cleaning and it also uses less water to do so. Now that I live in the desert, using less water is important. I've owned only three washers in my life:

#1 was an old laundromat Speed Queen purchased for $50 from my former employer at Betsy Brown's Cleaning Town on University Avenue in San Diego. I worked there, part-time for about three years, quitting just before baby #2 was born. The washer was critical because I suddenly had two sets of cloth diapers to wash, including all the rest of our clothes. Since I wasn't going to the laundry (to work) everyday, the clothes had to be washed somehow. We just took the coin box out, and it had two cycles: on and off. But it was so durable that it lasted through three more babies (with the occasional belt or spin-clutch replacement by the versatile Cool Guy) before the motor just burned up. Then, back to the laundromat: our house in Port Hueneme did not have a washer hook-up (disabled by our cranky landlord to prevent flooding) and I took 15 loads a week out to be washed. Yes, 15. For six years. I had a system and a dryer---I washed out and dried in with the help of the rest of the capable crew.

#2 We rented a house with a new washer and dryer and inherited it when we left and our landlord could not return our cleaning deposit because of his financial straits. He traded me. I think I got the better end of that deal, what with the Oriental rugs and all he threw in to sweeten the pot. That set was bequeathed when a baby was born and the parents had a washer hook-up in their apartment.

#3 The new set....which brings me to the monument. My mom always owned a front loader, but was not always able to use it. When I was a youngster, our house water pipe would freeze most winters. This was the pipe leading from the spring to the house. It would happen if too many hard frosts came before the heavy snows, letting the cold creep down far enough to affect the main water pipe. My dad would go out and build a series of fires along the pipeline to thaw it out. One winter, the fires didn't work and the pipes burst leaving us with no water piped into the house for almost a year. We had to wait until spring to replace the pipeline. So my mom borrowed a wringer washer from her mother-in-law, and did the laundry for nine people, (including cloth diapers and chore clothes) the old-fashioned way from November till September. It took that long for the whole project. Each Monday morning my dad brought into the kitchen two milkcans of scalding water from the creamery in town. Mother would start up the washer, dipping from the cans while they were still hot, and wash everything, load by load. These clothes didn't go into a dryer. If it wasn't snowing, they went outside (to freeze-dry). If it was snowing, she hung them on lines over the stairs so the warm air could waft up and dry them. Then of course they got ironed--every single piece; no perma-press back then.

So: the monument: I got these awesome new machines because when she died last spring, she'd saved enough money to leave each of her kids a little something. And I've spent my little "something" on a product I know she'd love and I will too.

My Pet Writing Project ala Vegas

In teaching nine year olds to write, it is important to have topics about which they will have something to say. One of the more popular subjects I've introduced over the years is pets. Everyone has a pet, or wishes to have a pet, and so the students can write from personal experience. These essays have been terrific and I used them to help move little writers from merely listing facts to elaborating each item with details. I've had varying degrees of success, but every student has been passionate about the topic. My students here in this very tough neighborhood of the Gritty City also wrote "My Favorite Pet" papers with enthusiam. The only difference: nine years of essays in Maryland yielded descriptions of dogs, cats, birds, fish, hamsters,the occasional snake and a chinchilla. This year the pet essays were wonderful descriptions of just two household animals: chiahuahuas and pit bulls. Every essay. They either owned one or wanted one. Sometimes there were multiple chiahuahuas. Except one girl who wished she could own a bunny. Cool Guy said maybe it was for training the pit bull.

Weather or Not

It was unusally dark this morning when my alarm went off. I checked two other clocks just to see that I hadn't accidentally reset the time and tried to figure out why I couldn't see outside. I went over to the french doors peering out to determine why dawn wasn't illuminating the big desert sky per normal and WOW--a rare sight! Rain running off my roof onto the patio edge. The sky was completely covered with black clouds and water was pouring from them. Cool. It helps the pool ph and makes the tree happy. However, my planned ensemble for the day included sandals--hmmm--check weather.com to see how long it will last...
Forecast: 0% chance of rain at 7:00 A.M. 0% was doing a really nice job of soaking my palm trees. Turned on the local news for the weather: (and I quote)
"Some sunshine peeking through the clouds out there right now across the valley. There may be a few isolated thunder showers from this front coming through with the Baja hurricane. But they'll be scattered and limited."
From my view up on the east hill, the entire valley was covered with "partly cloudy, isolated thunder showers" that were soaking my newspaper and rushing the discarded Jack in the Box bags down my street's gutter to the storm drain.
Eyes: 1 Doppler: 0

Just Gonna Say It!

I have experienced an overdose of parents saying or writing to me this year something like this:

"I think you aren't being fair to [fill in child's name here] because [he/she] is Black."

"How many other Black children in your room do you treat this way?"

"How can you be fair to my child since he is Black?"

Well, my response to future remarks along these lines is:

"It sounds like you have had bad experiences with white people. I haven't had bad experiences with Black students. Our job here is to help your child succeed in school this year. We're the grown-ups, so let's team up to do whatever we need to so fourth grade will be successful ."

Get Out On the Highway

I just love to drive! I left work tonight (many hours after everyone else...sigh) and got out on the freeway and headed south to the big DooDad store to look for cookie cutters to mail to Morocco. The sun had just set, the air was clear, you could see all the way across the valley--a huge bowl of lights--and the mountains were indigo silhouettes. Good radio and songs I liked were playing. I could have just kept going for hours. Of course if the freeway had been a parking lot, or if it had been raining, snowing or just smoggy...maybe my enthusiasm would haven't been so acute. So let's amend that: I love to drive! When and If: the weather is great, the road conditions are great, my legs aren't tired and jumpy, I'm not in a hurry, etc. etc.

It's a Wonder I Have Any Hair Left

I read through today's math assignment early so I'd know which concept was most likely to trip up my students. Then during our warm-up I did some examples of it on the board, I had them do examples of it on their paper and I walked around and monitored it. Then, we reviewed the whole idea again. And I gave them the assigned problems for today. But, NO, it was almost universal--when they got to #6--an example of the example--hands went up "I don't know what this means" "Help me with this" "How do you do this". So we went over it on the board again--I set up the pattern. I practically told them the answers!!! Tiny light bulbs began to turn on in their little heads. Okay, taking a deep breath...Ten minutes later two girls, finally arriving at #6 because they didn't pay attention to the fact that I only assigned the even numbers whine out in unison "We don't get number six! Help!"

Leaving on a Jet Plane...again

We started this latest experiment in living a year and a half ago, wherein I move to the West and CoolGuy flies back and forth. When I first moved into the studio apartment, it was a fun adventure. I'd never lived by myself before, ever. I'd always shared a room and, except for college, always shared a bed! But here I was, in my own little room, with only me to care for and care about and, frankly it was really fun! What a luxury! I could eat popcorn and call it dinner! No one else to clean up after, or mesh schedules with or even wonder if they wanted to watch something on tv. But soon the novelty wore off and I was lonely. After six months, we bought a house, we moved all our stuff, and now "we" live here. Sort of. Cool Guy actually lives here less than he is gone. We just get a groove going for a week or two--work, dinnner, Jeopardy, hot tub--and then it's time to go to the airport and I'm alone with the cat again. It's far more schizoid for him than it is for me, I'm sure. But this week, I realized that I'm really looking forward to an entire month of the same routine. And I hope someday again we can truly "live" in the same house (heck--timezone) again. I'm not whining mind you: he has a great, well-paying job that he really likes and they like him. I just realized this week that I crave togetherness. Hmm...We'll get there, I'm sure. For thirty years, through all the separations of deployments, new jobs, me going to help my parents, etc., we keep saying "Let's never live apart again, okay??" And yet--we keep doing it! What' s up with us??

We're Not in Wyoming Anymore

So, we woke up early on Saturday morning and headed up to D.C. to Georgetown University. We held Lil Dude while Foxy J read her paper at a literary conference and had hot cocoa in a lounge that overlooked the Hoyas football field. They were down there practicing for the game later in the afternoon. Then, we headed across the river for the green, horsey environs of Northern Virginia to a wedding reception. In a very nice house, with a very nice caterer, open bar, mushu station, music, etc. Probably cost about as much as our house...After enjoying the afternoon and the company, we drove to the airport, stopped for one more serving of "a dozen raw" at the seafood bar by our gate (oysters on the half-shell) and boarded. Cool Guy's frequent flyer status had automatically upgraded us to first class the day before, so we had comfy seats, a little snack, and a good nap on our way back to Vegas, Baby. After a luxurious soak in our hot tub under the full moon we flopped into bed. Ahh...home again. Life is very different as a grown-up than I ever imagined while milking cows, looking over the barn door at that same full moon.

106 Times

It was Conference Weekend. Since it happens twice a year, it was 106 times since I was born. When it finished on Sunday, I was struck by how quickly Conference Weekend passes now that I'm an Elder of the Tribe. When I was little, this conference lasted three days, as I recall. My mom would watch it on television (and I'm sure she listened to it on the radio before they had a t.v) and in the spring, it would sometimes be Thurs. - Sat. - Sun. in order to be held on April 6---the exact date of the original organization of the church. Or Sat. - Sun. - Tues. I don't remember how they accommodated Wed April Sixthes. Hmmm...

Anyway...What I also remember about Conference is that I really wanted to listen and pay attention, but often I simply fell asleep (especially as a teen) and, that as a little child/teen, Conference seemed to be interminable. Not in a bad way, but just incredibly long and it went on and on. Now, I am taken by surprise on Sunday afternoon that--wheee---another conference weekend has flown past!! Is this just the brain damage of the old, or is it because I'm feasting on the Spirit? Or is it that in the equation of how many hours I've lived, these eight hours are such a small proportion that they no longer seem so large? Maybe all-of-the-above? Anyway--I enjoy these weekends enormously and they do speed by so quickly.

Nuggets Gleaned:

• "Lay down your life for His sake" is not to die (as a martyr) but to give up our our self-centered existence and pick up Christ's goals for our lives.
• The wise man did not escape the tempest, but he was in a position to survive it from having built on a firm foundation.
• Instead of complaining that the wagontrain of life is passing us by, we need to put our shoulder to the wheel and serve others and we'll get a life.

I remember once saying to my kids when they'd complained that conference is boring because the speakers always talked about the same old things:

"Wouldn't that be awesome if sometime we went there [the church, to watch the broadcast] and one of them stood up and said, "Well, we won't need to give the talk on tithing anymore because every member of the church is now a full tithe payer." or "We won't be giving a talk about personal prayer because God said that everyone prays to Him daily now." or "No need to discuss honesty or charity or love one another since everyone already does those things all the time now."

Yes, eye-rolling ensued...but you get my drift, too, huh? You'd think after 106 times I'd get it too, and not need to pay attention to that talk on kindness, or the one about the evils of gossip. Maybe after 108...