Torture by Tedium

We had an "inservice" day today: teachers come to school for training, students stay at home. I just don't know where principals find these people. Actually, I think the woman "training" us today works for the district. She's come to our school a number of times. It is excruciating to sit through her presentations. I'm sure she means well, and I'm sure she's highly educated, and I'm confidant that her data and research are all spot on. However...her speaking style and presentation style is deeply irritating, and not just to me. The only thing that saved us is that she was only responsible for 90 minutes of our time today. But it brought home to me something one of my co-workers said earlier.

She told me how, when finding out she was a teacher, people would ask her why we had several of these days each year when the students stayed home and the teachers came to the school. (It was asked because they were peeved about having to provide other arrangements for their children since the free babysitting by college graduates wasn't available.) My colleague replied, "It is so we teachers can be reminded periodically how it is EVERYDAY for our students: trapped in a chair, forced to listen to someone drone on, no choice in the matter."

I thought that was very astute, and I was especially struck by it today when we came back from a bathroom break to find that lady setting up her presentation--utter dismay, uggh-how long will it last? Blah. So, I'll try harder than ever to make my classroom a place where students don't come in the door thinking, "Blah, her again...how long will this last?"

Long Time--No See

I guess one main reason I haven't been bloggging is that my right hand is still very sore, and it hurts to type. My palm wound is irritated by the edge of the keyboard. Also, I've just had so little free time that I didn't use it blogging--I read the paper or slept. So here are some random thoughts:

We put up chicken wire fences (or cercas de gallinero) along the rows of peas in the garden yesterday. This morning I went out to look how things were doing, and, just as planned, the pea tendrils were curling around the wire for support as they grow up higher and higher. What struck me was: how do the faceless, eyeless pea plants know there is a fence there for them to curl their stringy tendrils around for support? Do they have nerve endings? Do they have some sort of primitive nervous system that senses the proximity of the fencing? Does this mean that they scream (silently of course, since they also don't have mouths) when you pick the pea pods? Maybe I'll just stick to tomatoes and beets in the future.

"La mano derecha me deule, la mano izquierda no me duele. " See what I've learned in my Reality Spanish class? I can tell you that the hand on the right hurts me, but the hand on the left does not hurt me. It was a thrill for my ELL students to hear me discuss my health with them en Espanol. This class ends on Tuesday and it will be a relief, because I've had an obligation every M-T-W since January because of this class (other things are sucking off my M & W) so I'll be glad to be finished with it. I have learned an amazing amount of things, however, and I'm really glad I took it. I must work on it regularly so I can retain what's there.

The weather here has become fantastic. Everyday it is just the right amount of warm--80 degrees. It cools off pleasantly at night. The pool water is warming daily. The sky is clear, and sunset and sunrise are simply exotic with the deep indigo sky illuminated around the edge with gold, hightlighting the black silhouettes of the palm trees and jagged mountains in relief on all sides. Wow. Spring in the desert.

We had a delightful visit from two of the grandchildren for a few days. We played in sand, splashed in the "little pool", and repotted plants. We went for a walk in the desert and looked at ants and spiders with the magnifying glass. We just lived the routine of a 2 and 4 year old for five days. I realize now why humans should be young when we reproduce---it is only then that we enough energy to keep up with tiny people.

I am booked for a trip to SLC in two weeks. While there for a day, I will attend a bridal shower, a baby shower, and a folk dance program in which our other grandchild is participating. Fun Times!!

First Swim

Today, I jumped in the pool. It was 69 degrees, but entirely tolerable. I think the ocean at Port Hueneme was colder than that most of the time when we'd take our early morning swim.

We have two of the grandchildren visiting this week, and the "little" pool is a popular place. Cool Guy heats up the hot tub to around 97 and gets in with S-Boogie and they play until they're both pruned. Today, I took one of my personal days off from school and so I was home all day to join them. We wanted an object that was floating in the "big" pool, so I just jumped in to retrieve it. I hadn't actually been in the "little" pool long enough to be all warmed up and the water in the "big" pool wasn't that bad. I swam laps for about 10 minutes and then got back into the spa. Which felt very nice in contrast. But, I'll swim again tomorrow, because each day, it just keeps getting a degree or two closer to fabulous. The secret is the amount of time the sun shines on the masonry around the pool warming it up. Also, the fact that it no longer cools off much at night. Our temperatures travel between 50 and 75 these days, so the warmth in the ground keeps the pool water warm. This winter I checked the pool temperature after I'd been circulating the filters and it was 47, brrrrrrrrrrrr.
Summer is a'commin'.

I Have Two Little Hands

Actually these two hands are rather large and gangly and ever so useful for milking cows and changing diapers and gardening and writing on a chalkboard. But--they are a team again. They are required to be a careful, gentle team: no soaking in water until two more days so the holes can heal where the stitches were. And wear a big bandaid for a couple of days. No lifting anything over two pounds for one week, then nothing over five pounds for a second week. And my palm looks like Dr. Frankenstein worked on me. Maybe I'll show my students tomorrow. Fourth graders love gory stuff.

But! I can shampoo my own hair, and wash by using both of my palms, also apply lotion! I do have to thank Cool Guy for the shampooing help. He has a gentle touch and could moonlight at a salon if things get tight.

My Left Hand--(Not Starring Daniel Day Lewis)

Myleft hand is tired. For over a half a century it got a free ride there on the end of my arm. But for the last ten days it has been called into service for which it is entirely unprepared.

• It cannot brush teeth. I've finally resorted to an electric toothbrush.
• It cannot hold a fork properly. I eat most of my food without the fork as a result.
• It cannot use a curling iron without dropping it onto my forehead repeatedly.
• It cannot cut an orange--this requires down, and back and forth, simultaneously.
• It cannot open a jar by itself--to be fair, I don't think the right hand could either, but the left hand is particularly puny when it come to any lid of any container, including the butter tub--duh.

But, it has acquired a few skills:

• It can zip my pants and fasten the button of jeans.
• It can use the computer mouse if I put it on the left side of the keyboard.
• It can turn the key in the lock of the front door.

By the time this miserable bandage is removed on Monday, I'm afraid I'll need physical therapy to help my left hand and the entire arm recover from its sudden thrust into the spotlight. For sure my brain is going to need therapy to recover from the sudden need to reprogram my poor left hand.

Death Valley Day

By Wednesday, I got so bored hanging around the house trying to avoid using my right hand, that Cool Guy agreed to a trip over the border to Death Valley.

{Note: on Monday this week I had carpal tunnel surgery done on my right hand and so I'm typing this with my left hand...mostly.}

It is only about three hours drive to the national park from here so it was a leisurely day. We planned a stay at Tecopa Hot Springs in one of their little cabins so we wouldn't have to go all the back in one day and, again, we had a really nice visit there. Tecopa is a weird place--truly just a wide spot in the road--there is one restaurant in another wide spot ten miles up the road. Other than that, it is an hour's drive to the nearest town with any other restaurant or store or anything. But the "waters" are lovely. Everytime we go, there are several Japanese couples also visiting for the theraputic benefits for which the hot springs are internationally known.

Death Valley--to use a fourth grade adjective--is cool. The air temperature was 85, and therefore bearable the day before the vernal equinox--you can hardly get any spring-ier than that! By summer it will be a blast furnace. The place itself is very interesting. If you're not intrigued by geology, don't bother. However, if rocks and the formation of the earth with its attendant geothermal anomalies and breccia and mineral deposits and uplifts and sedimentation and fault lines are just up your alley, then COME ON DOWN! Death Valley has it all.

We kept wondering aloud about the dismay of those poor early settlers just wanting to get to California who mistakenly ended up trying to cross this piece of forsaken territory. It's quite clear when you finally get over the eastern mountains into the basin that leaving won't be easy. The mountains on the western rim soar from the floor straight up 11,000 feet. There are no foothills and no obvious passes. The rivers that flow into Death Valley just sink into the earth and then bubble up elsewhere in its vastness bringing mineral deposits with them that turn any pond into a brackish salt-rimmed pool where only small organisms more suited for the ocean can live. And Death Valley is very long, north to south, so just gutting it out and walking either of those directions isn't exactly easy either. But it was the only way to leave.

At the visitor's center there's a motto coined by the 19th century people who passed through:

20 miles from wood, 20 miles from water, 40 feet from Hell

Yup. But, in a modern conveyance, with air conditioning, water bottles, and our sunscreen, we had a lovely day in Hell. So did hordes of other visitors, and it was interesting to listen to their conversations, many of which were conducted in a variety of languages I do not speak or understand. It was an international day in one of America's most unique National Parks. We heard Italian, Portuguese, French, Spanish, Japanese, Hebrew, and a Slavic language I did not recognize and didn't feel brazen enough to ask its speakers to identify. (Imagine! me---shy...) Here are some photos, which will do more credit to the scenery than my description.

This sign at the entrance points out that the Timbasha Shoshone live here. They have lived here for many centuries, and they have a little settlement down the road from the visitor's center. You are invited to go visit them, and another time I'd like to just to admire people who have such amazing stamina and adaptability to have as their ancestral home such a forbidding environment. Their homes are clustered in an small oasis by Furnace Creek. There are green places in Death Valley. But they are outnumbered by the dry ones.

If you look carefully in the very center of this photo, you will see a tiny sign that says "Sea Level". As a visitor stands reading the information on the signs that overlook a vast white playa identified as Badwater, many other visitors are walking as they follow the boardwalk to its end out onto the saltbed. One of the instructions on the visitor information plaque is to look over your shoulder. There, high up the cliffs opposite of where you've parked your car is this sign that is easier to read standing there, than in my photo. It points out how high up the cliff you must go to get to sea level. You are standing at the lowest point in the contiguous United States: Badwater Basin--282 feet below sea level. Cool.

It would have been very daunting to stumble into this valley thinking you were almost to the ocean, or at least in the part of California where you could mine gold and have some neighbors, too. But some people finally found something to mine--borax--and while I don't know if it made anyone wealthy, it does make your laundry nice.

We'll go back to Death Valley. There are several roads that take you to a trail head where a short hike leads you to another fascinating nature effect. But, we'll go hiking next year in November or December. Here's one last amazing view: Zabriskie Point. It has no plant life, but it has vivid colors, textures and geology!

Looking at Another View

I had some interesting insights to a couple of my most difficult students on Friday. Since we always dismiss the students 90 minutes early on Friday and have coordinated team meetings, I have just 45 minutes with each class. We often just do our spelling test or some other assessment, but this week, the last day before Spring Break began, I had a very casual day. There were at least five students missing from each class because no matter how much time you give people off for a holiday, there are always quite a few who take more than that. Anyway, our "job" was to create some simple Easter decorations for my friend who is the charge nurse at a nursing home. We made something for Christmas for all 60+ patients and so I decided to do something again for Easter--I copied some outlines of decorated eggs and every student got to color one and write a greeting on the back, then punch a hole in the end and hang it from yarn.

One child is quite lacking in impulse control. He snatches, he leaps out of his seat and asks later, he has to be first, he has to be #1 at all times and then moans and groans impatiently when he has to wait on others to take their turn. Apparently, at home the world revolves around him. When he finished the coloring part, he cut it out and then (literally) tossed it at me and said, "Here, finish it. I can't." All it meant was that he didn't know the steps to punch the hole, and choose a yarn piece, thread it through and tie a knot. I said, "No, you finish it. Here's what you do." I showed him a finished one and pointed out the items he'd need to do it.

Big Sigh...but then he picked it up and started to try. But--again--it took a couple of attempts, and he couldn't master the knot immediately. Again--give up, turn to leave, throw it at the mom figure to finish. No, I patiently showed him again how to roll the yarn around his finger and pull the ends through to make a knot. After three tries he suceeded. I realized that maybe no one in his world has ever insisted that he keep trying in the face of the impatient, shouting, Big Sigh--almost-a-tantrum, method he employs when he can't get it on the first attempt. Or maybe someone at home would always rather do it themselves because they are in a hurry, or want it done "right", or some other reason that eliminates the feeble attempts of the very young. In my experience, children's ability to do a job is in inverse proportion to their eagerness to do it. ie: a 3 year old LOVES to do dishes---12 year olds DON"T.

So, the next insight was with the Wild Monkey in a Cage: I helped him with something and asked where his mother lived (since I know he lives with Granny and dad.) "She didn't love me, so she left. And that's why I'm so bad---there's no one to show me love. A dad punishes you, a mother loves you." He declared all this in the tone of boy who has heard it over and over. So I said that he'd have to learn how to make good choices some other way then, huh? I don't spend enough time with him to have this new mantra repeated as often as the old one. However, I think I'll say it as often as possible anyway. It couldn't hurt!

S-L-O-W-E-S-T Week of the Year

On Friday, March 14, at 3:43 P.M. I am officially on Spring Break. That is approximately 2 months away---according to the inner clock my brain is operating on this week. Every day this week has gone by so S-L-O-W-L-Y. All the other teachers agree with me on this. It isn't just me. The students came in on Monday in a coma because of the combination of Daylight Saving Time and the usual staying-up-too-late on the weekend. Then, as they've shaken off the sleepiness as the week wears on, they've become increasingly crazed. I'm just so glad we finished our BIG TEST last week. Some of the grades are testing this week and I feel sorry for them...

But, Friday will come, it always does. It'll be fun to not go to work for a few days. I am, however, having surgery on my right wrist for carpal tunnel repair. But, at least I'll get one week of no school with the cast. Only two weeks with it. Blah. But it'll be good to get this fixed.

Garden Lust

You've seen the cliche of the woman sitting in a store surrounded by pairs of shoes, buying several. Compulsive clothing shopping, jewelry accummulation, all those shop-aholic jokes. Well, I can forego department stores, no sweat. But tonight as I circled the garden department at Lowes I really had to force myself to stick to the list: tomatoes, basil, petunias, and pansies.

Look at those tulips!! And the daffodils!! Hanging pots of geraniums--which just wither and die here on my patio in the heat. Great big bowls of snapdragons, pansies and sweet williams---I have two big bowls already filled with succulents and herbs that can survive the summer. I don't have flower beds to fill with daisies and poppies. I don't have a pathway in which to plant alyssum so it will grow up between the paving stones. I don't live in San Diego where the bougainvillia can creep up over a trellis and live all winter.

If I go to a nursery for my bedding plants it's even worse. They have ten times the selection and they have little "idea garden spots" set up all over. You go in there for bag of fertilizer and get lost wandering through the fountain section thinking how wonderful some trickling water into a stone lined pool would sound in the evening. It could have big tufts of pampas grass growing beside a large boulder...and...and...

NO---just pick up your six tomato plants, two basil plants, the seed packs of beets, peas and pole beans and go quickly to the check out stand. You do not have the yard space for these other awesome effects. Besides, the focus of the landscape efforts and money this year must be on the front yard. It looks like an abandoned vacant lot out there under the palm trees. But, maybe the trickling "pond" (recirculating with a tiny pump) could be part of the remodel...hmmm. Let's go home and give it a look.

Weekly Summary

Weird week---several really terrific things that either aggravated me or were delightful happened but I CANNOT blog about them. Some of them have to do with test security at our school since we were taking the big state test this week. Some of them are just too personal. It's interesting how when something happens now, the first thing I want to do is blog. It's not like it's private or anything! So, some things just can't go here.

Here's a couple that can:

• Is it just me, or is local TV news--in any city--the most vapid, obnoxious form of information available?
• Don't you love chocolate covered orange sticks? I got a package for my birthday and they are simply delicious. I don't like any other kind of chocolate covered fruit, orange sticks are irresistable to me.
• Whew--I don't know if you've heard about the medical clinic scandal here in Vegas, where a series of endoscopy clinics have been closed by the health dept and city because they re-used vials of medicine for more than one patient, thereby contaminating them with blood borne pathegens, but when I contacted my doctor about the location of my tests two years ago, they assured me that it wasn't there. Whew--several patients (over a four year period) have contracted Hepatitis C and B and they're waiting on the HIV tests. Whew.
• I love spring: flowering trees, soft air, daylight lasting until 6:00 P.M.
• Cats are such a great pet. They love you, and when you neglect them by staying away from home for 12 or more hours, they still love you.
• It's time to garden! I get to plant tomatoes and beets and peas!

I'm Going There Someday--Probably Thursday

I'm part of the Relief Society presidency in my ward, and we have a "Ladies Night Out" on alternating months when we go to the temple. The temple is three blocks from our ward boundary line so getting there is easy. In March we're going to do baptisms so that we can include women who have recently joined the Church or who haven't been to the temple officially yet. So today our president gave her lesson about temples and asked several people to participate. The bishop explained the process of the interview and what it involved for a regular recommend or a baptismal recommend. Then an older sister who was both divorced and then widowed (in her second marriage), and whose daughter and grandchildren (and husband), live in the ward spoke of her experience going to the temple her first time. She was motivated to go by this only daughter's upcoming wedding years ago.

I've known this woman for a couple of years and talked to her several times. Her husband's death was a tragic work accident. They were happily married and after years and years of single parent-hood, she felt so lucky to have had him come into her life. He was very accepting of her decision to go to the temple and even attended the preparation classes with her, despite not being a member of the Church himself. It was a very sweet story. And as she told of her experience of being in the temple, and how she was sealed to her parents that day too, because they'd finally become eligible to attend the temple themselves in their old age, everyone in the room was just overcome by the Spirit. There were tears trying to escape from my eyes for the rest of the lesson.

It reminded me of all the reasons I love the temple. I love that in the interview with my then-bishop for my first recommend (after thirteen years of marriage) I was able to finally set down the burden of all my past stupid mistakes. I remember them still, but they no longer eat away at me because I know forgiveness is real.

I love that when I finally got inside the temple that first time I had such a powerful spiritual witness of life after death and the reality of our eternal souls.

I love the way time ceases to function while I'm in the temple. I never look at my watch; it doesn't really matter what time it is--there is no time.

I love the way I can think clearly about different concerns I have in my life. Many times a clear solution to a serious student problem comes into my brain while I'm sitting there being still. I have repeatedly realized answers to concerns about my children or husband while in the temple. I once asked someone who had been a temple president several times if I should worry that my mind seems to wander during the session, or if the amazing insights that it wanders to are actually answers to my prayers. He stated that if I gained insights into problems that helped my life, and the lives of those I cared about, then I shouldn't consider it "mind-wandering" but "personal revelation". Hmmm.

I love the serenity of the temple. In two places where we've lived, the trip to the temple was about an hour long, and the last 4 or 5 miles of the journey was on one of the most congested, crazed part of the region's roadways. The contrast made the atmosphere of the temple interior even more sanctified. Interestingly, the temple is the rare place I go that I do not engage in conversation with others. I usually go on my own and so my talking is confined to quiet greetings and the ritual responses that are part of the ceremony. It is very restful and contributes to the rejunvenating effect of the experience.

The ironic part of living this close to the temple is that my attendance was more regular when I had to drive an hour and survive that ridiculous traffic. Since I don't have to plan it out carefully, I've been shocked to come to the end of a month and discover that I didn't go at all. Saturday comes and goes without my spending time in the temple. Each week night it seems something is on my schedule to prevent my attendance. So the only solution is to return to my planning of the past. I must choose a day and go without fail. I need the rejuvenation of the experience. I need the quiet communing with God. I need the regular service involved. It reminds me that life is just a little piece of the eternal picture and how important it is to keep that knowledge formost in my mind. It is easy to get cynical or lazy about spiritual things if you don't immerse yourself in spiritual events and the temple is an ideal place for that.

Leaping through the Year

Leap day is really a fun day because it is so rare. I read about a couple whose birthdays are both today. I read about a dad and his daughter who share the Feb. 29 birthday. How weird is that? Unless you opted for induction or C-section you couldn't plan something like that. And weddings--I read about weddings planned deliberately for today. I'm too ceremonial. I don't think I'd like having only one day in four to celebrate a special event. What if you were mad at each other that one day? You'd have to wait four more years to celebrate again!

This afternoon I passed by the calendar in our school office. It is a wipe-off calendar of the whole year stretched across the main hall in the back offices where only staff people wander. It has everything written on for the year--August through June. I realized today that we are starting March on Monday and after that there are only two months and four days and then I GET A SUMMER OFF!! I haven't had a summer off in three years and I'm really, really anticipating this one. It will be so nice to just stay home. But of course, I'm busy planning places to go and things to do. But having a break from work is just going to be fabulous. It is one of the main perks of teaching. And for anyone who says "Oh you lazy teachers," may I just say that if it weren't for summers off, many more felonies would be committed by teachers. It is a safety valve to give us those 9-11 weeks off every year.

Birthday Girl

So today is my birthday. Happy Birthday to me. Yesterday it was George Washington's birthday, and I always have a special lesson for it despite having no state content standards demanding it. I use G.W. for my literature and we do some writing skill to fulfill our requirements. Anyway...I passed out fruit rolls to my students as a treat from George and me and, as usual, there was the question of how old I am. Naturally I make them do the math. I wrote the equation of 2008 minus 1953 on the board and it got really quiet for a minute. Then someone called out "You're 1055 years old!" And he couldn't be budged off this answer for several minutes. I hesitate to even tell the poor fourth grade math teacher this story because one of her mantras is "Does your answer make sense??" But, hey, maybe that answer made sense to this student. In another class one of them thought that we were figuring the age of George Washington with that equation. I mean, 1953 is REALLY LONG AGO when you are nine years old. No, I did not know Mr. Washington despite the fact that I used to live in Maryland and have visited his home in Virginia several times. Perhaps I was this confused as a fourth grader, too. Perhaps not, but these are the things that make teaching never dull. Sometimes we crave boredom.

Welcome to ELMO's World

I got a new ELMO in my classroom today. (click on "digital presenters and scroll down) Actually it is called a TT 02 or something like that, and it is a FABULOUS teacher's helper. I've been borrowing one of my co-worker's machine whenever I could, but she uses it often too. So, the spending committee got the word on our wish lists and bought a couple more of them for us new people who really wanted one, too. This little t.v. camera sends an image of whatever you lay on the plate under it through an LCD projector to the screen at the front of the room. It is ideal for teaching writing, because I write on the same paper they're writing on instead of an overhead transparency, and they can follow directions exactly. They can see me write, then erase or scribble through, and do revisions and think aloud. It's real writing happening before their eyes.

If I want to read a story book (and I often do to illustrate a concept) I just place the book under the camera and project the pictures up on the screen and then everyone can see what I see. If it is a book in which the format of the words is the important part, then, voila, the words are right up there for all to see. Our math teacher uses it to show the little blocks or whatever manipulative she is using. It's a gadget, but it is a very useful gadget that I'll use everyday.

Yet another reason to LOVE MY NEW SCHOOL. (Um, after six months, does it still qualify as "new"?)

Adjusting My View

You know, I had this idea that we'd do some earth mother things this weekend with my son's family--plant the garden, go to the river and look at birds, maybe go over to this place where you can walk through the desert and see lizards and rabbits. BUT...I forgot that it wasn't my weekend. It was her weekend. It was her birthday, and they were down here to celebrate it. She loves cities, having grown up in one of the world's hippest metro areas. She loves the hustle and bustle, the crowds, the shopping, the lights and buildings and action. She is a Vegas-ophile, while I am just a visitor.

So, just in time Saturday I realized I was about to mess it all up and changed my viewpoint from what I wanted to do over to what she wanted to do. And we went and did it and we had a great time! It's just amazing to me that I'm such a slow learner. There are many fun things to do here, and she and I left the grown men at home and went and did them. And since she is an aficionada of the scene here, she expertly guided me around and showed me the nifty stuff that other people come from all over the world to enjoy. And it was pretty fun! I found myself walking down the sidewalk in front of Planet Hollywood, holding hands with my grandson who can't hear music without dancing to it--so I danced with him. We cha-chaed our way down Las Vegas Boulevard, twirling each other round, laughing and making a spectacle of ourselves (which takes some doing there!) We had a fine time and I look forward to my next tour of Fabulous Vegas!

Abraham Lincoln Day

Each year, I celebrate the two president's birthdays that were a feature of my childhood: A. Lincoln and G. Washington. I know they combined it into one federal holiday by splitting the difference between their actual days which are ten days apart. But one of my goals in fourth grade (and it isn't in any state standards anywhere) is that my students will be able to distinguish between those two. It is alarming how many adults don't do that well. But, each of them were very significant leaders in America and I think they are deserving of their individual recognition. When I lived in Maryland, we also regularly went across the river to Mt. Vernon to visit Washington's home on a field trip. In February they have Colonial Days there to entice schools to visit because it isn't a big tourist time of year. They have re-enactors all over the estate to show the kids how everything was done two hundred-plus years ago. It's very cool.

As part of Abraham Lincoln week we read about his life, answer questionaires and write paragraphs, etc. And I always read my favorite "Abraham Lincoln book"--Pink & Say by Patricia Palacco. And every year I can't get through it without crying. For 13 years I've read this book and sometimes I really break down and can't even speak. I can't even tell people the plot of the book without choking up. This year with my new format--four classes every day, I had to read it four times in one day. And I did get all choked up the first time through, and then, an amazing thing happened. I read it three more times and did not cry. I really had to exercise self-control. But I did it. I guess the practice over and over made the difference. But, it truly affects the kids who are listening. Some of them cry. Every time I read it someone will exclaim, "What?! She died!?" They weren't really paying all of their attention especially, but then that part gets them and they are memsmerized for the rest of the book. EVERY kid I've ever read it to is affected by this book. If you haven't read it, then get a copy and you'll see why. And don't forget to say "Pinkus Ayley" aloud when you finish.

I've Got Worms!

Normally, this isn't the sort of thing that a person would trumpet to the world, but the worms to which I refer are earthworms living happily in my garden box! That means that I have fabulous dirt out there, full of nutrients and minerals. I spent an hour on Saturday digging up the grass that has crept in around the edges and I found several little buddies wriggling their way through the soil.

This weekend I'm celebrating President's Day with our son and his family who are coming to see us (and the sun) and I'll have my grandson help me plant the peas. This is spinach, pea and beet time. I'll be able to put new flowers in my patio pots and generally start the garden over again. Yippee! Worms!!

Tra la, tra la

That is me singing as I scamper through my yard this afternoon in capris, sandals and t-shirt, digging up my garden box, preparing for my spring garden. It's 70 degrees, we ate lunch on the patio. Kitty Cat is sprawled out on the warm cement. Doves are cooing. YEAH!!! This is the Nevada I love.

The Test

The actual test is: Will we all survive the next three weeks? You see, our principal received an e-mail on Tuesday morning that pointed out there had been an "error" in the testing calendar. By state law, the BIG OLD TEST is to be taken by the students after 120 days of instruction. But, the people who printed off the testing calendar for the building administrators (given to them last May, and used to schedule EVERYTHING for this school year) were off by a month. Instead of April 25th being the date we needed to return the completed tests, it is really March 25. And the e-mail ended, "We hope this doesn't cause any undue inconvenience."

What a laugh line!! It resulted in complete hyteria in my building, and many other schools I'm sure. We're all one gigantic dysfunctional family here in Southern Nevada and for 10 months we've all been planning our curriculum and pacing around this calendar that--suddenly--just shrunk by an entire month. And...Spring Break is one of the weeks of that month. There's really nothing to be done, either, because my principal would have done it. She called everyone right up through the state superintendent's office. We will be testing the first two weeks of March. There is no appeal.

So every special event has been cancelled. We're sneaking in a little Valentine's Day for 30 minutes at the end of the day, but I expect to be reprimanded for it. We have an unusual situation in that our school is under extreme scrutiny. The school is operating in an experimental capacity as an "empowerment" school and so we get to choose how and what to teach (according to the state standards, of course). But we are not under the strict guidelines of the rest of the county for which reading series, math text, etc. There are about 6 schools like this, and data is being gathered for a study to see if this is a viable and superior model. Therefore, the school gets looked at more strigently than others. They performed well last year, but that just makes the bar higher this year. It's easy to move from the bottom to the middle. It is a lot harder to go from "pretty good" to "really good".

So, we're all dumping our plans for the next three weeks and implementing the new, hysterical, "focused" plan for test run-up. Many platitudes have been mouthed about how "it's just another test, we take many tests, we don't need to put undo pressure on the students--they can do it" but the actions belie those sentiments.

Weather Whine

How many of you just assumed that Las Vegas was balmy all year round? I mean--except when it's super-hot in the summer? Lots of people do! I knew that it can get cold in the winter before I moved here because I've driven through it in the winter, and it is 2300 feet in elevation after all, so it will get chilly in December and January.

BUT...this is getting extremely tiresome. It has been really darn cold for two entire months now. Yesterday, Cool Guy pointed out that the weather on the western shore of the Chesapeake Bay (where he has been for two weeks) was warmer, the low & the high, than we had here in the desert. Blah. I don't like to shiver. I don't like to wear coats. I don't even like sweaters. It hasn't been above 50 degrees in weeks and weeks and the wind has been blowing and it is unpleasant and yucky. The lows are just above 30 every morning.

I know, I know---"waaaa"--you're saying there in your actual cold weather climate. But you expect prolonged cold temperatures and freezing and wind chill and all that. We people who live in the land of palm trees and swimming pools will tolerate it for about a month and then, by golly, it had better start getting back toward 70 and 80 again soon. Or else....or else....well...nothing. At least I'm not shoveling my measly 50 degrees off the driveway so I can go to work. Okay, I'll keep my whining to myself. Sorry.