Data

I don't know the significance of this information but it has caused me to ponder it all week.
Last Friday in our fourth grade team meeting, it was revealed, as an aside, the ages of each of my co-workers.

I have two children who are older than any of my three partners. Hmm.

#1 It made me realize that I am old.
#2 It made me realize that my kids are also old. Well, I mean, full-grown adults. But that's not to say that I didn't know that. It's just that it seemed more concrete.
#3 It made me appreciate them (my co-workers) even more because they don't treat me like an old lady, but as a peer.

Then one of my sisters had a round-number birthday and she said something about having only about 20 years left, and it really stunned me. The previous twenty years seems to have just zoomed by in a flash. If in twenty years we're done...or at least she is---I could be too--well then, well then...I don't know what. It just seems too much to think about.

Anyway--that's the data for the week. I don't know what it all means. But it seemed significant.

The Season of Mourning

It is now time to mourn the late, great Summer. Today is the Autumnal Equinox. This means that every day now, for the next three months, we will spend fewer and fewer minutes in the presence of Old Sol, my good friend. More and more of our day will be spent in darkness. Stupid Daylight Savings Time will kick in and WHAMO: I'll walk out of school to the dim glow of the streetlights in the parking lot. No more tomatoes fresh from the vine. No more lying on the patio furniture pressed into the cushions by the ferocious blast of midday heat. No more pleasant afterwork hours in the pool. Night swimming only works when the air is still shimmering at 105.

I've always felt this way--not just since I've come to live in the desert. There is nothing less desirable than pulling on your layers of chore clothes and stepping out into the waning minutes of daylight at 5:00 P.M. in the Rocky Mountains knowing that you will be spending the next two hours in the barn, milking. It always seemed colder right then at sunset than just an hour earlier, or even an hour later. I can't think of any science that supports a temperature plunge at sunset, but it sure seemed colder. Perhaps it was the effect of just having left a house filled with the scent of fresh baked cinnamon rolls and drying laundry and now you are crunching your way across brittle snow to the barnyard where you must be on the alert for frozen cowpies so as to not break your toe, and looking out for fresh ones so as to not slip.

Perhaps my ancient ancestors were Druids or something. I mourn the passing of the long long days of sunlight. I just trudge through the weeks until late February when again the earth's orbit puts us in the path of light. Someday I'll have to go visit Stonehenge and see if I feel some primordial sense of homecoming.

Commentary on Previous Post

My sister sent this photo to me as part of an e-mail that had a series of really beautifully composed pictures of animals that were all very endearing. But this one!!

Well, let's just say, if there was a big fresh cowpie behind any of those cows, and the floor of that barn was made of wood: this was MY (our) LIFE when we were children. There are so many erie similarities:

#1 He is sitting on a single leg milking stool. We had those. They were "manufactured" by our dad who'd take two pieces of a 2 x 4 and hammer them into a "T" shape, and voila---milking stool. The milkmaid just balanced on top of this item, using her two feet as the other "legs" of the three legged stool. Somewhat comfy, completely practical, cheap, and easy to snatch up as you leapt up to get out of range of a flying soggy tail or flailing hoof.

#2 He's milking a Guernsey cow.

#3 Check out the old Surge milker on that background cow---hooked to a vacuum line, milk pulsing out of the cow into the bucket fastened below the titcups. You carried it from cow to cow.

#4 Squirting milk into the kitties' mouths.

#5 Wearing the knee-high rubber boots.

#6 The straw hat: our dad ALWAYS wore a straw cowboy hat for work.

#7 The sun streaming through the open door and also the actual walls of the barn. We, too, had "natural" air conditioning in our barn. Too bad it was below freezing so often when we were out there...

Anyway, it is a total trip back in time to look at this photo, and we wanted to share it with you.

If I Were a Cat...

• I'd be a barn cat because then I'd be a valuable member of the team. I'd eat the mice that ravage the stores of grain that the cows need.


• I'd be a barn cat because I'd always have a cozy place to sleep in the hay all snuggled up to a warm calf.


• I'd be a barn cat because there are so many places to hide my new babies from the prying eyes of little children.


• I'd be a barn cat because I'd always have a companion; no farm ever has just ONE cat.


• I'd be a barn cat because some bored cow milker will always try his aim and fill my mouth with warm milk. Barn cats never drink cold milk.

If you were a cat, you could do worse than these two!

Fall is in the Air

Wow, it only got up to 95 degrees today here. Brrrr...

Okay, not really "brrr..." but it was so different than the previous three months of over 100 everyday. I've had my "acceptable" temperature settings so warped because of the swimming pool. When it was 110 degrees routinely in the afternoon, I'd come home from school, peel off my sweaty clothes, and get in the swimming pool for 40 minutes or so.

We don't heat our pool because we aren't gazillionaires (we're saving up for solar panels to supplement the sun). When the air temp is 100+ all day, the water is just perfect. But it doesn't take long when the air temp falls below 100 every day, plus it was windy, for the water to cool right off.

I do have a tolerance for chilly water. We lived for six years by Hueneme Beach where the water temperature is rather arctic-like. First: it is California, north of L.A., so the water currents are traveling north to south--the water spends a lot of time off the Alaska coast on its way to Hueneme Beach. Second: "Port" Hueneme is so named because it is--duh--a port. There is a natural submarine canyon that created a lovely deep-water port that is used to export citrus crops and import autos and other items on container ships. So, the beach just to the south of the port is the destination for the water that upwells from the canyon---brrrrrrr.

Cool Guy and I used to take an early morning trip on our little city's bike trail to that beach and go swimming for a few minutes each day. In March that is a mighty chilly swim. The surfers routinely wear wetsuits except for maybe August and Sept. I'm sure they thought we were nuts! Maybe we were!

However, now that I've enjoyed the luxury of the desert backyard pool, I almost regret the passing of the Furnace Months of Summer here. It's still nice to swim when it's in the 90's, but that initial leap into the water is a little more Hueneme-like than I'd prefer.

English! What a Language!

Today, being Friday, was Spelling Test Day in Fourth Grade. This morning as we were collecting homework, one of my students whose first language is not English pointed to a word and told me how her mom told her not to study it because it wasn't a real word.

Her mom had been "all mad when I was doing my homework because she couldn't figure it out. And then my dad got home and he got all mad because it just didn't make sense to him either. And they wondered how it could get on my list."

I looked at her list and asked her which word she meant and she said, "Now here." I looked again and tried to see where "here" meant on the list. Which number? "This one, " she pointed and pronounced again, "Now here."

Oh.

#16--nowhere-- As in--"I grew up in the middle of nowhere."

Now here--nowhere--hmm.

That was a new one for me!

Seafood City Supermarket

On Monday we decided we wanted to grill fresh fish, but we live in the desert---far, far, far from the sea. So what to do? In Maryland, we could go to any number of establishments where the owner went out that morning on his boat, caught the fish, and sold it that afternoon. I had a favorite grocery that I would stop by on Friday nights and get my pound of big old shrimp for a reasonable price and high quality and bring them home to stir fry with garlic and onions.


Well, luckily I chanced upon this store and WOW, it was a treasure. Their fish is extremely fresh and you can get it whole, or fileted or ground up, or turned into an unbelievable variety of foods that I've never consumed nor imagined. But seriously, they have anything you may need that lives in the ocean and can be eaten. And they'll clean it for you--free while you shop.

If, perchance, your recipe calls for a cup of pork blood, or the long cut of pig's feet, or perhaps you need a giant squid, or a container of pig's brains, THIS IS THE STORE FOR YOU. Perhaps you need five different kinds of bananas? A case of mangoes? Balute? They'll sell it to you!

While we waited for our red snapper and sea bass (aka rockfish for the Chesapeake Bay denizens) to be cleaned, we perused the aisles. It reminded me of Woo Chee Chong's Oriental Market on G Street in San Diego. I'm fairly certain that Woo Chee Chong's is no longer there, probably that part of G Street is also gone. But when I first moved there more than 30 years ago, it was one of my favorite places to shop. I was amused in the meat department because they carried all the parts of the pig or cow that my mom usually discarded. Ears, nose, feet, brains, stomach. I never learned to cook these parts, but I was always impressed that someone came there specifically to purchase them for their dinner. I mostly shopped there for the fish and vegetables.

Anyway, we grilled our fish and they were mighty tasty, too. We'll go back! I want to eat at Jollibee, the fast food place, and then buy some coconut ice cream, sticky rice, and a mango, and try to make my favorite Thai restaurant desert at home.

New School

Here are some things I like about my new school:

• The principal, not the head secretary, actually runs the place.
• I'm indoors with a classroom that has a window by the door that looks out into the hall.
• The hall is illuminated by a skylight.
• I can step out of my door, and lean into some other teacher's class if I have a need to.
• It smells nice.
• They have a PTA.
• It's 1.6 miles from my house, no stoplights.
• When I go upstairs (we're built into a hillside) to the playground, the Las Vegas Temple dominates the view to the east--it is about three blocks up the street from my school. Cool.
• Everyday, one of the administrators, or office workers, or another collegue asks me if they can help me in any way---and they REALLY MEAN IT.

The Long Silence

I realize that I didn't post anything for a long time and the reasons are:

• I had to move everything from the old school to the new school, unpack, put it away and ...
• we drove up to BYU to watch our oldest daughter graduate with her master's degree...
• I therefore had only three days of my 12 day vacation in which to do--whatever--and I just didn't spend any of it on the computer.

Cool Guy is THE MAN

I came dragging in from the First Day of School, tired, sweaty, foot-sore. You other teachers know what I mean. (It was a good day--more later.) I was invited out to a freshly cleaned swimming pool (pouring rain and wind all night had left a morning layer of debris) where I jumped in and floated away the cares of the day.

Then, (and here's why he's getting the Shout-Out) Cool Guy pointed out that he'd turned on the hot tub heater in anticipation of my tired, sweaty, foot-soreness and would I like to soak for a while?

Wow. Would I! And so I did, and it was mighty nice.

Meteor Shower

We checked into our cabin at Delight Hot Springs, Tecopa California, around 8:00 P.M. I'd packed supper in a cooler so we ate it sitting on the screen porch watching twilight fade away. It was 98 degrees, but it seemed cooler. Something about being in the desert after dark makes it feel not as hot. We soaked in the hot springs and then drove out into the desert even a little further so we'd be surrounded by total darkness. We were. Also total silence. There weren't even any bug sounds. The wind wasn't blowing either. It was amazingly still. I've grown accustomed to the sound of machines when I'm outdoors here. If I sit in my yard I hear air conditioners, airplanes, cars, and music. But out there, about 80 miles from home, it was very quiet and dark.

Yes, we saw meteors. Quite a few--some small and quick, some large and lengthy. But it is a Slow-Motion Thrill. They don't come along very rapidly, one after and another, and only once did we see more than one at a time. It takes patience to star gaze. We finally packed up the lawn chairs and drove back to our cabin around 2:00 A. M. because we kept nodding off.

When I was 8, 9 or 10--I'm hoping one of my sisters will remember the timing of this event--our neighbor stopped by our house to get us to come outside and look at the sky. It was a cold, clear night in March (I remember the month because it was lambing season and that's why he was out late at night). I don't know if my parents were in bed yet, but I was, and he came knocking at our door in excitement for us to come out and look. I'll never forget the sight of hundreds of meteors zooming through the millions of stars. It was like fireworks, but completely silent. It was exhilarating and scary all at once. I wondered if it meant the end of the world was coming. I've never seen anything like it since, and I wish I knew what galactic event it was. I'd love to watch again the sight of so many shooting stars.

Stay Up All Night

You are here-by being given permission by your Mama to stay up late. Tonight is the peak viewing time for the annual Perseids meteor shower. Look in the NE sky to see lots of shooting stars. Cool Guy and I are driving out into the desert, far away from the Bright Lights, Big City with our lawn chairs, snacks and binoculars to watch. Of course, I don't have to get up and go to work tomorrow (cheers of delight fill the room) so we're sleeping out there, too, at Tecopa Hot Springs. So, anyway, let's get out there and enjoy the view.

Whoo-Whoo

I knew I could, I knew I could, I knew I could.

Another successful school year behind me: ie: no felonies committed.

But it was a close call for the last 20 minutes.

Last Day

I t h i n k I c a n
I t h i n k I c a n
I t h i n k I c a n

I think I can I think I can I think I can I think I can I think I can I think I can I think I can I think I can I think I can I think I can

IthinkIcanIthinkIcanIthinkIcanIthinkIcanIthinkIcanIthinkIcanIthinkIcan

My Alter Ego

I've turned into Mrs. H---, my seventh grade English teacher. It's not a good thing. She would sit on the edge of her desk and drone on about "self-discipline" and how we needed it. We'd yawn. Surreptitiously.

This week our character "Word of the Week" is self-discipline and today I wrote it on the board and droned on to my miserable students about how they needed it. The only thing missing was my sitting on the edge of my desk, with my skirt hiked up a little with a couple of inches of my doughy nylon-covered thigh showing. EEK--

Repeat after me: "Two More Days"

You know, I imagine that all of my readers (both of you) are entirely fatigued with hearing about my class this year. And I apologize for once again talking about it. But your fatigue cannot even begin to approach the fatigue I have with these students.

Again today I heard over and over the rudest things directed at---me! Whining about having to work, telling me that I could just go ahead and call her mother--her mother doesn't do anything to her when I do. Her mother "don't care" what I say. And the wandering around the room! And we were standing in the hallway taking turns with the restroom/drinking fountain when I asked two boys to step back because they were blocking the way for others who were coming down the hall. Their immediate reaction was to step out into the hall just a little further while watching my face for a reaction. I reached for a book a boy had picked up off another table when he was supposed to be listening to me. So he quickly thrust it out of my reach and waved it wildly around trying to prevent my taking it from him and replacing it. And laughed, and so did three of his friends. I could go on...but I won't because it makes my blood pressure go up again.

Wed, Thurs, then Fri when at 12:20 they leave the school grounds. I am signed up to check out at 3:15 and then I leave the school grounds. Tick tick tick---time will go by and hopefully I will have achieved another year of teaching w/o committing a felony. I sometimes have to really restrain myself.

This Adjective is for Cool Guy

earth sign mama -- [adjective]: Visually addictive 'How will you be defined in the dictionary?' at QuizGalaxy.com

Okay, okay, I'll stop now.

My Obit

'What will your obituary say?' at QuizGalaxy.com

And the best part is: if you don't like the one they first tell you--go back and click again till you like what they say!

The Definition

earth sign mama -- [noun]: A real life terminator 'How" will you be defined in the dictionary?' at QuizGalaxy.com

Okay, this is fun!!

The Personality Test

Okay, I read about this on Foxyj's blog and I thought it suited her EXACTLY. But I don't know about mine.

For instance: I "adopt new things immediately"--hah! I'm always being dragged kicking and screaming into the future---just ask Cool Guy about our first answering machine. But I am getting better at accessing new stuff. Hmmm... and the "low neurosis" part. Not so much. But you read and decide. On the other hand: extrovert? Well, ya.

Your Five Factor Personality Profile

Extroversion: You have high extroversion. You are outgoing and engaging, with both strangers and friends. You truly enjoy being with people and bring energy into any situation. Enthusiastic and fun, you're the first to say "let's go!" Conscientiousness: You have medium conscientiousness. You're generally good at balancing work and play. When you need to buckle down, you can usually get tasks done. But you've been known to goof off when you know you can get away with it. Agreeableness: You have high agreeableness. You are easy to get along with, and you value harmony highly. Helpful and generous, you are willing to compromise with almost anyone. You give people the benefit of the doubt and don't mind giving someone a second chance. Neuroticism: You have low neuroticism. You are very emotionally stable and mentally together. Only the greatest setbacks upset you, and you bounce back quickly. Overall, you are typically calm and relaxed - making others feel secure. Openness to experience: Your openness to new experiences is high. In life, you tend to be an early adopter of all new things and ideas. You'll try almost anything interesting, and you're constantly pushing your own limits. A great connoisseir of art and beauty, you can find the positive side of almost anything.

The Five Factor Personality Test