Watch Out for La Llarona Tonight

About 15 years ago I became aware of the Mexican mother's "Boogie Man"---La Llarona, or the Crying Lady. When I was student teaching in California I was trying to get the students to understand the concept of scary stories, and getting nowhere. My teacher stepped in and told me to ask the kids about "La Llarona" and I did, and suddenly all their faces lit up and their hands shot into the air. EVERYONE had a horrible, TRUE story about her. Their uncle had seen her, their grandma heard her outside the house, their mom, their cousin...someone. ALL TRUE!!

So I found a really great copy of this story (my version has no redeeming characters in it at all) in an anthology and every year I read it to my students. In Maryland, no one had every heard this story. But back here in the West, with about 1/3 of my class in my new school who speak Spanish at home, again, many TRUE LIFE stories of this scary lady.

This week we read one scary story each day, and the students were to rate it in their journal. Then today, after La Llarona, we voted and, of course, she won. Sometimes I don't know if it a good thing to read this. At nine years old, the students are still really believing, and if it comes from a book and their teacher is reading it...Well...But that's the whole point! If it isn't a little believable---it just isn't scary.

So, don't stay out too late tonight. And if you hear someone's wailing voice saying "Mis hijos!! Donde es mis hijos??" then you just better run really fast for home, because La Llarona is looking for some kids so she can get into heaven, and she isn't fussy about which kids they are.

A Real School

I'm sure you're tired of me blogging about my new work site, but I can't seem to get over how nice it is to work there in vivid contrast to the previous one.

For instance, tonight we had the annual Harvest Festival. It is a big fall carnival-like thing the PTO (instead of PTA) sponsors. The teachers all must participate (we have three mandatory evening events written into our contracts). So I asked the fourth grade teachers if they'd like to do face painting since I have a bunch of brushes, palettes, and craft paint, and I knew it was fairly easy and you get to sit, too.

We were a hit. I made a poster showing the six designs we'd make (jack-o-lantern, spider, ghost, hippie flower, that "S" from the Stussie company, and a peace sign.) If you set limits at the face painting booth, then you don't get requests for the logo of every sport's team or the skyline of Paris or something else too hard. We had a crowd lined up down the sidewalk and painted our fingers off until the party ended. We were all obligated to stay until 8:30 when the whole shebang was over (including an auction of donated items) and cleaned up.

But--the PTO ordered up deli sandwiches for all of us because we had to stay after school. At the face painting booth, the VP kept coming by and plying us with water and cupcakes (which we were too busy to consume) and everyone in the whole school just had just a great attititude about helping everyone with everything. And the families who came were polite, took turns, all the parents insisted their children thank us for our work...

I love working at a normal school again! I feel sad to know that the kids who go to the school where I worked before are just a small example of thousands of kids all over our country who live in big cities where very few of them are being raised by parents who teach them small things like saying thank-you and taking turns. Instead, they are living in a world where everyone just grabs and snatches because there may not be any left if you wait a turn, and there isn't any social reward for kindness. But there isn't any reason for this attitude. In this nation, there IS enough for all and plenty of ways for it to be accessed. But if no one ever teaches you to be polite and show regard for others and gratitude then you may think there isn't enough. Sad.

Su Troubles es Mi Troubles

I got a new job at church a couple of weeks ago: 1st counselor in Relief Society. If you're not a member of the LDS church, then that means that I'm part of a small group of women in charge of a large group of women. We attend to their spiritual and temporal needs. I've always liked RS because of the many friends I've made and talents I've cultivated, by necessity, through my involvement. And I don't mean craft talents: I mean leadership and service talents.

However, I haven't been in a leadership role in RS for at least six years. I was involved with little kids for most of that time, and although it requires a lot of effort (especially if you are the leader, and I was for at least half of that period) it is very different from leadership in RS.

Today, I learned of a death in a sister's family, sudden unemployment in another, and serious illness in a third. And those were just the ones I heard about. Today. The ramifications of my new church job are that all the sisters' troubles are now mine, too. I'm officially part of the triage team, the short-term care team, and the long-term care team. Whew. I forgot about this part. Good thing there are a lot of other willing hands and hearts.

It really drives home the need for us to make connections with others and help when we can, so we will have a network to help us when we need it. Because WE WILL NEED IT. It is inevitable that we will be receiving some day. I don't mean we should serve in a calculated, investment type of way. But that we should understand that we shouldn't live isolated lives, trying to do everything on our own in a mistaken sense that we can actually do that. We need other people. We need them so that we can get joy from helping them, and give others joy when they get to help us.

Even though I felt the weight of these sorrows from these ladies' lives descend on me today at church, I also felt the joy that I can actually do some small thing to help them. I have connections, I know people, I've been there and done that, so I can help them through this time. It's the best part of this religion.

Blaaahg

I realize that I haven't been blogging much lately and one reason is that I experience so much less outrage these days...

• because I changed schools, I have a much better working environment
• because I changed schools, my students' lives are more ordinary with fewer bizarre life problems
• because I changed schools, I don't drive much
• because I don't drive much I rarely have to deal with the many idiot drivers I formerly experienced
• because I changed schools, I rarely drive in that very poor part of town and so I don't see trash and graffiti and homeless people on a daily basis
• because I changed schools I don't have to experience the amazing rudeness of the other head secretary to many of the parents and some of the staff
• because I changed schools, I don't have high blood pressure
• because I changed schools I smile a lot more

So, I guess I mostly blogged as a way to whine and moan, huh?

24--the Copy of the Copy Cat

I decided I'd copy the Copy Cat and see if my last 24 have any compelling excitement.

10:00 P.M. Suddenly, I was totally exhausted, and instead of correcting anymore papers, I dropped into bed.

11:00 P.M. Awakened from dead sleep by the phone. It took a minute before I could figure out what the noise was. It was Cool Guy from Maryland. He'd just finished dinner/talk with some old friends and was calling me to say good night. He felt very badly about waking me. And it was unusual that I was asleep already at that time of night. His phone call was probably planned by Kitty Cat because I realized she wasn't sleeping beside me. She was peering through the patio door hoping, hoping, hoping I'd sense that she needed to come in.

4:30 A.M. Emergency! Emergency! Kitty Cat needs to go back out! Wake up and open the door! Get up! ok, ok...

6:38 A.M. My eyes snap open and I realize that it is far too light. Why didn't my alarm ring at 6:00? Oh, apparently last night, in my attempt to stop the noise, I reached over and turned down the sound on my radio/alarm clock. ACCKK!!

7:52 A.M. Hustle through the school door, 2 minutes late. Oops.

8:40 A.M. Bell rings and the marathon begins...

10:50 A.M. drop off my students to P.E. teacher, go to ladies room, then spend the rest of my planning time sitting in on a fifth grade class "observing"---a big pet program of our principal--watching other teachers to get ideas for your room. It's actually one of the most useful training tools ever.

11:40 A.M. Pick up class from P.E. Get everyone in line to go to lunch. Pass out lunch tickets. Get everyone back in line to go to lunch. Start down the sidewalk to cafeteria door. Stop. Get everyone to BE IN LINE, ONE BEHIND THE OTHER (not beside) LOOKING IN THE SAME DIRECTION AS YOUR FEET ARE MOVING, ON THE SIDEWALK. Drop off class to lunchroom.

11: 55 A.M. Eat part of lunch.

12:05 P.M. Return to cafeteria and pick up the students who come to my room for 3rd period. They earned total class detention for hideous behavior the previous day. We return to my classroom where I allow five students who consistently have excellent behavior leave for the playground. I rant a little, then set the timer for five silent minutes. I eat the rest of my lunch while the time ticks off the loooong minutes, then the students go up to the playground.

12:25 Rinse lettuce out of my teeth and go up to pick up my class. We arrive downstairs for the afternoon marathon. Second period comes in and act like model citizens. Yeah!

1:30 Third period comes in and act much, much better now that they know I really will put them in my room in lieu of recess.

2:30 Fourth period.

3:25 Direct chair stacking, trash pick up.

3:28 Lead wild, loud students out the door and onto playground where they are dismissed.

3:30 Stand watch over parents' drive up spot to load up their children. Today, no fist-fighting in the bike rack--good.

3:45 Write tomorrow's objectives on the board, grab up all my stuff and leave, two hours earlier than normal.

4:30 Physical therapist office for intake interview. My foot is deteriorating because of the incredible flatness and pronation. I'm learning some foot exercises to develop the muscles that will help support my feet better and strengthen them. But ultimately, granny-shoes with orthotics is in the future. Blah

6:00 eat my sandwich from Port O' Subs as I drive home in heavy traffic. Brush teeth at home, have shower, snatch up temple bag.

6:50 Slip onto the bench next to my friends at the temple.

9:30 Conclude conversation in the parking lot, go home, feed cat.

10:00 Iron clean laundry while watching "ER". Eat watermelon.

I guess it's not as exciting as poopy diapers and stitches in the emergency room, but I really thought after my kids grew up and left home, I'd have more unstructured time. Not yet.

A Real Horror Story for Halloween

On Foxyj's blog she complained today about various aspects of Halloween, so for those (two) of you who've never heard about why my children mostly have good teeth, here goes:

Our first little house, in which we lived till we got four kids, was not visible from the street and so no one ever came by to trick-or-treat on Halloween, thus preventing our children from learning about this tradition. I didn't promote it since I had never gone out on Halloween door to door as a child because I lived on a farm and we had no near neighbors. Instead, we'd dress in our costumes and go to a party always held at our church where the moms brought popcorn balls and fudge and we played at the "fish pond" and bean bag games. We all went home with some candy and had a fun night. In addition to our rural environment there was usually a lot of snow on the ground by Halloween and it was too darn cold to traipse around in the dark for candy.

By the time I had my own children I'd become a militant anti-candy, health food freak who baked and cooked every morsel my off-spring consumed, and so I was not about to send them out into the urban landscape to scavange for sugar. At their school there was a day-time party that mimicked the fun I'd had as a child complete with mothers and the fishpond game, so I was satisfied to make their little costumes and go help with the school party and call it a holiday. In fact, as a little girl, Foxyj once said she liked Halloween because "We can just have fun and not have to think about the "deeper meaning" because there isn't one." True!

Well, finally we had to move to a different house. We needed more room. The next house was on a normal street and when Halloween came around, so did the trick-or-treaters. And now my children had become the age where they realized that they, too, could go out and get the goodies. I finally caved in and let them go. BUT---here were the rules:

• you could only go to two blocks
• when you got home, you had to dump out all the candy
• then you sorted it: one for the kid, two for the mother
• she passed her share back out the door to other kids

So, that is why our children do not have the extensive dental restorations that their mother has. And it is also the reason why in college they always won the "Weirdest Parents" story telling contest. Their parents concealed Halloween from them for nearly a decade.

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