December 25 & 26

December 25 - Car loaded with gifts and more sweets than any hundred people would need, we drove the hour and 45 minutes south to Sis2's house. This was a year when all four sibs, their significant others, niece, nephew, and their significant others celebrated together. Gifts were opened first in a wild flurry of tissue paper, gift wrap, boxes and bags, some of which were gifts themselves. Kaleidoscopes, paperwhite bulbs, scarves, chocolate covered cherries, Texas pecans, windshield cleaners, sweaters, motion-activated toy dogs, slippers, books, framed antique hand drawn maps, and other various and sundry items were exchanged with joy and pleasure. Then followed dinner.

Nephew, the former sous chef and current free lance caterer, designed the menu and cooked the meal with the assistance of his better half: roast ribs of lamb, duck confit over cherries and cranberries, seafood casserole, creamed spinach, Caribbean wild rice salad, brussels sprouts with bacon, onion and mushrooms, and pureed parsnips. Everything was delicious, and the wine flowed freely.

After dinner some indulged in strenuous games on the Wii a la projection screen tv, some in conversation and beverages, some in sweet desserts, and some in all three. It was clear that there was way too much food, both dinner and dessert, but the tradition among my sibs is to fill tubs, tins and tupperware with leftovers to enjoy later or the next day, so it never goes to waste. Sis2's hubby had requested shortbread and 7 layer bars, so extra was made just for him. I could have left the variety of chocolates and the banana split ingredients at home because they weren't touched. I'll be baking banana breads tomorrow and having sliced bananas for breakfast for a few days, and that's a fine thing.

The drive home began in light and unexpected snow, so I was wary of the roads, but where it was snowing the air temps were above freezing, and when the snow stopped and the temperature dropped, the roads were clear. The trip was fairly easy, and the dog was glad to see us. Getting home a little after our usual dinnertime was nice because that gave us the evening to unpack and unwind. I tried out the heating, vibrating neck wrap that my husband gave me. Delightful!

December 26 - Christmas II began at a nice leisurely pace with a special Christmas coffee and no rush to wrap gifts and package goodies. Today was a smaller gathering of just us sibs with Mom and her beau.

After we located her at her boyfriend's apartment, we gave Mom some small gifts: a deep pink cyclamen, three packages of Christmas-style Peeps, a scarf, some bubble wrap (she loves to sit and pop it), a large package of Klondike bars, two bird feeders to attach to the outside of her windows, and some birdfeed. Her beau had asked Sis2 to pick out some red slippers for her and bring them to her, from him, which she did, but Mom kept trying to give the package to him to open, misreading the "To" and "From" label on the wrapping. We each gave him small gifts too - a soft scarf, some candy, a toy for his cat. Then, per her request, we went out to lunch.

Her favorite Asian restaurant is in a shopping plaza, so that's where we ate. It was a short drive but I was able to spend it with my brother, catching up on the end of a conversation begun yesterday about retiring. Even though he's six years younger than I am, it seems we're in about the same mental place when it comes to our careers. Sis3 drove herself so she could have a smoke, and Sis2 played chauffeur for the couple. Seated at a round table in an alcove, we helped Mom and her significant other choose from among a bewildering array of options, locating her beloved shrimp and veggies. We enjoyed our various plates, and then we returned to their apartment building for a few group photos a la little brother's camera with its self timer. Sis3 left first, her two-hour attention span spent, and I left next after listening to little brother gently questioning the boyfriend about his past and the boyfriend describing his life from high school football player to his former career working with the Yellow Pages. Mom's new flame seems to be a nice, solvent man with just a little less forgetfulness than she has, and they seem to be happy. Nevertheless, I think we were all glad that there was no talk today of them getting married.

Back home, advertised bad weather not yet arrived, I put my feet up for a bit before starting our own Christmas dinner: slices of hickory smoked spiral ham, fresh asparagus, and mashed potatoes, simple and delicious.

It's been a full three days, a long one of preparation and two of time with family, celebrating Christmas with gifts and meals together. I'm looking forward to having very little on my plate and plenty of time to accomplish it.

Christmas

I'm sitting here eating a ham sandwich, looking at the Christmas tree that's decorated with tiny blue lights, strands of silver garland, and various ornaments as I enjoy the sunlight streaming in through the front windows. The kitchen is so cluttered with ingredients and utensils that finding a place where I could slice the roll open was a challenge. I'm still not sure what my future nephew in law is getting for the "stocking" type of gift, but I'll think of something. And I'm truly in denial that tomorrow is Christmas.

Perhaps the denial has set in because I was working until around this time yesterday, and each day at work requires almost entire concentration upon the job at hand. I'm still not 100% after the bout with laryngitis and the cough that seemed to bring it on, so it was no wonder, after we spent half an hour in the spa, that I kept dozing on the couch, missing most of whatever television shows were amusing my spouse and our pup. I'd found enough energy the night before to bake several dozen cookies for my students who were in attendance on the last school day for 2009, but I haven't begun to wrap any gifts yet. There will be time enough.

Tomorrow, around this time, we'll be digesting Christmas dinner at the home of my sister who lives almost 2 hours south of us, and we'll be enjoying the gifts we've exchanged. The host sister has offered to help me extract the dead hard drive from my aging laptop, so that'll keep us busy while the others watch sports events on their new large screen television. Then it's back home again to liberate the dog who'll spend the day sleeping on the furniture, and who'll be so glad to see us that he'll even share his new squeaky toys with us.

The next day, around this time, we four siblings will be dining with Mom and her beau. Somehow, she was convinced that the lengthy drive to Sis2's house would be unpleasant enough for her that she'd be miserable the whole time she was there, and the tradeoff was luncheon at her favorite (although she complains about something on her plate each time she dines there) "Chinese" restaurant, just the six of us. I have the feeling that her boyfriend Bob might just announce that they've decided to get married, and that worries me a bit since none of us including Mom knows the details of his financial situation, his health, his track record. Another issue is that, if they decide to move in together, marriage or not, even her apartment which is larger than his isn't room enough for two people who each insist upon living conditions (eg. he has a cat and she's sensitive to them) that don't go over well with the other. On the other hand, this is her life. None of us can stop her decisions unless we have her declared incompetent, and that's not likely to happen for a variety of reasons. All we can hope is that her choices end up being good ones, as any parents hope for their children. Yes, that's where we are now: the child is father to the man, as they say. With luck, Saturday will be just a lovely luncheon and no other momentous occasion.

My sandwich is finished, the oven has beeped that it's preheated enough, and the kitchen calls to me. Perhaps listening to carols on the local radio station, munching candy canes, and baking our perennial favorites will give me a better sense of impending Christmas 2009. To anyone reading this, I hope yours is peaceful and joyous!

Voiceless

Once in a great while I lose my voice. I'm not referring to a scratchy voice or even a quiet one. I mean it's just gone. When I try to speak, air comes out. Not even a squeal or squeak emits from my throat. That's my condition today. Waldo could still hear my whispers as I stayed home from work to try to rest and get rid of the cold in my throat, but I didn't bother to answer the phone. What good would it have done?

At times like this I realize how much I use my voice without thinking about it. This evening it didn't matter if my husband sat in his recliner nearby or a room upstairs because he couldn't hear me in either place. I had to face him and whisper slowly so he could read my lips. I couldn't scold the dog when he grabbed my package of cough drops. I couldn't sing along with my favorite ads. I couldn't curse or even mutter when we lost our internet connection tonight and I had to troubleshoot.

When we lose electricity, I know we can stumble along, especially in the winter when the wood stove works for heat and cooking, and even the food in the freezer can be rescued with snow packed in coolers. When I lose my ability to use a body function that's significant to my normal daily life, that's when I really recognize its value. I'll have a challenging day tomorrow as I return to the classroom because I'll want to speak but I'll only be able to whisper...or use a little whistle I keep in my purse...and I'm hoping the kids will be kind to me. Perhaps the ones who have had The Cold this fall will feel some empathy and my day will be well, if silently, spent.

100

Blogger says this is my 100th post. Do I feel pressure to make it noteworthy? No more than I have the past 99 times!

Today the sun rose on the first snow of winter. We had some white stuff back in October, but that didn't count because ... well, because it was October and clearly the snow wouldn't last. December snow has at least a chance of sticking around. This snowfall began yesterday afternoon, and it didn't whiten the road as I was driving home from the next to last craft fair of the season, so I wondered if it would actually accumulate. By dinnertime, the railing on the front porch was covered with almost two inches of fluffy flakes. That was promising! Each time Waldo went outside to do his thing, he tiptoed around the cold white ground, sniffing it and the air, and returning to the door with muzzle and beard caked with clumps of snow. Apparently he doesn't mind this change to his environment because one of those times outdoors he spent sitting on his favorite spot, watching traffic drive past as though nothing had changed, while the snow gathered on his little head. He had fun coming inside and shaking the moisture off himself and onto us.

He also had a different brand of fun today. My husband, who had arthroscopic surgery on his knee on Friday, and who is making wonderful, fast progress in his recovery, decided on his first day able to drive that he'd take the dog when he went in to town to purchase a Sunday newspaper and get a little fresh air. He did make sure that he had his cellphone with him which turned out to be very fortunate. The first mistake was choosing to get the fresh air on a local logging road which is little more than the remnants of two wheel ruts that run from a side road well into woods and up the side of a mountain. The second mistake was to let the dog off his leash.

We've discovered that, sometime in his puppy past, Waldo must have been treated very badly and chased to be caught, so it took us months to get him to willingly come back into the house from the yard when he was let out not on a leash or lead, and to get him into the truck (the Big Honkin' Truck, that is) or even my car, he had to be leashed from inside the house and led by the leash to get into the vehicle. It feels odd to us because our previous dogs have LOVED going for car rides, but not this one.

About twenty minutes after my husband had left in the truck, the phone rang. His voice in my ear told me that Waldo was loose and wouldn't get back into the truck. Good thing he'd brought his phone to call and tell me! I picked up a couple of large dog biscuits, tossed on my fleece jacket and snow boots, and headed out. The logging road area looks different in the snow, so I drove past the entrance and had to turn around to return to it. I didn't dare pull in because I haven't yet had the snow tires put on my car, and it isn't good in that type of snowy road, so I left it up on the side road. What followed was a 90 minute exercise in frustration and patience.

Long story short, we tried lots of tricks to lure him close enough to catch, but we had no luck. The mister had to sit down periodically to rest his leg, and each time I was close enough to make an attempt at catching him, Waldo would dart away. I could sometimes touch his fur but I couldn't grab anything that would slow him down, so of course that charged him up even more. Finally, we tried slowly driving away, the truck in the lead and me following in the car. As he does in our yard, the dog trotted off after the truck and he kept looking back at me. We knew that there was no hope of getting home via this little-used back road because it ended at the state highway, but we thought there might be a break in the situation if we traveled about half a mile along it. Fortunately, that's what happened: the truck stopped and my husband got out, I stopped my car and got out, and the dog was tired enough that he lay down in the snow at the side of the road to rest, so I was able to slip my hand under his collar and secure him. What a relief! This little guy couldn't endure much time out in the woods after the sun lowered, the air grew cold, and the prowling animals caught scent of him.

So now the fire crackles in the wood stove, the patient is giving his knee a little extra TLC, reading the Sunday papers that I brought home to him, and taking it easy, the furry little boy lies on the dining room carpet resting up from his adventures, and I'm here, sipping some warm coffee and counting my blessings that my boys are both at home with me, safe and sound. I never did get out to take pictures of the first snow, but there will be other snowfalls even prettier, so I'm in no rush to go out wandering ... as opposed to these two males who seem to have wanderlust in their genes.

Taxing

Once again I've encountered someone who's complaining about taxes. I don't like giving away something I've earned just because someone says I have to any more than the next person, but I think those who are vehement in their complaints are missing a point. Where do they think the funding for running the country comes from?

We expect our roads to be paved, or at least safe to travel, plowed in the winter, and repaired in the summer. What funds the Department of Transportation's budget?

We expect that schools will educate our children so they can carry on the legacy we've created and even better our lives. Where does the school budget money originate?

We expect the police to protect us, from the local officers to state and federal officers. Who pays their salaries? Who provides the weapons and the vehicles, their offices and the record keeping? We certainly don't expect them to provide these for themselves.

We expect that our military forces protect and defend our freedoms and keep our enemies at bay. Who pays for everything involved in that process? Who pays for their retirement when they're done active duty? Who pays for their education that's guaranteed them when they leave the service?

We expect that the legitimately disadvantaged will be taken care of, the developmentally delayed, the catastrophically injured, the victims of crime or disaster. Where do those funds come from?

We expect the courts and the legal system to work properly to protect our rights. How can that happen if the judicial branch of the government isn't funded by all the people who have the right to use it? Are judges supposed to donate their time out of the goodness of their hearts? Are court stenographers and baliffs supposed to count their time simply as community service and hold other jobs, too, in order to pay their bills?

I'm sure I've forgotten some other significant examples, but I think the point is clear: if we citizens expect to benefit from things provided by our country (aka "The Man" and "the government"), then we need to foot the bill for these services, so suck it up and pay your just due.

Helpless

I'm glad that I don't have to grow up again. There seems to be less patience in the world than there was back when life was a bit slower. No microwave ovens, no cellphones or even touchpad phones, no calculators, no transistor radios or color televisions capable of drawing in signals from over 200 channels, no computers, no souped up cars or superhighways, no instant photography or information saving devices, no scanners of any type, no email or internet... how did we get along with all these conveniences that make our life faster? We cooked on the stovetop and in the oven, cranked or turned the telephone dial and waited for the operator, and had to do it at home or from a public pay phone. We used paper and pencil, perhaps a sliderule, our fingers and toes, and our own brains to do the math. We listened to crackly AM stations for news and music on the one radio in the kitchen. The one television that we were lucky to have weighed more than my father, had a viewing screen the size of a dinner plate, and took five or six minutes to warm up its tubes before we could watch the only two channels it could receive during a 16 hour time slot each day. The library or our own set of encyclopedias, or even someone older and wiser were the sources of information for our research. Perhaps we read the daily paper if we were well enough off to afford that luxury, or we listened to the evening news. Cars were big, heavy, and safe but they moved slowly along the surface roads and occasionally the state highways, and it took a while to get anywhere. Rolls of film, mostly black and white, were sent away through the drug store to be developed and printed, and we'd anxiously wait the week or so that the process took to see our priceless photographs, carefully putting them into albums and preserving the negatives in case we wanted more prints. Information we saved on paper or in our heads. We knew what the police were doing when someone overheard a conversation or was there and passed along the news by word of mouth or, if the story were big enough, by phone call or radio. Store clerks had to go look at lists to discover prices if they didn't know them. Baggage carried hand-written tags. We hand wrote cards, letters, thank you notes, applications and requests, addressed the envelopes, licked and applied the stamps, trusted them to the post office, and waited days for the messages to get to their destinations.

This isn't a complaint but more of an observation about the path that life in our society has traveled in the past 50 or 60 years. I'm glad to be part of a generation that's lived in both worlds, the slower and more deliberate, and the faster and more convenient. Still, there are some dilemmas that remain.

One such dilemma is how someone can determine the line between being a tattletale and getting into trouble for standing up to a bully. Adults have to make those decisions, but their life experience and savvy usually help them to decide the best plan of action at the time. Kids, on the other hand, usually have a tougher time.

Take the case of the kid who likes to taunt and belittle others, also called using verbal abuse. It can make my hands itch to slap the perpetrator, but then that person is so damaged already with his need to diminish and torture people more vulnerable than he that it's certainly not going to do any good, so I refrain. But I'm the adult. What about the victim? Or the victim's friend? What are their choices? "Turn the other cheek" works only for a while because the bully often raises the ante with more vicious words or by physical approach, but rarely crossing the line with touch. Telling an adult brands the victim as a tattletale, adding to his already perceived weakness. Telling the bully to stop only works in the opposite, urging him on because, clearly, his goal is being reached, and he wants more fulfillment. Friends stepping in can be of help in going to an adult as a group or just being physically present to display a larger support which can disable the bully at least temporarily, but he'll usually come back. However, sometimes a single friend's actions can simply inflame the perpetrator, and if the friend feels strongly enough to address the bully himself, verbally or even physically with a hand, a shove, or something more, then the waters become terribly muddy. Then it can become two against one, in the bully's version, and of course the two will testify against the one. How can the full and accurate view of the situation be made clear? Often, it can't.

I have no answers for this problem. I saw it happen as a child, and I still see it happening among children of high school age or even older. I will say that part of kidlife is to do and learn things on your own, hiding some of the activities and knowledge from your parents as you separate from them, but there are some things that kids need to share with adults because kids aren't yet ready to cope with them all. How to determine what to share and when? That's a tough thing to teach, and at times I feel quite helpless about knowing how to do it.

News

This post comes to you from my new laptop. My tiny silver PowerBook (I call her Sweetie) has been a real workhorse for me for the past five years or so, and lately she's begun making nasty growling noises when I move her when she's running. That's a sign I heed. I've lost a few computers in the heat of summer or when the hard drive just went bad, but the last two deaths have been preceded by odd noises. Before Sweetie makes the trip to the happy place in cyberspace, I decided to add yet another Mac to my collection to take some of the burden off her.

Let me introduce you to my MacBook Pro. I haven't named it yet because I haven't had it long enough to feel its personality, but I suspect that'll happen soon as I have time to use it. This is the 15.4" version with a screen large enough to keep me from squinting at the images on it. The keyboard is backlit, a huge improvement for use in low light conditions. The power cord feels sturdier than the one that came with Sweetie who's gone through two of them in her lifetime, so I'm optimistic that this one will last a little longer. I love the way the oversized trackpad works, too: one finger works with the typical taps, two fingers dragged work like the nub or wheel in a mouse. It's also in one piece with no separation between tap and click areas. Two 1x4" speaker grills (with minuscule holes) sit on the outer edges of the keyboard and the speakers provide plenty of clear, loud audio. Can you tell I'm liking this machine?

Of course the downside is the price tag. Because I teach, there's a small Education Discount. Because it's a laptop, I opted for the extended care plan. Because I like the features of Microsoft Office apps, and I want to use the computer to connect to an LCD projector, the software and the adapter were part of the deal. But I'm willing to pay the cost for a fast, reliable, stable machine that always does what it's supposed to do. The hp laptops we're required to use at work don't come close to any Mac I've ever owned. I'm very happy with my purchase.

end and beginning

The sports teams that I support are shifting as of tonight: the Red Sox lost the American League Division Series today in three straight games, the Patriots won their game against Denver this afternoon, and KG is back, showing his strength in pre-season games. I watch the games with interest, but I don't have the same avid attention and passion for the games as the guy who sits in that recliner in the living room. He'll gladly turn his yelling at the television from umpires to referees and not miss a beat. "Plus ca change, plus la meme chose," is the way the French express it: The more things change, the more they remain the same.

I've been spending time on Facebook lately which is why I've neglected this spot. I'm going to try to balance my online time better, so posts here should resume with more regularity. The good thing is that there's nothing of earthshattering importance that I haven't posted here. Mother is doing well in her assisted living apartment, Sis3 has put weight back on and has begun to work part time. The other siblings and relatives are well, and so far my husband and I have had a few cold symptoms, but the flu has avoided us. Waldo is slowly behaving better and better, although we continue to find things that make him crazy or that scare him. We are adjusting to each other pretty well. Our Jotul wood stove has proven itself to be more than competent at heating the house (yes, we've needed a fire in the stove several times already) so we feel it was a good purchase. The other purchase that's being made is a new MacBook Pro for me. My little titanium PowerBook is making funny noises, and I don't want to be without a working Mac laptop, so the new one is on its way to me. Other than these things, and some new concerns at school that are slowly being worked out, life goes on much the same as it has.

This four-day weekend is a boost for me, giving me time to unwind and catch up on a few things while also taking a trip to Salem MA to see witch territory and attending a craft fair and apple festival in a nearby town. Thank you, Christopher Columbus!

dvr

After looking at the cable bill instead of just paying the monthly fee, I decided to send back their high-channel, high-rent machine and buy our own digital signal dvr. One advantage I'll miss is the cable company's ability to save programmed timer recorder settings and reset the clock automatically after a power outage (hmmm maybe a small UPS unit might help preserve these now?), but I have issues with paying an extra $35 to $40 on a monthly basis for that service. We never used the upper tier cable channels, so there's no loss there in moving back to basic cable, and if I'm too lazy to reset the clock and the two timer recorder settings, then I have more problems than I've realized. The new machine will pay for itself in less than 6 months, and we can watch some of our collected dvd's on it, too, something we needed a separate machine - and another remote - to accomplish. Learning which remote controls what may take a day or two, and the live recording feature will take a little getting used to, but that may come in very handy when we suddenly have company, the phone must be answered, a spontaneous moment strikes, or something else as unplanned occurs.

For once there's a dilemma in late night shows: Letterman has Ken Burns and Mike Meyers, and Conan has Meryl Streep, Judd Apatow and The Fray. Both look appealing, so I guess I'll play the flicking back and forth game. Still, I greatly look forward to Sept. 14 when Leno returns.

Speaking of returning, Jerry Remy makes his reappearance with Don Orsillo for Friday night's Red Sox game with the Yankees. I'm sooooo glad he's back!

Hazy, hot and humid weather feels like it's breaking this evening. We didn't get the rain that other areas nearby felt in late afternoon, but the evening air has a better feel to it than it's had since last week. Sleeping tonight may be a much easier and more restful experience.

Listening to the quiet

My VT sister in law has just left, having stayed here overnight on her annual visit. (She's the one I hooked on making jewelry, and now her pieces outshine mine in size and scope.) We had lunch, talked beading, ate dinner with my husband out on the screen porch, and talked about people, teaching, families, health care, how things have certainly changed over recent years. This morning, breakfast was more of the same: beverages, food and talk. And more talk. Rather, I listened quite a bit and offered a sentence here and there. A visit to my bead lady under our belts, we returned to the homestead for lunch and...you guessed it...more talk, this time about places in VT that my husband knew and their history up to the present, including their connection with sis in law. Lunch over, she gathered her things and new purchases, and she headed westward.

This current experience reminds me, as I sit in the near silence consisting of the drone of two fans running in my vicinity, that many people who find themselves living alone and have little contact with others need to talk when they have an audience. Phone calls from one of my relatives who lives alone and who doesn't get out much typically last an hour or more, and my husband can tell she's on the other end because at least 80% of my speech consists of, "Oh?" and "Uh huh." He also has a sibling who's retired and who "can't seem to stop talking" when he phones him to check up on him. "He never used to talk this much!" my spouse observes after each telephone session as he rubs his ear to get back the circulation.

Because so much of my career time - teaching and selling jewelry and notecards - involves conversation, speaking with and listening to people, and because at heart I'm an introvert, I cherish my quiet time. When I've been alone and then I'm with someone else, the conversation can overload my senses. I make a conscious transition from listening to my own thoughts to sharing the airspace with my companion, and sometimes I'm not terribly quick about it. Thankfully, my husband understands this quirk of mine. He often eases into talk when he returns home - unless it's something about his cross country or track teams - and he gives me space to spend in relative quiet, not taking offense at this need of mine. I'm a lucky gal.

So right now, I'm at peace, the monotonous voices of the fans keeping me company. Their kind of noise I can enjoy any time.

RIP

(I couldn't post this in the same item as my mini-vent.)

Friday morning I lost a colleague and friend in a senseless car accident. She was driving to judge a competition when someone rear-ended her on the highway, her car spun out of control and went into the median, and she struck a tree. Mercifully, she died instantly. Rain, fog, and excessive speed of the other driver appear to be the factors. Suddenly, a young (42) woman who had been part of our work family was gone.

The information reached us erratically, first from television reports, then in articles on web pages, and then the confirmation by school administration. Phone "trees" don't work well during summer vacation when people are in/out/about/on vacation. But then suddenly the bad news is everywhere. I'd forgotten that she was a former Miss NH, and that aspect of her life made her much more a public figure than some of us were ready to see on the evening news last night.

It's still not real to me, and it won't be until I walk into the building and know with more finality that she's not there. Not only are her family members affected(she's divorced, no kids, but has two brothers, her mother, and a niece), but we teachers, her summer school students and the kids who thought she'd be their teacher for the upcoming school year will feel the impact, too. She was a part of the theatre crowd, directing, being a stagehand, acting and singing, and she often encouraged her students to understand the literature they read by acting out portions of it. Educationally, her focus was on her students, providing a balance of holding them accountable and supporting them in their growth.

Socially, Deb had experienced a short marriage and a divorce, a period of dating, and most recently, an increase in her serenity among her friends. She was feeling strength as an independent woman. Odd as it may sound, I'm glad that was her frame of mind at the time when her life unexpectedly ended because it means that there was less turmoil to trouble her and carry with her.

Yes, this kind of tragedy does make me much more aware of the fragility and unpredictability of my own life and of my loved ones. I may or may not be leery of driving that stretch of highway in foggy, rainy conditions, but I will be more aware of each day as an opportunity to enjoy my life and my friends and family while we're all here. I'm just sorry that it took this kind of circumstance to bring the message home to me so vividly.

RIP, Deb.

grrrr...

Why do men in some countries automatically think that American women are stupid? (Then again maybe it's not limited to American women...)

I work in and online Help Desk, and sometimes a male client will arrive asking technical questions. That's fine, and I do know that being a Mac aficionado, my PC knowledge is less sure and extensive, but when I give an answer and it's scorned and then a male helper gives the same response and it's readily accepted, I fume. I also simply back out of Help Desk before I say something unbecoming, like WTF???

Good stuff

The sugar snap pea plants that looked terribly shriveled from the lack of sun a couple of weeks ago are producing enough peas that we've had a couple of meals with them. There's something so satisfying about eating veggies you've grown.

Waldo, the not so magnificent - also known as the little furry bitey boy - has taken to the run that we put between the front door and a maple tree across the yard. He seems to enjoy it, in fact. We've also discovered that he prefers his water and food bowls in the living room, up on the hearth, so he can eat and slurp on his own schedule with us nearby. He still hasn't eliminated his nightly tear around the downstairs, but at least it's shorter and he quiets down a little more quickly.

The new vacuum cleaner works like a dream. It picks up dog hair and all the sand tracked in by rain damp shoes, boots, and paws. It's also truly picking up more dirt than the previous ones, and its dirt cup is truly easier to empty. Now if it'll last for a while, I'll be a happy homemaker!

I found two sets of nice, almost new summer (percale, not flannel) sheets tucked away in a drawer in the guest room. Added to the collection I already had on the shelves in the bathroom, they give me lots of options and I won't have to buy any more sheets for the beds for quite a while.

I realized today that I still have a little more than a month left before I have to become the schoolmarm again. Woo hoo!

The Canadian rocker that Sis3 gave me a couple years ago fits nicely into the corner of the dining room so I have a really comfy place to sit and read with a cup of tea.

Four of my dad's nutcrackers look nice lined up on the dining room table. To me, those and his neckties are such a part of him that I'm glad to own them.

I was able to find a frame and glass large enough to accommodate the family genealogy wheel that needs a new frame. I have my own copy, but this one belongs to my mother, and the glass was the only casualty of her move into her assisted living suite. Since it was my fault for being careless with it, I'm the one to reframe it. I was afraid it might need to be a cu$tom job, but I think this will work just fine, and the frame is nicer, in my opinion, than the old one.

I was able to find a couple of plastic bins and a tote case in which I can transport the open trays of my jewelry to craft fairs. I've tried a wire tray and a laundry basket, covering the trays with fleece to keep the items in their open boxes and dry, but in rain and snow they could be awkward to carry. These will fit on a luggage dolly so I'll be able to load and unload quickly and without fear of my product being compromised in the rain. The notecards are already in plastic sleeves, but I'll use one oversized plastic bag to keep the revolving display dry and the other one to transport the table covers. At least everything will start out dry!

The black lamb leather jacket that I ordered on sale online from Wilson Leather fits like it was made for me and it feels buttery soft, as advertised. Sometimes the descriptions and the size charts aren't very truthful. Shock! But this time the advertising was completely accurate. Of course I won't be wearing it soon due to rain and warm(ish) weather, but I know it's there when I want it.

After diligent searching, I located the woven cotton summer blanket for our bed and the pink and white quilted comforter to give to my sister. I seem to have no organization as to where I store bedding, so I need to get on that.

Finally, Sis3 is truly back in the fold. Having health care professionals who are actually paying attention to her overall condition and providing also better nutritional regimens and more effective meds in addition to down to earth therapy has really helped her. There's still a long way to go, but she's looking healthier and she's committing to visiting Mom weekly for lunch, and to accompanying her to some local health appointments. Selfishly, I'm happy that her stepping up will relieve some of the burden I've been carrying alone for the past year or so. I think it's also going to help her mental health recovery to have a better relationship with Mom than she did in her past.

All good stuff :)

Balance part 2

As a January baby, I'm familiar with the two-headed Roman god Janus, protector of entrances and exits, of comings and goings. That duality carries over to the Chinese yin-yang symbol, black and white segments that fit together, each with a part of the other in itself. These, more than Libra's scales, mean, to me, balance.

In my last post I tempted the gods by expressing my joy with the apparent perfection of life, so of course they smacked me down later the same day, not badly but clearly.

The short version: phone call from someone at Mom's new digs asking if I could drive her to a doctor's appointment that's in an hour (I live 45 minutes away) to see about the pain in her back. From when she fell on July 5. What? Several emails among sisters later, I find that Mom had slid off her couch and landed hard on the carpeted floor, cracking her tailbone. Apparently she'd both complained about the pain off and on in the interim and refused treatment, but once the diagnosis of fracture became official, she's taking ibuprofen for it and feeling more comfortable. Other emails to care manager and medical overseer in her building confirmed that communication had somehow broken down, and that the services like transportation to appointments are offered with details in fine print that my sibs and I are now beginning to see.

I'm glad that Mom has less pain and is more comfortable physically, that she's feeling safe and "at home" there as Sis3 related to me, and that she's not upset that the singer and his pregnant wife (her auditory hallucinations) have returned, but this incident was a wakeup call that even with caregivers 24/7 in the assisted living situation, Mom still requires watching by family. And so do the workings of the assisted living place.

Many of our plants in the garden and in windowboxes more or less drowned in the month of rain, but one of the surprises has been the flourishing of our roses. The old fashioned white and pink rosa rugosas and the new Mister Lincoln red roses smell sweet and delicious enough to eat, and the two bush roses by the posts in the yard have produced dozens of gorgeous blooms. Even the totally neglected deep pink roses on the eastern end of the house seem to have doubled in size, and the blossoms are large and aromatic. Out of this spate of terrible unsummery weather has come this floral blessing. Once again, there is balance.

Oh happy day

The sun is out, the air is dry, the breeze is light, I've finished today's chores and it's just barely noon. The vacuum cleaner I picked up at Home Depot is a winner, picking up more sand and dog hair than I could've imagined. The replacement reel fits the cordless string trimmer so the mister will be able to neaten up the yard when he gets home from his open track session. The homemade chicken vegetable soup tastes even better after it's been refrigerated overnight, and I remembered to write down the recipe. I have three books going and one to which I need to return - it's been dormant since late April - but I also have the desire to make pretty things out on the porch of my shop. Yes, today life is very good.

An observation

Re: Facebook

Sometimes I just roll my eyes at the excess information on my screen that I did NOT need to know.
TMI, folks. This IS a public website, don'tchaknow.

Where's the rest?

For me, there are two kinds of vacation: the active ones when I'm/we're on a trip or investigating interesting places, and the restful ones when I can relax and regenerate. So far this year has been the former, in spades.

Two days after our final day at school, little mister Bitey Boy came to live with us after being with my sister for about seven months. Being a rescued dog (from GA; no information about circumstances), he's somewhat a mystery. We think he'll be a year old in mid August. We think he's mostly terrier. We know that he has fits of insane energy in the later part of each day. We know he's smart, curious, persistent, headstrong, and unwilling to be pushed away or told no. He can be a cute, sweet cuddler, but he also paws at me with his strong little claws and nips or bites if I don't pay attention to him. He's a puppy, still, and we're only in week three of our lives together, and he's better than he was the first few days, but he still has to be leashed when he's outdoors and watched when he's indoors. Restful? I think not.

Three days after that, the focus on my mother went from several days a week to a daily deal for two solid weeks, some days from early morning to evening. Paperwork, phone calls, visits to counselor and doctor, more paperwork, measuring the new suite and making accurate floor plans, emailing siblings at length each day to keep them apprised of the situation, and then the nuts and bolts of The Big Move overwhelmed any other responsibilities. Personalities had to be taken into consideration, real and perceived heirlooms had to be accounted for, clothing and possessions were taken in truckloads and armloads to the new suite, and time was spent daily with Mom. It was a long haul but I came to understand better my propensity to be a packrat, and my goal for this summer is to simplify my own house as a result. I'm thinking that, now, my energies can be focused here at home for this endeavor with only one of her medical appointments for me to attend in August. The audiologist will have the results of a hearing test, and he'll give us an idea if we should investigate further with a neurologist.

The other concern is my life as an artisan. My shop exists in name only, at this point, since I haven't put out the OPEN flag even once this season. That means my income will flow from sales at the bakery gift shop - and the Lake bracelet of which I've already made seven - and two other shops in town (more upscale gift shop that asked for some bracelets to sell on consignment, and a hairdresser who displays consignment items from good quality artisans in her shop), and from craft fairs. It used to be that the craft fair season began with the Hebron Fair on the last Saturday in July, but now it begins a month earlier, and I'm sitting under my tent or at indoor tables every other Saturday. I already have one under my belt, and I had to stay up late a few nights to make product for it. The next one is this coming Saturday, and there's been much less of a scramble to get ready for it. This is the kind of activity that can be relaxing so I've been craving more time to do it.

The most restful pleasure in which I've been able to indulge twice so far is reading outdoors. I have three books going, and another that begs to be read, so I'm greatly anticipating the arrival of more sunny days, or even half days. Making jewelry and reading outdoors are such joys that they allow me to feel wealthy and satisfied. When we can figure out how to manage the Furry Little Bitey Boy (FLBB) and not have to supervise or avoid his teeth every waking moment, I'll be happy to read and bead and gain some much needed rest.

A Moving Experience

Mom is moved into her suite in assisted living. Hooray!

For the last week before The Big Move, she talked about how glad she'd be to move away from the voices she's been hearing and into the new place that felt so much better than her apartment building. What a relief it was to find her looking forward to the nice two-room suite with large bathroom and huge walk-in closet in assisted living. She's still part of the retirement community where she's lived since my dad passed away, so some of the personnel are the same, but the level of attention to the residents is tremendously different. Independent living means just that: people live in apartments (with buttons for calling emergency personnel in medical emergencies), and although there are activities, people are considered entirely self-sufficient so the social life within the building depends on residents going out of their rooms to attend them. Residents decide whether to cook their own meals or purchase them in the cafe. Most still drive, they manage their own lives, and they don't require much of any help. At this point in her life, my mother needs much more than that, so assisted living is the best option.

In this facility's assisted living residence, the two wings are large squares with the suite doors opening onto a common balcony that overlooks the floor below. There are many large and nicely appointed sitting spaces for daily coffee klatches in the morning, viewing television on a large screen tv, libraries, card playing, computer use, and several different libraries. There's a laundry room on the floor but residents' laundry is done for them on a weekly basis (which means name tags ironed into every sheet, towel, sock, sweater, etc.) and housekeeping changes their beds weekly and cleans the apartment every other week. There's a beauty salon on her floor where my mother had her hair done yesterday, and on the bottom floor there's a lovely dining room where meals are served. It's like a small restaurant because each meal provides a selection of main dish and sides, and the wait staff comes around to take your order, delivers it, clears, and offers to package leftovers for folks who want to take them to their rooms for later consumption. But the part that gives my siblings and me peace of mind is the health care that's the essence of assisted living in this community.

The folks who run this facility are concerned about the whole person. Not only do they keep track of what meals each resident eats (not just for financial purposes but for nutritional ones), but they take care of medications twice a day, and they respond to a pager to answer any and all questions or problems the residents have. They drop in just to say hello and see if there's anything they need or would like to talk about. They require that residents sign out of the building when they leave so they're accounted for if any "event" (fire drill, etc.) occurs. (That's something she'll need to get used to; she left the building to visit us at her old apartment and "help" us sort things without signing out which caused the staff to call all the contact phone numbers, tracking her down as she was with me buying a tiny refrigerator. We had a little talk about why she couldn't neglect signing out again.) A physician and a counselor visit the building weekly. Perhaps most noteworthy is the genuine kindness that every staff person there shows to every resident, no matter how many times they need to repeat responses to the same question. They know their clients well, they know the habits of elderly folks well, and they firmly believe in each person's right to live in dignity. We kids are thrilled that our mother is in this place that feels so right to her and for her.

I'll take her to the audiologist this afternoon as one of my last medical journeys with her, even though the staff there could do it. My reasoning is that this doctor may be able to help manage the auditory hallucinations that Mom has been having, and I want to be there both to be sure she tells him about it and to hear his verdict about what, if anything, can be done to ease them. She still hears "music" which I believe to be the hum that's background noise in lots of places: air conditioning/heating, lights, machines, vending machines, automobile engines, etc. The "music" she hears in the new suite (without an actual kitchen, it's not truly an apartment) isn't threatening to her, as it was in the old apartment, and "it's too low volume for me to hear any words" so it's not threatening to her, she says. The fact remains that she still hears "music" that needs to be accounted for in order for her (and us) to feel completely comfortable with it.

Bro has been here since Sunday, up from Texas, to help Sis2 and me (Sis3 is in charge of ironing name tags into every fabric possession other than curtains that Mom has, a huge but vital job) in clearing out the old apartment. I may have mentioned before that her apartment was a cluttered mess, but the job has been more overwhelming than any of us really expected. Mom was allowed (I'm the one who helps explain to her what she can have in the new place) two doll cases full of dolls, and she's happy with that, believing that Sis2 and I will take good care of and sell appropriately her other dolls. They're being stored in a temp controlled storage area for now. However, the five rooms of the apartment were crammed to overflowing with assorted stuff accumulated over the past 62 years. Much has been donated to the local Salvation Army and the retirement community's Sunshine Fund auction, some small stuff with practical use or sentimental value has been taken by us kids, and some is making its way out in black plastic bags to the dumpster. For the past couple of nights, Bro has stayed here with us since the cost of this trip is steeper than he'd planned for, and I'd forgotten how much he talks. He's someone who's not content with silence, so that's been a little adjustment, but he's been such a help and he'll be gone on Saturday, so I can endure for a couple more nights.

Let me say once more what a relief it is that all these pieces have fallen nicely into place, and that Mom is in just the right living situation for her.

In limbo...

School is done. Sun is on vacation. Time to gather speed toward moving Mom to assisted living... or so I thought. Everything is in place but one key item: the medical forms to be completed and signed by her primary care physician and then placed on file with the Case Manager at the assisted living building. The other information - an interview with the head of client services, financial forms, etc. - were completed in short order, but her doctor - the one who recommended that assisted living would be a better place for her - has decided to drag his heels. In looking over the forms that were delivered to his office six days ago, I can see that there's nothing being requested that he doesn't already know from the many recent visits she's made to his office. He's decided to wait until her 1 month follow-up appointment two days from now to fill in and sign the paperwork.

Fine.

I suspect he's getting back at me for my lack of confidence in his actual caring for his patient. Perhaps I mistook his preachy aloofness as a sign of cold callousness and he's really a warm and deeply concerned physician who's too shy to express that side of himself. However, I think not. I'm a pretty good judge of character, and this character is simply being spiteful, knowing that we need to move my mother as soon as possible to a better living situation. Leaving us in limbo for 8 days makes things difficult for my brother to know when to make arrangements to fly up from Texas, and for Sis2 to take days off from work to take part in The Big Move. It also leaves my mother in more of a state of agitation and confusion than usual, and that's not a good thing. Now, I understand from Sis2, Mom has begun to transfer a collection of her "good clothes" from hanging on the shower curtain rod to being slumped over the back of a recliner and the arm of the sofa in the living room and back again, at least once a day. She can't figure out why we haven't started moving her things to the new place yet no matter how many times we tell her that the paperwork isn't yet complete, so we have to wait, and we'll let her know the moment that it's time to move. Dr. G knows he holds her fate in his hands with this small collection of information on paper, and he's quite content to let us all tread water for another couple of days.

Between now and mid afternoon on Wednesday, my mother will have two doctor's appointments, one with a psychiatric nurse-practitioner at her own request ("I like her because she listens to me"), and the other with Dr. G. Input from each of them can influence the decision of the assisted living place to take my mother, or not. If either of them makes an official diagnosis of Alzheimer's Disease, we'll be looking for another place to take her to live because the current elder community is not set up to care for people who truly have Alzheimer's. From what I can tell - and I'm no medical professional, but many of my friends have parents with similar symptoms - she's somewhat senile, with some signs of dementia, and she's having more and more difficulty coping with life alone rather than with her husband around for moral support and companionship. My hope is that's what the two medical professionals will document so this move can be accomplished as planned.

Two more days to spend in limbo....

A nice, peaceful calm

This is the first weekend in quite a while when I've felt such a light burden that there's no guilt sitting here typing when I "should" be doing something else. The seniors have collected their diplomas and gone, I have only one more final exam to give to a class of 18 students, a duplicate of one I gave on Friday, and this one not until Tuesday, and there's nothing more to be started or maintained, so my responsibilities are minimal today. Fresh sheets on the bed, laundry done and folded, dinner to be leftovers from the packed refrigerator make the load even lighter. Yahoooo!

Thursday was a day I dreaded, somewhat: taking my mother on a guided tour of the Assisted Living quarters within the larger retirement community where she lives, and hoping 1) that she liked the place and we'd find a suite where she'd be comfortable, and 2) that any behaviors that the guide (head of health management services in this building) observed wouldn't bar my mother from becoming a resident there. Fortune seemed to smile on us for all of these. The floor where she'd live is very nicely appointed with lots of public areas and seating arrangements to encourage people to socialize, and they have access to a very nice patio that faces a view of the mountains. There are staff on duty 24/7 whose job is to support them and make life easier for them by helping them make appointments, get to and from places, and resolve any little problems that the residents have. Meals are included, and no heating appliances other than a microwave are allowed in the suites for everyone's safety, but there's a full kitchen in a public nook that's supervised so people can use that safely. We viewed three apartments and my mother felt more comfortable in the one with square rooms rather than the ones on the corner with diagonal walls, so we've put a courtesy hold on that one, pending a short interview with the head of health management and the completion of some paperwork. My mother tends to move, both mentally and physically, very slowly these days, so although she said she'd make the appointment with the manager, I'm sure it'll be up to me to do that and to accompany her. I can't push too hard and we can't expect her to move forward very quickly, but it looks like we've found a better situation for her than where she is now, isolated from people like herself and insecure to paranoia about being alone. These next few weeks will be busy ones, even though school is just about over, but I'm fortunate that the need to move her didn't come during the school year or in the dead of winter when the process would be even more difficult than it will be considering the fact that we'll have to get her to part with more than half of her "stuff" in order to fit into the new suite. Sis2, Bro, hubby and I have been making little plots and plans how to accomplish that, but my mother's willfulness seems to be waning, so the job may be easier than it would have been a few months ago. That's my hope.

Saturday in the Park

...but it's not the Fourth of July, as the song goes. The first half of this day has been lovely: breakfast at a leisurely pace, some raking and tree pruning, sitting in the sun to do a couple of crossword puzzles, conversation with a couple of dear friends, cutting a half dozen spears of asparagus from the garden, hanging a load of laundry to dry in the sun and light breeze. These I look forward to on an almost daily basis once school is done for the year, so while they're delightful to experience today, one other event was even sweeter: the recognition at a special park in town of two educators, one retired and one a current teacher. The current teacher calls the middle school home, so I don't know him well at all, but the retired teacher happens to be a very long-time friend, and his award is the reason my husband and I attended the event.

Al was the coach of the soccer and boys basketball teams when I first started teaching, and he was athletic director and boys P.E. teacher as well. For the first 13 years of my tenure in this school district, I coached varsity cheerleading. *waits for laughter to die down* My cheerleaders and I had many good times, and we cheered for our teams regardless of weather or scores, some of which were quite lopsided. *refrains from saying in which direction* Some of the most memorable times were the long bus rides to away games when, to while away the time, Al, who always sat in the front of the bus, would turn around and start some kind of song or chant. He was famous for "The Cookie Jar" one that went something like this, in call and response format: "Hey kids, guess what?" "What?" "Tom Bailey stole the cookie from the cookie jar!" and the kid had to respond with: "Who me?" and everyone else said: "Uh huh." The kid's response:"Couldn't be!" to which we all replied: "Then who stole the cookie from the cookie jar?" and Tom blamed the theft on someone else, calling out: "Jake Todd stole the cookie from the cookie jar." ...and on and on and on until everyone on the bus - Al would make sure of that - had been "victimized." He was the big kid with the deep voice who would sing folk songs and popular songs, and the rest would join in, so the hour long bus rides weren't painful at all.

You always know where you stand with Al. He's tall, and he has a loud voice that almost scared some people, but he has a heart of gold. He never expected more of others than he was willing to give, but he did expect civility and he wasn't afraid to teach people how they should do that. He made a marvelous lunch duty supervisor, especially in those years of a particularly rowdy and undisciplined class that tended to enjoy making life miserable for everyone around them. Everyone knew what behavior was expected of them in the cafeteria, so unless you wanted Al standing tall over you and asking in his booming voice what you thought you were doing, you behaved. We knew we'd miss him when he announced that it was time for him to retire, so we had a photo of him blown up to life size and mounted with a stand on the back so we'd have him there with us during lunch period. "Flat Al" was this pretender's name, and he made his appearance today at the park after the serious part of the ceremony was over. What a hoot to see one with his arm slung over the other one's shoulder!

Teachers don't tend to get a lot of feedback from students and colleagues who carry on with life after the years together, so today's gathering was very sweet for Al and for the rest of us. The crowd wasn't huge, but it was a meaningful group. The speeches were heartfelt, and there was nothing but joy in the air. I'm thankful to the alumnus and the businesswoman who initiated the park project and who had the vision to make it a beautiful place that recognizes educators.

They're baaaack

For a month now I've seen turkeys in the large field off the state highway near my house. They've been keeping their distance, preferring the side toward the river, but today they made it clear that they're taking over. As I rounded the curve in the road and the field came into view, I saw what looked like a bird that had swallowed a football taking off in ungainly flight, heading toward me. I have no idea if it saw the look of surprise on my face or if it just reacted to the sudden appearance of my car, but the bird veered off to its left, finding a safe landing just behind the stone wall demarking the edge of the field from the road shoulder. After my wide eyes blinked, I looked toward the field where I saw another bird of similar dimensions, and a third with its tail fanning out as if he were waving a greeting to me. I'd say the turkey population not only survived the winter, but it's flourishing, so the next time I stop by that field to take a photo or two of the landscape, I'll be sure to look around for them. I don't find them particularly attractive, but closeup photos of them would be an interesting addition to my collection.

This is the weekend when I grade seniors' final exams. I know most of them did a pretty good job, and I can list the ones who didn't: the boy full of promises who didn't even try to concoct a cover story about why he failed to keep them; the girl who thought she could hand in her final project any time because she was absent on the day it was due, contrary to her mother's phone call promising that she'd be appearing for my class on that day; the bright young man whose sub-par work was always submitted with a litany of excuses; and the student who didn't even attempt to write the two essays on the final exam. It's disappointing to see these things happen, but I haven't taught a year without seeing them occur. I'm happy for the ones who stuck out the effort right 'til the end. They've earned my respect as well as their exam grades.

I just finished a mugful of orange sherbet. There's nothing like orange sherbet to cool and quench one's thirst on a muggy day. Mmmmm!

Goodbye to May

It's time to watch the end of another month of 2009 as it passes through that doorway to history. May has brought tumultuous times with my mother, exasperating times at work with new platform computers thrust upon us with no introduction or training, and the typical unsettled weather ranging from "should we build a fire in the wood stove?" to "is it time to put the a/c unit in the bedroom window?" We've enjoyed track and field, a smallish bounty from the asparagus beds, and the prodigious blooms of our lilac bushes. I spent time choosing, editing, and publishing pictures from my trip to France and the celebration of my sister in law's birthday with a limo ride for 9 of us and luncheon at a great restaurant named for a Robert Frost poem, "Fire and Ice." Black flies came in droves and left after a well-timed frost. Mosquitoes were nipped by the frost, too, so they're just making their comeback now. This seems to be the year for spiders. Somehow one whose body is the size of a quarter has found his way into the downstairs bathroom, so I'm careful to shake out towels when I'm in there.

Tomorrow begins the last mad rush toward graduation and the end of the school year. I'm hoping for a modicum of sanity on the journey.

Gotta love Facebook! A friend and former colleague found this item on the web. For a great chuckle visit: http://www.tor.com/index.php?option=com_content&view=blog&id=30351

Sun day

It's Monday, our early celebration of Memorial Day which falls on a weekend day. For the convenience of those who think the day off is more significant than the recognition of the reason for the holiday occurring on its originally designated day, here we are paying attention to the weather, special sales in stores, yard sales galore, and the frenzy of planting at least some of the garden ... oh, and by the way, flying the American flag and taking a moment or two to recognize the men and women who have selflessly endangered their lives to keep us able to indulge in these pastimes without fear or threat. Our local parade is small, almost overwhelmed by the traffic of summer folks arriving to open their cottages and condos for the season. The winner of the local Voice of Democracy Speech competition usually reads the winning speech, the local members of the VFW assemble by the war memorial cannon in the center of town (meaning the town east of where I sit; I dont think my tiny town has its own war memorial for soldiers), cemetery graves are decorated with small American flags, and there's a 21 gun salute, all parts of the day that I remember from my childhood in Massachusetts but done on a smaller scale here and now. The prickly feel of hostilities in parts of Asia and Africa, and the call for more American troops to show the saber rattlers that, as one insurance agency ad on television tout, "We... MEAN.... BUSINESS!" For me, the recognition that firefighters, police officers, and soldiers of all kinds step into the line of fire quite regularly occurs several times a week, as I read the newspapers and hear the stories told by the students whose dads, moms, siblings, and other loved ones are still okay, sustained wounds but only minor ones, or they'll be coming home soon, if they can stay safe long enough to do that. I read it in Facebook where a former student, who had a short-lived career as a flooring installer (he's the one who laid our kitchen floor a few years back) and then went into the Marines, posts often about the food, the morale, and a certain friend of his who lost his life when an IED demolished the vehicle in which he was traveling, so the war feels closer because we can put a name and a face with it. Facebook also brings out messages from others who demand an immediate end to war, and peace, pure and simple. At what cost, I ask myself. What am I willing to give up in order to have peace right now? Am I ready to live in a 1984-style world, an Anthem-style world, a Fahrenheit 451-style world in which personal, individual freedom and control over one's own life is the sacrifice for something resembling peace? I can't answer "yes" to those questions. Until there's some magical worldwide consensus about personal freedoms and controls, and a better handle on how groups and societies function best without trampling the rights of the individual (all individuals, not just some), we'll continue to struggle, and some of those struggles will involve tactics and weapons that wipe out portions of populations. It would be wonderful if people could agree, but I'm not optimistic about it happening in my lifetime.

So yes, Happy Memorial Day. Enjoy the sun and the day away from the office desk or factory line or checkout register, but also enjoy for a few focused moments the freedoms we so often take for granted and thank as many of the people who have helped protect them as you can muster. That'll be a good Memorial Day.

Deep thought

I wonder if I'll ever figure out why I'm here.

Serenity now?

This silence from a certain town to the east is eerie....welcome, but eerie. Still, I'm going to enjoy it to the fullest.

tidbits

It stinks when you don't want to answer the phone in case it's "you know who."

Half a day of sunshine and nice breezes and I feel refreshed. Must be the vitamin D or something.

Lindt Orange Intense is scrumptious stuff!

When pole vaulters vault well and with good form, it's one of the most graceful events in all of track and field. One of our vaulters achieved that today, and there's hope for it happening more often.

Being disoriented and a bit confused is very uncomfortable. The best antidote for it is discovering that it's Saturday and not Sunday.

France Photos

http://homepage.mac.com/camry2/France-2009/PhotoAlbum16.html

Be sure to click on the various Days listed at the top to see each day's collection of shots.
Some should be cropped or rotated, some are out of order, and some may be mislabled, but enjoy what you see. :)

Welcome to May

quick update:

The trip to France - April 17 - April 26 - was wonderful. No problems with luggage, good flights except for one rough landing back in Boston, I love AirFrance, we did more in 8 days than I can write about here (from Cannes and Nice, to Monaco, and on to Ventimilia in Italy, and back in one day, for example), and I took over 1700 pictures. We had great accommodations, good food and mild weather, only one day with some drizzle, so we were lucky. So far I've picked through about 1/3 of the photos, and I'll start uploading a day at a time in the near future. I've become the scarf queen, and I have a new appreciation for good, fashionable, comfortable shoes (it took a week for my poor swollen, blistered feet to recover!). The perfumes and perfumed soaps I purchased make good aromatherapy, and the Florian candies that I kept (some of both soaps and foodstuffs were souvenirs) are sweet reminders of the factory we visited just outside Nice. I have no photos from the top of the Eiffel Tower because I didn't go up there, but I did see it from the ground and many of the other notable sights in Paris. Leaving France, customs took from me a set of three flower-flavored jams that supposedly were packed for travel, so I've learned to pack such things differently for next time. I brought back coins for souvenirs for students, and many took them. As I sort through my photos, I'm reminded of the many good experiences I had, and I'm glad I took the trip.

In the second batch of email that came in almost as soon as I arrived home and logged in, I found news that my mother is losing her grip on reality. Sis2 thought it was due to the blood pressure meds that list hallucinations as a side effect, so I took Mom to her PCP on Wednesday, requesting a change in medication for that reason. She'll be taking something else starting next week, but she has to wean off the current one for 7 days; however, I'm not sure the situation will wait that long. She's begun failing rapidly, believing that there are things happening around her that just aren't happening. Sis2 and our brother are in contact to try to manage the situation, but as the one living closest to Mom, I'll likely need to be the one to respond to and address her problems immediately as they happen until we can get this sorted out....if we can with any success.

With the good comes the bad. There is balance in life.

Flipping the switch

Sometimes I wish people had switches that could be flipped to make them behave the way I want them to. For example:

*click*
"Oh, now I get what you mean: the ending of this paper says nothing, and I need to crystalize my point there. I know just what to do!"

*click*
"Wow, I've been kind of a jerk, and I really need to apologize for that. How can I make it up to you? No, let me think about it. I'll figure out something that'll make you smile."

*click*
"Wait. Why do other people need to change to be the way I want them to be? They deserve to be themselves, and I need to accept and embrace them for who they are. Yeah!"

Either people do have switches that are so terribly well hidden that only they can find them and my wish is foolish, or this is a dream, a fantasy, a figment of my imagination, and then my wish is still foolish. Hmmmmmm... Where did this glowing bulb over my head come from?

More plusses than minuses

Minuses:

- It's foggy and the forecast for today predicted sun. We've had sun most of the week while work kept me indoors, so it's a downer to have a dreary weekend when I'd have time to enjoy pleasant sunshine.

- My afternoon will be spent with someone who takes great joy in belittling others and making people feel guilty and miserable.

Plusses:

- I still have half a box of authentic Belgian chocolates left. Hoarding is a Very Good Thing!

- My urging to reinstate a Writing Lab at school seems to have paid off. One more approval is needed and then we'll be able to set up a space where English teachers can give support, advice and assistance to students who want or need help completing writing assignments. With so many students shunning hard copy resources and using the library as a place to access computers for research, very few if any machines remain available for word processing. Judging from the low writing scores on recent broad-based tests, students need more individualized instruction and guidance in using their own language, and this Lab will provide that opportunity. Hooray!

- Next school year I'll be relieved from the assignment of teaching the yahoos (Hallelujah!!!!), and I'll be allowed to return to teaching one section of the middle level sophomores instead, as I did four years ago, along with Brit. Lit., Creative Writing, and World Lit. I'm still the only staff member in this department who teaches four different courses, and next year there won't even be one duplication (two sections of a course) as I have with World Lit. this year, but that's fine. It's easier to keep them straight, I've taught them all before, and I won't feel like I'm repeating myself to the second section of a course that meets later in the day. The way it looks now, the total number of students in my class load will be a few higher than this year, but we're still blessed with totals smaller than those at some other area schools.

- Three weeks from now I'll be in France!

March Madness

Not only are the college basketball playoffs in full swing (and you know they're on the Big Screen many hours a day here), but the weather is playing its weird March games again. Mild temperatures have been blown away by the icy wind, making the air feel at least 15 degrees colder than the thermometer shows. While the front zoomed through, we had snow in the air, and at one point I had a hard time seeing the trees in the front yard when I looked out the window. Now, an hour or so later, the sun is shining brightly again. This happens often just after the calendar declares that Spring has arrived. What a sense of humor ol' Mother Nature has!

Two poinsettia plants in my dining room are refusing to die. It's not that I want them to, but I expect them to. Most years, the plants get spindly, drop their leaves, and wither back by early February. This pair, one brought by Sis2 and the other purchased by me locally, is defying the odds by continuing to produce green leaves that turn that odd red/green combination, and then they turn that lovely deep red. I suppose I could be taking better and more consistent care of them this year than I usually do, but it feels like I'm giving them the same kind of benign neglect that's typical of my indoor horticultural habits: water the plants once a week if I remember to do it. Maybe this pair has within their genes the stamina needed to endure my style of care, and their lengthy life is my reward. What a nice thought.

While I was shopping yesterday, I ran into my department chair. Even though we both acknowledged that we were "off-duty," she gave me some good news about next year. There's been the request for teachers of a particular grade level to look at the class rosters for next year's classes to ensure that no large collection of unmanageable or troubled kids are lumped into one class again. 'Bout time! Another pleasant possibility is the return to a Writing Lab (or Writing Center, the name doesn't really matter) that's staffed by English teachers to assist students in working on their writing and completing their writing assignments, regardless of which discipline assigned the work. We had one when we first moved into the current building, but to allow for more sections in each grade level, English teachers were pulled out of that program and the Writing Center was closed. Now, we're seeing the drastic need for remediation and support in improving the writing skills that our students demonstrated in the last round of state-wide testing, and a Writing Lab would certainly help. We've had good success with a Math Lab for similar purposes over the past couple of years, so the time seems to be ripe for a Writing Lab. I don't know yet what that'll do to our teaching/study hall schedule, partly because there's a proposal to move all study halls into the cafeteria, and supervision would change, but I think it's a step in the right direction for the kids who need direct help during school time to get their writing tasks finished with increasing quality.

My sisters in law showed up unexpectedly at my door yesterday afternoon to deliver some goodies to my husband, their brother, for his birthday which is today. They tied some helium balloons to our mailbox, as they have for the past couple of years, and they had a small collection of reprints of old family photos to give to him. Of course, he was out on a run, so I chatted with them for a while before they were off on their travels again. (I think all the siblings have some form of wanderlust) He's been given a number of family pictures, so that inspired me to purchase a digital picture frame for him as his big birthday gift. I'll scan in the pictures and save them to an SD card, and then he'll have them in one place, viewable in the frame. It'll take a little time to gather the pictures and scan them, but I think the result will be quite worthwhile.

Bailey's Irish Cream.....mmmmmm! It's one thing that makes Sunday late afternoon easy to take.

Pet peeve

The apostrophe is not a large mark of punctuation, but it is a significant one, and so many people, some of them highly intelligent, can not, will not, or do not use it correctly.

I have one friend who just does not use apostrophes so he never has to worry about misusing them. I'd rather (or I would rather) that happen than the opposite: people salting and peppering their writing with unnecessary, unwanted, and confusing apostrophes.

it's always means "it is." its always means "belonging to it."

who's means "who is." whose means "belonging to who."

etc.

The only situation in which an apostrophe is used to make something plural (indicate more than one) is when the thing being made plural is not a word. Example: He received two B's on his report card.

boys = more than one boy
boy's = belonging to one boy
boys' = belonging to more than one boy

Scott Jones - Scott Jones' book or Scott Jones's book
the house belonging to Mr. and Mrs. Jones = the Joneses' house

Yeah, okay, call me a nitpicker and an elitist because I think the incorrect use of this part of the language says something about the user. Just remember that when the wrong form of a word is used, the meaning can change to something NOT meant or intended.

*sigh*

Trippin'

About a month from now I'll be leaving for a trip to parts of France. Rather than make the arrangements myself and go alone, I've decided to travel with a small group, the leader being a friend and traveler to France on several previous occasions. I'd decided to take this trip before the financial situation became so unstable, so I'd put away some funds toward it, but I still feel a little like a spendthrift by going through with my plans. Ah well, no turning back. In fact, I'm looking forward to experiencing part of the world that I've only seen in pictures.

The specific details in the itinerary will change, as they usually do, but the general destinations are as follows:
Friday, April 17 = Fly from Boston, overnight, to Paris and on to Nice.
Saturday, 18 = Enjoy Cote d'Azur and the beach
Sunday, 19 = Enjoy Cannes, Nice, Cimiez, St. Paul de Vence, the old town and/or beach
Monday, 20 = Visit Eze and the residence of the Grimaldi family in Monaco; more time on the Riviera beach
Tuesday, 21 = Drive to Aix-en-Provence, through Camargue to Augues-Mortes and Provence
Wednesday, 22 = Nimes and the Roman history of the area including the Arena and Avignon; travel to Paris via the TGV (Europe's fastest train)
Thursday, 23 = Guided sightseeing tour of Paris' most famous sites: Arc de Triomphe, Place de la Concorde, Champs-Elysees, Eiffel Tower, Notre Dame, Versailles and the Hall of Mirrors. Ride the Seine by boat to see Paris lights in the evening.
Friday, 24 = Optional tour of Chartres Cathedral or exploration time. Afternoon is a Walking Tour with our group through the Louvre. Optional fancy dinner.
Saturday, 25 = Fly home, Paris to Boston.

I won't be rested after this vacation, but that's the point: I want to see and do and absorb as much as I can of this part of France because it's unlikely I'll return. My friend Jim will give us some options to see places he's found interesting on his past visits, and that's the charm of going with someone who knows an area fairly well. We'll have Sunday to recover, somewhat, and that's enough for me. I'm gathering cameras, cellphone (and checking out Verizon's Global program for the month of April), and clothing that will do double and triple duty so I can be under the luggage weight requirements on the way over. Then I'll have room for a few souvenirs :)

The sun is out and the front porch is calling me....

Found!

Sis2 and I are coping with our mother's increasing dementia that's exhibiting itself in the forms of hallucinations at night that people are getting into her apartment, sleeping there, using the toilet, and moving her possessions around, and she's so sure that one of the people is someone who works there that she's accused him, in public, of being in her apartment, much to his utter chagrin. There is no evidence that any of this is true, and mother has excuses as to why no evidence can be gathered. Even someone staying in her apartment with her wouldn't help because the people would know and would wait until the invited visitor was gone. A camera wouldn't work because the people are too quick and her camera is too slow, and besides, he'd probably take it and break it anyway. Etc, etc. That issue is the most troublesome because of her accusations, so we're on the case to keep her from being immediately shipped off in a white straitjacket.

A shortcoming that's bothered me for several years is her unawareness of chronology or length of time. Even when my dad was alive and I'd go with them to a doctor's appointment, they'd be asked how long something had been happening or when it began, and many times she'd provide an answer that was very inaccurate or just plain wrong. At first I'd speak up as tactfully as I knew how to provide what I knew to be the correct information, but that made for some nasty times. Eventually I learned to determine if the inaccurate information was crucial or just a point of interest and to very quietly provide the correction when she wasn't focused on me. This still happens, and her physician knows to check with me out of the corner of his eye when he asks her a crucial question that needs an accurate response. Socially, I'm not there to do it for her, so some of the folks at the community where she lives realize that she gets confused about time order. She chalks it up to "the stroke" which she may or may not have had, or at least to "something not working right in my brain." At least she acknowledges that her brain isn't working the way it used to.

One of the ways in which mother admits, however, that her faculties are diminishing is her inability to remember things. People's names, adjectives, numbers, some generic nouns, kinds of cars that her kids drive... they're either gone or they surface hours or even days later. She gets frustrated when the word isn't accessible, and mostly she's thankful when someone can fill in a word that seems to be what she intended to say. Here's the thing: I, too, have times when I can't come up with the right word, one I know but can't find. The other day my second period seniors had to help me find the word "quarantine" when all I could come up with was "medical isolation." I get that way when I'm on medication (Percocet is NOT my friend) or when I'm tired, and this week my brain is tired.

Between the "Mom issues," some nights when I keep waking up because the bedroom is too warm (the mister sometimes gets over-enthusiastic with the wood stove), and the time change to Daylight Savings Time, I haven't slept well at all this past week. I felt better on Thursday after a really solid 6 1/2 hours of restful sleep....until that afternoon when I made a discovery: I couldn't find my ATM card. The last time I remembered using it was to buy $10 of gas on the way home from visiting my mother. I recalled swiping the card and putting it in my coat pocket as I pumped the fuel into my car. I checked my long down coat which I was sure I'd worn, my wool peacoat, my pants pockets, my purse, my wallet, the car seat and console... nothing. I checked again. And again on Friday, everywhere that I could have put it if I'd pulled it out of my pocket before coming home. Nothing. I checked my bank balance online to be sure that it hadn't been used, and I was relieved to see it hadn't. This morning I called the station where I'd pumped gas to ask if an ATM card had been turned in, but the one they had found bore a man's name. Either I'd have to call the bank, tell them I'd lost it, ask for a new one, and transfer my money to another account in the same bank to be able to use it via ATM card, or I'd have to find the card somehow. I began to feel the frustration that my mother must feel on a daily basis.

A friend and I drove to the state university today for a pole vault clinic, and we commiserated about our aging parents, our new awareness of annuities, mutual funds, and retirment funds, and our love of traveling to new places where a friend or connection could help steer us to the cool, funky, fascinating parts of the area that guide books often overlook. Arriving back at home, in early afternoon, I realized that being surrounded by daylight gave me a much clearer perspective, so I breathed in some fresh outdoor air, opened the front door to let the sunlight in, and I cleared my mind. Where hadn't I looked for the ATM card? I emptied my book bag...not there. I went into the livingroom and sat down, straightening the black cowboy boots sitting by the sofa (yes, a touch of OCD), when suddenly I remembered: I'd worn them on Wednesday because it was rainy, and....I'D WORN MY RAINCOAT! Bingo! There in my olive green London Fog coat pocket was... my ATM card. :))

FOUND!

(Now, if only we could help my mother find the solution to her situation as easily!)

Are we there yet?

On the journey toward spring we seem to be near our destination, judging from the wonderfully mild weather today. However, winter is a fickle season, and I don't think it's quite ready to give up its hold on us here in New England. We did get out the hose to wash the muck off the vehicles, some crazy person went running in shorts this afternoon, and I'm in the process of making potato salad for a cookout (Can you have a cookout without potato salad? My husband says an emphatic "NO!"), but I know this is just a tease. I will not put away the sweaters or the boots, and I will not enjoy rising in the dark to get ready for work, but I will enjoy the later sunsets. More hours of potential sunlight after work hours are over can't be bad.

The honeymoon with the "Blueberry" (aka BlackBerry Storm) is over for my spouse. He thinks he won't be using his much. Fine. I'll wait a few days and then call Verizon to see how to proceed with mine alone if he truly doesn't want to keep his. I'm still learning about its features and probably will be for months to come, but I see it as a very handy device. I have to get used to charging it every night and checking to be sure it's off when I think it is, and then it'll be ready when I want to use it. There's still a struggle in my mind whether to keep this randomly assigned number or to transfer the number from my TracFone when its year is up in July.

I'm off to enjoy this pseudo spring evening. I know it's only a pause in the journey, but I'll take it.

Snow business

Here we go again. Snow is on its way, and the forecasts vary from 6 to 14" of the stuff. March is making itself known right away as the month when schools are announcing closures the night before the event. Ours isn't one of them, yet, but I'm pretty sure we'll start late at the least. I'll appreciate a slow re-entry to school after the vacation week.

I didn't accomplish everything on my "to do" list (Does anyone, ever?) but I did manage to read a book (The Alchemist by Paulo Coelho, highly recommended), complete a 41 page research paper, make a slew of necklaces, bracelets and earrings, finished my box of Valentine's day chocolates, catch up on Days, post a few times on Facebook, do six crossword puzzles, have a couple of good conversations with friends, use the spa three times, see "Slumdog Millionnaire," grade a set of tests and update grades for one class. The chocolate chip cookies remain unmade and Wall-E is still in its wrapper, but I might have time for both if the weather cooperates tomorrow. That would be fun.

My pretty red car has been hidden under a layer of road crud, but my husband took advantage of a warmish day this past week to wash it for me. It's beautiful! The extra money I paid for the Simonize finish was quite worthwhile because it made the car easier to clean and shinier even after it dried. I like my spiffy looking ride, and I'm still thrilled at getting 41.7 miles per gallon.

Little by little I'm getting used to my BlackBerry Storm, my belated birthday present. My husband has wanted to get me "one of those iPod or iPhone things" for a couple years, so this time I did a little research and agreed to jump in. We do have coverage, although it's a little spotty even in our yard, but there's enough for the email, texting, and voice connections to work. We each have a Storm because Verizon was running a 2fer sale, so we're each poking around to figure out different features and sharing what we find with the other. I have to figure out how to make it silent if I'm going to carry it with me in my purse. Imagine me having to hand the phone over to the vice principal because my students find I'm using it during school hours. Nice example setting, eh?

I agreed to submit a grant request for a couple thousand dollars' worth of training to set up and maintain a professional-looking website for my small business. I hope I haven't gotten in over my head. It seems like there's lots of support out there for people who want to make their tiny businesses into booming ones, but I'm not ready to go full-time yet. Once I stop teaching, I won't be going back, so I have a few more years until that chapter in my life will be closed and this other one will likely open. I could also be getting the cart before the horse since the grant request being made by this statewide group supporting entrepreneurs and craftspeople in the state is going to a national organization that may not seriously consider this hick state to have worthy applicants. Time will tell.

No pre-Monday Blues

I love the feeling on the first Sunday of a vacation week when it seems like Saturday and I have no thoughts about work. Usually about this time on a Sunday I'm feeling some tension and trying to keep the work obligations at bay, and an hour or two from now the pre-Monday Blues would be in full control, making me crabby and frowny. I'm not a pleasant person at that point. Vacation euphoria, even when we aren't traveling anywhere, cancels out that mood so I can be my relatively pleasant and unpressured self for a few days. Woo hoo!! (<= a sentiment I'm sure my spouse feels too!)

Not long ago I was involved in a conversation with some high school students who were voicing the same question I've heard for years: how can anyone stand to be in a long-term relationship without being bored to tears? I can see the puzzlement and pity on their faces when they realize that my husband and I have not only taught forever, but that we've also been married even longer. They must think that we're both daft to have stayed together this long. I think the issue has several parts to it, one being the speed with which they live their lives, and another being the high percentage of marriages in our culture that end in divorce. Teenagers don't truly understand longevity because their lives haven't been long enough to let them live it, in most cases. Some of them understand the concept because their family has lived in the same house all their lives, or they have frequent and direct contact with people who are much older and who have stable lives. Most of them, at least in this community, don't. Divorce rates around here mirror national averages, and the death of a parent happens now and then too, so those factors are typical. Because my husband and I work in the same business and even in the same building, many of the kids know both of us, but because we're at work, the behaviors they see aren't typical of a husband and wife at home. Within some bounds, I'll talk with the kids who are seriously contemplating this issue about the fact that a marriage and a home life are not necessarily static but quite dynamic as time passes. I don't usually get into the details about how love changes over time because that's more than they need to know, but I'll talk about how finances, tastes, running a household, portioning out chores, the needs for space, or relationships in general can change, and how I've/we've rolled with the changes. I know that what they're hearing, in many cases, doesn't reflect what they see in their own homes, so it's a crap shoot whether what I tell them makes them feel better or worse in the short run, but my intent is to give them another perspective from people they know and have seen functioning pretty well during their high school years.

One of the changes that took me by surprise not long ago is some of my husband's preferences in foods. He used to prefer large hunks of pasta (medium sized shells, ziti, etc.) and fairly plain meat and potatoes. He's always loved a refrigerator full of leftovers, and he enjoys eating the same dish or the same meal over and over, day after day. About two months ago, he began voicing some variations in his requests. Could we have something other than turkey for Christmas dinner because (surprise!) he doesn't really like turkey that much? Hmmm, sure, we'll have a nice hot buffet with ham and Italian meatballs as the centerpieces, no problem. Can I not make so many dishes with plain meat, especially pork and chicken, in them? This wasn't as much of a surprise when I looked back at the fact that he typically requested leftover plain meats to be cut up and served in some kind of sauce or gravy that he could then pour over his mashed potatoes. Since then I've made sure there was a way, with sauce, to serve the meat and use up any leftovers too. Could I please use smaller pieces of pasta in dishes that include pasta? Wow, this was new. He raved about the tuna casserole made with small elbow macaroni, and he was delighted with the American chop suey made with tiny seashell pasta, even though the only difference was the size of the pasta. That's fine with me: I've never liked large pasta. Now I have to figure out how to make turkey, one of my favorite meals, more appealing to him. With gravy (and LOTS of stuffing), in a casserole, in a thick soup or stew.... any other suggestions?

A little relief

There's good news about my class from hell. One student is out, taking a correspondence course for 9th grade English with the guidance of the Learning Center, and if he passes that with a 70%, he'll be eligible for summer school for his grade 10 English credit. If he's successful at that, he'll be in line to enter grade 11 with his class. Do I think he'll accomplish all of this? Highly unlikely. We've given him the last of his chances to succeed, and if he won't do his part, then he's in a tough situation. At least he's not poisoning this class with his vile language, his disrespect of his classmates and teacher, and his refusal to do any assignments that involve reading which, in effect, assures his failing status in the class.

The other yahoo is still in limbo. He and his mother attended a meeting with all of his teachers, his guidance counselor, the vice principal, and his mentor, but the meeting was surreal. His mother vacillated between accusing the school of making him lose his desire to succeed and explaining to us that she's sure he has ADHD and she will have him coded (in reality, something that can only happen after a series of tests administered by professionals) like she was when she was in school because that worked for her. She described a self-contained Special Education room in which students worked alone in cubicles on their assignments while they were supervised by someone walking behind them as though that would work for this boy who craves an audience for his incredibly immature behavior. She just doesn't get it. So while some definitive action waits in the wings, again, he attends classes and checks in with his mentor each day to report to her about his behavior in his classes. I think I'll be giving her my version each day, too, just for a balanced view. I've decided to step things up a bit since he failed three more quizzes and a test, and his juvenile antics are continuing. I'm requesting that he be evaluated for inclusion in Special Education services, and that his claim, "I can read the words but I can't remember anything I read, so what's the use," be investigated. Maybe then someone can get to the root of his reading comprehension problems and he'll be put in a more appropriate English class.

Winter Carnival is upon us. Members of each grade level take part in a variety of competitive activities, they dress according to various themes each day, and they supposedly have fun. Many kids do, and quite a few don't. Lots of kids stay home, either because it's too much noise and confusion for them to handle, or they've chosen not to be part of the events so they don't feel they need to attend school that day. A few kids should stay home but they come in, get jazzed up, roam around, get out of hand, and are sent home. The rest throw themselves into events like crab soccer, geography bowl, volleyball, ultimate frisbee, Wii bowling, Twister, jello slurping, coloring, and snow sculpture competitions. Students say they love Winter Carnival, but if a legitimate survey were taken, I'd be surprised if more than half of the student body said they liked it for any reason other than it gets them out of classroom time for parts of two days and all of one day. At least it's another day we big kids get to wear jeans to school, and we get to take on different roles like running the buzzer system or judging the photography contest. It's a long day, but at its end, we'll be ON VACATION!!!