Board of Bulletins

"I swear half the people I went to grad school with only wanted their teaching degree so they could do bulletin boards," a teacher laughed yesterday when she saw us carrying the telltale roll of fadeless paper. "Personally?" I think they're a tedious waste of time."

"They do seem low priority when you have so much other stuff to do," I agreed. "But they are so old-school, literally, that I can't imagine ever getting rid of them."

I thought back to my own years in elementary school and those standard letters and cardboard cut-outs of presidents, Cupid, snowmen, punctuation marks, math operation symbols, shamrocks, etc. And those classic wavy borders! I do admit to a bit of a thrill when I put up the first bulletin board of my own! But the novelty quickly wore off, and by the end of my career, I had resorted to year-long displays with just a few rotating pieces.

Heidi tells a funny story about a student at the special ed school where she first worked who loved to tear down papers as he went by the bulletin board next to his classroom. "Put his work on there!" suggested a behavior specialist, and that did the trick. He never bothered the board again.

I have my own story of bulletin board defiance. Years ago, when we got a new assistant principal, he walked through the hallway at preservice week and ordered all the teams to "freshen up" their bulletin boards. As team leader, this edict rubbed me the wrong way, especially coming without context from someone new to the building, so rather than take any time for the bulletin board, I put in a work order to have it removed from the wall. No board? No problem.

Of course, the guy never noticed, because he had no idea where the bulletin boards were; he was just planning to inspect the walls. A few years later, though, at the beginning of yet another school year, the administration assigned instructional assistants the task of doing the bulletin boards. "We noticed you don't have one in your area," the principal told me with concern, so we're having one installed."

By then, I was no longer team leader, and I had a great idea for our board. It was called "Advice from Dolphin," since we were the Dolphin Team, and was based on the "Advice from Nature" series of posters by Ilan Shamir, combining his poetic guidance with practical suggestions from former students. One of the maxims in his poem is, "Find your life's purpose."

Evidently? One of mine has to do with bulletin boards.

On Call

I waited three days into the new school year to put in an appearance at my old school. In my defense? I probably could have stayed away a little longer, except my friend and former colleague texted me to request an assist on his bulletin board.

"I thought you'd never ask!" I replied.

That was our story, and we stuck with it today as we strolled through the bustling halls of teachers getting ready for the first day on Monday.

"It's so nice of you to help out!" another friend said as we were catching up.

"It's practically a tradition," I answered. "This is the third year in a row we've done it."

"Wow!" she replied. "That means this is your third year of retirement!" She shook her head in amazement.

"But if you ever just want to see her," the first friend said, "text and say it's your bulletin board."

"That's right!" I laughed. "I'll come right over."

Found in Translation

I recently stumbled across access to some cooking magazines in other languages through my public library account. Not that I'm proficient in any language other than English, but when it comes to cuisine, my knowledge of cooking and basic familiarity with some of the languages I learned and lived with in school are almost enough to decipher the recipes. Some of the techniques and ingredients are uncommon here in the States, and that's really what I love about spending the time it takes to figure out how to prepare the dishes. 

Today, though, it occurred to me that there is an easier way. I was using a search engine on my laptop to translate some of the ingredients in Italy's premier cooking magazine, GialloZafferano (literally Yellow Saffron), when I thought to try the Google Lens translation feature on my phone. All I had to do was hold my phone up to the screen, and the Italian was magically decoded into English. Because recipes are so simple, syntax, which is the trickiest part of an automated translator, is barely a problem. I could even screenshot the translation if I wanted to save the recipe to try later.

It was amazing! And I spent a happy hour or so virtually leafing through a couple of magazines I've never had the pleasure of reading before!

P.S. Baci makes gelato ice cream cones! But they aren't available in our area.

A Wee Touch of the FOMO

I was a little sad when Heidi left for school this morning, and I think it was a combination of missing her and missing having a place to be.

And since I had a temporary gig at my old school last spring, I'm still on the staff email, so I'm right in the loop as teachers return today for preservice week. I confess I opened the agenda for the faculty meeting, looked through the slide deck to see how everybody introduced themselves, and checked the master schedule to see who was teaching what and with whom. 

After two years of retirement, I would have thought I was done with all that. Maybe next year? And I do have bread to knead, floors to vacuum, a garden to weed, a workout to do, and a dog to walk on this lovely day, so who am I to complain?

Baby Sun Signs

It's been day-to-day for our friend who is nearing the end of her pregnancy. She has a C-section scheduled for September 1, but it's likely that Pebbles, as we affectionately call the infant-to-be, will make her appearance before that. Of course, we are excited to welcome a new baby into our friend circle, and we have been getting daily reports on how likely it is that we will meet her sooner rather than later. 

As part of that conversation, I've been contributing astrological information. "If she comes this week," I told her mom as we were floating in the pool the other day, "Pebbles will be a Leo."

"I don't know what that means." My friend shook her head.

"Well..." I started, considering how to put it. "Leos are brave and bold, like a lion. They have big personalities."

She smiled and nodded.

"They can also be willful and stubborn," I added.

"I'm stubborn enough," my friend sighed. "She might just take after me."

"If she's born next week, though," I said, "she'll be a Virgo."

"And that means?" my friend asked, raising an eyebrow.

"Virgos like routine," I told her. "They are generally calm and practical, also observant and helpful."

"I can get behind that!" she laughed. "That would totally work in our family."

And so, when this morning passed with no word of a new baby, Heidi texted. "Congratulations! Pebbles is officially a Virgo!"

Stick Your Head in Gravy

The past couple of days have brought the inconvenience of resurfacing the parking lot in our condo community. To be honest, I felt the paving company did its best to accommodate us by splitting the job into two parts, so part of the lot was available at all times. 

But it's hard to account for weather, uninformed neighbors, and a perception of scarcity, so the whole experience kind of devolved into a shit show, complete with tow trucks, verbal altercations, and outright outrage at what was really no more than a nuisance. The entire project actually ended up being done on schedule.

So this morning, when I was moving both our cars and a neighbor's, who was out of town, back into the complex, I gasped when I saw the sandwich board that sits on the driveway and provides basic information for the community in a light tone. Someone had stripped it of its message describing the paving project as "just a bump in the road" and repurposed the letters to express their frustration with our management company:

Differing Priorities

As we drove north on the Parkway, we could see the glint of the gilded statues across the bridge (🏷️ $5.1 million) leading the way to the Lincoln Memorial and the botched reflecting pool restoration (🏷️ $16 million, so far). We knew street closures and other security and route preparations were underway (🏷️ $125 million) for the IndyCar road race on Sunday, so we stayed on our side of the river. 

Arriving at Great Falls National Park, I was appalled to see that entrance fees had risen to $20 per car, and I was glad I had a lifetime pass. Once we parked and unloaded Lucy, we strolled south from the parking lot toward the visitor center, overlooks, and trails. The disrepair we encountered along the way was notable. In the ladies' room, several sinks were broken, stalls were marked out of order, and many of the split rails marking the trail boundaries were broken or missing. All of the water fountains had notices informing patrons that the water was untested and not safe to drink. There were also many unemptied waste baskets and broken picnic tables. I sighed and hoped conditions would be better once we were on the trail, but along the way we found boardwalks, bridges, and stairs with rotting and missing boards, not to mention faded and missing trail blazes.

The operating budget for the park is roughly 3-5 million dollars a year, which is generally covered by the visitor fee revenues. However, in the last two years, much of that revenue has been diverted for other "beautification" projects in and around Washington, D.C. Added to that are the 25% cuts all national parks have faced during the same period.

That? Is a travesty.