Kite-tastrophe

Not really-- just a badly knotted string and a few crashes on the beach this morning, but I couldn't resist the pun.

My frame of mind may have been swayed by the stupid game I bought at a discount store yesterday. Despite a fabulous, well-designed box that actually turned into the game board, our first clue that we were in for an unsatisfying gaming experience was the rules: they seemed to be written in only a semi-chronological way, which was confusing and did not inspire confidence.

The game itself consisted of kind of hard logic puzzles written on cards with the answers printed right below, suggesting that they were to be read aloud. Most were way too complicated to solve without reviewing the text, though, which was another huge flaw. Finally, each player only had an unreasonable 2 minutes to solve as many of the brain teasers as possible.

In the end, we just read the cards and tried to solve them together. In that low stakes environment, although my mathematical reasoning was rusty, I had a knack for the word and language puzzles.

Lest I get too full of myself though, I must share one more anecdote. On the way out of town we passed a drugstore marquee with the message, "Get your flushot here".

What's a flushot? I asked myself. Do they mean "flush out"? What would you flush out that a pharmacy would have the tools? Maybe it's because we're at the beach. And so on, the tumblers of my brain kept turning to unlock the cryptic cypher.

Yah. I was way down the road when I realized they meant flu shot.

Maximize the Potential

When the beach gives you wind, what do you do?

Bundle up, take a deep breath of the extra salty air, head toward the tossing sea, put your shoulder down, and march into the gale as far as you can, Gal, so that the trip back will be leeward, quiet and calm, with a little extra nudge to keep you going.

AND

fly a kite!

When the Fates Don't Allow

There was something quite wonderful about spending Thanksgiving in a house large enough for everyone to wake up and watch the parade and the dog show and cook an amazing meal with a ridiculous number of sides, enjoy our dinner and still have a couple of more days together at the beach.

I miss you, Mom.

Gross Motor Skills

"What else did we learn besides skipping and galloping?" I asked my brother.

He looked at me blankly, then frowned. "Do you mean in gym when we were little?" He cocked his head. "Because that is super out of context."

I laughed so hard at his observation that I had to duck into the ladies room, but of course I meant exactly that. Somehow the notion of galloping and skipping had come up when I was walking with Treat and Annabelle, and as the three of us skipped and galloped along the boardwalk beneath the Bodie Island Lighthouse.

"Wasn't there a scissor step or an umbrella thing?" I asked when I returned, reaching back 5 minutes and 50 years. "But I have no idea what it actually looked like."

"Do you mean in Mother May I?" Heidi suggested.

"Oh my gosh!" I said. "I think maybe so!"

But Bill was ahead of us, googling umbrella and scissor steps. "Plant your heel, pivot, walk forward and repeat," he directed. Victor and I did so obediently, umbrella stepping down the trail toward Currituck Sound.

"That's it!" I cried.

"Step ahead and to the right, then bring your feet together. Now do it to the left," he said.

"Scissor step!" I confirmed, muscle memory recalling relay races through the gym in long ago elementary school PE classes. "Why did they even teach us that?"

Wisdom of Mary

"I need rock candy," Emily said as we started our shopping excursion yesterday.

"That's unusual," I commented.

"It's for a kid in my homeroom," she explained. "Mary Brown told me that she asks her students a whole bunch of questions at the beginning of the year, and one of them is favorite candy. Then she just buys them a big one for their birthday."

I nodded.

"It's genius, really," Emily continued, "because you can just buy them in advance and keep them in your classroom. Except for rock candy," she shrugged, "but I figured I could find it at the beach."

And she did.

"Feel this shell," I told Emily this morning as we walked up the beach. "It's so smooth and soothing."

"It is nice," she replied.

"Mary Brown told me she keeps a bunch of these on her desk at school, and then gives them out to kids as fidgets. They love 'em!"

'That's a cool idea," Emily agreed.

"We should just have Mary here!" I laughed. "We've been talking about her the whole trip."

Give Thanks

This day started with a walk on the beach... in my pajamas! The November morning was mild and still, and Lucy needed to go out, so there we were a few minutes after sunrise with no one but the pelicans and gulls for company.

After that? The day only improved, featuring good coffee, a nice breakfast, lots of sunshine, and another walk on the beach, this one a family pack walk with all 4 dogs. Later we had fresh seafood for lunch on the pier and then did some early holiday shopping at the outlet mall before witnessing a stunning sunset over the sound.

A satisfying dinner and one last night time romp on the beach with glow collars for the dogs and a variety of other phosphorescent accessories for the humans under a sensational assemblage of stars rounded out the opening 24 hours of our Thanksgiving week.

So often it is easy to believe that every day of vacation will be as amazing as the first, but, especially at the beach, that is not always true. The weather, winds and tides are fickle, and our own temperaments waver as well.

Another turn of the earth will tell whether tomorrow outshines or pales in comparison to today, but rather than fear or even face disappointment, I choose to be grateful for this wonderful day.

Gal's Pal

On our first evening at the beach, I hovered in front of the sparse offerings of an ice-filled case in a local seafood market. It was, after all, Sunday evening. But the fresh Carolina shrimp looked good, and they were what we had come for.

"Who's next?" called a brawny fishmonger in his early thirties.

I looked around at the other patrons, but none of them acknowledged waiting for service. "I guess it's me," I said.

"What do you need, then, Gal?" he asked me in friendly twang.

Charmed, I placed my order. It's going to be a good week.

Believe It or Not

Many years ago now, a good friend of mine gave me the name of a pet psychic who had helped her through the loss of her dog. Since then, we have invited her to our home 4 or 5 times to communicate with our pets, too. Whether you approach such an experience with faith or strictly as an hour or so of entertainment, it is always well worth it. Diane's energy is warm and lovely and it's fun to get an answer when you talk to your pets.

Each visit has been a little different. The first time, Diane impressed us with all the things our dog told her about the our home, neighborhood, and the dog park. She even had some gossip about some of the other dog walkers she knew from going to the park with our dog walker. On that visit, our cat reinforced our impression of her as ever wary. She told the medium that there were several stray cats in the area and also that somebody was breaking into cars at night... both true.

The last time we had her here was when our beloved dog, Isabel, was very ill and we were wrestling with our own desire to keep her with us versus her pain and suffering. "She's ready to go," Diane said, and so we braced ourselves and let her go.

Three years later we have three new pets, and it seemed like a good time to check in with them. This morning's visit brought no surprises-- our dog and cats are happy, and Diane nailed their personalities and idiosyncrasies exactly, but we already knew them well. Often when she is here, Diane channels human spirits, too, and today was no exception. But again, even though it was extraordinary for someone who we haven't seen in three years to know so much about the events of the past months, her message from spirit was nothing I didn't know already.

Even so? It was nice to have some independent affirmation, and I look forward to the next time we see her again.

The Writing and the Writer

Over the last few years, our essay unit has become more and more structured, featuring step-by-step graphic organizers that we do as a class for every phase of the process. The formula is practical, but there is very little room for creative expression. Most kids go through the paces, some more compliantly than others. As a matter of course, we get the writing we expect, dull and predictable, which is also the writing we deserve.

I do have to hand it to those few writers who find a way to make these practice essays their own-- requesting to argue that Goldilocks was well within her rights and that the third little pig is overly controlling. Their writing is like a wild stallion that bucks at the bridle, and although their arguments are not always as neat and tidy as the box-and-bullet structure demands, I have no doubt at the end of the unit that they are the gifted among us.

Three of a Kind

We had just finished a rah rah, team building, cooperative learning demo in the staff meeting yesterday and were moving on to an "instructional showcase" when a wave of dismay hit me hard.

I just can't, I thought, and quietly excused myself to seek out the ladies room.

As I was leaving the restroom, I passed Heidi on her way in. "What are you doing here?" I asked.

"I need the same accommodation," she answered and headed into the head.

Back in the library, I ran into Emily. "I hate these things," she sighed. "I usually try to come late or find an excuse to leave."

They Have Those

My co-teacher and I decided to split up our inclusion class today and do the same activity in teacher-led small groups. A last minute glitch in our plans had us scrambling to regroup, and in the interest of time we separated them into boys and girls.

"Who do you want?" I asked him.

"I'll take the boys," he shrugged, and led them to an empty classroom next door.

The girls and I pushed a couple of tables together over near the whiteboard so that we could sit in unison as we worked our way through the lesson.

"It's so quiet!" one girl said. "I can't believe the boys make so much noise!"

I laughed and continued the lesson.

"It is so much easier to pay attention!" another girl remarked.

"You guys are doing a really good job!" I told them, and I realized that group praise had been missing from their class. It's tough to find something true and good when at least one adult in the room has spent most of the class time redirecting a few of the students. Added to that is the fact that the group dynamic is such that none of the students want to be singled out for praise, either.

We continued the class with this newfound attitude of competency. "Look at how much we got done!" one of the girls said with pride and disbelief. SHe turned to her classmates. "We should go to an all-girls school!"

Just Wow

I was sitting in the leg lift machine at the gym and adjusting the backrest so that my knees would be at the correct pivot point when I glanced up. A woman who was probably in her thirties had take residence on the mats in front of me with two 15 pound dumbbells.

I pulled the pin and adjusted the weight down to 45, considering if I wanted a challenge or not.

She assumed a push-up position and placed the dumbbells shoulder width apart.

I decided to do 3 sets of 15 reps.

She did a perfect push up on the weights, and then switched to one arm by lifting one of the dumbbells into a chest row.

I pushed my jaw up and my legs down.

We continued that way until I was finished.

George and Gracie Moment

I have a student in my homeroom who is developmentally a bit behind her sixth grade peers. Every morning she bursts into the room and with a huge sigh proclaims, "Phew! I made it!" panting all the way over to her seat, even though she is there several minutes before the bell.

Despite my daily reassurance that she is on time, the mini-drama repeats every morning with little variation, as it did this morning.

"It's okay," I said. "You are right on time! Great job!"

But today there was more. Her eyes grew wide. "I was almost late because we had to take Grandma to the airport," she reported breathlessly. "She had to go home to Minnesota."

Having spent so much time in that state recently myself, I asked her, "Do you know where your grandma lives in in Minnesota?"

"No," she answered. "Where?"

A Little Sting

The Birchmere is much more organized than the last time I was there. The club is general admission, and for shows starting at 7:30 the box office and bar open at 5. Ticket holders receive a first-come-first-served number like at a bakery or deli counter. At 6 when the doors to the venue open, people are allowed to claim their seats only when their numbers are called.

But what about the tickets? you may ask. Patrons present their electronic tickets to be scanned after surrendering their number, but before entering the hall. This system was entirely new to me, but I felt like Heidi and I were navigating it all pretty well until they called our number and I showed them my barcode. "That's one ticket," the door guy said. "Where's the other one?"

"Uh," I answered, and he briskly directed us to the side where two young men I had not noticed earlier stood.

As I fumbled with my phone, they suggested that Heidi go ahead in and get our seats. Their kindness did not make me any less flustered as I swiped and tapped my phone screen desperately trying to remember where I had retrieved that one ticket from before adding it to my wallet for convenience.

But the guy who helped me was very patient, adopting a tone I have often used myself when directing students through a necessary but way too-complicated process on their iPads. Open Safari, I don't see the tab, open a new one, go to Ticketmaster, log in, hit skip, tap my tickets, swipe over, there it is, and with a quick little beep he scanned it with his own phone and I was on my way.

But not before I gave him a high five, mostly just to slap the feeling of being old right out of myself.

All the Fall

Many Saturday mornings you can find me puttering in the kitchen:sipping coffee, listening to the news, cooking breakfast, and baking vegan muffins for Heidi to take in her lunch. That hasn't been so for a couple of months, though. A combination of out of town travel and other commitments has kept me from my Saturday routine since early September.

Back then, autumn was no more than wishful thinking and a few apples at the farmers market. In fact, the last thing I baked was a blueberry coffee cake with a miso streusel.

On the third Saturday of November, though, fall has definitely arrived; our potted plants have been brought in, the wood rack is filled, and the weather is downright chilly. And this morning? I baked pumpkin gingerbread muffins with apples and cranberries.

That's more like it.

Not Today, Children

"Take your hood off, please," I asked a student who came to my room for the after school Anime Club.

"Why?" a friend of his asked with some attitude. "School is over." She looked at me with more than a little defiance.

"Oh yeah?" I said, meeting her gaze. "Then go home."

He took his hood off.

She stayed.

What is Jeopardy?

I like the game; I even tried out for the show, but in truth, I haven't regularly watched Jeopardy in years. I'm usually writing or cooking at that hour, and so the show dropped from my routine.

But, the same was not true for my mother. She was an inveterate fan, even going so far as to record the show on her DVR so that she, and any guest, could watch at their convenience. And we did! In the many days I was fortunate enough to spend with my mom in the last months of her life, we watched Jeopardy together on most of them. Last April we saw James Holzhauer's first victory and in October we saw the waning episodes of his championship in reruns at the hospital. Like so many devotees of the game, my mom was both impressed and dismayed by his dominating, 2 million dollar, buzzsaw reign.

And of course, when I saw that he had made the finals of the Tournament of Champions, along with Francois and Emma, champions I had also watched with my mom, I had to tune in. So tonight? I am multitasking: both typing and calling out my answers, all of them in the form of a question, obviously.

In Negotiation

Call me crazy, but with limited space in our apartment-sized living room, I don’t think a 6 foot tall cat structure should be part of the furniture. Oh, it was me who ordered the monstrosity, but it was Heidi who really wanted such a thing, and I guess I figured with a new, more compact couch and chair, that we could accommodate it. But once we put it together and the cats loved it, the battle lines were drawn.

But really? It is 3 to 1 with an abstention from the dog, so I guess it stays.

For now. 

Invaluable

"Is that Apple Watch worth it?" asked the young cashier at the grocery store next to the gym as I tapped it on the card reader to pay.

I shrugged. "Well, it just did that," I said, "and I use it to track my exercise." I gestured at my workout clothes. "And," I continued thoughtfully, "I'm a teacher, so sometimes it's helpful to be able to check my texts without looking at my phone."

But I had lost him at "teacher".

"Props to you!" he exclaimed. "The most undervalued profession!"

"Thanks," I told him.

"I mean it!" he said. "I am in touch with all my teachers even though I graduated a couple of years ago. They have given me so much! I will never forget them! Thank you for being a teacher!"

I'd say the watch was worth it just for that.

I Heart Buffalo

Even when you have a long road trip ahead of you there is nothing so magical as waking up to snow silently falling. A pretty dust on the grass and and a wee bit of white clinging perfectly to every pine bough and tree branch is also impossible to disdain.

Especially when the roads are clear!

Long Distance Notifications

From time to time today my watch would chime with some alert or another. Twice it was to tell me that there was a severe traffic incident back in Arlington, which, given the location would not have affected me even were I not 500 miles away in Buffalo, NY. Once it was to say that we no longer need to boil our water in Arlington, which was an ordeal resulting from the water main break that I was relieved to miss.

And three times I was notified that light rain was starting in Minneapolis, which was so sorrowfully irrelevant that I got a little lump in my throat.

November Winds

On this November weekend in Buffalo we walk the dog along the same neighborhood streets as we do in July and at Christmas. Gone, however, are the long golden evenings of summer, not yet replaced by merry lights reflected on blankets of snow. Instead, bare boughs shake in a blustery gale blowing dry leaves over faded pumpkins.

I consider myself a cold weather person, always preferring to be too cold rather than uncomfortably warm. Today, though, the wind was a scalpel resecting any hearty resilience I might muster. Shoulders hunched and head bowed I cringed against the cold and wondered what this winter will bring.

Because I know that the weather is far from out of the ordinary, and the rawness? Is all mine.

A Season Come Early

Reports of a water main break murmured on the radio in the background while we were preparing for school this morning. And the lunches were packed, the garbage on the curb, and the dog properly walked before my phone started blowing up.

No school today! the news gleefully spread.

An unexpected four day weekend was a gift indeed. In fact, we are packing our bags right now for an early departure to Buffalo, no substitutes needed. It will be a quick trip, indeed, but Tuesday is all planned with the activities left undone today, and that only leaves a 3 day week ahead.

And? As my co-teacher kindly pointed out via text this morning, it's supposed to snow on Tuesday.

Please Fence Me In

I started each class today with a little review of rules and expectations, both mine and the school's. I think it went pretty well.

A long time ago a friend of mine told me about an experiment some psychologists did on babies. They put some crawlers in the middle of a big open field and observed their reactions. Most of the children stayed tightly bunched together where they left them. Then they put the same kids in an open area that was fenced. In that situation the little ones crawled and toddled as far as they could within the limits they had.

My friend's point? Boundaries are healthy and necessary for kids. Knowing there are limits provides the safety to explore right up to them. (Even so, there will always be a few kids who will find a way over, around, and through the fence. We need those people who ignore restrictions.)

I thought of her today at the end of my reminders. The students were more than receptive. They nodded and got right to work when I was done. It was more of a pep talk than a scolding.

And maybe? After nearly a month of the unpredictability of substitutes, they were glad that the fence was back in place.

No Excuses

Now that my mom is gone, what she would have wanted for me seems so clear. I started exercising more back in April as a way to handle the extreme stress I was feeling because of her grave health condition. When she died, that burden was lifted and, in my grief, the last thing I wanted to do was go work out, but I knew Mom would have been disappointed if I didn't.

On one of her last days, I jokingly told her that I was about to lose 25% of my blog readership. We laughed, but when she died, I didn't want to write anymore either. Again, I understood how annoyed she would have been if I used her loss as an excuse to stop.

She was never one to make excuses, and growing up, my siblings and I thought she was kind of a hardass. Looking back at her whole life, though, I can see what grit she had, how it helped her, and why she wanted that for us, too.

Unattended

I never do it.

I am a rule follower, and there has never been a time in the almost 40 years I've been driving that I have left the gas pump unattended. Even in rain, snow, frigid temps, or blazing heat, I am on hand waiting for that tell-tale thump that signals the auto shut-off. And then? I obediently replace the nozzle, push the no receipt button, screw on my gas cap, and close that tiny door.

But not today. For some reason, I thought it was more important to return to my car and hear the end of a segment on Morning Edition. But as I listened, I kept my eyes on the pump display. When it hit 17 gallons, I was surprised that the tank had been sooooo empty, but when it hit 18 I cussed What the fuck? and shoved open the car door only to watch in embarrassment as the two women at the adjoining pumps dashed through a fountain of gasoline to squeeze the handle off. And then I, too, waded sheepishly through the puddle of petrol sloshing against my tires to do what I have done so many times.

Replace that nozzle.

I guess that's why they have that sign.

Hand-me-downs

Confronting my mom's apartment was overwhelming: not only was there a lot of stuff, but the thought of dismantling her home was more heartbreaking than we could manage right then. And so, because my mother was so amazingly organized, my brother and sister and I were able to leave that enormous task to another day.

While we were there, though, Courtney, Heidi, Annabelle, Emily, Aunt Harriett, and I did take the opportunity to raid her fabulous clothes closet from time to time. I needed a swimsuit; she had several, and the same was true for shoes, pants, tops, vests, and coats in the week we spent together before her funeral. We didn't feel guilty in the least: all of us knew that my pragmatic mother would have wholly approved.

In fact today Heidi wore a pair of my mom's pants to school, while I wore a fleece vest she got on our Alaska trip and her short Ugg boots. I know I took comfort in my outfit every single time I thought about it, and when the day was done, a quick glance at my watch showed that I had literally walked 3 miles in my mother's shoes.

Sadly, that journey has just begun.

My Spin

I miss my mom, and I find myself cooking as if she were visiting. Tonight? It's cauliflower pizza on the menu, one of my mom's specialties, but, being me, of course I couldn't just follow the recipe.

Oh no, rather than bake the pizza neatly on a sheet pan as directed, I had to preheat the pizza stone to 500 and roll, toss, and stretch my free form crust onto the peel before topping it with a hearty mixture of cauliflower, onions, and cheese.

As I gave the pizza a shake to make sure I could slide it on the stone, the topping flew off the edges. "Uh oh, Ma," I said, "this could be a problem."

And I knew that had she been here, she would have been torn between I told you so... and You can do it!

Choosing to go with the latter, I opened the oven and, with a little wrist action and a pair of tongs, was able to get that pizza baking. The final product was delicious, and I like to think that my mom would have thought so, too.

Doing Dishes

I spent the early part of my evening washing dishes. A lot of dishes. 11 dinner plates, 12 salad plates, 12 bread plates, 12 soup bowls, 12 monkey bowls, 11 1/2 saucers, 11 coffee cups, a creamer, a sugar bowl (with lid!), a gravy boat, a covered casserole, a large platter, small platter, and a oblong serving bowl. It was my grandmother's china service for twelve.

My mom's sister passed it along to me this afternoon in an enormous cardboard box. When we arrived home, I found the dishes wrapped in sections of the Washington Post from July to September 1972. My grandmother died in April of that year, and someone had carefully packed her china when my grandfather sold the house and moved in with my Aunt Harriett. The newspaper was yellowed and smelled of the decades it had spent in Harriett's basement. A stink bug jumped out at me from the first bowl, and so we dragged the heavy box out to the front stoop where I unwrapped the other 89 pieces.

Not surprisingly, after 47 years, they all needed a gentle scrub, and so I carefully carried the piles into the kitchen counter and filled the sink with warm, soapy water. There I dunked and wiped and rinsed and dried each piece of the Noritake porcelain stamped Made in Occupied Japan, admiring as I washed the tiny bouquets of zinnias and the red and gold band circling every one.

As I worked I couldn't help wondering who the last person was to wash these dishes. Was it my grandmother, after a dinner with friends? My grandfather, doing his part to help out at the end of evening of entertaining? Could it have been my mom, after a holiday meal? And when I was done, I knew the answer to that question, and it kind of made me sad that it was me.

That's What You Do

Here's a riddle I love:

First you throw away the outside
and cook the inside,
then you eat the outside
and throw away the inside.

The answer?

Corn on the cob.

Yesterday I bought some peeled corn on the cob from the grocery store. Out of season as it is, it was packaged in a colorful pre-printed cardboard tray with a message in a playful font  printed on one side. Remove, Heat, and Eat! it directed, implying the amazing convenience of the product.

Uh?

Yah.

It's corn.