Still Got It

I'm always surprised when I bring back a brain break from years past, and it doesn't go as I thought it would. Perhaps it is to be expected; I know from experience that I must tweak my lessons and units from year to year to accommodate the different learners I have, so why should other activities be any different?

Today, I dug out the chopsticks and superballs for the brain break, and it just wasn't quite as much fun as it was last year. The kids still had a good time, and it was an effective movement break, but it was a little flat. 

I stood holding a super ball in a pair of chopsticks and pondering the situation as my last class settled back to work. When the ball slipped from my grip, I automatically grabbed for it with the chopsticks, and to my surprise and delight, plucked the ball out of the air.

"Whoa! Did you see that?" one kid gasped. "Can you do it again?"

"Maybe," I laughed, "I used to be able to do it all the time."

"When?" asked someone.

"In graduate school," I shrugged, "about 40 years ago!"

"Can I record you?" said the first student.

"Go ahead," I agreed, and it took a few tries, but I managed to catch it again. "Let's see the video," I said.

The student pulled it up and scrolled forward to the point right before I successfully caught the ball. "Whoa!" she said again. "Do you see the look on your face?"

It was pure delight.

As it Should Be

"There's a typo in this story," one of my students complained today.

"Show me," I asked him because I knew it was entirely possible. I had spent a tedious couple of hours over the weekend converting PDFs to text so that they would work with the read-aloud function of our learning management system. This particular student was someone I knew would benefit from both hearing and seeing the text of the story as he read.

He pointed to a word on the page and said, "I think this must be spelled wrong. I've never seen it before."

The word was 'ought', and I nodded at him. "I can see where you might not know that word; we don't really use it that often, but it means 'should'."

"I learned a new word today!" he marveled.

"It's a good one," I agreed. "You should know it."

"Do you mean I ought know it?" he laughed.

"Yes!" I answered. "We would say, 'You ought to know it.'"

"Well, now I do," he assured me, and went back to the story.

Do I Know You?

A substitute walked into my room yesterday morning. "I'm here for your co-teacher," she said in a friendly and confident voice.

"Great," I answered, "but she has a homeroom of her own, so I won't see you until 8:30."

"Riiiight," she replied, "but I will see you soon!"

I was impressed again by her manner when she returned for first period. She was so helpful and engaged, both with the kids and my instruction.She also seemed very at home with me and the class. When it was time for her to go to her next period, I thanked her warmly. "Best sub ever!" I laughed, only half joking.

"I don't have a login," she told me as she picked up her bag, "so I couldn't get the announcements to work for homeroom this morning."

I nodded sympathetically.

"Was Annika on?" she asked. 

That's when it clicked! She seemed familiar, because she was the parent of a former student who is now in 8th grade. "No, she wasn't," I told her, "which is a shame, because I do love seeing the kids, especially after they leave my class."

"It's fun for me to see her when I'm here," she agreed, and I was able to nod with understanding. When she was gone, I wondered if she brought her daughter up so that I would know who she was. If so, I was grateful for her tactful approach.

Just a Sliver

"Pie or ice cream?" I asked as a simple warm-up question in keeping with the season this morning. 

The question was also a throwback to 2006 when a colleague and I started our first online writing community. In those pre-social media days, we were not prepared for how popular the discussion threads would be. Nor did we expect the robust debates that our sixth graders would have over issues such as pie or ice cream. 

Kids were on our LMS discussion board almost 24 hours a day writing back and forth to each other. They used the basic introductions of themselves as sort of home pages, posting messages and updates as replies to the original assignment. We spent hours every week moderating thousands of posts. In retrospect, if we could have capitalized on the idea, it's not that farfetched to think we might be billionaires.

But today, I was not prepared for the stomping that pie got. "What are you? Eleven?" I finally asked when the tally was somewhere around 34-5 in favor of ice cream.

"Yes!" they roared.

From then on, I began to privately view the results as a maturity test; those who preferred pie were obviously more advanced than those who blindly gravitated toward the very simple pleasure of frozen dairy. 

Which I do not dislike-- to the contrary, I love ice cream!

It's just not

pie.

Fireside

The cats were a little cranky with us when we got home yesterday. And who can blame them? We had been gone 17 of the last 23 days. We do have a good cat sitter, but although that eases our minds when we are away, it doesn't seem to make the cats any less standoffish when we return to them.

Fortunately, Heidi knows them well, and when they were tip-toeing about last night, unwilling to be the lap kitties they usually are, she suggested that I build a fire. And that did the trick! They fairly ran to the living room to join us and bask in the warmth of both flames and family.

Indeed, something there is about burning wood that kindles everyone's primordial desire to come together around the flame and let it fend off whatever darkness we may be feeling.

Thick and Flat

"Pennsylvania?" asked the woman next to me in line at McDonalds this morning. We were in a tiny North Carolina town fueling up for our road trip home from the beach.

I thought she meant the grape jelly I had just requested to go with Heidi's sausage biscuit, so I shook my head and pointed at the wife. "Nope, Buffalo, NY."

"Oh," the other woman sighed, "your voice sounded a lot like my aunt's, and she's from Pennsylvania." Her own voice had a thick Carolina drawl.

I shrugged and smiled, unwilling to take the time to correct our miscommunication. "Have a good one," I told her as I grabbed the bag and headed back to the car. 

Later as we drove north, I pondered her question and just what she might have heard in my voice that suggested Pennsylvania. Like most people, I consider my speech to be completely unaccented. Having lived in many different places probably supports the illusion, since I am unable to point to a single place that I am "from." A few years ago, I took a quiz in the NYTimes that was supposed to detect how my speech reveals where I am from, but the results were inconclusive.

Interestingly enough, I did spend some formative years right across the Delaware River from Pennsylvania, but I don't hear either Philly or South Jersey in my voice, probably because we didn't spend enough time there.

Even so, some things stick from those days. Yesterday when we were at lunch, the sodas we ordered came flat. For my seltzer, it wasn't a big deal, but my brother's cola was another story. "It tastes like, what was the name of that stuff people used to serve in New Jersey?" he asked.

"Oh yeah," I grimaced, "that cola-flavored syrup that they used to mix with water? I hated that stuff!"

"Me, too," he agreed, and we spent the next few minutes searching our memories and our phones for the name of it. 

Takaboost, or now, simply Boost!, was and is a hyper-local phenomenon, manufactured and primarily consumed in Burlington County, New Jersey, where we lived at the time. According to the press, it is either A flat, thick,weird-tasting soda you'll only find in New Jersey or This NJ-made drink tastes like flat Coke and we can't get enough of it.

Right! Just add wooter.

The Right Fit

As we are inclined to do when on vacation, Emily and I speculated about what life might be like if we lived here on Topsail Island as we walked down the beach this morning. "You could be a turtle monitor," she suggested to me, "and walk the beach every morning looking for turtle tracks. That seems like something you would like."

I nodded in agreement. "I could also look for shell letters every day, and keep them sorted into 26 piles for future spelling projects," I laughed, stooping to examine a zigzaggy piece of coral. 

"You could have a little Etsy shop and take orders for custom signs," she said. "And maybe even branch out to other collections: woodlands, fields, you know."

"That would be fun! Maybe I could source my materials from specific locations, too. Then I could travel!" I replied, turning the coral over in my hand thoughtfully. "Does this look like an S to you?" I asked.

"Maybe," Emily answered skeptically, "if you turn it the right way? It all depends on the context."

"That's very true," I agreed and tossed it aside as we continued on in companionable silence, each scanning the sand for our own sort of treasure.

Shell Games

While the weather here, for the most part, has been lovely, especially for November, as much time as we have spent walking the beach we have found the beachcombing to be a bit underwhelming. Although on the first morning, I found a whole sea biscuit and we did find those two shark teeth, the rest of our finds have been broken shells, bits of coral, and quartz stones. 

Rarely one content to simply walk, however, I set myself a project: to find broken shells, stones, and coral in the shapes of the letters of my name. That occupied one walk the other day, and I was pleased with the results, even if my brother did say it looks more like Tracky than Tracey.

This morning when we woke to blue skies and warm sunshine after the all-day deluge of yesterday, we decided to skip the parade and head for the beach instead. Today my project was more ambitious and fitting for the holiday; I searched for the letters to spell Thanksgiving. And a couple of hours later, with the help of everyone, I had a pocket full of options and optimism. 

Call it confirmation bias, but once again I was plenty satisfied with my efforts (especially after turning that e into a k), even after Treat posted Happy Planksgiving! to our family chat.

UPDATE: As if cooking and puzzling were not enough, we have also been tweaking the message this afternoon.

Fancy

"I'll have the "Fancy Grilled Cheese"," Heidi said as she scanned the menu at the sandwich shop. "I don't know what it is, but how could any grilled cheese be bad?"

A little while later we sat at an outdoor picnic table and unwrapped our sandwiches. Heidi examined hers skeptically. "Is this rye bread?" she asked before taking a bite. Her nose wrinkled and she set her sandwich down. "It is rye bread and there is also bacon and relish." She sighed. "I guess this is the grilled cheese that proved me wrong."

On the way back to the beach house we passed a place advertising fancy sushi. "Let's not," Heidi said.

They Have Those Here?

"I saw a postcard in that gift shop yesterday that showed how to identify shark teeth," Emily mentioned as we were walking down the beach this morning. The tide had just turned and we were examining the scatter of mostly broken shells and shiny quartz drops. "I wonder if that means they have them here."

"I keep seeing things that seem like they could be," I noted, "but they just turn out to be shell hinges or some other fragment."

Just then Bill leaned down and plucked a small black triangle from the sand. "Here's a real one!" he said. 

And then a few steps down the beach something shiny and black caught my eye. It was another shark tooth! 

"I guess that answers that," Emily said.

Gesundheit

Is sneezing a symptom of COVID? I wondered as I achooed for the fourth time in a row. 

Alone in my room, I wiped my snotty nose and squirted some hand sanitizer on my palm before grabbing my phone to research the question. A quick Google informed me that, yes, sneezing has been recently added to the documented symptoms of COVID-19, but only for people who have been vaccinated. 

Yet another strange twist in the pathology of this ever-so-disruptive virus.

Family Support

Sitting in the car waiting for Heidi to finish the grocery shopping, I watched a huge pickup truck slowly back into a parking space a little ways down from me. The driver maneuvered the big vehicle slowly but accurately until I heard the crank of an emergency brake and the engine shut down. Out of the truck tumbled two tall young men, a burly guy who was likely their dad, and a smiling woman I took as their mom. 

"Great parking job, Kaia!" one of them practically rejoiced.

"You sure got it in there," the dad agreed.

I craned my neck to see a teenage girl emerging from the driver's seat, grinning proudly.

One of her brothers high-fived her, and her mom gave her a hug. "Nice parking job!" she told Kaia.

And then the five of them happily headed into the grocery store.

Double Deep

I've had a lot of strange dreams in my life, but last night was a first: in my dreams I kept falling asleep! 

It was that type of nodding off where when the people around you ask if you're sleeping, you blearily snap to, insisting that you. are. AWAKE! 

But I wasn't awake, even when I was awake.

'Nuff Said

What are the qualities of a good babysitter? was the warm-up question in preparation of reading a short story where the sitter makes questionable choices. I encouraged the students to think both as the one being cared for and the one who takes care of younger kids.

Responsible was the number one answer, along with fun and nice, but when one boy wrote brave, I had to ask. "Why does a babysitter have to be brave?"

He puffed out his chest. "They do if they want to take care of me," he explained.

Sylvia

This evening as I picked up a few things at Target, I turned when I heard my name. 

I often see students and former students when I'm out and about, but it's rare that they either 1) notice me (the solipsism of childhood) or 2) actually approach me on their own, and so my interactions with them are often limited to a wave or an awkward conversation. 

Tonight was an exception, though. The student who spotted me came right over and initiated a conversation. "Are you here for more Jolly Ranchers?" she asked, and what followed was a perfectly appropriate interaction between two people who know each other and run into each other unexpectedly.

I shouldn't have been surprised though. When I asked all the students what they had been up to in the time that I was away for Heidi's dad's funeral, she posted, "I went to Ikea and crocheted."

"You are an old soul," I laughed. "That sounds like a very nice weekend."

Capitlizing on His Strengths

The warm-up question was What superpower would you like and how could you use it to help the world?

At 8 a.m. my homeroom students were so bleary that many could not think of a thing, or so they claimed. "All right," I told them skeptically, "but everyone needs an answer before the bell rings, otherwise you can come at lunch and we can brainstorm ideas together."

The implicit threat got them talking a little, all except A. who was busy eating his breakfast long after the time to finish it had passed. As he lifted the spoonful of cereal to his mouth, we made eye contact, and I raised my eyebrows to remind him to eat quietly, a conversation we have had many times this year.

When class was almost over, I started asking about superpowers. Some chose telekinesis, others invisibility, and still others super strength or super speed. As A. got up to throw his tray away, I asked him what superpower he wanted.

"Oh," he answered, "I'd want to be a super slurper." 

I laughed out loud at such an unexpected idea, but one of the girls who sits at the same table with him sighed. "Oh A," she said, "that is the last thing you need!"

Archaic

The suffix was -wise and the example word was clockwise in the vocabulary lesson I taught today.

"Do you know what that word means?" I asked the class, and most of the kids nodded. They understood that the hands on an analog clock go around in a certain direction, and so "clockwise" meant rotating to the right. They understood this, even though many of them were unable to actually tell the time using an analog clock. 

"It's too hard," explained one student. "I have to look at the numbers and the lines and count them."

"Yeah," one of her classmates agreed. "It takes a long time to figure it out."

I glanced at the clock and noted the time; it was automatic for me. "I guess knowing how to tell analog time is like speaking another language," I offered. "The more fluent you are, the easier it is to read. Then one day you don't even have to think about it anymore."

"But I can just look at my phone," the first student shrugged, and I wondered how long clockwise would stay in our language.

The Heart Grows Fonder

Usually going back to school after several days away stresses me out, and I toss and turn fitfully the night before my return. That was not the case last night, though. I slept quite soundly, confident that I was prepared for my reentry, despite having to tweak my lessons from past years. And the day went very well-- I was happy to see the kids, and they seemed pleased to have me back. Plus, the feedback from the substitutes was all positive; something unheard of, especially in recent years. I felt more comfortable in the job than I have so far this year, which is weird but certainly not unwelcome.

Sweet Home

Bread is rising.
Greens are blanched.
Garlic is roasted.
Peppers are drying.
Beans are soaked.
Tests are graded.
Lessons are planned.
Fire is started.

And there is still a lot more to catch up on, but it sure is good to be home.

Calling In

We breezed home from Buffalo in record time today. In fact, we were about 5 miles from home before the idea of heavy traffic or a delay even occurred to me. "Hey!" I turned to Heidi, "Can you believe it? The roads have been--"

Just then the map app blinked and blue turned to yellow as I hit the brakes for the first time in our whole trip.

But we still made it back in under 7 hours!

One Final Event

For loved ones, the details and demands of planning any funeral are likely to be emotionally exhausting. But a full-on traditional, Buffalo-style Catholic funeral is even more so, if possible.

In the past week, we have planned and attended three sessions of open-casket visiting hours, a full funeral mass, a procession to the cemetery, a graveside service, and finally, a memorial celebration for 30 people at Heidi's dad's favorite restaurant tonight. 

And, as much as everyone is looking forward to returning to their everyday lives, getting some rest, and beginning to navigate a new normal without Gary, when everything is all over? It's really over. 

And that will be hard.

Hatters Gonna Hat, Part 2

Coincidentally the only hat I brought with me to Buffalo has a similar origin story to the one I wrote about yesterday, which my mother-in-law gave to me. When my high school friend, Amy, was in town back in the spring, she too presented me with a handmade cap. “I thought you would like this,” she explained, and I did. 

“I made it for myself,” she continued, “but I hated it.”

I laughed and placed it on my head so that she could snap a photo. Afterwards, it sat out by itself, because all the winter gear had already been stored away for the season. And when I packed for this trip, the cold weather stuff was still in the attic, but for the gloves in the jacket pockets and my hand-me-down hat from Amy, so I put it on and headed north.

And I know that even though they didn’t start out that way, both hats were clearly meant for me.

Hatters Gonna Hat

"Did you see the hat I made you?" Heidi's mom asked when I had been here a day. 

I had seen the floppy green knit beanie, and I had tried it on, too. It was soft and comfortable, and I would have worn it, but for the warm-ish weather. 

"Yes! Thank you," I replied. "I love it!"

"Well good," she nodded, "because it looked terrible on me!"

The Show Must Go On

“Don’t you get bereavement time?” Heidi’s mother asked incredulously as Heidi scrambled to finish sub plans and grades for her 4 different preps and 5 classes in between appointments with the funeral director and the cemetery and after 2 days of visiting hours at the funeral home.

“Well, we get personal leave,” Heidi explained, “but the work is still there. The kids keep coming to school, whether we are there or not.”

But really, her mom should have understood, after being married to the chief of umpires. For Heidi’s dad, there was no such thing as a real summer vacation for 39 years. Every where he went, especially after the advent of mobile phones, he would be on call and responsible for making sure some of the 10,000 games he assigned a year were staffed. And if it was raining in Buffalo? We knew about it wherever we happened to be in the country.

Extended Family

I was at a bit of a loss at the wake for Heidi's dad yesterday. Heidi stood by her mom receiving those who had come to pay their respects, while her brother greeted people at the door and roved the room talking to mourners he knew and recognized. There were plenty of comfortable chairs for me, and I did say hello to an uncle and a couple cousins, but it was Heidi's mom's sister and her family who came to my rescue. 

Kathy waved me over to sit in the chairs with them, and we chatted amiably and watched the slide presentation over and over. We also giggled every time a certain photo rolled past. Somehow a glamour shot of her had gotten mixed in with the family pictures that were scanned for the presentation, so every 10 minutes or so, in between all the pictures of Gary, we saw a soft-focus picture of Kathy from 30 years ago all done up and dressed in red feathers and sequins. 

At the end of the evening, I thanked her for keeping me company. "That's okay," she told me. "What are aunts for?"

Brain Work

Since I arrived up here in Buffalo, I have been feeling anxious about keeping up with my schoolwork and responsibilities; it's not an easy thing for a teacher to be away for a week and a half, no matter what the situation.

They say that dreaming is a tool that the brain uses to regulate emotions, address fears, and consolidate memories. Whether or not that's true, my subconscious is working overtime up here.

Last night I dreamed I was on a field trip, but it was strange in the way that dreams are. Things were lost, I got my feet all wet when I stepped into a bog, and kids turned into kittens who wanted to run away. After I woke up and cleared my head, the second half of the night I dreamed of prefixes and test questions, un- means not, mis- means wrong, dis- means do not, super- means over and above.

It was unrestful, disconcerting, misdirected, and super-stressful. 

And those kittens!

Darkness Savings Time

It's easy to lose track of days and time when there is a death in the family. All week long we've been asking each other what day it is.

"Think about it," I said to Heidi who knows what day, "the last "normal" day was Tuesday, and that was Halloween, which is not very normal at all."

But when I opened my computer just a while ago and got that calendar reminder that Daylight Savings Time ends early tomorrow morning, I was floored to realize I had completely forgotten one of my favorite days of the year, the one with 25 hours.

Edit Yourself

As word gets out about Gary’s death, messages of condolences are coming in. Most are lovely, along the lines of this one: Oh what a loss! My heart is broken. Love to you and your family.

But then there are the ones you have to scratch your head over, like this one: Wow! What a shocker. Condolences on your loss, but he was very sedentary.

When We Come to It

It's not in my nature to fret about the future. I'm of the mind that worrying can't prevent misfortune, but it can cause unnecessary stress. And so, although I wasn't surprised by the news early yesterday morning that Heidi's dad had passed away suddenly, I was temporarily at a loss as to what comes next. Oh, there are some must-dos, but so many more could-dos or might-dos as we approach the future without him. 

In the near term? We got Heidi up to Buffalo by noon yesterday, arranged for coverage of commitments and care for our cats, and Lucy and I am off to join the family in a little while. 

I got a deck of animal spirit oracle cards for my birthday, and it's helpful sometimes to draw one of them and lean into the guidance it offers. Today I pulled Brown Bear Spirit and the advice it gives is to take a moment before acting or making any big decisions. As the bear hibernates to prepare for a new year, so this is a time to sit back in contemplation of all that could unfold and leave action for another day.

Right, Mate

I was giving a kid the blues about drinking soda in class today. She thought I wouldn't notice because it was a clear beverage in a clear bottle, but the hiss and the bubbles gave her away. 

"Why do we have that rule?" another student wanted to know.

"We're a water-only school," I explained. "We care about your health!"

"What about tea?" he asked. "That can be healthy."

"Nope," I shook my head. "'Fraid not."

"But you can't be a gentleman if you don't drink tea," he told me.

And for that comment? I had no rejoinder.