Of the First Kind

I've been so busy complaining lately, (which according to an all-day meeting I attended today, is like a rocking chair: it gives you something to do, but you don't really get anywhere,  hmmmm... maybe I'll write about patronizing platitudes sometime) that I haven't had a chance to tell about the very strange experience I had the other night.

I was sitting on the couch around 9 PM, and the sky outside my window was dark; the days have grown noticeably shorter in the last month. I happened to look up, and I noticed an orange light in the sky. I really didn't think too much about it, because we live very close to both Reagan Airport and the Pentagon, so we have all manner of planes and helicopters flying over our house all the time.

However, there was something about this thing that was arresting. It may have been the way it was moving: slowly, so that at first I assumed it was a helicopter, but there was no noise, even though it seemed pretty close by. I shrugged it off since the windows were closed, but I couldn't stop watching the thing. Finally I went out on the deck to get a better look.

"Heidi! Get out here!" I cried. The sky was lit by four identical orange orbs, silently hovering just above the eastern horizon. As we watched, they began to glide slowly up and away, and then disappeared into the clouds.

We looked at each other. "What the hell was that?"

I dashed to my computer, confident that others, too, had seen these things and there would soon be many reports and an explanation to follow, but there was nothing. As I waited for the news to catch up with me, I searched the phrase "Weird orange..."  

lights in the sky? Google suggested, and I clicked to find out what it was.

It turns out that many people all over the world have reported seeing (and photographed and video recorded) lights seemingly identical to ours in numbers from 1 to 20, but there has never been any official military or government acknowledgement of any of these sightings or accounts, and no one knows what they are.

NO ONE KNOWS WHAT THEY ARE!!

C'mon! That's ridiculous.

Evidently, though, nobody else around here saw these lights the other night, or if they did, they have not detailed it in a way that I have been able to find on the internet, so I am reporting it here.

The truth is out there.

(Would somebody mind sending it my way?)

Professional Discourtesy

As I mentioned yesterday, our district is adopting a new grade book application. This one is designed to be seamlessly integrated with our student information system, which on the surface seems to be handy and, with any luck, labor-saving for those of us working directly with students. In order to prepare for the big roll out, teachers were required to enroll either in a face to face training or an online course to introduce us to our new tool.

Technically, people can get the training next week when we're contractually back to work, but that pre-service week is pretty busy, and so we were encouraged to do this over the summer, strongly encouraged, because they couldn't require us since they weren't paying us. Having a plan to meet this requirement was one of the things we had to do before we could "check out" at the end of the year in June. My plan was to take the online course, and I put my plan off until today.

To be honest? It's miraculous that I did it this far (4 days) in advance of the deadline, but I was putting something else off, and this seemed like a good way to do it.

Unfortunately, the class was excruciating. There were 13 modules, each with step-by-step directions and a video which was actually a narration of those same directions. There were four 2-question quizzes and a 7-question final test at the end. There was no hands on practice or other practical application and my brain was numb 30 seconds into it.

Perhaps if I could have accessed my new grade book, or a new grade book and played around with it a bit, these lessons would have seemed more meaningful. It was yet another example of adult learners being bludgeoned by some of the worst practices in education. Why do we do that to ourselves? It seems comparable to doctors treating each other with leeches. Oh wait, they don't do that. They use their best technology and efforts on their colleagues.

Don't worry. I aced the class, probably because mind-numbing and rigor rarely go hand in hand.

AND, I'll be sure to make that comment available in the public portal. (If not, you can always just FOIA it.)

Back to the Future

I so appreciate my friend, Ruby Justice, taking the time to read and comment on my writing here. In her last reply, she agreed with my concerns about the headlong embrace of technology in education and she ended her post with, I see a return of paper gradebooks in the future , too! ;-)

Winky face noted, I started to reply to that comment specifically, but then I realized that there was more to my thoughts than a sentence or two.

When I first started teaching 20 years ago, there were some computers in the school, mostly in labs, and mostly used for word processing, math practice, or social studies simulations. The internet as we know it was in its infancy-- it would be a couple years before I had a dial-up modem and an AOL account at home, and after that, I helped introduce such connectivity to my school by writing a grant for my classroom.

Still, it was several more years before they gave us all "teacher work stations," and for that time, my grade book was vinyl-covered and spiral bound. Each student's name was handwritten in the column on the far left, as was each assignment vertically across the top. Grades were entered in the light green grid before assignments were handed back, and in those days, it took hours with a pencil and a calculator to figure out quarterly grades for 90 kids. That chore alone put the "work" in teacher work day.

As such, I embraced the introduction of grade book software. In addition to the hours it saved at the end of the quarter, it was really productive to know how kids were doing as we went along, and printing progress reports with lists of missing assignments was a useful way to communicate with students and their parents. Sure, there could be some confusion, particularly between home and school-- not being present in the classroom meant, understandably, that parents did not always understand what was missing or why a particular grade was what it was. Most teachers were more than happy to explain, however, and the electronic grade book became an accepted tool. Personally, I used to say that these reports were like snapshots-- they were, by their nature, likely to change, or have changed already, over time as more assignments were completed and assessed.

Soon, we were sending home bi-weekly progress reports, in addition to our mid-quarter, quarterly, and annual grades, which was helpful for some students and their families, and therefore in my opinion worth the extra work. Two years ago, we implemented a system where we uploaded our grades every week, affording that much more access to any interested stakeholders.

Of course, we were aware then that many school districts had taken the next step-- making the teachers' grade books accessible, live, to students and parents, and instead of feeling inconvenienced by preparing weekly reports, most of my colleagues felt lucky that that was the extent of access to our records. I think there was a consensus that live access was a bad idea, not because we had anything to hide, but rather because any snapshot can be, at best, unflattering, or at worst, misconstrued.

This year we have a new web-based grade book, and it looks like it's going to allow live access. I'll let you know how it goes, but as of now? I'm in the market for something vinyl-bound, maybe with light green pages.

Should We talk about This?

I've been thinking a lot about screen time lately. A new book outlines the dangers of such a commonplace stimulating entity to any of us, but particularly to children. It seems that such a regular intense experience can become addictive.

No shit.

It also seems that the quick cuts from image to image and topic to topic may contribute to the rise of attentional issues we see in our citizens, both child and adult.

Again, is anybody really surprised?

As an educator, I have definitely exploited the engagement and convenience that technology offers. I have successfully structured assignments intentionally mindful of those qualities. In the last few years, I have received some push back, though, from families who would like to limit their children's screen time. I have responded to them just as I have accommodated households without internet access-- by offering minimum requirements that can be met at school.

My assignments are usually limited to some sort of prompt and then the opportunity to share responses and reply to peers. In the last few years, my students' enthusiasm for such tasks has been on the wane, even as their parents' protests have grown. The kids want even more bells and whistles while their parents wonder what's wrong with good old pencil and paper.

My prediction? This will be a pivotal issue for human beings. Our technology is changing us, but exactly how so and to what end remains to be seen.

More Signs of the Season

After a very nice visit, we dropped Mark off at the airport at around 5:30. As we drove off after the hugs and farewells, Heidi sighed. "Summer's over."

"We have one more week," I said. "How can we make the most of it? Wanna go to the movies?"

She nodded and I gestured at my smart phone. "What's playing?"

In the end, we settled on the number one movie of last weekend, Elysium, not out of a burning desire to see it (although we liked District 9 and Matt Damon, so it was definitely on our list), but rather from convenience; that particular movie was playing in 15 minutes at a near-by theater.

Oh, I love the movies, and in the summer? Any movie will do, because there is always tomorrow to see or do something else. But I did not love this one, and as we filed from the theater, I knew our vacation was coming to an end, because I felt disappointed.

Move-in Day

In between bakeries, coffee shops, restaurants and take-out joints, Mark wanted to make a few other stops in DC today. In 1989 he spent the summer living and working in a halfway house in Columbia Heights. One of the places he wanted to revisit was the lower quad at Howard University. "I used to grab a blanket and a couple of pillows and escape the craziness by coming over here and reading under the trees," he told us.

I had never been to the Howard campus, and the quad was stately and beautiful and mostly quiet, despite today being "move in" day for the class of 2017. The weather is still unbelievably cool for August, and red, white, and blue balloon arches glowed in the bright sunshine and swayed in the fresh breeze.

Many, many cars were lined up way down the road and around the corner, waiting patiently for their turn to pull in and unload. As we walked by, I noted all the state license plates: in addition to DC, Maryland, Virginia, we saw several from New York, Georgia, both Carolinas, Florida, New Jersey, Michigan, Pennsylvania, Massachusetts, Connecticut, Tennessee, and Texas-- hundreds of kids from all over the country were here to start the next big phase of their lives, and it was really cool that this was my home town.

Along for the Ride

Heidi's brother is in town for the weekend, and unlike our other guests this summer, he came with an agenda. Despite or because of the fact that he is a very fit and lean guy in his late 40s, he has a list of bakeries that he wants to hit while he's here.

As soon as his plane landed at noon, we headed downtown to check off the first three places. And by "checked off" I don't mean we looked at the menu and then ordered a glass of water, I mean the guy ate six Portuguese pastries, two ginormous slices of pie, and a half dozen butter tarts before we got home. The other 3 slices of pie, six pastries, and slice of cake roll are also gone, as is dinner.

I don't think I've ever fully understood the notion of living vicariously, but friends? I get it now, and I cannot wait for tomorrow!

Like Sands through the Hour Glass

This year I find myself clutching each summer moment as it passes-- just sitting in the chair enjoying a cup of (okay, really good) coffee while reading the morning paper with the window open becomes a precious little gem I want to stow away for leaner times. Perhaps that's wise... the prospect of returning to another year of contemporary public education weighs heavily on each bright day. I'm sure there is a healthier way to handle this time off, but that strategy will have to wait until next year.

Day Tripping

When I was a kid, my mom worked in the summer. Most days we had specific chores that were to be completed before she got home. Ever efficient, she typed a form for us on her IBM Selectric. I can still remember that typeball script.  

Good Morning _________,

Please complete the following jobs.

[Then there was a checklist, and of course the closing,]

Love, Mom.

Looking back on it, those chores were the least we should have done, and to be honest, it was no hardship whatsoever. That's not exactly how we considered it then, but there were always a few days when either we didn't have a list, or better yet, there was a note that Mom was coming home early and we were going to the beach.

In my memory, those days seem too good to be real; I can't recall a single bad thing about any of them. In my mind, the roads are never congested, the parking lot has plenty of space, the beach is never crowded, the day is never too hot, the picnic lunch never has sand in it, the drinks are always cold, no one ever gets sun burnt, and should we stop to pick blueberries on our way home? They practically jump into the buckets on their own, while we help ourselves to as many berries as we can eat.

This morning, when we awoke to a 60-something degree day in August, that siren call of the summer day trip was irresistible, and so we set aside the unit planning and pre-service reading we should be doing and instead packed a picnic and threw the dog, some towels, and a couple of beach chairs in the back of the station wagon and headed to a new destination for us. Two hours away there lies a peninsula that marks the confluence of the Potomac and the Chesapeake, and there, where once was a Union prison camp for all the Confederate soldiers captured at Gettysburg and later battles of the Civil War, is a state park with several picnic areas and beaches, some of which allow dogs.

There was no traffic as we drove out of town and down to Southern Maryland. When we arrived, the parking lot was empty and so was the beach. We set up our chairs, and ate our lunch as our dog played in the waves. Beachcombing our way down the shore, we found a fair amount of sea glass, an arrow head, and a shark's tooth. For most of the afternoon, two bald eagles swooped over our heads, chirping and whistling to each other. We only saw one jelly fish all day; it was not too hot, and no one got sunburned.

On our way home, we made two stops-- at a farm stand for some local corn and tomatoes and at a seafood place where they were selling pounds of lump crab meat that had been picked on the premises this morning-- then it was back home in time for dinner, almost too good to be real.

Fun at the Pub

We met some friends for trivia night at a local Irish pub this evening. Well, we talked about doing the trivia contest, but when we arrived the weather was too nice to go inside and so we dined out front, chatting and people watching, until the skies opened and a torrential rain forced us inside to pay our bill.

The wait staff was apologetic, seating us at an open table so that Stephen could finish his tea. Marty seized the opportunity and went off to gather the proper trivia supplies. It was the beginning of round three, and we were game. In addition to the questions that our spirited host posed to the assembled patrons, there was a visual round as well, a page of photos that we passed around the table.

The noise in the pub was a bit loud, though, and the questions did not come as quickly as we may have liked, and so it was around question six that we agreed to pack it in at the end of the round. "What three word phrase popularized by migrant worker advocate Cesar Chavez became the slogan of Barack Obama's 2008 presidential campaign?"

"Yes we can!" shouted a guy at the end of the bar.

"Really?" asked the announcer. "How about shut the fuck up asshole? Oh, wait! That's too many words. No one's going to get any points for that one, because you are such a douche, man!"

I started giggling at the first sign of confrontation. What can I say? It's funny when people don't follow the rules and then get in trouble for it. Well, it's funny when you're not the one whose job it is to get people to follow the rules. For the record? I would not have used that method to redirect a wayward participant.

At the end of the round, Marty, our 74-year-old, gray-haired, ex-teacher, mother of four, grandmother of seven, friend, took our answer sheet up to the guy at the mic. "Sorry for the rough language, ma'am," he said.

"Thanks," she told him, "but, it's not the worst I've ever heard."

We All Scream

One of the amenities that we have been offering to our guests this summer is the opportunity to design their own ice cream flavors. Regular readers may recall the s'mores, Earl Gray, and Thai cucumber flavors we tried last month. Before that, it was a vegan chocolate gelato, a coconut mango, and good old vanilla custard with add-ins.

I love it when visitors rise to the challenge, and this weekend the girls had some interesting requests. Allyn wanted root beer, and Delaney requested peanut butter cup. The pb and chocolate was a huge hit, but the root beer was too sweet and it lacked something to take the place of the fizz. 

Don't worry-- it wasn't disappointing enough to keep people from eating it, and fortunately, the micro-batches I've been making leave plenty of chance for improvement, so I would be happy to try that one again.

As much fun as it is to make all that ice cream, the drawback is that I don't really want to eat it. I like a taste, but more than a couple of spoonfuls is way too much for me. I think I have it figured out though: I've ordered some cartons so that I can start packaging up these creations to go.

And so it Begins

25 pounds of tomatoes from the farmers market are sitting in a box in the dining room.

Can 12 quarts of canned tomatoes be far behind?


UPDATE: 8/13/13:
Make that thirteen quarts!

Paparazzi

We took the girls to the pool in our complex this afternoon. It was pretty empty for a Saturday, but as we approached, the sound of kids splashing and playing carried over the fence. It turned out that our neighbor was celebrating her birthday, and the noise we heard was five almost seventh grade girls enjoying the party. I thought nothing of it until I put my stuff down and looked a couple of lounge chairs over. There was a former student staring at me with her mouth wide open. I guess she's not used to running into her teachers in their bathing suits. That makes two of us.

I played it cool, though, like it was no big thing, and after a brief conversation, I jumped in the pool. 

Was it my I imagination or did her fingers fly to her iPhone the minute I turned away? A few minutes later, the birthday girl sat down next to her. They whispered for a minute, then our cheeky neighbor called out to me. "Hey, Ms..." she paused because that's not what she calls me. 

"Tracey?" I suggested.

"Nuha and Esinam say, 'Hi!'," she finished, naming two other girls who were not present.

""Tell them I hope they're having a good summer," I said, and I flashed a big smile and waved before I swam off to play with the girls, because I'm pretty sure there were pictures, if not video, to go with that text.

Company!

Just home from seeing The Smurfs 2, we got One Direction blasting, and we're making beaded rings, lanyards, and friendship bracelets. There was a little ballet demo from drama camp earlier, too.

God daughters in the house, yo.

Most Sincere

We have been trying to cultivate ourselves a nice cucurbitaceae for going on four seasons now. This late winter, when I was starting my seeds, I found a couple of old ones in a packet labeled "Connecticut field pumpkin," and in that most optimistic of moments, I planted one of them in my little starter cells. Flash forward six months, and that seed has grown into a vine that has taken over all the free space in our garden plot. On it there are two promising specimens and a couple of smaller back ups.

I couldn't tell you exactly why, no doubt we could connect it to any number of childhood Halloween memories, but I will be thrilled, thrilled! I say, to pick a pumpkin from my own little patch.

Here it is today:

(Fingers crossed!)

Those Old White Guys

One of my best friends from high school lost her dad today. He was 90 and died peacefully at home with 2 of his five children by his side; not a bad way to go, right?

When I heard the news, I noted the date, because me and dates? We have something going. Just the other day, I ran into a couple of friencquaintences (yes! by all means give me credit for that portmanteau word) at Target, and I had the occasion  to impress them with my knowledge of their birthdays. I wish I could take more credit for it, but (shrug) it's just how my brain works.

So, today, I thought of Nixon resigning. It was August 8, 1974, (Bobby Bloomer's birthday), and we had been to Great Adventure theme park with my aunt and cousins. That hot, sweaty night, with all the window fans blowing, we watched on TV as the president made a speech from the oval office that he would resign the next day. It was history.

How old was my friend's dad then? I wondered, and I calculated that he was 51, my age exactly. He was a fortunate man, and I personally wouldn't turn down another 39 years like those, but then I got to thinking. How old was Nixon then?

The answer-- 61. Just 10 years older than I am now. Hmm. So he was... 55 when he was elected. That seems impossible. How could that be? NIXON was only 4 years older than I am when he ran for president? But wait. The first time he ran, when he was that stodgy alternative to the young and vibrant JFK? He was just 47!

So, I did a bit of research into all those old, white guys who have led our nation. (Thank you, Wikipedia.) The median age is actually a youthful 54 and 11 months, which falls between Herbert Hoover and Lyndon Johnson. (Really? Really!) Seriously... Tyler, Fillmore, Grant, Garfield, Arthur, Cleveland, BOTH Roosevelts (FDR? C'mon!), Cleveland, Kennedy, Clinton, and Obama were all my age, or YOUNGER!, when elected president.

Gasp.

You know how politics are these days. I'm already following "Ready for Hillary" on Twitter, and I am ready for her-- mostly because she's a woman, but also because she will kick that median age up a notch.

Turning Point

It comes every summer, that clear sense that nothing lasts forever and that no matter what, fall is on its way. Was it the bright red maple leaf I saw tucked among all the green on the trail the other day? I nearly picked it up. Might it be the butternut squash and pumpkins(!) that are dominating our garden, despite the fact that not a single tomato has ripened? Could this unseasonably cool weather be the herald of even crisper days yet to come? Maybe it was our conversation with Richard and Annabelle this morning wishing them good luck as they start school tomorrow, or perhaps it was the time spent at my own school last week, on an interview committee, setting up Heidi's new class room-- even though I am disillusioned with my field, the pull is strong.

Oh, there are still 20 days until teachers report back and summer is officially ended for us, but this evening when I showered after the gym, I ignored my shorts and put on a comfy pair of sweat pants.

Roula-la-la

I ran into a former colleague and old friend in Target today, and she looked great. She's left public school teaching behind and spends her days raising her four-year-old, doing and teaching yoga, and blogging to let off steam.

She was never one to be shy with her opinion, and so I eagerly noted her blog address, and I share it now with you.

Shout out to Bitches Broo!

Friends with Benefits

My newest friends are a half-dozen or so national parks. Well, okay, they don't actually know me, but

I
really

 Like

them.

And it turns out those guys are a wealth of interesting information and spectacular photos. For example, Catoctin always tells me with a wink that "some parts of the park will be closed," meaning of course that the president will be at Camp David. The Badlands gossips shamelessly about fossils and stargazing, Acadia always shares gorgeous sunsets, and Great Falls is the first to let me know that the weather is going to be great so plan ahead to avoid the lines.

My BF GF means it, too: the cars went all the way from the gate down the access drive and around the corner to Georgetown Pike as we left there this gorgeous afternoon.

Teacher Knows Best

As I prepared dinner this evening, I had the TV tuned to Jeopardy. I like the show, I have even auditioned for it, but I am not a regular viewer. You couldn't have known that tonight though, as I shouted each answer (ok question-- but we know what they really are) at the television, despite being alone in the kitchen.

As much as I love summer vacation, I suspect I am suffering a bit from a certain type of withdrawal.

There are just not enough people asking me questions.

Orange is the New What-huh?

So many folks have recommended this Netflix original series to me that it seems for sure like "must see TV." (Remember that? the 90s were golden years, were they not?) So we watched the first episode tonight, and, "eh?" might be a little too strong.

I'll keep you posted.

Network Enabled

"What are you doing?" Heidi asked me a little while ago.

I turned from the computer. "Just entering a contest for a free trip to Vegas and listening to the only known recording of Virginia Woolf," I shrugged. "Why?"

Her raised eyebrows said it all.

Modern Living

My home was built in 1985 with no regard to cross breeze; it had central a/c from the get-go. Very early on, we found that the days when open windows create an ideal climate are rare, and there have been many summers in the last 15 when the house has stayed closed up from June to October.

Oh, air conditioning can be seductive all right: its promise of complete climate control and the undeniable relief of entering an artificially cooled place on the hottest of days draws us to the thermostat. Some days it's not even the heat, it's the humidity-- when the bills start curling up on my desk, I'm inclined to close the windows and crank the a/c.

When I was a child air conditioning was rare. In the hot hot heart of summer we sat around with windows opened wide and all manner of box fans blowing. When the heat was at its worst, we were advised to take a shower and go to bed wet so we could fall sleep.

None of that seems like a hardship, even now. These last few days have been both cool and dry, and even in this ill-designed house open windows have regulated our days perfectly. This morning I heard on the radio that a front would be passing through bringing along with it warmer and more humid air. I believe I felt the change in the weather when I came downstairs. Things were just a little stickier, and there was a scent in the air of green things growing in moist soil that transported me back to those days when every morning felt like this morning.

Who needs air conditioning? I thought, until my downstairs neighbor grabbed her cell phone and cigarettes and camped out below my living room windows. I'm sure we'll open them again soon...

The Piper

It wasn't a peck, but I did pickle a pint of peppers I picked from my petite pepper patch this morning.

A Breather

As I write, all the windows are wide open and we are enjoying a cool evening breeze. This is our second break this week in the typical July heat and humidity. I'm headed out to the deck with a glass of wine and a little Wagon Wheel playing.

Who can say much more than, Aaaaaaaah?

And so We Beat On

On our way to drop Sonic off at his family's home pending their return from Charlottesville, we noticed that The Great Gatsby was playing any minute at the theater we passed. "Want to go see it?" I asked Heidi.

She shrugged. "Sure."

And so we did.

Great movie! Personally, I love Baz Luhrmann and this Gatsby did two things really well:  it, #1, made Daisy a pretty sympathetic character, and by doing so, it, #2, made me actually believe in the green light. Despite knowing the outcome, I was like, Yeah, Jay, this could totally work out!

Identical Cousins?

It seems like forever that I've known that eggplant and tomatoes are related. Both are members of the night shade family, which also contains peppers, potatoes, tobacco, and bella donna. Besides recognizing that the food members of this botanical group pair well, I never gave it much thought, particularly in terms of appearance.

Until today. Summer has delivered a bounty of all things night shade and I am serving them up-- raw, roasted, fried, etc., it's not dinner without one of them. And so tonight I prepared these:

Now... which fruit of the night shade family might this be?

B.I.N.G.O

This morning in Hershey we played a version of BINGO with Josh's younger brother and sister, Jonah, 5, and Evie, 7. It had colorful cards with pictures for the non-readers among us and a nifty plastic dealer that spit out two plastic chips at a time with images corresponding to the cards. The object was to be the first to call out the chip you needed and then mark off that space on your card with it. There were many duplicate images, and as we played, there were some hard feelings especially when one child beat the other to the call.

Oh we played through it, using the game as an opportunity to model and discuss good sportsmanship, (we ARE teachers, after all!), but even so, some of the fun was gone. After several rounds, I volunteered to clean up. Restoring the chips to the dealing device I did so deliberately, pairing up all the images so that they would appear two at a time. Two kites, two smiles, two trees, two cats, two houses, I laughed as I imagined the next game-- would there be more harmony? confusion? delight?-- and then I slid the lid on the box and put it away.

Pick Me Up

Once, when Josh was little, we drove up to visit him and his mom. He was excited to see us, and even more excited to show us his new stuffed hamster. As he cuddled it proudly, I heard a rustling in the corner. "What's that?" I asked.

"That's my other hamster," Josh said. He shook his head sadly. "He's not a holdin' hamster."

"He bites," explained Michelle, Josh's mom. "So I got him a hamster he could hold."

Today, we drove the now 17-year-old Josh home after a week-long visit with us. Michelle had thoughtfully prepared some vegan blueberry muffins for Heidi. "Try one," she offered, "they have oatmeal, flax seed, chia seed, and chai tea."

It was delicious-- warm and cinnamony, and the texture was super-dense and moist. I like these," I said, they're kind of like portable oatmeal." 

A little while later Josh came in the kitchen. "What's this?" he asked.

"You'll love it!" I promised. "It's holdin' oatmeal."

Rock Star

Emily was kind enough to arrange a college tour at her alma mater, the Corcoran College of Art + Design, for Josh while he is visiting this week, so at 10:15 sharp, the four of us trooped into the lobby of that famous gallery and presented ourselves to the volunteer manning the desk.

It wasn't long before Ayesha, a friendly graduate student, came and brought us back to admissions. There, in probably one of the coolest office spaces ever, we sat on retro red and white vinyl lounge chairs facing a serpentine cubicle divider which was perhaps six by twelve feet and folded entirely from brown craft paper.

When Sarah, the admissions officer, came to formally introduce herself and find out who we were, too, our group started with Josh, the prospective student, and proceeded to Heidi, his aunt, Emily, his aunt, and me, also his aunt.

Was it my imagination, or did Sarah hesitate just a fraction? "Josh is lucky to have you all supporting him today," she responded.

"Oh," I told her, "don't mind us. We're just his aunt-tourage."

Productive Avoidance

Isn't it always like this? Tonight I had my writing group, and yet with a whole summer, I woke up this morning with nothing written. No problem, thought I, I have all day.

Behold the most productive day of my entire vacation!

I gathered all the recycling and put it on the curb before going to a breakfast meeting with two other teachers to work on curriculum planning. I went to the grocery store, next. Returning home, I made lunch and then re-hung the pot rack, this time screwing it firmly into the oak board I stained to match the shelf above and which I bolted to the studs.  I replaced all the pots, taking care not to ding the freshly patched and painted wall. Then I turned my attention to the rest of the house, tidying up for my guests this evening. A little later, Josh and I spent some time in the kitchen working on our version of s'mores ice cream. We took marshmallow cream and used the kitchen torch to meticulously roast it to a caramely brown, then mixed it ino a vanilla custard base. Once it was frozen, I stirred chopped chocolate bars, graham crackers, and a few mini marshmallows. Delicious! 

By 5 PM, I hadn't written a word, and it was easy to kill another hour looking back over some of my older pieces, trying to find a thread of an idea. Then I had to take the dog out, feed the animals, and start the grill.

I managed to find some writing that I actually did four years ago, almost to the day. It was fresh and funny and well worth another look. Well, I thought so, anyway. Regardless, I shared it with the promise that I will have something substantial (and new!) by next month. 

If not, at least I'll get a few more things done around here.

Bucket List

Ride a Segway... Check!

Innovation

I've had my eye on that fancy ice cream maker for a few years, not because I love ice cream (although I do), but rather because of all the opportunities it presented. Especially since Heidi went vegan, the lure of personalizing my own frozen desserts has been overwhelming.

Now that I have it, my fear is that it will be another expensive gadget, gathering dust and taking up counter space. To combat such dread, I have been drumming up my ice cream business. Vegan, classic, add-ins, custom-- you name your frozen fantasy and I will do my best to whip it up.

So far, I think my attempts have been quite good. In addition to classic chocolate and vanilla, I have made tasty vegan versions of both. For my birthday celebration, Emily made delicious lemon custard and watermelon sorbet. In addition, any houseguests we have enjoy the name your ice cream amenity. Just the other night? Josh wanted coffee, and of course Treat wanted tea. In my opinion, the Earl Grey was definitely one of the best so far.

Oh, we have plans (and all the ingredients) to concoct a s'mores version in the next day or two, but beyond all that pure fun, today, my gadget took on a practical role. At a loss as to how best use all the freakin' cucumbers our CSA has provided, coconut cucumber lime sorbet with a hint of basil, mint, and cilantro is on the menu.

And despite what Josh says, it is verrrry refreshing!

King Corn

Just a little while ago, Josh and Treat were shucking corn on the front porch. The coals were almost ready for the ribs and burgers when they delivered their handiwork to the kitchen and I crossed my fingers that it would be good corn, tender and sweet.

In my mind, few things go together as well as corn and summer. I remember when eating a whole ear was too hard and all I wanted was for my mom to cut the kernels off. Then I lost my front teeth and I had to eat it that way, and I couldn't wait to get back to the cob.

I remember how cleanly both my mom and my best friend, Nicci, were able to eat their corn off the cob. There was not a single ragged bit of kernel left on their ears. It was like they had a corn vacuum or something.

I remember when my brother lost his tooth while eating corn. We watched in fascination as my mom plucked it from the bloody cob like an errant kernel injured in battle. Then, a few days later, it happened again.

I remember the first summer visit we made to Heidi's family. One of the big events they had planned was a trip to the Eden Corn Festival. A county or two south of them, this event was like a fair or a carnival; it had rides and games and plenty of concessions, but their tradition was to eat corn, and only corn, for dinner.

I was very skeptical of their plan as we approached the corn tent. Volunteers sliced open big burlap bags full of local ears waiting to be shucked. Huge propane fired steam kettles simmered in the back, and the only thing on the menu was corn. "How many should we start with?" Heidi's dad asked, "Two or three?"

He meant dozen, of course, and although the six of us started with two, we easily polished off three and made a good sized dent in the fourth. That corn was probably the best I have ever had-- doused in salt and butter, each sweet kernel practically melted in my mouth, and I learned that night that corn can indeed make a mighty fine meal.

Oh yeah?

Don't make me and my best friend jump into a giant robot suit and smack you down!

We saw Pacific Rim today, can you tell?

Happy Summer

One of the perks of having such a lengthy summer vacation is having the time to explore your own home town. Today Heidi, Emily, and I did three things that were new to all three of us. First we took the free tour of the brand new NPR building. For such a public radio person like me, it was a really great hour. Before it even began, I saw Melissa Block in the gift shop. Then, because they were trying to fix a bug, we actually got to go into the studio where they do both Morning Edition and All Things Considered, after that, we actually saw and heard Jean Cochran do the top of the hour newscast. It was awesome!

After the tour, it was off to the Atlas District for lunch at Sticky Rice. The food was good, and although the service was leisurely, it was kind of nice to spend time over a mid-day meal. It almost made up for the several hundred five minute lunches I've bolted through in the last twenty years.

Our final destination was Union Market. A friend at school had mentioned how cool it was, and since we were in the neighborhood, we went over to check it out. As we walked past Adirondack Chairs, picnic tables, and a half-dozen corn hole boards, a Streamline trailer selling snow cones, cold beer, and other summer food blasted music. At 2:30 on a Thursday afternoon, the place was a party waiting to happen. Inside, we browsed the artisan food vendors and the hip housewares shop, and came away with a few goodies-- fennel pollen for me!

Heading back out to the car, I was happy to see bean bags flying and cold beer sweating on the picnic tables. The party had started! 

Privilege

According to Wikipedia, over one billion people in the world live in slums. A slum, as defined by the United Nations is, "a run-down area of a city characterized by substandard housing, squalor, and lacking in tenure."

Perhaps you are wondering just who it is that doesn't know what a slum is, after all, the word carries enormous emotional freight, but as I listened to a piece on NPR this morning about the efforts of some residents of slums to use 21st century technology, GPS and satellite imagery, to literally put their homes on the map, it reminded me how skewed my perspective can be. 

1200 square feet with electricity and running water? Don't mind if I do.

Something for Everyone

I can't say enough how impressed I am by my 5-year-old niece's thoughtfulness. Take for example our daily conversations revolving around meal planning during her recent stay with us.

Me: Would you like french toast for breakfast?
Annabelle: Yes! I would love that, but what will Aunt Heidi have?

And so it went, as what took me several months of living with a Vegan to wrap my brain around became second nature for her in one day. Mac and cheese for lunch? You bet! But what about Aunt Heidi? Hamburgers for dinner? OK, but what can Aunt Heidi eat?

At this time of year, when we're cooking out a lot, the answer to the question What will Aunt Heidi have? is quite frequently, "A mushroom." We do veggie burgers and chik'n patties, but more often than not, a couple of grilled portabellos and an extra helping of salad will satisfy our resident vegan. It's definitely our fallback entree.

When my sister and brother and I were kids, we used to play a game that started like this, I'm going on a picnic, and I'm going to bring [fill in the blank]. What are YOU going to bring? The object was to have some pattern in mind, so that whenever it was your turn, you gave an example of an item that fit your pattern, and the other players had to figure it out by trial and error.

So, if my pattern was alphabetical order, I would say, I'm going on a picnic and I'm bringing apples. What are you going to bring? If the next person said balloons, or anything else that started with a B, then I would benevolently reply, You can come.

But, when they guess something outside your pattern, "You can't come!" is the answer. The audacious rudeness of that reply makes me giggle to this day, as does the shock on the face of anyone who hears it for the first time. Their eyes widen in disbelief and quite often they say, as Annabelle did when I taught her and Richard the game, "That is not nice!"

Even after a week of playing, at five-and-a-half, Annabelle never really got the game (although she played it like a trooper, and coined a new term, "Boss of the Picnic"), but at almost eight? Richard was totally on it, working hard to decipher our patterns and creating some very complex ones of his own. This afternoon he listened closely as Heidi started. "I'm going on a picnic and I'm bringing tomatoes. What are you bringing?" She turned to Richard.

"Lettuce?" he tried.

"You can come," she told him. She looked at me. "What are you bringing?"

"Bacon?" I offered, thinking BLTs, maybe.

"You can't come." There was something in her expression that made me realize the pattern immediately. "I'm bringing blueberries," she said. "What about you, Richard?"

He wasn't sure, so he looked around the table. "French fries?" he said.

"You can come," she said.

Annabelle was busy doing something with her mom, so it was just the three of us. "I'm bringing..." I paused and considered all the vegan options. There were so many, but I was feeling contrary. "...fried chicken!" I finished.

Heidi raised her eyebrows. "You can't come!" she said.

Richard was listening closely. "I'm bringing hamburgers!" he said.

I laughed.

"You can not come!" Heidi told him.

"I'm bringing hot dogs!" I said.

"Nope!"

"Steak?" Richard asked.

"No!"

By this time, Richard was collapsed in the restaurant booth, laughing hysterically. When his sister returned, he couldn't wait to explain the joke to her. "Annabelle!" he cried, "Aunt Heidi's picnic is vegan, but we're bringing things that aren't vegan!"

Annabelle frowned.

"What do you think? Can I bring chicken wings?" I asked her, suggesting one of her favorites.

"You can if you bring a mushroom, too," she said.

Happy Holiday

I know that after ten days away, Richard and Annabelle are really looking forward to seeing their parents, their cats, and just being home, but it is always the mark of a successful vacation when at dinner the night before everyone packs it in and packs it up someone says, "I wish we could just stay a little longer..." and nobody disagrees.

Arachnophobia

When I stepped out onto my stoop this morning to greet the day and collect the paper, I noticed a firefly caught in a web that had been spun in the corner of our tiny front porch. The spider was nowhere in sight and the firefly looked very vigorous despite the mortal inconvenience of its predicament, and so it was really without a second thought that I scooped it from the edge of the web and set it free.

This evening I shared my experience at dinner. "Oh, yes," said Heidi, "I saw it there, too, but I was late for my class and so I kept going."

"What would you have done?" I asked my nephews, Richard, 7,  and Treat, 18.

"I'd have left him for the spider," Richard shrugged.

I nodded and turned to Treat. "What about you?"

"I would have recognized him for the bait he was!" he shuddered. "Save the firefly? Face the spider!!" 

For the Birds

Heidi has a thing about documentaries. "Why don't we see more of them?" she demands, and who can disagree? So this morning I navigated to our "on demand" feature and found a documentary short that seemed like it might be interesting.

Birders: The Central Park Effect did have a pretty good premise-- that in this age of decreasing woodlands, migrating birds are actually drawn to urban parks as travelers to rest stops and so the diversity of the avian population there is rather impressively wide.

I love identifying birds to begin with, and so I was initially on board. The addition of author Jonathan Franzen was an interesting plus, as was the terminally ill birder who continued to find meaning in life through birdwatching season after season. Ultimately, though, the film dragged a bit for me. Perhaps it was all the distractions of a Saturday morning; in any case, I found myself more interested in the newspaper and my iPad than the television.

Or, that was true until our cat, Penelope, became interested in the TV. All the bird calls and footage of darting, diving, and flying activated her feline instincts and soon she was sitting on a two inch ledge, whiskers flush to the flat screen.

Her pacing and frustrated mewing forced my attention back to the documentary, and hey! We gotta get those birds, those fabulous birds!

Goshdaughter

Mom's a science major and Dad's a science teacher, but Heidi's 13-year-old goddaughter? Doin' time in Language arts summer school.

Why?

She's just not good at that stuff, so she why bother with the homework?

Oh my...

Send her to those humanities lovin' aunties!

No Slave to Fashion

These are socks:

These are Crocs:

Can I wear my Crocs with socks?
Some might mock these Crocs and socks,
but I'll ignore their petty knocks,
and they may just react with shock
at how I rock these Crocs and socks!

In Praise of the Wish List

I started an Amazon wish list a year or so ago. It was really just a tool to help me remember the things I wanted. Of course, it is self-evident how fortunate I am that I need reminders of what I want. How can I describe the items on that list? They are things I consider luxuries; stuff I want, but don't want to buy.

When Heidi shared the existence of my list with my family, my first reaction was umbrage. Hey! That's my covertly coveted collection! It's a secret... I thought, until I started to receive the items on it. What a pleasure it was on Christmas to open the fermenting crock and weight stones I had so long ago wished for and forgotten.

This year, for my birthday, my family practically cleaned out my list, and I must say I have been both surprised (as dim-witted as that may seem) and delighted to receive each gift. Homemade ice cream? You betcha. Brightly colored sneakers? YES! Cast iron grill? Wow! What a difference! Burr grinder for highest quality coffee? Hooray!

So, although I'm quite sure that St. James did not have anything like this in mind, his words are undeniably fitting: You have not because you ask not.

And now I do have, because I'm lucky to have such a family with such resources. All that's left is to count my blessings.

Thanks everybody!

Prequel without Equal

We saw Monsters University today with Richard, Annabelle, Riley, Treat, and Emily. And it might just be the good company talking, but I'm going to go ahead and call it the best darn prequel I've ever seen.

OK, to be honest, how much competition is there in the prequel department? Star Wars? Not so much. Temple of Doom? Nope. There are some reboots that might be considered prequels (Batman Begins, X-man First Class) if they weren't um... reboots. Then there are some prequel-sequels, consider Terminator 2 and Godfather II, but do they count? Meh. Monsters U, on the other hand is a pure sequel and it has a few things going for it.

To begin with, I liked the original, but I wouldn't say much more than that. In fact, when my students wanted to watch it on the bus to our end-of-the-year field trip, it was with a shrug and a yawn that I punched play on that particular DVD. Once it was on, though, I started noticing that impeccable Pixar attention to detail, like the way Boo's laughter blows the circuits way back in the first part of the movie, and I confess to being impressed.

I think that's one of the reasons I liked the prequel, too. It is its own movie with a very entertaining plot, but the continuity with the first one is seamless, and this story enriches that one, particularly in the area of character development.

Plus, it has Helen Mirren.

Pool Time

We spent a couple of hours at the pool today with a 7, a 6, a 5, a 4 and 1-year-old. Oh, there were splash battles and tea parties, cannon balls and dive contests, and even one life guard whistle (for running), but there were no harsh words and not a single tear. It's a pretty safe bet everyone is going to sleep well tonight.

When we were kids, every summer meant at least one visit to Aunt Harriett and our cousins, Jimmy and Bobby. They lived on a couple of acres in the country, but their close friends and neighbors, the Wilsons, had an in-ground pool that they were kind enough to share. After fun mornings, most of our afternoons were spent there, and many times it was just our moms and us-- having splash battles and tea parties, cannon balls and dive contests.

I remember two things clearly about those days. The first is the sign that the Wilsons had prominently displayed: We don't swim in your toilet, please don't pee in our pool. I guess there was just something about the symmetry of the construction that made me feel guilty every time I peed in that pool, either that, or it was a little freaky imagining the Wilsons, Jack, Leona, John, and Karen, so tall and so tan, swimming in my toilet.

The second thing I'll never forget is how everyone conked out at night-- no matter our big plans to eat ice cream, play cards, hunt fireflies, watch TV, whatever, it was always hard to stay awake much past dark. We didn't fight it, though, because we always knew that tomorrow would be another fun day.

And it will be. Some things don't change.

Kick 'em to the Moon

My niece Annabelle loves to sing. She comes by it honestly-- her grandmother pretty much has a song for every occasion.  My mom has been teaching us songs about every holiday, this river, that town, the moon, the flag, camp, you name it, for as long as I can remember. She even taught us cheers when we were little from her high school days, so it was with a great sense of familiarity that I chimed in with Annabelle yesterday in the car as she shared one of the cheers she learned in camp this summer:

California oranges, Texas Cactus, Annabelle started.
We think your team needs a little practice! I joined in with gusto.

But it was when she started singing What a Wonderful World a few minutes later that my ears really perked up. "I can play that one on the ukulele!" I told her. And so this morning, I did, and it was magnificently awful to hear a five-year-old belting out that Louis Armstrong classic with her novice ukulele-playing aunt strumming along.

So what? Go ahead-- put us in a high chair and feed us with a spoon.

Summer Equation

656 miles
13 hours
a basket of peaches
a fried green tomato BLT +
two helpings of green beans
a squashed penny on the train tracks
Richard and Annabelle for 10 days
___________________________________
Lookin good, July!

Trust but Verify

Yes, the title of this post quotes Ronald Reagan, a man not too ideologically similar to myself. Or at least I thought so at 18 when I first voted and voted against him. I did him the same courtesy in 1984, but I was outvoted by my fellow citizens again that year.

When you're young, well, okay, when I was young, everything seemed much more absolute, particularly right and wrong. Reagan was wrong, and I was right. Back then I developed an affinity for the liberal press, particularly the New York Times and NPR. How gratifying it was to read and listen, especially since it seemed like they reported just what I was thinking.

To this day, I love them both, but I am no longer their yes lady. It's to the point where I swear NPR is more conservative than I am, especially their big-data lovin' ways. Perhaps it started with the 2008 election and the giddy infatuation with Barack Obama. Regardless, it continues with their mindless reporting on education, particularly standardized tests and national standards.

Maybe it's because it's taken some time, but I do feel like I have some first-hand knowledge and perhaps even expertise on some of the things they are reporting, particularly education. Such a perspective makes me much more critical of what I'm hearing and reading.

Just yesterday, I listened to an interview with fireworks expert, John Conkling. It seems that true blue is the holy grail of fire crackers, and you can tell the caliber of the show you are seeing by the intensity and brightness of the blue. At the end of the piece Conkling is asked whether the average person would be able to tell if the blue was true.

"Well, it's something that people who have really been involved with fireworks look for when they watch a show. But for the average person watching our Fourth of July show, the other colors that are out there, the patterns they produce, the effects they shoot up in the air, the timing, it just is so overwhelming that there - I think very few people who leave the show saying, boy, I wish I'd really seen a good blue," he says.

And that's how it is with press coverage; if you don't know what you're looking for, it all seems like a really good show.

Let Freedom Ring

A riddle:

Q: Do they have the fourth of July in England?
A: Yes, but it's not  holiday.

Oh, America, you're so funny.

Happy Birthday.