Technically Lost

34 minutes. That's what the GPS app on my phone said the trip down to the nature park would take. We'd been there before, but not for years because of the annoying policy about dogs on the boardwalk trail, which is definitely the best walk in the park. Even so, the warmish weather and sunshine called for an outing, and this place seemed like a good choice.

As we headed south into outer suburbs we don't often frequent, I checked my memory against the step-by-step directions my phone was spewing. Sure, traffic patterns change-- roads are widened, lots are developed, but midway there I wondered at what possible evolution might be guiding our route. On we drove, though, and when at last we turned into a subdivision of squat red brick ranch houses that seemed untouched since 1968, I knew that we were either going the best way ever, or we were completely off track.

Three blocks and a left turn later, the GPS told us we had arrived. Sure, there was grassy field and some woods beyond, but we were on a dead-end street in a sketchy neighborhood. I pulled over, and phone in hand sought to make sense of our location, but time and again, the map app insisted that we had arrived.

Finally I gave the screen a vicious pinch and scanned the network of roads around us. The names were unfamiliar, but there was something about the dog leg that one of them took on the far side of the shaded green area that represented our desired destination that jogged some distant memory, and with that I snapped off the phone and headed out, my own navigator once more.

I Always Dance When the Movie is Over

It seems like not so long ago that our house was often filled on the weekends with children, and we still have many of the toys and craft supplies to prove it. We got a chance to pull all those fun things out of the attic today, when we did a little babysitting as a favor to our friend Susan.

Ellie, 6, and Abby, 3 spent the afternoon while their parents and Aunt Susu went to a play and early supper to celebrate their mom's birthday. The girls know us slightly, mostly as Isabel's people, but they settled in easily and quickly to what promised to be a fun few hours.

Following that teacher maxim that it's better to plan too much than too little, we had a lot of options for them when they arrived. Frog and butterfly cookies were baked and ready to decorate, the playground up the hill was a must-do destination, there were also DVDs, shrinky dinks, and bracelet kits, but it was the Play Skool barn and plastic tea set, that got the first squeals of approval.

And the fun rolled on from there. The cookies were elaborately sprinkled, and we used the tea set to enjoy them with ice water and strawberries. The playground was next, mostly to burn off some of that sugar, and those girls did not disappoint-- they ran the track, drove the fire truck, and flew the space ship for nearly an hour and a half. Back at home, they chose the movie The Lorax to relax with, and at the end, Abby sprang up and invited us all to dance with the end credits, which we did, gladly.

"Noooooooooo," they cried when their parents came to the door. "We don't want to go home! We want to stay here forever!"

We rolled our eyes and laughed, and helped pack them up to go, but man! I totally knew what they meant.

A Little Chicken

I couldn't just buy a rotisserie chicken. No. I bought a chicken and planned to cook it myself, which I've done hundreds of times. But there was the rotisserie element. I had it in my head to serve and eat a chicken golden brown all around, crisp on the outside and juicy on the inside. I have a rack I bought a few years ago that lets one cook a chicken standing up. I've used it outdoors, but 34 degrees was just a little chilly to fire up the charcoal, and so I removed a couple of racks and punched in 400 convection roast. As the oven preheated, I slathered my organic chicken with olive oil, salt, and pepper, and the popped that bird in. "Should there be smoke pouring out of the oven?" Heidi called up the stairs a little while later.

Doors open and fans venting full blast did not prevent the smoke alarm from going off. Smoke has been detected in the hallway. Evacuate the building, it warned in between the harsh repetition of its clarion horn. I dashed for the step ladder; the cat passed me three times looking frantically for an escape, each time her fur and tail were bigger. At last, I removed the batteries I had placed in there not long ago, so sure they would only keep us safe in an emergency.

An hour later, quiet prevails, the chicken is finishing in the oven, but we have yet to see the cat again.

Fried Peppers

Oh dear! My little pepper sprouts missed another spritzin, and things are not looking good for a good third of the crop. I know that's why we over plant, and if they all thrive we'll be swimming in peppers come August. But survival of the fittest seems so harsh, especially to one who spends her days nurturing young learners with the expectation that none will be left behind. Oh, I gave my peppers a little extra boost to perk them back up, and I have high hopes they will be reaching for the lights come morning, after all, they don't call it Miracle Gro for nothing. Do they?

Like a Lamb

Oh, how I will regret saying farewell to the month of March when we turn the page on the calendar next week!

Sure, April with its longer days and mild weather takes a giant step toward summer vacation, but come fool's day, the daily reflections from my slice of life friends and students will fall like cherry blossoms in the warm spring breeze: there will be no more regular meditations on snow days, swim meets, bowling, laundry, road trips, murderous hawks, and heros until the lion roars in 2016.

I'll miss them!

Sharp as a Claw

We were a little concerned when the cat didn't eat her dinner last night. We don't run an "all-you-care-to eat" joint for our pets; they are fed a measured amount twice a day, so in general, they eat quite enthusiastically at meal times.

Since our cat is getting on a bit– she was around two when we rescued her 11 years ago– such an incident is a wee bit worrisome. Or it was, until we went upstairs and found that she had heaved open a 15 pound dresser drawer in order to retrieve and tear open a bag of treats.

She was just too full to enjoy her dinner.

I guess she's not declining that much at all.

Free and Appropriate

When I was in college I took a variety of six-week courses to fulfill my PE requirement. Weight training, racquetball, golf, and bowling were all on my schedule at one time or another. Despite the requirement part, I enjoyed all of those classes considerably, and it wasn't until after I graduated that I realized people paid good money to access such recreation. I suppose that's what you get when you go to a school that also has its own ski hill, but I still kind of think that exercise, especially fun exercise, should be very affordable, if not free.

Fortunately, bowling fits into that category, or at least it does if you're a group of a hundred sixth graders, and today we took advantage of that opportunity with a field trip to the bowling center located on the army post not far from our school. The kids had a blast, but it seemed as if many enjoyed the snack bar even more than the actual bowling. In fact several kids were looking a little green as we gathered our group to go back to school.

It was nothing that a little fresh air and even more exercise couldn't cure, because even if bowling isn't free? Walking is–

and today we logged ourselves three miles,

round trip.

What Senior Moments?

I forgot to write avocado on the grocery list this evening, and when I remembered I forgot, it reminded me that I had also forgotten to water the pepper seedlings currently residing in our powder room and check their grow light. As I spritzed the sprouts, I considered what else may have slipped my mind. I'm pretty confident there's nothing else pending at the moment.

It's a system.

It works.

Big Guns

When in doubt, you're never too old to call your mom.

I was busy in the kitchen cooking dinner when Heidi came in with a pair of winter white cords. "Help!" she cried, "I think these are ruined." She flipped one of the legs over to show a washed-out gray splatter pattern staining the calf. "This must have happened in the slushy weather earlier this week," she sighed. "I want to Google it, but I'm not even sure what to call it."

I shrugged sympathetically. "Road salt? Snow stain?" She sat down at the computer and began her search, but it must not have gone very well, because the next thing I heard was the trill of FaceTime.

Heidi was consulting an expert who lives in a place where they get a lot more snow than we do– my mother in Minnesota. Mom was not too optimistic, especially since they had been through the dryer, but she suggested oxyclean as a possible solution.

They said their good-byes and Heidi dialed up a second opinion– another expert who also lives somewhere with a lot of snow and slush, her own mother in Buffalo, who recommended taking the pants to the cleaners.

With a sigh, Heidi ended the call. The experts had spoken. "I guess I need to find something else to wear tomorrow," she admitted.

Faint Vision

My glasses broke the other day, and I have been out of sorts ever since. I don't keep a spare pair, because my eyesight is really not that bad, and the prescription for my trifocals would attest to that, were it not expired. And that's the problem, see: I can't get new glasses without an eye exam, and my eye doctor is going away for two weeks starting Monday, so the first available appointment with her, or anyone else in the practice, is the week after that.

That leaves me in my cheaters until late April or early May, and while they do the trick with little things, they just aren't the same. My whole world is a little out of focus, and consequently?

So am I.

Hide and Sequel

As popular as it is, I confess that I have only read the first volume in the Divergent Trilogy. Oh, many of my students swear by the series, and all the copies in my classroom library are tattered from constant circulation, but I never got past the first few chapters of the second volume. No worries, though. The movie is coming out today, and as much as I encourage students to read the book before plopping down in front of the silver screen, this time it will be me on the edge of my seat because I don't know what's coming. To be honest? Sometimes I prefer my movies that way.

Key Note

On one of those rare, out-of-school opportunities, I attended a professional development workshop today. Presented by Apple trainers, the class was also held in one of their offices about 45 minutes from my home. I wasn't sure what to expect, but when we stepped off the elevator on the sixth floor, the bright halogen lights, white walls, and natural wood floors were very familiar to one who has been to several Apple Stores.

Pushing open the floor-to-ceiling glass doors, we entered an office suite with a wall of windows and several Apple products on display. We were directed to a presentation room down the hall, which was essentially a 40 seat theater with a gorgeous, massive, wall-sized flat screen monitor, a side bar set up with several Macs, a cart with 25 iPads and 10 MacBook Airs, and a simple white board.

It was funny to see that they were using AirServer to mirror their iPads, just as we do at school, and a little disheartening to see a typo on the title slide for the presentation. Three hours later, I had learned a few things about writing iBooks for and with kids; the time spent was not a waste.

But it was even later in the afternoon when I heard the news that Apple is planning to introduce their own television service this fall that I could really see some exciting potential– imagine watching TV with that set up!

Resigned

I like to think of myself as, if not a true foodie, at least foodie-esque. How can it be, then, that on a list of 30 places to eat in my home state of Virginia before you die, not only have I not eaten in any, but I don't even recognize a single one of them?

I guess I'll have to turn in my membership card, but I'll do so with the words of Groucho Marx:

Please accept my resignation. I don't want to belong to any club that will accept people like me as a member. 

Grow an Inch

Oh, St. Patrick's Day in middle school...

The last few years have offered us a reprieve through snow days and weekends, but pinch-mania was back in full force today and worse than ever it seemed, possibly because of the down time. I myself made sure to wear green this morning, as being properly attired gives more authority to your authority when you shut the pinching down.

And shut it down I had to. Beginning with my walk into the building this morning, when several kids were skittishly jigging about while others rubbed their arms and cheeks ruefully. They were only too happy to point out the culprit, who I knew well– she is in my homeroom– a student spiritedly sporting a white t-shirt with kelly green sequin letters.

Her gray zip-up hoodie was blocking the letter 'O',  so it appeared that her shirt said "Hell,"and I said as much as I made it clear to her that there was to be no pinching at school. She in turn told me that the shade of green I was wearing was considered "garbage green" and didn't really count as green at all, which must be why I was ruining the fun.

I glanced down at my forest green fleece and asked her to come with me. There was no more pinching from her after that.

A little later, the boisterous energy with which my first period came in the door was a startling contrast to their usual 8:15 lethargy. Of course it was because of the pinching. Some students had taped green paper shamrocks to their shirts for protection; still others rolled their pant legs to more easily point out the wee green stripe on their sock; one girl wrote the word "GREEN" in marker on her forehead.

Before they resorted to tattoos or dropping trou to show off their teeny greenies, I made a general announcement about the wearin o' the green.

"How fun it is to celebrate St. Patrick's Day," I started through gritted teeth, "and yet not everyone cares to do so. Please respect their choice by not assaulting them." But alas my speech was too late.

"Ouch!" cried a girl in pink. "My shoelaces are green!" she continued indignantly.

"Out!" I pointed to the pincher. "I will speak to you in the hallway."

I got the class settled and to work and then stepped out the door to chat up the naughty leprechaun. To my surprise, he was not wearing a single thread of green. He was remorseful, though, and it was with tears in his eyes that he answered my question, "Why'd you do it?"

"Those people in green think they have so much power," he snuffled. "The whole thing is so dumb!"

I had to give him that.

Million Dollar Teacher

How thrilled was I to hear the news today that Nancie Atwell, my teaching idol, won the so-called "Nobel Prize" of teaching, the one million dollar Varkey Foundation Global Teacher Prize?

Very!

This year was the first for awarding what the foundation promises to be an annual honor for worthy teachers across the globe, and in my opinion, they couldn't have chosen a more deserving inaugural recipient. I have written a lot about Atwell in this blog over the years, including a reflection on the week my friend Leah and I spent with her in the teacher intern program at her school in Maine, and another on a workshop our school's whole English department attended.

I encourage you to click on the tag below to revisit a few of those posts.

The Dog, Walking

Since we were heading to Union Station to pick Josh up  after his first ever college spring break, we decided to take another walk with the dog through our fair city. The sunshine today brought a lot more folks out than yesterday, and our route took us up and around the Capitol. As we strolled, Isabel was a bit of a star, especially with the children; lots of kids ran over to pet and hug her, and one dad even asked if he could take her picture with his toddler son. It was really no surprise to us, though. She was groomed earlier this week, and after a bath?

Her fur is as soft and fine as her temperament.

An Evening Stroll

It was soggy to be sure, but not really raining, when we loaded the dog in the station wagon and headed downtown for a change of scenery and some fresh air. At 5 PM most of the museums on the National Mall were closing and so we had our pick of parking spaces. We chose one right across from the iconic red stone castle and started our walk through the gardens in the back.

Spring has not yet sprung– the beds were brown and barren– but the soft weather and mild air promised it would soon. We continued on our way past the sculpture garden (no dogs allowed) and on toward the Capitol. While waiting for the light to change to cross 4th St, I glanced to my left and, seeing the National Building Museum looming above the courthouse, suggested we turn there.

Threading the needle between the East Wing and the National Gallery to cross Constitution, up we climbed through John Marshall Park and on by the Canadian Embassy, around Judiciary Square, and into the National Law Enforcement Officers Memorial where we were captivated by the all the lion sculptures. Another quick left and we found ourselves on the way to the Verizon Center. Left again, past the Crime and Punishment Museum, and after a stop at Red Velvet Cupcakes, we were headed back to the Mall via the National Archives and Natural History Museum.

An hour after we parked, we loaded our dog back into the car and headed home, clear-headed and full of appreciation for our hometown.

To Have and to Hold

Over the course of my career, I have been fortunate to be in the vanguard of educational technology. 20 years ago, I had a computer and printer actually in my classroom, when most of the others were in labs. I wrote a grant for a phone line and modem so that my students could have email pen pals back in 1996, and the same year I asked the principal for an LCD projector so that we might watch movies and view other electronic presentations in our awesome theater. Not too long after that, I had one of the first SmartBoards in our school, and I also introduced the document camera to the building (by offering to pilot it, of course!) There is a strong web-based component to my English class, and it's been years since final drafts of anything were hand-written.

I share this history not to boast, but rather to establish that I appreciate technology, and although I am not a digital native, I like to think I earned my citizenship a long time ago. Even so, the recent push to automate everything and go as paperless as possible does not sit well with me. Does something really exist if you can't see it without a charged battery? I think not. I'm a little too analog for a totally virtual world.

That's why the latest writing assignment my students are doing, collaborative stories written in letter form, will ultimately be published in tiny chap books, one for each author, and a couple for the classroom library.

I've showed the students how to assemble them as they've finished their pieces, and the reaction has been remarkable. "You mean we can have it?" one girl asked me today, incredulously. And when I nodded, she hugged it to her chest. "That's so cool!"

Group Hug

It happens every year...

Like turns to love, and the students in my class go from somebody else's children to *my* kids.

I think you can see why:

Fleeting Obsession

In the wake of the most recent snowfall, our dog has decided that she only likes to pee on snow. Anytime she has to go, she seeks out a patch of filthy slush and perches precariously on its icy surface to relieve herself. It's very amusing, this new neuroticism, and at eleven and half, she's earned a few eccentricities, especially those that can't last.

Open Doors

I searched my email for the keyword "door" this afternoon. I know. It seems odd, but we're having a door poster contest at school, and I wanted to review the "rules" to make sure the creation of my homeroom students was regulation, since they chose to focus on one book each with a quilt motif, instead of one for the group. As pleased as the kids were with their labor, I'd heard a little pushback from a couple of adults.

My query returned 31 results from September 2011 until yesterday, ranging in topics from albinism to wrestling to adolescent development, the main entrance to our school, and the contest in question. There were also a couple of messages from poets.org. Whenever I subscribe to their poem-a-day, there are always so many that are too good to delete, and eventually I have to unsubscribe so my mailbox won't overflow.

One of those poems I treasured was To the Thawing Wind by Robert Frost, but I had no recollection of it and so clicked on it today to refresh my memory. It started like this:

Come with rain, O loud Southwester!
Bring the singer, bring the nester;
Give the buried flower a dream;
Make the settled snowbank steam;
Find the brown beneath the white;
But whate’er you do tonight,
Bathe my window, make it flow,
Melt it as the ice will go;

Astonished, I looked up from my monitor and out the window at the rain melting the snow. How could a poem published 100 years ago be so fresh and relevant?

How could it not?

In the end, I needn't have bothered with the mail search at all– the colleague running this friendly competition complimented our poster this afternoon and shrugged off my question about qualifications with, "Yeah... They're pretty loose."– but I was glad I did.

Catchy

"Can we write a song to go along with our quiz?" a student asked me this morning.

I raised my eyebrows in confusion. Was this some kind of DST hallucination?

"You know, like a jingle," he explained.

The class was working on activity where they have a set of question starters organized in Bloom's taxonomy, from lower to higher order thinking skill. Their task is to compose a five question quiz based on the memoir we are reading. Each question must be from a different category and they also have to provide an answer key. Then they give the quiz to another student (and take one that someone else has composed), grade the quiz that they created using the key, and have a conference with the other student about the results. 

It's a waaaay better assessment than most any I might create, mostly because they are very engaged in the activity, which brings us back to the student this morning.

"Sure," I told him, and when he handed his draft in for me to check, this was scrawled across the top of the page:

Yeah, yeah, take the quiz baby, yeah!

Redistribution of Time

There's one day a year when I barely need think about what my topic will be when I sit down to compose my thoughts to write, and that day is this– the dreaded dawn of despicable daylight savings time. The challenge has become how to freshly frame my rant.

Fortunately, an Internet meme making the rounds today perfectly expresses my opinion of this outlandish construct:

Only a fool would think that cutting a foot off the top of a blanket and sewing it to the bottom would make the blanket longer.

Well said, World Wide Web, well said.

Minor Detail

Heidi's old friend Tom is in town this weekend. The two of them went to grade school in Buffalo together, and then in one of those small-world twists, he and my brother-in-law worked together for a time in NYC. Back then, whenever we drove up to the city to see Courtney, my sister, Heidi would give Tom  a call, and the five of us would meet up for an afternoon or evening. The food was always good and the conversation fast and funny, and we passed many fun hours together that way. 

That's why my brother-in-law was a little surprised when he and Tom were talking about Thanksgiving. "Courtney's mom will be there, and her brother and his family, and Tracey and Heidi," he told Tom.

"Why are Tracey and Heidi spending the holiday with Courtney's family?" Tom asked.

"You know Courtney and Tracey are sisters, right?"

Turns out, that was a surprise to Tom, one that we still tease him about all these years later. "Well," he laughed tonight when it came up for the umpteenth time, "that did clear things up for me!

I Can Dig That

The air was crackling clear and the sky the sharpest blue when I headed out this morning to pay the price for our four day weekend. Six inches of snow cloaked my car and even deeper drifts cupped the tires to their hubs. Fortunately the snow was light and powdery and easy to shovel, but even in mittens my fingers stung from the cold as I bent, scraped, lifted, trudged, and dumped. Oh, I could have had help– there were willing hands inside– but once I started I kept at it. The sun on my face and cold air in my lungs was exhilarating, and my fingers warmed as my heartbeat rose. From the woods I heard the chitter and trill of a bird and turned to find a single robin perched on an icy branch, waiting, perhaps, for winter itself to be brushed away like so much snow.

Tele-teaching

The fact that school was canceled today has not kept me from my appointed rounds. No, my students have been posting their slices of life all day, sending news of igloos, sleds, and snow ball fights, and I have been right here, in my pajamas, even, replying to each of them, in between baking bread, making soup, watching The Sopranos, and reading by the fire.

According to CNN, virtual school days in place of snow days will likely be a reality in the near future, and as a teacher I have mixed feelings about it. There's no denying the magic of waking up to a world of white and finding that school is canceled and spending the day outside playing in the snow and inside playing in the warm with your friends and siblings, but some of my students today wrote about being bored at home with nothing to do. For them? It's pretty much a waste of a day.

Certainly, there is middle ground; with a little thought and planning, any online activities can be flexible enough to offer learning but also to leave time for play and relaxation. 

The Company You Keep

I've been teaching sixth grade so long that I am often accused of acting like one of my students. And that's why you teach middle school, friends and family will say in response to, for instance, my pointing out that they said, "do do" (as in, what we do do in that situation is...)

I don't mind though; heck! I consider it a compliment. If you're only as good as the company you keep, well, my company is energetic, creative, open-minded, spontaneous and funny. I could do so much worse.

Bonus: With a little extra time at the end of class today, a student leaned on my desk. "So," he started, "why can't you hear pterodactyls when they use the bathroom?"

I was stumped for a moment, but then I began to laugh. "Does it have anything to do with silent P?"

"Yep," he answered as the bell rang.

Winning!

I try to provide a wide assortment of books in my classroom library so that every student can find something good to read. Recently I added Meanwhile, by Jason Higa, a graphic novel in choose-your-own-adventure format. It was immediately a big hit, but how could it not be, with thousands of options, all stemming from the simplest of questions, Chocolate or Vanilla? From there, the main character, Jimmy, heads off on an amazing adventure featuring a mad scientist, mind control, and a time machine, all controlled by the reader's choices on every page.

Just today several students in one of my classes were excitedly talking about it.

"What book is it?" another boy asked.

"Meanwhile," they told him.

"Oh yeah," he nodded. "I beat that book last year."

"Wait, what?" someone said, "How did you beat it?"

"Easy," he shrugged, "I got the happy ending."

And Would Suffice

We were homebound yesterday, trapped in a glittering prison of ice. (Or, as one of my students posted in his slice, Elsa has hit us and everything is frozen!) As pretty as it was, we had a few errands left un-run at the end of the weekend.

Not to worry-- sub-freezing temperatures overnight preserved the skating rink quality of most sidewalk and streets in our district, and so school was canceled. Out came the sun around 9 AM, and balmy temps of 41 banished most of the ice by 10, turning our ice day into a nice day for catching up on chores!

And it was definitely not the end of the world.

Ice and Fire

The weather here today is both treacherous and beautiful: a wintery mix has encased everything in a solid coat of ice. Although it is nearly impossible to leave the house, the crackling fire offers an awfully convincing argument to just enjoy the view of the sparkling world without from the chair between the window and the fireplace.

I think I will.

Write That Down, Pass It Around

I've been a member of the blogosphere for just about six years, which is a long time in internet years. To give you some frame of reference, back when I started, Facebook had 150 million users, as compared to over a billion today, and I was not one of them. Twitter? 22.3 million then, 285 million now, me included. Neither Pinterest nor Tumblr even existed, yet.

I spent a little time this morning clicking around some of the blogs I used to follow when I began writing mine; more than half of them have been abandoned or formally shut down; their authors have married, changed jobs, divorced, gone off to college, had children, battled illnesses, moved on or just faded away. The other half are going strong, though, and it was nice to check in with those writers.

A couple of years after I started my blog, I challenged my sixth graders to begin daily writing, too. Those particular kids are sophomores in high school now, but a little quick internet research showed me that some of them, at least, are still writing. And just yesterday, this year's students began a hundred day writing challenge of their own.

Traditionally, I launch this activity on March 1, because that is the anniversary of my own odyssey, but this year the first is Sunday, so I pushed it to February 27, because I wanted to begin in class. Even so, I was concerned that kids would forget to post today, since it is Saturday and the campaign still so new. I needn't have worried: when I logged in a few minutes ago, 25 kids had already published their second slice of life, which is not bad for an optional activity.

98 days to go!

Who knows where it will end?

I Like Talkin About You You You You Usually

I know, I know.

It's age-appropriate for sixth graders to be self-absorbed. But when you rotate through eighteen 90-second speed book-talks and nobody asks about your book because they're too busy talking about theirs, it stings a little.

Still, I was glad to hear all that enthusiasm for their independent reading!

(And for the record? I'm reading One Came Home, by Amy Timberlake. A Newbery Honor book last year, it tells the story of 13-year-old Georgie, who, in 1871, leaves her home of Placid, Wisconsin to search for her older sister, Agatha, because she doesn't believe the body the sheriff brought home was really her. AND it's pretty good, too.)

Peter Piper

It's that time of year when forward thinking gardeners (Isn't that all of us? Doesn't it take a leap of faith in the future to plant a garden at all?) start their seeds. In the past, my focus has been on tomatoes, and this season there will be plenty of those, but I have learned that the peppers must come first.

Growing up, I was never a big fan of peppers. Back then, we really only had one kind-- green bell. My sister loved them in salad, but I picked around them. My dad sauteed them every Saturday night with mushrooms and onions to go with our steak and french fries, but to me? They ruined the other vegetables. They were also in our chili and spaghetti sauce, and the first thing I did when I learned to cook was to hold the peppers.

When I was in my 20s, I was introduced to Thai food, and boy was that a pepper of a different color! Hot peppers barely seemed related to those others. The more I cooked and traveled, the more various the peppers became, and my appreciation grew. Pepperoncini, banana, ancho, habanero, roasted red, New Mexico, smoked Spanish paprika-- they all have their place in my kitchen and on my menus. I have even found a use for green bell peppers; it's impossible to make a good Cajun etouffee without 'em.

So this year I'm planting lots of peppers. The mail-order seeds arrived just the other day, and despite the snow on the ground, today I am dreaming of late July and August when the Guajillo, Hatch, Paprika, Aji Dulce, Peachy Mama, Cornejo del Toro, and Gochagaru will be ready to pick.

Sincerely

I've been reading a lot of sixth grade fiction-in-progress lately. At this stage, I try to keep my comments to these ernest young writers encouraging; we can fix grammar, spelling, and even minor plot inconsistencies in the second drafts. The other day, though, when I read through a tale about two brothers fighting a harrowing war in some dystopic future who are exchanging letters with their parents at home, I couldn't keep silent:

Dear Max,

Try to keep Alex up and working, if we lose this war we could all be destroyed. We are doing fine except we are very worried. We hope it will end soon. Do your best to survive, and take care of yourself and Alex.

From,
Your mom

"Hey guys?" I called over to the co-authors. "I'm pretty sure their mother would sign her letter 'Love'!"

Epidemic

Unfortunately, a number of my students came down with an insidious ailment yesterday while I was away from my classroom on a personal day.

Sub-induced Amnesia

Evidently, it struck swiftly and hit hard. Children forgot many of the classroom protocols that have been in place since September. They couldn't remember their assigned seats or how to read the directions on the simplest of assignments. Reportedly, they even stood on their chairs and shouted to other students across the room.

And yet, when questioned about these anomalous behaviors, just 24 hours later, they only had one recollection.

The sub said we could.

Spin Doctors

I, like two billion of my fellow citizens of this planet, saw a picture of a cute puppy on the internet recently. This particular pup was a cross between a Bernese mountain dog and a poodle. Called a "Bernedoodle" it was an adorable little tri-color schmuppy, with moppy hair and sleepy eyes.

It did, in fact, resemble our own darlin dog, but with a Swiss twist which I found irresistible. With Google ever at the ready, I searched up a breeder in my state and clicked around their website. Those puppies are pricey, but that wasn't my main concern. BMDs are notoriously short-lived: along with Great Danes and Saint Bernards, those guys are lucky to make it to double digits. I was hoping that a little poodle in the gene pool might lengthen their longevity.

Alas, that seems not to be the case, but the way the information was delivered by this particular establishment made me gasp in horror and then laugh out loud at their audacity of commerce:

The Bernedoodle has an average lifespan of 11 years, which is below average compared to all other dog breeds. Therefore, the Bernedoodle is ideal for people looking for a shorter-term financial and emotional commitment in a canine companion.

Golden Boy

Here we are in the grip of Oscar fever. Our ballots are filled and a fine dinner prepared-- a yummy spread of tapas with shrimp, lamb chops, patatas bravas, roasted peppers, roasted beets, pea salad, mini pizzas, and a couple of nice spinach dishes-- we have settled in to graze and celebrity-watch the red carpet pre-show.

Of course that means a lot of commercials, and so in between our chatter about dresses and hair, who looks gold and who looks old, we also talk about those in our party who are missing this party, especially Victor and Treat. Just a few minutes ago, there was a promo for the Disney show Once Upon a Time where Cruella Daville, Ursula, and Maleficent were trying to convince a pretty blond to turn evil.

Their conversation brought to mind a long ago movie-inspired scene from my own life. More than ten years ago, on a lovely summer evening Riley, Eric, and Treat were all out on the front lawn playing with light sabers. Before the epic battle began, there was a pause and Eric said, "Wait! We can't all be Jedis. Someone's gotta be the enemy."

Without hesitation, Treat volunteered. "I'll go to the dark side!" he cried eagerly.

That's our Treatie-bird.

Dogsta Paradise

Sand, water, and snow?

What a good idea!

Deep Freeze

We're rushing around getting organized for our annual Oscar holiday weekend. This year, like last, we're renting a place on the Chesapeake Bay. The idea came to me a couple of years ago when after taking the Monday after the ceremony off, we woke to nearly 70 degrees at the end of February.

Such a day cried out for a road trip and so we put the dog in the car and headed east. That day, we rolled up our pants and splashed through amazingly temperate tidal pools as we walked the sandy shore of North Beach. We should do this every year! I thought, and a couple of Oscars later, we found a place in Scotland, MD to spend the weekend.

Last year, the weather wasn't too bad when we arrived on Saturday, and we spent the late afternoon beach combing for fossils and sea glass. It seemed impossible that they were predicting snow for the next night, and we joked about being stranded in such a place. Truth be told, we did have a bit of a harrowing ride home, but it all turned out fine-- just part of the adventure.

Tonight we're preparing for our long weekend away in record cold temperatures with some more wintery weather threatening tomorrow, but I can't get upset. There will be a warm house right on the beach with plenty of firewood when we get there, and I don't even have to find room in the freezer for the extra stuff I got at the grocery store this afternoon. It's all chillin' in the car, ready to beat the storm in the morning.

Compromise

The collaborative writing project I mentioned earlier is in full swing-- students are working in pairs to create a story written entirely in letters and other forms of correspondence. Even though they conducted extensive interviews, some kids found themselves with a partner who wasn't exactly on the same page in terms of plot, setting, and/or conflict.

For the most part, I have been very impressed with their ability to to meet in the middle. Out of 40 pairs, I've only had to switch two and counsel one extensively. This latter duo was fraught with friction until they hatched a story about two students who didn't want to work together but had to find a way to successfully complete their assignment. They say write what you know...

My favorite bargain by far, though, was the guy who wanted to write about a zombie apocalypse and his partner who had her heart set on a murderous ballerina; united by their love of the horror genre, they decided to populate their story with killer zomberinas.

Buying the Farm

It was not uncommon at my first cooking job to chop up hundreds of chicken breasts a day. Lemon chicken, sesame chicken, chicken almond salad, all were staples on the menu of that catering and carry-out establishment. Over the years that was a lot of chickens sent to their demise for one small business. No wonder the classic Far Side cartoon made us laugh.

These days, we run a mostly vegan household, but that sensibility sure doesn't extend to our pets. They eat a pound of raw meat a day. They also enjoy an assortment of treats also animal-based. Beef trachea, kangaroo jerky, various tendons, they are all stowed away in our cupboard. Recently we came into a windfall of freeze-dried duck feet-- a friend with four dogs bought them in bulk and found that her hounds easily tired of those particular poultry parts. As a result we have a hundred of them in the larder, which just makes me picture 50 ducks bobbing rudderless on an idyllic lake down on the Footless Duck Farm.

A Deep Bench

When I was little we had a set of Corning nesting bowls. Turquoise and white with a ring of farmers and roosters, the three of them were in heavy rotation in our kitchen. To us kids, the largest one was most notably the popcorn bowl, the medium one was the salad bowl, and the small one was often used for scrambling eggs.

The ones we had are long gone, replaced in my own kitchen by much more practical stainless steel, but several years back, I got a replacement set of the rooster bowls for Christmas, and I treasure them, even though I don't use them often, because there are certain times when those shelf-warmers are indispensable.

And on a snow day like today, when corn popped on the fire and Sally Lunn rising in the kitchen warmed us up after shoveling and sledding,, they were starters

Presidents Day Present

Historically, it seems that Presidents Day is the most likely time in our area for a big storm. '79, '03, and the Snowmeggedon/Snoverkill of 2010 delivered us multiple days of digging in and digging out right in the middle of February. And now this year, just when we thought that winter would leave us without a significant snowfall, we find ourselves at the end of three-day weekend contemplating a little more time away from work. And although our district hasn't called it yet, I've got my

fingers crossed,

because,

y'know,

I think the Presidents would want it that way.

Resolution

For me, it can be difficult to set school work aside, even on a three day weekend. For example, in my English classes right now, my students and I are focusing on the elements of fiction and plot structure, and so this afternoon when I was watching Marion Cotillard's Oscar-nominated performance in the French-language film Two Days, One Night, I was all about how that story of a woman who was forced to lobby her co-workers to give up their bonuses to save her job was being shaped.

At first, I found that I was a little confused at the lack of exposition, but also drawn in by the same, and then I noticed that I was marking events as they unfolded as "rising action". And when it came to a scene in the hospital that was clearly not the "climax", if one defined the conflict as the character of Sandra trying to get her job back, but was obviously the pivotal event of the movie, I had a true a-ha moment: in addition to realizing the central conflict was internal, not external, I also recognized that those little zig-zag diagrams can really be helpful!

Old Married Couple

At 6 o'clock on Valentine's Day the grocery store was not exactly deserted, but rather patronized by a few single shoppers and several families. The bitter cold of yesterday had subsided and our coats were unzipped when we stopped on our way home from the movies to get the final ingredients for our traditional heart-shaped pizzas. To our surprise, giant snowflakes filled the sky as we exited through the double doors. It was too warm for them to stick, but Heidi and I turned to each other at the same moment.

"Remember that time we went to the movies?" I started

"and when we came out it was snowing?" Heidi continued.

"then we went to the Japanese steakhouse for dinner, and after that? It was really coming down," I added.

"and we didn't have school for a week!" Heidi finished.

"That was fun!" we said together, and we climbed into our car to drive home.

Microaggression

We had our dog to the vet this afternoon for a minor procedure: it was time for an icky wart on her back to be excised. There were a lot of other dogs when we arrived, but ours was too busy quivering to pay any attention to them. The same could not be said for a persistent little black poodle mix about half her size.

All the while his owner was settling up at the front counter, he was at the end of his leash straining toward Isabel, nose high, tail swaggering. At last his owner finished and turned toward us. "Is your dog friendly?" she asked, intoning the tribal greeting of urban dog owners. Because I said yes, the two of us were obliged to make small talk in the minutes it took for our dogs to sniff each other. Generally that takes the form of asking about each other's dogs, and that's what happened this time, too.

"Half poodle, half golden retriever," I said.

"Schnoodle," she told me. "His father was an apricot poodle. Can you believe it?"

I looked at the cast iron tint of her pup, and shook my head.

"All the rest of his litter mates were orange," she continued, "But we wanted a black dog."

I nodded politely. She shrugged.

"Especially since we got him on Martin Luther King's birthday."

Breathing Room

With a special activity and early release for students tomorrow as well as a holiday on Monday, I found myself with a rare feeling this afternoon around 3 PM. There was nothing that I had to do RIGHT AWAY. I surveyed my empty classroom. The custodian had already been through, but the books and papers cluttering my desk and shelves were not her responsibility. I took a deep breath and moved several stacks of stuff to an empty table, where I spent the next hour or so sorting, filing, shelving, stacking, and recycling. For the first time in a while, a sliver of the blond veneer of my desk top was actually visible. With satisfaction I packed my things to leave for the day, and as I closed the door behind me, the afternoon sun shone brightly on the vigorous fronds of my spider plant and illuminated the orderly room beyond.

Plane English

One of my favorite reading activities is giving students directions to fold a paper airplane. Practical and easy to assess, kids will go back to those instructions again and again to get it right. And when they do? They fly.

Clash of the Titans

In this era of high stakes testing, any teacher will tell you that the math and language arts (specifically reading) departments drive the figurative bus, which in our case is definitely bright yellow. In general, these disciplines maintain a wary truce, each convinced that their skills and content actually provide students with the keys to success. Oh sure, math may claim to be an objective subject, but language arts recognizes that construct for the oxymoron it is.

Often these two plan school-wide events; meant to be fun and engaging, at middle school they are transparently self-promoting and usually a little lame. March is a big month for both departments-- the 2nd is Dr. Seuss's birthday which has been designated Read Across America Day, and the 14th? Well, this year, a little before half-past nine in the morning, it will be 3.14.15 9:26. It's the Pi Day of the century!

At our school, the proximity of two such momentous occasions made for a little bit of a prickly meeting this afternoon-- we have almost too much celebration scheduled. Maybe we should declare them both holidays and take a couple weeks off!

There's a Place for You

We got a new student on our team last week. He is in my homeroom, reading, and English class, so I have had some time to observe him. Coming in at this point in the year, a kid has to make a social call-- will he align with the teacher or with the students? A common dynamic is the new kid who has nothing to lose by defying the establishment and flouting the routine for the attention of the other students. Of course I want them to make friends, but not at the expense of the productive dynamic I've worked the last five months to forge.

This new guy has made a gentle venture in that direction. Soft spoken, he is self-effacing in the quiet confusion he broadly expresses about academic expectations, but it amuses his peers even so. The morning announcements can be particularly rich material for his act-- who are these strange folk and their odd pronouncements?

Today, though, there was a trailer for the international film we will air for the whole school on Friday, and when they said it was from Mongolia, his interest was genuine, and he moved to a seat where he could better see the screen. As the video rolled, he sighed and proclaimed, "My Mongolia! I would know you anywhere!" and I knew, that come Friday, he was going to have the attention of our class in a very positive way, as an expert on something he loves.

I don't think we'll have much more trouble after that.