Slow News Week

We listened to a lot of news radio on the road trip home from Buffalo today. (Attention! New record: 7 hours flat!). It was mostly NPR, but there were some extremely right wing call-ins scattered here and there. Even though they call it "news", there really wasn't a whole lot new, so I tried to amuse myself by processing the information in novel ways.

Along the way, I decided that Romney should choose Santorum as a running mate, (Okay, we were driving through Pennsylvania, but you have to admit it's a shrewd pairing), and also that people with British accents shouldn't question President Obama's citizenship, especially in first person plural as in, "He's not qualified to be our president... We should arrest him for treason." It just doesn't sound convincing.

As the trip wore on, though, I started noticing more and more misspoken idioms. For example, some people feel that the voters in Iowa often skewer the national primary results, and that the diplomats trying to repair the U.S.'s relationship with Pakistan have a tough road to hoe.

Agreed, especially if it's paid with good intentions.

I'm so glad to be home!

The "Duh" Was Implied

Since Tangled was released in 2010, there's been a lot of publicity about how Rapunzel rounds out the Disney princesses to an even ten. In fact you can watch a little countdown of them in order of popularity on YouTube, should you be so inclined. This particular clip also includes some interesting facts and history about the ten. For example, who knew that Sleeping Beauty nearly killed the franchise at three? In fact it was 30 years before Ariel, the Little Mermaid, revived the princess business and put it on the road to the phenomenal success it enjoys today. Jasmine was the first non-caucasian princess, Pocohantas the sole princess based on a real person, and so also the only one without a happy ending, and Tiana the lone princess to hold down a job. Of course Cinderella is the most popular.

This morning, my four-year-old niece and I watched the countdown together, and to be honest, I was enjoying the whole girl power groove of the thing. "That was pretty good," I said to her when it was over. "Do you think you would want to be the eleventh princess someday?"

She looked at me a little dismissively, as if I was missing something, and then shook her head. "I already am a princess," she said.

Oh right. Silly me.

Over the Weight Limit

It's already been a week that I've been off from school, and I must say that I've been more than able to let it all go this time-- there's nothing happening that can't wait until the first Tuesday of 2012. Oh, January 3 will be a rocking day-- I predict that we will hit the ground running and continue non-stop, until, March? Unless there is a blizzard, Spring Break will be the next break; until then we will rocket along with planning and grading, on to the end of the quarter, then science fair, early release, professional development, spring conferences, standardized tests, field trips, meetings, conferences, referrals, tolerance clubs, writing clubs, homework clubs, literary magazine, and on and on.

It seems counter-intuitive that the busier we are, the easier it seems to leave our professional baggage behind at school on breaks like this, but the truth is that some things are just too heavy to bring along.

Maybe Tomorrow?

I think it's important as a teacher of writing to engage as a writer every day myself... At least that's what I said tonight at dinner when someone I'd just met asked me how and why I started blogging.

Yeah... and some days I'm more engaged than others.

Confounded No More

I am a casual blogger, but like any writer, when I send my message out into the universe, it's with hope that someone will read what I have to say. Fortunately, in this day and age, along with this new electronic medium comes some nifty e-gadgets, too, that let a blogger track how many hits and where they are coming from to get an interesting overall picture of readership.

Most days, my readers are my mom, my brother, my sister, and my friend Mary (thanks guys!). I have a few other more sporadic, but still regular readers (thanks guys!), too, but 20 hits is a busy day for me. You can imagine then, what an early Christmas gift it was for me to see over a hundred visitors to my blog, yesterday. Curiously, although they were from all over the world, they seemed to be clustered by time zone.

I clicked around my stats page a little more and discovered that most of my readers had come in search of a single term, and it was all clear to me what was happening. Last year at this time I posted about Christmas Crackers and a particularly unfathomable joke we got, What do ghosts wear in the rain? The punchline was "Khagouls", which it turned out was a pun on the equally unfamiliar word "kagools", which is a sort of English anorak.(Thanks again, Mary!)

Yesterday, all over the world, from one Christmas Eve dinner to another and another, as crackers were snapped, and crowns were donned, along with the merriment, confusion spread from table to table. What does this joke mean? they asked. And their solution? Google of course! And what did they find? Walking the Dog!

Coats of Christmas Past

We've had a fairly mild winter so far, and it was even unseasonably temperate in Buffalo, NY, when we packed the car for our trip up here. You can't count on a warm snap like that to last in December, though, so I found my winter coat in the closet and tossed it on top of the suitcases and presents in the back of our station wagon.

Yesterday, when the temps were only in the low 20s at noon, I was glad I had. I slipped it on like an old friend as I bundled up to run a few errands. The blue of it was still as bright and cheery as ever, the black fleece inside just as warm and cozy. I reached into the pockets and found my mittens and lip balm just where I'd left them the last time I wore my coat, last winter. I also found a grocery list and movie ticket stubs dated January 30.

It was like a mini time capsule. When you're a child, coats need to be replaced every year, so fast do you grow and grow up, but as I looked at my grocery list and thought of the me who made it, it seemed amazing not how much has changed in nearly a year, but rather how little.

Comforts of Home

We are away from home for over a week this holiday season, and as fun and exciting as it is to spend time with those we love most, it's always a challenge for me to pack. If we are driving, it's a little easier, because more of the things I think I might need or want can fit, but I've found that no matter how much you bring, there's always something you wish you had.

When they were little, my older nephews used to spend a lot of time at our house. Even though they lived close by, there were many fun weekends and overnights. I like to think it was almost a second home to them, and I know they were very comfortable there. Even so, there were times when they missed little things, too. Oh, not their toothbrushes, which rarely made it, or even clean underwear, which was never a big priority, either. I clearly remember a time, though, when Treat was only about four and still pretty recently potty-trained. He was very good about making it to the bathroom, but once there, our toilet seat was just too big and too hard. "Ohhhh," he lamented, "I wish Mommy packed my cushy tushy."

I know just how he felt. "Ohhhh," I lamented this morning, "I wish I packed my other sneakers."