Can't Get No...

Dogs are amazing.

My dog has been whining at the TV cabinet for three days or more. I know from experience that there has to be something she wants but can not get over there, but I can't find a thing. No toys or balls have rolled beyond her reach. Even when I stoop to scan beneath it, I find nothing. Still, she persists.

Say what you will about her exuberance for visitors, but even as she ages, she is a usually contented canine. So when she whines? I want to deliver.

And so there I was on hands and knees with a flashlight examining the darkest reaches of the cupboard's nether region when I spotted a sliver of a liver snack way in the back. How it got there I have no clue, but I know the end of its story. I swept it out, and I think I heard my dog sigh when she ate it, maybe in pleasure, maybe in relief, but definitely in

satisfaction. Hey, hey, hey.

Fathers Day

We had a celebration at school today to honor our retiring principal. It was a warm event and drew many people from near and far who have known her over the last 38 years of her career or even all of her life. Her 99-year-old dad made the trip up from Florida for the occasion. I don't think I've ever met anyone that old, and he was impressive-- very spry and on the ball. His off-the-cuff tribute to his daughter began, "She was an awful child," and rolled with the laughs from there. After seeing him, fifty more years seems totally do-able now.

I also saw a young woman who was in the first sixth grade group I taught. A teacher who is currently a stay-at-home mom, she was there to help out with another end-of-the-year activity. She was finished with her volunteer gig when we saw each other. "Where's Philip?" I asked about her toddler. She was all too happy to make a call to her dad who was babysitting. In no time, I was visiting with the trio in my classroom. It was a funny three generation kind of thing. Philip was adorable, and it was interesting to see Stephanie all grown up and in a totally different role, and Dave, her dad? Exactly the same as I remembered him: an unassuming, corny kind of aw-shucks guy with a lot going on underneath. He was clearly devoted to his children then as he is to his grandson now.

It's been 25 years since I've needed to buy a Fathers Day card, and many times the day passes with only a fleeting thought, and usually I don't really regret that.

Today I did.

The Hump

So THAT'S what that was at 1:30 AM this morning. Fingers crossed that it really is all downhill from here (at least until late August).

Up Too Late

Didn't I learn this lesson in college?
Graduate school?
The other graduate school?
Nope.
Education doesn't always make you smart.

An Old Fashioned Guy

"I try to give good service at a reasonable price."

That's what the appliance repairman said to me this afternoon after he showed up on time with the necessary parts and quickly fixed the dishwasher. What's more? I called him on Saturday, and he was able to come today. Heck, he even liked our dog.

"What's the point of not doing that?" he continued rhetorically. "No one will ever call you back." Before he left, he gave me an itemized bill along with the old parts he'd replaced.

You can bet I put his card in a very safe place.

See You Again Soon

This weekend marked the formal celebration of the 100th anniversary of the Girl Scouts. In honor of their birthday, the GSA organized a weekend of festivities here in Washington, D.C. called Girl Scouts Rock the Mall. There were exhibits, activities, a rally, a world-record flash mob, and of course a sing along.

Our favorite girl scouts, Allyn and Delaney, were in town for the event with their mom. They stayed with us, and it was a fun weekend. Not to compete with the scouts or anything, but we had perfect pool weather, great food (including a cupcake taste test), and good company.

As they packed their things to go, both girls wished that they never had to leave. "That's the sign of a good visit," we told them, "when you have to go home before you're ready."

Look it Up

Not long ago an excerpt from a new book popped up on the website I was reading. Sure the mention of Hemingway, as in It all began with Hemingway, caught my eye (who doesn't like a little Papa?), but it was definitely the word apposite that made me stop.

I don't know that word.

I like to think I'm fairly intelligent and pretty well educated, also I've been teaching English for nearly 20 years, and that ought to count for something, and quite frankly, it's not often that I encounter unfamiliar words in my reading, so I was a little bit surprised. I read on. Not two sentences later did the word appurtenance appear. I don't know that one either.

The narrative was engaging and the topic of interest, but it was clear that the vocabulary was going to be a stretch. Without hesitation, I bought the kindle version of the book on the spot, and for the first time ever, I used the glossary function to give me the definitions of those words; within moments I consulted it twice more (encomiums, scabrous) just while reading the Introduction. What a handy tool!

As has become my habit in many personal learning situations, I thought of my students and how my experience was relevant to theirs. There are a lot of words that sixth graders don't know, and it's always interesting how they approach them. Most treat them as if they are invisible or at least inconsequential to the text; they have a definite work around mentality that pretty much works. Others consider such obscurity to be a sign that the writing is completely incomprehensible to them and they stop reading.

Either way, very few look them up, but research shows that most fluent readers rarely break their stride to parse unfamiliar words. I wonder if that will change now that every definition is literally at our fingertips.