It Just Seems Wrong

Today was the last of two state-mandated standardized tests for our sixth grade students. At 54 questions it took the quickest child one hour and forty minutes and the last was still testing 15 minutes before the dismissal bell; she clicked "submit" five and a half hours after she logged in.

Really?

It All Comes Together

"He should get a Newbury for this!" one of my students exclaimed. "A Newbury!"

"What are you reading?" asked the guy to his left.

"This profile that Anuj wrote about me," the first student answered. "He. is. a. genius!"

S Minus Twenty- three

There have been school years past where the students honestly did not know when summer vacation (or any other break for that matter) actually began. when that happens, it is actually no problem to teach almost up to the end, filling the last weeks and days with sweet activities that bring the term to a satisfying close.

This year is not one of those. Returning to class after a sultry three day weekend that quite publicly kicks off the summer season was kind of challenging. Not that the kids were rude or mean-spirited, or anything of that nature. Nope, their collective sixth-soon-to-be-seventh-grade brain was simply focused elsewhere, and to be honest? I found it hard to blame them. 

One Stop

We went to our favorite grocery store today. The nearest location is a bit of a hike from our place, but it's totally worth it. With a natural food section that rivals America's Healthiest Grocery Store, an impressive international food selection, a variety of most of the beer and wine you could ever desire, amazing produce, butcher, baker, fish, and cheese, plus regular groceries at competitive, economical prices, the place is this shopper's dream.

Did I mention the prepared food? It is good enough that we almost always plan to have lunch there before we shop. Today, as we were cleaning up our table getting ready for the main event, we passed a couple sitting at a table not far from our own. Between them was a whole pecan pie and a half-gallon of vanilla ice cream, two forks and two spoons.

Nice.

So That's How It's Going to Be?

On Saturday night of the three day weekend officially kicking off summer, we decided to do the summery thing of catching up on our Marvel movies, and so we watched Deadpool on pay-per-view.

What? It had the biggest opening of any R-rated movie. Ever. It also smashed box office records for February films, over Valentine's Day weekend. Plus, Ryan Reynolds-- he was super cute with Sandra Bullock and Betty White in The Proposal.

Oh my.

The fact that we are neither prudes nor snobs did not matter. We barely even got credit for spending 8 hours a day with middle school kids, because from the opening sequence it was clear that we were strangers in this land-- the raunchy, super-violent flick was not made with us in mind.

Did we see it through? Sure. But to completely appreciate the movie I do believe we would have had to have been thirty years younger with a Y-chromosome.

The demographics are catching up with us.

Primary Source

One of the students who is interviewing me for the profile project has chosen gardening as her angle. Because they have to get some secondary quotes, she asked me who else has "seen me gardening."

My nephew, Treat, has helped me before, I told her. Since my budding journalists have a limited travel budget, most of them rely on the kindness of their subject to pass along their written questions. As it is the 21st century, some have used Google Docs and email for this task, but I have a stack of index cards for those who want or need to go old school. The kids persist in calling them postcards, though, a misdesignation which I find so charming that I never correct them. And so it was that this particular student brought me a collection of three "postcards" for Treat:

Hi Ms. S's Nephew I need to ask you some questions about her because I'm doing the thing about her, read the first one, and below that the word Questions! with lots of dots and underlines. At the bottom it read From Samantha R

The next card had two questions: Have you ever seen her struggle when she's gardening? and have you noticed her strengths?

And the final card asked, how can you describe her garden in 3 words?

Rather than transcribe the inquiry, I texted photos of the cards to Treat. As a potential primary source, I wanted him to appreciate the primary questions. I believe he did, because his answers were very much in the spirit of the project:

1) I've never observed ms s. struggling in the garden. I do believe that there is an upward limit to her strength but I haven't observed it

2) yes, as mentioned, I haven't been able to determine her strength exactly but I believe it to be very great

3) the vegetables!!! yum!!

I can't wait to share them with Samantha!

A is for Air Conditioning

When I was a kid, we did not have air conditioning and neither did many people we knew. Back then, the windows were always open, and if you had a box fan wedged between the sill and the sash on hot nights, you were lucky. Even so, our pillows and hair were damp with sweat each morning. We didn't care though: barefoot, in shorts, or bathing suits, being hot in summer was normal, and we swam through the heat like fish through water.

Air conditioning changed everything, and now at the slightest threat of hot weather, we close up the house like a box and crank the a/c, sealing ourselves away from any discomfort. Summer days inside are so gelid that the heat is like a wall when you finally go out.  I have noticed that when I leave school in the early evenings, my skin is literally refrigerated; it stays unnaturally cold for a good ten minutes

Here at home, though, it seems that our heat pump is a total loss, and so we have spent the last couple of days sweating, windows open, looking for the slightest trace of a cross breeze. Just like the old days, all our meals are light and cool (the stove would add way too much heat to the house), the dog pants contentedly on the cool tile floor, and we sleep with nothing but a sheet covering us.

Perhaps it's because I know the a/c will be fixed tomorrow, but tonight, far from being hot and cranky, I am inclined to let summer in. 

Life Lesson: “Ah, summer, what power you have to make us suffer and like it.” ~Russell Baker