September Song

Officially, autumn began at 4:01 pm on Friday, but you'd be hard pressed to know it around here. 

Maybe it was the warm summery weather, but boy! Did we pack a lot into the last two days. They were filled with a fun and satisfying combo of hiking, cooking out, farmers marketing, escape rooming, and the like. All in all a perfect weekend, except for one thing.

We have to go back to work tomorrow.

Holla if you feel me!

Shared Sorrow

"All the children in your family lost a cat this year," Annabelle noted when she heard of the early morning passing of my brother's family cat, Trixie.

"That's right," my sister and I agreed.

Poor us.

All in the Family

What does my cousin want for her birthday dinner?

Why, chicken with white gravy and biscuits of course!

And she shall have it.

Happy Birthday, Elaine!

Fan Club

We're teaching personal narrative to begin the year, and so some of my fellow teachers asked to use a little memoir I wrote a few years ago as a mentor text. It's the humorous tale of a baby-sitting job gone wrong, and my students usually enjoy it when I read it to them. Still, I was not prepared for the reaction I received when yesterday afternoon I was introduced to a group of sixth graders in Heidi's special education social skills class who I do not teach.

"I know you!" one of them said. "You're Ms. B's friend, and I read your story!"

"That's right," I laughed. "What did you think?"

"Those kids were bad!" she said, "And you were funny!"

Her friend was listening to the conversation. "Hey, Tracey!" she said, and the assistant who works with her whipped his head around in shock at hearing her use my first name.

"It's okay," I said, "that's my name in the story."

"Did you ever babysit them again?" she asked me.

"Nope," I told her. "I sure did not."

Just then another of their classmates pulled a wrinkled set of pages from his book bag. Sure enough, it was my story. "I'll read it to you!" he said. "It's really funny!"

Aw, shucks.

Teaching with Benefits

"I haven't picked on you yet," the workshop presenter said jovially, looking pointedly in our direction. "What are the benefits of co-teaching?"

It was the Monday of pre-service week, and my friend Mary and I were sitting side by side in an all-day professional development about differentiation. Mary, the pro, answered first. "Two heads are better than one!" she offered succinctly.

I had never co-taught, and at times I struggle when put on the spot in large groups. The presenter looked expectantly at me. "Uhhhhhhhh," I stalled."There's someone to help you when you don't know what to say?" The room laughed appreciatively, and her focus shifted elsewhere.

I remembered that morning today, three weeks into co-teaching one of my classes. In the split second after I had finished giving the directions and the plan for the day, one of our less-focused, chronically disruptive students waved me over. "I'd like you to explain those directions to me one-on-one," he said. "I didn't really get it."

I nodded. "I'll tell Ms. F," I told him. "She'll be over in a minute."

The Loneliest Number

After an unusually cool start to September, the weather in recent days has turned much warmer and more like the early Autumn we Virginians are accustomed to. Tonight we shed our school clothes in favor of shorts and tshirts before taking Lucy for her evening walk. Windows were open, and a few midweek barbecues were even sizzling as the three of us ambled through the neighborhood. On the last leg of our journey we blinked and blinked again, unable to believe our eyes. A single firefly flitted and flickered above a few late flowers, and call as she might for another of her kind to light up in reply, there was no answering flash.

Hydrophobia

The last time I got a pair of kittens was back in 1989. Molly and Oliver were fast friends; she was the brains of the operation, but he was definitely the sweetest of cats. That dynamic seems to be playing out in Tibby and Milo, but only time will tell.

Back then, Paula Poundstone used to do hilarious riffs on her cats in her stand-up routines. She always had a bit about using a squirt bottle to train them.

It does work, because water's very upsetting to a cat. It doesn't hurt them, or mess up their fur or nothin"-- it's just very upsetting. They don't know why. So when I take a shower it's the most incredible thing my cats have ever seen. They line up right outside the shower. I can hear them banging on the glass while I'm in there. And afterwards when I open the door, they're like, that was amazing! Man, it was all over you! And there was nothing we could do about it-- that glass thing was there; we couldn't get in... You must have realllllly messed up!

Something made me think of that bit this morning as I turned the shower on, but it wasn't until I opened my eyes after rinsing the shampoo from my hair that I noticed I had an audience. Front and center on the other side of the door was a wide-eyed little orange kitten who clearly was wondering What are you doing?!?