Teachable Moment

"Son of a bitch!" a boy I didn't know swore loudly when confronted with a locked door across the hall.

I tapped sternly on the window. He looked at me hopefully and came to the door. I grabbed my keys. "What do you need Cussy Cusser?" I asked.

He looked confused, but then his cheeks brightened. "That wasn't me!" he said. "But I need to get into that classroom-- my phone's in there!"

"Then you're going to need to own up to what you said," I told him, jingling my keys.

"I said, Dang it!" he tried.

"That's not what I heard," I said.

He stood uncertainly.

"What I heard started with, Son of..." I prompted him helpfully.

"Well, usually I say Son of a mother!" he replied.

"Maybe," I answered, "but not this time."

"Oh, okay!" he said in desperation. "I said it, I said it, okay? And I shouldn't talk that way in school, I know!"

 "How are we going to make sure it doesn't happen again?" I asked as I opened the door.

"It won't!" he assured me. "This was way too much trouble."

Unfortunately, his phone was not in there. "Oh sh--" he stopped and looked at me. "oot!" he finished.

"Nice save," I said. "Maybe your phone's in the office."

We May Be Hazardous to Your Health

"I'm going to have to be the mean nurse and ask some of you to go," the very sweet nurse in my cousin's ICU room told us this afternoon. She looked meaningfully at me, Heidi, and my Aunt Harriett, who were having a very animated conversation indeed. "His blood pressure is up and it's just too stimulating in here."

"That's okay," I hugged my aunt. "We have to run anyway." And to the nurse I said, "No worries! Believe it or not, everywhere we go they tell us we're too stimulating!"

"Yeah," Heidi added, "it must be because we're teachers. Stimulating is our job!"

Luke Star Wars

Well, we finally saw the new Star Wars movie this afternoon, and it was pretty good. I have spent the last few weeks actively avoiding spoilers, but even so, I was well-prepared for the ending, both because it seemed inevitable and also due to a garbled conversation I overheard between two sixth graders on the Monday after it premiered. I guess "Skywalker" and "Star Wars" do sound kind of similar.

Keep Those Rags and Machines Humming

After 8 hours on wintery roads yesterday, our car was encrusted in a thin film of salt. Of course, I had no idea that was true until I brushed the new-fallen snow from it this morning. At any rate, a trip to the car wash was definitely in order, and so this afternoon on the way home from the grocery store I made a quick right into an express outfit and waited in line to pay at the kiosk, but not before turning down two offers of unlimited daily washes for 25.99 a month.

Next we pulled around to the entrance where employees literally danced and bounced with signs reading first Pull Forward and then Put it in neutral and step off the brakes. Oh, they laughed at my indecisiveness, but the existence of the signs reassured me that I was not the only clueless client. I could not think how long it had been been since I rode through the car wash, but it was like a sudsy amusement park attraction with flashing blue and red lights and giant rags and brushes and soap and water squirting everywhere, so thrilling that it made me giggle.

"Maybe I will get the unlimited pass!" I told Heidi and Elaine as we drove out into the cold evening in our newly clean car. "That was kind of fun!"

The Night Closes In

After several hours of driving through sub-zero temperatures on the way home from Buffalo a bit of road fatigue hit me somewhere on I-70, and all of a sudden NPR was making me a little sleepy. "How about some Name that Tune?" I suggested to Heidi.

Ours is a road trip-ready version which involves hitting scan on the radio and racing to identify whatever comes up on the next station in range. Of course the tunes vary considerably depending on where we are, which is all part of the fun. At that point in the trip there was a lot of country music, both classic and contemporary, some current pop, some straight up rock, a little classic rock, and... then there was Max 92.9 broadcasting from Buddy Lou's restaurant in Hancock and playing deep cuts and hits from the 70s and 80s.

It turns out that there's nothing like recognizing Exile's Kiss You All Over in 2 bars after several decades to reinvigorate a weary driver in her mid-50s, folks. 

Impervious

It was zero degrees when we landed in Buffalo this evening, but you wouldn't have known it by looking at some of our fellow travelers. A frigid draft chilled the baggage claim area each time the sliding glass doors whooshed open, but those guys in shorts didn't flinch at all. And I wrapped my scarf tightly around my neck before zipping my coat all the way up and putting on my hat and mittens, but that perma-tanned lady with the in the hot pink Vera Bradley shift and matching slides never wavered once as she shuffled straight out into the bone-chilling night without even a jacket.

Honey Do

Heidi does not love playing games, but she knows her in-laws well.  As stocking stuffers, she got each of us a game to play.

AND even more impressively, she spent the day playing them with us today.

Now that's the Christmas spirit!