The Next Act

I was talking to a friend the other day about some impressive deductions she had made based on a couple of meetings slated for the same day. "You're such a detective!" I told her.

"Maybe that can be my retirement job!" she answered.

Indeed.

Because, lately? Retirement jobs seem to crop up quite frequently in conversation. Just this evening our neighbor and her mom who was visiting from another state came over to see the freshly painted living room. The mom, who is a retired educator herself, was impressed. "When ya'll retire, you can rent yourselves out as painters!" she gushed.

And so it goes. Even though retirement is still several years away, it is steadily colonizing our ideas of the future. Will we be teacher assistants, dog trainers, or prep cooks? Will we be Uber drivers, museum docents, or personal chefs? Will we become journalists, finally publish our writing, or open an indoor dog park? Where will our passions and necessity lead?

I haven't seen this many open doors in the distance since I was in college.

Reeling in the Years

When teachers marching to replace tattered textbooks is headline news, it's hard not to appreciate how fortunate our affluent school district is. When it comes to materials and supplies, our students have pretty much anything they need. There is some disparity in facilities, however. Predictably, the newer the building, the nicer the place and the stuff inside.

Our school is 47 years old, and the furniture in my classroom is original to the building. The wood veneer trapezoid tables and heavy steel and composite chairs have been in my personal possession for 25 years, so they are in relatively good condition, despite being over 20 when I was first assigned them.

Aesthetically, I like to think they have held up well-- my classroom seems classic to me-- but on days when I am giving a standardized test, the vintage furniture doesn't seem quite so user-friendly as usual. Mostly? It's the tables-- they wiggle and squeak where the metal legs are bolted to the wood veneer tops.

To be honest, I don't even hear it anymore, and the kids get used to it pretty quickly, too (well that, and it's not always that quiet in the room; learning is a noisy business, you know.) But today the squeaking was bothering everyone. "This test is going to take me 2 weeks!" one frustrated student proclaimed dramatically, "And I'm not even kidding!"

I pulled her table away from its partner, and the awful noise was mostly muted. When the day was done, I opened one of my storage cupboards and retrieved my trusty can of WD40. 24 spritzes later, I was sure she would finish the test tomorrow... on that iPad the school system gave her!

A Worthy Adversary

My directions were clear: for the final push in our fiction-writing unit, the classroom should be a quiet working space.

"So, what's your story about?" asked one student in a loud, conversational tone aimed at the other kids at his table. He was looking for some verbal distraction, and I was more than happy to refocus him.

"My story is about a quiet classroom where writers can finish the drafts of their stories," I answered him pointedly.

"Well, that's clearly fiction," he replied.

We laughed, because it was really funny.

Then?

He got to work.

Let There Be Borscht

It was my sister-in-law's parents tradition to eat a meal of white borscht on Easter. Homemade chicken broth is poured piping hot over hard boiled eggs, fresh kielbasa, and spinach. Garnished with vinegar and horseradish, it's just the thing to fuel up on before or after an egg hunt. It also pairs nicely with jelly beans and chocolate bunnies. We spent many an Easter Sunday watching the boys search for hidden eggs and enjoying that improbably perfect meal.

This year, with Vic and Judy gone and the boys all grown, our morning was busy: Heidi and I were finishing the week-long paint-a-thon, and Bill and Emily rose at 4 am to make it home from Mexico before Spring Break expired.

Fortunately, the next generation was on it. Yesterday when we were at the dog park with 2 crazy pups and that geriatric gent, Sonic, Victor proposed borscht for Easter dinner, and between the two of us we worked out the details. He got the kielbasa and spinach and bread; we brought the eggs and salad and dessert. There was soup stock in both freezers, too.

Tradition?

Continued.

To Do and Do and Do and Do List

Just the taping, the trim, the ceiling, and the touch ups...

It all seems so manageable until you throw in a puppy, a holiday, a few other overlooked chores, and every little school thing we put off until the end of break.

Just the ceiling, the touch ups, the clean up, and the school stuff...

That seems manageable!

Oh,
and the fire place,
and the bills,
and the laundry...

Black and White and Read Occasionally

Recently I've been wrestling with whether or not I should curtail my newspaper subscriptions. As we have for years, we receive the local paper daily and the Sunday New York Times.

Years ago opening the front door each morning and retrieving the news of the world was a small miracle. I turned every page, skimming it all and reading a lot, and my inky fingers were smudgy emblems of gratitude.

These days, though, when headlines are pushed to my phone 24 hours a day, I read a bit of both the local paper and the Times online, listen to the radio in the morning and feel relatively well-informed. Too often my newspapers pile up in the basket untouched before they are used to line the litter box or set out to the curb for recycling. (But never before I pull the Food Section!)

On weeks like this one when a messy DIY home improvement project has taken over our lives, I'm happy I haven't canceled the papers. They have come in very handy in keeping paint off the new floors and furniture. And every day as I spread them out or lift a tray from their protection, I find an article I haven't seen that seems so fascinating that I have to stop what I'm doing and read it.

Obviously? I'm missing a lot.

Perhaps that should be the warning label for life in the 21st century.

Feline Delinquents

When you're a hammer, the whole world's a nail, and when you're a kitten, well...

We only thought our place had a Peewee's Playhouse vibe before. When we got a new floor several weeks ago, we decided to leave most of our stuff packed up in anticipation of our Spring Break painting project. The empty bookshelves and temporary foam mats on the floor were so inviting to our 2 kittens that they happily chased each other through the open spaces, leaping on the furniture and littering the entire area with all sorts of toys. the bookcases were like a little jungle gym for the kittens, too, and they scrambled from shelf to chair to couch to next shelf up.

I must have assumed that the painting would put an end to all that, but I was wrong. Not only have they been using the drop cloths like giant slip-n-slides, but having the furniture draped in plastic and pushed to the center of the room is like creating the most awesome indoor fort in the world. They scale the furniture both from above and beneath the plastic, and they also hide at its edges, waiting for some unsuspecting painter to pass by so they can attack her feet.

As for the paint itself, they gave it a sniff and then left it alone. Maybe they'll decide to dabble in the arts tomorrow.