Second Hand

We were on our way out to a garden center this afternoon when it began rain. "Wanna stop over at the big thrift store and wait out the storm?" Heidi suggested, and so we did.

With nothing in particular to look for, we browsed through the clothes, on to the furniture, and then over to the housewares just looking for a deal. After scooping up a pair of three dollar Eddie Bauer cargo shorts to wear to the garden and a 1 quart All Clad pot for $4.99 (I know!), I amused myself by going back to the clothes and through the t-shirt rack.

More than any other items, this collection gave me a sense of where all this stuff had come from. Well-represented were local high school booster clubs, college Greek life events, and religious camps. There were also a few pro team fan shirts, some Abercrombie t's, and a couple of plain solid colored shirts from Hanes, Target, and Champion.

Nothing was more than $2.99, but in the end, I walked away without one, because none of them were really me. Probably because most of them were really somebody else.

Poet-three

It was one of my favorite days of the year in my class today-- our visiting poet friend came by to lead the students in some improv and poetry writing. Today the lesson was using the rule of three to compose tiny plays that are strung together to tell the story of the poet's life. As every year,  I participated fully, scribbling ideas furiously in my notebook alongside my kids.

Here are a few nuggets from my notebook:

I have been in my classroom
longer than in any home.
I love the way the sun shines
in my eyes on winter afternoons.
Being blinded helps me see.

A robin spent the morning buiding
her nest in the rafters of my deck.
When she flew away
I knocked it down before she could lay her eggs.

Sometimes when I walk the dog
in the early morning
I pretend I am the sole survivor
of some catastrophe.
I enjoy the silence.

On our first day at the beach
thousands of starfish
covered the sand,
and we thought it was normal.
We never saw another one.

A tiny mouse runs along the wall
of my classroom.
I know there is nothing for her to find.
I wish her no harm.

At night a fox
cries in the woods
across the way. It sounds
like something is dying.
Maybe it is.

When the sun makes a fishnet
of light at the bottom of the pool,
I dive in.

Otherwise Known As

"If you all post your writing before the end of the class we can do something fun," I offered to my intervention group of reluctant writers this morning.

"Like what? Play Fortnite?" asked one guy with a doubtful snicker.

"Maybe," I shrugged, "you can show me how to play."

As fingers flew across keyboards, I turned to the student doing her senior experience. "Another example of being a life-long learner," I laughed, "and of course, trying to engage students by meeting them where they are."

A few minutes later we were downloading the free version of the game on a laptop so that we could all see it on the interactive whiteboard. "You have to choose a user name," one of the boys advised me.

"How about English Master?" I suggested. "It's probably taken though."

The students exchanged doubtful glances. "Yah," said one, "I don't really think so."

Sure enough, my selection was available. "I can't believe it!" I marveled. "It's such an awesome name!"

"No kid would want that name!" a student laughed.

"Well they couldn't have it, anyway," I replied. "They would have to be English Minor!"

2 is for 2 More

It's always a bit of a stunner when the end of the year picks up speed and soon hurtles uncontrollably to its finale. Today as I gave the students an overview of their end-of-the-year activity choices I realized that there are only 2 Wednesdays left, and after tomorrow the same will be so for Thursday, and so on.

And oh! Those days are filled: final this and make-up that, field trips and International Film Fest and field day and more. It's a blessing that the sixth graders haven't realized just how close we are.

Even so, they are definitely not thinking straight. As I went over the features of our "camp" activity choice, (all the fun of summer camp without ever leaving school!) I saw many heads nodding in approval. "You'll play capture the flag, do arts and crafts, make s'mores, watch a movie, and more!" I told them.

One student raised his hand in alarm. "But do we actually have to spend the night??!!"

Time to Calm the Hell Down

Lucy spent the afternoon playing with her friend Beckett at his house. 12-year-old Forrest lives there, too, the last surviving member of a four-pack of Aussies that our friend Sarah had. Beckett loves Lucy, but Forrest, not so much. She's much too rough and tumble for his taste. Fortunately, he has no problem letting her know. If a growl and snap won't do it, then a firm bark will. Sarah calls him the fun police. He's saying, "You rotten kids! Get off my lawn! There's none of that around here after Forrest o'clock!"

Have You Heard?

I had been digging up weeds and roots all morning when the muscle arrived to help me finish putting in my garden. "Watch out for Carly and Simon," I warned Heidi, Josh, and his friend Mo, as they approached the plot. 

"Who?" asked Josh as the two mockingbirds who had been aggressively following me about to grab the worms and grubs I turned over with the soil dive-bombed him, actually skimming the top of his head before landing on the wheel barrow handles.

"Them," I answered. 

The Half of It

As I mopped up a relatively small puddle on the dining room floor yesterday, I wondered where most of the water dripping through our ceiling had gone. Ever the optimist, I shrugged it off with the assumption that it must not have been as big a leak as I originally thought.

Flash forward to this morning when I grabbed a shopping bag with 2 pairs of shorts to return off the back of the dining room chair it had been slung upon. The denim shorts and their labels and tags were sopping wet. Glancing up, I saw that they were directly under the hole in the ceiling.

I guess it was a lucky break. The shorts will dry, and I can still return them when they do, and the floor was spared. And if there had been a glass around? I'm sure that would be half full, too.