Drawn

I have a student who draws the most dynamic stick figures I've ever seen; most of his assignments and notebooks are populated by a tiny army, each member of whom seems poised to crawl, run, jump, swim, or fly right off the page. Truth be told, he is very involved in his self-drawn world, and often are the times when he must be reminded to set it aside.

Heidi happens to teach him too, and the other day she gave her class an assignment to draw faces on cartoon figures who were witnesses to a student behaving unexpectedly and throwing a chair. There were only three characters on the assignment sheet, but this particular kid added several more to his pape.

"What's up with this person?" Heidi asked pointing to an extra figure who was smiling. "Is he happy that the other student is getting in trouble?"

"No!" answered our guy. "That's me!"

"Do you like it when people throw chairs?" Heidi continued.

"No!" he told her. "I'm smiling because I have all A's!"

"Look at the picture," Heidi told him. "Does what you're saying go with it?"

He did a quick doubletake and then grabbed his pencil and drew a tiny paper in the fist of the smiling stick boy. Then he write A+ on it. "There!" he smiled.

Jill Was Right

"They are the only two cats I have ever seen play with that toy!" the rescue foster lady, Jill, said when she introduced us to our kittens last year. "They love it!"

I looked at the plastic disk about 12 inches in diameter that she was pointing to. The center had a circle of corrugated cardboard for scratching, and a  ping pong-sized ball rolled around it on an outside track. Tibby and Milo were too nervous to play then, but we made sure to buy one just like it on our first kitty shopping spree.

It was impossible to know if they liked it, though, because Lucy stole the ball every time. Over the next year or so, they did use the scratching part of the device, and recently I ordered a replacement cardboard piece. The box was waiting on the stoop this afternoon when we returned home from work, and I wasted no time fitting the new scratcher in place. Heidi was out with Lucy, and so on a whim, I also dropped a hard catnip ball into the outer groove and gave it a little push.

Oh my! In seconds Tibby and Mila were batting the ball back and forth, pouncing and rolling and diving to get a better angle. It was impossible not to giggle as they played so energetically and so together, and I was reminded of what a warm feeling it is to please your pets. 

Stay on Message

I said all of these things more than twice today:

We want you to be successful.

How does that behavior help you learn?

When we give you a direction, it's because we want to help you get back on track.

What would have been a better choice?

We are here to support you!

Jeepers Creepers

One of our students has been missing his school-issued iPad so long that he actually got a replacement. But, for the first time, this year along with a new device, families also get a bill along the lines of the deductible on an insurance policy, somewhere around 300 bucks. Not long after the invoice was received, miraculously, the first iPad was found!

So, after some confusion this morning-- It says my iPad is locked because it's lost, but it isn't lost because I found it-- the new device was returned in favor of the original.

"Where was it, anyway?" I asked with mild curiosity.

"Inside the bench in our Jeep!" he reported with astonishment. "And guess what?" He paused for dramatic effect. "It had my binder, too!"

"That sneaky Jeep!" I laughed, but he was grave and wide-eyed.

"I know," he said.

Heavy Metal

The Monongahela River ran nickel and slow beneath a steel sky when we woke up in Pittsburgh this morning, and we followed an iron  ribbon of highway through silver mountains as we headed home. Despite the zincy skies, not a single raindrop fell until the clouds opened and lead subsided to cobalt and gold as both sunlight and rain poured earthward.

Ode to PGH

Oh, Pittsburgh!

You continue to delight me. You are so unassuming, and so pleasant. When the department store anchoring your nascent waterfront destination shopping district closes, you open a maker's market full of cool, local, handmade stuff. Parking for your downtown Christmas Market is cheap and so convenient to the stalls loaded with authentic, traditional items imported from Europe.

One merry block over the skating and holiday decorations of the PPG Plaza twinkle day and night. And just inside the towering glass castle of No. 1 PPG Place, the Wintergarden Atrium has been transformed to a gingerbread neighborhood of over 400 houses, churches, schools, and stadiums made by real people, and children play carols on the grand piano for the assembled crowd.

And your bridges! Soaring, beautiful, and functional! They span your rivers and and link your ridges with pride. No longer are you an isolated, frontier boom town built on coal, steel, and grit, or an anonymous blue collar city on the threshold of middle America.

Today your history and culture are open to all who are willing to go west on the turnpike, and oh! How much you have to offer to any who make the trip!

The Journey

Over Rivers and bridges and through rain and tunnels and under mountains and...

Christmas Lights!

Let the holiday shopping begin!