A Season Come Early

Reports of a water main break murmured on the radio in the background while we were preparing for school this morning. And the lunches were packed, the garbage on the curb, and the dog properly walked before my phone started blowing up.

No school today! the news gleefully spread.

An unexpected four day weekend was a gift indeed. In fact, we are packing our bags right now for an early departure to Buffalo, no substitutes needed. It will be a quick trip, indeed, but Tuesday is all planned with the activities left undone today, and that only leaves a 3 day week ahead.

And? As my co-teacher kindly pointed out via text this morning, it's supposed to snow on Tuesday.

Please Fence Me In

I started each class today with a little review of rules and expectations, both mine and the school's. I think it went pretty well.

A long time ago a friend of mine told me about an experiment some psychologists did on babies. They put some crawlers in the middle of a big open field and observed their reactions. Most of the children stayed tightly bunched together where they left them. Then they put the same kids in an open area that was fenced. In that situation the little ones crawled and toddled as far as they could within the limits they had.

My friend's point? Boundaries are healthy and necessary for kids. Knowing there are limits provides the safety to explore right up to them. (Even so, there will always be a few kids who will find a way over, around, and through the fence. We need those people who ignore restrictions.)

I thought of her today at the end of my reminders. The students were more than receptive. They nodded and got right to work when I was done. It was more of a pep talk than a scolding.

And maybe? After nearly a month of the unpredictability of substitutes, they were glad that the fence was back in place.

No Excuses

Now that my mom is gone, what she would have wanted for me seems so clear. I started exercising more back in April as a way to handle the extreme stress I was feeling because of her grave health condition. When she died, that burden was lifted and, in my grief, the last thing I wanted to do was go work out, but I knew Mom would have been disappointed if I didn't.

On one of her last days, I jokingly told her that I was about to lose 25% of my blog readership. We laughed, but when she died, I didn't want to write anymore either. Again, I understood how annoyed she would have been if I used her loss as an excuse to stop.

She was never one to make excuses, and growing up, my siblings and I thought she was kind of a hardass. Looking back at her whole life, though, I can see what grit she had, how it helped her, and why she wanted that for us, too.

Unattended

I never do it.

I am a rule follower, and there has never been a time in the almost 40 years I've been driving that I have left the gas pump unattended. Even in rain, snow, frigid temps, or blazing heat, I am on hand waiting for that tell-tale thump that signals the auto shut-off. And then? I obediently replace the nozzle, push the no receipt button, screw on my gas cap, and close that tiny door.

But not today. For some reason, I thought it was more important to return to my car and hear the end of a segment on Morning Edition. But as I listened, I kept my eyes on the pump display. When it hit 17 gallons, I was surprised that the tank had been sooooo empty, but when it hit 18 I cussed What the fuck? and shoved open the car door only to watch in embarrassment as the two women at the adjoining pumps dashed through a fountain of gasoline to squeeze the handle off. And then I, too, waded sheepishly through the puddle of petrol sloshing against my tires to do what I have done so many times.

Replace that nozzle.

I guess that's why they have that sign.

Hand-me-downs

Confronting my mom's apartment was overwhelming: not only was there a lot of stuff, but the thought of dismantling her home was more heartbreaking than we could manage right then. And so, because my mother was so amazingly organized, my brother and sister and I were able to leave that enormous task to another day.

While we were there, though, Courtney, Heidi, Annabelle, Emily, Aunt Harriett, and I did take the opportunity to raid her fabulous clothes closet from time to time. I needed a swimsuit; she had several, and the same was true for shoes, pants, tops, vests, and coats in the week we spent together before her funeral. We didn't feel guilty in the least: all of us knew that my pragmatic mother would have wholly approved.

In fact today Heidi wore a pair of my mom's pants to school, while I wore a fleece vest she got on our Alaska trip and her short Ugg boots. I know I took comfort in my outfit every single time I thought about it, and when the day was done, a quick glance at my watch showed that I had literally walked 3 miles in my mother's shoes.

Sadly, that journey has just begun.

My Spin

I miss my mom, and I find myself cooking as if she were visiting. Tonight? It's cauliflower pizza on the menu, one of my mom's specialties, but, being me, of course I couldn't just follow the recipe.

Oh no, rather than bake the pizza neatly on a sheet pan as directed, I had to preheat the pizza stone to 500 and roll, toss, and stretch my free form crust onto the peel before topping it with a hearty mixture of cauliflower, onions, and cheese.

As I gave the pizza a shake to make sure I could slide it on the stone, the topping flew off the edges. "Uh oh, Ma," I said, "this could be a problem."

And I knew that had she been here, she would have been torn between I told you so... and You can do it!

Choosing to go with the latter, I opened the oven and, with a little wrist action and a pair of tongs, was able to get that pizza baking. The final product was delicious, and I like to think that my mom would have thought so, too.

Doing Dishes

I spent the early part of my evening washing dishes. A lot of dishes. 11 dinner plates, 12 salad plates, 12 bread plates, 12 soup bowls, 12 monkey bowls, 11 1/2 saucers, 11 coffee cups, a creamer, a sugar bowl (with lid!), a gravy boat, a covered casserole, a large platter, small platter, and a oblong serving bowl. It was my grandmother's china service for twelve.

My mom's sister passed it along to me this afternoon in an enormous cardboard box. When we arrived home, I found the dishes wrapped in sections of the Washington Post from July to September 1972. My grandmother died in April of that year, and someone had carefully packed her china when my grandfather sold the house and moved in with my Aunt Harriett. The newspaper was yellowed and smelled of the decades it had spent in Harriett's basement. A stink bug jumped out at me from the first bowl, and so we dragged the heavy box out to the front stoop where I unwrapped the other 89 pieces.

Not surprisingly, after 47 years, they all needed a gentle scrub, and so I carefully carried the piles into the kitchen counter and filled the sink with warm, soapy water. There I dunked and wiped and rinsed and dried each piece of the Noritake porcelain stamped Made in Occupied Japan, admiring as I washed the tiny bouquets of zinnias and the red and gold band circling every one.

As I worked I couldn't help wondering who the last person was to wash these dishes. Was it my grandmother, after a dinner with friends? My grandfather, doing his part to help out at the end of evening of entertaining? Could it have been my mom, after a holiday meal? And when I was done, I knew the answer to that question, and it kind of made me sad that it was me.