Voice of Reason

This week, to much excitement in the neighborhood, a great pizza place opened its second location just up the hill from our house. Our plan today was to pick up a couple of pies for dinner, but even on the way home from school around 4:30 the parking lot was packed.

"I want the pizza, but I'm not sure I want to fight the crowd," I sighed.

"It's the holidays," Heidi pointed out. "Pizza is a heavy meal, and we? Are. going to be. eating."

I nodded.

"Plus? They will be there in January," she continued.

Can't argue with that.

Penultimate

When the last student left from my last period class today I breathed a sigh of relief. Straightening the chairs and tables as I always do to clear my mind and reset the room between classes, I remarked, "I think I can finally see the light at the end of the tunnel!"

One of my co-teachers was sitting at a table checking her email. "Yeah, I think they really are starting to get it," she agreed without looking up. "The lesson today was pretty good."

"Thanks," I told her, "But I'm talking about Winter Break-- one more day!"

The Debate is Real

One of the stories we read for our literary essay unit is "Your Move" by Eve Bunting. A tale of two brothers, one 10 and one 6 who, left alone by their working mother, skip out on the watchful eye of their nextdoor neighbor so that the older one, James, can prove himself to a "club" of boys who call themselves K-Bones. It's undoubtedly a bad decision, but over the course of the story, it becomes clear that James's priority is protecting his brother, who looks up to him, and in the end he realizes his mistake and redeems himself.

At least that's what I think...

My co-teacher finds James completely irresponsible and somewhat reprehensible.

When we talk about the story in class, we each stake our claim and defend it with the text and reasoning, conceding and countering the argument of the other, each convinced we're right.

The students watch like it's a tennis match, and in the end we shrug and laugh, because it's fun arguing with someone you respect.

Literally

"Do you know what D did today?" one of my colleagues asked at lunch about a student who is very distractible and more than a little inattentive. "She needed the password for the quiz, and I told her it was "yellow jackets, no spaces," and she typed y-e-l-l-o-w-j-a-c-k-e-t-s-n-o-s-p-a-c-e-s!"

"In my class," another teacher reported, "I was helping her write her essay, so I told her to write down the chicken foot [a metaphor for a claim with 3 supporting reasons] and she wrote 'the chicken foot' on her paper!" he shook his head.

"Well, in my class," a third teacher chimed in, "I said, "Write your name on the top of the page," and she wrote 'your name'!"

C'mon!

On Second Thought

"Do you have your iPad?" I asked my Gracie Allen homeroom student this morning. She had tried to borrow a laptop earlier, and I had put the ix-nay on that, but it seemed as if she was now absorbed in something below table level, and so the question.

"Yes!" she told me brightly.

"Then bring it over here so I can show you what we are working on," I directed her.

Her face turned stormy and without even looking up she snapped, "No! I don't want to!"

My eyebrows shot up in surprise, for she is usually quite cooperative. "Uh oh!" I said.

She raised her head and looked at my face. "I mean," she responded breathlessly, "Coming right away!"

And she did.

Read It and Weep

As my brother and sister and I sorted through my mother's condo this weekend, my sister held out the slimmest of hopes that we might find some notes to us, and I clung to any scrap of writing that revealed and preserved the remarkable person she was.

Five years ago my mom downsized from a three level 3 bedroom townhouse. As vigorous a 75-year-old as she was, the process of organizing the material trappings of 20 years or more, even though carried out over several months, took a toll on her. Once she adjusted to condo living Mom was very happy, but she had learned her lesson, and she was ruthless when it came to hanging on to all but the most useful, valuable, and/or sentimental of objects.

My brother and sister and I have always appreciated her practical sensibility, but now that she's gone her pragmatism has been an immense relief to us us we sort through her estate: it has made an unbearable job a little more manageable.

And we have no doubt that what is left was truly valuable to her-- the handmade cards from Riley, Treat, Richard, and Annabelle, the thank you note from Emily written in the early 90s, and the email from Heidi in 2003.

Even though the three of us sat by sobbing as she called her closest friends to say goodbye, my mother had no final words for any of us in the last days and hours of her life. She resolutely believed that we all knew how vast and unwavering her love for us was, and so there was nothing to say. 

Fresh Weather

"How are you doing in the cold?" all my mom's Minnesota friends have asked.

They were referring to the snowy single-digit conditions that have been the daily standard since we landed on Friday.

"I kind of like it!" I tell them.

And when they tsk, I continue with a shrug, "It's a novelty for us."

"Right!" my brother agrees. "Plus? We're leaving tomorrow!"