Need and Want

We woke to news today that school was canceled because of a major internet outage. Still, there were piecemeal work-arounds, and I had a lot of work around, so I still spent the day at my dining room table, what else? Working. 

Even so, It gave me a chance to get almost caught up with my grading and emailing and planning. Plus, I took a few breaks throughout the day, making a breakfast other than yogurt and finally finding time to get out the Halloween decorations. 

In a few minutes, I'll go out and stretch my legs, and maybe run a little. I need to be back at 5:30 though because I have a call scheduled with my brother and sister. Today is one year since our mom died. 

She has been on my mind even more than usual over the last few weeks, as I thought back to last year at this time when I spent the last weeks of her life with her in Rochester, Minnesota.  Even though I was away from school, I was actually teaching remotely. Every morning I would post an announcement and links to activities for my students, which they would complete under the guidance of a co-teacher or sub. In the evenings, I would check their work and plan for the next day. 

I guess that experience kind of prepared me for the transition to distance teaching this fall. I wondered this morning if perhaps my mother was somehow sending me this day off from teaching. If so, I wish she would have given me the whole day with nothing to do. But to be honest, that wasn't really like her. She believed in hard work and fulfilling your responsibilities without complaint. And in that respect, an extra day to get my work done is probably just what she would have sent.

Carried Away

There won't be many more days this year when I can walk up to my garden and harvest some of the vegetables I have growing there, and this afternoon seemed like a great time to do just that. It was 77 degrees and sunny with a light breeze when I headed up Superman Hill on foot. Once to the top of the hill I spun the padlock and stepped into the community garden, which I had all to myself, unless you count the goldfinches and crows. 

I weeded a bit and cleaned out the tall, bare corn and okra stalks. I picked the last two pumpkins, got most of the shell beans, some of my favorite little peppers, 2 quarts of rainbow cherry tomatoes and at least five pounds of tomatoes. When it was time to go, I realized that I was overambitious in my reaping-- the thirty or so pounds of produce would not fit in my carrying bag. I repacked a bit and headed home with 20 pounds on my shoulder and a bag of beans and a pumpkin in the other hand. 

I hadn't gone far when I began to regret my decision to not just walk home and come back in the car to pick up my harvest. Still, I soldiered on, mostly because it would have been uphill to return to the garden, shifting the bags and the pumpkins a couple of times until I reached the halfway point at the bottom of the hill. There I found my solution-- an ebike docked in the bikeshare station just ahead. 

I was so eager to drop my load that practically skipped over. Before I unlocked the bike, though, I had to figure out the cargo situation. In the end I strapped the pumpkin and beans to the front basket with the built in bungee and balanced the big bag back on my shoulder. Then shifting my weight to keep the bike steady, I teetered and tottered and then zipped right on home, where I delivered my bounty. 

And I was just considering a quick little pedal-assisted ride when I received a text that my bike's battery was low, so I sped out of the complex, up the other big hill, and around the corner to surrender it to the nearest station. 

Oh, I was a little disappointed I didn't get more of a ride, but there was definitely a satisfied spring in my step as I jogged home to my vegetables.

Teacher as Writer

I always tell my students the more you write, the easier it gets. Some times that is more true than others. Like tonight, when I was trying to finish my lesson plan for tomorrow, and I realized I didn't have an example of what I wanted my students to do. So I pulled out my trusty writing notebook, looked over the resources, and composed three quick leads for a personal memoir that I may or may not actually write. I guess it depends how the lessons go!

Anyhow, here are my three leads: 

#1

Snapshot Character:

The baby sitter was not stupid, and she was only trying to be nice when she asked me if there was anything she could get me to drink.

#2

Dialogue

"Can I have some tea?" I asked the babysitter.

She looked surprised. "You drink tea?"

"Oh yeah," I told her. "All the time."

#3

Thought-shot

Something looks a little weird about that tea, I thought. But what did I know? I had never had tea before.

To be honest? That did not take very long. I may need another activity for the lesson!

Lessons from our Furry Friends

Sometimes it's hard to focus on how wonderful the change of season has been this year, especially when we feel too anxious and busy to appreciate it. Yesterday was crisp and blue, the leaves are showing their color all over town. And with temperatures dipping into the 40s, we had our first fire of the season last night. The leftover wood from last winter was light and dry and caught quickly, crackling merrily in no time. And also in no time at all, 2 cats and a dog were spread out back to back and nose to nose as close to the hearth as they dared, mindful of the danger, but stretching and sighing and soaking in the warmth. 

That's the way to do it.

I Get by with a Little Help

For nearly 22 years there's been a 1160 foot, 10% grade hill between me and riding my bike to school. The whole trip is only about 3 miles, but Superman Hill is near the beginning of the route, and it's a deal breaker. Plus, I'm not getting any younger. So when our local bikeshare rolled out a few electric bikes to join their fleet, I was eager to borrow one and ride it up that hill. 

Today was the day that I finally got my chance. A bike scavenger hunt to benefit the organization in town that teaches kids how to fix bikes and donate them to folks in need is running asynchronously all weekend long, and I made arrangements to meet my nephews and sister-in-law at its starting point-- my school. So this morning I launched the bikeshare app, found an electric bike available just a little ways from home, and set off to claim it. 

My first impression was how freakin' heavy and unwieldy the thing was, but once I hopped on and zoomed away, I could barely contain my Wheeeeeeeeeeeee! It was fun and zippy, the bike equivalent of walking on a moving sidewalk. Counterintuitively perhaps, riding the bike made me want to pedal even faster, and I was up the hill into our complex in no time. A little while later, the true test loomed, and as the light changed I punched those pedals and took off up the hill.

It wasn't anything like the hot knife through butter ease I had fantasized about, and I was huffing and puffing by the time I got to the top, but I got there and it didn't really take that long. I made it to school in a little under 20 minutes, which is a manageable commute. 

There was another ebike at the station there, and my sister-in-law borrowed it. We had picked the easy version of the hunt, six miles instead of 18, but our ebikes made it even easier for the two of us late 50-somethings to keep up with those two twenty-something guys. 

My only regret was that we didn't go for the 18 miler, although there was a moment early in the hunt when I was struggling to adjust my seat. "I might need a little help here," I sighed. "Pedal assist and sticky seats-- welcome to my golden years!"

To the Bone

 When my nephew was three, his scientific mind was already developing. "What's in your ears and your nose?" we would ask him.

"Oh," he would shrug, "that's carteridge." 

His pronunciation my have been off, but he knew his facts. The same cannot be said for the designers of all the decorative animal skeletons that have populated the neighborhood in advance of Halloween. Cats and dogs and rats and even a horse stare blankly through hollow sockets as we pass, but they all have bony little ears on their skulls.

Riley would not approve.

Pinch Me

Last night I dreamed that I was sleeping.

Wow! I must  really be tired!