Keeping it Fresh

At this point in the growing season, I confess that my attention to cultivation wanes. Most of the crops in my vegetable garden are near their end, and watering the hanging baskets and potted plants here at home is much less of a priority, especially when I spend so many hours away from them at school. 

Even so, when I stepped out to our top deck late this afternoon the condition of the zinnias and snapdragons was quite alarming, and I filled the half-gallon purple pitcher by the door right away in an attempt to resuscitate them.  Satisfied that, after several trips back and forth from the bathroom sink, they may revive enough to forgive me for a weekend out of town, I looked over the railing at the hanging baskets on the level below. They, too, were in considerable stress. 

I could have gone downstairs to fill the gallon pitcher I keep in the kitchen, but laziness got the best of me. I refilled my trusty upstair pitcher and leaned over, aiming the stream of water 8 feet down to hit the basket centers so that it might hydrate without splashing out. It was challenging enough to be fun, and I was giggling a little when a neighbor wandered by with her dog. 

"Whatcha doing?" she asked in amusement, and when I explained, she stayed to watch, well beyond the splash zone, but laughing with me, all the same.

Way More than Half Full

 As the wedding celebration entered its 27th hour a bottle of blue wine with sparkles on the bar caught one of the party-goer's eye. "Where did that come from?" she asked the bride. "My mom loves sparkles in everything!"

"A vineyard down the road," the hostess replied. "Do you want to try it? There should be a cork screw somewhere around here." 

Truth be told, they had both had quite a bit to drink already, and the cork screw proved impossible to find.

"Maybe it's not a good idea to open it," the bride suggested. "It might just make us throw up."

The 21-year-old guest waved her hand. "I'm probably going to throw up later anyway, and the sparkles might make it a little nicer!"

But that cork screw never turned up, and besides? They were doing shots of moonshine over at the picnic table.

Dream Wedding

"We were just going to go down to the justice of the peace," our friend told us last night, "but the kids convinced us to, well..." she swept her hand toward the yard, indicating the tent with 10 eight-top tables, the converted carport bar, the 12-foot fire ring, the enormous fallen tree whose weathered roots make the backdrop for the vows.

Her 15-year-old daughter and her friend, the bridesmaids, along with Pinterest, were the creative forces behind the event. And what a crazy-quilt spectacle of a day it promises to be! Cotton candy, soft serve ice cream, tea and lemonade slushies, corn hole, horseshoes, and knife and axe-throwing are all options, along with ATV riding on the trails, a fully stocked, split-log-wagon wheel bar, a DJ named Giggles, and s'mores around the huge bonfire in the evening.

I can't wait!

Saving the Date

A friend is getting married tomorrow afternoon. Her wedding day also happens to be the 20th anniversary of the attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon and the hijacking of Flight 93. Tonight, as friends and family gathered around a roaring bonfire within sight of the wedding and bar tents glittering with thousands of fairy lights, the topic of the date inevitably came up.

"I googled the etiquette of planning a celebration on 9-11," our friend confessed, "and it pretty much said that there's never a problem with creating happy memories, even on a sad day." She shrugged. "The 11th worked."

She's right, of course. Every day is the anniversary of something sad, but it is also the anniversary of something amazing.

Let Me Talk to Your Manager

"That's not for you!" I reminded my class when he bell rang four minutes before lunch in my 5th period, A Day block.  That particular class is split into 2 45-minute sessions by lunch. Bending their 11-year-old minds even more, yesterday was an A-Anchor Day, but today is an A Day Block, and so 6th graders went to the same "alternating" PE/Language class two days in a row. Third period is a single class every day, and first or second is a true block, but fifth and fourth are always divided by lunch.

So I wasn't surprised even a little when one student stopped five minutes later on her way out the door to lunch. "I just have one question," she said. "Why. can't. we. just. have. the. same. schedule. every. day?!"

I nodded sympathetically. "That's out of my hands," I told her. "But if you're not used to it in a few weeks? I'll be happy to help you prepare your message to the people who make those decisions."

She rolled her eyes and sighed and then headed off to lunch.

Beginning of the Year Assessment

As the hook for a lesson on standards-based grading, I asked the students to give middle school a grade so far. They were free to use number scales, percentages, or letter grades, as long as they could justify their rating. 

After 4 days in and 5 days off, (not to mention a year and a half of disrupted instruction), middle school did pretty well, earning a solid 3.3 average. In the plus column was seeing friends, nice teachers, moving independently through the building, longer lunch, and a really big library. Drawbacks were a confusing schedule, a big building, having to carry heavy backpacks, and the predictable repetition of early instruction.

And despite my directions, some kids came up with their own rating system. "It's bread!" wrote one. 

"What's your scale?" I asked, confused. "The food pyramid?"

"I love bread!" she replied, "and school is great so far.

One of her classmates agreed, refusing to give any other rating than Wunderbar! "It's German," he confided.

"Ja, Ich weiß," I told him. "Ich weiß."

And So I Will

When I first started teaching, the preservice week was four days, Monday through Thursday, then there were four days off before the students began on the Tuesday after Labor Day. Then, it was nearly impossible for me to enjoy the time off because I was so anxious about the time on coming up. All I really anted was to go to school.

After a while, schedules changed, and I did, too, and a long weekend was a long weekend, but this year? Although I sure do appreciate the extended holiday weekend we are coming off of, especially because five days in a row is a luxury usually reserved for the big three: Thanksgiving, Winter, and Spring Break, here in Year 29 I'm feeling a little return-to-school anxiety.

Fortunately, I learned the best cure for that in Year 1:

Get your ass back to school.