Give a Silly Answer

The question of the day was, "What did you do over your long weekend?" 

The answers were getting a little snarky right before lunch, so rather than call out the jokesters myself, I asked the class if they had any follow-up questions about each post. When one kid wrote that he breathed over the weekend, his classmates good-naturedly showed him how silly the answer was.

"Does anyone have any questions?" I asked after I read his post.

Several hands shot up, and so did the writer's eyebrows. He was not expecting any interest in his report.

"What did you breathe?" asked one.

"Air, duh," replied the kid.

"How did you breathe?" asked another.

"Through my nose," answered the kid.

Another student raised his hand. "How long did you breathe?"

"I'm still doing it," he answered.

"Wow," said his classmate. "You must really like breathing.

Oops! There it Is

Today was a day of learning in our district, and I'd like to hope that all involved learned a few lessons.

 First, when they were introducing the keynote speaker, the superintendent and his chief of staff were experiencing a technical difficulty they were obviously unaware of. After ten minutes with a buzzy, echoing audio feed that transformed their voices into those of TV aliens, the screen went black and a few minutes later the live event returned with all systems go. That is, until the keynote speaker tried to play a video in the first part of her presentation, and instead all we saw was her, obviously enjoying the video which we could hear, but not see. There was no chat enabled, and so she went on, obliviously, until the next clip didn't show either, and then we went back.

I extend all involved a lot of grace; in fact the next session I participated in was a straight up video call, and with no restrictions on the participants, I unpinned and re-pinned the ASL interpreter for all 350 of us at least twice while I adjusted my own view (in an attempt to clear the screen of all the people who were asked to have their cameras off, but didn't get the message.) Oh, and I'm pretty sure I stopped the recording for everyone when I tried to switch the call from my lap top to my phone.

No question! Technology is tricky. That's why we teachers always check and double check the settings on any virtual meeting we are running, because kids, people, humans, whoever! click where we shouldn't.

But it just seems like by now? 

They should have gotten that right at the top, too. 

I Must Do Better

"I'm starving!" I said to Heidi as we headed into our house after a 2 1/2 hour pet-store odyssey on a quest to find the perfect dog treats. "All I ate today was eggs, potatoes, and cookies!" I shook my head at my own indiscretion and sighed. "Shopping marathons and cookies for lunch? It's like the holidays are coming early this year."

Bumpy Transition

There were a few moments today when I was setting up my new phone that I was afraid my oldest text messages wouldn't transfer over. I would have considered that an unacceptable loss, worthy of a trip to the Genius Bar, even, because of the messages I have from my mom. And as I remained calm, trying to trouble shoot the situation, one of the things I did was to text her, in an attempt to force the recovery of that chain of messages. Miss you! I sent, and for a long while, too long, that was the only little speech bubble on a vast, empty white screen.

In the end, the issue was not technical, but rather one of patience. When at last my new phone was totally restored from the back-up I had done right before activating it, that message was just the latest in a conversation stretching back many years, much of it mundane, but all of it a treasure.

Imperfect Topic

I always tell my students that mistakes and catastrophes make the best stories. "Nobody wants to read about how you get straight A's without even trying!" I say. "Give us a little conflict! Give us some struggle!"

That's why I was kind of enthusiastic when one of the young writers in my class said that she was thinking of writing about the time she dropped a whole bowl of mashed potatoes in her friend's backpack.

This potato dropper is kind of popular, and her friend happened to be in the class, as were a couple of witnesses to the accident. They all started to recount the incident enthusiastically.

"That was soooo funny," said one.

"How did you even clean your backpack out?" asked another.

"I just scooped them out as best I could," the victim laughed. "There's probably some still in there."

"I just don't know what lesson I learned, though," the author sighed. "Don't drop your mashed potatoes? That's not very interesting."

"It's not a universal message," I agreed. 

"I guess I could make it Be more careful," she suggested with a frown, "but I don't really like that one either.

I looked at her good-natured friend and her potato-sodden book bag. "How did she react?" I asked. "Was she mad?"

"No!" said the writer. "Not at all."

"I pretty much just laughed," confirmed the other student.

"Some people might get pretty upset about something like that," I shrugged. "Maybe there's a lesson in that."

The girl thought a moment. "I think I'll just write about the perfect chocolate cake I made," she said.

October 1969

These days Halloween is a big business, with entire retail spaces devoted to costumes and decorations, but it was not always like that. Although there were several rows of boxes with thin nylon costumes and plastic masks with cheap elastic bands that always broke almost before you could wear them lined up on shelves in the discount department store near our house, when I was a kid the holiday was a little less involved, but just as exciting and fun. 

In fact, one of the clearest memories of my childhood is Halloween 1969. [Insert wavy screen and harp music here.]

The orchestra was just striking the first notes of the theme music to Bewitched on TV, and I looked anxiously at my mom. "When is Daddy going to get home?" It was the Thursday night before Halloween the next day, and our perfect pumpkin was waiting to become our perfect jack o'lantern. 

Bedtime was usually 8:30, but tonight the plan was to watch America's favorite witch at 9:00 while carving the pumpkin. Just then, the front door opened and my dad came in, smelling of smoke and cool evening air. We rushed to greet him as we always did, hugging his legs. 

It was Dad's job to use our biggest knife to cut a circle around the stem and pull the top of the pumpkin off. After that, my mom scooped out the insides with a large kitchen spoon and plopped them into a bowl. My brother and sister and I plucked the slippery seeds from the stringy, orange guts, placing them into a separate dish where we would toss them with salt and oil and roast them in the oven for a crunchy, once-a-year snack.

Next, since there was only one pumpkin and three kids, we each picked a folded slip of paper from Phillies baseball cap to see who got to create the eyes, the nose, or the mouth. We drew our shapes on the back of the paper, and my mom transferred our designs in pencil to the pumpkin. Then my dad went to work again, carefully cutting along each line.

When he was finished, he carried our creation out to the front porch, my mom behind him with a candle and the three-legged milking stool we kept as an extra seat in the living room. Outside, we set the pumpkin on the stool by the door and placed the candle inside. Then we all stepped back while my dad lit the candle and my mom turned off the porch light, revealing the glowing face of our jack o'lantern.

Before bed that night, my mom had us try on the costumes that she had made for us. We were going to be the Rice Krispies elves, Snap, Crackle, and Pop. She had a lightweight cardboard replica of the cereal box for each of us to wear over our heads. Underneath, we were in tights and different colored t-shirts. Then I, as the oldest, had Snap's floppy white chef's hat, my brother had Krackle's red-and-white striped stocking cap, and my three-year-old sister wore a yellow toque.

She pinned our hats to finalize the fit so that our costumes would be ready for the parade and class party at school the next day. Then she sent us off to bed where we dreamed of the perfect Halloween we would have tomorrow.

My COVID Bunker

I looked around our home last night to size up what would need to be done to prepare it for company. It's been nearly 2 years since we have entertained anyone other than family, and in that time, well? Pandemic. Stay at home orders. Social distancing. You know.

Like many who could, we made the best of being at home, all the time, by adapting and adopting. Unable to go to the gym, we bought a mat and some extra weights so that we could work out in front of the TV. Those are stored near the bookshelves, right next to my ukuleles and songbooks. Likewise, I took up yoga and meditation, so a sheepskin, pillow, candle collection, and a few crystals have all taken residence in the spare room. Dog and cat training? You need games and equipment for that, and those are stashed all over the house, really, since that's where you can find our pets. Rock painting, ornament making, and other such crafting supplies are packed into bins which have to be stacked somewhere. Gardening and harvesting tools and containers fit into the closet and the rear of the cars, except when they don't. Quarts and pints of preserved tomatoes and jams are packed in printed cardboard cases which are stacked in the dining room next to the vinyl records we listen to occasionally. Assorted flours and ingredients for sourdough breads, bagels, tarts, English muffins, and canele are stored in mason jars on the kitchen counter right next to the freshly-roasted coffee beans bought in bulk from the roasters in Savannah, Annapolis, and Buffalo.

We made an art of hunkering down, and now that things are [mostly] opened up? It might be time to reoganize.

Maybe.