Breaking Brains

Since our school implemented in-person block scheduling for the first time this year, I have been on the lookout for good five minute brain breaks for sixth graders. I've written lately about my mindfulness yoga challenges, but I thought it wise to branch out, so yesterday when I saw the game Whatchamadrawit at a discount store I added it to my cart. 

Today, I opened the deck of wacky drawing challenge cards, and gave the kids three minutes to draw and post their work of art for the sweet little reward of a Jolly Rancher. My first period group had to sketch their version of an animal with a fish head, elephant body, and spider legs. Their products were remarkably recognizable and cute, but it was the kid that drew the elephant ears behind the fish's head that bowled me over with her visual problem solving. 

The next group to do it was my class with many English language learners. They were super excited for the challenge until we pulled a card that read A princess sitting in an apple tree playing the banjo. "What is a banjo???" cried several students in dismay. Others searched up an image, and I pivoted to project a picture of a banjo on our screen before stating the timer. 

When the three minutes were up, we had a nice collection of cartoon trees,  basic apple shapes, and simple figures with crowns and giant lollipops on their laps. We all got the point across, and some of us? Learned a new vocabulary word. 

Maybe this little brain break has broader applications.

Bending the Rules

Despite the reported Christmas tree shortage, I had no plans to get my tree until next weekend. "I refuse to put up my Christmas Tree in November!" I told Heidi when she asked me why.

And yet, there we were running errands this afternoon, and everywhere we went, they were all Christmased up. Still, my plan to purchase a tree next weekend was firm, although I did want to go to Home Depot to see about some new outdoor lights. Once we there, the wreathes and the swags caught our eyes. "They were all sold out of these by the time we were shopping last year, remember?" I reminded Heidi. With some evergreenery in our cart we headed inside to check out the lights. A lot of things were sold out all ready, and finding nothing we needed, we pushed our cart through the big sliding glass door and out to the garden center. There were no outdoor lights that I had to have, but there were quite a few Christmas Trees, and they seemed to be reasonably priced.

"We don't have to put it up until next weekend," I said to Heidi, "and it's not like anybody's going to get any fresher trees." With that, we selected a nice 7 1/2 foot tree and plopped it on top of our cart. A fresh cut and some plastic mesh later we rolled through the outside cashier station and came away with a tree, a wreathe, and a window swag for less than we paid for our tree last year.

"Can I help you put that on your car?" offered a tall young man in an orange apron.

"Sure!" we agreed, and he grabbed an enormous roll of plastic wrap and followed us into the parking garage. What followed was the most curious method of securing cargo I've ever seen. He pulled a length from the roll, opened the passenger side door and tied it to the handle on the ceiling. Then he passed the roll over the tree and to me, where I handed it through the car and back to him. We literally Saran wrapped the tree to the top of our car.

And, aside from the damage to the environment that any single-use plastic inflicts, we made it home without incident. The tree is on the deck, where it will remain until we turn the page on our calendar.

Enjoying the Journey

The dogs were a little anxious this morning as we packed up our beach house and loaded the car to go home. It was pretty cold and windy, so instead of heading down to the beach for one last walk along the water we sat in the sunny living room and basked a little in the remaining warmth of our vacation. When at last it was time to go, we all trooped down the steps one last time and crossed the small parking lot to our cars. As I opened the back door for Lucy, Rosie trotted over and waited her turn to hop (or be lifted) into our back seat. 

"She did ride down here with us," Heidi noted, and it was true: Bill and Rosie road-tripped with us on Saturday because the rest of his family could not come down until Sunday.

"Do you want us to take Rosie back to Arlington?" we laughed, and with three travelers and a fully loaded car, it just made sense for Bill and Emily to take us up on the offer. And so the dogs curled up together in the backseat, Rosies chin resting on Lucy's shoulder. All the way home they snoozed and sighed an occasional satisfied sigh, almost as if they were still on holiday.

Good Clean Fun Allowed

For many years, the beach town where we are staying had the reputation as the party town of the area. Groups of young people would band together to rent beach houses and spend days roasting by the ocean and nights roasted at the bars on the strip. A few years ago, the town government passed a number of ordinances aimed at making this place a bit more family friendly. Regulations regarding the size of groups, parking, and noise have gone a long way toward taming this 

Of course, it's difficult to accurately gauge in November the level of carousing for a summer destination; not surprisingly, it's been awfully quiet around here in the week we've spent. Even so, activity and traffic have picked up over the last couple of days as the holiday weekend has approached. And tonight, as we were playing Trivial Pursuit, we heard a great ruckus outside. Several loud and excited young voices were shouting at each other on the street in front of our rental house. 

Finally, my brother stepped out on the balcony to see what was going on. He returned a moment later with the threat assessment. "They are playing tag," he reported. A little while later, the voices moved off in another direction, and we were left to enjoy our peaceful little stretch of the beach.

A Feast is Still a Feast

 Brining the turkey in... buttermilk?

Sour cream apple pie?

No scalloped oysters?

This year Thanksgiving looks a little different for us. Since we had to contend with celebrating without my sister's family and a year and a half of an unsettled public health situation and all its crappy side effects, why not shake things up a bit? 

Key phrase, "a bit"-- the other night we all laid out our must-haves, and the non-negotiables far out numbered the iconoclasms. So, there will be pumpkin pie, cranberries, rutabagas, butternut squash, spinach, brussels sprouts, stuffing, and of course mashed potatoes along with that buttermilk-brined turkey.

I'm sure it will be a wonderful meal.

Cash Economy

We headed over to the "big city" of Rehoboth Beach this afternoon to grab lunch and shop some of the stores that were open on the main street of town. At lunch, Bill and Emily and Heidi discussed their displeasure with the Christmas music that dominated the restaurant's sound system. "It's not like there is even a wide variety of songs," Heidi complained. "There are just a few, and almost everybody sings them the same way."

"They should play Ray Conniff," Bill joked. "Nothing sounds like that!"

"They do have an iconic sound," I agreed.

A little while later I was browsing through some bins of old LP records outside Gidget's Gadgets and I came across an album by none other than that incomparable chorale. The price was right, too, one buck. When I showed it to Heidi, she was not impressed however, and I did not have any cash on me. "Don't you have dollar?" I asked plaintively. "Pleeeeeaaaaase?"

"I'm looking!" she answered, sharply.

"I have a dollar if you guys need one," a helpful voice interrupted from my left. I turned to find a friendly boy of about 15, reaching into his wallet.

"Okay!" I said.

"No!" Heidi said, handing me a folded single.

"Are you sure?" the kid said.

"Yeah," I laughed, "but thanks anyway! That was really nice of you."

I was still laughing as we went inside to pay. "That guy was going to give me a dollar if we didn't have one!" 

Heidi shook her head. "Mmm hmm," she said. "That is some sad shit."

Delaware Days

Years ago, I lived in a beach town. Back then, even though I was a restless 20-something, I kind of liked the slower pace of the off-season. Nobody missed the bumper to bumper and towel to towel traffic on the roads and on the beach, and with the exception of mini-golf, I never went to the tourist traps down on the strip that were closed from September to May, anyway. It was easy to adapt to shorter hours for restaurants and other businesses, and it was nice to have the town to ourselves for a few months.

This week, we are at the beach in Delaware for Thanksgiving. Our place is on the first block from the beach, snugged between all the lights and bustle of Coastal Highway and the low dunes that protect the wide and sandy shore. At this time of year, it's very quiet here, and it's easy to forget all the commerce that is just up the street and around the corner. Easier still to forget, because so much is closed for the season or operating on limited hours.

Today was a little frustrating because it seems that the schedule around here is for many places to close on Tuesday, which seemed strange to us. When we finally found a place to have lunch (a whole two blocks away instead of one, but we still passed at least 6 places that were closed) we discussed the phenomena. "Maybe it's their day of worship around here," suggested Treat, "since it's clearly their day of rest."

"Yeah," I agreed, "maybe to them it's Sunday, Monday, Deweysday, Wednesday!"