Look Forward, Teacher!

Despite the desire to cling to that summer vacation vibe, something told me to check my school accounts on Monday. 

First I saw a message sent just a few hours earlier from a former student inquiring whether she could bring a friend, who was new to the school, to the open house next week. "Or is it only for sixth graders?" she inquired.

I was glad to be able to respond promptly to such a generous and welcoming spirit, and doing so reminded me not of all the work and time my job demands, but of how much I loved working with the kids. Next, I checked to see if my new students were loaded into the learning management system and grade book. A couple of clicks later there they were-- the class of 2030 and my next year's sixth-grade students. 

My first impression? Adorable! And the sting of going back to the grind was lifted entirely. 

For the moment.

A Little Progress

I went for a dreaded annual screening this morning. I don't know any woman who does not find her mammogram to be extremely uncomfortable, if not downright painful. So often I've heard comments that if men had to have any of their sensitive parts compressed every year, the technology would be completely different. Maybe, but here we are. 

This morning, though, my appointment was in the brand-new, state-of-the-art Outpatient Pavillion on the hospital campus, a building that only opened three weeks ago. Parking was a breeze; electronic signs and signals indicated how many spaces were free and where they were. There was a passage from the garage right into the building, and the Women's Imaging Center was located right inside. I checked in on an electronic kiosk that asked if I'd like to set up biometric verification to speed my future appointments. They even validated my parking before showing me right into the new changing rooms. 

The technicians there have always been professional, kind, and friendly, and this morning was no exception. My mammographer showed me into the screening room and explained that they were using a new machine. One improvement was that instead of making me move and get squished 8 times, the machine itself moved, so that I only needed to be adjusted twice on each side. The other big change? An automatic release! As soon as the image was complete, the plates opened and freed my aching boob. The entire procedure took about 5 minutes.

It was still uncomfortable, to be sure, but it didn't hurt a bit.

More Dramatic Weather

We looked at each other as the earsplitting alarm sounded first on my phone, and then before I could silence the blare, on Heidi's, too. It was a tornado warning, not even a watch, and it directed us to find shelter in a low, interior room immediately. 

Unbelievably, in the nearly 25 years we have lived in our house, a tornado? Has never been a threat. "Where would that even be?" Heidi asked, reading the all-caps alert. 

"Uhh," I thought about it. "I guess the bathroom?" I rose from my seat and opened the door to the powder room. Although it did have an exterior wall, it was windowless, and maybe on ground level? It was hard to know how far the unit below us extended. It would be a tight squeeze for us, two cats, and the dog, though. 

Outside, the sky was dark as dusk, and a heavy rain began to fall. "Let me check a few things," I said to Heidi and found a real-time tornado tracker. There I saw that the rotation had not touched down and also we were not in its direct line, but rather on the outside corner of the possible range. "I think we can stay out of the bathroom for now," I reported, but chanted a quick protection mantra and kept my eyes on the screen.

A little while later, the alert expired. And a little while after that?

A Little Decorum

We were out for a midday walk when Lucy started doing her hysterical whining thing when she spotted a neighbor headed for the pool. 

"I'll come say hello so you don't pull anyone's arm off," the neighbor offered, and after a brief sit, I allowed Lucy over to see her. She didn't jump, but she did lean in and wag her tail very enthusiastically.

"I know!" said the neighbor. "I'm excited to see you, too! Isn't that funny? We feel the same way!"

"Yes," I agreed, drily. "You two are equally excited to see each other. Fortunately, you are able to control yourself a bit better than Lucy can."

W the Absolute F

Years ago I subscribed to news and traffic alerts issued by the county where I live, so a few times a day my watch or phone will ping to let me know that this or that local road is closed or reopened or that there is a severe weather warning or watch. 

Despite how small our county is geographically (the smallest in the country, thank you very much), I can honestly say that these notifications are almost never relevant to me; I am either already aware of the news they are reporting or unlikely to go by the impacted location. And when I'm on vacation the alerts can really be a nuisance: I've been awakened at 6 am in Key West because of a car fire 1,200 miles away and charged international messaging rates in Canada because of a fender bender back at home. 

Maybe it's like those people we knew when we were kids that had a police scanner squawking in their kitchens, because it has never occurred to me to unsubscribe; knowing (and ignoring) what is happening out on the streets has become part of the fabric of my daily life. 

And then, there is the story that unfolded today, when the driver of a tractor-trailer lost control and rammed several vehicles on the highway approaching one of the bridges to DC. Once his truck came to rest, he made a run for it, hopping the guard rail and bolting into the commercial district at the bottom of the embankment. Then he carjacked another vehicle before abandoning it to steal an ambulance and lead the police on a classic car chase full of crashes and collisions before finally being taken into custody and then transported to the hospital, along with several others injured in his wake.

Clearly, somebody's seen too many movies-- because? 

That is not how the Arlington Alerts roll.

Disconnected

I didn't even notice I was light in the pockets until half an hour or so after I got home. Then, wondering where I had set my phone, I tried to buzz it with my watch, and that's when I discovered that I did not have my phone.

Oh, I knew where it was. 

I had spent a lovely evening at Bill and Emily's for a family birthday dinner, and I had deliberately set my phone aside so that I could focus on the people rather than the device. In general, I don't think I'm too bad when it comes to staring at a screen instead of the face in front of me, but I know the allure of easy answers and photo illustrations can arise in almost every conversation, and so I put my phone down.

And I was very good! I participated in conversations and never looked at my phone once-- even when it was time to go home.

What is in Word?

To me, the word "binge" is negative; it implies unhealthy consumption and a lack of self-control. So when folks started talking about "binge-watching" TV shows, all I could picture was pale people with sunken eyes sprawled in the glow of a screen in a darkened room surrounded by empty soda cans, chip bags, and pizza boxes.

Turns out, binge-watching can also mean dedicating your viewing to a single show, which, after the stay-at-home months of 2020, makes quite a bit of sense to me. Then, we watched shows we had never seen for a couple of hours each night, from the first episode to the last. Since not much new content was being released, each show was our entire viewing experience for the weeks, or months, it took to watch it in its entirety.

I still remember those days in terms of what we watched. Spring and summer of 2020 was Once Upon a Time, late summer was Heart of Dixie, fall and early winter was Revenge, followed by The Resident because, well, Emily Van Camp. And our viewing habits have evolved to pretty much be one show at a time, with the exception of a few network shows, mostly reality format, or new episodes of shows we have binged and caught up with, and the occasional movie.

There is an instant gratification, to be sure, in being able to punch a single button on the remote and find out what happens next. Gone are the days of waiting a week, or even the whole summer to find out who shot JR or what would happen with Ross and Rachel. But gone, too, is the shared experience of waiting and then watching together with family and friends, and knowing that a lot of other people, across the country or even the world, were watching, too.