Please Mr. Postman

I have a friend from high school who insists on writing me letters and sending them in the mail. She never calls, she never texts, she never emails, but I find a hand-addressed envelope in my mailbox every few months with a corresponding letter inside. As charmed as I am to receive them, I find that I am very out of practice when it comes to replying, and I often put it off. 

How different this is from when we met! Then, we were in boarding school in Switzerland, it was the late 1970s, and pretty much the only way to communicate with the people you cared for on other continents (and there were many) was by mail. Oh how we longed for those thin, blue Par Avion envelopes to peek out of our mail cubbies. 

Of course, I was an excellent correspondent, and I continued to be one even as we all moved back to the States for college. But in the ensuing 45 years, that skill has gone very rusty. And so today when I finally replied to her last letter, after too long, I started like this: I always love to receive your letters, and I really appreciate your persistence.

Because I do; I really do.

Tots on the Run

The light was golden, and the air crisp this afternoon when we arrived at a nearby park for a track meet for kids ages 2 to 7. Some friends invited us to their 2-year-old's last race of the season, and although I'd never heard of such an event, it was easy to see why it would be popular.

About 50 kids competed in four age groups. The youngest, 2-and 3-year-olds, ran about 50 yards, most of them from mom to dad. The next group's distance was maybe 10 yards further, but the kindergarten and first graders ran 400 meters. It was all low-stakes and fun, with t-shirts and medals for every runner. 

Best of all, it was over in less than 30 minutes, which was about right for the attention span of the assembled group of athletes and their supporters.

Healthy Attitude

The dog park was deserted when Lucy and I got there this afternoon. It was a little over halfway in our walk, and Lucy was eager to go in anyway, so we did. She sniffed around a little, and I made sure she got some fresh water. I would have tossed a ball for her had there been one to throw, but those were absent, too, just like the other dogs. After a few minutes, I headed over to the back gate, and Lucy trotted after me, not disappointed in the least but just as happy to leave as she was to arrive.

A Curmudgeon's Life Hacks

There I go, reading the paper again. 

This time, it was an article titled "Too Scared to Watch Horror Movies? These 5 Tips May Help," which was also in the NY Times, like the Pluto piece. The gist was to push past your qualms so that you could indulge in this seasonal fun. You know, the fun where you watch people suffer and die for entertainment as if there wasn't enough real tribulation in the world.

I personally have one tip for those who feel uncomfortable with this genre. 

Don't watch them.

Infamy

I looked up when the nurse called my name. We were in the OR Recovery area, and the team was monitoring Heidi after her foot surgery.

"Yes?" I replied.

"You were my sixth-grade English teacher!"

I squinted at the young woman in scrubs, glasses, and a professional updo and tried to imagine her 11-year-old self. "What's your name?" I asked.

"Radia," she told me, walking over from the station. 

"Radia!" I said, "I can't believe it!" I pointed at the picture on her badge where her hair was short and parted on the side and her glasses were off. "That looks more like you in middle school."

She laughed. "Yeah, it does," she agreed.

"What year were you in sixth grade?" I asked.

"2001," she replied. "I was actually in your classroom on 9-11."

"Oh my gosh," I shook my head, "that's right."

"People always ask me where I was that day," she continued, "and I always say Ms. S's 2nd period English class. I'll never forget you."

Small Round Things

I was reading an article in the Times about today's solar eclipse, which will be visible in the far south of South America, the Pacific, and Antarctica, when my eye caught a headline in the related article column. Is Pluto a Planet? It asked. And what is a planet, anyway? Test your knowledge here.       

Well, I clicked over right away because I have some feelings about the topic, and I love a good newspaper quiz. I was never truly on board with Pluto's demotion to a dwarf planet back in 2005. The loss of that oft-repeated mnemonic, My Very Excellent Mother Just Served Us Nine Pizzas, alone convinced me it was a silly change. (Although I did laugh recently when I heard the updated version where the very excellent mother serves naan. Go ahead, say it.) 

For several years, my sixth-grade English colleagues and I used the picture book A Place for Pluto by Stef Wade as a model text for the type of children's story we taught our students to write in the fiction unit. Not only does that text have a crystal clear plot chart, but it also has a solid curriculum connection. It was in the liner notes at the end that I learned the details of Pluto's redesignation. (I also realized that none of my students were even alive in the days that Pluto was a planet, but that's another story.)

All of this is just to explain my eagerness to read the article and take the quiz. Anyhow, there were five questions, starting with Do you think Pluto should be considered a planet? (of course, I chose Yes.) and including Do you think our moon should be a planet? (For which I gleefully selected No! What part of moon do you not understand?). 

My results called me a sentimentalist, maybe because I refused to extend planethood to Eris and Ceres, but I can live with that. Because sometimes? My very earnest mind just stays up nights, pondering.

Oh C'mon

I'm pretty sure it has rained every day since I retired.

Am I right?