Luminous

We were relaxing in rocking chairs on our friends' front porch in Virginia Beach last Saturday when I noticed an insect making its way across the railing. "Is that a firefly?" I asked Heidi.

"It just looks like a bug to me," she shuddered.

I laughed and went to investigate. Sure enough, it was indeed a little lampyridae. "Did you call them fireflies or lightning bugs?" I said to Heidi.

"I just called them 'bugs' and left them alone," she answered.

Later, at dinner, I reported my discovery to our hosts, Traci and Rob. "I love fireflies," Traci said. "We didn't have them in Florida."

"They're lightning bugs," her husband corrected her, and he smiled at me, because he's from Upstate New York near where my dad grew up.

"We called them both," I said, "but they were definitely lightning bugs to my dad."

We looked out the window at the dusky summer evening. "I think I just saw one!" Rob said, and we grabbed Liv, their three-year-old daughter, and a jar and headed out to the front yard. 

It took a minute, but we saw a couple blinking near the garden and jogged over. Once my eyes had adjusted, I was able to chase one down, capture it with loose hands, and carry it over to the jar. Liv was enchanted, and we showed her how to gently tip the jar so that the little beetle wouldn't keep dashing himself against the lid. 

I turned back to the lawn in search of others, but there was barely a twinkle. "I read somewhere that the population is in serious decline," I told the group. "It's loss of habitat and light pollution, mainly."

We waited for a while, but we were bound by the attention span of a toddler, and so we released our prisoner, and everyone else went back inside. 

As I sat on the front stoop, I remembered countless summer evenings spent with my brother and sister chasing lightning bugs. We had a coffee can or a peanut butter jar with holes punched in the top, filled it with what seemed to be dozens of them as we ran around the backyard in our pajamas. The rule was that we had to let them all go at the end of the night, so we would open the container, set it down, and bang inside through the screen door to go to bed. 

It was always waiting, empty the next morning, ready to be filled again.

Last Friday

I spent the day today in middle school, subbing for a friend. Mind you, subbing on the last Friday of the school year is not for the faint of heart (Lordy-- teaching on the last Friday of the year is not for the faint of heart!), but my friend was of the same philosophy that I was, which is to keep 'em learning up to the end. That meant that there was work to do and understanding to demonstrate, organized into the familiar structure and procedures of the class. 

The only outlier in that model was me.

Some of the kids knew me from my long-term sub job in science, but some didn't. For the most part, it wasn't too hard to keep the classes orderly and productive; I came prepared with both strategies to give breaks and activities that rewarded assignment completion. Even so, (and hardly surprisingly) some of the students challenged me. 

When, after a series of obnoxious comments, one kid stole a piece of candy from another, claiming that "he didn't know it was hers," I gave him a choice of a call to the assistant principal or lunch detention. He opted for the second option and then returned to work. When he didn't give me any trouble for the rest of the class, I pulled him aside and told him he had earned his lunch back.

"Awww," he smirked, "I really wanted to come and finish my assignment."

"That's awesome," I congratulated him with a laugh, "but I don't want to spend any more time with you today!"

Thanks, Sue!

Today is my mom's birthday. She would have been 86 if we had not lost her back in 2019. I thought of her all day, and this evening, I got a message from one of her friends:

Hi Tracey, this is Sue. We had book club today, and today's your mom's birthday. We each took a turn talking about all the things we had done with your mom and how much we loved her and things like that. So I wanted to let you know we all had really good memories of her. And then we took a picture of the group, and all these people were in the book club when your mom was a member, so I'll send you the photo. Say hi to the rest of the gang, and I hope to see you someday soon.

It meant a lot to me to know that my mom's friends still remember her so fondly, and that Sue was kind enough to let me know, so I sent my appreciation right away.

Good Eats

A few years ago, a colleague and I bonded over our shared love of cooking. He's mostly a grill man, and he knows I'll appreciate his tales of brining, rubbing, searing, smoking, and saucing. It tickles him when he brings me a taste of something, and I can identify most of the ingredients. He also enjoys baking, and he and his wife regularly try out new cookie recipes.

It only made sense to us to organize a couple of staff events at school based on our mutual interest, and so we do a holiday cookie exchange and an end-of-the-year potluck barbecue for anyone interested. For the barbecue, he always does the main, and over the years we've been lucky enough to sample ribs, smoked brisket, pulled pork, and pulled chicken. I always make Heidi's mom's potato salad, a classic mayo, mustard, and relish-dressed dish with celery and boiled eggs. I also bring lemon squares, which are a favorite of that crowd.

Even though I retired, our tradition lives on, and tomorrow is the big day. He's bringing chicken and jambalaya this year, and in addition to potato salad and lemon squares, we also have brownies, corn salad, pasta salad, beer bread, baked beans, fruit, chips, watermelon, and chocolate chip cookies on the menu.

You can bet I intend to savor every bite!

Happy to Do It

My dance card was full today! I took our neighbor's senior dog out mid-morning and mid-afternoon, as I have been doing daily since the dog walker was injured. "If you don't mind doing it," our neighbor said, "I can keep paying Sarah while she's laid up."

Shortly after the morning out, I headed over to Sarah's to let her 3 dogs out and to drop off the laundry we had done for her before picking up a few things to take over to the rehab facility where she's recovering. I stayed for about an hour before I had to leave for an appointment with another friend who was feeling overwhelmed by the thought of writing a resume and cover letter. Since I had worked on mine in the fall, she had reached out for a little support.

Then it was home again to take the dogs out. I can't be sure my actions brought any joy, but I know my friends appreciated the help.

He Asked

"Excuse me?" A man approached me in the produce section as I was adding tomatoes to my cart. "How does that thing work?"

He was talking about the cart. I was at an Amazon Fresh grocery store because they had offered me a $10 coupon if I dropped my return there. Since I was doing the Amazon thing, I decided to grab a smart cart and follow the directions on its built-in screen and my app to see what it was like to shop and check out at the same time.

I explained to the gentleman that the experience had been easy to navigate and troubleshoot. I showed him the screen with the running tally of my purchases so far, which were already packed in grocery bags. The cart has built-in scanners and a scale to keep track of the groceries as you add them. Then you just push the cart through a special lane, and it totals the bill and charges you, kind of like an EZ Pass.

"That's cool!" he nodded.

"It is," I agreed, "and it was kind of fun, too!"

You're On!

I do love me a challenge, and so I was all in when the NY Times ran a five-day activity designed to help participants learn a poem. How could I resist a description that stated,  A poem can lift the spirits and nourish the soul. This week, let’s all learn one together! Heck, I even sent the link to my former 6th Grade English colleagues! And I definitely gained an immense appreciation of Edna St. Vincent Millay and her poem "Recuerdo." 

Just the opening line, We were very tired, we were very merry--, perfectly describes the punch-drunkenness of many late nights spent with friends, and the five activities the Times offered, along with the amazing gallery of contemporary authors reading the poem, made the challenge a joy.

So when I saw that they were offering a creativity challenge last week, I was all in. And although it was no "Recuerdo," I completed the doodles and the other activities with fidelity right up until Friday morning when the directions were to "try one new thing." They offered a list of options to commit to with a click, and of the 23, I felt like over half would not be new. Even so, there was one thing that caught my interest-- the 30-second dance party.

It did involve buying a doodad, but the description also seemed kind of fun: It’s an annoying toy, but on days when you can’t fit in a workout, it’s guaranteed to get your body moving. 

So, I ordered one, and it was waiting for us when we got home from the beach this afternoon. After dog-sitting for the weekend, Treat was still here when I tore into the package and inserted the batteries. He was very obliging when the strange accent ordering us to dance for 30 seconds emerged from the button's speaker, and the three of us had ourselves a hat-trick of micro dance parties before brainstorming ways we could use the concept to bring a little fun and movement to a middle school classroom.