Zowie!

The young lady sitting at the table, talking to my bowling teammate, looked familiar. Still, out of context, it was hard to tell if I actually knew her or if she just resembled one of the kajillion young people I've known in my career. I listened to their conversation as I changed into my bowling shoes, and she sounded a lot like the sister of a girl I taught a couple of years ago. "Are you out of school for the election?" I asked her.

She nodded.

"Where do you go?" I said, and when she mentioned our neighborhood high school, I knew it had to be her. "I think I know you!" 

"I thought I knew you, too!" she laughed, "but I couldn't figure out what you would be doing here!"

"Me?" I responded. "What are you doing here?"

"That's my great-grandma," she pointed to one of the bowlers, "and those are my great-great aunts." She gestured to my teammate and her sister.

"That's nuts!" I replied, and I meant it on at least two levels-- not just being reminded of the community connections that people so often unknowingly share, but also the impressive improbability of having a great-granddaughter in high school and still bowling on a league.

Does It, Though?

"Uhhhh," I cocked my head at the eight grade boy eating breakfast at his desk a few feet from me, "what are you doing?"

"I'm cleaning up," he informed me.

"But you're wiping the desk with your pancake," I continued.

"There was syrup on it," he shrugged. "It works!"

My Natural Solar Day

"Enjoy your favorite day of the year!" my friend said as we wrapped up lunch on Friday and headed out to teach the last class of the week. She was referring to the end of Daylight Saving Time and the twenty-five-hour day that marks the annual return to realigning our clocks with the sun and our natural circadian rhythm.

"Oh, I will!" I assured her with a laugh, embracing the decades of razzing I have received from my colleagues for my passionate, outspoken preference for light in the morning over light in the afternoon.

And I did!

Fright Night

The carnage was not intentional. 

When we took our annual Halloween lights and decoration crawl with our neighbors last night, we were all looking forward to seeing the traditionally over-the-top display put on in a neighborhood just over the bridge. We chatted as we approached about where the folks who live in those condos might possibly keep all the decorations they put out. "I saw a trailer parked across the street last week," I reported, "and it looked like it was surrounded by pallets and boxes with Halloween imprints."

"That would explain it," my neighbor agreed, "I always thought--"

But before he could finish, we all stopped dead. The ground before us was littered with the remains of toppled ten-foot demons and ghouls. Everywhere we looked, we saw scattered skulls, bones and body parts, tattered robes, broken scythes, and other twisted wreckage left by the windstorm that had struck earlier in the day. We stood in stunned silence for a moment before continuing on toward the lights down the street.

Considering our dismay, I couldn't imagine how devastated the people who planned the display must have been, but later, when we told another neighbor about the disappointing turn of events, she saw an opportunity. "Too bad they didn't pivot and add spooky ground lights," she said. "It could have been even creepier than the original!"

Hold on to Your Cats

"Has Tibby put on weight?" our catsitter texted last weekend. "She seems heavier, but it might be I'm comparing her to the kittens."

"Or it could be because she is so large and in charge!" I replied with a laughing emoji because, to be honest, I think she's pretty much the same as ever.

Our former dogwalker agrees with me. She stopped by this afternoon, and as we visited, she sat in the rocking chair by the sliding doors leading to the deck. Tibby ran over and tried to convince her to open the doors and let her out into the blustery day. "No way, Tibby!" Sarah said, "You'll blow away out there!" She turned to me and sighed, "If we only had a functioning national weather service, I'm sure they would issue a small pet warning for today."

It Makes You Smart

 I’ve always loved trivia quizzes, word games, and other tests of knowledge, and in my retirement I have found quite a few daily challenges. (Too many, perhaps, but that’s a story for another day.) 

Some of the hardest trivia quizzes for me are to be found on the Slate website. Each week day they have a different topic: history, culture, vocabulary, science, and current news. With the exception of the news quiz, they all have six questions, and they are not easy: I usually get between 3 and 5  

If you choose to compete, you are vying against other readers, the readers’ average, and a selected staff member. It’s not unusual for me to beat the average, and the Slatesters and I might be 50-50. Placing in the top 50 of all who choose to take the quiz is a rare occurrence for me. 

But today? As I say in a classroom of students busily working while their teacher finished up her sub plans so I could take over on a 911 sub job, I decided to take the science quiz to pass the time. And what do you know? That rarified atmosphere of teaching and learning did the trick! I got them all  and in good time. So yeah, that was me, number 27 of all those other quizsters. 

Of course, I credit my education. 

Bed Rest

I was dragging the last of my garbage bags to the gate when I met a fellow gardener on her way in. She kindly spun the combination lock for me and stepped aside as I moved the four contractor bags to the curb.

"Did you get it all cleaned out?" she asked me through the chain link as she locked back up. 

"Pretty much," I told her. "That's my plot in the corner." We scanned my empty beds, and she nodded appreciatively.

"I'm in that one over there," she gestured over her shoulder.

"Are those your tomatoes I can see?" I asked.

She nodded wearily. "They're still going for now, but I hope to take them out this afternoon." She frowned. "I'm always so excited to get started in the spring," she sighed, "but it all seems like such a chore at the end of the season."

"There is something cathartic for me in seeing the empty plot," I replied, considering the last three hours I'd spent.

"I guess so," she agreed. "But only because it will be ready in the spring!"