Prepositions Matter

Josh and his sister and her boyfriend stopped by for a few hours this afternoon on their road trip home to Pennsylvania from Roanoke. I had spent the morning baking, and enjoyed a crackling fire, milk and cookies as we visited. Jay had never been to DC, so he was puzzled when we started talking about kickball leagues. 

"Wait! Adults play kickball here?" he asked.

"Yeah," Josh answered. "Down on the mall."

Jay looked incredulous. "How do they play kickball in the mall?" he asked.

"Not 'in'," Josh corrected him. "On."

Heidi nodded sympathetically. "Not a shopping mall," she explained. "It's a big green space with lots of museums in the middle of D.C."

"But they really play kickball there?" Jay clarified.

"They really do," she said, and he shook his head in disbelief.

Scientific Inquiry

"I have a question," a student in the science class I was subbing for yesterday remarked. "If I put a slice of bread on the ground here, and someone else put one on the ground exactly on the other side of the earth, would that make our planet a sandwich?"

I raised my eyebrows at what seemed like his obvious attempt to avoid the worksheet he was doing on the planets, but before I could comment, another student raised his hand.

"I have some thoughts," he said, "about what constitutes a sandwich."

Intrigued, the first student and I both nodded, inviting him to continue.

"I would say you have to at least have a two-thirds ratio of filling to bread, and even that is pretty stuffed." He paused for our reaction to his theory.

"That seems right," I agreed. "So the answer to the question is no."

"What if we had an enormous piece of bread?" The first kid wouldn't give up. "And we placed it, say, over New York City." He shrugged as if it were obvious why he would want to cover the Big Apple with bread. "And then put the other piece wherever is opposite."

"That's probably an ocean," observed the second student. "Which would make the bread very soggy."

"As fascinating as this is," I interrupted, only half ironically, "it really isn't relevant to the work you're supposed to be doing."

Student one sighed. Student two nodded in prudent agreement. Both returned to their worksheet.

What's Not in My Wallet

Having a lifetime pass to the National Parks offers me unlimited access to some of the most beautiful places in the country, and I got it as soon as I was eligible at age 62. Before that, we used to purchase the standard America the Beautiful pass annually, always looking forward to whatever amazing photograph of which national park was featured. I missed that when I got my permanent card.

Even so, as many reasons as there are that I appreciate my lifetime pass to the National Parks, now there's one more:

Illuminating

We have picked up our CSA share on Thursday for over a decade, and yet for some reason this year? I keep forgetting to go get my vegetables and eggs until it's nearly dinner time. Fortunately, tonight on my way back I took a detour to enjoy all the neighborhood holiday lights. In the darkness of deepening December, they shone ever so brightly, and I forgave myself for being such a dunderhead.

Target Demographics

My classroom observation was unexpectedly postponed this morning, so rather than drive half an hour back home, I decided to do my errands where I was. Fortunately, there was a Home Depot and a Target just a couple of miles down the road, near the interstate, which would be my return route. 

At 11 AM on Wednesday, both stores were practically deserted, and despite being only about 12 miles from home, the inventory seemed a little different, too. Employees in both places were busy neatening and restocking the shelves, and a friendly Target employee and I had an in-depth conversation about the shopping habits of his customers versus those of the shoppers in my neck of the woods. 

"People here shop at night!" he told me. "Once it gets dark out, this place will be jam-packed with whole families." He shook his head. "Personally? I'm glad I work in the morning. Once those trucks are unloaded, I just try to get as much done for the next shift, because they are all going to be called to their registers!"

"Wow," I said. "That's nuts!"

"I feel like people in Virginia are on a different schedule," he told me. "There are a lot of moms and other people shopping while the kids are in school, so they don't have to deal with them in the store."

"That's an interesting theory," I nodded. "You might be on to something."

Our conversation reminded me of the first-grade class just a few miles away that I had visited the week before. The students were working on a writing piece about a special place in their community, and their teacher had them brainstorm three places that they might write about. As I circulated around looking over their shoulders, I noticed that most of them had chosen Target, Walmart, 7-11, and the grocery store. 

More data for the Target guy!

What Am I Missing?

This year, we shopped again at the nursery that names all its trees, and our Christmas tree is named Hezekiah, which did not factor into our choice at all. Even so, I was curious as to why anyone might choose that name for a tree, and I did a little research once we had things all set up. 

The name Hezekiah has no popular culture reference that I could find, much less one related to Christmas. Biblically, he's an Old Testament king, apparently known for his efforts to rid Judah of idolatry and his successful prayers to extend his life for fifteen years. Perhaps the namer of our tree was going ironic on the first part and pragmatic on the second, as in Christmas trees couldn't possibly be construed as false idols (wink, wink), but hopefully this one will stay fresh a really long time!

I guess I'm cool with that sentiment.

First Project of the Day

Heidi had an early meeting this morning, so I got up early, too, to make coffee and pack her lunch. By 6:30, she was gone, and I was standing on the counter by the sink, cleaning the window and removing the screen so that I could thread an extension cord out to the front porch. 

Our condo association is redoing all the exterior lights, and while the new sconce by our front door is a nice upgrade, the LED light does not allow us to replace the bulb with the plug-in adapter we used for our holiday lights. We briefly discussed having an outdoor outlet installed, but it would be a bit costly and involved. 

I've been mulling the situation for a few weeks now and had yet to come up with a resolution when our neighbors began asking Heidi why our annual lights weren't up yet. "They seemed genuinely disappointed," Heidi reported. 

Nothing is ever as easy as it seems, though, and getting power to the porch involved WD-40 to lubricate and swing the ancient window open on its cleaning hinge, removing the brittle screen, finding some foam to fill the air gap and cushion the extension cord, and rigging a block so that the window would stay secrely closed since it couldn't be locked. 

Fortunately, all of the tools and supplies were available, and by 6:45 AM, we were ready for the lights! And, I was on such a roll that I washed all the colanders on the pot rack (having seen how dusty they were when I was up on the counter), made bread, baked cookies, swept the porch, blew all the leaves, and walked the dog, all before 9.