In Case

"I can't even imagine living in a place like that," Heidi said as we idled at a traffic light across from a high-rise apartment building. "What would you do in the middle night if your dog had to go?"

"The elevator?" I shrugged. 

"That would be ugly if it were an emergency," she answered.

"Then maybe if there was a balcony, you could put a little emergency area in the corner. Kind of like a litter box for your dog." The light stayed red, so I considered the logistics further, picturing apartments I had been in. "I guess you could also put newspapers down in a bathroom, or the laundry room, if there was one."

Those words hurled my mind decades into the past, from my mother's apartment in Minnesota to the laundry room in our family's first house. "I think we used to put newspapers on the garage floor for our dog," I said, remembering out loud. "And then it was someone's job to change them-- roll up the used ones into a garbage bag and lay down clean ones." 

I pictured the two steps down and the single bulb illuminating a one-car garage in the Levitt colonial we lived in. Our '64 blue Ford Falcon was never in there, but our bikes and the lawn mower were. There was also an empty oatmeal carton with its bottom cut off, tacked to one of the side walls. It was a makeshift basketball hoop my dad created that we used on cold and rainy days with tennis balls, being careful to avoid the dog poop.

The light turned green. "I guess you find a way to make the situation work," I said.

Rookie Mistake

The first-grade students were practicing the trigraph 'tch' during their phonemic awareness lesson yesterday, copying words ending in that sound onto a whiteboard. One of the words was ditch, and as the teacher checked their work, she stopped and tutted at one little boy. He had made a common error of new writers, accidentally reversing the first letter. 

"Boy!" the young teacher said to him. "You better fix that d!" Then she looked at me, checking to see if I was tracking the conversation. I could almost hear her thinking, Please don't let the consultant say that one of my students wrote bitch!

She visibly relaxed when I laughed and shook my head. "I've seen much worse in middle school," I told her. "And they weren't accidents!"

We Have Company!

"Are you a new one?" a first-grader asked me, jerking his thumb toward the teacher and assistant as I borrowed a tiny chair from the desk beside him and sat down.

"No," I told him in a confidential tone. "I'm a visitor!" I pointed to the sticker on my coat.

His eyes brightened, and he did a little happy dance, as if this turn of events had made his day.

"I guess you don't get many of those!" I laughed.

Double Duty

A while ago, Chrome introduced a screen-splitting button to its browser toolbar. Admittedly, once I moused over it to find out what the heck it was, I ignored the little icon that looked kind of like an open book to the right of the home button. Why would I ever want to split my already tiny laptop screen? I thought. 

But tonight, one of its uses became clear to me when I needed to compose my daily blog entry while the Golden Globes were being broadcast. Heidi had gone to bed early with a headache, and turning on the TV and tuning it to the award show in progress seemed like an unnecessary disturbance. I'll just check the award winners so far, I said to myself as I booted up the computer, but quickly changed my mind and streamed it in a classic FOMO moment. But what about the blog?? my conscience countered as glamorous images from the Beverly Hilton sparkled before my eyes. 

Never fear! Split screen is here! And that, dear reader, is how I'm both writing this and watching that. Is it distracting? You bet. Might the quality of my viewing be compromised by the obvious effort I'm putting into writing? Alas, perhaps. But I can only hope the Golden Globes will forgive me for multitasking.

Confuzzled

"We're late!" Heidi called down the stairs in a panic. We had both forgotten about Lucy's grooming appointment this morning, and she had missed the reminder texts asking where we were. She had replied to ask if an hour late was too late, but hadn't heard back. "I just want to take her and see!" she said, so the three of us rushed to the car in the pouring rain.

Right as we rounded the corner with less than half a mile to go Heidi received a text. "It's 11, and I haven't heard from you. I'm going home."

"But she didn't text me back," Heidi said in confusion.

"Call her," I shrugged.

"I'm so sorry!" Heidi apologized when the phone was answered. "I tried to text you."

"Where are you?" said the voice on the other end of the call. "I'm still at the farmer's market."

I turned into the groomer's parking lot as we tried to make sense of the information. "Uhhhh," Heidi stalled, looking at me wide-eyed. "I'm right outside."

What followed was a comedy of errors, based on missed and miscommunication. The woman on the phone was the instructor for Heidi's beekeeping class, trying to deliver the required books before the course begins on Thursday. She had been mistakenly texting someone else and agreed to wait until we could get up to the market. Meanwhile, we received a text from the groomer waiving the cancellation fee but informing us that she had no more openings for the day.

"What should we do?" Heidi asked.

"We're here," I said. "And it's our fault we missed the appointment. Go pay the cancellation fee and book the next available."

Lucy let out a little whine when Heidi exited the car.

"You're off the hook today," I told her, but a minute later Heidi was back.

"They can fit her in," she reported with visible relief. "When I walked in, she took one look at me and said, 'Oh girl! I got you!'" Heidi paused. "Do I look that rough?"

"It has been a rough 30 minutes," I agreed. "But somehow? It's all working out."

Lucy may have seen it otherwise.

Cold Hard City

There were blue and red lights flashing up ahead and to my right as I approached the intersection of H Street and New York Avenue. The light turned red, and my attention was understandably drawn to the scene on the sidewalk. Three emergency responders stood near the steps of the church on the corner, looking at a man sitting motionless, his back to the foot of the balustrade. I watched to see how the man would react to the attention and lights, but he didn't move at all. When the traffic ahead of me inched forward, I could see that his eyes were open, but he was beyond any help the EMTs could offer. He was dead. The light changed then, and I continued on my way.

Just Here for the Chalk Dust

I was observing in a first-grade classroom this morning when the teacher approached a student sitting at her desk, staring into space. "You need to get started on your work," she said sweetly to the girl. "Read the word and then put checkmarks in the boxes that fit," she continued, repeating the directions in case there was some confusion.

The little girl turned to her teacher in disbelief. "I can't read!" she scoffed.

I had to stifle a laugh as I saw the teacher's eyebrows shoot up. She quickly regained her first-grade educator's composure. "That's what we're learning," she explained. "And that's why you have to do your work!"