Brianna's Coming Back!

 February 28, 2022

I just got a definitive date when Brianna is moving back to the West Coast.  She moved to Washington D.C. last year for school, but has taken a remote job working PR/Communications for an agency out of Orange County, so she will be moving back to this coast soon. I am so excited!  It's tough having your baby girl so far away!  Even though she will be working for a place in southern California, she has decided to move back in with her old roommate, Kaci (who I adore) in Seattle.  We are living in times that actually allow someone to live in Seattle and work in Orange County--how wonderful is that?? And even though she won't be in the same state as me, she will still just be a stone's throw by plane, and I am okay with that.  She will move home for a month in May before she heads off to Seattle, so I will definitely get to have some mama-daughter time soon.  I am so looking forward to it!

Meanwhile, in Vegas

February 27, 2022

My Sunday was quite mellow, but Lisa and Danielle made their way to Las Vegas to do a run.  While I was sitting on my couch grading, these two were racing through Vegas for yet another medal.

Weekends are for Fun

February 26, 2022

Today I got to go to lunch with Rafe and meet his two youngest boys.  We took them to Coney Island Pizza (where, of course, there were video games to play when they got bored talking to the adults).  I really enjoyed getting to put names to faces--they were great!  After we dropped the boys off at their mom's house, we went back to Rafe's place and watched a couple of movies.  We watched the very nostalgic Neverending Story and then a fluffy time-travel rom-com.  It was nice to just relax and cuddle on the couch for the afternoon.  Finally, we went out to Sequoia Brewing to listen to Wild Hare play.  It was great to see Eddie doin' his thing, and when I texted Lisa and told her I was there, she came out to hang out with us!  It was a very full and wonderful day.

Chef Throwdown at Chukchansi Park

February 25, 2022

On Friday night, Rafe and I went to a local chef's throwdown at Chukchansi Park.  It was an event to raise funds for CASA.  Rafe had heard something about it on the radio, and thought it sounded like something fun and different to do for a date night.  It was a beautiful night at the ballpark.  There were six chefs from local restaurants who each provided a taste of a signature dish.  There were bison sliders, curried shrimp, and crispy pork belly dishes, just to name a few.  Local breweries also served at the event, and there was live music.  Best of all was the company.  We had a wonderful evening!  (Oh--and he brought me flowers-I love flowers!)

Mask Mandate

February 24, 2022

Our school board decided to call an emergency meeting at 3:00 yesterday afternoon to discuss the current mask mandate that is in place.  The meeting was announced on Tuesday afternoon.  Wednesday at 3:00, of course, teachers are still within their duty hours and are still at work, therefore teachers would not be in the room discussing the mandate that daily affects us within the scope of our classroom.

This is absolutely par for the course.  The meeting was called because our 'task force' of board members had been meeting regularly about whether or not we could play around with semantics and get around the state-mandated requirement that all students and teachers in school settings must be masked.  They did not ask for teacher input, nor did they actually think about the practical application of their slippery definition of the mandate--which they determined they could 'faithfully' uphold through education, rather than enforcement, since the language of the mandate says that schools have some flexibility in enforcement.  In their emergency meeting, our board voted unanimously (by the board members in attendance) that our district could uphold the mask mandate by 'educating' students/staff with the posters already plastered throughout our school buildings.  However, enforcement of masking was effectively shut down.  Even though the state mandate is still in place, which means masking is a requirement, our board decided that as of today, students who refuse to wear a mask can do so with no penalty or consequence.  As teachers, we are still required to tell them that masking is the expectation and still required, and we are to offer them masks, but if they refuse nothing happens.  This puts teachers (and site administrators) in the untenable position of asking students to follow rules, but having absolutely no recourse should they choose not to do so.  What could possibly go wrong?

The sad thing about this is that the governor is set to make an announcement on Monday, and they knew that.  The assumption was that the governor would eliminate the mask mandate, so their Wednesday meeting is nothing more than grandstanding--an attempt to appease a very loud minority group who has been begging the board to ignore the state mandate that was oppressing the 'freedoms' of their children.  Making a move a handful of days before the governor's decision allows them to claim that they are acting on behalf of those people to whom they are kowtowing, and enables them to take credit for being 'forward-thinking' and 'trailblazers' ahead of the other schools and the state.  It's a transparent move--a non-decision decision--that is a desperate attempt to mimic action without actually taking any.  The problem is that they are also still beholden to the state for funding, so their non-decision actually asks us, in the classrooms, to send the message that we must uphold the mandate, but must not in any way actually ask the kids to adhere to the requirement.  Even a brief conversation with even a handful of teachers in the classroom would have let them know how difficult this would be in implementation.  And if the messaging to students is that we have rules, but you only have to follow some of them, how could it possibly not occur to some of those students that the other rules are 'suggestions' as well?  How are we not sending the message to the parents that if you yell loudly enough, our board will eventually get tired of fighting the battle and lay the issue down at the feet of the teachers in the classroom to uphold on their own, without support?  How does it not occur to any of them that we are, in fact, sending a pretty strong message through example that we only have to follow the state rules if we like them, and if we don't, all we have to do is look for a loophole?

Because we are still required to remind students that the mandate is still in place, I decided to handle it in my way in the classroom (as did all of the teachers, since we were given no guidance, direction, or plan for implementing this).  I simply reminded my students that the mandate was still in place, and that it was still the expectation that students would wear masks.  I added that as a cancer survivor, and one who is immunocompromised, I would ask them respectfully to continue to wear the mask in my class, at least until the state mandate was lifted.  The response?  I still had four students in each of my classes simply stare at me blankly, silently drawing their line in the sand.  I don't have to, and I don't want to.  Honestly, it was disheartening.  I get that not everyone believes in the efficacy of the masks, and that no one actually likes to wear them, but here's the thing: When I asked them, as a human being, for my benefit (and for the benefit of others in the class who might be reluctant to speak up about their own fears or health issues) to wear them anyway--even for just a couple more days--the stance for breaking free of the rules superseded empathy and kindness.  These are kids who are wonderful people--kids I really like and who like me.  But at the end of the day, what we have now taught them is that their individual desire is more important than concern for anyone around them.  That they are justified in not considering others- righteous, even.  That individual choice doesn't carry with it social responsibility.   And I think those lessons are ones that will take a very long time to unlearn.  It was one of my saddest days in education.

Well, That's Not Good

February 23, 2022

Aaaand $500 later, I have a new phone. I decided to drop my old one just as I was closing my car door when I was leaving work today. Good news? I have excellent timing. (Note the sarcasm...) The phone hit in the split second the door hit the frame. The door 'caught' it on the way down. The bad news? The screen was so damaged it rendered the phone inoperable, flickering feebly and spastically. Did I have insurance? Yes. Did I want to wait three days to get a new one? No. They transferred my insurance to my new phone and I had to just pay off the old one and then purchase the requisite accouterments. Crossing my fingers that everything transfers from The Cloud, since I couldn't do a phone-to-phone transfer.

Anastasia

February 22, 2022

Tonight I got to head out to the theater once again to see a production of Anastasia.  This used to be one of Brianna's very favorite movies when she was young.  Weirdly, although she watched it a hundred times with me, I didn't remember much about the plotline.  I remembered, of course, that it was about the Romanovs and the daughter who survived the attack on her family, but beyond that I hadn't held onto the details of the story.  I think Bree and I watched it so often that I got bored by it and blocked it out.  The show has some pretty dark moments, but lots of comedy, too.  I thought the actors were all very strong, especially their singing voices.  Unlike when I went to see Waitress last month, I didn't have any trouble understanding the lyrics during the musical numbers.  What was really incredible, though, was the digital sets.  I don't think I've ever seen a show that relied so heavily on projected scenes, but the detail and quality were so beautiful and intricate that it definitely enhanced the production in a very different way than a traditional set might have.  I would imagine that a traditional stage set for a production like this would be incredibly expensive and difficult to transport, but the projected screens allowed for a lot more flexibility.  Done poorly, it would have detracted from the experience, but the quality here was stunning.  Couple that with a charming date, and it all made for a very lovely evening indeed!

Baby Sis!

February 21, 2022

Although I have seen Lisa throughout the pandemic (being safe, testing, masking, etc.), I hadn't seen my baby sister since just before the shutdown.  We have always AT LEAST seen each other at Christmas, since family and Christmas go hand-in-hand with all of us.  During the pandemic, however, we didn't even get to do that.  The first year everyone was on shutdown--I didn't even get to see all of my kids at Christmas, let alone my siblings.  Last year we were also very small and didn't have all of us together. So this weekend I made the detour coming home from Lisa's to stop at Laura's house to visit with Sean and her.  I just can't believe how nice it was to see her after so long! I was only there for a couple of hours, but we were able to get a lot of catching up done.  I'm hoping that now that pandemic seems to be subsiding a bit, we will be able to make sure not nearly that much time elapses before we have our next visit.

More Theater: Wicked

February 20, 2022

Since we didn't end up going to dance classes yesterday, we wanted to make sure we got to some today.  On today's docket were definitely some dance styles I had not tried before:  60's Go-Go dancing and Burlesque.  They were both taught by the same young woman with a great, sassy style and a fun attitude.  I loved her as an instructor.  The Go-Go class was a lot of fun and though the dance routine wasn't difficult, it was a good aerobic workout that didn't feel like work.  That's a plus in my book.  The second class took us both significantly out of our comfort zones.  I'm not so sure how sexy or sensual either of us looked or felt, but I still have to say I was pretty proud of us for branching out.  I'm pretty sure that in order for me dancing in Burlesque style to have the intended effect, I would need A LOT of practice (and even then, maybe still not so much of the intended effect).

Not long after we made plans for me to stay at Lisa's this weekend, she noticed that Wicked would be in town not too far from her.  I had also seen this musical before, but I was definitely up for seeing it again.  Lisa hadn't seen it yet.  After our dance classes, we headed to the theater-a much more regal and sophisticated one than yesterday's. The two leads in the musical really had phenomenal voices and definitely were able to make those iconic parts their own.  Such an incredible performance!  Of the three times I've seen this show, this was definitely my favorite.

Next to Normal

February 19, 2022

After yesterday's concert, Danielle and I stayed in a cute little hotel room and then made our way back to Riverside.  I dropped her off and then continued on to Lisa's house.  Lisa just bought a new house, so this would be my first time getting to stay there.  Our goal was for me to help her do some setting up and decorating at the house, but as usual we tried to pack way too much into our weekend.  We did go and pick up a bunch of household stuff that we'd won at an online auction to help add to her new household.  Then we went to see a production of Next to Normal.  It's a play that I had seen before, but Lisa hadn't, nor had Phil, who joined us.  It's a powerful but pretty heavy and dramatic play with some difficult mental health subject matter.  I'm not sure how much Phil enjoyed it--he had no idea what the play was about--but Lisa and I really liked it.  They were some talented actors, and the venue itself was intimate and comfortable.  I'm really glad we were able to go. I have really missed concerts and live theater in the time of the pandemic.

Afterward we considered going to some dance classes, but we opted instead to grab some sushi for dinner.  We found an excellent little hole-in-the-wall place that was well worth it.  Then we just decided to get back home and start putting away the auction finds.  Even though we didn't make it to the dance classes, we still felt like we had a pretty productive day.

The Beach Boys

February 18, 2022

When Danielle was younger, her very favorite music was the songs of the Beach Boys.  She was all about them.  Now as a young adult, her tastes are quite varied: rap, Christian, alternative, pop, and show tunes among them.  Regardless, I think there will always be a little nostalgia associated with the Beach Boys.  This past Christmas I stumbled upon a tour date for them that had them playing about an hour away from where she lives, so I decided that would make a good Christmas gift for her.

They were playing in Rancho Mirage, and although I left home with way more than enough time to get down to Riverside to pick her up and head out to the concert, traffic was so bad that I was really afraid we weren't going to make it in time for the start of the concert.  Fortunately, we did, even though the journey down south took me at least two more hours than it should have.  

One of my favorite things about hanging out with Danielle is that that kid is just funny.  She cracks me up all the time.  The concert was good (but man, are those dudes old!), but even better was our running comedic commentary.  There was just so much to comment on!  Danielle also discovered that, oddly, almost any song will work to do the Macarena.  So naturally, we sang, danced, laughed, and created a running dialogue that only improved the performance on stage.  I'm pretty sure all the other people in the venue that saw us (average age: approximately 80) thought we were a little off-kilter, but that only heightened the amusement for us.  I'm so happy that all of my kids like to spend this kind of time hanging out with their mom.  We always find the best ways to have fun!

Princess Bride

February 17, 2022

Tonight I was invited to dinner and a movie.  It was a perfect Thursday night, since neither of us had to go to work tomorrow.  (Why don't we always have Fridays off??)  Rafe cooked me a delicious dinner with steak, potatoes, and asparagus (yum!).  It was so nice to relax and chat and get to know each other better.  He had asked me if I wanted to watch a movie, and because he remembered that The Princess Bride was my favorite movie, he had that one cued up for us.  I will never turn down an opportunity to share my love for that movie.  Cozying up on the couch together, enjoying full bellies and my go-to comfort movie was just a lovely evening.

ZZZZZZZ

 February 16, 2022

I was talking with a friend of mine the other day, and she said she had realized she was a stress-eater.  I thought about that for a minute, because my first inclination was to say that I was also a stress-eater, but actually, I don't think so.  I can certainly eat when I'm not hungry (yes, I know I need to be more mindful about that), but I don't actually think it's when I'm stressed or anxious.  In fact, I'm less likely to eat when I'm stressed.  No, I'm a classic boredom-eater.  Eat to have something to do sometimes, I think.  What do I do instead when I am stressed or sad or overwhelmed?  My go-to response is to sleep.  I know a lot of people who can't go to sleep when they are stressed, because their minds run at a 100 miles per hour and it doesn't allow them to sleep.  Not me.  Usually if my mind is running crazy, there's a little emergency brake in my head that pretty quickly takes over and drops me into dreamland.  It's my coping mechanism.  It doesn't solve any of those stressors or anxieties, but it does allow me a bit of a respite from them now and again.  I think it's fascinating how different people develop different coping mechanisms without really knowing what causes them to develop differently.

Peanut Butter and Jelly

 February 15, 2022

Peanut butter and jelly sandwiches are part of the fabric of childhood for most kids.  This was true for me as well, but for me it didn’t just represent childhood; it was uncertainty and instability.  It was a reminder that things had changed–monumentally so.  It was loss and fear and the end of innocence.  

Sometimes I am in awe of the courage it took my mother to pull herself and her children out of the volatile situation we found ourselves in.  A young mom with five children, 13 years and under, she found herself one night throwing whatever we could fit into the trunk of our car to seek safety and shelter elsewhere, as far away from our home as she could get.  The younger kids in the family really didn’t have much of a concept of what was going on–they thought we were just going off on an adventure.  I was older, though, and much more of a confidante than I should have been at that age.  I knew that night was going to change everything about our lives.  

We drove to a payphone across town, after Mom had taken many backstreets and circuitous avenues.  She was afraid she might be followed.  At the payphone, Mom called the local Marjorie Mason Center.  Unfortunately, there was no room at the inn.  It’s difficult to house a mom with several small children, even for a home dedicated to domestic violence victims.  (To be honest, I held a child’s grudge against the Marjorie Mason Center for a long time.  They were supposed to be there for families in need, but they could not help us in our desperate time.)  The best they could do for us was to offer a place to stay several cities away.  We didn’t have enough gas to get there, or enough money to pay for the fuel it would take.

Finally we landed at our youth pastor’s house in the middle of the night.  He and his wife took us in, but were unprepared to keep us all for more than a night.  They just didn’t have the space.  The next day we all ended up on the floor of a spare bedroom in one of my mom’s student’s homes.  The student, who was close with my mom, had talked with her mother, who extended the offer.  I have no idea how Alma knew the details of why we were in need of a place to stay, but I imagine it must have been incredibly humbling to my mom.

Alma’s mom fed us a meal, but Mom couldn’t bear to have the family feel like they were responsible for continuing to feed us.  Their family had their own financial struggles.  Mom had no access to her own bank account–many wives didn’t in the 1970s–, and payday was still two weeks away.  She took the $20 bill from her purse and went to the grocery store to get food that could be stretched out over several days and that wouldn’t go bad without a refrigerator.  Peanut butter and jelly and bread were our lifesavers in those days.  It was our breakfast, lunch, and dinner for nearly two weeks. We sequestered ourselves in that spare bedroom while Mom was trying to figure out her next moves.  She had to move from immediate survival mode to future planning mode.  This current situation was only sustainable for a very short time.  While she planned and strategized, she also had to keep five young children fed and quiet.  

“Why can’t we go outside and play?”

“Where’s Dad?”

“I’m bored! There aren’t any toys here to play with.”

“I want to go back home!”

“WHHHYYYY do we have to have peanut butter and jelly again? I hate peanut butter and jelly!”

We were kids.  We whined. We wheedled.  We cried.  We yelled.  Sometimes she would respond in sadness, sometimes in anger and frustration. She didn’t want to be here in this position any more than we did, but now that we were, it was her job to figure out what our next steps were.  It must have been overwhelming.  It must have panicked her sometimes and kept her awake on her palette of blankets long after she could hear the slow, steady breathing of her children as sleep overtook them at night.  If it was just her, it would have been easier.  But to be wholly responsible for five young lives who couldn’t help her and who were bewildered by the breakneck speed with which all our circumstances changed must have been a heavy burden that weighed on her constantly.

It was a turning point, for us and for her.  We did finally find more permanent shelter, after bouncing from place to place for a time.  I don’t know how she managed to gather resources and help, but I know there were many kind people who helped along the way, in ways both big and small.  I marvel at her perseverance, her willingness to set aside pride, her resilience, and her courage.  She shielded us as much as she could, but it would take years before she regained her financial equilibrium after striking it out on her own.  Things weren’t easy, but they got manageable. I think those immediate years after that night affected all of us children differently.  We all had different perceptions and memories of those days and the months that followed. For me, weirdly, a lot of it centered around those peanut butter and jelly sandwiches.  I guess it was easier to focus my frustration and anger from that time period on the fact that we didn’t have any choice other than to swallow the only thing that was put in front of us, rather than deal with what put us in that situation in the first place. 

It was more than twenty years before I could touch one of those sandwiches again.

Valentine's Day

 February 14, 2022

My love, I wish for you:

--Laughter

--Trust

--Partnership

--Adventure

--Eyes that See the Beauty in You Always

--Courage to Stay in Your Corner When Life Brings Burdens

--Apologies When Needed

--Grace For Mistakes

--Wisdom of Choices

**Speak these truths into the mirror.  Be your own love first.

Sunday: Things that Make Me Happy

 February 13, 2022

Ten things that are making me happy right now:

1.  Hanging out with my best friend to watch the Super Bowl

2.  My sister coming into town for a visit

3.  My kids experiencing new adventures in their lives

4.  Meeting and getting to know some new people

5.  Keeping on track with my walking goals

6.  My students, who make me laugh every day

7.  Cooking experiments that turn out great

8.  Live music--man, I missed live music

9.  Videos of baby giggles

10.  Looking forward to taking some dance classes

My First Valentine

 February 12, 2022

The first boy I ever loved was a boy named Saburo.  He was in my kindergarten class, and I remember the day I first became aware of him.  He sat next to me on the rug in the classroom.  We were seated in little rows and columns, all facing the teacher.  She announced that she was going to go down each row and have us all show her whether or not we knew how to tie our shoes.  Apparently, this was part of the curriculum back then. I suppose it was so because a teacher of five-year-olds wouldn’t have time for much else if she had to spend all of her time stopping to tie children’s shoes all day long.  Anyone my age will recognize that this was in the time before Velcro, so learning to tie one’s shoes was a necessary life skill.

I sat about four rows back, and the teacher started with the first row of children, asking each child to demonstrate mastery of tying their shoes.  I started to panic–just a little at first, but growing with each subsequent masterful display.  It seemed as if I was the only student whose mom had forgotten to pass on that particular bit of knowledge, and I was going to be the only one in class unable to perform the task at hand.  Clearly, I was beginning to be visibly agitated; I didn’t want to disappoint my teacher or be embarrassed in front of the class.  Tears clouded my eyes and I stared down at my feet, shod in the little shoes that would be my undoing.

Suddenly, a quiet voice said gently, “Do you not know how to tie your shoes?”  There was no judgment, just a sincere acknowledgement of my discomfort.  I looked at Saburo and sadly shook my head. “No, I don’t know.”  I barely trusted myself to speak, afraid that I would dissolve into tears.  “I can show you how, if you want. I know how.”  Gratefully, I nodded.  He reached over to my shoe and began, “You take each string and make a bunny ear out of each…”  He was direct and efficient, and most importantly, he didn’t draw attention to us as he quickly and quietly taught me what to do.  

By the time my teacher got to Saburo and me, I had had an opportunity to practice a few times and managed to make a decent showing. He didn’t realize it at the time, but he had come to my rescue and I thought he was wonderful.  In that tiny gesture was the beginning of a fast friendship that would last for four years, until his family moved back to Japan.  ( We actually reunited many, many years later, but that is a story for another time.)  I loved him.  I loved him in the simple way children love each other–innocently, wholly, and without reservation.  We were inseparable, we two.  A simple act in the right moment was all it took, and he had my heart.

When Movies Sound Like Real Life

 February 11, 2022

There's a movie that is trending right now called The Tinder Swindler, about a man who used the Tinder app to con women.  Women who fell for him and his lavish lifestyle didn't realize that they were, in fact, funding that opulent and extravagent lifestyle.  It's hard to believe that women could be fooled into sending money to a man they really don't know, but it's also difficult to believe that there are people who make a living preying on people's faith and trust in this way.  And yet, I have actually come across at least one of those men in my own experiences with dating apps, a year or two ago. 

A man reached out to me and relatively quickly wanted to switch to texting instead of using the app.  Weirdly, we also switched to email as well, which in retrospect makes me think that perhaps it was easier for him to check spelling and grammar in that format, rather than through the phone.  We chatted, and according to him, he was from my city, but had temporarily relocated to South America for a big architectural project that he had won the bid for.  Supposedly the project was going to make him very wealthy, but he didn't want to be that far away from his mother or son for the amount of time the project would take, so he relocated them with him temporarily.  He seemed articulate, genuine, and interested in learning more about me.

The first few exchanges were fun; getting to know someone new can be exciting. However, I am a relatively reserved person until you get to know me, and his 'affection' for me seemed to grow at a speed with which I was uncomfortable.  Within a few days he was saying I seemed to be a person he could spend the rest of his life with--his soulmate. He also said he had shown my dating profile picture to his son who, according to him, said I looked like the kind of person who could become his new mother.  

Okay--so that was weird.  I told him we didn't know each other yet, but he continued to insist that we seemed a perfect match.  He wanted to send me a token of his 'affection' for me, but I told him I didn't give my address to anyone I hadn't met in person so that would not be happening.  He said he understood.

On the sixth day (SIXTH DAY!), he texted me and told me he was having a tough morning because his mother had been rushed to the hospital.  I told him I was sorry to hear it, and that I hoped she recovered quickly.  That evening, he texted and said that his mother was awaiting treatment, but they wouldn't give her proper treatment unless he paid $9,000 up front.  Sadly, his partner in his architectural firm had run back off to the United States with most of their business funds (which he would recover when he got paid for the completed bridge project he was working on), but for the time being he only had $4,000 in his bank account.  He texted, "Hon, would you please send me the other $5,000 so that I can get my mother's treatment started? Of course I will pay you back double when I finish the bridge."  Staring at the phone, I laughed out loud.  Do people actually fall for this kind of thing? Does this actually work?  I texted back and simply said I didn't have the money.

The next day he texted again, pleading with me to send him $5,000.  I told him I had never met him, and I had only just started texting him less than a week ago; there was no way I was goinig to send him that kind of money.  He said he couldn't believe that I hadn't turned out to be the kind and loving woman he thought he had been talking to.  I quit responding.  He tried one more time, to no avail.

I reported him to the dating app I had met him on, and then I did a reverse image search on his profile picture.  That led me to a Facebook group that was basically a clearinghouse of reports of dating app scammers--a kind of word-to-the-wise message board.  'His' picture was juxaposed to someone else's photo--the real man behind the texts and emails, based out of Africa.  He had scammed women out of thousands of dollars--some as much as $50,000.  Some of them cleaned out their retirement or their life savings for him.  I read incredulously of all of the accounts of women who had lost their hearts and their money to these scammers.  It was pretty heart-breaking, really.  These women so desperately wanted to believe in love and in the hope for a future with someone too good to be true, that they were willing to set aside their sense of scrutiny and skepticism and found themselves taken advantage of.  

Now I am an optimist, and a romantic.  I truly am.  But I think this man got sloppy, got greedy.  I'm not sure what else accounts for the fact that he decided to ask me for money within a week, but in most of the accounts I'd read about, the many took many more weeks or months to develop a relationship before the women were asked to send money for various reasons.  Thankfully, I didn't get invested in this false persona he was developing so that I only saw it as a pretty ridiculous circumstance that I found myself in, rather than a devastating, heartbreaking loss of love, with awful finiancial side effects.

Balance

February 10, 2022

After sitting through an evaluation meeting with both my Learning Director and my principal that was incredibly positive, I had a student tell me that some of the students in one of my classes didn't like my class because they thought I was 'controlling' (I was pretty astonished by that one, because I give a lot of choice in class) and gave busywork.  I am big on trying to explain and show why any given assignment is given--the purpose of things like outlines, or annotating what we read for study.  Still, there are kids who don't make the connection and just want us to 'let them read' or 'let them write' without what some of them consider 'fluff'.  Clearly I need to circle back and explain some of the benefits of why we do what we do, but also, sometimes I think that some of our students call 'busywork'  is merely 'work they don't want to do'.  Whenever you think you're doing a good job, someone will come along and make you question it.  Balance keeps us on our toes.

Everyone is Just Doing their Best

 February 9, 2022

In my night class tonight, one of my students approached my desk to speak with me before we got things started. She didn't even get two words out before her voice started breaking and tears sprung to her eyes.  She was embarrassed about being so vulnerable and emotional, and apologized several times.  She said she hadn't quite finished the homework because she had suddenly had to find another place to live, since she'd had a falling out in her current situation.  She had finally figured out a temporary solution, but the week's turmoil had taken precedence over her classwork for the week.  Poor kid! I tried to reassure her and let her know it was okay and that I would grant her an extension.  I also told her I was proud of her for speaking up and communicating her situation.  Housing instability is no joke, and interestingly, it's exactly what we are reading about in the memoir we just started.

There are people who might say that this student is taking advantage of my kind heart, or that she needs to learn to not let 'life' interfere with her work, which in this case is school.  I believe in learning time management, and adhering to deadlines, and adjusting to adversity.  But you know what?  If I was having a really rough time at home with something, if I came to my principal and told him, I would be given leniency and grace.  I think it's a myth that some people perpetuate that students all just need to deal with life and still maintain their school obligations.  The reality is that real life is messy, problematic, and filled with barriers to success.  And while we do need to figure out how to work within some of the things that make life hard, we also all know that sometimes giving a little leeway is all someone needs to restore their faith in their own ability to succeed.  I hope my student recognized that I recognized that it's okay to be vulnerable and to reach out--that one assignment or one rough week doesn't define you as a student or as a person.  

Academy Awards Nominations!

 February 8, 2022

The annual announcement of the Academy Awards nominees happened today.  I always try to see most, if not all, of the Best Picture nominees before the awards show.  Because I haven't been in the theaters much this year, there are so many of the movies I haven't seen yet.  I have seen West Side Story, but I've got some serious catching up to do to watch the rest of the films.   Luckily, it shouldn't be too hard to see many of them on streaming platforms; I just need to map out which ones to watch first.  I am also hopeful that there will be a showing of the Oscar nominated short films.  Over the years I have been fortunate enough to catch a showing in the theaters most years, but if they stream them again as they did last year, I am willing to watch them from the comfort of my own home.  I love the big, full feature films, but there is something really mesmerizing about the animated and live-action short films.  They are usually very powerful.  I am very excited about letting these films guide my movie-watching for the next couple of months.

Olympics

 February 7, 2022

The Winter Olympics are happening in Bejing right now.  Believe it or not, I haven't watched a minute of it.  It's not that I'm not interested; I have watched figure skating in particular for many years, as well as speed skating, skiing, and even curling (though I never really got the thrill of that one in particular).  However, this year I am pretty divested.  Maybe it's because the pandemic turned my priorities elsewhere, perhaps it's because I don't really recognize many of the competitors this year, or even because the games are fraught with political strife.  But really, I think it might be because I am used to watching them with someone, getting invested in the hype and excitement with another.  It's not that I was only interested because someone else was, but that it was something we did together and enjoyed.  Watching alone simply doesn't have the same appeal.  (Rest assured, however, that swimming and gymnastics during the summer Olympics will never be sidelined.  Y'all, those events are in a class all by themselves and are not subject to any other outside influences.)

The Adventure Beast Rolls Again

February 6, 2022

This weekend, after visiting Nicholas, I continued up the coast to meet up with my sister and my youngest daughter in San Simeon.  We checked into the campsite (where we did 'van camping' instead of tent camping--an acceptable facsimile of camping for this bug-averse girl), and then headed into Cambria where we checked out the incredibly cool and strange Nitt Witt Ridge, pictured below. We ventured out to the ocean afterward to catch a beautiful sunset.  The next day we got up and hiked along Moonstone Drive, making sure we got our feet wet now and again along the way.  (Truth be told, I got more than just my feet wet, because I wanted to get a photo of me getting splashed by the incoming waves.) I was very impressed with how well the Adventure Beast stood up to the journey, and am looking forward to many more in our future.  It was a successful weekend--as is almost any weekend when I get to see the ocean and family members I love.

A Visit With My Boy

February 5, 2022

Nicholas moved to Morro Bay to start the next chapter in his life a few weeks ago.  He still had some things at my house that we couldn't fit into our cars when we moved him there in January, so I filled up my car again this weekend and delivered them personally to him.  I am so thrilled that he and his good friend Treasa are settling into their new jobs and their new apartment.  I didn't stay for long, as I was on my way further up the coast to meet with my sister and my youngest daughter, but I did stay long enough to enjoy lunch with my boy at a beautiful restaurant (Dutchman's) looking out over the water.  Those fish tacos, by the way, were huge.  They gave me two, but I could only eat one.  Poor Nicholas had to take one for the team and take the extra one home for leftovers, along with his own leftovers.  I don't think he minded too much.

Teacher Burn Out

February 4, 2022

Much has been made of the mass exodus of teachers from the profession over the past three years, but most especially this year.  There are literally schools having to close down because there aren't enough teachers to staff them.  Of course the pandemic and all its attendant stresses, anxieties, and health concerns have been a big contributor to the problem, but it occurs to me that there is another huge contributing factor that not too many people are talking about.  

One of the ways schools, including mine, adapted to online teaching during the height of the pandemic panic was to shorten the school day for students and offer essentially online office hours every day,.  Teachers were required to be online for an hour and a half or so, and students could use that time to process, do homework, or check in with a teacher if they needed additional guidance.  In addition to being available for students, teachers were able to use that additional time to plan, grade, collaborate, and prep for their classes.  Of course during the normal school year most of us secondary teachers have a planning period, but it is nowhere near enough time to adequately do all the things one needs to do in order to be an effective, creative, and responsive teacher at the highest level (especially if we are constantly asked to give up this planning period to cover classes for absent colleagues).  Elementary teachers don't even have a planning period scheduled into their day at all. This profession is predicated on the understanding that we MUST do work outside our teaching day in order to do the job well--a lot of it.  During our online pandemic response, when we actually built time in the schedule to do those things, and to give kids time to work and process within their school day, it was literally the first time in my 30 years as a teacher that I felt I could have a life outside of the school hours without constantly feeling guilty that I should be ALWAYS working.  My students felt like it was the first time they had ever really had time to give full attention to the study and learning of materials, rather than just speeding through deadlines.

When we think of teacher burnout, perhaps it is because that for a moment in time, when we reimagined school for a moment because we HAD to, there were some things we got right, and we were all able to catch our collective (academic) breath.  In our rush to go back to a sense of 'normalcy' for everyone, we forgot that we could instead move forward and incorporate some of the good we learned from our forced pause in traditional learning.  Instead we all just jumped back on the hamster wheel.  If we had never gotten off and stepped back to see that the hamster wheel is capable of slowing and changing pace, we might not be so overwhelmed racing to get back on it.  You don't realize what you don't know until you experience it.  And now that we have, we recognize that spinning our wheels faster because that's 'normal' isn't the best plan of action; it's just what we have always done in the past.  And man, some people just want to get off altogether now that we have seen another way to operate the ride that doesn't have us spinning out of control.

Off to a Good Start!

 February 3, 2022

Several years ago, my sister got me a Fitbit for Christmas.  Once I got it and made 10,000 steps a day my goal, I was pretty faithful for a good long time.  It might have even been as many as two years where it was incredibly rare that I didn't hit my goal and if I didn't, it wasn't too far off the mark.  I walked late at night, in the rain or in the heat of summer.  I walked by myself or with my daughter or with my then-husband.  I walked when I was tired and I walked when I was sick.  Walk I did, though.  Every day.  But then I hit a rough patch--an understandable one.  After a diagnosis of cancer and the five surgeries that ensued, recovery took me off my schedule and out of my routine.  In between surgeries I'd heal and get back up to speed with my walking, but then I'd be out again for a time when I went in for the next surgery. I got out of the habit and the mindset of making that a priority.  And then I made excuses.  I was happy when I hit 10,000, but not too sad if my count was 7,000.  It was close enough.  At least it wasn't 2,000, right?  There were days when I didn't even wear my Fitbit, but there were even more days when I wore it but never once looked at it.  I knew I wasn't getting in all the steps, and I didn't want the rebuke from my device reminding me of that.

We all have the same amount of time in our day, and how we spend that time shows what we prioritize.  This year on January 1, I decided to do a reset and send that goal all the way back up near the top of my list.  Not the top, mind you--friends, family, work, reading, and writing (thus the much more frequent blog entries this year than in the past few!)--are all some of the priorities that round out my most important, but walking gets to be in the mix too.  In the past few years it was on the list, but it was a long, long way down.  Like, I knew in my head it was on the list, but it was on page fourteen, you know?  The 'priorities' you know you should have, so you write them down, but you never quite get to?  So far this year, however, my should have goal has just become my goal, and I am happy to report that the first month of the year I managed to meet it every day--even when it was cold out and I was tired and I didn't really want to do it.  The routine is becoming a habit once again.

Old Memories Through New Eyes

 February 2, 2022

Not long ago, in light of the #MeToo movement, I thought about the fact that I was lucky I had never experienced sexual harassment in the workplace.  I remember having a conversation about it with a friend of mine, since the issue was all anyone seemed to be talking about at the time.  I empathized with women who had experienced it, and was duly indignant on their behalf.  I said that no one had ever subjected me to anything like that before...except, they had.  I had experienced it, but I didn't realize it at the time--couldn't put that name to it.  Another friend of mine had said he thought the #MeToo movement all had gotten out of hand, and why did it take some women 20 years to report it if it had really been traumatizing?  How was it possible that people were only just realizing that abuse was abuse ? The speculation was that women were simply jumping on a bandwagon for attention, but hadn't really been traumatized by what they were claiming as harassment in retrospect. But I get it.  In the novel 1984, the government attempts to shrink the language in order to minimize the possibility of articulating, or even thinking about, rebellion.  How can you acknowledge it if you can't name it, can't recognize a context for how to label it?  What I experienced as a young college student was an assistant manager who lived by the 'boys will be boys' attitude--everything was just fun and games.  It wasn't assault; I didn't fear losing my job because of it, but by today's standards, what he subjected girls to in that place of business would absolutely be grounds for firing.  I didn't know, though.  Back then, we reserved that term for overt shows of force or threats to employment, not all the subtle ways harassment can manifest.  I knew he was inappropriate, but I also assumed my only recourse was to have a sense of humor about it, to give him wide berth, and to try not to find myself alone in the stock room with him.

Even more recently, I was talking with a friend about my home life as a child.  There was domestic abuse, but although I was witness to it, I was not the recipient.  Even writing that seems too black and white; I rarely say that what I witnessed was domestic abuse.  It didn't happen all the time.  It only happened when he was really stressed. There was only one time that I know of that it was bad enough for the police to become involved.  There were no broken bones.  But that's how we rationalize, right?  That's how people stay in those situations, sometimes until it's too late.  And then as we continued talking, my friend and I, I recounted a couple of other stories. The times he held us underwater in the pool until we couldn't breathe, fighting and kicking to come up for air, terrified of drowning.  The times he locked us kids in a room with him individually for hours at a time to lecture and intimidate us.   The way his anger led him to send subtle and not-so-subtle signs of destructive consequences when he did not get his way. The way he tried to wield his power to drive a divide among family members.  My friend, who continued to ask questions, finally asked me if I thought I had come from a background of abuse.  My immediate reaction was no, and he asked me why.  Again, I said I had only witnessed it, but not been the recipient.  Even as I was saying it, juxtaposed to the examples I had just given of some of my dad's behaviors, for the first time it began to dawn on me that I wasn't in proximity to it; I too lived it. I didn't name it because I always thought of myself as lucky that it wasn't bruises or broken bones--the face of abuse-, and therefore I couldn't name it for what it was.  At 54 years of age, I finally acknowledged that just because it wasn't as bad as many people experience, it doesn't make me 'lucky' to have endured that abuse.  No one should have to.

It Was a Good Day

February 1, 2022

I don't get nervous nearly as much as I used to when I get observed in my classroom, but of course I still like it to go well.  After my Learning Director finished observing my class this afternoon, she left me a little post-it note.  It definitely made my day!