Here I Go Again...

(with all due apologies to Whitesnake.  and to you for the 80s rock reference.)

The summer is officially over in one hour.  Tomorrow is the first day of the new school year.  I can't even feel like I am going back to the same school this year for so many reasons. Everything feels different.

For one thing, so many of the faces I had come to know as the rock-steady foundation of our faculty are gone.  They retired, sought other opportunities.  There are certain of them I just cannot imagine our school without, to be honest.  While a part of me knows that institutions transform themselves or die, I am certain I will be looking for those faces like ghosts in the halls.

This summer has also been full of revolutions in my personal life:  Brazil, my uncle's death, the massive overhaul on my house, getting off the Topamax.  Huge chunks of the puzzle of my life have been pried loose, shuffled around, and the picture just doesn't look the same anymore.  I don't think that's a bad thing.  To have gone through all of that and be completely the same would be the bad thing, probably.

There's also the fact that I am nervous about this year, student-wise.  I had some of the most genuinely discouraging moments of my career last year, things that stole that feeling of "rightness" I have always had with my kids.  Sure, every year brings its own challenges, and true, the vast majority of last year's students were wonderful people whom I will deeply miss.  I need that to be understood.  I don't want it ever said that I did not like last year's class or that I put them down here.  They were a vibrant group of individuals with a distinct personality to them, and they frequently made me laugh.  In all honesty, though, there were also some things that happened that made me feel that what I do is an exercise in futility.

I've had students be confrontational with me.  I've had students get in my face or get into fights with other students.  I've had to deal with exceptionally thorny discipline issues and "battles of the wills."   All of that goes with the territory.  I never take it personally even when it is directed at me.  It's about something else almost always, and I just happen to be a handy target.  Even when it does seem to be a personality conflict, it gets dealt with and we move on.  I'm not in a popularity contest.  I'm trying to teach somebody, a whole lot of somebodies, something.  This past year is the first year ever that I can honestly say a student managed to hurt me and did it deliberately, with planning, deception, and a little song in the heart.  That's just never been a part of my reality before, and now I have to fight the urge to see a knife in every hand waiting for me to turn around so it can find a place to sink in.  I don't want to teach that way.  I don't want to live that way.  It makes everything inside my soul grey and dull.

So I came out of last year with scars, and now I'm a little worried.  How will it go this year?  I have very high hopes and am enthusiastic about it going in.  I have two new electives.  We're going to block schedule.  I am going to be integrating a class exchange with my host teacher from Brazil into my curriculum.  So far, in my very limited interactions with this year's class, I feel like the echoes of the past will just fade out, but I won't be able to tell until I actually get in the room and get everything underway.  Hopefully, the enthusiasm I have for all the wonderful things we're doing this year will carry us.

Well, it's late, and 5:00 will roll around appallingly fast.  Three days of PD preparation, and then all questions will be answered.  I am fervently hoping that all will be well and that this optimism of mine, frequently woefully uninformed and out-of-place, is right this time.

Frustrating

I'm working on stuff for the new school year, and as I'm pulling things together, the fact that so few resources exist for high school teachers when compared to lower elementary is being pounded into me once again.  If you don't believe me, check any place.  Google.  Get on Pinterest.  What you will find is a world of "cutsie" graphics and stripped-down, bright and happy language that are nearly impossible to adapt for anyone over the age of 10.

I did, in fact, do a quick search for "education" on Pinterest.  What comes up are thousands of pins, but the vast majority of them are elementary or middle school oriented. The pins for classroom organization have great stuff, but so much of it revolves around "setting up centers" for different subject areas in the elementary room, or outlines for items and procedures that do NOT exist in my universe (for example, the ever-popular discipline chart in which kids move up and down using clothespins...great if you have 30-ish students. Not quite so useful when you have more than 100....)  If you search for "high school education" on the same sight, you only get a few hundred pins, and the vast majority of them are actually the same social media usage poster pinned and repinned by teachers probably desperate to find something, anything that works for them.

High school and elementary school do not work the same way.  It is different enough that most people are licensed for K-6 or 7-12.  We are different tribes.  If you have a big meeting or conference, if you are a careful observer, you can tell the difference between the elementary folks and the high school folks.  Generally, the elementary folks will be dressed in bright garments, school shirts, or "teacher" accessories consisting of apples, rosy-cheeked stick people, crayonish drawings. They tend to move around in large groups.

High school teachers also tend to have an identifiable appearance, but I suppose it is somewhat variable.  There are the immaculately turned-out ones who are always in suit-ish garb.  There are the "rumpled professors" who look just a little bit out of place, stare at things, and wander around.  Their clothing tends to be slightly threadbare, old-fashioned, or in need of an iron.  Finally, you have the quirky ones who wear jeans and and maybe a shirt with something from their subject matter on it.  I guess you can think of them as the geek-teacher squad.  I personally am one of these.  Most high school teachers tend to move around in smaller groups or alone.

Everywhere I go, the scales tend to tip toward the bright tribe.  At conferences, the materials showcase usually is much more about those first years than it is about my students.  Sellers of school stuff tend to make the majority of it in primary colors with adornments that I can only think of as "precious."  When I go online and try to find resources, the majority of those things have something for elementary school on it, such as how to make a chart for the car riders, the bus riders, and the walkers.  (And yes, I know this is a middle school thing, too....they fall into a grey area between the other two.)

I teach seniors.  I need something interesting visually but age appropriate.  I need things that talk with adult phrases and situations instead of toys and balls and big-eyed puppies.  While it's true that I still have students who carry SpongeBob backpacks, they will look suspiciously or outright reject things that they think are "too childish" for them when it comes to instructional material.  Teens are so sensitive to being talked down to, and I think they see these things as a condescension.  They will treat with suspicion or outright disdain and refusal anything that looks too "babyish" (a word that I have actually had students, especially struggling learners, use for things).

In addition to the problem with the students' perceptions is the fit to the teachers' personalities.  Let's face it.  If you know anything about me, you already know that cutsie is not a part of my universe.  I would feel like I was trying to be something I'm not if I had a room full of "ABCs and 123s."  It does not suit me.  I think there are a lot of people it doesn't suit.

There is nothing wrong with any particular style; it just needs to be with the appropriate people.  The content that I have in my room would probably not be appropriate for elementary school.  It would not stimulate them or entertain them.  It might consist of things they haven't experienced yet or contain language that is over their heads.  I know that, and I don't pretend otherwise.  What I wish is that manufacturers of educational materials, be they of decor, resources, or just online handouts, could realize that what works in one age group might not necessarily transfer, or simply push things at us and expect the high school teachers to "adapt them."

Maybe the elementary school teachers just buy more and therefore demand more of the makers' attention.  Maybe the image of the 1950s rosy-cheeked school kid persists, everybody innocent and juvenile.  Maybe most high school teachers are not inclined to decorate or look for things online.

I don't know the cause of it, but I wish we could ALL find what we need.  I have students who are mothers themselves now, students who are working every minute they are not in school so they (and their families) can eat, students who don't have a regular home that they go back to at the end of the day.  I think you can understand how these people, who perhaps have had maturity forced upon them too soon, would not find teddy bears and quaint tiny schoolhouses to be engaging or terribly applicable to their current reality.

Oh, there are companies that do both the elementary and the high school.  Teacher's Discovery has fabulous and appropriate resources and decor for every age.  I can't say enough good things about them.  Trend, the famous poster and bulletin board company, has good posters and borders that can work for everything, but even most of their bulletin board sets are for students much younger than mine.  (I love their stuff, but if I use it, my kids are going to laugh me right out of my room or think I'm one of those teachers who lives in a fantasy world.  And I might be, but I don't live in THAT fantasy world....)  Prestwick House, too, makes great efforts at balance and has many wonderful things for high school.

What I'd love to see (and not have to MAKE), though, is a great bulletin board set of vintage images, maybe from 1930s clip art.  Or owls (since I love them so much) that aren't quite so adorable.  What I have for owl decor in my room is vintage collectibles.   Maybe somebody could do some vintage owls, too?  And as for the same kind of printable resources that ABOUND for elementary school, where do I start?

I know that this probably seems like a minor issue, but it frustrates me constantly.  I spend vast amounts of time creating things that I need when other age groups seem to be able to tap into a fountain of premade items.  While I enjoy making some things, it would be nice to have all those well-made products and options available to me.  Until that day comes, though, I will just continue doing what I have always done: improvisation, creation, and creative junking.  It has worked out okay so far....

Quietly

The week has flown away almost without my noticing the passage of the time.  Suddenly, I looked up, and Friday has come.  One would think this would indicate a period of idyllic bliss, of being so calm and content that the time flows like a smooth, broad river.  I wish that were true.  It's more like chunks of time simply fell away, were carved out, and now a finished shape is revealed.

Two days were consumed with those obligatory doctor appointments that seem to crop up now and then.  They always come in bunches, but I guess that's the best way to do it, all at once and then over with for a time.  I saw my neurologist who told me that I was doing fine off the dreaded Topamax.  For the first time in about five years, I am free. The other two days, I read, watched TV, did laundry, worked through the minutia of life.  


I should be out using the last of my summer in some spectacular way, but to be honest, nothing has sounded good.  The greatest good to me has been this quiet.  It has felt necessary and right.  I have learned to go with that when I feel it.

And yet, I know that somehow it is not exactly a good.  I feel a little tired.  I find myself frequently sad.  This isn't just R&R no matter how many little things I do.

Now, I have to get up and go to the school for awhile, work on my classroom.  There are things that need to be done while it is still peaceful, before the great rush of the new year begins.  I wonder if the rush that accompanies it will sweep away this feeling or if I will continue to move quietly along, a ghost in the shadows.

The Beauty of the Pinterest Recipe

I spent some time tonight after church talking with a lady there who is from Brazil.  She and I were comparing notes about my recent trip, and we started talking about food. She expressed how much she missed certain dishes and items from Brazil.  I know what she means.

Why is it always the food that we miss when we leave a place?  Why does what we eat become such an evocative reminder of somewhere we love?

The taste of green tea, good green, always takes me back to Japan.  It makes me think of all sorts of things...sitting and talking with friends, coming cold and tired into the train station in Nagoya and having a bowl of gold-flake matcha, having green tea soft serve ice cream at the annual pottery festival in Seto.

There are other things that take me other places.  Spicy green curry makes me think of Chiang Mai and walking up all.those.steps to get to the temple at the top, the little hotel where I stayed where I slept in mosquito netting, the market where I bought a cheap pair of flip flops and ate coconut balls off leaves, the bicycle with the broken seat I rode around Sukothai.   Oddly enough, guacamole also always makes me think of Japan where I learned to make it from a fellow teacher.  Thanksgiving dinner carries me back to my college days at State when my friends and I commandeered the Wesley Foundation kitchen and made a meal for about twenty people.

There are dishes from Brazil I want to learn to make.  Feijoada, a sort of black bean and pork stew for lack of a more accurate definition, is the first one.  I adore it, and it is linked to both my recent trip and a friend I lost track of a long time ago who introduced it to me.  Brigadero is a sweet that we were served in almost every classroom party we were given.  Tonight, after my conversation, I decided to see if I might be able to find some easy recipes for these things.

God bless Pinterest.  I think everything is there.  I did a quick search, and I found the things I was looking for.  Next week, I am going to attempt the feijoada.  I didn't get to bring home the proper stone pot, but I will substitute my crockpot instead.

I don't know if my plans for getting back to any of the places that are special in my heart will succeed.  Until such time as they do, I will keep my memories of it all alive through my photos, the assorted bits and pieces I brought back, and my kitchen.

The Hard Part

I haven't felt much like writing lately.  Or really, like doing much of anything.  No reading.  Little internet.  No cleaning.  Less contact even than usual for me with others.  It has been far easier to blank my mind with trivial TV or absolute stillness and quiet.  Finally, though, reality intruded.  Yesterday, we loaded up early and headed north to Kosciusko for the very last time.  We needed to go and clean out my uncle's room at the VA nursing home.

On the way, we were all fairly calm, cheerful even.  There was sun, something all too rare these days when you have to dash out and do everything between rain storms.  Everybody had gotten rest.  We chatted amicably in the vehicle as the miles passed.

The closer we got to Kosciusko, the more the tension built.  When we pulled into the parking lot, I could feel it like rope sliding through a slipknot, tightening everything inside me.

We were met in the lobby by the facility's social worker.  She had been working to close everything out and help us get things together on that end.  She and others in the office told us how much he'd come to mean to them in the 10 years he'd been living there.  Whether it was simply kindness or genuinely meant (the latter is what it felt like), it was appreciated.

Going down that hall toward his wing was when it really started to hit me.  I knew that he would not be there.  He was not going to be sitting in the cafeteria as he so often was when we arrived.  He was not going to be in the smoking room waiting for a cigarette break.  He was not going to be in his room waiting for them to come and get him out of his bed.  He simply wasn't going to be there at all.

We went into his room, and his stuff had already been mostly sorted and boxed by the facility staff.  We spent the next two hours deciding what to keep, how to pack it, how to get it in the van.  It was possible to turn off the mind about it to a great degree, to retreat into the movement of it.  Sometimes, though, an item would just shatter everything, a collection of his beloved baseball caps, the inexplicably vast quantity of packaged Spam in the refrigerator, a shirt with a giant Halloween pumpkin on it.

We didn't take a lot.  Most of it will be donated to whoever needs it at the facility's discretion.  The wheelchair - specially designed and the last in a long line - we left.  We left the clothing, the medical supplies.  It was good to think that maybe someone else could get use from them.

After we loaded up the few items we decided to keep, we went back inside to finish things up.  The social worker had told us that some of his closest friends there had asked to see us before we left.  One gentleman had been so sad that he wasn't eating well.  I let Mom and Dad talk with them.  I just could not have those conversations.  I sat down quiet and still on the big sofa in the lobby and waited for it all to be done.

Dad and I had been asking each other at various times, "Are you okay?  Are you going to be okay?"  Both of us, I think are good at "containment."  As I sat there on that too-soft sectional working to compress it all and keep it manageable, though, I kept thinking, "This is the last.  This is the last time I will sit on this sofa.  This is the last time I will look down that sunny corridor and the last time I will see all those flags from all the branches of military service blaze with color as I walk under them.  This is the last time I will sit here and watch this aquarium of fish.  This is the last."  And it was painful and I wanted to run because of course, none of those things were the point at all.  Not at all.

This was the only memorial, really, that we would have of him.  By his own very strong wishes, there was not to be another.  He had donated his body to medical research, and so we did not even see him after everything was done.  There was only this horrible absence.

My parents had decided that they wanted to provide for a big pizza night to be given to his friends.  They apparently used to love to order lots of pizza and have a good time talking and carrying on before he got so sick.  This way, there will be one more celebration of him.  He was always so generous with everyone, and I know that he would have been happy with this idea.

When the last of the protocol had been attended to, we set off.  We were quiet as we rolled past the huge metal sculpture they erected earlier this year to honor the Veterans, POWs, and MIAs.  The black steel soldiers stared back from their abstract eyes as we left the grounds.  We left them and the seals of the various branches behind along with the gazebo where we used to sit beside the pond and talk with him.  I cannot speak for the others, but I did not look back as we left it all behind us.  I could not.

What I Will Remember

We got a call from the VA today. My uncle had developed an arrhythmia, and they were trying to handle it. Mom told them we were coming this afternoon anyway and asked if we needed to come on then. We were told "time is of the essence" and "decisions would have to be made." We were preparing to leave and another call came saying he was gone.

Just like that. Gone.

It doesn't seem possible that life is both as tenacious and as fragile as it is. My uncle had fought so long and so hard against so many things: diabetes, a stroke, blood pressure, two amputations caused by infection and poor circulation. The list goes on and on and on. Yet he continued to fight it and deal with all those issues until just an hour ago. Then, the thing he couldn't fight came.

I don't want to remember him the way I saw him last, although in truth that is never going to leave me. I don't want to remember the dim grey light of the hospital room, the window that looked out onto the massive flag flying outside, the vast array of equipment and medicine he was hooked up to, the way he tried to wake up from the sedation because he could hear our voices. I don't want to remember the way he was struggling for every breath.

Instead, I am going somehow to perform a feat of mental deception. I will remember how he was years ago instead. I will remember his quirky sense of humor, that he liked Diet Dr. Pepper and Mexican food. I will remember that he had the same wanderlust that plagues me, went everywhere, did incredible things. I will remember that he was a nurse, a chef, an expert marksman.

I'm going to remember the uncle who used to say "flutterby" to me to make me laugh when I was just a little kid. The one who loved the Fourth of July because he loved to do fireworks in a huge display as well as set off bottlerockets as much as or maybe even more than we did. The one who took care of my Nana and my PeePaw during their illnesses.

This is the man he was before all the other began, before the long fight with his own body began. Even wheelchair-bound, this is who he remained until very recently. I choose to keep that picture with me, and as much as it is possible, I am going to try to lay the other aside. He will be much missed.

Transitional

Everything is transitional right now.

My house is transitioning into a place I'm not ashamed of.  We took two vehicles' worth of stuff from here and donated it to the Salvation Army today.  I also filled up the back of my Dad's big truck with trash that will go out on collection day tomorrow.  I think there are something like 14 bags....  This is a good transition.  It feels better every time a load of stuff leaves.

The summer is transitioning into the school year.  I took three large bags of stuff to my classroom today as part of the "cleaning out" process here at home, and I took the time to arrange my desks after the floor waxing, to put my trash cans back in place.  Then I made myself leave.  Next week, I'll need to go put in a day or two fixing things, prepping bulletin boards, putting away everything that I took today.  I got an email today for the first big PD I'm going to be a part of for the new year.

My uncle remains in the limbo of ICU.  We're waiting to hear back from the test results, waiting to know what happens next with him.

Things for me will solidify somewhat when the new year school year begins, but even there, in that place where I am most comfortable, unknown variables exist.  New co-workers.  New style.  New classes on a totally new schedule.  New textbooks.  New feeling about what I do as a whole because of the brutal stupidity of last year and also because of the wonder of Brazil.  Newly edited three-year plan which includes going back to Brazil again.

I always think that I'm getting to a place where everything is settling down, establishing patterns that will be peaceful and calm.  The truth is, I don't think this ever really happens.  Maybe it's not supposed to.  Maybe what we think of as a comfortable groove is only a deceptive rut and we have no real business being in it anyway if we want a good life.  I don't know.

More of the Same

If you're wondering where I've been, the answer is mostly on the road between here and Jackson.  My uncle is not really improving.  He remains in the VA MICU, and we don't really know when that will change.  Friday, Mom and I went over to see him.  Yesterday, it was a family trip.  When we don't go over, we call to get updates.  There is little change.  He's still on the ventilator and sedated.  

When we're not headed to Jackson, Mom and I work on my house.  It's been a full week as of today that we've been trying to get all the "big jobs" done as far as cleaning, and we're almost done now.  It's amazing how much stuff has piled up to take care of.  The two storage rooms in the back are in better shape than they probably ever have been since I have been living here.  My pantry has been cleaned out, and tremendous amounts of food from as far back as 1994 (what the actual....) have been discarded leaving only that which is usable.  My craft room has a new set of industrial metal shelves and massive organization.  My kitchen cabinets are rearranged, emptied out, and made useful.  My guest room is actually ready for guests instead of only being vacuum and luggage storage.  It's so fabulous to open a cabinet or go through a door and see order where previously there was only chaos.

There are still small pockets of clutter and jobs left to do.  It will all finish up with a massive housecleaning.  I guess it will get done about the time school starts, which, perhaps, is as it should be.  I can't tell you what a relief it is to me already to know that these messes won't be waiting for me at the end of a long day.  

It also gives me something to do instead of think of my uncle.  The busier I am, the less time I have to think about the "what ifs."  I guess I can keep finding tasks to take care of.  I don't really know what else to do.

...and Back

Crises always come when everything is calm.  I don't think they give advance warning.  I think they lurk around corners and look for the least-suspecting individual to walk by before they pounce.  One struck us today, and it certainly came in a time of clear sailing and peaceful waters.

Mom called me this morning, and I knew from the tone of her voice that whatever it was would be bad.  She has a tone that I have come to think of as "holding it together" or "carefully handling something that will go off."  At no time that I have heard her use it have things been good.

The news was about my uncle.  His health is poor anyway, and the doctors thought he was having a heart attack, that perhaps he'd been having it for hours.  They were sending him to Jackson for special care.  We loaded up and headed out for the hour-plus drive.

When we got there, it was time for the waiting game.  Hospital waiting rooms, whether they are large or small, are excruciating.  Everyone there is filled with dread, fear, grief, or pain.  No matter how cheerful or soothing the decor, there is always the sensation of the imminent disaster, the doctor who appears in the door with the expression that speaks louder than the nondescript wording.

A lot of people want to chat in the waiting room with everyone who is around, share the common burden with even the strangers near them.  I just don't.  I cannot.  I try not to be rude, but I just need to hold on, maintain.  It does not help me to share miseries.  I need to concentrate on keeping it all locked down, held in.  The conversations comparing statuses, illnesses, prognoses only serve to escalate what is usually near panic in me.

When we got to see my uncle briefly, it was horrible.  I am fairly sure he didn't even know we were there.  I hope not, anyway, because if he knew we were there, then he knew far too much of the world, far too much of his pain.

We sat and waited for a timeless time in the dim grey light of the ICU waiting room, and finally, the doctors came for us.  We were escorted to a private consultation room, and we waited to hear the news.  I hate those spaces, too, couches in which you sink too far, Kleenex everywhere because they will be needed, the doors with the blinds that protect your private moment of fear.

The news we got was mixed, but essentially he didn't have a heart attack.  He has a lung that isn't working and that put his heart under pressure.  They are going to be giving him massive medicines and treatments to try to restore his ability to breathe on his own.  While he is still in critical condition, there is hope, hope we didn't really have when we left the house this morning.

I don't know if he will recover from this, but for the moment, the panic is over.  He is being sedated as long as he is on the breathing tube, but the word "stable" has been used.  When you have been in hell, this is nothing to take lightly.

Hell

...is the ICU waiting room and no amount of coffee or semi-soft institutional furnishing will fix that.

...is seeing somebody you love suffering and not being able to do anything. Not anything.

...is all the other sorrows that all the other people around you are carrying, that sensation that hangs like a wet mist in the air wrapping around you until you cannot breathe.

...is trying to "be strong" when you are really broken.

...is here.

Organizing, Day 2

Today, we started early on "the project" of my house.  For awhile, I was focused on moving out the things that had already been sorted, loading my car, taking stuff to other storage, sacking up MORE garbage.  Then things got considerably less focused.

Somehow, we went from working on the back of the house to working on my guest room.  Three hours later, we had moved all my luggage to the back of the house, totally reorganized the closet, and reclaimed that room for its intended purpose.  It was a really good feeling to have that space clean and functional again.

Tomorrow morning, I have to get all those millions of bags of trash down to the pickup.  I also need to get what is in my car to the Salvation Army.  After that, there is probably one more day of work, and then, hopefully, this phase of the project will be done.

Then I can get back to Pinterest.  (ha)

Uncovered Objects

Today, I spent about six hours working on the cleanout of the two back rooms here at the house.  Mom came and helped me, and we dug in to the small room.  It was the worst off, and I had a new set of huge shelves to help take care of the problem.

I had to sit down and go through box after box of miscellaneous crap that had accumulated.  I found items going all the way back to my undergrad, old course catalogs, papers from grad school, and the millions of tiny objects that get swept into boxes rapidly and without thought when somebody moves.  So much of it was just stuff to throw away.  Who needs instructions for the voicemail system at my old university some 16 years after the fact?

Other items, though, made me stop and smile.  I uncovered several things I thought were lost today, things I'd made, things I'd been given.  I found old poetry, old diaries.  Resources I'd been looking for emerged.

Then there were the things that made me sad.  Much of what was there was stuff of my grandparents that has been sitting since I moved here, things I had either no time or no interest in hand sorting.  Today, I went through lots of that, and just seeing my grandmother's careful notetaking and writing in old files made me miss her.  Piles of things about me and my cousin that she'd saved to scrapbook made me smile.  I could see her clipping, copying, preparing to preserve those events for us.  Finding the copper bracelet and old road atlas that were my grandfather's brought back memories of him in his overalls, reading anything he could get his hands on, coming in at the end of the day in whatever incarnation of banged-up tan Chevy truck he happened to be driving from whichever of the pieces of land he'd been on.

There were also pictures and artifacts of people I don't see anymore, including D. and T.  I haven't even seen their faces in a long time, and unfolding a sheet of paper with a poem (that was crap) written on it and them hiding out inside was the sort of nostalgia I could do without.  I don't miss them; I just felt sort of mildly distasteful that I had ever written such drivel.  At least the drivel I write now is of a different kind...

So much of what I sorted was just junk, things I neither need nor want.  Massive amounts of it are going to the Salvation Army.  My little car is already crammed full, and there is at least one more day of work before both rooms are complete.  The trash bags are piling up.  The trash guys are probably going to boycott me when I finally get everything down to the road on pickup day.

Even though there is still a huge mess in the big room, the little room is actually quiet, clean, and useful now.  It's amazing to be able to walk in and see all my decorations and stuff for different events neatly binned and on the shelves.  It's a relief to know that if I need a giftbag and some tissue paper for a present, I can actually get to it without feats of gymnastic prowess.  I am looking forward to the end of this process when both rooms are something that I can be proud of again instead of praying nobody but the exterminator has to go in them for any reason.

And when they're done it will be time to move out into the rest of the house.  Pinterest and my own start at purging are inspiring me.  By the time I go back to school, I'd like my house to be as free of non-essential and unused items as I can get it.  It feels good to "simplify, simplify," just as good old Thoreau said.

Despite the heat and the tedium of the work, I am very satisfied with what we accomplished today.  I cooked supper for the family, and the simple peaceful action was refreshing in its way.  I hope that I feel the same tomorrow, tired but happy with the new environment I am creating for myself.

Clean It, Make It, Fix It

I opened my Cricut, the Christmas present from my parents this past year, yesterday.  O_o  I swear, cool craft things are like crack cocaine for me.  I cannot stop fiddling with it.

At first, I was just going to "try it out," make sure I could use it so when the new school year rolled around, I'd be set to do some bulletin boards.  Then I made my first little cuts.  It was so neat that next I started looking for used cartridges.  That led to the discovery of online goodies.  Next thing I knew, I was foraging for an A/B USB cable and hooking it to my computer, downloading the free design software from ProvoCraft, and updating the firmware on my Cricut.    

While I was waiting for the firmware to do its thing, I got on Pinterest and looked up Cricut projects. This search led to lots of stuff people had done with their Cricuts, websites with information and tips, and A MILLION FREAKING PRINTABLE PROJECTS.  I kept going from pin to pin thinking, "Oh, this would be so cool for departmental 'happies'," or "Wow.  I can make a bulletin board with that.

THAT led to "cool crap to do to your house" pins.  I banked benches, storage, all kinds of things I can make with my own three hands.  I just need a small old shutter, and I'll be in business.  Oh, and some magnetic letters.  And a mason jar.  And...

Somebody once said that the best thing about things like HGTV and craft websites is the feeling of accomplishment you get after you've been watching/surfing them for awhile.  Somehow, by looking at all the cool projects and bookmarking or pinning them, one begins to have a feeling of satisfaction as though the project has actually been done instead of just added to a probably-overflowing file of things that were also interesting at the time.

We all have our "someday" files, I guess, those places, electronic or real, where we stuff all that type of thing.  I know I have binders in my craft room of things, stained glass patterns pinned to the bulletin board wall, e-files abounding.  What I want, though, is to start doing them instead of just collecting them and saying, "I'll get to that when I have the time."  That's the best way never to do any of it, probably.

Tomorrow, I will leave my dreams and e-crafting and work on the major overhaul of the back part of my house.  I have to clean out some crap so I have space for many other things, including perhaps some of the ideas I have recently seen.  It will be good to move from dreaming to doing.

After the Funeral Home

I can't think of a clever title for this one.  I have no cleverness at all to share.  I went to the funeral home tonight to see the fragile remains of someone two years younger than I, somebody I went to church with, somebody I watched grow up more or less.  Forgive me if I'm not glib.  Seeing someone you've known most of your life in a box so still and pale has the tendency to steal away witticisms.

She and I were never close, but her family and my family are tied together by several things.  She was someone I knew distantly, would hear reports on occasionally over the top of a pew.  She went her way and I went mine after graduation; she moved away, married, had children, divorced.  We would see each other occasionally in church at the big holidays that bring everybody home.

Death always seems like something that only happens to another generation.  Even though I have seen it strike down so many from every possible age group, some trick of our minds keeps telling us, "Not me.  Not us.  Not now."  The reality of it is, though, that there is no "right age," no chosen generation.  That safety we wrap ourselves in to go through the days and nights is just an illusion, a necessary one perhaps, but deceptive nonetheless.

It takes so little to end our lives, no time at all and so very little to go wrong.  In her case, it was a car wreck that reached out and crushed her.  She'd fought so many things so hard for so long, but a wreck of the type she had is not a battle that anybody can win.

Her family told us today that because she was an organ donor, already over 37 people have been  helped because of parts of her that the doctors were able to harvest.  More may receive other organs.  Her liver saved a man on the transplant list.  Her heart went to someone else.  She was someone who always took care of others; even in her death, she continues to do so.

Seeing her in that box today was terrible, knowing that there are four kids who won't get to have their mother anymore, knowing that her family (of whom I think the world) won't have her there with them.  While there is a type of relief in knowing that she is out of so many of the things that caused her pain in this world and believing that she is now at rest in a better place, my worry is for those who are left behind.  Once the adrenaline and shock end, once the final parts of the ceremonies of death are concluded and the last of the covered dishes have been delivered, I worry that the grief will become unbearable.  I hope that they can cling to what they knew of her in life, what they know of the good that came from her loss, and what they know of her in eternity and find comfort.

Andy Griffith

Yesterday, my CNN news alert service sent one of its little emails to my inbox.  Frequently, these are just sports scores or a political updates about which I care very little.  When I glanced at the screen and saw the synopsis, though, I clicked on through to read again the brief message.  Andy Griffith had died.

The sadness that I felt was profound.  I have never met him; he is not of my family. We are decidedly of different generations. The only experience with him that I have ever had is, in some cases, over forty years old and in black and white.  Despite these facts, the news that he was gone was an oddly personal thing.

I grew up, like everybody else, probably, watching reruns of The Andy Griffith Show.  I didn't always like it.  It was "just on" at my grandparents' houses when I visited, and I didn't pay much attention then.  Some of it was funny, and I didn't dislike it; I was merely indifferent.

As I have grown older, though, I have come to recognize something in it that is absent in so many other shows, a genuine sense of love and respect for people that is at its foundation.  The situations Barney and the others get themselves into are the same sort of real-life absurdities that we all encounter or participate in, for the most part.  Pride gets in the way.  A mistake is made and the consequences emerge.  A misunderstanding arises because of a lack of patience or forethought. What is striking is the incredible gentleness everyone on the show has for everyone else.  Instead of telling Aunt Bea that her pickles are "kerosene," something that would crush her, Barney and Andy dump them and get her to try again.  Instead of assuming his son is lying despite a story he can't understand, Andy chooses to support Opie and check things out before issuing a punishment that he believes to be the right action at the time.  Even with Otis, a repeat offender and the town drunk, kindness and love are used.  He's treated like what he is, somebody who can't really help himself, instead of like a "criminal."

Too often, TV goes for the laugh at the cost of the character.  Even in the later shows Lucille Ball and Desi Arnaz did together, most specifically We Love Lucy, the comedy is laced with cruelty. All the characters in that show have devolved from what they were in the original I Love Lucy and become adversaries who spend all their time coming up with a clever insult or acidic ridicule for their wives, their husbands, their friends.  It might be humorous for a couple of episodes, but for my tastes, the more Chaucer-esque method of showing people for what they are, with affection but also with absolute truth, and recognizing that we are all ridiculous at certain moments is more entertaining than the constant put-downs and sniping that is more commonly found. After all, don't we all want this, this most basic recognition of our human dignity? 

Maybe this is why the loss of Andy Griffith yesterday was something that was so personal.  While I have no way to know how much of his public persona was actually based on his real life, from what I understand, the philosophies reflected in the show were his own.  Even if they weren't, he made a show that valued hope instead of hatefulness, and he should be honored for that.  Would that there were more who were willing to follow that legacy on and off the TV.

A Taste of Bloomington

Making mead is tough: the bee stings, the jousting, the suits of armor.  But for you, the loyal consumer of this royal beverage, it is worth the pain and suffering to deliver a mead of such great smoothness and classic honey flavor. So the next time you set out to discover new continents or to plunder a neighboring country,  provision yourself with plenty of Camelot Mead. 
~ Oliver Winery Website

When I was last in Bloomington, I bought several bottles of wine from Oliver Winery.  I had loved them when I lived in Bloomington, and at present, thanks to the screwed-up laws of the beautiful state of Mississippi, it is not possible to get their products here or have them shipped in.  As I finally got off the Topamax last week, I celebrated by opening a bottle of my favorite, Camelot Mead.  It's been waiting on me for quite awhile....

Oliver has been making this particular beverage since 1972.  I've not had mead from anywhere else, so my basis of comparison is small, but I do really love the way this tastes.  It is sweet without being cloying, and it is just better to me than most white wines.  Maybe it's the honey that does it.  I am not enough of an oenophile to know.  I would really love to be able to get it all the time, but as it stands, I'm rationing out the bottles I brought home with extreme care.

I love Oliver in general.  I love the story about it being started by one of IU's law professors as a hobby and now existing as one of the largest wineries in the eastern US.  I have never tried one of their wines that I did not like.  If you have the ability to go to Oliver or live in a state that isn't silly about its importation laws, I would suggest you try any of their wines, but most especially the Camelot Mead.  Hopefully, I will be able to get back to Bloomington (for so many reasons a happy place) and pick up some more for myself.  

Stuff and Things

I have just tried to remove 80+ pounds of large white dogness from my computer cords for about the fifteenth time today.  Chewie doesn't seem to approve of the computer or any of its attachments.  He looks up at me in sleepy bewilderment when I start trying to move him...and then he just ignores me. If I persist, he gets extremely indignant, walks away...and then is right back on top of everything less than ten minutes later.

I ordered a new lens for my Nikon, and now I'm waiting (not-so-patiently) for it to arrive.  It should give me wide-angle focus without the fisheye distortion, and I want to go out and take some pictures with it.  It's a used Nikkor 18-55, and I got a very good price on it I think.  I'm very hopeful about what it will let me do.  I'd like to go out shooting sometime soon, but I need a place to go.  It would be nice to be able to click my heels three times and be back in Brazil or somewhere similarly fabulous, but I will probably have to satisfy myself with local scenery.  Maybe it's time to go see Graceland or something...

Today was a day of laundry and reading, two things that have gone hand-in-hand for me forever it seems.  I used to take my textbooks to the laundry mat when I was in college and get massive amounts of homework done while I waited for whatever was spinning to stop spinning or fluffing to be fluffed.  Of all the household chores, I guess I like laundry the most because it's the least intrusive.  Then, too, there is the pleasant and comforting set of tactile things that comes with doing laundry, the smell of clean clothing, the warmth of a load of towels just removed from the dryer.  It's not bad.

I'm reading Skippy Dies on the recommendation of a former student.  There are moments in it that make me terribly sad for the main character, and well, for everybody in it, really.  Some of it is quite funny, but since it takes place in a school setting, a lot of it is just a little too familiar.  The characters are not caricatures; it's nothing that overt.  I guess school is school wherever you go, whether it's real or fictional, and the same types of people and situations sort of crop up in them.  I can say without question that unless there is a bright happy ending in store, I am going to have to read something totally escapist next.  And no more school as subject matter, I think, until my own real one returns.

Speaking of school, it's almost time for AP scores to be back.  I have already heard from one student.  The rest remain a mystery.  I'll just have to wait until Friday to find out.  It all seems a bit unreal this year for some reason.  I am usually sort of obsessed with the scores, but this year, while I care about them greatly and would like to see them, I just am not as worked up about it as I have been previously.  Maybe it's the way the year ended.  Maybe it's not having been to the Reading this year. I don't know.  I'm sure the reality of it will come crashing back down on me when I get the scores.

Well, my book and my washer are calling to me, so...

Brasilia's Anniversary

Brasilia's Anniversary was April 21 apparently.  This was the Google Doodle for the day, celebrating all the fantastic architecture we saw in Brasilia by Niemeyer.  He and his grandson actually MADE this doodle, so the Niemeyer experience keeps going.  Neat.