Prying the Fingers Loose

Some things I always want to hold onto even after I know they're no longer functional.  There's a sentimentality to that.  I grow attached to places, to things, to people, and even when I know it's time to leave or let go, it's hard to do.  It's especially hard when the situation in question is something that is precious. Foolishly, I suppose, I think some way will be found to renovate, refresh, revive.  Usually what happens instead is that I just wind up with something broken and slightly dangerous in my hands and a lot of time wasted for my efforts.

I have a situation that I've known was falling apart now for awhile.  When I say awhile, I mean a very long time.  I've slowly watched things change, misunderstandings happen, vitality disappear, and I've known that I should do something about it, but once upon a time, this meant a great deal to me, so I've held on to it hopefully, thinking that I'd find a way to mend it or make it good again. Maybe that only happens in fairy tales, though, that sudden turning of hearts, that miraculous healing of relationships.

It's been brought home to me rather brutally lately, though, by another issue that the last-minute healing and mending doesn't really happen that often.  Everybody involved has to want it, work toward it.  When something is foundering, this is hardly ever the case. It founders precisely because one or more of the parties involved no longer cares enough to maintain.  It's foolish to continue holding out a hand just to have it slapped down or ignored.  It's foolish to set oneself up for the hurt.  If I have learned nothing else in the past two months, that lesson I got.  In spades.

So I am moving toward peace with this, I think.  Maybe it's only the ashes of something that was once wonderful in my hand anyway.  I am opening my tightly-clenched fist to the winds and letting whatever is refuse be blown away.  This is an ending that has been a long time in coming, mostly because I've been a long time in letting it.  A wiser person than I would have said what needed to be said, done what needed to be done, and gotten free of it all a long time ago.

When Literature and Rock Collide

On my way home today, "She's So Cold" from the Rolling Stones was blasting and I was singing along when it hit me.  The lyrics of that song are just a reworking of Spenser's sonnet "My Love Is Like to Ice." I teach it every year to two different courses, so it is kicking around in the back of my mind fairly handy.  Here's the Spenserian sonnet:


My Love Is Like To Ice

My love is like to ice, and I to fire:
How comes it then that this her cold so great
Is not dissolved through my so hot desire,
But harder grows the more I her entreat?
Or how comes it that my exceeding heat
Is not allayed by her heart-frozen cold,
But that I burn much more in boiling sweat,
And feel my flames augmented manifold?
What more miraculous thing may be told,
That fire, which all things melts, should harden ice,
And ice, which is congeal's with senseless cold,
Should kindle fire by wonderful device?
Such is the power of love in gentle mind,
That it can alter all the course of kind.

Here's the Rolling Stones:

You judge for yourself.  Maybe it's just a case of that old adage that there's just nothing new under the sun, but this juxtaposition of things made me really, really happy as I sailed down the highway.  Think I'll use this next year when it comes time to teach this again.

Ducks and Books

Chewie is cavorting through the living room attacking his green squeaky duck.  He tosses it, chases it like it ran away, springs on it as if it has defied the will of God and man, and then gnaws it in brief contentment before repeating the cycle.  Roux is watching him a little warily from her perch on the couch.  Life rolls on.

Roux can stand now on her own for short stretches, but she still can't walk. I carry her outside like the oversized child she is.  If you don't think a pit bull is a hefty dog, then come tote mine.... Her appetite remains extremely good; I just fed her.  She drinks plenty.  I sneak her small treats, tiny bites of cheese if I have some, a morsel of my lunch, a strip of crust off my breakfast slice of bread.  She is alert when she needs or wants to be.  The rest of the time she snores in oblivion.  I am hopeful that tomorrow will be the day she walks some on her own.

When I wasn't dog-nursing today, I did laundry and read.  The laundry was just something running in the background.  It is probably my favorite chore because it is so low-maintenance.  So many other things can get done while it is being processed.  The sheer luxury of a day reading, though, and totally guilt-free, was fantastic.  I've read two-and-a-half books in the past three days.  I am now rereading The Hobbit, and unless I decide to do something else, I will probably finish it up tonight.  The feeling of ripping through text for pleasure is fantastic.  I just need to keep my Kindle adequately charged.

It has only just started to register that the summer is actually here, that everything is finally over.  Tonight, I was at my parents' house having dinner with them, and I caught myself with that twisting feeling that I always get at the end of the weekend when I know I have to go back and face a problem at school the next day.  Then I smiled.  There are no more next days to go back to.  For better or worse, it's all over now.  My mother looked at me and said, "Just started to sink in that it's summer, right?"  When your parent also has done what you do for a living a lot longer than you have, it sort of makes you transparent in certain situations, I suppose....

I want to write some things about some music I'm listening to lately, my current auditory obsessions.  I might get around to that in a couple of days.  I also have to finish up preparations for Brazil.  That is looming ever-closer, and I'm really no more prepared for it than I have been.  As usual.  I also need to do a thorough cleaning of my house, and, for the first time in a really long time, I want to have people over.  Yeah, the house is still ramshackle, but if I keep waiting for that to change, I may be 90.  Screw it.  They're not coming to see my house, right?  (right?)  I miss seeing my friends.  I'm going to see if I can put together a way to get some of them together.  It will probably have to be after Brazil, but I am going to do this.

For now, though, I'm just going to enjoy my book and my snoring dog.

Returned

I had mourned them all day and was trying to figure out some way to get up and force myself to go to the church to play for night services when I saw Roux's face appear in the lower portion of the glass of the storm door.  At first, I wondered if I was just seeing what I wanted to see.  I had, after all, been praying for that sight for hours, wishing for it, willing it to happen.  Then Chewie's big white head popped up next to hers, and I stumbled over to the door and managed to work the lock with through my tear-blurry vision to let them in.

I had been so upset because my biggest fear was that they had been taken by someone.  Nothing good ever happens for dogs that are stolen.  It's not like somebody takes them to a loving new home.  All I could see in my head was them being used for bait dogs and being so afraid and not understanding why someone would be so cruel to them.  The not-knowing was killing me.  With every passing hour and with every acre we searched it just seemed more likely that something like that had happened.  Only once or twice in my life have I felt relief as profound as when I saw them at the door.

Roux is not in the best shape this morning.  If the speed she is moving right now is the speed she was moving as she came home, I can see why it took so long.  She can just barely walk.  She has over-extended herself in the extreme.  I'm feeding her pain pills and carrying her outside, putting her on the couch, making sure she eats and excretes.  There is nothing else I can do for her right now.  She's been almost here before, exhausted to the point of collapse, but this actually is the worst I've ever seen it.  As long as she keeps taking in and putting out, keeps being responsive, then rest is the best cure for her.  I've panic-buttoned her before, but the vet has told me on other occasions that she just has to recover from these excesses.  I wonder how long it will take this time.

Somehow she managed to abrade the tough leathery skin of the pad of her front paws off.  Each step must be agony.  I can't imagine how far she must have walked or on what surface to have done that.  It would be the equivalent of the entire sole of your foot being covered in broken blisters.  I think this is the main reason she doesn't want to walk much, and I am trying as much as possible to carry her so she doesn't have to put pressure on her poor tattered paws.  What could have done that?  Regular grass or woodland walking should not have damaged her feet that way.

Chewie seems fine.  He is asleep in the big brown leather chair he has commandeered for himself.  He is less bouncy than usual, but still had enough vim and vigour to drag me all over the yard this morning on the leash for his morning constitutional.  I guess we will both walk.  It will be good for us both, too.

So, for awhile then, I will be a dog nurse.  I am happy to play the role.  It's not the first time.  Roux and I are old hands at this after cedar trees, knee surgeries, skunk debacles, and all her other adventures.   I only hope that this time, too, Roux will get better.  Even if she for some reason does not, though, at least she came home.  I know that may sound strange that it would be any consolation to me, and it will be a very small one, but at least I will know that she was here with me if something should happen and not out stranded in the wild or being harmed by strangers.

Malice v. Stupidity

"Never attribute to malice what can be adequately explained by stupidity." ~ Unknown

I need to put this one somewhere I can see it often, I think.

Missing

 I writing this because I have to do something to stay busy and give myself the illusion of control, or I'm just going to stand in my yard and scream until I die.

Chewie and Roux are both missing.  I let them out yesterday about 3:00 for some outdoor time.  I almost never let Roux out off her leash because she is prone to do things like wind up stuck in a tree or disappear for half the day.  However, she enjoys it so much that occasionally I do let her roam some.  Since Chewie came, they have been very reasonable about coming home before it gets late.  Her 12-hour adventures have been more like 5 or  6 hour jaunts.  He doesn't like to be away from the house for that long, and he's a good shepherd for her.  Also, she's not nearly as young as she used to be, and it's harder for her to be away for that long.

11:00 last night came and went, and no panting faces had pressed themselves against my front door looking for food and companionship.  I started to be uneasy, and I went outside and called them.  Then I waited.  1:00 came, and the Topamax said it was time to sleep.  I went out and drove around before I went to bed, something that usually brings them in.  No dogs.  I went to bed, and woke up twice during the night to check if they were outside.

At seven, when the light was good, I got up and went to the woods.  I called Mom.  She came.  We searched pretty much the entire section I live on and most of what is adjacent that my uncle owns, too.  There was no sign of them, no high pitched yelp signaling that Roux was up to her old tricks again and had gotten herself into a jam and needed help.  There was only distant birdsong from areas we weren't calling for them in and the sound of us moving through the woods.

I drove around the roads nearby, went out on a logging road across from my property on some land owned by UA to see if perhaps they had ventured out into that huge area.  There wasn't a single sign, no white curling tail, no bouncing red body.

It has been 21 hours since I saw them last.  Right now, the sweetest sound in the world to me would be the distinctive jingle of their huge collar tags, the noise I always hear as they shake their heads coming up on the porch just before I see them looking in.  I feel like a part of me has been torn out and destroyed.  I always knew that I might possibly lose one of them to an accident of some kind, conceivably to natural causes, and inevitably to old age, but to lose them both on the same day is probably going to be more than I can stand.

Cleaning Out

The end of the year is finally here.  It's been one hell of a year.  And I mean that in every possible way that it can be taken.  All the shouting is done now, and I have no obligation left to it or for it.  That is a much nicer feeling than I can express.

At the end of every year, it is necessary to clean out the debris that builds up, throw away and toss out what is no longer useful.  Some of that is physical; some of that is not.  The important thing is that you don't carry that worthless dross with you into whatever is coming next.  Unpack all the bags, debride all the wounds that have gone unattended, fortify and patch where needed.  These are year-end tasks.

Sometimes the mental cleaning is worse than the physical labor ever could be.  As teachers, I think we tend to become too attached to our jobs.  It's dangerous, and I am not sure it is good for us.  I watched person after person today who was retiring from our little home say that they had let this job become their whole lives, and they were hurting as they left.  I recognized myself in them.  I have, for eight long years now, lived for this job.  It has been my great joy, my happy game, my serious obsession.

And then, because there are the times that it is all these things, there are the times that it has been like a knife twisting in a wound.  When one of my students took his own life.  When I got word another one had been shot for reasons unknown.  Other things far less dire but somehow more hurtful because they were deliberate and without cause, just random acts of pointless jackassery lobbed in my direction, because, I suppose, a target was needed.

When it's done, though, beautifully, it's over.  The choice about whether or not I keep packing it up and hauling it around with me is mine.  I choose to take only the good.  It was there.  Lots of it.  Running over the top and washing out the other.  I will keep the good, the sweet, the precious, and the rest of it can go...well...frankly...wherever it likes.  It's not my problem anymore.

Things They Don't Tell You

Life would be so much easier if people would just TELL you things.  I know experience is supposed to be the best teacher and we all learn better by doing, but some things should not have to be mysteries wrapped up in enigmas wrapped up in things I have suffer and  to go Google to find out about.

Like my recent tetanus shot.  My arm felt like it was going to fall completely off yesterday.  Most of the other symptoms had gotten manageable, but I literally could not raise my arm without it feeling like someone was stabbing me.  It was as if I had a very bad cut and huge stitches through that muscle.  There's a hard place there, too, and it's a little red.  It itches some.

My mind IMMEDIATELY begins to think, "Okay.  This wasn't exactly covered by 'mild irritation at injection site.'  Maybe I need to be worried?  Do I need to be worried?  Is this too much, or is this normal? Am I in the range of symptoms that needs to call the doctor?"

Not wanting to push the panic button, I ignored it most of the day, and, well, did stuff that didn't involve raising that hand.  Or raised it anyway and went, "Owowowowow" in my head.  Finally, though, when I got home, it was so stiff and sore that I decided I would look up what a bad tetanus shot might be like to find out if I needed to be concerned or not.

The answer was a resounding no.  In fact, according to the information I found, tetanus shots are worse for everybody on the second day after.  They can give pain for up to a full week, but day 2 is usually the peak of the agony.  Well...isn't that...nice?  But it did explain what was going on, and I felt better knowing I wasn't about to have some exotic bad reaction to the injection and...explode...or something....

Here's the thing, though.  If apparently everybody has that problem, why didn't the information sheet (front and back, both sides) include that?  If the way to mitigate the pain is ice packs and Tylenol, why isn't that recommended....ANYWHERE?  All the information sheet covers is "You may feel bad. Here's how!"  And then it's vague and scary with its three classes of symptoms.  Be practical.  Be specific.  Tell people, "You're going to feel like a damn Greyhound bus hit you at high speed.  In the arm.  Twice.  It will leave a red spot and a hard place. That's okay.  You're not dying (well, more than usual, anyway). Take some Tylenol.  Put a cold pack on it.  Go to bed.  Get some rest.  And tomorrow?  Hahahahaha.  Tomorrow, well, plan to wear clothing that doesn't go on over your head.  Oh, and we also hope you're not a side-sleeper...."  Sigh.

Tilt-a-Whirl

For a day with no students, yesterday was incredibly busy.  I started the day by cobbling together a summer reading brochure and did the necessary dance steps/divine invocations to get it printed and into report cards in the tiny fragment of a year we have remaining.  It went out much later than I would have liked, but, drawing on one of my favorite kid quotes of the year, "Sometimes it just be that way."

I started work on the program for the National Honor Society induction for Thursday as well, changing out what I could and putting in all the names of candidates that I have so far.  Students continued to run in throughout the day waving forms.  The deadline was not until the end of the day yesterday.  I will have a few stragglers today.  This is just the way these things go.  I will finalize that this afternoon before I leave and print it, one less thing to worry about tomorrow.

In addition to the program, I took care of printing individual student certificates for each inductee.  We try to make it nice, and these things are heavy paper with a gold seal.  They come from the national organization.  It takes time to get it all done, but I think it is worth it.

I did all of this, every last piece of it, feeling like the living dead.  There were moments when the room was doing a merry little flamenco complete with castanets and swirly skirt.  I would stop, put my head on the back of my chair, and just hold onto the arms until the ride stopped or at least slowed down a little.  There's nothing like having your own personal roller coaster ride, I guess.  Actually, if I were to compare it to a carnival attraction, it was more like a Tilt-a-Whirl, that pause and spin, pause and spin......

It's funny.  As a kid, I always loved the Tilt-a Whirl.  It was one of my "must rides" at the fair.  I absolutely loved the swoop and dive of the spinning cars.  I've discovered that it's just not as much fun when there are no lights, no bright colors, and no machinery moving me.  Tilt-a-Whirl courtesy of big bad crap going on inside my body is not cool at all.

A Real Pain

If I ever find that mule that snuck into my room last night and kicked me in the arm...for NO GOOD REASON...and ran away, I am going to skin it.

Yesterday, I had finally finished all my school mess enough to turn my focus to my upcoming trip to Brazil.  I am way, way behind on some aspects of preparation, like getting my travel shots.  Fortunately, there is still enough time for me to get the first doses and still be safe, so I started trying to find out where I needed to go to get them.  This was not as easy as you'd think.

My doctor started by throwing up huge great warding signs and telling me that he could not do it.  I would have to go to the Health Department.  Okaaaay.  I looked up the location on Google, font of all knowledge, got their phone number, called them, found out I'd have to be there by 3, left school early, and sat around waiting in an empty waiting room for a long time.

The overly-cheerful TV health channel, something I have come to hate in health care waiting spaces, spouted out recipes using ginger and sharp cheddar and horseradish, talked about infertility and bladder weakness and exercise.  I stared out the window at the slice of a rooftop of a very old building I could see wondering how sick the shots I was going to have to get might make me.  The information sheets the person who had signed me in had given me were full of happiness.  There were three categories of symptoms.  I thought of them as "Bearable," "Survivable," and "Good God."

I also remembered the last time I'd taken some of them.  It was in my sophomore year of college before I went out of the country for the first time.  They'd made me fairly sick.  D. had sort of taken care of me which had mostly meant he'd come and carted me around to make sure I ate and then laughed at me when the sickness made me space out.  Lovely.

When at last I was called back, the nurse was very friendly and she quickly hit me with three shots, two in one arm and the hellish tetanus booster I needed in the other.  I felt the yellow fever and the Hep A/B almost immediately.  My whole arm was tingling.  The tetanus was quieter, but I knew better than to be fooled by that.  I went by the pharmacy to pick up my last step-down Topamax refill, and while I was there, I got some Tylenol.  When I got home, I took two and put my already sick-feeling self on the couch.

By eight, I felt like a bus had hit me.  The oddest thing this time was the stabbing pains in my back and shoulder.  I don't remember that from before, but to be honest, it could have happened.  Or it could be the yellow fever.  Who knows?  This morning, it all appears to be over except for the pain in both arms where it feels like I have been hit really, really hard by something.  It hurts to lift them or move them much.  Showering and washing my hair was a fantastic joy.

So, I'm still looking for that rogue mule who kicked me.  I'm going to take some more Tylenol to see if it will take care of some of the soreness and just in case fever might be lurking, low grade. Meanwhile, he had better stay away from me.

NightSong

Weird dreams are again plaguing me, no doubt the product of the end of school.  As if that weren't enough, I was awakened out of whatever sleep I was managing to get last night by the canine chorus around 1:30.  Chewie was going nuts, those deep throat barks that always make me think somebody is standing in the middle of the kitchen with a knife ready to do me harm.  It's more likely an armadillo is standing petrified just outside the window praying the giant noisy thing cannot get to it, but when I'm jarred out of sound sleep, what logical thinking manages to engage doesn't jump to the harmless little shelled mammal quivering in the yard.  It always jumps to the potential serial killer plotting maniacally near the fridge.

Once they woke me up, Chewie and Roux continued to rage for a good twenty minutes.  Maybe there was an armadillo hoedown going on outside.  I don't know.  I didn't go outside to see.  There are far more dangerous things than armadillos around here.  This is about the time of the year that the mysterious howling cat likes to show up, and I don't mean the type that one leaves out a saucer of milk for.  My neighbors say it's a bobcat.  We have larger things in the woods, too, panthers.  That might have been what the dogs heard, their sensitive ears catching the noise mine could not.  It might also have been deer or coyote which range through here on a regular basis.  I wouldn't necessarily have heard either of those things, but the dogs might have.

Or it could have been a stick dropping on the roof.

In any case, there's nothing like lying in the dark with dogs going berserk waiting to see if there is going to be another sound to go with it, one you're going to have to do something radical about.  Not fun.  Also not conducive to rest.  It's one of the downsides of living alone.  At least if there were somebody else in the house, I could sort of have that "Scooby-Doo" moment where we go see what's wrong together.  One has to make do with what one has, though.  At present that's just me, assorted cats who look indignant at being disturbed by my daring to move them in the middle of the night (something my sleep-addled brain should have taken as a sign of no-real-danger), and loud, protective doggage.

There was the one time, of course, when the thing that woke me was a stealthy knock on my door (not that I went to it that late/early) and the sound of someone trying to open the locked screen door very gently.  I suppose that time is the time that keeps me waking up startled in the darkness.  It was a very long time ago, and before I had any dogs at all.  All in all, I'd have to say that it's much better to wake up to Chewie, Roux, and the sound of potential canine violence than that eerie click of a door handle that isn't yielding.

Simple Pleasures

Things making me happy this sunny morning:

• Aveeno's Active Naturals Calming Body Wash - It has lavender, chamomile, and ylang ylang, and it smells like heaven.  I like lavender things in general, use laundry detergent, fabric softener, cleaning supplies, and powder that has the fragrance.  This is something special, though.  I don't know if it's the combination of the other two things in with the lavender or just because it's an Aveeno product, but it lovely stuff.
• Jello's Temptations Lemon Meringue Pie - These little cup desserts are all tasty, but there is something especially nice about the lemon ones.  They make a nice cold treat for warm weather, a quick pick-me-up in the afternoon, or a fast taste of something sweet after a meal.  
• Michael Angelo's Eggplant Parmigiana - Eggplant Parm is one of my favorite foods.  I make it myself, but it is a very labour-intensive dish.  Michel Angelo's version is frozen, and while that means that there are some of the issues you'd expect with frozen foods, it is one of the best frozen foods I've found.  It is comfort food.
• Downton Abbey on Amazon Prime Streaming - I'm watching it.  Again.  For about the hundredth time.  
• The Anno Dracula series by Kim Newman - I'm on the second book now, The Bloody Red Baron, and I find the mixture of the supernatural, alternate history, and constant literary allusion to be an enjoyable read.  In this book set in an alternate WWI, I've run across Poe, Gatsby, AND Jake Barnes.  How can you ask for more than this?
• My Pawley Island Hammock - This was one of the best purchases I've ever made.  I got it from Levenger last year, and I truly love it.  I had wanted one for years, put off buying it, and when I had money from my AP Reading, I took a little of it and splurged.  It's heaven.  Just heaven.  Every time I am suspended beneath the green canopy of the tulip poplars, I reflect on just how long I waited and I laugh.  In addition to the pleasure of using it, it is always a lesson in the silliness of needless waiting.  Call it an exercise in Carpe Diem.

Loose Ends

It's the time of the year to wrap up loose ends, finish up things undone.  I suppose for most people this happens in December, but for teachers, the year ends in late May/early June.  We run on a different cycle altogether.  Occupational hazard.  Maybe that's why New Year's never feels very much like a new start, or it feels like an artificial, forced one, anyway.  The true new year for me is always the when the new group of kids hits my room.

This is the time of the year to sort, file, clean out.  At the end of last year, I was so sick from everything that had gone on that I think I just sort of locked my door and ran away.  I found piles of stuff this year that I have looked at and thought, "Why in the WORLD is this still sitting here?"  My room looks better now than it has in a long time.  Then there are the chores that accumulated during the course of the year that I pushed to the side for later, unboxing new equipment and putting it neatly away, setting up notebooks of resources, passing along interesting tidbits I found here and there to others, dealing with the ever-rising tide in my inbox, and so on.  I am working along on it.  Every task completed brings a feeling of satisfaction.  Before I left school yesterday, I cleaned away two tote bags from conferences I'd been to over the last two years, and finally folding them away  and not having to see them staring at me accusingly from the corner was a good, good feeling.

It is also time to take care of a couple of non-school related loose ends, too.  Today was close enough to six weeks after my piercing (I hardly think two days makes a difference one way or the other) to change out my earring.  The tiny silver hoop I got on Etsy over a month ago is now in place.  I love the way it looks, and it feels worlds better than that jabby little stud.

The thing that makes the biggest difference in me feeling peaceful today was finally being able to tie up the biggest loose end of them all, though, the situation that had so bothered me with the student I mentioned previously.  An opportunity presented itself for a conversation, and as far as I'm concerned, anyway, there is resolution.  I could not let the year end the way things were.  I would have always regretted it.

Today, then, is all mine.  There is no grading, no schoolwork of any kind.  I might go to Dunn's Falls or to the junktique.  I need to mow the grass, start work on things left long undone here at home.  As all the bits and pieces fall into place and the darkness of the previous year falls away, whatever I do is all good.

A Pretty Accurate Description

"I myself am made entirely of flaws, stitched together with good intentions." ~ Augusten Burroughs

A Scandal in Belgravia (Sherlock 2)

I was going to wait until the new season was available as one entire package, but I don't have the patience.  Tonight, I got episode 1 from amazon streaming, and it was worth every dime.  I love, love, love this show.  Sherlock season 1 was fantastic, but if this first episode of the new season is any indication, this new season is going to leave last time around completely in the dust.

It shouldn't surprise me.  It is, after all, a Moffat affair.  The writing is just so good.  There were a million lines I wanted to tweet and quote, sarcastic and witty, fast and funny.  The chemistry between all the players is balanced perfectly.  Benedict Cumberbatch could not be more perfect if he tried, and Martin Freeman balances him without being silly, stuffy, or weak.  The only bad thing about this show is that there aren't enough episodes to satisfy my craving for it.

I love how this Holmes is written.  He's brilliant and beyond and so rough with it.  Frequently people say things about him like, "You're about to meet Sherlock Holmes.  As far as possible, try not to punch him."  He describes himself as a high-functioning sociopath.  At times, he's totally childish.  The whole scene with the sheet and Buckingham Palace was a riot.

Tonight's had Irene Adler in it, too.  I loved what they did with her.  Add her to the mix of characters they took from the old, modernized, and made wonderful.  She was a balance to Holmes.  She's not good, either, but damn, she's fantastic at being bad.  I loved watching her pull his strings and vice versa.  I loved watching him wake up to the idea that there might be a woman somewhere who was worth his time.  I knew he was a goner when he knew her safe's combination.  I hope she continues to pop up from time to time.

From Moriarty (whose ringtone in the first five minutes was "Staying Alive," LOVE IT) to the line about "I always hear punch you in the face when you're speaking, but usually it's just subtext" to the beautifully sinister side of Sherlock they showed when someone dared to disturb Mrs. Hudson, it's all perfect.  The deerstalker even made an appearance, a completely logical one at that.

If you haven't seen the show yet, I can't recommend it highly enough.  Start from the beginning and catch up.  It really is one of the best things going.

What He Said

You see, making a living doing something you love isn’t only about making a living (in fact for many that’s not even a possibility) it’s about making a life. That means building friendships, respecting your own limitations, taking pleasure in your own creativity and in the creativity of others, and always, always, always reminding yourself to enjoy the moment you’re in.
~ Josh Ritter

Mercy and Justice

This time of the year is complicated and emotional.  This is the reason so many people do not want to teach seniors.  I vividly remember a conversation with a veteran teacher about how much I liked teaching them.

"Nope.  Too much end-of-the-year drama," she said.  She preferred juniors, in her words still mature but with none of the drama that comes with these individuals on the cusp of leaving the sheltered environment they've been in for 12 (in some cases longer, if you count kindergarten, etc.) years.

It's true, there are moments that are tear-jerking.  And, occasionally, if one is honest, there are also moments that are infuriating.  Sometimes it becomes the last lesson I am able to impart.  So often, a decision has to be made between mercy and justice.

It's a hard thing to choose.  Which is better?  As a teacher, I am inclined toward mercy.  I think most of us are. We want to see our students successful.  We want them to be happy and complete.  The truth of it is, though, that life does not work that way all the time.  There is not a "do-over" hiding around every corner.  Everything we do shapes us for better or ill, chipping away to form the sculpture or the wreck we'll become.  Our choices are freighted with consequences, and at some point we have to learn that if we are ever going to succeed.

Every year I debate which the better tool for shaping might be. Do I do any good when I allow a second chance, or am I simply continuing a trend that has allowed the situation to develop in the first place?  Is it time for a harsh lesson that might hurt now but might save pain down the road?   I suppose it goes on a case-by-case basis.  It's not the best part of what I do by a long shot, but it here it is.  I only hope I can be wise enough to do the right thing.

Every teacher faces these decisions on a daily basis, of course.  It just seems that never are they so poignant as now.  Even though I know that where the student ultimately winds up really has very little to do with me and is based on decisions he or she has made for at least the time they are with me, this is still a difficult time.

A Million Little Things

Today was one of those days where I run around and around in tiny little circles until I fall down.  I often feel like a flock of very aggressive birds is following me around squawking and pecking at me on days like this.  There is the urge to throw my hands up and shout, "Go away!"  It can get sort of Hitchcockian at times when I'm trying to schedule an induction, chase down candidates and officers, process exams, deal with student/departmental crises, eat lunch, AND make parent calls.  Oh, and all that?  That's the short list.

It's just that way sometimes, and it's usually that way at the end of the school year.  It never ceases to amaze me how many things wait until the end to begin.  (Paradox?  You'd think so, but sadly and oddly, no...)  I took care of those, and then there were the genuine crises, the moments of human drama, the regular daily tasks, the grading (Good God, there is ALWAYS the grading), and at some point, I grabbed a salad.  It was good.  There were mandarin oranges involved.

It wasn't a bad day.  It was just hectic.  Hopefully, because it WAS hectic, tomorrow won't be quite as circusy.  Of course, there will still be the grading (because, well, I think there has to be to keep gravity going and the Earth going around the sun, etc.), and I am sure that because I work at a high school at least a small slice of drama will find its way under my door at some point.  Again, this seems to be one of the foundational laws of the universe.  If you are currently drama-free wherever you are, that's because we have it all.  I can box some up and ship it if you feel the lack.....

I did have a totally unexpected and very pleasant experience at the end of the day:  I left before 4:30.  I finished up everything that needed doing urgently, cleaned up in my room long enough for buses and mad drivers to clear campus, took the laptop cart down to storage for the last time this year, hung an award a group I sponsor had won the other night, stood looking around my room in the afternoon sunlight for a moment, and felt that peace that comes from having done all the damage you can do to something for one good day.  I shut down all the electronics, switched off my little owl Scentsy warmer that C. gave me, grabbed up my bags, and slid out the door.  I was home eating dinner with my family by 5 and back to my own house by 6.  I can't tell you when the last time that happened even was.

Changing tides, changing routines.  If I have to hack my way through a few more of these "jungle days" to get to more of these easy afternoons, then fine by me.  It's worth it.

Grey Blur

Coming home on the interstate today, I saw the grey Charger sidle into traffic from the on-ramp.  From the way all the vehicles in front of me reacted, even though I was just too far away to see the stripes and decals, I knew it was a State Trooper.

We were in the precious three lane space just outside town, a free-for-all zone in which you will see everybody's inner race driver come out on even the best of days.  I watched that dark grey backend slide over to the left and drop slightly. I sighed. I could just imagine what was coming next. Sure enough, seconds later, it shot for the horizon in a lane that was clearing like magic in front of it.

Don't you know it must feel righteously good to take that big interceptor out, put it in the overtake lane, and punch it?  To hear that big hemi's throaty rumble, to feel that incredible surge of power hit, and to ride that wave with no fear because you ARE the limiting factor and it's all good with you?

I do love power and speed.  Granted, right now, I have precious little of it, but I respect it when I see it.  Someday.  Someday.....

Google Play and Google Drive

I stumbled across an article on Lifehacker that led me to another article on Lifehacker (I swear, it's like a maze, and at some point, you will wind up on something that references binder clips....) that dumped me on a page that was talking about Google Play.  I had probably seen it at some point when it was introduced, but I didn't really pay much attention to it, since it is aimed at Android users (and I'm not one) and tablet folk (not me, either, yet).  As usual when one reads something on LH, though, the "duh moment" occurred, and I began to see a whole other universe of uses for Google Play.

So far, I've looked at a couple of streaming music services, and they're fine.  Spotify is fairly nifty, and Pandora is okay.  In fact, I owe Pandora for a couple of artists I really like.  I enjoy it for discovering new folks.  Spotify, if I were looking to pay people for a service (which I'm not.  I'm poor like that, see?) would be great on my iPhone.  I only use the streaming stuff on my iPhone more or less.  (Well, and Pandora through my Roku, but that's a different conversation.)

What I've always dreamed of is having all my music on my iPhone.  I change music moods constantly, and I have very diverse listening tastes.  My library isn't as big as some people's I know, but it isn't exactly tiny, either. That's a crapload of GB on an iPhone that won't hold all that and my pictures and my apps and my...  You get it.  Enter the everlovin' Cloud.

I am, even as we speak, uploading all my music to Google's cloud through Play.  It is going to take about fifty years, probably since my connection on this DSL is CRAP, but it will get there.  I already have access to more music online than I do on my phone.  Granted, there are restrictions (a live internet connection), but when I have it, I have all my music and my playlists everywhere.  It makes good sense for me to use Google for this, too, because although I am not an Android user, I am a hardcore Google user everywhere else.   This is a very good thing.

I added the gmusic app from the iTunes app store (since Apple and Google can't play nice together and required a third party) and this was really the only missing piece.  There is a native web interface from Google, but without the gmusic app, Google Play won't play in the background, and getting to playlists, etc., is a bit clunky.  The only complaint I've had so far with any of it is that my iHome dock seemed weirded out by it in a way that it never is by iTunes.  This is a very, very minor thing, and, I think, a compatibility issue with the gmusic app, not with Google Play itself since I ran them both on the sleep timer and it turned off the native web interface fine but couldn't kill the app...  O_o  Lesson learned there.

Added to all this wonderfulness is that I have Google Drive now.  It's basically just Dropbox by Google, but because it's by Google, it seamlessly integrates with everything else by them I use (which is everything) making my life worlds easier.  I love them. This is it.  This is the dream come true.  All my stuff everywhere without having to carry around a huge laptop of doom.  I don't have all my documents in my Google Drive folder, but I keep the ones that are important and needed there.

The feeling of knowing that I can pull them up on my phone and send them to whomever or share them with others through Google Docs while I'm sitting in a waiting room somewhere or in a meeting instead of having to wait until later (or in my case, possibly forget...damn you, Topamax) is extremely comforting.  When John Q. Student has a crisis (and can't get into the Docs locker) and needs PowerPoint  or handout X to resolve it, I can tap, send, and we can all be a little happier.  This is a good thing.

I know there are people out there who hate Google.  Well, that's okay.  To each his own.  They are making my life a whole lot easier, and I'm grateful to them for it.  If other people want other solutions, fine.  Spiffy.  Corking.  The only thing I guess I have to say is from the Rolling Stones then..."Hey, you, get off of my Cloud...."  Because you know what?  Right now, it's working fine for me.