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If this isn’t scary enough for you, try these.Aggressive Bunny Attacks Camera
>Happy Halloween!
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If this isn’t scary enough for you, try these.Monthly Archives: October 2006
If this isn’t scary enough for you, try these.>This younger generation
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I hear it often: the world is going you-know-where in a handbasket. The youth of this country are apathetic, uninvolved. Well folks, some are. But I had a chance to spend the day with several fairly young people who care about making a difference.
I train peer mediators in an elementary school. The school counselor and I work together to select, train, and supervise these fifth and sixth graders. The youngest may be 10, the oldest have only just turned 12, but these kids already have their heads on straight.
The applications for mediators this year were excellent quality. The kids met the deadline, filled out the papers correctly, and wrote very heart-felt pieces on why they wanted to become peer mediators. We had a great pool of boys and girls from which to choose.
Our returning mediators from last year helped us run the training. They led several activities, put on a skit, and demonstrated procedures for the newcomers. Some of these kids are very quiet in class; they surprised and impressed me with their ability to stand up and lead the group.
They paid attention, took very few breaks, and asked a lot of thoughtful questions. They deciphered a new set of vocabulary (how many 11-year-olds know the meaning of “de-escalate”, after all?) and developed an understanding of peer mediation and their role in the process. When it was all over, they helped us clean up the room we’d borrowed and headed back to school — to pick up their homework. Yes, after all was said and done, they had to make up the work they missed in class today.
We’ll meet with them tomorrow morning to tie up loose ends, practice a few mock mediations, and get them set up with their new partners. I’m excited about this group of kids. They are sincere in their wishes to solve conflicts. They really, really want to make a difference. They are quiet leaders: role models in their everyday actions, the type of student that the other kids like and respect and enjoy.
If these are the leaders of tomorrow, our world will be in good hands.
>Da Code Cabe Back
>Yes, the symptoms that I blamed on seasonal allergies have taken hold and are making me miserable. Therefore, my plan for the day is:
Drink liquids. (coffee in my “So many books…so little time” mug)
Eat a grapefruit.
Drink more liquids (warm apple cider with a cinnamon stick in my “ducks in a row” mug).
Rest.
Eat chicken soup for lunch.
Drink more liquids (orange spice tea: choose a mug, any mug).
Watch football game.
Nap.
Drink more liquids (yet to be planned).
Have chicken soup for supper.
Go to bed early.
I’m sure there’s some over-the-counter medicine that will help ease the symptoms. I’ll take some, but mainly, I’m working on flooding my immune system with fluids and vitamin C and other anti-virus protections. In the meantime, I think I’ll go slice a grapefruit. Do peanut butter cookies count as anti-cold food? I can only hope. The November posts will be much more interesting if I’m feeling better.
Update: I am feeling a bit better. The Packers’ win over Arizona helped. Amigo helped by cheering loudly when I couldn’t for fear of coughing my guts up. Apple cider, cinnamon tea, and a variety of mugs have all contributed to my improvement. I still plan to go to bed early and sleep deeply until morning.
>windy with a chance of classic literature
>It’s a good thing I did yard work two days ago and little more yesterday. Today it is much cooler and quite windy. That means the silver maple in the neighbor’s yard has dropped a fresh blanket of leaves to cover the ground that I raked yesterday. It also means that our backyard swing has fallen over. This only happens on the windiest of days, and it may be a sign that we should tuck it away in a safe corner and cover it for winter. It’s a good thing Amigo and I read outside in the swing yesterday; it’s not upright today!
Amigo is reading Animal Farm in school. I remember reading this book back in the days (yes, waaaay back) when this novel was considered a clear symbol of the evil Soviet Union, the big bad Russian empire. Amigo and his contemporaries were born well after the Iron Curtain fell; their perspective is limited, if not completely different from ours. His generation (and La Petite’s, for that matter) doesn’t remember the Cold War, the boycotts of the 1984 and 1988 Olympics, or the incredible hockey game in 1980. Yes, both saw the movie Miracle, but I felt obligated to give them background on internation relations of the time. It was a good movie on its own merits, but I truly believe that those of us who lived through that time better understood the value of an amateur hockey team beating those raised to the game through the Soviet system.
So Animal Farm is still standard curriculum for high school freshman. The novel has value as a story, as satire, as a good piece of literature. But without an understanding of the world as it was in Orwell’s time, can any young teen really understand it? The analogies, the metaphors, the totalitarianism illustrated in the story line, require background knowledge before any reader can fully understand.
>NaBloPoMo
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National Blog Post Month, created and inspired by Fussy.org, is coming up in November.
Starting on November 1st, many bloggers will work to follow Yoda’s advice and Post Every Day. When I mentioned to my family that I had signed up, they responded, “So what’s new? You post every day anyway!” Well, almost. There are limits. when I had long nights of parent-teacher conferences I didn’t post. I didn’t post when I was sick — okay, maybe I did.
Blogging is fun for me. I blog not for ad revenue (but I might be convinced to sign up if it’s worthwhile), not for the publicity (13-20 readers most days, come on!), but for the pure enjoyment. I just found out that Fussy and friends will be offering a few prizes, but the odds of winning are low (>100 participants!), though, so I’m not counting on it.
Last night Husband, wrapped loosely in a queen sized sheet as he tried to spread it on the bed, complained that he could handle 100 feet of heavy cable better than he could one clean sheet. When I sat down with the pillowcases and laughed, he realized the sad truth: it was a bloggable moment. In his defense, he is fairly accomplished at housework and does it periodically. Making beds is just one of his least favorites on the chore list. He’d rather snowblow the driveway in a blizzard than change sheets, and hence the notable quotable.
One of the best and brightest bulbs in the Blogosphere’s chandelier is that of comraderie and virtual friendship. I read several blogs regularly, if not daily. My list of favorites keeps changing as I find others that think the way I do or entertain me. No one knocks spelling or grammar when a blogger dangles a participle or splits an infinitive. If a mommyblogger is having a rough day, no one tells her she’s a bad mom. We all commiserate and let her know that we’ve had days like that, too. I’ve found like minds who blog from several states away, even in different countries. We develop cyber-friendships by commenting on each other’s blogs and emailing occasionally.
I expect NaBloPoMo will be more of the same. You lucky readers will get to hear all about Thanksgiving at my house, the first snows of our Wisconsin winter, and more. I’ll do my best to make it interesting and enjoyable. And as Yoda might say, “Read Compost Happens you will!”
>It’s a beautiful day in the neighborhood
>We don’t have a cute little trolley (although there was a trolley line that ran at the end of our block about a century ago) but it really was a beautiful day in our neighborhood. Today was one of those days when Mother Nature reminds us that winter is on the way, but not here quite yet. Even though the furnace is on and the winter coats are hanging in the mudroom, we don’t need to break out the snowblower for at least a little while.
It was a balmy 51 degrees after lunch when I decided to abandon my to-do list and play, I mean work, outside in the yard. I threw on a thick sweatshirt (my Game Day Green Bay sweatshirt, for those in the know) over my long sleeved tee and my windpants, grabbed an old pair of shoes and headed out. I put Tiny Bunny in what’s left of the garden. He bounced around a bit, enjoying the scraps of parsley that had been too small to harvest, and then settled in “his” box for a nap. Meanwhile, I cleaned his litter box, emptied the flowerpots on the deck, and rinsed them all with the hose. There was just enough breeze to air-dry the whole batch. I tossed the dead tomato plants on the brush pile, stacked and stored the tomato cages, and then stirred the compost to mix in a bit of old, dry potting soil. It will sit and decompose all winter and then become part of the garden soil next spring.
My to-do list, made last night, was full of housebound items. Help Amigo with Math. Wash & Change Sheets. Order Prescription Refills. Well, I did help Amigo with his math, and I started the sheets, but the rest of the list will have to wait. The late fall weather was just too nice to pass on the chance to get outside.
It’s not exactly a pretty day. The peak fall colors have long gone. Our lawn is still fairly green, and it is covered by a blanket of leaves from the silver maple in the yard behind ours. I’m resisting raking because half the leaves are still on the tree. The garden is just a big hunk of brown dirt with a light blanket of the same leaves and a few birch leaves blown in from next door to hide the die-hard chives that won’t give up. The wild raspberries have quit, too, but the green onions underneath are still competing with the chives for my attention.
I wasn’t the only one in this state of mind. I heard lawnmowers, leafblowers, and the scritch-scratch of a rake in a nearby yard. One neighbor was covering his fishing boat, and yet another laid in a supply of cut wood for his woodstove while his kids played on their jungle gym.
To top off this lovely fall day, I picked chives and green onions to add to my superburgers and fired up the charcoal grill. Mmmm.
The trolley doesn’t come our way anymore, but it’s still a beautiful day in the neighborhood. Mr. Rogers would have been very comfortable here today.
>Love Thursday
>Love is:
–coming home from college for the weekend to carve a pumpkin.
>Second hand rose…
>…I’m reading second hand books.
I know, that didn’t rhyme. I do buy second hand clothes, but that’s not what I was doing tonight. After supper (chicken in the crockpot, mmm) and after I had settled the tired husband and teen and separated the tussling bunnies, I went out to pick up contact lense solution and a big bag of paperbacks. I bought a couple mysteries, a few novels, and one young adult sci-fi book for my classroom collection. Okay, maybe I bought more than a few novels. I spent (gulp) $24 at the bookstore, after she deducted my discount for the books I brought back to resell. Well, I rationalize this in several ways.
1. I got a lot more for my money than I would have if I’d bought new books.
2. This should hold me for at least a month, if not more.
3. I can contribute a few to our fiction basket in the staff lounge.
4. It’s one of my few guilty pleasures.
This is all about balance. I read newspapers and Time magazine regularly. I read professional books and journals to keep up to date in my field. These are the books that I will read for me alone — books that let me lose myself in a plot, in a setting, in characters that are like me or totally unlike me. These are the books that I will read to relax at night. They’re books that will settle my mind, not get it spinning, right before bed.
Long ago, when we were newlyweds and we lived in a small resort town, I considered opening a shop like the one I visited tonight. Now I consider it as a possible retirement option. I could combine it with a coffeehouse and serve locally baked treats. I could call it Creative Juices or Expressivo and have a theme decor of classical music and/or local art. La Petite’s photography could be displayed and sold. Amigo could work there; he is so friendly and likable, I know he’d be great as greeter or server. He doesn’t drink coffee, but he sure likes people. He could probably suggest good local musicians to play there, too. If I chose a train theme, Husband’s HO scale models could line the walls. I can’t think of a shop name to go with trains: Train of Thought or The Coffee Engine? There must be a better idea somewhere.
Or not. I’m only in my mid-forties, so retirement isn’t in the picture for a long, long time. But I can dream.
>The sun’ll come out tomorrow…
>Sing with me: Tomorrow! Tomorrow! I love ya, tomorrow….
Okay, enough. Tomorrow may be a busy day — or not. I need to take Husband to the endodontists for a root canal or two. He will be on some massive painkillers, so I need to drive him. Fortunately, the timing is such that Amigo has school and I don’t, so I can do this without wasting a sick day or needing child care. I’ll pack up a stack of Time magazines and pick up a cappucino on the way and catch up on news and caffeine in the lobby while he suffers. Er…gets his teeth fixed.
We are waiting to hear from Husband’s mom, too. His dad went into the hospital with chest pains last night. From MIL’s description, it sounds to me like a narrowly averted heart attack. Practical woman that she is, MIL called 911 as soon as she knew he was having chest pains. She overruled his grumbling and called the professionals. I say to her: You go, girl! It’s better to overreact than underreact when a heart attack is threatening to rear its ugly head.
So as we wait for word on the Husband’s parental unit, we’ll make sure Amigo has his homework done and we have all of our ducks in a row for the endodontist tomorrow morning. I’ll make soft foods (jello, etc.) in case Husband is both in pain and hungry tomorrow. I did that last December when La Petite had her wisdom teeth out. But that’s another post entirely, and it hasn’t been written yet. Maybe in November during NaBloWriMo, if I’m really hard up for a post, I’ll tell you stories of dealing with La Petite and her wisdom. Teeth, that is.
Update: FIL is home and doing fine. Hospital determined it was severe acid reflux. He is grumpy, by happy to be out of the hospital.
Husband’s teeth have been rooted — or de-rooted, as the case may be. He’s tired (so am I), so he’s napping. I napped already. 🙂
>excuse me while I bang my head on the keyboard
>Friday night we got an automated phone call from Amigo’s school saying he had missed a class. His response was, “What?!” He never misses a class. He may not love the homework, but he loves school.
Sunday night we got another automated phone call. What?! we collectively responded.
It turned out that the automated phone calling system misfired and overreacted, and the associate principal, among others, got a call saying her child had missed class on Friday. Of course, then she was the one who had to call about 600 parents and say that yes, this was a mistake, their children had been in classes all along.
These automated phone calls are really a bother. I don’t find them useful. I don’t find them informative. And when they’re wrong, they’re wrong, and there’s no one to question or clarify! If it’s a political candidate, I can hang up. But when it’s the school, it’s not so easy. I usually stay the course until the call is completely over to make sure I haven’t missed anything. Friday night, however, it was the system, not me, that missed a step.
Geez. It makes me long for the days of a paper and pencil attendance form that a child carries down to the office. Hey — wait a minute. My elementary school still does that! Maybe the high school could learn from the little ones for a change.