Category Archives: Random Thoughts

A Park full of Art

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A sizable park in the middle of our medium-sized city is within walking distance of the O.K. Chorale. This park, due to its location and size, plays host to a number of special events. Fundraiser Run/Walks sometimes start and end there. A nearby church hosts Bring Your Own Lawn Chair style worship services in the park. And at the end of each July, Art takes over the park in a big, big way.

Our routine is to leave the cars in the garage and walk the half mile or so to the Annual Art Fest. On-street parking reaching almost all the way to our home as it is. I throw a few collapsible shopping bags into my purse, load up my wallet at the ATM in advance, and as soon as the Artists open their booths, we’re there.

Here’s a taste of ceramics:

garden stakes posing with my hat

garden stakes posing with my hat

I have several others from this artist. Last year I suggested a few, and she made a list. The Thai Basil was one she made at my suggestion.

I hope I put the stake in the right pot.

I hope I put the stake in the right pot.

My wallet, my favorite in a long time, started wearing out last spring when the snap came off. It was still usable, so I made a plan to replace it at the same place I’d bought it: Art in the Park.

Left - new. Right - old, but still beautiful.

Left – new. Right – old, but still beautiful.

Hmong needlework is very precise and very beautiful. The wallet on the right has more traditional Hmong shapes and designs. The needlepoint flowers on the left just caught my eye right away. I knew it was my new wallet. It even has a change pocket, one feature lacking in the old one.

Oh, and by the way, the man at the booth smiled when I took out my old wallet to pay for the new. I think I’ve made purchases from his booth in the past.

We bought more – quite a bit more! Chuck carried the bag of purchases and the bag with our lunch in it (grilled pork sandwiches and egg rolls) while I carried my smoothie and the few things that fit in my purse. I can’t show you the other pieces, though. I’ll just say this: I’ve officially started my holiday shopping.

Readers, do you visit local and regional art festivals? What kind of art do you buy?

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Harvest Monday – beans

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Beans! 3 pounds of beans. I started picking a few and then just kept on picking until the bowl was close to overflowing. I weighed it on my tiny kitchen scale and found my first official bean harvest to measure just over 3 lb.

Beans! All from my backyard kitchen garden!

Beans! All from my backyard kitchen garden!

As for other clutter in the picture, the tomatoes were “scratch and dent” at the farmers’ market, and I wanted to make a scratch tomato sauce. Perfect. The odd looking green thing next to the cutting board is a lettuce cutter.

Here's the lettuce.

Here’s the lettuce. 

This is from the market. There’s more outside, ripe for the picking – literally. I picked about a pound of various lettuces Saturday; I smell BLTs in our future.

For more Harvest Monday, visit Daphne’s Dandelions. She has all the links for a productive week in more ways than one.

Note: Voter’s Voice will take its place on Tuesdays from here on out while I post my harvests on Mondays. Tomorrow: get reacquainted with Grandma Daisy, my alter-ego from the future who reflects oh so well on the past.

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Dear Facebook; you’ve got me all wrong.

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Dear Facebook;

Your algorithm failed mightily on this one. I follow several prominent progressives and local activists. One of them must have mentioned the issue below. Oh, Facebook, rest assured that I do NOT like and will NOT follow the page or group that posted this advertisement.

Facebook, WTH were you thinking?

Facebook, WTH were you thinking?

Shudder. Those key word searches are not doing a good enough job of filtering posts for my interests. Facebook, let’s make a deal. How about you stop sending me things you think I might “like” and just let me see what my friends have to say. Okay?

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Go Milwaukee Brewers!

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We took a day off from the grind and frazzled craziness and visited Miller Park in Milwaukee – all four of us. That’s Amigo, adjusting his armband radio. He listens to Bob Uecker call the game so he doesn’t miss anything, and he enjoys the atmosphere and excitement of the park itself.

Go Brew Crew!

Go Brew Crew!

The weather was awesome, the roof was open, and the Brewers beat the Pirates 6-1. Who could ask for anything more?

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What’s Common Core?

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“Because you’re common, Cinderella.” The stepmother’s line goes on. “Your mother was common and so are you. Only you can wash your face and put on a clean dress, but underneath, you’ll still be common.”

“Don’t you want our students to be more than just common?” -anonymous legislator proposing to repeal Common Core Standards in Wisconsin.

From Dictionary dot com:

  • belonging equally to, or shared alike by, two or more or all in question
  • pertaining or belonging equally to an entire community, nation, or culture; public
  • joint; united
  • widespread; general; ordinary
  • of frequent occurrence; usual; familiar
  • hackneyed; trite
  • of mediocre or inferior quality; mean; low

None of these examples or definitions really fit the Common Core Curriculum. The question remains: what is it? What does Common Core mean? What is the impact of Common Core on students? On teachers? On mandated  state tests?

When Governor I-Walk-The Party-Line announced he is running for president, he was firm. “No Common Core!” he shouted to the crowd. Here’s the big question: what does Walker think it is? Frankly, I’m not sure he knows Common Core beyond its usefulness as a sound bite.

Here’s my challenge, readers. If/when you have a chance to interact with the Governor, ask him to define Common Core. Let’s see what the man really knows – and what he really doesn’t know.

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A Garden with a White Picket Fence

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It started with a rummage sale or two. I hit the jackpot in a sale around the corner from my own house.

Chairs, "baby" gate, and plastic pieces of fence

Chairs, “baby” gate, and plastic pieces of fence

I bargained with the sellers, and they offered to include all the white fence pieces if I bought the chairs and the big circular collapsible “baby” gate. The gate is all one piece: there is no end to it. It collapses nicely, though, into very little space. I have it stored like that right now in the New Garage.

I’d turned up my nose a little when Chuck found a stack of this white plastic stuff at another sale. “It’s plastic! Ew!” I had to take back my words after buying a whole pile of the same junky plastic.

From a distance, it doesn’t look that bad.

Rather cute, almost.

Rather cute, almost.

You can admire the garage and its People Door (simple pleasures) or the rain barrels set up behind it.

Up close, it’s not so cute. However, If this white plastic discourages the wild furry ones from entering my green space, I’ll be happy.

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The War On Teachers Goes National

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“If Scott Walker sees 100,000 teachers & firefighters as his enemies, maybe it’s time we take a closer look at his friends.”  Well said, Elizabeth Warren. In my neck of the woods, we call them his “handlers” or his “sponsors.” Walker fools a lot of people, and he has a lot of help from some very deep pockets.

A talented and caring colleague told me, “I don’t tell people I”m a teacher anymore.” This was a few months after the misnamed Budget Repair Bill became the dreaded Act 10, the one that stripped away rights that had been negotiated over decades of negotiations. We teachers were singled out by the public, despite the fact that thousands of others were affected by the damaging bill.

Today, Scott Walker officially declares his candidacy for the highest office in the land. Don’t kid yourselves, people: he is all about himself and his millionaire handlers. Today’s children? He doesn’t care. And those children? They’re too young to vote — until it’s too late.

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Organizing the Disorganized

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Since “Unorganizable” isn’t a word recognized by spell check, I used disorganized in the post title. The shelves were not really disorganized, not so much, well maybe a little. The varied sizes and types of containers made it difficult to put things away or take anything out without disturbing the delicate balance and watching several tumble to the floor.

Step one in the organization process: Take a “before” picture.

Top Shelf

Top Shelf – before organizing

Step 2, if I’m completely honest with myself, went like this: forget you took before pictures and completely forget that the shelves need organizing. Ahem.

Step 3: remove the small and tiny spice and herb containers.

This helped a lot.

This helped a lot.

And finally, after sorting and stacking a little more, I could reach into the shelves without (much) fear of an avalanche.

Less chaos! Better access!

Less chaos! Better access!

The shelves still teeter a little, but they’re much more stable and I can find (almost) anything I need. Ah, the feeling of a practical project well-done.

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The MomVan Adventures

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It seems like yesterday that Chuck was complaining of a stomach ache, refusing to take fiber, and then talking trash about my minivan. Remember this exchange?

“Here, dear, I found a jar of Metamucil for you.”
“I’m not ready.”
“Not ready?”
“I like my Saturn. I don’t want to drive a Buick yet.”
“I took it years ago when I was pregnant with Amigo.”
“And look what you drive now!”

My minivan — he’d dissed my minivan! The minivan that took us on more than a few vacations, moved La Petite to and from college, brings big batches of yard waste to the brush dump every summer, took my carpool to graduate classes for two years, and more!

My poor Pontiac Transport finally entered its last days when we discovered the power steering was showing signs of failing. It was a ’98 vehicle, old enough, and we’d put plenty of bucks into repair and routine maintenance. It was time. Vehicle Replacement Procedure led us to a 2012 Dodge Caravan with reasonable mileage.

Owning a new-to-us used vehicle has not been without its own adventures. Amidst a weekend with a few other disasters (a lost wallet at a school reunion, a set of keys lost at a Culver’s restaurant), the minivan suddenly lost power on the highway. It felt and sounded like a transmission problem (enter the famous punctuation series #?*!). We were lucky, though, on a number of counts.

  • Chuck knew a mechanic at a Green Bay garage that also had a Stevens Point location, about an hour north of where we’d stopped.
  • Chuck’s mechanic friend generously called the other garage and arranged for a tow and a loaner vehicle.
  • We were parked in a Kwik Trip parking lot, so we had everything we could possibly need (except a working vehicle) including snacks, sandwiches, and drinks.
  • Our calendar for the next several days was such that we could cope with only one vehicle, if needed.

How did it all end? The short version can be summarized in this text message from Chuck to me:

Just got a call re: van. Tranny is ok, but wire from fuse block are damaged, chewed by mice. Need some wires and fuse block replaced. Lots of $$$, but could have been a lot worse. Good thing we’re getting a new garage.

And perhaps the best part of the story: everyone is healthy. No tummy aches in the family, fiber or no fiber, at the moment. I think I’ll bake some nuts and twigs banana bread just to keep things in order. The newly repaired minivan can take me to the store for bananas.

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Summers “off”? For teachers, that’s a myth.

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A typical day at Chez O.K.

A typical summer day at Chez O.K.

I’ll identify the important parts of the photo so you can see what a summer day “off” means to this teacher.

  • On the left, peas waiting to be shelled.
    • these peas will go into the freezer to be cooked and consumed in the dark cold depths of winter
    • I’m not your typical doomsday prepper, but I call this filling of the pantry and freezer “preparing for the Walker apocalypse”.
  • On the far right, coffee mug “So many books, so little time”.
    • good coffee, special mug from a special person
  • In the middle, laptop computer about to be logged into graduate course
    • 3 graduate credits toward renewing my teaching license
    • Online course for convenience and for the learning experience
    • I’m taking two courses right now – 6 credits in all. When compressed into the time span of June, July, and August, this is a significant workload.

My point, readers, is just a simple reminder that while my paychecks may spread over a 12 month period rather than the 10 months I’m actively in class, the summer months are not time off. These months are full of necessary and valuable activity for my professional responsibilities and for my family.

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