i intended to write a father's day entry. it was supposed to be about how my dad wants a dog. i sort of planned it as a way to guilt my mom into acquiescence. i really do think he needs a dog and i think my mom worries too much about how short a dog's life is and who will deal with the poop. but we were without internet that weekend and it didn't get done. then was the craziness that comes with the end of school. the dog sits on a back burner.
then i wrote about my poor, condemned roses. i know the parents read the blog but they don't post. mom refuses to learn the newfangled technology of the internet. she seems to think it's like betamax and will be gone before she can figure it out. of course, mom, who finished up a lapsed college career the same time i was gong to college, typed up every college paper on the ridiculous electric typewriter i bought with my graduation dollars in 1986. she is a luddite.
dad, though, embraces technology. he pretends this is not true, something my own sweetie accuses me of regularly. he can disassemble, fix and reassemble just about anything. for a long time, i assumed all dads were like that and was shocked to find some dads pay people to change the oil in the car or fix the tv. i have my suspicions about why he doesn't post comments to the blog. for now he'll get away with it. he just doesn't post. but from time to time he emails me about my posts. this morning's email from him was titled "DAD....." it was a gloating email in all caps. it was the "i was right and you didn't expect it" sort of gloating. the most satisfying sort of gloating to do and the most exasperating sort of gloating to suffer through.
but he is right. it should not have been a surprise that he knew something i didn't expect him to know. when i called, i asked for mom, bypassing him without even considering that he'd know a rose right off the top of his head. but he has always had an abundance of random, strange, unlikely bits of info rattling around in his head. like when he told us polar bears don't have white fur. the hairs are hollow, he told us. and clear, like fingernails. they just look white. i believed it right away and tried to work that tidbit of information into conversation when possible. it was always met with laughter. but it's true, i'd insist. even in college. even in grad school. friends would laugh about "hillbilly lore" and would hug me for being adorable enough to believe such things. but my dad told me, i'd insist, which would just bring more laughter and hugs. everyone knew our parents' generation was nuts, full of spookiness and superstition and made up nonsense. they were children during the war and it had messed up their heads. but he was right. he's always right.
the thing about my dad is you can't figure where he gets this information he doles out. his relationship with school was not so friendly. i have seen his report cards. i'm not saying folks who don't enjoy school aren't smart. in fact, i've dedicated my entire professional life (which often spills over into everything else) to disproving that idea. this is probably dad's fault. what i'm saying is his knowledge is not all home remedies and car repair, although he's got those areas covered pretty well. it's school facts. only more detailed. his mind is like an encyclopedia of loose "academic" information. it's like he has playing cards up there each with a separate bit of fancy knowledge and once in a while he deals one out to someone.
i was looking at bird feathers, fingernails and pond water through my own microscope when i was in elementary school. see what i mean. he values things most men he identifies with don't. did your dad think you needed a microscope when you were little? it is this secret science life of his that fascinates me most because he tosses it out with full confidence and it always sounds made up. he comes across as a trickster, someone telling a joke at the expense of gullible folks. enigma. mystery. conundrum. my dad has spent a lifetime pretending to know nothing around people who are not his children. i have seen him. his hillbilly accent deepens and broadens when he interacts with new yorkers. they find him charming. he smiles and puts extra syllables in all his words, says them like they're accidentally falling out the side of his mouth. and nobody can tell he knows what color polar bears are.
Tuesday, June 24, 2008
Monday, June 23, 2008
a rose by any other name...
is a noxious weed.
we bought our house in fall and there wasn't much to the yard. there was a little evidence of a peony under a window and some staghorn sumac near the front corner of the yard. and there was a runty, scraggly rose bush stub under one of the living room windows.
i love roses. not those things men buy when they feel guilty. that sort of rose symbolizes all that is ugly about human interaction in my own humble opinion. it suggests a lack of creativity. if my own true sweetie came home on valentine's day with an armful of store roses, i would begin divorce proceedings. so when i say roses i mean those crazy, rambling, rickety looking small flowers that live on fat bushes in the yards of grandmothers. my own grandmother and her mother had them. if you picked them and brought them in the house half of them would shatter on the way in and the other half would wither within a few days. in the meantime, they'd fill your house with a smell you couldn't possibly deserve.
so that's what i was hoping for. old roses. i didn't hold out all that much hope. the bush had been in the path of the construction/remodeling/painting folks and i imagined they'd had all sorts of chemicals dumped on them. but when the snow started to melt and the stalk started to green up, i went out and stared and the bare, thorny stubs. i wasn't sure what to do but figured looking at them regularly would at least tip me off to any excitement that might be coming along. a few weeks into my staring, a kindly neighbor suggested i snip the branches back just before the place they start to brown. i did. and i continued to look at the greening stubs regularly. once the freezing stopped happening nights the green stubs started to grow and leaf out. as the buds formed, the aphids arrived. i panicked. a few years ago a lime tree i started from seed (yes, i did!) succumbed to a horrible infestation we'd battled two seasons. when i pulled the dead trunk and shriveled roots out of the pot it felt like i was burying a run-over pet. so when i saw those little stems covered with hundreds of vampire aphids, i did what anyone would do in the circumstances. i had a fit. having a fit rarely solves your problem, but it gives you time for someone more rational to come up with a solution and present it to you.
the other half is generally more rational and he brought some sort of aphid killing spray. he is waging all-out war against weeds in the yard and is a master of destructive chemicals. every weekend we'd drive up to the house and i'd expect to see the whole bush lying flat in the yard, it's weak limbs stretched out in supplication, one limb clutching wherever the heart of a rosebush would be. at the same time, i'd expect to see the whole thing ablaze with blooms, sagging under the weight of them like the ancient ramblers in my grandma's back yard. i began to take things far too seriously. i worried they'd be yellow or purple the way some pregnant women worry their kid will be born with horrible birth defects. i dreamed they were white. i dreamed they were red.
about the time of the great aphid assault, we noticed a few smaller bushes scattered around the
yard. two or three were nestled in among the tiger lilies. one snaked up the split rail fence around a tree. so many roses was almost more than i could bear, an excitement that tightens the chest. and then a few weeks ago they all started blooming. the big bush i'd tended had fat reddish pink buds that opened into roses that looked almost like button mums, billions of petals per rose, complete with a smell that comes right out of childhood. the other bushes, the ones scattered around the yard, were less bushy and more viny. and they were covered with the most awesome, delicate five petaled white flowers ever. these roses have a smell distinct from the red ones, softer, more fruity. it's a smell that travels a greater distance. you can smell them before you can even see them. i love them. i love the red ones and the white ones. along with the lily of the valley, peonies, tiger lilies and apple tree, i feel like we've got a complete old lady garden that any grandma would envy. i am satisfied. i feel very, very good about our yard and our flowers and feel like taking credit for what really just happened on its own.
the other half loves the fishing and talked me into joining him on a short expedition to the east branch of the delaware river, a mile or so from the house. the walk to the river is through about quarter mile of chest high undergrowth shaded by tall, close pines. a huge part of the undergrowth includes massive clumps of brambly white roses just like my own at home. while the other half fished i sat on the bank content to knit and breathe in the scent of roses. they were everywhere. they draped off stone bluffs. they oozed out off mud banks. they climbed twenty or thirty feet up the trunks of the massive pines. a friend asked me if they were the sleeping beauty kind. they are. thick. impenetrable. fantastic.
later at home i emailed photos to the parents so i could ask questions. my dad said the white ones were multiflora. no, i insisted. they're species roses. the origin of all roses. venerable and perfect and precious. he was adamant. he'd learned it in 4-h. i'm not joking. he remembered this small flower from something that happened more than fifty years ago. i insisted he was wrong. look it up, he challenged.
and that's when everything changed. because multiflora roses are evil. heartbreakingly evil. they came from asia quite some time ago and were used in the thirties as hedgerows because they were dense enough to keep livestock in. dense enough for sleeping beauty's castle. they are invasive. they spread and destroy any native plant in their way. at this point i decided i could still love them. love them the way you love a headstrong child who might have set a few fires. you tell yourself that your love will make the thing- child, rose, whatever- better. good. worth saving. i would keep mine there in the yard where they wouldn't be able to strangle any poor, helpless native species. i would still be able to love them and they'd be beautiful and people would see how beautiful they could be with the right person to love them and rein them in.
but no. because birds love these roses. well, who wouldn't? but the birds snap up the seeds and then drop them out later with their own fertilizer. they do this all over the place. so my own precious roses, roses that want to be good, don't have any choice in the matter. those horrible birds spread the rose seeds all over creation. now, i know what you're saying. what should i care? how is it my problem if my neighbors have to dig up an unwanted rose bush once in a while? well, my favorite neighbor is actually catskills park and i can't, in good conscience, let my roses go down the street to wild forest and drape their vampire selves all over that beautiful place.
my sweet little bramble roses are considered a noxious weed by the state of new york. you can look them up and most of the websites focus on how to destroy them. hundreds of sites all talking about the war we are waging against this soft scented menace. i have to kill them. the red ones can stay and for that i am grateful, but those delicate white ones have to be killed. i figure this season they are already blooming and there's nothing i can do about it except look at how pretty they are. but in the fall i will have to chop them back. the other half will offer to do it for me. the process will take six attempts, according to most websites. six seasons of killing roses. and although i will be grateful that the other half wants to help, i will do it myself. and when i teach of mice and men next year, i will tell my children about how hard it is to do what the rest of the world thinks is right.
we bought our house in fall and there wasn't much to the yard. there was a little evidence of a peony under a window and some staghorn sumac near the front corner of the yard. and there was a runty, scraggly rose bush stub under one of the living room windows.
i love roses. not those things men buy when they feel guilty. that sort of rose symbolizes all that is ugly about human interaction in my own humble opinion. it suggests a lack of creativity. if my own true sweetie came home on valentine's day with an armful of store roses, i would begin divorce proceedings. so when i say roses i mean those crazy, rambling, rickety looking small flowers that live on fat bushes in the yards of grandmothers. my own grandmother and her mother had them. if you picked them and brought them in the house half of them would shatter on the way in and the other half would wither within a few days. in the meantime, they'd fill your house with a smell you couldn't possibly deserve.
so that's what i was hoping for. old roses. i didn't hold out all that much hope. the bush had been in the path of the construction/remodeling/painting folks and i imagined they'd had all sorts of chemicals dumped on them. but when the snow started to melt and the stalk started to green up, i went out and stared and the bare, thorny stubs. i wasn't sure what to do but figured looking at them regularly would at least tip me off to any excitement that might be coming along. a few weeks into my staring, a kindly neighbor suggested i snip the branches back just before the place they start to brown. i did. and i continued to look at the greening stubs regularly. once the freezing stopped happening nights the green stubs started to grow and leaf out. as the buds formed, the aphids arrived. i panicked. a few years ago a lime tree i started from seed (yes, i did!) succumbed to a horrible infestation we'd battled two seasons. when i pulled the dead trunk and shriveled roots out of the pot it felt like i was burying a run-over pet. so when i saw those little stems covered with hundreds of vampire aphids, i did what anyone would do in the circumstances. i had a fit. having a fit rarely solves your problem, but it gives you time for someone more rational to come up with a solution and present it to you.
the other half is generally more rational and he brought some sort of aphid killing spray. he is waging all-out war against weeds in the yard and is a master of destructive chemicals. every weekend we'd drive up to the house and i'd expect to see the whole bush lying flat in the yard, it's weak limbs stretched out in supplication, one limb clutching wherever the heart of a rosebush would be. at the same time, i'd expect to see the whole thing ablaze with blooms, sagging under the weight of them like the ancient ramblers in my grandma's back yard. i began to take things far too seriously. i worried they'd be yellow or purple the way some pregnant women worry their kid will be born with horrible birth defects. i dreamed they were white. i dreamed they were red.
about the time of the great aphid assault, we noticed a few smaller bushes scattered around the
yard. two or three were nestled in among the tiger lilies. one snaked up the split rail fence around a tree. so many roses was almost more than i could bear, an excitement that tightens the chest. and then a few weeks ago they all started blooming. the big bush i'd tended had fat reddish pink buds that opened into roses that looked almost like button mums, billions of petals per rose, complete with a smell that comes right out of childhood. the other bushes, the ones scattered around the yard, were less bushy and more viny. and they were covered with the most awesome, delicate five petaled white flowers ever. these roses have a smell distinct from the red ones, softer, more fruity. it's a smell that travels a greater distance. you can smell them before you can even see them. i love them. i love the red ones and the white ones. along with the lily of the valley, peonies, tiger lilies and apple tree, i feel like we've got a complete old lady garden that any grandma would envy. i am satisfied. i feel very, very good about our yard and our flowers and feel like taking credit for what really just happened on its own.the other half loves the fishing and talked me into joining him on a short expedition to the east branch of the delaware river, a mile or so from the house. the walk to the river is through about quarter mile of chest high undergrowth shaded by tall, close pines. a huge part of the undergrowth includes massive clumps of brambly white roses just like my own at home. while the other half fished i sat on the bank content to knit and breathe in the scent of roses. they were everywhere. they draped off stone bluffs. they oozed out off mud banks. they climbed twenty or thirty feet up the trunks of the massive pines. a friend asked me if they were the sleeping beauty kind. they are. thick. impenetrable. fantastic.
later at home i emailed photos to the parents so i could ask questions. my dad said the white ones were multiflora. no, i insisted. they're species roses. the origin of all roses. venerable and perfect and precious. he was adamant. he'd learned it in 4-h. i'm not joking. he remembered this small flower from something that happened more than fifty years ago. i insisted he was wrong. look it up, he challenged.and that's when everything changed. because multiflora roses are evil. heartbreakingly evil. they came from asia quite some time ago and were used in the thirties as hedgerows because they were dense enough to keep livestock in. dense enough for sleeping beauty's castle. they are invasive. they spread and destroy any native plant in their way. at this point i decided i could still love them. love them the way you love a headstrong child who might have set a few fires. you tell yourself that your love will make the thing- child, rose, whatever- better. good. worth saving. i would keep mine there in the yard where they wouldn't be able to strangle any poor, helpless native species. i would still be able to love them and they'd be beautiful and people would see how beautiful they could be with the right person to love them and rein them in.
but no. because birds love these roses. well, who wouldn't? but the birds snap up the seeds and then drop them out later with their own fertilizer. they do this all over the place. so my own precious roses, roses that want to be good, don't have any choice in the matter. those horrible birds spread the rose seeds all over creation. now, i know what you're saying. what should i care? how is it my problem if my neighbors have to dig up an unwanted rose bush once in a while? well, my favorite neighbor is actually catskills park and i can't, in good conscience, let my roses go down the street to wild forest and drape their vampire selves all over that beautiful place.
my sweet little bramble roses are considered a noxious weed by the state of new york. you can look them up and most of the websites focus on how to destroy them. hundreds of sites all talking about the war we are waging against this soft scented menace. i have to kill them. the red ones can stay and for that i am grateful, but those delicate white ones have to be killed. i figure this season they are already blooming and there's nothing i can do about it except look at how pretty they are. but in the fall i will have to chop them back. the other half will offer to do it for me. the process will take six attempts, according to most websites. six seasons of killing roses. and although i will be grateful that the other half wants to help, i will do it myself. and when i teach of mice and men next year, i will tell my children about how hard it is to do what the rest of the world thinks is right.
Wednesday, June 18, 2008
forest creature
a few weeks ago the original supernatural nephew came to visit. he and his parents drove from missouri all the way to the catskills to see our new place, the dogs and our own sweet selves. i was sick. i got sick the week before- two days before the sweetie's birthday, three days before our anniversary. i was still sick the next week when the nephew came. nevertheless, his second day with us, my 40th birthday, we got up and went for a hike. when i am sick, i'm slow. i don't notice much. when you're having a birthday and when you're seeing a small child you only see once a year, you don't want to be slow. you want to notice everything.
the hike was a good hike, but didn't have the kind of excitement the nephew's aunt and uncle are generally known for. the nephew was hilarious. he loved posing for photos, pointing at whatever he wanted to be the focus of the image like some wacky tour guide. this drove his mother crazy, but he cracked himself up with his pointing poses. i figured he ought to be able to pose however he wanted since he was dealing with restrictions children from his part of the country don't usually deal with. he is quite a bit like his aunt and loves to collect. when we go on hikes, it takes all my willpower to keep myself from dragging home half the forest. i want to bring home bits of every moss, fern, flower, rock and whatever else might be portable enough for me to shove in a pocket. those signs at the trailheads guilt me into taking photos instead of laying
waste to the place out of love for it. because i know the nephew is like me, has this compulsion to pick up every pretty thing his eye lands on, i gave him the talk about leaving the forest the way it was when he arrived. and he took it very seriously. i know because there were times i could see him tense up with the need to pick up and pocket something. i could watch him struggle over his impulse and win, but it was tough, i know. i thought his alternative behavior, pointing out and being photographed with everything he wanted to pick up was pretty smart.we saw several trilliums and waterfalls. we crossed a couple of precarious foot bridges and wandered through and old apple orchard. afterward, we had honey ice cream from casey joe's. still, i wish i had been more like myself. more able to breathe and move. less tired.
last weekend, with only a cough to remind me i'd been sick, the sweetie and i tried out a new trail, one that promised waterfalls. there was no mention of the wild blackberries or lush moss we found along the way but we were glad to see them. so now the original supernatural nephew will need to come back.the seager trail is a few miles south of arkville at the end of a winding road with a few covered bridges off to the sides.
this time of year everything is pretty much covered with moss or ferns or vines or running water. you might want to click the photos and see them up close to get the real idea of the trail. there are four falls here, all within a mile of one another. the second flows over slabby stone into a pool deep enough for swimming.
then the stone and water conspire to create some things folks in eastern forests just aren't used to
seeing. spires. canyons. craziness.the nephew will love this hike. he will love leaping from rock to rock on the higher part of the trail. he will love the blackberries (yes, we will eat them. nobody with any sense would walk past a big bramble of ripe blackberries without snacking). he will love swimming in water that is fast at either end but cool and still and deep in the middle. he will love wading through a canyon.
Friday, June 13, 2008
cruel and unusual
this story is my experience of an event. although i am all through it, it's not really about me. i just don't know how to tell it without being in the middle of it. and i am very grateful to have been in the middle of it.
i am a control freak. the thing about being a control freak is that wanting to be in control is not always the same thing as being in control. for instance, i expect all my students to attend class every day and while they're there i expect them to listen to everything i say and then have brilliant things to say right back. good questions. fascinating insights. i expect my students to do every assignment i give them and to ask me questions when they don't understand something. all of this happens with a higher percentage now than it did at the beginning of the year, but the percentage is by no means high.
this is the last week of school and during the last week of school many teachers i work with don't expect much of the kids. they give finals and show movies. they are exhausted. the kids have shut their brains off. it's not unusual. this sort of thing doesn't happen in my classroom. this is not because i'm fancy or high-minded. it is because i am a control freak. the thought of being in a room full of kids who are doing nothing terrifies me and i don't like movies.
when i started working at my current school, i came up with a way to teach right up to the last day and keep the kids from realizing it. we have a literary salon the last day. i tell them the first day of the last marking period that they're going to write historical fiction. i say i expect 20 pages and let them know they have six weeks. the project, from draft to final product, is the entire marking period grade. and i tell them that on the last day we celebrate their work by sharing it with a discerning community of like-minded folks. then i explain "discerning". they are horrified. i told you before this teaching gig is all about me. i am the most selfish person you know. i love this sort of drama. they are too scared to complain right then, but for days after, the kids from my past classes come in grinning, telling stories of the petrified freshmen howling over their assignment. they are sure i can't be serious, but they will not say this to me. the kids from past classes always reassure the little ninth graders. one girl says she told a group of them, "no matter what, just do what she says and trust her. you'll get everything done." i am grateful for this good press and love hearing kids from three years ago talk about their own projects and their own fancy event. because they always do get it done. every year. they don't always get 20 pages, but they get 12 or 15, and that's a pretty impressive narrative sample for a kid with an academic label.
the salon was today. we printed invitations on parchment, rolled them up like tiny scrolls and hand delivered them. 40 went to teachers, administrators, guidance folks and even two of the security guards. many teachers teach during this time so we always overinvite. any student volunteering to read gets to invite two other students and several former students stopped by to request invitations as well. we invited 60 people and hoped for 25. we also decided who we didn't want. the list, called "the uninvited" was taped to the door. this decision was made by the greeters/door guardians who were adamant that the world should know some people are not capable of recognizing beauty and had to be kept away from it. invitations were collected at the door and those without were turned away. the kids loved being able to say no. they loved telling people they were a part of something fancy that most people couldn't have. this is the one day of the year i encourage separatist, elitist thinking.
we spent the first hour of class setting up. we exchanged our desks for round tables and draped them in white cloths. i brought in three dozen roses and showed a group of kids how to cut them and arrange them in vases on the tables. they tore a few roses apart so they could scatter petals at the base of all the vases. one child folded black and gold napkins into each other and another followed her with black knives and forks. two boys assembled plastic champagne glasses and set them around the tables while other students removed "school" remnants- things taped to the walls, on the board. one child carefully stowed the four massive piles of books and paper on my desk in a classroom locker. but the craziest part was the food.
i told them it would be fancy. at first, a few of them wanted pizza and soda and i explained they could serve whatever they wanted at the literary salons they set up. again with the selfishness. we spent a few days amassing the feast. several teachers chipped in and in the end we had just what we needed. two kids assembled trays with a variety of swanky cookies while another arranged cheeses on parchment paper. we discussed each kind and what it was good with. brie on a cracker with fresh peach slices on top, smoked gouda on a cracker just plain or for the more adventurous, with a little nutella smeared on. jarlsburg with raspberries or nutella or both. they thought i was out of my mind. those things do not go together. "try it", i said, smearing some nutella on a slice of jarlsburg. they did. they are easy converts with food. i knew they would like the strange mixes, but secretly i was just glad they trusted me enough to try them. the thing they expected least was sorbet. mango and coconut. i showed them how to put wafer thin slices of fresh lime (these, too, fascinated them) on the edge of a bowl, drop in a scoop of sorbet, then sprinkle raspberries on top. let me tell you, kids did not know what to do with sorbet with lime and raspberries. we had grapes and strawberries, mostly because they are good and recognizable, but also because the strawberries are great with nutella. how have high school kids never had fruit dipped in chocolate? they wore food service gloves, prepared everything and served everything and suggested things to people with empty plates.
there were two boys wandering around the room with bottles of sparkling cider, pouring them elegantly into glasses, lifting the glasses by the bowls instead of the stems, which they must have seen in a movie. another two set up the microphone and amp. they all asked what to do. i gave out jobs and they went. they were all on their own, working. i should remind you here about how i am a control freak, how i micromanage everything. except this one day every year when i say something once and do not even ask if the listener understands. i just move on to the next thing. we bring everything in and let the kids know what is expected. they take over. they work together.
and then the really big part happens. i go up to the "podium", which is really a file cabinet turned sideways. i pick up the microphone and quiet the crowd. we have seating for 45 and there are people standing. it is a big room, a room with more teachers in one place than any kid has ever seen before. i say very little, mention that the kids will be reading excerpts. i have no stage presence at this event. it is not about me and i am almost not there. i introduce the first reader. he reads three pages of a powerful story that has another 13 pages. a few years ago he barely knew english. while he reads i feel like i am going to explode. i am not going to be able to find words to tell these kids how proud i am of them. this must be a little of what it feels like to be a parent and i am fortunate to have that feeling amplified by twenty five children. there are nine readers. the little girl who wrote the poem i mentioned a few entries ago reads about a family during the dust bowl. she names the characters after her little brother and sister.
the children who read are not perfect. they have given me headaches in the past and i have yelled at them, snarled at them. they have fallen asleep in class, hit people, thrown pens, books, paper. they have refused to do assignments, thrown tantrums. to see them taking themselves seriously as authors is almost frightening. they slip into it so easily. it might really be who they are.
i am a control freak. the thing about being a control freak is that wanting to be in control is not always the same thing as being in control. for instance, i expect all my students to attend class every day and while they're there i expect them to listen to everything i say and then have brilliant things to say right back. good questions. fascinating insights. i expect my students to do every assignment i give them and to ask me questions when they don't understand something. all of this happens with a higher percentage now than it did at the beginning of the year, but the percentage is by no means high.
this is the last week of school and during the last week of school many teachers i work with don't expect much of the kids. they give finals and show movies. they are exhausted. the kids have shut their brains off. it's not unusual. this sort of thing doesn't happen in my classroom. this is not because i'm fancy or high-minded. it is because i am a control freak. the thought of being in a room full of kids who are doing nothing terrifies me and i don't like movies.
when i started working at my current school, i came up with a way to teach right up to the last day and keep the kids from realizing it. we have a literary salon the last day. i tell them the first day of the last marking period that they're going to write historical fiction. i say i expect 20 pages and let them know they have six weeks. the project, from draft to final product, is the entire marking period grade. and i tell them that on the last day we celebrate their work by sharing it with a discerning community of like-minded folks. then i explain "discerning". they are horrified. i told you before this teaching gig is all about me. i am the most selfish person you know. i love this sort of drama. they are too scared to complain right then, but for days after, the kids from my past classes come in grinning, telling stories of the petrified freshmen howling over their assignment. they are sure i can't be serious, but they will not say this to me. the kids from past classes always reassure the little ninth graders. one girl says she told a group of them, "no matter what, just do what she says and trust her. you'll get everything done." i am grateful for this good press and love hearing kids from three years ago talk about their own projects and their own fancy event. because they always do get it done. every year. they don't always get 20 pages, but they get 12 or 15, and that's a pretty impressive narrative sample for a kid with an academic label.
the salon was today. we printed invitations on parchment, rolled them up like tiny scrolls and hand delivered them. 40 went to teachers, administrators, guidance folks and even two of the security guards. many teachers teach during this time so we always overinvite. any student volunteering to read gets to invite two other students and several former students stopped by to request invitations as well. we invited 60 people and hoped for 25. we also decided who we didn't want. the list, called "the uninvited" was taped to the door. this decision was made by the greeters/door guardians who were adamant that the world should know some people are not capable of recognizing beauty and had to be kept away from it. invitations were collected at the door and those without were turned away. the kids loved being able to say no. they loved telling people they were a part of something fancy that most people couldn't have. this is the one day of the year i encourage separatist, elitist thinking.
we spent the first hour of class setting up. we exchanged our desks for round tables and draped them in white cloths. i brought in three dozen roses and showed a group of kids how to cut them and arrange them in vases on the tables. they tore a few roses apart so they could scatter petals at the base of all the vases. one child folded black and gold napkins into each other and another followed her with black knives and forks. two boys assembled plastic champagne glasses and set them around the tables while other students removed "school" remnants- things taped to the walls, on the board. one child carefully stowed the four massive piles of books and paper on my desk in a classroom locker. but the craziest part was the food.
i told them it would be fancy. at first, a few of them wanted pizza and soda and i explained they could serve whatever they wanted at the literary salons they set up. again with the selfishness. we spent a few days amassing the feast. several teachers chipped in and in the end we had just what we needed. two kids assembled trays with a variety of swanky cookies while another arranged cheeses on parchment paper. we discussed each kind and what it was good with. brie on a cracker with fresh peach slices on top, smoked gouda on a cracker just plain or for the more adventurous, with a little nutella smeared on. jarlsburg with raspberries or nutella or both. they thought i was out of my mind. those things do not go together. "try it", i said, smearing some nutella on a slice of jarlsburg. they did. they are easy converts with food. i knew they would like the strange mixes, but secretly i was just glad they trusted me enough to try them. the thing they expected least was sorbet. mango and coconut. i showed them how to put wafer thin slices of fresh lime (these, too, fascinated them) on the edge of a bowl, drop in a scoop of sorbet, then sprinkle raspberries on top. let me tell you, kids did not know what to do with sorbet with lime and raspberries. we had grapes and strawberries, mostly because they are good and recognizable, but also because the strawberries are great with nutella. how have high school kids never had fruit dipped in chocolate? they wore food service gloves, prepared everything and served everything and suggested things to people with empty plates.
there were two boys wandering around the room with bottles of sparkling cider, pouring them elegantly into glasses, lifting the glasses by the bowls instead of the stems, which they must have seen in a movie. another two set up the microphone and amp. they all asked what to do. i gave out jobs and they went. they were all on their own, working. i should remind you here about how i am a control freak, how i micromanage everything. except this one day every year when i say something once and do not even ask if the listener understands. i just move on to the next thing. we bring everything in and let the kids know what is expected. they take over. they work together.
and then the really big part happens. i go up to the "podium", which is really a file cabinet turned sideways. i pick up the microphone and quiet the crowd. we have seating for 45 and there are people standing. it is a big room, a room with more teachers in one place than any kid has ever seen before. i say very little, mention that the kids will be reading excerpts. i have no stage presence at this event. it is not about me and i am almost not there. i introduce the first reader. he reads three pages of a powerful story that has another 13 pages. a few years ago he barely knew english. while he reads i feel like i am going to explode. i am not going to be able to find words to tell these kids how proud i am of them. this must be a little of what it feels like to be a parent and i am fortunate to have that feeling amplified by twenty five children. there are nine readers. the little girl who wrote the poem i mentioned a few entries ago reads about a family during the dust bowl. she names the characters after her little brother and sister.
the children who read are not perfect. they have given me headaches in the past and i have yelled at them, snarled at them. they have fallen asleep in class, hit people, thrown pens, books, paper. they have refused to do assignments, thrown tantrums. to see them taking themselves seriously as authors is almost frightening. they slip into it so easily. it might really be who they are.
Thursday, June 12, 2008
raccoon up
one winter afternoon i came home from work and let the dogs out into the back yard. it's a small yard, a brooklyn yard, and the far side of it is only ten or fifteen feet from the near side. the far side is bordered by the fence that separates humanity from the subway cut beyond. on this day, perched on the fence was a fat raccoon. in my mind, all daytime raccoons have rabies so the dogs and i hurried back inside.
several months earlier, may or june, our school's front yard was host to a family of opossums, so when several students asked me today if i'd seen the raccoon on the roof i should not have been all that surprised. i looked out the window and there he was perched at the edge of a steeply pitched roof, four stories from the ground. from the elementary school's playground, to be exact. rabies, i said. stupid raccoon. but how does a raccoon get up there? plenty of people offered up brilliant ideas about how a raccoon gets four stories high. city folks just assumed the thing had walked up the side of the wall. my favorite was that he came in the building unnoticed and walked up four flights of stairs, somehow managed to get past several locked doors and leaped out onto the roof, only to find that it wasn't quite where he wanted to be. raccoons do, after all, have thumbs.
the police came. some fire guys came. they aren't really trained to rescue an animal that will probably manage to throw them off the roof if approached. animal control has been too busy and the raccoon is on a wait list.
i want him to come down. although i do not care for raccoons (up close, they are like giant, wide-hipped rats wearing bandit masks) i do not want to watch any animal slowly roast on a roof in plain sight of several hundred children. he looks sad and scared and although i know that this is because he is clearly the stupidest raccoon in the world and his death would strengthen the raccoon gene pool, it is in my job description an in my heart to champion the cause of those who sometimes make poor decisions. the city folks say that when it gets cooler tonight he will get back down the way he got up. i hope the maintenance guys left the door to the stairs unlocked.
several months earlier, may or june, our school's front yard was host to a family of opossums, so when several students asked me today if i'd seen the raccoon on the roof i should not have been all that surprised. i looked out the window and there he was perched at the edge of a steeply pitched roof, four stories from the ground. from the elementary school's playground, to be exact. rabies, i said. stupid raccoon. but how does a raccoon get up there? plenty of people offered up brilliant ideas about how a raccoon gets four stories high. city folks just assumed the thing had walked up the side of the wall. my favorite was that he came in the building unnoticed and walked up four flights of stairs, somehow managed to get past several locked doors and leaped out onto the roof, only to find that it wasn't quite where he wanted to be. raccoons do, after all, have thumbs.
the police came. some fire guys came. they aren't really trained to rescue an animal that will probably manage to throw them off the roof if approached. animal control has been too busy and the raccoon is on a wait list.
i want him to come down. although i do not care for raccoons (up close, they are like giant, wide-hipped rats wearing bandit masks) i do not want to watch any animal slowly roast on a roof in plain sight of several hundred children. he looks sad and scared and although i know that this is because he is clearly the stupidest raccoon in the world and his death would strengthen the raccoon gene pool, it is in my job description an in my heart to champion the cause of those who sometimes make poor decisions. the city folks say that when it gets cooler tonight he will get back down the way he got up. i hope the maintenance guys left the door to the stairs unlocked.
manhattan
ah, manhattan. manhattan, kansas, that is. settlement of the early free-staters. home of elvira, mistress of the dark and kansas state university. manhattan lies in the middle of some of the flattest land in the country. somebody from manhattan will try to correct me and will talk about the flint hills. don't. it's flat. pancake flat. a great place to study wind. or wind erosion, which is one of the things the folks at ksu spend some time on. in fact, they're fascinated enough by wind erosion they built themselves a nice little lab called the wind erosion laboratory. i'll bet they've been learning all sorts of things about wind and what wind can do. in fact, today the folks at the wind erosion lab learned more than they ever learned before about the power of wind because this morning when they arrived at their lab, it wasn't there. you see, the wind erosion laboratory was blown away by a tornado in the night.
Sunday, June 8, 2008
heat wave
today it is a million degrees. okay, it's really 96.1 degrees, beating out a record of 95 set back in 1933. this may not strike you as odd. it is summer and that's what happens in summer. but not in brooklyn in june. we don't have the technology to deal with weather like this. brooklyn, unlike most modern cities, was build way back before electricity and not rebuilt. everything is old. our own little neighborhood was built at the turn of the last century, which means there is no central air. this is the time of year when new york city's notoriously small apartments finally pay off. it takes just one window unit to cool most of these 400 square foot places.
we are cursed with a large apartment. this time of year we must make choices. we have three window unit air conditioners. they're small and are only on when the rooms are occupied. we close off the rest of the house to maximize cooling in the area where we lie around reading, knitting or watching tv. this leaves the kitchen and bathroom sitting in still, steamy isolation. the trip to the fridge to get a drink is like walking through the mouth of a dog.
although most subway cars are air conditioned, you are never sure until you step on the car and the doors close. if you're lucky, you feel a little shiver because nyc transit takes air conditioning seriously. if you're not, you can smell the armpits of every one of the 200 people crammed against you in the car for your entire commute. of course, waiting for the train is just as exciting. my train travel involves an elevated train within blocks of the ocean breezes. no kidding. however, most train rides involve going into a wretched hole in the ground with none of the glamor or temperature control of a cave. it is generally at least 15 degrees hotter in a tunnel station than it is outside. so today is 96+15=111 sweltering degrees. now, that 111 degrees bakes in the urine smells and other fine aromas of the underground tunnels. this is not the most brutal part of the day.
i work in a public school. my classroom, like my apartment, is larger than i deserve. it is on a corner of the top (4th) floor and has two delicious window unit air conditioners. when i arrive tomorrow at 7am and the temperature and humidity are both hovering at 80, i will turn on both machines and shut the heavy wooden door. when my students arrive at 8am, they will say nice things about me, as will teachers on my floor and children i've never met who want to step into the room for just one minute. tomorrow we are planning to compete with 99 degree temperatures for the attention of high school children during the last week of school. none of the other classrooms on my floor have air conditioners. in fact, most of the classrooms in my school do not have air conditioners. although most classes have four or five tall (10+ feet) windows, most do not open, or have been modified to open a few inches to insure that children do not leap out. there are a few pedestal fans shifting hot air from one side of the room to another.
but, as i said, my classroom is a lush, cool exception. and these are the days my kids are on their best behavior. they will do anything to spend two hours with me. nobody asks to go to the bathroom or get a drink. nobody does anything that might require a walk to the sweltering dean's room. on rare occasions when it gets noisy, i tell kids i might need to turn off the a/c so i can hear. it gets terrifyingly silent. if you look closely, you can see their shivering bodies trying to store up the cold like a bear storing up fat for the winter.
we are cursed with a large apartment. this time of year we must make choices. we have three window unit air conditioners. they're small and are only on when the rooms are occupied. we close off the rest of the house to maximize cooling in the area where we lie around reading, knitting or watching tv. this leaves the kitchen and bathroom sitting in still, steamy isolation. the trip to the fridge to get a drink is like walking through the mouth of a dog.
although most subway cars are air conditioned, you are never sure until you step on the car and the doors close. if you're lucky, you feel a little shiver because nyc transit takes air conditioning seriously. if you're not, you can smell the armpits of every one of the 200 people crammed against you in the car for your entire commute. of course, waiting for the train is just as exciting. my train travel involves an elevated train within blocks of the ocean breezes. no kidding. however, most train rides involve going into a wretched hole in the ground with none of the glamor or temperature control of a cave. it is generally at least 15 degrees hotter in a tunnel station than it is outside. so today is 96+15=111 sweltering degrees. now, that 111 degrees bakes in the urine smells and other fine aromas of the underground tunnels. this is not the most brutal part of the day.
i work in a public school. my classroom, like my apartment, is larger than i deserve. it is on a corner of the top (4th) floor and has two delicious window unit air conditioners. when i arrive tomorrow at 7am and the temperature and humidity are both hovering at 80, i will turn on both machines and shut the heavy wooden door. when my students arrive at 8am, they will say nice things about me, as will teachers on my floor and children i've never met who want to step into the room for just one minute. tomorrow we are planning to compete with 99 degree temperatures for the attention of high school children during the last week of school. none of the other classrooms on my floor have air conditioners. in fact, most of the classrooms in my school do not have air conditioners. although most classes have four or five tall (10+ feet) windows, most do not open, or have been modified to open a few inches to insure that children do not leap out. there are a few pedestal fans shifting hot air from one side of the room to another.
but, as i said, my classroom is a lush, cool exception. and these are the days my kids are on their best behavior. they will do anything to spend two hours with me. nobody asks to go to the bathroom or get a drink. nobody does anything that might require a walk to the sweltering dean's room. on rare occasions when it gets noisy, i tell kids i might need to turn off the a/c so i can hear. it gets terrifyingly silent. if you look closely, you can see their shivering bodies trying to store up the cold like a bear storing up fat for the winter.
Saturday, June 7, 2008
freaktoe
warning: gross description of oozing dog wound
max is old and full of bumps. if you know him, you know this. if you read this blog, you also know he has suffered through two poisonings and a de-toothification of terrifying proportions. recently one of max's bumps began to develop its own personality. it ceased to be a little black dot on him and began to grow. because max's small body appears to be some sort of special growth medium for these bumps, we didn't pay it much attention. it was not unusual. it sat on top of one of his back toes, covered with fur.
max ignored it. it didn't hurt. it didn't interfere with walking. but the evil thing kept growing. i suggested maybe an undeveloped twin had migrated from his innards to his toe in an attempt to escape and start its own life. no one else seemed to like this idea, so i gave up on it for a while. but the thing kept growing. at first, it was a little flat, black, fur covered thing but by last week it was the size of a grape. we took him to the vet. they stabbed in a syringe and drew out what looked like an extra store of old blood. max was not happy.
the vet planned to test the hideous syrup from max's toe bump and sent us home. last night i noticed that his bump looked like a squished grape and all the toe fur on it was gone. max, who hates the vet, managed to find the hole the vet had punctured in him and siphon off all the remaining hideous syrup from the now-deflated bump. evidently gross toe growth syrup is tasty because max continued to lick his wound after he's slurped out all the insides of it until all the fur was gone. i am not a squeamish person, but this tested my limits.
the hideous bump immediately refilled itself with fluid and even swelled up a little. chris tried squishing some of the fluid out and was successful, but he also managed to crush something he described as being like a corn chip inside the toe bump. i returned to my original undeveloped twin theory, speculating that chris had just crushed the bones of max's tiny, freakish brother or sister .
we woke up early this morning (4:30am) to go upstate, to see two good friends and their small baby, to see my apple tree and to check on the peonies, which have been taunting me with ant-covered buds for weeks. max was grumpy. he hates driving, so when he's in the car it's tough to tell how he really feels because he really feels like he hates everything on top of whatever else might be happening. we got to the house and there were tiny apples just starting up on the tree and several fat, fragrant peonies in the yard. in the house max plopped into his dog bed and did his best impression of a dying animal. we looked at his toe and what had been a mildly creepy bump yesterday looked like a new internal organ somehow lost and wandering around on the outside of poor max. it was smooth and purple and shiny and looked like it would explode. and max was limping.
so we called all the vets in our little town and the nearby towns and nobody is open on saturday to care for animals. this seemed strange, but there wasn't much we could do but call our brooklyn vet who offered us an appointment at 4. it was 11am and we'd been on the road since six with just an hour to rest at the house. but max in pain is a terrifying thing to see, so we called the friends with the baby who were on the road to visit and told them to drive back home and we hopped in the car and headed back to brooklyn. max did not seem to notice.
back at the vet's office max tried to bite lots of people who were helping him and he had to wear a little blue cloth muzzle. when his teeth were decomissioned, he tried to maim people by writhing around and banging his head into them. he has a lot of faith in his own power. the vet took him upstairs to open his bulging wound and then wrapped it in red bandages. he has to go back tomorrow for more draining and bandaging and then surgery on monday. he has expressed his unhappiness about this numerous ways.
because this problem all started when max began devouring his own boo-boo, he got one of
those awesome satellite dish collars to wear. the woman who brought it out tried to hold it up and measure it against max's head and he tried to bite her. when max tries to bite, he involves his whole body. in this instance his short legs were flailing while his blood tipped tail (somehow the whole end of his tail was blood-soaked on his return from bandaging) whipped around and his long dachshund body writhed so that a person (me) trying to hold such a mess has quite a bit of trouble controlling things. chris and i both attempted to put the collar over max's head. this is another thing he hates. he whipped out the fangs of fury, which are all the more terrifying because one of the actual fangs is gone along with five other teeth, allowing max to bite deeper and more dangerously with some parts of his mouth. so i carried him to the car without the stupid collar. eventually, through cleverness and trickery, max found himself in the collar and he entered the house limping with a little red boot and swaying his angry head like a horrible bell of vengeance. guthrie and the cats kept out of his way.
here we are at home with an angry, snaggle-toothed dog who is in pain and is having trouble navigating because of the big plastic collar and i have to give him bright pink medicine in a syringe. chris holds max on his back so his face is in the bottom of a plastic collar funnel and he carefully peels back some very uncooperative dog lips. then he pries open the very dangerous snaggle fangs. i hold the syringe in front of max's mouth and press the plunger just as he goes into something like an alligator death roll. i get most of the medicine inside the dog, but there's plenty on his nose and ears and there are streaks of bright pink all over the inside of his funnel collar. the bright pink smells good. he begins to lick the inside of the collar, spinning it to get all the medicine.
max is old and full of bumps. if you know him, you know this. if you read this blog, you also know he has suffered through two poisonings and a de-toothification of terrifying proportions. recently one of max's bumps began to develop its own personality. it ceased to be a little black dot on him and began to grow. because max's small body appears to be some sort of special growth medium for these bumps, we didn't pay it much attention. it was not unusual. it sat on top of one of his back toes, covered with fur.
max ignored it. it didn't hurt. it didn't interfere with walking. but the evil thing kept growing. i suggested maybe an undeveloped twin had migrated from his innards to his toe in an attempt to escape and start its own life. no one else seemed to like this idea, so i gave up on it for a while. but the thing kept growing. at first, it was a little flat, black, fur covered thing but by last week it was the size of a grape. we took him to the vet. they stabbed in a syringe and drew out what looked like an extra store of old blood. max was not happy.
the vet planned to test the hideous syrup from max's toe bump and sent us home. last night i noticed that his bump looked like a squished grape and all the toe fur on it was gone. max, who hates the vet, managed to find the hole the vet had punctured in him and siphon off all the remaining hideous syrup from the now-deflated bump. evidently gross toe growth syrup is tasty because max continued to lick his wound after he's slurped out all the insides of it until all the fur was gone. i am not a squeamish person, but this tested my limits.
the hideous bump immediately refilled itself with fluid and even swelled up a little. chris tried squishing some of the fluid out and was successful, but he also managed to crush something he described as being like a corn chip inside the toe bump. i returned to my original undeveloped twin theory, speculating that chris had just crushed the bones of max's tiny, freakish brother or sister .
we woke up early this morning (4:30am) to go upstate, to see two good friends and their small baby, to see my apple tree and to check on the peonies, which have been taunting me with ant-covered buds for weeks. max was grumpy. he hates driving, so when he's in the car it's tough to tell how he really feels because he really feels like he hates everything on top of whatever else might be happening. we got to the house and there were tiny apples just starting up on the tree and several fat, fragrant peonies in the yard. in the house max plopped into his dog bed and did his best impression of a dying animal. we looked at his toe and what had been a mildly creepy bump yesterday looked like a new internal organ somehow lost and wandering around on the outside of poor max. it was smooth and purple and shiny and looked like it would explode. and max was limping.
so we called all the vets in our little town and the nearby towns and nobody is open on saturday to care for animals. this seemed strange, but there wasn't much we could do but call our brooklyn vet who offered us an appointment at 4. it was 11am and we'd been on the road since six with just an hour to rest at the house. but max in pain is a terrifying thing to see, so we called the friends with the baby who were on the road to visit and told them to drive back home and we hopped in the car and headed back to brooklyn. max did not seem to notice.
back at the vet's office max tried to bite lots of people who were helping him and he had to wear a little blue cloth muzzle. when his teeth were decomissioned, he tried to maim people by writhing around and banging his head into them. he has a lot of faith in his own power. the vet took him upstairs to open his bulging wound and then wrapped it in red bandages. he has to go back tomorrow for more draining and bandaging and then surgery on monday. he has expressed his unhappiness about this numerous ways.
because this problem all started when max began devouring his own boo-boo, he got one of
those awesome satellite dish collars to wear. the woman who brought it out tried to hold it up and measure it against max's head and he tried to bite her. when max tries to bite, he involves his whole body. in this instance his short legs were flailing while his blood tipped tail (somehow the whole end of his tail was blood-soaked on his return from bandaging) whipped around and his long dachshund body writhed so that a person (me) trying to hold such a mess has quite a bit of trouble controlling things. chris and i both attempted to put the collar over max's head. this is another thing he hates. he whipped out the fangs of fury, which are all the more terrifying because one of the actual fangs is gone along with five other teeth, allowing max to bite deeper and more dangerously with some parts of his mouth. so i carried him to the car without the stupid collar. eventually, through cleverness and trickery, max found himself in the collar and he entered the house limping with a little red boot and swaying his angry head like a horrible bell of vengeance. guthrie and the cats kept out of his way.here we are at home with an angry, snaggle-toothed dog who is in pain and is having trouble navigating because of the big plastic collar and i have to give him bright pink medicine in a syringe. chris holds max on his back so his face is in the bottom of a plastic collar funnel and he carefully peels back some very uncooperative dog lips. then he pries open the very dangerous snaggle fangs. i hold the syringe in front of max's mouth and press the plunger just as he goes into something like an alligator death roll. i get most of the medicine inside the dog, but there's plenty on his nose and ears and there are streaks of bright pink all over the inside of his funnel collar. the bright pink smells good. he begins to lick the inside of the collar, spinning it to get all the medicine.
Tuesday, June 3, 2008
pretty
some important info-1. i knit, especially things for babies. this is because everyone i know is of childbearing age and has decided to pursue childbearing aggressively.
2. i have two dachshunds.
3. sometimes, these two things collide.
guthrie has no shame and is roughly the size of a newborn-3month old. although his legs aren't ever in the right place, sometimes i slap a dress on him just to see how it will hang. this is some dreamy yarn- 100% silk from italy. there are bloomers to match, and although guthrie's hindquarter are pretty meaty, he's got that bothersome tail so those never fit him. the dress ties at the back of the neck and this hound simply wouldn't sit long enough for the tying. still, he's a pretty good sport to model such things.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)