Back to School

The news is all about tax free weekends, school supplies shopping, middle school fashion, how to fit in and how many teachers' jobs have been saved.
It may still be August on the calendar and unbearable on the thermometer, but tomorrow I have to go back to work, and the following Monday the school house will be full of scholars looking good and ready to...text, complain, whine, cheat, wheedle, avoid, delay, and deny.
Another school year is about to begin.
I cannot believe how quickly ten weeks can evaporate under the Texas sun. I've had a great break. I've had trips and seen sights. I've been to movies, lunches, dinners, shopping and to the pool.
I've had all my summer markers: watermelon, cream peas, ice cream, cobbler, hot water cornbread, fried okra, catfish, pizza. It's a good thing I've also gone to water aerobics weekday evenings!
I've knitted, read trashy novels, napped in the afternoons, and I've even prepared materials to use in the classroom. It has been a time of rest and restoration.
But tomorrow inservice begins and I'm ready to roll. This is how I know it isn't time for me to retire. I still want a new first day of school dress. I still want some new pens and a list of the kids who will be in my classes. I still enjoy learning all those names and figuring out all the personalities.
Ten weeks is a long vacation and it's certainly nice to have. It won't be fun to begin waking to an alarm clock again. It will be miserable getting into a car that's over a 100 degrees inside each afternoon to head home. But I have a job. It doesn't come with a pay raise this year. In fact, the increase in health insurance means that the take home will actually be reduced. But, I have a job. Millions of Americans don't this year and the prospects are gloomy for many more.
So tomorrow, no matter how much I may drag my feet when it's time to get up and get in the shower, I'll try to remember how blessed I am to have a job and that it comes with an opportunity to influence the lives of approximately three hundred young people who need to know how the republic is supposed to work for its citizens.

It Was a Dark and Stormy Night

Came home from Dallas this afternoon. Those kids wear me out. We went to a concert at the Arboretum on Thursday evening. Saw a band that covers Crosby, Stills, Nash and Young better than the original. Those Thursday concerts are an awesome evening. Everyone brings their blankets or beach chairs, a little libation and some grapes and cheese. Once the sun goes down, it's quite pleasant in Dallas because their humidity isn't so high.
Friday I went with them to see the potential house where they were meeting their realtor to look over an offer on the present residence. If all this works together for good, then I guess they will be moving in the near future.
I loved the way the house looks, but there is something on a sensory level that doesn't feel quite right. Lord, make it right for them.
Friday evening we had to hang out at the Tex-Mex for the dinner hour, while their house was shown. I felt obligated to help my poor child ready the house and that led to far more house work than I've done around here in a month of Sundays.
To make things even more interesting, my hosts beloved dog had been crated recently during house showings and had eaten some fiber filling from her bed. This led to an obstruction, which led to vomiting, which ultimately led to the vet.
After visiting the TV free zone, I'm always starved for news when I get home. News and vegetables. So I made a salad and got in position to watch some mindless drivel when the power went out. It didn't rain all that much, but the wind was blowing and the lightening was striking all around. So drivel was out and I wound up having a nice conversation with Mother.
About the time I decided to take my flashlight and head to bed, the power was restored. My dark and stormy night is over and I'm looking forward to sleeping in my own bed without a big dog.

Nineteenth Nervous Breakdown

I had scheduled the cable company to come and "bundle" my services...sounded really convenient to get one bill for the television, phone, and Internet. Some dude named Tony rang the doorbell last week, selling this golden opportunity, and Mother who would have probably welcomed in Charles Manson, had him in the living room before I had a chance to react.
The idea is that we get a gazillion channels, movies on demand, premium channels, DVR, faster Internet, blah, blah for only one reasonable monthly rate, no charge for installation.
The installers came today. Right now I have only 21 of the gazillion channels, my phone won't change over from the old company until they can "capture the number" on the fourteenth, and I'm still hooked up to the phone Internet access because my cable is old and needs to be replaced.
The kids who came to do this job literally went into every room in the house except the kitchen, dining room and Mother's bathroom. There was one path of graddoo they tracked in from outside and another they brought down out of the attic.
The whole process took about two hours and during that time they moved every piece of furniture in the house. I am feeling better now, but only because I took half of one of the little anti-anxiety pills that Mother keeps in her linen closet.
The account with SuperCable is still in my Daddy's name and he's been dead for twelve years, so I can't put in the last four numbers of the Social Security number of the account holder to speak to anyone at the cable company. Tony the Italian "district manager" is evidently still celebrating America's independence and can't be reached. The only good news here is that they will not keep me from seeing what really broke up Jake and Vienna this evening on ABC.
I probably would have been in better shape to handle this crisis of technology, if we hadn't had son and significant other for dinner on the Fourth. Having not visited with them since Easter, I thought it timely that we reconnect, even though it can be as tricky as negotiating a minefield to spend time with the pair of them.
I was saddened by some other news before their arrival, so color me emotionally fragile hostess material.
They arrived on time, and my son immediately launched into his dead-on imitation of my former father-in-law. Not my favorite person, his chillingly narcissistic self-absorption is not what I wanted for my boy. Both son and significant are non-stop talkers...they don't converse, they lecture. There's no pause for reply, there's no tolerance for the flawed opinions of others, and please don't get them started on politics.
Dinner was declined by significant, as she was feeling unwell. It was pronounced edible by son, even though "it looked a little girlie". Real men don't eat cool things in hot weather evidently.
My poor Mother was on the verge of tears before they left. Fortunately, they aren't disinclined to eat and run.
The rest of the evening we sat in shocked silence and watched normal America celebrate the Fourth with music and fireworks, but the most freeing part of the holiday for me was its ending.

July 4 Dr. Stanley's Good Idea

Independence Day is here again, hooray for the USA. Let's just hope that this is still a viable cause for celebration in the future. Like many Americans, I'm worried for our country. The Congress is broken, the political parties are a bad joke or a crime syndicate depending on your mood at the moment. The candidate that I voted for President isn't exactly turning out to be the hope and change I wanted. In June another former student was lost to the war in Afghanistan and to the little boys who were his sons. Personally, I think government of the people, by the people, for the people has gone off the rails and we would be wise to do everything in our power to get it righted.
That's where Dr. Stanley comes in. This morning Gigi was watching the First Baptists in Atlanta as she does almost every Sunday. Dr.Charles Stanley, their pastor and an awesome old time Baptist preacher, spoke on the need for our nation to turn back to God as the source of our blessings. He talked about where the country is headed and the purposes of government. We have taken God out of our public discourse. We don't talk about Jesus for fear of offending other religious groups. He talked about our national greed and corruption. But most profoundly he asked those in his congregation and his audience to pledge to pray for our nation and our government for the next 20 weeks. For 140 days he wants those who will join him to lift up our common weal to God and ask him to heal and help us to return to a nation truly under God.
This seems like the best idea that I've heard for celebrating America and all it stands for. Count me in Dr. Stanley.

Thelma and Louise Redux

My old friend Jean, a widow, from my bridge group and I have birthdays the same week in June. We also have limited opportunities to travel. So, when our bridge group met in May and everyone else was talking travel plans, we decided we needed to make some plans of our own.
She had never been to the mountains and I've always wanted to go to Yellowstone, so we decided that we would devise a route that would take us to Colorado Springs, Jackson Hole and on to Mount Rushmore and back to Texas by way of the middle of the nation.
We left on June 14 and didn't get back until the 26th. It was an arduous journey of close to 4,000 miles. That's a lot of gasoline, cheap hotel rooms, and switching butt cheeks.
I'm amazed by how much I feel that I learned on this trip, beginning with simple geography. I have trouble remembering which square state is which. It was pretty impressive to see how much agriculture and commerce appear to be going on. I know that the economy is not great, but the hotels were full, the fields were green, the train cars were loaded. It made me feel encouraged.
Did I mention the scenery? Wowee, wow, wow as the Grand would say. The Tetons were magnificent. The aftermath of forest fires in Yellowstone really made an impression. Seeing snow on the ground a couple of feet deep in late June...unimaginable to a girl used to summers in the hubs of hell. No one ever told me about the Badlands of South Dakota. I've never seen anything so awe inspiring. To think that it was once the bottom of an ancient sea.
Jean and I made acceptable travel companions. We agreed on when and what to eat. We were pretty considerate of each other. We're enough alike that we didn't have one saying bungee jump and the other wanting to tour a museum.
We did have our tense moments, someone is always bound to do something insulting, but we resolved the issues and made it home friendship in tact.
Last stop on the trip was in Dallas to see my kids for a few minutes. I bought Sloan a pair of red cowgirl boots which she promptly put on although she was wearing her favorite "princess" skirt and some bracelets. She then added the park ranger hat from the gift shop and Mt. Rushmore, and the ensemble was complete.
There is truly no place like home. No matter how wonderful travelling may be, and no matter how hot and humid the weather here, it is good to sleep in your own bed and especially to make your own coffee.

Meanwhile Back in the Gulf...

There is a picture of a sign on Facebook this morning that someone took at a Big Polluter station. It ironically says that customers are responsible for their own spills. I noticed that one of the commentors was hot that Obama hasn't gotten this leak stopped and the spill cleaned up. I promise you on most days this individual is ranting that government is too big and Obama, the socialist tyrant, is trying to take over the world, and thinks he is the Second Coming.
That group seems to be completely unaware that the deregulation of the oil industry and the cozy relationships between big oil and the Department of the Interior and the Department of Energy developed BEFORE Barack Obama was the President.
No matter what the hell happened here or how long it's going to take to solve the problem, Barack Obama didn't bring this about, and I'm pretty sure that his Harvard law degree doesn't equip him to figure out what a whole hell of a lot of petroleum engineers don't seem to be able to design.
Wake up America! This is another prime example of what happens when we forfeit government by the people, for the people for corporatism. We've been so busy social networking and waiting for the newest Iphone to come out that we haven't noticed that our lawmakers are a wholly owned subsidiary of the largest corporations in the world.
BP like all the other corporate giants has used part of its record profits to make sure that the Congress and the bureaucracy make the rules in their favor. Then they dribble out some dividends to make the part of the population that can afford to invest happy. The rest of us are just along for the ride, and we're only now beginning to notice that their scheme doesn't really call for a middle class. They don't need skilled workers, those jobs can more cheaply be done overseas. They don't need public schools, you can't do things their way if the people are informed and educated. They've encouraged the belief that Americans are too good to pick their own fruit, mow their own lawns and build their own houses. Besides undocumented labor is better for the bottom line; well corporate bottom lines. It turns out that illegal workers are bankrupting state budgets with educating their children and providing for their healthcare.
Meanwhile back in the Gulf, millions of barrels of oil are spewing into the ocean's currents , eventually poisoning the food chain, suffocating the environment, and killing more of the economy by eliminating jobs for fishermen and those who depend on tourism.
Yes, it's imperative that someone stop this leaking. Someone has to pay. Someone has to figure it all out and make it better. But America we have to wake up and stop making government our enemy. We have to stop listening to the voices that tell us we can have something for nothing and that government is too big. We have to have government to provide order and security. We have to pay for what we receive from government.
If our republic is going to survive, we have to respect the notion that there is a common good, and that corporate greed and corrupt lawmakers operating in their own interests and not for the good of their customers and contituents, has to stop.
This oil spill should be a lesson for all of us. People died and the environment is threatened because we aren't willing to alter our energy position, because corporations cannot stop piling up profits, because our public policy makers are putting their own interests first.
It doesn't have to be this way, but ordinary Americans are going to have to pay attention.

Another Prom

It's Prom Night again. The class of 2010 is tying one on tonight at the Civic Center, and my duty is to keep an eye on them while they do. I am not thrilled to be going. I'd prefer to put on my yoga pants and lie on the couch. I don't know why they don't make something called couch pants because it would certainly be more accurate.
When prom, finals and graduation are finally over and the diplomas have been handed out, the Mini Princess is going to get to come to Memom's for a visit. I'm pretty excited about that. She hasn't visited by herself yet. I've already started stocking up on stuff we'll need, like grape juicy juice. We're going to need some coloring books and a bigger turtle pool.
Then tomorrow Thelma and I have to make some hotel reservations for the Grandmas Gone Wild Western Swing Tour. We're heading west and not coming back until we've seen Yellowstone and Mt. Rushmore. I just hope my knee knows that it has to get better so that I can walk when I get out of the car. Pike's Peak or Bust!
Can you tell I'm procrastinating? I have to go and begin to get ready for my big evening. Even the chaperones have to get dolled up for this shindig, and it takes a lot more doing at my age. Too bad teachers can't have a glass of wine before the prom, you know the kids will!

One of Those Days

It's the end of a grading period and the school day was frazzling. Accepting late work, juggling the numbers to make the eeekers pass. Thank God for that fabulous electronic gradebook. If you had to do all this with a pencil and arithmetic...well you wouldn't do all this if you had to do the math.
Of course, the highlight of this marking period is that grades "freeze", so the senior class, who incidentally didn't give a big rat's ass about learning anything to begin with, really won't do shit now! The other biggie is that, as usual, the administration has changed the protocol for doing grades once more. Nothing ever gets finalized and repeated where I work. The principal never comes out of her office and supervises the proceedings...she just hides out re-inventing all the wheels that we have turning.
On the homefront, Mother Dearest had an appointment with the gastroenterologist today, ten weeks after she had her colonoscopy and eight weeks after she should have seen him again. His office staff insisted that he wanted to see her ten weeks out, and she hasn't even called the office in all that time to see if she could get any relief from her symptoms. She "didn't want to bother them." They bothered her for an invasive procedure and Medicare for probably three thousand bucks, but she can't call and say "WTF, I'm not getting any better and maybe you could write a prescription."
Then there is the matter of my brother's back. After doing well for a couple of years, he is now flat out again. Thank God he can get some relief if he's lying down. Otherwise, he's miserable. Of course he has no insurance, no doctor who will treat him and Social Security has denied him disability.
I hate all this. I hate bureaucracy and bullshit equally. I hate the idea that in this country, people who need medical care are at the mercy of doctors who speak English as a second language that I can't understand. I hate their office staffs and their peevish attitudes. I hate how much it all costs and how unavailable everything you need seems. The phone book isn't even user friendly when you're looking for a doctor. It's all about specialists. It feels as if you can't get treated because the process of diagnosing never ends.
How did this get so screwed up? What happened? And when the hell is it going to get fixed?
The schools are a mess, medicine is a mess, there are lunatics in Virginia parading around with their automatic weapons to demonstrate that they will not stand for Obama to take away their guns. Hey idiots, Obama doesn't want your f-ing guns. The gun control lefties don't even approve of his position on guns. This country is drowning in ignorance and apathy and redtape.
This isn't the way things are supposed to be and the voices who are heard the loudest are doing nothing put pouring gasoline on the fire. One of these days we're going to have one too many of "those days."

Spring Cleaning

I had a comp day today, which gives me a four day weekend. The kids are coming for Easter and Godchild's baptism, but they won't be here until Saturday, so I had time today to open a can of whoopass on the kitchen. I had to start somewhere.
We have combined households of stuff, and no matter how much I've edited the contents it still looks like we're getting ready for an appearance on Hoarders.
I hauled in the ladder from the garage, the Dyson from the broom closet and Grunc even went to the liquor store and got me some boxes to pack up stuff for the Goodwill. I was set.
I worked from the top down and cleaned inside cabinets as I went. I filled up the back of the Highlander with stuff to haul away tomorrow, and I could probably get rid of more, but Mother was keeping a pretty sharp eye on what I was ditching, and I had to make sure it was all my stuff that was going out the door.
The final product makes me feel so much better because of the organization. We've got enough pill bottles and over the counter drug store crap around here to get a listing as a Walgreen's location. Finally we did put all of it in one cabinet. We put all the sets of seldom used dishes in the bottom cabinets and put things we actually use up top. Makes sense to me...
The drawers in the china cabinet are now holding the silver flatware instead of the odds and ends of boxes of notecards that Mother had been stashing in there for 20 years. Finally things that are alike are together and things are where we use them and are accessible.
The bonus for this little job...I got a workout climbing that freaking ladder and I'm going to sleep like a baby.

Can You Say Stupid?

I was channel surfing earlier and that idiot Glenn Beck was on FIXED NOISE in his grandma jeans and his little red sweater, standing in front of two blackboards with his little focus group seated before him.
I stopped for a minute to listen to what he had to say, and surprisingly I learned two things. First, he isn't talking about anything. He makes no sense. Second, he's dumber than a box of rocks. He has no sense!
The guy is a high school graduate who is making twenty-three million dollars a year according to wikipedia, okay maybe not the best source, but we can check those numbers. How is it that we've come to a place in our national discourse where some uneducated yokel is fomenting a revolution against the duly elected government of the United States?
If he were telling the truth. If he was seriously informed. Hell, if he could just stay on the same thought until completion, I believe in his right to speak his mind. But I think old Glenn skates on some pretty thin ice when it comes to the facts. He played a couple of clips of President Obama speaking to audiences recently. Beck's comments on these clips totally distorted the President's words and the intention behind the message.
It wouldn't matter so much, but there are so many Americans today who only get information from one skewed source. Right or Left, no one should only have one source of information. The fact that there are people intentionally misleading America to fear and hate it's government is not a good thing.
Glenn Beck has an agenda...make money for Glenn Beck. He has a very comfortable life behind the gates of his Connecticut property. So what if he has to stir up a little hatred and violence to sell more books and tickets to his events. What does he have to lose?
The answer is the same for Glenn as it is for all of us. A republic depends upon the willingness of its citizens to act for the common good. Aristotle's concept of virtue must be at work. Let's take a look around at who's interested in the common good. Is it Congress with their 17% approval rating and their new First Amendment freedom to accept contributions from Corporate citizens? Is it FOX NEWS playing fast and loose with the truth? Is it that quitter Sarah Palin, who will even stand behind John McCain seventeen months later, if it will keep her basking in the glow of conservative adoration? Is it the states' legislatures that are dismantling public education by refusing to fund our schools? Is it the State Board of Education of Texas who want publishers to alter the truth of history, so our kids don't have to be troubled with a national memory that doesn't mesh with the Board's narrow viewpoint?
We all have a great deal to lose, if we don't snap out of this orgy of fear and hatred. I was driving behind a Lexus SUV today on the main street of my upper middle class planned community. There were two bumper stickers: No Child Left a Dime and A government big enough to give you everything you need is big enough to take everything you've got.
The person driving that car has plenty of everything America has to offer, as does Glenn Beck. How has all the plenty made them so angry and meanspirited?

Okay, I'm Pissed!

I went to the doctor last Wednesday, a new one. She turned out to be a character, with attitude, but that's beside the point. Health care really does need reform, then perhaps one could find a general practitioner with a personality.
First things first, we had to record my height and weight. Funny thing. They will take my word that I'm 5'8" tall, but they are always going to make you step up on that scale.
I knew it was bad, there are mirrors in this house. I tried to wear last year's prom dress to my niece's wedding last weekend. I know I'm fat! But dear God, I never imagined that number...woo. The nurse couldn't move that little gizmo over much further.
Look out Jenny Craig. I am now convinced that I can and will lose weight. Forty-six pounds will just about get it. My God, that's a second grader.
The battle is already joined. I've been so disciplined since Wednesday, I've even surprised myself. I am not eating between meals. I haven't had any sweets. I haven't had anything except nutritious meals since Wednesday. Rotisserie turkey breast is delicious and adaptable. I have vegetables and fruit and don't forget the albacore tuna packed in water.
So far my self-loathing is keeping me from thinking about sweets, and there is a package of Reese's peanut butter Easter eggs in the kitchen. But they stay in the kitchen this year, and not on my ass.
One day at a time, one pound a week, drink more water, and get moving. This is my mantra. When June rolls around and I hit my sixties, I intend for there to be less of me to love.

A Match Made in Heaven

So, I was having dinner with some friends last weekend and it came up that some mutual single friends were doing computer dating. The inevitable question, "why don't you?"
I don't want to, it's not for me, if God wanted me to date, Harrison Ford would walk into this restaurant without Calista Flockhart. I have my reasons, I tell my therapist about them!
Sunday morning I got up and filled out the endless questionnaire for the Match Made in Heaven on line computer dating service. Yes, I can be bullied. It comes from lacking self-esteem, doubting one's worth, and other common indicators that you need help.
What can you say about a fifty-nine year old woman that is going to attract anyone? Take a look at this hottie. Without her team of experts, her hair is gray, her eyebrows look like Andy Rooney's, her belly fat challenges Spanx capacity, and her hormones are non-existent.
But I uploaded a picture and took the risk. My therapist would applaud that behavior.
Then the matches started to come in. They may not have any interest in meeting me, but my ego will be fine.
I kid you not, Jeffrey Daumer looked less like a serial killer than some of these guys. Do you think it means a person has no friends if he has to take his picture in the bathroom mirror with a cell phone?
I never knew so many men were passionate about fishing. I could maybe get excited about marlin off Cabo, but the ordinary fish off the bank or the john boat guy isn't going to be for me.
I may be a little too bookish, but if the only thing you read is James Patterson...you might be a great match for Sarah Palin.
Most typical response from these elder Lotharios...match closed. Thank you God.