Bad Mama Tales, Part 439

Most of the time we can talk him off the ledge of his convictions, but my boy can be very literal in his interpretations of what people say to him.   When he had his last immunizations, he wasn't upset about the needles--he was upset because no one told him they were going to put "holes in his legs".   If you tell him that you are going to give him something, or be somewhere, or take him someplace, then you had better follow through.   He does not yet understand that things happen that we have no control over, or can't help, and he is pretty vocal about his disappointment.  If you say it, make it so.    
It is probably developmental.  I was a pretty literal child, which delighted my father.  I don't know how many times I fell for the "Pull my finger" gag, but that was probably due to oxygen deprivation. (Those of you who have experienced that particular prank understand what I am referring to.)  Zane is just one of those "concrete" kids, for lack of a better description.

If his soccer coach says that it is Zane's turn to kick the ball, then by God, it is HIS turn.  The other players must therefore part, like the Red Sea, and clear the way for Zane to have his turn. We all know that this is not how youth soccer works for four-year-olds.  Every last child out there, and even a few kids on the sidelines,  are doing exactly what they were told to do:  kick the bejeebers out of that soccer ball.  They don't care if there is anyone ELSE trying to kick the ball, and as far as they are concerned, it's everyone's turn. 

For the past three weeks or so, Zane has been having a wall-eyed fit when the other kids don't let him have HIS turn.  He stops everything and starts bawling his fool head off.  Do the other kids care? 

Nope.

They are wherever the ball is, a whirling mass of legs and a single thought:  Must. Kick. Ball.  The coach is down there with his players.  Nobody notices the dramatic performance at the other end of the field, because they are where the action is. 

So my sweet precious baby boy(yeah, he's four, but to me he's still that little 3 pound kid gripping my finger with all his might), is having a fit all by himself out there.  What is a mother supposed to do, in these situations?  The other mothers were watching, ready to snap pictures.

Did I go out there, hug him, and offer encouragement?  Did I pick Zane up, cuddle him and take him out for ice cream?  Did I yell at his coach for missing an Oscar winning performance?

Nope.

I stormed out to the middle of the field, where my son was crying, his hand in his mouth.

"HEY!"  I raised my voice a bit, and put on my Mean Mama face.  Bad Mama.  Zane looked at me, ready to go for the drama, and cried louder.

"SUCK. IT. UP. SON."   Zane looked shocked.  Bad Mama.  

He did stop crying, however, and explained to me in a teary voice about how it was his turn and they wouldn't let him kick the ball....and the rest was lost in those hiccups kids get after a hard cry.  I tried to be sympathetic; I patted his knee and put my arm around his shoulder. 

"This is soccer, son," I said.  Everyone is trying to kick the ball, and if you want to kick the ball then you go and get that ball.  No more whining about not getting your turn. I don't want to hear it."

Then I turned around and marched back over to the sidelines.  I cringed a little, worried about my widdle piddle.  But he was out there chasing the ball like nothing had happened at all.  The rest of practice went perfectly. 

Write On Edge: Retribution

Prompt:  This week we’d like you to write a fiction or creative non-fiction piece about a time someone crossed a line, legally or ethically. Explore the motivation of your character and possibly the consequences of his or her actions.

 

 

In the end, it was the smirk that killed the pedophile Covington.  We might have let it go with his acquittal, and just let him be.  None of us had been completely sure of his guilt, in spite of what all of our children had told us. He was that clever.  

But as he strolled past on his way out of the courtroom, Covington looked right at the ten mothers of his known victims, and he smirked.

There was nothing more to say.  We watched and we waited.  

 

Covington's house stood in the center of an empty cul-de-sac. Behind the house sat a small  five-acre woodland once used by the neighborhood children for play, at least before the trial.   Five weeks after the end of the trial,  the cul-de-sac was silent and dark.

We made our way quietly through the woods, flashlights pointed downward, carrying the chests.  We entered the yard from the woods and made our way to the backdoor, where Marlena climbed in a window left open in the garage and let us into the house.  We pulled on our gloves, adjusted our coveralls and looked at each other in the moonlit kitchen.  Nobody said a word.  Samantha handed each of us a weapon from the ice chests.  Then we silently crept to the bedroom where Covington snored the sleep of a false innocence.  

 

Carol Ann struck the first blow, stabbing viciously downward toward a shoulder.  Covington screamed as the blade slid into his flesh; he was awake then. He knew he would die. His scream released us from our hesitation, and all of us began stabbing him as fast as our arms could move.  My third blow sank deep into Covington's belly, causing his cries to become one long scream of pain. 

I was so very glad.

 

In the days after, the police questioned each of us, but it seemed perfunctory.  The police found thousands of pictures of children cached in Covington's home; I don't believe they were very interested in solving this particular crime.

We never spoke of it again. 

Mamakat: Road Trip

Mamakat's prompt:   5.) Who’d talk the most?  Pretend three four sentence types–Declarative, Imperative, Interrogative, and Exclamatory–were people.  Write an imaginary scene between them. (inspired by writingfix.com)  This was a little difficult, because the differences between declarative and imperative sentences, in my opinion, are very blurry.  This is why my husband never lets me help him grade any papers. And also because I get a little crazy with the red pens. I don't know why. 

All three children, Interrogative, Declarative, and Exclamatory, are all under the age of ten.  Declarative is the youngest, and a girl.  Interrogative is a girl.  Exclamatory is a boy.  


Interrogative: "Are we to Grandma's house yet?"

Imperative: (actually lost) "Keep your shorts on. We will get there." 

Declarative:  "I have to pee."

Interrogative: "What?  Are you serious?"

Exclamatory: "GEEZ!  WE JUST LEFT THE REST STOP FIVE FREAKIN' MINUTES AGO!"

Imperative:  "Watch your language, son.  Everybody look for Exit 43B."

Exclamatory:  "SHE STARTED IT!"

Imperative:  "Pipe down, all of you. Exit 43B. Look."

Declarative:  "I have to pee."

Interrogative:  Why do you need to concentrate, Mom?  Did you forget how to drive?

Exclamatory:  "SHUT UP, STUPID! MOM KNOWS HOW TO DRIVE!!"

Imperative:  "Be quiet NOW, please. I need you to look for Exit 43B."

Declarative:  "I HAVE to pee."

Exclamatory: "MOM SAID TO BE QUIET!"

Interrogative:  "Can't you just hold it?" 

Declarative:  "I cannot hold it."

Interrogative:  "Don't we have a bucket?  Can you pee in the bucket?"

Exclamatory:  "PEEING IN A BUCKET!  HAHAHAHAHA!!!"

Imperative:  "Sit down back there and BE QUIET."

Interrogative:  What is that smell?  Did you pee on the seat?

Exclamatory:  "UGH! MOM!!  SHE PEED ALL OVER THE BACKSEAT!!  SHE'S ALL NASTY!"

Imperative:   "BE QUIET OR I AM LEAVING YOU ALL BY THE SIDE OF THE ROAD."

(Silence--for about ten seconds)

Declarative: "I am hungry."

Happy Birthday Mom!

 Dear Mom,

I know that you're still mad because I was born breach and you didn't get to have any of the good drugs, but look!  Your grandson made you a really cool present.

We started out with a blank puzzle. No I don't know where I got these blank puzzles.   I was cleaning out my closet the other day and there they were in a box.  Jimmy Hoffa was in that box as well--maybe they were his?

We traced Zane's hands onto the puzzle pieces.  Zane cooperated with my attempts to trace his hands, mostly because I wouldn't let him move any fingers while I was tracing. 

Since Zane knows that he holds his Grandma's heart in his hands(also her wallet), we drew a very red heart.  And then we colored the entire picture using as many crayons as possible. 

 
And now we take all the pieces apart and put them in a bag and bring them to Grandma's house so she can play(Zane's word).  Hooray!

RemembeRED: Tense

Prompt:  A couple weeks ago, I came across one of those popular little sayings posted on a friend’s Facebook wall:

After I finished laughing, I started thinking. So often in our lives, defining moments occur when our past and our present or our future clash. For this week’s RemembeRED prompt, write a memoir post describing such a time and the results.  While writing, remember to bring us into the moment and let us experience it with you.

 

Looking back, I am surprised at how easy it was for me to let go of people that I had cared for, maybe even loved a little.   Was there something wrong with me that I did not behave this way?  It wasn't necessarily that my heart was broken, or that my relationships had ended on a particularly acrimonious note. It was simply that when I was done, I was done. My habits also seemed to be unusual when compared to my friends, who spent weeks getting over ex-boyfriends.  I wasn't trying to be hurtful to the other person, but a clean break seemed the best way to move on with my life.  I would cry a little, drink a little wine, then I was onto the next activity.  Done.

I was out on a first date with a guy named Scott.  He was a nice enough fellow, and for lack of a better word, I was bored with too many weekends by myself.  It couldn't hurt to have a dinner and conversation.  If I enjoyed myself, that would be great, but I would settle for not having to eat my own cooking for once.  We sat and drank our beers and made cautious small talk while our meal was prepared.

Then I felt a presence just behind my shoulder, and Scott looked up, then stood.   I turned in my seat to find an Ex. I had never run into an Ex before.  It was disconcerting, to say the least.   Ex was smiling at me, but there was a meanness in the eyes that looked into mine.  My brain scrambled; it had been awhile since our relationship had ended.

"It's great to see you," Ex said, grasping my shoulder with a possessiveness I found irritating rather than endearing.  "How have you been?"

"I have been just fine," I responded a bit feebly, unsure of what Miss Manners would advise in this situation. 

Introductions of my past to my present were probably in order.   "Ex, this is my friend Scott.  Scott, this is my friend Ex."   The two men gripped hands and proceeded to engage in some sort of dominance test. 

It took  me a second to realize that these two men were engaged in a contest, and I was the prize.
I looked at both of them, teeth gritted with the force of their grips. Was this a traditional pissing contest?  Whatever, the whole thing irritated me, and I lost my appetite for food, and for men.

I stood up and grabbed my purse.  My past and my present had to let go of their wrestling contest to allow me to pass between them.   They watched me walk out the door of the restaurant, and I waved at them as I drove away. 

When I am done, I am done. 

No A-list Today!

I know that all of you woke up this morning looking forward to the A-List, but this is the start of our agonizingly mind-numbing round of state assessments in the schools.  My brain has been completely hijacked for a bit, and besides, I have to try to come up with some new stuff. 

As if we didn't traumatize children enough by forcing them to actually learn stuff, we have to test them as well!  All this could have been avoided if a different political party had been in off---okay, even a drunken sailor wouldn't buy that, so let's move on. 

On this bright and shiny day, public schools all around the great state of Texas will be completely freaking out. This is the day before the actual test, you see.   There will be lots of panicked teachers trying to make sure that every single student has every single possible accommodation they might possibly need to have, even if they don't want it.  There will be lots of panicked administrators poring over scantrons and other documents, trying to make sure that they ordered enough of the correct tests for each grade level.  There will be lots of panicked students, wide-eyed in horror at the idea that they will now only have FOUR hours to complete the test, instead of all day like before. 

This is a brand-spanking new state assessment that nobody has ever seen before.  It is called the STAAR, because someone gets paid a lot of money to come up with initials for tests.  If I sound a bit irritated, it's because I know that if we completely did away with state testing(billions of dollars!), and instead spent that money on actual education, we wouldn't be looking at one of the more undereducated workforces in the country. 

But it is what it is, and we shall have to deal with it.  So I've spent the past week listening patiently to panicked teachers, and helping out when I can.  This week I will be on 'shenanigans duty'--parked in the halls to make sure children on their way to and from the bathroom don't exchange answers.  Not that I've ever seen them do this, but they might!

Most schools will be holding some form of a pep rally this afternoon to get the kids psyched up.  My husband's school has an extremely enthusiastic principal; she asked that all teachers show up to the pep rally dressed as characters from...Star Wars.  Or rather, STAAR Wars!   Larry took to this request with an enthusiasm usually reserved for the release of the latest Iron Maiden cd/dvd/etc.  He already had a cloak from his Nazgul costume, and we've got light sabers out the wazoo.  The man found a Darth Maul mast, borrowed some black gloves from his Batman costume, and voila!  Darth Maul will be fighting the evil state assessment!  I tried to be encouraging, although admittedly my knowledge of the Star Wars 'verse is limited.  But I hope to get to his school in time to see the costume parade.

I  pray fervently that no one shows up in the skimpy Princess Leia costume that she wore when hanging with Jabba. 

This Blog Post Has No Title

Okay, technically, this blog post does have a title.  But not really. 

I try very hard to come up with decent titles for my blogs.  Really.  A clever title tends to be my first introduction to people who might choose to read my blog first, so it is important that I attempt to be "reel them in".  It is unfortunate, however, that coming up with titles is not what I would consider a strength.  Let's be honest: I suck at titles.  

I can remember being in high school, a page editor for the school newspaper.  This was back in the day, when the newspaper was chiseled onto stone tablets.  Okay, not that far back.  Back when the newspaper was still printed on a printing press, but way after that Gutenberg guy.  Part of being a page editor meant that you had to create the headline for the story, and I would agonize right up until the final moments about them.   I probably agonized so much about them because I was a teenager and hormonal, but that doesn't sound as good.  Pretend that I never said that.

People who are the comforting types might try to reassure me here,  pat me on the shoulder and tell me that I'm not so bad with blog titles.  But that isn't necessary.  I've faced this particular truth in the mirror, and have accepted it, just like I've accepted the cellulite on my thighs.  It is what it is, as they say. 

Still, there is no reason that I cannot at least try to do a better job with blog titles. I'm not too old that I can't at least try to learn something new!  I could read up on one of those journalistic websites.  I could take one of those random classes they offer.   I could just start putting the first line of the post as my title. 

Yeah, that's too freakin' lazy, even for me. 

Random about Regularity

I feel sorry for Jamie Lee Curtis.  The way I see it, she got suckered into those Activia commercials.  They can't possibly have given her full disclosure.  I can just imagine how the interview went**: 

"Hello Ms. Curtis.  You are a very famous celebrity.  We would really like for you to talk about how great this yogurt is."

"Okay."  

"We would also like for you to tell the audience that this yogurt is very healthy."

"Okay."

"Great!  And we would like for you to explain that this yogurt makes you poop."

"??? Uh..."

"It makes you poop regularly, and this is very important for one's overall well being. Really. They've done studies."

"..."

"And we'd really like for random people to send you their videos talking about their bowel movements for the rest of your natural born life."

"..."

"Plus, we will pay you a small van full of cash."

"Okay."

**I have no idea if this conversation actually took place, because I made the entire thing up.  I myself have eaten Activia yogurt on more than one occasion, and find it very delicious.  Please don't sue me.


If someone told me that people would be stopping me on the street to tell me about their fight with constipation, that they would be sending me videos discussing their particular bathroom habits, and I wasn't a proctologist...well, I am not sure what I would do.  But it might require a change of outfit.

I am not a n00b to this whole advertising thing. I completely understand that there are people out there who drive their cars through hoops of fire if a celebrity told them to do so.  I am up on all the  health stuff.  I am perfectly aware that there are health benefits to eating yogurt, including a stronger immune system.  That doesn't mean that I want to be snacking on Cheez-its while watching television and hear a celebrity talking about regularity.   I have strong feelings about having to listen to a litany of bowel complaints thinly disguised as 'tummy' troubles.  There might be a monetary figure that would compensate me for having to listen to such discussions at the dinner table, but I have no idea what that would be.  More zeroes than I could safely contemplate without losing my mind, probably. 

Also, why isn't a man doing these regularity commercials?  Is it because women are less crude than men?  Women aren't even allowed to admit in public that they pass gas, fer cryin' out loud.  I have seen a ton of media where the man enters the bathroom with a newspaper under one arm, meanwhile, or exits waving an arm frantically.  Instead of those Ford truck commercials, Denis Leary should be working for Activia.  He would be awesome. 

Of course, I would be laughing so hard that I wouldn't need the yogurt.

 

Write On Edge: The Blessings

Prompt:   Hope comes in a jar. It floats. We wrote about hope in our memoirs this week, now let’s take it in a different direction. According to Dante, the gates of hell are inscribed “Abandon all hope, ye who enter here.”   Let that inscription lead, but not necessarily define, your piece for Friday’s link-up.   This piece connects with this one.  

The door to the interior office area of The Blessing Society was absent of any vestige of warmth;  Andy shivered as his hand touched the knob of the door.  The door opened at his touch with a sound that always invited comparisons to a crypt, a wail of air flowing behind him and pushing him reluctantly into the dark hallway.  The door closed silently, and he was cut off from the world.

Andy's breath hitched, a voiceless sob.  He bit his lip and began to move forward, telling himself that there was nothing to fear.  His father was Melchior Blessing, after all; the most powerful man in the world.  Andy had been coming to this building, and this office, since he was a young child.  Nothing had ever happened to him in this hallway, not really. His experiences were all in his mind.  It was only ten steps from outer door to the inner one.  Ten steps.   

And yet...

The air seemed thicker in this hallway, as if clotted with blood, and a vague smell of rotted flesh crawled into Andy's nostrils with each step.  His legs felt heavy, pulled into the floor by unseen talons.  His shoulders were weighted with the burdens of the entire world.   As he moved, there was a sense that his spirit was being separated from his body, suctioned out of him by a wretched vortex of desolation.  All was forsaken, the walls seemed to whisper.  Andy kept walking, gritting his teeth as tears of despair poured down his cheeks.  Only what was left of his will prevented him from gibbering with fear as he arrived at the door on the other end of the hallway. 

He knocked on the door, twice, then waited for his father's voice to rescue him.

"Enter."   Andy shivered with relief.  Inhaling as deeply as he could, he opened the door and stepped into the firelit office of his father.   Melchior swiveled in his chair as his son entered the room, a large gold chalice in his hands.

"Welcome, my son.  Please, join me."  Melchior motioned Andy toward a chair in front of the massive stone desk.  He hurried to obey his father, pretending to ignore the slowly swinging, bloodless corpse of a woman hanging upside down in front of the fireplace.

"Would you like a drink, son?"

My Killer Outfit

Mamakat's Prompt: Describe an outfit you LOVED wearing.


My roommate Laura was graduating from college.  I was moving back in with my parents to complete my student teaching.  We were both busy cleaning out closets, packing, and getting ready to leave San Marcos.

Laura has always been extremely proficient at picking out clothing that looked good.  She had amassed piles of clothes; there was no way most of them would fit into her car.  Ever practical, Laura gave many of the clothes that no longer fit to me, including a black pencil skirt.

I loved that black pencil skirt.  It was made of a lightweight fabric with a lining, and it zipped up the back.  It was probably supposed to be knee length, but since I am short the hemline fell about an inch below my knees.  I didn't care.  The moment I put that skirt on, zipped it up, and looked into a mirror, I was in love. 

Then I found a sweater.  It was a scoop neck sweater that had the buttons in the back, with three quarter sleeves. It was clingy at the waistline and the sleeves, but more generous at the bust, so it was appropriate for work.  This sweater was a color of blue that I've never seen again, but this is very close:

I didn't usually wear blues back then, but I put that sweater on, and it just worked.  Wow.  It flattered my skin tone and I felt as though I were illuminated from within!  I got so many compliments about that sweater that my other clothing seemed dull in comparison.

I added that sweater to my much loved pencil skirt one day.  I don't think that I have ever stared at myself in a mirror for that long since.  I have never been under any delusion that I could ever be considered a hottie.  But when I had that outfit on, I sure felt like I was beautiful.  I felt like Cindy Crawford strutting down the runway. (Note: if you don't know who Cindy Crawford is because you weren't born yet...no, I won't say a word.)

And not only beautiful.  In that outfit, I felt as though I could handle anything.  I felt confident. I called it my power outfit for that very reason, and I wore it as often as I could, with a pair of black pumps and some pearls. 

Unfortunately, my 'ample' proportions grew a bit more ample over the years and I could no longer wear my power outfit.  It was with a heavy heart that I placed that outfit into the Goodwill bag one cold day.  I only hope that some other less than confident woman found that sweater and skirt, and felt as wonderful in that outfit as I did. 

Of course, if she walks by me wearing that outfit, however, she's going down.   I might actually fit into it again!

Trust Your Spidey-Sense!

Soccer practice is a family event for us.  I'm the kid wrangler, because my husband gets distracted by parents and coaches and whether the right teams are in their designated places.  There is a lot going on, although from a distance it may appear to be pure pandemonium.  Kids are running in forty different directions, and not always on purpose.


So Zane and I are by ourselves near the road, kicking the ball.  I notice a truck driving by the field...very...slowly.  My spidey-sense tingled, and when your spidey-sense tingles, you pay attention.  For the uninitiated, your spidey-sense is that little voice in your head that says something is not right.  Your brain is trying to help you by sending a few signals your way.  (For more information, read The Gift of Fear.)


I do what you are supposed to do in these situations, and stare at the driver boldly, and make it very obvious that I have noticed him.  The truck drives past, moving slowly away from us.  Zane and I resume our game of "tag the ball with your foot before Mama falls on her butt".  A couple of minutes later, the same blue chevy truck rolls slowly past us in the other direction. 

This time, I look even more closely at the guy behind the wheel, since his window are rolled down. He is not looking "for" someone specifically.  He's not jabbering on a cell phone.  He's just looking.  The man in his blue truck are rolling by so slowly, I could have drawn a picture, if I'd had paper and pen.  I watch him pull into the parking lot on the other side of the fields parking lot. 

He parks.

I take my son with me(I'm not leaving him by himself and I can't find his father) and we casually make our way over there. My main goal now is to get a cell phone picture of the license plate of that truck.  At first it appears that there isn't anyone in the truck.  I started to feel a little relieved. It was just a parent, and he had located his child's practice area. Still, I had to be sure, and as I got closer to the truck it became obvious that the guy was slouching in his seat.  He was staring at me from behind those sunglasses.


I stared right back, and pulled out my phone.  I kept walking until I was at the fenceline. Then I raised my phone to take a picture of the truck's license plate.  The driver started his truck up and left. He didn't even stop to put on a seatbelt.  He was in a hurry, I suppose.  Zane and I watched him drive away from the fields.  We played a rousing game of "Mama will chase you only until she needs her inhaler" until it was time to leave.  


I am not a person who overreacts to innocuous things.  However, that man was opportunistically trolling the soccer fields.  Whatever he was doing there, was not good.  When I told my husband all of this, he seemed unconcerned.  It was obvious that he thought I was being dramatic.

Was I being overly dramatic?   I don't think so.   What do you think? 

RemembeRED: Phoenix

After I lost my daughter, there was nothing. My body shut down for awhile, but even after I regained consciousness, my world was ashes. I really can't convey the totality of my despair; there aren't really any words.  We could never have a baby of our own.  All the purpose, all the things that once meant something, now meant nothing.  Hope is an essential part of who we are; we stop striving for that distant dream, and our spirit dies. The body sometimes sticks around, but it's just a shell.

One Sunday afternoon years after, I stepped out of our car and saw a man riding a dragon in the blue sky.  As we gazed into the bright blue, my husband and I agreed that it was a very unusual cloud formation  Watching that cloud,  a quiet voice whispered in my head, telling me that everything would be all right. 

Then my doctor mentioned that there were new treatments for pre eclampsia.  We had one embryo left, just one. The fertility clinic told us that we would have to find a perinatologist before they would implant the embryo.  We had to find a bank that would give us a loan.  We had to find someone to administer the intramuscular injections.  I had to overcome a fear of needles and learn to inject myself with blood thinners each night.

Hope is a phoenix.  It often rises, the tiniest glimmer, crawling from the ashes of many an immolated desire.  Every step of the way, every potential obstacle, that small voice would call to me, coaxing me out of the bleakness of my despair little by little.  This is what you need to do, this is where you need to be, this is who you were meant to be.   Even when my son was born early, and I gazed at his tiny body, hooked up to machines and tubes, there was a flame in my heart, and an assuring presence within me. "And all shall be well, and all shall be well, and all manner of thing shall be well."**

And so it was.


**Julian of Norwich said that.   

The A-List: The World's Greatest Detectives

I love to read mysteries.  I especially love trying to figure out what is going on before I get to the end of the book. If I can figure it out, I feel especially brilliant that day, and all is right with the world.  If I can't solve the mystery, I cry.  Not really, but I do consider it to be a learning experience. I've had my fun over the years, reading my mysteries.  I've developed a fondness for a few detectives as well.  There were some on television, like Scully and Mulder, Frank Pembleton,  Jimmy McNulty, and Grissom.  But the printed word adds a layer of complexity that you usually don't get with the visual medium.  Plus, I just like having a character that I can carry around in my purse.  

1. Hardy Boys  These guys make my list because, well, they were my first.  Yeah, I know that I'm a girl, and I wasn't supposed to read the Hardy Boys.  I was supposed to read Nancy Drew.  Call me a rebel, but Frank and Joe were just a heck of a lot more fun.  My parents would buy me a Hardy Boys mystery, and two hours later I would be asking for another one.  When the television show aired, I was in seventh heaven, even though the tv detectives looked nothing like those in the books.   

2.Jack Reacher  I can't exactly put my finger on why I like this character.  He'd probably annoy the crap out of me if he actually existed, but as an imaginary character, he is just fine.  Jack Reacher is a problem solver.  He's an out of work, ex-military cop who just rides the trails like people used to do during the Depression.  Reacher shows up in a town, there's a problem that looks interesting to him, and then he solves it.  He doesn't sit around moping about it, either.  He gets up and actually goes to the problem.  Then he smacks the problem around for a few pages, which is actually quite satisfying.  Reacher sometimes talks the problem out to himself, and then you can see where the smarts come from.  The guy drinks a truckload of coffee, however.  I fully expect his heart to explode at the end of one of Lee Child's books one day.

3. Lucas Davenport  This is the main character of John Sandford's 'Prey' novels, and his books are on my Kindle the day of release.  Davenport is a cop in Minnesota.  That sounds completely boring, doesn't it?  What sort of crimes could possibly happen in Minnesota that would warrant their inclusion in a novel? That is exactly what I said. Sandford is a master of witty dialogue; his conversations are extremely believable, and funny.  He solves the crimes with old fashioned police work. Feet on the ground, talking to people, knocking on doors.  Asking the right questions also helps, and Davenport seems to know exactly what to ask to keep the plot rolling. 

4. Batman  He is the World's Greatest Detective, and with good reason.  He always seems to be one step ahead of everybody else.  He plans his movements precisely.  He always looks into the Dark Heart of man.  He sees the shadows, and what they become.  He's also in the Bat Cave, throwing fibers and other pieces of evidence into a computer for analysis.  He has the equipment to perform some forensic activities, such as toxicology or fingerprint identification.  He never believes what he sees unless he's analyzed it.  I always felt that his detective skills were Batman's superpower.   

5. Sherlock Holmes  Robert Downey, Jr.'s portrayal aside, Sherlock Holmes is awesome.  I doubt that Arthur Conan Doyle had any idea what an icon he was creating with the formation of this eagle eye detective.  Some have speculated that Holmes had Aspbergers; I won't go that far, but the man was obsessive about details, had amassed an encyclopedic memory of knowledge.  He could tell where you were from based on the mud on your shoes!  That's pretty good detecting!  He worked hard at being an eccentric, but Doyle made it work. 

Your turn!  What are you favorite literary characters, and why?  I may like to pick up a few books for beach time reading!

Spring Break 2012

The Snake Farm is NOT the same as the Chicken Ranch!

This week, we probably should have all gone somewhere beachy, to put our toes in the sand and build sandcastles.  We did not.  Instead, we stayed at home.  I did clear out a good portion of the front bedroom, and my husband hauled it off to Goodwill.  Those who know me in real life understand how absolutely astonishing that is.   I was also able to get Larry to go with Zane and I to the Snake Farm.  My husband, who is extremely nervous around snakes, willingly accompanied us!  I thought he was very brave.  I am not sure that I could do the same if confronted with cockroaches.

To the gators, we are the equivalent lobster tank.

The Snake Farm has been on the outskirts of New Braunfels for years.   They used to only have snakes and alligators there, but they've since expanded to include other critters. Like these emus.  You can't see it, but the emu in front has a paper bag over his head.  He apparently is not very photogenic.

Then we had this little critter, which is called a Cavy.  Sort of reminds me of a dog we once had. 

This pot-bellied pig was part of the petting zoo, where a gang of young goats surrounded us, knocked us down and stole the bag of feed we had just purchased.  Kids today!

 

I tried very hard to get a picture of this tortoise chasing a hen around, but the hen refused to sign permission for me to take her picture.  It was the only blight on the trip.  Oh, and why didn't I take any pictures of snakes?  The place is called the Snake Farm, after all, and there were indeed hundreds of snakes. I did not take a single picture of them, for one very good reason. Snakes suddenly blinded by flashes tend to get very upset, and I did not want them slamming their heads against the glass trying to bite me.  Karma, and all that.  Overall, it was a reasonably fun, and brief, trip.

However, what the boy and his father REALLY wanted to do all week? Play soccer. 

Confuzzled

I officially hate the time change. I did not make this decision lightly.  As a normally reasonable person, I decided to give it a week after we "sprang forward".  Just to let myself get used to the idea, before I made up my mind.  The week is up.

After a Herculean effort to develop a decent sleep cycle, I was finally into a good pattern.  My eyes would consistently open around 6am every day, whether the alarm rang or not.  They say this is a good thing, for the body to be awake at the same time every morning.  My brain, on the other hand, tends to sit up, stretch and yawn...and go right back to sleep until around 10 each morning.  But that's another story. 

My body is completely confused now.  It thinks that it is 8pm, when it is actually 11pm.  And when it is 8am, my brain thinks it is 5am.  Don't even get me started on what day it is--my brain keeps insisting that it is Thursday. 

You'd think that all this confusion would equal weight loss.  Maybe I'd forget to eat a couple of meals, or not be as hungry.  Nope.  Instead, my body has decided that it needs to stock up for the winter. I've tried explaining to my tummy that we are working on spring, that winter is over.  My stomach would rather just start preparing for next winter, just in case.

Not sleeping right and not eating right equals one slightly(okay, more than slightly) unhinged woman.  My poor husband has been feeling the brunt of my generalized sense of wrath; how he has survived this past week is a mystery.

Oh, and it's freakin' St. Patrick's Day?  Bloody hell.  Anybody tries to pinch me is going to end up losing an arm.

So yeah, I officially hate the time change.  

Write On Edge: Anti-hero

Prompt:   An anti-hero is a character who stands in opposition to the protagonist, who provides a foil and an obstacle on the hero or heroine’s narrative journey. The way I see it (and I know not everyone will agree), all villains are anti-heroes, but all anti-heroes are not villains.  Show me an anti-hero. It can be a character sketch or a scene, but try to establish how and why this person is the obstacle to the protagonist’s goals. I've written about Zenna before; now here's a little more about Boone.



Boone had been killing the enemies of the Dragons, and others, for hundreds of years.  He had flown joyfully into battle, gleefully ripping off heads with his talons and setting archers on fire with his breath.  He had retained human form to be in the heart of whatever war men fought, wielding his axe and sword as a farmer wields a scythe.  He had bathed in the blood of his foes, and it had felt good.    Fighting, and killing, had also made him incomparably wealthy.  Boone was a warrior, he lived to fight and kill, but if he could be paid to fight or kill, well!

He scanned the darkness of the bar, looking for his contact.  As Boone watched, a group of women on their way to the restroom fell silent as they hurried past a well-dressed man sitting alone at a table for four.   Boone moved in that direction.  The man looked up, glaring, until he saw who was in front of him. 

"You're the man with the problem?"  Boone directed his voice so that it carried through the din of the bar.  The man in front of him reeked of expensive cologne.  Underneath that ran a faint scent of rotting flesh.  The man nodded and motioned to the seat opposite him.  Reluctantly, Boone sat down.

"Yes, I have a problem that I need taken care of immediately, if not sooner,"  Adjusting his tie and leaning close, the older man pushed a manilla envelope across the table toward Boone, who took the envelope and put it into an inside coat pocket. 

"She is my son's fiance," the man continued. "I don't want the wedding to take place."

"I don't care about trivialities," Boone responded, cutting his client off.  It wasn't that he didn't want to hear details; the man's breath was vile.  Like old animal blood left out in the sun after a sacrifice, he thought. 

"As you like," his client waved a hand imperiously.   "Half of your commission has been deposited into the account as specified.  You'll get the other half after the job is done."

Boone could hardly wait to get away from the foul man in front of him.  He nodded, but it took enormous will to casually rise and stroll out of the bar.  He waited until he got into his car before pulling the envelope out and opening it.  

A pair of smiling green eyes gazed out of the photograph; the attractive woman had been captured in a happy moment.  Her eyes held his attention for a moment. Boone flipped the picture over to read the name:  Zenna Clayton.  

Throwing the picture on the seat next to him, Boone started his car and headed home.

The Baby Place

Mamakat's Prompt:  4.) Are you feeling brave? Ask your child where babies come from and share their answers.

We were driving back from San Marcos, hoping to miss rush hour traffic on I-35.  Zane was quiet in the backseat, so I checked to make sure that he wasn't asleep.  Then I pounced.

"Zane, where do babies come from?"  I asked him.

"Wait--what the heck are you doing?" My husband's voice was a little alarmed; he wanted to look at me, but his natural caution wouldn't let him take his eyes off the road.  I patted his leg to reassure him, and repeated my question to our son.

"Babies come from The Baby Place," was Zane's response.  

"What is The Baby Place?"  I queried.

"Look," Zane used his Teacher Voice.  "You know...babies come from The Baby Place." 

"But what IS The Baby Place?" I insisted.  In my mind was the image of a giant, Walmart-sized store with row after row of squalling infants of all shapes, colors, and sizes.

Silence from the back seat.

"I don't know," Zane finally said.

"Well, at least that was an honest answer," Larry sounded relieved. 

"But Zane, you used to be a baby," I reminded him.  "Where did we get YOU from?" 

"Over there,"  Zane waved his hand toward a field of fresh, green, hay. 

"We got you from a field?"  I asked.

"Yes."

And that, as they say, was that.

Superman!

This mini-figure cracks me up.  It's that little curl!  It makes me giggle every time I see it.   (And yes, those are Cheez-its in the background.  Superman likes them, and unless you have kryptonite handy, when Superman tells you to buy Cheez-its, you buy Cheez-its.  The fact that I love them, and tend to eat an entire box during the random movie-of-the-week, is irrelevant. Really.)  I love that Lego is going to be releasing all these DC Universe mini-figures.  I really am fascinated with all of the Lego mini-figures, and not just because I can actually put them together by myself.  But I've enjoyed the trip down memory lane as I play--er, hand the superhero mini-figures to my son.

Of course, we all know that I am not a Superman fangirl.  I am all about the Bat.  Superman was always way too goody-goody for me.  He ate his veggies and drank his milk and was never late with his homework.  Superman was smart, but sort of gullible.  Yeah, I said it.  Superman would always believe Lex Luthor.   Superman trusted people to do the right thing, even when they'd done wrong the last fifty times.  While it is good to hope for the best, at some point Superman should have started basing his decisions on Lex Luthor's past behavior and just left him in prison.  Batman would have just let Lex rot in his cell, and not helped him get out of prison repeatedly just so the writers could have another storyline.  That's one reason why Batman is my favorite.

But I still love that little curl!   And I'm not saying that because I'm hopped up on Cheez-its. 

RemembeRED: Comparisons

Prompt:  This week we’d like you to write about a time you found yourself comparing yourself, unfavorably, with someone else.  Focus on how the comparison affected you, negatively or positively.

Anita and I came from very different worlds, although we were born 14 days apart.  We met in our very first Psycho-educational Assessment class, and for awhile we ended up working in the same school district.  We are friends.  She is a great person. 

She's perfect. 

Everybody says this about Anita, that she's perfect.  And she is.  Anita  is one of the hardest working people I know.  She stays up late into the night, writing reports.  She shows up to work early.  Anita always knows just what to say.  She never gets angry, but is always calm and reasonable.

She made it all look so easy, being perfect.  If she could do it, why couldn't I?  

I tried to stay up, writing reports.  I still didn't finish. And I was late to work the next day because I overslept.

I tried to say the right thing; I ended up saying the wrong thing.  Sometimes silence may not be the right thing, but it is often the best thing.

I tried to keep calm and reasonable, but I've never been able to suffer fools.  It's a character flaw.  I ended up more angry than when I started.     

I am not perfect.  I will never be perfect.  I'm not Anita. 

With that small epiphany, I felt liberated. I stopped trying to be Anita.  Instead, I started focusing on being myself.  That has made all the difference.  

The A-List: Reasons to Blog A to Z

I am joining in the fun of the A to Z Blog Challenge for this April.  What the heck is that, you say?  Elementary!  You blog the alphabet!  The legendary Arlee Bird from Tossing It Out, the A to Z Challenge creator, says more:

"Using this premise, you would start beginning April First with a topic themed on something with the letter A, then on April second another topic with the letter B as the theme, and so on until you finish on April thirtieth with the theme based on the letter Z.  It doesn't even have to be a word--it can be a proper noun, the letter used as a symbol, or the letter itself.  The theme of the day is the letter scheduled for that day."

Pretty cool, huh?   I think that everyone should participate, of course.  Why? Five reasons:

1. It is fun. Really! I had a great time writing my own blog posts, and an even better time reading some of the outstanding writing on the other blogs.

2. It is a creative challenge.  Sure, it's easy to come up with a blog using the letter B.  It's a different story when you get to the letter Q or X.  It was an even bigger challenge for me to keep up with the writing prompts from Write on Edge while participating in the A to Z challenge.  Some people write poetry using the letters. Last year, I started my blog post with the letter of the day.  This year, I may try something different.

3. Fascinating bloggers are out there!  By checking out some of the other participating bloggers, you will get to expand your horizons and find writers from all over the world. Different styles, different vocabularies, etc.  The International House of Bloggers, if you will, although IHOB doesn't sound nearly as nifty as IHOP.

4. It is a race with a clear finish line.  I don't know about anyone else, but I am not motivated by endless work.  It is important for me to know that there is some cheese at the end of my maze!  There's only 26 letters in the alphabet, last I checked, and the challenge allows us to have Sundays off. 

5. Satisfaction.  This isn't the equivalent of running a marathon, of course. When you finish the blog challenge at the end of April, however, there's a sense of satisfaction for a job well done, a river crossed.  No running involved!  

I hope that you will consider joining me April 1st! 

And Then Mama Snapped

Wow! This is...slushy.  And brown. Can I eat it?

About a month ago, we went to Snowfest.  What might that be?  This part of the world is not a place where it normally snows.  The city of Universal City, therefore, trucks in a bunch of shaved ice in February and has a little festival with food and rides and such.  Fun stuff.  Various organizations set up booths to sell food as a fundraiser.  Larry had to bring some uniforms to one of his soccer coaches(he's the commissioner, and that is one of his responsibilities), so we loaded up Zane and took off for the park. (I've lived here for twenty years, and never knew that there was an actual park in Universal City, because I'm clueless, but that is another story.)

Larry went off to do his soccer thing, leaving me to take care of our son.  Zane and I walked around, checking out all the rides.   Zane was interested in a bungee jumping sort of activity; he thought it was "spider" related.  I told him that we would have to wait in line; was he sure that that is what he wanted to do?  Yes, he assured me.  That is what he wanted to do. So we wandered about until we found the booth selling wristbands to ride the rides, and got Zane set up.  Then we hiked to the bungee ride and found the line.

Let me say right here that I hate crowds, and I hate lines.  I particularly hate crowded lines.  I don't like to go to carnivals or festivals for this very reason.  This wasn't a long line, but it was a crowded line. Entire families were in the line with their little dears, and even as we arrived at the end of what should have been a ten minute wait, several 'cousins' arrived to join the family ahead of us. 

It was windy and cold.  It had rained earlier in the day, and the ground was muddy.  We were lined up next to a dumpster.  Nothing for a four year old to see except a small green wall.  Zane decided after a minute or two that he wanted me to hold him.  Twenty minutes go by with me holding my son.  My forty pound son.  My hip and lower back started organizing a pain strike.  I finally tell Zane that he can stand on his own.  He flops onto the ground in protest. I pick him up and finally get him to stand. 

By this time, my back hurt from standing, from holding Zane, and just on general principle.  I was becoming more and more irritated about the "families" in front of us, especially once I realized that half of the 'relations' didn't even look remotely alike.  Nobody likes people who cut in line, least of all the people who are behind the evildoers. 

We have not moved from our spot next to the dumpster in all this time.  It's been thirty minutes, however, and I am committed.  My boy was going to bungee jump, and that is that.

"I don't want to stand in line, Mama." Zane tells me after forty minutes. 

"You are standing in line, son," I tell him.  "We are waiting in this line so you can bungee jump."

"I don't want to bungee jump."

I did not raise my voice.  I did not curse.  I did get down to my son's eye level, and I looked him right in the eyes.

"Zane, we are going to stand here in this line.  We are going to stand here until it is our turn.  You are going to bungee jump. You are going to bungee jump and you are going to like it. Is that clear?"

It might have been seeing his mother speak with clenched teeth.  Whatever the reason, the boy stood in line for the next fifteen minutes without a word. And he bungee jumped, and he liked it. 

The 24/7 Spelling Bee

I consider myself a good speller, unlike some of the members of my extended family.  My father's side of the family was blessed/cursed with what is known as the Bad Spelling Gene.    It seems to have skipped me, thank goodness!  I was spelling champ of my elementary school in sixth grade, a title which immediately earned me the undying enmity of the kids I stomped on my way to the top.  It was worth the extra beatings at recess to get that tiny little trophy!  To this day, it's the only respectable trophy I've ever won.

I could go on and on about how important spelling is to reading, but the fact of the matter is that most kids don't give a toss about how to spell words.  That's what spell checkers are for, I'm told, with no effort to disguise the eye rolling.  This makes me sad, because I like to show off my spelling trophy, but I try to keep my sobbing to myself. 

I was delighted, however, to find that my son appears to be just as fascinated by spelling as I am!  For the past week or so, he has been peppering us with questions the spelling of all sorts of words.  I couldn't be happier.  Particularly when Zane is asking his daddy how to spell everything.

"Daddy, how do you spell CAT?"

"Daddy, how do you spell TREE?"

"Daddy, how do you spell AIRPLANE?

"Daddy, how do you spell STAR WARS?"

"Daddy, how do you spell LIGHT?"

Isn't that cute? Larry is such a patient person when it comes to Zane.  Turnabout is fair play, I suppose. Occasionally it has been my turn to spell everything out.  I start out on a roll, enthusiastic, ready to throw those letters out there.  After about an hour, however, my attention has been divided by dishes and laundry and telephone calls and cats, and I can barely think anymore. Then I tend to get silly.

Mama, how do you spell  BLANKET?

"D-A-D-D-Y."

"Mama, how do you spell MAMA?"

"D-A-D-D-Y."

Mama, how do you spell SOCCER?

"G-O-A-S-K-Y-O-U-R-D-A-D-D-Y."

I'm a bad mother, I know.  It will be my fault that my son doesn't have his own spelling trophy.  I hope that he doesn't sue me, but I fully expect to be featured on an upcoming episode of whatever incarnation of The Jerry Springer Show appears twenty years from now.  

Write On Edge: Slap-happy Blues

Prompt: In honor of Davy Jones and the other artists who enhance our lives, this week’s Red Writing Hood prompt draws inspiration from music.  Go to This Day In Music, and discover what was number 1 on the charts in the United States, England or Australia the day you or your character was born, or any other special day in your/their life, if you prefer.  This was difficult for me, because I'm fighting something vaguely flu-like, and because I am still resentful that I didn't end up with a cooler song. 




Mr. Tambourine Man was the number one song in the US on the day that I was born.  I've resented the heck out of that for some time.  That such a sleepy song would herald my birth!  The song is about a wanderer, someone down at heel, who is looking for a little cheer from a musician.  Depressing!  I should have a strong, forceful song as a birth song!  Mr. Tambourine Man has nothing to do with me.

And yet...

I've wandered, dancing to my own internal rhythm,  through my childhood, and sashayed into adulthood.   I've stepped along my own paths, and music has drawn me through the light of the fields and the darkness of the forest.  I've danced behind musicians, my own Pied Pipers, and awakened full of vague regret.   And though I am tired, the music still calls to me, and then I forget about today until tomorrow.

Perhaps the song does have something to do with my life, after all. 




 

Out With The In-Laws

Mamakat's prompt:  5.) Describe what it was like meeting your in-laws for the first time?


Larry and I were about to move in together, and it was time for me to meet his parents.  I wanted to make a good impression, of course, and I imagine that they felt the same.  Larry's parents looked a lot older than my parents; his mother appeared particularly frail.  She did all the talking for herself and her husband, but both seemed pleasant and friendly.   We chatted as we buckled our seat belts and drove to the restaurant to eat.

In San Antonio, if you are not at a table in a restaurant before five on a Friday night, you plan on waiting in line.  We got a late start, so it was after five, and we were told that we would have about a thirty minute wait.  Larry and I were used to such waiting, but his mother felt that the line was too long; she would not be able to wait that long to eat.  We decided to try another restaurant just up the road, and we all piled into the car and fought the rush hour traffic for about twenty minutes to get there. 

We were told there would be at least a forty-five minute wait for a table.

"I guess we should have stayed at the other place," Larry's mother said. 

Under normal circumstances, Larry and I would have made sarcastic comments, but we were both on our best behavior. Since his mother was the one who could not wait too long to eat, the rest of us were willing to defer to her wishes.   Did she want to wait for a table at this restaurant, we queried, or did she want to go somewhere else? 

She didn't know what she wanted to do, she told us.  Every restaurant would have a line, she said.  She did not want to eat somewhere that would upset her stomach.  She normally brought crackers with her, she told me, but she had forgotten to replace them from the last time.  She had a delicate tummy, she said.  Larry's mother chattered for some time, like one of those bossy squirrels guarding their tree in the park.  We waited for her to decide, becoming more irritated as our blood sugar levels fell.  I felt myself on the brink of saying something sarcastic, and likely hurtful.

I finally pulled Larry aside and suggested strongly that we all go to a Mexican fast food place close by.  There would be no line, and we could eat instead of just talking about eating.  It was a win-win, as far as I was concerned.  Larry agreed with me, as did his father.  After a few moments agonizing about what a bad impression she was probably making, we were able to get into the car.  Five minutes later, we were at Taco Cabana, our food sitting in front of us, and we were digging in.  Except for Larry's mother, who was still trying to explain her 'tummy troubles' in detail. I was shocked when she brought up the 'C' word at the dinner table. 'C' as in 'colon'.  I wasn't really sure what my response to all this should be.   I took my cue from my future husband and future father-in-law and tried to ignore most of what she said.  I would have been too grossed out to eat, otherwise. 

I was feeling magnanimous as we went our separate ways for the evening.  I wasn't sure that I wanted to go out to eat with my future in-laws again, but I was still in love.   

I Have No Idea

At Zane's school, they take pictures of the kids engaged in art activities.  I'm missing out on huge chunks of my son's life while I'm a slave to a paycheck,  so I like this idea.   It would be nice if more classrooms did this, but considering the general lack of funding for education, I'm not holding my breath.

The teachers ask the kids about what they are working on and type that up as a quote to go with the picture.  That's where I get sidetracked, because often the quote does not match the picture at all. In the picture above, for instance, Zane is coloring an unidentifiable picture, and he says, "Mine is big."

What the heck is that boy talking about?  

What, exactly,  is big?  The picture?  Is this some sort of new four-year-old slang?  I don't get it.  I used to get it.   I hate that I don't get it.  Is this what I have to look forward to, this not having a clue what is going on?  I used to pride myself on being able to figure things out, but apparently that ship has sailed.  I am afraid that one day soon I will be sitting in a room, surrounded by teenagers, and be unable to understand a word any of them say. 

RemembeRED: Crystal

Prompt: One person’s Humpty Dumpty is another person’s omelet. In 400 words or less, write about a time when something was irrecoverably broken and the ensuing scramble.



While my father had been stationed in Germany, my mother had acquired a collection of water glasses, white wine glasses, red wine glasses, champagne flutes, sherry glasses, brandy snifters, etc.   My mother had a china cabinet to display all of her fragile finery, even though we hardly ever used any of it.  Before she married, my mother had never before had the opportunity to own china or silver or those other marks of status among women of the time, and those glasses were special to her.  My brother and I didn't know that at the time.  What we did know is that if we touched her crystal, we should be prepared to meet Jesus that very moment. 

It was extremely cold as the movers brought all of the boxes into the house on Lansdowne Way the day we moved to Maryland. There might even have been a hint of snow in the air.   My mother was sitting in the dining room, unwrapping her crystal carefully.  I offered to help her unwrap the glasses, out of habit. I expected her to refuse, as she usually did.  Instead, she told me to take a seat.  I was handed a roll of plain gray paper.

My mother was trusting me with her crystal!  We sat together and carefully unrolled snifters, flutes, and glasses, placing them all on the dining room table.  I remained vigilant as I unraveled the paper on a stemmed water glass.  I held the glass carefully in my hand.  I placed it gently on the table, as I had done with all the other glasses I had unwrapped.

A loud CRACK! reverberated throughout the house. I froze, still holding the top part of the glass. 
The rest of my mother's precious crystal water glass was on the table. 

I turned to my mother, eyes wide in horror, ready to throw myself at her feet to beg for mercy, or at least a quick death.  She was staring at the part of the glass that had been left on the table.   Then she sighed heavily. 

"Just turn that glass upside down next to that piece, so they stay together," she said.  She then handed me another rolled up paper, and went back to unwrapping the one in her lap.   I sat and stared at her, open-mouthed, for another couple of seconds, concerned.

Then I warily started unwrapping the next glass. 

The A List: Classroom Survival Strategies

It has been said that it is important to view subjects in their natural habitat.  All the Wild Kingdom I watched as a kid said that, anyway.  I have sat in a lot of classrooms over the past twenty years as a result.  I'm not there to judge anyone, or grade anyone.   I am just an observer in this concrete jungle, and I certainly don't have any agenda.  I'm the Jane Goodall of the classroom habitat, you could say.  Except I have no intention of ever naming anyone Frodo.  The second I walk into the room, however, every single head turns toward me and every single head has the same thought: "She's here for me."

So I sit in the back and I observe.  I have to write stuff down, lest I forget something noteworthy, but mostly I just look around.  It really is fascinating.  The very first lesson kids learn in school is how to respond when the teacher calls on them for an answer.  Most kids will not have the answer, either because they didn't do the assignment or they momentarily forgot in the face of overwhelming fear that a teacher might call on them.  Over the years I've realized that there are certain strategies that kids have learned to compensate for this brief amnesia.  Here are a few that I've recently observed.

1. Play Possum.  Sit extremely still, very quiet, respiration minimal.  Maybe the teacher won't notice.  Most of the time they don't, because they are dealing with the loud kids, the chatty kids, etc.  If a teacher wants quiet, and you're being quiet, she is going to pass you by to get to the loud kids.  This is usually a very successful strategy, if not overused. 

2. Nod & Smile.  Teachers love it when their students are enthusiastic about what they are learning.  They love to look out at the crowd to a sea of smiling, nodding faces.  Kids know this.  The "Nod & Smile" strategy involves distracting the teacher with blatant adoration.  It's ingenious.  The teacher doesn't want to ruin the magic by asking a question that might be answered incorrectly, so they stop asking questions at all. If all goes well, nobody will be called on in class that day.

3. Look Around.  There are usually 400,000 things to look at in a classroom.  Posters, art displays, books, lessons, etc.  Planted on walls, hanging from the ceilings, taped across desks, are a number of answers to many questions that a teacher might ask.  No harm in checking them out. Some of those posters may jar a memory or be the exact answer you're looking for.

4. Blank stare.  Nature abhors a vacuum.  If a teacher sees a child with a completely blank stare, she will be concerned that this child is not "getting it".  Her concern will drive her to action.  The action will be to give the child the answer so that the flow of instruction is not impeded.  Kids know that all they have to do is sit and wait, using a blank stare, and someone will tell them what they need to know.

5.  Follow the nonverbals.  Teachers are generally lousy poker players with all their tells.  They tend to be very expressive and demonstrative  and emphatic.  All a kid has to do is learn to recognize the tells a particular teacher exhibits, and then capitalize on them. Watch faces when they ask the question.   Sometimes there will be a eye flick toward the vicinity of the answer, if it is on the wall. 


I've lately realized that all of these strategies could come in handy in other areas, such as staff meetings.  So what strategies do you use?

A "Real" Fan!

I haven't really made an effort to let people that I interact with in RL know that I have a blog.  It is not that I don't want them to know about it.  I try not to write anything that I wouldn't say to anyone's face, and as part of my cold turkey pledge I try not to cuss.  Nothing to really be embarrassed about.

It's that most people I know aren't the least bit interested. I know this to be fact. I told a few people, and they practically fell asleep almost as soon as the word 'blog' was mentioned.  No one in my family has ever read anything I've written, which probably makes family dinners more palatable. Oh, I share posts on Facebook, if I am especially happy with my writing that day. But I don't ever expect anyone who actually sees me every workday to read it.  After all, I am just one little blog.  A minor blip on the interwebs. I understand that, and I am okay with it.  If I could just blog all day as a job, and make money doing it, I might not like it so much.  There's a big difference between writing because you want to and writing because you have to.  While I wouldn't mind making a little spending money with my blog, that's not the reason why I write.

So I was very flattered when someone from work approached me and told me how much she enjoyed reading my blog.  To be honest, when she first approached me, my first thought was 'Am I in trouble?'  But that's pretty much the first thing I think when anyone at work approaches me these days.  I have known this lady for a long time, through several regimes of Superintendents, good and bad(in education, regime is really the correct wording). She is a very nice lady, and I am glad if I can make her laugh every now and then.  

An actual English teacher reads my blog, too, and she hasn't corrected my grammar once.  It's not that my grammar is all that great--half the time when I am writing it is late and I am falling asleep.  My participles are sometimes left dangling as a result, and despite all of my talk of spelling OCD, my posts are often riddled with misspelled words.  I won't even mention gerunds.  Yet she hasn't said a word about any of that, even when I've been expecting to receive a printed copy of my post for the day, the markings from the red pen still fresh.  I am relieved that she does not do this.  

Don't get me wrong.  I adore each and every one of the people who read my blog and comment, even if they are correcting my spelling.  Since the internet is so vast, however, there's a tendency to feel that the readers out there will fade away like a mirage.  For instance, I know that my friend Jillsmo is real because she's sent me presents. Other times, especially when I am tired, I wonder if I just imagined the entire thing.  Maybe I've just imagined writing this entire blog post.  It's been a long day.  

And So It Begins Again

Soccer season...time to don my Soccer Mom jersey and head for the fields.

First game of 2012 is a little different than the first game of 2011.  The tiny three year olds who wandered aimlessly around the field are no more.  In their place are four year olds who are both taller and tougher.  And bigger--Zane's gone up two whole shoe sizes since last season.  And definitely more confident.  Even the boy who cried just about every game last season is ready to play.  We have a new player, a girl, and she cried at the last practice.  Because it was over, and she didn't want to stop playing.

In the fall, my son was still working on running AND kicking the ball.  Now he doesn't even have to think about it.  Last season the concept of kicking the ball into the goal was strange and foreign. Now that is all Zane and his teammates want to do.  They have yet to learn about the concept of sharing the ball, so I expect that the game today will look very similar to rugby and not soccer.  Which is fine with me.  I want all of them to have a great time. 

What is new this time around is that my husband, who is more curmudgeonly than I am,  is now overseeing all of the coaches in the U4 league.  He has been in charge of setting up the teams, making sure that the coaches knew who their players were, handing out the uniforms, getting the schedule of games set up, etc.  Larry's never done anything like this before, and he's very intent on doing a good job.  I'm very proud of how he has organized everything and how much more smoothly everything has gone this time around. People know what is going on and where they are supposed to be. 

So I head out with my son to his first game of the season(Larry had to be at the fields early), expecting that everything will be wonderful.  Which is completely silly.  We are talking about four-year-olds. 

And their parents!  Eeek!

WOE: Dusseldorf

Prompt:  For Friday, I challenge you with this opening line:  “It was a rainy night in Dusseldorf…”
Have fun with it.



It was a rainy night in Dusseldorf; the kind of night that is best spent tucked under a blanket with someone.  Instead, Lacy pulled her rusted Fiat into the very first parking place she could find on the Bolkerstrasse.  She was late, but she paused a moment to check her lipstick in the rear view mirror, and took a deep breath.  Lacy opened the car door and stuck the umbrella above her head. She was not the least bit concerned about the brief sparks of lightning she had seen. Her updo was not likely to survive the walk to the restaurant on  Schneider-Wibbel-Gasse, but perhaps her dress would only be slightly damp.

The lights of the city glared onto the wet sidewalk in front of her, defiant, as the rain tried to drown it into submission.  Lacy walked as quickly as she could in her four-inch heels, cursing the uncharacteristic impulse that had led to their purchase. Her feet were already protesting, and she knew that she would have blisters.  Blisters were the least of her worries, she thought.  The lights of the restaurant were a beacon just ahead. 

A gloved hand suddenly snaked out in front of her face, covering her startled scream. The umbrella fell out of her hand as she was lifted off her feet and dragged into a alley she hadn't noticed. Her back hit the brick wall hard enough to knock a grunt out of her, then a hard body was pinning her. Lacy opened her eyes wide, trying to see in the dark as she struggled.

"Shhhh."  She knew this voice.  She relaxed into Adrien's familiar warmth.  Satisfied, he pulled away, disappearing into the darkness just as another man stepped into the alley.  Lacy inwardly cursed; she had been so focused on her rendezvous that she hadn't even noticed that she was being followed.   She remained still, her back still pressed against the wall, as the man moved silently toward her.  He saw the whiteness of her skin against the darkness and moved toward her, one hand held at his side.   No loud gunshots this close to civilians.  A knife was quieter.  She opened her mouth to scream.

The man was gone!  A muffled cry turned her head just as lightning erupted above.  Adrien had his teeth sunk deep into the neck of her adversary; his eyes were already dim with death.  Thunder rolled in after the lightning, the sudden darkness more blinding than the light.  Lacy breathed in deeply; she hadn't realized that she had been holding her breath. 

"I could get the hang of this spy business." Adrien was there beside her in the darkness, the air around him electric.  Tiny hairs on her skin strained toward him as his mouth hovered above hers and Lacy kissed him, the coppery taste of blood still on his lips.  They held hands as they walked toward the lights of the restaurant.

Mamakat: Remember Summer?

Mamakat's Prompt:   Remember Summer? The warm air, blue skies, and endless days in the water? Me either. Share a photo from last Summer that brings you back.

This is my husband and my son on the beach in Corpus Christi, Texas.  It was Zane's very first trip to the ocean, and it was my husband's idea to try to build a sandcastle with Zane.  Here, the two of them are discussing the viscosity of wet sand, in order to locate the best place to build.  Okay, I am joking.  Nobody thinks when they are building a sand castle; that's half the fun. 

Zane was more interested in the ocean than in the sand, so Larry ended up building the castle mostly solo.  My job was to keep Zane from being carried off by seagulls and the random rogue wave.  The sun was low in the sky, so we had no worries about sunburns.  We all got extremely sandy hanging out right there where the tide was rolling in, and we did not plan for wet clothing on a car seat.  But we all had a blast and watched the sun go down before we packed up and headed back to the hotel, where we showered about 40 tons of sand off(leaving the other 20 tons in the car) and went to sleep with the sound of the waves in our dreams.