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Okay, now that I have typed the phrase busy bee, all I can think of is that scene in Gladiator where Commodus has reached a-place-that-is-beyond-creepy and he calls Lucillia a busy bee. I always want to scream at Lucillia to just grab her kid and leave the palace.
But I wanted to pop in for a minute to once again apologize for not posting and to assure you that I am still alive and well! I’ve been in over my head in events, planning and projects. The picture above shows the sewing project I’ve been working on – 20+ Shakespearean shirts for a middle school production of Taming of the Shrew. Ooo, ooo, that Shakespearean rag. . .
And to add to the randomness of this post, here is a poem for you:
MORNING AT THE WINDOW
by: T.S. Eliot (1888-1965)
THEY are rattling breakfast plates in basement kitchens,
And along the trampled edges of the street
I am aware of the damp souls of housemaids
Sprouting despondently at area gates.
The brown waves of fog toss up to me
Twisted faces from the bottom of the street,
And tear from a passer-by with muddy skirts
An aimless smile that hovers in the air
And vanishes along the level of the roofs.
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Isn’t this a cute little hedgehog? He is glad it’s Friday too. I wish I knit well enough to make this little guy, maybe some day. Hmm, actually maybe I could try to make this. . . it wouldn’t hurt to try, the worst thing that could happen is that I end up with something-else-entirely, which would be more than I started with.
“It’s snowing still,” said Eeyore gloomily.
“So it is.”
“And freezing.”
“Is it?”
“Yes,” said Eeyore. “However,” he said, brightening up a little, “we haven’t had an earthquake lately.”
~ A.A. Milne
My Mom and I had a conversation about hot air balloons while I was home for the holidays. And now memories of hot air balloons keep popping up in my mind.
As a child I would spend time at my grandparent’s home in Napa. The early mornings were always punctuated with the sounds of the propane heaters in the hot air balloons as they would float over the vineyards. I miss that sound. Sometimes we’d sleep on the trampoline in the backyard, and in the morning the balloons would float right over the top of us. People would always wave. Once a balloon landed near the reservoir in the vineyard behind the house.
Maybe someday I’ll take a ride in one. . .
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Today is the feast of everyone’s favorite, St. Nicholas! I was Christmas shopping on etsy.com and I found the cool postcard up above, I wish I had found it a few weeks ago, but maybe I’ll buy a few now and save them for next year. . .
I work in private education (no I am not a teacher,I am on the administrative end of things) and yesterday was the first day of school for most schools in the area. While to some, this is an exciting thing, to me it signals the beginning of phone calls from parents. In the heat of the moment, these calls are never fun – I don’t like being yelled at, or having to carefully word every sentence because what I say will be used against me. But afterwards, it can be amusing to mull over how crazy parents can be. For example:
1) The parents call to let me know their student is perfect and in no way deserves the D+ he was given. In fact, it is not even possible for their child to do D level work, therefore, their child deserves an A.
2) The parents are paying for private education, therefore their child deserves and A. (They literally think they are paying for a passing grade. Um, let me think. No. Oh, and guess what, your child would still be failing in public school because they have homework there too!)
3) Their child is failing class, they understand this, but its unfair to give them an F. (Right. And it would be fair to give them an A, demonstrating complete comprehension of the subject?)
4) Their child has completely failed a grade but they still want them passed on to the next because they’ll do better in the next grade. (Right, because if the student doesn’t know how to read he’ll have ever possibility of success.)
5) Teachers don’t know anything about their subject, but they, the parents do. Their bachelor degree in business administration makes them experts on every subject taught in school. (Nevermind that most teachers and school administrators have M.A.’s (and in some cases doctorates) in their specific field.)
6) The administration is always out to get you. Even when the administration has clear logical reasons for what they do, they are trying to trick you somehow. (Because we are not about education but deception.)
7) I have the power to fail their child out of college, twelve years down the road. Therefore, every precaution to make every communication anonymous should be taken. This thereby will make it practically impossible to fix any problem, but at least their child will get into Harvard. (Hello? Harvard? Yes, I have a spastic kindergartener who won’t nap that I would like to report. I am pretty sure he is a misdirected genius even though I have never met him and you should never accept him because I am jealous of his potential greatness. Yes, his parents gave me his name. No, the fools, they didn’t remain anonymous! Buwahaha!)
8) I personally hate their child (who I have never met) and everything I do to help them is merely some twisted plot to get send the student to the slums so they will lead a life of misery. (If the parents refuse to let their child play high school baseball, because he didn’t make the A team, this will surely to happen. Playing on the B team means you will never succeed in anything ever and will be a failure for the rest of your life.)
9) Because parents are paying for a private education everyone in the entire school system must cater to their wishes. Included their right to block me into my parking space when I try to leave because they can’t back up five feet lest they lose their spot in the pick-up line.
10) Because they’ve sent a child or two to the same school they think they are donors and they will pull funding (i.e. their child will not attend next year) if things aren’t done their way. (Um, no. You paid for your child’s education, you are not a donor. True story: your ‘funding’ usually doesn’t even cover the true cost of educating your child, that is usually subsidized by real donors. Real donors give substantial amounts of money to our schools so your child can continue to receive his education at the rate he does.)
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One of the things I enjoy about Pixar films is the short they always show before the main feature. When I went to see Brave earlier this summer, the showed a short called La Luna, I loved it! I really wish I could show you the whole thing, but all I have here is a little clip. It has a very Little Prince-ish feeling about it, don’t you think?
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I was wondering what I was going to write about today, then I came across this picture. It reminded me, when I shoot pistols, my eyes close. Are you afraid? I was taking a gun safety class and the instructor had us at the range practicing with various types of pistols. He was befuddled because none of my shots seemed to be hitting the target, at all. After closer inspection he discovered that I take aim, but at the very last possible millisecond, my eyes close and the gun dips down the tiniest bit, causing me to completely miss the target. It’s a knee jerk reaction to anticipating the noise and kick of the gun.
However, that is just with pistols. Give me a shotgun and we’re in business. I don’t remember exactly how old I was, probably about 13, but my family was shooting trap. Shooting trap is a tradition we have on the 4th of July. Anyway, an off-duty police officer made up part of the group that year. When the teams were divided up each adult was paired with a junior, and I was assigned the police officer. Each team member would take a turn shooting at the clay pigeons and the partner would catch the strays if necessary. “Don’t worry,” he said, he confidently told pig-tailed me, ”I’ll get all the ones you miss.” So I shot first, and hit every single clay pigeon. Then we switched, and I got all three or four of the pigeons he missed. I didn’t let a single one of those pigeons hit the ground. As we passed our guns off to the next team he solemnly looked down at me and said, “please don’t ever end up on the wrong side of law.”
Have I introduced you to the children’s book The Summerfolk by Doris Burn? If I haven’t yet, I am so sorry. Everyone needs to read this book at some point in their life, hopefully at every stage of their life. And it is the perfect book to read when the days are long and hot and the air is still. The pictures on their own are delightful!
The story is about a young boy, Willy Pots, who resents the “summerfolk” that come to his beach-side hometown every summer. But then he meets a new and different kind of summerfolk. . .
There are so many things in this book that my brothers and sisters adopted becuase of reading it, like the word lupper. Lupper is a meal that is served half-way between lunch and supper. Brilliant, yes?
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