It's Christmas Times, Cat

This is my daughter's first Christmas, so 'hiding' Christmas presents from her is about as difficult as buying them. She was with us when we found the little bath-finger-puppets, heard us talking about them, and I still suspect that she will be appropriately surprised to see them Christmas Eve in her stocking. I mean, everything is still a surprise to a 5 month old. ("Look! A clean diaper!")

I anticipated some searching from the dog, considering her nose knows she got a chewy stick and where it's located out of reach, but who I should have been more concerned about is the cat.

I knew I was in trouble when I first got home with it. It's a 'rat' stuffed with real, organic catnip, and a bell. Unfortunately, it was a little too perfect considering that he took it out of the shopping bag it was in (under everything else from my other trips yesterday,) and was swatting it around on the floor. So I put it into a Christmas stocking, under something else, anchored by a basket, and by this morning, stocking, basket, and everything else on the dryer was on the floor.

Other attempts to keep the cat away from his Christmas present have failed in the past, but not to this extent. It's hard to keep from thinking that he looks forward to this game we play every year, (a bit of cat and mouse?) but the most frustrating thing is that once I give it to him he is just going to take one swipe at it and it will land under a chair/sofa/dryer/other piece of heavy furniture and will stay there until we get back from Christmas.

Then, he will just ignore it.

Ediface

One thing I have learned by teaching is the best way to control a large group of people is by learning their names. As soon as what they do is no longer anonymous, they suddenly start thinking that these things can come back to haunt them. This makes this a little difficult for me since I seem to be handicapped by something far worse than my inability to spell - I cannot recognize faces or names.

Usually, I remember a kid's name for all the wrong reasons - he/she is usually acting out in class, to remind the kid to get me some work they missed due to excessive absences, or some other obnoxious reason for me to ask them something. I, for some reason, never see those kids after graduation. I only see the kids that I really enjoyed teaching, and for the life of me I cannot remember their names.

I can remember dog's names, but that's usually because dogs actually look like their names. Stubby, Reagan, Bellatrix, or Rusty are memorable; Jason, John, Abby, or Taylor are not. Is it because dog owners are better at naming than the rest of the population? Obviously not. I think it's because we spend time with dogs before naming them, unlike the practice with our children. I cannot imagine a parent deciding to name their child Twinkle Le'Star after knowing the child for any period of time, realizing that this would be social suicide.

But my problem is not only names but faces. If people wore the same thing every day, never changed their fair, or if there just wasn't so many people to remember in the first place, I would be better off. I have this one child in my class that looks completely different from each week to the next so as soon as I start to recognize the child, she changes. Just today I went to my box and pulled out a package of pictures for the yearbook that I could not recognize. It was obviously air-brushed, and that person was wearing way too much make-up.

Then I realized it was me.

Pets and the Neurotic

I don't know if pets are only a mirror to their 'masters' or if owning a pet makes you crazy, but I know that sanity is usually in short supply during the work week, and the cat and dog mirror my sentiments. Usually, since the dog goes with me to work, she comes home and crashes and the cat... well, he's usually crashed. But lately, both cat and dog have been acting out.

The dog has decided that she wants to sleep on the bed. This is commonplace for many well meaning, otherwise sane people I know, but this is gross to me. I see what she rolls around in, and I know what she thinks is perfume - I don't want that in the same place I go into deep REM. This is compounded with the problem that there is no room. My cat has always slept with me and the hubby, which has never been a huge problem (hey, he doesn't roll around in his litter-box,) but now that my daughter has come into the picture, our little bed is really crowded. We do not need another animal in the bed, furry or not.

But she does not see it this way. She has been convinced that she is a little lap dog since she was a puppy, and now that she is 60 pounds, she still is not aware of her girth. She just sees the baby, the cat, my husband and me enjoying a night of nursing while she gets the rug. But my dog is not a pacifist. Oh no. Passive-aggressive, maybe, but she is not going to just roll over and play dead on this issue. Now, any time she gets a chance, she goes and sneaks a nap on the bed, making my OCD husband paranoid.

Now, if this was it, I think we would be okay but no. The cat has now developed a penchant for baby socks. Yes, baby socks. I go through all this trouble to pair and ball up my infant daughter's socks, and the cat goes through an equal amount of trouble to stalk them down and bat them onto the floor. I did have them in a convenient basket until I woke up one morning to find the basket half empty and socks everywhere. I tried covering the basket up to no avail. I tried putting them into the drawer, and in walks the cat with Snoopy Socks in his mouth like he just killed them.

Maybe a person is already crazy if they get an animal, expecting it to be loyal and loving and sit on your lap only when it is convenient to you and greet you at the door. I will admit, as long as you are willing to accept compromises, you can get an animal to do most of those things, but forget it being convenient to you. It is a wonderful thing; however, just as there is never such thing as a completely sane human, we can never have a completely sane/normal/predictable cat/dog/pet.

(And we thought the shedding would be the most of our worries.)

Kids These Days

I remember people constantly complaining about my generation and getting annoyed at it. There were these sweeping generalizations about how people my age act, all we seemed to be interested in, and, more often than not, how much harder the people of the previous generations had it and how much better it made them. I didn't feel like such statements were true or helpful, so I am going to try to not succumb to the temptation of doing the same thing.

With that said, I must mention the students that I teach. For the most part, they are normal, middle-class, but run the gamut of overly exposed to popular culture to not exposed at all. I have never seen so many students who were once home schooled, and now I know why. Earlier today, I had a student approach me about a speech I had recommended to her to memorize for theater. (I had cherry-picked it because she 'didn't feel comfortable' doing a soliloquy that was not meant for a girl.) She told me that she didn't like the language. Knowing that this was Titania's speech from A Midsummer's Night's Dream, I was worried that perhaps I missed a 'jackass' or something about Bottom, the man named Bottom who was turned into a jackass - the animal, not the 'bad word.' But, no. There was no mention of him. I asked her to please point out what she was seeing.

"'But she, being mortal, of that boy did die; / And for her sake do I rear up her boy.'"

"What was inappropriate?"

She then points to the word 'rear'.

Are you kidding me? Have kids these days warped their minds so much that "rear" no longer means "to raise"? What in the world did she think Titania was doing to the child anyway? The worst part is that I know this kid was not doing as some kids do (including me at that age,) by making something gross/inappropriate using word association. She genuinely did not want to say that because she thought she was saying something 'bad'. Most of the time at her age I was looking for opportunities to say inappropriate things. What does that make me?

It goes without saying that she is an exception to the rule - not the general rule, and that she is the product of being so overly-sheltered that it is affecting her ability to exist in the free world. It shows us what happens when someone doesn't have the mind to question (in her case) a religious doctrine that says something vaguely, which is in itself not a bad idea, but when applied to the world at large and taken to an extreme, can be worse than damaging. It also goes without saying that this is a forewarning of troubles to come. I told a lady in the office about this and she looked at me like I was crazy.
"What are they doing to kids these days?" she asked.
I often wonder.

'Tis the season to kill Romeo

As an English teacher, seasonal movies mean something completely different to me. Because I always end the first semester with Shakespeare, I usually am living, breathing, talking, thinking Shakespeare when Christmas rolls around; so, when everybody else thinks about Charlie Brown's Christmas, I think about Romeo and Juliet, Julius Caesar, or Hamlet. This became really difficult one year when my drama students were performing The Taming of the Shrew while I was teaching three grades, so I was reading The Taming of the Shrew, Macbeth, Hamlet, Julius Caesar, The Tempest, and Much Ado About Nothing. Yeah, that was brutal.

What I have learned, though, is how much I can remember from the movies of each of the plays. The soundtrack to the Franco Zeffirelli version of Romeo and Juliet sounds like Christmas carols to me, and the dialogue and the soliloquies get stuck in my head like how other people cannot get "Frosty the Snowman" out of their heads. Today, I showed my drama students soliloquies from different productions of Shakespearean plays, including Zeffirelli's version of The Taming of the Shrew when I realized the guy playing Tybalt in Romeo and Juliet plays a suitor (with blond hair!) in this movie. It was awkward seeing him trying to woo Bianca after I had seen him saying, "Peace, I hate the word as I hate hell, all Montagues, and thee."

Probably the most disturbing side effect of watching these movies way too much is the irresistible urge to give a Mystery Theater commentary through some of the most serious scenes. There is a priceless moment during Juliet's funeral when Friar Lawrence looks down and smiles, then remembers he's at a funeral and looks sad again. I just want to say in a funny voice, "Look! She has a funny hat on! Wait, I'm at a funeral - look sad!" but I can't because the students are trying to learn and I'm the teacher, after all.

Now, the Christmas season is in full swing: we just started the Baz Luhrmann version of Romeo and Juliet today, which is so much fun, and in the Sophomore's class, they are almost done with Julius Caesar. Besides, I never tire of seeing Marlon Brando, even if he is wearing a skirt as Marc Antony no man should ever wear. At least I don't have to hear the comments about the tights during this movie.

Mathematics, Crocheting, and Saving the Earth

Math has never been my forte - not by choice but because I am just wired funny. It takes me twice as long to get a math concept as the normal human being, so I never thought I would have figured something out on my own that Mathematicians are also just figuring out.

I'm not calling myself a genius; I'm just a knitter who kept noticing that you can do some amazing things with yarn (usually not on purpose,) that were mind boggoling. Last Christmas, my sister-in-law was making a hat talking about making a twisted loop that neither has a beginning or an end. (Perhaps she could be so kind as to put the correct spelling for this type of loop as a comment...) I mentioned that there seemed to be all sorts of mathematical concepts that could be taught via knitting, and Mom mentioned how Geometry could be taught using quilting.

Now, I came across this TED video:



Maybe a theme of a school could be 'learning through the domestic arts.' I would love to teach there - I would at least get through my Christmas List faster

Annie Hoaky

I have finally learned what babies want: Mom and Dad in a close proximity at all times. Last weekend I got some movies from the library to help me stay put for a nap time or two, and she was thrilled. It's always fun to see the expression on the sweet librarians' faces after they see my choices. This week it was a Moosewood Cookbook, (why do I even try?) Triston and Isolade, a documentary on Kensey, and Annie Get Your Gun. So far, all that I have used so far has been Annie Get Your Gun.

My brothers never seemed to appreciate their humor while my sister owns every Beach Movie in existence, and I would like to say I have found a happy medium between the two opinions. I like Guys and Dolls. I own Kiss Me Kate. I respect West Side Story, I thoroughly enjoy Grease every now and then, but this movie was too much. I did not like how they portrayed Annie Oakley as a caricature of ignorance just "Doin' What Comes Naturally,' nor did I appreciate their Disney-esque portrayal of Native Americans with "I'm an Indian Now," but what bothered me more was how she kept throwing herself at Frank Butler, and he was just a prick. There is only one part in the movie that I was seriously proud of her and that was during the song, "Anything You Can Do I Can Do Better," which ironically was the bane of my existence for several months when it was used as the backdrop to a stupid laundry detergent commercial several years back.

Besides, who says "You Can't Get A Man With A Gun"? Not according to Sarah Palin.

Class Pets

I am so fortunate to be able to bring my dog to school, taking all need for a class pet away. All my attempts, usually involving fish, have turned disastrous, so for the animal kingdom, this is just as well. There is a certain risk you take when introducing an animal to a school environment - like the hamster that ate her young in Elementary school or the snake that was scared of mice in middle school; things do not always work out as planned.

The 2nd and 3rd grade teacher (I'll call her Mrs. Turtle,) has a class turtle in her room. While visiting her room, I commented that I would never get anything done in her room because I would be too fixated on the turtle.
She made a funny expression and said, "Yeah, especially when he starts humping his rock."
I did a double-take. "Does this happen often?"
"Only about three to four times a day."
Let me mention that Mrs. Turtle is not a crass woman - quite the opposite. She's about my mother's age, and would never be considered anything but prim and proper which makes this story so funny to me; not to mention that the rock was pretty turtle-like.
"And would you believe that one of my 3rd graders figured out what he was doing? He says to me, 'I think the turtle thinks his rock is a girl rock,' and I told him, 'No, turtles don't think about things like that.' I just knew I was going to get a call from his parents that night."
Later on, SOMEHOW this came up in one of my classes. (Something about confusing one thing for another.) My students were quite impressed, and later on one student called another student a 'perverted turtle', and it stuck. Now I knew that I was going to have to explain to Mrs. Turtle, just in case a bunch of Sophomores decided to come and see her turtle randomly, but she was not concerned.
"Oh, if they ever are student aids in my room, they will see it soon enough."
"Surely it isn't too obvious."
"Well, it wouldn't be if the rock didn't hit the glass and make such a racket that the entire class has to turn to see it."

Apparently, this first happened when she had taken the turtle home over the summer break and it woke her and her husband up in the middle of the night and they couldn't figure out what was going on. Finally, her husband made the discovery and returned to bed, pretty irate saying, "Would you believe it's that damn horny turtle humping his rock?"

Apparently, it's not just for toads anymore.

Little Kiddies...

It is no secret that I am not an Elementary Ed. I'm not going to pretend, the whole lack of personal space thing freaks me out and I have a strange feeling that I am trying to manage chaos instead of teach anybody anything of substance. I never knew how fortunate I had it teaching Freshmen and Sophomores until I realized that 1st graders don't necessarily know how to read. This week, however, I have 2nd graders. They are a lot more enjoyable, but there are some drawbacks. Today I left my knitting unattended, and by the time I came back to it, I noticed a little boy 'helped out' on the Christmas present I was making. It took me 5 minutes to figure out what he did and fix it.

On a similar note, my dog is not an Elementary Ed.'s dog either. Today we were walking to the office, as usual, and the 3rd graders were outside enjoying the weather eating their snack. She goes up to one of the kids she had never met before, took a bite out of the kid's sandwich, and ran off. The poor kid just looked confused. I felt awful! I went back to my classroom and popped her some pop corn.

Their innocence is a beautiful thing, though. I've got a kid who is thrilled about being a whale this Friday in a class play. I couldn't PAY a freshman to be a whale. (Is it worth switching to Elementary, though?)

(I keep wondering how my mother, sister, sister-in-law, et al do/did it.)

Cat Yodeling

In response to my brother's post, I wanted to post this. Mom, I wonder how Diana would take to yodeling/polka?

Oedipus, Complexed

This year, I think I finally cracked the code on teaching Oedipus... or just cracked. Either way, my students have finally reported that they enjoyed their reading this year. I'm used to shock, horror, revulsion, and boredom, so I tried to at least eliminate the last thing from the list this year, and I think it worked.

Let me preface this by saying that I had an a-ha moment my first year of teaching with the girl playing Jocasta. She was the most ghetto of them all, in a mother-hen kind of way. I routinely heard her raising one eyebrow, telling a friend "Oh girl," or "Mm-Hum." like she was thirty years older than she actually was, and a light bulb went off. This entire time I had seen Jocasta as a tragic queen - some little lady, lovely, and doting on her husband, but this presented problems with the words she would say, and I never could 'hear' her. With this girl reading the lines, she was more like a cougar, telling her kid husband, "Don't worry 'bout a thing, honey-child. Those prophets don't know nothin' noway." It was perfect.

So this year, I begin teaching Oedipus, and I realize Jocasta's character isn't alone - the prophet's name is Teiresius, and Oedipus' relationship with Creon mainly consists on thug one-up-man-ship and 'yo mama jokes (no pun intended.) I explained that to my students, telling them to reach into the play to see Sophocles' inner thug, and for the first time, their quiz scores went up. When Oedipus and Creon fought in Monday's reading, I described it as, "So Creon's like, 'What 'cho sayin' now?' and Oedipus is like, 'I know you did-ent!' and the kids got it - albeit, a little differently than how Sophocles would have wanted it.

Would Sophocles like the retelling of Oedipus? Probably no more than he likes Freud's interpretation, but I think he would maybe appreciate the dusting off of his work and making it accessible to a new audience I doubt he ever thought would read his play. Besides, most of us don't remember Greek Drama in a positive light, like one of my kids' mothers who sent word through her daughter to tell me that she really enjoyed Oedipus this year.
"But ___, how did your mother read it?"
"Well, I thought it would read better in the ghetto voices, so I gave them funny voices at home and Mom heard me. She heard "murder", so she listened in."

I really wish I could have heard her version of the blinding scene...

Ms. Lorax in the House

I still haven't made it to the doctor about my foot, but it seems to be getting better, especially since a student brought me a cane today. I don't think she actually thought I would use it, but I did, and it helped my foot out tremendously to keep my weight off of it.

Also, according to my students I looked like House. There are worse things in life...

Twisted Ankle Joy

I want to officially apologize to my mom and dad for calling them up at 10 o'clock at night, asking them what I should do about my foot. Yesterday I managed to twist my ankle (though my foot hurts much worse,) to the point where I had to ask them the dreaded question, "Do you think I should go to the emergency room?" Well, I didn't. Hubby was thinking we should go, but apart from the excruciating pain and slight swelling, I could not see anything else wrong with it.

This has, however, created new challenges with teaching Romeo and Juliet and Oedipus Rex today - not even mentioning the fact that 'oedipus' means clubbed foot and all, but my students come in and I am limping around collecting their homework. This morning I didn't know what to do, so I stuck a black slipper over my make-shift cast and wore a black shoe on the other foot. Unfortunately, my slipper has little flowers appliqued on top, which were a dead give-away, but I never claimed to be a fashion icon or anything.

All of this comes on the heals (no pun intended) of me breaking my little toe on the other foot a few weeks ago, and getting sick last weekend. Maybe the cosmos wants me to stay home tomorrow, I don't know. Hubby said last night while I was writhing in pain, blowing my nose, and nursing my baby, "Wow. Life sucks for you right now." which, if you know my husband, is an expression of extreme condolence.

Brussel-Sprout Soup

Nothing compares to being sick with an infant. Last weekend, I realized that more stuff could come out of my nose than should be humanly possible, and my daughter was there enjoying every moment of it. (How did you do it, Mom?) Anyway, Monday has come and gone and I am feeling much better, but it has been an ordeal.

The husband has not been a lot of help with the sickness because he has been building the studio by himself. The workers at least got it to a point where it is pretty weather sealed, so he has been attaching huge planks of hardy-plank to the side of the building by himself and the cunning use of shelving. This scares me to no end, but I can barely talk right now, much less help or tell him how dangerous it looks when he is perched on the ladder like that...

The best news that has come from this past week is my sister's vegetable soup recipe, which I followed like I follow pretty much every recipe I'm given - I don't. (Julia Child, I am not.) She tells me about this amazing recipe that called for brussel-sprouts and a bunch of other things, so when my throat started getting scratchy the next day, I run out and get the ingredients to get started and call her up to get directions.
"So what goes in first?"
"Start by sauteing the onions, peppers, and garlic..."
I don't know if she heard the pause in my voice, but I certainly did not buy peppers or garlic. I remembered the onion, but only after I left the store, and the hubby had to go back and buy one for the project.
"Sure, sure. What's next?"
"Go on ahead and get the chicken and the broth started boiling."
"Chicken? What if I didn't buy chicken?"
"What did you buy?"
"Crawfish."
"Um..."
"It was fresh from Louisiana... Eunice, I think."
"Uh, okay. Well, go on and start the broth boiling anyway."
"I did buy chicken broth."
She starts talking me through the rest of the recipe, but I'm thinking that I've already got this, and I stop listening.
"So, when do you add the carrots?"
"The carrots?"
"Yeah, don't you have carrots?"
"No, but I'm sure they will work fine, just add them with the brussel-sprouts."
"Oh. I don't think I heard you at all. What did you just say?"
My sister is so sweet, she actually walked me through the entire directions again, this time with my undivided attention.
"Ah crap. I just put the broth into the onions and celery." (Did I mention that I did remember celery?)
"Well, as long as the onions are brown, it will be fine..."
"But I didn't turn the onions on. I guess I could just strain it..."
"Yeah, or not, whatever..."
"What else did you say to add to the onions when they were sauteing?"
"Rice."
"Right. I have rice, but I also have a lot of potatoes. Should I have rice and potatoes?"
"That's a lot of starches."
"I know."
"Just put the potatoes in with the chicken to boil,"
"Or at least the broth,"
"Yeah, whatever, and leave out the rice..."
I think at this point it became obvious that I was not going to make my sister's soup after all. In fact, it's a miracle that what I got out of this was soup to begin with. I guess if you keep adding broth to something, it eventually becomes soup, but like her soup, it was surprisingly tasty for vegetable soup with brussel-sprouts.

Also, I'm really proud of myself. She told me before I got off the phone with her "Just throw in some frozen spinach at the end" I think as a joke, but surprise! I actually had frozen spinach! Maybe it was the spinach that made the soup so good and not the brussel-sprouts after all...

So, to follow up, while we were waiting for the trick-or-treaters on the front steps, I had a Butterfinger. My daughter watched me, very interested, so I let her play with the wrapper, which she then makes an 'Uum!' noise and shoved it into her mouth.

(Don't worry, Mom, I got it back.)

Please tell me that I don't do that with Butterfingers...

All Hallow's Eve...

I think I love Halloween as much as Thanksgiving, but for completely different reasons. Thanksgiving has better food and a fun parade; Halloween has a better parade and fun food. This year is my first year to share it with my daughter because last year she was just a 'twinkle in her mother's eye', so we will greet trick-or-treaters tonight with her in her frog costume and me ready to go to bed.

To commemorate this occasion at school, I had a less orthodox way of celebration. Since my Sophomores were reading Lord of the Flies, I brought Hog's Head Cheese to school because when I read the book for the first time, my brother did that to me and scarred me for life - perhaps that's why I majored in English? Anyway, at Central Market, I told the guy in the meat department what I was doing, and he suggested Tongue Bloodwurst, which we both tried and agreed would be a welcomed addition to my Pig Day Celebration. It tasted a bit like cheesy liver with a really bad aftertaste, but edible. Yesterday, the kids could try Hog's Head Cheese, Tongue Bloodwurst, and Bacon Chocolate (my personal favorite,) and get a prize. I had 10 kids try them all, which was well above the amount last year, but nobody ate as much as my dog did (or at least wanted to,) making her the winner.

One kid mentioned that a zombie was someone who ate brains, so according to that definition, I have a zombie dog for Halloween. Like the guy at the meat counter said, "Other teachers hand out candy; you hand out nightmares."