Ack! I've become a weekender!

Oh, well. If that's the way it needs to be right now, so be it. I envision a different reality once summer begins.

In light of another busy week past, I will reiterate my practice of last weekend and list the things for which I'm thankful, and follow it with the photos I 'owe' myself and the blog for the week.

I am thankful...

• that POM's sister's surgery ended up being less radical than initially planned (rather than resecting her liver, they ended up doing oblation -- burning the lesions -- instead), which means less long-term trauma to her liver, more options for treatment later, and a shorter recovery time.


• that my sister made it home from a three-week business trip in Europe safely tonight.


• that my parents are excited about their Alaska trip upcoming this week (retirement gift from us).


• that my parents are really enjoying retirement.


• that I finally got my Gmail synced up with my Outlook (IMAP) -- sounds insignificant to most of you, probably, but it was a pretty big deal to me; I hadn't had time to do this minor procedure, and that inability was throwing me off-kilter since our email change. (I hate changing email addresses; hence, the gmail address, so I never have to do it again, knock wood.)


• that my master's classes for the summer are finally posted.


• that POM is enjoying her drawing class and that her new math class is engaging and not as difficult (and thereby discouraging) as the last one was.


• that jury duty next week should provide me with some quality time to work on grading the AP research papers I just collected Friday. (Hey, I have to find some good in this situation!)


• for Madeleine L'Engle, whose books I am slowly rereading my way through and who continually reminds me what is important. Reading her is getting back in touch with my soul and my roots.


• for Grace Llewellyn, whose Teenager Liberation Handbook is rocking my world and, like Madeleine, reminding me what is important in this world; it may guide me into a career change.

My student who finally spiked her mohawk again.

Local car wash.

Can we say thank God for the sixties?

Arty lines.

Morning pose.

From under.

Iris. D'oh! I mean, they're gladiolas! My bad!

Iris, up close. D'oh! Glad, up close!

Backside of Iris. D'oh! Backside of glad.

The lion.

Egad, Brain!

Narf! I have been away too long. It was the sort of week during which I came home from school and fell asleep on the couch, getting up only to go to bed. It was a spectacularly unproductive week, and again, I am happy to have put it behind me.

Because I have spent much of week being overwhelmed by the negative, I shall undertake to list here all of the positive things, the blessings, the gifts of the week:

Went to dinner last night with a couple who have the potential to be very good friends. They are involved with a church that we no longer attend, but we still see them in the line of things church-y, occasionally. Conversation lasted until well after dinner.

It rained and thundered and lightninged! I was giddy; it felt like back east again. [This is a qualified blessing, because many SoCal residents endured hardships as a result of this freak storm -- mudslides in burn areas, evacuations, snow, hail, twin tornadoes, overturned big rigs and freight cars.]

Netflix.

The 4400 series DVDs.

Dynamic skies; patchy sun, dark nimbus clouds, billowing white cumulus clouds, wind, green.

Brownies. Twice.

LittleKitty cuddled with me under the covers this morning as I lay in bed reading. She hasn't made a habit of that in quite a while.

Madeleine L'Engle's newly published novel, written in the 1940's. It was very sweetly her. It felt like coming back to a comfortable place of good memories.

Our campus held a Memorial Day ceremony yesterday, and the kids were better than I've ever seen them -- quiet, respectful, cooperative, and in some cases, truly moved.

A former student who is in the Navy returned to campus for a visit this week. He was one of those students who earned a low C or D in my sophomore English class, but who could have had an A given his outstanding intelligence and insight. He's one of the students we all know has incredible potential but...we all knew it might take time to be realized. After three years in the Navy, working on jet engines, being patient, watching the demise of his youthful marriage, he is entering Annapolis in a few short months. He's a special kid, and it was good to be visited by him and thanked by him.

A number of current students have stopped by my classroom this week after school, God bless 'em, utterly preventing me from getting any grading or other necessary jobs done...but who obviously needed to talk and who seemed to feel better after they left my room.

My AP students actually had some decent discussions this week of Ellison's Invisible Man. They are learning and growing after all. I've had my doubts this year.

Sunday's graduation party of a friend was tons of fun.

We have dinner planned tomorrow with another friend.

We have Monday off school.

That'll do for now. I'll add to the list as I recall more of the week's blessings.

Purple carpet
Nature's litter
Click to make big and see what I mean by "purple incandescence." I only wish my camera could fully capture what my eye sees.
Ditto on this one.

The rain is beginning.
Windshield rivulets
A recently vacated parking spot
This is what happens in SoCal when it rains.
Today, with patchy clouds, sun, blue, breeze.
Dynamic skies

OK, I'll play

Dogblogger tagged me for this meme today. What the heck. I don't have anything else of value to add the conversation today.

Rules:
The rules of the game get posted at the beginning. Each player answers the questions about himself or herself. At the end of the post, the player then tags five people and posts their names, then goes to their blogs and leaves them a comment, letting them know they’ve been tagged and asking them to read your blog. Yadda yadda yadda.

Ten years ago:
Let's see...1998 was...a long time ago, but not. Ten years ago I was finally getting my act together to pursue my teaching credential. My 'career' at the paper co had dragged on long enough, and POM was encouraging me to do something useful...and was helping make it possible. This was also about the time our once-vibrant church began seriously to head south, which would lead to a trail of hurt and bitterness that has only within the past year begun truly to heal.

Five things on today's "to do" list:
- Grade effing essays
- Type minutes from the discipline committee meetings (three in as many weeks)
- Grade effing DJs (dialectical journals)
- Get my plagiarism referrals copied and submitted
- Grade (review) effing research papers so I can conference with students before next week's due date (oh for god's sake!)
- (I'm cheating and adding more) Finish tweaking my AP summer project for copying and presentation to next year's students
- Grade effing sophomore timed writings
- Write three pages in the a.m.
- Grade effing rhetorical precis and major works data sheets
- Sleep
- And stop effing cussing so much

Things I'd do if I was a billionaire:
- Pay off my sister's and parents' houses and set up trusts funds for them
- Buy a house with plenty of acreage in Mendocino
- Do the incredibly overdue work on our current house
- Outfit all my homes with solar energy
- Commission and buy a crazy souped-up hybrid or otherwise non-polluting automotive vehicle to prove that one actually can make an environmental SUV
- Start an experimental school that opens doors for more students to access relevant curriculum along the lines of those espoused by John Holt and John Taylor Gatto and Grace Llewellyn
- Fund ridiculous donations to Heifer, Food for the Hungry, Habitat, our church, and probably some crazy environmental group
- Set up a grant-making foundation for community service and education projects that will allow for innovative ideas to be tried without the red tape and typical bureaucratic bullshit that accompanies such grants

Three bad habits:
- Procrastinating (especially with grading)
- Eating too much and too late
- Failing to exercise or be active
- (I have more, but I won't cheat on this one. ;-)

Five places I've lived:
- podunk suburb of Greenville, SC
- tiny Sierra gold-mining and cowboy town of 2000, CA
- Great Smoggy Bowl called SoCal, CA
- Indianapolis, IN
- most of the lands and worlds and minds in the books I read

Five jobs I've had:
- Teacher and essay grader
- Toilet cleaner
- Executive secretary at paper co
- Babysitter
- Photographer

Five people I'm tagging:
Gawdess
Lomagirl
WhatNow
Ampersand
AudreyMango
(I'll try to remember to let them know.) :-)

Well...

...I didn't really intend to take a week off from the blog, but that's what happened. Quite frankly, I can't think of a better week to be done with. It pretty much sucked, for reasons both obvious and not-quite-nameable.

We've had a week without our pup. I've stopped welling up at inappropriate moments. I guess maybe we do toughen up through repeated exposure. No decisions yet as to when we might adopt another. Perhaps summer. Thank you -- my true, deep, heartfelt thanks to all of you who have sent messages of support and comfort. I know it's just a dumb dog...but it's not...and you all have been awesome. This blog community thing is pretty amazing; you're all godsends, imho.

We finished our last week of block schedule for state testing. I've found I'm block schedule kind of gal, but most of our campus struggled with it, not having considered the changes in teaching and planning that would be required. Another good idea that will probably be nixed in the future because it inconvenienced teachers.

The AP exam is over. My students feel at least somewhat confident. They released the essay questions on Friday, so we'll go over them together in class in great detail. We're finishing up Ellison's Invisible Man (what an incredible book), finishing a film for critical review (can't go wrong with Michael Moore for rhetorical analysis), and I have to conference with them on their research papers as soon as humanly possible if I'm going to collect a final draft and actually expect to be able to grade it. I dealt with my six plagiarism issues, though I still have two more phone calls to make to parents for whom I had to leave messages. We did a thorough review of how not to plagiarize (thank God for Diana Hacker) last week, so if they ever do it again as long as they live, it will be entirely their own faults; my conscience is clear that I have done all I can to ensure that they know how prevent plagiarism. I think their eyes are opened.

Saw Prince Caspian on Friday night. Meh. It's a good film, OK; I know this. But I'm a book purist, naturally, and my first viewing is always consumed with fault-finding and unncessary-changes-pooh-poohing. I did the same for the first Narnia film. They really made drastic changes in Caspian. I'll see it again and try to like it more; there's a lot to like, but really -- did they have to make Peter so immature and ridiculous? It's wrong on so many levels. I think Jack Lewis would be doing some serious ear-chewing and smoke-blowing were he here today. My two cents.

Had progress reports due Friday. Graded again at school on Saturday. Went to church and a friend's graduation party today. And it's already time to go to school again. I'm ready for summer (our 90-degree weather isn't helping that, I'm afraid); I'm ready to begin my master's classes, though I don't know what classes I'll be taking as the program has not posted them yet (trying not to overanalyze what that might mean); I'm ready to do a lot of work this summer, on so many levels, on so many fronts. This will be a productive, creative, progressive summer for me. May this last month-o-hades fly swiftly and efficiently.

Madame X wields the red pen of doom; grading on Saturday

One of the blooming trees on campus

The jacaranda is reaching its point of ultimate glory.

The detritus of life

Summer sunset, through the window

The House is Quiet...

Yesterday afternoon

This afternoon
This afternoon

...without his collar jingling, without his heavy breathing, without his claws on the hardwood floor, without his lapping up half his water dish in a single sitting (and dripping it all over the floor and your pants). But he went quickly, and he is no longer in pain. And, as out of the main as the thought may be, I believe God will have our animals in heaven. (I'm used to being out of the main in things theological.)

Contemplatin' the nature of life; spring break last year

Sleepy. He was a leaner, and a hugger, and a paw-er.

Treeing the cat!

December 2006 -- we'd had him about two months. What a great white face.

He's our fourth Golden to have loved and lost. We do rescue. And I can't help it; I just always fall in love with the oldsters. They're always so cute, and so sweet, and so un-naughty, and so deserving. Our first oldster, a true saint, we had for four months before an undiscovered tumor took him. Our second developed seizures due to a cerebellar issue and died of pancreatitis; we had her for over a year, maybe a year and a half, during which time she went from being a coffee table to being a svelte red gal. Our third we had to let go of because rheumatoid arthritis finally caused his back end to stop working; I think we may have had him a year and a half to two years. And now we've had to let go of OldManDog, whose cancer recurred (this following two surgeries last year) and whose paw abscessed to the point where he couldn't hoist himself up anymore and had to be carried outside (this in the last two days). OMD is our longest tenure yet; two and a half years. We always swear we're going to get a younger one the next time, because this is just too hard. And then I go and fall in love all over again.

This spring break

Last spring break

Last spring break

I'm sure I'll tell you more stories about him in the coming weeks. Feel free to skip them if they get to be too much. But I'll keep telling them because it's the best way to keep him and his ball-playing goofiness alive in our hearts. We'll cry tonight and wake up puffy and headachey tomorrow. Thanks for making it this far through all the pictures.

Happy Mother's Day...

...to all the moms out there. We had a nice brunch on a nice patio, and nice conversation afterward at our house. Very mellow and low-key; just what we were all in the mood for.




In other news, OldManDog has taken a turn for the worse this weekend. We can't get the cyst on his paw under control; it continues to ooze, and yesterday he began limping on it. Today he could hardly walk; we had to help him up and even carry him a few times. Also, what we suspect is tumor in his rib area seems to be impeding his breathing. We're taking him in right after school tomorrow; I'd take the day off, but we're on special schedule and my kids take the AP exam on Wednesday. I've upped his dosage of pain medication this weekend.

We're pretty resigned to what tomorrow will likely bring. It's going to be hard to get through the day. My family said their goodbyes to him today after brunch, just in case. That unleashed the waterfall. I don't deal well with animal-related trauma, but I'd rather be sad than have him in pain.

Getting closer

Yes, I was at school today, working on grades. Actually, I was working on referrals for plagiarism. I'll wait till after the AP exam to deal with it, but I needed to get out from under this. I was further encouraged to be done with this since our seniors have recently had a bout with plagiarism, and I'm going to act quickly and forcefully on mine so they don't have this problem again next year. Frustrating and disappointing. Next week, we'll have a plagiarism prevention lesson so they all recall what they've been taught every single year since seventh grade. (Sigh.)

The jacaranda is even more beautiful than yesterday. The contrast with the bottle-brush tree was nice in the afternoon sun.

Amen.

Watching a Documentary about Polar Bears
Trying to Survive on the Melting Ice Floes

That God had a plan, I do not doubt.
But what if His plan was, that we would do better?


--Mary Oliver from Red Bird

Signs of hope

Teacher Appreciation Week, and I actually do feel appreciated after these notes. God knew I needed these this week.

The jacarandas are kindling and flaring up.

Parrot Sludge

This is the mess the parrots make.

More yard details

Can't decide which of the two flower shots I prefer.

Look at this precious muzzle! Isn't it adorable? I love kissing his old man schnozz.

It's Rose Day

Brain dead today at school. Overcast skies caused dullness, and shifting barometer caused headache. On the run today after school, but took five minutes in the old backyard with the OldManDog. Managed to snap a few of the various rose manifestations -- sad, dreadfully neglected rose manifestations, that is. They still manage to be beautiful without my help.

Beautiful monster

Vascular system

Munched, yet beautiful at its core