Story #46: Houses

I was working on Sunday and while looking for something in a stack of papers on someone else's desk, I accidentally dislodged a set of flashcards that fell from the pile and fluttered to the ground like so many three-by-five-inch snowflakes. This card was the first I grabbed as I began to collect them from the floor and return them to the desk, rubber-banded this time. "Ah, batim," I thought to myself absent-mindedly as I plucked the word from the ground and reached for another. Surprised by myself, I paused for a moment. Holding the card in my hand I thought back to the time that I wasn't able to read it at all, before the symbols had any meaning or the letters made any sounds in my mind. Now בתים is a sight word, I don't even have to use the vowels included on the flashcard to sound it out but instead I recognize it instantly.

A small reminder of the way things change with time, I suppose. Years ago when I first taught with Jason in our fancy new building on fog-shrouded Brotherhood Way a flashcard like this would not have helped me learn anything because the only alphabets I'd had any practice with moved from left to right. Then there was my first Hebrew teacher: Mrs. Solomon, who let me learn along with the second graders in my class and even gave me my own workbook, and there was summer school at Hebrew University the July that the war raged around us and we took our final in a bomb shelter. There was ulpan at HUC in Jerusalem last year during my sabbatical, and there was the need to make myself understood teaching English at an elementary school in HaGivat HaTzarfatit. And now I know this word, along with countless others.

I spent seven years in a learning community where flashcards and posters like this were on display everyplace you looked, where sounds like ch and ts were on everyone's lips. But I do not choose to live in only that world, unlike many other people, and now there are new letters to learn and sounds to practice and words to read. Coming to a school where cultures different from my own are all around me, where I sat recently in a meeting and learned about Flores de Mayo all the while thinking about the fact that the night before had been Yom HaShoah, just made me so happy that as an educator I really do believe the world is my own classroom and that I can learn something from everyone I meet. Will there come a day when I can read Spanish and Tagalog as effortlessly as I could read this flashcard that says "houses"? Yes there will, and for that I am very glad. I love being a teacher but I love learning even more.

Story #45: Running Away from School

On Friday Carley and I ran away from school and went to Costco...I had never been there before like whoa. It was apparently sample day? Here is Carley eating a pierogi. "It's potato and cheese, even you can have it, do you want some?" she yelled across the masses of people swarming the sample lady. "Mm, never go to Costco on sample day with an Italian," she said, "we'll just eat the whole time." "Speaking of cultural groups and eating, what about an Italian and a Jew?" I said. "Good point!" she replied. "Want another pierogi?"

We were there to buy snacks for students to have as a special brain boost during the standardized testing that's happening at school the next...yeah...three weeks. So, almost 600 kids times twelve days of testing times how many boxes of cheddar Goldfish do we need?! equals SO MANY snacks. $310.25 later we loaded it all into her 2 door Accord (would have been a perfect opportunity to take advantage of all the cargo space in the Subaru, but alas it was in Oakland) and, while tempted to play hooky and get iced coffee at Java Beach, we went back to school. Wow did we feel like we were getting away with something while we were out in the real world though.

Story #44: Thunder

There are twelve apartments in my building, four on each floor, separated by a hallway in one direction and the central staircase in the other direction. This means that when I go out my front door (oh yes, I have a back door to you see, that is how fancy I am now) I see directly in front of me my neighbors' front door. Our apartments are the mirror image of each other. Then there is an apartment above me and also below me, exact same floor plan. The people who live in these three apartments are the ones that feel most like my neighbors, because I interact with them the most. I see the people on the other side of the staircase too, sometimes, but only up in the laundry room or taking their bikes outside. I don't really know what's going on with them on a day-to-day basis.

With my upstairs, downstairs, and across-the-hall neighbors it is different though. I can smell the tantalizing dinners they cook, listen as their children practice for school plays, see the light slicing out from underneath their door at night. It feels more connected, somehow, and that connection of course generates more stories.

The man who lives upstairs, given to playing folk music and sea chanties throughout the day, has recently taken on a new audio campaign. I presume it is to help him sleep, but I have not asked and so I cannot be sure. I first noticed this new soundtrack to his life on Sunday night of last week, just having gotten home from lying about in the park at the end of my block (but, not lying about in that park the way Kelly has been recently) and ready to cool down a bit after the first truly hot spring day in the East Bay. The sun was sinking behind the city skyline as I sat down on my couch with a glass of lemonade, ready for a rest after working hard all day pre-park. Just as I was getting settled I heard the most unexpected sound. Thunder?!

I looked out the window up at the darkening sky with a mixture of surprise and delight. One of the two things I miss most about Midwestern life is the warm-weather thunderstorms, the sky filling with clouds and lightning, the thick heavy air filling with rain. Could it be that a springtime deluge was about to unleash itself just outside my picture window? Um, no...not at all. The sky was inky but clear and the sprinkling of stars shining stronger than the city lights below began to gleam across the sky. What WAS that noise?

By now you have guessed, perhaps, that it was my upstairs neighbor. Beginning on Sunday and continuing every night this week, it thunders upstairs. All night long. It starts at about 11 p.m. and this morning when I woke up at 9 it was still going strong. I must say it is very tranquil, just kind of incongruous when you're getting dressed and ready for the Grand Lake Farmers' Market on a sunny Saturday morning and it's thundering upstairs.

Story #43: Kindly Hold, Please

The three most recent schools at which I've taught have been multilingual in all kinds of ways. First there was the English Hebrew Russian milieu on Brotherhood Way, and then the Hebrew Arabic English remix in East Jerusalem. Now there is the English Spanish Tagalog mash-up in SOMA and what can I say? I know how to say "hello" a million different ways. Have I mentioned I am also a very skilled French speaker? Different story...

All of this is actually fascinating to me because I love to learn, and learn about, languages. I taught myself Japanese and Italian growing up, I built my skills in French from early childhood all through college, and then of course things flip-flopped from right to left and I learned Hebrew. I love alphabets, I love the sounds letters make alone and combined, and almost more than anything I love idioms. Recently I wrote an entire article about the ways in which English, as adopted by speakers of other languages, is being mis-learned and then these tangled-up linguistic accidents are becoming part of actual mainstream native-speaker language. I did it just the other day: "Oh! Look at that fabulous necklace," Sage exclaimed, looping her fingers through the silver chain and well-worn charms. "Where did you get it?" "From the (insert name of turn-of-the-millenium dot-com boyfriend here)," I replied. What? We don't say "the" before people's names in this language. Or as Jody wrote on my facebook page recently, in response to a Friday afternoon indulgence I'd bragged about in my status update: "I love me some popsicle..." Huh? What?! An indefinite article before a noun that names a definite item? Sigh...

Then there are all the funny things that just can't be translated. They're everywhere you listen, really. When I asked her if I could borrow one today, our school librarian was describing how never has a staple remover because she does not use them, she uses her fingernails instead. But, she promised, she would keep her eyes out for a staple remover "from now on" and pass it along to me the next time she came across one. "From now on?" the native Spanish speaker with me asked, quizzically. "Like from now, going forward, until the time that she finds one..." I tried explaining, my efforts met with a blank stare.

Perhaps the most humorous of these was recently in the office of my principal where we found ourselves actually separated by our common language, English: We were talking when the phone rang and, recognizing the number, he answered it. "Ah, yes, yes....I see, okay....certainly. Kindly hold. Kindly hold...kindly...hold...?" He looked at me with confusion, his finger poised over the transfer button but the person on the other end of the line unable to understand that they should wait. "What should I say?" he asked me in a stage whisper, covering the mouthpiece so the person on the other end couldn't hear. "They won't wait, they keep talking!"

"Hold, please," I responded.

"Hold, please?" he repeated, hand over mouthpiece, confused.

"Hold, PLEASE, that is what you say to them to make them stop talking," I instructed.

"OH! Hold, PLEASE," he said with new confidence into the telephone. And just like that, he pressed the transfer button and replaced the handset into the cradle. "How did you know to say that?" he asked, mystified.

"I'm not sure, I think that's just what you say. I'm not sure people are so very familiar with the expression 'kindly hold'," I told him.

"Well good, it worked," he said with finality as he turned away from the phone and rose from his desk. "Now I know."

Story #42: Tomorrow is Forecast to be Cooler Than Today

Oh my goodness, I most certainly hope so. It was hot today at school and I will confess: I was complaining. When I saw the weather report this morning, I didn't even think it would be that bad. I've lived hot places before, like Jerusalem in July and Yosemite in August. Triple digits? HA, I scoff. But something about 90 degrees in April in SAN FRANCISCO was just too much.

I tried to prepare when I got dressed this morning, bringing down from the shelf in the closet the large plastic storage box stuffed full of the wardrobe for Israel and camp. Interesting, isn't it, how those two places require much the same clothing? Just more modest in Jerusalem and more, well, I don't quite know what the wardrobe is more of at camp--not modest, to be sure, but something. I chose the longest biggest most cottony skirt I could find, I picked out a tank top for a little modesty and the light gauzy short sleeve shirt to layer on top. Strappy Danskos and a sweater to ward off the early morning chill completed the outfit and I was on my way.

Except that there was no early morning chill, and by the time I got to casual carpool at 7:30 I was sweating. My strappy shoes gave me blisters before recess and I resorted to the flip flops I'd shoved as an afterthought into my lunch bag to wear on the BART ride home. Flip flops at school? Clearly my common sense was impaired by the heat. Open-toed shoes around that many children, any of whom might stomp or bleed or drop hot lunch on your feet? Terrible choice.

By the time I walked three loooong SOMA blocks to my 3:00 meeting I was beyond wilted and had a hard time recovering. The fact that I had to get up and speak in front of everyone did not help. The fact that not only the person whose job I took midyear, but also the person who is taking my current job for next year, AND the person whose job could potentially be mine next year if the stars align and the creek don't rise were all there during the presentation REALLY did not help. No no no it did not.

I came home and laid down and drank lemonade and talked to Mara forever and now I feel better so I am going to make dinner. Except nothing hot. Maybe a salad. And a popsicle. Then a cool shower and lots of writing and picking out another warm weather outfit for tomorrow. I already know what I will wear--it is for super-hot temperatures, this particular combination. It wraps around and is drawstring-y and tunic-like. If the woman from School Health Programs did not think I was pregnant already on Friday (different story for a different day) she will for sure tomorrow morning when she sees my linen-y voluminousness. Ahhh....cooler. I'm ready for it.

Story #41: Which Sister Are You?

Here is a picture of me and my brother, Nathan, at our parents' house one Christmas. Can you guess how many years ago it was? Hint: it was not the same year that this post's story took place. Don't let my present-day youthful radiance throw you off!

Three or four years ago now I was in Iowa over winter break visiting my brother and his family. One evening we had dinner at the home of my sister-in-law's grandparents and I found myself seated between two of her cousins, a pair of brothers who are two of--wait for it--ten siblings. One of them I'd met before many times (see the "Oh! You must be Nathan's sister, I can tell because..." comment referenced in an earlier post) and the other of whom I'd attended mutual events with but never met face-to-face.

"So," the one I'd just truly met said, "Which one of Nathan's sisters are you?"

I blinked, politely. I was already a little thrown off in general as a vegetarian in Iowa at a Christmastime ham dinner, not to mention disoriented by the subzero temperatures that made my California blood freeze up every time I went outside. This, though, was really more Twilight Zone-ish than I could handle. I tried to think of what to say that might not be openly rude, but could only come up with repeating the question as a strategy to stall while I either thought of something else to say or hoped someone nearby might rescue me. "Um, which of Nathan's sisters?" I answered his question with a question.

"Yeah, you know," he said around a mouthful of scalloped potatoes chased with creamed corn, "He has that sister who's a teacher in California, and then the other sister who lives in Israel, and then the one sister who just learned how to swim a few years back, plus that sister who won the hog-calling contest at the state fair, and well there's also the sister who dated that one guy for years and years but, um, doesn't anymore, and well, you know--which one are you?"

By now Nathan had his hand over his face, horrified at how embarrassed I might feel by all of this, and Kelli was unabashedly laughing into her napkin. Ah, I see what's going on here...

Nonplussed, I put my forkful of macaroni salad down and look him right in the eye. The kid has nine brothers and sisters, and has lived in Burlington, Iowa, his whole life. Based on his own prior knowledge, no wonder he is confused. "I'm all of them," I answer. "Nathan only has one sister."

"OH," he gulps while his brother on my other side rolls his eyes and my own brother gets up from the table for more food. "Really?! I just, you know, somehow thought that you must have a bunch of girls in your family, well, because, each of those things on its own seemed kinda unusual to me, so I just never imagined, well, anyway...does anybody else want some more ham?"

Later on the way back to their house Kelli apologized to me. "You know he wasn't trying to make fun of you, right? It's just that in his family, everyone's life is always the same, beginning to end. You have to know that Nathan adores you, and talks about you all the time. Over the years he's told all different stories about the places you've been and everything you've done, and he just never thought to explain that the sister in every story was always the same person. I hope you weren't too offended by my family."

Not offended, just entertained. I think the conversation was probably way more awkward for the cousin than it was for me. My life is just my life, you know? I guess to the casual observer I can see how it would appear to have many lifetimes inside it. I'm just lucky, I guess, or that's how it feels to me anyway.

Love you, funk soul brotha...xoxoxyouronetruesister

Story #40: Forgive *This*

I am not ashamed to tell you that I owe a lot of money. Horrified, yes, but ashamed, no. You see, I--like many people--went to college, and the summer before my senior year my parents' employment situation changed, and so to finance my fourth and final undergrad year of out-of-state tuition I took out a loan. Then, two years later, I went to graduate school. I was an in-state student that time, but still I was working as a teacher and going to night school, and teaching salaries in the state of Iowa at that time were $100 a day. So, I took out another loan and added it to the first.

Fast forward four years. By now I had moved to California and gotten a handful of years in the classroom under my belt, and so I went back to grad school for good this time. Not the dabbling, inquiry-based approach I took the first time but a rigorous, three-year, full-time, thesis-requiring, dual-credential-awarding program. Again, on a teacher's salary and by this time I was also paying dot-com-era rent on a studio in San Francisco. So I filed another FAFSA and took out my third loan and when I saw the numbers on the page, knew I could not even conceive of ever being able to pay off that much money but also knew that saving up for graduate school tuition would never happen either. So signed my promissory note and dove in.

Seven years have now passed since I walked across the stage that foggy, chilly May day at San Francisco State and received my Masters degree. I have very diligently paid my student loan every month since then. The balance goes down but the hole in my budget where the monthly payment comes from remains. So, as part of my Spring Break to-do list I decided to contact my lender and ask about loan forgiveness programs for teachers.

You hear about them all the time in our line of work: teach in an urban public school system and your loans can be forgiven, work with high-risk populations and your debts will melt away before you know it. So I called today and spoke with Michelle, my representative, only to be told that my loans do not qualify. You see, only loans taken out since October, 1998, are eligible for the federal loan forgiveness program. But, she suggested helpfully, maybe my state offers programs like this for teachers?

I hung up, discouraged. My state's budget is such a mess that there isn't even enough money for me to have a job next year at this point. Pay back my student loans for me? Please. And, further Internet research shows that not even the lion's share of my loan, taken out since the eligibility date, qualifies for forgiveness because I consolidated my loans in 2004 and now it is just one big amount that I will never pay off.

Much is reported in the media about teachers leaving the profession. In California, the attrition rate for new teachers is greater than 50% in the first five years. But, I am not the teacher who spends a few years in the classroom and then goes to work in retail or sales or marketing or or or. Education is the only professional practice I have ever had and will ever have. Both my parents were teachers, my brother is a teacher, and I am a teacher too. I do not plan to leave teaching for a higher-paying position, even though--as I posted last year in the blog I wrote during my sabbatical--I was offered a job last spring as the night desk clerk of a super-sketchy motor lodge out by Ocean Beach for $10,000 more a year than I make now as a veteran teacher with a Masters degree, seven credentials, and more than a dozen years experience. I am tired of always having a second and third job, of not being able to go anywhere on the Spring Break I worked so hard to earn, of budgeting constantly and never being able to, as Kelly so wisely said so long ago when we were all living at The House of Flowers, buy avocados. Is it too much to ask Uncle Sam to free me from the tens of thousands of dollars in loans that I spent learning how to do my job well, especially when it is a job no on else seems to want?

Forgive me for complaining. It looks like the only thing I qualify to be forgiven for at this point, so I am going to take full advantage.

Story #39: Stories

Yesterday morning I went for a walk to Lake Merritt for Birkat HaChamah (post with that story=coming soon). Afterward I went to--where else?--Trader Joe's and on the way home stopped at Arizmendi on Lakeshore. Sitting at the metal cafe table, enjoying my brioche knot and glad I was bundled up against the damp chilly breeze, my mind wandered back in time to another Pesach morning, another day before not the first but the second night of Passover, at another Arizmendi.

Spring Break, 2007, and we were sitting outside the co-op bakery's home in the Inner Sunset. Unlike yesterday in Oakland it was hot and sunny that day in San Francisco and we sat not in North Face down jackets and wool socks but in tank tops and flip flops, the sweet smell of shea butter sunblock mixing with the delicious aromas pouring through the shop's open windows. That morning we'd woken up and decided to, you know, host a seder (the marathon-style multi-hour dinner and community observation of Passover): the way you do at 10 a.m. on the morning of second night. We found ourselves with post-its and pens and highlighters and scissors and tape and scratch paper and about half a dozen different haggadot (books used as guides for participating in the seder), me doubtful we'd get it done but her convinced that in eight hours we could prepare a text, cook a meal, pull together two dozen people, set a table, provide art materials, and facilitate the individual and group experiences and reflections on liberation that are hallmarks of the holiday. Really?!

In the end we completely pulled it off: highlights included pulling huge chunks of mortar-bound brick out of the sea at Baker Beach, driving them home, dripping, in the back of the Subaru, then soaking them in bleach water and actually using them for the seder plate...boiling a half-dozen huge beets in the world's largest pot and then laughing as the blood-colored water poured out into the kibbutz-style kitchen and made everyone shriek...buying paper and clay and oil pastels at the art-supply store on Van Ness, then encouraging everyone to draw sculpt sketch share their insights as the meal went on...bundling up in borrowed button-fly jeans and cozy wool socks as the sun went down over the East Bay hills and we closed the big picture windows against the nighttime Marina fog, keeping everyone warm as we stayed until late in the night talking and singing.

The text we created, cut and pasted old school-style with scissors and glue stick, came from many sources but primarily from a book called A Night to Remember: The Haggadah of Contemporary Voices. On my way to Arizmendi yesterday I had tucked it into my bag, just to flip through while enjoying one last pre-Passover pastry, and among the post-its and matzah ball soup stains I found again one of my favorite quotes, not just in this book but about the holiday:

When a day passes, it is no longer there. What remains of it? Nothing more than a story. If stories weren't told or books weren't written, humans would live like the beasts, only for the day.

Reb Zebulun said, "Today we live, but by tomorrow today will be a story. The whole world, all human life, is one long story." Children are as puzzled by passing time as grownups. What happens to a day once it is gone? Where are all our yesterdays with their joys and sorrows? Literature helps us remember the past, with its many moods. To the storyteller yesterday is still here as are the years and the decades gone by.

In stories time does not vanish. Neither do people and animals. For the writer and his readers, all creatures go on living forever. What happened long ago is still present.

--Isaac Bashevis Singer, Nobel laureate, from Zlateh the Goat

I have found no better explanation than this one of why I tell stories. We used to ask each other impossible questions, like "What job would you have had if you lived a hundred years ago?" Had I been born one century earlier, I know I would still have been a teacher just like I am in the modern day. But as our rhetorical meanderings continued and we wondered what our lives would have been like not a century but a millenium ago, my answer changed. Teaching and learning looked different then, but community looked the same and so did shared experience, so did collective wisdom. A thousand years ago I would have been the one people came to with secrets and stories, the one with the agonizingly accurate memory, the one who shares the lessons from generation to generation.

Singer was right--time does not vanish. It is the telling of stories that allows time travel, that creates the possibility of living on forever. As you tell your stories, of Passover or Easter or the equinox or last year's Spring Break or whatever it may be, I wish for you the chance to feel yourself as part of not just the stories told before you but the stories your loved ones will continue to tell as time goes on.

Chag Sameach--a wonderful holiday to you :)

Story #38: How Much Would You Pay?

There's a game we used to play called "How Much Would You Pay?" I am not really sure how it got started or who played it first but it is now a part of the vocabulary. How Much Would You Pay? is ironic in that it is an inherently fake game, played to try and put a price on impossible things. Perhaps the most telling example of How Much Would You Pay? took place on my first trip to Israel in the summer of 2004, with Rebecca. She had been to Israel, many times, and had lived there for the year not long before but I had never been there and did not know quite what to expect. Some things were exactly as I'd imagined, and some things were completely different.

One thing that there had been no way to predict is the fact that in Israel, there is no Mexican food. None. Not like, kind of here and there but it's hard to find and definitely not kosher....not like, you have to take the bus to Tel Aviv and get it there on Sheinkin Street where the hipsterim hang out. None, like, yeah. None at all.

Living as I was in San Francisco, where the burrito is an inexpensive and readily-available staple food, I was floored. I do love Mexican food, but suddenly my love had turned to obsession. Eating a burrito was all I could possibly think about. I am an adventurous traveler, and that includes trying new foods as well, but in moments of 115-degree-Fahrenheit weakness when we had been on the bus all day and the drama of my trans-Atlantic personal life became too much to bear I was not in the mood to try yet another Middle Eastern combination of dates, lentils, skinny cucumbers, and fermented cheese. I wanted the rice-and-beans predictability of the goodness that comes wrapped, bolster-shaped, in foil with chips on the side for $6.49.

So we began to play. At the beginning of the three-week trip I declared I'd pay, you know, the standard price: seven bucks, or whatever, for a vegetarian burrito. By the time we were queued up to board the El Al flight back to JFK my price had gone up to 450 shekels (US$75) and Rebecca was SICK of hearing about it. You can easily guess what I had for my first dinner back in the States upon my arrival at SFO 24 hours later. El Balazo, aw yeah...

What does any of this have to do with the present day? Perhaps you recall my post from a few days ago about things I refuse to wear over vacation. I have stuck by the promise I made myself not to wear my watch, and mostly it is very good for me. It is not the logistical matter of elapsed time that I seek to avoid, because clocks of course are everywhere. Rather, it is the sense of being physically cuffed with a constant reminder of the truth that time is passing and the related response that I personally experience, which is an overwhelming sense of never being able to get everything finished. So yes, can I walk into the other room to view the clock on the wall or can I look on my cell phone and see the time? Yes, but that is not important. Being free of constantly checking my watch in an attempt to faux-determine how behind I've fallen is my goal.

Unfortunately this has had the negative side effect of making it a bit unusual to be around me, since my discomfort about not knowing what time it is definitely affects others. Example: last night we were waiting for the performance to start, and as cool as I'd been playing it I suddenly lost my marbles, consumed with an urgent and undeniable need to know what time it was. I leaned over and murmured into her ear: "I'll pay you five dollars if you tell me what time it is..." And just like that, How Much Would You Pay? was on. I hadn't planned to play it, but that impossible need to acquire something just beyond reach had struck without much warning and I reverted to the game I haven't played in years now.

Do you think she told me? Nope. "Seven?" I offered hopefully. "Do you really want to know?" she asked. I stopped to consider. "Not for seven dollars, I guess," I replied, sinking back into my own seat. Come on, you could buy a burrito with those seven bucks. A girl's got to be thrifty, these days.

Story #37: Small

note: That is not me when I was small. It is someone else in my family. Can you tell who it is? There is a hint in the photo, and a lot of you have seen it before and already know the answer. If you do, don't say. If you don't, it might be fun to guess. Look how small that person is! They are not small any more :)

Recently we were out at Zeitgeist (another Story for another time) and the person sitting next to me on the bench in the backyard ended up squeezed kind of close to me, as can happen when you try to fit 36 people at one picnic table. "Hey," she said as she measured my thigh with her hand, "You're pretty small."

It's true in one way, I suppose, in that I am not the biggest adult. Actually for being an adult I am on the shrimpier end of the spectrum. On a tall day I stand 5'4" and am only slightly more than half the title of one of the best albums of all time: Sixteen Stone, by Bush. So really compared to many grown-ups I suppose that's not so big.

(sidepoint: Do you like the way I avoided telling you how much I weigh? Aren't girls weird? Isn't body image stuff messed up? What if some people thought that was too much? What if some people thought it was too little? Perhaps those of you who've been blog followers for awhile remember the OLD post about the social confusion I encountered around having my pants size outed? Yeah. Looking to avoid that kind of awkwardness again...)

But, it is hard to reconcile this objective information with what feels true to me about my size. I do not consider myself small in the least. Actually the opposite, I worry I am too big a lot of the time: big mouth, big ideas, big plans, big passions, big mistakes, the list goes on and on. And comparatively I am large in relationship to others in my life, considering that I spend six hours a day with hundreds of people mostly under the age of 12. So at school I am TALLLL. And wide. And big.

In the end it's all relative, I guess.

Story #36: Scheduling my Spring Break

On Saturday night when I was leaving their house after an evening of Indian food and the Final Four, Emily said to me "Hey, Happy Spring Break tomorrow!" Oh--I got all kinds of upset. "Tomorrow is just Sunday, just the weekend," I insisted, "NOT Spring Break! Spring Break doesn't start until Monday." I turned to Sage, knowing that as a fellow teacher she would understand. "Tell her!" I insisted.

Every teacher knows that the weekends around a holiday do not count as part of the actual holiday itself. Right? Let's take Spring Break, for example. The first weekend is just the weekend you earned by working all week. THEN it is vacation for five days (sidepoint: I am currently in the first half of day two and so far have been camped out on what I was recently told is my uncomfortable couch reading, writing, and chilling out--should shower soon? Nah...overrated). THEN it is a bonus weekend! Then it is school once again.

Yesterday I finally had to sit down and make a schedule for Spring Break. I knew if I didn't that I would just wander around all week (one of my favorite things to do) and that suddenly it would be bonus weekend and I would not have done anything: not anything fun, not anything productive, not anything.

Not that not doing anything is bad. It is just not my natural disposition and would likely have made me, you know, anxious.

So now my schedule and to-do list are complete. Some things are still up in the air, like going to Chicago (kind of permanently up in the air right now, and expensive) and my newfound search for summer plans. But some things are scheduled and that is nice.

Yesterday I went on a hike in Joaquin Miller State Park up in the Oakland hills by Chabot (scheduled), did laundry and cleaned my house (scheduled), and had an outstanding evening full of picnic-ing and world-premiere theater and ice cream (scheduled, with a slight delay at the beginning but fine in the end). Today's list includes making boring but necessary doctor's appointments, calling my insurance agent, figuring out what to do this summer, reflecting deeply on Passover which starts tomorrow, paying bills online, and, oh--daydreaming, napping, pizza, and maybe last week's episode of Lie to Me on hulu.com.

Because you know...it is Spring Break, after all.

Story #35: Things I Insist on Wearing Over Spring Break

1. flip flops
2. my favorite jeans
3. lots of sunblock while I'm playing outside
4. my swimsuit in the pool at Mills
5. my hair down since there's no fear of lice
6. all my springtime playclothes
7. of course: my red shoes :)

Story #34: Things I Refuse to Wear Over Spring Break

1. my watch
2. itchy mascara
3. overly helpful undergarments
4. sweat-producing tights
5. pinchy shoes
6. school clothes

Story #33: Harvest of the Month

Unfortunately this posting from the WAD does not include any instructional materials to help teach students about why, after eating asparagus, your pee smells so weird. Hmm. Guess I'll have to develop some kind of curriculum for that part of the conversation.

WHO: All Staff at Elementary, Middle and High Schools

WHAT: April’s Harvest Of The Month! – Asparagus!

Did You Know?

* White Asparagus is grown from the same crown as the green asparagus.
* Asparagus, per one-half cup serving, has the highest content of folate of any vegetable. Folate (folic acid) is helpful in replicating DNA and RNA, and researchers believe folic acid may be helpful in reducing the risk for certain cancers.

HOW:
• Distribute Harvest of the Month materials:
- Copy Educator’s Newsletter for every classroom teacher
- Copy Family Newsletter, send home in weekly envelope
• Make tasty recipes found in both newsletters
• Prepare and offer Marinated Salad with Asparagus Guacamole, from the newsletters, at your next staff meeting
• Teach a lesson from the Educator’s Newsletter

WHY:
The goal of Harvest of the Month is to increase fruit and vegetable awareness and to motivate children, families, and school staff to make healthier choices.

WHEN: April 2009

For more information about the Nutrition Education Project,
visit www.healthiersf.org and click on the icon

Story #32: The Sex in the City Moment

I have a friend who just started dating again not long ago. So did I, for that matter, but that is not the story being told in this post. Because of this somewhat unusual coincidence, I want to make it overwhelmingly clear that when I say "I have a friend..." I mean exactly that: this story is about a real friend of mine. I am not using the phrase in the ABC Afterschool Special kind of way, like "I have a friend whose parents are getting divorced," or "I have a friend who makes herself throw up when she eats." No. This is a real story, about a real friend. Okay.

My friend called me the other day to share news of her recent adventures. All of them have been very safe, and very responsible, and very flirty, and very fun. Some of them have ended early and chastely, and others have ended differently from that. One was particularly remarkable:

"So," she confided over the phone, "I had a sleepover. BUT NOT that kind of sleepover! Nothing happened. So much of nothing happened that I didn't even get undressed. It was like something from Sex in the City."

Sigh. This is yet another situation in which not having had television since 1999 really hampers my ability to have social conversations. "What do you mean, like something from Sex in the City?" I asked.

"Well," she said, "I hadn't planned to sleep over and I didn't want to take my clothes off so I slept in my dress."

THAT'S awesome, I think. I am so proud of my friend for going out an having fun...even if she her adventures only get told in blogland and not on cable TV.

Story #31: Overheard at Dinner

Last night at dinner we were taking a break between the meal and the chocolate cake when conversation turned to Trader Joe's. There was much excitement about a new addition to the Trader Joe's line-up: kosher brisket, in the freezer section. "Is it called Trader Shlomo's?" I wanted to know.

"I think that's kind of weird, when Trader Joe's turns their name into a different name on the labels of some of their foods," the fifth-grader seated next to me at the table mused.

"Like what?" I asked.

"Oh, you know," he explained, "something like Trader Jose's salsa or Trader Giotto's noodles."

"Got it," I said. "I remember I saw Trader Ming's Sweet and Sour Chicken one time."

"Exactly," he affirmed.

"What do you think about that?" I asked him. "Do you think Trader Joe's is doing it to try and be respectful of other people's cultures, or do you think it's like teasing?"

My conversation partner and seatmate pondered a moment. "Well," he replied, "I guess I'm not sure, I can't really say because I am not any of those cultures so I don't know what it feels like for them. I'm Irish. Now, let's say they had Trader O'Malley's something--THEN I'd have a point of view. I guess for now I just think it's interesting."

Now, there's a kid raised in Berkeley by two liberal educators for you. Yeah.

Story #30: Blogging From School

I always feel like I am getting away with something when I blog from school. It is the grown-up equivalent of writing notes in class :) Not all computers at school have access to blogger, but mine does, so it feels double super extra mischievious of me.

Today generated many stories--as do most days at school--but the one story I want to tell right now is that there are only two! more! days! until Spring Break. Tomorrow, and Friday.

PHEW.....

(more later, including perhaps stories from today involving mice, teeth, Ebonics, burritos, and the overwhelming urge to make a break for it...to be continued)