Always, the Kindness of Strangers

Four classes back to back to back to back and all I wanted was to get home. First though, I needed to gas up the car. I did.

And then the car wouldn't start. The key fob just stopped working.

The temperature was in the teens (with bitter, biting winds), so I fiddled with the key fob, then scooted into the gas station looking for fob batteries (they didn’t have them) and then tried to get warm. I was piteously warming my frozen fingers on the side of the coffee maker when this woman with a gigantic, Kardashian sized ring asked me what was up. I thought she wanted me to move along. And I will forever be ashamed that I thrust my chin out mutinously, thinking mean thoughts about her, and told her I was trying to fix my key fob.

After that, she just took over. She found her reading glasses, pried the fob apart, and found some button cell batteries from old Christmas decorations, replaced the battery, checked it from the gas station window, gave me hug, and sent me on my way.

I got her name so I can take her a card and some pastries tomorrow, but it doesn’t feel like I can ever thank her enough.

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The Schuyler Sisters

The craziest game du jour that NuNu and the other Hamilton-Nerds at school are playing. It involves the Schuyler sisters taking over the administration and sometimes results in all the characters drawn in skirts and tees. (Aaron Burr’s tee says: “Talk less; smile more.”)

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Post-it Palimpsests

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I should get a better picture and write it up sometime, but my students played along to this activity I made up that I’m calling “Post-it Palimpsest”—layering reading, experience, theory, and intersectional approaches in varying sequences.

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Darkling

I startle awake near 3 am

when you come home

when you come to bed

It seems ten inches of snow 

arrived early (unlike you)

but (like you) suprises

You're word and work-tired,
cross--a sword or some all-

over weapon--a rock 

I should shine you up David,

Goliath. I'm already reach-
ing, are you ready?

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The final word...

Big A's first appearance in the NYT (1975).  He is the final, hyphenated word in the obituary:

"Surviving are a daughter by a previous marriage, Louise Laskey, a sculptor; a grandson, and a great‐grandson."

I was looking for references to Louise for Nu since it's one of her middle names and she may have inherited some of that artistic talent when I found this (and was oddly overcome with love for a baby Big A).

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Mt. Hope

We walked to Mt. Hope for the first time this year. The thaw is here and the smells must be wondrous because Scout and Huck could barely take two steps without nose-exploring. Scout found that the smells on all the utility poles he had tagged in the fall had faded, so he had to pee-graffiti all of them again.

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No Comment (only chuckles)

At's contribution to the family chat today.

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Nu-Casso

So amazed by Nu's talent.

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Learning

The true name
of everything
eludes me

this is new told
sweaty pillow,
spills insomnia

dreams gallop,
but like one-
legged cripples

into the softly
ruined betrayals
of our children

whispering
we know,
you know.

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Party of Three

Went out for fancy pizza in OldTown, for Big A's Boss Day. I was wearing the fancy earrings KC gave me on Sunday and everything.

But I crashed into a wall of sadness the minute I entered. I archly corrected the hostess when she asked if we wanted a table for three: "Four!" And then I had to correct myself: "No, you're right, just three."

I miss At. I always miss At.

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January

we are this curve of wonder
the child begins to look up
holding you in their eyes
resembling what they are

rooting, it is breath taking,
muting loose exile, makes
breath possible to choose
on days when many days

of wry winter are chased by
many more days of winter

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Women's March 2018

"Include Women in the Sequel"

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Monkey See, Monkey Do

Tomorrow is National Tulip Day (my florist says). She taught me how to stand tulip bulbs in a saucer and reminded me that I can plant the bulbs in the garden when Spring comes around. I think I did a good job of recreating her work at home. With some added monkey business...




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Puppy DIY-ers

Scout and Huckie all aflutter at Home Depot

Hair Do

I wanted to do Big A's hair

I did. 

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Static

This is a boring picture, because I spent all day in one place working on my review portfolio.

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FB is killing me with memories

My babies are so beautiful* <3 span=""> <3 span=""> <3 span="">

* Beautiful = nostalgia for when they were so squishy, tiny, chubby-cheeked, and I saw both of them at breakfast every morning.

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A (C)Hairy Moment

Scout and Huck went bonkers at dinner time. Instead of eating slivers of salmon at the table (they love 'Mr. Slammin'!) they were howling and baying at something in the kitchen. The humans at the table were impressed by the puppies' noble inattention to dinner in the face of a threat to the family pack. What was it? A mouse? Our resident snake?

Nope. It was the chair we'd recently introduced to the kitchen. 

It was as bad as Clint Eastwood's chair moment.

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Difecta

I woke up this morning my heart and brain slogging through the knowledge that this is officially the last day of winter break and that I'd be dropping At off at college today.

Not so strangely, I've been looking forward to today as well: it's going to warm up to 30 degrees--after single-digit temps for the last two weeks--and it's the start of a brand new term.




Teaching

I dream of black-
boards

how I scrub
them

as if they are
grimy

window panes
and I am

opening a space
to see

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Of Samosas and Vaginas

Because I didn't plan ahead, cocktail samosas ($2.99 frozen; broiled for < 11 mins) and the dregs of a jar of mango chutney will have to do as my offering to the potluck of a new bookclub. Unusually, I seem to be the youngest, so they all love on me anyway.

 I'm looking forward to learning--among other things--how to work with mobility/speech/hearing issues in discussion formats.

The books I suggested were Yaa Gyasi's Homegoing and Carmen Machado's Her Body and Other Parties. I started talking about "The Husband Stitch" and couldn't shut up about vaginas for a quite a while :).

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A Project with Nu

While At was out discussing a podcast project with his erstwhile boss at the high school newspaper (also junior prom date; fire tweeter), Nu and I were at the antique store trying to find a small chair for the corner of the kitchen by the cookbooks' shelves. 

We found it.

Bonus: It seems to be an actual kitchen chair covered in old-timey vinyl. 

Bonus+: It cost $15 and once we'd thrown some (faux) sheepskin on it, was exactly what I'd envisioned.

Bonus ++: It turned out that an awesome student works there (her mother had recently purchased the store)

Bonus +++: Her mother and I were able to embarrass her by talking about all the ways in which she was awesome.

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