The Alaskan Adventure--Part V

We sailed all night, and at about 6:00 AM arrived in the tiny town of Skagway. Skagway, Alaska, was the gateway to the Yukon gold rush of 1896, affording fortune-hunters the shortest route to the Klondike, though certainly not the easiest. The Chilkoot Trail, the genesis of which was in Skagway, was treacherous and steep by foot, and the White Pass route, though not as steep through the Coast Mts., was not much better. Add to this prospect the Canadian authorities' requirement that all gold-seekers were not allowed to cross the border without a year's worth of provisions, and things really got complicated. The year's provisions weighed approximately 2000 lbs. A man would have to carry it up in bundles of 100-200 lbs. each, deposit it with a "watcher", then go back down the trail and up again until all his gear was assembled at the AlCan border. No wonder that by the time most of the prospectors reached the gold claims offices 1n 1897-1898, no claims were left. For most of these adventurers, the Gold Rush was a Gold Bust.

Shortly after we awakened in Skagway and started on our room service breakfast--what luxury!, Rick heard splashing outside our balcony. Camera in hand, he hurried out. Here's what he found:

A harbor seal had swum up to the side of our ship, found a salmon, and was shaking it back and forth to snap its back. He then proceeded to eat his breakfast along with us.

Once we disembarked and ventured into Skagway, it began to drizzle a light, steady shower. We were told it was typical Alaska weather. What we had been having, sunny and bright, was very unusual.

"There's no bad weather in Alaska," one Alaskan told us, "only inappropriate clothing." We had come prepared with rainproof coats with hoods, and lucky for us, we had booked a tour in an old-fashioned trolley to take us all around Skagway. We'd have a roof over our heads the entire time except when we wanted to get out and take photos, like the one at the top of this post.

Our tour guide lives in Skagway, although she is not a native. And, because of the severity of the winters, she does not live in Skagway year round. Whereas it is normal for Alaskans to have only a few hours of sunlight/daylight each winter day, because of the way Skagway is situated, they get, on average, about twenty minutes. Additionally, Skagway's supplies are floated in on boat and barge about once a month, year round. The nearest town, CarCross (Caribou Crossing) is about 120 miles away, a pretty far drive if you are out of milk or bread. She said produce is sky-high, and it's not a pretty sight to see people playing tug-o-war over the last browning head of lettuce or greening piece of meat at the end of the month. There are about 800 residents in Skagway, but that number decreases radically in the winter, as you can imagine.

Skagway's claims to fame are many: besides being the gateway to the gold rush, it was the first Alaskan city to be visited by a U.S. president (Harding), one of its businessmen had a brief dalliance with Mae West, and it has the only surviving chapter of the Arctic Brotherhood (of which Rick and I are now members!). Oh, and I bought Jared and Sam some salmon jerky there.

One of Skagway's favorite stories is about its conman/outlaw, Soapy Smith, who was finally exposed and gunned down by a man named Frank Reid, who Soapy shot in the...er..."manhood." Soapy died in the gunfight and Reid died of his wounds about 2 weeks later. They are both buried in the same cemetery, but Ol' Soapy isn't allowed to be buried within the legal confines of hallowed ground.

The White Pass Railroad in Skagway, which is through the Coast Mts. is an engineering marvel. We decided not to ride it as a tour, but learned about it. And we saw this from it prominently displayed in town. Can you guess what it is?

It's a huge snow auger, or snowplow to clear the tracks up in the mountains. Neat, huh?

Finally, we were Skagwayed out. We bought the boys the obligatory souvenirs here, our last stop in Alaska. We trudged through the rain back to our ship. We got out of our damp clothes and laid out our dinner dress. And, very wistfully, watched them cast lines as we pulled away from the dock. This was it; we were officially headed away from Alaska. One day at sea, one day in British Columbia, Canada, and then our cruise was over. We stood at our balcony rail for a few last pictures of Alaskan scenery.

*you are still clicking on the pictures you really like to enlarge them , aren't you? Good!

You may notice the two different colors of the water in this photo. It is caused by the melting freshwater of the glaciers meeting the salty water of the ocean. Very cool. Just another of the fascinating aspects of this interesting and captivating land.

If we had to leave Alaska, I was glad that I had a day at sea tomorrow to reflect on all that I had seen and learned and enjoyed. It was almost overwhelming. Everything about Alaska had taken not only my breath away, but almost my vocabulary to process it.

The Alaskan Adventure--Part IV

Hard to believe, but that's Alaska's capital city--all of it--Juneau. Some 30,000 people live in Juneau. Actually, the whole of Juneau encompasses 3,248 square miles, but so much of that is the lovely glaciers, mountains, and unspoiled scenery that Alaska is famous for.

We disembarked late and wandered about town for a couple of hours before our whale-watching tour. As usual, Juneau had the obligatory jewelry shops and Alaska T-Shirt Company, native carvers, etc. I stopped and got some fudge to sustain me, and we left the tourist track and tried to find something worthy, but to tell you the truth, it was just a town. Besides, it was time to board the shuttle for our whale-watching tour.

Our driver was not a native-born Alaskan, but had come to Juneau in the seventies. He told us that Alaskans were tough people. He said they had a saying: "Alaska, where the men are men and the women are too."

We got off the shuttle and stood in line for the whale-watching boat. Ahead of us were two other couples who we struck up a conversation with. They were from our cruise ship. The women were both teachers like me, one of them even taught English. Our chatting continued onto the tour boat where we all sat together, excited at the prospect of seeing whales. We had already been trained in whale spotting the day before by our cruise naturalist, so we knew what to look for. The boat cast its lines, and we were off.

One of the first things we saw was a brightly colored buoy in the distance. The boat's spotter told us we'd be pulling alongside it to see a few stellar seals resting.

Then we cruised out for a while, but believe me, even though there were no whales yet, there was plenty to look at.

Isn't that gorgeous? Makes Rick seem like a professional photographer, not like a guy with a new digital camera standing on the top deck of a tour boat, huh? Not hard with a subject like Alaska.

Suddenly, the cry went up--"Whales! Whales!" Sure enough, I could see two plumes in the distance. Can you see them?

We followed these whales, and their 4-5 buddies for quite a while, watching them surface, roll, arch, and feed. At one point, these whales were only 30 feet off the side of our tour boat. I was absolutely thrilled, along with everyone on the boat. Whenever the whales would dive and expose their flukes (tails) in the classic whale poster pose, the boat would yell, "Nice tail" like we were redneck boozers at a stripper bar. Rick took loads of pictures, but not all of them will look like much to you. But this one will:

And then, before we had to leave the area (there are federal restrictions on whale-watching of 30 minutes within a 150-foot area, then the boat has to move), three of the humpbacks came alongside and gave us this great photo:

On our way back to the dock, we were also privileged to see something called "bubble net feeding" by a group of 5 humpback whales. We got a picture, but it's not easy to make out. It's a fascinating process whereby one whale is underwater, blowing a stream of bubbles to herd a group of fish into a manageable clump. The rest of the whales then form a circle around the grouping with their enormous mouths wide open and circle and scoop the fish in. It's almost like a ballet. We also saw two bald eagles standing side by side on a long, narrow spit of land in the middle of the water. They were only a few inches apart, just standing there, looking out to the horizon. It was almost poetic. I knew I'd never forget this experience for as long as I lived. I was falling in love with Alaska.

The Alaskan Adventure--Part III

This leg of our journey was the most awe-inspiring. Our ship slowly navigated the steep fjord called Tracy Arm. Tracy Arm is the product of glacial activity, and at its end still sits Sawyer Glacier. The waters inside this fjord are a beautiful turquoise because of the glacial silt suspended in them, which is many times finer than flour. The depth of these waters was over 1000 feet, and the walls were massive monoliths that were covered in pine forests that looked like moss, so large and looming were these rocky slopes. Our sense of perspective quickly became skewed, but that didn't matter. The views were spectacular. Here are some of them:
(as with all pictures, simply click on any of them to enlarge)


What looks like moss or lichen on the face of the rock is actually pine forest. That's how massive these formations are.

None of us could believe the brilliant blue of this glacial ice we passed in the water. And as we glided by it, we could hear it hiss and pop, reminding us that glaciers are really living things in their own way.

Shortly thereafter, we caught sight of this little harbor seal who had hauled out on a floe to relax. It barely paid attention as the ship cruised by.

It seemed as if everywhere we looked lay another breathtaking view.

Just to give you an idea of the mammoth size of Tracy Arm, here is a tour boat followed by a fishing boat sailing a bit closer to shore.

This day showed us what was probably some of the most impressive scenery of the trip. Rick took dozens more photos, but believe me, Blogger is giving me fits posting just these.

The more I saw of Alaska's beauty, the more urgently I felt the need to protect it somehow. And most people I talked to felt this as well. It's this overwhelming emotion to save it, preserve it, just as it is, forever.

The Alaskan Adventure--Part II

(click on any photos to enlarge)
This was the view from our stateroom balcony as we approached Ketchikan, the city whose name in the Tlingit Indian language means "eagle with spread-out wings." Another gorgeous day awaited us in the Salmon Capital of the World.









Ketchikan is nestled between the water and the mountains. Everyone, it seems, has either a seaplane or a boat. The main street in town is tidy and colorful and lined with the inexplicable plethora of jewelry shops that seem to breed in the tiny towns of the Inside Passage. Alaska's nineteenth century gold rush history includes an emphasis on brothels and bordellos, and one of the most famous is here, Dolly's.
We didn't tour it for five dollars. To tell you the truth, we were kind of deflated at this point. This wasn't why we came to Alaska. We could shop in quaint little towns in Ohio. Where was the wildlife? Where was the breathtaking scenery like glaciers and towering fjords? We weren't in the market for semi-precious stones with odd names like ammolite and tanzanite. We decided to strike out on our own, off the beaten path of touristy attractions and commercialism. But Ketchikan isn't that big and we hadn't arranged a pricey offshore tour ahead of time. We did manage to find some funny things, though:

(can you tell that the "safety boat" is full of water?!)

We found a stream full of salmon, struggling to swim up to spawn, but the photo is bad. We also found a lovely view outside of the main street:
Now that's Alaska, we said. It was time to board ship and get dressed for dinner. Tonight was a celebratory night, the reason we took this cruise: it was our 25th wedding anniversary. We had a bottle of champagne with our lovely French meal in the Marquis dining room. After dinner, the ship's naturalist conducted a whale-watching seminar on the decks at the bow of the ship. We were able to spot several distant humpbacks. It was exciting. We learned a lot that came in handy when we went on our whale-watching expedition in Juneau the next day. And, as if in honor of our silver anniversary, we were able to witness this gorgeous sunset as well:
It had been a very big day, and tomorrow was an early wake-up. We entered Tracy Arm fjord at approximately 6 AM, and it was not to be missed. I would finally see glacial ice in the waters, and true Alaskan scenery all around me. I couldn't wait. And once we landed in Juneau shortly after, I'd finally get to go whale-watching. Our tour came with a guarantee that we'd see whales or get our money back, and that not once had a refund ever been issued. I was more than ready.

The Alaskan Adventure--Part I

In order to begin our Alaskan Adventure, we had to endure something of a hostage crisis: a full day of air travel. No cruise ships board at the shores of Lake Erie, so we had to fly from Cleveland to Seattle, with a plane change in Chicago. We rose at the ungodly hour of 3 AM on Sunday 7/16 in order to get ready and arrive in plenty of time for our 6:30 AM flight, the admonitions of "arrive at least an hour and a half early for your flight" ringing in our ears. Well, no one managed to tell us that the American Airlines counters don't even open until 5:45. The line was long and full of irate Princess, Norwegian, and Holland America cruise passengers, all grumbling about getting up in the wee hours to stand in line when we could have gotten more sleep and fretting about the signs we had all seen telling us that Sunday mornings between 6 and 10 were the busiest getting through security. There was a palpable sense of doom among us.

Finally, the doors behind the counter opened and the inappropriately cheery agents stepped up. Things moved quickly, and we anxiously walked to the security area. No lines! Again, a quick process, and soon we were in our terminal, on our tiny plane, and headed to O' Hare.
I won't bore you with the details of each flight, except to say Why do they allow reclining seatbacks in coach? Is it to prod you and punish you into paying the exorbitant First Class ticket rate? The lack of legroom was difficult enough for my 6' 3" husband, but to then be further crippled by someone's seatback in his face and lap was excruciating. And we were on a Boeing 777 to Seattle; this is the plane that now offers luxury economy seats with increased legroom for a 68$ upgrade from regular coach. Please.

After our flights, we shlepped our luggage the length of the airport through some double doors, were met by Princess Cruise Line staff, whisked aboard a shuttle, and taken to the dock.

(click on any photos to enlarge)
(I tried to get a picture without all those people in the way, but they kept on coming!) That is the ship we sailed on. I almost threw up, it was so big. I was getting excited. And a bit scared.
Plus, we were both exhausted. And confused. We had lost like 3 hours somewhere, but we were so tired. It was about 2PM Seattle time, and we had started our day at 3 AM Cleveland time.

Here is the view of Seattle from aboard ship that day. Can you believe the weather?

After a passenger muster exercise drill, we cast lines and set sail for Alaska. Rick and I met our cabin steward, Artemio, who filled us in on the pampering we'd receive from him: turndown service, fresh fruit in our room, a selection of spa shampoos, lotions, and conditioners, and how to reach him if there was any little thing we needed from him. We poked around our stateroom a little, unpacked, and then got ready to explore the ship. Rick got out the camera, and...!!!! Oh no! Suddenly, our digital camera was not working. The lens wouldn't move and the shutter wouldn't open! It had been fine just hours ago and had taken the pictures you see above. Now it just kept clicking and jamming. This was a tragedy. We had two 1-gig memory cards, 6 days in Alaska, and no camera, and we were already at sea! Our first job in exploring would be to see if there was a photography shop with a digital camera that would use the cards we had. Luckily, they had one--and only one--model that took SD cards. It became ours.

The girl at the photo shop advised Rick to take a lot of photos to run down the little bit of charge on the new camera's battery, then charge it overnight. That way, he could also practice with the unfamilar camera. Here's my favorite of Rick's practice shots: I think that's a Coors Original, by the way...

Cruise ships are one big feeding trough. A 24-hour buffet, a hotdog and hamburger patio grill on the pool deck, an Italian trattoria, two dining rooms, a steakhouse, an ice cream bar, and 24-hour room service. It's always feeding time on a cruise ship. Rick was in heaven, and I knew the boys would have been had they been invited on this extravaganza. Everyone was either on their way to or from a meal, it seemed. Oof.

And cruise ships are very international. The staff are from Romania, Thailand, England, Australia, VietNam, Singapore, Philippines, Poland, India...and those were just our waiters or bar stewards or cruise directors. There were passengers from many parts of Asia and Europe as well. I heard many languages, but the one language I didn't hear--at least in English--was any profanity. Honestly. And I have a theory about this. Everyone on the ship was treated with incredible politeness and respect by all staff. Consequently, the passengers treated everyone, including each other, this way. I never heard anyone become rude, nasty, irate, snotty, or anything like that the entire cruise! I found that truly extraordinary. Customer service people in stores and businesses everywhere, and customers too, I suppose, could take a lesson.

I promise to get to the really good stuff--the Alaska stuff--starting tomorrow. We dock at Ketchikan, the Salmon Capital of the World.

Glaciers for Breakfast

The hiatus between this post and last was not caused by sloth on my part; I was in Alaska! (And yes, while they do have the Internet there--ha ha--our cruise ship filters Blogger, and alas! I was unable blog about my adventures.)

I just got home at the ungodly hour of 1:30 A.M. this morning after a long day of airports and waiting and airplanes and snacks and trying to sleep with someone's seatback in my lap. Hideous route: Seattle to Atlanta to Cleveland. And Atlanta lost my luggage, naturally. Still hasn't turned up as of this writing.

But, Alaska! Mountains, glaciers, fjords, air that is cool and dry, whales and little black and white porpoises that look like baby killer whales, bald eagles and seals, and the ubiquitous salmon. I cannot begin to tell you of its beauty. Or the thrill of going whale watching and having three huge humpbacks blow and then surface not thirty feet in front of you, then dive and lift their tails in that classic whale pose. Or the beauty of crystal blue glacial ice glittering like a jewel in the water as you glide past it, only then to see a baby harbor seal haul out on a bit of floe shortly after.

What gorgeous country.

I'll tell you more about my trip in later posts. And I'll post some of our pictures once we get them sorted out. Plus, I simply have to tell you about some of our experiences aboard the cruise ship. I've decided that the cruise ship lifestyle is the way I was truly meant to live on a daily basis. I've informed the boys...who promptly said, "Yeeeeaaaah...not gonna happen." Some people are just Parade Rainers, and you know who they are.

More later. Thanks for sticking around.

Everyone Needs a Hobby

These things have become my Summertime Obsessions. I can't seem to lay off them although, in a few cases, I'll admit I haven't even tried. They are:

1. My hair.
2. Bath & Body's "Breathe Comfort Vanilla Milk" lotion
3. Peanut M&Ms
4. Nutella
5. Potato Chips
6. James Blunt's CD "Back to Bedlam"
7. Reruns of "House"
8. Crossword Puzzles
9. Luring bluejays into my yard
10. Going braless

A few notes:

1. It is finally growing out into something I can live with, but I have to fuss with it anyway.
2. highly recommended if you want to smell like a creme brulee and have very moisturized skin
4. most excellent on graham crackers and palmiers
6. first 3 cuts are the best
7. Hugh Laurie is...well...I'm really crushing on him.
9. really, these are such handsome, interesting birds
10. Sadly, no one can tell either way.

Men...(2)

Being a family of four drivers but only three cars has become exceedingly tiresome this summer. Especially when one of those cars is the boys' car, also known as "The Funkwagon." This designation comes because of the youngest son's job in car audio at Best Buy, where he used his discount to buy monolithic speakers and a stereo system that now make the Ford Focus unable to stow even a small bag of groceries in its hatchback. This same system produces a bass line so profound that it is arryhtmia-inducing--although it does provide a deep-muscle massage at the same time. Consequently, if this is the only car available at home, I refuse to drive it unless one of the boys first alters the stereo, and moves the front seat back into the front, and removes the litter of Pepsi cans, beef jerky wrappers, CDs, and hair products. Only then can I commit the horrible sin of moving the mirrors (!!!) and be on my way. Not worth it, usually.

So, Thursday, when I discovered that I needed the dreaded FHP (Feminine Hygiene Product), I approached Sam, who was off work that day and home with the Funkwagon.

Me: Sam, when you go cash your check, will you stop at Walgreen's for me?

Sam: Yeah. What do you need?

Me: Tampons.

Sam: (looks at me, disgusted) No! I'm not getting those.

Me: Why not? It's not like they'll think they're for you!

Sam: Mom. No.

Me: (teasing) I'll give you a note. It will say "These are for my mommy."

Sam: No. Mom. Come on.

Me: Jared would go. He gets them for me all the time.

Sam: Then call him. I'm not getting them.

Me: Sam! I thought you were self-actualized.

Sam: I am! Just not about that.

Oh, the Agony

On yesterday's news there was a segment urging Clevelanders to patronize locally owned restaurants rather than chain franchise establishments. The camera zoomed in on one outdoor chalkboard menu. It read:

Independants Day Special's !

You do realize that I can never, ever, in good conscience, eat there. Ever.

...And That's What's Known as Relativity

Yesterday I nagged my 21-year old son for the fortieth time to take his medicine. He had just brewed an alarmingly strong batch of coffee and I watched as he poured the cream into his cup. This coffee was so strong that the cream did not disperse into the usual clouds, but disappeared someplace under the black depths, not emerging until he plied the spoon. Horrified, I had to comment. "Oh my God is that strong!" I said. "How many scoops of coffee did you use? And take your pill!"

"Mom," he said patiently, "I will. And just because you have been reduced by advanced age to a coffee wimp these days is no reason for me not to enjoy my coffee. Now excuse me while I get ready to shower."

As I cleaned up after him, putting away the coffee, the Sweet-n-Low, the creamer, and his spoon, another Mom Thought occurred to me. I strode purposefully toward the bathroom where he was standing, clothed only in a towel around his waist, digging at his ear with a Q-Tip.
"Hey," I said. "You said this antibiotic makes you queasy, and here you are, drinking ridiculously strong coffee and about to step into a hot shower. You haven't eaten anything. You're just asking to make yourself sick. Turn the shower off and have some toast or something."

He looked at me and rolled his eyes.

"Jared, I mean it. Why won't you listen to me? Who is smarter here, me or you? How many times have I proven it?" I said, exasperated.

"Mom!" he said, face earnest, one hand holding closed the towel at his waist and the other gesticulating meaningfully, "You are the smarter one. That's indisputable at this point. But whereas you are pretty much plateauing where that's concerned, I, on the other hand, am gaining in smartness as I age. You, eventually, will inevitably decline. So, there will come a time in the not-so-distant future when I will be the smarter one of the two of us. Right now, though, I'm letting you have that. So why can't you just accept it and leave it at that?" He turned his palm upward and shrugged, eyebrows uplifted questioningly.

I still can't remember what happened after that.

The Cats Are Pointless

I am sick of the cats. There is not one cat-hair free zone in the house. And what is the trade-off for this? Nothing. They perform no function, offer no service, fulfill no responsibility or real pleasure. I took this up with them recently.

First to be confronted was Emily, the 16-year old Himalayan-Siamese mix who limps stiff-leggedly around and spends 22 hours a day in her hair-filled bed where she snores. Emily was making her gimpy circuit around the dining room rug when I stopped her. "Emily," I said. "EMILY!" (she is also hard of hearing) "What good are you? You do realize, don't you, that in some early Native American cultures, you would already be in some solitary hut in the wilderness? Or, in primitive Inuit communities, they would have placed you on a sheet of ice and hacked it off, waving a last goodbye to you on your little floe? Do you know why? Because you are no longer a contributing member of the family. You don't play, you don't like being on laps, you can't make it onto anyone's bed to cuddle up at night. All you do is sleep, eat, drink, and shed. Emphasis on the SHEDDING. And you hiss constantly at Travis-cat. And you yak up hairballs like there is no tomorrow. Your special food is expensive. You are not covered on my insurance. You bite when we groom you. Your days are numbered, got that?" Emily sat down. At that moment, Travis eased his way into the room and, unwisely, stretched luxuriantly.

"Hey, Travis," I said, turning to him as he lay down for the hundredth time that day, rolling onto his side. "Don't think you're getting off easy here. You disappear to God-knows-where in this house for hours at a time, spreading your hair as you go. Not to mention the piles and pools of cat-yak that apparently only I can see and step in and have to clean up. You get bored and pick on Emily, jumping on her and tackling her. So we buy you huge cat toys which you will not interact with unless someone plays with them with you. That is not the idea! WE do not want to play with a little ball tucked inside a circular track or a pink puffball on a spring. YOU are supposed to. You will not lie in your own bed; no, you sneak into Emily's. In fact, you have very few positive interactions with anything. I am concerned that you have no meaningful life goals. And no, sneaking out everytime someone opens a door to the outside more than a half-second is not a meaningful life goal. And this not using the litterbox for your "solids" is really becoming tiresome. People put pets to sleep for things like that. And when I say "people", I mean "me". Shape up."

It is to both cats' credit that, during this entire diatribe, they maintained eye contact with me. Travis even rolled off his side and assumed the Sphinx position. And there was no hissing, for the record. There has not, however, been any significant improvement in any of the areas I spoke on. That is disappointing.

Really. Both the cats were rescued cats. You'd think they'd be more grateful.

Men...

My husband and I were watching The Deadliest Catch on the Discovery Channel. It's a compelling look at the dangerous life of commercial fishermen. In this episode, the finale, the men were finally headed home after battling sub-zero temperatures, deadly gales, ice-covered decks, and months of life on treacherous seas without their families. A couple of the guys were below deck, chatting about their homecoming, and one man was teasing the other about how his life on ship was actually easier because he was going to have to go home to plan his upcoming wedding. "Yeah, " the other lamented. "She's insisting on purple flowers and purple this and purple that. Her favorite color is purple. And I guess I'm in charge of the music now. I don't care about all that. I just wanna get married."

I turned to my husband. "How typical," I said. "If it was up to men, everything would happen with people sitting in recliners, wearing their sweatpants and eating cheeseburgers off of paper plates."

My husband looked at me, wounded. "Hey!" he said. "I hope you're not lumping me in with all that."

Inwardly, I chided myself. He was right. This was the man who looks forward to the Shaw Festival every year and enjoys the plays. The same man who enjoys going to the National Gallery in Washington, D.C. The husband who takes me to concerts and wine tastings that are his idea! I turned to him and smiled.

He said, "I don't wear sweatpants."

Guilty Pleasures

Just when I like to think I am rising above the common herd, I am slapped back among them by succumbing to one of my trashy, common indulgences. We all have them, whether they be food, cinematic trivialities, or Ronco-type tchochkes, and it's best we just get in front of them and admit to them. Okay, at least to some of them.

FOODS: Circus peanuts, Hostess sno-balls, Spam. Believe me; that list gives me no joy. Especially the Spam. Please do not even tell me how horrid Spam is or how it is made from offal, or how it is made from genetically engineered boneless, hairless creatures called Spaminals that look like dog-sized guinea pigs. I do not care. I believe it is balanced out by circus peanuts, those bright orange, gigantic peanut-shaped candies that are a cross between marshmallow and cotton candy and are inexplicably neither peanut-flavored nor circusy. So shut up.

MOVIES: Napoleon Dynamite, Imitation of Life (1934), Planet of the Apes (2001), The Birdcage, So I Married an Axe Murderer. None of these movies has a single thing that merits any cinematic kudos. But I don't think any of them is really horrible, either. Certainly none of them is, say, analagous to Spam. But a 47-year old woman should not be saying on any given night, "Honey, let's watch "_________" (insert title from list above). Yet, if one of the movies I've mentioned is on when I'm flipping through channels, I stop flipping. Or if one of my sons pops in his copy of Napoleon Dynamite, I don't object. Especially riveting is "Imitation of Life", a movie in which one underlying message seems to be women who succeed in business will ultimately ruin their lives, and miserably. Oh, and I have a special fondness for Leo di Caprio when he is all blue and shivery in Titanic.

MUSIC : No one should be embarrassed by his or her musical tastes--unless that "taste" runs to country music--and I am not embarrassed by mine. That being said, my children are constantly amused by my CD and vinyl AND cassette collection. "Mom," they often laugh, "you buy, like, one CD a year. And that one is lame." In my defense, I have absolutely no Andrea Bocelli, John Tesh, or Josh Groban. (My mother would, but she does not want to be bothered with learning how to "work a CD player.") I used to pick up the boys from summer school gym blasting The Backstreet Boys "Millennium" CD just to test their mettle. Also played at top volume was my special mix of The Tubes' "White Punks on Dope", Queen's "I'm in Love with My Car", and The Babys' "Isn't It Time", among other classics. Hey, here's one for ya: Curtis Steiger. Anyone remember him? He was good. Whatever happened to him?

T.V. : The Apprentice, Nanny 911, What not to Wear. All of these shows are pointless and cruel and terrible. They deliberately show people at their worst and most vulnerable. Often, people cry and admit weakness. Still more often, people look devious and conniving. (Okay, maybe not so much that last part on WntW.) All the more reason to watch these shows! Let's face it: we watch so-called "reality television" so that we can see other people suffer in tough situations while we are sitting on our comfy couches eating peanut M&Ms, judging them. (The people, not the M&Ms.) Now I'm wandering from my point. My point is, I shouldn't be watching these ridiculous, empty shows which are devoid of enlightenment. But I do. And, obviously, so do plenty of other people. Sigh. I should be watching a travelogue of Portugal on PBS. But I'm not. But neither are you. So there.

I'll never be Oprah, who uses $300 soap, or Martha, who only uses eggs from her very own chickens. And I can't be one of those people who says, when you remark about something on television "Oh, I never watch tv; I don't even own one." I have too many little guilty pleasures that keep me firmly planted in reality.

Graduation: Now That Would Make Some Reality Television

Despite being a high-school teacher for 24 of the 25 years of my teaching career, I don't go to graduation unless it is absolutely necessary. It has been absolutely necessary twice: when my sons have graduated. Last night reaffirmed my longstanding aversion to commencement.

Oh, it's not really the graduating class. For the most part. And if it were, they at least have an excuse. They are young, wearing ridiculous hats with tassels, and are the stars of a pretty major production, one that rivals any off-Broadway spectacle for planning, cast size, and length.

No, sadly, it's the audience. These people turn an event whose theme is "Pomp and Circumstance" into "The Jerry Springer Show." They blow air horns whenever they feel like it, scream "their baby's" name randomly during the entire ceremony--including the benediction, set up such a hollering campaign when their graduate's name is called that the next student's name is obliterated by their bellowing, and otherwise insinuate themselves into what is supposed to be a relatively dignified and momentous occasion for the rest of us.

One of the wonderful benefits of being a teacher at my school is that I was able to present my sons' diplomas to them at commencement. Instead of a board member handing it to him, I could inconspicuously walk up from my seat on the track (we hold graduation at our stadium), hand him his diploma, give him a hug, and walk back to my seat. I was thankful that my son--both of them, actually--did not stop and do "The Cabbage Patch" dance move, pump his fist, scream "YESSS! Finally!", stop-whip out a cell phone to make a call, do the "Heismann Trophy Stance", or anything else. But none of those, all of which happened more than once, was the crowning touch of the night. This was:

The announcer called "Jose Jimenez" (fictitious name used here). The boy stepped forward. Suddenly, a teenaged girl broke from behind the fence and onto the track. Infant in her arms, she rushed onto the field. Jose, grinning broadly, motioned to her. Diploma in one hand, he took the baby in the other and then walked back to his seat where he held the infant in his arms for the rest of the ceremony.

I found that far more objectionable than the very overweight middle-aged woman wearing the patent-leather white platform high heels, micro-mini denim skirt, braless halter top, and ponytails who minced her way onto the track to take a photo and then wobbled back to her seat. Okay, maybe not far more objectionable. (She was just plain awful.) And don't get me started about the girl in the "muffin top" jeans with the back fat and boobage. I mean it, now. Do these people not have mirrors? And do they not care that they are going to a graduation? Not a garage sale?

And, do people never, ever SHUT UP anymore? Do they have to talk during everything that does not directly concern them? They talked during the alma mater. They talked during the National Anthem. They talked during the benediction. They talked during everyone else's names. They talked during the speeches. It set my teeth on edge. The teacher in me wanted to stand up and say, "All RIGHT! That's ENOUGH! QUIET!"

Thankfully, it's over. I don't have to attend another single graduation. Ever. No, do not say "the grandchildren." I'm not going. Unless I'm deaf. And even then, I'll have to wear some very dark glasses. Very dark.

I Swear, It Has Taken on a Life of Its Own Now

The saga continues. (Yes, my hair! Nothing else will matter until I can stop perseverating over it.)

Last night, I took a shower and began the onerous business of futzing around with it, trying to do something to make it so that I could walk into the high school building and not feel like I was Medusa, or Regan from The Exorcist with my head spinning around, drawing attention to The Bad Haircut practically announcing itself on my head. I finally gave up and hoped for the best in the morning, deciding that if worse came to worst, I would shove it behind my ears and call it a style.

Oh. My. GOD. The exact minute I arrived at my classroom door a student sang, "I like your hair, Mrs. D.!" I muttered "Thanks" and hurried into my room, shutting the door behind me. I don't even know who it was. The rest of the day was a constant litany of: Did you cut your hair? I like your hair! You got a haircut, didn't you? Your hair looks cute! Oh, your hair is cut! Someone got a haircut over the weekend! and on and on and on and on and on and on and on. Did it matter that I said, "Thank you for your kind compliments, but I'm really unhappy. I'd rather not talk about it. Let's get to work." No. They had to wrench the life out of it. Oh, why? It's cute. Who did it? Did you go someplace new? Did you tell the stylist? And on and on and on and on and on and on and on. Oh. My. GOD. What part of my clearly articulated sentence "I don't want to talk about it" did they not understand? Sigh. I know. They were trying to be sweet. They were. I thanked them, but repeated that it was not a topic I wanted to discuss any longer and that we had real work to do.

But I had to endure this five times today. Not counting staff encounters in the lounge. I know--it's me. It's all me. They were all nice. Or is everyone just incredibly good at lying? >gasp<

Aaaarrrgggghhhh.

As soon as was humanly possible, I lit out of school early and drove like a maniac back to the salon. I had called earlier (7:45 AM!!!) and had practically sobbed on the phone. Yes! I could be recut at 2. Something to live for! I couldn't shoo my 7th period class out the door fast enough! I walked into the salon and my stylist was calm and apologetic. She didn't even cringe, even at the recut attempts of my husband. Little by little, we snipped and combed and somehow came out with something I can live with until it grows back out. At least it looks like it's supposed to be something.

Today. God, I hope it still looks like that something tomorrow. If not, I will have to be sedated. Heavily and perhaps for an extended period of time.

Vanity, thy name is Nance.

What NOT to Do when You're Pre-Menopausal and on a Particularly Bad Run of Hormonally-Induced Attitude

Okay, so...been feeling down, negative, crappy lately. (Variety of reasons; not gonna bore ya, yadda yadda yadda.) Not finding the Road Out of It. Really frustrated. Skip to Saturday. Have a hair appointment. Find myself ready to leave about 2o minutes early. 'No problem,' I think. 'I'll look at the hairstyle books and maybe find something new. Maybe that's what I need!' Get there and the place is all but empty; I'm the last appointment of a shortened holiday weekend schedule. I confide in my stylist that I've been in a funk lately--possibly hormone-induced--and that I might be, might be looking to do something a little different. I've been feeling down, crabby, etc.

"I know how you feel!" she cries out. "I have been exactly the same way! I'm ready to jump out of my skin lately." We look at a book of hairstyles together while she readies her station and gets out a cape for me. I find something kind of choppy and cute, but I think it's too short. My stylist says we won't go that short, but we will do something like it.

It's over before I know it.

She whips me around and I look in the mirror. I try to be brave because she is excited and keeps talking about all the cool techniques she got to use. Something called "slithering" is all I remember. Because all I can think about is the scene in Little Women (the book, not the movie, of course) where Jo takes off her bonnet and Marmee says "Oh Jo! Your hair. Your one beauty!" At least half of the hair from my head is now on the floor. I think of the word "crestfallen"--literally. I think, 'Why didn't I at least wait until school was out so that I could fool around with it all day for a week if necessary to figure out what the hell to do with it?' I think, 'Why did I come here in a mood like this? I know better.' I think, 'What do I tell her? That she needs to fix it somehow? There's nothing left to fix, unless she shaves me bald.' My stylist says, "It looks really cool. You're going to love it!" I say, "It's so different right now. I have to get used to it." And I get out of the chair and try to forget about it. Hah. As if.

Yesterday I tried to fix it like the book's picture. We had 87 degrees and high humidity, and everyone's hair looked like crap. Today, I decided to do what most people do with a new hairstyle: fix it like my old hairstyle. It looked horrid. Finally, my husband couldn't take it any longer. He got out his scissors and said, "Tell me what to do." We stood in front of the bathroom mirror, and in between me pointing and him recombing, he recut my hair for me. I'm not sure what it needed, but I was damn sure what it didn't need. And so we cut those parts off.

Tonight, I'll be rewashing and restyling my hair as many times as necessary until I get to something I can live with. Because I have to face the world's harshest critics at 7:45 AM tomorrow: high school girls. It's not that I care what they think. I don't. I only care what I think. I just don't care to hear about what they think, or hear about what they are trying to pretend that they think. See? And then, for the rest of the summer, I won't be getting any more haircuts. I won't need any. I'll be growing out the one I just got.

DoN Challenge: You Be the Teacher!

Okay, so here's a conundrum for all of you in the "real world", and by that term, I mean the world outside the confines of education. Because, you know, it's different here on The Inside. On The Inside, all logic is suspended and all laws of physics, science, and everything else that defines normalcy is/are just plain up for grabs.

Here goes. Today, I handed back my sophomore honors students' essays over The Catcher in the Rye. They had had three days in class to work on them, confer with me, peer conference, yadda yadda yadda. The essays, they knew, had a significant impact on their 4th quarter grades. Many students were disappointed in the grade they earned on the paper. After they had read the extensive comments I made on the papers, the mutterings began. Without fail in each class, the following plaintive cry comes to me: "But I worked really hard on this! I spent hours! And I typed it! How could I have done so bad on it?"

Here is your question: What is the proper response to this? No, really. Keep in mind that, almost without exception, this is coming from a student that never came to my desk to ask for any assistance. That this student had three days in class to take advantage of my individual assistance. That this student was shown a model of how to do this essay--each paragraph, the intro, the conclusion, the citations. That this student truly believes with all his/her heart that he/she "worked hard" on it. That to them TIME, no matter how it is spent, is the measuring stick here, not the product. And that, somehow, I am supposed to know how much time was spent and figure it in, regardless of the product of said time. And--this is critical--that this is an honors student who really doesn't want to hear the answer to this question unless it is "You didn't. I made a mistake. You really got an A."

I hate any essay return day. It is excruciating. It is either the best day in the life of a student or the worst. It is Drama All Over The Place. And the aftermath is just as bad. My school email inbox and voice mail will be flooded with Honors Parents, anxious about the nemesis of every teacher, Extra Credit. "Can Biff do a 17-page book report on War and Peace by Friday for Extra Credit?" "Can Buffy do a 65 slide multimedia extravaganza on The Life Of J.D. Salinger, including an Original Song tonight and present it to you after school tomorrow for Extra Credit?" Or worse: "Can Belvedeere rewrite his paper with corrections? He was confused and upset because we had to have his iguana put to sleep and I just know it affected him." AAARRRGGGHHHHHH. And at least one or two of them will demand a conference with me and the principal. Every end of the school year is fraught with this shit and I hate it.

So, you play teacher in the comments. Give me the perfect spiel. I'll edit the post and tell you what I usually say. I sure hope your ideas are better. At the very least, give me something to hang onto to get me through till June 7.

It can't be summer soon enough.

Of Shredders and Microfilming, Yet not about Being a Spy, Darnit!

Believe it or not, one of the worst jobs around my house is manning the shredder. As with most of our distasteful household tasks, we ignore it and let it become even more horrific; in this case, papers had piled up, cascaded down, and formed a small landfill. With my husband and the boys doing outdoor chores in the brisk and decidedly un-springlike weather, the task fell to me, the one practically upholstered in fleece and cowering indoors, surreptitiously inching the thermostat ever higher.

Shredding documents really is a crappy job. You can't watch t.v. and do it because the shredder is loud, you have to pay attention while feeding in the papers, and at my house, there is no t.v. in the room where the shredder is anyway. Oh, sure--I could move the whole operation into the living room, but I'd need a wheelbarrow, an extension cord, and I'd have to make too many trips.

Anyway, there were about 3 months worth of credit card and health insurance statements, restaurant and department store receipts, and other documents that contained numbers far too prone to identity theft to just chuck unmauled into the regular trash. I swear, it was like A Brief History of The Family of Nance, circa March thru May, 2006: What They Bought, What They Suffered From, Where They Ate and What They Ordered, etc. Very instructive. And very helpful to an identity thief.

It reminded me of my first job way back in 1977 when I was a bank teller. I was a "floater", which meant that I traveled from branch to branch, filling in for people on vacation. If no one was on vacation one week, I had to report to the main office and microfilm records. What a lousy job that was. Very reminiscent of manning my home shredder, but multiplied by fifty. Here's how it went: I went down into the creepy basement where they had set up an industrial microfilm machine. It was about the size of a stove. When it was on, it was enormously loud. You couldn't hear a thing. Someone could stand next to you and shout, and you wouldn't hear them. I had a floor-to-ceiling bank of shelves next to me full of drawers. Each drawer was full of bank slips: deposits, withdrawals, loan and mortgage payments. The drawers were about the dimension of a dollar bill, but 24" deep. I had to microfilm all of these documents by feeding in a stack at a time. That's all I did for 8 hours a day. It was ridiculous. I sat on this horrid old stool that they dug up for me, under a bare bulb. It was like a scene out of a 20th century Dickens parody.

Here's the thing: All of those bank documents...they were the originals! They had signatures, account numbers, and they were all still active. I was an 18-year old kid. I could have done almost anything with those. This was before computers, but I could have taken an account number to another branch and cleaned that sucker out. I had access. But I never even considered it. Apparently, neither did they. Who ever heard of identity theft 29 years ago, either? And...I was responsible for microfilming all of those documents. And changing the film in the machine. I had no idea if I was doing it right or accidentally exposing the film. No one ever even checked on me. Sometimes I wonder if anything ever even made it onto that film, or if anyone ever asked for proof of their payment on that 1977 Chevy Monte Carlo.

Every once in a while, I would think about writing something funny or evil on the back of one of those payment slips and feed it through the microfilmer. But I never did. I was so serious and virtuous back then. And easily cowed by authority.

Boy. Things have changed.

When the Bough Breaks...

When I was little, I'd have these moments where I'd get really upset and angry at the same time and feel like crap. I didn't know if I wanted to cry or scream. I couldn't decide if I wanted to wreck my bike by riding straight into the closed garage door and jumping off at the last minute or if it would feel better to just pull a few overripe tomatoes off the plants at the back of the garage and squeeze them as hard as I could while yelling. Most of the time, I'd just climb up into the tree in the front yard and sit among the leaves and see if I needed to cry about it or think about it or both. I'd sit there and try to figure out exactly where it was all coming from and then, more importantly, exactly what I was going to do about it. If, that is, there was something I could do about it.

Eventually, I'd get it figured out and come down. A little tear-streaked, perhaps. A little tired, perhaps. Once in a while hungry and thirsty, both for food and companionship. Sometimes, I would be moody and quiet; sometimes, lighter and happier than I'd been in days, as if I'd left whatever burdened me up among the branches.

I find myself metaphorically up that tree these days. So much to think about, so many cares and woes. And there are the small things, too, that pester and poke: relentless rain, slow Spring, lost sleep, disengaged students, toxic people, quarreling kids, and my own guilt that these petty provocations can get to me in the face of other people's greater challenges. And the weary feeling that I just might 'run out' before the school year does.

So I'm up here amongst the branches, sorting it all out as best I can. I gotta tell ya, it was easier when I was eight. (But at least the latest polls are helping.*) I'll keep remembering that maybe part of it will resolve itself on June 7th when school is out; perhaps things will also look better when I get a bit more sleep. Let's hope so. In the meantime, stuff looks a little bleak...from way up here.

*Harris Poll , Newsweek Poll, AP-Ipsos Poll, USA Today Poll <------He's going LOWER!!!!!!

Keepin' It Free..for You and Me!

Internet providers such as AT&T and Verizon are right now lobbying Congress with the specific intent to gut Network Neutrality, the Internet's First Amendment and the key to fundamental Internet freedom. Network Neutrality prevents AT&T from choosing which websites open most easily and readily for users based upon which site pays the ISPs more. So Amazon doesn't have to outbid Barnes & Noble for the right to work faster or more properly on your computer.

Many members of Congress take campaign contributions from these companies, and they don't think the public are paying attention to this issue. We're being distracted by mounting casualties in Iraq, high gasoline prices, and the usual bickering in D. C. Let's show them we're smarter and more aware than they think - please click the icon above and sign this petition today. Please preserve the freedom of our internet.

Who Are These People and Why Are They Living in My House?

Saturday was a nightmare and it was our own damn fault. We had put off going to the grocery store so long that we were out of everything needed to sustain life except Heinz ketchup, soft margarine, and olive oil. As I began helping to put all the groceries away, it hit me.

I share my home with some very objectionable people. People with whom I have very little in common. People who, were I not related to them, I probably would not choose to spend much time with. Individuals who, if I had not lived through and witnessed their bodies being propelled forcibly from my own, I would deny had any genetic material in common with my own. And one person in particular who, if he had not the official document to prove it, I would--at times--not believe I had chosen to spend the rest of my life with.

Let me explain, and start with the refrigerator to do so. "My" items, such as chevre, capers, English blackcurrant preserves, and homemade basil pesto jostle for space amid "their" Velveeta, kosher spears, gallon jug of Hershey's syrup, and salsa. I can hardly get past the quart of neon Kool-Aid to get my coffee creamer. And when I go to the basement refrigerator, the array of beers is sometimes staggering now that Jared is 21. Regardless of this, my husband purchased a 12-pack of Killian's Red. I said, "There is plenty of beer in the basement already."

And that was my mistake. At this, he assumed a professorial stance and looked at me pityingly. He sighed. "Nance," he said in a softly instructional tone, "the Coors Light is my 'emergency beer.' It is in cans and is for you to cook with and for me to drink should I run out of the other beer. The Trinity Oatmeal Stout is my 'trial run experimental beer' and is almost gone. I got it to see if I liked it, and I drink it every once in a while to decide. The Miller Light is Jared's beer that he got with his own money, and I don't drink that. Killian's is my 'regular beer'. I'm almost out. So I need more. So I'm getting it. See now?" Aaaarrrggghhhh.

These people! They drive my car and when I get into it, the CD player blares their music. Or what passes for "music", because it's nothing I'd call music. It's more like the soundtrack of tribal thuggery. There's no melody, nothing uplifting or lyrical, just nonstop verbiage. If I want to feel harangued and nagged at, I'll call my mother and tell her some things I did when I was away at college. IF, that is, I can even understand any words at all--Sam usually has the bass line turned up so far that what comes out of what's left of the speakers is a fuzzy, blurred boom that is not only mercifully indecipherable, it immediately gives me a jolting arrhythmia. At the other end of the spectrum and almost as frightening is my husband who, at this later stage in our marriage, has suddenly developed a fondness for--of all things--country music. His job involves long hours of driving from job to job, and he finds country music relaxing. He likes the fact that the songs tell a story. (I guess the fact that they all tell the same three stories doesn't bother him.) When I discovered this horrifying fact about his newfound musical taste and added it to the fact that he drives a small truck for his construction supervising job, I sat him down immediately. "Promise me right this minute," I begged him, "that you are not now, nor have you ever been, nor will you ever be a Republican!" He assured me that he isn't, wasn't, and wouldn't be. And yes, I extracted an oath that he would never, ever listen to Toby Keith. Whew!

Aliens! They mess up my house and don't even care! Cat vomit is invisible to them all! Cat hair on the draperies does not bother any one of them, only me! They only vacuum if I ask them. They only empty wastebaskets if I tell them. Sometimes I play a game. I leave the same glass or empty Pepsi can on the bookshelf for days and days and days. I can outlast them, I think. I will wait and see how long it will take before someone finally takes it to the sink or the recycling. But they win! They always win! I self-destruct before them! Take this damn glass or Pepsi can to the kitchen! I scream insanely, instantly at DefCon 5. Do you know how many days it has sat there? Eleventy billion and ten! Am I the only one who can take a drinking vessel to the kitchen?!?!?!? They all turn and look at me. They are patient and kind and a little bit sad. "Wow," they say or think, "all you had to do was say something the first day."

I am no Martha Stewart. I am just a person, really. I eat Marshmallow Fluff! I like those neon orange cheese cracker sandwiches with the peanut butter in them. I don't listen to classical music. I say the word "fuck" way too often--just ask my husband. But really--these people who live in my house...they could use some shaping up.

Separated at Birth: The Sporty Edition!

The Cleveland Cavaliers are in the NBA playoffs; The Cleveland Indians are playing baseball. I have 2 sons and a husband in command of the television, so it's Sports Central at our house. There's nothing else on anyway. I've been noticing a few striking resemblances. Let's see what you think:

That's Gilbert Arenas of the Washington Wizards on the left, and Jesse L. Martin of Law & Order on the right. Jessie L. was also in Rent.

Now for another one, this time from the Cleveland Indians baseball team. Take a look now at Jai Rodriguez on the left--he's the Culture Vulture from Bravo's show Queer Eye for the StraightGuy. And his twin from the Indians is on the right, catcher Victor Martinez.

Try to overlook the airbrushing in Jai's picture; he's such a vanity fairy! (And I have no idea who the little guy is. I'm just too lazy to crop him out. But he's cute.)

And then there's this one--also from the Cleveland Indians. On the left is lovable animated character Shrek; his sports doppelganger, Travis Hafner, the Indians' designated hitter, is on the right.

Travis even has a similar nickname, "Pronk". Very Shrek-y. Move those ears up and color Travis a bit green...do you see it? !!!!!

Finally, a really creepy one. On the left we have NBA commentator Hubie Brown, and on the right, well...don't you dare try to tell me that you haven't thought it yourself!
(Has anyone ever checked Ol' Hubie for a pulse lately? Seriously, the man looks like he's already been pickled and stuffed. Yikes.)

I've been touting the LeBron and Fantasia Barrino (American Idol) "Separated at Birth" phenomenon for a year now. I'm sure you don't really need to see it, do you? Oh, okay.
(Fantasia is the one with the cleavage.)

Geeze. This post took me forever. I hope you appreciate it. As a matter of fact, I think you should do a cheer for me. Right now.

"GET ON YOUR FEET! GIMME AN 'N'! GIMME AN 'A'! GIMME ANOTHER 'N'! GIMME A 'C'! GIMME AN 'E'! WHADDYA GOT? NANCE! WHAT? NANCE!! ONE MORE TIME! N A N C E !!!!!!!!!

YAY.

Shock and Awe with J.D. Salinger

One of my favorite times of the year is now, when I get to teach The Catcher in the Rye. My sophomores love it, I get to swear a lot, they don't complain about reading every night, and they actually discuss the hell out of it. What I don't love is how old it makes me feel. Here are the words I have already had to explain thus far, and we are only on Chapter 9:

David Copperfield: They think it's the magician; I have to tell them about the Dickens character.
rocks: They think Ernie Morrow's mom is a cocaine fiend rather than a diamond junkie.
give the time to: They think it's odd Holden is upset about telling someone the hour of the day;I love the look on their faces when they finally figure out it's a euphemism for sex.
falsies: They always think it's fake fingernails rather than padding for a bra.
grippe: They have absolutely no idea what this is.
traveling incognito: They have no reference for this whatsoever.

Today, we discussed the chapter wherein Holden decides to call up Faith Cavendish, the girl "who doesn't mind doing it once in a while". I started discussion by saying that Holden, after viewing the goings-on in the seedy hotel, was starting to feel horny. Suddenly, I noticed that there was a side conversation going on at my right. I turned around and said, "What's up over here?" A few of the boys looked a little sheepish. A girl near them was grinning. I waited, smiling. "What? Come on!" One of the boys piped up, "Mrs. D., it's just that...well,...when you say that word..." I was puzzled. "What word?" I asked. He reddened. I knew instantly. "HORNY? You think it sounds odd to hear me say HORNY?" He and a few other boys ducked their heads. Several students laughed.

One boy said, "I didn't think they used that word BACK THEN."

>SIGH<

They are so young.

But it's nice to know that I can freak 'em out just by saying "horny." Wait till further on in the book. I think I'll read a few later chapters out loud, just so they can hear me say "fuck."

I Live in a Parallel Universe

Today is my last day of Spring Break. I have spent it doing very useful things, and doing those things in my jammies. I have put a turkey in the oven, changed my clothes closet over from heavy serious winter garments to lighter, sherbety-colored springy attire, and even made inroads into the sea of papers that ebb ever closer to drowning my keyboard entirely. Looking to take a break from it all, at one point I wandered into the livingroom where my eldest was conferring with his father, who was in danger of nodding off in the recliner.

Eldest: Dad! We have more cap room than anyone else in the league. But we need a running back really bad.
Father: Hmm. Is Ruben Droughns available?
Eldest: Good idea. (Pause.) He's in the last year of his contract. The Jets have him locked up.
Father: Well. So then. Not gonna do us any good.

I did a quick U-turn and headed off into the other room to check on the younger son. As I neared the doorway, I heard explosions and gunfire. I could have sworn I heard the phrase "jerry rotter."

Me: (to back of son's head) Sam! What are you doing?
Sam: (without turning around, expressionless) Shooting people.

>Sigh.<
I am boring. I play FreeCell. But right now, it's time to baste.

The Buddy System, Revamped

This isn't a warm fuzzy post about my childhood. It's political. Just thought I'd warn you up front.

I was browsing the blogs this morning (see "necessaries" in sidebar) and had one of those intense nodding sessions over defective yeti's latest post. In case you haven't yet taken my sage advice and linked over to his blog, he's a Seattle writer who posts on a wide variety of things including games, books, and politics, all with a dose of average-guy humor. Anyway, the catalyst for my nodding was his post about gay marriage.

Yet, it isn't really about gay marriage. It's about marriage, and how the government shouldn't be involved in it as an institution, gay or straight. He posits that perhaps the term itself--marriage--is the issue. He suggests new nomenclature: the buddy system. And the post is off. Intelligently and humorously. I'm really not doing it justice, you know. Now you have to go read it. Here's the link. Go!

Carnival of the Mundane: Belly up to the Buffet

Carnival time again; this time it was hosted at Daisy Mae's blog . I'm a bit late with my invite, but don't worry--it's a smorgasbord. You can just grab a plate, find your place in line, and start sampling all the best bits from an array of blogs that celebrate the Seinfeld-esque moments that make up our lives. Take your time; the stuff'll stay hot.

I Ain't A-Scared Of You!

If the producers and directors of horror films were smart, they'd have their test audiences comprised solely of moms. Because we know scary. We confront it every day; moreover, we stare it down and kick its ass. It is part of our on-the-job training, and even playing with dollies does little to ready us for when it rears its ugly head.

Consider: the labor and delivery room. Not only do we propel, through sheer brute force, a human being averaging 8 pounds and 20 inches out of our bodies, but while we are attempting to do so, someone is sticking his/her fingers inside us, strapping machinery to us, and, in my case, leading in a pack of student nurses to interview us and ask us questions during the entire event and then admonishing us when we are a teensy weensy bit less than polite.

Then, at various times throughout Momhood, we are vomited on, snotted on, peed on, diarrhea-ed on, and forced to deal with "boo-boos", some of which require a trip to the Emergency Room, also known as "The Department of Motor Vehicles Medical Center", where we see the extras from Central Casting for The Night of the Living Dead. After we get home, we get to clean all these bodily fluids up, while retching on our own.

And, because of our supernatural diagnostic powers, we are subjected to a barrage of horrific encounters almost continually if we have teenagers, a species well-known for its low grossness threshhold.

Teen: Mom, taste this.
Mom: Why?
Teen: Just taste it.
Mom: But I don't want any.
Teen: You don't have to eat it, just taste it.
Mom: Good God! Okay, fine! (tastes it.) There. It's good. Why?
Teen: It smelled funny. I thought it might be rotten and I wasn't sure.

And it's not just our palates that are assailed. Our vision is assaulted as well:

Teen: (in bathroom, calling): Mom! (pauses imperceptibly) MOM!!!!!
Mom: (rushes in) What?! What's the matter?
Teen: Is there something on my back?
Mom: What? Is that all? You sounded like you were bleeding to death.
Teen: I can feel something gross on my back but I can't get it.
Mom: Let me see....Eeew! It's a huge zit. Just leave it alone.
Teen: Mom! I know it's back there. It's gross. You have to get it.
Mom: I don't want to touch it. Yuck.
Teen: Mom! Please. You have to. I don't want my new American Eagle shirt to even touch it.
Mom: I'll put a band-aid on it, then.
Teen: Mom, come on! You have to. Just squeeze it real quick.
Mom: (Sighs) Okay. Brace yourself. (Squeezes) Ugh!
Teen: Ouch! Oh my God! Mom! Geeze! What the Heck!!!!

And this is the same child who, upon entering and seeing that I am watching "Dr 90210", the plastic surgery show on the Style Network, says, "Oh my God, Mom, how can you watch all that blood and guts and crap?".

If Moms wrote the script for a horror movie, can you imagine what it would be? Mine, now that my kids are 18 and 21, would be one in which the boys never left home but got some low-life trashy wenches from the Fundamentalist Right "in trouble" and tried to live here with their babies, played country music at top volume, spoke with bad grammar, and brought yappy dogs into my house. Seriously scary stuff, that.

"Words, Words! They're All We Have to Go On!"

I suppose it's because I'm an English teacher and avid reader and writer, but dialects fascinate me. My ears really perk up when I hear people use different words than I use for common everyday objects. (Even that last sentence can prove interesting: some people say their ears "prick up.") Sometimes, I can even locate the general region of where the person lived or was raised by a few key words in their common usage vocabulary.

In my house, we sat on the davenport. You might have had a sofa, or a couch. I blame my mother for that one. She was "Pennsylvania Dutch", and she gave us lots of odd words. We never picked up or tidied up. We redded up the house. We didn't vacuum, either. We ran the sweeper. We didn't eat dinner; we ate supper for the evening meal. On Sunday, our largest meal was in the afternoon, and it was called Sunday Dinner. We didn't use a washcloth to wash up, we used a washrag. And we played in the sandbox with a bucket, not a pail.

My friends across the street had a parent from West Virginia, so they were all screwed up. They got their groceries in a sack, not a paper bag. When one of them got an electrical shock from the outlet, she said she got a poke. She called my braids "pigtails". When she asked her grandmother permission to go with me on my paper route, she said she had to ask her "Ma-Maw" to go on my root. I had never heard of a Ma-Maw and no one had ever pronounced "route" (which I had always said like it rhymed with "about") as if it rhymed with "toot."

But then, I had my own Grandma who called green peppers "mangoes" for whatever reason, and called all saucepans "dippers." She was from Wiggletown, Ohio, which isn't even there anymore, to my knowledge. They probably were incorporated into another small town without them even knowing it, largely owing to the fact that the Wiggletownians couldn't communicate effectively. ;-)

My brother-in-law, who was born in Ohio but transplanted to New Jersey, calls jeans dungarees and calls rubber bands gum bands. He calls carbonated beverages soda, whereas in Ohio, they are commonly called pop, which I cannot bring myself to say. It sounds ridiculous, so I say soda also even though I have never lived in the East.

Once in a while, I give trivia questions for extra credit in my English classes. One day, I asked what a davenport was. Only two students got it right. And both of them knew it because of their grandmothers. A fact which they didn't need to share with me. But they did. At which time I felt a new wrinkle sprout.

This language of ours is so captivating. It is what unifies us, yet it is what makes us unique. It can mark us as readily as a brand to a trained ear. I have become almost a collector of the nuances of English, and it is a lifelong obsession.

Because if We Can't Laugh, then We'll Explode

I've had to edit this post and take out the embedded video. I couldn't figure out how to monkey with the code to stop it from playing automatically every time my blog would load. But it was darned funny, so if you want to go see it at Wimp.com, you still can. It's right here .

Sorry for any inconvenience, especially for those of you who access The Dept. at work. It was really starting to piss me off, too!

But funny! The guy is funny.

On Spring

Spring is trying its best to arrive in Northeast Ohio. The Cleveland Indians baseball team is having its home opener tomorrow, and the forecast is 53 with a 100% chance of rain. (I can remember sending my son off to a home opener one year wearing a parka and snowpants. He had to clear several inches of snow off the bleachers and froze before the 5th inning. I suppose getting a little wet is preferable to frostbite.) I am frantic for 70s and sun. I want to put away, once and for all, my winter coat and sweaters. I want to stop carrying my personal space heater when traveling from room to room at the high school. I want my hands to stop looking like a corpse's, all white with purply fingertips from the cold, even indoors.

The house on the corner has some crocuses, but they don't count. I've seen them poking through snow before, stubbornly heralding a premature Spring. The chubby robins in my yard jockeying for position with the squirrels aren't encouraging, either. Around this area, a few hardy ones winter over and can be seen huddled under the eaves in February. Nope--I want lilacs and thunderstorms. I want a rainbow. I want to hear the music from the popsicle truck. I want to see the cilantro start feathering up in my herb garden. I want to smell that wetly green aroma first thing in the morning when I sneak out in my short jammies to get the Sunday paper off the front walk. I want to start complaining about all the tree buds being tracked into the house and all over the carpets. I want all the storm windows open in the house and the cats sitting with their noses up against the screens.

I want to wear my light blue pointy shoes. I want to break out my pink leather Etienne Aigner bag. I want to wear short sleeves again. I want to wear a dress or skirt with no pantyhose. (Hell, I want to be able to wear a dress or skirt and not get goosebumps!) I want to wear light, flirty clothes and a lighter, flirtier mood.

Spring arrives too late and leaves too soon here in NE Ohio. We pine for it; we yearn for it; we wish for it as avidly as a lover does her beloved. When it arrives, we almost weep. We wallow in it for the briefest of moments that it lasts.

Spring in NE Ohio is unpredictable and mercurial. It is like your friend who dyes her hair a different color every month and goes to a tarot reader. She disappears, perhaps, for weeks or months at a time, but you don't really hold her accountable; that's just the way she is. When she does show up, you just pick right up where you left off. No questions asked, no baggage or recriminations. It's just her way. And you have the best times with her. You do wild, adventurous things with her that you wouldn't do with anyone else. And you don't care, either. You don't get to spend a lot of time with her, but the time you do spend is golden. That's Spring.

Reports of My Death Have Been Greatly Exaggerated

I implore your patience. The dreaded Infected Head Syndrome turned out to be a killer. I missed 8 days of school and was really flattened. I am sick of doctors, of drugs, and of my bathrobe. I will return soon with a genuine post. Check back in a few days. I'm just now getting used to being vertical for more than an hour at a time, and the teachers among you can appreciate the workload I am buried under. (And for 4 of those days--No Sub! The horror of it all.)

Thanks, and I'll see you in a day or two.

It' S NOT pretty

Please forgive my absence. I am unable to write due to the fact that every single cell, blood vessel, and fibre of my being is fiercely dedicated to the full-time production of snot.

I am suffering from--and this is not a medical term, but it is accurate--an infected head. My sinuses, ears, throat, and eyes are all a mess and producing the slimy fluid.

It's not pretty. I am a disaster.

Help.

In the Bathroom

I find myself thinking about bathroom habits lately, mainly because I have to yell at my 18-year old on a daily basis to get in there and put the cap back on the toothpaste and hang the towel back up. Each time he goes back in there and does those things, I assess the general area and marvel again at how much I hate cleaning the bathroom and also at how much hair there is in the sink. Blondes must have it easier in that regard: you probably never really notice it in there.

Anyway, I sometimes think about married couples sharing a bathroom who don't mind it when one spouse is in the bathroom, say, brushing his teeth while the other is actually using the toilet. That has never once happened in the going-on-25-years of marriage in the Dept., let me assure you. I find that to be an absolutely non-negotiable item. That is just way too much ugly intimacy for me. That is a surefire way to "take the bloom off the rose" in any relationship, if you ask me. You might as well just throw up all over him. (Or her. As the case may be.) No one needs to see that. I even offer an objection when Travis and Emily (the cats) wander in while I am occupied in that manner. I tried to think back if my husband and I ever even talked about this issue and formally set this boundary early in our relationship. I couldn't remember if we really discussed it, or if it just became a common understanding between us, like so many issues in a marriage do, such as who takes out the garbage and who is in charge of getting stamps and the fact that there will never be dogs involved in any way and things like that. But regardless of how the treaty was reached, it has never been broken. And it never will be.

The toilet paper will also always flop over the roll and not under it. I will never have any reading material in the bathroom that is expressly for the bathroom. (Currently, there is a collection of Flannery O'Connor's short stories.) Even when I am home alone, I shut the door firmly when I am in the bathroom. I never sing in the shower, but I heartily enjoy it when the rest of my family belt out tunes in their showers.

I wonder if people's bathroom habits are indicative of their personalities in general. That particular bathroom time is about the only thing my husband and I don't share, so overgeneralizing here would be dangerous. And I don't think I want to invite everyone to tell me their water closet proclivities. Unless of course, they really feel they need to.

My Generalized Malaise Has a Definite Source

I'm having a hard time. I'd like to be able to blame it on the weather. (And I could, too. After all, I live in northeast Ohio; here, winter drags on and on from late October into mid- to late April. That's a half-year of winter for those of you scoring at home.) I could even try blaming it on a late Easter and hence, a tardy spring break. So long before I get a break from school and teaching my sophomores and juniors! But I can't do that this time. No, this generalized malaise is due to one thing and one thing only.

I am suffering from Project Runway withdrawal.

Those of you who followed Bravo's reality show know exactly what I mean. What are we to do now every Wednesday night? More importantly, what will we talk about now on Thursdays with our colleagues? (And don't even try offering up "Top Chef" as a consolation! Pfffft. I caught parts of "Top Chef." It's no "Hell's Kitchen", let me tell you.)

To make matters worse for me during my withdrawal, I was a Daniel V. fan. I know! He should have won! He won more individual challenges; he was adorable; his clothes were more polished; he had great cheekbones; his work was always finished beautifully; he was cute; he was so much more professional; he looked beautiful even when he had his hair up like Samurai Designer...!! Daniel V. was the odds-on favorite, the golden boy, and even he looked stunned when he didn't win.

The winner was a designer who already has her own shop in Houston, Texas where, judging by her fashion collection, the women prefer clothes made of stiff satin cut in the style of 1980s prom queens where the theme of the night is "Return to the Set of the Television Show Dallas" meets Upholstered Sluts. Since I am an avowed Daniel V. fan, I will not even mention her name. She is dead to me. (Insert gesture of me forking her with the evil eye.) This designer has won $100K seed money-- and her big plans? To stay in Houston and expand her already successful boutique. Oh boy. Dare to dream.

Not that I am bitter.

Sigh. I hate getting emotionally invested in things and then being disappointed. It's bad enough being a teacher--that comes with the territory. But living in the Cleveland area, our sports teams make this a tradition: the Browns, the Indians, the Cavaliers. We keep getting set up for disappointment. And no, you never get used to it. Now, sweet little Daniel V. on Project Runway, who looked like a winner, gets robbed. Victory snatched from the jaws of...what? what would be analagous in fashion? Pinking shears? A presser foot? Whatever. Just look at this face and tell me that it alone wasn't enough:



This is the face of a young man who is thoughtful about his fashion! He will not stop until we women look beautiful all of the time! And he lost, America. HE LOST. And I am sad. We all should be.

The List

We've been together over 6 months now, so I feel like I can share this with you. You know plenty about me already. I've shared lots of other things with you, so why not this? Who knows? You may even have one of your own and admit to it in the Comments. Perhaps you'll even share yours with all of us.

It's my List of Women I'd Do if I Were Gay.

The original idea of The List was born over 10 years ago during a getaway weekend vacation. There were about 5 of us at a Virginia ski resort condo; it was a mini-reunion and we had all come from our faraway homes, not having seen each other in years. Conversation started on our favorite topic of the time, Daniel Day-Lewis. Then it moved on to other men in film and which ones we'd consider sleeping with. Then...well...naturally, several bottles of wine were consumed along the way, and the conversation evolved from there. That particular List was a group effort: it was a complicated snarl of veto powers and 4/5 majority votes and such, but it was an incredible catalog of lovely women who were as fiercely defended as if we had been wearing chain mail and a coat of arms, let me tell you. I don't recall who retained custody of that particular List (perhaps Emily of Houston, Texas), but I wish I had a copy because I don't remember who was on it except that I think I started lobbying for Michelle Pfeiffer and lost because "she has that weird upper lip thing going on at the corners."

**This might be the exact critical moment to affirm, once and for all, the unflinchingly heterosexual status of not only me, but all of the women on that vacation. Really.**

Anyway, the idea of The List has been a great boon to listless afternoons in the lounge and boring parties. I urge you to develop yours immediately. Don't feel you need to confine it to film or television persons alone--branch out to other avenues as well. Develop an eclectic List including dead celebrities (with the stipulation, of course, that they be alive for the deed!), and don't overlook the arenas of sports and music. Look at your List as a fluid document and ring changes upon it capriciously! And publicly, if possible! For example, if you really thought Jessica Alba looked hot at the Oscars on Sunday night, say aloud to someone at the office copier tomorrow, "Boy! That Jessica Alba! That gold dress she wore to the Oscars vaulted her right to the top of my List!" And guys, you should feel absolutely no compunction about formulating your own Lists. That is the hallmark of self-actualization and shows that you are secure in your own manhood. It will be liberating for you to say at the next production meeting, "I just cannot get behind Keith Urban's stripey new highlights. I bet Nicole Kidman is mortified. He has just plummeted on my List."

Having said all of that, it's time to share with you:

Nance's List of Women I'd Do If I Were Gay
1. Charlize Theron
2. Sophie Marceau
3. Scarlett Johansson
4. Vivien Leigh
5. Mariska Hargitay

That's my top 5 as of right now. Old Vivien has been on there forever, and Charlize has been in the top spot for a long time now. I haven't kicked around my List in a long time. Usually, my buddy Sue and I bring up The List when we get bored in the teachers' lounge and I try to get her to move Catherine Zeta-Jones out of her top spot (how cliche! that chick is on everyone's List!) . Sometimes, Roger comes in and we badger him about his List. Technically, he doesn't have one, other than the one I maintain for him. Once, I pissed him off by putting Beck on his List. He doesn't fight me about George Clooney at all, though.

Once you start your own List, share it with me in the comments. If you're not feeling self-actualized, you can be anonymous. It's okay. And I'll keep you posted on any changes in mine.

WARNING: Politics Ahead

I watched "Face the Nation" on Sunday, mainly because I just couldn't face "Meet the Press". (Also because my family have threatened to medicate me if I continue to watch "Meet the Press" and talk back to the guests constantly. You know, it's as if they can't hear me, those guests, and I make all kinds of extraordinarily cogent and breathtakingly incisive points, scoring heavily against each idiotic Republican until...never mind. Sigh. Anyway.) This week, former VP candidate John Edwards was on with Jack Kemp, also a former. They were supposed to be talking about how President Putin of Russia was turning into a bad guy, and what the U.S. should do about it, like subtract him from the G8.

As I was watching it, I was listening carefully to John Edwards. I had a few suspicions, and as John Edwards spoke, he confirmed them. He made a lot of statements using words like "moral leadership". He started talking a whole bunch about port security and how we still aren't inspecting even 10% of incoming shipping containers at our international ports regardless of who maintains eventual ownership. He started in on how Hurricane Katrina highlighted the problems of poverty in our country and hauled out his "haves and have nots" talking points. I recognized an awful lot of recycled phrases from his stumping speeches during the Kerry campaign. I saw him pull out the old Clinton "fist with the thumb up" gesture. Hey, I thought, this is a candidate talking.

I realized that John Edwards is basically what the result would be if Bill Clinton and Jimmy Carter had a child.

Not too long after that, ol' Bob Schieffer picked up on the rhetoric and asked Edwards if he was a candidate for the nomination in '08. Edwards grinned and said he was considering it.

And I'm bored by that. I realize that the Democrats are going to have to go moderate to get back in the Big Chair in '08, and I hope they realize it, too. It saddens me that we have no Rock Star out there to wow us, even as a moderate. We have no power, no punch, no one to look to for charisma. We don't even have anyone in the wings in Washington already who is a mover and a shaker who is inspiring us now! Who is already there, a Democrat, who is snarking at the president and pushing things around? Who is nudging and shoving and saying, "What about our mission? What about smoking Osama out of his hole? What about this? What about that?"

And if this sounds real familiar, it's because it's the same thing I was bitching about back in August. How sad.

I just want to get over it all. Is there a support group, or do I need to take matters into my own hands and start drinking heavily? Is my next entry going to be titled Why Do the Democrats Insist upon Ruining My Life? I'm already off Newsweek; am I really going to have to give up "Face the Nation" and "Meet the Press"? I haven't had a political blog entry since my Governor Taft one. And he's on the state level!

Guns don't kill people; politics kills people.

Carnival of the Mundane V

Be sure to check out Citizen of the Month for Carnival of the Mundane V. Blogger Neil Kramer is the event's host this go-round, which is a showcase of blogposts that celebrate the Everyday. I was tickled to be included among the offerings in this extravaganza.

It's an absolute clickfest of a blog buffet over there: you can read and read and read and be sure to add to your favorites list. And if you're very tricky, you can stash away a few good blogpost ideas for yourself for later....

But y'all come back now, ya hear?