The Challenge

The vacation is winding down, but I don't care.  I'm going to wring out every second of fun.  For instance, right now, I'm going to a place called Albany Bulb. I have 24 hours left of vacation.  The clock is ticking.  This just might be the best day of vacation I've ever had.  We don't know. 

The Super Hero Turkeys of 2018

Camofowlge can blend in with any natural setting.
Here, for instance, she's simultaneously blending in with the sky, a tree, the grass and a cow.

Face Gobbler:  Minion of the Overlord.  With his big tongue, Face Gobbler consumes  the faces of his foes.
He works to serve the evil overlord, Colonel Toddlingham.

Seeing Eye Turkey:  Power of Omniscience. 

Foxy Turkey:  She'll outfox anyone who tries to pull shenanigans with her tribe.

Infiniturk:  Can divide by zero and thereby obtain any number he wants.

Raina:  Brings rain to clean the skies and air.

Shelturkey:  Eliminating homelessness, Punching Out Excuses

Moo-rathon Runner:  A turkey who transforms into  a cow with long distance running stamina.

The Blue Wave:  Getting out the vote in 2020

Carol:  Instantaneously condenses the time between Thanksgiving and Christmas

The Air

In the first days of our trip, we had smoky days with unhealthy air. We wore the masks off and on, but they weren't that comfortable. ( Sorry, Lungs).  We still managed to have indoor fun with museums, movies and meals as well as chats and chortling.  And a great get together with old college chums. We love them all so.

Yesterday we had rain.  We ventured into Chinatown and had lunch, saw a global calligraphy exhibit and watched fortune cookies being made, which was fascinating.  #1 Son got the best fortune of course:  You hold the wisdom of the ages.

We are liking this new situation where we travel to foreign lands for our Day of Thanks.  We started the day with cinnamon rolls (Eli) and pie is being made (Bill).

I'm blogging and reading a book.  All is swell on the bright side of the bay.

The Fragile

Inspired by a snow day, I fooled around with a fiction snippet today.  You can see I have the California fires weighing me down a bit.  But other than that all is swell.  I never look a snow day in the mouth.

I woke up so early to get there on time.  Put the leash on Finn and the mask on my face and walked along 19th Avenue for a mile or so.  Poor Finn. He seemed to be lagging and confused. Was it the smoke or the earliness? By the time we got to the bridge, the sun had come up.  The smoky sky was orange and we could see the bridge towers through the haze ahead. When we reached the middle, we stood waiting.   A man nearby talked to a woman.  "The moon is in the 9th house.  Only certain Libras have the sun in the twelfth house which could be related to everything. Does that make sense?  It's the house of self determination. Saturn in the sixth house..."  She kept saying, "Uh Huh, Uh Huh" and "That makes sense," in a whispery voice.  I wanted to lean over the side and vomit right into the bay.  Would he ever shut up?  It was mid December, but it felt like summer with the smoky air blowing over the bridge from Marin, which had been on fire for weeks.  She was late.  Finn would not relax.  The buzzing of the bridge unnerved him and he circled and stepped.  She appeared out of the smoke like someone had turned on a hologram.  She pushed the bundle into my chest and held it in place because my arms weren't reaching up to take it.  I was fumbling for the envelope in my purse.  She reached down and grabbed it and walked past.  Finn stood still, staring up at me.  I wondered where I could get a mask for this baby.  A tiny mask.  I hadn't noticed any tiny masks in the Walgreens when I bought mine a week ago.

The Fables

Have you ever listened to Fables of Faubus by Charles Mingus?

Mingus wrote it to protest Governor Faubus' use of troops to keep the Little Rock 9 kids out of Central High in 1957.  Here's part of the story that really gets me irked.  

After Eisenhower sent in federal troops and the kids were allowed to enter the school and finish the school year, Faubus CLOSED ALL THE HIGH SCHOOLS in Little Rock the next year. 

“The Lost Year” refers to the 1958–59 school year in Little Rock (Pulaski County), when all the city’s high schools were closed in an effort to block desegregation. One year after Governor Faubus used state troops to thwart federal court mandates for desegregation by the Little Rock Nine at Central High School, in September 1958, he invoked newly passed state laws to forestall further desegregation and closed Little Rock’s four high schools: Central High, Hall High, Little Rock Technical High (a white school), and Horace Mann (a black school). A total of 3,665 students, both black and white, were denied a free public education for an entire year which, increased racial tensions and further divided the community into opposing camps.  


You can read more about it here if you feel like it.  What's weird is this.  The teachers still went to work, in schools with empty classrooms.  Sure, that sounds great when you first hear about it, but let's face it.  It's not right.  

The Cold

There's a Thirdlander I know who's been fairly distant so far this year.  She's a great student and a powerful writer, but she's not one to start the day with exuberant hugs, face breaking smiles and long stories about hilarious escapades. She's more the eye-rolling-indignant-stare-sighs-of-annoyance kind of Thirdlander, which, truth be told, has its good points.

 On Friday, we went out for an extra recess.  It was cold. The feel of snow was in the air. This gal didn't have a heavy coat.  She stood next to me, glowering.  "Usually I play happy games at recess, but right now I'm cold."

"Sorry you're cold," I told her, and I felt it sincerely.  "We're only going to be out here for ten minutes, so maybe you should run around?"

She scowled and stared off into the distance.  I stood with her, perusing the playground, wishing I hadn't lost my gloves last year.

After a prolonged silence, she blurted out, "I'm bored.  Wanna talk?"

Her question caught me off guard, but I quickly recovered.  "Sure.  Wanna walk around while we're talking?"  She did, so we did.  She had a lot to say and was an interesting conversationalist.  Took us 3 months to get here, but we're here.  Talking about our lives and braving the cold together.

The Broom

This is how a lot of conversations go in Thirdland.  From 2 days ago---

- Dr. H.  I'm going to be a witch for Halloween.  Can I bring a broom for my costume?
- Sure.
- I can bring a broom?
- Yes.
- You're seriously going to let me bring a broom in to the classroom?
- Do you have plans to hit anyone with it?
- No!
- I think it's not a problem then.
- So, I can bring a broom?
- Right.

Then yesterday.  Same kid.  Dressed as a witch,

- I decided not to bring the broom.
- Well, you look great without it.

A lot of my time went in to that broom's presence, so I was a little resentful, but I got over it.  Our party was fun.  Great parent volunteers ran the show.  Today's going to be a Halloween hangover for everyone.  I hope we can get back on track without too much delay.  I heart Halloween, and I'm always happy to see it pass into the past.

The Parents

I'm visiting my parents in the southland.  Right now my mom and I are watching Game Night.  We saw this excellent film in the theater last summer, as you may recall. If you haven't seen it yet, you probably should, if you feel like it.

We've also watched a lot of news.  My parents have opposing political views.  Mom's with CNN down in the basement.  Dad's up in the living room with Fox.

Mom can't talk well any more, but she makes good use of her notebook.  We've had some great written conversations, many focused on the impeachment of DT.  She wants this guy gone and has even written that she could die in peace if DT could be impeached soon.

In contrast, Dad pretends that everything stated about DT is hyperbole and perhaps could be fake news?

So, that's how it goes down here in the Southland. We're not letting this rift rip this family apart.

We all side with Mom.

The Observation

My principal is coming in this afternoon to observe my teaching.  I'm teaching more about red tide.  Last year, My Principal (MP) sat in the back at a table with his computer.  While I was circling around in a "with it" fashion, an expectation on our evaluation checklist, one 3rdLander decided to work at the table next to MP.  I kept moving around, interacting and checking on comprehension and focus, challenging all learners at their individual levels, when I noticed the kid at the table with MP was whispering constantly to him.  I wandered over there and MP told me that the kid didn't like this assignment and didn't like a lot of the assignments in my class.  This was the same kid who told his parents I treated the 3rdLanders like they were "mindless slaves."  

So, everything turned out okay in the end, but I want to make sure no one sits at the same table as MP today while he's writing his opinions about my teaching.  I don't need extra help, Thirdlanders.  Let's just give MP space to write about my with-it-ness, or lack thereof, without the distractions of comments from the crowd.

The Reaming

I work a lot, but then sometimes things get in the way of me working a lot and my life goes to hell in a hand basket.  Ipso Facto.   Just for the sake of argument, let's say I have a birthday and I don't work on a particular weekend.  The next week is hideous.  Or, let's say I go to a book club meeting and discuss a classic book called Lathe of Heaven and I have a fun meal with great beverages and lots of laughing conversation late into the night. Because of literacy, the next day is going to be messed up, with unclear lesson plans thrown in with some fatigue.  Or, let's say I want to visit my parents and I want to take Friday off so I can hang out with them and watch movies.  I can't even tell you the repercussions of that move. Basically all hell is going to break loose.  Human sacrifice, cats and dogs living together.

But here's the thing, huddle up and listen up.  I'm not telling you anything you don't know here, but the bottom line is teachers need to celebrate their births, and they need to be literate and they need to connect with beloved octogenarian parents (88 and 89). So, knock it off, Job.  I'm sick of you falling apart every time I don't coddle you like a spoiled kindergartener. Get your freaking act together, Employment. I'm not telling you again.

The Maps

Alton Ziegler, the main character in Map Trap, loves maps.  He creates maps of people's brains, based on evidence he has for what seems to preoccupy their thoughts.  His map of his teacher's brain shows that she thinks quite a lot about her little brother as well as the Chicago Bears.

We used brain pictures to design our our own mental maps.


A big portion of my brain is labeled, "Thirdland."  I think about my job constantly.  Room 200 is always with me.  I also have sections labelled WRITING, WORRIES, and NATURE. I think about my family a lot, but I didn't add a section about family.  I figured everyone would have that on their maps and I want to move past expected topics.

I talked through my map with the Thirdlanders.  Then we looked up geography words in our social studies books and checked out some physical feature maps. I want this writing project to be from a cartographer's perspective, so we're going to integrate geographical terms into our descriptions. After looking over maps, I relabeled my map with The Writing Mountains, National Forest of Worries, Coastal Nature Preserve and Thirdland Urban Areas.   Many of the Thirdlanders had regions for Video Games on their maps.  They also had regions called LOVE, MY DOG, and FAMILY.  One Thirdlander said, "The biggest region of my brain is called My Brother.  I love him so much." Another said, "I'm not sure if my family or my dog should be a bigger area?"

kestrel 

These are kind of like the heart maps that many classrooms create during writing workshop, so I'm thinking of ways to shake it up a bit.  I want to publish pieces that tell about why we think about particular items and events so much.  Are there any down sides to having certain patterns of thinking?  I also want to look at connections and differences among all of us in Thirdland.

We're just getting started. I'll keep you posted.