AVIATION EDUCATION AT SQUANTUM

First day after the end of the school year + first Saturday without rain since Spring arrived in March + First Day of Summer = Time to be outside!

I find myself at Squantum Point Park, the site of a 2,700-foot long former runway for a Naval station. No buildings are there, but the place is quietly impressive. The paved path leads straight through wildflowers and low trees, breaking open  where the Neponset River meets Dorchester Bay in Quincy. There are impressive views of the Boston skyline and the famous Boston gas tank. 

Its aviation history, however, is even more impressive.

In 1910, it hosted the first international flight competition in the USA. Harriet Quimby, the first female in the US to receive her pilot's license in 1911 and fly across the English Channel in 1912, lost her life off of Squantum Point when she and her passenger were ejected (fell out of) the airplane after losing control in front of spectators on July 1st in that same year, 1912. In 1917, the US Navy began training pilots there. Later, around 1944, even British Royal Navy pilots trained there, a time that saw BRN pilots and crew surviving a mid-air collision that sent them into the water.

The air strip was closed in 1953 due to its proximity to Logan Airport, creating air traffic nightmares, and, in 1960, it was labeled an abandoned airport. When redevelopment started in the Marina Bay area of Quincy, the area was also considered for development. In 2001, the park opened, featuring a portion of the old air strip.

There are stone markers telling the history, including a shout-out to Amelia Earhart, who helped fund and start what was then known as Dennison Airport at Squantum Point in 1927. She also assisted with its early operations, and she participated in the first official flight at the new air strip.

I'm impressed by the park's history. I truly had no idea that Quincy has such an important place in aviation history. I end up spending an hour or so of my First Official Day Off for the School Year along with the First Non-Rainy Saturday out of the last fourteen,  and the First Official Day of Summer soaking up some sun and some education. 

TWO-WORD PHRASE

What is the most reviled two-word phrase in the English language?

Nuclear bomb? Tax audit? You're fired? No food? Wrong size? Dead end? Prenuptial agreement? Custody dispute? You're guilty? You fail? Pull over? Lane change? Too expensive? Babysitter cancelled? Account's empty? Phone's lost? No internet? Battery's dead? Hiatal hernia? Stomach cramps? Sutures stat? Bread's moldy? 

Nope.

The most reviled two-word phrase is: Staff Meeting.

To anyone who has never been forced to sit through one of these boredom-challenging events, a Staff Meeting happens when someone could have, at the very least, sent the required information out by email or via carrier pigeon. At the very most, it could have happened around the water cooler with far more current and precise information passing around like an adult version of Office Telephone. 

This most recent Staff Meeting could have (and should have) been a memo. There is a completely off-topic presenter who has obviously been placed before us as the Dummy Prize -- run the clock out so no one can ask questions about the real issues. That's fine. We spend the time texting each other bad movie suggestions and drawing faces on photos we take of various items around the room. (I am the Master of the Screaming Charging Station Outlets.) 

What's funny is that sometimes these Staff Meetings are meant to quell rumors, but backfire and actually start the rumors.  We have staff moving all over the place -- to new rooms, to new grades, to new schools, and some out the door. But, we aren't supposed to "know" this nor "talk about" this because, hey, it's smoke and mirrors. It's literally Screaming Outlets.

I'm kind of over it all. I have a couple of years left, and I just recently let my high school license expire. That means I am now only certified to teach grades 5-9 (so, I guess I could still teach freshmen, legally). But, with all the changes going on, and, with two weeks left of the school year, I start packing, rearranging, and tossing twenty-five-plus years' of stuff.

First, I bring home all of my plants so I can set up my porch. Then, I give away two of my six bookshelves, which leads me to pack up the four bookcases I am keeping. This encourages me to give away 200 or so (out of my 600+) reading novels that I'm ready to part with (including my own kids' Goosebumps books). After that, I take all of my "secretive" files to the shredder. This is followed by the tech department coming in to measure for new electronic boards because the useless Eno board will be moving to the back of my room over the bulletin board, so the posters and projects need to be taken down. I organize my desk. I pull apart my closets and dump my old grade eight curriculum (I haven't taught it in twenty years) and my old small-group math materials (also twenty years gone). I put extra plastic "in" boxes into the Teacher's Room. I repack and put away my games and class toys. I take home a metal shelving unit. I move my desk three times in one afternoon until I am happy with its placement even though the area of the room is known as the Blue Tooth Black Hole of Death. I empty out the file cabinets of student work. My room quite literally echoes.

In other words, it appears that I'm leaving.

People start whispering. I assume they're talking about all the staffing conundrums we are facing for 2025-2026, the "information" that "was" (wasn't) shared at the Staff Meeting. I ignore the whispers because I am two weeks from closing up shop for the year. I am sequestered in my room all day every day, and I don't have any idea what is being said outside my four poster-less walls.

Finally, a few bold souls come to my room when I'm in there alone, tearing the place apart, and they close the door. "Are you leaving?"

What? Yeah, in two years.

"Oh. It looks like you're leaving."

No, I'm heaving . . . all this useless stuff.

This goes on and on. Even my Team Leader finally asks me. "Are you leaving?" 

Not yet. But, I am prepared to go at any given moment.

I didn't realize it then, but I do realize it now. I hold that power.  I hold the power to say, "I'm done, and I'm leaving right now." I have one foot out the door and jets on my heels. I may not be leaving . . . yet . . . but I can taste it, smell it, hear it, feel it, see it.

So, being the brat I am, to some I simply say, "Could be. Maybe so. One never knows."

This statement seems to have hang-time. It has repercussions. It has legs. It's an ear-worm. And, even better:

It could have been a freaking Staff Meeting. 

MILDEW AND MENTAL HEALTH

It's remarkably difficult to avoid talking about the rain. It's all the rage around here, and by "rage" I mean that we are all raging that it is raining on another weekend. Friday it pours several times, and we are surrounded by thunderstorms and flash flood warnings all day long. 

By some grace of Mother Nature, high school graduation in the district where I teach seems to avoid the evening rain. A massive wall of thunderstorms miles and miles wide barrels east then turns north, circumventing the small town where chairs have been set up on the field and an audience gathers in the metal stands. 

A true recipe for disaster should the Thunder Gods deem it to be so.

It's one thing to plan a weekend of umbrellas. It's quite another to set ourselves up to be human lightning rods. To be honest, this Weekend Wash-Out routine is getting stale, although it does cultivate a certain appreciation for the good weather days should we ever get to enjoy any of them. Of course, it also cultivates mold and mildew, but I digress.

At least all of this rain is good for the flowers and the trees and the lawns and the weeds. Not so much for our morale, but, at this point of the school year, morale is in the tank, anyway. Perhaps that's why it's raining every weekend -- so those of us who are miserable at work can be equally miserable when we're not at work. 

The seniors make their getaway, though, and they do it under cloudy skies without the storms. Western Massachusetts and New Hampshire are getting drenched, but our students are like the Weather Whisperers. If we can just harness that and sprinkle it on Saturdays, we might make it through summer with some of our sanity intact.

THE CRAP-SHOOT OF DENTAL REPAIR

At my age, medical and dental issues are basically a crap-shoot: Ya win some; ya lose some. However, I would be grateful if the universe stopped kicking my ass for just a half a second.

By pure coincidence, a random x-ray for something else reveals that I need a root canal. Now. Like, yesterday. I had zero idea. No pain, no twinges, no changes in tooth strength. This is how I find myself in the endodontist chair for the second time in my life.  

My first root canal, performed decades ago, led to a massive infection in my upper jaw, necessitating surgery, and then I lost the tooth, anyway, much to the ire of my parents who had to pay for it all. Needless to say, I'm not holding out much hope for this tooth, either. But, I'm willing to give it the old-lady try. After all, it would be kind of cool to have a couple of my own teeth still inside my skull when the Big Ride is done.

The endodontist snaps a couple of x-rays and shows me an even better image of what's going on. He can't believe I'm not in pain. He taps a metal implement against the tooth in question and one next to it. "Doesn't this hurt?" No, Doc, I swear that I am now and hope to remain pain-free.

I tilt back in the dental chair for sixty minutes, trying to keep my mouth open. Only once do I raise my hand to let Doc know I can feel what you're doing there, partner. Several drops of Novocaine go into the open tooth area (Root? Canal? Root canal?), and we're quickly back in business.

When this first appointment is over, I try to stand from the dental chair only to discover that my neck has atrophied. I quite literally cannot put my chin down. I look like a carcass that has just been released from the gallows after hanging. Just perfect. My jaw might be on the road to recovery, but I seem to have suffered a spinal dislocation.

I'm soon sent on my way to the pharmacy, where the internet provider has crashed, so I wait. Can I come back later? they ask me. No. I am here now. Please, for the love of all things sane, GET ME SOME MEDS. While the pharmacy waits for the internet to come back online after a massive outage, I shop for the ibuprofen that I also need. Eventually, my medications and I make our way home.

I am thrilled to discover that I've grabbed a bottle of ibuprofen without a child-resistant cap. Finally, something is easy to open. I'm so excited because, honestly, between my jaw and my neck, I'm ready for some smooth sailing. I open the container without any karate needed. Everything is going along so well, until --

Until I encounter the foil seal.

This damn piece of anti-human engineering will not yield. I pick at every edge, pull on every tab, but nothing, absolutely nothing, is going to open this packet.

Except a steak knife.

I find an older steak knife, one I don't care about if I were to snap off the blade. The weapon is clean and it is sharp. I take aim, pull my wrist back to strike, and I attack that ibuprofen bottle like I'm Norman Bates with a shower curtain.

Minutes later, I am able to begin my antibiotics plus ibuprofen regimen. I do have to go back tomorrow for root canal day #2. I am already anticipating having my neck twisted like I've been to the gallows, and I might even have some pain.

It's okay. I'm old. Pain means I'm still alive. After all, this whole exercise is basically a crap-shoot. I'll let you know how the dice play out.

ONE MORE POST ABOUT SPRING

One more post about Spring 

Because

It's all my fault

The rain, the cold, the winter jackets

All

My

Fault

It reached eighty degrees last week

Not once but

Twice 

So I brought home some of my

Work aloe plants

Thinking maybe they would like to

Decorate the porch

Then the sun disappeared and the

Warmth disappeared and the

Temperature plummeted and

Snow threatened and

Now I have aloe plants all over my

Kitchen counter

Because

It's

All

My

Fault

That Spring refuses to stay

SPRING: THE SEASON THAT DOESN'T LOVE US

Pollen time!

Many places in New England are emerging from Mud Season. Now, we enter the dreaded Pollen Season.

So far, Pollen Season hasn't been too horrendous. We don't have the caterpillars peeing and pooping all over our cars, and we can actually go two or three days (rather than hours) without our vehicles turning into complete green dust-mobiles. I do, however, have my monthly car wash membership, just in case.

The worst part about Pollen Season is the sneezing. Yes, the unexpected, inevitable blasting nasal expectorants that come upon us with zero warning. This, of course, is compounded by things like Mother's Day or Teacher Appreciation Day, when "indoor" pollen arrives in the form of flowers. We do looooove flowers, but our noses don't feel the same way.

Cold season? We have warnings for our sneezes. Our nostrils leak, and we usually say "huuuuhhhh huuuuuuuhhhhhhhhhhhhh" before letting loose a snot-infested string of sneezes. If there's smoke around, like a campfire or a barbecue, we can sense the smoke tickling our sinuses, giving us at least enough time to turn away from humanity.

Pollen? Forget it. All bets are off. (I just sneezed uncontrollably and without warning by sitting here typing this and having my windows open to the outside world of Spring.)

So, apologies in advance. If you're chatting with someone from New England and that person's face freezes for the slightest millisecond, you won't even have time to back up. Before you even have a chance to register their facial tic, at least one explosive sneeze will be charging your way.

Don't panic, though: No germs. No diseases. No plague. But, there will be green . . . pollen, that is. 

We do love Spring; It simply doesn't love us back.

SPRING RAIN STRIKES AGAIN

Here we go again. 

Another Spring with hot, sunny days during the week and cold, dreary, rainy days on the weekend. I had to turn on my heat twice already in the last fifteen hours. I mean, just for a few minutes, but still.

It doesn't help that I'm fighting off a persistent viral infection. Nothing major. It's more of an annoying mosquito than killer bee. But it sure would feel good to sit on the porch and soak up some sun.

Not today.

Sure, I've been to the beach already . . . to stop and take pictures while the Arctic wind beat against my entire winter-clothed body. I'm ready, though. The beach chairs are in the car.

So is my kayak. I love my kayak, but the thing is a royal pain to haul around. It breaks in half, so it's transportable via sedan, but it is hefty and has no handles for carrying. As a vertically-challenged person with small hands that cannot even stretch to reach an octave, I look like an Oompah-Loompah trying to move the thing. Living on the second floor also means I can't just take the kayak out and put it back into my car at my leisure. It has to be a highly-skilled, well-coordinated event.

I'm just antsy. The end of the school year cannot come soon enough (28 more days). Actually, the end of my school career cannot come soon enough. (Less than 400, but who's counting?) 

I can feel the beach.  I can sense the beach. Every hour my lighthouse-themed clock reminds me with a fog-horn sound to think about the beach. My living room has beach artwork. I need the beach sand between my toes.

Until then, I will have to get by with chilly, damp days, and I will try to keep my head down and off administrative radar (I laugh just typing that - I'm always in trouble). Maybe I'll fight traffic one day after school to catch an hour or two on the beach instead of correcting papers since the weather only cooperates when I'm preoccupied.

Come on, summer. Lend these Spring weekends a handful of your better days. Think of it as a Mothers' (Nature) Day gift.

OLD JAIL FOR AN OLD PHOTOGRAPHER

I like to wander around new places when I am away from home. At least, I did until my old car gave me trouble and the engine died. Now I try to venture closer to civilization and cell service, just in case. Still, I find myself in southern Maine on a road that looks like it should be well-traveled, but it simply isn't at the moment. No worries -- I'm still in cell range just in case disaster strikes yet again.

I have a habit of coming across old school buildings. So, this particular morning, I find myself outside of the Town House School. It's an old building, 1900 to be exact, situated on a small tract of land that also houses an old jail and the old Clark Shipbuilding Office. Directly across from the little village of buildings is a cemetery. 

In other words, I am pretty much alone out here.

I have both my phone and my camera with me. Yes, my camera. I recently discovered that Google Photos will not easily nor readily transfer to external sources, so I decide to go old-school (excuse the pun) when photographing old schools. But, as technology is these days, phone pictures upload to the internet with remarkable rapidity. Basically, I'm two-hands deep with two different cameras taking pictures that I probably don't need, anyway, but cannot help myself from taking.

I grab some photos of the buildings, wander over to the cemetery, mosey around for a bit, then head back toward my car, which is parked near the old jail. I wonder if I can see well enough inside through the windows in order to see what exactly is inside the old jail. 

As I get up close, I realize that one glass pane is missing from a higher part of the window. No problem. I hold my cell up and snap a photo, hoping for the best.

Perfection! The picture clearly shows both the old cells and the beamed ceiling. I start scrolling through the group of photos I've taken, both on the phone and on the camera roll, when it suddenly hits me. What if the police should come by, or any witness for that matter, and wonder why there is a broken pane on the window. No one else is around, right? I mean, maybe I busted the glass trying to get an up-close and personal look inside the place. Maybe I'm a vandal!

Notorious for being caught in the wrong places at exactly the wrong times like the proverbial kid with the hand in the cookie jar, I jump in my car to make a get-away. This is precisely when traffic starts. It's as if it is suddenly rush hour out here in the middle of nowhere. I haven't seen a car in at least twenty minutes, and now it's so busy going both directions that I cannot pull out on to the road in either direction. If someone broke that window within hours of my arrival, there are at least two dozen witnesses who can place my out-of-state butt at the scene of the crime. 

I probably should've checked if the building door was unlocked and just put myself into one of those jail cells. A guilty conscience is a terrible thing to have if one is contemplating a life of crime.

 

PETS AND PLANNING VACATIONS

My friends rescued a cat. Someone had dumped the poor baby along a hiking trail, and the foster mom lamented the little guy's condition. My friends adopted the cat, fed and cared it back to health, and got him updated on all of his medical care.

Needless to say, they are ecstatic to have an animal back in their house, However, they're back in the "limited vacation" mode: No more spontaneous trips or extended time away unless the cat can come along or a reliable pet sitter can be hired. They agree, though, that it's a small price to pay to help an animal. Besides, the cat is kind of cool. He has a chill personality considering what he has been through.

I have zero interest in getting another cat. Nor a dog. Nor a parrot, iguana, hamster, snake, turtle, beta fish, or chinchilla. Sure, I could use the company, except that my need for solitude is more necessary to my survival than water. I do enjoy other people's pets. I like hanging out with my friends' new cat. I go nuts spending time with my dog-niece in Maine. I live in a complex that has its own dog park and spend way too much time petting the furry friends as they trot by.

But, people must remember that what I lack in reverence and decorum, I make up for with a wicked and cutting sense of the absurd.

While I completely appreciate and sympathize with my pet-owning pals, I cannot resist poking a bit of fun back. In the midst of an online conversation in which I've no business commenting, I simply post a picture of my pets: Scooby-Doo and a unicorn. After all, if I were to leave them unsupervised for too long, they might fly off or jump into the Mystery Machine.

Truly, I do respect pet owners and pet rescuers and pet fosters. I also enjoy being part of the crowd sometimes. When I'm alone, Scooby and Unicorn don't speak much, but they are thrilled to be part of a conversation. Now, if you'll excuse me, I'm going to plan a vacation away from my "pets".

SERIOUS BUSINESS

Psychotic Spring.

This is where we are right now seasonally up here in New England. One day it snows; the next we are at the beach getting sunburned. Sometimes, both of these things can happen on the same day.

The most difficult part of Psychotic Spring is deciding when to change the sheets over from flannel to cotton. If the sheets are changed too soon, there are nights of freezing cold despite being covered in blankets. If the sheets remain flannel for too long, nights feel like endless hot flashes.

Don't laugh. This is serious business. 

I strip the bed today, fully intent on packing away the flannel sheets. I get out some cotton sheets, fully prepared to change over.  After all, today it is supposed to hit 82 degrees. However, I check the weather app, and I see there are 40 degree intervals headed this way, as well. I put away the cotton sheets and opt for the knit ones. These should be a good transition from iceberg to sand dune, right?

Despite the predicted temperatures, it still feels a little chilly in here, though. I don't know. Maybe if I chuck the flannel, a blizzard will hit. I mean, it's still April. This is not outside the realm of possibility. I've seen my kids play lacrosse in a May snowstorm, which had to be halted when the white ball could no longer be located on the field.

I take another look at the long-range weather forecast. 37 - 46 - 48 ... It reads like a bad Powerball draw. I glance between the sets of sheets. I'm pretty much at Eeney-Meeney-Miney-Moe at this point, but the flannel sheets have just come out of the dryer. They're so warm. They're so soft. They smell so fresh.

Dagnabbit. 

The flannel is going back on the bed for another stretch. Hopefully, this will make sure our daily temperatures soar over 60 degrees every day, and the nights will be mild enough to keep the windows cranked open.

SORRY -- MY FAULT

Sorry.

It's my fault.

I talked about the weather and mentioned the word snow.

I went to North Carolina, where Spring has sprung.

I enjoyed warmth and pollen.

I stuck my tongue out at New England.

I mentioned car washes and beach chairs.

I laughed at the weather front dropping torrential amounts of rain.

I flew through clouds and turbulence and smiled.

I had gloves and a down vest at the ready for landing back in Boston.

I kept my heat cool and the shower hot.

I pre-warmed my car every morning before work.

I basically thumbed my nose at Mother Nature this whole week.

And then -- New England woke to snow.

Not a lot of it, but enough.

Mea culpa.

It's my fault. 

Sorry.

HELPING ME SLEEP AT NIGHT

I don't sleep well.

I never have, so this is nothing new. As a kid, I suffered from bouts of insomnia and random wakefulness during the night for no apparent reason. This continued into adulthood, but I've learned to turn it to my advantage.

Rather, I've turned it into a game.

When I wake up during the night, it is rarely a semi-sleepy condition. When I wake up, I'm wide awake and raring to go, even if I've only been asleep for twenty minutes or two hours and twenty minutes. I can also hit dream-sleep within moments of falling asleep and have been known to wake up minutes later after vivid dreams or nightmares. 

I'm not sure how much actual REM sleep I get since reports claim that muscles suffer a kind of paralysis during REM. I often wake up facing a different direction or in a different position or with the quilt on the floor, or sometimes I even wake up with an arm or leg twisted wrong. Yes, I've worn knee and elbow wrap-braces to bed simply because I wake up with the upper portion of a limb facing east while the lower part of the limb faces west. At my age, this is never good.

But, here's the fun of it all. 

Whenever I wake up, I try to guess what time it is and gauge how much more (or less) sleep I can stuff into the night. Usually I'm way off. Maybe I feel exhausted but discover it's time to shut off the alarm. Or, maybe, just maybe, I'll swear it's time to get up and get my day going only to discover I still have hours left to hang out with the pillow and flannel sheets.

In the middle of a night's sleep recently, I awaken and feel that it must be close to alarm clock time. I get a good bead on how I feel -- somewhat overly tired, but feeling like I should probably get up and get ready for work. I quietly say, "If only it weren't . . ." and then I guess, "3:30 yet. I'd love to sleep some more."

I look at the clock. It's 3:29 a.m. By the time I find the camera on my phone without benefit of reading glasses, the clock shows 3:30. I resist the urge to cheer -- I have neighbors, after all. Not only do I guess the time right on the money, but I can sleep for another two-and-a-half hours. 

This is the game I play. Maybe other insomniacs play it, too, a little while after we've played the "Relax Every Muscle In Your Body, One At A Time, So You Can Maybe Fall Asleep Within An Hour" game. Or perhaps it's after a round of the "Who Thinks Counting Any Damn Thing Will Help Me Sleep" game. 

No matter. I called it at 3:29 a.m. and totally owned it. Winner! Of course, when I wake up a little later, totally unable to go back to sleep, I don't feel so smug, but for that one brief moment, I feel victorious. Sometimes that's all I need to help me sleep at night.

CAR WASH CLUB MUSINGS

I finally did it. I finally signed up for a monthly car wash package. 

I didn't go hog-wild or anything. It's just the basic car wash thingamajig. No fake hot wax or extra wheel cleaning. (I never believed an automated car wash tunnel could do that, anyway. Wouldn't my windows have wax on them? Seems sketchy.) 

You're welcome, by the way. Since I signed up for the monthly washes, it hasn't snowed a single flake. No snow means no salt and no slush. 

I'm not worried about getting my car washes in during a monthly timeline. I've already gotten a couple of washes in for my one-cent original fee during March. Once I start with my $19.99 a month (easily what some people spend for a week's worth of coffee), we will be entering Pollen Season here in New England, or, as we like to call it: Green Car Season. 

The beauty of this deal is that I can wash my car anytime. I don't have to bank on four or so days in a row of sunshine so that I "get my money's worth" out of the $13 wash. I don't have to struggle with the payment machine that changes how I need to hold my credit card or redirect the proper scanning of the microchip.

The big plus is that there are several locations of this car wash near me. One is by work. This one is like going through a car disco with lights and colors flashing. Another location (I haven't tried this one yet) is by the used bookstore I frequent (that's also on the way to and from my daughter's house). This means that I have options for when snow happens. Or for when pollen happens. Heck, when life happens.

All I have to do is figure out the new-fangled vacuum machines, and I'll be good to go. I'm not pushing it, though. If my luck holds out the way it usually does, one clean car both inside and out is sure to bring on a blizzard, so I'll hold off on that for another month or so.

MY "JUST IN CASE" BEACH CHAIRS

Winter has been reasonably tame up here, but Spring has sprung, and summer is wafting in the air.

The shovel came out maybe two or three times. School was (questionably) cancelled once. The snowshoes were never used (that's two winters in a row). The car windshield hasn't needed to be defrosted or scraped in the morning for a couple of weeks. 

It's only March, so we still have a decent four weeks of possible blizzard activity coming our way, but, right now anyway, we are experiencing April/May weather. I don't know whether to enjoy it or start packing for the apocalypse.

The snow tools remain in the car. I mean, I'm not a complete blithering idiot. The beach chairs, however, inch closer and closer to the front door. The kayak, waiting patiently on my porch, calls to me. I inch the heat up inside the apartment on occasion to walk freely around in shorts and a tank top. The windows have actually been open several times.

I'm ready.

I'm ready for the summer. I'm ready to be done with this school year. I'm ready to be one step closer to having endless summers (even when it's not summer). I'm ready to sit out on my porch with a good (or even a bad) book. I'm ready for my neighbor to put the engine back into his race car and start that bad boy up so the whole complex hears the roar of the weather change.

Maybe I'll put the beach chairs into the car just because I can. No harm in that, even if it snows. The scraper and brush can stay right where they are -- it's not like they'll occupy the same space as the chairs.

In reality, I don't want anyone pointing accusatory fingers at me next week if/when it snows two feet and blaming me for cursing us all as we eat canned food and hope our refrigerators stay cool during the power outage. 

Maybe the beach chairs should stay right where they are for another week or two or three. You know -- just in case.

THE BIG TRUNK

I grew up outside in the woods. Not literally. I mean, our house was surrounded by woods. Actually, my first house was across the street from the Garden in the Woods, then we moved to New Hampshire to a house nestled into three acres of woods in a neighborhood surrounded by even more woods. When we moved back to Massachusetts, we lived in a town with an abundance of -- you guessed it -- woods and trees and trails.

I'm a country girl at heart, one who, despite growing up surrounded by hanging tree limbs and umbrellas of leaves, never managed to get a single tick on me, nor did I get stung by a bee until I was well into my thirties. No, I didn't wear hats or special clothing or anti-tick sprays. I got plenty of May fly bites and black fly bites and deer fly bites and horse fly bites and enough mosquito bites to have itched-over scars on my shins to prove it. 

I never, ever managed to get poison ivy, oak, or sumac. Crazy, considering we often cut through the woods to get to each others' homes, to the sand pits (that we were forbidden to be at but went to anyway), to school, to the small pond, and to our grandparents' house. 

Tress fascinate me. Particularly, dead ones. The ones that are weathered and gnarled and all bony on the ground and lying against other trees and rocks become campfire wood and whittling chunks and fort bases and art projects and pretend (or real) weapons. They house animals and insects and the scars of the forest dwellers who use the broken-down trees for scratching or as cabinets to be smashed open for creepy-crawly snacks.

Every one tells its own story, no matter how big or how small. Decades ago lightning took down a massive tree in our yard. Anyone seeing its remains today would think it just got too old or its roots grew too weak to uphold its height, but we know its tale. We were nearby when it happened, and it was frightening, fascinating, and impressive.

This brings me back to Charlotte, North Carolina. Charlotte does have some woodsy areas, but it is a city, an expansive one with many different facets. I meet the family in a busy urban area with outdoor brick malls and charming parking lots surrounded by smatterings of trees. There are several places to park, including a garage, and I see a fully-packed lot where I can turn around and access a different lot that may have more spaces. Just as I come up the lane, a space opens, so I park the rental SUV and hope the tall pine trees don't drop too many needles while I'm at lunch.

I exit the car, which is now parked close to a multi-lane roadway with speed limits of fifty miles per hour -- not what I would consider a country road -- and encounter a piece of dead tree. Not just any piece, though. I am looking directly at the trunk of a large tree. It is just the bottom portion of it, maybe about six feet in length, but the diameter is as wide as a garage door. The portion of tree is seriously the size of a Volkswagen Beetle.

The coolest part is that it's hollow. Yup, hollow enough that children could run through it standing straight up and never hit their foreheads.

I am fascinated with this tree. I fumble with my phone because I need to get a picture. Meanwhile, people are trying to back up all over the parking lot, and it's momentary mayhem as I maneuver around drivers and vehicles. Eventually, the world stops moving for a moment, and I am able to snap a picture. 

Without anything for perspective, it just looks like a chunk of dead tree.

But, I know what I see, and I save the picture anyway, even though it looks pretty tame-sized in the snapshot.  Trust me. This is an impressive piece of nature, so impressive that I am about ten minutes behind everyone else for lunch. I hope they'll forgive me. It has been a long while since this country girl has gotten a good, long look at such a tree-mendous specimen, and I have the photo to remember it.

A LITTLE SHROVE TUESDAY WITH SYRUP

A friend recently commented that she thinks I have a strange relationship with religion. She's right, of course.

I was raised by an agnostic and an atheist. My maternal grandmother, a Scot, was a Protestant daughter of an original practitioner of Mary Baker Eddy's Church of Christ Scientist, and this same grandmother was also married to an Irish Catholic who denounced his religion. She was the only one of my relatives to actively attend church for religion's sake. My father's family I'm pretty sure erred on the side of Protestantism, as well. 

I'm not sure I'm any purer in my intent: I started attending church as a teenager because the youth group was crackerjack. They went places and saw things and did community service and had fun and lots of the kids from school with whom I sang attended this one particular UCC church. It all seemed relatively tame to me, though it went over like a cement-filled lead balloon when my parents found out I had signed on.

I've had an on-again/off-again relationship with the church. But, I'm also a creature of tradition. Despite being anti-religion, Christmas was always a huge deal in my house growing up. We even had several creche set ups, a few that were rather elaborate. Thinking on that, I'm not so sure my parents were as big nonbelievers as they presented. I also remember going to a Protestant church once when I was very young, but I tried to throw a boy out a window at Sunday school, so we were probably asked to find another pew.

Some of it stuck. 

I enjoy the whole Advent tradition and go to great lengths to make sure I have the correct colors of candles. I don't actively practice Lent (but probably should as I could use a break from several bad habits), nor do I get ashes on Wednesday, and I vaguely remember my mother mentioning Maundy Thursday in passing. I take advantage of the school's early release on Good Friday, but I don't practice any good church behavior because of it. 

However, and this is where my friend's confusion comes from: I am a huge fan of Shrove Tuesday. Huge fan. Like, go out of my way to make sure I have the correct ingredients for it and everything, which is ironic since the point of Shrove Tuesday is to use up all of those ingredients. 

For those out of the know, Shrove Tuesday is Fat Tuesday. It's Mardi Gras. It's the day when we get to eat up all of the things our ancestors traditionally did not eat during Lent. Things like eggs, butter, sugar, fat, and other rich, tasty foods. Basically, it's pancake night in my house. Pancakes represent all of those things I am supposed to be giving up (if I lived centuries ago), and pancakes are circular, which is actually a pagan symbol of the sun returning for Spring.

Oh, sure, I'm also supposed to examine all the things wrong with me and what I should repent. That would take more than one evening and forty-odd days. But, there isn't anything so wrong with me at the moment that a good old pancake dinner won't cure. Besides, this whole Shrove Tuesday thing was unknown to me before -- you guessed it -- church youth group. 

So, yes, I do, indeed, have a strange relationship with religion, and that's okay by me. Are there other times that I eat pancakes for dinner? Absolutely. There's just something anticipatory about the whole Shrove Tuesday event for me, even though I make pancakes just for myself. It's a little like lighting the Advent candles even if I'm only having a plate of microwaved nachos for dinner. My intent may be a little sketchy, and my execution may lack flair, but the end result makes me happy without causing harm. 

That's probably about as close to heavenly behavior as I'll ever hope to achieve.

YETI PIZZA - THE REALLY BIG CHEESE

While visiting North Carolina recently, I encounter the Yeti of pizzas. That's right. I am witness to the biggest pizza and pizza box that I have ever seen up close and in person - outside of square tray pizza in the school cafeteria.

The pizza boxes arrive at the house: two large boxes, and one box that looks like it will serve the beanstalk giant. This humongous box measures about two feet by two feet. My brain tells me that this magnifico pizza must be sliced like school lunch pizzas: it probably has crosswise cuts, rendering some slices crust-less. 

However, when the box top opens (and opens . . . and opens), the pizza is cut as if it were a normal size, into a typical pinwheel pattern, except that each slice is larger than a dinner plate. Every slice of this behemoth pizza is roughly the size of three regular "large" pizza slices. Each slice could easily feed a couple of people.

It is positively astounding, and I am mesmerized.

I cut a piece in half, and, even then, it's a lot of pizza. And it is soooo good. A regular plain cheese pizza, which is great because if it had toppings, each slice might topple over like the tower of Pisa. We have other pizza, too, like sausage and pepperoni, in the usual, normally-sized version of a large pizza. And it's all really, really good.

All in all, though, the Bigfoot of Pizza wins. Not only is it yummy, it's downright epic, and worth every single of a thousand bites.

TAKING A BREATH NOW

I know, I know. Everyone thinks I have the cushiest job in the world because I teach middle school and get "so many vacations." Again, let me remind you: I do not get paid for Thanksgiving break, December break, February break, April break, federal holidays, nor snow days. Nope. I get paid to work 184 days, and that's it. 

The rest of it? Unpaid labor. Please, do not tell me how wonderful my life is for all of the time I am on vacation. This is unpaid vacation, fyi.

So, I have to laugh when people ask me how I am spending my February vacation. That's easy! I'm spending it grading papers, reading essays, editing a student's creative writing that is above and beyond class activities, and creating curriculum for an upcoming absence that I hesitate to take only because it means more work for me. 

Oh, sure, this week I managed to grab two lunches with friends and read a couple of mass-market fiction novels. I caught up on my sleep after being sick for about ten weeks. I even managed a doctor's appointment so it wouldn't impact my school schedule.

The good news is that I could just assign something online for when I'm out and call it a day. Let the sub worry about whether or not the kids are accessing inappropriate or illegal websites. Let the sub police their Google connections with each other, passing gossip and other questionable information between classmates, teammates, and others via the internet in real time. Let the sub monitor the bathroom sign-out online to see who is creating mayhem that constantly forces admin to shut down the toilet facilities. Let the sub worry about technology failures or the fact that my room, and only my room, is the Blue Tooth Black Hole from Hell where internet access can only be re-established if you're standing in the windowsill on a sunny day and Jupiter aligns with Mars.

The bad news is that my co-teacher and paraprofessional now have more new stuff to add to my over-crowded curriculum. The phrase, "You're redoing this unit yet again?" has become a running joke over the years because nothing is ever perfect, and I don't have the same students sitting in front of me year after year. 

Yeah, I've had some days off this past week. Whoopie! It has allowed me to lesson-plan at my own kitchen table instead of sitting at my school desk being constantly interrupted by staff, students, useless emails, and even more useless announcements. The food is plentiful, the tea and coffee are fresh, and, best of all, I can pee whenever I need to. No worries about bladder infections this week, that's for dang sure.

The best part of this week (I'm not going to lie) is the retirement seminar I attend online. It's in real-time, with questions and answers and a slew of information, much of which I already knew, but enough to provide me with specific questions for my upcoming retirement consultation in March. I can almost see and smell the end of this 184 day "vacation" so many people berate me about, my cushy job, my summers off, my extra breaks during the year, my snow days, my holidays. 

Yes, I can almost envision what a true vacation will look like, one without emails and updates, without essays and Google forms, one without data, data, and more data. I'm still a few years out, but, if I can drag my sorry self to the finish line, I might just be able to enjoy a year or two of solace and sanity.

Okay, back to work. I'll take a breath now because the next one won't be until mid-April. Hold me a (toilet) seat until then!

VALENTINE'S SENTIMENT

Valentine's Day -- The day when singles like me get reminded how great it is to control the TV remote, choose what we want to eat for dinner, eat as much ice cream as we can stomach, and save money on over-priced cards, gifts, and flowers. 

I did receive a couple of unexpected gifts: a co-worker gave me a small nylon bag full of chocolate, and one of my last-class students gave me an expensive chocolate bar. The best surprise, though, came from a student who is not even mine but has a locker right outside of my room. Oh, sure, he gave out chocolate and candy to a lot of people, but I'm not even his teacher, so it was a really sweet gesture.

I will also admit that the Valentine  attached to the small chocolate bar is probably the best, most heartfelt, most honest sentiment I've ever received. This kid totally "gets" it. If only more adults could figure this out, then we might have some sanity in this world.

SHOPPING FOR MORSELS

I have been careless with my grocery shopping.

To be honest, I despise shopping of any kind. I once went to the mall with a girl who loved shopping. Me? I know what I want and can be in and out of a store in mere seconds. This ex-friend of mine? Painfully slow and meticulous and flighty to the point that a forty-five minute shopping excursion turned into four hours. Four. Painful. Agonizing. Hours. I passed the time imagining ways to dispose of her body on the trip home. 

But, I digress. Grocery shopping is painful because it's annoying (follow the list, check the dates, get irritated if the items aren't in stock, etc.), and there are people -- always people -- blocking aisles or jockeying for a check-out line or ramming their carts into my body parts. I avoid grocery shopping as much as I can when, to be smart, I should go every couple of days and just buy the few things I need and go through the express line.

But, no. Denial always leaves me with a four-to-six grocery bag extravaganza.

The problem with me is that I don't always pay attention to what I'm buying. I have often come home with one-ply toilet paper (is there even a point to this idiocy?) or diet something-or-other or fat-free feta cheese or some other product that has zero business being in my home.

The other day, I purchased semi-sweet chocolate morsels. Yes, they're for baking, but I also just snack on them by the handful. I know I should've gotten the Nestle brand, but they're kind of soft-ish and creamy (great for baking, but a little weird for snacking), so I purchased the store brand. Usually, that's all right by me. Except . . . 

Except I didn't read beyond the "semi-sweet morsels" part of the package. I did not see the word "mini" in small, cursive script. Mini, as in miniscule. These things are smaller than baby boogers.

I tried snacking on them, but I have to shoot about a dozen at a time, and the darn things often escape, making them nearly impossible to find on the floor, the table, down the sleeve or front of my shirt, or they just vanish. Poof! Like magic, they disappear everywhere but into my stomach.

I have a snow day from school, so I decide to make pumpkin muffins. I mean, why not, right? As I'm about to put them into the oven, I think, "You know what these muffins need? Miniature chocolate chips!" I grab the bag out of the cabinet and drop handfuls of mini-morsels into six of the twelve muffins. I use a fork to stir them, churning some morsels into the bottom of the batter.

Twenty minutes later, I take the muffins out of the oven and notice that it is easy to tell the chipped muffins from the pure ones because the morsels all floated to the top of the batter as soon as I put the tin in to bake. Seriously, like art deco or pop art designs, the six chocolate-laden muffins have speckled patterns on them.

Dagnabbit! The mini-morsels are so miniature that they migrate to the top like soda bubbles in tonic.

Oh, of course I'll eat those muffins. I'm not a purist. However, I certainly will be much more careful shopping from now on. Hahahahahaha. Who am I kidding? I'll screw something up again. Just watch me. But I doubt it will be the semi-sweet chocolates for baking. 

I've learned my lesson on that one. Deliciously; but learned it, just as well.

IT'S QUIET OUT THERE; TOO QUIET

It's very quiet outside. Too quiet. The kind of quiet that makes a person tense and nervous. Why? Because we barely had any snow around here last winter, negligible amounts actually, and the calm of this winter so far lulls us all into a false state of safety.

Ten years ago this very week (January 26, 2015), after a quiet and innocuous start to winter, we were hit with a storm that ushered in a series of storm after storm. I was outside shoveling the driveway every other day. Six inches of snow one day, more two days later, and the pattern kept on until we accumulated 110 inches of snow. We had so much snow that we had nowhere left to put it. By the time April arrived, we pretty much just sat around and cried. Our biceps were toned and muscular, but we cried, just the same.

Forty-seven years ago this week was the Blizzard of '78. We all know you young'uns are tired of hearing about it, like it was some catastrophic milestone of a storm . . . because . . . it was. It snowed anywhere from one to four inches of snow an hour for just over two days straight. It snowed sideways. It snowed through winds over eighty miles per hour. It snowed through thunder-snow. (Yes, I was outside for that, and, unlike Jim Cantore, I did not muchly enjoy the experience.) The ocean rose fifteen feet along the coast. More than seventy people in Massachusetts died. It snowed so suddenly and freakishly that highways shut down, thousands of vehicles were abandoned, and strangers wandered from house to house begging for mercy. Another 39,000 sought out shelters. Transportation was cancelled, and we were in an emergency shut-down for at least a week.

Those of us who lived here during both the Blizzard of '78 and that endless snowy winter of 2015 have earned the right to brag. But, along with glory comes the paranoia of previous trauma. 

We know what's out there.

The longer it stays calm and quiet, the more we hold our breath and wring our hands and overstock with milk, bread, eggs, and toilet paper. We know it's going to happen. After all, last winter lulled us into complacency, and that can only lead to disaster. When it does, because it will, do not ask, even in song, "Do you want to build a snowman?" Well, don't ask that until May. It has only snowed a few times out here in May. We can tolerate it by then.

I'M LIFE'S "THROWING DUMMY"

The hits keep coming.

My life isn't so much a war. It's not a battle. It's not even a boxing match with bells. It's more like a continuous sparring match, and I am Life's throwing dummy.

In addition to (all in the last few weeks) being sick, blowing up my car engine twice, and nearly setting my apartment on fire when my computer malfunctions, I am one of two units in the entire complex that has a random and nearly catastrophic gas leak.

This is Gas Leak Number Three for me, all in recent years, two of them within this complex. This bit of trivia prompts the plumbers to tell me, "Please stop moving." I hope they're kidding, but it's pitch-dark outside, it's sub-zero wind chill, and their faces are deadly serious.

So, for the numerous time in my life (on top of several broken furnaces and hot water heaters over the years), I am warming my living space with electric heaters, and boiling water for baths using electric teapots. Since I don't totally trust the heaters (they tend to melt wall outlets), I lean toward wearing multiple layers of clothing and outerwear inside of my own home. Three days later, I'm back in business and can take a hot shower again. 

Whoo hoo! Maybe this will be the end of my recent run of foul and expensive luck! Perhaps I will go an entire twenty-four hours without another clusterfuck.

That's when I get my second surprise work observation during my rowdiest and my most colorfully and eclectically and academically mixed class. I mean, I just had an observation six weeks ago. Am I on someone's radar? Does admin know that I've been running the possible financial scenarios of just cutting and running at any given moment? Did somebody spill that I have an appointment with a retirement consultant in a few weeks? Might this be payback for a recent favor I did that maybe wasn't as slick and cleanly performed as someone higher above me had hoped? FBI watch list? Witness protection gone wrong? Was I caught stealing a pencil as I left the building?

Or, is it just the usual thing: The damn giant target pasted on my back.

At this point, I suppose that I should be prepared for anything. Stay tuned! Next week's blog might very well come to you from a bus station outside of East Bumfrick, where I've been stranded after an errant field trip or some other bizarre and completely "it could only happen to me" random location and circumstance.

JUST PAINT A HAPPY LITTLE TOASTER RIGHT HERE

My youngest brother and I share a running joke exchange over Bob Ross.

Yes, that Bob Ross. The one who paints. Well, the one who painted because Bob Ross died in 1995 (on my birthday, as a matter of fact). 

Randomly throughout the year, Bob Ross themed trinkets will suddenly be sent or received between the two of us. This Christmas, while mired in a series of personal scheduling conflicts, fun family stuff, and unexpected disasters (illness, blown up car, blown up computer, babysitting, extended commuting, new car, etc.), I end up epic failing at gift giving. So, I never get to the stage where Bob Ross is in play.

From my end, anyway.

As Christmas packages arrive for me at home, I merely have time to throw them under the small tree and hope for sanity as the holiday bears down. On Christmas Day, I run out of the house to the rented SUV, spend the day several towns away, and arrive home after dark. It isn't until mid-evening that I even look at the presents under the tree.

I open gifts from students and from coworkers, from my Secret Santa, from friends. Finally, I get to my little brother's box of whatever it may be. He's not my Secret Santa this year, so he shouldn't be sending anything, but we all (there are four of us remaining) tend to send stocking gifts and occasional joke gifts or inspirational gifts to each other. 

I carefully undo the mailing box to reveal something else inside. Another box. There is another box in here that is way too big to fit into my stocking. Knowing my brother, it could be anything. Literally. Anything.

I unwrap the paper and am delighted to see that Bob Ross has struck again.

I will say this: Not only did Bob Ross paint lovely, happy trees and some magnificent landscapes, but he makes a heck of an impression on my toast.

Cheers!

MISSING JOSEPH: A POST-CHRISTMAS NON-HALLMARK MOMENT

It has been a crazy few weeks. Nothing major. No surgical intervention or close calls; just a whole lot of picking and prodding at my sanity. A thousand paper cuts, as the case may be. But, it is annoying enough to make me jump into ending the Christmas season early.

This isn't really a tragedy because I started the season early. However, I don't even wait for Epiphany to roll around this year. Three days after Christmas, I decide to flip my living room. With that decision comes the necessity of putting Christmas away lest I am forced to redecorate it into the new living space.

Every year I try to weed out more and more stuff that I don't need as I set up and put away the holiday. This year, mini tabletop trees will be migrating to school. If I continue teaching (questionable), I'll put them out next season. Several decorations and toys make their way into the trash and the donation pile. I even separate myself from some of the worn-out ornaments.

That being said, though, I do cling to some of the childhood ornaments way too long. There is one in particular that my siblings and I always fought over who got to place it on the tree. It's a gaudy little plastic thing, shaped like an A-frame cabin, a manger scene with a hole at the top of it so that a bulb from the string of tree lights can be forced through the back, creating a "star" over the birth of Christ. Not that we were a particularly religious family growing up. My father nearly lost his mind when, at age thirteen, I attached myself to the local church youth group and announced that I would be attending church (the first in the immediate family to do so as my parents were atheist and agnostic).

Unfortunately for this particular ornament, Joseph has long-since been missing. For many years, Mary has been a single-parent on the Christmas tree. This year, I finally decide that the old ornament, despite its sentimentality, must go. I feel guilty walking it to the trash. One of my brothers had recently visited, and he was fascinated by the ornaments I still have that used to spin when trees had the old-school large bulbs that would heat up and cause the metal spinners to go around of their own volition. (Nowadays, we have to blow on the ornaments' metal decorations to make them spin.) Based on my brother's reaction to some of the family leftovers, I am tempted to package up the Joseph-less plastic manger and send it to his home in New York.

Alas, I do not. Mary and Jesus, along with a couple of lambs, are now in the dumpster. Actually, they have probably already been mashed and obliterated. It is sad to see them go, but it feels anti-Hallmark waiting all these years for some new guy to show up and replace the missing man in the manger. I suppose I could have ordered a ho-scale figurine and glued him in, complete with a conductor hat and train whistle, but, even now after the fact, it feels more sacrilegious than Joseph's inexplicable disappearance.

If terrible things happen this year, I suppose I'm to blame, plastic Joseph-less Mary and Jesus notwithstanding. The ornament had a good run, though. It's just one less thing I'll be unpacking and packing back up next year. 

TAKE IT DOWN A NOTCH

Good riddance, 2024.

The year ended with a series of unfortunate events, among them having the engine blow in my old car not once but twice in a 24-hour period. (I know, right? That takes a particular kind of talent.) I had my car towed three times - one time on each of the coldest days that we have had so far. Once to the mechanic after it broke down on 495 north, second time back to my home so I could clean it out (yup - time to go) after it broke down on 495 south, and a third time back to the mechanic to give the car its death certificate and make it so that I could limp the car to the dealership down the street.

Then, I came home on Christmas day, turned on my desktop computer, and was met with a screeching warning sound that, when Googled on my phone, indicated that a fire was near. So, I unplugged that bad boy from the power strip and signed its death warrant myself. Much like Apple iPhones, this one died after trying to sell me some extra HP bull crap. When I didn't bite, the computer seized. Guess what? Jokes on the computer because I had pretty much zero not saved to the Cloud or to thumb drives, so, see ya later, rutabaga. All I need to do is remove the hard drive and I'm over it. I'll never buy another desktop ever. Not ever.

All this on the heels of being sick with some bizarre laryngitis cold thing (not covid) for seven weeks. That crap is still hanging on, too. 

Oh, sure, it was a fabulous year, too. Definitely moments of greatness, but also some really, really low moments. Not one of my banner years, that's for sure. Remember: it all started with me rapidly moving into a new apartment because last Christmas a flying squirrel came in through the fireplace, and, since the damn things are protected in my state, the maintenance crew refused to even trap it, so I had three days of mayhem before . . . "disposing" of the creature myself.

All in all, though, I stayed relatively healthy, as did friends and family. This makes 2024 a most-excellent year in some ways, I suppose. I should feel, and do feel, very lucky, for the most part. My troubles really are more like annoying inconveniences, and, for that, I do thank 2024. I mean, not with a giant hug or anything, but a quick parting handshake would do.

Yeah, 2024, you can kiss my naked butt-cheek at this point. And, 2025, if you have any idea what's good for you, you'll behave your damn self, keep your fool head down, and be a polite little shit. I know I still have 11.75 more months with you (if I'm super lucky), but let's just try and take it down a notch from last year, shall we?