SCHOOL'S OUT FOR SUMMER

 School is out for the summer. I survived! Truth be told, I had an excellent group of students, and I wish I could hold them all back for a year just to have them again. I doubt their parents would like that very much, though.

Summer starts with a bang -- literally. The apartment upstairs is being renovated, and the only road in and out of my complex is being repaired and redone, so today the workers are breaking up the macadam. I have to get to an out-of-state wedding, but Friday there will be little to no road access, and, what access there will be, might damage shoes, car tires, and anything it touches (glue and oil day). So, I will get out of Dodge a day early, go to Maine, then go to New Jersey, and enjoy the sweet, sweet summer . . .

Rain. Rain, rain, rain, rain, rain. That's all it has been doing for weeks now. Goshdang, ridiculous, disgusting, constant, downpouring RAIN. That's even the forecast for the places I am going: RAIN.

The last day of work was supposed to be partly sunny. Just after the students left and around our lunch-meeting time, someone said, "Oh, look! It's raining!"

"Gee," I responded, completely deadpan, "what a surprise."

Before you start bemoaning my lament, please remember that teachers get the summers off for two reasons: One is for everyone's mental health. If we didn't have an extended break right as burnout maxes, no one would want to continue being in school with us. The second reason is economic. Teachers do NOT get PAID over the summer. Nope. We go eight weeks (or more if it's a 27-biweekly year like this one is) without earning or being paid a single cent (even though most of us do curriculum over the summer -- for free). You can be jealous all you want, but that's coin in the taxpayers' pockets. 

You're welcome.

That's right, I said it. You're welcome for me being unpaid while fighting renovators in my building and tar-smashers on my access road. Don't be mad when I post beach pictures or mountain photos or scenic vista panoramas. Just remember that every adventure I'm on is money in your wallet because I'm not sitting in a classroom . . . missing my students already . . . wondering if they'll remember to come by and say hello when September rolls around.

PICKING OUT THE SEVEN OF SWORDS

 Pick a card, any card. Go ahead! Pick one. What can possibly go wrong?

Well, what can possibly go wrong is that I have a reasonable working knowledge of Tarot cards. And I am familiar enough to know that the card I pick isn't necessarily something that I need in my life right now.

You see, people like to tell me secrets. I don't know if it's because I started out in the journalism program and had to interview people, or if it's because I sometimes appear to care. (Generally speaking, I do not care, so proceed with caution when approaching.) But, people tell me stuff. Either that or I have really sensitive ESP, which has also been true.

There's a decent amount of bullshit going on at work right now. It seems to be much more BS than the usual year-end BS at school, but, for some reason that still baffles me, I know stuff. I know stuff before other people know it, people who should know who don't know it, but I know it. I try to explain to people that no, I was not eavesdropping somewhere. I just know shit. Even holding a gun to my head could not get me to confess my sources: I simply don't have any.

Oh, it's rumor, you say? I'm making it up? 

Decades ago (when I was a teenager) I was babysitting at a house when an adult friend called the adult member of the household (not home -- I was babysitting, remember). The caller did not leave a message. When the homeowner arrived home, I said, "Oh, Lady called. No message. But. I think ..." And I proceeded to tell her the secret the caller would indeed divulge in the future, yet I had zero knowledge as to the secret's existence. A few days later, the woman for whom I babysat asked me how in the world I knew what the caller was going to divulge. I was dumbfounded. 

I. Don't. Know.

Back to the Tarot Card. I'm at an event that is supposed to be relaxing. I pick a card from one deck, a meditation (not Tarot) deck, and it is a card assuring me that I have the power to make positive things happen in my life. That's good. I'll take it. Then a human voice nearby says, "Oh, pick a card from the Tarot deck, too. Why not?"

Why not?  Because it's a Tarot deck, you doofus. Do you know nothing? And so I pick out a card because I'm not very good at telling people no. 

Seven of Swords. At least it's not the Hanged Man nor the reversed Wheel of Fortune, right? Well, it might as well be. Taken in a work context, this card couldn't be worse. It represents lies and trickery and deceitful coworkers. Enemies who masquerade as friends. Or, it could be bad news for my finances. Or, it could mean that my health is not as good as it should be. It's like a giant black cloud just settled over my life, and this is not very relaxing as I am going into a relaxation class.

This is why I don't go to fortune tellers or have my cards read or let anyone look at my palm. I don't want to know this crap. I already have enough of that going on inside my own head. 

Or, I could just be making it up. After all, this is the Tarot card of mental manipulation. Perhaps I'm just playing along.

ON THE ROAD AGAIN . . . ALMOST

 I'm going on a trip soon, and one thing that I've learned over the years is that GPS is only helpful about 75% of the time. If only I'd had more resources at my disposal during my most recent trip, I might've been able to head off the GPS telling me that crossing the George Washington Bridge was a handy-dandy idea. It was not a handy-dandy idea. (Better than swimming, I suppose.)

If only there were some way to have all the possible routes and sub-routes right at my fingertips so I could make split-second decisions about alternate routes.

Hmmmmm. If only. Like on something I could hold and look at. Maybe something on paper.

I am chatting with my sister, as I will be one of her co-pilots on our upcoming trip, which is almost exactly where our last trip took us. She and I both agreed that we probably should've mapped out the alternate routes a little better. As we are talking on the phone (she is in Maine and I am in Massachusetts), we both wonder if anyone at all makes maps anymore. [I will be transparent and admit that we discuss this while printing out multiple Google Map options to our destination.]

"I think I've seen them at Barnes and Noble," I say, then add, "and I know I had to stop and look at one at a Dunkin Donuts once coming home from the boonies when my GPS crapped out. But that was years ago."

If only we could find a way to get all the maps that we might need and not have to leave the house nor spend a penny.

I smack my forehead while we are talking. "I've got AAA. Do you have AAA?"

"I have AAA!" she says.

To the website we go, both of us entering our passwords, both of us navigating to the maps section. I don't really want a Trip-Tik. I mean, I don't mind some seat-of-my-pants traveling, so I know I'll need the broader view. Both of us start checking off maps. 

"We'll probably need Connecticut," I say. We both check off the MA-CT map. "And New England, too."  No idea why since we will only be in Connecticut and Massachusetts for New England states. But now I'm excited. "And the Eastern seaboard and the Northeast and New Jersey and New York!"

Before I know it, we've both checked off a bunch of maps, and we both order them. We go from having two wayward and somewhat unreliable competing GPS programs for our last adventure, to good old-fashioned map reading and sudden possible lane changes.

I'm already super-excited about the alternate route we already have planned, but now we have options for cut-throughs and scenic vistas. Oh, sure, I'll keep the Waze going so we know when my sister needs to apply lip gloss in case the cops pull her over and she can look her best for the mug shot. Or so that I know when a roadkill is coming up and I can practice keeping my lunch down.

This is going to be epic!

But, to be honest, most of our road trips are.

THE CACOPHONY OF CHAOS

I can see it. 

I can smell it. 

I can taste it.
The end of the school year is a mere two weeks away. 

So close . . . 

So far . . .

It's that time of year when the kids lose all self-control.

They forget that come September they will no longer be the big fish in the little pond.

Homework has long been abandoned.

Behavior has long since disintegrated.

Self-control is nebulous.

It's that time of year when teachers are sitting on pins and needles,

Wondering if they'll be rehired, repositioned, or rebuked.

It's like that long walk down Death's Row,

The other inmates clanging metal cups along metal bars.

The cacophony of chaos.

It tastes almost like victory.

It smells almost like honeysuckle.

It looks like the light at the end of the tunnel.

If I can just avoid the speeding trains coming at me,

I might make it out alive in time for summer.

Until then, though,

A toast to surviving.

Two weeks early, I know.

But a toast of hope, all the same.