to her dad and me, in the car on the way home from taekwondo: “The first fifty years of marriage are the hardest.”
randomly, daily: “I’m, like, what the cuss?”
after school today: “Everyone at my school is named Hannah, Emma, Chris or Zach.”
and this one remains my favorite, from Wacky Girl to her dad: “You will never understand the life of a woman.”
no, he never will, baby.
Steve sent me this clip along with a note that said, At least I’m not this bad!
He’s wrong, he is. Cuz when our girl was waiting for the bus, for her first day of middle school, with a bunch of kids she has never seen before in her life, Daddy wanted to check on her. So he dropped off her brother, buzzed back home, then, uh… yelled out to her…
“HI HONEY, I, UH, FORGOT SOMETHING! HAVE A GOOD FIRST DAY OF SCHOOL!”
She loves him so.
“it’s the first day of school/
and the boys are watching…”
You know how parents always sign their kids up for camps, then tell them about it later? “You’re going to zoo camp! It’ll be fun!” etc.? My son just signed all of us up for Pokemon Camp. He’s running it. It’ll be fun!!!
…she carefully, precisely, tried to break my desk in half.
Like she would a board in taekwondo class. Not with any malice or anything. It’s just when you know you can break stuff in half, using just your foot or hand, it sort of changes your entire life.
That’s right, she likes martial arts. But you know what? Swimming is critical, too. It’s critical that we know how to kick hard and swim well. All good survival skills.
We’ll swim in the mornings, go to TKD in the evenings, wooooooot, happy summer, y’all!
“We’re having a heat wave/
a tropical heat wave/
the temperature’s rising/
it isn’t surprising/
she certainly can/
can-can”
“Cherish the child and the adult will know love.” — my daughter, reading from her fancy birth certificate that’s on the wall.
Both kids hysterical with laughter over this.
“That’s all you need to be happy, that’s all you need to know in life.” — my girl
“Heh heh heh hee heeeee heh heeeeee ya yee yee” — her brother, laughing maniacally
* my students. I don’t write about them that often, because they need their privacy. They’re kids, and they’re not “my” kids (even though I possessively, constantly call them “my” students). from the daily hello’s to the drop-ins, from the “i love you” notes in my desk to the way they’ve changed, grown, blown my mind in the two years I’ve known them… they are the best.
* I don’t think any of them read this blog (they rarely read my library blog, even though I keep shoving the url at them), but if they do happen to stop by… I’ll miss you guys, you are great kids. They tell me, You are the best librarian, and all I can say is, With students like you, it’s easy to be good at my job.
* okay, enough, i’m getting all bummed out now.
* i may or may not land a gig next year, who knows. “it is what it is” — anon.
* i’ve been loving all the nature out in our new neighborhood — the greenspaces, parks, frogs, green, green, green, snakes and tons of flowers, trees, flora and fauna. i feel bad i’ve been slamming on the west side for so long. it’s alright out here.
* i tried to make dinner tonight. I really did, i swear to you. you know i’m trying to be better about that, and not giving up and getting pizza 3 nights out of 7.
* But there was a meeting after school, and I spaced and forgot my phone and had to fetch it, so by the time we got home, it was later than usual, and blood sugar was low. It was a hit/miss thing, dinner. Hit: Fed the kids in courses — baby carrots, apples, crackers (what are they, horses?), yogurt and… they didn’t want what we were having, frozen roasted vegetable lasagna (store-bought), and Texas burgers. (Amy’s for both of those items.) Miss: everything else. Oh, wait — the big bowl full of sugared, sliced strawberries was a hit.
* the kids opted for cereal. not hot oatmeal (breakfast for dinner = yes, let’s do that). smart kids. the lasagna was awful, but the Texas burgers were good, once I doctored them up with relish and mango chutney. i would do breakfast for dinner more, but they don’t eat bacon. or fake bacon. sausage. or fake sausage. it’s waffles or pancakes or nuthin’ around here, and Steve usually fixes those on the weekends so…
* red wine was good, at least ;)
now steve’s making music and i’m getting ready for a shower and bed. end of the school year has got me by the throat, but that’s okay.
xo
wm
I finally took a break from unpacking boxes (of books, clothes, candles, candleholders, files for the office, files for work, art supplies, more books…) and took a peek out in the yard. Even though it’s been raining (some) it was parched out there. That’s the way it goes in Oregon, in the spring. You think everything’s getting a good drink, then you realize that some of the plants are below the eves, under the trees, or just need more of a drink than they were getting.
I found the shovel, some gardening gloves and…….. planted. We divided plants at the old place before we moved (half of the stuff was so overcrowded it wasn’t blooming anymore). My mom gave me some plants, and I had a bunch of stuff potted already that i just brought with me. My girlfriend J gave me a strawberry planter box, as a housewarming gift, so nice! So we ended up with quite a few plants that need to go… somewhere. I already planted columbine, peonies and Hockey God bought me a hanging basket. The yard is (tentatively, creeping along) starting to feel like mine. We have several blueberry bushes, and two Granny Smith apple trees (yay!) and… bees! My mom bought my son a Mason bee house for his birthday.
He and his dad hung it up on the shed, and within 24 hours the bees had found it. We noticed today that they started making their little dirt mounds in there, for extra protection? It’s cool. We need to help save the bees, y’all, they’re having a rough go of it. That is no good.
Mason bees, by the by, do not sting, says Wacky Boy and his grandma.
Today I planted…
1) a snowball bush
2) Japanese iris
3) more iris
4) my daughter’s birthday asters (they are fantastic — purple and glorious and quadruple their territory every year)
5) and…. what else? black fancy grass
6) a small rosebush
7) some sedum (the former owners left us those) and………
wow. a little tiny tree frog went flying out of the grass and down by the shed, in between my planting the asters and the black fancy grass.
i don’t know what to do with frogs, being a City Girl. so i yelled for Wacky Boy and Hockey God, and they played with him (let him crawl all over my son’s hand and arm — sticky little feet, really adorable), took some pictures and waited for Wacky Girl to get home from walking her friend home, so she could see him. “Ahhhhhh!”
Last week my son spotted two garter snakes. Today it was:
“Snakes eat frogs!”
“Yeah, that’s the way the world goes ’round, son.”
We didn’t have ribbity frogs, tree frogs, deer, snakes, any kinds of critters like that at our old place, although i once saw 2 raccoons and once i saw a rat.
okay, and a little mouse one time, running under the fence. I have those frogs that one lone frog in the tank, but that’s different.
i like it out here.
what kinds of critters do you have in your part of the world?
— wm
Reading this week:
Man, oh, man, I guess I felt like a couple of good cries this week. I’ve been reading nothing but young adult fiction, and found three great books. I picked up a copy of “Letters From Rifka,” by Karen Hesse, that I had on hold at the library. The library is great this way. I wasn’t planning on reading anything too heavy this week, but the book showed up, and I was ready for it. I read “Letters From Rivka” straight through and bawled my eyes out. It’s the story of a young Jewish girl in 1919, who is fleeing Russia for America. It’s good historical fiction, but is based on the story of the author’s auntie, Lucy Avrutin, and “this story is, above all else, Aunt Lucy’s story,” says the author.
After that, of course I had to read another Hesse book — this time, her best-known work (and Newbery award winner) “Out of the Dust.” Billie Jo’s story is written in stanza — the poetry is beautiful. She lives in Depression-era Oklahoma, loses her mother and baby brother in a horrible accident, and her father, in his grief, disappears into himself.
Both of the Hesse books are horrifying, and she doesn’t pull any punches, but life is like that sometimes, isn’t it? And she does do a little bit of deus ex machina at the end, but life is like that sometimes, too, eh? Hesse has written a number of books, and I’ve heard that all of her stuff is good. I get worried, sometimes — I get protective of kids and don’t want to expose them to anything too harsh. But sometimes we can better prepare ourselves for “real” life, reading about harsh realities in a book.
Besides — like my own kids always tell me, “It’s only a book.”
Ha.
“The Candy Shop War,” by Brandon Mull (who wrote the “Fablehaven” series) is a twisted little novel for kids and my daughter and I both enjoyed the heck out of it. I don’t want to give anything away, but kids + magic candy + evil witchy candy shop owner + nice ice cream man (or is he?) = excellent read. They’re making a movie out of this one — we’re eager to see how they film it. Lots of great, candy-colored images, coming to life.
Happy Saturday!
— wm
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