two things and more

My husband has been gone these past two evenings, leaving home around six-thirty, to be up at his mother's before seven, the time at which the shift of "Bill's Girls" ends...
But that's another story.

Having this time "alone" with my boys, I forget to:
1. think about Dinner,
2. prepare Dinner,
3. clean up after Dinner, and
4. clean up after cleaning up after Dinner.

Don't get me wrong here, my husband appreciates everything (just about) and anything (almost) I manage to get on the table. And likewise. And I really do enjoy it when we all sit down to Dinner, and light the candle, and say nummy-nummies, and talk non-stop about our days. Or at least try to. Usually the conversation does a degenerate doublebackhandspringdismount off the table and into the sewer by the time Dinner is over. Such is family life with three boys.

For the past two nights, though, it's been dinner. Frozen pizza. Michelina's microwaveables, single-serving yogurts, Wheat Thins and cream cheese, juice....whatever else they can scavenge for themselves in the kitchen that requires the bare minimum of preparation. Can't say as I blame them.

Meanwhile, I take a bath. When Bennett interrupts my bath to tell me he wants to listen to Christmas carols, I ask him to ask Grant to put on the Traditional Christmas Carols Pandora station for him. He wants the music on to help him finish up his GT geocity project that's due tomorrow. Grant robotically does what is asked, then returns to his Manga book, which he borrowed from his friend Mika who borrowed it from a friend. In the back of my mind, I think, "That's what makes a book truly good." Even though I could never read it.

You people who have no kids, yeah, I'm talking to YOU! You have NO EARTHLY IDEA what parents and teachers go through during the weeks before Christmas. It's just one deadline and due date after another. Book Project? Check. Final GT project? Check. Scrooge Musical? Check. Orchestra Concert? Check. Concert Band Performance? Check. Poem Memorized? Check. Goodies baked for teachers? Check. Goodies packaged and labeled for teachers? Check. Goodies in backpack to take to teachers? Check.

And those are simply the activities that my family experiences outside the bounds of The Little School. LSV has its own built-in stressor (not counting The Ball and Medieval Day and Robin Hood Family Book Club!): The Beta Quadrant Show. In Three Days. I know what overwhelming satisfaction and happiness will come after we've successfully pulled it off, so it's worth it. But the working up to it....... it's just so much.......work.

After my bath, I plan tomorrow's LSV schedule with an attention to detail that would make someone with ADD proud (because they do, you know, pay exasperating attention to detail. When they want to.).

What was the main idea of this story again?

Oh yeah, I got to spend time with my boys this evening, just helping them with projects, and hanging out. Which brings me to the fact that all I originally started out to say in this blog post is that I would like to share two funny things that made me laugh tonight, one involving each of my sons.

Bennett's gem: Up in his bunkbed, while hugging me good night, he asks, "What, exactly, is the meaning of humbug?"

"It means when you.....you know, when you feel.....well, it means...it means humbug."

Seriously, that was my answer. Good thing the boys thought it was hilarious. Remember when you first realized that some words truly have no definitions? They just ARE? And that to know the word, you have to know so much more than the word? You need its context, its story, its period, its character. Having just played the young man Ebenezer in Scrooge, and actually getting to say "humbug", well... he realized he already knew what it meant.

As for Grant, tonight he finished writing the entire Desiderata in calligraphy. Of course, it's not in any kind of font I tried to teach him, like Carolingian or Gothic. No, of course not. Instead, it's his own script he "invented". Then he refused to use lines under his parchment (ugh!)..... , and refused to start over if he made a mistake (ugh!), but damn! he wrote THE WHOLE FUCKING DESIDERATA in calligraphy! By candlelight. And now he wants to make copies of it, bind them, and sell them at SPQR on Thursday night during the Medieval Fair portion of the show.

Only one small problem while trying to make the copies ... the printer wouldn't work. Grant had just replaced the ink cartridge, and something was wacky. Right at the point when he was most peeved at the printer, I casually, only a bit cruelly, said, "You know, there's a low-tech answer for every high-tech question."

He turned on me as if I were a vampire and he had a wooden stake in his hand. "No. Way. I am so NOT copying this whole thing over ten times. No Way."

It was at that moment, I think, that he truly got the whole "Writing During the Middle Ages" thing. Oh, he knew it on an intellectual level, how monks spent years of their lives copying manuscripts, and about the importance of words and the significance of access to them. But this was visceral. And it was terrifying.

And it was very, very funny.

me as an ape

Well......, I suppose that "Drawing" could be considered an "Elective", right? And during the time it is being taught to my students by Chris Alvarez in his Second Floor Studio, I could be having my "Planning Time" downstairs at Jive's. An hour and a half twice a week to actually plan lessons, complete with all the espresso and breve I could want!

But, no. Instead, I straddle the horse seat thingy, struggle my 18"x24" pad of newsprint onto the easel, embrace my unforgiving Sharpie, and ready myself to listen to the Master.

Drawing. It's something I've never been able to do. Never done. Never learned.

The 90 minutes spent drawing on Tuesdays and Thursdays is the reward I get for planning outside of school hours. I also, of course, hope to show the kids that learning is a life-long journey...... we say it, but do we really model it?

Anyway, Chris's homework was to draw a self-portrait of our face, while looking in the mirror, in a single-line contour drawing. Here's how mine started. Feel free to laugh! I did! Then Bennett came to check it out, and he laughed, too! :)



Then Bennett and I had a conversation that went like this:



And so I continued:



I'm going to try it again, and this time, start at the eyes (the worst part, in my opinion). I'll put on some music as well. And I'll slow down.

I hope, in the words of Mr. Chris, to "fail better".

words of wisdom

My more-often-than-not awesome husband, while reclining in bed, in response to our discussion of The Chosen in which I said, "You know, that was the first religious book I read that had a profound effect on me", promptly retorted:

"The first religious book I read that had a profound effect on me was Mad Magazine.

why i love my mother-in-law

Nurse: Are you in any pain? Do you need any medication?
Phid: Only emotional pain... and morphine won't help that.
Nurse: You'd tell me if you were in any physical pain, though, right?
Phid: By George, I'd raise the roof!

fake fist fight

These were taken awhile back. A long while back. When Grant still had braces.
All punches and photos courtesy of Bennett A. Spengler.

i could listen to her all day

bennettism #101

In an honestly frustrated, nearly angry voice: "But I just don't get it, why is it named after a magazine?!"

Bennett - while discussing whether or not we should go see Battle of the Smithsonian this afternoon.

Grandma's influence on my children will be everlasting. At our house, they read Horrible Harry and Harry Potter; at Grandma's house, they read The New Yorker, Tintin, National Geographic, and, yes, Smithsonian..

fline swu

One other note on this whole exaggerated flu thing: One of my Hispanic student's young sons was out playing yesterday. A little Black boy insulted him, and told him to go back to Mexico. I hate what fear does to people.

stephen colbert on motherhood

Being a mom is no picnic. Raising the kids is the mother's responsibility. It's a thankless, solitary job, like sheriff or Pope.

On the plus side, they do get to wear cool hats.

just when you think it can't get any more absurd....

it does!

grammar rules!

For Halloween of 2007, I was a "Grammar Nazi". Part AP English Teacher (grey wool suit, glasses, hair in a bun) and part SS Officer (swastika arm band, SS lapel pin), complete with red pens and white out in my pockets. I don't think I will ever top that costume. Even the punk rock fairy godmother from 2008 pales in comparison. So here's this:

keebler elves = stoners

you won't find this one at the carnival

This was bound to happen.....

I like it for the sound effects.  There's a small thrill of satisfaction when you launch the shoe and hear it smack.  

A diversion, yes, but what would this world be without them?

Try it yourself.  

Here's to the first laugh of 2009!

ask dr. science

My house is a fucking wreck. The kind of wreck that happens when you sat through chemo on Monday, had an activity or two every night of the week, and before that you decided to get out all umpteen green and red plastic tubs from storage late last Sunday afternoon so they're still all half-unpacked in the middle of the living room.

My life on this beautifully snowy morning has been reduced to moving things from one place to another, in the hopes of some semblance of order.

During my shuffling, I very nearly threw away something rather valuable. It's a note written on the back of a "Student Pass" (more affectionately known at my child's school as a "purple slip"):

Dear Mr. Jon Spengler,
I have a questchon. If the world fliped all at once woud we feel it?
Please let me know. I am one of bennett's frends. Thank you.

Following this, there is a crude drawing of the earth with "Antarctica" labeled at the top.

I imagine he (or she) asked the question in class, and Bennett eagerly proclaimed, "Ask my dad. He'll know." Trusting my son, the child very respectfully wrote out the question, Bennett put it carefully in his backpack, and then it entered the chaos of my house, where it could have been lost forever.

All I know is that there's a first, second, or third grader (Montessori classrooms are multi-age) out there somewhere wondering (worried?) about what will happen if (when?) the earth flips over.

I'm going to make sure he gets his answer next week. I want to know, too. But what I really want to know is: If the world flips over, will the contents of my living room magically shift into place?

breast cancer can be funny

12-Year-Old Boy Scouts Volunteer To Give Women Breast Exams

obsession

The other night, as my husband and I were divvying up the evening's chores, he chose the laundry and I chose the kitchen. After loading the dishwasher and wiping down the table, I came into the living room and found him playing with his English ships. He said, (immediately in his defense because I was probably giving him "that" look):

"I folded the Pirates."

I looked over at the chair, and, indeed, the clothes were neatly stacked. But it was still funny. We couldn't stop laughing. And I still chuckle when I think about it.


There's a 100-point tournament this Sunday. They've already spent hours putting their fleets together. I have to admit, it really is a pretty cool game.

the funniest thing i've seen since forever

via NEWSPEAK

one more reason to vote democrat

...... as if we needed one

in case you missed it......

here's the RNC in 108 seconds. I dare you to try not to laugh.

After you're done laughing, however, go out and register some new Democrats and talk your asses off to your undecided friends and neighbors.



An interesting aside.... when I was coming out of anesthesia from my surgery last Friday, I vaguely, as if in a dream, heard the anesthesiologist and some nurses talking politics. I mustered all the energy I could, and, as if speaking with a mouth full of cotton balls, declared, "Palin's a psychopath."

I'm pretty sure that ended the conversation!

thanks, sister sarah!

It's about 30 seconds long. Totally worth it.

What old people do for fun