Harvesting Comments

Seems if I post about gardening or home schooling I get comments! I like comments - they mean not only are folks reading but that I'm connecting. Did a lesson on connecting with your reader today - used Miss Malarkey Won't Be In Today, a delightful book to which every student and teacher can relate. I must admit the gardening comments aren't nearly as opinionated as the home schooling ones!

Miss Malarkey


We have a lot line house, the lots in my part of town are in high demand and have become pricey. Folks who live in the Houston Heights don't expect suburban yards, in fact it's one of the attractions.

We have a small pocket garden out back - we've a table & chairs there, with a side bed and vines all around to hide the fence. The primroses in side bed are about gone, but the ferns are thriving in all the rain we've had.


Sappo, Belitus & Butch

We've no grass, only ground cover. The Australian Violets stay green all year and reward me with purple flowers during our spring.


Australian violets

The daffodils are a memory, now I've herbs and geraiums in the front bed.

Herbs & Flowers


Front Bed

Best Bib & Tucker

Houston is ready for the Easter Parade. Our March has been exceptional - enough rainy days to keep everything green and blooming interspersed with sunshine, blue skies, perfect temperatures and no humidty. The kind of day you wish you could bottle so you can splash a little of it on your wrists and neck come August when the temperature soars to 98.

I've been gardening, sitting out on the front porch and reading and walking. It seems so wrong to pound the treadmill at the gym when nature is giving me an outdoor gym of my own. So, I've been walking around the neighborhood, admiring the new houses going in and returning abandoned shopping carts to the local grocery store. As I noted in a previous post we are a neighborhood in transition. Some folks have BMWs and others ride bicycles by necessity, not by choice. The latter "borrow" a shopping cart to transport their groceries home and then leave them in a ditch. Good Virgo that I am, I like walking with a purpose so I gather them up and return them to Kroger.

I don't know what the Kroger folks think of this, but it keeps the streets tidier.

Wham, Bamm, Thank you ma'am

....are the kind of book sales that make my heart go pitter patter. Thursday was one of THOSE days - 581 kids and adults (out of a population of 660) tramped through the library. "If you didn't come to the library today , please raise your hand". The noise and activity level left our heads spinning. Taught my gifted & talented class after school and then managed to misplace my keys. The kids may be bright but sometimes their teacher isn't.

Some thrift therapy was in order. Sand Dollar yielded a Hello Kitty clock for my daughter the pop culture fan and a 2002 textbook and Value Village produced another textbook.

Listed them on Amazon and one sold within the hour, the other sold today. If all sales were that easy I could quit my day job. Don't hold your breath.

Houston...We Have a Problem.

....we seem to eat our young these days.

Over the weekend, a 4 year old boy pulls a loaded gun from his mother's purse and shoots his 2 year old brother in the head. The reason : the baby threw a toy at him. The mother claims she always has the gun in a safe place...but if that's the case how did boy know it was in her purse? And just what kind of behavior has this child been exposed to anyway? Children aren't born knowing how to shoot - that's a learned skill.

Same weekend, 3 small children, ages 6, 5 & 2 are left home alone while Mom and her live in boyfriend go shopping. The electricity has been turned off and Mom leaves a lit candle in the master bedroom. Fire breaks out, all 3 children are dead of smoke inhalation. Neighbors try to put out fire but of course had no idea that there were children home alone.

And which store did Mom honor with her presence - why the 24 hour Wal-Mart of course. No wonder so many people who shop there look like they are missing an essential gene or two.

No sure how this city has become the poster child for dysfunctional families. It's not a claim to fame I relish.

Flotsam & Jotsum of People's Lives

Bookscouts have some of oddest haunts in their itineraries. Besides the more obvious thrift stores and library sales we'll go most anywhere we can guarantee a cache of books, including estate sales and public auction surplus stores.

There are numerous professionals in Houston who, for a percentage of the take will organize an estate sale. There is a morbid fascination to these - you are given permission to snoop through someone's cabinets and closets, but you still feel slightly guilty about it since your mother told you it was rude to pry. An estate sale has an air of sadness about it. Someone's home is opened up to anyone with a checkbook and their trash and their treasures are exposed and look oh so vulnerable. Sometimes the heirs are determined to squeeze the ultimate penny out of the estate and authorize the sale of everything, including family pictures, half used tubes of toothpaste and used underwear. Some things really belong in the trash and it's sad to think that nobody would want the wedding or the baby pictures.

At the other end of the spectrum are the surplus stores. The proprietors buy up the goods of storage places that are seized for non payment of rent. They maintain a store in a low rent portion of town and spread goods out thrift store fashion. And there, for all to see are the leftovers of a family's life. The goods include shelves of dollar store quality figurines - the end results of someone's failed business. There are pots and pans, wedding dresses, videos (mostly shoot up bang bangs), clothes, stuffed animals, toys, furniture, bric a brac and small appliances. And of course books. Today I found yearbooks, covered with loves autographs and a baby's book, partly filled out. The last was especially poignant.

I unearthed The Book of Words about Duran Duran with a gift inscription that may have been written by one of the band members. My beloved is a Duran Duran fan so she was very pleased with that particular acquisition. I also came home with a a couple of cookbooks and a book entitled: Beyond Candlesticks : New Japanese Charting Techniques Revealed. It's some sort of financial scheme. It must not have worked for the original owner, but it sold within an hour of listing it on Amazon. Hope springs eternal.

Goodnight Dan

Dan Rather just stepped down.

In my lifetime I can only recall 2 anchors on CBS news - Walter Cronkite and Dan Rather. They have always been there, holding my hand and guiding me through life changing events. The assassination and funeral of President Kennedy, the Vietnam War, the Chicago Democratic Convention, WaterGate, the Challenger Disaster, many hurricanes and 91/1 - I can't think of any of those occurrences without Walter and Dan - they are intertwined.





Dan Rather said 9/11 had a greater impact on him and on us as a nation than any other event he reported. I would debate that the JFK assassination had an equal impact at the time, though it didn't change the way we live and travel as 9/11 has. It change the way we viewed the world and stripped us of our innocence.

Dan Rather made some bad choices and dabbled in some questionable journalism ethics but he faced his critics and hung in there. I wish him well.

Good night Dan Rather, Good Night Walter, the news won't be the same. I wonder who is going to keep me abreast of my world for the next quarter of my life?

Now for Something completely Different...

It's Spring Break, 9 blessed days of NOT having to get up at 5 and having leisure to putter and try some new projects (and of course surf blogs). While waiting for the doors of the Salvation Army to open on Saturday mornings I've made the acquaintance of some of the other book dealers and of course we chat about business.

BubalaBear told me about the Salvation Army weekday morning auctions and since we specialize in different books she asked if I wanted to go in with her on a pallet load of books.

So we meet up this morning at the Salvation Army Warehouse. Interesting people watching. Now I know where the perpetual garage sale & flea market folks get their stock (or more accurately their crap). Vast army of appliances, which were snapped up a group of men who I suspected were landlords. Bundles of clothes were of interest to Hispanic buyers - BubalaBear said they will haul the stuff to Mexico and resell it.

Today's lot included 3 pallets of books, each stacked high with 10 -15 boxes of books. I wasn't to impressed with what I could see of the contents. A great deal of current fiction which isn't worth hauling home, much less listing and children's books of the Wal-Mart variety. Bubalabear was interested in a couple of boxes of paperbacks so we decided to bid, but bid conservatively.

Another bidder decided that we knew something she didn't and out bid us. Actually we did, which is why we let both pallets go. I hope she enjoys her wares.

As for us, we retired to The Pig Stand for breakfast and book talk. A very satisfying morning.

Kitchen Meme

I found this on The Library Lady Rants - one of the blogs I read regularly. I've noticed some blogs are nothing but Memes, in fact there appears to be a group of blogs that all respond to the same Meme on the same day. Talk about the lemming instinct. Oh creativity, where art thou?
However, an occasional Meme is fun and gives you a different view of a blogger and their little world.


What is your favorite kitchen appliance?
Toss up between my Kitchen Aide mixer (a housewarming gift to myself) and my food processor. But my Senseo coffee maker is giving the other two a run for the money.

What kind of cookware do you have?
Mixed, I don't do matched sets. I can't get my clothes to match, never mind my pots and pans. I have 2 cast iron skillets that are 30 years old and get better with time and some assorted pots I've picked up in thrift shops. I love Pampered Chef stoneware - it's not cheap but oh, does it turn out a good product.

Name one kitchen appliance or gadget that you wish you had.
A deep fat fryer - though I need one like I need a hole in my head. The calories!

Describe your dream kitchen.
I about have it. When we built our home 5 years ago I told My Beloved that I wanted a gas stove and a walk in pantry. And I got both. We only have 2 rooms in our downstairs - the game room and big room that is combination kitchen, living and dining room.

I could do with a bit more storage space (who can't) but it's a great kitchen for cooking and entertaining.

Fru-Fru free zone
The house is in the style of Frank Lloyd Wright so it's very sleek and un-cluttered.

The budget dictated laminate on the counters rather stone or faux stone and paintable wood cabinets. My Beloved wanted to kitchen to fade into the walls and she suceeded. However I think it's a bit to monochrome and I would love granite (be it real or fake) counters as to add some color.
She was in her Harley mode at the time so all the appliances are black and chrome.

It's all black & chrome

I Love a Good War...

... a bidding war that is! Betsy Tacy Pal and I attended a hideously disorganized school rummage sale. The PTA spread tarps down on the playground and just tossed the goods out. Made it very hard to browse - I am to old to crawl all over the ground, but the prices were certainly right. All books were a quarter.

Picked up a #1-9 of Robert Jordan's Wheel of Time series in paperback. I don't like fantasy but I don't let that deter me since many people do and they are often willing to pay top dollar to fuel their passion.


His Fans are Fanatical!


I listed them on E-bay with an opening bid of $9.99. The books sat till yesterday afternoon and then the price started to climb. With 5 min left in the auction they were at $20 and then wham, 2 people started a bidding war. They topped out at $31. Not to shabby for a $2.25 investment. Best of all, I paid one listing fee, need only pack up one package and winning buyer has already paid me. Wish all E-bay sales were that simple!

Selling on E-Bay is fun, but contrary to all those "I make $100,000 a year selling on E-bay" articles one reads, it's hard work. One has to troll the thrift shops and the library sales for inventory, research it, list it, pack and ship it. Sometimes I get lucky and a $1 investment produces a $100 sale but those are far and few between. Those are the prize in the Cracker Jack box and make up for all the peanut sales that are the day to day existence of a E-bay seller.

The Oxymoron of Home Schooling

The library book sale season has begun. With wagons in tow; my Betsy-Tacy pal & I ventured forth to Boerne, Texas to pluck the wheat from the chaff and turn said wheat into bread. Or, to be more accurate into money via E-Bay and Amazon.

Book Sales are attended by several distinct groups. There are the dealers - easily spotted by their wagons, rolling carts and tubs for transporting books. These days dealers fall into two categories - those who carry their knowledge in their heads & love books and those who know nothing but can operate a scanner. The former each have their own niche and buy what they know. Bookselling is so diverse that 6 dealers can cherry pick a lot and each come away with totally different books.

The scanner folks grab up anything that looks remotely new and retire to a corner to key in the numbers and check them against Amazon. They are a pain since they have no manners, no common courtsey and no respect for books. They are greedy and they want to make money. Period.

I like making money too, but I love the thrill of the hunt and I enjoy matching people with long lost literary friends.

Group two are the voracious readers, who buy to read. Many are retired and snap up armloads of their favorite authors. They are friendly and fun to chat with.

And in the third group you have the homeschoolingl mothers and their broods. They are easily spotted by their strollers, which are the size of a Mini Coooper and their children, which are numerous and often wailing and howling at the top of their lungs.

And there in lies the oxymoron. From what I've read parents opt to homeschool because they love their children and only want the best for them. They feel that the parent and only the parent can provide the care and education their children need. Yet these women (and it's always women) seem to think it is perfectly acceptable to allow a baby to cry non stop for an hour or a toddler to throw a temper tantrun while they look for books. It's very painful for the other book buyers and it's got to be hard on the children too.

One mother had 2 toddlers in a double stroller who cried so loud and so long they were beet red and choking. She seemed oblivous to raised eyebrows and evil teacher looks (something I'm an expert at delivering) sent her way by the rest of customers. Yet another carried a baby under one arm like it was a sack of potatoes and never seemed to notice the squaling and crying going on under right her nose (or armpit).

Overheard at today's sale:

Child ( whiney tired voice)"Can we go home, we have lots of books at home, I want to go hooommmmmeeee".

Mother "No, we're homeschoolers and we're not going home till I've looked at every book".

Child (very LOUD and whiney voice) "I want to go home NOW!". Child gave an academy award winning performace of "the terrible twos" which mother ignored but which gave everyone else a headache. Child set a new record for non stop screaming without stopping to breath.

How can mothers who claim to love their children be so deaf to their cries and uncaring of their needs? Not mention the sanity of everyone else in the vicinity?

The Neighborhood, It is a' Changing....

We live in the Houston Heights, a neighborhood that's been in transition for a number of years. There was one round of revival about 25 years ago - that one involved buying and rehabbing the old homes. Most of the old homes worth fixing up are taken, so the second revival involves tear downs. The Heights is an old neighborhood (for Houston) with a mix of grand Victorian homes, Craftsmen cottages and shot gun shacks. The bulldozers are busy grinding up the latter.

Round the corner from us was a collection of 5 old shot gun shacks, in varying degrees of collapse. Most of the residents spent a good deal of time on the their front porches- I think because there were more people living in them then could comfortably fit inside. The fairly large common space of yard which was pre-emptied by the domino players.

There were about 6 of them, 5 elderly African American men and a young white woman who looked liked life had been none to gentle with her. They had some cast off chairs and a couple of old auto seat cushions and were pretty much out there from sun up to sun down. I think that the amount of beer they drank was far greater than the amount of domino tiles they turned, but they never bothered anyone. Couple of times we gave them beer we had left over from parties which made them very happy. Occasionally the woman would show up on our doorstep with a black eye and ask for money. We'd give her $5, knowing full well it would go for more beer, not medicine.

Sevearl months ago the houses were boarded up and the residents and the domino players vanished. 2 weeks ago the houses vanished too.

Now we've got mud and a realtors sign -DistinctiveLivingHouston. From the looks of the website the homes are going to be very high end, equipped with granite counters, hot tubs and game rooms.

The new houses will no doubt raise the value of the neighborhood, and our own house. But they won't come with domino players. I miss them.

Yet another bit of local color is gone, leaving homogeneity in it's void. I hope they found a new place to play.

Happy Birthday Dr. Seuss! 

33.4 Minutes of Silence - Thank you Dr. Seuss

Today was Dr. Seuss's 101st birthday. I honored him by organizing a school wide "Read for 2005 Seconds". 101 minutes was to long, 101 seconds to short, 2005 seconds was just right.
We had dead silence for 33.4 blessed minutes. The cafeteria monitors loved it - they want to make it a daily event (told them the novelty would wear off). My Principal walked through the cafeteria reading "Green Eggs and Ham". My hang out in the library lunch gave up the computers and opened their books ( I suspect the bribe of a big basket of chips to eat while reading didn't hurt!).

I plowed through a neglected stack of professional journals - I really must read Library Sparks at the beginning of the month rather than the end! It's got such great ideas, but it doesn't do me much good to garner GroundHog day ideas in March.

The kids were chained to their benchmark tests yesterday and today it dripped, poured, showered and just plain rained. A combination guaranteed to result in wild and wooly kids. The readathon was a much needed oasis in a sea of churning children.

For Whom the Bell Tolls...

Our neighbor 2 doors down died this week of complications from the flu. She was only 47 and leaves behind a 5 year old daughter.

We didn't have much more than a nodding acquaintance with her. She had major issues with her homebuilder, much of it her own doing. She'd frequently ask My Beloved, who is also in construction for advice which made for an uncomfortable situation. My Beloved has a friendly relationship with the builder (who also built our house) and her sympathies were pretty much on his side. She didn't want to act as an intermediary between the two of them. I couldn't blame her , some of what was being asked of her pushed the boundaries a little to far.

Said neighbor was a trust fund hippie , with a view of money (and life in general) that was not grounded in reality. She also had some work experience as a paralegal and in her case a little knowledge was indeed a dangerous thing. She didn't believe in the old quotation of "Only a fool would hire himself as a lawyer"

The cardinal rule in construction is "Don't Piss of Your Builder" - he has ways of paying you back that you can never imagine. Especially in Texas, where all laws are squarely on the side on the builder. Texas is not known for being on the forefront of consumer or tenant rights.

So, we really never became friends. I always had a nagging bit of guilt about that. Having a greater tolerance for the more bizarre members of the human race than My Beloved I thought she was very interesting in a 1960s throwback sort of way.

And now she's gone. I'm a series of conflicted emotions. Can't honestly say that I'll miss her, since I never really knew her. I guess it's a combination of regret for what might of been, coupled with sadness for her daughter who lost her mother at much to early an age.

It's a strange feeling to realize that the house will go on the market again and someone will begin a new life in it.

No More Social Promotion - NOT!

Sounds sensible doesn't it? It's one of the tenets of NCLB. Here in Texas, if a child fails the reading portion of the 3rd grade or 5th grade TAKS test they are not supposed to be promoted.

There is one tiny fly in the ointment - and the flies as flies are prone to do are busy breeding. Retention does not put a hold on hormones or growth spurts. Puberty, especially among Hispanic and African American children makes an appearance at an earlier age than it used too.

We now have the first wave of the "double retainees" - children who failed first grade and third grade. This is the first year the 5th grade test comes with mandatory retention so we don't have any triples yet. We aren't looking forward to our first encounter. We have 4th graders who will turn 12 this spring, 2nd graders who are turning 10 and third graders who are about to turn 11. Eleven and twelve year olds are bursting with hormones and attitude and belong in middle school.

Kids, being kids look up to these kids - they are older, taller, more developed and have more street smarts. They are as one teacher put it "the leader of the lemmings". Today one head lemming convinced a girl to "make out" with him in the bathroom. Another gave his class an anatomy lesson at lunch by using a hot dog and two kiwi fruit. Yet another brought a condom to school -and knew what it was for. I hope he wasn't planning to use it (though if he was, I guess we should be happy he knows about safe sex).

Granted, we have no business graduating kids who are illiterate but keeping them in elementary school for an additional 3 years isn't the answer.

These kids can drop out at at age 16 - with only a 7th or 8th grade education at best. Scary thought isn't it?

The Bright Kids are being Left Behind Too...

One perceptive reader pointed that shrub's NCLB is hurting the bright kids, the gifted and talented kids as much as it hurts the bottom slope of the bell curve kids. She's right. The teachers are under such pressure to bring everyone up to "standard"- a Herculean job if ever there was one. The bright kids, who get it the first or the second time sit through review lesson after review lesson till their eyes glaze over . I remember my own daughter lamenting "we can't learn anything new in math till Heather gets it and Heather never gets it". And Heather, bless her heart probably never did.

The Special Education kids have multiple laws on their side to ensure they get everything they need and then some. Our "Lifeskills Class" has a full time teacher and 3 full time aides . Class size - 3 children. We've one profoundly handicapped child on our campus who has a full time attendant (paid for by the school district). This person pushes the wheelchair, blends food, changes diapers, basically acts a full time caregiver. This kind of care does not come cheap - even at the barely above minimum wages our district pays to aides. I'm not saying we need to go back to the situation described in Karen, where Karen, who has cerebral palsy was denied access to a public education but there has to be a happy medium.

Our 1st & 2nd grade gifted kids get 2 hours of special services a week. Just two. I know, I provide it. We're making PowerPoint presentations and I'm not sure just who is teaching who PowerPoint.

Which group has the most time, resources and money allocated to them? Which group is likely to produce the next Bill Gates, the next Macarthur Fellowship winner or the next John Steinbeck? Something isn't right.

Some Kids are Going to Be Left Behind...

Day one of the state mandated tests (you can thank the shrub for this emphasis on testing - he unleashed it while governor of Texas). According to NCLB all kids are supposed to pass these things or the schools ARE NOT DOING THEIR JOB.

Kids are not apples or oranges or even chickens. They aren't all the same. The tests usually are no problem for the bright to normal kids - other than the total boredom that sets in while they pre-test, post test, benchmark test and review test. The kids with a low IQ (the cut off in Texas is 70) are considered special ed, and while they too have a test to take, it's geared to their ability and educational goals. The kids with learning disabilities are allowed to test with modifications.

It's the not so bright kids, the kids on the downside of the bell curve, the ones who work hard and to the best of their potential who are slipping through the cracks. They aren't eligible for Resource / pull out programs because they haven't a learning disability and there isn't a gap between their IQ and their academic performance. They are to "smart" for special ed or life skills program. But they aren't bright enough to score the 90+% that's required for a school to gain the highly coveted superior ratings. And they know it.

Not All Children are Little Engines...

They attend tutoring after school and on Saturdays, do extra homework, try their very best but sometimes they just can't get it.

I can't imagine being expected to achieve 90% mastery in something that, try though I might I just can't master. I am not gifted musically. No matter how many lessons I endure, no matter how much I practice I can't sing on key nor play an instrument with any degree of proficiency. Music classes for me were pure torture and I was grateful they were only given a couple of times a week.

That's what school is like for these children. They stumble, pick themselves up, stumble again and keep on trying. It's a testament to their character that they just don't give up.

One would think the shrub would be sympathetic to their plight. He was, as he is proud to tout only a C student, so chances are he was one of those student himself!

We are Everywhere...esp. on a Channel Near You

... on Sunday night, February 20th, 2005.

First off, Melissa Etheridge on DateLine NBC, talking of her victory over breast cancer, with partner by her side. She's bald, alive, sparkling and sexier than ever.


Melissa!


Followed by The Simpsons with an episode featuring gay marriage. Patty came out! Marge, once she got over the shock was accepting and supportive.

Then Desperate Housewives. Those in know are hinting that the show will soon introduce a gay character (and it happened tonight!) . Not to mention the very persistent rumor that one of the housewives is actually gay in real life.

And for the grande finale - The L Word. Dyke Drama, high fashion and a convoluted story line.

Dykes in Prime Time! Hey, Shrub Bush no matter how you try to spin it we aren't going to disappear. Get over it!

They Have Their Moments...

The library is an after lunch hang out for some of our more voracious readers...not that they read during that time; their current focus is a Hobbit Computer game I picked up at Half Price Books. But they have to read to earn loitering privileges so I don't begrudge them a bit of time on the computers. Oddly, this lure has convinced a number of 5th grade boys that reading gets you what you want - a valuable life lesson if ever there was one. My top readers are all boys, which not usually the norm, especially given our demographics.

O.B. wandered into today and promptly burst into tears - seems one of his relatives was in an auto accident and is seriously hurt. The other boys left off what what they were doing to come over and give him a hug and hand him some Kleenex. No taunts of "crybaby", no giggles, no teasing, " - just compassionate friendship. 5 young Bantam Hispanic boys, all brimming over with hormones and machismo put aside their swagger & pride and came to the aide of a friend.

All Fridays should end on such a high point.

Another thing I've learned while obsessively reading blogs - cunning cat pictures are obligatory. Question to ponder, do bloggers graviate toward dogs or cats? We have 6 cats so I can post cute cat pics till the end of time. I also have a nasty case of the flu so my brain is foggy. After another extended wait at the Doctors office I also have new wonder drugs to replace the wonder drugs that didn't work after the first extended wait at the Doctors office. So wonder drugs and I are off to bed. No books will be packed tonight.

In case you are dying to know, the cats in question are Gabriel and LittleManTate, the kitten we rescued last fall.

Primroses in February! Surfing blogs, I've noticed that snow pictures are more or less mandatory. No snow in Houston, I have have Primroses and Daffodils. We have a lot-line house with a small pocket garden and a couple of beds. I've made it as English in appearance as I can, which gets tricky when the temperature soars to the high 90s in July. This is the first time I've had daffodils and I love them - they look so cheery and perky. February is a wonderful month in Houston - I wish I could bottle it and spray a little on my wrists in August.


Daffodils


The Fountain - no ice here!

It Won't Leave...

Hack, sneezle, sniffle, honk, cough, sniff, sneeze..oh it just sounds really peachy at our house. No Valentine Romance, no long lingering dinner for two, no roses, no champagne toasts. I think we'll go get some take out from Pei-Wei. Won-Ton soups sounds appealing and they make a good fried rice.

Someone on the Thrift List posted a new link for e-cards. Very clever. Anti-Cards - not sappy or sentimental.

And I wasted a perfectly good day off and that's even more annoying than being sick. I planted a few herbs and listed books . E-Bay's Valentine's Day present to its users is a nickel listing day so I'll toss a bunch of books up once prime time arrives.

It's Back.....

....the sniffles, sneezes, runny nose, watery eyes, and sore throat....and tomorrow is a holiday and I won't be able to enjoy it properly. If I'm lucky enough to get a Doctor's appointment I will get to spend part of my day waiting. I already devoted the previous Friday to waiting!

Maybe I can get an appointment for Wednesday afternoon and miss the faculty meeting! Now there's a cheering thought!

WAITING

It seems, that despite the rush, rush here, rush, rush there tone of our lives that we spend a great deal of time cooling our heels. Not just little blips of time, such as waiting for the train to pass or being stuck in traffic but great big blips of time. Last week I alloted 2 hours toward waiting for the Doctor, this week it was a 3 hour stint at the auto repair shop.

Is this anyway connected to rise in laptops, iPod, cell phones, PDAs, Blackberry etc. etc.? In our driven world, must we all do something (perferably two somethings) during all this enforced downtime?

Today, while waiting for the car (which was about as interesting as Waiting for Godot) I had my laptop and was busy tweaking a PowerPoint project for a lesson I'm working on. One other person was plugged into her iPod while studying and a business man was reviewing contracts and talking on his cell phone. One woman was actually carrying on two conversations at once - one with her job on a land line and another with her mother on a cell phone. One sturdy nonconformist was napping - though how he could sleep through all the noise is still beyond me.
So not only did we have much activity going on, but there was some serious multi tasking going on as well.

Once my car was done I headed home and was caught by a very long freight train. I read the newspaper while waiting.

I Didn't Wanna Do It...

....write a political post. But the President's budget was released today and I'm reeling. Cuts in education, in Medicaid, community block grants, public housing, student loans, veterans benefits - almost all the domestic programs but homeland security are going to the guillotine. Yet, he's handed the Pentagon a 4.8% increase, in addition to setting aside an additional $81 Billion dollars toward the war in Iraq, and that's in addition to the $25 Billion that's already been allocated.

So, it looks like we'll have plenty of guns for our future soldiers. Never mind that they won't be able read the manual, are underweight due to inadequate prenatal care and wont' be able to attend college nor pay counseling when they are deployed home.

I teach so the education cuts really hit home. Teachers do so much with less, yet they are asked to cut back and make do till there isn't enough fabric to sew the button onto Joseph's Little Overcoat.

Take a look at some of the teacher blogs out there - Snazzycat & A Series of Inconsequential Events are two I've come across recently. These folks are the ones who are making the world a better place for all of us. The Shrub should hang his head in shame.

Somebody Won...

The Super Bowel, just can't remember who...I think it's the team My Beloved wasn't cheering for because she's awfully quiet all of a sudden.

Me, I watch for the commercials. The Pepsi pitches baffle me - I assume that's an age thing. The beer ads are inane beyond belief. But then, they are aimed at the 20something male so they are most likely hitting their target audience. FedEx had a unique spin. The white cat & spaghetti sauce one was clever but I can't recall what they were shilling. There goes 5 million dollars down the drain!

Oddity- Ads for the half time show. Is there anyone in English Speaking world who wasn't aware that Paul McCartney was performing? He's aging well. Granted,you could hardly see him amid the fireworks and laser light shows but the performer always plays second fiddle to the special effects when it comes to the SuperBowl and the Opening and Closing ceremonies of the Olympics. At least he kept his fly zipped.

It's over for another year. Now the media will have to find something else to hype. I hope it's not Michael Jackson.

The Blogs are Alive....

with the sound of music.....and it's a disturbing trend. I surf while My Beloved watches the endless parade of sports on ESPN & the Golf Channel. She doesn't want to miss one moment of the scintillating commentary on whether the receiver was in or out of bounds by one quarter of an inch so absolute quiet is in order.

I'm happily surfing away, collecting credits from BlogExplosion and BlogClicker. I click and odd, tinkling music starts trickling out of my computer. I have a laptop, which I bought for speed and portability, not sound quality. Any music coming out the teeny, tiny speakers sound like it's being rendered by the "It's a Small World" Choir, coming to you live from Walt Disney World.

Folks, this is not a good thing if you want readers to linger at your blog and read your pearls of wisdom.

I hear music and I move on - I don't even wait for the seconds clock to count down!

It's the Pigeon's Fault!

Cough, sniff, Sneezle, Hack

It's everywhere. Every class I've seen this week has had 3 or 4 kids absent. Teachers are out. It's running rampant on the blogs - humm.....if my computer can catch a virus from the internet can I catch one too?

Well, I caught it. I have no voice. It gave out during a particularly spirited rendition of The Pigeon Finds a Hot Dog. Stay tuned for the sequel - The Pigeon Needs Some Niquel.

Two hours of waiting at the Doctor's office for a 10 minute consolation. With a medical student who isn't any older than my own daughter. Not only do I feel sick, I also feel old.

And after a stop at the pharmacy I also feel poor. And I have health insurance. What do folks do who don't.

I should go pack books but the pillow is much more compelling.

My School...Why It's Special

In spite of occasional rants , about Feral Children and absurd innitives, I love my school and I love my job. Our attendance hovers around 620 depending on whether or not the nearby apartment complex is having a $99 move in special.

Of those 620+ kids, 600 are wonderful. Fun, curious, loud, noisy, reasonably obedient, willing to learn and downright interesting. It's the other 20 that seem to take up 80% of everyone's time.

It's a pity since the others sometimes get the short end of the stick.

We're a school with everything stacked against it - poverty - over 85% of our kids are on free or reduced lunch, language - most of our kids are Spanish dominant, transient population ($99 move in specials are the curse of education), single parent homes, you name it, we got it.

Despite all the odds we scored Exlempary on the Texas TAKS test. That's as high as you can be.

And we got there due to an dynamic Principal and Assistant Principal, incredibly dedicated teachers, fantastic kids, welcoming school climate and a a great library program - gotta put in a plug for me ;-) !

Regardless that No Child Left Behind does it's best to thwart our efforts there are some wonderful things happening in education today. Drop into a local school in your neighborhood and see for yourself!

What's the Matter with Kids Today ?????

The moon is full, the weather in Houston has been most changeable and the kids at school off the wall and round the bend....

The offerings from the last two days.

Two 5th grade girls get into a fight.

The reason?
"She got in my face and called me M*Y(*Y* F)*&*^*& HO".

These girls are 10.

6 year old kindergarten boy sent is sent to the office for constant mouth noises, talking, removing clothes, rolling on the floor and a multitude of other very anonying behaviors. He walks in and announces "Suspend me, I want to go home!".

Mother says he always behaves at home and she can't imagine what the problem is.

This is the child's second school and he has already failed kindergarten once. It would be twice but that's against the district policy. Our first grade teachers are lobbying to change that.

Kindergarten girl who badly needs behavioral drugs (and counseling) lies on floor and flings her legs wide apart. Her parents are religious fundamentalists and won't dress her in pants, nor allow her to wear shorts under her dress. The entire school is familar with her underwear, which is usually in need of washing. A classmate throws himself on top of her and gives a very creditable imitation of sexual intercourse, 5 year old style. We suspect his parents have the Playboy Channel on 24/7.

Girls parents withdraw her - it is suspected that they are running from Child Protective Services. Boy remains at our school, where he will most likely repeat kindergarten this year.

The kindergarten teaches are lobbying for a rule outlawing retention in kindergarten.

Twp 5th grade boys punch each other because "he was messin with me". "Messin with me" can constitute anything from an accidental shove to a sneering look.

The library is right across the hall from the Assistant Principals office and during weeks like this we are the holding pen for the overflow.

I came home feeling very old and cycnical and went straight to the bookshelf for my copy Those Happy Golden Years by Laura Ingalls Wilder. The children were all so respectful of her when she taught, though she was the same age as some of them.


How It Used to Be...


It's Friday and once again time to go pack books.....

I Am Out of Touch....

Blogs are even more current on late breaking news than the "we interrupt this program" spots on TV. I learned about Johnny Carson from surfing blogs on BlogExplosion and BlogClicker. Seems the Grammy and Oscar nominations are out. I looked at the lists and tried to follow some of the commentary - but I have no idea who most of the nominees are. Thus it's like reading the gossip column in a strange town.

The other main topic seems to be American Idol. Haven't watched, will most likely never watch it. Ditto Survivor and the Donald Trump show. However American Idol seems to inspire the most impassioned posts about the contestants. Why this is so compelling is beyond me. But as I said at the the beginning of the this post, I am out of touch.

I'm in my own little world but it's ok, they like me there!

P.S. Houston residents can now carry a concealed weapon on Metro buses and trains. Now that really adds to my feeling of safety! The news in Houston is never dull.

Wednesday Was Better

It's the small things in life...

1. The car started.

2. The car continued to start.

3. I managed to catalog 9 books today. I did have redo the records several times due
multiple interruptions but I did get them done!

4. I found 2 pieces of Pampered Chef Stoneware at the thrifts.I can't decide if I want keep them or sell them on E-Bay.

Thrift Store score!

5. I hosted my annual Bluebonnet Books party. I tinkered
with a Pampered Chef recipe, substituting Nutella for strawberry jam and
result was cleanly licked plates. The kids were highly impressed.

The cake -the kids were thrilled!

6. I did not have to go to the auto dealership today (see #1 & #2 for the reason).

7. I got home at a decent hour (see #6 for the reason).

8. The evil spirit residing in my keyboard has found a new home and the 0 no longer
shows up as K.

9. I did not have to spend hours on the phone with tech. support in India (see #8).

10. No books to pack this evening. Not good from the money making standpoint,
it's a good mental health break.

After 2 Terrible, Horrible, No Good, Very Bad Days it's nice to have a breather!

Full Moon (Not in Houston!)

The Moon is Full

The Moon is Full. Back when I worked at the public library the Full Moon meant bizarre and off the wall reference questions. "Hello, how long can I save water?" , "I think there is an alien in my head, who do I call? ", I know Wolco closed but I want to buy some of their bras, where did their merchandise go?". This time around it brought out mechanical failures.

Such as my car, my beloved little PT Cruiser. The battery died. Twice. The final time on a busy street in the midst of rush hour traffic.

The good things: There are kind souls out there, 2 people tried to jump it. It was so far gone they couldn't but they did stop and try.

It didn't happen on the freeway so I avoided a mandatory $75 tow from a wrecker not of my choice.

The bad things
This is the 4th battery in 3 years. And the car goes out of warranty in April.
Some of the drivers acted like I decided to stop my car in rush hour traffic just to personally annoy them. Quite a few told me to move the car. Trust me, if I could have I would! Idiots.

Good Thing : At least today is Wednesday and the week is half over.
Bad Thing: Tomorrow is Thursday, a Katie Bar the Door type of day in the library.

Time to go pack books....

Profanity

Since when did the F word become a noun , verb, adjective and an adverb? It appears with depressing frequency in blogs, often more than once in the same sentence. All the author appears to do is to write the word numerous times and then vary the ending with ing, er, ed, er or s depending on which part of speech is needed.

I'm no prude, my beloved is in commercial construction. Any movie filmed in our house would land us an R rating for language. The English language is a rich one, filled with words with various meanings, idioms and nuances - that's one reason it is such a difficult language to learn.
There are millions of nouns, verbs, adjectives and adverbs to chose from.

Let's bring back " lout", "aggravate","horrid", 'bellicose" "steaming" and seething.

Time to pack books.....

Success!

Played around with BlogRolling all afternoon - really should have done something more productive but it became a VISION QUEST. I think I have it sorta mastered. Or as well as someone who knows nothing about HTML other than how to add a line space.

Blog Explosion and Blog Clicker have expanded my reading list (to the determined of everything else) and links to estimable blogs were getting out hand and cluttering my favorites folder. Virgo Librarians do not like disorder, we want everything neat and orderly and alphabetized - wouldn't be in the business otherwise.

So I think I've done it. Doesn't take much to make me happy does it?

Not One Damn Dime!

Did my taxes today. E-File is one of the seven wonders of the internet world. Seems that my low teacher pay plus 2 children in expensive private colleges results in a tax bill of Zero. Zero, zip, nada, I'm getting it all back. Not one damn dime is going to Duybah's war machine.

Whoo Hoo!!

You want to know the kicker?? If the shrub wasn't so opposed to Gay Marriage I'd be paying a bundle since my beloved is in a much higher tax bracket than I am.

The best part of my day (other than the dismissal bell)!

Harem Scarum Day

TGIF squared to the 10th power. My trusty assistant with whom I could not run my library was out today. She was busy playing Nancy Nurse, her daughter had her wisdom teeth removed (poor daughter- that's killer painful). She called for a sub but none showed up. Fairly typical for a Friday. After all, one of the benefits of subbing is that you can opt never to work on Fridays, rainy mornings, cold days or the day before a holiday.

School schedule was topsy turvey thanks to a couple of special programs and yet more NCLB conferences. I think NCLB was conceived by the paper lobby so that schools would have to spend sparse funds to print many more forms and keep yet still more records. Teachers are so busy conferencing about their kids and filling out the paperwork that they haven't time to teach said kids, who are left with subs while teachers attend NCLB workshops.

I had double classes all morning - which means I have 50+ rug rats running round the library, as opposed to 25. The day cumulated with an Accelerated Reader party for 40 kids who who happily (and loudly) made posters for the upcoming bookfair. We checked out 400+ books and the walk in traffic never stopped.

Lunch was not an option so I stopped by Sonic on the way home.....after a day like today I needed a sugar fix!

At least tomorrow is Saturday!

Our Local News is So Lame....

It's Jan. 20th. The day of Bush's swearing in - aka the coronation. There is a war in Iraq and a Tasmani flattened portions of SE Asia. Here in Houston cars are crashing into the new metro rail, the city is facing a budget shortfall and the Boys of Enron are about to go to trial.

And what does our local news use as their "teaser" story for the night? Dog gives birth to record litter of puppies.

Our local news appears to be a conspiracy to keep us from realizing that we live in the 4th largest city in the nation.

It would be funny if it wasn't so pathetic.

Working Girl Then and Now

Packing books is boring so I usually have the VCR / DVD running while I stuff tomes into envelopes. Currently watching The Best of Everything , a 1959 potboiler starring Joan Crawford, actually she's in her first supporting role, but she dominates the movie. Hope Lange plays the aspiring young working girl aiming for the top. The bulk of the movie takes place in the "office" and the cheap walkup apartment Lange shares with two other "girls". Of course there are the assorted men who range from cads to husband material and from roving husband to callous playboys.


Best Of Everything

Working Girl


Started to mentally compare it to Working Girl, a 1988 remake of sorts. They even have the same openings - panoramic shots of the New York skyline with a vocal soundtrack (both are worth renting for that reason alone). Melanie Griffith plays the spunky working girl with Sigourney Weaver in the Joan Crawford Role. Once again the men range from jerks to marriage material.

superficially there are changes - word processors have replaced tyewriters, phones have buttons instead of dials but it's remarkable - and depressing how similar the workplace is, despite the 30 year gap between the two movies.

In both films the office consists of a secretarial pool of identical desks, each occupied by a young woman. The office is lined with offices with doors, most of which are occupied by men, with a token woman or two. These folks get a window with a view and a bit of privacy.

The male occupants of said offices wear suits and ties. The women executives wear suits also, with the ladies of The Best of Everything topping their outfit with a fetching hat. The more powerful the woman, the more extreme the hat. Hope Lange progresses from a demure little suit, full skirted with a white blouse with an round collar to designer suits and smart silk blouses. Her heels get higher and he skirts tighter as her career moves upward. Melanie Griffith tones down her brassy blond locks, swaps her mini skirts for power suits and improves her diction as she claws her way up the career ladder.

Most of the "girls" are only interested in getting a man, for them the job is just a job. Of course there is the one girl who wants "more" - and both of them do manage to achieve their goal.

The big difference is that Hope Lange, once she makes it, chucks it all for a man. When Melanie Griffith gets her own corner office, she doesn't have to chuck it all for a man since she got him in the scene prior to.

But when you get right down to it, in both cases the relationship triumphs. In the eye of Hollywood a girl needs a man to be complete. Will we ever get to the point in life when a compromise is possible or will it always be all or nothing at all?

Frustration!

I'm spending way to much time reading blogs on Blogclicker & BlogExplosion.com. In fact it's downright addictive. It's also generating list of blogs I like (I gather in blog lingo that's called a link back). If you haven't visited the sites yet, surf on over. Warning -only surf on over if it's not way late at night and you have to get up early in the morning. Chances are you'll stay up way to late and be very grumpy when the alarm shrills. And then you'll blame it on me and never want to read my blog again.

Many of writers have a nice, neat, tidy list of blogs they read posted as sidebar on their blog. Not only does this appear to be an efficient way to manage the blogs I read, it's also an equally efficient way to share blogs I like with folks who stumble across mine. I've discovered if I like someone's blog, chances are I will enjoy reading the blogs they follow also.

It is along the same lines of "If you like an author I like, chances are we have similar tastes in reading" Finding new authors is one of the delightful (among things ) benefits of the Betsy Tacy List. In fact, our rallying cry is "I thought I was the only one".

I digress. HTML is not my forte. I've been copying and pasting for a good hour and I can't get the sidebar to do what I want it too. I can copy buttons from linking service but don't seem to be able to compile a list. I hate it when I don't know what I'm doing and I can't get the results I want. So there goes an hour and I haven't anything to show for up. At least I didn't do strange and bizarre things to my template this time around. That's been known to happen too.

Time to give it rest, go upstairs and pack some books and take out my frustrations on the tape gun and stamps.

Feeling caught up

What a strange feeling! By some odd quirk, some rare alignment of the planets personal odds and ends are done and tucked away (we won't talk about the cataloging backlog at work).

Books that needed packing were all in their proper boxes. The printer didn't jam when I tried to print stamps. The labels printed. I had a good haul at the Salvation Army Box/Book/ Table sale. Bills got paid. I even reconciled my checkbook and found a stray $200 (it's already spent).

Laundry is caught up, don't need to go to the grocery store. The car has been inspected. House is semi clean. Pantry is organized and there are no science experiments in the fridge.

So what did I do to celebrate this rare turn of events ? Read a book. Indulged in my on going fascination with Queen Victoria and her myriad descendents. Currently reading a biography of Victoria Melita who scandalized turn of the century Europe by divorcing her husband (who was also her first cousin on her father's side) and marrying her first cousin on her father's side. I love to ponder the "what ifs" of history. Sometimes the smallest things - a gene mutation results in hemophilia, a wife can't produce the necessary son, rat fleas introducing the black death can set an entire society on its ear.

My Blog Has Been Found!

This summer we went on a motorcycle tour with Edelweiss Bike Tours, combined with trip to Paris and Holland. The trip insipired this blog - I started it just before we left, and added a piece anytime I was able to find an Internet Cafe. Had frequent adventures with German, French and Dutch keyboards but considered it all part of the charm of traveling. Once we returned I told the folks at Eldweiss about my blog and they are featuring it on their home page!

I'm so excited about this! I love blogging for me, but I also love the fact that other folks are getting to see it too. Of course, I would not have joined Blog Explosion if I didn't want to share!

Found a New Author -All My Old Favorites Died

One problem (of the many) of growing old is that your favorite authors up and die on you leaving you without new reading material. Dorothy Eden, Margaret Mitchell, Victoria Hold, Louisa Mae Alcott all moved to the after library. Of course you can re-read their books, but when you can recite the opening lines - "scarlet O'Hara wasn't beautiful", "Christmas does seem like Christmas without any presents" - well it's time to expand the horizons.

Caught an interview on NPR today with Linda Fairstein, whom I wasn't familiar with. I'm not normally a mystery fan - historical novels are my cup of tea but I do like Patricia Cornwell. I've read some other books featuring women sleuths in the past and Fairstein's main character, D.A. Alexandra Cooper sounded like a lady I'd like to get to know better.

So, after a round at the gym (yes I really am back on the treadmill again) I stopped by Half Price Books to see if I could make her acquaintance. Picked up 3 books and we have a date coffee date tomorrow night after work. I'll let you know if this is the beginning of a beautiful friendship.

The Things You Learn While Blogging!

Just discovered Blog Explosion and now I'm addicted to reading blogs. Whenever I get bored with entering books into Seller's Assistant I flip over and start surfing blogs. It's keeping me up way to late at night!

Yesterday, one main topic of interest to many (other than me) was the demise of the Jennifer Aniston / Brad Pitt marriage. I'm not sure who Jennifer Aniston is. She's most likely one of the toothy smilers that grace the cover of People Magazine. Why so many people feel the need to comment on this is byond me (even though I just did the same -we are all such lemmings!).

Then I found a blog devoted to River Phoenix, an actor who died young. I totally forgotten about him - in fact the only reason his name ran a bell is that it is so unusual. Skimmed it and moved on.

Flash Forward to today. Went scouting for books and videos. Spotted a video starring River phoenix. Hum I think...Young actor, died tragically young and drugs were invovled. That combination often equals "cult figure" and "cult figure" almost always equals "collectible".

Checked it on ScoutPal...and my instincts were correct. It's now listed on Amazon for $19.99!

P.S. I donated blood a couple of days ago and they told me I'd reached the 2 Gallon level. That entitles me to guess what - another mug!