I'm in a "Nora" York State of Mind

It started with "Crazy Salad". I was in college and despite all that higher learning, I had not  yet grown into my own mind and was certainly not confident about thinking my own thoughts. However, it was clear that the author of the little Bantam paperback I purchased for $1.95 was very much in possession of her thoughts and she did a good job of sharing them. The book was dedicated to her sisters and it was forwarded by a quote from Yeats:
                                      It's certain that fine women eat 
                                      A crazy salad with their meat.

 I fell immediately and madly in love with Nora Ephron.

I have every book Nora ever wrote and I believe I am also correct in thinking that I have seen every movie she has written or directed. Even the not-so-good ones. When she died a year ago this past summer--and I was sitting right where I'm sitting now when I read the news blurb and I blinked several times, because I felt so sure (and at the same time so dreadfully unsure) that I was reading it wrong--a little bit of my world caved in.

Years ago my sister introduced me to one of her favorite movies, which quickly became one of my favorite movies: "Desk Set". Nora's parents, Henry and Phoebe Ephron, wrote the screenplay for it and when I made this connection, it only intensified the abiding respect I had for my girl Nora. In writing about those same parents, she was honest about their alcoholism and philosophically forthcoming about their distracted methods of parenting four girls without drawing out the obvious drama that must  have provided the background noise for her unfolding life. Ditto for being married to that hot philandering mess of a husband -- Carl Bernstein. Nora's newfound religion was something she called, "Get Over It" and this she did by throwing her considerable energies into crafting a book about the episode and moving on.

I vacillated monthly between wishing desperately to be Nora Ephron's friend...or simply to be HER. On that aforementioned June day however , it became patently clear that I would never get to be either one.

Lately, I've been listening to Nora's books through an app on my phone because, even though I'm already familiar with what they say, it's her reassuring voice in my ear while I'm driving to the cleaners or chopping carrots for the soup or when I'm closing the drapes and turning on the lamps against the chill of our currently rainy autumn weather that I relish. It's not just what she says, but it's how she says it with her very deliberate and yet conversational pacing. Listening to her speak her own words is a smooth one-two punch of well considered prose that is rendered like sage advice from an experienced woman who has been there but lightly delivered as though you were just two close friends eating good Chinese dumplings in a crowded restaurant where you both have to lean in close over the table to hear and be heard.

I'm homesick for the way she explained about why her sofa must always be beige or how her mother served crispy potato pancakes with the roast beef.  I've listened to her talk her love affair with the Apthorp when it was rent controlled and and how it's no use getting the skin on your neck fixed unless you go in for a full facelift, which she will definitely not do. There was her addiction to online Scrabble, the pitfalls of becoming a slave to moisturizer and her love of dinner with friends. There were the accounts of her early years working for Newsweek magazine and the end of her parents' lives with her dying mother in her hospital bed reminding her daughter to take notes because "everything is copy".

She offered up recipes for fail-proof egg salad, ricotta pancakes, and meatloaf as well as tips for grilling steak with a big pat of butter on the top, which--interestingly enough-- is exactly how my grandmother used to do it. But it was the last section of "I Remember Nothing" which offered up the eerily prescient remarks wherein she itemized the things in life she would miss. As though Nora knew --and it turns out that she did know--that she not have long to live. Among those things: her husband, fall, her kids, twinkle lights, reading in bed, Pride and Prejudice, waffles, Thanksgiving dinner, the park, the view out the window, and coming over the bridge to Manhattan.

Nora's second to last book revealed how very bad she felt about her neck and I understand it.  I feel bad about mine too, though mostly I just feel bad that I've lost my sherpa in all matters, neck and otherwise. The hopeful prospect of visiting the Shake Shack on my next trip to NYC and patiently waiting for her to wander in for a custard is no longer even a remote possibility, but I suppose she would shake a finger at me for allowing her absence from the planet to prevent me from enjoying the city that she loved--that I love--so much. And she would be right. The point is to keep appreciating and notating the good stuff in life. Because, in the world according to Nora Ephron, even the bad things are worth writing about.

Yes, I Would Like Fries With That.

I can't stop thinking about food and clothes these days. If you knew me when I was a skinny kid, you'd know I was a frustratingly picky eater born to a mother and father raised in the Great Depression. By the age of seven I could quote you chapter and verse regarding my Southern mother's memories of rationing stamps and my Yankee father's sad saga of meals where there was no meat to eat. Only beans. To my young ears it sounded like a nightmare, albeit THEIR nightmare. At any dinnertime moment, my own personal horror story consisted of three remaining bites of tomato that taunted me from the oily remains of my salad bowl. Dinner was long over and I was alone at the table watching the clock's minute hand creep closer to the deadline my father had set for the consumption of those three red taste bud assassins with their demonic seeds encased in gag-inducing slime. Food was my enemy then.

As a skinny teenager I did not know what a temporary privilege it would be to buy clothes at the 5-7-9 Shop. I had but to eyeball a pair of pants or a blouse from Casual Corner before taking them to the cashier.  My only concern being whether the pants would be long enough to avoid the "flood look" so feared in the 70s. Food was something I ate when I got hungry and nothing more. Clothes either fit or were too large.

Even as a young married I had a pair of favored black pants from The Gap which fit me to perfection and did so before I had babies and then again after I had lost all my baby weight. All this was true for me and yet I believed that this could also be as easily true for everyone else if they just tried. Even though I didn't have to try. It just WAS for me. I ate what I wanted and when I felt I had gone too far, I would simply run it off in during a soccer game or work it off at the gym. I was the Seinfeld-ian "master of my domain". Food-wise, anyway.

At 39 I trained for and ran a marathon and I have a photograph from the following summer vacation where I wore a bikini in public for the very last time. I didn't know it then, but I looked fabulous.  I drank beer on the beach and ate ice cream at night. I was having to work harder to feel normal (thin) but I had the time to do it and youth, plus the slightest overtones of my father's Type A personality helped me keep everything in check.

Then the freight train of middle age hit about the time our kids were in constant "graze" mode. We went through eight gallons of milk and two loaves of bread per week. I was cooking and either writing part time or doing my part as PTA slave. We saw two kids into college and then I went back to teaching while attempting to monitor the last son through high school. I developed an enormous ulcer which tried to kill me and almost succeeded. I was in ICU and then hospitalized with a nasal/gastric tube for another 7+ days, after which I then had to train my stomach to accept food once I was home, one bite at a time. THIS JUST IN: I succeeded!

Where does that leave me now? Hopelessly menopausal and in possession of a metabolism that is slower than an IRS refund and pants which are visibly angry with me. I don't recognize my body or my face. Age and stress are in collusion with what few hormones I have left to make me crave food that I cannot possibly burn and then arrange the results cruelly on a facial structure which--though never beautiful--was once strong and (some said) striking. Despite yoga, everything slops over its original boundaries like that melting watches painting by Salvidor Dali. And all I want to do is eat.

I get a pedicure and--over the scent of acetone, I can smell the Vietnamese noodles the manicurist had for lunch. I want seconds on everything all the time. I actually had a dream about bacon the other night.  Salted popcorn and cashews. Chips with salsa or guacamole. Happiness would be a tankard of wine, followed by a bucket of Ben and Jerry's and a shovel with which to eat it. I eat candy corn while grading papers. I have flashbacks about visiting the Betty Bakery in Boerum Hill during our last Spring Break trip to New York. I have a juicer and dream of replacing one meal with something healthy, but I'm afraid I'm too addicted to chewing to make a go of it. My sister-in-law told me last night that she's gone mostly Paleo in her diet and the results are amazing to behold. But doesn't that mean that planning/shopping/cooking/eating will now require as much energy as my job? The thought of that just makes me want to fall down out of sheer resentment. Fall down into a big bowl of macaroni and cheese. You see my problem, no?

I'm open to any helpful suggestions you might have, dear readers. Meanwhile, I must attend a birthday lunch for my mother whose own "love language" is food. Not eating very much will only send the message that I hate her, am not enjoying myself and that I wish nothing more than to destroy her birthday. But that's another Oprah entirely. What else is there to say but, Bon Appetit?

Sweater Weather

NOW is usually my favorite time of year. The beginning hurdles of the new school year have been somewhat successfully cleared and the cool weather is settling in nicely. Today I took down all the overtly Halloween-ish decor, turned all the jack-o-lanterns around so as to enjoy another festive month of pumpkins with their visual punctuations of orange, and brought out the turkeys made by little boy hands in pre-school art class all those years ago. The happy echo of Trick-or-Treaters still lingers faintly on the breeze and the end caps on grocery store aisles are now laden with pie filling, shelled pecans, and brown sugar as Thanksgiving looms. Christmas seems--thankfully--far enough away to avoid a panic attack over card sending and gift buying. It's a good in-between place to be.

And yet I can't shake the sad. I've been an empty nester for 13 months, a veteran in that department among a few of my friends, but I have no easy answers that would explain how to navigate that world. No treasure map nor operator's manual showing one how to extend a willing hand to the future while letting go of the nostalgic past. Each day is its own unique sampling of joy or angst and either can show up on my doorstep with little or no warning.

These days, any random memory of holidays with our children--when they were children-- can just as easily provoke tears as they can a smile. Those of you still in the trenches are probably asking if I have lost my mind don't remember the torture of late evenings overseeing countless homework or projects, sitting on cold, aluminum bleachers at yet another school baseball game. The PTA meetings or yet another birthday party for some unknown classmate at the Skate Palace. The OMG! emotional firestorm of adolescent relationships...or  your kid's desire for one when there were none being offered. Of course! I remember all of it as well as wishing for (what seemed to be) mythical time in the future when I didn't have to worry so damned much. Raising kids could sometimes be its own brand of emotional "house arrest" but I can tell you now that the silence when it is over can be just as deafening as the sounds of chaos when we were in the thick of it.

Their empty rooms are so still. Beyond silent. And despite the twice-monthly attentions of vacuum and dust rag? Musty.  Much like a museum filled with relics that no one uses anymore.

Sure, Thanksgiving is coming up. The visiting offspring will arrive armed with boundless energy and stories of people I don't know taking part in events I didn't witness. They will wear clothes I didn't purchase and they will exchange secrets with each other that we, their parents, will never hear.  At night they will awkwardly climb into old beds that no longer feel as though they fit and drive away the next day with leftovers and full gas tanks, courtesy of Mom and Dad. It's the least we can do and our parting benediction for children who are growing up and away with a speed that leaves me absolutely breathless.

The other day our youngest called me... bemoaning Halloween as a college student in a house with no visible vestiges of the holiday. At least, the kind he grew up with. He was throwing together a last minute costume for a party, but he said it didn't feel like the old Halloweens of his childhood. His words connoted an ersatz thank you for the years of pumpkin carving, costume making and skeleton-themed paper napkins lovingly tucked into school lunch boxes for every day in October.  In that moment, we were two interlocking puzzle pieces: He with the multiple friends in costumes but no familiar (read: home-y) reminders of the holiday and me with the house full of tangible memories and themed artifacts...and no kids to enjoy it.  Two people standing on separate islands sharing the same sweet memory through two tin cans and a piece of string.

Childless people are going to read this and think,  "Move on, Nancy"!" They would be justified. And perhaps those who have actually lost a child are simply going to want to throw up after reading my self-indulgent drivel. I get that too.  It ought to be "Hakuna Matata" around here all day long, right?  Elton John singing The cirrrcle of life while we nod enthusiastically and then make the kind of weekend plans couples typically make when they only have to worry about themselves after 24 years of living life "on call". We're all okay and we have our health! It should be enough.

How ironic is it that we spend our childhood simply wishing for time to go forward and then spend the rest of adulthood wanting to go back? Maybe I'm not asking to go back and start all over again and upon reflection? I'm not.  But what I wouldn't give for one last brisk autumn night in order to escort a mummy, a spider and a tiny pirate down down a leafy neighborhood street on a quest for candy.

Our Fearless Leader

 This, in more of a Pilgrim's Progress sort of way, is what my 2nd grade teacher looked like. Even for a rule follower like myself, Mrs. Roach could be and was frequently terrifying.

A stern, pale, and skull-faced woman of late middle age who pulled her hair back in a no-nonsense bun, my teacher wore what were commonly referred to as "cat eye" glasses and her mouth was a horizontal slash of red, courtesy of the House of Avon. She wore dresses with slips underneath, silk hose and high heels with pointy toes. Every single day.  Mrs. Roach pulling her Pontiac into the teacher's parking lot in a pair of stretch pants would have have been no less shocking than discovering an aproned minotaur in a hairnet serving up tater tots in the cafeteria on Hamburger Day.

When it was time for math, you did not ask why and then pretend to lose your pencil. You had at least five other Eberhard Fabers (always sharpened) in the "side pocket" of your desk which you lined with a brown paper towel so that pencils and crayons didn't fall through the holes. When it was time for handwriting, you did not cleverly substitute the capital "S" in your last name with a treble clef  (even though they sort of looked the same) unless you wanted it circled in red pen with a note to erase and do it over. When it was time to read aloud, you did so in hopes of hearing a "Nicely done!" before she selected another victim student.  That was high praise enough. We didn't need or expect a 21 gun salute and an application to MENSA.

When accused of chewing gum in her class you did not roll your eyes and say, "I don't HAVE any gum" in an exasperated tone which--although-- technically true because you were chewing something, it wasn't gum. It was Captain Crunch. Because you didn't have breakfast that morning (As if that was somehow her problem or responsibility. But go ahead and suggest to her that it was her responsibility and then wait for the Apocalypse.) Better yet, have your parent do it. Same result.

You did not try to be the class clown by burping words to the Pledge of Allegiance or ask her if this was her "real hair" or if she dyed it.  When she asked for your homework you did not fix her with a smarmy grin and tell her you didn't do it because "I was busy".  The only notes you wrote in class had damn well better be from the assignment on "How to Write a Letter To a Friend" and not to your actual friend who had a different teacher altogether who wouldn't have cared if that same friend spent a brief moment of class time reading your synopsis of last night's episode of "The Monkees".

If you were told to carry a sealed envelope home to your parents, you were clueless about its contents and you did not ask. It could have been a letter about a PTA matter or a request to have you publicly flogged. It mattered not because it wasn't any of your damn business because it wasn't addressed to you and hiding it for two weeks inside your copy of Encyclopedia Brown wasn't going to make it go away.  Later, your parents weren't ever going to go all Liza Minnelli crazy when questioning Mrs. Roach like she was at her own trial because you didn't bring the note home. Why?? Because that was a parenting issue and your parents--God love them--were smart enough to know it.  However, your ass would be--as they say--grass even though the note was about being a homeroom mother, you paranoid maniac.

Had the internet existed back when you were a kid, Mrs Roach would have been listed on Wikipedia as the country's seventeenth line of defense. Just ahead of the Boy Scouts.

Mrs. Roach was a teacher, not a convenient doormat to be stepped on by lazy-ass parents who expected her to offer free tutoring for class days missed because of a surprise birthday trip to Carlsbad Caverns which necessitated lying about being sick for two days so that it would be excused. She wasn't about to be trifled with or disrespected during professional development seminars by being asked to remove her teacher hat for the day and pretend to be a student learning the same shit she was already teaching in real class. One didn't tell Mrs. Roach that she would be taking and grading work from any and all children who had sufficient time to turn in their assignments but didn't do so....for five weeks.

And if someone told her that she would be expected to tiptoe around a mentally ill student who hears voices that tell her to do bad things and if said student was demonstrating those bad things in class and began to otherwise act strangely like having a conversation with her own shoe, and that she--Mrs. Roach-- was required to halt the educational process for everyone else in the class, hit the panic button on the wall and then step ALONE(?) into the hall with said mentally ill student and wait until help came? Well...Mrs. Roach would have poured those people a big old glass of OH HELL NO and stood calmly while they drank it down with a side of KISS MY ASS cookies. Guaranteed Mrs. Roach did not have to aid her nightly sleep with  five melatonin and a martini chaser because even though she was required to dress like June Cleaver and she was paid like crap and the moral turpitude clause in her contract prohibited her from being seen buying or consuming alcohol, she was respected. By everyone. Or they did a really good job at pretending. Period.

It's not hard to see why my colleagues and I look wistfully into the rearview mirror and sigh before pouring ourselves another stiff drink. Even on a good day, I'm forced to behave less like Mrs. Roach and more like the friendless kid who converses with her sandwich. We live in an era where teachers are everyone's whipping boy and--like my friend Nance says, no one's boss. I live for the days when I can say "no" or "yes" and actually be granted permission to follow through on my own decisions. Sure, I'm allowed to wear pants, but only in the literal sense. Never in the figurative.

But I can hoist a glass and so I do. Here's to you, Mrs. Roach.

Crumbs

1) I get bored easily and a fresh blog look can often bring me back to the keyboard. You're welcome.

2) I modeled a love for books with all of our children and--as a teacher of middle and high school English--I'm called upon to practice what I preach. Unfortunately, the demands of my job don't allow for reading anything pleasurable between the hours of  5:45 am until 6:00 pm, which are the hours when I'm most likely teaching or grading. After 6 I'm trying to eat, take in a yoga class or sleep. Today I took a "personal day" which entailed two doctor's appointments, paying bills, doing dishes, grocery shopping and attending a mid-day yoga class. Also? I read. Some. It was lovely. Because I did not go to work.


3) I love the show "Parenthood", but I don't think Kristina Braverman should run for mayor of Berkeley on the Education platform because I'm bored with that plot line, but in real life it's realistic. Want to know why? Because politicians don't know crap about schools and they only wind up making stuff worse. The only people who have any influence to move shit around are parents, which is unfortunate and the reason for that is because districts are deathly afraid of lawsuits. Want to turn on-level literacy classes into a hot stew of varying abilities/diagnoses/learning levels where only one teacher is expected to serve everyone? Ask a parent. So you say downtown hasn't addressed the broken HVAC issue at your school? Ask a parent (because you know damn well they don't care if the teachers are uncomfortable). Want to bring a visit to the modern art museum to a grinding halt because you're afraid that your baby might see a picture of a naked body? Ask a parent. I could go on...but I won't. Whining makes me tired. And I'm okay with somebody addressing the temperature controls in my classroom.

4) Growing up I watched "Room 222" on ABC and dreamed of teaching at Walt Whitman High. I never suspected that I would be teaching high school level English years later in a futuristic building where kids would never know know who Walt Whitman was were it not for their enthusiasm for Walter White aka Heisenberg.

5) I dreamed about Islamic Jihadists last night and how they were attacking random suburban neighborhoods with guns. In one dream I saw that they had killed Walter White. I really need to watch what I eat/drink before I go to bed.

6)  Turning the pages of an e-book is not the same thing as turning them in a real book. Maybe that makes me a dinosaur.

7) This year is so much better than last year as far as school goes. I have some awesome students and my teacher-peeps are wonderful. However, I've traded my wonderful former principal for one whom I don't trust and parents who "helicopter" constantly if they think their baby isn't being served as one might a reigning monarch of a European principality.

8) I am the oldest person in the English department.  In many ways it makes me smarter, but it also makes me feel self-conscious. Especially when I look in the mirror.

9) I  don't know how to end this post. Someone help me.

Work Email In Box:

Dear Teachers

It has come to our attention that some of you feel your 30 minute duty-free lunch is being compromised when parents show up for unscheduled conferences while you are eating.  Please know that while we support your right to a noon meal 100%, we hope you will still make every visitor to our building feel welcome by addressing their requests in an interested and efficient manner. If you feel such an encounter has unnecessarily intruded on your private moment with last night's reheated leftovers, keep a strict accounting of your missed minutes, enter them onto an Excel spread sheet of your own making,  submit it to our already overworked secretary and she will repay your lost time with a 50% OFF coupon for dry erase markers. Please do not remove any school-funded supplies from campus.  

Thanks for all you do!!
__________________________________________________________________________

 Faculty:

To ensure that every learning day is focused on teaching excellence from "bell to bell", we discourage any teacher-led activity which might distract from the objectives at hand. We must teach to the test ready our students for the end of the year and all that this entails. Please refrain from imparting information which isn't covered on the test is not expressly mentioned in the curriculum. We LOVE it when you are creative, however content which veers sharply from tested materials targeting the intended concepts does not contribute to an optimal learning environment. Every classroom minute counts!!

Additionally--we ask that, following the Pledge of Allegiance, the state pledge, school pledge and  moment of silence, you devote a consistent part of each and every morning to a student uniform check, chewing gum check, attendance check and tardy count. Please help the office clerk by collecting the brown Beginning of Year envelopes containing emergency cards, free lunch forms, media release, home language survey and PTA membership form. Use the attached spread sheet to record forms turned in and keep track of all forms not signed or turned in. Please do this every day.

REMEMBER! MANY HANDS MAKE LIGHT WORK!!!!

________________________________
URGENT TO ALL TEACHERS!

  Students may not carry a backpack to class after the first week of school. If a student persists on bringing the backpack to class and you feel you MUST confront student, you must lawyer up first contact parent (phone/email/conference) for permission to enforce a district/school/classroom policy. We repeat: Parents must be totally cool with any rule you are required to uphold before you can go forward with it. After you have received approval, wait one week for angry parent to go over your head to call downtown and complain. Then, check the computer system for evidence of a 504, IEP or BIP which might provide the student with special permission to carry one of the following: blackjack  (sorry...this is currently not yet approved) backpack, emergency water, emergency Gatorade, low blood sugar snacks, emergency candy, cell phone, inhaler, epipen, hand-held/battery-controlled fan (for hot days!), small pillow (for sleepy days!), iPod (comforting music for those with anger issues), worry rock, pet rock, Rubik's Cube, ice pack. Please attempt to address these issues outside of class. It's all about the learning!!!!

DID YOU EVER KNOW THAT YOU'RE OUR HERO??????
_______________________________________________________
Faculty and staff:

Students may not be allowed in hallways before 8:30 a.m!!  This is a safety issue and it is of the utmost importance that we work together to discourage loitering, isolated moments between adolescent students, potential vandalism or theft. Students must have an official pass from a teacher before being allowed to enter the school during non-instructional hours. Of course, some exceptions can be made. For your convenience we have provided a list of those students who may not be approached or questioned about their presence in the hallways during non-instructional hours:

*Students with a pass signed by a teacher
*Students who had a pass signed by a teacher and then lost it
*Band students
*Choir members
*Students being tutored.
*Students who say they are being tutored but you know damn well it's a lie.
*Students whose mothers are on the PTA board and get testy when you don't let their children retrieve their cheerleading "pom-pons" from their lockers.
*Cheerleaders
*Spirit Team
*Coach's "helpers"
*Team managers
*Any female student claiming she is having her period. (Do not confront!!)
*Students retrieving instrument from locker
*Students placing instrument in locker by mistake and then coming back again to get it.
*Students with no pass but whose indignant parent is accompanying them.
**6th grade peer tutors
**7th grade free breakfast eaters
**8th grade Whiz Quiz kids
*White Board Monitors.
*Office Assistants
*New students
*Any student with a mysterious rash needing to see the nurse.
*Angry parents with no appointment and a small-caliber weapon.

All others must remain outside until bell rings!!

TEACHERS!!  YOU'RE THE WIND BENEATH OUR WINGS!!! SERIOUSLY!!!

_________________________________________

Note from Attendance Clerk:

Some teachers are still not pausing to take electronic roll every class period!! Dammit, people!!
The following teachers are screwing it up for the rest of us:

Coach Jones
Coach Shannon
Coach Tribble
Coach Mayhew
Coach Overton
Coach Longstreet-Preston
Coach Hayes
Mrs. Peckinpaugh

____________________________________________________________
FROM THE SUPERINTENDENT TO ALL TEACHERS:

It has come to our attention that your respective unions have advised teachers to question the seemingly mountainous amount of clerical paperwork being required of them. While it is true that such work was previously the domain of office staff members at the campus level, budget cutbacks demand that these tasks fall on the apparently too-delicate shoulders of our teaching compatriots. My bad!

 In compliance with the Paperwork Reduction Act we are now obligated to work around any and all legal prohibitions by limiting your paper workload to only those tasks which are directly relevant to the teaching day (ie: student work, grade book, lesson planning tools/forms and professional training materials).

If you feel unnecessary paper duties have been thrust upon you, please record any and all incidents (including date, time, place, reason, person who asked you and a detailed account of the paperwork's educational value) on an Excel spreadsheet of your own making. Please make extra copies for your records as well as those for your campus as well as one for me. Please submit the entire packet to your principal in person. You'll be sorrrryyy! And then wait.

REMEMBER: THAT WHICH DOES NOT KILL US MAKES US STRONGER!

Yours for the children,
Superintendent Clay

Why Aunt Bea Can't Make Pickles (And Other Mysteries of My Summer)

Some of you don't know this yet, but you make a lot promises to yourself once you anticipate the heady cocktail that is equal parts Empty Nest Syndrome and Public School Teacher's Summer Vacation. On paper, however, it looks like the last and very sad Bucket List of a person who aims only for the lowest hanging fruit, due to its complete lack of anything interesting or worth doing. Of course, it must also be said that this same list was compiled by a shell shocked adult who spent the last 10 months waiting for permission to use the bathroom. Because they were serving time in the pen busy teaching someone's littlest angel how to read or multiply. It bears consideration. Be gentle with me.

So this might explain how some of the following items--both crucial and trivial--landed on my Summer "To Do" list.

1) Start running again. Let's avoid a legalistic application of the word running since that conjures unnecessarily flattering visuals of Jackie Joyner Kersee which don't apply to me. What I'm doing involves walking the curving portions of the nearby university's track complex and then sprinting the "straights". Who are we kidding? It's less like sprinting and more like hurrying. Carefully. As if I am carrying a priceless crystal bowl filled with angrily swimming piranha. It's all about the baby steps.

2) Blogged more. Uh...next?

3) More yoga. I absolutely have begun practicing more than ever before. Somewhere between 5-6 classes per week. Flying Scissors, anyone?

4) Read more books. Before summer happened, I ritually blamed work for getting in the way of my lifelong book habit. Once I packed up my old classroom, I've found that I can point an accusing finger at Facebook, blogs (other people's...not mine) and my oldest friend--television-- for drastically impeding  my literary intake this summer. I think I read 13 books last summer and I only read 10 this time around. However, it's important to remember that blogs are writing and all television is also writing except you read it with your ears, so we're all even on that count.

5) Buy all new school clothes/shoes. I've found a couple of clothing websites that seem to comply with our district's new "work appropriate"jihad style prohibitions prescription for teachers. My personal version is a hybrid of casual and professional while also being comfortable. Not quite pajama comfortable so I appear to be settling in on the sofa with a tube of raw cookie dough waiting for a "Facts of Life" marathon, but definitely something that works for me mainly because I don't want to cry when I put it on. Now all I have to do is find footwear that does the same. Unfortunately, our district seems to be conflicted as to appropriate foot coverings for teachers during the hellishly hot months of August and September (also April, May and June). The arguments over, "Is it a sandal or is it a flip-flop?" have shamefully dominated more administrative meetings in our area than I care to count.  I'm going to let those jagweeds downtown worry about whether my shoes slap my heels when I walk across the room or whether they have a strap across the back or are mostly made out of rubber. I've too busy teaching my 8th graders about the importance of Atticus Finch as a male role model.

6) Changed the batteries in my bathroom scales. Something's afoul with those scales and I'm tired of having a bi-polar experience every time I step on them. One minute the numbers on the digital read out would suggest that I have a couple of anvils stuffed into my pants pockets. Five minutes later I have apparently lost the kind of weight that it would take three violent bouts of food poisoning and a water pill to pull off. It's maddening.

7)  Make homemade salsa. Since February, I have had Pinterest-infected hallucinations where I am making my own salsa and then getting so good at it that by Christmas, I have only to invest in a few dozen Ball jars and some festive ribbon to have my yearly neighbor/friend holiday gift conundrum solved. Unfortunately, this seemingly simple and enjoyable project has proved a bridge too far for yours truly. Not only have I not done this or even looked into what making it might entail, but I haven't even used the food processor this summer. It's too much like cooking and with the current heat wave afflicting our state, the mere thought makes my brain all hurt-y.

8) Pervasive Mystery A: After a comprehensive study of "The Andy Griffith Show" involving TVLand's Morning Lineup and my own boxed sets of Seasons 1-4, I have come no closer to understanding why Opie Taylor's Aunt Bea can fry a chicken, mash a potato, serve up buttery homemade biscuits and bake the hell out of a pie, but can't seem to make a decent pickle that doesn't taste like it was boiled in a pot of ant spray. It's a real puzzler.

9) Pervasive Mystery B: Why is it that every time I stumble across unwarranted and hostile diatribes written by Facebook trolls, they are almost always rendered in the most excruciatingly inarticulate examples of spelling, grammar and basic punctuation. "YOUR AN IDOIT AND I BLAM ALL THE WORLDS TORNADOSS ON OBAMA. IT HIS FALT THE FLOODS TO  AND U CAN CHEK IT ALL ON SNOPS COUSE IT ALL TRUE." 

I'd cry if I weren't already laughing so hard.  What did you do this summer?