Merry Christmas

Merry Christmas from our family to yours!

Link

I wasn't going to post any more before Christmas, but I loved this article in the Wall Street Journal: Can Tolstoy Save Your Marriage by Alain de Botton.

Making a list

I'd like to leave a post here about our handmade Christmas gifts and all the traditions we've been practicing and happy memories made, but since I would be lying, instead I'll just wish everyone a Merry Christmas.  We leave before the morning star rises tomorrow morning to return to the land of my birth, the land of snow and ice, the land a long 12 hour drive north. 

The car is packed. The pets have gone to their vacation homes. The mail is stopped. The playlists are updated. Most of the gifts are stowed in secret spots. The coffee pot is ready to brew a pot to go. But I leave many items unfinished. On the other hand, I also am leaving behind worrying about whether I got just the right thing, or that I didn't get Christmas letters in the mail yet, or that I never did get around to making all the cookies the kids wanted. We did make it to Confession today, and now all those priority to-do items don't seem quite so important. I'm sorry for being snappish and selfish about my agenda all these days of Advent. I hope the kids don't grow up with memories of their mother the grinch.

Maybe on the long drive I'll get around to reading some of those Christmas stories I meant to read to them.

We did find time to take a matchy Christmas photo at the souvenir shop. At least the dog smiled.



Happy Birthday, Jane Austen!

http://www.literaryhistory.com/19thC/AUSTEN.htm

UK google users got to see this:

http://www.mediabistro.com/galleycat/files/2010/12/janeausten.png

Today also marks nine days before Christmas - time to start praying the O Antiphons.

Veni, O Sapientia,

quae hic disponis omnia,

veni, viam prudentiae

ut doceas et gloriae.

Gaude, gaude, Emmanuel

Nascetur pro te, Israel.

**************************************************

O come, Thou Wisdom, from on high,

and order all things far and nigh;

to us the path of knowledge show,

and teach us in her ways to go.

Rejoice! Rejoice!

Emmanuel shall come to thee, O Israel!

Irony

A To-Do List:

People, look east. The time is near
Of the crowning of the year.
Make your house fair as you are able,
Trim the hearth and set the table.

... and don't forget to wrap your front porch manikin in a warm robe:

Decking the hall

It’s taken a couple weeks, but now, just in time for the Feast of the Immaculate Conception, it seems Advent has officially arrived at our house. The announcement that a new niece joined our family in the wee hours of the morning has provided a boost to the spirit of festivity. What a good day to celebrate a birth! Our celebration has been limited to eating marshmallows for breakfast and participating in a nice long school mass. Tonight we’ll journey forth in the cold night air to attend the school band concert, the fifth amateur performance we’ve attended since Friday, and then we will toast Mary’s sinless birth by indulging in sinfully sweet desserts.

After a late start, what with Thanksgiving travels, leftover laundry, and someplace to be every night last week, we finally revived some of our Advent traditions this past weekend in order to welcome St. Nicholas on Monday. The kids put a few ornaments on the Jesse tree (still haven’t found the book with the readings – might help if I looked for it), and I opened a box of Christmas decor to place around the living room: squashed red bows, sparkle stars, a few out of shape artificial wreaths. I roasted a chicken and sweet potatoes, threw together some rolls and opened a can of cranberry sauce for a festive Sunday dinner. We lit the second candle, said some prayers from the Catholic Family Prayer book, and set our shoes by the door.

The Jesse tree ornaments come and go, depending on the pre-schooler's whims.

Ready for St. Nicholas Day. He gifted us with chocolate coins, real coins, candy canes, and an elf, our one new ornament.

There’s an ad on the radio about expired Christmas ornaments from 1988. What you’re supposed to do after hearing this jingle is rush out to the store and buy new decorations for this year. Most of our ornaments look like they’re from 1988, and some, hand-me-downs from my grandparents, are actually a lot older. I don’t have any plans to replace them. They all have sentimental value worth more than the impression shiny new coordinated décor would make. My first shopping expedition at the end of last week overwhelmed my senses – I felt like I needed to crawl in a hole, like a kid with that sensory processing disorder. Instead I lashed out at my husband. Then we had to go be jolly at a Christmas party with his co-workers. At least the food was good.

Fortunately, the weekend improved. After a good rest, we made our apologies and started over. Maybe it was the act of reconciliation, or the readings at Mass on Sunday, or hearing the message of self-gift reiterated at the performance of “A Christmas Carol” at the Community College, but by the end of the weekend, Advent finally seemed to have begun in our home.

(Some hand-me-downs with photos of some of the benefactors. Can you find Betty Duffy?)

Like Melanie, we’re having a slow Advent: no cookies yet, no outdoor lights, but we’re slowly dragging out the ornaments and reliving the memories attached to them. We’ve found our Christmas music, the kids are practicing for their pageant, and each night they take a turn praying “Jesus Christ is the light of the world; Come, Lord Jesus, Come,” as they light the candles. They have taken the initiative to move the wise men and Mary and Joseph around the dining room closer to the nativity set. They count down the days until we’ll pack up and head north to see family. The feeling of hopeful anticipation is palpable.

Note the bow - this ribbon is circa 1975. It has held up well - very sustainable. Looks like Mary and Joseph have already found the stable.

In Honor of the Naval Construction Battalions

Happy Birthday, Seabees!

The Song of the Seabees

(1943)

Words by Sam M. Lewis

Music by Peter de Rose

We're the Seabees of the Navy

We can build and we can fight

We'll pave the way to victory

And guard it day and night

And we promise that we remember

The "Seventh of December"

We're the Seabees of the Navy

Bees of the Seven Seas

The Navy wanted men

That's where we came in

Mister Brown and Mister Jones

The Owens, the Cohens and Flynn

The Navy wanted more

Of Uncle Sammy's kin

So we all joined up

And brother we're in to win

http://www.navy.mil/navydata/personnel/seabees/seabee1.html

(another attempt to woo my spouse.)

Keeping with the list theme

It always makes my day when I catch "Writer's Almanac" on the radio. I know I could go to the NPR website and read it, but part of the experience is Garrison Keillor's voice.  So I learned that today is not only Pearl Harbor Day, and the birthday of the Seabees (maybe we'll let the kids watch John Wayne and the Fighting Seabees tonight while we are at a reception for veterans - a rare weeknight date!), it is also the birthday of Willa Cather, born in 1873.  She has been one of my favorite authors, and after my grandfather introduced me to her writings, I spent my summer vacation money at the little bookstore on the copies of her books with beautifully illustrated covers.  I am reminded that I meant to reread One of Ours this year after rereading My Antonia and Death Comes for the Archbishop in the recent past.

But I just spent way too much time filling out this meme from Melanie so I don't have time to read anything.

1. Favorite childhood book?
I think I’d have to go with the Anne of Green Gables books.

2. What are you reading right now?
The Lost Hero by Rick Riordan – trying to catch up with the kids. Also almost done reading By the Shores of Plum Creek, our sometimes outloud chapter book. Nearly finished with Coming Down the Mountain, my post-retreat book. Not sure that I’m going to finish An Arsonists Guide to Writer’s Homes in New England.

3. What books do you have on request at the library?
The Lost Hero was my last request. I’m debating about requesting Parched for Reading for Believers or buying it.


4. Bad book habit?
Starting to read when I should be turning out the light to sleep.
5. What do you currently have checked out at the library?
The Lost Hero, The Way to Paradise by Mario Vargas Llosa, and a big stack of kids’ books.
6. Do you have an e-reader?
No.
7. Do you prefer to read one book at a time or several at once?
See above. Several at once.

8. Have your reading habits changed since starting a blog?
I used to read more before starting to read blogs and occasionally write one. But I like reading other people’s recommendations and keeping tabs of what I’ve read on the sidebar. I meant to write more about what I read, but so it goes.

9. Least favorite book you read this year?
Hmm, Maybe World Without End by Ken Follett
10. Favorite book you’ve read this year?
Tough one.


11. How often do you read out of your comfort zone?
Hmm, I tend to stay away from romance novels and erotica.
12. What is your reading comfort zone?
A hot cup of tea and a blanket, thermostat at 65 ... not sure – I don’t read a lot of non-fiction, except essays.


13. Can you read on the bus?
On the bus, in the car, on a train, on a plane, in the bathroom…
14. Favorite place to read?
It used to be my green chair, but now it is probably my bed. But I do most of my best reading standing in the bathroom.

15. What is your policy on book lending?
I don’t get many requests, but I don’t make many offers.

16. Do you ever dog-ear books?
Frequently, if I own the book and want to talk about it to someone.
17. Do you ever write in the margins of your books?
I sometimes underline or star a quote.

18. Not even with text books?
Still sticking with underlining

19. What is your favorite language to read in?
English. Although I recently purchased Olivia in Latin.


20. What makes you love a book?
Book Karma. Or maybe interesting characters, lyrical diction, fascinating insights to the human heart, etc.

21. What will inspire you to recommend a book?
I loved it and I think that someone else will love it too. – I’m copying Melanie here.

22. Favorite genre?
Hard to pick. But I love most British and American novels of the first half of the 20th century.
23. Genre you rarely read (but wish you did)?
If I rarely read it, I probably don't wish I did. Dittoing Melanie again.
24. Favorite biography?
My favorite (only) this year was Eudora Welty on William Faulkner
25. Have you ever read a self-help book?
Yes – more than one. Like Melanie, mostly parenting and home-schooling books, but also books on prayer, and recently the 7 Habits of Highly Successful Teens. But I don’t think they helped myself much.

26. Favorite cookbook?
I love A Continual Feast by Evelyn Birge Vitz – a great primer on living a Catholic home life, but our go-to cookbooks are the Pillsbury Bake-off Cookbook we received for a wedding present and the album of recipes my mother-in-law put together. My favorite literary cookbook is How to Cook A Wolf by MFK Fisher.

27. Most inspirational book you’ve read this year (fiction or nonfiction)?
I think the Peter Kreeft book on prayer.

28. Favorite reading snack?
Cereal or chocolate chips or both.

29. Name a case in which hype ruined your reading experience.
Unlike Melanie I liked The Penderwicks, but I was disappointed in Jewel by Brett Lott and Remarkable Creatures by Tracy Chevalier.

30. How often do you agree with critics about a book?
Sometimes.
31. How do you feel about giving bad/negative reviews?
Depends on how strongly I feel about the book


32. If you could read in a foreign language, which language would you choose?
I wish I knew Spanish.


33. Most intimidating book you’ve ever read?
I found time to read War and Peace in college.
34. Most intimidating book you’re too nervous to begin?
Once I checked out Proust.

35. Favorite poet?
The one I read most often is Wendell Berry. But how can you top Shakespeare? Recently reread Hopkins’ “Pied Beauty” – delightful.

36. How many books do you usually have checked out of the library at any given time?
It depends on how many I have out for the kids. My reading and library visits have declined drastically since taking a job and giving up homeschooling.

37. How often have you returned books to the library unread?
Seldom.

38. Favorite fictional character?
Like Melanie, I can’t pick one.
39. Favorite fictional villain?
Saruman?

40. Books I’m most likely to bring on vacation?Something long.

41. The longest I’ve gone without reading.
A handful of days.
42. Name a book that you could/would not finish.

Sartor Resartoris. The Old Curiosity House. That Philip Roth book.

43. What distracts you easily when you’re reading?

Small children. Blogs
44. Favorite film adaptation of a novel?

Pride and Prejudice miniseries. Ditto Melanie

45. Most disappointing film adaptation?

The first Harry Potter movie was a disappointment to me, but I liked the most recent – maybe because it has been awhile since I read the seventh book.
46. The most money I’ve ever spent in the bookstore at one time?

No idea.


47. How often do you skim a book before reading it?

A lot of books from the library I’ll flip through and not check out.

48. What would cause you to stop reading a book half-way through?

A book that can’t keep me awake when reading at night.



49. Do you like to keep your books organized?

In a way that makes sense to me.

50. Do you prefer to keep books or give them away once you’ve read them?

I prefer to get books I don’t think I’ll read again from the library. Once I own a book I don’t like to give it away.

51. Are there any books you’ve been avoiding?

Atonement – I want to forget the movie before I read the book.

52. Name a book that made you angry.

Julie and Julia. And a Philip Roth book that I didn’t finish and an early Neil Gaiman book, Stardust.

53. A book you didn’t expect to like but did?

I was surprised by Caryl Houselander’s Reed of God. And something reminded me the other day of how much I enjoyed Dr. Strange and Mr. Norrell a couple years ago.

54. A book that you expected to like but didn’t?

Julie and Julia is the most recent disappointment.

55. Favorite guilt-free, pleasure reading?

Children’s chapter books – Ramona, Little House on the Prairie, Rick Riordan... and Jane Austen.

Another List

Today I went to a short professional development session on "Teaching Millenials." I was hoping for a few more practical tips, but the tips were limited to "use technology" and "provide opportunities for group projects and teamwork," ideas I'm aware of, although I don't incorporate them often. The presenter focused primarily on stereotypical characteristics of the Millenial generation and the three generations preceding. I noticed that he left out one characteristic that my generation, Gen X, shares with the Millenials - we like to make playlists as gifts.  There's a "Truly Pathetic Love Song" tape still floating around in our car (which has a tape deck), one of the first gifts I gave my husband, back in college when he was getting ready to go away for a year in Rome. (Proof of Memorex's enduring quality?) We'd only been dating a few months, so maybe it was a little bold of me to send him a bunch of sappy love songs, but then he made me one, too. Sweet!!When he went away this past spring to Afghanistan, I made another love song mix, this time from the Itunes songs we have. And now, because I'm trying to butter him up, here's a list of those songs. Some are from the original mix.

• In Your Eyes – Peter Gabriel
• You Are the Everything – REM
• Fall On Me –REM
• Strong Enough – Sheryl Crow
• I Shall Believe – Sheryl Crow
• Better than ice cream – Sarah McLachlan
• Don’t You Forget About Me – Simple Minds
• Joy – The Sundays
• All I Want is You – U2
• Brown Eyed Girl – Van Morrison
• Don’t Let Me Be Lonely Tonight – James Taylor
• How Sweet It Is – James Taylor
•  Follow Me – John Denver
• Walking ON Sunshine – Katrina and the Waves
• Stay – Lisa Loeb
• Anyone Else But You – Moldy Peaches
• Come Away With Me – Norah Jones
• Turn Me On – Norah Jones
• The Nearness of You – Norah Jones
•  Livin’ On Love – Alan Jackson
• Home - Alan Jackson
• I’d Love you All Over Again – Alan Jackson
• When You Say Nothing At All – Alison Krauss
• The Lucky One – Alison Krauss
• If I Had a Million Dollars – Barenaked Ladies
• She Talks To Angels – Black Crowes
• She’s Always a Woman – Billy Joel
• You’ve Made Me so Very Happy – Blood Sweat and Tears
• I’ll See you Soon – Coldplay
• Longer – Dan Fogelberg
• Crash Into Me – Dave Matthews
• Lover Lay Down – Dave Matthews
• Wonderful Tonight – Eric Clapton
• More Than Words- Extreme
• Your Song – Ewan MacGregor
• We Make A Lot of Love – Harry Connick, Jr
• Better Together – Jack Johnson
• If I Could – Jack Johnson
• Banana Pancakes – Jack Johnson
• Do You Remember – Jack Johnson

 

 

Just to post something and because I love lists

I still haven't quite put all the laundry from Thanksgiving away, but I did finally put away the pumpkin candle holder and paper turkeys and pull out the Advent wreath (note to self: put it on the top of the box next year) and the Jesse Tree. (Every year I think I'm going to remake this thing that I made with felt and a glue gun with some help from toddlers who are now teenagers, but the kids taped it up before I got around to fixing it. My youngest asked yesterday whether my little lamb was a birthday cake.) How could over a week have passed since we left the house - that means only 2 weeks left before we leave again? Why are we thinking that a trip from the Deep South to the Midwest to New England and back home down through the Mid- Atlantic is a good idea? Think of all the reading time! And so here is this list of some books that maybe I should try to read.

I copied this meme from Worthwhile Books who got it here.



Here are the instructions. I'm not going to tag anyone though.

BBC Meme on the Classics

The BBC claims that most people haven't read more than six on the list

How many of these have you read?

Instructions: Bold those books you've read in their entirety. Italicize the ones you started but didn't finish or read an excerpt. Tag other book nerds. Tag me as well so I can see your responses!

1. Pride and Prejudice – Jane Austen

2. The Lord of the Rings – JRR Tolkien

3. Jane Eyre – Charlotte Bronte

4. Harry Potter series – JK Rowling

5. To Kill a Mockingbird – Harper Lee

6. The Bible

7. Wuthering Heights – Emily Bronte

8. Nineteen Eighty Four – George Orwell
9. His Dark Materials – Philip Pullman
10.Great Expectations – Charles Dickens

11. Little Women – Louisa M Alcott

12. Tess of the D’Urbervilles – Thomas Hardy

13. Catch 22 – Joseph Heller

14. Complete Works of Shakespeare (maybe not complete - but more than half?)
15. Rebecca – Daphne Du Maurier

16. The Hobbit – JRR Tolkien
17. Birdsong – Sebastian Faulks
18. The Catcher in the Rye – JD Salinger

19. The Time Traveller’s Wife – Audrey Niffenegger

20. Middlemarch – George Eliot

21. Gone With The Wind – Margaret Mitchell

22. The Great Gatsby – F Scott Fitzgerald
23. Bleak House – Charles Dickens
24. War and Peace – Leo Tolstoy
25. The Hitch Hiker’s Guide to the Galaxy – Douglas Adams
26. Brideshead Revisited – Evelyn Waugh

27. Crime and Punishment – Fyodor Dostoyevsky

28. Grapes of Wrath – John Steinbeck

29. Alice in Wonderland – Lewis Carroll

30. The Wind in the Willows – Kenneth Grahame

31. Anna Karenina – Leo Tolstoy
32. David Copperfield – Charles Dickens

33. Chronicles of Narnia – CS Lewis

34. Emma – Jane Austen

35. Persuasion – Jane Austen

36. The Lion, The Witch and The Wardrobe – CS Lewis (repetitive see 33)

37. The Kite Runner – Khaled Hosseini
38. Captain Corelli’s Mandolin – Louis De Berniere  (saw the (bad acting by Nicholas Cage) Movie ...)
39. Memoirs of a Geisha – Arthur Golden
40. Winnie the Pooh – AA Milne

41. Animal Farm – George Orwell

42. The Da Vinci Code – Dan Brown

43. One Hundred Years of Solitude – Gabriel Garcia Marquez
44. A Prayer for Owen Meaney – John Irving

45. The Woman in White – Wilkie Collins

46. Anne of Green Gables – LM Montgomery

47. Far From The Madding Crowd – Thomas Hardy

48. The Handmaid’s Tale – Margaret Atwood

49. Lord of the Flies – William Golding
50. Atonement – Ian McEwan  (again, saw the movie...)
51. Life of Pi – Yann Martel
52. Dune – Frank Herbert
53. Cold Comfort Farm – Stella Gibbons
54. Sense and Sensibility – Jane Austen
55. A Suitable Boy – Vikram Seth
56. The Shadow of the Wind – Carlos Ruiz Zafon
57. A Tale Of Two Cities – Charles Dickens
58. Brave New World – Aldous Huxley
59. The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-time – Mark Haddon
60. Love In The Time Of Cholera – Gabriel Garcia Marquez
61. Of Mice and Men – John Steinbeck

62. Lolita – Vladimir Nabokov

63. The Secret History – Donna Tartt

64. The Lovely Bones – Alice Sebold

65. Count of Monte Cristo – Alexandre Dumas
66. On The Road – Jack Kerouac

67. Jude the Obscure – Thomas Hardy
68. Bridget Jones’s Diary – Helen Fielding
69. Midnight’s Children – Salman Rushdie
70. Moby Dick – Herman Melville71. Oliver Twist – Charles Dickens

72. Dracula – Bram Stoker

73. The Secret Garden – Frances Hodgson Burnett
74. Notes From A Small Island – Bill Bryson (Walk in the Woods, Short History)
75. Ulysses – James Joyce

76. The Bell Jar – Sylvia Plath

77. Swallows and Amazons – Arthur Ransome

78. Germinal – Emile Zola (Red and the Black)
79. Vanity Fair – William Makepeace Thackeray

80. Possession – AS Byatt

81. A Christmas Carol – Charles Dickens
82. Cloud Atlas – David Mitchell
83. The Color Purple – Alice Walker
84. The Remains of the Day – Kazuo Ishiguro
85. Madame Bovary – Gustave Flaubert

86. A Fine Balance – Rohinton Mistry (I own this...time to take up....)
87. Charlotte’s Web – EB White

88. The Five People You Meet In Heaven – Mitch Albom
89. Adventures of Sherlock Holmes – Sir Arthur Conan Doyle
90. The Faraway Tree Collection – Enid Blyton
91. Heart of Darkness – Joseph Conrad

92. The Little Prince – Antoine De Saint-Exupery
93. The Wasp Factory – Iain Banks
94. Watership Down – Richard Adams
95. A Confederacy of Dunces – John Kennedy Toole
96. A Town Like Alice – Nevil Shute
97. The Three Musketeers – Alexandre Dumas
98. Hamlet – William Shakespeare

99. Charlie and the Chocolate Factory – Roald Dahl

100. Les Miserables – Victor Hugo

Nearly 80%... but don't ask me for details about them.

Happy Thanksgiving!

I am thankful that I am not shopping for food right now. We're going to go spend some time in fellowship with the cousins and in-laws - my 9 months pregnant sister-in-law is probably scrubbing her floors in preparation for our arrival as I type. I'm really hoping she goes into labor, so we all can tag along to the hospital, and I can witness a baby being born. Even though I've been present for the births of six little darlings, I was always so flustered at the time. And I really want to hold a little baby. So I'm also thankful that our newest cousin (until the in utero one is born) will also be a part of this Thanksgiving celebration.

What I'm really thankful for is that we have such a good time with our siblings and parents.  I'm looking forward not only to six kinds of pie, but also to the comfortable fun of hanging out with family.  I could be cynical and say that distance has preserved our fondness for each other, but I'd rather believe that we genuinely enjoy each other's company. I never saw any irony in the Norman Rockwell painting.  The experience of distance gets buried under the memories of connection.

But even the long drive is something to anticipate - I want to get some reading done.

Happy feasting to everyone.

When it rains, it pours...

After months of not being tempted by a thing at the movie theater, I'm suddenly feeling overwhelmed with desire to go to the show. I'm hoping the theaters are going to offer some kind of season ticket discount for lovers of literary adaptations -- Harry Potter 7, pt 1, Jane Eyre, The Great Gatsby (why Leonardo?), The Tempest (Prospera?), a movie about King George VI called "The King's Speech," Gulliver's Travels (Jack Black?), a Coen brothers remake of True Grit ...

Quick Takes

See Jen for more.

1. Although my house is in shambles, and I’m constantly running late because I’m trying to do one more thing, and my kids haven’t eaten a decent meal since my husband had back to back trips first to Africa and then California, I love my little jobs.  That does not mean I am doing a good job at either. And I am doing a rotten job of coaching 4-5 yr old girls to play soccer. Last night my daughter and another girl on her own team pushed each other down in front of their own goal because they were fighting over who would score. That was after they fought over the ball and scored for the other team.

2. I am getting lots of positive feedback from my first job, teaching Latin at the elementary school 2 mornings a week (no cash value).  Maybe that is because we play games every other class for "review" (anyone know other vocab review games besides Pictionary, Charades, and Jeopardy?). Or perhaps I am popular now because I give out candy to students who memorize prayers and sayings or do worksheets since I can't give grades. I need a new rewards system now that I'm running out of recycled Halloween candy.

3. The other job, teaching Composition I and II at the community college (mini-minimal cash value), also only takes place 2 mornings a week for two hours a day. I suppose if I were to calculate my pay based on those hours, it might be a decent rate of compensation. I also go in to the school on Friday mornings to grade assignments and to talk to the other instructors in the faculty lounge.  And when the countless hours spent debating what I’ll say and do in those 2 hours, plus hours trying to figure out how to critique papers tactfully, are added together, I think I make about $1.22/hr.


4. The kids at the elementary school are boisterous and involved during our short sessions (25 mins each with 4 classes, 4th – 6th grade). They’ve particularly enjoyed the past couple of weeks we’ve spent talking about Roman/Greek mythology (culminating with a Jeopardy game). Lots of fans of Percy Jackson out there – which definitely made my job of paraphrasing myths easier.

Meanwhile at the community college, I feel like a stand-up comedian getting lobbed with tomatoes when I jabber on and on and am confronted with blank stares, snores, and the back side of iphones. But I finally had a couple students come see me in my little office, which means they are at least interested in passing. I didn’t want them to leave. Maybe I should keep tea and cookies handy?

5. One student had to come see me because she copied and pasted an article from the internet into the course dropbox (almost all of the coursework is turned in online). She was supposed to come in on Wednesday, but she didn’t show. I had myself worked up, imagining a hostile confrontation, a belligerent attack against my poor teaching skills, a rejection of learning. Instead, when she showed up this morning, she was apologetic, embarrassed, chastened. So I was able to take the merciful route and offer a zero on her paper instead of a zero for the course.


6. I can’t decide if what I love most about these jobs is doing the reading and research or being out in public with people. The students and other faculty members are fascinating. I don’t hang out on campus enough to people watch for any length of time, but there are a couple of students who are becoming familiar because their appearance is so unique. One is a girl who is tall and thin but has a congenital face deformation not unlike the boy in Mask. The first time I saw her, I adverted my eyes, much to my shame. Pretending to be preoccupied with my phone, I’m sure she sensed my discomfort.

The other person has a beautiful, pleasant face, but she is morbidly obese. The first few times I passed her she was sitting on a bench, and she smiled cheerfully and tossed out a pleasantry. (The campus is small enough for newcomers to stand out, I guess, or she’s just friendly, like 90% of the rest of the people around here.) But one day I was walking behind her and noticed how thick her legs were. She has to use a walker. I’m sure it’s uncouth of me to comment here, but I couldn’t help staring, again to my shame. My desire when talking to people with disabilities is to be friendly and natural, but my own selfish self-consciousness often betrays me.


7. These two poems by Ogden Nash might make our class more fun:

"I Do, I Will, I Have "



How wise I am to have instructed the butler
to instruct the first footman to instruct the second
footman to instruct the doorman to order my carriage;
I am about to volunteer a definition of marriage.
Just as I know that there are two Hagens, Walter and Copen,
I know that marriage is a legal and religious alliance entered
into by a man who can't sleep with the window shut and a
woman who can't sleep with the window open.
Moreover, just as I am unsure of the difference between
flora and fauna and flotsam and jetsam,
I am quite sure that marriage is the alliance of two people
one of whom never remembers birthdays and the other never forgetsam,
And he refuses to believe there is a leak in the water pipe or
the gas pipe and she is convinced she is about to asphyxiate or drown,
And she says Quick get up and get my hairbrushes off the
windowsill, it's raining in, and he replies Oh they're all right,
it's only raining straight down.
That is why marriage is so much more interesting than divorce,
Because it's the only known example of the happy meeting of
the immovable object and the irresistible force.
So I hope husbands and wives will continue to debate and
combat over everything debatable and combatable,
Because I believe a little incompatibility is the spice of life,
particularly if he has income and she is pattable.







"A Word to Husbands "


To keep your marriage brimming
With love in the loving cup,
Whenever you’re wrong, admit it;
Whenever you’re right, shut up.

both on http://www.poemhunter.com

Now read this...

As I mentioned a few posts ago, I’m now a paid working mother with a job teaching at the local community college. Only five classes are left before finals. (I’m crossing my fingers to get offered another class or two next semester.) We finished up the short story unit, and now I’m scrambling to decide what poems to cover in those last 5 hours of class. How can I engage the imaginations of these students who universally find poetry boring? I could either go for interesting and contemporary poems, or historically and culturally significant poems, or I could pick out exemplifications of the various figures of speech, forms, sound effects, use of symbolism, etc. . . . What I really need to do is just make a decision!

 

Fortuitously, the short stories I finally chose seemed to complement each other with regard to theme or characterization. Judging by the essays I’ve graded so far, most students only read the ones I quizzed them over, or ones they may already have been familiar with (“The Lottery”). I was surprised to read two journal entries from different students who read O. Henry’s “The Gift of The Magi” negatively. One thought Della was afraid of making Jim mad and that Jim flopping on the couch was a sign of his disgust. The other student felt that the author was urging greater consideration before visiting the pawn shop because he thought the loss of the favorite possessions was a such a great sorrow .

 

The stories we ended up reading were:

• "Godfather Death" by the Brothers Grimm
• Updike’s “A & P” (focused on the idea of chivalry)
• Faulkner’s “A Rose for Emily”
• Poe’s “The Tell Tale Heart” (Our two fascinated by death stories)
• Carver’s “Cathedral”
• Willa Cather’s “Paul’s Case” (these were our art stories)
• Hawthorne’s “Young Goodman Brown”
• TC Boyle’s “Greasy Lake” (Our dark wilderness/dark heart stories)
• Alice Walker’s “Everyday Use”
• Tillie Olsen’s “I Stand Here Ironing” (mother/daughter/sister relationships)
• Katherine Anne Porter’s “Jilting of Granny Weatherall”
• O’Connor’s “A Good Man is Hard to Find” (Southern grannies dying stories)
• Kate Chopin’s “The Storm”
• Chekhov’s “Lady with the Pet Dog” (adultery stories)
• Ha Jin’s “Saboteur”
• O’Brien’s “The Things They Carried” (which affected me much more strongly this time around. The first time I read it back in college, I could hardly stay awake. This time I could hardly keep back the tears. I never was interesting in reading more of O’Brien, but now I want to hunt down the story collection from whence this came, of the same title. Perhaps because I have a more intimate connection with war since my husband went to Afghanistan? What a different environment than Vietnam, though.)
• Finally, for irony and cultural literacy: Shirley Jackson’s “The Lottery” and O. Henry’s “Gift of the Magi”

 

 

No Hemingway after all. After reading the selection in the book, “A Clean, Well-lighted Place,” I decided that despite Hemingway's popularity with adolescents and young adults, I didn't want to talk about such a nihilistic piece. Could be retitled “All the Lonely People.”

 

 

Now for poetry: At first I thought I’d breeze through a different historical period each class session, to unify our approach and to see how poetry has evolved, but the book doesn’t offer much written before Shakespeare aside from “Barbara Allen” and “Sir Patrick Spens.” Next I thought I’d pick themes to guide our reading – love day, war day, nature day, etc. Then I considered assigning vocab terms and picking exemplars. So many possibilities, and so many poems…

 

So far we have just addressed why read poetry – although by “we,” I mean me. I assigned the first 2 chapters in the poetry section of their book, one on definitions of poetry, and the next entitled “Words.” Today I read aloud Elizabeth Bishop’s “One Art” and Billy Collins' “Introduction to Poetry,“ a fun one. The college requires a quantitative analysis paper on responses to “My Papa’s Waltz” by Theodore Roethke. The class nearly unanimously agreed that it suggested an abusive situation, rather than merely an image of a father (perhaps scorned by his wife and beat down by his job) boisterously romping with his son. I started to talk about WCW’s “Red Wheelbarrow” although I was a little stumped about what to say, other than “ponder.” Let it stick.

 

Surprisingly successful was the little poetry writing exercise that I borrowed from another teacher. I handed out a paper with a prescribed form for describing a favorite place, and was delighted with the responses. So – more poetry writing in the future. Perhaps that will be the guiding star - starting each class with a writing exercise.

 

The other poem that seemed to go over well was James Stephens’ “A Glass of Beer.” I’m leaning toward trying to pick poems the students can identify with, just so they won’t be left with a bitter taste for poetry.

 

A strong invective is always popular, so ending with a bitter bite:

 

A Glass of Beer

 

The lanky hank of a she in the inn over there

Nearly killed me for asking the loan of a glass of beer:

May the devil grip the whey-faced slut by the hair

And beat bad manners out of her skin for a year.

That parboiled imp, with the hardest jaw you will ever see

On virtue's path, and a voice that would rasp the dead,

Came roaring and raging the minute she looked at me,

And threw me out of the house on the back of my head.

 

 

If I asked her master he'd give me a cask a day;

But she with the beer at hand, not a gill would arrange!

May she marry a ghost and bear him a kitten and may

The High King of Glory permit her to get the mange.

Autumn ramble

It rains! Hurrah! I was beginning to get tired of all the sunny, mild weather around here. Nothing like a good November rain for enjoying warm beverages.


I have to say, this fall has been much more colorful than last year. Based on my impressions last fall, I would have been quite dismissive of autumn in the Deep South, but whatever proportions of sun, rain, and temperature are necessary for vivid foliage fell into line this year. Our neighbor’s maple tree, the only one around for miles, brings fiery hues to our usually dun colored street, and we don’t have to rake any of the leaves. Of course, there is nothing like the cooler weather to make me long for a Midwestern autumn, even though I’m enjoying what we have here, especially early morning runs with my husband. Quite often we are greeted by pelicans and the harsh cry of herons. If only the casino didn’t block the view of the sun on cresting the bay...

Our last couple of weekends have included cultural activities, in addition to the seasonal soccer games.  Last weekend it was an art fair and the opening of the new Frank Gehry designed Ohr-O'Keefe Museum. We went on the family day, when Americorps volunteers were present to help the kids make booklets about George Ohr, the Mad Potter of Biloxi, and paper crowns. (For Mardi Gras? Or to keep the little girls happy while the boys had crazy mustaches painted on their upper lips?) I kicked myself for forgetting a camera. The museum was extremely small, and not being a connoisseur of pottery, I don't know that I'll be back often. The sculptures by Richmond Barthe were stunning, though.  Made the art fair offerings pale (except for the booth where you could pay $5 to pose with a little street vendor monkey.)

A model of the museum:

George Ohr:

 This weekend included a drive to Mobile that was absolutely glorious (despite our intended destination being a car repair place), and discovering the free Fort Conde with its miniatures and wax figures brought back memories of Ft. Monroe - a nice cap to the day that included a visit to the Exploreum to see the sea lion show. Of course, the display of photos of past queens of the krewe of the Conde Cavaliers, who sponsor the first parade of the Mobile Mardi Gras season, was more to the liking of my young ladies, but at least there was something for everyone.

This year's Mobile Carnival Association queen from: http://blog.al.com/entertainment-press-register/2010/02/royal_splendor_mca_queen.html

My husband went to Africa and all I got was this...

 ... a nativity triptych, a couple dolls, a goat-hair camel, elephants carved from palm wood, a giraffe-necked zebra bowl, soapstone trinket boxes, a scary mask beer opener, and rungu sticks, also known as lion-bashers, also known as dangerous weapons stored on an upper shelf in my closet so that they do not become brother-bashers.

The airport. Note the baggage cart.

My husband posing with the artist who carved the elephants and rungu sticks. These are certifiably hand-carved, unlike the soapstone boxes, which came from the duty-free shop at the international airport (not the one pictured above.)

A baobab tree. Perhaps if you squint you can see a little prince.

Or you might see these millipedes.

A favorite hang-out on the base

The Rat Trap is also a favorite hang-out for the vervet monkeys, which like the Skittles. As you can see, it is easy to identify male vervets.

The RC church. My husband also took a video of the entrance song to show me the difference between this African choir and the way the Notre Dame folk choir sang "Jina la Bwana," the 

 Magnificat in Swahili, but I can't upload it easily.

 

Sunset over Kenya.

On the bandwagon

Everyone else has probably moved on to new topics, but I meant to say something in passing about the Erica Jong editorial and the accompanying essay by her daughter that were in the Wall Street Journal this past weekend. Although a few years ago I might have been more offended by Jong’s denigrating remarks about attachment parenting and “motherphilia,” now that my youngest is school aged, I feel no personal offense, and instead wonder more about Jong’s own feelings toward the article written by her daughter. Jong’s fiery comments can be dismissed as a reaction against the political implications of attachment parenting. She sees it as a tool of the right-wingers to keep parents too tired to protest, although it seems to be a parenting style that appeals to the extremes of both political stripes. The voices of pro-lifers, who are sometimes attachment parenting proponents, raised in protest certainly belie this claim, while the environmentalists and celebrity moms she mentions (Madonna and Angelina) don’t seem to be paragons of conservatism.

She seems to be setting herself up for controversy. Maybe she has a new book coming out and needs some press.

But the more dramatic story is the subtext in the pairing of the two essays: Erica Jong criticizes women who give up work to stay home with children, breastfeed on demand, and make the choices that she encouraged their mothers to reject. Then her daughter, Molly Jong-Fast, who stays home and helicopter parents, writes about her mother’s ambivalence toward parenthood. She says her mother wasn’t a bad mother, BUT her mother was “as good a mother” as she could be.

So is Molly Jong-Fast suggesting that there are better mothers, or that her mother could have been a better mother? That some women are temperamentally better suited to motherhood than others?

I have to admit I agree with that statement with qualifications, and wouldn’t hesitate to say that I’m not one of the better mothers out there. I’ve said before that I am not a cuddly, crafty type. But I followed some of the practices of attachment parenting, in a large part to delay the return of fertility. And unlike the many women like Molly Jong-Fast whose parenting style represents an implicit rejection of the way their mothers parented, I admired the example of my own mom who stayed home while we were little, nursed us, shopped at the co-op, and made yogurt and breads from the Tassajara Bread Book. She also went back to work when we were school-aged and let us listen to Marlo Thomas sing about how mommies can be anything. So I grew up thinking girls could do anything boys could do, but better, and I still wanted to stay home with my kids while they were babies. I didn’t think about not breastfeeding. I used cloth diapers to be green, but also because I was cheap. Of course, I had high-minded ideals about why I should stay home to devote myself to my babies, but I was also a little bit lazy and lacking in ambition. Fortunately, my husband had a job with benefits that accommodated our cheap standards of living, so I didn’t have to work.


I’m also aware of how parenting practices don’t work the same way for every kid, so our parenting style shifted a little with each new baby. Each child has needed something a little different from me. And they don’t stay needy babies very long. So Jong’s rant against attachment parenting as a step back for feminism hardly seems relevant, since for many women this stage lasts only about three to five years. And it wouldn’t surprise me if the generation that is growing up nurtured by doting mothers returns to a more detached style of parenting.

These are rambling thoughts. I don’t have parenting all figured out. And perhaps Erica Jong is really ranting against the attitude of knowing the secret to perfect parenting that can be present in attachment parenting craze and causes some women to feel like they will fail as mothers if they don’t nurse or carry their babies around. Other women haven’t pressured me to parent a certain way, but I haven’t really hung out in high pressure groups. My guilt is all self-inflicted.


If I felt peer pressure, it was not from proponents of attachment parenting; it was from the “Why aren’t you using your degree?” types like Erica Jong. I still remember the hurt feelings caused by a college professor I bumped into one time with the four kids I had then, even if I don’t remember the exact words he used to suggest I was wasting my education by staying home.

The real influence on why I chose to parent the way I have would have to go to J P II’s Familiaris Consortio. Before my husband and I were married, we studied up on all the marriage and family encyclicals and church documents and were bombarded with the message that love and self-sacrifice go hand and hand, the same theme that ran through the literature I was reading. I’m not sure what Jong would think about that, but her editorial doesn’t seem to consider self-sacrifice much of a virtue.



Not that I’m good at self-sacrifice, either. This blog is an indulgence. My children will probably grow up and criticize me for being too emotionally detached, and they already decry my heavy handed censorship of what they watch and read. Some kid is always accusing me of favoritism. Since every one of the kids has said this, I feel pretty certain that I’m equally unfair to them all. I’m aware of my shortcomings as a mother. But my goal isn’t to be a perfect mother, but to help point my kids toward God, their origin and their ending. Being the best mother I can be, like Molly Jong-Fast says, is enough if I can help the kids see that love and self-sacrifice are entwined.

So in the end, I feel sorry for Erica Jong, rather than irritated by her, because she obviously has had some painful relationships in her life. And perhaps her relationship with her daughter has been one that has given her pain. I hope the pairing of the two essays is a sign of the strength of their relationship instead of a weakness.

Encomium

Continuing with the theme of death, the other day my mother sent me a clipping of an obituary of our old next door neighbor. Until the time I was seven, my family lived in Indianapolis on the east side in the same neighborhood where my mother and father had gone to high school and where my grandmother had grown up. For a long time, that place was home, and the place we moved to was the “new house.” The new house had a rural route number, although it was on a street of newer houses surrounded by cornfields. The first house was in a neighborhood of small bungalows and cape cods nestled close together that now must be nearing the century mark.

Our house was a little limestone number with green trim. It had a low roof like a bungalow but no front porch. Instead, the front yard was graced by a crabapple tree in one corner and a redbud in the other, and by the front door was a little imitation courtyard garden, with a wrought fence enclosing bleeding hearts, lily of the valley, and daffodils, all clustered under a small dogwood tree. In my memory it was glorious – straight from the pages of a Tasha Tudor book. But when as an adult, I drove by with my husband, all those colors in the front yard had vanished.

The inside wasn’t quite as quaint: gold shag carpet, lattice wallpaper with big yellow flowers, wallsized mirror in the living room. Green shag carpet covered the back bedroom that Betty and I shared with a big green piano. That room, I think, had been a porch and had indoor/outdoor carpet when we first lived there. My first brush with home decorating was when my parents put in real carpet. I remember wanting to sleep on that plush surface with all my stuffed animals.


So that little house was cozy, but not beautiful on the inside. On the other hand, the neighbors' house, a white cape cod, was all loveliness. The couple who lived there had grown children who visited sometimes but not for long. These neighbors were kind and warm, unlike the neighbor on the other side of us, who seemed the incarnation of Mr. McGregor. I would climb on the wooden fence in the backyard and call to the nice neighbors for an invitation. And sometimes – often? -- they would invite me to come over. The Mr. mostly did yard work like the neighbor on the opposite, but he let us jump in his leaf piles. The Mrs., whom I called by her first name, would invite me in for little cucumber/Wonderbread sandwiches with the crusts cut off. We would practice good manners. She tried to teach me to knit. She taught me "Pretty is as pretty does" when I went fishing for compliments (or maybe to lower my expectations to a more fitting level for a homely child). 

The highlight of my visits were following her upstairs to the room with eaves and dormers where her daughter’s dolls were kept. This room was pink and green, my favorite color combination, and the bedspread was frilly and girlish. Was there a white wicker vanity or am I making that up? I don’t remember actually playing there, only gazing in awe at the dolls and books, as if visiting a museum to 1960’s girlhood. I wonder if that room was ever redecorated after we moved away.


According to the obituary, a long, informative one, the Mr. and Mrs. were married over 50 years when the Mr. died in 1995. By the time I knew them, they were retired, but previously they both worked relatively unglamorous jobs – she was a secretary at a steel company. But having a glamorous job apparently wasn’t what motivated her. She apparently enjoyed community life, as the obituary lists her membership in several clubs, activities at her church, and her work as a docent at the Benjamin Harrison Home, where she wore period dresses to give tours to schoolchildren. The couple travelled to Europe and went out dancing until they were in their eighties. Someone cared enough to include in the obit small details such as that the Mrs. was a book lover and an avid newspaper reader. I love this bit: “Until she became ill, she was still enjoying going out to lunch each week, always wearing red lipstick and high heels.” In addition to a list of survivors, the obit lists a number of friends and caregivers to whom thanks were owed. Contributions were directed to the Methodist Church down the street from the house in the old neighborhood.


What a full, happy life. What a gift was her kindness to little girls. I’m sorry that as an adult I never told her how thankful I am for those memories, although thanks were probably unnecessary. She likely enjoyed our little tea parties as much as we did.

Disenfranchised

Technically this isn’t a sin, but I feel I ought to confess to someone that I didn’t vote in the election Tuesday. I know I wasn’t the only one absent from the poles, but since at one point in time, I took an interest in politics, I feel guilty. Plus, I should be setting a good example for my children, especially the 13 yr old in the house who reads the Wall Street Journal cover to cover. (I could justify shelling out $100 for that subscription, even though I can’t bring myself to subscribe to AT&T for the free iphones we inherited.)

I didn’t vote because I couldn’t bring myself to commit. Not only did I find it impossible to commit to a candidate because no one matches up with my ideal politician, but I couldn’t decide what state to vote in. I last registered in Virginia. My driver’s license is from Mississippi. My husband’s home of record is Illinois, and now that military wives can maintain the same home of record as their husbands, instead of figuring out the legalities of each new state of residence regarding licenses, fees, taxes and registrations, I think I could have requested an absentee ballot like my husband did from Illinois. But I feel like an interloper voting in state elections. I haven’t lived in Mississippi long enough to know the state’s needs, I don’t have any legal connection to Virginia anymore, and the little I know about the candidates from Illinois isn’t good. At least Gene Taylor, who lost the election down here to Stephen Palazzo, seemed to be an honest to goodness Southern gentleman. He was pro-life despite being a Democrat, and reminded me of the reasons my grandparents were Democrats.


I suppose I’ll pay closer attention to the elections in a couple years and try to establish residency somewhere, so I can do my civic duty, especially since my husband’s livelihood depends on it. In the meantime, I am trying to cultivate a sense of rootedness even though the landlord called last week and asked if we minded if he put a for sale sign in the yard, if we were pretty certain we wouldn’t be staying. We don’t even have orders yet, and a move is at least eight months out. I feel a little sorry for the guy trying to maintain two homes, but I’m not too worried about having to keep the house pristine for potential buyers. On the other hand, I certainly don’t want to find temporary housing if a buyer does surface. Maybe we could move in with the landlord – his current house is enormous. I also don’t want the kids to start announcing that we won’t be here next year, so we don't lose friends. Today the second graders performed their All Saints’ Day presentation (better late than never), and my first grader kept talking about how he wanted to be St. John next year. Maybe he will be able to wear a camel hair tunic, but at a presentation somewhere else.

My attempt at rootedness?  Nurturing the nasturtium that recently sprouted in one of the planters I seeded last spring. I guess it figured now was a better time to bloom than in the swelter of summer.

Requiem

We’ve had a couple weeks of high festivity: spirit week, a carnival, birthday parties, a trip to a corn maze, trick or treating. In between trick-or-treating Sunday and the school's Halloween carnival last Saturday, I think the kids each have consumed at least a gallon of high fructose corn syrup. Add to the loot collected at those celebrations, goodie bags from classmates and the neighbors handed out during the week and three birthday parties Saturday. One of my six year old's favorite treats was a little plastic vial full of pink corn syrup with a gummy worm inside. Good thing we had a dentist appointment on Monday.

Since our neighborhood doesn’t have many kids – and has that seedy factor - we trick-or-treated on base with some friends. The mom of this family is from Bogota, and they had us over for a Columbian soup called ajiaco.  I made pan de muerta, my nod to the holy days, with the last bits of Moroccan saffron we had brought back from Spain a few years ago.

The base housing community was one big block party: kids ran from house to house without fear of cars, but several families really got into the fright factor. One had an inflatable haunted house and a party in the driveway with scary adult clowns and zombies. Another family had converted the garage into a gory laboratory. Lawns were dotted with skeletons and tombstones and glow in the dark cobwebs. It seems as if the south likes to celebrate Halloween big. Or maybe it’s getting this big everywhere. When a sexy pirate wench walked up to school Friday to pick up her kids, I had to figure maybe the mardi gras mindset down here has seeped into the fall festivities.

The fall festival fundraiser for the kids’ school last weekend also had a Southern feel. Each class ran a couple carnival game booths, and the booth that had the best décor won a prize. Some booths decked out their tents with the traditional skeletons and spiders, but others glammed up with tulle and glitter everywhere. Kids dressed up for the costume contest, and my 10 year old won a $30 gift card to Walmart for his mime costume. The jr high CYO manned the haunted house in one half of the parish hall, while in the other half, parents shopped at the silent auction and kids’ art sale and decorated pumpkin sale. There was a cash raffle, a live auction, a dunk tank, a raffle to get out of bingo duty, a bake sale – all the popular school fundraisers rolled into one glorious sugarhigh event.

Meanwhile, the Methodist Church across the street had their fall festival on the same day – an alternative to Halloween? Maybe they didn’t realize that our school was celebrating the same day, or maybe they hoped to lure in some of our overflow. But theirs was a much smaller event – only a few game booths and food.

And a tractor pulled hay ride.

Monday morning we found out that a twelve year old boy jumped off the hay wagon and fell under the tractor. He was killed almost immediately. He was the son of the pastor. One version of the story has the pastor as the driver of the tractor. Apparently, the emergency vehicles all arrived while the festivities continued uninterrupted at our carnival.

My imagination keeps returning to this event. I can’t quite work out how the boy fell and where he was and what his body looked like when they pulled him out from under the wheels. Saturday afternoon I saw a kitten hit by a car scuttle to the side of the street, and I keep trying to make up an alternative ending to the story of this boy, who was the same age as my second son.  Maybe he could have rolled away or laid still between the wheels.

Today the school kids, some of whom knew this boy from their neighborhood, remembered this young man.  We prayed the prayer for the dead in Latin class:

Réquiem ætérnam dona eis, Dómine; et lux perpétua lúceat eis. Fidelium animae per misericordiam Dei requiescant in pace. Amen.

Like the students, I want to raise my hand and ask for prayers for my grandparents and for a couple friends whose children are now motherless and for all those parents who have lost children.

Another saying  I came across while doing my research for Latin class: Vivere disce, cogita mori

It was nothing

After a good two and a half months at home, my husband is off again for a work trip, this time to the land of the Lion King. The Seabees are busy there. Beware, pirates.



This trip is only going to last 11 days, 5 spent traveling, so we didn’t weep and cry at parting. In fact, I woke up this morning, and the first thing I said to my esposo was “I really am mad at you.”


Nice way to say goodbye, don’t you think?


It was raining out, and I woke up tired; I guess I didn’t sleep long enough to get over my irritation from the night before.


I won’t tell you why I was mad. It’s too personal. And too petty. But I chewed on my wound for a good couple of hours.

Then we went to Mass together and shared the kiss of peace. And it stopped raining. We drive to the airport together, so I could take the car home. The café at the airport was out of coffee, so I could transfer whatever remaining peevishness I had left to it. By the time my husband boarded the plane, we were laughing together.

As I left the airport parking lot, I turned on the radio, which was tuned to the country music station. Some song was playing about a man who lost his house in a tornado. “That was nothing” because he had also lost his dad, his brother, his best friend, his left hand, and his wife. “That was something.”

Gotta love country music.

Choices, choices - to say yes to one is to say no to another

My newest hobby is teaching English Composition I and II at the local community college. I applied for this job last year, before I realized how quickly a school day can pass, because I thought that if I were putting the kids in school I should at least try to earn part of their tuition to make up for quitting home schooling. At that time, no adjunct positions were available, but a little less than a month ago one of the fulltime faculty members abruptly retired because her husband’s health was in decline. The dean of the English department remembered me from last year, and he called to ask if I could take over all of her classes. That was more than I could handle, so I declined, but when he called back to ask if I could teach 2 classes, I jumped at the chance. 

The pay doesn’t cover much of the school tuition – in fact, it doesn’t cover the cost of one kid - but I love it. I love reading the stories and the student essays and spend hours going over the stories in the text and criticism and meticulously correcting papers. But I’m afraid the students aren’t loving me. Not one class has gone as I expected, mainly because only about 3 students per class do the assigned reading. Fortunately, they help move the conversation along when I lack direction.

Having an overarching theme for the class would help maintain focus – I need a thesis statement! Having a theme would also help me with the struggle to decide which stories to assign. When I took over the class they were reading Hamlet, but since we left the drama section behind, I’ve spent a lot of time spinning my wheels in a state of indecision over which stories to assign.

Today we were to discuss were Hawthorne's "Young Goodman Brown" and "Greasy Lake,"by TC Boyle. The topic was supposed to be the importance of setting to these stories. I’m not sure if it were a good thing or a bad thing to have assigned two stories with such similar themes and settings, but I’m afraid I left the class with the impression that all human beings are depraved and that being an adult means recognizing the depravity of the human soul. Now this is not at all the message that I meant to convey; the discussion just seemed to focus on the ugliness described in these two stories instead of the moment of the sunrise in the TC Boyle story and the unchanged beauty of Faith in Hawthorne's. I forgot to call attention to the fact that she still has her hat with the pink ribbons when Young Goodman Brown wakes up/comes out of the forest. She still runs up to embrace him; he scorns her, not the other way around.

What I need to do is now pick a couple stories with that don’t focus on depravity. One is going to be the "Gift of the Magi," which may still be ubiquitous on high school reading lists, but if most of the students have read it earlier, maybe they’ll have something say. I want a few hopeful ending stories, but many, if not most, of the stories in the anthology (edited by Dana Gioia and X.J. Kennedy) end with death and despair. We read Willa Cather’s “Paul’s Case,” Alice Walker’s “Everyday Use” and Tillie Olsen’s “I Stand Here Ironing” for Wednesday, and then I have to choose 8 more stories. One will be Flannery O’C’s “A Good Man is Hard to Find,” but after that I’m having trouble limiting my choices. So many good ones, but I can barely talk about one story, let alone 3, per class. As the syllabus is set up, we have two weeks more to talk about short stories, and only 4 classes for poetry before review week. I guess for the short poetry unit I’ll assign each day a period: Ancient/Medieval, Neoclassical, Romantic, Contemporary.

The short stories in the textbook are arranged according to elements of fiction. We’ve covered Fable, Fantasy, and Plot with a couple fables, Grimm’s “Godfather Death” and Poe’s “The Tale Tell Heart.” Then we “discussed” Point of View in Faulkner’s “A Rose for Emily,” Carver’s “Cathedral,” and Updike’s “A&P” and Setting with the above mentioned stories. Theme was the topic for Wednesday. Left to talk about are Characterization, Irony, Diction, Tone and Mood, Symbols and Motifs. I’m trying to pick stories across a variety of periods and cultures, but the book has more contemporary female authors than anything else.
Any votes for a top 8 out of these choices?:

Faulkner's "Barn Burning" and Welty's "Why I Live at the P.O." both have regional significance as does Kate Chopin’s “The Storm,” but we did Faulkner already, and I don't love that Welty story.

Tim O’Brien’s “The Things They Carried,” Jack London’s “To Build a Fire,” Ernest Hemingway’s “A Clean, Well-Lighted Place,” and Ambrose Bierce’s “Occurrence at Owl Creek Bridge” have macho appeal. Ralph Ellison’s “Battle Royal” is in that category also. Joyce’s “Araby” and D.H. Lawrence’s “The Rocking Horse Winner” have name recognition. Another masculine story is Ha Jin’s “Saboteur,” which is new to me, but I really liked it and think the students would like it, too.

As for multicultural themes, I also liked Jhumpa Lahiri’s “Interpreter of Maladies” but that’s one the students might find boring. Jamaica Kincaid’s “Girl” was on the previous teacher’s list, but that was another one I didn’t care for. Margaret Atwood’s “Happy Endings” also doesn’t appeal to me. I see the cleverness of Joyce Carol Oates’ “Where Are You Going, Where Have You Been,” but am hesitant to have yet another look at the dark side of life. I'd rather do Alice Munro’s “How I Met My Husband” but is it top 8 material?

Like O. Henry, Shirley Jackson’s “The Lottery” may be one students are familiar with; both seem to be so entrenched in the short story canon, I’d hate for them to be missed. Same with “Lady with the Pet Dog” by Chekhov.

The text has several science fiction stories, which I think students like because the meaning is so obvious, but I can’t decide how to weight the choices. If I were going to pick one, it would be Vonnegut’s “Harrison Bergeron” over Ursula Le Guin’s “The Ones Who Walk Away from Omelas.”

Katherine Mansfield’s “Miss Brill” and Katherine Anne Porter’s “The Jilting of Granny Weatherall” are two stories in the text that I’m familiar with from my own days in anthology class. Steinbeck, Cheever, Kafka, and Virginia Woolf are also represented – and James Baldwin, Zora Neale Hurston, and Gabriel Garcia Marquez and more and more…

Help!