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Signs

Sunday 31 October 2010

Some signs of autumn:

  1. The heating comes on intermittently. It’s a relief: we’re always worried about the heating in This Old House every fall: we’ve had enough worries about it.
  2. I wear jeans and flannel around the house. The mornings are chilly, as are the evenings: nothing is cozier than flannel.
  3. There’s always hot coffee or a cup of tea at my side.
  4. Saturday mornings are inside mornings.

Some more signs:

Birthday picnics continue into the darkness and include sweaters and oysters:.

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I ask the Girl if she’d like to try one. The shells have her undivided attention; the goodies inside, less so.

“You want to try?” I ask.

She touches the freshly-steamed oyster, licks her finger, then says, “No! It’s gushy!”

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More signs: Sunday night trick-or-treat.

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Magdalena Kozena

Tuesday 26 October 2010

I’ve been listening Magdalena Kozena singing Bach for close to two weeks now (since I purchased my first but certainly not last CD of hers).

Who knew she had such a sense of humor?

There’s a Doctor in Our House

Monday 25 October 2010

Stethoscope

Image via Wikipedia

We took L to the doctor today: a lingering, stubborn cough that has persisted through a round of antibiotics, Benadryl, and Musinex. A quick check and another round of antibiotics.

But suddenly we have a doctor in the house. K and I have both received several checkups. It’s obvious L was paying close attention to what the doctor was doing: L runs her makeshift thermometer over our forehead and down one cheek. She puts her stethoscope on our chest then on our back and asks us to breathe deeply. Warning, “This might hurt,” then whispering the instructions to cry afterward, she plunges a syringe into our arm and clamps a plastic bandage on it.

“You’ll be alright,” she soothes.

Alright! Break Over!

Sunday 24 October 2010

What happens when you take a break from the online scrapbook of your family’s life? You get backed up with photos, among other things, and you want to post everything, in one shot. Which is unrealistic.

You want to post some pictures from the pumpkin patch.

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And from the apple picking — which wasn’t much of an apple picking. The hordes arrived early for Pink Ladies, and the trees were bare.

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And you’d want to share pictures from the walk about the yard for leaves as your daughter pulls a leaf from each

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and every

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plant and tree she can find

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regardless of the leaf’s size, color, or condition.

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You’d want to post all these with great descriptions and compelling observations about Life, the Universe, and Everything. With a soon-to-be four-year-old, three courses as a student, full time work as a teacher with extra-large classes, a wife (remember?), and an ongoing yard project, you probably wouldn’t have  much time or inclination for posting.

Watering

Saturday 9 October 2010

With new grass everywhere — “baby grass” as L calls it — we do a lot of watering these days.

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It’s enough to make me think we should have installed an irrigation system.

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But then we wouldn’t get sights like these.

Tour Guide

Wednesday 6 October 2010

Oravski Castle, SlovakiaWhen I start a favorite book with a class, I recall the weeks I was a tour guide for my folks and best friend from high school, all of whom flew to Poland for K’s and my wedding.

I knew, for instance, as we rounded the bend and the Oravski castle (where Nosferatu was filmed; watch from 20:00-22:00 and 25:35-27:00 for the castle’s main scenes) came into view that everyone’s jaw would drop. Perched on the top of a rocky hill, the castle tends to have that effect on people.

Later, in Krakow, I knew what the reaction would be as we entered the Basilica of St. Mary on the market square. The high Gothic walls draw all gazes upward, and all mouths fall open.

So, too, with books. As we approach the shocking moments, the truly moving scenes, I anticipate students’ reactions. When Samneric tell Ralph that Roger has “sharpened a stick at both ends,” students ask, “Does that mean what I think that means?” When they meet Anne Frank in the pages of her diary, the knowledge of her fate shakes them.

Yet I’ve never seen a student react so emotionally to a novel as I did recently, as we read Nightjohn. It’s the story of a young slave girl who surreptitiously learns to read with from John, a slave who escaped north but returned to lead other slaves to literacy. There are some brutal depictions of violence against slaves, including the story of Alice, young girl who is whipped and then attempts escape. The pursuing slave owner finds her and lets his dogs attack. She survives, only barely.

“My heart hurts,” said a young African American girl who sits toward the back of the room. By the time the bell rang, a few tears were rolling. As she was leaving, I spoke to her, a little concerned.

“Are you going to be alright?”

“No,” she cried. She walked out of the class and completely broke down. As she sobbed, friends — who hadn’t been in class with her — crowded around her compassionately.

It was bittersweet, in the truest sense of the word. That someone was that moved by a book was both a source of hope and empathy.

The Battle of the Front Yard, Redux

Monday 4 October 2010

Last year, we overseeded our front yard. It looked fantastic.

“We have the best grass on the block!” K and I would congratulate each other. It was thick, lushly dark, and totally carpeted our entire front yard.

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Over this summer, it all died.

All of it.

We looked at our wretched front yard and looked at what it used to be like, and a sort of “why do we even try?” depression would set in.

But we don’t give up. Not we. We continue to dump money into projects that probably should be left alone. So last week, we rented semi-heavy machinery,

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and started all over.

Technically, it was called “dethatching.” Practically, it was called “pulling up all the grass, most of which had long-since died.”

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We were left with rows of rubbish — weeds, dead grass, almost-dead grass — that had died for mysterious reasons. Bugs? Disease? (Certainly not fungus: it was too dry this summer for any fungus to survive more than a few moments.)

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Whatever it was, we didn’t want it. So ten bags of it went out to the curb.

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What a waste, really. It got me thinking — if our lawn survives this coming summer — whether or not I could simply run our mulching mower over the dethatched refuse and let the yard self-feed.

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After applying top soil, mulch, seed, fertilizer, and straw, the rain came. After many dry weeks, we had thirty-six hours of continual rain, followed by sporadic showers through the following week.

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I couldn’t have planned it better if I’d tried.

A week later:

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