Not-So-Best Friends
Month: October 2013
Staring
Clipped
“Jew!” the Boy cries, pointing feverishly. Yet we’re not playing I-Spy in Crown Heights, Brooklyn. The Boy is just thirsty, and he clips most of his words. Our cat, Bida (“Poor thing” in Polish), becomes “Bia.” Big sister’s name gets the middle vowel and consonant removed, so she becomes simply “La.”
October Sunday
“What do you want to do this afternoon?”
“We could head to the pumpkin patch we usually go to this time of year.” Yes, but that’s almost a forty-minute drive one way.
“Maybe we could go to the park.”
“Which one?”
“I don’t know. Maybe Conestee?”
We were there last week, though. And the other park we frequent is across town.
Our options don’t sound very relaxing, and for a family with a sick boy, an almost-sick girl, and two always-exhausted parents (K more so than I, I’m sure), relaxation is at a premium.
So maybe some sandbox time followed by a game of Roll the Pool Balls at Each Other. E’s a natural. He’s going pro — I can sense it already! He’s got such original techniques, feeling, sniffing, even tasting the ball.
Of course he always puts safety first: he never even considers approaching a Roll the Pool Balls at Each Other table without a helmet.
Workin’ ’round the House
A little mowing…
a little mopping…
a little pet care…
a busy day.
“I don’t know”
Polish Train Ride
While we were in Poland, we took a train ride on a relatively old-fashioned train.
Uncommon Core
Imagine forty-some states all adopt new standards that involve drastic realignment of what and how all English teachers runs their classes. Imagine that the standards have such a different focus on instruction that most existing state standardized testing would have to be radically changed. Imagine that the standards are in fact so different that you suspect that early and fairly complete implementation of the standards in anticipation of the changes but before the new tests are put into place (i.e., old tests taken by students taught to new standards) would result in a noticeable decrease in overall test scores. And then imagine that perhaps there are rumors swirling that it is all for naught, that it will all be rescinded. If that’s true, think of the time wasted, the tax dollars wasted, the work wasted.
Only rumors? Does it really matter?