I've been feeling "angsty," as my former student Elizabeth Ray would say (who just ate dark chocolate rather than milk to confirm that she is, indeed, angsty -- I love teenagers), and haven't found much to say.
A highlight of the week: on Valentines Day, Ben and I gave each other cards. And of all the cards in all the stores in all the world, we bought each other the same card.
I am thinking about coming back to teach here next year (currently am subbing an English class). Today, all signs point to yes, though it is hard to imagine being here without these kids whom I have grown to love the past 4. That is the thing about teaching and loving a school -- it empties and fills. It's malleable. Come back to visit and you are a stranger. Coming back here would be starting from scratch. Taking a gulp of air, diving in.
Friday, February 16, 2007
Saturday, February 10, 2007
Books from childhood...
I threw a Couples Valentines Cocktails-Mocktails Baby Shower tonighT (how is that for a mouthful?) This is the game we played -- jogs the memory -- which kids books do you remember? Mrs. Piggle-Wiggle, Ramona Quimby, Curdoroy the Bear?... Read the first lines and see if you can come up with the source.
I am exhausted and going to take a bath and fall into bed (yes, it is 8PM).
FIRST LINES: NAME THAT BOOK
(some are chapter books some are picture books, some are popular now, and for some you have to think back to childhood … good luck*)
In the great green room
The night Max wore his wolf suit
Here are Paul and Judy
Once when I was six, I saw a magnificent picture in a book about the jungle, called True Stories. It showed a boa constrictor swallowing a wild beast.
how many workers are there here?
One.two.three.four.five.six
Chug, chug, chug. Puff, puff, puff. Ding-dong. Ding-dong.
Once there was a bunny who wanted to run away
One sunny day, the caterpillar was hatched…
On the fifteenth of may, in jungle of Nool, in the heat of the day in the cool of the pool…
One day, little Sal went with her mother…
Mr. and Mrs. Mallard were looking for a place to live.
"Where's Papa going with that ax?" said Fern to her mother…
Five little puppies dug a hole under the fence and went for a walk in the wide,
wide world
I expect I might as well begin by telling you about_____________, so whenever I mention her name, which I do very often in this book, you will not interrupt and ask, "Who is ___________? What does she look like? How big is she? How old is she? What color is her hair? Is her hair long? Is there a Mr. _______?"
"I am not a pest!"
Mr and Mrs Brown first met _________ on a railway platform.
On the cover, what did that say? Did that say there would be a monster…?
In an old house in Paris that was covered in vines
One evening, ___________ decided to go for a walk in the moonlight, but there wasn't any moon…
___________ is a bear who once lived in the toy department of a big store.
Here is Edward Bear, coming downstairs now, bump, bump, bump on the back of
his head, behind ___________.
Little Nutbrown Hare, who was going to bed, held on tight to Big Nutbrown
Hare…
I am exhausted and going to take a bath and fall into bed (yes, it is 8PM).
FIRST LINES: NAME THAT BOOK
(some are chapter books some are picture books, some are popular now, and for some you have to think back to childhood … good luck*)
In the great green room
The night Max wore his wolf suit
Here are Paul and Judy
Once when I was six, I saw a magnificent picture in a book about the jungle, called True Stories. It showed a boa constrictor swallowing a wild beast.
how many workers are there here?
One.two.three.four.five.six
Chug, chug, chug. Puff, puff, puff. Ding-dong. Ding-dong.
Once there was a bunny who wanted to run away
One sunny day, the caterpillar was hatched…
On the fifteenth of may, in jungle of Nool, in the heat of the day in the cool of the pool…
One day, little Sal went with her mother…
Mr. and Mrs. Mallard were looking for a place to live.
"Where's Papa going with that ax?" said Fern to her mother…
Five little puppies dug a hole under the fence and went for a walk in the wide,
wide world
I expect I might as well begin by telling you about_____________, so whenever I mention her name, which I do very often in this book, you will not interrupt and ask, "Who is ___________? What does she look like? How big is she? How old is she? What color is her hair? Is her hair long? Is there a Mr. _______?"
"I am not a pest!"
Mr and Mrs Brown first met _________ on a railway platform.
On the cover, what did that say? Did that say there would be a monster…?
In an old house in Paris that was covered in vines
One evening, ___________ decided to go for a walk in the moonlight, but there wasn't any moon…
___________ is a bear who once lived in the toy department of a big store.
Here is Edward Bear, coming downstairs now, bump, bump, bump on the back of
his head, behind ___________.
Little Nutbrown Hare, who was going to bed, held on tight to Big Nutbrown
Hare…
Friday, February 02, 2007
Dang
Well, Ben is out for the evening, which means I actually have an extended uninterrupted span of time to do some things (I owed Kirsten a poem yesterday), but it turns out all I want to do is drink wine, eat reeces pieces and watch "Anchor Man." What can I say??
Cheers
Last night, Champagne Thursday, Ben, Amy and I toasted to life. Over the past couple of days, both Ben and I have waited to find out his mom's diagnosis -- essentially whether she was going to live or die in the next few years. Intense. And yesterday, she found out that she is cancer-free!
In light of this, I have been thinking about how to pray. How does one pray about cancer? Even if we pray, cancer might come. God does not promise that the body will be well or that life will be long. These are not his guarantees. Then when cancer is gone, we find ourselves saying, "God is good!" but the fact is, "God is good" whether or not the cancer is there...
God doesn't promise a lot of what I want -- like bodily safety for everyone I love (I REALLY want this)-- so it makes sense to know what he does promise and then ask for these things -- God is God, should be good on his promises. (sallie clingman told me this recently).
He promises to strengthen us when we are weak. That he will give us hope. That he can renew our thoughts. That he can make us new, give us second chances (and third and three hundred and seventy-third). That we are tasty and lovable in his eyes. That we can have peace -- a real, settled-in-the-gut peace that comes with knowing that regardless, God is God and we are his, a peace we can have in the midst of the most shitty times. That Immanuel -- God is with us -- always. I happened upon a verse this week that says, "She who has Jesus has life." And so it turns out he also promises us life. Life. Something to think about.
So, yes, cheers to Life.
In light of this, I have been thinking about how to pray. How does one pray about cancer? Even if we pray, cancer might come. God does not promise that the body will be well or that life will be long. These are not his guarantees. Then when cancer is gone, we find ourselves saying, "God is good!" but the fact is, "God is good" whether or not the cancer is there...
God doesn't promise a lot of what I want -- like bodily safety for everyone I love (I REALLY want this)-- so it makes sense to know what he does promise and then ask for these things -- God is God, should be good on his promises. (sallie clingman told me this recently).
He promises to strengthen us when we are weak. That he will give us hope. That he can renew our thoughts. That he can make us new, give us second chances (and third and three hundred and seventy-third). That we are tasty and lovable in his eyes. That we can have peace -- a real, settled-in-the-gut peace that comes with knowing that regardless, God is God and we are his, a peace we can have in the midst of the most shitty times. That Immanuel -- God is with us -- always. I happened upon a verse this week that says, "She who has Jesus has life." And so it turns out he also promises us life. Life. Something to think about.
So, yes, cheers to Life.
Saturday, January 27, 2007
Saturday Morning
Silas is napping his 9 AM nap, Ben is surfing his Saturday morning surf, and I am sitting up in the loft. It is clear and cool outside. From here I can hear the sound of the freeway and the quiet of Saturday mornings.
I just got back from breakfast at Kim's house. Sunflower Bakery bakes such good bread. Frontier is my usual, but this morning we had cinnamon swirl as french toast. Yum.
Last night Ben and I found a babysitter (hooray!) and went on a date. I made Beef Bourguignonne yesterday -- this is NEW territory, making recipes for dinner -- so we ate here, then went to Alta for vanilla chai and chocolate cake, then a bonfire on the beach. The wind was cold off the ocean, but fed our fire, which smelled like pine. We sat on the cold sand, the skin of our faces hot, talked and read Prince Caspian. On the way home, we stopped by Ralphs and each got bags of bulk candy (really to break a $20 to pay the babysitter) -- I mixed gummy frogs, good n plenty, those gummy black/raspberries, and jordan almonds. Ben put each kind in a separate bag: sour apples, reces pieces, red licorice (which ended up being waxy and hard and tasting like my childhood).
There are so many things we will miss if we move (it kind of makes my chest hurt). The other day I found myself wondering how life could ever be better than this...
Thursday, January 25, 2007
Driving North on the 5
The drive from my house to San Francisco has become one of my favorites. First of all, it is beautiful and the landscape is so varied (back to this). Also, once through LA, there is hardly any traffic and you can fly. There are also multiple rest stops with Starbucks and huge mini marts. Always a plus.
The landscape: it is Orange County/LA weirdness -- strip malls, brake lights, weird power plants, car dealerships, sitcom billboards -- until you come to the Getty perched up on the left. Then there is a gradual climb up and the scenery quiets into steep brown mountains patched with brush, and then a decent into "the valley." The net 45 minutes or so, you climb and wind through the mountains. They are a different kind of mountain than we have in the east -- they look much more geologically formed, more sculpted crevices and grooved faces, as if water gushed down them not too long ago. Their surface is different too; rather than being covered head to toe in trees, they are brown dirt and rock with scattered shrubs, desertous ones, patchy over them. The higher you climb, though, the more pines there are, and this morning, I even saw some stubborn remaining snow frozen in the shadows.
When the road begins to wind downward (my ears always pop here), it suddenly straightens out into a perfect ironed ribbon and the land becomes farms as far as you can see. Unfortunately, yesterday when I drove north, there was so much smog that as far as I could see was only a few cars in front of me. . ,
The farm land lasts for miles and miles. There are mostly orchards. Some were shaggy with leaves and full of oranges, but most were barren. Those trees, which I think were almond trees (must ask Eli) were the color of pink tinsel Christmas trees, but quieter -- just the sheen along the bare branches.
My favorite part of the drive is what comes next -- the smooth round hills, much softer than the others, that bulge and roll for the miles before San Francisco. These hills, I think, are where Salinas is -- read East of Eden. These hills, which slope to the road and have cows standing at impossible angles on them, are different every time I pass them. They change with the light and the seasons. Last time I drove, they were soft and downy (see pic below), but yesterday they were different entirely. They looked more like worn leather, the down gone, like skin. They looked muscular, sensual, breathing.
And today they were shadowy and lovely but not striking. These are the hills where the windmills are that make me think of Ben. Yesterday, they were all stopped. Almost eerie. And I wondered who decides that an energy supply is sufficient for the moment, who programs them to resist when the wind blows.
The landscape: it is Orange County/LA weirdness -- strip malls, brake lights, weird power plants, car dealerships, sitcom billboards -- until you come to the Getty perched up on the left. Then there is a gradual climb up and the scenery quiets into steep brown mountains patched with brush, and then a decent into "the valley." The net 45 minutes or so, you climb and wind through the mountains. They are a different kind of mountain than we have in the east -- they look much more geologically formed, more sculpted crevices and grooved faces, as if water gushed down them not too long ago. Their surface is different too; rather than being covered head to toe in trees, they are brown dirt and rock with scattered shrubs, desertous ones, patchy over them. The higher you climb, though, the more pines there are, and this morning, I even saw some stubborn remaining snow frozen in the shadows.
When the road begins to wind downward (my ears always pop here), it suddenly straightens out into a perfect ironed ribbon and the land becomes farms as far as you can see. Unfortunately, yesterday when I drove north, there was so much smog that as far as I could see was only a few cars in front of me. . ,
The farm land lasts for miles and miles. There are mostly orchards. Some were shaggy with leaves and full of oranges, but most were barren. Those trees, which I think were almond trees (must ask Eli) were the color of pink tinsel Christmas trees, but quieter -- just the sheen along the bare branches.
My favorite part of the drive is what comes next -- the smooth round hills, much softer than the others, that bulge and roll for the miles before San Francisco. These hills, I think, are where Salinas is -- read East of Eden. These hills, which slope to the road and have cows standing at impossible angles on them, are different every time I pass them. They change with the light and the seasons. Last time I drove, they were soft and downy (see pic below), but yesterday they were different entirely. They looked more like worn leather, the down gone, like skin. They looked muscular, sensual, breathing.
And today they were shadowy and lovely but not striking. These are the hills where the windmills are that make me think of Ben. Yesterday, they were all stopped. Almost eerie. And I wondered who decides that an energy supply is sufficient for the moment, who programs them to resist when the wind blows.
Wednesday, January 24, 2007
Road Trip
I am sitting in Kirsten and James' apartment in San Francisco. Decided this morning to pile Silas in the car and drive up for Kirsten's Stegner reading. Throwing things in the car is much more involved with an infant... I remember swearing that when I had a baby I would not haul a lot of things around, but it turns out it is a worthy trade off to be prepared. And so here I am with suitcase, huge bag, small bag, pack n' play, refrigerated items all in hand...
It also turns out that it is difficult to attend a poetry reading fully with a 10 month old. I walked into a woman's office in the Stanford English Building (a woman who was clearly working -- books open and typing) and asked her if she'd be willing to play with a baby for 5 minutes. How could she say no? So thanks to Melissa, I was able to have 5 uninterrupted minutes of listening. Kirsten was poised and despite herself seemed utterly at ease. And her poems were, of course, striking.
And now I am sitting in an apartment I love -- blend of modern and antique -- cream, oranges, green. I love it here. Off I go to retrieve my suitcase from the car.
It also turns out that it is difficult to attend a poetry reading fully with a 10 month old. I walked into a woman's office in the Stanford English Building (a woman who was clearly working -- books open and typing) and asked her if she'd be willing to play with a baby for 5 minutes. How could she say no? So thanks to Melissa, I was able to have 5 uninterrupted minutes of listening. Kirsten was poised and despite herself seemed utterly at ease. And her poems were, of course, striking.
And now I am sitting in an apartment I love -- blend of modern and antique -- cream, oranges, green. I love it here. Off I go to retrieve my suitcase from the car.
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