something like this

I can’t believe it’s Sunday already. What happened?! That was the fastest week in history. We had an amazing break, but for right now, I’m just going to focus on the last day of school before break.

Friday the 13th started out inauspiciously (surprise surprise). We were informed about an hour before school let out that Honey’s third grade teacher was resigning over an investigation into anomalies in her classroom’s standardized test results from last year. The investigation has been going on since October, with her teacher on leave since the beginning of January. It’s been messy, emotional and confusing for everyone. 

When you buy a house, it’s location, location, location. When you get married, it’s communication, communication, communication. And when your kids start school – well, it’s both, really. The past few months have demonstrated this quite neatly for us. I won’t burden you with all the details, but I can tell you that if a classroom full of parents with well developed “send all” email abilities gets wind of a favorite teacher being placed on administrative leave over the holiday break, all hell will break loose. And if there is no clear communication from the school before the term resumes, you might be amazed at what the children know once they get together again. (Like the student who knew that their teacher had been arrested for letting them chew gum while they took tests.)

The communication from the school board is sensitive in an situation like this, and I am respectful of the privacy issues involved, but this local drama really demonstrated that if you don’t control the story, your image takes a hit. Just ask any movie star or professional athlete. I think you have to provide clear, regular communication, or people will be inclined to suspect you are Up To Something. Our administration missed an opportunity for some major damage control by simply not communicating early, often and clearly with the parents in this case.

I’m not going to dwell on the bad stuff in this scenario, although there’s plenty of it. I am going to tell what happened after I got the email about Honey’s teacher resigning. I went in for the last hour of her day on Friday because one of the other parents had arranged for a San Francisco Opera Guild member to come into the class and conduct this interactive class called “Sing a Story.” The opera she introduced them to was the Magic Flute, and it was a fantastic class.

She started out by going over the rules (she’d clearly done this a zillion times). She told them she would have two types of questions during the program; arm up (she raised her hand to show an individual answer) and arms out (she spread her arms wide to indicate a collective answer). She ran a couple of test questions by them so they could practice, and there’s where the fun began. 

She asked an Arm Up question. “What instruments can you find in an orchestra?” Pointed to a student. “Violin!” Yes! Next? “Horns?” Yes! Next? “Ok – oboe, timpani, bass, cello, viola, harpsichord…” – this kid was a walking DK series book on the orchestra. The opera lady just blinked at him and said, “Ok! Great!”

Next up were the Arms Open practice questions. “What day is it?” The kids blasted back, “Valentine’s Day!” “Friday!” “It’s not Valentine’s Day, that’s not until tomorrow…” “The thirteenth!” “I know but we’re celebrating it today…” “The last day before vacation!” She just laughed and called them off. “Ok ok, let’s try something simpler……..  What’s your teacher’s name?”

All of the parents in the back drew in their breaths, and then I had to laugh to myself. Poor woman – how could she have known this was the single room in the district where that was a seriously loaded question?! The kids just went off, and she looked truly bewildered.

After that, she told the story of The Magic Flute. Do you know it? It’s very long and very complicated. Mozart, that trickster, decided it would be hilarious to give everybody the same name on top of his usual convoluted story line. Even the opera lady got her Tamino and Pamina mixed up in the telling, and Pamina and Papageno were more than a little confusing as well. When she reached the end, we all sighed in relief, and one of the students in the class asked an Arm Up question. “What happened to Papagena?” The opera lady had been trying to streamline things a bit and left out one of the characters, so she did a little fancy dancing to explain why. BUSTED. 

The program was terrific, though – she had costumes and taught the kids small bits of the music and they all acted the story out together. She’d pull different kids up to be the main characters in various major scenes, and she’d play small selections of the music as they went along. There’s a highly dramatic moment when Tamino and Pamina are so overcome that all they can do is sing each other’s names, but it was difficult to appreciate the beauty of the moment due to the giggling of the mortified actors. Mostly, though, they were enthusiastic and engaged. 

I don’t have many photos without all the kids in them, but I did want to show this one cool effect – four kids were given sleeves with these cloth flames and they made two arches for their classmates to pass through for the Tamino’s trial by fire. It was such a simple yet successful effect.

When it was over, everyone gathered their things and headed out to vacation. As we shuffled out into pelting rain (and even sleet that day), I couldn’t help but think that the trials of silence, fire and water were oddly symbolic and appropriate for this class.

Well that’s all for now folks. It’s Oscar night and if you’ve been listening, they’ve been playing the “wrap it up already!” music at me for some time. I just have to say thank you to my mother and father for always encouraging me. And my sister and brother for leading by example…hppfh! Oh! I’m so sorry – I’m not really laughing – I’m just overcome with emotion – and to my wonderful husband for his brilliance and for keeping me grounded – and my two beautiful children who alw…….

Happy Australia Day, everyone! Here are some Anzacs for you.

This afternoon, Tom and Hot Wheels were playing a favorite car racing game on the computer in our art room. Hot Wheels was so excited about the game that he plum fell off his chair and landed on his back. Tom immediately leaned over his stunned little body and asked, “Are you ok??!” to which Hot Wheels replied, “DON’T STOP RACING!!”

With a capital T that rhymes with V and that stands for Vegemite. It’s all out. 

For one of us, that’s not exactly cause for despair. For the other three, it’s sad news indeed.

 

See what I mean?

We just watched The Visitor last night. Wow.

The four main actors were all stunningly compelling in a quiet, layered way. Even Haaz Sleiman, whose character was charming and gregarious, had a stillness as well as a light. And Richard Jenkins – whew. I just loved his touch in this one. I couldn’t stop thinking about the movie all day.

Happy New Year, everybody! Here are some of our resolutions.

Honey:

1. Learn how to ice skate 

2. Have $100 in my bank account by the end of the year

Hot Wheels:

1. Play lego

2. There was no 2 – he really didn’t get the concept

Tom:

1. There was no 1 – he couldn’t commit  

Me

1. Spanish (just because it’s been on the list for years doesn’t mean it can’t happen, you know)

2. Lose my fear of turning in ballet class (or just gain the ability to turn)

3. Process transient data (ok I threw that one in just for Dad)

4. Make more art

I actually have an ongoing resolutions list in my head with about five hundred and thirty seven things on it, but I’ve learned with resolutions you really must narrow it down to just a couple finalists to completely ignore throughout the year.

In all my years of making resolutions, I’ve probably only followed through on about three of them, but those few successes give me an unrealistic optimism every single January. Resolutions are fabulous: as barometers of our interests and priorities, as plumb lines of our belief in our ability to change. Or maybe it’s just that I love making lists. Either way, they sure help me get over the end of the holidays and see the new year with fresh eyes.

This is the morning I woke up to a cold, rainy, grey day and thought – I’ll just have to wear my cheery socks that Mum gave me.

 

This is also the day that I forgot my ballet slippers when I went to class.

I’ll leave the rest of that scenario to your imaginations… well, I’ll throw in that my teacher did say she was pretty sure my socks were ‘illegal for ballet.’

Moving on to slightly more competent news, we’re having Christmas dinner with our friends across the street, and this year I thought it would be fun to make Christmas crackers. I ordered the tubes and the snaps from Olde English Crackers, which was a pleasure because they shipped everything ridiculously fast. 

Inside each cracker are 5 essential components: snap, hat, joke, treat, toy. I had to order up the snaps, but the hats were a cinch to make with tissue paper.

 

The beauty of cutting your own hats is that you can make them all just a little bit different. 

Next up is the joke – these are meant to be real groaners. I found a whole bunch online and they include gems like, “An Englishman, and Irishman and a Scotsman walk into a bar. The bartender looks up and says, ‘What is this, a joke?’” and “What happened to the guy who fell into the upholstery factory? He’s fully recovered.” The blessing is that the crackers happen before the meal, so no one gets queasy.

Then comes the treat – I opted for fun-sized candies since I think the wrapped hard candies don’t get eaten. The kids were excited about that.

Last up is the toy, and this year I got tiny gifts for each person that I thought she or he would like. They’re surprises, though, so no pictures.

Here they are, halfway finished. I’ll try to remember to get a shot of them once they’re done.

 

Is it possible that this dude is 5? (Let me amend that… this is him when he was a baby. He turned 5 today.)

He’s having an awesome birthday so far, filled with lego and vehicles and books and, you guessed it – a hot wheels ramp. He’d been hoping for one for such a long time. So today is a thoroughly good day.

On Tuesday, school was out for the holiday, and we went for a beautiful bike ride up at Samuel P. Taylor park with Joan and the girls. 

We had a great ride, complete with picnic lunch and sketching down by the river.

 

 

Honey took the shot of the hay. She was going bonkers over the horses on the hill.

It was a great day for food, too! See this nice pumpkin?

 

Look at all those beautiful seeds. Let’s say you had all those gorgeous seeds, plus the seeds from two other carving pumpkins and a squash. What would you do with such bounty? You’d toast them nicely in the oven, wouldn’t you? Until they were perfectly crunchy and salty and oh-so-good. Well I meant to do that, last week, but instead of toasting them to perfection, I burned the life out of them. After all that goopy scooping and picking and washing, we sat down to dinner right in the same room with all those seeds and I completely forgot them. Doh!

All wasn’t lost, though, because then I just cooked that sweet pumpkin with some butter and brown sugar until it was mushy. Then on Tuesday morning I used it to make Pumpkin Bread.

 

I followed this recipe from Epicurious, which was easy and so, so yummy. We had it that night with white bean soup. The ideal cozy end to a fall day.

It might not have made the top of the news hour for all of you, but the Silver Bandits played their final games of the year on Saturday. They did really well, making it all the way to the championship game before coming in second in their most injury-prone game of the season. I know at least three girls hobbled off the field crying, and we lost count of the times we all cringed on the sidelines, saying, “That’s gotta hurt.” Honey ended up being one of the wounded after she tripped over a defender’s foot and then the same foot happened to kick her in the chest. Oops.

Sometimes getting hurt can be such a shock. She was astounded that it hurt so much and that she just couldn’t seem to catch her breath. I was talking to my friend Denise afterwards and she was telling me that she still remembers the first time she got the wind knocked out of her. She said she was playing with her brothers in the basement when it happened, and when she panicked, “I can’t breathe!” her brother just said, “Oh, you just got the wind knocked out of you.” She said, “The WHAT?!?!” with this tone of voice that said, “You knew about this? This happens to people?!?!” It’s absolutely appalling.

And what was Hot Wheels doing during all this drama and commotion? He was curled up in a blanket right alongside the field, fast asleep. People were walking and yelling all around him and he was completely conked out. 

The team was a bit disappointed to lose in the final game, but they had a terrific season. They treated each other with such kindness, too. Any time one of their players got hurt or was having trouble, her teammates would all check in to make sure she was ok. The coaches were a perfect blend of challenge and encouragement and the players all improved individually and as a unit. Plus there was a party on Saturday night at Denise’s house. What more could a team ask?

Well there had to be a thank you for the coaches, of course. A great excuse to make some nice big cookies.

 

The best part about this recipe is that although it seems to involve surprising amounts of ingredients, it’s really a double batch. So there was plenty left over to roll up and freeze for a rainy day.

At the end, we just put the cookies in bags with a note for each coach. Done.

 

We walked out of our polling place at 8am, so you can see I was still a little blurry.

 

Hot Wheels, on the other hand, was bright and chipper.

 

We spent the evening at Amy and Andy’s, jumping from station to station, watching the returns and eating the tastiest butternut soup on the planet.

 

Amy was standing in the Cowgirl Creamery shop in the San Francisco Ferry Building on Tuesday afternoon when a man walked in and said to the woman at the counter, “I need some victory cheese.”

 

At the end of John McCain’s concession speech, Amy and Andy’s daughter came in and asked, “Why are you all clapping? They can’t hear you.” Amy replied, “Yes but we hope they can feel us.” 

 

Right after they announced Obama as the new president all the kids came running in – “What happened?! What happened?!”

“Obama’s the new president!” 

“So for real life we can have a piece of candy with breakfast tomorrow?”

“Yup.”