I Got The Saddleback Blues

To messers. Nehemiah Dodge, Ephraim Robbins, & Stephen S. Nelson, a committee of the Danbury Baptist association in the state of Connecticut.

Gentlemen

The affectionate sentiments of esteem and approbation which you are so good as to express towards me, on behalf of the Danbury Baptist association, give me the highest satisfaction. my duties dictate a faithful and zealous pursuit of the interests of my constituents, & in proportion as they are persuaded of my fidelity to those duties, the discharge of them becomes more and more pleasing.

Believing with you that religion is a matter which lies solely between Man & his God, that he owes account to none other for his faith or his worship, that the legitimate powers of government reach actions only, & not opinions, I contemplate with sovereign reverence that act of the whole American people which declared that their legislature should "make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof," thus building a wall of separation between Church & State. Adhering to this expression of the supreme will of the nation in behalf of the rights of conscience, I shall see with sincere satisfaction the progress of those sentiments which tend to restore to man all his natural rights, convinced he has no natural right in opposition to his social duties.

I reciprocate your kind prayers for the protection & blessing of the common father and creator of man, and tender you for yourselves & your religious association, assurances of my high respect & esteem.

Th Jefferson
Jan. 1. 1802.

Indulge the Balabusta for second here, folks, while she swoons. God in heaven, that man could write.

This is, of course, the unfortunately not so famous letter to the Danbury Baptists, in which Th. Jefferson appears to have coined that lovely phrase "separation between church and state". (This is the letter I referenced in this post.)

So, believing that Man "owes account to none other for his faith and his worship," the Balabusta and Mr. Jefferson would like Mr. Obama and Mr. McCain to explain why the hell each of them thought it was a good idea to give a well-known, likeable evangelical pastor an hour to grill each of them on TV?

Am I the only person out there who's, frankly, appalled?

I have nothing special against Rick Warren, who seems like a sincere and well-intentioned man, and really, everything I know about megachurches I learned from the King of the Hill episode where Hank and Peggy get into a snit at their pastor and join the local one--and Peggy, natch, goes a little overboard. ( "Come on, let's get home and get some sleep! Church starts again in six hours!") The one they joined seemed very nice, if a little exhausting. They even had a Starbucks.

But I have two separate and very specific gripes about this particular event.

Gripe Number One (the less important gripe): Who gets to host such a thing? Saddleback Church is an overwhelmingly white church (based on the photographs on their site), in affluent Lake Forest CA, which is also pretty white, in a state that isn't. Lake Forest is well-off, educated, and rather insular. This is the kind of place which, if it was in the Bay Area, would be drawing heavy fire for being 'elitist', and out of touch with the common American experience. Somehow, perhaps because it is also a heavily Republican area, it's avoiding that label.

But it's not just that they're wealthy people in a wealthy area, it's the assumption that fundamentalist Protestant religious concerns are the ones that matter in an election. The archbishop of Chicago is not doing this interview, and neither is the rabbi at Temple Emanu-El. This is a pure display of deference to a particular religious group whose concerns are seen as "American" concerns.

Which leads to Gripe Number Two (the important gripe): I wouldn't care if they did it at Glide Memorial in San Francisco, this is not what we do in the United States. You do not get the candidates for president up on a stage in a church forum so they can tell a famous pastor what their faith means to them.

We do not do it like this. And I am thoroughly hacked at both candidates for agreeing to this appearance.

This Is Why God Invented Folk Dance Festivals

OK, so the Russians are invading Georgia. I watched the News Hour with Lehrer, so I feel slightly more up on the whole thing than your average box of rocks, but I have very little to say on the subject that you can't read elsewhere from, oh, people with PhDs on the subject, so I'm not going to get into Russia wanting to block Georgia from active engagement with the outside world, or my sense of nausea about Russia these days in general, or the geopolitical adjacency to Iran and Afghanistan and such places. I'm not even going to tease The Departing Mr. Bush for having publicly announced that he could see Vladimir Putin's soul. Lots of people see things that aren't there after a long plane ride.

However, I am going to say this: Europe needs to get the hell over the idea that differences in traditional embroidery patterns are some sort of rational basis for border establishment, and the rest of the world needs to stop indulging them in this stupidity.

What, you say, is the Balabusta ranting about now? She's ranting about the phrase, heard several times during last night's news coverage, that the South Ossetians are 'ethnically distinct'.

I'm sure they are. However, there are 70,000 of them, and according to some counts, 1500 civilians have already died in this hoe-down, so why don't we agree that the Ossetians can have a separate dance category at the all-Georgia folk dance festival, that the Tblisi government will deliver their mail and fix their roads, and that Russia will get back across their border and get the hell over it?


I'm sorry, but every time you see this 'ethnically distinct' thing accompanied by tanks, it never turns out even vaguely well. Words like 'Sudentenland' and 'Srbrenica' come floating up in my mind, accompanied by a nauseous memory of watching talking heads explain how the same Yugoslavians who'd lived perfectly calmly next door to each other for generations now had to rip one another to shreds, often literally, because of Important Ethnic Rivalries.

People, people, I got more ethnic distinctions going on in my APARTMENT BUILDING than the entire nation of Georgia's got, and so far no one has opened fire. (The people next door have thrown dishes, but that was an internal affair, and no one else was involved.)

Talking heads of the world: I will accept any explanation other than this. Tell me that Russia wants Georgia's Reese's Pieces stockpiles and I will nod wisely. But no more ethnic. No more distinct. Not once we've got tanks rolling. Persist in this nonsense, and I shall throw stuff at my TV.

Disgruntled Hillary Supporter Here

In November, 2008, God willing, I will cast one of the most important votes of my life, for freedom to marry to remain a right of all Californians.

Unfortunately, we're also voting on some other stuff come November, and I don't have nearly the sense of purpose about those that I have about voting against Prop. 8. You see, I am a Disgruntled Hillary Supporter. And I'm giving Barack Obama the doubtful fish-eye, trying to figure out if I'll have endless buyer's regret if I pull the lever on his behalf.

Please understand, this is sort of a big deal. I'm a Democrat, and a daughter and granddaughter of Democrats. At my grandfather's military funeral, my grandmother was annoyed because the young officer who presented her with the folded flag gave it to her on behalf of the President of the United States and a grateful nation. Why, she wanted to know (later), did Mr. Bush have to be invoked? We decided, after some thought, that the president the young man was referring to was actually FDR, under whose command-in-chief my grandpa actually served--or possibly Josiah Bartlet.

I have voted without pain for the guy with the Democratic nomination in each presidential election since I was eighteen. I loved Bill Clinton--I will always love Bill Clinton--but Gore never interested me that much, and I would have taken Edwards over Kerry, although Kerry seemed like a perfectly fine candidate. But I never wasted a moment's thought on the decision. The Democrats pick a guy, and you vote for the guy. End of story. But Barack Obama makes me twitchy and irritable.

Now, I never thought we would get to this point. In fact, I recall, year before last, catching a ride to BART with Mirele the Coworker, and laughing with her over the idea that either a woman (Hillary in particular) OR a black man was going to get the Democratic nod this time around. At the height of the nomination campaign, I recalled that conversation with wonder. How fast times change.

I'm not totally sure why I've taken so completely against Obama. Hillary is part of it, but I'm fairly sure that just about any Democratic governor out there could have kicked her behind in the primary and I would have cussed for a bit and then voted for him/her without pain. I don't think he's secretly a Marxist, or a jihadi, or a cocaine addict, (as a remarkable number of people at LGF do). I think he's inexperienced, full of himself for no apparent reason, and kind of blahhh.

I cannot vote for John McCain. I suppose I WILL vote for Obama, but he annoys me so very much.

Perhaps I need to redefine myself. Instead of being a disgruntled Hillary supporter, I can be a begrudging Obama voter. Or something.

Is anyone else having this problem?

Pelicans

My grandmother, Mr. Bluejeans' mother, always said that if she came back she'd come back as a pelican.

She wasn't entirely sure about reincarnation, but the way she saw it, it would be foolish to take your chances and not have something good picked out in case you were asked what you'd like to be next. She also thought she stood a good chance of getting what she wanted. Other people would want to be rock stars or something. "Pelican," she would say, quickly, and go on to Heavenly Central Processing.

As she explained it, pelicans could fly, and she loved to travel, they lived by the ocean, which was a constant love of hers, and they got to eat a lot of seafood.

I don't know if she also knew that in medieval iconography they are symbols of charity, and of deep care for one's children, but in that sense pelicans were also an appropriate bird for her to relate to.

The pelican thing was a running sort-of-joke for decades, but since my grandmother's death last summer it has become a lovely, unexpected reminder of her. On her yahrtzeit in June, my mother spotted a v of them flying down by Ocean Beach. At my cousin's wedding, pelicans flew back and forth all day, guests at the wedding. (It occurred to me, watching a pair flying together, that my grandfather has undoubtedly been roped into being a pelican as well, and is considered odd in the flock for wanting to fly to Kansas, and preferring steak to fish.)

Whenever we see them, now, they are significant and wonderful, and I'm amazed by what a beautiful gift this has become for our family.

That Was The Simcha That Was

I mentioned some time back that one of my cousins was engaged to a lovely young woman he'd been courting for a number of years. Well, the wedding was Saturday. Some details follow:

WE WENT TO MEXICO:

Since the kids themselves and most of the family live in San Diego, and part of the bride's family lives in Mexico, it seemed smart to have the simcha at a resort in Baja. My cousins spend a lot of time in Mexico, on various vacations and outings and family visits anyway, and both the chasan and the kallah are fluent in Spanish. You get a lot more bang for your buck in Mexico, and there was this resort they like--Las Rocas, in Rosarito Beach. So it was announced that the wedding would take place at Las Rocas.

This presented a certain amount of stress for the San Francisco branch of the clann Bluejeans, because we a. never go to Mexico (since it is rather far for us) and b. were assured by reliable sources that it would be hot. Hot. Hot. Hot. But the kids were getting married, so away we went...

WE GOT LOST IN MEXICO:

We rented a car, and headed from San Diego for the border. We bought Mexican car insurance. We had our passports. We even had lovely photo-capture directions from the bride and groom.

We reached the border, drove right into downtown Tijuana, and promptly took the wrong exit. Then, we realized that the road we were supposed to take was closed. Then we realized that we were doomed.

For reasons you'd have to ask Mr. Bluejeans about, I'd been appointed navigator, and official translator for the operation. This would have made more sense if I actually spoke Spanish. I don't. Or, rather, I speak about three hundred words of Spanish, and have basically no grammar. I have a terrible accent (I fear that I sound like Peggy Hill), and my vocabulary is weirdly skewed by my profession. I know "estudiante muy bueno", and "no chicle en la sala!" and "el necesita hacer tarea". I also know a staggering range of cuss words, particularly including any form of the verb chingar, all of which I react to by yelling "watch your language!" in English.

So we worked our way through the traffic in Tijuana and I stuck my head out of the window of the car and yelled hopeful things like "La playa Rosarito--donde?" at people in cars next to us. Thank God, the people of Mexico sensed that we had to get to a wedding on time, and rose to the occasion. People pointed, and pointed, and all pointed the same way, and eventually we were zipping down the coast with the beautiful gray Pacific to our right, and not too long after we saw the giant statue of Jesus my uncle informed us overlooks Las Rocas resort.

He sure does. The statue stand seventy-five feet high on a hill overlooking the ocean, and holds his arms out directly at the resort. One of my cousins inquired about the thing sticking out of Jesus' head (you may not be able to see it in the photo above), and was informed that it lights up at night so that low-flying planes don't hit the statue.

We had made it.

IT WASN'T AS HOT AS WE FEARED:

Please understand that the heat of the northern Mexican summer had been obsessing us for months, literally. Never mind that this place is fifty miles south of where my aunt lives in San Diego, we were freaked. Shopping revolved obsessively around whether we could find formal clothing light enough. We were afraid.

It was a humid eighty degrees, with heavy marine layer. No one got heatstroke.

THE WEDDING TOOK PLACE:

Las Rocas is a lovely little resort on the cliffs of Rosarito Beach. The wedding was at five, and took place under a sort of chuppah made of bamboo poles and gauze draping with Gerber daisies. Very pretty. There were seven groomsmen, all in Mexican shirts, khakis, and matching brown Vans, several bridesmaids in pretty brown tea-length dresses, three junior bridesmaids in goldy-tan satin, and two flower girls in white with brown sashes, plus a ring bearer who seemed kind of terrified--possibly because he got stuck on the men's side, away from the other small ones.

The ceremony was very brief, sweet and funny, and conducted by a buddy of the groom's, whose role as officiant had been kept a secret from the other groomsmen. He has a reputation as a clown, so they all panicked a little when he took center stage under the chuppah.

My aunt looked wonderful.

My other cousin, the groom's sister, looked wonderful, and delivered a fabulous toast at the reception.

The food was good.

I encountered the usual run of cousins of my father's, friends of my aunt's, etc., who all told me I was just so high when they saw me last. When you are twelve this is annoying. When you are thirty-five it is kind of surreal. I stopped growing about twenty years ago. (Although I promised one such encounter that I would hit six feet by the time we next met.)

One of said cousins is planning to retire to an island on Puget Sound and raise chickens and foster a horse. Sounds idyllic.

The groomsmen, as a surprise treat, got someone to come after dark and set off fireworks.

WE GOT LOST IN MEXICO AGAIN:

This had to happen, didn't it? The return trip seemed like a freebie. We pulled out and headed up the coast, following the signs that said "San Diego" straight up to Tijuana. It was at this point that things began to go wrong.

Basically, there is a huge amount of road work happening in Tijuana right now. There is also a bottleneck, caused by the fact that on a Sunday afternoon there is a huge number of people entering the United States, and we don't just let anyone enter the United States, meaning that each car has to produce suitable paperwork. This take a lot of time. This causes backup. Tijuana is not equipped to deal with backup. So we have a tidal wave of cars heading toward the border, and about three harassed-looking traffic cops trying to get them all through a regulation-sized intersection.

Vay's mir.

We somehow got waved into the morass, but realized right away that something was terribly wrong. We were in a side lane, with some taxis, and we were going too quickly. Wayy too quickly. Everyone else was completely stalled, and we were driving on the open road. Something was wrong.

We finally got a hold of traffic cop who confirmed that, yes, we were in the wrong lane, and were about to drive back down into Tijuana proper, where we would have to try again. This would have meant the loss of only a few minutes--nothing ventured, nothing gained--except that at the bottom of the go-round we quickly found ourselves driving on a two-lane freeway out of town--retracing our steps towards Rosarito.

Turn around, you say? No can do. There's a giant concrete divider down the center.

We drove helplessly south, until we finally spotted a sort of tourist stop--bathrooms, teeny snack bar, water. "Habla ingles?" said Mr. Bluejeans hopefully. The teenage girl behind the counter at the snack bar shook her head. "Nooo." OK. My turn.

OK, enough with the broken phrases, this time I was going to do a complete sentence..."Somos..." I began, and then gave up. "San Diego?" I said charmingly, making arm gestures to indicate that we were helplessly driving away from San Diego.

You know, Barack Obama is right. We need to have our children learn Spanish. Then they can translate for me.

The kid managed, through sign, several slowly repeated sentences, and the magic of my remembering that 'izquierdo' is 'left', to let us know that about 1 kilometer down the road we would be able to make a left turn and go back. At least that was what I thought she was saying, and I was, thank God, right.

We went back to Tijuana, found our intersection and tried again. This time a traffic cop waved us into another lane...that wasn't the right lane either. This time we stuck to our guns, and, thank heavens, a nice young woman let us merge into the real lane.

After that it was just an hour and a half of slowly inching forward, rolling down the windows to give money to small children begging, admiring the plaster Catholiciana, Azteciana and turtles for sale, and showing our passports to a crabby border control official, and we were back on our way to the San Diego airport.

IN TOTO:

It was a nice wedding. The bride was beautiful, the groom was glowing. (If there's such a thing as a radiant groom, he was. I don't ever remember him so happy.)

It gave me a lot to think about, some of which will probably spill over into this space.

My branch of the family has determined that when my little cousin gets married (no, no announcements have been made, and I should mind my own business), we want Christmas in Seattle.

Mazal tov!

Ran Across This

Actually, I ran across it at RealClearPolitics.com.

This is David Aaronovitch at the London Guardian, taking on the tendency of the Western European left to fixate on Democratic candidates--and at the moment, to see Obama as The Man Who Will Fix It All. I'm interested to see this from a British perspective, since I've been watching this one for a couple of elections now. My favorite moment was when the Guardian tried to convince its readers to write to Ohio voters asking them to please, PLEASE vote for Mr. Kerry.

Anyway, check it out. He makes some interesting points. Liked this:

But even if he (George W. Bush)had been a half-Chinese ballet-loving Francophone, he would have been hated by some who should have loved him, for there isn't an American president since Eisenhower who hasn't ended up, at some point or other, being depicted by the world's cartoonists as a cowboy astride a phallic missile. It happened to Bill Clinton when he bombed Iraq; it will happen to Mr Obama when his reinforced forces in Afghanistan or Pakistan mistake a meeting of tribal elders for an unwise gathering of Taleban and al-Qaeda. Then the new president (or, if McCain, the old president) will be the target of that mandarin Anglo-French conceit that our superior colonialism somehow gives us the standing to critique the Yank's naive and inferior imperialism.

The Missing, The Dead, and Haven't We Been Here Before?

I'm about to be emotional. Bear with me.

Last night it just hit me in the back of the head. I sat with the San Francisco Chronicle and its lame coverage of the prisoner exchange, and I just sat on the floor for a while reading the article over and over, and grieving.

I am not an Israeli leader, I'm not even an Israeli, and I don't presume to judge the necessity of making deals to bring home the bodies of the fallen. For the Goldwasser and Regev families, I'm relieved that at least they have some knowledge, a funeral, maybe some healing eventually.

The knowledge that Samir Kuntar has gone home to a hero's welcome feels like a stubbed toe in the heart. I'm having trouble here. And the small, petty, malicious details--that Hezbollah wouldn't say whether Goldwasser or Regev were dead or alive until the actual exchange--are just so macabre.

And I wonder what's going through the Shalit family's minds and hearts now. And I wonder if there's even the slightest chance their child is still alive.

And even a world away from Israel, I know Goldwasser and Regev and Shalit and Arad by name. Here in the U.S., we just recovered the bodies of two soldiers missing in Iraq more than a year. Alex Jimenez and Byron Fouty are finally coming home. How often did their names appear in the press after they were captured? How often did I see their names by a bumper sticker telling me to support the troops? They vanished. In all senses. And their bodies being recovered was on page A6. Maybe Israel has a point, trading whatever's needed to bring home the missing.

Maybe not.

Damn it.

For my birthday

I got us Netflix.

We're currently working our way through the back episodes of Bones, and I got to watch Charlie Wilson's War last night.

Lots of fun.

Birthday Cake, Central Air, And Outrage

1.

First, the Balabusta turned thirty-five. I am not totally ready to be thirty-five. I had sort of had it in my mind that at the age of thirty-five I would have a couple of children, and a mortgage. The fact that I am, at the age of thirty-five, hysterically applying to jobs for the third summer running does not totally thrill me. But OK, thirty-five it is.

I went to my parents the night before my birthday for dinner, and we went out for Mexican/Guatemalan at our favorite neighborhood place, and then we came back to their apartment to find that the bomb squad had closed off their block. We stared worriedly from the big black van to the trees in front of my parents' building to the shul at the end of the block.

Questioning of the cop on the corner revealed that a mysterious package had been discovered, and the squad had responded. He suggested we come back in fifteen minutes or so, so we retreated down the street to the Thai place a few doors down, had a drink, and waited while the bomb squad blew up the package, and my father called the laundry delivery to suggest that they deliver the next evening. When we got out, the yellow tape had been rolled up, and we were free to go back inside.

Ah, modern times.

Anyway, the next evening I had lavish Chinese food with the Fella, and coconut cake, and the bomb squad did not come. Very nice.

2.

This week, I did two job interviews. Yesterday's involved an astonishing trek across Oakland on a very hot day, but when I arrived, they had air conditioning--which was enough all by itself to make me want the job. Ohhhh. To quote the demon from Dogma--"No pleasure, no rapture, no exquisite sin greater than...Central Air."

On the way to the interview, though, I had one rather surreal moment. I'm on the bus, which is making its way down International Boulevard, around Fruitvale. A middle-aged woman gets on the bus, sits down opposite me, and says an entire paragraph to me in Spanish.

I smile sheepishly, and say "I'm sorry, I don't speak Spanish." She smiles back and says, in English, "I was hoping you could tell me where to get off. I'm looking for the Mexican store."

Now, let me remind you, we're on International, just past the Fruitvale BART station. For those of you unfamiliar with Oakland, let me just explain that this is a part of town where even the Aryan Nation office has a sign in the window saying "Se Hablo Espanol". I stare out the window, watching an endless line of businesses roll by and wondering which of them could specifically be "the Mexican store". "I'm sorry, I don't know," I said falteringly.

Three blocks later she pointed, said cheerfully "Oh, there it is!" and leaped off the bus. It was a grocery store.

3.

This morning I get a response back from Heckle, asking why I got two, rather than three months pay at the end of the year. Turns out the payroll people didn't take enough out, so I frittered away that money in groceries and the electric bill.

I also get an e-mail from Jeckle, explaining that the kid I gave the extension to has turned in his late work, to Jeckle, rather than mailing it to me, and DO I WANT TO COME IN AND GRADE IT?

I am filing for unemployment. I doubt I'll get any money, and God willing, I'll have a job in a week or two, but I want them to get the paperwork.

I've started to clench my back teeth. This can't be good.

Hope You Had A Glorious Fourth

I am preparing to eat a blueberry pie, as things start to explode in the dusk through my neighborhood, so you know I will.

To help, check out Molly Ivins' last FOJ column, from 2005.

"Yet again, we rejoice not so much in what makes America great, as in what makes it really peculiar. This is in the belief that one of America's finest traits is that it is a blissfully funny place to live."

Fingerprinting Italy's Gypsies

Italy has started a bold new plan to fingerprint all the Roma living in Italy (at least those without proper EU ID cards) and database them. Italy would very much like for you not to mention the words 'fascism', 'racism', or 'creeporama' when discussing this new policy. Unicef and Amnesty are not wild about this idea. Roberto Maroni, the Italian home minister does not care. He's all excited about how this is going to make it easier for him to take children from their homes if they're truant from school. Apparently ethnic Italian kids are NEVER truant from school, so Italy would have 100% attendence if we could only track down the Gypsy kids whose parents have sent them out to steal people's wallets in the train station.

The Roma are something of an issue for me. For one thing, I see strong parallels between their experience in Europe and that of the Jews, and for another, I see an uninformed reflexive prejudice against the Rom that hits close to home for me, and ticks me off when it comes from people who should bloody well know better, or at least THINK.

While I was doing my teaching credential, I ended up sitting through a presentation by a young woman (basic lefty Bay Area type, nice girl), who had done a year abroad in Hungary with some program or other, part of which had included touring a boarding school program for Roma kids. I listened in horror while this girl, who would have protested any kind of racism she could identify as such, parroted back everything she had heard from her Hungarian hosts about the Roma. They're dirty, they steal, you name it--and finally, this kid, who undoubtedly sees homeless beggars in our own city only as victims of society, described being hit up for change by Roma on the street, and said "and you know, you try to remember that this is a human being..."

I got up and delivered a short impassioned speech on the history of the Roma in Europe, the suffering, the vicious bigotry, the Shoah, (Porraimos, they say in Romani, 'the devouring'), and the overt racism still exhibited today throughout Europe, which a sheltered American youngster might so easily not understand for what it was.

The class blinked at me vaguely, and I sat down.

Anyway, from Ariel David (who should know better, I suspect) of the AP: "Italians, and others in Europe, have a long history of distrust of Gypsies. In Naples, camps had to be evacuated in May after attackers set huts on fire and angry residents in neighboring areas protested against the alleged attempt by a Gypsy woman to kidnap a baby."

Yeah, I know all about Europeans having a long distrust. You know, in the old days, they useta be able to sell the babies they stole to the Jews for matzah production, Ariel. What bland, stupid, cowardly way to say "Europeans have displayed often violent racist bigotry against Gypsies for centuries. In Naples, camps had to be evacuated in May, after attackers set huts on fire, and pitchfork-waving local yokels revived old libels about Gypsies taking children."

Report From The Pride Festival

Mr. Bluejeans Sr. suggested meeting at the Pride Festival yesterday. There was a motivation--Most Holy Redeemer, the Castro parish church, had a booth selling 'beverages' to raise money for their AIDS support group. Mr. Bluejeans Sr. likes parish churches, opportunities to give to worthy causes, and beverages, so this one seemed tailor made for him. Also, the Pride Festival sprawls across Civic Center Plaza, and is near Max's Opera Cafe, so as far as Mr. Bluejeans was concerned, we were set to go.

Highlights of the day:

Most Holy Redeemer was indeed selling beverages, but it was all beer, not Mr. Bluejeans' cup of tea, which is white wine. We bought some beer anyway, for the sake of the mitzvah. MHR was asked by the Archdiocese not to march in the parade this year, which sucks, but they seemed in pretty good spirits anyway.

We found ourselves at the California Sperm Bank booth for a while, while Mr. Bluejeans made inquiries for some friends from out of the country. (Mr. Bluejeans as usual, hit Pride with a list of chesed projects to work on and inquiries to make at various booths). I ended up in conversation with the other pleasant middle-aged lady at the booth.

"Did you say you already had a donor?" she yelled over the brass band behind us.

"Yes."

"That's nice! Is he storing sperm for you?"

"No, we're married."

That took a moment, logistically, she paused to consider what I meant, and then it clicked in her head. "That's great," she shouted back cheerfully, "because that way you can get it fresh."

I bought a couple of t-shirts, listened to the Chipman Middle School drum band from Alameda do their routines--JROTC, currently under fire in San Francisco should have turned out--admired kids and dogs, and generally had a good time. Then we went back to Max's, where I had a tuna melt, and life was good.

Pride always makes me well up with joy to be a San Franciscan. This year, across from City Hall, where couples have been marrying for more than a week now, it was really special. The mood at the event was mixed--a lot of groups are worrying about November, and not yet taking the new wedding season at face value--but in general, spirits were high, food was fried, rainbow leis were prominent, and everyone seemed to be having a great time.

I hate job hunting

Did I mention that?

Anyway, I'm looking over the want ads right now on Craigslist. "Christian teacher needed for daycare center" reads one heading.

Now, realistically, I know this means that it's a Christian program, and they want a believer in the position.

But I'm also used to the way evangelical Christians themselves use the word as an adjective to mean something ethical, forgiving and patient, and all I can think of is horrible little kids running around screaming, kicking people, hitting each other, and an administrator putting together the ad for Craiglist--'we need a Christian teacher. Yes. Very Christian."

I work for Martha Stewart (for another eight hours)

There used to be a recurring character in the comic strip Sylvia--The Woman Who Does Everything More Beautifully Than You.

I only bring this up, because my boss called from an amusement park yesterday to mention that he was writing a little poem for each child in his homeroom, and perhaps we other homeroom teachers would like to do something so our kids wouldn't feel less special.

I am currently writing little note cards for everyone, and cursing Jeckle.

Eight. More. Hours.

Our Kids

One week to go. I've got a couple of callbacks, so feeling pretty good.

At our last staff meeting, Relaxed Guy put an item on the agenda. He's concerned about the high level of physical abuse in our students' homes. Relaxed Guy is good with the kids, really good, they open up to him. Per him, about half the kids in his classes report some degree of physical violence at home.

We had a totally useless meeting segment on this. Jeckle commented that just because they write about abuse doesn't mean they're experiencing it--this is true, but they're talking directly to R.G. about it. Jeckle also stated that you don't need to/can't report unless the kid verifies abuse--this is not true. You're mandated to report if you have a reasonable suspicion.

Brief interlude here--one of our kids is now in foster care because we made the call. Administrators pooh-poohed the making of the call--I and another teacher were told that the kid makes stuff up. CPS apparently felt sufficiently convinced to get the kid the hell out of the home. And our great county's CPS does not have enough resources to waste them on nothing. Last year, I was told by an administrator that one of our kids claimed sexual abuse at home, but no one had called because the kid is a well-known liar, and the dad is a great guy. Sometimes I wonder if I'm in a ****ing time warp, or just surrounded by incredibly stupid people.

Mrs. Bluejeans Sr. wanted to know what Jeckle is afraid to ask--why? Why do we have such high rates of parents knocking the kids around? More than that, why would parents who care enough to go to the trouble of sending their kids to a charter school also be abusive? I tried to think why, and I have some ideas.

Our kids are honestly, many of them, hard to deal with. They have problems, emotional, academic, gang related etc. I think we may have a parent population that, while wanting the best for their kids, are also unable to deal with their kids. They try to find a school that will help their children, and the ones with health coverage get counselors, and they sit through SST and IEP meetings, but they also run out of patience and hit, or they think they can achieve results through discipline and they hit. I think some of the kids' problems stem from the adult's problems, too. The parents aren't evil, any more than their kids are, but I suspect we've got a fair number of parents with their own traumas and addictions and inabilities. And when they're panicked, or angry, you guessed it, they hit.

Meanwhile, I've got an administration, albeit only for another week, that thinks we shouldn't report abuse if the kid him or herself is known to not be a saint. Not that they said that, no, no no, no no no no no...well, yes.

Our kids deserve so much better.

The First Invite

I've had my first wedding invitation in the great new California era--Mirele and her wife Keyle have invited me to the simcha they are planning for maybe November. Of course, there was some issue about calling it a wedding--"We got married fifteen years ago," Keyle snaps. So, OK, I have been invited to a renewal of vows and acquisition of marriage license, followed by canapes.

May I be invited to dance at lots and lots more.

Graduation at St. Colmcille

So yesterday I dressed up a little for work, and after work I took off to Oakland, home of St. Colmcille, the tiny inner-city Catholic school you may recall I worked at last year.

The reason I was on my way to St. Colmcille was that my homeroom class from last year was graduating the eighth grade, and they had cornered my lovely coworker and friend Ms. Mirele Gans (NO, that's not her real name) and demanded to know if I was coming. Mirele called me and demanded to know if I was coming. So I went.

They do the graduation from St. Colmcille in the little, Gothic parish church next to the school. It was built with the hard-earned money and old-fashioned piety of Irish immigrants around 1930, and everything about it, from the shamrocks carved into the supports to to the serene-faced Irish saints in the windows (Colmcille, Jarlath, Brigid, Patrick) shows that. Later generations have added images of la Virgen de Guadalupe and statues carved in the Mexican tradition, as the neighborhood has changed. The graduation ceremony takes place from the altar, and is open to the whole parish, as well as the school community.

Oh. Oh. The heartstrings. The choir singing sweet folk-Catholic pieces. Father Toledano (no that's not his real name either) beaming. The parents glowing and schepping naches all over the place. Cameras flashing. Ari, with shamrock-green bands on his braces to match the regalia. The girls carefully walking in their first (much too high) high heels. Mirele, radiant with pride. Pomp and Circumstance.

I hugged everyone. I cried. Shaina nearly broke her neck on a kneeler trying to get to me in her strappy sandals. Nisanit, (who never caused me a moment's trouble last year), cried and apologized for the way her class had treated me. Dovidl went to another school this year, but was there to cheer for his classmates and congratulate me for working in Richmond with 'all those black gangsta guys'. (Dovidl would adore to be a black gangsta guy, but is cursed with a middle-class mother who won't let him.) I sat in front of Mushkie's extended family, who yelled every time her name was mentioned. "GO Mushkie! Go go Mushkie!" The seventh graders surrounded me, upbraided me for leaving, admired my wedding ring, and suggested I come back pregnant or with a baby for them to admire when they graduated next year. And even Netzach graduated (as he went up for his diploma I muttered to Svetlana-the-Social-Studies-Teacher "by the grace of God", but he got one).

They were all so beautiful. Even Netzach.

Afterward, Mirele, her wife, I, and a friend of theirs who played the trumpet for the ceremony, took off for a tiki bar, and drank things with ridiculous names, and rejoiced. It's been a rough year for them, but heck, the class of 2008 graduated.

Lemon Cake and Politeness

I had some good lemon cake today. Tuesday is the day we do not sell food to the kids at lunch--on other days they can order, according to the day of the week, sandwiches, pizza, burritos or Chinese--so the student government leaped in and started a fundraiser selling baked goods at lunch.

They are raking in the big bucks. All the baked goods are homemade by ringleaders Nesiyah and Avivi. Both girls are being raised by African-American balabustas of the highest order, are terrific cooks, and when they unload their cookies, homemade brownies, Rice Krispie treats, individual-sized vanilla and lemon bundt cakes with homemade frosting...!!! there is a kind of feeding frenzy among their classmates. Like at the Monterey Aquarium when they feed the deep-sea fish in the big tank. Nesiyah and Avivi just smile serenely, and stack up bills toward a class trip to Great America.

I had a piece of lemon cake today. It was like eating sunshine with frosting. Wow.

Meantime, I am trying to figure out how to depart the school in a dignified way, but cause Heckle and Jeckle just a little discomfort. It is not that easy.

I told Gittel that I had been fired, and she said "WHAAAT!" I told Relaxed Dude, and he said "That's ridiculous." I told Dr. Kalonymos, and he said "Well, they're ****ed", and revealed that he's not coming back next year either.

It's nice to have the support of my coworkers, I suppose.

The Khaffiyeh Test

As you may have been lucky enough not to notice, some people were horrified by this picture of Rachel Ray, wearing what was interpreted by many as a khaffiyeh around her neck.

In an ad for Dunkin' Donuts, an organization I had not previously thought of as either political or with strong Middle Eastern ties.

Anyway, DD has pulled the ad, and now the usual suspects are throwing mud at each other.

I've blogged before about the ongoing khaffiyeh-as-fashion-item wars, and I remain committed to my basic stance that the best use for a khaffiyeh is its original purpose--keeping the sun off the head of male Arab persons of a traditional kind of persuasion. British troops in the Middle East, I understand, use them as well. For as long as I can remember, I've also seen khaffiyehs (what is the correct plural, BTW?) used as fashion scarves by older women in the Bay Area who wear them as a political statement. Such ladies also usually have bright handbags woven by Guatemalan indigenous weavers, and interesting earrings.

Much to my amusement, at demonstrations some years back, I began to notice young Palestinian men wearing khaffiyehs in the lady-hippie style, worn over the shoulders and loosely tied. I interpreted this as a compromise between wanting to wear a traditional item of clothing, but not being willing to actually put one on your head, which would make you look like your grandfather.

Then the fashion wave struck, and now I can buy a scratchy white scarf with a vaguely khaffiyeh-like pattern at the local Marshalls for seven bucks. (If I wanted to, for some reason.) For more details, and funny pictures, check out this chronology at the funniest Arab blog I know of. ("1926. Kufiya and Valentino reunited for The Son of the Sheik. Still no sound.")

Some comments on the Rachel Ray picture:

1. I do acknowledge that the scarf in question clearly derives from the vaguely-khaffiyeh scarf trend. The white-and-black pattern and fringes are clearly chic because of the sheik association. What can one do?

2. It's not, in fact, a khaffiyeh. My ideal test for whether something is a khaffiyeh is whether a middle-aged man from a small town outside Amman could walk around wearing one and not get weird looks, however that would exempt these odd purple and turquoise 'peace scarves' and the like, which clearly are supposed to be khaffiyehs, even if they're not. Rachel's however, seems to have a paisley design, which to my mind simply makes it a fashion scarf with fringes.

3. Do we really have nothing better to do?

4. Of course not. In the process of reading everything I can about this non-scandal, I have discovered the khaffiyeh yisraelit, modeled fetchingly to your right. The website informs us that:


"There are many versions of the Keffiyeh and it has been worn throughout the Middle East for thousands of years. The Keffiyeh Israelit is a version that celebrates Jewish Middle Eastern culture connecting their ancient ethnic origins in the Middle East to their modern day connection with Israel."


Oy. Va. Voy. I read this, and my mind boggles, I mean it just boggles like a bowl of Jell-O. It might be the answer to a question I asked once before on this blog: what is the equivalent Zionist fashion statement to the ethnic appropriation and cross-dressing represented by non-Arab college girls wearing khaffiyehs wrapped around their faces at anti-Israel demonstrations? It might be this.

Wow.

On a roll this morning...(long)

I took today off, because I have a job interview in SF this afternoon, and because I'm just too wrecked after this week to do another day. Busy now getting the old school out of my system.

Tamara writes:

Is there somewhere on your site that explains the start up that you're in? In
general I believe in small schools and new ways of approaching education. I'm
part of a brand new school next year and am quite excited.

In general, I have to say that I think small schools are not at all a bad idea. (Since I am no longer in the start-up, I guess I should change the header for the blog).

George C. Moonbat's charter describes a small high school based on authentic communication, and respect for the individual child. Kids are divided into homerooms where they stay with one homeroom teacher for four years, and have a regular place to check in. We have classes on study skills, and every year each child takes a class in which they create and carry out a community service project. As students progress, they are given more autonomy, and allowed to design their own course of study. Students spend increasing amounts of time in a study-hall like environment, where they may work or engage in other community-based activities at their discretion.

Doesn't that sound SUPER? (I don't mean to be sarcastic. It does sound super, and it was this that led me to the now-regretted moment, weeks before my wedding, unemployed and out of my mind, when I turned to Jeckle, and told him that for a project like this, I would work my tuchis off.

He took me at my word. Now I have no tuchis, (not that I ever had much, I was always flat-butted), and I'm unemployed again in a matter of weeks.

What went wrong? Honestly, a lot of things, some of which I can blame Heckle and Jeckle for, and some of which just fall under "acts of God".

We didn't get the student body we were planning on. Or at least not the one I envisioned. I was envisioning a multi-cultural cast of characters, bright but not necessarily cut out for a big high school, funky but willing to engage with new, innovative ways of learning.

We got kids whose parents were willing to try anything. We got kids who were supposed to go to special education schools with classroom assistants who do take-downs and restraint, but their parents tried us instead. (OK, just a couple of those, but you know? It changes the tenor of a classroom.) We got kids who'd failed everything for years and didn't care. We got tough girls from North Richmond who didn't like my tone of voice when I said 'please sit down'. We got kids who slept all day in every class. We got druggies. We got bipolar. We got every learning disability under the sun--and many of them were not diagnosed.

Most of all, we got kids who expected the teacher to make learning 'fun', and if it wasn't fun, wouldn't work. Academics, by definition, were not fun. (I missed my remedial reading class, years back, who would work like crazy if I promised we could watch "The Color Purple" on Friday.) We got kids who didn't listen to anything anyone said--I mean literally, they would sit in class and ignore you. Not intending to be rude, just why listen while some chick talked about literature? And they didn't want to talk in class about anything academic. I had two kids, first semester, who would argue with each other about literature. The day Aviva and Yochanan went at it about whether Of Mice and Men was racist, it was a beautiful thing--but the other kids told them to shut up, because it didn't matter, and they should stop arguing and wasting time.

They didn't have the academic skills, for the most part, for me to teach at grade level, let alone at the high, independence-fostering level the administration wanted. Behavior was AWFUL. The all-school meetings we'd envisioned were chaos, because no one could get the kids to sit down and SHUT UP so their elected representatives could talk to them.

So, the emotionally close homerooms were hard to create, and the grades were rock bottom, and the portfolio-driven student-run parent meetings didn't happen, and the teachers were quitting.

Also we had no janitors, but that was another problem.

Now, we had partly modeled ourselves on another alternative high school in the Bay Area, which emphasizes 'freedom to fail'--that the student is free to decide not to attend class, not to take advantage of opportunities, and not to succeed academically before they are ready to take that step. I think we admired this in theory, however in practice...

We went to the opposite extreme. We hired tutors for after school tutoring. We called parents, first every time a homework assignment wasn't turned in, then every week. Grades were online, constantly checked and rechecked. Make-up work became a way of life. It turned very sour.

They started too soon, I think. The charter passed in June or July, and they managed to open the doors by the end of August. I think another year, and some substantive planning would have saved a lot of broken hearts.

Also, I think they should have hired better to begin with. X and Y were poor choices, chosen more for being able to talk the politically correct talk than for being useful to a start-up school. Maybe I was a poor choice as well, but at least I stuck the whole damn thing out, soup to nuts.

Acccchhh. I'm getting in the shower now.

Funny you should ask that...

In the comments to my previous post, WBS asks the highly relevent question, "Is there a lot of turn over there (Moonbat High), in general?)

;) Funny you should ask that, WBS--I started to respond in the comment thread, but decided this needed its own post.

We started the year with a team of four full-time teachers. Me, Jeckle, X and Y. Five weeks into the year, X left. Told our students that she was the only teacher who'd ever cared about them, and vanished, citing the need to be at home for her own kids.

At the beginning of November, Jeckle, the ed director, had a small nervous breakdown from the stress, and was forced to stop teaching for the rest of the semester. He is back now, however, and firing me.

Then Y developed intense personality conflicts with Heckle and Jeckle and left, right before Christmas, after a screaming fight with H&J.

While Jeckle was out, we had another math teacher for a while, let's call him Z. Z was suspected of saying inappropriate things to the kids, and was pushed out after the semester break when Jeckle pulled himself from his deathbed to come back to the classroom.

We lost first Bilhah, and then Zilpah, who both taught dance, first semester, but they were part-timers. Bilhah just couldn't deal with the kids--to be fair, who could (they were nightmares in dance class)--and I don't remember what happened to Zilpah, she just sort of wandered away.

We had an art teacher and a drama teacher--let's call them A and B--first semester. A went to grad school in New York at the semester, and B, a good friend of Y's, decided to pursue other interests.

Yehoshua, good buddy of Shmuel the Drummer did student government for a while, but his girlfriend moved back East, and he followed her, plus he got a sort of cool job there.

(Is everyone following this? There will a quiz Monday.)

Gittel, who began the year teaching a sort of middos-for-girls class a few hours a week, was begged to take over X's classes, and did so. She performed a full-time teacher's job for part-time salary for the rest of the year, while H&J bashed her performance at every turn. She is now leaving, to start up a sand candle shop. She recently spent the night of her son's thirteenth birthday at a staff meeting that ran from seven to ten at night. (I was there too, but at least my kid was not becoming a bar mitzvah over frozen pizza.)

Relaxed Dude, the one who took over half my students so no child would fail, is not returning. Rumor has it that the phrase 'Gestapo tactics' was used when he was asked why. (To be fair, this is the man who had his supervisors read his diary.)

Assuming that EVERYONE that I do not know for sure to be leaving is coming back, that makes:

Jeckle (math) (1 year at Moonbat)
Dr. Kalonymos (art and student government) (1 semester at Moonbat)
Sra. Abulafia (Spanish) (1 semester, part time)
Ms. da Costa (dance and drama) (1 semester)
Tante M. (science) (all year, but only twice a week for one class at the end of the day, she has a full-time job elsewhere, and may not want to bother next year)
Yehuda the Special Ed Dude (special ed) (all year part time, and maybe full time next year)
Shmuel the Drummer (middos for boys) (all year, part time)
Hulda the Gym Lady (study hall and PE) (one semester)

Yeah, that sounds like a solid core of staff to begin Year 2 with. Oh. My. Word.

I've Been Fired By Moonbats

OK, they just said they didn't want me to come back next year. But my God. I've been sacked by people who...oh Lord, are they in trouble next year. Can you say 'lack of institutional memory', boys and girls? I knew you could!

Can't Do Better Than This...

It is for us the living, rather, to be dedicated here to the unfinished work which they who fought here have thus far so nobly advanced. It is rather for us to be here dedicated to the great task remaining before us - that from these honored dead we take increased devotion to that cause for which they gave the last full measure of devotion - that we here highly resolve that these dead shall not have died in vain - that this nation,under God, shall have a new birth of freedom - and that government of the people, by the people, for the people, shall not perish from the earth.

Another shooting

Another shooting of a Sudanese refugee by Egyptian police on the Egypt/Israel border. They also arrested a woman with a nine-year-old kid, also trying to cross.

Twelve have been killed so far this year, trying to get into Israel.

Not a nice world out there.

OK, a slightly odd thing

I was tidying up in the classroom yesterday, and I happened to pick up a copy of the Webster's New World Dictionary. It fell open to "Pakistan" and "pajamas", and I vaguely wondered if a person doing the dictionary equivalent of bible-cracking would think this meant that they should go sell pajamas in Pakistan.

Then, on a whim, I opened the dictionary at random and put my finger down on the page.

The word was 'heder'.

Interesting, huh?

My eggs are ticking. No, not a Lysol bomb.

Well. I got issues again. What do I do with this?

Basically, the rightniks are loving this, because it demonstrates that Alice Walker--a 'feminist icon' (okay, I cannot deny this, she really is a feminist icon), has now been exposed as a really lousy mother by her daughter. (Anyone who read the kid's first book might have noticed this.)

I have a ton of issues with both Alice and Rebecca Walker, as it happens, and this is not helping any of them. This passage, though:

Then there is the issue of not having children. Even now, I meet women in their 30s who are ambivalent about having a family. They say things like: ‘I’d like a child. If it happens, it happens.’ I tell them: ‘Go home and get on with it because your window of opportunity is very small.’ As I know only too well.

Then I meet women in their 40s who are devastated because they spent two decades working on a PhD or becoming a partner in a law firm, and they missed out on having a family. Thanks to the feminist movement, they discounted their biological clocks. They’ve missed the opportunity and they’re bereft.

Feminism has betrayed an entire generation of women into childlessness. It is devastating.

I'm turning thirty-five this summer, and I plan to be pregnant by the time I'm thirty-six, baruch Hashem an' the crick don't rise. Since I hit about twenty-eight, I have been hearing ceaseless warnings about my dwindling egg supply. And I have had a simple answer for all these people: if, by the time I have enough money and financial stability and a partner, and all the stuff I need to raise a child in today's fairly non-child-friendly world, I do not have the biological capacity, you know what I will do? I will ADOPT. It works great. I see all these forty-something women with law doctorates and little girls from China, and they look tired, but not at all bereft.

Some basic stats here: the birthrate in the U.S. in 1910 was just over 30 per 1000 of population. We have never returned to that high. The birthrate dropped steadily, hitting a low of 18.7 in 1935. I'm guessing the Depression, plus increased availability of birth control contributes to that low. Then we climb, taking off as we hit the 50s. The Baby Boom peaked in 1957, with 25.3 births per 1000 pop.--still well below the 1910 rate. Following 1957, we begin to drop, falling below 15 per 1000 in the early 70s, then rising through the 80s and early 90s. (Brief question--are we seeing the results here not so much of feminism but the fluctuations of the American economy?) In 2002 we drop to our lowest point, 13.9 per 1000, (possibly 9/11 combined with a tanking economy, there) but then hold steady at 14ish. We're currently in the middle of a Boomlet, hitting our highest point since 1961.

Patently, as Andrew Greeley would say, feminism has NOT betrayed an entire generation of women into childlessness, although it may have betrayed us into small families.

Oddly, this reminds me of an article I saw in, I think, People Magazine some time ago, about how being too thin makes it likelier you won't get pregnant. (This was when Nicole Richie was expecting.) They ran picture after picture of frankly anorexic starlets--unfortunately, the women they picked had all actually managed to have children. Thereby sort of undercutting the point of the article. Some of them were past forty and under 120 pounds. The human body does tend to reproduce, given a chance.

Look, Rebecca, I realize this may be hard for you to understand, but I haven't put off having children because I was deluded by your mother's so-so novels. I put off having children because I wanted to be sure I could feed them, and would be a good strong mother for them. This isn't about 'having a career', although I'm down with that, it's about putting oatmeal on the table, and buying board books, and knowing how to raise them well.

This is also not the first time in history women have done this. After the potato famine in Ireland, marriage ages rose sharply. After generations of kids marrying at sixteen, and having as many children as God sent, men and women who survived the Hunger chose to wait until their thirties, have fewer children, and a better chance of raising them. In Victorian England, many people similarly waited--not because of scarcity, but because they idealized marriage, and did not take it lightly. In Elizabethan England, girls waited until well into their twenties, often later--and this was in an age with a much shorter average lifespan--working for wages, and waiting until they could afford to set up house. Feminism never told us that we could defy biology--but it also told us that we didn't have to accept a 1950s definition of what biology meant.

And I don't think I want to take patronizing advice from a woman who, in her memoir, whinged about how she was oppressed by going to private high school, and then Yale. God, all that identity politics victim-of-the-week is SOOOO 1994. This Mills girl is grabbing the goodies feminism gave her and going on the road with them. See ya at Mommy and Me!

The Kids Have The Bomb

And to think I was worrying about North Korea and Iran!

For the past couple of weeks we have been consumed with worry about the sprouting gang-affiliation tensions developing at George C. Moonbat, and as a result of our worries about tribal squabbling, we entirely missed the sinister activities taking place below the radar.

The wake-up call happened on Tuesday, when a small chemical-reaction bomb made with Lysol toilet cleaner, a plastic bottle, and some aluminum foil detonated out back of one of the freestanding classrooms. It made a splendid noise--the teacher in the classroom thought something had fallen from a truck on the freeway that runs by us--and someone else thought it was gunfire. I missed the whole thing, having left early.

Apparently, the administration did not figure out what was going on until the next day, when:

a. Giora's mother told Jeckle, our ed director, that Giora had made her pull into a Rite Aid that morning, to get some toilet bowl cleaner, which he said he needed for a 'science experiment'. Since Giora does not take a science class, his mother found this odd, and mentioned it to Jeckle.

b. Heckle has a long talk with Giora in which she plays very dumb, and explains that she's thrilled to hear that he's bringing supplies for a science project--why doesn't she keep the toilet bowl cleaner in the office until Tante M., the science teacher, comes on Thursday to help them? She gets the cleaner, albeit minus some that Giora apparently managed to siphon off.

c. At lunchtime, Giora and some of his cronies were seen to be huddling around the far southwestern corner of the school, an area that is usually reserved by a small group of girls not connected to Giora and friends.

d. Jeckle, when he went to investigate, was told nervously by Gershom that 'Uhhhh, you shouldn't be standing there, Jeckle."

Second bomb. This one did not go off. I'm not sure if this was because they had limited cleaner or what. Suspensions, in-school supervision, etc.

I love the smell of hydrocloric acid in the middle of the afternoon. Smells like--a school on the verge of a nervous breakdown.

The U.N. Is Doing What?

When this popped up on Little Green Footballs, I thought they might be kidding. I still think Reuters might be kidding. But here it is, folks, the visit of the special rapporteur. Mission: figure out American racism in three weeks. Lots of luck, rapporteur.

GENEVA (Reuters) - A special U.N. human rights investigator will visit the United States this month to probe racism, an issue that has forced its way into the race to secure the Democratic Party's presidential nomination.

Uh, that's not the only place racism has forced itself in the United States...and possibly the least important.

The United Nations said Doudou Diene would meet federal and local officials, as well as lawmakers and judicial authorities during the May 19-June 6 visit. "The special rapporteur will...gather first-hand information on issues related to racism, racial discrimination, xenophobia and related intolerance," a U.N. statement said on Friday.

OK, so basically, this man is going to travel around the country for three weeks, and talk to federal and local officials about what? Whether they feel that people are more likely to vote for or against Obama because he's black? Examples they've seen of racism in their day to day lives? Help. I do not get this.

His three-week visit, at U.S. government invitation, will cover eight cities -- Washington D.C., New York, Chicago, Omaha, Los Angeles, New Orleans, Miami and San Juan, Puerto Rico.

First, what does the U.S. government expect to get out of this? Second, can I be the rapporteur instead of Mr. Diene? I'd LOVE to visit DC, New York, Chicago, etc., and I would keep my eyes wide open for examples of racism and meet with all the local officials anyone wanted me to.

Race has become a central issue in the U.S. election cycle because Sen. Barack Obama, the frontrunner in the battle for the Democratic nomination battle, stands to become the country's first African American president. His campaign has increased turnout among black voters but has also turned off some white voters in a country with a history of slavery and racial segregation.

Ummm. OK. This requires investigation how? I think you just said it all.

Diene, a Senegalese lawyer who has served in the independent post since 2002, will report his findings to the U.N. Human Rights Council next year. However, the United Nations has almost no clout when it comes to U.S. domestic affairs and is widely perceived by many as interfering. The United States is not among the 47 member states of the Geneva-based forum, but has observer status.

OK. So this guy from an organization the U.S. doesn't pay much mind to, has been invited to come and see how we're doing with racism out here. I hate to seem irrelevant, but doesn't this guy have some genocides to worry about, or something?

In a report last year he said Islamophobia had grown worldwide since the September 11 2001 attacks on the United States, carried out by al-Qaeda militants.

This Mr. Diene--he sees what the lesser mind might miss!

The article goes on to list some things the U.N. already wants us to do--death penalty moratorium, things like that. I hope that Mr. Diene enjoys his trip--he is headed to several cities with very fine cultural opportunities, and nice restaurants, although of course, he should see San Francisco before he goes home.

Zen and the Art of Employee Management

One of my colleagues, who will not be returning to George C. Moonbat next year, had a conversation with our mutual bosses. Apparently they returned incessantly to the topic of her not making her phone calls.

It has been decreed that those of us who have homerooms must call ALL homeroom parents, EVERY week, to update them on their kids' progress. This has then led to an obsession with how I and Gittel haven't done our calls. This is more important than anything, anything at all.

I am full time, which is one thing, but Gittel is part-time, and is only being paid for twenty-five hours a week, no bennies, which, given that she teaches three sections, plus a homeroom, is not very much time to also make calls. Plus, they keep her late for meetings, want her to come in on weekends to lesson plan--you get the picture.

So, Gittel pointed that out, and Heckle and Jeckle pointed out that they had said at the beginning of the year that people would be working extra unpaid hours. Gittel said that she was aware of that, but that the time constraints did make it difficult to accomplish all the dreck they had added on, and that was piling up and making it hard for her to do other things.

"Did they show any sign that they understood that?" I asked, hearing about this conversation, and Gittel shook her head.

So Heckle and Jeckle then returned to a topic that has interested them for some time, the idea that, since she is not doing 'the job' (the job being defined as any damn thing H & J decide they want to have happen), they should dock her pay.

Gittel said that that was fine, but if they docked her pay, she should really insist that they pay for the unpaid hours she'd worked.

And so the conversation ended.

Chachalaca!

This attractive critter is a chachalaca. Specifically, this one is called a 'plain' chachalaca. I don't know what a fancy chachalaca would look like. Is that a chachalaca that drives cars instead of buggies, and wears colors and clothes with buttons? Or is that merely an 'English' chachalaca?

Anyway, the chachalaca lives on the U.S. Mexico border, and I only discovered its existence through a Newsweek article about fence-building on the Texas border. Apparently there's a poor soul in Brownsville TX who owns a birdwatching lodge which is about to be cut off from the chachalacas.

I had never heard of a chachalaca before that. I had to look them up.

Hot, hot, hot!

There is an old tale of a Southern preacher who looks out one late summer Sunday at his congregation, as they sit sweating and fanning themselves, and says "Brothers and sisters, I know what you're thinking as you sit in church today--you're thinking that it's hotter than hell. Well, let me tell you. It ain't."

That must have been a day like today. We're having a heat wave in California. It's hot. I am drinking iced Wissotsky mango tea, and waiting until the stove no longer feels like the oven is on before I turn the oven on.

The kids were pretty torpid today, except for the part at lunch where they started throwing water at each other. I was in my classroom, overseeing a detention, when about six girls who didn't have detention came running in and asked if they could stay. "They're throwing water out there," Chana explained in agitation. "And we're black!"

It took me a second to make the connection. All six had straightened hair. Water + straightened hair = well, not good things. I allowed them to hide out in my classroom to preserve their crowning glory from going haywire. They watched out the window as their classmates waged warfare with drink bottles. "I wish I was Mexican, just until it gets cooler," Sheva commented sadly, smoothing her ponytail.

My Job Is Weird (very long, and with feeling)

OK. Brief run-down for the week:

First, I should explain that my two bosses, both of whom I rather like, or did like, are sometimes not the most tightly wrapped of individuals, sometimes. I should explain that they have a tendency to make and implement decisions FAST. And I should explain that they have FEELINGS.

I should explain that I am currently expected to call the parents of the twenty kids in my homeroom once a week, no matter what. I am also expected to have the week's homework up on the computer by Sunday night. I am also expected to grade all papers within a week, and put them into the computer grading program.

I should also explain that they, not too long ago, mentioned to me that they were considering withholding people's paychecks if they did not update all the above stuff. This is illegal, so I am not TOO worried about it, but the fact that they tossed the idea around gives me major misgivings about how thoroughly plugged into reality Heckle and Jeckle are.

OK. Now that we have that clear, I should explain that on Tuesday night I stayed at school until eight-thirty for a board meeting. The next day I was expected to be back at the school by eight-thirty, partly to prepare for a standardized test I was administering, and partly because Jeckle told me that he wanted to talk to me and my TA, Relaxed Dude, in the AM before class.

So I show up, check the standardized etc., and then Relaxed Dude and I are escorted to my classroom by Heckle and Jeckle, and I do mean escorted.

My classroom, not to put too fine a point on it, is messy. I have a lot of paper stacked on and around my desk, the books on the shelves have been pawed through by kids looking for stuff to read, and are messy, and the kids ran out at the end of the day without picking up their random pieces of paper, or pushing their chairs in. I just bailed on it, figuring to clean up in the AM.

Jeckle turns to me and Relaxed Dude, and says in a tone of great authority and ominous displeasure, "Who is responsible for the condition of this classroom?"

Things just got better from that point on. I and Relaxed Dude were upbraided over the messy classroom, and how the kids would not take their work seriously in such an environment. I, natch, start to get weepy, which is my classic response to this pair. I inquire, as calmly as I can, why they could not just have said "Clean up", rather than staging this confrontation. This got me a lecture on how as a professional, this is my problem, not theirs, and I cannot expect them to etc., etc.

At this point I am starting, despite the teariness, to do a slow burn. This turns into a fast burn when it emerges that Heckle has gone into my filing cabinet, and found a stack of ungraded papers from September. She has extrapolated from this that I may not be grading ANY papers, or looking at them, and may not be returning any work to the kids.

Now, as aforementioned, I have all my grades online, so this woman KNOWS I am grading work. Also, given the grief I am getting (and the endless extra work) because a third of the class is failing my class, wouldn't I be giving everyone a nice B if I were just throwing all their work out? Sure I would. Come to think of it, that is not a bad idea. /sarc/

So I pull out my nice filing cube full of alphabetized files with the kids' names that the kids can get their goddamned corrected work out of any time they are so inclined, and demonstrate how it works. They seem mildly mollified, but are still terribly. Terribly. concerned about the room. I offer to clean up the effing room. I make the mistake of explaining that I have been getting real mixed messages from day one about what use I am to put Relaxed Dude to. Not the first time I have said this.

Big mistake. I am treated to a shouted lecture about taking responsibility. H & J depart, and I kick the wall for a bit, and also learn from Relaxed Dude that apparently H & J also read his personal notebook, and had 'questions' about some things he'd written about the school.

I clean up the room. It takes fifteen minutes. It looks much nicer when I am done.

I go through the rest of the day so mad that I can hardly breathe. And then, at the end of a staff meeting that ends at six-thirty, we have 'open space for appreciations', and Jeckle turns to me and appreciates Balabusta, because he had to say some 'tough things' to me this morning, and he hopes I understand that's because he really believes in me.

My face must have been a picture.

Anyway, the next day H & J and I are supposed to sit down and talk about next year, so I prepare carefully for this. Around the appointed time, Jeckle walks into my room, and says approvingly that it 'looks much better', and proposes that we delay the meeting until next week.

OK.

So, yesterday, Jeckle shows up again, and this time he and Heckle have a new idea. They've decided, con mi permision, to take all the kids who are failing out of my English class, and have them do a more level-appropriate English class for the last five weeks of school with Relaxed Dude. I suggest a few possible book ideas for this class. Relaxed Dude, however, wants to teach Siddhartha.

These are kids who complained that The Giver was too hard and boring. I have NO #((*&#ing clue what will happen when they try Hermann Hesse. But Jeckle likes the idea. I concede, feeling as though a. I have no legs to stand on and b. do I really care? Maybe they'll like Siddhartha. Maybe they'll all become bodhisattvas. Do I know?

I think what we have here is a failure to communicate.

Berkeley--Nothing Can Prepare You

As some of you may be aware, local anti-war groups have turned their sights on the Berkeley Marine Corps Recruiting Center over the last few months. Zombie has covered a bit of it.

Now comes the day when Code Pink shows up dressed as witches with a cauldron full of roses to cast spells for peace. This is not at all surprising, if you know Berkeley.

Here's what made me laugh, though. Per this same article:

Members of the pro-troops group Move Forward America came armed with packages of salt, which they spread around the recruiting station to keep the Marines safe from spells.

Now THAT'S Berkeley. Not just anti-war magic-implementers casting spells, but pro-Marine magic-implementers creating a protective barrier for the recruiting center.

G-d bless the U.S.A., and the PRB.

New Hobbies

In my mid-thirties, I am suddenly being hit with a wild interest in perfume. I have LIKED perfume for a long time, but in a more low-key sort of way. Now I'm reading blogs with stuff about top notes and sillage, and stuff like that. I'm ordering decants. I'm thinking about learning to make perfume.

It's very cool.

What A Week

1. We had STAR testing all week.

2. But only in the morning. In the afternoons we were teaching classes as usual.

3. Also, a different homeroom was in charge of cooking breakfast for the school each morning, and the staff did it on one day. I did not feel happy about coming in to school early two days running to cook food for kids who should be eating their dang breakfast at home.

4. I have a cold.

5. It's my own fault, by the way. I said, aloud, in front of all the listening ears, "I've been teaching for four years. My immune system laughs at anything short of Marburg."

6. I suppose I was lucky. It could have been Marburg.

7. I slept for sixteen hours night before last. It's supposed to be a blessing to sleep on Shabbos, right? Do you get extra credit for marathons?

8. My students don't know how to use apostrophes.

9. I hate staff meetings.

10. And a kid set fire to a piece of paper in my classroom this week. This is a new one on me. I've had knives, vomit, stink bombs, blood, oh, all kinds of stuff, but fire is new. I sent the kid to the office, after much, "WHY? It's out now. OK, I won't do it again. But WHY do I have to go to the office?"

Spaghetti Tonight

For seder night, my parents and I went to the San Francisco JCC. It was pleasant, they have a wonderful new haggadah. Fewer kids than usual, but still pleasant.

Then I went home, and got hit with the Great Matzah Shortage of 2008.

Haven't heard about the Great Matzah Shortage? Lucky you. I didn't do shopping before the holiday, due to insane work pressure, but when I dashed by the store to get a couple boxes of matzah, all that was left were Moonstrips, prominently labeled Not For Passover Use.

What to do?

I'm not sure why we're having a matzah shortage, even after reading the press about it, but let me tell you, it's not fun. Coworkers of Mrs. Bluejeans reported driving to Campbell and various such locations to find boxes of the cardboard carboliciousness. Me? I lived on potatoes for much of the week.

Went for dinner at my parents' last night, and was rewarded with matzah, which I am eating for breakfast with butter...sigh...it's sort of cool to still love the taste right at the end of the holiday.

The Strange Tale of Melanie Bowers.

OK, I read wayyyyyy too much right-wing drivel online,especially LGF and Michelle Malkin. That is how I find random stuff like the tale of Melanie Bowers.

Melanie is the kid in Athens, Texas, who was asked to create a political protest sign for a social studies class. She brought one in that said "If you love our nation, stop illegal immigration".

So far, so good, not my cup of tea, but certainly a reasonable protest sign. Then, she claimed, she was surrounded in the hallway by upset, presumably Latino classmates, assaulted, scratched, had her face slammed into a brick wall, and had the poster snatched from her. She said the boys involved threatened to gang-rape and kill her. She said she was ordered back to class and not allowed to call her parents. Three kids were put into in-house suspension.

Problem is that the school has surveillence tape running, and they've now reviewed it and discovered Melanie inflicting injuries on herself, scratching her arms. The whole thing seems to have been a fake. The local authorities are charging her, and the parents seem to agree that the kid filed a false report.

Various anti-immigration blogs and such have taken this in various ways. Most seem relieved that the hoax was discovered, many are concerned that this will prevent future such attacks from being taken seriously (and they're clearly expecting lots), and some just can't seem to realize where fault lies here. My personal favorite guy posted to ImmigrationWatchdog.com:

I have to agree with your comment. I don’t think this girl is anti-hispanic per se, but is simply feeling overwhelmed by the radical cultural imposition occuring, as a result of these selfish/parasitic invaders. I don’t agree with what she did, but I totally understand her frustration/desperation.

Can you imagine what this guy would say to a left-winger using language like that? 'Radical cultural imposition'? That sounds like something I had to read for class in college. Hoo boy.

As a teacher, though, I have to say that my question is, what is going on with this girl? Did she want attention? Did the parents set this up? (The parents were, understandably mad as hell at the initial report, but seem to have accepted the new evidence.) Why does a kid do a thing like this?

Of course, figuring out why a teenager does anything can be a tricky matter. One of my own students, rebounding from a bad breakup, recently told all the girls on campus that her ex-boyfriend had gotten her pregnant and now wouldn't talk to her, she was going the next day to get an abortion, and she also had a heart murmur and a tumor. The ex was nearly lynched by angry fifteen-year-old girls. The doctor's appointment the next day, when we called home, turned out to be for tooth cleaning, and no heart murmur or tumor were recalled by her mother. Where does a kid get ideas like this? (Telenovelas is my best guess.)

What I'm wondering is if she expected/wanted to be a martyr. One thing I notice about my right-wing sites is the expectation that teachers will punish right-wing students, blatantly give them Fs on assignments that don't align to the teacher's political views, etc. I wonder if the teacher looked at the poster, said, "Very neat work, Melanie, good research, A-," and some kid said "You're a racist," and the teacher said "Remember, we weren't going to judge people's causes," and life moved on, except for some hostility from other thirteen-year-old kids. Was this not what she/her parents had planned? Did she need to get the TV cameras rolling some way or other?

I don't know, and I don't know if this kid needs therapy, or to be grounded for a year and a half, or to live with her aunt. I have no way of knowing. Somehow, the whole thing just struck me as weird, and worrisome. I'm really thankful they had tape rolling.

Louis Calabro Lives!

I realize this means nothing to almost everyone out there. But, well, Louis Calabro was a figure on the San Francisco oddball activist stage for a while, protecting the rights of European-Americans everywhere against illegal immigration and the racist editors of Asian Week. (Asian Week's big crime seemed to be that they wrote a lot about Asian people.)

Louis' exploits were mighty--I especially liked the time he showed up at a fake pro-gentrification rally secretly organized by the San Francisco Weekly--no, it doesn't make much more sense if you know the story--to remind us all that gentrification is code for 'no European-Americans allowed'.

He vanished from local activities a while back. I didn't know where he had gone. But I just found him again, posting at AmericanHumanity.com.

Good to know that you're still out there, Louis. Keep on truckin'.

Rice is Nice

Many years ago, the Balabusta was eating lunch in Chinatown with some friends from high school, when one of her old high school friends-of-a-friend asked why she always ordered vegetarian. It interested him, you see, because for most of my Chinese high school buddies, being a vegetarian was something for old people, who had gotten to an age to be serious Buddhists. It seemed odd for a twenty-something.

So I explained kashrut, and because he was interested we kept talking, and eventually we got to Pesach. At first, my friend seemed to think it wasn't such a big deal. "So you can't have bread for a week?" he asked. "OK, so just cook things to eat with rice."

I had to explain, and his tolerance was at an end. "Chinese people couldn't do that," he explained simply, shaking his head. "It wouldn't work."

I suppose Chinese Jews never had to face the kitniyot thing, anyway, since I think the Chinese community was originally Persian, and would have followed that minhag.

Anyway.

Absolutly Silly

Michelle Malkin's crowd is going absolutly berserk over this ad.

For those of you who may not be sure what you're looking at, it shows a map of North and Central America drawn as though the Gadsden Purchase and the land ceded by the the Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo had remained part of Mexico. The text is "In An Absolut World". As far as I can tell, the attachment of the term reconquista to this is simply something wingnut commentators have dreamed up.

Over on Malkin's site, and many another spot, people are swearing never to drink Absolut again--and some of them have discovered to their horror just how many alcohol brands are owned by Absolut's overlords--and some of them are getting pretty hot under the collar about all this.

One of her readers writes:

Absolut -

I run a bar in Pt. Richmond, California - where the Kaiser Liberty Ships were built during WWII. After seeing your ad Campaign where you show a western map of the United States in which California is part of Mexico again, I’ve decided to do the following…

1) Never carry Absolut. Ever.
2) Lower the price of Ketel One vodka to $2 a shot indefinitely to build loyalty.
3) Print a copy of your ad and put it above the Ketel One drink special.
4) Tell all my friends and family what Absolut thinks of the United States of America and our right to enforce border laws.

I am on the front line of illegal immigration and its effects. Where are you? Oh yes, Sweden.
Good riddance.

Sincerely,

Matthew Rogers
Pt. Richmond, Ca.

Huh. I looked at the ad, and my first reaction was laughter. I thought it was cute. Some notes:

1. This is obviously a fantasy, not a blueprint for land appropriation.

2. I am also a resident of New Spain, in fact I am a neighbor of Mr. Roger's, and I don't feel that I'm on the 'front lines' of anything. Border control is an ongoing concern for the U.S., and for California, but this is not about border control.

3. This is also not about illegal immigration.

4. Oh, lighten up, amigo.

5. PS, my grandmother worked at Point Richmond during the war. I see your bar and raise you.

Now, Michelle asks what Absolut drinkers would feel about this ad:



Some differences, Michelle:

1. A number of powerful nations are, and have been, working for years to make something like this a reality. Mexico has no intention of trying to take back Texas and Alta California.

2. No, crazies on the radio in LA don't count as "Mexico". They also don't have an army.

3. No, illegal border-jumpers trying to find work don't count as an invasion. Even the tiny percentage of them who are really bad dudes don't count as an invasion.

4. As a Jew, the Absolut Palestine map scares the hell out of me. As an Anglo Alta-Californian, the Absolut Mexico map makes me chuckle. That's the difference.

Should I Stay Or Should I Go?

I love the kids at Moonbat, but teaching them is HAARRRRRD.

Problem #1: They are not sufficiently prepared for high school English. This is difficult, because English is cumulative. The kids mostly don't know how to use an apostrophe correctly. They cannot spell. They tend to forget to capitalize the word 'i'. Stuff like that. They also tend to write as though they are texting. (WTF? IDK.) They are poor readers. The average among them is about ready for the sixth grade. Don't you DARE start talking about differentiation and tiered assignments. It's just dang hard to teach the CALIFORNIA STATE STANDARDS (reverential music here), when the kids have skills several years behind grade level.

Problem #2: The kids are not interested, for the most part, in catching up. They refuse to read outside of class, either out of fear or disinterest. They don't do homework, and many don't do classwork. They talk in class--I mean they have loud, conversations in class while I am at the blackboard lecturing, and then express anger when they are sent out of the room. When we discuss the poor grades they're getting with them, they become combative and tell us that if we were better teachers this wouldn't be happening.

Problem #3: The administration keeps trying to find ways to deal with this. For a while, it was school policy that every time a kid didn't hand in a homework assignment, you called the parents. That night. I have fifty-seven kids I work with on a daily basis. That could mean anything from fifteen to thirty calls a night. The administration offered to help, but that hardly seemed like the POINT to me. I know we're supposed to be willing to go the extra mile to help our students succeed, but this seems to me like the extra MARATHON. Now we have a new policy, where we just have to call the parents in our homeroom every week. Now this is only twenty calls, but we're supposed to get the parent on the phone--no just leaving a quick message--and go over all grades in all classes.

I have to have mine done by Tuesday. It's Shabbos, and I've made contact with ONE parent. Of course, one night we had a school board meeting until eight, and the next we had a staff meeting until six thirty, and I actually have a home, and then I had food poisoning. No matter. I am letting the side down.

The homework is online. The grades are online. The ed director says we have to act like parents to the kids. They HAVE parents. I am fed up.

Problem #4: The administrations keeps trying to help me, but they don't want to let me teach the way I think I need to here. They keep telling me to teach to a high standard, and the kids keep failing, and I don't agree exactly that this is the way to do it.

So I wonder--do I really want to do this next year? Why would I? Well...

#1: I love the kids. And they need help, they really do. The kids at Moonbat are a weird bunch. They brag on being from the ghetto, but for the most part, they're from struggling middle-class families, with employed parents and money for designer jeans, iPods, fancy cell phones, trendy shoes and the like. Most of them aren't old enough to work for this stuff either, it's bought by family members for them. But they don't have much ambition at all, they're materialistic without having a clear idea how you get money for such things. They don't know what they need to do to survive. They don't have a broad cultural perspective--the world consists of teen culture, and nothing beyond. The best story I heard was from another teacher who has been organizing a career fair. She was going over how you dress for an interview:

SHE: So how will you dress when you go to this interview you've lined up?
KID: I'm gonna wear my Gaultiers, and my new Nikes.
SHE: Think again. You don't wear jeans and running shoes to an interview.
KID: They can't tell me how to dress!
SHE: No, they can't, but you won't get the job.
KID: Oh yes I will! (Tosses head.)

They need to learn to succeed. THey need to learn to live in the real world, not the one on MySpace. And I would love to see them do that, because they really are so darn cute and smart and worthwhile when they bother.

#2: Less amazing, but real. I don't want to job hunt again. I really, truly, OMG, do not want to job hunt and start over at a whole new place again. It's too hard. I want some stability. I'm turning thirty-five. I'm sick of starting over, and starting over...

#3: I want to see the school succeed. I really do. I want to see it grow and flourish, and turn into what we all envisioned at the beginning of the year--or at least something else worth the struggle we've put into it.

So, what to do?

IF I teach English again, it needs to be tiered in the way that the math program has been. We need to test the kids on basics, and if they don't pass, they go into Save-Your-Tuchis English 101. Lots of grammar, vocab, spelling, short stories.

I would prefer not to teach English. I could teach history OK. They don't get that either, but it's less amorphous and the standards are less based on previous accomplishement. (You can teach a lesson on the causes of World War Two even if they didn't understand about the city-states of Greece, for example.)

There might be an opening to teach a study skills class. I could do that.

I'm also going to apply for a few jobs, and see what happens.

I'm so tired, and so stressed, and my stupid credential needs clearing.

Whew!

There is a squirrel on the roof. Or maybe a crow.

I can hear it clomping around, and repeatedly dropping some sort of food or nesting item.

One morning I was horribly started when a crow thunked down on the bathroom skylight. Suddenly there was a noise, and the light went dim, and when I looked up, there were two crow feet, comfortably resting overhead.

It's spring, and the wildlife of El Cerrito is doing its thing. Many squirrels and crows, various birds, etc.

The ducks are back in the creek. There is a bitty creekbed that runs down the Ohlone Greenway, and there is a pair of mallards that show up annually to hatch out new ducks. I don't think they've laid the eggs yet, since the girl duck is still paddling around alongside her mate. Once the eggs are in the nest, she usually disappears for most of the rest of the spring, and we only see him, standing guard on the bank and looking noble and mildly stressed out.