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A place for family and friends to see what I'm up to. Visitors welcome here.

Hail Guest, we ask not what thou art.
If Friend, we greet thee, hand and heart.
If Stranger, such no longer be.
If Foe, our love will conquer thee.
-Old Welsh Door Verse

Wednesday, August 30, 2017

7:40 AM

First day of school.

And I am not pulling into the parking lot.



I'm in my house clothes.  Too-big pink Mickey lounging pants and a too-big pink Disneyland tee-shirt.  And one white sock.

For twenty-five years I've had the same back-to-school nightmare about two weeks before the school year starts.  There is classroom flotsam on every desk and the students are coming in.  I am not ready.

I didn't have that nightmare this year.  A new one showed up in my sleep last night.  Much worse.

I show up to sub (I'll be eligible in January and am seriously considering it) but I know nobody.  The whole school is redesigned and reconstructed and I can't find my way around.  Classes are held in double classrooms, but there are three classes worth of students squeezed in with one "master teacher" and three subs.  We are all shouting over each other trying to be heard.

I have reset my alarm at home.  Instead of 5:30 am, it now plays music at 7:00 and then again at 7:30.  I have no intention of sleeping away the best gardening time in a summer morning.  But today I was grateful to the seagull who woke me out of that dream at 6:00.

It's going to be a good day.  As soon as I feel like it, I'm taking myself up the coast on this First Day of School (and, actually, First Day of Retirement.)  Stopping at Costco for vacation prints and gas.  Up the highway to Carpenteria to spend a retirement gift certificate from a colleague at a favorite quilt fabric shop.  Out to Stearns Wharf to check out the shops, then take an hour cruise of the Channel.  Ola's for dinner on the way home.

A friend suggested I go to my happy place today.  And I am.

Friday, August 25, 2017

Great kick-off.

Not as I planned for a year or more, but awesome just the same.

I got home Wednesday (after two days of driving) and yesterday (Thursday) morning had some minor foot surgery.  I'm supposed to take it easy on the foot for a couple of days, which isn't easy since apparently my car sneezed into my house Wednesday night.  Usually I leave my house clean and ready to relax back into when I go on vacation, but there was so much going on in the weeks before this one that I left the house in less than pristine livable condition this time.

So much going on as I ended a career, saw a son marry the woman of his dreams, underwent a weird process to help me embrace a healthier lifestyle, and prepped for what was supposed to be three weeks of solitude and self-sanctuary and instead developed into something else.

I get ahead of myself.

In linear fashion from the earliest to most recent.   Sort of.  Because it was all happening at the same time:

The Wedding.

My younger son is thirty-five.  He's an amazing guy.  Unfailing kindness and movie star handsome.  Talented musician, loyal friend, and an organizational genius (he gets that from me).   A well-loved friend.  A Burner.  With two green thumbs, he managed to get veggies to grow in ground that I can't get anything to survive in. (Maybe because I only have one green thumb.)  He's had a succession of high value girlfriends - including some very serious loves - over his young adult years, several of whom he met online.  Which is where he met the one that - during this exciting spring - he announced he was going to marry.

In three months.

They are perfect together.  I've never seen two people so happy with each other.  His bride is also a musician - a singer - and  they are currently making their way through a year-long music festival of their own design (instead of doing Coachella).  Stevie Wonder. Billy Joel. Garth Brooks. Queen.  More that I can't remember.   She has a personal connection to Elton John, and my son was going to give her The Ring at his concert until Elton John became ill and cancelled.

Anyway, they are wonderful together.  And I was thrilled to hear that they would marry.  But July 9 was the chosen date, which made created some hurry-up project timelines.

June 9 was the bridal shower (The Bride said she didn't want any, but I'm happy to say that her mom talked her into it.)  I volunteered to do the food.

The Bride's friends did a delightful decoration job, indoors and out.


Grandma looking radiant in her toilet paper bridal gown.


Kept it simple.  Pulled pork in the crockpot on Hawaiian rolls as sliders.


Two different salads. Was surprised that the least healthy version was the most popular.


Fruit salad and homemade strawberry shortcake (used an Amish shortcake recipe) that was very popular.

I was honored when The Groom asked me to make him a wedding vest.  Out of, it turned out, drapery fabric that he found online.  It was a complex pattern with a difficult fabric and ate up more hours that I really had to spend.  But it was worth it to watch him refuse to take it off until several hours of 100+ temps had passed on the big day.

 
I was impressed.  The Bride had this lapel pin made for The Groom.  I was pretty  sure the choice of fabric was to include his dad in the ceremony (color-blind in two spectra, my late husband only enjoyed the color yellow).  The lapel pin was the perfect way to make sure he was included.
 
It was the most perfect wedding I've ever attended.  And it wasn't just me.  No wedding planner, just the bride and her mom and a couple dozen people who loved the couple helping to set up to make it special.  Bar, buffet, live band, a zillion flowers (that the bride picked up in Los Angeles the day before) arranged by a family friend that morning.  They even set up lawn games.  Eat when you want, drink when you want, dance, play and hugs all around.









My son's best friend officiated.  Just before the bride was due, the sound system went out.  Verdict:  the venue had slid closed the big glass doors and cut through the extension cord to the  speaker.

Are all grooms so excited to get married?  I doubt it.  Halfway through the reception, he came to our table, slapped his had down and announced, "I'm married!"  Yesterday he came home for a few minutes and I asked how he was doing (hadn't seen him for three weeks).  He mentioned having an issue at work, then - glowing - announced "Even when I'm sad, I'm happy!"  I've seen the other times as he has grown up.  It's a thrill to see so much joy for him now.
The Retirement.

I made the decision in the 2015-2016 school year that I would retire at the end of the 2016-2017 (the next) year.  As always, the super majority of my 160 students were wonderful young adults who reassure me that my future will be fine in their hands.  However, there was a higher-than-average number of challengers, and so I had no hesitation to embrace it as my last year.

It was a busy - and rewarding - time.  I gradually reduced the amount of Old Stuff (I was teaching the same curriculum in the same classroom for 23 years - unheard of in middle school education) and in the process gave last rights to probably a half dozen trees as I cleared files.  Fortunately, I knew I was being replaced by one of my young teacher friends who was going to take over not only the classroom, but the teaching assignment.  I lectured him that I would in no way ever presume to tell him how to teach by imposing my materials on him.  However, I would have loved it in my first few years if my predecessor had left me a few teaching materials for those time when, as a new teacher, I would get overwhelmed.  Ultimately, he said that he would just trust my judgment to leave what might be useful.  It made it a lot easier to leave behind what I considered my best stuff, including a year's worth of lessons arranged by quarter in big white binders.


The project that I am most proud of, as I reflect back on my career, is the family history project.  Here they are, displayed at the last Open House of my last year as they have been every year for the last twenty-five.  There is a lot in it, but the key pieces are the biographies written by the students based on interviews with their three oldest relatives.  Over the twenty-five years my students have documented nearly 12,000 stories that would not otherwise have been recorded.  Yeah... I'm proud of that and proud of the students for doing them.  And they are proud of themselves, especially when they see the finished products laminated and bound.  I've lost count of the number of students and parents who have come back over the years and thanked me for having them do that assignment.  Not that they loved it at the time, but as they start their own families or lose their loved ones, the experience takes on new meaning for them.

Once Open House was over, the feting began.  There were two teachers, on instructional aide and one front office team member who retired this June.

I still work on dealing with some heavy-duty rejection issues going all the way back to before I can remember.  I have a hard time accepting that people actually do like - even love - me.  So it was pretty overwhelming to experience such an outpouring.



The first was the annual union retirement dinner.   My younger son came to the dinner with me, even though he was swamped by his wedding preparations.  I really appreciated that.  I used to be the person who organized these dinners,  and I know that usually the retiree and one other person get their dinner free, and they invite others who pay a nominal price for a nice dinner at one of the community rooms attached to a golf course near the ocean.  In my experience, each retiree would have one or two colleagues join their party.  So I was overwhelmed when close to a dozen of my colleagues came to the dinner in my honor.  I was fine, having a great time, when my name was called to say a few words about my time as a teacher in this community.  As I started to walk up, though, my colleagues - my friends - started to sing.

For several years, on picture day, the photographer who would be taking student portraits for a day in the fall would set up risers in the front of the school for the faculty picture.  It took a few minutes for everyone to arrive, but when most of us were there, someone would give a downbeat to the impromptu choir gathered on the risers.  We would serenade the entering students by looping "You are My Sunshine."  And that's what they were singing.  To me.

Yeah, I lost it.  And then was immediately supported with hugs and pats and words of encouragement until I could pull it together.

A week went by, and then the celebration picked up again.  For a number of years, my colleagues and I indulged ourselves in what was called Friday Munchies.  The campus was divided into teams, and each team brought in nutrition snacks to share.  Usually we all brought enough to feed all the staff (about 75 people)  at nutrition and lunch.  Unbeknownst to the retirees (how did they pull that off?), in that last week of school they had planned and prepped The Day of Celebration. No teams this time.  The entire staff (minus us four) brought in food.  It covered every counter, and we ate. all. day.




It was an Under the Sea theme, as interpreted by one of the instructional aides who is a genius at balloon art.

But I have to admit, thrilled as I was by all the excitement, the event that touched me the most was the lunch by The Boys.  The Boys are the handful of young, male teachers with whom I've spend lunch in the teacher's lounge for the last decade or more.  In their thirties and forties, two with young families (one had a newborn at home), they secretly organized a farewell Mexican lunch for me in that last week.  Sounds easy, but one of them had to use part of a day off - with toddler in tow - to go across town and pick up the food.  When I expressed how touched I was, their response was an incredulous, "Well, of course."  Like I said, issues.  Still gets me all teary that they would do that for me.

And then, in a whoosh, it was the last day.  Or, half day.  I spent it sitting in my clean classroom, waiting to turn in my keys.  Friends came by.  The principal came by for a while.  I consider myself very lucky to have finished my career with this man as my principal.  We got along just fine.

 


I didn't cry when I turned in my keys.  It was the right move at the right time.  But it was surreal to walk out to my car, on the outside of the fence, for that last time.  Oh, it won't be the LAST time.  I'm eligible to go back as a substitute in January, and the little bit I could make as a sub is still enough for plane tickets to travel.  And I still have an older son and his family in Tokyo.  But it's a different part of the team.  The bench players rather than the first string.

Retirement wasn't official until all the paperwork was done and in, including the insurance stuff.  Which seems to all be in and fine.  I'm getting my own pension plus 75% of my husband's, so feel comfortable financially.

The Other Stuff.

No topping a wedding and a retirement, but I did do other stuff in there, too.

The day after that last day, I left for Fresno to spend the weekend with friends.  She works at a dinner theater called Roger Rocka's and it is a blast.  They were doing Damn Yankees and for community theater, they did a first rate job.  As a personal perk, I found a colony of swallowtails in the sage near the restrooms at the rest stop.




I continue to raise Monarchs and Frittilaries and the little blues that feed on the violets, but with all the other commitments, my garden got away from me this year and the milkweed is infested with aphids.  The Monarchs don't lay where there are too many aphids, so I may not get many this year.  Good news is that August is the second wave and if I can clean off some plants soon, there may still be time to run some eggs through before I leave for Massachusetts.

Released just before I left for Utah.
My garden continues to be where I experience "flow."  Particularly happy with the water features this year.

Water lily "Georgia Peach" has put on several flowers this year.

Very excited and - yeah - proud to have a blooming LOTUS this year.  "Beautiful Dancer" put up this bud which bloomed open just before I left on vacation.  From Lilyblooms aquatic nursery.  Can't say enough good about these folks.
My first success with lotus.  Apparently we wait weeks for the bud to open, then it lasts a day or two.  I'm sure there's a Zen lesson in there for us, but I don't care to figure it out at the moment.

A new addition this year from my local pond store.  Labeled only "Japanese Lily".  Seems to be pretty happy.

And turned out to be yellow.
 Disneyland:

Did manage to  work in a couple of visits, one with my Mom and one by myself.

The one by myself was to get a couple of Jarrod Maruyama prints signed.

 
 

The signing wasn't until six that evening, so I got to the Park early and just hung around.  I had breakfast at the Rancho del Zocalo and was treated like a Disney Princess...

...by the Disneyland sparrows.

From the chair back...
...to the table...

...to the edge of the tray...

...to finally helping himself to some of my scrambled eggs.
He and his brother were pretty cheeky about helping themselves to my breakfast.  Their dowdy sister made it only as far as the table, them chickened out (yeah, bad pun, I know).

The second trip went from somewhat disappointing to happily memorable thanks to one castmember and his friends.  Again.

Mom and I went to the Coke Corner to try to catch a set of Musical Chairs featuring the Mad Hatter, and were saddened to see there wasn't even a piano player that day.  She seemed so sad that I looked him up on the Disneyland app and found he was due at the Mad Tea Party in just a few minutes.  We trekked out there and got a place within a little alcove under a shady tree.  Within a couple of minutes he strolled by and glanced our way, saw my Mom and made her day with his customary shout of "Hi, Lady!"  He came in and visited with her for several minutes, then noticed several "friends" were arriving.  White Rabbit, Tweedle Dee and Tweedle Dum and her Highness, the Queen of Hearts.  Before we could blink, he raced away and brought them to meet her.  A parade through the little alcove, with each character taking her hand to greet her.  Her Highness came back later in the set.








The rest of the summer so far was spent rigging some watering systems so that I could leave for a few weeks.  I went to Utah.  Turned in my Medicare B paperwork on August 1 and headed to Eden for three weeks of planned solitude.

But that turns out to be another story for another time.