If I am going to be sick, I want to be very sick. Sick enough that no one expects me to go to work or fold underwear or bake chicken or pour my own apple juice. The worst sickness is the one that forces you through a box of Kleenex but doesn’t cause anyone to…
Should I tell you that I use a calculator when I grade student papers? 30 total points minus 2.5. Ummmm. Do it in your head, dad would say. This was usually at the kitchen table, with a box of Kleenex and a math book sitting in front of him. Bless him. No dad tried harder…
This from a student today: Finals might kill us. No. No one has ever died from taking a final, I said. But they might leave eternal emotional scars. Well, there is that. Having to prove you’ve learned something at the end of the year when you’re tired and the sun is shining –that is some…
My Spanish classroom is small, in an old building. The windows are not insulated, and the walls are thin. But I would not ask to move. …because I am only a few doors down from the art teacher’s room, and my door abuts the frame of one of the bulletin boards that line the length…
I rotate things –towels, socks, dish rags, jeans. I pride myself in the fact that I am stilling using some of the dish towels we received as wedding gifts almost 23 years ago because of my rotation system. Or it could be the small amount of times I have done dishes. But I’m holding to…
For five years straight there was no women’s church program that was not titled “Bloom Where You’re Planted”. It was the 80’s. The canvas tote bag they handed out as a freebie had the picture of a plant on it. Gag me with a maggot. (Here I digress to take a poll. My husband says…
I’m going to have to admit to watching Undercover Boss, Australia in order to tell you this story. What is it about that accent? I was delighted at the words “bloke” and “keen”. So there was this Domino’s employee spilling his story to the undercover boss, and we hear that his 17-year-old relative committed suicide…
I told that girl of mine she should put Corelle Ware on her wedding registry, because in my cupboard are a stack of bowls and plates that have lasted us almost 23 years. I’ve dropped them on the floor and have taken them to picnics. I’ve chiseled off eggs and cheddar cheese and avocado. I’ve…
I asked mom for a dust rag, because those little chores were lingering undone in the season of her grief. Oh honey, you don’t have to dust, she said. No one likes to dust. That’s true, I said. So hurry up and give me the rag before I change my mind. I hate dusting and…
At 11:30 the teenagers filled the hotel room next to mine, and it seemed only a thin shower curtain hung between me and their raucous chatter and laughter. I felt like a crotchety old lady who wanted to go bang on their door with my cane. You young people keep it down! But I took…
Lovies, they call them, and I think one of them is named Frank, the duck. She can hold seven of them at one time, even though her little arms are only one year old. Mom and I sit quietly in the bedroom. Somehow she finds a way to tuck in her 45-year-old daughter –grabbing the…
One of the not-fun activities of the week has been tackling the paperwork. You should have seen my mom’s eyes when the mail came on Saturday and she added yet another envelope to the stack she says she has been putting off until tomorrow. So Monday morning I went with her to the VA, where…
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