Little: What are you doing, Mama?
Me: I'm writing some things in my calendar, so I remember the things I have to do. Did you know I'm going away for a whole weekend soon?
Little: No! Where are you going?
Me: I'm going to take the train to a spinning class in Michigan.
Little: Mama! That is a big waste of time! You don't need to take that class, because you are not going to be spinning the rest of your life.
Me: Oh, really? What will I be doing instead?
Little: Being with me.
Me: Oh, so anything that takes me away from you is a waste of time?
Little: That's right.
Glad we got that straight.
Monday, November 17, 2008
Wednesday, November 05, 2008
the deluxe home for retired hunting dogs
My dad is a bird hunter. He keeps bird dogs, and has all his life. Most of his bird dogs have never made it to retirement, for one reason or another. Each dog was useful until the day it died. Not so with Recca, who developed diabetes a little over a year ago and became blind about six months after that. This makes Recca pretty much completely useless as a bird dog.
We've been toying with the idea of bringing Recca home to our house, on and off, ever since her diagnosis. We tried it once last summer for a few days, and it didn't go well. She was really active (as working dogs are, of course,) hardly ever sat still, and she was WAY too interested in my cats. And while I am all for taking care of an animal in need of a home, I don't think it makes sense if it creates a lot of stress for the kitties who already live here.
Mom and Dad are away on their annual bird hunting trip out to Iowa, and we decided to give Recca another try. She's almost completely blind now. She can only see light and shadow. The cats are an interesting shadow, nothing more, and certainly nothing she can get close enough to to get her teeth around.
Here you can see her showing interest in a cat hiding under the laundry rack. That's Pepper, by far the boldest of our three cats, and she's close enough for Recca to smell her, but Recca (as you can see) is 'looking' in the completely wrong direction. The cats have no worries.
It's a cushier life for her here. At my dad's house, she lives in a dog house with an attached outdoor run. Here, she's got a cushy memory foam bed, right next to a heating vent. She gets to be a part of family life a bit more. She can wander into the living room to see what the kids are doing, wander into the kitchen to see when her supper's coming.
And she gets to go out. A lot. Because the only problem we're really having with her is that she is pretty much used to getting up from her bed (the dog house) and peeing a couple of feet away, in the outdoor run. Not such a great habit in a house dog, which is what we need her to be if she's going to stay here.
The cats have decided that they can just live upstairs for now. We're going to keep working on the peeing inside thing. I'll keep you posted.
Oh, and that other thing? That really momentous thing that just happened all over our country? I'm speechless. I'm so happy that for once the Republicans have their collective tails between their collective legs, that for once they are talking about reflecting on their message and their mission so that they can be more relevant to voters. And I'm a little ashamed to admit it, but I'm so happy that they are the losers. For once.
May we get four good years, and four more after that. I'm proud to have helped elect this president.
We've been toying with the idea of bringing Recca home to our house, on and off, ever since her diagnosis. We tried it once last summer for a few days, and it didn't go well. She was really active (as working dogs are, of course,) hardly ever sat still, and she was WAY too interested in my cats. And while I am all for taking care of an animal in need of a home, I don't think it makes sense if it creates a lot of stress for the kitties who already live here.
Mom and Dad are away on their annual bird hunting trip out to Iowa, and we decided to give Recca another try. She's almost completely blind now. She can only see light and shadow. The cats are an interesting shadow, nothing more, and certainly nothing she can get close enough to to get her teeth around.
Here you can see her showing interest in a cat hiding under the laundry rack. That's Pepper, by far the boldest of our three cats, and she's close enough for Recca to smell her, but Recca (as you can see) is 'looking' in the completely wrong direction. The cats have no worries.It's a cushier life for her here. At my dad's house, she lives in a dog house with an attached outdoor run. Here, she's got a cushy memory foam bed, right next to a heating vent. She gets to be a part of family life a bit more. She can wander into the living room to see what the kids are doing, wander into the kitchen to see when her supper's coming.
And she gets to go out. A lot. Because the only problem we're really having with her is that she is pretty much used to getting up from her bed (the dog house) and peeing a couple of feet away, in the outdoor run. Not such a great habit in a house dog, which is what we need her to be if she's going to stay here.The cats have decided that they can just live upstairs for now. We're going to keep working on the peeing inside thing. I'll keep you posted.
Oh, and that other thing? That really momentous thing that just happened all over our country? I'm speechless. I'm so happy that for once the Republicans have their collective tails between their collective legs, that for once they are talking about reflecting on their message and their mission so that they can be more relevant to voters. And I'm a little ashamed to admit it, but I'm so happy that they are the losers. For once.
May we get four good years, and four more after that. I'm proud to have helped elect this president.
Friday, October 31, 2008
conventional wisdom=da bomb
Warning: heavy analogy use ahead.
You know how they say that after you experience a major change in your life, like a divorce or the death of a partner, or a job loss, you should wait a year for things to sift out before you make any major decisions? I think I might have some insight into why that's a really, really good idea.
When my school closed last fall, after I'd been part of it (and it a part of me) for close to seven years, I grieved. It felt, truly, as though a sister or a very close friend had died. I think part of the reason might be because I'd been deriving much of my identity through my work at the school. I was a teacher first, and a mom second. Offering progressive education in this decidedly non-progressive city felt like a really important mission, and much of the meaning in my life came from my work. When I was exhausted from work struggles, I could at least know, at the end of the day, that I'd done more good than harm.
When it died, all that was gone, and last year was a very, very difficult time. I didn't know what to do with myself. I felt that I wasn't really accomplishing anything, from day to day. An important character in my life story had just been vaporized. I felt like I'd lost my best friend. I kept waking up in disbelief, only to have the reality of it crash around me once again.
Add to that the particulars of the death: it wasn't as if my beloved friend (the school) died a natural death, or even a sudden death. It was protracted, and painful, with much dissent among family members about when and even whether to pull the plug. The years leading up to the end of my school were agony.
When it ended, I felt profound relief, but then I had to figure out what to do with myself. Homeschooling was no more than an emergency, stop-gap measure. I would gladly have gone back to teaching if I could. I worried that I was doing the wrong thing: that I really should be working my ass off to create a new school in this community, that it was a fool's mission to focus so heavily on my own children, when they will, more than likely, be just fine, no matter what kind of schooling they receive. My "real work" had been working with other people's children, and it felt somehow morally wrong for me to turn my back on them.
And now, suddenly, a year later, everything has shifted. It's not so much that my life and my work are now suddenly imbued with moment and importance. Editing and tutoring are hardly the stuff of profound meaning; if I don't do these things, someone else will, just as well or better. It's more that my perspective has changed. I can handle it, suddenly. I can face a long, crazy day of running around to lessons and playgroups and teaching commitments with peace and a smile, rather than a groan. I don't need quiet, quite as much. I'm not finding myself sitting on the couch escaping into a novel, day after day. I don't feel sad anymore.
It's been a year, and I think I'm ready to put the school behind me.
This imbues everything I'm doing with a new sense of purpose. Now that it's clear that TSS is really, truly gone, and isn't coming back, my most important work is clearly the work I do with my own children. I'm excited about homeschooling this year, and more relaxed about it at the same time. I want to make their early school years what they really should be, and I'm ready to find out about how to do that.
You know how they say that after you experience a major change in your life, like a divorce or the death of a partner, or a job loss, you should wait a year for things to sift out before you make any major decisions? I think I might have some insight into why that's a really, really good idea.
When my school closed last fall, after I'd been part of it (and it a part of me) for close to seven years, I grieved. It felt, truly, as though a sister or a very close friend had died. I think part of the reason might be because I'd been deriving much of my identity through my work at the school. I was a teacher first, and a mom second. Offering progressive education in this decidedly non-progressive city felt like a really important mission, and much of the meaning in my life came from my work. When I was exhausted from work struggles, I could at least know, at the end of the day, that I'd done more good than harm.
When it died, all that was gone, and last year was a very, very difficult time. I didn't know what to do with myself. I felt that I wasn't really accomplishing anything, from day to day. An important character in my life story had just been vaporized. I felt like I'd lost my best friend. I kept waking up in disbelief, only to have the reality of it crash around me once again.
Add to that the particulars of the death: it wasn't as if my beloved friend (the school) died a natural death, or even a sudden death. It was protracted, and painful, with much dissent among family members about when and even whether to pull the plug. The years leading up to the end of my school were agony.
When it ended, I felt profound relief, but then I had to figure out what to do with myself. Homeschooling was no more than an emergency, stop-gap measure. I would gladly have gone back to teaching if I could. I worried that I was doing the wrong thing: that I really should be working my ass off to create a new school in this community, that it was a fool's mission to focus so heavily on my own children, when they will, more than likely, be just fine, no matter what kind of schooling they receive. My "real work" had been working with other people's children, and it felt somehow morally wrong for me to turn my back on them.
And now, suddenly, a year later, everything has shifted. It's not so much that my life and my work are now suddenly imbued with moment and importance. Editing and tutoring are hardly the stuff of profound meaning; if I don't do these things, someone else will, just as well or better. It's more that my perspective has changed. I can handle it, suddenly. I can face a long, crazy day of running around to lessons and playgroups and teaching commitments with peace and a smile, rather than a groan. I don't need quiet, quite as much. I'm not finding myself sitting on the couch escaping into a novel, day after day. I don't feel sad anymore.
It's been a year, and I think I'm ready to put the school behind me.
This imbues everything I'm doing with a new sense of purpose. Now that it's clear that TSS is really, truly gone, and isn't coming back, my most important work is clearly the work I do with my own children. I'm excited about homeschooling this year, and more relaxed about it at the same time. I want to make their early school years what they really should be, and I'm ready to find out about how to do that.
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