Powerful Words

When I started using Facebook, I pledged to myself that I would write meaningful, positive, and powerful comments or say nothing at all after I was introduced to the "crap" comments that a lot of users leave.  And the profanity.  And the grossness of the postings. If I don't have something powerful and positive to say, I say nothing. Sometimes I like a posting without adding comments, and other times I just scroll on by, wondering to myself why people put the things on a public forum that they put.

Today, I am reading a book, The Librarian of Auschwitz, written by Antonio Iturbe and translated by Lilit Zekulin Thwaites.  It is based on the true story of Dita Kraus, an Auschwitz prisoner during World War II.  I'm totally engaged in Dita's saga, but it is one of those ponderous stories that has to be read, then put down for thoughtful reflection before continuing with the next chapter.  At the end of Chapter 21, I found a profound bit of writing that really struck me:  "She asks herself, Can you really choose, or do the blows dealt to you by fate change you no matter what, in the same way that the blow of an ax converts a living tree into firewood?"

I paused as my thoughts took off on their own to several moments where fate dealt me some blows that were devastating at the time, but have become part of my life's history.  The one that came immediately to mind was my father's death when I was 17. He was such a rugged, virile man, the father of six children, all but one of whom were into their teen years, and the husband to his life's love, my mother Maria.  Mom was devastated by the loss of her beloved Forrest, and she never fully recovered. She tried to continue to live her life, but she was never the same.  My oldest brothers left home shortly after Dad's death, I went to college, which left two brothers and my only sister still at home.  One of those two brothers left within a year, and my sister and youngest brother were left at home. My mother had to go to work for the first time in her life, and she was not well prepared for the job market. Thankfully, she found a job at the Santa Barbara Public Library and had a long career there.  My youngest brother grew up never knowing his father, and it has had a profound influence on his life. And yes, the blows dealt to us by fate changed us no matter what.

All of this personal history was swirling through my head (and heart), so I decided to post the quotation that had set me to thinking and see if anyone else has had that kind of moment in their lives. My goodness, but the responses I have received are amazing. This quotation struck a cord with almost two dozen people who have shared their own "blows," and how they have influenced their lives. In deciding to write powerful and positive posts on Facebook, I opened a doorway for others to respond in kind and it really means a lot to me.

Hwy 62 Open Studio Art Tours

In the Hi-Desert area of Morongo Valley, Yucca Valley, Joshua Tree and Twentynine Palms, there is an annual Open Studio Art Tours, most often held in October.  This year’s event is huge:  over 200 presenters and about 125 stops along the way.  I have friends who are artists, so I asked one of them if she wanted to join me for this year’s tour.  It took us almost an hour to whittle down the presenters and places to stop and see, and then Patty developed our touring plan so we could go in the most direct routes to see the artists we had selected from the catalog.

What a wonderful time we had.  Seeing the art in the artist’s studios is unique; each stop along the way creates its own environment for the artwork the artist has chosen to display.  We saw many different kinds of art, including photography, painting in all media, textiles, sculptures, assemblages, crochet, metalwork, ink, ceramics – well, it was all on display.  One of my favorites were art pieces made by inserting tiny nails into the canvas to make the design and also to create light and dark shadows.  I don’t remember who the artist is, but the finished pieces are stunning.

We traveled on some true desert roads out into the middle of nowhere, the setting of which was perfect for an artist.  One residence perched on the side of a rock formation and featured a sculptor who uses huge pieces of rock media for his work.  I wondered how a crane could get down the rural mountain road to either deliver a new piece of rock or pick up a finished work of art.

I bought some little things to take with me to China, to show Y’s family what “desert” means, including some crocheted cacti and some greeting cards with original paintings on them.

One of the most interesting displays is a workshop where the woman makes all kinds art pieces from castings.  She has a statue of David, with the original mold made from the actual statue of David in Europe.  Her grandfather opened the shop and, back in the day, worked for the movie studios. When one of the movie companies wanted a statue of David,  the grandfather went to Europe and was granted permission to make the mold. Needless to say, it’s one of the prized possessions of the current artist.

I could go on and on about what’s offered and how interesting it is to go into the working studios of all these artists, but it’s an event that is best enjoyed in person.  It’s fun to go out into the middle of nowhere and find these hidden studios nestled among all the sand and rocks.  It really gives the art character to see it in that setting, especially since so many of the artists are inspired by the nature around them.


There’s one more weekend, so if you are within driving distance, I highly recommend taking a piece of the self-guided tour.  Or, plan for next Fall.  For more information, you can go online to www.yucca-valley.org, or to www.Visit29.org to Art Cruise the 29 Palms area every 1^st Saturday.  There are many art installations and artists living in the Hi-Desert area, so feel free to explore the internet to find something that catches your eye.

Risk and Reward

One day you're in; the next you're out. That's the way Project Runway scores the contestants. Doesn't matter what you did last because what's in front of us is what we're judging, and if it doesn't make it, the contest is over for you.  As a classroom teacher for 30 years, this was the hardest part of teaching, having to tell a student that work handed in for grading didn't cut it--or work over the course of a semester just wasn't up to the standard for passing the course. 

Teachers have feelings, and they usually try very hard to look for the best in each individual student's work, but sometimes, no matter how hard a person works or how much they want to earn an A it isn't going to happen this time.  Earning a grade of C means that a student has met the standard for passing a class, but far too often both the student and the parent thinks that working really hard and trying to be the best is good enough to earn an A, and that's not true. There is no way to sugar-coat a less than stellar grade, and we try with positive affirmations about next time, but some students simply will have to accept that their work is not stellar, it's average, and that's what a grade of C indicates.

I am suspicious of the news articles about a dozen students sharing valedictorian honors at graduation because that means that those students were rocketmen/women who blasted into outer space for 4 years and landed safely every time. Earning a 4.0 used to be a rare occurrence, but in today's inflated grade environment, it's much more common to have a group earn highest honors, even at the college level.  If everyone, however, is outstanding, then no one really is: they become average in a group of high achievers.

I learned as an adjunct college professor that students cheat. I knew that before, but especially became aware of it as electronics entered the educational environment. Before teachers were given permission to confiscate phones, students would send messages to other students both inside the same classsroom and to students sitting outside with the textbook (often a teacher's edition) so they can look up the correct response for a test or essay. Cheating used to be a risk; in today's classroom, it's a ritual. For every countermeasure the faculty employs, the students have a newer, better counter-measure to make sure that they can cheat with impugnity. The risk is not high as it's incredibly challenging to catch cheating, stop cheating, and deal with indignant parents whose child simply would never cheat regardless of the evidence to the contrary. My career in education formally ended a decade ago, when the electronics were first making their appearance in the classroom. I had issues at almost every class with students who were trying to succeed dishonestly because ... the excuses/reasons were endless. When the cheating was stopped in progress, the tears began to flow. What was expecially challenging at the college level was the stop at a counselor's office for a tear-filled counseling session that often ended with a heart-to-heart with the instruction that included an explanation of why it happened "this once," and why it would never happen again, and what kind of documentation is going to be needed to strengthen the accusations about the student's conduct if the instructor thinks the student should be suspended from college. One key piece to this problem in the general education environment is the backing from the parents. Believe me, if a teacher catches a student cheating and goes far enough to involve a counselor and the parents, the student was cheating--and it probably wasn't the first time. At the college level, a student who is caught cheating either has never been caught before or realized at an early age that the student has the upper hand when it comes to dealing with the teacher, then the counselor, and finally the administration. Yes, as you can probably realize, one of the reasons I retired before I had finished my teaching career is that I was burned out by issues such as students' cheating. As an adjunct professor teaching aboard a military base, one adult student actually called the MPs on me for "stealing" from her when I confiscated her cheat notes during a testing environment. That pretty much showed me that I was a dinosaur and it was time to move on. As they say, "One day you're in and the next you're out."

Productivity

Sometimes it's hard to self-motivate, especially when there's no one here to see my efforts and/or appreciate them, like, for instance, cooking meals.  Why bother? If I go to the Oriental take-out, a meal lasts me 3 days that I don't have to cook and/or think about buying, prepping, and then cooking a meal. If I get a $10 pizza from KMart, it not only tastes really good, but it also lasts me for about 4 days of meals. But I've had some wake-up news in my life recently, so it's time to get off my ample ass and do some things that haven't been done in far too long.

Today is Day One.  I emptied 6 drawers in my headboard bureau, one of which was filled with socks. Now how many pairs of socks can one person wear?  Evidently, I 'd need a pair of socks and without rummaging through the existing socks in the sock drawer, I'd go buy a new pair -- or six, since they come in nice big economy packs these days. End result:  I had enough socks to make it through an Ice Age!  I decided to keep 4 dozen assorted,  including whites and colored and patterns, some with just feet and others with tops, and the rest are in a huge plastic bag in the back of the RAV to donate to Angel View. I can't remember the last time I wore a scarf, so I kept 4 assorted scarves and put the rest into a box to donate. Ditto the rest of the drawers, which are now almost empty.

I'm not sure how many days I'll be able to face this daunting task, but it gives me time to ponder what is coming next in my life, as well as listen to "my" music from the 50s, 60s, and 70s, as well as one of my favorite groups, El Divo, and one of my favorite female artists, Norah Jones, whom I had forgotten as her CD was way down on the pile.  I've already listened to Elton sing "Electric Boobs," as it was sung in that wonderful movie about the girl getting married and her sister has to do all kinds of errands for her and she and the fiancé get a little tipsy in the bar and they sing Electric Boots at full volume… yeah, not all memories are coming all the way back!

Tomorrow, I'm going to face my other dresser, and then I'm going deep into the closet, which will be a two-day task.  I have things in there from when I was in college (whisper) 50 years ago.  I have one dress I bought for work (whisper) 25 years ago and never wore. And the beat goes on … .

I figure that once I make progress with one room, I'll be more inclined to do another.  I have a neighbor who comes in every couple of weeks to do a deep clean, and she said she'll help me in the kitchen as I'm not even going to contemplate standing on a step-stool to empty cabinets.  If you think the things in my closet have been there awhile, I have stuff on the top shelf of the cabinet that has probably been there for at least a decade!  Yeah, really.  When I broke my back, I gave up standing on things to reach high shelves, and that's been quite a while ago.  I'll just bring the trashcan into the kitchen and make it a two-step process: she climbs and hands me things and I toss them into the dumpster.

Deep down inside me, I keep thinking that maybe if I get a handle on this place, maybe I won't have to relocate. If moving isn't such a daunting task, maybe I won't feel as if I have to move to get out from under what it's taken me quite a while to create: one big MESS!

So, rest and relax and then work on Day Two. Meanwhile, I wish the dogs could dance with me as "our" music has a beat and a lot of pep. Not like that crap kids listen to today.  Aahh, that felt good!

Now Year's Resolution

It's a new year and time to reflect and then refresh one's life.  This year, I came up with 3 wishes for the New Year:  no more online buying; no further contact in any form with Publisher's Clearing House; and contact my children at least once a week, with a corollary, to use Facebook to facilitate that contact.

Of course, in order to use Facebook, I have to "do" Facebook and I have stubbornly resisted that engagement with all the force of will within me.  However, it is time for me to join the 21st Century and not just know that people only contact one another with electronic devices, but they also like to know what you're up to now and then.  Facebook is a media that can facilitate both of those goals.

My son spent an hour on the telephone walking me through the process of getting set up and started, but I'm disappointed that I don't have a page with things unique to me.  I immediately received a lot of other people's thoughts, feelings, and rages, and I'm not sure if I have to respond to those or can ignore them.  I need to put up a picture, but the only photo I have of me that I like is my senior year at Cal Lutheran photo, which I no longer resemble in any way, shape, or form.  I'm old now and wrinkles accent my facial features in ways that are not necessarily charming.  My face, which used to be an elongated oval, is now square, which matches my body that also used to be a lean, mean running machine and is now … squishy.

And when it comes to stimulating conversation with peers, I'm good with "Good girl, Sparkle." and "come here, Cinnamon," followed by lots of ooing and cooing and cuddling.  My life, which used to be an open book into the world, is narrowed to the confines of SoCal as I'm not as confident driving on the freeways as I used to be.  A big trip is across the highway to visit the communities on the west side of I-10, which is also where all the shopping is.  I love going to Costco and spending money there with reckless abandon just because there is nowhere to spend money in my community (other than the grocery store and KMart).

Somehow, I have to turn almost 74 years of life into stimulating, interesting, charming Facebook posts that attract people who know me to visit my page and feel as if they have been enriched by the experience.  We'll see how this happens as the days progress.  Wish me luck?

PS: I did use the college senior photo because that's what I wanted to do.  The rest of the world can simply deal with it.

Sad Day

This morning, I took Daisy to the vet and had her put to sleep.  It was a difficult thing to do, but coming on the past several weeks, it was the best decision I could make.  So, why am I bawling my eyes out and feeling absolutely rotten?!

For the last few months, Daisy has been going crazy and attacking Cinnamon--viciously, often when Cinnamon was on my lap or under my chair.  I thought it was a phase Daisy was going through and that she'd stop.  Wrong on both counts: Daisy's attacks intensified until this past week, when Daisy picked Cinnamon up by the head and jaw and shook her until I thought Cinnamon's head was going to come off.  The whole time Daisy was growling and completely out of control and I was in the middle of the attack, trying to protect Cinnamon while hopefully getting Daisy to let her go.

This past week has been intense, with me never knowing if/when Daisy would attack, so I isolated Daisy outside in the back yard, leaving her kennel and food/water out there with the gate firmly locked.  I hated to do that to my beloved dog, but I knew that Cinnamon would die from Daisy's attacks and I didn't want that to happen.  Yucheng didn't understand the intensity of the attacks until this past weekend when Daisy came after Cinnamon and Yucheng realized how dangerous Daisy was.  I told Yucheng that I was going to have Daisy euthanized, and he was reluctant to agree until he was part of this last attack.  He realized that "our" Daisy was gone and an evil spirit had taken over her body.

I went into the backyard to get her for her final ride in the car this morning and it was the "old" Daisy, cuddly and the sweetest dog in the world.  However, as I brought her through the house, she saw Cinnamon and starting pulling on her leash and growling.  I knew then that for whatever reason, Daisy was gone and the dog who had taken over her body was far too dangerous to live.  I called the vet, explained the situation, and they told me to come right in.  They gave her a sedative, then let me into the room to say goodbye, and administered the final injection.  Daisy was peaceful and gone in a minute. The tears started to flow as I really loved Daisy, but I knew in my heart that I had made the right decision.

The vet told me that sometimes the dogs get a parasite that can cause their personality to change. She also said that there could have been some kind of brain tumor or issue that altered her behavior and we'd never know why she went from  such a sweetheart to devil-possessed.  I have to leave this Wednesday for my trip and couldn't go without resolving the issue first.  I'll let today be my crying day and then we'll get on with life the way it used to be, before Daisy became a dog we didn't know and could no longer love.

Addendum:  Cinnamon has been out from under my bed and sleeping peacefully next to me on the couch for the first time in about 2 months.  Since Daisy made Cinnamon her target, Cinnamon's life has been hell.  Confirms my decision.

Music Cities Tour

When the announcement of a "music cities tour" was made on my website, it sounded like a lot of fun, so I contacted my travel buddy and we decided to join. It was a good decision as the tour was excellent.  We began in New Orleans, moved to Memphis, and ended in Nashville.  Along the way there were little excursions that were both informative and entertaining. I don't remember everything, but can highlight some of the places.

In New Orleans, we went to a culinary school and had a chef prepare food for us (like a TV show, with the demo on screens so we all could see what was happening).  Along with the food he prepared, he talked about how the food in New Orleans reflects both the history of the city and it's diverse population, which gave us a feel for how the food developed as the people came into the city and made it their own. We went to a "dive bar" called Daisy Dukes, and had excellent food that was as good and diverse as our culinary guide had described! We also went to a jazz bar for live entertainment and found out that New Orleans is alive and well 24/7!  The streets are packed with people who really cut loose at night.  There was a lot of construction in the French Quarter, which made it challenging to get where we wanted to be. The night of the jazz club, it was raining buckets, so as we made a dash for the hotel, I misjudged a curb and ended face down in a huge pool of water.  I was able to get up and slosh my way back to my room, but I was totally soaked, with a couple of boo-boos on my shins and knees. And my brand-new umbrella was trashed!  I had just bought it that afternoon because we were warned it was going to rain, but I fell on top of it and it was too flimsy to sustain the fall.

Yes, we went to the famous Café Dumond and had beignets, but they were just folded pieces of dough with far too much powdered sugar piled on top.  Across from the Café, we went to a "French" street fair, but it was just like the well-known street fair locally in Palm Desert. We also saw the famous cemetery and learned how the deceased are stacked up in huge vaults, and when the vault is at capacity, the next person to come in comes into the oldest vault, where the remains from that vault are dropped into a holding area at the bottom. It sounded weird to me, but our tour guide let us know that was why there weren't a lot of remains unearthed during Katrina: they bury people in vaults.  Good to know.

We also took a swamp tour while we were in New Orleans and it was great! We saw lots of 'gators and learned about the swamp while we toured it.  At one point, the tour guide held up a baby gator and let those of us who dared touch it.  I held it in my hands and was amazed at how soft and supple the skin was.  I also was surprised to learn that for most of the swamp, if your boat had a problem, you could get out and stand up as the water is only about 5-6 feet deep.

In Memphis, we got the whole Elvis experience, beginning with our stay at the new Guest House at Graceland, which is a new hotel and huge.  We did visit the Graceland property, including a walk-through the mansion, and then we went to the entertainment park, which was mostly empty of people.  It's mostly static displays, no rides, and some very pricey "park" style food, so nothing to entice anyone to go there more than once.

We did a lot of tours of the city, but one stop proved to be memorable: we went to the music studio where Elvis and his buddies recorded tracks.  There is the Steinway piano Elvis played (I have a picture of me on the bench of it), and while we were there our group gathered 'round a microphone and sang Dream Lover.  Little did we know that we were being recorded--and we were given a copy of the disc for our memory book.

In Nashville, we toured the original Ryman Theater and then went to the new locale of the Grand Ole Opry, which is so much bigger than I ever dreamed a venue could be!  We were there on a Thursday, and the venue was packed with audience members. We watched as the radio show personnel kept going through the short breaks, and had a great time.  The funniest person I've ever heard was Gary Mule Deer, who did a short set of hilarious comedy.  I did not know who he is, so my buddy told me she's heard him in the desert before, and, sure enough, he's going to be here next week, on the bill with Johnny Mathis, which seems like an odd pairing. The other big stop was at the Hall of Fame Museum, which was, again, a very large venue.  There is too much to see and too many people to see much at all. After fighting the crowd for about 15 minutes, I retreated to the lobby coffee shop and took my coffee and cookie outside, where it was much less stressful.  As I was sitting there, I saw the "float" style tourist bike, with 6 people on each side pedaling, loud music blaring and passengers singing along at the top of their lungs.  It may have been homecoming for one of the colleges in Nashville as the streets were filled with young people partying their butts off.

It was a good trip, lots of fun, and very informative. Our tour guide talked us through the bus trips with interesting info about people, places, and events. Somewhere along the way to Nashville, we stopped at Belle Meade plantation and had docents in costume tell us about the house and its history.  As I was leaving to find our bus, I saw "mending wall," with the rocks stacked and parts of it in disrepair, and I had a flashback to many, many years ago when my daughter took a picture of a stacked rock wall she came across, and then my son typed up Robert Frost's poem, which is still one of my favorites, and they framed it for me.  It's still on the wall of my office, where I see it every time I'm at my desk.  It's a treasure to me, and I enjoyed seeing the wall in person (although the wall my daughter photographed is a different wall) after all these years.

Olive Garden Restaurant Fail

Today, my friend and I decided to treat ourselves to lunch at OG, one of our favorite places to eat. We arrived promptly at 11 am, were seated, made our selections, and waited for the magic to happen.

My friend's soup 'n salad came to the table, along with a big bowl of salad, so we began by serving ourselves from the salad bowl. There were big chunks of the ends of lettuce, far too many pieces of wilted lettuce, and only 2 black olives in the whole bowl. My friend finished her salad and said she'd wait to eat her soup until I received my salmon. Finally, I summoned the waiter and asked where my salmon was as it had literally been 25 minutes since I ordered it and still no sign of my entrée. He went back to the kitchen to check, and came back to tell me it would be up shortly. I urged C to eat her soup and enjoy another bowl of salad, but we both were grossed out by the salad and didn't want to eat any of what remained in the bowl.

Finally, my salmon and broccoli arrived. The broccoli was plain, no sauce/no seasoning/no butter, and it tasted just warm enough to have been put into the microwave and been heated. He offered to go back to the kitchen and get another serving of broccoli, so I decided to move on to the salmon. The salmon was dry; again, no sauce and no seasoning. I took about 3 bites and called the server back. I told him that so far, my lunch was an epic fail and I had no intention of eating anything else.

The manager came to our table and was polite and pleasant, apologizing for our meal and comping it, which was a good move as I hadn't eaten more than 4-5 bites of anything. My friend left behind most of her bowl of soup, but did manage to eat at least one serving of salad.

I appreciated the response from the employees, but left hungry enough to drive all the way home and fix myself some lunch. I won't hurry back to Olive Garden, but will give them another try ... later.

My Trip to China 2017

Visiting China is exciting, exhilarating, and interesting above all expectations. There is so much history for today’s residents and visitors to see that it’s challenging to see it all in a mere two weeks, so I’ll just highlight some of the events.

The Forbidden City at The Emperor’s Palace in Beijing is almost a spiritual place, filled with centuries of history on display. The actual buildings have been maintained well, and several of the individual rooms have been used to form a museum of artifacts from past Chinese dynasties. Jewelry, weaponry, pottery, and some almost unbelievable clocks are part of the displays and create a feeling for the opulence of past centuries. There are also rooms set up to capture the feeling of where the Emperor slept and his concubines lived, as well as some spectacular jade pieces on exhibit.

While in Beijing, we also visited the place where President Obama and China’s President exchanged gifts. We saw a display of past gift exchanges, featuring exquisite hand-made ladies’ purses. At this venue, we also climbed two towers: 60 steps on the first flight, followed by another 15 steps, all of which were as steep as ladders almost did me in, but I made it! Adjacent to this historic site is the original “city” of Beijing, which includes building so old and decrepit that’s it challenging to believe people still live in them. Y hired two bicycle-powered carts to ride us through this old city, which is teeming with people and industry in the form of small businesses.

Taking the bullet train to Beijing and back to Shenyang was fun and a quick ride. I noticed how much of the land adjacent to the train tracks is cultivated. Seldom is there a property that is not growing something, even in the most challenging venues, such as the sides of the mountains. Y’s Auntie, the woman with whom I stayed, has planted a variety of veggies and fruits, such as strawberries and eggplant, on little pieces of dirt within the confines of her apartment building, keeping to the tradition of growing as much of what the family needs to eat because there is little money available to purchase from the vendors at the street markets. The saving of whatever there is option is very much part of the Chinese culture.

It is interesting to see the hundreds of very high-rise buildings along the railway. There is no way the buildings are all occupied as the standard of living for the majority of Chinese cannot afford the high rents, and I'm sure there aren't enough businesses to ensure even 50% occupancy. When we went to the southern part of Shenyang for me to stay overnight before getting on the plane back home, I was totally amazed at the hundreds of huge, empty buildings just sprouted from the earth as if clusters of trees in a forest. It creates a look of wealth that simply is not the reality for the majority of the residents in this part of China.

We went to the wedding, held at a venue that does nothing but wedding productions. It was very staged and almost phony in its presentation, but the groom and his bride were obviously happy with the entire process. One reason so many of the young people stage marriages is that the only acceptable gift is a red envelope with a cash donation. They aren’t into bridal showers and/or bridal gifts. This couple had already been married in a civil ceremony, but his father is very ill and in the hospital, so they are short on cash; hence, the red envelopes filled with cash to help with medical expenses. The couple is living with his mother, which cuts down on their personal expenses.

We left when the couple came to our table and the bride poured a glass of wine for the women and the groom lit cigarettes for the men at the table. I’m not sure why this is part of the wedding tradition, but being in a very large venue with a whole lot of smoking going on is not workable with my asthma, so we made our apologies and departed the event. I did bring back the metal canister that housed the wine and one of the empty bottles, the same as I did during my last visit to Shenyang.

I was invited back to visit the kindergarten that I visited the first time I was in China. The woman in charge of the program told me how much the children enjoyed meeting an American teacher, and she wanted me to come see how much the program has grown. We went to a newer site this time, and I was very impressed with how much visual stimulation there is for the children in colors, shapes, and pictures on the walls. They have mock stores, post office, bank, first aid station and a restaurant for student role-playing, which totally impressed me. I donated a bag of coins I had brought for the student bank, and the kids freaked out over American money. One of the boys pulled out the shiniest pennies and clutched them in his closed fist, unwilling to give them back to the teacher! We sang some songs, I was touched by a lot of Chinese children’s eager hands, and we left feeling totally uplifted by the visit.

For my birthday, the family had a huge celebration at Auntie’s, where I stayed during my visit. There was so much food and 10 people packed around her table that usually sits 4. Lots of beer-drinking going on, so it got noisy, but it was fun. Auntie had bought a birthday cake, a pink and white confection that was 2/3 sticky sweet icing and 1/3 white cake that was not sweet at all. Chinese don’t generally like sweets, so I think I only served 4 slices of the confection, but Auntie pretty much polished it off the next day.

I did have a chance to go back to the large exercise venue and watched the men/ women doing their routines. I also played on all the various pieces of equipment for personal training, and it was fun. Because the people in Shenyang don’t get many American visitors, I became an instant celebrity, and had to pose for dozens of pictures before I could leave the park. If I ever win the lottery (I know; I have to buy tickets to have any chance at all of winning anything), I will donate the money to have one of the family exercise parks built in my community as they are such a good idea. I could hire some Chinese to come to the opening event and demonstrate the series of exercises that make up the well-being program, and then appoint some locals to carry on with the concept. If I ever win the lottery, that is. …

My plane back to California left an hour later than scheduled and I didn’t sleep at all on the way home. I watched 3 videos, which is unusual for me, but I became pretty good at watching vids with close-captioning on Auntie’s TV during my two weeks with her. My ride was waiting for me and took me to my car, but before I left for home, I took him and the woman at whose home my car was garaged for the two weeks I was gone, out to dinner at a local … Chinese … restaurant. Yes, really, Chinese food for one last hurrah before coming back to the Hispanic desert scene. I had horrendous traffic issues on the way home, stop and go all the way from LA to San Bernardino, but made it home in time to greet my very happy to see me dogs. I went to bed at 8 pm and didn’t wake up until noon the next day!!

It’s hard to express how much I enjoyed my visit and on so many different levels. The Chinese are wary of strangers, but receptive at the same time. When I was asked if I will come back, I promised to do so for my 75th birthday, provided I am still alive and on my own two feet!

Life Lesson

Some days, it's the little things that make a difference in our lives. I was reading an online post from a crafter, a woman who knits to be specific, and she said something that made such good sense that I wondered why I had never thought it.

For relaxation, I either crochet afghans or I knit washcloths. After gifting perhaps half the universe with afghans and washcloths, I sometimes wish that I could break the habit, but I buy all cotton crochet yarn and make washcloths and go into my happy place when I find 4-ply knitting worsted on sale. I have yarn, lots of yarn, but that's another post.

This post is about looking at things from a different perspective; specifically, knit washcloths. I usually have a pair of needles filled with an in-progress washcloth, with several balls of yarn awaiting their turn to become a washcloth. I browse websites looking for things to do and I came across a woman who also seems to compulsively knit washcloths, and she said something amazing: she decided one day, when she cast on the 50 stitches for on washcloth and still had lots of empty needle, to cast on a second cloth with a second ball of yarn -- and knit two at the same time.

Voila! What a great idea. In almost the same time that it takes to knit one washcloth, two are finished and ready to go into the "some day" pile. It also uses up yarn from the stash at a faster rate and does lead me to browse the yarn aisles looking for more washcloth yarn, especially on sale. There are new colors and new variegated yarn and always the temptation to just buy a couple of skeins.

When I knit fingerless gloves, I knit both of them at the same time, so I'm not sure why I didn't apply that same logic to washcloths.

The moral of the story is not to stop buying washcloth yarn, or to stop knitting washcloths, but to bathe in the glory of using up the stash faster by knitting two at a time so I can now justify buying more yarn when a bright color catches my eye -- or a sale tempts me beyond resistance. I have to live in the reality that I'm never going to use up my stash and/or stop buying yarn when something catches my eye ... but I can bask in the efficiency of simply knitting two at a time!

And my next post will be about the self-delusion of thinking that doubling the amount of knitting cuts the time in half for making two washcloths.

Standing Up

One of the reasons people come to the United States is because there are freedoms here that are not a part of the people’s lives in other countries. I can speak my mind in the US, but would guard my words in many foreign countries, such as on my cruise stops in various islands in the Mediterranean, my visit to China, and even my visit to my son’s home in Canada. However, this basic American freedom of speech is being challenged and amended by people who take offense at what others say and/or do and want retribution in the media and the courts. Rather than being challenged to speak our minds, we are being reminded to bite our tongues because someone who disagrees with our thoughts can change the course of our lives.

I don’t watch Duck Dynasty and have little idea about the characters and their life styles because I don’t find the basic premise of a reality show about people’s lives to be interesting or real. The father of the family, Phil, is currently being vilified by the LGBT community for saying that homosexuality is against his basic beliefs, which are Bible-based and supported by Scripture. The LGBT community wants Father Duck held accountable for his comments because they shed an unfavorable light on the LGBT lifestyle. The LGBT community has a right to live their lives in the ways that they define, but Father Phil does not have the right to live his life in the ways that he defines. The basic discord is that LGBTs have the freedom to condemn him for his beliefs, but he has no right to condemn them for theirs.

This is a country where I stand up for MY beliefs and allow others to have their beliefs, especially when they disagree with mine. We discuss, we argue, we compromise – but we don’t take away the Constitutional rights of one person in favor of another. If I am gay, that is my business; if I am straight, that is also my business. Just as it is wrong for me to forcefully impose my lifestyle on others, it is wrong for others to forcefully impose their lifestyles on me.

Every generation has a population that finds acceptance through diversity, joining like-minded individuals to form groups that give strength and power to individuals who otherwise may never experience that. It’s not a case of right/wrong but a condition of difference, and this country is based on diversity, not unanimity. The LGBT community celebrates their personal diversity, but demands unanimity in that all people should believe what they believe, preach their message, and support their lifestyle. The LGBT community proclaims that they have the right to live their lifestyle and to hold people such as the Duck Dynasty Phil accountable to a higher standard than they live. If anyone in the LGBT community were treated with the disrespect Duck Dynasty father Phil has been, the hue and cry would be legendary. The rest of the world is not supposed to stand up for Father Phil’s treatment at the hands of a very vocal minority, lest they too are sucked into the controversy and vilified for what they believe. The minority manipulates the media to support their cause at the expense of other people’s right to freedom of speech.

How much stronger would be the case for understanding and acceptance if the LGBT vocalists would have supported Father Phil’s right to say whatever he believes is the truth, the same way that the LGBT community has the right to say whatever they believe is the truth. There is room for diversity, as well as discussion, and the discussion is what opens the door for all to believe.

FOLLOWING UP: A spokesperson for GLAAD says, "We believe the next step is to use this as an opportunity for Phil to sit down with gay families in Louisiana and learn about their lives and the values they share.” While that is noble from one perspective, by that very "opportunity ... to sit down with gay families ... and learn," the presumption is that Phil is wrong and the gay perspective is right and that Phil needs to be educated about something he already knows from his religious upbringing and does not support. Perhaps we all need to invite our gay friends over for a chat about their lifestyle and values?

Beckretary

This past week’s episode of Glee drove home the overwhelmingly negative effect Sue Sylvester (Jane Lynch) has on Becky (Lauren Potter), a Down’s Syndrome student to whom Sue has become attached. It is an opportunity for Sue to be a positive role model, yet she chooses to “teach” Becky by example how to be derogatory and disrespectful both to staff and her fellow students.

When Sue first took an interest in Becky and then revealed that she had a special needs sister, I felt that it would be an opportunity for Becky to grow into her potential within the realities of her disability. However, Sue took that opportunity to put Becky into conflict with other students through both her words and her actions, refers to her as Sue’s “Beckretary,” and has given unrestricted power to be rude, disrespectful, and derogatory with impunity. Why the writers of this popular show would morph Becky into a mini-me Sue is beyond my comprehension, but that isn’t my primary concern: what about the actress with Down’s Syndrome who has been taught through her role on this TV show to be disrespectful to the people with whom she has contact?

When I searched for the name of the actress portraying Becky (Lauren Potter), I found an interview with her and her mother: (Posted by Rob on Jun-16-2009 under Glee Episode Spoilers, News, Videos)

[Mom says} Lauren enjoyed the two-day shoot but said it bothered her that when people looked at her, they first saw the Down syndrome.

[Lauren's reply] “It’s really hard for me when people see me as a Down syndrome kid,” she said. “I want them to see me as typical.”

Can this actress understand that the behaviors and language she uses as the character Becky are not typical, and are inappropriate for use in her interactions with people off the set? Is Lauren able to make and then understand the distinctions between real and a role? Does she understand that the nastiness of her character would be inappropriate in her daily interactions with peers and adults and in no way will distinguish her as typical? And, if her goal is to be a role model for other differently abled people, does Lauren understand that this is the wrong role for that goal to be achieved?

When I see Becky being nasty, mean, and vindictive, I see a character who is far from typical in a very negative way, and not because she has Down's Syndrome.

SnapShots

If it's okay to have an allblacksdating.com on-line dating service, is it equally okay to have an all whites dating site? Or is this another instance of it's only racist if it's whites excluding blacks, especially during the week that we are honoring the Dr. Martin Luther King, JR speech about dreams ... including the hope that EVERYONE would one day be judged on the content of character, not on the color of one's (black) skin.

A real language lesson: we used not to use the perjorative words asshole, asshat, dick, bitch, son of a bitch, damn, hell, shit and even the allusive "f" you, but lately, language usage has lessened to the lowest common denominator and all of these once-excluded words run rampant through the family sitcoms. One commercial even prides itself on changing the phrase "fucking good" into "fricking good," but the real f-word implication is still there. Guess my favorite lecture on the three primary levels of language usage would do a fly-by in today's classroom: we don't talk that way; we don't talk that way outside of the house; and we don't talk that way if we want to keep our job.

How come Miley is being slammed for her highly suggestive, questionable, and/or morally reprehensible performance, but Lady Gaga not only performed, but then sat in the first rows of the reserved seats wearing her seashell breast covers and baring her g-string clad butt both to the seated audience and to the viewing audience, but has had nary a ripple in the Miley publicity pond? If we're going to lament the loss of good taste, let's apply it fairly.

If a foreign country wants to engage in war with the United States, all it has to do is figure out the definition of crossing the red line -- and we'll send our troops and munitions to wage war? What about having a step ladder of color-coded lesser offenses, perhaps using the shades of the rainbow in some kind of response framework that intercedes in general armed conflict, rather than having civil war in the streets be ignored until the ill-defined "red line" is crossed and hundreds of innocent citizens are dead from the use of chemical weapons, their bodies wrapped in sheets and displayed in the streets for the media, and thus the world, to see.

Kate Gosselin is suing her ex for hacking her computer and phone accounts to dig up dirt on her that has been allegedly used in an unflattering, recently-released, tell-all book. I'm not sure that good ole Jon is all that tech smart ... and I know he doesn't have any money, so why waste the time, the energy, and the personal resources?

Why do I believe that having a serious talk with my middle dog will make her stop and think before she poops and pees on my livingroom carpet every time a single drop of rain falls from the sky? Two pee puddles and one poop pile greeted me this morning, but the only sign of rain that blanketed the rest of the Valley was a light dew on the shrubbery. I could remove the carpeting, but I hate the feel of my bare feet on a bare floor!

The other side of my perception is my reality is the idea that whoever gets there first defines the truth.

To err is human; to cheat is, well, cheating

Back in the day, there was a philosophy predicated on the ethical belief that cheaters never prosper from their actions. The way the wheel turns, in today’s academic environment the cheaters are earning the A’s, while the ethical minority struggles to earn an honest grade that still qualifies them to continue with their education. Sooner or later, contrary to what we all would like to believe, the honest student succumbs to the will of the majority and joins the cheaters who consistently outscore them on standardized testing. What the teachers don't seem to understand is that too many perfect scores on any test doesn't mean a class mastered the content; it means that there is cheating running rampant among the students.

Test banks, along with the answer keys, are prolific online and easy to obtain for anyone who has the financial means to make the purchase, especially if a dozen or so students all contribute to the buy. Textbook companies make these materials available for instructors; however, if they are available to one consumer, they are available to all consumers. There are no checks and balances that require a purchaser to have administrative approval for the purchase: any credit card will be accepted and any purchase put through. The test banks are often downloaded to the buyer's computer at the time of purchase, which means that buyer can sell to anyone who wants a personal copy of the materials.

True/False and multiple choice answers are easiest scored by using a Scantron answer sheet and a scoring machine; thus, the test banks/answer keys focus more on that form of testing rather than, perhaps, a short written response that demonstrates each student’s mastery of the concepts being tested. It’s a matter of time/money for the TAs (teacher’s assistant) who are often solely responsible for grading the exam instruments: in a class with 300 students, the time it could take to hand-score short written responses, at 5 minutes per student per question, becomes several hours, and those hours have to be multiplied times the total student enrollment the instructor is assigned in any given semester. Compared to using the Scantron system, which scores both true/false and multiple choice responses literally as fast as the user can put the answer card through the scoring machine, the answer for the teacher and assistants is time, rather than educational outcome.

And, believe me, we all want to believe that "our" students won't cheat: they won't pass the answers from one section of the same course to students in other sections of that course; they won't purchase materials from the students who took the course last semester to ensure a good grade this semester; they won't download required semester papers from the internet and put their own names onto them and submit them as original student work; they won't go online and buy the test bank.

For the student, the ethical position eventually becomes untenable when dozens are getting perfect scores on the heavily-weighted objective quizzes and tests, while the honest student may be missing answers and receiving a lower grade. No one tells the educational institution or the teacher that the high-scoring students have the test bank and answers to all the Scantron-based testing instruments: no one likes a snitch. The ethical teacher could renumber and/or remix the questions from the test bank to help guard against unethical student use of test banks. It would take a bit of time, but cutting and pasting on a computer and then making a new master Scantron test answer sheet could help to minimize the prolific cheating activity that students take as their data-driven right.

Ideally, an ethical individual would not cheat regardless of the price paid to remain honest; however, success in educational institutions is based strictly on exam scores … and to err is human, but to cheat becomes divine when cheating along with everyone else simply creates a level playing field.

Spirits or Superstition?

Several weeks ago, I heard a metallic tapping, 3 times, like a quarter being tapped on my bedroom window. It woke me from a sound sleep and I explored the interiors, trying to figure out if "someone" was tapping on my window or if it's a sound I heard in my sleep. The dogs, who share a room with me, weren't riled up, so I went back to bed. Another night recently, as clear as if she were standing next to my bed, I heard my mother say my name, somewhat forcefully. Again, I immediately awakened and checked the property, but everything seemed secure, so I again went back to bed. I've been having grusome nightmares, often involving snakes, one of which I dreamed was imbedded in my head in a big hole from which it entered and exited. I'm waking up often throughout the night and, sometimes, giving up sleep and staying up from what seems to be my 3 AM weird wake-ups.

Last time my housekeeper came, I told her that strange things have been happening to me, and as I described these recent events, she turned pale, began praying loudly in Spanish, and crossed herself repeatedly. She stared at me and said, "You are in danger. There is a witch in your house and you have to get rid of her." She said that the long string of injuries I've had, as well as the repeat bouts with community-acquired pneumonia since last November, reveal that there is something evil in my house and it's trying to take away my happiness, and, maybe, my life. She said she feels a "darkness" about me that wasn't there when she first began working for me and she's worried.

That's the point at which I had to decided (quickly) whether to laugh, acknowledge her superstition, or brush her off. I chose to acknowledge her concern and thanked her for providing that insight. "No," she repeated, "I am serious." I could see in her eyes that she was afraid for me, worried that something bad could happen to me, so I asked her what was there to fear. She asked me if I still had that "book" I brought back from Greece, the one written in Greek that the "witch" in the platka had given me with such strong insistence. I told Lulu I did still have it, and she told me to burn it. Now.

Again, there was a strength to her concerns, no humor nor hint of it, so I found the booklet -- and she refused to touch it or look at it directly. She again told me to burn it, so I put it into the sink and lit it. Suddenly, brilliant green flames shot up almost a foot high, which worried me because (1) I had never seen anything burn completely brilliant green before and (2) My house has sprinklers in case of fire, and I didn't want to set them off and water damage everything I own. When the booklet was ashes, I washed them down the sink, but we weren't finished with our exorcism.

Lulu got an egg out of the 'fridge and began making the sign of the cross all over my body with the hand holding the egg, all the while praying in Spanish. I recognized some of the words, especially Dios and diablo, and she was quite thorough about the ritual. Then, we broke the egg into a glass filled with water and, believe it or not, swirling white filaments, like a spider's web, filled the water. Lulu jumped back, told me this was not good, and directed me to flush the egg down the toilet. She explained that it's a cleansing ritual and all that filament effect was an evil spirit that had gone inside the egg. She told me that the egg-orcism would do until she could bring me a candle.

Today, she brought the candle. The glass container is covered with all kinds of symbols of evil, including the devil and witches and black cats, with the words "Arrasa con Todo" (Destroy Everything) written at the bottom. The way it works is I light the candle and let it burn itself out, and then whatever has taken up residence in my home is gone. I think we double-check with another egg ceremony the next time she comes to clean, but she's confident that the candle is going to rid my house of the spirits that have taken up residence in it.

At this point in time, I'd like to make it through the rest of this calendar year without breaking a bone or having another surgery or dealing with yet another intense respiratory issue, so between burning the Greek booklet, capturing the spirits in an egg, and burning a candle to destroy everything, let's hope that the evil spirits have moved on to another house.

Good Enough Isn't

When is good enough … good enough? Howard Stern spoke out this past week on America’s Got Talent (which should be America Has Talent) and defined the difference between good enough and good, voting against a contestant who, Howard clarified, would be an okay lounge singer, but not good enough to compete against the better, more talented, candidates in a talent show. The other panelists want to coddle, to support, to ooh and ahh over the mediocre performers, rather than wait to be blown away by the best. When it’s a huge pot of gold at the end of a contest rainbow, not just anyone deserves to be there or to win. We used to say, “May the best man win,” but today, it seems that everyone deserves to win something for doing not much of anything.

This “good enough is good enough” mentality is being revealed more and more as competitive TV shows crowd the airwaves. In Opening Act, a panel of entertainment industry movers and shakers watch videos on YouTube and select their favorite musical performance to open for a famous concert performer. This past week’s contestant, a 16-year-old singer/songwriter with her own garage band, lamented that she’s wanted this all her life (she taught herself guitar when she was 11) and has worked so hard for so long (5 years) that she really deserves this opportunity to showcase her talent. She did a good enough job for a 16-year-old garage band singer/songwriter with no vocal training and limited performance experience, but there are thousands of other talented singers who are much better and “really deserve” a break, too.

The winner of Design Star, Danielle, is also disappointing because she is the contestant who consistently failed to complete her design challenge each week, but squeaked through because someone else did worse than she. In the final design challenge, her competitor Brittany (who I just discovered lives in the Valley and has a design studio here) did a more finished, polished room that spoke to the family, while the winner apparently provided more specific information about the process of decorating the room, information good enough to win her own show on a TV network. The judges assured all twelve of the original contestants that “everyone here is a winner,” but that’s not true: one person won her own design show and the others return home with shoulda, woulda, coulda stories to share.

Ditto the recent winners on Cupcake Wars: those who do better than the worst cupcake baker move on, while the winner is not the one who provides incredible finished cupcakes, but the baker who screws up less than the other contestants. When this show began, the bakers not only made delicious, unique, interesting cupcakes, but their decorations were spectacular and reflected the theme of each week's competition. This season, the cupcakes aren’t that good, an endlessly boring repeat of the same old/same old favorites. Even the viewers can see that a fondant cut-out on top of a pile of buttercream icing is not a decoration, but a desperate last-minute attempt not to have a naked cupcake! Will there be a week when there is no winner of the $10,000.00 prize because there is no best? That’s a lot of money to give to “good enough" and lowers the performance standard for the contestants who follow.

On the cooking channel, a contest for the next network Food Star recently concluded. Again, a dozen began and one won a spot in the fall line-up. This time, however, when the judges were asked to eliminate a contestant to create the final three, they refused to do so because all of the chefs were “so good” that the judges could not make a decision, a manipulation that seemed to favor the judges' star contestant, Marti, who consistently mismanaged her time, as well as her intended recipes, and winged it through the eight weeks of competition, while other, better chefs were eliminated. Then, for the first time, the show asked the viewers to select the winner by voting online or by telephone. Happily, the public voted for the underdog, the guy who took risks, who did his thing (he fried fish bones!), rather than pander to the panelists and select Marti, who may have been good enough for the judges, but, for the public, wasn't, and the best man won.

I admire the Bachelorette for sending “good enough” Ari home. Ari is a nice guy, but he isn’t the best man for Emily. It is difficult to explain why one is okay and the other so much better, especially when it results in hurt feelings, but why settle for second best? I watched the home viewer winner of a day on Live with Kelly and all I could think was, “Is this the best they could do?” He was obnoxious, so overly gay as to be an offense to gay men, and he delighted in completely taking over the opening dialog, as well as the rest of the show. I thought the show was looking for the best viewer to be the guest host, not someone who may be good enough (and I almost want to finish that sentence with “because he’s gay.”).

I admire Ryan on The Glee Project: his approach is that if one of the contestants doesn’t have the talent, the drive, and the stamina to win the contest this week, s/he is cut from the competition. This week, Abraham got the axe, even though he came back onto the stage after the final performances to explain that he wasn’t making excuses, but … a whine that Ryan interrupted to clarify: “I don’t believe you. A person who says he isn’t making excuses is making excuses.” Well said, Ryan, and right to the point. You may have been good enough last week, Abraham, but you weren’t good this week, so pack your bags and head back home.

After all, we don't allow everyone who wants to compete in the Olympics to do so: we only take the best of the best athletes to compete against the best that the rest of the world has to offer. When an Olympian says s/he has wanted this all my life, s/he has been training for their entire lives for a chance to compete and qualify for the Olympics. Before they are selected to be on the Olympic team, they compete against the best athletes in their field of expertise -- not against anyone who wants to suit up and show up! To be the best, you have to beat the best.

We have become so accepting of good enough that we are losing our ability to know the best! At the top of my favorite novels list is Harper Lee’s classic, To Kill a Mockingbird, which also features my all-time favorite character, Atticus Finch. In Atticus’s famous courtroom defense of Tom Robinson, he explains that “We know all men are not created equal in the sense some people would have us believe—some people are smarter than others, some people have more opportunity because they’re born with it, some men make more money than others, some ladies make better cakes than others—some people are born gifted beyond the normal scope of most men” (CH. 20).

For some reason, we have forgotten that we are uniquely different from the moment of conception. I am much better at some things than other people, and not nearly as good at many things as other people. There is a hierarchy of bad, so-so, good, better, best and we rank somewhere within those parameters, a recognition of the reality of being human. We cannot continue to lower our standards of excellence so everyone can be awesome, amazing, fabulous, outstanding, legendary, heroic and/or earn a 4.0 gpa or even be good enough; instead, we need to maintain our expectation of excellence and then encourage each individual to strive to reach it, as well as to accept the reality that many won’t ever be the best, but maybe only good enough, and, sometimes, baldly bad.

Good enough isn’t, so if you cannot become better, step aside and let the person who can do the job better, the person who is the best at doing whatever it is, do it.

That Dark Night

It is a tragedy that people sitting in a darkened movie theater were randomly shot by an armored man who created his own killing field. We are all so vulnerable in a theater, the lights darkened, the sound intensified, our trust in our safely implicit as we sit next to, in front of, behind complete strangers whose only bond to us is the purchase of a ticket.

No one expects to be killed in a movie theater!

Or in a mall. Or at a school. Or while attending church services. Or while walking with a new baby through a family-friendly neighborhood. Or while dining in a fast-food restaurant. Or while sitting in a car at a stoplight, waiting for the signal to change. Or in any of the thousands of other locales where people with weapons turn innocent civilians into instant crime statistics. With a pull on a trigger a hardened criminal, a youthful gang-banger, a vengeful spouse, a jealous lover, an envious neighbor, a fellow student, a psychopath, or a mentally unstable loner can end countless lives and secure a place in the media's face book of crime. The media shines a spotlight on the killer's act of violence, replaying it a thousand/thousand times so everyone can relive the terror of that moment, an endless loop of media fame that takes the focus off the victims and puts it onto the perpetrator of the senseless crime. The most recent killer's crime is quickly fact-checked to see where it ranks on the "most famous" list, placement that gives the talking heads more to talk about when they can't think of anything that has not already been repeated many dozens of times.

Since the "Murder at the Movies" coverage began, far too much time has been spent on the killer: who is he, who knows him and will talk about him on-camera, who will speculate on the motivation for his killing spree, and who will keep this killer viable for the world's media that depends on a "good get" for ratings. No one in that theater could possibly have deserved this pernicious attack by a complete stranger, no matter how the killer's deranged mind may justify what he did, and asking victims to speculate about a killer's motivation on-camera is not healthy. Reporters sitting by the bedside of a shooting victim hours after the attack and asking a stream of inane "How did it feel?" questions may also create a scenario in which other latent killers fantasize about recreating the scenario to see how it feels ... to be the shooter. For some deranged people, the incessant, intrusive media coverage becomes a blueprint for violence, not a time of shared grief.

I don't want to hear one more commentator dissect the crime, discuss the killer's possible motivation for the crime, or speculate about the potential court proceedings that become the focus of the media for however long it takes. It disgusts me to know that the talking heads are counting down the minutes until the killer appears in court so another barrage of "coverage" can begin. The "first photo" of the killer will blanket the news channels, with news readers trying to find explanations in physical appearance, nonsense that will consume the airways for months, and perhaps years. In Pennsylvania, Jerry Sanduski was taken from his home, taken to court, taken to trial, found guilty by a jury of his peers, and confined to a prison within months of his arrest. Take this Colorado killer to jail: take him to court, find him guilty, and then execute him. No one cares why he did what he did, only that he did it: he was caught in the act and he needs to be held accountable.

Don't let his killing spree become his legacy; instead, let his crime be his death sentence.

As Dylan Thomas encouraged in a poem about death,

Do not go gentle into that good night,
Old age should burn and rave at close of day;
Rage, rage against the dying of the light.

This killer does not need our forgiveness nor our understanding: he needs to know our rage. We all should rage, rage against the killer and the media that glorify his crime! We all need to show the world that we are all sick of the killers living out their lives as stars of their own horrific reality shows, while the victims of their vicious crimes first must learn how to get through today and then pray for one more tomorrow.

Humming in My Head

The transition from worker bee to retiree has been complex, compounded by a virulent respiratory infection that kept me housebound since returning from the cruise. Judging from the pile of prescriptions and the physical issues accompanying the need for the medications, it's obvious I have an immune issue that must be addressed more firmly and thoroughly before I step into another airplane flying to anywhere!

I did make it to my last two classes, but I honestly don't remember much of it. I did post my final grades as required, but I could not tell you how I accomplished that task. I did not make it to my last graduation, which broke my heart. I drove to the doctor twice, first to see what the hell attacked my legs, and then to deal with it again when the first treatment protocol didn't work. The diagnosis went from sun poisoning to a bacterial infection in two days, accompanied by the respiratory infection that either masked or exacerbated the leg issues. The cough wracked my chest cavity, leaving me breathlessly heaving for air and holding onto my rib cage for dear life.

This was not how I envisioned winding down my career, but few things in my life have ever gone as I anticipated, including my career. I plan and God laughs: S/He enjoys tossing in some unfamiliar ingredients to see what I do with them, often believing more firmly than I that I can, indeed, make lemonade, as well as a host of other tart treats, when given lemons. Being able to roll with the punches has led me in interesting directions, some of which I never would have taken on my own, but it's also brought me the deepest pain of my lifetime, especially when another person's vendetta temporarily cost me my beloved career. The most difficult thing I have ever done was to walk back into a classroom after leaving it for what I believed in my deepest soul was the last time. I learned, however, that it is true: I have to fall to the bottom to have any hope of ever climbing back to the top.

Education has changed in the past 40 years, and not, in my humble opinion, for the better. Instead of analyzing the data of centuries of educational trends and realizing that about 12-15% of all high school graduates actually attend -- and complete -- college, "we" decided that ALL students "need" a college education, so "we" discontinued the majority of educational opportunities that do not conform with that mindset. Hence, the occupational programs disappeared from curricula nationwide; ditto the fine arts, the performing arts, the myriad physical education programs, the field trips, the core literature, the sequence of progressively more challenging classes that take a student from basics to more advanced educational skills. We stripped out what students need and replaced the curricula with what politicians tout to be elected to office: educational parity that begins in the simple, but erroneous, assumption that all students will do equally well if I say they will in front of a TV camera.

Once we no longer maintained high expectations for ourselves and others, we lost the strength necessary to demand more of our students, rather than expecting less. Good ideas morphed into nightmares, including the infamous No Child Left Behind legislation that was a a good idea to achieve educational parity, but destroyed educational opportunities. We dumbed down the curricula in an effort to create artificial success for the under-performing students, rather than re-educating that segment of the population with authentic academic performance that leads to authentic academic success. We are a nation of do-gooders who failed to do good when we actively believed and promoted the idea that students can only be successful when we refuse to allow them to fail. We learn more from failure than we do from meaningless, artificial success, but the public wants to believe that all students are equal and will be the shooting stars of tomorrow who get a good education and a well-paying job, a mantra I've heard so many times that it's hard to believe that anyone still believes it.

Good jobs and a good future demand a good education, but we have forgotten that last part in favor of feeling good about ourselves as the process. We feel good about ourselves when we perform to an expected standard, not when the standard is lowered so we can feel good about ourselves!

We forgot the basic premise of society: every tribe needs a chief and a tribal council, but what makes a tribe function are the good members of the tribe who listen to the leaders and then get the job done. The chief may decide where to make camp, but someone has to erect the tents, gather the food, and start the cooking fire. We have destroyed the worker mentality of our nation, the huge corps of workers who take the idea guy's ideas and turn them into successes! We led a generation of young people to believe that they are somehow above the worker bee functionality, that each of them somehow deserves to be farther up the ladder of success based on a diploma, rather than a demonstration of competency and success in finishing tasks and accomplishing goals. We taught a generation of young people to believe that they deserve more, they deserve better, they deserve it right now -- and they want to be paid at the highlest levels of compensation without having to do the time to earn that performance pay.

There is nothing wrong with being the best worker in a corporation, just as there is nothing wrong with being the best CEO: both ends of that spectrum have to be in place before the corporation can function successfully!

I cannot influence the young teachers coming behind me to do better, to work harder, to be more concerned about their educational impact on the students in the seats unless they, too, believe that our career is a calling, not a cop-out. Young teachers are stripping the curricula of anything they do not know personally: if it's too hard to teach, it must be too hard to learn, and, therefore, expendable. It's a lot more fun to sit and talk with students about personal experiences than it is to teach them about professional responsibilities, and everyone's job should be ... fun, right? Students should never have to pay for a course they fail, so the teacher has to find a way for everyone to pass ... right? Even when it means lowering the course expectations, as well as the grading scale, to accommodate the lowest common denominator ... right?

It is time for my career to fade into the sunset, for me to let go of a lifetime of doing my best and hoping it's good enough. I know I did as well as some, better than others, and not as well as I had planned, but that pretty much captures the essence of what life is all about!

Powerful Words

In the reading skill development textbook (John Langan, Ten Steps to Advancing College Reading Skills) is a story about Julia Burney, who so loved books that she created a program, Cops ‘n Kids, in Racine, Wisconsin that earned her one of Oprah Winfrey’s “Use Your Life” awards. In the narrative, Julia is quoted as saying, “… these kids … can’t aspire to be something that they’ve never seen.”

Those words are humming through my mind this morning after being awakened earlier with what seemed like an endless stream of police vehicles traveling code 3 on the main road through town. This morning, news reports confirm that there was a “group,” deliberately avoiding the use of the word “gang,” gathered at 1:30 AM. Shots were fired and at least 5 victims were still at the scene when law enforcement arrived, but the rest of the “group,” estimated to be about 100 people, scattered into the desert. One reader’s on-line comment indicates, however, that there are more victims coming out of hiding and finding their way to the ERs in the desert for treatment of their wounds.

[UPDATE: It is now a gang-related incident; however, many of the victims either went home or to other locations to regroup, so victims are still coming forth. About 6 dozen various law enforcement vehicles (etc) were at the primary scene, which is still being processed.]

What dismays me is that this shooting, according to the news reports, occurred in a field on the other side of a local middle school. No matter what the lesson plan is for Monday, and no matter the age group inside the classroom, the lesson for the students will be the excitement of the nearby shooting, each one sharing with the others what s/he “knows” about what happened and to whom and why. Of course, no one will talk to the police because … that’s not what people do these days unless there is a personal payday at the end of the interview. Julia Burney’s words came rushing back to me: “kids … can’t aspire to be something that they’ve never seen.”

Far too often kids do live what they see, and in this Valley, kids live gangs. There are white gangs, black gangs, brown gangs, Samoan gangs, and yellow gangs, as well as the mixed gangs that form in prison and come to the parole places along with the prisoners released early from the over-crowded jail facilities. No one wants the jail built in their community, but without the jails, we get the unfettered criminals who help children aspire to become something that the criminals have not just seen, but lived, and then delight in showing to the young wannabees who want to become them. Little strokes an adult ego like a young child's adulation.

When a local jury is convened for yet another criminal trial in this area, it’s most likely to involve gang activity, with defendants far too young to face living out their lives behind bars. But the older gang members, the ones who live to the ripe old age of their early 30s, portray the gang as family, the gang as a support group, the guys who “have got your back, bro” to the young kids who wander the streets. “Kids” living in this environment have been trained through personal experience not just to see the violence, but to give back whatever they have been given, and, perhaps, to take it to the next level as the accessibility to better weaponry provides the children with the means to get even for their lifetime of verbal and physical abuse. For these kids, and the millions of other kids just like them across the nation, it’s not a matter of what is right or what is wrong, but it’s what I see every day of my life, it’s what I know, what I have been taught by the adults in my life, what I have been trained to do myself. As the kids say, “Payback is a bitch.”

It’s never “my child” to a parent, but it’s always someone’s child who either commits the violence or is a victim of it. After the fact, whether the child is the perp or the victim, the grieving parent laments that the child was a “good” boy, a “good” girl, and swear on all that’s holy that “my child” was not involved with gangs, that “my child” would never do whatever it is that s/he is accused of doing.

Five young men, ranging in ages 13-20, broke up a birthday party a couple of years back, a party on a Sunday afternoon, by bringing death to a rival gang member who was the father of the child celebrating his birthday. That case is slowly making its way through the court system, as well as building sympathy for the youngest offenders (whose parents aver that "my child" had no idea what he was invovled with) and sanitizing the memory of the shooting victim (who "may" have been involved with gangs at one time, but not at the time of his death). That story reverberates dozens of times each year in this area, and we are not the worst geography for gangs and murders, just another part of the country where gangs and crime have become a way of life.

Are there still kids who can be turned around with a reading program, who can learn about other ways to live their lives without the violence and abuse? Sure, but I’m beginning to think that living a life filled with danger and the possibility of violent payback is far more exciting than reading about “normal” people and their boring lives. Why would any kid be happy to play with a squirt gun when s/he can obtain, practice with, and then use an automatic weapon that, with one squeeze of a trigger, doesn’t cause squeals of laughter, but screams of pain and the silence of death.

If Burney is correct that “kids … can’t aspire to be something that they’ve never seen,” we need to change the landscape our kids see each day, and that begins within the walls of our homes. It is not up to the community to be the parent, but to support the parents to show their children more and better ways to live their lives. It has to come from within, one hard day at a time, for every child. Take the violence out of the music, out of the videos, out of the media, and replace it with positive role models, positive personal interaction, appropriate language and conduct. And, maybe, with a Cops 'n Kids reading center.

Allow classroom teachers to discuss morality and ethics, rather than tying their hands with the dangers of infringing on any one child’s individual (ethnic) rights. Just because it’s okay for some cultures to condone teenage suicide bombers does not mean that the US has to condone it. Ditto the brutality to citizens in countries where ruthless dictators, such as Kony, use violence to control the people. Ditto the corrupt politicians who accept financial pay-offs to look the other way when drug lords and their enforcement squads slaughter civilians and dump their bodies into mass graves as warnings to others to support their criminal enterprise.

It’s going to take a long time to undo the damage we’ve done to our young people through the glorification and acceptance of violence as a way of life. Children do live what they see, but they also die as a result of that vision. It's ironic that kids today don't know the standard Golden Rule, but they all know the new Rule: "Never bring a knife to a gunfight!"

Another Stress Mess

There are things people say/do that make me nauseous, but what has put me over the top this week is the commercial for My Strange Addiction wherein a woman confesses, then demonstrates, that she drinks her urine. Yeah, my stomach just turned over as I typed that admission! What amazes me is that anyone would ever take the first sip, unless, of course, s/he were lost in the desert and dying of dehydration. In that circumstance, the need to survive makes anything acceptable, but who would ever continue that process after being saved? This woman slathers herself in her own output, moisturizing her face, styling her hair, brushing her teeth. Of course this is plain crazy, but our minds control us in ways we never think they can!

My brain has been whirling with stress for a couple of weeks, and last night was challenging as my brain filled my sleeping sub-conscious with images of a fungus growing on my hands. There were long tubular tentacles all over my palms, perhaps 4-6 inches in length, but slender so they swayed with the slightest movement. I fought all night to make them go away, tossing, turning, waking up (sort of), then going back into the nightmare. I used bleach and scrubbed for all I was worth, but the eerily white tubal growths flourished. I tried to remove them with both tweezers and stronger pliers, to no avail. Finally, I doused them with gasoline, using a cotton ball, then set my hands on fire – at which point I awoke suddenly and completely, relieved that the growths were a nightmare and burning hands were not a reality.

Adding to the sleeplessness, my phone makes soft sounds throughout the night, little pings and wind chime sounds that wake me instantly. So far, I have no idea what these sounds mean as my phone is not “ringing,” nor is there a text message or a missed call notification. It may mean that there is an email, but I think I turned off the internet access as I’ve only had the phone for about 2 weeks and am still learning how to retrieve a voice mail. I know the sounds of my life, so adding new sounds, particularly in the dark of night, is disconcerting.

Yes, the dogs and I are still walking, which usually helps me to manage my stress, but it’s so cold and windy the past several days that we’re taking short, quick walks, rather than the long, leisurely walks we’re accustomed to enjoying. A week ago, the temps were in the 80s, but we’ve had freezing rain, icy roads, and snow in the mountains, all of which are reasons to stay inside and work on craft projects.

I did, however, watch a TV movie on the Encore channel that I enjoyed on multiple levels: Country Strong, starring Gwenyth Paltrow and Tim McGraw, an excellent portrayal of human flaws and our inability to overcome what ails our lives. As much as The Descendants and its star, George Clooney, lacked any significant humanity, personal warmth, and/or honest emotion, Country Strong has it all. Throughout the film, Tim McGraw’s face tells a story of love and betrayal that hurt my heart, while George Clooney struggled for an entire film to figure out how to feel, then portray, even simple human emotion. If the eyes are the windows to our souls, Tim McGraw’s eyes are an encyclopedia of human experience.

Life goes on with us or around us. I’ll finish up the laundry, take a long, refreshing shower, and figure out how to get past this hitch in my git-along so life smoothes out and is less stressful. It’s easy to know that I create my own stress, but it’s challenging to get beyond the causes and avoid the effects. Another work in progress!