Magpie Ima

Photo Break

noreply@blogger.com (Magpie Ima) — Sat, 27 Jun 2009 06:41:00 +0000

I went back to work this week after an all-too-brief break. For reasons that have yet to be explained to my satisfaction (but most likely come down to money) I am now responsible for simultaneously planning and teaching two separate classes. In the same room. With 40 students. It is, quite simply, insane. The only reason I figure they can get away with it is that I don't get paid for prep time anyway, so who cares if the work is doubled?

Each night this week I swore I was going to come home, make myself a nice margarita, and lose myself in some Bollywood. The reality? I collapsed in a quivering heap in my bed. This term is going to be intense. And that's all I want to say about that right now.

So...how about a nice photo break? Because I didn't absolutely have to do anything this morning, I took the camera and spent some time poking around in my shamefully overgrown yard. Despite my shocking neglect, things are going quite well, especially with the herbs, greens, young tomatoes, and ruby-sweet strawberries.

Our first baby zucchini are already ripe. Isn't it early? I can't tell, but I am happy to have them.

The best part? I wasn't alone. I had some company only too happy to pose for me.

Miss Chutki:

and the recently named Romeo who seems to have adopted us for good:
He looks just a bit mean and shifty here, but he's actually a total sweetheart.

I'm planning on a couple of relaxing days of sewing, some knitting, a little yard work, and hopefully pulling my husband over to my side in The Great Freezer Debate. I think we need an extra to hold all our summer bounty but he's not yet convinced.

I hope you have a relaxing weekend full of good things!

19

noreply@blogger.com (Magpie Ima) — Tue, 23 Jun 2009 14:00:00 +0000

Nineteen years is an awfully long time, isn't it?

And yet, it seems like yesterday that we got married. Time flies when you're having fun.

Not that it's fun all the time. Not that there's always time for fun. But even when it isn't fun, it's always good, being married to this guy.

I don't say it often enough, but I think I must be the luckiest woman ever.

To The Spouse: Thanks for sticking by me through thick and thin, crazy and sane.

To everyone else: if you want to see a picture of our youthful, shiny-eyed selves on our wedding day, here you go.

Back from the Woods

noreply@blogger.com (Magpie Ima) — Sun, 21 Jun 2009 19:11:00 +0000

After all that carrying on about The Great Camping Trip, it turns out we were at Silver Falls State Park for all of 36 hours. The forest was beautiful, the weather was lovely, the cabin was charming (futon mattresses excepted--those were torturous), and the families with whom we went were all delightful. We ate well, and managed to not be consumed ourselve--hooray for Swyflotter--this stuff rocks!We had a lovely walk beneath the south falls where I was kicking myself for forgetting my camera. Duh!

Image via Wikipedia

The whole experience was better than I could have imagined but for one sore point. The Dark Lord was not at all happy to be there and there's nothing worse than an unhappy teen. There was no one his age on this expedition and he had to pass on invitations from friends to accompany us. While I really wished he had taken a more positive outlook to this outing, I could understand, to some degree, his displeasure. Late on the second day he began a steady nag about going home early and we finally acquiesced. I was actually disappointed to be leaving early but the up side was that The Spouse had a free vacation day at home which we fully enjoyed. We had lunch at Pambiche and a stroll through Powell's where I augmented my cheese making library with this book. Definitely more my style of vacation but I enjoyed my brief time in the forest, too.

The Princess and The Piano

noreply@blogger.com (Magpie Ima) — Sat, 13 Jun 2009 22:34:00 +0000

In addition to being Monkey Boy's birthday, yesterday was also recital day for The Princess. A kind friend of ours took the following video in which my daughter plays a lullaby accompanied be her teacher on the other piano and our friend Elizabeth on cello at the end of the recital.

The recital was a really lovely event especially compared to others I've attended. Tovah is one of the very youngest students so it was exciting to see what all the other kids could do after a little more time with Miss Gaye. All of them played beautifully and quite of a few of them composed the pieces they played. The Princess enjoyed herself, and it was a successfull evening all around.

14!

noreply@blogger.com (Magpie Ima) — Sat, 13 Jun 2009 00:52:00 +0000

My boy was up bright and early to begin celebrating his 14th birthday. I love that as he gets older he maintains his silliness. The T-shirt was my gift and the fez came from friends. I think it suits him.

The Great Thing About Being a Pessimist...

noreply@blogger.com (Magpie Ima) — Fri, 12 Jun 2009 22:55:00 +0000

...is that I am rarely disappointed and often even pleasantly surprised.

After arguing with one teen most of the day about this trip (yes, you ARE coming because you are part of this family) and dropping a small fortune on provisions at Trader Joe's, I am totally open to the idea of pleasant surprises.

Thanks everyone for your encouragement. To those sharing this outing with us: I promise to keep my kvetching inside the cabin.

To The Woods

noreply@blogger.com (Magpie Ima) — Fri, 12 Jun 2009 03:49:00 +0000

I do my best to provide my children with numerous enriching opportunities so they will grow up well rounded and full of happy memories. My great failing as a parent, as I've been told more than once, is that I have steadfastly refused to take my children camping. I can't really come up with another family activity whose mere suggestion fills me with greater dread other than something like attending a football game. Or hunting.

I have never had much interest in camping. I think the woods are fine and natural areas should absolutely be preserved and protected--ideally by humans, especially myself, staying out of them. Given a choice between a tall tree and a good book, the book will always win. My idea of nature is my garden, ideally when the blueberries are ripe. Extended treks through the woods are not appealing. The thought of slithering into a sleeping bag and trying to sleep with my family in a claustrophobic nylon tent surrounded by marauding raccoons fills me with absolute horror. My heart sinks upon consideration of meals prepared over an open fire and in fact, I hate the stink of woodsmoke.

I think it's because we camped as kids and while we had a great time, my stepmom never did. The rest of us hiked and swam and skipped through the trees while she stayed behind, washing dishes in tepid water and trying to cobble together meals before everything in the cooler went bad. She always seemed so relieved when we packed up and headed for home.

I've always been able to easily bow out of camping invitations made by more seasoned veterans who think a camping trip is a perfectly reasonable way to spend a weekend. Last year we used the impending bar mitzvah as an excuse but I can only get away with that so many times. Usually I can claim, quite honestly, that we just don't have the equipment. Well this time the lovely folks in our homeschool co-op found a place with rustic cabins so we could come along. My kids insist it isn't even camping anyway so I am not sure what I am getting so worked up about. But the thought of planning and shopping and packing and cooking and then being out in the middle of nowhere for three days is completely overwhelming to me . I'm just no suited to it. Other people pull these things off without a second thought and have a great time while I am, quite simply, out of my element and certain I'll be a harried wreck.

But I agreed. The kids are looking forward to it and the other families are lovely people. I'm kind of mortified by how incompetent I feel but hopefully I've dumped enough negativity here that I can put on a brave face and make this little outing a success. Maybe I'll be writing next week about how silly I was and start regularly heading off to REI to hang out with all the outdoorsy types and start buying performance fabrics and high tech gear. But I kind of doubt it.

At least I picked up a good book to take along, just in case.

Passion

noreply@blogger.com (Magpie Ima) — Wed, 10 Jun 2009 02:02:00 +0000

If there is one thing I love it's people who are passionate about whatever funky thing they're passionate about. Seriously--it just puts a smile on my face.

We've been making serious efforts to buy more locally raised food. We've joined a CSA for our veggies, but still rely on the grocery store for eggs and milk. I thought surely I could do better, especially given that Portland is such a hive of urban chicken culture. I recently got busy with a little internet research and came up with local sources for both eggs and goat's milk which I am now using for making cheese and I got to meet some interesting folks this week.

Paul lives in deep southeast Portland and has turned his little plot of land into quite the chicken operation and he was happy to describe everything in great detail. He has a variety of pastures in various states of readiness for the chickens. They get to run in one area while others are regrowing the greens they eat. There are grand old fruit trees arching over the various chicken runs and a couple of huge white dogs running around and keeping an eye on things. The place was a bit a ramshackle but I loved seeing how chickens could be humanely raised for serious egg production in the city. Now that piano lessons are over, we won't have too much cause to drive that far, but when I do find myself out that way, I'll make sure to give a call and see if eggs are available.

Ed has a small but remarkably productive goat dairy in NE Portland. He has four lovely adult females, a couple of darling kids, and a lame male goat who gets to hang around just because. Only three of "the girls" are being milked right now (because the fourth is pregnant with triplets) and he's averaging 5 gallons a day! The goats all seemed so happy--the picture of contentment, really. Along with my 2 gallons of very affordable goat milk, Ed shared all kinds of cheesemaking resources with me and, best of all, gave me samples of a tangy, creamy chevre and a lovey nutty cheese which had been pressed and aged. Highly motivating to this beginning cheesenmaker, let me tell you.

Both of these men were very different. Things felt a little chaotic with the egg guy and almost too perfect with the goat guy. But both of them were visibly passionate about their animals and eager to share their copious knowledge. I found myself grinning from ear to ear after each of these visits, delighted that there are enthusiastic micro farmers in my city.

June

noreply@blogger.com (Magpie Ima) — Mon, 08 Jun 2009 17:14:00 +0000

It's June and, at our house, June is when the invisible-to-humans sign appears over our door which says (in cat language) "suckers live here". That's my theory anyway, because this is the third time a sweet, lovable stray has shown up and moved in in June.

Last year, just a couple of days before the bar mitzvah, Chutki showed up after having delivered what was likely her first litter of kittens which were nowhere to be found. She had no trouble settling in to our family and while she's playful and occasionally entertaining, she's very independent. She will rub against a leg when she chooses, but there's no way she would sit in a lap or submit to any sort of love. She hasn't been the most satisfying of cats.

Many of my readers know about Chet who showed up 4 years ago in June. He lived with us for quite some time but when Chutki showed up, he was out of here. Too many females! He mostly lives outside and has friends all over the neighborhood. He spent the coldest part of the winter in our house but otherwise has little use for us. So he's only sort of our cat.

Which is why we can surely add another one, right?

This boy showed up last week and I fell in love almost instantly. I've always wanted a huge male cat who would sit in my lap. This guy fits the bill. He's enormous and must be either all or in large part Maine Coon, both because of looks and temperament. He's a total sweetie and has a seemingly endless capacity for petting. He's clearly not a cat that's been on his own for long and he's pretty happy around people. Someone must be missing him. But I'm also kind of in love so if no one claims him I guess I will just have to keep him. How sad!

The best part is how my husband immediately understood that resistance was futile this time around.

Growing Up

noreply@blogger.com (Magpie Ima) — Fri, 29 May 2009 01:20:00 +0000

My small herd of offspring has shown remarkable signs of growth this week and I'm trying to process everything.

The Princess lost her first tooth. It should have come out months ago as there are big teeth coming up behind it but she seemed nervous about letting it go and refused to help it along. I think she though it was going to hurt. It fell out quite by surprise in last night's bath but the new teeth are pretty much in place, so no goofy gap-toothed photos to share, darn it. When we told her to make sure and tuck the tooth under her pillow she informed us that she didn't believe in the Tooth Fairy which rather bummed me out. Seeing my look of disappointment (or possibly realizing she was losing a chance for free money) she decided to put the tooth under her pillow anyway.

MonkeyBoy has been taking a class called A Guide to Democracy through the new eastside Village Homeschool Resource Center. This wan't his first choice but when it turned out to be the only offering for kids in his age group I asked to him to just try the first class and he was hooked. The teacher is fantastic and my boy, who has always claimed that "history is stupid" is now loving learning about how our country works. As part of his final project, he was required to attend a City Council meeting which neither of us were excited about.

We finally got it together to attend yesterday's meeting and what a surprise! My boy paid close attention, asked me a lot of questions, took lots of notes and, not surprisingly, drew some fabulous portraits of the council members. We sat through the entire two hours of topics which ranged from beekeeping to sewer systems and found it far more entertaining than we'd imagined possible. When we left, my boy was thrilled. He couldn't believe that he sat through the whole thing and actually followed most of what was going on. I was also pleasantly surprised at his maturity.

And here's the thing that's getting me slightly ferklempt today: The Dark Lord is now enrolled at Portland Community College. He's taking his placement test tonight which will determine his fall classes and he plans on taking a weekly non-credit guitar class over the summer. My boy is starting college! How crazy is that?

A Happy Birthday

noreply@blogger.com (Magpie Ima) — Mon, 25 May 2009 05:43:00 +0000

Today my sweetie turned 45--he likes to say he's hit the halfway point but I'm not sure how he knows that. It's been a good day. We spent many hours at Blue Lake Park which included time out on the lake in a paddleboat, a generous picnic, a birthday cake, and a little napping time in the shade of the grand old trees.
Later there was ice cream and a dusk amble through Jamison Square and Tanner Springs parks.
The birthday boy--man-- is now happily painting. I think it's been a good day for him. That's what I hoped for, anyway. He's been working so hard lately with lots of weekends spent in the office so I wanted to make sure today was a relaxed day full of good things.

Where I've been.....

noreply@blogger.com (Magpie Ima) — Thu, 21 May 2009 16:37:00 +0000

The last month or so has been a challenging one around my house and I have felt emotionally drained often enough that I've had a hard time writing anything of substance. I hope that's OK and I hope my few regular readers haven't totally lost interest.

The big drama in our family has revolved around The Dark Lord and high school. He made his own decision to stop homeschooling and enroll in a public high school as a freshman last year. He got off to a great start, made lots of friends, found an after school drawing club that he loved and things went well during his freshman year. This second year, however, has been much more challenging and he's lost a lot of his enthusiasm. What was a positive experience has turned to drudgery with no end in sight. There have been meetings with the principal which were encouraging but not truly helpful. There have been meetings with the vice-principal which were downright awful due to her annoying combination of condescension and chirpiness. I've been to conferences, talked with teachers, talked with other parents, made phone calls, read books---it's not unlike many years ago when some big shift in his development took place and I was desperate to talk to others, find answers, and help him transition.

When I talked with family members about his struggles I was told either that my expectations for him were too high or that he'd just need to tough out his high school years. Is it really too much to expect a formerly self-directed child to enjoy learning? Is there any more reason to expect him to tolerate a learning environment that fails to meet his needs? Or am I coddling him when I look for alternatives and try and help him sift through his options? This is the kind of stuff I've been struggling with lately, along with my son's obvious ambivalence about his situation. He's had a hard time weighing the options and making decisions about next year and the whole thing has been very stressful, most especially for him.

One option we'd hoped to have was enrolling him in PCC's Gateway to College program which is a dual credit program allowing kids to earn their high school diplomas taking college classes. Brilliant. The program focuses heavily on academic readiness and support so kids who haven't been terribly successful in school get what they need to do well. It's a great program and sadly, not available to us due to the school district in which we live.

As it turns out, Gateway isn't the only dual credit program out there and we began to look into the Early College Academy run through a statewide charter school. In the lower grades, it's an online curriculum not unlike Oregon Connections Academy which was a disaster for my kids. But the early college program, like Gateway, allows kids to earn simultaneous high school and college credit. With a little planning, my boy could have both his high school diploma and an associate's degree by the time he's 20. And the college tuition? Free. Early College Academy doesn't have the built in support piece in quite the same way, but they tell me that he will have a counselor who will meet with him as necessary to help him develop his organizational skills and help him plan and meet his goals. He feels like this is enough and is ready to make the switch.

Starting in September he'll be taking two classes at Portland Community College and his load will increase after that if things go well. He'll have a little breathing room and hopefully the ability to refocus on his goals. Plus, at PCC he can take classes like this, so he's pretty excited and so are his parents.

Next up: figuring out what to do with MonkeyBoy who has lost all interest in high school for next year. I'll keep you posted.....

A Perfect Weekend

noreply@blogger.com (Magpie Ima) — Mon, 18 May 2009 16:36:00 +0000

We've had one of those abrupt Portland springtime shifts from cool rain to high temperatures and sunny skies virtually overnight. On Friday, Day 1 of this lovely weather spell, I sat outside with a bunch of sun starved mamas and soaked up as much as I could. Saturday and Sunday weren't much different though we changed locations a few times. We visited both Peninsula Park and Blue Lake as well as spent quite a few hours in the garden, listening to the plants grow.We took my new picnic basket (thanks, Mom!) out for a spin, ate quite a bit of ice cream, and spent lots of time outside. I finished a sweater, started a pair of socks quite a few times before deciding that I'm just not up to a Cookie A sock right now, and have moved on to less taxing things like embroidery and simple sock design. I am happy to report that I have shifted from pasty winter white to the deep brown I consider my true skin color. Apart from a truly disappointing meal, it was about as perfect as a weekend gets. Here's hoping for a summer full of similar weekends.

It's Here

noreply@blogger.com (Magpie Ima) — Thu, 30 Apr 2009 21:05:00 +0000

Image by sarihuella via Flickr

It's been fascinating to track the spread of swine flu. On the one hand, you have the hysterical alarmists and on the other, those who insist it's nothing to worry about and unlikely most people will come in contact with the disease or be in danger. I tend to side with the latter, mostly because I know the former are providing quite the windfall for the makers of Tamiflu.

Except....if one happens to spend 12 hours a week in close contact with recent arrivals from Mexico who live, work, and visit with other even more recently arrived friends and family from Mexico. Or, say, if one happens to have an autoimmune disease, making it harder to fight off invading microbes.

Of course it was only a matter of time until the disease made it to Portland. Our first probable case was reported today and I'm sure others will follow soon. I've asked all my students to wash their hands before coming into the classroom. We've gone thorough most of a big bottle of hand sanitizer this week and the students are alert to the slightest sneeze or sniffle. I sent one kid home who looked awful, and I'm a little worried about another who was sick two days last week, then came to class on Thursday and apparently had a relapse over the weekend. I'm hoping he's better soon and that no one picked up anything late last week. I'm having my kids wash their hands frequently--my own are raw from regular scrubbing. I'm upping my Vitamin D and following other suggestions from Dr Mercola, and other than that, just hoping for the best.

Stay healthy, everyone!

Cheery

noreply@blogger.com (Magpie Ima) — Tue, 28 Apr 2009 20:50:00 +0000

Here's a little reversible tote bag I just made for a young friend's 8th birthday. It was given to her with a new sketchbook, colored pencils, and fine tipped pens. I'd envisioned her taking her supplies outside and drawing on a pleasant spring day.

Unfortunately there are no pleasant spring days on the horizon. It's chilly and rainy and we're stuck inside today instead of visiting the zoo as planned. The kids (we have 2 extra today) are making the best of it, having turned my dining room into a vast, complicated landscape of block cities populated by elves, tigers, dragons, and....teenagers!

Processing

noreply@blogger.com (Magpie Ima) — Thu, 23 Apr 2009 05:51:00 +0000

I promised myself I'd lay off the glum posts, so I won't go into detail about my very hard morning. Kaddish and tears--that's about it. That and a wise rabbi who told me to go and do something good in my brother's memory.

I made a donation to the good folks at Growing Gardens and then put on my grubby clothes for a solo afternoon in the garden. Last weekend's glorious weather had sent me eagerly to more than one nursery in search of veggies, herbs, and flowers. Now that our unseasonal heat wave has passed, it seemed a good time to plant. We lost a lot of plants last winter so there are plenty of pots needing to be emptied of dead twigs and refilled with new life. There's so much cleaning and tidying to do. Our yard debris bin is stuffed full with a week to go before pickup so there are bags and piles of clippings and trimmings what need to be moved along.

I swept and shoveled and pulled and dug, and eventually got every little thing in some dirt: strawberries, rudbeckia, rue and motherwort, bok choi and cosmos, echinacea and geranium--all were liberated from their little nursery pots and tucked into soil, some in pots, others in the ground.

It felt good to work hard and I feel more or less back to normal, grateful for the gift of my garden.

For the next few months, I predict you'll be able to find me right about here:

My April

noreply@blogger.com (Magpie Ima) — Sat, 18 Apr 2009 01:25:00 +0000

The sun finally came out around here and my thoughts turned to gardening. It's hard to get an early start here in Portland at least for the casual home gardener like myself who has no intention of mucking around with greenhouses and row covers. I just tend to wait out the rain until things look good and then I jump in with a few cool weather transplants and what I fondly refer to as sacrificial tomatoes. Planted in April, they're as likely to wither and sulk as they are to take off and grow beautifully, but some years we get lucky.

But here's the the thing. Inevitably my first serious foray into the garden happens in mid to late-April. And while I'm out there, pulling up bindweed, turning over garden beds, and whacking the hydrangeas back to something manageable, my mind inevitably wanders and I grow quite melancholy. This time of year, so ripe with possibility and optimism, is also terribly sad for me, as it's the very time of year when we lost my brother.

I've written here about my brother before but if you're a new reader the short story is that he took his own life 6 years ago at 33 years old. It's still hard for me to believe how long he's been gone and all that he missed. His son is a sweet, strapping young man with his father's wry sense of humor and love for animals.

When I first get out in the garden, I am always overcome with memories of him. Nothing reminds me of him like growing things. Somehow my brother got his hands on a copy of this book in his teens and from then on he was always growing something, always working proudly on his gardens. When we lived on a huge lot, he would come over and help us beat back the grass and weeds that seemed impenetrable. At that same house, he decided to build us some raised garden just because we hadn't gotten around to it yet. He was famous in his block for running out, post shower, in nothing but a towel, to remove an errant weed. And I'll never forget his excitement showing me the first blossom on his passionflower vine.

The day he died was one of those days when we finally accepted that it was spring and time to get moving in the garden. We headed off to the nursery that day and when we returned home with, among other things, a lovely Autumn Joy sedum, the creepy people from the sheriff's office were waiting for us to break the news.

[big long pause, lots of typing, deleting, re-typing, more deleting.....]

You know what? I don't know where I'm going with this, folks. I thought I had all these deep, weighty things to say about life and death and the changing of the seasons but the words aren't coming and I still can't make sense of what my brother went through, and what my family continues to struggle with. Another year and still no answers. You'd think we'd be used to it and stop asking why. Years pass, seasons change, and there's an ebb and a flow to the sadness as well. It's always worst just as things are bursting into bloom.

Goodbye to All That

noreply@blogger.com (Magpie Ima) — Wed, 15 Apr 2009 17:05:00 +0000

I came across a great piece in my morning reading by novelist and academic Alison Lurie. In The day I threw away fashion, she writes lyrically about letting go of commonly held ideas of feminine beauty and the euphoria of being herself. It's a lovely little piece which made me want to cheer out loud. I hope you enjoy it.

Photo by Phyllis Rose

Welcome, Spring!

noreply@blogger.com (Magpie Ima) — Mon, 13 Apr 2009 19:40:00 +0000

If you read my last blog post some two weeks ago, you'll know that between starting a new term at work and preparing for Passover, I've been running non-stop. That California vacation seems like months ago. No wonder things have been quiet here--though it's been hopping (relatively speaking) over at Magpie Eats!

Passover got off to a lovely start. We hosted my cranky relatives on the first night. They never stay past dessert to finish the seder, but I'm used to it now and it only drives me a little bit nuts. The Princess decided this was the year she'd learn The Four Questions to ask at the seder, which is kind of a big deal given that it involves singing in Hebrew. With MonkeyBoy's excellent assistance, she learned and snag beautifully and took the responsibility very seriously.

We spent the next two nights with friends, sharing another seder and a festive Shabbat meal complete with silly songs and much hilarity. It was a lovely few days of cooking and eating and talking and laughing and a great deal of wine so I spent the weekend mostly at home and mostly quiet which wasn't bad at all.

Now that things are slightly calmer, I'm gradually turning my thoughts towards the garden. I went out this morning during a sun break between the rain and the hail, and found that, while so much needs attention, thankfully there's a great deal happening despite my neglect.

We have bluebells all over:

The figs are just beginning to make leaf buds:

The peonies and rhubarb are up:

And the andromeda is covered in a froth of scented blossoms:

It was a long, hard winter and we lost quite a few things which we'd had for years, including the Meyer lemon trees that were a gift from my sweetie for our fifth wedding anniversary. Kind of bummed about that.

But the succulents seem to have mostly made it through and today's sun breaks were surely welcome:

It's supposed to start drying out soon and I'm hoping to spend lots of time on yardwork in the coming days. Welcome, Spring!

Back Home

noreply@blogger.com (Magpie Ima) — Sun, 29 Mar 2009 05:32:00 +0000

Oh my! Did I really let the whole week fly by without writing?

What a grand vacation we had! Now that we're back in cold, rainy Portland it seems like ages ago that we visited the farmers market, ate bhel puri and visited the Hindi multiplex for a movie starring not one but two of my favorite heartthrobs, and visited both Golden Gate and Corona Heights parks in San Francisco. I took the photos below in The Conservatory of Flowers in Golden Gate Park, a lovely glass paned structure filled with all manner of exotic plants and intriguing foliage.

Even with all the activity, there was lots of time for cooking, eating, knitting, and catching up. With another visiting family, the house was full of kids but surprisingly calm. Our hosts were gracious and generous and saw to it that we had a fine vacation. The drive home was interminable and we arrived to chilly rain which is bothering more than it usually does. Bad news as it look like anything resembling pleasant weather is still weeks off. I'm having a hard time shaking off the vacation groove--re-entry is proving difficult--but I'm only hours away fomr a new term and Passover is fast approaching so it's time to get busy.

noreply@blogger.com (Magpie Ima) — Sun, 22 Mar 2009 04:59:00 +0000

I've never thought of Redding, California as much more than a convenient stopping place along I-5. There's food, gas, and lodging, and not a whole lot else, or so I'd always beleived. Imagine our surprise when we discovered that Redding contains a design treasure in the form of The Sundial Bridge, designed by world famous architect Santiago Calatrava. We decided it was worth a visit this morning before heading south and we found a fascinating structure full of interesting angles and surfaces. It's a stunning cantilever foot bridge with cables running from a curved tower on one side. Its asymmetry makes for a surprisingly graceful structure which looked lovely spanning the river and provided lots of interesting photo possibilities.

The drive to San Jose was interminable, but thankfully uneventful. We are settling in and looking forward to the rest of the week.

Road Trip!

noreply@blogger.com (Magpie Ima) — Sat, 21 Mar 2009 04:38:00 +0000

I'm writing from our luxurious wi-fi enabled room at the Super8 in Redding, California. We left cool and damp Portland early this morning but by the time we stopped for ice cream in Ashland the skies were nearly clear. Overall the trip has been quite enjoyable. We're enjoying listening to Bill Bryson's In a Sunburned Country. The boys have mostly kept their squabbling under control although at one point they were going at it and I pulled over a rest stop, got out, and simply refused to get back in the car until they promised to stop. It's a tactic I haven't had to use in ages, but it made the remaining 150 miles infinitely more pleasant.

We had a lovely dinner and then retired to our motel room where the boys were delighted to find The Princess Bride on cable TV. We're thinking about getting up early to explore this very unusual bridge before continuing our journey to San Jose where we will spend the week. It's such a treat to be able to spend this time with my kids and take a break from real life.

A Little Springtime Sewing

noreply@blogger.com (Magpie Ima) — Wed, 18 Mar 2009 16:17:00 +0000

I'm packing up all the kids for a road trip in less than 48 hours. I have laundry, packing, cooking, and shopping ahead of me and what am I doing with less than 3 days to go?

Sewing, of course! Because it struck me the other day that I had everything I needed to make The Princess a little something special for our trip in the house. With the fabrics, thread, and elastic all on hand it kind of seemed like a sign that I was meant to make it right away. It's not every day that I dig through my stash and find a perfect fabric combination (a sea foam green linen and a pretty Japanese printed cotton) with enough yardage to make something happen.

The pattern is the Prairie Blouse from the book Seams to Me by Anna Maria Horner. This book is full of lovely projects featuring the author's fabric designs. There's lots of fun stuff which got me excited to sew but I don't love the directions. I freely admit that am not great at sewing and my brain is famously lacking in 3D reasoning, but there was still no reason for some of the inconsistency I found in the pattern directions, like showing a bias edged hem in the photo and mentioning a completely different hem in the directions. Very confusing, especially as the book is marketed for beginners or veterans.

It started off well enough but I had to put it in time out for a day and then have my friend Catherine come over and talk me through the binding at the neckline, but we got through it and I finished last night so there's still time to pack!

Gloating

noreply@blogger.com (Magpie Ima) — Tue, 17 Mar 2009 02:34:00 +0000

Early in the term, at our fist faculty meeting, there was the usual complaining about low student attendance. For many of our students work comes before school which is understandable given the need to support themselves and often family back home. Low attendance has long been one of our greatest challenges. My supervisor suggested it was time to "get tough" and start kicking out students who missed too much class. I suggested we work more on positive reinforcement and the idea of The Great Pizza Race was born.

I told my students about it everyday, kept attendance records on view in the classroom, and made a chart showing class statistics. It was close for a while but we ended up winning the competition. Tonight we had a stack of pizzas delivered and we had a little party on our final review night. The students seemed to love it. I am just happy to see their progress when they improve their attendance.

Words I Never Thought I'd Hear

noreply@blogger.com (Magpie Ima) — Sun, 15 Mar 2009 01:58:00 +0000

Today was notable in that it was the first of four sessions in which I get to be a parent-teacher in my daughter's Shabbat School class. When we were first looking at synagogues, one of the big draws for our homeschooling family was the elementary religious education program which was cooperatively taught by parents. How great, we thought, parents and children learning together.

After many different classes, teaching teams, and groups of kids over the last decade, my enthusiasm is somewhat dulled. As it turns out, it's not an easy thing to manage a class of 6 year olds, only a few of whom are genuinely interested in the content presented in our carefully crafted lessons while the others are clearly there against their will and would rather poke each other, and lounge apathetically under the tables. Today reinforced my career choice of working with teens and young adults. I bow to those who work with these kids all day long. I do not have that kind of stamina. Or patience. First grade teachers must be superhuman.

It occurred to me as I worked with these kids today that there were a couple who probably would be happier not in a classroom for the sixth day in a row. And I thought back to MonkeyBoy at six. He went to Shabbat School on Saturdays and mostly seemed to enjoy it and learn quite a bit. But he wasn't at school all week long. Watching these high energy, super physical kids I realized that my son would likely have been just like them had he been trapped all week long.

It just so happened that MonkeyBoy came along today. He'd been hired to do child care during some concurrent programming for parents, but none of the folks who'd requested child care ended up bringing their kids. Since he was bumming around with nothing to do I encouraged him to join the first grade class and help out which he willingly did. He was as overwhelmed by the energy level as I was but he jumped in to assist as needed.

When we left, we started talking about the class. On his own, he suggested that maybe there were kids who just shouldn't be in a classroom until they mature a bit. It was then that I heard the words every parent longs for: I think you did everything just right, Mom. He's pretty sure that he'll be ready to start school as a freshman next fall but that it's too bad more kids can't be home until they're ready for school.

MonkeyBoy has been crabby and critical lately, especially with me, so I nearly keeled over with shock when I heard the words I didn't expect for decades.