a Poem to ponder

Ode to a Yearbook

Just like childbirth
(never having had a child
I am reporting secondhand)
I forget.
The pain. The labor.

Right after it's done
and the finished book, glossy cover
is in my hands.
I forget the fundraising
I forget the nagging I must do
to "encourage" kids to buy the damn thing.
I forget the curse of April--
For accountants it's taxes.
For me it's pages... yearbook pages
urging seniors to turn in their photos

I hate that I'm not more organized.
I hate that I'm working on a Sunday.
I hate that I'm not paid more for doing it.

But I forget. And next year, come April...
Shall we bet I'll be doing this again?

It's Not Easy Being Green....

Celebrate Earth Day!

Spinning Wildly Out of Control

Right now I am procrastinating. I have a deadline and so to deal with that I avoid and stress. Nice, eh? Actually I've been poised and ready to write for days but other factors haven't been cooperating and now when I have everything I need including the time... I procrastinate.

All the OTHER things on my mind:

Novels. World Lit. British Lit. What we should be teaching as a district. This is heavy on my mind.

Where can I find a good bruschetta recipe for wine club on Saturday?

The correcting I have stacked up which absolutely MUST be done before I set foot into school tomorrow.

The need to switch out my winter and summer wardrobes.

How I should be paying my bills tonight.

The three Netflix films I have here calling my name.... "Watch me... Carmyn... watch me"

The need for intense yearbook page creation. 56 pages left to complete.

The book club book I've not started reading for Tuesday's meeting.

Wondering if the grapefruit juice dated April 16 is safe to drink.

How I need to get the school poetry contest display up tomorrow afternoon. Mentally seeking a fresh burst of creativity for display ideas.

Ahhh.... here's a little poem to conclude this stress-inducing post:

The Poet
by Lucille Clifton

i beg my bones to be good but
they keep clicking music and
i spin in the center of myself
a foolish frightful woman
moving my skin against the wind and
tap dancing for my life.


[This is all part of my plan, of course... I release all my stress into the blogosphere and bit by bit the masses absorb it and I'm left with a calm, if not a bit nutty, center. Ahhhh..... it's working already.]

Superpowers Sisterhood!

Gold Medal Dancing -- Apolo and Julianne

I can't help it. I just love them. The first 30 of the competition. Completely deserved.

April is Poetry Month..... Celebrate!

Poetry in the Classroom: From Fear to Fun.... that was the title of the session I presented yesterday at a Spring conference. I'm not sure I managed to strike fear from the hearts of the poem phobic teachers but I hope they all got something out of it. I realized one thing as I prepared for the session. I have enough info for a semester class on this! And I only had an hour and 15 minutes.... We did two activities... one reading one and one writing one. Because I am a blabbermouth and not good at estimating how long something will take I managed to short us on the writing bit. Yet, two of the participants shared their poems and we were all pretty darn impressed with the results. What a relief.

Because it's April.... and because it's on my mind... I'll post a poem. Enjoy!

In Just
by e. e. cummings

in Just-
spring       when the world is mud-
luscious the little lame baloonman


whistles       far       and wee


and eddyandbill come
running from marbles and
piracies and it's
spring


when the world is puddle-wonderful


the queer
old baloonman whistles
far       and       wee
and bettyandisbel come dancing


from hop-scotch and jump-rope and


it's
spring
and
the
goat-footed


baloonMan       whistles
far
and
wee

Playing for Meats!

I have a "soft spot" for trivia. Some days I think the "soft spot" is in my head rather than my heart.... but I do enjoy the mental workout. Often it's the trivial stuff I recall rather than the more important facts. For the past couple years I've played Saturday night trivia with a team of teachers and spouses and we call ourselves the Mixed Nuts. Winners of the rounds get $5.00 off coupons for the bar, but we mostly play for the PRIDE of winning. We've been thinking about renaming our group "Third Place."

Recently the same bar started a new version of trivia that is held on Wed. nights and involves a large cash prize at the end of the six weeks. My friend Pam and I joined an existing group, DNA, who are typically our rivals on Saturdays. We've discovered that together we know more and it's been great fun playing with them.... AND they tend to WIN! This trivia doesn't have the beloved music rounds the Saturday night one has but it does give a free round of drinks to the entire team if they win a round. And at the end of the night the overall winner gets a prize donated by the radio station. Since Pam and I missed weeks one and two I'm not sure what that means for the overall prize if we win, but we'll keep playing regardless.

This week the questions were remarkably hard. Yet we won two rounds with first place and our overall totals for the night put us in first. We each went home with $15.00 gift certificates to L & M Meats. Nothing beats a group of adults chanting victoriously "Meats, Meats, Meats" as we were announced the winners for the night!

Fun on the Farm

When school released for the Easter holiday my sister and I went north for the first time in months. This time Ashley drove... she now has her learner's permit and so I entrusted my car and my life into her quite capable hands. She did a great job. While we were home we managed to watch two films... Charlotte's Web and Man of the Year. Both were good... films I'd recommend.

On Friday after a hearty brunch, we spent some time at Grandma's house sorting through some things. Difficult. Sad. Later in the day, Pee Wee and I rolled around town doing a bit of visiting. With a little guidance my small hands were able to change the light bulb in my headlight. Woo Hoo. [Carmyn 1.... Car 0] Dad was determined to do a bit of target practice so he rigged up a bullet box and set his two girls to shooting a 22. I had some difficulty with the scope but it turned out I wasn't so bad at standing when I tried out his little "ding and spin" device. (not sure what it's really called)

Saturday started out with a tutorial for my master chef father in the art of chocolate chip cookie making. Armed with a memorized version of Grandma's recipe, I whipped out a double batch of cookies before 9 am. Then I made my way to the hometown church for a bridal shower for my sweet lil cousin, Brooke.

the cats... Trudy and the boys (there are even MORE of them roaming around!)

Ashley checking out her aim.

Dad showing us how it's done.

and me, of course.

Dying to Write....

Wow. I just discovered this site where a woman named Nadine Jarvis claims to make pencils from the carbon of human cremains. 240 pencils can be made from an average body of ash. This may be the ultimate in recycling. Yet, for the artist or the writer, perhaps this might be just the thing. Remember when Phoebe, from Friends, thought her mom was that little golf pencil? Hmmmm....

I Heart Heart!

Heart reminds me of being fourteen. I actually don't remember a lot from those years but when I hear the song "Alone" I am instantly brought back to my Algebra class and can even remember where I was sitting. Why this song summons this memory, I am not sure. In 1987, I was still buying 45 singles of the songs I loved from the local Rexall Drugstore. A few years later it was Richard Marx and Roxette single cassettes that filled a shoebox I still have to overflowing. Back then, I wasn't so different from now; I liked my music by the song more than by the album.

Last summer I bought a copy of Heart's Greatest Hits (1997) and it wasn't until I started listening that I realized just how much I love this group. I recalled the big songs of the late eighties and early nineties but I never gave much thought to them. Nor, did I remember all the terrific songs they had in the seventies. This collection of hits brought that all back to me. I can't begin to say which song is my favorite. Some days it's "Crazy on You," other days it's "Magic Man." Their version of the Toronto song "What About Love" is one I can't help but sing along too. Actually, Lord help the person next to me at the traffic light when I have this CD playing. I am powerless to stop myself from shaking my hair and passionately singing the lyrics.

1. Crazy on You
2. All I Wanna Do Is Make Love to You
3. If Looks Could Kill
4. Never
5. Alone
6. Who Will You Run To
7. Straight On [Acoustic]
8. Magic Man
9. What About Love
10. Dreamboat Annie
11. Dog and Butterfly [Acoustic]
12. Nothin' at All
13. Heartless
14. Stranded
15. Will You Be There (In the Morning)
16. These Dreams
17. Barracuda [Live]

Spring is Sprung...

The drive-thru is open on Wash. and I know there's a peanut buster parfait waiting for me.... It's spring when the DQ's open up again and though my friend's dad has a temperature restriction (it must be at least 50 degrees out before ice cream at DQ is permitted) , I insist that if it's open SPRING is here.

I have already indulged far more than necessary and my current favorite is the discovery of last year... the Banana Creme Dream Pie Blizzard. Click here for dietary facts. Then multiply by four.

What Kind of Fool Am I?

The last time April Fool's Day was a fun holiday for me may have been in first grade when all our teachers at the elementary school switched classrooms for the morning and pretended it was business as usual. The other six-year-olds and I had a good laugh over that one. Since then I find my gullible self a little hurt and feeling "dumb" when I've been burned by yet another sing-song cry of "April Fool's"!

This morning my Dad called me in response to a message I'd left on his answering machine yesterday and we chatted for the typical 8 minutes of so we typically talk before he decided with a dramatic pause to tell me that he thought he better tell me something before I heard it somewhere else.... "I'm getting married on June 30th," was the statement he led with. I was incredulous. Conversation ensued. I asked questions... legitimate ones. He asked me how I felt about this. I responded honestly. It was an honest and heartfelt conversation. Until he started laughing uncontrollably, asking me "Don't you know what day it is?" I could feel a blush wash over me and I realized I'd been duped. Snookered. Shamefully fooled. Damn you. April Fool's Day. You did it again.