Lucky

Listening to NPR on Friday night as we drove home after going out for supper, JT and I heard some stories about the devastation in Haiti.  We talked about how awful and scary it must be to live in Haiti right now.  I explained that when an earthquake of this magnitude occurred in San Francisco in 1989 less than 75 people died.  I did this so that he would understand that what happened in Haiti wasn't just the bad luck of living someplace that is earthquake-prone but was much more about the bad luck that lands a nation into a circumstance and cycle of devastating poverty.

In some respects, understanding poverty is an awfully complicated task; more than the average Nobel Laureate can understand let alone a sassy 4th grader in New Jersey.  But JT is nearly 10 and that's plenty old enough to understand how lucky he is to have a comfortable home with a warm bed and a steady supply of food, love, and books.  That these are things he and I are able to consider essential and not luxuries is part of the lucky lives we lead.  All of us in the developed world should understand that.

And so Friday night, as we looked at the map of Haiti and at some pictures of the devastation, we talked about how lucky we are and we listened to some more NPR stories about the many organizations trying to bring relief and supplies to people in Haiti.  I showed him this website for Partners in Health, an organization that was already at work in Haiti, and to whom I had already donated money.  I wanted him to understand that we could do more than understand the tragedy.  In our own small way,  we could help.

And then JT did something that fair took my breath away. He pulled his wallet out of the drawer where he keeps it, emptied the contents of wrinkled bills and change onto the table and announced that he wanted to help.  "Give them all of my money, please, Mama," he said.  And that's exactly what we did.  We decided that JT's donation would go to the UNICEF fund for children in Haiti.

As I tucked him into bed on Friday night, I told him again how proud I am of his wisdom and very kind heart.  He sleepily nodded, and then folded his favorite blanket under his head; safe and warm, so very comfortable and so very, very lucky.

Doing My Part

The web abounds with information about reliable organizations collecting resources to help the people of Haiti.   But last night my friend N sent me a link to a MoveOn.org petition that I hadn't seen before.  MoveOn is requesting that credit card companies forgo their share of the transaction fees generated when people use their credit card to make a donation to charitable organizations helping out the people of Haiti.  It will take less than a minute to sign the petition. The folks at MoveOn are organized and they are loud. If you just sign, they'll do the rest of the work.

Of course I signed.  And then added a short statement to be shared with credit card company CEOs. My statement reads: "I appreciate the ease that your card brings to my life.  I understand that you are in it to make money and most of the time, I'm okay with that. But making money off of other people's terrible destruction is not okay.  Surely your mama taught you that?  Do the right thing. Please."

The petition is here.  I hope that y'all will join me in signing it.

Household Happiness: Button Bouquet

 

In the summer and fall, I always have fresh flowers in the house.  Most of these flowers are the product of my garden.  In fact, I love fresh flowers so much that last fall I planted nearly 50 bulbs in a corner of the side yard exclusively for bouquet cuttings come this spring.  I think of these flowers as a necessary indulgence and they make my home (and me) happy.

I miss the flowers when my garden supply dries up although festive Christmas decorations temporarily hold off the doldrums.  But come January and its sometimes bleak cold, I'm ready for a colorful replacement.  My button bouquet, an inexpensive Etsy purchase from A Little Bit Funky a few years back, is a way to chase away the winter funk.  This year, the bouquet sits on the dining room table with a clay bear figurine from a collection I've written about before.  It's a cheerful reminder that winter won't last forever.

Throwback

My local market is carrying the throwback edition of Pepsi.....the throwback in this case is a retreat to the good old days in the 1970s, when Pepsi was made with real sugar (instead of high fructose corn syrup).  Made with real sugar, throwback Pepsi is practically health food.  Naturally, I only drink it while behind the wheel of a throwback light blue Plymouth wagon like the one my mom drove back in the day.

With any luck, Coke will soon start marketing a throwback version of Coca Cola, one that reaches way back in the annals of time to an era when Coca Cola was made with sugar and cocaine.  Imagine how much more energy I'll have then.

The Road Ahead

With the advent of a new decade, it seems like a good time to identify some political issues that may not be on our collective national radar at the moment, but should be. When I started thinking about this idea, five issues came to mind almost immediately.

1. Food Security
2. Healthcare Cost Containment
3. Water
4. Cynicism
5. The challenge of order versus liberty

I'll be writing about all of them in the weeks ahead. I offer them not necessarily in order of importance, or in lieu of other important issues, but as a collection of concerns and ideas that should matter to us, both as Americans and as citizens of the world.

First up: cynicism.

I have been teaching at the college and high school level for nearly 20 years; the last 8 of those years have been at the high school level.  One of the things I like about my job is the time I spend with young people.  I'm 42 years old and when I first began teaching I was working with college students who were basically a part of my own generation.  When I started teaching at my current school, I was 34 years old and now teaching teenagers, mostly young men and women in the range of 15 to 18 years old.  These students aren't really of my generation; in fact, increasingly I am old enough to be their mother (eeep!).  One of the things that has been most satisfying about working with young people has been their natural optimism about both their lives and the world that they live in. 

But in the past five years, I've seen some of that optimism be replaced with a more cynical world view.  At some level, I find that cynicism appealing.  I'm a cynic myself, and it's always nice to find community, even if that community is misery loving company. 

But I also worry about a group of young people, and privileged ones at that, who do not see a hopeful world ahead.  In the starkest terms, I fear that means we, the adults who run their world, have failed.  In more general terms, I worry that means that as a nation we are losing our belief that we can make the future better for all of us.

I blame the mainstream media, intent on presenting a world of conflict (these days, disagreement is always more news worthy than cooperation) and foolishness (talking to you, national media and the balloon boy story).  And I blame a set of leaders who do not seem to understand that winning elections isn't everything; that the long-term good of the nation might require some short-term innovation and cooperation and that old-fashioned virtue: working for a common good.  

I am officially breaking up with the mainstream television-based media.  I'll read the New York Times as long as it exists; I'll maintain the Newsweek subscription I've had since I was 14 years old.  I will continue to proselytize the virtues of National Public Radio by sharing relevant stories with my students. I will direct my student's attention to real issues and discuss real solutions to our national problems.   I intend to take my student's ideas and concerns seriously; to remind them that the political system belongs to us, the citizens of this nation and world.  I will remember that we the people are empowered to make change.  And then I will fervently hope that these bright young people will forgive us for the mess we've left them.

Real Life Conversations at School: Overheard edition

My school has students who range in age from preschool to the 12th grade.  The different age groups share the campus and its buildings easily; groups of students move among one another frequently.  In many instances, the students I teach have been at the school for years and I've had the opportunity to watch them grow up.  But it's more than that.  One of the things I enjoy most about my days here is that I can be in class with my teenage students while outside, as we're in our seats considering the boundaries of order and liberty (or whatever), we can hear the laughter and enthusiasm of much smaller children going about their day.  Those moments are a reminder that life is about more than exams and grades and college.  I always welcome them.

On Friday, there was an assembly for the upper school.   The assembly happened in the hour before lunch; the room where we met was excessively warm.  By the time the students were streaming outside to head to lunch, they had some energy to expend.   Outside was crisply cold and snow was falling.  As the upper schoolers briskly walked across the quad headed to lunch, middle schoolers were also crossing the area, headed from the music building back into the larger school building. 

The snow was really quite lovely and, in that moment, a lot of it was falling.  Earlier in the week, we had hoped for a snow day on Friday, but we'd received only a dusting overnight.  And this lush snow, falling at mid-day on a Friday, was not expected to last.  It wasn't going to earn us a snow day either.

Nevertheless, it was beautiful outside and we were (temporarily) free from responsibilities; a little enthusiasm for life was warranted.

Upper School Student X (shouted):  It's a Christmas miracle!

The response to this declaration was immediate, delivered in a perfect stoic tone by a middle schooler headed in the other direction.

Middle School Student Y:  Not much of a miracle.  We're still in school.

At this point, we all burst into laughter.  And I was especially cheered by the thought of this middle schooler, with a funny line and perfect timing, is soon to appear in an upper school classroom near me.

Tap, Tap, Tap

I used to believe that my home maintenance vigilance was a function of the fact that I live in an old home.  These days, I realize that a certain household wariness is simply part of the home ownership bargain.  In my neck of the woods, the most common problems are those related to precipitation, both indoors and out.

I've experienced basement flooding in the past and I'm always wary of excessive water.  I keep my outdoor gutters cleared of leaves; I keep watch for the prospects of ice.  When it rains, I check the basement.  On top of that, my home has old-fashioned radiators and a steam heat furnace.  Steam heat running through pipes has a tendency to clink and clank, and I always have an ear tuned to sounds that signal danger.  Last winter, after my furnace received a tune-up, I needed to bleed the upstairs radiators (to remove air trapped in the pipes) and then adjust the pressure.  I discovered this after I awoke one morning to the steady sound of dripping water from the radiator in my bedroom.  Standing water is never desirable in your home, especially on the second floor.

So it is that I keep an ear tuned to the sound of water.  Last week, we had a steady hard rain that resulted in a series of flood warnings.  I became more vigilant than ever.  And in my bedroom, as I read at night, I would sometimes hear a steady tap, tap, tap.

For nearly ten days that tap tormented me.  I checked every radiator upstairs.  I checked the gutters.  I walked around the house, looking at the roof and foundation for signs of impending disaster.  I did all of this multiple times.  Everything seemed fine.  But still the quiet tap continued.  And so my anxiety grew.

Finally, after days of this, I discovered the source of the quiet tapping.  I have some lights in my bedroom that run on the timer and the timer had gotten stuck. When I repaired that glitch, the tapping magically disappeared and my problem was solved. 

My sanity will likely return a bit more slowly.

The Napping House

When JT was little, we owned a book called The Napping House.  It's a terrific story about a household where everyone (and everything) are asleep in a large, comfy bed until a mouse stirs, thus upsetting the apple cart until no one in the Napping House is sleeping.  In fact, they're all outdoors, awake and celebrating.

JT loved the book and when we'd reach the end, he'd chuckle heartily and demand that it be read again.  He especially liked the pages where everyone was awake, of course.  I used to secretly blame the book for the fact that no one in my house was of the napping type.  My baby, who reliably slept through the night at 3 months, never reliably napped.  He'd catch a few minutes of rest here and there but that baby wouldn't nap unless you lay down with him.  It was a sort of infant-induced forced nap march.

So most of JT's naps were Mama and JT naps.  I used to envy other mother's tales of folded laundry, book reading, and the general usefulness they would engage in while their baby napped.  That just didn't happen for me.  Even our joint naps were fairly short-lived; by the time he was 18 months old, JT was completely over daytime sleeping.

I mention this now not because of any residual bitterness (well, not much, anyway) but because last Tuesday, JT returned from a sleepover at a friend's house and had himself a big old nap. 

For the last few years, my boy has harbored a not-so-secret ambition to stay awake all night.  And Monday, at E's house, his goal was met.  He and E stayed up all night.  I could tell because JT looked like hell when I brought him home at 11 am, as if he'd been out with the boys and had tied on one-too-many of whatever it is 9 year olds imbibe (root beer, I think).

The idea of spending the day with a cranky, unwashed, poorly rested child was not appealling.  So I put him in a warm shower and then encouraged him to lie down on the living room sofa while we watched an episode of Glee.  Within 20 minutes, he was snoring away. 

90 minutes later, his feet emerged from his polar fleece nest and I figured that he was about to emerge. But, no, he was just stretching.  Finally, just after 3 pm, I woke him myself.  I would not say that it was a pleasant experience; he took some time to come alert and had a Rip Van Winkle aspect to his character. 

He is very proud of his all-nighter success and no doubt informed the entire 4th grade when he returned to school today.  I'm guessing that he'll be agitating for another all-nighter soon enough.  I plan to tell him that's what college is for.

Real Life Conversations with JT: New Decade Edition

The backstory:  As the end of the decade approached, JT and I heard a number of news stories about previous transitions to a new decade.  This led him to ask me where I had been in other -9 years. 

Mama:  In 1979, I was only 12 years old and I was living in California.  In 1989, I had graduated college and was living in Nashville, Tennessee.  In 1999, I was living in Nebraska, waiting for you to be born.  And in 2009 I'm living in New Jersey with you.  I have no idea where I will be in 2019.  Where do you think you will be that year?

JT (in an exasperated tone):    Well, I'll be in college, OF COURSE.

So no matter where I am in 2019, I guess I'd better be working, so that I can pay Mr.  Smarty Pants' tuition.

January 1, 2010: Year of the Apple

For the past couple of years, the blog entry for the first of the month has featured a picture of something in my yard.  In 2008, that was the big tree in my backyard.  Last year, on the 1st day of the month, I took a photo of the hosta bed by my garage and garden.  It's the first of the month in a new year, and it's time for a new garden photo collection to get started. 

In the early spring of 2008, I arrived home one afternoon to find three Stark Brothers dwarf fruit trees on my front porch.  For as long as I can remember, my father has planted this style of fruit trees in his backyard.  And now he'd sent some to me; it was my turn.  JT and I planted the trees, pruned them, and then kept careful watch.

A dwarf tree is carefully grafted to ensure that the tree won't get much larger than 12 feet.  The tree will stay smaller, ensuring that it can be easily harvested and that gardeners won't be overwhelmed with produce.  A dwarf tree takes 2 to 3 years to reach full-production (regular size trees usually take 4 to 6 years to mature into full production capacity).  Typically, the dwarf apple harvest comes in late-August and early September.  I planted two apple trees with a pear tree in between; the pear will help with pollination of the apples.

My trees were a year old when they arrived, so I didn't anticipate any harvest in the fall of 2008.  Last fall, one of the apple trees yielded a tiny harvest of two apples.  This fall, I can expect a more fruitful yield.  And with that in mind, 2010 will be the year of the apple (with some gratuitous pear tree shots thrown in).

Seen here, the trees have only recently lost all of their leaves.  They look bare but  I know they are sturdy.  They've got some winter mulch protection around their base because it looks good, but they are plenty hardy.  I took this photo at twilight, my favorite time of the winter day, and I now think a daylight photo would have been much better.  Tune in on the 1st of each month this year to see how my apple farming efforts  are coming along.