Life on the Corner of Bittersweet and Adolescence

The other day, a middle school teacher friend of mine announced that 7th grade is the low point of adolescence, combining a kid who's come to believe that his parents are the very height of stupidity with the angst and roller coaster emotions of puberty in full display. 

As the mother of a 6th grader, I was not delighted by this announcement.  Inexorably, JT is moving into the world of teenage status.  There are moments of glory in which I catch a glimpse of the man he will become and I rejoice in his sense of humor, his kind heart, and his strength.  But there are also moments of darkness, when his surly, dismissive tone frustrates and annoys me nearly as much as I have clearly annoyed him.

And then there are the days when the world of 12 collides with the past and the future all at once.  I experienced that on Tuesday, when we stopped at Michael's to get supplies for a school project (he's constructing a medieval village that he intends to populate with his Playmobil soldiers), hit Old Navy to get some shorts for school (the shorts season opens on May 1st and nothing in a kid's size fits the boy anymore).  Errands complete, we came home and with nary a mama's nag, he sat right down to complete some studying for a test later this week.  Work done, he went outside to play in the yard. Thirty minutes later, with $2 gripped in his hand, he shot through the house and off the front porch to catch the ice cream truck as it meandered through town.

He scored a Choco-Taco and came back inside with his bounty.   He had a mile-wide grin, one featuring the chubby cheeks of his past, the braces of his present, and the brown-eyed glint of his future.  In that moment, he was my baby; my boy; and my young man.

Sign of Our Continuing Decline

After years of using the same brand of, ahem, female protection, I recently realized that the tampon wrappers are printed with a combination of advice and cheering self-esteem mantras.  They're sort of a combination of bad Chinese fortune cookies (sans actual cookie) and the platitudes of a half-assed guidance counselor.  They're Fortune Tampons.

Among the useful tips:

"Mental attitude affects performance. You're a take-charge kind of girl!"

"Live fearlessly! Keep doing what you do."

"The score doesn't tell the whole story.   Go get 'em!"

"Go get em!   Reach for the finish line."

And then there is my personal favorite:  "Play hard always.  Go play. I've got your back." 

This particular line is meant to be comforting, I suppose.  But given the product in question, I fear it reveals an alarming lack of biological awareness.  Dear Playtex Sport Tampons: It's not my back I am worried about.

Real Life Conversations at School: Checking Out edition

The backstory: I teach an Advanced Placement Government course to 12th graders who are students in a school with grades running from pre-school to the 12th grade.  Each year, a select group of our graduates are receiving diplomas from the only school they've ever attended.  They first began pre-school here at the age of 3 and now, at the age of 18, they will leave for college.  That's a long time to be in one place and we call these kids "lifers."  Like every other AP Government student in the nation, my students will take their big test on May 15.  I must finish teaching all the course material before then (and I do) and after that test date, the class is on a slow slide to the end of the school year (the last day of classes for us is May 25).  The other day, the students wanted to know what we would be doing in class when the AP test was over.  Experience has taught me that I should be vague about this period of the course, mostly so that they have some incentive to show up and avoid checking out.

Me: "We'll do something that I think will be fun.  And whatever we do, you must at least pretend to care."

Student K: "Don't worry.  I've been doing that for 15 years."

It might be time for K to move on.

Dogwood Monday: Week 7

I am the sort of gardener who keeps a bucket list of plants and trees I'd like to have growing in my care.  One of the reasons I like my dogwood tree so much is because it's one of those trees I've always wanted to have in my care.  I don't remember them from my childhood in California, but dogwoods stood out the first spring I lived in Tennessee.  The white and pink blooms come out early down south and make a brave show in the changing colors of the spring woods.  I've never forgotten the beauty of my first southern spring and my dogwood is a reminder of that.

We had a heavy Nor'easter rain yesterday and so my dogwood is shown in watery sunlight this morning.  My tree is about done with its spring floral display and has turned its attention to the growth of big green leaves.

The hostas underneath the tree, lush displays themselves, look even lovelier with the dogwood blooms caught on their leaves.

Real Life Conversations at School: George Clooney edition

The backstory: In my American Government class, we were talking about fund-raising innovation and I mentioned a current Obama Campaign effort: donate money to the campaign and the operation will enter your name into a contest to attend an Obama event to be held at George Clooney's house.  You'd get to meet President Obama and Governor Mike Morris.  I am a fan of both men and I was pretty excited.  But one of the students found it unlikely that I was interested in George Clooney because, ahem, I play for the other team.  I was just about to respond when student R interjected.

Student R:  Have you seen the man?  He's beautiful!

For the record, Student R is a young man, tall, conservative in personal habits.  And yet one more reason to love my school.

Appropriate

I didn't have a bad week, really.  But it was a very busy week and one that seemed to rather drag on.  On Friday afternoon, after a full day of teaching and yet another set of after-work errands, I found myself ready for an adult beverage.  I wanted a glass of wine.  I had earned a glass of wine.  I deserved a glass of wine.  I got a glass out of the cabinet and a chilled bottle was retrieved from the fridge.  Then I pawed around in the drawer looking for my corkscrew.  And this is what I found.

 Fail.

Gratutious Flowers

I cannot believe that it's only Thursday.  It's been a crazy, busy week but every day when I come home I am greeted by these vibrant, happy flowers.  They make me smile, no matter how much work remains to be done.

 I'll take it.

Real Life Conversations with T: Failure to Plan edition

The backstory:  A few weeks ago, T and I were at Wegmans, piling groceries in the cart according to my carefully constructed list when she suggested that I get a bag of cat food.  "No need," I said, "I'll be back here on Friday."  She gallantly tried again but I deferred, convinced that I wouldn't need kibble before a return engagement at the market.  The following weekend (wait for it), I ran out of kitty kibble on Easter Sunday and fretted about it all day while I was at T's house.  Later that night I drove home and then we spoke on the phone.

Me: I stopped at Rite Aid on the way home and bought some over-priced kitty kibble.

T:  Oh yeah?  Too bad those cats don't eat in a regular, predictable way.

And that comment was uttered in the dry, sarcastic fashion that I find so damned charming.

Dogwood Monday: Week 6

This week, the dogwood flowers are nice and large.

Last summer's hurricane felled a tree in my neighbor's yard.  That tree shaded a good deal of my driveway and was also much larger than the dogwood, so my tree was forced to grow in the shade.  Once the neighbor's tree was gone, the dogwood got to enjoy a lot more sunshine.

And the tree has taken advantage of the improved growing climate.  That's happy.

By the Numbers

My friend N has 4 (yes, 4!) children and still finds time to blog.  A few days ago, after what seems to have been a particularly crazy week, she wrote a blog posting called "By the Numbers" in which she quantified her week.  I decided to plagiarize madly and do the same with my week.  So here is my by-the-numbers assessment of the week that was.

1: choir concert; parade attended; baseball game; lawn mowed; batch of cookies baked; garden planted!
2: toilets cleaned; fresh-sheeted beds
3: sinks cleaned; workouts completed
4: pitchers of ice tea consumed
5: blog postings written; suppers made
6: essays graded
7: items of clothing ironed; pots of coffee made
8: dishwashers emptied

It was busy but not exhausting, which sounds a bit like to dare to the universe.  I surely don't mean it that way!