Month: September 2013

The Spa

Holly

I really like the part of the book where the main character, who has gotten all beat up and come to a dead end, is taken to an out-of-the-way place whose inhabitants have their act together and get along peacefully with each other and their environment. There is usually a really great bath involved:

  • Aunt Beast in A Wrinkle In Time
  • Medwyn in The Book of Three
  • The Greeny Gorillas in Zahrah the Windseeker

A training montage early on and an oasis like this later in the book… that would make me so happy.

Elementary School

Holly

Yesterday I helped out at a focus group in an elementary school. I’d been looking forward to the cute little chairs and the restrooms labeled Boys and Girls instead of Men and Women, but man, I forgot how much instructional signage there is! There were signs on the wall about how to listen from your seat, how to listen from the rug, and how to enter the library. (Eyes open, feet walking, voice quiet, a couple of other pointers, I forget.) In the cafeteria there were posters about how to fill your plate with the different food groups, how exactly to wash your hands, how to have good lunchroom manners. (If you drop food on the floor, pick it up and throw it away.)

There were instructions on how to respond to bullying and how to address conflicts. There were exhortations to read, but overall hardly any of the writing on the wall was about academics.

It’s a nice homey school, with art all over the place and a spacious library. But all the signage gave me a weird feeling of Cult of Rules, Cult of Written Instruction And Policies. Maybe part of it is knowing that some kids are at school from eight in the morning until quarter to six at night (the after-school program provides dinner before the bus ride home). If I were a student there, I might want to willfully forget how to read.

I am proud of my ability to micro-nap

Holly

I replaced my damaged Scarlatti keyboard sonatas CD with one by Dubravka Tomsic. I’ve always liked listening to Scarlatti while I work– I remember a happy snowy morning of geometry homework and Scarlatti when we were doing compass and straight-edge. Yes, trisecting an angle for fame and fortune, I will get right on that! And Scarlatti is in the subset of my writing music that Sanguinity can tolerate when we’re at home writing together. (Russian men’s chorus, no. Enya’s Shepherd Moon definitely no, although it always works because I wrote my whole thesis to it. Cristina Branco yes.) Anyway, I think this version and I will become friends just fine.

Many of our tomatoes were volunteers this year, but they made it and the orange cherry-sized ones are especially nice. Some split skins because of the sudden rains.

Sanguinity took me for pho last night and the restaurant’s TV was showing the Emmys. I hadn’t seen any of the comedies. Remember when the best TV was sit-coms and the Friends cast made more money than any actors ever? When I stayed at a hotel alone this summer and channel-surfed before going to sleep, none of the reruns I clicked through held up to the test of time except Frasier. That surprised me, because I got pretty sick of Frasier when it was being broadcast.

I’m supposed to go to a strike captains’ training tomorrow because my union may go on strike Monday. But even though the union’s good about providing food, I am a very hard sell for meetings that last over an hour. No way 5:30 to 8:30 is going to work for me.