Feb. 12 make that 11!: Disconnected Thoughts

Good meeting this am to plan the Big Project in our joint class. Went well. As we all pointed out, we've come a LONG way from where we were when we started meeting as a team, back. . . well, about a year ago! Fun to see S. out to here with her baby too!

Due to rain tonight--not hard, and just to rain, not to freeze or sleet--and that is some welcome!

I am starting a vacation wishlist, and it includes

--neaten/organize study done on Monday
--finish Jesse's sweater working on it! Sleeve increases done!
--read a. lot. well. Started off strong, on a drag now.
--pedicure: self or fancy self! Saturday!
--sew with Audrey? YEP!
--tidy living room partly.

Wow. That looks like a week's worth, nearly. . . . !

This is an aimless post. I am going back to reading Summertime and The Lost Estate. Have ordered two of Barker's books that I haven't read for a vacation treat but since they're coming from the UK, I bet they'll get here a week after vacation. Ah well.

Feb. 11, B: In Praise of Small Town Government (ALSO: 10, not 11)

Just back from a school committee meeting to discuss how to arrange the classes next year to increase savings while dealing with an only partially-built k - 8 school building. The 8th graders have been kept up at the high school this year, in less than ideal surroundings, and I was very alarmed when I read that the school committee was proposing to send next year's 8th grade back up there to save money while finishing work on the new school. I wrote letters (respectful ones), made phone calls, rallied the troops. . .oh, I think I discussed this in my "oops" post of this morning! Anyway, I was nervous.

Well, the meeting ended up being a really positive experience, as they often are. I was impressed by the demeanor of the whole committee--they were very professional but not in a threatening way, they moved through their business rapidly and efficiently, and they encouraged people to leave after the items they cared about were done, thus making that uncomfortable moment of leaving okay. Not only did the committee commit (!) to keeping the grades together, but they were clear in their commitment to educational quality.

And, most of all, I was once again reminded of, and humbled by, the amount of work some people do for no pay, little thanks, and certainly no recognition. That room was pretty full tonight, but I bet that most meeting nights the room is pretty empty and they still carry on. Impressive. And, ultimately, incredibly American. Wow.

Feb. 11: Oops.Edited to add: OopsER: Feb. 10

Well, I missed posting yesterday: I have been considering the time-sucker aspects of the internet (and wireless internet, at that!) and yesterday was pretty deliberate about not letting myself browse for 45 minutes with no particular goal in mind. . . so after I finished doing some prep work I closed the laptop and didn't remember about a blog entry till I was in bed. So. I'll do two today, I guess.

Much percolating today--it's the busiest day of the week, and since it's the week before vacation, that feels big. Younger gets his braces on today; he and BH have taken the day to do it, then go to a movie and out to lunch. It helps to tie not-so-great milestones to fun ones, we think! In addition, tonight is the school committee meeting to decide how Ellsworth will deal with its continued school building project, and whether next year's 8th graders will be "penned" (my word) at the h.school again or whether they'll be able to enjoy the new construction for one year as part of the middle school. I am semi-proud of my community organizing skills as I wrote letters, made phone calls, and even followed up with reminder phone calls--but I am nervous about tonight and how to come across as concerned but balanced, passionate but not rabid. So. I've been practicing in the car a lot, and BH has said he'll come with me to the meeting. Still. It will be nice to get that over with!

And I guess school continues to be germ central, with numbers of kids out sick every day. Rumors fly, of course. So far I am taking my Airborne and watching for Friday. AND looking forward to some temperatures in the 30's!

Feb. 8: Community

My Sundays tend to be quite tightly scheduled: I get up around 7, walk to the Y around 8, swim, shower/shave my legs, walk home, change for church, get to church. . .on and on in an (I know) dizzying list of exciting activities. Still, the program works for me, allowing me to balance my social/personal/family/school requirements quite well most of the time.

Today, however, I experienced an embarrassment of community, and my! I couldn't stick to a schedule to save my life. . . and I was somehow smart enough to realize that the non-scheduled aspect of life is what makes it rich and memorable, and I enjoyed it. I had a good long conversation with the lifeguard, also mom of a former student, about my allergic ? reaction to the pool lately, and she made several great suggestions, and then when I came out of the shower, a fellow swimmer and retired teacher who's spoken to my AP classes before had a reading list she thought (rightly) that I'd enjoy, and by the time I was out of the locker room I was about 20 mins. later than usual. I hit the lobby and ran into one of Elder's friends and his mom, waiting for a ride to the big Y meet in Bath, and we had a nice conversation about life in general, but also the friend's reading assignment for school. . . . so, needless to say, I was at a pretty good trot by the time I got home! But what a gift to have those points of contact, those people who engage with us on a more than business level, who enrich our exchanges and our days.

Even as I was striding home, I was planning a dinner party for as big a group of people as I could imagine--just to say thanks for throwing me off my schedule by their interesting, varied, outgoing existence.

Feb. 7. . .WOW!

What a list of kitchen accomplishments in our house today: a HUGE batch of soup for our post-annual-meeting lunch at church tomorrow, a batch of focaccia bread for panini tonight, Younger made chocolate cupcakes and buttercream frosting, and then I prevailed long enough to make some golden pound cake cupcakes (all three last recipes from MS Living for February). My feet are sore from all the standing and I have that vague sense of "Where'd the afternoon go?" but seeing as we also did the week's foodshopping, went out to b'fast with two of Younger's friends, made a nice haul at the Library book sale, AND I went for a good walk with the dog AND then solo. . . . I'm pretty content, proud, and ready for a great dinner--and dessert!

Today was also warm(ish) or (er). . . got up to 34, and when the sun was only behind thin clouds, the day had hints of early March (frequently "early March" is uttered like a curse, but in this case. . .!). Since last week did get down to -8 a few mornings, the warming trend felt great.

So. Soon to make dinner, ice a few more cupcakes, and enjoy!

2/6: Illness. . .

Well, the conventional wisdom says they're dropping like flies at my high school--80 out yesterday. . . more today, despite regulations that mean kids who miss today can't compete in various championship meets this week, so there's big incentive to get to school. There's a nasty fever/cold thing, possibly the official flu, and then a fast moving stomach bug that does its usual spectacular thing and then moves out, so you have your choice as to how to get sick. We're encouraging hand-washing, proper coughing technique, no drink sharing, staying home when you're sick. . . . but I think vacation, coming up NEXT Friday, is the only key.

It's funny to be in this kind of a situation. Rumors run rampant: "Whooping cough and pneumonia," says my son, knowledgeably. He's fifteen, and not a doctor. One student told me "There'll be three kids in class today. . ." and we were only short two. Other students put it all down to salmonella in peanut butter, not "the winter vomiting virus" (as the Brits call it) at all.

As for me, I wash my hands, try to sleep a lot, stay hydrated, get fresh air, and eat well . . . and I try not to worry, though it's hard not to notice every sniffle, every gurgle my stomach makes. Is that. . . . ?

I think I'm ready for warmer weather and vacation!

2/5: Literary Addictions

It's very odd to have a writer whom one really, really likes, but whom one is almost positive no one else will enjoy. There's a mystery author whose very old books our library has who fits the bill, but he only wrote about 6 books and I can't remember his name (he's Australian??) The author who's my chief private addiction is one Angela Thirkell, author of perhaps 30? 50? novels, mostly set in the small English region of Barsetshire amongst the various families, villages, and groups of upper-crusty denizens. She wrote from the early 20's to her death in the mid 60's, I think, and for some reason I adore her books. She does have some of the Jane Austen about her: she writes deliberately small plots, with the staging of a party or the foiling of some minor but unwelcome plan for some village the major plot line of the book. She does not throw sudden deaths or horrible shocks at her readers, and she's very smart and funny in her indirect tone (another Austenism, actually). Reading Thirkell also helped me understand the impact of WWII on English society in a way I hadn't before: her immediately pre- during- and post-war novels are her strongest and most touching, especially since, as one reviewer pointed out, they were written pretty much at that time, without the benefit of knowing "this is the last summer of the war" or "Hitler really is a threat." So for social insight, she's wonderful. However, she is a snob--her attitude toward non-British citizens and toward the Other Classes is that they are all very well, but they must know their place and stay there. In addition, she can dither at times: her sentences (helped, I must admit, by the very poor copyediting of the editions I've been reading) often ramble, convulse, rush off at odd angles, require numerous rereadings to untangle. And, finally, she can be incredibly indirect: sometimes everyone at a dinner party is caught up in a memory of a song that the reader has never heard of, but the song is never acutally mentioned nor sung, so the reader is paralyzed. Her endless references to "Bab's Ballads" during a certain span of her books, her unapologetic Englishisms, and, more damningly, her occasionally baffling plot twists that leave one hanging at the end of a 400 page book can all be infuriating.

But.

I love her books. I wish I had every one on my shelves, so I could read them through and then start again.

My latest Thirkell, Happy Returns,
is a perfect example of why most people, I think, would hate her writing. The opening 100 pages dragged, even for me. The whole book involved getting two babies born and two sets of people engaged or married, and it was mighty. slow. going.

But now that I'm done, I'm at loose ends.

I might have to reread one of my other Thirkells. What can I say? It's an addiction!