Author: avidbruxist

Coll’ Me

On Saturday, I went to The Weave to pick up something for lunch and there, on the hot bar, was a dish of emerald greens.  I didn’t know what they were but was surprised when I looked at the tag:  collards.  The only way I’ve seen collard greens is brown and wilted, with a big hunka fatback in ’em.  So I’d never tried them.  Well, I was still skeptical so I took only a couple.  After I tasted them, I almost went back in and got more.  So good.

Anyways, I stopped by a roadside produce stand yesterday, and there they were, big and leafy and intimidating.  But I bought some, looked up a recipe online, and cooked those collard greens.  I’m not sure I should get a badge on my Authentic Southerner vest for this because the recipe was from epicurious and included no pork-procured fats, but I’ll have you know I MADE A SLAMMING COLLARD GREEN.

A List of Non-food Items Redford Has Eaten

  • my Teva flip flops
  • Mary’s Chaco flip flops
  • director’s chair
  • down pillow
  • Laura’s metal fish garden ornament (?)
  • leashes (4)
  • antique rocking chair from Granny Scott’s house
  • dog beds (2)
  • cat beds (3)
  • the pillow I made in kindergarten with my hands prints on it
  • socks (multiple)
  • Newsweek
  • roll of scotch tape
  • the cat’s scratching post
  • Laura’s basil plant
  • Laura’s Japanese maple
  • blankets (lots)
  • my door mat
  • Laura’s door mat
  • Erika’s brand-new door mat
  • Maxwell the Cat (attempted)

to be continued….

NFBFPFTS

On March 31 of this year, I sent in my portfolio to the National Board of Professional Teaching Standards (NBPTS—I’ll let you guess what the Fs stand for in the title up there).  The portfolio included four papers, two videos, diagrams, documentation, and evidence.  Two and a half months later, I took an exam, which consisted of six essay questions.  All of this was an attempt to show that I know what I’m doing in the classroom.

Each entry of the portfolio and each essay is scored separately and weighted, and a passing score is 275.  Results were posted last Friday, and my total score was 274.4.  If I had scored 0.006 of a point more on an entry or 0.013 more on an essay question, I would have passed.

So, I’ve been having some feelings.

At first, I was stunned.  I really thought I would pass. I got an A+ on my Master’s thesis and graduated with a 4.0.  I work my ass off, and I learn new things every year, and I’m a good teacher.  I may not be great, but I’m good at what I do.

Then I got really embarrassed.  For one, my family doesn’t so much “not pass” shit.  And aside from that, despite the fact that in the last three years only two out of a dozen or so of my co-workers have passed the first time around, I felt ashamed that I didn’t belong in that group.

What followed was anger at myself.  I did solid work on that portfolio, but honestly, I didn’t really study for the test.  I looked over some U.S. history materials for the social studies question, and that was about it.  If I had studied for 0.013 of an hour more….

After that, I just got resentful as hell.  On any other day, one of those 28 people who scored my stuff might have given me a fraction of a point more.  Maybe one of the scorers was having a bad day.  Maybe she was sick of reading the response to the same question a million times.  Maybe the tag on his t-shirt was scratching the back of his neck.  Whatever.  And there’s no appeals process.  I can’t request a re-score on even one section.  I therefore have to redo a section and wait until NEXT NOVEMBER to get my new results.

I really could have used the 12% raise this year.  But mostly, I just could have used some good news.

My Father, Part 3

My dad has a thing about fruit juice.  He drinks gallons of the stuff.  These days he goes for, you know, actual juice from actual fruits, but for a long time it was “fruit juice” with, you know, actual fruits in the picture on the carton.

A few years ago, I watched my dad remove a jug from the fridge and pour himself an icy-cold glass of bright red liquid.  He fell into his easy chair to drink it and read and pontificate to anyone within earshot, as usual.  Dad sipped the “juice” over the course of about 15 minutes, grimacing after every swallow and commenting, “Dreadful stuff!” before hoisting himself up and heading back to the kitchen.  Curious, I followed him and watched him take the jug out of the fridge to serve himself another glass.  It tweaked my brain a little that the label said ‘Indian River’ and had a picture of an orange on it, but I wanted to ask him something so I didn’t stop to think about it.  “Hey, Dad, why in the world are you getting more of that juice when you just finished saying it was ‘dreadful stuff’?”

My mom looked up from whatever Laura-Ingallsy task she was doing, probably baking bread or pressing grapes for jelly.  “Leighton!” she said, alarmed.  “I told you yesterday, that’s hummingbird food!”

That’s my dad.  PhD from Cambridge University and everything.

They Can Never Take Away Our Freedom

I was 16 years and 3 months old when I got my driver’s license.  My dad took me to the DMV.  I drove the nice DMV lady around the block in an ’89 Nissan Stanza and then sat waiting for 20 minutes while they printed up my card, stuck my Polaroid onto it, and slid it through the laminator.  I could feel the glow of that plastic rectangle through my purse as I drove my dad and me home, but I didn’t really get it until I was in the kitchen.  Nobody else was home.  Dinner was a couple of hours away.  I didn’t have any homework.  And I had my driver’s license!  I didn’t have to have an adult in the car with me anymore!  I turned to my dad and said, “Can I go to the mall and get David a Christmas present?”  He looked about as excited about the prospect as you would’ve expected him to, but to his credit, he handed me the keys and said, “Watch out for the other guy.”  I kept giggling to myself on the 10-mile (yes, 10-mile) trek from my house to the Boone Mall.

Let’s be frank.  The Boone Mall is a piece of shit.  I mean, nowadays there’s an Old Navy, so it’s slightly less of a piece of shit, but back then we’re talking JCPenney, McCrory’s, and K&W Cafeteria.  The most exciting retail outlet was either the Walden Books or that place where you’d buy ridiculously over-priced gummi bears and jelly beans just because they were displayed tantalizingly in those jars under the glass counter.  I don’t remember whether I bought any gummi bears that day, but I did buy my best friend David a Christmas present, a truly stupid, stupid Christmas present:  a toy saxophone from the K&B Toys.  Anyway, my point is, despite the fact that it’s a piece of shit, because it was the destination of my first solo trip ever, the Boone Mall still feels like freedom to me.

My friend Sean has a similar association.  His older brother was driving the two of them home from school one day, and when they paused at a light, his brother said, “Do you feel like going through the drive-thru at Taco Bell?”  It had never occurred to Sean that they might be able to divert the car from the school-home track, and to this day, freedom comes in the form of a Taco Bell bean burrito.

Going hiking is my dogs’ favorite thing in the whole wide world.  Of course, watching them be happy makes me happy, AND letting them off the leash is simultaneously nerve-wracking for obvious reasons.  I take a pocketful of goodies whenever we go, so they’ll have some incentive to come back to me.  And I bet if Violet and Redford could talk, they’d tell you that freedom tastes like chopped up hot dogs.

What says freedom to you?

Anna

My friend Anna was born to teach elementary school.  Specifically, she was born to teach elementary school in Harlem.  That’s where we met in 2002.  I was starting my first year of teaching, she her third, even though she was a few years younger.  Anna was infinitely cooler than me.  She grew up on 106th Street in Manhattan; I spent my childhood on Old Highway 421 outside Boone, North Carolina, which occasionally got blocked off by Farmer Proffit’s cows who would wander into the road.  Anna had smoked since she could hold a cigarette so she had this sexy, gravelly voice and a low, rumbling laugh; my voice is sort of mid-range and boring, and my dad once described mine as a tavern-wench laugh.  Anna found it enormously funny when she fucked up; I blushed with shame at my errors.  She carried her fleshy body around as if men would find her irresistible (and they did); I tried in every way to camouflage mine.

Anna always played devil’s advocate.  If I was being hard on myself, she’d point out how and why I wasn’t giving myself a fair shake.  But the opposite was true too.  She’d call bullshit when she heard it.  When I complained about not being able to do something our administration mandated, she said, “But you can.  You don’t want to, but you can.”

And Anna loved her students.  I mean, unconditionally.  Like many inner-city schools, ours had some pretty needy kids:  abused kids, violent ones, pathological liars, kids with undiagnosed and untreated disorders, crack babies, everything.  Anna loved them all.  And because of the relationship she had with her students, she could afford to be, shall we say, unconventional.

One time, a boy was transferred to Anna from another fourth-grade class because the other teacher was about to blow a gasket.  I’m not going to say it was like “Stand and Deliver”, but MONTHS went by and this little guy didn’t get sent to office.  He even did some work and learned a few things.  Finally, I asked Anna how she was controlling this formerly wild-ass kid.  She held up a fist with the knuckle of her first finger stuck up into a point and said, “I used to dig this into the side of his neck when he got out of line.  Now I just have to hold it up, and he gets his act together.”  I stared at her.  She laughed her gravelly laugh and said, “What can I say?  He’s a kinesthetic learner.”

Older Sister, Younger Brother

Me:  Sit.  Good girl, Violet.  (I unhook her leash.  She sprints away.)

Redford:  (bucking like a bronco) I WANNA GO I WANNA GO I WANNA GO.

Me:  Then you need to sit.

Redford:  There I sat NOW CAN I GO.

Me:  Nice try.  Sit.

Redford:  (sits, trembling) Aw man. (I try to unhook his leash.  He bolts and nearly chokes himself.) OK OK OK.  (sits, trembling)

Me:  Good boy.  (I unhook his leash.) OK.  (He sprints away.)

Redford:  VIOLET WAIT UP oh my gosh I’m running so fast hi Violet did you see how fast I runned?

Violet:  Ran.

Redford:  Yeah ran.

Violet:  No.

Redford:  Oh, well I runned really fast wait I gotta poop.  (poops, sprints to catch up) Hey wanna go this way?

Violet:  No, I’m going this way.

Redford:  OK how bout we go the way you’re going oh wait I gotta poop.

Violet:  Go poop, then.  I don’t need to hear about it.

Redford:  (poops, sprints to catch up) Hey Violet wanna play chase?

Violet:  Not unless a deer is ‘it’.

Redford:  OK let’s go find a deer oh wait I gotta poop.

Violet:  Ugh.

Redford: (poops, sprints to catch up) I can run faster than you Violet wanna see here I go!

Violet:  So?

Redford:  I gotta poop.  (poops, sprints to catch up) Hey Violet what’re you smelling?

Violet:  Something.

Redford:  WHAT IS IT can I smell too oh my gosh it SMELLS LIKE POOP AWESOME!  (drops and rubs his neck across it)

Violet:  (sigh)