Peanut butter sandwiches and the future

I've had a fairly good week. Lots of interaction with kids, and lots of talking with other adults about interaction with kids. I sometimes wonder if attention-starved kids act out because, you know, you can get a pretty good number of adults stirred up quickly if you say and do the "right" things. But, on the other hand, we've got a little 7 year old guy at one school who right now, has several adult professionals discussing his situation every single day. "Nick" looks at me with those beautiful green eyes and grins...when he's feeling pretty good about things, he does alright. But his homelife is a disaster-he confided in me yesterday that he often times has to make his own supper consisting of a peanut butter sandwich, because the person he lives with doesn't bother to cook. He gets dropped off in the morning between 6:45 and 7:00am, for latchkey, so he eats breakfast and lunch at school. I would imagine that he fends for himself quite a bit in the evenings and on weekends. Nick has no mom or dad around - he lives with a relative, who has stated- "I really don't care where he lives, I guess I'll take care of him because no one else wants him." Nick often explodes in anger at school. He kicks walls, throws things, and a lot of time loses control of his emotions. He spends time in the principal's office and in the cool down room. IF he gets any learning done, it's sheer coincidence. A 7 year old boy with a dimpled grin and sparkling green eyes shouldn't have to worry about his next meal, or whether he has a place to sleep at night. I wonder if some day, those eyes will be looking out of a jail cell. Or closed permanently under a casket lid. I wonder.

Thanks for teachers

After a wonderful break, it's time to get back to work. I did have a nice Monday. Busy, but not so busy I was crazy busy. My schedule right now is just the way I like it. I have enough work that it's interesting and a challenge, but not so much that I'm working in the evenings and on Saturdays like I did last year.

Say what you want about teachers, I think they are some of the most under appreciated of our work force. Most teachers I know spend far more time at their jobs than the required 7.5 hours daily. Additionally, they spend money out of their own pockets for their kids-this was illustrated again this week when I learned that a teacher paid for one of her students to get her glasses repaired. This student lives in a household where neither parent attend teacher conferences or school programs, in fact, neither parent has even met the teacher. This family has one cell phone which the dad has with him while he works out of state. They have one vehicle, which the dad has with him, you guessed it, while he works out of state. Dad is supposed to be sending money home to his family.

This little girl has needed her glasses fixed since September. Notes home to mom were uneffective. Phone calls to dad were uneffective. Visits to the home were uneffective. Finally, the teacher asked the girl to bring her broken glasses to school, and the teacher then took them to be fixed.
This student, not surprisingly, is struggling in school. A registered letter is going home to mom this week to explain about the girl's lack of progress. Will this get mom involved? Who knows? Past history would say no. But this little girl has a champion on her side who is fighting for her, and that's none other than her teacher. I've known teachers who have paid medical insurance premiums for families, bought clothes and shoes for kids, brought food to families in crisis, and supplied paper, pencils, markers, crayons, Kleenexes, and books for their students. It happens all the time, and most times, others are unaware of these sacrifices. You say there are no heroes? Contact me. I can put you in touch with some.

A Gift

A friend at church made a birthday cake

for me and presented it at the women's group Sunday evening. Although this picture does not do this cake justice, you can see it is a grand piano, similar to what I play in our church, complete with a miniature me! Almost everything is edible, including 3 pedals which you can't see. The cake is sitting on a wooden platform, but the piano legs and lid are made of what she called "fondant". Even I'm made of fondant, as is the bench. I hestitated to cut into the cake and serve it to the group, but I did so, and it was delicious! My son finished off the last of the keyboard last night.

I was touched by this gift and by her generosity. Hours of painstaking labor went into the making of this cake, and I am grateful. Although this is sort of a hobby with her now, I think she's hoping it will blossom into a business someday - it certainly has the potential to do so. I'll always remember my piano birthday cake with fondness for its creator and my friend-Linda Presley.

A Sea Symphony

Today is my 53rd birthday. I'm not terribly introspective about birthdays these days, although, I will admit that my 50th hit me kinda hard. I have no special plans today except the regular Sunday schedule-church, choir practice, and women's group. And that's it.

Last night Dan and I went to the symphony orchestra concert and heard Mozart's Symphony No. 39 the first half of the program, and then a work by Vaughan Williams (1872-1958) called, A Sea Symphony. You can find out some info here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/A_Sea_Symphony_(Vaughan_Williams) . This is a long work, lasting 70 minutes, using orchestra, 2 soloists, and last night, the Friends University Singing Quakers provided the choral interpretation. It is based upon a poem by Walt Whitman, and according to Wiki, it's "Leaves of Grass" but our concert program didn't state that. Here's an interesting stanza:

Yet soul be sure the first intent remains, and shall be carried out.
Perhaps even now the time has arrived.
After the seas are all crossed,
After the great captains and engineers have accomplished their work,
After the noble inventors,
Finally shall come the poet worthy that name,
The true son of God shall come singing his songs.

And the last stanza:

Away O Soul! Hoist instantly the anchor!
Cut the hawsers-haul out-shake out every sail!
Sail forth-steer for the deep waters only.
Reckless O Soul, exploring, I with thee, and thou with me,
For we are bound where mariner has not yet dared to go,
And we will risk the ship, ourselves, and all.
O my brave Soul!
O farther, farther sail!
O daring joy, but safe! Are they not all the seas of God!
A farther, farther, farther sail!

And it ends not in a grand forte flourish. The chorus sings the last line several times, each time softer than before, until you cannot hear voices. The orchestra repeats the notes and it sounds in that great concert hall as if the music is drifting farther and farther away, the maestro conducting even the silences between chords, until finally, you hear just the faintest notes of the bass violins fading away. Then awesome total silence.

I was strangely moved by this work, and left the concert hall with a tear in my eye. Dan thought it was too long, but honestly, I sat for 70 minutes and listened to this symphony, and was surprised to find it was that long. They left the lights up in the concert hall so you could follow the text of the chorus, which was good, because at times the orchestra overwhelmed them and the words were difficult to understand.

This is our second year to have season tickets to the symphony orchestra concerts. It took a few concerts for me to go and just sit and let the music speak. Some works are easier to understand than others - some symphonies and concertos seem to have no discernable tune that you can remember and sing on the way out to your car. The music appears disorganized and dischordant, and you wonder what on earth the composer was trying to get across. But other times, the music is balm for a fragmented, weary, tattered soul, and it washes over me like a healing wave of relief. Thank you, God.

Sunday Afternoon

Through a series of sorta weird circumstances, I was able to attend a lunch meeting on Sunday - a sort of round table discussion of homeless issues here in Wichita. My thesis research took a look at the academic success of homeless children and levels of parental stress to see if there was any correlation between the two. Of course the sample was way too small to be able to test any sort of hypothesis, but my experience gathering the research at two family homeless shelters was eye-opening for me. At this informal luncheon, a local author read from her recently published book of interviews of chronically homeless persons she met through a local shelter. Proceeds from this book benefit this shelter.

So I drive my 16 year old car into an affluent, upper class, east side neighborhood and locate the house where the meeting is. I park my car and survey the property. I realize I'm not an appraiser, but I would not have been surprised if this house would be valued at 200-250,000K. I was already nervous about this meeting, and became even more so as I approached the front door. The irony of meeting at a quarter of a million dollar home to discuss situations of people who didn't even have a roof over their heads was present in my mind. However, that feeling quickly evaporated as the owner of the house met me with a welcoming smile and warm handshake at the front door. I was introduced all around and in about a minute, was comfortable. We had a finger food lunch, and then for a couple of hours, discussed these issues with openness and honesty. I was asked to present some key points from my thesis, and those present seemed genuinely interested. I walked away, touched and surprised by this meeting. Got in my old car, drove back to my old house, and pondered how I almost let my prejudices decline this invitation. I would have been the poorer for it, not financially, but in my spirit. There is a greater poverty than the lack of money.

Parking Problems

I need therapy. Well, maybe not THERAPY. I just need an objective person to tell me why I get SO irritated when my neighbors park their vehicles in front of my house. I live between two families who either own, or have relatives who own, humongous pickups and SUVs. And for some reason, these people, instead of parking across from their house, or down the street, park in front of my house, and across from my house. Case in point: I've been away at a conference for two days. Came home from eating out last night, my husband was in his car and I drove my rental. In front of my house was the biggest pickup you've ever seen. Neither of us could park there. This morning, the large pickup was gone, and in its place-the young guy living with mom and dad next door to the south had parked his large blue Chevy Z66 - I'm telling you, it looks like a tank sitting there. Looking across the street from where they live, the curb is clear, there are no vehicles there- he COULD HAVE parked across the street from his own house. Another example, the neighbor to the north has had a frequent visitor the last few days who drives a large van owned by a heating and air conditioning company. Two out of four days last week I came home to find this van parked in front of my house.

I don't mind telling you that this makes me CRAZY. I cannot stand it. I have resorted to, when the curb in front of my house is clear, moving my car, AND, instead of leaving a spot for someone else to park either in front of or behind me, I park in the middle between my driveway and the neighbor's drive. I also have parked in front of their house from time to time, but this worries me - I may find that my car won't start some morning due to, well, you get the picture.

My husband, always the cool headed person, simply looks at my irritation with amusement. "It's a public street", he says nonchantly. "Whaddya wanna do, set up traffic cones?" OOO! Traffic cones! I could do that.

So my question is, why am I so angry about this? I can tell ya. I'm mad because this is something, that unless I want to confront neighbors about, I have no control over, and even then, it wouldn't do any good. You may say, in the big scheme of things, does it matter? Yes and no. There are very few "perks" to living in the house I live in - I could sink thousands of dollars into it tomorrow but money is always an issue, and, when you're done, it's still an old crappy house. I'd sell it tomorrow, but I am waiting on a spouse to come around and say "Let's sell this place" - so that's out of my control. But one of the perks, privileges, or rights I feel I am entitled to is simply to be able to park my car in front of where I live. Is this asking too much? No, it's not. And yes, it is.

But, in the grand picture, it doesn't matter. I have a job. My husband has a job - two of them as a matter of fact. I DO have a roof over my head. My old cars run fairly well. Perhaps I need an attitude adjustment - what is it they call that, I need "an attitude of gratitude". If I give up the right to park in front of my own house, then I won't get upset when I can't do that. That's a good way to cure what ails ya, just give up what you think you "deserve".

Well, I'm feeling better. Thanks for your help!

Am I a nice person?

I think fall has arrived. My hands are cold when I drive to work in the mornings, and finally finally, I'm seeing red leaves on trees. Looking across the street at the school playground, there's a tree that still has many green leaves on it, but the other trees are finally turning yellow. The time change got me-it's so dark at 5:15. No more walking in Riverside Park after work.

Have you ever been in a situation where you've unintentionally rubbed a co-worker the wrong way? I always thought I was sort of a nice person, but somehow someway, I've found myself getting crossed up with a teacher who has taken exception to me, personally. I've decided to stay out of her way as much as possible, but we will have to work together on some issues concerning kids and I'm not sure how to do that. She's a veteran teacher, many years of experience, and very good in the classroom from what I've seen. She's got a little bit of resentment toward me, but maybe she's had unpleasant experiences with psychologists before. You know how it is, we just never find the "right" kids are eligible for special education services. I was talking to another teacher yesterday who I do have a good rapport with, and she was asking me if I thought it would be worth it for her to refer one of her kindergarteners for testing. I sorta discouraged her, as it is difficult to place kindergarten students in special ed unless they have "obvious" deficits, like mental retardation or orthopaedic impairment. She says, "Of course not! You can't place him! I shudda known!" (And winked at me so I knew she was kidding.) Only, have you ever noticed that people speak the truth when they are "kidding"? They say stuff they'd like to say seriously, but for some reason can't.

I'll be gone tomorrow and Friday. A little break, a little respite, a little sitting at a conference on learning disabilities. As Daniel would say, "Boring! Boring! Boring!" Not to a psychologist. I'd be bored if I had to make it through one of his accounting classes. Now a music class-I could do that. We've bought some new piano music recently-a book of duets for two pianos, and then some one piano-four hand arrangements. We sightread through some of them last Saturday and one of my favorites will be a two piano arrangment of "Jesu, Joy of Man's Desiring". We're gonna play that in December. See ya later.

Reason #4

I've been relating on other blog entries that civility appears to be on the way out the window, and today, I learned of a disturbing incident at one of the schools I work at which may lend credence to that observation. A driving encounter (a parking "misunderstanding") between the mother of one of our Pre-K students and the mother of an older student turned into sort of a road rage incident, and both mothers got into a verbal confrontation in the front office at school. In front of staff, other parents who were checking in to help with Halloween parties, and kids, these mothers engaged in yelling at each other complete with f-bombs, and even had some physical contact. The principal became involved, separating the two mothers. Both mothers called 911 on their cells. The police came, took reports, and interviewed witnesses. A nice afternoon turned into an ugly mess. I hope these moms are proud of themselves. I am livid that my workplace, a place that we teach is a SAFE place for our children to be, was used for such a despicable purpose between two grown women who were fighting over a PARKING PLACE.

This terrible incident leads us very nicely to the 4th reason author Lynne Truss would like to stay home and bolt the door: "The Universal Eff-Off Reflex". Truss says she's really not surprised by the proclivity of the people in our culture to believe "I have a right to do X", and, "I am beyond censure from you when I do X". And yes, as much as we don't want to do this, we certainly should look at television as a thermometer of what is acceptable. Verbal abuse is the norm in reality shows. Truss says, "People being vulgar and rude to each other in contrived, stressful situations is TV's bread and butter. The message and content of a vast amount of popular television can be summed up in the words, 'Eff-Off' "!

We're all touched by it. The question is, what can we do about it?