Miz S

Whumpf.

My father-in-law's birthday present, 58 years ago.

I knew you guys would be all, "Oh, you're a saint!"

I'm SO NOT A SAINT. Just ask Josh or anyone else who knows me in real life. On my good days I am cheerful and flexible and fun. On my bad days I am high-strung, fussy, and moody. And that was before we moved into my father-in-law's house. On top of my basic very un-saintly personality, mix in the family drama that crops up with unsurprising regularity, and then picture me stomping around in a huff.

Ain't no one handing out any halos or wings around here.

The funny thing is: I'm surprised at how easy it has been, overall, to uproot myself and live in someone else's house. I was afraid I might not be able to do it. One day, when my mother-in-law was still alive, I went back over to my own house to pick up mail or something. I walked around whimpering happily at all the familiar sights, then sat at my kitchen table just bubbling over with joy at being home. That day I worried that I would not be able to step up to the plate and do what needed to be done.

But as I said, it has not been that hard. It turns out that I can be quite happy and comfortable over here. The hard part is getting our own house packed up so that we can rent it out. When the hell are we supposed to do that? We are too tired after a long day at work, I've been taking a 6 hour class on Saturdays (Spanish for Educators, gracias very much), and I go to see my own parents on Sunday.

I guess we are going to have to press other members of the family into service to help us out. So, if you are related to me and you see my phone number pop up on that screen, be forewarned. There is a ton of crap to sort through and boxes to be carried to and fro.

Josh and I have discussed the pros and cons of this plan backwards and forwards many times over. And just to reassure some of you: I don't feel forced into this in the least. Josh and I squabble from time to time, but mostly we are really good at operating as a team. If I really couldn't do this I would say so, and Josh would be okay with that.

But in the end, moving out of our house and in with my father-in-law is the only thing that makes sense. He shouldn't be alone. Not because he can't manage the activities of daily living. He can, sort of. But because his heart has been broken. 

This was brought home to me with a whumpf last night when we returned home from celebrating his 91st birthday over at my sister-in-law's house. (My mother-in-law always made a big deal on his birthday. She told me one time that it was because his family was large and poor and they had never celebrated anyone's birthday and she was horrified by this.)

Pop-Pop had told us that he didn't want us to do his birthday this year, but we didn't feel like we could just ignore it, you know? We may have just made him sadder. I don't know.

I came in the front door just minutes after Josh and Pop-Pop had arrived home (we were in seperate cars) and found Pop-Pop sitting on the stair landing, looking at a book.

It was the book that my mother-in-law (Joell) had given him on October 29, 1953, the first birthday they celebrated together. The book was The Little Prince by Antoine de Saint-Exupery, and it was her favorite book of all time, a book that in some way defined her. (In fact, my niece Maddy read an excerpt from that book at Joell's memorial service). 

Anyway, I walked in the front door and found him sitting there on the stairs. At first I thought he was feeling tired and was resting before the climb up the stairs. Then I saw what he was looking at and, goddamn, I had to dig my nails into my hands to stop myself from bursting into tears right then and there. I said something lame like, "Oh....there's that book that Joell gave you..." and he said, "Yeah. I was just thinking about her. It was a good life."

Josh was equally tearful after witnessing this sad vignette. When we were alone in our bedroom he said to me, "And that's why we're here. Can you imagine him going to bed alone in an empty house?"

The answer to that question is obvious. No. I can't imagine it.  I'm glad we can do this.

I have glossed over The Crazy, but believe me there has been plenty.

We don't live in our little yellow house in the suburbs anymore. We live in da city.  A straight 4-mile shot to the White House. Not that I would ever shoot at the White House! Get off my back, FBI!

Josh, Pushkin, and I have moved here to provide companionship and hot meals to my 91-year-old recently widowed father-in-law. We are here for the duration. A year? 6 months? 5 years? It doesn't matter.

We have moved in and out a couple of times since my mother-in-law was sent home to die in early September. It was an easy and obvious decision when my mother-in-law was dying, but it was harder in the immediate aftermath. My father-in-law wanted some alone time. He used his alone time to get pneumonia and ended up in the hospital half dead.

Pushkin doesn't like moving back and forth. He's all, "PICK A HOUSE AND LIVE THERE, GODDAMMIT."

We were all, "Duuuuuude, you need us to live with you." And he was all, "I don't want to be a bother to you! Also, you eat too much food! And who threw out my gefilte fish?"

I am not lying at all. There was a heated, high-decibel conversation about the gefilte fish, which Josh had thrown out because it was REALLY REALLY OLD.

It's really very funny to hear one's husband and one's father-in-law argue about gefilte fish. That right there made up for all the trouble of marrying into a Jewish family.

Anyway, it's all been decided now. We live here. We need to put all our shit in storage, because there's no room for it here. We will rent our house and try to bank the money we will save. It's a good opportunity to pare down our possessions, and at the same time it will probably extend my father-in-law's life. He will eat better, we'll notice if he looks peaked, and we'll pick him up off the floor if he falls down. It's a win-win situation, right?

I'm not going to lie, it is really hard for me (and Josh) to leave the little house where we have lived for 24 years. But, I think it's going to be okay.

Meanwhile, my own parents have been stable and healthy-ish, so that's good. There have hardly been any crises at all, except for a minor one on the day that Pam The Aide called me to say that Mom had decided to clean out the refrigerator and had thrown out all Pam's food AND stopped up the sink AND created controversy by insisting she would use the toilet plunger to unclog the sink which Pam considered very unsanitary.

When I called my siblings to report this hilarious scenario, each one of them had the exact same reaction: "What the hell? Mom was cleaning out the refrigerator?"

She never did that when she was healthy. Why is she doing it now that she has Alzheimers?

Portraits of the Teacher as a Middle-Aged Woman.

Despite my mournful post the other day, I am okay. Really. There are plenty of bright spots.

Let's take a look at my persona from a first grader's perspective, shall we? Here are some pictures drawn by my first-graders a few weeks ago:

B. indicates her affection for me by placing me in a rainbow setting, but the dark clouds and the raindrops hint at some ambivalence.

This young scholar has placed me in the classroom (note the clock on the wall), and has placed himself on what looks like a small trampoline. He is a rather bouncy fellow, so it makes sense.

I look demented but welcoming in this child's eyes. Also, I love that she gave me brown skin. I feel so accepted!

And here I look jaunty as all get out! I love it when they draw me all jaunty! My other favorite thing about this picture is that it LOOKS like I have imprisoned a child and am laughing and pointing at him. But I think this young artist is merely experimenting with aspect and perspective. The jailbird is sitting at a table, I think, and the bars are the legs of the table.

In this picture I am sloppy drunk and nekkid, but still very cheerful and welcoming. Hmmm.

A diabolical teacher, hatching a cunning plan...

This kid drew me with ROSIE!!!  Also, her rendering of my outfit is spot on, right down to the clunky shoes and the little bag I wear that contains my id, my classroom key, and a couple of other essentials. That's an A+ for little K.D.

Well, there you have it. A selection of this year's teacher portraits. Must run now. After all, it's 5:40am, and it takes me 15 minutes to get to work. If I hurry, I can be there by 6:15am when the doors open. Oh dear God I have a problem I need hellllllp.

At Sea.

Goddamn I am feeling angry and dejected and, UGH, just dazed. Distracted.

It's bedlam in my brain, I tells ya.

Yesterday I became unreasonably angry at 3:25pm, when I had finally made my way back upstairs after dismissal, was finally alone in my classroom, alone for the first time in 7 hours, with hours of work still ahead of me, but at least I was all alone. I sighed, stretched, hiked up my long tunic-y top and pulled my pants up a little bit (someone lost 5 pounds YEAH THAT'S RIGHT, IT WAS ME) and then heard a voice behind me, "Hi, I'm Jack Jerkface, just wanted to give you my business card and see if you wanted to go over your 403B allocations with me."

I made an odd gasp/quiet shriek and then yelled, "JESUS CHRIST YOU SCARED THE CRAP OUT OF ME!"

He chuckled and apologized.

I was curt and abrupt.

He left.

I wanted to follow him and beat him into a whimpering, bloody pulp for daring to venture into my classroom unannounced.

That was an overreaction, right?

I am also feeling unusually thick-headed. I sat in a meeting at work yesterday and heard myself asking a question that seemed to indicate I had not understood the main point. Yep. I was that person. The one who makes you inwardly sigh when she opens her mouth at a meeting. Fortunately it was a small meeting, mostly containing people who care about me. 

I understand that this can probably all be chalked up to stress. The first 6 weeks of school are always insanely difficult. And when you factor in some of the recent events in my family's life, well, goddamn, what do you expect?

I hesitate to even tell you the other piece of news (which many of you already read on Facebook), but I took Rosie to the vet last week and fed her little pieces of hotdog while the vet gave her the lethal injection. She died happily. Then, I walked outside to a spectacular sunset and cried in my car for the whole ride home.

Swear to God, my next post will not be about death. Unless someone else dies.

Untitled.

I have been avoiding the Internet and all things blog-y for a little while.

Everything has changed around here, and I don't know how long it will be before we feel like ourselves again. My funny, fiesty mother-in-law died on September 7 after a brief and devastating illness.

4 weeks before her death we were still at the beach.  She did everything she always does: played charades, fictionary, and Trivial Pursuit, sat on the beach reading, fussed over Edgar Allen Poo (her dog), and even got into the water for a swim.

She had disturbing symptoms toward the end of our vacation and was admitted to the ICU shortly after our return. After a week in the hospital, she was sent home to hospice care.

We were with her when she died at home. She was not in pain. In fact, it was an amazing and peaceful death.

I would like to tell you more about it, but I can't right now.

Several times a day I think of something I want to tell her, and for a brief flash I forget that she is dead. I experience a small surge of pleasure as I plan our phone conversation. And then reality intrudes and I feel deflated and confused.

My 91 year old father in law is beyond devastated.  A widower now after 57 years of marriage, and he says in a bewildered tone, "I just thought I would have more time with her."

The School Year Has Begun.

The classroom is more or less set up. Which is good, because the students arrived on Monday, and administration frowns on making them sit at tables covered with dozens of plastic bins and assorted junk.

I had wanted to take you through what I did every day during that teacher in-service week. I especially wanted to document the idiotic meetings that teachers everywhere are forced to attend, where it is explained that everything is their fault, and if they would just post these "unifying questions" and "essential understandings" and use the "drill-down" procedure to analyze student data, and stop having "low expectations" blah blah blah, then everything would be fine and our data would be all shiny and special.

Whoops. Didn't mean to bitterly rant like that, but goddamn it's ridiculous.

In any case, documenting the set-up of my classroom turned out to take way more energy than I was capable of mustering over the course of the week. Also, I worried that it would sound as if I was whining about how hard it is to be a teacher. Which, of course, is EXACTLY what I am doing.

Anyway, in case you forgot what my room looked like before:

ARGHH! It's hopeless! I might as well quit!

 
SOB! It's so beautiful! The stupid students will ruin it, I just know they will!

Oh Miz S! You are so organized!

I TOLD you they were going to ruin it!  Yes, that's blood.  And yes, I took a picture.

What's behind the purple curtain in the bookcase? Just stuff I don't want them to get into.

ReallyGoodStuff.Com. Those fuckers should give me a discount, as much money as I spend there.

How adorable are my little lunch bag icons? Courtesy of my friend Julie who finds the best clipart. I printed them out on card stock, laminated them, and hot-glued a magnet on the back.

Where we sit for read-alouds, where we sing songs, where we play games. And where I sternly berate them from time to time. Kidding. A little
One of the 19 reasons that I love my job. (Despite the whining, which I hope you will forgive.)

Hi.

Not all that well, sometimes.

I'll be back in a few days, I hope. Things are crazy around here. Mostly it's just that I am exhausted at the end of every day (students arrived on Monday). But, also, my mother-in-law has received a grim medical diagnosis. I have not asked her permission to share this, so I will leave it there for the moment. And, I'll try to get my classroom pictures up tonight.

See you later.

Title?

I am cautiously optimistic that by the end of the day tomorrow I might be able to show you a classroom that is almost ready for students. I have spent the past 3 days sorting through 12 years worth of crap. I am determined to ruthlessly weed out the stuff that I never use.

The stuff I have been HOARDING. 

And this is only a very small fraction of the crap in my classroom.

I know I said I wanted to document the process, but I have been having trouble stopping what I am doing to take pictures. I basically emptied the closet, reorganized all the stuff, and filled several trash bags. Items that can be recycled or donated are in my car right now. Many, many items.

 In an attempt to trick other teachers into taking my shit, I set up a "Free Stuff" table outside my classroom. It totally worked! They haven't taken everything, but they've taken a bunch of stuff. Teachers are pathetic, I tells ya. 

In between my attempts to get organized, I have been attending meetings. The best meeting ever was our team meeting yesterday which was only half over when the building began to shake. And rattle. And sway. Somewhat insistently. We stood up and milled around the room saying things like, "Dude, was that an earthquake?" Then we all whipped out our phones and started checking Facebook and Twitter to see what was what. The meeting kind of petered out after that.

I have more to tell you, but I am so very exhausted and achy from carrying and lifting and sorting that I am on my way to bed after swallowing a couple of Advil.

My ass is kicked.

Classroom Set-up Continues Apace.

Although I made it into my classroom 3 days this week, I was only there for a few hours each time. I can't say I got a ton of stuff done, but every little thing I did this week is something I WON'T have to do next week when we go into 10-hours-a-day mode.

Rosie hangs out in the hallway while Loyal Niece Maddy works on the hallway bulletin board.

We hung the curtains. They help to soften our view, which is mostly of the gravel-covered flat roof top of a lower level of the building. Ug-leeeee.

And on Friday...

I did some priming and painting.

I even used a power tool! It looks like I'm just posing and not really doing anything, but appearences are deceiving.  I removed the doors to some shelving that I decided would be better as open shelves filled with student supplies. It's a good thing my friend Julie was there to help me, though. I lack certain foundational power tool skills. 

Jules did the same thing in her classroom. Shhh. Don't tell our principal that we took such liberties with school property. We'll put those doors back on at the end of the year! If we can find the screws!

What will go on this bulletin board? Probably my word wall. In my school district, kids are expected to leave Kindergarten knowing how to read and write 25 basic sight words. In first grade, we need to teach 125 additional words. Those numbers may be different (higher) this year. I haven't checked the curriculum changes that have been handed down from on high.

It was fun having Rosie in the classroom with me. She was a good girl, very chill, but slightly...

...just a little bit...

...distracting.

 Next week: Meetings galore, and more classroom prep.

How to get ready for the first day of first grade.

Summer is over, as far as I'm concerned. I would grieve this sad fact if I were not so busy setting up for the new school year.

Have you civilians ever wondered just what the hell is involved when teachers talk about setting up for the new school year? What is it that we are doing in our classrooms during those "teacher days" the week before the children arrive?  And why are some of us in there the week before the teacher days? I mean, what's the big deal? Don't we do this every year? Why does it take so long?

Well, it takes me so long because I am shockingly inefficient. I'm sure YOU could do it much faster.

I thought it might be fun this year to document the process. Or boring. It will be either fun or boring.

This will be a series of posts, because I want to take you all the way up to the first day of school, which is not for 12 more days. Plus, I have a lot of other things we need to discuss.

So, let's look at what has transpired so far, shall we?

Tuesday, August 16, 2011

This is the week before Teacher Week. Some of us always come in early if we can, while others are still trying to wring out the last golden spasm of summer.

The very first thing I did when I got to school was closet myself in my friend E's room and discuss important, confidential matters. We both have a LOT going on. So, fine, I chit-chatted my first hour away. But after all, I'm not getting paid, so shut the hell up.

 

 I move most of my furniture around by myself, although if someone is handy I will enlist their aid. I have no idea what weakling teachers do, or teachers with back problems.

This first day was kind of soul-crushing, to be honest. I really, really have a problem with cockroaches. I hate the crunch they make when you kill them. I aspire to be like my friend Julie, who was reading a story aloud to a group of 6 year olds during summer school a few weeks ago. When she spied a cockroach out of the corner of her eye, she whipped her hand to the side and killed it with the book she was reading, then continued the story without skipping a beat. I don't think I will ever achieve that level of cool-headed finesse.

Can you find the sign that says No sillybandz at school? Yeah, that's right. The first grade teachers are meeeeeean. Listen, do us a favor and frisk the kids before you send them to school. You have no idea how much trouble those goddamned sillybandz can cause. And for those of you who don't know what sillybandz are, don't worry about it.

I'm kind of impressed with the amount of shit I stuffed in that closet.

Pay attention because I'm schoolin' you here.

I bought that carpet at Lowe's last year because, get this, my old classroom carpet disappeared over the summer. It was yucky and gross, but at least it was something the kids could sit on. I went to the principal, fully expecting her to say that she would find the money to replace it, but she just shrugged and said I would have to go without. Hmmmph. And there went a hundred bucks.

You would think I would put it (and everything else) exactly where I had it last year. Nope. I'm always trying to find the perfect set-up. Every year I tweak it.

 

I can fit 6 kids comfortable at each table. 7, if I have to. They are seldom all at their tables at the same time, because I will usually have a group at my reading/math table. First graders have to work independently at centers for at least a part of every day, because that's the only way a teacher can meet with small groups and differentiate the work to meet the needs of all the students.

That's all I can take on my first soul-crushing day back.

Gotta remember to email the building service manager about those cockroaches.

In our next post:  Favorite Niece Maddy comes in to help,  we put up curtains and cover bulletin boards, and Rosie provides pleasant distraction.