Troubled Times

I'm a news junkie. There I've admitted I have a problem. That's step one, right?
The twenty-four hour news cycle was made for people like me. I wake up in the morning intending to meditate, but first I have to check in with a few media outlets to find out what happened while I was sleeping.
I've got to quit. The problems in the world have become overwhelming. AIDS and Alzheimer's, beheadings and Baghdad, cartels, drought, Ebola and education, Ferguson and the First Amendment, gay marriage and gun rights,  homelessness and Hamas, indictments and Iraq, jihadists, K Street lobbyists and killer cops, Libya, Midwest and Middle East, nuclear waste, Obama, Putin and polarized politics, questionable ethics, riots and refugees, starvation and Supreme Court rulings, Texas politicians, Ukraine, violence and volcanoes, water pollution and war, X-rated celebrity behavior and xenophobia, zero tolerance.
A steady diet of this negative vibe is adding to the sense that the world is going to Hell in a handbasket. My good Baptist raising tells me that God is trying to tell us something. My education tells me that history is trying to tell us something. The weather seems to be hinting at the need for humanity to pay attention.
Maybe it's not too much information, maybe it's a failure to process it in a way that brings about solutions to the problems. Maybe our intentions aren't what they should be and our goals are misguided. Albert Einstein knew that doing the same things over and over again, expecting different results was the definition of insanity.
I think the world is ready for step two.

Hair Condition

I think it may be time for a change of hair styles. I have an appointment with Billie the Miracle Worker this afternoon and I've got to make a decision. One of my style icons is a designer named Charlotte Moss, no not Kate's sister. She has the most wonderful hairstyle and I think it might work for me; I just can't make up my mind to do something that feels drastically different.
Yesterday I had to take my passport to prove citizenship at "guest teacher" orientation. The passport photo was made in 2009 when my hair was as long as I've ever worn it...that woman looks tired and old.
My hair is shorter now, but still essentially the same cut.
I showed Mother some pictures of the proposed new style. I needed for her to shout Eureka and validate my opinion. She just asked if it would be easier to keep. She did agree that I look better with shorter hair. My most truthful friend is in Colorado burying her mother, so she can't be disturbed with trivial life altering decisions. I have no where to turn. It is all on me to jump in with both feet and do this thing. I'm feeling up to an adventure, so this is going to have to be it. I'm doing it, I'm going extreme change...unless I change my mind between now and two o'clock.

New Normal

It is the Sunday before teachers go back to work in my former district. This has always been a day of high anxiety, great anticipation, and sadness for the end of another summer. I don't know how to feel today. I've got to figure out a new normal and let go of what has been.
This must be what bipolarity feels like. Having coffee on the patio this morning, I was relishing the freedom. I don't have inservice tomorrow! Minutes later, I was in my closet for something and realized this is the first time in my life I've never been school clothes shopping. I have NO NEW OUTFIT for the first day of school.
My FB friends who are teachers have begun to post their thoughts about returning to work. There have been first day ideas, essays about the importance of their coming work, and lamentations for vacations ending. I feel left out. Hooray! Left out of Eduphoria and signing up for dance duty and learning the names of 300 kids and that stupid advisory class.I don't have to watch the blood borne pathogens video or fill out the Starchart for the state of Texas.
I don't get to stand at the door and greet thirty eager faces at every class period. I don't have a key to room 2104. I'll never have another chance to be the teacher whose student made a perfect score on the AP United States Government and Politics exam. I won't see those hands stop writing and the attention come into the eyes of a classroom of students who have just heard you say something that has meaning for them. That moment when the light goes on and understanding occurs and learning is taking place.
Now come the tears. I need to morn the loss of a piece of who I am. I won't know the kids who check my groceries anymore. I won't be Ms. Bailey.
I'll be at breakfast with the ARSST girls when they have convocation at the Civic Center. I'll be able to go to Grandparents Day at Tyler's school. I'll be a "guest" teacher when someone needs a mental health day or jury duty. It will be a new normal.

Catching Up

I have been away from blogging for EVER! But, now that I'm retired, I plan to get back to jotting down a few things that I want to remember or share. I have taken to the pensioner's life like a duck to water. I used to wonder why my teacher friends who retired looked so much better when I'd see them. Now I know their beauty secret. They were just relaxed after so many years of stress and frustration.

The relaxation started with a trip to Galveston with the grands and their parents. It was a multi-generational event. We took Great-Gram to the beach too. We caught a huge break on the weather with the coolest July temperatures I can remember. The highs were barely 90 and with the shade and breezes on our wrap around balcony you could stay outside all day without breaking a sweat.

We all enjoyed the pool and it's a good thing we had it. The seaweed was piled higher and deeper all along the Texas coast and if that didn't put you off, the shark threat and flesh-eating bacteria would. Between climate change and deep water drilling, we've got ourselves a gigantic cesspool out there.

Galveston has been our only get away. The rest of the summer I've been doing what I always do in June and July. I've cleaned and organized. I need to put the house up for sale, potential buyers could open every closet without risk of harm from falling luggage. It feels so satisfying to clear out the clutter. Even the garage got the once over.

I've also been tutoring for mad money. The lovely Indian family that I worked for last summer called for American History for the youngest child, so I celebrated Independence Day with the Founding Fathers this year.

I feel free to engage in the public debate from a partisan perspective for the first time in years. So since I don't need to be neutral and keep my opinions out of the discussion outside the classroom, I've hit social media with whatever crosses my mind. Fellow retiree friend and I even went to
 the June meeting of Liberal Ladies Who Lunch. We loved it!

It's Beginning to Look a Lot Like....

I've known that Christmas was going to be December 25 for quite some time. I know this on an intellectual level, but I can't get the rest of me to get with the program. I put up the dinky tree right after Thanksgiving on the one cold Saturday in November. I got out the Spode coffee mugs, a sure sign I have the holiday spirit, right? I'd rather drink my tea from my Target teacup...it holds more.
I have ordered exactly two Christmas gifts online. They were requests, so I didn't have to wrack my brain trying to think of the right something. But, now I do. The kids all have already bought whatever they think they might want, so there are no ideas there. Jeff and Jennifer said gift cards, when asked what they had on their wish lists. Bah Humbug. Gift cards are too easy and no fun to watch someone open.
I want to go back to the days when rosy cheeked kids scampered downstairs to find what Santa left under the tree. The excitement, the anticipation then was sheer delight. This just feels like an assignment.
I think I know what the problem is though. I don't get off work for the "winter break" until December 22. I still have to give and grade tests. Write a final exam and turn in textbooks. Not to mention all the make up work that needs to be given to kids who have been absent.
Today is my easy day. I only have two 90 minute classes and I'm finished right after lunch. As soon as I finish here, I'm bugging out for the mall. I'm going to put the carols on in the car and ratchet up my Christmas spirit, if it kills me! I'm going to buy something for everyone on my list that I think they will enjoy and that I will enjoy giving them. Then I'm going to stop at Starbuck's and get myself a gingerbread latte and head home to wrap up my packages.
School will take care of itself and my Dallas kids will be here on the 22nd. I have to get my priorities straight. HO, HO, HO!!!

If you don't have something nice to say, come sit by me...

Yesterday afternoon I got busy cleaning the entertainment center/bookcase. I took everything out and cleaned the pictures, books, and glass shelving. I dusted and cleaned glass and threw junk out of the cabinets in the bottom. I was feeling pretty motivated. Molly's birth announcement has been leaning up against a picture frame on one of the shelves for 15 or 16 months now, so I decided it could go into my desk with other mementos.
Mother Dear got up from her nap while I was working on this project and the absolute first thing she said when she came into the room was "where is Molly's birth announcement?" I explained to her that I put in in my desk, and she informed me that I could just go get it and put it right back where it was. She "likes to have it there to remind her when Molly's birthday is." I told her that there was a framed picture of Molly right where the birth announcement has been. What? that little round silver framed picture? that's just dinky (compared to all the gillions of pictures of Sloan and Tyler).
From my perspective, this is my home and they are my grandchildren, so naturally I'm going to have pictures of them. Molly on the other hand is my great niece and her grandfather can keep pictures of her all over his apartment!
I put the birth announcement back. Maybe we'll replace it when her high school graduation announcement comes.
This morning I had an appointment with the dermatologist. I'm having my sun damage lasered. Call me vain, call me a spendthrift, but I decided to do this one little thing because I don't like these brown spots on my cheeks. I don't get my nails done, I clean my own house. I'm driving a nine year old car. I have the money to pay for it. But, when I came home and Mother asked what I had done..."I knew you'd be down there having a face lift." Attitude!
I walked away. She's in one of those moods which come on more frequently these days. She gets really snippy (don't ask me to define it). You either know snippy or you don't. I envy you if you don't. All I know is that when she gets this way, 2400 square feet isn't enough room for the both of us.
Last night she called my brother to come and take her car to the gas station and air up the tires. She told him that one was practically flat;  it wasn't, but he came and took it at 8:30 last night. She doesn't drive anymore, but I think that she needed for me to see that her good son would come and do her bidding.
I took Mother for a drive and Starbuck's on Sunday. B and Tyler skyped with her yesterday. Jeffrey aired up her tires. She's been making doctor's appointments that I am faithfully putting on the calendar and committing to take her to. I fix her meals and her plate and serve her. She has a live in maid and chauffeur.
But she doesn't feel well and she's lost control of many aspects of her life, so I guess I can understand her anxiety and frustration.
There! I've vented. I told you, if you don't have anything nice to say....

The Preposterous Perry

You knew that this was coming...Rick Perry says that Texas will not implement the Medicaid provisions of the Affordable Health Care Act. He'll show the federal government a thing or two, by cutting off the noses of several million Texans to spite somebody. He doesn't seem to have a clue that it's his constituents he's hurting the most.
Do you think that his reader didn't tell him the part about the years that the feds will pick up the entire bill? Did he not get the part about the state cap of ten percent? Who does he think contributes those federal dollars that he's going to allow to go to other states, which  will continue to rank ahead of Texas in providing a high standard of health care for their citizens.
The state that boasts one of the nation's top health care facilities, ranks last in providing health care for its citizens, not just its poorest citizens. All of us. Under Governor Good Hair's guidance we will continue to send our uninsured to the ER for treatment and the cost will be passed along to those of us who have private insurance. That means that whatever pay raises we might have hoped for will only go to cover the rising cost of our private health insurance benefit.
Someone from the insurance lobby needs to tell Rick that the insurance companies want Obamacare; it will bring them lots of new customers. Maybe he's not getting big enough campaign contributions from the insurance companies, or maybe he isn't thinking about running again. Now that the Governor's Mansion is rebuilt, he and Anita probably aren't going to want to move back into government housing.