Doing life together

It was Ladies Who Lunch on Monday. Six of us met at a nearby pub (nearby for me and a couple of others) and because the weather was so delightful, we ate outdoors. Probably the only time that will happen this year. Too cold, too hot, too humid, too much pollen…all reasons to eat inside in this city.

One of our group has been missing for a few months. She needs a hip replacement but that procedure had been put off for over a year for a variety of reasons. First it was her heart that needed a clearance from her cardiologist. Then the orthopedic surgeon she had heard such great things about refused to do the surgery due to the condition of her hips and told her she needed a care facility. Finally, while having a colonoscopy the surgeon nicked her colon, did a botched repair job, and our friend has been recuperating ever since, the orthopedic surgeon waiting to get clearance to do the hip replacement. Our friend is not happy nor well.

The youngest of our lunch group is still teaching, though only three periods a day, so is done by noon and can join us. She has one more year to teach before retiring. She asked to join our group awhile back, saying she enjoyed seeing how much fun we have in retirement and wanting to learn from us. Another of our young teacher friends has voiced her admiration for our camaraderie and said she has always learned so much from the way we do life.

Our group is aging. One of the conversations yesterday was around renewing our driver’s license. After age 70, in California, a driver must present themselves to the DMV for each renewal, which for most of us is every 5 years. However, we have learned, through the experience of one of the gals, that we can do part of the renewal online and just show up at the DMV office for vision check and a new picture. After I am finished with school stuff, I’m going to investigate. I came home from lunch to find my renewal notice in the mail. Perfect timing.

And one more thing about us…those who were in attendance on Monday can all still get down on the floor and back up with no assistance.

After getting the photo from our lunch, I’ve come back to post a link to Instagram of the picture of the group.

Hit pause

On the first Monday of February, I’m taking a sort of a “vacation” day for myself. I’m not going anywhere. I’m staying at home, doing mundane chores, prioritizing the rest of the month, and just breathing. The sun is shining this morning, which is lovely after two days of RAIN. It really wasn’t a lot of rain, less than two inches, but it was steady, and the skies stayed dark all weekend.

I spent much of Saturday preparing for next week’s storytelling with first graders–Amy Wu and the Patchwork Dragon. If you follow me on Instagram, you saw some of the work. Second grade’s book is Ada Twist, Scientist. One of the second grade teachers stresses math and science with her students and that class is excited to see the book. I also have graph paper I can share with them, courtesy of a friend who handed me money in Target one day, in honor of a friend of hers who once taught at the school where I volunteer.

Sunday saw three children in our church service and they participated in the children’s sermon. They were great in talking about revenge and better ways to handle hard situations with mean people, situations even grownups face. I provided a few Bible verses that we discussed and then sent them off to Sunday School with a prayer for next week. My next time up for children’s sermon is February 25. I don’t know what idea God will give me to discuss. I’m leaving that up to God to figure out.

This next Sunday I am doing coffee fellowship after church. It will probably be a light turnout because it’s also Super Bowl Sunday. I’ve got the food all figured out and have made it very easy on myself. I’ll let you know the results next week.

Terry is at cardio-rehab this morning. He got signed up again in January when he decided he needed the discipline of the structured exercise in a hospital setting. I continue to do my daily routine here at home with balance and sciatica exercises along with a series of movements with my small barbells. And I continue to use my balance ball when I sit here at the computer. We are seeing many acquaintances falling and having balance issues so we try to remain upright and moving for as long as possible.

For the rest of the day I am enjoying the sun and will probably do some cleanup work in the backyard. I am doing a few loads of laundry, so as to lighten the load for the rest of the week. Maybe not a pause button after all, but I’m pushing the slow motion function.

We all need to be kinder

The book for first graders this week is Bootsie Barker Bites…about a little girl who is mean to her friend and doesn’t appreciate the friend’s salamander or turtle. Bootsie is so mean that she pulls hair, covers her friend’s mouth, and holds her down on the ground, all the while threatening to do other mean things. As we progress through the book, we find that Bootsie is mean to animals and little children.

The first graders and I had quite the conversation, in all three classes, about the behaviors and how to do things differently, both for the friend (who doesn’t have a name) and for Bootsie. We all agreed that good friends are valuable and should be treated well and that we should not allow bad behavior, and if someone punches or kicks us, or puts their hands on us in any menacing way, we should tell a grownup really quick.

I related a story to all the classes about an incident I encountered as I was arriving at school that day…a mother had dropped off an older student and was attempting to leave with a very young child who wasn’t school age, but desperately wanted to stay and play at the school. The little one was having a tantrum, which all of the first graders could relate to. I said hello to the mom and child but that didn’t stop the crying. I then pulled out a stretchy green frog that I carry in my “bag of tricks” and offered it to the crying girl to take home and play with. 

She sniffled, and still whimpered, but she took the frog, and made it stretch, and she started to smile, and then talk to me. I told her she could take the frog home and then show her sibling later when she came home from school. Okay? She nodded. I went into the building and the mom smiled and headed towards her car.

A wee bit of kindness can make a world of difference. That was my message to those first graders. I hope it sticks.

Here we are in the middle of January…

…how did that happen? Wasn’t it just New Year’s Day? I was making plans for January and now half the month is gone, over, done…

Notice all those ellipsis I used before I got here, to the second paragraph? I tell the students to whom I read that when you see those three dots…it means “wait, there’s more to come.” So, in my case, with these ellipsis and these few sentences and the middle of January already here, my more to come means there’s more January to come! Remember, I wrote earlier that I am not a big fan of January? Still not, but with the speed it’s passing, this January may be a favorite.

My first two days back at Columbia with first and second graders were fabulous. All seven of the teachers were back in their classrooms, the first time since some time before Thanksgiving. Illness. Surgeries. Sick children. It had all kept them away from school at various times. Students were back and well behaved. They were all excited to see me and paid close attention to the books I read.

I had wonderful lunches with friends last week. The first one, on Monday, was with my retired teacher friends. There were six of us at an Armenian restaurant. The food and service were excellent. One of our group was in Aruba with her husband and some other family members. Another is having a serious medical situation. She desperately needs a hip replacement, but in preparing for the surgery, the doctors have found a serious heart problem which must be taken care of first. The hip replacement may be as much as a year in the future. I don’t know when we will see her again.

The second lunch was on Friday with two new friends, well new in-person friends. We’ve known each other on Twitter and Facebook for quite awhile. This is our second time to meet in 3D, and again, like the first time, we had so much fun hearing about each others’ life.

I also learned about a new-to-me piece of software–CANVA–that one of the women is learning so as to make promotional materials for a book faire of local authors she is sponsoring in May. The other woman works for our local university and she said CAVA is used campus-wide in all areas.

If you are on my Facebook feed then you may have seen the request I made, and the huge response I got, to my former students to show me how they are using CANVA in their current life. Some of my former teacher partners also chimed in as to how they and their students are using it. I’m hoping to look into CANVA some more; however, I’m not too sure what I would do with it since I’m not doing any promotional work for me or others.

On the second Sunday of January I gave the children’s message in church about crossroads and how to decide which way to go. I may be applying the lesson the myself as the month continues.

This week

It’s Tuesday and I feel like I’ve done a week’s work already, but it’s all good, wonderful things that I truly love.

Sunday was the second Advent candle to be lit. Terry and I did that. Terry sang in the choir. I did some “business” with that committee I am so reluctantly chairing. Committee members, though, did “seem” to be on the same page, but I fear there is more “commotion” coming. Checks and documents signed. I heaved a big sigh and went home.

Monday started early–5:30 am.–as I had a meeting at 8:30 for the group in which I volunteer as school reader. There were many of us there and so much good cheer and happiness as we are all doing what we love–helping small children. I had to leave early as I had another chore to finish before heading downtown for Ladies Who Lunch.

Because we had chosen an upscale downtown restaurant for our December Ladies Who Lunch, a restaurant that does not take lunch reservations, fills quickly with the Who’s Who in Fresno, and opens at 11, we needed to be there when they open the door to get our table for 10. Yes TEN. I don’t know if we’ve ever had that many for lunch.

Two invitations had been extended to friends of friends (and who had connections to all of us) and they accepted. It was a joyous time. We laughed, shared, commiserated, caught up, and had a delicious lunch at our high end restaurant that gave us impeccable service.

Oh, did I mention, this almost-100 year old establishment is owned by the husband of one of our very dear teacher friends who is not part of the Ladies Who Lunch but knows us all? Her husband came out at the end of our long lunch to see if we were all doing okay and express his wife’s greetings.

I took home half of a New York pastrami sandwich and onion rings for Terry to enjoy for his dinner while I had a bowl of soup. We watched episode one of Season 1 of Annika which Terry had picked up at the library earlier in the day. I was in bed and asleep by 8 pm. It was, indeed, a long and wonderful day.

Click here for a link to our lunch-time photo. There are nine of us in the photo as our non-retired friend hadn’t arrived as she had to teach until after 11:30. We took another picture at the table after she arrived but I’ve not received a copy of it yet.

’tis the season to be busy

What a busy week this was. I’m happy to have a quieter Friday than usual.

It started on Monday with a resiliency coach meeting at 8:30 and a Ladies Who Lunch at 11:30. Really good times at both.

More volunteers are coming onboard to be coaches at schools where there has been no one for awhile so our meetings are looking more pre pandemic. Many new faces that I feel like such an old-timer. There is one other resiliency coach who has been there longer than me. It’s her twelfth year, my tenth.

There were eight of us at the Ladies Who Lunch, a full house, at a locally owned Chinese restaurant. We always look for locally owned places, preferably women-owned. Our December location will be at an old favorite, a local establishment that dates back to the 1940s in an older part of downtown. It had to move due to high-speed rail coming through, but it is still a major purveyor of food and drink and owned by the family of one of our retired business teacher friends. We were missing one of the original members of this group, but she has drifted away and it appears she isn’t very interested in us anymore. I’ve invited a new person to join us in December. We never taught with her, but her children were our students.

While I ran errands on Tuesday, Terry mowed the front yard ahead of the incoming storms. Wednesday and Thursday were spent driving across town to read books to first and second graders. I also made bean soup and rigatoni so we will have some food to eat.

Today Terry and I both had hair appointments, mine in the morning, his just past lunch. There was laundry and housecleaning to do, and because he was gone for awhile, Terry is still vacuuming late into the afternoon as I write this post.

Next week is fully packed. Taking cars to get their twice-annual service. I have a nuclear stress test on Tuesday. The kids will arrive sometime Wednesday for Thanksgiving festivities. Somewhere in there I have to get food for us to eat. I asked our daughter for a list of provisions (vegan), but haven’t heard back. I’ll figure it out so we don’t starve.

But, before next week, I am doing the children’s message on Sunday at church. It’s going to be about faithfulness and I’m using my favorite character and book of the Bible to illustrate the concept–Daniel.

The strike has been averted

A press conference at 10 this morning, in front of the school where I taught for 21 years, presented the new contract for teachers thereby averting the strike that was to begin November 1.

The president of the teacher’s union and the district superintendent each signed a copy and announced that teachers would be ratifying it on Wednesday, after school. The day would be shortened at all schools so the teachers would be able to do this during their duty day, something teachers have wanted for all school business for decades. I went to so many meetings, required by the district, after I had taught all day. It was expected. Maybe that will change now.

I let the teachers know I would be at school on Wednesday but then learned about the shortened day. It’s impossible for me to go at my regular times if the students have a shortened day. That was why I took off the week of parent/teacher conferences when school ended at 1:35 every day that week.

We are trying to work out a schedule where I will come after morning recess for two of the classes, and will read to the third class after lunch, finishing before 1 o’clock and giving the teacher plenty of time to finish the day and get the kids out the door on time.

I have worked this afternoon to get my materials ready for Wednesday’s first grade classes and Thursday for the second graders when I will have my regular times for the four classes. I did have time, though, to sit in the backyard and enjoy the beautiful afternoon weather we are having after those chilly mornings and feel grateful for a decision that will keep teachers and their students in the classrooms.

The die is cast

It appears that a teacher strike is likely to happen in the third largest school district in California which is the sixth largest economy in the world.

Madness. The downtown administration seems oblivious to what this will mean to the city and its citizens. The people who work in that “pink palace” as we have called the headquarters for decades, just don’t understand what happens in classrooms around the city. Nor do they care. They believe their work is far above that of the teachers, bus drivers, custodians, cafeteria workers. The people on the ground, in the trenches, with the students, every single day.

The teachers union voted last week to call for a strike. Ninety three percent of the teachers voted. Ninety two percent of those voting voted to strike. November 1 is the assigned day for the walkout. Unless the people in the “pink palace” come to a different agreement.

Have I mentioned…

…the third largest school district in California, the district I taught in for 22 years and the district where I have volunteered now for 10 years, is on the verge of a teacher’s strike?

Yep! It’s getting pretty scary in that it appears negotiations have broken down and a strike-vote has been called for next week. San Francisco teachers just voted to strike. Of course, there are those other labor union strikes in the country–entertainment, automotive–and the mood seems ominous.

While teaching, I never had to experience a strike, but some of my coworkers had, only a few years before I entered the profession, and it had been ugly. Those who had been through one convinced the rest of us, in the early 2000s, that a strike would not be beneficial. It would do more harm than good.

Now, all those older teachers are gone. Even in the 2000s, when a contract negotiation was not going well, and the sticking point was a change in retirement eligibility, we older teachers who were still working tried to warn the younger ones that the change would not bode well. Sure enough, almost 20 years later, they see what they voted for coming back to bite them, and they want to make changes. The district now has piles of money that it did not have then, and they believe changes should be made. I have to agree with them, even though I am no longer a part of the teacher’s union.

The question is, if the teachers go out on strike, would those of us who volunteer in the schools cross the picket lines and enter the schools to continue the work with the children. Work that we believe in and work that we love. But the classroom teachers, whom we also love, would not be there.

This question came up before the pandemic in our resiliency coaches group when there was a threat of a strike. Almost all of the coaches, at that time, were retired teachers from the district and we said we would not cross the picket lines. Now, seven years later, there are fewer retired teachers and more community members in the group. There were only a few of us, at our last meeting, who said we support the union and the teachers and will not cross the picket line.

I am praying that the district administration will see how bad a strike could be for the students, many who are already behind due to the pandemic, and will go back to the bargaining table. Also, the district is offering $500 a day for substitute teachers because they are having trouble even now, with $250 a day for pay, finding enough qualified substitutes to go into the classrooms.

For now, I am off this next week as it is teacher/parent conferencing week. The days are very short so teachers have every afternoon to meet with parents, one on one, and there is no time for me to read to the students. I will let you know if I return the following week.

Sleeping in

Perhaps it was the busy weekend. Perhaps it was the stormy weather. Perhaps it’s the later sunrise and dark morning due to clouds. The kittens didn’t get up early. Perhaps it was all of that combined, and we slept in.

More rain fell overnight. Nothing heavy but we’ve now had over a third of an inch of rain which is quite a bit for this time of the year here in our desert-like climate. The grapes are on the ground, trying to become raisins, but with dampness and without sun, it is a struggle. That’s the reason my dad sold his vineyard and bought open land. The risk with grapes was too great for him to take, even though he loved working in a vineyard.

It’s the third Monday of August, and although the Ladies Who Lunch usually meet on the second Monday, we put it off because of the start of school last Monday. However, our one still-working teacher can’t make it today either as it won’t be a minimum day for her so no time to get to lunch. Because of the hurricane warnings, some of the ladies are thinking of bowing out. Now, mind you, these are women who travel the world, in unknown places, different languages, different customs, but driving across their own town in a rainstorm brings panic. I have had to laugh.

My daughter is on a plane to Florida. My grandchildren are in new schools for their first full week back. It’s definitely a week fraught with concerns. I may be sleeping in more.