Gail's Blog

This is the first time I've done this. I haven't done it, yet. I've thought about it for years. What could it possibly be? Going to Vegas? Nope. Snow-boarding? Nope. Okay, give up? I'm bringing several different sized paint buckets to school so we can have drumming on the playground. Yes! I remember passing young boys doing this on street corners in DC and New York and being filled with joy at the sound. You can make music with anything, and rhythm is the backbone of music (not melody, to my way of thinking). Children love to pound on things and drumming is an expression of that pure energy of life they have so much of. I'm starting this week. Wish me luck.

I just took my car apart. Not the engine, heaven forbid! Like an archaeologist on a dig, I excavated my trunk and back seat. The top layers related to the teaching I'm doing now. This included the children's books, teaching texts, dress-ups and favorite markers I've used lately.  The second layer (sub-stratum?) consisted of the stories and materials I used last Spring at a completely different school. On the bottom laid (still) an old boombox, six "big books", and workout clothes I neglected to bring in after the gym (euw). There was a hand mixer somewhere in there, and greeting cards from last Christmas' students. Did I mention a cold-cup I forgot I had? The list goes on. When I quit my my part-time teaching job two years ago to take full-time work I brought everything I'd stored in my large classroom home. When I started teaching full-time I found out that most teachers use their cars as storage lockers. "Don't bring it in! There's no room

Thanksgiving is a bore, isn't it? We don't get much time off. We have no presents to get or give. There's no chocolate involved. Why, there aren't even any special drinks, like eggnog or champagne associated with the holiday! How can this be an American holiday? It's passe. It was invented in a much less cool era, the time of homemakers, gingham, wind-up clocks, and telephone operators. It was officially fixed in our calendar in 1941, after all. I don't think Thanksgiving is cool enough for our time. We need an alternative Thanksgiving Day. Maybe we should call a truce, where Tea Party people and Occupied people (not those who are occupied, the yearning masses longing to breath free, but the folks who occupy, when they aren't at work) have drinks and talk sports instead of the usual agita. What would we call a day like that? No, not the day hell freezes over. I don't think so. So pessimistic. Could we call it Improbably Optimistic Day? Impossibly Sensi

Yesterday I went to Loehmann's Plaza for a special series of tests on my eyes. My eye doctor wanted me to have these tests because I have a kinky (as in kinked) optical nerve and a family history of Glaucoma--mother, and both of her parents. The testing process consisted of patching one eye and then the other, and staring at a red light while using a clicker to indicate when you see a light flash. The light could be small, large, dim or bright and it moves all over your peripheral vision. It was challenging to keep my eye on the red light and not look at the flashes. The doctor, who turned out to be Greek like me, told me that there are new predictors of Glaucoma besides tension checks and it can be controlled far earlier than years ago. This wasn't something I wanted to hear. I've solidly refused to believe I could get Glaucoma. I don't want it, so I won't get it. The tests she did indicated that I have a more than average chance to get glaucoma in ten years, and t

This is my Dad when he was very young. I always thought he was incredibly handsome. A Greek-American boy in the projects. He met my mother, and his best friends for life there. Federal housing projects don't seem like a place where elderly people hold their fondest memories, but my Dad, Mom, Aunts, and their friends did and do. At my Dad's viewing one of his projects friends reminisced about the old days. He was the Armenian, Dad the Greek, and their friend Bill the Irishman. They all went to different high schools for different specialities, something I thought was only invented recently. Dad went to East Tech, where he specialized in aeronautics. Bill went to a secretarial school, which prepared him for his Post Office career. Al went to to the Liberal Arts school, which he said prepared him for "absolutely nothing". It sort of sounds like the old war movies (the Irishman, the Italian and the Jew in combat) but that's how it was. My mother, who died recently

I went to visit my favorite three year old today. She says "ouch" a lot and likes to pretend she is hurt and then laughs. She ( or rather her Mom) won a play date with me at the school Gala Auction. They bid the highest (or were the only bidder, I don't know which). They'd made blueberry muffins and we had them with strawberries and latte (I had latte; she had milk). I brought two books and Melvin, my puppet, who she would remember from school. She hid her eyes from the books and from Melvin. Instead she wanted to show me her dress-ups, with her "glass" slippers that light up when she walks. She wanted to play ball, which we did. She has a super-keen eye for catching a ball--terrific for a three and a half year old. We played Zengo, and she played it as if she were a dealer in Las Vegas, all serious and purposeful, with breaks for capering around the room in her flashing shoes. Before I left I took some pictures of her with my phone. I said they were for he