Long Cool Woman in a Black Dress

Each summer I have a song.  This summer it's this, "Long Cool Woman in a Black Dress" by the Hollies.  I remember hearing this song from when I was a kid and just thinking how it was so flipping cool.  I wanted to be the long, cool, woman in a black dress.  But instead I ended up being a short redhead.  The irony.

As I pulled out of Camp Stony on my last day of professional development on Wednesday this song came on.  I am such a believer of signs.  Things just don't happen.  It was my song!  Oh yeah!  I blazed off in the Ghetto Volvo (the new nickname since the accident). Just that morning I had finished watching Amores Perros, a Mexican film set in Mexico City that deals with a horrific car accident and dog fighting.  There's one scene in which a main character plays this Hollies' tune.  I won't give out spoilers, as you have to watch the movie.  The scene just added more coolness to me for the song.  And yes, watch the movie.  There are subtitles for those not versed in Spanish.  The film is intense.  It's not pretty.  But neither is life at times.  For that experience we become all the richer.

So what holds for me this summer?  I was talking with Dads and Kidlet B yesterday at the local coffee shop about how my life has been a whirlwind of classes for a year and a half.  I am used to getting up at 4am, pounding out homework, papers, and lessons, going to school, coming home, going to school, and doing more homework until 11pm.  I'm finding it truly weird to have...nothing...to...do.

I am editing a short story for EveryDayFiction.  They liked the first go-through, but wanted edits.  Will they publish?  I don't know.  The fun is in the writing.  A friend in college once told me, "When it's not fun anymore, don't do it!"  I keep trying to go by his advice with writing, relationships, and everything in general. Yeah, I know it sounds immature.  I was so serious as a kid.  Perhaps I'm regressing.

The summer begins. Yesterday I made a perfect loaf of bread!  Yes!  Talk about signs!  A new beginning!  And this loaf looked like it was right out of a book!  Why did it come out so good?  Because I trusted MY instincts and went with what I knew from past bread-baking experiences years ago.  The kidlets' opinion?  Perfect.

So excitied.  Vermont. Writing.  Cambridge, complete with Burdick's Chocolates.  The Swan Boats in Boston.  York Beach multiple times.  Hanging out with Drewbits and Miss Emma.  Love it!

Look for the adventures! :)

xoxo MausiGal

Gracias, Esteban...

It's not very often when I find someone else in life who is hiding two large, iced coffees in the fridge at work while they sip on one.  Yes, you are so busted, Esteban!  

Mentor, supervisor, amigo, you name it.  If we're lucky, a few times in our lives we will meet people who totally change us into something better.  Esteban was one of those people for me.

As middle school teachers we're known for being goofy.  Whatever crazy ideas I had, I could present them to Esteban and he would embrace them with open arms, or give his constructive feedback.

"I want to set up an Instagram account for the kids to follow me," was my latest idea.  Yeah, let's dive into the world of pre-teens and photos, MausiGal.

"Tell me more," was Esteban's response.  He embraces technology and anything that will hook the kids into learning.  And sure enough, my Instagram project is keeping kids interested in Spanish throughout the summer with pictures and snippets in the target language.  

"I think I'm going to end up being the Clemsville cat lady," I insisted to Esteban during one of my low mornings between eighth and sixth grade classes, complete with a "Meow!" and clawing of my hand like a cat's paw.  "I'll be conjugating present tense verbs by myself forever!"  

"Stop it!" he laughed, which always made me start my infamous snort laugh.  "You are intelligent, good-looking, the kids love you, and you have so much to offer.  Remember the wonderful you."  

This exchange was just a snippet, a few minutes stolen in his office as he rushed about with his laptop cradled in his arm (as it usually was) and I was running to make coffee (as I usually was).  But these words have stuck in my mind since, and I'm sure they will continue to do so.

Our last day of school with the kidlets was Friday.  It's a tradition at our school to wave goodbye to them as the busses depart, giving a final farewell to yet another school year.  This year was just an amazing one for me.  I was truly blessed to have such amazing kids in each and every class, and colleagues who can make me laugh like no other, and support me in all aspects of my life.

We are waving goodbye to Esteban as well.  He is leaving to go be by the sea, to head up a new charge of kidlets that will be so incredibly lucky to have him.  Who will be able to cheer me on when the days are rough, I have some crazy new idea for the classroom, or when someone once again steals my half and half and K-cups from the staff kitchen?

I'll be ok.  Professionally and personally I have grown so much from Esteban's guidance.  The end result?  I am a better teacher, mom, daughter, sister, friend because of him.  And above all, better to myself.

Gracias, Esteban, por todo.  Thank you for everything.  May every step of the way be without Dora dolls!

xoxo MausiGal

Unchained Melody

"Tenderness awakens within the security of knowing we are thoroughly and sincerely liked by someone. The mere presence of that special someone in a crowded room brings an inward sigh of relief and a strong sense of feeling safe."

Passed along to me from Sunshine Gal via the book Abba's Child

I decided to start with a quote in lieu of a photo this time. I was chatting online with Sunshine Gal, and she shared these words with me. They directly related to what I want to blog about - Mama and Dads.

Their song? Unchained Melody by the Righteous Brothers. I can't help but cry each time I hear it. I think about how they chose that song years ago as their own, and how they had no idea at the time what ups and downs they would go through during their lives together. Throw a crazy daughter in the mix, and their days were complete!

My parents met through letters. I firmly believe my love for the written word stems from this original relationship. My mom wrote to my dad for about two years while he was stationed in Nancy, France, with the US Army.

"He wrote the longest letters," she commented this morning during our daily morning discussion. "The other guy I wrote to was cocky." Score one for Dads!

"Perhaps you need a pen pal," was my mother's comment on my social life. Yes, possibly I do. Seeing as I love to write postcards and scribe all sorts of stories a pen pal would seem an ideal situation for me. However, it would be hard to do the things I love with someone just through letters - experience drives to nowhere, long talks in coffee shops, and sitting on a beach getting sunburned. SPF 70 need not apply. Redheads still burn...in more ways than one.

I love letters. I do get excited each day as I open up my mailbox or post office box to see what arrived for me that day. The experience is somewhat lost with email and text messaging. Two boyfriends have sent me postcards, and that endeared me to them for months. I'm a sucker for the written word. To see the handwriting is like seeing the person's soul. Have I overdone it? I don't think so. I feel like I know them better, can feel them, once I see their handwriting. Sharing words on paper has become an intimate experience in our day and age of electronic media.

But I'm still hooked on letters of any kind - email messages, Facebook exchanges, texts, you name it. Letters flying across the screen get me excited at the possibilities! I have met so many great people through Postcrossing that evolved from postcards into emails, texts, and eventually a visit. There's Sis - my forever friend in The Netherlands. I feel no one in the world may know me better than her. And then there's Baer. With him, the word raisin will never mean the same! And then there's Sakule, my new friend from Germany whom I can't wait to write to three times a week via postcards.

I know what my mother felt. She must have waited for the mailbox to be full, with letters from Dads. Each word brought forth the possibility of a future, of a connection. Who knew when she met him if he would be a total ass? Thank goodness he wasn't! History was set, and along came MausiGal, MustangBro, and Sprout.

Emails. Texts. Letters. Postcards. All the same, yet so different. Perhaps my mom and I have more in common than I thought...

Help Me Rhonda

I'm listening to "The Bold 1960's" on Pandora right now as I write this morning.  This is quite a change from my usual Nicki Minaj and Ke$ha mix.  I've been playing the oldies in the car in the afternoon with my dad as we drive around for errands in the hope that it will jog his memory.  Oh, so I hope.

I think I've come to a conclusion.  This blog isn't going to be about adventures on motorcycles, concoctions in the kitchen, or how I go psycho in my head at the supermarket deli.  I'm going to focus on my father's battle with vascular dementia for the time being.  Of course I won't be able to help but throw in the casual funny that happens here and there, or the odd thing from life in the classroom.  But my main crux in life right now, aside from the kidlets, is Dads.

The picture above with the cat and the flag is because my dad is a veteran.  Yeah, I know.  Lame attempt at including a photo with this entry.  Admit it, it breaks up the heaviness of this post!

Nearly every day I take Dads on an adventure somewhere.  Our adventures include the post office, the supermarket, and sometimes the dry cleaners.  When we have time, we go out for coffee.  I know people who know me aren't surprised, as I'll try to weasel my way in to get additional coffee any way I can.  Our coffee chat sessions will be a whole other blog post, as they include such topics as Men Who Have Treated His Daughter Badly And Are On His List, The State of the Union, Why He Likes Walmart, Your Kids Need to Cut the Lawn, and Are You Doing OK Kiddo?

We drive around Clemsville and Dads, as always, taps his knee to classics by the Beach Boys and the Beatles.  He has done this as long as I can remember.  He can recall where he was when he heard these songs fifty years ago, but has no idea where we are going.

"Are we going to the post office?"

"Yup, Dads.  And then Demoulas."

"Oh.  Do you need to go to the post office?"

I have the utmost patience with this.  Remember - I teach middle school, where kids lose pencils and cry about it.

The other day my mother sent us on a mission to the drugstore, CVS, to buy a certain type of aspirin.  Both he and I were befuddled.

"This it?  Coated?  Look at my sticky note."  I think Dads and I are the only people who refuse to call it a "post-it" and still call it a "sticky note."

"Um.  Yeah," I look at the box and nod my head in agreement.  Looks good to me.  Of course upon return back home we are both wrong.

Who has the dementia now?

Dads is with me through thick and thin.  One of my cats is sick.  She's drinking too much water, cuddling with me excessively at night, not moving much, and when you look at her you can just tell.  As I write this blog post she's sleeping in a box and I just thought she was dead.  I screamed out, "Lily!" twice and she finally put her head up.  I have been thinking about who will go with me if I do have to put her down.  It will be Dads.

Hopefully he will forget the whole moment...