Better than Publisher's Clearing House Sweepstakes?

Friday morning I was planning on just doing my retired thingy -- coffee and Internet in the morning, a little exercise, a good lunch, and then an afternoon of perhaps a book or one of the Netflics that I have ordered.

Currently watching Friday Night Lights.... season 1, episodes 1-4...

and then David messes with my retired schedule mojo:

Wednesday: David calls me from work.

David: You need to be home at 12 on Friday so that Toby [contractor's assistant] can come over. He's gonna be in the neighborhood, and he needs to check something.
Me: Check what?
David: That thing on the roof and maybe a measurement on the sink. And the doors.
Me: What thing? We already have the sinks. What doors?
David: Above the porch -- the way the gutter is all whacky, and I want him to look at the doors to the laundry. The sink might need adjusting.
Me: Look at them? Adjusting? Haven't you already fixed that gutter?
David: [huffs] Can you be there or not?
Me: Okay, okay, I can be here. I mean, I'm retired; I got nothing planned.

So, Friday morning I rush around and get all my stuff done so that I can be here to let Toby come over and check something, measure something, or look at something.

Gawd. Men and their somethings to look at.... vagueness and generalities!

At 11:30, I open the front door wide, and Keats plants herself there -- you know -- in case of an influx of stray cats, buzzards, or crack squirrels try to come in the yard or [Dare them!] on the porch.

I open the door so that Toby knows I am here so that he can check, measure, and look at something.

At 12:00, a white car creeps into the cul-de-sac -- takes a slow turn, backs up, and then moseys and parks in front of my house.

Just like Mrs. Kravitz, I pay attention to what's happening in the neighborhood -- in case of random Jehovah witnesses, miracles, or Fed Ex.

Out of the white car and from KMHS comes two counselors -- Ms. Brown and Mrs. Young to my door.

Keats checks them out to make sure they are not rabid, and after ringing the doorbell, I let them enter my house. They are grinnin like they are playin' hooky.

Aside: Technically they are.

Me: Uh? I'm a little nervous. Why are you gals here?
Them: [still grinnin'] We're just in the neighborhood and thought we stop by.
Me: Whatever. Do you have bad news? Did I miss a parent conference? Do I have to come back to teaching? Are you here to "counsel" me through it? Do I have to give the Exit Exam? Learn what's in the career center? Did I steal a #2 pencil in 2004?
Them: [Looking around -- at the porch, the cul-de-sac, at the bushes] No... we're here about something.
Me: Something? Well, hurry up cause Toby is coming over soon to check, measure, or look at something, and I only got so much room in the house.

Then another strange car pulls into the cul-de-sac, and out of it jumps two former students, Anna and Caitlin.

They come skipping and jumping across the yard.... screaming...

Anna and Caitlin: Mrs. Gillham! Mrs. Gillham! You're it.

Me: I'm it?

Anna and Caitlin: Star teacher. You're our star teacher.

Me: What? Star teacher? How? I quit. I retired. I turned in my room keys, my passwords, my powerful red pens. I mean, I'm not there any more. [turn to the counselors] Is this true? Can I be named Star Teacher and be retired?

Ms. Brown: Yep. They can pick anyone they want.
Me: Really? [grins big] Heh. [smiles] Really. [puffs up a little] I wonder what my friends back in the trenches think...

Teachers [former allies] at KMHS: That Gillham. I thought she retired. How annoying is this? She wins, and she's not even here? Humph. Someone needs to read the fine print, I'm thinking. Star teacher? You mean former teacher as in she has exited the building. She's not here. Hello.

I have to say that having this surprise at my front door on a Friday afternoon was lovely and absolutely jaw dropping, but I'm glad it happened. I love those girls, and what a privilege it is to be chosen. It's a honor. A true honor....aww.. shucks.

Me: So, I like it that you girls beat all those stupid boys. How close were they?
Caitlin and Anna: 60 points behind us, at least.
Me: [grins] That a way to show 'em.

We then shared the goodie basket, compliments of Great Harvest, and relished the moment.

Counselors: Well, I guess we'd better get back to school.
Caitlin and Anna: Us too.
Me: That stinks. [shrugs] Well, I guess I'd better get back to Friday Night Lights.
Them: Not fair. [pouts] Not fair. [whines]
Me: Yeah, oh well, I just wished that I had figured it out earlier that I could not teach and still win Star Teacher. Dang. I'm good.

*giggles*

Keats sits on Anna's purse.

Keats: Are they leavin' soon? I'm thinkin' nap -- and this thing is in my way.


And for the record, I'd rather be named Star Teacher and be surprised at my door in my sweats and socks than win the Publisher's Clearing House Sweepstakes --this was a little like that -- minus the video camera, the check for 10 million, and the Hollywood celebrity.

*twirls*

The Library: Then and Now

I usually make a trip to the Marietta public library every three weeks.

I usually check out between five to seven books, and if my three weeks has been a quiet one, I can get all seven books read -- if not, then I might only get three. I mostly read what I check out; rarely do I put down a book -- it has to be bad to do that. Really bad -- like Twilight bad or The Power of One bad.

*waves to Emily and Dr. P. on that last comment*

*tee hee*

Most books I check out have been recommended by people I trust or I have read the review. :)

I always take a list of the books I want to read..... sometime ago, I started a list of suggested titles, which is now close to 3oo books long -- and I take this list and walk around the library in search of the novel... the list ever changing as I add books and cross the titles of others out.

I use the Internet from home with "my account" to renew books or put a book on reserve [you gotta love the Internet for that], but I love going to the library and just perusing "the stacks" for any book that might meet my fancy.

I don't look to see if they have the book ahead of time -- like use the online card catalog -- I like the hunt in the stacks.

*trembles with anticipation*

It's all about that... the hunt, the chase, the pursuit... that's inherent in all of us --- it's universal. It's all about chasing that "gold" I want -- ask Keats, the poet, ask Faulkner, heck, ask Shakespeare --we all like the hunt, the search, and then getting the prize. Hello? Ahab? The white whale?

Well, I do.

The library has changed exponentially in the last ten years -- and changed so much since I was a child.

When I was a kid growing up in southwest Atlanta, our library was the Stewart Lakewood branch, run by Fulton County. It was less than a 1/2 mile from my childhood home, so many a day I would walk to the library to check out books, and if it was in the summer, I would hide out in one of their hard plastic chairs to be in the air conditioning.


Plus, in the summer, Atlanta city schools sponsored a "Read 20 books" and get a ribbon in order to encourage students to read. I used to do that in the first week of the summer and would roll my eyes at those friends of mine who thought it was "too hard."

Of course, my parents expected the love the reading -- since I grew up among piles of newspaper, magazines, and books.

I used to think that tables were for books and lamps -- what the heck were you supposed to do with knick knacks, anyway?

We had no room for knick knacks.

Checking out the books then involved a stamp with the date on it -- emphatically imprinted on a card nestled in the cardboard pocket of the back cover.

In my elementary school and high school, the library used a system that the student signed the card in the back, put their teacher, or for high school, homeroom teacher's name on it, and turned it in. I used to get all kinds of chills if the person who checked out the book before me was "cool" or "good-looking." I'd search the card for the "cool" person's name. It took me a long time to understand that those folks didn't read.

Heh.

Just kidding.

Only not really.

At the public library, I used to open my books to the back cover in order to speed up the process for the librarian to wield her mighty stamp. She used to nod her head in appreciation. I felt proud to do my duty as a patron of the system.

It was quite exciting when the library went to the microfiche/picture taking for their check out system -- a hulking blue machine that took pictures of the card in the back [thus, the loss of the stamp sound and the card fill out ...*cries*] and filed it somehow under your name. It made this humming and clicking noise that I loved....I wanted to run that machine -- it was all kinds of mysterious and powerful.

I adored my home library -- a square building -- and the fiction books took up over 1/2 of the outer wall space. It's hard to know how many titles the branch actually had --- 5,o0o or 15,000 - - but it had enough titles that I read for a lot of years there and never wanted for something to read. In addition to the outer walls, there were between fifteen and twenty groups of shelves that came out from these walls also containing books.

They has a section that was totally devoted to children -- small chairs and tables -- and a "tale telling" corner where the librarian herself would read aloud books to small children on Saturday mornings. I never attended those -- don't know why -- but it could be because I learned to read at a young age -- and preferred my own voices. LOL

Stewart and Lakewood had a terrific research section. When I was in elementary school, I spent many a time there in the encyclopedia section researching "Spain" or "Montana" or "the solar system" in order to do reports and projects. Some of my friends had sets of encyclopedias at home, mostly the World Book, but my parents were too frugal and too poor to indulge in that when "the library is right around the corner." Plus, those things came out annually and were outdated quickly.

Later as a high school student, I spent many a school night researching for history or English papers, rushing to get through before the library closed at 9 or pretending to have "research" to do if it meant sharing a table with a cute boy with whom I shamelessly flirted -- and of course, meant that he and both got little done and would have to return the next night to finish the work.

A little bit of ancient history here -- but the library was a quiet place -- and this shameless flirting I did was in passing notes back in forth in the most surreptitious way -- in order to escape the glance of the vigilant librarian -- not only a woman who took her job seriously but also went to my church and knew my parents well. She would not have been above tattling on me and my behavior.

There was a lot of "shhhhhh" going on in that library, and we by and large behaved, but there were nights when more rowdy tables were kicked out of the library and their parents notified. No one wanted to be on that particular list --- and I did not want to suffer the repercussions of a phone call to my own parents.

Another perk of the library was the current magazine section -- all encased in these hard plastic covers to keep the masses from mucking them up. I never fooled with these in particular since my father subscribe to more magazines that I could ever get through: Life, Look, Newsweek, the Atlantic Monthly, Harpers....

It was in those pictorial magazines that I followed Viet Nam, JFK's assassination, the horrors of 1968, and Kent State. It was in the latter two magazines that I learned the delights of the essay and short fiction..

Man, I always get side tracked.

Today, the library is a different animal. I still love the fiction section, and the Marietta public library has a great selection, but the rest of the library is.. well, it's some kind of community center for the homeless and the out of work.

The homeless come in from the cold -- squat in a chair in the reading area and hold a book in their hand.. while they sleep. They put off some powerful aromas too --

In the study carrels, they put their heads down and snore up a storm.

Today, no lie, I passed a woman sitting in a study carrel and talking up a storm on her cell phone in the middle of the library.

Lady on phone: Yes, Uh huh. I told her she was gonna have to pay me that [expletive deleted] fifteen dollars or I was gonna bust her [expletive deleted] head. She borrowed that from me. Told me it was for her daughter's [expletive deleted] diapers. Said that as soon as she got paid, she was gonna come over and pay me back. Have I seen her? No? Do you think that [expletive deleted] ..... is coming over now? Oh no. She not telling me no more lies. When I see her, I'm gonna show her what [expletive deleted] happens when you lie to me.....
Yep.. in the library. That conversation.

*rolls eyes*

You know what else -- they have self service check out like Home Depot and Kroger. I now check my books out by holding first my library card and then each book and its bar code under a red light. It lights up like night goggles... I cover my stomach just in case its radioactive.

It's spooky. It's weird. It just ain't the library that I used to know.

BTW: I got nothing against homeless people, but you know if you are out of work, you could catch up on all those books you wanna read. I mean, I'm out of work, and that's what I'm doing.

I mean, you know what I'm sayin'?

BTW: Nan? I know that now they are called media centers, but you know, out here in the real world -- they are still libraries.

Heh.

Brett Fauve

I don't follow the NFL much. I mean, I know it exists.

I understand football, and I appreciate it for its.... well, I appreciate it.

The NFL has changed a lot in the last ten years -- its fuller now of pump and pomposity and sometimes when I watch it -- I think of ancient Rome ---all that confidence -- all that "fight to the finish" mentality. The emperors/patricians in their sky boxes --- the plebeians in the stands with their gear -- and on the field------- the gladiators with their helmets, their armor, and their eyebrows?

[Russell Crowe -- man, do you remember his eyebrows in that movie?]

Heh.

We watch the NFL at my house mostly because it looks good in HD. My husband doesn't really care that much about pro-football, but he does like the way it looks on his big-screen TV.

Hubby: Look at that, would you?
Me: Yes, dear.
Hubby: My TV is good, isn't it?
Me: Yes, dear.

That kind of love for the electronic takes a lot of testosterone.

BTW: My hubby has fallen asleep holding the remote.

Anyway.

Brett Farve....

Is freakin' nuts.

What was he thinking?

Forty year olds should not play in the NFL.

Each time he went down on the field [which we got to see over and over again], the camera would show his wife -- standing in the stands either covering her eyes or looking like she just wants to "smack" him for putting her through all this.

Lawd. Men.

Brett Fauve.

What were you thinking?

ETA: Brett Fauve played in the NFC championship game on Sunday night -- the Vikings versus the Saints. The Saints won -- in that game, Fauve went down, more than once, very hard --at one point, he was on a stretcher on the sidelines, in quite a bit of pain, and the trainers wrapped him up some more and he went back on the field. He was as gimpy as grandpa when his arthritis acted up...

Eva Moves the Furniture

Mother dies in childbirth. Child feels alone. Outcast. Boom. Other world ghosts defend her from bullies, a sexual attack, and a bombing in WW2 London?

It's out there, but Margot Livesey makes it work in Eva Moves the Furniture.

Eva McEwen is the coming of age heroine in this novel of the real and the unreal. When her mother dies after giving birth, Eva's dad, broken by his young wife's death, and her mother's aunt raise Eva on a farm in Troon, Scotland.

One afternoon, two strangers show up in the McEwen's garden, a child of about eight and a woman. Over the years, the two, who can only been seen by Eva, make appearances in Eva's life --- their deeds, at first, seem helpful -- they clean her room or get the eggs -- then ambiguous -- the young girl throws rocks at a local girl who asked Eva over for tea. Eva, desperate for friends, is not sure she understands these mysterious beings' intentions toward her at all.

Are they protectors of her or imps of evil?

Never far from her, the companions, as Eva refers to them, even travel to Glasgow, where Eva trains to be a nurse, whose timely choice leads her to tending to the many injured soldiers of WW2. In Glasgow, Eva meets a surgeon, talented in the new medicine of plastic surgery, with whom she falls in love.

The story of Eva is a story of loss, rescue, and recovery.... Livesey writes flawlessy as she lets the reader uncover the fine line between the magic and the real and the living and the dead.

ETA: This is my second Livesey novel -- the first was The House on Fortune Street. Add her to your reading list. :)

Smallville

I have just finishied watching Smallville, Season 1, Episodes 1-4. circa 2001 -- so what if I am nine years behind?

*shrugs*

I had never heard of Smallville. I have watched very little television in the last thirty years except for General Hospital and baseball. I gave up General Hospital in December of 2008 [dont' get me started -- it's a sore subject -- LOL], and I have actually not watched as much baseball in the last two years --- I miss Skip Caray.

*cries*

But now, I have more time, and well, I am catching up on the last thirty years in television.

I actually sort of like Smallville even though I can't imagine watching it with commercials. Of course, I have gotten to feel that way about almost everything I watch.

When I saw John Schenider was in it, I kind of laughed -- he's an old Atlanta boy, and a "one hit" wonder of a pop song -- it might have been a country song.

He was in Dukes of Hazzard, which is simply embarrassing that it was ever a tv show, much less the fact that someone thought it was memorable enough to make it into a movie.

Dukes did so much for the stereotypes of the South[rolls eyes], and it was lame in its day. LAME.

Schenider plays Superman's daddy in this show. He looks kind of good... LOL

My favorite character is Lex Luger. I don't know why -- could be his bald head or his purple chair in the Luger Lounge at the Luger Mansion, it could be the way he has the best lines, or it could be that I have forgotten his real role to Superman. He's just all kinds of good in this...

The actor who plays Superman is certainly a pleasure to look at -- big baby doll eyes and a nice physique. I had to google him to find out who he was.

Of course, I love googling men...

I googled Smallville, and up popped the actor who plays Clark Kent -- Tom Welling -- and when I looked on their "official" site, I saw that he ages beautifully, but I was disappointed to see that it's Season 8, and Lex is nowhere to be seen.

*stomps foot*

Oh well, that's what I did today -- on this rainy Thursday -- I watched Smallville.

I love retirement.

*twirls*

Amen.

As a teacher, I always envied those in other professions who took vacations at any time of the year. You know, pack your bags, tell your boss, and then vamoose .... off to exotic, warm places in the middle of January.

*le sigh*

Well, guess where I went?

Florida -- and it's in the middle of January

Wheeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee.


What a type of freedom..... have people always been this free? I mean -- like -- just going places and not having to make lesson plans?

Really?

David and I visited our friends, Laura and Joe, who always tell us how wonderful Florida is in the winter, so we headed down to capture some of that magic ---- last week.

I have never been to Florida in the winter for any length of time -- the last time I was here -- in between Christmas and New Year's - the weather was brutal -- cold, windy, and rainy. Not once did we get to the beach -- we stayed inside, burned wood, packaged and sold by Publix, and watched bad movies.

This time -- the weather cooperated -- two days of 71 and then 66 .... It was cool -- but sunny -- and gorgeous.

David and I walked to the jetty and back [about three miles] -- and it was winter solitude.

The sandpipers and other sea fowl gathered in packs on the sand, pecking at things or just having a meeting of the "bird" brains [which means it wasn't all that smart]. Their black backs and white underbellies of these birds contrasted with the gray of the sand. Their heads bobbed up and down like one had been preaching and the others were nodding "amen."

Because there was a wind, the sand was patterned like Berber carpet --- perfect wind swirls making delicate decorative arrangements. The wind blew strongly -- enough to barely lift a layer of sand granules above the beach and for it to dance and flit across the top like gossamer curtains.

The sky was a gray blue --- streaks of jet streams cut Vs across the cirrus high clouds, and the sun was to the right as it was setting behind the muted soft colors of the beach houses. The stratus clouds lay low over the ocean side, slightly dark .... the waves broke hard, and the wind picked up the spray from the waves and slung it left and right like a sprinkler, possessed.

The activity on the beach was light -- few walkers -- ahead of us a lone woman, gray long sleeve shirt, black beachcomber pants, and barefoot --- walking away from us -- her silhouette imprinted against the backdrop like the end of a movie or the cover of a cheesy, romance novel.

The sounds of the beach are loud --- the roar of the ocean paired with the numbing sound of wind --- so much noise that all other was muted -- David resigned to pointing instead of talking --- as he noted a sailboat or fishing boat on the horizon.

The beach is therapeutic -- it's a reminder to us -- that there is beauty, there is solitude, there is a God --- it is all around us. I now have time to notice.

Amen.

Small Island

Just when I thought that I had read about every perspective on WW2, I came across Small Island by Andrea Levy, a novel that was the Whitbread Book of the Year in 2004 and shortlisted for five more literary book awards.

As always, I have no idea who recommended this book to me or if it was from a review, but Levy's depiction of Gilbert Joseph, Jamaican islander, who joins up with the R.A.F. to support "the mother country," is both poignant and hilarious. Levy is able to effectively present the Jamaican's disbelief that after serving in its military, the country is not interested in embracing the "black" man into their fold. It's not just the black men -- it's also the Americans.

{Who could blame that about the Americans? LOL -- we are totally jerks in this novel; she paints an ugly picture of our "cowboy" behavior.}

Set in London in 1948, Levy uses four voices to tell the story of the bombed out, yet proud British people, who were horrified at the onslaught of immigrants who sought England after WW2. One thing you have to say for the British as presented in this novel, their racism runs deep and not just along color lines. If they can't fight class, then they will pick their fights with nationality.

With a wry sense of irony, Levy depicts the displaced Jamaicans, Hortense and Gilbert Joseph, as well as the white British landlady, Queenie Bligh, who rents them and other "coloreds" a room, and the stories that surround -- including Queenie's husband Bernard, who disappears into the war.

Their voices give us clear background on their nature as well as their motivations for the decisions and choices they make. These backgrounds are thorough and well done. When you come away from Hortense's section or Bernard's section, you know them, and you know them well.

Levy's novel also travels many places -- the verdant fields of Jamaica, the grayed- out streets of London as well as the grisly details of the butcher's life, to the rioting streets of Calcutta where civil war breaks out -- and thousands slaughtered by the Indian police.

The story is part romance, part history, part anger, but all human -- Levy tempers it with humor.. just enough -- like vinegar to the fish and chips.

I love the title too!

I enjoyed. :) I have discovered a new writer.

http://www.andrealevy.co.uk/