said the "Bells of Rhymney"...

Last April we began the expansion of the den. It had always been too small. Now that we have three grandchildren, it was obvious that room would be hopeless. And now that it's done, the expanded version of the room is wonderful. In the spirit of improvement, along with the expansion, we've been updating things in the house as well. While I'm still working it seemed like a good idea. We bought a new toaster oven, a new washer, a new dryer, a flat screen TV in the den, and a smaller flat screen in the kitchen. All these things have bells attached. Last Saturday, it was like living in a bell factory. When the washer was done, it played a little tune, as did the dryer. The toaster oven chimed when it was finished, so did the microwave. Strangely, so did the coffee maker. The little flat screen in the kitchen chimes when you turn it off or on. The old folk song "Bells of Rhymney" came to mind - "Ah, what will ya' give me, said the sad bells of Rhymney..."

This week-end we decided to celebrate the return of our upstairs porch for human habitation - and put up all the spinners and chimes that we had outside. One set of bells I bought ages ago never really responded to wind. LA doesn't have big gusts - but I think short of a tornado - these bells would never sound. We hung a dryer clamp by a string and put a round paper wind catcher under the clamp. They now ring very nicely even in a gentle breeze. Now outside - "said the bells of Rhymney...."

Lost and Found

This school year has been exhausting. I agreed to teach a math class for the first time since I arrived at South Pasadena. The class is Honors Math Analysis, and, although I've taught both math analysis and Calculus A, B, and C, I never taught 1/2 and 1/2 before. Adjusting to the level of students at South Pasadena, and getting the pacing of the class correct, not to mention writing all the quizzes, tests, and practice pages from scratch has taken an amazing amount of time. This is my excuse, and I'm sticking to it.

In November, I went out back to repot one of my house plants. I had on gardening gloves. After my gardening, Charlie and I began dinner, and I realized my small gold ring was missing. I reconstructed where it might be. To leave out most of the details, Charlie found the ring at the very end of one of the fingers of my gardening glove. Then in January, I had gone to the teacher's lounge during my prep period and was grading up a storm. The air conditioning in that room is always on 60 degrees Fahrenheit, and I was really cold. I got up to go to the bathroom and noticed that the gold ring (yeh, same one) almost fell off. I then went to my class room and spent the last hour of school straightening out lab supplies. When I got home that night, Charlie and I sat down to have a cup of coffee and I noticed my ring was gone, yet again. We retraced my school steps, and it really seemed to be missing. I even took the unprecedented (and disgusting step) of going through all the paper towels dumped into the bathroom trash. The next day, still hoping against hope (I really like this silly ring) I began looking in all the boxes I had gone through. To my absolute amazement - I spotted my ring at the bottom of a large carton filled with smaller boxes of slinkies. Charlie and I went for a walk that afternoon straight to a jewelry shop where I had the ring sized. No more drop-offs!

Then came yesterday's step-walk. Charlie and I walked to a local bakery. We walked down Garfield, along Mission, I stopped at Rite-Aide for balloons. We then walked down Fair Oaks to the bakery, along Monterrey up Milan, Mission, then Garfield to home. When I got inside, I realized my scarf was missing. What is this??? I really was too tired to re - walk the whole thing so we drove our walk backward. I went back into Rite-Aide - Nothing. At that point, I began to rationalize why I didn't care about the missing scarf, yeh right. As we turned onto Mission, I spotted the scarf lying on the sidewalk across the street! I leaped out of the car and grabbed it. I'm hoping that will be our last missing pieces re-trace. I like the walks - not the searches.

STEPS and the MEGA STEPPERS

Several weeks ago, Kaiser Permanente offered companies in the Southern California area incentives to get people to exercise more. They suggested the companies form groups of 9 to 10 employees who would receive free pedometers. Then the groups would attempt to have each group member walk 10,000 steps a day. The group in the company with the most steps after 10 weeks would be the winner and get some sort of prize. For some reason, the idea struck teachers (et al) in South Pasadena and over 200 of us decided to try it. I'm in the Mega-steppers, a group of science teachers. At first it seemed impossible, but it's been entertaining seeing how far I stomp around each day. I average about 2000 steps in each of my classes. Walks around the neighborhood average 2000 to 4000 steps. I got Charlie to walk around with me. Since exercise is supposed to be good for you, and numbers appeal to me, this is the nicest way to exercise I can think of.

Today we took the "sleepy house" walk. It's a home in San Marino with two upstairs windows that have pull shades. The original owners used to leave the shades in varying levels of up and down - making the house look like two sleepy eyes. The new owners leave the shades down all the time which isn't nearly as much fun. Yesterday, we took a stroll down to the local bakery and bought sweet rolls for our coffee. Yes, a tad self-defeating on the keeping your weight down purpose of all this walking. Sigh.

More on yesterday's walk tomorrow.

Whew!

Apparently the House passed the Health Care Bill. Whew. I didn't think the Democrats had it in them to do something sensible. There's been so much malarky for so long, I was afraid the Dems would fall into a swoon and do zip.

The thing that has annoyed me for 8 + years (beginning with the Bush folks claiming that they make their own reality) has been politicians (mostly Republicans) who say patently false things over and over with the assumption that eventually lies turn into truths. What's worse is then hearing the morons that follow them quoting the lies - that even extends to the press. I don't mean Fox - even those that think they really are press quoting nonsense. NPR has been the hardest to listen to. They should at least be neutral!

Saturday, and the livin' is easy....

So much for work. I like the money. I even like the kids. I just hate getting up to get there. Saturdays and Sundays are quite nice. We had our "dolly tea party" this morning. It involves sitting in bed, reading the paper, and, of course, drinking tea. We walked. We did work, but in a civilized slow paced way. We walked some more. TV shows on TIVO, wine, what could be better???

Is grading bad for one's mental health?

Wednesday I spent days grading labs while students took a test. I did the same on Thursday. It was a different test and different labs, but the activity was the same. Today I graded the student "repairs" to Wednesday's test and a "10-13". Multiple choice questions that are based on the units we've covered so far. It's been a long slog. I believe deeply that students need to get back any tests, quizzes, or labs as quickly as possible for full effect - but a lot of this really gets to be painful. We (Charlie and I) watched a good movie on DVD tonight (State of Play) but I'm still wound up from grading. Better than boredom, I presume......

Thursday and I've got company again.

Charlie got home this afternoon from Seattle. It's been a strange few days while he's been gone. The night before he left, he was up attempting to give himself oral first-aid. He had a toothache and was panicking that it would get worse while he was away. A quick dose of peroxide and it calmed a bit. He left Monday.

Tuesday night all seemed calm. Then at 4:04 a 4.4 Earthquake hit LA. It was epicentered in Pico Rivera, close enough to cause some sharp jolts here. As I lay in bed rocking and rolling I was waiting for it to get worse. Fortunately, it stopped. 4's - my favorite earthquake size. Big enough to appreciate - small enough not to do any damage!

Wednesday - good grief - a moderately normal day - peculiar evening. Ian received a phone call (through me, then Charlie) for a post-doc offer in Aukland New Zealand. Hmmmm. Then Charlie called in a panic. He couldn't figure out how to get on the blogspot site to show Nancy the photos of Kayley. He then panicked about not being able to check in on line. (Oh, the woes of not being Premier anymore) Then Glenn called and tried to explain his trip to LA with Krysty and Kayley and the dog. I think I'll disconnect the phone next time.

Today - another pleasant day at school. Charlie's home and seems back to his mentally stable self. Whew! At our age, one does worry.

Nice weekend - the end of house fixing is near!

Paul Chen has been our contractor- friend for a long time. January, our first house disaster of the year was a dislodged toilet. Ian and Sarah were visiting and the base of the upstairs toilet sprang a leak. It was dramatic and disgusting! That got fixed, then our sewer clogged. That got fixed. The end of January we had a dramatic rain storm. The porch upstairs, above our new expanded den, leaked into the den ceiling. Paul came, opened up the ceiling to see what was the source of the leak. At the end of day, the whole porch floor needed replacing. There's been a few extra fixes as well. I rarely demand much from Paul, but I really want to be able to sit on the porch tomorrow after work! The weather supposed to be lovely - I'm looking forward to it. Hope it works. Otherwise, I'll sit on the tiles!! Harumph.

A roof man was supposed to seal the porch tiles yesterday morning. He couldn't. We had our "dolly-tea-party" this morning. Basically, breakfast on a tray with the Sunday Papers. It's relaxing and lovely. We took walks. Wally was in doggy-heaven. Two walks a day. What could be better. Work tomorrow - Charlie to Seattle.

Powder Puff night

Tonight was the Powder Puff football game at South Pasadena. My cold is getting much better, but I promised to help chaperone the game - so off Charlie and I went. Poor Old Chuck ends up chaperoning when I do - kind of unfair, but so it goes. We spent most of our evening taking tickets, sending kids to the ticket line when they tried to get in with Student Cards only, and checking hand stamps for the thousands(?) who wandered past moving from the senior girls side to the junior girls side. For those who don't know.... powder puff games are the senior girls vs. the junior girls in a version of tails foot ball. It's an odd type of game. No kicking, shortened field, and no first downs. Very odd. What happens is an occasional amazingly speedy girl breaks free and flies past the inept defense. Those speed demons were quite impressive. On the sides, the man-leaders (guys in shorts doing cheers of sorts) were randomly dancing for no reason. The game was a route - the seniors won 32 to 20 (it wasn't that close 10 minutes before the end- but an amazingly fast junior kept breaking for the end zone). Weird game.

I'm getting less frog-like

Good evening, as the count would say. My voice is not back to normal (neither is my thinking), but I'm getting better, ever so slowly. Today was so dull that it's hardly worth mentioning. However, I did receive a couple of nifty emails from an old student who is presently at Berkeley taking a Physics class. In her first email she told me that although her professor had great demos, he really didn't explain the physics very clearly. In her second email she told me she received a 100% on her physics midterm when the average was 70%. She thanked me! Actually, it helps a lot that she's incredibly smart - but I'll take all the thanks I can get. Until tomorrow

Where did my voice go?

So, I've apparently traded feeling fuzzy for my voice. Given how much I like to talk, the trade seems incredibly unfair. I started this morning with an occasional croak. As the day progressed, my croak took over. I ended my "teaching" day by clapping my hands to get kids attention and rasping out my lesson. It was pathetic. Kids were offering me Halls cough drops, I was slugging down tea (none seemed work), and writing A LOT of things on the board. By the time I staggered home, I figured, as much as this caused me acute pain, I had to stop talking. The horror, the horror. Charlie can't really hear too well, so my croaking wasn't getting through anyway. By the by, he's not too good at charades either. Adios - or frigate - frigate

I kind of like this blog-stuff

I have a cold today, and it's making me foggy. Somehow I taught my classes without too much of a hitch, but for a few kids who came in after school - the "help" was pathetic. Last week my class sounded like someone had set up a wave made out of coughs. Now, I've got the cough.

I've been reading the Lightning Thief, and enjoying it immensely. It's obviously aimed at 12 year old boys. What does that say about me? I haven't read much in a while. I've been teaching an Honors Math Analysis class that has taken up most of my spare time, at least, I've let it do that. This seemed like an easy read. Plus, Sean, who at seven has just taken up reading for real, asked me how I liked it. I was embarrassed to admit I hadn't started it. I'll see him at Spring Break, and want to talk to him about the book!

Blogging must be good for me, I haven't coughed since I began this note.

HOME HOME

Back home again. The day really wasn't as bad as I was expecting. The idea of blogging, however, seems entertaining,to me at least. Took a dog walk for steps (my 10,000 steps a day program is very addictive) Coffee and hanging around for the evening. Lovely.

Just beginning

Blogging, here I come. Today is a teacher workshop day with an emphasis on technology. I honestly haven't see anything that I can use in any of my classes. It HAS inspired me to start a blog, however. It probably won't be as entertaining as either of the blogs of my daughters-in-law, but I'll blather on none the less.

I'm probably stuck here until 3, but I can't keep blogging all day. Soon they'll have us do my least favorite activity on the planet - working in small groups - producing nonsense that will be written onto large sheets of paper. The paper is then posted in some room - and we'll discuss endlessly. Sigh