Category Archives: School

Raging Strife

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Bayou Backroad

Pictured is Anne bicycling along a backwater bayou in Louisiana. This is from earlier this year. Getting her Cajun on. This particular roadway had been freshly tarred and the pavement was like butter. A departure from the condition of most of Louisiana’s streets. They have a saying, “In England, they drive on the left side of the road. Here in Louisiana, we drive on what’s left of the road.”

I picked this picture to accompany this post’s title, which she first coined. Not that she is mad or anything. Nothing could be further from the truth. In fact, I offer you some testimonials from members of her 1st grade class. One of the Specials teachers had asked the kids to write her thank you notes, in honor of Thanksgiving next week. The Teacher’s Collective had already decided that no one would be doing Indian headdresses or paper bag vests this year, but surely hand-turkeys are still considered PC? I’m sure that their spelling will improve.

  • I am graetful for your keg nice [kindness] Mrs. R
  • Ms. R I am thankful because you are fune [funny]!
  • Msr. R I’m gratful for you because you are kind.
  • Mis. R, I am so gratfl for you because you help us lrne [learn]. 

In other news, it has begun and sooner than I had expected. This morning, the water company came a knocking on our front door. They asked, if we could move our Prius, so that they could park their enormous rig in front of our house. I had noticed them working down the block, earlier in the morning. It being a Saturday and that it was raining, I figured that a water main leak had sprung. I launched into my normal drill, getting the dishes done and filling pots with water, all in anticipation of the inevitable water shutoff. I even risked a shower, but only a very quick one. As it turned out this crew was surveying the laterals.

Looking for lead pipes. Their rig comprised a dump truck pulling a trailer, on which sat a huge Ditch Witch device that I came to understand is a giant vacuum cleaner. Working in pairs, one man would loosen the soil with a pole, while his partner maneuvered a long hose to suck out all the dirt. I wonder if they do carpets too? What we are left with are two postholes covered by orange cones.

The good news is that we don’t have lead pipes. Surprisingly, it is copper. I’m surprised because when we bought the house all of our interior piping was galvanized. I had had that replaced with copper years ago, mostly. Some remains on the other side of the meter and disappears into the front wall. I just assumed that it was all galvanized to the main. What I think now is that like our sewer line, up to ten feet in front of the building line was put in by the developer and the utilities handled the rest, but who knows. Some day I will find out, but I’m not looking forward to doing that. It will be expensive.

Update: A second rig has appeared after lunch. They are filling in the holes dug by the previous crew. “Just because Bob’s not here to plant the trees, is no reason that the rest of us shouldn’t get paid.” 🙂

Omphaloskepsis¹

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Maltese Falcon?

Imagine my disappointment this morning, when I realized that today was only Thursday and not yet Friday. I was driving Anne to school at the time and she found my distress humorous. Why should I, the retired guy, care which day of the week it was, since for me every day is Saturday? Well, I have not been retired so long that I cannot remember the joy of anticipating the weekend. Besides, I still have a job of sorts. With only one car, I regularly drive Anne the couple of klicks to school and back. I’m like a school bus driver, carrying Anne and the school bus full of 1st graders in her head.

The other day she told me that I was lucky. She had planned to draft my help in assisting her with a classroom science project. I was lucky, because the great state of Missouri in its infinite wisdom now requires that all school volunteers must undergo a background check. Apparently, a child was abused by a volunteer, while the teacher was also in the classroom. This new law involves fingerprinting and also pertains to parents. I have undergone numerous background checks in my life, but none of them count, because this one has to be unclassified. I’m sure that having to troop on down to the police station and then wait who knows how long is going to encourage volunteerism. Like she said, I was lucky, but unfortunately the children were not so lucky.

¹ Navel gazing — Apparently, it was once a meditative discipline, before it devolved into the self-indulgent self contemplation that it is today.

Make Like a Tree and Leave

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Make Like a Tree and Leave

 

It looks like Dr. David will be “graduating” from Harvard and getting a job-job at MathWorks, makers of the popular scientific software package MATLAB. His offer is still contingent upon background and reference checks, but his fourth interview on Friday went well and he should be good to go. With this new job, he will remain in Boston and enjoy a nice pay bump. He’ll no longer need to do math just for food anymore. With this move he will be leaving academia, which for him has spanned thirteen years and encompassed study and work at Rochester, NIH, Purdue and Harvard. We wish him well as he departs the ivory tower and enters the real world, where I’m sure that he will do very well.

Meanwhile back here on the farm, Ma and Pa Kettle are making last minute preparations for the imminent arrival of Jay and Carl. Jay has a conference in town and will combine business with pleasure and extend their visit and do some sightseeing. Too bad the Cards couldn’t provide any face-to-face baseball.

Watch-a, Watch-a

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Space Orks

A long time ago, in a galaxy far, far away, Dave and I used to play Warhammer 40K, with figures just like those pictured above. He texted me this photo, which coincided with Anne finding in the news that there has been a shooting in the Crown Heights neighborhood of Brooklyn (4 dead, 7 shot). Dan lives in this neighborhood. Her motherly concern caused her to reach out to eldest her son and ask for proof-of-life. Not immediately getting an answer, she continued worrying and soon tried again. I checked the news and discovered that the shootings occurred at a gambling parlor, on a cross street near Dan. Eventually, he got back to us and everything was alright. Dave is with him in NYC this weekend and they are at a gaming parlor, playing Warhammer. They are playing for points, so no gambling is involved and hopefully no gunplay either. We really shouldn’t worry so much, NYC is safer than Saint Louis is these days.

Anne has been dissecting owl pellets at school. An owl pellet is something that owls cough up from their gizzard. Usually, they are composed of indigestible components of the prey that they feed on and comprise things like bones, feathers and bits of fur. Sounds truly disgusting, right? That’s what the third graders thought at first, but they got into it and soon took to the task with relish. She claims that she never touched any of the pellets, but instead used tweezers and toothpicks to examine them. The kids ended up doing most of the work anyway and Anne washer her hands afterwards. According to Anne, on a continuum of grossness, owl pellets are less gross than dead mice found while opening the cabin for the summer and way less gross than phlegm. I’m sure youth wanted to know. We’re planning on getting our flu shots this week, because although it is unlikely one would ever catch anything from owl pellets, there are plenty of other sources of disease in the third grade.

ESOL

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Anne’s Present

The powers of enlightenment won out yesterday and drew Anne back into school. “Against our will, Papa, against our will.” Her resistance wasn’t entirely futile though. She held out for two-hours and got to sleep in, before a personal, non-robotic appeal eventually succeeded. She ended up subbing for the ESOL teacher. Now ESOL doesn’t stand for Educator S— Out of Luck, but rather English as a Second or Other Language. It use to be called English as a Second Language, but many of these children already speak two or more languages, just not English. On this day, Anne taught kids from Syria, Cambodia, Russia, Brazil and various Hispanic countries. As a reward, she was gifted by one of her students with the pictured drawing.

Chicks

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Chicks

The big news this week in the third grade is that the chicks have hatched. For weeks now, a dozen eggs have been incubating. Anne had to go into school over the Labor Day weekend to flip the eggs. Eleven of the twelve eggs hatched and all eleven seem to be doing well. Now comes their naming. Anne’s class gets to name two of the chicks. There is no shortage of suggestions. In a few weeks the chicks will be old enough to be sexed. City ordinance allows the keeping of chickens, but not roosters. This is not Key West. Here their early morning crowing is deemed a noise nuisance. After they are sexed, the male chickens will be sent back to the farm from whence they came. Eggs from the remaining hens will be harvested. For now the eleven sure are cute.