These things come in threes

Major brake job last May. The muffler fiasco in mid August.

Did you know that when a radiator cracks and sprays fluid on your windshield it smells exactly like maple syrup?

And Washed the Spider Out

There is a spider living at the bottom of the metal stairs that lead up to my apartment. He doesn't hide the way some spiders do, but hangs out right in the middle of his web waiting with his legs spread wide letting the sun bake him. Every time I walk on that step I stomp really hard just to watch him scramble. I feel very Rogeresque in the sadistic pleasure I take from his hasty retreat. (A brownie point to whomever figures out THAT literary illusion.)

But today I paused for just a moment when I did it. What is that like for the spider? Does he just feel the motion, or does he also hear the sound? Do spiders hear? And when he feels the vibration or hears the sound does he think or does he just react? And how does he know he is moving away from the source of the fear instead of toward it?

I wondered some portion of this thought aloud to my hubby as we lugged the children into the house. He said nothing for a moment and I wondered if I actually had spoken aloud or if such a thought wasn't worth a reply. He put the baby down and said, "Leading a solitary life, forever on the prowl, that is what it is like for the spider." And, I'm telling the truth here, I heard the barest hint of longing in his voice. I think there is some part in every man, probably every WOman too, that resists taming.

But what makes us like the spider? When we somehow find the will deep inside to keep going up the drain even as the rain washes us out time and time again. There is an eternal hope that the sun will come back out.

In the mean time, I'm going to keep stomping on that step. Opposition makes us stronger.

I can tell that we are gonna' be friends

If you have ever lived in student housing, you understand what economy living is. As such, there is no air conditioning in our apartment. So although I am sitting here sweating behind my knees and melting into the keyboard, I will attempt to work my way through the fog to tell about Back to School Night.

The school I teach at is unusually configured--only 6th and 7th graders. Our campus is split evenly between elementary teachers and secondary teachers, and there is much to learn from the variety of philosophies and backgrounds floating around. Last night I met many of my 7th graders and tonight I got to help register the 6th graders.

It is funny to hear kids spend the whole month of August complaining about going back to school and the end of summer blah . . . blah. . . blah . . . but then, they show up at BTSN totally outfitted in their new trainers and clothes with their hair expertly spiked or straightened. They greet their friends so joyfully you'd think they'd been parted for years. They bring magnets and mirrors and mini-posters of Orlando Bloom to decorate their lockers with. All the time they are effusing emotion, they are trying to maintain the practiced look of indifference--particularly in front of their parents.

At least, this is how the 7th graders behave.

The sixth graders (ranging in height from 4 feet to 5 feet 8 inches) on the other hand, walk into the school with nervous glances around at every kid who passes, fearful that they might actually be looking into the face of one of the dreaded 7th graders. They cling to their parents with eyes wide and anxious.

Tonight I helped assign lockers to various kids. A very simple process made complicated by reading a schedule to make sure they are in the right line to begin with. I could see the kids study the little sticker pounded in their student planner as they rabidly tried to memorize the three numbers, paranoid of forgetting or finding themselves with a minute before class and unable to open it. No doubt, many of these children strutted their elementaries with bravado and style just two and a half short months ago, but not today. Today they are part of the mindless crush wandering the halls of a very average sized middle school in an attempt to make some sense of this horrible thing called puberty.

It struck me tonight, and not for the first time, why I have chosen to teach middle school. No doubt the content of a high school biology or environmental science class would be more challenging and interesting, but as much as I love science I think I must love kids more. Working with 7th graders is somehow therapeutic. I think I am trying to make reparations for a very difficult year and a half in my own life. As I look back on the middle of sixth grade to the middle of eighth grade there are so few bright spots that it is hard to believe I even had existence then.

Of the bright memories, two involve teachers. I will share one and then close tonight. I was a 7th grader who loved to dance and read. But it wasn't cheerleading or reading The Babysitter's Club. No, then I may have had a place to belong. I did classical ballet with a teacher who insisted on dignity and discipline; I read books like Of Mice and Men and Oliver Twist FOR FUN. No, I was not popular. Although I think I probably once had been because I could see that I was on the fringe of a group who seemed to have a lot of friends and be in the middle of everything. I was stuck on the outside with a sickening realization that I didn't actually know anybody out there. I wasn't pretty enough or built enough or rich enough or mindless enough to get back inside. A part of me I hardly dared express to anybody was actually fearful of getting back inside such a group. I thought I had no where to go. And then! A miracle.

A kind teacher who saw more potential in me than I saw in myself encouraged me to try out for a play. Coming from a sportsy family, I wasn't even sure of the procedure for getting into a musical. But I could dance and there was a dance audition. I made it. Again, I think it was the teacher who believed there was more to me than met the eye. I became one of only a handful of 7th graders in the cast and found a niche. Despite setbacks and only an average talent when it came to singing and acting--I was a part of a every play my junior high and high school put on from then on. I had a place.

Wherever Mrs. Stettler is, I would be fairly certain that she has forgotten me. But I hope that her years and years of teaching have been rewarding to her and that she is blessed every day for the good she sent into the world. I could write a list here that spanned another paragraph or two, but their names will mean little. So instead, on this hot, dark night I send out a message asking you to take a moment to remember a teacher who meant the world to you because they showed the world to you. If you can, find a way to actually thank that person instead of just virtually. And if you cannot, then find a 12 year old to be kind to. They really need it.

No Kids for a Day

Funny, isn't it, how easy it is to revert to the life you once knew? I will be without my kids until Saturday evening. You know all those projects you want to get to, but never can? I'm deep cleaning my house and organizing my piles of too much stuff. I rented a chic flick and went out for pizza. Tonight I think I will take a hike and/or go to the temple. I might even go tanning (as long as we are sharing guilty pleasures, that is one of mine).

I'm really supposed to be getting ready to go back to school in a few days, and I suppose I am a little bit, but the freedom to stay up late, and then in turn sleep late is so rare that I can't stop myself from taking advantage of it.

I know that in a day or so I will begin to miss their happy little faces with a sharp ache, but I'm only on day three and I'm not quite there yet. I suppose I should say something self-deprecating here like, "I guess I'm a bad mother." But I don't think I am. I'd like to think that I am typical.

So to all you mothers out there: if you are between little ones (i.e. no nursing infants) find somebody you trust to take the kids for overnight--husband, mother, sister, best friend--and take an overnight trip all by yourself. Shop at the most expensive mall you can find and treat yourself to a wonderful dinner, spend the night at one of those overnight scrapbook lodges with your friends, go to the ballet or a play, sit at a coffee shop all day with a huge hot chocolate and book. Or, send hubby and the kidlets on an overnight trip and then do all those house projects you never can get to. Maybe if we take a little time for ourselves occasionally we will be better mothers on the other end.

Hug a Trucker Day

For reasons too complicated to be worth mentioning, I found myself driving from Denver to Utah by myself today. I left at five o'clock this morning and was making GREAT time. If you have ever driven across Wyoming, you know that there is the slightest sigh of relief as you approach each "city." There is a feeling of having once again safely encountered civilization. I was driving through the dead zone between Laramie and Rawlins (about 100 miles of nothing but windmills and sagebrush) when the unthinkable happened. There was a loud clunk and an chilling scrape coming from under my car.

(Aside--the clunk sounded exactly as if it came from the location where my husband said the muffler seemed it was going bad. PLEASE do not ask why I failed to get the car to a mechanic before the road trip. Suffice it to say that when you own two cars with over 100,000 miles each, you try to only make ONE trip to the mechanic a week. We'd already met our quota.)

I slowed quickly and pulled over to the shoulder, put on the hazards and got on all fours to look at the undercarriage. I would like to say that I didn't swear, but remember, I was alone. The kids are with daddy. The part of the muffler that actually connects to the engine in the center of the chassis was on the ground, smoking hot. Now remember, I am in the middle of the desert, twenty miles from the nearest city. Oh, yeah, and my husband had the cell phone.

My choices were bleak--try to flag somebody down (and end up murdered) or drive, on the shoulder, at about ten miles an hour, all the way to Rawlins so that the sparks from the muffler didn't cause the car to explode. Nice.

Just before utter panic could set in, a semi-truck pulls over to the side of the road and puts on its hazards. I'm thinking, "Okay, maybe I will be murdered before I even get a chance to flag someone down." Sure enough, the truckdriver gets out and begins walking toward me. At least, I think he is a truck driver--he was young, wearing flipflops and abercrombie shorts with a vintage rock tee-shirt. I think I said something really friendly like, "Hey dude, thanks for stopping." Dude?

Well, my car was full of stuff (I was actually moving from Colorado to Utah), some of which belonged to my sister-in-law who is moving to go to college. I guess he thought it was all my stuff because he started chatting me up like a 19-year old coed. Maybe it was just his personality, his friendly, flirtatious banter changed very little when I told him about my husband and two children. Anyway, his suggestion was to take the muffler off completely. Um . . . okay? Before I could really answer, he was under the car yanking at the part that was actually still attached.

Removing the muffler seemed like a better option than being the victim of a violent crime or going down in a fiery inferno, so I agreed by not saying anything. After several minutes, and the use of the leatherman I carry in my purse (I know, McGyver would be proud), there was one more rusty piece of scrap metal on the side of the road in Wyoming.

About mile marker 270 if you are looking for a used muffler . . . .

The drive home was very noisy as there wasn't a shop in Wyoming that could do the fix before FRIDAY. So I just turned up the radio. The result, seven hours in the car later, is a ringing in my ears and head that I hope subsides tomorrow.

Despite my setbacks, I have to say that this day to myself has been very refreshing and unique in the life of a mother. I could stop as often or as seldom as I wanted. And I drove VERY fast. But the best part was singing as loud as I wanted to MY music--Keith Urban, Trisha Yearwood (FOUR albums worth), Matchbox 20, Midnight Oil, Kim Ritchey, Martina McBride, Keith Urban. Oh, yeah, I mentioned him. Well, while we are at it, lets christen today as "Hug a cute Aussie Musician Day" also.

That is enough blogging for my first day; it is actually pretty frightening how easy this is. I have thought for a while about starting one, but I didn't think I had anything interesting to say, and maybe I still don't. Perhaps this message is my feeble attempt to send some kind of thankyou out to Luis the truckdriver from Miami who unwittingly answered a very sincere, foxhole prayer today.