computer has been out of commission until now.

 Something happened to my computer and because I had Ipads I just didn't do anything about it. It turned out it was something super simple and now I am member of the geek squad. When you don't use your computer for 2 years the computer doesn't welcome you back. I am back an so much has happened. So far we've survived Covid19 and Larry had a very bad stroke that if the timing had been any different it would have been fatal. It was in the first two weeks of lockdown and isolation so it was a long lonely road without the children. 

What Am I Feeling?

Not sure what I'm feeling, but a whole hell of a lot of emotion.

A Whole New Christmas

Due to the efforts of our daughters, and our newest daughter, and her husband's combination of airplane miles and generosity, two of our three oldest grandchildren and one boyfriend were able to join us in Illinois for the first time ever all together. It was nothing less than amazing and fun. Larry planned an experience for them at a nearby glass studio and all five of the "kids" got to try hot glass work and each made a paper weight, What an experience, they each have a product and as they left, the glass blower artist gave them each a paper weight from his supply while they waited 20 hours for theirs to anneal.

Right now the adult young uns are enjoying some adventures in Chicago with Leah before they fly home tonight. and grandparents are intermittently  napping and drinking coffee.

Thank you all who made this happen.

The Corpses of Children are not Peaceful

The Corpses of Children are not Peaceful

The corpses of children are not peaceful.

The ones who die of trauma before their time show it

--of illness show it

I avert my eyes but remember anyway

Precious young lives lost--

I can't say this anywhere so I'll say it here in a public privacy of strangers

The corpses of children are not peaceful.

Cancer at 8

Murder at 9

Murder at 2

Refusing insulin at 14

Horrible car accident at 17

The corpses of children are not peaceful.

I avert my eyes but cannot forget

The anger, the pain the battering

On their sweet innocence

The corpses of children are not peaceful.











after several years I decided to publish this poem. 

Goodbye

I'll be saying goodbye to my sister in law of nearly 50 years. She has spent the last decade moving from great disability to complete helplessness from a severe stroke followed by many other health events. A 50 year relationship has ups and downs but at the end, its the good things that stand out. I was happy for her to be free of her broken body, but also am surprisingly sad at her loss. I hope I can say a few words, but not sure I can. We'll see. Larry has lost the last member of his family of birth and it's a very hard thing. I know my own mom was devastated when her last brother died.  I know how odd it felt to me to lose every family member from the previous generation as they took all the answers to ordinary lives with them. Her spirit will be missed even though it seemed so trapped for so long.

I reflect on my very imperfect self at this time as well. She leaves her daughter the last member of her own birth family, our dear niece, Elizabeth whom we have loved forever.

addition. Trudi's visitation and funeral were tremendously healing. Rebecca Z is a fantastic reverend and 6 family members spoke including me. Trudi had a spotify playlist of 53 songs! her final send off was a New Orleans second line, Just a Closer Walk with Thee-- surprising, loud and moving. Members of every kind of family and friends were there-- exes of exes, friends from second grande. family from far and wide. All my children in one place at one time.

A Post for Rick

Ry  and Bob  (Larry's cousin) are all over the DNA  available now. They have done both commercial products. Larry and I only did 23 and Me under duress from Bob. Someone popped up in the DNA matches closer to both Ry and Bob than any other matches. After some memory mining and questioning, it turned out Larry had a thing with a married neighborhood woman who had children. She had another child and she turned out to be Larry's now 53 year old daughter. She lives in the state of Washington and contact was made. She met Ry. We ALL communicated over the winter by phone and face-time and she came to Indiana to visit her family and meet her biological father whom she happily calls Dad.

She's a wonderful woman and has met everyone and met with Ry several times and is definitely taking a big sister role in his life! In the best way. Her name is Mandy  and she grew up i until her senior year then they moved to Texas. She always felt she did not fit in her family. Turns out she had good reason to feel that way and now we have a new treasure in the family.

She and her husband work six months of the year on Antarctica and enjoy the rest of their time in mountain and lakes of the great northwest. She's creative and, except for being very very petite, the family resemblance to all the girls meaning Leah, Rayne, Elizabeth, and Arden, is remarkable. Thats enough for now. Suffice it today she named me her bonus mom and I love it. .

Sometimes FB Doesn't Cover It

Until yesterday, on this earth, I had a cousin I'd only seen a handful of times in my life. She was glamorous to me, beautiful like a movie star. When she and her family returned from Japan I thought she and her little sis were exotic world travelers. The last time I saw her was 40 years ago when my girls were infants. Through the magic of Facebookwe found each other on Facebook and reconnected. Both of us nearing the ends of our careers, mine as a teacher, hers as an animal rescuer who was at every fire, flood, hurricane in these United States. In our time online her husband, Larry died of heart disease, she retired from her work, I retired from mine. She and her sister found and made a home together in northern California to set out on a fun golden time. Just less than a year ago Charlie (Charlisse) was diagnosed with stage 4 bladder cancer I think while she was hospitalized for a kidney stone and a UTI. It was so advanced she chose palliative care only. She was surrounded by so many friends and such a close knit  family all this time and true to her nature, she and Joni went on a trip all over fulfilling a bucket list. Last week there was a photo, very very thin, she continued to post her love and spirit. Two days ago a message from Joni, her little sister and her caretaker, said she had taken over the messages and Charlie was in her last days. Less than 24 hours later to the song Somewhere Over the Rainbow/What a wonderful World she left. Her beloveds are bereft and joyful at the same time.

I had picked up the phone a couple of weeks ago but I already knew she was napping a lot in the afternoon and wasn't able to communicate in the afternoons so I never made that call. I'd wanted to hear her voice one last time. I didn't do it. That I regret. Her choice was brave and she took that choice like the champ at life she was. Farewell to a beautiful lady.

We had laughed because we had aged into our grandmothers face! Quite a surprise!  Both of us Dessies. Both of us surprised.

Update: Her baby sister, Joni, stayed in touch over the next year. I had only seen her as a toddler and a little girl. we shared so much in that time, then after having a horrible accident and over a year recovery and nearly losing her leg, she succumbed to lung cancer at 60. By the tije I tried to talk to he in voice, she was too ill to speak. her daughters and friends surrounded her in great love and she left this earth before the Covid and before the worst fires in her state. Also missed some of the worse of this administration. 

It's been a Year...and another year.

It has been a year since I last posted. social media sucks my brain. This administration has made me sick. Right now we are holed up in the cold, ham and beans on the stove, clothes flipping around in the dryer. I go five days a week to the aquatic center to volunteer with the teaching of every kindergartner in my county to swim. At this point I have crocheted nearly 70 hats, losing count, for those undergoing chemotherapy and 22 preemie hats to help keep me from focusing on the insanity from the top office in the land, once maybe the top office in the world, but we are quickly shrinking and the UN has discovered the third world that exists in these united states. It has been a hell of a first year of retirement and I do not feel safe. I thought I collected enough of a nest egg to "make it to the end" we'll see.
  I must have written this about a year ago, add 25 pounds of fear to my weight, that's where we are now.


There is a blessing in 2018. Mandy.

Heartfelt

It used to be the sound of a pop top on a can, now it is the opening and shutting of the kitchen door, the opening and shutting of the kitchen door, the opening and shutting of the kitchen door. I can't speak my anger and fear, so I'll write it. Seven years ago on an extremely cold MLK Jr. weekend, Larry was sent home with orders to not empty his truck and to stay inside while we wait 4 long horrible days until open heart surgery. I stood in the room while the docs looked at the immense blockages and could not understand why there was no pain--their mouths agape at the arteries dysfunction. Quintuple bypass.

The sounds I mentioned are the sounds to me of impending death. Maybe I'll leave it there.

Where Can I Write This?

I sat with Larry's aunt and cousin while she received the truth about pancreatic cancer. My mom's last diagnosis was pancreatic cancer after 30 years of many other illnesses. Uncle Jimmy is in the hospital with his own life threatening bout of pneumonia, and abscess in his lung and many other illnesses. This couple was only apart for about a week one time for their great nieces wedding in all their years together. Jimmy is devastated at Barb's illness. Tracy is an only child and all this falls on her shoulders as she supports her own little family.

I want to say the doctor was the kindest, gentlest, honest and careful presenter of the situation I could ever imagine or want. He was direct but kind. Barb has a lot to think about how she wants her last few months to be. But I'm sitting there knowing mom was given a few months and lived a week. Barb and Jim are so connected I don't even think they can live without each other. Tracy is also in charge of her 100 year old grandmother and lost her home and almost her child in a horrific fire a year ago.

I cannot even recall how my mom was told of her diagnosis-- was I even there? I picked her up and took her home. She told me this was it, she was too tired to go on. and she was. Mom and I had this little "game" after a serious bout of anything, is this it, mom? No, this isn't it. and she would snap back to her perky feisty self, she was given two or three months, she went home to hospice, I went home, my brother and sister were there, there was plenty of time, She died before the hospice nurse arrived. I was there for the flushing of the brand new pain meds down the toilet and into the water system so they could not be misused or stolen. She had just looked around at all her pictures everywhere around her, closed her eyes and left us. So quick I missed it.

Since I wrote this, Aunt Barbara has chosen to go with pain medication only. It does not change the outcome of one of the most vicious cancers we experience.

Childhood Home Revisited

My mom was way out there when she painted my last childhood home yellow instead of the ubiquitous white. She climbed a ladder to the highest peak of the house and did it all herself. That end of the house was two full stories high. Over 50 years later and sort of in her honor, I have re-sided my nest with yellow siding and white trim. It looks so sweet as I drive down the street. This is our retirement home and it looks nice. I might have to rake even. make the yard look nice, too. My next closest sister hated the yellow house, evidently she was very sensitive to the fact that EVERYONE else had white. Now...her house is yellow, too. My windows are tight and should keep out the cold winter winds.We should be quite cozy,

Helluva Dean-- I am retired so I am putting this on my blog now- doesn't matter any more

  We had a really screwy year with a principal and assistant principal shared between two schools. The principal has a penchant for long rambling meetings of apology with maybe one necessary fact in the miserable hour or more. I had finally lifted my head to hope for a better year. We hadn't lost any teachers, no one retired, our family was nearly complete except for our beloved secretary who is battling one of the most aggressive cancers I have ever heard of. We worked together as we always do to carry on and educate and not let the upheaval and grief interfere with our teaching.  We have a wonderful dean who is strict and supports a teacher when warranted.  She also has a way of getting to the bottom of a story and I totally trust her judgement.  She has never left me blowing in the wind. She does unknown numbers of wonderful things for our students and their families among others, unspoken, un-thanked, unknown. We got to the last day and were told we were losing no one, sigh of relief.  Then, yesterday, she was told she was no longer needed at our school. Teachers on summer break having just been lied to again. I have cried and yelled and slammed my hand on the seats of my car in anger and one more loss for the year.  She does a fundraiser for March of Dimes and our kids, the poorest in the city, have always raised more money than any other school and over the 12 or so years she has planned and pulled this off, she has raised $40,000.00. As the person who does discipline, kids don't always even like her-- little do many of them know she has fed them and kept their utilities on. She is a kind person who lives her beliefs, she doesn't tell us that she has these beliefs she just lives them quietly. I will probably keep this rant quiet.(addendum) The superintendent stepped in and kept her in place for one more year.

  2 years have passed since I wrote that first paragraph, that same principal ran out our dean and then he was removed and replaced by someone who doesn't believe in us or our students. We have completed 3 years of chaos in administration, and now my school, the one that has been so beloved that teachers do not leave and teachers all over the corporation stand in line to move here, the middle school where many great subs have had us as their only middle school has started to "churn".  We may have 30% or more different teachers next year-- an un-supportive dean stays on for some reason-- and subs have refused to come back in to our building. I may end up being the only remaining person on my team due to extreme unhappiness. If this turns out to be true, I foresee one last year of teaching for me when I expected at least 3 more years.

The irony of the new permissiveness in the building is that some of our very "worst kids" have said "If only Dr. K were here, it wouldn't be like this." She is off HAPPILY teaching and looks 10 years younger. She put in 12 hour days or more at the dean's job. Our current dean leaves before 4. Doesn't write shit down.

It has been another year-- The churn is complete, only 7 long time people left, a sea of new people, a horrible experiment call A-team, a discipline class per grade level with no discipline-- and now a terrific new principal who brought her amazing social worker with her and went right to work returning us to a family, just almost none of my family left. All of our worthless experienced people went to high school or other middle schools with better grades... (by the way, they were snapped up) And I am the only person left of my team! all others are in their first year and two in their second.We are in our second year with a long term sub in 8th grade science because a licensed science teacher/SpEd teacher wasn't allowed the lateral move. Our students have suffered from this. She went to the highest performing middle school in the corporation and is very happy there, teaching science.

This principal has to operate under strict state guidelines for our grants that have brought us many extra new hands and she has reestablished a discipline system that is working much better than the past 2 years of kids rule. The DOE has made a pressure cooker that is causing so much stress, I wonder how much more BP medicine is being taken in the building? just a thought. Maybe we can relax a little and enjoy our work and colleagues after Monday.

2016 addition to this post: I retired, only 5 original people left, the family spirit is gone, hope they finally pick someone who is committed to our kids, our school and our staff. My former school is a churning mess, what someone wanted, not sure exactly who.

Barnes and Noble Clerk/Cashier

The charming clerk at the Champaign B&N not only talked me into a new membership, she talked me into writing a blog post! hope she finds this. I was so discombobulated I couldn't even think of the name of my blog! She found my selection of reading materials interesting. We had a great little conversation, and here I will tell her to look back in the archives, I haven't been very interesting since I got on twitter! I think it was my magazines, one called Bitch, and one called Mindfulness. (and then there were the children's books)  Katie Schwartz, did you know there's a magazine called Bitch? I didn't.

There is a lot about retiring that I am enjoying. so many lunches and breakfasts with friends. Volunteering at the aquatic center with the kindergartners, Being at my grandsons' beck and call. And, believe it or not I often sleep until 6:30 or 7. I stay up too late and iPad games interfere with my reading and sleeping. Sometimes I take a nap. That could also interfere with my sleep! BORING! Soon I will get the wind in my sails and figure out my journey. Right now I am still adjusting to a year without my own students and my own classroom. Kindergartners are good replacements.

Starting Retirement

Yesterday my first pension check went into my account, followed by my social security check. That makes retirement more real. I am spending this summer exercising, socializing and making room for myself in this house. I am also making this house water and weather tight. I have had reasons to feel really good about the new roof already this summer. We have had massive downpours and leaking would definitely have occurred. Next week is the next big thing.

My new knees have done a Yeoman's job of the making room part AND the exercising part! I am getting stronger every single day! I won't know until August how my psyche will really feel, but right now I am having a rather nice summer vacation. If I weren't retired I'd already be looking forward to going back to school.

I am organizing the art supplies I have been stockpiling for this retirement thing and making a space that doesn't embarrass me to have daughters and grands over. It's all good.

Lovely Day for a Memorial

Witnessed 2 parents say goodbye, their final public goodbye to their daughter. The mother is a colleague of mine and a long time customer of Larry's, also very involved in art locally. I felt like saying something but fb seemed too public. Sara was so brave and composed as she presented her daughter's life to us in the Indiana Theater. The dad, David also spoke. I don't know how they did it, they got through without breaking down and I put myself in their shoes. I think I could not do it.

I can't think of anything more crushing than to lose your only child out of season- all of her organs, even her heart which stopped in her- have saved 6 people. What a miracle to have the wherewithal, the young groom, the parents, to follow this girl's wishes and donate. All in all it was a moving, heart-wrenching day.

Difficult but It's Time

After much thinking, wrestling, waffling back and forth I finally made the decision to retire. It helps that my building has turned into a turn-over building, which for decades it was not. Teachers came, loved it and stayed. After having one administrator who seemed to have the assignment of getting rid of teachers with experience and fond memories of the deep deep family bonds in our school, not just among colleagues, but teachers and students, and that first massive turnover that was not from natural death or retirement-- my school became a school that loses half its staff in a year. It appears that it will happen again. Many of our new people are permanent subs making little and I expect that will get worse before it gets better. People who chose to leave were called dead wood by someone I respected so much, only to be snapped up faster than they could anticipate by other schools in our same corporation. It appears that, even though our discipline has improved so much that students and teachers feel safe again, we are still going to lose big chunks of entire teams. This is the cost of being at the bottom of the barrel in scores in Indiana. Our DOE rep loves us and says we are years ahead of other F and D school in the state--but the pressure brought to bear on the core teachers is too much. I am not a core teacher and have not been for at least a dozen years. I am so happy in my art room, but unhappiness leaks over on to me. I was a late comer to teaching and just hoped I could meet the rule of 85, I am 3 years past that and will almost make it to my goal of teaching until I am 70! Teaching has been a calling for me and my heart has been broken so many times as I watch this calling/career path be destroyed by politics and turned into a job that a family will never be able to climb a ladder to success in. I have young teacher friends who have not had a raise since they began 7 or 8 years ago and, with the steps gone, the union gutted, may be better off moving on to Walmart-- or the corner quick mart. All this makes me finally able to commit to the end of my career in public education. I think I still have time and health to explore my own art, be a wonderful grandmother, take classe, teach a class or 2--  I entered teaching at a time when a person could live nicely and educate their children. That may be gone. Please come back.

I do meet young people, though not many, who want to be teachers, and I don't discourage them. I am convinced that big guv will see the error of their ways and teaching will be both a calling and a way for a family to live, a career path commensurate with the education teachers have once again. The million dollar committees called to figure out why we are losing teachers (any teacher can answer this at no cost) may bring back some of what is missing from the path I chose. Of course, I also clung to tech stocks, I really didn't believe they could fail!  The pendulum must swing, right?

When I signed the paper, I sobbed--24 hours later I was fine (I think).

I have made my decision

June 31 is my last contracted day of my 23 year career-- I have moved past tears, I hope, and on to looking towards a future filled with forms of art and grand boys' activities. I have started making small efforts at purging in my house. I have been getting rid of unnecessary clothes, I just have too many, books, I have too many, and kitchen items, I have too many. I have loved my teaching career and have not wanted to end it. I started late so it is much shorter than the careers of other boomers. I may have been able to save and secure a safe retirement for myself and my husband, I am proud of that.

I had a visit last week from one of my first art students who is now finishing her MFA and teaching university classes. Her art is wild and free! love it and found it so moving and so validating.

I hope a very good person much better than myself will take my place. After 2 years in the horrible discipline of a previous principal, our school is climbing back to safety for students
AND teachers. That makes it easier to leave.

Time Goes By, the Knees Heal

It's been ages since I posted. My newest knee is coming along very well after its hematoma(giant blood filled bruise) --a second surgery to clean that up and to get an errant vein to stop dripping-- It set my physical therapy WAY back and I ran out of physical therapy for the year. There has been zero response to my letter asking for a dozen more sessions. I got to 120* though and at school I catch myself just zooming around, I can go up and down the stairs with NO HANDS!! not fast but I can do it thoughtfully! I can walk an exercise mile easily, but I have not yet done 2 miles. Stiffness comes with weather changes. I forgot, there was a third surgery to manipulate the knee out of its scar tissue and to remove the deeply caught stitches from the hematoma repair. Yeah, since October of last year I had 6 general anesthetics! It's a wonder I have any brain cells left. During my recovery I was able to see the entire run of Judging Amy, the show holds up.

  I do find myself thinking more and more of retirement, but not because my body is failing, more because the pressure on teachers is becoming so great that I am starting to feel it deeply back in the art's hallway where we are the third world country of education. We have a great new principal, but the dealings with the state for our grants and low grade are all-encompassing. I have seen excellent, solid, creative, experienced teachers in tears. I have seen first and second years high tail it out of education for the horrible treatment and low pay for life they now suffer from. 2 anti-public ed govs in a row and really, three presidents of both parties-- the career has become menial and the abuse unbelievable. I am sure education will rise again and teaching will return to a career path, hope there are people left with the desire when we get through this period.

This was supposed to be about my knees. oops.

8 Weeks into Second Knee Replacement

The right knee has been tougher to deal with. I had a hematoma on top of the knee and at about 3 or 4 weeks out, I had to have a second surgery to clean that out and find the cause. I had a large vein in an unusual spot that was seeping. I ruined my surgeons perfect record of 19 years! It was a stubborn vein and took several cauterizings and he stitched it 4 times to make sure it held., then he stitched the incision he had to make in my original incision. That turned out to be a grueling painful stitch removal. ouch. ouch. ouch. I am back to full strength physical therapy (PT) and back to progressing with the bend and stretch. I have taken more pain meds with this knee than the first one, The knee swelling up full of blood is rather uncomfortable. School starts in less than 2 weeks and I needed this whole time to recover. I haven't been sitting at the computer long enough to write about this second experience. I have been moodier, lonelier and crankier this time! I have also had lots of good times with friends. It has been an emotional roller coaster of a summer.

This has been a heck of a medical year, early fall I had my cataracts removed, one eye at a time, then the week before Thanksgiving I had the first knee replacement, June 11, I had the second knee replacement. everything is good and I expect a healthy year ahead! I wanted all this done before retirement and it is done.I am pretty bionic right now, in my purse I have a separate ID card for each eye and one for the left knee. The right knee ID card should come soon. looking forward to that.

It Has Been Seven Months

I am prepping for my second knee replacement which will take place next Wednesday. I am excited rather than apprehensive-- already planning my recovery and I know what to expect. A nurse I call "mine" is going to be on duty and I already told the rehab professionals I had last time I want them again so I am ready to rock the newest knee. It has been amazing how much better I have felt with only one bad knee I can walk fast, stand a lot longer and just so many good things that sneak up on me and I think wow! that's new. Occasionally I would catch myself walking at the speed I needed for my old knee, it is a habit of years, then I would speed up.

This last week of packing up my classroom and getting it ready for what might possibly be my last year of teaching did let me know that I really do need this surgery. It was a rough year with a style of discipline in our building that does not work for our students, we are getting another new principal that I know and respect and love as a parent of 3 of my former students. I hear she is tough, but I do my job and if you do  your job--why worry. I know it will be tough to overcome the laxity of the past two years but I also know she can do it.  She took an alternative school into hand an turned it around. She'll do the same for us. We have had three principal changes in 4 years and churning of teachers in one of the most stable schools in the city. We are churning again this year, though some have thought about staying to give our next principal a chance.

I had become almost positive I mean 100% positive that this would be my last year in my career, it had become so miserable in some ways, now, I don't know, I could be revitalized mentally as well as physically. Onward and upward, If I retire I can go to ISU for $5 a class.. I could go to the grand kids any time of the week or year... there's that.