It Still Adds Up. Nothing Like Hearing From a Student of Yesteryear with an Update of Where They Are Now

It's even better when it is a Math student (because I really have no business mentoring the mathematical minds, especially since I finished my math days in high school after getting a perfect score on the NYS Regents). I moved to literacy because, well, I like language and stories. Still, I get students from time to time in Explorations (an introductory course) who also come back around in Philosophy (when it needs to be covered) and often in Content Literacy. For the last few years, I've also had students in Research and Capstone while I fill all the leaking holes in a dam that has always been collapsing. 

Julie was one of my students...quiet at first...apprehensive...nervous, I suppose, but always hard-working and brilliant. She went into the Math Department, excelled there, finished our program and became certified in New York. She reached out to say she's been teaching for a few years on Long Island, but she's really interested in getting cross-endorsed in English as a change of pace. In her words, "I love teaching, especially the students, but I realize I also miss learning. I love being a student more." 

Of course, I also encouraged her to think about Ph.D programs, as it's a good fit for lifelong leaners who also enjoy working with K-12 schools. We know the work never ends, and we find drive and purpose in accomplishing it all.

Yesterday, I got up at 6 a.m. to start grading. I didn't get to it until 2 p.m., however, because of email and text demands. The work comes at ya in stereo. Graduate projects take a long time to work through, especially when you're trying to stay accountable to accrediting bodies (which I hate doing, but when in Rome). I'm hoping I'll find more success today and know I will definitely find it on Saturday with a high of 50 and rain all day (why must it rain on the weekend?). 

Time to wipe this morning yawn away and get to work. I'm getting there...slowly but sure...it will get done. 

Took an Evening Break to Cheer on Phoebe Yeh's Celebration of Somani Chainini's YOUNG WORLD @PossibleFutures in New Haven

I first read Somani Chainini's talents as a writer in his short story contributed to Ellen Oh's Flying Lessons and Other Stories (having the pleasure to dine with him at a Penguin Random House middle grade event at NCTE. His The School for Good & Evil was his claim to fame at the time and now he's debuting Young World this week. Thanks to Phoebe Yeh, I've had an advance reader copy for some time. I was delighted to get an invite from Lauren Anderson of Possible Futures Books in New Haven a few weeks ago when she was working with a few schools on the launch of the new book.

I love that his work here is trying to promote the agency of young people to get involved, to pay attention, to push their own storying in the storying of political nations, and to look for a way to make a better world where adults have set them up for the uglier side of...well, politics. Chainini's book is explosive and new, fusing multimodal textual communication within its narration (what he described as the self-(un)aware exploration of a teenage boy's notebooks. I was thrilled to get autographed copies for several of my student teachers completing their placements this Spring (we celebrate on Monday night).

It was an intimate, youth-engaged evening which easily became a great excuse to keep me from grading after a day of meetings which also distracted me from doing the work I should be prioritizing. 

Possible Futures is a one-of-a-kind bookstore and I'm so glad I have the New Haven connection (I wonder how the Harvard-educated writer felt about being in Yale-territory). Perhaps that might be another novel one day. 

The sun is returning to CT today, and although I planned yesterday's rainy day to be an indoor assessment event, I know I will be spending most of today catching up on what I didn't achieve yesterday.

Here's to teachers, the youth reading books in their care, and bookstore owners who make things happen. 

The Ballad of Butch: a Romance Story of Lawnmowers, Neighbors, a Conversation, and the Quest for a Sherburne-New York Pitchfork

As a teenager, I always thought my father was fueled by the once-a-year pitch-forking of the best lawn in Sherburne, New York. I think my grandpa Ken got it once and my father showed tremendous pride of that achievement. So, as a kid who had to mow the lawn every day in childhood, I always assumed it was a fetish for my father to land a similar garden took in his own yard. If you fertilize enough, water enough, and mow every day, people will notice. This was before his riding lawnmower. In my time, I had the push mower and I learned early to stay ahead of it before getting yelled at for not doing the daily cut. It was obsessive, it was bizarre, but it was his rules. It offered more time for him to play with Karl, his platonic best friend next store. They were inseparable and the wives were infuriated with them at all times.

Fast forward, car keys taken away, Karl moved to another state, vascular dementia, and age...well, the one thing my father still fixates on is the daily mowing of the lawn. It's not easy, especially with all the miles he's put on that rider to Chubby's and back (plus tours of the neighborhood). I think it's been replace multiple times. It's a manic fixation, routine, and source of conversation since we moved on to Amalfi Drive. It's just now he does it wearing my mother's winter clothes and a Saucony winter cap when it's 78 degrees out. He's also taken to sitting in the middle of the lawn, displaying not only his lawnmowers, but his snowblower, too. What is most fascinating is he turns his lawn chair to stair at the house where Karl used to live. 

I imagine these were his most joyous years and he's trying to lure Karl back to CNY to discuss, well, his obsessive lawn mowing. Cynde sent me a photo a coupe of days ago and I can't stop thinking about it.

The lawn looks beautifully green. It's always been plush and the envy of many, as it is like a carpet. Strange, however, is that he denies that he mows every day, says he doesn't bring his machines outside to park for others to see, and refuses to acknowledge the nonstop mowing. 

We've held the belief, "Whatever makes him happy," and besides Karl and their years of beer-drinking and talking smack, I can't say anything else ever did make him happy. Maybe chain-smoking Lucky Strikes, but those days ended around the time the keys were taken away. 

It is a topic of frustration for most, as it has been for years, but I can't get over how nice the lawn continues to look. I'm choosing to focus on that, knowing all this is sad and somewhat overwhelming. Age is cruel, indeed.

Sometimes the Retirement Parties Come as a Bigger Shock to the System, as This Year Will Be Once Again For Me.

Phew. So many mentored me and helped me to understand the insanity is normal. It's how you process it. David Zera, Tracey Robert, Ginny Kelly, Pat Calderwood, Diana Hulse, Wendy Kohli, Barbara Wells-Nystrom, and now Anne Campbell. Remnants of yesterday....leaders trying to hold the work together in the best ways they knew how. 

Yes, yesterday was a celebration for Dr. Anne Campbell who is leaving her leadership of TESOL and her irreplaceable work for the Dean's Office, certification, and English Language Learners in the State. Always kind. Always funny. Always working tirelessly behind the scenes getting the work done, and always pulling out the daggers and darts thrown at her back (which is what happens as one finds success). 

It was a great turn out for the retirement gathering and it was wonderful to see so many mentors returning in support of her accomplishment. I always tell people when they go that I don't reach out because I want them completely FREE from the crazy. LIVE. LOVE. LAUGH beyond the chaos that is our work. I think the hard part of watching so many retire is to realize the new responsibilities you have to maintain a semblance of sanity with all the new people brought in and arriving....one by one, as they realize the reality of higher education, they too will need mentoring to keep their own healthy mindset.

It's hard.

I snapped a lot of photos yesterday, but this one turned out best and I was happy that the lighting worked. It was sort of surreal to know that is used to be a normal photo for the occasion, but it's been years since I've seen these three together. So many stories. So much mischief. A whole bunch of crazy. And always advice of, "if you want to survive here...this is what you need to do....."

...this is what I need to share with my own junior colleagues. Next year, I'll be the last standing member of ESTP from the days of when I was hired. There have been numerous shifts, tremendous overhauls, and definitely an overload of wonky (or PTSD, depending on how you look at it). 

Losing Anne will be tough, as she's the one I make eye contact with, talk to on weekends, and try to problem solve the bonkers with. All my best students have always come from her program and, in a way, it feels that a guardian angel is flying away. 

She deserves the best and I'm happy for her. I'm just biting my nails with worry for who I'll go to now. 

Eeks. 

Stealing Rico's Thunder for His Doggy-Day Care Prom Next Week. Hey, I'm Feel Like Celebrating the End-of-the-Season, Too...007 Style

I didn't completely gut out the shed for Spring cleaning and patio recovery, but I did get a good start. The most important part is that the grill is working, although I needed to clean it, repair a few parts, and pray that it will get me through another season. It's one thing when the house is full, life is in stereo, and company is the norm, but another things when the days are quieter. I've always had room for 14 on the back porch. I'm thinking a table for 4 will suffice. I also know the wood of the deck should be replaced, but with a rug atop of it, it still holds up....so who cares?  We shall see what will come from the rest of it. I am looking forward to handing the lights, too. They make the backyard that much nicer. Right now it is cool, so being out back is very enjoyable. 

I got to thinking that I never once built a fire last summer. It never presented itself in such a way, as the Adirondack chairs collapsed, the boys weren't home, and visitors were few. I have wood stacked up from two years that needs to be lit up. 

I did get some annuals for the outdoor pots, and soil to replant indoor plants that aren't doing very well. They need new soil. I mowed the lawn, need to trim the edges, and have to figure out a plan of action for the dry patches (grubs? moles? what is it?). I also think I want to put in another row of blueberry plants as they harvest better when there are more to cross-pollinate with.

Pam got a costume for Rico as his doggy-day-care has prompt this week. I tried it on and it fit rather well. 

I have been checking off the projects as they come in, knowing the next three days will be a bonanza. I love to say "check, check, check," at the end so I know I'm finally finished with the all encompassing campus life and school year. The end of the semester means I can concentrate on my other two jobs: CWP Director and CWP Administrative Assistant. It's nice not to have the meetings, service, and teaching responsibilities of the regular academic year.

Okay, Monday. Last department meeting and a retirement party. We got this...and I hope it stays nice and cool, as I slowly think about summering the outside of my home.

At least the lawn got mowed. 

Found Time to Make the Juleps After Ania's 1-Year Old Birthday Party in Ansonia and the Kid-Fest

Holy little humans, Batman. The "cuzzies" of the Kelly/Saad families keep multiplying and they are toddler-centric these days. Little diapered warblers screaming at the tops of their longs while pushing each other to steal balloons. They can hit notes that I didn't realize were humanly possible...I kept expecting glass to break, but it was pure joy for the kids running around and the dads standing at the bar taking time off. I sat with Noel and enjoyed my fish. I'm not sure how they baked it, but it coupled well with the carrot /apple salad. I avoided booze.

Then, getting home about five I remembered I made mint julep for Derby and just needed a home to go to pour a few glasses. We ended up and Pam's and Leo, Bev, and I enjoyed our drinks even if we didn't be this year, the crowd was small, and the hype low-key. Even so, Golden Tempo set the tempo with the come-from-behind-wind. Amazing spring in the end and congratulations to Cherie DeVaux, first female trainer to be able to claim the Derby victory.

My lawn needs to be mowed again (I'm like JEEPERS) and I need to plot ahead for soil therapy in the next week, as making excused to avoid campus and transplant perennials makes me much happier. I'm ready to get my patio set up, my chimes back in the air, and the clippers out to prune. It's a better temperature now, before the hotter days arrive.

I'm awaiting work to slowly come in, as I'm already caught up. It comes in, I get to it immediately as I want to move on. I also know it's recommendation season, so I'll be writing all those letters, too. They come at ya in stereo. 

Finally, I don't know if I have gas, but I did make chicken to barbecue and I'm ready to hit the grilling season again. Life is so much easier when I can hop out back to cook. Okay, Sunday....come what will. I'm ready. 

Karal Wants Everyone to Know It's Grading Season, so She Can Be Found Perched on the Shoulders of Her Dad as He Reads & Assesses

There is plenty of room for Karal all over the house but she insists on being atop her dad. As I shift into the grading chair, she maneuvers across my shoulders, often climbing on tables she should be on (she's such a goat) before sneaking across my back. This is a behavior she's done ever since she was a puppy. 

Yesterday was beautiful, although cold, and I made myself stay inside to grade, until I took Karal for a walk. I want to feel as if I'm sort-of caught up for a change. 

Talked to mom a couple of times and learned about Ted & Amy's advice column about the saga of Butch and Karl...a love story. She wants to know who told them (crazy how those every day days are so far in the past now). 

Kaitlyn's 2nd born, Ania, turned 1 last week so we're heading to Ansonia for a party. I also made mint julep in case anyone wants to gather for the Kentucky Derby. It's supposed to rain all day so I imagine most nutmeggers will be miserable. 

As it's a Friday at the end of the semester when the Kryptonite has me by the throat, there's not much more to write about. Grading is pretty lame, after all. It just feels so good when it is all done.