songspinner

Very proud of my kid, who got nominated for a Queer Youth Leadership Award for our county. Proud that they felt comfortable enough to explain that (though everything) to my parents who were visiting. Proud of the work my kiddo is doing as a volunteer, raising money for our local Diversity Center, speaking on panels at local schools (middle schools, high schools, colleges, and counseling centers) to train folks and answer questions/counter a lot of misinformation and myths.

Excited to share with my 6th period ELD class that the author of the book we've just finished reading in class tweeted me back a heart emoji upon hearing that my students enjoyed reading her book! (G. Willow Wilson, author of "Ms. Marvel")

Stressed out about hockey playoffs but enjoying the intense displays of skill (and occasionally yelling at the refs on my tv or computer screen when necessary). In case anyone is wondering: rooting for the Pittsburgh Penguins, San Jose Sharks (my local boys), and Vegas Golden Knights.

A little heartsick about my parents' visit right now. My mom, who wrote a cookbook for families dealing with food allergies, bought non-organic strawberries (I am extremely allergic to pesticides, since birth), bought two things for tonight's recipe without noticing that the labels listed things I and/or her grandchild can't have, and then (knowing I can't really eat much onion without stomach problems) was going to use around half a large onion in the dish she was cooking. My kid caught that one and quietly made half of the onion disappear before putting the rest into the recipe. I just worry a lot right now. Mom's overwhelmed from caring for my father whose aging has accelerated due to cancer treatments. I can't tell what is just exhaustion and being stressed out, or if she's really having problems with memory. My sister even suggested that our mom not go with us to Mayo Clinic if we end up going back, since our mom is starting to mix up which of us has which chronic illness issues. I know this is part of having aging parents, but seeing it happen to someone who was a Freedom Rider and is a lifetime civil rights activist, who was a pioneer in school technology use nationwide/internationally, who taught courses in both high schools and a medical school...it's hard. And I don't know at what point we'll have to say something, or take any actions.

Been a while, DW peeps! (sorry - tired and punchy)

Happy Coming Out Day to those participating, and love to those who either can't due to risk or okay with not doing it. If you are a newer follower of my blog, I guess this is me coming out. 🙄

I had the oddest experience today wearing my Bi-Pride button at work - my assistant principal knows I'm bi, and so do several of my colleagues that I trusted over the last several years enough to tell. But since I'm starting as the advisor of the middle school's QSA (aka the Equality Club) on Friday, I needed the kids who recognized the colors to see it and know I'm a safe person and I'm part of their community. I already know we have at least three trans kids on campus who've trusted teachers and our counselor, and a whole bunch of kids who are great allies and want to learn how to do more. No adults said anything about the button, but I did catch at least two people glance at it and then almost comically drop their eyes from it like they weren't sure they could say anything. So it was a very quiet coming out day for me; my kiddo was doing volunteer work with our local LGBTQ+ diversity center by manning a booth at the community college health fair and then running the front desk as an intern for the center for a bit in the afternoon.

Parents are up in my hometown in an area of northern CA that is between areas in danger, but there's a lot of smoke both there and around here right now. Some family evacuated, all are safe. One member of our extended family ended up with their house safe and now the water on their property is being used to fight the fire, and another's parents lost their home and had to be rescued when the route out was blocked by that fire. Really scary.

I am going to go have dinner now, and get my early Byzantine Roman garb out of the costume trunk (well, one of the trunks - and this is the costume my husband did most of the sewing on because he had better costuming teachers in college) and get it ready for the history lesson tomorrow.

I spent an hour standing on a beach today watching grey whales swim around and humpback whales feed on anchovies in the harbor mouth, along with harbor seals, sea lions, pelicans, two types of gulls, cormorants, and terns. Seeing these huge backs, fins, and tails break the surface in what seems like slow motion is just awe inspiring, and then when the whales were lunge feeding and you'd see these huge mouths open and then sink back down...also, it was adorable to see the mother/calf pairs, with one big spout and then one littler spout, one big back and then one smaller one just next to it. SO glad we tried to do this today, along with all the other excited people out on the beach and jetty. And SO glad that I live near the Monterey Bay.

My daughter on the right there is steampunk, female classic-Hawkeye from Marvel Comics and I am a steampunk, female Coulson from the Avengers. And that is Phil(ippa)'s "finger of doom" from the new S.H.I.E.L.D. show...if the angle was better here, you would see all the stuff hanging from my belt and the purple H on her hat...you can, however, see her quiver of trick arrows and the antique copy of Sherlock Holmes I'm apparently checking...We're not sure what Hawkeye did to get in trouble this time, but I'm reasonable sure Philippa is used to it. :)

Just sort of stunned here in Santa Cruz, and yet resigned and angry, too. Not how I want my city to be on CNN. This is the second gun-related deadly crime within several blocks of my house in a year, roughly, and both gunmen had a record of violence and sexual assault. This time, because records are not shared between states in the US, our police force did not know that this man had three guns on the property and that violent history. Would it have prevented the deaths of the two police detectives? I do not know. But we spent the late afternoon and evening behind locked doors, listening to the helicopters circling from our house and watching the news updates. Scary stuff. Our local sheriff's department is being very cool and taking over local patrols while while the SCPD mourns and tries to begin ghte process of recovry.

And this on the heels of a whole series of local, very serious crimes during the past few weeks. And one of our students had a relative killed by a gun last week just after a local teenager was also killed at a local high school event. The phrase "enough already" seems too mild. And for irony, this was at the same time an anti-gun violence rally was about to start downtown...

Ugh. Alarms and all again and back to school on Monday. I spent today trying to get my classroom ready, and still have to do some stuff at home this weekend before Monday morning. Sigh. An of course it's my classroom tech that's not working properly today, so part of my weekend will be rearranging lesson plans for the first day in case I don't figure it out by then. Excited to meet my kids for this year, though! I sometimes wonder about my school district, though...my classroom budget turned out to be $303...and 3?! How on earth did they get that extra $3?

My daughter's Celtic Music Camp concert to end the two weeks of classes is tomorrow, so that'll be fun. I have to cobble together a Viking costume tonight, as apparently that's the theme for this year's camp. :) And since it's my kid, she wants close to historically accurate.

I got cards! Thank you to piplover and zylven...at least one of the cards was cute enough that it was promptly claimed by my daughter to post on her bedroom wall.
We're sending out cards out this week, I promise! (a bit slow this year, sorry 'bout that...our rule is that if we get them in the mail before New Years, then we're doing pretty well ;)

It's nice having family nearby for a few days - went shopping with my little sister for a bit
today downtown, which was fun. And while we did that, my husband and dad got to watch the football game with someone who actually cared about it.

Off to get some gluten and dairy-free pizza started in the kitchen...and then the episodes of Sanctuary and Eureka that we taped last night.

Fun yesterday - Free Comic Books Day! So my daughter and I went downtown and got autographs by comics/graphic novel artists at two stores...one Marvel artist and a team of guys from Italy who did a great children's series. The funny part was that some of my students were doing a math competition yesterday and ran into us with their teacher downtown. They all had that "woah- a teacher in her natural habitat" expression, otherwise known as "my teacher has a family and a life?!". Heh...
The boys didn't care about the free comics, but the girls sure did!

Spent the morning gardening, which I can feel in every muscle today. There's a great plant sale every Mothers' Day weekend at a local college, and so we picked up some nice native plants...

Wandered (as usual when I get to Whole Foods) to the Goodwill bookstore and discovered that someone had brought in boxes of comic books. :) So I called my daughter and suggested she and her father wander by on the way home and meet me...and she ended up with 9 Doctor Who comics. :) 6 from us and she paid us back for 3. Nice.

Had a marvelous time today with this year's history classes doing a "tea party" to review for the test on ancient Japan. Watching some of them follow the directions for proper bowing, try chopsticks for the first time with their classmates' help to pic up edamame (soy) beans, and try green tea (decaf, 'cause I'm not an idiot!) was fun, and then a few of them showed off their origami skills. I think one of the boys just totally impressed a whole passel of girls today!

And it's a good thing some of them volunteered for set up and clean up because my back is a mess and there's no way I could lift things or get down on the floor and then back up. Sigh. X-rays of that shoulder yesterday, so I'll see what happens. And I finally found an anti-inflammatory I can probably take, so it's on its way by mail, darn it. Because this hurts. If x-rays don't show anything, I think I'll ask about MRI's of both shoulders, since I'm pretty sure they shouldn't make those noises. If something's up with joints, I need to know. So it's cold packs, NCIS and White Collar, and entering grades into the computer tonight...

I chose that icon 'cause it's what I'm being sure to buy at Farmers' Market this week... :)

Back in our house again after a week of staying at my parents' place...our hot water heater died spectacularly and we had no hot water, so we needed a place to stay where we could take showers, etc. So now it's been replaced and things fixed (including the problem with the pressure valve that made things worse = $500 more...yikes). Glad to be in my own bed again at night.

My daughter went to her first middle school dance (a friend who is a boy asked her to come to his school dance and she got to go see all her friends from that school). There was *slow dancing* according to her, which was funny, apparently, when you're almost 11, and doubly so as the person she danced slowly with was really tall and she had to stand on tiptoe. :) That brought back some memories... They had a lot of fun and mostly just hung out and dance in big groups. It's just hard to believe she's old enough to go to dances!

I'm off to rehearsal now...time to sing...