Adventurous April

Tuesday, February 14, 2012

Family Traditions - Bow Wow Wow!

We all have interesting "traditions" in our families that haven't got thing one to do with holidays.  I look on them as the quirkier aspects of our humanity - but they're certainly a lot of fun.  I was thinking about those traditions today while our family was watching -


This tradition was started by my dad when he found himself with access to more cable channels.  Yes, the man was born to surf with a remote in his hand.  His surfing (and those cable channels) led us to interesting places.  He exposed us to travel shows, nature shows, Japanese monster movies, anime, shows about history, shows about science, and of course THE WESTMINSTER KENNEL CLUB DOG SHOW. 


We love dogs.  We've had many in our lives - and many breeds.  Dad started off with an Irish setter.  My mom had a collection of mutts that ended up on their farm (the most infamous being Rambler who was born, of course, in a Dodge Rambler - back seat).  As children, we shared our lives with a schnauzer, a doberman/rottweiller mix, a border collie, a sheltie, a cockapoo, a pomapoo, a maltypoo, and an American eskimo dog.  We adored them all.


Watching the dog show became a tradition.  Once we left the nest, my dedicated dad would avail
himself of his phone services and call us.  "The dog show is on!"  It was a call to arms.  We'd tune in, then discuss our observations later.  We all had certain dogs and breeds we rooted for.  It was fun to share this bonding activity when we were so far apart.  When my parents relocated by us (a grandchild is quite a temptation), the traditions continued.  Sometimes we watched together.  Sometimes we watched separately.  Regardless, that phone call always came like clockwork -  "The dog show is on!"


My dad passed away over ten years ago.  The call from him doesn't come anymore, but we will still join together.  "The dog show is on!"  Now we not only enjoy the dogs and the show, we also remember our dad and all those memories we shared.  Traditions are pretty cool.


Hey Dad - what do you think? 

Saturday, February 4, 2012

About that luggage ...





Whenever a pause presents itself, it is usually due to the fact that I'm dealing with that luggage of mine.  Packing it, unpacking it, hauling it from here to there - in other words:  doing my job as sherpa.  This all started as a joke when daughter Bailee was a baby.  I'll admit that I probably overdid it with the diaper bag.  I think I could have dealt with a battalion of babies besides my own.  Somehow, over the years, I became the very sherpa we joked about.


Here's a look at this week's luggage:

  • My sister had an allergic reaction to the antibiotics she was given for a severe sinus infection.  Think hives on steroids and you have the picture.  Very scary.  It required another visit to the doctor and mass quantities of Mountain Dew.  Odd to have it prescribed as a medication ... but it packed just enough caffeine to speed the remaining antibiotics through her system.   Wicked.  I'm going to put that down as another reason why I don't drink pop. 

  • My mother went in to the dermatologist to have this tiny, lentil-sized bump on her leg checked.  We've been nagging her about getting it checked out for around ten days now.  She's quite prone to skin cancer (thanks to a misspent youth on the lakes of Minnesota and her garden in Montana), so we take any skin abnormalities very seriously.  The PA touched the bump and it exploded in his face, spraying blood everywhere.  Not to be overly graphic, but she began hemorrhaging.  They ran for the surgeon and got Mom to the surgical suite, where they clamped off the vein, got the bleeding under control, and then took stitches.  Turns out that sh had a blood clot in a surface vein.  Luckily clots in those veins are supposed to be non-life-threatening.  Unfortunately, the doctor informed her that if she had been home alone, she would have bled to death.  That left us all pretty shaken.  However, we are so grateful that she was blessed to be in exactly the right place at exactly the right time!  Now we're going to make sure this does not happen again.

  • Against my will (and my request for clemency), I was placed on a committee to rewrite our elementary level report cards.  Our district is doing away with grades and instead will use a standards-based format that will rate students as Below Basic, Developing, or Proficient on each skill.  We're using the Common Core Standards (along with 32 other states in the consortium we bought into it), so that will be the skills we evaluate on.  Please consider the following - we have about 200 standards for each grade level.  They are each written in edu-jargon.  Somehow, we have to simplify them AND rewrite them so that parents will understand them.  Oh, and did I tell you that they've given us until Monday night to do so?   Very few of the teachers are on board with this new idea, and this idea has NOT been run by the parents at all.  This new method will be a logistical nightmare for teachers - adding a massive amount of testing and paperwork on people who are already overworked and stressed out.  It takes a lot of guts to ask this of people who had their pay frozen for five years AND then cut for the past two years.  I've gone online and done a great deal of reading about this method of grading, and I have found that it tends to be quite unpopular with parents.  Many of the districts that tried it have been forced to scrap the whole thing as a result of parent protests.  My opinion?  I can't believe that we're wasting time and money changing something that really isn't broken during hard economic times.  I also NEVER approve of anything that is "rushed through."  I want to see some research on this, hear how it is to be implemented, and see actual software that they promise will help teachers to managed evaluating students on so many diverse standards.  I have too many questions to feel good about this.  However, we were all told to get on board or look for jobs elsewhere.  Nice.

  • This coming week I'm working an extra day at the shop due to the fact that the owner is going down to Ballet West with some of the girls who are auditioning for their summer intensive program.  That's a touchy topic.  My daughter wanted to go, since her best buddy is going to try out, and the owner wanted her to try out as well.  We're the mean parents who decided it was too expensive and that, at age 13, she was too young to spend several weeks in another state living in the university dorms.  She's already going to do a three week summer intensive about an hour away.  Right now, that's all we can afford.  I'm thankful that we haven't had much teenage drama over this.  She's disappointed, but she's accepted our decision.  Did I say I'm thankful? 

  • With the busy week I just had, I was hoping that the house cleaning fairies would have payed a visit.  They didn't.  More luggage.  All of it dirty.  Goody!  I'm off to do some juggling.