Out of Season!

The white poinsettia blooming on the fountain side of the yard isn't even bothered by the red poinsettia. Currently they spend all day every day trying to out shine the other. I think they are both winning. I'm amused by their unseasonal beauty. They bring me unseasonal Christmas joy.

This morning on the other side of the backyard, the "Tuff Shed" side, I nearly beat down the little door into the garage. For a moment I thought I was going to need to leap a tall building. It was early morning; I was dressed and ready to go to the campus; I stepped out into the backyard with the three pooches to do a lap around the pool (which is different than a lap in the pool); Mr. Fun came out to kiss me goodbye (things were going wrong at work and he needed to get there--a water pipe had broken, ugh!). He walked back into the house, closed the slider, locked it, and headed into the garage, into his car, and started the engine.

Mean time I realized I was locked outside. I RAN to the "man door" of the garage and started banging it with my fist. He didn't hear me. Then as he drove out onto the driveway, I ran to the gate and screamed "Hey!" at the top of my lungs. I can be LOUD when I need to. He heard me. Stopped the car, came back into the house, opened the sliding glass door, and apologized. I really thought I was going to have to leap a tall building; okay a tall gate; okay a medium sized gate. I would have been there all day trying.

Later, after the ordeal was over, I realized I had my phone in my pocket, so I would not have needed to stay in the backyard all day. Whew!

Moments later I drove to school thinking through the whole ordeal and trying to calm myself. I was glad I didn't have to teach class immediately. My Thursday mornings begin in the Writing Center. By the time I walked into my classroom at 10:30, I was settled.

The next two hours and five minutes were fabulous. I have one more student than chairs in the classroom -- that's interesting. We found an extra chair, so we were okay. The best moment of the morning was listening as they each read their essay draft to their desk partner -- two students sit at one table-desk. I had divided them randomly so that no one was sitting with a best buddy. The music of all their voices was an academic symphony -- and yes, at moments it became a cacophony as they carefree and maybe even carelessly read into the roar in the room. Afterward they all agreed that reading their paper outloud was valuable; they heard the message of their essay in a way that they had not heard it previously. When all 33 of them had exited the room at 12:35, the room was empty, their music was over, but the room was full of the fragrance of all that we had accomplished in 125 minutes. I knew the time there had been valuable. Week 2 of the spring semester is now over.

So the time has come to get ready for the taxman. Thankfully I will not be grading papers this weekend and I should have considerably less student emails to answer this weekend than last.

Good night from Southern California.
Rosie (& Mr. Fun), aka Carol

P.S. The thermometer topped at 81 degrees again today.