Band director letter (option #2)

Cooling down.
Revising.....


Hello Mr. W, Ms. K, and Mr. A,

I am writing to ask that the cones that designate the band's practice area in E's parking lot be located and placed in the parking lot before any other activities/sports take place in the afternoons/evenings. Although my child is not in band, I learned this evening that these cones are missing.

When I arrived at E at 6:30 pm for a field hockey booster meeting and field clean-up, there were no cones marking off where band normally practices. Because there were no cones and because my child is not in band, and I, therefore, do not know the band's practice schedule, I parked in the big lot.

At the end of the field hockey meeting, the band was in the parking lot, where a minivan and some trucks were blocking the exits, making it impossible for me to leave the parking lot.

To make a long story short, I had a difficult time getting Mr. A's attention (whether he was willfully ignoring me or not in order to "make me pay for my error" is a matter of perception). When he asked that I not park there, I told him I would not, but that there had not been cones up when I arrived so I had no way of knowing the band's intentions of using the space. It was a rather awkward situation, to say the least, and not one I would wish on another E parent. Thank goodness this wasn't my first impression of the school and its teachers.

Thank you for your consideration of this matter.
C

I'm sleeping on this (will I send or not?)

Tonight, I had a bit of a situation.
I am debating whether or not to send an email to the activities director, principal, and teacher involved.
It is pretty bad when kids in band are texting my kid saying, "The teacher is a dick. He's going to be a dick to your mom."
I am sleeping on it.


Hello Mr. W, Ms. K, and Mr. A,

I am writing to ask that the cones that designate the band's practice area in Es parking lot be found as soon as possible. Although my child is not in band, I learned this evening that these cones are missing. 

When I arrived at E at 6:30 pm for a field hockey booster meeting and field clean-up, there were no cones marking off where band normally practices. Because there were no cones up and because my child is not in band and I, therefore, do not know the band's practice schedule, I parked where I have been parking for the past several weeks when I've brought my daughter up to field hockey conditioning and practices. 

At the end of the field hockey meeting, the band was in the parking lot, where a mini-van and some trucks were blocking the exits, making it impossible for me to leave the parking lot. 

Mr. A was busily directing his students to move around, so I understand why he did not notice me at first when I stood below the crane. After a few minutes of him directing, I then had to wave my arms and yell in order to get his attention (although band students did not have their instruments so noise wasn't an issue; perhaps, him being 60 feet in the air may have made it difficult for him to notice me). 

I asked if he could have someone move the van so I would no longer disturb his band practice, and he asked that I no longer park there, at which point I told him there were no cones up, at which point he informed me that he cannot locate them.

I have had many pleasant experiences with E teachers, so I don't wish to assume a teacher would willfully ignore an E parent because she had accidentally parked in a lot that wasn't marked off with cones to designate it as being needed for band or make her feel like an idiot by having to wave her arms and yell in order to get the teacher's attention.  I'm afraid this might backfire and simply make the teacher seem like a jerk. I would hate to think what a brand new parent to E whose child is a freshman might have made of the situation. 

Fortunately, I suspect Mr. A was simply very focused on his band students, specifically where his trumpet players were standing, so I will chalk this up to an awkward one-time situation. 

For Mr. A's sake, mine, and any other parent who parks at E and doesn't know the band's schedule, please make sure the cones are found and put in place as early as possible.

Thank you,

C 

Family milestones (change that sneaks up on your ass)

Various situations of late have helped me recognize that our family is changing.

Now, on the one hand, this is absolutely plain to even the most obtuse person.
Every year we celebrate birthdays, and time moving on means change.
As Billie Eilish would say, "duh."

But it is different from that.
It is that the changes within my kids are impacting the family dynamic.
This has happened before, but it is more appreciably noticeable now.

Much of it I recognized on vacation.
Like N losing her mind because the cell signal was so bad that she couldn't Facetime her boyfriend on the beach when we first arrived.

N losing her mind, in general, is not something she does often.
Sure, she was tired of being in the car for two days with her brothers.
But it was crankiness coupled with boyfriend angst and technology and knowing that she was going to be away from her life for two whole weeks.

I mean, just boyfriend angst alone is a relatively new situation that has pushed me (and the family) into all-new "WTF" territory.

And then there was G who has always loved the beach.
Loved the waves.
Loved the sand.
He's almost 12, and evidently, those days are over.
He even complained about being away from friends for two weeks.

The kids are simply getting to an age where the things that keep them sufficiently occupied for extended periods of time years ago no longer do the trick.
I myself do not wish to sit and play in the sand for hours every day on the beach.
That is a very childlike thing to do.
Adulting, in many cases, means it takes a lot more to keep you entertained.

I've noticed that they are all starting to like more adult things, like Stranger Things, which isn't a "little kid" show at all.
And adult music.

Yesterday, M got braces, which N also had when she was around 9 or 10 due to a lovely familial underbite issue.

When I took both boys for an orthodontic check in early June, M going into braces was not even remotely on my radar.
And now it is not only on my radar but installed and paid for.

This photo just screams, "BABYFACE. I AM STILL YOUR BABY, MOM!"

One hour later

This photo screams: I AM NOW A TEENAGER. OFF TO COLLEGE SOON, MOM.

And don't get me wrong: I'm not sad that my kids are growing up. 

I'm not sad that they can fix their own lunches and stay at home while I run errands.

I'm not sad that they no longer through tantrums because I gave them a red instead of a green sippy cup.

If there is anything I'd hate about being a Duggar-style family, it is being stuck in what feels like a baby/infant/toddler/preschooler cycle for freakin' ever. 

What we're having to do as a family, though, is submit to the changes that are happening and accept their realities. 

Like, in a couple years, we likely won't have family vacations as we have always known them.

We may not even have "vacations" since they may be glorified college exploration trips. 

Once G is off at college and M is home at high school, we may reconsider our "absolutely no friends on vacations" rule. 

Always having had an older sibling around may make M want/need a buddy to hang out with. 

Our family has always been in a state of flux, but the flux is more apparent now.

Vacationing in a post-hurricane locale

We had a two week trip to the beach, which for D was a slice o' heaven.
The children and I would not characterize it that way.
That's not to say it was a bad vacation; it was a good vacation.

The place we went, Cape San Blas, was hit by Hurricane Michael in October 2018, so it was, in some ways, a construction zone. We were fortunate that the main road leading there was completed during our visit.

This is what the road going to the Cape looked like last year after the storm hit.



Here is another shot from last year:


So for the building we stayed in to look like this wasn't too bad (below), although it wasn't the lush, tropical beautiful ideal that most vacationers would like. There were railings missing and blue tarpaulins. Our condo was fine, even though they had gotten over 2 feet of water.

When the hurricane happened, D worried a bit, but my rationale was that the area needed our vacation dollars more than ever. And we had no reference point, so why not go and see?

The beach was lovely, and we were a short walk from St. Joseph Peninsula State Park, which was essentially torn in half due to the hurricane. The northern part of the part is currently unreachable except if you walk there.

Here are pics before the hurricane and after. Sand is now beginning to fill in the space that was breached by the storm.

Here is the road that was destroyed by the storm.

This is the other side where the road continues. 

This is the middle where the road and trees used to be. 

We drove to Panama City one day to break up the beach days and saw Mexico Beach where the eye of the hurricane hit. Obviously, things have improved since this video below was made, but it is obviously in bad shape even eight months later.

In some ways, knowing this place had been through so much made us better, more flexible vacationers. I'm a pretty realistic traveler, but this made me more so.

My parents joined us the first four days, and my MIL got to spend two full weeks watching the dysfunction of our family in all its glory.

My dad and M going into the water. 

My MIL burying G. 

We played ball on the beach with a visiting dog named Hoss.
We took strolls on the beach every night and saw random critters.
We went to Wonderworks, Ripley's, and mini golf in Panama City.
We took an airboat ride in Apalachicola and saw baby gators.
We went horseback riding on the Cape beach.
We watched many episodes of Stranger Things and played Life.
I finished 6 books.
And we were all happy to get back home (except D, although the cats have been snuggling up to him all afternoon so I think he'll be ok).

VBS for people who 1. are kids, 2. aren't churchy, or 3. will probably go to hell

In a strange twist of reality, I coordinated VBS this year.

The church is scraping the bottom of the proverbial barrel by thinking having me do this was a good idea.

They have never come to book club when I host, or they would know that I am not an "entertainer."
I am not a hostess.
I am not well-planned
or well-decorated
or anything of the sort.

The first step in finding a VBS theme was to find one I could tolerate.
Some of these kits cost over $100, and I just can't spend the church's money like that.
So I found a free one about missions, but I didn't like how much it focused on kids and sin.

Kids have a lot of figuring out to do, and I really don't think we need to belabor the fact that they are sinful on top of everything else.
I don't even like the word "sin."

I have always felt that if God is omnipotent, he/she should have created me better in the first place if he/she wanted me to be sinless.
I cannot be held responsible for the acts of my great, great, great, great, great, great....and so on grandparents, Adam and Eve.
Sure, it's a matter of semantics, but I prefer "flawed" to "sinful."
Am I flawed?
Of course.
Am I sinful?
Hell-to-the-no.

So I cut that out of the VBS thing on missions, and then I cut out the part about missions (because I believe in missions that are to serve but I'm not evangelical so I can't promote preachy/preachy when that isn't my thing.)

I more or less created my own VBS about being a neighbor to others.

I lead the children's Worship & Wonder occasionally, and it really is the best place for me because my understanding of God is like a child's understanding.
I need the most basic, simplistic information because once it starts getting more complicated, I can't believe anymore.

I'm on board with 'Love your neighbor as yourself."
I get my panties in a twist with anything more complicated.

One of the best things I learned when I started teaching was to keep the rules to a very, very small number because 1. kids don't like them and 2. if you have too many rules, it's impossible to actually enforce them and 3. kids don't like them.

I'm like that with church.
Two rules: "Love God, and love your neighbor as yourself."
Done.
I'm good.

Any of these "Don't drink alcohol" and "Don't show your body" and "Don't be gay" and "Abortion is always wrong" and "Don't say the word God unless you are talking about God" rules is where I shut down.

Because sometimes saying a good and loud "G*ddammit" feels excellent and sums things up more succinctly than any other word in the world.
And if I'm going to go to hell over saying that word....
Well, ok then.

I digress.

So it occurred to me today, when a friend texted me about how VBS had gone last night, that I didn't pray once with the children.
We didn't have a formal "Dear God, blah, blah, blah."
And it's mostly because I'm not a "Dear God, blah, blah, blah" person.

But we had fellowship and fun, and the kids felt loved and welcomed.
And we talked about caring for our neighbors who experience all the things we experience, like home, and family, and clothing, and food, even though our neighbors' homes and families and clothing and food might look a little different from our homes and families and clothing and food.

Because that is its most simple form: We are all flawed people who want love and acceptance. We all share common experiences and feelings.
And I believe the majority of us want to be good but some of us struggle at it more than others.

One of the church members spoke to me last week about being gay and how his father has never accepted it.
It broke my heart to hear this because you could just feel how much pain it causes this individual.

And I think God is in the space between people's pain and what other people do to ease that pain.
That being a good neighbor part.

Mortality reckoning

Mortality hit me in the face yesterday.

Not my own mortality, of course.

I'm not writing this while deceased.

Since the end of February, my family has dealt with...

• the death of my uncle's longtime partner.
• my dad's open heart surgery, pacemaker implantation, and soon-to-follow defibrillator implantation in July. 
• my mom's breast cancer diagnosis and surgery (and to-be-determined treatment plan).
• my nephew's surgery for pectus excavatum.

Up until yesterday, I had emotionally handled all this stress just fine until my dad texted me that my aunt (his sister) had only hours to live.

We knew that hospice was being called in, but we had been told on Saturday that it would be weeks.

By Sunday morning, it was hours.

She passed away in the wee hours of this morning.

My parents, my brother and I went to the hospital yesterday morning to see her a final time.

And my sadness wasn't for my aunt.

She was 86 years old and had a good run.

She had been in declining health for at least six months (as had my uncle's partner, who I considered an aunt).

But what hit me, and still hits me now, is the reality that I am having to deal with all of these "grown-up" issues.

Because inside, I don't feel my age. 

I am still the young child Carrie.

I am not the 45-year-old Carrie with parents in their late 70s and early 80s who are beginning to have health considerations. 

Watching my aunts pass away, women I saw fairly frequently during my childhood, means watching that childhood slip away. 

It is fast becoming, truly, a thing of the past. 

A piece of history.

Seeing my cousins come unglued at the hospital weakened my resolve and sucked any reserves and composure I had felt all these months.

When my brother and I left the hospital, I started talking in the elevator and just couldn't hold back tears.

They were, of course, tears of sadness for my cousins and for my dad and uncle.

But they were also my fears coming out, knowing that my brother and I will be in the midst of actively dealing with this situation in the coming years.

Aren't we just kids, me and K?

How is it possible that we are grown?

A love letter to America

I'm late (as usual) to all that is cool, hip, and trendy.
I mean, I knew what Hamilton was before seeing the traveling Broadway show.
I even own the soundtrack (although I had forgotten that I downloaded it).
I follow Lin-Manuel Miranda on Twitter, for pete's sake.

But I wasn't, like, gone over Hamilton.

I figured I would enjoy it.
I wanted to see it.
And so I did.

It blew my dang mind.

My neighbor (with whom I see the shows) encouraged me to listen to the soundtrack.
While I had listened to some of the most popular songs, I didn't listen to the entire thing for a couple reasons.
1. The school year is not over yet, and I'm still subbing, and DEAR GOD, when will this year end?

2. I have learned in my freelance work that I do a better job paying attention if I go in not knowing a whole lot. I don't do a ton of prep work on the front-end of interviews because I ask better questions if I don't do research and "know everything." I fact-check on the back-end. It seems to work for me. (I make a lot of assumptions otherwise. Also, thank goodness I'm not an investigative journalist because I would suck.)

I don't know that I would have "gotten" anything any better had I pre-listened to the entire show's soundtrack because there are so many performer subtleties (in the form of body position and facial expression, etc) that make the lyrics even better.

And then there was that moving floor, which made the choreography and execution of the choreography mind-blowing.
I just kept thinking about how much practice the performers had to do in order to keep the song lyrics in their heads and keep their feet working in sync and not tripping over the moving floor at the same time.

So, I was gobsmacked, to say the least.

What I left with was a musical that is a love letter to the United States.
That's how I think of Hamilton.

That may sound sappy or sentimental, but I feel like the emotions it left me with, the pride it led me to feel in this country (or at least it's origins since the current state of things is lacking in.....ahem, intellectual rigor and exquisite communicative ability), makes it more profound than any national anthem I've ever been part of or witnessed others half-assedly sing
and any Pledge of Allegience I've said by rote.

Watching Hamilton made me proud to be an American and to believe in the American dream (even though I know the union is flawed and America is not perfect and has sometimes been downright cruel to its own citizens, when it deigned to even consider them citizens and not property and that politics has been nasty and brutish.

Hamilton made me see the ideal for a few hours on Tuesday night.