gotu

Maggie got the role of angel this year in the Nutcracker. It's what she wanted most (aside from Clara, which went to another eight-year-old). The costumes are neat--long white dresses hemmed at the bottom with a hoop, so it does look a little like the girls are floating. Of course, they have wings and a halo. My biggest anxiety will be getting Maggie to keep her costume clean.

This all means that our Saturdays are taken until December. The Ballet frowns on anyone missing rehearsals. We are already committed to a NYC trip at the end of October. The Ballet is surprisingly forgiving of trips to NYC since they know we'll likely attend a show (though this time we won't). I don't think making us commit fully three months to rehearsal is reasonable, but Maggie has her heart set on it, so we'll play along until it becomes untenable. The company has been around for 47 years, with long ingrained rules, so getting mad about it is pointless.

As much as I really want to see Billy Elliott in NYC this year, Maggie's little buddy Katie and her family are going, and they're going to the Statue of Liberty, so thus go we as well. I don't mind, though, as I've never seen the statue up close, and Ellis Island is included with the tour. I doubt that any of my family passed through Ellis, but I don't know for sure. I know that some of the Finns came over in 1887, as is written in the steamer trunk I have in the basement. The bus a teacher at Maggie's school charters for the trip leaves at 6:00 a.m., and then we have the day to spend as we want. But I have heard that the trip over to the statue eats up most the day, so the lights of Broadway are out for us this trip.

I'll be in the basement this year again for the Nutcracker. Last year was my first year as a basement Mom, largely corralling the younger girls who were evil mice, partygoers, and angels while they weren't on stage. I also helped put make-up on them, using the finesse of a toddler my application, but since it was simple stage make-up it didn't matter much. I didn't get to see much of the final production, but I had seen plenty of the rehearsal, so I found, surprisingly in some ways, I didn't mind too much. I like being backstage, feeling somewhat privileged to see the show from a perspective I don't usually get. Last year I did it primarily because I knew Mag wanted me back there; this last year, she's undergone a kind of transformation where she doesn't need me as much, but the Ballet does. Not many of the moms like to volunteer simply because then they don't get to sit in the audience and watch the performance.

Maggie's not going to be a professional dancer. She's taller, always, than her peers and is gaining quickly on the older kids. She doesn't care to practice much, really. And, for a kid, she's somewhat incredibly inflexible (she could improve that, but I'm not sure she's that interested in trying). She's thin as a reed right now, and aside from a mother's besotted gaze, quite pretty. I wish she were more disciplined, but she's eight, and I'm not interested in becoming a stage mother (just a basement mother). She says she loves soccer, too, but on the field, she won't try to take a ball from another player, and she has no strategy.

Somehow, despite all this, I am quite certain she will make her way just fine in the world. Maybe just not as the principle dancer for the American Ballet Theatre.

Expensive with some truly tacky tourist trsps, Niagara Falls was still wonderful--the type of thing I could say I've always seen in photos and video but until I saw it for myself, I didn't really appreciate it. The American dollar leveled off (almost) with the Canadian, and so the high prices couldn't be rationalized by the thought that the currency was different. Everytime I broke out the debit card, it seemed the tab wasn't for less than twenty dollars. We can't saw we weren't warned, though.

Our hotel wasn't quite on the falls, but we got such a great rate for a perfectly suitable room that the five-minute walk didn't matter. The downhill street to the Falls was lined with shops, restaurants, and several wax museums and curiosity like haunted houses and 4-D moving theaters. I loved it. But we ate in a nice little joint whose windows opened to the street, and Maggie was disturbed by the ongoing screams coming from the haunted house across the street. She knew it was canned sound-effects though entirely realistic.

We got the adventure pass. four of the top attractions at the falls. First, of course, we did the Maid of the Mist, which was, after all is said and done, pretty darned cool. Then we did the Journey behind the falls--cool, but it was mostly just walking in tunnels behind the falls and seeing the cascade of water fall. We also did the the White Water Walk, Niagara's Fury (an interactive movie--apparently the Canadians love these), and the Butterfly Conservatory. We also went to the Guinness Book of World Records Museum (at Maggie's insistence), Spongebob and Glacier Run 4-D movies (also at her insistence), and the Ripley's Believe It or Not Moving Theater (ditto). We all loved the Guinness Museum, even it was mostly posted signs about world reocrds.

Our return home was met with picking up the pup at the kennel, whereupon the next day she threw up all over the house, finally vomiting what looked like blood. So we made an emergency trip to the vet, who diagnosed a virus contracted from the kennel. She's on the mend, but quite an alarming thing to happen right after a nice vacation. Oh well.

It's that time of year when the forces collide, the end of the semester and the amping up of Maggie activities. Today I printed off some really nifty Shel Silverstein pages and took them with me on a second visit to Maggie's class. Last time, I had them start Mother's Day poems (such as eight-year-olds can write), so today we tried to finish them. Mag's teacher, Mrs. Love, may gather them up and send them into the Writer's Nook at the local rag. Every Monday the Education section (such as it is) features student writers from the area schools. Last year, the paper published the poems that we did for Mag's first grade class, Father's Day poems, so I thought we'd do equal time for mothers.

Working with the kids is fun--they don't have all of their enthusiasm squelched at this stage. They don't automatically declare their hatred when someone utters the word "poetry." Some of the kids are real characters--sorting out their school personas that will probably stick with them for years to come. Of course, a couple of the kids are real pains-in-the-ass; Giancarlo, who is pretty smart (but also older than everyone else by a year because his parents held him back) has to always try to prove how smart he is, bleh. One kid, one who I thought was a pretty straight-laced kid, wrote about how his mother is a champion farter. Mrs. Love and I made him re-write that section of the poem. I saw his mom on our trip to NYC this weekend, and she told me Mrs. Love mentioned it to her in conference. Pretty funny. Mag's best friend, Katie, is turning out to have a real way with words--she's a triple threat; she's wonderful at math and language, and about the best natural athlete I've ever seen. I don't think I could take a year's worth of second-graders, but it's still fun to visit from time to time.

Tomorrow, I'm supposed to give blood and then man the concession stand at Maggie's game. And I promised to return manuals to my tech writing students by Thursday. I've complained loudly that the teaching load at Penn College is too much--5 sections a semester, but usually I'm rebuffed with the reminder that we're a union college, and as such, we make relatively decent money. It's okay, but it's not that much better than other colleges with lighter teaching loads. I'd like to stick with Penn College, but this entrenched attitude about the workload is enough to make me look around. I think of David London, who always said that we'd never see a reduction in teaching load as in his lifetime. He dropped dead at the end of last spring semester.

I told folks at the college not to expect much more out of me than my teaching for the next few years, though--no committees, no extra assignments or special projects. My priority is Maggie, and honestly, she won't need us much after about five or so more years. Not in the same way, anyway. Something had to give. But it was an easy choice. Many of my colleagues at school are either childless or their children are adults, which doesn't necessarily make their lives easier, but they don't have the same demands I do.

I wish I had training to do something else. I'd seriously consider making a career shift right about now. I would love to come home and not take my job with me. I'd like not to have to devote my weekends at least in part to grading.

Oh well.

Today was one of the first truly springlike days we've had so far this year--well into the 60s and sunny. Tomorrow will be even more rain, but we enjoyed today while we could. I took Mag out with a ball and glove, and we played catch for awhile. Maggie's getting the hang of throwing, but she got a ways to go in catching yet. We haven't be able to find her bat (well, I did, later, when I was looking for a kite), so we didn't get any batting practice in. Maggie's one of the youngest on the team--many of the other girls have been playing softball for a year or more.

We're at three days a week of dance and at least two of softball practice which will shortly sequeway into games. It's going to be a juggling act, but that's nothing new to us. The spring show for the Civic ballet is May 30th, and, for whatever reason, they started rehearsals early and on every Saturday. There's even one the day before Easter, and I don't know whether we're going to that or not. We're going to NYC on the 25th in a bus arranged by a teacher at Maggie's school, so we'll miss rehearsal then.

Yesterday was an "easter egg hunt" by the township building. The kids were divided up by age/grade and candy was thrown into each section. When the horn sounded, all the kids tore after the candy. Maggie had fun, but I have to admit, I wish there would have been some eggs or something. Maggie get plenty of candy, but it wasn't the kind of Easter egg hunt I think of. It's all volunteer, though, so I suppose we're lucky to get what we do. Maggie would trot over to a pile of candy that she would pretty much have all to herself and pick through what was there for what she wanted. I must have seemed like an egg-hunt version of a stage mother because I kept yelling at her, "Just grab the candy!" I didn't want her to get more candy, but I was worried that she'd miss out because while she was picking through it, the other kids were snatching the candy up indiscriminately. I saw kids with huge loads of it--I hope they are going to share with siblings at home.

Doug had a gig at a local brewpub, so Mag and I rented Bedtime Stories (her choice, not mine). She had picked the adaptation of the film as a book to read at bedtime (it sounds innocent enough, doesn't it?), but the book was simply dreadful. The movie had its moments--I'm no Adam Sandler fan--but it still wasn't very good. But Maggie liked it.

Ah, life in the burbs.

Three rooms on the first floor are now hardwood; it looks great. I'm thinking we don't really need furniture in there any more; besides, the echo the empty rooms make possible is cool.

There's just so much more to do. Doug and I will go buy some paint today, and we might even start repainting the living room. We had a water leak in there and one of my colleagues who does work on the side redid some of the wallboard tape that got ruined. Fortunately, the wallboard itself was fine. I imagine now's probably the best time to get it done before everything gets put back.

I'm exhausted still. On top of moving everything and cleaning, I went to kickboxing Wednesday night, the gym yesterday morning, and then I had tap with Maggie yesterday evening. I'm trying to push myself more because I can't keep carrying around this weight--it's restricted my mobility in some ways, which is frustrating. (Or maybe it's just advancing age, but I keep thinking of the 56-year-old woman who just swam the Atlantic Ocean).

I am amused that we have a beautiful dining room and no dining room table, nor are we in a hurry to get a dining room table. We could buy a cut-rate one, but I'd rather wait and get one that we really like and can afford--I'm think another ten years or so. I think a dining room for us, in reality, is kind of a waste of space. It isn't as if we'll be sitting down to formal meals in there except maybe three times a year (Christmas, Easter, and something). I've wondered what else we could do with the room--I hate to make it into a dining room just to follow convention. Until we did the floors, we used it to pile junk in, and I'd rather not do that again. Maybe Maggie can enjoy sliding across the floor in her socks.

It hasn't been much of a spring break for us, but it's work we needed to do, so at least we had some time to do it. Of course, the real downside is that getting something spiffy and shiny and new makes everything else look like crap.

Three weeks into the semester already--yesterday was a welcome snow day.

Sadly, one of my suitemates, Jack, has left for the rest of the semester because of a cancer diagnosis. I and some others were subbing for his classes--the students said that even when he was there, he couldn't make it through an entire class. Jack had submitted his two-years to retirement notice because the college has some kind of incentive for letting them know ahead of time that you intend on leaving. I was surprised to find Doug's cousin, Patrick, in the class I subbed for. There's a whole other family drama going on there. But, as for Jack, I could always hear his deep, hacking cough that now I wonder if it was a symptom. I don't believe the prognosis to be very good--I don't know any specifics, though.

I'm also plowing through applications and cv for a faculty position that I'm on the search committee for. There are 45 of them, and I'm up to 15 (kind of). We're supposed to meet next week, so my plan for tomorrow is to just park it in the conference room when I'm not in class and try to plow through the rest of them. Unlike other recent searches, this one reflects the downturn in the economy. We're getting applications from folks who would otherwise never consider teaching at a place like Penn College. Of course, many of them aren't suitable for Penn College, either. The ones that spend a full page of their cover letter detailing their literary dissertation ain't gonna fit with us hillbillies, but I imagine they're applying any place they can. I remember the year I applied at one place (long ago) and received a letter back saying the college had 600 applicants for the one slot. Can't even feel bad about that.

Right now, I believe my position to be secure, especially if we're in the process of hiring someone new, but right now, I'm third from the bottom in seniority, and as a union shop, we'd get chopped in order. I guess not that many people feel really secure about much of anything right about now.

At the same place where I ran into the former student, we were looking at critter specimens in the kind of aquariums people usually keep at home. As we walked by the Chinese box turtles, I noticed them, ahem, in the act. I rather hurriedly searched my brain as to what to tell Maggie (sure, sure, the truth would have been a good start, but I'm not ready for that yet). Maggie then said, "Look, the turtles are playing leap frog!" Good enough for me.

wall-e

We're visiting Animal Kingdom, and there's a place called Discovery Island. We're inside one of the exhibit buildings where kids (and grown ups, I guess) can get a hands-on look at some critters and related stuff. Maggie strays over to a counter with ostrich eggs and the like, where I join her. As I approach, the attractive young guide behind the counter says to me, "You're an English professor, aren't you?" Just as I'm cursing the idea that I've been at this so long people can tell just by looking at me, she adds, "I had you as a professor at Anne Arundel Community College." Her name is Coral, and she took comp with me for two semesters, yet I only have the vaguest recollection of her. I'm profoundly flattered that she adds that I was one of her favorite professors (thank goodness!). AACC is getting to be over a dozen years ago for me (gasp) from 96-97, and I can't tally how many students ago that was.

But still, odd and nice that someone from so long ago fondly remembers me and my class (aside from you-know-who).

In random order:
1. The 3-D Muppet movie!
2. Spaceship Earth in Epcot Center.
3. I only swiped bites of them, but the pancakes were pretty damned good.
4. Wolfgang Puck Express in Disney Downtown--best meal there. Yummy.
5. Kilamanjaro Safari at Animal Kingdom.
6. Mickey's Philharmagic (what else? in 3-D).
7. Honey, I Shrunk the Audience (in 3-D, of course)
8. Some of the staff (called cast members) were genuinely quite nice, not just because they were mandated to be.
9. The trip was everything Maggie wanted it to be (except it wasn't long enough).
10. The Lion King musical.

My top ten of things I hated about Disney (though I will be posting about things I actually liked)

1. Obscenely expensive--it's a kind of emotional blackmail because everyone I know who has gone to Disney will give just about the same reply: "Oh, yeah, it costs a lot, but you know, the kids love it." But $30 dollars for a cheap crap made-in-China t-shirt?

2. The crowds--Doug and I are both crowd-adverse, and while I have come to understand that when we were there, it was an off-time, navigating the masses wasn't fun. Large herds of cattle, mooo.

3. Sell, sell, sell. Nothing wasn't a tie-in to sell us something. Everything was a promotion for something else. Cheap crap and more cheap crap.

4. Walt Disney is God.

5. Nothing exists beyond the Disney parks, so don't try to go there.

6. All little girls should ever want to be are princesses. Call every little girl you see a princess (and, yes, she'll love it).

7. Ten of the twenty channels on the TV were Disney (of course, yes, I know, but). It actually had me pining for Spongebob. And forget Comedy Central--no Daily Show or Colbert.

8. Mickey Mouse is God.

9. Um, Disney is all about conversation, but the recycling is actually pretty limited. The amount of trash generated by the Disney parks every day must be astronomical.

10. My daughter is planning to return next year.

Watching the Weather Channel from our hotel room the night before yesterday, we saw that State College was anticipating a lot of snow; we were flying in yesterday to BWI and were planning on driving straight back to Billtown. I called Sherrie while we were waiting for the bus to the airport, and she said the forecast was for 6 to 10 inches of snow. Touching down on the runway, I could see the tarmack was wet. I reluctantly made reservations at the Red Roof Inn for their business king; we've stayed here a few times before, and it's comfortable and clean, mostly, and they take small pups.

We dropped in to Mom's and ate sandwiches and German fruitcake (eh). Linny was all over us--I think Doug missed her the most (though I'm not sure he'd admit it). Mom's house always tends to be thick with cigarette smoke, so she'll need a good scrub when we get home (the dog, not Mom). Then we headed back to the hotel to settle in for the evening.

Looking at the forecast, it seems today is going to be just fine, clear and sunny, though I'm not sure what the roads will be like when we get north.

It was an eventful, good trip overall. Doug and I will never like such crowded places, but Maggie says it was the best trip of her life--that's what it was all about anyway. I'll be writing more about some of the highlights soon--petting a dolphin was pretty cool, though (even though the fish we were feeding them were quite stinky).

Maggie has rehearsal for the Nutcracker every Saturday--she's not supposed to miss any, though the times can vary. We've missed most of Maggie's home games for soccer because they fall at the same time. Mag doesn't much miss soccer games--as I've mentioned before, she spends most games watching the other players and twirling her hair.

Today, the school was holding a walk-a-thon fundraiser to pave the blacktop at the school. Many of us grumbled because the PTO announced their goal was that every family would raise at least 60 dollars--not an unreasonable sum if one has lots of family living in the area, but for us, we just pitched in 40 (and that's on top of everything that we've giving the Ballet because they need 30 grand to stage the Nutcracker).

The day turned out quite nice after a shaky start. We split from rehearsal early and made it over to the high school just a few minutes late, arriving in time for Maggie to join the first line of Round Hillers to begin the walk around the track. The PTO already had their money, so quite frankly, they didn't give a damn who did what on the track, but we rounded it quite a number of times.

Maggie's contribution to the walk didn't last terribly long--she and her buddies found their way to the middle of the field to the clown. Doug and I went and got pizza. We got back to walking around the track when we saw Maggie launch herself toward us and stumble, collapsing on her pink poodle balloon so that it popped and unraveled. So, we had to get back in line and wait to get another balloon animal.

Fast-forward forty-five minutes, and we're still not to the front of the line. We go to the drawing for the baskets; Maggie still wants a balloon animal. I win a really crappy basket--it turns out that mine was the only ticket in the bucket (I had no idea what the basket was)--a Campbell's soup cookbook, a eyeglass holder, and a cheapy salt and pepper shaker set. But, still, I won something, which isn't the case for everyone.

In the meantime, Doug takes Mag back over to the clown, where eventually she gets a blue poodle balloon. My back hurts. Mag gets home and leaves the balloon animal on the kitchen table.

Good times.