There's one person that I think has what it takes to get things done.  Wanna know who?

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Daddy-O

On the second Saturday of every month, downtown Sacramento has what they call "Sacramento Second Saturday."  Pretty creative, I know.  It's one day a month where downtown shops are open later and local artists get to show off their stuff.  Ryan and I decided to check it out since we'd heard positive things about it.  We went in and out of a lot of shops, but nothing really caught our attention.  Wait, there was that one bra exhibit.  That was pretty neat.  Anyway, this outdoor art show is on two main streets in downtown Sac.  There are some little shops on the side streets which we didn't want to neglect so we checked those out as well.   One of the side street shops we went into advertised itself as a "Music and Radio Museum."  We are fans of both music and radio so we went inside.  The walls were covered with old concert posters and other promotional items.  Radio is special to me because it's the medium through which my parents met.  Yes, it's true.  Whether you think it's Tesla or Marconi who invented the radio, I'll let you decide.  Either way, I have someone to thank for bringing my parents together.  Anyway, my dad used to work for KXOA in his younger days.  He was a DJ when DJs used to actually know about the music they were playing.  It wasn't all run by computers in those days.  So the "Music and Radio Museum" we went into is also a recording studio by day.  We walked into one of the small recording studio rooms and lying on the desk I saw a binder of sorts flipped open and the letters KXOA jumped out at me.  Underneath those letters I saw old pictures of their DJs.  I put 2 and 2 together and went on a hunt for my dad's pictures.  With the help of one Tom Buck, we located a picture of rockin' DJ Dick Lawrence.  That was my dad's radio name.  Mr. Tom Buck remembered my dad when he was on the radio and shared a couple anecdotes with us.  So, down below you can see the picture of my dad when he was in his heyday.  What a hottie.

There are four links in the above post.  Do they show up?  I'm afraid that they don't.  Please let me know.  Thanks!

Saturday School

If you've never watched the above Bugs Bunny cartoon, please do yourself a favor and watch it now.  It is one of my all-time favorites.  Yesterday Ryan and I drove up to Hooterville to spend Father's Day with the fam.  Unfortunately, we arrived after all the festivities had died down.  I am endowing my old lappy upon my dad and as a test to see how slow/quick the internet was on it, i began looking for cartoons on YouTube.  I found this one.  It wasn't until after I watched it that I realized how smart the people behind the cartoons are.  If you were to compare this cartoon with something that kids watch on TV today, I'm sure you'd find more dialogue in today's cartoons.  What I appreciate about this cartoon, and most of the cartoons from my day, is that there wasn't much dialogue, but there was a lot of classical music.  There are studies, blah blah blah, about the impact and influence of classical music.  I love that these cartoons had classical music in them and that that music played such a large part in the stories.   

I was hoping this post would come out sounding a bit more intelligent and intellectual.  I'm going to guess that the current time (almost 1:00 AM) may have something to do with it.  I took an extra long nap late in the day and sleep isn't coming so quickly tonight.

Liquid lawn

From this:

To this:

Ryan introduced me to wheatgrass yesterday.  Not only was it the first time I'd ever drank liquified grass, but also the first time I'd ever drank anything from a shot glass.  I also learned what a chaser was.  What a sheltered life I've lived.  Thanks Ryan for opening my eyes.  I was a little worried about how it would taste, but Ryan assured me it was good, even kind of sweet.  I was tempted to plug my nose as I threw it in my mouth and swallowed, but decided I wanted to experience the full flavor of it.  Ryan was right: it wasn't bad and it was kind of sweet.  I could definitely detect a grassy flavor to it and for the next couple hours my burps tasted grassy.  

I suddenly have an urge to go out on my lawn and take a few nibbles on the grass.

It's the most wonderful time of the year

Better get those Christmas tunes out of your head because that is certainly NOT what i'm talking about.  For those of you that don't know, i just completed/survived my first year of teaching.... teaching high school..... teaching high school in urban America.  I have learned more about "being outta pocket" and weaves and ashy skin than i ever cared to know.  At times i wondered if i was going to make it through the year and there were mornings when i did not want to go in.  I can't believe how quickly the time has gone by.  Right now i sit at my desk at home contemplating whether or not i want to take a nap.  Ryan is off working in his office (he just got a printer last night and is getting all set up), Jared is on his vacation in Europe and i've got nothing but time on my hands.  I had an opportunity to teach summer school.  I think teachers that do that (especially first year teachers), have some sort of death wish.  I am more than content taking time off this summer and doing nothing.  I am grateful to have a job to go back to in a couple months.  Not everyone is that lucky.  There were a handful of teachers at my school that aren't coming back next year and they will be missed.

I would like to share with you a couple things I learned this year:

*  SSR is a blessing.  I started doing SSR with my students about 2 months before school was over.  We did it during the last 15 minutes of class and having it quiet made it so much easier to transition to the next bunch of kids coming in.  I had one student who told me that she even started reading at home ON HER OWN!!!  When it comes down to it, that's the real purpose of SSR: getting the kids to read on their own.  We are becoming an aliterate society.  We have plenty of people who CAN read but choose not to.  Sad.

*  Shakespeare is the shizzle.  We spent the last month of school reading Romeo & Juliet.  It had been so long since I'd read it myself that I had to watch the movie to remind myself of the basic plot of the story.  A little over halfway through the play (we read it in class) one student commented, "This play is getting tight."  That's a positive thing.  I was happy to hear it.  

*  A student can take freshman English 4 times and still not graduate.  I had a super senior in one of my classes.  I had hoped he would be a good example for my cute little freshmen, but he ended up almost worse than a lot of them.  He'd taken freshman English 3 times prior to coming to me and he'd failed all 3 times.  How that happens and a student is allowed to proceed to sophomore, junior, and senior English is beyond me.  The day before graduation we had to know whether he was going to walk or not.  He had put in 50% effort all term long and it showed in his grades.  Part of me did not want him to pass so that he could see that you can't just slide through life with a C average.  He has hopes of college athletics, but if his academic side doesn't improve, colleges won't want him.  Part of me did want him to graduate because I know that joy that comes with that sense of accomplishment.  After taking finals, there was a glitch in my gradebook and it took us almost 45 minutes to find out whether or not he'd passed my class.  He sat in my classroom wringing his hands and (hopefully) contemplating what his future was going to look like.  In the end, he did pass my class..... just barely.  I hope that 45 minutes was enough of an impression on him to get his act together for college.

*  Colleagues can save you.  On more than one occasion, my colleagues saved my day just by listening to me.  I remember crying a lot during the first couple months of the school year.  My skin has since thickened and I don't worry so much about not having every detail of the day planned out.  

*  Teaching is rewarding - it truly is.  I have bonded with many of my students and I know that they will be by to visit me next school year.  So many of them have asked about coming to our reception too.  I don't know that THAT will be happening.  I feel like an older sister to a lot of my students and I'm grateful to be able to have some sort of influence on their lives, if not my teaching, at least my corny sense of humor.

Class dismissed.

Highlights, lowlights, and then some.

HIGHLIGHT: Eleven years ago I never thought I'd be going to Prom again - wearing the same dress I'd worn to my own Junior Prom.  Ryan and I had an opportunity chaperone at Sac High's Prom.  At first images of ghetto prom danced through my head.  I was not looking forward to what I might be faced with if it indeed was of the ghetto variety.  I wasn't sure how this whole chaperoning gig was going to go down.  I'd heard from veteran teachers that chaperoning for Prom was the best dance to chaperone for and they were right.  The girls were all dressed up so nicely and too afraid to get their dresses dirty that they remained vertical on the dance floor.  Our shift was from 7:20-9:30 and I thought we'd have to spend a little time on the dance floor keeping bodies from getting too close.   I was wrong.  We showed up, walked around a little bit (made the other chaperones jealous that we'd turned a chaperoning assignment into a date), ate dinner and then it was time for us to leave.  It was really that easy.  Below you'll see pictures from our evening.  It was fun to get dressed up and relive a little bit of high school. 

I just like that picture of us.  Sometimes I wonder if we could get any cuter.

Here is a literal case of the blind leading the blind.  Ryan and I were exiting a Chipotle restaurant (I will definitely give them more business because they gave teachers free food on Teacher Appreciation Day) and these people were walking down the sidewalk.  Look closely and you'll see that the lady does indeed have a walking cane.  Kind of scary.  They are walking in a busy part of Sacramento too.  Not the safest thing.

LOWLIGHT: For those that know me know, you know how much I loved my dog Misty.  If you really know me, then you know about my dog voice.  Misty was a gift given to me by my BFF Alicia (see post below) during the winter of our senior year.  She was 2 years old and, from what i understand, an abandoned dog.  Misty passed away a month ago tomorrow.  She was over 11 years old.  It's funny to see her pictures over the years and how much white hair grew on her face.  She was just an old dog and it was her time to go.   My mom took the most care of her and walked her everyday.  I hear that now she still goes walking in the morning, but takes the leash along because she doesn't know what else to carry in her left hand.  I cried that day.  See below.  I always told my mom that I would get a little worried when I'd get phone calls from her in the morning because I thought it'd be bad news about Misty (also called Bista).  I didn't find out until after school that day. Voc didn't want me to have a bad day at work and graciously waited until the school day was over.  I was so sad.  I miss that dog and it's still sad to go home and not have a dog in the backyard.

One day while looking through some family photo albums, Ryan saw a picture of us kiddies tearing up a phone book.  I told him that since my family was so poor, that was how my parents entertained us.  Kids love to rip things up, right?  Well, not too long ago, someone left a gift of phonebooks on Ryan's front porch.  We decided to make a date of it.  This is the aftermath.  I think Ryan is still finding paper under his bed.