Snowy

So what else is new? Snow, snay, and schnee. I've already been through the couch for loose change. The water quality in the fish tank must be good, as there are more new babies zipping around. They look like tiny apostrophes with eyes.

Today I killed a spider, I think. Something black RAN when I flipped up a winter scarf that hadn't been worn in a while and tried to hide under a paper, so I know it wasn't fuzz. Didn't have the reading glasses on, so I wasn't sure what it was, but whacked it because something that can run that fast doesn't deserve to live for inspection, judgement, and then possible sentencing.

There are friendly bugs, even spiders which yeah yeah aren't bugs but arthropods related to crabs and lobsters, but this wasn't one of those. I like slower bugs, for they have no intentions to hide. If a bug runs, it's because it's up to no good. And, if in the middle of winter, in a dry apartment with no insect food source a spider can run that fast, where is it getting the energy from? A dopey, lethargic spider makes more sense than one running like hell. What food source? Sucking the life out of my cats? Out of me? Villain!

Still, I couldn't see what I was doing clearly, but anyways smashed it with a homemade knit hat that embarrasses my class when I wear it to school. At least, I am hoping it was deposed, for there were No spider remains to point at and say gotcha.

A good vacuuming in that corner will relieve the anxiety that this spider shall return when we sleep, to leave skid marks on exposed skin. Roadrunner arachnid, beep beep. It was only as big as a large pea, but for heaven's sake, a fast pea it was.

The building is abuzz with conversation, music, spoons stirring pots, it's early in spite of the dark sky that has a deep red overtone from low cloud cover. Shake out the covers, chase the villains out of your blankets, be they hiding there. Really, the thing was just doing it's spider job, but I hadn't the patience to discuss his/her longevity plan. Thinking of spring, that spider was. Me too. Night.

All and Sundry

I threw bird seed at a man today, by accident. There were these two crows outside of the pharmacy, huddled on the metal railing. Aw. Cold. During winter, spring, summer, and fall you will find a bag of bird seed that I randomly toss out like I'm the float at the Mardi Gras with beads. I drive one handed and spread millet down the medians of town, probably helping out the rat population as well as the birds.

Now, crows eat what, bigger stuff than seed? Mice, smaller birds, corn, bread, I really don't know but in winter you can't be picky. The two are watching me, looking all Hallmark card blackbird on a rail and I think Oh! Bird Seed! I make kissy noises, and launch a handful over the parking lot drifts so it hits the sidewalk where this man is maybe one foot away from site zero. He gets hit with only a few, but gives me a look and holds his hand up to say stop it, woman.

I apologized profusely and he smiled. I think he smiled. Maybe it was a teeth clench. The seed disappears through the poof of snow covering everything and one of the crows flies down and discovers a slice of Italian bread by the curb. The other crow, seeing this bonanza, hops onto the railing directly in front of my car and starts bobbing and fluffing feathers. I am behind the steering wheel, telling the crow that I don't have bread only bird seed, but of course she is trying her best for a slice; she lowered her head and Looked Me In The Eye.

It almost got me to go into the store and buy a loaf: Yes O Crow, I heed and obey. But really, the place is next door to a McDonald's across from a grocery store and several small restaurants. She was okay. I was extremely impressed by the act of communication. We are all probably on record with some corner security camera, that part of the neighborhood is rough. The McDonald's has previously been busted for dispensing LSD of all things from the drive through window.

Cheese

What on earth makes cheese, you know, the blocky stuff, so expensive? Isn't this labeled under "Economy Meals" in the old Betty Crocker cookbook, and I do mean the Old One from the fifties? It has no reason to be expensive, certainly not looking the part.

It's almost like making a car payment, this buying of cheese; but folks, lemme tell ya, don't go cheap. You will suffer through lord knows what sort of edible additives the manufacturer puts in as a stretcher. Chalk, for example. Glue. Old yellow and orange crayons. You Just Don't Know. Buy the better grade in smaller quantities.

This I have learned, in my living on a string days. The affordable in larger quantity tastes like phooey, but if you search among the varieties of finer cheeses, take the time to learn which gives the most bang for the buck. Case example, your Auntie 2seahorses was demanding a nice parmigiana romano to go on top of some bland vegetable but was scorched by the prices for a plastic tub. I put it down like it twere afarh, afire, or afur, depending on what part of the country you are from. I went for the cheaper store brand.

And then everytime I put that crappy cheap mess that looked like shredded fingernails on my food, the chalky, grainy, thick taste yelled "IDIOT! SUFFER!!" which I did to the last little granuale. Lord knows what chemical ingested produced the chacha in my gizzards, but I won't throw things out if they have been approved by the FDA. This fake cheese was from probably fake Italy, where there ain' no sucha thing as rules. It said it was food on the package.

After that experience, I denied myself cheese, you would of thought it was sin to purchase expensive. But I broke. Down. And got a container of parmagiana from the co-op for five dollars, but if you sprinkle it in eensy bits, the flavor awakens the tastebuds with less.

Again, I had been buying the two for four bucks rectangular chunks of alleged cheddar and layering it on to achieve flavor. This week, a smaller square of a 'farm-made by the family and the happy grass-fed cow that is so sweet she could watch tv in the living room with them and the kids just snuggle and lay back on her warm black and white cow belly' extra sharp cheddar squeaked hello in the cheese aisle at a greater price, but a sliver, a sliver, I say, of it sufficed and filled my quota for mold for the day.

You know, I think I need to buy a cheese shaver, one of those flat blade slotted utensils that slices in thin, delicate design. Ooo. No, I won't go to the dollar store for that; metal utensils made in China frighten me. I'll have to find a 'craftsman smithy with brawny forearms in the Alleghany foothills forging iron and kitchen gadgets' kind of cheese shaver. Local, y'know.

It has been a long long day, and the continuing saga of qi gong has worn out my knees and my arms, but this is good. I am rolling the chi between my hands very close to what the two instructors display. Really. I will get this any minute now.

It is evening, time for getting the last of the responsibilities finished. I dusted the shell cabinet and was horrified at what names I just don't remember. They are in the cerebellum, somewhere. Maybe in a dream, cypraea, murex, cymatium....sleep well, hear the tides.

Argle Bargle

Good gravy, had to get used to standing on my feet for hours again, not to mention the alarm back to going off at 530a. In the spring the birds help you get out of bed, for the hormonal robins start yelling hey baby just before sunrise. During these winter days, the only thing awake at that hour are people coming home from an all nighter and they aren't particularly cheery. I've run into them in the elevator.

Me: Good Morning!
Them: grnfx

I spent Sunday with Scott, we went to see The Reader at the last large cinema in town, the North Park. It has a large circular opening in the ceiling painted with golden chariots and people in vaporous togas, surrounded by plaster doodly-doos that look like meringue. The seats are old, the paneling of wood, and the concession stand pops its own corn. Really fun, cash only.

Then, Monday morning hit, glazed in ice from the west. The city wasn't too bad, but other regions lost power and everyone slid sideways on the roads. Dark when I leave, dark at return. The sun set at 4:57 pm today. By Friday, it will not set until 5pm, which means we gain three minutes of daylight this week. It don't take much, folks, to make me happy. Pop that Vitamin D, brethern.

Not much to report, and I am numb from acclimating children back to a schedule. Just like me, they have to wait to go to the bathroom, get water, have lunch. Life. Argle bargle.

I can't wait to hit that pillow tonight. My bones are tired and want to be still. Tomorrow I get yelled at by my doctor for not getting blood work, not losing weight (she wants me to weigh what I weighed in high school. I think one of my legs may be eligible), and not going for a colonoscopy. Brrr. Well, has to be done, but tonight, I sleep. You too. Night.

Do You Know...

Becoming a teacher, I realized the pitfalls of living with so many students early on in my younger days as a teacher's aide. It happens so often, you are pulled into the world by your heels, into situations you wouldn't find yourself, into neighborhoods you wouldn't go. A profession that interacts with people comes with one of the most primitive realizations of survival whether medicine, education, military, or any of the other social systems constructed to make society function.

There is death in everything, our food system, our families, our newspapers; no getting around it. It doesn't make it any easier to face, this commonality that links us together. Being a teacher comes with knowing death too often. At one time, it was rare to know of a student's death, and the reason was usually medical. Not here. Tragedy at your service.

How many now? Students that have been murdered that were once under my care and sit down, time to sharpen pencils is over. Making better choices is what you try to educate them with, teaching them how to negotiate socially, how to regard authority without reacting in violence, how revenge is not justice. Read, think, decide. Read, think, decide, discuss, look it up. That is what school mostly is.

Family dynamics, street ethics enter. Solutions are bullets and knives, "I just found it under the seat" said the assailant after he stabbed a boy who threw a carton of milk at the other's head in dispute. The victim was stabbed six times, and bled to death before he could be taken off the schoolbus. The boy was a good humored leader, a singer in his church choir, an achieving teen who threw a carton of milk. He ran into the instant power rush gotten through murder. Does the assailant ever think beyond the action? How do they think their life will go on? Do they imagine that the victim will reset, as in a video game, and rise again in onscreen resurrection?

Neglect comes into view. Children home alone, seven year olds left to watch many and much younger siblings. Fire. Can't get out. Matches, candles, furnaces, too near combustibles, faulty wiring, no one to lead them to safety, no plan to get out, balloon construction wooden housing. Drugs, alcohol, lead poisoning, brain wiring damaged in grandparents, parents, children.

In the paper today another one, she had gotten as far as her twenty-third birthday. House fire, boyfriend got out, she didn't. I see her second grade self, being mean to the other kids, picking on the nerdy ones, growing with abuse problems herself. She liked to write stories. She was crazy for animals. Alcohol problems in her teens. Family broken, arrested, drugs, shootings.

Katie.