About Nothing

Greetings from the chilly south. Someone turned the sun off again. It's shorts one day and jeans the next. The A/C has already been cranked on and we are only into the first week of March. Today I held myself back from turning on the heat.

My day was spent indoors; my eyes are square from watching too much television between the times when I wasn't sprawled on the sofa beneath a blanket napping. I should have been up doing some housework. I'll start tomorrow. I'm getting very good at procrastinating. A disorderly house was a source of anxiety for me. I do believe learning to be a slob might be a goal I'm aspiring to now.

I'm ready to get in the recline position and continue doing what I've done all day. Nothing.

I don't think anyone notices. No one has stopped by to see my laziness. If a tree falls in the forest and there is no one there...............

Ok, so maybe that doesn't apply to unobserved laziness?

Since I've practiced it all this day, I think I'll continue to apply it to the remainder of this day. G'night.

Lip Synching Carrie

http://youtu.be/OgAtasAmN7U

Tornadoes

I can still remember those storms. The old timers could be seen standing beneath the clouds that were moving quickly across the sky. They waited and they watched and they watched for the clouds to begin rotating.

This was my early warning that something was "up" or about to happen. The tornadoes  were gathering and soon we would be looking for a storm cellar.

Hollis Oklahoma was right smack dab in the path of what was called Tornado Alley. From Wichita Falls, Texas the winds began and moved quickly toward Hollis. I never cared where they went after they decimated Hollis. We were too busy picking up the pieces left behind.

The sirens in the middle of the night and the sound of metal flung through the air as the winds whipped with a long tail what was even remotely close to it's center was something that stays with me some 30 years later. I need more warning then that siren.

Here we have hurricanes which are kind enough to give us a two week warning.

We pack our valuables and leave...or stay. It's a choice we get to make.

Living in Hollis that year found me in a storm cellar with dirt floors and and a naked lightbulb hanging from the ceiling at least twice a week. Benches surround the walls and I usually didn't know anyone there except April (the daughter). The hatch door led to steep steps that got us beneath ground. I don't remember ever going into a basement there. Maybe I just didn't know anyone with a basement. I did make it a point to know where the many storm cellars were located around town.

When the siren went off, we would bail out of the car and dash for the nearest one. Fun times in Oklahoma. There are five reasons I have for never living there again. The tarantulas were huge, black widow spiders everywhere, huge rattlesnakes, scorpions and of course those huge gusts of wind we called tornadoes.

A year passes and we move from Hollis and as I did many times while there, I wondered how the natives could keep rebuilding their homes and keep replanting their crops knowing that it all could be wiped out in a matter of minutes. Tenacious. Hopeful. They never entertained the thought of moving away. I didn't feel the same way and I was gone when the job there ended.

I've watched today as more then 50 tornadoes moved across Alabama, Kentucky, Illinois and Tennessee. One after another they marched along destroying everything in their path. The storms continue tonight moving into Ohio and West Virginia. I don't envy these people their evening of unrest.

Find a basement and sleep there tonight. Be safe. I'm going to turn off the weather channel. It's time for me to take a break too.

Homage to Ms Verret

I have a few minutes before I have to wake Carrie and start our daily ritual of school preparation.  I don't have to pack a lunch. Chicken nuggets and mac and cheese are on the menu at school so my biggest stressor this morning will be getting that waist length hair of Carrie's up into a ponytail.

She read to me last night a book her grandfather had given her for Christmas. It's all about withstanding peer pressure. The message was subtle but it was there; a story about a ponytail and the child's decision to adhere to that style regardless of the teasing she endured from her friends. Cute story but the part that impressed me was that this little kindergarten child was reading this book on her own! This was not a kindergarten age book. Many words were difficult and she slowed down to sound them out and I could hear her whispering the sounds a few times until they meshed together into a word in her mind. Amazing!

Carrie has wanted to be able to read for years now and at six years of age, that is about half her life. We have been practicing for a long time with her alphabet and then phonetically sounding out the words. I wasn't taught phonics when I was in school so my instructions hit a plateau at which time her mother picked up the slack. She was in the phonics decade of learning.

Carrie started kindergarten and Ms. Verret filled in all kinds of blank spaces for Carrie. This is her kindergarten teachers' first teaching position as a full fledged teacher. She is wonderful with her class and for this I am grateful. I realized this year how important that first year is for these students and for what they are expected to learn.

 I was fearful that Carrie would get a harsh teacher instead of the soft Ms. Verret. I wanted Carrie's first experience in the classroom to be positive as she will be doing this for 12 more years. We couldn't have been assigned a better instructor for Carrie's first year. She loves going to school; she loves Ms. Verret.

 A week of a stomach virus left her sitting at home. She missed her teacher and her class; a good sign indeed.

I'm watching the clock and it's time to start Carrie's day. ... and I'm done.