QuidNunc/QuidTunc?

When I was in Target the other day i spotted Jiffy Pop for a dollar. I had never had the Jiffy Pop experience and I thought at that price it was high time I got it!
During our weekly Sunday evening hot dog roast in the firelpace I produced my Jiffy Pop and the conversation went like this:
“You can’t put that in the fireplace’
“I can’t????!! Who says?’
“You cook it on the stove. Look it says, “do not cook in fireplaces or campfires. Must be cooked on stove or camping stove’”
“Well, what’s the fun in that?”
You don’t dirty a pot, You can just throw it away.”
“I don’t believe it. What if I put it on the woodstove?”
Woodstove is in fireplace “There isn’t enough space.”
“What can happen? There are some nice coals in there. I’m going to give it a try.”
Give it a try I did. I shook it like they said. I used a mitt so I wouldn’t burn my hand. And I had the Experience of Jiffy Poop, I mean Pop, the way it was meant to be. All those poor kids that thought the fun was in not dirtying a pot…………

Sing this with ‘Mary Poppins’ in mind , with her spoonful of sugar“In every job that must be donethere is an element of dumbYou find the dumb and Crash! You’ve made a messAnd every task you undertakeSomething always seems to breakA glass, a dish, I always seem to miss!” 

That was what I thunked up after spilling a pitcher of water holding flowers for me while I was putting groceries away Saturday.  I have just spent hours and hours at my computer at school and can hardly believe I am sitting here. I have my good friend James Ward on the CD player. Remember the song about traveling and he does both sides of the argument; “Oh, I hope we stay at the Holiday
Inn!” “No, it costs too much to be stopping again!” But this song does not include the ‘screamin’ in the back seat, startin’ to get to me”, so there must be another traveling song. (hmmmmmm… could that have been katiek?) I think that was the one we identified with the most, well…. It would really be hard to say. Generally, our kids were good travelers except for one whose name starts with ‘S’!  I am trying to cut my grocery bill and so last week’s strategy included going to market and then to Target for the ‘dry stuff’. I thought I did pretty good and managed to get in fresh flowers. I am also trying the ‘I don’t feel like planning’ strategy for mealtimes. I think a little , open the refrigerator door, and come up with pretty good stuff. I left school at 6 and we finished eating shortly after 7, a real hot dinner, too! We had fettuccine (with spinach pasta) with sauce that I added a smidge of meat left from something, mushrooms, onions and tomatoes. Joel cut up a mango and I cut up honeydew, and say, it was hot and good and easy. Can’t ask for anything more!     Central Market is always a wonderful place to find goodies. I don’t go very often, so it always seems a treat. People like to talk. Sometimes someone is rude, but that always happens in crowds. If people are selling a thing they make themselves, or grow, they generally like to chat and fix things so that it is easy for you to carry. I got the flowers for my mother-in-law. I don’t think she has had any all winter.    The greenhouse where Joel works is having a banner spring. For some people, Spring comes a little early. This is great. We are thankful.   Last week I saw a picture of my throat, on the inside. I went to Greater Baltimore Medical Center to a clinic where they do free vocal screenings. It looked really good. So that’s not my problem, which is good to know. I still have to figure it out. Maybe when I quit teaching I will go back to normal. That happens to some people.  

   I work with very interesting people. One of my friends and colleagues who is a lot smarter than me when it comes to languages (and maybe a few other things!) extracted this word from a dream. A mean bossy lady in his dream was labeled with it and here are his resultant definitions:

1. Overdogly is applied to one who acts as an overdog, forcing his or her strength and superiority over the rest of us, who are but underdogs.

    2. Overdogly means too doglike in character.  In this signification, the dog isn’t man’s best friend: the reference is to the Biblical characterization of the dog as mean, vicious and cowardly.

    3. Lastly, overdogly means just too ugly.

    Overdogly.  It’s a powerful word.  Use it sparingly.

    My desk is right next to my classroom door and it is easy to stop in and chat. The calculus teacher shares my classroom and his class is first thing in the morning and all the classes open up with pledges. Sometimes they grab my Latin Bible for the pledge and the teacher told them, “You grab that one, you say it in Latin!” So I did a translation, tacked it to the board and there is the calculus class reciting Latin! Then there is our high school English teacher (whose degree is in German) who I can go several rounds with me over how to explain the differences between our uses of the preposition ‘to’ and how it all fits into the greater scheme of things in English. You can also Google this, but it is more fun to discuss it until you are stumped. Then there is the Art teacher to whom I gave our precious copy of Hans Rookmaker’s  Modern Art . He and his students are getting a whole lot of mileage out of it. I told him he also needed to see or read How Should we Then Live. Then a month or two ago the history teacher loaned it to him! We have these serious art talks and I am not sure that he doesn’t know I can’t draw a thing to save my soul!  And then there is ‘Mr. Overdogly”  :>] who is giving me the rundown on Shakespeare for this year (looking for a volunteer, no doubt) but at least we got that thing put on the proper shelf in time and space! And I got my Richards disconfused! The computer doesn’t like that word any more than overdogly! But I am going to stick with it because I like the sound of it.

   I have survived Trade Show II. Joel spent the week in
Boston and I spent the week trying to keep the house warm and having interesting conversations and seeing whom I could mooch a meal off of so I didn’t have to return to my empty house. I have an electric mattress pad that has been one of the best buys I have ever made!!!

Ciao for now (or chunc for nunc!)

The first snowfall to stay on the ground has finally arrived. If you read Jeannette’s post, it’s the same one she got ‘damp’ in on Friday night. I stepped out of the school and thought, “Oh, it’s raining…………no, it’s a mix……… and by the time I got to my car there were bif snow flakes falling thickly. I stopped and visited someone on the way home from school and the roads were getting slushy, so I was glad to just stay in. I love a white world. I had a lovely drive to Philadelphia in the white world yesterday morning. Sam popped into jeannette’s while we were there and said he was going down to the creek ‘to play’.
We moved into this house 10 years ago on February 1st. Luisa’s birthday was the next day and a lady at church made her a cake. I think it is the longest I have ever lived in one place in my whole life.

‘Supposed’ is a funny word. I would always get on my kids’ case if they said “He’s supposed to be in the third grade.” Well, if he was supposed to be, he would be, right?? And if it is supposed to snow, it will right? That’s what they say. I’m ready for a snow day. I even brought extra books home.
This week my mother-in-law moved from ‘assisted living’ to ’skilled care’. She’s got a spry brain and a weak body. She is 76 years old. She doesn’t seem very old to me. We went down to talk to her social worker right after we got away from our respective jobs and helped move some of her stuff ‘for now’ , however long ‘for now’ should turn out to be. She found out today that she may buzz all over the Retirement community she is part of and it made her happy to know she can still see friends she has made so far. She just can’t get in and out of bed by herself. Some of it is still a puzzle to me.