Ramblings

There is some country western songfest going on somewhere in town tonight. Fairgrounds, maybe. When the wind blows in our direction, we get a few lines of twangy CW love songs or loved-once-but-recently-rejected tunes. Gives me the urge to watch the Johnny Cash movie again.

Chuck and Aunchie are here, spending their anniversary with the old folks. Charlie came over after work, had supper with us, then Angie got here. They're watching the Celtics right now, and smooching, I'm sure, so Dad and I are reading in the sun room so they can smooch without being self-conscious. It is beautiful tonight. I watered some wilting potted plants an hour ago, and nary a mosquito buzzed in my ear. I've neglected the patio area for too long, so I vow to neaten it up tomorrow morning. Not too early, though.

I need to give some thought to the reading workshop I did today. It went well enough, and I'm glad I did it, but as usual I am second-guessing myself. The morning was devoted to guided reading strategies and supporting struggling readers. Most of the attendees were special education teachers, and it all made sense to them. The topic for the afternoon was writing, as it relates to reading. and of course I could fill up several afternoons on that subject. When Teresa and I did our Traveling Dog and Pony Show about teaching writing to K-12 students, it never failed that the mention of the word "grammar" raised the temperature in the room by at least 20 degrees. Some teachers are ready to fight to the death over semi-colons and adverbial clauses. In the eyes of those particular teachers, perfection in spelling and punctuation ranks right up there with cleanliness and godliness. Sometimes we had to get out the fire hose to cool off some folks, didn't we Teresa? It wasn't quite like that today, except for one rather huffy individual who needed to take a chill pill. I'll bet she's fun to work with, too.

When Teresa and I did writing workshops together for school districts that required all their staff to attend, our goal was to get out of town without boot prints on our asses. Nothing like an angry mob of teachers who are at a mandatory workshop on an unseasonably warm November day (temperature in the mid-80's) confined to the hot, humid, windowless lunchroom, sitting on those little round seats with no backs that attach to the lunch tables (Teresa was in the library up on the second floor, with an even crankier bunch of high school teachers, but at least she had air conditioning to keep her from hyperventilating.). Ah, those were the days!