A couple of weeks ago, I had the pleasure of touring the new Joplin high school. Some members in my family refer to it as the Taj Mahal because of its size and the length of time it has taken to construct it, but I was curious to take the tour to see it for myself.
During the tour, we oooo-ed and awe-ed over the learning spaces, the high ceilings in the cafeteria, and the student-run coffee shop. There were some amazingly impressive things---motion sensor lights in the hallways, a sliding bookshelf which serves as a door to the library, the 'general' spaces for students to mingle in the halls, equipped with tables and big-screen tvs and apple tvs so they can sync up their computers and phones to watch videos and work on collaborative projects. I was definitely jealous of the wide-open spaces for students to have room to spread out and work----my own room feels so small when it is full of 33 students, we definitely cannot spread out... The art room was amazing, floor to ceiling white boards on every single wall-----made my tiny white board look like a postage stamp.....and the natural light along one wall---with big windows ---wow....I'm one long, dark corridor away from a window, my own room is pitch black when the lights are off---I"m always afraid of a power outage. The room had pottery wheels, a closet for clay to dry and a kiln, storage and shelving galore. We visited the 'hospitality room'. A conference room, which has windows all along one wall, which overlooks the playing and practice fields in front of the school. It was lovely and impressive. As were the weight rooms, 2nd and 3rd gyms, the giant panoramic screen above the main gym, the catwalks and skywalks which serve as sunlight hallways. I don't think I have ever been inside a new high school which is so modern and lovely. It made me long for wide-open-interiors and brightly lit learning spaces. There are so many wonderful things about the new school, if you ever get a chance to take the tour, you should do it. However.....as we were wrapping up our expedition through the gym, I noticed a mirage-like movement from across the gym...it was a familiar site, something I had definitely glimpsed before, so I know I am not mistaken in what I saw....yet it was so entirely unexpected that it was shocking and almost unbelievable. A mouse. Darted out from below a door, into the bright, open gym, and then immediately ran back under the door. A mouse lives in the Taj Mahal...and once I realized that, I was grateful for my own tiny classroom. The grass isn't always greener, folks.
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Jelly Belly jelly beans bring back individual memories with each bite. The crushed pineapple reminds me of some of my earliest memories as a kid. At PawPaw's house, in Texas. He had a brown chair and a jar of jelly bellies. He would sneak them to me when my parents weren't looking. The blueberry (with black liquorice in the middle) reminds me of visiting my aunt in the summer. I bought a whole jar of 'medicine'....really it was all blueberry jelly beans, I tried to make them last for the whole trip. The peach have always been my favorite. They remind me of peach and cinnamon snow cones from Tropical Snow on the Neosho boulevard, after a day of chlorine and sunshine at the city pool the summer after my senior year of high school. I think my new favorite flavor is very cherry. It bright coral color is so shiny and tart. Now it will remind me of spring break 2015, when I got to the mall, just before opening and snuck into the candy shop--first customer of the day--to fill my bag with all my favorite flavors.....pineapple, blueberry, peach, very cherry, 7up, orange sherbert, island punch, sizzling cinnamon, sunkist tangerine, and strawberry cheesecake. I steered clear of my least favorites: buttered popcorn, bubblegum, cantaloupe (I hate all the melon ones), toasted marshmallow and black liquorish. Junior year. Biology.
One day I walked into class and someone was sitting in my seat. Weird, I thought. I took a different seat, a few spots back. When the teacher called roll, he introduced the new student. Her name was Nelly Pavie. What are the odds that another Nellie/Nelly would be sitting in my exact spot? I had to make friends to this foreign exchange student--- Nelly from France. When talking about us, the two Nellies, people did not refer to her as the French Nelly....they called her Nelly from France.....I don't know what they called me. She taught me to count to ten in French...but that is as far as I got....I wish I would've have visited her....maybe someday. Nelly and I are still in contact through Facebook. It is harder to communicate because most of the English she learned, she has now forgotten. I always anticipate hearing from her on my birthday, "joyeux anniversaire" she will post on my page. Orchids and Onions is a section of the Lake Havasu Arizona newspaper. It is so fun to read---people use the section of the paper to vent or send praise to a particular business or individual. I have been to Lake Havasu three times---and I always pick up a paper to read the O&O section, even though I don't know all the businesses that are mentioned, it is entertaining. The basic premise is below....and below that....I will share a few of my own personal Orchids and Onions. Orchids to my husband, Mr. M. for shoveling two tons of rocks yesterday into a new area of landscaping in our backyard. It was back breaking work, but he muscled through it.
Onions to the McDonald's on Main St. I had decided that Monday would be THE day. For my first ever Shamrock Shake. But your ice cream machine was down.....for the rest of the week!! No shake for me!! Orchids to the Joplin-give-and-take sites for being incredibly entertaining. Seriously. People post the funniest stuff for sale. And they use bad grammar. Onions to the stoplights at 26th and Joplin and Wall. Before the tornado, the light stayed red for SO long. After the tornado, a stop sign was great, because there was not a lot of traffic on 26th. The new lights stay red for so insanely long--and green for less than two cars to go through. Orchids to Audible books. For allowing me to take my multitasking to a whole new level. I can now READ and play Two Dots on my iPad at the same time. Orchids to the MyFitness Pal app for helping me track my food intake. The food diary really helps me keep my bad food habits in check. Onions to the iPhone battery. I think it is designed to self destruct. I am due for a new phone in April and I'm considering the upgrade, just to improve the battery life and performance of my phone.
This little dachshund on his leash was an adorable painting---very memorable! In the first room of the exhibit, the orange and yellow Rothko created a calming balance...a group of folding gallery chairs held about a dozen people. Two musicians were playing music they had written to accompany the painting. One played clarinet, the other a guitar. The music was a type of experimental jazz....soothing...like the buzz of an insect, but harsher, flatter and slightly strange. Not something you would just turn on if you wanted to listen to music--and nothing you would want to hear unless your senses were balanced by the famous Rothko---a soothing visual sensation. Some of these things are not really meant to be photographed, they are too highly conceptual to contemplate unless you are standing in front of them. Like the Red Painting....or Sky High by David Simpson. A stark contrast to the very busy and full abstract expressionism and surrealism exhibited in the other rooms of the show. My favorite and most memorable moment of the day occurred in the last room of the exhibit. Op art and color field paintings--those flat experiential edge to edge explorations in color. We stood amongst the paintings, stripped down to the most basic elements---no subject matter, no movement, just flat.....Like the white line painting by Agness Martin entitled The Tree, her interpretation of trees. A young boy, around 10 or 11 wandered through the gallery reciting titles of the color field paintings----"They've all run out of ideas!" He exclaimed. "Look--Red Painting. Yep, they've run out of ideas." After looking around the permanent collection for a while, we jumped back on our bikes and rode along the paved trails to the north of Crystal Bridges. We rode past Slaughter Pen, the infamous Northwest Arkansas Mountain Bike network. We rode under bridges and through tunnels. The path ended just south of Bella Vista---so we turned back, and rode back to the car to load up our bikes. I am a morning person. Today, I have the day off....it is the first day of spring break, it is 6:15 and I've already made coffee, done a few chores around the house, and now, here I am typing up this post in the darkness. The best part---I did not have to set an alarm, I woke up when my internal clock was ready to be awake.
When I wake up, usually I am wide awake. Especially if I go to bed at a decent time. If I stay up too late, it is harder to get up early. I like to go to bed between 9:15 and 10:45 almost every night. That is a pretty big window, but if I stay up any later, it wrecks my whole next day, and I want to have as much time as possible to decompress and relax. I am not much of a night owl because of my internal clock. I've been at a party, room full of family, music playing, and around 11:00, if I am comfortable, I can fall asleep on the couch. If I am really tired at night (like after class on Wednesdays), sometimes I get the giggles. Full on, uncontrollable laughter, the bed shaking, eyes watering as I try to calm myself down and think about something that won't make me laugh. When I was in college, I stayed in a hotel that subscribed to a relaxation program for its guests. The rooms had the most comfortable bed and bedding. In each room, there were personal CD players with a disc that you could play to help you fall asleep. On the disc, I remember hearing soft music, a soothing voice, telling me to lay completely still, on my back, and start relaxing each part of my body individually. First, relax the very tips of your toes, keep as still as possible, breath deeply and count to 25 while focusing on relaxing only my toes. Then my feet, then my ankles, and then my legs, and so on until each and every body part had been relaxed as completely as possible. If I moved any part that I had already 'relaxed', then I have to start all the way over. Usually, if I have to start over, on the 2nd round, I never make it past my knees---I'm out cold! Now, if I can't sleep, I use this technique to help me. Another thing that helps me fall asleep is listening to the drone of voice or a sound----probably why I can fall asleep at a party---the sound actually overwhelms my senses. At night, sometimes if I need to turn my brain off, I will listen (with earbuds) to an audiobook or a podcast. If I am really desperate, I will have my husband read aloud from his book, even though I don't know what is going on in his book, the drone of his voice helps me relax and tune out my own thoughts. When I travel, I always pack earplugs. Some people can't sleep with earplugs, but it helps me block out everything that might keep me awake in a strange place. I have all sorts of tricks to help me fall asleep at night, but in the morning, when my eyes pop open with thoughts of the day ahead, there is nothing I can do to settle back down and fall asleep. I am most productive in the morning. Last year for Valentine's day, we decided to stay at a bed and breakfast. The experience wasn't especially noteworthy since I had spent the entire day driving to and from Oklahoma for my cousin's baby shower.
The next morning at breakfast Jim, the owner of the bed and breakfast said to me after breakfast, 'You just get prettier every time I look at you.' To which, my wonderful husband replied, "You should see the progression over almost 10 years." It was the most romantic thing he has ever said to me. Some time ago, on the way to a special event with our church, my youth leader pointed to a brawny brown hawk perched atop a gnarled limb. As we drove out of town, he explained that hawks are territorial and are often easy to spot in the same areas time and again. Since then, I've always noticed hawks in the thicket, stoney gargoyles, shepherds of the roadside, silent guardians of the route, surveying the highway, listening for mice and other rodents in along the path.
I notice hawks so often in the fall and winter, that I even made up a game for longish car trips. If we are driving to Tulsa, Dallas, or Kansas City someone almost always starts it. It is one of those games that the most competitive people can't resist, but they rarely beat me. The game starts out innocently enough. Hawk one. Hawk two. Each person in the car says, "hawk, and then a number". Keeping track of their own score. Occasionally they will get confused by someone else's number and get off track a little bit, but when the competition gets going, 'Hawk, 35". Hawk, 40" most people can manage the simple addition of one or two hawks at a time. The rules are simple. The hawk must be resting, no flyers allowed. To discourage cheating, someone else in the car has to be able to verify the hawk's existence in some way. It is tough for the driver who can't always whip around and see if there was in fact a hawk on the limb. People usually point or say, "over on that fence post," which is usually sufficient in the early stages of the game. As the numbers increase and people start to lose, a more substantial verification may be necessary, "he is really fat and has some white feathers on his head." And that's it. Hawks are easy enough to spot, if you know what you are looking for. White belly. Brown clump of leaves impostors. Feathered ornaments. Downy posers. Feathers fluttering in the wind. Desolate hunter. Solitary stealthy airship. Talons on a post. My favorite hawks to spot are perched on a green road sign: Tulsa, 59 miles ahead. They are only a few feet from the car, wind whipping their feathers. Or in the heat of the game, a lucky find is a hawk on the ground, "black hawk down, in the grassy area of the cloverleaf, munching on a mouse!" Once, a fortuitous driver spotted an immense electrical scaffolding, and shouted out about a dozen hawks on the metal rungs. It was the most anyone had ever seen in one grouping before. Completely unheard of, as hawks are rarely in groups of more than 2 (which is also scarce) along the roadside. The game ends when you arrive at your destination. Once you get into town, you can usually bet that your hawk sightings will end, so the game can actually give you anxiety about getting home, because if you could just find one more hawk in a bramble of trees before anyone else sees him, you will be the winner of the game. Which is worth nothing more than bragging rights....and the title of 'hawkeyes' for a day or until the next road trip.
My grandma owned a bookstore. As a kid, my brother and I would sometimes spend afternoons there, playing among the racks, reading, eating Wendy's French fries dipped in chocolate Frosties.
On the side of the shelves in front of the register, she would tape all the photos that she found in books. A collection of school photos, vacation photos, snapshots.....old bookmarks, forgotten in yellowed pages. This photo was always my favorite. On Saturday, I went to the bookstore, now owned by my aunt. I mentioned the photo, now forgotten, slid into an old filing cabinet. I told her it was my favorite, and I asked if I could see it again. My aunt did a little digging, and produced the old black and white. It always makes me think of Grease. The sleepover scene. But it always makes me curious...who are these women? How old are they? What were they watching that night? When was this taken? Where are they now? |
Mrs. Mitchell
This is my 'slice of life' blog. Archives
March 2020
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