Not My Usual.............but a must see!!!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bMyp8y8SkUM

Sleeping with the Bear!

Yep. I'm 49 and a half years old and I sleep with a teddy bear.

It just dawned on me a couple of days ago (get it? "dawned") (Angii would call that one a "knee slapper" - ha!) ANYWAYS, I am sharing my bed with a very large teddy bear.

Apparently, amidst the sorting and cleaning and packing and purging of "stuff", Jhinel's teddy bear found it's way into my bed. Maybe he was deemed too valuable for the space sacks or to be crammed into a box. Of course the new bear from her boyfriend is the one that took the trip to Tally.

The realization brought a reminisce. It was a gift from her God-father. Was it birthday? Christmas? Angii's baptismal? I don't quite remember. What I do remember is that the gift was considerably larger than the child.

He never really was a "pretty" bear nor fanciful by any stretch of the imagination, but he was always squishy. Many others have come and gone. "Dependable" or "reliable" would be good descriptors, "always there in a pinch". "Comfy" another. To me he's also symbolic of the love of the giver, geographically he may be far away, nonetheless "always there". That's real friendship.

Our lives have been blessed with a few real comfy folk.

Thank you, Father.

I Love Her So Much

Abizillion mom's have done it before
there are just some days that I truly want to call her and say, "It was all a joke, you can come home now" ("PLEASE come home now!!!!")

This life is such an intriguing journey.

P.S. The kid sister WASN'T the drama queen of the family afterall. hahahahahaha!

Blonde's Really Do Have Fun...

A minor crisis if you will, she thought that her "car floss" would last to infinity. It didn't.

Yay Me!

Don't have to go back to the oncologist for SIX months!!!!

Alana's Visit

If two aunts aren't there, she always asks.
But this time she didn't.(quite odd)

Finally I could stand it no more and I asked Alana why she hadn't asked where her aunt Jhinel was. She quite simply responded, "Nel's at school, grandma", and that was exactly right.

However at bedtime it was quite a different story. Alana became so worried because a bed was missing from "Angii's room". I guess she thought that her Nel was at the pre-school and would be coming home to sleep.

September 3, 2009

She is just barely eighteen
She called
The words that came out of her mouth were,
"Do you want me to send you a check?"

HUH?????????!!!!!!!!!!!!
HOW did that happen?!!!

That simple question is affecting me in a huge way.
I didnt expect it yet. That brief question told me that she is much wiser than I knew, it showed me that she has understanding, respect, accountability.

a REAL phone call

it was kinda lateish

I answered the phone because it was Nel, an advantage of caller ID.

She was doing homework. Reading an article. written by a prof from the college that I graduated from.

"Who", I ask.
"Weener" or "Whiner" "I'm not sure how to pronounce it"

hahahahahahahahahahahahahahahaha!!!!!!
really........WHAT ARE THE CHANCES?!
what are the chances that 20ish years later my girl in Florida is assigned to read an article from my prof in NY?

I tell her that he was one of my advisors, I babysat his son, I volunteered with his wife. Jhinel has heard me talk of him before though I'd never mentioned his name, "Remember THAT story....that was Weiner".

We shared a smile over the phone.
I'm glad she called and didn't email it.

"by the way, it's pronounced winer"

:-)

"Weird"

kid is delivered to a bus stop. (They had a water gun fight sponsored by the admin yesterday on campus. yea SCHOOL!)
laundry's in
dishes are done
kitty litter box is cleaned
trash is out
lately i walk to work - early
the days of two hours of "mom's taxi service" are over.
this afternoon she will walk home from the bus stop and do her homework and chores

my life has changed.

IT'S SOOOOOOOOOO FREAKING QUIET AT MY HOUSE!!!

Thanks Mr. Vandergaw!

Last year, I found myself in the principal’s office.
Crying.

My beautiful, gifted daughter had been struggling in science class and had confided to me that she hated science. When she described her typical days in class I just could not comprehend and thus, I very purposefully marched into the school and imposed a meeting on the administration. Actual tears came from frustration, exasperation and anger. How do we do this? How do we take incredible, brilliant, fresh young minds and create monotony and mediocrity? I argued that ESPECIALLY in the middle school years our children should encounter fascination and passion for the natural world and the scientific experience. Perhaps some of my frustration in her experience was rooted in my own educational experience for I found myself reminiscing about one of my 7th grade teachers.

Thirty six years ago a young man with an exuberance and joy for life and teaching and students inspired me. Over the years I have on occasion thought of this teacher and it is always with fondness and a smile. He was that one who touched my life in the way that differentiates instructors from great teachers. I have wished for my own children to experience a teacher like him. I was a student of his briefly, at Diamond Mears Middle School. My family had moved to the “big city” from a more rural community half-way to Denali. And we would soon return to the “lower 48.” I didn’t want to leave Alaska and I didn’t want to leave Mr. Vandergaw’s science class. He had caught my attention and had made the mundane into an opportunity for learning. We knew that he loved Alaska and the outdoors, he conveyed a love for teaching and science, and he just gave you the impression that he CARED.

I came home from that meeting in the principal’s office at my daughter’s middle school and did a quick web-search. Whoa! A controversial celebrity was what I discovered, some condemning, some fervently supportive. A horrible comparison with another. Somehow, I don’t really think that he would be all that affected by the opinions or the controversy. I watched the show. I watched it because I just wanted to see my beloved seventh grade science teacher, I wanted reassurance. My attention was riveted to the man. The man on the TV is 70 now, a bit slower in his movement, more intentional. But it was still there! It’s in his words, it’s in his demeanor, it’s in his eyes! In the closing segments the interviewer admits that he was expecting something different (a crazy man perhaps) and he goes on to say “You’re a remarkable man, Charlie.”

Recently, I was packing another daughter off to college. As I was sorting through some old documents I came across the note. It was written shortly after my parents moved our family from Anchorage back to central New York. The brief letter was just a few simple sentences of encouragement written to a girl from Mr. Vandergaw.

I’ll be celebrating 50 soon. I’m a social worker in Florida of all places. Many days my work is heartbreaking, I work with the hope that if just one person’s burden is lightened then I’ll have achieved success. “If I make a difference in one person’s life……..”

“Charlie” Vandergaw is 70. I figured it was about time that I told him……..that he made a difference in my life. I figured it was about time that I thanked him.

This world would be a much finer place if we had a bunch more “Charlie Vandergaw’s” in it. And more of that light in his eyes. The love.

For The Record....

Angii has now seen "water falls". She has also been outside of the state of Florida, has experienced a new time zone.caverns, cooking over a campfire (shrimp on the barbie!) and Smores. Only took her fourteen years!