Global Warming is a Myth -or- NEWS FLASH! Summer School starts in the Snow

I remember so clearly the early morning hours after McKenna was born on May 7, 1996. I was in the hospital when a nurse brought her to me to nurse around 2 AM. As she got her fill, I looked out the window into the dark and watched snow, back-lit by streetlights, falling gently to the ground. All the while I thought, "Snow in May... how crazy is that?"

"What the hell." That is what I was thinking a little over 12 years later when I woke up this morning around 5:00 and came out into the living room. I had to rub my eyes a few times when I looked outside and saw snow. Not snow "falling gently to the ground," but snow, blizzarding through the air, eventually creating enough weight to cause a huge maple tree branch to crack under its weight and fall to the ground. There are at least two inches on the ground and it doesn't look like it is ready to stop!

The big, mature, deciduous tree across the street must have broken sometime last night... What a mess this weather is leaving things! When it got down to 8 below in mid-April, after many plants, shrubs, and trees had started coming out of dormancy, huge numbers of pine trees died (everywhere you go in town, people are having companies remove huge, old pine trees from their yards), buds froze beyond repair (almost no lilacs this year!), and flowers that had begun to bloom died (not many tulips or daffodils!)

I think it might be time we just admit it... we need to be concerned about the warming of the surface of the earth's crust... we should be very concerned about, deeply... deeply in a deep kind of concerned way... it's not just liberal scientists and godless tax-raisers who are using "facts" and "scientific data" to make the current administration look bad... we just need to get nature to cooperate with us and we can beat this thing...



This is what we were greeted with this morning!

Polyester pants to potting soil.

I put thank yous in teachers' mailboxes for filling out the Spring Faculty Advisory Survey. I have such a hard time remembering to do "niceys" like that... maybe it's because I don't care that much when I get one... I have to be better at remembering to thank people and give them credit for even the little things they do.

I told the teachers I would draw for prizes from among the people who had filled out the survey. I got a couple of things at Shopko including a Shopko gift certificate. I emailed everyone saying I had drawn for prizes and included a bit about each prize... I wrote:

• Mary Lou - Ghirardelli Chocolate Squares (I know, I TOLD you they'd be fabulous!)
• Ryan - A pack of G2s (If you haven't used these pens, you should start!)
• Kelly - $10 gift certificate to Shopko (Socks & CDs, puppy chow or potting soil... Shopko really has it all!)

I was going to write "from polyester pants to potting soil - Shopko has it all..." but I was sure I'd get someone who would say I wasn't being kosher with our retail neighbors...

A bell's not a bell 'til you ring it.

A bell's not a bell 'til you ring it.
A song's not a song 'til you sing it.
Love in your heart wasn't put there to stay.
Love isn't love 'til you give it away!”
~The Sound of Music

PGEC is such a unique place. Working in the basement of this building two days a week has been eye-opening in the best way. The PA system is in constant use with little pieces of information from Maryann (peppered with her humorous take on everything), people summoning kids to the office, and so on...

The very BEST thing that comes over the PA is news of "bell ringings." Since students graduate whenever they have enough credits to do so, there are sometimes a few graduations a week! Although they have a formal graduation ceremony at the end of the year, the immediate celebration of completion is the bell ringing.

The graduating student prepares to ring the big bell and a close friend is chosen to ring the second bell. Staff members, other students, and parents gather in the office to witness the incredibly happy event. Piped in over the intercom, Maryann will talk about the student... where he came from and where he is going... and maybe a humorous story about him...she will end with, "put your hands together for this awesome young person, our 40th graduate of the year!"

Then the bells start ringing and people are cheering! What a great celebration!

A heaping scoop of social graces.

I wonder if some people make it their new year's resolution to be nicer... I deal with one person who is always just a snit... She is one of those people whose demeanor creates this need to take a deep breath before beginning any sort of dealings with her... she is the personification of the idiom "mountains out of mole hills."

Today I took a good, deep draw on the figurative flask in my desk drawer, dialed the phone, and used that smarmy, passive voice that we employ when we are trying to be non-confrontational wusses (which was stupid because what I was calling about wasn't a big deal anyway!)

I got a cooperative, cheery disposition in return! I was going to ask if it was really her, but I thought better (I use good judgement sometimes!)... I couldn't believe it - it was a nice, professional interaction!

My thoughts about the reasons for the change are three:

A) The new year's resolution theory listed above.
B) She needed a good break just like the rest of us.
C) Santa put a heaping scoop of social graces in her stocking!

Whichever way you slice it, good for her (being happy and pleasant has to be way easier!)... oh, and good for me (I absolutely hate exposing my underbelly just to appease a crabby snapdragon.)