I am redoing the bulletin boards in my classroom. Many have been leftover from last year; I didn’t sense the need to get too creative in the technology classroom, but by mid-year, I’ve decided I need my own look.

I decided to highlight each of the software programs we utilize in the lab. A board for KidPix and the creations we have made this year. One for Kidspiration and the templates we’ve utililzed. And most recently, I’ve started teaching the Kinders, Firsts and Seconds about Microsoft Word.

In an effort to produce a non-pixilated version of the Microsoft Word icon (what I get when I try to save the icon and then enlarge it) I googled the image.

Be careful what you google.

While I don’t think this “version” is appropriate for the small school district where I teach, I wondered if maybe Flash’s urban school might use this version.

He laughed as hard as I did when I showed it to him.

Word up, Yo.

(The image is titled, “Microsoft Word Gangsta Edition”. Google it. It’s just too funny for Word. Pun intended.)

I used to go regularly when I lived in PA. I discovered it shortly after my divorce and I would go nearly as often as Flash went to his dad’s. What I loved most was the variety of people that were there. Young singles, older couples. It didn’t matter your walk in life. It didn’t matter if you came alone or attached. You were not just welcome, you were a part of it all.

I rarely had a date. Not every guy appreciates the environment, but a couple indulged me. But even single, I was never in want of a partner. Someone will always ask you to dance. That’s part of the country community, I suppose. It doesn’t matter much who you are, we all just know how much fun it is to dance.

I haven’t been now in years. I started looking several months ago but couldn’t find a place that really understood. It’s a combination of things that make the environment great. Sure, great music is a part of that, but the real focus is on the dance floor. It needs to be huge. Country dancers like options. We want to line dance, but we also love to couples dance. Which means we need space for both.

I went last night to a new place I had heard of. From the parking lot I could hear the music and even as early as 8:15, the lot was full of cars. The minute I walked in the door, it was like coming home. The dance floor was huge. And I saw people not only line dancing, but doing my favorite couples’ dances around the outside. It might sound silly, but my heart skipped a beat.

The first year I went to the country bar I never danced. I didn’t know the dances and I felt intimidated to go out on the floor and learn them. But eventually I let a boy persuade me and he took my hand and he led me around the dance floor. My boots were on his feet more than the hardwood floor, but I never laughed so hard or smiled so much. In one dance, I was hooked. He taught me a lot of the dances I know. He would come find me throughout the night and I would say, “Do I know this one?” and he’d assure me I did only to get me out on the floor so he could teach me another new dance.

But even when he wasn’t there, or on the nights when I just wanted to watch, what I loved most was seeing couples dance in such a way that you knew they had been dancing together for years. After watching them night after night, I realized how wonderful it must be to dance together regularly. It’s not just touch, it’s fun. It’s not just a night out, it’s a night spent in intimate contact. Women smiled, men led confidently. You just can’t be that close and NOT feel the love.

Last night I got to be a part of it again. It’s been too long and I was thrilled to be back. The dance steps came back to me faster than I might have imagined. Some dances that I knew back home, I found to be slightly different here. I was found by a man that was often looking for a partner and he led me around the dance floor several times for the ones I knew.

But it was when he asked me to slow dance that I remembered just exactly how much I love dancing. The gentle hand on my back guiding me. The other holding my hand. Guiding, moving, gently leading me around the dance floor. Not just in circles, but in a beautiful, sweet, rhythym. I loved it, without having any interest in the man himself, and likewise for him.

Dancing does my soul a world of good. I know it’s not for everyone, but I wonder how marriages might change if couples danced together regularly. I hope to find someone to lead me around the dance floor and through life holding my hand and guiding me with a gentle touch to my back.

I spent the morning paying bills, filing taxes and otherwise trying to savor the moments of sunshine through the windows and melting snow in the yard.

By this afternoon the twitch started and before long I had recruited the boy and the eager dog to join me for a walk. I’m all about deftly handling two birds with one stone so I suggested the short walk to the store for some much-needed groceries.

Flash and Eli waited on the melting snow mounds at Lowe’s while I walked over to our favorite market in the strip mall next door. We had come prepared, knowing we needed heavy things. Milk and cat food alone would notch up the cardio benefits on the way home but I had assured Flash I wouldn’t try to get everything on the list. I’d be reasonable, I assured him, knowing we had to carry it all home. But once inside the market I found it hard not to complete the task at hand. Sure juice is heavy, but did I really want to make another trip out tomorrow? Of course I could get the produce another time, but I’m right here and Flash will help carry home. Cereal is bulky but I can’t pass up a 2 for $7 deal!

I left the store and headed for the snow mound with two fuzzy heads protruding. Flash saw me coming with a bag on my shoulder (a big one), and a heavy bag on each arm and knew we were in trouble. I knew we were in further trouble when I realized Flash was now holding a bag of doggie-doo in his hand. I knew I didn’t want him carrying groceries now!! So I took two bags of groceries and the dog and he took one bag of groceries and the other of, well, …. and kept them very far apart from each other during the walk.

The entire walk home we cracked jokes about my over-eagerness. “Flash, if I get hit by this bus coming at us…”

“Mom, I’ll get hit, too”

“No, Flash, between the dog, myself and the 400 pounds of groceries I’m carrying, we’ll slow the bus down enough you can get out of the way. Just make sure you go home and finish your gifted homework. It’s my dying wish afterall.”

A block later….

“Flash? When you’re older be sure you tell your children about the Great Milk Incident of 2009.”

“What Great Milk Incident, Mom?”

“The one that’s about to happen when that Jeep gets up the hill.”

Closer to home…

“Flash? What is it about sunshine that makes me do these stupid things?”

“Do you think it’s just the sunshine that’s to blame, Mom?”

Of course we made it home just fine. And only one box of Rice Krispies took any damage at all. And we laughed and joked and enjoyed 52 degrees of sunshine in early February in Michigan.

It is a great day afterall.

He’s across from me at the coffee table.  Crab cakes, wild rice and spinach salad between us.  

I am eating chocolate chips straight outta the bag and drinking a glass of wine. Go ahead, ask me how conferences with Flash’s gifted teacher went.

Dare ya.

chicken.

My dad recently joined the rest of the instant messaging world. Along with my niece. My brother and I were already old hats at such communication. My sister just discovered Facebook and with that her own internal chat. So tonight, as I tried to play a few hands of poker (no, not for money), I had an IM from my dad. So I responded. My brother, not 10 feet from my dad, then sends me a message. My sister came on Facebook (where I was trying to play poker) and started sending me messages. Then Birdy got online and well, I started losing track of things quickly. When Flash jumped into the mix, I nearly gave up entirely.

What I learned however, is the following:

1. My niece cannot spell.
2. My sister is still a pot calling other kettles black.
3. Despite their names appearing on each line they type in an IM window, Birdy still cannot spell either my brother’s name or Flash’s name correctly.
4. That the world better look out because my dad learned about Yahoo emoticons.
5. That Flash felt left out and jumped into the mix, whether as further avoidance of studying or just for the sheer challenge of juggling 5 IM windows, I’ll never know.
6. That I can manage IM windows, blog about the experience and still win $2K in fake poker money at the same time.
7. That it is possible for a niece and nephew to drive my brother crazy from 800 miles away.
8. That while I can manage all of that, I still have to count on my fingers how many cards I have in a Hold ‘Em game towards a straight.
9. Flash’s status will read “SAT’ing” when he’s clearly online IM’ing.
10. After all of that, my dad will go back and use the phone to call my sister. Two steps forward, one step back.

It is fascinating to me to watch history in the making in the presence of small children. I spent time in George’s second grade classroom this afternoon watching the inauguration of Obama.

While I was in the room, one of his classmates, an African-American child, pointed at the television and said to me, “I thought our new President was brown.” I confirmed that our new President was indeed “brown” and said the man on the television was our new Vice President and that he was in fact, white. I loved that comment. I loved that to this room full of kids, there was absolutely nothing significant at all about this man’s color. It was just a fact, without any historical significance at all to their young lives.

When it was time for Obama to take the oath of office, I nudged this same student and said, “That is our new President, Barack Obama.”

“Oh, see? He is brown!” the student exclaimed. “What is he doing?”

I explained that he was being sworn in to office. That he had his left hand on the Bible and his right hand was raised and the other person was a judge and he was swearing him in.

“The new President is going to swear? On television?!”

Of course I explained, but his precious innocence was priceless.

It matters not one bit to me whom you voted for. The history made today did not come easily, quickly or without a price. And looking at a room full of children, it was really something to wonder about what these changes will bring to their future. And what changes these children will bring to our future.

Yesterday I was IM’ing with my brother. As it turns out, he was also IM’ing with Flash who was on the couch across the room from me. G decided to simplify and invite us both into a chat conference. Sounded like a plan.

My dad, sitting next to my brother on a couch in TN wanted in on the action. My brother walked my dad through downloading Messenger and then adding Flash and I to his buddy list. My dad commented to G that this was a lot like Skype only without the picture. G turned on his webcam and said, “We can remedy that!”

By the time all was said and done we were all hooked up to cams and mics and chat and whatnot, we realized that everyone could pretty much see and hear each other except me. My computer doesn’t have a webcam or a built-in mic.

My dad thought for a minute that I wasn’t able to see their webcams without one of my own. I typed into the chat window, “I can see you. I can even hear you. You just can’t hear me.”

I watched on the webcam as my dad exclaimed, “Where was this technology twenty years ago when I could’ve talked and you could only have listened?!”

Save by technology. Or lack thereof.

George was out with his parents shopping this weekend and found a game he wanted to buy for his new DS. He realized he had forgotten his wallet with his Christmas money in it at home so he asked his mom if she would lend him the money so he could buy it.

“Do you have enough at home to pay me back?” she asked.

“Yep!”

My sister agreed to buy the game for George contingent upon him repaying her later.

When they arrived home, George ran up to his room to get his money. When he returned he held out a gift card he had received from G for Christmas and asked, “Mom? Do you take Visa?”