Author amykoehn

For My Dad

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Because I’m not sure if he’s ever seen it happen…

(I know the car is in drive, but I was stopped at a stop light, so I promise, it was safe to take a picture)
In honor of the occasion, I took gave the car a bath and vacuumed it all out.  I even put Armorall on the dash and washed the inside of all the windows.  
George will still be amazed that the bird poop is STILL stuck on my back window.  It’s been there for several months and nothing seems able to get it off.
George is convinced the bird ate a concoction of peanut butter, syrup and super glue to create such durable, indelible poop.

The Very Stealthy Cricket

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I was in my classroom last week when I sensed movement out of the corner of my eye.  I was scared to look, it was something on the floor and that is never, NEVER good.  

A cricket.
I should pause here and say, I have this thing about bugs.  Especially jumping bugs.  I am convinced that the snake is not the most feared animal, but really the grasshopper is.  They jump in unpredictable ways.  They sort of fly, but not really.  And walking innocently through the yard you could rouse one up and it could LAND.ON.YOU. Snakes just slither away.  A grasshopper will someday be the death of me.
And so the cricket.  Grasshopper’s wild little brother.
In my classroom, far too near my desk for comfort.
I scoot my desk chair back and contemplate my options.
My usual course of action, my weapon of choice – the vacuum – is not available to me in my classroom.  I’m not even sure how to think of Plan B with this hopping, jumping, leaping little demon at my feet.
I scramble.
I head to the door and walk across the hall trying to regulate my breathing.   There is a sub in the room and she is lining the students up to go somewhere.  I calmly ask if I may borrow George for a moment.  
Ever excited to have a mission, George eagerly follows me to my classroom.  When we arrive at the scene, I point to the cricket and say, “He’s got to go.”
George is thrilled!  A cricket!  In the classroom!!  I had him a tissue, reminding him of his nephewly duties.  He tosses the tissue over the cricket.  The possessed insect just leaps out from under it.  This happens over and over, each time George giggles a little more and I move further and further way.
Then I hear the most dreaded words of all.  “I can’t find him.”
WHAT?!!
I explain to George that it is NOT ACCEPTABLE to have a cricket LOST somewhere in the vicinity of my desk.  He is looking around and under the desk.  I am too, but from a very safe distance, say, perhaps 20 feet.
And then relief, George spies the black intruder by the table!  I suggest he perhaps step on it just lightly to stun in and then he might be able to grab it with the tissue.  I don’t want to encourage a complete squishing because I know, crickets crunch and I might never recover from that sound even if it doesn’t happen beneath my feet.
George thinks this is a marvelous idea and lightly treads upon the unsuspecting bug.  “Oh, that’s awesome!” he declares.  “I can see guts!!”
I ask him as calmly as I can if he would now remove the bug and go flush it down the toilet.  He picks up the remains of the cricket in his tissue and heads off to the bathroom in the hall.  I remind him to head on off to library then.
George is officially my hero.
P.S.  A couple of days later I asked if I could borrow George for a moment.  I needed him to run to the office for me to get something while I had class.  The first words out of his mouth were, “What?  Are you scared of another little cricket?!”  

Reading

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I’ve been reading, I just haven’t been posting about what I’ve read.  I added a few of my latest reads on my list to the right, but I’ve already forgotten some of the titles I read this summer.  

I won’t do a review for each, I’ve found I’d rather just move on to my next waiting book than to write about what I’ve read (reminds me of school) but I will say this:  I enjoyed “Eat, Pray, Love” even though I don’t agree with everything she has to say.  And I really enjoyed “Edgar Sawtelle” although if you’re not that into dogs or the human spirit, then perhaps this book is not for you.  As for Nicholas Sparks, all I can say is that his writing has been very disappointing to me lately.  I doubt I will reach for his next novel nearly so quickly and I will wait for someone to tell me it’s as great as “The Notebook” before I plunge in.  
Now then, I have five days until I’m back to my own novel writing and until then, I still have some unread books on my nightstand.  

Eight

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He pulled out his homework the moment he got to the house.  “You don’t have to do that today, you know.”  

“I know.”
And he proceeded to do it anyway.  He showed me his classroom newsletter, his Spirit Wear order form and then put them back in his backpack.  I signed his finished homework and he put that away, too.
We had nachos for dinner.  His choice.  And ice cream later for a snack.  He watched Iron Man in the living room with LM and would wander into my bedroom to tell me parts of the movie from time to time.  “Is it over already?” I asked.  
“No.  I just wanted to come see what you were doing.”
Asleep around 10, snuggled up on the couch, the dog and the cat both watched over him.
I woke around 6 with a knock on my door.  He had a bloody nose.  He came and laid on my bed and we talked for awhile while we waited for it to stop.  When he left, I heard him sneeze out in the hallway and he peeked his dimpled face back in my door and said, “it started again” and we both laughed.  
This time he came and snuggled under the covers beside me.  I watched him sleep for awhie and then tiptoed out of the room so he could rest.  
I’m not sure at all how eight years have come and gone so quickly, but I will treasure the simple joy of making sweet birthday morning memories together.  
Happy Birthday my sweet little nephew, George.  A Happy Birthday indeed.

Sick and Tired

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Anyone who knows me IRL (in real life) knows that I’ve been sick.  For awhile.  What?!  Six weeks is too ‘awhile’.  Ahem.  

I stayed home on Monday against my better judgement to try to get some extra rest as I had not slept well (coughing) and facing the little wildabeasts that gave me these germs in the first place seemed like unfair torture.  
And Monday they spent the day patching and paving the part of the parking lot right outside my patio door.  
No rest for me.
I went back to work Tuesday, not feeling a lick better and much to the frustration of my co-workers who tried their very best to diagnose my symptoms better than I had.  “It’s bronchitis” I said, armed with my WebMD knowledge and confirmation by the helpful pharmacist.  “It’s viral.  I just have to wait it out.”  
“It’s an infection,” they retorted.  “Bronchitis doesn’t last this long without becoming an upper respiratory infection.  YOU need to see a DOCTOR.” They proclaimed with much disdain.
And so today, with barely a lick of actual work to do or teaching to teach at school, I called in a sub and stayed home again.  This time, I vowed to go to the doctor.
Which is a bit more difficult when you are insurance-challenged.  I have insurance (stop freaking out – yes, you in the back) but barely.  When your employer doesn’t provide it and you’re working for, oh, not-so-very-much money, you make do with policies that will help in case your kidneys need replacing, but not so much help for seeking treatment for the common cold.  Anyway, I digress. 
I found the walk-in clinic and I trudged my butt there at 9:30 this morning, shortly after they opened.  There were three people in the waiting room.  It took an hour to get me in to the exam room.  It took another half hour for the doctor to come in and see me.
“Bronchitis.”  Was his already foreshadowed verdict.  But I gave him my best sad puppy dog eyes and I may have coughed more times than were absolutely necessary while he wrote up my paperwork and he finally agreed to prescribe for me an antibiotic “just in case”.  Nice fellow that he was.  
And so I waited another hour in the pharmacy for them to fill my simple antibiotic order.
And I finally returned home 3 1/2 hours after I had left with medicine in tow that I am counting on with desperate pleas to heal me.  And all I want now is a little soup and a little nap and I’ll be golden.  
But as I pull into the parking lot, I notice a truck pull in behind me.  And as I sit down at the coffee table with my cup of soup, I see the distressing news unfolding.  They are back.  To apparently repatch and repave the parking lot.  Right outside my windows.  
So perhaps I will not get any rest.
But I am about to finish my book.   So it’s not a day wasted at all, is it?

We Wrote The Book

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Tuesday and Thursday nights at CPR and First Aid Training.  What a fun week.

At least the instructors were good (meaning: fast) and we were out in two hours instead of the predicted four.
After completing the First Aid training this evening, however, I had a surprising realization.  I know the materials are published by the American Heart Association, but I’m fairly certain my family wrote the book.
Start on page 24, Choking.  That’s G’s page.  Just ask him about the time he was choking and no one believed him.  
Or page 30, that’s for Jules and her Epi pen.  The one she forgets to carry with her, especially to the orchard which is swarming with bees.
Flip the page and you’ll find my dad.  Mr. Heart Attack.  It was a flukey thing, granted, but still, those calls that say, “your dad is in the hospital because he had a heart attack at school” don’t make the memory feel like a fluke.
Stay with Dad for a few more pages.  He’s the diabetic they are referring to.  
Page 39 is for Mom.  Seizures.  There was nothing the AHA could tell me about those I didn’t already know.  
If you’ve spent any time at all with George, you’ve covered page 51 – bloody noses.  
I showed page 53 to LM.  It’s what to do in case of an amputation.  (You’d have to know that his whole life whenever he’s injured, I’ve always shouted, “Amputation!!  YIPPPEE!!”)
I’m covered by page 63, burns.  Note:  when stirring hot applesauce, be careful of splatters!
I’m also the material for page 70 – bites.   When they talk about rabies and mention raccoons, bats and wild dogs, keep in mind a poor innocent kitten can also send you to the ER for the entire rabies series.  
The instructors said I should receive my certificate of completion in a few days.  I don’t need one.  After all, if there’s a rabid animal on the loose, I’m the one to call.