Summer Theme

Anna is in the movies this summer, which is to say that she is working at the movie theater.  I see her in the morning before she heads out dressed in a tuxedo to scoop popcorn.  Frank is laying on the couch watching "Titanic" which he alternates with "Top Gear."  He is apparently a romantic gear head.  :-)  Mary got off the bus from Destination Imagination Global Finals yesterday wearing a sombrero and was already Facebook friends with her new boyfriend from Mexico before I had the pizza out of the oven.  They chatted last night on the internet.  (When I was her age and met cute boys at camps and such I would have hand written letters and exchanged little school pictures.)

I moved some old furniture out to the yard this summer and decided that my theme is to use my back yard in new ways.  The little table and chairs under the tree makes a nice spot for lunch.  The adirondacks on the little deck Frank made from an old compost pile make a respite from the porch when you want more privacy.  But the best room in the house is now the room created by the willow tree branches as it closes around the papasan chair that sits under it now.  A papsan chair is a bowl and when you sit back in it it curves around you.  The long branches of the willow brush across my arm and I feel inside and yet outside - the perfect summer room.

The Buddha in the Attic

This is the best example of an entire work of fiction written in first person plural that I have ever read.  (I don't think I have ever read anything in first person plural except examples of what it is in the first place.)  It tells the incredibly moving story of Japanese women who immigrated before WWII and made their homes in America with their Japanese husbands.  The final chapters are first person plural from the point of view of the white neighbors after the Japanese were sent to internment camps.

The point of view made the novel laborious at times and I wished for one character that I could relate to, but of course I related to all of the slices of life that I read and it was intended to be a group, not an individual.  The Japanese Internment did not happen to one person.  It happened to a whole community.  I love, love, love when authors play with point of view as a specific way to tell a story.  This was brilliant in that way.

Meyer's Briggs for Schools

Schools have personalities.  Sometimes it is tradition or academics or athletics or music.  Colleges are keenly aware of their personalities and capture the personality in short paragraphs and photographs for their brochures.  In Lincoln the high schools all have open enrollment and the schools have reputations for different skills.  The schools attract students interested in those activities and the school personality is preserved.  Sometimes a strong teaching personality can attract students to an activity that they might not be interested in otherwise.

The Middle School that my kids went to/go to is known for its vocal music program and it is due to the vocal music teacher.  There are many things about it that make this unique.  For starters, vocal music is voluntary.  Rehearsals are at 7am and after school.  Every one of my three kids has asked to be in chorus and got up to go to 7am rehearsals and did after school rehearsals and even practiced at home.  Each of them have chosen to be in not one chorus group, but two.  Anna and Mary were in both regular choir and Girl's Choir.  Anna was additionally in swing choir.  Frank is in regular choir and Man Choir.  (I'll get to Man Choir in a minute, that's what I am really writing about.)  My children are not unique, either.  The choirs at the school are bursting with children who all want to be there.  They could hardly get the 8th graders off the stage last night at their final concert as they took over the mic to thank their chorus teacher and present him with presents that included a disco ball and a duct tape aardvark (the school mascot is an aardvark).  They closed the two hour chorus concert to an absolutely packed house.  It was literally standing room only and there was an overflow crowd in the hallway watching the concert on a monitor.  The teacher appreciates and encourages them.  He holds them to high musical standards and behavior standards.  He just communicates his expectations and it happens or you're out.  And no one wants to be out.  He communicates well with parents and talks with athletic coaches to organize after school rehearsals around other school activities if possible.  He balances traditional choral music with fun international songs and pop songs.  Last night included songs from The Jackson 5, traditional religious hymns, Abba, and "Whatever Happened to Saturday Night" which is a song from the "Rocky Horror Picture Show."  I could tell that the kids were just over the top happy with the borderline appropriateness of the song.  And then they brought out bongos and did a cool African song.

Girls out number the boys by quite a lot in choir even with the large number of boys.  To compensate, the teacher always had girl choirs where the girls could work on arrangements just for them.  The boys complained years ago and Man Choir began.  The teacher has taken the Men and made choir something special.  They have Man Choir Traditions and Secret Ceremonies.  They change the words in warm ups for Man Choir and include inside jokes about aardvarks.   The boys take Man Choir very seriously and they have a lot of fun singing together.  Frank is adamant that he wear a suit (they all do).  They have become mini celebrities to the point that the school system frequently requests that Man Choir perform at events.  Man Choir is performing at a retirement party next week for a district wide administrator who is reportedly a fan.

Middle School is an awkward age.  I am glad that the kids have all had a supportive environment to perform on a stage in front of an audience and sing.  It show cases them physically and vocally - sometimes awkwardly, as Middle School is.  And they enjoy it.  I would note that none of my kids (so far) have gotten involved in chorus in high school  "It's not the same as it was in Middle School," Anna once complained.

Improvement in All Areas

Also, quickly (sheesh, 3 blogs in 1 day?!), I had my assessment done after the 12 week program at the Y.  I improved in every area - strength, flexibility, resting heart rate - everything got better.  Also, I lost some weight and inches.  Most importantly, my blood pressure went down.  I am a little frustrated with how slowly I am losing weight, but I am "over 40" and I have had some health issues this year, so I am cutting myself a break and feeling really good to see such concrete outcomes from hard work.  I signed up for another 12 weeks.  My trainer pointed out that I don't have surgery scheduled this time.  Haha!  Oh.  :-D

Yoga is My Life

I've been out of town the last three weekends - Kearney for Destination Imagination, Kansas City for a belly dance workshop and last week I was at a work retreat.  I was actually home on the weekend, but Bill drove to Gordon to see Claire in a play and I stayed in Lincoln to help the kids get from activity to activity.  I keep looking at the calendar to see when we get a break and it won't be for another month.

Mary has her after school hours free for the first time all school year - no debate or soccer.  Frank is wrapping up track.  And most strange to me, Anna is wrapping up high school.  It is hard to believe that she is graduating from high school and at the same time it feels like it can't happen fast enough.

I think of crazy days like Saturday as yoga series.  I try to smoothly move from one thing to the other.  I lean into each event and breathe and find, impossibly, that I can go further than I thought I could originally.  On Saturday Anna and I picked up trash in the park while Mary worked a fundraiser bake sale/garage sale and Frank was at something called Brain Brawl.  I was making Mary quesadillas when I got the call that Frank was done and needed a ride home.  Anna got in the shower to get ready for prom and I drove across town to pick up Frank.  He was sitting on the retaining wall outside the school and he and I walked to the van as he told me about the competition.  The sun was shining and my son was happy and chattering.  I had been busy all day, but everything had worked out and the end was now in sight.  I had a moment of pause and pleasure, and then I explained to Frank that we had to stop at the florist on the way home to pick up a boutonniere  and we moved into the next pose.

The London Train

If I told you that the book was about the different points of view of an extra martial affair, academics, and British politics, you would think I was reading chick lit.  But the author deals with these topics in a complex way that helps me save my reputation as a serious reader.  :-)  Feelings are not glossed over or described in a trite way.  There is an authenticity that makes me feel like the author can somehow see my private thoughts.  The scenes concerning the young adult daughter adrift and making bad choices all while avoiding her mother's phone calls literally made my chest ache.  I recognized both of the characters in a very deep and personal way.  The reader is not left with any answers, but I did feel satisfied at the end.