Dotty Parker

the circle of life and its disconnected nature

Thursday was an amazing day.

I was a substitute teacher for kindergarten students. They're really cute and they're small and cuddly. And they don't sit still. Not even in school. And they can't read or write.

What in the world is a person supposed to do with that?

I had a teacher's aide there to help me. I thanked my lucky stars that I had her there. What in the world would I have done?

There were lesson plans, but these are intense lesson plans. No flash cards, no plus or minus. This is number concept action. When I clap three times, that makes the number three. See? Three things happen, that translates into a number that we use when we're buying food or counting cars. And then we'll learn about things that are more than ten. I have ten fingers. What if I want to make sixteen? So we're teaching them base ten math.

Okay, I could handle that stuff, but they can't sit still. At all. And they have to pee all the time. Three boys went to the bathroom and two came back to say that the third was doing bad things. Of course my mind was racing to disgusting primate at the zoo kind of things. In fact, one kid was wagging his butt around and singing some song about making the other two look at his butt.

So here's where my child handling skills weaken. Instead of scolding little butt boy, to the other two who were victimized by this gluteal exposition I said, "Well, it's his butt, right? You didn't want to see it. And he stuck it right out, right? So we don't really have to worry about it, right?" What was I supposed to say to butt boy anyway? "Okay, you know you have to keep your bottom covered, don't you?"

They're silly and they giggle and wiggle and laugh at everything. I read to them and they sat at my feet. On them, if I'd let them. The girls at my feet were playing with my skirt. It was down to my ankles and pleated. They held the edge up to see through to the person sitting next to them. Then they plucked at my tights over and over. Then they touched my shoes and said, "They're soft. Oooo." They were flannel shoes. Out of fashion, but I like them anyway.

The teacher's aide said, "You're used to high school students, aren't you?"

Oh yes, I most certainly am.

On Friday I had middle school students, who will ever and always be a mystery, although an increasingly funny mystery.

How happy was I to have middle school kids! After the kindergarten day, I went home and fell asleep at 7:30. I woke up at 10, had some yogurt or something and went back to bed until 6:30, when I got the call for the middle schoolian hooligans.

I'm old and cranky. Just like the teachers I thought were so old and cranky when I was in school. The world's a big circle. You're little and then you grow up. When you're grown up you look back at kids who are little. Then you realize that you are the person who delighted or persecuted the kid who was little. And they're going to grow up to realize the same thing. Something like this will happen when I'm older still, but I don't know what it is yet. A big circle. But you only realize it's curling back on itself until much later.

are they free?

I have no use for her. No use! Do you hear me? I have no use for her!

I was sitting enjoying my evening at work--no one was there--and I was getting ready to thread my machine and a young woman came up to me to say, "How do I do this?" She had her hands in reindeer prance position and made a small circle with them when she said, "this." If she hadn't been looking right at me, I would have sworn that I missed it when she said "like". "How do I do, like, this?"

I knew she wanted to buy fabric but I wanted to make her ask. "How do you do what?" I was so sweet. So sweet!

"Get fabric."

So I laid it out for her. "You pick what you want. You take it to the center table, the cutting table you walked past when you came in. You tell them how much you want. They cut it for you and give you a paper that you bring to the register."

"Okay. Um, do you have, like, scraps?" That time she did say like.

"No." She would have frowned if her face showed any expression at all. Too much eye liner. Way too much. "They have leftover pieces. They're called 'remnants'."

"Are they free?"

"No." What's that about? Do you go to the florist and ask for some flowers that have been snipped off the bigger flowers? And if you do, do you expect them to be free? No, you don't. Do you go to the hardware store and ask if they have any nails laying around? No, you don't. The grocery store to ask about that single banana or that orphaned bunch of grapes? No, you don't.

So let me back up. "Are they free?"

"No. They're half price, I think."

"And where are they?"

"Well, I don't actually work for JoAnn's, but I think they're on the other side of that display in front of you, the one with tapes and bindings." She turned and looked back at me puzzled. "See the zippers? They're on the other side of the zippers, I think. You may have to ask the women who work at JoAnn's."

She wandered away. "On the other side of this?"

"Yes, I think so. You may have to ask."

I should have told her that asking was free. Absolutely free. As well as advice. And a kick in the pants.

notorious

My favorite part of working isn't the working. I like the people that come with the working. As long as I get to decide if I deal with them. Substitute teaching--the students are infinitely more interesting than substituting or teaching. Working one on one with a student, that's interesting. That part I like a lot. But teaching students about adjective clauses...that wasn't so hot. Especially when the teacher herself used poor grammar. Bad bad. And insistent customers, well, they're no fun.

Tonight I went in to teach a sewing class and no one showed up. I didn't think that anyone would. I had two students at the first class and we went through almost all of the techniques and we kind of left it so that they probably wouldn't come to class number two, but then again, they thought they might.

They didn't.

I was going to leave right away, but I started talking with two of my coworkers. Tonight I learned these facts: one has a son who died of cancer when he was 22. The other has a son who has Asberger's syndrome, just like the kid from class yesterday. Both women have been to chiropractors who weren't that great and one had been to one that was.

Earlier today I was sort of at work and I talked with a woman who was getting divorced from a very crazy and terrible husband. The kind of terrible and crazy that's on tv movies. Scary crazy and terrible. I'm happy she's getting out of there. So is she. There's way more to the story, but it seems inappropriate to write about it, doesn't it?

And I've learned lots of stuff about lots of people. And none of that was my job. That's the part I like, though. And sometimes I have a bad attitude and can't keep my opinion to myself. That's what makes me oh-so-special. You can call me Lucy Van Pelt and put a nickle in my coffee can and the doctor is REAL in and I'll listen to Charlie Brown or Linus or Snoopy. Or you. Tell me all about it.

you're small and powerful

I was a substitute teacher for first and second graders today. They're busy!

It really is a different world. They don't use books. They have worksheets. Lots of worksheets. They use crayons frequently. They're learning things that I thought I always knew.

I never wanted to be one of the people who said, "You know, it's been so long since I learned that...I don't know how to explain it." I am one of those people. You try explaining, to a second or third grader, how to "carry the one" from the ones place to the tens place and you'll find out what I mean.

These kids are very wiggly, on top of not knowing things that I don't know how to explain. I was working with some of the ones who need extra help. They really do need extra help. One kid who was adorable and had really good taste (he drew a picture of me walking a yak sized dog to the playground where he was on the swings with my brother) ended up writing something like this:

We walk to day play us day time ground.

He wanted to say that we walk together to the playground during the day. Was it always like this? Were there always kids who had this much trouble? Did they just get ignored?

There was a kid in the room with Asberger's syndrome, a form of autism, who said some of the things I was thinking. The spine on his book broke and he said, "We need some kind of expert to fix this now. Now!" The art teacher sang a little song and from the side of the room I heard, "Oh, please!"

Right on, little bro.

Now I'm tired and am going to sleep just about right away. It's a wacky thing, those little tykes. They pack a lot of power in those bodies. I don't know where they keep it. Maybe in their little shoes or little backpacks or extraordinarily big mouths.

Oh please!

pets

I think about getting a cat sometimes. So today I went to the SPCA site. There were lots of cats, some of which had their fees waived. I'd be happy with a free animal. Perhaps a dog...although I know two dogs who would be a little bit, or a lot bit, angry with me.

The cat that looked promising was named Harold. Harold was a few years old and liked to be the only cat in the house. That sounded good.

There there were Nerf and Turf. They went together. One hated everything and everyone, but had to have some surgery. One cat spent time under the cage of the other and meowed and then they spent time together and they were happy. La la la.

I visited Ali tonight. Both of her cats came out to see me. Angel and Cherub. Cherub has only just begun to come out to see me, but I'm the only one she comes out to see, so I feel extra special.

Perhaps it's good to not get a cat just now, though. I suspect I'd want them to leave me alone sometimes and that's exactly what a pet isn't supposed to do. They're supposed to love you and want to be with you and to want to be with you so much that they really really want to be with you even if you don't want to be with them and that way you know they love you like a pet should.

I suspect that's a codependent pet relationship, but that's the kind that usually sounds good to me. And that's what Spring and Sprocket often do. Although they usually leave me alone if I need them to. Unless I'm working on a project on the floor. Then they sit on it, but with their backs to me, so they don't disturb me.

Cats...maybe not right now. I have too many projects on the floor.

irrit ah baloney

Irritable. Yeah, I might be irritable sometimes.

Today I noticed my snippiness when I saw a car parked where I usually _don't_ park.

What's that? What am I talking about?

I usually park by the trees rather than the garage. Parking by the garage makes it more difficult for other people to get out of the driveway. It is my allotted spot. I choose not to use it. But! My neighbor, who has her own parking spot, her husband, who used to live out of town and isn't even supposed to be there, he's using my parking space!

Is it irrational? Oh yeah. You bet it is. But it's my spot. And his car is in my way. And it's dark and his car blocks the light that spills on the driveway so then I really, really can't see in the dark and I'm out there with my hands in front of me as I shuffle forward...and I just spent time with my grandmother who is convinced that things should be a certain way. Whatever it is, she knows how it's supposed to be.

And I think that maybe I'm her! I'm shuffling around! I can't see well! I'm cranky about things that don't matter! I know how things are supposed to be!

So, I think the moral of the story is this: I'm irritable and full of baloney, among other things.

I'm going to write a column for the newspaper and convince people of how witty I am. Just like all those people who write about themselves and think they're amusing...oh.

old and cold

My grandmother is visiting my parents and I'm visiting my parents. So that works out well, don't you think?

Gram is getting old. Looking old, I mean. Her face looks the same, but she looks tired and often has the distant look of a person who isn't engaged in the conversation. I think she's 87. That's not young, is it?

I saw pictures of her when AngerTrain was little. She looks like a regular person. It seems weird, but she's always been old to me. She's always been less speedy than I would have liked. She's always been convinced that things shouldn't be the way that they are, that they should be the way they were.

So now, although the same things are true, they're more and extra true. She's less speedy now. And she has a cane. She's convinced that people should behave this way or that way, but she isn't in touch enough to know that things aren't the way they were, that they can't ever be the way they were, that they don't resemble the way they were, that people don't know they were different at all.

I sat next to her tonight while we watched a little tv. I asked for a blanket because she looked cold. She put her hands on my leg and said, "You're so warm. My hands are cold." I said that they were, indeed, cold. "You can feel that they're cold?" Yep. They were cold.

She must have warmed up, though, because she fell asleep. I rubbed her neck a little, she's so delicate, and she fell asleep. Powerful me! Or maybe weak her.

I worry.

My UnkieP has his special "old lady falling down" radar in high gear. Gram is teetering a lot. I know it's not unusual or new or anything different from what everyone else in the world has experienced. It's just that it's happening to me now, and it's scary.

puppy dog tales

When I write about Spring and Sprocket, their personalities are very clear. They are so clear, that they often write for themselves.

Telling other people about Spring and Sprocket can be a bit weird, though. Sprocket has a monkey.

She goes far up in the back yard and sometimes she just looks at the trees and sometimes she barks. That's where the monkey lives. So of course she's back there.

If we mention Sprocket's monkey in the presence of those who aren't familiar with the world of Spring and Sprocket, there's a moment of disbelief and then there's the enduring feeling of wanting to disbelieve that this nonsense is really happening.

Some people don't believe in Santa. Other people don't believe in Sprocket's monkey.

And Spring is difficult to describe. She has prepared a speech for us:

Spring is a beautiful dog.
She is smart.
She is tall.
She likes tasty food.
She likes garbage.
She likes running.
She likes being beautiful.
She is the queen.
She is the queen.
She is the queen.
I love my dog Spring.

She's a little bossy, as well as being a beautiful queen, but more people understand that than understand the monkey business.

But dogs are so much fun to talk about!

how old are you?

Today I went to work and work was at a hotel. Ooolala, you might say.

But! It was a quilting event. We brought in an educator who talked about things she'd made, new techniques, new products (of course), and then we made a purse! Yea!

The average age of people there was probably sixty or sixty-five. Although I could be wrong--there were a few people complaining of hot flashes.

When you get around people who are thirty or more years older than you are, you start realizing that their names aren't like yours. It gets to be kind of fun, actually.

We had to make their nametags. There were normal names like "Dotty" and "BoPeep" and "Bunny". Then there were the old lady names.

An example--my grandmothers are Irene and Helen. Helen is sort of coming back into vogue, but Irene might be down for the count.

Today we had
Pearl
Doris (Three)
Grace (Two)
Polly
Marna
Betty (Two)
and a bunch more I can't remember, but I assure you this is a quality sample of the names we had walking around.

Will people be saying that behind my back in thirty years? "Did you see her nametag? Dotty! Who's called Dotty anymore?"

bump

A bump in the road. Things that go bump in the night. Bump and grind. Goosebumps. Bump on a log. Speed bump...

I hit a bit of a bump today. I was at work until 10pm. That seems late to me. It seemed late to lots of other people, too. In fact, Iris's husband called BoPeep's cell phone to find out if Iris had been in an accident or something--she's never out that late.

The bump: I don't want to be there, but I can be there and it's not really hurting me to be there and I'm supposed to be there but I'm pissed off and want to leave.

There are two ways to go, as I see it. One, go flying over the bump and get out of there accepting the scrapes and bruises incurred upon landing. Two, take the bump slowly, as a person is supposed to do, and endure the seemingly endless scratching and pinching and irritation.

I compromised tonight and scratched and pinched most of the way over. At the end, when the speed bump was ending, but not fast enough, then I flew out of there. A phoenix almost reborn out of ashes and asphalt that never quite was.

So the speed bump...I feel like a rebel. I slowed down and did what I was supposed to do, but when it was least expected, when it appeared that I was going to fall in line with the posted speed limit, HA! Transcendence!

the big world

It's a big world out there.

Did you know?

In college my genetics professor was explaining how to use the aspirator on the sink to take off the extra liquid after we'd centrifuged our tubes. He was a funny. (He grew up, mostly, in England. Then his family moved to Texas. A very strange accent, I assure you.)

He said to us, "Be careful when you use this! You get too close to your pellet and" he made a sucking noise "it's out in the big world."

If you've ever tried to find something in the big world, you know exactly how big it is. Well, you know exactly how small it isn't.

I lost my keys today. I thought, "I'll play it cool. I'll just keep doing what I'm doing and they will show up. Sure they will."

They didn't show up. They couldn't have been in the house.

They must have been in the big world.

I ended up using the key that I've meant to throw away because it's just about the break. That would be bad.

On the way back into the house, though, there they were. I'd dropped them on the ground. Oh sigh! How happy I am!

It's a small world after all.

happy howloween

I opened a web page today and there they were.

Advertisements for Halloween costumes.

For dogs.

The ads weren't aimed at dogs, but the costumes were made for dogs. Some of them are sooo funny.

On this page at the bottom is a Zorro costume. How fabulous is that?

And on this page, the puffy costumes make me laugh most. But check out the last one, the bride. Isn't she beautiful?

These are meant to be for boy dogs. I like Astropup best. I have a few things that I could say about gender equity and so forth, but I think I'll let the dogs duke that one out on their own.

And now my favorite favorite costume of all. The Piggy Wiggy Dog. I like Bone Head and the Milk Bone dog, too, but Piggy Wiggy...Sprocket's just waiting to wear that one.

Here are their photos from last year. Spring was a bit surly about her photos, so she decided that I could show her pissed off look. She's says I can do that since that's how she is when she has to wear stupid things. But she also says that if you wanted her to wear a big slab of meat, she'd be willing to give that a try.

eh? whassat?

I was talking on the phone with ChillyLily tonight. She got a newer cell phone, but it still sounds like she's talking through a pillow a lot of the time. I can hear her talking, but I can't quite hear what she's saying. I get bits and pieces, but I can't get it all.

I found the same thing happening when I was letting the computer read to me. I can do things like brush my hair or gaze admiringly at my new shoes while the computer reads me Charles Dickens or Jackie Collines.

Unfortunately, I can't quite understand it, either. I hadn't realized how much energy it takes to really listen. I knew that hearing someone who didn't speak English well could be tiring, but this is simply strange. The multiple tasks that I intend to perform are sitting idly by: my tasks are untaxed, while the words attempting to get in my ears are taxing.

Such a strange thing to find out late in the evening.

unforseen bonus

Today I worked at the Tompkins County Quilt Guild Quilt Show. I'm always amazed by what people do. They're extraordinary. There are "run of the mill" quilts that do require much talent. I have no patience for them so they seem all the more impressive to me. There are art quilts that knock my socks off. They're beautiful and amazing and astonishing. I've looked for photos and can't find any that show this year's show. Boo. I assure you, however, that it was beautiful.

It's inspiring to go to these places and see things that you've always wanted to try but haven't managed to do. It makes me want to be less afraid of what might happen when I do make the attempt...that's what it makes me _want_ to do. We'll see tomorrow what it actually makes me do.

Working at the quilt show was interesting. I got to see lots of stuff I wouldn't otherwise have seen...honestly, it was exhausting. After about five hours today I was ready to go. But I stayed and maybe made a few people happy. That's always a nice thing to have happen.

Here's my big bonus, though--

I have a little car. It's a Mazda Miata. The top converts into no top at all. It's often referred to as a "convertible".

At the show we had a rocking chair. It was too big to fit in the car.

We put the top down on my car and I drove it to BoPeep's house. I dropped it off on her porch. (I also made a heart out of the beechnuts that had scattered in her yard.)

But how cool is it to have a car that appears to be nonsensical when it turns out to have possibilities limited only by width and top heaviness.

I could probably transport a smallish rocket, if I wanted.

Cool.