Sunday, December 9, 2018

Crossroads

Spuds has returned to L.A. and Number One Son is thinking of moving to Portland.  My own future is as big a question mark.  There are lots of things I like to do but unfortunately, “nothing” is at the top of the list.

The 2018 agita is split between Individual #1 and a legal battle with a problem tenant.  My fervent hope is that enough dirt comes out that Republicans will have no choice but to question the efficacy of their fealty.  The best thing would be if it’s revealed that Mike Pence is just as dirty as his boss and that both are removed from office.  President Nancy Pelosi.  This, and the time-honored winning of the lottery are my top daydreams these days. 

I’ve thought this before, but I am told that is likely that our eviction battle will be resolved within the next few weeks.  We are approaching the one-year anniversary and I wonder if suddenly not being fretful about this will be like a phantom limb.  

There is a new projector in my classroom.  I told the tech guy that it is so bitchen,’ that I’d marry it. My new next textbook is a snooze and an aesthetic offense, but it does have good supplementary materials.  And there are barcodes in the book that can be scanned for audio and videos.  Unfortunately, the bookstore was out of the book for a week and now that there are copies, a number of the students are struggling, particularly at this time of year, to come up with $34 for a text and workbook.  I am able to project just about everything from the text but can’t assign from the workbook which makes me feel bad that the students, who were able to spring for it, aren’t able to get a full return on their investment. 

My equipment up-grade, and a better supplemented textbook streamlines my lesson planning and teaching but, I am in a lather about winning the classroom holiday door decoration contest. We are assigned an interior door that is bisected by a horizontal metal opener which will pose a challenge.  Nevertheless, I have a vision.  I cockily assure the students that we will nab the victor’s pizza party. They ask each night when we’ll start to work.  I’d planned to begin the assembly on Thursday but there is a power outage and class is cancelled.

I’ve done some color copying, Amazon shopping and have forayed to Dollar Tree more than once.  Monday we’ll have to go into overdrive to ready our door for judgement Tuesday.  Margarita is a repeater.  She speaks pretty well but can’t read and write.  The other ESL 1B teacher and I bounce her back and forth. She’s in her sixties.  The students call her “Tia Margarita.”  She arrives with a giant trash bag filled with Christmas decorations, including an enormous mylar wreath.  I thank her profusely but am crestfallen.  Maybe we don’t have to use everything, but it is absolutely necessary to incorporate some of Margarita’s big, bright, shiny stuff.  I hope that I’m up to the challenge.

I eschew making political predictions but perhaps the funeral of George Bush will get some Republicans thinking about their legacies.  I imagine that Mueller has evidence that Individual #1 is guilty of as list of felonies that will hit double digits.  Are we at the point where the rats will panic and desert the sinking shit?  And like our legal problems, it is weird that there will likely come a day when I don’t have to think about this.  Maybe I’ll read a book.

The prospect of the kids’ semi-blank canvasses is thrilling. Surely there will be ups and downs, but they start the voyage with many assets and it seems that inevitably they’ll land on their feet.  I recount my own litany of failures to them and sometimes they even pay attention to these cautionary notes.  After a rough 2018, I am less sanguine about my own waning years.  I resent myself, and the circumstances, that have clouded a year with legal problems and a the frightening burgeoning kakistocracy.  I’m not sure if my nearly crippling lack of ambition is a product of crappy circumstances or simply a natural reaction to the commencement of one’s seventh decade.  In my lifetime I imagine that we’ll have a sane U.S. President and that, sooner or later, my only visits to the courtroom will be for jury duty.  I wonder if my current malaise is just a product of an inevitable winding down or if when our legal travails are resolved and Individual #1 gets his just desserts, I’ll be more inclined to get off of the couch.

Sunday, December 2, 2018

Righting Again



Two months since I’ve written anything but checks and e-mails.  Instead of letting the words pour out to make sense of things and remind myself that despite my travails, my life is rich with satisfactions.  I’m getting a head start on my 2019 resolutions—Smoke and eat less.  Write more.

I am switched to a new classroom.  The daytime teacher has literacy classes and the room conjures my 1963 Kindergarten class.  It’s crammed travel trinkets, colorful readers and all manners of alphabets: traceable, plastic, wood and postered. The closets, filing cabinets and desk however are chock full of crap and the room is very dusty. Still, there is a friendliness and now, with shorter days, it is a comfort to step inside from the dark.

I am in a new classroom and also using a different textbook.  It is not the one I would have chosen but, nevertheless it is an improvement.  I’d needed to create a lot of supplementary materials myself, but the new book has a good selection of enrichment possibilities.
The class, per usual is comprised of mainly Spanish speakers. There is one older Korean man, the first Asian student I’ve had, but he texts me almost every day. “I working. Not school.  Thank you Sincerely.” I also have an Ethiopian student.  Despite practicing before class, I am unable to pronounce his name.  For these purposes, I will call him Mayu, as these represent two of the eight syllables.

We are talking about the simple present, but many students can’t make the distinction from the present progressive.   “I going to school on Wednesday.”  “Does she eating dinner?”  We work on schedules.  “What do you do on Wednesday?”  The propositions of time are also baffling.  “My birthday is in March.” “My birthday is on March 30.” “In the morning.”  At night.” And then there are “when questions.” “When do you go shopping?” But, “When does she go shopping?”

I make little cards with questions.  “What does your friend do on the weekend?” “What do you do on Sunday morning?”  We walk around, asking and answering.  I ask Mayu what he does on Saturday morning.  “I read the Bible…”  My filter is off kilter, due to a rough week and when Mayu asks me what I do on Sunday mornings, I blurt “I don’t read the Bible. Mayu is devasted and frustrated that he isn’t proficient enough in English to save my soul.  “I’m Jewish,” I tell him.  He shrugs.  “Jesus was Jewish.”  “No missus, Jesus, the light. The light!”  I smile and head over to another group, wishing that I’d kept my mouth shut.

I’ve managed to make it to school every night.  My hastily prepared “emergency” lesson plan kept on file, is a big bore and it’s easier just to show up than create a better one.  For every month of perfect attendance, I receive a multicolored parchment-esque certificate and my name posted on a prominent school bulletin board, commending my perfect attendance.  This offends me.  We are professionals.  There are no malingerers and if a teacher is absent, I can’t imagine that it would be for anything other than a damn good reason.  I presume that none of my attorney or physician friends receive “atta girl” acknowledgments for simply showing up and performing professional duties.  

The arrival of a new female principal has resulted in the Faculty Women’s bathroom being papered with treacly affirmation stickers.  I urge one of my male colleagues to file a discrimination suit, as no such admonishments to think positively and practice self-care appear in the men’s room.  Knowing that video cameras are not permitted in restrooms and how unlikely it is that a school administrator will read these words, I confess to vandalizing a sticker or two each time I visit lavatory.   

This week I have to sell 60 World’s Famous Chocolate bars, just like we did for high school fund raisers.  The bars are still a dollar but have gone from jumbo to fun size.  The money does go for student activities.  I buy a couple and give them as prizes to students who win a game and bring a couple home for Himself and Spuds. The envelope is stuffed with crumbled singles and $10 in change.  I know it’s for a good cause, but I feel sorry to see them waste their money on such shitty candy.

I assiduously avoid, and take every opportunity to snipe about, anything that can be categorized as “team building.”  There is an exception.   The best holiday decorated classroom door will garner a pizza party.  I am determined to win.  The whole idea hasn’t quite gelled but sewing buttons on felt and color portraits of the students are likely in play.  Plus, maybe some sort of subtle acknowledgement of Hanukah.  Maybe the thing about the lights will assuage Manu a bit.  

It looks like Individual One’s days may actually be numbered.  He might squirm out of it, but nevertheless, I am at least pleased that so many of the candidates I volunteered for are successful.  It is a shame about O’Rourke, Abrams, Gillum and Espy.  All have particularly odious opponents but there is at least the satisfaction of the miracle that any of them are even serious contenders.  With regard to the House, the time I spent phoning, texting, writing and postcards will be remembered by the sense of urgency that inspire these labors.  Which make a difference.

My meager efforts to affect a Blue Wave, and the time I spend actually teaching, distract me from the angst, which for the most part, defines 2018.  This is a time when one stupid decision made by a sociopathic, intellectually challenged, bereft of self-control, narcissist could mean Armageddon.  I watch the news slavishly, eager for more dirt and indictments.  After a year, we have still not had our conclusive day in court in a legal matter with a vexatious tenant.  It is unlikely that the presidency or the struggle for an eviction will have any earth shatteringly deleterious consequence for my life.  What chaps my hide is that so much of one of my year has been wasted in a miasma of hateful thoughts and revenge fantasies.  My classroom and political volunteerism have been a refuge from a year of, otherwise too much mean-spirited ideation.  And my years grow fewer. 

I am certain that our rental property and the White House will eventually be repopulated.  The former will force us to figure out the course of action we’ll need to optimize the quality of the years we have next.  The latter will radically reduce my obsessive appetite for political news and satire.  I guess a lot of pundits and satirists will end up repurposed, but the work of historians who recount these times will require infinite lifetimes.


Saturday, September 29, 2018

Citizenship 101

One of the few non-batshit things coming out of the White House is an acknowledgment that the media is thriving. Crooked Media produces a number of podcasts. I never miss an episode of Pod Save America. I read every pertinent article in the NY & LA Times and Washington Post. Add Politico, Daily Beast, Reuters, Huff Post and a couple of others. Up until recently I have never consumed television news. Now it plays endlessly, with only an occasional switch from CNN to MSNBC. And there's news satire from Samantha Bee, John Oliver and Bill Maher. Plus almost all of the non-fiction best sellers pertain to the Commander and Chief. This is just a sampling of media that's going gangbusters.What will happen to this industry if we survive long enough for another, less horrifying, presidency? How will we function without our indignation?

Preaching to the choir here, as I do most Saturdays, even if Cavanaugh never swilled a “'ski” or only exchanged a chaste kiss with Renate, he does not demonstrate the character, temperament or judgement that would qualify him for a lifetime position on the Supreme Court. He brags about his admission to Yale, “with no connections,” despite having attended an elite prep school and the fact that his dad was an attorney and his mom a judge. Even before the sexual abuse allegations arose, Cavanaugh is guilty of an enormous amount of dissembling with regard to his function at the Bush White House and service on the Whitewater trial. Finally, he seems not to grasp that the court is ostensibly an apolitical body, although this is often not true of its actual function. To blame his current cloud on “Clinton retaliation,” is fool-hearty on a number of levels.

I commend Jeff Flake for his efforts to reach across the aisle. I'm sure however that he's had an epiphany. Take the stairs. Watch though. Flake is not a moderate. While not a total wingnut he is a very far to the right conservative. I believe that he sees the writing on the wall with Trump. It will end badly. I assume he intends to emerge, the “I told you so” phoenix who will rise from the dust to “heal” the Republican party. I do commend him for supporting an FBI investigation of Cavanaugh, but keep an eye on him. I imagine he's very shrewdly playing a long game.

I head down to Seal Beach to canvas for Harley Rouda, the opponent of absentee Representative Dana Rohrbacher, who even Paul Ryan admits is a total Russian tool. We install software on our phones that has a map of the area we're assigned. The names, addresses, ages and party affiliation of all of the registered voters appear on the app. It's a cul de sac neighborhood with streets named after colleges. Princeton. Harvard. Stanford. Yale. Most of the front yards are neatly tended. Our software directs us to the homes of Democrats, who we are to remind to vote, particularly for Harley Rouda. The responses are recorded on our phone app. The objective is that every Democrat in the district receive a personal visit. Many of the neighbors we greet indicate that a canvasser has already visited. Unless a canvaser has spoken to every Democrat voter in the household, the house will remain designated for a visit.

I dread canvassing. This is because I have never been warm nor fuzzy with anyone with the temerity to knock on my own door. Well, it seems, I'm the only asshole in the universe. Every person who opens a door is cordial and polite. We happen upon a Trumpy lady, while trying to track down her Democrat husband. Her head is full of Fox News propaganda about Lisa Page and a plethora of deep state conspirators but she also thanks us for going out and pounding pavement for something that we believe in.

I note that a number of Democrats express being turned off by Diane Feinstein holding on to Dr. Blasey Ford's letter. Despite the protestations about the victim's reticence, I hope I'm wrong, but the whole chain of events doesn't pass the sniff test. I guess, particularly remembering the Merrick Garland shenanigans, the ends justify the means, and perhaps this isn't the time to dig our heels in about dirty politics. Sigh.

Walking a Seal Beach neighborhood or watching Jeff Flake summon Chris Coons out the meeting for some bipartisanship, there is one thing that I am sure of. Most of us are ready for a return to decency. I spy a man in Silver Lake with “Fuck Trump” embroidered on his jacket. What does this ultimately accomplish?

I hope that the result of this awful horrifying time is that people will just start talking to each other. And here's the gauntlet. Do the binge watching, gym going, restaurant dining that you deserve but remember that doing nothing other than making financial contributions, brands you as complacent. It is proven that human contact is more effective than television advertisements or campaign mailers. If you want information about canvassing, I can provide it. For those who find knocking on doors too daunting I can let you know about phone banks. You can even send handwritten postcards to voters or make calls in your pajamas, from your home. The election is five weeks away. Whatever the results, you will feel better knowing that you did what you could.