No words

Pappy has ripped out his IV and refuses to let anyone into the hospital room. My Aunt and Grandmother have been peeking around the curtain in his room to monitor him. My Dad went to work for a while today but is back up to the hospital to make plans for Hospice. No one seems to know exactly what this entails. When my mother's mom died, hospice care was provided for her at my Aunt's house. It was very comforting to her to be somewhere familiar. The last day of her life was extremely traumatic for everyone though because she was very delusional and kept screaming for help. The hospice nurse had been called but did not show up until several hours before my grandmother died. The care she gave to my grandmother and to us was superb once she got there but I really think we were in way over our heads. My grandfather is allergic to most pain medicines even if they could get him to take anything and I am afraid that he is in pain right now. I feel so lost right now. I don't know how to help my Dad or grandmother.

Happy Keanu Sausage

I am posting this happy little video to counteract the blazing annoyance I felt at the person who posted this little comment on DallasISD.Com .

"Oh, and there are plenty of GREAT teachers in DISD. For those who choose the suburbs, they aren't better. In fact, they are weaker, because they choose an easier classroom. Maybe THEY are the ones in it only for a paycheck? In DISD, by God, you earn your pay."

After months of internal strife and gnashing of teeth, I thought I had come to terms with my decision to leave. This however brought back flashbacks. The truth is that I do feel guilty about leaving. But to assume that I won't earn my pay makes my blood boil. So I am thinking happy Keanu thoughts now as I start planning for next year. BTW-they are happy Keanu dreams circa Something's Gotta Give not Bill and Ted's.

My Pappy

My grandfather made the decision this afternoon to stop taking all of his medications. He has been in and out of the hospital this past year and this last trip has seen him in and out of delirium and pain as they try to find out what is causing his blood pressure issues and weakness. It was such a shock when I got the news because even though he seemed to be in really bad shape at the hospital yesterday, we really just assumed that he would be back at home again in a couple of days. He said that he has finally reached a point to where he is just too tired. It's so incomprehensible to me because he has been such a tenacious fighter his whole life. He was in the hospital close to death when I was born. My father was on an aircraft carrier in the Pacific and didn't even see me until I was 6 weeks old and only then because they sent him home because my Pappy was near death. My Pappy has been crippled with rheumatoid arthritis since his early 20's. He is now in his mid 80's. He always held a job, became a minister for a church he literally helped build, maintained a really large vegetable garden until this spring, indulged my grandmother's huge flower garden, cared for grandchildren, chased after great-grandchildren and was even up on the roof last year sawing up a broken tree branch. When I mean crippled by arthritis, I mean an almost bent-over skeleton with a cane. The medicines to control the arthritis have done quite a bit of damage to his digestive system over the years but the biggest damage came from radiation treatments given to him during WWII when he worked in the naval shipyards of San Francisco. But he never really complained about it. He'd ask for his cane, pull himself up and off he'd go. To hear him say that he is just too tired to do it anymore speaks volumes. It makes me so sad for my grandmother and my Dad because they are both quiet people who don't seem very emotional but feel things very deeply and personally. I am actually glad that my Mom called me tonight to let me know because I feel that it gives me extra time to shore up my own feelings in order to be strong for my dad. His steadiness is very important to him. I am praying that Pappy slips away quietly in his sleep and the pain is all gone. My comfort is imagining him rejoining his family standing tall and proud. I think that is the image he has always had of himself anyway.

Thursday Thirteen Photo-Op: the Lost Years

Thirteen photos that are stuck in limbo on my computer. Yeah, yeah, it's a cop out but I am feeling inarticulate this week. It could be because I just got my cholesterol and glucose results back and am now forsaking colas and sugar. Alas poor monkey. Bonus points to those who can identify where the vacation pictures were taken.

If You Could Choose Your Principal

Learn Me Good brought up a very interesting idea about the need for more male role models in the elementary schools. In my elementary there was one male teacher and his entry into our hallway was always a major occasion among the older students. I of course diverged in my thought processes to dumbfoundedly realize how relieved I am at the thought of a male principal next year. My last two principals had people skills on the negligible side. Both of them were coincidentally women. Both of them were coincidentally possibly needing psychiatric care for bipolar disorders. What type of stereotypes have I developed in my mind because of the past 5 years? Do I think women principals are too emotional? Do I find male principals less threatening? Is my relief at a male principal because I secretly feel him to less capable or that I can get along with a male superior better? There are a lot of dynamics here that are worrisome to me. What exactly am I hoping to see in a principal? One who knows their stuff and directs me as he/she sees necessary or one who leaves me the hell alone to do my job? If you had a choice, would you choose a male or female principal?

Four Things Meme

I am only doing this because I respect Ms. Cornelius so much. I am at lovely TCU in Fort Worth this week enjoying an AP Teacher Institute. They are certainly taking care of us and I am in a class with some really dynamic teachers. Woo Hoo!
Four Things
Four Jobs I've Had:
Short-order Cook
YWCA Counselor
Christmas Gift Wrapper
Waitress
Four Movies I Can Watch Over and Over:
Sixteen Candles
Bridget Jones's Diary
Arsenic & Old Lace
Wizard of Oz
Four Musicians or Groups I'm Obsessing About Right Now:
Blue October
Blind Boys of Alabama
Death Cab for Cutie
Sufjan Stevens
Four TV Shows I Love:
Star Trek-prefer Next Generation
Doctor Who
Addams Family
Homicide
Four Places I've Vacationed:
Four Corners
Jamaica
Hot Springs, Arkansas
Balmorrhea(West Texas)
Four of My Favorite Dishes:
Kheer-Ok, I know it's technically dessert but I love it.
Tom Kha Gai-this is a Thai chicken coconut milk soup that I could literally swim in.
Chili Rellenos
Charcoal Pork Salad over Vermicelli
Four Sites I Visit Daily:
Ms. Cornelius
Texas Teacher Chatboard
Education in Texas
The Education Wonks
Four Places I Would Rather Be Right Now:
Balmorrhea, Texas
Edinburgh, Scotland
Rhine Valley, Germany
In a perfectly cleaned house
Four People I am Tagging:
Mike in Texas
Mister Teacher
Educator on the Edge
California Teacher Guy

Another t-shirt site I recommend for shear silliness. Finally watched the extended version of Return of the King. I miss the days of eagerly waiting for the next Lord of the Rings movie to come out. I have already bought my ticket for the midnight showing of Harry Potter. There is a group of us teachers from my old school who meet for movies based upon kid books, especially Harry Potter. We may look a bit silly and long in the tooth but I guarantee we have more fun. We also look darn good in wizard hats.

"The older I grow, the more apt I am to doubt my own judgment of others."

PHILADELPHIA, Pa., 1787 -

I CONFESS that I do not entirely approve of this Constitution at present; but, sir, I am not sure I shall never approve of it, for, having lived long, I have experienced many instances of being obliged, by better information or fuller consideration, to change opinions even on important subjects, which I once thought right, but found to be otherwise. It is therefore that, the older I grow, the more apt I am to doubt my own judgment of others. Most men, indeed, as well as most sects in religion, think themselves in possession of all truth, and that wherever others differ from them, it is so far error. Steele, a Protestant, in a dedication, tells the pope that the only difference between our two churches in their opinions of the certainty of their doctrine is, the Romish Church is infallible, and the Church of England is never in the wrong. But, though many private persons think almost as highly of their own infallibility as of that of their sect, few express it so naturally as a certain French lady, who, in a little dispute with her sister, said: "But I meet with nobody but myself that is always in the right."
In these sentiments, sir, I agree to this Constitution with all its faults - if they are such - because I think a general government necessary for us, and there is no form of government but what may be a blessing to the people if well administered; and I believe, further, that this is likely to be well administered for a course of years, and can only end in despotism, as other forms have done before it, when the people shall become so corrupted as to need despotic government, being incapable of any other. I doubt, too, whether any other convention we can obtain may be able to make a better Constitution; for, when you assemble a number of men, to have the ad- vantage of their joint wisdom, you inevitably assemble with those men all their prejudices, their passions, their errors of opinion, their local interests, and their selfish views. From such an assembly can a perfect production be expected?
It therefore astonishes me, sir, to find this system approaching so near to perfection as it does; and I think it will astonish our enemies, who are waiting with confidence to hear that our counsels are confounded. By BENJAMIN FRANKLIN (1787)