family | BulgingButtons

January 21, 2014
by BulgingButtons 6 Comments

Feeling Kind of Monday

Yesterday was a wonderful day off from school in celebration of Martin Luther King Jr. Day. It was a beautiful day in my desert southwest city, and my son, my mother, and I took full advantage of it. We enjoyed a wonderful lunch on a restaurant patio, then worked it off hiking around our Desert Botanical Gardens. They had both seen the Chihuly glass installation there the last time around (son was in 5th grade then, now he’s in 10th), and it was fun to see how it differed from last time.

We soaked up the sunshine and warm weather, marveled at the beauty of the glass, and logged a couple of miles of desert hiking (well, strolling anyway). We entered the huts on the grounds that showed how the ancient people lived, and we inhaled the scents of lavender and sage. We read the signs, posed for pictures, and chatted with other visitors. It was a magnificent day. All on a Monday.

That means today feels like a Monday all over again. It’s time to jump in the shower and face the work week. It’s time to teach some new vocabulary, work on the skill of summarizing text, and try once again to demystify the world of fractions. Somehow I don’t feel up to the task. I feel ill prepared, although I’ve done my lesson plans and reviewed the week’s material. I just don’t feel ready. I feel like a need another weekend. Is that bad?

I’m not getting one though, at least not for four days. Oh, Four days. Well, that doesn’t sound so bad. Yes, I can do this. I’m certain I can. Wish me luck. I’m off to fraction hell.

December 18, 2013
by BulgingButtons 6 Comments

Throwback Thursday – Sick

Knock on wood I’m not sick at the moment, but a lot of my students have been. I’ve been washing my hands like a maniac and pumping out the hand sanitizer. It got me thinking back to when I was a kid and what it was like when I was sick. Here are a few of my childhood memories.

1. Mom and Dad’s bed. This is where I would spend the day missing school and watching game shows and sleeping. Mostly sleeping. There were so many pillows, and a bathroom closeby. Just in case.

2. Cough medicine with codeine. Worked like a charm. I’m sure Mom appreciated it too.

3. The sliver bowl. Next to the bed. ‘Nuff said.

4. Ginger ale from the big glass bottle. There was this weird rubber and metal plunger stopper thingie that reclosed it and kept the bubbles in. Mostly.

5. The glass thermometer under the tongue. I hated that thing. My mom always put it too far back and poked me.

6. The revolting taste of penicillin. I thought my dad was so lucky that he was allergic to it, but now that I’m all grown up I’m glad I was able to benefit from it as a child.

7. My grandmother’s huge fluffy featherbed from Germany. I believe the down of an entire flock filled that featherbed. It was toasty warm and chased those nasty germs away.

8. The horrible ordeal of getting a shot at the doctor’s office. Oh how I cried. Always. I was such a big baby. I still cringe when I get my blood drawn.

9. Kaopectate, chalky and soothing. I never even had Pepto Bismol until after I graduated college.

Through it all, my mom was there. She took my temperature, cleaned out the silver bowl (ew), took me to the doctor’s office, tucked me under the featherbed, turned on the silly game shows, and poured out the ginger ale and codeine laced cough syrup. She has always been there when the going gets tough, because that’s when the tough, like my mother, really get going.

November 29, 2013
by BulgingButtons 12 Comments

Behind the Curtain

“Ignore the man behind the curtain!” The Great and Powerful Oz bellowed as smoke and flames shot into the air around his enormous translucent head. This command struck sheer terror into my heart. Not Dorothy, though. She marched right over to that curtain and yanked it back, exposing the knobs and levers and fraud of a polished showman. She was far braver than I am.

Sometimes I worry that if I ask too many questions I’ll expose something ugly and raw that I would rather not know. I don’t agree with, “Don’t ask, don’t tell,” as national policy, but on a purely personal level I have used it more times than I would like to admit. I’m not proud of this cowardice, but I do own it.

I was raised in a family that kept secrets. As far as I know, I was the biggest secret of all. Nobody was supposed to know that I was adopted, least of all me. I might be scarred. I might be ruined. Or, worst of all, I might turn out like my birth mother, who was obviously incompetent or worse. She must have been, or she wouldn’t have found herself in a position to give up her baby. Me.

It took so many years and so much preparation to finally gain the courage to peek behind that curtain and ask, in so many words, “was I adopted?” It’s an easy question, really. Basically a yes or no would do. What I got in response was, “Would it matter?”

Yes. It matters. It matters that my entire personal history has been a lie. It matters that somewhere out in the world there are people with whom I share a genetic tie that, in spite of the lies and omissions of truth that began the day I was born, cannot be denied. Until my own child was born I had never laid eyes on anyone who was related to me by birth. I had never before seen myself in anyone else, and it was a strange experience indeed.

So, yes, it matters. I wish you had come out from behind that curtain years ago. I wish you would have trusted me with the truth of my existence. I would have loved you still.