experimentation

http://joyeuxdans.blogspot.com/

With a new year, in a new city, thought it might be time to tweak the blog experience.

grrr

am getting some message that I've exceeded my photo storage space.  Which makes no sense to me, as my photos are stored on my laptop, not on this site.

So.  Until I figure this out, there will be no photos from my delightful kick off to a new year of life in NoLa.

unexpected joys

Even the long-beloved
was once
an unrecognized stranger.
Just so,
the chipped lip
of a blue-glazed cup,
blown field
of a yellow curtain,
might also,
flooding and falling,
ruin your heart.

A table painted with roses.
An empty clothesline.

Each time,
the found world surprises—
that is its nature.

And then
what is said by all lovers:
"What fools we were, not to have seen."


"Meeting the Light Completely" by Jane Hirshfield, from The October Palace. © Harper Perennial, 1994.

Here's to seeing.  Here's to recognizing what we're seeing.  And certainly, here's to Friday and the ending of a chaotic week.

don't it make my brown eyes...

wait, I have blue eyes;  it just makes them blue-er.  Someone got his wittle hands on Mommy's shirt while she was trying to wash her hair.  Nom-nom-nom!

12 angry men...well, actually,

22 thrilled jr. high Mock Trial students who went to criminal court today.

 One of my all-time best field trips---and this list includes a Mozart Festival to Austria.  The kids were well-behaved and our hosts were magnanimous.  Two judges spent quite a bit of time (one completely unscheduled) in talking to my students.   The kids also got to interview two attorneys--one from defense and one on prosecution.  And the court reporter explained her key pad to them and typed all of their names out, so they could see her unique alphabet.

 All Ana could talk about for the past three weeks was that she hoped to bang the judge's gavel.  The judge obligingly found one for all them to try out.

Trying out the cushy juror chairs.

Posing with one of the judges.

I returned to school with the same kids with whom I left; always a relief.  And a big eye-roll as one of their favorite things of the entire outing was being able to peek out the windows of the 8th floor and see the convicts playing ping-pong.  Honestly.  Why do we even try to create lesson plans?

that's right

absolute bliss

JJ, doing authentic California dreamin' 

(hanging out with G'pa and G'ma as mommy's in a west coast wedding this weekend.)