Mason was here

After a week of laying motionless on my couch, my unblinking eyes plastered to the television, I mustered just enough energy to slither out the door to head to the school for some "planning." "Planning" is actually code for "sit motionless in the classroom with my unblinking eyes plastered to the computer monitor." Without my daily routine, I lacked the motivation to function. How was I going to be a teacher again, I wondered as I walked dejectedly into my darkened room. But then I sensed it...a presence...a ghostly aura of encouragement. There was something on my desk, I saw, approaching it with wondrous awe. Mason was here, he had written, leaving good tidings of great joy in his wake as I ripped into the 2-liter of Pepsi like Popeye tearing into his can of trusty spinach.  Mason was here...a theological statement belying the laws that govern time and geography. He was here...my beloved, easy-smiling boy with a mind made for numbers...until circumstances beyond my control pulled him away (I couldn't, in good conscience, retain him and, despite my strongly-worded warning addressed to the governor of Alabama, Mason was still permitted to move to that area ). Mason was here...literally...to visit family for the holiday and graciously remembering his former (never use "old"...ALWAYS "former") 4th grade teacher to bring her what she most needed at this time: encouragement. Mason was here...and when he walked out of my door last June, a small part of me went with him, a symbiotic side-note that will revel in his contributions and achievements. Clutching a chocolate covered marshmallow Santa in my hand, I turned again to my computer monitor, revived and restored. Mason was here...they were ALL here, I realized. I better get ready.

Sticking it to my friends at Christmas

It has already been well-established that I am a TERRIBLE gift-giver and this holiday season was certainly no exception. In an attempt to avoid the clichéd coffee mug, candy or candle route with my colleagues, I thought I'd hit upon a sure-proof plan by sticking with whatever theme we'd dressed as for Halloween which is why, last year, my friend, Kelly-Nichol-Dime got saddled with a Princess Leia bobblehead. Obviously, a gift that denotes great care and devotion. 

This year was a shoe-in, I thought as I began the search for Gilligan's Island-related memorabilia. Not as easy as one might think. After hours of careful Google-sifting, I finally settled on a classic, vintage-style magnet for all the members of our costumed clan. I fearlessly pushed "submit" and eagerly awaited the arrival of my perfect present. And waited. And waited. Wait! Does the rumored Christmas mail delivery back-log actually exist? The count-down to Christmas break was on and there I was, with no perfect present. I awoke on the last day in a panic. "Savannah," I said, shaking my daughter awake while dodging the heavy college textbook she aimed at my head, "if my package arrives in the mail, would you please bring it to the school?" 

It was a miserable day as I watched the minutes tick by on the clock and received             un-reciprocatable presents from my thoughtless friends. Finally, at the end of the day, as I trudged back from the festive holiday pageant, I spotted Savannah outside my classroom door. I squinted at the practically microscopic envelope that she held in her hand. "No," I whispered, "no, no, no, no, no." I ripped the envelope from her hand and out slid eight tiny classic, vintage-style PINS. "They're buttons," I howled, "Who's going to wear a classic, vintage-style BUTTON?!?" But there was no going back now...I frantically taped each in place upon my inspirational Christmas card with the disclosure message:  It was suppose to be a magnet. Then came the walk of shame. 

Thanks for the adorable automatronic singing dachshund accompanied by your delicious home-backed goodies that you slaved over for days...here's your classic, vintage-style microscopic pin.

Thanks for the gourmet chocolates...here's your classic, vintage-style microscopic pin. 

Thanks for the Vera Bradley wallet...here's your classic, vintage-style microscopic pin. 

Thanks for the listening to me complain for over a year about how I haven't seen "Pitch Perfect" yet and going out to buy me the movie...here's your classic, vintage-style microscopic pin. 

Next year...coffee mugs for EVERYONE!

Mouse-trapped: A Macabre Tail

It was a scene right out of Edgar Allen Poe's "The Telltale Heart." I was sitting in a learning circle when there came a knocking at my classroom door. The children and I froze. Sure enough, the knock came again. "Who is it," my voice, wavering with uncertainty, called out. We held our breath, awaiting the answer. It could be administration. It could be the fire inspector (although a glance at my emergency exit window brought me momentary relief). "It is I, Mrs. Bush," cried Mrs. Bush, clawing at the door, "Will you bid me 'enter'?" We rushed to her aid, drawing her out of the dark and dismal corridor from which she'd come, burdened by an awkward object. I gasped, growing faint upon the sight of it...a ghostly specter...pestilence from my past.

Seven years ago, to enliven a tale, I'd murdered a mouse and, today, I would be reunited with my crime. How had I convinced my husband to build a three foot long mousetrap, I wondered as I watched Mrs. Bush wrestle it onto my table. And how on earth did I ever manage to successfully affix that atrocity to a bulletin board as the table creaked alarmingly beneath its weight? "We found this in the back of the closet in your old 6th grade classroom," Mrs. Bush said breathlessly, "and we knew that you would want it back." My blank expression masked my true feelings as my students discovered the "Press Me" sticker on the mouse's little paw. It couldn't possibly still work, I thought to myself but a sick compulsion came over me and I was driven forward like Alice toward the sign inviting her to "Eat me." A paw was pinched and the mouse began to writhe morbidly in his trap, sickly singing, "Ho ho ho...ho, ho ho...We are Santa's elves...ho, ho!" The children cheered with delight. Mrs. Bush offered me a little wave before disappearing back into the catacombs of the institute. Like the mouse, I was trapped...forever tied to a prop with boomerang effects and a seemingly infinite battery life. It will take a licking and keep on ticking...or "ho, ho, ho-ing,"  louder and louder, until I go mad. "Villain-ess,"  I shrieked after the retreating form of Mrs. Bush, but she was unable to hear me over the sick singing of the murdered mouse.

Oh dear...oh deer

http://northwesternkiddies.blogspot.ca/2012/12/merry-christmas.html

It all began several months ago when my husband and I were walking into Target and I spotted them...every teacher's dream:  giant googly eyes. I immediately launched myself across the store and landed on them as though I were shielding a group of orphans from the blast of a grenade. As this wasn't completely unusual behavior for me, Brad only looked moderately embarrassed as he peeled me off of the ONLY remaining package of googly eyes in the entire store.

"What are you going to do with a giant pair of googly eyes," he asked tiredly, not thrilled to be spending three of his valuable dollars on what he doesn't necessarily view as "educational" material. I stared at him, dumbfounded. Who was this man? Didn't he KNOW me AT ALL?!? What WOULDN'T I do with a giant pair of googly eyes? Needless to say, I was NOT going to leave that store without them and was prepared to throw a great big ol' hissy fit, if necessary. Turns out, it wasn't necessary. Remember...this is the same man who constructed an R2D2 costume for his nearly 6 foot tall wife for Halloween. It may take some wheedling on my part, but he usually comes around to the creative genius that IS Amy Mosiman.

What WAS I going to do with a giant pair of googly eyes, I wondered, alone in my classroom, rubbing my hands together gleefully. Ah-ha! I dug out my December "Dear Future Amy" letter from last year.

                                                     

Dear Future Amy, (it read)

You are such a good-looking gal! Remember NOT to make cheese-string

 snowmen again next year because it gave you a big fat headache trying to 

hot glue on all their little hats. You also burned your fingers and cried a little. 

Also, if you ever run into a giant pair of googly eyes, grab them so you can 

make the deer decoration that you found for your classroom door.

So with giant eyeballs in hand, I wrestled a reindeer on my door. Perfect, I sighed.  Wrong. The first person walked by to admire my efforts. "Why is it upside down," she asked, twisting her head while I clenched my teeth, wanting to twist her neck. I explained the premise of my dim-witted deer to her.  The next person approached. "That's cute," she said while I beamed. "What IS it?" Was I going to need to add a captioned translation to my door? Three times a charm, I thought to myself as the next person came towards me. I braced for the worst. "Funny," my colleague nodded and my spirits soared. "But shouldn't it be saying Oh deer?" "No," I screeched. "If the door were captioned, it would say Oh deer because it would be remarking about the exploits of the silly deer who accidentally fell while hanging holiday lights. BUT, since the deer is the one speaking, he would say Oh dear because it's an exclamatory sentence!!!" My fellow educator regarded me silently, nodded once, shrugged her shoulders and walked off. I stomped into my room and slammed my door. Good grief! Why don't I listen to my husband?

Squatty McBush: The Prickly Pine

 Every year I think that it will turn out differently. Some day, I secretly yearn, we will be like a normal family. Almost immediately though, my hopes were dashed as we drove, in separate vehicles, to the Christmas tree farm like we were casual friends meeting at a coffee shop. We'd barely breached the perimeter line when Savannah pointed to a torpedo-shaped conifer and declared it "the one." Brad and I were very familiar with this maneuver: The Express X-mas Tree Selection strategy. Missile-shaped evergreens were systematically dismissed along with a bunny-shaped one. The perfect Mosiman tree was out there--I just knew it. We scoured the forest, finally reaching the opposite side when we saw it...bathed in a beckoningly ghostly green glow. As if by a tractor beam, we were drawn in, creating a human circle around its pine-y presence. "It's short," sighed Sydney, loving it despite its diminutive size. ""It's prickly," observed Savannah, immediately forgiving her little tree for stabbing an inquisitive finger. "There is something about it," Brad admitted as I pronounced it "Squatty McBush" despite Sydney's insistence that the name sounded slightly pornographic.

Dodging his deadly-sharp needles, we dragged Squatty McBush back to our truck and took him home. Wearing impenetrable gloves, I held Squatty McBush in place while the sound of a socket wrench rose from beneath his branches. "Okay...let it go," Brad said. I followed his instructions implicitly and was surprised when Squatty McBush toppled over onto my husband, impaling him. Despite this minor obstacle, Squatty McBush was soon adorned in blue and white lights, bearing the ornaments accumulated from the past twenty-six years upon his branches...a star, his kingly crown. Every year it's the same, I thought happily as I admired our little tree. I'm so glad that we're not a normal family.

Twas ten school days before Christmas vacation...

I made the critical error of wandering around my elementary school to check out the classrooms of my colleagues and returned to my darkened room with a crushed spirit. It looked like Christmas had thrown up all over the building, spewing holiday cheer and good will EVERYWHERE. My unadorned walls were reminiscent of the scene in "When the Grinch Stole Christmas" after that heartless creature had looted Who-ville...leaving an insignificant amount of ornaments without even a minute piece of mistletoe to be seen. What was I to do? I wondered dismally, "harrumphing" when I should have been "ho-ho-ing."

Suddenly I remembered an idea that I had put on the back-burner last year after I had seen a door decoration of a stable door with reindeer heads peering out. I spoke not a word and went straight to work, digging through ten tons of construction paper, I pulled red out with a jerk. I cut out stables well past my favorite 8 o'clock shows, yelping in pain when I got a paper cut under my nose. Alright, I'm done with my Clement Clarke Moore impression now.

http://www.goodhousekeeping.com/holidays/
christmas-ideas/scandinavian-christmas-decorations#slide-3

I wrestled a 3-D model of a construction paper deer head mount into place and thought to myself, "Yeah...I can teach kids how to do this." and went home to sleep with visions of super-plum fairies dancing in my head, not anticipating the nightmare that was to greet me the next day when I would attempt to instruct sixteen 8- and 9-year-olds on the intricacies of cutting and assembling a construction paper deer mount. It would have been quicker to arm them all, chaperone the group out to the woods, and bag our own real deer to mount than to try and accomplish what I experienced today.

I wish I could say that I was a kind and loving teacher, moving though the room with a quiet grace as I guided attentive pupils in the process of reindeer development. Instead, I was a crazed lunatic screaming, "The nose goes on the FOLD, the nose goes on the FOLD" a zillion times. One of my little honeys skipped the order of events and colored her ornament first. According to my verbal and written (and verbal and verbal and verbal) directions, students must first have completed ALL their morning work for the entire week, then colored in an ornament to then be "rewarded" with the making of a 3-D construction paper reindeer. I had reached my limit well before this little cherub approached me with her ornament, expecting to now be able to make her deer. "Did you complete your morning work," I asked her, over the fifty voices in my classroom asking for help and the fifty voices in my head shrieking words inappropriate for a 4th grade classroom. "We-ll-ll...no-oo-oo," she smiled, twirling an ankle with studied charm, "I thought I'd do that afterwards." "Oh, did you," I snarled, my heart immediately growing two sizes too small. I took her little paper ornament and shredded it, sending shock-waves through the room and my student scrambling back to her desk to complete her morning work. That's what Christmas is all about, Mrs. Mosiman, you heartless...grinch.

And they heard her exclaim as the funny men in the white coats rolled her away, "Merry Christmas to all but make sure your morning work is completed first!"

A geography lesson on how I came to be in Iowa for Thanksgiving

There's something about an American Mid-West Thanksgiving that makes you wish that the early pioneers had just gone ahead and quelled their hankering to see what was beyond those Rocky Mountains. "You are NOT a billy goat, Zebadiah," sighed his beleaguered East Coast-loving wife, "and the grass is certainly NOT greener on the other side of those mountains." But would Zebadiah listen? Ohhhh....noooooo. And now, thanks to him, I spend my Thanksgiving holiday greeted by a friendly pig with a looming expiration date, reluctantly settled in with a crew of cuddly canines to watch college football (Go Hawkeyes!) after plunging into a scene right out of Forrest Gump when I challenged Cousin Jerry to list off all the flavors of gelatin manufactured at Kraft. I'm calling him on his assertion that there are chocolate-flavored gelatins. When "the boys" (all well into their 40s, by the way) finished admiring all the armaments in the house, they strapped on their Carharts and trooped out to inspect the newly-installed boiler and then test-drove a skidloader. I fought my way temporarily out of the

dog pack to grab one of the fifty remotes available to view my alternatives to the game (Go Hawkeyes!) only to be waylaid by my 12-year-old niece who spotted Spongebob. The boys came back in to check the game (Dang Nevada! "Um...Amy, they were playing Nebraska."  "Oh.") and grab a snack which led to my brother-in-law's lively conversation about Amish sourdough bread. "Do I detect a hint of pumpkin," he asked Cousin Jeff's wife Shelley who has twenty loaves in various stages of production at any one time. I personally consider the Amish sourdough bread starter blob to be a pyramid scheme. Virgil then admired Shelley's mop which was immediately purchased and shipped to him via Amazon before the boys enjoyed some expensive tequila plucked from the freezer simultaneously speaking scornfully of Jose Cuervo. Before departing, we headed out to the heated garage to load up on Iowa-fed pork loins, hugged and kissed the cousins good-bye, waved a sad farewell to the friendly pig and drove off into the western sunset. "Wait a second, Amy," Cousin Jeff said, interrupting my ironic ending with a brief geography lesson. "Sweetheart," he pointed out gently, "the Rockies actually don't

interrupt access from New York to Iowa. Perhaps you might want to use the Mississippi as your symbolic landform obstacle." I stared incredulously at Jeff's topographical map and then glared at him before shrugging. So Zebadiah strapped on some floaties and navigated the mighty Mississippi...same outcome. I'm in Iowa for Thanksgiving...and grateful for that blessing.

Not your typical "Norman Rockwell" Thanksgiving

Ahhhh...Thanksgiving. You've seen the Norman Rockwell depiction. I've given up any hope of ever achieving that level of nostalgic family togetherness. I have no one else to blame as we seem to be the common variable of dysfunction whether we are in New York or Iowa. While the majority of my fellow Americans were watching the Macy's Day parade, we spent an hour, buried in blankets, transfixed by a horrifying episode of "When Turkeys Attack."

Ensconced on the couch with his daughter and nieces, Uncle Virgil has been busy organizing that fun family game of "Let's compare...(toes, finger spans, bicep muscles and wrist veins). The occupants of the living room received a lengthy dissertation on the rare condition called "Greek toe" where one's second big toe is taller than the captain. When Virgil concluded his lecture on limbs and ligaments, he dramatically rose, causing the couch to rock forward, the girls screaming as their anchor exited his spot.

Awakening after what the hobbits fondly call "First Nap," I stretched and sleepily asked my husband if he could smell the amazing scent of Thanksgiving dinner as it wafted its way upstairs to our room. "I can't smell over the sound of my brother's voice," he mumbled into his pillow. We made our way down to the kitchen where we were assigned jobs according to our specific skill levels. Virgil was making gravy and mashing potatoes while Brad manned the carving stations. "You can be in charge of drinks," my mother-in-law, with gentle wisdom, told me as she wrestled an additional three tablespoons of butter past Virgil's flailing elbow.

Games commenced following dinner. The girls disappeared for what the hobbits fondly call "Second Nap" but were immediately roused by my indignant father-in-law, bent on forcing them to have family fun. Blatant cheating was the underlying theme of the day. It just makes one thankful that we have the ability to suspend our morals for this very special day. I believe that was the underlying theme of that Norman Rockwell painting.

To Grandmother's house we go...

Our blonde Alaskan angel arrived after an arduously long flight, semi-prepared to embark on the 17-hour overland journey to America'a mid-west. My niece was understandably quiet, considering the circumstances, facing--as she was--her father's well-intentioned "snack" bag of protein bars and smoked salmon slabs. This, of course, would not do in the land of Amy Mosiman. I tugged on the twelve-year-old's sleeve. "Briana, would you like to make a quick trip to Wal-Mart with me," I asked. She regarded me solemnly, the aunt-she-didn't-know...the woman who stood between her and hours of bland, nutritious snacking. She grabbed her coat.

Hours later, with the strains of Willie Nelson's "On the Road Again" still lingering in the stagnant air of our van, we barreled happily down the highway, alternately munching on Pringles, peanut M&Ms, Ghirardelli chocolate and cookies-n-creme Poptarts. We weren't three hours into our adventure when we encountered the first of our many "signs." "Look," Savannah squealed with uncharacteristic enthusiasm, "the light is on." Like a lighthouse beacon offering hope to weary travelers, the Krispie Kreme light lured us in. We tumbled out of our crammed van like a car of clowns and stormed the donut shop. We re-emerged, victorious, minutes later, our faces glistening with glaze.

You learn a lot about a person when you travel with them. Take my brother-in-law's strict adherence to color specificity. "Look," I squealed with characteristic enthusiasm, "a purple truck." "You mean that lavender one?" Virgil asked. Later on, I pointed out a purple house. "That lilac one over there?" he inquired, visually sorting through the massive assortment of multi-hued houses. "What's your favorite color," Savannah asked him as they regarded fists full of peanut M&Ms. No, not just blue for my brother-in-law..."ROYAL blue," he shared, popping one in his mouth.

Brotherly debate topics shifted throughout the day. Brad and Virgil argued about the Greek Orthodox calendar, the linear alignment of police enforced laser speeding guns, airline mileage points, hot spot capability of Smart phones as well as a lively discussion about time zone accuracy pertaining to the land of demarcation paralleled to when it appears on a cell phone.
Female conversation was not so highfalutin. "When did you realize that the tune to the ABC song and Twinkle Twinkle Little Star is the same," I asked Savannah who immediately stopped dead in her tracks at a thru-way rest-stop in response to this starting revelation.

In an effort to bring life to Brianna's assigned ELA/Science report, we squeezed in a stop to the

famed mighty Mississip (intentional omission of the ending ~i" for whimsical flair) and wrestle reluctant relative into a picture. The last three grueling hours were filled with car games. Note-to-self: be careful using just any ol' interactive website for a lively game of "Taboo." My first choice would have received an X-rating. A Disney-themed round of 20 Questions is particularly entertaining as Brad has trouble naming even half of the seven dwarves. Finally...over the Mississippi River and through mid-west flatlands...to Grandma Linda's we went.

The Sanibel Gals: Part 3- Life's a beach

I learned a lot about myself on this trip, I thought reflectively, as I scanned through my phone at the text messages I sent throughout my journey.  Poignant conversations that I had with my fellow travelers such as when my friend Kathy watched admiringly as I cleverly navigated my way onto the plane with my over-sized rucksack. Noticing that I was staggering beneath my heavy load, the man who scanned my ticket expressed his concern for my welfare, saying, "I don't know if that'll fit, darlin'." I assured him that the bag only looked big in proportion to my tiny figure and lurched gracefully down the gangplank. I accepted Kathy's compliment regarding my diplomacy skills without hesitation but admitted, while I threw myself bodily against my backpack as I stuffed it into the overhead compartment that, of all my character traits, "I'm most proud of my modesty."

Later, after inventorying my character traits, I watched with envy as the strong, independent women with whom I was traveling would wander away, to walk the beaches alone...to become one with nature...to embark on a Thoreau-ian adventure, melding mind, body and spirit with the sand and the waves. I stared longingly at my television before slouching off to be re-awakened by nature. I would be strong and independent too.

The first thing wrong with all that nature, obviously, is all the sand. It's everywhere, for Pete's sake. I immediately took a picture on my phone to send to all my friends. Standing in the Gulf of Mexico, I called my youngest daughter to share with her the wonders of my world. "I'm standing in the Gulf of Mexico," I told Sydney who, for some unfathomable reason, was not particularly delighted to hear this news. "Oh my goodness, a shell," I screeched suddenly, hanging up on her while I wrestled it from the grasp of the Gulf whereupon I immediately took a picture to show Sydney, proclaiming it "our shell."

I tentatively wandered a bit more down the beach until I encountered an oddity. I, of course, grabbed my phone, "Quick, someone, Google the type of shell that looks EXACTLY like dog poo." Upon closer inspection, I then texted, "Never mind." A gang of tiny sea birds chased me around for awhile. When I was done screaming, I unearthed what may have been my greatest find. I, of course, grabbed the phone. "I think I found a manatee hoof!" I texted everyone. I learned a lot about myself AND my friends that day. I learned that many of my friends actually think that I'm stupid enough to actually BELIEVE that I found a manatee hoof and I learned that I am actually stupid enough to mistake an ACTUAL hoof for a type of shell. "What is this," my husband asked wearily upon my return home as I spent two hours showing him each shell and giving him a blow-by-blow account of the discovery experience. "It's part of a broken off shell I found," I said excitedly, "doesn't it look exactly like a hoof?" He sighed (He does that a lot.). "It IS a hoof," he said, holding back our excited dogs (They REALLY like shells..."No, they don't," Brad corrected, "They really like hooves.")

"Well...if that's the weirdest thing you found...then you're actually doing pretty good," Savannah remarked encouragingly after I called her about my little faux pas. There was a long pause. "Mom???"

So...there I was sitting on the beach, watching a group of women. One woman sat back off the tide
line, watching the horizon as her friends scampered about excitedly for shells. One would suddenly make a discovery, pounce, hold it up to then race  to share her treasure with her friend who would bemusedly admire each offering. I giggled as this scene re-played itself a dozen times before a thought came to mind. "Geri," I said, poking my friend who was sitting well above the tide line, watching the horizon, "Do you think we look like that?" "Not even close," she replied, reminding me of my last "treasure." I had been scooching along in the sand when my toes closed in on something

soft and squishy. Fascinated, I unearthed what could only be described as a dully fluorescent orange brain. I inserted a nearby shell into it and raced across the beach to show my friends, Geri and Judy who immediately began waving me away from them. "If it's soft and squishy, then it's still alive," Geri yelled at me. "Put it back in the water," Judy suggested. "She stabbed it," Geri hollered, "putting it back won't do a whole hecka of a lot of good now." Mortified that I may have caused mortal damage to one of God's ocean creatures, I raced back to the water's edge and hurled the brain back in. I screamed as it immediately washed back to me. I gave it a gentle kick only to have to return again, just like Lassie. "This is for your own good," I snarled through gritted teeth, delivering a powerful soccer blow to the brain, lifting it out, above the waves to land safely in the world for whence it come.

I told you I learned a lot. If it looks like a hoof...it probably is. If it's soft and squishy...don't stab it.  And when the opportunity comes to walk in solitude upon the beach...just turn on the TV.

Oh dear

Two contradictory forces have dwelt within the Mosiman home for over two decades as Brad and I have wrestled with what some would view as my hyper-sensitivity to animals; especially during this, the bloodiest of seasons. Brad was first confronted with my souped-up sensitivity syndrome twenty-five years ago when we picked up our pre-packaged venison from the butcher's. "Where are the antlers," Brad asked. "Oh," the butcher replied, shrugging, pointing with the cleaver clenched in his massive fist as his leather apron glistened with the life-blood of God's woodland creatures. "The head is over there." I will spare you the description of my new husband sorting through a pile of decapitated deer heads like a little kid looking for the right size Lego. He tossed it, with an alarming amount of nonchalance, into the back of our Plymouth Horizon. I felt like a member of the mob as we drove down the dark road with a head rattling around in our trunk. Brad gallantly unloaded our meat, bag after bag into my parent's freezer but became bogged down in rearranging the contents so as not to block my mother's Sara Lee pound cake, Swanson meals, and frozen lesueur baby peas. "Could you please just grab the last bag," he asked from the depth's of my dad's freezer. I ventured out into the darkness and approached the Horizon. I made a quick grab for the bag only to be met with terrifying resistance. I tugged and pulled frantically, gasping in terror as I locked eyes with the deer (head), dead-on. He had inconveniently rolled so that his antlers were pinning the last bag in the corner of the trunk. Twenty minutes later, my husband came looking for me and found his wife, a crumpled, sobbing puddle, in the middle of my dad's driveway.

Fast-forward twenty-five years and my exposure to hunting season has been limited to my occasionally taking a picture (with my eyes closed) and writing witty sayings on the butcher paper as Brad processes his own deer. Like it or not, my daughters have played a much larger role in this little enterprise. Both can hang, skin, and butcher a carcass while, like their father, still maintaining a healthy respect and admiration for animals balanced with a realistic view of where our food comes from. But face it...it's still hard work and it's gross to boot. So when the sound of Brad's 4-wheeler roars to life, his family might be actively praying for the "wrong" team. And upon his return, we race for the window to catch a glimpse...please don't tell him that there is much high-fiving and cheering when his back rack is empty.

We weren't so lucky a few days ago. Sydney and I went down to the garage to "admire" his acquisition. Brad asked Sydney to help hang the carcass. I watched with sick fascination as Brad held it up while Sydney valiantly attempted to run a carabiner through a pre-cut hole. "What's the problem," Brad snapped beneath the weight of his load, unable to see his daughter dodging the left cross delivery from the other leg as she tried to pin the other. Job done, we breathed a sigh of relief until his next words, "Sydney, get me the saw-zall." I disappeared as Brad criticized his daughter's technique of shaving off legs. Oh dear.

The Sanibel Gals: Part 2~It's all about the food

As a diligent reader, you've already experienced my peanut M&M roll of shame down the middle of my departing airplane. Come to think of it, it was actually more of an avalanche. Prior to that humbling experience, I folded beneath the pressure of a grueling hour-long wait at the airport and ordered a caprese salad. Instead of bright red, juicy beef-steak tomatoes and delectable slices of buffalo mozzarella with a light drizzle of balsamic vinegar to tickle my taste buds, I was instead given translucently thin, pale "tomatoes" with dry cheese accompanied by what can only be described as balsamic syrup that tortured my poor taste buds. I can hear my friends, Cathy Nourse and Deb Mehlenbacher now...shaking their heads in undisguised disgust and saying, "What exactly did you think you were going to get...you're at the AIRPORT!!!" I know...I know.


And you know, as well as I, that any trip is all about the food. On this mini-respite, we certainly had our ups and downs. Sharing my vast culinary experience with my friends over our lovely continental breakfast, I demonstrated the short-cut method of peeling a hard-boiled egg by gently pressing the palm of my hand down against the egg and rolling it along the table. Watching me carefully, my friend Dawn eagerly gave it a go. Let's just say that I would never want the woman to EVER perform CPR on me if that was any indication of her accurate application of pressure.

The food, as you can imagine, was incredible.We ate at the renowned "Doc Ford's," which is named for the title character in the  novel series written by New York Times best-selling author Randy Wayne White. Under the best of circumstances, I am incapable of making a decision but faced with a menu that includes fish tacos AND caprese salad (You know what they say about that...when you fall off a caprese salad, you have to get right back on again.), I completely fell apart. Tired of my rather loud wavering, my culinary companion Sandy Lawrence finally relented and agreed to split both meals to shut me up.

Another of our favorite restaurants was named "The Island Cow." My friend Virginia is also a bit of a meal waver-er but, unlike me, is able to elicit sympathy, love and compassion from those around her rather than the eye-rolling and derision that is usually aimed at me. Afraid that her tuna fish would be (gasp) fishy, Virginia soon had our waiter rushing to the kitchen to offer her a sample before she decided to order the chicken salad because she actually doesn't like tuna salad. Our waiter, Terry, loved her anyway.


Having vacationed with me many times in the past, my friend Geri knew we were in trouble when, despite her efforts to distract my attention in another direction ("Look, Amy! A gopher tortoise!"), I spotted the tell-tale symbol of my most favorite restaurant in the whole wide world:  a giant United States flag! I squealed with delight. "It's just a car dealership," Geri said desperately but no, there it was...a Perkins!  Home of the most delicious potato pancakes in the whole wild world!!! Geri's shoulders slumped as she knew then, that she and I would be venturing off the island to take Amy Mosiman to a chain restaurant. YAY!

While I was enjoying the buttery, salty goodness of my crispy potato pancakes and Geri was spilling her chocolate milk in resentment, the rest of the gang was perusing the island's farmer's market. "Why would ANYONE want to go to a silly farmer's market when they could come to Perkins," I wondered through a mouthful of yummy potato pancakes. Strangely, Geri responded only by glaring at something slightly over my head. Unbeknownst to us however, this was no ordinary farmer's market. Our friends loaded up on macaroni and cheese loaded with bacon, pulled pork and salad fixin's for our dinner later that night as well as gourmet cake selections featured at the island's famous "Bubble Room." We dined like island princesses. The meal was topped off, of course, by a Perkins lemon meringue pie.

The Sanibel Gals: Part 1 (The Arrival)

What was I thinking...lo, those many months ago...when it was discovered that the school calendar had allotted us a rare four consecutive days off for Veterans Day? What should I do with this incredible window of time, I wondered, thinking happily of blissful hours camped on my couch, my fingers atrophied around the remote, my shirtfront littered with Cheese-Doodle crumbs. Oh no...this was one prophesy that would go unfulfilled as I was suddenly swept up in the excitement of trip planning...becoming one of an eight-party excursion to the shell-collecting capital of the United States. Yes folks, I became an infamous member of the group now known as "The Sanibel Gals."

Divided between two flights, we departed immediately after school on Friday. Arriving at the airport, we were greeted by additional school personnel scurrying away like beach-clad rats departing a sinking ship. Our friend Traci had an appointment with a well-positioned mouse down south while Nancy was off to Nashville. We bid one another a fond good-bye as we all boarded our respective planes. The first leg of our journey was frought with danger and discourse. Some fool brought on an open bag of peanut M&Ms and naturally spilled it, sending peanut pebbles rolling down the aisle and under seats. To hide our embarrassment, my friend Bev and I ducked behind a SkyMall magazine but, unfortunately, got so caught up in the outrageous merchandise that we filled the airplane compartment with our obnoxious comments and laughter. The fire-burning portable hot tub reminded me of an episode from Twilight Zone where hitchhikers were unwittingly boiled into a stew.  I mistook the single-handed barber for a personal massager.

I was distracted, momentarily, by the bright and bubbly conversation between my friend Kathy and a fellow traveler. "So, where are you from," she asked conversationally, leaning against the seat as we waited to disembark. I glanced at her to see if she was swinging one end of a long, feather boa. When the nice man shared that he was from Buffalo, she lit up happily and shared that, she too, was from that area. I leaned in and asked if she wanted me to poll the rest of the passengers as well. "What are the odds," I marveled, "that a flight from The Queen's City would include a local resident?"

Our layover in Atlanta was a delight as I lugged my 80 pound rucksack out of the overhead bin, through the airport, onto the train connecting us to our appropriate concourse (Where a group of obnoxious teachers corrected the automated voice that helpfully announced our destination, "You have reached Concourse B...B for Bravo." "That's not the sound "B" makes..." we remarked sulkily, "~br is a consonant blend." None of the train's weary passengers appreciated this impromptu lesson in phonics. Waiting for the next flight, I was beside myself with excitement when I discovered an automated trash receptacle, reduced to begging strangers for their garbage just for the pure pleasure of using it.

Our room at Sanibel Island

Arriving in Fort Myers at the dead-of-night ("11:30 hardly qualifies as the dead-of-night," my friend Geri remarked rudely.), we made our way to Sanibel Island. We located the resort with no trouble but were unable to locate the promised key or, even worse, our reserved suite, forced to wander around the property bellowing for help. At long last, we made it into our beautiful rooms, collapsing gratefully on our beds, the Gulf of Mexico mere meters away (I'm currently engaged in a unit on the metric system). What more beautiful sound, I thought sleepily, than that of waves crashing on the shore. "I should probably warn you," our friend Dawn said as she fluffed her pillow. "I scream in my sleep."

Geri leaving our little screened in porch for an island adventure

That's the stuff: The day I glued my eye shut

Under normal circumstances, dear friends, I would attempt to shield you from this harsh reality but it's time to face facts...my dreams of becoming the next great beauty queen will never be realized. On a happier note, however, this terrible trial revealed that my husband realized, early on, that my attributes are more like a scratch-off lottery ticket...the promise of value that lurks beneath the surface.

Case in point:  Halloween morning as Sydney plastered make-up on my usually unadorned features before approaching me with the stiff wire sparkly caterpillars which were to become my eyelashes for the day. Applying the adhesive like one would to a set of dentures, Sydney carefully latched each lash on. I peered out from beneath this glitter-encrusted veil...blink, blink. Brad stared at this vision of his wife in warped wonder. "Wait," Sydney said, "one end needs a bit more adhesive." She carefully applied it directly to my eye with predictable results. Yup...that's right. My eye was now glued shut. Fortunately, I couldn't actually see my family laughing as I wrestled my weighted eyelid open. Vision restored, I could now see my husband slumped helplessly against the wall, unable to catch his breath. Sydney had disappeared. I turned to the mirror and practiced fluttering my lashes. My poor husband is married to that, I thought dismally, considering the ridiculous creature reflected back at me. Laughing again, and then heading off to laugh throughout the day, my husband kissed me good-bye, thinking, "I'm married to that."  That's right, buddy. All this is yours.

Just sit right back and you'll hear a tale...

Let's face it, Halloween is a nightmare. But when you're part of an over-achieving grade level team who insist on dressing as a theme, Halloween takes on a whole new kind of horror. Last year, I jammed my 5 foot 10 inch frame into a claustrophobic R2D2 can. Nothing could be worse than this, I thought to myself as I staggered shakily around the gymnasium, guided by 4th graders, during the much-anticipated annual costume parade.

"Gilligan's Island?!?" I said doubtfully when the idea was presented during team time. "Yeah, you'll be the Professor," I was told. OK, I thought, I can handle that...Hawaiian shirt with a lei and white pants...good to go. Uh-huh. Two weeks later, I was unceremoniously re-assigned to the Movie Star, Ginger. I flew home in a panic. How was I, Amy Mosiman...who owns forty shades of brown pants, going to pull off a statuesque red-haired vixen? I quickly ordered a costume on-line, ignoring the "fits sizes 12-14" label, and put the entire matter out of my mind.

Until the witching hour...when I tried to try on my costume. "I look like a polska kielbasa that's been microwaved," I sobbed to my family as they stared, thunderstruck at me, stuck in this dress. Sydney was confused by my over-wrought analogy until Brad quietly described how a sausage will get all blown-up and bumpy as they wrestled me out of my costume casing.

All seemed lost until I was rescued through the combined heroic efforts of Sydney and school librarian/friend, Amy White. Red wig taped to my head like a jaunty little hat, colleague Kelly-Nichol-Dime sacrificed her lunch to stuff me into my dress which was every bit as pleasant as you would imagine. One foot planted against my rear to brace herself, teeth clenched, arms straining as she pulled the back corset strings tight. Sort of like stuffing a pillow into a pillow case. Seams straining, I strapped on five inch heels and tottered off.

Firmly in Ginger-mode, I took the school by storm...slinking, winking, pouting and posing my way through the halls. I WAS a movie star...an honest-to-goodness goddess. My fifteen minutes of fame flew by in a flash and I was back in my familiar world of mom-jeans and a t-shirt before you could say bippity-bobbity-boo. I made the mistake of reviewing my pictures too soon. What I encountered was not a rapturous island beauty but a tired-looking  but well-meaning transvestite. Talk about your fateful trips.

Getting schooled at college

Despite the Rottweiler stealing my sheets after land-mining my bed with an assortment of squeaky toys, I managed to sleep in on my Monday off. After finally shuffling into the living room, I curled up in my big chair and prepared for "First Morning Nap" only to be rudely interrupted by Sydney. "You should go to class with me today," she said enthusiastically. "No," I grunted, bundling back up in my blankets. "Awww...c'mon," she insisted, "It'll be fun." I was having trouble compiling a list of things that would be less fun than driving an hour to Buffalo to attend a college class on my day off but as guilt had begun to settle over me like the low-hanging fog that enveloped the road we traveled, I begrudgingly buckled myself in for sixty minutes of moaning and groaning.

Parking on a college campus is just as I remembered and, even better, today was raining and I was wearing cloth sneakers. To brighten my mood, Sydney bustled me in to a campus CVS to ply me with Pepsi, Pringles and peanut M & Ms before we entered the lecture hall. "Why are we sitting in the back," I asked, popping a peanut M & M into my mouth, "you need to be up front where the professor will notice you." Sydney rolled her eyes, explaining that her work is usually scheduled after this class and she has to hustle out of there. To my delight, the professor began slowly working his way up the rows towards us, pausing at each set of students to shake hands. I was all a-twitter, preparing a stunningly memorable introduction and then was devastated when he checked his watch and began class.

"It's like listening to an audio book," Sydney whispered as I listened, enraptured, to him speak of the labors of Hercules. Wielding an over-head projector and barely glancing at the fist-full of yellow legal pad papers grasped in his left hand, his method of teaching was skillfully old-school. When I wasn't busy learning the history of the Fates, I was checking out his 100-member audience. At the 45-minute mark, only ten were sleeping! The boy seated directly ahead of us had to deal with my endless commentary although I managed to keep my opinion of his thick necklace to myself except to ask Sydney if she's packed bolt-cutters in her backpack. One dufus came in late, plopping himself down in time to answer what-I'm-sure-must-have-been-a-rhetorical-question of "What is a centaur?" His hand shot up and he eagerly shared his brilliance with the class. "Any one of my fourth graders could have answered that," I observed in disgust while my new bejeweled buddy nodded in conspritorial agreement.

The hour was over in a flash. Disappointed, I got up to leave. I was impressed. No SMARTboard. No video. No flash. No fuss. Just teaching. Listen and learn. Sit and sleep. Your choice. The knowledge was presented but the burden for learning was assigned to the student. Where was the differentiated education? Where were the individualized plans? There was not a single bouncy-ball seat to be seen. I admit it though. I couldn't do it. I famously spend 30-minutes looking for an animated gif of a German Shepherd eating corn-on-the-cob to accentuate a lesson plan. I'm all about the flash and the fuss. If that SMARTboard isn't operational these day...neither am I. But sitting in that lecture hall on my day off, I saw how it could be done and done well. This teacher just got schooled.

Amy Mosiman: Poster-child of Bad Behavior

Really? C'mon! When it comes to my public persona, I diligently try to stay on the straight and narrow. I will, on the rare occasion, purchase  my husband some Molson Canadian but, even then, I'm slipping swiftly through the store, camouflaging my illicit purchase with deli meat and doughnuts. So yesterday, I wasn't exactly thrilled when my friends decided to set our pre-theater date meeting spot at a local bar and restaurant. I arrived early and felt uncomfortable about going in alone so I sat outside on a bench that was, inexplicably, facing away from the street. Awkward. Traffic buzzing by behind me only heightened my unease so I took a breath and breezed my way into the bar. Everyone turned to look at me but it was obvious that no one was impressed. I ordered a Pepsi with deep-fried potato chips and waited for my friends.

The next day found me at our favorite sub shop, the Gainesville Store. Run by a mom of one of my former students, she smiled as she handed me my ordered chicken finger sub. "Sami said she saw you going into a bar yesterday," she grinned as I stomped angrily across her worn wood-plank floor like Rumpelstiltskin. "Seriously?" I screeched. "Are you flippin' kidding me? The ONE time," I held up a finger for her to see, "the ONE time I go into a bar and a kid has to see me?" "Well, she recognized your coat," Sami's mom said, referring to my over-sized school bus yellow winter jacket. Mental note to Amy Mosiman:  Time for a new coat. "Would you please tell Sami that I just had a Pepsi?" I pleaded. I wanted to throw my fellow theater-goers under the bus but refrained. The retired kindergarten teacher of the group was greeted like she was "Norm" from Cheers and let's just say that she DID NOT order Pepsi. As usual, I took the high road.

Don't get me wrong here. I'm no uber-virtuous Maid Marian-type. Believe me, I have a wild side (Wait...are you laughing? Not cool). But I do try, somewhat, to be a role model of appropriate behavior for my students. So much for that. I might as well just let go now, since my reputation has been ruined. Maybe I'll get a second piercing in my ears. That'll show 'em.

Don't judge a book by its cover (if you're brave enough to touch it in the first place)

So, there we were, the 4th grade team, busy at work during a Superintendent's Day when the school librarian burst in the door. Naturally, we frowned at this interruption of our productivity. Said librarian, Sandy Lawrence, has developed an annoying habit of foisting relevant and complementary literature upon us that line up to the Common Core. Ugh! We avoid her like the plague but she still manages to find us. Like a squirrel in the fall, Sandy had been sorting through her supply of stories and apparently felt like sharing the bounty of her harvest. "Here, girls," she shouted, tossing a book into our midst like it was a raw steak among the lions, "I'll let you fight it out." The door swept shut behind her and silence fell upon the room as we looked upon the fallen tome.

In my mind, I already had strategized  the outcome of this little game of literary survivor. The first one to touch it, keeps it, I thought to myself, eyeing the aged cover and worn binding. Rachel tentatively nudged it with the tip of her finger and I cheered with relief.

Now that ownership was clearly established, we now felt free to investigate this little book. Written by Caldecott Medal winner, William Steig, this letter-code puzzle book, (copywrite 1968) challenges readers to use the phonic sounds of letters to decode his pictorial messages. Highly trained educators that we are...well, let's just say that we were not going to be foiled by such foolishness. WRONG. That book beat us down. We had trouble translating the cover! C D B = See the bee (But you already knew that, didn't you?)


Part of the problem was that our 21st century sensibilities and sophistication impeded our interpretations of some pretty simple (and innocent) phrases.  I admit we were shocked when we encountered the F U portion of this puzzle and it took our brains a while to wrestle away from what it would mean today. F U R B-Z = If you are busy, I-L 1 O-A = I'll run away.  Grown women. I know. Kelly Nichol-Dime cracked us all up as she struggled with another letter puzzle:

O U Q-T came quick. Oh, you cutie. But Kelly killed us with the rest. She sounded it out slowly and carefully.  You are a butt. WRONG.

A picture-perfect day

At age 44, the fall of my life, I have finally become a leaf-peeper. As we headed out the door, I paused. "Should I bring the camera," I wondered and was immediately reassured by my husband and daughter that it would be unnecessary. Why on earth would I have even sought their counsel on such an important matter seeing that, when compared to mine, their combined ratio of life-time picture-taking ratio comes in at about 6:6,000?

The missed photographic opportunities were enough to take one's breath away. I don't count the autumnal hue because my cinematic skills just don't cut it but I definitely could have pulled off the timeless shot of three blonde-maned workhorses lifting feathered legs in heavy unison with a backdrop of muted red, orange, yellow and green hills. Then we entered a small town filled with squirrel statues the size of black bears. A blue mirror-ball disco squirrel. A brightly flowered squirrel. Caught without my camera, I could only cry out when we encountered the Ronald MacDonald squirrel, whirling to stare accusingly at Brad and Savannah, who, ashamed, were unable to meet my livid gaze.

As always, when we find ourselves in situations where I am in a full-blown tizzy, Brad quickly distracts me with food and animatronic woodland animals. So there I was, enjoying my lobster bisque and giggling each time the raccoon popped out the barrel nearby when my entree arrived:  Berries on a Cloud. My waitress introduced me to the assortment of syrups and I clapped my hands in delight as I anticipated filling each of the four quarters of my Belgian waffle with a different flavor. Brad gently pulled the apricot bottle from me as I wrestled to open it. "Why don't you dip your knife in first to see if you like it," he suggested, removing the lid. I frowned, as his suggestion delayed my slathering of several syrups. Okay, well, it turns out I don't like apricot. As I was making that alarming discovery, Brad had opened up the boysenberry for me to sample. Blimey! I hate boysenberry too. Well...I MUST like blueberry...the entire state of Maine depends on people liking their blueberries. Sorry, Maine. Now, instead of being festooned with flavor, my Berries on a Cloud floated on a single stream of maple syrup,

We were greeted with a light drizzle as we left and then rewarded with a full rainbow as we lapped a lake. A FULL rainbow. I sighed. This was the worse day EVER. Plus, combined with all the water elements of my ride, my two Pepsis turned out to be a bad decision for a day of leaf peeping. Brad pulled over by a closed-off bridge to read the historical marker which told us how some "Grandparents of the Future" once chained themselves to this bridge in an environmental protest, As interesting as that little tidbit was, my bladder was doing some protesting of its own so I cut our bridge tour short. As I raced into the house, I realized, camera or no, it had been a picture-perfect day.

Sermon Notes: Jimmy Fallon-style

Due to a severe case of undiagnosed attention problems, I often have to utilize sermon notes to stay on task during Sunday service. Depending on my sliding scale of sustainability, ranging from a 1 ("Squirrel!") to a 5 ("The sum of the square roots of any two sides of an isosceles triangle is equal to the square root of the remaining side."), my sermon notes are either near-publishable gems of theology or cartoonish drivel. Today I ranked in at about a 1/2. 

My pastor is an engaging, charismatic speaker. His topics are relevant and meaningful. Shallow and self-centered, I was only able to stay with him for approximately three minutes before I paused to admire the perfectly-placed barrette of the blonde seated in front of me, her attention riveted on Pastor Todd's profound message. I inventoried the sanctuary's lighting fixtures before fighting my way back to the sermon topic of "thanks giving." 

As Pastor Todd began the familiar tale of the ten lepers, I inexplicably began thinking of "The Tonight Show" and Jimmy Fallon's comic bit of "Thank you notes." Sydney just got me a published book on his compiled thank you's not long ago. So pleased was I, with my completed sketch, that I decided to embark on a series of biblically-related thank you notes. I considered consulting with Pastor Todd but he was still a bit occupied with delivering his message so I ventured out on my own.

My next sketch went Old Testament-style. I kept my "Dear Jesus," intro regardless of the fact that He wasn't born in human-form until New Testament time. Technically, He's been present since the beginning. Did you think God was just proselytizing when he was talking about making man in "our" image. No, God DID NOT have a mouse in his pocket...Jesus was there. Anyhoo, along came Jonah. Before I knew it, service was over. I regretfully closed my sermon journal and stood up to leave, my mind still whirling with all the potential bible-based thank you notes out there. So many things to be thankful for...walking on water, feeding the five thousand, a talking ass, the Red Sea. Outwardly, I may not look like I'm your typical congregation member but believe me, despite my unconventional approach, consider the message: received.

Quinoa? Can-what? William CANnot eat that!

As a mandated reporter, it is both my civic and moral obligation to put a stop to this nonsense. With the exception of animals ("Why go to the zoo," she once growled, "when you can see the same animals on the internet?"), elementary car maintenance ("Where does this blue stuff go," she asked, sloshing the gallon jug at me. "You mean windshield washer solvent," I asked, incredulously, popping open the hood of her car while she looked on with utter amazement as though I had pulled a rabbit out of her carburetor. If she ever gets around to reading my blog, I guarantee she'll text me to find out what a carburetor is), and her embarrassing meal ordering habits ("Who do you think you are," I hissed as the waiter walked away, shaking his head in exasperation, "Meg Ryan from When Harry Met Sally? Not everything has to be ordered on the side."), my friend Sarah is a perfectly lovely person. But this is just too much. I overlooked her letting her son play with a dog toy. I applauded (even though I may have thrown up in my mouth a little) when she licked off Will's pacifier after it fell on the floor of a busy pizzeria before popping it back into his mouth. But then it happened and I admit that I am now seriously questioning the parameters of our friendship.

It was time to feed Will. I try to avoid these experiences as she tends to feed him food not fit for human consumption. I appreciate that Will has distracted her attention in this area away from me, (She once tried to "cure" my lingering cold by forcing some beta-carotene crap-colored concoction that was, like, 98% pulp down my throat. Let's just say it, it wouldn't stay down.) but I can't sleep nights, racked with guilt from what William must endure on a daily basis.

The irony was almost painful as she gleefully pulled out a product called "Happy Baby" from the bag.

We were celebrating my daughter's birthday with a Mickey Mouse cake.
 Notice what has captured poor Will's attention.

Will didn't look all that happy. He tried to make a run for it but he hasn't quite mastered the whole one-foot-in-front-of-the-other thing yet so she easily tackled him, pinning him into place with some weird anaconda leg lock maneuver. I could only stand by and watch in helpless horror. "What is that?" I asked, not really wanting to know the answer.  ""It's a food pouch," Sarah said, deftly following Will's moving mouth as he frantically flailed his head from side-to-side. "He's not an astronaut," I pointed out, worried why she was feeding her baby freeze-dried spacefood. "No, no, no," she laughed, even though neither Will or I was finding this situation remotely funny, "It's natural food...organic...no preservatives...no GMOs...BPA-free." She was out-of-breath from wrestling Will. I, on the other hand, couldn't understand a single word or acronym she was saying. "It's chicken, vegetables and quinoa," she said, showing me. Just like I suspected...a crap-colored concoction. Not wanting to look totally ignorant, I waited until I got home to look up "quinoa" (pronounced KEEN-wah). I wasn't too far off in my hypothesis that it was an off-shoot variety of wild shrub poultry. Quinoa is a member of the non-migratory goosefoot species. It is considered a pseudocereal. WHAT?!? I called Sarah immediately to inform her that she was feeding Will a product that was only pretending to be a cereal but she had to hang up as Will had almost managed to escape her culinary clutches again. Isn't there some sort of intervention program available? I "KEEN-not" put up with this much longer.

I Swear I Was There: See You At The Pole

Not my finest moment as a Christian woman. Pulled into the school parking lot, my mind packed with the zillions of things I needed to accomplish before my 4th graders walked into my classroom door when I spotted a small contingency of people standing in the circular grass meridian of the bus loop. "D#mmit," I muttered. It was See You At The Pole. Okay...I know how this makes me look but, c'mon, I had to put my leftover Shepherd's Pie in the refrigerator, log onto my computer, consider buying a Snickers bar, and count out enough green foam place value unit cubes so that nine students could have twenty-four each. That was a lot of math to have to face before 8 am.

I sat in my van and considered my options. Sure, I could skulk my way across the parking lot, dodging between vehicles "Pink Panther-style." I could walk swiftly toward the building, seemingly so lost in my important educator thoughts that I simply didn't notice the gathering of prayerful people. I heaved a sigh. I pray every morning on my drive to school, my thoughts on the safe travel of my family members, my students, naming off my infinite blessings...but I realized that, as an adult, my role in this particular bible-based drama is just that: a role model...a visual representation of my faith. Man...I stomped over and joined the circle in full swing.

Once I was resigned to the idea that a Snickers bar was not going to be a part of my immediate future, I lost myself in the soft serenity of the moment. The bright blue September morning, geese honking overhead, a colorful pile of student backpacks nesting at the base of the flagpole. Our speaker sprinkled his message with mini-quizzes (I was nervous that, after asking for the definition of "righteousness," that he would request the correct spelling of the term) so I sank into private prayer, concentrating on God's Will regarding the injured front left paw of my little dachshund.

The buses began lining up, surrounding us like circus elephants. I shifted my prayer topic, asking for a hedge of protection; actually more of a non-permeable bubble barrier, against the diesel fumes. We grasped hands and prayed together before heading into the school. For the remainder of the day, I was shamed for my initial response to the See You At The Pole event and rewarded for my participation as curious kids asked me, again and again, "Mrs. Mosiman, what were you doing this morning?"  I explained in a quick and casual manner but as I left each inquiry, I would add in my head, "I was praying for you."

I'm so LUCKY to have a charming friend like Joan

This is a picture of what friendship looks like.

I have many wonderful qualities. When I think of some, I will be sure to share them with you. "Friendship" is not my strongest skill. I notoriously forget birthdays, stop in for visits without calling first, mooch like nobody's business and interrupt CONSTANTLY. Let's just say I'm a better talker than a listener.

My friend, Joan, on the other hand, is the epitome of true friendship. Not only has she put up with my obnoxious shenanigans for almost thirty years, she graciously took on the role of beloved aunt to my two girls, weaseling her way into my and Brad's Wills for "just-in-case" guardianship. "If you ever die, Amy," she  would threaten, "I will KILL you!"

She has been known to, Shoemaker's Elves-style, sneak over to husk several bushels of corn as three out of the four members of the Mosiman Family begrudgingly prepared ourselves for Brad's favorite family activity: Freezing corn. "We can buy a bag of frozen corn from the store for 99 cents," we'd say but our complaints fell on deaf "ears."

Despite knowing that there was more-than-a-good-chance that she could be arrested, Joan has taken part in some of our more idiotic adventures. When we decided to test a watermelon's buoyancy in a cinematically BIG way, Joan was willing to be the one to sneak past the "DANGER:  STAY AWAY FROM RIVERBED" sign to fling our melon into the raging rapids. We also learned how quickly Joan could move when a warning whistle blew! She cheered louder than the rest of us when our melon survived the rapids but exploded upon impact when it hit the massive waterfall.

Speaking of exploding, Joan did not immediately terminate our friendship when we inadvertently canoed her end of the vessel into a bloated beaver carcass, nor did she storm off when we set up her tent so that she was sleeping on a fork. She has helped pluck puke from my daughter's hair on a road trip, listened to the same story tape fifty-ka-zillion times on our many travels ("It's a good game...a very good game."), let me dress her like a Pilgrim, and never judges me for any of the bad decisions I make.

And then, two days ago, she appears at my house with a large, gallon-sized bag filled with Lucky Charms marshmallows.  My dream come true. For years, I have joked that my goal in life is to sort through a box of Lucky Charms, discard all those pesky cereal bits and gather up the rainbow of pink hearts, yellow moons, green clovers, blue diamonds (and purple horseshoes) but, of course I was too lazy to actually do it. My friend did it for me.

Winning at euchre just isn't in the cards

Baby Tenley doubling as a euchre table.

You'd think for a gal who plays euchre two times a week, I'd be pretty darn good at it by now. However, if you take a gander at the photo, you might be able to guess why I have the euchre-playing capabilities of a wild chimpanzee. I deliberately chose to compare my playing skills to a "wild" chimpanzee because I'd bet that a chimpanzee, living out his life in captivity, could easily beat me in euchre.

Today while I was enjoying my friend Kelly's delicious plum/raspberry crisp dessert between hands, I paused to reflect upon on our adorable card-playing "table". Kelly's beautiful baby Tenley patiently "held" the pile as we determined, argued or just simply forgot to call up trump. I was suddenly transported, back in time, to an oddly similar circumstance during a church youth group trip to Kentucky.

Our little group had pitched our tents among others, Woodstock-ish (without the blatant sex and drugs) in a giant, mildly-sloped field. Several boys were assigned to go "fetch water." They managed to successfully make it back but stopped short at the base of our mildly-sloped incline, claiming it was "too steep" and the water was "too heavy". Our mighty leader, a tall well-built police official, set off down this mild slope, mocking the boys with each step. That's what good Christian youth leaders do. It's in the manual. He easily grasped the buckets of water and walked briskly up the mild slope...setting a good example and, bonus, shaming the boys at the same time. The young men disappeared and our hero, a paragon of hard work and cooperation, glanced around quickly to make sure there were no under-age witnesses, and then collapsed to the ground, clutching his back. A slipped disc on a mildly-sloped incline. But, in the midst of this great adversity, we made the best of it. As our superstar of silent suffering lay in traction on the ground, he served as both our card table and as my husband's euchre partner. Our only complaint was that our playing cards kept slipping off the mildly-sloped incline.

Moving Day

Getting our baby bird ready to leave the nest turned out to be a tad more complicated than just simply filling a few boxes of her belongings and notifying the United States Post Office of an impending change-of-address. Let us first wrestle a queen-sized mattress and box spring six feet in the air and strap them precariously to the top of the van before bustling off, Beverly Hillbillies-style, into the sunset (ignore the fact that it was actually early afternoon...poetic license, you know).

We arrived at our intended destination with our mattresses intact and our dignity in tatters. After nearly being crushed to death by an avalanche of Posturepedics which would later require a trip to the chiropractor, we faced our next challenge. "What's the entry code," Brad said, huffing as he lugged one mattress up the first ten steps of the building. Savannah and I looked at each other. Uh-oh. No worries...it only took us an hour to convince various residents of the apartment building of our upstanding moral character and recently expunged prison records before someone took pity on us and punched in the magical four-digit access code.

Twenty steep steps and a narrow right angle turn later, we encountered the next difficulty. As Savannah's apartment key was, at that moment, stored safely in her car that was conveniently parked in Rochester, we had stopped by a nearby friend's house to unearth the emergency spare key, buried, Jack-Sparrow-style, in the flower bed. Retrieved, we noticed that the key was shaped rather oddly but optimism runs deep in my family...until the lock won't budge. The following is the desperate text-messaged conversation to the Rochester friend:

Us: This is notice of a quick drive-by...we're stranded like hobos outside Savannah's apartment...with only a mailbox key! Be there shortly...not even coming in for a visit.

(Astute readers quickly recognize the between-the-lines meaning of this text to reflect Mr. Mosiman's profound unhappiness with the idiocy of this so-called "move.")

Rochester friend:  Lol...stranded with a mailbox key sounds like a country song.

Over an hour later, with the correct-key-in-hand, we unlocked the door to Savannah's new world, delivered her furniture and stood baffled in front of a freezer full of wine bottles and cabbage rolls. It was time to go. "Are you going to re-bury your mailbox key," Brad asked his daughter, driving away before she could respond. After a quick Google search, I texted Savannah an inspirational message.

Me:  Fun fact, in 1961, Buck Owens and his Buckeroos released a single called "The Key's in the Mailbox."  What do you think...potential ringtone?

I'm still waiting for a response.

Elisha's Snips & Clips

A few month's ago, my fearless friend Elisha became the proprietor of a hair salon in Pike, New York. Today, I arrogantly thought I'd throw "Elisha's Snips & Clips" a little bit of my valuable business; you know, just to get her started. After a near-death collision on the way, I stumbled into her shop and was startled to see it was standing room only. "Amy," Elisha greeted me, "aren't you meeting Cathy for lunch today?" I stared at her in surprised silence. How on earth did she know that? Was my bra size also public knowledge? No, I reassured myself, I routinely lie about that little tidbit.

Room was made for me and, as I sank into a comfy chair, I suddenly realized that I wasn't in "Elisha's Snips & Clips" of Pike, New York. I was in "Floyd's Barber Shop," Mayberry USA. I was emotionally affirmed by the crowd of soon-to-be-clipped clients as I shared how I, as a result of my usual bad driving practices, had come upon a stop sign too quickly. Another vehicle, turning left toward me, paused next to me to glare. I immediately reciprocated with a heartfelt wave of apology before taking in (a) the fact that he had cut his turn short into my lane and (b) he had his little dog on his lap. I don't judge him for either violation as I have been routinely guilty of both but I was irked about his irritation with me. "Finally, in my forties, I've stopped caring what other people think," I concluded victoriously while my new emotional support group cheered before sharing their own traffic-related stories.

I was introduced to a colleague's grandparents-in-law who inquired about the teacher who was assigned to their grandson. I sang her virtues as both an educator and a person. "She's fearless," I bragged, "and embraces life. She rides motorcycles and took up bow hunting." Intrigued, a man in the chair asked if she was married. "Not for a lack of suitors," I informed him. "Is she a young woman," another eligible man asked. I began thinking that perhaps Elisha should start a side business here. "Yes," I answered, "she's about my age." This was met with awkward silence. "Young," I stated, unhappy to have to force them to agree with me.

I compared dachshund ramps with one client. Learned that there are people in the world, who, for some inexplicable reason, want used slabs of concrete. Lamented that the traffic lights in Batavia are frustratingly timed so that you hit every red signal. And I was warned that the road leading to the Glen Iris was being repaired and, given my driving ability, I should be extra careful. I finally made it to the chair and happily caught up on Elisha's life while she tamed my tresses. "Tell Cathy I said hey," she smiled, whipping off my little hair bib and sending me on my way. I hated to go. There's just something so warm and real about a small town salon.