Tuesday Slice: Not yet ready for used to be

 

I am not there for the soft entry, the smiles,

the "How was your summer?" and "Loved the pics of your vacation!".

I am not there to hunt for a seat near an outlet, knowing my laptop still needs to charge.

I am not there for the new tee shirt, the long agenda, the fresh coffee and breakfast tacos.

I am not there with a fresh new planner, filling in dates of meetings and holidays and book fairs.

I am not there for the updates, legal (hopefully better news) and software glitch fixes.

I am not there for the new books, the new budgets, the new resources--or the lack of the latter.

I am not there, and no one is there in my place, either.

I am not there because I chose not to be there...but I am not yet ready for used to be.

***********

It is the first day back for school librarians in my district, and they will all be meeting together to look at the year ahead.  I retired at the end of last year, and that position has yet to be filled, along with several other library postings; I may be subbing in a few of those until librarians are found.  This hasn't happened in the decade-plus years I served behind the circulation desk. I think teacher pay incentives (TIA, here in Texas) which result in salaries higher than a librarian earns, as well job uncertainty as neighboring districts cut librarian positions, may be to blame.  

I miss my library and teacher colleagues.  I miss the hope and optimism behind planning the scope and sequence for the year, embedding read-alouds and research lessons.  I consider myself a realistic optimist, but today, I will have to remind myself why I chose to retire, and those reasons aren't so rosy--or I would still be there, after all.

 

Tuesday Slice: The old me still sparks joy, makeup edition

 

I know I need to get rid of a lot of stuff...a LOT.  

My Virgo daughter, with an older-than-dirt soul, wisely advises me to start with what she calls "low-hanging fruit"--stuff that's easy to get rid of because it's old, not useful anymore, doesn't fit.  So this week I decided to organize my vanity, which has been overflowing with a hodgepodge of makeup, jewelry, hair accessories, perfumes and lotions.  Tired of digging through it all to find what I want each day, I purchased clear plastic stacking drawers to separate everything into easy-to-reach categories.

Old, gunky lotions and creams were easy to toss, as was skincare beyond its prime.  But then I got to the makeup...

All it took was a relative's Christmas gift of two fancy makeup palettes, and I was hooked.  Coordinating eyeshadows, blushes, and lip colors for day wear and evening wear.  What more could an 80s girl, who had a Bic lighter for the sole purpose of melting the Maybelline eyeliner before application, ask for?

Those palettes, along with the standard issue Cover Girl eyeshadow quads, went to college with me.  An aunt who kept her Avon lady busy supplied me with even more, including a folding take-along set that included mascara and a mirror.  Bonne Bell Lipsmackers made way for lipsticks in every shade and formulation, from matte to glossy.

And I threw very little of it away, through the years.  So there they were, those day and night palettes and eyeshadow quads, hiding behind the door to a cabinet I couldn't even reach because of the stuff that had piled up in front of it.  Looking once more at the glittery colors and half-used blushes took me back to when putting on makeup really was just for fun.  I was less worried then about dark circles under my eyes, melasma and enlarged pores.  It was more about the color than the concealment.  

I really like that part of the old me; those memories spark joy, to quote Marie Kondo.  But the older, wiser me isn't ready to risk eye infections from decades-old shadows, or worse from the lip colors.  It was sad to see them all piled up in the trash, but I knew they had to go.  I'll give a wink to that teenager still somewhere inside of me as I apply my makeup today, spending more time on those undereye circles...

(Oh, and I kept that Avon folding palette, not to use, but just for funsies.  Do they even make anything like that anymore?)

Folding Avon palette!

So compact!  

Night look

Day look

This was so much fun to play with!

Love the shimmers

Ah, the good old CG quads

Estee Lauder!

I loved these shades!

Tuesday Slice: Cartoons, current events, and curriculum

 

Oliphant....Oliphant...why did I know that name?

Oliphant appeared in the "Passage" portion of the "CBS Sunday Morning" show, where they memorialize important and famous people who died the previous week.  

Was it eighth grade, or ninth?  I was fortunate to be in a DoDDS school in Germany those years, with amazing teachers and daily access to "The Stars & Stripes" newspaper.  One of those teachers had us combing the paper each evening for political cartoons by Pat Oliphant and op-ed columns by William F. Buckley, Jr and William Safire.  If any of those pieces were present, we were expected to read and respond to them in our notebooks and be prepared to discuss them the next day.  We were also required to cut out news articles from at least three different continents a week and glue them into our notebooks.

Since the news was constantly changing, and Oliphant, Buckley and Safire were not daily contributors, these lessons could not be planned.  The discussions were not "gotcha" exercises; curiosity about the topics and well-thought-out questioning was encouraged. As a seasoned educator, I can look back and admire those assignments as relevant and timely critical thinking lessons.  I feel like I knew a lot more about world events back then, and at a greater depth.

Did we still cover the curriculum?  I'm sure we did.  I'm also sure that it wasn't as jam-packed as today's scope and sequence, and it certainly wasn't scripted.  Those highly trained teachers were trusted to do what they were trained to do, with their own creative tweaks--like tuning adolescents into the pulse of the world by reading the newspaper each night.  I am grateful for the education I received under their care.

William F. Buckley, Jr, courtesy of PBS

Cartoon by Oliphant, June 1973

William Safire, courtesy of Simon & Schuster

Tuesday Slice: Selling, not buying

 

The back-to-school retail ads and emails have begun.  I will admit, I perused the Mead Store on the 'zon, looking at their collection of notebooks and journals. There are a few notebooks and stationery items sitting in my cart...

...but this is the year I need to sell, not buy.  There are four tubs and at least as many piles of teaching materials and decor sitting in my living room, waiting to leave the premises.  Some, like the sequencing cards I bought at the teacher store last summer, have never been opened, since I was taken off of specials rotation last school year and didn't need to have as many activities to offer in the library.  I have bulletin board supplies, alphabet bean bags, bins and baskets and books that I am ready to sell at rock-bottom prices to teachers needing to outfit their classrooms.  The only decision I have left is whether to hold an old-fashioned garage sale in the coming weeks, or take a stab at Facebook Marketplace.

I'm not sure exactly what the future holds for employment opportunities, so I haven't severed all ties with educational email feeds and social media follows.  But I can say that the prospect of shrugging off the mantle of the past thirty-three years is something I am definitely looking forward to.  

Tuesday Slice: Lunching with the ladies

 

The meet-ups always seem to last for three hours.

Two hours in, the food has been eaten, leftovers boxed up.  Servers have refilled our water and tea, delivered and collected the check with a decent tip.  Still we chatter on, talking about work, books, health, kids;  money and retirement plans; the state of education, of government, of employment opportunities.  The phones only come out to look something up, share a picture, add to a TBR pile.  As the last hour winds down, we talk about how great it has been to sit like this, uninterrupted by work and family responsibilities.  We make vague, hopeful plans to do this again soon.

*************

One month after officially retiring, these meals have been bright spots in the murky middle between the last job and the next steps.  I value my friendships with these women.  The one-on-one time outside of work settings reaffirms that we have connections that transcend shared careers and decades-old experience.  Maybe now that I am taking back my time and energy, I can focus on expending both in continuing these soul-filling conversations.

Photo by Kaboompics, negativespace.co

Tuesday Slice: Red and blue in the backyard

The cardinal waited for a moment

     on the trapeze swing

     before making a play

     flying onto the feeder

     next to the dove, who brushed

     him away, to find a bug elsewhere.

Meanwhile, a bluejay waited for a moment

     in the bare tree above

     before making a play

     flying onto the slide's end

     next to a squirrel, who ignored

     him, letting him nab a peanut. 

Tuesday Slice: The nose wiggle

Those of us of a certain age remember the nose wiggle.  If you were like me, you practiced it in the mirror.

I woke up today at 230a, a list of tasks running through my brain, seemingly unending.  Laundry, major decluttering, putting together a garage sale for all of my now-unnecessary teaching materials and classroom decor, scheduling medical appointments, meeting up with friends, catching up on journaling and filling in my planner and writing thank-you notes and meal-planning....you get the idea.

I really wanted to nose-wiggle it done.  One twitch, and the mountain of clothes disappears.  Another, and my job applications are submitted.  Third twitch, and the menus would be filled in through August.

Alas, the nose twitching didn't produce any such effects.  I spent an hour and a half in bed, completing all of the New York Times games and starting my Amazon Prime Day cart, before my brain finally shut off enough to squeeze in a couple more hours of sleep.  The only magic happening will be the arrival of a few tubes of toothpaste and collagen for my coffee, appearing on my doorstep in a few days.