Nice, Schmice!

100 Word Rant 4/4/16
Nice, Schmice!! 

When was it decided that I should have to be the grown-up in this little world? What if I want to be the petulant one? The grouchy, fly-off-the-handle one? Who voted on my being the peacemaker all the time? I don’t want to be rational, dammit. I want to pitch a fit; better yet, have a conniption fit and fall into it! Let my goat be gotten! Be a hot mess! Take the low road! I want people to know they’d better not mess with me, by golly, because I am one scary broad. (Is that okay? Do you mind?)

Struggles with re-entry

Sometimes I compare my transitions to re-entry after being beamed up on Star Trek--sometimes I think parts of me are left behind in the transporter! There was one episode on Star Trek, Next Generation in which a visitor from another planet/galaxy/solar system (you get the idea) was slowly dying because he was being transported too many times. I remember Deanna Troi was trying to convince him to stop, but his planet below needed him.

Okay, that's quite a strong analogy, I know--I'm not dying (!), but you get the gist of it. I love DeKalb, and I love our little Paddock Lake house, and I love Carthage...AND the commuting is slowly but surely wearing me out. I find my level of attention when I'm driving, as well as my ability to remember to pack everything I need for one state or the other, to be waning. It could be that it's just been a tough year, or it could be menopause (I think?), or just this time of year and the almost-winter blahs. But I can tell you that I yearn to live in just one place--just one house to clean, fridge to stock, set of dishes to wash, one set of closets, one dresser, set of litter boxes...again, you get the idea. I want to be HOME, wherever home is. If I have a morning and evening class same day, I want to be just one mile--not 20 miles from campus! I want to help Joe keep up with the chores and his health. 

One upsetting epiphany I had this year is that our beloved dog Luna is getting old without me. It becomes harder to leave her, and she hates it when I go. She has really come to resent clothes baskets and suitcases...poor baby! I want to come home to all my mammals, every day! 

When I took the position at Carthage, the idea was that I would do this commute and live away from DeKalb thing for a couple years until Joe found a job up north and we fully moved to Wisconsin. I'm now halfway through the 7th year of that idea, and we are only just now actually pursuing the goal of trying to live together in just one home again. Joe is applying for jobs in Wisconsin, and I (oh, you'll love this!) am applying for jobs in the southeast--Florida, the Carolinas, and Arkansas! Neither of us loves the cold, and I am just becoming too fragile to risk falling on ice and snow, so we are exploring our options. I think too, really, that the prospect of moving away appeals to me because we will be forced to fish or cut bait, shit or get off the pot, make a dadgum decision! One way or another, come July we will live together. What a concept. 

They love Wednesday nights, but what are they learning?

On Wednesday nights I teach the most FASCINATING combination of personalities! There 8 of them, 2 math majors, 2 English majors, 1 Biology major, 1 History major, 1 Spanish major, and one PE-Health & Fitness major--all enrolled in my section of Middle & Secondary Language Arts methods. All walks of life; some were friends before, but several were strangers. It's a tough class to teach because they are all (except the PE major) minoring in secondary ed and are required to take this course. I have to help them figure out that language arts are a natural part of any course and that integrating them throughout their curriculum is just best practice. Some are wide open to the possibility, while others are rather resistant. This group, however, does everything I ask them to do.

The problem is, they have created such a supportive community that I worry they are not learning all they should. I know I am modeling the type of caring professional I wish them to be, and I have shown them ways to integrate the language arts, as well as pretty much forced them to read some high-quality young adult literature. But had I kept them more on task (it's a 3-hour class), how much more might they have learned? Would we have lost the precious conversations we've enjoyed? Would the Biology major and the History major have astounded us with their collaborative multi-media project? Would one of the English majors have been able to return to us after her mother's death? Has all the disclosure made them better language arts teachers? In essence: AM I DOING MY JOB?

This is what I struggle with, particularly in smaller groups like this. I know they love and respect me, and that they know they are loved and respected in return. I cheer them on, I validate, scaffold, support, critique, chastise, cajole, nurture, nag. But am I doing the content justice?

The Second Coming (of age, that is...)

When we hear about coming of age stories, they're tales of teens or pre-teens who experience life-altering events that lead them into maturity. But do we truly experience just one coming of age? Is the fabled midlife crisis actually a second coming of age? Even though nothing has changed, this past year I've been feeling like I am going through a growth spurt or something. I am 53, almost 54. I weigh more than I ever have in my life. I am a professor, which was never in my childhood dreams--I didn't even know it was an option! I have a warm, generous, loving, passionate partner husband who seems to love me unconditionally, poor guy. I spend a good deal of my waking time on the shores of Lake Michigan--a dream fulfilled! Despite fibromyalgia, weight, arthritis, and an autoimmune disease, I continue to have my health.

In essence, life should be good enough, right? Why, then, do I feel like I'm on the brink of something? Big changes ahead are what my soul says--my radar is on, I'm ready. But what on Earth...? Could it be the 3 precancerous polyp removed from my colon? Could it be that my heart decided to have atrial fibrillation and atrial flutter? Could it be that I've been in either a moon boot or an ankle brace most of the past year? Or is it this damned endless winter/spring? Perhaps I am yearning to spring free.

I have many friends who seem to have experienced Renaissance periods in their 50s and 60s, becoming poets, community leaders, composers, choir directors, and artists. Who am I going to be?

Feeling Mortal Today, So Here's My Favorite Cookie Recipe!

My Aunt Kay found (or was it her daughter, my cousin Rae?) this cookie recipe for my cousin Peter who would not eat anything without peanut butter on/in it.  (Note: Peter was a grown, married man dentist!) Aunt Kay wanted to make those wildly popular chocolate chip cookies, but Peter wouldn't eat them! Thus: Peanut Butter-Chocolate Chip Cookies! I've been making them about 40 years, probably. In the 90's I started pressing the dough into a pan (did I do it first, or did Michael's grandma?), and in 1993 my friend Gretchen exclaimed, "Oh, look: they have little love handles on them!" So the pan version are called "Love Handles." I still prefer actual cookies, though.
Oh: Michael's grandma also added oatmeal to them, GOOD CALL!! Her daughter Linda told me the older Grandma got, the less salt and sugar she'd put in the recipe to make it healthier...lol!

One more story: my best friend Karen immortalized these cookies by including the recipe in the QuikTrip cookbook in Tulsa over 20 years ago. She called them, "My Friend Patty's Cookies!" The bad news is, she got the recipe wrong--half was double-batch, half was single!  Makes for a good story... :-)

AUNT KAY'S PEANUT BUTTER-CHOCOLATE CHIP COOKIES

AKA "LOVE HANDLES"

—Patty Rieman

Combine: (as my hands develop arthritis with age, I've come to use an electric mixer)

1 cup stick margarine or butter, softened is easier
1 cup brown sugar
1 cup white sugar
2 eggs
1 tsp. vanilla
½ -3/4 cup peanut butter (more is better, I prefer creamy)

Combine, then add:
3 cups flour
2 tsp. baking soda
1 tsp. salt
½ to 1 cup uncooked quick oats

Then add:

Semi-sweet chocolate chips, larger size (12 oz?) Chunks are best, or M & M’s work, too.

 Spread the entire bowl of dough in a 13 x 9 ungreased baking pan. Bake for app. 30 min. at 350 on center rack.  You may also bake as cookies, app. 11-12 min. for walnut-sized balls on ungreased cookie sheet.

100 Favorite Books--I'm up to 72!

(Note to self: next time, use Excel so that you can see right away if you're repeating yourself!! :-))  ***I've decided to put asterisks by the ones for adults.

A friend commented recently that he'd enjoy seeing a list of my 100 favorite books. Challenge accepted! So far, I've been able to name 60. Thank goodness I don't have to prioritize them... Here's what I have so far; it's a lot harder than I anticipated. I don't want to just list books I remember reading and liking--I want ones that matter, or that bring back the best memories, or that I never wanted to end.

1. The Bean Trees--Kingsolver ***
2. To Kill A Mockingbird--Lee
3. A Wrinkle in Time--L'Engle
4. Bud, not Buddy--Curtis
5. The Watsons Go to Birmingham, 1963--Curtis
6. The Crowning Glory of Calla Lily Ponder--Wells ***
7. Unwind, Unwholly, Unsouled (and probably Undivided when it finally comes out!)--Shusterman
8. The Accidental Tourist (Tyler) ***
9. Breathing Lessons-(Tyler) ***
10. Tangerine--Edward Bloor
11. The Prince of Tides--Pat Conroy ***
12. The Book Thief--Zusak
13. Island of the Blue Dolphins--O'Dell
14. The Five Little Peppers and How They Grew--Sidney
15. The Cay--Taylor
16. The Boxcar Children--Warren
17. Travels With Charley --Steinbeck
18. Little Women--Alcott
19. Eight Cousins--Alcott
20. Kinsey Millhone collection--Grafton ***
21. Scarpetta collection--Cornwell ***
22. Stephanie Plum collection--Evanovich ***
23. The Secret Life of Bees--Kidd ***
24. The Language of Flowers--Diffenbaugh ***
25. The Hunger Games trilogy--Collins
26. Make Lemonade trilogy--Wolff
27. Harry Potter, especially #1 & 7--Rowling
28. Witness--Hesse
29. The Evolution of Calpurnia Tate--Kelly
30. Bittersweet--Spencer ***
31. Waiting to Exhale--McMillan ***
32. What Looks Like Crazy on an Ordinary Day--Cleage ***
33. Hattie Big Sky--Larson
34. A Light in the Attic--Silverstein
35. Where the Sidewalk Ends--Silverstein
36. That Quail, Robert!--Stanger
37. The Great Gilly Hopkins--Patersen
38. Long Way from Chicago--Peck
39. The Mitford Series--Karon
40. A Time to Kill--Grisham ***
41. Tom Sawyer--Twain
42. The Green Mile--King ***
43. Bingo--Brown ***
44. The Napping House--Wood
45. Alexander and the Terrible, Horrible, No Good, Very Bad Day--Viorst
46. Roll of Thunder, Hear My Cry--Taylor
47. All Creatures Great and Small--Herriot
48. Cannery Row--Steinbeck
49. Will Grayson-Will Grayson--Green & Levithan
50. Charlotte's Web--White
51. The BFG--Dahl
52. The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe--Lewis
53. Far From the Madding Crowd--Hardy
54. Christy--Marshall
55. The Poisonwood Bible--Kingsolver ***
56. Staying Fat for Sarah Byrnes--Crutcher
57. Whale Song--Crutcher
58. The poetry book Grandma gave me when I was 5
59. The Joy of Cooking
60. Betty Crocker Cookbook

          61.   Anne of Green Gables--Montgomery 

           62.  Becoming Naomi Leon-Ryan

           63.  Everything I Need to Know I Learned in Kindergarten--Fulghum

           64.  Chicka Chicka Boom Boom (Archambault, Martin, & Ehlert)

           65.  Skinjacker Trilogy (Everlost, Everwild, Everfound)--Shusterman

           66.  Bruiser--Shusterman

           67.  The Phantom Tollbooth--Juster & Feiffer

           68.  The Search for Delicious--Babbitt

           69.  Tuck Everlasting--Babbitt

           70.  Rascal--North

           71.  Any Small Goodness--Johnston
         72. The Anna Papers--Gilchrist ***

on loss and friendship

Someone important to someone important to me died this week. The deceased served as a role model, mentor, father figure, and best friend to someone who needed him terribly. I mourn his loss, and I am saddened that the state of our own friendship prevents me from being of any use to him in these dark days. He will say he's too busy to grieve, or at least to talk about grieving. He will say "later," his response anytime I want to talk about anything important. And knowing him as well as I do, I will simply say ok. This is how we work. Or don't work.
With Facebook I have somehow become this big discloser--can't sleep? Tell my 400 friends! Having surgery? Show everyone how funny and brave I am, and praise my nurturing husband and pets! Get my feelings hurt? Have them repaired by above-mentioned 400 friends! Need to vent? You guessed it.
But this friend doesn't tell anyone anything. As devout a Christian as he is, I'm not sure he even tells God. Where does it go, all that grief, anger, loneliness? Sometimes I think it goes inside me, even when he hasn't said a word. I am his status page, inside out and unread.