Level Eye: December 2005

Janelle's Wedding Pics

Janelle's Wedding

Janelle is one of my friends from forever ago. I've known her for 24 years and our older siblings are married to each other. Her wedding was one of the most beautiful weddings I have ever attended. I was also a bridesmaid and wore a gold dress, and no, there are no photos of it on this blog.

This is a poem that was read during the ceremony. It is by Kahlil Gibran.

You were born together, and together you shall be forevermore.
You shall be together when the white wings of death scatter your days.
Ay, you shall be together even in the silent memory of God.
But let there be spaces in your togetherness,
And let the winds of the heavens dance between you.

Love one another, but make not a bond of love:
Let it rather be a moving sea between the shores of your souls.
Fill each other's cup but drink not from one cup.
Give one another of your bread but eat not from the same loaf.
Sing and dance together and be joyous, but let each one of you be alone, Even as the strings of a lute are alone though they quiver with the same music.

Give your hearts, but not into each other's keeping.
For only the hand of Life can contain your hearts.
And stand together yet not too near together:
For the pillars of the temple stand apart,
And the oak tree and the cypress grow not in each other's shadow.

Merry Christmas from Morongo

My aunt lives IN THE MIDDLE OF NOWHERE. It is stark, spare, and beautiful. We got lost for a full half hour on the way to her house from the main highway. We would have figured out we were lost much sooner, but Mom was driving approximately 3 miles an hour to accommodate my brother who has three holes in his abdomen from having his gall bladder ripped out a week ago. After creeping through the sage brush, palo verde trees, and cholla, passing the same shack/meth labs over and over, with my husband having to pee, my brother herniating fatty tissue, and my mother persisting up the same dirt road, certain that every new crossroad would be the correct one, we finally called and got new directions. The rest of the day was great. My aunt got us hooked on Raspberry Chipotle sauce, my uncle, an electrician by trade and Bob Vila clone by default, taught the boys how to grout and caulk.

I love my aunt and uncle. When they come to the end of their lives, they will not have to wish they had tried x, y, or z. If it sounds interesting, they try it. They have lived in Nevada twice, West Virginia, one of the Carolinas, and five different parts of California, just in the last few years. My aunt was raised Seventh-day Adventist, became Quaker, and is now Buddhist. There is something to leaving no stone unturned.

Venti Nonfat Latte 2 Splendas

This was the last day of school before vacation. We put a respectable dent in one of several Starbuck’s gift cards received today, and drove to Carp and back just to watch the massive waves and the fog roll in.

The BEST holiday gifts I (or teachers I know) have ever been given:
1. A card that says something nice.
2. A Starbucks gift certificate.
3. Coffee Bean and Tea Leaf is good, too.
4. So is Peet’s.
5. Basically, any gift certificate for edibles, even if not caffeine related.
6. A Red Currant Votivo candle.
7. Travel size aromatherapy lotion from Bath and Body Works—great to keep in desk drawers.
8. Funky magnets for white boards and file cabinets.
9.
10.

You would think that a cat that moves this much would have a faster metabolism.

Ivy is 18 pounds of pure love. She moves too much to be photogenic. If she’s awake, there’s just no easy way to get a good shot. It’s as if she knows the camera will add 10 pounds, and it’s hard enough to haul around the amount she’s got.
She is sitting next to her dad, the rock star, who just played keyboard for his school holiday program. Random people come up to him after these events and say, “I didn’t know you could play the piano.” Like that’s the very last detail about him that they didn’t know.

"The gold ones are delicious." —J.M.

When I first became a teacher, I set out to encourage good habits and to be an example of sound nutrition. However, what they never tell you in credentialing programs is that teens will do almost anything for a bit of concentrated sugar in a shiny wrapper. This includes picking up trash someone else dropped, behaving like Stepford children at assemblies, acting very interested in the finer points of English grammar, and practically begging like whimpering Labrador retrievers to start even mundane assignments that otherwise would produce a classwide catatonic state . This bag, ladies and gentlemen, holds magic.