Happy Thanksgiving!

OK, I've been busy! Really busy! It has been kind of over the top in a non-coffee drinking or lunching or laughing at Grass Roots kind of way. I have been wanting to write about the commute to my work. Suzanne has been such a delight to travel with each day. We don our snow pants and parkas, face masks and bunny boots and she takes us on her four wheeler down the now snow and ice covered switch backs to the beach and up to the turn which takes us into the village. In the mornings I am usually too cold to lift my head from Suzanne's back to look up and into the sunrise. At this point in the winter it is barely stretching over the mountains anyway.

The school is a house which has been converted into two classrooms and three small rooms, one of which is an office. Suzanne and I enter the office, drop the curtain, lock the door and proceed to strip out of our snow gear and pants and choose from her enormous selection of floor length skirts. We transform quickly from bad ass Alaskan babes, to conservative intellectual educators. (The picture of the cupcakes has nothing to do with the school.)

And the day begins.

I won't lie. as I stand in front of the group of young men, all of them so healthy and young and competitive, and the young women, all of them reserved and seemingly disinterested in the young men, I am in awe. I am amazed that I was ever this age. That I could have ever been so good looking and healthy! That the boys around me were all so good looking! No wonder I was so distracted! And then miraculously I am able to hold their attention! How?

The most amusing teaching moment I have had this week has been when Suzanne was trying to teach them about poetry. She was trying to get them to appreciate the sound that poetry has as it is being recited. They could choose any poem they wanted and then they were to recite it. They were being graded on their ability to perform it. I don't think any of them were nervous to read their selections, but being ESL kids and being high schoolers, they were not embracing the event.

I raised my hand and asked if I could recited one of my favorite poems. Suzanne called on me. I stood in front of them with my floor length skirt on and hair up in a bun and said, "I will now recite Green Eggs and Ham by Dr. Seuss." I raised my voice tone intensity that only a Southern Baptist preacher can sustain and said, "I am Sam! Sam I am. I do not like green eggs and ham!"

The entire room turned on tail. Suzanne was laughing on the inside as she looked around at her startled students. When I was finished they said, "Mrs. Greear, you scared us!"

Even at the end of the day, one of my most cocky smart alic-y eleventh graders said, "You know that really startled me when you read that poem! We did not hear it that way in Kinder!" I loved our follow up conversation about inflection and feeling in the art of words, and I loved them seeing another side of me.

On the way back to the car Friday, the Cottonwood trees that line the beach were the landing place of 7 eagles, young and old, directly over our heads looking out into the bay. Fantastic!

As for the members of the Greear/Paag clan themselves...

All of our reliable transportation is in the shop this week. The truck broke down Monday. The Subaru limped into town with Vince on Tuesday night and is now in the shop. The van is out of commission because of the ice conditions on the road. Now we are having to drive the Grey Subaru, which DeeJay decided did indeed need a muffler (and so replaced it). Too bad it is rusted out and has bald tires.

On our 45 minute drive home from Ninilchik last night in that car, when I should have been deeply concerned for my safety, I instead felt a terrific sense of calm. I was transported back to my early childhood when we would be driving at night in my parents Volkswagen Bug. No seat belt, no radio, no inside lights. Just the sound of the road. The rain on the windows. My parents holding hands as my brother slept and I day dreamed. It was a beautiful feeling, although one that I am not willing to replicate with my children at this time on these roads in that car!

Scratch is deteriorating. His back legs have become very weak and he is no longer able to walk up and down stairs. He can not go outside by himself for fear that he will accidental step into a snow covered ditch and not be able to get back up. We have a comfortable bed made for him near the fire and he happily lays there all day. It is sad to think of him this way, and yet he does not cry or show any signs of misery. Well, until he falls down the stairs going outside. Vince and I know we have decisions to make and we are trying to figure it out.

We are traveling to Singapore and Borneo this January! We are very excited to be making our way back to Asia and to explore new sights! I'll write more about that later.

Marina is getting excited for her big month: a birthday and Christmas in the same week! We begin ringing the bell for the Salvation Army in front of Safeway tomorrow! Can you believe it? Seems like just yesterday.

Both kids (all McNeil school kids) will be in the Christmas pageant at school in a little over a week. There will be no complaints from the Fundamentalist Christian groups that this Pageant is anything other than a celebration of the Christian holiday of Christmas! That is for sure!

This is not Marina in the snow...but Marina in bubbles! Did I trick you?

What else, what else...

I took Deejay's senior portraits this past week. Hard to believe that this is the same kid who was once so little. Willie is trying to learn about the balance of time: school, MacDonald's, ski team, family. It is a lot! I think too much. Unfortunately for him (and fortunately for me) he has an F in math (one test in this grade check period. It is not reflective of his true understanding of the subject) but it is enough to curtail his skiing. Whew! He is so tired during the week from all he is trying to cram into his life.
We spent the Thanksgiving with Suzanne at our friend Cindi's house. This is our annual tradition. Cindi loves cooking so I let her! It was a quiet day there, just us and her and Suzanne. The food was great and we were stuffed.

OK, Vince is signaling me that we have things to do and not things on the computer! Today we are setting up our Christmas tree. Willie put on Marina's fairy wings to help him clean. Couldn't let that go without a picture!

Happy Thanksgiving to you all!