“No two people are alike, and both of them are damn glad of it.”

That’s a quotation; that’s not me saying “damn,” although I frequently occasionally do. I am, to my shame, greatly afflicted with “potty mouth,” and although I managed to control it somewhat while my children were tiny, thanks to what I think of as my “Shit Epiphany,” it’s back, in full force. Honestly? I need help.

But I digress. No two people are alike, but both of them are expected to progress at the same rate by our public schools.

Our children are expected to learn to read and write by a certain age lest they be labeled “special education” and given an IEP and pulled from the classroom to be tutored in the Reading Room. Most of them are little boys.

Old hippies like me sometimes have a hard time admitting that there really are gender differences that no amount of “environment” is going to change. One of those differences is this: a lot of little boys need a few more years than a lot of little girls need, to mature enough so that their bodies and brains can sit still, together, long enough to learn how to read and write. Whether we like it or not, it is a fact that while a lot of little girls are reading “Gone with the Wind,” many of the little boys sitting next to them are still struggling to recognize letter combinations. It is also a fact that some of these little boys who still can’t do it in the third grade, or the fourth, somehow have their own “epiphany” in the middle grades; something in their brain becomes aware of symbols and their meanings and how to translate them to Harry Potter. It wasn’t that these little boys didn’t TRY down in the lower grades; it was that their bodies and brains weren’t THERE yet.

I saw this miracle happen over and over again. With my own eyes I saw it. Sometimes, when I tried to tell other teachers, especially elementary teachers, about this awakening, they did not believe me. “I had that boy in third grade and I’m telling you, Jane, that he just doesn’t have what it takes to be a reader, a good student. He just can’t do it.”

And I’m telling you, Madeline, that I don’t give a rat’s ass* what the child did in your class. I am trying to tell you that in my class, the boy can read. One week he couldn’t, and the next week, he could. And he’s ecstatic.

Heidi learned to read overnight. It does happen. At age eight, Heidi learned to read overnight. And then she went home and taught her friend Peter how to read, and he was in his teens. The “learning how to read when convinced one would never be able to learn because it was just too hard” theme is a big one in this book.

My point? Do I have to have one? I guess I could drag one in by the hind legs if you must have a point. How about this one:

Hold off on the IEP’s and the labeling until the kid is in middle school. Tutor, yes. Give special help, yes. Hang a label on his forehead and put it in his permanent record? Not so fast there, Teach. Don’t do it Not yet. Not just for reading. Save the labeling for the children who genuinely need the help; don’t fill up the room with little boys who just need a few more years to mature.

Same-sex classrooms in the lower grades? Why not? It might work. It would certainly be better for the little girls who, most of them, just naturally catch on to the reading faster; they could move on! It would be better for the little boys, too; they wouldn’t feel pressured and might get comfortable enough to relax and blossom, too.

Many of our most highly esteemed scientists, inventors, etc, were late bloomers. Edison wasn’t even allowed to continue at his school; he was so slow, he held the others back!

Let’s give our little boys a break, what say, people?

And by the way, taking away a child’s recess because he couldn’t finish his vocabulary words quickly is cruel and unusual punishment. I suppose the boy would then be punished because he was extra wiggly since his ‘outlet’ was taken from him? Energetic little children NEED to be let loose on the playground several times a day!!! Taking away recesses for punishment or to make more room for standardized test review is the action of a halfwit who knows nothing about either education OR children and probably hasn’t been in a classroom since 1972 politician, superintendent, or some other administrator who falls into the ‘nimrod’ category of typical la la land unawareness of real people and how we live. Probably people who do that don’t know how to access their email, either, or use a computer. But then, that’s what secretaries are for.

I put up with this for 26 years. No wonder I had a potty mouth.

Back in the olden days, there were plenty of outlets for restless boys to work off their excess energy. Families sent their  boys out to chop wood, plow, herd cows, walk miles to a neighbor or a store, etc. Our boys fell into bed exhausted from genuine labor every night. Now, few boys have any safe or easily obtainable or legitimate outlets, other than sports, for their physical energy and it gets kind of balled up (sorry) in them and then they explode, sometimes for no conceivable reason other than that the kid simply needs an outlet. I’m a huge proponent of self control, but self control can only do so much. Any teacher can tell you that a middle-of-the-day segment devoted to intense physical activity is of vital importance for our students. Girls need it, too, but I’m focusing on the boys in this post. Afternoon classes full of boys who have had absolutely no physical outlet are a nightmare.

Organized games are not enough. Not every kid will get to play; plus, once the adults take charge, it’s no longer free play; it’s business. Let the kids run wild for a half hour or so and let the teachers stand there and try to keep them from getting hurt. Tim’s elementary school had a hill to slide down and a piney grove to play in. I taught in that same school for years and by then, the piney grove, the hill, and most of the coolest playground equipment had been removed because a kid fell down. Go figure. Our kids don’t even know HOW to fall down these days. When they are on ice or trip and really DO fall down, they get hurt because they’ve had no falling-down experience. Kids fall down. Live with it. Sheesh.

And by the way, this guv’ment standard of requiring our tiny first and second graders to sit still for NINETY MINUTES and read without interruption is ignorance in action on the part of whoever thought that one up. Tell me, Mr. Standards: Can YOU sit absolutely still for ninety minutes and read without interruption? I thought not.

*Dammit **, there I go again.

** Crap.

Back in the days of Greek mythology, the ancients understood the connection between what we now call “science” and “literature.”  One of the nine Muses was Urania, who was in charge of astronomy.  No one can study astronomy without also studying the stories behind each of the constellations, planets, and stars; anything that can be seen by the naked eye was charted and named by the ancients, named after a hero, god, goddess, creature, or storyline that the pattern of stars reminded these ancient celestial map-makers of.  A good, imaginative instructor will combine these two; a poor, unimaginative one will believe they are separate entities.

I am sharing with you quotations about the stars.

1. We had the sky up there, all speckled with stars, and we used to lay on our backs and look up at them, and discuss about whether they was made or only just happened. — Mark Twain

2. I have … a terrible need … shall I say the word? … of religion. Then I go out at night and paint the stars. — Vincent van Gogh

3. If people sat outside and looked at the stars each night, I’ll bet they’d live a lot differently. — Bill Watterson

4. If the stars should appear but one night every thousand years how man would marvel and stare. — Ralph Waldo Emerson

5. For my part I know nothing with any certainty, but the sight of the stars makes me dream. — Vincent van Gogh

6. I met in the street a very poor young man who was in love. His hat was old, his coat worn, his cloak was out at the elbows, the water passed through his shoes, – and the stars through his soul. — Victor Hugo

7. I can find in my undergraduate classes, bright students who do not know that the stars rise and set at night, or even that the Sun is a star. — Carl Sagan

8. I’ve loved the stars too fondly to be fearful of the night. –Galileo Galilei

9. Set your course by the stars, not by the lights of every passing ship. — Omar N. Bradley

10. What is the good of your stars and trees, your sunrise and the wind, if they do not enter into our daily lives? — E. M. Forster

11. I have long thought that anyone who does not regularly – or ever – gaze up and see the wonder and glory of a dark night sky filled with countless stars loses a sense of their fundamental connectedness to the universe. — Brian Greene

12. The sun, the moon and the stars would have disappeared long ago… had they happened to be within the reach of predatory human hands. — Henry Ellis

13. There they stand, the innumerable stars, shining in order like a living hymn, written in light. — N.P. Willis

14. Metaphor for the night sky: A trillion asterisks and no explanations. –Robert Brault

15. No sight is more provocative of awe than is the night sky. –Llewelyn Powys

16. Whoever thinks of going to bed before twelve o’clock is a scoundrel. –Samuel Johnson

17. Astronomy compels the soul to look upward, and leads us from this world to another. — Plato

18. I think a future flight should include a poet, a priest and a philosopher . . . we might get a much better idea of what we saw. — Michael Collins

19. How quickly do we grow accustomed to wonders. I am reminded of the Isaac Asimov story Nightfall, about the planet where the stars were visible only once in a thousand years. So awesome was the sight that it drove men mad. We who can see the stars every night glance up casually at the cosmos and then quickly down again, searching for a Dairy Queen. — Roger Ebert

20. What the space program needs is more English majors. — Michael Collins

21. To confine our attention to terrestrial matters would be to limit the human spirit. — Stephen Hawking

22. Human interest in exploring the heavens goes back centuries. This is what human nature is all about. — Dennis Tito

23. I have a hunch the most important reason we’re going to space is not known now. — Burt Rutan

24. Two things inspire me to awe—the starry heavens above and the moral universe within. — Albert Einstein

25. I know that I am mortal and ephemeral. But when I search for the close-knit encompassing convolutions of the stars, my feet no longer touch the earth, but in the presence of Zeus himself I take my fill of ambrosia which the gods produce. — Ptolemy

26. We do not ask for what useful purpose the birds do sing, for song is their pleasure since they were created for singing. Similarly, we ought not to ask why the human mind troubles to fathom the secrets of the heavens … The diversity of the phenomena of Nature is so great, and the treasures hidden in the heavens so rich, precisely in order that the human mind shall never be lacking in fresh nourishment. — Johannes Kepler

27. Observing quasars is like observing the exhaust fumes of a car from a great distance and then trying to figure out what is going on under the hood. — Carole Mundell

28. Those who study the stars have God for a teacher. — Tycho Brahe (He was so in awe of
the Maker of the Universe that he put on his court robes whenever he went to his telescope.) (One eye was also larger than the other, from his years of star-gazing.)

I’m not.  There will never be an end to my constant climbing and searching for new things to “know.”  How else would I blow my siblings out of the water during trivia contests?  They’re all smart, and they know tons of awesome stuff.  Even so, I couldn’t stop seeking answers if I tried.  I don’t WANT to stop.  There’s always something else around the bend and I HAVE to find out what it is.

However, I know people who wouldn’t care if they never learned another new thing.  I pity them, because when learning stops, stagnation begins.  Those stinky little ponds all over southern Indiana, covered with scum and mosquitoes?  They stopped moving, and now they are dead and dead things stink.  When people stop learning, they might as well be buried and get it over with, for they are as good as dead. I consider a person who is content to allow his/her head to be stuffed full of other people’s opinions as good as dead, also.

Thinking can be hard. Some people just aren’t willing to put forth the effort. Besides, thinking sometimes makes us question our choices, values, and beliefs. Horrors.

Harsh?  Sure.  But it’s how I roll.  One of the many things I despise about most of our public schools is the fact that they pretty much beat the curiosity out of our children.  Often, children are punished for wanting to know MORE and refusing to stop once ONE answer or solution is reached.  Of course, as Professor Umbridge says, the important thing about school is taking tests, and tests are concerned only with predetermined answers, not curiosity.  “Next year, Billy,” a teacher might promise.  But when next year comes, Billy soon learns that the new year is just like the old year: day after day of sitting and waiting for other kids to catch up, with never anything for the kids who already know, and detention or worse for the child who dared experiment with his lunch or the ink in his pen or the clay or a poem or story or the paints in the art room.  Sigh.

Curiosity:  Let’s encourage it in our children, for the curious thinkers and scientists and writers and dreamers are the hope of the universe.

As for unimaginative and uncurious adults. . . .  I should be a lot sorrier for them than I am, but it’s their own fault.  Life is full of choices, and there’s more than one kind of Easy Street.

There will be a lot of Einstein.

1. Intellectual growth should commence at birth and cease only at death. — Einstein

2. Sometimes questions are more important than answers. — Nancy Willard

3. It is a miracle that curiosity survives formal education. — Einstein

4. Curiosity is the very basis of education and if you tell me that curiosity killed the cat, I say only the cat died nobly. — Arnold Edinborough

5. The important thing is not to stop questioning. Curiosity has its own reason for existing. One cannot help but be in awe when he contemplates the mysteries of eternity, of life, of the marvelous structure of reality. It is enough if one tries merely to comprehend a little of this mystery every day. Never lose a holy curiosity. — Einstein

6. The greatest virtue of man is perhaps curiosity. — Anatole France

7. When you’re curious, you find lots of interesting things to do. — Walt Disney

8. Curiosity is lying in wait for every secret. — Ralph Waldo Emerson

9. A good scientist is a person in whom the childhood quality of perennial curiosity lingers on. Once he gets an answer, he has other questions. — Frederick Seitz

10. I think, at a child’s birth, if a mother could ask a fairy godmother to endow it with the most useful gift, that gift should be curiosity. — Eleanor Roosevelt

11. I find that a great part of the information I have was acquired by looking up something and finding something else on the way. — Franklin P. Adams

12. Millions saw the apple fall, but Newton asked why. — Bernard Baruch

13. The cure for boredom is curiosity. There is no cure for curiosity. — Dorothy Parker

14. It is, in fact, nothing short of a miracle that the modern methods of instruction have not entirely strangled the holy curiosity of inquiry. — Einstein

15. I could not, at any age, be content to take my place by the fireside and simply look on. Life was meant to be lived. Curiosity must be kept alive. One must never, for whatever reason, turn his back on life. — Eleanor Roosevelt

16. Only barbarians are not curious about where they come from, how they came to be where they are, where they appear to be going, whether they wish to go there, and if so, why, and if not, why not. — Isaiah Berlin

17. Anyone who has never made a mistake has never tried anything new. — Einstein

18. The only thing that interferes with my learning is my education. — Einstein

19. The most beautiful thing we can experience is the mysterious. It is the source of all true art and all science. He to whom this emotion is a stranger, who can no longer pause to wonder and stand rapt in awe, is as good as dead: his eyes are closed. — Einstein

20. Only the curious will learn and only the resolute overcome the obstacles to learning. The quest quotient has always excited me more than the intelligence quotient. — Eugene S. Wilson

21. Children are remarkable for their intelligence and ardor, for their curiosity, their intolerance of shams, the clarity and ruthlessness of their vision. — Aldous Huxley

22. Curiosity about life in all of its aspects, I think, is still the secret of great creative people. — Leo Burnett

23. Curiosity killed the cat, but where human beings are concerned, the only thing a healthy curiosity can kill is ignorance. — Harry Lorayne

24. For infants and toddlers learning and living are the same thing. If they feel secure, treasured, loved, their own energy and curiosity will bring them new understanding and new skills. — Amy Laura Dombro

25. Joy in the universe, and keen curiosity about it all – that has been my religion. — John Burroughs

26. One of the secrets of life is to keep our intellectual curiosity acute. — William Lyon Phelps

27. Satisfaction of one’s curiosity is one of the greatest sources of happiness in life.
– Linus Pauling

28. I have no special talents. I am only passionately curious. –Albert Einstein

29. Be curious always, for knowledge will not acquire you; you must acquire it. –Sudie Back

30. Fear paralyzes; curiosity empowers. Be more interested than afraid. – Patricia Alexander

31. If a child is to keep alive his inborn sense of wonder, he needs the companionship of at least one adult who can share it, rediscovering with him the joy, excitement and mystery of the world we live in. — Rachel Carson

32. Every man ought to be inquisitive through every hour of his great adventure down to the day when he shall no longer cast a shadow in the sun. For if he dies without a question in his heart, what excuse is there for his continuance? — Frank Moore Colby

33. I suppose the one quality in an astronaut more powerful than any other is curiosity. They have to get some place nobody’s ever been. — John Glenn

34. The alchemists in their search for gold discovered many other things of greater value. — Arthur Schopenhauer

35. You can teach a student a lesson for a day; but if you can teach him to learn by creating curiosity, he will continue the learning process as long as he lives. — Unknown

36. Mere curiosity adds wings to every step. — Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

37. I never teach my pupils. I only attempt to provide the conditions in which they can learn. — Einstein

38. While we are born with curiosity and wonder and our early years full of the adventure they bring, I know such inherent joys are often lost. I also know that, being deep within us, their latent glow can be fanned to flame again by awareness and an open mind. — Sigurd Olson

39. So as I thought about it, the most important “tool” you can have today in business is insatiable curiosity. The minute you lose it, you’re dead. — Steve Rubel

40. This I believe: that the free, exploring mind of the individual human is the most valuable thing in the world. And this I would fight for: the freedom of the mind to take any direction it wishes, undirected. And this I must fight against: any idea, religion, or government which limits or destroys the individual. — John Steinbeck

41. Intellectual growth should commence at birth and cease only at death. — Einstein

42. Only the curious will learn and only the resolute overcome the obstacles to learning. The quest quotient has always excited me more than the intelligence quotient. — Abdel Aziz Rantissi

43. Seize the moment of excited curiosity on any subject to solve your doubts; for if you let it pass, the desire may never return, and you may remain in ignorance. — Agung Laksono

44. We were lucky enough to grow up in an environment where there was always much encouragement to children to pursue intellectual interests; to investigate what ever aroused curiosity. — Orville Wright

45. Effective questioning brings insight, which fuels curiosity, which cultivates wisdom. — Chip Bell

46. One should never count the years — one should instead count one’s interests. I have kept young trying never to lose my childhood sense of wonderment. I’m glad I still have a vivid curiosity about the world I live in. — Helen Keller

47. Youth is not measured by the age of a person, but by the curiosity a person keeps. — Salvador Pániker

48. All my life through, the new sights of nature made me rejoice like a child. — Marie Curie

49. Equipped with his five senses, man explores the universe around him and calls the adventure Science. — Edwin Powell Hubble

50. The most exciting phrase to hear in science, the one that heralds the most discoveries, is not “Eureka!” (I found it!) but “That’s funny…” — Isaac Asimov

51. The important thing in science is not so much to obtain new facts as to discover new ways of thinking about them. –William Lawrence Bragg

52. Men love to wonder, and that is the seed of science. — Ralph Waldo Emerson

53. What is a scientist after all? It is a curious man looking through a keyhole, the keyhole of nature, trying to know what’s going on. — Jacques Cousteau

54. Be curious, not judgmental. — Walt Whitman

55. Education would be so much more effective if its purpose were to ensure that by the time they leave school every boy and girl should know how much they don’t know, and be imbued with a lifelong desire to know it. — Sir William Haley

Bonus points if you know who the little boy in both pictures is.

The fact is, things used to have down time. Stores closed. Television and radio stations “signed off,” and each station often had its own unique signoff ritual. After midnight, people went to bed; they didn’t stay up for hours and watch because there was nothing to watch. When people said, “There’s nothing on TV,” it wasn’t just an expression.  Radio stations signed off, too.

Sometimes I think it was better the old way. After midnight, people generally went to bed. People didn’t watch show after show just because something was on, because something WASN’T on. Just blackness, static, or a test pattern.

I can remember turning on the TV on Saturday morning, seeing nothing but the test pattern, and waiting patiently until 6:00 a.m. or so for the station to “sign on.”

When my cousin C and I were kids, and would stay at our grandmother’s house every weekend we could manage it, the sign-off for Indianapolis’ WTTV channel 4 was a few minutes of Mahalia Jackson singing.  I can’t remember what she sang, specifically, because C and I usually watched our grandmother when Mahalia sang.  It was one of the few times we saw Mamaw laugh out loud.  Mahalia’s kind of singing just wasn’t heard much in southern Indiana, and the shock value of it set Mamaw off every Saturday night.

Most sign-off rituals were religious in nature, and patriotic as well.  A local clergyman would speak a few words, the National Anthem would play, and the sign-off words were spoken, along with a promise to sign-on again in the morning.  It was kind of cool.  It was also a signal that everybody still up ought to go to bed, as well.

Maybe that’s one reason people stay up so late these days.  They’re glued to the TV, and there’s nobody now to tell them it’s time to sign off and go to bed.  As long as there’s SOMETHING on TV, some people will watch it.  I’ve never understood the mentality.

This picture, now, is the NBC peacock, telling us that the next program would be in living color. Those of you who thought In Living Color was nothing but a funny television show have a lesson to learn here. And now you know why the title of that show was funny in more ways than one!

Seeing that NBC peacock flexing its tailfeathers was the signal that Bonanza was about to start. A lot of the old 50’s sitcoms had been filmed in color but never seen in color, and eventually those started to be shown as was intended, too.

Here’s your laugh of the day. I didn’t know The Wizard of Oz was partly in color until I was in my teens. It made the expression “a horse of a different color” understandable, for the first time.

I’m not really QUITE that old, but my family just waited that long to get a color TV.

. . . interrupting my post-Christmas blues, my wallowing in Love Actually, my longing for visits from family, and my dread of taking down all my holiday decorations, with the Twelve Rules of Christmas, just for you:

1.  Christmas is always better than you thought it would be, even if it’s not.

2.  Christmas brings people together, even if it’s by contrast and not comparison.

3.  Christmas gifts made by childish hands are the best.  Christmas gifts FOR a child are even better.

4.  Christmas dinner is always great, even if it’s frozen pizza.  Because it’s Christmas.

5.  No one is alone on Christmas unless he/she chooses to be alone.  There are just too many places to go or to volunteer, to stay at home or in one’s room and whine.

6.  Every Christmas tree is beautiful.

7.  Every wrapped package under the tree is beautiful, especially the ones wrapped by inept fingers.

8.  Christmas M&M’s taste better than ordinary M&M’s.  Ditto Christmas Snickers and Christmas Reese’s Trees.

9.  Christmas fruitcakes make great footballs, doorstops, and stories for next year, unless you actually like to eat fruitcake, in which case, bon appetit.  Watch your teeth.  And what exactly are those green slimy things?

10.  Christmas trees often bring the outdoors inside for our pets, ifyouknowwhatImean.

11.  Christmas season begins too soon and ends too quickly.

12.  The proper and polite response to “Merry Christmas” is “Thank you,” even if you do not believe in it.  Rudeness is always a choice, and it’s never appropriate to throw someone’s well-wishes back into his/her face.  If you’re insulted by someone’s wishing you well, keep it to yourself.  Charming Fairylit Woodland Seasonal Solstice Nothingness Greetings to you, too.  (Thank you.)

I’ve watched Love Actually three times this Christmas week, and I might have to give it another couple of viewings to get the sentiment and emotion out of my system.  Otherwise, I might be like Rebecca Randall’s Aunt Jane, so soft and sentimental it’s a wonder I don’t leak out the doorsill.*  It’s been suggested before.

Just to hear the music. . . . That soundtrack – it’s blazingly fantastic.  Fantastic, and, well, lovely.  Just lovely.

Excuse me.  I have to go mop myself up off the floor before all of me oozes under the door and out onto the yard.

If you haven’t ever seen Love Actually, what the bloody hell is WRONG with you!!! oh dear Lord, watch it now.  Be aware, however, that it’s not exactly family friendly in a few scenes.  Watch it late at night, with someone you love.  Or all by yourself in your kitchen whilst making homemade bread and fudge and trying not to weep copious tears into the dough.

P.S.  #13.  Christmas is a time for family and friends, and it’s so magically wondrous when they come to visit!  I can believe in God when I’m with family.  Without them, it can be difficult.

*Bonus points if you understand the reference.

A few years ago, I thought I would try something new, so I put a twinkly-lights-covered star on top of my tree. It was beautiful, but after a few days, I took it down and hung it from the bannister, down into the landing, and put Fifi back in her rightful place.

Beauty isn’t enough. It never is.

Fifi is supposed to perch on the top of the tree by jamming the tiptop of the tree into the hole underneath her skirt, but I only tried once. It just didn’t feel right to be doing that. I mean, look at that face; I just couldn’t do that. Let’s not go there, okay? Is that a siren I hear?

So now I tie her to the tree with fishing line. Why that makes me feel better, I’m not sure, because one is almost as pervy as the other, but even so.

We found Fifi at a Hallmark store that is no longer there, well after our first married Christmas, for less than half price, which, back then, was just a couple of bucks. I’ve since tried to find other Fifis on Ebay, because it’s the only thing on our tree that my children actually want, but only an idiot would pay that much. Apparently, I’ve got a rarity. Who knew?

Fifi was named by my daughter, who wanted to give our tree-top angel “the most beautiful name in the world.”  And so it is.

We’ve been without any cookies in this house for almost a week, which is not like me at all. I’ve got several hours between classes today, though, so guess what. . . .

I’ve spent this afternoon mostly in the kitchen, baking. I’m not artistic, but I am colorful.

Come over, and stay a while. We’ve got lots of cookies and other goodies. Nobody leaves my house hungry.

Dear internet friends, friends who are as dear to me as any friend I’ve actually seen, I hope all of you are happy tonight. I hope your families are together, and everyone is speaking, and that love is ever a part of all your lives, tonight and always.

And, if I may, I want to wish you all a Merry Christmas.

I’ll be saying that several more times until the actual day, you know. I’m a big believer in wishing others well at all times of the year. Those whose belief systems can’t handle being wished well by someone of a different “persuasion” need to memorize the following statement: “Thank you.”

That’s the proper response to someone’s well-wishes. Not an indignant “I DO NOT CELEBRATE OR BELIEVE IN CHRISTMAS AND I’LL THANK YOU NOT TO IMPOSE YOUR BELIEFS ON ME.” No, indignation is not a proper response at all when someone wishes you well.

It’s a simple response, really. “Thank you.” Why is that so hard for some people?

Merry Christmas. “Thank you.”

Happy Hannukah. “Thank you.”

Joyous Solstice. “Thank you.”

Fruitful Kwanzaa. “Thank you.”

Season’s Greetings. “Thank you.

Gleeful Winter Faery und Elfin Tide. “Thank you.”

The gods be with you. “Thank you.”

Pagan good wishes. “Thank you.”

Earth Goddess Tidings. “Thank you.”

See how easy it is? Memorize that response, oh indignant ones, and life just might flow somewhat more easily for you.  You’ll be perceived as having class, too.  Therefore, suck in your retort and use the good manners your mother tried to teach you.  Of course, if your mother is the one who taught you to throw someone’s good wishes back into his or her face and insult them, then your mother is a (insert choice noun here.)

Thank you.

Like an expensive dog with elite genealogy papers and a genetic flaw,  they’ll all eventually bite you in the butt and give you second, and if you’re smart, third and fourth, thoughts about keeping them around.  If you’re smart, you won’t keep anything like that around lest it injure a child or neighbor.

Bottom line: Nice people don’t continue doing things that cause harm to the innocent.

If Zero Tolerance were practiced as it is preached, it would be great.  However, I’ve heard too many ridiculously lame-brained horror stories about chapstick, cough drops, retainer paraffin, Midol, postage stamp glue, inhalers, Scout camping flatware, plastic knives in a lunchbag, glass containers of Gatorade, a pocket knife still in the pocket, hair clips, and EMPTY beer cans on the back seat floor of a parent’s car in a parking lot, for this policy to hold any water with me.

Water?  This policy, utilized as it is, drips Stupid Juice.

I used to scorn many homeschoolers, but now I tip my hat to any family brave enough to withdraw their children from a public school that’s run by Dolores Umbridge and overseen by Cornelius Fudge.

In the words of the almighty Monty Python, “Run away!  Run away!”

Fast.

If  Zero Tolerance truly meant ridding our schools of dangerous, disruptive students, I’d be all for it.  Get those kids out and keep them out.  Period.  Zero Tolerance.

But our administrators seem to be far too busy terrorizing small children with Scout utensils and chapstick to pay much attention to the dangerous kids with other children’s lunch money in their pockets and other children’s blood under their fingernails.

We don’t want to injure their self-esteem or risk a discrimination lawsuit, you know.  These bewildered innocents and their flabbergasted families are a much easier target.

Honestly.  Don’t our school administrators realize that “dangerous, disruptive, and disgusting” have nothing whatsoever to do with ethnicity, race, values, customs, color, self-esteem, or anything at all except upbringing, personal choices, family values, support, and innate mean?

Once a student is of a certain age, all behavior is mostly “personal choice.”   One can blame all those other things only so long before such excusing and rationalizing becomes ridiculous.

Are we or are we not sentient beings?  Then let’s start BEING sentient, because all these unthinking lazy excuse-making societal leeches and exception-mongers are making my soul hurt.  People behave themselves and are kind to each other, or they are not.  Life is full of such choices.  CHOICES.

Bring it on, and don’t anyone DARE bring up the sped issue.  That is most definitely NOT what’s being discussed here.

“Charity” doesn’t mean “giving to the poor and needy;” it means LOVE, and love covers all bases.  Using a belief system to rationalize your own personal whatevers is a cop-out, plain and simple.  There are people out there who need you, and to walk on by because they said or did something that “offended” you is . . . okay, I’ll say it:  it’s evil.  Selfish and evil.

What do we live for, if it is not to make life less difficult for each other? — George Eliot

The three stages of man:

1. He believes in Santa Claus

2. He doesn’t believe in Santa Claus

3. He IS Santa Claus.

That struck me as being funny, and true. And also, even, a little bit sad, and I’m not sure why. Poignancy is always a combination of emotions, and knowing something wonderful is temporary makes us sad, even while we revel in it.

I am Santa Claus. And I do NOT want to ever let the people I love down, at Christmas or any other time. But I also realize that the people we love most have the most potential for hurting. And for being hurt. Any people who are emotionally involved have tremendous power over each other. I hope we all try to use that power only for good.

You know, like Superman. Superman used his powers for good. Unless he was under the influence of kryptonite, in which case he became a flying armageddon.

Let us never allow the influence of ’something else’ to turn us into anything other than good.

“Something else” being possibly another person, or just, something else. “Under the influence” is “under the influence,” whatever outside ’something else’ is influencing us.

You are Santa Claus for someone. Do not let them down.

And if you are a person who does not believe in Santa Claus, then, um, uh, hmmm. . . . . okay, I’ll say it. You are stupid. Grow up and become Santa Claus. Somewhere out there is a child who desperately needs your powers. It might be your own child, or it might be a stranger’s. What difference does it make what child it is? Get out there and make someone happy. Or, at least, happier. Make a difference. Ho ho ho.

I’ll go even farther:  If you are the kind of person who gets all huffy and offended and indignant because someone dared to wish you well in a language not suited to your personal belief system, shame on you.  You’re angry because someone DARED wish you well?  How dare YOU!!!!!  How dare you throw someone’s sincere good wishes back into his/her face!!!!!

Now, get out there and make someone happy.  If you have no children, go borrow some.

Life is so fleeting; why waste any of it in offended huffiness?  We should all be trying our best to add to life, not suck the wonder out of it.

Oh, and fair warning:  if you don’t like the tone of this post, suck it up.  It’s the first of many, this season, because easily offended people are one of my favorite targets.

They’re the whiny kid on the playground who is good for a show every time he/she doesn’t get his/her own way.

Is that you?  I hope not. Such reactions are ugly in a child, but even uglier in an adult.   But if it is, I’ll say it again:  shame on you.

Santa is a symbol, a representation of a person who lives to help others.  He’s a role model for us all.

Bring it on.

First of all, I enjoyed being pregnant. Heck, I LOVED it! When else can a woman just sit and read, and know she’s accomplishing something wonderful at the same time? I felt wonderful, pregnant. I felt exhilarated, when I wasn’t tired, and I felt justified in EATING, and I didn’t have to constantly suck in my gut – because my gut was not merely a gut; it was a PERSON – I got gusts and boost of incredible energy during which I would clean and dust and wash and tidy until the cows came home. I was even happier during my second pregnancy, because I knew for a fact by then that all the little twinges, etc, were completely natural and only to be expected, and I feared nothing. NOTHING. I didn’t read a single pregnancy book during my second pregnancy; not because I felt there was nothing more to be learned, but more because I felt that a lot of what is in such books is there to frighten naive women into buying unnecessary things, or to frighten women, period,  when there is really nothing to be frighted OF. None of these opinions apply, mind you, to women who are having genuinely serious problem pregnancies.

Bear in mind, also, that it’s been a long time since I’ve been pregnant, and while the many means of GETTING pregnant have not changed (smirk), the options for delivery have become many, and I can’t help but think that some of them are downright silly. Not as silly as many of the restrictions and rules that used to apply, but still, well, silly. I mean, for my first delivery, I wasn’t even allowed to get up and use the bathroom! I made damn sure it was written down in red ink in my records, for my second. It would be a mighty stupid woman who would give birth in a toilet and not realize it, although I also realize that the world is full of women who are, yes, just that stupid. I, however, was NOT one of THEM, and I wanted to use the toilet when I wanted to use the toilet, and that second time, I wandered all over the place in the few tiny little minutes allotted to that particular delivery.

<–That’s my son. He’s 27 years old, but whenever I think of him, this is one of the images my mind instantly focuses on. He was born with a full head of bright red hair; his hair was so bright, I could hear people in the hospital nursery hallway commenting about it. “Didja see that one kid with the red hair?” “Will you look at the redhead over there?” I lay in my bed and smiled. Not only had I seen the redheaded baby, I was going to take him home with me and keep him forever.

I’d had Zappa in only twenty minutes;  I woke up in labor, my water broke as I walked the few feet to the bathroom, and we were in the car and bookin’ to town.  We almost got stopped by a train, but a little push on the gas pedal took care of that.  We pulled up in front of my mother’s house, threw Belle out the window into Mom’s waiting arms, and dashed off to the hospital.  Hub dropped me off at the emergency room door and I had the baby while my husband was parking the car. When he came running back inside, he found me and the doctor standing in the hallway admiring the baby through the window. Total time:  20 minutes.  I highly recommend this method.

This was before the days when new mothers had got to spend every waking moment with their new baby. Sometimes I think it was better that way; it was like having training wheels for a day or two before we were expected to ride that new adult-sized bike all by ourselves, with the occasional “Look Ma, no hands” stints that we all love so much as parents. Our babies were brought to us every couple of hours, and were then taken back to the nursery so we could get some genuine rest. Did we “bond?” Of course we did. We just didn’t need to “bond” in front of everybody, and a woman would have to be nuts not to take advantage of the naptime. OUR naptime, that is. Once we had the baby home, we weren’t going to be doing much of ANY kind of sleeping for a long, long, long, long, long time. As in. . . YEARS.

Having babies isn’t what I’d call a “comfy, pain-free hobby,” but it’s also not the horror a lot of older women paint it to be, and usually in front of a young pregnant woman. (Why do they DO THAT? How insensitive!) I had no trouble spittin’ them out – did I mention the 20 minutes? – and while I know most women aren’t that lucky, I do wonder at the low tolerance for pain some people demonstrate in public.

My hospital roommate for Zappa’s birth was a woman I still refer to as “The Big Sissy.” She wept and screamed and required the company of her husband, her mother, her sisters, her bestest friends, and countless numbers of churchy acquaintances throughout her entire labor. This meant, back then, that while SHE had company, I couldn’t. Them was da rules. And when they finally did take her away to another room to have her baby – thank Heaven – she practically had a camera crew in there with her to record her every scream, groan, spasm, fart, poop, and vaginal tear for all posterity. After her baby finally came, she then needed her husband to stay with her every second to COMFORT her and be WITH her, and her mother to remind her that she’d been through a terrible experience and needed rest and a lot of babying herself, which meant I couldn’t have MY baby in the room with me.

I hated that Big Sissy then and I hate her now, 27 years later.

I made do, though. I spent most of my time in the hallway looking at his beauty: my son, the redheaded one in the corner crib, the pretty one, the baby who made all the other newborns look like either Winston Churchill or the wrong end of a cow.

The Big Sissy’s baby, for example, looked like the love child of Mr. Potato Head and Linda Tripp. In fact, The Big Sissy looked a lot like Linda Tripp. I hated her. I also hated her horrible mother and her ugly husband and the parade of dowdy women who were kneeling all over the floor giving God advice about how He should look after The Big Sissy and her baby.  Wahh wahh wahh, pray pray, sob sob, boo hoo, oh, craponthemall.

Where was their consideration for The Big Sissy’s roommate? There wasn’t any.  Women such as these color my perception of Christians still today.  (I AM one; I’m just not like these pathetic specimens.)  (I hope I die before I become like them.)  (I suppose it’s not nice to judge them, but I do it mostly from the joy it gives me.)  (It’s kind of like pointing to hardened criminals on the post office wall and being glad you’re not there, and knowing full well you never will be.)

Hub could not get off work to take us home from the hospital;  this did NOT make me cry nor did it traumatize either of us in any way. Stuff happens, and we deal with it. Sheesh.

My mother picked us up and even stopped at the grocery store on the way home so I could run in and buy some things.  People in the store looked at my hospital bracelet and my only slightly flatter stomach and almost backed away in horror.  Why was I OUT?  I should be in BED!  RESTING!  I felt like some kind of freak for being fine and hearty.

I shrugged and went home to my two-children family:  we felt so lucky!  So blessed!  That is because, we were.  (Check out the patches on the sofa!  Those were to keep the snakes from popping up through the worn places.)

With Belle, two years earlier, I’d been so afraid of this pain I’d heard about from so many “helpful” women and read about in so many “helpful” books that I agreed to a spinal; this, of course, since I have never been a person who took orders well, knocked me flat on my back for about a week, which meant that other people gave my baby her first bath, her first burpie, her first. . . well, lots of things. I listened too much and I read too much and I believed everything and everyone, and when the advice was contradictory, I sometimes did BOTH. I was afraid of everything. Most of all, I was afraid of myself; what if I, in my ignorance, somehow did something wrong and the baby would cry? Or. . . die? Seriously, I was that stupid.  Her labor only lasted just under five hours, but in five hours, a naive young thing can fall for a lot of hooey.  Tomorrow is Belle’s birthday, in fact.  Happy Birthday, my Princess.  Look, everyone, at how beautiful she is!  How beautiful she’s always been!

The second time, I was smarter. Also, there wasn’t time for anything anyway, so I just had the baby and made fun of The Big Sissy and dealt with life as it came my way. It was a far superior way than the first.

So, what’s the moral of this story? Do I have to have one? I’ll drag a few in by the hind legs and say that it might be “Embrace life – don’t hide from it. FEEL things. Laugh at yourself and others; to hell with self esteem. Pity the Big Sissies, but don’t make excuses for them, and for God’s sake don’t be one of them. Be aware of people and don’t let any whiny selfishness intrude upon the rights of someone else. Be an adult. Buck up and show some spunk. Don’t let others make an invalid of you. Get up. Let others watch the baby once in a while so you can get some sleep. Motherhood is full of pain; get used to it and don’t whine and cry your way through it. Motherhood is full of joy; focus on that part. And did I mention “grow up?”

It is a terrible thing not to become a woman when one ceases to be a girl.

Mamacita, Scheiss Weekly