Your Life in Great Details : Your Parents

As I grow older I realize that I am a wonderful combination of the best aspects of both my mom and dad. It sounds incredibly cheezy to say, but everything I am today is because of my parents.

I'll start with my dad, who is is a much quieter, much more bookish kind of guy. From what I gather, he was not the most popular guy at school, in either high school or college, and didn't have any girlfriends until he met my mom. He is a bit of a homebody, who has lived almost all of his 62 years in the town he grew up in. Exceptions include his 4 years at college in Virginia, a brief stint with the Marine Corps in Parris Island and a few months in 2008-09 when he lived and worked in Chicago. He came from a more privileged background, but that is not to say that he had an easy childhood or did not work for the life he has provided my family with today. My mom always tells me the story about when my dad and all his friends at work got their first big bonus. All his friends went out and bought fancy sports cars or took exotic vacations. My dad invested it. All of it. Now that is not saying he does not like to indulge every once in a while, but I think my serious frugality is definitely something that I get from him.

My dad and I share the same enthusiasm for a lot of things. We are both history nuts who have been getting non-fiction books for every birthday and Christmas for the past ten years. We are the only two history buffs in the family and could talk for hours about Winston Churchill and our favorite historical figures. We are both sports fanatics with an unusual enthusiasm for sports mascots (although I should say that my two older brothers also share this trait). We refer to ourselves as "mascotologists" and could probably write a book together on the college mascots - the good, the bad, the most original, the most historically accurate, or regionally appropriate. Just this week my dad sent me an email titled "another Mascotology [with a capital 'M' of course] disaster" about the changing of Johnny Reb at Ole Miss to a Black Bear in the name of political correctness. This brings me to another thing my father and I have in common, which is politics. Much like our mutual love of history, we are probably the most two politically savvy in the family. We like to talk politics and he cuts out and sends me articles in the mail he thinks I might enjoy. We both like to sit in front of the TV on Sunday morning and watch Face the Nation and Meet the Press and then call each other and discuss what we thought about the guests and what was discussed. We're both also the two most athletically minded in the family. I am so proud that my dad at 62 still makes an effort to go to the gym every day and makes efforts to stretch out his back and keep himself fit. He does perfect push-ups I'm sure many of my most athletically-minded friends would even be envious of.

To those that don't know him well he is a pretty serious guy. Getting him to smile in a picture is an almost impossible task, which is ridiculous because he smiles all the time at home with his family. He really is an incredibly goofy guy with a very silly and random sense of humor (which is probably where I get it from). Most people outside of our immediate family do not get to see that silly side unfortunately. This is my favorite picture of my father ever, taken about eight years ago. I surprised him as he was walking in the door from work one winter evening.

If you notice it is pretty dark outside as my dad is arriving home from work, which brings me to my last point about my father. He is the most selfless and hard-working person I know. My father has worked his entire life to provide and provide for my brothers and sister and I with little regard for his own comfort or needs. Whenever someone compliments me on my work ethic and determination to complete a task I know that I owe so much of that to my dad and the example he set for me.

My mother is so different from my father that I often wish I could be a fly on the wall to see how exactly it was they got together. My mother grew up in the smallest of small-town Indiana. She came from a very modest background, including an early childhood before she was adopted by my grandparents that I know little about. All I know is that her life before my grandparents was not very pleasant and she did not have mich. I know there were many Christmases where the only gifts she had were from Toys for Tots, a charity that has always held a very special place in her heart and consequently in mine. She left home soon after college to be a "stewardess" and eventually found herself in the big city of New York where she would soon meet my dad. If my dad was shy, quiet, and bookish, my mom was the exact opposite. Her stories and her sibling's and friend's stories from high school, college, and the years after describe an outgoing and gregarious personality that I can easily still see in my mother today. While I would hardly consider myself a social butterfly, over the past 6-7 years or so I have started to recognize more of that part of my mother in myself. She is an unbelievably kind, generous, and outgoing woman. She's the kind of person who saw a man walking home from the train station last night in the pouring rain without an umbrella and pulled over to give him a ride home. When I'm standing in line at Kroger and I strike up a conversation with the woman in line behind me or the cashier who is ringing me up, I think to myself that it is something my mother would do. And that's something I am proud of. I'm not the kind of person who will go to a party where I know no one and make a million friends, but I make an effort to get know people. I genuinely think being my mother's daughter is part of what makes me the teacher that I am who genuinely cares about getting to know her students, who they are, and where they come from.


I am truly lucky and so proud to say my mother is also my best friend. We have our moments, but she is the first person I want to call when something huge happens in my life - good or bad. When I go home to NY for the holidays one of my favorite things to do is lay around in my pajamas with my mother and do crosswords and watch Animal Planet and HGTV. She is not the kind of mom that I share EVERYTHING with, but she is definitely a confidante and a person I turn to as much as I turn to my college pals. She doesn't always tell me what I want to hear, but she is unconditionally supportive of the decisions I make. She understands that if I mess up and fall I am perfectly capable of picking myself back up on my own, but she is still an important part of my life and a person I rely on a great deal to help dust myself back off again.

Wow, I did not anticipate this entry being quite this long! I guess it is just a testimony to how awesome my parents are. I am so grateful and proud to call them my parents and cannot imagine my life without them both.

Uncertainty

As per usual, I should have attacked the pile of grading I have to do in order to get my grades in by Monday, but I was lazy and watched Kentucky Derby coverage all day yesterday. My parents stopped by for lunch, which was wonderful. My dad is at his 40th college reunion this weekend, which is only an hour away, so he and my mom came by to have lunch. It is crazy to think I have not seen them since Christmas. I love my family and love spending any time I can with them, however brief.

They asked about JC at lunch and were curious if he had gotten any word on where he is headed this fall. My parents are very supportive of our relationship, but they're not quite sure how to handle the uncertainty of the Army and the fact that JC could end up anywhere in the world next year. It's something I have learned to deal with surprisingly well in our time together. It's a very good exercise in learning that some things in life are just out of your hands. I'm preparing myself for the Army to send him to Germany. I figure, prepare for the worst and then anything else is a pleasant surprise.

That's sort of how I am handling the uncertainty in my job! Despite the fact that every other school district in the area has done so, my wonderful school district has yet to finalize their budget. They've pushed it back FOUR times since March when talk about making cuts first started. (Seriously, they're worse than the Army!) Consequently, all of us - first year teachers and tenured faculty alike - are sweating it until the end of the school year to know whether we'll be back or not. To say the entire faculty is frustrated at this point is a tremendous understatement. We think they're just holding us in limbo so people don't find out they're getting sacked and then use all their sick days, which I would so do. Needless to say, for someone whose lease is up in June and whose summer plans depend on my having a job next year, it is a very uncertain time for me. I don't understand how a school district can do this to hundreds of employees. If an employee has to give a 30-day notice shouldn't an employer extend the same courtesy? I've found my experiences with the Army have certainly helped me deal with this hurdle life has thrown at me. I'm developing contingency plans if I get sacked and plans if I don't and plans if I don't find out until the middle of the summer. I suppose it's good preparation for life with the Army. Plans can change on a daily basis and I just need to learn to roll with it.

Bottom line is, and this is what helps me deal, I'm a firm believer in "everything happens for a reason" and no matter where JC gets stationed or what happens to me job, I'm confident we'll make it through. Tonight, we continue our coast to coast cooking adventures and will be having a Mexican fiesta! Last week it was chicken cordon bleu, which was a huge success. We're really both getting quite good and have said we should compile all our recipes and call it the "Coast to Coast Cookbook".

I need to go hit the store to pick up some taco seasoning and cilantro (the latter has become JC's favorite seasoning in the world (thank you, California!)). I haven't left my readers with a question in a while, but I'm curious to know: how do you deal with all life's uncertainties? Are you the type of person who pushes them out of your brain and doesn't worry about them until they happen or do you make a million contingency plans like me? Or do you have an even better way of handling

Anti anti-Valentine's

As the inevitable Hallmark holiday draws nearer and every aisle from Kroger to K-Mart is filled with pink teddy bears and aisles full of heart-shaped candy boxes one would think I would be somehow sadder with JC on the other side of the country. I guess I should be more bummed out, but I'm not really. There's not really much to the holiday aside from delivering a Valentine and saying "Happy Valentine's Day". I have someone to say it to this year so I'm more than happy!

I didn't have anyone to spend Valentine's with for the longest time, but that never really bummed me out all that much. Holidays like Christmas and New Years - especially in recent years - were way worse to spend alone. I never hated Valentine's Day. I honestly don't really get people who rage about what an awful 'Hallmark holiday' is and how it makes single people feel miserable. I think it makes them sound bitter and very petty. Halloween and Christmas are just as commercialized as the 14th of February. My beef with Valentine's Day has more to do with the ridiculous things that stores sell than the holiday itself I just don't see the point in giving some of the things that are sold in stores. Does a fluffy pink gorilla holding a heart actually have any sentimental value? I really can't wrap my head around it. I don't think any of my silly high school students would buy half of the junk these stores sell. I suppose there must be demand for all the silly stuff or it wouldn't be in the stores, but man...I'm left scratching my head. If I got some of that stuff I don't think I could even feign excitement.

Back to my anti-anti-Valentine's rant. I don't love the holiday or anything, but I really don't think there's anything wrong with setting aside a special day (even if you do it every day) just to tell people you love them. Like I said, up until very recently I spent most of my Valentine's alone. It sounds lame, but I would just send Valentine's to my friends and family. In fact, my favorite Valentine's memory (aside from 10 minutes ago when I just opened JC's card) was my senior year of high school. I was in the goofiest ten-person AP bio class ever with a teacher who was the nicest/most laidback/clueless man ever. Quite spontaneously, we decided as a class the day before to have a Valentine's party. People brought in cupcakes, cookies and we exchanged those awesome Valentines you used to get in grade school. None of us were best friends, but we had a blast writing each other cards. Most said silly things like "you're the best at crossword puzzles!" or "thanks for dissecting the fetal pig for me!", but they all made us smile. I really think I might even still have one of the cards in between the pages of one of my yearbooks! Man, that was a great day. Good times...crazy to think it was almost a decade ago.

Anyway, when JC asked what I wanted for the big day this year, I made the decision that - since it was our first one together - we should set a precedent of 'low-keying it'. Then in the future there's no expectation for anything big. I do love sending care packages though so I did send him a housewarming box with a couple little things in it and he (unbeknownst to me) did the same. Kind of crazy that without telling each other we both did the same thing. His box was awesome and contained all kinds of deliciousness from Trader Joe's, which is a store Lynchburg will never see in a million years, but is on pretty much every street corner where he is. Oh, and reason 10,512 I love him? He included cat treats in the package for my two crazy cats. Fat little Journey gobbled them up, but crazy Hobbes could care less about the treats. He was way more excited about the box! See if you can find Hobbes in this picture. (Sorry about the poor photo quality and bad lighting. If I turned on the flash he had 'demon eyes' that the red eye couldn't fix.)

He seriously slept and played in that box for 2 hours. I wish I could be amused by a box for an hour! After the shortest work week ever (2 days and only 25 minute class periods), I am headed out tonight to go see a coworker and friend of mine play a show at a local restaurant. He is one of the first friends I made at my school and I love hanging out with him. He is a huge college football fan and loves to root on the Wahoos, which is a rarity here in Tech country! We were even thinking about driving up to Charlottesville this fall to go to a game together, but that fell through. The funny think about Mike being one of my best pals? He's 42, married and has 2 kids. It never even occurs to me that he's close to two decades older than me, which is pretty crazy to think about. He likes to get my input for what 'new' songs from the last 5 years he should include in his set. I told him he doesn't need any help, he already has a great set so I'm off to go hear him play some Keith Urban, Sister Hazel and Billy Joel (he plays a mean harmonica!)

I leave you with a question about Valentine's. Are you an anti-Valentine's day person, do you love it or are you just kind of 'meh' about it like I am (but completely confused by the ridiculous candy and toys!)