Keep off moat air

I am a little obsessed with mobiles.  I like the balance aspect of them.  And I particularly like mobiles made of objects that probably would not float on their own.  Here is one I made from stones and crystals.

Going all the way home

Earlier in the fall I drove past this sign in front of a church I pass on the way to work.  It is out in the middle of nowhere - about 18 miles from here and 18 miles from there - just a little country church with a cemetery.  I guess they were having some sort of festival, but the juxtaposition of the sign and the cemetery made it look a bit more like they were advertising for a haunted house.

Rain, rain, go away

It has been raining all morning.  The dogs are unhappy because they have missed their morning walk and being put out in the little dog run is an extension of the indoors to them.  I would prefer sunshine for my mood, but the rain seems to actually give me an excuse to let go of all the "needs to be done" outdoors guilt.  It is great that today I have only half the guilt I usually do on a Sunday!  So far I've gotten all of my school work done and am getting ready to put in a little laundry.  Yeah! The joys of the weekend.


I have not been getting much jewelry made.  I have a bunch of ideas, but do not seem to have the materials on hand to execute them.  Here are a few photos of some older work.

Perhaps over Thankgiving break I will have some nice clear weather and I can  take all the pieces I have made outside and photograph them.  I have to figure out how to better work the macro feature on the camera so I can actually get some detail.

Good Fences

The first day I saw the scene in the photo, three young ladies were spray painting the bales of hay while some guy stood around watching them and looking official. The LI-VE sections were stacked on top of the UN-IT-ED, and it made a happy hay pyramid. If you have never been up close and personal with one of these round gargantua, each one is about six feet in diameter so it was actually sort of impressive to see the painting in action. Perhaps the guy had a walkie-talkie and would call for help if one of the women fell from the top. I drove by at 60+ mph, but you can see the action from some distance because this is actually on a four lane road at the edge of a field that belongs to Spence Airfield/Sunbelt Expo. The large contraption in the background is not an airplane taxiing toward the road. It is a monster of a pivot irrigation system. The second day I drove past the filed, the bales were in a row and male workers were out installing fence posts. I could see what was coming. Live United, humph, indeed. The third day the workers were stretching the chain link and attaching the barbed wire. Live United - Just stay on you side of the fence.

XXX: Dar besos y faire la bise

I struggled to get myself to the computer all week and actually write. In my head I had already composed a few posts, but the work at the keyboard still remained to be done. Why do I want to write? Random thoughts flow through my head all day. A sentence here, a funny quote, and few voices there. Sometimes I think, oh I have to blog about that. Even my husband now remarks during conversations, you should put that in a blog. And yet my hours teaching devour all my energy. So here it is Saturday morning and I'm committed to write a little something sweet before dogwalking, vacuuming, grading papers, or tangling with the high school's new on-line grade reporting program.

Why do I want to write? I write to discover my life.

The past seven days seemed to have been Snake Week in Quitman, but at the moment I don't have the stomach to go back through pages of serpent photos to illustrate the slithery creatures which crossed my path. Instead I have found a thread woven in and out of days for the past few weeks: kissing.

One morning I caught a story on NPR that the H1N1 virus was causing an uproar in France. It might spell the end for faire la bise. When I got to school I baited Monique, our native speaking French teacher, knowing that she would think this was the silliest thing she had ever heard. To understand the faire la bise, checkout the video.

Last night Papi told me that he had finally heard from his friend Ya Sé (literally, I Know Already, a nickname, but that has to be left for another post) who was living in Savannah and trying to save enough money to finish his degree at Georgia Tech. Ya Sé turned up in México at one of the universities in Chihuahua. He said he realized he both loved and hated a few things about being back in school in México. He couldn't stand the conviviality of lunchtime. He didn't want to share his food with anyone, and this goes quite against the custom of giving a taste to all who come around the table. Ya Sé, who never seems to have a girlfriend, was excited about the customary kisses in greeting. He really loved getting to kiss each woman he met on the cheek.

Apparently one of my new students, freshly transplanted from Cuba, didn't want to give up the greeting with a kiss. Although I translate into Spanish for Yasiel nearly everything I tell the other students in English, some cultural items I just gloss over. For instance, when we were discussing the greeting with cheek kisses, I just translated that we were talking about saludos con besos. I mean he already knows the custom, what else does he need to know? The next morning Yasiel was on his way into the classroom and I was keeping watch over the hallway. He walked up to me and leaned over, which to me meant he was going to whisper something he didn't want anyone to hear. But no, just as you guessed, he kissed my cheek. It took me a few minutes to regain my composure, but I did go in the room and explain to him that teachers and students don't greet this way. That night Papí told me, after he stopped laughing, that it was my mistake. It would not be unusual because the teacher student relationship is different in Latin America. High school students are treated more as adults. I guess I'll translate all the cultural stuff from now on.

La Bise en France
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Procrastiblogation & Southernism #1

I haven't written much since last spring. For those of you who may peek here after clicking on a link at comment I wrote, I actually write another blog on LiveJournal, but that too is languishing. I should have known I might hit the wall last spring when I wrote Tapeworms and Ponies at LJ - it was all about suffering with periodic bouts of depression. Now, I guess, I'm ready to write again. I think, however, I will simply dip my toe in the water.

Southernism #1 Ain't nobody gonna piss in my ear an' tell me its rainin'

I generally stick to the cliche, "Fool me once, shame on you; fool me twice, shame on me." The above beauty is a bit stronger and really doesn't have room for getting past the first lie.

Yo Soy Yo

I am a high school Spanish teacher in a small town in South Georgia. I grew up and spent the majority of my life in what I now know should be referred to as The North. After being transplanted here six years ago, I learned Spanish, married a native speaker, and spend most days longing for really good Thai food. On the plus side, I can now cook great tingas, make a variety of red and green chile sauces, know the difference between a Good Ole Boy and a Good Man, and can mumble in five languages (six if you count mangled blessings in Hebrew). I live with my husband, who is named after the saint for October 1st, and my Pembroke Welsh Corgis, who are named after Charles Mingus and John Coltrane. My dream is to live someplace where I can spend the whole summer outdoors in the garden without too many gnats and mosquitoes or too much heat and humidity.