Illustration Friday: RED

My son Micah in a RED tube slide. He also has the most wonderful RED hair. He is also quite well READ ( mostly Calvin and Hobbes actually ).

using memories

I'm going to be trying some poetry in my classroom over the next little while. It is suggested that one way to inspire students is for the teacher to write some of their own poetry.


blanket hog
When my wife
hogs the blanket,
the only thing to do
is yank it.

O.K. Maybe I'll try something a little more inspiring tomorrow.

What I'm really hoping to do is to make poetry part of the entire curriculum instead of saving it for a gigantic poetry unit in April. I want to link poetry to the real world. I think the best way for this to happen is if I become a poetry reader myself. If I read, then I will be able to find poems to read with my students which have personal meaning. I'll find an apple poem in the fall, a war poem when we study about current events, a poem about loss when someone in our community dies, a poem about living anytime.

I hope to, together, discover the joy of hearing our language used at its best...to hear the music of the words.

Some of you are already good at this. Perhaps you feel like sharing.

can I get a witness

I've spent eight years of my life in post secondary education. That is not an entirely unusual thing. Most of the time though, people who dedicate that amount of time and effort, usually end up with something that they can truly hang their hat on. A hook significant enough to securely hold their hat for a very long time.

My eight years actually produced two hooks. The first was a four year religious education at a major Canadian Bible College. The second was a four year degree in education at a secular university. After my first degree, feeling the pride of my hat being well hung, I fully expected that my formal education had officially come to an end. I was on my way to working in the comfort of the church's warm arms, securely tucked under the wings of an eagle. Spiritually speaking, that is.

Confused that I was unable to land anything of interest, I became anxious about my options. Joyce and I had become serious in our relationship almost immediately and I felt pressure to make a move in a definite direction. Something having to do with a ship that's moving and being easier to steer got me thinking about hook number two. I took the first steps and enrolled. I could get a few courses credit from hook number one towards hook number two if I was willing to make religion my minor. A lot of good that had done me in the past. I declined any credit, and so I was on square one. Four full years to go. We can do this.

The years passed quickly. The first two of four children were born and I was feeling a little less anxious every year. Teaching was definately my thing. I was good enough. I was smart enough. And gosh darn it, my students liked me.

Nearly ten years and three schools of friends later, I've come to love how my hat hangs firmly on it's place. Occasionally I walk past the place on the wall where the first hook is mounted. I've taken some of the mounting hardware and used it elsewhere. It hangs there loosely. I never use it. I was asked a few days ago by someone who uses a similar hook if I ever used it. I had to say no.

I remembered a time when I would also move about asking anyone if they had a place to hang their hat, or whether they would like one. I actually took a freshman course where I was taught how to do this. I was told that I was salty and that when people tasted me, they would become thirsty. Taste and see that I am good. I was afraid. I didn't want people to taste me. I was required to write about at least one actual contact where I offered my seasoning. Witnessing, it was called. That was the first and only assignment where I received a 0%.

Sinse then, I've become a target. People are now coming to me with their salt and offer it sheepishly. Taste and see...they say.

No thanks...I'm feeling a little full.

art of motion

I got the CD I ordered today. Andy is outa sight. I just knew I would not be disappointed. And I love the album title, Art of Motion. That's the reason for today's post. I believe that there is quite an art to the motion of day to day living, or MOVING through one's day.

The day began with me having the luxury of sleeping in. Instead of waking at 5:46, I was able to instead rise at 7:10 because Thursday is not a pool day. One of only two in the week. I look forward to instead waking to the smells of the coffee being prepared and the sounds of day care children arriving at the back door.

This day I had the luxury of slowly making my lunch while sipping my second cup of Christmas gift Tim Horton's while the van warms in the garage, remotely started on this frigid morning.

The students have become more and more accustomed to my expectations and have come to appreciate the care and attention I place on the finer details of the daily plan. Sure they whin and complain, but that's because they are nearing that time in their lives when, I tell them daily that this is coming, that their brains turn to mush, and all they will be able to utter are complaints and protests.

Sarcasm is a fantastic classroom management tool. They don't tell you of this one in teacher college. But we all quickly discover that it is one of the more efective tools to build rapport and respect. It only works, however, if it is accepted as going both ways. It's a beautiful thing when you can connect through the eyes with someone attempting a connection through making familiar. The little smile begins in the corner of the mouth, and then quickly transforms the face into a knowing smirk. There are no unit plans for this. It's about being human.

The work day is through, and before going home I make one final connection. He says that Thursday is martini night. Tanqueray gin, dry vermouth, and a couple of really great olives. My mouth waters and my brain's tonic begins to stir. A quick stop before home would produce the same tradition.

Not three steps into the back entrance and I am greeted by my love who says she has something for me. A suddenly compact universe of skin and breath and hair. "That's for the lights", she says. I never imagined that flourescents in the basement could be so bright.

Dinner's done. All six in one room. "We should do this every night...this is family. The T.V. is off, doing homework, kids playing and laughing, music........and a good drink."

"A woman after my own heart", I say...or at least after my own liver.

Andy Mckee - Drifting

I found this guy on You Tube today. I nearly started to weep after just one minute of watching and listening to him.

Has anyone heard of him before?

I immediately oredered his CD from his website.

He makes me want to take more lessons.

red eye reduction

( a photograph of my left eye )

The Christmas break is a great time to accomplish many things at the same time. You kind of feel like Superman, able to leap tall buildings with a single bound. The family also spends an inordinate amount of time together accomplishing tasks which, during the regular routine, would take weeks to accomplish.

Today, all six of us drove into the city and had eye examinations. I have recently been invited into the privileged group of the insured. There are all sorts of wonderful things awaiting the members at a mere 20% of the price offered to mortals.

After all the Christmas feasting has subsided, I think I'll need a reduction of some other kind.

crazy jane

It's not every year that I come up with a great gift giving idea. Most of the time I don't even know what I've gotten for the kids until Christmas morning when all the gifts have been opened. Joyce usually has that all wrapped up somewhere by the end of lambing season.

I've been noticing for the last few years that I have a budding artist in the family in my daughter Jane. I decided that one of the best gifts I could give her this year would be motivation and recognition. Joyce keeps telling me that what she really wants the most from me is approval. Well, Jane...I approve and here's your own avenue of inspiration.

I wish you a long and colourful life filled with rich hues, multi-mediums, and warm textures.

Merry Christmas, Jane.

the most wonderful time of the year

The wonderful thing about this day, the last day of classes before the winter break, is the excitement of my wife on my arrival home from work.

Normally, on any other given day, she usually has a frown for me if I stand in the kitchen and open a can of suds before all the daycare kids have gone. I'll sometimes stand around for an hour and finish off a couple before all the little darlings (aka: snot-encrusted beggers) have gone.

This day, the long-awaited holy day, after seeing my approach on the driveway, Joyce bounds to the refrigerater, and with one gigantic leap, crosses the ten metres from the fridge to the back entrance, and places an exceptionally frosted one in my deserving hand. I say deserving only because it is a hand that is ready to share.

Before I am ready to actually grasp the drink, I must first put down a familiar load. Joyce is well-aquainted with this burden. It's the anticipated weight of the season.

Joyce removes the yoke, and bears my yuletide burden yet again. Gratefully I sigh, and receive her offer of liquid refreshment...nourishment.

As I sit back and renew my strength, Joyce is busy attacking the burden which has so plagued me this day. By the time my anxiety has all but vanished, she has disassembled, evaluated, and categorized my lot into a fairly managable sum.

And it always adds up the same: White + Dark + Milk + With Nuts = Fat Ass

tired

(My Micah looking like he'd rather be at home)

I would really like to post something especially nice about my children's Sunday School Christmas program. I really would. But I don't know if I can.

No, it's not that I don't think that the performances were poor, the lighting was bad, or there was loud feedback right when it was Jane's turn to sing a solo. I think it's quite a bit deeper than that. And by deeper, I don't mean that I am thinking on a higher level of intelligence than anyone else. What I am saying is that, just like the tired concept of groups calling door to door or on the phone to collect for local charities, the insistance on the subjecting an entire group of 100 hot, itchy and sleepy children to sit through and present an hour long program at Christmas time, is tired. Notice I didn't say stupid, or rediculous, or idiotic. I said tired. The concept of going to the community to ask for help by contributing food and clothes is a great idea, but have you noticed how tired people have become of the same old thing every giving season? The collection hampers are less full than they ever have been and the ones doing the collecting have to come up with newer ideas to stimulate giving every year.

Most of the kids are bored and completely tired of these programs, except the ones who are prominantly featured. The writers of these productions do their best to keep to the original text and yet bring the story home with a relevant focus. Like how the baby Jesus would like a lame soccer player as much as a star. Or how the angels had just as much personality as the wise men or shepherds. Or making Myrrh as important as Gold.

I'm not really sure what my point is. I'm ranting...you're right. When people are tired, they rant.

at least I'm still a man

I wasn't looking forward to checking my personal profile this morning. I really liked the look of that 39 on the age line. But if that is the only change I'm going to have to deal with today, I think I'm going to be just fine.

lordy, lordy

Like the above rinkside bench in the empty lot in my back yard, my blog has been quite vacant lately. I think I'm quite possibly experiencing the I'm-about-to-turn-forty syndrom. My birthday is on Saturday and I've tried to be quite grown up about it but, try as I might, I believe that I'm a little more conscious of it than I would have hoped.

My mind is telling the body that a little more effort is required to maintain that youthful appearance. The financial advisor is advising more financial responsibility if I ever hope to achieve Arizona status. The literacy team suggests greater compliance with the new incentives so that we can have more accurate records to store away in files so that we can say that we have files stored away. And the church, well...there's always the church.

I've never been the kind of person to put much stock into making New Year's resolutions. But I feel the need to make some sort of commitment as I pass from the third to the fourth decade of my life. It's a bit of an itch that needs attention. If I scratch too hard...

Have you ever had this rash?

late harvest

I was eight years old the first time I smoked a cigarette, but it was not the store bought variety. We were a little more creative in the seventies.

It was the early seventies when I developed a curiosity for things that were typically taboo around home like swearing, nudey magazines, smoking, and parting my feathered hair down the middle. Afterall, Darryl, Edwin, Alvin, and Kelvin were all doing it, why shouldn't I?

Autumn was a time when young lads could easily find themselves tempted to be boys. The rotting leftover garden produce was a tempting harvest for the late evening. We would wait in the shadows alongside highway 32, waiting for unsuspecting travellers whom we could pelt with what we gleaned from our neighbour's backyards. It was always more exciting when they would screach to a halt, turn around, swerving from gravelled shoulder to gravelled shoulder, and begin the chase. We would run like the devil, thinking that we would be killed if caught. We never did end up dying.

Harvest time was usually better for hanging out late. At least it felt like it was late because it would get dark sooner. The harvest moons made the evenings seem mysterious. Late harvest was always a little better. Late harvest meant corn harvesting time. This was the time that the little tufts of hair protruding out from the tops of the ears of corn would be nice and sugary brown and thoroughly dried out. I'm not sure who was the first one to figure this out, but someone decided to take some of this prairie weed, roll it in zigzag paper, and light it up. Oh how sweet it was. We smoked a whole bunch of this stuff. We were cool. The sweet taste on the lips lingered until hours later. When it was time to go home I remember wishing that I didn't still taste it because surely mom would smell it. I can't recall that she ever did.

Last week, as I was driving home, and my hair not really parted at all any longer, I noticed a corn harvester pulling off a crop from a field to the south of the road. As I drove and looked left towards the field, I had a slight craving for that same sweet taste. I thought about my youth and retraced my curiosity.

My oldest son is eight years old. I wonder what he is curious about.

Canadian Blog Awards

Voting has begun and I have been nominated in the category for best personal blog, as has my wife at Chronicles of Blunderview. I personally think her blog is a whole lot better than mine, so vote for her. But if you still want to vote for me then just click on the maple leaf link in my sidebar and it will take you to the voting page. Just scroll down to the appropriate category.

While you're there, check out some of the other great stuff you might find. Look for the names colouring outside the lines, Homo Escapeons and Snippets from Spaceship Orion.

You are allowed one vote per day, so happy voting.

Carla Kurt

Christmas came a little early at the Hildebrand's today.

Instead of shopping for days and days with a gigantic list, my parents usually tell us to go out and buy ourselves something nice and they'll pay for it.

In February of this year, a blog aquaintance of mine via another blog aquaintance (I love how everything is connected in blogworld) posted a multimedia picture she had created. I had been watching her blog for a while but had not yet commented. I think we've all done that...lingered for a while and then when something stikes us (ouch) we finally take the step to make a comment.

When Carla posted this picture, I couldn't resist commenting. I also said that if she would ever consider selling the original, I would like her to remember me.

Last week she did just that. She was packing up several of her pieces and bringing them away to a special show. But she remembered my comment and wanted to give me a chance to buy it before she submitted it. I received a special delivery this afternoon.

I would probably do her work a great injustice if I attempted to describe it, so I will simply show you some of my favourites.

So thanks mom and dad for the gift...and thanks Carla.

eschatology

Have you ever wondered at the extent to which you are willing to be taught by another human being. I mean, what is it, or what will it take for you to put your mind in the hands of another flawed human and be willing to accept, on a grand scale, their teaching.

I used to be quite enthralled and vehement in my study of the book of (eating too many funny leaves) or Revelations. I was VERY excited whenever the next book in the Left Behind series was released. I would gobble up every word in a day and a half and then settle in for another eight months of waiting for the next in the twelve book series to be released. I was quite saddend when it finally ended.

That was several years ago.

As life moves on and situations become more wonderfully diverse, minds also expand. The school of life is every bit as wonderful as eight years of formal post secondary education. I would argue that it has a lot more to offer. Especially when one puts their mind into the hands of someone honest to the realities of the world.

That may seem a bit ambiguous, and it would be correct; it is ambiguous. And it is entirely local.

I had a conversation with a relatively sane adult about the concept of truth. A statement he said has been with me for over a year; and that is, "Truth is local and (?) is universal." I can't recall what he said was universal. I'm looking forward to the next time we have dinner together so I can ask him. I want to learn from him.

This is what I think it means. People will believe what they want to believe, even if it is contrary to the stream, as long as there are enough "credible" people (i.e. people in their "locale") that believe the same thing. Or it may mean that something may be true for a time, like the Germans are consumed with world domination. That may have been true for a hundred years or more, but if you speak to a German today, that would not ring true.

I say all of this simply to bring up the issue of running out of fish. Yes, that's right. Fish. The CBC has recently issued an article online commenting that if current sea harvesting practices remain constant, scientists have warned that fish stocks throughout the world could be wiped out by 2048. We all know what that would mean for the rest of global life, don't we? So is this really the end times? Will it end this way? Consuming?

But is this really true? How do I know that this is not simply a local truth and not a (?).

I used to be consoled with the local truth that I would be rescued from one particular end result, but this one is quite different. On one hand, do I really believe it? And on the other, what does it mean for me and my four children who will be adults with young families during the crunch time of this outpouring of consequence. Makes me want to move to Wolseley, hug a tree, and protest malathion spraying. I think this sort of reaction is ingrained into all of us.

We really just don't want to be left behind.

the gods must be crazy

It was a Saturday. 39 years ago. There was a flash in the sky and a star took its turn to fall to earth and begin a new life. The star was given to a family already filled with stars; they were in need of another one. This one added uniquely to the kaleidoscope.

The star was fed and it grew and went to several different star schools, becoming brighter as time passed. The star spent plenty of time dating other stars, all in hopes of finding the just so combination of wavelengths.

The final prism to bend the star's backlighting, was dating a dimlit from the other side of the spectrum. The interplay of light and shadow often created an unfocussed image, but with both deciding to remain on the same palette, an agreeable hue formed.

There were times when one wanted to throw the other back into the sky and shout at the darkness; asking the artist if there couldn't have been a set of instructions, or angrily asking if they really knew what they were doing, sending bright objects into such dark places.

It's been 39 years and the darkness has not won. The star has only become more radiant in spite of it. The day of your birth is a day to celebrate light.

It was a Saturday.

I promised

In early October I wrote a post about an art project I was doing with my grade 5/6 students. At the time, we were studying about the first Canadians and one particular artform: painting on cedar planks. Michele reminded me that I promised to post a group shot of the student's work when it was all done. These were "sticky tacked" to a wall just outside my classroom for the whole junior high wing to enjoy. Only one fell off the wall and split in two. Tiffany said she liked hers better that way anyways. She's such a sweet kid.


We are currently studying about Canadian Explorers. Any art ideas for me, Jacques Cartier?

20 years ago

This is a photo of me on the trampoline at my neighbour's house when I was approximately 20 years old. That would put my current age at approximately 40...but not quite. I still have a little over a month to go.

What I like about this photo is the "cut" of my jib . I think I see a developing six pack there in amongst the soap suds. The closest thing I have to a six pack these days I have to pay for in the "specialty isle" at the local Bigway store.

Other than that, I pretty much look like a f*cking dork.

This post was inspired bt Andrea.

morning after pill

The day after a party is usually spent playing a type of catch up. The day begins normally with me getting to look at this beautiful face and then having some really great coffee.

You feel the need to spend some extra time with the kids doing whatever they feel like doing because you mostly ignored them the night before.
There isn't much food left in the house because you virtually emptied the cupboards to prepare and extravagant spread for your good friends. The result is that all there is left to eat is tuna; and that had to be stolen from the legs of the couch and replaced with whatever was left in dry storage.
Friday night, family night, was stolen so it had to be replaced. Thousands of beads. Becomes an instant family activity.

And now we're ready for the upcoming season of Christmas parties. I like this new commitment to celebrate more often.

This day has not been hard to swallow.

cozy

You'll find it in all the magazines. Suggestions, lists, results of surveys, ancient energy techniques, and expert opinions, from both a queer or straight perspective, on what makes a home comfortable.

I have long loved to look through "home" type magazines. There is a certain appeal in seeing what people who can afford all the right stuff do with all of the right stuff. Leather couches, hand-crafted lamps, recessed lighting, real wood mouldings, and every variety of built-ins. Sometimes it's enough to make a man give in to envy and self-pity.

Most of the time, however, I use the time looking as an opportunity to be inspired. There are so many wonderful ideas out there and so many things to consider that I just would not have thought of. Some are very complex and required gobs of money or great skill. Luckily there are also those more simple ideas. The kind that we can all afford. Like the idea of inviting just the right combination of people over for a dinner. Having the lights turned down just so. A hard-drive loaded with just the right music set to continuous play. A few of everyones favourite drinks. All the kids playing outside in the snow and when they come in, their skin has that fresh smell of cold and outside.

The less I have to spend on the items on my list, the cozier I feel, 'cause there's nothing quite like the worry of a mountain of debt to rob me of that relaxed feeling. You never know if you'll have to give it all back one day.