Ursula

I once had a teacher like Ursula. I'm surprised to look back years later and relate with this moment more than I ever thought I would. Teaching adds a whole new dimension to school.

I am a snake ready to strike.
Don't look at me the wrong way.
Don't say anything to set me off.

Today I've hit my limit,
Like a thermometer ready to burst,
My face red hot and steaming.

Too many things gone wrong,
In my perfect teaching world,
Piled papers even slithered to the floor.

It's your fault, your bad karma,
Which started this whole mess.
And now homework will be my venom to sink into your skin.

hahaha (creepy witch cackle)

Holy Ground

My brother would be disappointed about the basketball hoop that sits knee-high on a table. The basketball lays strewn in the sand beside it.

When Russell walks across a basketball court the sky gets brighter and Hallelujah tunes chime loudly. Really. He makes sure people realize what holy ground they are walking on.

To him, a home basketball court means carefully sweeping all the rocks off the carport before play begins. Making sure he is using the outdoor ball. Marking the free throw line with chalk. Shooting from all over the court. Trying trick shots from behind the picnic table. But making sure Little Red, our teenage beater car, is parked behind the basket so the ball bounces off of it and he has less running to do chasing the rebound.

Then, he lowers the basket to practice his trick dunks. He pulls a 360, a one-handed, and who knows what else before my dad yells out the window to raise the basket and try dunking for real.

Brother’s always been a basketball man, never going anywhere without his girlfriend, “Spaulding” and basketball shoes. You never know when you’ll find a pick-up game.

Dear Flag Football Team Man

I don’t know if you remember this moment, but occasionally it still burns inside of me, my face getting red and hot. Let me first explain a bit about my life. I grew up with a mom as athletic and determined as they come, and a dad whose unsympathetic ways and high expectations forced me to do my best at everything we did. Sports, from football to bowling, were on our television the majority of waking hours when we were home, and if we weren’t, most likely we were out playing them.

My dad taught me to throw and catch even before I can remember, and I was throwing a perfect spiral by sophomore year. (Notice I said perfect. I could do it before, just not every time.) I grew up scoring volleyball matches, keeping the book for little league, and tallying fouls and baskets for basketball. I could name all the cities and mascots of the NBA teams by the time I was in fourth grade. I knew more rules and strategy than most of my fellow male counterparts.

Now yes, I didn’t necessarily keep track of player names and team records for sports, and I got a little too involved with my own sports, social life, and schoolwork when I was in high school, so maybe the learning curve died down a bit, but when I went to high school football games, I was actually in the stands watching the plays develop. Watching what they did, and trying to figure out what they were going to do next. I was the girl in the stands who had to help the cheerleaders know whether they had to do offense or defense cheers. I was the girl who walked along the fence line with my dad as he taught me more about football. I was the girl who, when younger, would spend her time playing football behind the bleachers with the boys, rather than being in the group of girls giggling and pointing at the cute boys on the field.

In college, I was the one who only missed one home football game. In fact, I still haven’t missed more than one. And that was against Northern Iowa. Does that really count? I was the one who had to get there an hour before just to make sure I could watch them warm up. I was the one who knew all the players and called them by their first names like I knew them. I was the one who knew all their positions, who started every game, who was the most entertaining to watch block, etc.

I had been officiating for BYU Intramurals for two years by now and I had read the rulebook more than three times through. I checked it nightly, just to make sure I got the calls right. I knew where to go when the quarterback went back to shotgun. I could tell when to go back farther because he was going to throw. My colleagues looked to me when they had questions. They trusted me. Other teams knew me. They trusted me. I had reffed game after game after game before I showed up for yours.

And so why did your one testosterone filled statement, because you lost and you blamed me, hit me harder than all of that background and fill me with doubt? Why, in front of your wife and daughter, did you think it was okay to yell inches from my face, and point and accuse me of not knowing anything about football? Why did you go on to say I didn’t know anything about sports at all because I was a girl, and girls know nothing? And why, with my face fire-engine red, fists-clenched, and jaw tight, did I simply turn and walk away?

Trucks, Tractors and Trails

Grandpa’s truck started out as an old blue Ford that would drive slowly by my house. Normally you could hear the rushing of traffic on the highway in front of our house, but you could always tell when it was grandpa because the engine noise slowed to a crawl. He would drive by carefully checking the water in the irrigation ditch, checking the alfalfa fields, checking the beef cows in the fields behind us. He was always checking—at six in the morning while the sun was rising, until six at night when dusk was setting in. Sometimes you could even hear his dusty old truck in the wee hours of the morning as he went off checking on cows that could be calving.

That truck was his loyal companion. And the place on the carport was always left open for when grandpa came home. It was rare for me to ride beside him in the truck. It probably could have happened more, except my idea of fun was not to forge my way through the wet and heavy hay fields to change sprinklers and dam up ditches.

However, when that chance did come it was usually on our way to feed the baby calves. Grandpa would pick me up and we’d bump along to the barn just down the road. Grandpa would break up a hay bale and give me the pieces to stick in the feeding trough by the calf pens. We would continue all down the row until each calf was a proud new owner of their very own chunk of hay.

Then, grandpa would let me go back all by myself and give them handfuls of corn kernels. That was my favorite part: sprinkling those kernels on top of the hay as the calves were eating. I loved it because by this point the calves had come forward and started to eat. Sometimes, if they were really distracted, I could even pet one. Occasionally, they would look up at me with their drool covered mouths and snotty noses and try to eat right out of my hand. When we had finished, I would climb back into the truck and head back to tell grandma and mom how brave I had been while feeding the baby calves.

It seems like whenever I felt most connected to my grandpa we were on a ride. Along with his farm truck and baby calves, he’d let us ride the tractors with him as well. One time my little brother and I both got to go help grandpa cut hay in the chopper. It was the field at the end of the property, and after a couple of rows of chopping, grandpa let us take the steering wheel to turn down the next row. It was difficult, especially as a youth, to make the turn, get the tractor steering straight, all while making sure the chopper part was still on the right path to scoop up the hay and shoot it into the back trailer. And apparently it was a little more than two kids could handle, because we soon heard a whooshing sound and the tractor stopped dead in its tracks.

We had broken the tractor. Grandpa looked back, while our gazes followed, and we saw the frayed and broken cords and cables that connected the tractor to the trailer. He turned to tease the two of us about how we could dare to break his tractor. The giant smile on his face as he climbed down to assess the damage convinced us he wasn’t really mad, and we tried to put the blame back on him. Later in the week, driving past that tractor still sitting in the middle of the field with only have the hay picked up, I smiled as I remembered the three of us crammed into the tractor cab.

A smile stays with me now as I ponder the times when grandpa allowed me to ride with him. There were the times on the 4-wheeler with Grandpa. Whether it be driving the miles home from the sand dunes, bouncing to trail after trail, all the while following the power lines to make sure we were still headed in the right direction. Or me white-knuckled on the back as we climbed the steep hill by our little red cabin in the mountains, I always knew I was safe with grandpa.

And years later, as I picture the gold Ford of my later years slowly putting by my house, carrying a four-wheeler, a shovel, his knee high water boots, old farm parts, or whatever else he needed, I think of a man who was strong and unwavering. A man who always packed what you needed, and gave you a ride to remember.

Addicted

Heidi’s diaper bag consists of two diapers and a package of diaper wipes. The rest? Candy. She has Ziploc bags full of them. Starbursts, Skittles, and around Easter the gummy bunnies I love so much. Going anywhere with Heidi you can always count on candy. And lots of it. Going to movies with her there is no need to buy treats, she’s smuggled them in already. The only time this candy is a disadvantage to me is when I’m trying to cut back on my addiction.

You see it all started during essay time at school. If you’ve ever tried to grade 150+ essays then you may know where this is headed. It’s literally impossible without a snack at arm’s length as you go. However, popping them in your mouth as you get going can help you get into a rhythm, but you tend to lose track of how many you’re eating. Which led me to scarfing down the three bags of Starburst jellybeans in only a week in March 2010. Yep. Three large bags. By myself. I didn’t share one.

It kick-started my addiction. And soon, every morning at eleven ‘o’clock as my students wondered out my door and left me alone with my prep period, I went crazy trying to find some sort of consumable sugar to satisfy my cravings. I scoured my cupboards and at first, I always found something to keep me happy. But, as time went by, and my husband discovered the infamous Jellybean Bag Incident of March 2010, I stopped buying treats to try and prove I could stop anytime.

I couldn’t.

I’m sure my students noticed a decline in my mood. They may have been shocked to find out it was all because of candy. (In fact, maybe I should have told them. Maybe I would have Skittles suddenly appear on my desk every morning to guarantee a smiling teacher.)

I got headaches. Sometimes, when it got really bad, I had to scavenge the office secretaries for treats. Finally, I gave up on trying to quit altogether, embraced my love of candy, and bought a huge bag of salt water taffy from Costco. That got me through the rest of the year.

And now that school is out, you’ll find me with the occasional bag of Mike and Ike’s hidden in my purse or a box of Mini Charleston Chews in my nightstand drawer. I don’t need candy at a certain time everyday anymore, but I don’t think my addiction is gone, I probably just hide it better.

How to Ride Your Bike

Next time Phil takes his bike out, Caden, our four-year-old nephew, informed him how to really ride it. All he needs to do is take the front wheel off, lean back on his back wheel, and pedal really fast. After that, fire will come out, he'll go super-de-duper fast, and win the race. It's that easy.

So, Here's the Thing...

Sometimes I like to write.

Sometimes I'm funny.

I've had some claim I'm more funny when I write than I am in real life. And let's face it, I'm not funny.

However, I do want to write more. So, in an effort to inspire myself to write, I'm making some blog changes. This blog will now become my writing blog. Where I write about anything I want. And hopefully you'll make comments. (I love knowing at least someone is reading.) Sometimes I may even be funny. I guarantee there will be times when I'm not. But, hopefully it'll keep me writing. So watch for some changes coming.

I am starting another blog that will be more like my scrapbook blog to document the life of Filangela. If you want to read it, you're more than welcome to, just send me your email address by leaving a comment, facebooking, emailing, or whatever other communication you can and I'll send you an invite to my new blog. There will be pictures on that blog.

There will be lots of words on this blog. You've been warned. :)