Queens for a Day

"I got my bowling ball where that bank is," Ricky said.

I looked out the bus window at the bank as we rolled past and tried to picture a sporting goods store there. Then I tried to picture 10-year-old Ricky walking out the door carrying a bowling ball.

We were on the Q53 making our way along Woodhaven Boulevard, and as I began to ruminate over the idea that the average person doesn't own a bowling ball anymore (the way everyone has a baseball glove and a tennis racquet), Ricky was already tossing out a stream of other childhood tidbits as part of our Howard Beach throwback tour.

The two of us had traveled into Queens from where we were staying in Manhattan by taking two trains and now this bus, to be followed by a lengthy stroll. The further the bus traveled into Ricky's old neighborhood, the more it became the nay-buh-hood.

"Gotti used to hang out along here," Ricky said, pointing to a strip of commerce.

Yes, he was referring to John Gotti, and the flavors of the area, both architectural and culinary, were exactly what you would expect in a fabled mob town. While during Ricky's childhood there had been a mix of Jews and Italians, it seemed the Jews were mostly gone (the Pastrami King is now named Sapienza who is also a purveyor of bagels), so the boxy-yet-elaborate houses we passed were all 100 percent decorated for Christmas. And I mean DECORATED FOR CHRISTMAS. This is a place where statues of the Virgin Mary are out all year long, so Christmas requires a big, extravagant step up.

Ricky's part of town consisted of apartment buildings, some of which had rows of detached garages. He grew up in an era of stickball and stoop ball and improvised playing space. ("Four garages was a first down.")

We walked past playgrounds, his old elementary school, a strip mall containing Waldbaum's and places to eat where Ricky and his friends used to go for lunch on school days. (Yes, young people, elementary school children could leave by themselves to buy lunch in a shopping center.)

We walked along routes Ricky took as a kid and past bus stops. ("The Q41 takes you right to the A train.") Everything in view was immaculately maintained without a splash of graffiti to be seen anywhere.

We wound our way along to the highlight of the day, which was New Park Pizzeria. Eating at this 55-year-old, family-owned restaurant is a life-changing pizza experience, and you will never be able to eat pizza anywhere else for the rest of your life. Walk up to the counter and order. No one gets toppings. No one. It's just dough, cheese and sauce. Crowd your way into a table and enjoy.

After this meal, we were ready to walk a bit more. Remodeled houses sat squeezed into tiny lots with their Santa Clauses and reindeer and crèches crammed onto every available inch.

"Crazy Joe Gallo used to give out candy," Ricky said as we passed a corner house made of brick. And then he corrected himself. "No, it was his brother."

The neighborhood ended at an overgrown field. Even though we were the only people out walking, Ricky leaned in and lowered his voice.

"They used to find bodies all the time in these high weeds," he said.

And with that, we ended our tour and got back on the bus.

My Emoji Imagination

I just got a smartphone. Yesterday. Before that I had a...phone phone. It made calls. It could text. It could take pictures, but not sufficiently for my needs. (By that I mean, the day I saw an alligator in the neighborhood, the picture I took made it look like a sort-of-alligator-shaped shadow in the distance.)

If you are a regular reader of this blog, you know that I am a bit technology resistant. I gave up on our TV system long ago. Laptops seem to crash whenever I walk into a room. So adapting to this new device that could probably take the place of my brain if I set it up properly is a big adjustment for me.

Except for one part: emojis. I love emojis! When people used to send me emojis on my old phone, the images came out as weird empty boxes. But now I can see them! And even more importantly, send them! My new very favorite thing to do as of 10 minutes ago is to send random emojis that have nothing to do with whatever messages are going back and forth between me and the other person.

Me to daughter at college: How are you doing?
Daughter: Studying for finals.
Me: Hang in there. (emoji of bunnies followed by a choo-choo train followed by something that looks like sumo wrestlers)

The funniest part of all this is that people are somehow finding meaning behind my randomness.

Daughter: Do you mean I am the Little Engine That Could?

No! But okay! I'll take it. So now the obvious question is: Can absolutely any emoji make sense at any time? And what if I just send a whole line of emojis? Toilet, camel, helicopter, winky face. Who even needs words? How could I possibly make a sentence with words that could top toilet, camel, helicopter, winky face?

Obviously, I can't. So all I have to say is:

An Iggy Situation

Ricky keeps walking around whistling "Fancy." I must figure out a way to make him stop.

When I first heard of Iggy Azalea, I didn't know what that was. I had heard of Iggy Pop, who is the closest rival to Keith Richards for the "Ancient Rock Star Who Looks Like He Should Be Dead" award. And I knew that an azalea was a flowering shrub. But because I am around young people all day, I did eventually find out that Iggy Azalea is a musical artist, and her big hit song is the one with the catchy line, "I'm so fancy."

I must say it has just taken every ounce of self control I have to keep from putting quotation marks of sarcasm around musical artist. That's because several weeks ago I saw Iggy Azalea perform (more desire to put quote marks) on "Saturday Night Live." Here I will give you a description of what I saw.

A young, blond Australian woman wearing fake, lumpy padding on her butt walked around on stage while sticking that butt out in a series of awkward poses while talking over canned music playing in the background as professional dancers worked really, really hard over-dancing in double time around her. Miss Flowering Shrub paused from talking (thought not butt posing) periodically so that someone else whose name I do not know could actually sing the verse, the part of the song my husband has been whistling.

Yes, I know there has been a long tradition of hit songs with catchy hooks by singers who are not overly talented. But at least those singers sing the song! Their voices may be auto-tuned, but at least they move their mouths and have the lyrics come out. And while I am not a fan of rap, I will admit that good rap artists have talent in the same way of performers of poetry or literature who present material in an engaging way. But in the SNL performance I saw, literally anyone can do what Iggy Azalea did. Anyone.

Now here's this in the news: Last month at the American Music Awards, Azalea won best rap/hip-hop album, and this month she will be honored at the Billborad Women in Music Awards.

If I could whistle, my tune right now would be a requiem for the music industry.

Aging and Jake Gyllenhaal

I haven't posted on this blog for awhile because two people very dear to me experienced major medical mishaps. For one of them, it involved her lung, for the other, her brain. I think we can all agree that those are very important body parts and that having a mishap with those is pretty distressing. Both women are on the mend now, lung a little ahead of brain, but they are going in the right direction. This has calmed me enough to take a moment to have a midlife crisis about turning 50 this past week.

None of my other birthdays has ever impacted me. That's because everyone is older than I am. Now, you may be thinking: "That's not possible, Rhonda. There's a rather large percentage of the world's population that's younger than you are." But, no. You are wrong.

I was born a late-in-life "surprise" baby. My sisters were in high school and college when I was born. That means that I am the baby. Am. Still. Forever. Not only am I the baby sister, but in my extended family, I am also the baby cousin. Still. Forever. Whenever I have a birthday, it makes other people feel old, not me.

Plus, I married Ricky, who is 7 years older than I am. He has a large circle of childhood friends. When we hang out with them, I am always the youngest. They will be talking about music or life events that I can't exactly relate to, and then everyone is reminded: "Oh, Rhonda is only age X." ONLY.

But this effect is often counteracted by my being a high school teacher. I spend five days a week around 200 people who were born somewhere between 1997 and 2000. Yes, 2000! Last week I mentioned to one class that the last time I was in New York, I was in a small theater in Chelsea that had a big celebrity in the audience. I gleefully said to them: "It was Jake Gyllenhaal!"

Silence. No reaction. And then one girl said, "Who's that?"

That's right. I was in a room full of people for whom Jake Gyllenhaal is TOO OLD to be culturally relevant. Yet Jake Gyllenhaal is TOO YOUNG for me. Midlife crisis.

So I was complaining to my friend who is recovering from major lung surgery about how I am having a midlife crisis.

"I want to go backpacking through Europe!" I whined.

"You can still do something like that," she said in her comforting, always practical way. "They have these hostels where you can stay, elderhostels."

Elderhostels! If I am having a midlife crisis, I do not want to stay somewhere that has elder in the name! I did not yell this at her because I am very compassionate. But still.

I'll just have to console myself yet again with the fact that Lenny Kravitz is my age. (Click on Lenny to see why that is a source of comfort.)

P.S. Ricky's reaction when previewing this post was: "Jake Gyllenhaal is not too young for you. You are too old for Jake Gyllenhaal."

Getting Involved (with my neck)

Something crazy has been going on in my neck and shoulder area ever since we moved into our new house. I tried my very best to ignore it for about two months, but the mysterious tingling sensation running down my right arm and painful twinges behind my should blade wouldn't give up. I went to a doctor.

She started poking different parts of my right shoulder area and moving my arm around. How's this? How's this? How's this? Poke. Lift. Lower. Circle. Poke. Nothing, nothing, nothing. Then...

Me: "Yikes!"

Conclusion: rotator cuff and unspecified neck problem. Two different things. I've only heard about rotator cuff injuries in relation to swimmers and baseball pitchers. I don't have any issue with giving up my nonexistent dreams for those two careers. But the tingling sensation I get when trying to tie my shoes is a problem.

Doctor: "Instead of bending down to your shoe, bring your foot up to you. And try not to involve your neck."

The doctor completely lost my attention then. Instead of listening to the rest of what she was saying about ibuprofen and ice packs and vitamins, I started to think about how the word involve is normally used.

No need to involve the police.
She's too involved in everybody's business.
Why did I get involved with that loser?

Try not to involve your neck. The more I thought about it, I realized how intrinsically involved in my life my neck has been. What body parts can I move without involving my neck? If my neck were a government employee, it would be one of those "essential" employees that always have to report to work even when there's a hurricane coming.

I went home and announced to my family that I cannot involve my neck, so until I am deemed recovered, they will have to perform all duties related to my compulsive need for order. This includes but is not limited to: straightening crooked chairs or other furniture, stacking objects on shelves in a way that is to my liking, putting the milk container on the refrigerator shelf I indicate is appropriate.

After all, why should the pain in the neck be only mine?

Teacher planning marks the end of summer

It's teacher planning week! I know I'm back at school because:

1. I ate two and a half donuts today.

2. All photocopiers in the general vicinity are broken.

3. Words like rubric and curriculum and percentiles are being bandied about.

4. I've been getting hungry for lunch at 11 a.m. (even after two and a half donuts).

5. Finding a box of dry erase markers felt like winning the Lotto.

6.  9 p.m. is feeling like a perfectly normal bedtime.

7.  I feel compelled to tell strangers to put their phones away.

8. The mirror in the bathroom is made out of some unknown fun-house metal instead of glass.

9. I've been hearing people in whispered negotiations over LCD projectors, podiums and copies of paperback titles.

10. I almost couldn't go home because my car was surrounded by tubas in the parking lot.

11. I received a piece of paper that says I will be in charge of 209 teen-age humans on Monday.

Feeding Facebook

The person who always posts a picture on Facebook for Throwback Thursday is: (fill in the blank). Someone popped into your mind, right? Think about it. As you scroll through your Facebook feed, you probably can intuitively identify who posted what before you've even fully focused on it.

Animals that need to be adopted. Quick, who posts it? Not that it needs to be only one person. I often find it fascinating that I have Facebook friends who don't know each other who have so much in common. (In this case, they're making me want to adopt all the puppies!)

Running! Who came to mind? I have friends who are attending the same events who don't know each other, and I wonder if I should introduce them. Is that weird? Does it break Facebook etiquette somehow?

There are also people who love:
quizzes that tell you what TV character or decade or city you are or what your Martian name is. (I got Goofus. Which character are you?)

And those on your feed who are always posting:
math brain teasers; the latest movie; motivational sayings; motorcycles; horses; prayers; musical theater; a particular sports team; comic book conventions; environmental issues; froth-filled Starbucks cups; pictures of Ryan Gosling saying something romantic; cartoon women saying something sassy; personal medical ailments; recipes that are healthy; recipes that are incredibly fattening! 

Wouldn't it be fun to mess with everyone if you are, say, a running post person and today you post a really fattening recipe? Or if math person posts a puppy picture? Let's all break our own stereotypes! Let's stick it to the man! (Oh, yeah, protest person. That's another one.)

And of course, I, too, am feeding the Facebook feed. I'm the person who always puts the link to her blog.

High Def Romance

"You look good up close," Ricky said to me.

We were sitting side by side on a park bench, causing him to have to look through the lower part of his progressive glasses in order for him to focus on my face. This gave him the air of someone inspecting a piece of fruit he was considering purchasing.

"When I was in Best Buy looking at the HD TVs," Ricky continued, "James Spader was on the screens and it was terrible. I don't mean the TVs. The picture quality was great. I mean James Spader looked terrible. Time and HD has not been kind to James Spader. You look much better than James Spader."

I tried to remember if I've seen James Spader lately. It seems to me I've glimpsed him in ads for something, maybe a TV show. I decided to take this comment in the flattering spirit in which it was given. (This is one of those tricks to staying happily married.)

"Thanks," I said. "And who says you're not romantic."

I started to imagine if Ricky were to develop his own line of greeting cards. Front of card: To my darling on our anniversary. Inside of card: (Picture of James Spader) You are more lovely than James Spader in High Definition.

Or, how about a game show with this concept? The audience would vote on who looks better, the contestant or Famous Person X. It would start on Level 1 with less demanding comparisons, like Keith Richards or child actors now in their 20s or celebs with terrible plastic surgery. Then the levels would get more challenging all the way up to supermodels in their prime.

My thoughts were interrupted when Ricky added one more comment.

"And you're not wearing makeup," he said. "I bet James Spader was wearing a lot of makeup."

I'm a hashtag idiot

I don't understand how people decide what hashtags to use. Whenever I post a link on Twitter to one of my blog posts, the hashtag that I randomly come up with never seems to be one that pops up in the magical list of tags. For my last post about not wanting to hold babies, I typed in #babies and a list came up that had one of the top selections as #babiesareexpensive. That's a popular tag? I clearly do not have my finger on the pulse of pop culture.

Another issue I have with hashtags is the words running together, like in the expensive babies one. I was watching ESPN this morning and noticed they had a hashtag (or maybe it was an @ thingy) that said #watchespn. I read this as "watches pn." I know that's not what they meant, but that's how my brain wanted it.

There is a reason why spaces and punctuation were created. Thoughts need some space, which means words need some space. And if life is about being creative and individual, then why is it a good skill to come up with the same hashtags as everyone else? Unless you're in marketing.

I have been at events where someone will announce that everyone should use #thisthingIamtellingyou. I have never followed that suggestion. I guess that means I'm #missingoutonsomething. This may make me a hashtag idiot, but I am definitely not a #idiot.

Hold the Baby

I don't want to hold your baby.

It's not that I don't like babies. I can recognize their cuteness as well as the next guy. It's just that I've never been one of those people who sees a baby and says: "Ooh! Can I hold him?"

So of course this means that babies love me. It's like cats. If a group of people enters a home containing a cat, the cat will know right away which visitor hates cats and then only want to go sit on that person's head.

People will often say that babies or animals love them as a type of brag. The theory is that babies and animals know who the "good" people are, so if these innocent creatures love you, you must be on par with Mother Teresa. This is a false conclusion. I think babies like people who don't freak them out. Think back to when you were a small child. Remember the old lady who always wanted to squish your cheeks or pick you up or give you sloppy kisses? Scary, right? Can't you just see her swooping in on you?

Now picture this. I am sitting at the gate in the airport waiting several hundreds of hours for my flight. There is a 3-year-old toddling around. Her exhausted parents are chasing after her, feeding her Cheerios, letting her suck on their iPhones. They momentarily collapse in despair. She toddles my way. The baby and I make eye contact.

What do I do? I make a face. Quick. Subtle. Not a big oogly, woogly face. Just a little raise of one eyebrow. Or maybe a sly smirk or knowing nod. No one else sees. The baby freezes in her tracks. She keeps staring at my face. Will it happen again? No. That's it. We've made a spiritual connection that leaves me free of any miniature-person body fluids and/or hair pulling. No need to hold the baby.

But now the baby is intrigued. She comes closer. She offers me her Cheerios and her parents' cellphones. Does this mean I'm a saint? Well, hmm. I didn't accept the cellphones, so there's that.

My doggie doo-doo it brilliantly

Wherein I will attempt to convince you that my dog is the most brilliant dog of all based on where she has poop accidents.

My dog only has accidents in the bathroom.

This may not impress you. You may be thinking that once a dog has an accident somewhere, she may out of habit just keep doing it there. But there's more!

In our previous house, we had three bathrooms that were in three different corners of the house. At different times over the years, we came home to find that Daisy had had accidents in each of those three bathrooms, always on the tile.

Still not impressed? Listen to this. At night, Daisy sleeps in our bedroom. We close the door, which she definitely cannot open. We also partially close the door to the bathroom, which she can push open. Our previous bedroom was carpeted. When Daisy had to have an accident in the middle of the night, she would push open the bathroom door and go in the bathroom on the tile.

Now you may be saying, maybe the dog just likes going on tile. Ha! Then listen to this. Our new house has tile everywhere. There is no carpet in the house at all. At night, we close the bedroom door as usual. Last night Daisy went into the NEW bathroom -- which has the same tile as the bedroom -- and had an accident there! Brilliant!

Clearly, Daisy understands what a bathroom is for. Now would someone please invent a doggie toilet? Then we'd be all set.

Parade of the Workmen

Yesterday my closet door fell on me. But, huzzah! I gracefully caught it, and then yelled for Ricky to come take it from me as I was slowly sinking under its weight.

We've been in our new house for three weeks now. (Yay!) No more extended-stay motel. (Yay!) We have our own beds. We have our own stuff. (Yay and ahhh.) The cockapoo is no longer confused, and she has reclaimed her favorite chairs and couches and pillows into which she curls up. (Woof!)

The only thing now standing between us and our suburban serenity is the repairs. There is nothing majorly wrong with the house, but every little thing is a little off. Or missing. Or needs a little love, as they say on HGTV. One of the most important first purchases was the spools for the toilet paper holders. And that, folks, is the extent to which Ricky and I know how to repair anything.

So there has been a parade: appliance delivery and installation, pressure cleaning and painting, tree trimming, cable/phone/Internet installation, alarm setup, caulking, exterminating, minor roof fixing. Each of these tasks has been done by a different person or set of people. It has been three weeks of color swatches, toilet kits, door knobs, and light bulbs.

But it is home.

Warning: Cuban food required after this movie

We went to see "Chef" before dinner. Okay, maybe now it seems an obvious tactical error. Food preparation has never been my thing, so I thought I'd be immune, but, alas, I am not immune to seeing delicious food prepared over and over again when I haven't had dinner yet. Ricky and I walked out of the theater ravenous and headed directly to a nearby Peruvian restaurant that also serves Cuban food. Evening saved!

"Chef" is one of those little movies. I don't know much about being a movie star, but I've read a lot about how actors get tired of making big-ticket action/drama/romance/commercial films and like to take a break periodically to do something more artsy, something smaller. "Chef" apparently fit that criteria for Scarlett Johansson, Dustin Hoffman, Sofia Vergara, John Leguizamo, Bobby Cannavale, Oliver Platt, Robert Downey, Jr., Amy Sedaris and Jon Favreau, the film's lead.

Are you a Food Network junkie? Do you like movies with big stars? Do you like sentimentality? Romance? Parent/child/divorce/family issues? Personal quests? Social media? Road trips? Buddy films? A happy ending? There's an awful lot stuffed into this little movie, not the least of which is a Miami-born Cuban sandwich that sent us directly to dinner after the closing credits.

If you're looking for explosions and/or sex scenes, this is not the movie you want. But if you're looking for a more updated menu, try "Chef."

A Moving Experience

Two trucks came and took all our stuff away. That's how much stuff there was after living in our house for 16 years: one giant moving truck was not enough! We needed a bonus baby truck!

I know I have always bragged about how much I love throwing everything out; I am the opposite of a hoarder and I inflict that philosophy on the rest of my family. Even so, we had way, way, way too much stuff in our lives. At least, that's how I see it now.

What has made the experience even weirder, even more disorienting, though, is that we didn't have a new place to move into yet. The big giant truck and the smaller auxiliary truck were taking our accumulation to a warehouse out of our sight for an unknown amount of time. In the meantime, for almost two weeks now, we have been living in an extended-stay hotel with our very confused 13-year-old cockapoo. It's not really a hotel. It's more of a motel. A motel that accepts dogs.

I have developed a newly-found empathy for itinerant workers. It's strange not having your home, even if you're a busy person who's not there very much. You may not realize it, but your home is in your head all the time, even when you're not thinking about it. You know where your stuff is. Your stuff helps identify you, helps set parameters for your life. All the clothes you're not wearing right this minute are still speaking to you from your closet. All the pots and placemats, the toothbrush holders and tennis rackets, the endless supply of decorative candles in glass votives (I never want to pack another glass item ever again!) are all part of you in a subliminal way.

Back at the motel, we're stepping over suitcases and containers of dog food. Everything is unfamiliar and waiting to trip me or make me bang my knee into a corner of furniture. But we do finally know where we're going and hope to be moving there in one more week. (Oh, the vagaries of real estate paperwork!)

I'm not sure where the other people staying at the motel are headed: the group of children who are often playing in the parking lot; the guy who was under his big old car trying to fix it one day by banging on it really loudly; the woman walking the schnauzer; the guy who's up on the catwalk every night talking in Spanish on his cellphone for two hours.

For me and my family it's just a short while until we will get reunited with our stuff and turn this experience into our moving story. Once we get settled, there will still be more things that I'm going to need to throw out, but the memory of this won't be one of them.

Little failures add up in Shteyngart's memoir

This book is for everyone who struggles, whether with the external forces of the physical world or the internal arguments of the mind. Oh, and it's also funny.

Gary Shteyngart's memoir "Little Failure" explains everything about him and, in the process, explains the lives of everyone who's ever been out. You know, people who wear the wrong clothes or speak with the wrong accent or who have parents who JUST DON'T GET IT because they've struggled, too. People who are in will never understand, although this memoir does a pretty great job of trying to get them to.

Before reading "Little Failure," I had had two other completely opposite experiences with Shteyngart's writing: I began to read "Absurdistan" and disliked it so much I gave up; and I read "Super Sad True Love Story" and think it is perhaps the best book of its time about its time. (If you want to laugh at every single element of cultural folly in present day America, read "Super Sad.")

"Absurdistan" was too cruel for me. The level of selfishness and meanness did me in and made me give up. But what I didn't know then was that "Absurdistan" and Shteyngart's first novel "The Russian Debutante's Handbook" are drawn so closely from his absurd/Russian life that they are almost hallucinatory versions of "Little Failure," the title of which comes from his mother's affectionate esteem-squelching term for him.

As I closed the book on the final page, I was left to nurse a pounding memoir hangover: Wow. What a life. What struggles. We are carried through his Soviet-era childhood that finishes up as an American childhood, teenhood, college life. It is nothing like my own life, yet so much like my own life.

My parents were old. They grew up in the Depression. They raised me in the 1970s and '80s era of designer labels and excess. I was out. Very out. And while I wasn't sent to school looking like a baby Russian bear (in a smelly fur coat) and I didn't have a language barrier, there was meanness in my life and the internal struggles that came along with it.

There are others of you out there, too. You'll like this book. In between laughing and cringing and maybe crying a little, you'll cheer for Gary. Each life has little failures that can add up. And in Shteyngart's case, they add up to success that can encourage us all.

This observation is amazeballs

Dear people who drive under speed in the left lane on the highway:
WHY DO YOU DO THAT?

If I can manage to get around such drivers, I always peek into their cars to see what they look like, as if that's going to explain anything. Although, I will say I've noticed they often have a zombie-like, forward-staring, got-the-blinders-on look about them. Or, they're on the phone.

This gets to my next topic of complaint: EVERYONE IS ON THE PHONE. And by everyone, I mean everyone. All the time. Every person walking, driving, eating, shopping, sleeping, working. Every. One.

Most questions about odd human behavior can be answered in the following way:
Why is that person not pushing the elevator button? Oh, he's on the phone.
Why is that person not moving up in line? Oh, she's on the phone.
Why doesn't that person see that he is changing lanes into another car? Oh, he's...

I long for the olden days when people were actually invested in the here and the now. I am in this room with you right now, so I will talk to you right now. Wow! Awesome! Amazeballs! (These are old-timey expressions of delight in contrast with today's LOL, ROFL, and OMG.)

So, if you're going to drive on the highway and/or ride in an elevator and/or stand in a line and/or move about among other humans, please raise your eyeballs to the world that's in front of you and around you. Can I get an Amazeballs?

Get ready for a lizard pic

Mystery Lizard

This is not the fat curly-tailed lizard. This is a completely different, over-sized mystery lizard clinging to the screen on the inside of our patio. At first I thought it was a baby alligator, other than that it is obviously not. So, I decided to do extensive research -- and by that I mean, I posted the picture on Facebook and asked people what it is.

Here are some of the responses. The lizard is:
icky
Ricky
from Cuba

Wow, thanks Facebook friends! That was a big help.

In the meantime, this raises so many more questions. What happened to the fat, curly-tailed lizard? Did it morph into this? Did it have a turf war with this one and lose? How did this new creature get onto the patio? Why is it clinging to the screen? Why is it not running away from my hand? (Which is there just to show you how big the lizard is. But the lizard doesn't know that!) Is this lizard ready to have a turf war with me?

I will ponder these questions until we meet again. Hasta luego, possibly-Cuban Mystery Lizard. Hasta luego.

Beware of low-flying ducks

"This is the same place where that duck flew onto my car," said our daughter Amy.

Ricky and I looked at her as we drove along. What?

"Oh, didn't I tell you about that?"

Um, no. We think we would remember that story.

Before she gives us the details, I need to explain something for those outside of South Florida. Ducks here are not like other ducks.Their rotund bodies have a low center of gravity. They are mostly black with some white markings, and have a red beak area that is reminiscent of a turkey's wattle. Actually, these so-called ducks look much more like turkeys than they do those sleek mallard ducks I imagine seeing in paintings hanging fireside in a hunting lodge.

Because of their disproportionately large and round bodies, these ducks do not look like they can fly. But they can -- sort of. Every once in awhile you'll see one take off and become airborne, in which case everyone's reaction is always the same: "That can fly?!" Or, maybe: "Look! That duck-like bird is flying!"

I've seen this a few times during my 30 years of living in Florida. The airborne turkey-duck is rare and quite memorable. And also dangerous. That's because they can't seem to get more than five feet off the ground.

Now, Amy continues her story.

"I was driving right here with my friend in the car. And she said, 'Duck!' So, I ducked. But then a duck flew into the car kind of. It was on the hood and it walked across the hood."

While you were still driving?

"Yes. It walked across. But I think it was okay. And then after, we looked behind us but we didn't see it anywhere."

So, the next time you're driving in Florida, and someone yells "Duck!" make sure you hit the brakes.

We tried to get the fat lizard, and here's what happened.

Ricky and I continued to experience ambivalence all weekend about the fat, curly-tailed lizard that was lurking on our patio. We had decided to leave it alone. But then Ricky saw it sunning itself, taunting us. There it was in all its resplendent reptilian-ness. It was near the entrance to one of its hideouts, the tunnel-like hurricane shutter track closest to the screen door.

"Keep your eye on it!" Ricky commanded from the living room as he headed toward the garage.

Watching through the sliding glass door, I kept my eye on it. I had a particularly good view of its super-curly tail, the end that was facing me.

"Okay, lizard butt," I thought to myself. "I'm watching you."

Ricky returned holding a broom and started to touch the lock on the sliding door so he could step out onto the patio. So focused! So brave! As soon as the lock made the opening click sound, the fat lizard zipped right into one of the open ends of its track/tunnel/lair. Ricky was undeterred. He went back to the garage, and this time returned with a second item: a metal tape-measure.

"Okay," Ricky said. "One of us will unspool the tape measure into this side of the track and force the fat lizard to run out the other side. Then, the other one of us will sweep it out the screen door. Which one do you want to do?"

This was a big decision.

"I'll do the sweeping," I said.

We propped the screen door open. Ricky went to the far end of the track, sat down on the floor, and leaned forward so he could thread the tape measure into the opening. It unwound and unwound, further and further into the track, while I waited at the other end, broom poised, watching for the fat lizard to come out.

And then it worked! The fat lizard poked its rather sizable head out! But it took one look at me standing there with the broom and disappeared right back inside.

Ricky started jiggling the tape measure to scare the lizard out. He kept threading more and more tape measure into the tunnel until the metal tip poked out all the way through to the other end. The lizard was still inside.

"This isn't working," I said. "He must have enough room to avoid the tape measure."

I stood forlorn as Ricky began to retract the tape measure. It made it about halfway back. And then it got stuck. Really stuck.

I will stop the story here, because our only victory in this adventure was that after enlisting several more items from the garage and strategizing for about a half hour, we did eventually get the tape measure out. And we did not injure ourselves or break anything. But, THE FAT, CURLY-TAILED LIZARD IS STILL LIVING ON OUR PATIO.

Return of the Fat Lizard

We hadn't seen the fat curly-tailed lizard on our patio for a couple of months. We thought it had left, moved on to some trendier fat-lizard location. But we were wrong. Ricky looked out the sliding door this morning and said: "There's the fat lizard."

He said it so calmly that it didn't register to me at first.

"What?" I said. "Did you say you saw the fat lizard?"

"Yes," said Ricky. "Look over there by the angled wall."

And there it was. After months of being missing, our nemesis was back. (See my post dated 9/2/13.) And it was even bigger and fatter than before! We stared, frozen in shock for a moment.

"Amy!" I yelled to our teen daughter who always has cellphone at hand. "Can you come get a picture of the fat lizard?"

But then it was gone in a flash, back into the place we had previously seen it go: the space in the bottom of the track for the accordion hurricane shutters.

"I can try to chase it out of there," Ricky said, "but then it always runs into another hole. If I chase it out, do you want to try to sweep it with a broom toward the screen door?"

I sighed. We both mulled this over for a few moments.

"Let's try to do it," I said. But Ricky was already having second thoughts.

"But it hasn't been causing any problems," Ricky said. "It hasn't been making any doodies."

"Where are the doodies?" I asked.

Ricky and I stared at each other.

"I don't want to know where the doodies are," he said.

I'll never be a teacher-ninja

Why do I always feel like I'm sneaking out of school early when I leave on time? Maybe it's because I, like pretty much every teacher and particularly like every school newspaper adviser, stay after school almost always.

Even though at my school we are lucky enough to have newspaper as a class (whereas at many places with less funding and less support in general, newspaper may only be an after-school club, if it exists at all), we still stay after school for editor meetings, mini-workshops, brainstorming, planning the pages, layout days, overflow editing time and more.

This past week, we didn't have any of those particular events, so on Monday through Thursday, I left only about a half hour late. (Face it, unless you are a teacher-ninja, you're never leaving EXACTLY on time.) But on Friday, it was the deadline for the Florida Scholastic Press Association's digital contest entries along with the deadline for something called the Quick-Turn contests. So, a few of my students needed to stay after to finish their entries, which I would then digitally submit.

The last bell rang on Friday, and the school gradually emptied out. Except for me and about 10 students. And, yes, there are other teachers who sponsor active clubs that also remain behind on days like this. While everyone else embraced that woo-hoo! feeling of the weekend, we stragglers knew we had one or two or three more hours to go. We late-staying teachers know who we are. We have our mutual sighs and head nods of familiarity when we pass each other in the halls. And the evening custodians are our besties. (Actually, the custodians usually look at me like they're worried I'm going to mess up the freshly-mopped floor. I try to tip-toe out as delicately as possible.)

I left school at close to 6 p.m. yesterday, making it more than a 10-hour work day. It is one in a long line of long days.

Next week, we are heading into the deadline period for our March issue, so there will be days when as many as 60, maybe 70, newspaper kids will be in my room laying out pages, munching, talking, leaving behind an inordinate quantity of half-consumed water bottles, forgetting to put the camera cords back in the closet, feeling proud of what they created or freaking out because an important file got deleted somehow.

By now you've probably guessed this next part: I and pretty much every teacher, and particularly every school newspaper adviser, donate all these hours of our time because we see how important it is for our students, and we feel really good knowing that. But it would also be nice if the people who formulate education policy in this country would show us a little love.

Hands Up

I took my Journalism 1 students for a walk around our college-style open campus in order to do some observational writing. And, okay, it was gorgeous outside on Valentine's Day Friday with the bluest of blue skies, chirping birds flitting from palm tree to palm tree, and low attendance on what was yet another senior skip day.

About 25 of my 36 students were present in third period, and we shuffled along the outdoor catwalk, down the steps to the courtyard where some JROTC kids dressed in grey t-shirts and blue gym shorts had an informal soccer game going in a grassy area.

"Listen to the birds chirping," I said. "Look at the JROTC kids."

Some of them listened and looked around. Some jotted notes on paper. Some pretended to jot notes on their phones. Some chatted, chewed gum, waved or shouted hello to friends walking by in the distance.

As we returned to the building, we walked past the ESE room for special needs students, past some foreign language classrooms, then math classes, and the restrooms. A tall boy with broad shoulders and bushy, curly dark hair stood still in the middle of the hall facing our shuffling, chatting, texting, gum-chewing group as we approached. He didn't move at all as we came upon him, so my class had to split to walk around him on each side. As this happened, the boy raised his hands up as if soliciting high fives, and my students all obliged as they walked by, not breaking stride or even pausing in their conversations as they did so.

After we passed, I asked one girl, "Do you know him?"

"No," she said. "He's one of the ESE kids."

It was my turn to make an observation now. You know what? These kids are pretty freaking nice. And this wound up being the perfect way to mark Valentine's Day.

Getting stoked about the Olympics

I don't mind that the event analysts for the Winter Olympics sound like they're at the X Games or on a Red Bull commercial (which is pretty much the same thing). No, it's perfectly fine if they're "stoked" about someone getting "lots of air." What's driving me nuts, though, is that I would like them to actually explain what the heck is going on in the events.

The announcers need to remember that most of the audience for the winter games only watches downhill or short track or moguls once very four years. It's fast, it's pretty, it's fun. But we need the analysts to tell us why the big, swirly, twirly jump that looked fabulous to us was actually so awful that it has knocked that competitor out of his dreams.

During women's downhill skiing, the announcer kept mentioning "a lot of terrain." Over and over she kept saying that phrase like it was a big challenge: "Now that she's past the turns, she needs to deal with a lot of terrain." But isn't skiing on a lot of terrain like swimming in a lot of water? What did she actually mean? Is the snow not as deep as it should be? Are there fewer moments when the skier is airborne? Is the terrain not as smooth as it should be?

Watching the moguls, I saw men ski as fast as they could over severe yet oddly uniform bumps. Their progress was interrupted at two designated spots by little ramps up which the competitors flung themselves, spiraling upside down and into all sorts of astounding configurations. The announcer for this event employed the word "Oh!" with different levels of emphasis as the only clue to the skier's success on each jump.

As in: "Oh!" (Happy inflection.) "He really laid out!" (This must be a good thing.)
Or: "Oh!" (Upset inflection.) "He's out of the running for a medal now." (This is very bad.)
But both jumps looked the same to me. Tell us what the difference was, announcer guy!

One educational moment came when a man stood between two different skis stuck upright in the snow. He explained that the long, skinny ski is a downhill ski and the short, fat ski is a slalom ski. He then said that the downhill ski doesn't turn easily whereas the slalom ski "can turn on a dime and give you back nine cents change."

Um, what? I started trying to figure out this metaphor. Let's see. A dime is 10 cents, but it's physically the smallest coin but a penny is less but actually larger so if you if you turn on a dime and get nine cents...oh, forget it.

Maybe I'll be able to follow it all better if I have a Red Bull.

Out with the Old

Call me cold. Call me heartless. But most of all, call me clutter free.

I really, really love throwing things out. The house sighs ahhhh as I carry out bags full of old clothes, toys, garage junk, whatever. There's a stretching and expanding of the walls and the house oozes a feeling of contentment, just like when Daisy the cockapoo stretches and makes little rumbly purring noises when she gets up after a long nap.

Often, I have to discard items when none of my family members are around. They just don't seem to get the same level of joy out of it as I do. I can tell by the way they come running at me yelling NOOOO whenever they see me with armloads of their clothes. Geez, what's the big deal? Can't they see that my work is for good, not for evil?

So, I do as much as I can without them around, but sometimes I do need their input. When that happens, I try to explain as calmly as possible as we're playing tug-of-war over, say, an old T-shirt, that it only hurts for a minute, and then they won't even remember they used to own it.

"But you didn't even remember you had this!" I'll yell while tugging.

"But I remember now!" will yell one of my assorted children or husband.

"But you haven't worn it in three years!" Tug, tug, tug. "And it doesn't even fit!"

"But it might fit if I lose weight! Or ungrow two inches in height!"

They are clearly irrational. That's why all the pressure is on me to keep us from being buried alive in old shoes, clothes, school papers, trophies, rusty tools, near empty shampoo and lotion bottles, frayed stuffed animals, theater programs, party favors, and shopping bags filled with nothing but tissue paper. And more.

Wait, did I say trophies? As in prizes for valued achievements? Yes. Yes, I did. They take up room and get dusty. Do you think I'm heartless? Well, think what you will. I have an uncluttered conscience -- and house, which I'm pretty sure I can hear making a noise right now. And that's ahhhh.