A View From the Peanut Galerìa

Thursday, June 4, 2009

Here I sit, peering down from the galerìa, or balcony of our home-away-from home at Pedrito and Arelis house in Hato Mayor outside Santiago, Dominican Republic. Pedrito just left on his motocicleta and Arelis is at work for a while longer. My girl left for home this morning. I hope she makes it through customs okay. I pray her flight is smooth and she arrives home safe and sound. The recent loss of a plane carrying 200+ people over the ocean does nothing to ease my worries. Gotta have faith.

So here I am. Alone for two weeks with my friends who speak no English. Me who barely understands Spanish. Barely. I wanted to go on an adventure and here I am. I'm very curious as to what this adventure will bring me. My adventures will be limited to what I can do with my friends as I will not be left alone except for brief moments like this. Pedrito is very protective. I'm amazed that he let me walk around the corner alone to use the internet this morning. Usually, he goes with us and waits. I feel as if I need to rush because it can't be much fun for him. He is a good and generous host. It is my only contact with the technological world and I need it like I need water and food. There is a TV in the kitchen, but it has only been on one time in a week and that was to entertain a 4 yr old boy who can't sit still. World news has been fleeting. With limited time on the internet, I forget to check out news websites. It is strangely discomforting and comforting at the same time. A throwback to simpler times.

Things will get much simpler still next week when we head to the other side of the country to a more remote area, Los Patos. I love Los Patos. That is a story in itself. I am looking forward to seeing Arelis grandmother again. She will be 121 years old this year. No lie. She was born in 1888!

I am scarfing cookies like no tomorrow. Cookies are my downfall and I bought a package at the supermercado last night when Jordan and I went to stock up on vanilla (the best anywhere! Makes for a great and cheap gift). Anyway, I love cookies and was having a bit of withdrawal. Arelis is a good cook and has filled my belly with typical Dominican food---red beans and white rice, plantains, yucca, lachosa, mango, pineapple, mangoo! Mangoo is a dish made of mashed plantains. Yucca is like a potato only a bit denser and the flavor is different. Hard to describe, but it is yummy. She also makes delicious juices with fresh limes and oranges and melons. Chinola juice is my favorite. Chinola is the real name for Passion Fruit. LOVE it You cannot get anything in the states that tastes like it. I know, I've tried. No

comparison. We have also eaten a lot of fried salami and queso frito (fried cheese—it's the best!). My little mum always said food tastes best when you don't have to cook it yourself. Maybe so, but Arelis cooks with a lot of love, too. That adds to the flavor.

Electricity is iffy. Sometimes we have it. Sometimes we don't. There are two or three car batteries hooked up outside the kitchen that serves the electric for the downstairs. Three more feed the supply for the newly constructed upstairs Warm showers are infrequent. With the warmth and humidity, I find I welcome the cold showers anyway. Last night, we sat in the dark talking by candlelight. Arelis cooks on a gas stove, so that is not a problem. Dominican coffee is deliciously rich and strong. We use a lot of milk and sugar. I can buy Santo Domingo coffee here by the pound for about $2 and it is a real pound, not 12 oz like at home. I usually stock up when I'm here. I hope I can fill all the orders I have from home! I bought a coffee pot like Arelis has, but my coffee still doesn't taste like hers. Maybe I'll get another lesson while I'm here.

I was stung by a wasp on Saturday. We were almost in a car accident on Tuesday. On Tuesday night, we rode a carriage around the city's monument. The monument was once erected by the dictator to honor himself. It now honors the heroes and heroines of the revolution which overthrew the government maybe twenty-five years ago. It's a beautiful and massive structure. Yesterday, we ventured to Jarabacoa (ha-rah-bah-co-ah) and ate beef and pork grilled over a fire from a little street vendor.

I know, I was nervous about it, but I figure if Arelis can eat it, so can I. No indigestion yet. Jordan bought shoes. Go figure.

Ah, Pedrito is back and Arelis just arrived home from the preschool where she teaches. Their friend, Cesar, has arrived as well. Time to go.

Maybe tomorrow I can tell you about the police captain who visits to insure the safety of the guests (me).

Adios, Amigas y Amigos!

.

Peek-a-Boob! I see you! (or how one little breast brought two worlds together...)

Peek-a-Boob! I see you!(or how one little breast brought two worlds together...)






I am sitting in the mission house of Hato Mayor in the Dominican Republic. It's early morning and I'm listening to life in the barrio awaken as I lay in bed. Life in the street is getting busy. Cars rumble along. A rooster crows nearby again and again. I'm on a two-fold purpose for this trip. First, my daughter, Jordan, is with me. This is her gift for graduating from college (yippee! At last!) The second purpose is to continue building the connection between our church and the little church we helped complete two years ago. We have just returned from a four-day stay in Puerta Plata at an all-inclusive resort and are now staying with our Dominican family, Pedrito and Arelis Marmolejos (mar-mo-lay-hos).

Our stay in the barrio is subject for other posts. For now, I just want to write about our little excursion to go snorkling at Paradise Island. I've never snorkled before, have you? It's much easier than I thought it would be to coordinate breathing through the tube and swimming with fins. The breathing came easily, I believe, because of the nose piece that covered our noses and prevented a lick of air to come through. One bit of intake through the nose created a vacuum in a hurry. Yup, one breath through the nose and I learned in a hurry that I
would be breathing through my mouth! It's a bit frightening to attempt a breath only to find there is no air. Didn't like that feeling one bit.

It was a lovely excursion. The two and a half hour bus ride to and from was not a lot of fun, although the scenery was beautiful. Paradise Island is a sand bar pretty much in the middle of nowhere. It is surrounded by a small reef. Within 20 minutes of landing, we had our snorkels and fins and were swimming with the fishes. No lesson, just sink or swim. Jordan and I swam. I have not gone swimming in the ocean for a long time. I forgot how easy it is to float in salt water. I thought I would have to work hard to swim and breath at the same time. It felt effortless and allowed us to enjoy the view below. I think there are probably more beautiful reefs to experience, but for our first time out, it was just right. Bright blue fish, yellow striped fish, tiny white fish swam by, just out of reach. Gigantic white sea urchins and sand dollars were settled helter-skelter along the sandy bottom ocean floor. The coral reef was a mass of life, seaweed waving gently with the current.

We spent two-plus hours on the island. It is not a big sandbar, maybe a little more than a tenth of a mile long and not very wide. Four or five little shelters had been set up to give a break from the sun beating down and to provide a little snack bar where freshly sliced fruit and drinks were provided. The pineapple here is to die for. Not an under ripe one to be found. Also yummy were the cantelope and oranges. So much more flavor than that found in the grocery stores at home. The drinks consisted of Coke and rum, Sprite and rum, rum, rum or rum, oh, and a little bit of water. Not being a rum girl myself, I chose the water. I got a quizzical look from the young man serving the drinks.

Anyway, we spent quite bit of time on the sandbar out of the water, as they had to take turns bringing small groups snorkeling. So Jordan and I sat and relaxed and talked and people-watched. I love to people-watch. It keeps me entertained for hours. Anyway, this one particular couple from another group caught my eye. From their accent, I could tell they were German (I actually found out later they were Austrian). He had made several trips to the bar, NOT for water. During one trip, I heard him say to the boy, “Gots to getz Mama drrrunk.” It made me chuckle. They were a couple in their seventies. He wasn't very tall, a bit shorter than me, and was of stocky build, belly round. He looked strong-like-bull. She was littler still, short gray hair and blue eyes that sparkled. I watched her quite a bit. I just loved how her roundish, seventy-year old body embraced her two piece bathing suit. The top was skimpy as bikinis go, the bottoms not quite so, but a two-piece just the same. I delighted in the lack of self-consciousness she exhibited. In fact, that is one thing I appreciate about the majority of European woman I saw---they seemed to have no care about sporting the perfect body in their bikinis. They wear them with abandon. We Americans could learn a thing or two about that.

So I watched them. Near the end of our stay on the “island”, I watched as she walked over toward a group. Something wasn't quite right, but it took my mind a minute to realize what my eyes were seeing. She was oblivious to the fact that her errant right breast had loosened itself from its bindings and was laid out there for all to see. Everything started to move in a bit of slow motion as Jordan and I watched with mouths agape. It was like we couldn't move. We stood there. I said, “Jordan, look. That little woman's boob is hanging out. She doesn't know it.” Like idiots, we stood there and watched. The woman bent over to pick up a t-shirt. “Good,” I thought, “she'll put it on before she realizes it.” Not so. She continues to walk around, oblivious. We continue to stand like idiots and watch. She walks over to her husband and they talk for several minutes. They talk for several minutes and HE NEVER SAYS ONE WORD ABOUT HER EXPOSED BREAST!! Jordan and I are just amazed at this and still we are stuck where we are standing underneath the little grass rooftop. The little woman walks away from her husband and begins to weave through the small crowd, Betty Boob pointing the way. I begin an internal battle---”go tell her, Jan.” “No, I don't want to embarrass her!” “Embarrass her, Stupid, her boob is hanging out in all its glory!!” I do a stop-start-stop-start-stop-start-STOP. What is so flipping hard about this? I tell men their flies are unzipped all the time! Sheesh! The final straw comes when Jordan points out two women in their twenties who are laughing and pointing at her. That is IT. Stupid bimbos. I walk up to her. I point. She looks at me confused. She holds up her t-shirt toward me like that's what I might want. I shake my head and point again. She just looks at me with a puzzled expression on her face. Finally, I lightly touch my hand to her chest (No, NOT on her breast, silly!) She looks down and exclaims loudly, “OHH!!” She puts the girl away and then grabs me in a hug. We laugh, laugh, laugh, then she starts going on about her husband not saying a word. She hugs me again. He walks over. She berates him. He shrugs his shoulders and says to us nonchalantly, “I know what she's gots.” Pause. “And she knows whats I'ves gots, too!” He chuckles. We all laugh. She smacks his arm and says something to him in German. We talk for several minutes, but too soon it is time to go. We wave our good-byes and head toward our separate boats.

Shortly after a boat ride and a quick trip to a Dominican restaurant, we meet up briefly again. We invite them to join us at our table and we sit and eat. We learn their names are Peter and Eva and they are from Austria. They have been married about 15 years. We learn much in such a little amount of time. She is his second wife. He has one boy and a granddaughter. She has two children. They like to travel. He lived 50 years in Canada and was an engineer. She was an only child. She was conceived when her mother was barely 16. Her father was the first man her mother had “been with” and she was conceived the first time “they were together”. And kids think it can't happen to them. Ha. Her father was later killed in the war (WWII). They are just delightful. We eat. Eva coughs and I look. She turns toward Peter and taps his arm. She's choking. She motions him to pat her back. He keeps asking, “Heimlich? Heimlich?” I pound her back. She tries to cough. I pound some more. She coughs. Jordan grabs her bottle of water, quickly twists off the cap and hands it to her. She drinks it. She continues to cough a bit and tears are streaming down her cheeks, but she is going to be okay, I can tell she was scared. She keeps patting my arm. “Thank you, thank you.” she repeats.

We finish our lunches and say our good-byes. We hug. Eva says something about me saving her life. She hugs me again. We board our buses and go our separate ways. A glimmer in time has passed.

On the long ride home, I chuckle at random times. Jordan asks, “What?” Each time I answer the same. I'm just thinking about Peter standing talking to Eva while her little breast is playing Peek-a-boob. “I knows what's she's gotz.” Well, now, a lot of us do, too.

Today was a gift from God and I am grateful.

No Time to Breathe

Hmmm. Why haven't I been posting? To say that life has been non-stop for the last several weeks, let me give you a run-down of my Sunday...

(We went to a Saturday service last August, so no church this morning. Just good old fashion worship of the heart).

5:30 am - The dog wakes me up to go outside.

5:35 am - I realize that if I want to get my painting project done today (and it must be done today so I can put the second coat on tomorrow night so our cute little construction guy can get the beadboard ceiling in on Tuesday).

5:40 am - I begin cutting in the edges of the ceiling.

7:00 am - Get in shower

8:00 - Bring my brother and sister-in-law to the airport (they came in to surprise Jordan for her college graduation (Yay! We have a graduate!)

10:00 am - Leave the airport.

10:20 am - Go to Lowe's to get the right paint for the walls. This is a good thing since I gave them the wrong paint chip for the four gallons I bought and began to use on Friday. We have now gone from an apple green to a moss green for the living room, dining room, kitchen area. Much better, thank you.

11:00 am - Arrive home.

11:15 am - Put a coat of paint on the ceiling (white, not green).

1:30 pm - Stop painting. Wash face, which is spotted white. Wash hands and forearms, redo make-up. Throw on some decent clothes.

1:55 pm - Arrive at church for our combined Open House for the five graduates from our church. It's a good thing my husband is capable of setting up. In fact, he ordered and picked up the cake and ice cream and soda/pop.

2:00 pm - Enjoy good company. Listen as the grads answer questions for the group of the things they've learned and their plans for the future. I just love young people. Their answers give us great insight to them as real people.

4:00 pm - Head home.

4:10 pm - Crack open the green paint and begin to paint the kitchen walls. Gotta get that first coat on, dontcha know.

5:45 pm - Do a quick clean-up.

6:00 pm - Pick Jim up at church. Head to South Bend for dinner with friends and their Notre Dame grad. Fun times and great food (Parisi's, South Bend).

9:20 pm - Leave the restaurant and head home.

10:00 pm - Change back into my paint garb.

10:10 pm - Attack the last two walls. More cutting in and rolling.

11:00 pm - Change into jammies. Brush teeth. Crash.

No joke. This is how the last few weeks have been. I am looking forward to flying to the Dominican Republic for three weeks to live with my little Dominican family next Tuesday. Am excited that Jordan will be with me for 10 days. I need sunshine and stopping (No, not shopping). A little fresh avacado and mango won't hurt, either. Oh, and have you ever had fried cheese Dominican style? To die for. Probably incredibly bad for you, too.

Now off to my last four days of school for the year. Halleluia! I love my job, but I need summer.

jdm

Quick Tropic Update

In Santiago, DR.
This will be a quick post just to tell you that we arrived in Bryce Canyon and Tropic, Utah with Clella yesterday. She/We had a wonderful day that I will post about as soon as I can and add pictures to boot.

We've been to the cemetery to see where her mom, dad, sister and baby brother are buried, visited with the people who live in the house where she was born and had a long and delightful visit with the people who own her grandfather's barn. She got a discount at Ruby's Inn for being "pretty close to local" and a free breakfast coupon for having a birthday on Friday and for being from Tropic. She had a hard time settling down to sleep because she'd had "such a wonderful day". Today, we will return to Tropic and try to connect with some of her childhood friends. We learned that several are still alive and still live in Tropic.

Bringing Clella to Tropic has been as much a gift to us to experience with her as it has been for her. It is always wonderful to experience someone else's joy.

The Best Laid Plans of Mice and Guidance Counselors

So yesterday on the CounselorTalk listserv I'm a member of, a high school counselor sends out a request (a plea, actually). She has a senior girl who wants to go to the prom. She is a plus size girl, wears a size 24, can't afford a dress and can't find one at the stores. I make some long distance phone calls to the nearby city she is in. I call Lane Bryant, a clothing store for plus size women. They don't sell prom dresses. I call JC Penny. They have plenty of prom dresses---in junior sizes. The largest they have is a 16. So I call two numbers for the specialty store David's Bridals. Both numbers are disconnected. It kills me to think this girl can't get a dress. Oh, and did I mention that the request came on Thursday and the prom is on Saturday? Yeah, well, I thought about that girl all night long.

Then I go to get my haircut. Midway through the cut and on a whim, I ask my hairdresser if she knows where I could find a dress. Unbelievably, her daughter has one hanging in her closet, just the right size. I can't believe it.

I do a little research. The girl's school is two hours from me. Okay, that's do-able. I talk with my friend, Ann who also happens to be my boss. She's game for a road trip after school. Unfortunately, the other counselor is leaving town after work and cannot meet us. We can only get to the girl if we leave during the day. Ann says, "Hey, we've got planning to do for Monday's in-service. We can work in the car." We hustle. I call the school to get directions. Yay, the girl is at school today. We get in the car and head out.

We are cutting it close on time, but we may just make it. We realize we haven't come to one of the exits after a period of time. We should be near the school by now. We see a sign that confuses us. Seventy-four miles to our destination. How can that be? I call the school. Ugh. When I looked up the school online last night, I SWEAR it said the school was in Marion. I swear. I cannot find those websites now for proof, of course. Last night when I googled, I could not find a website for the school, just some independent sites with generic information. Okay, I thought. It's a private Catholic school. Maybe they don't have their own website. So I call the school for better directions. The school is not in Marion, it's in Marion COUNTY!!! !@#$%^&*(

We will never make it. In talking to the counselor, we find out that the girl found one dress at a charity shop. She has to hem it, but it will work. Plans foiled, but we tried.

Well, Ann and I got a lot of planning done in the three hours we were in the car. We are all ready for that in-service on Monday. I got some other work done to boot. Oh, well. We also treated ourselves to a little milkshake at a Steak n' Shake in Wabash. Woo-hoo! They are half-price today. Just a little gift sent our way.

I hope that girl has a good time at the prom. I hope she feels absolutely beautiful. I hope she knows there are strangers who cared.

Off on another adventure tomorrow. Going with another teacher to hopefully get in the Guiness Book of World Records by participating in the largest group hug at the St. Joseph County fairgrounds. Got to bring some canned goods for the foodbank, too.

Gotta love adventure!

Sincerely yours,
A Directionally Challenged School Counselor

Sick of Being Sick and a Road Trip

Clella and Todd catch a little dance at a pit stop along the road to Los Patos, DR in 2007.

I am not complaining (much)! I've had the creeping cruds off and on for about four weeks now. It's time to be done. Yesterday, I thought I was on the mend. This afternoon the aches were back. I need to be better by Sunday because Jim and I are going on a road trip with Clella, our adopted grandma. If anyone read the entry last April, she and I went on a road trip to Maine when I went to take care of my dad for a few weeks.

Jim and I are flying to Arizona to pick up his mom's car and will drive it back. We decided we should take Clella with us. Clella grew up as a Mormon in Tropic, Utah. She joined our non-denominational Christian church about eleven years ago. Jim met Clella when he got called on an emergency pastoral visit to our local hospital. Clella and her husband had been brought into the hospital for carbon monoxide poisoning. Sadly, Clella's husband, Dale, did not survive. Clella did. Dale and she had just moved into their new house three weeks prior. They had three different companies inspect the house and chimney before they moved in (Dale was always a cautious and common sense man, according to Clella). All three companies missed the bird's nest that blocked the chimney. Very sad indeed. Anyway, Clella struggled for a long time with Dale's death. They'd had a long and happy marriage. Clella and her sister picked up two navy sailors who were hitchhiking way back when. Clella claims she and Dale fell in love on that car ride between Tiajuana and San Diego. They were married a short time later.

Anyway, Clella has repeatedly told us her stories about growing up Mormon and being from a large family. When she was twelve, her mother died shortly after giving birth to a baby boy. Because the older children were independent or unable, Clella gained the responsibility of raising four younger brothers and sisters. At the age of twelve, she was expected to have all the responsibilities for them. Clella says her father was too busy spreading his seed all over Tropic to be bothered with raising children. Later, he remarried and Clella gained the quintessential ugly stepmother.

Taking to the shade on the beach in Sosua.

We have decided to take Clella to Tropic on our way home. This may be her last trip to Tropic, as she'll be 83 on May 1. You never know, though, she's a tough old bird. We want her to show us all the places she's talked about. I think it will be a lovely walk down memory lane for her and a delightful gift for us. We fly out early Sunday.

When we fly out, there will be major demolition going on back our house. New bathrooms are goin' in. Excitement all around.

"Last Trip to Tropic". Won't that make a great title for a story?

You cannot believe how this little bugger works.
We have to force her to stop. (this is at the church we were building outside Santiago, DR.

With Arelis in Los Patos. She'll try anything. I think she was hoping for a little gin in her coconut juice.

A late evening at Camp David, outside Santiago. This restaurant is on a mountain top which has the most harrowing drive up a mountain I have ever experienced. I was so stressed by the ride up that I refused to drive down in our van. Had to switch vehicles. I'm telling you, we almost slid off the cliffs several times. It did me in. Clella just made the trip like Aunt Edna from National Lampoon's Vacation, except she wasn't dead and tied to the roof.


On a shopping trip in the city of Santiago, DR.
How can you not just love her?

jdm

Nothing Like An Egg Hunt to Release the Inner Child

(Yes, it's been a long, dry month of no posts. Am home sick again today. I just can't seem to rid myself of a general malaise brought on by my second cold/flu bout in three weeks time. Must be the creeping cruds. Anyway, the post that follows is a year old. It comes from an event we held at school to lighten the climate during the drudge month of March '08. We have just held our 2nd annual teacher egg hunt for '09, but I've no energy to recap, so am giving you a recount of last year's just so I can post. Hope you are all well. I've also been busy dealing with our renovation which we have just expanded to include new bathrooms and a walk-in closet. I guess if we're going to renovate, we may as well get it all done at one time. I hope you all had a wonderful and blessed Easter.)

This is the original email which was sent to an unsuspecting staff in March '09:

Get Hoppin’…

Peter Cottontail and Betty Bunny were very busy Tuesday night. They hid 162 plastic eggs ALL OVAH the school.

In all your rooms, Peter Cottontail has hidden a plastic egg with your name on it.

The Challenge: Peter is challenging you to find your egg. Some will be easier to find than others (in fact, Peter thinks some won’t be found until retirement). Return the empty egg with your name sticker left on it to your grade level secretary by the Friday prior to spring break (April 4).

The grade level with the greatest percentage of returned eggs will be treated to lunch on the Monday we sluggishly return from our respite (April 7).

Peter hopes the eggs reproduce as rapidly as rabbits!!!!!

This is the recap which I sent to Andrea Corona Jenkins at Hula Seventy ...who had a wonderful post about Little Paper Fortunes entitled "Friday Afternoon" which began the whole inspiration for the egg hunt (you MUST read her post. It is wonderful. You'll need to scroll down to Oct 15, 2007 entry). Here's my recap from last year:

December is a tough month in education, as is March! Prior to Christmas Break the kids and the teachers were stretched to just put one foot in front of another as they waited for a little time off. Only about five teachers decided to do the project this year, but they did enjoy it. They couldn't take the kids off school property to "plant" the fortunes as I'd hoped. Anyway, they did do the best they could at the time. Each class group placed all the fortunes in chinese food containers decorated with holiday themes they got from Hobby Lobby. The teachers then brought the boxes to a few coffee houses and some mom-and-pop type stores where they set them up by the cash registers. People were encouraged to take a fortune when they made a purchase.

BUT two weeks ago, the principal and I revisited the little paper fortunes idea in an attempt to lighten the droll, cabin-fever climate hanging like a cloud over the building. I took blank fortune strips to the media center (our library) and explained what I wanted to the students who so (un-)cheerfully had to spend two hours with an assistant principal after school for a little, um, extended day. I told them I needed volunteers to write generic, cheerful notes to our staff. It was totally voluntary on their part, yet about 20 kids took the bait. After a time, I told them if they really wanted to, they could write fortunes to specific teachers. These kids have a tendency to only show their tough exteriors, but during this activity they really allowed their sweet insides to emerge.

As an aside, there are 162 teachers, aides, custodians, cafeteria workers, secretaries, counselors, principals, School Resource Officer, bookkeepers, media center specialists, and other staff in our building. We also have 1500 sixth, seventh and eighth graders. It's a wonderful, crazy place.

So anyway, the principal and I stuffed 162 plastic eggs with treats and paper fortunes and labeled each egg with a staff member's name. (I so enjoyed being able to stuff some very tender fortunes in specific teachers' eggs. I knew they'd love them.) We then hid an egg all over the building in areas specific to the individual--i.e., in that teacher's classroom, in the school kitchen, in the boiler room, etc. It took several hours to hide the eggs and we almost got caught by one teacher who was working too, too late. The principal unlocked the classroom door and walked into what she thought was an empty room only to find the teacher sitting at his desk under a dimly lit lamp. "Oh!, she said, "I'm in the wrong room!" and then quickly backed out before the teacher could respond. It was so dumb, we laughed all night about it.

The next morning, I sent out an email with the announcement that we had hidden the eggs and that there was a challenge to each teacher to find their egg. Oh-my-GOSH! What a delightful impact this whole endeavor had! You would have thought these teachers were all little children again. Some teachers let their students help in the hunt, while others threatened to fail (in jest) any student who found their egg before they had a chance to look for it. There were emails flying back and forth with comments and silliness and "found-mine-in-the-4H-geraniums-by-the-way-you-can-buy-one-for $1.25-each!" advertisements and "my OCD is kicking in and I can't get any teaching done until I find my egg!" and much more. It was so wonderful to experience pure joy and silliness in people who were so tired and just praying for spring to arrive.

We asked teachers to return their empty eggs to their grade level secretary (for next year, of course!). The grade level with the greatest percentage of returns would have lunch provided the Monday we get back from spring break. We're actually going to provide lunch for everyone, but it was fun to put forth the challenge.

Anyway, everywhere I walk in the building, I see those little paper fortunes put in places of honor. I walked by our technology guy's office and saw his taped to his window. It says, "Thank u for makin this a grate plase to be." I guess we need to work on that spelling some more. I taped mine above my desk. They say, "You are loved" and "You are lookin gooood!"

It is two weeks later and I'm still getting comments from teachers about how much they enjoyed it all. So, Andrea, you need to take some of the credit. The impetus for all this was your inspiring blog entry about having your wee-ones make little paper fortunes to leave around your city for no other purpose but to bring a moment of joy or tenderness to what might have been an otherwise difficult day.