2/18/2012 The Ugly Vase

I can just barely make out the tiny whiteish heads
of the pussywillows down the swamp behind our house.
The first sign of spring in Seattle
that gives us hope for warmer weather.
When it finally hits fifty-five degrees here
we all scramble for our shorts
and sunglasses
and prepare ourselves for the odd sunny day.
My older sisters, Jan and Pam, had a big plan
for my mother's thirtieth birthday in 1962.
We were going to go through the whole neighborhood
selling pussywillows to buy her this
pretty vase at the Rainier Avenue Wigwam store.
It was rare that my sisters let me tag along for anything.
As a kid one of my names was
Tagalong.
So off we went to the huge swamp
that was located between Holly Park
and the Othello and Rainier Avenue shopping center.
We picked armloads of pussywillows
and hauled them home to our porch.
We assembled them in small bouquets,
tied them up with kite string,
and walked along the sidewalk to the
first housing unit.
Pam and Jan put their heads together
and Pam said, "You're the youngest
so you have to go to the door."
With my slavish, youngest child devotion
I went up to the door of Aunty Dot,
one of our neighbors that we weren't really related to.
She opened the door and smiled down at me and I said,
"Would you like to buy thom puthywilloths?"
(I had no teeth in at six.)
She bought a bouquet of ten long stems for a dime
and we were off and running.
Money was tight in the project houses
so Jan had priced them right.
Ten cents for ten long stems and five for the short ones.
It took us all day to reach our goal of one dollar.
We were so excited when we went into the Wigwam store.
We had visited it many times previously
and Pam and Jan had picked out our target weeks ago.
An eight inch high oval shaped vase of orange
with pale yellow vertical stripes and then
covered with blurry white spots.
I was in awe of that vase.
I followed my sisters, full of admiration for them,
as they presented the vase to the checker
and then we went home.
On February 19th, my sisters gave my mom her birthday present.
They had wrapped it carefully in funny papers.
She cried and cried when she opened that oddly-shaped package.
Being a single mom raising three kids on welfare
was probably not what she had planned for herself.
But we loved and admired her so much.
The ugly vase sits on a high shelf in my kitchen.
Funny that I ever thought it was the most
beautiful vase in the world.
My mom sure did!

2/16/2012 The Power of Gum at Inglemoor High School

I leaned on the Inglemoor office counter with blurry eyes
trying to focus on the lovely pink sub folder
to make sure I picked up the right one.
I am NOT a morning person
and how I envy those who are.
Getting up at 5:30AM
and arriving to work at 6:30AM in the cold and dark
is a real challenge for me.
My son Troy is a senior at Inglemoor this year
and for the first time five years
he said he didn't mind if I subbed at his school.
As long as I didn't embarrass him.
Tall order.
I peered sleepily at the substitute folder and
flipped it open to make sure I had my attendance sheets
and there was something inside.
A small yellow, post-it noted square.
On the front in fancy writing it said,
"Thank you for chewsing to sub at Inglemoor."
I picked it up and peeled back the corner
and there was a green packet of Extra chewing gum.
My jaw dropped down in astonishment and I looked up
at Vicky and Barbara and said, "Is this for me?!"
They both nodded and gave me big smiles and went back to work.
Now, I'm prone to be a petty, jealous person
when it comes to full time teaching jobs.
For nine years I've subbed everywhere under the sun
and around Christmas and Valentine's Day
looking at those teacher shelves
piled high with presents and treats
would make me downright envious.
So, yesterday when I got my chewing gum
I was as happy as a clam at Kalaloch
during the off-limits season.
My gum was about the best thing that had
ever happened to me signing in for work.
Plus, I drink coffee which gives me bad breath
and I hate to stink out the students.
When I got in my classroom,
I swilled down a cup of coffee
and got ready for the day.
When I reached down for my sub bag of supplies,
I saw that gum and took out a piece to chew.
Spearment, my favorite.
It was then that I noticed that there was writing on the back too.
It said, "You always give a little EXTRA when you sub at Inglemoor."

2/13/2012 The Stinkiest Place I Ever Ate Lunch

It was pretty exciting being promoted
from the bullgang to the dump-truck.
Okay, it really wasn't so much a promotion
as a rotation with everyone else,
but as I looked up that orange
City of Seattle engineering truck,
it looked about two stories high
and darn exciting.
Not that I didn't like digging ditches
out of the Haller Lake office.
I certainly didn't have to count calories
or do my Jane Fonda tape!
I had to eat like a horse just to keep
big enough for those long days of endless ditches.
So after three months,
I was finally assigned a dump-truck
with my buddy Debbie.
We had both been recruited from the
City of Seattle park department
custodian pool to the engineering department
because in 1978, Seattle mayor, Wes Ulman,
had been given the federal mandate to put
women in traditional male jobs.
The male jobs paid better than most
of the secretarial jobs and many of us
women were ready to get dirty
for the big cash.
When Debbie and I were assigned the same
dump-truck, with Jim, we were delighted!
We took turns riding shotgun
and from way up high in that truck you
could SEE EVERYTHING for miles and miles.
Our week rotated daily with Monday and Tuesday
being odd job days.
We'd stand in the Haller Lake hallway
each morning with our driver and the boss
would hand him our orders
and off we'd go!
We could be picking up sod from the bull-gang
ditch diggers, or filling in potholes or hauling brush
to the transfer station...
The transfer station!
The Wallingford transfer station was a place we visited
most days but rarely got out of the truck.
Jim would just back in and make the dump.
But every Wednesday, we had a LONG garbage run
that ended in Wallingford.
We'd start in Ballard at 15NW and 85th NW
and sweep all the sidewalks.
Then we'd cruise down the hill to Golden Gardens
park to the flat section below the bluff.
Debbie and I walked that entire meadow
from the north to the south end
with those long-handled garbage spearing poles
and trash sacks while Jim waited in the truck.
Then we'd pick up all the trash from the park restrooms
and do the shoulders around the
Hiram H. Chittendon locks.
It took about four hours and then we'd hit the transfer station
for lunch. Jim had twenty years at the City
so he wanted to eat lunch with all his cronies.
We'd climb down from our huge truck and
follow him across the huge building
and up the stairs.
Now a transfer station is where all the garbage goes
before it is loaded up in containers
to be hauled out to the dumps in outlying areas
and they smell BAD.
Debbie and I would follow him up a long staircase
to the upper level where the lunchroom was located
and sit along the tables with the garbagemen.
They were always excited to us
because we were the first women ever hired for that job.
We were strong and buff from months of work
and Debbie and I were both genial people.
We were a good crew for Jim because he was
one of the most jovial people I have ever worked
with in my entire life!
Those garbage men were so friendly and funny
but boy did they smell bad.
I mean really bad.
Even inside the lunchroom with the door closed
that lunchroom just reeked like garbage.
It took us a few weeks to learn how to
eat and not smell at the same time
and then we looked forward to
bullshitting with our new friends every Wednesday.
It was the stinkiest place I ever ate lunch.

2/11/12 Mimicking With My Mini Me

I was pretty sad that Troy didn't want me to go to
his senior high school solo singing competition
down at Eastlake High School yesterday.
Seems like a minute ago
he was in the seventh grade choir at Kenmore Junior High
and was singing in the solo competition
in Italian.
He loved having me there with him at thirteen.
Then at fourteen, he went to the dark side
as boys are prone to do around that age.
I was no longer the wonderful mommy,
but becoming the embarrassing old lady.
So it surprised me when he came home in his tuxedo
after singing all morning and sang for us.
In Gaelic of all things.
Teddy and I were sitting at the dining room table
opposite each other and as Troy started singing
we started swaying.
Happens anytime we hear music together.
One of us will start swaying
and then the other begins an automatic sequence
of mimicking movements that I believe
only only a genetic link can explain.
So, Teddy started swaying
and I started swaying
and Troy started singing louder
and faster and I started pounding the table
and Teddy was pounding the table
and Teddy started clapping
and I started clapping.
And then Troy stopped
and Teddy stopped
and I stopped
and that was that.

2/11/2012 Evacuating Planes, Ships and School Buses

I was carefully putting all the lesson plan materials
in order out at Crystal Springs Elementary the other
morning when I heard the announcement on the PA.
"We will be having a bus evacuation drill in ten minutes,
all available personnel please assist."
Well, in nine years of subbing I had
never seen a school bus evacuation drill
so I was pretty excited to go check that out.
I went to the front of the school where the buses
were lined up and introduced myself to the driver
that didn't have anyone helping her.
She gave me the assignment of standing between
the buses and directing the kids to line up against the wall
after she had popped open the rarely-used side door
and helped them down to ground level.
I did my job and felt a sense of relief
that the school districts do these drills.
School bus evacuations are very rare
which makes them all the more important.
I went on with my day of teaching reading and math
and got home and thought about that drill.
I couldn't help but remember being inside the
airplane mock-ups during flight attendant training in 1987
and having to shout the evacuation commands
and then running down a dark cat-walk
and pulling the red handle to release the tail-cone of the DC-9
so the slide could pop out.
Yikes, that was scary.
The only thing I would do differently if I was a school administrator
would be to train some ABAs in case the bus really did need
evacuating. An Able Body Assistant is the civilian
sitting next to the windows on a jet that is briefed
to open the window in an evacuation.
I'd have the 6th graders trained to open the door
if the driver was knocked out and how to
command the younger students to safety and keep them together.
But that's just me.
I'm still mad at the cruise ship captain that jumped ship
after he ran it aground last month.
At Coast Guard training last year in Honolulu
we were all trained for evacuation jobs
that all depended on the signals from the captain.
Norwegian Cruise Line does way more safety training
than the other cruise lines
but the bottom line is:
Know matter if you are on a plane, ship or bus,
know where your emergency exits are
and how to operate them.
Think about safety.

2/7/2012 When Willard Lived in Kenmore

Pam and I were picking fat juicy blackberries
on a hot sunny day in September down in the swamp.
She said, "Hey, look Gretch, there's Betty's old shed.
I walked over to where she was
and could just barely make out the outline
of the shape of the shed through the brambles.
I said, "I thought the county tore that down
when they bought this property for the park."
I edged in closer and could see the door
and said, "Come on sis, maybe there is some cool farm stuff inside."
We slowly pushed the old door open
and she followed me in.
It was pitch black and we had come inside
from the bright sun and we temporarily blinded.
We could hear them before we could see them.
The ceiling and walls started moving
as hundreds of tiny scratching feet
took off running in all directions at our entrance.
"RATS!" I screamed.
I nearly knocked sissy down
trying to get out of that shed.

The Christmas Tree That Fell From the Sky

In 1998, two years after Teddy was born, money became a little bit tight.
To invest in frugality, my sister Pam and I hatched a plan to pick up
artificial Christmas trees.
It was a cold sunny day and we were cruising out 522 towards
the Woodinville Ernst store, which was having a big sale on fake trees.
I was driving my little navy blue Ford tempo when Pam shouted,
"Gretch! A tree!"
I saw it and pulled over next to the highway and couldn't believe my eyes.
A seven foot tall gorgeous noble fir that would have been fifty bucks at
Yakima Fruit stand, was lying at the side of the highway.
I raised my arms high to the sky and shouted, "THANK YOU JESUS!"
Then sissy and I spent ten minutes wrestling the tree into
the tiny trunk of my car and tying it down.
Just as we had climbed in the car, a small tan pick-up truck
came roaring up the highway behind us and
a middle-aged woman with wild long blond hair jumped out and
started shouting,  "My tree! My tree!"
We got out and apologized and untied the tree and helped her load it
into the back of her little truck. She was so happy.
Pam and I bought our artificial trees but when Terry got home
from work he said, "Take it back! I hate fake trees!"
So I took it back with much chagrin that he
didn't appreciate my rare attempt at serious long-term frugality.
Five years later on December 15th,
Terry turned to me and said, "Where did you put that fake tree?"
I stared at him with open-mouth disbelief as he said,
"We could save a lot of money if we used that."