Tag: Lydia

Unexpected “vacation” day

The Daughter doesn’t go to school, the Wife DOES go to work because her districts weren’t even delayed, *I* DON’T go to work.

windyGoing to bed the night before a major weather pattern, I figure on one of these three scenarios, given that The Wife is a teacher at BOCES, an educational consortium, working several suburban or rural districts, and The Daughter is a student in the Albany school district.

1. The Daughter goes to school, whether The Wife goes to work or not doesn’t matter, I go to work.

2. The Daughter’s school is delayed, the Wife’s schools are delayed, I go to work.

3. The Daughter doesn’t go to school, the Wife doesn’t work, I go to work.
What I DON’T figure on:

4. The Daughter doesn’t go to school, the Wife DOES go to work because her districts weren’t even delayed, I DON’T go to work.

Now, I HAVE said to The Wife that, as a matter of practicality, if the fourth setting ever came to pass, I’d stay home. But I didn’t think it would REALLY happen.

Although I should have gotten an inkling a few days ago, before a wind advisory, when I was on a bus with some young man from one of our charter schools, who seemed to believe there would be no school for him today.

This leads me to believe that the Albany school superintendent is in touch with the heads of the charter schools regarding the weather, but perhaps NOT with the other district fellow wizards. There have been another time or two when Albany closed and other schools didn’t, around the time one of the hurricanes last year was not a real weather event in the city.

It’s a peculiar way to burn a vacation day. Then again, I didn’t REALLY want to be out there waiting for two buses each way, when it was below zero Fahrenheit, did I?

The Lydster, Part 117: The Tattooed Lady

The Daughter now LOVES the Muppet version of Lydia the Tattooed Lady.

I was having an e-mail chat with Jaquandor; either he was correcting one of my typos or I was fixing one of his. That’s what we bloggers do.

He asked: “Hey, have you ever played the song ‘Lydia the Tattooed Lady’ for your daughter? The Muppets did a great version. But then, the Muppets are always great.” I had, but she seemed unaffected by it. It WAS possibly a couple of years ago.

Jaquandor: “And for future reference, here’s Kermit and Lydia! So I played it for The Daughter and The Wife, and also the Marx Brothers original from the movie At The Circus.

Those of you who have been around a while may remember the rules I had for naming The Daughter. So I was initially annoyed that the very first comment from one friend after announcing her name was a reference to this song. I have long gotten past that.

The Daughter now LOVES the Muppet version! She’s probably seen it thrice a week for the last couple months. While my wife and I like it too, we prefer the original, with those extra verses. (I especially like the table dancing.)

Here’s a Rudy Vallee recording from 1939.

NO-vember

I had an already scheduled appointment with my allergist, who said I likely had bronchitis.

Folks are often wondering where the time goes. I know where November went; I felt lousy for most of it. And the Daughter did too.

I remember reading that you can’t get sick merely by getting one’s feet wet. But it was a rainy Halloween night when I was wearing my sneakers and landed in a deep puddle. The very next day, I sat at my desk in the afternoon and felt so crummy I thought I was hallucinating.

Did nothing that weekend; didn’t go to church, couldn’t even read e-mail, and stayed home from work on Monday. But never really felt great after that.

I had an already scheduled appointment with my allergist a week and a half later, who said I likely had bronchitis. The breathing apparatus I got helped somewhat.

I missed three Thursday choir rehearsals in a row because I could not sing; I tried it out. Feeling about 90% now.

Meanwhile, the Daughter had various nasal/throat stuff, which had her coughing in the middle of the night, less so in the daytime. But she was tired, had a persistent sore throat. Additionally, she was stressing about math at school. I missed at least three days of work tending to her, and I unintentionally blew off meeting our intern candidate at work, who I had agreed to talk with, twice.

I felt behind all month. Planning a trip to NYC for Thanksgiving, I was rushing to find a hotel at the last minute; everything was hurried. My wife suggested I make a list; a list of all the undone items would have just made it too real.

Thanksgiving itself was great, though. More on that if/when I get a chance.

December will, ideally, be better. All I have to do is ALL OF MY CHRISTMAS SHOPPING. And special church music, starting this Friday.

Because I tend to work ahead, you may not have noticed the lack of blogging. Expect some shorter posts at the end of the month.

The Lydster, Part 116: Calendaring

Lydia is in the church musical of The Lion King. Not only is she participating, she’s going to play the pivotal role of the young Nala.

Most of the time, I try to come up with a narrative about the Daughter. This time, just the calendar.

This fall, she was playing soccer. Unfortunately, in the very first game, fairly early on, she got kicked in the foot, left the game in pain, and never returned. But she was back in action by the following week. She likes playing defense, and is more interested in protecting her team’s goal rather than making a goal. However, for her homework, she has to write sentences, and she has allowed that someday, she WOULD indeed like to score a goal. That phase ended on November 2.

Both last year and this, there were two weekends where she had soccer, PLUS two rehearsals of the Albany Berkshire Ballet’s production of The Nutcracker, in which she will again be an angel. The performance is Saturday, December 21 at 1 pm in Albany.

Much to my surprise, she wanted to try out for the church musical of The Lion King. Not only is she participating, she’s going to play the pivotal role of the young Nala, young Simba’s best friend. She gets to sing some lines by herself, and make a few dance moves. She has played the soundtrack – this is NO exaggeration – over a hundred times since rehearsals began in September. One day she played it FIVE TIMES, and she always goes to sleep listening to it. The production is on March 2, 2014 at our church.

Then there is the aforementioned homework. I have railed about it in my Times Union blog HERE and HERE and HERE In brief, the new Core Curriculum is making my daughter sad and anxious, and she’s not the only one. It’s not that I oppose standards. I do object though to inane questions (see third link just above) put together by non-educators, which what the EngageNY syllabus adopted by the NYS Department of Education has deemed appropriate. Homework takes too long, and chews up both her and my time. Makes me cranky.

The good news: my daughter will never become a smoker

Smokers, I hope you take this opportunity to quit smoking today, if not for yourself, then for me. And my daughter.

Today is the Great American Smokeout. Last year, if I recall, I wrote some anti-smoking screed, and someone thought it was terribly mean to smokers (I didn’t think so.)

I decided to write something nice about smokers this year. Well, until my daughter had some particularly bad reactions recently. If someone walks by her with a lit cigarette, she starts hacking uncontrollably. She can control this only a little by holding her breath IF she sees the smoker coming. (From years of living with a smoker, I have learned the ability to block the inside of my nose and breathe through my mouth until the danger passes.)

Her asthma is apparently more severe than mine – she’s missed school this fall because of it. Yes, I recognize that cigarettes are legal, and they are highly addictive and that smokers are an oppressed minority in the US. But I suffer when around even a heavy smoker who isn’t currently smoking, I’ve discovered, and my child suffers even more, so you can guess where my sympathies lie.

So, smokers, I hope you take this opportunity to quit smoking today, if not for yourself, then for me. And my daughter.
***
Do you know what makes me feel ambivalent? Those e-cigarettes. I’ve been around them only a few times, but they do not bother me physically, which is rather astonishing. They may be doing damage to the smoker, who might be getting a false sense of safety, and I AM concerned about that.

Ramblin' with Roger
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