I pass this awesomely cheesy sign every day on the way home from school. Yesterday, I finally got off the freeway to take some pictures of it. If you are ever in the hood and in need of a psychic reading, I think this place would be worth checking out.
Soooo, ever since we moved in last July, there has been on and off construction on and around our house. The last (please, God) phase seems to be the fence construction that has been in progress for the past six weeks or so. We aren't entirely sure of what the process is because I have not yet reached that unit in the Rosetta Stone. However, aside from a slight difference of opinion about whether or not they should be smoking outside of our open bedroom window at seven o'clock on Saturday mornings, I thought that we had a healthy relationship with the rotating cast of construction workers and gardeners who have been beautifying our humble abode. I'm not so sure anymore.
I came home from work to find this rather threatening little scene... I am afraid that we may have inadvertently offended one of the construction workers. Either that or Jorge figured out where I live...
One of the great things about being a teacher (really trying to focus on those these days) is that summer still holds the same magic that it did when I was a kid. It still means freedom and staying up and sleeping late. It means losing track of what day it is because any day is a good day for the beach. It means a break from routine and plenty of time for shenanigans. Most of all, for me, summer has always meant books. I am that big of a dork.
I have very vivid memories of rainy summer days in Vermont when my mom would take all of us to the Fletcher Free Library for the afternoon. We would check out new books of course, but we would also sit down with the sweet librarian lady and tell her about the books we had just returned. She would then give us a stamp (or sticker? check mark? apparently the memories are not so vivid after all) on our summer reading goal chart. Wow, huge dork. Whatever, there were prizes involved and a pizza party. In any event, I loved it, and it cemented for me the connection between summer's endless unplanned hours and mountains of new books.
Here are some of the summer reads I have planned. Any other recommendations? Where can I get a goal chart and some stickers?
At least, that's what I told myself when I was (per usual) running around like a madwoman this morning trying to find the thumb drive with the PowerPoint I needed for today's lesson. I must say though that while my day's often start out more frantic than necessary and I have dreams of organizational grandeur, I do make the occasional exciting discovery.
Waiting in the Shell parking lot for the shifty mechanic to repair my flat tire... I say shifty because he charged me ten dollars more than he charged Tom for the exact same service three months ago. When I questioned him, he spouted a lengthy list of testosterone-laden car vocabulary and my eyes glazed over. It was a total cliche. I could have argued the point, but I had just spent eight hours arguing with fifteen-year-olds and my feet hurt, so I went and sat, ankles crossed, on the bench to wait like a good little lady.
I realize it's a rough transition, but... While we're talking about heels and aching feet, I would like these shoes and an occasion that requires them, please. Thank you.
In searching for photographs of Jim Crow signs for my unit on the rhetoric of the Civil Rights Movement, I came across this brilliant example of what happens when racism, arrogance, and general stupidity collide...
Please note, I did not add the arrow. I am confident that you would have been perfectly capable of zeroing in on the irony without it. (The use of are is clearly the most egregious error, but what's with the dash? Or is it a hyphen?)
I particularly like how she took the extra step of double underlining her stupidity. You know, in case we missed it.
Joking aside, I am outraged by what is going down in Arizona. Visiting the Grand Canyon may not be in the cards this year because, unless this ridiculous law is struck down, I will not be spending a dime in Arizona. In addition to making it a crime for immigrants to leave the house without proof of their immigration status, the new law gives police the power to detain and demand immigration paperwork from anyone whom they reasonably suspect may be in the country illegally. The problem, of course, is that no one has defined "reasonable suspicion," and it is safe to say that the police will not suddenly be demanding paperwork from the Canadian, French, Norweigan, and Australian immigrants who make their homes in Arizona.
If the goal is to end the drug violence that spills over the border from Mexico, it seems to me that, rather than implementing a law that cannot help but lead to racial profiling and increased distrust between the police and Mexican-Americans, it would make more sense to attempt to win the loyalty and support of the millions of law-abiding Mexican immigrants, legal and otherwise.
In closing - these two are unrelated to the immigration issue and should therefore be saved for another day's rant, but this website I found is a treasure trove of ridiculous signs and I couldn't not include these...
