Spring Break, Yearbooks & Floods

Spring break provided no break from the unrelenting, unforgiving, unfortunate thing we call yearbook.

As I said in my exercise blog, if being a yearbook adviser were a diet or an exercise program, I would be one Skinny Minnie. Instead, I pretty much single-handedly polished off my stash of emergency chocolate in one sitting.

Naturally, I felt a bit queasy afterwards, but I'm not entirely certain that was from inhaling that tasty box of Caramel Chocolate Batons or the fact that I had a gazillion yearbook pages left to do, no photos to pop into those lovely lime-green boxes that denote where a photo is suppose to go, and no one on my current yearbook staff who appeared to give a chocolate baton flip whether we made our deadline.

Yes, it's been one of those years. Yep, a year for the record books, and not in a good way either. No siree, Missy.

So I spent at least half of my spring break working solo on the yearbook, so that the book could final and ensure delivery before the kiddos go home for the summer. 

And, when I finally sat on the couch to relax and drink some coffee with my husband and discuss how we could salvage the rest of my spring break and do something fun, I heard a noise (and not a good one either) and asked, "Do you hear that?" 

He didn't, but I still did, and it was coming from upstairs. I ran up there speedy quick and hot water was gushing out the upstairs bathroom and down the hallway. Although we shut it off pretty quick, well, the damage was done to the hallway, and the water had also seep below through the ceiling into the master bedroom.

Ceiling removed from water damage

Obviously, none of this was my idea of injecting fun into the remainder of my spring break.

Sadly, though, the water disaster and subsequent clean up was better than working 24/7 on the yearbook debacle from earlier in the week. And, I must say I'm not looking forward to the impending doom that awaits me next week in the form of a gazillion page proofs that have to be fixed and turned around speedy quick, or the 40 something photo projects and journalism ad projects I left there to be graded upon my return, or the newspaper deadline scheduled to kick off the week.

And for those of you wondering, Howard the Shelter Cat pretty much remained fairly lackadaisical through it all.

Jeepers Creepers, here's hoping your spring break was more like Howard's than mine.

Shut Those Eyes

Spring break has arrived.

Again, there should be glee, delight, a dance of joy. Perhaps a bit of confetti.

Instead, I just glare at all the yearbook stuff I brought home and all the stuff I didn't grade from the classes I'm supposed to teach… and now I'm starting to whine, so I'll stop.

I do have a question, though. A conundrum of sorts.

Why do people yearbook staffers think that if they ignore something, it just disappears and I won't notice?

You know, disappears like when a 2-year-old  puts his hands in front of his face and because he can't see you, you are not there.

Ah, if life could be so simple.  I’d close my eyes all the time…and POOF…all those bad things—things like those yearbook pages and ungraded papers would simply disappear.

But this ain't no Harry Potter movie where things disapparate, and I’m not Samantha Stephens where a simple twitch of my nose can make things right. Hails bails, I can’t even wiggle my nose. (I can scrunch it, but I don’t think that counts.)


Perhaps someone knows the answer. I certainly don’t. I told the yearbook staff all 280 pages—as in every blessed one— needed to be turned in on Friday. I’m pretty sure I didn’t lapse into Mandarin Chinese. I’m fairly certain I pronounced the edict in English. I’m almost positive I didn’t have my eyes closed.


Still, one staffer opted not to turn in two pages. Didn’t even have the pages on the server. I guess she just thought it would go away. Disappear. Disapparate.


But doggone it, life just doesn’t work that way.


At least my life doesn’t.


Maybe I just need to squeeze my eyes shut really, really tight. Just maybe…

Spring Break, Yearbook Deadlines & Things That Begin With “Y”

In one week, Spring Break arrives, and you probably think I’d be ecstatic. 

I’m not.

You probably think I’d be in a pleasant, warm, fuzzy mood.

I’m not.

Instead, I’m cranky, tired and miserable.

With spring break a mere one week away, it’s the season for hating my yearbook rep and all things that are yearbook or remotely yearbook.


In fact, at this point, I hate anything that even begins with a “Y.”

Now, before I start getting sales pitches from other yearbook reps, please note that this hating on yearbooks is a generic hatefest.

It’s not my yearbook reps fault.

At any other time of year,  I rather like him. From April to February, he’s really a rather wonderful guy. He brings me Starbucks–a nonfat, three raw sugar latte every time he visits me. He returns phone calls promptly. He’s a problem-solver, and he never, ever yells at me.

He’s all the things I’m not—organized, detail-oriented and pleasant.

He’s even in shape.

I hate the guy.

My yearbook pages are now past due. The yearbook company even has a nifty little pie chart showing our status–as if  I need a colorful reminder of how far behind we are.

I hate pie charts.

At one point last week, we somehow managed to get more than 100 pages behind. (All the pages need to be in before spring break in order to keep our shipping date.)

I called my yearbook rep last week, but didn’t leave a message.

He noticed the missed call, promptly called me back and left me a message about what he thought my message would have been about had I left one.

Of course, he was right, you know.

Jeez Louise, I hate that guy…and yearbooks and yachts and yaks and yams and yellow and…

One More Lesson To Learn

(Writer’s note…I am suspending my usual posts to comment about the recent death of my father. This piece was originally posted at BlogCritics magazine. Next week I’ll update you on my New York City trip, and yes, I will post our photos of the Rubber Chicken in New York City at that time.)

For months, my father battled cancer, a disease that left him dying in pieces. I made at least half a dozen trips to Colorado in as many months. With each visit, I found a little bit less of him.

On St. Patrick’s Day I found myself on another plane, but this time this plane was headed in the opposite direction, nose pointed to New York City. I was with nine of my newspaper students traveling to a journalism convention and awards ceremony where we collected our first ever national award --a Silver Crown.

My father would have wanted it that way.

Life, my parents always told me, is for the living. Do not let death drive your decisions. Now, traveling back to Texas, the phone call came.

Dad was gone.

And so, after 52 years, I found myself orphaned. My age, however, in no way mitigates my sadness or heaviness of heart as I search for the words to describe the loss. It’s the loss of the future, of sharing life’s moments with my Dad. It’s the phone call not made. The card not mailed. The email not sent.

I know millions have gone before me, trekking through life in various stages of aloneness. Still, that does little to mitigate my sadness.

I lost my mother a little over two years ago. She, too, died in pieces as we witnessed her losing battle with lung cancer. Both of my parents would have preferred to die like the two characters in the movie Secondhand Lions -- “with their boots on.”

At that time, I did what any self-respecting Italian would do. I cooked and tried to make sense of this mess we call life.

To me, it came down to a bowl of chili for my mom, and now two years later, a bowl of chicken soup for my dad to save me from my failure - my failure of trying to say goodbye. Even though both of my parents were close to 80-years-old when they died, the knock of death just never seems to be an easy door to answer.

I guess it’s just that I don’t know how you really say goodbye.

Yes, I told my father how much I appreciated all the wonderful memories he gave me, and the lessons he taught me. All that chatter was done on a cold March day over several cups of my homemade soup. We reminisced about going to the opera (because everyone should go at least once) and President Kennedy’s funeral (because everyone should witness history). Then there were the little things, like Dad showing my sisters and I how to cook baked potatoes in a campfire and how to catch blue-shelled crabs with just a string and piece of raw chicken. But of all the lessons he taught, the best was that it was okay just to be yourself.

On this airplane with 150 or so souls aboard, I wonder if all of that was enough, or if perhaps there were some other words I should have said, something else I should have done.

All I have left now are prayers and memories to fill the empty spaces in my heart. I look at my two daughters sitting beside me and wonder what memories they’ll cling to when I die.

I guess my father left me one final lesson after all: Even though we may die in pieces, our memories make us whole.

Teens, Trips & the Rubber Chicken

Ah, it’s the week before Spring Break. Normally, this would be the time that we throw the final pages of our 304-page yearbook together to meet our final deadline and lock in our ship date.

Instead, I will be traveling with nine newspaper kids–let’s count them one, two, three, four, five, six, seven, eight, nine–to New York City to attend the Columbia Scholastic Press Association’s spring convention and collect our school’s first ever national award for its newspaper.

Pretty exciting stuff.

Pretty scary stuff.

Teenagers and trips.

Just the mere thought can make a teacher call the pension office and ask how much it will cost to buy additional years in order to qualify for retirement by tomorrow. When you say “teenagers and trips,” you might as well include the word “terror.” Just like Dorothy wandering through the forest in the Wizard of Oz chanting, “Lions and Tigers and Bears, oh my,” substitute an old, fat, bitter teacher blubbering, “teenagers, trips and terror, oh my.”

Now, don’t get me wrong, some of my best memories have involved trips with my students. However, trips are where everything can suddenly spin out of control, things can and will go wrong, and when the dust settles, there you are, the last person standing, and all fingers are pointing at you—and not in a good way either.

You might as well walk out of a bathroom with toilet paper stuck to your shoe. Whatever happens, you will get the blame even though you had about as much ability to intervene as you do at stopping Mount St. Helens from spewing again.

Horror stories across the nation abound. I’ve known teachers who tape the outside of doors to see who busts curfew (Isn’t that sort of like closing the barn doors after all the cows/horses/whatever have run off?). I’m not sure how that all helps.

Veteran teachers check into hotels with specific orders to the hotel staff: “Turn off the phones. Turn off the adult movie channels. Don’t provide room service.” Still, disaster strikes.

We lecture our students. I tell mine: “No sex, drugs, and only a little bit of rock‘n’ roll is permissible. No talking to strangers. No going anywhere with strangers, and just remember, don’t do anything you wouldn’t want God or your Mama to see. That’s the test. If you wouldn’t want God or your Mama to see it, don’t do it.”

Despite the chill down my spine, I think I’m almost ready for the thrill of this trip.

We’ve already decided to bring the rubber chicken. (He’s never been before.) We also decided to photograph our rubber chicken like the elementary kids do with their flat Stanleys.

So you’re probably wondering about those yearbook pages, my page proofs, the new batches of photography projects to grade, and all that important paper work exponentially reproducing on my desk.

Well, as they say in New York, “furgetaboutit.”

I’m leaving the work and taking the chicken. You'll find us on top of the Empire State Building.

You know, I think this little excursion is going to be fun after all.

Diets, Mini Monkey Mints & Floral Print Shoes

The week before Spring Break was, well, “interesting.”

That’s my fill-in-the-blank word. You know those words–words you use when someone or something renders you speechless.

“Hmmm, that’s very interesting,” I’ll say when one of my students provides an answer or observation that makes no sense. And, as an added bonus, “very interesting” doesn’t diminish anyone’s self-of-steam.

“Interesting” also provides the perfect response when someone offers a suggestion or idea that makes me want to scream, “You big, fat, stupidhead!”

Instead, I can play nice and merely and politely say, “Why, how very interesting.”

It’s also a great answer to those no-win-are-you-still-beating-your- spouse-type questions. Just merely answer with, “My, now that’s an interesting question.”

And all of this interesting stuff brings me to my entertainment editor’s random, interesting outbursts.

Situation #1–A conversation about food and dieting
Jessica: “I need to eat healthy and lose weight.”
Me: “No, you don’t. You’re the size of a toothpick.”
Jessica: "You don’t know what’s going on under this shirt.”

See how my comment, “Hmmm, how interesting…” would fit in perfectly?


Situation #2–Working on stories
Jessica: “Mini Monkey Mints…”
Pizza Andy & Katelyn: “Alliteration…”
Me: “What?”
Jessica: “I couldn’t remember that word.”
Me: “Mini Monkey Mints?”
Jessica: “No, alliteration…”
Me: “Why are you writing about Mini Monkey Mints?”

See, I should have just said, “Hmmm, interesting” and moved on…

Situation #3–Jessica was working on her fashion critiques. I had asked her earlier to check on a student for me.
Me: “What did she say?”
Jessica: “Floral print shoes.”
Me: Silence. (I’ve got nothing here.)
Allison: “You know, like the shoes with the flowers on them.”
Me: “Yes, I know what floral print shoes are, but what does that have to do with Courtney? Is she wearing them? What did she say about the Andy’s tape?”
Jessica: “Ohhhhh, the tape. Courtney. I didn’t go yet.”

Me thinking about big, fat…Oh, you know the rest…but try as they might they are not going to make me say it…

Floral print shoes

Me saying, “Oh my goodness…”

Floral print shoes

Me thinking next time: “Hmmm…That’s very interesting…”