For the record: I don't Love Raymond.

Today, I filled the dull spot after The Simpsons (Lisa picks football winners, followed by Choo-choo-choose Me) by searching for something in my desk, which led to throwing out some old bits and pieces, and to the discovery of a photo I need to mail to someone.

Now, Jeopardy's on; Alex says: 70% of cell phone calls begin with the question "where are you?" I'm surprised it's that low.

This afternoon's long line at the post office seemed to have had only two tax-mailers in it. A skinny woman in expensive clothes mailed a large envelope that she didn't want insured or to have the recipeint sign for it, but she did want "proof it was mailed." A woman with a very old fashioned hair-do shipped about six packages to a member of the armed forces. The clerk helping her had to pause to corret the mistake the next clerk made trying to ring up a money order on a credit card. A man in a sweatshirt returned something to Land's End. The man in line behind me showed his impatience by shifting his weight, sighing loudly, and drumming his fingers on that skinny bar that so many p.o.s have, now, around which the line wraps, and on which people lean to write addresses. I stopped leaning when he started drumming.

(I started writing this because of the obligatory early-news April 15 segment from the Brook Road P.O. Late-breaking news: the (second-rate) post office in Mechanicsville has been evacuated by HAZMAT teams "becasue of a bad smell." Come on.)

Over a cup of tea in an apartment overlooking Monroe Park yesterday, I learned that Monumental Church (see April 6) may become the theater for a new theater company.

Random question: Is it possible that This End Up furniture existed only to furnish public school teachers’ lounges?

Ways Substitute Teaching is Like Temping:
You get lost going to strange parts of the suburbs.

Sometimes, the work is more than you can handle: too many phone lines; too many classes and a note that says “I don’t get lunch on Thursdays.”

Sometimes, there’s too little work: “Oh, we thought copying and assembling these training manuals would take two days; you can, um, help Ms. Smith file. Or, “You just need to act as scribe for this student.” And the four hours at mid-day he has keyboarding, lunch, and gym.

You never know what each day will bring.

You get to eat lunch with people you'd never have over to dinner.

Today
Because Roy did not need my help, I spent time in the school library. The assistant librarian was on duty by herself. She accepted my offer to shelve some books. Middle school libraries cover a wide range of reading levels: R. L. Stein to Steinbeck. I also enjoyed the strange bedfellows in Biography: Elvis – Charley Pride – Colin Powell, for example. The recent renovation to the 1951 school won the library a soaring ceiling (and two mezzanine meeting rooms), smart blond bookshelves and carrels, some of the latter fitted with candy-colored Apple computers.

At the end of the day, I supervised two boys finishing posters on the U.S. Cabinet. They researched the cabinet members on the internet with their iBooks, then wrote captions and printed out pictures to glue stick to the posterboard. They seemed mildly interested in the fact that Secretary of Labor Elaine L. Chao went to the same college that I did, until they realized they’d never heard of it. (Bonus trivia: the first woman cabinet member, Frances Perkins, MHC 1902, served as Secretary of Labor during whose administration?)

Speaking of Mount Holyoke, Su forwarded this link to me: Newsday.com - Restricting Women's Military Role Hurts All (Newsday is the daily paper for Long Island.)

Questions from today’s lesson on “Virginia Pathways”:

The point where the level of the land changes and the rivers become waterfalls is called the ______________.

The largest natural harbor in America is ____________________.

The first roads were paid for by __________________.

Virginia voted for a “_______ as you ________” policy for funding new roads.

I-64 goes from east to west from N_________, through R____________, and C____________.

Today, I started with rowdy fifth graders, and got better and better behaved ones as the day progressed. We did some math, social studies, and reading. Actually, I did social studies three times: the Virginia Pathways video. They also had recess, P.E., and lunch. And snacks. I don’t remember snacking in school.

How do teachers know when to pause and say, "apologize for hitting him" and when to move on with the lesson?

Their school is out by the mall that I still think of as The New Mall, and looks to have been built in the 1950s, with those brick-shaped wall tiles, asphalt tile floors, tilt-out windows, and nice honey-colored wood trim. Ms. White's classroom has a long closet with hooks for coats, and, next to it, a built in bookcase that once had glass doors (I'm guessing from the hinges) and still has doors below that fasten with wonderful, industrial brass latches. Their mascot is a penguin, which seemed right on this damp, 40 degree day.

Answers: Fall Line, Hampton Roads, local governments, pay as you go, Norfolk – Richmond – Charlottesville.

Ms. Clark, the lead teacher for today’s special ed. middle schoolers, is a pistol. Her playfulness with the class did not detract from her ability to be taken seriously. I don’t mean that the kids sat still and listened, though. They seemed to be “special ed.” based on the inability to sit still and follow directions. Some, though, clearly could not read well or do the work. As an aide, I mostly went over worksheet type activities so Ms. Clark could tackle the paperwork that comes with this class, and do some one-on-one work with students.

Today the first group of kids worked on choosing the correct article, “an” or “a”; read aloud, then answered questions about the three states of matter (solid, liquid, gas); and practiced subtraction. The students at the end of the day took a quiz on the periodic table. It reminded me that perhaps the most import thing we learn to do in school is listen and follow the directions. Nearly half of the students did not round to the nearest whole number for one part of the quiz, despite Ms. Clark’s having reviewed how to do it at least twice, and leaving an example on the overhead projector.

On the one hand, I get paid less as an instructional assistant; on the other hand, it's often easier, and meeting a cool person like Ms. Clark is a perk.

Capital City weather: back to cold, -- upper 40s? – and rainy. At the Byrd: Catch Me If You Can and the latest Star Trek.

Walking
In early April 1865, President Abraham Lincoln clambered out of a boat at the Confederate Navy Yard, near Rocketts Landing, and walked up to the White House of the Confederacy to meet his army of occupation. The Valentine Museum marked the anniversary with “Lincoln’s Richmond Walk,” a mapped out walking tour with over a dozen stopping points featuring various interpreters to talk about the city and the events at the end of the war.

I spent a couple of hours at The Market, the new grocery store in Shockoe Bottom, passing out free water, maps, and Museum information. To some people, we looked like a water bake sale, with our folding tables by the sidewalk, and they'd stop their cars and ask how much the water cost.

Then, since it’s a beautiful day, I drove up to Court End and walked to a few sites. Orange Alert barred our entry to the Capitol, but sitting on the portico steps looking at the dogwood was no hardship. The volunteer talked about the evacuation fire and Lincoln's unscripted speech from the Washington monument.

At the Egyptian Building, an older white woman described the people and events of the neighborhood better than I had ever heard before. She told of the 1811 theater fire: 72 (I think) dead, and many of their remains still on site. Funds were raised for a memorial, and since so much money came from Episcopalians, she said, the building became Monumental Church. Almost two hundred years ago, people felt it would be okay to build again on the site of sudden and great loss of life, and indeed built something both somber (a memorial “crypt” to the dead is in the entry) and useful. Because the guide had much else to tell us, we didn’t learn how citizens felt about the design, or whether family of the deceased who were, say, Baptist or Jewish were mad about the persuasion of the church.

Probably contemporary citizens found it challenging to make these decisions, but it seems they did okay, since history geeks and people who come out to educational events still have a chance to remember those lost. Now I feel surer that New York will be able to work out something satisfactory for the World Trade Center.

Driving
After spending quality time downtown, I drove out to the antique mall to check our space. April in Richmond cancels out the gloom of 40 degree, rainy days in the winter. The median dogwoods are gone, but those in the yards of Monument Avenue have begun blooming, pink and white. A few early azaleas are opening, too.

I need to sweep the pollen accumulation off the porch, though.

Ham and Plaques

Ah, classic Simpsons reruns have returned to channel 35. We had been getting way too many repeats of the same six episodes from the past three years.

A reliable fan site identifies one of tonight's as Homer Defined, but does not highlight my favorite line. In this ep, Homer becomes Employee of the Month thanks to eeny-meeny-miney-mo-ing his way to the right button for averting a meltdown. The next day, Mr. Burns calls upon Homer to deliver a motivational speech at Shelbyville's power plant (owned by the voice of John Lovitz). Homer tries to weasel out of it, but Burns chides him that "Employee of the Month isn't all ham and plaques you know." I love that. I use it all the time and folks look at me funny.

The Friends of Richmond Public Library book sale drew the usual cast of characters, today: voracious readers on a budget, used book dealers, students, and retired folks. About 55 people came in when we threw open the doors at about 9:58 a.m. Tomorrow we'll get more families, and school teachers looking to fill their additional reading shelves.

Play Ball!

The R-Braves open today in Charlotte; we have to wait a week for the home opener, though. Can we please have a day like today (sunny and 80)?

Other good reading for opening week: Rickwood Field - America's Oldest Ballpark ; industrial leagues ; and a book review in Style: Home of the Braves.

My Little Town

After work on Monday, I wanted a walk, so I strolled to the mailbox by Retreat Hospital and dropped in a few things. A block or two from my destination, I realized it was getting colder, so I decided I'd better pop into Halcyon on the way home to get warm. The owner, was on duty (with her Scottie and another little terrier), and before I knew it, I had a smart 1960s white dress on hold, to wear in the Laurel Parade at reunion.

On the way back over yesterday, a man walking with his toddler girl and an older man gives me "hey baby," in a cool, not-quite-threatening voice. What the hell? I wore a biggish, frumpy sweater and sneakers. Don't talk to me like that just because I think it is proper to look at, nod to, the people I meet in the street. The "cultural differences" shadow looms. Maybe to him, my looking his way was an invitation; maybe he thinks "baby" is a correct thing to call women he doesn't know.

And cultural differences leads to the US's current entanglements. Why do we get to say “democracy for everyone”? Why do we have “In God We Trust” on our money, and then get to tell them no religious leaders in their government? I don’t trust in god, despite what my cash says. How do we know when to respect someone else’s culture and when to say, “yo, that’s too much?”

I read that UR will have a campus-wide question next year: “How do we know which questions to ask?” Cool.

All these thoughts slipped in and out of my brain quickly. The evening was too nice to contemplate if I should have done something other than ignore him. Yesterday evening was much warmer than Monday, and I enjoyed the 4 o’clock light on the old houses and the hyacinths and daffodils blooming. I liked walking over to Robinson Street to pick up a $22 dress to wear in May. The world is complicated, but all-in-all, not that bad.