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You and Me Babe, Howaboutit?
09.10.11 | Permalink | | Comments Off on You and Me Babe, Howaboutit?An old friend asked for the story of how Tamara and I met. I think she wanted a couple sentences and I crafted about ten paragraphs instead. It was hard to whittle it down since every detail seems so crucial to the core of my life’s story, which you will find below:
When I went to the University of Washington, I spent a lot of time with my best friend, Jeff Jacobs. While taking some comparative literature classes [oddly abbreviated on the course materials book as “C.Lit: Fairy Tales” (were we taught by asexual monks?)] Jeff met his future wife, Michelle. Jeff begged me to come to a party with him at her friend’s house because he was overwhelmed by the friends and had been cornered by this Mohawk wearing, punk, physics guy who talked his ear off before in that socially obtuse sort of way.I went along and was ushered into an old but cute three flight walk-up in Everett. The party was just getting started and Jeff and I were among the first to arrive. In my mind (I know I have embellished with all of the warm feelings of the passing years) the apartment just glowed with this soft light like pictures taken with Vaseline on the lens of a vintage camera. There was a view of the Puget Sound, in that bohemian vein (lots of factories around, but still the pretty water). I was introduced to the hostess and some people I had already met at UW. I think I talked with the hostess and a couple of the girls on the sofa, distracted by the view and that hostess who was sitting on the windowsill beside my chair with her back to the open window, silhouetted by the setting sun.
We instantly clicked, that hostess and I. As I was a comparative religion major, I was excited to learn she was questioning spiritual stuff and organized religion, and she had begun reading the bible to get a clearer opinion about the stuff inside. (Just for the record, we are pretty spiritual people but not religiously affiliated with any organized religion). I remember that we discussed the convenant of the rainbow with Noah, and I had this pithy anecdote about that story having written some stuff about the folklore traditions of the Old Testament for some coursework. the fact that she was questioning all that stuff was electrifying, since I had become an English/Comp Rel. major with the same questioning nature – as well as wanting to spend my time in college reading fairy tales and ancient stories that played out like installments of Star Wars.Anyway, I talked with her in a daze for what seemed like hours but was actually only ten or fifteen minutes and she seemed like everything to me! She was smart. She was curvy and pretty. She had a spark of LIFE that was similar to mine. She smiled big, and she looked right back into my eyes with her own powdery blue ones, sharing an enthusiasm for our conversation…. Her name was Tamara Hansen and I knew I was going to be asking her out before I left this party.
Then the spell broke when a fellow came out of the bathroom wearing nothing but a bath towel. His mohawk was freshly pasted up in the air and the hostess next to me stood up and beelined to the guy. She kissed his cheek and pinched his nipple and my heart fell into my stomach. URGH! She was with the guy Jeff said bored the crap out of him last time with his long winded and obtuse meanderings! The whole ordeal was made worse by all the wonderful details that followed through the evening: she was a gardener, a gourmand, an artist, listened to good music, made beautiful flower arrangements and used rice grains as a vase frog! Brilliant. Then came the coup de gras of ootching across the bed in her studio apartment sort of standing upright but on her knees in this silly walk maneuver wearing these cut-offs and a t-shirt in the single most sexy un-sexy thing I have ever witnessed, as she sought out a piece of pottery she had made. At 22, I was full of optimism and romance and had enough near misses to know that SHE was what I wanted, but she was taken. I left that party without asking her out. I was forlorn and sad, and for months I would wake with images of her just throbbing in my head as dreams fled me.
Every time Jeff had to go somewhere I would gamely volunteer to accompany him as long as I could divine if this girl was going to be there. I sensed Tamara felt a connection with me too because we did the whole moth to a flame thing whenever we found one another at a party, but it was always chaste, and even though her boyfriend often wore a dog collar, somehow I didn’t feel it was my place to get in between things. I brought flowers from my garden for the girls at the party, just so I could give flowers to her. I brought my guitar and played at a party even though I hate performing, so I could play in front of her. She wanted guitar lessons from me, but I thought I would just end up tortured or looking like an ass after making an inappropriate advance in my delirium and heat.
At a Low concert we stood side by side letting our elbows touch and boy, was I twitterpated for weeks. One time, she and her friend conspired to hook me up with a friend who they thought was Tamara-esque at a party, but I was not interested since that girl was NOT Tamara. I got the feeling from this that maybe Tamara liked me too, or at least knew I liked her. If she was absent from a party I left, since my reason to be there was lacking. Her friends were lovely, but I am ashamed to say that my primary drive in conversing with them was often to learn more about Tamara, and for them to learn more about me in hopes that a miracle would begin to grow.
Almost two years worth of these sorts of anecdotes occurred before I got a call from Europe. It was Tamara, and it was her birthday. She had been given the gift of a phone call by her travel-mate Amy. She chose to call me.
The Physics Punk boyfriend Tamara came to visit in Europe, as he embarked on a year abroad, had broken up with her in a room with a view of the Eiffel Tower upon her arrival in Paris! We chatted and glowed gently as the pieces of this puzzle seemed to fall in place over the phone. The details of her trip were a secret language, a code I knew how to read: her enthusiasm for Rambitica music, Goudi’s architecture, the Colosseum, it all translated to I LOVE YOU! I knew I was gonna get the girl and the sun couldn’t rise and fall fast enough to mark the days until she returned.
Weeks later, when she arrived home I picked her up from Jeff’s house in Seattle the next day. I drove her home late that night in a surreal state that felt too good to be true. We talked easily, comfortably, perfectly. I drank up the details of her parents hushed and night-lit home as I walked her in, said good night, and took my leave. We pledged to get together so I could teach her guitar, and we did, but she never did learn to play! In a few weeks she would be snowed in at my house for days during the HUGE snowstorm of 1996 and we would interwine so deeply in love that we have never been separated more than a few days from one another since.
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First Day of School
09.10.11 | Permalink | | Comments Off on First Day of School
Wednesday was the first day of school for Gigi and me. Or Guinevere, as she would prefer to be called now. The days leading up to the first day of school were fraught with tears, anxiety, nerves. But, like all good things, summer had to end and the school year came again, as it does each year. It was hard for her to give up 10:30 bedtimes and days lounging around the pool and the patio. As her mom who is also a teacher, I agree. It is so hard to let go of summer.
But then, something happens. During that first day of school, you can start to see the potential. You start to feel the buzz, the electricity of the new year. Suddenly it doesn’t seem so bad to spend the fall, winter and spring with this particular group of people. Suddenly you get energized with creativity, you can see the potential, and by the end of the day I’ve usually bought in to the new school year, I’ve fallen, at the very least, in like, with 25 of my new favorite people.
This year that happened to Guinevere. Trepidation led to exultation as she got to know her divine and lovely new teacher, Miss Jansen who calls her a princess, a sweetheart. She reconnected with her pals from previous years, rekindled the friendships that she didn’t even know she was missing. At the end of the day, I expected to find a tired and whiny Guinevere who would be missing the freedom of summer, exhausted from the long day, but instead I found an excited little girl, who found the potential in this new group, in her new teacher (who she has fallen head over heels in love with). She came home that first night and wrote a book about what she did, illustrated it, and took it to school with her the next day to show her teacher. It’s safe to say that she’s sold on the new school year, hook, line and sinker.
It’s going to be a good year. A very good year.
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Ready! Set! GO!
09.06.11 | Permalink | | Comments Off on Ready! Set! GO!Lately on Facebook I’ve seen this status that says something to the effect of: Somewhere, during her summer off, there is a teacher who is already back to school, using her own money and time to create a learning space for the students she is dedicated to… It made me think of the time I spend in the classroom, and what a gargantuan effort it is each year to take down the classroom (meaning clean up, put away, take down posters…) then to rebuild it and make it a place where students will be excited to learn. So this year I thought I’d take a few before and after photos so I could see the effort paying off.
The first set of photos is the before. I took these in early August, my first return to the classroom. I think it is safe to say it takes me a good solid four days or so to put my classroom back together. That does not include curriculum planning, it is only the table moving, organizing, refinding and stuff hanging time.
This is the view as you walk into the room from the inside entry. I am standing in an alcove that serves as coat storage, book storage and anything else I need to have around storage. Lucky me, my classroom gets to look organized and clean with all the clutter in the alcove!
This is looking from the opposite corner, from my desk area to the alcove.
This is the same view as the first, from the alcove.
And this is the view again from my (messy) desk.
Then there’s the pretty stuff. I love my classroom library. I have a ton of fiction and non-fiction books for kids to choose from and get excited about. I have little nooks for them to read in, a variety of chairs and seating, including a giant bean bag which is very popular (but which I wash obsessively). We are starting our first social studies unit right away, which is Wonderful Washington. Fourth grade social studies is all about Washington, so we spend a lot of time learning about Native Americans, the Sound, the weather, government and history. It is pretty engaging and fun to learn about.
NOW I can say I’m ready!!! Tomorrow the kids will be there, with their bright, shiny ideas smelling like new, pink erasers. What a great new year!
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Eye
09.05.11 | Permalink | | Comments Off on Eye“Last nine years ago (translation: yesterday) mine eye fall out! It roll down street and a car get it! Please come help!”.
This was Jude’s rouse to get us out of bed this morning to make him breakfast. Obviously, his eye is still in his head.
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Will You Marry Me?
09.04.11 | Permalink | | Comments Off on Will You Marry Me?The other day Bradley and I were hanging out in the hot tub when Jude came wandering out the door in his bathing suit. He and Guinevere had just finished watching the ballet ‘The Nutcracker,’ so I suppose he was feeling particularly romantic.
“Mama? I love you,” Jude told me.
“Aww, Jude, I love you too!” I replied.
Jude took my face in his chubby little hands, looked me deeply in the eyes, and again said, “I love you, Mama. I will marry you!”
“You’ll marry me, Jude?” I answered, “I would love to marry you! Who will Daddy marry?”
“Daddy marry Grandma Kobs.”
“Oh, he would love to marry her! And who will Gigi marry?”
“Didi marry Grandma Sheri.”And so it was decided. He also told me that I will need to wear a ‘big puffy dress” while he was set to wear a red prince outfit for the actual wedding.
The next morning he was my Prince Charming no longer. Common sense prevailed, and I lost my suitor to the lovely Guinevere Rose, who has plentiful big puffy dresses. But I will forever remember the fleeting moments when my son loved me so much that he became my groom.
