It's Beginning To Look A Lot Like Solstice

It was cold the other day. Not bone-chilling, teeth-chattering, skull-numbing cold. As a matter of fact, it was just a bit below what my mother would call "sweater weather." Out here in the wilds of urban California, what that meant was that I saw a number of drivers out at the curb with their garden hoses, pouring water on their front and back windshields to promote the condensation of the moisture that had been, ever so briefly, frost. I live in a land without ice scrapers and snow brushes.
By the time I reached school, there were a few kids there. They were the ones who were taking advantage of the slippery surface of the mat below our play structure. They took turns racing halfway across, then sliding until their sneakers caught some of the less-icy rubber beneath and they tumbled to the ground. These brave souls were soon joined by brothers and sisters and friends until every inch of frost had been worn off by the friction of twenty-some kids hurtling back and forth, suddenly bringing to mind the frozen pond in the beginning of "A Charlie Brown Christmas." Then, just as suddenly, it returned to the familiar fractal of our students at play.
They were energized by the coming holiday, or at least the coming vacation. I have learned over the years not to lean to heavily on any particular connection to any kid and any holiday. Even if their particular belief system doesn't allow for the recognition or celebration of certain special days, every kid celebrates two weeks off school. The Winter Assembly skewed heavily to the secular version of Christmas, with a sprinkling of Kwanza. Then the rains came and winter had truly arrived.

Example Number One

Coming down the hill in the opposite direction was another biker. I was in the middle of giving him the "way-to-go-saving-the-environment-and-getting-exercise-on-your-bike" head bob, when I noticed something wrong. Two things, actually. First, he rolled right through the stop sign at the bottom of the hill. The same stop sign that I had stopped long enough to look up to notice my fellow two-wheeler. Second, he wasn't wearing a helmet.
It was probably more of an issue for me now, since my son had recently had his own close encounter with the rules of the road and the importance of proper head protection. His experience left him shaken but not stirred, and his helmeted head ended up doing more damage to the car than it did to him. The rules of the road have been impressed no him in a very visceral way.
Long before my son's feet could reach the pedals, I had my own awakening at the very intersection I watched the helmet-less guy roll through. I got a ticket on that hill for running a stop sign. A motorcycle cop was watching from the left as I roared past the red reminder of safety. I heard his much larger bike start up and he caught up to me in less than a block. Feeling a range of emotions from shock to bitterness, I pulled my bike to the curb.
"You know you ran that stop sign back there?" the officer asked rhetorically.
"Yeah. Well. I was on my way to school and," and that's when I decided to stop arguing and realized that I had no leg or kickstand on which to stand. He wrote me a ticket. I signed it. I took it with me to school where I began to fume at any of my colleagues who would listen.
I was stopped in mid-rant by my mentor teacher, the one who had helped me navigate much of my first year in public education. "You didn't stop, did you?"
"No," I replied, full-on sheepish.
"And you weren't wearing a helmet?"
I didn't see that one coming. She must have noticed my comings and goings for months prior, but said nothing about it. Why was she kicking me while I was down?
"It's only a two-mile ride, and it's mostly side streets," I sputtered in defense.
"You're modeling for kids. They see you come and go every day. You wouldn't want them riding around the streets of Oakland without helmets, would you?"
"No."
Conversation and lesson over. Since that morning I have worn a helmet and stopped at that stop sign in particular, along with all of its many brethren. I'm not just filling heads with knowledge. I'm protecting them from possible damage. Lesson learned. For me, anyway.

With Friends Like These

The National Football League suspended New York Jets strength coach Sal Alosi for the rest of the regular season and the playoffs without pay. If you live anywhere outside of New York or Miami, you might suspect that Sal was found shooting horse DNA into the spines of the players for whom he has been trusted to care. That would make sense, right? Not really. Instead, he received his punishment for intentionally tripping Miami Dolphins cornerback Nolan Carroll on Sunday during an otherwise routine bit of punt coverage. Bad sportsmanship? You bet. Maybe this guy thought he was channeling Woody Hayes, but if you add the twenty-five thousand dollar fine to the three weeks of missed work plus the potential earnings of any Jets playoff games, it looks like a pretty bleak Christmas in the Alosi household.
Holiday depression is nothing new for fans of the Los Angeles Clippers, but you might not expect that someone making more than a million dollars a year to play a game to be free of such anxiety. Unless you happen to be Baron Davis, and your owner happened to be Donald Sterling. Baron isn't having the best year. Donald would like him to know about it. That's why Mister Sterling has taken it upon himself to show up at all of his team's games to heckle his own superstar from the very good seats that owners allow themselves. “Why are you in the game?” “Why did you take that shot?” “You’re out of shape!” These and other less encouraging barbs are routinely hurled in Davis' face as he attempts to live up to his salary. Mister Sterling may want to investigate the power of positive thinking, given the fact that his team has already lost more games than anyone else in the National Basketball Association. It does make me wonder what the holiday party at Clippers' headquarters must look like.

Lost My Appetite

The talk at dinner last Saturday night turned to politics. Normally, I don't like to mix meal time with messy conversations that might disturb my digestion, but I was pretty familiar with the group and I guessed that I wouldn't run into much discordant discourse. Then came the question: "Are you disappointed?"
He was talking about our president. The one that we elected. The Hope and Change guy. The wind that was going to sweep into Washington and make everything alright. And it didn't happen. What did I expect?
I expected that the wars would be over. I expected that our troops would be home and that diplomatic solutions would be applied to situations in the Middle East. I expected that the economy would begin to rebound based on the enormous surge of green business generated by the new administration. I expected that education funding would be restored from the top down, and that Bruce Springsteen would be appointed to a cabinet level position for Boss-ness.
That didn't happen. Now we're in the way of the pendulum swinging back the other way, and compromise is the only thing that is keeping us Democrats from being swept to the side. Or at least that's what they keep telling us. The embattled ones, anyway. The pundits as well. If we just back off all that high talk and rhetoric and start making some deals, things will be just fine. They can go back to normal: Tax breaks for everyone! Don't ask, don't tell! Cut spending, unless it's defense-related! Drill baby, drill!
My wife suggested that we are all in love with politicians when they are running for office and immediately let down once they get into office. The reality is so much harder to manage than the potential. Solar powered high speed trains would have been nice, though.
Yes. I'm disappointed. I wish we would have spent the evening talking about the new judges on "American Idol."

Some People Call Me The Space Cowboy

This past weekend, my wife was feted at our neighborhood's annual Winterfest holiday arts and crafts celebration. On posters placed strategically at intersections and heavy-traffic areas, her name was listed first on a list of attractions that included handmade jewelery and knitted ornaments. She was described as "local artist/cartoonist." We had some fun discussing this categorization. Isn't "cartoonist" a subset of the larger group "artist?" The celebrecogniton was the bottom line, and she made the most of her moment in the December sun.
It also got me to thinking about how I might be perceived. Most recently, I suspect, I would be known as "husband of local artist/cartoonist." It's a label I am comfortable with for certain times of my life. It's a nice spear-carrier position. Other times I feel better being "computer teacher," "Mister Caven," or simply "teacher" for Kindergartners who are still trying to remember the names of all the kids in their classroom, let alone the guy they see once a week for fifty minutes. At school I have a number of very specific titles, including "Academic Liaison," "Site Technologist," and "EEIP Teacher." That last one suggests that I teach a room full of EEIP's, but it's an easier job to fund.
At home I'm mostly "Dad," though every so often I recognize my first name and respond. When something gets misplaced, I become "Finder of Lost Objects." Then there's always my house title of "Guitar Hero: Medium." When I'm hanging around the house alone with my dog, I become "The One With Opposable Thumbs" who can open and close the front door.
The fact that I have all of these epithets is some measure of how far I've come as an individual. It also made me remember being in sixth grade and being asked to lead a group of classmates in a cartooning class. I got the gig because one of my friends recommended me to my teacher because I was a "good drawer." After all these years, that's the one that sticks in my mind. My wife may be "local artist/cartoonist/author," but I'm still a good drawer.

Did You Know?

Some other things we have learned from Wikileaks:
Mongolia is just north of China.
President McAleese of Ireland is a big fan of Pink Floyd.
Brazil's chief exports include coffee, soy, sugar, cocoa, beef, pig and chicken.
Many Russian women are seeking compatible mates here in the United States.
The Central Bank of Nigeria hires some real shifty characters.
Australia has its own version of "American Idol" called "Australian Idol."
Canada recently declared war on Belgium but nobody noticed.
German President Christian Wulff was upset when he found out that back rubs from other heads of state are not common practice.
Teenagers in Japan wonder what all the fuss is about Hello Kitty.
Greenland has a new flag!
It is very hard to find a Denny's in Iran.
Everyone in Britain thinks it is cute that Americans still make a fuss about "tea parties."
Hilary Clinton secretly wants her own talk show after Oprah retires.
The Republic of Congo is engaged in a billion dollar lawsuit with the makers of Congoleum floor tile.
Julian Assange has been an American Express card member since 1985.
And the revelations keep pouring in.

What's On?

There is so much television to watch these days, I have had to bring in a machine to help me watch it. My digital video recorder works much harder than my video cassette recorder ever did. This is probably because of the programming aspect. Even though I worked at a video store for several years, the effort it took to make the VCR spring to life at the right time and on the correct channel was always just a little too much for me. Inevitably there would be a step that would include the time flashing 12:00 at me, taunting me with its high tech superiority. Not so with the DVR. It does my bidding in a much more relaxed manner: by time, by title, and weeks in advance.
But my DVR won't be recording TLC anytime soon. It's not like I don't have anything to learn. The Learning Channel has twenty-four hours of programming anticipating those gaps in our education that night classes might miss. How does a family deal with nineteen kids? Do you need to know what not to wear? Want to know who the boss is, when it comes to cakes? TLC has you covered. Would you like to visit America's last frontier with one of our nation's last mavericks? If you would, then you're on your own. I won't be providing you with links to Sarah "Quitter" Palin's offering. The mere mention of it here in this blog gives it far too much publicity than it merits, and Aaron Sorkin has already said it much more richly and amusingly than I could.
What I want to know is why disgraced former governors from all parties and states can't get their own show. I would love to know what California's Gray Davis is up to now. Maybe the producers could set him up running a truck stop near Bakersfield, and the cameras could follow Gray around as he deals with all the wacky and often heart-warming situations that arise as the impeached governor encounters on a daily basis.
I would set my DVR for that.