do. not. gawk.

Whitney Houston. Don't you dare stop reading what I know in my gut to be true. Her life gave us musical time references like no other, and her death better matter to your core if you live within hitch hiking distance of the Cumberland Gap Tunnel.

This is one of many times that hellofuzzy will become a bull horn.

If you have ever watched Dorothy click her red heels, then you know this addiction problem has been around Hollywood longer than the famed sign on the mountain. My feeble mind can recall Judy Garland, Ray Charles, John Belushi, Richard Pryor, Michael Jackson, and now Whitney Houston all making the news for their talents and their demons. There are countless infamous names one could add to such a list. Its title? “Dead Addicts.” Harsh? Yes.

Now, if you live in Middlesboro, look at the cross on the mountain behind Dairy Queen and know that everyone who can see it knows someone affected by the same addiction, and you are extremely far from Hollywood.

If you live in Tazewell, we don’t have a cross on the mountain, but we have enough loss to addiction to warrant building one as a lasting memorial to those who are dead and those who are slowly dying one hit at a time.

If you are frustrated by those of us locals who are mourning Whitney Houston, then let me clarify something to you. Our grief has nothing to do with her or her voice or her sense of celebrity. I, as one of many, could care less. Many of us are mourning Whitney because we are relieved she is the “person from our life” who has died from addiction within the week instead of our neighbor, our colleague, our friend, or even worse: our family member. Those of us who wake up every day and hope that the addict we care about is still alive are most thankful that it’s Whitney who is gone instead of the addict we will get one more chance to hug, encourage, beg, and nurse.

Of course “we” have enough sense to know better than to actually mourn a celebrity. I’m not mourning the woman who housed and released the greatest voice of my generation. I’m grieving because out of all the characteristics that connect us in this human experience, it’s darn addiction that has made those of us in this neck of the woods understand what her daughter, her mother, and her other relatives are going through. We can’t relate to the Grammy’s. We can’t relate to the stardom. We can’t relate to the millions she has supposedly squandered. However, we can, without question, relate to the torture of addiction. Whether it is her legal cause of death or not is irrelevant. Addiction robbed this country of one of our greatest works of art because "it" stole her talent.

If I were to play the odds and gamble on which would be cured first, I’d select cancer over addiction by ten fold. Some may have no sympathy because addiction is often perceived as a disease of choice. That’s fine. Ignorance is a disease of choice, too, and you’re welcome to suffer from it to your heart’s content. At some point, someone gave Whitney a pill to prevent pain. In time, she discovered that such a pill would also prevent emotional existence, and she chose to live in that fog instead of coping with the emotions it masked. The “fog” is supposed to be reserved for those who are dying, but those who seem to be living the largest covet that fog more than they covet an Academy Award.

Nothing about Whitney Houston’s death is about her career. Her voice will live infinitely through iTunes and other digital media. Your grandchildren will know “The Greatest Love of All” just like we know “At Last” by Etta James.

Don’t use the upcoming weekend’s memorial service as an opportunity to gawk at celebrities as they enter the church in New Jersey where Whitney’s life will be honored. Use the time as a chance to reach out to someone you know who is surviving addiction as the addict or as the one who loves an addict. Give them a trustworthy ear if nothing else. Those who love addicts are desperate for someone to listen to them speak just as much as Whitney was desperate for a new generation to listen to her sing.

"From Buttons to Mabel and All in Between"

To the right, you'll notice a very spoiled dog and two very proud owners. They are my Papaw and my WoWo. The dog is Buttons. Buttons was a local celebrity in their neighborhood...well known for her love of eating Rolaids. My WoWo never met a critter she couldn't love, and that love trickled down to her daughter, Sandy, and her grandkids, Jill, Steven, and me. Mom says she is just too tender hearted to get attached to a dog at this point in her life. She prefers 4th graders.

Through the years the names have ranged through Snoopy, Spiffy, Tiger, Benji, Rusty, Shelby, and on and on. Pixie and Little Man are on guard here now in Tazewell. In Lexington there was Cinnamon, Ginger, Sheba, and now Buffy and Daisy reign supreme. Homer holds his fort down and Rudy has Eastern Kentucky in line as well.

Despite the geographic distances among my family dog members, my heart has been stolen by a total stranger, and it was love at first sight. Her name is Mabel, and in December, she was a 67 pound beagle.

I borrowed this photo of Mabel from WBIR.com.
According to her Facebook fan page, she is five years old and should weigh about 25 pounds. Mabel has been adopted by Dr. Angela Witzel, a veterinarian at the University of Tennessee College of Veterinary Medicine in Knoxville. The part of the story that melts my heart the most is that Mabel....bless her soul...is in fat camp. This is no joking matter.

Apparently, Mabel has eaten a lot of human food, and in her story, I thought about my WoWo and Papaw and got so sentimental. It's difficult for me to talk about my WoWo and Papaw because I did love them the absolute most, and I would have loved to shared Mabel's story with them. As you could see with the photo of Buttons above, my WoWo loved to feed her table scraps. And you can see my Papaw didn't object to Buttons having a snack at the family table.

I don't know a thing about Mabel's life before adoption, but I just wonder if she was loved by an elderly couple whose nest was empty like my WoWo and Papaw's. I wonder if she kept them company while they watched the Reds play baseball on television and if she got a Cracker Jack nibble once in a while. I wonder if she watched from the porch while someone mowed the yard and she ate the leftovers of his sandwich because it was just to do'wed hot to eat the whole thing. I wonder if she had ice cream cones on the screened in porch. I wonder if someone dug the seeds out of watermelon and let her take it all in. I wonder if someone put bacon grease over her Alpo. Mabel has brought back so many wonderful memories to me. I've had a constant reel to reel movie of my grandparents loving their pets playing in my mind since Mabel wobbled across the screen on WBIR.

At my core, I'm a teacher. I'm not a fancy educator. I'm a teacher. I'm old school thoughts with high tech gadgets to use in my communication.

Sure, I address the state curriculum standards for my students, but I also address the Mabel standards, as I now call them.

If Mabel were a child in middle school, the odds are that she'd be criticized. She would possibly be bullied. She might even be sad. There is a minority of children out there who are cruel to kids who look different like Mabel looks.

What are the Mabel standards? Be attentive when an animal is teaching you a life lesson. Support a creature who is struggling. Understand it takes teamwork to create a better life for yourself.

Mabel exemplifies all three of those standards.

Students need to understand how those standards apply to themselves.

My students and I are having so much fun with Mabel's story. We made her a greeting card and sent her a care package. She sent us the most precious thank you note with an actual paw mark autograph on it. Many of my students have joined her Facebook fan page and send her messages of encouragement. We're working on a secret valentine mission because no girl that cute should go without a valentine. Mabel has opened a conversation within the walls of my classroom that I could not have come up with on my own.

My seventh graders are genuinely concerned about Mabel. They ask about her daily, and I update them on her progress. We have a Mabel Wall and we're posting her progress. She will be the topic of our technical writing assignment in the spring. Her photo proudly hangs in our room. Students come up with great ideas about how we can help her and our local animal shelter at the same time. They're learning that kindness to animals is actually about compassion from people, and I think that's pretty darn fabulous.

It is my most humble wish that you have a Mabel to inspire you in the work you do each day.

If you'd like to know more about Mabel, please follow this link

http://www.wbir.com/news/local/story.aspx?storyid=201211

"600 Seconds"

On March 25, 2003, I was a giddy newlywed with a pink Hello Kitty Nokia cell phone. At that time, no cell phone signal was available en route to Tazewell from Knoxville until you made it to Johnson's Mill. At some point during the day, my phone rang when Loren's mom got service after Brogan's Holler, and I answered to learn that Thomas was going to have a baby sister in a few months. I am shocked that my squeal didn't crack my teeth, but I was so filled with joy that I just had to holler into the phone until I had no holler left.

Now, we all know that I'm not really good with warm and fuzzy baby stuff, but I was thrilled beyond description that this little girl was coming to the world. I wanted her to be girlie, prissy, and pink from head to toe simply because doing so would make her mother nuts. Little did I know then what an impact Loren Grace would have on not only my life but the lives of others in the years to come.

I had no clue that my life's greatest spiritual teacher would be a precious baby girl. When I am old(er) and gray(er), I will tell anyone who will listen that I learned about God from my mother, Preacher Herb, and Loren Grace.

Loren was born on August 5, 2003. Not since I had made a trek on Valentine's Day many years prior had I been interested in visiting a child on his or her actual birth day, but I loaded up my little Honda and puttered down the road to meet this little ball of happiness. Upon my arrival, I found her mother continuing to be responsible as usual....so annoying. I imagine if I had chosen to embark on childbirth, I would have eaten a wagon load of Quarter Pounders after the kid hatched. Loren's mother...ate fruit...and cottage cheese. Give me a break. Ever the athlete. Ever the responsible one. Ever the amazing mother. There she sat...eating fruit and cottage cheese. I was so distracted by her food choice that I nearly forgot there was a baby in the nursery nearby. I remember the nurse bringing her in. I remember her daddy holding her tight. I remember the nurse checking his number on his bracelett to make sure it matched, and I remember getting a chuckle afterward. I remember that beautiful baby girl and that room filled with grace. I remember what I thought "grace" meant then.

The following March brought a diagnosis that none of us found familiar. At first, I was intimidated by its name. Today, I can say Lissencephaly - Miller/Dieker Syndrome without missing a vowel. I say it, and I expect anyone who is listening to know what it means and why I care. If you are unfamiliar, I suggest you open another window and go to Google. When you come back, you will read the rest of this entry with a more humble heart than you woke up with this morning...

And speaking of this morning...

When you woke up today, did you complain about having to go to work? Did you fuss about the pending wet weather? Did you get frustrated because you overslept, locked your keys in your car, or lost your lunch money? Did you run out of hot water in the shower? Did you get detained by a flat tire? Did you forget your bus duty? Was the vending machine at work torn up thus denying you a beloved Honey Bun? Did you spill coffee on the front of your new sweater? Think about those issues as you read the rest of this.

This morning, Loren woke up just like the rest of us (if she slept any last night), but she had to get ready to make an appearance before strangers and convince them to grant her the assistance of a device that will simply let her breathe. An eight year old asking for air....

I'll give you a minute to process that.

This miraculous, precious, beloved angel on earth - who doesn't communicate with me other than with those endless brown eyes and twinkling smile - had to appear before an insurance appeal board and figure out a way to convince two doctors, three lawyers, two insurance administrators, two state citizens, and one secretary that she needed their panel of strangers to grant her permission to have the ONE DEVICE ON THE PLANET EARTH that will help her simply breathe with less congestion.

I cannot imagine.

When I was eight, I depended on my parents to help me reach a book that was too high on a shelf. I needed adults to help me put air in my bike tires. I had the audacity to take tantrums if I had to get allergy shots. I "needed" adults to buy me Barbies. I needed the wheels on my roller skates to be rotated. I needed help with long division. I needed just five more minutes in the pool.

I never ever needed my parents to find a way to ask another human for help so that I would breathe as a result of their consent.

But today while the rain was falling in Tazewell, Loren, her mom and dad, and her oh-so-awesome Gramma were waiting in some big, cold, room with a drop ceiling and flickering cheap lights. To get to that room, they had to drive almost three hours. And once their turn came up, they were given a maximum of ten minutes to find the right words to say on Loren's behalf to that panel of experts. Ten minutes. 600 seconds. Can you imagine being given 600 seconds to appropriately ask for your child to have air?

Six hundred ticks of the clock, and their time was up.

Homework was done prior to the appearance. Adequate research and statistics were compiled in a document that, I'm sure, held a close resemblence to any advanced medical student's review of relevant literature. But despite all the research, despite all the statistics, and despite the information provided by the company that makes the actual device, her mother's love is what will make the difference as the panel reviews Loren's case. In all the world, that is one of the few things I know for sure.

I'm not writing this to open discussion about the ways and means of medical insurance companies. Let the editors who are real journalists do that. After much prayer, I know that approaching this type of situation from a place of bitterness and resentment about questionable corporate practices will not help Loren or the hundreds of other children whose lives may be changed by having access to this miraculous device should BCBST grant it. I approached today just like my own momma told me to do. Feel free to report that this teacher prayed in school today. You better believe I did. I didn't pray for patience, forgiveness, or snow. I sat at my desk and bowed my head and prayed for God to give that panel of reviewers true grace in their hearts. I prayed for God to give them courage to make a decision that might set the precedent for generations of children yet to be born. I prayed for Loren to be the little girl that changes this aspect of medical practice in Tennessee so that it might be shared by other states in the years to come.

No mother should have to ask for breath for her child, but today, my friend had to do just that.

As I've said before, when I grow up, I want to be like Loren's mom.

A Single Rose in Pasadena on Day 972.

Most of you know that my friend since childhood, Bridgette, made a donation to the Donate Life Tournament of Roses float in memory of my husband, "H." I should have come here to "hellofuzzy" then for proper explanation, but I was so overwhelmed and shocked that compiling complete sentences would have been a challenge.

I'm writing this today in hopes that at least one of you will be convinced to sign the back of your driver's license and become an organ donor after you read this blog. I'm not asking you to do it for me; I'm asking you to do it for the ones you leave behind.

Technically, he has been gone for 972 days. I can't stop the counting. Tomorrow I will wake up and know it is 973. I wish I could stop the counting, but I can't. Waking up is the worst, and that's when I will say 973. I say it to remind myself of how far I've come and as a tiny prayer that God will do something positive with my life during 973 like He has done today with 972 by sending us a warm smile while watching the parade.

Mainly, I hope to maybe write about our family's experience with organ donation to help you get a better understanding of what to expect for yourself and your loved ones. There was a lot I didn't know at the time, but now it all makes sense to me.

Time is of the essence, and gosh, it was difficult for me to keep composure. I was at a point where I wanted the world to stop, but H being a donor meant that the work ahead was crutial and there was no time to stop. Period. City law enforcement arrived first as with any similar situation, and the first question they asked was if he was an organ donor and where was his license. Once they read he was an organ donor, everything sped up to a rate that was so fast everything sounded like Charlie Brown's school teacher and I couldn't translate. Remember spinning on the merry go round at Ford's Woods and looking up at the sky while you did? That's how my head felt, and my heart was in a million tiny pieces. In fact, "fast" is about the only thing I can tell you I really do remember until my phone rang.

Someone from Tennessee Donor Services called and called and called. Holly very patiently handled that for me. Finally, she and others said, "You have to do this now."

After my husband left home, I hid here in my computer room with friends holding my speaker phone while I answered hundreds of questions about his social and medical history. I could not imagine being the person who has that job to call. Regardless of her salary, she earned it ten times over that day. The interview took an hour and forty-five minutes. Now, you need to put yourself in this analogy: a typical movie lasts a little over 90 minutes these days. Who in your family do you want to answer questions about you for that long after you are with God ? Please pick someone to do it. Pick several. Prepare them for the difficulty but encourage them to give the information because they will be helping to save lives within hours of hanging up the phone. The questions are blunt, personal, and scary. The truth must be told, and in the end, the gift of life can be given to a total stranger who may be the very person to cure heart disease, cancer, or birth defects...especially if the recipient is a child.

The donation procedures before the visitation services limit what you can do at the memorial services. Depending on the types of donations your loved one is capable of giving, you and your family might need to make practical decisions about your loved one's viewing. Just take a deep breath and know that doing so is providing life. Knowing I'd see him again some day was my greatest comfort, but knowing someone was gaining life from him at that moment was a healing I never knew before.

After the services were behind me, and the quiet came, those were the days I found most difficult. The people at Donate Life know that. Soon, your loved ones will start getting the most amazing correspondence in the mail. Donate Life will make contact on birthdays, anniversaries, and holidays. In the fall though, your loved ones will get a very touching invitation.

Your family will be invited to a celebration of giving in Knoxville. They will be asked to bring a quilt square to represent your lost love one. The quilt squares are all assembled together and go on tour around the state to encourage organ donation. I made H's square from his blue jeans. One strip for every family member made the base and then a pocket on top. Leigh Anne took it and had his name and a dove embroidered on the pocket. Upon our arrival at the ceremony, I gave it to a volunteer to place on a quilt board for all to see.

You will hear testimonies from organ recipients. You will meet parents who lost their children but found peace in giving life. You will be surrounded by a kind of calm and silence I never knew until that day. Josh accepted a medal to honor his dad as a donor on that day during the ceremony.

The Donate Life organization does everything as right as is possible to bring comfort to those who gave and celebrate those who receive. At the end of the day's event, each person in attendance is given a note card to attach to a balloon. The balloons are released as guests depart from the ceremony. The sky is speckled with faith, hope, and love all directed toward Heaven.

My note read as follows:

I'm not writing this for sympathy. I'm writing it to hopefully enlighten you about the unknown and encourage you to have a very important conversation with your family about being organ donors.

Day 972 has been a wonderful day. The girl I met standing in the hallway while we waited to get on Bus 3 in third grade took the time to acknowledge my husband's gift of organ donation in the Tournament of Roses Parade about 32 years after I met her. My husband's name was attached to a rose on a beautiful float filled with families of children whose lives were lost in horrific tragedies but found a way to fulfill a purpose through the pain. The float and its story were beautiful and very humbling.

Fulfilling a purpose through the pain is what I think we have to do. Scratch that. It's what we're supposed to do.

If you need a pen to sign your organ donor consent on your license, let me know...I'll get one to you.

I wish you all a happy new year filled with peace of mind and spirit.

My Holiday Masterpiece.

Christmas cards always enlightened my days as a kid...especially if my name was on the envelope and impressively if my name was spelled correctly on the envelope. Mom had a ceramic Santa whose large green toy bag was opened to hold all of our cards, and I carefully stacked them according to size day after day as they would arrive. My favorite card always came from Mrs. Cohenour, my childhood art teacher. While other cards displayed humble images of a quiet manger, joyful children romping in the snow, Jolly St. Nick wiggling his nose, and Christmas trees being dragged across a snow laden field to a country home, Mrs. Cohenour's card always displayed a worldly piece of Christmas art from the Met in New York City. Long after my days of washing her brushes and filling the classroom kiln, I still receive my holiday greeting from Mrs. Cohenour, and I cherish each one a little bit more every year.





While the art displayed on Mrs. Cohenour's cards is from the hands of masters, the art displayed on my card this year is of the hands that raised me. Very rarely do I slow down long enough to take pictures of my life, but back in the fall, I simply asked Mom to sit down and play. I told her she didn't even have to smile, and I snapped this picture. In the time that it took for the flash to fire, I managed to take a picture that really needs no caption.





When I was in middle school, Mom's piano students started filing in and out of our home as she carefully guided their little fingers to play. Carefully, I listened as she encouraged each of them to make a joyful noise unto the Lord with every stroke of a key. As the holidays rolled around, she'd review her record books and order small statues of the great composers for each child. She kept a running list of which students had acquired what masters. To this day, I am convinced Cindy Collins Code must have the largest collection. The statues would arrive from the distributor, and Mom would wrap Bach, Beethoven, Mozart and friends with love in each detail of the pretty paper and bows. I'm now a middle school teacher instead of a student, and the great composers still arrive at Mom's house each holiday season as she assigns each a new home during the holidays.





This picture isn't just about piano lessons though. Those are the hands that raised me. You should put your hands together and aplaud her massive undertaking and success. Those hands hugged me, brushed my hair, tied my shoes, fluffed my dresses, tucked me in, and busted my butt. Those hands taught me how to count, read, write, and pray. Those hands checked my temperature, drove me to Clancy's, made me chicken and dumplin's and led me carefully through all the wonder that a child's life offers. Those are my momma's hands, and they've patted the head of at least a thousand students who passed in and out of her classroom doors through the years, too.





To be her daughter is my life's greatest blessing, and I should have thought to capture this moment long before now. Playing the piano fills her soul with joy like nothing else. After all the papers are graded, Sunday's music is practiced, the piano students are gone, and life falls quiet on the hill....listen very carefully on your porches. Not only should you listen for Santa and his sleigh....you should listen for my momma to play, "When They Ring Those Golden Bells."





Merry Christmas!

Mom...I Mean Santa....Always Knew This Would Happen

Upon first glance at this photo, you might be tempted to notice the doll I'm holding. That's Cher. I remember the eyelashes being too long on that doll. The doll's hair got tangled in the lashes, and that frustrated me. As a result, I cut the lashes off. Perhaps that was a precursor to the cosmetic enhancements Cher would have in the years to come. Regardless, I liked that doll a lot. But this photo is NOT about Cher.

I was five years old when this was taken. Thirty-five years ago, my mother knew this love of writing was coming. Look behind me on the table. See that typewriter? That's the device that launched me on my way to madness behind a keyboard.

If you look to the right of me under the tree, you'll see Ragedy Ann and Andy heads peeking up. One was a pencil sharpener, one was a clock, and one was a pencil holder. These are also known as office supplies...yet more tools necessary to help me learn how to put my insanity down on paper.

From the time I first heard the sound of a fingers flying across a typewriter, I wanted to learn how to do that. The picture shows my first typewriter, but I can count of at least five more that Mom gave to me after this one. I remember running the ribbon from this one under water so I could get just one more alphabet out of it. I remember feeling grown up when I had plain white paper instead of notebook paper to put in the roller. Every typewriter that followed was a little more advanced, but I had no idea then that a computer would ever be part of my daily happiness now.

Just sending this out as a little warning to all you Santas out there. When you buy gifts that encourage expression, imagination, and thought for your small children, those gifts have the potential to create a love of creativity for a lifetime.

"We didn't say those kinds of words."

I have embraced the fact that I'm four decades old, and I find it to be quite an astonishing accomplishment on my part. Must say I'm proud of my mom for not killing me when she would have been perfectly justified to do so. I don't spend a lot of time reflecting on woulda, coulda, and/or shoulda. I teach English and just used those last three expressions as actual words; forgive me. If a human had survived as long as my career, she or he'd be 19 years old and counting. Within those nineteen years, I've noticed a change in the adolescent vernacular surrounding my desk top Disney characters and me. Necessity fosters invention, and perhaps invention fosters our vocabulary. Nevertheless, many of these words have been snuggled up in the pages with Mr. Webster, and they have become popular ramblings of the generation whose thumbs will be more agile than all the digits of Mozart combined. Whether their embrace has formed from texting, social networking, or just using something new....take note of how often these words are thrown about by your tweens at home. Back in our day, we just didn't say these words.

"random" - I remember using it in Mrs. Rutherford's biology class...maybe...something to do with selection and a Petri dish. Tweens use it today to describe little mini-surprises throughout their days, and they use "random" often. I can't decide if the connotation of its new use is negative or positive. What are your experiences with the word?

"beast" - Once upon a road trip, Bridgette and I rode a roller coaster with that name. Today, the cool kids use it to describe encounters or individuals that are above average, or, dare I say, distinguished.

"like" - Our generation used this to refer to how we felt about Clancy's cheeseburgers, roller skate pom poms with jingle bells in their center, Friday Night Videos, and Wiggles blue jeans from the Little Loft. Today, the Bieber generation can seldom speak a sentence without inserting this new form of an unnecessary comma. Omitting its use from their daily discussions would be the equivalent of tying my hands behind my back while I speak. They nor I would manage to communicate very effectively under either circumstance.

"epic" - For us, this described the torture we knew as Homer and the Iliad, and even the Odyssey. Based on today's standards of usage, we should have been using it for the number of Tuesday nights we spent standing in line to buy Top Gun tickets on cheap night at the movies.

"hoodie" - We wore them, but we didn't call them that. I remember, as do many of you, those faded out MHS hooded sweatshirts that rarely maintained a chord through the actual hood. Washers and dryers across our small town devoured the strings along with socks and underwear, so the hoods were left to lie flat on our backs. Sometimes we wore them on test day. Those hoods were excellent hiding places for cheat sheets. Did I just write that? Nah.

"180, 360, 540, 720" - Visualize if you will a math teacher, any math teacher, trying to teach us about how to find the circumference of a circle. Today, kids know all about how many revolutions of a skateboard or MX bike each number represents. We talked in terms of fast, faster, and fastest; they talk in terms of complete revolutions.

"goth" - Upon first impression, that's a term that looks like it might be the name of a bottom dwelling fish, but it's a term used today to describe kids who wear black at every possible opportunity. Black hair, pale skin, black makeup, black clothes, and black shoes. Back when we were kids, we had another word for "goth." We called him Ozzy.

"bank" - I remember the steps inside the lobby of Home Federal that allowed me to climb up and look the teller in the face when I was a curtain climber making my deposit into Homer's Club. My money was kept in a building called a bank. Today, "bank" is used by tweens to describe the monetary possessions of a celebrity.

"stalker" - Maybe when we were teens this word was surfacing with news "reports" published by the National Enquirer but I don't recall us using it as a term to describe people just for being annoying and refusing to accept the rejection they had been dealt. Kids today accuse each other of stalking everything from their lockers, their papers, their phones, and their social network pages. Again, I can't tell if the connotation is negative or positive.

My list could go on and on, and one day, it will. But for today, give my selections a thought and share your observations with me, please. I will never be as bright as the children I teach, but it's important that I always know how to interpret their English compared to mine.

Now, for those of you who thought I'd write about adolescent use of profanity based on the title of this rambling, I gotcha! In the words of Dr. Sheldon Cooper, "Bazinga!"