Running in Circles

Deck Four of the Disney Wonder has a jogging track that circles the ship. Three laps is a mile. I tell you this not because you care how many laps I ran, but to give you some sense of how big the ship is.

The first morning at sea, all I could see during my run was gray rolling ocean and mist. It was that rolling ocean that woke me up. People who say a cruise ship is so big you don’t even know you’re on the ocean are liars. Big fat liars with their pants on fire. Either that, or they’ve never been on a cruise ship in the northern Pacific. It took a whole day to get my sea legs under me. I was never really seasick because Linda came prepared with these voodoo pressure point motion sickness bands, and those suckers really do work. But even though I wasn’t sick, when I lay down, I felt my bed rising and falling, and it wasn’t pleasant. Victor said he felt like he was being rocked to sleep. Me? Not so much. I felt like I was trapped on some sick and twisted amusement park ride. I had some really bizarre dreams. All in all, the motion of the ocean was conducive to getting my butt out of bed early every morning.

So that first morning, I was up at 5:30 and on the track a little before 6:00. We were in open water with no land in sight in either direction, just fog and ocean. The smell of the sea air, the waves rising and falling, and the mournful wail of the ship’s horn were perfect. Zen. We were in a thick fog bank, and the horn sounded repeatedly during my run. Only two other people were on the track that early. The temperature scared most runners into the gym. The three of us hardy souls were spread out around the ship, so for long stretches of my run, I was alone with the waves and the fog. I never really got cold. The track went inside at both the bow and stern, and I always started at the bow. Sailing north, the starboard side was shielded from the wind, and after a lap, the wind on the port side felt good. It was an awesome run, the most incredible I’d ever experienced.

Until the next day.

We stayed out late the night of our first full day at sea, so I was tired enough to overcome the discomfort of the rocking, and I slept a little later. I might have slept a lot later if the ship hadn’t bounced so hard around 6:00 that I was sure Captain Fabian was trying to catch some air…or that we had hit an iceberg. The alarms didn’t sound, so when my heart rate slowed I got dressed and hit the track.

Turns out we were entering Alaska’s inside passage between a string of barrier islands and the mainland. We had to slow almost to a stop to pick up a special pilot for that leg of the trip, plus the currents produce a weird chop at the entrance. The engines revving up in that chop probably woke me up. I’m kinda glad it almost bounced me out of bed because the second morning, I had this to look at during my run.

The second morning was the most incredible run I’ve ever experienced. There was land on both sides of the boat, but the starboard side was all snow-capped peaks. I’ve never been in a place where you can see both ocean and mountains stretching to the horizon. The early hour and southeast Alaska’s ever-present clouds made the world appear monochromatic, everything in shades of gray. I would make a silly comment here about how many shades of gray except it was too magnificent to reduce to a puerile joke. 

The water was silver sliding to a gun metal with the mountains rising almost black. The snow was stark and beautiful against all that gray. I stopped twice to take pictures. Once, another guy stopped running and looked with me. It was the kind of moment you wanted to share with someone, even a stranger.

Morning two was a prelude to some of the most spectacular vistas of the entire trip when we cruised up Tracy Arm to the Sawyer Glacier. I’ll tell you all about that when I write Blue Ice.

On morning three, I needed the alarm to wake up. We reached Skagway during the night, and the boat was blessedly stopped. You really don’t appreciate sleeping in a stationary bed until you’ve slept in a moving one for a couple of nights. I made myself get up because I justified the ridiculous amount of food I ate by saying, “Yeah, but I ran this morning.”

I’m so thankful that I did get up because every morning the view from Deck 4 was different, and every morning it felt like a gift when I saw it for the first time.

This is what I saw when I stepped out onto the starboard side of Deck 4. I thought I had stepped back in time a hundred years.

The view from the port side assured me it was still 2012, but wow…

The track was a bit more crowded on morning three. We were allowed to disembark at 7:30, and folks were getting an early start on the day. I was out by 6:15, and I was dodging other runners and walkers. I didn’t mind because the excitement at finally getting to step onto Alaskan soil was palpable. I’m pretty sure I might have used that excitement as an excuse to cut my run short that morning.

Skagway was my favorite port. The town was quaint. The shops were fun, and I didn’t yet know that the cruise lines owned most of them and that I would see the same shops in Juneau and Ketchikan.

The canoeing excursion to the Davidson Glacier that afternoon was my favorite adventure of the trip. Once again, that is a whole other blog post, but one minor detail is relevant to this one. Hiking out of the woods in the heavy rubber boots we were issued, I wrenched my knee. It hurt like a @#*$! Linda had warned me in advance that there is no cursing on a Disney cruise, so I yelped and bit my tongue. (I should also note that it was Linda who upon realizing that the coffee shop in Skagway was not a Starbucks and could not make her a mocha exclaimed, “This is bullshit!”)

Morning four I woke up in Juneau. My knee was still pretty jacked up, so I didn’t run. I took this pic after we disembarked.

Juneau was the only port we visited which doesn’t rely almost exclusively on tourism to support the local economy. Shipping, mining, and government (it’s Alaska’s capital) keep the town running. Subsequently, it’s not as picturesque as the other places we stopped. If I was going to miss an early morning “first look,” this was the place to do it.

Missing my morning run in Juneau messed with my whole day, and I decided that pain in my knee was the lesser of two evils. On morning five, I got an early look at Ketchikan. Up to this point, both cruise line and excursion employees had been telling us how lucky we had been with the weather. I always raised an eyebrow when I heard this because it was cold and cloudy every single day.  When I stepped out onto the deck in Ketchikan, I understood why we had been lucky.

Rain, and lots of it. Southeast Alaska is a temperate rain forest. That’s why they have all those incredible glaciers and lush green forests. It’s also why I traipsed aboard the ship like a drowned rat at the end of that day. Robert and I were supposed to go on a float plane excursion while the majority of the crew went on a crab boat excursion. Cruise Director Jimmy informed me during my run that all float plane excursions had been cancelled due to the weather.

Bummer. I was disappointed for myself, but even more for Robert. He worked so hard to make everything perfect for everyone else, and the thing he was looking forward to the most got cancelled. We found something else to do that day, and I’ll tell you about it later, but it was anticlimactic after looking forward to the Mystic Fjord Float Plane Excursion.

Morning Six, or If the house is a rockin’…get the hell out of the house.

The weather didn’t improve after we left Ketchikan. In fact, it got all kinds of crazy that evening. Around five o’clock or so, Captain Fabian made an announcement that we would be leaving the Inside Passage and there was some weather ahead. “We might experience some movement.”

Really Captain Fabian? We might experience some movement? What you meant was “the ship is going to crest a huge wave, fly completely out of the water, and then slam back down into the trough like the Andrea Gale in A Perfect Storm. Repeatedly.” We tried to go to seventies night at the ship’s nightclub, but our drinks wouldn’t stay on the table. Watching the band try to keep their footing while playing “Boogie Nights” was fun, but we called it quits early and held on to the wall as we made our way back to our staterooms. I lay awake for a long time listening to things fall in the bathroom. Kaitlyn said the creaking made her think of the scene in Titanic where the water burst through the wall as the old couple lay in bed clutching each other. Happy thought when you’re lying in bed on a ship.

We were still rockin’ and rollin’ the next morning, although not to the same degree. I was out of bed less than a minute after I woke up. Someone should patent that idea as an alarm. The clock strikes 6am, the bed starts rolling, and boom! You’re awake.

My last morning’s run was much like my first. Nothing but ocean on either side. There was less fog than that first morning, and the ship was rising and falling more, but otherwise my run was very peaceful. Zen. Unencumbered by distractions, I ran the farthest and thought the most. Later that day we stopped in Victoria, Canada, and we returned to Seattle overnight, but I felt like my cruise was bookended by those two runs.

Normally, I hate running on a track. Running in circles is boring. I like to go somewhere when I run, watch the scenery change. Running in circles in the middle of the ocean is different. You’re moving forward at the same time. I was moving forward in every sense of the word. Each morning I got up and ran on that cruise was a gift, a gift I gave myself just by getting up and doing it.

The Alaska Series

I just returned home from a cruise to Alaska and Canada by way of Seattle. People in each of those places remarked on the exceptionally cool summer they are having this year. The temperature broke 70 in Seattle on the day we sailed, but mostly we never even saw 60, and a couple of days in Alaska, we yearned for 50.

Robert was right. It’s freaking COLD in Alaska. I stepped out of the airport terminal yesterday, and basked in the hot, soupy air that is Kentucky in the summer.

The trip was incredible in spite of the cold, gloomy weather. I had never previously been to any of these places, so my journey was filled with many new and wonderful experiences. Throw in 14 eclectic personalities and a dash of Disney, and you’ve got some blog material.

I had so much material I was overwhelmed at first. Writing during the trip was difficult for several reasons, but initially, the biggest obstacle was the lack of a framework. I was bombarded with stories to tell, but they were all a big jumble in my head. After several days and several false starts, I finally got my ideas to file themselves into neat little rows…

Hahahahahahaha! Okay, okay, I’m just messing with you. Anybody who really knows me knows that NOTHING in my life is filed in neat little rows. My stuff is crammed into any space where it will fit. I was the kid who threw everything in the closet and shoved the door closed, so that when I opened it, everything fell out on my head. And that is the metaphor which best describes my whole life.

My one great skill is knowing exactly what I’ve shoved into the closet and being able to retrieve it when necessary. I have a lot of blog material shoved into my mental closet, so like my physical closet, I’ve separated it into cubbies. Each cubby is messy and overflowing, but by golly, I know what’s there…mostly.

All of this closet nonsense is a roundabout way of explaining I do have a framework for my material. I’ve planned 10 blog posts which will be combined with Gotta Have a Plan and Chasing Daylight for a total of 12 posts I’m going to call The Alaska Series. Some of the posts will be episodic and some thematic. This is my tentative list.

• Gotta Have a Plan…or It’s Cold in Alaska
• Chasing Daylight
• A Face in the Crowd

Running in Circles

• The Cult of Disney

• By the Shores of Gitchee Gumee

• The Road Kill Club

• Blue Ice

• There be whale here

• A Different Kind of Rain Forest

• It’s easier to get into Canada than it is a pub in Victoria

•  Seattle: How a town where toilets once flushed backwards became one of America's coolest cities

This list is not set in stone. It is not necessarily in order. As I write, I may combine ideas or separate them into even more posts. The closet giveth. The closet taketh away.

Also, it may take me the rest of the summer to get the things written. I’m almost finished with Running in Circles and I have copious notes on the rest. I’ll be spending the next week thawing out on the beach with Bruce and the boys, after which I’ll be too poor to do anything except stay at home, eat peanut butter and write.

Before we begin, let me introduce you to the players. The vacation was the brainchild of Robert. I will poke at Robert throughout this series because it's fun, but I need to preface all that by saying Robert is one of the most generous men I know, and I am incredibly grateful for the opportunity to travel with his family.

He is married to one of my best good friends, Linda.

They have three beautiful daughters,

Mallory,

Mallory is the one not foaming at the mouth.

Hannah,

and Sydney.

This is their son, Matthew. He’s a huge fan of all things Disney and loves to travel. He’s also autistic.

This is Linda H. (I know, I know! Two Lindas. Oy vey! So confusing!) She is a long-time friend of Robert and Linda’s and is also Matthew’s caregiver.

Mallory has two very excellent fellas in her life, Nick and Aiden.

Hannah brought her friend, Kaitlyn.

And Sydney brought TWO friends, Michaela and Taidem.

Not to be outdone, Linda also brought two friends,

Victor, who justifies everything by explaining that he’s Presbyterian (a minister even. Go figure.)…

…and ME!

Robert managed to get 14 people across the continent on three different flights and to Seattle within 30 minutes of each other. Impressive, no? We set up camp for a week in four tiny staterooms on a floating Hotel California (You can check out any time you like, but you can never leave), and no one got mad, lost his or her temper, or otherwise created drama. That’s nothing short of a miracle, especially given that five members of our party were teenagers.

The only time I saw anyone really lose their cool was in the Seattle airport when Robert was trying to herd the group and our 28 pieces of luggage (no one heeded the pack-light advice) from baggage claim to the shuttle. Four members of our group who shall remain nameless (but who weren’t Kathy), hit the wrong button on the elevator and ended up at the check-in counters in the terminal. Robert, exhausted after being on the flight that had to fly all the way to Manitoba (or as Linda described it, Winnebago) to avoid a storm, had his unshakeable calm shaken.

“You are all college educated! Use your critical thinking skills! Why would you want to go to the check-in counters?!”

The best response was clearly no response because Robert was well and truly pissed, but what went unspoken was that no one WANTED to go to the check-in counters, and going up to get to ground transportation was already counterintuitive, so what was one more floor? This is a SeaTac signage problem from my point-of-view, but my elevator stopped at the right floor, so I kept my mouth shut.

Of course, for the rest of the trip, I explained my decision making processes to Robert with the addendum that I was college educated and using my critical thinking skills. Heh heh.

That one small blip notwithstanding, we were a happy group. Don’t we look happy?

It’s freakin’ Disney! You have no choice but to be happy…but that’s another post.

So, 14 people, 28 pieces of luggage, 7 days at sea, 4 ports of call, one big boat, and a partridge in a pear tree.

Up next…Running in Circles.

Chasing Daylight

Getting 14 people across the country is an adventure and I have more to tell, but it's 4:30 in the morning Eastern time and I'm delirious. Crossing the continent made me wax poetic. I'll be funny when I'm more awake.

At 36,000 feet, the Earth expands. It grows larger than the ground under my feet, larger than my neighborhood, and even an entire city. It becomes a planet. The sun sits just over the soft curvature where the land disappears into space.

The clock, still set for the east, says 8:30 as the muddy Mississippi snakes like a thin ribbon as far as the eye can see.

10:25 and I can still see the bright red glow of the setting sun. 

The Mississippi is long gone, having given way to a patchwork sea of brown and green. Nebraska, the pilot tells us.

11:00 brings brown hills, big ones because even way up here you can see that they’re hills. I think maybe "mountains" would be a more accurate description. We’re 40 miles north of Caspar, Wyoming.

11:30 and I realize I was wrong. The brown hills were just hills.

Real mountains, and like anything real and wonderful, they don’t need to announce themselves or brag. They just are. They have always been. They will be when we are gone.

Majestic.

Clouds camouflage themselves, hovering over and intertwining with the snow caps.

Mount St. Helens

Mount Rainier

12:35. On the ground, night has fallen. Lights twinkle in the darkness, but up here, the horizon still glows a brilliant red.

A glimpse of the Pacific and then we descend. Even as the Emerald City sprawls, sparkling beneath us, the Earth has become smaller.

Gotta Have a Plan...or It's Cold in Alaska!

This guy is talking about Russians, but he could just as easily be talking about my friend, Robert.

 

Robert is married to my very good friend, Linda. They are taking me to Alaska with them in just under two weeks. We had a meeting tonight because everybody needs to know the plan. And everybody who knows Robert knows there is a plan.

He made copies for the meeting of course. First, he passed out the itinerary. It’s online, but there’s no guarantee that everyone would log on and look at it. And we have to know the plan.

Then, Robert explained that he had printed out the 10 day forecast for each stop on the itinerary from weather.com. He read the highs and lows for each port of call. Now, we won’t be visiting any of these places in the next ten days, but it’s incumbent that we understand it is cold in Alaska. However, with a little foresight we can all have a comfortable vacation.

Robert followed up the weather report with another handout, “Packing for Paradise.” Dressing in layers is the key. His daughter, Sydney, produced two articles of clothing.

“Exhibit A.” She held up a fitted cold gear shirt and did her best Vanna White.

“Exhibit B.” Another Vanna moment with a waterproof rain jacket.

Robert stepped back a moment and let the girls examine the evidence and discuss their own wardrobe items. After an appropriate amount of discussion time, he stepped back in and explained that it wasn’t only the type of clothing that was important, but the amount of clothing. It would be best if we packed in duffel bags instead of hard shell suitcases because we could store them easier in our cabins.

There was a moment of silence, and then five teenage girls and three grown women howled with laughter, and Robert promptly lost control of the meeting. He suggested that the blow dryers provided in the ship’s cabins would be sufficient to service all our hair drying needs. Eye rolls all around, and the girls pow-wowed to determine who had the best blow dryer. They were at least willing to limit themselves to one good blow dryer per cabin. Then, he suggested ONE pair of shoes was really all we needed.

I asked, “Are you hiking on a glacier in the same shoes you’re wearing to dinner at the fancy restaurant?”

“Yes I am.”

Linda noted my bemused expression and piped up, “Back off Missy! I saw him first!”

Robert’s older daughter Hannah just shook her head and mouthed the word, “No” over and over.  Mind you, this is the same daughter who took three suitcases on their last cruise and wanted to pack a heater to keep her feet warm at night. Apparently, it’s cold in Alaska.

Sydney returned to the room with an unscheduled “Exhibit C,” a very large hard shelled suitcase. “This is what I’m taking!”

For one uncharacteristic moment, Linda got on board with the plan and suggested everyone bring a carry-on with our toothbrushes and a change of underwear. You know, just in case.

Hannah’s friend, Kaitlyn looked confused. “Is the flight going to be so scary that we’ll need a change of underwear?”

Robert tried to get back on track by switching gears and talking about the excursions we’ve chosen at the ports of call. All of the girls are canoeing next to a glacier on one of the stops. Robert wanted to talk about appropriate footwear some more, but Linda began making like Hiawatha and chanting.

“By the shores of Gitche Gumee…”

Suddenly, Sydney gasped, “Hey, it’s only going to be dark for like an hour!”

Robert shook his head.

I asked, “We won’t be in the Arctic Circle will we?”

“No! We’ll be a long way from the Arctic Circle.”

Kaitlyn, “Will we see the Northern lights?”

Linda, “Will we see a reindeer?”

Sydney, “Will we see a whale?”

Hannah, “Will we see Russia?”

Me, “Will we have wifi?”

I’ve given Robert a way to get back to the plan. Thank God for me.

“The wifi on the ship is sketchy and very expensive.”

Now this is an issue that calls for a plan. I began mentally working it out. I’ll have to write my blog posts offline, and then find some place to upload them when we disembark. Hannah informed me that Alaska is lousy with Starbucks, or at least it seems like it should be. She’s never actually been there. Robert ended the wifi discussion by putting the fear of GOD into all of us regarding cell phone usage.

We will be stopping in Canada, and what it will cost us to use our phones in the land of maple leaves and hockey is anybody’s guess, but just in case we were inclined to poo poo his warning, he told a cautionary tale. There was once this guy waiting to get back on his cruise ship, and he used his phone to watch a ball game. When the phone bill came, it was $4,000!!!

The moral of the story? Don’t watch football in Canada. Or throw our phones overboard. That way we won’t be tempted to use them, and it will be cheaper to simply buy new ones when we get home than to fall into the watching-football-in-Canada money pit.

One of the girls suggested walkie talkies. I suggested code names. Robert could be Red Leader and we could be Red 1, 2, 3, and so on.

Linda held an imaginary walkie talkie to her mouth. “Red One this is Red Leader. Stay on target.”

Then Hannah suggested we all get matching shirts “like those dorky families you see sometimes.” Kaitlyn was good with that as long as they aren’t yellow. Yellow is a bad color for her.

Robert seemed to realize his window of opportunity for communicating the plan was closing. He established the rendezvous place and time, and once again admonished us to pack light.

And pack warm.

It’s cold in Alaska.

Keeping Up

Over at terribleminds, Chuck Wendig has issued a flash fiction challenge in which takers click on a random sentence generator. That sentence then becomes the first or last sentence in your story of 1000 words or less. The sentences are mostly nonsensical, and therein lies the fun. I admit to reclicking several times, but I ultimately went with the sentence I got on my first click. Enjoy!

Keeping Up

“An officer doubts the pinched cyclist within an interference?”

“No, Gran!”

“And off is her towels the benched psycho with Ann enter fear us? It still doesn’t make sense.” Winnie laughed. “You need to slow down on the booze, honey.

“Put your hearing aid in, Gran!”

Winnie took a long swig of her sangria and fished around in the pocket of her shorts. “Let me put my hearing aid in.”

“Why do you keep it in your pocket?”

Winnie raised an eyebrow. ”Why do I keep saying fuck it?” She shrugged. “Most conversation is inane, dear. If someone comes around who has something interesting to say, I have my hearing aid right here.”

She patted her pocket, and then popped the tiny piece of plastic into her right ear.

“Now what were you saying about Ann and her benched psycho?”

“Nothing! Benched psycho? Seriously, Gran. I said, ‘An awful dubstep inched the vocalist with the audience.’”

“Dubstep inched the vocalist? A pinched cyclist makes more sense than that.”

A longsuffering sigh issued from her granddaughter. She pulled out her iPod “Dubstep is a genre of music. Listen.”

After 30 seconds, Winnie couldn’t take anymore. “Music! It sounds like an air horn got tangled up with a chainsaw.” She popped the hearing aid out of her right ear and slid it back into her pocket. “This is why I keep saying fuck it.”

“This is the latest thing. Keeping up will keep you young, Gran.”

“You’re drinking sangria next to a pool in Florida. Quit nattering and enjoy it.”

“Right. About that…” Winnie watched her granddaughter adjust her bikini top and look around. “I really do appreciate you letting me stay with you, but the men here are a bit…old.”

“Oh, these old coots are bold because you’re pretty. They say outrageous things to me too. We have good genes, dear.”

The girl laughed and choked on her sangria. “So let’s take our good genes and go dancing.”

“Take off our jeans? I still got it, and I still flaunt it, but stripping? I don’t think so.”

“You have way too much class for that, Gran, but that’s not what I said.”

Winnie stood up and looked at her behind. “You think so? I still do my yoga every day and I avoid fried foods.” She wiggled her butt. “You’re probably right. I do have some junk in the trunk.”

“Too much CLASS, Gran!”

“Well you don’t have to shout it. Besides, glass houses and all, your cute little bubble will turn into a balloon if you keep eating all those carbs.”

Her granddaughter fell back into the chaise with a sigh. “You look great, Gran. Put a pole in the community room. I’m sure you’d be the belle of the ball.”

“Thank you, dear. I’ve always been a belle with balls.”

“Now that is the damn truth.”

Winnie smiled enigmatically, drained her glass, and then closed her eyes and relaxed in her own chaise. Fifteen minutes later, a cool hand touched her thigh.

“I should report you for sexual harassment.”

“Ah, but then you would be forced to behave yourself as well,” a teasing voice answered.

Winnie opened her eyes and sat up. The change in position moved the hand farther up her thigh.

“My granddaughter thinks I should take up pole dancing in the community room.”

“What a fine idea! I shall have the pole installed at once!”

Said granddaughter was staring with her mouth hanging open. Winnie laughed uproariously.

“Rodrigo, this is my granddaughter. She’s visiting from up north, and she thinks the men around here are too bold.” She flicked her eyes toward the hand on her thigh, but made no attempt to move it. “She might have a point.”

Rodrigo ran his thumb under the hem of Winnie’s shorts and squeezed, then stood and offered the same hand to her granddaughter. When she stuck her hand out, he bowed and brushed his lips across it.

“Rodrigo Izaguirre at your service. I see beauty runs true in your family.”

“Good genes,” the girl stammered.

“And bullshit runs true in yours, eh Rodrigo?”

“Indeed, but you are the only beautiful lady who enjoys saying so.”

            “Oh please, I’m not the only one who enjoys the show. I’m just the only one around here who will admit it.”

Her granddaughter tapped her ear pointedly.

“Do you have water in your ear, hon? You should wear ear plugs when you swim.

The girl rolled her eyes. “Um…is Rodrigo your...um…”

“My what, dear?”

Rodrigo chuckled, “I am her dance partner.”

“Don’t get your panties in a wad. He’s my dance partner. Dance instructor, actually.”

“What? Are you learning the tango or something?”

“Tango or samba? Both. We’ve been tangoing for months.” She grinned at Rodrigo who was still chuckling. “I’m learning the samba now.”

“Yes, and I must steal your abuela for an hour.”

“As long as you give her back.” The girl looked faintly alarmed.

Rodrigo waved his hand in dismissal. “I am but a dancer for hire.”

“You’re always on fire. Cool your jets in front of my granddaughter.”

“She doesn’t have her hearing aid,” the girl murmured.

“I wouldn’t dream of taking advantage.” He turned to Winnie. “Shall we?”

Winnie smiled girlishly and took his arm. With her other hand, she smoothed her hair behind her ear, revealing the small piece of plastic tucked snugly inside.

She winked at her granddaughter. “Let me finish with Rodrigo, and then I would love to go dancing later. You can show me the latest thing. Like you said, keeping up keeps you young.”

Changes

Today was the last day of school, and as relieved as I am to have a break, I’m also sad.

Really sad.

I have been incredibly lucky to land in a job that I love where I found my two best friends in the whole world. I met Pam the week before school started in 1999, and we clicked immediately. In 2001, Linda came on board. I haven’t stopped laughing since.

I’ve been across the hall or right next door to Pam for 13 years. We pop in and out of each other’s rooms all the time. Our current set-up has an adjoining door between our classrooms, and when it’s quiet in one room, we can hear the other teaching.

From Pam’s classroom: “x=2. What kind of line is that?”

Silence.

“Are you kidding me? What kind of line is x=2?”

Me through the door: “Vertical!”

“See? Your English teacher knows!”

Every day before and after school, we leave the door open and talk to each other while we work at our desks.

Linda and I have taught a cross-curricular honors class for 11 years. I teach English and she teaches Social Studies. I throw Plato at them, and then she hits them with Machiavelli. Students work together in both of our classes to research global issues and produce documentaries. While I’m teaching To Kill a Mockingbird, she’s teaching civil rights.

Our personalities dovetail even better than our content. We’re both quick on our feet, and on days we combine our classes and teach together, it can turn into a comedy routine. We are such an effective tag team that in the last several years, demand for our class has taken it from one section to three.

The three of us have outlasted four principals. I’ve taught two of Linda’s kids and all three of Pam’s. They’ve taught both of mine.

We’ve gone on vacation together. We’ve spent countless weekends together, many of them starting with Friday after school staff meetings, a tradition we instituted to decompress at the end of each week.

For 11 years, I’ve taught shoulder to shoulder with these two amazing women. They are smart, funny, strong, and independent as hell. They have challenged me intellectually and made me a better teacher.

Mostly, they have been my friends. They have made me laugh until my stomach hurt, and they have propped me up and walked beside me through the most difficult times in my life. Outside of my family, there is no one I trust more than Pam and Linda. They always have my back.

Today was our last day as colleagues. Linda is retiring, and Pam is being deployed to Afghanistan in August. I feel like I’m losing not just my right arm, but my left as well. When Pam was deployed to Iraq several years ago, I still had Linda. Now I’m losing them both.

The old cliché says that the only constant is change. This particular change is hard to swallow. I have many friends at work, and I value those relationships, but nothing comes close to the bond I have with Pam and Linda.

Here’s the thing, though. One of the reasons we are such good friends is that we are each strong women in our own right. Linda is brave enough to leave the familiar and take on the next challenge in her life. She’s going to learn Italian and go to bartending school just because she thinks it would be an interesting part-time job. Pam puts on her uniform regularly and serves her country. She’s a bonafide badass.

I’ll be okay too. I hold leadership positions in our school, and I have some control over my own destiny. Tomorrow, I will sit on the committee interviewing candidates to replace Linda…as if that’s possible. I love being in my classroom with students doing my thing. I’ll learn to fill the spaces in between classes without my right and left arms.

I have a feeling that learning curve will be steep.

50 Shades...You read what?!

Many of my friends have been waxing lyrical over 50 Shades of Grey. Some of them are reading it furtively on their Kindles and Nooks where no one can see the title while others are reading it proudly, cover showing, telling anyone who’ll listen how hot it is.

I haven’t read it. Honestly, I probably won’t, but not for the reasons you might think.

I don’t care that it was originally self-published, although the general consensus of reviewers in the blogosphere is that it could have benefitted from some professional editing. I have no beef with self-publishers. I’ve considered it myself. Get your stuff out there. Get paid. In E.L. James’ case, get paid a lot.

I have no issue with the erotic content of the book. I LOVE a good romance, and many of my favorites don’t fade to black when the hero and heroine finally make it to the bedroom. 50 Shades is part of the subgenre, erotic romance, which I generally don’t read. For my readers who aren’t romance aficionados, the difference between erotic romance and another subgenre of romance with erotic content is that in an erotic romance, the hero and heroine find their way to Happily Ever After (HEA) through their sexual journey. So…the sex is front and center rather than something that occurs along the way.

My favorite subgenres are romantic suspense and paranormal romance. In these subgenres, the protagonists find their way to HEA through a mystery or some sort of spooky doings. Sometimes, they get freaky while they’re being spooky, and hey, I’m all for that, as long as it makes sense in the story.

In a world full of many wonderful romance choices, 50 Shades isn’t something I would pick up and read in the normal course of events. Add to the mix the fact it was written as Twilight fanfic, and I’m really not interested. Edward and Bella explore their relationship through kinky sex? No thanks.

So, you might be thinking, why bother blogging, Kathy? You’re not jumping on the 50 Shades bandwagon. Bully for you. Do you want a cookie or something?

No, I do not want a cookie. Wait! Is it an Oreo? Oh, nevermind. I do not want a cookie. And I really, really, really do not want to read a book review over 50 Shades written by a 15 year old boy. Yes, you read that right…one of my freshman boys wrote their final book review of the year on 50 Shades of Grey. 

He strolled into my classroom with a question. “Hey, Ms. Owens, have you read 50 Shades of Grey?”

I raised my eyebrows. “No, have you?”

“Yeah, my mom let me have the whole trilogy after she finished with it. I couldn’t put it down.”

“I’ll bet. You say your mom gave you the books?”

“Yeah. Do you know what they’re about?”

“I’ve heard about them.” Now the grin starts spreading across his face. He was just waiting to see if I knew anything about the book. 

“Seriously, Ms. Owens, seriously, it’s a great story. Even without all the sex.”

“Seriously?” I repeated in the same tone of voice. Mind you, he hasn’t stopped grinning like the cat that ate the canary.

“I swear to GOD, Ms. Owens, it’s a really good story.” I was so tempted to tell him he sounded like every guy who’s ever read Playboy. “I read it for the articles.”

Uh. Huh.

Instead I said, “Well, I guess it’s up to you to convince me of that in your book review.”

Fast forward to Friday. I read his book review before school started, and handed it back to him in class. 

“You gave me a C.”

“It was a week late and a bit sparse.”

“Sparse?”

“No detail.”

“No detail? You wanted detail?”

“You have the rubric for the assignment. You talked all around the story without really telling me anything. I could’ve gotten what you wrote from the book jacket.”

“I promise I read that book. I read all three.”

"Oh, I believe you read it. That’s why you worked so hard not to tell me anything.”

He changed tactics. “It’s the book I chose, isn’t it? You said you don’t believe in censorship.”

I threw my hands up. “Did I say you couldn’t do your book review over this book? You still have to write a good review, no matter what book you choose. You’re lucky I know you’re a reader and I believe you read it.”

“So you don’t read books with sex in them?”

He knows he wrote a subpar review, and now he’s fishing. I know it. I’m not having the conversation he’s trying to have.

“I don’t read Twilight fan fiction.”

“WHAT???”

“Well, yeah, the main characters are based on Edward and Bella.”

“No way! They aren’t vampires!”

I took his review back out of his hand and read out loud. (I’m paraphrasing here and I don’t remember the characters’ names, but the gist is the same.) “Sally is fascinated by Joe, but then she finds out he has a dark secret. At first she is afraid, but before long, she is drawn into his secret world and wants him to make her a part of it. Now let me read that again and substitute the names Edward and Bella.”

“OH SNAP!”

I laughed and went on with class. I did notice several times that he was staring off into space with a bereft look on his face, and I felt kinda bad. He had an “innocence lost” expression. I think 50 Shades was just a titillating story for him until I offered real faces to put on it.

I like to think I’ve been teaching long enough that things don’t surprise me anymore, and boys wanting to read books with sex in them…that doesn’t surprise me. Heck this book is selling like hotcakes. A lot of suburban moms want to read sexy books. What surprises me is a suburban mom giving the sexy books to her teenage boy.

One day of school left…

Thank God.