Where Is It? And Who Am I?

Owing to my latent obsessive compulsive disorder (which, I have to say, seems to be in remission these days), I never lose anything. Yes, I am neat and organized. But because I constantly check for, say, my keys, phone, and wallet before I leave any place I visit, I cannot relate to all those people who have misplaced any of these vital things.

Having said all this, I have recently lost something. Yesterday, I brought last Sunday’s Washington Post Style section with me to school, in case I had any down time during which I could read. I remember shoving it in my folder, and I vaguely remember later taking it out once I returned home, before putting the folder away. What I don’t know is where the newspaper is now. It’s not on my desk, in the car, or in my locker at work (which is where I first realized it was missing, because I could have sworn that I brought it with me to peruse during my break). This is no big whoop—at least I know exactly where my keys, phone, and wallet are—but in some ways, its disappearance is earth-shattering. I just might have an identity crisis.

By the way, we still haven’t found Samson’s missing bone. Dad and I just cannot accept the most likely conclusion, that the pooch ate the whole thing.

The Mystery of the Missing Bone

As you may recall, Saturday was my dog Samson’s 14th birthday. I decided to celebrate with a little gift-giving. Before work on that day, my brother and I popped into a pet store that hawks healthy, organic, and natural pet foods, toys, and accessories. After much superficial perusing, I decided on a seven-inch bone that would improve his oral hygiene as well as his breath. Vanilla mint.

Though I instructed my brother to bring it home as I went to work for eight hours, everyone waited until I returned to open up the present. Holding it out to Sam, who has never before received a treat in the shape of a bone, I’m pretty certain, he took one whiff of it and looked away. “Take it,” I commanded, and he did—but only after much more goading. He immediately put it down on the floor and looked up at me. We went through this sketch one more time before my dad had the brilliant idea to lead Samson to his bed in the living room, where he dropped the treat, thereby signaling “this one’s for you.” Samson followed and soon took to it like a duck to water. He gnawed and bit and licked for at least an hour, about nine minutes of which I recorded on video. All the while, Dad and I wondered how long it would take for him to finish the bone. He’d hardly made a dent the last time I saw it.

Later that night, I found it wedged between his bed and the wall, covered in his hair. I stripped it of its unnecessary fur and replaced it in its original packaging. Dad said he didn’t want Samson to chew on it through the night. Stunned that I would do such a thing, Sam followed me into the kitchen, where we keep his food and treats, begging me with his puppy dog eyes to return it to him. From that point on, he gave me the cold shoulder. Literally. I’m serious! He turned away from me whenever I spoke to him. The next morning, Dad gave him back the bone. And that’s precisely the last time I glimpsed it. Since yesterday morning, Dad and I have been wondering where it is, absolutely incredulous that he could have polished it off since then. One theory we have is that he’s taken to hiding it from us. This mystery is either destined to remain unsolved, perhaps best remembered as a future a cold case (soon we’ll be asking ourselves who abducted that young dog bone and where did he stash it?), or labeled a murder in the first degree. Samson was, after all, killing it.

I Can Have It All

Since 2008, when my sister and I were living together in Los Angeles, we have exchanged Hanukkah gifts. I remember that that year, she gave me a rainbow-colored cross-body bag (I refuse to call it my purse) that I still use to this day. The strap is wearing down on one end, which means it may be time to replace it soon. That seems like an impossible task.

It’s too emotionally draining to explain why we restarted this gift-giving tradition; there is a fair bit of family controversy involved. Suffice it to say that it’s because we hadn’t received presents for at least a decade beforehand. Neither one of us is religious, so we admittedly use Hanukkah as an excuse to give each other something special. After all, there’s no such thing as Sisters’ Day to complement Mother’s and Father’s Days.

The good news is that I finally reached a decision about what I want for Hanukkah this year. I frustrate my sister to no end because I never know what I want; I’m apparently the hardest person to buy for. At first I thought it was a good thing that I couldn’t identify anything I wanted, but isn’t having no desire also a sign of depression? So, I whittled my choices down to the DVDs of two BBC series: Cranford (starring birthday girl Dame Judi Dench) and Jane Eyre (the one with the incomparable Toby Stephens as Mr. Rochester). Eventually, I decided that I would get more out of Cranford, which I get a craving to watch more often because almost every night I can switch on a channel playing some version of the over-familiar Jane Eyre story, which I love regardless.

But there’s a twist to this story: when I came home from work last night, I saw that my great aunt—the same one I am going to clip coupons for in just a minute—sent me a monetary Hanukkah gift via my dad. Now I can afford to have Jane Eyre, too. Funny how at first, I didn’t want anything, and now I want it all.

Happy Birthday, Sammy!

Today is my dog Samson’s 14th birthday. I just found him lounging on the stairs, and I “sang” “Happy Birthday to You” to the unsuspecting pooch. His incredibly expressive eyes said something like, “What is she on about now? She’s crazier than usual. And she calls that singing?” In addition to the new pet bed we’re getting for him, I plan on buying a special dog treat before I go to work this afternoon.

This photo is about 5 years old, but Samson looks the same. Though, he might have more gray in his beard.

To be honest, we’re not 100% certain that Samson was born December 8, 1998. However, we know that he was about three months old when we brought him home in February 1999. Actually, I should rephrase that. My mother and sister brought him home; I had nothing to do with it. The story goes that they stopped in at a pet store on the way home and couldn’t resist playing with the German Shepherd/Welsh Corgi puppy, the only one left from a litter of four. We weren’t in the market for a new dog; we already had middle-aged adoptees at home. My mother, the perfectly gentle manipulator that she was, probably knew that by phoning my father while he was eating dinner meant that she would get her way, that she would be able to bring the puppy home. When I learned what was going on, I was excited, of course, but I also resented not being party to choosing our new dog. Would I even like him? Is he cute? Wait, how are we going to raise a puppy?! We’ve never had one before!

I don’t remember everything about that first night, except that’s when Samson gained his reputation for being a genius. Although he shat three times—always under my desk, mind you—he became housebroken on his first night in our house. Having three older dogs to look up to, to model his behavior after, he must have realized early on—but not early enough!—that barking to go outside of the house will trigger one of us humans to open the door, thereby allowing you to relieve yourself in the most appropriate venue. Samson has done other things throughout the years that have earned him the highest respect and admiration from all of us. One time, my chronically unwell mother told him to retrieve my brother in the middle of the night, and he did.

But there are also some things Samson has done that have made us less proud, such as when he escaped from the house with Gigi, our resident trouble-maker, and broke a pet bunny rabbit out of its cage, which was situated outside a neighbor’s house. Together, our dogs proceeded to kill the innocent animal. That was more than ten years ago. Nowadays, my dad and I like to say that he’s the best dog that ever lived, despite what he did during his Terrible Twos (we spend the most time with Sam, taking him for long walks wherein all the dogs in the neighborhood bark at him, but their intimidating cries never seem to faze him). I used to feel guilty for favoring Samson over all the others, who have since passed away. Now, I just think, I am so lucky to have him in my life. He’s a dear friend, one who accepts me for who I am and doesn’t mind it so much when I playfully pull his tail.

You Can’t Stop Progress

When my dad dropped me off at school yesterday, he wondered aloud whether or not I knew the number of days I have so far volunteered in the ESOL classroom. Why, yes, Dad, I do: Tuesday constituted my 15th visit. Consistent with the recent trend, yesterday was a lot of fun. For the most part, I felt productive, useful. I also noticed how certain lesson plans allow for more probable student learning improvements while others, I predict, will not. (For the record, I use Bill Heslop’s losing campaign slogan in Muriel’s Wedding, “You Can’t Stop Progress,” in a slight, ironic sense.)

The county’s (or is it the state’s?) curriculum for ESOL level 1 stipulates that the students know certain verbs in the present and past tenses by the end of the school year. With time running out this semester, the teacher instituted a new regime yesterday to quicken this learning process: every week, the students will learn ten verbs and take a quiz each Friday that gauges their comprehension of these verbs as well as all the ones that have come before in weeks prior. She prepared three different kinds of the same packet: one with French translations of the verbs, another with Spanish ones, and yet another with blank spaces for students whose native languages are neither French nor Spanish; she invited them to use a bilingual dictionary to fill in these spaces. Crucially, there is a column on their verb chart packet where they are meant to write a sentence using each verb in the past tense.

From what I could tell, the students hadn’t yet learned how to form the simple past tense let alone what it means. Instead of teaching this lesson, she quickly reviewed how the verb to be has two forms, was and were, depending on the subject. Then she instructed them to write sentences for the first ten entries on the alphabetical list. This lesson structure poses many challenges, I think. First, most of the verbs on the chart are irregular in the past tense, such as become (became), blow (blew), and catch (caught). Drawing on my own experiences learning a foreign language, I was surprised that she would teach them irregular verbs before even demonstrating how to conjugate regular verbs, like ask (asked), walk (walked), and watch (watched)—that is, by adding -ed to the stem. Second, working from an alphabetical list means that the students aren’t learning the words in context. As such, many students whose work I supervised and corrected didn’t understand how to use words like blew and caught. Since she hadn’t taught them, relying too heavily on direct translation, I’m hardly surprised many didn’t know what the words evensignify. It will be interesting to see how this new program unfolds in the coming weeks. Some students were quick to get it (one impressed me with her offering of The wind blew very hard yesterday), while others struggled to put a sentence together at all. I’m not sure they’ve ever been explicitly told what the different parts of speech are and how they relate to one another. Otherwise, I think they’d understand that they need only one verb per phrase/sentence (remember, they’re writing simply at level 1). For I corrected many who’d written something along the lines of My aunt was became an American citizen last year.

Toward the end of the period, we reviewed the names of places around town (bank, post office, and laundromat to name but a few) because there’s a new class project in the works: each student signed up to draw one of them on a letter-size piece of paper. We will then collect the drawings and lay them out on a street map strewn across the floor. I like this lesson plan because it is creative and will likely engage them in the upcoming unit’s material: asking for and giving directions around town. Plus, I like the idea of strengthening their visual and spatial reasoning skills.

Before I move on to talk about a new group I worked with during period 3’s basic reading class for ESOL students, I’d like to report that the level 1 teacher revealed a new rule she’s instituting after the class returns from winter break. Starting January 2, the students must drop 5 cents in a collection jar every time they are caught speaking in their native tongue rather than in English. Eventually, we will donate the money to an agreed-upon charity. The only exceptions are when a student explains a part of the lesson in their language to someone who doesn’t understand it in English. I look forward to seeing how well they adapt to the new law.

For a change of pace, I worked with a different reading group during period 3, one composed of the five weakest students in the class. I’d worked with two of them before, many weeks or months ago, and I was both surprised and delighted that I didn’t encounter any stubbornness from either one. In fact, all five of the students were engaged in the lesson, and they all worked very hard. We read the first chapter (or four illustrated pages) of a story about a Japanese boy who moves to New York with his family. Each sentence is accompanied by a demonstrative image. After reading it once as a big group, I checked for comprehension, asking them for the antonym (or “opposite”) of wide and explained that Jackson Heights, the protagonist’s new neighborhood is also difficult for him to pronounce, as evidenced in a scene that phonetically spells out the name in his Japanese accent. It’s a nice touch. The teacher was more concerned about the students’ understanding the content of the story rather than their proper use of grammar when answering a worksheet’s questions about the plot. This was a pretty effective lesson, I have to say. The students seemed to enjoy it, probably because it didn’t go way beyond their abilities. However, I could tell that one student was really struggling, and I have resolved to help him more tomorrow. At the teacher’s request, I’d paid more individualized attention to one of his classmates, the boy who in the past resented having to work with me because he couldn’t understand me and wanted me to speak to him in French. Incidentally, he is the worst student in ESOL level 1, and he most likely has a learning disability that has heretofore never been addressed. But he did well yesterday.

Switching gears, I mainly observed the reading class for special education students, but I interacted with a greater variety of pupils than I ever expected to. One, the friendliest of the bunch, talked my ear off almost the entire period. At one point, a classmate bluntly asked her why her voice is so high. Appalled at the other girl’s rudeness, the teacher reprimanded her and quickly explained that people are born with different pitches. Meanwhile, I whispered to my companion that she should just ignore the… um… bitch (I didn’t use that word, of course). Earlier, I’d successfully engaged the rude girl in an exchange about the social studies homework she was finishing up when I arrived. She even let me look at what she simply described as “Unit 3” when I asked what it was about. Ouch. I glanced at her paper, which was in fact about imperialism, and was perplexed as to why she wrote “national security” and “humanitarian [issues]” as reasons for imperialism. Her response to my question? “That’s what the teacher told us to put down.” I didn’t want to push it, believing that the rude girl wouldn’t listen to my lecture anyway, but I couldn’t help but think, Just what is her teacher teaching her?!

Unexpectedly, a fire alarm rang out for one of the school’s monthly tests. I’d been dreading such an occurrence since the beginning of my volunteership (they’re major time suckages), but if it was going to happen, I am glad it did during period 4, my least favorite hour. It managed to stem some of the awkwardness I routinely feel in that room. Have I told you that I have resolved not to return to it in the spring semester?

Finally, I stayed for tutoring during the open lunch period. The ESOL students slowly trickled into the room, either seeking to take missed or failed tests or to have one of the American students help them with their homework or review English language lessons. Just when I thought I wouldn’t have anyone to work with, I wound up helping two students. The first was preoccupied with some minor errors she thought that she had made on Friday’s test about clothing. Since the teacher hadn’t yet graded her exam, she allowed the student to look it over with me, telling me which changes she would make if she could (she couldn’t permanently make them). I scanned her entire test, assuring her that aside from those few small mistakes she’d learned that she’d made after the fact, she had an “A” test on her hands. She left happy, relieved, and grateful for my feedback. Then I turned my attention to the boy whom I’d had problems with in the past, the same one with whom I worked during period 3. At first he was impatient that I started working with the other student while he stepped out to buy an apple; his teacher suggested he work with someone else. But he refused. “You want to work with me?” I asked to clarify. “Yes.” I’m not sure if he could tell or not, but I was stunned, flattered, and absolutely fuckin’ chuffed!

How Much Time Can I Waste Writing This?

I have been quite the productive procrastinator today. Instead of working on an application due Monday at noon, I have been busy doing other things, such as exercising while reading the newspaper, reviewing instructions on how to fulfill the duties of a voting operations judge (for Tuesday’s presidential election), clipping coupons for my charitable great aunt, sweeping my bedroom, showering, and doing the laundry. I also managed to fit in a film screening among all this: the comedy classic Turner & Hooch. Hell, I’m even writing on the blog earlier in the day than I usually do. How’s that for a start?

I wouldn’t characterize myself as a procrastinator through-and-through. Like most people, I only put off completing an important task when I am afraid to even try. Part of my sluggishness is the result of writer’s block. My current circumstances indicate that I don’t know how to write something original and profound about a subject really well trodden. Perhaps I am waiting for inspiration to fall down from the sky, possess my body, and dictate which buttons I press on the keyboard. I’ve even tried reading some news stories about the topic to help get the juices flowing. We’ll see what happens, as I only have tomorrow to work all day on it.

To make matters worse, once my dad came home from shul this afternoon, he announced that he wants to run all kinds of errands tonight, including trips to a bookstore, big box department store, and our favorite “unique” grocery store. To prepare for this busy jaunt, I gladly made lists. Thanks, Dad, for giving me another reason to put off doing what I need to be doing.

The Home Stretch

Late this afternoon, as I was watching last night’s episode of Elementary on my DVR and fast-forwarding through one of the commercial breaks, something purely coincidental—and therefore weird—happened. Regrettably, I overshot the point at which I should have stopped and pressed play when the program returned. This means I had to go back, and I retreated too far. (This happens to me a lot; it can be maddening.) The strange thing is that once I rewound and hit play, I recognized that the Obama campaign ad unfolding on my DVR was almost exactly in synch with the same commercial playing live (and loudly) on my dad’s TV in the living room. Cool but kinda creepy, right?

Who Says Film Culture Is Dead?

Yesterday afternoon, my dad and I met a friend of mine from college at an art-house/repertory movie theater to see The Master, in 70mm to boot. My dad and I arrived early, and while we were waiting beside the box office, we overheard a woman stressing over her ticket purchase. My dad whispered to me that she was taking so long to make up her mind about which format to see the film in—70 or 35mm—that she’d probably still be there when we came out of the movie. I could have sworn that he said she was weird, too, but he denies this. Whatever. I was thinking it at the time. A little later on, after the three of us had selected our seats, all the way in the back, she appeared again, now fretting over where she should sit at a 70mm film screening. Truth be told, the screen wasn’t very big, given the size of the auditorium. Someone else told her that she should just sit wherever she would normally feel comfortable. Yeah, she’s weird alright. And that wasn’t the last we saw of her.

After the movie, we grabbed dinner at a Persian eatery nearby. When we sat down, who should appear but the weirdo lady from The Master? (Man, I wish I’d tried to write this in the form of Tig Notaro’s funny bit about continually bumping into… Taylor Dane.) She leaned across her table and asked, “Were you at The Master?”

“Oh yeah,” one—or all—of us said.

“I couldn’t stand it. I walked out. It was so obvious and trite.”

Intrigued, I inquired, “Why did you want to see it?” To which she replied, “Because everyone’s been saying it’s a great movie!” I realized then that that was the wrong question to ask her. I thought it up because I had observed how seemingly difficult it was just for her to choose a format and a seat. In other words, she looked out of her element there anyway. I also wondered how much she knew about the film beforehand, and whether or not that tainted her impression of it to such an extent that she used those empty words (“obvious” and “trite”). Instead, what I should have prodded her about was her choice of words to describe the film. No one in my party enjoyed watching the film, but I found it intellectually stimulating, latching onto an allegory early on and testing it throughout, scene by scene, as if it were a hypothesis that is the key to understanding a central theme (what is human nature?).

Despite the tone with which I am now relating our encounter, I assure you that our conversation was indeed friendly. Even exciting. It’s been a very long time since I exchanged perspectives and opinions with a complete stranger about a film we’d only just seen—together but separate. We even got nostalgic, as we all remembered River Phoenix, who may or may not have been a finer actor than his little brother. “We’ll never know,” I said, “because he didn’t reach his fullest potential.”

But I still wanted to know more about her visceral reaction to The Master. I asked her at what point she left the theater. It then became apparent she had left at least twice, maybe even three times, always whenever Joaquin Phoenix’s character attacked another man for being critical of Philip Seymour Hoffman’s titular (cult) leader. My father, friend, and I all thought, If you couldn’t stand it, then why did you keep coming back? But of course we didn’t ask. We weren’t the rude ones in this situation.

The details governing the rest of our interaction with this weird lady are a little fuzzy. At several points, she disappeared and then suddenly returned. (My friend brilliantly quipped that she goes in and out of conversations the same way she goes in and out of movies.) She told us she was waiting to go back to the same movie-house to see Josef von Sternberg’s silent gangster classic Underworld from 1927. “I just hope I like it, that it’s not boring.” Having seen it, I administered a survey of questions in order to help her predict whether or not she’ll likely to enjoy it. Have you seen a silent film before? A silent gangster picture? In the end, I determined that she would be fine. Besides, it’s a shorter film by far, and it goes by at a much faster clip. Plus, there was going to be live musical accompaniment.

When it came time for her to leave, my dad said, “Bye. It was nice talking with you.” (How sweet!) She barely acknowledged him. I had wanted to say, “Enjoy the movie!” but I stopped. Clearly she was not on the same wavelength; she had absolutely no social graces, and I didn’t want to engage her further. Through the course of our approximately five-minute-long conversation, she had only come down to earth sporadically.

But I do wonder what she thought of Underworld.

Why Can’t I Get It Into My Thick Skull?

On those nights when I “chow down” on a burger and fries for dinner, I should not partake in approximately 3.5 oz of a decadent chocolate fudge cake. Instead, I should treat myself to this favorite dessert (well, it’s one of them, anyway) whenever I eat an entree salad. You know, to help mitigate the guilt. The problem is, I never do. That’s how I end up in this mess!

I thought posting this self-chastisement in digital ink, for all the world to see, would remind me not to mix these highly caloric, fully fatty foods again. But who am I kidding? With my dad convinced he wants to make having a burger in town a weekly occurrence, I’m destined to break this resolution sometime. I have absolutely no will power. Which is probably why I hated Emily Blunt’s “stale donuts” psychology experiment in The Five-Year Engagement. Stupid controls, and an even dumber conclusion.

Productive In Spite of the Pain

I’m sitting with my leg up in bed, and the air smells like newly assembled IKEA furniture.

For the past two days, my left knee has been providing me with a steady dosage of acute pain. It hurts to bend my knee. I’m not sure whether it’s to do with my bone or my muscle. It feels like both may be in play. I have had this problem for years, and I used to blame it on my tendency to rest my weight on my left side while, say, leaning against the counter and standing idle behind a cash register. Nowadays my knee acts up from time to time, usually towards the end of my seven-mile walks around the neighborhood. Yesterday’s onslaught of pain began innocuously enough: I was out shopping with my dad. Running around the store to find the items on our list and dump them in the cart became a real chore, and I started to limp, dragging my fully stretched out left leg behind me because it hurt to bend it even slightly. Although I have gotten used to this occasional pain and discomfort, I had never experienced so much. Even riding home in the car and later laying down didn’t bring me any relief. Gradually, my condition improved, but today it returned, coming in waves.

Yesterday was the first day in well over a month that I didn’t reach the daily recommended number of steps (10,000). And today marks the second consecutive day I haven’t met that goal. I took it easy instead: reading the newspaper, watching DVR’d TV, and clipping coupons for my beloved great aunt (she and other members of her community collect, clip, and ship them to military families stationed at installations overseas). I also managed to build a new bookcase (hence the wood-chip scent in my room) and rearrange the furniture in my room in order to accommodate the new piece. So far, I like the new set-up because, having positioned my floor lamp in the corner opposite its original location, my quarters seem bigger and brighter. The new bookcase frees up so much space that I was also able to de-clutter my desk. A neat and tidy freak all my life (I say “freak” because everyone else in my family is messy), I am always thrilled to (re)organize spaces, and I hadn’t expressed this part of my identity since I moved back home last November. Oh, the simple joys in life.