Overheard in a second grade classroom:

Rachel: (reciting) The word is thoroughly... It means "completely." Who can use thoroughly in a sentence?"
Rachel: Kevin?
Kevin: I thoroughly ride my new bike.
Teacher: Thoroughly means the same thing as completely. Use it like you would use the word completely.
Kevin: My red bike is thoroughly.
Teacher: Mmmm....not quite...thoroughly what?
Kevin: My thoroughly bike is red.
Teacher: Closer, Kevin. How about some help? Chelsea?
Kevin: (standing and waving his arms.) No! No! I can do it!
Teacher: O.K. Try again.
Kevin: I am thoroughly ride on my new bike.
Teacher: Do you thoroughly enjoy riding on your new red bike?
Kevin: Yes!
Teacher: O.K. Now you make a sentence.
Kevin: I enjoy my thoroughly bike when I ride it.
Teacher: Kevin...Is your bike thoroughly red?
Kevin: Ahhh! Now I am completely confused!
Teacher: There it is! Are you thoroughly confused?
Kevin: Yes! I am thoroughly confused!

The end.

Babe, the Vibrating Dog

Ahhh, what a nice feeling. It is Saturday, cool and dry outdoors. That, however, is not the cause of my "ahhhh." It is the sound and sight of work getting done. My husband is sweeping the steps; a visiting daughter, Kate, brushes needles off the roof as she cleans tree needles from the gutters. It's a comfortable, satisfying scene. There is added entertainment, however, with the participation of our dog Babe, who waits in tense concentration for rotting detritus pitched from Kate's hands, so that she can leap like a coiled spring, and snap at it. Babe is currently covered with decomposing brown needles and some odoriferous black liquid--the result of plant/tree matter steeping in blocked gutter "tea" for several hot months. This dog, a beautiful and muscular, compact Springer spaniel, is not pretty at the moment, but she is certainly joyous, if dogs can be joyous. Her whole body is quivering, and when her tail is goes back and forth so fast it's a blur, my husband says that she is "vibrating." "Vibrating" is a good word for this particular state, in which Babe lives. One man, an avid hunter I know, shook his head and gazed at her one afternoon as she hopefully trembled nearby for some attention and ball throwing fun, "If that was my dog", he commented thoughtfully, "I'd shoot it." Well, he's just a heartless man.
Babe figured in another incident this week. Some Fridays I take her to school during our lunch recess and the kids have fun throwing the ball for her. I bring along that tennis-ball throwing tool which adds yards of distance to each toss, while allowing each person throwing to not really have to touch the ball, which becomes pretty slobbery after awhile. I am careful to place a marker behind which kids waiting their turn to throw must line up, and another marker to which the actual throwing person must step. This prevents a wildly swinging throw-stick from breaking the nose of a near-by child. I also instruct kids to heave the ball towards an area where no other kids are playing--in this case, a roped-off section of newly growing grass. Babe wears her training collar and I command the transmitter just in case she doesn't obey me, but this has never occurred at school because she is there to chase and retrieve balls, and chasing and retrieving balls is her only mission.
So anyway, after all this safety attention, everything was ready. Third graders stood in a line of fifteen or so. A boy from out another part of the play field approached me requesting permission to use some equipment for which I had no authority to give, so I said now, at which he began to argue. Trying to reasonable, I began to explain why I had to refuse his request. Momentarily, my attention turned from the next-in-line thrower to the arguer. No. He did not get smacked with the throwing stick. He was blindsided in the face from a distance of about eight feet with a fat, soft, slobbery tennis ball. He clapped his hands to his eye and I felt very sorry for that child as he tried manfully, and almost successfully, not to cry. Rushing over to help him, I experienced a split second envisioning popped bleeding eyeballs, lawsuits, and having to put my dog to sleep. I suggested that he go to the nurse's office for some ice but he said he did not need any. I sent him anyway. The perpetrator, the ball tosser, meanwhile, just stood still, shocked and speechless, her already pale face drained of color at the violence she had caused. I felt sorrier for her than I did for the injured boy. I assured her that she had done nothing wrong, it wasn't her fault and that she could have another turn. She did take a turn but did not come back to play with us anymore that afternoon. By the time the recess bell rang ten minutes later, the hurt boy had been back out playing soccer. I'm not sure he'd even been to see the nurse but I peered closely at his face as he left school that day and he did not seem to be any the worse for wear. Tough kid.

Start

O.K., folks, in the interest of staving off Alzheimers (by learning something linear and new), as well as keeping interested parties up to snuff on all things Hillcrest, I am undertaking the production of a blog. Presently I am somewhat brain-dead from all the meetings required at the onset of the school year, so I don't have witty or insightful comments fit to place on a family-friendly website. The best I could do was insert the most appropriate photo of myself, considering the title of this site. Stay tuned.