All posts by Dona

Crime and Punisment

Death, , , ,

One of the she scariest months in my life has to have been October 2002 when two very disturbed individuals went on a 3-week-long shooting  spree in an area that included most of the DC metro area — and many the places I regularly frequented.  All together they killed at least 10 people, targeting random people for what seemed to be no reason.

My son’s elementary school canceled recess during that time. My son’s soccer team canceled all games and practices. Buying gas terrified me. Getting from my car to a public building suddenly became something that resembled a obstacle course — we walked quickly in a zig-zag pattern until we were safely inside. Playgrounds were silent. No one was on the streets in our neighborhood. Trick-or-treating for Halloween was scheduled to be canceled. Every day I worried that one of my kids or husband (who refused to let the sniper attacks make him give up riding his bike to work) would be killed during the day.

Then suddenly it was over. The snipers had been caught and the streets were safe again. The DC metro area breathed a collective sigh of relief. My son and husband among them.

One of those men is scheduled to die this evening and despite the fear he and his accomplice put me through 7 years ago, I cannot be glad about that. I don’t like it that our country puts people to death. Of course people will counter my argument with — what if it was one of your kids. Or your parents. Or your husband. I cannot possibly know what my thoughts would be in that case. I only know now that despite our country’s long history of having the death penalty, people still kill each other. I don’t think the death penalty is working.

Happy 100th Birthday, Grandma Green

Events, Life, People,
Happy Birthday Grandma Green

Today marks the 100th anniversary of my Grandma Green’s birth. I’ll celebrate by making macaroni & cheese and tuna fish for dinner because we discovered that taste treat together when I stayed with her in Chetek, Wisconsin one summer. I’ll also make banana milkshakes because she and I used to drink those and play cribbage. I’m not sure cribbage is in the plan for tonight, but you never know.

I wrote about Grandma Green last year on her birthday, so check that post out for more.

She had a huge influence on my life and I’m grateful for every moment I spent with her. I think about her often, and always with love.

Happy Birthday Grandma. I love you.

Purge

Musings

I’m a pack rat. Maybe not as bad as my mom, and certainly not as bad as my Aunt Leila was, but I’m worse than many. Much of what I’ve kept is only of interest to me, like notes from former students and their parents, paper napkins from special (or ordinary) meals and trinkets (and sometimes the boxes they arrived in) given to me by friends, students, and loved ones. I’ve also kept samples  of my writing from middle school through college (including my personal journals and diaries).

The reason I’ve kept these things is to look back and remember who I was and what I felt when I used/was given/wrote these things. While there is nothing wrong with that, at some point the extra room in the attic or basement becomes filled  or the silverfish find the paper and chew holes through the words and it is time for these things to go. Well, many of them at least.

I began such a purge a few months ago. The first to go were a few posters I’d been keeping just in case I ever taught again. No need for a 12 year old poster about the White House anymore. And my Middle Earth poster from 1976 really has seen better days, even though I did laminate it when I was a teacher.

Although I discovered a few things that I am not sure why I kept them, the reason I kept most of them is still clear to me. Here is a short list of some of the items:

  1. A Washington Post Style section article about the end of the series, Roseanne. I have no idea why I kept that. I didn’t like the series that much.
  2. A Holly Hobbie bell with a saying about friendship. (I never did like Holly Hobbie and don’t remember who gave me the bell)
  3. A shirt with unicorns on it that I was making into a pillow. It was an ugly shirt and would have made an equally ugly  pillow, but I was a sucker for Unicorns.
  4. A Ziggy figurine holding a “Last Place” trophy. I don’t know who gave it to me, or why. I only hope I didn’t buy it for myself.
  5. A shoebox full of slogan buttons from middle school, high school, schools where I taught, department stores where I worked, campaigns, tourist gift shops and miscellaneous other places. These did hold meaning for me and for a while I collected “badges”.
  6. A dictionary full of paper napkins. This might be worth a separate post. Some are pretty funny.
  7. Two disintegrating envelopes. One labeled, “Cinder – One year” and the other labeled “Cinder’s whisker”. The first still holds a small bit of black fur from the cat my father gave me 40 years ago but the whisker has disappeared. (Um. Ick?)
  8. A silverfish-eaten piece of paper which has a note written on it by my dad. I know why I kept this. It might be the only piece of his handwriting I own.
  9. A couple of broken or chipped coffee mugs. One of these mugs was the first piece of kitchenware that I bought for my first apartment and the other was a wedding gift from a Pittsburgh friend.
  10. A boxful of broken crystal unicorns — the were intact until Clare, in an attempt to get something from a shelf in our secretary where the unicorns lived, tilted it enough so they all fell to the floor. I’d given her my unicorn collection, so it wasn’t as if they were mine anymore, but it was a little traumatic — for the both of us.

I got rid of nearly everything from the list above, but did take some photos /scans for old time’s sake.