An easy day

Well, today was a “semi” day off! It is President’s Day and the kids don’t have class today, but the teachers had to come in to make up one of the inservice days that were lost to the hurricanes. It wasn’t too bad… our principal is pretty laid back. We had about 2 1/2 hours of inservice meetings (much less than normal) and then we were free to work in our rooms doing prep for the week. Then we got to leave early. All in all, it wasn’t too bad.

This worked out pretty well because we need to get going tonight to get to the airport to pick Andrew up on his return from his month in Australia. He called and left a message on my phone from the airport in LA this morning – said he’s sad and missing Candice already! I’m sure the next couple of weeks he’ll be moping around a bit. Oh well… I suppose I would be doing the same if I were in his shoes. We are looking forward to having him home again. It’s been surprising how much we’ve missed having him around. You know… TOO quiet! He always brings a little bit of levity to things and I guess we’ve missed that the last few weeks. I know that Casey is ready for him to be home. She keeps going into his room and standing there with a puzzled look on her face like she can’t figure out why he isn’t there. I am interested to see the pictures he took… particularly at the Great Barrier Reef!

Living through historic moments

It is often difficult to realize momentous historic events when you are right in the middle of them. Sometimes, however, things are too clear for even the most obtuse to miss (with the possible exceptions of BOTH Senators from Massachussetts)! For example, I remember watching the footage of the Berlin Wall being torn down by a mass of individuals, each with their own hammer! I felt a little bit of those same emotions this past week seeing the pictures of millions of ordinary Iraqis literally taking their lives into their hands to go out and vote, then to dance in the streets while holding up their ink-stained fingers in defiance of the goons and murderers (whom the mainstream press so carefully call “insurgents”) who had threatened to “make the streets red with the blood” of anyone who dared to vote. I was literally choked up to see the Iraqi people showing such courage and joy in voting… something that we so often take for granted. How many of us don’t bother to vote because it’s raining, or there might be a tiny bit of snow?? Here are people under specific credible threat of being killed who still make their way to the polling stations, and, in some cases, stepped over the remains of suicide bombers to get in and yet were undeterred!

Then watching the State of the Union, I was amazed that the President showed as much restraint as he did. If it had been me, I would have given one VERY loud and clear “I told you so” in the face of the many doubters and critics from Congress who have given him absolutely no credit for the tremendous things he has accomplished in the last few years. We were told Afghanistan was going to be a disaster (it wasn’t), that the military invasion of Iraq couldn’t succeed (it did) and most recently, that the elections in Iraq could never be held or that no one would come out to vote. Once again, wrong… wrong… wrong…! Instead, millions braved the threats against them and then “gave the finger” to those who would try to stop democracy.

Maybe the “ignorant cowboy” from Texas knows something after all??