Monday, April 16, 2018

Here we are in NOLA



By some miracle, KK and I escaped the winter hellscape of Minneapolis and landed in New Orleans where we're participating in a Global Symposium for independent school professionals.

I have to say, it was sort of surreal taxiing down the ice-encrusted runway on Sunday in Minneapolis. I kept thinking we'd turn back toward the terminal. The snow kept falling. The previous day's flights had been widely canceled. We'd have to bag our talk about global competence and trot it out another time in another venue.

But no! Miraculously we de-iced, we took off, and we landed. We made our way to the French Quarter and checked into the Sheraton. Truth be told, we had a heck of a lot of work to do on our talk, so we haven't seen as many sites as we might have liked. But here's what we have done:

  • Had a Pimm's cup in a corner café.
  • Walked into the smallest bookstore I've ever seen.
  • Enjoyed some street performers, including some sweet electric violinists.
  • Strolled down Royal and Chartres and Decatur
  • Ate blue crab rolls, barbequed shrimp, pralines, red beans and rice, sweet potato gnocchi, praline bread pudding, and beignets.
Also, did you know that Starbucks now has matcha lattés? We had some in the hotel before we finished writing and practicing our talk. Later, we practiced and edited the talk some more. Some nice Catholic school teachers from Memphis told us about how they went dancing while drinking hurricanes. That sounded nice, but we've been in bed watching pay-per-view movies (Molly's Game and I, Tonya) by 8 both nights. We've had to get up early to write and practice the talk.

As I've mentioned before, people have different ways of having fun. I'm happy we made it here to NOLA. It's been worth it for sure, and tomorrow we'll do the talk. I'm pretty sure it'll be good enough.

Sunday, April 8, 2018

Drop Me Off Down the Block

Not too long ago, the kids and I went to watch a friend of Shef's play in a high-level, high-stakes hockey game. It was really fun, and I especially liked how they blasted clips of classic songs like 1989's "Move This" by Technotronic before face-offs.

I got to thinking, I should take the kids to more school sporting events. We could wear our colors and root for the teams! Sounds wholesome and screen-free! I shared my epiphany with Shef, who is now fourteen years old.

"Hey," I said, "wouldn't it be fun to go to more school sporting events?"

"No," he said. The answer came swiftly and with zero hesitation.

"No?" I asked, surprised. "You don't want to watch your friends play lacrosse and stuff?"

"No," he clarified, "I just don't want to be seen with you in public."

Just like that! All matter-of-fact!

I think the inclination is probably exacerbated because I'm a teacher at the school, in addition to also being a regularly ignominious parent. Having a teacher mom is literally the worst thing ever for an eighth-grader, Shef says. I can't help that it's my job, though, and I also can't help that I'm so embarrassing. I feel I could be even more embarrassing if I didn't already put so much effort into my behavior. Shef doesn't know how lucky he is. One little slip and he could be the laughing stock of the entire school.