Kindergarten Kraziness

It’s crazy how much you have to do – use goo gone on cubbies; draw bulletin boards and color; prep name tags, highlight birthdays, put up a calendar, counting straws, 100 charts, vacuum, scrub some more, merge all your junk into the existing junk, look at old books and go through the mental turmoil of whether or not your should toss them (Golden Books that have a price tag of 69 cents – it has to be at least 40 years old – but some kid in Sri Lanka might want it); lesson planning, putting together Back to School stuff; figuring out what you have and don’t have; taking laughing breaks to push the insanity aside and just staying at school till 7 pm.  Yeah, don’t tell anyone.

So what do we talk about when we want to chill and take the edge off of sheer madness?  We talk about Daniel Craig looking hot for the new James Bond flick; how we need to walk during lunch to avoid being 250 lbs at the end of the school year; our kids, our husbands and our dogs; spending money at Lakeshore or Ikea, trying to get the scoop on your new students and their parents; who’s returning, who’s not student wise and why; eating Cynthias’ mini-Snickers (which she has lovingly removed all the calories); bugging people to give them their cute bulletin boards, furniture and chairs, etc.

Then it’s back to the goo gone affixiation creating a natural crack like high.  At least the gunk is cleaned off – a small sacrifice of brain cells for the common good of looking clean at back to school night.

We do it every year and every year, we think there has to be a better way.

Sleeping Beauty me

We got a new mattress finally after 31 years.  I think we were overdue by 20 years or something like that!  Yes, it’s nice and sooo high!

Back to school

Jean Parker Elementary School – where I had at least six years of “back to school”.  New oxford shoes polished white, a new coat from that children’s clothes store on Grant Ave., walking with Mom pass the fire department on Powell Street, peeking into the tortilla store on the corner of Broadway and Powell, listening to their rhythmic clapping of the tortilla ladies, waiting for Officer Joe to help us cross Broadway in front of the Broadway tunnel, sneaking a peek at which boys have been assigned the Traffic Boy* responsibilites at the corner, and then entering the gates, going up the steps to the black top playground where we wait for the bells.

The playground director rings her huge brass bell and we freeze.  At the second bell, we line up with our classmates in our assigned spots.  Mrs. Largomarsino (what a name), appears at the top of the big brick staircase, and as if she was Queen Elizabeth, would say, “Good Morning boys and girls,” and we’d reply, “Good morning, Mrs. Largomarsino.”  We march up the stairs, noticing how shiny the linoleum floors were…new layer of wax with a shiny lacquer finish, then we pass those strange looking headless winged marble statues, turn to the right, pass several doors and then into our classroom.  Another school year begins.

Fresh bulletin boards, new erasers and pencils, lined manila papers, spelling books, reading books and a new teacher.  She looks nice, but she’s also has firey eyes that can turn…all 36 of us are dumbfounded and in awe of this woman who will either spur us onto new learning horizons, or torture us for the next 9 months. 

Miss Doris Wong, Kindergarten teacher, quiet, gentle, yet aloof, and not really warm.  She taught us all the basics even though it was 1/2 day and I had a pee accident in her class.  She told Mom about my accident and I’ll always remember that she didn’t embarass me.

Mrs. Gladys Robinson, 1st grade – African American, tall, wore her hair in a bun, slim and very kind.  I liked her a lot.

Miss Wong was our 2nd grade teacher and I remembered that we wanted to surprise her, that it was her same class from Kindergarten!  Don’t remember much about 2nd grade, but Miss Wong seem more warm and friendly.

Miss Rummell, young, wore her hair short and blonde, very pretty.  She brought an extra pair of flat shoes to wear when she was tired.  That’s all I remembered about her.

Mrs. Sylvia McMIllan, played the piano, loved to teach us to sing songs like “I’ve got sixpence”, “When Irish eyes are smiling”, her husband was some kind of fire fighter and she was very proud of that.  She was short and wore heels and walked fast.  Her room was always cheerful and festive.  I couldn’t spell “receive” correctly several times and she got a little miffed at me.  Did she have a sister that taught at Jean Parker also?

Miss Schmidt, 5th grade, had a reputation of being mean and ugly and she was and Pauline had her as a teacher.  She warned me about her, but I got stuck with her anyway.  No way to get out. 

Miss Schmidt, the witch of Jean Parker, hook nose, pulled back hair and all.  I think she had a sister that also taught there.  I thankfully, left her class in the middle of the school year and transferred to Visitacion Valley Elementary School in Visitacion Valley. 

Infamous words of Miss Schmidt to our class,  “I was walking through Chinatown and noticed the litter and filthy streets.  There was garbage and trash all over the place.   You should take better care of your neighborhood.  You should have clean streets like those in the St. Francis Woods neighborhood.”

So immediately, we knew we were filthy dirty Chinese children who would never be good enough to do anything because we live in trash, and what the hell is St. Francis Woods?  I never figured that out till I went to Lowell High School in St. Francis Woods, and that set me up to hate high school for the next 3 years.

Miss Fay, 5th grade at Visitacion Valley and Mr. Camp, 6th grade.  Those were new and good years.   Made a can candle with MIss Fay, and published a newspaper with Mr. Camp.  Learned to love writing with Mr. Junius Camp.  Fell in love and had crushes in 5th and 6th grade.

Yeah, back to school…some very good memories, but the bad ones really stick like a huge splinter that you can’t remove.

How I spent Thursday

looks like Jr here

Besides being probed and poked, weighed and lectured, getting poop smear envelopes, filling goopy eyes presciptions (pink eye, go figure), squished and placed between plastic plates, it was a great Thursday.  In between these delightful, getting old and being female doctor apptmts, I started to “rescue” some of Mom’s vintage pictures from her album. 

Mom was very creative with her “adhesives” – duct tape, masking tape, scotch tape (of course), bandage tapes, you name it, for her photos.  She had a lot of Dad’s Navy pictures and I haven’t really looked at these for quite some time.  Matt mentioned he wanted some of these and yeah, whatev.  So I started to scan these pictures, hoping that they will be better stored this way.  It was interesting, tedious and kind of sad to see Dad in his 20’s and 30’s looking so healthy, vibrant, hopeful, handsome, full of life.

I especially like this photo which I’m sure I’ve seen a thousand time.  I blew it up and captioned it as “Waiting for the rest of us” – It’s a picture of him (supposedly…I’m sure it was posed) “on watch”.   I want to believe that he’s “watching” and “waiting” at some level in heaven to be reunited with all of us.

Waiting for the rest of us

There’s kind of a Jackie Chan look to Dad, huh?  Must be the good Joong San Cantonese genes.  There were some pictures where I can see how many of us resemble Dad, not just Jr.

I got some of this look

taken on leave in Williamsburg - Pauline kind of look

Love these of Daddy.  I miss him.  Found a picture of him and I together on Stierlin Road.  He has the flannel shirt on that I kept to remember him.

“You got the wrong HOUSE!”

A few weeks ago, when we were still getting contractors to look at the bathrooms, someone in a white pick up truck pulled up in front of our house and rang the doorbell.  Of course, being that it is July, I was still in my pjs and Stephanie was still asleep in bed.

They were persistent and kept knocking.  I thought maybe one of our contractors messed up on the time and date of our apptmt and decided to throw on some clothes and answer the door.  You have to imagine this with Sweetie barking, screaming and hissing throughout.  I cracked the door opened and the older man said that he was here to do cement work.  I told him no, I did not ask for him to come.  He said I did, and that Oscar set the apptmt.  I told him no.  Then I asked what is the street address you’re looking for.  He looked at his clipboard (Sweetie is still barking), and I told him this is 897 and muttering something, he walks down the the walkway.  No apologies, nothing.

Guess what, he came back again today.  S______  and Sweetie screaming away and I in my PJs at 9:00.  I yell through the door and he’s asking for Oscar again.  I yelled back you got the wrong house AGAIN…Look at the house number…You’re at the wrong house AGAIN!  He mutters something and walks back down the walkway.  I look through the upstairs window and I think he’s like 2 houses down from us.  We have the ugly front yard next to the farm…the house you want has regular neighbors!

 OK, so this is the beginning of yet another weekend…Chicken Feet lunch should soothe my rattled nerves and convince me that being in my pjs in July at 9 am is legit.