Hazy Days of Winter

"Oh my gosh, were you following what happened in Paris?" I asked Oliver's little brother, Cassius, knowing that he has a fascination with ISIS.  He had told me the year before, when he was in fourth grade.  While the rest of the kids spoke of listening to music or sports on the radio, he mentioned that he was more interested in international affairs.
"Yeah totally!  My dad knows a guy that was in the concert hall!"
"You're kidding, is he okay?"
"Yeah, yeah.  You know, seventy years ago, there wasn't really terrorism like this....."
"Yeah, you're right.  I guess people were persecuting Jewish people..."
"The Nazis weren't the first to do that," he answered.  "It was just a fad."
Haven't really heard of antisemitism referred to that way before, but, I guess he is like, ten years old.
He looked up at the sky.
"There didn't used to be all these pissed off middle eastern people...." he added wistfully and trotted away.

Thanksgiving passed in a whirl.  I had a couple of days off, made a shit-load of food, and then went to New Orleans for a few days.  My Monday return to work felt oddly out of place. 

"Yes ma'am," my new little morning duty friend added, whenever I asked him a question.  He stands with me on my distant corner duty station every morning now, making the station a little less of the most pinche, Loneliest Duty Station in the World.  I am not used to the southern-ness of constantly using "ma'am" or "sir" with adults.  It is kind of cute but I kind of want to tell him that we're friends and that it isn't necessary.
"So I can't wait to put my little brother's hand in warm water while he sleeps...." he continued.
"Oh my gosh, so he pees?"
"Yes ma'am".
"Why are you going to do that to him?!" I asked, laughing.
"Because he sucks, ma'am.  I kick him in the nuts sometimes too, ma'am".
His eyes were rolling and twinkling, unaware that half of what he had just said is not in "ma'am" territory.

By the end of my week back to work, disaster was striking again.  I started arranging a sub, thinking of the last time I had had to use one.  She showed up wearing an oxygen mask and sat with her head on the table in our office with the lights off.  She also went AWOL in the middle of the day and no one could find her.  The kids had wild stories about the classes she did show up for.  One group said she kicked back in a chair, took her shoes off and started shaking some sort of debris from her shoes all over the rug.  She spent the rest of the class texting people and rubbing her bare feet on the rug, only stopping to randomly call out "Be quiet!" without looking up from her phone. 

I pulled the trigger on ordering a sub and rapidly found a flight to Michigan.  I really did not know what was in store for me.