Irma

"So, then we drove to St. Petersburg to evacuate, me, the dogs and my daughters.  We got to the hotel and this horrible man, an Indian man, with terrible teeth, totally ripped us off.  They are terrible people, immigrants....".

I started laughing, out of nervousness.  I was sitting on her back porch, in the home we had rented in July, well before we knew about Irma, Maria, and the rest of the gang.   Alec and I wanted to back out of the rental, but she had strong armed us, basically making it clear that she would keep every red cent we had paid in advance if we even tried not to drive into a disaster zone.  So, we packed up, put a gas can in the car and took the risk, watching caravans of military, police and utility vehicles drive north as we drove south.

"When I came home, there was a mattress in the living room..." Maryan responded, when I asked about highs and lows before beginning my "lesson" at the Housing Authority.
"Is your mom home from the hospital?"
"No, she's still there" Maryan responded, shielding her enigmatic face below the table.

"THEY ARE TERRIBLE PEOPLE!" she reiterated.
"And they want our jobs".
"But, your husband, he's a keeper.  I might just take him home with me...".
Alec jumped up and went inside.  Florida Mom was pleased that Alec had helped her clear hurricane debris from the front yard.  God only knows what she would say if she put two and two together and realized he was Jewish.
"But," she said, eyeballing Lola, "there were these people once that rented this house and said that their dog was friendly, bit me in the boob!  I told them they could take that dog to the shelter if they wanted to stay in my place....".
"Deadbeat Ex-Husband Roy" pulled up a few minutes later in a Cadillac while she yelled across the small yard what she wanted him to do next.

"Emmy, you have to get up.  If you're ill, you have to call you're parents and go home.  You can't just lay down in here...."
"My mom didn't pick up her food stamps!  I'm hungry and I haven't eaten in two days!".
I looked at her homeroom teacher, who was luckily still in the room.
"Come on, let's go." he responded, taking her to the cafeteria.

We are reading "The One and Only Ivan" at the Housing Authority.  Our original group read was "El Deafo" and it was a resounding success.   I started doing read-alongs because I force my students to read twenty minutes a day.  Most of them would pick picture books, way below their level and on top of it, not even finish them and switch several times within the twenty minute period.  I needed to have them all read the same thing so that I could do comprehension activities, try to do real literacy work.  Not that I know what I'm doing, but, whatever.

They loved El Deafo.  The One and Only Ivan has been more of a struggle.  As the students read the passages out loud, I found myself so engrossed in the book that my mouth was hanging open.  I looked up to my right and saw Muslimo, her hand in an L shape on her forehead, pointing at me.

During the reading, Maryan whispered to me.  "The baby never came out of the stomach.  It died in there....".
"Is your mom home now?  Is she sad?"
"I don't know.  I laid down on my dad's bed for a minute, and tears came out."  she stated, then pushed her eyes back on The One and Only Ivan.

The Stars That Shine So Bright

"Hey, Henry, is one of your parents in education?  Something caught my eye this weekend and I thought it was your last name.....".
Yeah, that thing that caught my eye when I was job hunting at work and saw your distinct last name as a head of school that I was checking out.....
"Yeah, both of them are teachers...." he answered, with a little smile and exasperated eye roll.

"Wow, two teachers as parents...."
"Yeah, and they are both moms!" he answered, as if that doubled the problems.

As much as I'd like to pretend that my group of kids in the Housing Authority are a bunch of sweet saints, they often buck me.  I have a group of eleven this year, a big class for what people think is a small group tutoring situation.  And, nine of them are female.  They were cute at first, then I suddenly had a Mean Girls situation on my hands. And, they were against me.

"So then, he came out, dressed as Santa, the blackest of the blackest of the blackest skin on Earth!  I couldn't believe it!  And the kids, the kids accepted it like it was nothing!  None of them laughed!"  Her haughty smug chortle sang from her mouth as if she had just told the most adorable story in the western hemisphere.  I ground my teeth and said nothing, my back turned and hunched like a troll.

"Back away, little girl!"  the tiny fourth grader hissed to her neighbor, the voice of a fifty year-old mean woman coming from her lips.  Her neighbor started to cry.  I knew her mother had been killed in an accident months before while she was in the car and I knew that her table mate didn't like it when people stepped on her shoes.   It was a no win.

"I am the passenger....and I ride and I ride......"
I was so fucked up I could barely stand.  I was stumbling into people.
"All of it is yours and mine...."
"Let's take a ride and see what's mine!"  I screamed with the singer.

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