Week one of Summer Vacation: Update

By Elizabeth Prata

So it has been one week since the official start of summer vacation from my public education job began. Of course, the last 4 days of school, the half day with the kids and the 3 successive post-planning days, I was not at school due to pneumonia. I don't call that part of the summer a vacation, lol. It was a difficult week.

Anyway, true to my promise to myself, I put my Summer Reading Plan into action. I've been enjoying the books I chose, and I am enjoying the structure of reading through a mountain of books in an orderly fashion. Again, the books I chose are:

I am truly enjoying the Crawdads book. It's written in a lyrical, almost poetic style but not so intrusively it's precious. Nor does it take away from a driving narrative that rolls along from the first sentence. It helps that I love the low country marshes.

The Internet Inferno book is about James and the tongue and social media, so I love it because I'm extremely active on social media but I also sin on social media. This book helps me be more careful, wise, and measured. Combining it with the Reinke book on Competing Spectacles this is a double whammy about how I spend my time...or not.

I chose the Kipling because I always like to read at least one classic during the summer. I've never been a huge fan of Kipling but I thought I'd give him one more try. It's a book of short stories so I'm not committing to a long story arc.

I read Elmer Gantry last year and loved it. Sinclair Lewis is wordy though. Good words, incisive words, poetic words, but lotsa words. It's the same with It Can't Happen Here, about how America could easily turn from representative democracy to fascism in one fell swoop. I like the subject matter and I enjoy Lewis's writing, so I'm good with it so far. He tends to get preachy so I'll be watching for that.

I'm enjoying the others as well.

Sunday School started back up for the summer and also the Tuesday night Bible lessons. I will be attending both, as the Lord allows. I don't have any social plans, other than a birthday celebration Wednesday night for someone out at a local bistro. I have a huge vet bill from the University of GA from where Bert spent his last few days so I don't plan on shopping anytime soon either.

I did go on up to The Special Store for their $5 fill-a-bag sale. I needed office supplies and that is indeed a great place to get them. Staplers, paper, notebooks, stationery, binder clips, markers, you name it. Saturday, I got some paper, file folders, three clay pots (I want to re-pot my succulents), and a 70-year-old teacup. It's a Homer Laughlin Eggshell Georgian pattern Cashmere. It was made in February of 1949. So cool!

Here is a Pinterest photo of it, not my photo. I'm currently too lazy to get up and snap a picture of the one I got. At some point soon I think I will take photos of each of my teacups and teapots and make a Pinterest board of them. I enjoy seeing others' and they also help me identify the ones I buy. So I'd like to return the favor.

I have also been watching Netflix/Youtube/Amazon Prime. I started watching Monk but Monk's pain is so palpable I only made it through season 1, skipped ahead to when Sharona was gone (didn't like her) and watched a few in season 3 with Natalie. Then stopped. It's too painful to watch the man be in so much pain.

I stumbled on an Australian show on Netflix. It's rated TV-MA which if I see ahead of time I skip but I did not see the rating and I'm glad I didn't, because I have not seen anything mature about the show. It's called Court Justice. It is a reality show about people who commit a crime and go to court, from their pov and from the Magistrates' point of view. They interview the judges and you learn their view of what the law is for, how the things that people do impacts society, and the onus of burden on the judges to balance compassion and justice individually for each case, tailored to each offender but also protecting the community.

The people were dressed appropriately, there wasn't swearing, or any crude scenes etc. The subject matter dealt with involves drugs, drunk driving offenses, traffic offenses, civil disobedience, self-representation, etc. There are some scenes of car crashes, when the narrator is explaining the statistics on drunk driving etc, perhaps those caused a TV-MA rating, but there wasn't any blood of victims seen. I'm sad that Court Justice only made it 1 season, and only 10 episodes. I like hearing about the Law and seeing judges who are good and righteous.

I've also been watching season 1 of The Waltons on Amazon. I watched the show when it first came out, 47 years ago. Wow. Hard to believe it's been that long. It's a sweet show and heartwarming. Unlike Monk, which is just pain-anguish-more pain.

I'm still in recovery from my pneumonia. My energy saps away suddenly and then I have to lie down. My lungs still hurt and I'm still coughing. I stopped at Kroger yesterday and got some chicken soup fixins. I've been living on scrambled eggs and chicken soup with rice. The soup is literally what the doctor ordered and she knew what she was talking about. The soup feels so good going down, is easy on the stomach, and fills me up without making me queasy. The hot liquid and steam loosens the fluid in my lungs. I'm going to make some more for a late lunch. Yum. After a nap. I'm tired now.

School is almost out

In Georgia, school starts in early August and if we're lucky, gets out before Memorial Day weekend. I have only another half day with the kids and then the rest of this week is post-planning. I'll break down my room and pack, we have meetings, and Friday a lunch for three staff members who are retiring.

We start up again next August 1. In between, I have 9 weeks of hermit-y bliss to look forward to. And who wouldn't want to be in this cute apartment all the time? Look at it, just look at it!

Studying and writing in my sweet little kitchen

Cat snoozing in the comfy chair, where I sit at night and read.

Wonderful naps in the afternoon

Surrounded by all the things I love

Early morning coffee on the patio, watching and listening to the birds

Second to last week day of summer vacation

Only one more weekday, then the weekend and then school starts. It's been a good summer. It felt that it went by fast and took forever to finish. Both.

I started readying things for Monday morning. I changed the sheets, prepared the laundry, and did some cooking. Tomorrow I'll vacuum and actually do the laundry. (It'll be cooler tomorrow than today and the dryer makes the garage go to 120 degrees... so I waited).

I had two overripe bananas ready for banana muffins. But I didn't want to make muffins from scratch, so I googled "banana muffins from pancake mix" and voila. I love the Internet.

They came out fine. As a matter of fact, they turned more golden on top than the ones I make from scratch with flour.

I also shelled and made a batch of butter beans, with onion, green peppers and carrot. I put diced bread and butter pickles on top with hot sauce to make a faux Southern pinto beans with chow chow.

And since I had two large zucchini and was using the oven for the muffins, I made zucchini crisps. Slice the zucchini into 1/4 inch rounds, toss in a slight amount of olive oil to coat, and press into a mixture of Parmesan cheese and bread crumbs. Bake at 450 degrees for half an hour. It caused a lot of smoke in the apartment, because the excess bread crumb mixture on the baking sheet burned, but oh well. What's cooking without a bit of smoke.

I listened to a sermon, watched the pilot of Happy Days, and read an old graduate book I had called "Children's Writing: Perspectives in Research." I also wrote another blog essay on the other blog, and moderated a lot of comments. I read 1 Samuel 12 and pondered that a long while. Of course the much beloved 3:00 nap was a given, with all three kitties on the bed with me. Even Murray is napping with us now. I'll go through withdrawal Monday when I have to give up my naps, and all this luxurious time to myself. But it's for a good reason, lol. It's called "Employment". Works for me.

The Closer is ending, and summer is coming to a close, too

I think my favorite tv show of all time is TNT's The Closer. Starring Kyra Sedgewick as a Deputy Chief of Police in LA, she is known for her ability to get a confession and thus 'close' a case. The show began in 2005 and I saw the first episode and loved it right away.

The acting is incredible, the writing is phenomenal, and the stories are absorbing and endlessly varied, though always around a murder, finding the perp, and bringing him or her on for the confession. I particularly enjoyed the first season where the Deputy Chief Brenda Leigh began working in a male-dominated hostile squad, and how she won over her men through strength and extreme ability. It was up from there and only got better as the years went on. It was an intelligent, well-done show and I'll miss it.

I say 'was' because the show is ending. Kyra is moving on. You can't have the show The Closer without the closer. There are only two more episodes left, and that makes me sad. However, most of the same cast will roll right over, even as the concluding credits roll on The Closer, into their new show Major Crimes which follows the finale of The Closer that same night.

The next episode will feature the long awaited moment the audience gets to find out the identify of the leak that has caused Brenda Leigh so much pain, and then the last show will wrap things up. I am already way too invested in the show, skulking chat forums to read discussions of who the mole could be, and looking for early release promos of the next episode to see if I can get a clue. Summers, nice to have all this time to waste!

That will all come to a crashing end Monday. I go back to school. Mon-Thu are pre-planning days and Friday the kids come back. I know the schedule is done so I'll be anxious to see how and where the higher ups will use me this year. I'll look forward to reading up on the new little guys I'll be helping with. All I've done is sit around all summer so the first few weeks are a real shock to the system, physically.

The school always looks SO GREAT when I get back. The crews in the kitchen and the custodial crews do such a great job. The HVAC guys were in over the summer installing new units, I understand, so our heat and AC will be pretty spiffy.

I remember I packed up pretty fast. "Pack" [snicker] ...more like dump everything I had in the desk into a box, seal it up and left without looking back... I will untangle all that when I arrive on Monday.

The only hard part for me is all the people coming back saying hello and all the small talk chit chat. I have spent my summer in seclusion almost, except for church and one or two social outings. When the people return to school they want to get caught up on all the chitchat. I am not good at chitchat. I do not understand chitchat or how to do it. Tom Ranier of Lifeway Resources wrote about introverts. I AM each one of these--
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"Over a year ago, I wrote an article on introverted leadership. Much to my surprise, many people wrote and affirmed the sentiments I expressed. Many of them were introverts who felt misunderstood and often relegated to lesser opportunities because of their reticent personalities. I  understand. I am an introvert.

In the article, I offered some suggestions to introverted leaders to help us navigate what we perceive to be a noisy and energy-draining world. Now I want to address those who are not introverts. You are the people who have to work with us, live with us, and interact with us. Perhaps you even get frustrated with us. And while we introverts can certainly do more on our part, I hope these eight statements will help you understand us a little bit better.

1. Our aversion to small talk can make us appear rude. Okay, maybe we are rude. When someone asks us how we are doing, we really don’t believe most people want to know how we are doing. If someone tells us that they are so glad to see us, we have our doubts. As a result, our responses are often not warm or chatty.
2. We value close friendships. We may do poorly connecting to tons of people, but we connect well to those we consider close friends. Indeed we tend to be extremely loyal. We introverts often process relationships mentally and emotionally. If we find a loyal friend, we treasure the relationship as a precious gift. If we perceive someone uses us or is disloyal to us, we struggle greatly with that person. Indeed some would say we have an “off switch” for those persons.
3. We like to have a reason to talk. Some people are surprised to discover certain people are introverts because they have witnessed the introvert engaged in a lively conversation. When an introvert is truly engaged, he or she is talking about something that evokes his or her passion. It is a fallacy to say introverts don’t like to talk. We just like to have a meaningful purpose to our conversations.
4. Meetings and public interaction don’t really bother us; long meetings and long public interaction do. Think of an introvert as an automobile with a tank of fuel. The longer we are in meetings or similar settings, the more fuel is depleted. At some point we run out of fuel and become almost non-functional. We can only get refueled and refreshed by moving to a more private setting.
5. Don’t assume we introverts don’t like to have fun. Most of us do have fun. We typically enjoy cutting up with people we know and trust. And our idea of a fun place for relaxation or vacation is typically a quiet and out-of-the-way spot. I must admit that my love for college football is an exception to this pattern.
6. We are not always quick to speak. Sometimes our reticence can make us look thoughtful; at other times we may appear to be clueless. We are often processing information and the environment of the moment. We tend to be especially aware of the feelings of others who may be present.
7. We like written communication. We often tune out long-winded explanations and reports. Countless times in my life I have said, “Let me see that in writing.” That gives me the time to process the information and reflect upon it. By the way, we introverts really do like written affirmation in cards, letters, and emails. That tends to be one of our love languages.
8. You can’t fix us introverts. Our introversion is not a disease that needs a cure. For the most part, we like our personalities and have no desire to be like the extrovert. Spouses who try to change introverts into extroverts have an uphill battle and a likely conflicted marriage.

Of course, all of this information is the perspective of an introvert to the rest of the world. I do not mean to imply that everyone should adjust to us. We have to make our own adjustments to communicate and function in this world.

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So that's why I take my lunch alone, cut to the chase in a conversation, and really appreciate my boss's penchant for short meetings!!!