Better than Bally

I have a lovely little yoga group. We meet in the basement of a neighborhood church.

If you can appreciate how cold that basement floor is during a Chicago winter, you will understand how loyal this group is. I tend to drop in and out, but whenever I do make class, there are A and K and C and J and E, and of course our beautiful instructor, who thanks us for practicing with her.

One evening in 2009, after class, we all rolled up our mats and walked over to A's house for strawberries and wine and conversation. Can you imagine?

It's true.

A Little Light Reading

The other day I drove a friend to the police station to pick up a police report. While waiting, I grabbed some "Tips for Teens" brochures:

The Truth about Club Drugs
The Truth about Heroin
The Truth about Cocaine
The Truth about Alcohol
The Truth about Tobacco

Tomorrow morning, school starts up again. I guess I can put this reading material out for our 14 year olds to read over breakfast. Hoo hoo! Wake up, vacation is over! Let's have a heart-to-heart!

Much to Ponder at the Vet...

...where I saw a prominently displayed flyer reminding the public that February is National Spay/Neuter Month. Cook County residents can get a $40 rebate on a spay/neuter surgery (cats, dogs, ferrets) during the month. I wonder, how much does it actually cost to neuter a ferret?

Also, the doctor reminded me to drop off a stool sample from the pooch, and handed me a high tech stool-sample-collection gadget. Hilarious!

But I don't know if I'm up for the task.

Libraryland

I'm enjoying my birthday present of Friday through Sunday delivery of The New York Times. On this morning's Chicago page, I see a news item about the Chicago Underground Library and its new permanent home in the lobby of the Red Tape Theater in Lakeview. It opens January 16.

Meanwhile, neighborhood branches of the Chicago Public Library begin reduced hours tomorrow.

Good Schools Require Saintly Parents

Ages ago, when my daughters were babies, I knew a smart, inspiring woman with two young sons. Her boys were quite impressive, too, both in the way they carried themselves and in their accomplishments. I asked my friend where they went to school.

She told me the name of the Chicago Public School where they were enrolled. She then highly recommended the teacher/administrator who shaped the program there and later became a principal at another CPS elementary school. My friend added that if I wanted to find an excellent school for my daughters, I should find the woman and the school.

Which I did. One of my daughters attends that school, even though the (yes-it's-true) amazing principal has since retired. The new principal has retained much of her educational philosophy and most of her staff. But almost immediately, the new principal ditched the practice of assigning homework over Winter Break. Yay!

Still, my daughter occasionally gets an assignment that pretty much requires doing homework over the holidays. I suppose the quality of teaching developed under the former principal is too deeply ingrained. These teachers teach, after all. And so, this year, my daughter's group assignment - to film a 4-5 minute commercial having to do with the reading of Brave New World - is due Jan. 6th. School resumes Jan. 4th. Are you kidding me?

What do you think about that? I don't know anymore. On one hand I'm annoyed, because scheduling six 8th graders around family plans is tedious and difficult. On the other hand, getting six 8th graders together is socially fun, and I'm sure they all took something positive away from the experience.

The mom who hosted the event? I'm sure she took a gigantic headache away from the experience. After 6+ hours of dealing with technology issues and personality issues and the teenage stomach, this woman deserves public thanks, a hug, a beer. Or, maybe a get-out-of-chaperoning pass for the remainder of the year?

I Dream of Italian Cookies

This morning I woke up distressed by a dream in which I finally discovered my Grandma's recipe for pizelle, but I could not decipher the measurements. Instead of cups and teaspoons, she had jotted down a P or a Q. I didn't know what that meant, and then I woke up thinking "It's pints and quarts!"

So, should I mind my Ps & Qs today? Or get out the pizelle iron?

Now to spend some money in the iTunes store. . .

I'm adding Said the Gramophone to my blogroll. "More music" is usually on my short list of New Year's Resolutions (along with "more vegetables" and "more flowers").

But I'm also linking to it because of this fine post, a reaction to Vic Chestnutt's suicide.