Thursday, February 26, 2009
Nine is just fine
I think it was last year that I had an entry called "8 is great" or something like that. Wait...I'll look it up. Ah yes! Here it is
Wednesday, February 25, 2009
KNDOFBLU
I was heading East on 580 today when I saw it. I was probably playing taxi, going to get my kids from school or maybe taking them to one of their practices. I had just made the curve around the Lake and was passing the Park Boulevard exit.
KNDOFBLU
No, it's not a long acronym for something. It was the license plate on the car that was in front of me. "How cool is that?!" I thought. I wished I had thought of that. Oh..what? You don't get it? Kind of Blue. Yeah...THAT Kind of Blue. Yes, my mind is always on the Miles Davis channel. "Wouldn't it be even more perfect if KCSM 91.1 were playing some Miles right now," I mused. But they weren't. It didn't matter. I was lost in the moment.
Who's car was it? This must be one cool cat. In my mind I started to create a picture of the owner of the vehicle upon which these plates sat. He was probably some late 40s to mid 50s cat with a thick beard, wearing a muslim kufi cap. He was Yusef Lateef. No...wait. He's driving a BMW. It's not just any BMW but a Dinan 5 series wagon. Okay...scratch the kufi. It's gotta be a beret now. Keep the bald head, but now he's Delroy Lindo. His air freshener probably smelled like incense and surely he was also listening to 91.1 like I was.
Traffic was pretty thick so I couldn't get up next to the car to confirm my suppositions. I was still stuck on how cool this was. How cool this cat must've been. I started thinking like a 7-year old. This cat oughta be my friend. If you had a cool bike or a really cool collection of Legos or if you TOO could sing along to the Sugarhill Gang's Rapper's Delight or maybe if you played basketball, you had a good shot at being my friend. I was using the same logic here. This Kind of Blue license plate and the BMW and the imagined beret and incense were the equivalent of the Star Wars Lego set with the X-wings and the entire Death Star. Simply Cool!
I felt so inadequate. My Murano didn't seem as cool as his Dinan BMW, and my state issued license plate with the random alphanumeric characters had exactly NO character. It was like I just had the run-of-the-mill Lego set that could only make square houses and stuff like that.
Who likes Miles Davis more than me? Shouldn't I have some expression of my Miles-ness somewhere? Maybe I should turn up my radio. I should switch to disc 4 in the changer and "pump" Miles version of Autumn Leaves so that everybody can hear it. I should have these plates. Pump your breaks chief. Last I checked, envy was indeed one of the seven deadlies.
Traffic finally broke and I was able to switch lanes and almost get up to wear I could sneak a peek at the "new" coolest cat on the freeway (my title had been relinquished instantly upon sight of the plates). The brake lights were making me nervous though. Each time I'd almost get to wear I could see the driver, the car in front of me would slow down and I'd lose ground again. The suspense was killing me. Then, just like that it was over. The car in front of me moved, I hit the gas just enough to gain ground on Mr. KNDOFBLU, glanced to my left and saw...a frazzled, nervous, middle-aged white woman, gripping the steering wheel like it were her only salvation from falling off the side of a cliff in a tornado. Oh well. At least I'm still the coolest cat on the freeway during rush hour.
KNDOFBLU
No, it's not a long acronym for something. It was the license plate on the car that was in front of me. "How cool is that?!" I thought. I wished I had thought of that. Oh..what? You don't get it? Kind of Blue. Yeah...THAT Kind of Blue. Yes, my mind is always on the Miles Davis channel. "Wouldn't it be even more perfect if KCSM 91.1 were playing some Miles right now," I mused. But they weren't. It didn't matter. I was lost in the moment.
Who's car was it? This must be one cool cat. In my mind I started to create a picture of the owner of the vehicle upon which these plates sat. He was probably some late 40s to mid 50s cat with a thick beard, wearing a muslim kufi cap. He was Yusef Lateef. No...wait. He's driving a BMW. It's not just any BMW but a Dinan 5 series wagon. Okay...scratch the kufi. It's gotta be a beret now. Keep the bald head, but now he's Delroy Lindo. His air freshener probably smelled like incense and surely he was also listening to 91.1 like I was.
Traffic was pretty thick so I couldn't get up next to the car to confirm my suppositions. I was still stuck on how cool this was. How cool this cat must've been. I started thinking like a 7-year old. This cat oughta be my friend. If you had a cool bike or a really cool collection of Legos or if you TOO could sing along to the Sugarhill Gang's Rapper's Delight or maybe if you played basketball, you had a good shot at being my friend. I was using the same logic here. This Kind of Blue license plate and the BMW and the imagined beret and incense were the equivalent of the Star Wars Lego set with the X-wings and the entire Death Star. Simply Cool!
I felt so inadequate. My Murano didn't seem as cool as his Dinan BMW, and my state issued license plate with the random alphanumeric characters had exactly NO character. It was like I just had the run-of-the-mill Lego set that could only make square houses and stuff like that.
Who likes Miles Davis more than me? Shouldn't I have some expression of my Miles-ness somewhere? Maybe I should turn up my radio. I should switch to disc 4 in the changer and "pump" Miles version of Autumn Leaves so that everybody can hear it. I should have these plates. Pump your breaks chief. Last I checked, envy was indeed one of the seven deadlies.
Traffic finally broke and I was able to switch lanes and almost get up to wear I could sneak a peek at the "new" coolest cat on the freeway (my title had been relinquished instantly upon sight of the plates). The brake lights were making me nervous though. Each time I'd almost get to wear I could see the driver, the car in front of me would slow down and I'd lose ground again. The suspense was killing me. Then, just like that it was over. The car in front of me moved, I hit the gas just enough to gain ground on Mr. KNDOFBLU, glanced to my left and saw...a frazzled, nervous, middle-aged white woman, gripping the steering wheel like it were her only salvation from falling off the side of a cliff in a tornado. Oh well. At least I'm still the coolest cat on the freeway during rush hour.
Friday, February 20, 2009
Easiest $100 I ever made...
Renaissance man that I am, I tried my hand at substitute teaching for the first time today in the Oakland Unified School District. Now, I'd definitely accept the label of try-anything-once-type (with the possible exception of eating something like a cockroach are taking any illegal drugs) but if you had told me a few months ago that I'd be a substitute teacher on a Friday in February of 2009, I would've looked at you like you were crazy. Unemployment will send you down some interesting roads indeed. I daresay that there will be sojourns down the less traveled in my immediate future. That's okay though. It all gives me interesting things upon which to reflect.
All these years I've wondered where substitutes come from. Well, actually, I haven't really, but that just sounded good. This is truly one of those things that I have given zero brain energy to in my 37 years. We've all had substitutes take the reigns in our respective classrooms at one time or another, but never did I wonder, "Hmm...i wonder how they arrived here this morning?" I guess I tend to save my curiosities for much more pertinent questions like, "How did she get all that into that?" I'm dangerously close to digressing here, so I'll right the ship.
Here's the drill. Subs must declare their availability for a given day either through some sort of automated system or by calling in for a job. Since my info is not in the automated system yet, I'm relegated to the call in method for now. The wind was almost totally out of my sails this morning at 630am when for the second day in a row I had not discovered any available assignments. I decided to attempt to take care of another errand after leaving the gym this morning, dipping over to the courthouse to make a 3rd (and unsuccessful) trip to straighten out this traffic ticket situation. More on that another day. I was at the front of the line, arguing with the volunteer information clerk about how absurd a process their process was that kept causing me to come back when my phone rang and went to voicemail. I called back as soon as I was outside heading for my car to discover that there was indeed a late assignment for me. Actually, there were 3!
It was already 855am, and school had already started, but they still had some openings. I had the choice of 3rd graders or middle school kids. I tried to quickly weigh my options as to which would be the smoothest transition for me as a newbie. To make a long story short, I went to the middle school. The funny thing is that the middle school is exactly half a block from my old house in East Oakland.
Boy did I stumble upon a cushy assignment. You want small class sizes? Twenty students in a class? How 'bout 25 students in the whole school!?? There were 5 boys in my first class and 4 girls in my second class. (For some reason, they separate the boys from the girls.) After those two classes, there was a Black History Month assembly/presentation that lasted almost 90 minutes and was followed by a soul food pot luck.
When all of this was done, it was after 2pm so they let the kids essentially have "recess" on the playground until school was out. How will any future assignment EVER top this. The bar has perhaps been set too high.
All these years I've wondered where substitutes come from. Well, actually, I haven't really, but that just sounded good. This is truly one of those things that I have given zero brain energy to in my 37 years. We've all had substitutes take the reigns in our respective classrooms at one time or another, but never did I wonder, "Hmm...i wonder how they arrived here this morning?" I guess I tend to save my curiosities for much more pertinent questions like, "How did she get all that into that?" I'm dangerously close to digressing here, so I'll right the ship.
Here's the drill. Subs must declare their availability for a given day either through some sort of automated system or by calling in for a job. Since my info is not in the automated system yet, I'm relegated to the call in method for now. The wind was almost totally out of my sails this morning at 630am when for the second day in a row I had not discovered any available assignments. I decided to attempt to take care of another errand after leaving the gym this morning, dipping over to the courthouse to make a 3rd (and unsuccessful) trip to straighten out this traffic ticket situation. More on that another day. I was at the front of the line, arguing with the volunteer information clerk about how absurd a process their process was that kept causing me to come back when my phone rang and went to voicemail. I called back as soon as I was outside heading for my car to discover that there was indeed a late assignment for me. Actually, there were 3!
It was already 855am, and school had already started, but they still had some openings. I had the choice of 3rd graders or middle school kids. I tried to quickly weigh my options as to which would be the smoothest transition for me as a newbie. To make a long story short, I went to the middle school. The funny thing is that the middle school is exactly half a block from my old house in East Oakland.
Boy did I stumble upon a cushy assignment. You want small class sizes? Twenty students in a class? How 'bout 25 students in the whole school!?? There were 5 boys in my first class and 4 girls in my second class. (For some reason, they separate the boys from the girls.) After those two classes, there was a Black History Month assembly/presentation that lasted almost 90 minutes and was followed by a soul food pot luck.
When all of this was done, it was after 2pm so they let the kids essentially have "recess" on the playground until school was out. How will any future assignment EVER top this. The bar has perhaps been set too high.
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