Tag Archives: misadventure

Feb12

bell bottom blues.

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not mine, but a pretty accurate ‘before’ picture of my bellbottoms

—

with the return of outdoor ice-skating weather

i’m reminded of my ill-fated misadventure

when i made a choice to combine my bells with my skating.

and it wasn’t a good thing.

i was ‘home-ec’ years old

 in middle school

loved the cooking part

horrible at the sewing part

decided i’d make bellbottoms

instead of a stupid apron

ignoring the fact that

i wasn’t good at it

just wanted to get it done

bought some cool blue fabric and a pattern

somehow stitched it together

but really didn’t get the concept of alterations

all i knew was that

they should be very tight and have very big bells at the bottom

so i finally took a yardstick

just drew a chalk line on each inseam

didn’t measure anything

stitched them up

modeled them for our fashion show to pass the class

noticed they were quite tight even when just standing

 went ice-skating with my friends after school

wearing my new very skin-tight bells

to impress my crush who would be there

looking cool with my skates and my bells

it all began well

then we played crack the whip

it all took a turn

when i sailed across the ice

stopping in a huge snowbank

so fun

until i fully stood up

realizing

my entire inseam

from ankle to ankle

had all torn out

leaving me more or less wearing

a tight maxi-skirt/chaps type of garment

brought new meaning to ‘cool’

tried to casually walk home through the snow in my skates

with an air of ‘what?, this happens all the time, pretty normal…’

another reason why i am a teacher and not a seamstress.

—

“bell bottom blues, you make me cry…”

-derek and the dominos- eric clapton

 

 

 

Sep19

fury.

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back in the 60’s

so excited to begin my modeling hobby

 black fury arrived

took out all three of the pieces

two horse halves and a tail

 laid them out

along with my airplane glue

after reading the directions

carefully matching the halves

adding the tail

it’s black plastic body

smeared all over with glue

but it was together

 i had made it all by myself

gave it one last little squirt of glue

for good luck

which missed and went into my eye

my joy turned to dramatic squealing

zoomed off to the eye doctor

went home and looked at fury

with my one good eye

not sure what went wrong

learning not to add

one more little dab of something

when a project is finished

and began my foray into my new hobby

stamp collecting.

“when things go right it’s hard to figure out why,

but when things go wrong it’s really easy.”

-steven soderbergh

 

Jul16

rejoice.

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headed off on a family fun river raft float trip 

not real relaxing as expected

but lots of adventures/misadventures instead

so many laughs and we all survived

who could ask for anything more?

—

“rejoice as summer should…chase away sorrows by living.” 

-melissa marr, darkest mercy

 

 

—

argo park, huron river, Ann Arbor, michigan, u.s.a. – summer 2019

May30

tangles.

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(not my sister but you get the idea)

—

my sister, p.

recently shared the following story

about her hair misadventure

and as sympathetic as i was

i could not stop laughing. 

and could totally identify. 

must have been nervous laughter

and gratitude that it wasn’t me. 

—

p. had gone to have her hair cut and styled

the very adept stylist easily cut it and blew it dry

with just a round brush

and

it emerged

into a full and lovely natural style. 

the next day

my sister decided that she could certainly do the same

so she armed herself with a blow dryer and big round brush

and had at it. 

only –

the brush got stuck

very stuck

absolutely stuck

tangled in both directions

and it was immovable. 

it was so bad

that she thought her only option

would be to cut it out

so she called the salon

explained the situation 

 they told her to come in for help

she drove through her small town

with the big round brush

still stuck on the side of her head 

parked her car

walked down the sidewalk

past the local businesses and people on the street

with it still stuck on the side of her head

and into the salon once more.

not surprisingly

they guessed her identity the moment she walked in

the salon was very busy

but not so busy that the staff and their customers

did not have time to guffaw and laugh out loud

unable to restrain themselves

people tried not to make eye contact

they walked her through the salon to the very back

where the staff took turns working on it

in between clients

until it eventually

was worked off of her head

one hair at a time. 

i totally get this. 

—

“so many tangles in life are ultimately hopeless that we have no appropriate sword other than laughter.”

-gordon w. allport

—

image credit: google images

Sep8

n is for nelipot.

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Relax

today, as i was walking out to meet our parents and children (most of them for the very first time), at our pre-kindergarten orientation, i noticed that one of my sandals suddenly felt very loose. in a twist of perfect universal timing, it was irreparably  broken. i experimented with walking in it, but wasn’t able to do so without dramatically dragging my foot along, so i took them both off.

while taking off my sandals i noticed what i thought was a water mark of unknown origin on the side of my shirt, and that i imagined would ‘quickly dry’ but was actually a grease stain of unknown origin, that happened somewhere between my car and my school and which in fact ‘never dried.’  

when i lifted my head up from my sandal removal, i noticed that the entire underside of my hair was now dripping wet, and i was breaking out into some sort of a heat rash on the back of my neck, as the temperature had quickly risen into the humid 90ish degree range.

my daughter texted to see how the day was going and when i updated her she replied,”it seems like i’ve had a text like this from you before.” yes, she might very well be right, as we’ve known each other since the moment she was born, and have certainly survived more than one misadventure in our time.

once the families were settled into our room, i  presented my part of the orientation barefoot, greasy, sweaty, and rash-y, the parents were chatty and friendly, and the children were excited and happy.  

i realized that one of my hopes this year is to show and teach my kinders to see mishaps more as simple misadventures, to take them as they come, while trying to make the best of them. i’m confident they’ll learn this in no time, as children naturally tend to be open, non-judgemental, and willing to let things, go just seeing what happens.  and best of all – we have a new vocabulary word:

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