While I blog the handyman is renovating the upstairs closet. He will then move on to another closet and install shelving to house Jane’s many books and finally caulk the backsplash in the kitchen. And so it goes. We will be asking him to give us a bid on tiling the outside balcony deck which is spongy. Isn’t all this riveting? The other night we heard shrieks as if transformers mating and we were up all night; finally it turned out to be a motor connected to the air conditioning which we did without for a few hours in this unbelievable heat. Someone defined life as one damn thing after another and so it is with this house and our torrid adventure in Nevada. Summer sizzles here. Parts of the house are “healed,” shower curtains in and mats on the floor. The landline is in. The computer gizzards are in. We are waiting for the new carpeting to bring it together although we have concerns about the installation. In any case I usually have a back up plan in place — yell and throttle, then slay the sales person’s first born if that doesn’t work.
This weekend the temps are to be about 108 or so. Imagine licking your tongue on a lit tungsten bulb and you have an idea. We stayed inside a mall for a while to escape the flames outside. I try to take Jane with me on acts of mercy, shopping, buying, eating, to escape the monotony of setting up house. Flamboyantly, I have purchased my girl a standing mirror and an exorbitantly expensive floor lamp for reading and just good looks. I bought a fireplace screen made in the Philippines (not China!) because it had an Alhambra-esque appearance to it, swirls and curlicues. I was stunned by a Natuzzi leather couch, semi Art Deco, with tuxedo arms, tobacco colored which we bought and was a steal as the economy brought this particular store down. And off we went to an upscale furniture house and purchased a rattan accent chair. I am one of those offbeat men that has a flair for furniture and design and is not put off by shopping. All this keeps us intact as money flows from us down to the delta — going broke but gleeful all the way (oh, yeah).
As all this craziness goes on I write. Can’t believe it. Purchased lawyers writing tablets (so biblical sounding) and off I went and knocked out a 13 page story and an alternatve ending, suggested by Jane, my muse and editor, for another story. Having been given a business card by a survivor which had “Holocaust survivor” on it, just riled me the wrong way and thus I wrote about it. For some (for shame!) it is an occupation. When a writer is in the room all is fair in love and war.
I recall an Open School Night in which I told parents that I was a writer who happened to be a teacher and because of that I could work with their children in a different way. Instead of grammar and usage and all that. I could work with them on writing in ways that go far beyond English teachers. Well! The next day a guidance teacher came up to me and queried if I had said that last night. You see, we begin with a McCarthy-like query. Apparently one or more parents complained that I had the audacity to step out of my role as a teacher; after all, they paid their school taxes and did not want a writer for a teacher, I suppose. I looked at the guidance teacher with much scorn and asked him if he had run interference for me, in fact, did he tell these Neanderthals they were getting two instructors for the price of one. I was annoyed with him because the case to be made was self-evident. He was a gutless wonder, poor man. I was told that they wanted to transfer their sons(s) out of my class. I told him I was glad, that he should do it immediately and give their spawn to the incompetent in the next classroom, because he knew grammar very well but had never published anything in his life — a grammarian as eunuch. If you want courage, integrity and honor, do not engage secondary school teachers.
While I have bragging rights, I give you this anecdote that may have made me a “legend” in my own time. By the time this took place I had enough years as a psychotherapist to hold my own in a variety of situations. In fact, I used the faculty to test out my diagnostic skills — this one is a hysteric, that one is experiencing a homosexual panic, this one is narcissitic and patently paranoid. A young male student submitted an essay about “Hamlet” which was apparently plagiarized. Showing it to my chairman, he agreed it was obviously cribbed. With panic and anxiety he chose the wrong way. I gave him a 60 which allowed him to pass, given his grades so far, for the term. I was not into savaging young people with grades.
It did not end there. The parents called for a meeting with the chairman and administrator as well as yours truly.The father was an attorney, and I later learned that the mother had gone on a witch hunt by setting up a kid in my class to secretly tape record my teaching. That is a side note and I strongly took her to task after she revealed the machine. (I got enraged and labeled it “scurrilous.”) The father said almost nothing. For about 15 minutes she berated me — I was very still and chose to go into a therapeutic mode as listener. I heard her on several levels. In short I was not nurturing, I didn’t care for her child, I was not caring, I was not sensitive to his needs. The administrators, as is their wont, played Pontius Pilate. All right, I’m a big man now. Finally, when I had all this assessed and metabolized, I leaned forward to her and said: “Mrs. So and So, I am not your son’s nipple.”
Before she could recover, her husband grabbed her knee as if to signal don’t go any further with this cat.
After they left, the administrator put his head to the wall and laughed for quite some time.Teachers who heard this story, for there is never confidentiality in schools, probably remarked that there goes Freese again, others probably got their surrogate jollies from it.
FedEx just arrived with a Dell computer from Jordan as a house warming and birthday gift, for it is in July that I am 69. Jane also got a FedEx telling her that if she signs the enclosed closing papers, she is an inch away from becoming monied by selling her house. When it rains, it pours.
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