Here I am on vacation again. I know some of you think this is a redundant statement as I have been retired some three years now, but it is not. There is something about being away from home that adds to the experience.
While reading today’s edition of the Grand Forks Herald, I came upon the following recipes:
White Wine Sangria:
2 bottles of dry white wine
1/2 to 1 cup of brandy
1/4 cup agave nectar or honey
3 cups of assorted sliced fruit
Combine all ingredients in a clear glass serving pitcher. Stir gently and let ingredients sit for 8 to 24 hours. Serve chilled.
(Wine snobs, please, omit the brandy, agave nectar/honey and fruit.)
Root Beam Float:
8 ounces of root beer
1 ounce Jim Beam or bourbon of choice (here’s a chance to get rid of/use the bottle of Old Crow your great-aunt Matilda gave you twenty years ago)
2-3 curls of zest from an orange
1/2 cup vanilla bean ice cream
Combine the first three ingredients in a float glass. Stir gently to combine bourbon and root beer. Top with vanilla bean ice cream and serve.
Yes, it’s on the table beside me–almost empty, but that won’t be its state for long.
Friday, May 28, 2015
The cats woke me up about 5:30 am this morning and I got up to lay on the couch so they would follow me and not wake my wife. Woke up again about 7:30 am and fed the cats. My wife got up and I fixed her tea, breakfast and got her medicine. I put out the trash bins, a day late because of Memorial Day, brought in the newspapers and fixed my coffee.
I then read through both papers (LA Times and OC Register) from back to front–entertainment (comics), business, sports, local and then the front news section. By then it was time for more coffee and tea. Read a couple of chapters of my current book and then did the puzzles from both papers.
Then it was time to read my email (play on the internet), pay a couple of bills and read a couple more chapters from my book.
Breakfast time: scrambled eggs, vitamins and vegetable juice. Read a couple of chapters from the book, made my wife some more tea and went shopping for cat food–and a toy (received with great enthusiasm).
Read some more, fixed more tea, drank some wine, turned on the Dodgers, made dinner–bought Paddington for Charlie. (She loved it–nice to hear gales of laughter.)
I retired to the bedroom to read, accompanied by the cats while Charlie watched her movie.
Movie over she went out to the patio to smoke, play on her IPad and watch a crime series on Netflix. I sat down to watch the Dodgers and Angels and finish my book–which I did (dirty word, dirty word, dirty word). Now, I’ll have to find another one tomorrow.
I’m done with this and done with this glass of wine. Time to put the computer away, find another glass of wine and watch the last half inning of the Angel game.
My wife, Diana (Charlie) AuBuchon retired after 30+ years of teaching. Most of that time
Diana (Charlie) AuBuchon
was spent as a full-time language arts teacher at McFadden Intermediate School in Santa Ana, California. She also taught in Orange at both Yorba and Portola, middle/junior high schools. She also worked as a substitute at both the junior and senior high school levels.
As a beginning teacher, raised in England, she was assigned an American History class at Yorba and wore a red coat to her open house. As seems to be the habit in the U.S., she was given a half-dozen preps her first years–you know, history, English, French (two levels). Our administrators seem to try and break beginning teachers rather than trying to give them assignments that may encourage them to give their best and stay in the profession.
(As an aside, my first year consisted of a wood shop class and a metal shop class in two different rooms–my principal said they were both industrial arts classes, and, therefore, they were a single prep. Yeah. I also had four ninth grade history classes–two in the library and the other two were in Spanish classrooms during those teachers’ conference periods–after the department chairman had cherry-picked the students he wanted for his six ninth grade history classes.)
Diana (Charlie) AuBuchon and Friends.
In addition to her American history class, Charlie was given the cheerleaders–they don’t have cheerleaders in England. Like I said earlier, give the newbie assignments that will break them. Don’t believe me? Look up how long the average new teacher actually stays in the teaching profession. Also, look up how many people have teaching credentials but are not teaching.
I have never met a more dedicated teacher than my wife. Her dedication really hit me in the face in the two and a half years since my own retirement. In that time I watched her plan and correct and grade student assignments again and again and again. She spent more time on her students than she did on herself, her cats and me combined. In spite of her health issues these last several years, her devotion to her students and her profession never flagged or wavered.
Being forced to retire has hit her hard. Life without teaching has left a void that will be difficult to fill–if that is even possible. But we will try.
We had seventy or more people at Saturday’s party. Charlie and I had a good time, and, so I believe, did everyone else.
Commercial Plug: food, chairs, tables, servers, bartender and etc. were handled by West Coast Event Productions. http://wceventproductions.com/
Photos taken at the party can be found on my Flickr page:
flickr dot com/photos/joe_aubuchon/
Handicapped Access
Any of you out there handicapped? Don’t you love it when
Spec. Ed. SAUSD Bus Blocks Access to Ramp.
someone without a handicapped plate/sticker takes a handicapped parking place,
someone with a handicapped plate/sticker takes a handicapped parking place and remains in the car while the non-handicapped driver/passenger goes into the store,
someone blocks access to a handicapped ramp or other access.
At McFadden Intermediate School in Santa Ana the Special Education buses block access to the handicapped ramps (and the drivers refuse to move when asked).
While editing the first draft of my novel, I thought I’d try to sell a stand-alone portion of an early chapter. I edited the story, about 3,800 words in length, and submitted it to a sci-fi-fantasy magazine I read and thought would be appropriate. It was my first attempt at submitting my work and was done electronically.
After a couple of weeks, I received a reply–my first rejection. Well, the first rejection of something I’d written and tried to sell. How dare the editor reject my perfect prose–of course, I’d already re-written some of it during those two weeks, just in case I’d have to try to sell it to someone else and to make it fit better in the novel.
In full the note from the editor read: Thank you for letting me read “Impossible Answer.” There’s some good writing here but overall the story just didn’t grab me so I’m going to pass on it. I wish you best of luck finding the right market for it, and I hope to see more stories from you in the future.
Writing; no we don’t think so–not on our lap.
As disappointed and heartbroken as I was, I sent the story, the revised version, off to another sci-fi-fantasy magazine via electronic submission that afternoon. I’m keeping my fingers crossed, but I’m not holding my breath.
At this particular instant in time, I’m quite happy that I’m retired with a good pension and rejection doesn’t mean I don’t eat this week.
I am currently “working” on editing the novel, plotting a sequel and writing a novella/novel based on an idea of my wife’s.
The cats, Mist and Smoke, are not, however, always supportive of my work habits.
Bucket List is a term meaning the things you would like to do before you “kick the bucket.”
I have another way of thinking about it, teacher that I am or, maybe, was—the time you stop learning is the time you begin to die. I would like to be around a while so I try to learn at least one new thing every year. Several years ago I learned how to juggle. More recently I learned how to roller blade. Last year I took a Tai Chi class. Now I’m writing a book. (I thought I was stretching things a bit when I set a goal of 100,000 words, but, just passing 102,000 words, the story is still telling itself to me. I think about three and a half more chapters and I’ll be done. Then on to the second book; yes, there’s still more story.)
I believe the best way to stay alive is to have something to look forward to. If you have nothing to look forward to, why bother?
Why this topic today? Well, it turns out that two of my favorite authors are currently writing a series of books—a “Five Book Dash” in a series I quite enjoy. I look forward to reading all of them and more. The authors are about my age and I hope they have genes like those that come from my mother’s side of the family.
One of the people commenting on their FB post said, “I’m 73. Hurry! You have to get them all done before I die . . .”
Reflecting on this I thought that when it’s time for me to go, I don’t want to have already done everything. I don’t want to regret not having done things. I want to be in the frame of mind that there are still things I want to do—if nothing else, I want to see what’s behind that final curtain. (For those of you who think me cynical: Yes, I’d even like to know if there’s nothing behind the curtain.)
Cheap Foreign Goods
Went to the beach today for lunch, puzzling, and reading. Stayed for about two hours. Heavens, it was absolutely beautiful, 82° and a slight breeze.
The picture is taken at Fifteenth Street. Background left is Catalina Island and background right is Palos Verdes.
Offshore HB
Looking toward the Ports of Los Angeles and Long Beach, I counted thirteen container ships—one coming in, one leaving and eleven at anchor offshore. That’s about eighty thousand containers of foreign goods waiting to be unloaded. Those of you still waiting for your Made in China winter coats—good luck.
Mist and Smoke
Mist and Smoke in WindowMist and Smoke in WindowSmoke woke.
Haven’t posted any cat pictures lately so here are Mist and Smoke enjoying our California sunshine (safely indoors).
