Darkness

Em turns 23 in a few days. For her birthday, we went to the Darkness, the 3rd best haunted house in the US.

Even the getting there was an adventure. After The Office we piled into our two cars, my car following in the others. Following did not trouble us as it sometimes does, but we missed the turn the first time we passed the haunted house. When we found our way back, the other car turned to wrong way again, away from the parking lot -- and onto the entrance ramp to the eastbound highway. Now, to understand where we were, we got off the "Last Missouri" exit. So getting back on the highway meant that we were headed to East St. Louis with no exits in between. We followed them onto an exit ramp, where the first thing I saw were two graffiti-ed speed limit signs. Not confidence-inspiring. After a brief nerve-wracking detour off the highway, we headed back to St. Louis and eventually wound our way to the Darkness.

We bought tickets and stood in line. Ana and Triss had worked themselves up nicely in the car, both of them claiming to "not do scary." I would have said the same thing but for Busch Gardens haunted houses in previous Octobers. However, the sign above Darkness boasted "America's Scariest Haunted House," which intimidated me. (I fact-checked this. Of the rankings on its website, Darkness has one in which it was rated best; for most, it fell somewhere in the top 10.) Byrd and Meemaw stayed pretty level, and Em was in an excited mood. However, once the line wrapped inside the building and characters started growling at us, I discovered that Em like haunted houses not because of her fearlessness, but rather because she enjoyed the adrenaline rush of being scared. Translation: her courage could not help me!

We finally got up to the front of the line where we joked with the ticket collector before he sent us in. I told Em to go in first, and, with much protesting, she did, with me following behind, holding onto Triss, who had Ana pretty much piggy-back, while Byrd and Meemaw brought up the rear. Almost immediately, when the hall got dark and foggy and things started dangling from the ceiling, Em stopped and started going backwards! I was not about to stop, so I ended up at the front of the hand-squeezing train of Vincentian volunteers.

Highlights of the haunted house include when a man in a hoodie scared Em into running; when Ana told a character in the wall, "We already screamed for you -- you don't need to scare me!"; Meemaw and Ana both cussing; and Em having conversations with the characters we passed. (Example : Crazy woman says, "Get out of my room!"; Em replies, "We going! To the exit! Right here!") Apparently Ana also started a litany of saints and told characters, "You're good at your job! God bless you!"

For one section we had on 3-D glasses, which I discovered I hate as much as I hate strobe lights. Problem with leading : I don't like not knowing where I am going. The floor, the walls, and characters' make-up popped out in a crazy way. We were booking it inside that house, and the group ahead of us had a few too cool for school guys who were dilly-dallying. We figured that earlier, a cloaked man who tried to block us wanted to keep us from running into them. (I think I stepped on his foot because he was in my way.) Well, in the 3-D section, they paused behind a corner to wait for us. I jumped -- Em screamed -- and I got mad at them, so I pointed and glared at anyone who jumped at me for the rest of the haunted house, which was not much.

We spilled into an arcade at the end of the labyrinth laughing and gasping. As we walked out, we sang "Happy Birthday" to Em, and Ana jumped as 2 men came out of porta-potties. And, in spite of fears voiced as we drove there, no one died or peed their pants.

Bosnian Coffee

Yesterday for formation, we had a woman from Bosnia come for dinner and serve us Bosnian coffee. Like coffee from Greece and parts of the Middle East (as per friends' experiences), this coffee is made with grinds mixed in and about 6x as strong as regular coffee. So you drink approximately a shot glassful, and don't get to sleep until midnight.

Before coffee, we had dinner from a Bosnian restaurant in town. Phila dough, plus meat and cheese and spinach equals deliciousness. Our guest told us about her experience moving to the US from Bosnia and some about her culture as a Muslim Bosnian American.

After dinner, she put on the coffee in a tall pot on the stove. While we waited for the water to boil, she explained coffee in Bosnia. They have it twice a day at least, before and after work, always with a sweet and always as a leisurely social event, not like American grab-a-cup coffee. It reminded me of tea with my roommates last year. No matter how busy we were, it seemed like there was often a conversation around the tea. When the water boiled, our guest/hostess spooned in coffee. It boiled again and was ready!

Byrd dressed in traditional Bosnian Muslim prayer clothing, which covers everything other than the face, hands, and feet. The covering of the hair made me think about the question of Catholic veiling. After she explained praying, our guest poured the coffee into beautiful golden shot glass-sized coffee cups. We had little pieces of cake and sugar cubes with the coffee.

After you drink the coffee, you can read the grinds like tea leaves. You flip the cup upside down, wait for it to dry, and read the patterns of the grinds as they flow down the side. Ana read mine. First, she decided, "It's a chicken!" On second consideration, she found the Blessed Virgin Mary, or maybe just a woman holding a baby. This, according to Ana, means that I would have a child. Next Ana found 3 or 4 other figures, who apparently were perhaps bridesmaids, but maybe not.

I told her the important part was the man involved : did it tell her who I would marry? After some more looking, she declared that she had found a clown. It works : I don't think I've ever liked a guy who was not something of a clown.

Our Bosnian guest/hostess told us that a baby meant something new in the future and took her own peek at the coffee grinds. She didn't really offer any insights though. We bid her goodnight and I proceeded to stay up too late.

I didn't have chicken for dinner today so I think Ana's first guess was wrong. However, when I heated up some of the coffee our guest had left and showed the grinds to Ana, she saw a long and winding road. So maybe I have a long path to a chicken dinner.

Try Again

In 7th grade, my class went to the Richmond Science Museum. Every single other year, the 7th grade went to visit the Amish in Lancaster, Pennsylvania. I was rather bitter about this change for a long time.

Yesterday, the 7th and 8th grade went to Amish country and guess who went with them? Finally, my life has come in a complete circle... or something like that. The trip took 3 hours each way, which meant we spent more time on the bus than in Amish country. We had a bus tour of the area, then got off at a farm house where the lady of the house cooks and serves meals. After lunch, we got to explore the farm a bit and pet the horses.

I smiled so wide at seeing the small town with the open fields of corn and dark soil. Once again, however, I missed the mountains, thinking how flat the land looked. Our tour guide then told us we were in the flattest county of the flattest state in the country. I felt better about marveling at the flatness.

When we disembarked at the farmhouse, the silence struck me. Without electricity or many cars, the ambient noise dropped to nothing. How beautiful! And the air smelled clean and like food! We went inside, where the smell of the house and the homemade bread on its way out made me certain the entire 6 hours on the bus was worth this one meal.

To my disappointment, the students' xenophobia kept most of them from even placing the food on their plates. Even now, they look at me in disbelief when I say that meal is the best one I've had since arriving at St. Louis. And my housemates cook well! I enjoyed everything: chicken, meatballs, green beans, mashed potatoes, pasta, fresh bread, and pie.

After lunch, we went to the stables, where the kids encountered horses for the first time. Besides a few being terrified and no one knowing how to be quiet, that went well. I enjoyed watching some of them wait patiently for their louder peers to pass so that the horse would come back and they could pet it. The man of the house was shaving a horse that would be sold as a show horse tomorrow. Which I guess means she's already been sold. The chicken and nursing puppies were also a big hit.

Finally, we returned to the little town of Arthur. Watching my students dash across the street made it hit home how much of city kids I have. I knew that each car would stop and wait patiently for them here, as cars would not in St. Louis.

The town had an old fashioned soda and ice cream counter which many students hunted down. The lady working there put the carbonated water and syrup in the cup from separate taps. I was mesmerized!

I hated to leave. Much as I enjoy St. Louis, these past few tastes of the country have made me realize how much I miss that peace. There are no late night Colonial Williamsburg walks here, or afternoons on the river. I can't find peace away from the world in the tiny glories God placed around us.

Would You Like That Jumbo-Sized?

I thought in leaving Yosemite two summers ago, I was leaving DNC forever. Lies!

We can raise money for our athletics program by working concessions at the Rams' games. The concessionaire is, you guessed it, DNC. Ana and I took registers today.

This was my first time ever selling alcohol. The 30-and-under ID policy made me slightly nervous, because I have a really hard time telling people's ages in the age range of 20ish-35ish. However, everyone I knew I should card was born in the '80s. The people I were unsure about were born in the '70s. The women I didn't want to card but a coworker told me to card were born in the early '70s. So apparently I am a better judge of age than I realized.

I wanted to tell some fun stories about selling food, but I actually don't have any good ones. It was a fairly boring day in the world of food services.

Apples to Apples

Today, we went apple picking! As is the usual in St. Louis (or at least my adventures here), it rained this week. However, I woke up this morning to sunshine -- which also means I woke after sunrise! -- and thanked God for apple weather.

We drove down I-64 East, which can take me all the way home to the 'burg. (It's Homecoming, so I had W'burg in my mind a lot today.) It also took us to an orchard/tourist farm. We rode a wagon out to the trees.

Some of my favorite memories growing up come from fruit picking adventures with my family. While holidays and other formal family occasions brought about stress, I don't remember fruit adventures being that way, although that could be the fault of my memory. The parts I do remember include long car rides out to the mountains, bumpy roads, boxes full of apples, climbing trees to reach the top ones, coming home muddy and sticky with the trunk of our minivan weighed down with the expectation of apple pie and applesauce and fresh apples for weeks to come. And of course the joy of being outside in the mountains, in the air, in the trees, under the open blue sky.

Today, I missed the mountains, but the apples tasted fresh and real. My friends looked for the "perfect" apple, something difficult to find at the orchard, but it lengthened our venture, since we can't afford or use boxes of apples. The trees were small but the air was fresh and the sky was open. The only thing I really missed was the mountains.

The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly

I'm actually going to work backwards from the order of my title. I spent most of today grading papers on behalf of the history teacher, who assigned essays as well as a test for the end-of-quarter exam.

I learned some interesting information from these papers. For example, the "lost essential" of social studies is the "use of geography." (Hint: change the o to an a.) Captain John Smith was captured by a "tork." (Try "Turk.") And, my personal favorite -- did you know that Columbus was friends with Lief Eriksson and other Vikings? He explored North America for the first time with them.

In all seriousness, though, I could decode the nonsense, or at least understand where the idea originated. As many times as I shook my head, I laughed out loud. These kids get points for trying, even if they sometimes forget that names get capitalized and sentences get verbs. These crazy, inaccurate, grammatically confusing papers are what I dub "the ugly." I like the ugly. They are indubitably the original work of 6th and 8th grade students trying to understand history, even if they get confused along the way.

However. The ugly sometimes are the bad in disguise. At other times, the bad don't hide. They shine in all their different-voiced glory, shouting to me, "I came off-line!" Their cries are quickly corroborated by a Google search. Most of them came from Wikipedia or free paper and easy fact websites, although one guy got his from a historical society. If you're going to copy, have his sense: use a reliable source. Also, don't use the textbook. That's just dumb. I got some that came word for word from the textbook, spelling and grammatical errors not included. I don't know if they were trying to cheat smart, or if they just were too lazy even to copy right.

The ugly is very depressing and frustrating, which is why I wanted to end on "the good." It has nothing to do with essays. It has to do with two of my most frustrating students. One of them was absent yesterday. He is frustrating because he does nothing most of the time; he just wanders, acting clueless. But every now and then he has motivated spurts, and he does the work well! I just don't know what causes them, so while I encourage him at these points, I don't know how the make them happen more frequently. They are infrequent, though, so he ends up in trouble with me a lot.

Well, today he walked into school and gave me the hugest smile and a wave! I told him that I'd missed him yesterday (which was true), and he kept grinning. All day, he worked hard on today's exams and make-up exams from yesterday, and he smiled and waved every time he saw me. Since he was in a productive mood on Tuesday, that makes two good school days in a row for him!

The other one is a girl who needs attention and will act wild (but not maliciously so) to get it. She says crazy things to get reactions, and she's high-maintenance as far as attention goes, but she is no serious trouble. She too doesn't work most of the time, sometimes because she can't, and other times because she doesn't want to. I'm starting to figure her out though -- she just needs to be away from people and distractions. Escaping distractions is no mean feat in this school, but every now and again it shall be done.

Today, she was one of the few left at the end of the day, so Ana and I took her into the building for study hall. However, since there was no work for our two middle schoolers to do, we let them go to play with the after school daycare. This girl, who had been running her mouth about how she didn't want to go upstairs with us, gave us the quickest sad look before we left.

Those two moments let me know that at least I am touching some kids, somehow. Those sorts of moments are little hugs from God.