Summertime wrap-up . . .

Now that the Kielbasa is finished with its summertime hiatus--but I actually posted a few times!--I just want to lean back in the broken office chair and, in the immortal words of "The Boss", Bruce Springsteen:

"Yeah, just sitting back trying to recapture
a little of the glory of, well time slips away
and leaves you with nothing mister but
boring stories of glory days."

Yes, I'm nostalgic for summer already, as educators all over the world are dragged kicking and screaming back to their classrooms. Well, those of us in the northern hemisphere, anyway. My apologies to those reading in Ecuador and Peru. I'm feeling the same pain you felt a few weeks ago.

The last 5 days in Spain were spent basking on the scorching white sands of coastal Valencia. Luiza and I did our best impersonations of your average Spanish slacker. Roll out of bed around 10, breakfast, back to bed, beach for 4 hours, taverna for cocktails, back to the hotel for the cost-cutting dinner of jamon, bread, olives and Sangria, then an evening wandering the city. It was a fitting end to 5 weeks in this gorgeous country. Here are a few pictures. Que bonita!

From there, it was a gauntlet run through airports, including a dead sprint across Heathrow,complete with an O.J. Simpson Hertz commercial juke move around a loud-mouth female liquor rep from Chicago. I only know this because she ended up on the same flight as me and proceeded to give me an earful when she arrived at the gate while I was being probed by the metal detector wand. If your out there somewhere lady, I'm not sorry for dropping some R-rated language as my sweat-drenched frame flew by. And while we're on the subject of airports, why is it that guy driving the huge cart usually flanked by a platoon of geriatrics won't give a guy with only 40 minutes between connections a ride to his gate? I ran by a couple of them that barely looked up from their Daily Telegraph, let alone asked me if I needed a faster mode of transport.

After 22 hours of travel, I reached the "Minnesota nice" confines of Lindbergh terminal (MSP) around midnight. Due to my scholarly pursuits in Madrid this summer, I was only afforded eight total days with the family. This included my cousin Mickey's graduation party where I was able to see a plethora of relatives in one location. It was like the Target Greatland of family visits (one stop shopping).

Just once, I'd like to schedule a family reunion in northern Minnesota where we all dress up in matching t-shirts and take a big group picture. And since when do people have weddings outside the summer months? I'm missing three cousins tying the knot in the next 6 months. No, the three of them aren't marrying each other. We're from Minnesota not Mississippi.

The remainder of the week included school shopping with Mom and Dad (as a teacher, you're never to old to have Mom take you shopping!), dinner at Grandma's house, an ill-fated fishing trip with my father (some nautical faux pas are better kept a secret, right Dad?), golf with my two brothers, and water-skiing at the cabin. We even found time to get everybody to smile for a family picture (no matching T's though).

I'm looking forward to the summer of 2010, when I will have finally concluded my schooling the real purpose for summer is realized. Eight days was not nearly enough time to hang out with the family and get all my visiting in, so some day I will take the better part of eight weeks to hang out in Minnesota and spend my days playing with my niece and nephew and shoveling goose crap off the beach at my brother's cabin. It's the simple things in life, ya know?

Back to work . . .

I just flew in to Warsaw yesterday and boy are my arms tired. All schlocky humor aside, it's my whole body that's tired. When you add that third flight to get back, I think it has a compounding effect on your level of jet lag. Usually it's a long flight into Chicago and then a short hop over to Minneapolis. Because of the time spent in Spain this summer, I needed to go from Madrid to London to Chicago to Minneapolis, and Minneapolis to Chicago to Frankfurt to Warsaw on the way back. Global aviation is the epitome of efficiency. My head is about to hit the keyboard right now but I look forward to the relief I will receive in a half hour.

The TBL (Teacher Basketball League) kicks off its season today. Every Tuesday, the manly men of AS-dub get together to recapture their youth by laying more bricks than Malbork Castle. They huff and puff their way up and down the court for an hour or so before convening at a local establishment for a few earned pints. I just hope none of the new guys on staff are expecting a recreation of White Men Can't Jump. If the TBL was a movie, it would be called Old Guys Can't Breathe. But at least we don't have problems with the IRS like Wesley Snipes.

Batman

Last night, as I entered the blissful state known as REM sleep, I was abruptly awakened to the sound of my mother shrieking . . . "Mark! Get in here! There's a bat! The bat is here!" Before you can say, "Holy nocturnal flying mammal Batman!", I leaped out of bed and donned my sturdiest fang-proof hooded sweatshirt.

As I stealthfully crept down the hallway, I was met by my father, who had went outside for a breath of fresh smoke, errr, I mean, air, to help him get too sleep. He too had heard my mother's distressed call for help and had armed himself with a weapon that has proved to be the downfall of many a bat . . . the badminton racket. Dad, after assessing the situation, incorrectly assumed that I wanted to be the hero and handed me the racket.

Having preached to my students about the ecological importance of all creatures great and small, I implored the man of the house to open up all the doors and let the bat enter the way it came in. After all, why should we be the death knell for an animal known to consume thousands of mosquitoes each night? We need all the help we can get up here in northern Minnesota.

I had no time to convince him of this poor little guy's right to leave our abode alive, and my mother was growing more panicky by the moment. I opened up the door to her bedroom and saw this human-shaped lump quivering underneath the covers as Myotis lucifugus soared above head, probably as afraid as she was.

Seeing an opening he immediately veered toward me and out into the hallway. After a few half-hearted swipes with the racket, he must have sensed danger. Instead of latching onto my face and gnawing a hole in my cheek, he made a beeline for the basement. My father, chuckling the whole time, shouted directions like Marlin Perkins telling Jim how to wrestle a dangerous anaconda on Mutual of Omaha's Wild Kingdom.

Cautiously tiptoeing down the stairs, I spied my prey lying on the carpet. As soon as I took that last step, he flew directly at me and with a few furious swings of the racket, it was over. With mixed emotion, I collected the brown furry corpse in a towel and deposited him outside. The house was safe and all could rest easy. It took me awhile to fall back asleep after my adrenaline induced "fight or flight" instinct kicked in. And I still felt a little sympathy for the bat.

Ed. note: My father wants to let everybody know that I was just as scared as everybody else.