Puppygate: Our Dogs Respond to the Killing of Cricket #SOL24

Today our dogs Snug and Stanley Tucci team up to share their response to news of Cricket’s death. Screenshot We are writing from a position of trauma. We are writing as two dogs rescued from two very different environments. Snug at 17 Stanley’s Snug Story: Someone abandoned Snug on a country road and left him…

When Public School Facilities Get No Respect #SOL23

Screenshot Monday was Earth Day, a time we humans pause to honor our planet. My Earth Day Poem Monday was the one-year anniversary of the fire that destroyed a significant part of the school where I taught thirty years. Highland H.S. April 22, 2023. Monday was also the first day of the Trump election interference…

Not a Thing in the Real World #SOL24

Screenshot As Barbara Mowat, editor of the Folger Shakespeare Library student editions of the Bard’s plays, continued explaining hers and her co-editor’s decision for editing The Tragedy of King Lear as a conflated text, I and my cohort listened intently. We also glanced in the direction of another scholar teaching us during our month at…

What My Friendship with Rosey Taught Me About Men #SOL24

In college all the boys wanted to date Rosey. and why not. She was gorgeous with blonde Farrah Fawcett hair she spent an hour styling every day. Rosey was smart and smart enough to hide her intelligence from guys—except when she and I teamed up to beat them at Password. We plied them with promises…

Stafford Poetry Challenge Week 11: Poems 75-81

All the poems, except the last one, are inspired from prompts shared during #VerseLove24 on EthicalELA [dot] com from April 5-1. Photo from Saguaro National Park. Photo from the Neon Museum in Las Vegas. Photo via Pixabay. Photo from a visit to William Wordsworth’s grave. Photo in Saguaro National Park.? Photo in London at St.…

My Diet is ______ing Me #SOL24

WARNING ⚠️ ‼️⛔️: I’m going to whine and complain and boo hoo and hope you’ll feel sorry for me. JK Not really. I am going to do all the above because my diet is killing me. Okay, maybe killing is too strong a word, but since March 13 I’ve been doing more DIET MATH than…

Souvenirs #SOLSC24 31/31

On this the last day of the 2024 SOLSC I’m thinking about souvenirs. Wearing our Route 66 caps. These were $7.99 a piece in Oatman. On Day 22 Kim Johnson and Denise Krebs commented on my post That’s Not the Right Church after reading about my husband’s reaction to seeing a gift shop. Kim observed…

Non-scriptural Handwriting #SOLSC24 29/31

A ten-hour drive in a rickety van that occasionally broke down during trips to college debate tournaments necessitated finding ways to entertain ourselves in the late 1970s and early 1980s before smartphones or even iPods were part of Steve Jobs’s imagination. We performed van olympics, rewrote hymns, practiced our speeches, did homework occasionally, and composed…

Self-Appendectomy #SOLSC24 Day 28/31

Yesterday my friend Barb wrote about things she dislikes doing. Her post struck a chord, especially following two conversations I had Wednesday morning with the medical community. I dislike having to talk to anyone in the medical community. They often fail to follow through on requests or completely misinterpret the patient. At my March 13…

Carrying Books #SOLSC24 Day 27/31

I feel naked whenever I leave the house without a book in hand. Will readers I encounter give me the stink eye if they spot me without a book? Did I develop this book-carrying habit/addiction as a church-going child who carried my bible every Sunday to church and to Wednesday night prayer service? Most importantly,…