School lunches

Author Anne Lamott wrote a book called Bird by Bird which I am reading right now. The subtitle aptly states that it's advice on writing and in life, which it is. One piece of advice she gives is through comparing writing to school lunches. She then goes on to write her own brain-dumpy piece on school lunches to learn more about character.

And then I thought, there's actually a lot of content in school lunches. I'm not talking about nutrition; I'm talking about details.

I went to private school where you couldn't buy traditional lunches. What you could do was opt to order food from a local place. In the early days, Monday was chicken nugget day and Wednesday was mozzarella stick day. Tuesdays were always pizza day. Later, Wednesday would become pasta day. I'm not sure why I participated in pizza and pasta day. They just were not good. The pizza came from Papa Johns and was a thin slice of cardboard that tasted more like overdone crust. A friend of mine showed me how to make it slightly more tolerable by pulling the cheese off.

There was one redeeming factor on pasta day: garlic bread! Not the garlic bread itself, but the tinfoil it was wrapped in. My friend and I kept it in the front pouch of our lunchboxes, seeing how long it would stay in shape and making other shapes out of it too. It wasn't just us. One of the boys made a small canoe out of it, and put two tiny pieces inside, calling them Lewis and Clark. He'd move the boat around until it went upside down, the tiny explorers falling all the way down onto the lunch table and meeting their untimely demise with only an "oh no!" from their creator. 

I was more versed in packed lunches.

The process of preparing lunch was more fun in kindergarten. Mom and I would prepare what I wanted every day of the week, writing it all down on a piece of paper and sticking it to the fridge. Lunch combos were more interesting back then, being chicken patties with ketchup sent in Tupperware, or taco Lunchables.

Things got simpler as time went on. My dad often made us a sandwich or peanut butter between Ritz crackers. One time I opened my baggie to see what looked to be soggy mold between the Ritz crackers. When neither my best friend not I could figure what it was, I threw it in the trash. Turns out it was cream cheese. 

Also, drinks. Hi-C, Juicy Juice, and Capri Sun were the winners (though to be frank, Capri Sun was just okay). My best friend and I would compete, when we were young, to see whose had the fewest grams of sugar, and the Dragon Tales characters on them were also a plus. In fifth grade my friend would bring yummy looking juice drinks called Dazzlers. I thought they were very cool and asked Mom to get me some, too. Well, they were cool...except for the time she found a brown thing floating in the lemonade. (There was another mishap where she spilled grape juice all over herself, requiring a change of clothes. Who knew so much could fit in those little bottles?) 

Another snacktime favorite in third grade was Parmalat chocolate milk. Popular snacks over time included GoGurt tubes, 100 calorie packs, donut holes, and if I was lucky, cookies we baked the previous day.

But also, lunch was a time to catch up. I still remember packing a fortune cookie in my lunch one day. The fortune read, "You and your wife will be very happy together." This drew the attention of some eighth grade girls and one of the teachers, and we all laughed. A friend and I would often share our dreams, though I'd often make mine up. And then it would be time to, alas, pack up and go to class. 

May your lunches be healthful and delicious this coming school year. 

The Last Days of School

My K-8 school had their last day of school last week, as did many other places! I think it was worth being a kid just for those days!

It usually started with Field Day. It was a fun frenzy, whether you were the red team or the blue team. There were T-shirts for sale each year, which were always a fun souvenir. And you'd keep rotating stations all morning. Would the next one be the sack race, the bubble station (no points for your team were earned here, but fun), Noah's Ark (tossing rubber animals into milk crates), or the one where you'd kneel on a scooter using only rubber plungers to propel you forward (much harder than it looked!), or the one where you'd balance a ball on rubber plungers to the finish line and back? Another infamous game had us put on big rubber tubes and chase a ball to the finish line and back in a relay race---but not being able to see your feet made it very tough.

In my first few years we did a whole-school tug of war. (We were a Quaker school; maybe the implication of violence was too much for them, haha). That was fun, but then the dreaded event came: the fifty-yard dash. Each grade raced across the field for bragging rights. I was almost always last. Someone should have told me that it wasn't required. But in grade school, so many people participated that I didn't think otherwise.

When we were in 8th grade, we'd also be paired up with a kindergarten "buddy" helping them through the games. I thought it sounded intimidating, but Hannah liked me just great, just like my own buddy did when I was in kindergarten (who was also named Hannah). 

Finally the winner would be announced, and then we'd head to our classrooms for pizza, chips, and Famous Amos chocolate chip cookies. And the best of all...yearbooks. That was always fun. Then in the afternoon, a juggling troupe would perform. One year it was some lamey folk singers. 

FYI...our yearbooks were pretty crappy. Class individual photos, eights grade profiles they made themselves, lots of pictures of the 6th-8th graders, faculty photos, and group sports pictures with little to no action shots, etc. The bare minimum. But we loved them anyway. In high school, we got better yearbooks. We also had our own field day, called Fox Day, but it wasn't the same. AM was a scavenger hunt; PM was games--you usually only got to play 1 or 2. That was also followed by a company that came in and led a game show. 

Another exciting thing to do was enjoy literary magazines. Often around this time, teachers would compile some of our writing projects from the past year, make them into books, and hand them out. I always loved those, being a writer myself. 

Of course, in middle school there was the graduation dance a few days before. Sometimes the graduating class would attempt making a big circle and swaying to Vitamin C's "Graduation." When we tried it, it dissolved in 30 seconds. Oh well. 

Then, the last day itself! Activities varied over the years. Sometimes we'd clean the classroom and fight over who got to bring the job chart home. One year we had Wendy's for lunch. In 3rd through 5th grade, we got to walk over to the neighboring high school pool and go for a swim. Me being raised by safety-conscious parents, I got so freaked out by a nearby storm that I got out of the pool after ten minutes and refused to go back in, being all "but Ranger Rick magazine says it's bad to swim near a storm!" Le sigh. In the younger years, we'd have a "sing out," where we'd go to the gym and sing a bunch of folk songs from the sixties. That sounds incredibly lame, and it pretty much was. 

And then, you'd look around your classroom, your combination of classmates, and remember all the memories, and realize that this teacher and class would never be yours again. So it was exciting, but also sad. Walking by your old classroom the next year was a punch in the gut. But then soon enough your new class would feel like a new home...and the cycle continued...

Kid Perks!

My family and I enjoyed dinner at Perkins recently and we got to thinking of how many memories our family had there. Isn't it funny: memories at a restaurant?

But let us think back...

My family has always liked Perkins. After one of us had a preschool show or event, the whole family would hop in the car and celebrate with a Perkins lunch. (I still walk past that preschool regularly; although I can't remember any specific days, I always get the feeling that an event just ended and that I should be going out to eat!) We had a round table in the back that became our favorite. 

You had to love the atmosphere. You were greeted with pink, green, white and brown; cases full of baked goods; Give Kids the World advertising; a claw machine; and numbers. Scattered throughout the ceilings were number lines going from 1 to 10 (or 13? 15? 16?). When an order was ready a number would light up, playing a doorbell sound. 

The kids menus were titled Kid Perks and featured a boy in a backwards baseball cap giving a thumbs up. On those were various activities. (Later, they would be activity packets with characters such as Kelly Cookie which my sister with the same name was the butt of many jokes about). I remember my best friend showing off her cursive letters on one of those kids menus once. 

But food choices were always easy. I always got a chocolate milk complete with a plastic cup, and the Perky Bear Pancakes. Those were three chocolate pancakes with chocolate chips. One was the face and two smaller pancakes were the ears. These were topped with a dollop of butter. (They still give you butter scoops, often in their own cups). Another favorite meal of mine was the Captain's Catch, a plate of flounder, fried clams, shrimp and fries.

What to do while waiting? There were the kids menu activities. Mom would always pack the crayons in her purse when we left, When my youngest sister was very young, she would have my mom sing the ABCs and when she'd finish, it was assumed that the food would be ready. Mom obviously didn't know how long it would take, so she'd begin and make mistakes. When a mistake happened, she's have to start over. My sister never caught on! What we also loved to do was stack the half and half cups and jelly pouches to make towers. If my grandparents were there, we'd often help my grandpa stir creamer in his coffee, and pick out the right sugar pack (a blue Equal).

On the way out, it was home to check out the dessert. The pies always looked pretty, with swirls of topping and peanut butter cups and chocolate shavings. It was the cookies we went for, though. If my grandparents were there, Grandpa would always insist on getting the buy 3 get three free special. If it was just me and them, I'd go home with a lot of cookies! The brownies were tempting, but they were topped with nuts (no thank you). Mom always went for elephant ears, which looked like huge sugar cookies. 

There was one last step: the claw machine. Ours has never worked well and is pretty much a scam; the claw is too loose to grab anything well. Still, it was always fun to try; Mom digging out quarters from her purse. We may when won two or three times. But the best was when I was with my grandparents and sisters. The youngest wanted to try for something, so we did, knowing it wouldn't pan out, likely. Completely by accident, the beak of a stuffed eagle got stuck on the claw and l held on until it moved back to its original position! We hadn't even tried for that but it remans a memory to this day.

Any particular places my visitors liked eating at? 

2024 in Review

I'd used to keep a physical journal every year since 2014 about everything I'd done that year. That's cumbersome, so to save paper (and to share) I'm now writing it all here! 

LIFE

Highlights

*Book club was fun. We read some good books and TERRIBLE ones (Cherry and Bunny, looking at you). Also notable were Hello Beautiful, Tomorrow and Tomorrow and Tomorrow, Lady Tan's Circle of Women, and The Last House on Needless Street.

*Traveling to Colorado was fun for my second-ever solo outing---I saw wild horses and prairie dogs for the first time--- until I got back home and it wasn't. But that is a story for another day. I got to see a vintage bookstore; always cool. 

*I got the coolest reading challenge for Easter. You open an envelope and get a bookish gift for every challenge you complete. It's been fun to work on. If you're on Booksta, check my stories for updates! 

*I loved trying some recipes in books by a favorite author, Jenny Colgan. Those krispie cakes really did have too much butter, however. 

*I embarked on several journal projects this year: one was a question prompt journal my grandparents gave me for Christmas last year and the other was a five-year journal prompt project (the prompts can be found on Pinterest). 

*I started this blog to share memories. 

*Our department at work became under new leadership (meaning, new boss). 

*Our family became a bit more active in a new church; meaning my sister joined and took an active role and my mom started teaching Sunday school again.

*My hometown hosted the Budweiser Clydesdales for our Memorial Day parade. These guys are huge. No, seriously.  

*Went to my hometown's art festival for the first time. So much fun, and the bike racers were impressive. I didn't buy anything but got some ideas for another time. 

 

Lowlights

*My book club also died after somehow not being able to find a meeting place. Supposedly we meet again in March. I hope so.

*We sadly lost my grandpa in September, having to rush home from vacation to make sure we got there in time. I don't recommend ever doing that. I am grateful for 30 great years together. Always treasure time with your grandparents! 

*Trick or treating finally died in my parents' neighborhood after kids stopped visiting and homeowners just stopped trying. 

*The election. Won't go any farther.  

Sports/Culture

*The Olympics were tons of fun despite my massive headache the night of the opening ceremonies. Good to see Simone Biles again. 

*Wicked came to theaters. I don't know whether I'll see this one or not but it was wild on Booksta for a while!

*Nobody let me forget mentioning the Super Bowl! I barely remember who played, but Nick had a FANTASTIC Spongebob broadcast. No joke; they did a really good job with it. (Spongebob after a fumble: "You have to firmly grasp it!") I'm not even kidding when I'd say I'd watch one again. 

*My university's baseball team won the national championship for the first time ever. T'was much fun. 

*Anyone watch the Boeing launch? That was interesting, to say the least. I was so excited to see it during a lunch break and it got called off, only to happen when it was unavailable. They are due to return to Earth in February/March now. 

*I grew up with Wheel of Fortune; still watch it with my family. It was a bummer when Pat Sajak retired, but Ryan Seacrest seems to be doing a pretty good job. 

*Bookstagram tells me that Taylor Swift released an album or something? I don't like her newer stuff; I find her voice very bland, but it was everywhere! 

*The April solar eclipse was fun (though it was cloudy that day for me). Also very fantastic was seeing the auroras though phone cameras in October. 

*President Jimmy Carter finally passed at the end of the year.

*Trends including "brat girl summer" and "very demure" were a thing. Not to sound like an old-head but I don't care for trends that have me talk like I'm in junior high again.

Favorites

Another former journal section, I'm keeping these here too now. Tell me your favorites in the comments below.

WHAT I LISTENED TO

Coming Home; Skylar Grey
Perfect Day; Miriam Stockley 

King Creole; Elvis Presley

Celtic Woman 

Patty Gurdy, esp. Molly Malone

Ella Roberts...Danny Boy/ Skye Boat Song

White Rabbit; Jefferson Airplane  

WHAT I WATCHED 

YouTube:

*Jetting Julia

*11 ft 8 Bridge (please check this out if you haven't; it's hilarious. The bridge was raised a while back, leading to fewer crashes, but there was a bit of a renaissance this year) 

*Adam the Woo 

*Booktubers showing off their reading journals to inspire me for this year 

*"Unwrapped" clips 

And also:

*Episodes of Mister Rogers' Neighborhood. I read a book on him a while back and this year really discovered the episodes. If you haven't tried watching an episode every night...I will say you are missing out on a great sock factory tour. 

*America's Funniest Home Videos 

FAVORITE FOOD

Impossible Chicken Patties
Spanish Rice
Anything milk chocolate/chocolate oranges
Cocoa Krispies 
Barbie brand strawberry marshmallow ice cream (that is a thing!) 

WATCHED THE FOLLOWING NEW-TO-ME MOVIES 

Chicago
White Christmas
Most of Cast Away (watched whilst sick on the couch)
Lifetime suspense movies

 

BEST BOOKS READ 
The Teacher; Freida McFadden
The Merriest Misters; Timothy Janovsky
Close Knit; Jenny Colgan
Tomorrow and Tomorrow and Tomorrow; Gabrielle Zevin
Apple of My Eye; Allie Marie (Giancarlo)
The Housemaid; Freida McFadden  
The Poet X, Elizabeth Acevedo 

HOBBIES
NYT Wordle and Strands (family also got in on the act)
Writing my romance and suspense 
Book club 

Who is Ginger Makefield?

Yesterday morning, opening gifts, I received a flat square package from "Ginger Makefield." I rolled my eyes, knowing it was the same story every year.

So, what is this tradition and how did it start? 

When I was young, I liked to teach an imaginary class of dogs in the basement. It all started when I was writing random names in a Barbie notebook, imagining characters to go with them which eventually became a list of people who could be characters. I started to see it as a list of class students, pretending to make phone calls to confirm enrollment. Eventually I even got a pretend school kit, complete with a chalkboard, desk labels, attendance charts, reward jar, and much more. It was a blast. We had story time, geography with my huge book of maps, and every November I'd offer a choice of learning about families or farms. 

Eventually there was a whole list. Some of the dogs I remember were Golde (a favorite), Lober; a tall dark fellow, Abutisum (pronounced "Aaa-but-tie-some''; imagine a cross between Abu from Aladdin and an Afghan hound), Russell, Phona...and others I no longer remember. What a bummer for teachers to forget so many of their students. Shame on me!

But they were real to me, and we had fun.

One more name I remember is Ginger Makefield. Ginger didn't show up a LOT, but she was there for a while. I want to think she was fun and spunky. The name "Makefield" came, I think, from the name of the neighborhood of a family friend. 

I'm writing this story and it's occurring to me that I don't know why she always gave me a calendar. I think it was because I always liked the page-a-day ones, usually with dog photos on them. I kept one on my desk a lot as a child. 

Also what my mom did was to make gifts "from" certain people on the gift tags, real or fictional. They could be anything from "Hermey the Elf" to one of our dogs or cats. Ginger was obviously someone I mentioned quite a bit, because she "gave" me a gift one year. I guess it was the dog calendar, being a dog.

And somehow it stuck. Ginger continued to give me calendars. From 365 Dogs to Wheel of Fortune, she always came though. When I got tired of the page-a-days, she might give me something else. Perhaps something with dogs. These days, she's been giving me wall calendars. 

Though I haven't taught dog class in 21 years, Ginger still shows up in spirit every Christmas, this time giving me more useful wall calendars. Even this year...when the calendar featured a cat!  

Thanks Ginger. Merry Christmas.

R.I.P. Halloween (1994-2024)

 I am very, very late with this one but didn't want to wait another year!

This year, we finally had no trick-or-treaters. I went over to my parents' house to help hand out candy, as I've done. Since the dogs would go berserk, we usually do this by sitting on the end of their driveway and placing the candy on a table. (Now that I think about it, this may have started with the pandemic as they couldn't get too close). 

As a kid, our 30-house neighborhood had flourished on the evening of October 31. But since I got to college, the kids got older and the population dwindled. When I called home during freshman year of college, Dad said they got about 50 trick-or-treaters. That number continued to dwindle. Last year we got maybe twelve. This year, we got none at all. 

Looking down the street, so many houses were dark. Now that kids obviously weren't coming, people obviously stopped trying to be ready. Almost nobody was decorated.

That's not to say that it's dead entirely---everyone goes into the center of town where houses are many and close together these days. 

First was choosing the costume very early, in July or August. Did anyone else pick them in a catalogue? I often did. I wanted to be a "candy corn witch" for ages, but it always seemed sold out. 

Now during the school day: The air crackled with excited atmosphere as the halls were filled with pirates, the guy from Scream, princesses, and superheroes. We all gathered in the gym for a Halloween "parade," where we'd line up by grade and tell the crowd who we were. The first year I did this in kindergarten, I was Cinderella and croaked out the name of my costume (my voice gave out for a second). We were then shepherded to a retirement community shortly down the way. (Again, in kindergarten I had no clue about this and had no idea why we were in a pink lobby that smelled of skunk outside.) There, we'd parade for the residents. In the afternoon, it was party time! I often wore my costume the entire day.

Then it was time for a quick dinner (think a can of Chef Boyardee) and the fun would begin. The air always smelled differently that night---spooky and sweet. Also a little bit awkward at first, but I got over it. For a few years, we lived in a BIG neighborhood before moving to the aforementioned one. Here are a few houses to remember:

*The Dempsters, our next-door neighbors in the first place and whose daughter I thought was the coolest, always put a few goodies in decorated treat bags. Oh, what fun! Like unwrapping a present later.

*Popcorn ball house, which always gave out...well, popcorn balls obviously.

*Sheepdog Guy's house. He always was seen walking his sheepdogs without a leash. His wife always hung up a "wishing witch" where we'd do just that before getting our candy.

*Mrs. Miller used the old-time tradition: we had to tell a joke or share something that happened at school to get a candy. She liked me and sometimes told me to take two. My sister and her best friend were furious! (It more than evened out; all my friends lived too far away to trick or treat with, so I at least had this!)

 

And then it was back home to enjoy our loot and fish out any bubble gum that we'd give to Dad. Then maybe the Great Pumpkin, and bedtime. Sometimes, if we listened, we could still hear a few trick-or-treaters, and smell the sweet, candy-like night air...before going back to the regular homework and worksheets tomorrow. 

College had a fun tradition too---local kids came through the halls. Man oh man was that a blast! And we got many kids---about 600. I ran out of candy in a half hour the first year. But picking out candy and dressing up finally made me feel like it was Halloween again, especially when one little kid wanted to take a photo of me in my neon witch costume. (He'd be a teenager now. Goodness gumdrops.)

Complete list of Halloween costumes:

*Thomas the Tank Engine (don't remember this but there exists a photo)

*Marie the Aristocat

*A Dalmatian

*Cinderella

*Tinker Bell

*Fifties' poodle skirt girl (a few times)

*Medieval princess (I thought I looked glamorous but then one girl outshined everyone by dressing as a lobster in a fully decorated cardboard fish tank) 

*Regular pink princess

*Witch (regular black with hat that refused to stand up, and a neon costume later)

*Minnie Mouse

*Formal apology (gaudy dress with "I'm Sorry" sash)

*Flapper

*Butterfly princess 

*Wicked fairy where I teased my hair out in ponytails and wore black lipstick 

*And my work costumes: the Philly Phanatic, Cookie Monster, and a black cat (in 2024)! 

The world of shoe shopping

 I'm embarrassed to admit (ok, I'm not embarrassed to admit, and nobody should be) that I've been on a Mister Rogers kick lately. His show is just the thing one needs at the end of the day. Today, he visited a shoe store and it got me thinking about shoe shopping, too.

We went to a local shoe store called Arnold's. The mascot was a droopy looking Bassett hound, who could be seen in the window. I wonder if they sold doggy merch, too, but I can't recall. I remember being excited to see one girl I rode the bus with and her family there, once/ When I was young, I always had my feet measured by a sales associate. I think they did away with these by the time I was a teenager. Anyway, my dad had experience working in my grandpa's shoe store as a teenager, so he could measure feet as good as anyone. 

It always smelled good. Not Home Depot good, but new leather good. I mostly bought sneakers as a kid, and after I tried them on I was always made to walk up and down the store in them to make sure they fit. One of my favorite pairs of shoes when I was young was a largely blue pair with some gray trim and pink laces. While the shoes that lit up were always fascinating, I never got one (though I did have some snow boots at one point that lit up on the heel). And I never bought Heelys. Did anyone wear those? The shoes you could "skate" in were popular at my sister's school at one point. 

If I wanted a nice pair of flats, I'd often go to the mall with my grandparents for those. Macy's always had good selection, and we had good luck in finding pairs that fit. We sometimes had less luck trying to get the disposable socks on (you know the ones). 

Interestingly, my grandparents used to own a shoe store themselves. Called The Athlete's Foot, it was in a local shopping center. It seemed like a strange thing for them to do (I can't see my grandma owning a shoe store), but my dad and grandpa talked about it all the time. Grandma says they never turned a profit. Still, it was my dad's summer job for a few years. Even today, he'll go with me shoe shopping to make sure the shoes fit right! 

Then we got them packed up to bring home and eventually start wearing to school. You never wanted the shiny white shoes to get dirty, but it would always happen. Sometimes there were lollipops. Best of all, and Mister Rogers mentioned this too, was that you could do so many things with the shoe box. We made stages for our electronic Micro-Pets to perform on, among other things.

Arnold's no longer exists. Today I frequent chains such as Kohl's or Famous Footwear, or, if I get a coupon in the mail, DSW. I don't matter what traditions are involved; shoe shopping is never my favorite. The best part is just getting the shoes in the end, and that's what matters!