All posts by Jocelyn the Plaid

(Written during the last school year on a cold, winter morning. ) Characters: Mommy, a person who greatly resembles Jocelyn Turner. Shasta, a giant, bloblike, invisible garden slug, about the size of a four-year-old human, although shaped more like a fat Buddha when she sits. Shasta loves to dress up. Conversation with Shasta: (Shasta and… Read More

  We all have our personal zombies. They may not be mindless, reanimated human corpses with a hunger for human flesh. They don’t always moan. Some may not even possess corporeal forms. What forces can eat the brain? I’ll list a few: ☻Deadlines ☻Time pressure ☻ Heat ☻Sleeplessness ☻Gaming ☻Anxiety ☻ Disorganization and Lost Stuff ☻ Crazy bosses. I’d like… Read More

Marianos ran free alcoholic beverage and cheese tastings last year. I don’t know if they still offer free beer and cheese, but the grocery chain posted the events in Eventbrite. I recommend looking up Eventbrite. Sushi and sake was a reasonable $15 or so. I enjoyed sampling the various free beers and cheeses. Krankshaft above is spelled with… Read More

Time runs loosely on Mars, the planet where I have chosen to retire.  An element of, “Why not?” enters life.  Why not watch The Civil War followed by Shetland followed by Sherlock Holmes?  Why not read your Agatha Christie book from the Goodwill when you wake up at 3 A.M.? Where the lesson plans to prepare?… Read More

I quit early. I had intended to stay longer, but teaching stopped being fun.  I don’t do well at activities that are not fun. Most people don’t and I am sorry for many teachers right now. The level of frantic where test scores are concerned leads to dubious choices on the part of people who… Read More

My previous post makes it sound as if little child-rearing took place during my young life. That’s not true. The world according to parents was explained to me regularly. I got a few whippings when I was little. Safety issues were hot-buttons. If you were not supposed to cross the street, big people would get very excited when… Read More

What did you do as a child that got you in the most trouble with your parents? How did they handle it? Ummm… did I get in trouble? I must have. I don’t remember that trouble, though. Too many years have gone by and trouble never lasted for long. My parents worried about me. I was… Read More

They auto-renewed this blog. I did not fight the use of whatever charge card they found. So here I am again. Hello readers! I just retired. It’s a quasi-retirement in the sense that I might have to put up a tent in Mossyrock to live on my retirement from my 10 years of teaching.  But… Read More

A zombie-free reminiscence: The biography jar strikes again. Did anyone selecting these topics ever think to include a nice, short slip of paper  like, “What is your favorite kind of jelly?” Or even which Dr. Who was your personal favorite and why? No, I seem to be picking long topics from the jar. I remember all… Read More

More zombie-free reminiscences: The slip of paper from the jar says to tell about holiday traditions. I’ll start with Halloween, a holiday that has mostly faded from view since the children grew up. We used to costume shop, shop for candy and buy decorations for the house which we sometimes managed to get up, a lame display… Read More