Expensive Camera + No Talent = Laughable Pictures

Despite the $1,000 I plunked down for my Digital Rebel, I still take crappy pictures. Here are some that made me laugh so hard I almost dropped the expensive camera:

How about some basenji snot on the lense?

How about some beagle snot on the lense?

What excellent composition skills you have, Ma!

Not every photo ends up in the trash, however. To amuse myself, I am also fooling around with Corel Photo-Paint, where, with a little digital magic, I can "erase" the crappy composition ...

... and put Yo-Yo where I know she thinks she belongs:

My ancestors, as you can see, were the Pharoah's prized companions.

Let Sleeping Dogs Lie

This summer I have a student who writes such nonstandard English that I actually looked up her transcript to verify her academic history. The course she is taking with me has freshman composition as a prerequisite, but sometimes students transfer with credit from strip-mall schools like Phoenix or Webster University or have spent two or three semesters kicking around in the prereq before earning the C necessary to move forward. In those cases, I just shrug my shoulders and do what I can. But sometimes these problem students have arrived in class after inexcusable grade inflation from my own colleagues, as is the case with Naomi.

The transcript revealed that Naomi had started in the college's ESL program, where she met the lowest criteria for passing. Then she took freshman composition, which—based on what I have seen from her writing—she should have failed. I found, however, a B as her final grade. Now, if everyone was playing by the rules, her department-graded final exam essay—read by two professors other than her own—should have been marked with the lowest possible score, as Naomi has a way to go before anyone would consider her writing college level. She still doesn't understand that the first word of a sentence requires a capital letter [a pretty easy problem to fix, especially after I have reminded her of the rule on all seven of the assignments she has turned in so far], nor has she any control over English verb forms and tenses, idiomatic expressions, syntax, punctuation, or vocabulary. At my institution, a failing department exam equals an F for the class, no matter the average of the student's other work. After a combination of seven Ds and Fs from me, I can no longer assume that she is just being lazy and, once she realizes I do intend to fail her, will get her act together—because here we are at midterm, and she continues writing incoherent work.

When I was younger, I would have stormed over to my department office, Naomi's student number in hand, to demand what moron gave her a B. If my dean were in her office, I would have slapped down one of Naomi's papers and asked, "Is this what we're passing these days?" When I was younger, I had department exams going back 10 years so that if anyone questioned how I had passed a student, I could whip out the blue book, show the score my two objective colleagues had given the writing, and say, "I guess I just get them to write better than you do." [I never had to do that, but if the occasion arose, I was ready.] But now I don't waste the time or emotion worrying about what anyone else is doing in class. I don't want to know which moron inflated her grade; I don't want to know which campus she attended for freshman composition; I don't even want to know if her former professor received a blue book marked failing but decided to give her a B despite college policy.

I now let the proverbial sleeping dogs lie, for I have learned that in the big picture, it doesn't really matter. I am not the only professor working hard and doing a good job [a gross misconception I had in my youth], and even I can make mistakes worthy of the rawest adjunct at the college [something I could not imagine in my twenties while I was indeed making those very mistakes]. Students learn no matter how bad some instructors are and fail to learn no matter how brilliantly other instructors teach. I have lost all of the self-righteousness that used to fuel my days, and when I see younger faculty with these same naive attitudes, I am amused.

For example, I had a professor from the humanities department come up to me one day last fall. She couldn't understand why LaShaunda, my former student, was turning in such awful papers for her humanities class. The professor was "asking advice," although the subtext was clearly how could I have given LaShaunda a passing grade in freshman composition. I no longer keep exams past the one semester I must [Why clutter the office with crap?], so I had no blue book to whip out. I just asked, "Is her work for you failing?"

"Yes," said the humanities professor.

"So have you failed it?" Wimp, I added in my head.

The professor recoiled. "I'm letting her rewrite it before I give it a grade."

"Well, if you just failed it, she would know you mean business and up her commitment to the paper. She works only as hard as she has to, and if you're going to show her where all of the problems are and let her fix them, then she doesn't have any motivation to find them on her own. Just give her an F, and you will solve the problem and earn her respect."

Oh, if Naomi's freshman composition instructor had just been honest with her, then I wouldn't have to be the bad guy. But she has a B for freshman composition, probably believes that she should be making an A in my research class—it's just that she had the misfortune to take a hardass [and I am far from that] and so will teacher-shop for someone "easy" in the fall, never realizing the consequences of not acquiring the skills a college degree indicates. She won't understand why her future employers don't trust her with important assignments—if they're not laying her off or firing her because she can't handle the job.

Or maybe I let those sleeping dogs lie because I am also old enough to realize now that Naomi might end up working for a family-run company that caters to Hispanics, that she'll never need to know how to do things right in English, and neither the B in freshman composition or the F she will likely earn from me this semester will ever really matter.

I Should Be Reaching for the Squirt Bottle

I just bought a brand new Canon Digital Rebel, and since it keeps my hands busy, I haven't been as good about disciplining Silly Little Pequod, Elizabeth's basenji, as I should.

Silly Little Pequod got his name when Elizabeth's sister came to Central Florida for a visit, her seven-year-old son in tow. Up to his usual counter surfing antics, Silly Little Pequod grabbed something he shouldn't have—a paper towel, a sponge, a spatula—and Elizabeth turned around and cried, "You silly little shit! Give that back!"

"Elizabeth!" Madeline chastised, pointing to Joseph, her son, unfortunately within earshot. Joseph began giggling and chanting, "Silly little shit! Silly little shit! Silly little shit!"

Madeline rushed to fix the situation, explaining to Joseph that his aunt had said "silly little ship" instead. Joseph happily began screaming "Silly little ship! Silly little ship!" to oblige his mother, but Madeline was still unsatisfied since, if he began the chant at Catholic school, the nuns might not hear the distinction between "ship" and "shit." And so Elizabeth's basenji became Silly Little Pequod, named after the boat in that dreadful novel, Moby Dick.

I am always ready to help with the dishes!

What Does Go Bump in the Night?

Friday I was at a party with colleagues, the rain pounding outside. A bolt of lightning illuminated the room, thunder boomed, and the lights flickered for a moment. Connie, my dean, remarked, "Flashback to Charley!" You see, now that a new hurricane season has arrived, everyone in Central Florida is on edge as we were clobbered by not one, not two, but three major storms last year, each one followed by days without electricity. The conversation turned to the topic of anxiety, and Leanne asked if Connie remembered the time they were at a conference, and Reynold, Connie's husband, got freaked out because their daughter insisted she could see a man in her room.

"He called you like seven times that night, didn't he?" asked Leanne.

"Reynold isn't usually like that," insisted Connie.

Apparently, despite a thorough search of a house now ablaze with electric light, their daughter insisted she could still see a man.

The provost chimed in next: "One time the dogs woke me up. They were both sitting on the edge of my bed barking. I saw a young girl in a long blue dress. I shut my eyes for a moment, and when I looked again, she was gone!"

"Well, let me tell you about the time Jim and I were staying in an old bed and breakfast in Vermont," interjected Lynda, the math dean. "We just were lying in bed. Jim was reading a magazine; I was doing a crossword puzzle. Suddenly we felt something jump onto comforter. I turned to Jim and asked, 'Did you feel that?' and he said, 'Yes, just like a cat at home.' We were convinced that an ancient feline haunted that room!"

Now I don't not believe in ghosts. In fact, in a childhood home, everyone in the family had, at one point or another, seen a flash of glow scurry out of the way like a feral cat. We all considered it a benevolent spirit and would squeal, "There goes the ghost!" whenever one of us spotted it. But even as a kid, I entertained the possibility that the flash had a scientific rather than supernatural explanation. You know, a neighbor parks his car in the right spot to bounce from a chrome side mirror a beam of sunlight that streaks past a branch swayed out of the way by a breeze from just the right direction. The beam enters the dining room window, gets reflected off the TV screen, and there, before the branch sways back to block the light, we have an apparition dashing along the baseboard.

On the one hand, the First Law of Thermodynamics does say that "energy cannot be created or destroyed, only modified in form." Since all living things contain energy, some transformation must happen at death. That the transformation produces a ghost doesn't seem all that farfetched to me. And while the modified energy or "ghost" is traveling wherever some unknown law of thermodynamics dictates, I can imagine it passing through homes or getting caught in places just as sunlight does in a closed up car. I can also imagine that children and dogs, neither of whom have fully developed rational minds, would be more likely to see this modified energy or "spirits of the dead."

But another part of me believes that prescription drugs, a couple of glasses of wine with dinner, too much stress—the accoutrements of modern-day professional life—coupled with a scary idea or bad dream can tickle the ancient reptilian part of the brain into producing uncontrollable anxiety. Children probably transition more slowly from sleep to wakefulness, so Connie and Reynold's daughter might have still been seeing someone from a nightmare. Reynold, though, might have polished off an entire bottle of wine that evening which was suppressing his rational mind. His wife's absence and the scary idea of a home invader would have put his fight-and-flight instincts into overdrive. The provost's dogs might have heard a raccoon dump over the neighbor's trash and were barking in response to that; the provost might have mixed a Vicodin and a margarita and then got woke up from deep REM sleep, the spooky girl in a blue dress a transitional hallucination.

Jim and Lynda's cat on the comforter is more difficult to explain. They were both awake, relaxed, engrossed in higher brain activities. But even so, the bed was not the well-known mattress from home. A faulty spring, a shift of body weight, familiarity with cats jumping on a bed—all of these could have contributed to the sensation that a spectre cat had leaped up to join them.

I think I would prefer that our energy has a life after death [cautious always that I have to be careful what I wish for]. I think that I would like confirmation that all of those glimpses we get out of the corners of our eyes really are the parade of "ghosts" going wherever they must. But another part of me surmises that we just like the idea of hanging around after death [and the stories told on rainy days that confirm it] when all of the evidence points to the fact that although our energy might "transition," that doesn't mean our sense of self or physical likeness goes with it.

For the Birds

Today ended bird duty at my parents' house. Mom and Step-Dad were out tooling around in their RV for a couple of days, and I—as I have done many, many times in the past—took care of the flocks of wild birds and families of squirrels that visit their yard for free eats. During just two trips to the house, I must have dumped 20 pounds of seed, 5 pounds of peanuts, and a dozen ears of corn into the various feeders around their backyard.

The job is far from rocket science, but every time before she leaves, Mom calls to give me twenty minutes of instructions. Then, when I get to the house, I always find a long note detailing again what I am supposed to do. This time, she added at the end, "Call me if you have any questions!" and included both her own and Step-Dad's cell numbers, thinking, I guess, that I might forget how to lift the top off the feeder or turn on the hose.

Elizabeth accompanied me on one of the trips and, after reading the note, remarked, "Your mother doesn't know who you are, does she?" At work, no one questions either my intelligence or sense of responsibility. Alas, for my mother, I will always be the five year old who insists on eating snow, despite the warnings that a dog might have peed in it.

Mom could't turn her back on me for a minute before I was scooping up a "lemon freeze" for Melody, my rotten little sister.

You're So Vain

This blog is a work of fiction. Although real-life events might inspire what I will write, any resemblance to real persons, living or dead, will be purely coincidental.

If you think a post is about you, start humming that Carly Simon hit, "You're so vain ..."

How This Blog Got Its Name

In early March of 2000, I stopped at Publix to pick up something to eat. I had had a bad day at work [can't remember why], and nothing lightens my mood better than watching fish in a saltwater aquarium. The shopping plaza also had a Petland, so I decided to fish gaze before selecting a frozen dinner. As I walked past the puppy cages, I was surprised to find a basenji behind the glass. Basenjis are a very rare breed, and I had never seen one in a pet shop. [That I even recognized the breed is a long story better saved for a different post.] I spent a few minutes admiring the red and white female and then moved on to the fish. At that moment, I had no desire to have another dog. After euthanizing Pretty Boy [my 13-year-old Brittany in congestive heart failure], I had discovered that my busy professional life was a lot less complicated without a pet. I put the basenji out of my mind.

The following evening I had dinner with Elizabeth, who had heard me recount tales of Shiny Penny, the basenji that lived with me for a short time [longer actually than the lover who brought the dog, but, as I've already said, that's a story for a different post]. The lover must have come up in dinner conversation, for I said, "You know, there's a basenji puppy over at the Petland next to Publix."

"Oh, let's go see!" cried Elizabeth, who couldn't picture the breed despite my careful descriptions, and so we made the drive after the meal.

As a teenager, I worked one summer for a McDonald's, where I was trained in the art of suggestive selling—"Would you like fries with that?"—so when Elizabeth and I walked into the Petland and Molly the salesgirl asked if we would like to hold the puppy, I sternly said, "No!" Elizabeth, however, immediately chimed, "Oh, yes, bring her out!" and the next thing I knew we were in a puppy-meeting cubicle with a little demon from hell. This puppy was an aggressive biter who nearly chewed off my watch band and drew blood several times. I kept motioning to Molly to take away the hell spawn, but she ignored us, hoping that we would be won over.

Eventually, Molly retrieved the puppy—"She's a feisty one!" she explained—and then in more hushed tones said, "There's another one in the back. I'm not supposed to let anyone see her because she hasn't been checked by the vet, but, if you want, I can bring her out."

"Oh, do!" cried Elizabeth, and a few moments later, I was holding the first black and white basenji I had ever seen. In temperament, this puppy was the complete opposite of the red and white, a warm little cuddly thing that couldn't possibly chew holes in upholstery, and even though I knew Molly had manipulated me, I wanted this dog. But I wasn't going to house train alone. Elizabeth had recently put down her old beagle, Eyeball, so I asked Molly if she had by chance a beagle puppy we could see. In a flash, Elizabeth had a warm little hound in her own arms.

We ended up buying both dogs that evening. Yo-Yo is worth every dollar that puppy-mill peddler overcharged me, and Elizabeth feels the same way about the Banana. But once we left the store, we realized the full extent of the nightmare we had entered. Yo-Yo began shrieking as soon as I started the car engine [basenjis might not bark but that doesn't mean they are silent], and then had explosive diarrhea in the crate. I invited Elizabeth to spend the first day at my house because I had hardwood floors, which Yo-Yo and the Banana christened repeatedly with urine. The next day the Banana got left alone at Elizabeth's condo, where she defecated on the bathroom floor, stepped in the feces, and then smeared them all over the walls, the vanity, and the toilet as she tried to claw her way out of the room.

"This is all your fault," accused Elizabeth.

"My fault? I'm not the one who said, 'Oh, yes! Bring her out!' to that salesgirl. I just wanted to show you what a basenji looked like. They know that once you get that warm puppy in your arms, they're going to be able to sell it!"

"Yes, but you're the one who found the dog in the first place!"

"But you're the one who wanted to go see her!"

"It's still all your fault."

"You can think whatever you want to, but God has videotape, and in it, you are the one to blame." And so an argument-ending sentence was born.