Every year since...way back maybe 25 years.... I have co-opted my friend Carla's toffee recipe and made candy for the staff that worked with my husband. ( recipe here) I used to make it for my staff too until the amount reached enough for 80 to 100 people, and I couldn't afford or deal with another 50 to 60 packages. It's a pretty serious arm stirring few days. Basically the stuff makes me literally ill to even see, when Jack walked in two days ago with his request for it I almost died of shock. What toffee? By when? Oh yeah, ok.

(remind me sometime to tell the story when we used nuts from the cabinet detecting bugs)



The ingredients await.......(my daughters) as we check the recipe.
butter, check
sugar, check
nuts, check
chocolate, check



In all I had six bowls like this to the brim.



You wouldn't think making toffee would take anything out of you but 12 packages of butter later, two bags of sugar, 10 bags of slivered almonds, 2 of pecans, 12 of walnuts, and 15 of chocolate chips and the elf shop is closing for the night. My daughters helped in round one last night, and I woke up early today for round two. I am hobbled, for sure, so it did stiffen up my back- but we did it. I'm looking at the finished work in two boxes thinking you'd think it was nothing....Packaging and tagging was greatly aided by my daughter Sophia. This is the long way to say we spent two days doing this. I never really realize until times like this what effort goes into gifts of food. What a labor of love it is.







Packaging the toffee....





While we were doing this I started playing a Facebook game I saw-Bejeweled Blitz- that one of my friends (and a teacher that taught my son, Ms. M.) kills at. Weeks ago I thought when I feel better I'm going to try that game out to find a pleasant thing to do sometimes when I'm dragging around, but when I talked to my father the other night he said this is actually rather important -talking about times to work and times to relax. I struggle sometimes with relax.

I thought I remembered this game specifically from seeing Sylvia play in the car when I used to take my daughter to dance and they'd get my cell phone in the back and laugh all the way. I am pretty obsessive with a game for awhile, so I stayed up trying and got some score of say 60,000. M daughter played again for the first time in years getting 150,000. Yikes, people are good at these things. Pretty much that describes my relationship to games. I do try. I think I keep repeating my poor strategies. My daughter suggested I "go faster."
So in retaliation I'm blaming the syrinx and moving on.
Anyway I'm thinking there might be something to that. The surgeon said it accounted for the astoundingly bad reflexes. It's lame but I'm blaming it on this.
Right now my kids are playing something called "the wii" I can only imagine how I'd do on that.
But you stand up and do strange body things on that one.



Oh and they conquered the world in risk, my daughter and her buddies.

Games, you know, are a fairly big part of a way I'd teach math if given a little leeway. I used to have chess going in 1st grade by this time in the year in the old un-scripted days.


Mom's , as you know, are good at bragging, guilt, cooking, and I hope loving and nurturing. So I am going to turn this into a momming post. This was kind of an up and down home week.
Plus side- my kids are all home. I realize all over again what great kids they are and how much I love them. It's just so great to have them together, for whatever it's worth I just have enjoyed looking at them. Just looking like some lovestruck puppy. I guess we just feel our kids are the most profoundly beautiful beings that ever existed. It's really great to fill up the eyes.....The girls out crocheted me already this week, making hats and scarves. I was like-wow.

Then there is the down side news...I had three cats, but two disappeared at the start of the week. Yeah as in dead. I went out back to find this hawk preparing to attack my third cat the day after they disappeared. I don't know what's going on. I just know this hawk was about a foot off the kitty wings spread and ready to attack. Right by the back door, it was the most intense thing I've ever seen. So my lone cat is locked up, and I can't talk about it too much.



I know the video shakes all over I'd just gone out and this hawk had no fear of me and it was a rather confrontational thing. Plus Mom was getting in the way.

My mother had sad news this week too. An old friend of hers died over Thanksgiving, but she did not get the news right away. Nancy Kotz was in school with my parents at Tennessee when they went to under-grad school at UT in the days of Johnny Majors. She and her husband became good friends. In the 1950's. Her husband died just after she had her second child, a long time ago, and Nancy raised her children and was a teacher. I loved talking with her over the years about the "state of affairs" in teaching. In March she called and just straightforwardly told my mom she had leukemia. We hadn't heard from her in awhile, and we both knew why I think, but Mom got brave enough to call two nights ago to hear it from her daughter. It's funny but it made both of us very withdrawn and just indescribably sad. She was a wonderful person.
Here is what I sent to her guestbook-but it was written for her two kids:

I wanted to write to you Steve and Karen because I don't think my mom can and we share a rather special connection.
Both your parents were a part of the oral traditions of my life, part of the fabric of friendship, concern, care of my parents lives. They met in Tenn. at school and my father always thought of your father as a dear, dear friend. One of his closest. Dad laughed with your Dad-I suspected was still a boy a bit with your Dad -and knew him as he started his family, and as he left the earth so early, too early.
Both my parents admired, loved and thought the world of your mom. What she did was decide to lift herself up from such a loss and raise her kids, above all as a rock for them, teaching, being a true exemplar for any of us. Boy, she was amazing.

My parents told many stories of their times together as young people, all through my years, and now that I've hit 50 I understand better why they held that so dear in their re-telling. It's a time in your life when you are learning to be-you are expanding, making lives.It is one of the most real times we live. We define "who we are" and what we are about then. And your mother and father did this in a way my parents admired and respected.

My mother has been helped immeasurably over the last few years by your mom checking in on her regularly (I've enjoyed that care too by the way), talking on the phone, coming out to see us 6 or so years past, it gave her connection and kindness that really was important as she faced a stroke and other things that aging brings. When she called down the other day to see why she hadn't heard- both of us knew that Nancy had probably just gotten too ill.A hard call for her to face. And Mom spent the evening so unusually in her interior spaces until finally I guess what she'd learned. People aren't made, I don't think any more, like that generation and I called my father-who is quite ill- to tell him the sad news.
Both of them send you their love.
Both of them would want you to know that among their closest, dearest, most admired friendships sat your parents. They were loved, they are remembered by the McIntosh's. Dad retold for me stories of Bob Kotz, one story of his frustration that his name was always said wrong, even before his getting his degree at Tenn. ( with his humor about that waiting another telling).
Your parents knew how to tell a good joke. Understood humor and our common humanity, knew how to shed seriousness a second and look around and get real. Nancy knew what mattered, her life in teaching was about making the world a better place.That is the bedrock of these 4 people, our parents. The thing I thought of her was her ability to fight for the profession of teaching in a time many were cowards and gave away the farm, I admired her clarity, wit and her insights. It's rare to find that in anyone. In her it looked easy.
She carried that with the greatest of grace.
I know you'll feel this loss all your days. I dread facing this time in my life. I'm so sorry that her illness cheated you out of more years, but I also know you must have the warmest memories. A mom like that will be there for you always. She's just inside your heart.

My mom sends her love and concern as well as her hopes that in all of you is instilled a piece of both of those parents, such good friends from times when they were setting out into their lives, having their kids, setting their courses. She is thinking of you sending healing thoughts and prayers and all of us want you to know how much is thought of your mom. We loved her dearly.

Sarah McIntosh Puglisi, daughter of Kenneth and Jean McIntosh

Made me pause to think how rapidly time has passed, she visited about 6 years ago. I am in shock that she's gone. It's so sad to me when a great teacher leaves the earth. Of all the losses I feel, the loss of teachers seems to me to be one of the greatest unsung sadnesses. I know we need celebrities for some important purposes that entertainment fills, but very rarely do I hear people say that these entertainers change their lives quite like I hear in listening to folks talk about their teachers. But the showbiz deaths receive great notice, well of course. Teachers however do change lives. And I meet almost no one that can't name the teachers that mattered for them. I like to listen and hear the stories of those unsung people. So Nancy Kotz is appearing here in my seasonal posting so I can share with you this wonderful teacher that gave a lifetime to kids. Some real pistols.

Nancy had a great sense of humor. Once remarking to me about NCLB, "Can you believe this shit?"
I've always appreciated that.


Somehow I started wanting after that news to distract myself so I started playing the game on Facebook -you sort of slide jewels around-since my kids are presently wii-ing it. It kind of enabled me to develop a pretty clear case of new obsessive behavior in just under two days.

Sylvia, my daughter, wrote two papers she shared with me that by mom's bragging rights I want to talk about, and clearly it's just a wandering post, so I want to put them here.
If I can put them here. I'm going to try it anyway...

Syl is taking a Shakespeare class and this was one of her papers on Coriolanus. I thought it was so interesting. And this was one earlier in her semester on Titus and Andronicus.
Read them....please.
She is majoring in CNS ( Her degree is Engineering and Applied Science with an emphasis in Computation and Neural System Focus/ and a Bachelors of Science in English from Cal Tech).
So I asked her for permission to put her papers because I thought they were both very cool.

You might be able to tell that we are kind of just coming to the end of the year. Because I've been out awhile with a leave for this back injury, with a set of epidurals to do on the 29th I'm dis-oriented seasonally. My clock surely is set by teaching. But I am getting that last stand at the momming thing- as my kids are growing and grown.

Oh, oh, we decorated two trees this year.

We got a "real" tree this year. First time since Syl was three and allergies convinced me to go plastic. Jack hauled it in, well Luca helped, as a surprise. It's smelling a lot like Christmas.

I'm going here with a slideshow..of that whole fun evening with our "real tree".

.

And for the music...humm....



That's the last day or so. I haven't got any presents figured out. But scarves, hats and shawls are very likely! So get ready.

Today my son turned 15.
He is the greatest.
I tried to tell him his birth story yesterday picking him up from high school. He had a bit of a trapped child look. But I barreled on. He was born after a night they delayed his birth. I waited for the AM arrival of Dr.Alvarez. Luca had the umbilical cord around his neck, contractions stopped his heart. When I delivered, the moment I dilated to the correct amount I had one push to get him out safely. It was a very touchy thing as the contractions to dilate stopped his heart so this was an AM of debate and the Dr. made sure I was extremely hydrated and all in all there was a lot of tension. After lunch in one push he arrived a really lovely baby. He was an easy baby. A welcome one. Luca has been a marvelous son. Angel's fan by two! He loves Bret Favre, he was a die heart Greenbay fan but...it's leaning Vikings. Loves baseball, loves sport. He's a wrestler. Luca likes history. Especially learning from other's suffering in wars. He's a bit addicted to his XBox 360. He likes to skateboard. Luca has a great sense of humor, torments his sister Sophia and told me yesterday he loves Italian food. His grandmom spoils him and they love each other. And he's just recovering from a hateful flu.

We got Luca a Martin guitar as his present. He sort of allowed me to film him playing it. It really has a nice sound, this is a series of movies of his playing.

(I may be sitting on a blob of oatmeal, I'm too tired to really look.)

I had a long week, but it was shortened by a day off to celebrate Columbus.
In that shortened week we also had a training day for teachers. Worked on getting things ready for the new math adoption.
Several days off for my kids then meant Wednesday they weren't so interested in everything going "my way." A few days off often results in a long day back, I forget that over and over, and it amazes me every time it reoccurs.

Just the same we did study sunflowers, a bit. Made several artworks.
Had a real rainy day. And the week ended in a room over 95. It would be nice to have AC.
There were two projects we did that are pretty nice, though incomplete.
I'll share them as slide shows.

I introduce Van Gogh, and heliotropism, as well as some basics about growing plants, seeds and harvest at this time every year to my 1st graders. I'm feeling "like a dog" because I couldn't afford and get a bus and trip lined up to go to the pumpkin farm. Awful. I can't talk about it. Perhaps I need to write the parents with at least the directions if they want to go on their own, many might make the venture down to Simi to Underwood Farms. It's just a wonderful thing to do.

We made "Sunflower Bags" to hold our I love Reading and library books. Turned out cute but next week we will outline with "Puffy paints" and see if this doesn't make them extraordinary.
After drawing in the sunflowers they took acrylic paints and made the sunflowers. Very beautiful overall.



Then the children on Friday in some of the hottest heat I've ever work in, made sunflower paintings. Many aren't completely finished so the gallery isn't yet up of finished paintings. This is the work in progress:



In the past I've blogged about helitropism and the wonderful math within the sunflower.
I have really enjoyed taking this out to work with this year. Introduction to the Fibonacci numbers seems natural at this time. I like this site, click here.



I found this in Flickr and like reading here about it.

Well, mybe I'm better off just putting in some links:

The Fibonacci Numbers and Golden section in Nature - 1

Home School Articles and Advice

Growing In The Garden had a wonderful set of plans and ideas with lovely books to incorporate.

I remember Farquot from Shrek:

Fibonacci Sequence and the Golden Ratio

I use the same book by Anna Comstock sited on this site so that was very exciting:

Handbook of Nature Study: Corn Study, Fibonacci, and Our Garden ...

World Mysteries - Science Mysteries, Fibonacci Numbers and Golden ...

This page is a kind of de-bunking one, I'm still reading it, take the time ...hum.

Well anyway we enjoyed making sunflower artworks.
There is a lot going on in the sunflower.

Truthfully it took a toll on me to get things painted, collected, cleaned up while trying to log the data and record the tests equired that take away the instructional time, and organize the week's work "to the mandates." I'm 50 going on......
but it was very nice work to do with the kids, and they did it in a lovely way.

I have a student reading and doing math at the 8th grade ( or higher ) level and finally went and got her a collection of Roald Dahl which she seems to be enjoying reading, and need to get her higher level math work. The thing I enjoy about this is watching how it promotes better work all around in the classroom. She reminds me of my own kids....very nice it is. She's become the room secretary. We have assistants that work as pencil monitors, librarians, journal checkers, painting monitor, and so on because of their capacity to do this well, in time all will have these extra tasks, but she has shown clearly that she can peacefully aid the room while I work with groups on reading-great. She told me wednesday she wants to become an artist.

That kind of blew me away. So few people really think that matters.
If she brings this kind of capacity into her artwork, I can't imagine how it might then be transformed. Amazing to work with her.
And a class of very wonderful children.
So for her...

Sunflowers by Vincent van Gogh

The Paintings: Sunflowers

Post 884....wow, me, who would have thought, A Dragonfly!

I took this picture today of a critter we caught at school.
1st graders are good at spotting things.
I think it's a wonderful picture. Actually.


One of my best I think.
We saw it on the way to the Fire Station, on the wall, so I had to stop, catch it, get a jar, put it in carefully, and have it wait until we returned to really look it over. I learned quite a bit about dragonflies today by taking this one out to the yard to share it in our jar. It was popular for sure. I haven't sat down today yet, or had a break yet, or stopped working 5AM til 5PM yet, and on Yom Kippur- which I'm not thinking is appropriate, but still I want to blog about this amazing creature.
Before you ask, yes, he's back in nature.

First thing I found out by watching, dragonflies turn their heads around, 360 degrees, not like you might think at all, and they appear to groom their head. It goes ALL the way around, and this is a bit disconcerting. We noticed that. They right themselves when flipped over very efficiently too. And they make an incredible buzz flying.
You know the best thing to do is take you to some good pages on them.

So here we go, a festival of linking.
If you just want to look through a million dragonfly links try this.
It's just amazing.

But I want to know more about this insect, and so I went to find something reasonable.
So this page seems interesting, and I'm linking you here....
This SAYS that they cannot sting. I am not sure about that, but I respect the information, and I did lift the bug right into my jar, so, okay.

This page, What Is A Dragonfly? was the one we used to read about our find. Pretty interesting.
My favorite part:

"The face is a conglomeration of plates separated by seams called sutures. The sutures are often darkened into stripes. The upper half of the face is the frons, and the upper surface of the frons is a shelf-like protuberance on which various diagnostic markings may be found. The compound eye is composed of nearly 30,000 lenses, which work in consort to provide a rich visual image to the dragonfly. They are sight-based creatures who, with a quick turn of the head, are able to scan 360 degrees as well as above and below. Their vision probably allows them to discern individual wing beats, which to us would appear as a blur. They can see ultraviolet and polarized light. Many species also see well in dim light.

Their two short bristly antennae are thought to function as windsocks or anemometers, measuring wind direction and speed, thereby giving them a method with which to assess their flight. By the way, dragonflies have no sense of hearing, cannot smell and are unable to vocalize."

I cannot say that I was surprised to learn the pattern of their lacy wings identifies them. It's remarkable. So if you read the information here are our wings to see if you can help us identify this one. We caught it in Oxnard, CA.

I would just like to place here again a poem my daughter wrote.

I'm tempted to try and hook you into a very good book of poetry today.
Good poets trying to do the impossible, while bleeding with a city and nation's pain.
But I will say it was a book given to me that is worthy of a read on the day of rememberance of a national horror. Because of this day so many of us changed. Great poets inside.

My daughter wrote a poem on one of those 9-11 days remembering. While helping me teach my 1st grade, as a saddened Principal read a poem on the intercom, and very, very ordinary life went on. Like a lot of things her words on that day might wash away, as so much ink, but I keep the poem around because it holds me, and contains some of our joint family memory....a day we remember how we worried over our family in New York, and the nation's safety...I think I'll share her work. It won't help you evaluate this book, but it will send you to it I think. It should.... the poets in the book are among our best.

september 11th, by Sylvia Puglisi,
A depressing sort of poem. But there could hardly be a happy one today, I suppose.

* * *

september 11
17 first-graders
moment of silence skipped
for the immediacy of fresh strawberries
and the novelty of pencil sharpeners
(which may never wear off in this lifetime)

invisible principal over the intercom
(like in the old cartoons that reliably reproduced so many aspects of school particularly the cliched plots and precocious love lives)
reading bad poetry in a
flat lifeless voice
like shakespeare in junior high
with unenthused classmates
esoteric
and meaningless.
stephen asks me to sharp his pencil
and wonders why i
teacher stands there for several moments
staring blankly ahead
looking like she's about to cry
and then laughing quietly
at how absurd it all is.

come to the rug, children.
i want to tell you a story
of something that happened before you were born
to people you will never get to know
in a place you've never been.
(next will be a story of a
giant blue-green ball hurtling through space
and a giant yellow ball
they hold like lovers
el sol y la tierra
we love story time
especially doctor seuss!)

in the story it is a tuesday
just like today.
here is the sign for tuesday, make a t with your fingers and circle
tuesday
a cold bright tuesday just like today
it was september 11 that day
just like today.
september is a long word that starts with an s
and let's count to eleven
one two three four five six seven eight nine ten eleven
and in spanish
uno dos tres quatro cinco seis siete ocho nueve diez once
once upon a time
in the year 2001
before most of you were
born or when you were the tiniest infant
gnawing your fist and smiling to the delight of your parents.
on a day just like today
when little children just like you were counting the date
a bad thing happened.
a very bad thing.

bad people
very angry, nasty people
who perhaps did not have enough
people to love them
hurt our country
the United States of America
you know America in sign language, children
it is like a hug in a circle
show me, children.

our country was attacked
some airplanes were flown into buildings
important buildings
two tall ones in New York
which fell down
also a military building called the Pentagon
which has five sides
show me five fingers, children.
very good.
and the last plane
the good people took from the bad people
and flew into the ground instead of a building.
many, many people died.
the people in the planes and the buildings
and some of the firefighters who tried to save them
they were heros, do you know that word?
it means brave, brave people who did something amazing
like going into a building that is on fire and falling down
and rescuing people.
are you listening, children?
isaac, put your head down.

this was the biggest attack on American soil ever
which means
that it was really scary for us
really scary for your parents
who probably grabbed you
their babies
from the cradles
and held you close
and whispered soft comforting words to themselves
as they watched pictures on the tv
and cried or
just sat
watching.

the world is different now
you don't know because you don't remember
how it was before
you can't ever know the time when parents
worried about teething rings and toes
and not fiery explosions.
you weren't sitting there like i was
in a classroom on tuesday
(which was picture day and everyone
was dressed to the nines
it was two days after my birthday
and i had new clothes
i was looking sharp)
a whisper went around
that something terrible had happened
a disaster
an earthquake
a bomb
people were dying
where? new york
new york which was more magical and mystical to us than disneyland
new york with the giant apple and the statue of liberty
with the buildings that scraped the sky.

there was a moment of silence

kids fidgeted a little just like
you fidget today just like
we fidgeted when old men with gravelly voices told us of pearl harbor.
they speak of it like an old scar
the memory is still fresh.
september 11 is for me a cut
that it took a long time for me to realize was bleeding
like the scrape on the leg that i got from band
which i didn't feel at the time any more than a poke
but later my band teacher gasped and
pointed at when the blood was dripping to the floor.
i have a scar now, too.

but you children have no scars
you are young and
tiny and unblemished and i
truly hope no history is made in your lifetime
because it is a messy business
or so i have found.
we with memory scars will age and fade
recounting stories for
our childrens' school reports on historical events.
you will grow and replace us and get your own scars
falling off your bicycle.
you will remember the date as a
sad story and me
teacher crying a little when you're not looking
and so will move past me
into the future
without my fears and doubts.

this consoles me, children
on this big blue ball going around the big yellow ball
you have danced around six times
keep dancing, children
the slow beautiful waltz of time.

I decided today to go ahead and kick in 100 bucks to put a curtain across the back cabinets in classroom. See how it's open down below the counters....you can see it above.
I'm not liking seeing open papers and things. I have a third of it covered, on down the cabinet but it's curtain from another room I was in and not tailored for this room. (too bad the windows wash out in these pictures they are nice paintings)





So that green looks dorky. I think this Eric Carle fabric will be great.
By the way, I saw on his Eric Carle site, quite a few nice fabrics for sale. I thought, how brilliant for my room. And then I decided on one.
Slowly I'll make things for the room with the other fabric. I may order a few yards to put up on the wall and re-do somehow the word wall. And try and take on some decorating.

(Jack just yelled in to tell me that Bob Dylan is making a Christmas album with Must Be Santa among the tunes. Boy, that's challenging to consider.)

Anyway I think it'll look nice to put in cabinet covers.With that thought....
purchased 15 yards of this on sale on-line because I am never going into Jo-Ann fabrics again, rude treatment...and our wonderful Fabric Well closed. So I got excited thinking it'll be clean and look good.




Cute no?
On Flickr they have an Eric Carle Fabric group. I was surprised, but hey, nice ideas.
Cute:


And for those eye rolling I remind you I put a very, very, very high stake on the classroom environment, and that home to school connection. I really do follow Nell Noddings, and I value very highly that kind of room where it "talks" to you and your imagination.

So I'm thinking of making that up.
Hope it comes soon. I start school on Monday.

This turns out to be one of my favorite photo's from my trip to Catalina:

Today I'm 50.

Actually 50. I'm going to try to go to see my daughter in Pasadena.
Have dinner, get my son a haircut his funny present. I'm supposed to pick something out to get but....not sure what to want.

50.

It's Father's Day, so I call up my Dad.

Who Let the Dogs In?: Incredible Political Animals I Have Known by Molly Ivins

I am going to send him a Molly Ivins book for the day, probably this one, but I'm partial to a couple. (Okay, maybe I'm going to think about sending him the book until payday, I'm a teacher and you can only wish as a teacher or dream on...take a look at my donation list, and my second donation list, and my third donation list, and the fourth, for the classroom I'm mostly completely broke) so I tell him this. He pauses. He knows that I have pretty much one gear on this reporter/writer/superhero (and I need to say my mothers family, back, were Ivins) and that is basically.... if ever I think of Twain (and I dearly love his writing) I think of her. This book Dad would like for profiles he can appreciate in the context of his life.
Whitty ones.

I love it when the right wing states the left has no humor.
Believe me Ivins can put that in some context. Disabuse you of the notion with a foil and a rubber mallet. She'd be the first to tell you that you need a h of a lot of humor to get through what's going on in this country now. But just the same, besides recommending this book and refreshing my interest in her profile portraits that seem all the more brilliant given recent events, my father made a comment that just seemed one she'd have really enjoyed. So I'll share it.

He said, "Well I'm sure you have been thinking and reading about handling these prisoners in that Gitmo mess, just where we are sending them appears to be beyond some folks."
I gave him my one/two per state theory. Kinda like the Senate. He scoffed at that. "No, I know where they need to go, or a great deal of them need to go." So I thought about that...would he stick them on an atoll, or ??? I wasn't quick. So he stated- with his humor, "Obviously it's Texas, the Lonestar. I think they need to go to stay in the Lonestar, the state of the guy that gave us all the issues."
Now that made me honestly laugh outloud.
(He continued with a bit on Arnold that really did me in. He's stunned that the Governor of a state suggests without Fed Bailout money that Federal prisoners might be "released," saying further, " I bet that'll cost you all a load more than 180 million in the first day alone, does he realize who these folks are?" Yet another thing I'd love to read her discussing is the issues we are facing in CA. See I lost my humor. I'm still trying to understand Governor threats to "close down the government." Do they have things about what you are allowed to do in office oaths on stuff like refusing to do your job? )

But returning to Dad's idea of Texas hospitality, I thought of the way they might enjoy some free range ranching, seeing how the ranch was redecorated, trying a hand at clearing the bushes.But seriously, what a mess someone else gets to clean up. It just was a very funny image that Molly Ivins could have woven into something beautiful.

Of course she'd have had an even better comeback.
We lost a lot in her passing.