Thank you for your kind words about the possibility of a book. A book about this stuff would assuredly get me fired–I’ll be happy to tell you why if you’re interested. Though I think I’m far enough away from home here in virtual Tunis to post a few school vignettes, with your kind-hearted indulgence. If it becomes wearisome let me know–I’m older than you and hence have no ego. It’s not my intention to hijack your blog.

I suspect you’re a very good editor–certainly you write well and in the kinkiness that is a language not your own. Feel free to chop this stuff up for final posting as you see fit, if indeed any of it seems to fit.

This offering is from my archives, “Cold Tales Well Told.” (Note: some mature content; parental discretion advised. Don’t let Adam read it! ) This stuff happened about two to three years ago:
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With palsied hand, he sips his early morning coffee. Today is Saturday; there is no school today.

We had a field trip to a farm yesterday. It was not the sort of field trip I used to go on when I was in school.

The farm has a petting zoo. Of the more memorable human-animal encounters of the day were Cory and Lambert. Cory’s this hulking junior Neanderthal of a blond twelve year-old with a brutish face and mean little pig eyes. His IQ is measurable.

Cory decided to face off with an older male llama—“Lambert,” read the sign on his fence—throwing pine cones at him. Lambert immediately counterattacked, scoring a direct hit of viscous ungulate spittle to Cory’s face. (Lambert brayed first–fair warning!)

Cory, bright kid that he is, barraged Lambert with more pine cones. Lambert took a running start, soared over the fence and charged Cory. Bellowing “Shit!” Cory took off on his massive legs across the cleared fields, north toward Georgia, Lambert in pursuit. (Cory was eventually rescued by farm workers, who said it was good Cory hadn’t pissed off the emu. Emus take no prisoners.) http://scs.web.elte.hu/Kepek/fun/emu.jpg

DJ–little freckle-faced boy-next-door 10 year-old with a penchant for arson–was bitten by Gertrude the Pig, and I’m sure for good reason, though that was not what his mother was told. DJ sports a yarmulke, so how his parents resolved what must have been a spiritual crisis for the family I don’t know, though maybe their rabbi had to be consulted.

The touch football game was typified by unsportsmanlike conduct and ended abruptly following an act of bestial savagery: Zack tried to bite off Paul’s ear. (It is possible that Paul first kneed him in the groin.) Paul’s wound was dressed by the school nurse who was with us. (There were fifty of us. A mobile field hospital would’ve been more prudent.)

When it was time to go, little eight year-old Nancy refused to follow staff direction and vacate her eyrie atop the playground’s wooden fort. Her redoubt was stormed and she was carried lovingly off to the bus by staff Sherpas, kicking, biting and loudly expressing her displeasure.

The school bus in front of us backfired down most of the long dirt road back to the main highway. Diesel fumes, dust, soot and the smell of fresh manure wafted in through the open windows. Cory vomited.

We reached the school with less than an hour left to the school day. It was decided, though not by the teachers, to have Physical Education, featuring rock climbing up a plastic rock climbing wall in the gym.

We were rejoined for this event by Donny, who had refused to go on the field trip and had spent the day in the Time Out room, after telling our vice principal she was a harlot who had sexual relations of a masculine nature with her mother. (Not a direct quote.) Donny instead conducted his own PE, placing the still-queasy Cory in a stranglehold. Discipline Response Team members arrived and hauled Donny back to Time Out, though by then Cory had turned an alarming blue.

On the way to buses, Terry, whose lack of verbalization had been of concern to staff, took a death grip worthy of a Titanic passenger on a railing and wouldn’t budge. As I was alone and had to escort other students to their buses, I pried Terry loose and dragged him along, at which point Terry, gods be praised! found his voice.

All students got on buses, possibly the right ones, and went off into the afternoon, happy, contented and filled with energy, though Cory looked at bit wan.

Homeward bound buses sometimes bring surprises that last into the next day, a gift that keeps on giving. One day on a p.m. bus, one of our students threatened to kill another student and her family, then come to school next day with an assault rife and “start walkin’.” (The male student said it was all the fault of the female student for having refused him a brief, bus-board sexual favor. “What’s wrong with her? I asked, didn’t I?!” He’s never handle rejection well.)

Arriving at school next morning, the male student’s bus was met by police, teachers, Response Team and many administrators, and he was removed to a place of safety. (The female student was already there with her parents.)

I arrived home at 4 p.m. the day of our outing, had a cup of green tea and went to bed. “What’s wrong with you?” asked my wife. “You spent the day on a field trip! You need to exercise more.”

Perhaps another cup of coffee now, and a Vivaldi concerti grosso–he was a school teacher–though first I should check my blood pressure.
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You know, you’ve always been on my mind, and I always remember you and Sanad and think of what you’ve been through in the first months of having your son. I actually remember what you once wrote about Sanad crying for hours for no reason and that you ended up crying too, and called Duri and then you both fell asleep So you can say you’re kind of a reference to me, or better say an idol

Thanks a million for the links for both me and MMM. I kissed Adam for you, make sure you kiss Sanad for me. Take care and hope to see you soon.

Jimbo,
OH MY GOD! that part about your daughter and then the school’s annual tradition made me laugh like crazy!
May God be by your side
You know, if I were you, I’d seriously think of writing a book about the school’s incidents that you go through! (give it a thought)

As for Nin’s blog, well, maybe she herself didn’t write anything, but sometimes a blogger might be linking to another blogger who’s being banned and so automatically (s)he gets banned as well!
Take care and keep those school stories coming

Hmmm. Nin’s is the most innocuous, politically unconcerned, artistic of websites. (Hard to tell, but she may be Eurasian, of Indonesian and Dutch parentage. In terms of religion…she seems to be aware that there are religions. ) Perhaps they’re blocking Indonesia? I’ll tell her she’s banned in Tunisia–if she writes about it, I’ll send it to you. Somehow.

Our own security services are no doubt faithful readers of your blog, you know. The FBI has a very large and technically sophisticated operation that’s always surfing about, looking for you-know-who. Indeed, we’ve a full-employment security economy in Washington. If the Democratic Congress starts cutting the Homeland Security budget, I don’t know what’ll happen to all those McMansions–cloned, very large homes cuddled next to each other–that’ve sprung up everywhere there since 9/11. (One man’s misfortune is often another’s good fortune.) Typically, hollow prosperity is transient prosperity.

Did you see where the source of the Nile is drying up?

Ah! Time to go to my class. Yesterday, my students had their annual Christmas fight, a Yuletide tradition. Other schools have Christmas plays and parents come. Us, we have a Christmas’ fight and the police come pouring in. We’re in lockdown today, so they’re not going anywhere, though I should be able to sneak some pizzas for them past The Management. I’ve two kids in homeless shelters; no need to make things worse than they are. (Holidays are the most depressing time of the year for some, aren’t they?)

Reminded me of (many) similar incidents with me and Sanad - ha ha ha - there’s one very recent picture of us both asleep on the couch on my blog..

Please send me more pictures by email of your little one.. i can’t wait to see what he looks like..

And yes - I remember the exact day that sleep became so elusive for me.. August 24, 2004..

Don’t mean to freak you out - but I LITERALLY have not had a full-night’s sleep since then Even when Sanad sleeps just fine, my mommy-mind never stops working..

My best to MMM and Baby Adam.. I can’t wait to meet him in person and bite his cheeks till they’re red..

I know you love blogs and babies - so here are some good ones:

http://www.thespecialproject.com
http://www.dooce.com
http://www.dot-moms.com

and for MMM - http://www.daddytypes.com

Love,
Dalia

As for my hate emails, yep, thank God, they dropped. And I wish that you and your family will lead a happy life and be always healthy and safe wherever you are.

Now to Nin’s blog, you got me so curious, but the sad fact is -and I’m extremely embarrassed to say this- it’s another blocked blog in this country. I wonder what could she have written so that it’s clocked here what a shame I can’t enjoy her invented dialect and her intelligence!

And finally, I’m glad to wish you one big happy Merry Christmas, try to rest, enjoy yourself and have special time with your family

Despite threats to move to Canada, we haven’t yet. It has wonderful things like national health insurance, and far fewer heavily-armed crazies than its nearest southern neighbor. (It seems as though since the recent elections here that many of our more right-wing fanatics have slipped back beneath the rocks from whence they slithered just after 9/11. Or maybe they’re watching and biding their time. Hopefully your hate mail has dropped off?)

Well, that link I sent you works from here, and I did use the one I left on your blog. Nin’s website is frequently busy and exceeds its bandwidth, so it’s often just a matter of repeatedly trying. Might want to try when most of North America’s asleep. (As I recall, she’s gotten 145,000 visitors over the last six years. That’s more hits than some published books have readers.) Nin could benefit from web hosting, but I suspect Indonesian ghost writers probably aren’t paid heaps of money. I just read some more of her biographical stuff–confirms me in my opinion thats she’s drop-dead brilliant. I even tried my hand at writing as she does. Briefly. Despite my years spent as a galley slave of various New York publishers, I just can’t do it. She’s very much invented her own English dialect–to do it well, I’d have to be her. (And she has such a subtle way of turning an attacker’s nastiness aside, and making him look like idiot, yet utterly without malice–it’s like watching some Japanese aikido master use an opponent’s strength and rage against him. Like you, I just trade them blow for virtual blow. Hers is undoubtedly the wiser way. Sigh. I must sit under Nin’s virtual banyan tree and try to learn wisdom. )

Though I lack a real banyan tree, I do have a gigantic fichus tree out back and go now to sit beneath it and read a decent novel.

Not being big on Christmas, it’s delightful, Eman, to know someone to whom I don’t feel obligated to wish a Merry Christmas.

Cheers

I got really scared of this woman too, lol!

As for the link you sent me, I got all excited as it sounds really interesting, but sadly it didn’t want to open. Are you sure of the address?

Is colic also an issue, that is, stomach gas, which is quite common in kids Adam’s age? (The other horror being ear infections, easily knocked down by any of the penicillin family. We used a liquid one–bubble gum flavored. )

Years ago in New York there was an editor at an upscale publishing house, a woman with a great deal of family money. Whenever she met a new author, she’d do as her psychiatrist had encouraged her to do as part of the “therapeutic milieu”: she’d relate to her unsuspecting lunch guest how, as a young mother, her baby’s constant crying had driven her to kill the child with a hammer. Though she’s now answered to a court higher than any of the ones she slipped through while alive, I’ll never forget my horror of that woman.

In a cheerier vein, here’s a blog spot employing the zaniest English I’ve ever encountered! It belongs to a woman in Java and it and her writing are an art form–sort of cyberpunk, New Age with a glowing intelligence beneath it. It seems a carefully crafted dialect she’s created and I suspect she could switch to standard, boring English in an instant. But this is so much more fun. She gets a ton of traffic. (Warning! It’s easy to wander lost through her site, like an endless series of unmapped caverns. I really like the way she eviscerates condescending twits with whom she sometimes chats.)

http://www.geocities.com/rainforestwind/corner.htm

I’ve been ordered to go paint the ceiling trim.

Cheers.

Jimbo, lol, only parents could understand the desperation that will make you create any possible way to put your baby to sleep and stop the crying nightmare
Loved the link, thanks, we’re trying to get one and I will make sure to send it to every parent I know