Tuesday Tidbits

• Maybe I change my mind about being on "The View". I just thought about what I'd look like when I hear nerve-grating assertions that kill my brain cells. As my students keep telling me, my face immediately tells whatever I'm thinking when people talk to me. Can you imagine? Of course, "The View" can still call me for a guest spot.
• I just saw a teaser for "Jeopardy" that set up the game as a sports event. What if we really did have that much fanfare for an intellectual exercise?
• In the continuing saga of television in our house, we recently watched the episode of "Little House on the Prairie" when Charles loses a bunch of money because something happens with the bank. They had planned to pay off a charge account at the Olsen's store, wanting both to release themselves from debt and to give the finger to Harriet Olsen and her self-righteous elitism. When Nellie mimics her mother's stinky attitude (saying that Charles stinks from working with the horses) Laura repeats her father: "Hard-working people only smell bad to people who have nothing else to do but stick their noses in the air."
• Know what else I love, love, love? After Laura repeats her father's sentiment, she says, "And Nellie Olsen, every time you stick your nose in the air around me, it's gonna get punched!" That girl has spunk!
• And one more thing: where is this appreciation for the dignity of work--all kinds of work--now? I hear words like "work ethic" being thrown around a lot, but it too often sounds like Harriet Olsen is saying them.
• Okay, one more: I'm watching the episode when Laura and Mary first go to school (don't look at the time stamp--the children are in school, so I'm . . . previewing it for them) and Nellie snidely calls them "country girls" aloud in class. Ms. Beadle gives her a sharp look but doesn't say anything. I had a flashback of when a boy told me, loudly and in front of everyone, to "go back to Africa"; the teacher in that class also didn't do much more than give him a look.
• The Baby Boy told his father a secret last night that he didn't want to share with me. I was so pleased that I was able to get him to tell me, too, although it took about 20 minutes of gentle prodding about how secrets are not good and he could always tell mommy anything and I wanted to know all about what he's thinking. He started and stopped several times, then finally whispered in my ear that all of the children thought the teacher's new hairstyle was really, really pretty; he thought so, too. I felt all fuzzy that he trusted me with his secret crush on his teacher.