Thanks for coming! It’s been great having you!

When Ben has decided that it is time for overnight guests to go, he packs their bags, brings them downstairs, stands by the door, and says, “Well, thanks for coming. It’s been great having you.” While I find this terribly embarrassing, and would like to assure anyone that has ever stayed at our house that his actions do not reflect the feelings of the management, it seems that Ben may be offering consultative services to my place of employment.

District employees were assigned numbered parking spaces years ago to avoid confusion in case of emergency. Last summer, I was working at school, getting my classroom ready for the year, when the maintenance crew painted over my parking spot number with the VISITOR stencil while my car was parked there. Not only was I not notified, I was not issued a new spot. (Only after another displaced teacher asked where we were supposed to park, were we given the old visitors’ spots.) I tried to interpret this move from different angles. If the change was considered of such little importance that I need not be notified, then it was nothing more than bad form. I don’t have too much emotional investment in where I park. If, however, the district is saying, “Well, thanks for coming. It’s been great having you,” then hats off to the mastermind of this subtle nudge into retirement!

Speaking of which…

One evening in September while we were sitting on our front porch, Phil began a conversation with, “I’ve been crunching the numbers…” Those of you unfortunate enough to have ever had a financial discussion with me know that my attention span for the topic is extremely slim. Before he could even finish his sentence, the thought bubble over my head was, “Crunching the numbers? I’ll bet they tasted like celery with bleu cheese!” The conclusion to his sentence brought me right back, though. “…and if you want to retire this year, it’s an option.”

So, if you have noticed that many of my recent posts seem to be more about my teaching than Ben’s cooking, you will now understand why. I am having a terrific last year, and after a full and satisfying career, I am in reflection mode. I have a wonderful class this year and plan to go out on a high note. Of course, I love my classes every year, even the challenging ones. There is something about slogging through the trenches with a group that bonds you in a way that is hard to describe to non-teachers. Sometimes, though (say 3 times in a 38 year career) you have a class that makes you smile on the way to work because you can’t wait to tell them something that you know will make them laugh or wonder. They walk into the classroom in the morning, and you can’t believe your good fortune that these are the people you get to spend your day with. That is my class this year.

This week, following Ben (Franklin’s) principle that visitors and fish stink after three days, we decided to greet what we hope is spring with some grilled fish. No time to stink as it was both purchased and prepared on Saturday. Thanks for coming, winter. It’s been great having you.

What does one serve with grilled catfish and mango salsa? For reasons I can’t explain, I decided that flatbread (or “pretty bread” as Ben called it the last time we made it) would be just the thing, but only if I could attempt to render the Mona Lisa with toppings, a Mona Lisa Pizza, if you will. A special thanks to our friend Marleni, whose generous gift of delicious homemade pesto gave our masterpiece a background. Ben’s contribution was suggesting that I give the Mona Lisa boogers. While I tried to go a different direction, you can see that the baking process was hard on her looks. Her eye migrated south and her lip north, so that she seems to be wearing a good-natured smirk that says, “This isn’t how I saw my day going, but what are you going to do?”

Some have warned that I will be bored in retirement. Of course, these may be the same people who, when I told them I was writing a play about the 13 original colonies for my classes to perform, suggested that I have AI do it. I mean, AI has its place (having come up with the phrase “full and satisfying career” for my retirement letter, for instance) but anyone who thinks I would want to circumvent the creative process just doesn’t know me at all! As long as there are books to read (or write) and classic masterpieces to be poorly rendered in pepperoni and pesto on flatbread, I’ll be fine. Thanks for coming, teaching career! It’s been great having you!