September does not seem to know that summer’s glory days are supposed to be over. Complain, complain when it’s hot in September should be the refrain! It is hot each year in Los Angeles. I remember when we moved back to California from Florida and I had gotten a job at Franklin High School in Highland Park. The school, at that time, was a four track school and my job was on “B” track in one of the buildings that was not yet air conditioned.
There is nothing like teaching youngsters during July, August, and early September in high school who’ve had gym the previous period. The aroma is high value. One’s nose becomes inured to the scent. I remember that I cheated and brought in 3 fans from home (Apparently there was a rule that fans had to be of a particular type that the school district had approved. These were unavailable at the school). I put each fan in a corner of the room saving the fourth corner for where my desk was. Each of the three rotated towards me creating a marvelous air current that made one’s hair stand up and salute. The students finally figured out where to sit according to where the fans rotated. It was probably the most quiet room in the building. The youngsters kind of slumped towards their desktops and did their work. We went off track for the remainder of September and October. I was grateful. When we got back it was a cool fall.
The funniest part of being assigned to “B” track was that it had a bifurcated semester. Unfortunately, no one had explained that to me. I had been teaching gifted and highly gifted 4th graders at a one track elementary school in Palm Beach County in Florida and had no idea what tracks were. My high school assignment was economics and civics. I figured that I had to teach economics before the track break and civics after the break. Well, that was wrong. The youngsters were happy enough. We did a good job of getting through the material, and in the second semester -- the real one -- we discussed career choices, opening banking accounts, and the like since we had essentially finished the required material. It was probably one of my favorite mistakes in my teaching career--it was real life economics the second semester.
On an entirely different note, I hope that you’ve noticed the changes Tahlia and I made to the website. Besides the color scheme and font changes, we added the Mystery section and made the Book Reviews a separate section. The Newsletter and Mystery chapter are published the first of each month, the Blog is the tenth of each month, the Book Reviews are the fifteenth of each month, and the Recipe that goes with the book of the month is published on the twentieth. We’re hoping that even if you don’t attend a meeting there’s something on the website that you’ll enjoy. We’d love to hear from you. If there’s something that you’d like to add, change, expand, etc., let us know. We also have Instagram, Facebook, and Pinterest sites. Check us out. I have to admit that I’ve been more active on Pinterest and Instagram than Facebook, but I promise to fix that. All of the sites are under A Cozy Death.
Sign up for our meeting on September 27th. We’re discussing The Angels of Venice. In October we’re discussing Sparkling Cyanide. The meeting is October 25th. We hope to see you at all of our meetings! Come, it’s a fun hour on a Sunday.
See you soon,
Karin