Gingerbread House Competition: Vote 2010

Happy holidays and welcome to our second annual gingerbread house decorating competition! I'll post more interesting tales about our holiday festivities later, but now is the time to vote. Please watch the video and click on the link below to vote on your favorite house. All votes must be cast by 11:59 pm on Tuesday Dec. 28, 2010.

Please vote by clicking vote now.

This is our last day of the contest. Please vote, whether you know us or not. Vote, vote, vote!!

Thanks for voting! I hope that you had a fabulous holiday filled with friends, family and food!

Sheri

Metamorphasis

The random person who stumbles across my blog might think that I am a voracious and gregarious person – someone who loves to be the center of attention and will always speak her mind. But this is not the case. In fact, I hate speaking in front of people and I often choose the passive-aggressive route in lieu of direct confrontation. This is even more ironic when you learn that I am a college-level English instructor. But my passive-aggressive tendencies are starting to fade.

In my first few years of teaching, I was petrified of calling out a student. I don’t mean calling on a student, but addressing the problem behavior that inevitably arises in classrooms (especially those filled with college students who haven’t learned that they’re no longer in high school and led by a female in her mid-twenties). For example, in my third year of teaching, I had a student who received a grade that she felt was lower than she deserved. She must have been even more passive-aggressive than me because, instead of talking to me about the grade, she became increasingly hostile and adversarial in and outside of my class. She would make snide comments in our incredibly small class (we only had 10 students) and then began to outright defy me at every turn. She even went so far as to have her boyfriend patrol the building we were in. When I finally decided I could take no more, our confrontation was even more hostile. So hostile, in fact, that two of my students (who, by the way, loved me) refused to close the classroom door and stood guard to make sure I would be okay. You would think this would teach me a lesson, and it did… but not the right one.

What I learned was to fear giving low grades – to fear sharing with students in a more direct way that they were not passing my class. Instead of learning to nip problem behavior in the bud, I learned to keep it to myself. Now, in my defense, students in college are expected to take more responsibility for their work and in knowing where they stand; however, my students (as I’ve mentioned) don’t quite realize they’ve entered the brand new world of adulthood and they expect me to hold their hand much more than I’m willing to do.

But this semester, I’ve noticed a clear change in myself. I have not only begun giving more regular “status reports” to my students (and many of these were not what the students expected), but I have also lost much of the pity and fear I had previously harbored when giving such negative information. In fact, I currently sit in my classroom awaiting a student for his final conference. This student is doing well, but the previous one was not. I had to sit with him only two feet from me, look in his eyes and tell him he did not pass my class. Not only that, but I had to tell him that the growth he thought he made in the class and the effort he professed to exert was not near enough for college. In the past, I would have averted my eyes, apologized for the low score on his portfolio, or kowtowed to requests to turn in last minute work for that barely passing grade. But not this semester. Today, I looked him right in the eye and told him he could not pass my class. And you know what? The world didn’t end. He didn’t cry or even try to hit me. And as he walked out my door I realized that, without even trying, I have morphed into this confidently assertive teacher I never thought I’d be. Go figure.

Forbidden Fruit

Sorry I haven’t posted in a while. First, I was sick. Then, the holidays and semester’s end took over and I became buried in essays. Hopefully this will make up for the loss.

I am pleased to say that this awkward moment came only in part by my own doing.

My sister came to stay with us a few weeks ago. One night, the three of us along with a friend were lounging around our living room trying to find something good to watch on Netflix Instant. We ran across this movie that I had seen listed a million times, but had never had the courage to watch: Teeth. I made the mistake of mentioning this fact. The brief synopsis of Teeth simply states that a young girl finds through an encounter of sexual abuse that her vagina has teeth. Now perhaps you understand my fascination and repulsion. Everyone was shocked. We giggled a little and my husband lingered a little longer than normal on the movie’s image. My sister, however, was jokingly insistent about watching it and my husband, ever ready to indulge a whim, decided to hit play.

Needless to say, the movie was horrible. It was one of those so-cheesy-you-can’t-believe-someone-actually-produced-it kinds of things. The girl is an unofficial spokeswoman for a faith-based high school abstinence campaign… and so is the boy. And yet, we continued to watch. Cheesy scene after cheesy scene, our eyes remained glued to the screen. Our friend even pulled up some pillows and created a little nest on the floor, surrounded by our two Corgis. We joked about turning it off, but something prevented it. We were all hoping for some sort of payoff. You can’t make a movie about a vagina with teeth without some sort of good payoff, right?

And so we watched on. In fact, it wasn’t until almost an hour of sappy, melodramatic teen wooing with Christian boundaries and bizarre stepfamily issues had passed until we got it. Major pay off! (I’ll warn you here. There is major spoilage coming up.) In a moment of passion in a secluded cavern under a waterfall (yup, I said cheesy) romance turns ugly when the heroine rejects her suitor. He turns rapist and knocks her unconscious. The romantic that he is, the boy figures he’ll enjoy her even when she’s out cold. But he’s in for a surprise.

At this point, we’re all making predictions. Will they actually do it? What will they show? Is this what we’ve been waiting for? Should we just turn it off? The anticipation is tangible.

Then, it happens. Just as little Casanova nestles in for some not-so-love-making, the girl wakes up… and so does her vagina… and they’re both pissed! Next thing you know, everyone is screaming and there’s a prosthetic penis lying beside him on the cavern floor and he is looking quite eunuch-esque. At this point, the guys in the room are looking a little piqued and my sister and I are rolling on the floor. After a few minutes of hysteria, gasps and snide comments, my husband turned off the TV.  

I can’t tell you how the story ends, but I do know that Eve Ensler is not going to be including this jewel in her next revision of The Vagina Monologues. And be careful who you share this story with because your yap might land you right in the middle of a Teeth screening of your own.

Little Pumpkin

This last weekend, I attended a friend’s wedding. It was outdoors on a beautiful fall day and they took advantage of the season by using a harvest/Nightmare Before Christmas theme. Needless to say, there were pumpkins everywhere. We chose a random table and, when a friend and groomsman joined us later, we began talking about this perfect little pumpkin that was our table’s décor. He told me that this particular little pumpkin was the bride’s favorite. In fact, she liked it so much that he was surprised it actually made its intended role as a harvest centerpiece. We then decided the best plan of action would be to steal it in order to present it to the bride upon her return. Then, the groomsman left.

I took up the mantle and snuck the pumpkin into my purse; but once I got home, this little gourd began to take on a life of her own. She began acting strangely… and this is the story I sent to the groomsmen.

Once upon a time, there was a pumpkin…

 When she arrived to her foster home, she met a handsome fellow gourd, Spotty.

 One night, I found Princess looking more lovely than usual. 

Lo and behold, a few days later...

 I think there's been some pumpkin bumpin' goin' on. Spotty was looking a little frisky on Sunday.

 Today, Princess heard of the upcoming holiday and thought she would get into the Halloween spirit.

 I applauded her efforts, but told her about her true purpose: to bring a smile to a newlywed couple. 

I think she may have gotten the wrong impression.

The newlyweds are still on their honeymoon, but the bride will, in fact, receive her little “Princess” upon her return. And they’ll live happily ever after.

The Birds & the Bees

I am one of the lucky people who has known her best friend since she was five years old. I won’t tell you how many years exactly we’ve been friends, but it’s been a while. Let’s leave it at that. And nine years ago, that friend had a baby, Callan. I was not (and still am not) a big fan of children, but I’ve made an exception for this one and have donned the title of “Auntie.” But this post is not about long friendships or overcoming fears… it’s about double entendres.

Like many people who are around children, my friend Christy and I speak in several different languages – some literally different, like Spanish, and others simply more complex versions of our own – to try to evade the increasingly intelligent little ears of her son. This has become increasingly difficult (as he’s a smart little bugger) over the years, but still we persist. And, like so many people who have been friends as long as we have, sometimes we find stupid and sometimes dirty things quite humorous. Hence, the problem.

Callan recently started taekwando lessons with a man called Master Johnson. The mature adults that we are, we could barely refrain from snickering when he introduced himself. Callan, of course, didn’t know any better. Our little inside joke lasted for several weeks and we were, of course, very polite and understanding around the Master himself. (It’s certainly not his fault and he’s a very nice man – not deserving of any kind of teasing.) But one day, one thing lead to another and Christy began speaking in Spanish to me about a friend’s sexual exploits. We giggled (again, we’re soooo very mature) and Callan became increasingly agitated by our code.

We eventually distracted him, but somehow the subject turned to Hooters and how kids at Callan’s school were allowed to wear Hooters T-shirts. Then, I opened my yap and said, “Yeah, it’s just like those Big Johnson shirts guys used to wear when we were in school.” Oops. Our sweet little nine year old didn’t understand that double entendres and, of course, wanted an explanation. Now, mind you, his mother had skirted around her early discussion of sexual exploits with the classic “It’s not appropriate for you,” but here she piped up and said, “You had to open your mouth. Explain it, Auntie!” Now, I have to note that Callan has already experienced “the talk” and he and Christy are quite open about these things, but Auntie has not been a part of these conversations. And Auntie has no children to whom “the talk” must be given. So, Auntie was a little awkward… and a little embarrassed… but I think I did all right. No tears shed and only a modicum of blushing and giggles. Now, we just have to hope that Callan never makes the connection between Auntie’s “Big Johnson” speech and poor Master Johnson at taekwando.

Meet Gabriel

Once in a while, you meet a person who really inspires you. Someone who has done amazing things and has lived what one might call a life less ordinary. This week, I met one of these people. His name is Gabriel.

On Monday, Gabriel came into our Writing Center for some help revising a memoir he was writing for a Chicano Lit class. I didn’t think much of it and sat down to read his draft. The story felt like a partially completed puzzle – you could tell the picture would be amazingly beautiful, but there were gaps and pieces still missing. I began to ask him questions to help him learn to develop the paragraphs and connect the ideas, but I ended up learning just as much as he did. Instead of having a tutorial session, our interaction turned to a series of vignettes about his life – from losing pride in his Mexican heritage because of his drunken father’s escapades, to the history of French schools in Mexico, to Romance languages and psychology. This sweet, nondescript little man had escaped his dysfunctional family in Mexico by following an educational path all the way to Paris, France. The more we spoke and explored his memoir, the more amazing stories poured from his mouth. I knew I was supposed to focus on his essay, but I couldn’t shut my yap. I had to keep asking questions and every time I did, he would wave his hand and lay it on my arm, look me in the eye, and share a piece of his history with me. We spent only 30 minutes together, but I felt refreshed for the entire day.

Today, I returned to the Writing Center, hoping to find Gabriel waiting for me. I learned from another tutor that he had just left. That tutor had recently worked with Gabriel, too, and we began sharing the pieces of his story and about our interactions together. Then another tutor joined our conversation and we were all amazed by how much Gabriel had inspired us this week. Although he had come into the Writing Center looking for our help, Gabriel gave so much to everyone who worked with him. I learned on Monday that he is an aspiring writer and he hopes to write and publish his memoir. I wish him all the luck in the world and hope that we are among many who get to hear his amazing story.

Reminisce

I know that there are some cultures who believe you shouldn’t speak of the dead – that it will bring bad spirits upon you. I think it is quite the opposite. This evening, I spent a great long dinner with my mom and our family friend, Wendy, whose mother (my mom’s best friend) passed away 15 years ago from breast cancer. It had been several years since we had been together and, honestly, many more since we had really sat down to talk. It was a great evening. There is such comfort in good friends who have shared common joys and sorrows. I believe that Americans, as a whole, feel compelled to hide their emotions and simply move on after a personal loss. And there’s this idea that if we talk about it, emotions will emerge and all hell will break lose. But that’s a lie, pure and simple. It is fear of vulnerability and it causes us to miss out on some amazing moments.

This evening, the beautiful patio of Veni Vidi Vici’s was a place of much reminiscing, a few teary eyes, and a lot of great heart-felt laughs. I believe it is so important for us to keep our yaps open and to remember all of those who have impacted our lives. Far from dreading evil spirits, I now feel Nancy’s presence (Wendy’s mother) more than I have in years. Stories of old microwaves, wallpaper trees, 1970’s furniture, impractical yet sentimental clothing, and deathbed struggles made her almost real again for just one evening. I knew words were powerful, but I often forget their ability to construct more than sentences. In this case, they constructed memory, emotion, connection, and, in so many ways, a person.

At the risk of sounding maudlin and a little cheesy, I hope that this inspires you to open up a photo album of a loved one you have lost. Sit around drinking good wine with friends and family, share stories and see how tangible your own memories can be.

Irish Coffee

I come from a very vocal family and I love to engage others when I'm out and about. My husband knows this and thinks that I sometimes cross a line. I disagree. However, this time my inquiries were a little awkward...

This summer, my husband and I visited Portland, OR and discovered a restaurant, Huber's.  It is the oldest in Portland and we though, what the heck, let's give it a go! It's a very old world-feeling place with dark wood and old black and white photos - just the sort of thing we love. The waitress comes over and we (well... I) quickly let her know it's our first time and she starts to fill us in on the specialties of the house, one of which is Irish Coffee. It's not what you're thinking. It's a dinner-and-a-show-style pouring of coffee and various liqueurs, along with a setting fire of the rim of the glass, all table-side. The guy who does it has been there for 25-30 years. Sounded awesome, so we ordered it. 

When the guy comes to the table, I am already interested in his story and want to hear more. So, I ask, "What keeps you here?" In my mind, the response is a passionate story about a sense of tradition, loving the extravagance and showmanship of this very unique craft, of owning a little piece of history. My husband, on the other hand, sees an embarrassing train wreck just ahead. The guy looks at my bright and inquiring eyes and says, "I can't do much else. This isn't a very marketable skill." Queue images of crashing planes, breaking hearts and plummeting sound effects. Needless to say, the show itself was amazing, my husband was embarrassed, I was disheartened, and the guy got a really big tip.