Microcosm

I got caught in a rainstorm yesterday as I was exploring downtown Denver. It started out with the familiar wind and threatening clouds, and in practically no time, the slow, fat drops had turned into a downpour. I considered braving the elements for the 20-minute walk to my bike and the 30-minute bike ride home until a bolt of lightning seared itself onto my eyeballs and chased me under the nearest shelter, which happened to be the ampitheater at the Civic Center park.

Quite a crowd had already gathered between the Greek columns, trying to avoid the rain gusting in from either side, a real microcosm of the Denver that was not at work at 4:30 on a Friday afternoon. I stood there, watching the storm and the random conglomeration of people it blew in, and getting rather wet until a white guy with a fauxhawk and a joint and dozens of tattoos informed me that I was welcome to stand in the shelter of one of the larger walls with his buddies, that they wouldn't bite. I laughed and politely declined, knowing that I couldn't even pretend to be part of their crowd, and made my way over to the shelter of the second wall, which seemed to be mainly populated by businessmen and tourists and homeless people, and where I felt I could be a bit less conspicuous.

Since the storm showed no signs of letting up, we got to talking (or rather yelling) to each other over the thunder. A cowboy-esque white guy, who seemingly had been sitting in the ampitheater since long before the rain started, told us all about the bizarre and unpredictable weather of Denver. Two guys from Italy, on their last day of a one-month tour of the American West, pointed at the flooded street and told me that they had come to see "the Denver River." There was a black businessman with a sopping dress shirt stuffed into his back pants pocket under his raincoat, and a homeless white man who looked a little perturbed that we had all interrupted his nap. A young Latino guy with his life and sleeping bag in a backpack came and asked if any of us had a cigarrette, and the homeless man sold him one for 11 cents. An older Latino man rode in on a bicycle with a stereo strapped to the back and played Bob Marley and the Barenaked Ladies while the rest of us tapped our feet to the music and chatted and watched and waited.

We watched people on the sidewalks sprinting from one building to another. We watched the druggies at the other wall run screaming into the fountain. We watched Colfax Avenue turn from a puddle to a stormy pond to a raging river. We all jumped at the same earsplitting thunderclaps and laughed sheepishly after looking up to make sure that the columns weren't crashing down around us.

All told, is was almost an hour before the rain died down enough for me to venture out to track down my bike and soggy helmet, but a fascinating hour it was, getting a glimpse into the lives of so many people I would've passed on the street with my eyes on the sidewalk on an ordinary day. Just one more reason to love thunderstorms.

The summer so far

I won't write any more about it here, but most of it's in the captions of two new Picasa albums of summer photos. Look at "Back East" and "Fun in the sun...and snow." Enjoy!

Dancing with Barack

I got to dance with Barack Obama today. At Machu Picchu. In French. As part of a French lesson, in fact. Never mind that "Obama" was really a Spanish teacher named Joshua, or that "Machu Picchu" was the staircase in the hotel conference room. It was still the highlight of my day...and I could tell you the entire story, in slightly imperfect French, without ever having studied the language before: "Il y avait une femme. Erin voulait danser avec Obama parce que Obama était intelligent et sexy..."

I'm in the middle of a three-day TPRS workshop in preparation for my new Spanish teaching job. (I don't think I've mentioned the job here before, which reminds me just how far behind I am in blogging, but I'll save that for a later date. If I tried to catch up on everything in one post, it would be scandalously long, and no one except my mom would read it.) TPRS is a relatively new language teaching methodology that stands for Teaching Proficiency through Reading and Storytelling. (For you other language educator junkies out there, it's no longer Total Physical Response Storytelling, although it still makes good use of TPR.)

TPRS is the main method I'll be expected to use in my classroom this coming school year, and I'm super-excited about that. In a nutshell, TPRS involves teaching a few new phrases or structures in the target language (in my case, Spanish) by using gestures or pictures or translation, and then creating a silly story, full of audience participation, using those structures and including celebrities and characters from the class. The students act out the story as it's invented, add funny details, and answer myriad questions about what's happening to get as many repetitions of the target structures as possible. The whole process is highly entertaining when it's done right, and it makes learning a language much more engaging than if you're doing worksheets and reading textbook dialogues.

During the practice sessions today, I got to teach a TPRS Khmer lesson to my group and had them understanding and answering questions--in Khmer--in no time. I'm sure my elementary kids will love this stuff. Heck, I love this stuff, and I'm a full-grown adult. When else would you get to disco with the President in Peru, or watch your classmate and Johnny Depp take the dance floor in McDonald's? Brilliant. I almost didn't notice that the teacher was speaking in French.

Spring Fling

This is a bit delayed, but photos from Spring Fling at school can be found here. As you can see, some of my favorite coworkers and I had entirely too much fun after the students left.

Breaking and entering

My house- and dog-sitting adventure this weekend turned out to be a bit more than I bargained for. I had been happily watching the house of a family from church without incident (other than the dog eating a melon-sized hole in the kitchen tablecloth) when I got a call from the family: they had just gotten word that their neighbor had been unexpectedly hospitalized, and would I be able to take care of her three dogs as well? Sure, no problem. I love dogs. I'm happy to help out in situations like these. No worries.

Half an hour later, I got a call from the daughter of my house-sitting family, who is the normal caretaker of dogs when the neighbor is gone. She asked me if I had a pen and paper to write down instructions for taking care of the dogs. Good thing I had a full sheet of paper, because the directions filled up the entire thing: how to get into the house, where to find the dogs' bowls and food and vitamins and pills, each dog's dietary and medical needs, a description of each dog so I would know who was who, the proper placement of each one's bowl throughout the house during mealtimes, and instructions for shoveling up their messes in the backyard. No kidding.

So I gathered up a bunch of plastic bags for poop collection, and set out for the neighbor's house. First task: enter the backyard. Not so easy without a key. My instructions told me I would have to use a ladder to reach over and unlatch the bolt from the inside, or climb the fence. I had no ladder. I looked around. Broad daylight, with cars driving past and people walking down the street...now or never. I stuck the poop bags in my pant leg to free my hands and hoisted myself up and clawed my way over the 6-food solid-wood-panel fence, trying to look as inconspicuous as possible as I fell into the backyard. I crouched there for a minute on the ground, half expecting to hear shouts and sirens coming my way. I've never felt so much like a criminal in my life. I checked to make sure I had the instruction sheet in my pocket to plead my case when the cops came. Nothing. Sigh of relief.

I finally decided it was safe to come out of hiding and walked up to the back door, which was supposedly left unlocked. Supposedly...#&@%. Now what was I supposed to do, climb back out and fall onto unsuspecting passers-by on the sidewalk and let the poor dogs starve? Then I noticed the doggy door. I couldn't help but laugh as visions of Home Alone came to mind. So in I went, worming my way through the hole and ending up on the laundry room floor in the fetal position, looking up to find a Saint Bernard twice my side drooling on my face, with two other dogs behind him. Pure love and bumbling puppiness. All trials and tribulations worth it. Maybe not worth the $10 I earned, but at least it makes a good story, eh?

Festa

By the way, photos from last weekend's Italian feast can be found here.

Buried treasure

Looks like our springtime snowstorms are finally over--fingers crossed--and the garden is really going to town. Even more exciting than the feeling of dirt under my fingernails while preparing the soil for planting was the hodgepodge of treasures I discovered while digging:


My housemates say I get way too excited about my newfound toys. I say that's impossible. Now the only treasures still buried are my carrots and onions. Checking their miniscule growth every day when I come home from school isn't quite as thrilling as digging up surprises, but it brings its own unique sense of satisfaction, and a connection to earth that I just don't get from horseshoes and rubber frogs. I never cease to be amazed by what miracles climb their way out of tiny seeds.