Leaves Be Gone

Lowlights and highlights from our road clean-up day with Morganton TAASC:

*The 16 year old "project manager" saying to a 12 year old, "Do you think you're too pretty to work? I beg to differ."

*One of the older high school kids eating the best things out of one of our 8th grader's lunch.

*Finishing the entire project.

*Spending the day outside after a night of camping in chilly air.

*Talking with Freya, who is one of my favorite Asheville TAASC kids.

She is spunky, honest, and thoughtful; I enjoyed hearing about the Key School students at the Carolina Day School being drilled in Scrabble; her dogs, cats, and brothers; and her love of backpacking.

* Seeing our quirky/kind/slightly lazy kids around the cliquey/macho/cool Morganton kids.

* Finally, meeting a little kid who is called "Subway" because, in his words, "My dad owns all of the Subway restaurants in Burke County!"

Pato

We have a TAASC trip tomorrow (working with the Morganton "old school" kids) cleaning out ditches in the national forest and camping. The founder of TAASC (who is "old school" himself) suggested tools for our 12-15 year olds to bring such as rakes and leaf blowers with ear protection. I told them about the trip and gear list at our weekly meeting tonight.

One of them gasped, "You mean we get to bring power tools?"

I think I replied something like, "We can do that when we go on trips with the Morganton kids."

(I'm trying to get them to like those other kids before we even meet, obviously to prevent gang wars between Asheville and Morganton.)

**Sidenote that will hopefully make sense a bit later: Pato means duck in Spanish. When I was studying in Venezuela, my nine-year old host sister made me some pictures of different animals. I think she thought that I needed all of the help I could get. Below is the pato picture. She put a pata (girl duck) on there, too. She signed the top, Alice Rojas, but it's a bit hard to see.

I think conejo, which means rabbit, could also be a bad word if you call someone it. I don't know if pato is also a bad word, but I think it should mean something like wimp or wuss.***

If so, when those sweet TAASC kids asked about the power tools (or when they complain about minor discomfort), I'd add, "Don't be such patos! What will the Morganton kids think?" A little cool kid peer pressure is great. I read it in some education textbook somewhere.

Later in that meeting, we started watching Touching the Void. As we were talking about crampons, ice axes, and summiting "alpine style" throughout the movie, I asked some of them if they'd like to do a mountaineering trip. They replied, "Do you see how cold that is?!" As if to say, "Why would we do that when we can sit here and watch a movie about it?" Ahh, the fine art of armchair mountaineering. Be careful of the altitude sickness, patos.

This movie is rated R for the language. Don't worry, parents, I sat with my hand on the mute buttom for when one of the climbers falls and his leg snaps. He drops the f-bomb a lot. But really, parents, would you be screaming, "Dang! Ouch!" if the bottom part of your leg rammed up into the top part?

When the kids saw the rating, one of them asked, "Are you allowed to show us this?"

I replied, "Whateva, I do what I want." As long as they don't tell their folks about it...

I'm a pato, too.

Here are some more of my host sister's pictures. The conejo isn't the bad conejo. Sapo, which means toad, is on the same picture with the girl and boy frogs. I think sapo should mean sucker... like someone who is easily duped. She even drew the sapo to look like a sucka. These are all rated G:

Freedom Writers. Freedom Watching (bad movies).

The other day, my mom told me how she was watching Freedom Writers on tv (most likely while folding laundry or going through months worth of newspapers that she hasn't had time to read...).

Supposedly, Dad watched it for a minute and commented about how histrionic it was. I had to laugh when I heard this because I got sucked into watching it while staying at a friend's house. I pretended like I was doing other things and too busy to watch, but then I'd always cycle back to ask for an update. I used to do this all of the time when my sister would watch movies like Pride and Prejudice with Colin Firth. She'd ask, "Katie, why don't you just watch it?" And then I'd pretend that I was above it.

To quell this pattern of snobbery, when my friend asked, "Katie, why don't you just watch Freedom Writers with me?" I answered, "Okay, but just for a minute." He snapped this photo of me 45 minutes later:
I think my picture explains how I wasn't really into that movie at all... just walking by the room on my way to read some Milton...

Although it doesn't make my top movies of the century, it was mildly entertaining. Actually, when I walk by little cubbie holes in Asheville, I wonder if some at-risk teenager is writing in a notebook in there. There aren't that many little cubbies that I've found, though.

I wonder if my mom could catch my brilliant dad with an expression like that one while watching Save the Last Dance or The First Wives Club. It's good to put your brow a little lower at times. But, as my good friend from college pointed out, a little snobbery is important in life. It's like getting the best icing on your cinnamon roll.