:::behind the orange curtain

i cannot forget where i was born. AIDS in orange county is a health care concern. i hope many orange countians will participate in AIDS walk orange county next summer.

:::on television

for those of us in the la basin, this weekend kcal channel 9 will be airing "heroes . . . 20 years with AIDS project los angeles" hosted by tom hanks. according to the press release, it's about the 20 year history of AIDS project los angeles and a commemoration of world AIDS day. try to tune in at 7pm (saturday) on channel 9.


in case you miss it, kcbs channel 2 will repeat the show at 12:45pm on sunday, december 1st.

:::every 14 seconds

just a while ago ktla, channel 5 had a story about the united nations' apathy is lethal" campaign to combat AIDS ignorance such as mine. there is a powerful public service announcement you can view along with links on how you can help.

:::my ignorance

i have to admit, i don't know a lot about AIDS other than what i've read in newspapers or watched on television. two 1993 movies come to mind, philadelphia and hbo's and the band played on. (i recommend the hbo film.)

:::link and think

this sunday is world AIDS day. as a weblog author, i feel a responsibility for participation in the link and think campaign which is the subject of this wired news article. your humble support will be appreciated.

:::the little ones

i was going to snap some pictures today but ended up stuffing myself at my mom's. the camera just stayed in the car while i was over there. i did find some pix still on the memory card though.


this first one is of mayra sitting near the entrance to our apartment.




on this one, i got tony sitting on the couch, watching tv.




i wonder what they're doing right now in chicagoland . . .

:::change in weather

dark clouds hovered above all day today.


below, there was no darkness. got treated to lunch at the korean bbq restaurant by my teammates (for all my assistance they said). it felt good to be acknowledged.


:::missing my lucy

on a different note, i've been missing lucy and the kids. tomorrow will be not the the same without her.


at least i know she'll be sharing thanksgiving with her familia in the land of her birth.

:::hot and windy

it was another warm and windy day today. channel 5 is reporting fires, made worse by the santa ana winds.


what i hate about these kind of days is you keep getting shocked every damn time to touch metal. most of us have learned how to avoid this, yet we still forget once in a while and end up getting zapped!


and the forecast is for another day of these pinche winds!

:::rewarding effort

next week we'll be holding some sort of recognition assembly in the evening. it's an "award" program that i proposed several years ago based on one where rachel went to school at the time. it was a simple premise, we'd reward children's effort, using simple criteria.


our report card at the time was using a six-point rubric, 6 being highest. to receive the effort award, a student merely had to have at least one 5 and nothing lower than a 4 for effort. they were allowed up to three absences within a grading period. i can't remember the third criterion right now, but we were able to recognize student effort at a school where kids called each other "schoolboy" or "schoolgirl" if they exhibited any kind of intellect.


this afternoon we were given the latest mutated criteria for this certificate. pobrecitos, our students, they now need to jump so many hurdles to receive any kind of recognition for their efforts.

:::mold in buena park

seeing as how lucy and the kids are spending the holidays in chicagoland, i suggested isadora move in for a couple of weeks in order to rid herself of the mold growing in her bedroom at my mom's buena park house.


she accepted, so today when i got home from work i found more than a dozen boxes stacked in my living room here. noticing the kids' bedroom door closed, i walked over to open it, only to be barraged with the pungent stink of mildew emanating from a dresser she'd brought in.


a while later, i phoned lucy at her sister's house in hinsdale. (paco, my concuño, was cooking up some bistec encebollado making me wish i were there instead of here.) we talked about this and that until i told her about the stench wafting through our humble apartment. being tired and sleepy from work, i decided right then and there i'd toss out the damn drawer, thus choosing what my christmas gift to isadora would be this year.


i feel bad for my oldest daughter, having to live in such a toxic environment for so long. now she'll need to consider replacing many of her fabric belongings: clothes, carpeting, even her matress! better to do that than to expose herself to hazardous mold spores.

:::christmas in chicago

it's not that i can't afford the christmas airfare to chitown, it's the ensuing expenses that tend to tie up my bank account. i can't just show up without bearing gifts, wheels, or food funds.


and that's not even taking in to account all the other shit like popping for brew, snacks, and incidentals (i.e. car rental).


on top of all this, i mustn't forget whatever expenses accumulate on gifts for mi familia here in socal. i still need to think about isadora, rachel, albert, my mom, and everyone else while christmas shopping these next few weeks.


and this year i want to also want to give to my fellow 6th grade team. we work together every day. continually meet. cooperate with each other. we are friends.


it's a bundle isn't it! i just hope i can keep up with it.

:::alone again

this afternoon i drove lucy and the kids to lax for their trip to chicago. it was my christmas present to lucy: the opportunity to be with her familia not just for christmas, but for thanksgiving also.


retro back to 1999. when lucy moved out here to socal, i made a (sort-of)pact with her and myself, that we would alternate christmases between here and chicagoland. i felt it the only sensible thing to do. after all, i "took her away" from those she loved and cared about.


by sending her today, i uphold that bond.


back to a few weeks ago. i was debating whether to have us go to chicago for the holidays seeing as how i'm in dire need of a new car. but i thought of my covenant and the need for mayra and tony to experience christmas in chicago, a real winter wonderland. (we here in socal get deprived of a "white christmas.") i think of all the navidades that lucy has known, quiet snowflakes descending upon rooftops, that warm scent of tantalizing tamales, and, of course, the wild glee of kids opening their gifts. how could i bear preventing lucy and the kids from this rich tradition?


the only thing that bothered me was when i "gave" her this gift. lucy seemed sad. it seemed she felt i was trying to get rid of her. i thought, here i am, trying to save up for a new car, yet still forfeiting funds i could apply towards it, in order to fulfill a self-imposed agreement- not to mention the fact that i could end up being alone for christmas. (as it is, i still need to go to the bank to deposit a few hundred bucks into her account so she can get by while over there.)


i really wish i could spend the holidays with lucy and the familia in chicago, but i need to focus on my goal of acquiring an automobile. perhaps an angel will grant me this wish.

:::birthday

today is my dad's birthday. he would've been 86 years old.

:::anecdote

earlier this evening, when mayra needed to go potty, she loudly proclaimed "caca, caca!" as she usually does. fine and dandy, it was the tagline that busted us up.


opening the bathroom door, mayra called out, "caca, caca! come on mami, enjoy!"

:::epilogue

i never had second thoughts about my decision to let my father be taken off life support, thus allowing him to die.


nope, no regrets.


what did fester for a while was the thought that such alternatives were available. to coldly choose a date when a life should end. but i guess those are the evolving morals we've submitted our souls to.


after all, we've come to accept a "woman's right to choose" a date when a developing life should be extracted from her body, no matter that that life ceases to proceed.


at the same time, however, we've also accepted the idea that we can choose a date of birth.


and this is where the circle of life comes into play. tony was born "by appointment."


a date with my father's death then, later, a date with my youngest child's birth.

el último adios

the day finally arrived. a doctor explained the process of taking a person off life-support and its consequences on my dad to me.


we would be allowed to talk to my father one last time, then we would have to leave the room while he was sedated then disconnected.


i remember being in the room while my brother bid farewell. he apologized for all the problems he caused- the drugs, his arrests, subsequent time in prison, etc.


again, i was left alone. awkwardly, i thanked my dad for all he'd done for albert and isadora. it was all i could think of. i then turned to the nurses and told them it was time.


when we were permitted to go back in, a crowd formed around his bed. i remember my aunts and cousins, my mom, brother, and daughter, amongst others crying at my dad's bedside as we watched the heart monitor gradually slow its beeps.


my father took his last breath that afternoon of july 17, 1994.

:::the choice

actually the decision was not easy either.


although i had prepared for the inevitability, moving in to my parents' house, giving up a home, declining to teach summer school, searching for his final "resting place," informing all the relatives, etc., when it came time for me to give the final go-ahead to the doctors, the verdict's massive weight suffocated my soul.


i alone was elected to execute my father's death sentence.

:::my dad

during dinner tonight while listening to mana's el reloj cucu, i got to thinking about the picture below and my own father's death.


i guess that day will never be erased from my memory.


actually, it would be his remaining days with us that've been embossed into my memory.


we all knew his death was approaching, yet my mom and brother kept his body going with those machines. it turned out that they didn't want to make the decision to let my father die. that was left up to me.


my choice was not difficult seeing as how the end is always inevitable.

:::lights out

today dragged on and on. there was no electrical power in my classroom (and the other ones around me) for a majority of the day. the computer lab teacher had to send my kids back due to inoperability. and to top it off, santa ana wind conditions made our room into a sauna!


i hope tomorrow is better.

:::forest lawn

today was veterans' day so i went to see my dad this afternoon.

:::upgrading system

i finally got around to installing jaguar this afternoon. can you believe it took 4 hours to install! it's cool though. the ichat interface is awesome! i downloaded ical but forgot my palm pilot at school, so i'll need to wait 'til tuesday to try it out.


now i need to upgrade my photoshop and microsoft office to run native in osx. good thing macromedia mx suite is osx native already. (now that's some cool software you gotta have!)

:::back to work

what a day to go back to work! rain, demo lesson in my classroom, bad note from subs, not all in that order.


the demo reciprocal teaching lesson was informative. the kids were cooperative. i feel good that they were well prepared for today.


on the matter of rain . . . it's still raining as i speak. at least it's a respite from this drought we've been experiencing, but it traditionally gets the kids wacky. i heard that the building i was in last year had a major leak! hopefully my suggestion of taking pictures of it was heeded, especially because of all this "modernizing."

:::out sick

stayed home again on account of this sore throat-slash-cough. took advantage and read up on css and still took more pics. mayra was sitting alone on our bed while reading a book w hen i happened to pass by. not to let the opportunity pass me, i grabbed the olympus then shot away. mayra didn't seem to mind.




later on during bathtime, using the same digicam, i sn apped a few of tony in the tub. here's one of the frames i came out with.




back to the subject of css. i've been immersing myself in the layout code. (that's why the 5-day absence from this blog.> the excitement, along with this cough, has made for restless sleep. an idea will pop up right after a coughing fit at some horrific hour and it'll keep me up thinking how i can apply my newly-consumed knowledge to, first this website, then to one for our sixth graders. what i really wanna accomplish is building a tableless website from scratch.

:::down with flu

too sick. had to come home early today. took long nap. hopefully i'll feel better tomorrow.

:::reciprocal teaching

this friday we'll finally have someone from action learning come and do a demo lesson. i've been looking forward to it for quite a while.