New Years 2007
Dearest family and friends,
Happy New Years to you all! We hope you are well, happy, engaged in meaningful work, and having fun learning those never ceasing life lessons!
Some really good things are happening in our family, and some really stressful things. I guess that’s my message of this year: thankfulness amid tribulations; love amidst difficulties …
Probably the most good/bad thing is that I’m back with Julian Charter School, teaching at their North County Academy in East Oceanside. The good things are that I got my English and Social Studies secondary credentials last year, and immediately got a long-term substitute job at this tiny but terrific campus, which turned into a permanent job this year. I’m teaching all my favorite subjects: Ancient, Medieval and US History to 6th, 7th and 8th graders, and government and economics to 12th graders. The latter two have been an unexpected blessing, as they’ve reconnected me with a couple of lost strands of my life: when I worked for KPBS-TV many years ago, helping produce their public affairs shows, and was very steeped in the world of politics; plus my degree in economics.
The bad thing is that this “half time” job takes about 60 hours per week, basically every waking hour, since I’m teaching most of these courses for the first time; plus it’s almost an hour commute. Of course I’m learning a tremendous amount and never tire of studying history, plus I can listen to lots of books on tape during the commute. But it’s incredibly wearing to be working this much, and I count my blessings if I can just survive and not get sick.
Mike celebrated his 60th birthday this year; hard to believe. We had a very magical block party / surprise birthday party, with a luau theme and a real Hawaiian recording artist! The music was so sweet and perfect, the friends so appreciated, the giant inflatable tiki so kitschy, and overall it was it was an unforgettable event.
Mike’s life lately has been dominated by two difficult circumstances: one that his mother was placed in a nursing home, which she loses no opportunity to vocally complain about. By contrast we feel it is a really nice place – the staff are so sweet and patient – and it’s an incredible blessing that she landed there.
Mike also was roped into managing Jake’s hockey team, which has been a hornet’s nest of controversy, bitter feelings and backbiting over a bunch of nothing, which he has mostly handled really well. Jake’s practice is at 9 pm twice a week – way too late – after which he has a terrible time sleeping. On the positive side, Mike and Nick got their hockey coaching certificates, so Mike is qualified to be the required second coach in the box at games. But Mike is happiest at having discovered a pub in Costa Mesa with 141 different beers on tap … and wants the owner to make t-shirts that say, “Dude … if you can’t find it here, you need to leave.”
Nick is now in college and attending Mesa. His desire to study architecture limited his college options, as not many colleges offer it, but we’re happy he’s still with us for now. Nick got his driver’s license and bought his dream car, a super-charged Honda Prelude, which he just modified with a carbon fiber hood. We are relieved that Nick seems to be a careful driver. Nick also bought an LCD projector and can project TV and movies on a whole wall of his room.
Jake is doing well in his studies at Point Loma High School, still playing the piano masterfully, and hanging out with his wonderful group of friends. They do a lot of long-boarding and street hockey together, watch shocking TV shows, stay up too late, and get Nick to drive them to movies. Jake has become a big Beatles fan, and has all of their albums on his I-Pod. On the difficult side, Jake is a teenager, and sometimes it seems that every exchange I have with him, no matter how brief, ends with his getting angry and snarling, “Oh, forget it!”
Over the summer we rearranged the entire house so that Jake and Nick could have separate bedrooms for the first time, side by side in the rooms downstairs, with parents and Nina upstairs. This involved moving half a houseful of immensely heavy furniture (like Mom’s lateral file cabinets) and Mike painting the bedrooms. Painting was a huge ordeal as Mike had to first remove multiple layers of ancient wallpaper through chemical treatment and then chipping and sanding it off, inch by inch. The finished rooms are gorgeous – Nina’s “pink palace” and Jake’s craftsman style haven. Though now Jake can’t sleep because he’s next to the noisy kitchen!
Nina is still, well, being Nina … My relationship with her feels like one long fight to get her to do math, practice piano, go to ballet, and do anything other than chatting online or shopping at Abercrombie and Hollister …
We started giving Nina a clothing allowance … Nina also took the Red Cross babysitting class and earned money babysitting over the summer. So between those two income sources we seem to have an uneasy truce over money.
Of course her main pursuit is watching what I call “spoiled teen reality shows.” She is nuts over “America’s Next Top Model,” “The Hills,” “Newport Harbor” and “The Gossip Girl.” Then there are other shows almost too revolting to mention which she occasionally watches, such as “Tila Tequila” … well, the list could go on and on. Mike and I look at each other and say, “No wonder they hate us.” The insane radical Muslims, that is, but that’s another story.
Nina hates anything academic, especially reading, and refers to all school studies as “boring stuff.” If I ask her a question, she replies acidly, “I’m only 12 years old! I’m not a teacher,” as if that’s contemptible.
During the “great room switch” I tried repeatedly to get Nina to have a bookcase in her corner. Finally she declared with piercing finality, “I don’t read for pleasure, Mom! Give it up!” It was enough to shatter my heart … although giving up is not in my nature.
We have actually worked out yet another truce, this one involving Nina’s taste for rap music, which I detest. Our agreement is that we listen to a book on tape every morning when I take Nina to school, and then she can listen to what she wants the rest of the time. I think I got the short end of the deal, since school is 10-15 minutes away, but we can both live with it.
… Another Nina story: I picked up Nina and friend Emma from school, and took them out for ice cream as a Friday treat. I offered them food at dinnertime, but they said they weren’t hungry and would eat something later. I came downstairs at around 8:00 and found them eating bowls of ice cream! I chided them for not eating dinner and eating more ice cream instead, and urged them to eat some decent food before bed. Then the next morning Mike and I awoke, and he mentioned that after I’d gone to bed, he’d taken the girls out for ice cream! Was he trying to create a world record? Of course the girls had failed to mention the first two times to him …
On the bright side, I have occasionally sneaked a look at my childrens’ myspace pages and found them positively inspiring. I’m proud of Nina for declaring how much she loves her friends, her candid but non-revealing photos, and the beautiful music (before she got into rap). Jake has a terrific myspace group page called “South Mission Hills Forever,” with a layout he designed himself, and great Bob Dylan music.
Other bits and happenings: Nina and I are in MADCAPS (Mothers and Daughters Club Assisting Philanthropy); a six-year commitment involving lots of volunteer work and a huge annual song and dance benefit show. Jake became part of the Aaron Price Fellows program, a three-year program that is a “behind the scenes” look at government and cultural institutions in San Diego.
Summer happenings: We took a trip to Mexico to celebrate Mike’s birthday, as I managed to reserve a suite at the Rosarito Beach Hotel that we’d wanted for years, that had two stories and a spiral staircase. However it turned out to have no air conditioning nor even effective fans, and the whole thing was kind of miserable. Not as bad as our trip the previous year to the Mexican campground and La Bufadora, but they all kind of run together at this point … We sold our tent trailer this year, which marked the end of an era … Many things feel very bittersweet these days.
Nick and Jake did Sierra Service Project together over the summer, doing repair work on an Indian reservation in Arizona, and both seemed elated over the experience. Jake waxed on about how he had nothing to do with electronics for a week … how he got onto a new schedule of going to bed at 9:00 and getting up at 5:30, and how good that is … how beautiful the country and the sunsets were … how he got used to the 105 heat and didn’t even mind it … how he appreciated the leaders. At the time I said, “Could the millennium have come?” Unfortunately it didn’t last.
Things I feel thankful for, which I end up meditating on when life feels hard, after tea, Chinese food and ice cream have all failed …
On the top of my list is that two of my best friends, Laura and Amy, have also become teachers, and I am so thankful that now we can share battle stories and teaching strategies. They have both had some extreme challenges, as I have, but so far we’ve all survived, barely.
On the home front, I finally installed, in my office, the beautiful white embroidered shades that had been sitting in boxes in the hallway for eleven years! I also gave away 18 boxes of excess books to The Bookman (www.thebookman.org), bless him.
Another joy is www.mytraffic.com. With all my commuting, this website has really saved me from potential traffic nightmares by warning me by e-mail when there is a jam on my route to or from work (which you program in); it’s amazing.
My greatest comfort when I feel the world is really going to hell is reading book reviews on amazon.com. So many – thousands, probably millions – of incredibly insightful book reviews.
When I get really depressed, I like to watch an MTV show called “Next,” which features a succession of potential dates being rejected or “nexted” by the guy or gal who yells “next” when he or she decides they are not the best choice. Great therapy for those with “rejection issues.” It always makes me feel downright gleeful to see others being rejected for arbitrary reasons.
Lastly I had a dream the other night that our old cleaning woman, Angelina, showed up, uninvited, and just started cleaning. I guess that’s my current version of a “rescue dream.”
I treasure nice moments I have with my children. Last week after I’d already gone to bed but woken up for some reason, Nina beckoned me to come and watch her play Guitar Hero. For some reason it was one of these magical moments, listening to the strains of Carlos Santana and Black Magic Woman, with guitarist Nina push-buttoning along, and later the boys with their songs. It is nice that our children are listening to some of the same music we used to. Too bad it’s usually Led Zeppelin …
Then yesterday Jake and I got into a huge fight over whether he was going to attend an Aaron Price Fellows Christmas party. He said he had too much homework, the party was unimportant and he couldn’t go, while I insisted it was the most important event they have, and his chance to meet all the alumni, and he really couldn’t miss it. This turned into an anguished scene of yelling, swearing and slamming doors, and seemed insolvable. Finally I went onto their website and found that I had been wrong; that the alumni party was a different event. So in the midst of this scene of bitter fury, I called down the stairs, “Jake, I take it all back …” Nina (who had heard this whole ugly scene, along with a friend) came into my room laughing and said, “Mom, this is so ‘you’!” I took that as a compliment … hey, I admit it when I’m wrong … not to mention constantly changing my mind (I call it “learning and growing”) …
My book pick of the year is The Pirate Coast by Richard Zacks. It’s an incredible true story of the most inspiring heroism and resourcefulness on the one hand and the most dismal cowardice and incompetence on the other. It’s about a time when the US and many European countries paid tribute, in the form of money, jewels, and other disgraceful gifts, to the North African Barbary states, ruled by Turkish Muslim Sultans who practiced state-sponsored piracy and enslaved Christian prisoners of war under horrible conditions. Captain William Eaton was appalled at this situation and with a ragtag bunch of a few marines and a multi-national group of Christian mercenaries and Bedouins, crossed 500 miles of desert (miraculously keeping together this diverse group who quarreled and threatened to quit constantly) to conquer Derna, the second-largest city in Tripoli. He could have conquered all of Tripoli and completed his mission of putting the rightful king back on the throne instead of his despotic brother, and had a profound effect on the region and world history, but was stopped by his superior officers. Fascinating book about perseverance, negotiation, early American politics and the culture of that region. My passion is history in the form of character study, and this book is one of the “greats” in that category.
Lastly I want to say a few words because I am feeling so overwhelmingly proud and appreciative of our extended family this year.
Mike’s older daughter, Jennifer, has started an incredible camp and before-and-after school program in Bend, Oregon, where she and her family live. This program, Camp Tumelo (www.camptumelo.com) features all kinds of art, science and other enrichment activities. Jen is not only a teacher and curriculum designer extraordinaire, but is a super mom and wife, and also an astute businesswoman, having purchased the property where the camp is located. Go Jen!
My sister, Betsy, has had a stellar year. Seven years ago she was at an extreme low point, having been dumped with no notice by her movie star husband, with two small children, and not having worked substantially in ten years. This year she is engaged to a wonderful man, has starred in the megahit Saw 4, is enrolled in a psychology program that she loves, and is inspiring all around her with what she’s learning. Go Betsy!
Mike’s older sister Cyndi and her husband Loyd adopted a baby three years ago (actually a grandchild), in their sixties. This angel is the light of their lives and anyone else’s he comes in contact with, and they’re all doing great …
My mother has found love and happiness in her seventies, and lives across the street with her wonderful companion Earl. Go Mom!
My dad is still going strong, and still keeping many of us going. His wife, Faye, just purchased a fantastic ultramodern condo “getaway” in the heart of La Jolla.
Well, sorry this letter is probably depressing and not funny. It served one purpose. Mike read it and said, “I didn’t know Nina took a babysitting class …”
Take care … from your exhausted (at least the parents) friends,
Daria, Mike and kids
Daria Doering 
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