Strike?

Hello, friends. My muse has been fickle lately and writing has been difficult. My musical muse is still around, and practicing lots of Bach, but my writing muse seems to have gone AWOL.

Boo Bear is well and so is Mouse. He has had only one seizure in the last sixteen months. Mouse is loving her classes at the community college and waiting to hear back from the 4 year institutions to which she has applied.

All is not so rosy in the the St Paul School District or in Minneapolis Public Schools. Teachers have called a strike date of March 8. Their requests are simple and reasonable: A cap on class sizes, living wages for para professionals, mental health care for our traumatized students. Superintendent Joe Gothard claims that there is no money for such things and this is not the time to strike. Our state has a surplus right now. I think that money is attainable. There are four meetings between unions and school boards scheduled between now and the 8th. The first one is tonight. I hope and pray that the two parties can negotiate something to give our hard working teachers and our beloved students some much needed help. A strike would break Boo Bear’s heart. The last strike ran into the 2019 Pandemic and he did not set foot in a classroom for nearly a year. Like many students, he went into a deep depression. But, I also 100 % support our teachers. They have worked tirelessly through the pandemic, both online and in the classroom. They are overworked, under paid, and stressed out. We, as a community, need to give them some grace. Please join me in prayer, or sending good vibes, white light, whatever you can muster, between now and the March 8.

My heart is also very heavy today for Ukraine. They are innocent people, trying to live their best lives, who have suddenly been thrown into war. The pictures and social media coming out of that country are devastating. Last night, a children’s hospital had to move all their tiniest patients from the NICU into a bomb shelter. Boo Bear was a NICU baby. It was a terrifying experience. I cannot imagine trying to parent a medically fragile infant in a war zone. No mother deserves to go through this, and neither does her child. At least Mary had a cave and a manger. These children, the most vulnerable, only have a bomb shelter.

I think my muse is absent because she is very sad and overwhelmed. There are bombs in Kiev, a carjacking on my block, teachers worked to exhaustion and beyond, and the vulnerable to care for. Please, please, please, light a candle, say a pray, write your representative in congress, tell a teacher you appreciate her, say thank you to a bus driver. You never know how a simple smile might brighten someone’s day. Be good humans, and we will talk soon.

H