Honesty is one of those in-name only virtues when talking about the employee-employer relationship.  At many schools, administrators convey most teacher criticisms, no matter how relevant and constructive, in terms of "Your majesties, nothing here could be finer or better for the kids."

Tomorrow, bigwigs from our Curriculum Department--who created an unusable scope and sequence, created tests with inaccurate answers, and basically came off as incompetent and unsufferable this year--are visiting our campus.  Surprisingly, at a meeting this morning, we were encouraged to be honest.

We're all wondering if we really have license to explain that first graders can't explain the concept of "13" in tens and ones the second week of school.  They're still learning the numbers to 10. 

In any case, we'll know tomorrow whether or not we can be honest--recent visitors with questions somehow always miss my room. If anyone lets them down the hall to where I am, that infamous code of silence has been broken!

On another track, my sisters and I will soon release an e-book, Cat Chronicles, on the differing ways cats and African lions affect our outlooks on life, our memories, and how we perceive our rather strange childhood. The fact that we even had an African lion seems rather amazing now, and the way that both of my sisters and I seem sometimes to have been living in different worlds makes us laugh.  Who did the lion really attack, and what was that gorgeous guy's name?  Not very different questions, probably than anyone else might ask.  Maybe not everyone had a lion, admittedly, but dog attaks, personal attacks, gorgeous guys...many memories are universal. 

Along with the memories of the lion, monkeys, and such are the memories of my beloved horses and ponies--27 at one point, if memory serves.  The pony who would come in to dinner, the mare we called "the elephant," even poor, pathetic Athena with her bad legs, cut tongue, and bad wind--the horses and ponies were, at one time, my sanity and my passion.

So today when my 3 year-old granddaughter got excited about a version of Black Beauty and told me she wanted a pony and a horse for me, tomorrow didn't matter as much as that moment and as yesterday.  My little horse-lover, whose mom and dad think the very word "horse" is scary, my little cityslicker might grow up feeling what I used to feel for horses.

And on a final note--Black Beauty should still be required reading. Maybe if more people thought before bringing an animal down, causing pain and suffering for pride or appearance--maybe those values would ripple out as kindness towards others.  Maybe.