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Mock Ka'ak

When my sister B was in third grade, her teacher asked the students in the class to go around the room, naming their favorite dessert items.  From among the common answers of cookies, brownies and ice cream emerged a gem:  upon her turn, B confidently stated that her favorite dessert was... ka'ak. Ka'ak  is a traditional pastry in the Middle East. Now, the word above is a transliteration of a traditional pastry in Middle Eastern cultures.  It is a general term for "cake" and, depending on the dialect, this Arabic word has a slight harshness or subtle division of syllables in the middle (represented by the the " a'a ").  But many anglophones don't hear or pronounce that subtlety. So imagine Mrs. Smith's surprise when her star pupil stated that her favorite dessert was "cock." I always felt a little different than most of my friends, growing up "brown" in a "white" suburb.  I had a big crooked nose (the...

Navigating Summer, School, and COVID-19

Guys, it has been awhile.  What can I say?  I just haven't been feeling inspired.  I know, I know...  It doesn't take a rocket scientist to discover that I am almost never  inspired; you can find evidence of this conclusion by reading any one of my past posts.  Seriously, just pick one.  But really, it has been busy around here.  Since March, we have been homeschooling both kids.  Part of this was mandated, of course, when everything shut down earlier this year.  However, since we were having growing success with taking charge of our kids' education this spring, we decided to run with it and continued with certain elements of school through the summer.  We will be full on homeschooling for the coming year because our public education system has turned into an absolute cluster.  This is going to be such a throwaway year anyway, so yeah.  We're "those people" now.   Who knows?  Maybe this year, my daughter has...