You're a mean one, Mr. Grinch
You really are a heel,
You're as cuddly as a cactus, you're as charming as an eel, Mr. Grinch.
In my pre-teaching life, I spent six years working at UPS. The holidays were my most chaotic and least restful time of year. It shaped how I view the season today. Combined with my general anti-consumerist bent* (and putting my faith to the side), I'm pretty meh on the festive season. But we live at the mercy of those we love. After what my family has been through the last two years, coming home and celebrating with family was a must. So after fourteen hours sitting in a right-triangle of crying babies, Hope and I touched back down in Cascadia on Monday.
The fifty-five degree temperature change tested the limits of my layering. I departed our apartment in Abu Dhabi in a t-shirt, adding a hoodie at DXB. I donned another layer upon landing, and added a fourth as I exited Sea-Tac into the blowing snow. It’s currently Timberland boots and goose down cold here. But we made it.
Each time we return to Tacoma feels a bit odd. This is now our fourth year overseas and we've signed contracts for year five. So, the earliest we would return, barring an unforeseen emergency, would be summer of 2024. But even that seemingly distant date is unlikely. The trends in public education that caused us to decide to pursue work abroad have accelerated, not abated. I struggle to picture myself sliding back into my old role. I know there's a future for us in Tacoma but that time isn't now, not yet.
With all that swirling in my head, on Thursday night I got up in front of an audience of civics nerds and hosted Adult Civics Happy Hour at the Press Room. ACHH is a series of live events that I began hosting in various forums in Tacoma five years ago. It’s a live community dialogue featuring policymakers, journalists and activists. Thursday's program, the first since the start of the pando, included two panels: one on the local sheriff and one on the upcoming legislative session.
The legislative panel, L to R: yer boi, Rep Bateman, Sen Trudeau, Rep-elect Mena
The situation with the sheriff is telling for where things are right now. The window for meaningful police accountability laws that opened with the mass protests of 2020 has largely closed, with little gained to show for it. Pierce County is a microcosm of the country. Tacoma has four murdering police on a multi-year administrative vacation for a killing they committed in March 2020. The county has a sheriff that is drunk on power (among other things); he was recently acquitted in a trial where he was charged with making false reports. During the trial multiple witnesses, including fellow officers, indicated he had lied, repeatedly. But he was acquitted by a jury (If you’re not local and want to learn more about this case, I have covered it on my podcast here, here, and here.)
In the second panel, three state legislators talked about the upcoming legislative session. We talked about their policy priorities, what was likely to pass and I asked about my priority issues as well. The audio from both panels will be on future episodes of Nerd Farmer.
I acknowledge that it is odd (but also very me) to fly 7,500 miles across the globe to visit family and also toss in hosting a sold out political forum. But we did it—we packed out the venue on a brick cold night. It felt good, like putting on that old comfortable sweater you haven’t worn in ages.