Face of a Bulldog

Our neighbor and my colleague Kiki gives me a ride to work three days a week. Even if Kiki were snarly, I'd love her for the rides, but I love how dang cheerful she is. When she picks me up in the Seattle dark, I ask her how she is. She always says, "Great."

Her five year old son Luke is in the backseat with his action figures. He's always great, too. This week he was especially great because he won the family football pool. He's a sharp one, that Luke.

At the end of the school day, I ask Kiki, "How was your day?" (I'll bet you've guessed this already, since you recognize patterns as well as any freshman in Ann's high school Algebra class.) She says, "Great." Every day when I say, "How was your day?" she says, "Great."

Every day, she also tells me an affectionate and amusing story about her students. Friday she told me about David (not his real name). David's in Kiki's Spanish for Spanish Speakers class.

At the beginning of the year, she thought he'd be tough, a hard kid. He's tough-looking, wears gangster-like clothes (but a little classier). Mostly, though, he has the "face of a bulldog" (meaning tough, not ugly).

As it turns out, he's not hard. As she's getting to know him, she's learing that he's thoughtful and insightful, a real delight to teach.

As she told me the story, she said, "I saw him in the library at lunch today. He was on a computer, and I thought he might be doing his Spanish homework. I stopped to say hi and glanced at his computer screen. He wasn't doing his homework. (He had already done it.) Into the google search engine, he had typed, 'Love poems for my girlfriend.'"

I love it that Kiki's a teacher who is so captivated by this tough-looking guy's sweetness.