Monthly Archives: February 2007

Pulling Teeth

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Sky got all four of his wisdom teeth pulled this morning while under sedation. The surgery went well, and he was out in under 40 minutes, just in time for me to take him to my parent’s house and get to work by nine-thirty.

The scene at my parent’s house was funny. Sky was goofy from all of the anethesia, and when we walked in the door, a big glop of blood and saliva fell out of his numbed-up mouth and landed on Mom’s pristine white tile floor. One look at her face, and I knew she wasn’t up for it. I called my boss to tell her I wouldn’t be coming in at all today, and took him home.

I know I just said that was funny, and that is kind of twisted, I suppose. The thing is, Sky was telling me the entire time we were driving to my mom’s that he didn’t want to “impose”. My mom is compulsively clean, and I mean that literally. She will empty a trash basket if there is one piece of trash in it. The sight of my dazed son dripping blood on the floor was simply too much. He couldn’t sit down, because she couldn’t think of a piece of furniture that wouldn’t be ruined if he bled on it.

My furniture doesn’t care as much. It is slip-covered. A little blood is nothing here. I have woken up in the middle of the night to nosebleeds that have made the kids’ room look like a crime scene.

Sage wondered why Sky didn’t save the teeth for the tooth fairy. I told Sky that he should have remembered, because he could have gotten an entire four dollars for them. Not. The tooth fairy is going broke after forking out all of the money for the extractions plus the extra money so that Sky could be legally stoned for an hour. I should have just bought a good pair of pliers and some whiskey. I mean, really, isn’t that what people did in the good old days?

Little Happinesses and Creativities

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I walked into a grocery store that I never go to because it is expensive, and look what I found! My favorite tea! What are the chances of finding this brand, this flavor and in decaf in this tiny town? I have been sipping away…

Last night I started to feel inspired. Perhaps it is the extra space. I have been looking for some affordable stencil art on canvas, and it is not to be found. So I have decided to make my own. Here is an awesome tutorial for the Photoshop portion of stencil-making. I have watched it several times because the song really jams. How To: Stencil Graffiti Art. For some reason, probably the bass, it put me in mind of the song Spacelord, so I had to go and download that one. If you are interested, Stencil Punks has a lot of premade ones on their site, which is pretty good.

I am having problems with the lasso tool using a mouse. It would be helpful to have a graphics tablet. At any rate, this is what I came up with last night just messing around. It is not stencil quality, but Sky thought it was cool. It has a dark feel, though.

It is small because I thought he might like to use it as an avatar. He has been feeling nerdy lately because of the enforced haircut. It turns out that the lawyer isn’t the only one who is responsible for the short hair. His Conditions of Probation actually state that his hair must be above his ears. They probably love Nazi youth there. Ahem.

Anyway, having some things resolved frees me up to be more creative. I may actually make something out of those broken computer parts after all.

Happy Sunday!

Screaming Teacher

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That would be me. One thing that I am proud of is that I never, ever, yell at my students. I believe it is really important to model respect, since I may be one of the few people they encounter who does this. Today, I broke my own code, and it hurt.

The day had gotten off to a rough start. Sage had had a bad nightmare in the night that I believe was related to the divorce. I checked my email and read an icky one from Stubeh, which was accusatory and sarcastic. There was some truth in it, which made it even more hurtful. And, there were things that weren’t true. Then, already ten minutes late to work, I saw that the front tire looked very low. The air pressure didn’t register, and we had to search for a gas station that had a working tire-filler-upper thingy.

By the time I dropped Sky off, I was forty minutes late to work and Sage was late to school. My boss had to do my outside duty for me. I have a thing about being late, too.

So, when the student began giving me a hard time about this, that and the other thing, I just lost it. Although I didn’t say “shut up” or anything like that, I did basically tell him to be quiet right this second or he’d get a referral. I said it in a loud, mean voice too. Everyone was very quiet after that. I wondered what the student who had just entered my class that day thought. I felt my eyes tear up, and I called for one of our aides to cover my class.

Then I proceeded to bawl all of the make-up off of my face for a good twenty minutes. I talked with a friend of mine, who said, “Don’t worry, these kids are used to being yelled at!” That made me feel even worse, actually. That is the main reason why I don’t want to yell.

Anyway, I realized that I hadn’t had a good cry since Sky’s arrest three months ago, and it was probably about time, what with the divorce, move and endless running around and dealings with the psycho probation officer. I just wish that I hadn’t yelled at that kid first. And yes, I did apologise.

Cedrick

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“Oh, Cedrick called and said he was running late today,” Mrs. D, Secretary and Mistress of the Universe informed me yesterday morning as I walked into the office.

“He’s coming? I might as well turn around and go home right now.” After a morning spent rushing to get to work because I was running late due to stopping at the store for a feminine product and some Advil, I just really wasn’t in the mood for Cedrick’s antics.

Cedrick does not want to come to school. He is thinking about joining Job Corps instead. However, he is scared to join Job Corps. But, he doesn’t want to come to school. This leaves him in a quandry. We have discussed how he needs to make this decision himself, as opposed to setting me up to make it for him. If he gets enough suspensions, he will be expelled for good and that will be that.

After our discussion, he pondered what I had said, agreed, and behaved in a tolerable fashion for one day. The next day, it was like the conversation had never happened, and it was back to, “Miss, I ain’t gonna sit here and wait for Mr. R to take me to the bathroom,” or “Miss, I tol’ you I felt sick. I ain’t gonna say it again.”

“Cedrick, if you want to go to the bathroom, I will not stop you. I will, however, write you up for leaving class without permission.” And so on. Usually he holds out a couple of times and then eventually leaves class. When I write him up, he tells the administrator that I don’t like him.

This is not true. However, I really don’t like waiting to see what he is going to pull in class everyday in order to get out of it. I worry about fights being picked; the disruption his attempts to argue with me causes. Like most students, mine are easily entertained and distracted by any drama.

One of our aides, Miz F, gets the brunt of my complaints. At the end of the day, she told me, “See, I told you Cedrick wasn’t gonna come. I can tell what he be gettin’ up to before I leave my house in the morning.”

She had probably already told me, but I had forgotten that they are neighbors in the same rundown apartment complex.

“That boy, he was settin’ a fire next to the apartment building last week,” she said, holding her hands apart to indicate just how close to the building the fire was. “He was hauling pine needles and just pilin’ them on this old log. It was a’really blazin’! I told him he wasn’t gonna burn down these apartments, because I don’t have no money to be moving.”

“So what’s going on with his mom?” I asked. “Is she just out of it or what?”

“I don’t like to be telliing people’s business and all, but I want to tell you this one thing,” Miz F said, looking down at the floor. “That child, he ain’t never been loved. Things been hard for him since the day he was born.”

One advantage of living in a small town, or disadvantage, depending on your perspective, is that everyone knows everybody else’s business. For example, my boss read in the paper that I had filed for divorce. I’m grateful to have this bit of intelligence on Cedrick though, because anytime I can change the lense through which I view a troublesome child is a good thing.

Now, if I can just manage cramps and Cedrick in the same day. Thank God it’s Friday!

Revenge Is Fun

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The kid who almost drove me to distraction with his game-playing cursing paper-wadding arguing self left today. Six weeks ago, if you had told me this child would be out of my room, I would have been singing and dancing in the streets. It was bad. It was so bad that I had him sitting directly underneath the camera. Grown men in my program warned me about being alone with him. Now he is finally gone.

Before he left, I said, “Hey Mark, I have something for you.”

He approached my desk, obviously expecting the piece of paper that formally states that he has been released and can return to his home campus.

I handed him a Reese’s cup. He asked about the paper. I affected a confused look and said, “They didn’t tell you?”

I let those words hang in the air for a few seconds. The kid’s face began to lose its hopeful expression.

Then I shouted, “Ha!” and handed him the paper. I said, “Mark, remember when you used to not do your work and pretend that you didn’t have a pencil? Well, this was payback. I had to do something, right?”

“Right. You really got me, Miss. Aw man!” We looked at each other for a while and just busted out laughing.

He was still laughing as he walked out the door.

Chairs

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It is time for a nice superficial post. With the more pressing issues in life having pretty much been resolved, I am now free to focus on which chairs would look the best with the Knoll table that my mom gave me. It is the table that I ate at as a child, and probably the reason today that I adore the whole Jetson’s style of home decor, although I can’t afford it, nor can I pull off a minimalistic look with two kids. Anyway, here is the table. Old, but a work of art.

The chairs I have with it don’t look too hot, though. They belong on the porch. Something must be done. Here are the current options….Knoll chairs themselves are not one of them because they are too darn expensive.

Option 1: The “Eames Era” chairs on eBay. I’ll know by tonight whether the bidding gets too high for me.

Option 2:

These chairs are from good old IKEA. I think the holes look good with the circle theme going on there…

Option 3: I saw these simple chairs on the West Elm website. They are pricier than the ones with the holes, but still affordable.

Now, if I don’t get Option 1, which ones do you think I should get? I do have the problem of the apartment looking a bit too “eclectic”. None of this goes with pieces like the amoire, which I also love, although rustic and Jetson’s don’t exactly mix. Still, there is no way I am giving up the Knoll table. Hmmm. What to do.

Here is the aforementioned amoire. In addition, you can see how long it has been since I have had a pedicure, and the general disarray that is called Having Moved And Being Too Lazy To Do Anything But Shop On The Internet. Ah well, suggestions are welcome!

Update: I didn’t win the chairs on eBay, so it is definitely down to choices 2 and 3! Unless you see something better you’d like to link me to. Advice on helping all of this to work together is also welcome!

Court

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Last weekend we moved, and on Wednesday we finally got to go to court. It was a surreal experience. There was a group of men shackled and dressed in orange off in a corner. None of their state-appointed lawyers had shown up, so the judge asked them if they wanted the public defender presently in court with another client to represent them. Three of the men did, so after about two minutes consulting with the lawyer, a plea bargain was made. I watched as each man admitted he had violated his probation, and they were sentenced. One man received a six-month jail sentence, while another received a five-year sentence in the pen. His face seemed as though it were carved out of wood. Throughout the entire process, including the sentencing, he showed not boredom, nor disgust, nor anger, nor fear. Just…nothing. I have never quite seen a face like that.

In front of us was a family of nine, including three children who should have been in elementary school at that time. Instead, they bickered and fought amongst themselves while the adults ignored them. I found it astounding that six, seven and eight-year olds were getting such a casual look at our justice system. When one boy began hitting his brother, I tapped him firmly on the shoulder, shook my head, and gave him the Teacher Look. All three boys looked at me in trepedation and moved to the other end of the row to take shelter on their relatives’ laps.

Sky’s lawyer discovered that the state had made an error and that Sky’s charge was a misdemeanor, not a felony. Nevertheless, he got six month’s probation, eight hours of community service each month, must attend a “Boy’s Group” once per week; must attend the drug education group, aka the meeting place for drug sales, once per week; pay court and probation fees; attend the GED program from eight o’clock to twelve o’clock everyday and visit his probation officer every other week.

In addition, his “Conditions of Release” state, among other things, that his hair must be “mainstream” and cut above the ears, he may not associate with individuals who use drugs (So why the drug education group with the deals going down?), he must be home by 7:30 each weeknight–8:30 on weekends. She took a picture of him in case he absconds. She also asked me to leave the room so that she could talk to him alone. Actually, she demanded that I leave the room. At this point, I realized that I, as the parent, had lost some rights to the state. Who else can force me to leave my child alone in a room with someone??

While they were in the room alone, they had a most interesting conversation in which she told him that he could quit whining about the drug group (we had proposed individual counseling which was denied, probably because of warm bodies needed for the group’s funding) because just because he was from the city, and thought country people were stupid, he could stop thinking he was so intelligent and get with the program. I thought it was quite unprofessional that she would presume to know what he is thinking. One picture on her wall shows a man who is probably her father, who looks like a true Bubba. Perhaps she is a tad defensive. And a bit anti-intellectual.

I have definitely been pushed over the line into Libertarianism.

I am in a hateful mood. I am overwhelmed by the stacks of boxes in the house and my own exhaustion. I have been stuffing my face like sizes, pounds, cholestrol and calories don’t exist. The only place where I feel like a nice person is at work, probably because it is a distraction. I hate it that I am angry at the system all over again. I had calmed down. Now I need to start that process all over again.

In more mundane news, the move went well except that the Mexican workers who I paid $20 dollars an hour each, $13 above the going rate in an effort to be fair–stole money from me, broke my dryer, and dropped two expensive pieces of furniture, chipping them. While I was driving the U-Haul, they changed the radio to a Spanish station and cranked it up. I let them, because they were working hard, but at the same time, I knew there was no way in hell they would have done that in a man’s truck. I paid them fairly, and I was disrespected and ripped off.

Work is the same, which means that it is going well. Thank goodness!

Sage likes to skate down the hills in the parking lot and on the sidewalks. The apartments are lovely, and everyone likes them.

I am trying not to be all psycho and mad.

No More Violence

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Over my family’s head, at any rate. After several sleepless nights, two conversations with the woman upstairs and another call to the police, I have decided to move.

I have been put in the middle of the whole mess. Or perhaps I put myself there. The women who lives above me is on Section 8 housing. She doesn’t work because she has three kids, two of whom are younger than five. The problem is that for whatever reason, she accepts having a man in her life who not only mistreats her, but who does not contribute to the household and actually jeopardizes her housing status.

At this point, I have called the police three times because of this man’s actions and her willingness to continue to let him into her apartment. One more complaint, and the housing office is going to kick her out. The landlord has put me in the position of being the complaintant, even though this guy actually told the landlord to “Fuck off” one time when he was over trying to sell the property! The guy told him that in front of the potential buyer, who needless to say, did not buy the property. My landlord is a bit passive. I am not. I am furious over the lost peace and lost sleep the endless fighting upstairs has caused. I (and the kids) can hear every curse word and threat uttered, and believe me, it is unnerving.

The other night, there was a particularly bad fight. I heard a weird dial tone sound, and then a big crash. The next day, J’Christopher, the woman’s son, came over and said his mother wanted to know if we had an extra phone, as theirs had “went out”. Yeah, it went out all right. It went out being thrown upside the wall. Of course, I am not one to talk, being a computer throwing nutcase myself. Still, this guy is dangerous, and as tough as I act on the outside, on the inside I am scared.

When the cops cuffed him after the domestic violence event a few months ago, he cursed them out even in cuffs, and then threatened me the next day, with his older brother along in tow. He got locked up for a while for some other offense, and things calmed down around here. Now that he is back, so are the police, and for retaliation, I got an ugly phone call in the middle of the night.

I spoke with the police, who said they could do nothing about retaliation unless there were witnesses, etc. It was his brother who called me from someone else’s house, so nothing can be proven. Ack. I suppose I am explaining all of this in order to justify why there is even more upheaval in our lives.

The place we are moving to very rarely gets calls, the officer told me. It is billed as a “luxury apartment”, which means that they will pick up the trash from your doorstep, pick up and return the dry-cleaning, and other things that are nice but that I really don’t need. I will have my OWN bathroom, which I am excited about. It has a dog park, a place to vacumn out the car, and a pool. I have to admit that I like the fact they will water your plants when you are out of town for free. They are the nicest apartments in town. My neighbors have lived in their apartment for several years and are a professor and his wife. Best of all, it doesn’t feature men drinking outside my sons’ bedroom window in the middle of the night and littering the ground with their cans. Two noise warnings, and residents are out.

I feel angry that I have to pay extra to raise my kids in a safe, healthy environment. Still, I don’t feel right about complaining once again and seeing that particular family, whose kid I love, get evicted. This has happened over and over in J’Christopher’s life. I also know there will be retaliation, and I can’t be in that situation, especially with kids.

Anyway, this is the polar opposite of moving to the land in the country. I got some estimates on fixing up the house, and it runs into the tens of thousands of dollars. I can’t deal with that, nor afford it right now. I did find out that there is an ag farm only two miles from the new place, so Sage will probably still be able to do 4-H or Future Farmers of America.

Oh boy this is going to be a busy weekend!

I don’t mean for this to be a horrible whiny post. There are good things happening:

Sky will be off house arrest on the 7th.

We will live in a nice, safe place with a pool.

The divorce will be done after only one quick visit to court.

I have a good job working with nice people.

Things will be settled down. No more drama. Not in a marriage, not in an apartment, not with Sky’s legal situation. It will all be over with.

Smile.

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