I scampered over sleeping Daddio and a smothering pile of sheets and blankets like a Jesus lizard running on water.
Seriously, I took about three giant steps, flew up, off the bed and onto the floor in seconds flat.
Then I stopped dead in my tracks.
Did I just hear what I thought I heard?
I stood silent and waited.
I cocked my head toward the sound.
My eyes scanned the clock.... 2:03 am
Then the sound came again.
The phone!!!
"THE PHONE IS RINGING AND IT IS TWO O'CLOCK IN THE MORNING"... I screeched at Daddio.
See, the thing is, I have a BIG problem with answering a phone that rings in the middle of the night...it may have something to do with the fact that I got the news of my brother's fatal accident by phone. That call came on a Sunday night around nine or nine-thirty.
For a long time I couldn't and wouldn't answer the phone on Sundays.
Phone calls after 9 pm usually bring nothing but trouble...unless you're expecting a baby in the immediate family, which we aren't.
As quickly as I was scaling Daddio and the mountains of covers I was doing a mental tally of where my children should be.
In bed.
In bed.
In bed.
All the commotion had Daddio out of bed as well and in the split seconds it took for me to locate the ringing phone he had thrown back the blinds of our bedroom window to see if the kid's cars were where they should be too.
Reaching the phone, which had just stopped ringing , I ordered my eyes to focus and my fingers to find the TALK button.
I fumbled for the call log button.....WHO was calling in the middle of the night??????
Before I looked down to see WHO.... I remembered.
BEAR....!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Bear and his friends had gone to see a midnight flick (yeah, I know it's a school night..and your point is???)
The opening night for the remake of Nightmare on Elm Street.
"Hello? Hello? Hello" I cried into the phone.
Nothing. Dead silence.
My fingers, on auto pilot, dialed Bear's number.
"Ma" he answered, his voice a whisper.
"Could you come open the door"?
"Googie locked the deadbolt".
When he stepped in the door I kissed and hugged him like he was returning from War.
"I can't take much more of this" Daddio said when I crawled over him to get back to my spot in our bed.
"People like us shouldn't have children".
Silently I thanked my Lord for safe children, the man sleeping next to me, and our strong aortas.
Aortas that have really been put to the test these past twenty four years that we've been parents.
I went to sleep thinking of home defibrillators.
And then I had a bad dream.
I'll tell you all about it on Monday.
Friday, April 30, 2010
Thursday, April 29, 2010
Smells like teen spirit.....
While my work life with juvenile offenders centers totally around food, it's never been what anyone could call a picnic.
Yesterday was the oddest, most frustrating, emotionally draining, jaw dropping day I've had yet.
I was sapped of every ounce of energy.
And exhilarated all at the same time.
We've been going through a rough patch for a couple of weeks, this group of loveables is hard. Not that they aren't all hard, but this one is exceptionally difficult.
Physically, they are huge, and emotionally, hugely immature....we toss around the phrase it's a bad mix to describe them.
One of the Day Treatment staff told me early in the day that she was in a foul mood, she couldn't pinpoint the exact reason although we knew some of it was tied to the kids. Just one of those days we chalked it up to be.
The dish the afternoon cooking class was making was not so much complicated as time consuming. And it took all our resources to keep the loveables in one place, on task, with their potty mouths in check and their fists to themselves.
There are a couple of new female students that started this week, one a tall blonde who has the boy's attention and the other, a chubby brunette who owns some of the most beautiful green eyes I've ever seen.
She also has all the boys attention, but not in a good way. They've been picking on her and made her life at school not so great.
She came in with her dukes up though and it's hard to say who exactly is winning their wars.
Until yesterday, when she met me in the bathroom and pulled two notes out of her back pocket.
"Here" she said, thrusting some folded papers toward me, "this is what they put on my desk".
The notes look like they were done by a five year old, except that they contained swear words and a picture of a penis in the mouth of a crude drawing of a girl's face.
The boys were gaining on her.
I was livid. And sad to my core.
I gave the notes to one of the staff members who works with the kids in the academic portion of the day and we agreed to talk afterwards about what we planned to do to address and arrest this issue.
So the guys were already on my crap list when I met up with them in our kitchen.
It was a rough couple of hours.
And I said, out loud, what I was feeling "this class is outta control".
When we were almost finished I took a walk around back to the equipment rack and noticed that there was something sticky on the floor. Whatever it was, was also on a number of the pans on the shelf. I touched it and it was like glue. Clear, honey colored glue.
Corn syrup?
Pancake syrup?
Honey?
Someone had doused the place with honey.
The shit hit the fan and this usually calm mama started yelling and accusing.
We searched garbage's, which is where they usually ditch the evidence and within mere seconds one of the loveables had gone to the exact garbage container and lifted a discarded piece of greasy parchment paper and plucked out a half empty plastic jar of honey.
I immediately accused this boy of the dirty deed.
He got angry and his voice raised. And he stomped around like an enraged black bear.
And he denied the charges.
The staff said that they would all receive write-ups unless the guilty party stepped forward.
Snowball's chance in hell, was my thought.
The biggest one of the bunch came to me, bent to my level and said, "I'm taking responsibility, I did it".
"You didn't do it" I insisted "you were washing dishes this entire class, you never left the kitchen".
"I did it" he insisted "I can't get a write-up".
I refused to allow him to take the blame for the mess.
Out in the cafeteria all hell was breaking loose as I heard staff and teens arguing.
I heard cussing and threatening.
The sounds of out of control.
When the mess was finally sorted out....
the confession I'd heard ended up being a truthful one.
The confessor wore my disappointment in him like a lead apron.
And while I knew it was a necessary penance, it was hard to watch.
In the meantime, I had an apology to give.
The formerly accused didn't want to have anything to do with me and balked at my order to "follow me" until one of the other youth said to him "maybe she wants to apologize you asshole".
He let me apologize and agreed to forgive me.
The kids gathered around a long table and they sat with the facilitators of what is their next activity, simply called "group".
Group can be anything from playing football to playing board games like Apples to Apples. Sometimes they watch movies, or do projects or just talk.
Today, the masses were spent.
The kids and the staff...wet dishrags.
One of the kids asked to speak and he rose from his chair and addressed his peers.
First he reminded them that he too liked to "play" and "act a fool", but that this class had been taking things too far. Some fun and games were okay, but this all day every day was "getting old". He talked about being on probation and being locked up and how much he just wanted to be out of the program and that he thought the rest of them should have the same goal.
They were silent and allowed him to continue.
He chided them for getting me so upset. And said that he would not tolerate them disrespecting me or my kitchen. He told them that he'd been a long time student in our Day Treatment program and that he'd never heard me say anything like he heard this day.
I'd taken a seat in the back behind the kids and listened too.
My eyes filled with tears.
And my heart, with gratitude and pride for this young man.
When he was finished I thanked him and he took a seat.
Another of the youths, one who has been steadily spiraling out of control began to talk. He started describing his life and how hard it is. How much he hates it. His sick mother, his lazy sister. Whose boyfriends he has to fight with. His hatred for his hard nosed Probation Officer and his desire and need to get out of his neighborhood. Where he knows he has no real future.
A real one perhaps, but not the one of his dreams nor of his potential.
The other youth sat still, every eye on him, and let him get it all out.
I wanted to gather him up on my lap and pat his back.
And tell him that growing into a good man is going to be the hardest and best thing he is ever going to do.
That everything would be okay
I wish it were that easy.
Thanks for listening.
Yesterday was the oddest, most frustrating, emotionally draining, jaw dropping day I've had yet.
I was sapped of every ounce of energy.
And exhilarated all at the same time.
We've been going through a rough patch for a couple of weeks, this group of loveables is hard. Not that they aren't all hard, but this one is exceptionally difficult.
Physically, they are huge, and emotionally, hugely immature....we toss around the phrase it's a bad mix to describe them.
One of the Day Treatment staff told me early in the day that she was in a foul mood, she couldn't pinpoint the exact reason although we knew some of it was tied to the kids. Just one of those days we chalked it up to be.
The dish the afternoon cooking class was making was not so much complicated as time consuming. And it took all our resources to keep the loveables in one place, on task, with their potty mouths in check and their fists to themselves.
There are a couple of new female students that started this week, one a tall blonde who has the boy's attention and the other, a chubby brunette who owns some of the most beautiful green eyes I've ever seen.
She also has all the boys attention, but not in a good way. They've been picking on her and made her life at school not so great.
She came in with her dukes up though and it's hard to say who exactly is winning their wars.
Until yesterday, when she met me in the bathroom and pulled two notes out of her back pocket.
"Here" she said, thrusting some folded papers toward me, "this is what they put on my desk".
The notes look like they were done by a five year old, except that they contained swear words and a picture of a penis in the mouth of a crude drawing of a girl's face.
The boys were gaining on her.
I was livid. And sad to my core.
I gave the notes to one of the staff members who works with the kids in the academic portion of the day and we agreed to talk afterwards about what we planned to do to address and arrest this issue.
So the guys were already on my crap list when I met up with them in our kitchen.
It was a rough couple of hours.
And I said, out loud, what I was feeling "this class is outta control".
When we were almost finished I took a walk around back to the equipment rack and noticed that there was something sticky on the floor. Whatever it was, was also on a number of the pans on the shelf. I touched it and it was like glue. Clear, honey colored glue.
Corn syrup?
Pancake syrup?
Honey?
Someone had doused the place with honey.
The shit hit the fan and this usually calm mama started yelling and accusing.
We searched garbage's, which is where they usually ditch the evidence and within mere seconds one of the loveables had gone to the exact garbage container and lifted a discarded piece of greasy parchment paper and plucked out a half empty plastic jar of honey.
I immediately accused this boy of the dirty deed.
He got angry and his voice raised. And he stomped around like an enraged black bear.
And he denied the charges.
The staff said that they would all receive write-ups unless the guilty party stepped forward.
Snowball's chance in hell, was my thought.
The biggest one of the bunch came to me, bent to my level and said, "I'm taking responsibility, I did it".
"You didn't do it" I insisted "you were washing dishes this entire class, you never left the kitchen".
"I did it" he insisted "I can't get a write-up".
I refused to allow him to take the blame for the mess.
Out in the cafeteria all hell was breaking loose as I heard staff and teens arguing.
I heard cussing and threatening.
The sounds of out of control.
When the mess was finally sorted out....
the confession I'd heard ended up being a truthful one.
The confessor wore my disappointment in him like a lead apron.
And while I knew it was a necessary penance, it was hard to watch.
In the meantime, I had an apology to give.
The formerly accused didn't want to have anything to do with me and balked at my order to "follow me" until one of the other youth said to him "maybe she wants to apologize you asshole".
He let me apologize and agreed to forgive me.
The kids gathered around a long table and they sat with the facilitators of what is their next activity, simply called "group".
Group can be anything from playing football to playing board games like Apples to Apples. Sometimes they watch movies, or do projects or just talk.
Today, the masses were spent.
The kids and the staff...wet dishrags.
One of the kids asked to speak and he rose from his chair and addressed his peers.
First he reminded them that he too liked to "play" and "act a fool", but that this class had been taking things too far. Some fun and games were okay, but this all day every day was "getting old". He talked about being on probation and being locked up and how much he just wanted to be out of the program and that he thought the rest of them should have the same goal.
They were silent and allowed him to continue.
He chided them for getting me so upset. And said that he would not tolerate them disrespecting me or my kitchen. He told them that he'd been a long time student in our Day Treatment program and that he'd never heard me say anything like he heard this day.
I'd taken a seat in the back behind the kids and listened too.
My eyes filled with tears.
And my heart, with gratitude and pride for this young man.
When he was finished I thanked him and he took a seat.
Another of the youths, one who has been steadily spiraling out of control began to talk. He started describing his life and how hard it is. How much he hates it. His sick mother, his lazy sister. Whose boyfriends he has to fight with. His hatred for his hard nosed Probation Officer and his desire and need to get out of his neighborhood. Where he knows he has no real future.
A real one perhaps, but not the one of his dreams nor of his potential.
The other youth sat still, every eye on him, and let him get it all out.
I wanted to gather him up on my lap and pat his back.
And tell him that growing into a good man is going to be the hardest and best thing he is ever going to do.
That everything would be okay
I wish it were that easy.
Thanks for listening.
Wednesday, April 28, 2010
Takin care of bid-ness
Time sure flies when we're havin fun, or working too hard. I have health insurance through work and it's quite a good plan. So good, they mail my doctor letters about me and call me at home on a regular basis.
They also send to me pamphlets and reading materials in the mail about medical issues I don't have...(which of course scares the livin daylights outta me and has me drafting to Daddio a last Will and Testament).
A recent visit to the doctor had him flipping through my chart and mentioning that the insurance company had sent him a note asking him to remind me to get my mamogram.
And my pap smear.
And an eye exam.
And a blood test.
Geeeez!!
(Isn't that what your mother is for???)
Well, I've done most everything they've asked, and more.
But I guess most everything is not enough, because yesterday they called and left another lenghty message reminding me that I still haven't gotten the mamogram.
And I'm still getting letters and notes in the mail about the other tests.
Oooooo-kay, apparently there is a little communication problem going on here.
And a picture really can be worth a thousand words. So I will be taking this...
They also send to me pamphlets and reading materials in the mail about medical issues I don't have...(which of course scares the livin daylights outta me and has me drafting to Daddio a last Will and Testament).
A recent visit to the doctor had him flipping through my chart and mentioning that the insurance company had sent him a note asking him to remind me to get my mamogram.
And my pap smear.
And an eye exam.
And a blood test.
Geeeez!!
(Isn't that what your mother is for???)
Well, I've done most everything they've asked, and more.
But I guess most everything is not enough, because yesterday they called and left another lenghty message reminding me that I still haven't gotten the mamogram.
And I'm still getting letters and notes in the mail about the other tests.
Oooooo-kay, apparently there is a little communication problem going on here.
And a picture really can be worth a thousand words. So I will be taking this...
with me for when I'm up close and personal with the boob vice.
And I'll add it to an email with the pictures below to be sent to the insurance company.
See, new glasses (case is proof)
And proof of my visit to Jean Gray, Nurse Practitioner, extraordinaire.
That should do it (although, I won't hold my breath).
On a side note....
(Am I the only one that has two thoughts instantly come to mind when my feet are in those stirrups???? (1). Damn, I wish I was more flexible and better able to shave the back of my thighs and (2). I hope my gold bar Dial lives up to it's hype.)
Tuesday, April 27, 2010
If you ever had any doubts that he loves you.....
As part of my Motherhood Mission Statement (the big rant most of us know-it-alls have and share with our friends and anyone else who will listen before we even have any children) I stated that I would always be truthful with my children….that statement turned into a lie.
Googie’s phobia has made a liar outta me.
The technical term for Googie’s psychosis is Emetopohia, which is the fear of vomit or vomiting.
At our house we can’t call the flu the flu.
It doesn’t matter if you have body quaking chills, a 103.5 temperature, and are pooping pearly white foam…it’s “something that you ate”.
That way Googie can’t catch it.
Recently, poor Bear came down with a horrible case of “something that he ate”.
It was a very busy week in Googie’s life, she had her internship to finish, she had things to do with her show, she had work, and a ton of homework and I couldn’t risk having her go off the deep end by telling her about Bear’s ailment so we made a plan.
Daddio, Bear, Trouble (Googie’s fiancé) and I all agreed to keep Bear’s condition a secret from Googie.
It wasn’t easy.
She was so busy she didn’t seem to notice me walking through the house wearing elbow high gloves and carrying around an industrial sized bottle of Lysol.
She did notice her brother, laying on the couch, sea foam green colored. She noticed his sunken, red rimmed eyes and his parched lips.
She noticed how he hugged the blankets tightly to his chest.
WHAT is wrong with him?” she asked nodding at the blanket covered heap on the couch.
“He has a cold” I lied.
“A cold? She mocked
“Look at him, ohhhh poor baby” she smirked.
“What a freakin baby…He has a little tiny cold and he’s on the couch, laying there like he’s dyin”.
“Pa-thet-ic”
“Guys are such babies, look at me, I have a cold TOO and I’ve been sick for days and somehow I'm managing to go on with my life. I'm not laying around nursing it”.
“Un-believable!!!! she rubbed it in. “He just wants you to baby him”.
I sat at Bear’s feet and stroked his leg and watched as he took his sister’s insulting tongue lashing.
He must really love you Googie….
(Truthfully though, if he’d had an ounce of strength, and wasn’t severely dehydrated he probably woulda pounded you into a pulp).
PS...Confidential to Marmie, remember when I used to call you hyperventilating and refusing to care for my sick vomiting children, threatening to run away from home and never return? Remember that you ordered me off the front porch and back into the house by saying,“you are gonna mess up those children?” ( I just wanted to let you know, at that point it was a done deal).
Googie’s phobia has made a liar outta me.
The technical term for Googie’s psychosis is Emetopohia, which is the fear of vomit or vomiting.
At our house we can’t call the flu the flu.
It doesn’t matter if you have body quaking chills, a 103.5 temperature, and are pooping pearly white foam…it’s “something that you ate”.
That way Googie can’t catch it.
Recently, poor Bear came down with a horrible case of “something that he ate”.
It was a very busy week in Googie’s life, she had her internship to finish, she had things to do with her show, she had work, and a ton of homework and I couldn’t risk having her go off the deep end by telling her about Bear’s ailment so we made a plan.
Daddio, Bear, Trouble (Googie’s fiancé) and I all agreed to keep Bear’s condition a secret from Googie.
It wasn’t easy.
She was so busy she didn’t seem to notice me walking through the house wearing elbow high gloves and carrying around an industrial sized bottle of Lysol.
She did notice her brother, laying on the couch, sea foam green colored. She noticed his sunken, red rimmed eyes and his parched lips.
She noticed how he hugged the blankets tightly to his chest.
WHAT is wrong with him?” she asked nodding at the blanket covered heap on the couch.
“He has a cold” I lied.
“A cold? She mocked
“Look at him, ohhhh poor baby” she smirked.
“What a freakin baby…He has a little tiny cold and he’s on the couch, laying there like he’s dyin”.
“Pa-thet-ic”
“Guys are such babies, look at me, I have a cold TOO and I’ve been sick for days and somehow I'm managing to go on with my life. I'm not laying around nursing it”.
“Un-believable!!!! she rubbed it in. “He just wants you to baby him”.
I sat at Bear’s feet and stroked his leg and watched as he took his sister’s insulting tongue lashing.
He must really love you Googie….
(Truthfully though, if he’d had an ounce of strength, and wasn’t severely dehydrated he probably woulda pounded you into a pulp).
PS...Confidential to Marmie, remember when I used to call you hyperventilating and refusing to care for my sick vomiting children, threatening to run away from home and never return? Remember that you ordered me off the front porch and back into the house by saying,“you are gonna mess up those children?” ( I just wanted to let you know, at that point it was a done deal).
Monday, April 26, 2010
The Paper Tiger......
My mother in law and I share a dirty little secret.
Piles.
Piles and piles of papers.
Stashed papers.
In paper bags.
Hidden in closets, or under beds.
I found out a couple of years after Daddio and I married that his mother has exactly the same filing system as mine.
Our stacks start out innocent enough. A bill here, a bill there. Toss a couple of coupons for Bed Bath & Beyond and a grocery circular, last month’s Redbook and a recipe for that cake you plan to bake on top.
The neat little stack sits pretty on the edge of the kitchen table, or the kitchen counter.
Daily the stack gains height, and width.
After about a week or so the stack begins to teeter.
And totter.
And before you know it, the stack has matured into a full fledged pile.
And then somebody whizzes by and the pile slides off the table onto the floor.
And then we got ourselves a bit of a problem.
Daddio threatens D I V O R C E.
Before he heads off to see an attorney he gives me time to clean up my act….like a few hours.
In a perfect world I would sort through the pile and reduce it. Then I’d file the important stuff and toss the rest.
Instead, I stash the pile into a paper grocery bag andhide place it in a closet or under a bed.
“I can’t live like this” Daddio yells when he stumbles upon one of my bags.
“I’m Claustrophobic”
“I will leave you” he threatens, when he has to catch one (or more) bag(s) about to tumble out of itshiding storage place.
“I WILL leave you over this”.
So I ask him, “aren’t you going to feel kind of stupid when we go to court and the judge starts questioning you”?
“Is she on drugs?
A shopaholic?
An alcoholic?
A germaphobe?
Been unfaithful?
Abusive?”
“No” Daddio will answer to each and every query.
“Why exactly then Sir are you seeking a divorce?”
“Piles, Your Honor, she makes piles."
Once when the kids were young Daddio built me a really neat bench, attached to the wall behind the table. It was for the kids to sit on.
“Make it a storage bench” I suggested.
He flat out refused, saying “In a week or two that bench will be so stuffed with shit that the kids will be sitting at an angle”.
He did as I asked and in a week or two, they were.
Last night my mother in law came over for dinner. On the side of the table, hidden in the back against the wall are two paper bags filled to the gills with papers and flyers and bills and important recipes.
I’ve been taking full advantage of the fact that Daddio has bigger fish to fry these days and he hasn’tnoticed mentioned the piles.
Normally, before she would arrive I'd have stashed the bags and had the place looking all spiffed up, yesterday, I got sidetracked and forgot.
After dinner, we sat at the table talking. She glanced over to her left, toward the right hand corner against the wall where the papers were sitting and she said "Nice piles".
What the........?!!!!!
How could she throw me under the bus like that?
"You like my piles?" I asked, wounded. "I've been very busy and haven't had much of a chance to clean them up or stash them anywhere, you know how it is?"
She looked at me kind of strange.
"Your tile" she said,
"I said I like your tile".
This morning, checking on my horiscope I had a Oprah lightbulb ahhh-ha moment when I saw this......
If everybody is being uncooperative or unhelpful, check the near right corner of your home for clutter or broken items.
Piles.
Piles and piles of papers.
Stashed papers.
In paper bags.
Hidden in closets, or under beds.
I found out a couple of years after Daddio and I married that his mother has exactly the same filing system as mine.
Our stacks start out innocent enough. A bill here, a bill there. Toss a couple of coupons for Bed Bath & Beyond and a grocery circular, last month’s Redbook and a recipe for that cake you plan to bake on top.
The neat little stack sits pretty on the edge of the kitchen table, or the kitchen counter.
Daily the stack gains height, and width.
After about a week or so the stack begins to teeter.
And totter.
And before you know it, the stack has matured into a full fledged pile.
And then somebody whizzes by and the pile slides off the table onto the floor.
And then we got ourselves a bit of a problem.
Daddio threatens D I V O R C E.
Before he heads off to see an attorney he gives me time to clean up my act….like a few hours.
In a perfect world I would sort through the pile and reduce it. Then I’d file the important stuff and toss the rest.
Instead, I stash the pile into a paper grocery bag and
“I can’t live like this” Daddio yells when he stumbles upon one of my bags.
“I’m Claustrophobic”
“I will leave you” he threatens, when he has to catch one (or more) bag(s) about to tumble out of its
“I WILL leave you over this”.
So I ask him, “aren’t you going to feel kind of stupid when we go to court and the judge starts questioning you”?
“Is she on drugs?
A shopaholic?
An alcoholic?
A germaphobe?
Been unfaithful?
Abusive?”
“No” Daddio will answer to each and every query.
“Why exactly then Sir are you seeking a divorce?”
“Piles, Your Honor, she makes piles."
Once when the kids were young Daddio built me a really neat bench, attached to the wall behind the table. It was for the kids to sit on.
“Make it a storage bench” I suggested.
He flat out refused, saying “In a week or two that bench will be so stuffed with shit that the kids will be sitting at an angle”.
He did as I asked and in a week or two, they were.
Last night my mother in law came over for dinner. On the side of the table, hidden in the back against the wall are two paper bags filled to the gills with papers and flyers and bills and important recipes.
I’ve been taking full advantage of the fact that Daddio has bigger fish to fry these days and he hasn’t
Normally, before she would arrive I'd have stashed the bags and had the place looking all spiffed up, yesterday, I got sidetracked and forgot.
After dinner, we sat at the table talking. She glanced over to her left, toward the right hand corner against the wall where the papers were sitting and she said "Nice piles".
What the........?!!!!!
How could she throw me under the bus like that?
"You like my piles?" I asked, wounded. "I've been very busy and haven't had much of a chance to clean them up or stash them anywhere, you know how it is?"
She looked at me kind of strange.
"Your tile" she said,
"I said I like your tile".
This morning, checking on my horiscope I had a Oprah lightbulb ahhh-ha moment when I saw this......
Feng Shui Tip of the Day
If everybody is being uncooperative or unhelpful, check the near right corner of your home for clutter or broken items.
Thursday, April 22, 2010
I'm having attacks.......
I have a lot of irons in the fire these days, maybe too many.
The past few days have found me in some kind of not so nice state.
I finally figured it out, I'm having apoplexy attacks.
An apoplexy attack, yes, exactly.
That phrase jumped out at me as I searched my mind for what word might accurately describe what I am feeling.
I hadn't heard it in a long, long time, and had no idea what it even meant.
Maybe I heard it when I eavesdropped on one of my mother's 1960's-70's conversations.
They talked weird back then.
I was relieved when a Google search popped up the word.
And theWikipedia definition fit.
Apoplexy is an outdated medical term, which can be used to mean 'bleeding'.
It can be used non-medically to mean a state of extreme rage or excitement.
Outdated, uh-huh.
Medical term, yep (a self proclaimed hypochondriac picks up on those kinds of words).
Bleeding??? Not recently. (In case you're new here, I'm mennnnnnnnnnnnn ah, never mind).
A state of extreme excitement and rage?
Yesterday at work I had a bit of both.
Standing around waiting for the magic moment we begin class I listened as the children (my loveable thugs) talked. The conversation centered around April 20th.
4/20
Wikipedia says this about 4/20,
4/20 is a way to identify oneself with cannabis subculture. The date 4/20 is sometimes referred to as "Weed Day" or "Pot Day.
Okay, sitting around talking about pot is not a normal in most people's lives, unless maybe you knew what 4/20 meant before I schooled you????
Then maybe you do sit around and talk pot.
Anyway, many conversations at my work center around pot.
Who dropped dirty? Who is expelled for thinking they could outsmart the staff and sneak outside and smoke a blunt?
They talk about other not so nice things too...
This is what you drink, eat, smoke, inhale, shoot up, to get high, to make your pee clean, to quench your munchies. To get higher than high.
Arrrggggggggggggghhhhhhhhhhhhhh!
Sometimes I wanna hit them, honestly I do.
Instead, I just stop the talk and gather it around more appropriate things like measuring cups and funnels.
Today, before I could do just that, I had an apoplexy attack, which came about in the form of hysterical laughter.
One of my students, a blonde whose beauty may very well make up for her lack of grey matter stared wistfully skyward and whispered in her soft Marilyn Monroe like voice "I wish 4/20 was my birthday, wha'da party that would be, when I'm old enough maybe I'll change my birthday".
My mouthful of sugar coated Corn Flakes almost came out of my nose.
And that discussion turned into this discussion.....
"Did you see that? Miss Beth just choked on her Corn Flakes"
And onward our morning marched.
In class, we were short staffed.
And the strong smelled the weak.
After much coaching (begging) and encouragement (threatening) they did as they were asked.
And soon we were cleaning up the mess.
One very tall young man, who (somehow) wears the waist of his pants down around his knee caps was not in a very cooperative mood.
He'd worked, but I nearly had to do a handstand and spit nickels out my ass to get him to.
This morning's class was almost over, there was one thing left to do and that was to put the chef coats and aprons from the washer into the dryer.
I called out to him, as he was the closest to me.
"Come help me" I said
He looked at me.
"Come help me" I said again.
He looked at me.
"Come help me.. I need you" I said
He looked at me.
And then I had another apoplexy attack.
You would have thought I was home and with the children of my womb when I did what I did next.
I pulled out a pile of wet chef coats and I threw them at him.
They flew through the air, and when his hands failed to deflect them they hit him in the chest and rolled down his body till they hit the floor.
You might have heard a pin drop except the other loveable's collective sharp intake of breath made it impossible to hear anything over the sound of their shock.
They stared at both of us waiting to see what would happen next.
The big, tall, very angry loveable turned and walked out the door.
I was glad he choose that instead of pounding me into the ground.
I followed him and apologized for my lack of judgment. I told him that I was plain wrong to throw clothes, or anything, for that matter at him.
I let him walk it off, hoping he'd take in and accept my apology.
In the mean time the others were deep in conversation when I got back into the room.
"Miss Beth is going crazy" I overheard one say "this morning, she spit her Corn Flakes right out on the table".
The past few days have found me in some kind of not so nice state.
I finally figured it out, I'm having apoplexy attacks.
An apoplexy attack, yes, exactly.
That phrase jumped out at me as I searched my mind for what word might accurately describe what I am feeling.
I hadn't heard it in a long, long time, and had no idea what it even meant.
Maybe I heard it when I eavesdropped on one of my mother's 1960's-70's conversations.
They talked weird back then.
I was relieved when a Google search popped up the word.
And theWikipedia definition fit.
Apoplexy is an outdated medical term, which can be used to mean 'bleeding'.
It can be used non-medically to mean a state of extreme rage or excitement.
Outdated, uh-huh.
Medical term, yep (a self proclaimed hypochondriac picks up on those kinds of words).
Bleeding??? Not recently. (In case you're new here, I'm mennnnnnnnnnnnn ah, never mind).
A state of extreme excitement and rage?
Yesterday at work I had a bit of both.
Standing around waiting for the magic moment we begin class I listened as the children (my loveable thugs) talked. The conversation centered around April 20th.
4/20
Wikipedia says this about 4/20,
4/20 is a way to identify oneself with cannabis subculture. The date 4/20 is sometimes referred to as "Weed Day" or "Pot Day.
Okay, sitting around talking about pot is not a normal in most people's lives, unless maybe you knew what 4/20 meant before I schooled you????
Then maybe you do sit around and talk pot.
Anyway, many conversations at my work center around pot.
Who dropped dirty? Who is expelled for thinking they could outsmart the staff and sneak outside and smoke a blunt?
They talk about other not so nice things too...
This is what you drink, eat, smoke, inhale, shoot up, to get high, to make your pee clean, to quench your munchies. To get higher than high.
Arrrggggggggggggghhhhhhhhhhhhhh!
Sometimes I wanna hit them, honestly I do.
Instead, I just stop the talk and gather it around more appropriate things like measuring cups and funnels.
Today, before I could do just that, I had an apoplexy attack, which came about in the form of hysterical laughter.
One of my students, a blonde whose beauty may very well make up for her lack of grey matter stared wistfully skyward and whispered in her soft Marilyn Monroe like voice "I wish 4/20 was my birthday, wha'da party that would be, when I'm old enough maybe I'll change my birthday".
My mouthful of sugar coated Corn Flakes almost came out of my nose.
And that discussion turned into this discussion.....
"Did you see that? Miss Beth just choked on her Corn Flakes"
And onward our morning marched.
In class, we were short staffed.
And the strong smelled the weak.
After much coaching (begging) and encouragement (threatening) they did as they were asked.
And soon we were cleaning up the mess.
One very tall young man, who (somehow) wears the waist of his pants down around his knee caps was not in a very cooperative mood.
He'd worked, but I nearly had to do a handstand and spit nickels out my ass to get him to.
This morning's class was almost over, there was one thing left to do and that was to put the chef coats and aprons from the washer into the dryer.
I called out to him, as he was the closest to me.
"Come help me" I said
He looked at me.
"Come help me" I said again.
He looked at me.
"Come help me.. I need you" I said
He looked at me.
And then I had another apoplexy attack.
You would have thought I was home and with the children of my womb when I did what I did next.
I pulled out a pile of wet chef coats and I threw them at him.
They flew through the air, and when his hands failed to deflect them they hit him in the chest and rolled down his body till they hit the floor.
You might have heard a pin drop except the other loveable's collective sharp intake of breath made it impossible to hear anything over the sound of their shock.
They stared at both of us waiting to see what would happen next.
The big, tall, very angry loveable turned and walked out the door.
I was glad he choose that instead of pounding me into the ground.
I followed him and apologized for my lack of judgment. I told him that I was plain wrong to throw clothes, or anything, for that matter at him.
I let him walk it off, hoping he'd take in and accept my apology.
In the mean time the others were deep in conversation when I got back into the room.
"Miss Beth is going crazy" I overheard one say "this morning, she spit her Corn Flakes right out on the table".
Wednesday, April 21, 2010
Outside my window.....
I saw a curious visitor who came to see,
if I had any kids that wanted to come out and play......
Not Today......
No, today I cannot play,
I was mischievous,
I ate some gum,
and danced on clean clothes,
and tried to become invisible,
(if I can't see her she can't see me)
No, I cannot come out and play today.
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